Welcome to Russellville

[jmh 11]

Hello Simtropolis!

Welcome to Russellville.  This is a project that I started four years ago (yes- four, 4, IV, 00000100 -years) but, after a computer meltdown, was unable to continue.  I was relegated to an ancient, slow computer for a couple of years and so never got back into SimCity and BATing.

However, I've kept the idea alive and have recently returned to playing SimCity and am resurrecting my BAT project.  The focus of the project is the buildings of the town where I live, which you know is called Russellville if you have been reading closely.  Specifically, I'm doing the historic downtown, those wonderful wall-to-wall buildings that are under-represented in SimCity, even after getting JBSimio's wonderful collection.

There are a few other buildings in town that I would like to do as well, a few notable items that stand out for one reason or another.  And, if I can find enough old photos, I might attempt to recreate some of the lost buildings that have burned or been knocked down through the decades.

So lets get started here.  My first BAT ever was of Cowell Steel Structures, where I spend 8 hours a day wiggling my fingers (typing on a keyboard, that is).  The model files and textures of this BAT seem to have been lost in the computer crash, and I don't remember if I had a backup anywhere.  It was complete however, and lotted and I have been using it in my cities reliably for some time now.  So I will be officially releasing it on the STEX soon.  Some pictures:

 

 

Industrial Manufacturing, 70 jobs

Grows reliably if you force zone a 4x6 industrial lot (Hold Ctrl key while dragging the zone).

My next building was going to be the Sugar Creek foods building in the downtown.  Unfortunately, what little progress I had was lost to the black hole, but I'm searching for copies or backups still.  I wanted to do that building to add another good industry to the game, and to force me to model all of the great roof-junk so I could recycle it for later buildings.  This one is unfortunately in limbo for now.

However, I decided to move on to what I wanted to do in the first place, and that is the w-2-w buildings in the downtown.  And so I present to you my first effort - Italian Gardens:

(edit: This is an early lot version, the final has slightly different props)

Commercial Service $$, 35 jobs.  1x2 corner lot, Chicago and NYC tilesets, stage 2.

This is the oldest building in Russellville, built in 1875 by Mr. J. L. Shinn (who was a serious contender for the name of the town, I could have been living in Shinnville).  It survived the fire of 1906, mainly because it is across Main Street from the fire.  It has had many tenants over the years, including a gas station and the town's original telephone company.  For as long as I have lived here, it has been home to the restaurant Italian Gardens and the second floor has unfortunately been vacant.

J. L. Shinn Building circa 1900

This will be released soon as well if there are no serious objections to the BAT or lot.  I've had it grow several times in my cities already.

Both of these are night-lit, but I don't have any pictures on hand at the moment, sorry.

Next up is Just Dance:

Commercial Service $  20 jobs, 1x2 lot,  Chicago and NYC tilesets,  stage 1.

This one has a unique pitched roof on it that none of the other roofs have.  There is some detail I have left off because I can't get to a vantage point to see it clearly.  The right hand side is Just Dance, which teaches Tap, Jazz, Ballet, and on occasion Ballroom Dancing.  The left side (the pink stucco facade) was until a few years ago a barber shop, and is currently vacant.  It does, indeed, fill its entire lot in real life.  I'm mostly happy with this one, except for the roof texture seems a little too bright, so I might be toning it down before release, but it should come very soon either way.

So that's it for the moment.  Next up is Sanford Law Firm, which I haven't begun at all, so no pictures on this one.

___

jmh

(edited to make the pictures show up - oops!)

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Looks like you have some nice BATs in the works there - why not showcase them with real pictures instead of static text links?

EDIT: Forget it, now the pictures work.

Judging from a first glance, it appears that pretty much all your textures are MASSIVELY oversaturated, except for those industrial buildings. Try photoshopping your BATs into a scene dominated by Maxis buildings and see if they fit right in. One nice method is to move a bit further away from the screen: If your BAT stands out clearly although it's not a spectacular structure in itself, chances are that it needs adjustment.

