Art128 BAT Manufacture

[gutterclub 2,729]

Really nice mate

[Fantozzi 4,067]

Oh, those children! You leave them alone just a couple of days and when you return you find their stuff spread out all over the STEX ..

 

Thank you so much for all this artisanry and creativity so well united.

[AndisArt 2,068]

Woah! Great works from you here! That round tower looks so extra and different, I love it! Rotterdam Harbour Village, fantastic release, congrats! It blends in so well with the game, stunnn-nninggg! *clapping-hand emojis*

[gutterclub 2,729]

No worries if not but is there any chance of SD versions of the x2 new Japanese buildings?

[art128 4,621]

Thanks for the comments guys! 

Sorry @gutterclub no SD version in the works.

New upload!

I've been working on this project sparsely for the past 2 or 3 years, redoing every pieces once in the process since they had rendering errors.

This is a set of Shotengai, a kind of commercial street that typical of Japan found in just about every city. They vary in form from an open street, to a covered street and even some big mall-like exemples. Often liking residential areas to train stations or landmarks, temples etc. They vary in design from a very simple canopy to a more elaborate recognizable style. 

They have existed from before the middle ages but really grew to what is known today around the Showa era. Nowadays, thanks to rural exodus, a lot of Shotengai in small towns are in state of disrepair with paint rusting away and covers falling. Larger towns and cities shotengai tend to be better kept and some have even grown in size to be comparable to a 1 story linear mall.

To goal of this set was not to create every different shotengai in existence but more to allow me to have a few variations to put in my cities in order to make them even more realistic. This isn't the first time such a type of street is created in the game, but I thought the previous exemples were too big and not really suited for what I had in mind.

Included are 3 different types of pieces: 5 Entrances, 3 straight Covers and 3 Rotundas.

Entrances are modeled after real life counterparts, with artistic liberties to make it suit the game style:

• Takaoka Otaya-dori in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture
• Izumo Nakamachi in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture
• Senbayashi in Osaka, Osaka Prefecture
• Motomachi in Kobe, Hyogo prefecture
• Tenjinbashi in Osaka, Osaka Prefecture

Covers come in three styles:

• a generic red cover that was modeled after Takaoka Otayha-dori but fits the other styles well
• A specific cover for Izumo Nakamachi
• A specific cover for Osaka Senbayashi

Rotundas follow the same idea as the covers. The covers are straight pieces 8m in length and almost 16m wide.

The set contains 11 lots  located at the top of the park menu. Despite my modding, which worked at first, I was not able to keep them in the correct order. If someone has knowledge about that please do let me know (I know about the item_order properties and used that but it still mixed them)

BIG thanks to Tibi @Tyberius06 for helping me with the modding side, and @mattb325 for the original Pedestrian TE tutorial.

The lots are TE enabled for pedestrian access. Upon placing them in your cities, commercial buildings will grow along them. HOWEVER, we were not able to make it so the sims paths actually go through the lots. Therefore this is more of an eye candy piece rather than a functional set. Also, unfortunately no residential zone can grow along them. Again if someone has knowledge about this and want to give it a shot, please feel free to do so!

There are no dependencies and the texture on the lots is the standard maxis pavement.

Get it here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[art128 4,621]

WIP

 

[Ke|is 3,337]

Cant wait to see more. 

[art128 4,621]

Thanks!

Here's an ingame picture with Girafe's Paris Tram stop for comparison.

 

I plan on finishing this little project this week.

Still to do are the standard side platform and its diagonal variant. And the modding..

[Tyberius06 12,227]

Hi there!

Looks beautiful, it came along very well! Thank you very much!

[Urban Vibravant 801]

@art128 Nice! I really dig the night scene.

One thing that caught my eye is the repeating texture of the no-walk/boarding zone (the darker grey strip at the edge of the platform.) Other than that I think this looks great!

 

[nos.17 5,208]

Those nightlights are sooo cool!

[art128 4,621]

Thank you!

@Urban Vibravant I agree. I wasn't satisfied with the texture anyway so I will be doing a new export.

