hkabat-forum-threads Hong Kong / Asia BAT team

[mightygoose 92]

well i can grow regularly the cobb altura tower as it has featured in many city journals hand that houses 8800 R$$$, also atpx res 8590

housign that many res$$ so i think 9000 has never been breached as of yet though...

oh and the rest of you peeps do grweat stuff too

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Two 2IFCs!! You animal!

Nice, nice... however, tell me one thing, Sir Plopalot (*g*): What's that building to the front left of Dynasty Court, the one with the bright rooftop pool? I honestly don't remember seeing that anywhere, and I am normally the guy who can enumerate all the BATs on a picture, e.g. KaplanKo Tower ("the greenish one") or Mellona Bank ("the one in front of SHKC") ...

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Accidental double post, pls delete.

[paulvmontfort 617]

I think it's called Del Rose appartment or something like that. i got it from Simcitybrasil.

[bixel 1,228]

@ SIMFOX Ok so I kinda jumped the gun and went ahead and did a complete new render of the Liberte using your camera scene at your specs....the only thing I didn't enable is the light tracer cause I figured it would make my computer explode. Looking at this render we can see some good things and bad things....1st off we can see much more clearly all the geometry we seemed to be missing from the old render. This is good, BAD things...while the colors are nice..its way too bright. I think I should have adjusted the sky light, I accidently left it light multiplyer at 1.0 --- maybe tuning it down to .7 would be good. 2nd should I have enabled light tracer...as you can see we got some shadows...but they are not nearly as interesting as the old render shadows....got any advice on what should be done?

For this render I used Area Shadows...also there is a huge flat plan in the camera scene but I set it invisible to the camera eye...this flat plane is colored grey...should I make it black? Also Sun camera was position at your coordinates but I got confused your numbers looks something like 275,978m however my 3DS Max never puts a ',' between the numbers...so I am asking is this 275.978m or 275978m? Obvisously I should have tested this on a much smaller building but I was kinda impatient.

The colors are actually getting closer to the RL pictures I have of the building...but some kind of midway point must be reached from the old render to the new...this new render is very bright for the game...however notice how the whites are not BLEACHED like the older render seems to do.

[cowkilla 12]

you definetly need ither lightracing, or shadows enabled on your skylight. both are horrificly slow

and you should probly dim down the light and give it a small blue tint... 227,243,255 or somthing like that

as far as the meters i would say 275.978... i dont think max can even go to 275978meters

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Some other countries use commas instead of periods for decimal places. Keep up the experiments.

[Skyfire2275 23]

Wow... that new render looks so much better... not perfect, but definitely a HUGE step in the right direction. It's too bad all of SC4 wasn't done more like that... I mean from square one.

Anyways, I am rendering Langham Place right now so hopefully I will put up some in game screenshots by midnight... err... midnight in Ottawa, which is just under 4 hours from now!

Off Topic:

About the decimals. In french anyways, number are written like 154 509,78... In english most people do this: 154,509.78... which I find ambiguous--atleast in french they only use one punctuation mark(the wrong one, lol)... I, and most people I know at school (University) do them like this: 154 509.78... which I don't think is ambiguous as only one punctuation mark is used and it is a computer friendly punctuation mark, so there is no need to switch between periods and commas. Of course for computer entry you skip the spaces or commas anyways.

[bixel 1,228]

Well I've been testing all day and I finally got it down where I like it. I am not going to post any screen shots yet...but I am doing a re-render (as I type) of the MTR Transit Station and it looks AMAZING!! No colors are corrupted...shadows are incredible and the lightracer adds a huge boost to the look giving it a structural physicalness about it. Immediatly after the MTR is rendered I am going ahead and re-render the Tung Chung Crescent. This is will prolly be three times as long as the 1st render but it is worth it. The new camera rig set up and the lighttracer makes everything super awesome. Howeverit triples the render time. I suspect Tung Chung Crescent to take about 13 hours. I will begin render in about an hour from this post.

Oh BTW no need for reflection maps on the windows...take it out. With Lighttracer active windows reflect automatically...and if you want to see anything behind it I suggest an opaqueness of about 40 or less. I tried to find some rollout to actually lower the reflection amount but I could not find it anywhere.

[fukuda 351]

Originally posted by: T Wrecks

Originally posted by: paulvmontfort thanks, T Wrecks, this brings me back to a little discussion I had with bixel the other day. Personally, bixel and I want to stay modelling HK buildings.quote>

Well, I can understand that Hong Kong must be one of THE cities for a BATter to recreate...

