BAT - Getting Started Guide / FAQ / Resources / Help

[Krio 624]

Well, I dled 2016 version and then dl'ed BAT4Max, but I got this while trying to run script as instructed:

I've Windows 10 operating system and updated 2016 3ds Max etc such things.

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

11 minutes ago, Krio said:

I got this while trying to run script as instructed:

My best guess is Windoze 10 is being overly protective about writing files in sub folders of C:\Program Files. Perhaps try running with administrator permissions or, if possible, install the program somewhere besides in Program Files. The first you should be able to try safely. The latter I'd wait until someone more knowledgeable than me chimes in.

[rsc204 21,806]

I think you might need to mess with the permissions of the Autodesk folder inside Program Files. Windows 10 won't allow applications to modify any files there by default. This tutorial should hopefully help.

[Barroco Hispano 26,671]

WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?

[rsc204 21,806]

On 03/03/2019 at 7:13 PM, Goldman Sachs said:

WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?

See the third post in this very thread, look for the section "MY BAT IS DISTORTED".

Sometimes SC4BAT screws up the UV mapping of the S3Ds, which is a typical way to end up with what you are showing. You can either manually fix the UV Mapping or try to force SC4BAT to fix the settings of the S3D's themselves. The latter will probably require you to adjust the LODs ever so slightly then re-export after copying all elements of the model into a new scene in 3DS Max. The former isn't actually very hard, since you can use Excel or similar to very quickly fix the U/V settings and copy/paste them back into the affected S3Ds.

[AndisArt 2,066]

On 3.3.2019 at 5:12 PM, Krio said:

Well, I dled 2016 version and then dl'ed BAT4Max, but I got this while trying to run script as instructed:

I've Windows 10 operating system and updated 2016 3ds Max etc such things.

I would strongly suggest to install 3dsmax in any other folder than Program Files to prevent issues with user rights etc.

I have mine on C:\3dsMax for instance.

[AndisArt 2,066]

On 3.3.2019 at 7:13 PM, Goldman Sachs said:

WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?

 

 

 

3 hours ago, rsc204 said:

See the third post in this very thread, look for the section "MY BAT IS DISTORTED".

Sometimes SC4BAT screws up the UV mapping of the S3Ds, which is a typical way to end up with what you are showing. You can either manually fix the UV Mapping or try to force SC4BAT to fix the settings of the S3D's themselves. The latter will probably require you to adjust the LODs ever so slightly then re-export after copying all elements of the model into a new scene in 3DS Max. The former isn't actually very hard, since you can use Excel or similar to very quickly fix the U/V settings and copy/paste them back into the affected S3Ds.

 

This! Plus in my experience this can happen if you have mods like NAM in the plugin folder while doing the export sequence. So to be sure use a clean Plugins folder without mods (other BATs should be ok I think) for the full sequence (including exporting LODs to gmax).

 

 

[Krio 624]

2 hours ago, AndisArt said:

I would strongly suggest to install 3dsmax in any other folder than Program Files to prevent issues with user rights etc.

I have mine on C:\3dsMax for instance.

Going to do that and try if it works, thanks!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I did indeed have that problem with the Guardian Building, but it was only two .FSH in one rotation, so I was able to just manually fix the problem in the Reader. The problem is that the .FSH ID number sequence got messed up and so they're in the wrong order, but you can edit the numbers back to being correct in the Reader. Other files in the Plugins folder have no impact on this, because Gmax/BAT/3ds Max/BAT4Max can't read those files and doesn't have anything to do with them. I think the problem happens because the high number of .FSH in HD exports trips up the scripts which assigns them ID numbers. Most export problems are basically the same thing, something about something somewhere trips up the scripts which give things numbers.

@rsc204 is correct that it's a permissions thing. His link offers a bunch of ways of doing it but all I ever do is navigate to the Autodesk folder in Program Files, right click on it, go to properties, go to the security tab, then click the edit button, and change it so that your user has "Full Control" of the entire folder. I suppose you can install 3ds Max anywhere, but there's no reason to put it directly in C.

And as far as BAT4Max and new versions of max, BAT4Max itself is render independent. Unless other things were changed in max, it should just be a matter of making a new lighting rig which matches the old one, and copying and pasting and editing a few of the scripts to automatically set the rendering settings for the new renderer. It's something I could do but I don't have the new versions of Max.

