Reddonquixote's BAT thread

[gutterclub 2,729]

Yeah, need to tone down reflections and the glass needs to be bluer and darker...you were kind of there with the original but it lacked reflections etc..

I wouldn't automatcially assume that because Australia is famous for sandstone that the base is going to be made of this, I'd actually check the RL building

[IL. 1,043]

Great BATs

Thanks for the textures btw, haha

[kellydale2003 2,276]

@Gutterclub - If you study a bit of engineering on massive scales for some of the biggest and most famous cities in the World you'll realize that Australia got lucky with the perfect sandstone foundations which made it the country it is today! Rome was built in the perfect geological place for a big city famous for it's monuments. Without these natural geographic explanations the World's most famous cities themselves would be in question. New York founded for it's natural harbors, Rome built on perfect building material, Melbourne & Sydney for it's natural harbors and modern sandstone benefits, Cairo for it's flood plains, and so many more. Pretty much all the World's cities aren't just randomly built because they felt like it... it was the geological nature that defined the growth, production, foundations, and very definition of the cities World wide. With today's technology a city can be pretty much be built anywhere... so when we realize these geological wonders that defined the World's cities we can really see a larger picture.

Melbourne and Sydney just happened to be luckily built on the most favorite sandbox for engineers. Sandstone is easy to drill through, and strong enough to support. Piles for foundations are minimal, and tunnels are amazing easy and consistent with sandstone. I guess you can say that Melbourne and Sydney aren't entirely famous for it's sandstone... but from an architectural and engineer point of view they are! Any architect in Sydney or working in Sydney would know this... and it could easily be a reflection to incorporate it in the structure... Just like New York's Limestone, Rome's perfect lava rock, or anything else you can think of :b

It was just brought to my mind how the architect had knowledge of this natural engineering wonder and maybe he/she wanted to incorporate it! haha... and it just so happened I had sandstone panel textures. (:

[PBGV103 729]

Actually the bedrock under Manhattan is a mica schist. The city began to grow because of the ports, but is able to support so many buildings because of it's extremely tough bedrock. I once heard that the bedrock removed to build the empire state building weighed more than the building itself, just to give you an idea of how dense that rock is.

[gutterclub 2,729]

All well and good, but if the Rialto Towers base is not made of Sandstone then it's a bit irrelevant!

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Kellydale2003 and PBGV103 is right about Manhattan rocks and how it started, Manhattan does have some of the toughest rock to make highrises.

reddonquixote, just like others said you glass need to be tone down a bit. I love the roof junk it's what make or brakes the buildings, and I think you have hit it on the head, it's modeling it perfect.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks for helpful comments everyone, I really appreciate it.

Re the reflections: Yes, I definitely agree they need toning down. I think a couple of things, firstly I desaturated the glass and the ground too much, kind of looks like a black & white model... and in turn I think the white of the reflections is too contrasted. It looks pretty good close up, but when you zoom out it looks like army camouflage. The subtleties of the reflections would be lost on export, and you'd never look at it that closely in the game anyway, so its not going to work. Secondly, I think I'd like to try a blinds script if I can work it out. I saw a photo the other day where the light hit the building at a certain angle and the blinds were really prevalent, could be a nice touch.

Thanks Kellydale for posting those textures, they are great. Excellent variation in them. I won't get into the debate of whether it is actually sandstone just yet, I actually thought it was sandstone coloured marble..lol. .could just be polished sandstone.. in any case I'll go have a look and check. Wish I saw these earlier I was just walking past not 45 minutes ago!

Thanks Aaron for your comment.. I was orignally just going to re-texture the original model but looking back on it, it really wasn't a good model. I hadn't yet learned the high expectations of this BATing community.. I love it though...gives great motivation to continually improve... In anycase. .this model is rebuilt from scratch... I'm glad you like it

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

...better?

 

 

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Wow, it looks great! The only thing I noticed is that the texture of the base part tiles very obviously... the lightest and darkest slabs are arranged in a grid pattern that wraps all around the building.

 

Btw, that antenna forest on the rooftop is impressive!

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

oooh.. .good spotting! How did I miss that? I'm glad you guys are here to keep me honest

 

I'll use Kelly's texture... that had great variation in it. (Think I got too caught up in the glass and forgot the rest... thanks!!)

 

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Updated base:

 

[weixc812 509]

This new version is great!

Hope it will be just the same height and size of the former versions

Another little suggestion, could you make the files detached when you do the lotting? I mean a BAT usually consists of three files: a Lot file, a desc file and a model file. Then it will be much easier for LEers like me to do some relot work (replace the original lot).

