frantic BATs

[frantic 355]

Hi, welcome to my BAT thread! I started making BATs earlier this year, being inspired by the wonderful content shared by others in this community, and so far I have released one BAT which I made in Gmax before moving on to 3ds Max. Since I'm still learning, most of my buildings will probably be smaller commercial and residential buildings, but I hope to be able to get around to making skyscrapers and other neat things once I get the hang of it. I will update this post with completed and WIP projects as time goes on, and I'm looking forward to any feedback.

Released BATs

 

Work In Progress

Residential apartment - Working on nightlights and fixing some textures, will post an update later because there are some strange things going on with the nightlights that shouldn't be happening

Residential tower - Adjusting textures, then working on the roof before I get to the smaller details

Unmanned/automatic gas station

Cinema "Ekraan"

[Urban Vibravant 792]

Hi @frantic 

Looks like you're off to a great start!

A couple things you should know that I wish I paid more attention to:

1. Bigger buildings increase the chances that your computer won't be able to export when you're done. So you're correct to start small and work your way up.   Over all you should be getting a sense for what you computer can and can't handle, otherwise you get done with a beautiful skyscraper only to realize your computer can't export it..

2. I also recommend to start with anything but all-glass facades. Brick, wood and other non reflective materials are easier to make fit well in the game. Lots of glass means lots of reflecting ground/city that needs to look real and blend with the neighboring buildings around it, which can be pretty hard to pull off and can be very frustrating. You'll gain experience with reflections as you work on smaller projects with small, spaced out windows that don't require too much reflective attention.

Hesburger's roof, which I assume is concrete, is a little too reflective.

Also I see you have an ac unit on there as well, which looks fine, I'm just wondering how any sim is supposed to work on it with no ladder to get to it!  The rest of it looks great.

I'll wait to comment on the apartments after your texture update.  

If you post what the problem is on your nightlights I'm sure someone can help out.

Happy Batting!

 

[Kloudkicker 4,561]

Roof hatches is another option. In my option, exterior roof ladders are not as commonly used any more in new constriction. I see service workers using laders all the time now. Also the older styles can lead to criminal activity. I say this not knowing the time period your aiming for.

For reference here are some links on new roof ladder requirements in the US as of 2018 ( I think). The first two are very detailed,  the third link is more simplified.

https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/3277.html

https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_id=10404&p_table=STANDARDS 

https://www.fallprotect.com/techtalk/oshas-new-fixed-ladder-standards-5-measurements-you-need-to-know/

And pictures for fun and ideas. https://www.pinterest.com/amandasiyengo/roof-ladder/

 

[frantic 355]

Thanks for the feedback - I've made the concrete roof less reflective (forgot it at 0.2, set it to 0.05) and added a little roof hatch, since the actual building does not have an external ladder. I also made the wooden wall textures a bit bigger so the individual planks are better seen and made the tiny exterior lights functional. Unfortunately I had no success in getting rid of the white pixels around the building despite following the tutorial about solving/minimising alpha bleeding, but thankfully it doesn't look too bad so I'll probably release it within the next couple of days.

Spoiler

About the apartment building, I haven't touched the building in a while and there is still a lot to be changed (not fully happy with the orange wall panel texture for instance) but here's an old screenshot of the light bleed issue I encountered when I was quickly testing if interior lights worked. I checked for gaps and didn't find any, shadows were on for all my lights and all of the objects that the building is made of had thickness applied. Yet I was seeing streaks of light between the roof and the walls and the chimneys. What I could probably do is just exclude the interior lights from affecting these parts, but it would be nice if I actually knew what the issue was.

 

Anyway - going to take some time to think of ideas for my next BATs.

[Urban Vibravant 792]

Roof looks much better! Increasing the wood texture was a great move as well.

About the white pixels, have you tried this?

I don't know what your aim is as far as detailing, realism, and accuracy, but may I suggest adding some height to your roof hatch? Just enough to cast a thicker shadow and not look so much like apart of the roof texture. Sorry if this sounds picky, blame simfox's batting standards that have been ingrained in me. 

Here's an example from my building

 

That's all I have to say about this one!

