hkabat-forum-threads Hong Kong / Asia BAT team

[subedei 3]

The work in thread always amazes me. This is really great stuff coming out from this team. Looking forward to more updates.

Subedei

[SimFox 804]

Box mapping?? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the concept, at least not yet.

But one thing that is used quite extensively in games nowadays is so called Normal mapping. It is concept similar to bump-mapping, but it takes it a step further. Instead of simply faking “elevation” as bump maps do it also controls the normal of textured object this way you are also faking the way light is reflected/refracted of the surface. In my opinion is still not the best way to go for static objects. Movement does hide all the flaws rather well but on detailed static object the fact that you are “faking” is rather obvious.

Actually here is a picture of Coco park in Shenzhen may be it will help you with your Ubermall, sorry but it doesn’t look too über... bur rather nice cozy neighborhood sort of mall…

[SimFox 804]

@jesselong

:-)

BTW could you may be make some pictures of it's lower levels?? I mean One Peking Road.

[mightygoose 92]

wow look at the subterrain atrium in the middle an d the elevated walkways cool

[bixel 1,228]

That is a very nice mall there, and I will use it to add ideas and similarities to the Uber Mall.

[jesselong 0]

no problem.. just grab a ton to you after my examination... My pleasure to help you great BATers

[SimFox 804]

Hello ladies and other gentlemen!

As promised here are some sketches of One Peking Road

Take a look and give me you opinions, critique advise etc.

 

 

I could find practically no information or images on Purple and Turquoise elements so if anyone has some please let me know.

 

[bixel 1,228]

Looks pretty darn good!! Going to have to get my hands on the Vray render you got there.

[HONG KONG 74]

SimFox:

I don't see the pictures

[SimFox 804]

@Hong Kong: it may be because they are PNGs and not JPGs...

I'll see if i could change them to JPGs...

EDIT: now all pics are JPGs. HK, can you see them now?

[HONG KONG 74]

Now I see the pictures

The south side is at a higher ground level, as you can see on design picture.

Thus no photos are possible. The building under that green is the former Navy Police Headquarter. On the third picture the north side is visible.

  

Edit---

Emporis has a very good picture of the entrance. (Northeast side) 

[bewilder2 2]

That's a sweet looking building! I can't wait to see it in my cities!

[lord titan 0]

that window is amazing

[Skyfire2275 23]

Looks great SimFox... can't wait to see it with textures.

Anyways, I have not made much progress on the CKC because I have been working a LOT... and now my monitor (on my other computer that I have BAT and SC4 on) is dead so I have to buy a new one, which isn't really a problem. So I should have an update within 24 hours... If all goes as planned the night lights (and roof stuff) will be done tomorrow, which is quite a task when looking at pictures of the real CKC at night. Wow. Let's see how I do. After that I need to work on the base and the roof some more and get better (ie: good textures). If there aren't any other posts here before then, my update will be here. So... get excited now! lol.

[calvinization 0]

Hi all,

Wow!! I haven't visit here for some time. And look!! What a lot of great works you've done so far!!! They are really great!!!

However, please forgive me, I dunno how to make these awesome works... Can I still suggest some special buildings for somebody active in here to build??

First of all, I see some people in other country(esp. Europe) made some local/old style buildings. Can we also made something like 'Tong House' for our simcities. Those <7 store old buildings. They are great looking too if we build them in district.

And few other suggestion to make. Our famous, World class Peninsula Hotel, Legislative Council Building, The Clock Tower in TST, Murray Building...

I can support in photos if anyone want to make these although I can't promise I can get photos in every angle.

Just send a message to me if any support from me is needed.

Calvinization

[SimFox 804]

@calvinization: show those to us...

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Whoops, this reminds me of something I had wanted to show for quite a while... how do you like the new lot design? No flora any more, but I just had to try advertisement signs put up between two lamp posts. Here's the result:

[Skyfire2275 23]

@ T Wrecks: Looks much busier/crowded. I like it. Except the palm (but that's just me... and you). But I can use the no palms mod for that !

Ok... So here is my update of the CKC, day and night previews, but still no roof junk and no base, which will both have a few more lights later on. I like the idea I had for the nightlights but I they didn't turn out as good as I had hoped. I am still trying to figure out the best way to light up the CKH logo on the top (in red). I also set the lights too dim in the lobby so that they don't even show up. Doh. Also, does anyone know why the top floors are SOOOO bright in the night render?

