Theatre BAT

[Monkee_boy 41]

So... My BATing in the past has been extremely limited - one abortive attempt to create a range of Dinotopian buildings and figures, an attempt to replicate a cool Jurassic Park project I saw on these forums a few years ago (New Rhodesia, anyone?) and some odd bits and pieces.

Well, now I've graduated and I have a little time to spare before serious job-hunting begins, I've dusted off and reinstalled SimCity 4 and all the tools I can find, and have begun BATing like mad. My first project was simply to get a building from Google's huge sketchup collection into gmax (only partially succesful: Speer's Volkshalle was a failure, due to excessive poly count, unless anyone else offers to render it for me; and a simple model of the Cambridge University Senate House is now lotted and ready to go).

With that achieved, I've moved onto something fairly ambitious for a first proper BAT: the Red Lion Hotel, Horncastle, with its attached Theatre and (for the sake of symmetry) two shops next door. This was partly inspired by an attempt to create an architectural model from some plans of the building I had:

Unfortunately whoever drew the plans had no idea what they were doing - when I used them as a basis for the new exterior-only model below, I found that they nearly triple the area of the end rooms shown above - mucking up all my scaling. I had to start from scratch.

Onto the eye-candy:

I wanted the theatre to be accurately scaled. Working only with a couple of photos and a fuzzy google map for reference, it's taken me a couple of days' work to get this to an acceptable scale for my eye. Here it is before I'd added any of the details to the theatre yard.

As you can see from these two pictures, there's something off about the scaling of the back of the butcher's shop (the white and blue shop-fronts). Although the front is properly scaled, the back looks quite a lot too tall... I think I'll leave it as it is; nobody but me will ever notice.

Finally, a render of where I was when I left off ten minutes ago, with the rather dickensian-looking yard that runs behind the pub to the theatre.

Updates to follow!

  Edited July 19, 2012 by Monkee_boy  

[SimCoug 5,972]

Very cool, I love the historic look. This will be a unique BAT. I'll leave the the technical comments up to the BATers, but I'll be following this.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

The BAT itself looks nice. But as far as I can see all the details (windows, doors, etc.) seem to be simple planes with textures on top. It won't look good in game. I would advise you to pay attention to the details and make then as - well - as detailed as possible.

Also, I think you should work on your textures and the way you apply them. Use UVW.Map to get the best result. And you should't just copy the textures and apply them. As a great batter said once: Good textures are made, not found. Always keep that in mind. I made/make the same mistakes when I reach the point when texturing is everthing. And textures are (one of) the most important things to make a bat look good.

And another thing, you should do a preview to take a close looks how it will look in-game. You will see that the building will look weird with that kind of textures.

I'm looking forward some more progress and I'm sure you will get better fedback than mine.

[jacksunny 741]

I'm not a BAT expert either, but it does look good so far!

[mrbisonm 1,620]

Not too bad for the model and good idea, but could use better bricktextures, the brown and the white. Have a look at www.cgtextures.com . Also like skyscraper241 said, those photo textures of the windows/doors look fairly good in the 3d program but not as good in the game. Better make the windows yourself instead of just pasting them on the walls.

mrb

[darn42 1,268]

Also, you can get a lot more depth to it by modeling more bigger details in general. Idk how experienced you are with max atm. But I prepared a short tutorial on how to add some depth by modeling the overhangs of the roofs in an efficient way. Reply to this or something if you want me to post it. No point posting 15 steps worth of pictures if no one wants em right?

[harishna 847]

Nice start; however, for Simcity using simple box models and photos as textures will never work well. You should try to model every detail and apply single textures to each of the resulting objects, e.g glass, muillons, walls, etc. If you interesting in BATing why don't you try 3ds max this is a very powerful 3d modelling tool and you can get it for free with a university e-mail.

Cheers

[darn42 1,268]

I thought that was 3ds max :| The short tutorial I was talking about is useless for gmax users. Pretty much 60% of the tools used are for 3ds max.

[Gn_leugim 853]

I have to second skyscraper241 on the matter of applying photos of the real thing on a plane wall. you should model up some details to give it more depth and... well, detail.

[harishna 847]

well it does not looks like gmax so I thought it was sketchup but I might be wrong, nevertheless you have to model the details...

[Monkee_boy 41]

@SimCoug & Jacksunny: Thanks )

The BAT itself looks nice. But as far as I can see all the details (windows, doors, etc.) seem to be simple planes with textures on top. It won't look good in game. I would advise you to pay attention to the details and make then as - well - as detailed as possible.

