mipro Barry Sanders Project

[nofunk 1,933]

Jason, JB, those with more BAT experience than I have: What's the story with GMAX elongating horizontal dimensions? I'm BATing something right now, and in the front/perspective views everything looks to scale, but when I preview render, everything looks stretched out.

Is this just a visual glitch with the preview? Or does this translate into the game, too? Am I going to have to shorten all my widths in GMAX to pull this into proper perspective?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

it's not because of gmax, it's because of SC4's funny angle.  You can either model it taller while you go, or you can model it normally and then scale afterwards.  Scaling it to anywhere between 130% and 150% (whatever looks better) is what I reccomend.  The defauly scaling tool does all directions, but if you click and hold down on the scale tool icon, more options will appear.  One of them will only scale one direction.

[JBSimio 152]

Yeah, Nofunk... what Jason said.  Exactly what I was running into with this one too.  This is my first true recreation, and I'm finding that a lot of my old methods don't work quite as well for something like this.

Speaking of which... I think I have everything sorted out for the scaling now!  This may not look too much different to some, but for those who know, I hope you'll agree this is much better now:



In addition to the scaling bit (which BTW... thanks again Jason on the arches!) I also made a few texture adjustments and added some of the finishing details on the corner "towers."  Just for kicks, here's a view from the South corner as well:



I need to adjust some things with the uppermost roof decorations, but overall, I'm much happier with this than I was this morning!

JB

[Jasoncw 11,840]

You're making good progress.  Do you plan on scaling it higher when you're done?  It seemss like it should be all together higher.

Here's a thing I made of downtown:

The SC4 things, like zones and parks, are things that are already in progress or finished, and they're labeled.  The building next to the free press is by Simgoober, and I don't remember the name of his building, or the building in Detroit, but they look a lot alike.  They're also both clubs.  I highlighted some other landmarks in color.

Green: Chase Bank Building (or whatever it's called)

Blue: Ford Building

Yellow: Buhl Building

Red: Guardian Building

Purple: Coleman A. Young Municipal Building (City Hall)

One Detroit Center (Comerica Tower) is being done by someone who hasn't been around in a while.  The building itself is a 3x3.  The rest of that block is it's parking garage, lol.

The SC4 grids and Detroits grids line up pretty good, but not perfectly.  There are a few areas that are not completely accurate, but even by real life standards, it's only off by 8 meters in those areas.

[canuck3360 14]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw The rest of that block is it's parking garage, lol.quote>

 

LOL true about most of Detroit seems like theres always a new Parking Garage where there used to be a building.

I hope that the One Detroit Centre one day sees the light of day

also looking good on the Yost Project with that and Michigan Stadium all we need is Crisler Arena and  Ray Fisher Stadium as well as Cliff Keen Arena and we'll have mostof the UM Athletic Campus

[budweiserdude23 80]

LOL, Crisler Arena is the most god ugly hunk of concrete. It has no warmth or charm on the exterior and the inside is so-so at best. It really sticks out like a sore thumb. Sorry, but it had to be said.

[canuck3360 14]

LOL I was waiting for someone to say that the best thing about it is Concerts in there I had the fortune of seing one in there back in the 80's it was an awesome place for a show. otherwise doze it and build a new Rink and then move basket weaving(err um I mean Basketball) to Yost since they don't sell out every game like Hockey and Football does

[nofunk 1,933]

JB, you are making great progress on that! And actually, I can tell the difference in the arches before and after.

As for me, I was asking about scaling because I may have started a new BAT. I know I said I was going to revisit Burton Tower, but I got inspired (for who knows what reason) to tackle a different Ann Arbor landmark.

Here's a sneak-peak, sans textures, and no scaling to correct for the wonky angle. The original, Borders Book & Music:

I'm a little worried though, b/c it looks like I scaled it too big, but I'm not sure how I could have made it any smaller... currently I'm designing it to fit on a 3x4 lot.

[budweiserdude23 80]

That'll never happen. They built Crisler to get the basketball team out of Yost. A while back, getting tickets to the B-ball games was a pain. I had the fortune of going to quite a few of them in the late 80's through the mid 90's and the place was always jammed and rocking most of the time.

You know what's funny about Yost is the inside of that place was a dump in the 80's when Michigan's hockey teams stank the joint up. You could walk up and get a ticket for $5 and children under 10 were free. Then you could pretty much sit whereever you wanted. I went to a game once where there may have been 1500 people in the stands and the final score was Lake Superior State 12 Michigan 0.

