The Portland & Oregon BAT Team, Chapter 1

[bixel 1,228]

Wow! Lookin good!

[tommiej 0]

it really does looking good!! very nice, multiple projects, but all look awesome

keep it up!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Thanks again everyone for the comments and I am glad to see Waddle's is remembered.

Since my last posting, I have devoted quite a bit of time to Waddle's. I sort of needed a break from Standard Plaza. This past week has been spent completely rebuilding the model, a very time-consuming project. It was originally done in Rhino 3d, and exported into a 3d Studio file. It had a ton of Polys, so redrawing EVERYTHING was absolutely nesescary. I made a few corrections to the model and have hopefully scaled it correctly.

One big thing that I wanted was a good collection of vintage cars parked around the long entry walkway. I found a bunch and scaled them to match Maxis-made cars. Here's a screen:

I haven't been up to the building since Waddle's closed, but I think the building was that tall... I dunno, kinda looks fishy, but it works with the SimRuler well.

Next up will likely be adding gutters, roof junk, parking lot striping and plants. I need to make a better sidewalk while I'm at it.

Now that the building is a Hooters, shall I make a version of the building's new incarnation as well? I don't think it would be too hard to do.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

A lot is happening! Among the news and rumor mill of real-life projects coming down the line for downtown Portland, one exiting one came out of the blue and will likely begin construction this fall: Park Avenue West:

It'll be about 410 feet tall, mixed-use, with 35 or so floors on about a 200x100 ft. block (the Park blocks are half a normal downtown block width). Depending on how you measure existing buildings, this could be either the 4th or 5th tallest in Portland. So far I like the design and am willing to sacrifice one of my favorite restruants to get this building. I love the design, but I'm still trying to figure out how to just make a massing model of this...

After a little break on Standard Insurance Plaza, I returned to it and finished up all essential 3d modeling on it. Last night, I put it through a test export, and recieved these mixed results:

Here it is set up in-game to see how it looks compared to nearby buildings JtPortland and I have BATed. The scale looks perfect! The lot placement's a little wonky, as I haven't finalized the LOD's yet. I'm likely going to timker around more with texturing. A re-texturing of the windows as per Jason's suggestion is high on my to-do list.

Here's a close up of the 5th Avenue entryway. This is my first building with a sunken area,  and I am already learning some lessons for future reference.  One major one to remember is "Use custom LODs with sunken lots or it makes a moat around your building!

One positive though is that you can almost clearly read the Seattle's Best Coffee sign!

Now for another oddity in this render: the shadows. Seems like the bulk of them are correct, but shadows not only are cast for the hidden outer edges of sunken areas, but they are cast in a direction oposite of the light source!

[Andreas Roth 629]

Shadows and sunken BATs don't seem to mix very well. I'd suggest to ask JBSimio about it, as he battled with a similar problem with his Washington Highschool. That said, Standard Insurance Plaza looks wonderful, the texturing is excellent. Park Avenue West seems to be a great project as well, good luck with your efforts!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

^ What Andreas said. ^

Stunning work once more, sparky! And I bet the building will profit immensely from a "jasonification" of the windows. I just love those mid-rise buildings that look simple at the first glance, but are so full of details and of such a good quality. That said, we used to have jtportland's old classics on our SimsZone.de download area - would you mind us translating and uploading your more recent creations there as well to cater for the German-speaking audience?

One more thing that came to my mind is that One and Two Standard Insurance Center are very useful and realistic buildings, but look extremely blurry in game. Do the gmax files still exist? Would a little overhaul be a feasible option? You know, I think it dates back to SimCity 2000 when you basically had one big white box of an office building and one big black box building. SC3K also had the Silver Tower as white box and another one that was a tad boxy and black. With SC4, probably the best black box out there is your 200 Hatfield and maybe bixel's Sun Hung Kai Centre, and the ideal counterparts have always been 1 and 2 SIC for me. However, forced to reduce the bulk of my plugins folder for the next region, I threw the two SIC buildings out with a sigh because measured by today's standards, their blurriness really catches the eye. I just thought I'd mention it... never mind what I wrote, mere nostalgia.

You are continuing a great project here, and it looks like there couldn't be a better person for the job, so hats off!

