Reddonquixote's BAT thread

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

This BAT thread is to share progress of my Melbourne BAT projects and hope to learn a lot from all the experts out there.

As well as sharing my up and coming projects with you, I would be keen to hear from anyone if you have any requests.

I am editing this opening statement to include a list of projects completed and those in the pipeline. If you have any Melbourne buildings you would like to have added to the list please drop me a line







PWC Tower

Melbourne Town Hall

Southern Cross Station

Crown Casino
Federation Square

100 Queen Street (ANZ)

ANZ Centre Docklands

Nauru House
Verve 501 Swanston Tower
Casselden Place

385 Bourke Street

&

Parliament House

Treasury Building

Royal Exhibition Building

Hotel Windsor

Russell Street Police Headquarters

Former Melbourne Magistrates Court

Crown Metropol

Etihad Stadium

Prima Pearl

Melbourne Supreme Court

The Grand Hotel

Crowne Plaza

Australia on Collins (Novotel)

The Westin Melbourne

Batman's Hill Hotel

The Age Building

Princess Theatre

Southern Cross Tower

 

 

Ex-Melbourne

Goldcoast

Brisbane

Perth

[Susaji 523]

Great!

[gutterclub 2,729]

looking forward to seeing your progress on the Eureka it's a great building, big fan of Melbourne. I'd like to 'try' and offer some assistance with glass, although mainly what I have just picked up from other epople, I love the Rialto but I feel the glass needs to reflect the ground, have a bump map..that sort of thing. I'll post some examples of what you should be aiming for in my opinion etc..anyway, good look. Excited to see progress..and if I am allowed to request it has to be Melbourne Central, as I used to work there when I lived in Melb briefly

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Hey, it's great to see you here! I might not be able to tell you anything about the particular modeling/texturing techniques (and judging from your first BAT, you won't need much direction in this respect anyway), but I will follow this thread and see if I can contribute some general observations or any other kind of support - even if it's just an occasional pat on the back.

[__A 792]

Woo Eureka Tower!! I'm really looking forward to it! Do you plan on just making skyscrapers or other stuff as well?

[B.C builder 291]

hi,

It's very nice that you will create some buildings of Melbourne.

I have one suggest: as soon as Eureka tower is finished, can you make a BAT of the 101 collins street building ?

P.S: sorry for my english

[weixc812 509]

I really enjoy your Rialto Towers, hoping that more Australian buildings can be made to show in game

Great job

[gutterclub 2,729]

Ok, so the v2 is a lot better in terms of the base and there is nothing I can say about the modelling skills, you are an absolutely fantastic modeller and way better than i will ever get to..

I would like you to investigate on here how to make great looking glass though as it's an area that can really make or break a BAT not to mention letting it blend in with other glass BATs..right now it seems a little shiny plastic, that said the Rialto Glass would always be tricky as it is that reflective 80's coated glass I believe. However, from the camera angle of the game, the glass would always reflect the ground. That is to say you should simulate it reflecting the ground, to create an illusion that it reflecting the ground.

The best way to do this is to create a ground plane, what this is is usually a textures pane which can be any measurement but you ideally want around 200mx200m..the texture of the pane should be a city scape, I will post some examples later, but you can easily take a screen shot of Rialtos position on google earth and use this. You then want to set the pane to be invisible to camera so it doesn't show when rendering...you also want to set pass through when FG is on or something like that..

Each pane of glass should have a bump map but this shouldn't flow from one to the next, this is crudely done but just creating 2 glass mats the same, adding a bump map of noise at around size 8, then just changing the settings slightly from one mat to the other..you then alternate these glass materials between windows panes..this way it reflects the ground, but also doesn't make it so specific that you know what it is reflecting.

sorry, I have just rushed typing this, but best thing to do is look at Cockatoo's, Simfoxes, Jasons, PvM and Girafes BAT threads for more info and examples of amazing glass

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Hi.

Thanks gutterclub I really appreciate the advice. I had already done everything you suggested except that I had a partial cloud image projecting off the ground. Now I think about it that doesn't make a whole lot of sense! It never actually occurred to me that the in game camera should reflect the ground more than the sky, I was really just going off my everyday experiences when I look at the building from the ground.

I do have one general question though if anyone has any particular views on how much artistic license one should take with a real-world model in the interest of the game? With Rialto Towers for example, the real world building adjuncts directly onto another building on the left hand side. In order to preserve realism, the model I have built lacks visual interest from that angle, and also from the rear for that matter. Also, where the glass tower meets the podium, there is some stone work around the front portion of glass but not the rear. I think it would create greater delineation between the reflectivity of the glass and the marble base, but again that would not be authentic... I'd be keen to hear everyone's views on this (or maybe its been discussed before and I haven't seen it)

To mystic_destiny...no not just skyscrapers I'm open to suggestions! Other non-skyscraper buildings I have thought about are Flinders Street Station (I've seen some requests on that one too!).. The Shrine of Remembrance and the Arts Centre (if anyone knows whether i can create an in-game model with lights that change colour.... how cool would that be?!).. but I'm really thinking for a grand project building Crown Casino. I had this idea of making it in sections and building a transit enabled Kings Way through the middle of it.... but maybe I'll start off bit smaller for now and build up to that one

Cheers for now,

Jay

[gutterclub 2,729]

Well I know another great Australasian Skyscraper Lord that used to take liberties on the the base and model based on both reference material and suitability for the game, Mr Scotty222...and his BATs went down well, so personally, unless you state you are going for an exact recreation as a lot of people like to do then I feel that artistic liberties are fine.

