dline's bating progress

[darn42 1,268]

What are your computer specs?

 

Also, what are the dimensions of the box? You probably have the default settings on for BAT4Max for general rendering which are rather high, and if it's a big box, it will have a lot to render. Try a 10x10x10m box. 

 

In the meantime I'm happy you finally got 3ds max You have a good attention to detail and I don't want that to get lost in gmax. You will have a much easier time making buildings to the detail level you want in 3ds. Have fun

[dline 20]

prosessor amd phenom x4 3.00ghz

ram 8gb

windows 7 64bit

 

yes it is a 10x10x10m box

here is a screen shot

 

why is my render window stretched so much when i try to preview ?

when i use the teapot render it only takes 3s

[dline 20]

Well guys and girls im unable to get my head around why 3ds max is taking so long to preview render with bat4max so for the time being ill be sticking to gmax on a plus not i can now preview in hd with gmax and the quality in zoom 5 is much better

 

So here is what ive been working on.

I think the quality might have something to do with bat4max but im not complaining compared to this.

And i did a quick test in game and works just fine

 

 

[darn42 1,268]

Your box is off in nomans land, and that might have something to do with it. Actually it has everything to do with it. Go to the move tool, hit f12, then for each of the numbers on the left side of the dialogue box that pops up, right click the arrows to reset them to 0. This will move your box to the origin. Then, in the bat4max rollout, create LOD 3, it should be completely conformed to your box you made, and then hit create lods 4 and 5. This should set your preview window to not take up all of space and time like it is right now. Then preview, it should be fixed.

[Jasoncw 11,839]

I'm not sure but I think it has something to do with units.

 

Start a new fresh scene, and then before doing anything else go to Customize>Units.  Change the display units to meters and then press the System Units button and change that to meters as well.  BAT4Max will change the units automatically when you set up the rig and stuff by pressing the BAT4Max buttons, but sometimes it seems like if you model something before doing that, it gets weirded out.  Everything will render to the right scale but there will be a lot of extra space for some reason. 

 

Anyway, like I said I'm not sure what of that is necessary to fix the problem but I think doing all that before doing anything else should solve the problem.

[dline 20]

hi guys ive done what you have suggested and set the meters in both unit setup & system unit setup. created a 10x10x10m box then created LOD3. yes it conformed to the box then created 4 & 5. then in preview i set to zoom5 with hdoutput and bingo it works so a big thank you to you both. im not sure how it ended up doing that but now ive got it to preview render. the problem has not come back when i close and reopen 3ds max i think it does have something to do with system unit setup.

 

all 3 renders took seconds (day, maxis nite and darknite)

however if i make a box of 1m square then lower the system unit setup to 0.01m (1 cm) it also srinks the box ive made. but i can look that up on google or youtube  sorted

 

anyway ill be finishing The Schermerhorn Building in gmax then start any new build in 3ds max. ive got the 2nd and 3rd floor planed out on paper.

[AndisArt 2,066]

Glad you got things worked out for 3ds max. And exciting start of a new BATer!

Looking forward to more, you're doing really well so far

[dline 20]

ive just spent a few minutes make this for my profile pic with 3dsmax

its beginning to grow on me lol

[darn42 1,268]

You can export your model you have so far as an .obj file and import it into 3ds max and continue working in 3ds. You'll have a much easier time of it too as the modeling workflow is much easier in max.

[dline 20]

ive have attempted to export it but gmax will only let me make a .p3d file and 3dsmax does not see it ?

[Jasoncw 11,839]

gmax has most of its exporting removed specifically so that you can not use it with professional programs.

 

I think there's a way to get gmax models into max, but you need to download a billion different file converters to link together what gmax can export to what 3ds max can import.

[dline 20]

And so it get taller and taller but the hard part is yet to come

only 2 more floors then the roof, back 2 sides, windows, textures, lighting, i better stop before i start banging my head on my desk lol

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Well, I haven't gone 'counting bricks' to determine how close you are to the original, but the model in itself is looking great so far, that much is certain! You haven't compensated for the squashing effect due to perspective in SC4 yet, have you?

[dline 20]

T Wrecks

not yet mate that is on my todo list.

 

ive spent a few hours solving a "flushing" problem i had with 3ds max when trying to export. running as admin seems to have solved the problem. ill be looking at maxis nite and truenite exports later but at least i got a simple house in to loteditor.

[Jasoncw 11,839]

If I were you I would restart the building in max.  It sounds like a lot of work but really you'd be loosing less than a week worth of time.  Usually the "work" involved with modeling is figuring out what the sizes of things should be and making sure that it looks good, not the actual act of making the boxes and stuff.  So remodeling things that you've already figured out usually doesn't take a lot of time.  I think in the future you would regret having the bat stuck in gmax when you could have spent a few days to have it in max instead. 

