The Portland & Oregon BAT Team, Chapter 1

[bixel 1,228]

Welcome Tarkus, didn't get a chance to say hi, so HI. I'm glad we got another P-Town enthusiast!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

@Tarkus:  you're welcome to join the project if you'd like. Anything that brings more of an Oregon-style (or SW Washington) feel is a welcome addition. I guess the transit fanatic in me is bigger than the roadgeek- I would have never noticed any of the speed limit sign stuff at all! 

@Bixel: Oh geez! Next time, make it bigger instead of smaller. If you go away from measurement, it is easier to scale it down than up, IMHO... Can't Wait to see the Henry! I'll update the front  page and progress status now that I know you are starting it.

@CDI_Spy: With Kell's out of the way soon, I'll be able to devote more resources to the Fort Garry Hotel. I'm sorry I am taking my time on it, but it gets a little tiring just plugging away on it. Breaks are good ever so often, and I want  to take my time with it. Kells was a nice distraction and has helped me sharpen my Chicago-style building skills...

Well with Kells, I guess that the priority today (providing I have time) will be fixing the glitch and doing an in-game test export to see how it stacks up compared with the Maxis-, Porky-, Simgoober-, and Xannepan-made stuff. Then I can nite lite it, and package it up. I hope to have it STEX'ed soon. The next Portland project/stress reliever/learning tool of mine will probably be either the Bishop's House or The Bank of The West building. Perhaps for fun I may do both. I'll have to post some pics of those later, as I am uncertain if even some Portlanders are familar with these buildings.

I'll post  a few picslater that I took last week in Old Town and the West End.  I may explore them sometime in BAT before I "Go by Train".

[screamingman12 30]

Sparky,

I am done witht the MAX, and will release it soon, I have also found out how to get all of the trains into one file, so I will release that also. It's easier to do than you think.

[Spike345 20]

is Kell's going to be a Wall to Wall Building? THat would be awesome if you could do that, it would look perfect on a downtown street.

[Tarkus 6,933]

Hi bixel, and thank you very much for the invite sparky!  I'd like to take you up on it.  I've already released some transit-enabled versions of the Oregon-style speed signs on the STEX a few days ago, but right now they are separate packs based on network types. 

At the suggestion of bixel and sc4jeeks, I will be releasing them all as one download soon.  The new set is not quite ready to upload, yet.  I'm adding a ton of new signs, so it will be a very substantial release when I do manage to get it on the STEX.  Also, I've got some RL things to deal with (like my Master's thesis), and the Lot Editor has been giving me a bit of grief lately by rendering some of my new signs as pieces of buildings (though after a ton of renaming, it usually relents).  Eventually, there will also be some released for the Vancouverites and everyone else in the US, but that may be awhile.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

@Screamingman12: Cool to hear! I will watch for it on the STEX, and update the completion list accordingly. Thank you for all your hard work!  Sometime, I'll have to make some of the real-life stations to go with all your trains.

@Spike345: Kell's certinly will be a W2W. I've spent all morning making it so it could just barely fit in a 1x2 lot.

OK, here's a shot of it in Lot editor. For testing purposes, I made a LM and a prop version. The LM was just so I could get the model to fit on a 1x2 lot, which suceeded. The prop's purpose was to compare and contrast to a Porkisimo lot. I used the Porky lot because it was the first quality W2W lot I found in my LE file list.. I tried to make the lot appear as if it grew in-game to see the W2W effect:

I have some texturing concerns with this, as I am sure everyone else will as well:

*The white textures look pretty plain compared to the quality of Porky's model. On one hand, it needs to look like the facade is painted, on the other, it should be just a tiny bit worn, just slightly like Porky's looks. The building was renovated somewhere in the past 10 years, which is why it looks so nice in real life.

*The side brick textures look a little weird in the mid-zooms. This isn't shown in the screen above.

*The windows still need some sort of good texture. I tinkered around with blinds and drapes earlier, but the detail would either end up blending too much with the white texture or looking to light in the darker areas. Any suggestions?

*When I first compared this with Porky and Maxis buildings, the building was too tall. So, I tried to shrink it as reasonably as possible. The ground floor windows and doors are just big enough for a sim to get through, with a little learence left. Still it seems a little tall, but I chalk that up to this building having really high ceilings in real life.

Other than that, I like how it came out. Any suggestions on the above issues? Or should I just  release it?

[Kwakelaar 92]

It is a very good bat with nicely made details and I will download it when it is released to the STEX.

The problem with the proportions comes of course from the fact that we have to make models that will fit to the size of the lots (16x16m) in game. Making very accurat reproductions of real life buildings is sometimes just not possible if you want ot use it in Simcity.

