Nuuk Project - My first BAT

[SylvioJ 388]

 

Current Project :

 

- Nuuk W2W Residentials:

 

 

Future Projects: 

 

- Nuuk Houses

 

- Nuuk Airport

 

 

First post of the thread:

 

First of all I don't know how to work with 3dsmax, gmax, sketchup, nothing. But I wanted to make something of my own, and I decided I'll recreate Greenland in SimCity because : 1 - It's gorgeous 2 - Simple buildings, easier to model. So I decided i'd start with something really simple, a W2W house, based in a real one in Nuuk:

 

I looked up some tutorials online, and got the real basics. The result is below. It's very rudimentary, and I need new window textures. Also, ignore the lot, it's just a test.

 

 

There's a small glitch with a window at the the back view but it goes away in zoom 4 and 6. So, my plan now is to replace the textures and place night lights. If I'm successful, I plan to do some variations on this building and hopefully model a few other ones. Anyway, I appreciate any help/advice because I definitely need it.

 

[Huston 5,799]

Neat project. I've been contemplating doing Icelandic/Greenlandic BATs like these myself, but never got around to it Glad to see someone picking it up

 

Advice:

 

- While the textures are actually quite good, I can see a lot of reptition in the patterning, and imho, it just doesn't look nice on a BAT. You want to try avoid this patterning as much as possible so try editiing it a bit, layering with other textures, adding a little more may be to it and diversify it a bit. Or better yet, find a more effective, seamless texture in replacement

 

- You should try adding that crease thing at the top of most house roofs.

 

- If you're using GMax, I'm not really sure what alternative to offer, but if you're using 3ds Max, try using a solid glass material or arch & design to give the windows a more reflective look (add a ground map as well - something suburban to reflect).

 

Other than that, very nice start and I'm looking forward to more Greenlandic BATs

[MushyMushy 3,618]

If you're using gmax, this advice might be useful since I'm a gmax user.

 

Wall/Roof textures:

Like Huston said, the textures repeat a lot. My advice would be to use a significantly larger image for the texture (so it repeats fewer times or not at all). If you don't want to do that, you could also open Photoshop and make a large image by copying and pasting your current texture image over and over (for example, if your current image is 100x200 pixels, make an image that is 1000x2000 pixels out of it by c/p-ing it), then you just use some of Photoshop's fabulous features to make the texture more random and get rid of the repetitiveness.

 

Windows:

In gmax a great way to deal with windows is to actually make them transparent and use opacity maps to add things like curtains/blinds to the window texture (more or less make the window opaque in some areas and semi-transparent in others). Then for nightlighting you actually light the interior of the building by pointing target direct lights directly at the floor (like, put the lights .005m from the floor and give them an equally tiny range, that way they ONLY light the floor). Make the floors kind of yellowish with variations in the color (like a picture of a fire or a painting of a sunset) if you're BATing a residential or industrial since their lights tend to be more yellowish in hue than the fluorescent lights that most commercial establishments have. This basically means the floor acts as your light. This is a fairly complex but very appealing way to do nightlights in gmax (they look way better than the 2D lights that maxis buildings have). I got this technique from a tutorial the gmax-god spa made a little while back, if I find the post I'll be sure to post a linkie.

 

Anyway, best of luck BATing!

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

Nice to see you BATting . Huston and MushyMushy already have spoken the most important tips at the moment, so I've left to say is that you're going very well for a first attempt! 

Will be good to know which programs you're using, so it's possible to explain more specific tips.

 

Good luck!

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Wow, that's a very good start! Interesting choice as well.

 

You've been given sound advice, too, so the only thing I can add is that you may want to check the scale of your building on the Z (height) axis. The perspective tends to "squash" things to a point where e.g. a square window will end up looking like a rectangle that's wider than it is tall. Adjusting the height of the building to ~133% of its real-life height should remove the perspective distortion.

[SylvioJ 388]

Thank you guys so much for all help and advices! It's really amazing that there's such a nice and helpful community here that makes possible for everyone, even with no knowledge of modeling whatsoever to start BATing. After all, only because of this community that the game stays alive after 12 years. Ok, so, a few answers:

 

Neat project. I've been contemplating doing Icelandic/Greenlandic BATs like these myself, but never got around to it Glad to see someone picking it up

 

Advice:

 

- While the textures are actually quite good, I can see a lot of reptition in the patterning, and imho, it just doesn't look nice on a BAT. You want to try avoid this patterning as much as possible so try editiing it a bit, layering with other textures, adding a little more may be to it and diversify it a bit. Or better yet, find a more effective, seamless texture in replacement

 

- You should try adding that crease thing at the top of most house roofs.

 

- If you're using GMax, I'm not really sure what alternative to offer, but if you're using 3ds Max, try using a solid glass material or arch & design to give the windows a more reflective look (add a ground map as well - something suburban to reflect).

 

Other than that, very nice start and I'm looking forward to more Greenlandic BATs

 

Thanks for your advice. I'm trying to solve the issues you highlighted.

- I'm sorry, english is not my first language, so I don't understand what do you mean exactly by crease. Is something like a fold? For what I could understand it would be something like the top of this roof?

 

- I was very lazy at first with the windows XD The house was just a box and the windows were put on top of it, with a bitmap image filling the hole. So I connected some edges and deleted some poligons, applied the glass material, and a ground map. They look 100% better now. Thank you so much

 

Only one thing, now with the ground map, the base of the door support looks black, I don't know why... I could make the support diagonal, attached to the wall... maybe it will look better that way. Anyway, with these windows I think it's starting to become usable.

