SPAs Urbanist BAT Thread

[Kwakelaar 92]

Interesting rooftexture on Jennifer's, so far it is looking good.

For the DAT files, it is possible to extract the modle files from the dat, a bit tricky but it can be done.

[spa 970]

Jacqulina: Thanks

JB: Thanks. The roof shape is as close as I could make it to the real thing. It's really an odd shaped building and especially odd that it has survived to today on Halifax's most trendy streets. Odds are that the place should have been redeveloped into a more modern building (almost everything else on the street was knocked down). Anyway, I take your point about the siding. I have modified it (cut out several bars)

Hanson784: Indeed, however I'm just piggybacking on JB's work. The small-town series is his. I'm just making my stuff compatiable.

Jasoncw: That's funny because this stuff I would have previously designated too small for me. I typically zone my commercial streets in 2 or 3 wide secitons that go 2 or 3 tiles deep, although lately I have been playing around with 1 tile wide zones.

Kwakelaar: Thanks! Believe it or not that darn thing took 2 hours to do (I have 15 failed versions). I needed the right shade and I wanted to have a water stained effect. I'm fairly pleased with it but I might still try and tweak the left-hand side to be a little less in your face.

Just a quick update tonight.

As you can see Jennifer's is pretty much done now. I finished up the back and the lighting. I ended up spending a lot more time lighting this one than I normally do (no night textures, actual lights). I'm not sure it was worth the effort or not. I hope the modern skylight and windows at the top fits. I was aiming for an old building with some slight renovations for the modern era (attic lofts). Anyway, there are just a few tiny little details left to take care of before I can render: some final lighting from exterior light fixtures for the rear loading bay and chimneys/vents for the roof. I might try darkening the texture I used for the wooden siding just a tad as well. Anyway, this one will be ready sometime soon.

[nofunk 1,933]

Wow, I really like this one spa... your best one yet! I love your attention to detail on this one -- from the sign on the front, to the a/c unit in the back window. Really nice touch! The nightlights are great too; I like that you can see inside those skylights. Have you thought about BATing a few shapes and putting them inside the building to add to the illusion of furniture, etc. ?

[jacqulina 162]

nice i like the lighting

[asturianu 4]

Hi, Sam, well, I was on LE and I saw that i can plop phase one at the least. I have just downloaded phase 2 and 3 after soluting my problem with the computer when it didn't download things.... I won't use anything from you to post in any page or simler, I only will do it for Lloyd. For a better looking of Lloyd. South Lloyd actually looks ugly, but with my plans of Garrison and some res. areas, it will be better, Sam. Well, I promise you that I won't do anything strange with your things. You know that I'm your #1 fan, friend, and I won't do anything bad to you, mate!

Suggestions, or anything are welcome!

If you want and if you have time, I REPEAT IF YOU HAVE TIME, it would be great sending 2 and 3 phases of Garrison renders. I promise that I will use them only for Lloyd, I PROMISE!!

Thanks a lot, Sam.

Cristian

[asturianu 4]

Ooops, i forget to say that your new project is fantastic. Another old building with special textures. I love it. KOD and Jennifer's will be great for Lloyd old town

Cristian

[Fledgeling 1]

I think this and KOD are some of , in my opinion, your best window texturing and nightlighting yet. I am very impressed by the these. Keep it up!

[Kwakelaar 92]

Spa, Jennifer's is looking excellent. The rooflights are a nice touch and I do like that roof texture. The nighlights could maybe be a bit stronger or with a slight variation of strength of the light or like Nofunk suggests some sort of shapes on the inside as furniture.

But like it is now you have a very warm atmosphere over your nighviews.

[spa 970]

Nofunk: Thanks. I like how Jennifer's turned out too. I'll look into putting some furniture upstairs under the skylights.

Jacqulina: Thanks

Cristian: Thanks. I'll e-mail you the rendered models for phase 1. The others I don't have.

Kwakelaar: Thanks. I'll look into turning up the lights a notch. I don't want to go too bright though.

Fledgling: Thanks

Well I'm basically down to two unfinished buildings, Campana Place and Garrison Woods Phase 4. However, I wasn't in the mood today to work on either of them so I started something new. Below is a picture of my new building 5639 Spring Garden Road in real life.