[bixel 1,228]

OMG YES!!!! That looks amazing! Sorry about the shadow LOD issue...since you are using custom LODs..can you create a box that fits the sunken part then a box that fits the top part..collapse a box into a mesh and attach the other. Then make 2 more copies of that...there's your LODs. Maybe that might solve the shadow issue.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

For this building, even though the plaza is underground, you don't want the LODs to go underground at all.

Take a spline, and follow the profile of the building in the top view.  It will look something like a sideways lego block, with the planters being the pegs.  Does that make sense? lol

Then you want to extrude the spline to the top of the roof.  You don't need to include and of the roof junk in this case, just make it go up to the top edge of the roof.

A .SC4Model is made up of a few major parts.  a FSH file, which includes bitmaps and an alpha map, and the model for the LOD.

Think of both as being alpha masks.  The FSH alpha mask masks out the black matte of your rendered model.  The FSH is overlayed on the LOD.  In a way, the LOD geometry masks out everything outside of it's sillouette.  I hope that helps you understand LODs better.  They are hard to understand.  I can try to explain them better if you'd like me to.

Your planters will be tricky.  Isolating them from the building using LODs would be too hard.  Instead, you should isolate them using your FSH file.  In the BAT, modify the model of the planter side, of the underground part so that it's not there (that way there is nothing that needs to be covered up).

Alternatively, you could export the planters seperately as props.

If you need any help with the windows just ask.

[josefmayor 8]

Absolutely beautiful my friend, thanks I'll PM you when I get some free time.

It won't be for a little bit, we got our lovely Gasparilla parade and I intend on partying it up. ;-)

Gasparilla is Tampa's Mardi Gras, almost exactly except for Pirates take over the city.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

A lot of responses with geat commentary! Thanks everyone! I'll reply to y'all and show you some progress after that.

@Andreas: I think the shadow problem's fixed, see below. I can't wait to see Park Avenue West (or Moyer Tower as it has appeared in some places online). I'll have to get pics of the block going down before they tear it all out.

@T_Wrecks: 200 Hatfield? Sounds like a hybrid building that would be fun. The "Black Box" is 200 Market Place. Then there's another black glass building, Congress Center. But that one's hexagonal. The Hatfield Courthouse is just too way-out there compared to those two... Food for thought...

Certainly you can use my models for SimsZone.de. Go ahead and do what you must to make them available to the German market. I'd help translate it, but my German is very much out of use right now.

I'll talk to JtPortland when I can and see if a re-working of SIC is possible. You're right, it does look a bit dated. Over the years, many quirks of fate have conspired to wipe out Jt's GMax files. If he doesn't have the original file, I have a Rhino 3d model of the building that I can somewhat easily convert into a BAT for everyone's pleasure.

Right now, I guess I'm SimTrop's #1 Portlander! hahahaha. I'm going to see if I can't recruit some more BATer's to help Bixel and I out...

@Bixel: Gotcha on that! see below for my plan to ultimately fix the problem.... We ought to meet up soon. On Saturday, the OHSU tram's free. Have you got to use it yet? Benn through SOWA last week, and it is awesome!

@Jason: Yeah, I'll need your help with the windows, as I can't seem to find your windows advice on your 3 main threads. I also have a certain plan for the windows which may complicate things a bit. It's something to do with how I want to light the building up...

@Josef: Have fun down there! Sounds like fun!! I'll look out for a ST message from you. Lemme know a couple of days ahead of time, if you could please.

The advice on LODs helped me out quite a bit! Thanks, one LOD problem down, one to go...

Standard Plaza progress:

The "moat" is gone thanks to combining Bixel and Jason's advice into a LOD that works!

Now the shadows still appear. If you notice the example in the above pic, the left-most part of the left building is very close to the road. The shadow does not fall upon the road! It doesn't even go off the lot! I don't know why this happens or how to get rid of it. So why not "hide" it? This lot is 4x5. I want it to be 4x4. Because of some issues, the LOD makes forces this lot to be that big. But if I make the model as big as the lot (with some scaling and maybe using a ground plane), those shadows go bye-bye! Sound good?

Once I get this figured out, it is time for finalizing windows and lighting.

