I remember my first BAT...

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

Okay, so I've been lurking this site for like, I don't know, six years or something. It's been a long time. At least five...

But that's not the point.

I've downloaded many things off this site, and am somewhat in awe at some of the greats: Simgoober, Jasoncw, Pegasus, etc... (many many more as well)

To emulate these people (and with three days off from work), I set myself on a project: Learn how to use GMax to make my own BAT's.

I did the tutorial on the omnibus, it looked like crap. Did it again. Watched videos. Read. Worked on my skills. In total, in the last four days, I've spent approximately sixty hours teaching myself the basics, and advanced techniques where and when I could learn them. I don't sleep much, like, maybe ten hours a week (insomnia since I was 12), and after a successful 'phillipbo house' creation, I decided to jump in the deep end.

Looking on the STEX, I was surprised at the dearth of content, but sadly, Indiana is not terribly represented. To be honest, I expected to find the LucasOil Stadium at the very least. Instead, I saw a smattering of maps and the Chase Tower in downtown Indy.

That's when I got my idea.

I downloaded it, looked at it, and while it was great to see at least that here, I noticed that it wasn't done enough justice*, at least like the amazing work in the BSP, the Hong Kong stuff...

*No harm intended to the creator. The fact that you created it in the first place helped me immensely, if you're reading this.

So, I decided to recreate my favorite landmark and (hopefully) upload it to the STEX, the first in what I plan on being a long line of Indiana-themed creations.

Here's what I have so far...

So far, the framework of the tower is complete. I have added the majority of the windows (in large sheets of planes since I didn't feel like modeling a bajillion of them), the tower cap, etc. I still have yet to add the peaked glass roofs on the 'wings' of the tower, the spires, HVAC's, etc. And then comes the monumental task of lighting the tower as well, which brings me to a few questions:

1: How am I faring for having started this only about four days ago?

2: What is the best method for lighting this? I've read about every tutorial, but I don't have 3ds Max, only Gmax, and I don't know whether I should just make duplicates of the existing glass with an alternate opacity map and light it (and whether or not the lighting should be done from the inside of the building or outside).

3: Is there a 'reload all' feature for the textures? I hate rendering and watching some of the windows on one side disappear and have to go through my master list of textures and reload both the diffuse and opacity maps for each window plane (that's over thirty photoshopped images and I'm barely halfway done).

4: Lastly, and this is minor point, is there a where to make the front overhang (not created yet) on the front entrance stick out on the street so it looks over the sidewalk without having it inside the lot? I've seen glass overhangs and such for the middle of roads that stick out over the sidewalk, and I was wondering if there was a way to do it like the 'extensions' people make for custom transportation sets (like connecting roads under large bridges or canals, etc.).

Additional notes about the model:

There isn't the upper portion that connects to the parking garage found on the building, as it would make it an 'L'-shape that I don't want, unless I decide to model the church and two other buildings on the block as a giant lot (both Wabash and Scioto streets -- the streets that run in the middle of cluster of buildings I'm describing -- are kinda 'alleys' that go between the buildings to the parking garage.), which I could do, assuming people would be interested. But I don't know if it's possible to enable transit within a lot, kinda like running streets between a plop, and if it's possible to have the building serve dual-purpose as a parking garage and CO$$$. Also, the 'blacked out' windows thirteen and fourteen floors down are getting switched to the other side of the building. As they are right now, they are on the same side as the entrance, which is incorrect, and the frame lines between windows are also getting lightened, as they stand out too much against the building frame (which will be textured later, as opposed to its neutral gray color presently).

Sorry about the length of the post, I'm just terribly verbose.

EDIT: Corrected a spelling error. And, additionally, the building isn't vertically scaled yet. I'll get to that when I'm almost done with it.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Whoa, talk about a spectacular first post!

First of all, congrats for taking the step from being a lurker to contributing as a poster! 

Secondly, I... um... erm... you know, I mean... well... I'm kinda speechless. That looks like a terrific start! I don't feel so well right now, and I frankly admit that I'm currently not concentrated enough to give your first post the reply it deserves. So I hope you won't mind if I keep this short and simple...