[darn42 1,268]

I think the glass still needs a lot of work. It seems that the color is off, and the reflections are a bit strong. I rather like how the ground plane and the bump map looks though. I'll do a better breakdown later when I'm not in school.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Boy, do I hate to be the party pooper, but doesn't the new base material look a tad too shiny? Is the base really so polished that it shows crisp reflections?

[dubaidude303 1,119]

Wow! Look's great! 

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Weixc, one of the issues with the previous versions was they were under-scaled, so no, it definitely won't be the same height as the last one. With uploading the separate files onto the STEX, happy to do so if that's the preference. Its just my personal preference to have one file because I hate messy plugin folders (hence why I don't use dependencies)

 

Twrecks, no you're right.. that was my laziness. All I did was use Kellydale's texture instead of mine, changed the scale slightly, and reposted it. I didnt really look at it to see if it worked or not. Shameful really... I spent 3 days on the glass and 30 seconds on the base but I shall fix! Only thing is Kelly posted that texture to be used in conjunction with a bump map, and Jason said not to use bump maps... not sure what to do

 

Darn, thanks.. I'll be interested to see what you come up with colour-wise. The biggest challenge with this building is it has highly reflective glass, its actually famous for changing colours throughout the day. It can be anything from pastel sky blue in the morning, through to dark blue-grey in the late afternoon to shiny silvery white in the early evening...and all dependent on the weather and time of year... I picked a colour which I think is most representative and also I think fits in with the game pallette.. its very tricky.

[Xander Dax 310]

Amazing job as always.

[darn42 1,268]

(While I was editing this post, I decided to use full editor and simtrop was on the fritz... I had to retype it all...)

 

Man! When I look at a lot of the pictures of rialto, that is some mirrored glass!

 

Properties of Glass

 

Let's learn some about glass, or at least make sure we are on the same page.

 

-Glass is reflective, 100% so at certain angles, and almost entirely so at others.

-Reflections and refractions occur within these kinds of objects. When light enters and hits a boundary below a certain angle, it will reflect all of the light within the object. This is called the critical angle and it is the reason diamonds sparkle. Facets in the diamond reflect light within the diamond purposefully designed so it escapes when it is pointing towards the viewer.

-Reflections and refractions compete for attention. If the light coming from behind the glass is greater than what is being reflected, that light will shine through.

-Reflections occur based on angles, and that glass that is perpendicular to the view will be 100% reflective, while any that is parallel will be whatever the coefficient of reflection is (for glass, 4%)

-Dielectric, tinted glass, affects the color of light/reflections more when they are closer to perpendicular, while they reflect closest to true reflective color at glancing angles.

-Metallic, mirrored glass always affects the color of light/reflections. These two color points are due to fancy math and science stuff based on conductivity and the magnetic field.

-Objects very close to a mirrored window will show through that window better than something further away in the room due to it receiving light from the sun, thus lowering the difference of light between it and the outside of the window.

-Glass has imperfections and because of those, will distort reflections

-The index of refraction of metallic surfaces is, almost always, higher than glass.

-Mirrored glass is more used for the economical benefits of heating and cooling than the aesthetic benefits.

 

For reference, here is a picture of panes of mirrored glass

 

 

Reflection/Refraction Strength

 

First off, what I notice most about this glass, is that

 

a) it's extremely mirrored, but

b) the reflection strength changes based on the time of day drastically.

 

 

 

When we look at these 3, we notice that the first one is completely and totally reflecting a perfect mirror. The tops of the tower look as if they are the sun harnessed. Really really strong.

 

The second one is still almost totally reflective, but, based on what we know when there's full light and the lack of color distortion, has some color distortion, though only in value. This can only be because of lowered reflectivity and heightened transparency.

 

They change their reflection strength because of the relative light in front and behind the mirrors. The refracted light coming through the glass in the first is less than the power of the almighty sun shining down and reflecting off the mirrors. While in the second picture the sun has much less of an affect on the glass in relation to the interior. Keep this in mind when deciding how to make your glass material. How strong is the sun from BAT4max, what time of day is it. This will affect how you set up your material for the ortho view.

 

Also, read some background on your building. The wikipedia page gives some good information that can help, like rialto towers is made of "blue tinted mirrored glass."

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Color

 

The color of the sky greatly influences the color of the reflections and therefore the color of the building. This was obviously a major design factor in this building. When viewed aerially, the color is more black/dark blue than anything.

 

 

On the facade facing the camera, the glass is at a very shallow angle so we can see some extremely subdued (relative to the other angles we've seen) reflections. At the side of the building, the reflections are once again the normal blinding mirror.