[jmh 11]

Thanks for stopping in T Wrecks.

Yes, I have been fighting the saturation/brightness battle with these.  They look great in GMax, ok in the lot editor, and have a radioactive glow in game.  I wish they had synced the three program's displays better.

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jmh

[madhatter106 3,931]

TWrecks is right - the red brick on that first one is waaaaay saturated. The modelling is great, and all the detail work is solid; the texturing just needs to be brought down a few notches...

[LRLight76 14]

HEY FELLOW ARKANSAN! Love the pics,and also a nice town they still have the Stobys Cafe in the old dining car, and also the city was remolding the old train depot. Like your work very nice keep it up and would love to see more. I would love to see someone Bat the Union Station in Little Rock. Nice JOB! SIMCITY FAN SINCE 1989

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Lovely project!

For small details like the "cornice" on Italian Gardens you will probably have to exaggerate their depth or use slightly different materials so that gmax's awful renderer can pick them up. In reality, there is quite a lot going on up there, but in your renders it looks almost flat (which is a shame!). If you need pictures to show, you can always use Google's streetview!

I took the liberty of applying T Wrecks advice (since he beat me to the punch in that department ).

Most of the things I touched up (walls, the brown roof, the red awnings, the green window frames) I desaturated by 25% (100% would give you gray). I shifted the value (lightness) up a tiny bit to compensate because some looked a little darker after I desaturated. You should aim to have the same value before and after(even though you may have to change it). I darkened the window frames a little bit, the contrast helps bring them out.

Anyway, let the pictures speak for themselves. The first image is your buildings (adjusted) in a game screen shot. This is how I came up with what I did, by comparing it to the environment of the game. (click for full size)

The next one is what you would see in gmax (black background). This doesn't have the same visual effect of the game's colorful environment, you could even argue that the unadjusted (top) renders look better in the background than the adjusted (bottom) ones. The background makes a huge difference.

Use those as a target when you are adjusting your image. render, compare, then adjust. Sometimes this can be tedious, but you will learn to adjust things as you go the more you do it. I'm at the point where I know something is too light/dark/saturated the moment it starts to show up in a render! I just hit escape and go back to photoshop to fix it

[Spike345 20]

This project excites me! Can't wait to see what you have!

I'll be watching the STEX for these

[jmh 11]

Hello again.

It looks like I picked a bad time to start this thread, since Simtropolis disappeared all of last week.  But it did give me some time to tweak things and play around in gmax.

Pertaining to the tweaking, I took the time to send some textures through the washer a few times until I found what I think is the right amount of bleach.  The results are much better.

A few in-game pictures.

I also made progress on the next building, Sanford Law Firm, and should be done with modeling.  Textures are another matter.  The next picture is the first time I tested it in game (the arrows point to my buildings, of course).

It's hard to tell about the textures on the newest one (the one on the left), because the color on my new monitor at home is off somehow.  Everything is rather bright and I haven't managed to get it adjusted quite right.  But on other monitors it looks much better.  It does have a very lightly colored roof, but I think I might need to darken it a little.  Give me your opinion.

Also, as I said, I've been experimenting in gmax and learned a few things about how it handles texture mapping that should be very helpful in future BATs.

That's a single cube with a different texture applied to three individual sides, and then each is uvw mapped independently, which is why the 3 on top is at a 45 degree angle, to show the mapping.  Pretty nifty and handy.

I've gotten the modding done on the first two buildings and tested them in-game.  Since I had the time, I also made ploppable versions for those that want them, and plan to do so for all future commercial buildings.

Responses

LRLight76: Hi there. Happy to see another Arkansan here, and I'm honored that your first post was made here. I'll have to check out the Little Rock Union Station some time. I've don't believe I have ever seen it before.

