Jason's BATs & Tutorials

[josefmayor 8]

Wow, that is breath taking....

[Jasoncw 11,934]

I always assign things that will get the same general texture the same color, so that I can go to edit>select by>color, and easily select everything that needs that texture.  The Penobscot Building will have so many custom texture though, that I won't be doing that.  Each layer of wall will have it's own custom texture, so that I can get all of the limestone blocks arranged correctly.  If I feel like it, I might even get the tones of the limestone accurate too, but we'll see.  The random colors usually look pretty silly.  Plus, being grey makes it easier to judge the modeling.

But one thing I will do, is I'll put all of the vents properly.  If you look on the building there are a bunch of vents.  Since 3ds max will do all of the fancy light stuff, I won't need to build the gradient into the textures, making it much easier to add in details like that.

I expect this to be done before christmas.  I haven't been working on it a lot, but when I work on it, I get a lot done (for example, my last update was only 4 hours of work).  Once I start working on it more often, I think it'll finish up pretty quick.

[Sim shady 12]

impressive! this sounds like this will turn out to be very good. sounds like it will take a long time before its released-thats too bad, but im glad to see that we will recieve such a high quality bat once again, i love how detailed this is ending up!

[budweiserdude23 80]

It looks top notch Jason. As detailed as the lower structure is (and it looks fantastic), the crown is something I've been looking forward to seeing. I'm glad you took this on, it's right up your alley and of course you're up to the task.

BTW, want to race to see who finishes first. My money is on you...lol.

[sorchin 18]

Hey Jason. I'm still trying to be convinced into buying 3dsmax (I guess it's 9 now). Perhaps with christmas around the corner... When you say the "light stuff" what do you mean (I'm only using GMAX)? I use a couple of scripts that actually work with GMAX (most don't). Do you have any scripts that you use? Are there many good ones for 3dsmax? Sorry if I'm asking so many questions my friend. But I need to make sure it's much better than GMAX before spending $700 (thank God for visa cards)..

Take care my friend..

[Kwakelaar 92]

The model is taking shape, and too me it looks like it is going to be another great building by you.

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull work so far

[Goin2Chicago 4]

looks like it will be a classic. keep up the great work!

[Jasoncw 11,934]

lol, budweiserdude, I think you might finish first.  But who knows.

sorchin, 3ds max is really cool.  If you think you want it and you have the money for it, then I think you should get it.  Partially for Sim City, but also because you can render things in different views, do animations, and all of that cool stuff.  There's also an extra method of modeling (splines, primitives, etc.) called NURBS which is like a mesh, but with curved lines, which is good for modeling organic things.  There are also more modifiers, and you have more and easier control of the rendering settings (although I don't really know much about them).

Right now all I use is the BAT for max stuff.  When I say light stuff I really mean rendering stuff, so that the light turns out well.  If you only plan on getting 3ds max for SC4 stuff, then I wouldn't spend much money on it, unless you happen to have the money laying around.

Thanks everyone.  I plan on working some more on it today.

Edit:

OMG!!!!!!!  This is my 1111st post!!!! 

Time to savor the moment...

[jacqulina 162]

looking forward to seeing more

[sorchin 18]

Thanks Jason.

I have also heard that 3dsmax 9 works much quicker and takes a big load off the virtual memory. I'm creating a very detailed castle and find it's already slowing down quite a bit only about half way through the scene.. Maybe Santa Claus will be nice this year.. LOL.

Take care...

[Jasoncw 11,934]

That's what I've been told too.  For me it's definitly been faster (penobscot building would be unworkable right now), but it's still lagging.  When I cloned everything in my scene, it had to think about it for a little while.

Which is totally unacceptable!

jk

[baldy 0]

Keep up the great work Jason!

Here's some pictures of the building to give an idea of what the night lighting will look like.

The normal night time lighting

The lighting for the 4th of July (this was also used during the super bowl).

From what I can remember, you won't be able to do the different color lights.

You'll also recognize the building on the right of this picture, which is another fine model that Jason is doing!

[Spike345 20]

awesome work Jason, cannot wait.

[Jasoncw 11,934]

Actually, you can make any number of lights any number of colors.  It's just the nitemap (the solid chunks of lighted windows) that can only be one color, afaik.

I plan on doing the non-colored lighting anyyway though.  I think it's classier looking.  I'll be doing the red ball too, if I don't, someone needs to make sure to remind me since I might overlook it after working on it all.

heheh, yeah, One Woodward Avenue is just down the street.  I plan on converting that into 3ds max so that I can do the lighting on that.  The same goes for 211 W Fort.  Both of them have the same problem with lighting the top mechanical floors.  Both of those are actually pretty much done, other than the lighting and lobby work on both of them.

