Jason's BATs & Tutorials

[SimFox 801]

Well, in my experience it is often much faster just to rebuild from ground up then go vertex hunting in something that is messed up for a long time. It is like in real world construction. Would it not be for authenticity reasons it would be much faster and cheaper to blow all the historical monuments and just rebuild them with new construction and material technology, but it just wouldn't do in a real world. But in virtual world of 3D it is a best options most of the time!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

After looking more at the building and how I modeled it, I modeled it the best way that I can think of, and if I restarted I'd just do the same thing that I did before.  One wall needs the wall part (not the window or ledge parts) remodeled, which will take some time but isn't too big of a deal.  And then some of the times where I used the sweep modifier on the base, some of those got messed up a little bit, but I can fix that.

So I've started on the side wall, which is the same as the other side wall, but the elevator shafts are there.  Also, the building isn't a perfect square, it's actually one window wider on this side than on the other side, but I won't be recreating that detail, and hopefully it doesn't cause any major alignment problems later on.  The alignment problems so far have been relatively minor.

Anyway, here is that wall.  There's still stuff to do on it, but here is where it's at.

The part with all of the windows on the right side is actually next to another tall building, although there's an alley seperating them.  I'm really surprised that there are so many windows there.  The left half of the wall doesn't have anything on it but a very small parking lot.  I don't know who owns that property.  It might be the Penobscot Building (which is actually a complex of multiple additions), and that lot is next to two of the additions (the one you see here, and an older, 23 story addition) next to it, so that might have been owned by them, maybe with the idea of another addition someday or something (no plans were made or heard of, so it's just me guessing).  But the Ford building (the taller building next to the Penobscot that I mentioned) is right there, and they might own it.  But also, maybe someone else owns it and is just trying to make money off of the parking.

For some stats, this wall is 33,000 polygons, and the entire thing so far is 242,000.

[SimFox 801]

Well couple of suggestions:
Use snap to tool. I find it easier the Align one , plus it is like sort of back up against wrong sizes (working in editable poly mode)
another thing - avoid when possible intersections of geometry - especially at 0^o or similarly small angles. This will cause some nastiness with some materials during the render.
Third (an extra one) - although there is no real NEED for it at this stage or level, still, try to model with life like dimensions - I mean make walls about as think as they really are etc. It may sound frivolous at the moment but trust me this is a good practice - it will allow you incrementally move up in term of your modeling skills. And it wouldn't really call for any "extra" work... It is just a bit different mindset. Not following this basic rule could fro instance lock you at the present level of technique and prevent from trying new and more advanced options. For instance lifting and snapping a row of vertices wouldn't take but a couple of seconds. But doing this will leave you with option to try later on different way of lighting, for instance. And doing it (snapping) at the time you are modeling that particular bit isn't really any Extra work. NOT doing it will either prevent you from exercising those option later on or cause you go into already quite complex structure to hunt offending vertices and then struggle with where should they go...
And one more (last one I promise). You know that architecture is a language of sorts. or more like a writing system. It has its alphabet. And proportions are it's characters. Staying close to the original is in a way to sometimes insure you would be able to read between lines, or to fill in the blanks. In this way it could pay back for the little extra effort and time spent. We all see those numerous creations where this adherence to the language was abandoned right from get go, all the sizes are totally arbitrary - result is quite sad in most cases. People are trying to write it down to them being novice, not knowing the tool, but in reality most of those "creatures" are born simply because they creators didn't care about these basic principals. And unless they’ll start, nothing will improve and we can see that.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I don't use either the snap or align.  I just move things around by typing in the distance when I'm being specific, or I just manually move it close to where it should be when I'm not being specific.  I know that I probably should use those tools though.

Intersecting geometry is bad?  The modeling of this building is sorta built off intersecting geometry.  The main part of the wall is two splines that are extruded by slightly different amounts.  If you look closely on the wall, there are three layers.  The one that's closest, which has a lot of the wall modeled into it.  A layer set back (extruded less) a little bit.  And then a third, which is individual planes inbetween those windows (later they'll have a pattern textured onto them).  The easiest place to see the layers is on the most right column of the wall.  So the way that I modeled most of it is from the second layer intersecting and being covered up by the first layer.

