The Portland & Oregon BAT Team, Chapter 1

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Thanks for the well wishes on my B-day! This last week's been busy and all. Got through finals alive, and been partying too much. But this is turning out to be the start of a great year.

I couldn't resist anymore and bought SCS. More like Sim City: installation nightmare not worth the money"! Can't tell I don't like it, eh? In order to play it, I had to update my video card. While I thought I needed one so I can play World in Conflict as well, the new card is really only good for playing SCS. It crashes Civ 4, and today I hit my last straw with it when it crashed SC4. I can run WiC OK on my old card, so this one's going back to Best Buy! I only played SCS for an hour before deeming it garbage, so no biggie. Hopefully Game Stop isn't flooded with people trading it in- I can't return it to Fred Meyer. All in all I spent $300 or so on SCS and boy is it not worth it! Stay away from it, far, far away... Hopefully I can get some return on my investment. What a train wreck. If anyone's interested, I can write up a funny and witty review of why it stinks elsewhere.

So naturally these issues are affecting my BAT progress. GMax is crashing more often too. After my trip I will get the old vid card in. But here's some screens that I managed to get my PC to cough out:

60 m version:

Need to get it set a little more back...

30 M version

The lot is too big because I have to shrink down the LODs. Otherwise its mostly good to go.

OK gotta go now, thanks again everyone!

[Jasoncw 11,949]

oh no!!  Hopefully you can return it.  I've played the game and it sucks.  Just about everything about it.  And I honestly tried to play all three modes, to try and make something and have fun doing it.  But it simply didn't work.

At some time I said something along the lines of SC4 (and games in general) being about engagement and reward.  SC4 has engaging gameplay, and when you take a step back, you're rewarded with a city with some certain qualities about it that you like.

In SCS, the gameplay is very un-engaging.  You simply go through menus, and fulfill societal demands so that you can build more buildings.  That's really all there is to the gameplay.  There are some variants, but that's what it essentially comes down to.  But in addition to that, the menus are tedious, and there's not really anything fun about it.  But the game is actually very confusing.  It's very simple, but a lot of aspects are very confusing.  The menus are hard to use, the gameplay characteristics of the buildings aren't logical, and nothing is very natural.  In SC4, it was complicated, and took a little time to learn how to manipulate your city, but from the start, you understood the general effects certain things should have, and if something wasn't working right there were logical things to try that would probably work.  And then there's the reward part, which just can't happen in SCS.  Everything is simply ugly, which ruins that potential reward.  There is nothing intricate about the game, or realistic, which ruins those potential rewards.  There's nothing to feel good about after you've done something.

Ultimately, SCS is like playing a puzzle.  But all of the pieces are square, and the image you're recreating is a solid grey.

Now on to your building!  lol.  For some reason it seems different now, I don't know if it's because I haven't seen it like that for a while.  But it looks like it might be too bright and yellow.  Can you plop it around in some cities for us?

[Sim shady 12]

I kind of wish you would change the texture of the trims on the roof to slightly differ from the wall but alas, its probably too late.

[1ajs 49]

the latest version is looking realy good

i would add a bit of grit to it maybe

[Andreas Roth 629]

Heh, I could have told you beforehands that SCS is not exactly worth to buy - not even for ten bucks. Anyway, the size on the last pic looks ok to me, no need to do any big changes anymore. I'm not quite sure about the blue awnings, though, maybe you should desaturate them a bit (the color that Porkissimo used looks more convincing).

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Greetings from the Valley of the Sun! Its been pretty rainy, and I guess I haven't been able to escape the flooding. What they say is bad rain here is NOTHING compared to Oregon and Washington!  It was weird to land at PHX with such bad weather. Usually coming into PDX is much bumpier.

Finally the sun came out today, too bad it was after I went to see Taliesin West yesterday. (We're just down the street from Frank Lloyd Wright's former summer home!)

On SCS: I find it funny that somehow clock towers ooze out "Authority". If only they'd have built more public squares with clocks, the USSR would have survived!

I'll get right on the advice y'all gave as soon as I get home and am settled in. While waiting for the MAX Red Line on Monday to the Airport, we spent a lot of time at Pioneer Square at the station. It is right across the street from Jackson Tower, and I'm like, "did I get it the right size????" You guys seem to like it, just need to tweak some stuff. Still need to add those arch window frames that Jason wants.

I'll check in on other stuff later tonite. Its about time I started looking at the other threads! Just been so dang busy....

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Hope everyone who celebrates it has a nice Xmas! OK been back for a while from Phoenix, heading down south to Eugene tonite. Too much travel! But its cool to get out of town for a while.

I've been a little busy with social stuff, travel, and been doing my spring cleaning early (I don't like to do it in Spring ). But I have started up another Portland BAT (You'll see it in a few days I hope), and before I do ANYTHING further on the Jackson Tower, I have done as Jason suggested and plopped it around a city full of Maxis and BATed buildings so that we can settle the texturing issues once and for all. I'd really like to get this done by New Year's, but we'll have to see about that. Lots of social obligations to do before then....

