The Portland & Oregon BAT Team, Chapter 1

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Well, the building itself looks great, that's for sure. Moreover, it will be interesting to see how some flora prop families will look on the landscaped parts thanks to the custom LODs. I imagine that this will make it easier to get the building optically connected to its lot. In may cases, it looks awkward when you put a tree prop next to a building that has BATted flora on it.

Those two lanes that lead into the building are parking garage entrances, I suppose? It would be great if they matched existing overlay textures both in position and in colour; that would be a neat feature. Otherwise, maybe you can extend them a tiny bit so that they lead right up to the edge of the lot.

The base still needs night lights, of course, and the night windows look a bit too rigid so far, plus they don't line up with the window frames, or so it seems. But since you said that this was a very early test, that's probably not important anyway.

I'm just wondering if the grass texture isn't too clean... I dunno, somehow it just doesn't look like grass to me. Maybe a slightly darker tone with some irregularities and a bit more "grain" would work better?

Anyway, it's great to see you back - and it looks like you haven't lost any skills or talents during your absence, that's for sure! Good mid-rise buildings are always cool.

[bixel 1,228]

Wow! Looks great Sparky, can't wait to see what you do with it in LOT editor

[CDI_spy 6]

Awesome building Sparky!   Looks probably exactly like the original... but could we see a pic, just in case?

[sparkythepenguin 90]

@Andreas_Roth: The Hatfield's next on the list to get done. I suspect that should I dump the ribbed roof and go back to the original non-ribbed one, the problem will clear up. Also I'm dumping the metal texture too. It wasn't  messing up until I added those two things.

@T Wrecks: Thank you for the good suggestions and I will implement them real soon. The tower section was JtPortland's own work, and in order to get the nite lites to look the right way, I'm going to go through and re-do all of the windows. I'll mess around with the grass. The real stuff is really weird because they have bacciball courts up there (I couldn't fit them in b/c I wanted a 4x4 lot)....  The real grass is very well maintained. Even in the winter when other grass areas in town turn into a muddy mess, it's as if it was just freshly laid. They take really good care of the landscaping, but there has to be some irregular bits somewhere.

With regard to the nite lights, The yellow stuff ought to be yellowish-green. Also the windows are much more narrower than JT made them.He didn't make the spandrels.  I like the look as-is. Sort of Mies Van Der Rohe-esque. But this is a good old Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill building... and I want it to look as close as the real thing as possible. A quick look on Emporis reveals a little more must be done... No biggie.

@CDI_Spy: Good to see ya! Here's 2 pix. I'll dig up some more from a sunnier day...

The second story terrace is actually acessable from the ground. 200 Market's on a slope, so I had to leave out the ground-building integration due to SC4's limitations. So here it is and the main lawn:

(The building in the distance is the Oregon Blue Cross/Blue Shield HQ building)

Here is the mass of the tower. The building reflected is the Wells Fargo Tower:

The vines that drop over the sides are something I am not sure I can add in even with LE... We'll see....

I'll work some more on it tonight and hopefully have some progress tomorrow to show y'all.

Nite!

Quick Progress shot!

I edited this in, so I don't have to bump. I reworked JtPortland's windows and nitelites and came up with this(!):

Here's a really close in (zoom 5) view of the new windows. On a sunny day the spandrel and windows look like distinct bands:

OK now to figure out the grass and the rest of the lights! I'm on fire tonite.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Well, after a long nite, I have finally uploaded 200 Market to the STEX! After maybe more than a year sitting on both JtPortland's PC and then mine, it is finally out! Next up: Fixing the Hatfield!

[jtportland 184]

Amazing job sparky! i'm really happy the way it turned out. it looks 110% better with that base, and it kind of reminds me of the hanging gardens. i really like what you did with the windows, makes it look even more realistic. i cannot wait to see hatfield complete. i'm looking forward for the next update.

[Andreas Roth 629]

@sparky: Really great work with the Market Street 200 - I'm glad the BAT made it to the STEX finally. However, could you please check the growable version? You included the *.sav files into the installer instead of the *.SC4Lot and *.SC4Desc. The *sav files serve as backup files, in case something goes wrong while editing your file. You can rename them back to *.SC4Lot and *.SC4Desc, but all changes you made won't be in these files.

[diablo_del_bano 3]

Yes, that is indeed a great building. I can't wait for the Hatfield!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Thanks everyone for your comments! If any one's downloaded 200 Market before recently, please re-download and reinstall it. You'll just have to go into the growable folder and delete the .sav files.