 

Here's the side platform. This will be rendered in ortho and diagonal version.

 

[Krisman 4,652]

3 hours ago, art128 said:

Thank you!

@Urban Vibravant I agree. I wasn't satisfied with the texture anyway so I will be doing a new export.

 

Here's the side platform. This will be rendered in ortho and diagonal version.

 

These are brilliant! ... any chance that these will also be available as props? 😇 ... for the heavy-lotters amongst us 😉

[art128 4,621]

2 hours ago, Krisman said:

These are brilliant! ... any chance that these will also be available as props? 😇 ... for the heavy-lotters amongst us 😉

Sure I can include props exemplars.

[art128 4,621]

Hello,

Sorry for the lack of update here, I got a bit sidetracked doing other things.

Mostly because I'm stuck at the texturing stage.

What I generally do for texturing big stuff like a platform or a roof is I take a large screenshot of the top view (Shaded) in 3dsmax so I know where things are (Hvac, pipes etc) and then create a large texture for that. This works fine for roofs and I can manage to avoid strong repetitive parts. However right now for the platforms I must admit that I'm a bit at a loss on how to do it.

The reality is I'm not an expert, even my 3d models aren't really efficient or well made. And texturing is really the one thing I dread all the time when creating large or specific buildings.

IRL I believe the platforms are made of granite slabs or something like that. Using textures found online leads to a lot of repetition.

 

Does anyone have any resources I can use (tutorials etc) so I can learn to texture large parts without repetition?

For information I'm using 3dsmax 2014 and Adobe Photoshop 2022. I'm open to learn other software if it's gonna help me achieve this goal (texturing software?)

 

 

[dragonsteincole 1,397]

I wouldn't know of a way for 3dsMax or most 3d programs in general, but working with the textures I have a few suggestions. For larger areas you could try adding a noise layer to the texture itself to introduce a little randomness. similarly a dirt or other texture that can help break up sections into smaller areas. they don't have to be strong and bold, just barely there but neough to hint to the eye that there's variation.
Maybe if you need a 1-wide strip of tile for something, look for textures that are tiled themselves. An example:

(ignoring the watermark), you get 4 rows of 4 tiles, which can be stitched into a 1x16 tile strip. Rotate the image and you get another 4 rows of 4, for another 1x16. you can mirror and flip tiles within that strip to break up the repetition, move tiles around.
 

But if it helps anything, even if you don't feel like you're an expert, none of us really are. At every level we're all still learning stuff as we go along, learning new bits every time and applying that knowledge to the next project. And sometimes you just have to fake it until you make it. thats certainly how I feel with my automata mods sometimes. But I doubt anybody would be sat here looking at your work going "hmm, these are clearly done by someone who isn't an expert.", but i'm 100% sure people are sat here going "damn, this looks awesome! I can't wait to use it in my city."

 

[rare_guava 162]

Glad I'm not the only one who feels that way about their BATs and texturing.

I found this website browsing through old BAT threads that might help with seamlessly tiling textures: https://www.imgonline.com.ua/eng/make-seamless-texture.php

Also, I've had decent results with expanding a texture using Photoshop's generative expand feature. You would need to update PS to at least the 2024 version though.

[Jasoncw 11,940]

On 4/24/2025 at 6:49 AM, art128 said:

This works fine for roofs and I can manage to avoid strong repetitive parts. However right now for the platforms I must admit that I'm a bit at a loss on how to do it.

When you're making your material, and you're selecting "Bitmap", instead of selecting Bitmap, select the "Tiles" map.

In the Tile Map, under "Advanced Controls", you can either choose a color for the tiles, or you can choose a map for the tiles (like a Bitmap). A lot of the time for concrete pavers I just use a flat grey color or a noise map. "Color Variance" automatically creates variation in brightness between different tiles. The higher this is, the more contrast and definition and visible variation there will be, but it will also look more cartoonish (since in real life the stone material doesn't have that much variation). "Vertical Count" and "Horizontal Count" are just the number of tiles that this map is making. The maximum is 100. So for example, if you set them to 100, and gave the object a 100x100 meter uvw map, then each paver would be 1 meter square.

