Sgt Pepper's BATs

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I kinda discovered this place so I thought it would be good to show some buildings I'm making here.
Here is something I'm making for the game right now.

It's going to be some apartments when I finish it. It's still incomplete. It's going to be meduim wealth residential and sit on a 3x3 lot. It barely goes over 2x2 though, maybe I should rescale it a bit? 

Tell me what you think so far.

[DazzaDazza 29]

Welcome

first off nice bat.

if your going to re size it pick out a building that looks like the same size in SC4 and try and match it to that. if your look to big or small then resize it to anther one.

I find if i try match the window sizes then the rest of the bat should look o.k. other then that make it to scale....

You say your not finished so I wont say to much,

Maybe more detail on the roof..... but it look good So far  

[alj 38]

Model looks good, Sgt Pepper.

I have a susupicion that it´s off scale, too. Assuming the model is 2x2 tiles large, your entrance would then be ca. 5m wide. That´s a reasonable size for a supermarket but for a residential ... I am not sure. Then there are only 2 windows on each side of the entrance. That may be to few (and too large) windows.

I don´t know if this building is modeled afte a real life building, but the fact that a residential has a 2x2 tiles footprint without an inner court or any other source of natural light, strikes me as odd. Consider this: standing in the middle of the building, a sim would be 16m away from daylight. I don´t claim that this is 100%  unrealistic, it just seems very 19th century tenement, while the looks of your model is more 20th century R$$.

The texture of the canopies on the upper floor windows could be improved. You could play with tiling and set it from 1.0 to 2.0 or 3.0. As it is now, it looks like those a really long shingles.

Keep up the good work.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

First I simply must say that you should call this "Sgt Pepper's lonely hearts club BATs"

Second, Welcome to Simtropolis!

And lastly, I think you are off to a good start! The building itself seems rather odd in design (is it based off of anything in particular?), but with a little tweaking I think it could work. You might need to decrease the depth of the overhang on the top floor (or reduce the angle, or something), because it is obscuring the rest of the building to much IMO (SC4's perspective is not flattering for buildings like this). Of course, textures will need some work too, but I'll wait until you are further along to say anything about that.

Best of luck,

-Todd

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Thanks for the comments everyone! I would like to know a little more on how exactly the textures can be improved rather than just saying "textures could be improved" since just saying that is not really helpful at the momment, but I did change some of the textures' mapping a bit. I also did a test render about the scale, I re-scaled it and now this is how it looks-

I added some more detail. I tried adding a little more contrast on the roof with GIMP but I didn't know what to do with the center because I haven't added the roof detail yet.

It is not based on anything in real life, I mostly made it up. Honestly I used this program called Sketchup7 to model the majority of it. I used Sketchup in the past just for the heck of it before I played SimCity4, and then BAT came out but I was more used to Sketchup then gmax so I decided to use it more instead, but I am getting used to adding smaller details with Gmax that are mostly box shaped or cylinders. It only has 3 floors(the 3rd floor being the sloped part).

So now that I have done more to it, can I get some more advice to improve it?

mrdazza_460: Thanks for the welcome and the advice about comparing it to other buildings for SC4, do you think I rescaled it just fine now, or do you need to see a pic comparing it to the other buildings?

alj: Thanks, it was actually 3x3 at first, but I re-scaled it to be 2x2 now. I tried doing some re-mapping on the textures to change the odd long shingles. Sketchup does that at first with its textures when applied to curved or rounded surfaces. How's it looking now?

SimHoTToDDy:I'm glad you got the reference in my username. And thanks for the welcome and the comment on the building. How could I decrease the over hang on this? Is it something called extrude or something in the editmesh part on those tabs in gmax?

[DazzaDazza 29]

The best thing to do is to render it to the game, then place it down in a city, and place other similar type building around it, you will soon tell if it looks odd, ether too big or tow small, but show us a pic any way

I would probably work out the scale building before adding any new thing to the model,  Or you could end up chasseing you tale

[madhatter106 3,903]

The overhang on the roof seems to jut out really far from the walls. Especially because that overhang clips off half the windows on the 2nd story when you preview render it. I'd be curious just how far in meters the bottom portion of it is in relation to the walls themselves.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Well a lot depends how it is modeled. Is it one object or is it 4 separate objects. Either way, you can do an edit poly> select verticies> highlight the bottom 4 verticies, and then move them at your leisure. If it is one object, you can do the same thing; select the bottom verticies, go into the top viewport, select the scale tool, and uniformly resize (on both X and Y) all four sides at once.

