Reddonquixote's BAT thread

[dubaidude303 1,119]

Wow, looks awesome!

[Darknono35 3,138]

Great I like it

[Jasoncw 11,841]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35314767@N00/7384864210/sizes/o/

 

This pic should help you with the neon sign. 

[Huston 5,798]

Lookin' good! Can't wait to see this in my game, amazing work!

[NathanFearsSatan 1]

Wow! Great BATs!

I have recently arrived in Melbourne from the UK and it's great to see all the sights recreated for SC4.

I'm eagerly anticipating your Flinders Street Station. One question though; are you at all planning on working on the MCG? I really think you could do such a large project justice!

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks Dubaidude, Darknono & Huston

 

Jason, great picture, thanks for that. What I took away from it mainly is the fact that the lettering isn't lit at the back.. seems obvious when you think about it, but I just applied lighting to the whole thing. The image I was using was the one below. Obviously it has been digitally enhanced but it gave me some good clues.

 

NathanFearsSatan, welcome to Melbourne, and thanks for stopping by. I've had a few people ask me about the MCG.. its not something I had planned to do very soon, mainly because its outside the city grid, (partly because it will be really hard lol) and I'm mostly focussing on CBD (inc. Docklands) at this stage. Which means one day I will work my way up to Etihad, and if Etihad is successful I might think about MCG

 

Oh, here's the updated day renders too. This is the 'historical' version of the building so I've had to make some stuff up, mostly the stuff on the roof. Often you can get historical photos or engravings of old buildings, but I couldn't find anything. Any thoughts let me know.

 

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I'd take it as is! The roof looks fine to me - very busy, but not over the top considering the pipe/duct spaghetti you sometimes see up there...

[Roger51 381]

Loving everything about it Maybe the metal is a little to reflective on the roof......but not to sure.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Twrecks.. still too busy you think? I originally had about 3 times that up there lol, I pared it right back. I'm trying to think of things I can type into google to bring up something that would be comparable to a roof of this era. I'll keep searching but if any idea anyone has?

 

Roger, yeah, thanks for mentioning that, I was wondering about that too. I will try lowering the reflections.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

No, it's fine. Leave it as it is.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Sadly its happened again... 101 Collins score just dropped in the last 2 hours. By my calculations that can only be because someone slapped a 1 on it

 

Never mind... I shall keep going

 

Here's all the night renders, unless any other suggestions thats pretty much it. I've gone as far as I can with it. I'll start exporting tomorrow night.

 

[SimCoug 5,973]

I love the historical Herald Sun building - the night lighting is spectacular!   

Regarding trolls bearing gifts of 1 star - there are always going to be a few bad apples 

Just know that you are doing amazing work - the fact that you are closing in on 3,000 downloads in less than a week is proof enough.  

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks SimCoug, I know you're right

 

Just thought I'd post this one last update as well, its the day render with less reflective metal textures. I also (obviously) haven't changed anything on the roof, it will remain in this configuration

 

[Jasoncw 11,841]

For the sign, not only is the back not lit up but about half of the sides is also not lit up.

 

It doesn't seem like you have ambient occlusion turned on for you materials.

 

You change the AO settings for all your materials at once with this http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2007/06/conversion-script-update.html although remember to remove any AO from glass, since it shouldn't have any.  I usually use a radius of 4.

 

And then finally, I think the real building has a really distinctive yellow color to it that I think you should work a little more at getting.  It's a tough color to get but I think it's one of the defining characteristics of the building.

 

 

Pretty much every file on the STEX from about a month ago to the foreseeable future is going to get downrated.  Right now there's literally nothing the moderators can do.  If someone wanted to they could register 100 clones and bring the rating of something close to 1.  Or they could do the opposite and all their files would be 5s.  Unless someone outright says they did it, or very publicly indicate that they did it, there's nothing we can do.

