Jason's BATs & Tutorials

[Hanson784 165]

Looks great Jason, the design is an interesting mix of modern and post modern. Can't wait to see what the night lighting will be like.

[Hanson784 165]

Looks great Jason, the design is an interesting mix of modern and post modern. Can't wait to see what the night lighting will be like.

[Hanson784 165]

Looks great Jason, the design is an interesting mix of modern and post modern. Can't wait to see what the night lighting will be like.

[spa 968]

Interesting that this came from a CD! It's a fairly typical building but as usual you have the best window textures going. From the looks of things the base might actually trun out to be this ones best feature. It looks interesting what you're doing there. I look forward to more.

[spa 968]

Interesting that this came from a CD! It's a fairly typical building but as usual you have the best window textures going. From the looks of things the base might actually trun out to be this ones best feature. It looks interesting what you're doing there. I look forward to more.

[spa 968]

Interesting that this came from a CD! It's a fairly typical building but as usual you have the best window textures going. From the looks of things the base might actually trun out to be this ones best feature. It looks interesting what you're doing there. I look forward to more.

[kaji 0]

great window texture you have going on there.. its totally changed my opinion of the building ~ i actually quite like it now good idea on the lods hope you can implement it well =)

~kaji

[kaji 0]

great window texture you have going on there.. its totally changed my opinion of the building ~ i actually quite like it now good idea on the lods hope you can implement it well =)

~kaji

[kaji 0]

great window texture you have going on there.. its totally changed my opinion of the building ~ i actually quite like it now good idea on the lods hope you can implement it well =)

~kaji

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks everyone.   Yeah, I think the window texture turned out really well too.

I figured out the problem with the pylon texture, which you can read more about in the texturing thread in the bat workshop.  I'll post a screenshot with the fixed textures here too though.

I still need to modify the texture a bunch, and then add the base (which is very simple).

So today I'll probably work on the pylon some more, and also the CD building.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks everyone.   Yeah, I think the window texture turned out really well too.

I figured out the problem with the pylon texture, which you can read more about in the texturing thread in the bat workshop.  I'll post a screenshot with the fixed textures here too though.

I still need to modify the texture a bunch, and then add the base (which is very simple).

So today I'll probably work on the pylon some more, and also the CD building.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks everyone.   Yeah, I think the window texture turned out really well too.

I figured out the problem with the pylon texture, which you can read more about in the texturing thread in the bat workshop.  I'll post a screenshot with the fixed textures here too though.

I still need to modify the texture a bunch, and then add the base (which is very simple).

So today I'll probably work on the pylon some more, and also the CD building.

[van1357 15]

Wonderful work Jasoncw. I downloaded your Regal Theatre the other day and its beautiful. I really like you "cd" building and your new "twisted" project looks promising. Keep up the amazing work...

[van1357 15]

Wonderful work Jasoncw. I downloaded your Regal Theatre the other day and its beautiful. I really like you "cd" building and your new "twisted" project looks promising. Keep up the amazing work...

[van1357 15]

Wonderful work Jasoncw. I downloaded your Regal Theatre the other day and its beautiful. I really like you "cd" building and your new "twisted" project looks promising. Keep up the amazing work...

[dmscopio 225]

WOW~great job on the window texture!!How do you do that? in PS? I have been having trouble with creating a relistic looking window.

Awsome job, my friend. Can't wait to see it on STEX.

[dmscopio 225]

WOW~great job on the window texture!!How do you do that? in PS? I have been having trouble with creating a relistic looking window.

Awsome job, my friend. Can't wait to see it on STEX.

[dmscopio 225]

WOW~great job on the window texture!!How do you do that? in PS? I have been having trouble with creating a relistic looking window.

Awsome job, my friend. Can't wait to see it on STEX.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Someday I'll make a nice tutorial about making windows for the omnibus, but for now, this will do.  This is also how I make all of my textures, except I don't make them windows, I make them roof or brick or stone or whatever.  Steps 1-3 at least never change no matter what texture I'm making.

