Kart_Hadasht's BAT thread

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

Hi everyone! After the modest success of my first upload I've decided to open up a BAT thread where I can show everyone my progress. As promised, I'm working on a series of temples as a continuation of my Shrine. I'll probably end up designing about 2 or 3 more buildings and then group them together with an updated version of the Shrine of Perfect Harmony into a pack for uploading.

So far I've just been working on my second tier structure. It's still rather modest but much larger and more complex than the shrine. It has windows and I did nightlighting for them, but I haven't gotten it quite right yet (it's a bit dim but I'll post pictures once I'm happier with the results). The textures have been improved and darkened as some people expressed concerns that the textures were perhaps too bright, and frankly I agreed and it looks A LOT better now. The window textures have also come in a bit scrambled in some windows for reasons that only gmax could justify, but this screenshot is a good representation of what the building looks like. SO, please leave comments and suggestions! I look forward to seeing what all of you have to say!

  Edited March 11, 2012 by Kart_Hadasht  

[BIWDC 2,296]

Looks pretty Good

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

Looks pretty Good

Give me the harshest opinion you can

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Looks good to me. I'm not digging the trees tho.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Looks really really good. But I think i would look much better if the BAT would occupy the whole roundabout. I hope you know what I mean, like this one

[Ceafus 88 1,914]

Nice, I agree with Aaron, needs new trees, and also, it needs to cover the whole roundabout, but overall, looks great

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

Well it's not necessarily a roundabout lot. I just kinda put it in one just cause. I could make an alternative roundabout version perhaps. And the trees I agree are perhaps a bit much. I'll find green ones about the same size.

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

Okay, so I've made some changes. First, the pink trees are gone (I didn't mind them but oh well ). Second, the windows have been redone and look better in my opinion. I haven't gotten around to making the building for a roundabout yet but I'll post a picture of that version soon. He's the building so far:

And here it is at night:

Something really strange happens when I export, though. The window textures get a bit scrambled, but I'm working on fixing that. I'd appreciate any help on the matter though (also the pictures are a bit lower quality than I'd like but oh well).

So what do you guys think?

[Ceafus 88 1,914]

This is pretty good, I would like to see a higher quality pic though

[BIWDC 2,296]

I think the pink trees complimented it pretty well.The new ones are ok but it looked

much better to me as it was before.

I didn't really see anything to comment on so that's why I was not harsh on

my Opinion.

  Edited March 11, 2012 by BIWDC  

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

Aww man why do people have to be so divided about the trees! I liked the pink ones a bit too cause they were kinda magical and all, but they wouldn't fit into a city very well which was a problem. And I'm a bit sick today so I'll be taking a bit of a break. I'll get you pics later, so just try to imagine what it looks like at this point (a bit more despeckled ). I'll be working on a roundabout version for both the shrine of PH and this temple (I have no idea what the measurements for the interior of a roundabout are, so if someone could give me those that would speed things up and I'd greatly appreciate that!), and maybe do a side project to break up the monotony... And yeah I have to do homework too

Thanks for the comments! Keep em comin

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I think the pink trees were fine, but to me they're very Japanese.

[logintime 93]

I like it. The lot is not flashy but does convey the religious nature of the building well. My one suggestion is, if possible, to not have a tree directly in front of the entrance/exit to the shrine. Unless it has religious significance, most religious buildings keep foliage away from the front of the building so it can be more easily viewed (and inspire awe) by pedestrians.

[mntoes 271]

Very nice, I like what I see. I notice one of the windows is still messed-up. Did you use the mirror tool in Gmax by any chance? The mirror tool in Gmax is known to be broken (if used from the top menue Tools/mirror) and can lead to this odd texture effect. If you use the mirror option in the modifier list you should be ok. Hope that helps, can't think of any other reason for the odd effect.

Regards

Mntoes

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

Hmm maybe that's the reason, thanks for you help! I'll fix that scrambled window nonsense finally! Also, I have no idea how to make a roundabout lot :/ I can't make a suitable base and I was wondering if there was some sort of tutorial on how to do this? Meanwhile I'll be working on my next building. Thanks in advance!

