Belgian BAT-thread

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

I've added the roomers:

[artist 4]

Great job with the modeling. May I suggest to "lighten up" the brick textures a bit especially on the tower to a more grayish texture. Concerning the roof textures, I would tone down the color contrast just a bit. That should be easy if your using a procedural Tile Map. Just humble suggestions from one still learning.

[Gn_leugim 853]

Actualy, I would go otherwise from what Artist says, darken a llil more the stone texture, the tower texture looks fine, also, the new roomers loot a bit saturated (it's texture)

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

I've exported a draft to the game to see how it looks in size:

(Don't mind the lot or quality, I know they're not good)

As you can see: I've changed the textures of the lowrise. Don't know what's best... I think it's too dark now?

[artist 4]

Personally I liked the lighter texture better. I would also consider playing around with the roof texture on the main building. It "jumps out" at you too much. Foe example. Tone down the white tiles a little. Try using a procedural Tile Map (if GMAX has the capability of procedural tile maps, sorry I don't know much about GMAX). You can get almost an unlimited amount of variations with this map. The scale looks too big as well. Over all though, It's a fine looking building.

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

@ Artist: I had the same feeling about the texture...

the roof is a bit strange: it should be the same as the tower, don't know why that one is so bright

Thank you for the comments!

[artist 4]

No problem. Glad to help

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

Finally... Due to some personal setbacks, I've hadn't had the time to finish the Belfy.

But I'm almost there.

It's too big to fit in one view (without losing some quality) so I have two parts:

Now on to the nightlights...

Any comments?

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

I've now seen that the lower windows in the tower aren't in place... I'll fix that one right now

[Amthaak 1,501]

Salut "cousin"!

You really did a great job! But IMHO, you need to do more work on the roof texture,

1-they look too blue (I know that the RL  pic above give this impression, but it's slate tales, which look blue because the strong sun). It should be greyer (try to look at cgtextures)

2-it should be better also, to use a 1 to 1 map in order to have this repetitivity!

For the rest, the work you did for the tower is awsome! Can't wait for the next update!

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

Here is the new roof...

I also found a problem that might be usefull to others: the roof is a rectangle, but I had to rotate the texture 90° in order to get is right (when building a rectangle, the top isn't always the top, so it seems... In my case: the top was on the side)

The walls are probably the same issue...

[Amthaak 1,501]

Much better!

[DocRorlach 25]

Pachtig! Having sat in a newrby cafe a few afternoons, I can really appreciate the building. Only thing I do not agree on is the idea of making the main building's brick texture lighter than the tower's. The original is a weathered grey (unless they did one of those aweful sand-blast jobs they committed on the radhuis in Brussels - yugh). The tint your model has now is yellowish and simply looks too clean. Nonetheless, I'd download it it the moment it hits the STEX.

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

@DocRorlach: the main building (Lakenhalle) is lighter than the tower (it's made in sandstone). The idea with this Bat is to give this building it's former glory back: the tower used to have shiny golden ornaments and colored statues (the history books quotes: "on a sunny day the tower could be seen from many miles away, shining like a lighthouse"). Due to savings they are now dull and gray. So I've given the tower the restoration it needs (just as I did wih the Booktower).

The same for the Lakenhalle... I can't give the tower a restoration and neglect the Lakenhalle. It's weatherd gray because nobody wants to restore it. So I did it virtually

A politician from my home town once said: "Tourists love old stuff, if it looks new, they'll think it's a fake". So they waited to restore an ancient Roman wall untill it almost fell down. And what have they done with it so far? They've placed a fence around it 

So I've tried to show how the Belfry and the Lakenhalle should look with decent fundings. Don't know if it's better, but it's the idea that counts no?

The texture isn't perfect yet (to much repetitive) so that's my job for today

[Simbourgeois 139]

I really like the building! It will be a great addition to any European-style cities!

I agree that the new roof texture looks much better!

The windows of the main building look a bit...hmmm...black. Maybe you could add some variety.

Best regards,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

I'm having some problems with my textures:

The roof looks OK in Gmax. It also looks OK in East-view (see above)... but the West view gives this:

The texture is all wrong...

Will this be OK in a render or is the problem caused by mirroring the other roof?

Thanks

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I think it might be the mirroring problem. There is more than one way to mirror things, and one of the ways is "broken" and causes that problem. I never bothered using the mirror tool when I used gmax, so I don't know which is the right way of mirroring.

