Operation Buffalo Wing: A Blizzard of BAT

[Ryan B 35]

jsieczka - I think it's Hook . . . . lol

At any rate, seriously nice job!

[1234 0]

Great work sergeantcm!

[Buffalonian1 0]

Well I have decided I am not experienced enough to work on the Key towers, so instead I will make M&T bank tower. I know one is already released, but this structure is nice and squared, so it is something I can handle. Sorry jsieczka , you did a nice job on it, a great job actually, but I think more detail was needed. I don't know, maybe I'm just being picky.

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//M&T%20buffalo.jpg width=600 align=baseline>

If anyone has any pictures of this building, it would help me and would result in a better finished product.

[Sabretooth78 808]

It'll be interesting to see how you come up with a rendition of this building.  I always thought the two drawbacks to the existing BAT were the building proportions and the lack of night lighting.  It'll also be interesting if you can avoid a major moire like jsieczka had because of the layout of the windows.

 

You asked for pictures, and well, I'll give you links.  This is the stuff I use almost exclusively, that is unless I feel like venturing out and getting pictures of my own -

 

Skyscrapercity <-- TONS of Buffalo pictures in various threads.  And if you don't see one you like, ask and ye shall receive!

 

Cyburbia  <-- Not quite as many, but a good resource nonetheless.

 

Buffalo as an Architectural Museum <-- Good resource, especially for the more historically or architecturally significant buildings/places.   Here's a page with some good M&T pics .

 

Skyscraperpage.com  <-- Not as much again, but what is there is excellent.

 

Other good resources include searching merlin-net.com, emporis.com, pbase.com, and just plan google-ing it.

 

As for my own projects, I apologize for the slowdown, I got nothing done this weekend.  Too much else to do, including working Saturday.  At least I get overtime!  We'll see if I can't get moving again this week.  Going to a Bisons game tomorrow so maybe I can pick a few more things out as I walk a mile to the game to avoid having to pay to park!

 

-Chris

[Buffalonian1 0]

Until I get more pictures, in the meantime I will do research on the Amigone funeral home in tonnawanda (sheridan drive). Would be a simple BAT project for me to work on when I am bored. This will be the last project I will be working on for a while, I am doing three at once now.

http://www.amigone.com/aboutus/tonawanda.shtml

This will be sort of an in-between project so I don't expect it to be completed any time too soon.

Serving Western New York since 1926.

[MidnighDreary88 0]

Most of my american family is from Buffalo (I lived there for about eight year.s..live in Sofia now)

 

I noticed that Wegmans, Tops, Tim Hortons, and Wilson Farms are all on the exchange

I would love to see some more WNY buisnesses.

 

Ideas:

-John and Marys (if you don't live in Cheektowaga or Williamsville you might have not heard of it)

-Sonix Car Wash

 

How about some of the schools in Buffalo.

-Maryvale

-Cheektowaga Central

-JFK Central

 

  I have found many photos of these buildings.

 

Thank you

Ciao

-Griffen

[webboi1979 0]

Howdy!

 

I'm so glad you guys are undertaking this project! I'm working for the Army in Kuwait and this is bringing me a little piece of home

 

I hadn't seen too much on the Niagara Falls (US) region (maybe I didn't look hard enough). Has anyone given any thought to recreating Niagara'a Little Italy?

 

Keep up the incredible work!

 

Rob

http://www.webboi.net

 

[Sabretooth78 808]

I'm baaaaack!

I've decided that I think I need to budget my time better in order to further advance my BAT projects.  True, my life is busy and I don't have a whole lot that I can allocate to these projects.  But truth be told, there's a good chunk of time that I completely waste (I'm sure many of you know where I'm coming from).  I think I may block off 2 days a week plus a weekend day to spend doing BAT work, and we'll see how it turns out.  Obviously things like work, Sabres games, and just plain life may get in the way, but I think I can be more productive in general.

So without any further ado, here's my progress on my latest creation, 10 Lafayette Square, aka Tishmann Building where I left it off nearly 7 months ago.  It's the 1950s style art deco office tower that abuts the Rand Building (hence why I'm modeling it).  These are taken directly from gmax as the renderings looked like crap for some reason (something else to address).





I think you'll agree, what slows me down is the addition of details that just won't show up in the game.  That's something I need to work on, but it's hard to do when you're a perfectionist!

[Sabretooth78 808]

Another problem of mine:  I start too many projects!

