Jason's BATs & Tutorials

[Jasoncw 11,840]

spa:  Thanks!  Luckily in max the issues with underground portions are pretty easy to deal with, there aren't any LOD games or in-game shadow problems.  Yeah, the plan is definitely to have a lot of (big heavy concrete) planters, lol.  There will also be fast food restaraunts in the plaza, with tables and stuff outside.  I'm hoping for the plaza to be really detailed before I get tired of working on it. 

For the hotel:  1.  There's still more cornice to model up there, and I think when it gets added it will solve the problem.  2.  I'll see if I can bulk up the corner columns.  It will throw the dimensions of the building off so I'll have to do some scaling at the end to get it to fit properly on a lot, but columns are worth changing.  Thanks again 

I've gotten some more done on the glass building.  The planters there are going to be replaced with better planters.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Its perfect.

[SimFox 801]

1. the surface quality. May be you can take a look at it again, how bare (and particularly rough) concrete works with such a mirror-like facade? Also the size of that mech. penthouse on a lower module seems to big...

2. may be paving here could be done with a smaller slabs?

3. contrast here is a bit too much. You have 2 areas of shadow yet one produces very clear and "bright" reflection while another is just pitch black.

Roof texture also visibly tiling... this of course could be used to a certain advantage as an indicator of it not being perfectly flat. So you can place drains at the corners of tiles... It (texture) could also be a bit more neutral (less blue).

Another stylistically issue are the "arches" between the GF columns. They feel coming from a different era than the facade itself (btw era much more compatible to those bare concrete surfaces I mentioned in #1). It all make it looks alike something that had been built, say in 50s-early 60 and then "facelifted in 80s... Of course that may be exactly what you were going for...

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Based on my own personal experiences, and a book I have about late modern architecture ("Transformations in Modern Architecture" by MOMA, in 1979), concrete surfaces, and even rough ones, are compatible with the mirrored glass facade.

I haven't worked on the roof since then, but when I do I'll do those things.

Do you know why 3 is happening?  I think the dark area is where the building is casting a shadow on the ground plane, but it shouldn't be that dark, it is literally black (0,0,0).

So, I've worked more on the plaza.  I still have tables, garbage cans, signs, maybe some sculputres, etc. to do in the plaza.

[nofunk 1,933]

That's looking really good, Jason! I love the reflections of the plaza in the glass.

Did you notice the east wall of the tower creates an optical illusion with the lower section?

[Jack_wilds 550]

Hello Jason, Jack wilds here...

really like the progress and a number of points in your design interpretation sensibilities of late modern architecture...

a few photos ago -before the sunken plaza incarnation, was the planters in front of the windows, can the planter features be added to a couple of windows that are at street level... as the shape and design of the planters jux to the window wall made an interesting visual appearance...

will the entry into the plaza from the building have an awning, or canopy or something of the sort over the doors...

what is the use intent -a generic leas-able office space, corporate office, government something... will the plaza wall or floor have an 'off' color or texture to make appear better indepth as it might appear ground level at high elevation...

Liking the reflections -however the illusion alludes me... and all the plaza flora its starting to come to life... well I hope something may be of use with my 'thoughtful musings'

Jack

[Vlasky 1,803]

Is it just me or in the reflection that round cornered box in the ground level seems bigger than it is?

Anyhow lovely and unique BAT. Hope it hits STEX asap. lol cheers!

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Nice

[Evillions 552]

From your previous BATs, can you show me how to do nightlighting in 3dsmax2010? I really need help because its for SimMars Beta 3.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

nofunk:  Thanks!  Yes I did! 

Jack_wilds:  The planter/lightwell things on the first incarnation were something I liked too, but they were also going to be a pain to work

on.

I'm not sure if there will be a canopy over the doors.  It would make sense to have some, and I had some on the older version, but I'm not sure if this one will have them. 

The building is general leaseable office space.  I was thinking "??? Center" (or maybe "??? Centre") but I still haven't figured out a good name.  I need something that just screams "80s corporate".  The lighting set up in 3ds Max automatically takes care of issues like that, and checking in photoshop, the rough concrete on the top of the tower is a little different than the concrete in the plaza.  You can also do haze in max, but I don't think haze makes sense in the context of SimCity (where there is no haze (I imagine the view in SimCity isn't really a kind of helicopter or aerial view, but more like a kind of omnipresent god-view)), especially for the sunken plaza, since it's really only 1 storey deep.

The effect nofunk commented on happens on the 2nd and 3rd floor, on the inside corner where the tower meets the lower portion of the building.  The glass is reflecting the reflections in the other glass.  You can see the lower building being reflected in the tower's glass, making it look as if the lower portion was two bays wide, rather than one.  In the lower portion, you can see the tower being reflected, making it look as if the front of the tower was 5 bays wide.

Your musings are appreciated. 

Vlasky:  The glass is wavy, which distorts the reflections, sometimes making things appear smaller or bigger, and the panes of glass which are reflecting the plaza access happen to be bulding in such a way that the access tower looks bigger.  In real life there's perspective, so things in reflections will look farther away, but there is no perspective in SimCity, so nothing looks smaller the farther you get from it.  Thanks!