[dline 20]

Jasoncw

lol you have almost read my mind there. and the level of detail i could get would be far better. ???????mmmmmmmmmm????????? what to do, what to do. look like i have to have a play.

 

on a different note i gave scaling it up a try but i only seem to be able to scale in xyz and not just vertical. probably something im doing wrong (but im still learning )

[Vlasky 1,803]

yeah yeah yeah ur good!I get it! there's a bright future for u!

[Jasoncw 11,839]

For the scaling, the icons with little arrows in the corners, you can hold them down and variations of that icon's tool will show up.  There are different types of scaling and I think the default is uniform scaling on all dimensions.  I'm not sure.  Anyway, trying out the other scaling types should help.

 

 

Here's a direct comparison of the same model in max and in gmax.  Not only are the details rendered more clearly, but the lighting is more natural and allows you to see the forms more clearly.  This doesn't include textures which can be rendered way way sharper in max, and it doesn't include "fancier" material stuff which also adds a lot of richness to the building.

[dline 20]

thank you for the scaling onfo jason i have decided to finish this build in gmax then move over. im confident i can do it justice. ( i have been running 3dsmax to get used to it ) i do agree the quality is much better.

 

[dline 20]

well ive been working with 3ds max for the last few days and im getting the hang of it

this is only 1 editable poly and ive used cuts,extrudes,bevels,and insets. so ill just keep plugging away at it and at some point ill get a full building done lol.

[darn42 1,268]

Don't forget connect, swiftloop, and slice plane. 

 

Also, everything shouldn't be one editable poly, or atleast not one element. Keep your elements logical. Windows are not meshed with walls at a physical level, just attached to window frames which are attached to the walls. Keep that in mind. Don't put in extra work to get a less realistic result

 

Looks good though.

[dline 20]

hi guys i havent given up what with 60 to 70 hour work weeks sometimes all i want to do is come home and sleep lol. but i keep plugging away at it and learning more.

 

here is a little shop ive been working on

i know it's not that big but i'm enjoying making small builds thay dont feel like work. as you can see with this pic im working on textures and reflections.

 

feel free to give me your thoughts

[Jasoncw 11,839]

So far so good, but I think you might be getting a little too detailed with it.

 

There are a few things that stand out that should be fixed though.

 

One, is for the steps, the smoothing groups are set incorrectly.  You can use google to learn about smoothing groups, and where in the menus you can control them.  Basically what they are, is imagine you have a sphere that is supposed to be perfectly round.  Of course you don't have enough polygons (which are flat/straight) to make it actually round, so you just have "enough" polygons, and then smoothing groups make the hard edges of the polygons appear as smooth edges, so that it looks like the sphere is round, instead of faceted.  But anyway, since you want all of your edges on the stairs to be hard, you can turn off all smoothing groups.

 

The other thing are the materials of the porch and steps.  The porch itself is brick.  And then on top of that is concrete.  But right now the concrete has no thickness.  And the other thing is that the steps are concrete which is fine, but the back side of the final step (that is flush with the brick porch) is there too, and really that should probably just be brick.

[darn42 1,268]

Another quick way to reset the smoothing groups very well for most cases, is to go to the graphite modeling toolset, and under smoothing, select "smooth 30" or "hard" this will either turn off all smoothing groups, or make smoothing groups with a tolerance of 30 degrees (rounds all edges less than 30) in one button click.

[dline 20]

thanks for your input jasoncw. the 2 things you pointed out i have fixed

 

here is a sc4 render

ive added slabs to the steps and taken the smoothing away i dident realise it was there lol

 

i made the sign texture myself with gimp but i dont want it to look so clean and i havent figgered out how to do that yet (same with all textures realy there to clean)

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

For the sign: In Gimp, you could simply use the noise modifier or the burn modifier. Also, you could work with falloff maps and. You could use different layers and turn the opacity of the upper layers down so you can see through the layers. 

 

Another way is using 3ds. Darn made a wuite good Tut on composite maps and so on. It's mainly about procedural textures made in 3ds max's Slate Material Editor. [

[dline 20]

well i have had a play around with textures with gimp and 3ds max and im getting to understand how thay work here is a pic of the texture changes.

 

on a completly different note i have a little guessing game for you all

what building is this going to be based on and what city is it in. ? (start you google earth search now ) 

 

yes its a bit windy at the moment.but it came together very quick now i had time to get used to max.

 

ps at some point i will eventualy complet a building and upload it lol but right know there isent enough mt dew in the world to keep me ticking over however the advice im being given has and is helping me very much.