1: Go into the BAT, and in either the front or side viewports (which ever one is facing the windows), in wireframe mode, take a screenshot using the print screen (prnt scrn) key on your keyboard. 

With the BAT, "w" is the keyboard shortcut to maxmizing the selected viewport.  This will let you get more of the face of the building into the viewport.  Also, you can use the zoom region tool to zoom into a selected area.  It will give you a rectangular selection tool, and it will zoom into the area you selected.  It's in the lower right corner of the screen, and looks like a rectangular selection and a magnifying glass.

2: Open photoshop, or your favorite image editing software and make a new file.  Paste your screenshot into this file.

Now crop out everything except for the windows in your screenshot, and save the file.

3: Go back into the BAT and select all of your windows (it helps if you give them all a particular name or color) and group them.  Apply your window texture to this group, fit a uvw map to it, and do a preview render.  If you cropped your texture right in photoshop, the lines from your screenshot should line up pretty well with the actual shapes on your BAT.  It looks weird.  If it doesn't line up, then you cropped your texture wrong and you should try it again.

4: Back in photoshop, use the rectangular selection tool to select entire rows of windows.  Make a new layer.  Use a really big fuzzy brush, and make some black gradienty looking things.  Do this for every row of windows individually, and then flatten all of the layers except for the background and your screenshot layer.  Right now they look too strong, and later you'll lower the opacity, but for now, hide that layer, but before doing so, set the layer's blending mode to multiply.

Also, fill your white background layer with a blue color.

5: Now make another new layer, and using a big fuzzy brush, cover the area with interesting shades of color.  I mostly use blue, with some green and purple.   Now use the gaussian blur, or your own favorite blending method to blend the colors together better.  Move this layer to directly below the layer with the horizontal bars of black on it.  Set the layer's blending mode to overlay.

6: Make a new layer and put it on top of all of your other layers.  Using a big fuzzy brush, cover the area with interesting areas of black grey and white.  Set this layer to overlay.

7: Unhide all of your layers except for your screenshot layer.  Adjust the opacity of each layer untill it looks good.  Now go back into the BAT, and in the material editors, underneath the area where the filename of your texture image is, it says reload.  Pressing that will cause the texture to reload itself, and it will update it with the changes that you made.  Do a preview render, and if you feel it's neccecary, tweak the opacities of some of the layers.  You can also make any of the layers more than once, to add complexity to the texture. 

If you'd like, you can save a copy of this photoshop file.  Then flatten all of the layers, and go to image>adjustments, and you can adjust certain aspects of your texture.  I find the brightness/contrast especially useful.  There are also automated adjusters, but they are designed for photographs, and might not give good results (but there's always the undo button!).

After doing all of this (it really only takes a few minutes, lol) you'll have what I showed in the first preview.

8: Go on the internet and find pictures of buildings with windows.  The windows should be large enough that you can crop out everything except for the glass of the window.  There should not be any window frames getting in the way.  These give you "window shapes" as well as basic window colors and values.  You can also make your own window shapes, as some features, like window blinds, might need to be exagerated for the detail to be visible.  Get at least 5 of these window textures, and put them into a single photoshop file.  Keep them as individual layers.  These are your stock window textures that you will use for most of your future windows.

9: Copy and paste on of your new window textures into your main window texture file.  Scale it down so that it only covers one floor of your building.  Position it somewhere in your texture, the closer it aligns to your building's windows the better.  Do this for all of your stock window texture layers, so that all of the area on your main window texture is covered.  Merge all of those layers down as you finish.  You shouldn't distribute them too spaced out, but you shouldn't clump duplicates right next to each other either.

10: Move your mega layer that has all of your stock window textures merged together to right on top of your background layer.

11: Tweak or add anything you think is neccecary, and you're done!

Written out it seems like it would take a long time, but the window texture on the CD building only took me about 20 minutes.

All of my BATs (except for Monkey Dragon Games) do not use any transparency to make the windows, and almost none of Maxises buildings use transparency too.  However, if you'd like to use transparency, do the same thing as I've written out, except lower the opacity of the stock window textures layer.  Then flatten the image, and use the brightness and contrast thing to make the windows really contrasty.  That way the shapes will still show up when the window is transparent, but you'll still be able to model the insides and have them visible.  This way they won't look so flat.