Originally posted by: paulvmontfort Personally I like Tokyo as well, but many of it's buildings have already been done. I found a lot of them on a foreign site, i think it was Spanish.quote>

Really? That sounds more than interesting! Link?

Originally posted by: paulvmontfort but unfortunatly they're all Landmarks.quote>

That can be helped... *g*

Originally posted by: paulvmontfort Maybe if we can get permission we'd be able to modd them for more functionality.quote>

"We", huh? quote>

Yes, the Tokyo buildings can be found here

Abd, if you're interested in modding that buildings, I'll PM Jsteed to ask him if you can mod his buildings.

[cowkilla 12]

Originally posted by: bixel Well I've been testing all day and I finally got it down where I like it. I am not going to post any screen shots yet...but I am doing a re-render (as I type) of the MTR Transit Station and it looks AMAZING!! No colors are corrupted...shadows are incredible and the lightracer adds a huge boost to the look giving it a structural physicalness about it. Immediatly after the MTR is rendered I am going ahead and re-render the Tung Chung Crescent. This is will prolly be three times as long as the 1st render but it is worth it. The new camera rig set up and the lighttracer makes everything super awesome. Howeverit triples the render time. I suspect Tung Chung Crescent to take about 13 hours. I will begin render in about an hour from this post.quote>

as soon as this stupid vray script works this can all be done in a third the time

[bixel 1,228]

@ fukuda Thanks Fukuda i like those buildings..

OK I Lied! here is a screen shot of the MTR. HUGE DIFFERANCE!!!! I am so excited by this ...anyway this model is ready to be shipped. T Wrecks can you combine bus and subway to the LOT?

[Lapse 13]

Thanks for answering me on the prev. page.

Yes, I understand you have lots and lots of stuff on your hands, but I could of course not resist to post and ask about it. ;D I'd do anything to get my hands on a more modern looking glass covered residential house

Bixel, looks awesome!

[fukuda 351]

OK, I've sent him a PM

[Skyfire2275 23]

Ok, so the first time I tried rendering Langham Place, gmax stopped half way through with an "Error Code 30" whatever that means. ARGH!!! Then I tried again and I got an "Error Code 4" after it was done the thumbnails. So I am going to try one more time tonight and if it doesn't work... well I'll look into it tomorrow. Failing that, does anybody want to render it for me? (It's a gmax file.)

[Fantail 0]

What are your computer specs Skyfire2275?

[Skyfire2275 23]

@ Fantail: I have AMD Athlon 3500+ @ 2.2 Ghz, 1GB RAM, ATI Sapphire X1600 256 MB video, and a 80 GB hard drive with 70 GB free. It is fairly new still (I didn't buy top of the line stuff, I went for cheap, but good quality, custom made stuff). I don't think my computer was the problem. I disabled all background tasks I could (No I didn't post while rendering... I have more than one computer... with with the internet and one with everything else.) I don't know what aused those errors... read on...

Hooray!!! 

@ Everyone!: I have successfully rendered Langham Place. It had approx. 160 000 polys and took about 2 hours. The first ones failed because I'm an idiot and forgot to make LOD3 and LOD4 from the (very simple, but not square) custom LOD5 that I made... Stupid, stupid, stupid! Anyways, now that's out of the way...

Here's the building in game on a blank lot... I will do the lot and as much modding as I know how tomorrow. I plan on BATting the small statue in front of the building as well and making it into a prop. I plan on making a CO$$$ growable, a CO$$$ plopable, and a Landmark... for a total of 3 lots. Any further suggestions about the lots... because I'm not changing the building unless there is a major outcry or something horribly wrong!

As for the night lights, I used the testures and one spotlight to illuminate the top. The shadow angles aren't perfect but I didn't want to use any more because those stupid lights slow down the rendering speed to a crawl... It takes about an hour and a half to do a high quality preview (ie: one size one view) at zoom 5 of the CKC which has lots of lights (and 190 000 polys)... compare to about 6 minutes for Langham Place. So I compromised for the sake of my sanity and my computer's health.

So, with no further delay, I give you Langham Place (with Maxis' Bank of China for comparison purposes)... click to enlarge and enjoy :

And now I'm going to bed (It's just after midnight here) so that I can get well rested for a day of learning, lotting, and modding tomorrow! Good night!

[Chris M 406]

Looks good, dude.  And I can render if you guys ever need any help, I have 1 GB worth of RAM.

Keep it up.  Loving the work in here..