Once I finish all of the walls, I'll convert them all into an editable mesh or poly (I always forget which one), and I'll move them in place, and attach and edit them together.  The balconies where the setbacks are have short parpets which I'll polygon model with the same object.  because of this, the depth of the walls right now don't matter a lot, since the sides of the walls will mostly be deleted and edited together with the other walls.

I hope that makes sense.  Does that plan sound ok?  If not, what should I do instead?

[SimFox 801]

I know you don’t (use snap) and that’s why I decided to mention it.

Snaps are really, really great thing – a true God send!

When working in orthogonal views (like top or left) I find 2,5D snap most useful. In Perspective view – 3D snap. Combines with axis of plane restrictors they offer ease, power and infinite precision. All that free of often tedious calculation.

About intersections, what I meant is that “parallel” ones are bad when two faces occupy same space. Also at very small angles renderers definition is often insufficient to produce clean lines and you get that nasty looking jiggered edge – Actually I think what thing at the bottom of the models is cause exactly by this, but already in the game itself.

Remember you’ve said that it isn’t visible in Lot Editor cause there are no shadows in it.

I must say that at first I sort of dismissed it, but then I’ve started thinking and It very well may be the case! Just think of it – shadows used I game are Shadow Map based – eg they are textures – textures have to be applied to some geometry – created on the go. So that nasty edge at the bottom is exactly that – edge of the geometry to which shadow map is applied. Also sometime I see in screen shots people publish nasty looking streaky sort of shadows – this is exactly the illustration of the geometries intersecting at 0^o – competing for same space. Some GPUs mange these conflicts better then others. But at any rate the very existents of it is a sign of not too high level of professionalism of people who have made it. What they should have done is to elevate shadow plain by miniscule amount – it would be undetectable for an eye, but in mathematical sense – and that what matters for rendering – be totally apart!

Here are couple of examples of what happens when two faces occupy same plane:

Again this all applies ONLY when this sort of edge is visible! If not you shouldn’t mind!

well this are just some of peculiarities of the 3d which are good to know.

As far as modeling concerned there aren’t really right or wrong here. If it works for you then it is right. But be critical when you make a judgment if this or that really works.

For my part I think splines are useful when you have nonrectangular geometry or when you need to create 1 face only geometry. Otherwise they are more problem then a solution. For architectural modeling editable polies are the king and queen, in my opinion that is… This method is also know as Box modeling cause often you start with box then convert it to editable poly and off you go. For versions of MAX after 7 editable Mesh is an anachronism. There is NOTHING what you could do with it what you couldn’t do with Editable Poly, just the other way around! I think it is there just for legacy support and also for those who learn to model few years back when Poly tools were in infancy and very slow.

But then again, as I’ve said above this is very much a preference, not a law!

And as far as intersecting geometry goes it is a problem for 0^o or very small angles

[ardecila 124]

Yeah - Jason, I used to disregard Snaps, too, and do things by typing-in or the Move tool. But then I took an AutoCAD class. In CAD, if you don't use OSnap, you end up with some seriously messed-up stuff.

Now AutoCAD is actually an integral part of my BATting technique. Whenever I get a setback, I go back into AutoCAD, where the line-based tools are very powerful, and generate a new floorplan. Then I import it into Max and extrude it to get the walls. It's a very fast way to do modelling, so long as you have good pictures of the building and you know what to do.

Long story short - Align tool and Snaps are the greatest thing since sliced bread. There's no shame in using them.

[SimFox 801]

Ardecila:
there is one script called PolySpline that claims to recreate in MAX the line tools of AutoCAD - so you wouldn’t actually need to switch between two at all, you would be able to do all that right there, in MAX.
I myself am not familiar with AutoCAD so I haven't really give it (the script9 a try myself, but there were some raving reviews!
If you're interested I could look up the script for you.
Would be really useful to have your opinion on it.

