Chicago BAT Project

[darn42 1,268]

 

How 'bout this? It's just a sample of windows. I think I hit the sweetspot with this one.

[libellibicus 396]

Sweet!

[gutterclub 2,729]

Yep, the actual material look good..I think the ground pane could be worked better as it seems to have too much white which is too stretched, which is what might be giving it that washed out look..maybe tile the pane a bit more and add just a subtle splash of colour

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Whenever GC has been there first, I could actually restrict my reply to a simple "I concur".

[kellydale2003 2,276]

Try doubling the tile number for the ground place, and using a noise map for your glass. If you already have a noise map in place, try making it smaller and more apparent. Also I didn't say you had to use my maps :b... But go ahead if you want, but I'd suggest playing with different maps and what not until you find the one that fits in place!

Map hunting is kind of like playing Goldilocks in that Nursery Poem or story or w.e.! :b

Finding a map with good hue, contrast, color, brightness, etc. in the Goldilocks zone will be your best bet! You can always modify these parameters in Photoshop too!
I personally think the most defining factor in finding the correct map in the Goldilocks zone is the color, transparency, and reflectivity of your glass. I'm not sure if you've been following the OCT thread, but if you notice that my Bay Adelaide Centre building has very blue glass! In contrast I've made a map that is opposite of these colours to help from the glass from being TOO blue. I think you can do the same with this one also! So try find a map with brick brown, white, blacks, and yet still has a factor of other colors here and there. In this case... more contrast might be needed.

I would give you another map, but I personally think you need to learn this quick process in order for future BATs!

Sometimes we luck out, sometimes we don't... but we still gotta do our best to finding the correct parameters for glass! (:

[darn42 1,268]

Don't give me another map, I will make my own now. No point in having people make something for me when I am not good at it myself.

 

The hardest part of making materials here for me is the fact that because of how it's viewed, physically accurate materials aren't what are needed, but it takes a lot of experimentation with a bit more arbitrary numbers. I'll keep working on the ground plane and such. I'm looking at the last render I did and it doesn't look much better. That section I did as a test wasn't representative of the whole :|

[kellydale2003 2,276]

I meant no offense or anything with my post! I agree that sometimes we get stuck in a rut and get frustrated with some of the BATs! haha... I've been frustrated with the same two BAT for YEARS! I'm personally not satisfied with these two... and have a hard time trying to figure out the correct aspects for making these two work. Hopefully you won't delay a BAT for years like I have :b

I also agree that some of the critique is sometimes hard, and annoying! haha... but I meant no personal offense to you. My thoughts are my opinion, and only that (:

 

Your modelling is terrific! Not many BATters get curves so accurate and pretty like you do! So we're just trying to help you get things to look way better! We've seen good stuff from you, and hope to see more! (:

[darn42 1,268]

Don't worry, I didn't take any offense from your comment! In fact, I'm very appreciative of it. I love all the feedback I get because it makes everything I do better. Hopefully I can get the glass material down soon. I think its mostly just the ground plane and bump at this point.

[Gn_leugim 853]

yes, you hit the wet spot, I'm... wet.. (meaning greatly done! )

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I think you'll want the lines in your reflections to be sharper. 

[darn42 1,268]

Hi guys, It's been a while and we've been booted to the second page so I decided its time to post an update. Now, I don't know if you all will be happy or frustrated with this update, but I am putting all BATs on temporary hiatus. Instead, I realized, that I have to turn in my application soon, and so I need something impressive. So, using wacker as a starting point, I've started work on recreating a little slice of chicago. From 333 wacker and radiating outward a few blocks. I will probably add to this indefinitely after that, but that is my initial goal.

 

Some pics of some preliminary progress.

 

 

 

The first one is rather big so click it and enjoy. Right now the area right around the bridges is most complete. Anywhere you see errors probably hasn't been visited yet, like 333 wacker itself, the lower wacker drive, every other building. Also, I have to do the other side of the river for reflections. Anyways, what I'm going to be doing is going through and modeling everything with moderate detail, and texturing nothing but reflective materials, then, when I have that done, I'm going back and redetailing everything to bake down and conserve polycount based on what is going to be close to my final camera angles. Stuff like rivets in the bridge and worn rock, etc.