[mcarch 15]

Looks good, can't wait!

[paulvmontfort 617]

@ Skyfire, I think you should modd a CO$$ version as well

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Whoa. People. Hold it. My head is spinning... didn't some people have the impression ST was dying out slowly? They should have a look into this thread, my a**! This thread is crackling with ideas, interesting finds, great BATs and lots of activity. Excuse me for a second...

*rips T-Shirt apart and runs onto the street howling loudly, waving arms and laughing like a lunatic*

*gets sacked, put into a straightjacket and locked into a rubber room*

*bounce bounce*

*gets tired of bouncing around, makes a spectacular escape and goes back to his computer*

*Cough* Ok, where was I? Ah, yes - one by one:

@ Cowkilla: I justed wanted to thank you for your enormous input concerning lighting rigs etc., this might just heave future BATs to an entirely new level! I don't understand all of your tech talk, but I do understand that this could change the way future BATs look, and bixel's Liberté re-render was an impressive demonstration.

@ SimFox: I can't wait to see how you put all your new learnings into practice. You have definitely contributed a lot to the development of this project. From the first, buggy 3DSMAX renders to something that could be a revolution... and your BAT talents are obvious!

@ Bixel: I need a list here...

• The new Liberté render: I agree that the old render showed more interesting shadows and looked a tad warmer, less sterile. The new one, however, allows to see all the intricate geometry and really doesn't bleach horizontal surfaces that much. Thinking about what the Liberté Complex might look like with a new, balanced light rig makes me wonder if I should get some napkins to avoid possible... uhm... inconveniences related to insufficient control of body liquids in situations of extreme excitement, if you get my drift.

• That subway / bus station: I swear to all of you that I honestly don't have the slightest idea if I can mod it to become a bus and subway station at the same time, but I'm gonna find out. I suppose I'll take a close look at RalphaelNinja's multi-purpose stations and see how he did it. Unless he used magic, it should be possible to reproduce the same. Maybe not for me, but it should be possible.

@ fukuda: Thanks for sending that PM - I have downloaded jsteed's BATs already, and I had planned to get my hands on them anyway for private use. If there's a way to share these superb BATs in a new packaging, all the better.

@ skyfire2275: Langham Place looks very, very nice. I can't wait to see what you can do with the lot. It will be an  interesting task to find a lot design for a building with such an interesting footprint and at this orientation.

Impressive stuff here, really impressive...

[Andreas Roth 629]

Originally posted by: T Wrecks 

That subway / bus station: I swear to all of you that I honestly don't have the slightest idea if I can mod it to become a bus and subway station at the same time, but I'm gonna find out. I suppose I'll take a close look at RalphaelNinja's multi-purpose stations and see how he did it. Unless he used magic, it should be possible to reproduce the same. Maybe not for me, but it should be possible. quote>

That shouldn't be too hard, actually. Just have a look at deadwood's new Highway Transit Hub stations. First, make it a normal bus station, then add a "Building: Subway" occupant group and Transit Switch properties for the subway (pedestrians -> subway, subway -> pedestrians).

[SimFox 804]

Thank you, thank you (bowing).

 

As I’ve said I’m completely bewildered why it (new lighting system) hasn’t been done earlier?? Max is used for BATing for a year or so already!

 

Bixel: and also T Wreks: I don’t understand what do you mean when you speak of “interesting” shadows in old renderings? I think horrendous shadows are the weakest point of it anyway. I can understand that new system gives such a radically new look to the same buildings that it may at first appear as wrong - just as some people hurried to voice after I have posted first renders done with new setup. But in fact it looks right. Just because it different it doesn’t make it wrong.

Comparing those two renderings of Liberté I must say the new one looks FAR better then old one. Yes, revolutionary better. Look at the old one – space between towers looks like in is a deep cave or hole in a ground not at all like space in open air between such towers should look. About “warm” look, well if you want such a look it should be your choice (just pick different materials) and not something pushed down your throat by antiquated lighting solution. If you think it is too bright, well I, personally don’t share this opinion, you can reduce intensities of two light components. The point of publishing here last “tutorial” was exactly this to explain to anyone interested HOW new system works. I think it is much more important and productive for the cause, that just quietly making new rig and posting it on STEX. Although this I think should also be done in a good time when some finer points be ironed out and some “average” settings will be achieved. Still this system’s CORE idea is its flexibility!

Coming back to Liberté, I just LOVE this sense of space and air between towers, this new render really shows advantage of making such a Complex as opposed of individual tower!

