Custom Foundations

[guepardomountain 417]

Hi everyone,

I've been working on some brownstone townhomes and would like to make them look good on sloped terrain. For other buildings, I have had good luck with creating a custom foundation and marking it as a foundation, like in the first method in AndisArt's excellent tutorial (although I am using gmax).

For these brownstones, though, there are two separate buildings on each lot, so the buildings and foundations are props, with an invisible "building" on each lot. The foundation is -0.01m below the z axis.

When the lot grows on a slope, there is an issue with the appearance of the base texture and the stairs:

Is there a way to fix this so that the stairs don't look like they're leading underground? 

Thanks!

[memo 1,445]

The only way to avoid this is by using tighter LODs. You'd have to model the individual stairs as part of the LOD. That may be fine for the Zoom 5 LOD, but the outer zooms shouldn't really contain that much detail in the LODs. Perhaps you can find a suitable compromise by modelling the LOD as a ramp instead.

[guepardomountain 417]

15 hours ago, memo said:

The only way to avoid this is by using tighter LODs. You'd have to model the individual stairs as part of the LOD. That may be fine for the Zoom 5 LOD, but the outer zooms shouldn't really contain that much detail in the LODs. Perhaps you can find a suitable compromise by modelling the LOD as a ramp instead.

Thanks! I'm fairly new to this so it took me some time to understand what tighter LODs are and how to use them.

Looks like it worked to replace the original LODs with a box with a ramp on either side to match the shape of the foundation.

I appreciate your help!

[guepardomountain 417]

I have a new question for this old thread - is there any way to get the shadow on the foundation to line up with the shadow on the building?

[guepardomountain 417]

I finally got the shadow to look how it's supposed to by just adding the missing bit onto the texture for that wall. It took a bit of trial and error to match it up.  As long as there isn't a better solution, this is what I'm going with.

I haven't downloaded SimFox's Day and Nite modd on this computer since I tend to just keep the game set to daylight, but I know that it makes the shadows look slightly different in daytime. Would the color or opacity of the painted-on shadow need to be adjusted for use with this mod?

[Urban Vibravant 792]

@guepardomountain So I tried something in the BAT regarding the shadow problem and it worked for me.

Use the original texture without the drawn-on shadow. In your foundation scene, create a thin box that mimics the wall that is casting the shadow. (Make sure the width and height dimensions are the same and is aligned exactly where the wall is.) Apply a new Standard Material to the thin box (color doesn't matter), set the material's opacity to 0. BAT will still render the shadow but not the object. Also the thin box doesn't need LODs around it either. Hope this helps!

[kaimai 1,042]

I think you can also just set the box's Object Properties to "visible to camera" on and "renderable" off (or vice versa—don't remember which is the key one to make sure that it casts shadows but doesn't appear in the render)

[Urban Vibravant 792]

1 hour ago, kaimai said:

I think you can also just set the box's Object Properties to "visible to camera" on and "renderable" off (or vice versa—don't remember which is the key one to make sure that it casts shadows but doesn't appear in the render)

Those options are only available in 3dsmax. I'm assuming @guepardomountain is only building in the BAT which doesn't have those options in its Object Properties.

And yeah vice versa, "Visible to Camera" off and "Renderable" on. But also "Cast Shadows" on as well. Cheers!

[guepardomountain 417]

On 4/19/2025 at 12:21 PM, Urban Vibravant said:

@guepardomountain So I tried something in the BAT regarding the shadow problem and it worked for me.

Use the original texture without the drawn-on shadow. In your foundation scene, create a thin box that mimics the wall that is casting the shadow. (Make sure the width and height dimensions are the same and is aligned exactly where the wall is.) Apply a new Standard Material to the thin box (color doesn't matter), set the material's opacity to 0. BAT will still render the shadow but not the object. Also the thin box doesn't need LODs around it either. Hope this helps!

Sorry it took me so long to respond. This worked! Thank you!!