Theatre BAT

[Monkee_boy 41]

Well, then - looks like back to the drawing board. Evidently 16m per gridsquare is just totally wrong in every way... I'd say double that, for realistic scale!

 

Goes to show... learning all the time... grumble grumble grumble

 

 

(Other people's BATS here: the bishop's house, the old english pub - centre, the english shops - left, the english high-street shops - right)

[mntoes 270]

Okay, thanks all. I may have to have a shot at them - depending how they look compared to the other lots in game. I've downloaded some UK houses before which didn't quite 'scale' right compare to others. I was aware things should be scaled vertically by a third but didn't quite appreciate why...

 

If I do go down that route, though, it may mean modelling everything from scratch, as I already modified the dimensions to fit the grid... trial and error! The easiest thing would be to scale up again double, but that'll probably result in them being too big...

 That's the wonder of learning to bat. The more you do it the better you get. It's your choice to start over again or not. (I've lost track of the number of times I've done a "re-start" in the past and it's mainly due to scaling problems. I repeat these are looking good already so don't think I am  telling you what to do.

 

Re:- the textures. As an example this picture found on the web.

 

 

 

Worked on in paint and Photoshop Elements

 

Became this:-

 

 

Try them on one of you buildings and see how they look. You will need to adjust the u,v,w map to get the best results.

 

Regards

Mntoes

[Monkee_boy 41]

Maybe it's not so bad. I'm not sure by what degree I've actuall expanded this, from two to three gridsquares, to copy the scaling on the other three lots, but it does look better (although not sure about the chimbleys now!)

 

Now to work out some kind of formula so I can build futre BATs up from scratch accordingly...

 

 

Right - my new method: build to scale. Scale up by 1.5. Expand to fill the back half of the second square...

[mattb325 28,880]

Looking good. On these sorts of old buildings, each floor will need to be about 4.5m tall in gmax. This gives you the 10'- 12' ceiling height that you have in real life, as well as allowing details to be seen. You don't need to be overly pedantic, however, as every 0.2m added in gmax only equals approx. 1 pixel in game.

 

The chimney might need some capping though

[Francis90b 748]

Why?

 

Those buildings would "need" to be 4,5 mtrs tall only to fit together with the buildings of those who would arbitrarily select 4,5 mtrs as the height for "old buildings".

 

In SC4's world, someone might decide to make floor height according to a given, pre-selected height, someone else instead consider things as Maxis's content (that was actually modelled according to many different scales e.g. maxis developers choose to make sims slightly bigger than they should, and R$ buildings smaller - someone else might not want to get into this boring stuff and make whatever "looks good" to him.

 

However, the building fabric we found so much interesting and beautiful that we feel the need to BAT it for a videogame is rich of small differences, one of them (and not the least)  that different types of buildings might have have different floor heights, and perhaps even the same type of buildings would have different floor height sometimes.

You might say that don't caring about this would perhaps make your BAT fit better within the bats of those who choose not to care,  yet, is it better to aim at a flattened, edulcorated "depiction" that would leave out anything  that would stand out of the choir, or would differences enhance gameplay, rather than subtract from it?

 

"10'-12' floors"

 

The poster above me noticed that each pixel in SC4 means roughly 0,2 mtrs...but this could also be read in reverse - 0,2 mtrs for each pixel might mean that not many pixels compose our beloved renditions, especially renditions of smaller buildings...so, this should rather bring to the conclusion that each pixel would actually matter.

 

The poster above me also mentioned "the 10'-12' ceiling height you have in real life".

If i were to convert those measures into metric units, i'd say that 10' are 3,04 mtrs, and 12' are 3,65 mtrs...between the two there is a two feet difference...two feet might be slightly less than the height of the table where you eat...so, if we were to translate it to a dimension where 0,2 mtrs is just one pixel, it doesn't seem very much.

 

However, this small, almost irrelevant difference would actually become more and more relevant as building (and therefore BAT) size and overall height increases - and it might even be noticeable on such a small thing as a five story building, as you will see.

 

An example - Bob and Joe.

 

I'm now going to show how a difference of something as little as two foot in floor height might be quite significant even in a small five floors building.

 

 

Bob and Joe both want to build a building - those buildings are going to be very much alike, two five floors building, the only difference between them being the height of the ceilings above the ground floor - Bob goes for 10', Joe goes for 12'.

There is no other difference between them - both Bob and Joe decided for the same height of the ground floor, both decided to leave an identical gap between floors for ceining, floorbeams and pavement to be put there, both decided for a flat roof of equal thickness, both decided for a parapet rising above the roof having the same height.

 

 

Let's now add some other height dimensions in order to do some hypothetical math...so, both Bobby and Joe wanted the ground floor to be 13' in height - they also decided that there was to be a one foot gap between one floor and another, for ceiling, floorbeams and floor pavement to be put there.Let's also imagine that the composite height of ceiling+flat roof is of 2', and that they both wanted a 4' roof parapet above all of it.

All those are random measures, and are meant to be able to make a simulation - which i'm going to do.

 

Let's now consider Bobby's and Joe's buildings, and calculate their height according to the dimensions that were given in the above paragraphs.

Let's remember that the only thing that's different in their buildings is ceiling height above the ground floor.

 

So, the total height for Bob's building would be:

 

13' of ground floor

 

4x1' of space between floors - therefore 4'

 

4x10' of ceiling height for floors above the ground floor - therefore, 40'

 

2' of ceiling+roof above the tallest floor

 

4' of roof parapet.