 

I'll post progress whenever I hit a milestone in this progress in case any one is interested. So most posts I am going to be making periodically are going to be unrelated to BATing (I'll keep them infrequent), though, I foresee at least 9 BATs resulting from this. 

[Darknono35 3,137]

Wow WOW my god, you're impressive !!      

Your Railway Bridge is gorgeous my friend, have you foreseen to make some bridges in the futur ?

[weixc812 509]

Yeah, I also find the railway bridge interesting, it would be great if we can see that bridge in the game, which is so rare.

[libellibicus 396]

Those reflections are amazing.

[darn42 1,268]

Hi guys, I'm having real trouble finding any references for lower wacker in the area I'm recreating. If anyone has some extra time, I would really appreciate it if they could help dig up some photos of that. 

 

While I'm posting anyways, here's a quick update

 

 

Both are pretty big so have fun with that. The street view reveals a lot of inaccuracies and mistakes in the modeling that I need to review. I can see a lot of them, but if you see something really wrong that you think I missed please tell me.

 

Overall, I really like how this is starting to take shape.

 

edit: about the bridges, I think that almost everything I make for this project will make it into sc4 in some form. Buildings, props, etc. So look forward to some bridges in the future.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Looks good. As for the SC4 glass, it needs to be sharper and more broken up.

 

Good luck with this, try to take it slow and steady and not loose motivation, it's all too easy to do on a big time-consuming project like this.

[Darknono35 3,137]

Darn42, you do an spectacular work, dignified of Chicago and like has saying Cockatoo, don't lose your motivation

[pineapple132 35]

[darn42 1,268]

New update on chicago. I've done the basics of the buildings on the right side of N wacker.

 

 

 

and an ortho

 

Right now there are 4 buildings I have done the forms of. 150 wacker (the tall one), 333 wacker (obviously), 160 wacker (the smallest w2w) and 180 wacker (the oddly shaped one). Gonna try and do 155 and whatever the other one is that are across the street this weekend then start detailing that block itself.

[Darknono35 3,137]

I love

[Vlasky 1,803]

This is epic! I'm interested how many things can be translated into the game, hmmm:

1. buildings obviously

2. canal buildings

3. canals and/or sea walls

4. bridges

5  props

 

You can have like 4 Chicago Packs right there

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

*Uodate*

 

HEY!!! Yeah, I'm still around and I'm still working on OC. And I finally managed to start my first attempt on the new roof texture of the annex. 

 

 

And a perspective view

 

[libellibicus 396]

Nice work, skyscraper241.

[Darknono35 3,137]

Beautiful building so far keep it up

[unclesahm 32]

These are awesome -- while we're on the subject, what's going on wit the Chase tower?? you had me drooling.

[darn42 1,268]

Vlasky: Pretty much all of those things. Some of them, like the canals and bridges, I don't know how to do, so I can provide all the models assuming someone can mod and lot and tell me what I need to model to make them functional. Same with the canal buildings which I have no clue how I would implement in the game. Also, I might end up doing some sort of texture pack for roads and lotting.

 

Unclesahm: I was having some trouble with RAM in the viewport. I think it was something to do with my flora, but a lot of my files take a very long time to open and they lag too hard for me to do much, so I've put it on hiatus. It'll be revived sometime soon. 

 

____

 

On a similar topic, I think what I'm going to do is to do a good initial sample set of buildings-About 2x2 starting from 333 wacker-release those, and then continue with all my BATs radiating out from that spot. 

[darn42 1,268]

So here's another update. I've got 2 more buildings shelled out. Time to start working on that street itself. Entrance ramp to lower wacker anyone

 

 

The renders are getting really long to get rid of artifacts and such. This one was 5 hours to render... So I probably will be doing 1 render per update from now on.

 

Anyways, 155 and 191 wacker are now shelled out and have a preliminary glass material on them.

 

For reference, here's a picture of the area I'm recreating.

 

 

There are obviously a lot of problems so far with mine, but they'll be fixed.

[Darknono35 3,137]

Would you recreate the entire neighborhood of the "Loop" in a single piece  ? You have already 4 buildings ready to export

It's simply gorgeous, congratulations boy

[Gn_leugim 853]

which one is the picture?

[libellibicus 396]

Amazing. Utterly amazing.....and so quick!