Björn_1984's BAT's

[Björn_1984 244]

So i started work on my second BAT. Got a lot of work done so far, now i'm working on the doors and windows. Hope you guys like it.

 

The building itself is complete. Now it's time for the details and textures.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Hey, great to see you here!

The new building you're showing looks very promising already; it appears to be neatly and cleanly modeled and looks pretty realistic to me. Did you base it on a real building, or is it made up entirely?

[MissVanleider 1,850]

Nice building, I enjoyed your first one too. I don't have the expertise needed to suggest changes or improvements, so I am only here to offer 

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

Very good modelling! Looking forward for the textures

[Diego Del Llano 5,206]

That's Right, If you need sometips with textures or something else , we can Help you, I'll try as much as I can. And Welcome new BATter ! 

[Jasoncw 11,933]

So far so good.  

[Björn_1984 244]

19 hours ago, T Wrecks said:

Hey, great to see you here!

The new building you're showing looks very promising already; it appears to be neatly and cleanly modeled and looks pretty realistic to me. Did you base it on a real building, or is it made up entirely?

It's based on this building. I only have this one picture so i don't think they will look excactly the same.

[Björn_1984 244]

Added some textures to the walls and roof. I tried a darker color of bricks for the base and between the windows as the real building but did'nt like it that much.

[madhatter106 3,905]

Deliciously generic.  We always need more basic buildings like this.  Yay!

On the modeling, I wonder, are your exterior wall thicknesses 0.3 meters?  Maybe my eyes are bad but it seems the walls should be a tiny bit thicker.  Plus the gray vertical insets between the window rows, I would also push them in a tiny bit, so that you get a sense of depth; the facades are looking very "flat."  Also, I would drop the roof that is set inside just a tiny bit more; it looks like if you are standing on the roof, the walls would come up to below your knees if you stood at the edge.  A quick gust of wind and you might fall off.

As for texturing, I wouldn't do bricks for the white/cream texture - based on the style of the building and the pic you are referencing, I'm betting the actual material isn't brick of any sort.  Maybe the gray base would be brick or cement blocks or some such. 

The details are what are going to make this building "sing."  Not all balconies would have the same furniture and accessories; plus when you've added doors and side entrances and back entrances and roofjunk and HVACs, that's going to really make this one "pop."

[T Wrecks 10,209]

^ Good advice from @madhatter106, as usual.

I might add that your building looks a tad squashed. This may be due to the perspective in SC4, which will make a perfect cube look as if its height wasn't the same as length and depth, even if all three dimensions are identical in gmax. In order to compensate for this effect, common practice is to stretch the building by scaling its Z dimension (height) only to 133%. This means you can model width and depth to real-life dimensions (if you know them), and height to 133% of real-life height (if you know it).

[madhatter106 3,905]

On ‎4‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 2:49 PM, T Wrecks said:

^ Good advice from @madhatter106, as usual.

I might add that your building looks a tad squashed. This may be due to the perspective in SC4, which will make a perfect cube look as if its height wasn't the same as length and depth, even if all three dimensions are identical in gmax. In order to compensate for this effect, common practice is to stretch the building by scaling its Z dimension (height) only to 133%. This means you can model width and depth to real-life dimensions (if you know them), and height to 133% of real-life height (if you know it).

The floor heights look to be between 4.0 and 4.5 meters, at a glance, so I'm not sure it's that.  I think part of the squash might be the fact that the ground floor is a nearly identical height to the upper floors; I find that you have the cheat the ground floor just a bit higher or things looks too squashed. 

Also, the wall span between the uppermost row of windows at the top and the top horizontal edge of the walls is too short.  If you look at all the cream wall spans between the horizontal window rows, they are all equal, except for the topmost, which is barely half the height of the others; according to the source photo, it should be taller, probably at least the same height as the other spans.  If I were modeling it, I would make it just a bit taller than these other spans and taller than that seen in the source pic - to avoid the very squash described above.

[Björn_1984 244]

Made some minor changes to the model. I raised the top wall span and pushed the vertical insets between the window rows in a bit following the advice of madhatter106. I think it looks better already but still got a lot of work to do.

[madhatter106 3,905]

Indeed, looking good.  It appears you've not yet done the overhang on the uppermost set of balconies (as seen in the reference pic).  Unless you're intentionally leaving it out?

[Björn_1984 244]

The overhang on the uppermost balconies is something on my list. Now i'm working on the windows but progress is slow. I can't seem to find the correct settings to make them look good. Are there tutorials that could be some help?

[madhatter106 3,905]

25 minutes ago, Brugesboy84 said:

The overhang on the uppermost balconies is something on my list. Now i'm working on the windows but progress is slow. I can't seem to find the correct settings to make them look good. Are there tutorials that could be some help?

What effect are you trying to achieve?  Is it a texturing thing, or a modeling thing?

[rsc204 21,836]

For your second BAT this is looking pretty neat, it certainly has a lot of potential.