 

This gives us a total of (13+4+40+2+4) 63'.

 

Let's now do the math for Joe as well:

 

13' of ground floor

 

4x1' of space between floors - therefore 4'

 

4x12' of ceiling height for floors above the ground floor - therefore, 48'

 

2' of ceiling+roof above the tallest floor

 

4' of roof parapet.

 

This gives us a total of (13+4+48+2+4) 71' - that's it, 71' or 8' more than Bob's building.

 

Now, let's convert those dimensions to metric - 71'=21,64 mtrs and 63'=19,2.

 

Let's now say that I, the narrator, decide to make a BAT of both buildings.

 

I follow the dimensions, and then i scale both vertically by a given factor to avoid the squashing effect given by SC4 perspective (SC4 uses a graphic projection that would make things look squashed and squat if no vertical correction is applied - a cube that's not been scaled vertically would not look like a cube, but as a squat something resembilng a cube, but with it's height shorter than it's lenght).One commonly used factor is 1,33, however other factors are used as well - for this simulation let's just use 1,33, and scale vertically both models by 133%.We would have those dimensions:

 

Bob's building model - 19,2x1,33=25,53

Joe's building model - 21,64x1,33=28,78

 

So, we find how much those two heights would be in SC4 if we followed RL dimensions (that are, again, the same in anything but a small difference between ceiling heights of the two buildings, and then scaled vertically the two buildings by 1,33 to fight the squashing effect.How many pixels would be the models of Bob's and Joe's buildings be tall in SC4?

 

Let's divide both heights we just found by 0,2 mtrs - that's more or less how much one pixel would be equal to...so, this would allow us to know how much Bob and Joe building's BATs would be tall in pixels:

 

Bob's BAT would be 25,53/0,2=127-128 pixels

Joe's BAT would be 28,78/0,2=143-144 pixels

 

That is a difference of 16 pixels, which would be noticeable...and this, just because of a slight 2' difference in ceiling height!

This means that, even if you spot a little 2' difference in floor height, you might need to be careful.

What would have happened if Bob and Joe wanted other dimensions to be different too? What if they decided to have ground floors of different heights, and perhaps a taller or shorter roof parapet?

 

I'd be ready to make this experiment with pics, should this be necessary.

 

Conclusion:

 

SC4 zoom, and GMAX rendering engine which is not actually the best (it's a watered down version of the 2003 version of 3dsMax) might make sometimes tricky to work on small details, like windows or railings, and might make small differences and details seem like irrelevant.

Yet, each pixel counts, and the last thing you (or anyone else) could do is being simplicistic while thinking about it or about what to do about it.

[mattb325 28,880]

Francis, be under no misaprehensions that I believe 10-12' to equal 4.5m; it is an approximate of the two measurements with the accepted 133% scaling.

 

Also note, that I have said 10-12', which means that it is an approximate measurement. I do not have the measurements of these particular buildings, however they are pre-20th or early 20th century buildings which typically had ceilings of 10-12'.

 

Buildings have different floor and ceiling heights. The poster was struggling with working out the valid scaling. 4.2m - 4.8m is about the standard, accepted height that all custom content has employed (including Maxis buildings) Therefore, advising 4.5m (the midpoint) is offering tangible help: your post is anything but.

 

If you wish to take issue with what I post (as you seem to do all the time), then I suggest you send me a PM.

[Francis90b 748]

Someone said "give a man a fish, and you will feed him for one day - teach him how to fish, and you will feed him for life".

 

I personally believe that the most effective way you might  help someone, should you ever be able to, is to tell him the working of the process, rather than what the result should more or less look like - in short, trying to teach him how to fish rather than carrying a fish i fished for him.

 

I try approaching this with this spirit, in a jesture of respect for people, as i trust in their ability to become fisher rather than eaters, and because i do believe that becoming a fisher in what you do, from the most to least important thing, is the way to fully develop your potential.

I try doing this, and i try doing so unless it becomes clear it's not going to work on that specific occasion.

 

 

Unless you're talking in very broad generalizations, nothing, neither in BATing world nor in real world, can allow for some generic rule of thumb to be derived - no "valid scale", as you defined it.

 

I have mentioned the situation of Maxis, that used several different scaling criterias for different elements within the game's environment, and i mentioned at least three ways in which a BATer might face the problem (without even mentioning all the possible general approaches).

In real life, two rowhouses in Greenwich village might have 11' or even 12'6" ceilings on their bedroom floor, but a pre-war building in the netherlands or where I live might have ceilings as short as 9' - i could say, in general, that perhaps more recent buildings have taller ceiling heights, yet a fair share of turn of the century residential buildings in my hometown have ceilings ranging from 11' to 12', while more recent developements often are at 9' or 10'.

Speaking of the same type of building, built in the same era and in the same town, i can tell you of two public housing buildings, one with 8' ceilings, the other with 11' ceilings....so, from all of this we can say that one RL building would, in general and according to time, location and purpose, range from 8' to 13'....is this generic statement helpful at all? And how helpful would actually be a broad generalization to catch a glimpse on things?

 

 

I consider what you post when i think that it deserves some consideration, and i reply to it when i think it's worth replying - exactly as i would do with anyone else.Regrettably, the only two times when i felt like replying to your posts, i criticized what you said...i reckon that might have lead you to believe that the problem is you, and not what you post...

