nybt-forum-threads PBGV's BAT Thread

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks great sir.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I was actually about to ask you about that black glassy building. 600 Lexington eh? Stunning. Shiney, and most definately stunning. The glare on the night windows of 600 Lexington look a tad odd to me...like its too much for the building...but then again it might be just my personal preference. Its great work.

I can't answer you're question about the render times...I wonder if it has to do with the amount of detail. As you can tell, it doesn't look like 600 Lexington uses alot of materials and it does have a flatter appearance than 345 Park Avenue...just a thought.

[Cockatoo 2,257]

Your way of making glass gives very beautiful results, but I think in this latest case the bump maps are too strong. When the lumps go past a certain level, the ground reflections become too blurred / distorted the glass illusion starts to get lost. The tower ends up looking like it’s made from a lumpy semi-reflective sort of plastic. Tone them down a bit and I think it'll look a lot better.

The night reflections I think could also be a little smaller and scattered a little more evenly.

[PBGV103 729]

Is this any better?

[Vlasky 1,803]

Imho, the lines between window panes are now more visible, but it wouldn't hurt if they showed more on dark parts of building as well. Because whenever there is a dark reflecion it looks like solid panewith very very noisy surface, instead of wavy. But it does look good.

[PBGV103 729]

The real building has has thin braces holding the panes in. If I made mine much thicker it would be getting away from being a recreation. Plus it would take many, many hours of poly editing.

[gutterclub 2,729]

I really like the day scene, think you've got it just right. I think the night scene has too much of a water effect with the enviroment reflections, I think I few more 'red squiggles' and it bit less of the ripple water effect if possible..hope that makes sense

[PBGV103 729]

Hmmm... I'm curious, why is it that this one bothers everyone, when the ground plane materials are the same for 345 park ave and you guys seem to like that one? The glass materials are nearly identical as well.

[gutterclub 2,729]

It's probably just because there is more glass. A fully reflective building of this size is probably the hardest BAT to get right..I think you pretty much have. The night lights still look great, just a minor suggestion.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I didn't even notice you used the same night textures...maybe I noticed the specific lit up window textures but I didn't notice you used the same glass night ripple effect thing...

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

All these are awesome!

[PBGV103 729]

I think I'm finally done with the night scene for 345.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

I like it. Have you tried this posted below?

Looks great, the trees have some of the Max default gray behind it, you should try exporting it tby having the back ground the same color as the trees, try to get the darkest color from the tress. SimFox have said this in sc4devotion in Girafe thread.

Edit: What if I do not want the building on a slope how will it react to that, is the LODs something like mines like when I have made the Kingsbridge and Bainbridge Apartments??

[Vlasky 1,803]

The night scene looks great!

[SimFox 804]

Hello peeps!

Well I guess I should start with customary praises and compliments. And indeed this is a beautiful model to behold!

But that had been said countless times before and since I'm not terribly good at sugar and honey I'd turn to the problems right away. I hope esteemed author and rest of the invested public around this parts would excuse my rudeness.

OK first of all the dreaded shadows. Well these are inevitable part of the decision to make it slopped. Although it is already done I still think I should say couple of words on this decision.

First of all what is the point of making it like that? Accuracy? Well it is an admirable thing, yet, I strongly believe one should keep an eye on appropriateness and content. And imho in this case both would really be against it. To put is simple - no slop - no issues! Period. Yes it would demand some creative approach to the base. And that I'm afraid is the real reason. I mean reason to go for slop, not abstract accurateness. That basically flies out of very high floor window once PBGV103 states "unless this is surrounded by farms or tiny buildings the shadow issues is small enough that you won't notice it". The funny bit is that exactly same applies to the whole slope thing! The truth is that the game doesn't really handle slopes well, not in the "in block" slopes. In a countryside when you do picturesque farms slope away... in a cities and especially within the block no sure... But that is taste related ranting...

If to think about problem at hand... well, there are some potential solutions. First of all if you make the building as a prop (somewhat bizarre choice, I'd come back to later) why not to disable shadows altogether? Think of it, especially withing the context of your "small buildings and farms" what exactly will you loose? Shadows don't really fall onto other buildings. And shaded ground and "sunny" buildings sticking straight out of it ... don't they look silly?

