nybt-forum-threads PBGV's BAT Thread

[Vlasky 1,803]

It looks excellent. Can't wait to see the model finished.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks Great.

[PBGV103 729]

Thanks guys!

The facade around the hvac stuff on the roof appears to have some kind of netting around it from the pictures I've seen, so I tried to replicate this effect in 3ds max last night.  Of course the screen material in the material library didn't look right at all, so I took arch & design and turned off all reflectivity and glossiness.  This just put a light blue tint on whatever was behind it, so then I changed the trasparency color to a dark grey.  This got rid of the blue, but now you can't see through at all.  I must have played around with it for over two hours before I gave up.  What I'm looking for is a dark grey tint on anything behind the material, to give to look of a screen.  Anyone have any advice?

This is what it looks like at the point that I gave up:

SimFox, if you're still out there, I really need your help!  Save me!!!!!!!   hahaha

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Very nice and shiney. Verry shiney.

If I was the supa MAX expert SimFox I would save ya but...yea...haha

One thing I have to say besides how great it's coming along is how the very top roof texture looks. I'm noticing some tiling on the black penthouse roof texture, and the roof texture below the penthouse almost looks like it's some clean marble-looking material...other than that it's pretty damn nice.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks really good, But does the roof suppost to be that shinny? I think you need to tone the shades on the windows down a bit because that look to thick or looks like there out of the window, But like Sgt Pepper said, I'm also not a 3ds max master. I beet some other 3ds max user help you out.

[PBGV103 729]

Hahaha yeah, the roof is from the concrete material library that came with 3ds max. I'm planning on changing it to something that looks more like rough concrete or gravel you'd find on a roof, rather than what looks like polished concrete. The blackish material on the roof of the small structure is a roof tar texture, also from the material library, but I really don't like the look of it either. I feel like I always fail at finding convincing materials. I'm honestly getting tired of just guessing at materials since every zoom5 render takes 40 minutes. I really need an expert to just tell me what to do. hahahaha

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

I know what you mean, and 40 minutes to render. Wow, and that not even a export, thats a long time.

[PBGV103 729]

Here's a preview of what I've been working on tonight.

Zoom 3

[Cockatoo 2,257]

Your work is really impressive! We need zoom 5 though, I can't see enough detail to make a comment on what you've changed since last time.

I will say one thing though, I hope you've changed the texture on the upper roof. It shouldn't shine like that, roofs are supposed to look weathered, almost dirty in some cases.

[PBGV103 729]

Thanks! I replaced several materials. That specific one I replaced with another autodesk material that's supposed to look like roof top gravel; however it creates a bothersome pattern because it clearly repeats. I guess that material was intended for smaller areas because if I use a UVW map to stretch it out it looks obviously stretched. I might have to make a custom material.  Same thing goes for some of the wall materials, and I have no idea what to do for the white thing.  Maybe like corrugated aluminum? 

Here's zoom 5:

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Using Autodesk's premade materiel is one thing, but relying on their bitmaps is another. Generally, you will need to make and use your own bitmaps to best fit the situation. Especially when it comes to a roof, you may need to make a 1:1 bitmap, which is to say one that fits the roof object tightly and may have dirt or rust or grime that corresponds directly to objects on the roof.

Do not be afraid to hide everything but your roof junk and play around with bitmaps. See what images work well for those metal HVAC fans, see if you can find a good gravel for the roof. Making and building up your bitmap library now will make things easier down the road

Did I mention that things are looking lovely?

[lucky7 73]

Wow, this is looking good so far, looking forward to the final outcome,

lucky7

[PBGV103 729]

I've probably spent 5 hours over the past couple days experimenting with different bitmaps, bump maps, and UVW maps, and I finally have a material for the roof gravel that I'm satisfied with.  Next I have to fix the roof tar material and the material for the brownish walls.

After I fix the materials listed above I'll move on to the HVAC stuff on the lower roof.  After that and some other details, like fixing up the ground floor, I have a decision to make.  Since I'm still not satisfied with the window material or the reflection map, I can either continue trying to find/make a better map, or do something completely different.  I've tried using aerial photos for a ground plane to be reflected; however, since this building is surrounded by other tall buildings the two dimensional ground plane will never produce realistic reflections.  My idea is this: since I hope to make the surrounding buildings at some point, I could finish this model and then model the surrounding buildings, import them into the scene, and set them to only be visible in reflections.  The main advantage here is it would produce the best possible reflections.  The major drawbacks are it would make the scene gigantic, meaning many more objects and materials, and it would make renders take much longer.  Also, if I did things that way, I wouldn't be able to release the model for many months.  I'd like to start making high quality BATs, but at the same time I don't want to be an inactive member of this team because I'm working on a project that could take over a year to finish.  Anyone have any thoughts on the subject?

