The Random Project: SC3KU - Kuruptz Inc.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Looking great, i'd scale up Z axis 133% when you're done though, it looks a little stumpy and the NYBT guys scale up so it would fit in with any NYC recreation

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

Your model is looking amazing, Huston!!!

Btw, when will you destroy it?

[Huston 5,800]

Your model is looking amazing, Huston!!!

Btw, when will you destroy it?

 

It'll come soon enough... > : )

[Huston 5,800]

Excuse the double post.

 

But I've been side-tracked in terms of BATing since I'm pursuing several things at the same time. Right now, I'm BATing and rendering a number of different ships for personal use (may be even release), working on Two Times Square, BATing more Illium-related supertalls and more recently, the newest adition to the chronicle of Huston Corporation complexes...

 

I wouldn't say this was Huston HQ, but it could be...let's just see how more of these spring up.

 

 

Okay, this turned out a little brighter than expected upon uploading, but it should give you a little insight, and a little mystery.

[jmsepe 2,039]

Oh another one to download. Can I see the original image of this new building you are batting? 

[KonstantinII 1,106]

The way you did the corner is interesting.

[Huston 5,800]

@jmsepe - Thanks, here's a better quality and more completed image...

 

@KonstantinII - Yeah, I was thinking about it a little bit. Initially, the truss design wasn't there but I thought it looked good so I left it as it was. Glad you like it.

 

Okay, made progress on it over the day! Some of the texture are final, but I the rooftop and heli-pad concrete ground/floors is gonna need some work. Then there's the reflections. I was wondering whether to leave it like that or if it's too strong and noisy. Is it? And apparently the 'H' on the helipad is being engulfed by the surface of the helipad. I'll be fixing that eventually too

 

I'm pretty satisfied with how its turned out so far, but hopefully, some final touches on the bottom floor, rooftop textures and some little details should make it STEX ready.

 

[KonstantinII 1,106]

How about a skycar or small mass effect style shuttlecraft on the landing platform?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Interesting idea, but that would limit an otherwise generic building to sci-fi scenarios. If the LOD of that building was shaped correspondingly, people could add helicopter and/or space vehicle props (or even a Maxis helicopter effect!) to the roof as they please.

 

Back to the actual building, I agree that some roof textures and the ground floor need some work. In case of the ground floor, I think some adjustments to the model would help, too. The way it looks now, the ground floor appears to be very stumpy, as if the weight of the building above was crushing it slowly. Or as if it had been hastily shoved under the building like an afterthought, like a coaster under a beer glass. IMO it might be worth a shot to turn it into a lobby with a height of 2 or 3 regular storeys. I know that part of the stumpy appearance is due to perspective, but still: Somehow base and main tower don't connect visually.

 

As for the reflections, I agree that noise may be a tad too high. Other than that, it's a wonderful black box building, and I love what you did with that corner!

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Distortion 

 

And all that dots look like ... a filter I remember using in Gimp

 

And dat almost white render D:

[KonstantinII 1,106]

This is Huston Corp...and Huston makes Mass Effect stuff. So it wold be a kind of neat "easter egg" or a crossover to include a flying vehicle from Mass Effect on the roof. I the building is his BAT factory, and the skycar on top...just came out of the assembly line.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Yeah I think the glass is very off. The impression given from a mirrored glass facade shouldn't be "noisy" at all, instead it should be "wobbly" or "wavy". But for your reflections, except for the few large white areas, there isn't really anything in the ground plane for the glass to make wobbly. So the result is that your glass doesn't have anything to reflect, so the glass doesn't appear reflective, and then there are the patches of white areas which sort of look like the airbrush tool in MS Paint. Remember that your bump maps are simulating gentle bulges and distortions caused by air pressure and subtle manufacturing imperfections, and that your ground plane represents a generic simcity environment. The ground plane shouldn't contain any distortion and should be normal colors and not grey or blue or green (these are all things that are set in the material).

[Huston 5,800]

@KonstantinII - Like T Wrecks said, a lot of people would object to having futuristic content on it since it will limit it's generic use to sci-fi goers. However, I did edit the LOD as suggested by T Wrecks and you should be able to put stuff on the heli-pad, no problems. Besides, I have more subtle easter eggs  in the building that don't obscure the purpose of the tower.