Oh yeah, I also forgot, for whatever your doing, add a vertical gradient.  Make a new layer, and fill it with white.  Set the layer blending to overlay.  Add a gradient overlay layer style, and set that to multiply.  Put the scale as high as you can move the slider so that the gradient is blended smoother.  Then change the main layers opacity to make it more subtle.  I think Gascooker has a more elaborate tutorial in the omnibus for this, called "faking raytracing" or something like that.  Of course, if you have 3ds max, and you can render it using ray tracing, or something else more advanced, then you might not need to add gradients to your textures.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Someday I'll make a nice tutorial about making windows for the omnibus, but for now, this will do.  This is also how I make all of my textures, except I don't make them windows, I make them roof or brick or stone or whatever.  Steps 1-3 at least never change no matter what texture I'm making.

1: Go into the BAT, and in either the front or side viewports (which ever one is facing the windows), in wireframe mode, take a screenshot using the print screen (prnt scrn) key on your keyboard. 

With the BAT, "w" is the keyboard shortcut to maxmizing the selected viewport.  This will let you get more of the face of the building into the viewport.  Also, you can use the zoom region tool to zoom into a selected area.  It will give you a rectangular selection tool, and it will zoom into the area you selected.  It's in the lower right corner of the screen, and looks like a rectangular selection and a magnifying glass.

2: Open photoshop, or your favorite image editing software and make a new file.  Paste your screenshot into this file.

Now crop out everything except for the windows in your screenshot, and save the file.

3: Go back into the BAT and select all of your windows (it helps if you give them all a particular name or color) and group them.  Apply your window texture to this group, fit a uvw map to it, and do a preview render.  If you cropped your texture right in photoshop, the lines from your screenshot should line up pretty well with the actual shapes on your BAT.  It looks weird.  If it doesn't line up, then you cropped your texture wrong and you should try it again.

4: Back in photoshop, use the rectangular selection tool to select entire rows of windows.  Make a new layer.  Use a really big fuzzy brush, and make some black gradienty looking things.  Do this for every row of windows individually, and then flatten all of the layers except for the background and your screenshot layer.  Right now they look too strong, and later you'll lower the opacity, but for now, hide that layer, but before doing so, set the layer's blending mode to multiply.

Also, fill your white background layer with a blue color.

5: Now make another new layer, and using a big fuzzy brush, cover the area with interesting shades of color.  I mostly use blue, with some green and purple.   Now use the gaussian blur, or your own favorite blending method to blend the colors together better.  Move this layer to directly below the layer with the horizontal bars of black on it.  Set the layer's blending mode to overlay.

6: Make a new layer and put it on top of all of your other layers.  Using a big fuzzy brush, cover the area with interesting areas of black grey and white.  Set this layer to overlay.

7: Unhide all of your layers except for your screenshot layer.  Adjust the opacity of each layer untill it looks good.  Now go back into the BAT, and in the material editors, underneath the area where the filename of your texture image is, it says reload.  Pressing that will cause the texture to reload itself, and it will update it with the changes that you made.  Do a preview render, and if you feel it's neccecary, tweak the opacities of some of the layers.  You can also make any of the layers more than once, to add complexity to the texture. 

If you'd like, you can save a copy of this photoshop file.  Then flatten all of the layers, and go to image>adjustments, and you can adjust certain aspects of your texture.  I find the brightness/contrast especially useful.  There are also automated adjusters, but they are designed for photographs, and might not give good results (but there's always the undo button!).

After doing all of this (it really only takes a few minutes, lol) you'll have what I showed in the first preview.

8: Go on the internet and find pictures of buildings with windows.  The windows should be large enough that you can crop out everything except for the glass of the window.  There should not be any window frames getting in the way.  These give you "window shapes" as well as basic window colors and values.  You can also make your own window shapes, as some features, like window blinds, might need to be exagerated for the detail to be visible.  Get at least 5 of these window textures, and put them into a single photoshop file.  Keep them as individual layers.  These are your stock window textures that you will use for most of your future windows.

