Kinderly's Baltimore BAT Thread

[Kinderly 191]

Welcome to my BAT thread.

 

Having tried the BAT tool and learning all of the functions, I finally decided to make a BAT to show. 

 

As a native to Baltimore, plus the lack of any Baltimore content for SC4, I wanted to make my first BAT a well known, yet simple building. So I chose the Baltimore World Trade Center. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to work the renderer, as it was giving me a 1:4 image of zoom 5, instead I have in game photos.

 

 

Here it is compared to the Legg Mason Building by scotty222. It seems rather short, but those are the correct dimensions compared to the LMB in gmax as well.

 

I could also use some help with the night lighting as I can never get it to work once it's in game. Thank you to anyone who is willing to help.

[shinkansen1 84]

When modeling BATs for SC4, make sure they are vertically scaled to 133% of their "correct" dimensions. This is to ensure that they do not appear shorter than they should in-game. Also ensure that you make all effort to texture the building properly if you are doing a recreation. As one excellent BATer puts it: "Good textures are made, not found." Not having BAT'd before, I do not believe I can offer much more help than that.

[Kinderly 191]

^Thank you for your help.

 

I scaled the building up 122%, 133 was just too tall for me.(Keep in mind also that this is a draft quality model.)

[dabadon5 295]

Looking good so far, keep up the work ! 

[Darknono35 3,137]

Yep, the result is better after the scaled.

Keep it up man.

I think, you should try to use 3dsmax, gmax was obsolet for the quality

Baltimore is an interesting city, it will be funny if we can download several BAT from Maryland

[SimCoug 5,972]

I'm always glad to see new BATers entering the fray.  Keep chugging along!  

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Another new batter on an old game, Great!!!!!!

[scotty222 549]

Looks good so far you seem to have a good grasp on the basics of modelling.

with the renderer once the render is finished you can zoom in and out on the finished render with the mouse wheel. (if i'm understanding your problem correctly) 

also way back when I made the Legg Mason building i was using a 125% scale IIRC.

Good luck, and i hope to see more 

[Kinderly 191]

dabadon5:
Thank you!

Darknono35:
Thank you! Unfortunately I do not think that 3dsmax is something I can get at the current time. Maybe sometime in the future.

 

SimCoug & Aaron Graham:
Thank you both! I'm glad the community is still open to new BATers!

 

scotty222:
Thank you! Your help is much appreciated. My rendering problem was fixed.

____________________________________________________________________

Here is a high quality Z5 rendering of the building so far. 

 

There are still quite a few things I need to add, but so far I am happy with the result.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

The basic shape looks fine so far, you're definitely on the right track and making good progress.

 

It looks like you simplified the corners (where the five side walls meet) a bit (see the 4th pic on Emporis), and the horizontal dents between the rows of windows are also missing - so far.

 

Texturing this building will be quite the challenge because the structure is pretty much devoid of any interesting features. Getting the rooftop right will make it a lot more interesting to look at, though. I suppose the current wall texture is not final, but the overall result so far looks too far on the yellowish/greenish side of the colour hue spectrum to me. I'm confident you'll get it right, though! I'll keep following this thread.

[Darknono35 3,137]

Great progress so far

The model isn't finish of course, but we can see your improvement at this stage . In my opinion, if you'll done transparencies windows, do not forget blinds and stuff visible from the exterior

 

As T Wrecks said, your textures should be improved , the concrete need to be grey with a little bit of yellow .

But it's very nice for your first BAT here keep it up

 

You can found a lot of useful pictures on Emporis.com, and several informations on buildings, I use this site for all my BAT

For the roof, and sometime for the textures view from the sky, you can use Bing map

 

Good luck

 

To help you:

[edwardjeria 503]

Asome work

[Kinderly 191]

T Wrecks & Darknono35: 

Thank you both for your feedback! I think you'll both be happy with the result

 

edwardjeria:
Thank you!

______________________________________________________________

 

I've added blinds to the windows and the indents between them. I've also fixed the corners, even though it may not be very noticeable.

 

I still need to add some other minor things around the building, like the lights between the corners, and some other rooftop features, plus maybe the memorial in front. 

[Darknono35 3,137]

Great my friend  

[edwardjeria 503]

I like the touch of the blind, gives more realism, would like to see more realism in the roof, as we all know, is the part that is most certainly a long time I did not give my full support,unless someone starts with the bat, but you somber me, as soon as I create a work of art, you have all support and respect, luck my friend

[Fargo 543]

Bing.com/maps is a helpful source of reference imagery if you click on bird's eye view, and has multiple perspectives. Maybe this pic will help with details on the roof:

[Harry's Place 918]

nice job, looking good

[Kinderly 191]

Thank you everyone!

____________________________________________________________

 

I thought I'd go with a different view this time.

 

Keep in mind that the rooftop details do have textures. For whatever reason they didn't show up in the render.

I could also use some help with nightlighting, if anyone's interested PM me.

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

It's looking really good

[DCMetro34 576]

Wow, amazing work!! Being from Baltimore, it's nice that someone is BATting buildings from the city.  If I remember correctly, we have Legg Mason, rowhomes, and B'more maps on the STEX, but nothing else.  Maybe I should try to BAT a building or two. 

 

Edit: SC4 Devotion's exchange does also have the Domino Sugar plant.

[rathefalcon 395]

Looking good! For the missing roof textures, I find that simply opening the textures in the materials editor does the trick.

[Reddonquixote 4,338]

Impressive detailing considering you're using GMax, I especially like that detailing between the windows. I think your yellow facade needs a bit of noise added into it, it looks a bit flat atm, like Gmax palette colours rather than material textures. It's going well so far, keep it up

[Darknono35 3,137]

Your BAT isn't ready for the nightlight in my opinion. As reddon said, you should perfect your facade and roof junk.

Keep it up, you do an fantastic work