GM Works in Progress

[guepardomountain 417]

I've been experimenting with twisted buildings.

There are still a lot of details to add to these office towers, but I'm happy with how the shapes turned out. Might still tweak the interior textures and lights. Thoughts?

[guepardomountain 417]

Some of the buildings that I made last year (stacked duplexes, Zibeline Apartments) were based on floor plans from vintage catalogues on the Internet Archive. Pre-existing floor plans make it super easy to get everything modeled to the exact right size and scale.

Last autumn I started recreating 19th century French country homes from Victor Petit's Maisons de campagne des environs de Paris. I got two and a half done. Not sure yet if I'm going to finish the third or not, and I might want to change the wall textures on the others. It's hard to pick a project back up after several months of bad mental health. Maybe someday I'll release all three of these together.

[guepardomountain 417]

Progress on the twisted hexagon building!

On most of my other projects I've used nitelite windows. For this one I've been trying omni lights. It turns out it's kind of a hassle to move around interior objects when each floor is rotated two degrees and slightly smaller than the last. I don't think that adding curtains to some of the windows was even worth all of the time that it took. 

[EffTheGrid 3,669]

Hey, 

it's nice to see some projects on your desk and that you're still active.

Just wanted to give a shout, and say thanks again for the NYC diagonal set.

All of your work is very realistic and high quality --- but those are just so useful in particular.

I was wondering if you still have the model file and could cook up a corner version for us to use.

It would be nice to complete the set. And you're several steps ahead of me at the moment !

I'd be really jazzed.

Keep up the great work!

 

[EffTheGrid 3,669]

On 2/4/2025 at 7:10 PM, guepardomountain said:

two degrees and slightly smaller than the last. I don't think that adding curtains to some of the windows was even worth all of the time that it took. 

I think it looks great --- worth your time ! 

[guepardomountain 417]

On 2/8/2025 at 4:29 PM, EffTheGrid said:

Hey, 

it's nice to see some projects on your desk and that you're still active.

Just wanted to give a shout, and say thanks again for the NYC diagonal set.

All of your work is very realistic and high quality --- but those are just so useful in particular.

I was wondering if you still have the model file and could cook up a corner version for us to use.

It would be nice to complete the set. And you're several steps ahead of me at the moment !

I'd be really jazzed.

Keep up the great work!

 

Thanks for the kind words. I'll definitely add corner versions of my NYC diagonals to my list of things to make. Those were some of my favorite models to work on. 

[bob.blunderton 47]

If you should ever lose motivation, think of why you started doing what you're trying to do in the first place.  Also, with buildings, look up pictures of similar buildings for ideas.  It might jump-start some ideas in your brain or make you want to get back into it.  The twisted building is a new trend in architecture for large towers and also the home with the Mansard roof is rather nicely detailed and believable / thankfully not cartoon-y.

[guepardomountain 417]

I started working on these last summer and just recently resumed work on them. I intend to make several variations, similar to apartments that might appear together on a block in New York City. Might also make custom foundations, since I always want more buildings that look realistic on hilly terrain.

[guepardomountain 417]

And another! Its design is sort of a mishmash of a few different apartments that I saw while wandering around the Bronx in Google street view.

[rare_guava 159]

Looking really good!

[IDS2 3,346]

These are great! More options at that form factor are always welcome, and I think these will blend in with the other stuff in that category nicely. Looks like they're 2X1?

[guepardomountain 417]

1 hour ago, IDS2 said:

These are great! More options at that form factor are always welcome, and I think these will blend in with the other stuff in that category nicely. Looks like they're 2X1?

Thanks! Yes they are 2x1. Each is 16m wide and 25m deep.

[guepardomountain 417]

Trying to decide how I want to texture the side walls, which would normally sit directly against the sides of the neighboring building. I used concrete walls on my brownstones but am considering doing something different here. Matching brick? Painted brick?

I'm also working on a custom foundation that would work for all of these little w2w apartments. I'm curious how often other sc4 players build on sloped terrain. Personally I like seeing the little stairs appear when a building grows on a hill. 

 

[rare_guava 159]

On 3/25/2025 at 11:29 AM, guepardomountain said:

 

 

I'm also working on a custom foundation that would work for all of these little w2w apartments. I'm curious how often other sc4 players build on sloped terrain. Personally I like seeing the little stairs appear when a building grows on a hill. 

 

 

 

 

Coming along nicely!  I don't think there are enough slope tolerant buildings, so adding foundations to these would be most welcomed 

[guepardomountain 417]

Testing the lots with some new and improved textures and foundations!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I think for the foundations and the shadows what you could do is include one of the apartment buildings on top of the foundation when you export it. It will looked messed up when the foundation is just by itself, but when the apartment building is on top of it in the game it will cover up the weird looking part, but you will still have the shadows you want.

[guepardomountain 417]

Still working on some additional diagonal midrises to match the ones that I made last year. They still need door textures, roof junk, and other small details. I can make versions with and without grass/pavement.