[Lucario Boricua 7,027]

In this time and date, what would be my best set of softwares to use for SimCity 4 custom content creation? I'm having a terribly hard time getting 3ds Max 2017 through the Autodesk educational license scheme. The download has its own faults (seems to never complete and is missing files needed to start the installation) and would rather have an older version of 3ds Max for better compatibility. I'm open to using other programs, including SketchUp or something else other than the basic gmax.

It's also worth noting that Autodesk no longer officially distributes 3ds Max in versions older than 2017, at least under the educational license, and would rather take a lawful approach to my aspiring custom content creation.

[rsc204 21,806]

We're really in a state of limbo right now, so it's hard to give a definitive answer, things break down as follows:

gMax and SC4 Scripts (SC4 BAT) remains an ever-viable option, since even in the event it stops being officially distributed, it should still remain available.

3DS Max with an Edu licence lasts I think 3 years, when you renew that, you'll only be able to use the new key with the currently supported editions at that time. As you note, Autodesk support just the most recent and previous 2 versions at any time. So whilst today you could get 2017 or with some effort and the NVidia Mental Ray Plugin, 2018, to work. Unless the 3DS Max scripts (BAT4Max) get updated to work with the new Rendering engine in the meantime, it's an ever ticking time-bomb. Of course you could simply buy (rent) 3DS Max, I believe the option for new editions is an annual fee only. However that's subject also to the limited legacy support, just as the educational licence is. Technically, anyone having purchased 3DS Max as a disk-based product with a working licence key, can transfer that licence to you. In the same way I can sell a Music CD for example, but software is always more tricky. In Europe, Autodesk sued a company selling their old editions, but lost and this victory ensured the right in Europe to re-sell software. This may not be the case where you are though, not to mention, being technically legal, doesn't stop it being practically impossible to buy a second hand copy here. You have to be real careful too, because if the supplied key doesn't work, Autodesk probably won't care much, even if it's legal and above board. Long and short, in theory you could buy an old edition, but if you can even find one, it will be very expensive and potentially you may still not be able to make it work.

SketchUp can not export a file, such that it will work with SimCity, as a standalone application. Yes, BAT4Max utilises SC4BAT to create LODs, but the actual rendering takes place in 3DS Max, hence the models benefit from the additional quality. Without a set of scripts such as SC4BAT or BAT4MAX, you must export the final model in a format for importing into 3DS Max, then render the model there. Problem one, you may have to do a lot of tweaking to make a Sketchup model render properly in 3DS Max, or for that matter, when following the same workflow from any other 3D Modelling application. But Problem two is simply that now you need 3DS Max anyway, so you've not really solved anything.

Blender is probably the most popular open-source 3D Modelling application. Whilst right now, no finished working scripts exist for it's use, a project to create such scripts is well underway. The biggest benefit of this would be that being open-source, we can pretty much guarantee in future that everyone can get hold of a working (legacy) version of it, so it won't matter if the scripts don't get updated for future versions. Ideally, Blender may be your best starting point, since it's so different from gMax/3DS Max, if it becomes the future of SC4 Models, you are better off learning how to use it from the start. Of course there is no release date, nor is a working release 100% guaranteed to happen either. This means that you may run into many problems, including not being able to render your models.

If you don't care about the additional quality/ease of use/rendering speed of 3DS Max, you could just stick with SC4 BAT. But if you do, I'd get Blender, model using it, but until the scripts are ready, export from there as a 3DS file, then use 3DS Max to texture and render it. This means you'll be up to speed with Blender should it's scripts appear one day, but will have lost nothing if they don't and you can no longer get 3DS max working in future. As I said, it's all in limbo, but I am hopeful the Blender scripts will get finished, putting this problem to bed finally. Of course, someone may come and update BAT4Max too, but even then, Autodesk's lack of legacy support means this issue is always lurking in the shadows. Hence I prefer the Blender approach, although having myself learned 3DS Max, I wouldn't personally change, mostly because I'd have to near start-over learning to model.

P.s. naturally I would normally provide a link to the thread re: creating Blender scripts for SC4. However, with SC4D down right now, it'll have to wait until the site is operational, assuming I remember too .

What do you know, I did remember, you can find the discussion here.