For the day render, all that is different from the last update is the texture which has been toned down... I still think it looks dead... I need to make it look reflective.

They are .png images, so if you can't see them, get Firefox or download them and look at them with Paint... Yes Paint can open them even if Internet Explorer can't. Click them to enlarge.

 

   

Comments?

EDIT: Now that I have posted in the help thread... Also I am having a MAJOR issue with the nightlights... rather with gmax/BAT that somehow involves the nightlights and what is basically happening is that the whole building turns black when I preview it. For the whole story check out my post in the BAT - Workshop Forum, here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

wow T Wrecks, it's looking really great!  The night looks especially good.

skyfire, I had that problem before too, so I needed to basicly finish the BAT blind (mine was even darker than yours), except for the wireframes (which doesn't help much when you're trying to texture a really messy BAT).  Mine didn't even go away when I deleted the lights.  so unfortunatly I can't help with that.  But I can tell you that you have too many lights, and you might run into problems when rendering it.  So if you have problems rendering it, make sure to check out the number of lights.

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

Calling for some help by LOTers and MODers of HK/Asia BAT team!

I am working on the expansion of previous Zhonghua Zutao.

@HONG KONG - I am asking for a help in LOTing and MODing of this building, as I'm not good at them. You can release in your name, just with a phrase "SC4Model file by 2ch"

http://www.yuhisa.com/cgi/c-board/file/zhonghuazutaoExpansion1.zip

This contains: 

texture toned-down version of Meiyuan Dafangdien (Plumflower Park Hotel)

XiaodeLu21 from previous release - nightlighting error fixed

New buildings - KunmingLu56 (CS$$) and KunmingLu91 (CO$$)

Also AiguoLu73 Commercial Center (CS$$) at http://kamurai.sakura.ne.jp/editbbs/data/SC4/old/log2-1/1145398391638989/Aiguolu73.zip

[bixel 1,228]

@ 2ch.net simplayer

: OMG OMG YESYESYYESYESYES THAT IS SO COOL!!!

Yes yes, you got way to many lights. For the Arch (I think quite a memorable night light specticle), I actually used some target lights oriented from the roof pointing to the floor with a very wide aperture, and the rest textured night windows. 2nd I used about 6 big huge hollywood style target lights oriented a distance away from the building looking both up and down to get that cool, building lit up effect. If this is what your are going for you should try that. That amount of light you are usuing would create a white-wash effect, and make it look strange (This I predict only).

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

All these buildings are designed to stretch into streets (just see a pic of streets of China and Taiwan, you will see what it means), but normal LOTing does not allow that to happen. What needs to be done is making the building a big prop. But this time, I get "a Lot must have a building" - I don't know how to remove buildings from a LOT.

Since Meiyuan Dafangdien slightly exceeds 3x3, "big prop and no building" - this must be done to fit in 3x3.

[SimFox 804]

@JasonCW:  Finishing building blind?? Not a workable idea… And reducing the number of lights will ruin the whole lightning scheme - which is one thing that makes this building!

 

@Skifire2275: first of all, light problem is easily solved!" First little theory - when you just start making the building it is lit in the view port by something GMAX calls - Default Lightning, the moment you put your one light source in the scene it is automatically turned off. BAT for the preview uses own lights so this would affect previews, only viewports. To fix this problem right-click on the title of any viewport, Perspective, for instance, and in pop-up menu choose the last option – Configure. There in the frame on the right side of the poped-up window titled Viewport Rendering Options find check-box with Default Lightning next to it and tick it! That’s it – the night is gone! There are tons of interesting settings there which could make modeling easier (or more difficult) for you! Under the default lighting you’ll see two options 1 light and 2 lights. You can play with those and see which works better for particular model, or even part of the model. These DO NOT affect the way building will look in the render, only in viewports!

 

As for the building itself…

First of all about the LOGO. You can try this thing to light it up at nights: set a target direct, or simply direct light and point it on the LOGO. Then go and click on the Exclude button, right next to the light color in General Parameters. In poped-up window you’ll see a list of all the objects in the scene. You can chose which objects are affected by the light and how they are affected. You can exclude all but you logo. And also for logo chose light only to illuminate it but exclude it form casting the shadow.