If you feel like dropping me a line, do so - in the mean time, please let me exercise my right to review and if necessary criticize what's said on a free discussion.

[mattb325 28,880]

Someone said "give a man a fish, and you will feed him for one day - teach him how to fish, and you will feed him for life".

 

I personally believe that the most effective way you might  help someone, should you ever be able to, is to tell him the working of the process, rather than what the result should more or less look like - in short, trying to teach him how to fish rather than carrying a fish i fished for him.

 

I try approaching this with this spirit, in a jesture of respect for people, as i trust in their ability to become fisher rather than eaters, and because i do believe that becoming a fisher in what you do, from the most to least important thing, is the way to fully develop your potential.

I try doing this, and i try doing so unless it becomes clear it's not going to work on that specific occasion.

 

 

Unless you're talking in very broad generalizations, nothing, neither in BATing world nor in real world, can allow for some generic rule of thumb to be derived - no "valid scale", as you defined it.

 

I have mentioned the situation of Maxis, that used several different scaling criterias for different elements within the game's environment, and i mentioned at least three ways in which a BATer might face the problem (without even mentioning all the possible general approaches).

In real life, two rowhouses in Greenwich village might have 11' or even 12'6" ceilings on their bedroom floor, but a pre-war building in the netherlands or where I live might have ceilings as short as 9' - i could say, in general, that perhaps more recent buildings have taller ceiling heights, yet a fair share of turn of the century residential buildings in my hometown have ceilings ranging from 11' to 12', while more recent developements often are at 9' or 10'.

Speaking of the same type of building, built in the same era and in the same town, i can tell you of two public housing buildings, one with 8' ceilings, the other with 11' ceilings....so, from all of this we can say that one RL building would, in general and according to time, location and purpose, range from 8' to 13'....is this generic statement helpful at all? And how helpful would actually be a broad generalization to catch a glimpse on things?

 

 

I consider what you post when i think that it deserves some consideration, and i reply to it when i think it's worth replying - exactly as i would do with anyone else.Regrettably, the only two times when i felt like replying to your posts, i criticized what you said...i reckon that might have lead you to believe that the problem is you, and not what you post...

If you feel like dropping me a line, do so - in the mean time, please let me exercise my right to review and if necessary criticize what's said on a free discussion.

 

I am certainly not questioning your right to post, however your posts are pointed and are not particularly relevant to helping the individual: indeed, how can criticising a poster be helpful to the person experiencing the issue? It is simply point scoring; dress it whichever way you like, the result is the same.

Even your above post expands your previous circumlocution about ceiling heights which I summed up in both posts by saying that a ceiling from a building of such a vintage could be between 10 and 12 feet.

 

I take it with all this discussion on scale, and given that you believe yourself to be correct on the issue, that you have studied the low wealth model that Maxis included with GMAX, which gives a wall height of 4m? I ask, because curiously you made no mention of that base line despite talking about Maxis' scale....

[Gn_leugim 853]

looks nice, but some works on the texture are needed. if you want some tips check my (unfinished) tutorial

[Pobs 24]

Back on topic..... 

 

 

Maybe it's not so bad. I'm not sure by what degree I've actuall expanded this, from two to three gridsquares, to copy the scaling on the other three lots, but it does look better (although not sure about the chimbleys now!)

 

Now to work out some kind of formula so I can build futre BATs up from scratch accordingly...

 

 

Right - my new method: build to scale. Scale up by 1.5. Expand to fill the back half of the second square...

 

I really like them. They really do look very English. Could be a high street in any small English town or village.

[Francis90b 748]

 

I am certainly not questioning your right to post, however your posts are pointed and are not particularly relevant to helping the individual: indeed, how can criticising a poster be helpful to the person experiencing the issue? It is simply point scoring; dress it whichever way you like, the result is the same.

Even your above post expands your previous circumlocution about ceiling heights which I summed up in both posts by saying that a ceiling from a building of such a vintage could be between 10 and 12 feet.

 

I take it with all this discussion on scale, and given that you believe yourself to be correct on the issue, that you have studied the low wealth model that Maxis included with GMAX, which gives a wall height of 4m?

 

Your "summing up" is just a shallow generalization.

Generalizations try summing up a broad range of situations into a single statement or little more - they are inherently inaccurate.Moreover, when someone tries to get an understanding of one situation that happens to diverge a bit from what they state, or when someone has to act in a specific situation, they may even prove themselves a burden rather than an help.I'm afraid they aren't quite helpful for the individual experiencing the issue, either.

 

I've read discussions and posts where Maxis scaling (or scalings) were analyzed (partly because i've been through this issue myself), and general consensus is that there had been a variety of scaling criterias used throughout the game's environment, with individual items sometimes coming close to what would be a "proper" scale, sometimes diverging from there, but often obeying to rules that were dictated by gaming convenience, and not necessarily to what someone would find in reality...

It's quite curious to know that someone, after having gathered a bit of knowledge about that topic, would still believe for a single "base line" to be found within maxis stock...

 

The last paragraph to my previous post was added in response to your perception of me "taking issue with your posts".

 

-Back on topic:

 

@Monkee_Boy

 

I think what you have is looking good so far - however, i think the white areas of your textures might need some darkening.