For your textures, try using the layers in GIMP to add overlays to what you have instead of painting directly onto the bitmap (can't tell if you are trying this already). Your roof in particular looks more like a wet napkin then any roof I have seen. Try aiming for some kind of tar paper along these lines (plus the weathering you have of course):

Or perhaps something more gravely like:

http://www.stex-server.com/lots/15297/16773/stexhunter2%2Ejpg

For the walls, just try adding some more variation and detail. You could always try this tutorial

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=112841&STARTPAGE=1

Of course I really need to write one about layers :\

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Thanks guys for the comments, I'll have to try most of the suggestions tomorrow. But until then, here's a little something else I've done-

It's a soon-to-be-finished Modern W2W office Building. It will sit on a 1x2 lot. Still in the works.

[alj 38]

The shingles on the canopies look better on the front side IMHO. But I don't see any difference on the left and on the right side.

Another thing: you don't have any windows on ground floor. It gives the building a bunker like look to it. Unless ... that's what you were after.

I like the design of the 2nd building you have shown. Properly finished it should be very useful for many city building styles. But I also think the model has issues with its proportions. You have squeezed some 20 floors into it. My ballpark calculation on what I have seen on screen resulted that It should have 12, max 14 floors. What is the height of the model in gmax meters? Take this number, divide by 1.3 (to take account for the SC4 perspective "height bonus"), divide this number by, say, 4 (typical office floor height) and you should end up with a floor count of considerably less than 20.

May I ask: do you sketch out your buildings on paper before you start BATting? I am not talking about a detailed design but basic proportions, like floor height. My own BATting experience is very, very, very limited, but I have found out that, without having sketched basic proportions prior to going into gmax, I quickly run into trouble. Consider a basic sketch a sanity check you are forced to do. Stretching or squeezing entire buildings afterwards can have disadvantages to it.

[rainyday 2]

Very impressive start! I'd love to download it when it's done, except I don't play sc4 anymore.

[+Guest whodat]

wow your very good considering you registered 16 hours ago!

almost too good....

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I did a little bit to the Modern W2W building-

I darkened the mullions, barely edited the Glass texture, added some window frames to the windows on one of the W2W sides, and added some small detail to the cooling unit thing to the top. I also found some roof junk packs on the STEX and added a few pipes to it. Maybe I added too much pipes? This one is intended for commercial office but it could also be services if that would be good, but I prefer it to be office only.

And here is a little more to the other BAT-

I added the basic shapes for roof junk but more has to be added. I'm thinking about only having entrances and windows on the front and back parts of the base, then on the sides have stairways to the third floor. If I add stairways on the sides, I might take off those side windows on the roof.

mrdazza_460: I am going to try to render the building and get a pic comparing it to similar sized buildings. Do you know any Maxis or other custom buildings similar to its size?

madhatter106: Welcome! I can't really remember how far(in meters) it stuck out. I usually use feet in sketchup for everything, but use meters at first just for the total height of the building. But I cannot remember the measurements at the momment. I don't know why, but I keep thinking they measured about 8 feet out...but I might be thinking of something else. But either way, it is obviously too much eh?

SimHoTToDDy: I have checked out that tutorial, it is definately helpful with bricks. But the wall on the 2nd floor is yellow cladding, could this tip in your tutorial still be helpful for the way it looks currently? I am just not that sure since the cladding on it just goes out to the side, but maybe adding grime in GIMP, then edit the tiling is what you are trying to get at. I changed the roof texture the the Maxis asphalt roof, that is how it looks now. Is that good, or should I find some other texture like that? It seems in the quality of the render that part of the line that seperates some of the tiles on the roof dissappeared...

alj: They all have the same mapping on the canopies, it might be just hard to tell from the side, if I would show previews of the other sides, it is the same. The twenty floors are not really squeezed, but I do not know how to determine gmax meters? I never knew gmax had a measuring tool, where is it at? But there are tall buildings that are thin in real life, and this one is mostly intended for really dense urban areas. I used to draw buildings on paper, but I never did it for BATing. But using sketchup first is kinda like this. Oh and it has 21 floors(21st being the penthouse).

rainyday: Welcome and thanks for the comment! Maybe my BATs will help reconsider you playing SC4 again.

whodat: Saints fan I see? Thank you for the comment. Too good for just joining? Who said new members had to be bad?

[alj 38]

Sgt Pepper, I was not referring to a gmax measuring tool. Your front wall is a rectangle, right? What are the parameters of the rectangle in meters?

