Woodworks Creations 2.0

[woodb3kmaster 342]

Hey, folks! While I'm not really the type to make new year's resolutions, I thought it would be right to resolve to be more active back here at ST. After my time away from the SC4 world, I focused mainly on SC4 Devotion but only visited ST to look at the STEX or, more recently, update my CJ. I think it's high time that I became more active at the fansite where I got started, especially with my recent winning of a Trixie (thanks to all who voted for me!). To that end, I have decided to post my BAT work here. I'm only getting started, and there's still plenty I can learn about the workings of 3ds Max 2010. My first couple of BATs will likely remain exclusive to Nyhaven, which is why I'm making them in the first place; but after that, I'd like to revisit my old modular university idea. Not that I think that JBSimio's own work on the University of Clayhurst (available on the SC4D LEX) is low in quality - I actually quite like what he's done with the concept. I just want to provide a little more architectural diversity in building custom college campuses. But more on that will come when I'm done with my first couple of Nyhaven-only BATs.

The first of those BATs is actually a series showing the construction of a new supertall skyscraper, to be shown in Nyhaven in an upcoming update. I mentioned it briefly in my CJ and showed you all how it looked as of last week. Well, eight days later and there has been quite a bit of progress:

As I said over in my CJ, there will be eight versions of this building - seven showing different stages of construction and the completed building. This is the second of those construction stages, and it's almost ready to be rendered. I just need to decide whether or not to add the geometric relief pattern onto the blank walls, as well as how I'm going to dress up the mechanical floors. Suggestions are welcome at any time.

[woodb3kmaster 342]

After another couple hours in 3ds Max, I've made some improvements to the model:

The windowless walls on the mall part of the building are a bit more interesting, now that I've added a geometric relief pattern. The curved parts of those walls will eventually get some advertising added to them, but at this stage in construction, it hasn't been put up yet. I've also lightened up the water stains somewhat, as they were really too dark. The windows are also a bit lighter, to blend with the beige marble texture. The model is now just about ready for rendering.

[Jean-Mi17 2]

Really, really love the model

[nofunk 1,933]

Very interesting design-- sort of po-mo meets art deco meets streamline moderne. I think your resolution to be more active here is a great one, and I look forward to seeing more!

[Larks2242 251]

Wow, thats a awesome looking BAT, your doing a great job the windows look very impressive!

[woodb3kmaster 342]

Jean-Mi17 & Larks2242: Thank you both very much!

nofunk: That's an interesting architectural description, but I can see why you used it. I'm not really trying to follow any particular architectural style, just going off of my own ideas, although yuo probably figured that out yourself. Thanks for your kind words!

---

Now that a new academic quarter has begun, I don't have as much time to BAT as before, but I can tell you that I went ahead and exported the last version I showed you above, and it's now completely lotted. I can show a pic of the lot if you'd like. I've also done most of the work on the next version, which is a full 32 stories taller than the last; the total height is now up to 367.5m.

If you're wondering why all the construction scraps are clustered in a small part of the highest floor instead of being more widely dispersed, it's because I am going to have most of the rebar lattice for the next floor in place, so they would be hard to see if they were on other parts of the floor. I still need to add that lattice, as well as a small guardhouse and barrier at the entrance to the parking garage. Once those are in place, this version should be ready to render.

[Raysfan16 5]

Whoa! It just keeps getting taller and taller....just like the Nyhaven skyline. The window textures are bothering me just a little bit, but I'm liking the overall structure and marble texture.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

WOW!!! you are right its getting taller and taller, it looks great.

[simcity4fan12 13]

Quite some amazing work appearing! It's getting taller and taller like the others said!

One suggestion though, I think the glass texture could be a little darker with a little more contrast. But you don't have to do that, it's just my opinion made into a suggestion. It really looks great though.

[SimFox 804]

it does get taller and taller... unfortunately with each additional floor it loses architecturally, becoming "Dubai" at it worst. Instead of stretching it to the virtual sky take a time to thing about proportions, rhythm and may be functionality and practicality. Cause it was an interesting beginning, but now is risking of becoming a pile of couple of small scale details repeated over and over and over and over and over... without becoming anything bigger Bigger in a sense of whole being bigger than a sum of it's parts.

