Harishna's BATs

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks great, I like the new building, you model has went far really far, Keep it up.

[Francis90b 748]

I really like the building with the black base and the new model you've posted.

[tcx 170]

WOW!!! your models are great, I'll download them. I see your work and makes me want to BAT again.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I see your work and makes me want to BAT again.

Excuse the off topic, but I think you had become a really good BATter shortly before you quit - in fact, short before that final step to the top stage. If you decided to pick up BATting again, I'd certainly welcome your decision! Just saying.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Same same..

[harishna 847]

This gets the seal of approved off-topic, hehehe, sorry for bumping my own thread

So yeah Tcx!

[Heblem 600]

I agree, i would like to see you back in action! so as I want to...

[tcx 170]

thanks for your vote of confidence. End of off-topic .

[harishna 847]

I have finally uploaded something go check it out here.

Hopefully my PhD thesis will be next!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I'd prefer Rectoria Tower... oh wait, you're talking about that pesky RL thing, aren't you? Well, I guess that will also have to be taken care of.

[tcx 170]

Hola!! I'm so happy you finally got the chance to do the modding and finally upload Biblioteca Central. I´ll wait for your next uploads. Te quedó increíble!! Saludos!

[harishna 847]

So I haven't been very active as I was finishing my PhD, and now I have relocated to Perth where I started a new postdoc position that with family life is keeping me fairly busy.

Good news is that I got myself a new computer one that should be able to render all my old projects and hopefully future ones.

So I started by exporting my old UNAM buildings the rectoria and the humanidades tower that should match with the library, however even after three exports I am still encountering a problem with the rectoria tower, it seems that this only occurs at z5.

I guess it must be a problem with the fsh files. As re-exporting didn't work I would try the old merging trick (I hope SimFox doesn't reads this hehehe). Any other suggestions?

  Edited April 28, 2012 by harishna  

[Roger51 381]

Good to see you have come to my side of the country Enjoy!

The buildings are looking great all next to the library, I don't know a lot about your zoom 5 problem...maybe someone else does

[Shadow Assassin 336]

It looks like that FSH material ID ordering has somehow screwed up; the only way to fix this is to re-assign material IDs using ilives' reader manually.

[harishna 847]

Thanks Roger51, maybe I will give it a go at modeling something from Perth, I haven't got so much free time lately.

Shadow Assassin, I guess I will give it a go at what you suggested, I had never used ilives reader, hope is not too complicated...

Anyway I decided to work a bit on my models one more to go and I will have a full sets of Mexico city downtown buildings. This one is only missing nightlights.

[debussyman 1,348]

Those look great! but if you're doing W2W's I beg you to use scanline renderer or at least provide us with a scanline version.

[harishna 847]

Many thanks debussyman. Excuse my ignorance, but, I got no idea on how or what a scanline renderer is...

[Roger51 381]

Nice work, those are looking awesome!

P.S. No-one in Perth has time, hence why it closes at 5pm....yeah I should also model somethings from Perth, no time atm.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Scanline you would have to setup a new rig and not use BAT for max. I would go the other way and ask you not to use Scanline, most people use Bat5Max these days and as much as I love Debussymans buildings (really love) eventually with the vast amounts of BAT4MAX users it'll be the scanline bats that standout in game.

I keep hearing, mainly on SC4D that it's w2w buildings look best using Scanline, but nobody ever seems to give a reason as to why??

  Edited May 14, 2012 by gutterclub  

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I've just heard that for the first time (probably because I don't hang out at SC4D), and I would also like to know why. Are there any pictures that illustrate how Scanline renders are better for W2W?

[gutterclub 2,729]

I would have thought it would be the other way round and that BAT4MAX mental ray would be best as it nbrings out all the ornate details that get lost with scanline.

[debussyman 1,348]

Mental ray certainly looks better than scanline, by itself. The problem is that because of the differences in lights and shadows, they stick out too much, particularly if they are W2W against buildings rendered in scanline (as the vast majority of them are to date) so, they don't blend easily. That's why I prefer scanline than mental ray on these kind of buildings.

