nybt-forum-threads PBGV's BAT Thread

[Vlasky 1,803]

Well I'm glad that you are on your way to achieving lighting that you're satisfied with. Another big question there is how much impact all that has on the final outcome. I'm not implying that you should use self-illumination, but really take a step back and see what would be the best solution.

 

On the Maritime Exchange, I'm not sure if you've seen it, in the 88 Broad street (little building next to Maritime) and in maritime shops and lobby, I've placed furniture and used Omni lights to light those spaces up. I've came to a conclusion that no matter how elaborate furniture models you use, it doesn't make much difference. As a matter of fact I think that simple shapes with different textures look much better than elaborate models. Because all is rarely visible in zoom 4 which is the zoom we use the most when we play the game. 

 

About plans for Art Deco month, I'll write to you in a PM.

 

All in all, I sincerely hope you won't disappear again. 

[PBGV103 729]

I just realized I have 5 "finished" and 5 unfinished models. The finished ones all need considerable changes to the interiors and lights, but I'm always just too lazy. haha

Is there any particular building you all would like to see finished or touched up first?

I've also been trying to think of what might help this team feel more like a team. Maybe we need a big group project? Like taking on a whole neighborhood. I know a large part of it is my fault for being absent so much. I've been working on a special joint project with someone else, but hopefully we can finish it up relatively quickly and everyone will enjoy it.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Nah, just release something

[edwardjeria 503]

citicorp center please

[Ion_Cannon 677]

I know you're a perfectionist so you won't want to release anything until you're 100% happy with it but those 5 buildings that are "finished" do they really need major changes? 299, 277 and 270 Park Avenue still set the benchmark for that style of skyscraper IMO and I would love to see those released.

[PBGV103 729]

277 was never even close to being finished. Only the facade and a few other details were ever made.

[Ion_Cannon 677]

I'm probably just thinking of the other two then, never been good with names, particularily when they're so similar. Is it possible to post pictures of the 5 finished and unfinished models in their current state?

[weixc812 509]

It's never your fault, Paul. We know you're too busy.

I agree with edwardjeria. The CITI tower is so unique. It will be great to see it in game

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

I want to see 270 and 299 Park Avenue finished for me to say damn Paul did it, he did it, he has set the bar on boxy buildings.

[jaredh 195]

Citicorp...

[Vlasky 1,803]

Paul would you mind making a list with all of your WIPs (and pretty pics of them please) so that people can point out what they'd like the most? I would love to see that list. I often go to your blog to check out for updates and I know that there are some but not all of them there. 

 

These are the ones I find (mostly) finished:

 

 

 

 

 

[Darknono35 3,138]

I hope to see them on the STEX one day

[PBGV103 729]

Citigroup isn't really near finished. I've been working on 299 tonight and with some new pictures I've found some major errors. I'll probably get the rest of those fixed tomorrow. 345 Park Ave needs a few updates, mainly blinds and maybe a couple materials, and all of them need modeled interiors and new night lights.

Here's the planned order with the group project thrown in somewhere.

1: 299 Park

2: 270 Park

3: 345 Park

4: 600 Lexington

5: 425 Lexington

6: Lever

7: Citigroup

8: 277 Park

9: 280 Park

10: Westin

What's left of the tower section of the Westin is simple enough, but the chaos at the base is what's putting me off on that one.

[edwardjeria 503]

paul relax, get to be a perfectionist, I also like things to be well agan to the first, then take your time and make your best attempt.

what if, could upload more pictures of your work to, do not lose heart for your patience

correct

[cmdp123789 710]

To be honest... anything you upload is worth having... even if we are building something that isnt near ny... throw us a bone hahaha!!

[edwardjeria 503]

is good idea

[PBGV103 729]

The day scene for 299 is finally finished and the interior is modeled out, but I'm not sure if it will be practical to do this in the future. It took quite a while just to make hundreds of clone copies of office furniture and arrange them, but the worst part is the file size jumped from 70 MB to 1.45 GB after adding the furniture alone! Renders at z5 still only take about 20 minutes, and for the day scene, with the dark glass, you can barely tell there's anything inside anyway. I'm sure you will be able to see the difference on the night scene, but is it worth the file size? I guess we'll see...

[edwardjeria 503]

I like to be taken too seriously work

 

but, by day I do not think office furniture is ocuras note by windows, but at night, it is a mystery

 

just tell him that I do the one you like

 

regards

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

I would love to see a day render.

[jaredh 195]

I have to assume you are not talking about a final simcity BAT of 1gb or more....and I am showing my ignorance about BAT creation

[T Wrecks 10,210]

No, no. Don't be afraid. It's the size of the 3dsmax scene that's so big. The exported BAT is actually nothing more but a bunch of 2D pictures of the BAT that are wrapped around a simple invisible box.

