mipro Barry Sanders Project

[ACEfanatic 7]

Date:8/31/2004 1:49:32 AM
Author:budweiserdude23

You know you're a true MICHIGANDER when.............

 

2. You measure distance in hours.

3. You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.

6. You see people wearing camouflage at social events (including weddings).

7. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.

8. You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend knows how to use them.  

13. Your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a deer next to your blue spruce.

14. You were unaware that there is a legal drinking age.

22. You drink pop and bake with soda.

25. You think owning a Honda is Un American.

quote>

Sadly, all of these also apply to us Virginians down here, lol    Gotta love rednecks...

Anyway, the GM headquarters and the K-Mart are looking good!  Can't wait to get these into my city.

-ACE

[wolverine 12]

You forgot to say:  You use your hand as a map of lower Michigan.  I am from here, says Joe pointing to his palm.

[vidioman 21]

In Canada, we measure distance by beers

 

And the KMart looks great.

[budweiserdude23 80]

I can't tell you how many times I've pointed to my hand and said This is where I live or this is where I'm going, etc. etc.

 

Finally the K-Mart is done. What a pain it has been for the last day. Everything moved so slow I thought my hard drive was powered by a hamster on a wheel. Anyways, it came out pretty good so here are some preview pictures of it---

 

Front view day and night---

 

 

 

Here's a view that I haven't shown yet. It gives you an idea of how the rest of building takes shape---

 

 

 

And off to render it goes. My plan is to add more lights and such in the LE on this one. I'm glad this one is finally done. Whatever I model next, it's definitely going to be smaller.

 

 

[subedei 3]

Very nice work bud. this will be a nice addition to the STEX

 

 

Subedei

[Farminsim 7]

 

As a side note I have gone through and deleted most of my pictures since it is a new month. We probly take up a lot of space on the Simtrop server and hopefully this frees up some.

[baldy 0]

Farminsim, your just as bad as me with just posting a picture

 

It's looking really good, you're a great BATTER.  The Murrary's by my house is just a box and I like the looks of this one much better.

 

Another nice building BD.

 

So no one wants us to take specific pictures or wants to come downtown with us this weekend?

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=54726

 

Also, I have started a pro-pickem' Fantasy Football league.  If you want to join, the information is:

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=54098&pageNo=5&num=30

 

[khanate 1]

I just wanted to say that I abhor roof junk. I was loving that Big K until it got the roof junk treatment. I that how they really look on top?

Well, I've read all the arguments about plentiful roof junk is the key to good ratings in the STEX, but I'm aesthetically inclined toward as little RJ as possible. Of course, if want you've done is realistic, so be it. I'm just being argumentative.

HHS

[budweiserdude23 80]

Trust me, I'm not a big fan of roof junk either. I created a thread a while back on my arguement for the lessening of it on bats but there is a significant problem. The roofs are so visible in the game that bare roofs on shorter buildings look horrid. I'll agree there is little to no need for them on skyscrapers but trust me the crap you see up there is needed on this building. What I don't like is when people judge a bat on its lack of roof junk.

 

Anyways, there is alot of crap on roofs of commercial outlets, more than that is in my model. I work in the HVAC field and lets just say that a quarter of my work is on roofs because that's where the HVAC equipment is set. There are wires, gas pipes, wood,  misc. equipment, old antennas, satellite dishes, hvac equipment, exhaust fans, drain pipes for rain water, roof accesses, and skylights on alot of these types of roofs. There's a heck of a lot more that may be up there as well. In addition, the HVAC unit I modeled are in good proportion to reality. If anything they may be too small for this application and there may be too few of them. Let me give you an example...One of the accounts I used to have was a sorting center for the Post Office in Romulus. I kid you not when I say there were 42 HVAC units on that roof and each one was 5 feet tall, 14 feet wide, and 8 feet deep. This for a building of 130,000 square feet.