 

- So, I proceeded to the textures... they look sort of repeated, but when I searched for them I typed seamless.. and these are, but I completly agree with you, it looks repetitive, probably because of details and texture variations. And, as they were already "seamless" it'd be hard to make them good... so... I replaced them, and they still look sort of repetitive. The previous looked better, but the repetition look awful on the sides. I have to learn how to edit them with calm and then do a nice texturing. A comparison between old and new, and some colors:

 

The last 2 look sort of over-saturated.. not hard to fix, I'll do that.

 

 

If you're using gmax, this advice might be useful since I'm a gmax user.

 

Wall/Roof textures:

Like Huston said, the textures repeat a lot. My advice would be to use a significantly larger image for the texture (so it repeats fewer times or not at all). If you don't want to do that, you could also open Photoshop and make a large image by copying and pasting your current texture image over and over (for example, if your current image is 100x200 pixels, make an image that is 1000x2000 pixels out of it by c/p-ing it), then you just use some of Photoshop's fabulous features to make the texture more random and get rid of the repetitiveness.

 

Windows:

In gmax a great way to deal with windows is to actually make them transparent and use opacity maps to add things like curtains/blinds to the window texture (more or less make the window opaque in some areas and semi-transparent in others). Then for nightlighting you actually light the interior of the building by pointing target direct lights directly at the floor (like, put the lights .005m from the floor and give them an equally tiny range, that way they ONLY light the floor). Make the floors kind of yellowish with variations in the color (like a picture of a fire or a painting of a sunset) if you're BATing a residential or industrial since their lights tend to be more yellowish in hue than the fluorescent lights that most commercial establishments have. This basically means the floor acts as your light. This is a fairly complex but very appealing way to do nightlights in gmax (they look way better than the 2D lights that maxis buildings have). I got this technique from a tutorial the gmax-god spa made a little while back, if I find the post I'll be sure to post a linkie.

 

Anyway, best of luck BATing!

 

Thanks a lot! Even though I'm using 3ds max, your advice was very useful.  I just haven't implemented it yet. I mean, I started to do what Huston suggested to, and really wanted to thank you for the help now. Next post will be what you told me to do about Nightlights and blinds.

 

 

Nice to see you BATting . Huston and MushyMushy already have spoken the most important tips at the moment, so I've left to say is that you're going very well for a first attempt! 

Will be good to know which programs you're using, so it's possible to explain more specific tips.

 

Good luck!

 

Thanks JP! I'm using 3dsmax 2015. You helped me a lot with this comment in another thread:

 

Great, is always good to have pictures.

 

To make the ground disappear from the render you've to select it and click on it with the right button of the mouse, go to "Object Properties" and uncheck the option "Visible to camera". But remember to fix the LODS if they are automatic, or they will catch the part of the ground even when invisible. If your lods are automatic I recommend that you delete the ground, do again the automatic lods, and then add the ground again.

 

 

 

 

Wow, that's a very good start! Interesting choice as well.

 

You've been given sound advice, too, so the only thing I can add is that you may want to check the scale of your building on the Z (height) axis. The perspective tends to "squash" things to a point where e.g. a square window will end up looking like a rectangle that's wider than it is tall. Adjusting the height of the building to ~133% of its real-life height should remove the perspective distortion.

 

Thanks! I'll sure do that. I'll just try to finish the model completely before scaling the z-axis, so I don't get confused with proportion of stuff. 

 

--

 

I've also updated the first post with a beautiful pic of Greenland and my future plans. Really, thank you again for the help guys, and as I have a tremendous amount of things to learn, any advice is greatly appreciated.

[SylvioJ 388]

Some SQL error occurred and the post above was sent thrice. If a moderator could please delete this message and the one below I'd be very grateful.

[SylvioJ 388]

-

[Charlie_Zane 963]

Loving the different colours you've used, very nice work!

[Huston 5,799]

Those are some great textures now, they look significantly better and don't seem as repetitive. Although the colors look nice, you should try desaturating them a bit (make the colors less strong, since the ones IRL seem to be quite dulled in comparison). And yes the crease, I meant exactly what is in the photo. I wasn't so sure what to call it

 

Great work happening here

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

And yes the crease, I meant exactly what is in the photo. I wasn't so sure what to call it

 

Roof Ridge?

[Huston 5,799]

 

And yes the crease, I meant exactly what is in the photo. I wasn't so sure what to call it

 

Roof Ridge?

 

 

Thanks for the heads up

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

In my opinion the roof texture was and is looking good, cause even the original buildings have a kind of repetition..

The variations will be great! 

Just a question, the glasses in the windows are already extruded or they are flat?

[tankmank 853]

An interesting project, i like the houses, very colourful 

[1131989 223]

Nice. We need more colorful houses.

[gutterclub 2,729]

Great start..you dont need lots of detail here if you nail the proportions and the textures.

 

1. Take a screen shot from the game, take the colour picker..grab a similar coulour to your building and match them up...I think your buildings need desaturating

2. Windows still look like blue boxes. Select arch and design material, glass preset, model some curtains and see what result you get.

3. Check the proportions, it looks a little large and stumpy

Great start..you dont need lots of detail here if you nail the proportions and the textures.

 

1. Take a screen shot from the game, take the colour picker..grab a similar coulour to your building and match them up...I think your buildings need desaturating

2. Windows still look like blue boxes. Select arch and design material, glass preset, model some curtains and see what result you get.

3. Check the proportions, it looks a little large and stumpy