Another thing is that this new system raises importance of quality of Materials used. This is another area where I’ll try to put together some sort of manual with few examples, but this will have to wait for a while. Right now I’m trying to get system to work with Vray.

There are some problems, I also have ideas of solutions, but it will have to be tested before I could say more. Anyway VRAY no matter how great can not and is not the cause of its own, simply because practically nobody seem to have newer version of it.

 

Next step should be new render system which will deliver TRUE night renderings. I MEAN real NIGHT! Not silly setup when bluish/purplish overlay is thrown over the day picture and called “NIGHT VIEW” it reminds some old or very-very B movies with all “night” scenes shot in day light but with some very dark filter. It looks NOTHING like night! True nigh view will not have those sharp, well defined shadows. Poking around to make Vray lights work, and especially seeing renders gone wrong gave me an idea of possibility to bring real night to Simcity.

 

Bixel: about ground plain. Well this is where I think we need to do some discussion to which I strongly invite EVERYONE! Never mind you knowledge of 3D. What is needed is fresh look and common sense! I know some people will say – here he goes again, why doesn’t he simply give a short answer. Well I don’t think short answer be a right one!!

Ground plane is there for 2 major reasons:

1. To cut off Skylight that without it will come from down under. For this reason plain should be real big (infinite if possible) at any rate size should be the bigger the taller you building is.

2. To give something that which is called Color bleed. And here naturally color and brightness of the plain become important. Dark plain will darken bottom part of your building (especially in the shadows) Magnitude of this effect will depend on number of BOUNCED rays you have set up. More rays – stronger effect.  So take this into account when you want to achieve certain look!

 Those are just “mechanics”, what we should talk is what is desirable and to what extent!

 

And one last thing do you think we should start new thread dedicated to all these issues so as to bring this discussion to a wider audience, or should we keep it here?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Well, to give you my honest personal opinion: I don't care how the final result is achieved, as long as it still blends with the game. The first Liberté re-render doesn't do that, which is why I'd still prefer the old version over the new one. Yes, tear out your hair, shout at the monitor and call me a cretin and an idiot, but the re-render is just too bright in SC4 terms, and these happen to be the only terms I care about when I play SC4. It might look way better as a standalone architecture presentation, but it doesn't look better for SC4 - yet.

That MTR station, however, shows a good job not only at using a technically better light rig and render engine, but also at making a building blend with the in-game stuff, which is criterion #1 for me, and probably for most of the users.

I'm looking forward to seeing the first shots of buildings that manage to incorporate both advantages, the improved realism and the "correct" SC4 optics.

[mightygoose 92]

all looks great and T great point aobut dying simtrop and this thread lol

[Andreas Roth 629]

I have to agree with T Wrecks. The new rendering of the towers is extremely crips and shows a great amount of detail, but compared with the in-game buildings, it sticks out like an illuminated christmas tree in the forest. Most of the realism in SC4 is achieved by the structures on the textures (they are always somewhat "grainy" to avoid the uber-clean look of many architectural renderings) and the usage of gradients. Nothing in the real world is eternally clean, so some cracks and speckles here and there can't hurt, even if the building is supposed to be "new" (I guess that counts for most of your HK skyscrapers, since they were built within the last few years). IMO, Maxis has done a pretty good job with this kind of stuff, even if it doesn't look like the most "professional" approach.

[SimFox 804]

T Wreks:  Calm down, buddy!! First of all I’m not going to call you an idiot or any some such! Second, this discussion is EXACTLY what I’m calling for! And third point, just as I’ve said in my previous post the whole point of me trying to develop this system is that it is more accurate and FLEXIBLE because the fact is that the different structures will require adjustments!

So, as far as I see there isn’t really disagreement between us at this point, right? That said, from those shots it is hard (if not impossible) to see how it does, or does not blend into the game, unless you’ve seen much larger shot showing panorama of the game or something like that. Can you specify exactly which part of it looks too bright? And what exactly do you mean by "bright". Original render produces way too DARK image. Real building is mostly of light pastel colors and I think RECREATION of it for the game should follow that. Still this is besides the point!!! As I’ve said again and again if you want DARK building you can make one. And here comes technical bit but it is really ESSENTIAL to understand!!! NEW system is not about making building lighter or darker or what ever! It is about FAITFULLY recreating colors and SHADOWS, so that if you applied say grey concrete texture to the wall it will render it GREAY, not that puky brown-yellowish, that two walls next to each other, both being in the shadow and of same material will look same!! And not WILDLY different, as with original lighting rig! If you read carefully my previous post I commented not on Building wall color (which may, or may not be bright) but on space between towers. And how can you say that this isn’t like in the game?? Do you have any examples of such structure in the game?? If anything than light conditions between the buildings in the game should be anything to go by! And it may very well be absolutely same to you how result is achieved, since you are not really bating, but working with ready material, but for others who does it is instrumental to understand how they can realize their vision. 

