nybt-forum-threads PBGV's BAT Thread

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Well, the fact that the glass now actually looks reflective is a huge step forward.

However, I agree that the effect of the bump map looks a bit too strong and monotonous right now SimFox already posted instructions that should help you to avoid this effect - if not, check out Jason's BAT thread, where he built that all-glass building. IIRC, he posted a picture of the bump map he used there.

 

And nope, you don't need to model the buildings around. SimFox speaks of a "map", i. e. (if I'm not mistaken) a ground plane (it can be a city viewed from bird's eye perspective) that is not rendered and exported with the BAT, but reflected in the windows. If the map is vague enough and the bump map distorts its reflections, it will look convincing in any urban surrounding.

[PBGV103 729]

I've been using a plane below the building to get the reflections that I have. It's basically a really thin box with the material that I want to be reflected and it's been set so that only the reflections are visible in renders.

Despite kind of looking like fish scales, I'm ready to call it quits with the glass material.  I'm happy enough with it as it is now.  If I change anything now it will only be the reflection map and the bump intensity.  Oh and some of the mysterious "black/grey boxes" disappeared when I added the bump maps, and the last render was near perfect except for one object that magically turned invisible.

[SimFox 804]

you know you really need to learn to watch, to see... And actually see what is there, rather what your preconceptions of what is they tell you.

First of all about "white glass panels" on the building.

You took upon yourself to recreate rather obscure building. I'm not speaking now of it architectural qualities (with this imho it will not win any prices btw) but about availability of source material about it. It is a bit strange choice since it make all that much more difficult to proceed. And not any more difficult to spot problems with it. So you create extra difficulty for yourself.

But since you like it it's fine, it does represent particular era. Yet you reallyshould look at what is available on it. all those ten or so shots in existence. It is quite unlucky to be so close to Chrysler building which stills all the attention. Anyhow here is one shot that features both of the building in teh same frame. So it is a very helpful in this way as you ten can use numerous images of Chrysler to your purpose as well.

Look at the material of those "white glass panels" at least at the base of teh tower. DO they look either white or glass to you? Compare eh color to the also sun lit Chrysler in the background. Given some areal perspective softening and desaturation still it is clearly not white. and it neither glass not even reflective.

I'd say at the base it is rough pink granite and at eh tower it is same granite but polished. You can also clearly see difference in reflectivity of glass and those granite panels. In your models that ration is actually reversed particularly at night your panels are far more reflective then your glass is. They positively glow while glass seems having nothing to reflect.

And with the image of the distorted reflection you have shown...

do you really wanna say that that is what that picture illustrate?

Skipping the whole "pressure" discussion - it all scientific on the surface, but falls apart as soon as you try to look more closely at it - at least the way you have presented it, and concentrate at the picture you have supplied to illustrate/prove it:

so does it really show us glass bowing because of difference in pressure inside and outside of that building? if that would be the case would you agree that the pressure difference would be same across all the glass panes? Or, at the VERY least, across one panel?

In this case wouldn't the distortion - the bow would be smooth and uniform in fact a perfect curve. and that what we see in ludicrously exaggerated scale in KriptonWhite models. Now let's take another look at the same very picture. Do we actually see anything of the sort there?

those lines (paralleled rather lousy with red lines) are reflections of "perfect" straight lines, right? So if the the distortion is due to bowing these should be distorted in a perfect curved(fish eye) stile. And what do the see in reality (well in picture). We see erratic broken lines that change "direction" of distortion at any random spot on the glass plane.

So the concision one must draw from this is that it is not the bowing due to air pressure, but rather imperfection a teh surface - it is is not ideally flat, that case the distortion at this case, or at least these distortions are stronger than any bowing ones that may still be there. But not because of difference of pressure between interior of the building and the outside, but rather in pressure of outside (eg atmospheric one) and the pressure of gas (usually some inert one like argon) sandwiched between two or more planes of glass making up the window unit.

This pressure difference is a very changeable variable. it may be there one day and not another (well the degree of it at least), so it is more appropriate to drop it and just go for the surface imperfection, as it would to the great degree account for both.

BATers use it not because it "realistic" but because they think it looks cool, and because it seem to them easy to understand and easy to make. In reality it is neither. And the result - like those towers by Kriptonwhite looks ridiculous - as it very strongly impacts the impression of specially distorted (and perfectly uniformly so) glass.