 

But I've found an easy to implement solution that would allow the admins or stex moderators to check the ratings logs when there's suspicious ratings, and I've proposed it, but ultimately dirk is the only one who can implement it.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks Jason-

• Re ambient occlusion, I have it on some materials but probably not all of them. I'll check tonight. I'll read the link as well, I usually try to turn it on but I have no idea what it does! (It looks the same to my eyes)
• With the sign, I just sliced all the lettering in (uneven) halves so the unlit portion does come up the sides even though it doesn't really look like it...I think the glow of the lit section is spilling over (Is that what the ambient occlusion fixes?)
• And the colouring I'll have another look at. I definitely don't see yellow when I look at the building, I thought greyish-tan was pretty accurate. The actual building is not far from me I'll go have a look at it on my way home tonight.

[Jack_wilds 550]

to that end... I do like the latest alliteration... as for those tolls boo-hiss for their bad sportsmanship... as for me I clicked a hearty '5'... trust all is well down under... if I were to get to visit Aussie-lands I'd go to Melbourne then out into the bush... Sydney looks to be too much 'noise'... but the harbor would be interesting to see...

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks Jack, I hope you do make it down our way sometime, lots to see

 

Here's a slightly more yellow-er version of the facade texture, and I've switched on ambient occlusion for the materials that weren't already - but actually, all the main ones were already... as I said, not really sure what the expected difference is meant to look like. As far as I've read, it kind of makes the shadowed areas a bit darker and crisper but maybe I haven't quite got the settings right, looks pretty much the same to me!

 

[Jasoncw 11,841]

The color looks much better now. 

 

 

Yeah it doesn't look like anything changed with the ao.  If it's really on, then the radius is probably too small because it looks like it's not on.  Try a radius of 4.  The default radius is sometimes really small.

 

The easiest place to see its effect on this building is where the cornice and the fence thing (the balustrade) meet, on the shadow side of the building, there should be a gradient where it gets darker as it gets closer to where the two objects meet.  If you search google for ambient occlusion, you'll see in the pics how crevices get darker.

 

To see the difference (or the difference between any other changes you make), flip between the old and new preview render either in windows image viewer or in photoshop.

 

Once you get the ambient occlusion set up, if your render times aren't bad, then also check the checkbox about accuracy.

[Darknono35 3,138]

Very, very beautiful building Reddon, you're an artist. You represented very well the building of your country, congratulations for your work.

 

The day and night render are stupendous so far  keep up this exellent work, buddy 

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Try a radius of 4.  The default radius is sometimes really small.

 

Once you get the ambient occlusion set up, if your render times aren't bad, then also check the checkbox about accuracy.

 

I meant to ask, (not sure if we're using the same version of 3DS MAX, I'm using 2010), but I don't have radius, or an accuracy checkbox. I have samples, they are set to 16, and Max distance, set to 0.1m. ... Oh, there's "Use Color From Other Materials (Exact AO)".. that would be the accuracy one? Seeing as you said the default value is small, I assume radius is Max Distance (now Im typing it that makes sense.) Not sure now if you meant 4.0m or 0.4m, I'll try both see how they come out. Please do let me know if I got any of that wrong?...Thanks!

 

Thanks Darknono too.. you always have such nice things to say

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Here's 3 versions... the first one is Max Distance 4.0m, then 8.0m then 16.0m. 4 seemed like negligible difference, 8 was pretty good,16 I wasn't sure... 

 

Its a bit hard to tell them apart when they're lined up like this, but when you flick between them in PS you can see the difference better.

 

I remembered there was some prior discussion on AO back when I was doing Eureka Tower, Jason you said in that post you shouldn't have the max Distance set too high otherwise everything gets dark.. not sure if 16 has gone too high?

 

Anyway, the three versions are here, perhaps let me know which one looks best to the expert eye?

 

 

Unfortunately, after my post last night with the nightlights, I had to shut down in a hurry and I lost it ... I've started re-making it but never looks as good. (I didn't have auto-backups on either because, I can't remember which one, probably 101 Collins, the saves were taking ages so I switched them off.. )

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Yeah 16 is too high. 