Andreas Roth: Same thing, Andreas, you see what are you talking about – textures, cracks ext… How can’t you see that NO LIGHTING system can give that to you and neither it should!!!! You may say that this lighting system illuminating building much better is thus more demanding on the textures and materials, and that would be right, but again, it isn’t about LIGHT and SHADOWS!

You both speak as if this new system in some magical way PREVENT you from applying dirty, worn off, distressed texture! Does it?? NO it doesn’t! Just do it! So, real and honest way to compare two systems is to look at the model stripped from textures to see real effect of light!

Discussion should really be not about the LOOK since that just as Andreas had said is achieved by applying right materials and textures, but about Light itself: proportion of Sunlight versus Skylight, how much illumination variation should be there in the shadows! What dynamic range shall we try to emulate? One of photograph or one of sight?

 

 

[Andreas Roth 629]

@SimFox: Maybe I used the wrong words; I was not implying that the new rendering engine won't be able to produce more accurate BATs, but I was merely pointing out that the test rendering bixel showed us could need some improvements. I've been playing SimCity since january 2003, and I surely know how the in-game building look like and what kind of atmosphere they create. gmax' rendering engine might not be perfect, but if the BATter carefully adjusts his textures and lighting, the results are pretty good - compared with other in-game buildings! It doesn't really matter if the shadows are faked and whatnot, or if the light is "real", but it does matter if it blends in with the other stuff. Forgive me that I don't have the slightest idea how this is done technically (I do not BAT), but in the end, it's not the technique that counts, but the result. Anyway, I really appreciate the effort you put in this research, and I'm looking forward to the results of the tweaking.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

@ SimFox: Well, I don't think we hold really opposing opinions.  I just thought that the Liberté re-render itself looks great, but all it takes is a look at that private school behind it to see that the Liberté in contrast looks as if your monitor had a local problem with a too high gamma value.

The MTR station is getting much closer, but due to its large flat roof, it's probably not the ideal building to judge these questions.

IMHO, on the Liberté the contrasts look to weak, like I said above: As if the gamma value had been set too high. Another spot I'd like to point out is the rooftop, and particularly its edges: The original shows nice shadows and very plastic contours there. I agree with you that the shadows are too deep, especially in contrast to the bleached horizontal surfaces. In the re-rende, however, the rooftops look almost cell-shaded and cartoonish, i.e. rather flat. If I had never seen the building and bixel had told me that the dark line along the edge of the roof is just a texture, I would probably have believed him. So I guess that the shadows could be a tad stronger, albeit not as strong (and, more importantly, not as solid) as the default shadows.

Another spot that caught my attention are those dark squares at the sides of the base: With the original light rig, they cast a rather strong and defined shadow. The new light rig hardly produces a visible shadow at all. Maybe the original light rig is too limited, whereas the new one might be a tad too diffuse.

Anyway, I guess we had better continue the discussion as soon as we've seen a building such as that residential tower by bixel or any other "normal" structure put between default buildings. I guess it will be a matter of turning up the possible improvements to a point where the building takes advantage from them, but doesn't stand out against the Maxis buildings at a first glance.

I wish I could give better technical pointers in terms of light sources, reflections etc, but I'm a zero in this respect, so it'll be a bit like this: You guys show images, and we scribble scores onto a piece of paper and hold it in the air...  Let's wait for the next Liberté shot, or the first Tung Chung preview pic for comparison!

And as you mentioned: Buildings that were textured in view of the characteristics of the old light rig are probably not the ideal candidates for tests with the new light rig, as the textures were often made to compensate for phenomena that no longer exist with the new light rig.

[cowkilla 12]

Originally posted by: T Wrecks @ SimFox: Well, I don't think we hold really opposing opinions.  I just thought that the Liberté re-render itself looks great, but all it takes is a look at that private school behind it to see that the Liberté in contrast looks as if your monitor had a local problem with a too high gamma value. quote>

you know that it is not properly done. that is why it does not match at all...

plus the fact that his render only has direct shadows. no ambient shadows, which also add to the blown out look of it