Thingfishs' BATs

[mntoes 270]

Yes I agree I would be tempted to change the name of that business. As stated it could be seen as very offencive in the UK.

 Kind of reminds me of when I went to America and saw "The Athlete's foot" (Sports retailer).  It obviously does not have the same meaning as in th UK where Athletes foot is a fungal infection of the feet....lol

Funny how we all speak English but it's not really the same language somtimes.

[thingfishs 416]

Thanks for your thoughts there harishna, sgt., nathan, psander & mntoes. 

Hopefully I have added enough variety to the roofs to make them blend in for people, they do for me now (mostly).

I hear what's being said about the potential for misinterpretation in the UK but I don't see it as reason enough to effectively censor my building (this is a local Australian business, with great food, run by an Italian - Rick. It's name is a pun on the popular fast food chain Wok in a Box. I see no reason that he can't have his actual shop in the game). Also I firmly believe that people willingly choose to get offended. 

You're right mntoes, we don't all speak the same language. Some words and phrases can mean alarmingly different things in different cultures. I just believe in understanding the meaning and intent (otherwise no one would ever get anything done, with the potential for misunderstandings that combined cultures offers...) and btw. in Australia Althlete's Foot is a store and an infection

 

 

 

This project has grown to the point I now have 20 businesses to bring to the game. These are all RL businesses - some are one off, local stores; some are national chains and one at least (fujifilm) is international. I have discovered many of these taking photos as I drive around the city - not a practice I necessarily recommend, but very fruitful.

 

There are still some finishing touches to be done but these are basically how they will appear. Some extra roof junk will be added to a few buildings, a couple of the windows desaturated...

 

What I am most curious to hear people's opinions on is whether any of these should be lotted as other than LW. In the case of CIBO coffee for eg., it is certainly not LW in RL - but the buildings will probably fit in better in game using LW. What do people think?

 

I intend to turn these into 1x1, 1x2, 1x3 and possibly 1x4 lots (it might be unlikely in RL but there's just not enough options for this kind of zoning in game (at the LW end of the spectrum that is).

 

 

1. Amcal Chemist  2. Absolute Value Clothing  3. Cheap as Chips (discount variety store/$2 shop) 4. Cheques Cashed 5. CIBO Cafe

 

 

6. Flinders Bakery  7. Con & Poppy's Snack Bar  8. Smokemart (cigarettes)  9. Jack's Fish & Chips  10. EB Games (video games)

 

 

11. Wog in a Box (italian fast food)  12. Video Ezy (video rental)  13. Got One (fishing supplies)  14. Pumps & Systems (plumbing supplies) 15. Newsagent

 

 

16. MacAlert (macintosh products)  17. Fujifilm (photo processing & printing)  18. Dick Smith Electronics  19. Crazy Johns (mobile phones)  20. Copyfax (printing)

 

 

and here's a shot of a row of them in a city:

 

 

Any feedback welcomed 

 

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Lovely bats can't wait to you upload them. A question is that going to be the only lot size for these bats 1x1????

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

Wow that is a lot of buildings!!

[DocRorlach 25]

Just what I need - 1x1 small town commercials. Brilliant! To be released soon (like yesterday, perchance) I hope?

[gutterclub 2,729]

These little bats are great, any chance of 1x2 variations with parking?

On a side note, being a brit living in NZ..Oz and NZ are very un-pc..there is even a company here in Auckland called "Schindlers Lifts"

[Rearviewmirror. 3]

Where in Australia does one find Smokemart?

[psander5 195]

I was aware of the Australian usage of the word, but I wanted to make sure you were aware of the English usage... just to warn you, not discourage you. Personally I understand the cultural differences, but not all will. I just didn't want you to be surprised if someone reacts more defensively in the STEX comments. That being said, it's only one tiny little building... I doubt many will even notice the name

The roofs look great. There's just the right amount of variation now. The colours too look perfect for the game. One thing I might consider is a setback from the street. Most wall to walls in the game are set back 1.6m or 3.2m (not including awnings and signs etc. Maybe not so much for the 1x1 lots, but if you plan 1x2s then a small setback might make them flow better in with other w2w buildings... although it's only a 2 minute job in the lot editor for me to do it myself if you had other plans. I'm guessing you don't plan on making ploppables so I'll have to do some tinkering myself anyway

This is a great little set, and I'm impressed by the number of different businesses! They'll be perfect as side street fillers or as a small suburban arcade. I look forward to having them!

