The_Mario_Man - First BAT

[The_Mario_Man 26]

Hello everyone, I've been learning the ropes of the BAT for a few months now, and I felt it was time for my first upload to the STEX, the Ghostbusters Headquarters:

www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm

I hope someone will find some use for it. If anybody has any complaints, comments, or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Thank you, and Happy Halloween!

[jim 546 43]

The red brickwork is very bright. Toning it down a bit would look much better. And possibly some more roof junk, it's a good model though.

[The_Mario_Man 26]

The actual building is pretty bright compared to what's around it, but I see what you mean. And I've been trying to remedy the roof for a while.

[madhatter106 3,903]

I agree with the above, just looking at the pic of the building in-game, it's a glaringly red and bright texture. And the white is pretty poppingly bright, too. And I concur, more roofjunk!

I think goofyguytpa modelled this one years ago, but didn't call it the Ghostbusters headquarters - I think he just made it a regular old fire station.

[The_Mario_Man 26]

There was a BAT modeled after it uploaded back in 05' apparently, but that was the actual station.

I managed to find an aerial shot of the building, and there surprisingly isn't much on the actual roof. I'll still try and throw in some stuff, though.

Update:

I've softened the bricks up a bit, and made the building thinner.

If that's good enough, I'll get started on the roof.

[expectingrain5 0]

Great concept- nice building!  The only thing I would suggest is make it "grimier" to blend in with an older neighborhood.  I'm trying to learn BAT - how long did this one take you?  How long have you been BATTING?  Did you teach yourself or use a tutorial?  Thanks- keep up the good work!

[Larks2242 251]

Nice job mario, it really sticks out in the city!

[The_Mario_Man 26]

Originally posted by: expectingrain5

Great concept- nice building!  The only thing I would suggest is make it "grimier" to blend in with an older neighborhood.  I'm trying to learn BAT - how long did this one take you?  How long have you been BATTING?  Did you teach yourself or use a tutorial?  Thanks- keep up the good work!

quote>

I've been learning the ropes of the BAT for about a month now. The first version of the building (which is what's currently on the STEX) actually only took me a few hours.

As for learning, I used this tutorial:

sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php

[jim 546 43]

Better, but not quite. A bit darker maybe?

[Jumpthefence 74]

Better, but not quite. A bit darker maybe?quote>

Yeah, that's what I would go with. Maybe less saturation too.

Also, for all the textures, you should try to add "grime". If you have access to a program as simple as Paint, you can do this with the Spray-can tool. Just take the general color of the texture you have, darken it up, and spray it around the edges. If you do it well enough, it looks aged. Don't be intimidated, it's not too difficult.

Mainly, the building just looks too new, but otherwise, it's really close to the real thing. Nice work!

I'm trying to learn BAT - how long did this one take you?  How long have you been BATTING?  Did you teach yourself or use a tutorial?quote>

If you give a dang about me, BATing takes around 50 hours including about 5 hours in renders (depending on the size of the building, this is an average). I've been BATing for around 9 months. I used a tutorial on the Omnibus. If you plan to enter the world of BATing, welcome! And be sure to open a BAT thread, it's tons of help.

[The_Mario_Man 26]

I didn't catch the messages about darkening the bricks until I was already exporting this... I've been messing around with photoshop, but I can't seem to get it right.

There, the building looks aged, but still manages to stand out. arounf the others.

[expectingrain5 0]

The actual building *does* look pretty bright in RL, but I think that photo is deceiving. I believe its HDR (and a nice shot!)   Can you get just a photograph to see how the actual colors look?

[The_Mario_Man 26]

Right, here's a few more I could dig up.

So yeah, it's still pretty bright, but I just found a couple new brick textures, so I'll try those, and then go from there.

EDIT: Alright! I hope I've got it down now:

Hopefully this is good. I'm not too sure yet, but hey.

[io_bg 249]

It definitely looks much better now!

[expectingrain5 0]

Looks nice-  do you design the roof junk yourself or is there a library to choose from on BAT?

ps That is one bright building in real life!  Cool though.

[Keegan V50 15]

It looks much better now,and it does look like the RL one too!!

all the best

victor

[The_Mario_Man 26]

Originally posted by: expectingrain5

Looks nice-  do you design the roof junk yourself or is there a library to choose from on BAT?

ps That is one bright building in real life!  Cool though.

quote>

I made all of the roof junk by hand. It's really the easiest thing to do out of everything else. For me at least.

Either way, I want to thank everyone who commented and suggested ways to make this better. The download has been updated, and I hope everyone enjoys it. Again, thank you. I'll definately try to work on more BATs now.