[KrispyKayak 21]

Hi,

I am brand new to BATing and am very interested in creating my own buildings. I have followed Jasoncw's Getting Started Guide and have a couple of questions:

1. So, can I BAT in either gmax/BAT or in 3dsMax? As in, I have to use one program or the other? I've been looking up tutorial guides so that I can try making a basic building to learn the program, but I'm still confused at the difference between these two programs. If I find a BAT guide that is using gmax/BAT, do I have to use the gmax version or can I follow it in 3dsMax?

2. In the Getting Started Guide, I have a question on Step 11: This step tells us to run the BAT script in 3dsMax. We only need to do this one time, correct? From now on, when I open the program it will automatically have this script installed? I'm not sure how I'm supposed to verify if it is installed in 3dsMax or not.

3. I am using 3dsMax 2015 and am trying to do Step 15, but I am not seeing the same dialogue box that Jasoncw is using when he goes to Render Setup icon > Renderer tab.

Jasoncw's box looks like this:

However, when I go to the same box, mine looks like this:

Am I missing something? I'm not seeing anything here about setting up my rendering settings.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[mattb325 28,880]

Hi @KrispyKayak

To answer your questions:

1) You can use either gmax(Bat) or 3dsMax to create the basic building. If you make the building in gmax you can just render it out into the plugins file and no additional modelling progams are required. You will still need the PIM and LE or PIMX to make them usable in game. If you make the building in 3dsMax, you have to have gmax in order to get the LODs of the building into the game; so those two programs effectively work in unison. However, given that you have 3dsMax working, I would just use that program to model in as, among other things, it gives cleaner renders.

2) Step 11 is a one time thing. To verify it is installed, you will see this in the utilities area:

3) To get step 15, you need to select the Let There Be Light option and press 'sky' and then 'day'

Doing that will change the default Scanline rendering options (your screen shot) to the Mentral Ray rendering options that jasoncw has shown (although your GUI may look different)

Make certain that you also follow the manual BAT Rendering Settings each time you make a new building or indeed press any of the keys in the Let There Be Light Option.

 

[KrispyKayak 21]

@mattb325 Thank you for answering my questions - this helps a lot!

[PHBSD 37]

Hi,

I'm having issues when I try to install SC4 BAT by opening errors windows (pictured)

Does someone know what problem is this?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

@PHBSD I'm not familiar with that error, but presumably the "makeshortcut" command is the part of the installation process which adds the shortcut icon to your desktop. It's a weird error to have but as long as the program itself seems to be working right, you don't need to worry about it.

[PHBSD 37]

48 minutes ago, Jasoncw said:

@PHBSD I'm not familiar with that error, but presumably the "makeshortcut" command is the part of the installation process which adds the shortcut icon to your desktop. It's a weird error to have but as long as the program itself seems to be working right, you don't need to worry about it.

Now I got it but I have another problem LoL. What folder can I find the models I render on SC4 BAT?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

@PHBSD It dumps it into the my documents plugin folder.

[PHBSD 37]

@Jasoncw I still can't find the models in the plugin folder and SC4 Plug-in Manager

[junspud 1,066]

Quote

 

"Notice that the properties of a building are tied to this, not the lot. This allows multiple lots of the same building be made with the same properties, etc."

Does this mean that the building/model properties will always override the lot properties?

For example, if I edit a subway station lot in Reader to allow bus switches as well, but the model/building only functions as a subway station, will that prevent the lot from functioning properly as a bus/subway station?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

@junspud If you open up the files in the reader you can see what's happening. One of them (labeled by default as .SC4Lot) will contain information about the lot design (the placement of the building, props, and ground textures on the lot, plus some basic other info about the lot). One of them will (labeled by default as .SC4Desc) contain info about the stats of it, so how many jobs it has and stuff like that. Multiple lots can link to those same stats. Most people don't bother with that though, because it's easier to just mod multiple copies from scratch than it is to link them together.

In practical terms it's not something you really have to worry about or think about, because you're making a new unique .SC4Desc when you're starting your new station.

For your specific question, I don't remember exactly where all the properties are located. But the transit switch properties are what define what kind of station it is. The capacity is a generic capacity (so if it's a subway bus combo station, they will share the same capacity) and it's only one stat. The menu location is set up by default but can be edited to go wherever you want (you could put a transit lot in the parks menu if you wanted), and the query window that pops up is also set up by default to be the one associated with the type of lot it is, but can also be edited (if you wanted you could give a pure bus stop a subway query and it would look like a subway station).