[Monkee_boy 41]

Haha, okay, thanks guys - I won't get involved in the debate but I appreciate it! I'd much rather work in feet and inches myself, but it'd make conversions even more complicated...

 

I still have to work on the textures more, but here's a shot of the next WIP. I've not done much the past five days as I've been busy emptying my stomach contents into the WC (seem to be on the mend now).

 

 

On the far left, the old buttermarket, now another hardware shop. Centre, a pizza and kebab house (which does amazing early morning pizza, for the record, and cheesy chips). Right, Mantles' Fish and Chips, the worst fish and chips I've ever had the displeasure to taste since they last changed hands...

[libellibicus 396]

Mmmmm .....cheesy chips. Food of the gods. The modelling on the new set of shops is really good.

[Monkee_boy 41]

Mmmmm .....cheesy chips. Food of the gods. The modelling on the new set of shops is really good.

 

Thanks!

 

Just testing out the newly scaled buildings (left) and the from-scratch properly scaled BAT (right). As you can see, there's still a discrepancy with the scales... given I used the same scale (x1.5) on both, I'm not sure exactly why. Given they look nearly okay, and I can't make them any wider without overhanging their lots, I may leave them be for now and build them from scratch at a much later date. The problem could just be that I mistakenly made the fish-shop as tall as Achurch and Sons, which is by its nature a tall, narrow building...

 

The two leftmost shops, the centre two buildings, and the three shops on the end are now three separate lots - the endmost will now have to have the Saracen's Head pub fused on behind it to avoid having a big gap.

 

Nitelights are still not working, but I'm not tearing my hair out over it. Should probably get to the bottom of it before I make too many more BATS. And yes, I have the patch, I'm almost certain!

 

 

Having increased the scale, and thus the size, of the market place, I'll now have to go back and do the church and punch-house as well, dang...

[Monkee_boy 41]

Took a small break to build this. Not sure what it's for, but the frontage is based loosely on the entrance to Manchester Crown Court (the name on the front reads "Royal Courts of Justice" in Old English - lit. 'Doom of the King'). I'm pretty sure the real thing isn't quite so vast.

 

 

 

Need to do something about the dirty roof tiles... larger texture file, presumably... also figure out how to do water.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I think the buildings are overscaled now.

 

I'm not sure if you ever posted what they look like scaled 133% vertically.  I think you posted the original scale and then scaled 150% in all directions, but not the original dimensions scaled only vertically by 133%.  Looking at the unscaled screenshot I think they might be just fine without any non-standard (anything beyond 133% vertically) scale.  By vertical scaling I mean that they should become 133% taller, but not any wider or deeper.

 

I would also be careful about what buildings you compare your size to and what environments you look at them in.  Bishops House is an overscaled BAT.  Or maybe it's really just giant in real life but either way it's not typical.  And then there are only two other BATs whose scale may or may not be good.  Can't tell from that angle because we see the blind walls.  And then there are sims which themselves are gigantically over scaled.  And those are the only things our eyes/brains have to judge scale by in those images.

 

 

The other thing I noticed is that your buildings are sized so that they fit right up against the edge of the lot, but the standard, or at least the most common standard, for wall to wall buildings is 1.6 meters, which is one paver tile in the game.

 

 

And I would also try some more with the BAT4Max problem.  The checkered colors problem happens sometimes and it's solvable. 

 

First, make a teapot and some LODs in 3ds max, and then export and import the LODs and the teapot into gmax and export it in gmax (not 3ds max) and see if the problem happens.  If it doesn't happen, render it in 3ds max and see if it happens.  If it happens, then try a different sized teapot and a different LOD and repeat the process and see if it works.

 

Either way try installing the texture fix for gmax http://screwpile.wordpress.com/screw-pile-exchange-spex/maxis-files/

 

The way .SC4Model files work is there are 3d models, which are the LODs, and then your building is rendered into 2d images which are mapped onto the LODs.  It's basically the same as sprites in old school games except the sprites are laid over 3d boxes instead of 2d planes.  The prerendered images (which are .FSH files) are given ID numbers which is how the game connects the specific .FSH files to the right 3d models.  If those IDs are screwed up somehow then the colored checkers show up because the file is missing.  If the ID is screwed up and is wrong but coincidentally happens to be the same ID as some other .FSH file than that will show up instead which is why people occasionally report random chunks of maxis buildings showing up in their exports.

 

I think trying to solve the issue is worth it, because the gmax lighting isn't very good at handling complicated roofs or narrow alleys.  And it's not very good at rendering small details.  And now with your latest BAT you want to do water.

[Monkee_boy 41]

I think the buildings are overscaled now.

 

I'm not sure if you ever posted what they look like scaled 133% vertically.  I think you posted the original scale and then scaled 150% in all directions, but not the original dimensions scaled only vertically by 133%.  Looking at the unscaled screenshot I think they might be just fine without any non-standard (anything beyond 133% vertically) scale.  By vertical scaling I mean that they should become 133% taller, but not any wider or deeper.

 

I would also be careful about what buildings you compare your size to and what environments you look at them in.  Bishops House is an overscaled BAT.  Or maybe it's really just giant in real life but either way it's not typical.  And then there are only two other BATs whose scale may or may not be good.  Can't tell from that angle because we see the blind walls.  And then there are sims which themselves are gigantically over scaled.  And those are the only things our eyes/brains have to judge scale by in those images.

