Reddonquixote's BAT thread

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I'm glad you're working with the saturation on the church, it definitely needs some adjustment. Of course, the modeling on it is superb!

As for the tower, the texture's saturation and tone looks great in game. Of course, amazing job so far!

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks Sgt Pepper

Here's last couple of test renders before bed...

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

I agree with Vlasky, with the textures and with the impressive. I'm still stunned by the antenna. What you also need to work on is the scale. In this screenshot, it looks overscaled, the windows look too big. Maybe making them a bit narrower would make it look better.

EDIT: Oh, I missed this while i was writing D:. The base stuff makes it look even better. Two things:

1 Glass is either too reflective or/ and not bumped.

2 Work on the asphalt texture. The texture passes the marks and the stripes way too visible. It looks "horizontal", maybe you should try making it "rounded"!

But it still looks stunning

[libellibicus 396]

WOW. The base is stunning

[weixc812 509]

The reflectiveness of the volt glass really blows me away

So real and gorgeous

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Here's about as much as I can do for a couple of days now. I'd say the base is about 80% done now. Things to work on are:

1. Add a row of vent-windows around the top on all sides
   
2. I think the bright green shrubs need toning down a little bit
   
3. The roof still needs a bit more stuff on it
   
4. The pillars by the corner staircase are too thick
   
5. There's a funny blue line appearing across the bottom of all the glass. I need to do a close-up render to find out what's causing that...
   
6. I need to find a way to make the glass on those roof structures to be darker. They keep reflecting too much blue.
   

Anyone got anything else they can see let me know

[mity1021 6]

It looks absolutely amazing. Can't wait for this!

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Take a look at THIS LINK taken from bing.

Take a look at the stairs, they aren't raising on by one, there's a little plane between 5 or 6 stairs!

Also, those triangeled, glazed roof windows are a bit misplaced. And the rest of your roof junk doesn't fit the original building.

But if it is a building which is based on the RL one, then it's absolutely great!

[harishna 847]

Looks really good but you need to work a bit more on those textures. Overall it looks too saturated and some areas too clean, specially the roofs of the old buildings. The black roof on the red building almost look like a black hole. The concrete or roof texture looks like an inkblot from a Rorschach test (what I mean is that it is clearly tiling and that you mirroring it, a better approach would be to create individually customized textures for each section (I think Simhottoddy has a small tutorial on how to do this on his thread). Finally as previously mention you need to work a bit more on the glass, at least you need to add a bump map.

Keep up the good job!

[Bastet69008 1,102]

HEART ATTACK IN HERE SOMEBODY CALL 9-1-1 ! Holy mother of a sim this is awesome ! I think the textures are too saturated and as a result, the overall building looks too dark, but anyways this is splendid, stunning, unbelievable. That's a BAT of the year 2012 in my opinion.

Keep up the good work mate!

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Skyscraper - thank you for the Bing image! I didn't have any decent pics of the roof so made most of it up. These images are great, really helpful. I knew about the steps but I wasn't going to worry about it (artistic license ). Seeing as you called me on it I will fix it. I need to lengthen the height of the first floor anyway, its bugging me that it is so squat looking.

Harishna, thanks for pointing out the roof texture I hadn't noticed. I'll check out the tutorial you mentioned.

Re the red building, I haven't actually started texturing it yet. These are actually 4 separate models I'm compositing together. (Its over 300MB otherwise).

1. The tower is pretty much done, just going add a bit more to the roof sections.
   
   
2. The church there's still some modeling that's incomplete and I haven't done the glass yet. Also, its actually just one facade thats replicated on all four sides, but I'm re-thinking this approach as its stretched down two sides and squashed on the others, I'm not really happy with it. I went for a visit yesterday and took some photos so I have new references to work with
   
   
3. The heritage facade needs texturing, but the model should be pretty much complete. I don't think there's anything else to do except maybe with the roof, I haven't looked at the joins closely I've just dropped the model in.
   
   
4. The work needed on the base is listed in my previous post, and anything else you guys come up with
   

The glass is bumped... (If you look in the black mirrored wall you can clearly see it's bumped and that's pretty much the same settings. I even added a displacement map. I don't know what else to do. It might look better when I darken them. I'll keep playing with it!

Thanks Basket, and Mity, always nice to get some encouragement!

Re the saturation, clearly this is something I struggle with. I'll desaturate more but it always looks so washed out to me when I do this (You guys look at it and see dark/saturated - i look at it and see pale/anaemic.) This is a game limitation, yes? (or do I need to calibrate my screen in some way?) To me, the colours look good from a non-game perspective, its just the game requires lighter colours?

