Hamish's BAT Thread

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Burgerfuel? What a name!

I like the night view - with those large glass panes, it reminds me a bit of Edward Hopper's most famous picture.

Oh, and IIRC, you should find some ready-made timed props of seated people within the SFBT Essentials - both othogonal and diagonal.

[SimFox 802]

It is nice, but I believe it is quite a bit overscaled. Of course small buildings like this one are a bit special case, but still I think this one goes a step too far.

With night lighting, I believe it would be better if it would only be directed to front, rather than being omnidirectional like it is at the moment.

[gutterclub 2,729]

trust Hamish when he says they are the greatest burgwrs ever..was wondering when we'd get a burgerfuel in SC4 so thanks for that!

[Hamish 1,369]

My Sim City Story at the the Burgerfuel

...

lol, truly hilarious story. Might use that somewhere down the line.

I like the night view - with those large glass panes, it reminds me a bit of Edward Hopper's most famous picture.

It does too doesn't it? I never thought of that I mean, thats where my inspiration came from

Oh, and IIRC, you should find some ready-made timed props of seated people within the SFBT Essentials - both othogonal and diagonal.

Ahh, thank you. Much easier than making my own.

It is nice, but I believe it is quite a bit overscaled. Of course small buildings like this one are a bit special case, but still I think this one goes a step too far.

Should have mentioned that they are the HD views, they are probably just a tiny bit underscaled to tell you the truth.

With night lighting, I believe it would be better if it would only be directed to front, rather than being omnidirectional like it is at the moment.

Alright, I'll have a play around with the lighting and see what else I can come up with.

trust Hamish when he says they are the greatest burgwrs ever..was wondering when we'd get a burgerfuel in SC4 so thanks for that!

My cities always feel incomplete without one, so it was only a matter of time. I hope Im doing it justice.

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

Good work on your small building, I love the night lighting

[SimFox 802]

ok, I see. Yep I take my statement back!

[Hamish 1,369]

Okay, so Im slack at updating my progress, this time its because I haven't really made any progress, RL got in the way, and the project was put down the list of important things to do.

Now however, Im starting to feel like I need a big project to get me going, something to start off 2012, well, its actually going to be something that will take up most of my 2012 batting time as I probably won't have it finished by this time next year. But before I start on it and let you in on what I am planning to create I want to ask a few questions.

With lots, what is the maximum lot size? Or what is the recommended lot limit?

Would 30 tiles be too much?

At the moment thats all thats on my mind, the project Im thinking about would probably need multiple lots as I think my total lot size would be around 48 x 51 or 71 (depending on how I create the last lot).

So, yeah, how big is too big?

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Jeez, that's huge! I'd recommend that you do some testing/ research first, find out if there actually is a maximum lot size. If the situation warrants it, I see no reason not to put it (whatever it is) into a single massive megalot.

The thing is though... I don't know what the situation is because I have no idea what we're actually talking about. Could you give us an overview of your project?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Max lot size (in LE anyway) is 64x64 tiles (which represents a small city tile). If you go over that you will need to split it up since I'm not sure if the 64tile cap can be circumvented by some other modding means.

Anyway....

I'm really curious about what you have planned

[IDS2 3,346]

Holy crap! Would that even fit in a small city tile? The only practical issue I see is making it work ingame. Finding a place to plop this thing would be tricky. I don't think the maximum lot size should be too much of a problem - if the default international airports work, I'm sure this would too...it's just a matter of players willing to be flexible.

Also, bear in mind the massive render times and filesizes you could encounter for a project of this caliber. Nevertheless, I'm intrigued - what are you planning to make?

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

Dang! Thats massive!

[Hamish 1,369]

Well, I've had a bit of a break from BATing. Had to re-partition my windows, and then I got lazy reinstalling everything, so I've only just loaded up SC4 on it and got BAT back.

Ignore the post above, was going to make this, but I just can't see the reward for the effort put in, so I won't.

But I have been working on other projects, will resume my some of my previous projects after this, and I'm at the stage that I can show off what I've been working on.

Most of the modelling is done, except for a couple of things, such as a few alignment things and the fact that the trees aren't actually growing in anything, and it needs to be scaled vertically. But modelling is mostly done. Texturing is almost there, a couple things need nicer textures, but its not too bad.

