Operation Buffalo Wing: A Blizzard of BAT

[ACEfanatic 7]

It's coming????

 

w00t!!

 

One thing... please don't tell me the roof will be that bright.  Maybe after a heavy snowfall, but not in summer.

 

The lighting's looking purdy right now....

 

Do you have a texture on the walls yet?  It looks like a solid color.

 

-ACE

[subedei 3]

Good to see your still working on your projects. They looks awsoem as laways. Keep up the great work.

 

 

Subedei

[Sabretooth78 808]

ACEfanatic - Yeah, don't worry about the textures, I was just patching them in to get something.  Unfortunately, they were directly from an aerial which apparently was not taken duting the winter, so the roof really does look like that.  I'm going to have to sacrifice some realism here though because I too think it looks bad, and unlike the City Hall project where the bad part was just a small segment of the roof, this one covers the entire building and I don't think it looks acceptable.  I'm going to try something more along the lines of a light grey with some dark spots blurred in throughout, and the obvious walkway that's up there.  And no, the walls aren't textured yet - it's just a placeholder material with an RGB bitmap, and I'll be changing that in the next couple of days as well.

Subedei - As always, thanks for the compliments.  It's definitely going to feel good to finish this one, it's been sitting around too long.  And of course I'm still working on them, I never left!  Just got bogged down in alot of details and stuff, not to mention taking on more than I could probably handle.

-Chris

[SpartanBadger 4]

Wow, I just wandered into this thread and I must say I am quite impressed! The attention to detail you pay is very good, and I like some of these new projects you have developing, I will probably check back to this thread sometime this week. Keep up the good work

[Sabretooth78 808]

A little more work tonight on the roof, and here's what I have:

It definitely still needs some work with contrast and blending (it almost looks too smooth), but it's significantly better than before, and not too great a deviation from reality.  As far as the messy appearance, remember, it's an old building, and I'm sure many will agree that roofs are almost never clean and pure looking in real life.  Speaking of real life, here's the aerial shot:

Any suggestions?  And no, a flat color is not an option.

Tomorrow I hope to finalize all of the roof surfaces, and possibly the wall textures.  I'm then going to bring the roof junk on the Corning Tower up to speed (some of which was really stumping me), I guess I'm just going to have to wing it, not like it's a massive detail anyways.  I think I pay too close attention to detail sometimes!

For now, I'm looking at a release date somewheres around 10/10 for both of these.

-Chris

[6459978. 106]

With regards to the roof, you might want to add another layer to that in photoshop that has a gravel-like texture, or something else grainy. As you said, it does look a little smooth right now.

[Sabretooth78 808]

Worked on the roof textures a bit today, and here's what I have to show:

At this zoom, it's tough to pick out the gravelly (sandstone) texture I added to the roof (which, btw, 6459978, I usually always do, just forgot to for some reason last night).  I might try making it more pronounced, but it is there.  Anyways, I think it looks significantly better yet, and with a little tweaking should be good to go.  Also edited were the roofs around the pyramid towers.

 

I also added a texture to the wall colors, but it didn't show very well.  Part of that is because there's no UVW, and I haven't yet amalgamated all of the wall pieces into a single editable mesh (I prefer to do that last).  That being said, I think the walls of this building are going to end up looking fairly smooth, and as far as I can tell that isn't all too unrealistic.

 

On to the Corning Tower...

 

-Chris

[subedei 3]

Looks awsome. Thies will be a great addition to the STEX. Keep up the great work.

 

 

 

Subedei

[Sabretooth78 808]

So I'm back, and with a cool 55 photos from downtown to show for it.  I got my details for the questionable areas on the Liberty Building (and they're a little more involved than I first thought!), as well as looking into the Rand, Statler, Main Place, and Verizon buildings.  21 of those photos are of Dunn Tire Park (Pilot Field), I've been getting a growing hankering lately to model that stadium (even though we already have a comparable one in SC4).

 

Also got some nice shots from the City Hall deck, the view was beautiful (not to mention seeing the inside of that building for the first time).

