The Portland & Oregon BAT Team, Chapter 1

[sfobb 0]

Great to hear that you're back! When is the Sim City day at OMSI? I'd love to go and it would make a great excuse to visit Portland again.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

It's actually some kind of city planning day, and we're just goijng to be a booth there. It's on October 22nd. Will have more details this coming week.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Yesterday, I took the time to fix the links on the first post of this thread. The first post in this thread now has an updated list of every BAT in the Portland Project done so far, and where to get them. Convienent and all in one place.

OK now some progress on the ODS Tower front, with some real-life pics to compare:



The big Sim City OMSI kiosk project proceeds. Thanks JtPortland, Portlandexpos, and Arcedelia for your help so far. JtPortland, if you see this, please let me know if we can use your excellent model of Portland from your city journal. We need to know soon about this.

Is anyone else having problems editing their profile? I can't seem to get in and edit mine. Says I'm locked out of my own profile. I'm sure it'll clear up soon.

That's it for now

-Sparky

[jtportland 184]

woa! looks amazing! exactly like the real thing, i can send u some roof junk for this one if ya need any. keep up the awesome work

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Would appreciate roof junk. The stuff I can find isn't up to snuff. Hey Jt, do you have the texture you used on One Main Place? I can tweak it to be more white and it would be perfect for the ODS Tower's walls. The walls are really white, and I can use that texture.

Thanx for the compliment. Lots still needs to be done. I still have to make it look as tall and thin as it is in real life, kinda weird for such a squatty building. Once the main structural elements are finally modeled, I'll pull it up a bit according to the add 2 feet for every 10 feet BAT guideline (may have the numbers wrong, but I mostly do this all by scale and sight).

Will work on it some more soon.

For the next project, I'm cooking up a simple building plus a complex one. Ever hear of the Ben Franklin Plaza or the Bank of America Financial Center (which has the most awesome lobby in Portland)? Maybe they will be next. Kind of a waterfront Mid-rise series... After all, you can't have the ODS Tower without the BofA Center! Kind of like having the Fox Tower without ODS Tower, it's plainer sister.

[JohnB 66]

Wow thats realistic. This is going to be one cool building. Looks like the real building so far. Cant wait till this is done.

[sfobb 0]

Looking great there!

[Superstar 69]

Great to see this back on tracks again, hope it stays so this time! So far the new BAT is looking very good, can't wait to see it complete

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Thanks everyone! I'll probably not be able to get much done on it today.

JohnB, I like the status report you have on the USX Tower's progress. If I could edit my profile, I'd do something like that. So, what I'll do is write it in a post here.

So the ODS Tower progress so far is:

Preliminary modeling: Complete
Main tower modeling: 95%
Roofs: 80%
All windows: 90%
Base modeling: 10%
Roof junk: 0%
Texturing: 0%
Night lighting: 0%
Scaling: 0%

The lowest part of the base and the skirt around the tower's rooftop service core are next on the to-do list. Pretty simple stuff, I think.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Another progress report for everyone. Been a little busy with the OMSI Sim City booth project the past few days, but got a ton done on ODS today.

Enjoy this day and night shot of the front and lobby entry!



progress as of 10/10/05:

Preliminary modeling: Completed
Main tower modeling: Completed
Roofs: Completed
All windows: Completed
Base modeling: Completed
Roof junk: 0%
Texturing: 99%
Night lighting: Complete
Scaling: Completed

Hope to have roof junk, final texturing done this evening and ready for export tomorrow.

[bixel 1,228]

That's HOT!!!! I love your work and Jt's stuff as well, I live in portland, I'm glad to see this is still going.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Another Portlander! Yay! If you like that one, there's more coming so long as I can keep up this momentum. As for the next project, I am thinking there is a major Portland-related thing missing. I am suprised that SimGoober hasn't BATed it yet.

But I am really leaning towards a Portland retail icon: a Fred Meyer store! Meier & Frank is another that needs to be in here too... I've just done office building stuff mostly, so this'll be a new direction for me.

