Jason's BATs & Tutorials

[Jasoncw 11,840]

It looks like a hospital, eh? For alot of the time I was making it I was thinking it was going to be a hospital, but the top parts are too skinny to be a hospital. "The Modern Building" should be fine. For some reason the way that the word "modern" looks, it looks like it fits the building.

[Spike345 20]

Love the train station, have you ever thought of adding a Clock Tower to it? I think that would put the icing on the cake, so to speak!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I haven't thought about it before. Where do you think one could go on this design? If it was stone it couldn't be very deep, since it would be in the way of the train (I think a stone tower would look too heavy to be supported by some metal work alone). Maybe I could do something similair to the clock outside Grand Central Station?

[Spike345 20]

Yes, I think that would be a wise option, since well this is an older type of station and its very typical for a clock to be put in these. its just a suggestion though.

[JBSimio 152]

Clock... a fine idea.  That would be a really nice touch.

Now I'm laughing... I was really just kidding and being a smart @#% about "The Modern Building"... but it does seem to work. 

JB

[Jasoncw 11,840]

lol, that flew right over my head!

I haven't done any BATing since I last updated, but I don't have anything to do this weekend, so I might finish more stuff up.

[jessyka who? 1]

Hey Jason, where is that SimCity4-in-3d-Modd at that you promised us? Hehe great photoshopping work there on the snow modd. I haven't visited your thread in 5.0 yet, and I'm really happy to see that you have been working hard. Can't wait for some more...

I have been using your buildings for the perfect "ballpark village". I surrounded my cities ballpark with all your buildings, and a few more of the similar architecture and detail, really close the stadium and it just looks amazing.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks, I think it turned out well too. I wonder if it's going to be deleted? lol

Keep a space open for another building, I'm uploading Wagner & Diehl today. 2x2 ploppable, and 2x3 growable.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

To be precise,...

• 2x2 landmark
• 2x2 plop w/ jobs
• 2x3 growable* (medium / St6), 2x2 growable (dense / St7)

*this one with an optional dependency. But all that waffle is of course in the readme.

I gotta try this one out. My current region is built entirely in Chi/NY style, so I bet I will get some Wagner & Diehl buildings, hehehe...

I already have lots of Fisk Insurances (grew like rabbits at a certain stage, but now it's ok), Monkey-Dragon Games, some Mary Hotels (I use the two growable CS$$ versions and haven't experienced excessive growth at all), 3 or 4 Detroit Free Press Buildings... and once more I'm realizing how few R$$ BATs for the old tilesets actually exist. If I hadn't modded jestarr's Wisconsin Gas Building and even sargeantcm's Liberty Building (!) to R$$ growables, things would look rather boring in some places.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Monkey-Dragon Games grows alot for me, and so does Poirers pictures.  Mary arms pops up a little more than I'd like too, but I'm too lazy to take any versions out and then delete the old ones, lol.

It only took me about 10 minutes of playing the game to get the 2x3 W&D to grow.  The 2x2 grew within a few minutes, so I think both of them are good.  Like someone mentioned in the comments, I hope that it competes with marhsall printing and those other 2x2s.  The origonal idea was to make competition for that pink building (I hate it!), but then it turned into a 2x2, so that couldn't happen.  The Vinton Building will compete with the pink building though.

and, while I wait for the person to send me another copy of 3dsmax , but after I finish my current projects, I might do a small Hong Kong BAT.  I'll either do a small post office, or a pawn shop.  I'll post here, and in the Hong Kong thread if I start it.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Pink building? Do you mean this one? Or this one? Especially that Freytag Building really needs some competition, that's true. And Marshall Printing as well...

A Hong Kong pawn shop! Now that would be something different! I bet it will be interesting for you to do something so radically different, and if you pull it off at your usual quality level, HK fans will have some more great stuff besides those skyscrapers.

Oh, once you get 3dsmax, even more nice things will be possible... maybe even a snow mod?

[bixel 1,223]

Jasoncw: Wow that sounds great HK Bat Team really needs some of those cool Kowloon shops and (bazaar) markets. I'm a bit too busy on the HK Public Housing Blocks, but soon I will so some 70's type run down residentials. You will always be welcome to post in the HK forum.

[edit] BTW for the 'Modern Building', it kinda reminds me of the movie Citizen Kane, where that is the newspaper building he worked out of, Just an idea.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Those little 2x- and 1x buildings really need good replacements. I see waaaay too many of them. A big part of my next Portland project may address at least the 2x1 and 2x2 lots.... Perhaps we all ought to start a Teeny Tiny City Lot Project, or at least get elements of most of the continuing big BAT projects to do something.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Well, to be honest, I think a snow mod might be possible by replacing the night lights in the game.  For a BAT, first you'd export it normally, then you'd add snow, export it again.  Then you could take the night light images in the origonal, and then replace them with the snow images.  Then the in-game light settings and stuff could change so that it's still day time.  The same thing could be done for the maxis buildings, but you'd have to add the snow in with photoshop, which would be hard to do while everything is all distorted (but after doing it enough I'm sure the artist would get used to it).  But I'm no modding expert, so I really don't know if what I said is possible, or if it's worth the work if it is.

I think I'll do the pawn shop, since everyone seems to be more exited about it than the post office.  Here's a picture of it.  It's very sim city-ish.  It's also very clean, which makes it easier to do, but it still has alot of signs, those kinds of windows, and the same kind of architecture of the others, so I think it will still feel right.

The Freytag building is the annoying pink building that I had in mind, but the other is also an annoying 1x2 pink building that grows too much .

