Jason's BATs & Tutorials

[Amthaak 1,501]

I like these nightlights very much! Don't forget to make a "small" tut...

[Jasoncw 11,840]

ok guys I'm going to export it very soon! So speak now!!

The nitelites aren't actually very special. Most of the floors are just a plane behind the window blinds with a self illuminating material. The only thing that might be different from other night maps is that there are distorted rectangle shapes, that when applied to a front face, the angle makes it look like the rectangles are flat on the floor instead of on the window, and that helps give a sense of depth. I don't actually remember any of the details (except that I started with rectangles and then distorted them according to a certain angle), but I wrote about it in the United Nations HQ thread.

But it's actually the same thing that Darn42 is doing, except what he's doing uses images of modeled furniture instead of generic rectangles, and his also makes it so that it works on the side glass too. On mine the illusion falls apart on the side facade.

For the ground floor I needed to model the interior so I just searched online for free "office desk" models and I just applied a grey material (it came with a lot of textures and bright 90s spice girl office colors which I wasn't going to bother with). For the other part of the ground floor, the part that is the lobby, there is nothing in it except for a sculpture which I modeled but isn't visible. And then since I had some office furniture I just copied it up to a few of the office floors.

[jonnboy1976 218]

Excellent work. The night lighting is some of the very best I've seen! Very realistic, three dimensional, and detailed. You do very high quality work, and this is another great example.

And thank you for your continued work with tutorials!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks!

Ok everyone it's getting exported!!

[Jack_wilds 550]

standing by in anticipation....

[Jasoncw 11,840]

As you guys have probably seen already, the Inland Steel Building has joined the new years eve party on the STEX tonight.

Happy new year!

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Happy New Years to you, and lovely bat!!!

[libellibicus 396]

D/L'ed and in use already. Many thanks Jason, and happy new year

[Darknono35 3,137]

You're an BAT master. Already in my city , thanks for sharing, and happy new year !!

[Gn_leugim 853]

happy new year

[art128 4,618]

Thanks for this beauty! Happy New Year as well.

[Delecto 941]

Happy New Year to you & thank you very much for the last BAT!

[madhatter106 3,903]

Most of the floors are just a plane behind the window blinds with a self illuminating material. The only thing that might be different from other night maps is that there are distorted rectangle shapes, that when applied to a front face, the angle makes it look like the rectangles are flat on the floor instead of on the window, and that helps give a sense of depth.

This is a very, very good technique. The one thing I don't like about some Max modeled buildings on the STEX is that they use a frontal view of a window for the nightlight. With the angle that the buildings appear in game, that angle is totally wrong; you need to see floor and furniture, more so than the walls at the back of the room. So often I will like a BAT but not download it, because the nightlights look like big holograms pasted in place of the windows that make the whole thing look 2D and flat. The distortion of the image is what is needed to create the 3D illusion. I wish more BATters would do this.

[KonstantinII 1,106]

Your tutorials are quite useful for those who want to make their own buildings!

[kellydale2003 2,276]

Hey Jasoncw!

Great job on the night lights for your recent BAT! haha... I was going to do the exact thing, but as I was doing about a floor I looked at the 20 other floors above it! It was a bit time consuming for me, so I did it the traditional way! :b

If only there were such a random geometric algorithm script! *Cough* Autodesk's Area *Cough*

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Only three of the floors have modeled furniture, the rest are done the traditional way.

[NBAFAN1 28]

Jason, is there a chance you will make the Gramercy, Steerforth, and Knopf towers dark night?

[gutterclub 2,729]

and any chance you somehow get hold of those models Simfox re-did for Darknite?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I have vague intentions of doing darknite/improved versions of everything.

For the art deco towers I think it would be nice to do more than the basic improvements, related to the massing at the base and how they could possibly be plopped together as a complex. No huge changes though. And then maybe changing it from terra cotta to limestone (nofunk originally intended for it to be limestone irrc and when I started texturing it it looked like terra cotta and so we went with that). It just seems strange to me to have a building like that be white terra cotta. Anyway, we've talked very very briefly about it and nothing has been decided yet, but it's on our radar.

For my buildings, if SimFox appears with the files then I'll resume work off his, otherwise I'll just start fresh. I have some ideas about how I'll approach them, but I need to get my ducks in a row first.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Some of you who were around long enough might remember when I used to upload regularly, instead of in clumps...

For example in 2008, I uploaded in 8 out of 12 months, and for several of those months I had more than one upload. But the last few years I've uploaded in clumps, with big gaps inbetween. For example, between July of 2009 and July of 2010 I only uploaded one BAT.

So I decided that in 2013 I'm going to make at least one upload a month.

Unfortunately I decided this the night of January 30th, lol

I tried to get something together but didn't have time, and now it's February.

It's an adaptation of one of my architecture portfolio projects. I made some changes to make it work better in the game but this is basically it.

This is a pain to render and export so there won't be any changes to the day version lol

It'll be an R$$ grow with 6x4 and 4x6 versions.

And I have a question, mainly for people who use extracheats.dll. Normally I name my exemplars "Jasoncw - name of building - version info if needed (more version info if needed)". This way all of my buildings show up next to each other in the list.

Do you guys prefer this, or would you prefer if I switched to the Maxis Standard "CO$$$5_2x3_Building Name"? This way my buildings are sorted according to type throughout the list.

This wouldn't effect how the buildings are sorted in the landmark menu, just the bldgplop cheat menu. I can do it either way.

[gutterclub 2,729]

I prefer things with naming conventions, i.e as you already do and as NYBT do..Nofunks are a lot harder to find. Stick with what you got !

Love the new building, very generic and very useful. Looks like somethnig you would find in UK cities

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Your new building will make a wonderful school/college! I also like your plan to upload more regularly. However, why is the building floating?

As for the Extra Cheats DLL, stick with what you have. When I want to check one of your growables, I know to look at "J", and that's it. Nolan and some others often uses exemplar names that are derived from the status of the BAT in 3dsmax in combination with an abbreviation of the name - the result is something like "ABC_LODS2", which can be a bit cryptic. In my test city it's no problem because I only use it for new plugins candidates, so any new entry in the list is "suspicious", but if I were using a larger amount of plugins and/or if I plopped growable stuff in game (i.e., with my full plugins folder running in the background), this could become a bit confusing.

[Gn_leugim 853]

Do you guys prefer this, or would you prefer if I switched to the Maxis Standard "CO$$$5_2x3_Building Name"? This way my buildings are sorted according to type throughout the list.

Tha's the way I do and I believe is the best, if we all Baters use this same standard, it is much easier for people find it, sort it, mod them etc etc.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks great it's remind me of a school.

[art128 4,618]

For extracheat.dll, I like it as you do right now.

Also what a beauty you have there! I like all the flora and the glasses. The small play area is nice.

I only find the roof a little empty.

Also don't worry about updates per months. Personally I prefer Quality over quantity.

[IL. 1,043]

That's a one cool BAT, thanks

[libellibicus 396]

Very nice BAT, Jason. It will fit in very nicely in my UK cities. With regards to the cheats, I prefer for you to keep it as you already do. It makes it alot easier for me to find it.

[MTT9 187]

Really nice building. I'll second T Wrecks idea to make it a school or college.

I also like the way you name your bats as you can look them up easyily.

But what i really like, is hearing more updates and buildings are coming soon

[Vlasky 1,803]

One BAT a month! YES YES YES!!! )) New building looks great and I can't wait to have more of your author buildings in game! Like that primary school that I like! So, yeah, I'm looking forward to this : )

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks guys

So some have suggested a version in addition to R$$ growables. What do you guys think it could be?