For the most part, the next couple of BATs will be some simple, but nessescary Portland BATS: A 1950's Fred Meyer, a 1980's Freddies, and a new Fred Meyers. Plus the Mid Rise Ben Franklin Plaza. The next BAT of complexity will be the Bank of America Center. Perhaps it shall be a test of how many BATs I can push out. Will be fun whatever happens, but gotta get the OMSI kiosk project done first.

ODS Tower is rendering right now. Need to test it out a bit first, but will have screens when I get the primary test render into Sim City!

[Andreas Roth 626]

That's a really nice building, a welcome addition to the other Portland BATs. However, I suggest to check the textures in the game before rendering the whole thing. The BAT seems to brighten everything a bit, and I fear this building becomes brigth white, without any distinguishable detail left. Looking at the pic of the real one, I can see it is kinda bright, but it may look odd in the game anyway. Maybe a slightly darker window texture could compensate it.

[Superstar 69]

Yes, I agree with Andreas Roth, the main cause of brightness is the windows, lower the bright green to a darker green and it should look really sweet!

[Glenni 1,447]

hey cool building!nice!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Thanks for the comments everyone. You guys are great! Had a problem rendering it, but Pegasus helped me by suggesting the Scrubbing the BAT bugs by merging trick, and that worked.

@ Andreas Roth & Superstar: The darker windows would probably be a good idea. The windows are some sort of blue/green tint which are very see-through, and non-reflective for the most part. The rows of spandrels below the glass facades are quite a bit more on the blue side, but still is darker. I'll darken those a tad and see how they come out. They'll probably stand out a little better. I'll show you the in-game shots of that model and see if it's just me that thinks it's sort-of brighter than the sun!

Thanks guys for the feedback. With your help, this will be better than what I have previously done!

Will post some in-game pics in a little bit. It'll show the roof junk that I added. I don't know if its enough roof junk, so I'll ask y'all and add some for the next render if you think it is nessescary.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Here's some views of my beta render. Haven't been able to do much in the past day but look at the beta ODS Tower and work on the OMSI project.



The windows came out OK, but I'm not sure. Went near the actual building today and the windows seem to match. I'll find a good sunnier day photo of the building to post. The two that I used above were taken on days that were gloomy, Portland's usual winter weather. They're much lighter than the photos, but I may tweak them just a bit darker to stand out better.

Is there enough roof junk? If the responses warrant it, I'll try to add more.

[jtportland 184]

looks really great! here are two new textures you could try using for the window and white texture:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/6343/ama04green1uj.jpg

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5999/marble073uh.jpg

[Superstar 69]

Excellent, those textures look like they can definitely work, give it a try!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Hi everyone. Much progress to report, so let's start with the screens. I think that the darker textures worked better, and with some help from Ardecelia last night (gotta love Yahoo IM!), we may be, if not at, then closer to a finished product. Better be because it took 3 friggin' times to successfully export this beast!



I think that this is much better, as it isn't brighter than the sun! Thanks JtPortland for the green texture because that sure made a difference...

Also, everyone probably all ready knows this, but BAT may export better if you switch the viewport to wireframe instead of smooth + highlights. Just thought I'd pass that on.

Look at the bottom of the right-hand picture to see what I mean. The tower's corner is all whacky looking. Looks fine in previews and the export renders but comes out like this in-game. Is there any way to keep BAT from doing that??

[Rickk 16]

Oh man, yes. That is wonderful! This is exaclty what all those guys who want a commerical mid-rise have been waiting for. It's breathtaking. The windows are perfect!

Get this on the STEX now!

 

Oh, and 500th reply to this thread!

