Harishna's BATs

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Those trees look fantastic. I wouldn't worry about them too much, seasonal or not seasonal, heavy on polys or not, at the end of the day you're still going to get a fantastic looking model. Btw, well done for having the guts to make those little shops in HD. Have those got their night lighting yet?

While that's certainly doable, I imagine one export will be a pretty generous file size and 3-4 of them would definitely exceed the STEX upload limit...unless you got special permission.

Just to clarify, the STEX limit shouldn't bother anyone anymore. If it's still in place (I honestly don't know if it is), it would be at least 25MB, probably more.

And a final note for Harishna, you've been BATing for well over a year now. Your skills have improved dramatically, it's almost as if you've skipped the beginner phase and gone straight to advanced. You have gotten some serious respect from all of us for that.

Now all that's fantastic, but to be honest I'm a bit worried one little thing. I'm worried you could turn into another Kellydale. If it were me up to me, I would’ve released the Mexican library somewhere around page 3. It was already a stunning first BAT then, even if the version you have now blows it out of the water. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't want you to fall into the trap of chasing perfection so early on... your first BAT is supposed to be a little rough around the edges and you learn as you go on. Just get your stuff out there and move onto something new and exciting, you can worry about perfection later on, even revisit stuff if you need to. You've got the skills, now you just need to start putting your work out there. Remember, this is your FIRST BAT.

[harishna 847]

thanks Cockatoo you flatter me, don't worry I am planning to release my bats, but no only I want to be sure they look good but also want the university buildings to match as a set.

On the small shops they do have nightlights nothing fancy, I am still deciding to go maxis night or tru-night I was even considering using a rollup door , any other comments on the shops or the library?

More in game previews this time the restaurant, may it be a bit over-scaled vertically or not?

PS. any tips on making custom queries?

cheers!

  Edited June 28, 2011 by harishna  

[gutterclub 2,729]

Dark nite all the way, that's just preference though..

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I'd also go with DarkNite. One detail about your small shops, though: At least on the screen I'm curently staring at (not my own) the entrances partly look awfully dark. However, I guess you can't do much about that...

I agree that the restaurant is probably a bit on the tall side, by the way. However, it might be better to compare it to other CS buildings, among which it is most likely to grow. AFAIR, some of the Maxis CS buildings are also rather tall.

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

Wow these are looking good, i'm glad to see that its all coming together, you will have a hit once its already to release, and released.

[tcx 170]

Hi, VIPS looks great, it may be tall but that's how in real life are. Most of this restaurants are tall in real life because of the decorations inside, one in Xalapa, where I live, is almost 4 meters high in some parts and 6 meters high in other parts, because of the fancy ceiling fans hanging from the ceiling among other decorations. It's up to you if you change the height of the BAT, I think is a great model, but some simtropolians may complain about it once released it.

About nitelites, I prefer Dark-nite. You can do both, as not everyone here likes to have that mod.

Hope that makes sense, I'm having one of those days when its defficult to even write or make sense in spanish, yu can imagine how is to write in english.

  Edited June 28, 2011 by tcxalapa  

[harishna 847]

don't worry makes perfect sense Tcxalapa

1.33 scaled vs not scaled(the rook junk and the other props are scaled)

[wallacet 336]

its a toss up. Compared to the trucks driving by, the 1.33x looks awfully big. But the normal version loses the textures on the walls under the roof because the roof is so low. Maybe go for an inbetween.... 1.15X?

[Francis90b 748]

Honestly i don't really agree with the opinion posted above...walls do look fine in both versions.

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

The scaling looks good, because look at other resturants, they are a little taller than regular buildings, because of decorations, ect., so yours looks spot on, good work as ussual harishna

[harishna 847]

still haven't made up my mind, any suggestions?

  Edited July 1, 2011 by harishna  

[Heblem 600]

Comparing to my Farmacias Guadalajara (knowing that design of the RL resturant is taller), IMO the restaurant looks soo tall in proportion to the height in game, maybe reduce the height about 10% vertically might look better...

[harishna 847]

I have being trying to export the restaurant model, I don't have any problems with the day view in either SD or HD but everytime I try to export the Night-views the export process crashes, sometimes right after I start sometimes half-way through the exporting process. I am getting the message: The render was cancelled due to insufficient memory. Adjust the scene render settings to reduce memory usage and try again, the an Export Error=6 or sometimes =8. The scene has some 600k polys and I have 4Gb of RAM, I never have problems with rendered previews and it only takes like 3 minutes at zoom5. nothing compared to the library or the rectoria tower...

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Hum, it's no telling what the problem is, have you tried restarting you computer to free up the ram then start exporting?? Hum, thinking of something else, how much ram are you use in percent in the task manager, for a bat like that it shoud not be over 70. It's no telling, I surly don't know, maybe someone cna do better than me.

[harishna 847]

I went back and did the measurements for the restaurant again and surprise remembered that I made the BAT taking into account the 1.33 right form the beginning but I had completely forgot about it. No wonder I was struggling so much with the scale, anyway I scaled it up just a bit more this is the one labeled as ~1.1 in the imaged. Like said this is based in real life dimensions and taking into account the 1.33, I am comparing it to a version scaled by ~1.25 that I made before. So I am happy with the 1.1 and I think this is ready to be released. By the way I fixed my rendering issues reducing the subdivision of the big hedge from 0.05 to 0.1 this reduced the 600k polys in the scene to something like ~280. I just need to figure out how to make custom queries...any help?

