Harishna's BATs

[harishna 847]

I don't not know the real height between floors but rather calculated it based on my Google Earth measurements and available photographs.The ground floor is a double floor and it has an approximate height of 7m (this includes the windows frames 3m, the yellow tile panels 3m and part of the parapet), the ground floor includes the two main reading rooms, which have the double height and the main entrance in the middle, this one divided in two floors. The main tower floors have a height of 3m in my model, I remember being there once many years ago (while I was still in Mexico) and if I remember correctly the floors weren't really tall, but rather quite small. I am hoping I am not entirely wrong . I have been using objects in images as references but this can be deceptive...

[harishna 847]

 So here is a small update on my project I am getting close to finish the main modelling, once I am done with this I will start adding roof junk, trees, etc...But I started playing with the textures here is where I am now (I know the grass look tiled and radioactive at the moment), the major changes are the rood textures...comments welcome

[tcx 170]

This version looks really great!!! I can't wait to download this.

PS. I miss 3dsmax , I'm starting to hate gmax

[SimFox 802]

Fab!

Grass, though pretty good is a bit acidy (particularly for the game) and there is very obvious repetitions Water on the other hand is just something blue... You would need to work on it some more.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Lovely, just need work on grass, yes. Keep it up.

[harishna 847]

Some more updates I have been playing with the textures I haven't applied all yet so please mind the white, I am still deciding what to do with the windows I have applied two different kinds of textures, that you can appreciate in the first image. The ground floor has a an opaque slightly reflective windows that I based on Jason's BAT blog, the other one are semitransparent windows with courtains that I tried in the first floor (supposed to be closer to the real thing), what you guys think? should I use this thechnic for the rest of the windows? I mean at least the ones in the first floor.

I have fixed the grass, changed the tone of the roof textures and the tiles for the plaza and the courtyard...

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Does the building have that kind of glass, or does it have normal clear glass?  I'd figure it has normal clear glass.

If it has clear glass then you could juse use the Glass (Thin Geometry) preset in the arch & design material.  And then you can copy the bump map from the other material you made.  By default the glass has a blueish color to it, but you can control that by changing the "Color" in the Refraction area if you want to make it less colored or if you want to make it a coke bottle green or something.

You can also change the setting from By IOR to Custom Reflectivity Function in the BRDF rollout.  Glass (and everything else) actually does reflect according to viewing angle, but because the viewing angles are fixed in SimCity (in orthogonal buildings anyway), and because people feel like glass is more reflective than it really is, you can make it more reflective.

The reflectivity (the reflectivity setting that you normally deal with) is already maxed out at 1, but that's the maximum reflectivity.  How reflective it actually is depends on the viewing angle, and the Reflectivity vs. Angle chart controls this, and as you can see there's a huge difference between the reflectivity looking at the glass perpendicularly and looking parelell at it.

Actually, on most BATs you're only ever going to see the glass from two angles, the sunny side and the shadow side of an orthogonal box.  I don't know what those angles are, but those are the angles/reflectivity levels that will actually happen and that we're planning for.

[harishna 847]

I think I am done modeling the building, so now I need to model the roof junk, the courtyard, add some trees and make any pertinent changes to the textures. I will start the night lights once I finish with the day model.

(Sorry for the ba quality image).

I am marking some things I am still not sure about in their current state.

Green: does anyone has a reference image for ventilation units of this kind that I can use?

Red: the left window has a glass infront the one to the right it is only a texture with an opacity map.

Blue: I don't have a good quality image from the roof so I am guessing that is how the hoist should look.

 

As usual any comments are welcome.

cheers

[SimFox 802]

Green

Well it is often a problem because references either missing, or real thing has too small details to actually show. And there is always this pressure for BATs to have something "special" on the roof. I'd say resist temptation. this building is good as is, no need to spice the roof too much. Just add some appropriately textured boxes. In this sense I really like how Bixel does his roof junk. It looks very convincing. But when you shtart ot look at the details, it's just a bunch of primitives. Yet it works perfect! Stroke of a master.

Blue:

Pretty much same as green - it look fine now! And I seriously doubt that making those more "life-like" would really make any perceptual difference.

Red:

generally opacity maps are not good for FG or any other global illumination algorithms.That doesn't really mean that you simply should use them, of course. But here, given the size of an object, it's individual visual impact I think you really don't need to. Just something there, even some sort of random texture would do. Overall it looks quite convincing.

If you still wanna do something about your model, then I would point your attention to these bits and pieces:

1. I can't shake the feeling all these reddish tiles are just same on cloned over and over and over. Each has nice sort of distribution of "spots" on it. But it is same one over and over and over. In stead of making one small piece make one big that would cover the entire area.