Here's today's progress on the Main Place Tower:



Some background info on this building:
- 5th tallest building on the skyline, at 350 ft (107 m).  26 stories.
- Ground level (not modeled yet) is an expansive shopping mall.  The mall was basically a failed 70s attempt to bring shoppers in from the suburban malls; as I said it failed miserably.  All that exists in the "mall" today is a couple shoe stores, a book store, a small food court, and a couple other stores.

I will probably BAT two versions of this building - one with and one without the lower mall portion.

[JayStimson 212]

Great to see you back Chris. If there's anything I can do to help, just holler.

[yoder7652 21]

I just stumbled on this thread and have admired many of the buildings you've already created. I look forward to your forthecoming progress with new projects. Good Job

[spa 970]

Hey the Tishman building looks good. It'll fit in nicely as a generic downtown building. Do you know what size lot it'll be on? 2X2?

I love the attention to detail. The National Fuel sign and lobby came out particularly well. I do know all too well the suffering of putting in an hour on something only to find that it's hardly visible in game. Have heart though, usually that detail is hinted at in the render and that hinting can make for a better quality BAT in my opinion. As for multiple projects, I wouldn't change that either. Having multiple buildings on the go can keep BATting from feeling like work since if you're sick of one, you can go work on another. In short, this looks like good work so I wouldn't change a thing.

[Sabretooth78 808]

Originally posted by: spa

Hey the Tishman building looks good. It'll fit in nicely as a generic downtown building. Do you know what size lot it'll be on? 2X2?quote>

The footprint measures 32.3m x 29.1m, makintg it ever so slightly too wide to fit on a 2x2, but I may be able to eat a little sidewalk! The accompanying Rand building will probably be 2 wide x 3 deep. Then I'll also have a lot with the two butted up together, which will probably be a 4x3. Not exact yet, though.

---

Main Place, on the other hand, will be fairly large. Looking at say 3x3 or 4x4 for the tower lot, and as much as 10x4 for the lot with the mall portion included. But I haven't gotten far enough to know yet. Here's the progress so far (don't mind the primitive textures, they're placeholders as usual for me at this stage). I was hoping to have more "roof junk" done by now, but I guess I should be happy I've gotten this far:

Next steps include finishing the tower roof junk, modeling the bottom where the tower connects to the base of the building, and getting that part laid out. Then I think I'm going to jump back to the Rand, keeping these things at about the same development point.

---

Other developments - Since my realization of local.live.com, I've done some browsing through Buffalo and realized probably every Buffalo building I've done (besides Niagara Square and perhaps Liberty Bldg), will need to be updated. Minor stuff generally (mostly roof detail), but considering how long these things take to render, it's still a significant undertaking. To outline what needs to be revisited, in order of original release:

General Improvements - (high priority)

- Addition of growable lots (where pertinent / fitting)

- Custom queries

- Minor textural tweaks

One HSBC Center - (medium priority)

- Minor roof modifications.

- Minor modification at base of tower

- I may also model a portion of the plaza into the plaza lot to improve realism/appearance.

- Possible Christmas customizations (holiday lighting, giant glass ornaments on plaza, etc.)

Niagara Mohawk - (low priority)

- Minor roof modifications

- Minor rear window layout revisitation

- May look into adding new lighting color schemes (4th of July, Halloween, etc.). Think Empire State Building lighting schemes (Buffalo does it too)!

HSBC Arena - (high priority)

- Add parking deck and connecting pedestrian walkways

- Added/revised roof details

- Complete redo of rear ground level / loading dock area

City Hall - (medium-high priority)

- Lower buttress tower roofs one story, add floor of windows to sides of main tower (to match photos)

- Minor roof detail additions

---

JayStimson - You're the one who modified my Corning Tower lot to add a growable version, correct? It's been so long I honestly can't remember. That being the case, I may ask to enlist your help to create the growables. I would send them to you when the building is essentially finished for uploading, therefore you'd have everything you need right there. My ideas for growables so far -

- HSBC Center (Tower Only Lot) (unless you can do growables > 6x6)

- Niagara Mohawk

- Liberty Building

- Main Place (Tower Only, see HSBC)

- Rand Building

- Tishmann Building

I don't think HSBC Arena or City Hall are appropriate for growables, just due to the nature of the building. They're also on huge lots, as well.

Anyways that's enough for me for one night, one of my longer posts ever...