[josefmayor 8]

Oh yeah I guess I forgot to tell you I was lookin' around on windowslive of some Portland buildings and I wanted to say I was interested in attempting to design a few of the midrise-low rise buildings if you could provide pictures I can start modeling them.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

What buildings in particular do you want pics of? I can get just about anything... If you don't know what the names are, addresses, parts of town where they are will do, and/or a description will do. 

[bixel 1,228]

Sparky says: "So far I like the design and am willing to sacrifice one of my favorite restruants to get this building."

Oooh Virginia's Cafe is one of my favorite spots too. Can't they just do something to incorporate the cafe's architecture into the building? We lost Mary's Hamburgers to the Fox tower...and that was a Portland Icon, well it was for me anyway.

Any news on the plans for the old Meyer & Frank building? the old style facade is gorgeous are they going to keep it?

more Portland Architecural news here

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=399901&page=7

[Andreas Roth 629]

@sparky: Don't worry, both T Wrecks and myself are skilled enough to do whatever translation is needed. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the odd shadows will disappear on a 4x4 lot, as you have planned.

[bixel 1,228]

Hey Sparkythepenguin. I decided to to another PDX building! Can you guess what it is?

[Jasoncw 11,949]

The window texturing tutorial is buried in my thread somewhere, but here's part of it copied.  The first few steps are detailed more thoroughly in my Texturing Tutorial (in my signature).  If you have any questions, just ask.

4: Back in photoshop, use the rectangular selection tool to select entire rows of windows.  Make a new layer.  Use a really big fuzzy brush, and make some black gradienty looking things.  Do this for every row of windows individually, and then flatten all of the layers except for the background and your screenshot layer.  Right now they look too strong, and later you'll lower the opacity, but for now, hide that layer, but before doing so, set the layer's blending mode to multiply.

Also, fill your white background layer with a blue color.

5: Now make another new layer, and using a big fuzzy brush, cover the area with interesting shades of color.  I mostly use blue, with some green and purple.   Now use the gaussian blur, or your own favorite blending method to blend the colors together better.  Move this layer to directly below the layer with the horizontal bars of black on it.  Set the layer's blending mode to overlay.

6: Make a new layer and put it on top of all of your other layers.  Using a big fuzzy brush, cover the area with interesting areas of black grey and white.  Set this layer to overlay.

7: Unhide all of your layers except for your screenshot layer.  Adjust the opacity of each layer untill it looks good.  Now go back into the

BAT

, and in the material editors, underneath the area where the filename of your texture image is, it says reload.  Pressing that will cause the texture to reload itself, and it will update it with the changes that you made.  Do a preview render, and if you feel it's neccecary, tweak the opacities of some of the layers.  You can also make any of the layers more than once, to add complexity to the texture. 

If you'd like, you can save a copy of this photoshop file.  Then flatten all of the layers, and go to image>adjustments, and you can adjust certain aspects of your texture.  I find the brightness/contrast especially useful.  There are also automated adjusters, but they are designed for photographs, and might not give good results (but there's always the undo button!).

After doing all of this (it really only takes a few minutes, lol) you'll have what I showed in the first preview.

8: Go on the internet and find pictures of buildings with windows.  The windows should be large enough that you can crop out everything except for the glass of the window.  There should not be any window frames getting in the way.  These give you "window shapes" as well as basic window colors and values.  You can also make your own window shapes, as some features, like window blinds, might need to be exagerated for the detail to be visible.  Get at least 5 of these window textures, and put them into a single photoshop file.  Keep them as individual layers.  These are your stock window textures that you will use for most of your future windows.

9: Copy and paste on of your new window textures into your main window texture file.  Scale it down so that it only covers one floor of your building.  Position it somewhere in your texture, the closer it aligns to your building's windows the better.  Do this for all of your stock window texture layers, so that all of the area on your main window texture is covered.  Merge all of those layers down as you finish.  You shouldn't distribute them too spaced out, but you shouldn't clump duplicates right next to each other either.

10: Move your mega layer that has all of your stock window textures merged together to right on top of your background layer.

11: Tweak or add anything you think is neccecary, and you're done!

For your LODs, can you post a screenshot of them?