2. This needs to be more "defined" - edges between color spots more contrasty and overall higher resolution.

3. Roof here, particularly in case of (a) looks flat. It lost the shape. So I think you need tinker a bit with the material (i think increase it reflectivity (only FG one) in order to get the shape back. I think it wold look better. And although (b) piece is actually flat, given the size of it it also look "flat" like in "champagne gone flat"... But this time it has more to do with color. The area is very big. It needs some slight variation in hue. Or at least in brightness withing the "clean" areas. Also dirt spots could benefit from it. I would even go as far as suggesting to give it some reflectivity too, but not flat one rather use one of the dirt maps in reflectivity channel - it will give that "authentic" broken look to it.

4. here the problem is opposite to what you have in (2). The pattern is to busy, to sharp to be both realistic and beneficial to the model underneath. Basically you can't actually see what it is - just spots.

I would also take another look at the material of that stone wall relief. It's sort of lost. Some FG reflectivity may also be called for to bring it back. And, perhaps Ambient occlusion - turn it on in your material.

[harishna 847]

Thanks a lot SF, I will work on the textures, but before I do I have to ask some questions fearing to sound dumb,

1. Agree

2. Should I use a better texture?

3. How do you increase only the FG reflectivity of the material?...I am guessing is not the map, I also don't know where to find the reflectivity channel.

4. Would you suggest using a smoother texture instead, something like concrete perhaps? I was trying to use something that looked like volcanic rock tiles as in the real one.

[harishna 847]

Time for a small update! roof junk added and played with some of the textures. I still have to add trees,no idea here on how to do this, so can someone be so gently and give me a hint? (I know there are some good models out there but they usually high poly same as the ones included in Max). Well besides this I am not sure if there is something else to be done, oh yes night lights....

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  Edited March 1, 2011 by harishna  

[thingfishs 416]

Hi Harishna,

sorry, I forgot all about your plant predicament. If you could give me a bit more of an idea of the kind of plants you're looking for, that would be good.

As for the poly count, why is that an issue? Once rendered, poly count isn't a factor.

[harishna 847]

Hi Thingfishs nice to see you around here, as I am modeling the whole lot it would be really difficult to add the trees as props after rendering the building so I need to model the trees. My building is already around 80k poly's so if I add 6 tress with a similar amount of polys each I am fearing it could become an issue at the rendering stage besides increasing the size of the file drastically, and all this just for the trees (which are important of course) but probably there are other simpler techniques that give satisfactory results. So that is why I am thinking on trying the billboard technique described in the 3dmax tutorials, I just want to be sure if this technique is the most appropriated in this case. I just read Skycrapers post where he says that for his latest model the poly count went up to 1.1 million just because of the plants, I don't think my computer can render something that complex....

[harishna 847]

Have been playing with the flora using "billboard" trees, observations, comments, suggestions are always welcome

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[Jasoncw 11,841]

The billboard trees look better than I would expect, but I think you could just download some 3D trees instead.

http://seek.autodesk.com/search/xfrog?source=QuickLinks&resetft=true

You might want to do some prep work on them to get them ready for SimCity/BATing use.

[bixel 1,223]

Billboard trees look fantastic.. what are they how do they work?

[nofunk 1,933]

I'm with Jason: the billboard trees look better than I would have expected, but you can still tell what they are. You should definitely check out some 3D trees if you get the chance!

This is such a unique building and you're doing a great job on it! I can't wait to see more!

[harishna 847]

Thanks for stopping by Jason and NoFunk I will give it a go with the 3D trees, hope my computer doesn't burn

Hi Bixel, thanks to make the billboard trees I get a render from front image of a 3D tree then all I do is apply this as a texture to a plane then use a cutout map and finally make an array with 12 or so of these, the problem is that at some angles the planes don't look good. I guess using the orientation of the cameras (if I only new this) as a reference could improve the results.

  Edited March 7, 2011 by harishna  

[harishna 847]

So I have been playing with the flora, definitely the ones I think look more natural are the modeled ones but they also more resource demanding and my computer seems not to like em. In the rendered preview scene are two pre-modeled trees, two foliage (3ds max), and two billboard trees, I am sure you will be able to see the differences and tell one from the other. I would like to use the foliage ones as they seem not to be so resource consuming but they look like blurry and not dense enough for me, the billboard ones are the less resource consuming and even if they don´t look too bad but there is something that doesn't convince me It think is the fact that the light doesn't interact as you expect to do with a tree as they are made of only 2d planes so at the end you can tell what they are...so bottom line, is there a way to make the modeled ones more friendly or to make the foliage ones look more natural? I already changed the map textures from bitmaps to noise to the pre-modeled ones. Oh it took well over 40 minutes to render this preview...

Any comments regarding the trees or anything else welcome

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  Edited March 8, 2011 by harishna  

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Earlier I think you told me that it took 20 minutes to render it before the trees, but that seems longer than it needs to be.