Aaron Graham:  Thanks  

Evillions:  I'm not sure exactly which nitelites you mean, but I think you're talking about self-illumination.  Open the Material Editor, and click on one of the spheres.  Then click on where it says "Standard" and change the material type to "Arch & Design (mi)".  First, change the Diffuse Color from the default grey, to black.  Then scroll down and open the "Self Illumination (Glow)" roll out, and click on the little box next to Filter, select "Bitmap" and then load a windows-at-night texture.  Now you will have a nitelites material which you can apply to windows which you want lit up.  If you're using max 9 or higher, you should use the Arch & Design materials for just about every material you make.  You can go to Help>Autodesk 3ds Max Help and you can search for Arch & Design to learn more about it.

I worked some more on Queralt Hotel.  I haven't made any changes to the textures yet, but I did other work to the building.

[spa 968]

The Queralt Hotel is coming along nicely. The fatter corner columns really made a difference. I now buy that the hotel can stand up on its own! The square columns help break up the Corinthians nicely too as does the monumental entrance. The parapet is interesting and looks quite sharp with the textures you've chosen. All and all, some great tweaks and additions. I look forward to seeing more.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks spa 

More work on the hotel.  I might do another update tonight.

[Mister-La Té 12]

Hello Jason, I was looking for someone who could make this lost building into the game because I couldn't do it by myself. This J.L. Hudson Department Store in Detroit that is demolished since 1998 and there're only fews information and details about it and I think it is the interesting place in the city for historical research. Hope you could help me, NR52.

[Vlasky 1,803]

Amazing Hotel, love the greenish blueish feeling it has!

Well, I know this isn't a BAT request thread, and Barry Sanders don't take requests, and one more fact this bld would be a huge project, but NR52, if u haven't seen this on youtube you can>

U can see many of details in this videos, and they can be helpful if Jason decides to consider making this.

[Mister-La Té 12]

Originally posted by: Vlasky

Amazing Hotel, love the greenish blueish feeling it has!

Well, I know this isn't a BAT request thread, and Barry Sanders don't take requests, and one more fact this bld would be a huge project, but NR52, if u haven't seen this on youtube you can>

U can see many of details in this videos, and they can be helpful if Jason decides to consider making this.quote>

^^Thanks to Vlasky, I've already seen that videos. I think it's not so bad to bring the dead building in the real world back to be alive in the cyber world, is it?

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Actually, Wolverine (don't see him around very often) was working on Hudson's over in the BSP thread. The last render I saw was from March of 2009, but I believe he still has it floating around, waiting to be finished. Unfortunately, the render isn't hosted anymore, so I can't show you, but suffice to say it was a really nice model.

Jason: Its looking really good so far! Its come a long way from the little doodle in our conversation thread My only concern right now is that there is too much contrast between the bright facade and the very ark windows. Perhaps just changing the window texture around so that there is less black might do the trick (the light spots seem fine to me). I especially love the ornate crown you decided to put on this

[SimFox 801]

Sometime ago we (me and Jason) had decided that I would give some of his old masterpieces DAY'n'NITE darkerNight compatible makeover. And here is first batch. All models ahd been re-rendered both day and DarkNite view. Apart form new environmental lighting that would make them more compatible to the game day and nite, local lights had been tweaked/added/removed (to better fit the architecture and charter of the buildings), materials had been re-wamped and some minor geometry issues resolved.

So here they are:

Nafmis Department Store.

day:

darkNite:

Briscos Department Store.

day:

darkNite:

Knoll Building.

day:

darkNite:

JW Reid Building.

day:

darkNite:

Trier Station.

South View

day:

darkNite:

East view day:

East view darkNite:

If there wouldn't be some objections/suggestions these may be made public on STEX virtually right away!

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

My only concern is with the hue of a few things. JW Reid and Briscos had a very particular maxis-oriented tint to them to blend into the local flavor. Just double check that the more "realistic" hues don't alienate them from the games pallet.

The other point is about the stairs on Trier, they were made to integrate relatively seamlessly with a base texture in the LOT, they seem way off from that at the moment.

Case in point:

Otherwise, its nice to see these revisited. Knoll will benefit from this hopefully, the FSHs on the previous version butchered the detail on the facade.

[Francis90b 748]

Wonderful idea!

I'd agree on the concept, but i have to second what SimHoTToDDy said and i also have to point out that the Reid building and the Knoll building did have a much more relevant amount of floodlight in them on their old maxis-nite version.

I have to point out that those buildings could be used on a strictly-downtown setting

In many downtowns on main roads and places of interest buildings are lighted with a massive amount of floodlights...like this:

you see what i mean.

Well, i don't know the author's intentions there, but maybe he wanted to achieve something like that....sand i believe it might be a good idea to keep it on the new darknite versions.

[SimFox 801]

SimHoTToDy:

yeah, you're right... about trier Station... The previous was with Jason's Paver. It slipped in because I just looked at small thumbnails of the pictures. Here is the right day render with mine adjusted texture:

Francis90:

well good to know about this lighting... I didn't see those before. And the lighting that was there originally isn't really quite the same. I mean it is same in a sense of being spots, but that doesn't really make it same... well sorry if it is difficult understand what I'm trying to say...