-Chris

[JayStimson 212]

Chris:
1. Growables larger than 6x6 are now possible thanks to some fairly recent discoveries so don't feel restricted.
2. Again ... I'd be happy to help ... just holler.
3. Custom queries is a great idea.
4. I did the RCI ploppable for your Corning Tower (I hate to see beautiful landmark office buildings with no jobs) but growables are easy too. So ... whatever you want, just let me know.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I think you can move or scale a little bit of the building to get it under 32 meters, lol. No one will miss the .3 meters. I've used the liberty building in all of my downtowns since I've downloaded it. I try to use the Niagara Mohawk building but ussually I bulldoze it because nothing can grow next to it without looking funny, meaning I can't use it in a wall to wall environment. imo it should be modified to work better like that, even if it's not accurate to real life. I think the white's too white too. Anyway, I look foward to the updates!

[JBSimio 152]

Chris,

I'd be more than willing to help you out with queries if you need it.  Until I perfect my batting skills... it's the one contribution I feel I'm good enough to make!   Just PM if you want... it doesn't take much time once I have a layout that you like.

JB

[Ryan B 35]

Originally posted by: sargeantcm

HSBC Arena - (high priority) - Add parking deck and connecting pedestrian walkways - Added/revised roof details - Complete redo of rear ground level / loading dock area quote>

Now that's music to a Sabres fan's ears.  I can get some good pictures of the rear of the Arena, if you'd like.

EDIT:  The Tishmann building houses the Naitonal Fuel offices?  I've gone by there at least three times ( all on the NFTA MetroRail ), and I didn't know which building was which.  Very nice!

[Sabretooth78 808]

Jasoncw - Naw, I'm gonna keep the 0.3 m on there. You're not going to notice that the building overhangs the lot by 0.15m on either side (maybe a pixel)!

As for the Niagara Mohawk, I'll look at seeing what I can do about the lot configuration. The northern wing (if you're looking at the building head-on, the wing to the left) has an indented shape that makes it look as though that area was occupied by buildings at one time. I haven't looked at any old photos to prove if that's really the case, but I suspect it was. Just another parcel(s) in downtown Buffalo that saw renewed life as a surface parking lot. I don't know what, if anything, I'll be able to do, however. Unfortunately it's an angled building in a squared (SC4) world. As for the color, keep in mind the building is sheathed in glazed terra cotta tiles, that's pretty much the way it really looks - it almost has a "pure as snow" appearance next to it's neighbors.

JBSimio - Thanks for the offer, I might take it up with you. Layout is something I was thinking about, I think I'll probably take a representative real-life photo of the building, and then wash it out (watermark) it in the background. And maybe a 2-3 line blurb about the building. I want it to look classy, and not too radically different than the generic Maxis queries.

ryanb - How's this for good?!? That site is causing me alot of work!

But seriously, if you want to get some ground level shots around the perimeter of the eastern half of the arena/garage, be my guest. No info is bad info.

As for the Tishmann, I believe all National Fuel has in there is a payment center on the first floor, the building is essentially vacant. It was actually sold a couple of months ago for only $1 million. I would imagine a new owner would want to upgrade the facilities and start marketing the place, it's in a pretty decent location. I think floor plate size was largely the reason National Fuel moved their HQ to Williamsville. Companies seem to be taking width over height nationwide lately, Buffalo's new HealthNow building is a good example of that. Keeps more of their stuff on fewer levels, better organization.

[Ryan B 35]

sargeantcm - That is pretty sweet.  I'll try to get some ground-level shots the next time I go to a pregame skate.

[Sabretooth78 808]

^^ No particular hurry, I won't be getting to it for a while yet. I'm going to release Main Place, Tishmann, and Rand to the new "standards", and then I'll be updating HSBC Arena first, since it's the one with the most to be done.

Would it also be possible for you to get some street level shots of the Main Place Mall, especially the Main St and Pearl St sides? Like from across the street so they'd be useful for BATing. I need to make some adjustments because the ground elevation is lower on the Pearl St side, and I'm going to use the Main St elevation to model my BAT. If not, that's fine. I drive through downtown every day on my way to and from work, one of these days I could just bring my camera and hang around a little.

I was thinking I have some things to update on the Liberty Building as well, that I noticed last night - I may create a lot version with the entire Pearl-Main, Court-Church block that consists of Main Place, Liberty, and that small non-descript 3 story building wedged in between the two - that way I can more easily model the covered walkway connecting Main Place to Liberty - and it would cover that lower section on Liberty that has no windows. That would just be one version that would be optional to use, even if only in Buffalonian1's true to life CJ. Just think, it could end up being the only completely BATed city block out there?