[ardecila 124]

Hmmm... well, AutoCAD is set up very differently than Max. AutoCAD, you type a lot of commands (it has a command line) and it responds very quickly. It has innovative tools that help greatly with scaling, and any time you need to check the dimensions of something, there's a whole menu of Dimensioning tools.

PolySpline might be worth checking out, although I think it's still faster to run both AutoCAD and Max at the same time and import between the two.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Snaps sound like the way to go.

I haven't done any SC work in the last few days, since I've been busy doing other things.

Also, I'll be out of town on the weekend, and the next semester starts on Monday, so I don't know how much SC time I'll have then.

And 751 was not released on January 1st, lol.  It'll be released eventually, and definitely by the end of January.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I didn't feel like working on the Penobscot.

I started it about an hour ago, and I have the individual window unit things done, as well as a template for making the different marble textures.  All of that stuff is temporary right now, it should look much better as things progress.

and I've been trying to use the snap!  I think I've got it figured out now.

Edit:

The entire wall is almost done being modeled.  I also tweaked some of the materials, but that's still all temporary.  It's at zoom 4.

Edit again:

Zoom 5 of most of the body of the building.  It got dark since I added in the ground plane.  Also, it hasn't be scaled up vertically yet, so it's still a little stumpy looking.

The building is actually on a slight incline.  It has one of those 60's styled set back glass lobbies, with the columns coming down and that, and that part stays level, and there's a reverse retaining wall (it's late tonight).  It only matters at one or two spots, so I'll just make it as if the building was on level ground.

[spa 968]

Wow that's a lot of geometry going on in there. Looks like it could be interesting.

[wolverine 12]

Very nice! I know we've talked about having this building in the game for some time.

Yeah, the incline is pretty subtle. But isn't the whole lobby level? I believe there's a large base it sits on that compensates for the elevatioin change. So technically the building actually sits level. I have a few nice shots of the roof of this building. The mechanical penthouse has an appearance that it is floating which you can't see form the ground all that well. It's also up to you whether you intend to put the Bank 1 or Chase logo on it.

If you are going to scale the current facade up vertically, go no more than 5-6% It's pretty close based on zoomed in areial photos.

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Yipes!  It is so 1960s!  I've worked in buildings like that, and my mind is still recovering.  We actually don't have much of this style of building in game, especially given it widespread use in the post-war building booms.

I'm going to rewind a moment to share on something SimFox mentioned about 10 days ago...

You know that architecture is a language of sorts. or more like a writing system. It has its alphabet. And proportions are it's characters. Staying close to the original is in a way to sometimes insure you would be able to read between lines, or to fill in the blanks. In this way it could pay back for the little extra effort and time spent. We all see those numerous creations where this adherence to the language was abandoned right from get go, all the sizes are totally arbitrary - result is quite sad in most cases. People are trying to write it down to them being novice, not knowing the tool, but in reality most of those "creatures" are born simply because they creators didn't care about these basic principals. And unless they’ll start, nothing will improve and we can see that.quote>

This reminded me of when I was making a basswood scale model of the ancient Japanese Kompira shrine, the Kotahiragu.  Most of the very few measured drawings I had to work from were measured and listed in Japan's modern decimal metric system.  Also, as this was a functioning sacred shrine, the closed and cloistered interior has not actually been taken apart and measured, so I had to interpret much of the interior structure from photographs.  The result was that the few measurements and proportional calculations for the building were in awful looking subdecimal figures, which were not easy or convenient to correlate to a non-metric architect's scale tool, and it was hard to decipher why certain unknown parts were where they were.  The real shrine is not based on metrics, but on an ancient porportional system native to Japan.  After pulling enough hairs out, I tossed out both the metrics, the metric scale tool, and the architect's scale tool, and just grabbed a clean straightedge onto which I could inscribe the more common proportions and repeated measurements.

What was interesting was that with the new ad hoc scaling tool, many of the shrine's measurements and proportions began to fit with the tool, I could presume what size a proportion would be even before directly comparing it to the measuring tool, and it became surprisingly easy to interpolate parts of the building for which I could not obtain clear measurements.  What I had unintentionally done, without realizing it at the time, was to backwards-reconstruct Japan's ancient traditional measuring system on my cheap plastic straightedge.  Like Western Classical buildings, traditional East Asian and Japanese buildings regularly followed a standard system for proportions, and given a base measurement of certain key elements, it is possible to reconstruct much of a building following the proportional rules of the system.  Had I known more about what I was doing from the start, I could have saved myself so much trouble...I guess I like learning things the hard way.