And your note on the need to recreate city to create realistic reflection. If one takes that logic than any picture is impossible. What is the picture? It is a set of color smudges on a piece of pater or screen, etc. And what is reality - it is a bending of light at contact with different 3 dimensional surfaces - so nothing in common, really. Yet the picture is a faithful (as in you can recognize what is on it) representation of 3d world and it's physics on a 2d plane of the medium produced by very simple and individually not looking like anything elements - brush strokes, or pixels.

It is very obvious, it is right before you , it has always been so and there. You only have to see it. See reality. and then you cango and re-create an impression of it without playing good and starting new universe simply to represent one that is already here.

I want to finish this with following:

Don't be afraid to make mistakes, they are inevitable. Some assumptions may be faulty. If that is the case you will learn and learn not just about this particular instance, but learn to build better "case". But be afraid, very afraid of totally accidental mistakes. You'll never learn anything from those, since there is nothing to correct, but the result to which you've arrived accidentally. Next time accident will take you, well to any accidental place and than again and again and again. So it would be pure chance to get things right. How big are such accidental chances?

[PBGV103 729]

Ok well at this point I'm pretty sure I've done the best I can with this BAT, and I a day and a night render without any noticeable errors.  So, I say "if it ain't broke don't fix it."  I even somewhat fixed the LOD problem.  I tried several thing to get it to work half correctly.  Extruded splines converted to editable polys were terrible, two editable poly boxes attached worked a little better, but the best turned out to be two editable poly boxes fused with a boolean union.  I honestly have no idea what booleans are but at least it worked!  xD  I think I'm done here, now all that's left is lotting and modding.  Hopefully Gwail can still help me out with that last one. 

Also, I'm still 99% certain that the white/off-white or whatever color they are panels are in fact glass and reflective.  SimFox, you can see it in the same picture you posted above:

You can see how the reflections of the glass carry through to the white panels as well in both cases circled above.  Didn't you once lecture me on how photographs can be deceptive?

Anyway, I feel like we're nitpicking at this point.  As it's been before, there comes a time when enoughs enough. 

I'm ready to move on.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I think it's great as is and that it should be released. Well, I can't make a ploppable for you but I can mod the NYBT Custom Querry on a growable version for you if needed.

[SimFox 804]

I can make it ploppable, in fact i can do it for your Pepp, if you want, that is.

Paul, I did tell you about how deceptive photographs are, but apparently you missed the key point. And this point is, different pictures of a same object made with different settings of the camera (exposure, white balance) will produce very different looking images. Key word here is DIFFERENT. On the other hand within same picture both white balance and exposure are fixed. So if you have two objects in that picture it is absolutely valid to compare both color and brightness (provided same illumination on both objects). In fact this technique is routinely used on ANY photoshoot of ANY significance. Photographer include grayscale card with first shot (and every first shot if settings or lighting are changed) since both hue and brightness of that gray scale is know it is used later in post processing to restore true color of the scene and correct it's exposure.

In th shot we are looking at we have such a "gray scale card" - Chrysler building! Since you you so obsessively plop your building right next to the model of Chrysler why don't you compare the two - both on Photo and in game shot. Don't you see striking difference on these what you call "off-white" panels? If anything they are both darker and warmer in hue that the main color of the tower part of Chrysler. In your model on the other hand they are both brighter and much cooler producing totally different look for the tower.

As far as reflectivity of those panels (Still believe them to be granite) goes, it is at best just a small fraction of that of glass. Plus I believe that picture also clearly show that only panels on the tower and extruded bit of the base are polished. and those in the corner of the base, are not. Yet this is really minor point as overall their reflectivity is quite small.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

"Didn't you once lecture me on how photographs can be deceptive?"

Actually I thought it was me who got lectured. It was important and helped on 22 Cortlandt. I still think I didn't get it right though.

However, the model and building are absolutely amazing. I actually wanted to BAT it a loong time ago when I first discovered it was there next to Chrysler, but I never got around to it. :/ Glad you're doing it though! I wouldn't have gotten such reflectivity the building has.