I might be showing myself up as an idiot, but I have no idea what LW means! I thought I knew all the acronyms... but I can't figure this one out

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Your buildings are still missing shadows in game! If you made the buildings props so that they will appear randomly, jst set "is ground model" to "true" in PIM and it should solve your problem.

These still look a little plasticy in game, but I guess they are sufficient for new looking shops.

I, too, would love to see some 1x2 lots

[Francis90b 748]

I back up Todd's suggestion, please make also some 1x2 variations !

[Gringamuyloca 47]

@ psander5.. LW = low wealth if I'm interpreting thingfishs correctly.

@ thingfishs I Love these little shops.. and agree, LW is best for my 'building style'

Happy New Year!

[harishna 847]

I actually like the 1x1 lots. I think now your are only missing an IGA "how the locals like it" Great work so far keep it up!!

[zahrul3 471]

You also need a 1x2 lot with a parking lot infront, for the occasions that we decide to put them in the suburbs as most suburban shops have their own parking lot.

[thingfishs 416]

I will reply fully with the next update but a couple of quick replies:

- Yes, gringa is right - LW = Low Wealth.

- Smokemart can be found in most states (not NT, Tas or the ACT) - it started in Adelaide but has spread. http://www.gift-box.com.au/storelocations.html

- And, as mentioned in my previous post, I will be making multiple lot versions of these so people can choose what they want. They will also be in individual folders so you can remove any businesses you don't like.

[Rearviewmirror. 3]

Thank you for the reply I was curious has i not heard of it before.

[psander5 195]

Of course LW = low wealth! So I was being an idiot! Sometimes the obvious fails to materialise. The depressing thing is I spent quite a few minutes thinking about it and even tried looking it up on the Omnibus glossary

[Raz444 3]

Have you released these elsewhere? Or are you not active anymore?

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

The last reply to this topic has more than 5 years. Thingfish came on ST more than one year ago. Draw your own conclusions. 

[thingfishs 416]

On 30/05/2016 at 11:18 AM, JP Schriefer said:

The last reply to this topic has more than 5 years. Thingfish came on ST more than one year ago. Draw your own conclusions. 

Well I'm happy to say that said conclusions, though utterly well founded, would be wrong!

Six or seven years on I am, at least briefly, back. (Hi to those still around and to the new faces). There's no getting away from this game entirely... :-)

Raz444 messaged me about some of the bats I'd done which got the ball rolling. I had long intended to get around to releasing some - there were a few bits either finished or close to that I figured some people may appreciate but things get in the way ya know... life...women...

Unfortunately I have lost at least a couple of my bats, but ah well. The ones that seem the best to start off with are the low wealth shop collection (20 Australian small businesses as CS$).

On 03/01/2011 at 4:37 AM, thingfishs said:

 

These were only created as 1x1 lots but I decided there needed to be a 1x2 version as well so after many years I have relearned some basic lotting and have come up with this:

 

They are simple but that's all they need to be (a tad repetitive perhaps but you wouldn't normally have so many together). The cars (and some other things) are in prop families so those lots that look bare, aren't.

The only issue, which I'm hoping will be reasonably quick to fix, is what simhotoddy said about the shadows:

On 04/01/2011 at 4:56 AM, SimHoTToDDy said:

Your buildings are still missing shadows in game! If you made the buildings props so that they will appear randomly, jst set "is ground model" to "true" in PIM and it should solve your problem.

Now excuse me if I'm a little slow on the uptake here, but it's been years since I've played around with the PIM. In this case I haven't made them props, I've lotted them all individually. How does that effect what I do in the PIM?

Also are the default slope settings acceptable?

Thanks in advance, and hopefully someone will get something out of these.

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

Thankfully I was wrong \o/

Those are some very nice and well done shops and they will be very useful.
I can't help with the PIM because I don't use it, but surely someone will come with an answer soon

[art128 4,618]

I may be wrong here, but judging on the other screenshots from way back it seems you have disabled the shadows in the game. (No shadows from the light poles, trees or other buildings.)