SimHoTToDDy: The cornice on Italian Gardens really is rather subtle, even in real life. Very few of our buildings in town have a real cornice, and those stand out.  But I did try to emphasize the one on Italian Gardens a bit more since it was too hard to see.

Spike345: I'm glad you approve, and I promise I'll start uploading these to the STEX on Monday, barring any major issues.

That's all for now, thanks for looking.

___

jmh

[harishna 847]

I think you still need to tweak the textures a little bit more

for example compare yours with the ones I am marking

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[nofunk 1,933]

Hey! Glad to see you back! I remember following your thread when you were working on Cowell Steel.

Your new work is great, and I'm glad to see you toned down the saturation on some of those textures! If you get the chance, check out JasonCW's brick texture tutorial. It's a relatively simple way to make incredibly reliable brick materials and I think your BATs would really benefit from it.

Can't wait to see more... I'm happy to see you've picked up JBSimio's small town mantle!

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

I was actually just looking for that Nofunk, are the blogs back online yet?

[jmh 11]

Hello again.

I uploaded Cowell Steel Structures to the STEX, but I'm not seeing it yet.  Is there some lag time before submissions become visible, or did I mess something up?  I'm going to wait for the next files until I get this sorted out.

harishna:  I have tweaked those canopies down quite a bit.  They are props, and so did not get adjusted when I re-exported the model.  It took me a while to figure out how to replace the old versions with the new ones without having to completely re-lot the building.

nofunk:  Hi again.  I was wondering if anyone would remember that. . .  I was inspired by JBSimio's work, and really wanted to flesh out my small towns, so I'm back at it.  

Thanks everyone for stopping by. 

___

jmh

[nofunk 1,933]

I was actually just looking for that Nofunk, are the blogs back online yet?

Yes! And I actually posted the link, but apparently hyperlinks just look like regular text...

Click here: brick texture tutorial

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

Yes you did, never saw it for the aforementioned reason. It would be easier if Jason just put his signature back together!

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled BAT thread.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Lovely Bats you have here.

[jmh 11]

Aha!  I failed to change the submission type to BAT, and I missed the file descriptor thingy at the bottom of the submission page.  Those are fixed (BAT / industry), so Cowell Steel should show up in the appropriate location on the STEX.  Italian Gardens and Just Dance will go up today, which lets me resume work on Sanford Law (which still needs texture tweaking, lotting, and modding).

Aaron Graham:  Hi there, thanks for stopping by.

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jmh

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Hey, congrats on your STEX releases! Not much to say right now, so I figured I'd just leave a few words of encouragement. Keep 'em coming!

[jmh 11]

Now back to business.

I need comments on the next building.  It's the one that the arrow is pointing to, of course, and the other three views are in the lower right of the picture.  I'm still not sure about all of the textures, but mostly I'm happy.

I'll give it a couple of days, and if there are no serious issues with this one, it might be ready for the STEX by Monday, after I lot and mod it.  In the meantime, I'm starting on number four, but I'm not sure what I will call it, as the occupants have changed several times over the years.  More on that later.

T Wrecks: Hello again.  I appreciate the encouragement.

___

jmh

[madhatter106 3,931]

The front facade of the pale blue side looks okay, until you see it from the side - it appears that all that detail is "painted" (ie. textured) on; while this can sometimes work, I think it would better serve the BAT if you recessed the mullions, cut out the windows, pushed the glass further back, and added a layer edge along the top where the cornice is. That will go a long way to selling it and making some of the 2D of it look more 3D.

I am a big fan of little details in the back/sides of BATs - it's the sort of thing I like to do with my own stuff, and the sort of thing I appreciate when I see it in-game. One of the doors (the one on the left when you look at the rear view of the BAT) seems very very narrow; I suspect that it's the same width as the one on the right, but for some reason (perhaps a trick of the eye) it seems narrower. I think if you widened it just a tiny hair, it would be more believable, and allow sims of "larger frames" to pass through.. haha.