[frantic 355]

I've tried using a background image, I've tried different ground colours for the map based on the facade but nothing seems to work . Anyway, I made the roof hatch a bit higher so it should look more realistic now, and the BAT is now available to download. A small house is in the works (not enough progress to post an image yet), and if I manage to finally figure out how to fix the white pixels I'll update Hesburger as well, but I've torn enough hair out as is.

 

[frantic 355]

I've been working on multiple things on and off, but a couple of days ago a small rural bus stop/"station" building caught my eye, there have been a few of these built here recently in small towns of 500-1000 people. Still a lot to add and adjust, haven't finished texturing yet, so here's a nighttime shot for now:

[frantic 355]

I think I'm almost done with it, but I'd like to see if anyone has any suggestions about possible changes before I release it. I think the roof and rear wall textures could be slightly better, but I'm not sure what to do. I messed around with bump maps for the first time trying to create a distortion effect for the rear wall that you can see in the image below, but I didn't really manage to make it look like that. I might pull the AC closer to the wall as well since it looks like it's floating (it's on a mount thing but you can't see it) but other than these issues I'm pretty satisfied. The sign will probably be changed to a generic "BUS" as well once I get around to exporting.

Spoiler

 

[Kloudkicker 4,561]

For a players point of view, looks great and ready. I like it. I'm just confused what does the sign reads? Is it no where or now here? He he just kidding. Very nice job.

[Urban Vibravant 792]

@frantic I think adding in the base trim would make your walls feel more complete.

I did a quick photoshop to show you. It's small, but little things like this can make a huge difference.

Whether you add in those aluminum drain pipes is up to you. (I would, more detail the better imo)

About the bump effect, try increasing the reflectivity of the wall's texture. The bump strength is probably good. So If you increase the reflectivity and don't see a difference, then it's because the walls just aren't tall enough to reflect anything significant. Due to the angle.

I'd also increase the brightness of your wall texture. That'll help "fade" it a bit. Notice in the real life pic, you see what the color looks like in direct sunlight. Your wall's color right now is a bit saturated.

I personally like the roof as it is.

On 12/14/2020 at 4:52 PM, frantic said:

I might pull the AC closer to the wall as well since it looks like it's floating (it's on a mount thing but you can't see it)

You can either exaggerate the size of the mount's framing until it's visible or like you said, push it up against the wall.

Although "NOWHERE" is funny at first, it's kind of depressing lol so I prefer "BUS"

That's all I got! Great job.

[Matrim Cauthon 344]

5 hours ago, Urban Abstraction said:

Although "NOWHERE" is funny at first, it's kind of depressing lol so I prefer "BUS"

That said, Please leave at least one that says NOWHERE still, because I really want to put some of those out in the sticks

[frantic 355]

I made some changes to the textures, added the base trim and the drain pipes, and I made a quick test lot to see how it looks ingame. There are a couple of issues, the main one being the jagged shadows appearing on the edge of my building's own pavement and the base of the building. I've checked and the building is centered correctly on the Z axis, it isn't above the ground and none of it is below the ground either. The pavement itself is a flat mesh. I'm not sure why this is happening.

Spoiler

The second issue might be one I'm unable to deal with since I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the Light Replacement Mod that I'm using but the closer the building is to another source of light such as a light pole, the brighter the lights on my own building become. I was going to make another version of this with white walls that would blend in nicely with a more urban environment but I'm not so sure about that now.

Spoiler

I'm aware of the bright line on the right corner visible during daytime, that's an easy fix, but maybe someone can help me with these two issues.

 

On 16.12.2020 at 10:59 PM, Matrim Cauthon said:

That said, Please leave at least one that says NOWHERE still, because I really want to put some of those out in the sticks

I'm probably going to keep it generic for the official upload but I can send you one with NOWHERE or any other place name if you want

[Urban Vibravant 792]

@frantic I had the same shadow problem with my building and the method I'm about to share removed the shadow part, but the jagged edge is still there. Which I think is sometimes unavoidable. Apparently your LODs should be 20 centimeters (0.2m) wider to avoid the shadow issue. (Thanks @Barroco Hispano)

I try to stay away from modelling planes that sit on Z Axis 0, it always acts incorrectly. You may need to remove it OR lift the entire bus stop about a "step" up, including the modeled pavement. That way every part of the model's perimeter starts vertically. It may or may not be what you're looking for, but those are my suggestions.

