Akilles' Bats

[harishna 847]

It is an improvement from your previous projects but it looks a bit sterile more like an actual "model" than a building. The materials are a bit plain and as for the design other than missing some details it looks as you didn't know what to do with top of the tower.

[IDS2 3,369]

You picked up on that really fast! The night scene looks nice, the pattern is a bit random but the implementation itself looks great. Now, it appears you have a nice bump map for the glass, but the cloud image it's reflecting doesn't really define the glass's character as much as it could. Instead of reflecting clouds I'd maybe use a generic mashup of city-looking stuff- find a city picture and distort it until you get something fairly nonspecific, like this quickie example:

This one is pretty colorless, so it probably wouldn't look very good ingame. Ideally, your image should be as vague as possible while still exhibiting the fact that it is, in fact, a cityscape. You don't want to be reflecting anything too clearly, or else when placed in the game it could be reflecting something totally different than the surroundings in which it winds up being placed.

One more thing I'm not sure about is whether or not you could put some kind of detail onto the setbacks...but I can't really think of anything at the moment. Do you have a real-world model that you've used for inspiration?

Could we possibly see a close-up of the base? It looks like you have some really nice stuff going on down there, but like harishna said, some of the materials look kind of bright.

  Edited November 10, 2011 by IDS2  

[Akilles 17]

Hey All! Long time without an update so I thought I would give you guys one to let you know I'm still working on it. Im finishing up college right now so I haven't had much free time to work. Thanks for all your comments as well. They are very helpful. I redesigned the top and added a little night lighting to it. I intend to do more work here and hopefully will have an update that focuses on improving the top soon. Here is my new day render using a different ground plane map to get better reflections. Not sure if I will keep this one but its something I thought I would share.

I did add some things to the base as well as complete more of the detail work on the plaza adding some benches and lighting. I did an up close version in night view to better highlight the lighting.

Here is a full night view.

Im thinking of adding more lighting to the base similar to what I did at the top to give it more continuity. I also changed the night window map a little with the UVW map tool to make it look a little better. I will probably try to tweak it more in the future as well. As always let me know what you guys think!!

[Akilles 17]

Hey all!

I'm getting close to a release of this new building. Ive exported it created the lots and placed it in game. The day version works exactly like I wanted it to. When I switch to night nothing happens however. Some of this is expected as I do not have the patch which lets custom buildings light up at night. However when I switch day/night the model itself doesnt change. I expected it to since I did slightly different reflections for the night. Would the model still change at night or is the fact its not switching also because I dont have the patch installed?? Also if its the case that the night scene wouldnt change because I dont have the patch is there a way to see if the night scene is working without the patch?? Hopefully that makes sense! Let me know if it doesnt!

[harishna 847]

Since you don't have the patch no it won't show any changes for SC4 your model is simply a bunch of images, projected over the shape of your model. Since you are almost done with your model it would be the right time to show a preview to the community...

[Akilles 17]

Thanks Harishna. I will simply export them normally and hope that the final night render comes out right. Previews would be a good idea. The changes I made to the day scene include many changes to the glass textures trying to tweak them to create better (imo) glass than i had previously. I also tweaked the ground plane image I was using to tone down the reflections. I thought they were a little much in my last preview. I also added a second glass texture with a slightly different color to break up the windows. I thought it made it look much more realistic. The following are in game images I took earlier.

For the night scene I changed the windows which were lit up. I did not like how they appeared in the last preview. I think the result was a much better result. I do not have an in game shot for this last one due to the previously stated reasons.

Let me know what you guys think. Ill plan on releasing sometime this week but wish to re-export to incorporate some last minute changes I made.

[Jasoncw 11,934]

For the glass, try making the ground plane darker.

For night, you'll want horizontal bands of windows lit up, instead of individual windows. The insides of office buildings are just big rooms with cubicles in them, with only a few walls that divide areas that different companies are renting (if there is more than one tenant per floor), and with other walls dividing private offices for bosses.

I can't tell for sure but it looks like the lower part of your base is underneath the ground plane, because it looks like there's a shadow being cast on the bottom few meters.

[Akilles 17]

Thanks for the eyes there Jason. I fixed the problem with the ground image on the day view. I didn't bother to re-render that with small change. I did re-render the night scene though. I tried adding a better night texture to the windows and grouped the windows together a little better. Let me know what you guys think

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

Wow, great looking building!