Anyway, the BAT looks like a very mature work, not at all like some rookie's first attempt. I don't know the real-world building, but I can see that your BAT looks absolutely realistic, credible and authentic, so even if you had missed something or taken some liberty, it certainly wouldn't decrease the overall quality and value of the model.

However, that picture is terribly tiny... would you mind giving us something bigger to drool over?  This will also make it easier to give advice and discuss things, because it will enable the experts here to see how you actually did things, and how they could possibly be improved.

Looking forward to seeing more, and I sure hope you won't go back to lurker mode anytime soon! 

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

Bigger how exactly? I don't know how to export a picture from the GMax renderer if it's possible, besides the 'print screen' way, and I haven't tried to export it yet in-game, since I hear it takes fooooorreeevvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrrr.... Right now it's only in construction, but I plan on making it a nightlighted, CO$$$ growable and landmark version. That's why I needed the questions answered, because I don't relish the idea of putting 100-some odd lights on it, especially if I can just put a big one off-scene on each face (oh how I wish I could get 3ds Max...).

But anyways, thanks for the encouragement, haha. If I'm not mistaken, I have some of your work...

Lemme see...

...

Yep.

(Note: Actual time drastically shortened for effect.)

The best I can do is just increase the size of the screenshot, although that will turn it into a pixelated mess.

Here's a small pic of the actual building:

(You can just search 'Chase Tower Indianapolis' for bigger pics on Google.)

And here's a pixelated mess of a larger shot from two sides:

As to details on the file, I basically used an existing model imported from Sketchup to give me something I could use for reference, after I scaled it up. Then, I just built it floor by floor. But instead of modeling each sheet of windows, I just used a series of planes fit to the front of each face (the tower alone has 18 such planes), which I created both diffuse and opacity maps for at 16 pixels per meter (the opacity map hides the plane texture where the building framework is visible between floors.

Now, I don't know whether to duplicate the planes and put an alternate map on each for the night, and shine a light on it from the outside, or whether to adjust the opacity map from the inside and light that way, although I have the feeling I would have to boolean out the center so I could avoid having to put lights for eachof the 49-or-so floors.

[psander5 195]

For your screenshot size issue, if you do a zoom 5 preview you should be able to zoom in on the render in gmax using the mouse wheel.  Zoom in to the point before it goes pixelated and you should have a full game resolution picture.  Depending on how tall the building is and how big your monitor is, you might have to stitch together a couple of screenshots to get the full image.  Remember Simtropolis' rules on picture sizes though...  no single image can be bigger than 800 pixels wide or 600 high.  You can make a mosaic to show tall buildings in full game resolution., or you can link to a full size picture using the method explained here.

It will be much better to see your building at full zoom quality.  Right now it's hard to pick out enough detail, but from what I can see it looks great so far!

I've never tried to make a building like this (well, not since my early days at least) so I don't really have much technical advice to give, particularly with regards to the night lights.  I do however get the feeling that your planned method might not be the best approach.  Using physical lights might be either too demanding for gmax to handle, or very tricky to pull off visually.  The exclude function doesn't work in gmax so it's difficult to shine a light onto only one window.  The only other way is to model the building's interior, and for something this size that would be quite tricky. The commonest way to add nightlights to gmax models is to use nightmaps I think, which involves making the lit windows as a different object to the dark windows, and prefixing the object name with 'nitelite' (someone please correct me if I'm wrong!), making the lit windows 'glow'.  It doesn't look fantastic, but it is the standard way to do night lit windows on large buildings in gmax.   

There might be a way to do it better, but I'll wait for someone with experience to clear up the mess I'm probably making ...

[rainyday 2]

I know this is kind of unrelated, but if you say you've been a lurker for 6 years, how come you have only been a member for 45 minutes?

[Xyloxadoria 1,099]

Originally posted by: rainyday

I know this is kind of unrelated, but if you say you've been a lurker for 6 years, how come you have only been a member for 45 minutes?quote>

You can lurk without a account.