[jtportland 184]

wow, that looks A LOT better with that darker green window texture. and i would not worry at all about that wacky thing on the lower right corner of the building. it is hardly noticeable.

i never knew about using wireframe instead of smooth + highlights . i wish i had known about that sooner! haha

either way, this looks perfect to release, is there anything else you plan on fixing? i can't really see anything. except for perhaps darkening the white marble texture a little. it is almost bleached white on the upper right corner of the 2nd pic. updated or not, it's still amazingly realistic to the real ODS

[Andreas Roth 626]

Yay, looking much better indeed! The graphical glitch is barely notable, as jtportland said, and in most cases, it will be covered by other buildings, I guess. BTW, if you need some help with finding reasonable stats for the Plugin Manager, try the Building Database from SC4Tool (see pinned thread in the Lot Editor/Plugin Manager forum).

[Superstar 69]

Woohoo! This is exactly how I pictured it in my mind when I saw the real life pic, beautiful!
About that prob I seem to get it too, though it very much depends on it's placement in LE, seems when I move it around I can find that one right spot where it doesn't happen

[panthersimcity4 162]

Thank you! You make me proud to be a Portland Metro Area citizen!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

All righty then, as soon as I can do all the plop modding, etc., then it will be released. May be busy with other stuff today, so it may be until Monday. I'll try for sooner if it is possible. Sorry for the wait, but I have to share this PC, and have some other things going on.. The wait, it seems, will be worth it!

Then onto other endeavors. The next major Portland building will be Ben Franklin Plaza and a Fred Meyer store. Am researching for a perfect Freddy's to model, so that'll be a while.

After Ben Franklin, I'm thinking of the Bank of America Center. Heck, I need a challenge, since Ben Franklin and a Freddy's will be very simple to model.


Oh and I forgot to mention: JtPortland gave me two unreleased Portland BATs of his to work with. Watch for them to come up whenever I can get around to sprucing them up a bit...

[sparkythepenguin 90]

OK nearly 24 hours... NO SLEEP MUST BAT!!!! Chinese food, I tell ya. Pot Stickers, Wontons, and General Tso's Chicken are all made out of pure energy or something.

It's been a crazy week. And just keeps getting crazier, but in a good way

I started this last night and absolutely for no apparent reason whatsoever could not stop BATing it: Ben Franklin Plaza. Oops they just renamed it, and it will be released as Umpqua Bank Plaza. Just a simple faux-brick box, but gotta love the flag:



Vexillology (the study of flags) is fun!

Portlandexpos04 got me onto a little non-Portland side project during a Yahoo IM chat one night: The 99 Ranch Market chain of Asian Food stores. (Is there one in Portland?) Here's some of the progress so far:



I haven't forgot about ODS. I'm striving for a trifecta.. Perhaps if I can crank out the two unreleased JtPortland BATS that he gave me it'd be a fivefecta (not to quote Oscar Madison from the Odd Couple!)..

These will all hopefully be on the STEX very very very soon. As much as I want to keep working today (I really love hitting a stride), I must stop so I can relax during the time between now and whenever I finally konk out.

Let me know what you think of those two BATs, and how they can be improved before I go any further on them. ODS came out real nice thanks to everyone's comments.

[Lord_Bertrum 3]

This new red brick building tower looks very interesting.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Yeah, its just on the Portland Waterfront, and was easy to BAT in just a day. I think I made the red brick too dark. May lighten it up a tad before exporting. I usually see the lower-end CO$$ and CO$$$ buildings that also double as CS pop-up too much early on, so the Umpqua Bank Plaza ought to be a good alternative to them. I'll check its physical size compared to them. It may be a little taller, so maybe it can be a at a slightly higher growable level...

[sparkythepenguin 90]

ODS Tower and Umpqua Bank Plaza have been released! Please see the first post in this thread to find whare to get it.

After some thought I plan to do these as my next 3 buildings:

1. Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse (Gets the current top 10 tallest in Portland done)

2. Michael Grave's Portland Public Services Building The first major post-modern building in the US.

3. Bank of America Financial Center: The cool curved-face plaid building next to the ODS Tower.

I may also push out Jt's 2 unreleased models, 200 Market and Memorial Colisieum soon.

As soon as the OMSI project is all done and things calm down again, I'll be right back here at BAT!