9: Copy and paste on of your new window textures into your main window texture file.  Scale it down so that it only covers one floor of your building.  Position it somewhere in your texture, the closer it aligns to your building's windows the better.  Do this for all of your stock window texture layers, so that all of the area on your main window texture is covered.  Merge all of those layers down as you finish.  You shouldn't distribute them too spaced out, but you shouldn't clump duplicates right next to each other either.

10: Move your mega layer that has all of your stock window textures merged together to right on top of your background layer.

11: Tweak or add anything you think is neccecary, and you're done!

Written out it seems like it would take a long time, but the window texture on the CD building only took me about 20 minutes.

All of my BATs (except for Monkey Dragon Games) do not use any transparency to make the windows, and almost none of Maxises buildings use transparency too.  However, if you'd like to use transparency, do the same thing as I've written out, except lower the opacity of the stock window textures layer.  Then flatten the image, and use the brightness and contrast thing to make the windows really contrasty.  That way the shapes will still show up when the window is transparent, but you'll still be able to model the insides and have them visible.  This way they won't look so flat.

Oh yeah, I also forgot, for whatever your doing, add a vertical gradient.  Make a new layer, and fill it with white.  Set the layer blending to overlay.  Add a gradient overlay layer style, and set that to multiply.  Put the scale as high as you can move the slider so that the gradient is blended smoother.  Then change the main layers opacity to make it more subtle.  I think Gascooker has a more elaborate tutorial in the omnibus for this, called "faking raytracing" or something like that.  Of course, if you have 3ds max, and you can render it using ray tracing, or something else more advanced, then you might not need to add gradients to your textures.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Someday I'll make a nice tutorial about making windows for the omnibus, but for now, this will do.  This is also how I make all of my textures, except I don't make them windows, I make them roof or brick or stone or whatever.  Steps 1-3 at least never change no matter what texture I'm making.

1: Go into the BAT, and in either the front or side viewports (which ever one is facing the windows), in wireframe mode, take a screenshot using the print screen (prnt scrn) key on your keyboard. 

With the BAT, "w" is the keyboard shortcut to maxmizing the selected viewport.  This will let you get more of the face of the building into the viewport.  Also, you can use the zoom region tool to zoom into a selected area.  It will give you a rectangular selection tool, and it will zoom into the area you selected.  It's in the lower right corner of the screen, and looks like a rectangular selection and a magnifying glass.

2: Open photoshop, or your favorite image editing software and make a new file.  Paste your screenshot into this file.

Now crop out everything except for the windows in your screenshot, and save the file.

3: Go back into the BAT and select all of your windows (it helps if you give them all a particular name or color) and group them.  Apply your window texture to this group, fit a uvw map to it, and do a preview render.  If you cropped your texture right in photoshop, the lines from your screenshot should line up pretty well with the actual shapes on your BAT.  It looks weird.  If it doesn't line up, then you cropped your texture wrong and you should try it again.

4: Back in photoshop, use the rectangular selection tool to select entire rows of windows.  Make a new layer.  Use a really big fuzzy brush, and make some black gradienty looking things.  Do this for every row of windows individually, and then flatten all of the layers except for the background and your screenshot layer.  Right now they look too strong, and later you'll lower the opacity, but for now, hide that layer, but before doing so, set the layer's blending mode to multiply.

Also, fill your white background layer with a blue color.

5: Now make another new layer, and using a big fuzzy brush, cover the area with interesting shades of color.  I mostly use blue, with some green and purple.   Now use the gaussian blur, or your own favorite blending method to blend the colors together better.  Move this layer to directly below the layer with the horizontal bars of black on it.  Set the layer's blending mode to overlay.

6: Make a new layer and put it on top of all of your other layers.  Using a big fuzzy brush, cover the area with interesting areas of black grey and white.  Set this layer to overlay.

