Library Tower (US Bank Tower)

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Yes, those city pictures look great. The model is looking good, keep it up.

[airman15 4,112]

Some work on the windows tonight:

so far, its looking good, keep up the good work!

[kellydale2003 2,276]

I'm loving it!!!

As cockatoo stated; the 120% I got was from my recommendation. The 100% is RL scale, and the 133% is to get a perfectly symmetrical box through the orthographical previews in Simcity 4.

Kodebo used 120%.. But like I said earlier in my posts, with each meter as the building grows vertically, the number get exponentially higher; this is why some BATs such as the WTC, Petronas Towers, etc aren't scaled at 133%. I thought maybe The Library Tower would be an exception because it was 1/4 less than a 100-story super-tall skyscraper.

But it's still up to you! Your choice! Keep up the great work!

[Jasoncw 11,933]

opps!! lol, I completely missed the fact that the render before I posted was a preview render.

[ExtraNoise 18]

Some more work on the windows. Here are most of them with groundmap reflections being applied. I think it's a little strong, so I may play with the glass a bit. I have to keep in mind that while doing so, a lot of the "noise" right now is also just light coming in through the windows and bouncing around inside. It probably will be a little less heavy-handed once I get some floors in their to thicken it up.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Can you post a zoom5 preview render as this will only show how the reflections will look? cheers

[Paulobergonci 673]

woooooooooow that is great, the building and Chicago , i would like that sc4 4 was like that, but withb textures of course

[RQTect777 11]

WOW, this is looking very nice, I have to say it's wayyyy better than the old one. Do you mind showing me how you make the windows reflect like that? or give me some links

to tutorials on those windows, because That is one of the only ways a building can look realistic. keep it comin!

[SimFox 802]

If I may barge in here with few points of my own...

1. Ground plane.

Kelly's suggestions&recommendations are missing one crucial point about the setting of ground plane - namely it leaves it to generate FG. There is a problem with this as the lighting of Bat4Max5 had been tuned to omit it. If left on it generate way to much "stray" illumination altering contrast and colors ballance of the shadow/sunlit sides of models.

More to the point it all besides the point as in it (Bat4Max5) there is a simple button in the LODs roll-out. I would recommend forst setting LODs for the model and pressing that Ground button then. This way you wouldn't need to readjust your LODs. This is tailored to the latest versions of Max (2009 and later) as it is only in these there is an option to exclude objects from FG calculations.

2. Scaling.

The matter of the fact is that 133% is a defacto standard in BATing and generally SC4. Not 100% as Cockatoo had mentioned. And I see no point at all in breeding all those inbetweenies as Kelly suggests - it only adds to the confusion. If you measure most of office the buildings in game you'll find that they tend to have floor hight of about 5m tall floors that ties neatly into typical RL height of 3,8m x1,33 = 5.054m.

Myself I usually model stuff with that scaling already done. There are couple of reasons to it. First of all this way ther is a nice round number of 5 m, second while this scaling overall eliminates "squashing" on a marco level, I think little squashing on micro level (frames, other small elements) isn't bad.

Also depending on the method of modeling used scaling may lead to some bizarre/undesirable consequences.

3. Night lighting of the crown.

I know it is still in the very early stages, but I think you should go lightly on self illumination. In those images you've shown it was a bit too strong... and flat. Given size and shape of ridges it could be a good idea to use lights inside and translucent material to give the whole thing 3d feel like could be seen here:

US Bank Tower Los Angeles Lakers Purple Gold by STERLINGDAVISPHOTO, on Flickr

Particularly on the purple ones...

[ExtraNoise 18]

SimFox: Thanks for weighing in! I was wondering if/when you'd find this thread. I'm still not certain on the vertical scaling (anything in excess of 120% makes this tower look pretty ridiculous - I can make some preview renders) and will probably be fighting with this decision until I actually release the building. I wish the community had never started upscaling in the first place, but I am of a minority that seems to believe "squatty" 100% looks appropriate. I will still probably upscale, but not without making a fuss first.