 

Do you have any recommendations as to a BAT which is a 'good' scale in your opinion, for comparing them with? Looking at the Sims next to the doors to the shops, they seem to be about in proportion to me - I guess I'll have to mess about in Lot Editor and compare the sizes of various props and vehicles, but as someone said, there doesn't seem to have been an 'official scale' - for instance, I just found two dumpsters in there, one of which seems to be nearly two stories tall... 

 

 

The other thing I noticed is that your buildings are sized so that they fit right up against the edge of the lot, but the standard, or at least the most common standard, for wall to wall buildings is 1.6 meters, which is one paver tile in the game.

 

Do you mean they should overlap the lot by 1.6m, or that they should be 1.6m within the edge? I'm not sure whether you're talking about the street-front of the lots or the side walls where they butt up against their neighbours. I would assume you mean they should be set back 1.6m from the street, although these buildings do butt right up against the pavement I suppose it would make the pavement itself, wider, and make sense that way...

 

 

And I would also try some more with the BAT4Max problem.  The checkered colors problem happens sometimes and it's solvable. 

 

First, make a teapot and some LODs in 3ds max, and then export and import the LODs and the teapot into gmax and export it in gmax (not 3ds max) and see if the problem happens.  If it doesn't happen, render it in 3ds max and see if it happens.  If it happens, then try a different sized teapot and a different LOD and repeat the process and see if it works.

 

Either way try installing the texture fix for gmax http://screwpile.wordpress.com/screw-pile-exchange-spex/maxis-files/

 

The way .SC4Model files work is there are 3d models, which are the LODs, and then your building is rendered into 2d images which are mapped onto the LODs.  It's basically the same as sprites in old school games except the sprites are laid over 3d boxes instead of 2d planes.  The prerendered images (which are .FSH files) are given ID numbers which is how the game connects the specific .FSH files to the right 3d models.  If those IDs are screwed up somehow then the colored checkers show up because the file is missing.  If the ID is screwed up and is wrong but coincidentally happens to be the same ID as some other .FSH file than that will show up instead which is why people occasionally report random chunks of maxis buildings showing up in their exports.

 

I think trying to solve the issue is worth it, because the gmax lighting isn't very good at handling complicated roofs or narrow alleys.  And it's not very good at rendering small details.  And now with your latest BAT you want to do water.

 

You're right, I should get on this. Given I have Max and it's such a better tool, it's ridiculous not to be using it, but it was offputting the way it seemed to screw up all exports from gmax as well, not leaving me with a backup if I couldn't get it to work (and stopping me from doing any BATs at all)... it wouldn't be so hard only I'm an impatient "follow instructions" kind of guy more than a "learn all the controls from first principles" guy when I want results fast. Should do something about that, Max is kind of a steep learning curve (I never fully got a handle on Blendr either, couldn't sit through the tutorials )

 

I bookmarked for next time I wanted to have another go at this issue, that said I should avoid doing something after saving the file, and the issue could be sorted by importing everything into a fresh file. So I'll have a look.

 

Right, once more into the breach, dear friends... I'll start with the basic teapot and see how it goes...

 

__________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE:

 

Okay, so I'll walk through what I did, missing absolutely nothing out.

 

1. created a plain 16x16x16 box, and textured it.

2. created a recessed 'window' with a second texture, to be self illuminated at night.

3. saved as Test Box BAT.3ds

4. click 'Day' button

5. click 'automatic LODs'

6. export LODs, import to gmax, export at 'high' as Test_Box_BAT.SC4Model

7. selected target model

8. export day, making sure not to click "yes" when prompted to save changes

9. click 'MaxisNite' and self-illuminate window

10. export day, making sure not to click "yes" when prompted to save changes

11. open plug-in manager and drag to 'props', changing 'light' option to 'true'

12. open lot in Lot Editor, Add Item under props 'Test_Box_BAT'

 

The result:

 

So, what did I do wrong here? I've just put the texture fix scripts in the max script folder, let's see if there's any improvement...

[Francis90b 748]

Basically, the only good scale BAT you might find is actually not a BAT.

 

Other than Maxis and those trying to follow it more or less carefully and in depth, many other people would try squeezing or enlarging things according to how they would look next to some other BATs (the look of things is quite an interesting point....for, you might easily infer that if you try following another BAT, without knowing what precise criterias the BATer had in mind, wheter he took liberty to exxagerate or reduce things, wheter he correctly took the dimensions and proportions from any real reference, wheter that reference does actually exist or the BAT is just the fruit of a BATer's idea, then the result of this "fitting in" attempt would be something that looks good (subjective opinion, and what does "good" mean, BTW?) but is not actually following any scale!!) -

Then, some others would try following what appear to be RL dimensions, but even there, you might never be 100% sure about how faithful or precise is their work...you'd need to check the RL reference, if it exists, by yourself.

 

Therefore, the BAT that is "good" for comparisons is actually not a BAT, and the actual idea of comparison is quite a myth (*).

 

(*)Unless the aim of this comparison is just estabilishing a correlation between things with no information but only and solely on the basis of a subjective and probably preconceived idea....

 

The only thing you might do is to consider what dimensions things have IRL, and try spotting and recreating them to your best - and don't overindulge on idle ideas like "comparison" or "matching" -  there is actually nothing to "match" your things with, as a BAT, any BAT, is the result of a fallible individual effort.

[Monkee_boy 41]

Hmm, well in that case, for now, I think the scale of that last BAT is going to be my preferred scale unless I discover it looks ridiculous when compared against the majority of other BATs.

