Jason's BATs & Tutorials

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks!

 

Yeah properly aligning those kinds of things are one of the most important things for BATs imo.  Without doing that things tend to look kind of sloppy and vague and with doing those things the BAT tightens up and looks much better.  Panel lines isn't something I talk about very often but it's one of the things I put the most thought into, because when I'm first starting the building one of the first things I do is plan out how to do the panels/blocks/etc on the facade.

 

There are different ways of doing it and I've used the ones you've described before.

 

The Sojot Building ( ) was done a long time ago and so I just took screenshots of each of the facades in the viewports and manually drew in the panels.  This is a poor man's uvw unwrapping.  But imo it's also easier to do even though it's quick and dirty, so for doing things like roofs I still just take a screenshot in the viewport and paste that into photoshop.  If someone more complicated ever comes along I might uvw unwrap it, but doing that still basically means that you have to manually draw in all the lines and all the panel variations.

 

What I do now involves two things which essentially automates the process and saves tons of time compared to doing it manually.

 

First, is that all of the panels have to be modeled.  imo this isn't hard because things like blocks or panels are key elements in how facades are composed, so figuring out the sizes and arrangements of those things on the facade is part of my modeling process anyway.  All it is is quickslicing the panel lines in, and this even helps the modeling process because you have a lot of convenient vertexes to snap to.  The downside to this aspect though, is if you need extra polygons you're going to end up with extra lines whether you want them or not.

 

Second, a multi/sub-map is used.  Each of the slots is a variant of the texture so that each panel is different.  This can be made even simpler by using color correction maps to change the brightness of the textures.  Then you use a script to randomize the material ids of all the different panels, and viola, all the variation is done.  This is the same process that's in my gardener center glass tutorial.

 

And then third is using the Wire option of the Standard material.  So, make a "Composite" material (rather than an arch & design material).  For the base material use what you normally would, and for mat.1 use a Standad material, set to Wire mode.  This basically adds wireframe lines to your material.

 

 

Another way of doing it is like you said, to model the panels and then inset them and give the line polygons a dark material to actually model the panel lines.  This is a more precise way, and depending on the situation it doesn't take much longer, but it's harder to tweak, because if you want to change the thickness of the panel lines you have to redo everything.

 

 

And then all that can be mashed together with other ways of doing things.

 

For the Inland Steel Building, all of the panels were modeled, and the modeled panels are used both with a multi/sub-map is used to create brightness variation and also to fit the bump maps (using the Face uvw map type).  But the panel lines were all actually Tile maps that were one tile wide and however many tall, just to make a series of horizontal lines.  The tiles map makes it easy to change the thickness of the lines on the fly.

 

 

Tiles Maps in general are useful for automatically making blocks and variation.  The limestone on the Hillier Building is a tiles map.  And I just modeled the building to fit the blocks (rather than texture the blocks to fit the building).  iirc, the hillier building's limestone is a noise map with fine noise, plus a bigger noise map for larger variation (subtle gradients within the blocks), plus a generic stained concrete texture to give the overall building some general weathering and variation, and then all this was just put into a tiles map which made the lines and the variation between the blocks.

 

 

The red granite pavers on Blackburn Tower (if you look closely all the pavers are properly blocked out) use the wire method. 

 

The limestone on Equitable Bank and Trust uses the wire method except for the columns where i modeled the block lines.  Otherwise all the vertical edges of the round columns would be rendered as lines.  But these two methods play well together, I still used the multi/sub-map for the variation.  I just made an instance of the base material for the limestone part and then made a separate black material for the lines part.

 

The pavers and blocks on Hammer Data Security is a tiles map.  The concrete uses a multi/sub-map for variation.

 

 

And I think before 2013 lines and block variation would have been done manually in photoshop.

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Cool, thanks...though much I suspected, I had not thought of the Wire option on the standard material used in a composite.  That might solve a particular project's conundrum for me where the walls of a building were both horizontally and vertically tapering at unusual angles and then intersecting at odd angles yet other tapering walls also of unusual angles, all of which needed carefully delineated panel seams, some of which were also at unusual angles or even changed direction.  It was all threatening to become needlessly complicated and messy.  I think I now have a plan of attack.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

 

Hey guys, next BAT

 

Telus Plaza in Edmonton, Canada. 

 

It's part of a complex which includes this, as well as a bigger tower which is at the same level of completion as the shorter tower here.  There's also a plaza with a few smaller buildings which I'll also be doing.  Stand alone versions of the towers will be released as well as a version of the entire complex rendered together.  It'll all be on the STEX in about two weeks. 

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Well I be damn, you finally have another one. What happen to uploading a bat each month buddy, but no matter what I'm still proud of you, just do not stop batting any time soon.