Comments about the lot also welcome!

Here something extra the third building form the UNAM university, I think this is also almost finished I mainly need to work on the lot for this one (BTW I randomly added a bunch of textured boxes to fake the appearance of furniture).

  Edited July 4, 2011 by harishna  

[sumwonyuno 42]

I'm glad you were able to solve both the scaling and rendering problems! 1.1 looks perfect. Heh, circles love to raise the polygon count, and your lot is full of them. For custom queries, I found this: https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/2511-its-a-custom-query-tutorial/

Simple boxes for furniture sounds good; it adds to the look without that much polygons.

[Francis90b 748]

I think that adding some boxes as fictional furniture did really pay off...it feels much more convincing now, and it's perhaps the best solution for those vast glass areas.

While i'm not sure about wheter i will use this library (or the other UNAM stuff) as it is really particular, i have learn something new looking at that.

Thanks.

  Edited July 4, 2011 by Francis90b  

[Girafe 1,729]

definitively version 1,1

the tree on the Lot needs more density ^^

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Nice progress! I'm glad that you sorted out the scaling problem.

That UNAM tower looks really convincing as a whole - it's funny how it can be recognised as some kind of public building immediately. I can't put my finger on it, but something about such buildings often says clearly "I am not a regular office building".

One small suggestion about the BAT: The penthouse structures look a bit detached from the rest IMO. This might be because the walls are very bright and clean, and the rooftop is weathered and has much variation to it. Adding some slight gradient might help to tie everything together visually.

[harishna 847]

I think I should start releasing some of my creations soon (the restaurant and the small shops are done, the library is with Girafe getting trees)...I wanted to make custom queries and all the proper modding, but at the moment I cant be bother, too much work with my thesis...so I guess I will just make a simple release.

The rectoria tower I'll say only needs night-lights and trees, and I think same goes for Humanidades tower here is how it looks at the moment:

by the way someone said roof junk?

  Edited July 7, 2011 by harishna  

[SimFox 802]

Hello there!!

I know I should have come earlier, but if I still may...

I think restaurant looks a bit over-scaled as is compared to most of the game assets. Using that McDonalds as a measuring stic isn't the best(IMHO) idea. It is grossly misscaled and generally quite garish.

I think you would be much wise to compare it to your own; and excellent, if I may add) set. In this respect it (restaurant) looks more akin of the very first version of the library in terms of scale. Library that had turned out fantastic (and, oh boy, what a difference good flora makes!)

[harishna 847]

Hi there!

Is never too late, and yes you are right about the restaurant, I don't know why I scaled it to 1.1, I guess I can't shake off the idea of having overgrown sims, I should have trusted my original measurements, but no harm done just have go back to my original version 1.0

But to more important matters I am glad to see you around again!

[Girafe 1,729]

I am here with the flora,

I switched to 2 species.

one tree is missing on one side. I am just asking about the green color (ùaybe too blue) and the saturation.

So I wanted to know what do you think about it?

  Edited July 7, 2011 by Girafe  

[harishna 847]

Hi Girafe!

I like the shape of the trees very much, about the color well I agree that a bit less saturated and blue will may be better but: "Beggars can't be choosers"!

So bottom line is up to you if you want to make the changes as they already look fantastic! ah and thanks for fixing the water!

Cheers!!

[Bastet69008 1,102]

I remember the first model of the library you made in 2010, that was a great first try, but this...is a piece of art, the textures of the walls are awesome. Just need some extra props and it would be perfect. Excelente trabajo!

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

They look great.

[SimFox 802]

Trees, as I've said nice, but what else should have we expected when Giraffe took it upon himself to me these?!

My only issue with these would be the fact that, imho, the scaling shows. I mean smaller trees don't look like simply smaller than bigger ones, the do look like scaled down versions of big ones.

Color wise I think these are quite ok. Different species do have differently hued foliage. I would, though consider top make individual leaves a bit bigger. Even if not "anatomically correct" I think it would be visually beneficial, help to break away from that GMAX look typical for quite a bit of flora around (thanks god nasty black fringe isn't present here). It may also help with the situation that some "leaves" are distinct while next to them there is some amorphous mass.

Girafe, may I ask, are you leaves and mat for them double-sided? You may (if haven't done so yet) set leaves to generate black FG rays, to help with contrast a bit...

[harishna 847]

Some progress on the nightlights for the tower (not finished). I really struggled to render this...had to reduce the scene size a lot...anyway I still have to tweak the nightlights a bit and then comes the flora...

[delija21 295]

Some really great BATs here....not really my style but thay sure look awesome

[SimFox 802]

Some progress on the nightlights for the tower (not finished). I really struggled to render this...had to reduce the scene size a lot...anyway I still have to tweak the nightlights a bit and then comes the flora...

I'm surprised to hear that this scene would cause any difficulties to render. I don't really see anything in it that may cause any difficulty. There very few actual lights actually I would say too few for good result. For instance on teh second shot the illumination of the mural - 3 lights there is very unrealistic. You need to add more but remember use photometrics, preferably with IES profiles, but remember limit their maximum radius - this would dramatically save your render time.