[...] I'm looking forward some more progress and I'm sure you will get better fedback than mine.

Yeah, I wasn't overly fond of some of those textures - the tiles and bricks in particular repeat too often and cause that weird chequer effect. Id just started experimenting with modelling the windows and things rather than just plopping a texture (the window in the lower right of the last picture was my test-case) but it might be a little labour intensive even for me to go without photo-textures entirely. Would it improve things if I set them back a bit do you think? I'm terrified, after my experience with the Volkshalle, that I'll end up with an unrenderably high poly-count again and have wasted all my effort... so I was trying for as simple a model as possible.

The roofs also look *awful* but I spent enough time on them as is - it's partly because I (foolishly?) followed the floorplans instead of simplifying it all into simple right-angular shapes, so the rooves are oddly shaped...

@mrbisonm: Ah, great - thanks for that link!

Also, you can get a lot more depth to it by modeling more bigger details in general. Idk how experienced you are with max atm. But I prepared a short tutorial on how to add some depth by modeling the overhangs of the roofs in an efficient way. Reply to this or something if you want me to post it. No point posting 15 steps worth of pictures if no one wants em right?

I think that'd be very useful, for the theory - although yes, I'm using sketchup *shame* :| I find gmax confusing....

Nice start; however, for Simcity using simple box models and photos as textures will never work well. You should try to model every detail and apply single textures to each of the resulting objects, e.g glass, muillons, walls, etc. If you interesting in BATing why don't you try 3ds max this is a very powerful 3d modelling tool and you can get it for free with a university e-mail.

Cheers

I can get it FREE?? Gawd, I hope my university email address still works... I wish I'd known before I graduated! How??

I have to second skyscraper241 on the matter of applying photos of the real thing on a plane wall. you should model up some details to give it more depth and... well, detail.

Okay, I'll try and pad it out a bit - maybe once I'm done getting the positioning right for the windows and doors and things, I'll go back and remodel them all.

Thanks for all the constructive comments!! Here's a little doodle from this morning - I was thinking of doing a series of norse temples. (Erm... what with this and the Volkshalle it's probably starting to sound like I'm a neo-nazi white supremicist or something... I'm not... )

  Edited July 20, 2012 by Monkee_boy  

[darn42 1,268]

The method for getting 3ds max is pinned to the top of this subforum. It's just as confusing as gmax but if you just put a little effort into learning it, it's very easy to. It's not something you can learn without someone teaching you it, though. There are plenty of tutorials available on this site and definitely youtube that will help you learn it. Also, the site that I learned all of what I know on 3ds max has many free tutorials for people just starting to learn. http://www.digitaltutors.com/training/3ds_max/all-tutorials The free one's have "Free" in the window for the lesson. they'll be on the second page. Sketchup will most likely never give you something as good as most quality BATs made with 3ds max or gmax just because it has so many more limitations.

The short tutorial I made on depth for roofs will not help you in sketchup, definitely, if it won't help much in gmax.

Anyways, Good luck with your work.

[MTT9 187]

Wow, a lot of comments for the poor guy... First of all, i would make my mind about how the bats will fit in the 16x16 in-game grid. Second, i would think about textures and which modelling tool you are going to use. If you decide to stay with sketchup, i can export and render your models in 3dsmax, just saying...

Matt

[Monkee_boy 41]

The method for getting 3ds max is pinned to the top of this subforum. It's just as confusing as gmax but if you just put a little effort into learning it, it's very easy to. It's not something you can learn without someone teaching you it, though. There are plenty of tutorials available on this site and definitely youtube that will help you learn it. Also, the site that I learned all of what I know on 3ds max has many free tutorials for people just starting to learn. http://www.digitaltu...x/all-tutorials The free one's have "Free" in the window for the lesson. they'll be on the second page. Sketchup will most likely never give you something as good as most quality BATs made with 3ds max or gmax just because it has so many more limitations.

The short tutorial I made on depth for roofs will not help you in sketchup, definitely, if it won't help much in gmax.

Anyways, Good luck with your work.

Well, it might not help me, but it may very well help others... I've just registered to get 3dsMax, downloading it in a sec thanks so much for the heads up!!

Wow, a lot of comments for the poor guy... First of all, i would make my mind about how the bats will fit in the 16x16 in-game grid.