The roof junk is subtle, almost minimal, but it works here. And your textures work better when they are much more subdued, like this; harishna already pointed out the texture comparisons earlier in this thread. Sometimes when I texture stuff, I like to keep the CJ or "Show us your..." sections of the forums open, so I can compare my colors to in-game screenshots from others' games. Or, do it like other people do, and load up pictures from in-game and paste the screencaps of your BATs overtop of them, to compare them side by side.

[jmh 11]

madhatter106:  I must admit I'm rather reluctant to alter the front on the blue side, since it is nearly flat in real life;

I'm trying to go for realism, but at the same time I'm willing to make concessions for the game.  I'm on the fence for this one.  I'm not quite sure what you mean by adding a "layer edge" on the top of the cornice though.  As for the back doors, I think that is a victim of aliasing by the renderer.

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jmh

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

That's the thing, you are trying to make it look more realistic by making the model less realistic. It doesn't seem to make much sense when you think about it this way, but you have to keep in mind that appearances are everything. To quote Mr. Simfox MD, CPA, Esq., "Reality is nothing, Illusion is Everything!" As long as it looks the way it should in the render, how the model looks in the view port is irrelevant.

As a BATer you have to learn to selectively exaggerate certain details (window depth, mullion width, facade details, etc) so that they can be understood in SC4's very distant point of view. Otherwise, it will look like a flat box that is completely lifeless and boring (which is not what these buildings are like in reality).

Otherwise you may want to add a little bit more noise to your bitmaps (textures) so that they look less smooth, pristine, and flawless. Don't go overboard, subtlety is king

[harishna 847]

and I have to add you seem to be reluctant to add more depth as you are trying to go for realism, but if such was the case your window dimensions are not accurate, and at the bottom the wall finishes with a subtle angle...I think adding a little bit of depth is less harmful than skipping these details...

[Sgt Pepper 864]

These are some really nice projects! I'm afraid I don't have much to say at the moment but I just wanted to stop by. Loving this work so far.

[Spike345 20]

I just can't get enough! always anxious to see if your BATs have hit the STEX! Can't wait to see what else is in the pipeline!

[madhatter106 3,931]

As a BATer you have to learn to selectively exaggerate certain details (window depth, mullion width, facade details, etc) so that they can be understood in SC4's very distant point of view. Otherwise, it will look like a flat box that is completely lifeless and boring (which is not what these buildings are like in reality).

This!

While you may be trying to copy a building from real life, there comes a point when doing this with this kind of BAT that you say, "okay, that's what it is in real life; now I need to tweak it to look great in-game." Attention to detail is good, but don't do it slavishly - I recommend to do what SimHoTToDDy and I have suggested, and use the reality as the "base," and to fine tune it in certain areas to get a better effect. While the facade of the building is pretty shallow in real life, modelling it like that in gmax will just make the whole thing look flat. So, you have to overcompensate in some areas by pushing and pulling things around, to get the desired effect of subtlety of shallowness, without making it look flat. Often it's just a matter a movement of a window frame or window glass 0.1 ticks in gmax - but it works at creating a richer, more vibrant BAT.

Same thing with the front cornice - even if it's just a shallow standard box that is placed on the front facade of the building and then textured, it will go a long way. As said before, "reality is an illusion" - if we were strictly adhering to reality, all of our sims are six to eight feet tall - so right there, we've jumped out the window of "reality."

[jmh 11]

Hello again,

Sorry I've been away for so long, but real life has kept me busy this week. But things are returning to normal I think. I have begun modeling the next building, not much to show yet. As for Sanford Law, I think there is a slight philosophical difference of opinion, in that I don't mind things that are flat to appear flat. However, I am submitting these buildings here to garner advice on how to make them better. That being said, I have pushed the window frames out a bit on Sanford to accentuate them more. I'm still tinkering with textures, so no pictures today. I'll see if I can get some up tomorrow.

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jmh

[Ceafus 88 1,887]

Your Buildings are really good.