@Jtportland: Couldn't have done it without you! Thanks for letting me finish this one. Sometime, I'll get Memorial Colisieum up to par. Just gotta get some junk to fill up the inside of it!

@Bixel: Thanks for getting me hooked on custom LOD's. This would have been too cumbersome to render without them!

@Twrecks: Your suggestions really helped make this a much better BAT! Thanks and please keep commenting.

@Portlandexpos04: If you're seeing this, been away due to Real-life Syndrome. Also Winter is sort of a downtime for me. Now Spring is in the air again, and time to get things going again. So long as I can squeeze BATing in...

@Andreas_Roth: Thanks for the info about the .sav files. That's now fixed. Thanks a million, you helped save me from a major bug!

@Diablo: Below is a sort-of preview to what I want to do to the Hatfield...

This is the roof that I think would look good on the Hatfield. I'm going to try to make the texture as close to this as possible. Plus I am going to re-build the overhanging roof. It'll have only the holes in the center and over the balcony. This way, GMax will have a simpler roof with fewer vertices to render, while still having visual interest.

This is a Maxis-made CS lot called "Byall Means Travel". Sound good? I''m targeting two weeks from now to either havethe Hatfield Courthouse on the STEX or have exhausted every option to get around that annoying rendering bug.

[bixel 1,228]

Good luck on the texture, it looks like the perfect one for the Hatfield roof. BTW, I gathered together a bunch of pics of the Gregory? (Brewery Blocks) and will prolly start work on that soon.

[spa 970]

Thanks for the Market Place's release. It has turned out quite well and it's nice to have another midrise office building. The custom LODs seem to have worked. The swarm of greenery on it really makes me think of the West Coast. Great work.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

@Bixel: Are you preparing for the Brewery Blocks or the Gregory? The Gregory isn't in the Brewery Blocks- it's between 10th and 11th at Glisan. The Brewery Blocks are down on Burnside. (For you non-Portlanders reading this, east-west streets in the NW quadrant of Portland are mostly in alphabetical order, north-south are numerical this should demonstrate the distance..). Either way, we'll see some great buildings. The first from the Pearl District!

@Spa: I think that 200 Market was the first building in town to have integrated gardens like that. There's quite a few others that mimicked 200, but are less prettier. Also I really prettied up the landscaping. The real one doesn't have too many flowers on it, nor rose bushes. I always thought they ought to update the landscaping on it...

OK now for a little treat for everyone. Actually it could be a little work, as I'd like some comments on this....

I spent all day re-building the Hatfield's roof. Instead of making it one peice with holes cut out of it, I traced cross-sections of it . This allowed me to rebuild the structure out of a few objects and may solve the problem. The other track of the project  is to find a suitable new roof texture, as the last one was probably corrupting the exports. I think I have found it. So the finished product is what I am calling "Roof #4". Here's progress so far:

Zoom 5:

Zooms 4-1:

As always, please comment!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Well, I hope you realize it's kinda hard to say anything when your lower jaw is dangling down and you are drooling silently out of the corner of your mouth... as far as I am concerned, THIS IS IT! I like it a lot! Weren't there some plants somewhere on the building? They would add a nice, subtle touch of colour, but if they might cause problems, just leave them out. Man, this looks good!

I wonder if Portland's mayor knows what a fine representation of the city you're doing here? You almost make me wanna go there, and if it were just to check out the real-life buildings and say things like "Uh... well, dude, you know this is quite ok, I mean, it's not bad architecture and all, but you should really see sparkythepenguin's version!"

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Glad you like Twrecks!

I ended up throwing out an export last night. The results were mixed. It seems that GMax, BAT,  LE, or even the game really hates the edges of the roof. Although this is much better than the last few attempts...

This is probably the worst of it. I think that it is a lot less noticable than before. I may just post the GMax file as well on the STEX and see if anyone can come up with a solution sometime. Otherwise I think this'll work in the meantime. Bixel and I tried everything and I can honestly say that this is probably as good as it is going to get at this time. So if there's not a huge outcry, I'll package this up and post it. I consider this done for now...