 

I did not, however, get a chance to recon the Air Canada Centre.  The weather was lousy when I got into Toronto, and by the time I left, the weather was beautiful, but the area was understandably crazy given the baseball game was letting out, and I just wanted to get out of there.  I got a nice view of the front of the place, but that's about it.  So hopefully some of the Torontonians around here can pick up the ball (puck) for me here!  One thing I have to say about that city is every time I see it there seems to be so many new residential towers popping up!  I thought the city is certainly developing an Asian look when you come in from the west on the Gardiner Expwy with all the new glass towers.  Definitely interesting looking, but I still prefer the blocky, old, lit-up towers I saw in Buffalo later that night from the Peace Bridge!

 

-Chris

[Sabretooth78 808]

After a massive bout of RLS, I've gotten most of the new modeling work done on the Liberty Building.  Here's a peek:

 

The mysterious back corner...

 

The Main St entrance, complete with a coffeehouse and 2 ATMs...

 

More to come relatively soon...

-Chris

[SpartanBadger 4]

Man I am sorry I forgot about this thread for a while! You have done a great job with the Liberty Building! Keep up the hard work, it is really paying off for you

[Superstar 69]

looks really nice, I seemed to have missed this thread all this time, great work on it

[subedei 3]

Looking good so far. Cant wait for this to hit the STEX.  

 

 

Subedei

[Sabretooth78 808]

Thanks for the comments on the Liberty Building, it's finally almost ready!  And here's the latest on the second half of my BAT backup -

Basically it needs alot of texturing, especially for the roofs, but otherwise a little night lighting (I'm not yet sure how to get the side lighting effects as they are in real life), some modeling at the base, and this one's ready for export.

-Chris

[jtportland 184]

i really like these buildings! very realistic, also, other than using globexplorer, you should use http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ you get the same images, but without the watermarks!... actually i just checked, and they only have black and white images for buffalo, they have mostly color for big cities though.

anyways, keep up the great work! once that building has more roof textures and night lighting, it will look real great!

[vanshnookenraggen 0]

Amazing! Keep up the great work.

[Sabretooth78 808]

Here's the likely last update on the Corning Tower before you see it on the STEX - the model is entirely finished and textured (although I'm going to revisit the UVW on the main roofs - too smooth) up to the night-lighting phase.  I'm also going to play around with different shades of glass;  I've never done that on any previous building but I may on this one because the glass makes up a much larger percentage of wall area than any building I've ever done before. 

(Admins: This is not an oversized picture, it's two 395x600 pictures butted together)

Speaking of release, this building is going to come on a nearly barren lot - and I have two justifications for this:

• The base of this building really is pretty barren, at least in the very close vicinity.
• After I create the State Office Towers and the Egg (and possibly the Library and other associated buildings), I'm going to develop a huge lot (the Plaza itself) on which to place all of these buildings.  This lot will be anything but barren, for example take a look at any aerial imagery of the real thing (there's some posted by others earlier in this thread).  I'm envisioning this building ending up as part of a package, something along the lines of rubik3's World Trade Center.

Long story short, I'm not wasting time on something that's going to be inconsequential in the long-term.

--

Tomorrow (or Tuesday) I'm planning on switching back to the Liberty Building and finishing the modeling left to do there.  There's more stuff on that back corner roof, but no pictures, and no way of getting any pictures unless maybe if you were up in the Main Place Tower, so I'm just going to have to wing it based on what little I can get from the aerials that I have.  Then I'm going to get into texturing, which shaping up to be fun since I have about 30 texture files, and I'm not even sure if I'm using them all.  The fun never ends!  But at least I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel!

--

jtportland - The watermarks aren't really that inconvenient.  If I come across some need where I wish it wasn't there, I just go to the site and pan the image around a little and save another copy.  Then they can be fairly accurately stitched together in Photoshop, eliminating the watermark.  It's especially useful for getting the basis for roof textures (such as what I did on City Hall and the Liberty Building so far).  Besides, I thought based on what I had seen that globexplorer seems to have better resolution than terraserver (at least when I've used it, and I've known about terraserver far longer than globexplorer).  But then again I never zoomed in on really big cities before, which Buffalo and Albany certainly aren't..  You know what are impressive are the photogrammetric shots we occasionally get for project at work - you can practically pick out the aggregate in the pavement!

