Chicago BAT Project

[gutterclub 2,729]

Wow, the model is looking beautiful! I really hope the materials are just as good because this could turn out to be a real class BAT

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I'd figure a Chicago BAT Team or something along those lines would arise soon enough. I had anticipated it much sooner though, when NYBT sprung up.

This tower looks very splendid. Tedious detailing pays off. Looking forward to the texturing.

[darn42 1,268]

Didn't get much done today. Just started the second terrace. Was busy most of the day.

Tomorrow hopefully I'll be going into the city and taking a personal architectural tour with my camera. If anyone wants requests for pics of buildings and angles and such in chicago, request 'em now

edit: nvm, apparently my dad made plans to do an architectural boat tour with my future stepmom and step brother so closeups are probably not gonna happen anymore....

  Edited June 24, 2012 by darn42  

[tSlater 134]

Oh my god the Tribune Building YES. A millin internets to you for being the one to finally take this project on. I also have a place in my heart for the Wrigley, the Carbon & Carbide (Hard Rock Hotel), and some of the Michigan Ave. buildings like the Chicago Athletic Association building. They're such gorgeous buildings. But definitely all of the spired buildings around Michigan+ChicagoRiver have been sorely needed for far too long now.

Oh, here's a long-term future project for y'all: NAM bridges of the river crossings, some of the EL stations (there's a couple on the STEX but iirc they're glitchy and/or don't work) and the river walls. =3

[shinkansen1 84]

There is a large residential tower at the front of the Chicago waterfront that I am very interested in, though I do not know what the name of it is. If I remember correctly, it has a curved facade and is very dark.

[darn42 1,268]

Lakepoint tower?

[Cockatoo 2,256]

How is it possible for someone to improve so much in such a short amount of time?!

When I first saw (in your other thread) that you were thinking of recreating this building... I was tempted to say that you should learn to walk before you can run. How wrong I was to think that!

Keep up this sort of progress and you'll probably be the best BATer on this site within a few hours.

(Just remember that textures are as important, if not more, than modelling - so they'll really need to be spot on if you want to maintain this sort of quality throughout the BAT.)

[darn42 1,268]

yea. Textures are the one thing that I have not really worked on. So I'm probably going to have to learn some new techniques and such for texturing for the tribune. I would love it if the more experiences batters could teach me or at least help me learn how to texture well.

[darn42 1,268]

One thing about texturing I have no clue about. Is there a way to take a tiling texture and give it variety or damage or something that isn't tiled with it? For tribune tower, it's made of limestone bricks, but on the east side of it, it gets a lot darker on some off the large concrete vertical running things

I want to put that in using gimp, but I don't know how I would do that since it's not completely uniform all the way up, and there's no way I can find an image of a ton of bricks like there are on tribune in one bitmap. I did take a picture of some bricks while I was at tribune tower yesterday for reference and possibly to make a texture out of.

  Edited June 25, 2012 by darn42  

[harishna 847]

You can take a reference image to use as your brick base texture (you can) even make your own, I think Jason has a small tutorial and think SimFox also has his own way. Then you can also use another map or texture to use as noise map combine both images, then you can also add gradients, wear marks and all kind of details. You can take an image of your model to use as a reference in gimp, at least that is what I do. I hope my explanation is clear enough.

  Edited June 25, 2012 by harishna  

[darn42 1,268]

I still have a lot of modeling to do, but thanks harishna, once I'm done I'll experiment with making my own or something like that. Do you know how to make a texture tile in gimp? cause the brick image I took has like 4 bricks in it since they are pretty large. From what you said, the way I'm thinking of doing it atm is making a brick texture tile in gimp, getting my reference image in there or unwrapping uvs or something, then using that as a basis for adding variation and color and such like you describe harishna, and then using the one bitmap as the diffuse.

Is that a reasonable method of doing it?

[paulvmontfort 616]

I usually compose most textures in Max alone. In this instance I'd add a tiles map in the diffuse map slot, put a rgb multiply map under it with some kind of beige concrete texture and a gradient map

  Edited June 25, 2012 by paulvmontfort  

[madhatter106 3,903]

I'm not familiar with gimp as I'm a Photoshop guy, but here's what I can offer (I think the two programs are similar)...

Regarding variations on textures, let's say you have a basic brick texture that would be good for maybe a height of ten storeys. If your building is thirty storeys, then you're going to need to make a canvas/file size that is three times as tall in Photoshop, and then copy and paste the base texture twice above it. So, ultimately you will have what some of us call a "one to one" texture - ie. something that's not going to tile or repeat when you apply it to the model with a basic UVW map. But at this stage it will look like it is going to tile and repeat if you add the UVW map - because you've tiled/repeated it when you've copied and pasted...so that's where the variation can come in. Painting variations, adding gradients here and there, smudging and darkening and lightening certain bricks here and there, to make a unique texture out of a smaller texture.

