Which is the most used BAT building software?

[Pakistani890 122]

Which is the most used BAT building software?????? 

OK. I need guidance for making BAT's because in 2021 it's very hard to find the correctest software for building BAT. 

So please tell me which is the best software for making BAT. If the software is GMAX please can u give me some guides or resources for it. For eg: How to make good textures?? etc.

and also is there a tutorial for making good textures and implying them in GMAX

[Fin44850 46]

Wow, no replies...but yet, many on here contribute mods and BATS...I think most use modeling software like 3d Studio Max. I am not sure if anyone uses Sketchup, but I'd be curious to learn if it's good for SimCity buildings. 

[madhatter106 3,903]

There is not a most correct piece of software for making BATs.
Much like there isn't a set, single way to make art.  (Not that I am equating all BATs to art, but you get the idea.)
An artist may use watercolors to create, just as another might use oil paints.

Some people use SketchUp, others use 3dsMax, others use gmax.
And all three can achieve a desirable result.
Some might be easier to learn or work with than others, but you find your own groove and way of doing things, and make it work from there.

[rsc204 21,808]

Whilst madhatter106 is totally correct in saying you can use whichever tools work best for you, there are some practical caveats. SC4 BATs are not actually 3D models, instead much more efficient isometric models, this means the game doesn't need to render them whilst running, which given the computers available when the game was created, was necessary. However this also means you can't just make a generic 3D model, to work with SC4 it must use the specific 20 views/textures the game needs.

gMax has always been the 'simpler' version of 3DS Max, although at it's core both applications look and work similarly. Maxis included a set of special scripts, known as SC4 BAT, which tell gMax how to correctly export models in the format SC4 uses, it also contains a number of special tools. gMax was never really updated over the years, which is both good and bad, good because it means generally speaking it'll still work on any computer. On the flip side, bad in that it's not optimised to take advantage of a modern computer's power, leading to much larger render times and it has all the problems and limitations it always had too. There is nothing wrong with SC4 BAT (gMax) and for most SC4 modellers, it's the logical first place to start learning and creating.

3DS Max will be very familiar to gMax users, whilst including many more powerful tools, if you are skilled then you can get higher quality results and things render much quicker too. Like gMax, by default this application can not render SC4 Models, a community created utility, BAT4MAX was created though and it does the same thing for 3DS Max that SC4 BAT does for gMax. But there is a huge problem with using 3DS Max, it is a very expensive professional application, I think an annual licence is somewhere in the region of $2,000 today. A way around this used to be to get a Student Licence, which is free and actually pretty easy to qualify for, this path still exists, but regardless of how you get 3DS Max, you'll only have access to the last three versions released. We've literally just passed the point where you can still get the 2018 version, the last one that can be made to work with BAT4MAX. The rendering system used in 3DS Max changed and the scripts as written simply don't work anymore. This is one of the downsides to perpetual forced upgrades, even those who originally had a working version, will have been forced to upgrade to something that for their purposes is essentially useless. Of course if someone manages to update the scripts, the situation here may change, but of course it's an ever on-going issue due to the nature of how Autodesk operate. IF and I mean IF, you can get your hands on an older version, ideally with a disk-based installer, but in reality it's only a valid/genuine licence key that matters, you can in-theory avoid the issue by using a specific version of 3DS Max forever. However, since you can only buy such things second hand, you need to be wary of whether Autodesk will validate your copy, depending on your local laws this may or may not be possible. In any event, the cost would be eye-watering if you could even find one on sale in the first place.

Some people like to model in sketchup, but to Export/Render a model, it needs to be imported into 3DS Max, in other words you haven't avoided the 3DS Max problems outlined above. Not to mention, the two applications don't work the same and you must account for this when working in sketchup or run into problems later. Honestly, I can't understand why anyone who had installed 3DS Max, would waste their time in sketchup myself, it's just adding needless complexity, IMO it's better to expend the effort to learn 3DS Max in the first place.

Like with any type of application, there are many other options, but the bottom line is, without Export Scripts, you can't get your model into SC4. Another community effort was started to make such scripts for Blender, an open-source 3D modelling software, but it's been years without any update, as such it's uncertain if this will ever see a release. However, from a practical standpoint, if this ever got finished/released, it would have the greatest benefit for future-proofing SC4 Modelling. Being open-source, it's pretty much guaranteed that no matter what changes the application undergoes, you could still download/install the one the scripts were designed to work with. Which is what has made gMax still functional for all these years, a stable single version, whereas 3DS Max is no longer an option for the most part.

In short, unless you've a solution to the exporting problem or access to an older version of 3DS Max somehow (2017 or earlier is best), you are likely stuck with using gMax (SC4 BAT). A great beginners tutorial for that exists here, another for creating textures is here.