I'll try more spot like lighting. But there is an issue with the flood vs. spot... In fact it would look more "home" in game with flood lighting for lower part...

[Francis90b 748]

I guess that there was pretty much a mis-use of terms from my side...what i liked about the old versions is that they had more light on them (or this was my impression) so i didn't prefer "spot" over "flood" lighting.I just want to ask for something more lightened up, so that i could have my own "Woodward Ave." in the game !

[SimFox 801]

And here is new version of Knoll:

[Francis90b 748]

Nice!

I believe it would be a good idea to use floodlights also on the lobby and on the taller floor (the taller floor itself, not only the cornice above it)

[SimFox 801]

no it wouldn't... it would just be way way to bright. Uniformly so. And as such would invalidate the whole point of accent provided by spots. It is, after all NIGHT view not a day one. You shouldn't expect to "see everything".

[Francis90b 748]

My idea was to leave out only the middle floors of the building (the part that i consider as the least relevant).Therefore you could have two lighted sections and a dark section in the middle.

I'd like to ask you to talk about the floodlight scheme you've used, as i'd really like to know your point.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Jason-The building is perfect.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

wow!  Well, I guess I'll go through building-by-building.  I overlayed the original versions with the new renders in photoshop to look more closely at the differences.

The change of the sign on Nafmis Department Store definitely has more of that 1930s kind of feel to it.  I'm not completely sure about the lights added to the blue parts, but it definitely adds some futuristic glamour to it, and gives the building more of a landmark quality, which a department store like this would probably have.  The yellow is now more subdued, and looking back on my original version, the yellow was more saturated than it should have been.  The color of the roof also works better with the rest of the building than the old roof.

The glare on Briscos adds a lot of class to the building.  I think that the parts that were black and are now grey (the peice around the main entrance, the window mullions, and the flashing) would be better black.  It's hard to tell, but it also looks like the limestone part of the entrance is no longer round (I don't know if just looks different because of different lighting).  The polish of the granite looks great.  Originally for the storefront display glass, the texture was busier and darker, which I think gave a better storefront impression, right now it looks very plain.

In the original Knoll Building, I didn't handle the contrasts in the facade right, and between that and the .FSH compression, the facade ended up being really busy and garbled.  The facade already reads better with your new version.  The building is based off of the Fisher Building in Chicago (here's a picture), and I was wondering if you could try to capture that airy terra cotta that I didn't?  The nitelites look absolutely beautiful.

For the JW Reid Building, I think the window frames themselves need to be black, in order to get the right contrast with the limestone.  For the edging limestone (I don't know exatly what to call it), it should be brighter and whiter than the other limestone.  The niteliting looks great here too.

I'm really happy to see what Trier Station looks like without the rendering artifacts (which also makes me eager to see Trier Tower!).  I never really had any idea what the little penthouse things on the roof were supposed to be, but they do make sense being a double height, clerestory window type space for the ground floor.  I definitely think the inside of this needs warm nitelites though.  Also, it looks like some of the underground facade isn't masked, it's easiest to see at night, to the right of where the stairs and the building meet.

About the limestone on Briscos and JW Reid, at the time I was doing a lot of maxisish coloration on everything, but maybe too much, and since then I've swung more in the opposite direction, wanting to BATs without as much coloration (although I haven't finished any BATs recently to show it).  I think the colors and the contrasts on the originals looked grea, but I'm also interested in the buildings with more realistic colors.  But there are other differences between the new versions and the old versions that makes it hard for me to compare, and probably after SimFox posts the next round of adjustments, the limestone will be the only thing left to consider.

All in all the new versions look great (like listening to a remaster of an old album), and the nitelites in particular will be some of the finest to hit the STEX.  It's also interesting to see this kind of "Jasoncw interpreted through SimFox" thing going on, especially with the stylistic differences being so small.

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Jason-I have a problem when I tryed to do the night light in the arch and design(mi) the sphere is black and when I try to apply the texture to the building the texture is black, can you help me how to fix that problem. Is this the way to make all night lights on the model, and it should be a tutoral on how to do theses things for new bees.

[SimFox 801]

OK, Here is a new version of JW Reid. I took a closer look not only on materials but also at the textures themselves... Plus a little enhanced night lighting. I thought if that ornate copper ridge is there it must be accented at night as well...

BTW are Trier tower and station based on any existing structures? I'm a bit puzzled as to the materials. If they are it would be great to take a look at those originals...I mean I don't think any of those are in Trier itself are they?

[SimFox 801]

Since this is another building I think it warrants separate message.

Ok here is preliminary renders of Trier Tower.

South & East

North & West

South & East darkNite

North & West darkNite

As I've said earlier it would be good to know if this is based on some real building as to approximate materials...

Also I feel that this tower needs more night windows.  Another thing to consider (for other buildings as well) should there be also night environmental reflections (like street/building lights etc) also should this tower have any architectural lighting, or only interior one...