[PBGV103 729]

Here's a day render. I'm still working on the night scene, and I'm not sure if I like the results so far. Seeing the interior is nice, but I need to add some variation to the lights and move some lights around. I used a few photometric lights at the base and the rest are omni lights, but it's causing render times to jump from 20 minutes to 2 hours for z5. I also noticed that before I added furniture renders used about 4.5 GB of memory, with furniture they use 17.5 GB of memory, and now with the lights they use 24 GB! I just feel like there must be a better way to do this without sacrificing quality. Any ideas?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

You should be awarded honorary German citizenship for valiant and tireless overengineering. Besides, you're really starting to SimFox now in terms of releases (or lack of them).

 

You know, if I could get this building with "regular" self-illuminated night windows to fake a general impression of interior (which is still light years better than the night maps we used to be accustomed to until not long ago), I'd high-five myself for a great addition to my plugins folder. Instead I am being tormented with previews of better and better buildings, whose author keeps wondering wether 122.37% awesomeness might not be somewhat sub-par and underwhelming.

 

But seriously, two people who may be able to help you are darn42, who has been experimenting with night ligths for his Chase Tower (probably another one for the "Those who never made it to the STEX" thread), and kellydale2003. At this technical level, I'm afraid I'll have to pass.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

I Think you need to work a little more on the color of the leaves on the trees. The picture below I have Photoshopped it, maybe you can get the color close to mine, but not so saturated.

 

[darn42 1,268]

Are you using proxies for the furniture and instances for the lights? That will help immensely with memory usage.

 

Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, proxies are an object called "mr proxy" that takes a model and materials saved from an external file or from somewhere in the scene and acts like a viewport stand-in for that object. The beauty about them, is they both use very little computing power in the viewport, and the model that is referenced is loaded once upon rendertime, and then is just duplicated with minimal memory usage. They are located in the mental ray tab of the create menu. You can find a lot of good documentation on how to use them online. Do this for the office furniture and potentially any flora you use.

 

Instances will do something similar but to a lesser extent. If you want to lower the computing needed for lights, there are a few things you can do. First of all, all interior lights should be standard lights, which you are already doing, but it might be worth using spot or direct lights. Omni lights are essentially 6 spotlights, so a combination of 1 or 2 spotlights in lieu of an omni light could greatly improve rendering time. Regardless, make sure to set the far attenuation. This limits the distance the light works, preventing the calculation of light of negligible importance that is far away from the light.

Also, use ray-traced shadows, the calculation time isn't too much more than shadow maps but it decreases rendertime by a whole lot. Or on the flip side, you could save the shadow maps made by the interior lights to a separate file and access that over and over again, it would increase ram usage, but you'd only have to calculate the interior lights one time and it would be quick rendering from then on. I don't know exactly how to do that because I've never needed to, but it might be worth looking into.

 

Another bit that will decrease rendertime if ray-tracing the shadows, though increase ram usage or vis-versa, is to increase or decrease the max quad-tree depth in the standard light. Increasing it decreases the amount of calculation needed to create the shadows, but the way it does so uses more ram.

 

One last bit about the lights, there's an option to turn off specular or use ambient only in the advanced effects rollout, I've never experimented with that, but for interior lights I can't imagine specular being useful for interior lights, since the materials inside are going to be bare-bones, and if they aren't it should (no reflection, no transparency except for maybe blinds). Turning it off might help rendering speed and memory.

 

That's a lot of information, but I hope it helps. I'm really really excited to see how this turns out. Also, 24 gb of ram?!? Do you have a rendering farm in your house or something? I've got 8!

[PBGV103 729]

Wow that is a lot of information! I had never heard of using proxies in 3ds max before, but I always thought something like that would be very helpful. Thank you Darn!

Also, the computer has 32 GB of memory right now. It can have up to 64 GB unbuffered memory or, supposedly, 128 GB buffered, but I don't see myself looking for an upgrade anytime soon. If anything I would spring for the upgrade from the 4 core CPU to a 6 core first.

[Seraf 1,239]

Well, this is the point where I cannot say anything about how to get your BATs better because I think they are perfect And I'm afraid I can't be any help in technical questions

[Darknono35 3,138]

I recognized your BAT here

I like it, keep it up

[PBGV103 729]

I've realized that I find making the basic facades of buildings much more enjoyable than the millions of little details it takes to actually finish a building, and unfortunately those little details take up 90% of the time it takes to make a building. This is why I now have more unfinished buildings than finished.

I've also noticed that this team seems to be lacking motivation to do anything these days. So I think we need some kind of team-wide project to boost morale. Maybe we can pick a neighborhood in Manhattan and all pick a building or two to make. That way we'll end up with a cohesive, finished product and yet, even if one of the buildings doesn't get finished we'll still have something. I was thinking maybe we could do the area around One57 or Chrysler since there's a wide range of architectural styles that would suit the taste of anyone on this team. What do you guys think?

[weixc812 509]

Actually, I think there're too many unfinished BATs in your hand. I believe they are almost done now...maybe just one kick away from STEX(If you're not so demanding). You have a super computer, Paul. You're the few ones that can still bring us surprises, or the old new things that we've already seen and anticipated. We're afraid they become the unfinished ones forever. It's a shame like that.

I just deadly wish one or two of them get finished before we start a new team project.