Building Architecht Dude's B.A.T. Thread

[Building Architecht Dude 9]

Salutations All,

In lieu of my first two B.A.T.'s, the Austonian and the Large freight train station, I have decided to open a B.A.T. Thread to announce new projects, collect ideas, and to become a better Batter.

I have begun a new project which is 1400 Smith Street Houston TX.

I want to make the glass on this tower reflective, which is possible with Blender, but I have not yet found a way that allows me to convert the .3ds file directly to a SC4Model file. I have thought of one way, which is using the BAT4Max .3ds converter separately from 3ds Max. Don't know if this is possible, but I think it is. If anyone, however, knows an easier way, then please share.

What I have to work with

Gmax, Windows 7, Blender, along with some tools which I use to make textures

I look forward to doing more batting here on Simtropolis,

B.A.D.

[madhatter106 3,903]

I'll chime in with a general word of advice re: the thread - use a free image hosting site (such as Photobucket) rather than attaching pics directly to the thread. I'm lazy (and I'm sure I am not the only one) and just want to scroll through and read and look, rather than have to click to enlarge an attachment. Also, I'd suggest using the .jpeg format for the images.

Right now it's hard to tell on your first attempt - your attachment is rather blurry and grainy. I'll also wager (though I couldn't be certain) that doing a reflective glass texture in gmax is going to be nigh impossible. But I'm sure others with more insight into that will be able to know for certain...

[Jasoncw 11,839]

Yeah Gmax doesn't have the ability to do reflections.

In order to do what you're trying I think you'd essentially have to make a BAT4Blender.

First you'd need to recreate the lighting rig in blender, making sure that the sun and shadow colors and brightness and darkness, as well as the sun angles, are comparable to gmax's and BAT4max's. Then you'd have to bring the camera rig in. Then you need to set it up so that the renders are the same size as they would be if they were being done in gmax. I think this is the harder part.

Then after that you'd do your renders and you'd end up with a bunch of .png files, and from there you could reuse BAT4Max's stuff to turn them into .FSH files and insert them into the .SC4Model file.

Which would all be pretty complicated unfortunately. If you happen to be a student you can get 3ds max for free, but otherwise it's either gmax or BAT4Blender.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Yeah, I unfortunately need to agree with madhatter and Jason. Gmax doesn't have the ability to do refleactions as you could create them in 3dsMax. This was one of the main reasons for me to finally get 3dsMax. And as Jason already said you can get get it for free for 13 months (I'm not sure for how long exactly) if you register as a student. However, Autodesk will be publishing an updated version every year and afterwards they can be downloaded.

And another general advice: You should use the preview section of GMAX to create a render. This has one basic adventage: You don't need to wait the building to be exported. Also, you will have a plain black background.

[LivingInThePast 364]

I do enjoy BATs from Texas, will be keeping up with this.