Jason's BATs & Tutorials

[thatmonkeysim 8]

that looks awesome!! i cant wait to see it in game!

[Kwakelaar 92]

Your latest building with the small statues on the ground floor, I am very impressed. Really wonderful details and your choice of textures is very good.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks everyone

yes, say what you want the big white building to be named!



Here are the night lights so far. As some of you may have noticed my night lights haven't been very spectacular. On this BAT I'll be practicing with them.

Are they too bright, the wrong color? Any criticisms will help me make them better.

[praiodan 78]

I think they're just good as they are. I like it this way. Maybe you should lit up the other bigger lobby windows on the groundfloor like the entrance doors though. But looks great anyway
I just read in a very cool book something how steelsceletton constructions developed and showd also as exampel something from the Riverfront/ St. Louis which looks just like your BAT (maybe you wanted to make it and I didn't read it) Maybe I can scan it to show ya

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I've worked on the rest of the building. Origonally the brick was going to be a dark red/brown texture, but I couldn't get it to look good. I also made the white stone a bit darker and pinker to blend in with the game a bit better and so that it blends in with the brick better. The textures on the back (there are two, one for the wall, and another for the brick columns so that they will be visible against the wall, if that makes sense). I'm still working on the textures, but I though I'd post a picture anyway. I also worked on the night lights, but I'll show a picture for that sometime later.

praiodan: That would be cool! My buildings always end up looking like some pre-existing building, but it's fun to see which famous architect I'm like.

[barnatom 0]

I already used all of your buildings in my cities, but never came here to have a look at your current work.
Now I am very impressed! Finally we will get some wall to wall buildings taller then 5 stories! Great!!!
And I really like the way you do them. The details are amazing and the textures as well.

The 'photoshoped' image of your wall to wall buildings completeley blew me away. I always wanted to have such blocks in my cities!

Can't wait to see this buildings in game, please continue your work!

[Hordijk 18]

Long time no see Jasoncw, but your still doing a great job on your buildings they are getting better and better, just keep up the good work.

[praiodan 78]

First, very cool how you made the side wall, fits very good IMO this way with the brick.

Oh, and here's the pic I spoke of, it's taken from a german book about steel constructions where also a part about how it developed and such...


Click for enlarging...
I know, there are sitll some differences, but also many, many similarities IMO

[Jasoncw 11,840]

That's a nice looking building. I've always liked those clean lines. I might make a building that looks more like that one in the future. The two do look similair, but I think most buildings like that looked similiar back then.

I have 3ds max now! I'll have to finish all my current buildings in gmax, but after that everything will be in 3ds max. from what people say, renders are faster, and it isn't as laggy in 3ds max. Hopefully this will enable me to make big buildings without any problems. Plus I can do renders from different angles too. Hopefully I can get 3ds max all set up right to work for Sim City.

Also, I was just looking and I have just over 10,000 downloads (not including what I uploaded under kefka) and I'm exited for 20,000.

I haven't been in much of a BATing mood lately, so I haven't done any work on anything, but there isn't much of a hurry.

[jessyka who? 1]

Ahhh I've been a bit absent from the ST forums lately, and I feel I should post here first! For starters, I think Pearl Place sounds best, it just flows nicely, and the building looks like something they would call a 'place'.

Also I'm very anxious to see how the whole 3ds max thing works out for you. Does this mean even higher detail (if possible)? Maybe you could easily churn out a nice set of those 1x2 or 1x3 side-by-side early 20th century buildings that are so commonplace throughout any major industrial city of that time period. Those kinds of buildings are getting a second life as many of them are perfect for spacious lofts.

 

And lastly, I just wanted to say how great your buildings look hovering above baseball stadiums. They make the perfect true-American ballpark feel. Keep up all the spectacular work Jason. You are my favorite BATter, and are highly overlooked and underrated by the SimCity community. I hope my words can give you a bit more motivation to get BATting a bit more often.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks for always checking out this thread, it always make me smile when I see this thread bumped up, or on the home page.

I don't think I'm overlooked though. I got nominated for a Trixie last time, with only a few BATs on the STEX, and some progess pictures in this thread, and my uploads have alot of comments and ratings for how many downloads they get. Plus my things have been popping up in alot of city journals too which is cool to see. As a matter of fact, I just searched for baseball fields on google, and a picture of sc4 came up. I clicked on it, and it went to some site I've never heard of, but it was a city journal and it had one of my buildings in it!