[PBGV103 729]

Ok I understand what you're saying, but the Chrysler in the game has more of a pink/grey hue to it than in RL, as do many maxis buildings. I agree that having the current brighter white on my building changes the affect of it, but if I change it to the RL hue it seems to change my own visual perception of the building to being a grey or yellowish blob that really stands out and looks very bad in game. Does this mean that all of my other materials and textures are way off too?

I'd like to find out the cause of this and the best way to handle these situations in the future, but for now I think I'll just leave it as is. After just getting near perfect night and day renders I'm pretty much terrified of messing with the model and rendering again. I think I'll just move on to the next building at this point.

SimFox, when starting a new BAT, I know you have said to go from macro to micro. Do you do this with a single editable poly? Looking at the pictures of the beginnings of the Seagram Building and 500 5th, it seems that's how you approach it, but isn't that much more difficult and time consuming than what most BATers do?

[Sgt Pepper 864]

That's good that you'll move on, I get like that on some buildings myself(I did with the Downtown Club, and 22 Cortlandt Street) and almost did with Wall Street Plaza. So don't worry about it. And besides, I think it's time we get that building into our cities eh? It's wonderful!

Oh are you still going to get Gwail to mod it or let SimFox do it? I could easily mod it with the NYBT Custom Querry for it now(I recently learned, and I probably need to go back and edit some of my old uploads with the custom querry...or just leave 'em as is). Gwail would enjoy us using them, he worked hard to make those things.

[PBGV103 729]

I sent Gwail a message and I'm just waiting to hear back if he can still do it. I still need to have the old 320 PA modded, and I'm hoping he can do more than just make it a commercial plopable. He was creating custom menu icons and making sure all the NYBT BATs are in the same area of the landmarks menu. Hopefully he can still do all that stuff, I know its kinda asking a lot.

[PBGV103 729]

Ugh I don't know what to do next...

[maikeli.1 12]

PGGV103 Have you thought of socony Mobil building near the Chrysler building or 101 park ave

[PBGV103 729]

I have, it's a very interesting building indeed. For those triangles on the facade I think you'd have to make a box and extrude them out of the face of the box, but it would probably cause super lag in max having those thousands of extruded faces. But then again, I'm no pro at modeling so there must me a more efficient way to do it.

I've been seriously considering a building thats often been called a super-sized clone of the Seagram Building. It was completed just two years later and has a very similar curtain wall. It's kind of intimidating though because it's somewhat famous.

[SimFox 804]

Are you talking JP Morgan Building (270 park Ave?)

Originally posted by: PBGV103

Ok I understand what you're saying, but the Chrysler in the game has more of a pink/grey hue to it than in RL, as do many maxis buildings. I agree that having the current brighter white on my building changes the affect of it, but if I change it to the RL hue it seems to change my own visual perception of the building to being a grey or yellowish blob that really stands out and looks very bad in game. Does this mean that all of my other materials and textures are way off too?

quote>

well you see, but that is a given. And you as an artist hae to work with it - it is your environment, you making things for that environment, that's why they have to fit.

I know sometimes one wants to brake free, and try new approach, but it would only work if your new way is close enough to ease into old one. Or if you want to "destroy the old (to the ground) and build anew" pardon my lose quote from "international". Yet we all know the result of tht movement... Game is sort of built around those warm hues. going against it really like spitting against the window, you may try but the result would be the same, practically always.

I mean set aside this building would look fine, it only have somewhat a problem sitting right next to game's Chrysler... Of course you could go and replace that ... Just a suggestion...

Not that far fetch though... You would have a ton or reference material...

BTW here is a picture of both:

I'll start new thread "Resources" or some such... and post the links to the stuff that old be helpful to the group.

Originally posted by: PBGV103

I'd like to find out the cause of this and the best way to handle these situations in the future, but for now I think I'll just leave it as is. After just getting near perfect night and day renders I'm pretty much terrified of messing with the model and rendering again. I think I'll just move on

to the next building at this point.

quote>

I know what you mean... it is always so difficult to walk that last stretch... when everything seem is there it looks recognizable and could be in game yesterday... And you are fully in your rignt. At some point the final dot/period has to pe put. So why not now...