Either way, Sabres game tonight, so I won't be getting anything done BAT-wise tonight. Nothing last night either, though I was busy. Sleuthing around for details and more pictures to help with Main Place.

Speaking of the Sabres game, I saw a guy in a Leafs jersey at the intersection of Oak & Swan (across from DT Park left field). I could've easily run him over, but I wanted to get home without police assistance!

[Victorian 0]

Sarg...BuffCity from SSC...nice stuff, got em' all.

Okay, So Tishman and Rand are coming along and Main Place is looking good.  I see M&T is getting a possible creator and still nobody is looking at two of my favorites...Ellicott Sq and Guaranty?  Be very honest with me guys, how difficult (or easy) is BATing? I will join you guys and we can get Buffalo built by fall...but I'm gonna need some help in getting started.

you guys need any photos of Buffalo downtown...let me know...I got over 2,000 and growing

[Sabretooth78 808]

Ahh I haven't checked back here in a while, but I have been working. More on-and-off, what with the weather improving and real life, etc.

I've finished a significant portion of the Rand (most of the bottom chunk) to this point.

As for difficulty, BATing is what you make of it. I find my trouble in being too over-particular with my building layouts, I like my pictures oblique and high-res, and when I scale distances in Photoshop, I like to be able to repeat the same measurement off of several photos. That's where all my time goes, pretty much. I've always been good with CAD/D (plus I use it all the time at work), so the actual BATing part, to me, is a cinch.

Theoretically, Ellicott Square would be an easy project, you just have the elaborate detailing. Otherwise, the building is fairly symmetrical, all and all faces are clearly viewable from the street (inner atrium area from Live Local). That might be a good first project, actually. Give you a feel for how much detail needs to be included to make a difference in the game. Though I tend to include every detail anyways.

[ardecila 125]

Alright - having buildings overhanging a lot is NOT a good idea. This can and sometime does lead to a major bug wherein the lot can be demolished but the building itself cannot be.

Take the .3 meters off and save us all the agony.

[Buffalonian 0]

keep the overhang, it has yet to make anything crash. If people need help understanding how to place a building like the NIMO, look at pics of the tower as it is in Buffalo. So many people are used to simple square box blocks...wow.

[sblanc1087 0]

Hey sargeantcm its been a while since my last post here . I was just wondering if your still working on the Empire State Plaza? Also do you have any pictures of its progress? I have yet to start my reconstruction of Albany... although I did see someone requested the Pepsi Arena in Albany... maybe someone will build it.

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull work

[Sabretooth78 808]

I know I say I'm going to come back and get cracking at things, and I do, but it's always short-lived.  Anyways, in the coming months, as the weather deteriorates, I've been getting a hankering to get back to this.  When I left off, I left the Rand and Tishmann buildings ridiculously close to completion, and the Main Place Tower had come a long way (I really did get alot done during my last "burst").

So hold tight...

Originally posted by: sblanc1087 Hey sargeantcm its been a while since my last post here . I was just wondering if your still working on the Empire State Plaza? Also do you have any pictures of its progress? I have yet to start my reconstruction of Albany... although I did see someone requested the Pepsi Arena in Albany... maybe someone will build it. quote>

 

Hey, my first post in a while too.  Unfortunately, I haven't gotten any more done than the last progress you'll find on this thread.  Also, I don't know whether you've made yourself up-to-date on this thread or not, but I don't live in NH now so I no longer pass through Albany very often.  That being said - I'm eventually going to get around to finishing the State Office Towers (last I'd say, they were about 80% done) and continue making attempts at the Egg.  However, I think I will cut the "project" short at that.  But we'll still have the major features, and maybe if we find someone who is better at lot making (I've never considered that my forte) we can have something.  Besides, you see how long it takes me to get things done now!

After that, I think I'm going to restrict myself exclusively to Buffalo projects.  Maybe a Rochester or Syracuse if I feel like it.  I just need to learn to bite off only as much as I can chew.

I shall return.

Oh, and kudos to Deadwoods for re-creating Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Administration Building for SimCity.  Excellent work!

[Spike345 20]

Glad you back! I hope to see more buildings from you, you're brilliant! (hopefully some historical ones )

[scba 180]

I could probably tackle Dunn Tire Park at some point...

[Sabretooth78 808]

Might have to add a new building to the list in the next few years if all goes according to plan:

A nice touch of new to go with alot of old!