For grout setup you can either choose a color or a texture. I pretty much always use very dark grey. And then there are the dimensions for the grout. I don't actually know what the units are for this number, but if you make your tile horizontal and vertical count to be really high, you'll have to make the grout gap value smaller.

Like the Bitmap and many other maps, at the top there is a "Blur" value which is 1.0 by default. You can right click on the arrows to minimize it to 0.01 or you can manually type the number into the box. Leaving this value at 1.0 will make it look soft and blurry.

[art128 4,621]

Thanks a lot for the advises. I will give it a try soon.

In the meantime I started a little side project. I wanted to BAT this thing for a long time.

Proportions are adjusted to fit better in the game. Otherwise the real world size would have been too small, even with 133%.

 

[Tyberius06 12,227]

12 minutes ago, art128 said:

Thanks a lot for the advises. I will give it a try soon.

In the meantime I started a little side project. I wanted to BAT this thing for a long time.

Proportions are adjusted to fit better in the game. Otherwise the real world size would have been too small, even with 133%.

 

Oh the Japanese house that you showed me once... Great project!

[Ct1999 4,198]

On 2025/5/14 at 7:44 PM, art128 said:

Thanks a lot for the advises. I will give it a try soon.

In the meantime I started a little side project. I wanted to BAT this thing for a long time.

Proportions are adjusted to fit better in the game. Otherwise the real world size would have been too small, even with 133%.

Woo! Is this the "住吉の長屋"?

[art128 4,621]

On 5/17/2025 at 1:04 PM, Ct1999 said:

Woo! Is this the "住吉の長屋"?

It sure is. Well an adapted version really.

 

I took the time to rework the texture of the platforms, I quite like what I have:

 

 

Forgot the tactile paving, this will be added soon.

[Tyberius06 12,227]

1 hour ago, art128 said:

I quite like what I have

Looks very pretty. Thanks! 

[Ct1999 4,198]

On 2025/5/21 at 7:13 PM, art128 said:

It sure is. Well an adapted version really.

Splendid! It is really distinctive. I think it is one of the brutalist gems designed by Andou Tadao.

I usually heard my professor talking about this building. It is considered an art while keeping it under the budget. It is a perfect balance.

Well, actually Japan is not in my territory. Unless my member requests something from there, I am not often BAT something from there. But I wish you could do a great job on that house.

[art128 4,621]

Thanks!

 

Here's a ingame picture of the tram stop:

[Krisman 4,652]

1 hour ago, art128 said:

Thanks!

 

Here's a ingame picture of the tram stop:

Can't wait for these to be released .... but maybe add some people on the platform as well?

[art128 4,621]

Thanks! I've added some maxis props on the platforms and some planters from @Girafe . I've also made the lot 5x1 instead.

I've also went ahead and did the render of the island platform. Unfortunately after 10 different LODs there's still the south zoom2 that's broken. Frankly I'm not about to spend my entire weekend to try and find that one LOD that work. So it's gonna be like that. Take it or leave it really.

 

Here are some pictures, first of the side platform in 5x1 lot, and then of the island platform, 6x1 lot.

 

[IDS2 3,395]

By broken, do you just mean that the render for Z2 south is skewed? If so, I can probably fix that for you.

[art128 4,621]

52 minutes ago, IDS2 said:

By broken, do you just mean that the render for Z2 south is skewed? If so, I can probably fix that for you.

Yeah it looks like that:

All other views are fine.

[IDS2 3,395]

Oh yeah, that should totally be fixable. If you want, you can PM it to me and I'll quick fix it for you. For future reference, the gist is that you just need to open up the SC4model file in the reader and edit the vertices of the affected S3D file corresponding to Z2 south (this should be the one with the instance number 00030100). 

What typically happens is that all of the u or v values will be either doubled or halved. It takes some trial and error, but if you just copy these values into a spreadsheet, you can transform them and copy them back and forth until it looks right.

Love the station by the way, that neon is beautiful.