What settings are you suing for the glass mat? Have you hada chance to look through Jason's glass tutorial? You have to bear in mind that it is for mirrored glass, so not quite the same glass..but similar. I believe Girafe or Amthaak recently posted their glass Mat settings for their latest models. But yes, in my opinion you should def reflect the floor, it gives the glass a busier feel, the same feel you get when you look down on any glass buidling from a height..

This high def panorama gives a great indicator of how glass looks when looking down on it, and funnily its from the Rialto Tower..check out the AMP how each glass pane has a wave like bump to it..

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Yes Jason's (very excellent) glass tutorial is actually where I started out from then I did my own tweaking as it was probably a tad too reflective for what I needed... thanks for uploading that picture btw... again it didn't occur to me there must be a plethora of images taken from above I can draw on.. so much to learn! This has been very helpful thank you.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Seeing how everything else is already in capable hands, I'd just like to throw in my opinion about artistic liberties... personally, I don't mind them at all.

Now, as long as the worst part about a fully realistic building is a blank wall here or there, things are often not too bad, and you don't always need to go that extra mile and create much fancy stuff just to fill the gap. Occasionally you will see ugly blank walls in a real-life city, too, and there's also a chance that adjacent buildings and/or trees will cover up at least part of it.

However, when a building becomes awkward to use in game, for example due to an odd footprint, I'd say don't be afraid to take some liberties.

Don't forget that you are the building nut and most people don't even know the real thing (and probably don't care as long as the BAT looks awesome), so chances are that any cosmetic changes will go totally unnoticed by 80% of your downloaders. I've been around for a while, and I have learnt a lot about buildings in that time, but I remember clearly how surprised I was a few months ago when I checked out aerial photos of Chicago and discovered that, unlike SimGoober's BAT of it, MerchMart in fact does NOT have a rectangular footprint.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Hi, after one full day of serious modeling I'm now ready to post the first views of my untextured Eureka Tower model. I think the model is mostly done now, the main thing that needs work is the base but I think that will evolve as I work out which bits to texture and which bits need modeling. There are some golden bee sculpture things on the front of the building I need to work out how to do as well.

The thing I am really struggling with is the scale. I can get the correct height easily enough, but keeping the rest of the building in proportion is quite difficult. I think in this version I have the tower looking pretty good but the base looks very chunky after the rescaling. That's probably what I need to work on next before I go much further with it. If anyone has any suggestions be great to hear from you.

[Xander Dax 310]

I recommend 120 Collins st

101 Collins st

Freshwater Place

Southern Cross

Victoria Point

And Yarra's Edge

Bring on the Aussie buildings!

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

ok.. posting my picture didn't work, I literally have to head out now and I don't time to work it out i will post later this afternoon. Sorry!

[Bastet69008 1,102]

Welcome to our new BATter from Downunder! You did a great job on your first creation. Can't wait for a new one !

  Edited November 3, 2012 by Bastet69008  

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

See if this works...

[Susaji 523]

Very Nice!

[Amthaak 1,501]

Very impressive! I like the complexity of the shape! Can't wait for textures!

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

I had a go at making some bees... not sure how useful it will be in game but it was a bit of fun to do...

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Oh, here's the original in case anyone is wondering what on earth this is...

[__A 792]

Sorry for my late response.. I really hope you make Crown Casino and especially the part where Kingsway goes under the building and crosses the Yarra

That is an impressive render of Eureka Tower and the very detailed bees at the base of it.

Maybe you could make these in the future as suggestions:

Northbank - http://idontwearblack.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/img_4678.jpg?w=500&h=375

Myer Melbourne (the newly renovated one which has a facade of the old and new)

and as Xander Dax suggested.. Freshwater Place - http://www.thecollectormm.com.au/gallery/photography/City/slides/FreshwaterPlace1.jpg

Keep up the good work with Eureka Tower

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Oh, here's the original in case anyone is wondering what on earth this is...

Thank you for that explanation because I was actually wondering what on earth this is and how it occurred to you to switch from a skyscraper to bees just like that.

Now I also understand the "useful in game" part - it will be interesting to see how much of that sculpture will be visually discernible in game. In any case, it's only the second example of "insect art" on a building that I know of.

[harishna 847]

great stuff mate!

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

I love this new model of yours. Keep it up.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Just thought I'd post a picture of the base with all the modeling completed (for now) I don't think there's anything else to do with it, maybe just a couple of windows.

Time to start adding the textures!

[harishna 847]

looking good keep it up,

Oi oi oi!

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

... and now textured

[gutterclub 2,729]

Its a good start..I'd definately de-saturate the blue and red parts..maybe warm the grey up a bit. Looking forward to more progress

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Yes, and is it me, or does the gold of the bees have a greenish tint to it? Otherwise the textures are looking good, though. And so does the model!

Btw, are we looking at a zoom 5 shot? May I ask which floor height you used for the base?