They should not be underground.  The shadow problem should go away when you make them not underground.

I don't understand what you mean by the LOD making the lot bigger.  The LOD doesn't need to be any wider or deeper than the BAT.

Looking good so far Bixel.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

@Bixel: Could that be Pietro Belluschi's Commonwealth Building (formerly the Equitable Bldg.)? Looking great so far!

I hear that the Virginia Cafe may relocate into the new building. I don't think it will be possible to add in the old building to their design. Tom Moyer's developing this one, and judging by his other works, 1000 Broadway and Fox Tower, nothing from the old buildings on those lots were incorporated into the new buildings.

The only real change to the Meier & Frank Building's structure is to punch a skylight through the top floors. It won't be noticible. They're probably going to reglaze the terra cotta like they did on The Galleria. Most of the major work involves the inside.

@Jason: You'll see what I mean about the shadows. I should have said that I'm making the model a tiny bit narrower so that it fits perfectly on a 4x4 lot.  My LODs don't go under ground at all, but I've figured out a good solution. Thanks for posting the windows excerpt. That'll help me out.

Sorry for the lack of progress over the week. Benn fussing with how I want this to light up. I tried lighting up the insides of Standard Plaza with omnis and other lights, but each attempt was a collosal failure. BAT seems to hate having a lot of night lights. Now nite windows, on the other hand, are allowing me a lot more flexibility for where I really have no choice but to use spots and omnis:

The sunken area, signs, and entry need lighting.

---

That green lighted thing is a weather beacon. It uses different colored and blinking bulbs to indicate stable or unstable weather of different sorts. I may brighten it up a bit.

---

I've been playing around with the Fifth Avenue entrance, trying to get the escalator area lit up. I'm probably going to soften the light up so that it is a little more witer, but with a tinge of yellow.

Still got to light up the signs. I also will likely slap some nite windows on the storefronts. Looks too weird all dark like that.

I just need to do a few more texture tweakings and some lighting before I export. I also will modify this model slightly to eliminate the sunken plaza for a stand-alone tower version (likely 3x4 lot size). I really want to release this within the next 2 weeks, if not earlier.

[bixel 1,228]

Hrmm: From a distance the night windows look great. From zoom level 5 though they seem...a little stretched? Gee Sparky that is a hard one...the omni/spot light at the bottom looks real nice as does the green light at the top. I do so rarely play @ zoom level 5 and even rarer still with the nite on but. I think the building looks amazing.

"Could that be Pietro Belluschi's Commonwealth Building (formerly the Equitable Bldg.)?" YOU ARE ABSOLUTLY RIGHT!! And I work there @ Leonidas Chocolate Shop in that same building. Come visit me anytime I work like 7 days a week right now. Its actually a very nice building and I am excited to be BATting it. I might BAT 1 or 2 of the buildings next to it but I haven't decided yet. Right now its planned as a 4x2 LOT to fit snug with the 2 other buildings west of it for that funky unique Portland Block zoning (4x4).

For you super hot stalkers (hopefully female) come in and get some chocolate I KNOW YOU WANT TO!! MWAHAAHAHAHAH!

[SimFox 804]

Leonidas Chocolates, eh?... he he he, why don't you sell Godiva's ones... :-)

[Glenni 1,447]

Nice work sparky, i too have had these problems with buildings with areas going below ground, and yet haven't  found any solutions...

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I like how you fitted the blocks Bixel.  Is that uvw unwrap?  I still need to figure out how to work that.  I understand the concept, but the interface confused me, and when I was following the tutorial things didn't seem to be working yet.  I also love long narrow buildings, as well as chocolate.

Sparky, that's too bad about the lights.  When you're working on the building, try hiding the lights that you don't need at the moment.  For me, the problem was always lag while working on it, not the exporting, so hopefully you'll still be able to export it.  The nitemaps look ok, but I think your original idea would look much better.  You can also consider only having a few rooms lit up.

edit:

LOL @ BIXEL

[bixel 1,228]

Jasoncw: You know what? I spent like 1 hour making/remaking the texture remaking the bump map trying to get the blocks to look right and messing around with the umv map for about another hour and render testing it. Pietro Belluschi's Commonwealth Building; looks exactly like that according to the blocks between the windows. I couldn't do it with a texture so I cheated. They are INDIVIDUAL BLOCKS!!!! Instances (copies) yes. And slapped with a texture that I DREW an edge on. Later because that surface is actually a metal..I will find a texture to correctly represent that shinyness.