[PBGV103 729]

I think I'm pretty much done with the upper roof now.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I think you're almost done. Mostly done though. Some things look a little bright, like the white pipes on the upper roof look a little too bright as well as the big HVAC unit thing too. But that's a little of a minor thing. The rest is quite fantastic. Stupdendous.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I think you should finish this building and release it, rather than model the surrounding buildings first.  Even if you did that, the reflections would only be good if the player plopped those buildings just like they are in real life, and that's not going to be very likely.

So I'd just keep on working on the ground plane and the facade materials.  These will easily be the hardest and most time consuming part of the BAT, if they haven't been already.  You've done a good job of learning a lot of stuff about 3ds max and BATing, and I think if you just keep working on this building, it will get better and better.

For the metal vertical parts, they look sort of grainy, especailly on the shadow side of the buiding.  You want these to be as clean and smooth as possible.  So if you have a bump map, or even just a diffuse texture, I'd remove it.  Also, if the material doesn't have a glossiness of 1, I would make sure to increase the glossiness samples.

For the glass, it's hard to tell just by looking at it, but it looks like the bump map's pattern is too tight.  It looks like some of the bumps are only a few pixels big, but the bumps should be a few meters wide.

I think right now the glass is looking too saturated, so I would lower the saturation of the ground plane.  If this makes the facade look too blah, I'd increase the contrast of the ground plane.

Anyway, keep on workin 

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks Perfect!!!! Ready for the next project.

[PBGV103 729]

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Brandon, for the pipes on the roof I used a PVC material.  While it may look odd being so much lighter than everything else, I'm pretty sure thats how PVC would look in RL.

Aaron, thank you, but it's not even close to being finished and I have no idea what my next BAT will be.  I'm glad you like it so far. 

Jason, thank you so much for the tips.  You have been a HUGE help as you can see below. 

There are a few more things to adjust but the glass material is finally starting to look like glass.

Edit:  I just changed a few minor things like slightly increased the size of some noise maps and hopefully fixed most of the rendering issues with the stainless steel mullions.

[Girafe 1,729]

Impressive work, congrats

[Vlasky 1,803]

Great job! You are on the way to do a ultra high quality BAT. Keep up the good work and don't rush!

[lucky7 73]

Wow, this is already looking brilliant! Excellent work on the glass so far.

Looking very much to the next step,

lucky7

[lucky7 73]

Wow, this is already looking brilliant! Excellent work on the glass so far.

Looking very much to the next step,

lucky7

[Parisian 556]

Your building is absolutely one of the best ever made in this team... So realistic. Love it! The most complicated thing stays the 2nd roof, it's a melt of a lot of roofs stuffs. But I m sure you will make something awsome!

I have a question : how do u create such a big render at zoom 5? thanx

[Parisian 556]

Your building is absolutely one of the best ever made in this team... So realistic. Love it! The most complicated thing stays the 2nd roof, it's a melt of a lot of roofs stuffs. But I m sure you will make something awsome!

I have a question : how do u create such a big render at zoom 5? thanx

[PBGV103 729]

Yep the second roof was a mess but it's finished now. I actually finished everything modelling wise last night. Now I'm just working on fixing the ground plane. I don't have a great idea about how to go about making a good map for reflections, but I'll upload some pics when I do.

[PBGV103 729]

Yep the second roof was a mess but it's finished now. I actually finished everything modelling wise last night. Now I'm just working on fixing the ground plane. I don't have a great idea about how to go about making a good map for reflections, but I'll upload some pics when I do.

[PBGV103 729]

Here's what the back looks like currently.  I'll upload a picture of the front as soon as it finishes rendering.  I'm thinking about adding some people to the scene.  I feel like BATs never have people in them and it kinda makes them seem unrealistic and void of life, so now I'm on the search for free models of generic people since I don't feel like taking the time to learn how to model people.   xD   After that and some final tweaking I'll start working on the night scene.

[PBGV103 729]

Here's what the back looks like currently.  I'll upload a picture of the front as soon as it finishes rendering.  I'm thinking about adding some people to the scene.  I feel like BATs never have people in them and it kinda makes them seem unrealistic and void of life, so now I'm on the search for free models of generic people since I don't feel like taking the time to learn how to model people.   xD   After that and some final tweaking I'll start working on the night scene.

[PBGV103 729]

Here's what the back looks like currently.  I'll upload a picture of the front as soon as it finishes rendering.  I'm thinking about adding some people to the scene.  I feel like BATs never have people in them and it kinda makes them seem unrealistic and void of life, so now I'm on the search for free models of generic people since I don't feel like taking the time to learn how to model people.   xD   After that and some final tweaking I'll start working on the night scene.

[nathanthemayor 1,263]

That looks great!