[mightygoose 92]

i do love the chase building, i was looking at Batting it of the cuff but decided against it because something else took m fancy more lol...

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Ok, some progress.  I added the bands of marble to the top and bottom, added the columns, and started the overhangs.  That is a zoom 4 preview.

I don't know how many people will read everything below this line, but for those who won't, the building's lot size is a 6x3, and the building is 14 stories tall, so it's pretty huge.  After the mechanical penthouse is put on, it will be about as tall as West and Co.  After I scale it down, it will be a bit slimmer, but still, it's pretty big.  I don't know if it's class A or B office space, so I don't know if it's CO$$$ or CO$$.

Thanks spa, hopefully it will be interesting.

Wolverine, yeah, that's what I meant about the incline.  Except I called the base a "reverse retaining wall" lol.  I've never gone inside of the building, but for the most part I believe it's level.  However, on Griswold there's an entrance, but it sorta cuts into the base, and it isn't level with the rest of the lobby.  I don't know how that works out inside, but for SC4, I'll just move the entrance up to the base level.  On Woodward, the entrances are at the base level and there are stairs that lead up to them, and on that side I won't include the stairs.

It turns out that I'll need to scale it down.  Right now it's a 6x3, and it should be a 5.5x2.8 or something like that.  The height is right I think, so when I scale that part down, it will look taller, like it's supposed to.

Odainsaker, that's a really interesting story.  Making thebasswoodscalemodeloftheancientJapaneseKompirashrine, the Kotahiragu, seemed to prepare you well for BATing, and that kind of mindset must be why you're so good at it.  I'll try to keep that in my mind when BATing.

So what do you do?  Are you an architect or something?

That's cool mightygoose.  Next time you're eyeing a Detroit (or Michigan) landmark, give me a heads up and the BSP can provide some support for it.

[Sim shady 12]

oh! i read past that line cant wait to add some icky 60s to my cities

[baldy 0]

The cheese grater!!!!!!!!!

I don't really like the building in real life, but it wil be a nice addition to sc4. Thanks again for all your hard work in bringing Detroit to SC4.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks guys.

I've ran into a problem.  The north west corner of the building is somewhere I can't find a photo of.  On most of Griswold, the first floor is not set back, but I don't know where it starts going back to being set back.  I went through a ton of pictures on flickr and can't find anything, so I need some photos, or a description at least, if it's possible.

In the mean time I'll work on other parts of the building.

[jacqulina 162]

looking great so far i hope you can sort your problem out

[baldy 0]

Jason, I just uploaded a pic to my flickr that may help. It's from a distance, but I uploaded the full res so you can zoom. It's the best I have for you.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks Jacqulina.

Thanks, it helps a little, but it's not enough to build off of.  If I had another picture of that spot from a different angle, I could look at both and I'd be able to tell what it is.

In other news, I've been experimenting with materials with this building.  I made a marble material for the marble, with the characteristics of marble, as well as a bump map to define the different pieces, but the effects aren't visible, so I've left it at the normal bitmap with a few more basic settings.  I kept the settings (just a bump map and reflection anyway), just unchecked them, so they're still there.  I'll turn them back on later to see if it makes a difference later on, but for now, they're off.  I'll keep on fiddling with them tonight.

edit:

a few minutes ago I was looking around in some of the photoshop files I use for making BATs, and I saw 211 West Fort, and I remembered that it exists.  It's also looking pretty good!  I don't know if I've shown any recent screenshots.  It's pretty much done other than the nitelites (which were the things that were giving me the trouble in the first place).  Sometime I'll show some recent screenshots and my progress on the nitelites.

edit again:

Things that need to be done:

-All night lights (they need to get scrapped and I'm starting over)

-New roof (I don't like it)

-Hopefully the funny patterns on the sides can be fixed somehow.