Here's some in-games of the fully textured Jackson Tower, in-game, at zooms 3 and 4 (or 3 and 2, can't remember!). I exported it at lo-quality and I still need to fix the LODs so it fits on a 2x2 lot... I just put asphalt base textures on the lot where the road ought to be.

So have at it.....

[bbfan02 23]

Great job!

[bixel 1,228]

ok. RELEASE IT ALREDDYYY, I've bitten off all my fingernails in anticipation!

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Hey!  Good to hear from you.

Yeah, it seems really yellow.  I think you could make the textures colored more like the buildings you plopped it by, before doing the final export.  I think New Years is definitely doable.

[RON-E 0]

i like it! very nice! great filler lot!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Happy New Year!

OK hopefully this is not too yellow and the awnings are desaturated enough:

I used the white buildings in this area to compare the new wall textures.

working on some other projects as well... Want to get this one out of the way soon.... Modding to begin soon hopefully. Any changes better be small ones that you want. The point of no return has been crossed!

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I think the textures could still have more purple in them, but I'm just being picky I guess.

Looking forward to the other projects.

[bbfan02 23]

The "awnings" stand out in regard to the whole building. The building itself looks great.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Jason, more purple in which texture? The walls, awnings, and/or anyother?

bbfan02, is that a good thing?

[crazyarchitect 7]

It looks great in my opinion

[bixel 1,228]

Believe it or DONT! But I finally got the Equitable Building DONE!!!! Whew! I am sending it your way in about 1 hour.

[Interchange 0]

Wow, the Jackson Tower looks awesome!

[bixel 1,228]

Hey Sparky, if you feel the base of the building is to long (not wide) I can squish it, get rid of most of that side walk area so you can Lot the Portland sidewalks properly. the only problem is that with 3ds max and Light Tracer (which I use) getting rid of a 'ground' makes the bottom part of the building very bright, the gradient is created from calculated bounces of rays to create shadow.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Why not make the ground not visible to the camera?

[bixel 1,228]

ahhhhhh, lol, thankyou for solving that problem hahahahahahahahha

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Sorry for the lack of posts. I just don't really go and post stuff much except in here. Haven't really felt like talking about stuff and been more about actually doing things... You'll see!

I have got Bixel's Commonwealth Building, and will have it and Jackson Tower out soon. I'm striving for a personal best, something I can pass off as my own version of the "Oktoberfest" that BSC does so well.

So with that said, enjoy the following 5 BATs that I have been working on the past two weeks. 3 of them went from 0 to nearly fully modeled in the same week!

Off the shelf again is the 511 Building, AKA the Portland Medical Center. I even got all those mechanical thingies on top modelled in!

I decided to jump across the river to slap together two 1970's highrises in the Lloyd District, the Kaiser Permanente Tower and the 700 Llody Building:

Kaiser Permenente Tower:

700 Lloyd:

Back into Downtown for another bit, since tax time is coming up, the Federal Building BAT should get people familiar with where to go at the last minute:

And last, but not least, you can't have mid-century monstrosities without the downtown Hilton:

The base was added later (replacing a truly UGLY, unfriendly 60's design) and took me a whole week to BAT it just right...

Just thought I would let everyone know what I have been up to. I haven't gone away, and by far I am not yet done. Its nice to take winter term off! I've gotten so much done!

[nofunk 1,933]

Wow!! These all look great! (Even the 1970s boxes -- we need more of these in the game.) Nice job on the roof junk, too.

I look forward to the release of all of these.

Also, I'm busy with my Hotel Wolverine right now -- I've finally found some inspiration and TIME -- but once it's done, I'll be tackling Terminal Sales!!

[KingTitan 6]

Looks to be a fatastic structure...fits very nicely into your surrounding buildings.... Great stuff pal.

[Sim shady 12]

OMG! the irony is that there are so many ugly as heck 70s hig/mid rises in RL and like none in the game, obviously because they are ugly. Thanks for adding/planning-to-add another set of depth to the game

[Jasoncw 11,949]

The modeling looks great on all of them.  The roofs are great.

I need to get my act together with my BATs, I've been working on the same buildings from Detroit since 2006. 

The game definitely needs these buildings.  There are very few high quality buildings like these, and they are so common in real life.

It's great to hear you took the winter semester off, lol

[bixel 1,228]

WHoAA you been busy!!! XD XD XD

[sparkythepenguin 90]

I hope to have all the detail modelling done tomorrow, and hopefully textures and lighting will get through next week. 

The Jackson Tower and Commonwealth Buildings will have custom queries as they merit them. They're quite special buildings. The others aren't really noteworthy in any signifigant way. Just so a realistic CJ of Portland can have some more empty lots filled in.

But then again, evweryone seems to really like them. But alas, sorry no custom query. Not too much unique or to say about the boxes.

I have 5 more things cooking, but first things first.... HINT: One of them is not in Portland or even the State of Oregon, but it is in the Portland Metro Area. Probably the most unique building in that town....

[mcarch 15]

They look good!!!

[Jasoncw 11,949]

You should do some research, a lot of buildings turn out to have stories. Maybe they were built on important sites, or maybe there were important guests or tenants.