[gutterclub 2,729]

I think it generally depends on what BAT's you use, all the BSP/Jason/Toddy/Nofunk wall 2 walls use MR, Aaron Graham uses MR, NYBT use MR...but most of the BSC stuff is scanline.

I guess it's really all down to preference, but eventually, if people continue to BAt then there will be more mental ray bats than scanline and eventually it'll be the scanline bats that standout against the now normal looking mental ray BATS.

As I mentioned before, I hopr you don't take it as a slur against Scanline because you consistanly produce amazing BATs. I'd also add that I have your W2W bats lined up next to BSP bats and they look fine together

[debussyman 1,348]

It certainly depends of the BATs sorrounding it. BSP, and other north american BAT sets, are mostly Mray, making new Mray BATs is only natural. But for other types like Parisian (Xannepan, Porkie, etc..) or german (Odd frown sweden, erdmoebel, etc..), there is a huge amount of content in scanline already made and their creators are not around anymore to update them to Mray. This happens too with Latin american BATs, we already have a good amount of them by Heblem, Berethor and others; and it would be desirable that any new BATs made for that set blend with it rather than clash.

  Edited May 14, 2012 by debussyman  

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Well, I find it hard to tell how much of the different look between different BATs is due to the way a BATter uses the tools and the way the buildings themselves are different (you just can't put a classical Paris W2W building next to a typically American Brownstone without getting a combination that just won't work), and how much of the difference is due to the renderer.

Is there any side-by-side comparison that would make it possible to see how one and the same building would change if you chose a Scanline vs. a Mental Ray render? But even so, I guess it depends on what the building was intended for, I suppose...?

Another aspect is that you don't have uniform buildings anyway because whatever BAT you have will typically mix with Maxis' stuff. This, in turn, leads me to believe that any BAT that has been adapted to fit into a Maxis surrounding without clashing should also be possible to combine with differently rendered BATs that fit equally well into a Maxis surrounding... pretty much according to the equation that if A = C and B = C then A = B, where "A" could be a Mental Ray BAT, "B" a Scanline BAT, and "C" Maxis' stuff.

Sorry if all this rambling doesn't make sense, I'm pretty much thinking aloud here...

EDIT

Do you happen to know which renderer marcszar uses?

[debussyman 1,348]

Well here's a comparison of the same building with different renderer. As you can see, the Mray looks more detailed but also more "plastic", The shadows are too sharp and their hue is different. All the colors in general are different. To me it is a bad trade-off, aestheticly it doesn't fit with the current parisian set, even though it looks better by itself, as opposed to the scanline, which might not look so good, but won't stand out at all among its peers. Some might say the difference is too subtle, but at least to me it is extremely irritating.

As for marczar, I'm not sure what he'll be using. His early works were scanline, but recently I've seen previews with both renderers. I don't know what he'll use eventually.

PS. Sorrry for hijacking your thread, Harishna

  Edited May 14, 2012 by debussyman  

[harishna 847]

Au contraire! Thanks very much for hijacking my thread for something so informative...at least to me. I can see the difference now, unfortunatelly I have already exported most of my models using Bat4Max Mray, but I guess I can try and export them all using scanline as you suggested and offer both options, but I guess that will come afterwars...

I haven't been able to fix the problem with the rectoria tower I opened the file with ilives reader however I got no idea how to fix the fsh files, so could someone point me in the right direction, or could someone help me fix this, or does anyone know how to fix it without using ilives reader? Many thanks! Sorry about the bold...

Anyway I have finished one more model for my Mexico City old downtown collection, only one more to complete a set of 5.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Look so dirty, I love it.

[zahrul3 471]

You could increase the saturation if you want to, the 'worn' look looks quite good but it would have a hard time fitting in with the other, high-saturation, bright Latin BATs by LBT, Heblem and CSX.

[gutterclub 2,729]

i don't really think trying to 'fit in' with older BATs is the way forward