 

As for the other problem - B4M - putting those texture-fixing scripts in the scripts folder was completely ineffective, and running them doesn't do anything either. Problem remains and I'm out of ideas. Back to gmax...

[Francis90b 748]

Please define "looks redicoulous"..."looks" impiles a perception, and "rediculous"  a strong, subjective value judgement.

 

Take a look here, Macy's and a standard 1920's multi purpose loft building, one next to each other.

If someone were to BAT both according to how they are, and put them side by side, one, or both, would probably look "rediculous"...yet, that would be a good depiction on how they are - you might try, if you want to, to make them "look less redicolous" - losing some of the qualities of both buildings, and bringing to anyone else an edulcorated, flattened and unfaithful depiction of it for the sake of a subjective perception....

[Monkee_boy 41]

Please define "looks redicoulous"..."looks" impiles a perception, and "rediculous"  a strong, subjective value judgement.

 

Take a look here, Macy's and a standard 1920's multi purpose loft building, one next to each other.

If someone were to BAT both according to how they are, and put them side by side, one, or both, would probably look "rediculous"...yet, that would be a good depiction on how they are - you might try, if you want to, to make them "look less redicolous" - losing some of the qualities of both buildings, and bringing to anyone else an edulcorated, flattened and unfaithful depiction of it for the sake of a subjective perception....

 

As for the "next to other BATs", i've already detailed in the previous post why a BAT, any BAT, is not likely to be a good mean of comparison.

 

Nooo, I was agreeing with you (I think). The scale I've got them at now looks right to me - as well as being true to life proportions. Regardless of other BATs like the ones I put next to it before. On the other hand, if (as before) it turned out that I'd built them at a drastically different scale to other BATs, then it wouldn't do any harm to bring them in line with that. I'm not arguing for a uniform height-per-floor or anything, but it's nice to be able to mix and match creations by different users too without it being jarring.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

A good scale is real life dimensions with a vertical scaling of 133%.  That's the ideal and that's what pretty much everyone does when doing recreations.  Sometimes buildings don't fit the lot perfectly and it has to be scaled a little bit horizontally to fit better but that's usually +/- a few percents.  Scaling the entire thing by 150% is probably going to make it look ridiculous because it's 1.5 times bigger than it's supposed to be. 

 

If you're looking for a good, standard, hard and fast rule that you don't have to think much about, just use real life dimensions and then scale vertically 133% and do whatever minor scaling is necessary to make them fit the SC4 grid.

 

As far as people and dumpster props and things go, the game has a scale issue at small scales because the resolution is too low.  A sim of accurate dimensions would be a vertical line two pixels wide and something like 10 pixels tall off the top of my head.  At zoom 4 they would be 1x5 pixels and at zoom 3 they would be less than a pixel wide.  So Maxis made the sims bigger so that they wouldn't have a bunch of tiny little vertical lines wiggling across the screen.  In turn, a lot of the sidewalk and alley props are overscaled as well.  And then small buildings have wonky scaling in general, sometimes small buildings are actually drastically underscaled (surprisingly not overscaled like you'd assume given they overscaled other small things).  But the majority of things you see in the game are realistic dimensions.  I personally consider the underscaled maxis buildings to be outliers and I don't bother thinking about them.

 

 

For the set back, yeah it's one paver/1.6 m set back from the edge of the lot, so that some of the sidewalk is in the lot editor.  That way if you want to put benches or tables or newspaper machines or anything else, you'll have a little bit of space to do so.  If it's a corner lot then you have to set it back from both the front and the side of the lot.  You can look at any of my wall to wall buildings as examples.

 

 

The texture fix scripts go into gmax\gamepacks\bat\scripts and I believe it should replace an existing file.  btw the texture fix is actually specifically made to deal with the problem you're having.

 

 

 

Try following these steps instead (after installing the texture fix):

 

1.  Open gmax and make a 16x16x16 m box.

2.  Refit the LODs/make automatic LODs.

3.  Export it and then check and see if it worked.

 

 

And then completely separately, try these steps:

 

1.  Open 3ds max, and make a 16x16x16 m box.

2.  Refit the LODs/make automatic LODs.

3.  Save the file as WhateverYouWant.max

4.  Select the 3 LODs and go to File>Export>Export Selected.

5.  Export them as BlaBlaBla.3ds.

6.  Open gmax and import BlaBlaBla.3ds.

7.  The "Convert Units" should be unchecked.

8.  Save the file as Whatever.gmax, and export the LODs to make Whatever.SC4Model.

9.  Check it out in the lot editor.  It should be blank/invisible.  Close the lot editor.

10.  Go back into max and export the day version.

11.  When it's done, go into the lot editor and check it again.

[Francis90b 748]

 

Please define "looks redicoulous"..."looks" impiles a perception, and "rediculous"  a strong, subjective value judgement.

 

Take a look here, Macy's and a standard 1920's multi purpose loft building, one next to each other.

If someone were to BAT both according to how they are, and put them side by side, one, or both, would probably look "rediculous"...yet, that would be a good depiction on how they are - you might try, if you want to, to make them "look less redicolous" - losing some of the qualities of both buildings, and bringing to anyone else an edulcorated, flattened and unfaithful depiction of it for the sake of a subjective perception....

