nybt-forum-threads PBGV's BAT Thread

[cmdp123789 710]

I like the idea. To be honest, it woul be great to get some buildings from that area, and yes, it would definetly boost morale... but in order to have that effect, timing has to be good... Just like the comment above... too many unfinished BATS, and sometimes details in the way you propose them are superb in the eye... but not so much in SC4 since we dont play at maximun zoom all the time... so, and dont take this wrong way, but before going for a massive project like that, propose a date, try to realease everything you can, forgetting about some tin details, which would definetly boost morale.. and then go for it...!!

[unclesahm 32]

I agree! Your BATs look fantastic and like cmdp said, we don't play in the maximum zoom levels most of the time, so they are perfect just the way they are! I think releasing them would give everyone a big morale boost.

[edwardjeria 503]

is a great idea, I will be inclined to the buildings of the 59th to take the final margin of central park south, or theaters times Squarer

[PBGV103 729]

Not much has changed with 299 Park Ave except I replaced the previous interior with instanced objects. It cut the file size to 5% of what it had previously been, reduced the render times, and cut the memory used during renders from 18GB to 12GB. I'll start working on lights soon, but here's what the day scene looks like.

Edit: The night scene isn't finished yet but here's a zoom3 preview.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Woah !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What an amazing job !!!!! 

[T Wrecks 10,210]

You cut the file size to 5% of the previous value? Holy cow! Well, what I can see certainly looks amazing.

 

 

One suggestion concerning the rest of your backlog: For those buildings that are "technically" ready (day and night render present, no glitches), you could release them as is on a "TIOLI" (Take it or Leave it) basis. As has been said before, you are by far your strictest critic. People will probably love the buildings anyway, and you'd have the "release pressure" off your chest. Then you could wait for a while and see how you feel about the buildings.

 

It might happen that some imperfections keep nagging you, but nothing would keep you from updating the file with a new, 110% perfect building model lateron. Assuming the dimensions don't change, everything else (lot, modding) could be kept as long as the new export model gets the same TGI values as the old one.

Then again, maybe you'd see after a while that nobody sees the imperfections you do, and eventually decide that it's not worth the bother to fix them. In this case, you could focus your energies on new projects that you would do "right" from the get-go, and leave the old ones as they are.

 

I also find it easier to create something new than to tweak and fix and technically complete stuff that's just not 100% perfect in my own opinion. I know that perfectionism, but in the end many little shortcomings no longer matter as long as the final result is good enough to make you think "well, that's nothing to be ashamed of". The pleasure about the release (and good reception of it!) then makes it easer to forgive yourself for those little mistakes that you know you made. Letting go and calling it final can really be difficult if you tend towards perfectionism.

 

That's why I made that suggestion - just some food for thought because I feel that you are very hard on yourself. I'm glad to see you chugging along, though.

[PBGV103 729]

Thanks T Wrecks, I'm not sure what I'll be doing with the other old models yet. If you pay close attention to this one, you'll probably notice that I've used the same 6 models for furniture for every floor, just in different arrangements. I don't think it's too obvious here but if I start using it on all of the buildings is might be noticeable. Here's a zoom 5 render. Nothing has changed from the earlier one yet, but only minor things still need to be added, like spotlights for the flags.

I also need to figure out a good way to set the building partially into the ground since the front is about 1.5 meters higher than the rear. Before anyone asks, no I'm not going to change the building around just to "fit the game." I make these for my own NYC recreation and I like then to be as accurate as possible. Plus changing the front would be a huge headache and probably force it onto a 4x5 lot instead of 4x4.

Aaron, if you're reading this, how do you get the underground part of your buildings meant for slopes to look right?

[cmdp123789 710]

Hmmm, forget about making different models, its your signature furniture!! I mean, the overall is excellent, and as I said before... no one is going to be judging on zoom 6 render, cause most of the players wont play on that. It is amazing the detail and the realism.. that is something we are all goin to enjoy.. for sure!! Now, Ive seen the older models, and Ive seen the speed you work with... To be honest, less details would be barely noticeable for us, and you could give the team that morale boost they are needing right now..

 

Aarons buildings have lots of details, and lots of variations, but it is not because of the zoom 6 rendering we download ad enjoy, but because of the fact that we get a new building every 2-3 weeks, sometimes less, and the overall render is amazing. Think about it, you could probably fill up most of the Midtown buildings in probably a year or so.. youve got the talent, the know how... and honestly enough details to become one of the top Batters again... 

[edwardjeria 503]

ooo 

asome work in light night

 

good work

[PBGV103 729]

Cmdp, I'm not sure what you mean by "the speed work with." It definitely takes a very long time to finish even one building. It would be impossible to make most of midtown in a single year working by myself. Even if I quit school and spent 24/7 working on these buildings I would still only get 1 large building or maybe 2 smaller buildings a month. Also, you need to consider that despite the fact that "most" people here don't play on zoom 5 or don't care about details, I do, and I make these buildings for myself and attempt to meet the standards of people like Jason and Simfox.

[jaredh 195]

As far as furniture goes...anybody that complains about 4-6 buildings with the same furniture ought to be tarred and feathered.

 

That's just my opinion.  

 

To do furniture "right" you would have to have different furniture on almost every floor....since almost every floor is owned by somebody different, and they all almost certainly used different furniture by different vendors.  Heck, I suspect it's more like every 5th window on the same floor you'd have to make different furniture.  That's just nuts.  

