kaimai BAT thread

[kaimai 1,042]

Decided to start one of these instead of spamming the What are you working on? thread every 5 weeks and forgetting about it. I am still basically a novice at this, although slowly improving when I have the spare time. So I may also end up using this thread to ask questions about modeling, texturing, modding, etc. Please peer pressure me into finishing something. Comments/suggestions/etc also welcome.

Current project is these apartment buildings. Texturing variants still in progress. Model variants (W2Ws, ground floor parking, etc.) yet to come.

 

Other things at much earlier stages of progress, for whenever I'm less ADHD:

Elementary schools (one of which is basically done...)

 

Assorted NYC buildings of various fractional angles

(there will be more of these as well)

  Edited March 15, 2025 by kaimai  

[Propfam 2,288]

2 hours ago, kaimai said:

Elementary schools (one of which is basically done...)

Looks great! It really reminds me of schools in Jakarta. I'm pretty curious why the first building doesn't have rooftop access. I guess, it's the good ol' scaffolding way. Also, I've seen missing some details like lack of cables despite having a tower. I mean, this is a school built under a limited budget. They can't afford to have some cable management on the rooftop. So I think, there must be some cables to be added for realism.

[nos.17 5,120]

12 hours ago, kaimai said:

Texturing variants still in progress. Model variants (W2Ws, ground floor parking, etc.) yet to come.

As long as it's not too much work, model and texture variants are always an extra happy surprise! Nice progress! 

[kaimai 1,042]

11 hours ago, Propfam said:

Looks great! It really reminds me of schools in Jakarta. I'm pretty curious why the first building doesn't have rooftop access. I guess, it's the good ol' scaffolding way. Also, I've seen missing some details like lack of cables despite having a tower. I mean, this is a school built under a limited budget. They can't afford to have some cable management on the rooftop. So I think, there must be some cables to be added for realism.

You're right, cables are missing in that case, I just have to figure out exactly what they'd be attached to. I'm not sure the actual building this is based on has roof access either, nothing shows up on satellite view but I'll check against similar buildings for confirmation.

[rare_guava 159]

I think everything looks great. Your texturing rivals some of the best that I've seen. And overall, your BATs capture the charm and colors of the original art design really well.

The details on the roof of the apartments are stunning. But just to nitpick, I think you could decrease the amount of roofjunk by maybe 10-20%. Due to the game's view, the roof gets a lot of attention naturally, and having that much roofjunk puts even more visual weight on the roof, therefore drawing attention away from the building's walls. 

I feel like the schools are perfect as is. I'm finding in my own BATing journey that details are what elevates a BAT, but for roofs in particular, it's a spot where taking artistic license instead of modeling everything as realistically as possible leads to a more aesthetically pleasing BAT. Right now you've got a really good balance. The other details in your BAT are excellent, I especially like the art on the outside walls, they remind me of the school I would walk by on my way to work when I was living in Taiwan. Can't wait for you to release these!

[IDS2 3,346]

Great texturing work, and loving the fractional angle stuff. If I could offer one thing, I think extruding the text a bit less on the supermarket would make it easier to read. Looking forward to seeing more.

[guepardomountain 417]

Those all look incredible! The realistic textures and overall amount of detail are super impressive. I can't wait to see the FA supermarket when it's done.   What country or city are the apartment buildings based on?

[Bobelboy 435]

"Novice"? "Slowly improving"? What are you talking about? Everything you have shown is extremely, extremely good. I especially like that you have decided to make school buildings. Maybe they look like school buildings in Jakarta (I really do not know), but I would absolutely also drop them in my "European" city - and I think this says a lot about how well this was chosen and made! Looking forward to seeing more progress!

[kaimai 1,042]

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions!

On 3/15/2025 at 3:55 PM, rare_guava said:

The details on the roof of the apartments are stunning. But just to nitpick, I think you could decrease the amount of roofjunk by maybe 10-20%. Due to the game's view, the roof gets a lot of attention naturally, and having that much roofjunk puts even more visual weight on the roof, therefore drawing attention away from the building's walls.

That's fair yes—I'm not 100% satisfied with the placement of the solar panels on the most beige of the three apartments (or the textures) so I'll probably export one with a cleaner roof, perhaps by getting rid of some water tanks. In real life the roofs are absolutely covered in cables and clutter, amidst the solar panels and water tanks (the perils of no functioning water or electricity grid...) but yes there absolutely needs to be a balance between realism and in-game appearance.

On 3/15/2025 at 10:12 PM, IDS2 said:

Great texturing work, and loving the fractional angle stuff. If I could offer one thing, I think extruding the text a bit less on the supermarket would make it easier to read. Looking forward to seeing more.