 

What happens is, it shoots out samples in random directions, and if the sample hits something before reaching the distance/radius, then it comes back as "occluded" and the surface gets a little darker.  An extreme way to think of it is to think if the distance was infinity.  If the distance was infinity, then it would always hit something, unless it was pointing slightly upward, where it would never hit anything.  And as you can imagine that's not very useful.  Somewhere between 4 and 8 should be fine though.  There's not a huge difference between 4 8 and 16 but there's definitely a worthwhile difference between .1 and 4. 

 

 

What's the reflectivity and glossiness set to for the stone?

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Reflectivity is 0 and Glossiness is 1. (I've always just assumed Glossiness only switches on when reflectivity is >0 ?)

 

Could it be anything to do with the shadow colour or ambient light colour? (or does the Exact AO override those?) Fyi, Shadow colour is default mid grey and ambient light is default black.

 

Just had another thought - I tried switching to the Masonry template material in Max (and changed the texture/ removed the bump etc)... I think this looks slightly better. Looking at the settings, a couple of key differences: Reflectivity set to 0.3, Glossiness set to 0.1, and Highlights+FG only switched on. It appears to have changed the colour a bit though...

 

While I was changing stuff, I lightened the roof materials as well, it looked a bit unnaturally dark before.

 

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Here it is again, this time with Reflectivity set to 0.1 and Highlights+FG switched off... I think this is better, some of the colour has restored but looking a bit more natural. I think I'm ready to call this one, its just tweaking around the edges now. I'm going to start exporting and test in game. Let me know any last minute changes. Luckily this model exports in only about 12 minutes.

 

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Exact ao overrides those but it overrides them with a more accurate color and I think it takes brightness into account as well, so that on the sunny side of objects there is less ao and in the shadow sides of things the ao is more noticeable, which is how it should be.  But yeah those colors aren't things you need to change unless you want hot pink ao for some reason. 

 

 

 

Yeah for every material you make you'll want to put some thought into what the different settings are.  Reflectivity should never be 0, and glossiness will generally not be 1 (although I think you're right, if there's no reflection then it probably doesn't matter what the glossiness is).

 

One of my favorite tutorials for using the arch & design material is this one http://www.ronenbekerman.com/making-of-esherick-house-part-2/ because it gives really good examples and has good tips.  Now, it's meant for architectural visualization so some of the things don't quite apply, for example he suggests having the glossiness samples be very high, when for BATing you rarely have to increase them, and some of the other things he talks about don't quite apply, but overall there are good tips and it gives a really good sense on how to go about making materials. 

 

 

I think you should change the color so that it looks like it did before.

 

The building might be slightly below the ground plane because it looks like around the bottom edge of the building there's a strip of darkness.  Also, the entrance is too tall and it's sticking out past the top of the base.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks Jason-

 

Interesting that reflectivity should never be 0. I have always set it at 0 for anything porous (brick, concrete etc)... I will definitely have read of that tutorial.

 

A weird thing with the colour now.. After using the Masonry template, I lightened the texture until it was almost white in PS and its still coming out like it hasn't changed, the only place where its changing colour is on surfaces facing upwards?? I have now reverted back to the earlier version, decreased the AO back to 4 and increased the reflectivity to 0.1. While the colour is better, the material doesn't look as natural. In the 'masonry' version, I thought the material looked like it was taking on more of its surroundings, while this version looks like its just projecting the texture I created in PS (if thats makes sense...) basically, this version looks a bit cartoonish to me.

 

With entrance being too tall, I've modelled it how I think it is (pic below) unless I've misunderstood?

You were correct that the model was below the ground plane. I thought it was just the texture alignment so glad you pointed it out

 

I'll keep playing with the stone and see if I can get the best of both worlds

 

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Ingame shots:

 

 

[InCommandOfCars 22]

Can't wait to have this building in game! 

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

To me the glare effect looks way too strong compared to the rest of the nite lites. The letters on the roof and the lamp on the front facade seem to make the rest of the building look dark and unlighted. But I seriously like this building

[darn42 1,268]

Yup, reddon, look around you and notice that everything is reflecting just a little bit of its environment. Whether it be highlights or color or whatever, everything is just the slightest bit reflective. Make sure to keep glossiness samples down when you do low gloss reflections though, they can kill rendertimes, especially in the full view that SC4 is.