[Sgt Pepper 864]

69.7 meters according to the sketchup model(I thought I had deleted it after I imported it into BAT). But I think I might have scaled it up some(barely) so it might be 70 or almost 80 something meters now.

[Larks2242 251]

Awesome work Sgt Pepper, your attention to detail is excellent!

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Thank you Larks2242!

I just did a quick export of the model to test its scale, but for some reason the building is larger than 1x2 slightly when I measured the building in meters on its widith and lengths. I thought a small tile(for example 1x1 park) was 16 meters? That what I measured it in sketchup yet it was larger....

Do not worry about the quality and the glass texture, it was draft and the glass map went missing. I compared it to this 12 story art deco building, I am probably going to have to scale it up again. I might have to just scale the widith to 2x2 if it looks to thin, but tall thin buildings do exist so it might not look to odd at all.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I did some work on these buildings. Not much but something.

Front

Back. The most I did to this one was scale it up and finish adding the window frames. I think I might have edited the glass texture some more again. I'm at a stump on what to do for the roof. Any ideas?

I added something to the side of the apartment building-

I put some stairs or fire escape or whatever you want to call it on the side but added some architectural detail that covers it up(inspired by something I have seen on a real building). I am going to add a door way that goes into it to use the stairs.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

First of all, I'd like to say that you are starting this thread at a very high level already - congratulations!

As for your tall office building, I think those thick parapet walls make it look boxy and clumsy. You could try making the parapet walls narrower and adding some flashing to them. Another trick that can be very effective is to move away from that "flat rooftop with randomly arranged stuff scattered over it in a desperate attempt to fill a boring surface"-dilemma.

 

You can do so, for example, by raising the parapet walls until they'll look like just another storey from the outside, while they actually hide all the ugly tech stuff on the roof. You can add visual interest to these parapet walls by making their inner sides more structured - e.g. with metal ribs or some kind of supporting structure like a metal lattice or whatever. That HVAC you got there looks really great, much more convincing than most I have seen. I think you can keep it, maybe add an antenna or two, and "fence them in". That's what comes to my mind for the upper rooftop.

As for the lower rooftop, you could add an external metal stair that leads to the upper rooftop, and an L-shaped track for a window washer thingy, one side of the "L" being parallel to the front wall where all those windows are, the other side leading to a parking position next to the wall of the upper roof section, opposite of the access door leading to the lower rooftop. You could fill the remaining space with a few pipes or metal vents that emerge from the wall of the upper roof section and disappear inside the building somewhere in the middle of the lower rooftop.

Just a few suggestions, of course - feel free to choose a radically different approach! After all, it's your BAT!

[SimFox 800]

I can't help feeling a bit confused s to the dimensions of that low-rise residential building... There is no good visual cue to it. What is length of the side of it?

[Sgt Pepper 864]

T Wrecks: Thanks and welcome to my BAT Thread! I tried adding some more to the roofs and rasing the parapet walls, but once I did that I had to redo the mapping which affected the whole building but I think the result is actually quite nice.

I added a antenna and a "L" shaped window polisher tracks, part of them are unnoticed however. I thought of adding something to add detail to the front facade on the concrete walls like this-

I think it might look better without that detail though, or I could make it different or bigger...

Simfox: Well, have you tried actually looking at it?All of the sides of the small building, front, back, and sides, are the same length. I can't remember what it was exactly but since the lot size for it is 2x2, I'm guessing around 27-30 meters in length perhaps.

[Evillions 552]

This really should be uploaded to the LEX if you improve on this more, and your first BATs. That better quailty then I can ever do in my experience.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Evillions: Thanks! The LEX? Isn't that at some other site?

I have an ingame photo for you guys and gals today of the Modern Wall to Wall building.

What do you think? I think it is ready to upload. I'm just about finished with everything. I did the night lights but they are not really that special...

[Xyloxadoria 1,099]

I have a method that i use for nightlights that ends up looking really nice. You could try it on your building.

My method requires that each window is a seprate face,i dont know if your building is like that.

Here is how i do my nightliging.

1. Select random windows and detach them to a seprate object.  Select groups in a row or indivudally as that is how they look in real life.

2. Repeat the 1st step a few times and make a few window groups, each window group will have a diffrent texture.

3. Apply a nighwindow texture to each of the windows. This texture would be a good one to use.  You can cut it up in photoshop and save out pictures of indivual windows or rows of windows. then apply thoose cut out window images to the gropus.