It's only been in the recent years that they've made vast improvements to the place.

[JBSimio 152]

Yeah... Crisler's kind of a dump on the outside.  It's too bad, since the rest of the athletic campus is pretty sweet looking.  Actually, I'm still not sold on the inside of Yost for that matter.  It's a whole lot better than it was, but still not the greatest.

Jason... that's pretty cool!  Should make a nice little cluster when it's all done.  The builing by SimGoober is from Milwaukee... I think it was once the main library.  I'm not sure it I need to scale Yost up more or not.  It seems like maybe I should, but it's already about 38 meters tall at the peak.  So... I think I'll see how it looks when I get a little further with it.

I "finished" the front this morning.  OK... not even close to finished, but at least the main elements are in place.  The roof decoration following the peak line took forever!  There's still a lot of little stuff that goes in here... there's some big air handlers on the roof, floodlights, a satellite dish or two... you get the idea.  Anyway... here it is!

NOW it's starting to look like Yost!  The large windows following the roof line are always the part that sticks out in my head... so it's nice to have them in place now.

JB

[st louis dude 6]

How come none of this stuff have been released yet?For instance "Ford Field".

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It's really starting to come together well.  You have a good work ethic too, when I BAT, most of the time I spend just staring at the preview render.  A lot of the time, I'm not even looking for anything in particular, I'm just zoned out staring at it, lol.

St. Louis Dude, if it hasn't been released then it's not finished.  Unfortunatly there are a lot of unfinished buildings.

Oh yeah, and I noticed that I made a mistake on my map, One Woodward Avenue's lot should be 4 tiles deep, along with CAY.  That road sits on a half tile, and I rounded down, when I should have rounded up.

[nofunk 1,933]

Hi everyone,

I'm almost done with Borders... I just need to put textures on it. (Still need to figure out why GMAX isn't showing textures in render for me.) Can anyone help me with night lighting? I've never done them before and the few times I've played around with them, I got zero results.

Also, I haven't put glass in the windows yet -- can't decide if they should be transparent or not (that would require some work inside the building) -- and I'm not sure what I'd do differently to create transparent window panes anyway.

Other than that, I need more roof junk. Like some a/c units. Anybody got roof junk I could borrow? And I have no clue why there are so many pipes on the roof of this building, but it's accurate:

[budweiserdude23 80]

Hopefully I can answer a few questions for you nofunk....

As for the HVAC units, your best bet is to model them. It's not much more than a box, with a few details here and there. One problem with them is the can vary is size quite dramatically and given the type of system, in structure as well. Luckily, these are pretty simple structure wise although fairly large in size. I'd give a try at modeling them...anything on the stex is very poly heavy and likely won't fit the bill.

As for the windows, I think a more dark toned reflective type window would be the look. Just my opinion...

As for the pipes...that is weird. There are a ton for a building that size. Usually there are four reasons for pipes sticking out of a roof.

1. Exhaust vent for a standard furnace/heater or high efficiency furnace.

2. Fresh air intake for a  high efficiency furnace.

3. Exhaust for a fart fan (bathroom fan)

4. Stack for plumbing, i.e. water needs air to flow properly hence a stack to the outside.

My guess it's a combination of all 4 of the above.

As for your textures, make sure you've edited your meshes and splines and applied your UVW modifier to all as well. If you've done that, then after all your textures are applied, save, close the BAT, reopen the BAT, and preview render. I noticed a while back occasionally after a texture was applied then a preview render was performed right after a texture was applied that no textures would show.

As for the lights, definitely read the tutorial. Jason will be better suited at this than I, it's been a while since I've monkeyed with them. The one thing that is very important is remembering to affixing the prefix nite- to the name of the object being lit.

Hope that helps...

[sorchin 18]

There are many fine looking building models here. I am very impressed. This also seem to be the place to learn much about batting as well. I'll most certainly be back. Great job everyone..

[nofunk 1,933]

Hey, Budweiser, thanks for the HVAC idea and advice... I think they worked out. I wasn't sure how to end them, since the photos I have don't give me much, so I designed my best guess at a huge a/c unit. What do you guys think?