 

The color of this building for simcity is going to be very difficult to achieve. You can go for total realism, which would get rid of the iconic blue color changing facade, you can go for the design aesthetic, which would involve either changing the ground plane to blue, which would make all literal reflections seem out of place; change the diffuse color to a bright/darkish blue rather than a light gray with a hint of a blue, which might look ok, but wouldn't be true to realism. Or do a compromise and just make the reflections dark blue, which I think would be the worst option. The realism would be the easiest one to attempt convincingly.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Bump

 

Because of the highly reflective nature of Rialto towers, it has a very noticeable curvature to its windows.

 

 

These two images really show how much the curvature affects the reflections. Notice how the bumps and bends in the windows are very consistent in that they are squarish with round edges. This bump could very easily do with a replication of jasoncws gardener center glass that he kindly wrote a tutorial for, though with more squarish instead of round maps.

 

(The golden sunset really is beautiful, but there is no way to recreate it in simcity without looking completely out of place )

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

So now that we've established the Rialto glass properties, and that it is, in fact, transparent, but highly reflective glass, we can start imagining the material for it.

 

Transparency should still be very high, probably around .7; the index of refraction is the best way to alter reflectivity/transparency for this kind of glass. The higher it is, the more it will reflect on shallower angles. Experiment with this. My guess would be something between 6 and 8 would be enough. Test out the reflections on a literal environment. Maybe model a few very basic brick wall buildings and similar stuff in the environment, just to get the material itself right.

 

Overall this is going to be a very personalized material for you. Some major decisions that you will have to make on how you plan on making the material and what you are basing it on. Whatever way you choose to make it, good luck.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Hi Darn, thanks for this, you obviously put a lot of time and effort into this and I honestly appreciate it.. unfortunately, unless I missed something obvious, I don't know how to translate any of this into better looking glass. Its way too technical for me! Lighter/Darker/More transparent/Less transparent.. those are the types of feedback I can deal with

 

Where I am at the moment is, I quite like it the way it is. I will try a couple of things based on the information you provided... i will play with the refraction and see what happens... I've never really used it before. and I will also try making the bump maps a bit squarer and see how that looks... other than that unless someone has simpler advice I'll probably leave it how it is. (Basically.. I can't quite ascertain what you think is wrong with it.. if you can simplify for me that would be better.. sorry for being such a dummy )

[darn42 1,268]

My bad, forgot to explain what was different about your glass lol. I knew I was missing something.

 

Basically you have gone down the mirrored reflections with a blue ground plane path. Something I don't like, because of the fact that the reflections of the ground plane stick out from those of the base. See how at the last picture you posted it goes from blue to true color? That doesn't make sense to my brain realistically and so takes away from the BAT.

 

The way I would do it would be to either go for realism, which would be to make the glass very dark blue with white reflections, or to change the color of the glass to the point in time that I'd like to recreate.

 

Another thing you can do, is to put a good amount (A LOT, my guess would be around 20, if its unitless, 30000 if its in cd) of self illumination into the ground material. In real life there are colors 'brighter' than white; technically, it's just a lot of light and so it looks brighter than white, but there are really bright things in real life. Buildings reflecting the sun, etc. If you put self illumination in the ground material (with the filter being the ground map material ofc) you'll get some of that brighter than white, which will make your reflections stronger. This might help with the aesthetic of the building in that it gets really shiny and glaring reflective at points. Then again it might not. Experiment with that just a little.

 

Also, if the bump is strong enough, you might be getting some parts of windows reflecting the sky. In that case make a plane in the sky that is either pure white or cloud and put even more self illumination into that. Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that the reflections should be dazzling.

 

Overall I think the glass material you have is pretty much spot on in terms of reflective strength and transparency, it just doesn't look like the glass from rialto towers, though. I think it's either the lack of brilliance, the bump map, or maybe how you are getting the blue flavor in there. I'd suggest making a copy of your current glass material and starting over with the things I said in my previous post, and in this post in mind. Hopefully I was bit more clear this post

[scotty222 549]

Firstly id like to say I love your BATs, its great to see some top quality Australian buildings on the Stex considering the amount of great buildings there are (in Melbourne in particular) 

 

Id like to throw in my opinion on the Rialto glass despite the fact i dont really know what im talking about when it comes to glass

Basically i agree with everything Darn said (well what i understood anyway) and im just going to let a picture show how i feel the glass should look, or close to anyway

 

http://www.emporis.com/images/show/552656-Large.jpg

 

Putting it really simply i think the glass needs to be slightly darker and bluer, it looks very grey and kinda bland at the moment IMO

on the plus side though i think the transperancy is perfect

 

Feel free to disregard this if you want i may not know what im talking about 

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Ah! Thank you Darn, I get it now. (and Scotty, too... everyone's opinion is valid.. and I agree with you, it is a bit bland )

 

You know.. I think I was on the right path with the first post, that high-brilliance-reflection was what I was trying to achieve there. I can see where it went wrong, but I think I took the 'safe' option and toned it right down, but went too far. The whole point of doing a version 3 was to try and get the glass right so I should keep persevering with it.