[rainyday 2]

Originally posted by: Xyloxadoria

Originally posted by: rainyday

I know this is kind of unrelated, but if you say you've been a lurker for 6 years, how come you have only been a member for 45 minutes?quote>

You can lurk without a account.

quote>

 I've downloaded many things off this site quote>

You need an account to download from the stex

[SimFox 802]

You should render it at Zoom5 to be able to judge overall quality.

Problem with most Sketch Up models is that they heavily rely on outlines to define shapes. This is not usable in the Gmax/Max/BAT models - here you have to use entirely different expressive methods. That's why those google earth, whaterver models normally look very bad in game.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Wow!!! you did way better than me on my first BAT, it looks perfect. 

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

@ rainyday

I've lurked without an account, and didn't download anything until I made one about two weeks ago. The first time I got the game was around 2004, and spent more time lurking the website than playing it. Then I didn't have the game anymore, but still lurked the website. Eventually, I got tired of other games, and picked this back up again, played it, found that I didn't like the lack of custom content, and got an account here. When I had those several days off, I went through an extremely arduous few days of BAT-learning. Then, I toyed with the idea of making a thread. The idea won out, and now here it is.

@ psander5

Yeah, I tried it with eclusion features, and it didn't work. Then I read the simfox tutorial on lighting, and while I know it's for 3Ds Max, I decided that I would have to do the whole night library/self illumination thing. However, I'm stuck at the light rig for it, since I don't know how to get rid of the sun to make a night render for the whole truNite thing.

@simfox

I didn't try to texture the Sketchup model, just used it as a scaling reference. The building itself is built by hand. And like I mentioned above, I'm having trouble with the lighting rigs and how I'm supposed to approach it.

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

Okay, I decided to do this in 3DS Max 2009 instead of GMax (thanks to a friend with a hook-up), and as a result, completely ovrehauled my approach to the project. Here's a much larger picture of the tower, with the glass removed (because I'm redoing it) and a bunch of frames placed in the slots for the windows (although I haven't made them all yet). On the right 'wing' of the base, is the top for what will be one of the two glass peaks, although it's above the actual surface of the wing because I'm adding the rectangular base that goes underneath it, as well as the roof structure and so on that sticks above the top of that floor by about a meter or so (It also will house a large portion of the HVAC units, piping, etc. 111 Monument Circle Drive, Indianapolis, if you want to Bing map or Google map it for reference.).

There isn't any texture applied to this at all, since I just imported it from GMax, and I have to rework a few things, although thanks to Simfox and whoever else made the BAT4MAX program, I don't have to do too much work in the preliminary set-up stages.

The beveled surfaces on the ground floor were placed originally with a texture to simulate the ground floor windows, although now with this program, I can (hopefully) place the minutiae of interesting details like the Chase logos, Charles Schwab signs, and on the left side, the Paradise Eatery sign and entrance, as well as making that lattice and the accompanying window on the main entrance actually show the entrance foyer and the array of lights on the inside if you travel across the front of it from Ohio street. And, I know the tower cap panels are floating right now, but I have to build the lattice under them and put the support structures for the two aerial masts that will eventually accompany them.

This leads me to ask for help on two main things:

On the back (facing forward), on the real building, the middle to the right side is filled in with a solid wall and small doors to lead to the parking garage that's actually attached to the building that (unless I make it a super-lot and include the additional four buildings on the block), should I simply repeat the eventual glass beveled-framework around the whole building, or keep it true to reality? (Visually it doesn't fit with the building as a stand-alone, since that side of the building is technically an alleyway within the Ohio-Pennsylvania-Monument Circle block, comprised of Wabash and Scioto streets.)

H\ow hard is going to be to uniformly texture the entirety of the framework with a scaled block pattern, without having to UVW unwrap some 138 individual and (in some cases) overlapping parts?

EDIT: Corrected image size (Getting used to this forum, afterall) and linked it to a much larger photo. Thanks to psander5 for that helpful little hint.

EDIT 2 (or actually three): Fixed it again. Photobucket kept downsizing the image. Switched to Imageshack.

[madhatter106 3,903]

I must say, this is incredibly ambitious for a first BAT. My hats off to you for your dedication and perseverance.