This building was waaay too much trouble, lol.  I started it in April thinking it would be a quicky (along with One Woodward Avenue), and it turned out to be the opposite.  It's looking good though!

[6459978. 106]

You don't like the roof? I was so impressed the first time I saw that texture. Did you make it from scratch or borrow it from somewhere else? Either way I think it adds good visual interest to an otherwise plain surface. But as you see fit.

[nofunk 1,933]

I agree with 6459978., actually. I think the roof is really very interesting. Maybe on the real building the roof isn't that weathered, but it sure adds a lot of great visual interest.

I think overall it looks really good. I don't remember what you said you were going to do with the night lights, but I'm sure they'll turn out good.

[mightygoose 92]

the roof is fantastic why change it, that is one of the best BAT roofs i have seen its pretty much perfect, if you have to change anything give the doors some handles...

[SimFox 801]

Yep! it dos look good!

about roof, well I think it is quite ok. It could be bleached somewhat and may be dirt patterns could be a bit more "attached" but I believe it is quite a fine roof!

Also you could create couple of "pools" - places with a bit lower elevation where water would stay longer and leave sort of sediment.

The funny patterns... they might be caused by intersecting surfaces (parallel ones), Apart from this I couldn't think of anything else causing such an effect... I mean you don't have any lights there do you? Try to clean your geometry and snap everything to places.

One more thing would be to check your FG settings and anti-aliasing settings. Don't overdo it. AA would be fine 1/4 - 16 (or even 4) and for FG choose settings in pixels not meters!!

[Andreas Roth 607]

Originally posted by: SimFox Yep! it dos look good!

about roof, well I think it is quite ok. It could be bleached somewhat and may be dirt patterns could be a bit more "attached" but I believe it is quite a fine roof!

Also you could create couple of "pools" - places with a bit lower elevation where water would stay longer and leave sort of sediment.quote>

 

My thoughts exactly. The roof probably draws the attention away from the facade a bit too much, but otherwise, it looks fine. Toning it down a bit, adding some puddles will make it perfect.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Well, the patterns are from the thickness of the columns being low.  As you know, depending on how the object lands on the grid of pixels, the object will be represented differently.  The problem could be solved by changing the anti-alias settings, but I can't find them, lol.

Geeze, every time I mention changing the roof, a bunch of people say no!  I guess it's not bad.  I'll try out the suggestions.

For the night lights, the effect I want can be seen in this photo of the building:

What I think the main problem is, is that from the SC4 angle you see the top of the roof behind the columns (the mechanical penthouse is setback from the columns).  Today I thought of a few ideas, and I'll try them out.  If anyone has any suggestions though, I wouldn't mind them.

edit:

Yeah, I think my idea worked out ok.  If only I knew how to do night previews.... ::cough cough::  

[Andreas Roth 607]

ll r

Originally posted by: Jasoncw Yeah, I think my idea worked out ok.  If only I knew how to do night previews.... ::cough cough::   quote>

 

Uhh, clicking on the "Day & Night" button under "Preview"?

[SimFox 801]

I’m not sure that we are talking about same thing when we speak about ”funny patterns”.

I’ll try to make illustration a bit later.

But now to the issue of night preview. ;-)

Here is how you do it within 3ds MAX:

1. set all your lights, or/and night materials you plan to use
2. Go to Render menu and there to Environment…
3. In Environment and Effects window find frame titled Global Lighting and click on the color swatch. Put following values for RGB 128,128,191
4. You’re night setup is done. It will, slightly depending on your lighting setup be almost 100% accurate to what you’ll see in game. If you use default rig it will whole 100% like the final night export, because this setup exactly recreates what happens during night render pass I took the numbers from the script

If you use some sort of GI setup (FG is also form of GI) result may slightly differ as your GI may affect night Alpha pass. But this is separate and HUGE topic.

Let me know if something not clear – I’ll make screen captures (can’t make them at the moment as I’m on my Powerbook.

PS
you've got mail

[Fledgeling 1]

I must chime in to add that a love the roof. Lol peer pressure