Here's a shot, partially textured. I don't think I'm going to texture the canopies or white pipes on the roof (they look pretty close now) unless you guys *really* think I should. I'm having a slight problem finding a stone wall texture for the beige wall faces, and I need to figure out how to get the marching ants mural on the back of the building. Also, I just kinda noticed a repeat in the brick textures... meh. For the most part, though, I think it looks OK.

Oh, and night lights... but I'll figure those out tomorrow.

Here's the mural I'm talking about.

Let me know what you guys think! I can't believe I'm about to finish my first BAT. (Maybe after this I can be something other than the NKOTB???)

[budweiserdude23 80]

Nofunk, I really hate to tell you this but there are 5 HVAC units up there given the picture you posted. They're just condensed in one third of the roof. You have 2 big units that are identical, a medium sized unit, a small unit, and a unit in the backround that is hard to tell what the heck it is. It almost looks like a cooling tower. You're on the right track but I think there's too much ducting on the roof. Here's what I'd try...this might give you a better look.

1. Shorten the longest duct run to just beyond the 45 degree transition.

2. Move the small unit back to where the end of that long duct sat, don't clone, just move it.. I wouldn't rotate it, just move it on one axis towards that aforementioned duct that was eliminated in step 1.

3. Elimatate the straight section of duct after the transition ends. Cap it at the end of transition with the same cap you've been using. The transition looks too cool to do much else to!!!

4. Clone the large unit and place it in the vicinity between the pipes and penthouse on the right side, having rotated the unit 90 degrees. Use your best judgement in placement.

5  Add a short section of duct to the unit I mentioned in step 4 so it come towards the front.

I think this will give you the look that there's alot of junk up there and just not duct.

It's looking very nice nofunk...nice work for BAT number one. Oh and the ants...texture master Jason, where are you?

[wolverine 12]

Oh god, that's sweet.  Nice work nofunk!  Such a meaningful building in AA

JB, Yost looks great.  Looks like you got the hardest part done.  The detailwork looks awesome.

Good news, I've been working on Ford Field.  I'll post pictures when a significant amount of work is done.  But basically I finished the dome portion, and I'm working around on the side concourses now.

[JBSimio 152]

Looks really good, Nofunk!  I really like the ducting you came up with for this.  I would still recomend texturing the canopies, etc. just because the in game colors look a little lighter than even the preview render will.  For the white, just make an off white color and dirty it up a little so it doesn't come off looking too bright or clean.  The brick may not be real obvious, but I've learned it's worth the extra time to get rid of that tiling effect as much as possible.  Jason is still the master at texturing so hopefully he can help you with that more than I can.

Thanks, Wolverine... I can't wait to see how Ford Field is coming along.

Here is the latest on Yost.  I got the side walls done... at least the top halves.  The bottom will be a little longer because of the all the different doors involved.  Also, they aren't exactly the same like what I'm about to show.

I can also now say that the overall size of this (building only) is about 6x12.5 tiles.  For Jason... the longest stretch of brick is roughly 160 meters.  I'll know the final height when I get to the back wall.  This thing is turning into a beast... previews are really starting to take a while, even if I hide most things.  I may need to break it up into different files for a while just to keep my impatience in check!

JB

[jacqulina 162]

wow you are doing well some great progress

[Jasoncw 11,840]

For texturing nofunk, look at lesson 8 of the BAT school.  Instead of making the bricks with the grid and all that, you'll open your brick texture, and you'll copy and paste it into your wall's texture.  Then you'll duplicate that texture layer and you'll move it next to the first one, so that it lines up, and you'll merge that layer down.  You'll do this untill the entire wall is covered.  After that, you'll apply the texture in the BAT, and you'll check the size of the bricks.  If they're too big or small, you can scale your brick layer bigger or smaller untill it's the size you like.  After that, the bricks will still tile.  To make it tile less, get a section of the brick, and move it somewhere and then merge it down.  The bricks should all be the same size, so it should line up, but it should still break up the most obvious tiling.  After that, you could even make a new layer, use the rectangular selection tool to select a brick, and you could fill it with grey and set it to multiply, and you could duplicate that and move it around to break up the tiling even more. 

Also do this for the roof and window textures.  For the roof, make the areas around the wall and roof junk a little darker using a dark colored fuzzy brush with the layer set to multiply and the opacity lowered a bit.  You can also add rust or mold or anything else too.