4. Also, add some self illmination to the window mateiral, this will give them somewhat of a glow.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Xyloxadoria: Well, from what I know, that can only be used for MAX. I don't use MAX.

Oh and there is self allumination to the glass.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Hey, nice job on the roof! Of course, the roof I imagined looks different from the one you ended up designing, but that doesn't matter - what matters is that it looks convincing, and after all, this is your creation. 

That being said, I think the roof texture is a tad too dark and too monotonous - Jason's buildings flanking your BAT in that screenshot are a good example of convincing roof design without much roof junk. Try "bleaching" (brightening and/or desaturating) your roof texture on all open surfaces, and leave darker outlines and smudges along all edges, roof junk elements etc. - just like Jason did on the building to the left of yours.

The second point I'd address is something fundamental - the colour palette you are using. I have a strong suspicion that your building will stand out because the textures have more green to them than all the Maxis stuff. You can try sampling some colours from Maxis buildings that are supposed to be similar in colour, and compare them with the colours you are currently using. Jason is the true expert in this respect, but I'd guess that you could add some slight pinkish/peachy hue.

Finally, I'd like to know what your building would look like with slightly brighter windows. You got that black lattice there all over the front wall, filled with very dark window panes... and that's a pity, because this way a lot of detail and structure is swallowed by a black hole. This effect is especially noticeable on the windows between the two roof sections - the frames are hardly visible here at all.  Another aspect about the window that doesn't quite convince me yet is that single white splotch on the front windows. I don't have any precise suggestion at hand, though.

What I really love is that overhead door for the window washer thingy. I don't know if this is done in real life, but I wouldn't worry about that too much - it adds a nice and unique touch to the roof, and it doesn't seem entirely unrealistic or improbable to me. 

All in all, I'd say you haven't reached 100% of what you are capable of reaching yet, but you are getting there quickly. And of course, it's your decision how much more time and effort you are willing to invest into this structure. Congrats on your good progress, and looking forward to what you'll come up with next!

[Sgt Pepper 864]

T Wrecks: I tried doing some more with the textures like you said and this is what I got-

I brightened up the Glass texture, but I thought it was all ready bright enough. Maybe it's the brightness on my computer or yours? But I think it looks better that color now. I tried adding a more pink like color to the wall texture and this is it now. Maybe it is to much?

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Hm, the wall texture looks good to me, as far as I can judge it.  You could either make a test render and plop your buildings between some similarly coloured Maxis stuff, or you could simply photo-edit your BAT into a suitable test screenshot. The in-game appearance of a building is terribly hard to judge based on a picture where it's depicted all on its own against a completely black background.

Of course, differently calibrated monitors can always complicate things. That's the second reason why a test screenhsot can be so helpful. We might see your BAT differently, but if you tweak the colours right, it should be consistent with the default buildings in your game - and if the look is consistent in your game, it will be consistent in anyone's game, no matter how each monitor / graphics adapter displays the scene. E.g. a user whose monitor has a terrible shift towards blue colours will be used to playing SimCity that way, and he'll see your building just as blueish as the others, so hel'll suppose it looks spot on. 

Concerning the roof texture, the overall brightness level looks better to me now. However, you made it brighter as a whole, but it's still pretty much one colour all over. If you compare it with Jason's roof texture, you'll notice that his texture covers a wide range of shades and hues. It has darker spots, bleached parts, slight outlines... that's what makes it look so realistically weathered and vivid, although there's not much going on on the roof, geometry-wise.

Argh, that window texture... it bugs me when something bugs me, but I can't put my finger on it.  Nah, really... I have a feeling that there could be a better solution, but I don't know what this solution could be. Maybe it's just that this large splotch doesn't work too well on such a coherent glass surface...

EDIT

Wait a sec, I just photoshopped (to be more precise, GIMPed) your lower roof texture to illustrate what I mean - basically, I softened it to make it look more like concrete and less like gravel, then I darkened it around the edges, added some brighter splotches, and finally changed the hue slightly from green to red - this is what it looks like:

Of course, this has been a quick and dirty job, executed rather sloppily. However, I hope I managed to show what I'm getting at.

[bluemoose 223]

Wow! i really like the modern office building, would be great for my cities!

I expect awesome work for you sgt pepper!

sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club BATs

[Duke of York 23]

 Amazing work Sgt Pepper ! As others have pointed out your starting at a high level and

I'm already a fan of your work Can't wait to download these and see even more from you !

Sincerely,

Duke of York