These suburban shops are almost finished!  I'm going to make orthogonal and diagonal versions of each of these. Would anyone be interested in separate overhanging diagonal parking lots to go with the diagonal lots?

 

[sejr99999 8,343]

yes diagonal parkin would be very welcome   these buildings are  great

[guepardomountain 417]

Today the little suburban shops got redder bricks and a dirtier rooftop.

 

Here's the pharmacy drive-thru. I'm struggling to get the red neon lights to look good. I've been admiring all of the BATs with neon lights in the forum thread that's linked on the home page right now. For this I experimented with free direct lights but didn't get the desired effect. In the picture below I used custom red night window maps but they still don't really look properly illuminated. I only have access to gmax and I am not a computer genius, just an SC4 enthusiast learning as I go along, so I'm fairly limited in what I can do. Time to keep trying 

[guepardomountain 417]

Little diagonals coming soon! It's an auto repair shop on the left and generic small businesses on the right.

I've been working on a modular diagonal parking set that can be plopped around these types of lots. I couldn't find any existing vehicle props that were both diagonal AND overhanging, so I created my first ever car BATs. Pictured above are my own new vehicles in the corners and SHK vehicles in the middle spaces. Do mine fit in well enough with other cars?

The triangle pieces along the diagonal avenue still show through the parking lot pavement.  There's been quite a bit of trial and error with these.

My knockoff Walgreen's is almost ready! I'll delete the back drive-thru pavement for the orthogonal version and keep it there for the diagonal version. Please feel free to offer constructive criticism, on any aspect but especially the night lighting! How can this be better?

[nos.17 5,120]

23 hours ago, guepardomountain said:

I couldn't find any existing vehicle props that were both diagonal AND overhanging, so I created my first ever car BATs. Pictured above are my own new vehicles in the corners and SHK vehicles in the middle spaces. Do mine fit in well enough with other cars?

I do think they look good enough next to SHK cars. However, if you didn't want to do that, making an offset prop is made a bit easier thanks to the Model Tweaker.

[guepardomountain 417]

On 11/9/2025 at 2:13 PM, nos.17 said:

I do think they look good enough next to SHK cars. However, if you didn't want to do that, making an offset prop is made a bit easier thanks to the Model Tweaker.

Good to know. Thanks!

[Oidaas 1,650]

Awsome bats, looking forward to se your progress

[guepardomountain 417]

Working on an L-shaped strip mall. Quite proud of the daytime view:

I'm curious to hear what other people's strategies are for creating realistic HVAC systems and roof junk on their BATs. I mostly just copy what I see on real life inspiration buildings, like AC units, gas meters, etc, but there are always some unrecognizable shapes on the roof in satellite imagery.

Once again there is an issue with the night lighting. Red neon lights are a custom night map which I think looks okay. White neon lights are free direct lights and they look awful. Excluding everything from the lighting except the text that I want lit up seems to do absolutely nothing. Does the exclude feature in gmax just not work, or is there some other thing that needs to be done?

[IDS2 3,346]

I appreciate that you modeled the gas lines to each of the rooftop units! I work in HVAC, so I always try to model it based on actual equipment photos I've taken. For me, it's just one of those if-you-know-you-know things that makes me appreciate it when someone takes the time to replicate it accurately.

I unfortunately can't speak to the white signage and gmax's lighting, but I would say that the red neon could be a bit brighter. Could the white ones be a custom night map as well?

[guepardomountain 417]

On 11/24/2025 at 6:44 PM, IDS2 said:

I appreciate that you modeled the gas lines to each of the rooftop units! I work in HVAC, so I always try to model it based on actual equipment photos I've taken. For me, it's just one of those if-you-know-you-know things that makes me appreciate it when someone takes the time to replicate it accurately.

I unfortunately can't speak to the white signage and gmax's lighting, but I would say that the red neon could be a bit brighter. Could the white ones be a custom night map as well?

Thank you  - the HVAC stuff on your buildings always looks fantastic!

I have brightened up the red neon lights. Unfortunately gmax only allows one night map per model, unless there is a way around that? I wish I could figure out how to get the exclude feature to actually work.

[madhatter106 3,903]

On 12/3/2025 at 12:25 PM, guepardomountain said:

Thank you  - the HVAC stuff on your buildings always looks fantastic!

I have brightened up the red neon lights. Unfortunately gmax only allows one night map per model, unless there is a way around that? I wish I could figure out how to get the exclude feature to actually work.

I have never been able to get the "exclude" feature to work in BAT.

For neon, I would recommend using a texture that has the normal diffuse map, as well as a self-illumination map.  This way, you can save your window texture for the standard "nitelite" night map, and do the neon with a different method.  In fact, in some of my older models, there were multiple neon colors done this way.  The one downside to this technique, however, is that the neon will be lit both day and night - but depending on how bright the texture is and what the colors are, you might not notice it as such in the day render...

It would look like this in the map rollout of the Material Editor...in the below situation, I've ended up using the exact same map for both, but you could theoretically use two different maps.  Trial and error will yield a workflow result that you'll be happy with...

[Lab Rat 13]

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