[Vlasky 1,803]

Interesting and much needed architecture for the realism of the gameplay. And exceptional modelling as always.

[Roger51 381]

Hmmmmm, well that's a welcomed surprise!!! Love everything about it

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks guys!

Aaron:  I've stuck to my BAT a month plan!  Except for September.  I was going to try and plan it so that I would release the individual Telus Plaza BATs on the last day of September and then the entire plaza on the first day of October but other things came up.  This will make 3-4 uploads (kind of like how Oliver Place Apartments from June made 2 uploads) and I think it will be substantial enough to count for September as well. 

I might also have other BATs to release during October (we'll see!).  I have some long standing WIPs I need to finish. 

[RepublicMaster 428]

This is looking really nice! I'm really liking the windows.

[art128 4,618]

Love that little tower there.

Would be super interested in using it and the other smaller buildings.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

OMG, its a Jason

 

I like the glass. Could you give us your settings or do you use the one you also used in your tut?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks everyone

 

Skyscraper:  It's a default arch & design material with the reflectivity increased to 1.  I gave it a bump map, just one bulge texture (dark around the edges and white in the middle) with the uvw map set to face.  The kind of glass this building has isn't mirrored so having a lot of variety for the bump map isn't important.

 

But the glass is tinted.  So I changed the reflection color from white to a light brown color. 

 

Something important is that the ground plane is SC4 screenshots chopped up, and without any changes.  I didn't make it brighter or darker or change the color or anything like that.  Right now it's actually the same ground texture that I used for Blackburn Tower.  It ALSO has the same glass texture as Blackburn Tower (with some tweaks using a Color Map)!  It's important to, as much as you can, get the appearance you want by changing the glass material and not by changing the ground plane.  If you look at my Gardner Center BAT, the glass looks fine when it's reflecting the ground plane (which is dark purple because that's how I wanted the glass to look) but when it reflects the plaza or the roofs the glass doesn't have the same colorization.

 

So Blackburn Tower has the same ground plane, and the same glass texture, but the glass material has reflections set to IOR and a high IOR because it's mirrored glass, and medium grey for the reflection color. 

[Darknono35 3,137]

Great work by you and from Canada

I can't wait to see more pictures of this one , keep it up

[dubaidude303 1,119]

Very cool! Can't wait!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks

 

 

Today I did the "TELUS" sign. 

 

Both of the towers are close to their final position from each other.  From now on I'll be posting just the parts that I'm working on so that the images won't be so huge.  Once I start on the base I'll start doing full previews again. 

 

This is easily the biggest BAT I've ever done.  The final I think will be a 6x10. 

 

You can also see in this screenshot how I chose to do the roof.  In the past I've done them my measuring them or by proportions and stuff but this time I just fit a screenshot of the aerial and then used that to position things.

[jwsteele 77]

Oh man, love it!  We need way more of the 20-30 story CBD buildings from all time periods/styles, as most people tend to focus on 30+++ story skyscrapers (with obvious intentions, they are way sexier buildings!).  But a real metropolitan CBD has a mixture of the two.  Thanks for doing both (standalone and together).

[Darknono35 3,137]

[edwardjeria 503]

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

                       

I think I already explained

[dubaidude303 1,119]

That looks great!! I cannot wait for this! 

[Jack_wilds 550]

luv it...   like those type of towers that populate business parks and litter the freeway interstates in the suburbs... but, this one appears to be a downtown tower... well, I'll build in my suburb anyway...

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks everyone!

 

Today's work:

 

[RepublicMaster 428]

The rooves look great! I'm really liking this building. Those windows just get me.

[Delecto 941]

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Hey Jason, I really want to say thank for explaining everything you so detailed. You need to ask and get an answer. That's just awesome!

[Vlasky 1,803]

Love them roofs. But the stones are what captures me. And the T sign. Love how u did it.

[dubaidude303 1,119]

Looking good

[Darknono35 3,137]

I really like your both roofs. About your two buildings, they are perfect for my Downtown

[MTT9 187]

Amazing Jason!!!

[Finnbhennach 161]

Mhmm, loving the weathered look on the roof of those buildings and the HVACs and other roofing properties/objects are coming together just nicely. The faux interior texture for your windows look great and they are quite convincing but this is a question that I had for a while when doing windows. Is it vastly inefficient to model the interior of the building to show through the windows for day (with natural sunlight and some lighting from light fixtures to create real shadows) and night renders (perhaps omni light to create intricate shadow patterns and well dispersed light or dim-lighting for better realism at night)? I do realize that it increases render times by a huge amount but for realism's sake is it worth modeling the interior as well? Perhaps, not to the fullest extent, since most of it won't even show up in final renders at SC4's viewing angle. Nonetheless, tedious or not, I was wondering if furniture modeled into a floor as one big polygon could perhaps minimize rendering times? Just a theory but yeah keep up the great work, Jason! And, thanks for all your useful tutorials you've created so far.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks everyone

 

Skyscraper:  Thanks!