Ah windows, not my favourite part of texturing either... what are you using to model, SC4 BAT / 3DS Max? If the latter you will have more options available to you. For example you can mingle textures with transparency effects to get some nice results.

The basics for SC4BAT are explained in Part 3 of this guide:

 

[Björn_1984 244]

I'm trying to texture them so that you see differences in the windows (one with curtains, another with a sofa...). I think that is would be easier to apply a texture to it than moddeling the interiour.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Like I said in the comment to your first upload, IIRC the BAT comes with a bunch of standard textures, most of which aren't that great. However, trying out the default window texture may be worth a shot. It may at least give a few pointers or, failing even that, a chuckle.

[madhatter106 3,905]

On ‎4‎/‎13‎/‎2017 at 7:11 AM, T Wrecks said:

Like I said in the comment to your first upload, IIRC the BAT comes with a bunch of standard textures, most of which aren't that great. However, trying out the default window texture may be worth a shot. It may at least give a few pointers or, failing even that, a chuckle.

I used to use the Maxis window texture a lot when I was BATting; in part because it matched the Maxis stuff and in part because it just sorta worked for what I was doing.  However, it worked best if you were doing a whole giant sheet of glass to serve as the windows for all of one wall.  One object = all the window glass for that wall, and then you put lighted interiors behind it.  It made the modeling work, but I would have to slog through the nightlighting.  I would always just do a huge sheet of glass inset inside the wall, and then mess around with the UVW maps to come up with some random window glass variation for all the windows in said wall.

The BAT Essentials tutorial, if I am remembering correctly,  has you creating different panes of glass to match each window frame.  This is a bit more effort in the modeling but it can give you more controlled results when it comes to texturing and nightlighting (that is, if you are using nightmaps).  Nowadays, because I am using a "cheat" (for lack of a better word) nightmap for my BAT night windows (as seen in my thread), I have to do the glass the BAT Essentials way, because I assign the nitelite prefix only to certain windows to light up.  I have a half dozen flat glassy window textures that I use, to give a little bit of variety from one window to the other, so they don't all look the same, and I just slap them on scattershot to the glass objects and then go about my way.  It takes more time modeling, but it makes the nightlighting much easier for me, since I'm working in gmax.  And I'd much rather model and texture things than suffer through nightlighting...

[Björn_1984 244]

Haven't had a lot of time lately. Just a little update: applied textures to the front windows and door.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

I like that! It's getting better and better.

[rsc204 21,836]

If you want to randomise what appears in each window, you will likely need to model each window pane as a unique object. For example if you've used an array or cloned windows as "copies", when you apply a texture to one, it gets applied to all windows that are not unique. However by selecting the individual windows and applying a different texture to them, you can start to make things look more random. You might use the same materials (textures), but by using a unique Material instance, a duplicate texture can use different settings like the texture being offset or even flipped/rotated. Of course the more variants of a texture you have, the more unique everything will look. But these tricks can help you re-use textures without repeating patterns so frequently, allowing you to get more out of them.

[Belfastsocrates 1,753]

Looking excellent so far! We need more of these generic modern clean buildings. 

[Björn_1984 244]

The building itself is now finished. Time to add some details. As you can see still a lot to do. Hope you like the progress so far.

 

[Björn_1984 244]

The roof is finished. Now i'm working on the terrace. I'll add some pots with plants and some different pieces of furniture.

[Harry's Place 918]

I have to say, i am impressed

[Krasner 1,062]

This is getting very nice in my opinion Do you plan to add an access to the rooftop, like the top of backstairs or a ladder, as threre are some air conditionners and solar panels to maintain up there ? That may be a logical addition I think.

[matias93 7,535]

Love it! It looks very bauhaus-y. Maybe the only detail would be to consider the luminosity of the white walls, but until seeing it in context, it is hard to say if it's right.

25 minutes ago, Krasner said:

Do you plan to add an access to the rooftop, like the top of backstairs or a ladder, as threre are some air conditionners and solar panels to maintain up there ?

You can always call the firefighters to get help to reach the roof; maybe even to wash the panels! 

Joke aside, considering the building has internal stairs (and pressumably an elevator, which shaft should also protrude), the logical way to get there would be a covered stair to the roof, directly over the normal (or emergency) ones.

[Krasner 1,062]

4 minutes ago, matias93 said:

considering the building has internal stairs (and pressumably an elevator, which shaft should also protrude), the logical way to get there would be a covered stair to the roof, directly over the normal (or emergency) ones.

I completely agree

[Fantozzi 4,067]

The building looks cool.. But to me it looks a little strange that the solar panels are oriented towards the shadow side. I would expect they're 'looking' towards the sun.

 

[EDIT]

Also the ground/yard around the building - it might be better to remove it and leave that part to lotting. With all the textures and props there are we could make very good use of this bat and lot it in many different ways if it comes without a rendered ground.