As for the nightlighting, as it was said earlier, it would be a lot of work for gmax to render; I had flashes of smoke and flames erupting from a computer trying to render this. Glad you're taking the 3DSMax approach - it will do this one justice. For my own little tiny one/two story BATs, gmax is fine - "cheap and cheerful" enough, as a co-worker is always saying; but for things of this magnitude, the end result with Max will be great...

Best of luck. This is a very promising start to a BAT thread.

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

I think that BAT looks good.=0 Are qyou doing anything else?

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

@ madhatter106:

Thanks. I tried (for about ten hours straight) every trick I could find on Gmax to get it to work. After that, I gave up and gave a friend a call who had a copy of the program (Max) and got it from him. Good to have friends in art/design school, haha. I know it will take a lot of work, but I don't plan on stopping until I make something as high quality as the greats of this site, even if it takes every ounce of my time. I already spend at least 60% of my free time on it. On an unrelated note, I'm a diagnosed obsessive-compulsive, haha.

@nathanthemayor:

At the moment, I am working on this. My only other BAT was the phillipbo tutorial house on the Omnibus. I kinda just 'dove into hell' right after that. Go big or go home, right? I do want to recreate other local landmarks (Indiana-based) and maybe recreate my house and the house across the street (which looks exactly like a 'Goomba' from Super Mario Bros.). And, lastly, thanks for the support.

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

So I tried to render it yesterday, and a few things happened.... I think I recreated the Large Hardon Collider with my processor, my computer started speaking to me in Latin, and I'm fairly certain I visited dead relatives in the subsequent space-time rip...

But in all actuality, I finally managed to get this out of it:

Now I just have to make some textures for the windows, or even just redo them.; Right now it comes in at 400k+ polys, and I'm not even close to being done. Does anyone know of a way to cut those down substantially? I've combined almost everything that can be booleaned, attached, and merged, but the windows are eating at the poly count. There are 1604 (not including the panes) of them so far on the model, and I still need to do about 200 more of them. I've spent almost 24 hours trying to find answers, but I don't have the kind of rig that lets me render what it takes to make this model apparently. I can't do the raytracing on it without a FATAL ERROR 03 or some *****, and although I'm content to just make textures on photoshop, since I'm at least good with that, I'd like to take advantage of this program's features without having to just ignore them, or get a new computer that I can't afford.

So, advice, comments, critiques if any. Just wanted to show y'all my progress.

[Roger51 381]

Thats some great progress update, looks awsome. Can't really help you on any other aspect

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

Thanks, haha. I'm currently redoing  the design to better scale it and replacing the windows with textured planes. So far, by doing that, I've already removed 340k polys. Thanks to jasoncw's BAT Resource blog, I figured it's better to simulate the vertical window pane frames by texturing instead of actually modeling, since I'm currently running a PoS computer from like six years ago, less than a gig of RAM (optimized highly by me to squeeze every ounce of memory out of it, but still), and a limited budget of time, since I have to find a new job. (On an unrelated note, Applebee's -- a.k.a. 'The McDonald's of Sit-Down Restaurants' -- is a terrible place to work.)

For the rest of tonight and tomorrow, I'm sitting Indian style on the floor, surrounded by Monster cans, empty cigarette containers, and Cadbury's Creme Eggs and rebuilding this thing to optimize it. Rendering took too long and there were all kinds of artifacts from where the geometry crossed itself. Since Max has a better Array tool, I'm using that to my advantage, as well as using the planar subdivision I really couldn't grasp on Gmax to maximize my window texturing. Thanks to an unbeliveable hi-def panorama of the building, I have almost thirty night window selections for the actual building at more than enough resolution to use in-game, when I get to that stage. And, as I work through the rescaling process, I find that the building itself is actually almost constructed on a scale that mimics the grid in game as well. It looks like it's going to be an 8x2 when I actually finish it.

