Cool_Z back to SC4 bats...

[Cool_Z 1,547]

*cough* *cough*

Hey... not sure you remember that time when I tried to get into SC4 building....

My attempts were stopped at the same time by real life... and by the announcement of Cities: Skylines.

When I came back, I resumed building... but for C:SL

And now... you might or might not now that I've invested some time building for Skylines, creating tutorials for builders and ranting about things (because I'm french... that's what we like to do).

But, well... I guess you can't turn your back on SC4.

I've asked if some SC4 batters wanted to use my CSL models to import them... with exactly ZERO replies (sems people do not want more SC4 bats ?).

I guess I'll have to do it myself.

 

Let's do it !

 

 

First step : from blender to 3DS. and re-learning how to export. I have a bad memory, I do not remember a single thing from what I managed to learn two years ago. Sounds like fun 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Damnit !!  Something went wrong. 

Like two years ago, I'll switch to the smallest thing I can for fast testing.

No idea what I did wrong, I was very cautious 

[Bombardiere 591]

Try here.

 

Look a lot like a export distortion problem. You may need Maxis' ID fix. The link is in Jasoncw's post.

 

 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Lol I just forgot to apply the 3DSMax 2012 fix 

Here's my Half-Chase Manhattan (a scaled down version of the Chase Manhattan) in SC4 :

The nightlights might need a bit of work.

I feel like the textures are a bit too dark (I made this building for Skylines, and Skylines has a tendency to be much too bright)

I might model the entrance, it would be much better looking.

Oh and I need to add some more roof junk (I used props in Skylines).

1 minute ago, Bombardiere said:

Try here.

 

Look a lot like a export distortion problem. You may need Maxis' ID fix. The link is in Jasoncw's post.

 

 

You answered while I was typing... well no it was a Max problem

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Try to do something about the ground floor too. Those textures look great in CSL, but they don't quite cut it in SC4.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Don't know, but that tower seems to have some lightning issues. At least it has some contrast to it that makes it stand out.

[MushyMushy 3,617]

It looks good! I agree with all of your notes at the bottom about things to improve. I feel that once you do those, it'll be a top-notch building for some tight downtown areas.

[9gruntsand1hammer 3,194]

The building is coming along nicely. 

I remember your apartment building from you other thread. I liked it because it reminded me of some apartment buildings in Toronto near Hwy 400 and Hwy 401.

[madhatter106 3,903]

I would desaturate some of the textures just a bit; maybe less than 10%.  They are very bold looking compared to a number of other buildings in that screenshot. 

What is the floor height?  My eye keeps wondering if this needs to be slightly scaled down?   I am not sure.

Also, I would recommend doing something different with the texture of the ground floor glass; right now, it's apparent that it's a picture of a lobby, and when it's lit, it has a sort of "pasted on" look to it.  This sort of thing works better with small windows, but when you have huge swaths of glass that are barely interrupted by other architecture, it doesn't look real or right.  In reality, a huge lit lobby like that (as seen from above, birds' eye view in SC4 style) you would see a good portion of the floor, and the furniture inside, and not see a single square inch of the lobby ceiling.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

18 minutes ago, madhatter106 said:

I would desaturate some of the textures just a bit; maybe less than 10%.  They are very bold looking compared to a number of other buildings in that screenshot. 

What is the floor height?  My eye keeps wondering if this needs to be slightly scaled down?   I am not sure.

Also, I would recommend doing something different with the texture of the ground floor glass; right now, it's apparent that it's a picture of a lobby, and when it's lit, it has a sort of "pasted on" look to it.  This sort of thing works better with small windows, but when you have huge swaths of glass that are barely interrupted by other architecture, it doesn't look real or right.  In reality, a huge lit lobby like that (as seen from above, birds' eye view in SC4 style) you would see a good portion of the floor, and the furniture inside, and not see a single square inch of the lobby ceiling.

I'm not sure about desaturation, maybe more a problem of levels. I'll try making things lighter. (As I said, I made this model *and the others I will use* for cities skylines, and cities skylines washes out textures... so now I have to readapt it)

The floor height... well yeah I'm searching the right amount of stretching to apply. if you comparewith the windows of the building behind it on the top left, it looks like it should be stretched even more.

Yeah the ground floor glass I know, that's what I said about modeling the entrance (I should have said "modelling the lobby" instead to make it clear ).

 

Thanks for your attention !! I really like what you released for SC4, all your work shows attention to detail (and I like the fact that you rarely use dependencies).

[weixc812 509]

Great effort to move C:SL buildings to SC4!

It seems that we'll get a bunch of SC4 BATs soon

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Mmmmfffff... I've got a lot of things to learn.

I imported my Elstree Building

I can't tell if scaling is ok.