It has an interesting core... just don't overdo it.

[Gn_leugim 858]

like, if you stop now the frame works, and cover it up with the glasses now, and then some final touches, u would get an interesting building, and not just as tall semi square tower. that stairs kinda thing on the outer parts of the building makes it look better in other words.

[woodb3kmaster 342]

Thanks for all your compliments and suggestions, folks! A few direct replies:

Raysfan16: I'm not happy with how the glass looks either, but I'm not sure what to do to make it look better. I have a couple ideas, but I want to know what other, more experienced BATters do with their windows before I try anything different.

simcity4fan12: Your suggestions about the glass texture sound good to me, thanks!

SimFox: I know you're trying to be helpful, but since I'm not an architecture student, some of your suggestions are a bit too vague for me to really understand. I have, however, tried adding some more variety to the fa

[BoxCarRacer 1]

Interesting design! My one worry is that perhaps it may be "too big" width/length wise. It may look better if you slimmed it down by one of those rounded sections, but either way its a nice work.

[Raysfan16 5]

I dunno....on a supertall building like that, it's hard to spice something like that up.

Have you experimented with navy blue windows, like a dark, desaturated navy blue? There's one that I saw that looks really good that way, but I can't find it on the stex. If I find it, I'll post it here to give you an idea.

[mightygoose 92]

myabe a more horizontally unifying element, as youre building currently has a heavy vertical emphasis, great to see you back XD

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

So is this going to be some 130 floors? The scale is sickening. I'm with Simfox, its a neat thought process, but keep it within reason.

Personally I think the facade is pretty simple, being only a series of square windows, so any more ornate pattern you introduce will look a little out of place. You are probably way too far into this to do much about it, but this might be better off with a glass facade. Are the mechanical floors going to have a similar glass/color treatment (I think not being mechanical), but the lack of glass on top of the pattern change is rather jarring.

I do think the pattern is nice, however I think it would look nice as a "cornice" for the top of each "stair" of the tower. So, rather than being on your mechanical floors, it would be on the top of the step (not the whole tower). This would make it a more logical (IMO) decorative part of the design rather then some utility cover up (whose floors would most likely look identical to the rest).

[woodb3kmaster 342]

Thanks, everyone! Raysfan, you'll be happy to see that I've changed the window texture to that desaturated navy blue you suggested, and I think it looks a lot better now. Mightygoose, that was actually one of my reasons for doing something different with the mechanical floors, but if you think that something else would be more "horizontally unifying" in addition to what I've got now, I'd love to hear some ideas for what I could add to achieve that effect.

---

After a very productive exchange of PMs with SimHoTToDDy, I've made a few more changes to the fa

[woodb3kmaster 342]

Well, after a couple more months with no progress, aside from further discussions with SimHoTToDDy, I've returned with a major update for you all! I've revised the floor layouts so that there's now a second "staircase" of floors going the opposite way to the original "staircase". As a result, the tower is now going to be considerably shorter than I had originally planned, at 100 floors instead of 160. I've also made the outer walls thinner in an attempt to bring them closer to the glass, to give the fa

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

I like the improvements, it took some stones to do the renovations you did (I'm proud of you )

I think another thing you can do to cement this transition in the facade is to make the floor heights slightly taller (so that the windows don't look so squat and square), remove the horizontal mullion (or lower it and add transition space like in your LA example), and make the vertical mullion a light color, similar but differentiable from the main facade.

[Gn_leugim 858]

very impressive

[woodb3kmaster 342]

Thanks, both of you (especially you, Todd, for the advice)! I've gone ahead and made the floors 0.5m taller (which resulted in far more work than I had expected), and I think the results are pretty decent. I also lowered the transoms/horizontal mullions relative to the floors, so the windows are no longer evenly divided. I have yet to try out a lighter texture for the mullions or experiment with possible taller floor transitions (in the latter's case, because I don't really know what I could try, other than what's on the fa

[woodb3kmaster 342]