[junspud 1,066]

19 hours ago, Jasoncw said:

@junspud If you open up the files in the reader you can see what's happening. One of them (labeled by default as .SC4Lot) will contain information about the lot design (the placement of the building, props, and ground textures on the lot, plus some basic other info about the lot). One of them will (labeled by default as .SC4Desc) contain info about the stats of it, so how many jobs it has and stuff like that. Multiple lots can link to those same stats. Most people don't bother with that though, because it's easier to just mod multiple copies from scratch than it is to link them together.

In practical terms it's not something you really have to worry about or think about, because you're making a new unique .SC4Desc when you're starting your new station.

For your specific question, I don't remember exactly where all the properties are located. But the transit switch properties are what define what kind of station it is. The capacity is a generic capacity (so if it's a subway bus combo station, they will share the same capacity) and it's only one stat. The menu location is set up by default but can be edited to go wherever you want (you could put a transit lot in the parks menu if you wanted), and the query window that pops up is also set up by default to be the one associated with the type of lot it is, but can also be edited (if you wanted you could give a pure bus stop a subway query and it would look like a subway station).

Okay cool, I was confused as to rather the exemplar properties for the building used on a lot might override or cancel out the same properties for the lot itself but it doesn't sound like this is the case then.

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

After a long time, here I am needing help with 3ds Max again

Does anyone know how vector images work with it? So I have a soccer field covered by a thin net, and I made this net as a vectored PNG image. Thing is I made it black, and it looks black as it is in the viewport, but when it's rendered it becomes white and I have no idea why. Already checked and there are no reflections, tried to change it from bitmap to vector but it just won't work.

I oversized the texture a bit so you can see exactly what I'm talking about.

Viewport:

Rendered image:

 

 

[Jasoncw 11,840]

39 minutes ago, JP Schriefer said:

After a long time, here I am needing help with 3ds Max again

Does anyone know how vector images work with it? So I have a soccer field covered by a thin net, and I made this net as a vectored PNG image. Thing is I made it black, and it looks black as it is in the viewport, but when it's rendered it becomes white and I have no idea why. Already checked and there are no reflections, tried to change it from bitmap to vector but it just won't work.

I don't know.

But if you use the texture as a Cutout map (in the "special purpose maps" rollout in the arch & design material) it should work. Then you can make the diffuse color black.

If that still doesn't work, then open the net texture back up in photoshop, and make the netting white and the transparent parts black, and then use that as a cutout map. Basically, to make parts of your material transparent, you use a cutout map.

You can also do this by making a Tiles map and putting that in cutout as well. Make the tiles black and the grout white, and it will make a net pattern. That way you don't have to make something in photoshop, and it's easy to tweak. This is how I usually make fencing and things like that.

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

17 hours ago, Jasoncw said:

I don't know.

But if you use the texture as a Cutout map (in the "special purpose maps" rollout in the arch & design material) it should work. Then you can make the diffuse color black.

If that still doesn't work, then open the net texture back up in photoshop, and make the netting white and the transparent parts black, and then use that as a cutout map. Basically, to make parts of your material transparent, you use a cutout map.

You can also do this by making a Tiles map and putting that in cutout as well. Make the tiles black and the grout white, and it will make a net pattern. That way you don't have to make something in photoshop, and it's easy to tweak. This is how I usually make fencing and things like that.

That worked! Thank you so much

[Vitoraju 675]

Hello. I'm starting the life of batter and stagnated at this point: after passing the modeling to 3dsmax and trying to render, the program displays this error message (which I put in the image above). Does anyone know how to solve?

My PC settings are:

i5-8265U
8GB RAM
Windows 10
64x

[gutterclub 2,729]

Can anyone help with the anti-liaising (spl) issue I seem to get quite often?

Simple BAT, render preview is fine but once exported the lines are all distorted. Have this on a few BATs

Any material maps are set to blur 0.01, Ambient Occlusion turned on and set to 16 samples, max distance 0.01 (is that right)?

Using Max 2010

 

[Jasoncw 11,840]

@gutterclub Those have to do with the way the 2d images are mapped onto the 3d geometry in the game. It happens on every building in the game.

[Barroco Hispano 26,671]

@gutterclub I always use a maximum distance of 4,0

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

I also use max distance of 4 since Jason told me once and it works fine since then.

I think 0.01 is almost nothing.