Nice pictures btw.

ok, I guess it looks like saturdays are BAT days, lol.  I'm going to say I'll work on it tomorrow and I actually will!

[Jasoncw 11,934]

Today I went through my older unfishinished BATs.  I opened and looked at the "Detroit House" (based off a random house in Detroit) that I was working on a while ago (actually, my first BSP project building, you can see where I mentioned making it in the BSP thread), but the file corrupeted and I lost a lot of work.  Looking back, I lost more work than I thought, and the house would take too much more work to finish right now, but someday I will.

Then I opened the Vinton Building, which I've been meaning to finish up.  A while ago you might have remembered me saying that this RL building was being rennovated and that I'd wait untill after the rennovations to finish this.  Well, I don't know if the exterior is finished yet, but they've been working on it for a while now, so I think it's almost done.

So today I did some work on it.  Adding the copper edging to the top, tediously making the top story smaller, tweaking the glass texture, and making the brick texture look more like bricks.

I still need to redo the roof texture to go along with the changed penthouse, and I'll probably do that today as well.

oh, and yesterday I did do work on the Penobscot Building, so I didn't lie.

[sorchin 18]

Oh very nice. In particular the top floor windows.I'm not overly keen on the color of the building itself, perhaps a little darker. But it's really a matter of taste, no complaints about the building itself.

Take care Jason. I really enjoy looking at your work..

[Jasoncw 11,934]

That's funny because before I saw your message I actually made it lighter!  I'll check out how it looks darker later.  Judging from pictures though, I think it's good right now.

And here's the emporis everyone: http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=156969

I worked on the bottom floor, even though I don't know what it will look like after rennovations.  Last time I saw the building the windows still were boarded up.  I'm guessing the windows by pictures with them being boarded up.  And as you can see it still isn't textured.

oh yeah, this will probably get scaled up at the end.

[josefmayor 8]

Gorgeous!

[Simfan34 11]

Oh yes, looking good. I saw some pictures of the Vinton at Urban Planet yesterday. The Penobscot is looking good too.

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work the night lighting sure is great,and the buildings look awesome

[Jasoncw 11,934]

Thanks

I've done some work on it, pretty much finishing the base.

The back has windows and a fire escape.  This is also where the entrance the the car elevator (the basement is being converted into a garage).   I'm waiting for a good reference photo of the back.  I've found one and it shows parts of it, but it doesn't show all of it and it's not at a great angle.

Also, as some of you might have noticed, once the Vinton building is released, you'll be able to make a 4x4 w2w block.  All of my buildings have alleys though, and if they were all w2w, no one would be able to get to them!  So, just like in real life, the Vinton Building does not go all the way to the next building, so this will be the opening to the alley.  Since this alley will be the most visible, I'll try to make it look really nice.

[Goin2Chicago 4]

great work. easily comparible to the real life one.

[spa 970]

The Vinton would make a nice addition to many a downtown area. It has turned out well. I'm not sure I follow exactly what you're saying abou w2w though. In general, older buildings are smack up against each other... then again my reference for older buildings is Halifax which, although it has a lot of them, few are more than 4 or 5 storeys high.

[ardecila 124]

Hmm.. I don't like that concrete-block area on the long side of the first floor. Unless it's done in limestone or something, I highly doubt it's original to the building. It looks like a cheap facade put on in the 70s or something - which only increases the realism, lol. Your call, really.

BTW - the 1st-floor glass is wide enough that real transparency would look nice, with a rudimentary lobby inside.

[Jasoncw 11,934]

spa, what I mean is that if there's an alley, there needs to be an opening to the street to get to it, so not all of the buildings on a block can be wall to wall.  You can see how it is in real life http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=385134

ardecila, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's some kind of modernization.  I think it's actually some kind of stone though, but it's still ugly, lol.  I think most of the modernization has been gone for a while now.  You can see where some edging is missing from the bottom in RL, and that brick is lighter, making me think it was covered up for a while.

But there are barely any pictures of it now, and the only reason there are is because it's being rennovated.  I haven't ran across any historical photos of it before either, so I'm just going to do it as it will be after the rennovation.

yeah, I could model the insides a bit.  I think a men's clothing store is going in there.

[JBSimio 152]

That looks great, Jason! I remember when you first brought this one up... in fact, I think I still have a couple things laying around somewhere that I planned to use for the query when you got done. Good to see you working on it again.

JB

[jacqulina 162]

wow yes looking great the detail is great too

[josefmayor 8]

gorgeous.

[budweiserdude23 80]

Jason. that's very freaking sweet. The detailing on the facades is stunning.