Fribe's Stadiums and Other BATs Thread

[Fribe 150]

Figured it was time I rolled out a thread for me to show off a little more as I go through the planning and building process of my BATs, now that I'm becoming less ashamed of them.

Completed projects:

---

Brainstorming/Planned/Under Construction

Hemphill Place (Condo block) - FRONT OF THE QUEUE

Ferry Terminal (Possibly Cape May-Lewes Ferry)

Gold & Silver Pawn Shop (The building from "Pawn Stars")

Roosevelt Stadium (WW2-era football/baseball field)

CFL Stadium (Larger field dimensions, Canadian football)

Public Swimming Pool

Fenway Park (Possibility)

Mid-sized Minor League Stadium (Baseball)

And if anyone has any ideas or requests, just let me know

  Edited September 10, 2012 by Fribe  

[chimeran 208]

is there anyway to make the stadiums functional ? (jobs)

[weixc812 509]

You've made a lot of amazing stadiums. But I wonder if you can add some nightlight to these BATs? Then the night scene will be more colorful

[16minuteman 57]

You've made a lot of amazing stadiums. But I wonder if you can add some nightlight to these BATs? Then the night scene will be more colorful

[Fribe 150]

Glad somebody brought that up - I honestly don't know how to do nightlights without massively screwing things in the BAT up. Can anyone help?

[JayStimson 211]

Two comments / suggestions:

You have really good design sense but .... to do your designs the justice they deserve:

1: You need to work on learning to do night-lighting and do it well as already mentioned.

2. You need to work on your textures.

Both of these (especially #2) are what make great BATs great. As any of the premier BATters will tell you,

texturing can (and usually does) take significantly more time and effort then the design work.

I really like your baseball stadium. I think it shows enough promise that I'd suggest re-visiting it and

get suggestions from the great BAT creators on how to improve it. You'd be surprised how really helpful

they can be for receptive newbies.

Why release so-so BATs when with some help and effort, you can release elegant masterpieces.

Starting this thread is a really good start for improving.

[SimCoug 5,972]

I think your BATing skills are improving! I really like the last ball field you did, it reminds me of the old Durham Bulls field (as seen in the movie). I am not a BATer so I can't offer much technical advice, but I will be following your thread. Looking forward to your future creations, and I think Fenway would be an awesome BAT.

[Fribe 150]

I've been thinking about Fenway because it's the only MLB park I think I can manage.

One big problem is that most stadiums nowadays are dug down so that the field is below street level and you enter in an upper plaza or concourse, and I don't know how to build sunken lots.

Both of these (especially #2) are what make great BATs great. As any of the premier BATters will tell you,

texturing can (and usually does) take significantly more time and effort then the design work.

Why release so-so BATs when with some help and effort, you can release elegant masterpieces.

I've been trying to spend a lot more times on the textures lately, and I think it's paying off. Getting better and better.

Why release them so-so and rushed? Because I'm incredibly impatient! For better or worse, I get an idea and have to blow through it.

  Edited August 17, 2012 by Fribe  

[darn42 1,268]

Why release them so-so and rushed? Because I'm incredibly impatient! For better or worse, I get an idea and have to blow through it.

I'm not sure if you are being serious with this statement or not, but if you ever want to become a great BATer, you're going to have to drop that attitude right away. I'm glad you are at least willing to better yourself by creating a BAT thread though.

[mattb325 28,880]

Very nice - I already see you've quite a collection.

As others have said, texturing is the most important aspect. I spend at least 2/3rds - 4/5ths of the total time taken to make a BAT on textures alone. GMAX can be relatively forgiving when cutting corners on some of the modelling techniques, but if I cut corners on the texturing component, someone will always notice

[Fribe 150]

My problem is that I end up getting fat on what I see while BATing, going for the smaller details rather than the bigger ones, not thinking about what it's going to look like in game trim.

ie, things look great and well-finished with textures when I'm zoomed in close in GMAX, but once it's exported, they become brighter and more difficult to make out. Gotta account for that and pick my battles better. The white orbs on top of the Creek Stadium building are actually baseballs, I have a great flat baseball texture, but the whiteness in such a small object ends up dominating it.

  Edited August 17, 2012 by Fribe  

[Fribe 150]

Quick question, what pack is this circle from?

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

It's part of the NAM

[Kevenbro 94]

Fenway Park would be cool.

[Fribe 150]

Getting ready to start building "Hank's Look-Around Cafe", a building based on a horrible plan originally conceived on The Larry Sanders Show. It's a street-level revolving restaurant, and my take will be to build it to plop in the middle of the NAM avenue roundabounts.

Working on design and textures...

[Fribe 150]

Here's how the building is looking in the builder right now...got the outer and lower shell done. Above this, I'm going to have a sloped roof/skylight about a third of the way towards the center. Front doors set out somewhere on the perimeter, gotta add textures (obviously), build some junk inside, generate some blinds over some of the windows, maybe a few awnings outside, and boom. Pretty easy project.

[darn42 1,268]

Not sure how big the NAM roundabout is but I would back off a little bit on the border to give some room for sidewalk and such.

[Fribe 150]

It leaves room for a 2x2 lot, which is what I'm squeezing this into. Won't have much other than the building, no parking or anything, at least in the version for the roundabout. I might do a deluxe lot for a standalone plop or grow.

[darn42 1,268]

I know, but it's common practice to leave, I believe, 1.4 meters on each side of the BAT for Sidewalks.

[Fribe 150]

It's a square shaped lot in the middle of a circle, and there wouldn't be automatic sidewalks because it's in the middle of the roundabout

Test model, just to see how a building would fit (guessed wrong on the base texture)

Having issues with my glass that seems to happen often...it's coming out clear, regardless of what color it looks like in GMAX. Even in the render, there's no tint to it at all, it's just extremely transparent and clear-shaded.

  Edited August 21, 2012 by Fribe  

[Cockatoo 2,256]

[Fribe 150]

The glass issue's gone full blown problem now. No matter what opacity and color texture I use, it all comes out dark gray on the preview and render. For all projects, not just this one, I've tried starting something new and get the same issue. Did I trip something accidentally?

[SimCoug 5,972]

I'm not a BATer, but I just read this topic started by Jasoncw -

[Fribe 150]

It could be, but I feel like it's not the usual texturing issue. All other textures I've tried turn out okay, it's just anything with opacity winds up grey. Here's a little test rig

[Gn_leugim 853]

it turns grey because of the background is back. it adds the coulor of the glass to the background and the result is what you can see, some kind of grey.

if you model a bat where some transparent glass like material show something behind it, shows the background, like here, you have to set the transparency settings latter, either using Reader or Cogeo's Model Tweaker software (which is easier to use), or else you have a black/grey thin on game.

[Fribe 150]

Starting work on "Hemphill Place," a condominium block based on a mishmash of a pair of places I've seen recently.

And here's what I'm looking at right now (Heh, don't worry, both of these are just test boxes to square up what my dimensions and floor heights could be.) Model itself won't be a clean box, I've got some external cladding, roof features, and balconies planned.

[Forthwall 1,118]

Interesting Work, I love your stadiums

[SimCoug 5,972]

Cool, that looks like an interesting project. Brick structures are always a nice addition to the game.

  Edited September 11, 2012 by SimCoug  

[Fribe 150]

Adding detail to Hemphill Place

[art128 4,618]

Are you just adding details over the box? Looks great anyway.