Another approach is to make custom foundation. Of course you would need to convert your model back to building. Just chop off a part of your model with slice plane and there you have it! You would need to raise it above ground though and when exporting LODs for it just select Foundations. To keep all shadows, etc in place you can actually keep your building above it just make that part invisible to camera. You should get all the shows, AO, color bleeds but not the actual building.

One more way would be simply to cut away all the bits "under the ground" I see no reason whey that would be a problem with GMAX. Of course4 it would make impossible to use the model on a flat ground, but I'm sorry you are already neck deep in that.

There is one more way - simply create very tight "glass" penal for your model. And make the whole thing invisible to camera, but visible to reflections/refractions. And make the bottom edge of that penal appropriately cut. Here you would need to make sure that all your AO is are "real" one. It may lengthen render time somewhat but will overall improve the result.

Well that's the slop issue... Apart form that there are few points worth mentioning. One being bright fringe showing around shaded trees - and here Aaron is right - just adjust you BG color appropriately.

Another, is general black and white (well gray-scale actually) feel of the model. I does severely lucks colors. Nothing is so pale in real world. It make is look both fake and alien in game. And that goes for all bits and pieces walls, glass, shades roofs. All apart from Plaza... and look what a difference it makes - it's alive, real... the rest is not...

Again I hope you wouldn't think I'm here to trash your work... If fact I only write comments when I really care about some project. And I normally do only when it good enough for me to be envious!

[Chris M 406]

Any updates on all of these great works? I know we're all excited to see them on the STEX as long as you're ready to release them.

[io_bg 249]

The new version of 345 Park Avenue is a huge improvement over the previous one! The same goes to the Citigroup building. Like DragonAnime, I'm hoping for some news soon

  Edited November 8, 2011 by io_bg  

[weixc812 509]

Nice nice works my friend ,

If we could download them all, that will be great

[sten1700 102]

When will this be on the stex?

[Girafe 1,729]

when it will be ready

sorry I like this kind of questions ^^ and answers

[rikk 0]

not sure since i haven't been on lately but has the Citigroup Tower been finished yet?

Since a few of you asked about the top of Citigroup here's a preview of what it'll look like.

I played around with the flood lighting for the night scene too and haven't had great results, but here's a preview of that as well.

I think reducing the reflectivity of the aluminum just for the night scene will take care of a big part of the problem.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

It hasn't been finished yet. Give Paul some time please.

[PBGV103 729]

Sorry I've been MIA. My job has been consuming my life and I'm still using the same sucky computer I was this time last year. The good news is, I've saved up a little money (after dumping a bunch into stuff for the Nikon D5100 my dad got me lol), but the $700 I have won't even pay for the monitor I want. Anyway, I don't see much happening here because I don't have the time to devote to 48 hour exports, or the money to get better hardware, and yes, I know there are cheap computers out there which will perform a little better than mine, but they don't have the options of expandability that the evga sr-x has so I feel like I'd be wasting my money. And while 345 PA and 600 Lex seem nearly finished to me, no one seems to be happy with their facades: too reflective, too dull, too much color, too little color, etc. I'm not even sure what I could do to improve the walls of 345 short of making a 1:1 map, which I don't have the time or patience for. Then there's the citigroup center. 3ds max is refusing to give any decent results of the fountain with my computer. On lowest settings it takes days to render a single, simple spray. So, at this point I don't see any of those three ever being finished.

I'd be willing to put more time into this if someone can figure out how to fix any of those issues. For instance, just giving me a starting point for particle system settings would be a huge help. I don't have time for the "just play around with it" answers because I've tried and it hasn't worked and I don't have the time to keep playing around.

And by the way, I've talked to the microsoft systems engineer who works with us and showed him my work here. He seems to think I should be using a xeon based workstation for decent results. Following his advice, thats about $2000 minimum for a computer, $2000 in parts which will all be worthless in a couple years...

[gutterclub 2,729]

As suggested a few times, I'm pretty sure there would be a host of people queueing up to render your existing models for you..would be a super super shame not to see these in our cities, especially considering the hard work that went into them.

Also remember, that the comments made regarding your models are normally nitpicking because the quality is so high. Ultimately, they are your BATS and if you are happy with them then IMO they are ready for release.