7: Unhide all of your layers except for your screenshot layer.  Adjust the opacity of each layer untill it looks good.  Now go back into the BAT, and in the material editors, underneath the area where the filename of your texture image is, it says reload.  Pressing that will cause the texture to reload itself, and it will update it with the changes that you made.  Do a preview render, and if you feel it's neccecary, tweak the opacities of some of the layers.  You can also make any of the layers more than once, to add complexity to the texture. 

If you'd like, you can save a copy of this photoshop file.  Then flatten all of the layers, and go to image>adjustments, and you can adjust certain aspects of your texture.  I find the brightness/contrast especially useful.  There are also automated adjusters, but they are designed for photographs, and might not give good results (but there's always the undo button!).

After doing all of this (it really only takes a few minutes, lol) you'll have what I showed in the first preview.

8: Go on the internet and find pictures of buildings with windows.  The windows should be large enough that you can crop out everything except for the glass of the window.  There should not be any window frames getting in the way.  These give you "window shapes" as well as basic window colors and values.  You can also make your own window shapes, as some features, like window blinds, might need to be exagerated for the detail to be visible.  Get at least 5 of these window textures, and put them into a single photoshop file.  Keep them as individual layers.  These are your stock window textures that you will use for most of your future windows.

9: Copy and paste on of your new window textures into your main window texture file.  Scale it down so that it only covers one floor of your building.  Position it somewhere in your texture, the closer it aligns to your building's windows the better.  Do this for all of your stock window texture layers, so that all of the area on your main window texture is covered.  Merge all of those layers down as you finish.  You shouldn't distribute them too spaced out, but you shouldn't clump duplicates right next to each other either.

10: Move your mega layer that has all of your stock window textures merged together to right on top of your background layer.

11: Tweak or add anything you think is neccecary, and you're done!

Written out it seems like it would take a long time, but the window texture on the CD building only took me about 20 minutes.

All of my BATs (except for Monkey Dragon Games) do not use any transparency to make the windows, and almost none of Maxises buildings use transparency too.  However, if you'd like to use transparency, do the same thing as I've written out, except lower the opacity of the stock window textures layer.  Then flatten the image, and use the brightness and contrast thing to make the windows really contrasty.  That way the shapes will still show up when the window is transparent, but you'll still be able to model the insides and have them visible.  This way they won't look so flat.

Oh yeah, I also forgot, for whatever your doing, add a vertical gradient.  Make a new layer, and fill it with white.  Set the layer blending to overlay.  Add a gradient overlay layer style, and set that to multiply.  Put the scale as high as you can move the slider so that the gradient is blended smoother.  Then change the main layers opacity to make it more subtle.  I think Gascooker has a more elaborate tutorial in the omnibus for this, called "faking raytracing" or something like that.  Of course, if you have 3ds max, and you can render it using ray tracing, or something else more advanced, then you might not need to add gradients to your textures.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I rebuilt the penobscot entrance.  I had already made it, but I remade it since the last one wasn't looking good.  You can also see that I worked on those window areas to the side, but I think I need to rework those, since you can't see the layers very well.  You can see the door ways, but those are temporary, since I don't think those are as good as they should be.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I rebuilt the penobscot entrance.  I had already made it, but I remade it since the last one wasn't looking good.  You can also see that I worked on those window areas to the side, but I think I need to rework those, since you can't see the layers very well.  You can see the door ways, but those are temporary, since I don't think those are as good as they should be.

[JBSimio 152]

Wow... this is going to be one detailed BAT.  I can't wait to start seeing the pieces come together!

JB

[JBSimio 152]

Wow... this is going to be one detailed BAT.  I can't wait to start seeing the pieces come together!

JB

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I hope so! lol

I just uploaded a lot I made for Ardecila's Chicago Water Tower.

It's a functional water pump.  I added a park effect and a custom menu icon which might not sound like much, but it's a lot for me! lol

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I hope so! lol

I just uploaded a lot I made for Ardecila's Chicago Water Tower.

It's a functional water pump.  I added a park effect and a custom menu icon which might not sound like much, but it's a lot for me! lol