 

As for the "next to other BATs", i've already detailed in the previous post why a BAT, any BAT, is not likely to be a good mean of comparison.

 

Nooo, I was agreeing with you (I think). The scale I've got them at now looks right to me - as well as being true to life proportions. Regardless of other BATs like the ones I put next to it before. On the other hand, if (as before) it turned out that I'd built them at a drastically different scale to other BATs, then it wouldn't do any harm to bring them in line with that. I'm not arguing for a uniform height-per-floor or anything, but it's nice to be able to mix and match creations by different users too without it being jarring.

 

 

And it would be even nicer if two things, done by two BATers, could be brought together and reflect what their relationship that might actually have existed between them, should they have had, by chance, be built one next to another IRL - wheter the observer finds them "jarring" or not, because, whatever the observer's opinion might be, part of why the world is nice and lively exactly because is jarring, contraddictory and unharmonious....

 

Differences between things help us to appreciate, and value, things in themselves...one example, Rockefeller Center and Midtown manhattan as a whole.The first was built following an unified developement scheme, and follows a common architectural language - the latter was mostly developed parcel after parcel, and is a showcase of whatever idea architects could have had from 1850's to now.

One could walk into midtown, and then go to rockefeller center, and probably be impressed by the latter's uniformity, so much in contrast with what he had witnessed before...one would value and appreciate it because the other situation is completely different!

 

And one could not fully appreciate Macy's grand scale and generous floors, weren't standard buildings, like the loft one i pointed out before, next to it....

[Monkee_boy 41]

A good scale is real life dimensions with a vertical scaling of 133%. That's the ideal and that's what pretty much everyone does when doing recreations. Sometimes buildings don't fit the lot perfectly and it has to be scaled a little bit horizontally to fit better but that's usually +/- a few percents. Scaling the entire thing by 150% is probably going to make it look ridiculous because it's 1.5 times bigger than it's supposed to be.

If you're looking for a good, standard, hard and fast rule that you don't have to think much about, just use real life dimensions and then scale vertically 133% and do whatever minor scaling is necessary to make them fit the SC4 grid.

As far as people and dumpster props and things go, the game has a scale issue at small scales because the resolution is too low. A sim of accurate dimensions would be a vertical line two pixels wide and something like 10 pixels tall off the top of my head. At zoom 4 they would be 1x5 pixels and at zoom 3 they would be less than a pixel wide. So Maxis made the sims bigger so that they wouldn't have a bunch of tiny little vertical lines wiggling across the screen. In turn, a lot of the sidewalk and alley props are overscaled as well. And then small buildings have wonky scaling in general, sometimes small buildings are actually drastically underscaled (surprisingly not overscaled like you'd assume given they overscaled other small things). But the majority of things you see in the game are realistic dimensions. I personally consider the underscaled maxis buildings to be outliers and I don't bother thinking about them.

Oh dear. Now I'm really confused. I decided to use a build-in-progress to test what scale looked best, and I can't decide at all, even comparing the three side by side.

This would be a lot easier to decide, had I not made the upstairs windows of this building a bit oversize already (they looked wrong as I was modeling it but now they look too large).

The 1:1 scale looks quite nice, sat next to the Maxis fire station, matching the scale of the fire engines; it also matches the scale of the automata well; the sims still look too tall next to it, however, and 1:1 didn't work with other BATs very well.

The 1:1 scale with 133% vertical scaling looks... okay. I was thinking it looked a bit cartoonish, but now I'm not so sure. The main problem is that it makes some doors look a bit weird - tall and thin, I could combat this by scaling vertically by slightly less than 133% - and still looks a bit small for sims...

And the 1:1.5 scaled BAT does look a bit overscale, compared to the automata and the maxis building, and even a bit taller than neccessary for the sims - but the other 1:1.5 BATs still looked just right to me.

If I do opt for the 1:1 or 1:1 with vertical scaling, this building ends up too narrow to fill the 2x2 hole and too wide for a 1x2, meaning I'd have to stretch it (making the vertically scaled version back into the 1:1.5, effectively) or run it together with other buildings in one big lot.

The end result is I'm now very unhappy with all of my BATs so far and want to give up.

Basically, I'd like someone else to make up my mind for me please! What do you lot think? Am I thinking about this too much?

 

If it helps, the building itself is here.

 

 

 

I'll have to leave the B4M stuff till the morning - I'm tired and ratty...

[Francis90b 748]

Oh, it's nice seeing the link to the RL building!

 

There is a reason why you are confused - the fire stations, sims and automatas all follows different scales (think as if someone at Maxis red Gulliver's travels, and decided to merge all the universes visited by the protagonist within one...so, you'd have tiny and gigantic creatures, one next to another).

 

You can pick one specific element, and try scaling your building against it - it wouldn't look to scale against other elements, and it's no mistery, as no unified scale had ever been used in first place.

 

Trying to "scale" things against other things, however, means you might not know how much room your building would take...for example, I model one building that is "x" mtrs wide, and then scale it up against, let's say, sims...g-d knows how much it will end up being...same said with everything else....

 

You wanted someone to make up your mind with, so, let's state the following:

 

1)Maxis did not follow a scale - but modelled things to different scales in first place, as you've realized.

2)Therefore, picking anything Maxis did as a reference, and scale things accordingly, doesn't mean it's going to fit.

3)Scaling things means you'd have to work up your mind deciding what reference to pick, and having little control over the model's final dimensions - you'd need attempts over attempts, and you might get insane in the process - basically, what's happening there.