Yes, noticed that as well. This export was just an initial one to check that the BAT actually fits against a FA3 road... (answer: yes, but need to offset it by a few meters on the X axis)

On 3/16/2025 at 12:11 AM, guepardomountain said:

Those all look incredible! The realistic textures and overall amount of detail are super impressive. I can't wait to see the FA supermarket when it's done.   What country or city are the apartment buildings based on?

The apartment buildings are from Madinat al-Zahra, Gaza Strip, to fulfil somewhat of a lacuna (medium-wealth middle eastern/balkan/latin american content). I was thinking of waiting and releasing a full set with several different base building designs, just bc it's always more exciting to download a pack of 20 different buildings than one or two, but with how slowly I work, I'll probably keep it to one post per floorplan for now.

On 3/16/2025 at 2:09 PM, Bobelboy said:

"Novice"? "Slowly improving"? What are you talking about? Everything you have shown is extremely, extremely good. I especially like that you have decided to make school buildings. Maybe they look like school buildings in Jakarta (I really do not know), but I would absolutely also drop them in my "European" city - and I think this says a lot about how well this was chosen and made! Looking forward to seeing more progress!

The schools are also from Gaza; in this case Al-Shati Refugee Camp. My initial thought was a pack of UN schools and civics which could therefore be plugged into basically any city that's ever experienced a disaster—after the earthquake/tornado/volcano eruption/etc hits, someone's gotta step in and help you rebuild!—but there's probably some intellectual property thing prohibiting UN branding, it might interfere with people's worldbuilding, and it turns out larger buildings are also really hard to export on my setup.

[kergelen 727]

Great models and textures! I like all the details, specially solar panels on the roofs and the pictures/grafitis on the school walls

[kaimai 1,042]

I haven't been working on anything much over the past few weeks due to a lack of time, but did finally get around to modding & lotting the apartments and putting them up on the exchange, since I'm also going to be away for awhile.

NYC buildings are in the texturing stage so they may be next (but hard to know with these things)

[kaimai 1,042]

I am currently in Auckland NZ, the City of Sails, and apparently home of a large number of new-ish modernist buildings that I keep looking at and thinking "this would be great in SC4". The 3d modeling brainrot has fully set in I'm afraid. I've only got my laptop which can't run 3dsmax or GMAX, so I could model things in Sketchup, but am tempted to try out BAT4Blender if I can figure out how to use Blender in the first place.

[gutterclub 2,729]

On 4/10/2025 at 1:42 PM, kaimai said:

I am currently in Auckland NZ, the City of Sails, and apparently home of a large number of new-ish modernist buildings that I keep looking at and thinking "this would be great in SC4". The 3d modeling brainrot has fully set in I'm afraid. I've only got my laptop which can't run 3dsmax or GMAX, so I could model things in Sketchup, but am tempted to try out BAT4Blender if I can figure out how to use Blender in the first place.

Nice, I'm an Aucklander as well

[art128 4,618]

On 4/10/2025 at 3:42 AM, kaimai said:

The 3d modeling brainrot has fully set in I'm afraid.

The greatest curse known to the sc4 world...  A list of interesting model so long it will take years to complete...

[kaimai 1,042]

On 4/22/2025 at 5:27 AM, gutterclub said:

Nice, I'm an Aucklander as well

I lived there for years, and think I got too used to it to notice that the skyline is actually quite attractive, so was nice to come back as a tourist in that sense. (And a surprisingly large amount of it is on the STEX...)

Spoiler

 

 

Anyway back now. I did start a couple of models on the plane trips to and from—another mosque and an IHT W2W building—but didn't otherwise have much time; but definitely want to see if I can get better results running BAT4Blender natively rather than having to run 3dsmax under Parallels.

  Edited April 24, 2025 by kaimai  

[kaimai 1,042]

Current status of various projects:

• Steinway Hall & 111 West 57th Street, NYC—probably about 30% modeled
• 1235-1239 Broadway, NYC—about 40% modeled
• Tashkent Supermarket, NYC—90% modeled, 40% textured (purple box is just there to give me a 71.4º angle to snap to)

Spoiler

 

 

• Al-Omari Mosque, Gaza—about 50% modeled
• Indonesian Hospital, Gaza—about 60% modeled, 5% textured

Spoiler

• Tour Initiale, Paris—about 60% modeled (placeholder texture)

Spoiler

 

• 

 

• Three other small NYC buildings and two other small Gaza buildings in early stages. No further progress on Salah al-Din Elementary School (above)

I'm not dead, just mentally ill and useless. Hopefully will get back to work soon. I do want to finish some small/easy buildings just for the sense of accomplishment and momentum; perhaps will try a few houses.

  Edited July 17, 2025 by kaimai