[Evillions 552]

I am not so sure about that pinnacle roof, you should a different texture. IMO, it looks like the standard gmax / 3dsmax grey.

[Akilles 17]

I tried experimenting with the top a bit. I figured it would be a little easier (and more fun) to try to do something different with it. I decided to add a viewing area. Most really tall skyscrapers have them and I thought I would try it. Its only a rough idea right now but if people think its a big improvement I will try to add more detail to it. Let me know!

Heres a Close up

  Edited January 5, 2012 by Akilles  

[emperordaniel 1,281]

Looks great, a definite MUST for me to download!

[Akilles 17]

Following with the above viewing area theme here are two new images. One has a blue tint to the top area the other purple. I tried other brighter colors and thought the clashed. Which color do you guys like best?? I could also easily change it to another if someone has any suggestions.

[emperordaniel 1,281]

I like both colors a lot D:

[Evillions 552]

Fine by me.

[Akilles 17]

So I was all ready to upload this building tonight but when i went to take in game picture I noticed the following:

Its only visible on the highest two zooms. My first thought was an LOD problem but I checked that and they seem fine. Does anyone know what may be causing this issue??

[Francis90b 748]

Nofunk had a similar problem when exporting his Cadillac Tower.You might try looking at the advice that was given to him in that situation.

[harishna 847]

you have all the patches and updates for sc4?

I would consider tuning the textures a bit more before exporting it the gray material and the texture for the spire look unconvincing for me..

[Girafe 1,729]

hot fix 1 for bat

[Amthaak 1,501]

That can happen when you export first the LODs with gmax in HD and then export the scene with max in SD or the contrary i.e. SD with gmax then HD with max...!

  Edited January 8, 2012 by Amthaak  

[Akilles 17]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I've tried downloading the patches and will let you know if that fixes it. Amthaak. When you say make sure they are both HD or SD, I clearly see the option in 3dsmax however I dont see it in gmax. Would this be the draft,low,medium,high setting?? I am exporting in 3dsmax in SD not HD so should i maybe choose medium in gmax instead of the high quality export option??

While I was having to re export anyway I decided to try to improve on the textures for the top a bit. Attention to detail is definitely something I should improve on and tried messing around with about 15 different textures to find the one below. Due to the geometry of the top I was having trouble finding textures that would stay consistent across all the surfaces. after looking at some images of spires I went with a metallic white texture.

[Amthaak 1,501]

Well, I was suspecting something like that, in gmax , before exporting the LODs make shure that in the preview you select the right output, in your case SD, please note that by default it is the SD output which is selected, then the export has to be made in high quality, if you export in HD with max you'll have the pb you mentioned. If you export in max in SD , be sure that the output selected in gmax is SD too.

  Edited January 8, 2012 by Amthaak  

[Akilles 17]

My Gmax doesnt seem to show the SD HD setting. 3dsmax shows it for me but my gmax screen looks like this.

[Amthaak 1,501]

you should have it, normally , as I remenber you should install bat4max, in the installation a part of the folders have to be copied in 3dsmax and others have to be copied in gmax, it was the case for the V. 4.5 I am using I don't know for the V. 5 , you should have a look to this thread

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/topic/40623-bat4max-v5/

[Akilles 17]

Thanks Amthaak. I reinstalled everything and now have those options. I will now make sure that the settings are right before exporting again.

[Akilles 17]

Hey guys,

While waiting for the time to render the skyscraper ive been working on I started another smaller project that fit into my free time better this week. I plan on getting another render of the skyscraper this weekend. Here are the previews for the small medical clinic ive been working on. I do not like the default maxis med clinic and while there are other hospitals and med clinics available, they were not filling the need I had. This clinic is designed to blend into suburbs a little better than the default while not being as specific as some of the others available. I also plan to change some of the stats but thats more for STEX discussion not BAT. I know the building design itself might be a little general thats kind of what I was going for. I wanted a med clinic that would function but not totally stand out against all the buildings around it. Its a similar model to some of the real small town medical facilities ive been to. Let me know what you guys think.

The roof was quite complicated to achieve the layout I wanted with the texture I wanted. If anyone has suggestions or guides on how to improve the texture I would be interested. As it is it involved tons of UVW unwrap features which I'm still learning to use. A farther zoom (which scales the building to the size it will be in game) does not show as many of the roof imperfections. Ill keep working on it as i'm aware its a weak point right now. Just wanted to get some farther feedback in the meantime.