[Tarkus 6,933]

@sparkythepenguin: It looks essentially uploadable to me.  It looks like the model you compared it to is designed to model a different building material with a different coloration, so I think it looks accurate to the actual building.  The only thing I really see missing (and it's quite ancillary) are the little patterns on the triangular outcroppings above the door, and at the top of the building that were in the picture of the real building.  But I'm not sure you'd really even be able to see them that well in-game (especially the over-the-door one).

As far as blinds, I'd go for something in the mid-gray/tan range.  That looks fairly accurate from what I can tell in the picture, and should be sufficiently differentiable from the white of the building.

Hope that was at least somewhat helpful.  Excellent job!

[cammo2003 20]

With a few tweaks it's certainly uploadable. Windows obviously, and yeah, I do think a SLIGHT dirtying up wouldn't hurt. I'd also dirty up the roof a little - areas like that rarely get cleaned...

[bixel 1,228]

Porkissimo looks like he's been doing the multi-material thing, which means sparky that when you collapse an object into a mesh you can select the polygons....if you scroll down on the polygon rollout you will see polygon ID, select your poly, and set the ID, keep doing that until all IDs are to your satifisfaction. Some polys can have Identical IDs cause they may be mirrored, or they are going to share the same texture. SO! In the multimaterial the ID of the sub-material should match the ID of the polygon you assigned it too. So match up the IDs and have fun with multimaterials....I so rarely use it, I just create the extra geometry that is needed, but sometimes, like on my Wong Tai Sin Temple, (a uncompleted project [check HK forum]) or Manhattan heights, I used multimaterials to set up the correct alignment of the textures.

It is important not to mess with the umv mapping on the object that you are applying multimaterials to. Instead on the umv mapping select the xyz map (I generally place all coordinate to 10x10x10 if I do this differently that way it will be uniform regardless of what object I am mapping too), and make sure the createmap coordinates is selected on the mesh rollout. In the material window adjust how your texture will appear from there not the umv mapping, this will make that texture scheme VERY unique, but it can really pay off i a big way.

[ardecila 125]

Porkissimo also uses 3dsmax. In gmax, using too many multi-materials will make your buildings unrenderable.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Wow, a lot of information to digest here, so I hope that I have addressed many of the ideas with this next Kell's update.

For one, I don't use the multi-material function. Although I do understand it and why it would make sense to use it.

Seems like 3ds is the way to go with these things, but I'm having some issues with my copy of it.

OK here's the pic now:

Changes:

*New roof texture. Tried several ways to "dirty" it up, and this came out looking the best..

*New front facade texture: It's a little darker, a little dirtier via bumping up the contrast on the original texture.

*New windows: These look much better, and look a little more life-like.

*Tried to detail the topmost eave (triangle on top), but any detail was lost, even at Z5

I think this is good for now. Shall I move to final modding and stuff?

[Tarkus 6,933]

@sparkythepenguin: I'd say yes.  It looks great!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Wow, this looks cool! definitely a huge improvement over the last version. The front and window textures look top-notch now. Maybe you could try to make the back wall slightly less dark? I know it's black in RL, but peeps might think that they are missing a texture if it's black like a black hole back there. What about that little blue roof or awning in the back? Will it stay this way, or are you going to give it a different texture? I'm asking because it doesn't really look textured at all, just coloured.

All in all, however, I'd say you have gone 95% on the way to yet another beautiful BAT creation!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Well, T_Wrecks, you're right on those. They were untextured. Here's a look at the back:

That's at Zoom 4. I added a brick-like aspect to the new back wall, and made it off-black. It's a little harder to tell what's up at Z3, but this look a little better now I hope. The awning is now textured too. Hope you're till around to see it T_Wrecks. I owe you a bunch. You've been a TON of help with my latest BAT projects.

[Andreas Roth 629]

IMO, the blue of the awning is a bit too saturated, but apart from that I can only agree with T Wrecks, this is looking fantastic! The dark wall now works great as well.

[Micah 16]

That looks awesome! It truly does look like something from Portland, Oregon.

The final version looks fabulous, and personally, the blue looks just fine to me (doesn't look over saturated).

[sparkythepenguin 90]

By the way, Holladay Park Plaza, Version 2 is now live on the STEX. I just updated the original STEX listing. If you all ready have Holladay Park Plaza, download this one if you want zoom 3 night windows- They work now!

Well, I just took a look at the blue and tweaked with the saturation, brightness levels in Photoshop. here is the result:

I think that'll do it. It even looks a little grungy...

Here's the side, in case anyone wanted to know what it'll look like if another W2W building isn't nestled up beside Kell's:

Ready for final LE/mod tweaking?