 

@T Wrecks - Thanks. I've taken on board your suggestions and have made the lobby larger although I think I might make it a little taller than the pic I'm showing below. You might even notice the lobby is a reminiscent design of a particularly skilled BATer. I've also edited the LOD properly to allow placement of aircraft props above the helipad. It's the first time I've ever actually edited a LOD, even if it was minimal

 

@Toothless Stitch - Haha yeah, I'll be fixing that

 

@Jasoncw - Believe it or not, the ground plane actually has no distortions. It must've been the map I used, could've been far too strong. Otherwise, I'll definitely take all that on board and tweak the distortions as well as the reflecting material on the ground plane

 

k, slightly more progress. Rooftop's done. I really have to admit, I pretty proud of the way the ground textures look on it. It's the first time I've ever made a decent looking roof top on a tower or generic building. Huston Co. Municipal has nothing on this tower

 

 

 

Meanwhile, the ground floor lobby will not be looking like this in the final. But the general design that is more originally designed by darknono, I decided to mimic a bit because it looked so good, that it'd been great to see it on a final BAT. It will be kept, just moving it a bit inwards and letting the tower settle over a bit while making the lobby taller.

[SimCoug 5,976]

Looking good - the texturing on the roof is excellent but the helipad yellow looks too uniform and bright.  Maybe add some weathering to so that it blends a little better with the concrete (and maybe take the saturation down a bit)

[Huston 5,800]

Thanks SimCoug. I'll get right to that. Was conflicted about adjusting the texture on the H and circle, but I guess it's a better way to go. I just doesn't blend well, not matter how much I try to convince myself

 

EDIT: Ground Floor Lobby completed to liking. Reflections are still weird. Meanwhile, see if you can find an easter egg. Thing is though, you'll have to know what you're looking for.

 

[TCD 123]

You have so many different projects going on in all different genres. No idea how you're able to release several top quality models all in such a short amount of time. Times Square, SC3k, Sci-fi...

 

Your latest building looks really good. I think the window frames are too reflective. Something about them looks a bit off, but aside from that everything looks great. I especially love the roof and the custom LOD for prop placement is a great touch. Can't wait to see your night lighting.

[Huston 5,800]

^ Also that, might just change the material to arch & design instead of chrome. And in terms of variety in projects, I run several CJs with distinct themes. So that helps with me pushing my genre range to cover nearly all bases Time? It's summer holidays here, and the projects tend to be quite quick to do since I work with sketch up which simplifies a lot of things.

[Huston 5,800]

It's finished. That is, if there's any other final suggestions anyone has... that and I have a christmas twist to add to the building

Btw, notice that there is a rather substantial amount of the middle not lit, and that is because I haven't fixed the illumination map in that area due to general laziness (sigh). I'm rather okay with it cause it adds a rather mysterious element to the building (part of what Huston Corporation is about), but I'm not sure if anyone else agrees with the lack of lighting in the area. Want me to fix it, or does anyone agree with me?

 

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Better, still pretty strong but I guess people can live with that. Lightning is fine.

 

But I would appreciate it if you'd show us a preview where you can see that upper left corner of the building since I guess tha glass looks off there.

[tonyr 926]

Outstanding IMO Huston!

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Personally I think the glass needs a little more work. Or maybe show an in-game shot to see what it looks like. From this rendering it doesn't look reflective so much as daubs of paint.

Are you sure you're not using a distorted ground plane, it sure does look like it. How high are your noise and bump settings? Maybe they need to be lowered.

Also, what colour is your reflection swatch? I'm guessing pure white, try making it a darker grey. That will tone down the reflections allowing you to reduce the distortions and potentially bump up the IOR.

 

Does the concrete on your roof and helipad have any reflectivity? Not sure why is it so black in the night render? I'd find a way to try and compensate for this, it looks un-naturally black at night.

 

Super-super picky (ignore if you want) -

- The inner rail of your BMU track is a bit too square at the corners, it should follow the same shape as the outer track. (Can be tricky to get right, I have a method if you want me to share)

- IMO the 'H' on the helipad looks a bit more like an "I".

- Not sure you should have the top floor of offices lit up. The roof is sunken, meaning all of that mechanical stuff is sitting right above the top office floor. Its more likely to be a mechanical floor than office space. The offices behind the signage would be weird too. At night those signs would illuminate the office unbearably

 

Well that was a whole lot of negativity!.. The lobby looks great. Funny, it reminded me of Darknono's tower when I saw it and that was your inspiration. I really like the roof and the overall design of the tower with that corner piece looks really cool.

 

Hope you found some of this helpful

[KonstantinII 1,106]

Yes, I agree. This building is perfect as it is. Don't change anything.

