Thanksgiving Tower Dallas, Tx

[RQTect777 11]

Ohh ok. Thanks man!! Do the textures I have look good so far? Im not saying im done.

[paulvmontfort 617]

asuming that the picture on the right is close to how it should be, I think the textures are pretty good so far, just continue with the rest, maybe it's better to judge when everything is textured

[RQTect777 11]

Update!!! Like Jasoncw said, I made the noise maps bigger and put the bump strength to 0.03. I know there's something else I need to do to the glass, but I just can't put my finger on it. Any suggestions?!

I'm still not quite done with the roof yet, but feel free to constructively criticize it as well. The plaza I'll work on last.

[darn42 1,268]

Looking good so far. I agree that the glass is something you should definitely work on, as it is 90% of the building, it should be something you try and get perfect. I recently made a short description of how to create some accurate base glass textures in reddonquixote's BAT thread, though now that I'm looking at the real building, I think you could benefit much more from jasoncws tutorial on glass. The nature of this wall of mirrored glass is going to make it very difficult to pull of well for simcity, mainly because the buildings that are seen through the reflections on this building, from what I've seen, are pretty much undistorted besides the bump of the glass. And as we know, reflections are better to be ambiguous for Simcity.

Something that might work is to download google warehouse sketchup models for reflection purposes only, which would make the building look better as just a render, but it would look out of place in the game.

One thing that is separate from the actually changing the material to make the glass materials more realistic, is to add textures of roads around your BAT to give the reflections more context.

Anyways, good luck. This is a very deceptively difficult building to do well and I hope you can pull it off.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Well, looks like the image on your ground plane is far too defined and too little fragmented. Remember it doesn't have to be a single, coherent scene. You might was well use a somewhat garbled and fragmented mix of aerial city shots that don't make any sense when viewed directly as a planar image.

[paulvmontfort 617]

if your reflected image is big enough you could also tile it quite a bit, making it smaller than it actually should be.

[bixel 1,228]

I really like it - the reflection could be more subdued but it looks really good. BATters sure have progressed over the years looks really great for a 1st building.

[gutterclub 2,729]

It's fine for the ground image to be clear and defined, that shouldn't change..what makes it look 'distorted' so to speak is the noise and bump of the glass, but not olny that, its essential to have at least 2 glass materials, slightly different and alternate each glass panel between the 2 materials, this stops the glass flowing from one pane to the next and breaks up the ground plane image

[darn42 1,268]

What I'm seeing right now, is clearly defined shapes reflected from the ground plane. But those shapes look out of place because they are 2d representations of the tops of buildings, and some of those reflections are very blurry while at other points they are very crisp. This takes away the sense of continuity and context from the building. So I think it should either be more vague of a ground plane, google warehouse models, or some other solution that I can't think of.

[RQTect777 11]

I hope to have it done by thanksgiving

[RQTect777 11]

Any better?!

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

This is way better. But why don't you try to use a ground plane with a skyline. With a close view to the buildings. Maybe it will cause that the buildings looks as if it is located next to other buildings. I hope you know what I mean.

[RQTect777 11]

skyscraper241: I know what you mean, but other people have suggested I make the reflections more undefined. I'll mess around with the ground plane more and see what will look best

[RQTect777 11]

Here are all the sides, if I don't get any other suggestions, I'm going to start working on the night lights.

[darn42 1,268]

That glass is looking so much better. Great job on it.

Only suggestion I have at this point I said earlier. Provide some context. This can be done by editing your ground plane to have the simcity roads around where it will be lotted. That will add a lot of depth to your rendering I believe.

[RQTect777 11]

darn42: Ok, I'll render a road around it, I had tried that earlier and it didn't look so good, but we'll see!

[RQTect777 11]

darn42: like this?

[darn42 1,268]

Yup, pretty much. It doesn't look very noticeable, but good BATs specialize on doing things that no one notices; most people see the details but don't realize they are there, and that makes them think that something is higher quality. This is one of those things.

You've done a great job on this building so far. I've got nothing else to say on it.

[RQTect777 11]

Nightlight Time!!!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

I'm fine with the glass. It may have been somewhat annoying to read "yeah, that's better, but still not quite there" all the time, but you kept working on it, and now all the patience really pays off. If aynthing, the 1-3 bottom rows look a bit odd because they're almost solid light grey, but that may look OK in context of a lot made with the white Maxis pavers.

Are you sure you want to BAT these round planters as an integral part of the BAT?

[RQTect777 11]

What would be the problem having the plants? Im just asking

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Well, if you make a box-shaped LOD around the building that includes the planters, you will be unable to place any plant props on them. In general, the LOD will extend further beyond the outer walls of the building, making it impossible to place props close to the wall. Props will be cut off by the building if they are inside the LOD shell.

If you render the planters separately, this potential problem can be avoided. AFAIR, if you make their respective LODs flat enough, they will even be sensitive to shadows falling on them. Jason should know exactly.

[RQTect777 11]

T Wrecks: So render the building, plant 1, and plant 2 seperately (Each having their own LOD).Then put them all in the correct places in Lot editor?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Yup, that would be the procedure. Once you are in the LE, try taking a lamppost or a street tree and positioning it around your building - this should give you a better idea of what I'm talking about than any words I could write here.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I don't remember what the exact LOD height was for that to work but I think something like .2 would be fine.

Then when you make the prop in the Plugin Manager, there's an option to look at, but I forget the exact name of the setting. The name of the property should have something about shadows in it, so just go through the tabs and find it. With it, you can set your prop to be "normal", which is, the prop will cast shadows but will not receive them. Or it can be set so that shadows can be cast over the prop, but the prop will not cast shadows itself.

Obviously you want the prop to cast shadows too, and the work around for this is to BAT a small section of ground around it. So the shadow on the ground is included in the BAT itself rather than being generated in the game.

Another option for your planters is to make custom LODs. Draw and extrude a spline so that it encloses the main building. And then make either boxes or low poly cylinders which enclose the planters. Then right click on one of them, go to convert to>editable poly, and then attach all three objects together and name it LOD5. And then clone it a few times to make LOD4 and LOD3. Then unhide your old LODs and delete them. This would be the same as exporting it with the default box LODs except you won't have problems putting props next to the building.

[RQTect777 11]

Jason: Thanks for the LOD information!! I'll be testing that soon

Still working on the lights, but this is the only light problem I've come in contact with so far

These are both the same pic, just one's without the red markings.

Is there a setting on the light I can turn on to cast shadows correctly? and where can I find it>

See how the light is "bleeding" through the walls? Btw, I'm using a free photometric light

Thanks guys!! Just a minor problem

[darn42 1,268]

The bleeding through is caused by the light passing through a polygon with its normal facing out (I think). Try selecting the polygons that the light is near, and check to see if all of them have the bright red highlighting facing towards where they would receive light. If it's dark red then that means the it is a flipped normal and will not block light. If none of them are flipped, make sure the light isn't partially inside the geometry, that will cause the problem also.

If it is flipped, you can either shell the object that is giving you trouble by a low amount, or turn on "force 2-sided" in the render setup.

[RQTect777 11]

Thanks darn!! That helped alot, even though I don't have a pic right now to show you

I don't know if I will stick with this "multicolor" look, I'll let you guys decide whether it should be this way or just different shades of yellow.

The only reason I did multicolor is because alot of the real life photos of this building looks similar to this one. Anyway, Opinions!!!

And roof..

[Andrey km 304]

Amazing nightlight on the roof!

[Bluthlucidity 88]

That blue is dreamlike.