Any way, click this one for the HD resolution.

These don't have HD views...

Oh yeah, and the trees. They are my first attempt, and Im still working on them. Does anyone have a good tutorial on making nice looking trees? They don't look bad, but they aren't fantastic either.

And the ponds aren't great either, still need a bit of work on them.

Any suggestions?

[darn42 1,268]

hmm... apparently I never uploaded my treemaking tutorial to the omnibus :| I'll get on that soon. You seem to be good enough at modeling to be able to understand some of this though. I just modeled a tree using poly modeling then used particle systems to apply leaves to branches (the leaves were just textures with an alpha in opacity), converted the branches to an editable poly using mesher compound object and used particle systems to apply the smaller branches to the large boughs of the trees. It's a lot less complicated than it sounds but you need a pretty good understanding of particle systems to do it so just search around for tutorials on Pflow.

Can't find the image of the trees themselves but the smaller trees were made with that method.

I'll get the tutorial uploaded when I can.

  Edited August 13, 2012 by darn42  

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

That is awesome, been needed for a while, I kept up with the request thread, many users will enjoy this. Awesome, Awesome work.

@Darn: He is very good a modeling, I am sure he will understand, if he don't already know, everything you are helping him with.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Ah the General Motors Building's Plaza and the famous Apple Store. Fitting for you it seems.

Darknono attempted the building itself, the GM Building, but it didn't appear that he tried to hard on the plaza and the Apple Store like you did here.

I think it looks wonderful.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Darn, not sure why anyone would want to model trees... we have generators and scripts that do that for us. Although your method is very innovative.

Hamish... clearly we've got a hardcore Apple fan on our hands here. The ground on the plaza is too reflective, it's reflecting the sky too much hence the unnaturally blue hue. The water looks nice. You could do some really awesome night-lighting with this too. IMO, it would also be nice to see this exported in HD. I could go on about SD vs. HD forever, but in this case I really think the fine detailing you've obviously gone to lengths to create deserves to be seen in the game.

Perhaps for your next work you could do the Microsoft headquarters or something...

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I think I have a very obvious idea for a lot right now...

[darn42 1,268]

http://www.itoosoft.com/downloads.php

There are some good trees there for download along with some nifty plugins, most on that page are free I believe.

Cockatoo: He asked how to model it I agree using premade stuff and computer generated is much better.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Cockatoo raised a point re: HD vs SD f...why can't we make it BAT etiquette that if you are going to export something (that isn't a prop) in HD then we also offer a SD version. If you have the patience to do a HD export then surely an SD version as well shouldn't be too much of an issue? This way there can be no debate over what is better

We all do the same with Darknite and Maxisnite in the sense that if someone makes Darknite, it is BAT etiquete to do a Maxis version too...

Just a thought.

As for the Apple store, it's looking good..however Cockatoo nailed it by saying it is too reflective and blue..i'd try lighteniong the whole thing, it looks a little dark..would be worth pasting into a screen shot.

What happened to Burger Fuel, my fave Burger joint ; )

[Hamish 1,369]

Thanks Darn42, I that method was kind of the same method that I used, probably just need a bit more practice at making trees to make them actually look good. But thank you for the link to the plugin, made making trees so much easier

Frex, thanks, I haven't noticed people requesting it, but I don't look through the request threads. All I knew is that I want it, so Im making it. Glad it'll be made for others that want it too.

Sgt Pepper, there was also another attempt, which I will link below, its a step up from darknono's, but not as in-depth as I wanted.

Cockatoo, I wouldn't say a hard core fan, although every device I own is apple, but here's why I wanted to do it. If I search apple store on the STEX, I get which I always use in my city, there is also but not up to my standards, and an So there is this huge gap in the STEX of good apple stores, the one I use all the time was uploaded in 2007. And maybe I will do another 'everyday' sort of apple store too, one which isn't as big as the 5 ave store, but just as good so there are a few more options for apple stores.

Im excited for what the nightlighting could look like, so hopefully it turns out great.

I was imagining exporting it in HD too. I'll mention why in my response to gutterclub.

T Wrecks, Im assuming just a standard lot or do you have something else in mind?