[SimFox 802]

I think it is a brilliant choice for the fists project - in a way better than trying to make something small. It is impressive enough to keep one interested, yet it is simple enough - straight lines and cornets , clean and clear proportions etc, to make it easy to make. This is on the modeling side of things. Setting materials, also should be relatively easy - there are not huge expanses of glass so the "reflection" bit be it faked (photoshoped) or be it raytraced through material and environment setup should be easy.

I wouldn't worry too much about polygon count. If you want to conserve memory try to use as many instances as possible. it may be a bit messy but it has huge advantage of only one of the instance being actual geometry - rest are just repetitions. Unfortunately errors may also indicate that your memory is simply faulty. Rendering taxes it far more than regular computer use, so problems may surface that you don't normally see... Of course there is always a possibility to as someone else (with at least same or newer version of Max to render it for you...

Another advise - do everything clean - snap EVERYTHING , there should not be any overlaps. On a model like that it should really be easy. Just don't get sloppy from the start and you'll be set to go. If you have too many of those already in, you may conciser to re-do the model from ground up. It wouldn't take as much time as you think, since you have "walked the way" already.

Speaking of scale... I wouldn't go for scaling it down to fit o 2tile deep lot... As far as I can see from Google Earth the actual thing as about 35+m deep... I'd say go with that number, Just give it some breathing room in front... Basically such strongly symmetrical and monumental composition both deserves and can handle it.

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

     Thanks Simfox. Coming from someone whom I 'studied' and aspired to to start, that means a lot. And, I mention rescaling it because I'm redoing it from the ground up.

     The first had a lot more overlaps, and my reference was not scaled correctly when I built the original frame in GMax, so everything had immensely difficult mathematical computation every time I tried to add something or change something. As for building the model, having done so already, and having learned more of Max in the process, I am making much more progress. The reason I mentioned the polygon count is because I couldn't render the model at all, on any setting, the way it was before. I literally almost created a singularity in the process. That might have been from trying to use raytracing and having multi-paned windows that accounted for over 90% of the polygons, but I'm reconstructing it floor by floor, making sure everything lines up nice and neat, so I can have pretty vertices to snap to when I make my windows.

     Also, having learned much better how to edit polygons, I am able to make certain floors by manipulating the mesh instead of attaching ad-hoc rectangles together and extruding them, which made for much more complicated lines in my viewports anytime I went to the viewports with the wireframes.

     As for the building itself, it is the tallest building in Indiana, and the tallest in the Midwest outside of Chicago and Cleveland. To me, a nighttime ride down I-65 with the skyline -- sparkling against the usual greenish-gray of an Indiana summer -- highlighted by this, is a beautiful sight indeed. This is as much a labor of love as it is an attempt at yet another way to express myself artistically, and give something to the community.

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

Okay, finished redoing the framework... Again... I think that makes for five of those now. Anyways, here's a shot (and I apologize for the color scheme, it helps me organize.):

Lemme know what you think. I'm working on the windows as we speak. I think that they should be done by tomorrow sometime.

[Blazerhawk 162]

Great work. I can tell you have a great amount of patience to be working with this. From what I have seen so far in this thread, I look forward to seeing how you do with this remodel. BTW don't worry about people complaining about about the color scheme of untextured geometry.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Ahh, the new version is looking good so far.

I don't think that combining the window frames with the glass would be a good idea here, because the glass is reflective and the frames aren't.

However, you can make what's called a "blend" material, which basically lets you combine two mix two materials together, according to a mask.

In the material editor, click on the button that says "Standard" and then select "Blend" in the list that comes up.  Now you'll see that you have Material 1, Material 2, and a Mask.  For the mask you'll make it in Photoshop, and white corresponds to the first material and black corresponds to the second material, and greys will blend the two together.  One of the materials can be a reflective glass material and the other can be a dark grey material for the frames.

But I think that way would be a pain, because you'd have to make a bunch of materials for all of the different sized window bays.  If I was doing this, I think I'd just model the frames.  I think modeling it is more straightforward and easy to manage.

But for the windows, note that the bottom part of the windows is actually an opaque black material (the entire area there isn't glass).  You can also see the way that the window frames line up with the blocks of stone that make up the rest of the facade.  This will be important once you start texturing, so it's important to get that aspect correct before texturing starts.