This is a preview of the Detroit Free Press Building. Included are a lot, a desc, and the model. Most of the buildings stats have been turned to zero. Open the webpage below, and download it from there. It only lasts for 25 downloads or 7 days, so get it while it lasts, and thanks for following this thread.

http://s59.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1YU68CE8HWC4F1HGSBISBMCLJ2

3dsmax probably won't mean an increase in detail for most buildings. The limit for how finely detailed something can be is Sim City itself, since you can only zoom in so close. It might speed up how fast I go, but really, how fast I make things depends on how much I work on them and how concentrated I am when I'm working (I space out and stare at the screen alot).

and if I accumulate enough 3-d models, I might make a small 3-d city journal too. There could even be little videos in it too.

I worked on the most recent building some more, and right now it's almost done. I just need to toss a little bit of roof junk on the roof and that's that. When I'll do that I'll post some pictures of it. I think I'll try to put the finishing touches on all my buildings, and I'll start rendering them.

[wolverine 12]

Yeah, it's so wonderful using 3ds, everything goes much faster. Although, keep in mind those fast renders are without lights. It's just smoothing with raw shadows. Some of the big stuff I do for architecture school that requires realistic daytime lightings can take up to an hour for one 1024 x 768 render! And that's just one view, LOL But as far as checking to make sure your details will render correctly, 3ds renders normally in less than a second.

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Today I uploaded:

  The Detroit Free Press Building  (February 11th, 2006)

  Fisk Insurance  (February 11th, 2006)

[jessyka who? 1]

Ahhhh today was a good day, thanks to you. Both of these buildings are just excellent by every standard. Great job Jason!

[____----____ 37]

Date: 2/12/2006 1:15:04 AM Author: jessyka who? Ahhhh today was a good day, thanks to you. Both of these buildings are just excellent by every standard. Great job Jason!

quote>

 

you brang it hard today AWESOME

Alek

[Micah 16]

You're BATs truly are Maxis quality. I think what makes them look so good are the windows! Yes, the windows! The colors in the windows add character to the building. Great job, jason!!

[atomik 0]

Hey Jason

 

I just happened upon your thread here today and will be following it whenever I come to Simtropolis now. You're one of just a few specific batters I can name off the top of my head that I know I'll like their creations before I even see them. If I knew how to bat, we'd be doing the same kind of bldgs. I live dwntwn Detroit and would love to see more of these scrapers represented. You'd be the perfect person to take on the Penobscot although I know what a job that would be. My favorite scrapers dwntwn are the Stott and Guardian. There's nothing like them at all on the STEX and they'd be a great tallest in any old-style city.

 

Keep up the good work man!   

[Jasoncw 11,840]

jessyka who?: Thanks

aleking: It's funny how I ended up uploading two things that day. Origonally I was only going to upload the Free Press, but they day before I finished Fisk Insurance and rendered it on a whim, then sent it to T Wrecks. He did it really quick and sent it to me. When I was done uploading it, I got the Free Press from JBSimio, so then I uploaded that too! So I spent alot of that day uploading things, lol.

Micah: Thanks. The windows were done using a technique I experimented with on that red building from a few pages back. I take a screenshot of the front of the building in the BAT in a wireframe front view, then in photoshop I texture and color all the windows and save it as one .psd. Then I apply it to the window, and give all of the window panes the same uvw map, so it textures them as if they were all one pane. This time I also got more detailed with the window frames, doing it just like Maxis did for Fisk Insurance. The facade of both of the Fisk Insurances literally almost match.

atomik: Actually, I'm doing the Penobscot next, right now I'm just waiting for a bunch of reference photos from someone, and for me to get the BAT for 3dsmax set up, and of course for the right mood to start something so big in. If the Penobscot Building goes well, I might try the Guardian. But still plan on doing those smaller wall to wall buildings. However, all of my progress updates on Detroit buildings will be posted in the Barry Sanders Project thread, so make sure to check both threads for updates by me! And it's fun to see all of the Detroiters come out of the woodwork after uploading the Free Press.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I changed my avatar!

I still haven't gotten 3dsmax working yet, so I'm going to start a mall type place for the euro tileset. I might wait untill I have 3ds max to start it, I don't know.

But right now, other than the building's design, I have some special plans for this building:

1. Custom storefront prop family specificly for this building.
2. Custom roof prop family specificly for this building.

Both are made to look as if they were rendered with the building. The roofs will have different arrangments of roof junk, and skylights. The skylights will be big and you'll be able to see the insides of the mall. The different roofs will have different mall insides shown through the skylights. This will all result in a lot of variety for a single building.

