The Portland & Oregon BAT Team, Chapter 1

[Sim shady 12]

i toast to you some shampagan err...champagne...over completing Waddles and starting this

brave-oh brave-oh

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Jason: It is definetly going to be a corner W2W. I should actually move those side walls in a bit... As for the vertical timbers on the back sides, I'm not sure about how those look. Am I crazy to think that? That was just the best idea that I could come up with so far.

A little suprise for everyone, since it seems that this building's quite popular. Here are the preliminary night lights!

I need to tinker around with the nite windows map, remove any red that I see in it, brighten or darken certain areas perhaps?  I should double up on some of the bands of light bulbs that I know are there, but you may not be able to see. The intensities of the window lights and what is actually on or off needs some work as well. Last, but not least I need to add spots/omnis and texturing. But I am very pleased to announce that all major modellingoperations have been completed on this building!

Enjoy!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Page flip bug... Gotta love those! Sorry for the double post.

[Sabretooth78 808]

That night lighting is beautful. I just might have to download this one too.

That building would be the perfect tallest in a city of like 30,000-50,000 (which is usually about as big as I've ever played one).

[Sim shady 12]

That unique nitelighting is just amazing. It seems so perfect for this building too. Its crazy how good you have become at bating

[Jasoncw 12,030]

I think it might look better without the vertical parts, but that wasn't really what I was thinking about.  Just that the wall itself seems to stick out half a meter from the front of the facade.  Unless it really does that.

[nofunk 1,935]

Man is that lovely! Classic style, wall-to-wall, I can't wait to see this on the STEX.

The lighting is a really nice touch, as well.

[SimFox 804]

sparky:

I would suggest to light up all the big arches on the ground level - I think it would look more realistik, and ty may be some less blurry texture, as in such a large opening it is quite odd.

[Cirro 0]

This is awesome! I'm another Portlander here, well ex-Portlander but still...looks great. I love having Big Pink grow in my commercial centers

[sparkythepenguin 90]

I am still tweaking with the nite textures, and thanks everyone for the advice. That will take a little time, but I just wanted to show everyone what I intend the final project to look like.

Its been pretty busy with my first week back at PSU, but I have managed to start texturing. Still, I am unsure where to go from here, but I think I'm headed in the right direction:

BTW, because this is glazed Terra-Cotta like the Galleria, I have reused the Galleria's wall textures here.

I'll try to get more done on this this week, but it is likely that I won't have time to show you anything until next weekend.

[Jasoncw 12,030]

I think you should texture in all of the terra cotta tiles individually.

[Sim shady 12]

All that needs is a lot and some modding and its ready for the STEX

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw I think you should texture in all of the terra cotta tiles individually.quote>

Does this mean each terra-cotta part of the building or each individual terra cotta BAT? Not sure what you mean by this, and if you could clear that up for me, I'd appreciate it.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I could brighten it up just a little... Jackson Tower has always semed to be a little brighter than the Galleria. At least before the Galleria was re-glazed. Maybe that's just because there's a lot of other white terra cotta buildings around Jackson Tower, while the Galleria sits near a lot of darker brick buildings....

[Jasoncw 12,030]

Oh, nevermind, lol.  I started writing this big post about it, but I looked at a picture of the building, and it's not what I was thinking.  I was thinking that the terra cotta fitted the building more like this, with bigger tiles forming the columns, not bricks.

I don't really know how to texture those bricks in though.  But I do think the building should be less yellow and more peachy.  Maybe you can infer bricks by having little 1x2 pixel dashes in the texture all over, changing the value a little bit all over.  I also think that without some other stuff to mix in with, the large cloudy shape infers that it is all one object, like some kind of stucco or something, lol.

[bixel 1,228]

whoaaa, awesome texture job. The terra-cotta seems fine, I dont see any problems with it. This building looks great.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Jason: Agreed. It looks a little too dark. It's probably not what I'd call peachy, but a little more brighter white. I'd dare venture to say "cream".  I'll see what I can do to fix this. Probably won't be until this weekend though.

Bixel: I take it that you got the rose pictures that I sent you to help with the Commonwealth Building. Any progress on it or The Henry that you can show us? Those were some excellent expamples of modelling.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

About time I give y'all an update. Been pretty busy with RL and school. Plus I'm doing some other modding work for some long-delayed projects from another BAT team. You'll see that sometime soon.

I did managed to get the Jackson Tower retextured. Here's a look at the present changes:

1. Made the main wall textures a little creamy, but on the white side. This building's pretty bright in real life.

2. Added a brick texture to some areas. Hopefully those show up in-game.

The latest screenshot:

By the way, look at the fire escapes to see the original white texture and compare. I left those as-is because I like the contrast.