I definitely agree with the night-lights. That first render was simply playing with the fantastic darknite options you built into B4M. It is just too much fun. I noticed the light rods (possibly neon?) inside of the crown doing some research and have since built the crown to operate just as you propose, but I haven't implemented anything yet to control it. I did update the materials to have a certain translucency with some blur. I'm hoping to bring it all together in the end with a much softer effect than the one I posted earlier. However, I won't be using Lakers colors as I want to have a more universal coloring and will be going with the standard white (which is lightly tinted green, possibly from the frosted glass?).

As requested, here is a Zoom 5 render. And MAN is it UGLY. I am going to completely re-do the ground plane texture (using SimFox's suggestions).

[tonyr 926]

Impressive work so far my friend ! Keep it going.

[kellydale2003 2,276]

Great work!!

I recommend adding those floors (as separate geometry) first before messing around with the environment.. this way they reflect properly.

The glass is a little too reflective, but as soon as you get the floors in there.. You can mess with the IOR, transparency, color, etc.

Trust me.

[ExtraNoise 18]

A little bit of work tonight!

I added some floors to the bottom floors, to help make things more solid. Notice that the reflective windows look a lot less annoying without all that inside-scattered light bouncing around (the top floors of this image are still hollow):

And I took SimFox's advice and played a little with the crown's night lighting:

Think it needs to be a tad bit brighter.

[Paulobergonci 673]

loved, cant wait to download it!

[airman15 4,112]

Can't wait until it's finished!

[gutterclub 2,729]

Looks great, but it's hard to tell anything without SC4 previews.

[ExtraNoise 18]

Looks great, but it's hard to tell anything without SC4 previews.

Ahh, but you didn't even comment on the last one I made!

[gutterclub 2,729]

It's not just for me, it's really the only way to tell how things will look especially when it comes to reflections as the angle affects everything. All the best advice you've received has come after posting a preview render..the other renders just get comments such as "looks great" or "pretty" which are nice to hear but don't really help.

My advice would mirror Kellydales, tone down the reflectivity..the glass kinda looks like the metal coated mirror glass..I'd add some blinds as well and see how that looks. All in all its getting better every post

[Jasoncw 11,933]

Yeah, preview renders are 100% the way to go. There's no reason to do perspective renders, the building will never be seen in perspective. You don't even ever need to use the perspective viewport in max, while having one of the cameras as the active viewport press "u" and you'll have an orthographic viewport.

[ExtraNoise 18]

You guys are absolutely no fun.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Stictly business

[ExtraNoise 18]

Some preview renders.

[Ferrariguy1000 43]

Wow, this is great! Although the wall textures look a bit plain, this is an awesome model.

[ExtraNoise 18]

Wow, this is great! Although the wall textures look a bit plain, this is an awesome model.

No textures have been applied yet. Just flat materials.

Don't worry, I'm getting there!

[ExtraNoise 18]

Some updates during the downtime:

[StegSC 40]

Looks damn good.

[airman15 4,112]

How about making the lobby next? Buildings floating in mid-air with no base creeps me out...

[Xyloxadoria 1,098]

How about making the lobby next? Buildings floating in mid-air with no base creeps me out...

OH THE HORROR

As far as the thing you menitoned with adding floors i dont usually do that, it would add un-nessary time to your redners just give the windows very slight transparncy and it shoulf have the same effect.

[ExtraNoise 18]

As far as the thing you menitoned with adding floors i dont usually do that, it would add un-nessary time to your redners just give the windows very slight transparncy and it shoulf have the same effect.

I'm going to need the geometry in place to control night lighting on each floor, so I don't mind having some simple polygons in place to act as floors. Walls will be going in next, along with textures on the floors to give the illusion of desks/office junk.

As for the lobby...

[RGullett 3]

This is great work. Keep it up. I have no constructive criticism, just a few complements.