For the ants, you'd do the same thing, except you'd make a new layer ontop of the bricks and you'd paint the ant design, and then you'd lower the opacity so the bricks show through.

I'd definitly texture the canopies and roof junk.  Do what JBSimio said

Does that all make sense? lol

JB, I'll get to work on your bricks

The BSP is buzzing!

[Skyfire2275 23]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw

...

The BSP is buzzing!quote>

Maybe you guys should ask for your own sub-forum... it never hurts to ask!

Anyways... looks like a lot of good work is going on in here... keep it up!

Edit: Also, is the Renaissance Centre project (LINK) going anywhere at all? I like that building and would like to see it in SC4. If it isn't goign anywhere, perhaps I will try modelling it when I have some free time... whenever that is. So, if the Ren Cen project is truly dead, I will put it next on my list after I am done with the Cheung Kong Centre (almost done) and CITIC Plaza in Guanzhou... that is if the Ren Cen project is actually dead.

[Simfan34 11]

Ohh! Border's! I love that place. And Yost Stadium is looking nice. I anticipate both of their release. Good Work! And nofunk I "*really*" think you should keep the canopies. It adds a touch of class.

[budweiserdude23 80]

Originally posted by: Skyfire2275

Originally posted by: Jasoncw

...

The BSP is buzzing!quote>

Maybe you guys should ask for your own sub-forum... it never hurts to ask!

Anyways... looks like a lot of good work is going on in here... keep it up!

Edit: Also, is the Renaissance Centre project (LINK) going anywhere at all? I like that building and would like to see it in SC4. If it isn't goign anywhere, perhaps I will try modelling it when I have some free time... whenever that is. So, if the Ren Cen project is truly dead, I will put it next on my list after I am done with the Cheung Kong Centre (almost done) and CITIC Plaza in Guanzhou... that is if the Ren Cen project is actually dead.quote>

I declare it dead. I attempted it twice, failing on both attempts. If you want it, by all means go for it. I've got my hands full with Michigan Stadium at the moment and I'm not if/when I'd ever attempt it again.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Originally posted by: Skyfire2275

Originally posted by: Jasoncw

...

The BSP is buzzing!quote>

Maybe you guys should ask for your own sub-forum... it never hurts to ask!

Anyways... looks like a lot of good work is going on in here... keep it up!

Edit: Also, is the Renaissance Centre project (LINK) going anywhere at all? I like that building and would like to see it in SC4. If it isn't goign anywhere, perhaps I will try modelling it when I have some free time... whenever that is. So, if the Ren Cen project is truly dead, I will put it next on my list after I am done with the Cheung Kong Centre (almost done) and CITIC Plaza in Guanzhou... that is if the Ren Cen project is actually dead.quote>

heheh, it's not buzzing quite that much.

Cool!  Keep in mind though, that if you do the ren cen I'm going to yell at you if it's not perfect, lol.  Of course if you need any help from me just ask, and I'm sure the HK/A team, with their experience in big complexes will have some advice too.  I said some things about how to go about making it at the end of the thread you linked to, but I'll repost it here:

"The base is ~14x14. The main tower is very close to 3x3, and should be somewhere between 187 and 292 meters tall (scaled according to Sim City), with each floor being about 4 meters tall.

The 4 surrounding towers should be about 156 meters tall to the roof, but about 206 meters to the top of the elevator shaft things. They are also 3x3.

The elevator shaft things on all of the towers stick out of the main towers, meaning that each tower would have to be on a 3x4 lot if they were rendered for individual use.

Rendering the entire complex all at once just plain wouldn't work. The massive surface area of the LODs would be huge, even if it was just a box, but the LOD just can't be a box because of the way the towers stick out of the base.

However, each of the towers could be rendered seperatly. I would suggest making it together so you can see what it all looks like when you preview it. Before rendering it, select each tower and save it as a different scene, and divide it that way (making sure to refit the LODs, and that the LOD will fit together later on). After refitting the bases LOD, make a low polygon model of all of the towers, and give them a texture with 0% opacity. They will cast the shadow of the towers onto the base, so when you add in the towers with the lot editor, it should all look rendered together.