Thanks, both of you (especially you, Todd, for the advice)! I've gone ahead and made the floors 0.5m taller (which resulted in far more work than I had expected), and I think the results are pretty decent. I also lowered the transoms/horizontal mullions relative to the floors, so the windows are no longer evenly divided. I have yet to try out a lighter texture for the mullions or experiment with possible taller floor transitions (in the latter's case, because I don't really know what I could try, other than what's on the fa

[woodb3kmaster 342]

Thanks, both of you (especially you, Todd, for the advice)! I've gone ahead and made the floors 0.5m taller (which resulted in far more work than I had expected), and I think the results are pretty decent. I also lowered the transoms/horizontal mullions relative to the floors, so the windows are no longer evenly divided. I have yet to try out a lighter texture for the mullions or experiment with possible taller floor transitions (in the latter's case, because I don't really know what I could try, other than what's on the fa

[woodb3kmaster 342]

I just switched the texture for the mullions to a bronze/copper texture, and I have to say, it looks quite a bit better now. Here are a couple parts of the latest zoom 5 preview so you can judge for yourselves:

[woodb3kmaster 342]

I know it's bad form to double-post (although it has been six days since my last post), but I desperately need input on what I last posted. Does it look good? Or is there something about the tower that I can still improve? I don't want to do any more work on it without at least some feedback, so please leave me some. There's more work that I have planned for this version of the tower, so don't worry about it not looking totally game-ready as of now. I just need to know if my last changes have improved the look of the tower to a satisfactory level, or if not, what I should do to make further improvements. Thanks in advance!

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

I think it looks good, but if it's supposed to be under construction I'd add some cranes and construction equipment.

[TekindusT 3,809]

I know a very few things about BATing, but IMHO, the balcony textures look quite repetitive; and I wouldn't use that glass texture reflecting clouds on the lower stages of the building, as it is supposed to be surrounded by other buildings which won't allow the sky to be reflexed; I don't know if I'm explained well. That clouds are very cool for the higher stages, but not for the lower ones.

And about modelling, I guess you'll be adding some kind of railing to the balconies...

[woodb3kmaster 342]

ilikehotdogsalot: Thank you! There's some construction-related stuff on the highest completed floor of the tower, but so far I've just been adding cranes in the LE for lack of a crane model I can incorporate into the scene. I'll try adding a crane into the scene, though. What other sorts of construction equipment would you suggest adding?

TekindusT: Thanks for your advice. Those aren't really balconies on the building, merely sections of roof, which is why I currently just have a concrete slab texture on them (that's also why there's no access to them). Nevertheless, I've taken your suggestion of adding railing, as you'll see below. As for window reflections, the cloud texture is actually the scene background; it isn't the windows' actual texture. I'm not totally sure at this point how I could add a section of skyline to the bottom of that texture, but I agree that it would make the reflections more realistic.

I haven't done much BATting over the past few months, but I've had more opportunities to BAT this past week. Here's my latest preview:

I decided to try remodeling the decorative walls at the top of each "step", since there were some odd-looking glitches with them as they were (look at them in the above previews if you're not sure what I mean). They look better now, but still not quite right, so maybe I'll try another design. I also added decorative railing above those walls to make the tops of the "steps" more interesting.

At this point, I don't think there's much more I need to add to the model before I can call this version finished. If you have any suggestions for things I can add, please let me know. Thanks!

[DCMetro34 577]

Wow, those details are so amazing! I am guessing you used 3dsmax for that, right?

[harishna 847]

It is a very unique and interesting design, your details are quite good and I love the touch that it is still under construction, but it looks a little bit weird that their is no transition between the unfinished parts of the building and the rest (I am thinking that maybe some floors wouldn't have all the windows or some of the final touches, maybe the work in one floor got behind, stuff like that) I also think that you are missing some columns or supporting structures in some parts of the building (I am talking about the parts that are under construction), and you could add details to some of these floor to make them look alive, like if there was something going on, it looks like only in the top floor there is activity. About the railing isn't the angle a little bit to steep? it almost look horizontal from some angles...Finally I also think you need a little bit of variation to break with the monotony of the design maybe make a main entrance with a lobby and maybe make some changes to the roof of the parking.

cheers, keep up the great work!

  Edited February 28, 2011 by harishna