Chicago BAT Project

[darn42 1,268]

I actually don't think I have a city I could use to do that lol. I haven't played simcity in a very very long time :s I'm gonna reset the sun and gamma, didn't like how it looked when they were changed anyways.

  Edited July 11, 2012 by darn42  

[darn42 1,268]

So I've been working on Robie house. A shout out goes to Paul for those awesome blueprints. They are a very very very very useful thing to have.

I'm going to work a lot on tribune tomorrow. I promise. I promise more myself than you guys tbh, I'm the one that needs to make myself ...

Btw, I'm going to get zbrush soon, probably after I finish tribune, and I'm going to start getting my models especially detailed with that But I'm also going to start working on a portfolio to see if I can get an internship. Anybody who's in the actual business of 3d modeling know any way a 16 year old could do something for modeling and get paid?

  Edited July 12, 2012 by darn42  

[paulvmontfort 616]

Glad i could help. As for getting paid. I don't know, maybe you could find some 3d modeling bureaus in Chicago and see if they have interest in your work. Nonetheless you'll have to build a portfolio to be able to show what you can do first

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I actually don't think I have a city I could use to do that lol. I haven't played simcity in a very very long time :s

Well, go to the Rush Hour tutorial city (there you have plenty of money), flatten some land, use the Extra Cheats DLL to plop down some Maxis buildings in suitable styles (mainly NY tileset probably), take a screenshot, and there you have a background for mock-up "renders". You could also add some BSP or NYBT stuff if you like, works identically.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Alternatively look though Sgt Peppers and Toddy's (Toddy where are you?) Threads, they often use some good Cityt shots they paste stuff into. As mentioned before, the thing that makes or breaks a stupendous model such as this is the materials and how it sits in game

[darn42 1,268]

Glad i could help. As for getting paid. I don't know, maybe you could find some 3d modeling bureaus in Chicago and see if they have interest in your work. Nonetheless you'll have to build a portfolio to be able to show what you can do first

Yup, gonna start to model any BATs as BATs secondary and visualizations for a perspective render first. And I probably will be working on other stuff like characters and other stuff once I get zbrush. And yea, I wasn't too hopeful on getting paid at this stage anyways lol. Maybe. I posted in the eat3d forums to see if a pro knows.

  Edited July 12, 2012 by darn42  

[darn42 1,268]

For my first fix of today, I have the alcove thing in the slanted roof. Surprisingly hard to model this one right. Was a difficult one

But I think I got it

[darn42 1,268]

Redid the limestone texture completely.

There's a z6 preview for you guys.

There's the texture I used, minus the tribune tower overlay. The texture looks silly out of context :s

[Francis90b 748]

Nice changes !

On the second crown, i see you moved deeper inside the building the lower part, where glass should be - but you should do the same with the upper part, that is, the area between the glass area and the cornice above it.

Also, would you mind to do a perspective shot of it just for me?

Remember, the window on the slanted roof is topped by a gothic acute arch .

Also, i'd try to move the sash windows (just them) still a bit further outward.

For the texture, i'd try to give more contrast to the individual stone tiles - and i'd also try to make sure that the stone blocks a bit smaller.

[darn42 1,268]

ok. Woops, made the arch the wrong thing. I can fix that part easily. I can move the windows outward. I don't know what you mean by the area between the glass area and the cornice, can you give me a pic? And I'll start a perspective render right now

[Francis90b 748]

In my last post i spoke about this area:

And now i'd like to ask you to make a front perspective render, limited to this area only.

From there, i will be also able to elaborate more.

[darn42 1,268]

Like this?

[Francis90b 748]

That's the area that should have the gothic arch, that is something like this:

You see, this arch is a bit shorter than the one you did.

but i actually asked for the perspective render of another area - probably i replied too late for you to notice, though.

  Edited July 12, 2012 by Francis90b  

[darn42 1,268]

Here's one perspective. Going to post another real soon once it's done. (i will just edit this post so watch the thread if you wanna see it)

Woops, I missed the limited to this area part... I'll get that in a sec.

And here's an aerial view render

  Edited July 12, 2012 by darn42  

[darn42 1,268]

Here's what you requested I belive. Btw, it just hit me what you meant by the arch on the thing. And that yellow image you posted. I can do that. DW.

[darn42 1,268]

Redid the limestone. I like how it looks right now. I'm glad you had me redo it francis.

[Francis90b 748]

Here's my points limited to this image:

So, i cut a part of a pic of the said area in the RL building, and pasted it on your model.

On the upper area of the following pic, you will see the result.

On the lower area you will see a cropped version of my "collage", plus a coloured scheme.Colours in the scheme are the same i used in notes on the right of the scheme.

EDIT: speaking about the limestone version you just posted just above this reply:

Size looks better, but the whole looks too saturated and yellow, and you might try to make the lines between limestone tiles slightly more visible, even if it's not completely true in real life.