If you go to Help>Autodesk 3ds Max Help, the help section will pop up and it explains a lot of stuff in detail.  It also teaches you the terms to search google with for further reading. 

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

Worked on it all night. Haven't slept in almost three days... Have work in less than an hour... But, I managed to get these out of the renderer:

Not bad for a first BAT, I'd say. It certainly is eating at my time, haha. But, I think that I'm finally getting the hang of Max. It certainly is an awesome program.

EDIT: And why does it say that I joined 44 minutes ago? I've been on this site for almost two weeks now I think...

[Roger51 381]

Wonderful Model for the BAT, looks like it is coming along nicely. I think you need some sleep to let the brain recover

Originally posted by: Crackdtoothgrin

EDIT: And why does it say that I joined 44 minutes ago? I've been on this site for almost two weeks now I think...quote>

Thats quite normal, my profile does it every now and again.

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

Roger51: "We will never sleep, 'cause sleep is for the weak..."

And I'm fairly certain I can't finish that song's lyrics on this forum.

 

But, in reality, I was up for over 100 hours, mainly working on this and actually going to work intermittently. Like I said, I don't sleep much.

 

The model itself is progressing rapidly. I only hope that I have enough 'slots' or whatever to handle all the textures. My texture files are quite massive. The front window texture 'sheet' alone is over 9000 pixels long... (And before someone mentions it, I'm aware that I can remove textures from the editor window and keep them on the model, and I know how to make multi-object textures or whatevs... But, for some reason, when I try to put several maps on one slot, it works fine up until I place them on the model, and then, opposite of how they are by themselves, they magically don't fit right, no matter what I do to the gizmo on the UVW map. Trust me, I spent five hours straight trying to get it to work, and it didn't. I have no explanation for this So if someone knows how to get more slots or material balls, let me know. Otherwise, I'll just look it up myself when I reach that stage..)

Needless to say, I have finished the main body of windows on the tower. Now comes the task of trying to texture the tower itself, and I don't know of a way to do that without hand selecting through 21k polygons on an unwrap. It's a task I don't find myself relishing.

But, here's some pics:

 

As always, click to see them in much higher quality, yadda yadda. Lemme know what you think. Critique me if you must...

[SimFox 802]

Why would you create 9000 pix map?

doing so you:

1. waste huge amount of memory - it will need to be kept in it in uncompressed view during render

2. increase render time - stronger AA would need to be used to get things look decent

3. things will go pointlessly soft - Max will inevitably downsample it a lot.

About mateditor. There was a 3rd party commercial plugin that would allow additional balls in MatEd. But i believe it was meant for V-Ray... not sure though... the name was something like Dragon Mat or something along those lines, you could google it.

However I must say that you've wasted your 5 hours as that story with messed up mapping is most define telly result of you screwing something up (most probably the geometry (that includes basically any editing of it). There is no way removing material form mat editor may cause such problems, as MatEditor does NOTHING to UVW Mapping

Apart from that it progressing nicely. Windows look good if you side with the "clouds" side of the warring camps... I mean the debate of what should one see reflected in the Building windows in SC4...

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

I may have wasted 5 hours, but I'm serious in that, without even touching the UVW map at first, but assigning the texture to a multi-material instead, it just didn't fit. I don't know why. Afterall, I picked up this program less than two weeks ago. So, I'm still learning. And, as for the size of the image, I made it big enough to cover the windows from top to bottom, but without knowing what scale to make my images, I just guessed. (And probably too highly.)

It's no small wonder that I'm running into memory problems with this model. I tried converting the images to jpegs to help reduce the file (highest quality, progressive scan, etc.) and now it says 'Invalid Image FIle Header' and I'm stuck as a result. I can't add any more textures. And one of them just disappeared. I can't reload it. For some reason, when I select it, I either run into a memory problem, which isn't surprising considering the size of the images, or something else like what I mentioned above.

This leads me to several quick questions:

1: What's a good pixel-to-meter scale for textures?

2: Can Max even use jpegs for this project, or did I waste more time converting things?