Picture of the Ren Cen

You can see in this picture, those black lines. The tower isn't actually a true cylinder, but alot of flat facets. In my opinion, the best way of modeling this would be to count the facets, and the floors, and use those numbers when making a cylinder (with smoothing turned off). Then you can make a shape from all of the edges. The only problem with that, is how thick do you make the black lines? .2 meters would make them look too big and bold, and the tower wouldn't look glassy anymore. Making them thinner might not make them visible. Including them in the texture would work well, except it would get in the way of night lights.

For the usability issue, new bases can be made to fit on 3x4 lots for the towers themselves.

If the mixed use is an issue for anyone, one way to work arround this is to divide the complex (along with the base) into three lots, that when plopped properly next to eachother would look like it was rendered together. Each lot would be CS or CO."

Budweiserdude was working on it before and probably has som

[budweiserdude23 80]

Yeah, I'd use an N-gon to model the main tower. The cylander for whatever reason never seemed to look right for me, always too smooth. As for the dividing lines, 0.15 meters is the ticket. 0.2 sticks out to much and 0.1 barely shows. An intriguing way to perhaps make it although I never tried this method would be to take a 4 sided torus properly rotated and according proper radii.

I'll tell you the beast of the project is the base. It's intricate with many details and to top it off its ground slope conforming. There is an atrium on both the river side and the Jefferson Ave. side and both atriums are detailed. Then the base conforms to the grounds as it slopes from Jefferson Ave. downhill to the Detroit River. The exposed areas of the base's roof are finely detailed as well. That's the tip of the iceberg...

Oh, and if you really wanted to go crazy, there's an elevated platform for the People Mover on the Jefferson street side.

This thing is nowhere as easy as 1 central tower and 4 surrounding towers. It has a multitude of different quirks...

[Skyfire2275 23]

@ budweiserdude23 and Jasoncw: Looks like the next project on my to do list will be the Renaissance Centre. Do either of you have any leftover models (even if they suck... It would help with dimensions), pics (particularly pics of hard to see vantage points), plans, layouts, or dimensions, etc... that you could send me so I can take a look at them? Any other help/advice would be great would also be great. I don't think I will be doing this project anytime soon (in the next couple months), but if you have anything, please PM me! I look forward to tackling this beast.

[nofunk 1,933]

By golly, I think it might just be time to render and put this baby on a lot!! What do you guys think?

Budweiser, Thank you for your help with the HVACs!! I *think* I followed your instructions correctly. Of course, the more I look at it, the more I realize that neither of our interpretations is very close to what's really on the roof, but honestly, how many people will know what's really on the roof?

Jason, JB, the texture advice was perfect. I still think the roof textures look a little rough, but they're a ton better than they were. Also... THOSE FREAKIN' ANTS ARE ON THE BACK!! Yeah baby!!

I didn't texture the windows... not sure if I'm supposed to? I think they look OK as is. Everything else is textured as per Jason's and JB's advice. (And now ya'll are gonna tell me to texture those windows, aren't you?!)

So here she is, the world's first Borders:

[budweiserdude23 80]

Skyfire--- I have nothing left of my previous endeavors and here's why. Attempt one literally failed so long ago and was subsequently deleted by me.  Attempt 2 was a victim of my computer eating itself earlier this year, I never bothered to back it up. Thus that's why I gave up completely until just recently, that frustration and RLS. Wolverine may be a good resource of pictures. Some of the hardest to see vantage points will have to come from locally taken pictures and wolverine is a pretty good resource for them as is baldy who's MIA

Nofunk--- Congratulations on this model. I like it. You are close enough on those HVAC's to leave them as is. The texturing turned out pretty nice, I like the ants. Not something you see everyday.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Baldy occasionally lurks here, and is still active on other sites.  If you have an account at urbanplanet.org or flickr.com (I know everyone here has a flickr account), you can find him there.

Nofunk, it's looking much better.  For the roof, those lines are the way they should be, except lower the opacity.  The window canopies look too grany and green.  I'd use a flat color, and then I'd take a big fuzzy brush and I'd paint darker areas around the edges, really subtly.

Yep, you should texture your windows, lol.  Your window frames have a nice thickness and color, it looks nice against that blue, so I'd keep that general shade of blue, unless something you run across looks better.

I've been working on the Penobscot Building, you can see progress in my thread, and I figured I'd post a progress shot here too.  This is zoom 5 and zoom 4.  Nevermind the graphic stuff, I just added that in photoshop to make it look cooler.  I still need to do the flagpoles and make sure the proportions are 100% right before I start on the rest.