Until we meet again...
-Chris

[Tunafish 48]

that building is so tight!

[subedei 3]

Very nice job, Chris. These 2 buildings will be fine additions to the STEX. Keep up the good work.

 

 

 

Subedei

[Superstar 69]

now thats COOL!!!! way good job

[Sabretooth78 808]

As Operation Buffalo Wing now approaches it's 5000th visit, strange things are happening:

• The Red Sox win the World Series.
• The ground feels cold.
• There's a strange smell in the air not sensed since early July.

Ahh!  So that must mean the Liberty Building must be nearly ready for export!

It's amazing the world of difference a couple of new textures will do.  I'm still not sure about the main wall color although it does seem to match my photos.  I might try making it a little darker.  I also added a brick texture to it but it evidently got lost in the render.  To be honest it doesn't show up on any picture of mine except one when I was standing right next to the building - the bricks are very consistently colored in real life.  As for the roof, I'm still not happy with it but I don't know what else I can do.  I think part of my problem with it is it's too purplish.  I'm going to take another shot at it tomorrow.

But all-in-all, I think it's finally just about there.  Just a few more tweaks - any suggestions?

Who knows, at this rate, buffaloes might actually start flying, and Drew Bledsoe might remember how to competently throw a football!  But don't bet on it...

-Chris

[davidhogan 1]

that's remarkable dude.  once again, excellent work.

 

dave

[vanshnookenraggen 0]

I cant thank you enough!!! That is amazing!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Wow Chris!

Still kicking serious butt in Buffalo! Thanks for the inspiraton for the Portland project!

[subedei 3]

Looking great so far. I cant wait for these to hit the STEX. 

 

 

 

Subedei

[ACEfanatic 7]

*jaw hits floor, breaks floor, keeps going*

 

Simply amazing......

 

I can see the brick texture through the render... just a subtle hint of it, which is good.

The 'back corner' section is incredible.  With the vents and wires going up the wall... it's one of those details people forget to use on original BATs.

 

I agree that the roof texture leaves something to be desired.

 

*passes out*

 

THUD!!

 

-ACE

[hogmeister 7]

I like the way you have managed two buildings with a totally different architectural style, they are both super and the work that you have put into them shows. I suppose when one gets too fiddly its nice to be able to have another style to work on, anyway they are both excellent choices and will look good in the game. I think the roof of the corning works particularly well.

[Sabretooth78 808]

Thanks for the positive comments!

 

I've tweaked the textures for the Liberty Building a bit.  I slightly darkened the brick textures for one thing.  They don't seem to match my photos quite as well but it just looks more right.  The roof has been dulled a little bit, and the purple look has been eliminated.  I think it's the best I'm going to be able to do.

 

As for that back corner, I actually had to cut about a full story out of that section of the building.  As it sits in real life along a slight hill, I decided it was easier to hold the main entrance end (Main St) and fudge the other side (Pearl St.) to match.  All in all though, I like the way it came out as well, you'd only notice something was off by comparing it to a picture of the real thing.

 

Possibly the only sore spot remaining is the long back side (the side opposite the last picture I posted, the side that faces Main Place).  There are no windows for the first 4 floors or so, due to the building directly abutting it's neighbor.  Not much I can really do about that, though.

 

All that's left now for both of them is night-lighting the windows and a few minor night-lighting tweaks.

 

hogmeister - I actually thought about the architectural styles, and how I have yet to do two buildings of the same style.  But I can say they probably even out in difficulty, with the exception of the modernist Corning Tower (and the rest of Empire State Plaza to follow), which was pretty easy, I just got hung up on the roof junk (of all places).  But from now on it'll probably be alot of repeats - hockey arena, modern, art deco, etc.

 

-Chris

[newyorkrunaway1 110]

WOW!!! Hurry up and release it. lol

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Date: 10/30/2004 1:00:05 PM
Author: sargeantcm

As it sits in real life along a slight hill, I decided it was easier to hold the main entrance end (Main St) and fudge the other side (Pearl St.) to match.

quote>

Woah, I thought I was the only one who referred to the sides of their buildings by the street they faced! Too cool!

See ya on Broadway & Salmon!