 

On a side note, the K-mart crapped out while rendering last night. So there's no way it's going to be finished today. I'm having some issues with my computer right now...argh...

[khanate 1]

42 5x14x8 HVACs? Yeeesh! I know you mentioned your line of work before, so I figured you were trying to be realistic. I just hate the look of them.

Hey BD, are there any rendering tips you can give me? I'm working on some buildings and props for low-density R$/$$ 1x1s. I slapped it on a growable lot and tested in-game and sure enough one popped up within a few months, but the night lighting didn't work. I've since read up on that in other threads so I should be able to take care of that problem. Oh, one thing I noticed was that my building did not match up with its outline in Lot Editor. If I arranged it on one edge of the lot in plan view, for example, the 3d view shows the building hanging over the edge into the great void.

Also, I get to create custom overlay textures, woo.

HHS

[budweiserdude23 80]

Those HVAC units pale in comparison to some of the ones I've worked on. When I was working for my previous employer we had an account with the Livonia Hockey Association. They have 2 ice rinks that we were to maintain all their equipment. On the newer of the 2 buildings the had 6 units, 2 of which we the size of semi trailers. These things were crazy. They had doors on them so you could walk inside and service it. One unit ended having a refrigerant leak and we had to refill it with 170 lbs of R-22 refrigerant. That's simply insane. Do the math, we charged $15/lb for that stuff. I swear I've seen mobile homes smaller than these things.

 

I got another good one for you...we also had an account with a senior citizen complex in Westland, one of 10 story tall suckers. Well the compressor crapped out on it and a few other things as well so we had to completely replace the unit. This thing was a monster, 12 feet tall, 40 feet wide, 25 feet deep. It was estimated that it weighed 11 tons. We had to hire a helicopter at $1500/hr just to get the old one off and the new one up there. These unit can just be enormous given their applications.

 

As for rendering tips, check a few pages back. I made a list of things to make sure of before exporting. As for the layout in the LE, you have to be careful. Those outlines around the buildings and props make it a little hard to line everything up. Mostly it requires patience to move everything around. Just zoom in and out and rotate the lot are the best things I can tell you.

 

As for the lighting, if the building itself is not lighting up, it could be any number of things but it is something you did in the bat. If it's just a prop not lighting up, it could be an easy fix. In the Plug-in manager after you have dragged whatever it is to be a prop, click on the advanced tab and make sure the lighting is set to TRUE. Its default setting is FALSE. Hope that helps a bit...

[rsog2000 0]

Yeah I'm pretty sure there's a list of jokes like that for every state...I live in Wisconsin, and my favorite on that list is You can tell someone is from Illinois by the way they drive. So true.

On a side note.....

FIGHT THE WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION!!!!! TAKE BACK THE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[budweiserdude23 80]

The K-mart is now uploaded on the stex. It took a whopping 16 hours to render on the second try.

 

Khanate, I will get you the Little Caesars model later today. I got the bugs out of my computer so I'll shoot it on over to you a little later.

 

Another thing...I'm going to update the list and clean up some of the pictures I have posted here later today.

 

The finished product---

 

 

[subedei 3]

Great job Bud for this fine addition to the STEX. Looking forward to your next release. 

 

 

Subedei

[JaWood 194]

It looks good. I can see lots of cool little details in it. I especially like that garden center on the side. Nice work.

[ert90 8]

If you want to save server space then just host at imageshack

[wolverine 12]

Looks great Budweiserdude.  We will have to be sure to make the building that started it all.  Can any Detroiter identify the downtown building that started the whole K-Mart chain?