Night lighting scheme generally looks quite good! One thing you can try to improve it is to limit the range of lights so that they only reach to the next level and also narrow the beam.  I don’t think much more could be done within the limitations Gmax is imposing.

And another point - try making the material of you lattice a bit brighter. It may improve night views considerably, since lighter, brighter materials pick up light much better. Generally there is something odd is going on with your lattice some parts of it look MUCH darker then other, or is it simply the quality of this preview that creates this effect??

About texture for the windows glass… well I guess I’m hardly the person to give advise on the matter, since I haven’t finished texturing any of my buildings yet.. but here is one idea.. to make it more alive you could create more pattern to it. Try for instance to make bottom part of it darker (sort of creating silhouettes of buildings blocking the light and add here and there (in all heights but more uniformly at the top) very bright spots to simulate reflection of the sun in on the glass. Since glass practically never absolutely it will create distortion of the reflection… you can try to simulate it with some sort of Ripple filter in image editing software.

@ 2ch.net simplayer: those look really great!!! I remember how I was completely stunned when I so your first creations! They have level of realism that haven’t been really seen before.

Yes every LOT could only be saved if it has a building on it. The trick is to create “invisible” building! That means that buildings height should be 0! Then with “building like that you can populate LOT with all sorts of props to your heart content!

 

@ T Wrecks: this rendition of LOT is a vast improvement on the previous one!! One thing only… although I don’t really have anything against Palms as species, this one at this spot looks rather odd and out of place, especially it’s dirt circle. I would get rid of it altogether.

Is there a way to get light to that billboard you put between lamp posts? It would greatly improve night look.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

@ 2ch.net SImplayer: WOW! Superb buildings, and I dare say that it can't get more Asian than this!

There's also an easy trick to make the buildings overhang the lot without problems - no props or other stuff needed.

Just open the .sc4model file with iLive Reader, find the XML file inside, select "Edit" and enter a new, small value for "depth" in the line that begins with <DIMENSIONS=. This will reduce the grey box that represents the building in the LE to a much smaller size than the actual building.

[SimFox 804]

@Skyfire: Actually you can see what I'm suggesting for the window texture right on the first page of this thread!! Look at the texture Paulmontfort showed in his post form 9/21/2005. I think it is just brilliant!! Really brings building to life!

[SimFox 804]

One Peking Road progressing , although slow… I’ve hurt my wrist the other day playing tennis and couldn’t use mouse/Wacom thingie  much last couple of days…

But here is what has been done:

 

Basically I’ve fixed the shape of “sail”. Kink existed in lower part of it because lowest part was a straight line – now it curves all the way to the bottom. Back side has been changed as well, plus some lattice has been done.

[HONG KONG 74]

2ch.net simplayer

You are great, and I love this stuff!!!!!                 later more...no time

[Skyfire2275 23]

@ Jasoncw: See SimFox's reply he has the solution, yeah!!!

@ bixel: This building is actually lit in a scheme similar to what I showed, errr, wanted to show. (Keep in mind I need to drastically change the settings on all of the lights to get this effect). Although I may try adding some targetted lights to increase the overall level of light on the building. I'll try it anyways. I think the night lights on this building are very important. Check out some pics of the real deal, craziness, huh?

@ SimFox: I have no idea why some lattice parts look darker then others. Every single one is the same... I used the ARRAY function. Same with differences in the vertical light near the top. No ideas, every second floor is identical. I am going to work on the textures like you suggested... in the way you suggested too. Thanks for the "fixing black buildings tip"... onlyplace4 got there first in the other thread, but thanks anyways. I will try lighting the logo tonight, as well as fixing the spot lights.

Ok, back to the grind... of BATting.

[bixel 1,228]

If you used array sometimes gmax or 3DS max will mess up the lighting because the targets lights are INstanced and not Copied. A Copy creates a unique light while Instance is just a reference of the 1st Light Arrayed. I know I have problems with lighting if they are referenced/instanced. Hopefully this may solve your problem.

[fusion_lemon 2]

wow..... you've all done a great job.....

as a resident in Hong Kong, I can just say these BATs look so real!!!

I can help in some ways, but I dunno how to build them in BAT... maybe I can give you some latest information about HK~

continue with ur good work!!!