EDIT: Figured these two out on my own.

3: What do you think should be on the windows? I'm aware that technically I should be reflecting the view from lower objects considering the viewing angle, but I can't get this crappy computer to do any cool raytracing, and if I simulate the relections of the street and surrounding buildings, is that going to clash with the fact that the reflections very well won't mimc the buildings next to them if (and hopefully when) someone else uses this in-game? I'm not on 'camp' so to speak, I'm still a beginner at this.

[SimFox 802]

your computer (don't call it crappy or it will hate you) does raytracing anyway. It is a part of Bat4Max setup, period. As for what it should reflect... Well that's is a bit a matter of opinions really. Even in Maxis own stuff you could see some "reflecting" ground and other models reflecting sky...

Generally skies were habitually used in BATs till about time I've started pocking around and together with Paul produced v2 of Lippo Centre. (Paul's modeling min materials, rendering and lighting) That as far as I know was the very first BAT where glass was reflecting "ground" - basically any areal image set on a plane that is hidden from camera but open to be seen in reflections and refractions (in Object Properties). Each of the approaches have their pluses and minuses. So it is very much up to you.

For your bitmaps, you must remember that at render time pure bit data will be used (and held in memory). So no matter how much you compress it MAX will decompress it. So any saving in file size you may get are just an illusion, or saving in storage space, eg HDD, but not saving you any memory. Plus some compressions may cause problems with MAX..

When you use multi-Material you first have to set your geometry right to use it. And if any kind of bitmaps are used you would need to first set some sort of UVW mapping. This is a MUST and not just an option...Also depending on your version of Max and settings you may have there "real World Size" option may be turned on in Mapping and in Material Editor. it could also cause problems. As such it is a great tool, but you should be aware of it and what it does. Just check this topic in Help.

[Crackdtoothgrin 0]

I may not be an expert on Max, but I would say that I'm close to being one at reading, haha.

I set UVW maps for all gemometry, unwrapped it, rendered a UVW template, made test textures, tested them, and finally made the final ones. When I tried to condense them onto a single material ball slot, it just didn't fit. I don't know why. The 'Real World Mapping' was unchecked, and I snapped every thing together. No overlaps. Everything is nice and clean. But, I've pretty much fixed the problem, since I've drastically resized the images without any type of problem or loss of quality and just merged the geometry onto a new scene. That last thing alone seemed to have cleared up a lot of problems by itself.

But thanks for the idea about a 'hidden plane' approach to raytrracing. I honestly never thought about that. What settings would it need to work, and where should I place it if I go that route? I may stick to just doing the 'cloud' approach for now, maybe do an 'update' later once I get more of a hang on this process. It's a brutal but fun learning curve so far, and I can't wait to provide a slice of home for the community.

[psander5 195]

don't call it crappy or it will hate youquote>

I agree. I used to call my laptop crappy, then it decided to teach me a lesson and commit suicide. Whisper sweet nothings and sing lullaby's to it and it might try just that little bit harder

The building is looking good! I'm quite astonished at how quickly you're taking to it. I'm rather slow myself, but I guess I don't have quite the same level of persistence and insomnia as you!

I'm not well enough equipped to help you with your technical problems, but you're already getting advice from someone who knows a thing or two.

I could offer my opinion about what to reflect. I personally think it's better to have the ground reflected, but I absolutely sympathise with the difficulty of getting the reflection to make sense to the general user's own cities. I would probably try a few different game screenshots of likely surroundings (commercial midrises, plazas etc) and then maybe distorting and tinting the reflection enough to just give a hint of the SimCity environment (common shapes and colours). If that didn't work I'd probably just disregard the game and get some photographs instead. That way you could use real photos of Indiana if you're able to find any suitable ones - making it an extra special recreation. I'm finding that getting the balance between true realism and game realism (I know its an oxymoron) can be really tricky. The easiest option is just to use clouds! There's no in-game sky to match it to after all, and like SimFox says, it was kind of considered a standard way to do it for a long time. I can usually forgive cloudy reflections so long as they're not too mirror-like.

That probably didn't help you at all! Anyway, good luck!