I like this much better. I'm hoping everyone else does too. I must do something about the street-level windows. Need some detail texturing in them... Or I can just replace the default black color with a window texture. It doesn't seem natural-looking.

OK hopefully I can do some more soon. I am finally caught up on my class work, and if I keep it up, I'll have a lot more time for BATing.

[spa 970]

Looking good Sparky. The changes are subtle but there and a definite improvement. I have one little suggestion. The maintenance shed that access the roof with the pitched roof below the tower, it doesn't have any trim. The wall and roof just crash into each other and you can see it especially on the back view. I think a thin border is needed there.

[bixel 1,228]

This looks like Maxis quality, its amazing looking.

[north8234 1]

if oregan colege wins national title make their stadium

[north8234 1]

if oregan colege wins national title make their stadium

[josefmayor 8]

It looks fantastical. Tampa and Portland have a lot in common besides our block sizes, apparently our city halls are similar

[Spike345 20]

Congratulations on making this look so appealing. lol. I do agree you need more street-appeal though.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Yes, this looks wonderful. The windows are definitely too dark and monotonous, though. They need a tad more life, and then it should be perfect.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Thanks everyone for the imput. Thanks to being caught-up on my classwork, I was able to do some more on this and incorporate the advice you all listed.

Josef: Jackson Tower isn't our city hall, it was the HQ for a major newspaper. Our city hall is nice, but lacks a clock tower. But yes, this does look like your City Hall.

North8234: I'm going to shy away from making open-aired stadiums. However SCBA is probably the guy to ask to do that. Are you referring to Autzen Stadium?

OK now for the screenz:

The textures for the street level were taken from real-life pix I took of the building!

Now what to do with the back end? I am planning on adding some faded painted signs, as I have seen some old photos of this building that show adverts for the Oregon Journal once located inside.

Still don't know if I should keep those  vertical bars on the back walls...

OK gotta go to school in a couple hours, so its time for me to go!

[asturianu 4]

Hey, Sparky!! How are you dude? Man...Jackson Tower looks excellent! The new textures are as I told ya before...beautiful! I really like how it looks now in that creamy flavour!

And now that you talk about the back wall...I like it very much, but the bricks would look better if they were smaller, I mean..the texture is cool, but if the bricks looked a bit smaller would be perfect, anyways I love how it looks and if you put some commercial murals there, then the back walls wouldn't need that thing I say.

Wow, almost forgot to say that the texture in the street level windows is the best I've ever seen! I love it! So realistic. Well, you took the pic, so it is realistic x 2...the same place and the same texture hehe! Would be interesting to see an entire building with textures of real life buildings just as they do to build up the models in Live Earth (Virtual Earth-Windows) in 3D. But then, BATing would be a different thing, so let it be as it is right now haha.

I have to say that I love this building so much! Great work, my friend!

Cristian

[Sim shady 12]

everything looks top-notch!

I think you should dump the vertical bars, or darken them alot/ retexture. They feel somewhat obtrusive.

[Jasoncw 12,030]

I don't know for sure, but I think in real life buildings, when there would be those sorts of vertical things, it's about giving a groove so that windows on that side could breathe.  I'm not sure, but that's what I'd think they're there for.  So I don't think you really need them, and regardless of their reason in real life, I still don't think you need them.

I think you should change the brick to red or orange or something though, unless it's really grey in real life.  Also, the tops of the brick walls could use some edging to finish them off.

[spa 970]

Hey Sparky,

This is turning out quite well. The small adjustments you've been making are really paying off. Personally I think the wall texutres are fine if this building is kind of white in real life. I think the windows are shapping up especially, the windows on the ground floor front. However, the ground floor windows for the tower on the side really don't work in my opinion. Window glass, to me, should be fairly vague, especially for large windows. The textures on ground floor side are too crisp for such big windows and really look one dimensional. I would really consider rethinking them. For me, they're what's drawing my eye and not in a good way.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Now with new back walls! Gone are the vertical timbers!

I tried white and liter grey walls and found red brick looks much better than the others. In fact, there is a small section of Jackson Tower base that sticks out on the Broadway side. But this section is covered by a red brick wall that is part of the 80's building (Security Pacific Plaza) on the south side of the lot. I added some old ads for old rail services, the old Journal masthead, Jantzen Beach Amusement Park, and recently departed Meier & Frank:

Spa, I think I will fix the issue that you brought up by blurring and darkening the windows in question. I think they look too bright myself. I could just take the middle window (the vaguest and darkest), blur it a little, maybe darken it, and apply it to the rest?