Originally posted by: PBGV103

SimFox, when starting a new BAT, I know you have said to go from macro to micro. Do you do this with a single editable poly? Looking at the pictures of the beginnings of the Seagram Building and 500 5th, it seems that's how you approach it, but isn't that much more difficult and time consuming than what most BATers do?quote>

I actually do. because building is all about the proportions and you have to fit it into certain space. This may, in fact force you to little bit alter those - for instance on Seagram the windows about 5cm wider that they should have been in order to make it sit precisely on 4x6 lot. But that number is individually unnoticeable. Given the stretch it doesn't really affect the "look" but it has to be consistent, you have to have limits. Like drawing head you start with the general shape of it, than you mark the line of eyes- the middle of the head, than where the nose should end - again the middle of the lower half and so on... You do same with building this way you know tht everything will fit into space you have and will be proportional to each other.

So this is you mock up of the building. Once you are done with it. you may go and create individual repetitive element. Like the window "module" in Seagram, but that element is a section of the larger module - that way it will be of right size - and it not necessarily set number of meters/centimeters of some such, but say 1/6th of the bigger "module"- the space between columns. Than you can simply clone it to your heart content - it will fall right in place in your mock-up. You would also notice that the tiles of the plaza are of same size and many other things... Things that help you to actually do pretty decent re-creation without technical drawings of the thing.

And how you do it in practical term isn't all that important. You can start with one box and go on subdividing and extruding it. You may have also many boxes... I normally do it the first way though. I think it is easier to do "part of " thing - don't even need to constantly calculate sizes - just  half of that, sixth of this - well most of the time... I also use "sizer" boxes - to extrude to the right amoung  (by using snap to pixels).

Anyway the point is a principle and not it practical realization - that is to be good and comfortable to you personally.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Originally posted by: PBGV103

I sent Gwail a message and I'm just waiting to hear back if he can still do it. I still need to have the old 320 PA modded, and I'm hoping he can do more than just make it a commercial plopable. He was creating custom menu icons and making sure all the NYBT BATs are in the same area of the landmarks menu. Hopefully he can still do all that stuff, I know its kinda asking a lot.quote>

Yes, it will be great if others in NYBT had there buildings modd were they will be in the same area. I thought about updating my Apartments were the name will start AG, like AG Worthtington Apartments and AG Sunset Apartments so when you decide to plop them they will be in the same area in the buildingplop cheat window, why because I hate going up and down the buildingplop cheat window to look for buildings and stuff. The NYBT buildings that was modded buy Gwail are in the same area in the buildingplop cheat window.

Another thing is that NYBT needs more people that know how to modd the lot where they can customize the Landmark menu images, so if one day Gwail decided not to vist this website for a munth or a year it will not be a dead end for those who want to have there lot to have a customized NYBT Image for the landmark menu.

To let everyone know I did modd the NYBT One Times Square Landmark Image, but learning it to me was one of the hardest things I have ever did. I do still need help on how to put the words on the image, like NYBT, CS $ and so on.

[PBGV103 729]

I've talked to Gwail and sent him the files to be modded. So he is still here, if that's what you're worried about.

Edit:  Just saw your post SimFox.  Yep, that's the one.  I know it's no Seagram Building, and Bunshaft kind of copied van der Rohe, but I love it none the less.  There's just something about the minimalist form of it and the way that it towers over PA that I love.  SimFox, I really need to get into your head to do this one justice.  hahaha  Just a second ago I put your Seagram side by side with 425 Lex, and 425 looks like an untextured blob.  hahaha  Maybe it's just the incredible detail you put into your buildings, but looking at the two side by side almost makes it seem like my version of max just isn't rendering to the same level as your's.  Mine looks "fuzzy" or something.  For instance, you can clearly make out the thin details of the railing around the roof of your building, where as in mine, I had to super size the railing to make the max pick up on it for the render.  I'm no max expert by any stretch, but I feel like I have to exaggerate thickness to get objects to render sometimes. 

Anyway, yes, the former Union Carbide Building is the one I want to do next.

I just read your edit to your last post.  Thanks for the tips.  I think I'll try doing 270 PA the way you suggested.  I don't think i need to worry about making the window panes .05% larger since this building doesn't have a plaza like the Seagram.  I'll need to find the measurements though.  I have a book that has a drawing of a typical floor plan, but any measurements are so small they weren't printed clearly.  I know the height is 215.50m from the street, there are 52 floors, and the ground floor seems to be triple height.  I guess that's a starting point.  Does anyone know where I can get floor plans?  If not, I would estimate that the building is about 61-62m at its widest and about 125-126m long.  Does that seem reasonable?