[Huston 5,800]

Thanks guys, I might finalize and this and start rendering and shipping it off

 

EDIT - re-thinking and reading over comments D:

 

 

Better, still pretty strong but I guess people can live with that. Lightning is fine.

 

But I would appreciate it if you'd show us a preview where you can see that upper left corner of the building since I guess tha glass looks off there.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by the glass being off. Is there something I'm missing? If you need to see it, here's a zoom 4 render (also lessened the intensity by blurring the map):

 

[MTYland 35]

i think it's perfect

[SimCoug 5,976]

Helipad looks much better

[Huston 5,800]

Personally I think the glass needs a little more work. Or maybe show an in-game shot to see what it looks like. From this rendering it doesn't look reflective so much as daubs of paint.

Are you sure you're not using a distorted ground plane, it sure does look like it. How high are your noise and bump settings? Maybe they need to be lowered.

Also, what colour is your reflection swatch? I'm guessing pure white, try making it a darker grey. That will tone down the reflections allowing you to reduce the distortions and potentially bump up the IOR.

 

Does the concrete on your roof and helipad have any reflectivity? Not sure why is it so black in the night render? I'd find a way to try and compensate for this, it looks un-naturally black at night.

 

Super-super picky (ignore if you want) -

- The inner rail of your BMU track is a bit too square at the corners, it should follow the same shape as the outer track. (Can be tricky to get right, I have a method if you want me to share)

- IMO the 'H' on the helipad looks a bit more like an "I".

- Not sure you should have the top floor of offices lit up. The roof is sunken, meaning all of that mechanical stuff is sitting right above the top office floor. Its more likely to be a mechanical floor than office space. The offices behind the signage would be weird too. At night those signs would illuminate the office unbearably

 

Well that was a whole lot of negativity!.. The lobby looks great. Funny, it reminded me of Darknono's tower when I saw it and that was your inspiration. I really like the roof and the overall design of the tower with that corner piece looks really cool.

 

Hope you found some of this helpful

 

I'm glad you're getting in depth and critical. Always helps and it's really appreciated. So far in response:

 

> I have no idea why it's so dark. It could be because I overrided the gamma texture settings explicitly (not the gamma settings for 3ds max). But to compensate, I just adjusted the texture gamma, and it's a little bit brighter now, and not intensely black.

 

> Pardon my laziness, but the BMU track I'm not looking to fix. I'd love to get it right next time on another building, I just had some frustration with google sketchup's incompetence and I just couldn't get the inner curve to match the outer curve so I gave up and went with my best attempt I wouldn't mind you sharing your way of doing it though (but I'm not much a modeller in 3ds Max, most of my work is done in sketchup, and some rudimentary and miscellaneous details are done in the max).

 

> The H is a bit warped due to the style font I used. It's kind of a stylized H, same as the H in Huston on the tower's sign. I made a bit taller to make it look less like an I, but I think I'll keep that way.

 

> You have point there. I've blacked out the top floor now and in terms of the sign, even though there won't really be people on that floor to blinded by the sign, I've highlighted the back and sides of the signage and blacked them out as well, restricting light emission to the front of the sign.

 

> I've played also played around with the IOR, reduced the bump map intensity, changed the texture blur settings, grayed out the reflection color filter thing,  and I can assure you that there's no warping or distortion in the ground map. I made it myself, and there have been no settings applied to the material other than adding the reflected bitmap.

 

I'm not sure if it's turned out alright, I'll let you be the judge of it since you have quite a handle on this (and anyone else too who can weigh in on it)

 

[MushyMushy 3,618]

It looks fabulous!

 

My only question is if there will be a Maxis Night render (maybe not immediately, just at some point).

 

That question aside, it really does great (like all of your other stuff ).

[Huston 5,800]

It looks fabulous!

 

My only question is if there will be a Maxis Night render (maybe not immediately, just at some point).

 

That question aside, it really does great (like all of your other stuff ).

 

Definitely this time. I'm just rendering previews in darknite for convenience (and it's my preferred night setting).

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

The glass is looking much more reflective now. I think you could still go darker with the reflection colour but its pretty good as is. At least it looks like reflective glass now

 

I still think the night render looks a bit too black but no idea what you can do about that.

 

Good work.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Well, obviously I was wrong about the "glass looks off" comment", nothing to see there (though I thought I saw something strange on the renders before)

 

Some minor critique, like reddon's already siad, compared to the light, the night is too darkish which is having too much contrast und ruins the building. Also, I like how you lighten up and entire floor (Since this is really realistic), but sometimes it's a little too repetitive     

 

Anyway, good work.