[bixel 1,228]

Hardly noticable, in fact if you hadn't pointd it out I would completely missed it. RELEASE THE DAMN THING ALREADY AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! heheheh

[T Wrecks 10,210]

I agree. You really don't notice this minor glitch unless you know beforehand that it's there and look out for it actively. Besides, in game there is a fair chance that the background against which you see the roof of Hatfield Court House is rather "noisy" (facades of other buildings, trees, busy roads) so that the glitch will be even less visible.

Release it; everybody who has followed this thread knows that you have gone extremely far to get the best possible result, and I think this building is among the finest BATs I have seen, glitch or no glitch. It's absolutely unique, it occupies a much-needed niche, it's a fine rendition of a real-world structure, and it will be a lovely addition to any city.

One more reason to look forward to getting my region into Houston/Euro style, hehe...

---
On a side note, a HUGE thanks to Dirk & crew for their work on the forums - now the reply function works with Opera, too. The top menu with all the text formatting options, smileys and such is still missing, but I'm confident that it will be fixed eventually, too.

EDIT
Just realized that I still need to add tags manually for linebreaks... oh well.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

OK OK I just released the Hatfield onto the STEX. Enjoy!!!!!! About time, eh? Now it's time to start getting Holladay Park Plaza on... Happy everyone?!?!?

BTW Dirk, I LOVE THE TABLES FUNCTION!!!!!!!!!

[bixel 1,228]

hwhehhehhehe

[sparkythepenguin 90]

I am so happy the Hatfield's finally done! I could just burst!!!!! Time for a celebratory cigarette while I wait for the comments to roll in...

[Andreas Roth 629]

Originally posted by: T Wrecks

I agree. You really don't notice this minor glitch unless you know beforehand that it's there and look out for it actively. Besides, in game there is a fair chance that the background against which you see the roof of Hatfield Court House is rather "noisy" (facades of other buildings, trees, busy roads) so that the glitch will be even less visible.quote>

 

Yeah, indeed - it took me about three minutes to spot the errors, and usually I'm quite good at pointing out quirks and oddities (just ask the other SFBT members). I'm glad that it's finally out now, and I'm sure it will show up in my next city soon.

EDIT: Now that you mention it... This "modern courthouse design" seems to be common indeed. There's a similar building in Kaiserslautern, about an hour away from my hometown, which also serves as court administration building. It was erected about two years ago, and as you can see, the whole area is still under construction - hopefully, they are ready for the soccer world cup in june.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

The building looks good, especially the roof. I tried making one like that for a simmars building but I gave up, lol.

It's funny when you say "wait for the comments to roll in," because the first day I upload something, I'll have the window open and I'll keep on refreshing it, watching the views and downloads go up, and now we have the stex rating to look at . It's amazing that so many people use something that you can refresh the screen a minute later and see when people are downloading it.

Andreas, that building looks alot like the euro tileset. Everything about it.

oh yea, I noticed in the preview the building doesn't have a shadow, but the trees and props do.  Does it have a shadow?   and have you noticed that the preview pictures keep their quality?  it used to say 100 kb limit, but even if you were under it would still compress it even more, but now it doesn't!  I'm going to reupload my pictures, all of the old ones were tacky anyway.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Just unleashed Holladay Park Plaza onto the STEX! Two in one day... That's enuf for me. I must now decide what to do next... I have a really good idea that wouldn't take too long to make... You'll know what I mean when you see it. Here's a hint: I'm tired of CO function and modern buildings....

@Andreas_Roth:  That's quite a compliment! I'm honored. As for the topic of Euro-style courthouses, Portland is sometimes seen as the closest North American city to the standards of living in Europe. One newspaper here called ourselves "Portland am Rhine"... Kind of a longshot IMHO, we got a lot of MAX and streetcar lines to build before that's true...

@Jasoncw: Which type of Hatfield lot isn't showing shadows in preview? The courthouse version is the only one I can think of that would do that, as it itself is a prop and I could have messed up in Plugin manager... Oh well, so long as the building's shadow appears when it is actually plopped down, I'm happy.

[Andreas Roth 629]

I just checked the SC4Desc of the courthouse version - for activating shadows you have to set "Is Ground Model" to "True" - this should be easy to fix with any modding program.

And yes, I like the Portland architecture indeed, mainly because it's more "colorful" when it comes to shapes, colors and materials, compared to other American cities. And maybe except of the Bancorp Tower and the Wells Fargo Center, they are all in a scale that can be found everywhere in Europe as well.

[CDI_spy 6]

Sparky... you promised me the Fort Garry... now pay up!