 

On another note.  I still have yet to fix Ford Field.  I have been so busy packing that I haven't had time.  Actually, I have had some time to do it, but I know my parents would be ticked if they walked in and saw the model rendering.  They would probably think I was slacking off!  To fill in that useless time, I have done some more work on the website.  I also found a huge floorplan of Ford Field with measurements.  I was like, damn! this could have done me good earlier.  Just for kicks, I decided to see if my current model was up to scale with the map.  Turns out, I was right on!  I was off in building lenght about 1.5 meters!  Definitely not bad!  I was off on building height by 0.6 meters, which is great.  I guess staring at pictures for awhile paid off.  I look forward to starting again on the model.  If I can't get the issue resloved with loading it into the game, I will still continue on it anyway, and have some professional here do it.  Although, I think Bud's description should work perfectly.  Anyways, I 'll check back here later when all the craziness of getting back to college is over!

 

Go Blue!

 

EDIT: ert!  Where the heck are those list of projects you had in your signature!!!    I liked it

[ert90 8]

I wanted to make it a little simpler and it didn't really fit in. I'm sure somebody else has enough room for it in their sig. hint, hint . . .

[SpartanBadger 4]

Dang, I have not been able to get on the computer much lately, and when I do, SimTrop won't work. Everything is looking great, I see we have made a lot of progress; Farminsim, that Murrays is pretty sweet. I need pictures of One Woodward Avenue, really bad if I am to finish that project.

14. You were unaware that there is a legal drinking age.

WHAT??!! THERE IS A LEGAL DRINKING AGE?

[wolverine 12]

I keep trying to look for One Woodward pics, but all the other buildings block it in photos.  I will ask Allan at UrbanPlanet for some when I get the chance.  I can't believe my computer hasn't been packed up yet.  It is the only thing left to go.

[baldy 0]

Xspidey, we are going to be downtown tomorrow (Saturday the 4th), so just let us know what specifically your looking.  Plus, I have some from my other trips and should be able to help.

 

Wolverine, I should probably verify this information prior to posting an answer, but I do believe the building that started K-mart was the Albert Kahn designed Kresge building.  I believe that this is now known as the Kales building, which is being converted into modest apartments.

[ardecila 124]

budweiserdude - Yeah. They had to airlift one of those monsters onto the roof of my school. The cool thing about the school is that nearly every window in the place looks out onto a roof with junk on it, so I get plenty of ideas for BATting.

[SpartanBadger 4]

I havent been here in a while, been a little busy lately so I haven't had much time. No new updates I see, hope you guys got some good pics when you were in the city

[wolverine 12]

And on the 3rd day of college, Wolverine said: Why is this thread so empty?  And with that, Wolverine created more Ford Field.  Expect some more updates on the 4th or 5th day(s)

[ert90 8]

Yay! Can't wait those updates wolverine! I'm surprised bud and/or baldy hasn't/haven't posted any pics yet.

[budweiserdude23 80]

We spent half the day yesterday downtown, at least my gf and I did. We met up about 10:30 and parted ways around 3:00. After that we went out for the night and didn't get home until late. Today we went out to celebrate her birthday and spend time with her family so I haven't had much time. Baldy took a ton of pictures so he may be the better source of inspiration than me. I only took 40 or so and most were of Hockeytown, the Fox, and the RenCen mostly to use for reference. I haven't started anything new as RLS has kept me away from the bat but I may start something new in the next few days. 

[ert90 8]

Date: 9/5/2004 9:57:17 PM
Author: budweiserdude23

or so and most were of Hockeytown, the Fox, and the RenCen mostly to use for reference. I

quote>

Is this a sign of things to come? Please say yes!

[budweiserdude23 80]

Yes, I'm going to model the RenCen. I'm not sure when I'm going to start yet. Im going to do a few more small buildings first as I want to experiment with a couple of things but this will be my major project. I'm giving up on Michigan Stadium and Yost for now and this will be taking its place.

[ert90 8]

Swweeeeeet! You're doing a real good job with all these BATs bud!

btw wolverine, are you ever gonna get that new sig?

[yarabundi 3]

These type of building ( K-Mart, Wal - Mart & co. ) look so dull. Your rendering reflects perfectly the uglyness that is covering the suburban North America. Well done !!I specially like the details : vending machines, rails along the entrance. quiet realistic.