There is nothing you can do about how another mod affects your mod/BAT. All other BATs act the same way. I use that light mod as well.

On 12/17/2020 at 3:25 PM, frantic said:

I'm aware of the bright line on the right corner visible during daytime, that's an easy fix

Would you mind sharing that technique? I noticed that on my buildings too.

Also great job on weathering the roof! It looks even better now and more real. 

[Barroco Hispano 26,697]

@frantic That method worked for me (I still have more tests to do).

This is how a track looks without using that method.

By the way, I enlarge the LODs only on the X and Y axis, I also raise my BATs 0,03m above the ground.

[frantic 355]

Sorry I've been away for a while, have had a lot of things to deal with and still do. Anyway, I've managed to fix the issues I had thanks to your help and it's now available to download! I intended to make multiple colour options of this but those didn't end up looking as good as I'd hoped so I kept it as it is.

On 19.12.2020 at 1:11 AM, Urban Abstraction said:

Would you mind sharing that technique? I noticed that on my buildings too.

I actually thought the brighter bit was caused by an old texture I forgot to change on the side of the back wall, but that wasn't the case. I have no idea but it might have been fixed by enlarging my LODs 0,5m on each side because I still had issues with 0,2. That and the gamma fix were the only things I did since I last posted an update.

[Krio 624]

Hesburger?! But does anyone go to those places? Too much mayo..

But nice to see new Northern European blood in battting! 

[frantic 355]

Here's an update:

Some of you may have already seen an earlier WIP screenshot of this residential tower on the Show Us What You're Working On thread. A lot remains to fix and work on but it's slowly starting to take shape now.

I'm also making an unmanned gas station, still not fully textured and modelled. The ground is there for testing lighting for now, it will probably be removed or much smaller when I finish it. Have yet to make the vent pipes.

And as a bonus, some scrapped stuff:

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I appreciate that you're taking the time to do the panel lines.

[frantic 355]

I've been away for a while but recently I have had a bit of time to work on my projects again. The tower I showed you all last time has been really tough to get right, so I figured I would do something a bit easier to practice before I return to that, whenever that might be...

It's almost done apart from some details I still need to figure out, so I've started working on nightlights. I think the exterior looks decent enough (the sign will of course be a separate prop). As for the interior, I've had issues with light leaks on almost all my projects despite making sure everything's connected as precisely as possible, so I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem? For example, if I put an Omni light inside near the smaller rectangular skylight, the light just leaks through the right wall despite there not being any gaps. Shadows are enabled in General Parameters, so that's not the issue.

This is a bit of an extreme example and I usually use some weird workarounds (extra walls or disabling illumination on specific objects) but it's pretty annoying seeing light leaking through my walls/roof or even small specs of light appearing in completely bizarre places considering where the source is. I'm using 3ds Max 2010, if that matters.

[Ct1999 4,198]

I rarely had this problem. Simply, because most of my building has not any interior. Honestly, If I encounter this problem that I will solve it with the same solution as you did, which because it won't effect the outcome.

[tariely 4,496]

Splendid series of bats. I'd missed the first ones during the last two years or so but am Dling now with enthusiasm. Am looking forward to the other ones !  

[Barroco Hispano 26,697]

@frantic Turn on ray traced shadows.

[frantic 355]

It's been a while once again, unfortunately I don't have any updates on the projects you've already seen (except that light leaks are solved - thanks Barroco!) but I had a sudden motivation burst to bat something, so here's another WIP added to the pile. It's a cinema from Tartu, Estonia which unfortunately closed down not too long ago and now faces demolition. Several buildings with this exact design were also built in other cities, but none are as well known as this one. Hopefully this motivation lasts enough to finish this one soon and then apply the finishing touches on the gas station, but I shudder at the thought of modeling/texturing interiors and roof junk... Regardless, I plan on releasing the next two or three BATs at once, whenever that may be.

[frantic 355]

I've decided to release this one because I'm currently unable to BAT. There are some fixes I'd like to make eventually, but it might be way too long before I get to that. Still, better than nothing I suppose.