IIRC in the Maxis PIM you do not need to change anything for a building to cast shadows, defacto it does. (Unlike props which you need to select the "is ground model" option from false to true. But in your case I'd say it's the game shadows.

[thingfishs 416]

23 minutes ago, art128 said:

I may be wrong here, but judging on the other screenshots from way back it seems you have disabled the shadows in the game. (No shadows from the light poles, trees or other buildings.)

IIRC in the Maxis PIM you do not need to change anything for a building to cast shadows, defacto it does. (Unlike props which you need to select the "is ground model" option from false to true. But in your case I'd say it's the game shadows.

Well this is a bittersweet moment...

On one hand I feel like a bit of an idiot, on the other greatly relieved...

You were right, that was exactly the situation. Shadows to medium, and voila!

It could have been a much longer wild goose chase to arrive back here so, thanks a lot art128 for nipping it in the bud!

Thank you JP, I'm glad you like them and you were right about someone providing the answer...

[SimCoug 5,972]

It's always fun to see 'retired' members come back out of the blue 
The small CS$ buildings are cute and will be great for building diversity.  Great to see you back!

[philforhockey51 4,203]

It's really cool to see a member come back to finish off projects, especially these they are awesome little 1x1s with what seems like a whole bunch of variety that I would really like to use in my game. Thank you for returning to this wonderful work. 

[madhatter106 3,903]

I can't tell from the previews, but it looks like the storefronts are modeled flat with the full texture applied to the front - walls, doors, windows, glass all as one single texture.  I think this doesn't do justice to their designs; doors and windows should be slightly inset, etc.  A little more modeling and separating textures, and they'll really shine.

[gutterclub 2,729]

I agree, door and windows frames as a minimum just to bring that lower floor to life...otherwise looking great and an awesome addition..

[raynev1 1,886]

Great to see you are back at it again , those images look awesome .

[thingfishs 416]

Thanks to simcoug, philforhockey51, madhatter106, gutterclub and raynev1for your feedback, it's appreciated.

It's good to be back around this addictive game again and it will be a relief to get these done - I'd much prefer to see my babies (and yes simcougar, they ARE cute ), get to have a life beyond my hard drive.

On 07/05/2017 at 5:35 AM, madhatter106 said:

I can't tell from the previews, but it looks like the storefronts are modeled flat with the full texture applied to the front - walls, doors, windows, glass all as one single texture.  I think this doesn't do justice to their designs; doors and windows should be slightly inset, etc.  A little more modeling and separating textures, and they'll really shine.

I can see where you and gutterclub are coming from - particularly with the Dick Smith store in a previous shot. However, they HAVE all got individual windows and doors. It is 20 "re-skins" of the same building, and some of the graphics seem to disguise them more than others. Here is a close up of one:

Also, these are old models - the original MAX projects that created them are long gone, so I'll have to make do with these...

There have been some hurdles with this - a lot of relearning things: bat4max/reader/sc4pim etc., and mistakes made that have resulted in me throwing out the whole lot (except the model files), and starting again. They won't look much different to above but it will be a better quality product in the end for it. The 1X1s are done and I'm part way through the 1X2s (it won't take long; it was taking a lot longer, and causing far more pain, trying to identify and fix the errors in the previous ones).

Those Maxis cars in the shot above look terrible - is anyone aware of a good alternative prop family for these?

Thanks for looking

*EDIT: I'm also not a fan of that low wealth maxis concrete base texture in case anyone can suggest something better...?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Edited May 9, 2017 by thingfishs  

[DavidDHetzel 1,816]

g;ad to see you back @thingfishs. Those are some nice models.

[SimCoug 5,972]

On 5/8/2017 at 3:30 PM, thingfishs said:

Those Maxis cars in the shot above look terrible - is anyone aware of a good alternative prop family for these

@shokthrpy created a great set of parking lot textures and cars.  I would say it has become the new standard for SC4 lotting options. 
On top of that, @kingofsimcity created an amazing supplement to Shok's pack, including FAR textures.  Taken together, they are the most comprehensive parking resource for SC4.  So using the original SHK parking pack as a dependency won't faze anybody at this point, because odds are they already have it.