Oh, I'm pretty sure I know - it certainly won't butt square up to buildings on either side, so I've used some artistic license on the right and given access into the butcher's yard. On the left there's a car-park anyway, so it should be fine. I do need to do a test-render though...

Second, i would think about textures and which modelling tool you are going to use. If you decide to stay with sketchup, i can export and render your models in 3dsmax, just saying...

Matt

Thanks for the offer hopefully now I have 3ds I can do that myself. I'll have to go for an explore! If I could find, for instance, the extrude tool in max it would help... I guess I now need BAT4max and so on, huff... :D

[darn42 1,268]

The extrude tool in max is very simple. Just look through some tutorials like I said. It's one of the most basic tool available, and is very accessible.

[Monkee_boy 41]

Hmmmmm.... now, this is very strange: can anyone think of any reason a BAT might not show up in the lot editor? I've double checked I got the right section (I've put it as a Landmark) and all... it's very odd. I've tried exporting it again, running it through the plugin manager again, and I can see the files there in my plugins folder... but it's not on the list of buildings in the lot editor... what have I missed?

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Lot too small.

Buildings are only displayed in the list if the lot is big enough to accommodate them. A tile in SimCity is 16x16 metres, so if you have a 2x3 lot (32 by 48 metres) and a BAT that's 32.001 by 45 metres, you won't see it.

Try enlarging the lot and then check the list again.

[Monkee_boy 41]

Wow - this is the viking hall, so I must have got the scale horribly, horribly wrong if that's the case!! I'll try it, thanks

[Monkee_boy 41]

Damn, yet more issues today: trying out 3ds for importing my sketchup files. Everything goes to plan until rendering - I think it must be a LOD issue, but I've redrawn them and re-exported, and still get the same.

Oh, and my night views don't render properly anyway. Setting Maxis Nite in BAT4Max dropdown gets me this:

Day render looks good, though!

Any ideas?

[weixc812 509]

It looks great but I cannot offer any help about exporting :|

[MTT9 187]

If you unpaint your walls and roofs in sketchup, are they white or rather grey? Because in sketchup walls have two sides, you should make sure the white one is the one you can see, as it is the onlyone that 3ds renders. If the grey side of the wall is facing the camera, then 3ds wont render it.

Hope this solves the issue so you can start working on your textures

Matt

[Monkee_boy 41]

Just a quick look at today's doodling:

I'm not sure how the LODs for this will work

[darn42 1,268]

You can just make the LODs straight up boxes unless you need them for something special. Looks good btw, though I would try to avoid doing textures in sketchup since they will be different in gmax/3ds max

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

O wow, that is looking great. The LODs will not be to hard. I agree with darn about the textures, even though those are some really good textures, but need to be applied in gmax, or 3ds Max depending on what you use.

Great work so far!

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I thought LODs were automatically made... Or so at least in Gmax.

The houses are looking great though.

[Monkee_boy 41]

You were absolutely right - I ran into texture problems when importing into max. But it didn't take too long to fix - the exporter I use groups everything by applied texture, somehow. Anyway, here are the previews at zoom 5:

Anyone know of a better grass texture for that odd-shaped bit of lawn? Preferably something that'll match up with the textures in the Lot editor.

What I meant about the LODs, was that the terrace at the rear of the house is slightly lower than the front of the house, meaning it'll need to create the illusion of a slope... I think I can do it without modifying the LODs though, thank goodness...

I'm going to lot it up now, grab some tea, then prepare to learn how to do night lighting...

  Edited August 2, 2012 by Monkee_boy  

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

Those look awesome!!!! Excellent Work.

[darn42 1,268]

Great work! This is turning into some nice looking houses. I can see that you couldn't get 3ds max, but oh well. I'm going to refer to the big one by 1. and the smaller house by 2. ok?

As far as 1 goes, Everything looks great except the roof texture. It's tiling on you rather noticeably, other than that, your textures and modeling are vury nice.

The grass texture in between 1 and 2 definitely looks weird. It's very green and it's also tiling badly, just keep searching in cgtextures/google for a good grass texture and try them out.