Look at this amazing photo!!! Look at the CARS!! OMG I wish we still had cars like that!!

black & white

a drawing/paiting

recent

this building is resparking my interest in Portland so do not expect any HK buildings for a while...

Godivas Chocolates used to be Belgian chocolates...meaning.. they were Belgian made, Belgian recipe. However they have been bought by Campell's Soup - so I cannot say that they are still authentically Belgian.

@ Tom Moyer You bastard!

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Cheater!!

But that's ok.

"this building is resparking my interest in Portland so do not expect any HK buildings for a while..."

and when sparky posted that screenshot of the city, I thought, "if Bixel would work on Portland instead of HK, it would be done in no time!"

Thanks for posting pictures of the building, I really like it.  This will be a great addition to SC.  What year was the building made in?  It looks really old.  It reminds me of the early modern buildings from the 40s.  The roof area will look great in the game.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Sorry, no progress. Busy week the one before last, and spent this week recovering from it! Maybe more progress tonight or tomorrow...

@Josefmayor: I'm going downtown today and will try to get some snaps of the buildings on Broadway. Got a bunch of things to do today so can't guarantee that I'll have anything of use.

@Jason: The Commonwealth began construction in 1944, and opened in 1948.  It's one of the first, in not THE first glass-clad box skyscrapers in the US. It even predates Lever House in NYC.

The lighting problem is that I would have had to use over 80 lights to do what I wanted, and that does very bad things even in previewing. I'm probably just going to turn on all the nite windows, but make most of them toward the dimmer side... Standard Plaza has an open floor plan; there aren't really "rooms" per se as the building was originally configured.

@Bixel: Where didja get those pix? I may stop in sometime and see ya. Does your new interst in your hometown mean that the Henry and Union Bank of Cali are still on?

BTW: I took the last picture of the Commonwealt on Bixels' post. I posted it on Wikipedia, and copy-cat wikis copy everything line-by-line...

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Not meaning to bump... more progress on Standard Plaza despite the objections of my wisdom tooth. It's been quite painful lately and needs to come out!!!!!!!!! That's the plan for tomorrow...

Here's an updated lighting scheme for Standard Plaza:

I subdued the overall window lights, and made all windows "Nitewindows". I used an intensity 0f .2 for the minimum and .4 for the max if I remember right... The omnis in the base really fill that area nicely, but I think they need to be toned down by just a tad.

I don't know exactly how I will light the rest of the sunken area up, maybe some spots by the stairs? more omnis to fill in the area?

Just need to retexture the roof, and some other minor texturing issues, then this will go to the next step!

[bixel 1,228]

Looks much better!!! Really diggin it!

[gshmails 536]

looks great Sparky! I was told that what you did is not a bump, so don't worry. The lighting looks great. Normally there would be some wall lights near the stairs, but not much else since there is not much activity at night. Great work, and good luck!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Thanks! Are these lights keepers then?

Recovering from having a tooth pulled. Will be back to work hopefully within the week.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Feeling a ton better now, and managed to get some major work done on Standard Plaza.

Major Changes:

1. Changed roof texture, the real one is brownish like that.

2.  Retextured windows and drapes. Trying to get the exact  color of the drapes, and this is the closest I have so far.

3.  Added nightlights, may tweak the nite windows a bit depending on everyone's reaction.

4. scaled the entire scene properly, now fits perfectly on a 4x4 lot, wih none of those weird shadows!

Here's  the screens:

This was a low-quality export, btw...

 I think this is within days of completion! I'm going to hold off on exporting a final model pending comments here. What I'll be focusing on today/tomorrow(?) is making a non-plaza version and setting up the custom queries and menu icons. Saves me a bit of time while I'm awaiting commentary.

Comments/criticisms?  ALWAYS appreciated!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

My only comment is that peculiar sound of a lower jaw hitting the desk, sparky. This is poetry! I love it the way it is, and to my layman's eyes it looks like it's ready for a release!