Gutterclub, I agree with you to an extent. Yes, most, if not all props, should be exported in HD, it makes sense that way. In my mind though, anything lower than two or three stories should probably be exported in HD (As long as the building is detailed enough to use the HD render). A building that small will easily fit into the screen when shown at zoom 6, and if you can see the whole thing, why not make the most of it? Anything above that will get too big in file size as well, and then it becomes annoying.

I do agree with you on making two versions of the resolutions, however I will never do that. I make all my buildings able to have their nightlights appear on mac. To do that I have to rename every FSH file and then edit the S3D files so that they point to the right textures. Doing it once takes long enough, doing it for darknite doubles the time taken. I couldn't imagine having to do it four times for one building, would take too long for the amount of people that would benefit from it. Two exports is my limit.

And yes, don't worry, I will finish off burgerfuel. Just need to fix a few nightlighting problems and then it will be ready to export. I will probably do the nightlighting at the same time as I do the lights for this one, just to keep the same workflow going.

I still really want the burgerfuel building in game, so it will be done fairly soon.

Small update, had way too much work to do this week and haven't got around to doing much BATing (story of this thread pretty much)

Anyway, fixed the reflectivity and added some trees. Trees are still a bit green, so I'll lower that and make them look a tad nicer. Much better than my attempt was though.

Make sure to click the image for the native resolution in HD.

And yeah, it is a bit dark, so I'll just lighten it up a bit and it should be good to go. Trees are a bit green and they are growing out of concrete at the moment, but after they are fixed I will be fairly happy with it. Any suggestions before I move onto nightlighting?

[gutterclub 2,729]

I understand what you are saying, however most people who prefer HD forget the fundamental issue, and that is a zoom 5, the bread and butter standard zoom to see most buildings details gets totally screwed up. The materials go all skewy and fuzzy and they look totally out of place next to all the normal SD buidlings. Which brings me onto the Darknite/Maxisnite debate..we all see to accept that you can't use Maxisnite with the darknite mod, but nobody seems concerned when we mix HD and SD buidlings.

Anyway, its really a minor point and isn't the end of the world if something is done in HD. I just think people missed the point of Simfox making the HD version and he even stated he wished he had never made it.

Onto the BAT, it looks much better with less reflectivity..I do feel the paving could be just a tad warmer and lighter though. Looking forward to this beaut!

[Hamish 1,369]

Oh I see what your saying about HD. I've never actually noticed that before, maybe I haven't been looking hard enough. Its just really tempting in 3DS to see that HD view and then just stick with that throughout the project, but I see what your talking about now. Who knows, someone could start rendering in both SD and HD, I don't think it will be me though...

Yip, defiantly could be warmer and lighter, its on my to-do list.

[Hamish 1,369]

Had a bit of time where I was too busy to do any work, and I feel that I'm quickly coming up to another point like that, so I'll just show what I've been working on lately.

The day view is pretty much done. Maybe there are a couple things that are annoying me, but apart from them I see no reason to make any more changes.

Make sure you click the image for the native resolution in HD.

The night view is almost done too. Shown here in dark night. Apart from a couple issues with the light reflecting weirdly in the corners I think its done too.

Any final suggestions?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Oh I came in late.

In your previous update, your trees weren't too green, everything else was too blue. The real life building has normal light grey pavers, which in SC4 roughly corresponds to the medium wealth pavers. So it might look more like the image below (don't mind the color changes to the glass water and furniture (although the furniture doesn't actually look too bad being white lol)).

[LivingInThePast 364]

I am awe.

I was wondering when someone would make a good Apple NYC store.

[harishna 847]

I think the light grey pavers look better, in fact I think it would be a great idea to use the same pavers as in the game that way it would blend perfectly, looking great by the way!

[Susaji 523]

Very Amazing is HD!

[IL. 1,043]

I really like both versions, why don't you upload them both?

Each one is unique, sometimes I upload some buildings, with different lots and size on the same file.

[Hamish 1,369]

Oh I came in late.

Better late than never

Your suggestions were just what I needed, the lighter pavers look a lot better.

Heres my changes:

Do you think they could still be a little lighter? Because it is still slightly duller than your changes jason, but I don't mind it the way it is at the moment.

Harishna, I tried it with the ingame pavers, didn't look too fantastic. So I'll be using some custom lot textures and make i blend that way.

Were there any objections with the night views?

[Susaji 523]

Nice!