 

Therefore:

 

Ditch it all - follow Jason's advice, it's a simple and pratical one.Things won't necessarily fit - but not even Maxis ever wanted them to fit, if they wanted to, they would have thought more about what to do, and followed a serious approach about scaling.That's it.

[mattb325 28,880]

The topic of scale shouldn't be one that causes so much confusion.

 

If I may repeat:

 

* 133% is the accepted vertical scaling of a BAT

* 0.2m in game is roughly one pixel on screen

* Maxis shipped a low wealth building with a wall height of 4m with gmax (it is part of the tutorial): low wealth buildings have the smallest scale in game.

 

Different buildings in real life have different floor heights. This is perfectly acceptable in SC4 as well.

 

The buildings you are making are 19th and early 20th Century buildings from the UK; they are not from any other part of the world.

 

Without knowing the exact floor heights of your buildings, I will say this much again: these sorts of buildings have 10ft - 12ft ceilings in real life. This is due to a very famous byelaw which was passed in the UK (around 1830 and still in force to this day) banning ceiling heights of less than 8ft in any building. A 10ft ceiling height was already common place in most commercial and residential buildings at that time. 

 

So in your case, the following will hold true when converted to SC4 scale. Remember that we are talking ceiling height (which is the internal space between the top of the floor and underside of the ceiling). There will be rafters, joists and other building materials which add to the height between floors; this is approximately 1ft - 1.5ft of space - the rounded  calculations below are rounded to the nearest 0.1m and have this additional space taken into consideration as well the 133% scale:

 

*An 8ft ceiling (the smallest allowable) will have a gmax wall height of no less than 3.6m

*A 9ft ceiling will have a gmax height of 4.1m

*A 10ft ceiling will have a gmax wall height of 4.5m

*A 12ft ceiling will have a gmax wall height of 4.9m

 

Which takes me back to my original post of approximately 4.5m. (or as I summarised and was shot down for so doing, anywhere between 4.2m - 4.8m)

 

Your Bats are good; there is a under-representation of UK batters and I would hate to see you throw in the towel because of what is essentially an easily overcome issue

[mntoes 270]

It's a long time since I've seen the subject of scale discussed to such an extent. Just goes to show we are all different in our view of the world.

Comparing other bats in game helps me, but for you it may lead to the confusion you felt. I never appreciated how many various "scales" there were in-game. I think I mentioned the over-sized sims before.

You have the final say in what you are making and with so many things in life sometimes it's best to go with your own view of the world. (provided the buildings are not 3 times as big ... of course.) As Jason said , scaling in so many instances is affected by SC4's tile size and the need to Squeeze things onto a lot. Without this things would be somewhat easier.

Every time I think of this problem it reminds me of this pub near me.

https://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o313/mntoes/Queensarms.jpg

To me it sums-up the problem of "scale" nicely it looks under-scaled compared to the surrounding buildings. (it's old and from when we humans were smaller). There are so many variations in real life. Life is not "standard"

I have to agree though that you should certainly not "throw in the towel"

[Monkee_boy 41]

The texture fix scripts go into gmax\gamepacks\bat\scripts and I believe it should replace an existing file.  btw the texture fix is actually specifically made to deal with the problem you're having.

 

Try following these steps instead (after installing the texture fix):

 

1.  Open gmax and make a 16x16x16 m box.

2.  Refit the LODs/make automatic LODs.

3.  Export it and then check and see if it worked.

 

 

And then completely separately, try these steps:

 

1.  Open 3ds max, and make a 16x16x16 m box.

2.  Refit the LODs/make automatic LODs.

3.  Save the file as WhateverYouWant.max

4.  Select the 3 LODs and go to File>Export>Export Selected.

5.  Export them as BlaBlaBla.3ds.

6.  Open gmax and import BlaBlaBla.3ds.

7.  The "Convert Units" should be unchecked.

8.  Save the file as Whatever.gmax, and export the LODs to make Whatever.SC4Model.

9.  Check it out in the lot editor.  It should be blank/invisible.  Close the lot editor.

10.  Go back into max and export the day version.

11.  When it's done, go into the lot editor and check it again.

 

Okay, I copied and pasted the scripts into gmax\gamepacks\bat\scripts, and lo and behold it was already installed, so it can't have been that...

 

Gmax exports anything without any problems, for now.

 

After following the steps for 3ds Max above to the letter (well, actually I also pressed the 'day' button to generate light) the box in step 9 is indeed blank and invisible, but when I export the day version it results in the coloured box, still.

 

 

 

UPDATE

 

Thanks to Mandelsoft, the problem is now RESOLVED

I had to install the two service packs and two hot fixes from this link.

 

Now it'll be a positive pleasure to re-do the church and get those lovely stained glass windows )

 

 

I may have a celebratory beer...

[Monkee_boy 41]

And thus, may I present: my first proper 3ds-max exported BAT!

 

 

While I had the game running, I checked, and apart from street-lighting, there is absolutely no night-lighting appearing in the game. Buildings are powered and all - I just very rarely run the game in night mode and so I'd failed to notice the bug. Wonder if there's a fix out there for it...

 

Still, the nightlighting from B4M is always so pretty, I'll share a preview instead in the meantime:

 

[libellibicus 396]

Congrats on your first Max BAT.  Very nice it is too.