I'm gonna start the Governor shortly, so we might as well do the projects at the same time...

BTW fantastic uploads I'm happy for you!   Downloading them right now...

[sparkythepenguin 90]

@CDI_spy: Whenever you're ready, go for the Gov! I pass by that hotel every week.

BTW,  I just added onto the WRP thread with my plans to go ahead with the Fort Garry on Thursday.

@Portlandexpos04: Yes,  there is a 99 Ranch Market coming for you as well. I actually got to go to one while in Phoenix. I figured on just restarting that whole thing over again now that I have experienced on in real life.

@Andreas_Roth: You ought ot BAT that Courthouse that you showed up pics of. It is a fine example of Euro Contemporary. Verrrry German-looking modern architecture!

And in between these two projects I may just have some suprises for everyone tucked into this thread as well.

One more hint: I'm also tired of being a slave to the 4x4 stand-alone lot... Must... Have... Variety! accckkk....

[Andreas Roth 629]

@Andreas_Roth: You ought ot BAT that Courthouse that you showed up pics of. It is a fine example of Euro Contemporary. Verrrry German-looking modern architecture!quote>

Well, I don't BAT (all SFBT BATs I uploaded so far were created by other people, I "only" did the modding and the lot in some cases), but if anyone wants to give it a try, I could take some more pictures when I'm in Kaiserlautern next time...

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Andrea, I'd try to make that, but I have waaaay too much going on right now.

Anyways, Here's a little project that I have been keeping secret for a while. I wanted to see if I could BAT an old building, and this is a managable cast-iron one that I picked here in Portland:

This is Kell's Irish Restruant in Old Town. The building dates from 1889, and is properly titled The Glisan Building. The current occupant is a chain of Irish restruants based out of Seattle. This place is THE place to be on St. Patrick's Day in Portland!

And here is the facade in BAT:

I haven't goten around to texturing it yet or BATing the walls around the rest of the building. It's between 2 other buildings, so I'm going to make it a W2W lot with enough space in back to put an alley-like space in. It'll probably end up being 2x2 and Chicago-style.

If I can keep it up, I'd like to do more of the old-style stuff here. So what does everyone think?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Now this is really a change! From Houston-style reflecting glass facades or hypermodern architecture to Chicago-style cast iron buildings... but not surprisingly, you have once again managed to recreate it almost perfectly! The door and window arches of your BAT look a bit 'fatter' than the original ones, but I guess this is due to the game perspective. It's very noticeable in the triangular thingy above the upper middle window, though. It looks like a perfect right triangle to me on that photo, and although the perspective would compress it a bit, I t hink the effect  is a bit too strong in your BAT so far. Then  again, it might just be me underestimating the perspective effect.

One more suggestion: Of course this building will look best in a W2W environment. Unfortunately, however, you cannot really make lots W2W-specific in SC4, so I would suggest adding at least some windows to the sides no matter if the original has them or not: if the building ends up sandwiched between two other W2W buildings, you won't see them anyway, but if it grows on an "open" lot, you won't end up with too many blank walls.

[spa 970]

That looks great. We need more small commercial buildings and we don't have many oldies. I have to second T Wrecks advice. One frequent problem with W2W is that batters assumed the building will appear only in dense areas when probably about half the time it ends up elsewhere or on a corner and when that happens you're left starring at a blank wall. Its a pet peeve of mine.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

No prob with the walls. I've been on both sides of the right hand wall (in the picture) and I think there are blocked-up windows on the Kell's sides. Even if there isn't really windows there, I'll add some in anyway. There are a ton of old buildings here that have added new windows to the sides where a now-demolished building used to block the wall up. Toronto has a really big old-style building that did this, but much more tastefully than some of the ones I've seen.

The back of this is no problem-They bulldozed the back half of the block in the 50's when the city council was drinking lead-laced water or something. They sacrificed what probably were nice old buildings for *drumroll please* A PARKING LOT! The good thing is that you can see the backs of the remaining buildings clearly. Kell's is can use the space for adverts and clears out the lot for a huge biergarten-type tent for their huge St. Pat's party.

The triangular pieces could come up a bit on the Z axis. I think I compensated for this when I drew them out. The lower one isn't too bad, but the top-floor eave definetly needs a boost. It is supposed to come up a bit more over the wall behind it. In the model, the top point of it barely clears the top edge of the wall. Time for a non-uniform scale!