 

Finnbhennach:  It depends on the situation.

 

imo textures are the preferred way of doing windows.  They're much easier to do, and they're easier to make convincing.  Interiors in real life have so much clutter and variation, and it all kind of gels together in a way that's very hard to recreate in max.  But with textures you just need to have the right kind of shapes and contrast and color and it looks good.  Modeling it it usually has a sterile artificial feeling to it.

 

The smaller the window the easier it is to get away with just a texture.

 

For nights you just add self illumination.

 

 

For bigger windows what I do is I have transparent glass, and then I model floors, and I give the floors a texture instead of the glass itself.  So there's still a texture driving the impression, but it's on the floor.  This takes more work and is harder to get good variation than a texture that would go on glass, because a glass texture (should be) a bunch of different floors with the variation added in.  So you might have a texture that has 25 floors of glass on it, which you can then match the uvw map so the floor heights on the texture and model match.  But for texturing the floor you need a lot more textured areas and you need to randomize it a lot and getting that kind of variation is a lot easier in photoshop.  But one of the benefits to this method is that it's easy to add window blinds.  And I think the glass this way looks a little more like glass.  One way of saying it could be that this way is better at the glass, but worse at the interior.

 

For nitelites, you can either make the floor texture have self illumination, or you can add a plane behind the glass and give that a self illuminated texture (which you would hide during the day).  You can also add actual lights but it's more resource intensive and if you're just lighting up a flat surface a night texture would look better anyway.  If you do use actual lights to light up the floor, use a MR Sky Portal combined with a blackbody color map (google these to get a tutorial and more in depth explanation) because it gives really nice diffuse shadows which do a good job of simulating a ceiling with lots of lights.  Spotlights tend to give too harsh or directional of shadows.  This is also the best way to light up lobbies.

 

 

But for even bigger windows the previous method still isn't enough, and what I've found is that I actually need to add in a glass texture somehow.  For my Inland Steel Building, there's a textured floor, modeled glass, and then behind the glass there's another plane which has a low transparency and has a glass texture, and this added enough extra variation.

 

 

And then finally for even bigger windows (large open lobbys, large skylights, etc.  Situations where you outright have a clear view of the interior) you just need to model what's there and it will look good.

 

 

 

Some other people have experimented with more elaborate set ups.  In Darn42's thread, he was working on improving the texture method.  While in my texture I just have rectangles that have the right angles to appear to be on a floor, he has actual office furniture instead, so the texture makes it look like there's furniture inside.  But it's still being done in photoshop which makes it easier to add variation and give it a more cluttered look than if it was actually all modeled in the scene.  It's also a lot faster to render.

 

And some other people were experimenting with adding in a bunch of geometry (cubes, etc.) instead of fully modeled interiors to give some variety that way.

 

 

There's a building I want to do where I'll be experimenting with glass techniques, involving tinted glass and modeled interiors.  When I get around to it I'll share anything useful that comes out of it.

[Finnbhennach 161]

Damn, thanks Jason for taking the time to theorycraft with me. It's extremely insightful as to how many varying techniques that you and others know about. So, I guess it can boil down to mastering the art of illusion for those tricky glass renders such as delicate or awkwardly-angled windows where intricate details would get lost through such a small canvas in the first place--good window texturing is most efficient and still can augment realism and save rendering times in those situations--that would go for huge glass panes as well in certain occasions. Nonetheless, since you will be experimenting more with glass techniques specifically, I was wondering what you think about modeling a realistic furniture/interior setting for the BAT you are working, floor-by-floor in an isolated environment, separately. So, basically render that setting catered to the floor and plug it back in as a window texture for that floor and then rinse and repeat for the next floor to also speed rendering times? Geez, I do come up with the most tedious technique don't I?  However, whatever it takes to make the BAT most detailed, grounded, and realized to its full potential, I'm all for it and perhaps you can chime in a little.   I'll test this out on my current Shorehollow/North Harbell project, iron out some kinks here and there, and see how it looks in the end. Any thoughts? Let's do some more theorycrafting soon; it was awesome and thanks again for your time.

 

Edit: I'm gonna go ahead and bookmark your previous post for future reference/talks. There are lots of good advice in there and specific details about certain techniques that I would love to test out on my end and get a hands-on experience and also do some trial/error and make some more advancements in glass techniques to benefit the community here--be it for BATing or for viewing pleasure.