 

Interestingly, I have been experimenting with self-illuminated ground plane, but it wasn't set anywhere near as you suggested Darn... I was half expecting people to say it looked wrong as it was... I'll crank it up and see what that looks like. I'm thinking maybe with the level of contrast, colour and scale in this ground plane (compared with the previous one) coupled with some of the high reflectivity of the first post, and more pronounced squarer bump maps... that might get it closer.

 

I have a way forward! Thanks again so much

[kellydale2003 2,276]

I might be wrong... but your diffuse color on your glass should be 100% black. It looks like it's a medium grey which in response makes the glass look washed out! Keeping it at 100% black and using other parameters to color your glass is better (:

 

And frankly I'm too lazy to read all that text, I imagine they hammered the nail on the head anyways since everyone is in agreement :b

[darn42 1,268]

If it's tinted glass, then the diffuse should be set to a color, a dark color in most cases, but still a color, because physically there will be color in the glass and the metallic coating.

[IDS2 3,346]

Glad to see you're doing a V3 of Rialto! The modeling looks fabulous - nothing I can say about that. I wish you luck with the glass...stuff this reflective can be a real pain, especially with something as mirrored as this one, but you're doing a fantastic job

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Here's the latest test... let me know what you think?

 

[darn42 1,268]

Its looking really good. I think it's almost done.

 

2 problems I see with it is that the ground plane is looking dull and a bit undersized. See if there's any way you can get the ground plane to show up brighter in the windows. Some ideas, color correct the ground plane for higher brightness, more self illumination, just a random idea, but you could try cloning your ground plane, flipping it, and giving it a straight white self illumination with like 100k cd of brightness on fg and limit the distance the fg from that can go. I doubt it will work too well, but it might be worth a try.

 

On the base, I'm not sure what those white lines running across (the big ones) are supposed to look like exactly, but they are looking fuzzy and planar, like they are planar and just textured on. If they are model those out, if they aren't, isolate them and figure out what the problem is. Also, the sandstone columns look a bit undetailed I would say. I think that comes from them being perfectly flush with the wall above and being, for the most part, rectangles. See if there's anything else you can do to make them more interesting.

 

The whole dull ground plane is pretty much nit picking though. The glass looks great as is, it just doesn't look rialto until it sparkles. Good luck

[Delecto 941]

I'll be hard but reflections are wrong.   The building and the ground plane appears to be in two different worlds, because reflections are too dissimilar.

There is no noise in the reflective material, so reflecting parts of the building are flat. You've put the noise on the ground plane texture which makes seeing mistaken.

 

Good luck.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks guys.

 

Darn, yes I agree the ground plane is very dull and I think that is causing a lot of the problems. This was an effort to get the glass to reflect darkly, but in doing so, as Delecto also points out, it looks flat instead of reflective. As far as getting anything to reflect more brightly in the glass, that's a conundrum.. I feel like it needs to, yes, but in doing so the glass goes back to something like the first post I did where the reflections were too garish. I haven't had much success with self-illuminating ground or sky planes either. Ground plane just over-emphasises the garishness of the reflections even more, while the sky just reflects of the other surfaces too much while having minimal effect on the glass. I was toying with the idea of modelling the bumps in the glass, that might be a long job but not sure how else to pick up sparkling reflections without creating garishness.. I will keep playing.

 

With the base, I've interpreted the white lines as opaque glass intersecting with semi-opaque glass, hence why they are textured and not modelled, but they could be actual structure. There was a close up photo somewhere I will have a closer look or go have a look later in the week if I get time. Re the columns, I'll recheck that, but I'm pretty sure that's what they look like.. boring.. lol. That was one of the criticisms of the first model is the base was bland, but then as someone subsequently pointed out, that is what it looks like. Interestingly, I saw plans recently online to redevelop the base, not sure if that was real or if they are going ahead with it, but looks quite good what they have planned for it!

 

Delecto, I agree with your overall assessment, but the point about having noise in the ground plane, not sure how else to do it? If you don't do that you end up with reflections that looks too much like something, I thought the point was to try and disguise them? Maybe I used the wrong types of noise pattern, I will try something else. Kellydale recently posted an interesting image (was it for Darns building?) that looked like a 3d composite image, I might try that or something similar to it. 

[darn42 1,268]

 

That was the image kellydale posted in my thread that I edited a bit because people were saying it was too noticeable in reflections. I just put it through the tile map filter in gimp to both tile it and make it more disguised.