Obviously it's all down to you and we all respect that..just sad that we may never see these especially with Girafe going into retirment and Simfox disapearing...the Skyscraper kings are slowly disapearing

[Parisian 556]

Man, you're one of the best Bater on that website and more largely in the SC4 community. You're contributing to this team so much through all the marvellous models you create from New York. No matter what the others think or don't think you don't care because u know and we know how high is the quality of your work. and I agree with the precedent comment that it would a shame to don't see these buildings in our cities. Anyway.

For the computer issue, I don't know what to suggest. I understand how expensive this amount represent ($2000) and problems you are encoutering to render your work. Maybe someone in the team has a more powerfull computer and could be able to render it for you faster. I don't know.

[ozdaniel 4]

I can help you, I think my computer is strong enough, jus tell me what kind of tall hi should get on my computer and tell me how to do it and I will do and sent to you back!!

[rikk 0]

Hey Paul, thanks for the update on your great contributions to the NY skyline. No rush on any of your buildings and I'm sure they will turn out fine when you're done...as always!!!

[PBGV103 729]

Hey guys. No update on any of the buildings except that I exported 345 PA and it took 28hrs, but here's an indirect update. You all may remember me talking about building a computer for rendering since my MacBook Pro is fairly slow and I need it for classes. Well I finally got started on the build. I got a Lian Li PC-P80N case and 6 high flow AeroCool fans last week. Even after $500 on that it'll still be a couple months and a lot more money before the computer even turns on because the Intel e5-2600 Xeon processors won't be released until sometime in March, along with the EVGA SR-X (the 2U motherboard) and the EVGA 1500W power supply. If any of you have experience building computers or advice on parts please comment.

If anyone is interested in a well-built case that will last a lifetime, this case is the one to get. Also, the mouse and keyboard listed below have been amazing so far.

This stuff gets expensive very fast, but at least I have a job now.

Parts already purchased:

Lian Li PC-P80N ~$400

AeroCool fans 5x 140mm ~$18 each

AeroCool fan 120mm ~$12

Western Digital Caviar Black SATA III 64MB cache 2TB HDD ~$170 back in September

Test power supply 400W ~$30 after employee discount

Cyborg R.A.T. 7 mouse ~$60 after employee discount

Cyborg v7 keyboard ~$40 bought from a friend

Parts still needed:

EVGA SR-X motherboard ~$700

EVGA 1500W power supply ~$400

Intel e5-2600 Xeon CPU 1 or 2 ~$400-2000 each

Mushkin memory 4x4GB 1600MHz 1, 2, or 3 kits ~$200 each

Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB SSD ~$215

XFX Radeon HD 6770 1GB ~$120 any near current GPU could be used here, preferably an AMD for Eyefinity

Any fast, OEM bluray burner for dual layer disks ~$100

LGA 2011 Xeon heatsink 1 or 2 ~$50-100 each

Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound ~$13

Total spent so far: ~$800

Total for future parts: ~$2200 minimum

Notes:

As you go down the "still needed" list, the top items are the most important and the lower items don't matter as much to me right now as far as being brand specific. I already have a 24.5 inch 1920x1080 Samsung monitor, but it's almost 3 years old so I may upgrade at some point. I want a GPU that supports Eyefinity because I may run multiple monitors at some point and I'd like to experiment with playing SimCity across displays, something nVidia definitely won't support. I've also played with the idea of water cooling, but I think I'll start off with air cooling to keep cost and complication to a minimum. For everyone who is about to tell me this is overkill for SImCity, this build is not just for the game, but also 3DS Max, Adobe Photoshop, etc. Also, I've tried to pick components that will provide room for future expansion. For instance the case supports 3 5.25 inch drives, 10 3.5 inch drives, and 2 2.5 inch drives, as well as 11 expansion slots.

One final note, my hope here is to build a computer that will handle large 3DS Max scenes easily, export quickly, and be somewhat future-proof. I know nothing can ever really be future proof, and the performance of computer parts doubles every couple years, but hopefully I can upgrade 1 or 2 components at a time without buying a whole new computer every couple years.

Below is a little eye-candy of what I have so far. PS ignore the damaged wall, the idiots who built this place put plaster over aluminum corners on the walls and it's falling off everywhere.

  Edited January 29, 2012 by PBGV103  

[Vlasky 1,803]

This computer looks so mean like it could conquer a planet

[Parisian 556]

This computer looks so mean like it could conquer a planet

Yes Vlasky, so far. When u look at this space ship, u imagine all the good models which will be create with that. Very stylish computer in all ways.