P.S. The reason the building faces the tree is to make it more difficult to access the temple, therefore the worshipper has to work that much harder to ender the place. This is symbolic of the difficulties in redemption and all that that's why many temples have uneven steps and such oddities. To this imaginary culture nature is also quite important, which is why I'm gonna try to put a lot of greenery on every lot (though you wouldn't really tell at this point ). Hope that clears things up!

P.P.S. Thanks for all the comments guys! You've been very helpful

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

Okay guys I'm back I'm almost recovered and enjoying the really warm weather we're having here! I just wanted to let you know about my progress, cause I've been gone for a little while. Here's my current BAT (in progress):

It's A LOT bigger than anything I've ever done, my computer can barely run it! I'm not sure how many tiles it will cover but it'll be a good 5 times larger than my circular temple. It's a lot more ornate, with fabulous iron and silver work on the columns, and a spire to call the faithful to prayer. This will probably be my 4th tier structure, and I feel like I should get another smaller building to fill in the gap between this one and the other temple. So once again, any suggestions and comments are welcome. (Also, I can't use the mirror tool because it scrambles my textures. SO now I must manually rotate which takes a lot of time but I guess it's better than nothing).

[mntoes 271]

You should still be able to use the "mirror" tool.

This is "broken"

This should work ok.

Give it a try. I'm almost certain this is correct advice.

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

You should still be able to use the "mirror" tool.

This is "broken"

This should work ok.

Give it a try. I'm almost certain this is correct advice.

Ohhh okay, yeah that makes sense. I've never used it through that menu before, but I'll make sure to do that from now on! Thanks a lot and do you happen to know the trick to creating roundabout lots?

[darn42 1,268]

I've never made a roundabout before, but I'd guess just make a circle the the radius of the diagonal of the lot size. Ex. your circular temple is in a 1x1 square, if it instead covered the entirety of a circle with a 1.414 radius, it would fit around the square almost perfectly rather than inside it. I don't know what the dimensions of the roundabouts in game are, but I'm assuming they are 1x1 but cover the aforementioned 1.414 radius circle area.

And then, I still don't quite know what I'm talking about, but from my understanding of LODs, you would make the LODs for the 1x1 square lot first, then make the lot cover the entire circle so that the lot is technically 1x1 but has a larger footprint.

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

I've never made a roundabout before, but I'd guess just make a circle the the radius of the diagonal of the lot size. Ex. your circular temple is in a 1x1 square, if it instead covered the entirety of a circle with a 1.414 radius, it would fit around the square almost perfectly rather than inside it. I don't know what the dimensions of the roundabouts in game are, but I'm assuming they are 1x1 but cover the aforementioned 1.414 radius circle area.

And then, I still don't quite know what I'm talking about, but from my understanding of LODs, you would make the LODs for the 1x1 square lot first, then make the lot cover the entire circle so that the lot is technically 1x1 but has a larger footprint.

I feel like I've tried doing this before and it just cut mine's off. It's annoying that there's no tutorial out there on this.

[darn42 1,268]

I would experiment with a straight up cylinder. Also, you can make custom LODs by making a geometric shape to the size you want, making 3 copies, and naming them LOD3, LOD4 and LOD5.

[BIWDC 2,296]

Okay guys I'm back I'm almost recovered and enjoying the really warm weather we're having here! I just wanted to let you know about my progress, cause I've been gone for a little while. Here's my current BAT (in progress):

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Wow that looks Good so far.

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

Thanks I'm thinking of adding two big minarets in the front or something, and I need doors too

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Like your progress. Looks good.

Did you think of getting 3ds Max

[Kart_Hadasht 36]

Like your progress. Looks good.

Did you think of getting 3ds Max

Sounds like I have no choice what's different about 3ds max?

[darn42 1,268]

3ds max is tons different. Gmax is the free version of 3dsmax from like 2003 or something like that. 3ds max however, is an updated, full version of gmax that you can still get for free.

You can make better much better textures (which is huge). The renders are cleaner. For me, it isn't as glitchy. There's more support for it. There are better lighting things I think. And I would assume there are much more options for messing with shapes and more options to create shapes.

If you have access to a valid college e-mail, I definitely recommend that you get 3ds max if you want to do a lot of BATing. tbh I did only a little bit in gmax just to learn it then went straight to 3dsmax.