[His Divine Hand 244]

I want to start off by saying that you have been doing some excellent, and I especially appreciate a building like this as I love tall buildings with bases like that. But I do have a request for this, which you may have already planned on doing, but when you render this, can you render the church as a separate building from the rest of the complex, and just add it to the lot as a prop? It doesn't appear to need to be attached, and I could think of many uses for both 120 Colins and the church separately that can be done with the lot editor.

Thank you for your hard work!

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Hi His Divine Hand.

I had thought of doing the church as a separate prop, and probably still will (I might need help working out how to do that if its not obvious). I also thought of doing the same with the Heritage Facade, but that might require some fancy LODing so not sure if it will work.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions, I'll see how i go

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Here's latest update on the base incorporating everything listed above. I'm not really liking the roof texture I think I'll work on it a bit more later. Had enough of it for now. I'm interested to hear thoughts on the colouring. I've desaturated the colours a lot and its overall much lighter now.

[libellibicus 396]

It's looking pretty much spot-on to me

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks Libellibicus

Here's my last update for today with all the buildings textured and dropped in. just a couple more tweaks and its ready for night lighting.. Can't wait to have this one finished I'm getting a bit over it

[libellibicus 396]

The desaturation(?) of the Church has worked really well, as has the Heritage facade. I can't wait to see the Nighlights.

[Amthaak 1,501]

Whao!!! that is really very impressive!!!

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

OMG!!!!!!!!

Your doing such a wonderful job, keep it up.

I think your bushes and trees are to dark, i think you need to brighten them a bit.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

At the risk being shot now: I think this time the entire scene is undersaturated.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

I agree with T Wrecks... the colours look terrible on my machine - pale, grey and colourless. I desperately need to find a way to calibrate my display. I had a look at these images on an older laptop of mine and these texture still look too colourless, whereas the ones from the post on the 29th December look perfect on this machine but dark and yellow on my old machine..

[harishna 847]

I think you still need to play a bit more with the bump map, are you using the a fractal noise map? The church roof needs some attention the tiles are stretched, and the main roof texture is way too reflective.

I also agree that the scene looks under-saturated. The trees/bushes and grass are way too dark, the red bricks should have a bit more saturation, I think you should compare your scene with some maxis buildings that you consider to fit your scene. Simply get a screenshot and compare them in photoshop or gimp.

Cheers.

[mattb325 28,880]

Amazing progress on this; when desaturating, try to pull the colours more towards the apricot/reddish hue - this will lend itself better to the games palette and may avoid the grey washed out look (you won't need to desaturate as much in that regard)....but the saturation levels of colours can be very frustrating in SC4. Additionally, the slate roof on the little heritage building is too reflective...it should have a similar reflective value to your church roof.

All in all, this is amazing! I didn't think it possible to mix the old and new buildings so convincingly in a BAT.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks Matt, that's very helpful feedback. I also just went out and splurged on a new monitor, my laptop monitor doesn't have good calibration settings on it so hoping that will help a lot too, at least I can see the colours correctly.

Ps. Frustrating is an understatement!!

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Latest update with the colours, and a (bit prematurely) the first night render.

The shrubs and the wooden hut thing still need toning down, and I need to increase the contrast in the building stone, its looking a bit smooth and plastic now. The windows aren't reflecting the ground very well so need to look at that as well...

[weixc812 509]

Wow, the first sight of nightlights drives me mad, another dreamlike creation

[Girafe 1,729]

I think I never post here, however there is really good stuff and you are improving very well.

Anyway my thoughs about this project. I am really not fan abour "complex" as they don't integrate well in the game even if they are top quality.

Moreover I think that people will more enjoy to have separetly the church, the small building and the tower. It will be easier to deal with their own city.

The flora in front of the church is nice but at rear it should be more saturated. Select all your flora items, click right, property, select black return option, it will bring more contrast.

For the roof of the church, I think you are not good. Globally every big objects should have a texture and not only a material (without texture). Tiny objects like roof junk in aluminium or chrome could be textured only by materials but they are so small that nobody see it.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Hi Girafe. Thanks for your comments. I think in a previous post I said I would consider exporting the models separately, but its worth noting this is a RL creation and this is how the building has been built, to integrate with the preexisting heritage buildings that were on the site. Not everyone is going to like everything! Interesting observation about the church roof... of course it does have a texture but what your comment tells me is it doesn't look like it does... I have increased the contrast on it now, I'll see if that helps, otherwise maybe I'll replace it with something else. Thanks for the tip for the foliage, I'll give it a go.

[Za 164]

Quite a nice job you've done on this. I rather like the purple (and the night effects overall).

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Thanks Za.. I was worried it was looking a bit pink and dull at one stage but seems to be looking ok...?

There's still quite a bit of tweaking to do and its going to be a slow process... render times have slowed right down now