BAT - Getting Started Guide / FAQ / Resources / Help

[kaimai 1,041]

This question may have been asked/answered earlier (maybe even asked by me) but: how do you export a sunken/underground model such that it looks acceptable in game? e.g., a sunken plaza, underground rail/highway in a trench, subway entrance etc. Specifically: can the Z-axis of the LOD be set at, e.g., -16 meters, or does it have to be set to 0 meters regardless of how far the geometry extends below the Z axis?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

On 7/23/2025 at 11:49 PM, kaimai said:

This question may have been asked/answered earlier (maybe even asked by me) but: how do you export a sunken/underground model such that it looks acceptable in game? e.g., a sunken plaza, underground rail/highway in a trench, subway entrance etc. Specifically: can the Z-axis of the LOD be set at, e.g., -16 meters, or does it have to be set to 0 meters regardless of how far the geometry extends below the Z axis?

I'm sorry I saw this post right before going to bed and then forgot to reply! 

The important thing to remember is that your model only exists to create the rendering, which is a 2D image. Whether a part of the building goes above ground or under ground is only an issue of what the pixels look like. If you wanted to you could even use Photoshop to manually make the 2D images, to put an MC Escher style building into the game.

So for example, if you have a BATed plaza, with a LOD that is 16x16x1 meters, it doesn't matter whether there are underground/sunken elements or something which sticks up above ground like a statue. As long as everything in the BAT fits within the silhouette of the LOD in all rotations, then it's good. 

However, BATs with underground elements will cause the reverse shadow problem if they're not accounted for. The in-game shadows are created by taking the previous rotation's render, and distorting it. If you have a BAT with an underground element, and it sticks down below the silhouette of the LOD, that bit will get cut off and you won't see it in the game, but it still exists. So you need to actually mask that part out of the renders. Renderers normally have materials which do this. So you model an object surrounding the parts that you want to be masked out, and apply the mask material to this object. Kind of like surrounding it with a green screen. With 3ds Max/Mental Ray, the materials is the MR Matte/Shadow/Reflection material. In the material there are a few options relating to different situations but iirc the settings are intuitive. What matters for the end result is that that area is not included in the render's alpha mask. 

 

[Barroco Hispano 26,671]

@kaimai Make sure to deselect all the boxes and exclude the object from the Adv. Lighting Calculations. I personally always use white in the Camera Mapped Background for the daytime version and black for the nighttime version.

With the white color, the mask looks gray instead of full black in the daytime version, which reduces the "alpha bleeding" a bit.

By the way, does anyone know how I can exclude reflection/refraction for a specific object (glass), but keep it activated for the rest of the objects?

When I add a texture to a plane so it reflects on objects, it unfortunately prevents the transparency of the glass material from propagating to the alpha channel. I think I understand why this happens, but there doesn't seem to be a way in 3dsmax to exclude it per object.

Visible to reflection/refraction ON

Visible to reflection/refraction OFF

 

[Jasoncw 11,840]

@Barroco HispanoI've never used it before, so I don't know exactly how to use it, or if it would help you, but the "Color Override/Ray Type Switcher" map might be helpful. 

Also I think somewhere in the rendering settings there's a "propagate transparency to alpha" setting, but iirc that setting doesn't work with mental ray. 

At least for a prop like that, you have an idea of how it will be placed on lots, so you can make the ground plane match the base/overlay textures on the lot. So probably the Maxis paver texture. 

[Barroco Hispano 26,671]

Thanks for your reply!

1 hour ago, Jasoncw said:

"Color Override/Ray Type Switcher"

That map looks pretty complex, haha. I'll Google it to see what I can use it for. 

1 hour ago, Jasoncw said:

so you can make the ground plane match the base/overlay textures on the lot.

I found a way to make the transparency of a BAT made in 3dsmax work in sc4 without graphical glitches, but at the cost of sacrificing the reflections of the other materials :/

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I feel like it's a common problem, where normally in 3d rendering it's assumed that you'll be editing or compositing it in other programs, but for BATing, the raw renders immediately get turned into the BAT, and editing them is extremely tedious. 

[nikoxlaux 237]

16 hours ago, Barroco Hispano said:

Thanks for your reply!

That map looks pretty complex, haha. I'll Google it to see what I can use it for. 

I found a way to make the transparency of a BAT made in 3dsmax work in sc4 without graphical glitches, but at the cost of sacrificing the reflections of the other materials :/

Love those new props

[Rott 2,351]

Have an issue with gmax since installing it on my new PC, when I right click it brings up the little submenu on my second monitor, and only if no other window is active on it. Strangely enough I can still 'use' it since it acts like it's still where it should be when I move my mouse, it's just not appearing where it should be. Probably more of an issue with Windows 11 and not Gmax but not sure where else to post this...

 

[Rott 2,351]

Seems like Windows 11 and Gmax are not friends, I'm having a ton of new problems such as the one above, as well as chronic crashing, weird graphic issues, textures not loading from my imported models, and now a fatal render error. If anyone else is using Gmax in 11 I need to know what these issues are. Also Reader doesn't seem to want to open anything, not sure if it's a setting to modify or more of the same issues with a newer OS...

[jestarr 3,410]

@Rott I had less problems with windows 11 and many 32 bit programs after downloading and running Win11Debloat-2025.10.06 from https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat/releases. If you use it, download the source file as it has all the files required.