Nightlights... omg I regret so much that I had imported every night window as greyscale (because Skylines does not use color in the illumination map.) Now I will have to recolor them or reimport every one of them. I won't even show you a night view, it's hopeless.

Feels like some parts of the textures are too bright (when it should be the opposite).

I have to learn how to make reflections 

 

So... much... to... do.

[matias93 7,535]

It is impressive how desaturated SC4 is, not only compared to the candy-esque CSL, but also to real life buildings. It seems you'll need to reduce saturation and contrast to match the game levels. Anyway, those buildings are beautifully modelled and have that international/contemporary look that is not so common now between BATers. We are glad to have you bating again for SC4, your quailty works, I'm sure, will be crazily downloaded.

[watercitymadero 804]

Wonderful 

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I can only second what matias93 said.

As for floor height, it's always helpful if you know the real-life dimensions your building has. I'm not sure if you remember that you'll have to scale everything to 133% of its RL height in SC4 in order to make it look just right. So it really helps if you know the real-life building height. Otherwise, Jasoncw has mentioned storey heights that seem to work out fine for commercial buildings, but I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

8 minutes ago, T Wrecks said:

I can only second what matias93 said.

As for floor height, it's always helpful if you know the real-life dimensions your building has. I'm not sure if you remember that you'll have to scale everything to 133% of its RL height in SC4 in order to make it look just right. So it really helps if you know the real-life building height. Otherwise, Jasoncw has mentioned storey heights that seem to work out fine for commercial buildings, but I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head.

Yep... I know about the 133% "rule"

All my buildings were modeled for Skylines using realistic floor heights...

But if you look at vanilla SC4 buildings, some look like they're made for hobbits, some others like they're made for the Hulk. Consistency is a bit off 

[madhatter106 3,903]

20 hours ago, matias93 said:

It is impressive how desaturated SC4 is, not only compared to the candy-esque CSL, but also to real life buildings.

Yeah, I agree.  At first I thought it was the laptop I was using, but when looking at the pictures in this thread, it is rather astounding how much color has been "bled" out of the SC4 Maxis color palette.  Which reinforces the idea of making screenshots of your test renders and then cutting and pasting them into screenshots from the game, to see how everything meshes together.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

4 minutes ago, madhatter106 said:

Yeah, I agree.  At first I thought it was the laptop I was using, but when looking at the pictures in this thread, it is rather astounding how much color has been "bled" out of the SC4 Maxis color palette.  Which reinforces the idea of making screenshots of your test renders and then cutting and pasting them into screenshots from the game, to see how everything meshes together.

I think I'll try to apply photoshop correction layers to an ingame screen, or to a test render pasted onto a SC4 cap, and then report them to the texture files (I think it could work).

 

Oh and I have a hard time making reflections work... this will need a lot of try and error too 

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

You did great models to Cities: Skylines. It's good to have them on SC4 as well

[Cool_Z 1,547]

1 minute ago, JP Schriefer said:

You did great models to Cities: Skylines. It's good to have them on SC4 as well

I realize it's a fully different thing actually.

Building for CSL was a fight against polycount and a fight to fit everything on a single texture map. Here you have tons more liberty but you also need tons more details.

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

Indeed, but the models you showed here are very nice buildings to SC4 in my opinion.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Thanks a lot 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

I think this will be the first I'll upload (because it's the one I will have the less problems "adapting"  )

Ok I'm beginning to understand more about the nightlights.

Now I must add some roofjunk and tweak the day windows a bit, maybe add some stuff on the small balconies (like something put to dry on the balcony railings).

The scale is almost right but I could stretch it a tad more.

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Imagine 3-4 of these on a 6x6 lot or something. That would be amazeballs!  

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

6 hours ago, Thin White Duke said:

Imagine a lot made up of 3-4 of these on a 6x6 lot or something. That would be amazeballs!  

Sounds like a job for T Wrecks...

@Cool_Z: Yeah, that one looks promising. Roof junk could work well, but not too much. Some small antenna or satellite dishes would be important. Also, what happened to the Lot there? And why is there a ghost road ...

[Cool_Z 1,547]

4 hours ago, Toothless Stitch said:

Sounds like a job for T Wrecks...

@Cool_Z: Yeah, that one looks promising. Roof junk could work well, but not too much. Some small antenna or satellite dishes would be important. Also, what happened to the Lot there? And why is there a ghost road ...

Yeah I won't add a ton, just like I did for Skylines

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=417805731

Well... I'm not at the lotting part yet, just at the "scale and textures looking ok" part.

Oh and the ghost road is because it was a city I played with an old roadtop mass transit mod and I switched to rtmt 3.6 before starting a new region (but still use this old city to test stuff).

[matias93 7,535]

Considering nightlighting, you could find an use for Madhatter's new interior texture, a very ingenious solution:
 

EDIT: don't mind, you already saw it