I hope for this to turn out really well

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Oooh, now that sounds like a VERY interesting approach! I hope everything goes well.

[JBSimio 152]

That does sound like a very cool approach.  Definately interested to see how that one turns out!

On  a side note, your work on the Freep Building has inspired me to try BATting again.  We'll see what happens.  Right now, I'm stuck on texturing a very simple model I'm experimenting with.  I think that might be where I got stuck and gave up last time, too... but I can't remember.

 

Anyway... great work on everything I've seen so far.  You're one of the few who concentrates on the style I really like.

 

JB

[ardecila 124]

Ooh, excellent idea, with one limitation: nightlights don't always work on props. It's a bummer - got any ideas to work around that?

I hope you can get this done well!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I thought that was only for props extending past the lot. Or is this a different problem? I guess I'll have to do a test before I put too much time into night lights. A test wouldn't hurt with the LODs either.

If it all turns out well, I might do this for other BATs too. But I wonder if having a bunch of custom roofs and store fronts would be good for the games performance. Does anyone know?

Also, I was thinking about what would happen if you used a plane as an LOD instead of a full cube. Theoretically it would work for things like most roofs and storefronts, but I wonder if it causes any goofy problems (the renderer could possibly get confused when it tries to project the building onto a face that doesn't exist). If it's possible, it would make alot of custom store fronts and roofs more practical by reducing the models filesize (by alot). If there are no concequences from deleting LOD faces, it would be good for all BATers to delete the bottom face of the LOD, since on a perfect cube I'm guessing it would reduce the filesize by 1/6, which adds up in the long run. Does the BAT even make images for the bottom faces?

JBSimio: ah, I'm glad to be influencial! I can help you out in whatever you need help with, just send me a pm.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

the new Simtropolis has arrived!!

but during the downtime I didn't do any bating (I've been playing Final Fantasy 2/4). This week is spring break for me, but I don't think I'll be doing anything then either. I'm guessing that the corner wall to wall building will be done this month and uploaded, but the Penobscot building and this mall will not.

But I'm exited to see the frenzy of uploading that will happen once the Stex is back. I'm curious to see what the design of the Stex will look like too.

[brtim2 10]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw

But right now, other than the building's design, I have some special plans for this building:

1. Custom storefront prop family specificly for this building.

2. Custom roof prop family specificly for this building.

Both are made to look as if they were rendered with the building. The roofs will have different arrangments of roof junk, and skylights. The skylights will be big and you'll be able to see the insides of the mall. The different roofs will have different mall insides shown through the skylights. This will all result in a lot of variety for a single building.

I hope for this to turn out really well.quote>

I kinda sorta did this, although not on such a large a scale. I had a plan to make a Baltimore Rowhouse set, with the side and back walls the building and different roofs via a prop family and different faces via a prop family. The oppurtunity to make limitless variations were there. And the best part was, when the oppurtunity struck I could add to each prop family when I felt like it.

I also thought it was props overhanging the lot that had the trouble lighting up, although I never did any lights on my rowhouses because I'm no good at it. But I have had every project I did be a prop, and they lit up fine.

Any way, just letting you know, if the LODs are done correctly on each piece, you can have a seamless piece. Mine were form fitting, but they probably didn't have to be. In fact I never thought about LOD polygons adding to more resources being used up in game until Andreas Roth brought it to Jeronij's attention. That kinda derailed my project. But I wish to not derail yours, I have always been a fan of your work.

Here's the picture I was talking about. Each one of the rowhouses uses one of four props for the front and one of four props for the roof.

[Simen 1]

Im hoping the STEX will have a system similar to the forums, thatd be an easy and good way of navigating.

anyways, on the bat side of this, all your stuff is great, you never cease to amaze!

.../suck up

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It's good to know that this will work out when I do it.  It is true that having complex LODs will make it harder on the game, so I always try to limit their complexity.  Then again, each normal prop in the game has its own LOD too, so I wonder how much it matters.  Either way though, every little bit helps.

Simen:  Thanks! Things will only get better!

[brtim2 10]

True, I never thought about each prop, but they shouldn't be too bad. There was a discussion in Kwak's thread about this. The smallest LOD size is what, 12 poly's? So even 100 props don't add that much as long as the LODs are boxes. But like it was said before, as long as they are simple and don't include curves, the LODs should be fine.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Ha! The rating of this thread is a shame for some ST members who don't dare to post any open, honest criticism here, but instead give ridiculous ratings anonymously and based on aspects only they appear to understand. That said, please excuse me now, I gotta rate this thread the 5 out of 5 stars it friggin' deserves.