I'll repeat something that I've said a lot in past BAT threads - GOOD TEXTURES ARE MADE, NOT FOUND. True, you can find textures online that can work as a good jumping off point or base, but I can almost guarantee that 99.9% of the time, you're going to have to do something to it in order for it to look its best in gmax/Max. It might be as simple as adjusting the contrast or saturation levels, or taking a little blue out of the color balance, or painting in cracks or other details; sometimes it's a combination of all of those things and even more. And it will also depend on what modelling program you are using - since I am working with gmax (in effect, creating models in a program that is the equivalent of using a manual electronic typewriter compared to 3dsMax) I need to include some shadowing and highlighting in the textures to accomodate for the renders that gmax generates. Little modelled details might sometimes be better done in the texturing stage, and some stuff might look flat or "fake" if it's too large to be a texture and would be better served as being modelled. It will all vary from model to model, and will vary based on what effect you want to achieve.

Also, what looks good in the photo editing program you use may not look good on the model next to other colors and textures, so you might have to cheat things in one direction or another. Certain colors might look fine together until you add another texture to the mix in your modelling program, and that texture might totally throw everything off or make things look entirely different. (For instance, on one of my models I had used a window frame texture many times in the past with pale colored buildings, and when I put that frame on an object in a greenish building, the texture seemed entirely different.) And, as has been mentioned elsewhere in other threads, putting your textured model in-game or superimposed over in-game screenshots will give you a sense of whether or not your building will look right with Maxis content as well as other custom content that has been previously released.

A couple of bad or "off" textures can ruin a perfectly beautiful model - there are plenty of examples of this on the STEX (but I shan't give specific examples), so getting your textures absolutely perfect is very important. And I've said often enough that often it takes much more time to texture a model than it does to create the model itself; there's lots of rendering and previewing and tweaking textures and reloading and re-previewing and on and on and on. Rinse and repeat, until it's looking right. It's a lot of trial and error, but with effort and patience, anyone can perservere...

[darn42 1,268]

Wow. I love getting nice long posts like this madhatter. They generally answer a lot of questions. I think I'm going to have to do some sort of gimp tutorial at some point because right now, my knowledge of the program is the main thing that I can foresee limiting me. And I agree with you on the texturing takes the longest.

Also, is there any way to get photoshop for free? It seems a lot of people have it, and I'm not sure if it's just because they're willing to spend the money on it or if there's some discount or student version like with 3ds max.

  Edited June 25, 2012 by darn42  

[darn42 1,268]

Here's my progress for today. The z5

and here's the closeup of what I've done

[Ion_Cannon 677]

Looks fantastic, if you learn the ins and outs of photoshop/gimp as quickly as you did gmax/3dsmax you'll be texturing like a master in no time

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

You will get the texturing right soon, looks like your finished with the modeling now and lets not forget to say it looks fabulous.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

Dear merciful God...

You've improved so fast it's almost hard to believe! And this... the detail...

Texturing is going to be another difficult process but at this rate I think you'll get it easily.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Holy cow, that's freaking awesome!

As for Photoshop, I guess most people have their version from dubious sources, if you get what I mean. There is also a "light" version of it called Photoshop Elements, which is a lot cheaper to get and supports the basic functions.

Actually, you don't need that many functions. You need to make multiple layers, you need to adjust transparency of these layers, you need the "dodge" and "burn" tools to add darker smudges and bleach out some spots, you need to copy and paste texture parts, you need to adjust brightness/hue/saturation... that's not rocket science or anything for which you would need a 1,000 dollar tool.

I think the recent GIMP version finally uses a window concept that's similar to Photoshop (and for older versions there was an add-on called GimpShop), so it's probably easier now to change from PS to GIMP or to find things in GIMP if you are used to "normal" one-window applications.

[simfan 11]

Remember to include Willis/Sears Towers.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Not that it can't be done again but there is already a pretty good version at the below link, along with 2 Prudential Plaza

http://27.pro.tok2.com/~chilitomato2/

[Wraner 335]

We do NOT need another willis tower. That is the last thing we need.

[darn42 1,268]

Thanks Gutter. I'll take 2 prudential off the list. Almost disappointed it's been done already. Is that Ks_jpn's site?

[darn42 1,268]

update for tonight. It's a z6 preview of the building. I did the back of it today.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

That thing is half skyscraper, half cathedral...

I sure hope you keep frequent backups on a separate drive! This is one of the most breathtaking skyscraper projects I've witnessed lately, and I'd hate to see it go down the drain due to some stupid software hiccup.

[JayStimson 211]

Very impressive. I hope you take the time required for textures and lights to do the model justice.

[darn42 1,268]

T Wrecks: that's a good idea. I'll grab a few flashdrives and save it to them. Spent way too much time on this so far for me to lose it (roughly 70 hours)

[harishna 847]

This is trully amazing specially seeing how fast you have improved. I have marked some areas that I think you may want to double check in terms of modelling..

[darn42 1,268]

thank you very much harishna. I appreciate it.

[Ion_Cannon 677]

Minor modelling issues aside ;which hopefully can be resolved easily, looking fantastic