[tzotzil99 2]

Oh man, those texture quirks are tough. Texturing is probably my favorite part of trying to BAT, but also the part that gave me biggest headaches as I remember. I often decided to just re-map and re-texture from the beginning in case there was something weird that I missed as I fussed and fiddled. I always have previous saved versions I can go back to as well. It makes for some repetitive work but it can take so much time to figure exactly why something inexplicable is happening in just one part of the model that it probably evens out in the end.

This looks like it will be another wonderful building to download. Playing with a euro theme gives you all the best stuff!! I'd love to see another in game post render pic with the new textures.

I enjoyed your explanation for why you cleaned up the building. We get to be gods in the game and can alter what we like for our own reasons and that is way fun. I was just in Spain last year visiting a friend and stopped to see the cathedrals in Burgos and Leon, both with famous glasswork (I do stained glass myself). Both have been scrubbed and renovated over many years and they probably have NEVER looked like they do now for most of their hundreds of years of existence. Yeah, so maybe they aren't as atmospheric as they might have been all stained and crusty but there is no doubt those who spent their lifetimes working on building them would have enjoyed seeing them in their idealized state.

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

The rooftexture-problem is solved... It was caused by the mirror..

I've copied the other roof now and it looks much better:

So to all GMAX-users: don't use mirror!

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

@tzotzil99: thank you for the comment. I have lots of other European-styled Bats in my mind... the next one will be something special

Well... Belgium isn't doing so well when it comes to preserving old buildings. The Atomium almost fell apart when our politicians decided to do something. And what was that something: weeks and weeks of discussing who would pay for it...

And what really pissed me of: this is what happend to the medieval "Maagendentoren" from Zichem (not far from my home town):

Why did this happen? Because no politician cared about it (as in: brought no tourists). For more then 20 years, they were discussing about it... And look at it now... Restoring it in this condition will cost much, much more... so they are just going to leave it this way...

Oh well... back to the purpose of this thread...

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

I've done a decent export this night to see how it would look in the game... I also scaled it down a bit because it looked too high.

This is a close-up pic of the Lakenhalle

Full views

I'm not really happy with the Lakenhalle... it seems squashed? Maybe I need to scale it in the width?

[DocRorlach 25]

It looks great, my only observation is that the windows in the tower (as well as the clock) appear to be nearly four floors high when seen next to regular Maxis buildings. Now this may really be the case but they do seem etra large. Everything else (including the windows and clock details) is absolutely brilliant. Moi werk, echt prachtig!

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

The clock and the windows aren't four floors high I think but one roman digit on the clock has the size of a regular human. So the clock is about 5x that size (=9 metres). The clock and the windows have the right proportions (to each other), so that should be OK. The golden dragon on the top is taller than a human. The red door at the bottom of the tower has two little windows in it (the black dots): they are a little higher then I am tall (1.80 metres). So the door is about 4 metres I guess.

But compared to the floors of maxis-buildings, it does seem off... but are they real in size? I always tought they were too small to be real (compared to pedestrians and cars).

[DocRorlach 25]

A simple way to compare would be to place the tower next to either vanderapp's D'huis series or SFBT's Hamburg/Berlin residentials. Both are to scale (and less American looking than Maxis original).

I also would like to ask if it were possible to release the buildings adjecent to your boekentoren separately because I do like them rather, and again - strictly visually - I find the tower to tall when placed in a medium sized city.

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

The Belfry is on the Stex... along with a nice map of ghent too (thank you drunkapple)!

Thanks to everyone for their help and comments!!!

While I was waiting for comments on the Belfry, I've started my next project.

I've learned a lot the past year, and I'll use it for this new Bat.

I'm not gonna tell just yet what, but here's a teaser.

PS: Can you see what's on the computer screen?

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Lovely can't wait to see more.

[mntoes 270]

I love it. Even the sims are playing Sim City4. ..lol nice touch.

[WC_EEND 9]

Looks like they're playing SC4

As for the building itself, I'm really curious about what it is and can't wait to see more.

I'll make a wild guess and say it's either the "Vooruit" or "Gent-Sint-Pieters"

Xander

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

Sorry Xander... the BAT is not on my list. I've kept this one a secret

[Rikkeflik 1]

Can't wait to see it when it's finished!

I see the MG-tower is 'under construction'. I've seen something about the tower on youtube, looks really impressive