I haven't seen Citizen Kane, but I did some searching for it, and couldn't find a picture of the building.  I think the building does have a bit of a 40's feel too it, especially on the skinnier wing.

Most of my zoning in my own cities is 2 tiles deep, except for areas where I want the bigger buildings to grow.  In one part of my current city, a city block downtown is only 2x4, and there aren't any alleys facing the road.  The left part of the snow modd screenshot is where the 2x4 part starts.  Instead of wagner and diehl and fisk insurance, there is the Long Building (a handy website ) instead, I didn't want to add snow to that one so I plopped in those other buildings instead.  I might post a picture of that part of my city later.  When it's "done" I'll make a short cj out of it.

But anyway, yea, I think there needs to be more small buildings, especially since those are the ones that have problems growing too much.  I think they make the game more intimate too.  Detailed facades with alot of props in front with alot of people and cars, and everything feeling busy--I really like that.

[6459978. 106]

Technically a snow mod would be possible for new BATs even without having to replace the nightlights (which would probably cause more bugs than it's worth). The only sacrifice you'd have to make is that buildings would have to be exported as props (rather than buildings -- this slightly affects things such as foundations... nothing too devastating). It has been shown that props can be modded to be completely time dependent, so in theory you could have a snow covered version of the building for winter months, which is then replaced with the normal version in the summer. This is the same principle behind the seasonal trees.
Personally I think if further SimCity titles are to follow the same graphics trend as SC4 (i.e. limited 3D), then serious expansion could come in the form of additional maps. What I mean is this: currently, the game overlays a night-time map to the buildings when night falls. This map is created during the render by the modeller selecting which faces of a building should be lit up. Now, suppose that the modeller exerted different controls, such as which faces of a building would be susceptible to snow fall. (The renderer could even derive this by itself, judging by the grade of the different surfaces). Then in game, a standard snow texture (like the night light textures) could be overlayed after a "snowfall". Ditto for rain, more specific dilapidation, etc.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I thought about props, but I think for it to be worth doing you'd need to be able to do it to the maxis buildings too.  It would look weird if a building or two was covered in snow, and everything else wasn't.

The last part you said is a really great idea, if only maxis had thought of it!   I don't think it would have taken them too much more work either.  I wonder if we can make more maps, does anyone know?   Maybe we could do some experimenting.

[cammo2003 20]

I like the train station. Willing to try something like that at say... 7x5 tiles (lengthxwidth)? There's a severe lack of truly large through stations (of which there are quite a few here in Sydney because of the way the system is, although I don't think any of them are covered.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I'm probably not going to do another train station, but if I do, it would be a different design. I didn't put alot of thought into these train stations design, so the LODs were hard to make and too complex for the game, and the LODs still didn't do exactly what they were supposed to. Plus the design is really unrealistic altogether.

But I think I might put the new textures onto the old stations, redo the LODs, fix the problem with the tracks being weird, and redo the lots, and then put those up on the stex.

[baldy 0]

Another train station, huh.... inspired by MCS, cough, cough ....

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Michigan Central Station would be a fantastic addition to Sim City, but for how huge and decorative it is, I wouldn't be able to make it.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

With how good you are at old buildings, I am suprised to hear you say that Jason! But to know one's self is to know one's limits.

I think the most difficult part of MCS would be all the verticies that would choke up a render. I've found that half the finer details modeled into old buildings tends not to show up even at zoom 5. Just a question of simplification.

We'd love to see ya do it, but if you don't want to, that's OK.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Michigan Central Station (http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=118502) would be 6.25x6.25 tiles for the building, and 18 stories (with the first few being ultra tall).

I was thinking though, instead of doing the Buhl Building, and then if that works doing the Guardian Building, I might just do the Guardian Building. I think I have the skillz. The boldness of the detail and colors might actually make it easier to do than other buildings. This is all when I get 3dsmax, and the person who was going to... ehh... ::cough::. Well, I don't have it yet, but I might soon. The guardian building can be my BAT masterpeice, and Sim City 5 might just be around the corner, so better to make it sooner rather than later.

And if you guys check out the Hong Kong/Asia BAT thread, you'll see a new BAT I'm doing. I'm going to finish it tomorrow.

[cammo2003 20]

That's a nice station there, but yes, I understand what you're getting at.. Here in Sydney, only the underground platforms are fully enclosed. The government's too lazy, lol.

Heck, they never even bothered enclosing the platforms at our central station! How lazy is that?

I just looked up the buildings you're thinking of doing by the way... All I can say is NICE CHOICE!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I worked on the one roof, and I added the signs.  I think I'm going to add another sign to the top of the smaller tower too.  I think the signs and the roof make a huge difference.

Things left to do:

- finish the other roofs

-customize roof textures

-fix the green bush texture

-night lighting

-make sure the bottom floor can properly hold the storefront props.

[ILL Tonkso 1,236]

Love the windows, what sort of texture are we using here

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I'm using a custom texture that I made by:

1.  Taking a screenshot of the front or side, in wireframe

2.  Pasting it in photoshop, and cropping it to fit the window geometry

3.  Adding layers of shapes, colors, a gradient, and window blinds, to align with each floor.

4.  Selecting all of the windows, grouping them together, giving them all this texture, and then applying a uvw map to fit the texture to the window.

5.  Alot of tweaking.

[ILL Tonkso 1,236]

Clever, i like that. I might do that for my new building, allthough 50 stories and a lot of work im sure it will be worth it

[spa 968]

Looks good. I have to second Ill Tonkso, those are some nifty windows.

[mightygoose 92]

very nice bat oh and if your still looking for a name it says to me Barton & Took Inc.

[tag_one 133]

wow amazing, I love the textures and the color of the building