 

The jist of this comment...don't fret the furniture.  It's definitely in the list of "small stuff nobody ought to care isn't perfect in SimCity 4" list....right there along with text on signs, etc etc.  The fact it is there at all is icing on cake already.

 

FYI, most of your unfinished stuff looks as good as or better than the vast majority of finished stuff elsewhere (my opinion)

[gutterclub 2,729]

I make these buildings for myself and attempt to meet the standards of people like Jason and Simfox.

 

I can't speak for him but I'm pretty sure Jason thinks all your work you show us is incredible. Not sure why you worry too much about the work of someobe who doesn't actually BAT or use Simtropolis and is technically non-existant. Simfox hasn't logged on for over 2 years and due to his lull in work, some of his work is actually looking dated compared to Darknono, Aaron, Jason, Nofunk etc who are constantly releasing work! Your work is great but it seems pointless to constantly show it without ever releasing anything? I guess we could make a subforum for 3D work, as great and amazing as your work is (and it really is) it's starting to feel like it is just 3D show work and it's getting harder to imagine them as useable BAT's for the game of Sim City 4?

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

Great job!

[unclesahm 32]

I agree with everyone here -- your work is great and it'd be a shame if they weren't finished. You've clearly already devoted a great deal of time on these BATs.

 

But I may be selfish: I'm really close to finishing my midtown and I want your buildings to finish my Park Avenue. In fact, I want everyone to finish their awesome buildings so I can finish and move on to my downtown!

 

 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

As far as furniture goes...anybody that complains about 4-6 buildings with the same furniture ought to be tarred and feathered.

 

That's just my opinion.  

 

To do furniture "right" you would have to have different furniture on almost every floor....since almost every floor is owned by somebody different, and they all almost certainly used different furniture by different vendors.  Heck, I suspect it's more like every 5th window on the same floor you'd have to make different furniture.  That's just nuts.  

 

The jist of this comment...don't fret the furniture.  It's definitely in the list of "small stuff nobody ought to care isn't perfect in SimCity 4" list....right there along with text on signs, etc etc.  The fact it is there at all is icing on cake already.

 

FYI, most of your unfinished stuff looks as good as or better than the vast majority of finished stuff elsewhere (my opinion)

 

You made a real point here. This building is already a fantastic piece of work and I guess it took hours and hours of hard work to make it look so good. Making the furniture different in each and every room would be a complete overkill. There's no need for that level of detail. I'm amazed at what was created here, I won't nitpick for a frecking room that looks the same as another one.

[PBGV103 729]

I'm really close to finishing my midtown and I want your buildings to finish my Park Avenue. In fact, I want everyone to finish their awesome buildings so I can finish and move on to my downtown!

 

 

Screenshot 2014-02-03 12.47.28.png

If you're going for an accurate Midtown reproduction, you might want to take another look at where you've put your buildings. Some of them are in the right spots while others are a few blocks away from where they should be

I started working on a new building because I got tired of wasting time on the sloped lot issue and this particular building jumped out at me. It's one of the taller buildings that people tend not to notice. Unfortunately, after spending the entire weekend on it I'm about to trash it and start over. I modeled out every window and the inner and outer window frames, which led to a 700MB file and 65,000 objects for the bare walls of the building alone. I guess I'll have to jump on the poly modeling bandwagon. What worries me, though, is by making the building without blue prints, it seems like getting accurate measurements for individual elements would be impossible if modeling the entire building out of just a few objects. With my original way of making it, I could figure out the overall dimensions of the building and the relative scales of individual elements, allowing me to scale them to the correct sizes, and I wouldn't even know where to begin using quickslice, or whatever, to create tens of thousands of individual windows and frames. Do I literally have to make tens of thousands of quickslices, then reposition them all by hand, then extrude every frame by hand? It seems like doing things that way would turn a one weekend project into a month's worth of 24/7 work.

[unclesahm 32]

I know -- I've taken some creative liberties. I also have blocks in midtown that are bigger than 4 tiles so I could place other BATs there, etc. I'm not going for complete accuracy, just the spirit of it

[edwardjeria 503]

PBGV, I'll give my opinion as honest as possible, talking man to man   

1; building is amazing, no but why does a great job and it's an honor to see your work. 

 

but as I see, it seems that they will never be available projects. 

is not personal, only say what I think 

 

ps: still I have faith in you.  

[PBGV103 729]

I was planning on not posting this until it was finished, but it's taking longer than I expected. Plus this forum seems empty and sad these days.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

[unclesahm 32]

Amazing! What is it?

[cmdp123789 710]

OMG! YES!! It looks AWESOME!

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Wonderful work buddy, I will be post something soon, and plus I had to have a break from last year batting like a factory.  What is the name of the building?

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

Great job!

[PBGV103 729]

It's the Metropolitan Tower. I'm thinking about making a few of the neighboring buildings when I'm done with this one.

[edwardjeria 503]

GREAT job 

 

for those who do not know 

Metropolitan Tower is located carnegui haun side hall, in front of one 57

[Hanson784 165]

Great to see you back! Loving the way Metropolitan Tower is turning out, one of my favorite postmodern buildings in NYC. Any news with 299 Park Avenue?

 

I agree, the NYBAT fourm is looking a bit sad these days... lots of BAT almost finished but mare in limbo. I'm guilty of this since RL does get in the way of things from time to time.

[weixc812 509]

It looks pretty good, Paul

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

Wow! Gorgeous building!

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Beautiful work.