2nd edit:the "diamond" is the shape that looks more or less like this:

  Edited July 12, 2012 by Francis90b  

[darn42 1,268]

Thanks again for the in depth explanation. But honestly, It's a lot more work to do those fixes than I'm willing to put in at this point in tribune tower. I can fix the diamond, maybe, for some reason I can't see the bezier handles on my spline I used to create the loft so I can't edit it... If anyone has a way to get the bezier back I'd love that, but fixing the recess would be a very long time to fix. If I had started it that way, it would be easy. But doing it now would take hours for a minor thing. At this point I think I'm going to focus all the way on textures unless someone can tell me how to fix the bezier thing. I really hope you continue to help this project along francis. We really appreciate the effort you're putting in.

I still have no clue how to make the definition between bricks sharper...

  Edited July 12, 2012 by darn42  

[Francis90b 748]

Two things...use a bump map, and make the lines between tiles as if they were actually deeper in the building, and also increase the contrast between them and the stone, by, for example, making their colour much darker.

You might just use three (flat) splines: one for the arch below (the big arch atop of which lies the area i was talking about), one for the stonework, and one for recessed area.

Extrude them as needed, and copy and place them as many times as you want.

They might be flat, because in this case the scale is rather small, and you could model things with flat splines or loft without really noticing the difference.

  Edited July 12, 2012 by Francis90b  

[darn42 1,268]

That's the part that's why it would be easy before. But I would have a lot of cleanup necessary afterwards. Attaching them to my mesh, making sure it all fits etc.I'm just not up for that.

Anyways, added blinds and stuff

Also I somehow just hurt my neck...

[Francis90b 748]

Could the "yellow" part be recessed without problems?

Blinds are looking good!

You still need to work on the glass of the spire, right?

  Edited July 12, 2012 by Francis90b  

[Ion_Cannon 677]

Texture work is coming along nicely Francis you really do have an eye for these things, I would have never noticed any of the stuff you have mentioned.

[darn42 1,268]

Yes I can recess the yellow parts pretty easily. I don't know what's wrong with the spire windows... It's the same texture as everywhere else... Is the limestone texture better?

Not sure if I can get much more done tonight. I really hurt my neck and I have no clue how. Right now I'm reclined on my couch with my screen pulled to the side of the desk lol... Not the greatest power position for modeling. I feel like steven hawking at the computer.

  Edited July 12, 2012 by darn42  

[Francis90b 748]

Get yourself better soon .

The spire windows look like they all have their blinds pulled down, while the arches above the sash windows but below the spire looks like they have no blind at all.

[darn42 1,268]

None of them have blinds :s oh well... Just wondering. In terms of texturing, can you tell me what you think are the things I need to texture or work on the texturing of before I am done with the textures?

[darn42 1,268]

I added a bump map for the bricks.

[Hanson784 165]

Wow! Raymond Hood's beautiful Tribune Tower comes alive in SimCity. As a native of Chicago (now a proud New Yorker) I can't wait for to plop this down on Michigan Ave on my recreation of Chicago.

I was going to add that the texture may be a bit tan but I think you got it right... in most photo's of the build the sun is out making the bricks appear brighter than they actually. Even most of the times I've walked by the sun was out making me think it should be a shade whiter.

Again really excellent work! The detailing is amazing

[darn42 1,268]

Last update for the night two z6s for your viewing pleasure. Still not sure why the windows at the top are so opaque...

Added american flag at the top

Sorry francis, forgot to do the recesses, I will definitely do them when I remember. At this point, my course of action is to get the flags on the 4th floor balconies, model, kind of, the ground floor cafe, put advertisements in the boards on the ground floor, and do the recesses and figure out the crown windows.

P.S. I would view these at full resolution.

  Edited July 13, 2012 by darn42  

[Cockatoo 2,256]

The bump map is much stronger than it needs to be, it actually looked a lot better before you added it. I'd reduce it back to only a quarter (if that) of what it is now. I don't know (I haven't looked at the building in too much detail) but the bricks/ blocks also look a little over scaled.

The flag on top looks really awesome.

What are you going to do about your glass? Have you added the ground plane yet. At the moment it looks too much like plastic.

Other than those issues, it's shaping up really nice. Keep going!

[darn42 1,268]

The bricks might be overscaled but there's no way to keep my details I added to them when I scale it down. I was going to make it in a separate layer but I forgot If it really looks bad with the scale it's at right now I can redo it for a 4th or 5th time but I'd rather not... Right now there's no ground plane. I was thinking of using the google maps image of tribune tower and the surrounding area. And I agree, I was thinking that bump map was a bit too strong, I just wanted some feedback on it before I changed it.

The flag literally took like 2 minutes to model btw >.> a noise modifier and a ffd 4x4x4 modifier and I moved some control points around randomly