[Rott 2,351]

@jestarr Do you know what this does exactly? I'm just wondering if it will change the way my PC performs for other programs

[Rott 2,351]

Went to transfer some Gmax files using a USB memory stick from the new PC to the old one to render it and it doesn't even show the new files when I go to transfer them (I tried looking at hidden files, they still do not show up). Just one ridiculous problem after another... are people REALLY able to use GMax/BAT on Windows 11? Or should I be looking into using a new program?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I haven't had problems with Gmax when I export LODs, but all I'm doing there is importing the LODs, saving the file, and pressing the export button. I just opened an actual BAT and it seems to work fine, except that I have the same issue with right clicking. Also, one time when I right clicked Gmax crashed. 

If you go to Customize>Preferences, and then go to the Viewports tab, in the Display Drivers area, mine is set to "Software Z-Buffer (MP)", and when I click on Choose Driver, "HEIDI" is selected. I don't know if that's the ideal setting, but software is probably going to be a better option. Gmax is so old that if you choose Direct3D or OpenGL your hardware might not support the versions that Gmax is looking for, but you can give them a try if you'd like. 

Debloating isn't generally recommended because you're counting on the person from the internet who made it knowing exactly what to do to your computer to make it better than the intended setup. It's likely that it won't actually be an improvement, and it's not unlikely that it will hurt. If you bought your computer from a company which actually has a bunch of bloatware on it you can do a clean install of windows or you can manually uninstall the bloatware. 

For alternatives, there's Blender, which is free and easy to install. BAT4Blender isn't done yet so you won't be able to finish any BATs until it is, but it's done enough to start BATing. At worst you can make the model in blender and then export it in Gmax. There's also 3ds Max, which is not free but can be "obtained" without spending money. The most recent version of BAT4Max does not work with newer versions of 3ds Max and it would be hard to get a version old enough to use it. I'm working on an update to BAT4Max and will hopefully be making a thread about that soon, and maybe someone who knows more about coding will be able to solve the problems. There's also the Chrisadams3997 version of BAT4Max which uses the same Scanline renderer as Gmax and is basically the Gmax BAT on steroids, but I can't find a link for it. I'm not aware that anyone has used it on a recent version of 3ds Max but it would probably work. 

[Rott 2,351]

I was really hoping the right click issues were something to do with settings on my second monitor but I guess not. Regardless, if compatibility with Blender will be a thing soon everything should work out just fine... 

[Jasoncw 11,840]

The rendering quality with Blender is much better, and also probably faster (when I just did a Gmax preview render to test it, it was actually pretty slow). It'd be quite a learning curve to adjust to the new ways of doing things since it's not similar to Gmax/3ds Max, but once you do, it's modern and stable. It's free and fast to install so it's easy to give it a try at least. 

Also I forgot to say, I have a second monitor too, so it's possible it's related to the monitors. 

[madhatter106 3,903]

5 hours ago, Rott said:

I was really hoping the right click issues were something to do with settings on my second monitor but I guess not. Regardless, if compatibility with Blender will be a thing soon everything should work out just fine... 

Right-clicking has been generally problematic in gmax on Windows 7 and 10 as well.
I often find that when I need to right click for something important, I will save the file right beforehand, so in case it throws me an error and forces the program to close, I haven't lost any progress.

[ACEfanatic02 259]

10 hours ago, Jasoncw said:

For alternatives, there's Blender, which is free and easy to install. BAT4Blender isn't done yet so you won't be able to finish any BATs until it is, but it's done enough to start BATing.

I disagree, actually.  There's definitely some sharp edges remaining in the Blender workflow, but it's absolutely possible at this point to make models, light them correctly, and get them in-game.

The bottleneck is learning to use Blender itself, which is... not the most intuitive piece of software out there.  OTOH, the internet is drowning in tutorials on "how do I do X in Blender", which is emphatically not the case for GMax.

[grebe48 27]

I am going to apologize in advance, because this has probably been discussed before at some point.

I just reinstalled GMAX and SC4 on my PC after a SSD swap. In Gmax, there is a mod/script out there that allows SD or HD output of your BAT model. It is a radial button in the 'Preview' section of the B.A.T. tools in Gmax. Anyone know where i can locate this script/ addon to download it? 

[IDS2 3,346]

On 15/11/2025 at 12:12 AM, grebe48 said:

I am going to apologize in advance, because this has probably been discussed before at some point.

I just reinstalled GMAX and SC4 on my PC after a SSD swap. In Gmax, there is a mod/script out there that allows SD or HD output of your BAT model. It is a radial button in the 'Preview' section of the B.A.T. tools in Gmax. Anyone know where i can locate this script/ addon to download it? 

I believe this is what you're looking for: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7430.msg238749#msg238749

[Jasoncw 11,840]

They're also included in the BAT4Max installation. You can open the .mzp file as though it were a .zip, and there should be a folder for gmax scripts. 

[grebe48 27]

Perfect @IDS2!!! Thank you so much!

[guepardomountain 417]

I posted this question in my personal forum thread, so I hope it's okay to ask here as well:

Does the exclude button work for lights in gmax? It does not seem to do anything.

Is the feature broken, or is there something I need to do to get it to work? Is there a better way to create neon signage in gmax?

In this model the red neon lights are a custom night map. Since only one night map can be used per file, the white neon lights are free direct lights. Excluding everything from the lighting except the text that I want lit up seems to do absolutely nothing. Selecting "include" and adding only the text also does nothing.