2, howver, needs a lot more work than 1. The texture on the blank wall is tiling just enough to be noticeable since the wall has nothing on it. The roof has the same texture issue as 1, but you didn't create the roof as geometry but instead just textured it, unlike 1. Create overhangs and such. Make that thing pop more. Also, I'm not sure what those white rectangles are on 2. they look like they could be doors but I'm not sure. If they are doors then they look like textures instead of modeled details which you should definitely change. They also look like they are about 5 feet wide which just doesn't make sense...:\ Also, I don't understand what that wood hanging thing by another white rectangle is... It looks like it could be a balcony but I'm not quite sure. Then, I'm not sure what the green box is supposed to be either. Looks like it could be some sort of shed of sorts but the texture on it seems a bit weird and such. Then, this is more of a design thing, I don't like the really small square windows on 2. They look kinda weird. All together 2 has a sort of weird horizontal scaling look to it because of the white rectangle things that you should fix and it looks like you have a ways to go on that one.

1 Looks entirely different. Basically, just get the quality of work on 2 up to 1.

Good luck, I look forward to seeing what you come up with in the end.

[Monkee_boy 41]

Great work! This is turning into some nice looking houses. I can see that you couldn't get 3ds max, but oh well. I'm going to refer to the big one by 1. and the smaller house by 2. ok?

Thanks The big house is actually my house; the smaller is what used to be stables, but is now a garage and outbuildings, with a flat above. They'll all be part of one lot.

As far as 1 goes, Everything looks great except the roof texture. It's tiling on you rather noticeably, other than that, your textures and modeling are vury nice.

The grass texture in between 1 and 2 definitely looks weird. It's very green and it's also tiling badly, just keep searching in cgtextures/google for a good grass texture and try them out.

It's really not nice, is it... I've given in, for the moment. Is there anywhere I can get the image files for the textures in-game?

2, howver, needs a lot more work than 1. The texture on the blank wall is tiling just enough to be noticeable since the wall has nothing on it. The roof has the same texture issue as 1, but you didn't create the roof as geometry but instead just textured it, unlike 1. Create overhangs and such. Make that thing pop more.

Haha, it's noticeable that I got impatient and lazy with that second roof!

Also, I'm not sure what those white rectangles are on 2. they look like they could be doors but I'm not sure. If they are doors then they look like textures instead of modeled details which you should definitely change. They also look like they are about 5 feet wide which just doesn't make sense...:\

As I say, these are old stables, so the doors are wider on that building, but I think I may have made them even wider than real life somehow! The end door is the loose box, the middle one is the stable, and the end doors are the garage.

The doors have the same recess as the doors and windows on the house - not sure why they look so flat.

Also, I don't understand what that wood hanging thing by another white rectangle is... It looks like it could be a balcony but I'm not quite sure. Then, I'm not sure what the green box is supposed to be either. Looks like it could be some sort of shed of sorts but the texture on it seems a bit weird and such. Then, this is more of a design thing, I don't like the really small square windows on 2. They look kinda weird. All together 2 has a sort of weird horizontal scaling look to it because of the white rectangle things that you should fix and it looks like you have a ways to go on that one.

Again, as this is my real-life home I can't do much about the balcony thing sticking out of the loft it's another building project that got started a few years back and never finished! Ditto the tiny windows. The green box is an oil-tank on bricks.

I think what I'll do (I have to go back to the drawing board to fix a scale problem anyway) is go back and fix the roof, recess the doors on the garage more, any try to do something with the textures. Really I have no idea what I can do about the tiling on the roof ones - all the ones I've found so far are the same in that respect.

off I go... thanks for the feedback Sgt Pepper and Frex_Ceafus!

  Edited August 2, 2012 by Monkee_boy  

[darn42 1,268]

Ok, sounds good. Btw, that's a nice house you have I'm glad I can see these reference images you used. The scaling issue of the doors definitely still remains. Also, the small windows I was talking about before need to be taller than they are wide. I'm not sure if you've already scaled your building up by 133% in the z axis yet or not, but that might be why they don't look right.

You could definitely do more with the oil tank on bricks. Right now it's not recognizable as anything. Since it is your house, you can easily get some more details on it and a lot easier than just working from pictures.

for the roof, it's hard to get stuff like that not to tile since they are tiles by nature Anyways, find a roof texture you look, just in terms of tiling. (You can test tiling by going into gimp, selecting filters -> maps -> small tile/tile Small tile tiles the texture into itself creating a tiled texture that ends up as the same resolution. Tile let's you choose a size and tiles up to that size keeping each tile the same resolution as original. Once there you can edit the texture to create more variation on a big scale, and also test out to see how seamlessly it tiles.