[SimFox 804]

Well I can assure you you have same MAX setting as i do (well most of the time).

You do need to oversize things, cause if you make railing what it is it wouldn't really show.

But the trick is often in a material. It has to pick up the light in a right way. It's hard to describe, cause it isn't always strictly physically correct. As an"artists" you and me and everything else should go to create an impression of the reality. Not duplicate it. Knowing how reality is structured and how it works helps, of course. But the aim to create a look, none the less.

You should simply take Arch&Design as your starting point and experiment with it.

Anyway here is something that may be helpful to you at you new enterprise:

1:850 (as claimed) paper model of JP Morgan

[PBGV103 729]

I'm not sure if the paper model can really be of much help. There's really nothing accurate about it. The window count per floor, floor spacing, mechanical floors, and ground floor are completely wrong, not to mention the artist left off the entire west half of the building. I think emporis's photos are much more informative. I still haven't been able to find the dimensions of the building except for the height, so I guess I'll have to estimate them.

[SimFox 804]

???

You never heard about possibility ti measure things in Google Earth?

it's simple as 1.2.3.

[PBGV103 729]

Wow! that's awesome, I didn't realize you could. hahaha thanks!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

This post should be copied to the Resources thread, I guess.

[PBGV103 729]

Hooray for boxes!

[SimFox 804]

Set your background to use MR Physical Sky map. it will give you a bit darker background and , what more important bright virtual sky, so that when you'll have something reflective, be it full reflectivity or just FG - often the best "option" it will have something properly bright to reflect rather than dull gray.

I didn't realize that this full block structure, I though the tower was there all alone...

[GuerrilaWarfare 39]

Originally posted by: SimFox

I didn't realize that this full block structure, I though the tower was there all alone...quote>

I was gonna do this building because i thought it was the tower only, but then I found out about the rest of the building and dropped it.

[PBGV103 729]

Well I'm finally finished moving into my new apartment so maybe I can seriously start on this 270. On a side note I've been having issues with the game's rendering. In software mode the antialiasing and building models looked great and scrolling was great, but shadows and lights were terrible. Hardware rendering mode fixed those issues but scrolling was super laggy, antialiasing seemed to be turned off, and the game seemed to place a thin grid over the screen; however, I went into the nvidia (gpu) control panel and overrode several of the game's preset graphics settings. It seems to have fixed everything except for the antialiasing, which got a little better, but not perfect. The other strange issue I've been having is the game was in a wide screen mode when I first installed it, but now it has switched to full screen, which leaves large black bars on the sides of the screen. I'm not sure how that happened, and I can't figure out how to switch it back. Anyone have a suggestion?

Edit: I just came across a great site that told me how to fix the resolution issue and the result is AMAZING.  I would highly recommend that anyone with the same problem check it out.  http://www.widescreengaming.net/wiki/SimCity_4

[PBGV103 729]

Hooked up my mbp to my tv and got SC4 to run in 1920x1080    here are some shots of the results

region: http://img192.imageshack.us/i/newyorkcitynewyork12825.jpg/

downtown: http://img685.imageshack.us/i/downtownmanhattannov166.jpg/

SimFox's Seagram: http://img704.imageshack.us/i/midtownmanhattanfeb1310.jpg/

You may think this is slightly pointless, but i think it's cool to see entire buildings on zoom5. 

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Interesting! Oh and how did you get the diagonal One New York Plaza? I thought Darknono35 only released an orthogonal version. And I see you're not using my new version of Wall Street Plaza.... :/

[PBGV103 729]

I think I forgot to delete the old version of wall street plaza from my plugins and yeah, that is the diagonal one new york plaza.  I think he updated the old one with the diagonal version.

[PBGV103 729]

Not much progress here.  I'm still settling into my new apartment.

zoom4

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Snazzy facade you have there. Zoom 4 I presume?

Looks like you are on the right track. Seems your ground plane is casting weird light spots on the right side, might want to look into that.