On all of your materials that have subtle reflections, check the "FG + Highlights Only" checkbox. If there are reflections which are somewhat strong, but also blurry, you can check the Fast (Interpolate) checkbox. After you've done that you can do a render and compare it to an older one to see if the quality is affected in a significant way (which I don't think it would be).

And then you should enable Ambient Occlusion on some of your materials. This is in the Special Effects rollout of the arch & design material. This will actually increase the rendering time, but it will be important in making things look good in the shade. I would enable ambient occlusion on the stairs material, and the rocky wall material to start with. Maybe make the distance 3 meters.

[nihonkaranws 88]

What the hell is this? This is probably themost unique of models I've seen yet to come around. Modeling and texturing is very well done, although I can't help but feel that there's some oversaturation going on with the burgundy/pink/red color. Also, I'm curious, what method did you use to model the tiled area in the back gardens of the building? Or is it just texture?

edit: Ahh sorry just went to page 1 and realized what it was, UNAM library. How ignorant am I?

  Edited March 9, 2011 by nihonkaranws  

[harishna 847]

Thanks very much Nihonkaranws indeed there is too much red, unfortunately the roofs in Mexico are protected using an insulation material that consist in a "paint" that is red, and has to be constantly re-applied, if you look at the roofs in Mexico you will see a lot of red mainly not from tiles but rather from this insulation material, I am trying to make this as close to the real thing as my abilities allow me, so if I want to stay true to the building I have to make the plaza red and the roof red, but as you said this leaves with a lot of red, if it looks too bad in game maybe I could go for something more brownish for the roof or the plaza (any other ideas on this?)...I have also considered making a second version with a grayish roof more game friendly, but I don't know if I will have the time

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Yeah, the reddish roof texture clashes with what we are used to seeing in game, hence it can look odd at a first glance. However, I don't think you'll have to desaturate it that much. Actually, I like the texture on the lower roof very much! It's more stained, which not only adds more life and variety to it, but also makes it a tad darker overall. If you go the same way with the upper roof, you should be fine.

You should also take care of the roof on top of the elevator/tech penthouse -on your screenshot, the upper right and upper left edges are not really visible, and the step down towards the lower roof sections is not really apparent because the different roof textures "bleed" into each other seamlessly. Tracing all contours in a slightly darker or brighter colour (dodge/burn tool in Photoshop) is often helpful in such situations. If you overdo it, the result might look too cartoonish, but if you find the right intensity, it will help the eye to sort out the geometry and tie the individual parts of the building together.

Btw, will everything we see in your preview render fill the lot completely?

[harishna 847]

I hope this a step forward in the right direction Twrecks, the lot I am modeling measures 80x80m so it should sit nicely in a 5x5 lot, I think is big enough so no plans to add anything else, at least not at this point....

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[nihonkaranws 88]

Looking amazing. About the red roof, actually quite interesting, never knew that. Maybe forget about desaturating too much as you mentioned. A game friendly version is a good idea, but I think I like the uniqueness of the red at second glance. Just keep going like this, because Ive been looking at some images of the actual building and you're spot on.

Yours actually looks better than the real thing, because the way you've modeled it implies that it would fit in well in an urban environment, near an art galery or something, unlike the real thing sitting in the middle of a park, hiding amidst trees.

keep up the excellent work

[gutterclub 2,729]

I'm glad you have perservered and perservered with this because it's looking pretty great and unique.

[SimFox 802]

I think roof is fine! But the fluorescent paving of the plaza isn't... It is highly un-natural color of like that can't really exist in a world of reflected light, only in the world of active light (like monitors), let along being on the ground under the scorching sun. I think you should tone it done. You see in Bat4Max gamma correction colors saturation is busted by 20%. This is done to make light coloring (both sun and shadow/sky) more noticeable. However it affects all the bitmaps you use. So you would have to tone them down simply to keep them natural. And that is on top of normal saturation problems with many photos. What looks good on a picture doesn't necessarily translates into the good texture.

I've took some liberty and adjusted part of the tiles towards what I think would look more true to life:

[harishna 847]

Thanks: Nihonkaranws amd Gutterclub, it is really encouraging to receive good comments!

SimFox: Thanks very much as always your knowledge is enlightening, I see your point with the tiles so I guessed the grass also needed to look less radioactive. I made these changes plus added some "foliage" trees. I guess I will change the tree at the bottom, and I was thinking in adding some dirt to the base of the trees...but other than that I think I can say I am pretty much done with the day model, unless of course I am missing something...So comments welcome!

Rendering time for the preview was close to an hour...I have to admit I was working in a word document in the mean time, but just typing nothing else

  Edited March 11, 2011 by harishna  

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

This building is just looking better and better every post you put up.

[tcx 170]

beautiful model, you are doing an excellent job.