[screamingman12 30]

Sparky,

Tried a "test run" of comping the trains, well, my idea didn't work, mabey Swamper77 or Vester can help me with this.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

@Screamingman12: No problem. Just get the MAX stand-alone out first, and then we'll figure out how to make 'em all a package deal.

Kell's has been released! It is now live on the STEX.

As for the next one(s), I am considering.....

This is the Bishop's House. Way back when, the Archbishop of Portland lived here. But not for long! The neighborhood was too seedy. I read somewhere that the original Catholic cathedral was on the parking lot on the right of the photo. Now it is office space and the Al-Amir Lebanese restruant.  There aren't any Lebanese food places, and this one would give some more of those smaller Maxis-made lots some competition...

Now this just screams "I'M A BANK!" really loud! It's currently a branch of Bank of the West. Although there's some great old banks out there on the STEX, I think therearen't enough...

Now, I've got to switch over to Winnipeg and crank out the Fort Garry Hotel. But if I get a bit stressed, I'll start on one or both of these.

[screamingman12 30]

Sparky,

No problem, sent it off to Vester a couple of days ago, and he said that the windows look too dark, so I'll look through all my pictures and see what I can do.

P.S. Just downloaded Kell's, Looks great!

[mattb325 28,891]

Hey sparky - loved Kells (got it to grow in game) and the Bishops House is truly a worthy piece. Well done!

[Tarkus 6,933]

Yeah, I've downloaded Kell's too!  Looks awesome!  I totally recognize the Bishop's House/Al-Amir Lebanese restaurant.  It's kind of by the MAX near Apple Music.  I forget which street.  Neat building; by all means do it.  That bank is pretty cool too.

By the way, in case anyone is interested, my latest Oregon-Style Speed Sign releases are up on the STEX, in a variety of sizes and formats.  The Transit-Enabled ones are all in one set now, and there's large standalone ones for highway usage as well (both orthogonal and diagonal):

  (Sorry for the shameless self-promotion--just thought someone might be interested.)

[Spike345 20]

OMG, if you made those nice Wall to Wall buildings you planned, you'll be my newest B.A.T GOD! lol I love you wall to wallers.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Well looks like the next two planned are a go then! Once I get  my Winnipeg project done, I'll concentrate again on Portland, for the most part. 

Tarkus, you seem like you know how to do transit-enabling. Wanna do some bridges???

And yes, Spike, Bishop's House and Bank of the West (BotW) will also be W2W. BotW will be on a corner, naturally. I don't know how I could spice up the blank parts that would normally be covered by another W2W building though. Bishop's House presents blank faces on the sides, and I'd assume BotW does as well.

[Tarkus 6,933]

@sparkythepenguin:  I'd be more than willing to give it a shot.  I've got RLS to deal with right now, and my skills are somewhat limited. I would be more than happy to help out in any way I can, though.  Having a taste of it now with the signage, I would like to learn more about it, and I am somewhat familiar with the process of bridge making, having read jeronij's bridge making thread in the Transit Modding board. 

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Awesome Tarkus! Try a real simple bridge to start off with. The Sellwood Bridge here in Portland is pretty basic, under-truss affair. The Marquam Bridge is ruled out due to its double-decking, and the Ross Island would be too detailed at this time... Is double road decking possible?

No rush on that, we all have lives to live. In a few months RLS is going to hit me real hard! Whenever you are ready, and should you choose to accept it, would you like the job of our official bridge-maker?

[Spike345 20]

Hey, you can always fill up a blank wall with an Advertisment...thats what they tend to do here in the city of Toronto...lol

[Tarkus 6,933]

@sparkythepenguin:  Thanks for understanding my RLS!  I probably won't be able to do anything major until a couple of weeks or a month from now.  After then, I'd be happy to join the team in a bridge-making capacity!  The Sellwood shouldn't be too hard for a first project.  It will be a learning process, though.

As far as double road decking in SC4, that's something jeronij and Smoncrie were working on awhile back on the Transit Modding board.  Well, technically, it was a bridge with highway on top and some sort of rail network below, but I'd imagine you could probably do it with other networks as well.  Smoncrie actually did manage to get a double-decker bridge working, but it's still experimental territory for the most part, and I don't think it ever got finished.  It would be crucial not only to the Marquam, but the Fremont, and maybe the Steel as well (though I'm not as familiar with that one--I know the MAX goes over it.)  They are talking about having a bunch of new bridges in the next NAM, but I'm not sure if any double-deckers will show up. 

[screamingman12 30]

MAX progress report:

If anyone doesn't already know, Vester_DK has told me to work on the windows, so I have decided to rework it (new windows, from photographs, and new stripe colors) but don't worry, it will only take a few days, but the released model will look a lot different (but better) than the ones that Sparky and Vester have. Also where is the Fox Tower, I can't find it on the STEX.