Boston Triple-Deckers

[D'vega 10]

Ah, New England. Of your many defining characteristics the most overlooked seems to be the ubiquitous triple-decker. Those 3-story stand-alone apartment buildings that in places seem to wholly comprise those early streetcar suburbs. No two are alike, and with perhaps millions to choose from, what better subject to build up in BAT?

... well, Sketch-up. Anyway...

My project here is to make a pack of Boston triple-deckers, mostly to serve as an intermediate between wall-to-wall inner-city apartments and single-family suburban homes. A large pack at that, so that the super-varied neighborhoods such as the ones here in New England are possible, for both R$ and R$$. All of the buildings I've modeled (8 near completed, plus 2 more started) are recreations or inspired by actual buildings. Posted above are a few test renders. They're not complete, but I'd like some input and critiques on what I've got so far. A few notes: none of them have anything behind the windows yet, but they will at some point. Also, they're all using textures that could still change, but the one right now that is a definite placeholder is the roof on #4. And the brick foundation on #4. (The texture is too busy and all the shapes on the entryway/porch get lost.)

Thoughts?

[Kifflom112 355]

Oh wow, now these are amazing, I love this style of building. The models look impressive. Keep up the great work.

[harishna 847]

have you give it a go to gmax? or do you have access to 3ds Max (e.g have a school/university e-mail)? your models are quite good, not to say impressive for what I have seen with sketch up, but the textures need quite a bit of work, most if not all the textures you have applied are WAY too saturated...I would think that #2 has the best textures so far, maybe the roof gradient is a bit too strong...

  Edited September 3, 2011 by harishna  

[Follarch 327]

Everything looks SUPERB. And this is modeled in Sketchup to boot! Awesome work here, Id say make the roof less of a solid black, and this is ready for the Stex.

[madhatter106 3,931]

Numbers 2 and 3 look pretty sharp. I'd cut and paste them into some in-game screenshots if I were you, to doublecheck scale/color/etc. The textures do need a lot of tweaking - the rooftop on number 1 and number 4 look really super darkly rich and saturated. The window glass also needs something better going for it. All in all, I'd be curious to see these finished and perfected...

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

The modeling on your houses looks great. I think the roof is to black on house #4, and I also think you need to work on the action in those windows/glass on your houses, but over all your doing pretty good as a new batter. Keep it up.

  Edited September 3, 2011 by Aaron Graham  

[SimHoTToDDy 2,939]

The textures are not as bad as I thought they'd be from the black background:

You should notice the problem areas right away, however. The roof and the windows on each need the most attention, but you might also want to do some further fine tuning to contrast and noise on most all of your textures. I'll make a mock up if I have the time.

Very nice work by the way! I love the buildings you chose!

-Todd

  Edited September 4, 2011 by SimHoTToDDy  

[Spike345 20]

um, ok. I am your number one fan already! this is exactly what I am looking for in my cities!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Hey, good to see that you opened a BAT thread - with quite good (and well-deserved) reception, I might add.

The others already said it all for the time being, so I don't have much to add at this time. I'm a big fan of Cycledogg's and spa's wooden houses, so I'm really looking forward to using your creations, too.

[IDS2 3,436]

I really like these! You did a great job of including all the details. The roof texture needs work, as others have mentioned, and maybe the parapets are a bit thick but I'm not an expert on this style.

[pepsi38 46]

What ever happened to this project???   D'vega, did you ever finish it?   They looked awesome and filled a much needed sim city hole.

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

The last time D'vega logged in was like 2 years ago and the last reply on this thread was 5 years ago..

[pepsi38 46]

Not sure if the shovel is for me digging up the dead thread or so we can bury D'vega but I'll cordially accept anyways