The building houses three businesses, Foreign Affair (clothing store), Tim Hortons and Sykea (a spa). You might recognize the building on the righthand side, it's Jennifers. This building is its immediate neighbour. Anyway, below is what I have done so far.

Lots to do yet. This will fit on a 1x2 lot.

[mattb325 28,890]

Nice work there on Jennifer (that doesn't sound quite right, or maybe it does, lol?) I really like the skylight transparency and the timberwork on this one.

[simdad1957 3]

YAY a Timmy's, I really need a large double double. We have 32 Timmy's outlets here in Moncton with a new one being built as I type. I'm sure they put something a little addictive into their brew. They never seem to be able to keep up with demand. I'm starting to shake from withdrawal right now - BRRRR!

Seroiusly though, I know this building well, Right next to Spring Garden Place. Looks like it will be another winner!

[Spike345 20]

YES A TIMMYS! now you just need to B.A.T that Starbucks, and you won my undying love.

[yoder7652 21]

I love Tim Hortons...I'll take a BLT with some timbits...honey dip glazed of course

[spa 970]

Mattb325: haha I had a guilty little chuckle at that post Thanks for stopping by.

Simdad1957: Indeed we Atlantic Canadians seem particularly addicted to Tims. I take the bus in from Cole Harbour and in the morning you can always count on a traffic jam at the entrance to Tims on Portland Street.

Spike345: Don't worry Spike, I'm still planning a Starbucks eventually. I'm kind of interested in doing the Perks (the one on Quinpool Road for those of who know Halifax) so maybe I'll do a whole coffee line.

Yoder7652: Haha the BLT is my favourite too. A BLT and a strawberry vanila. Their ham and swiss is also good... not that you could do much to screw that up!

So with the girlfriend away, school done and two days before I head out to my parents place for Christmas I have been spending a fair bit of time tinkering with the bat. I started two more bats from Spring Garden Road over the last two days and I have one more planned in this blast of activity. Below is a picture of the two I have made the most progress on in real life.

Winsby's is another wooden Halifax building, although you can see that it has a modern store front. There are apartments on the second and third floor as far as I know. Mills Brothers is probably Halifax most upscale store. If you want to drop a ton on a suit or accessories it's the place to go. Good quality but you'll pay an arm and a leg. Mills Brothers has a long history in the city. I don't know the age of the building, but the store has been operating since 1919. The two stores are on neighbouring corners of the same intersection (to take the photo of Mills Brothers all I did was turn to the left). Anyway, below is my start on both of them.

Quick note off the top, I managed to bungle up my scale through miscalculations on both of them. My Winsbys measures 18.95 from the bottom to the top which is approximately 3 meters too many for a 3 storey building (6 for the ground floor and 5 for each additional floor there after is my approximate standard). Mills Brothers, on the other hand, ended up too short. From the bottom to the top measures 13.95 which is closeer to 16 than Winsbys got, but still a tad short. So I'm going to have bring Winsbys down and Mills Brothers up. It'll be easy to fix Winsbys but Mills Brothers will be harder to modify given all those individual timber pieces. I might end up leaving Mills Brothers since it's an old building and would have been built before standardized building codes and practices (2ms isn't necessarily all that much). Both of these will fit on 2x2 lots (maybe 2x3 for Mills Brothers). Anyway, I'll probably have another update on one of the three tomorrow. Besides the mystery building I mentioned I probably won't be starting anything new now that I'm back up to 6 incomplete projects.... although you never know, Perks on Quinpool is really calling

[asturianu 4]

Thanks, Sam, very nice work in Halifax new buildings. Thanks for your future E-mail. Thanks, and remember that i'm your #1 fan.

Sorry, but I have to search a song to my cousin. See you soon. Thanks for all.

Cristian

[simdad1957 3]

Perks would be a grand idea too. I'm really happy to see Atlantic Canadian BAT's making it to the STEX.

[jacqulina 162]

nice work you are doing

[your_adress_here 11]

What we really need: A pack with various Tim Hortons, to satisfy all the Canadian players

Lovin' your buildings though. I have all your BATs, and you're one of my favorite BATters. Keep up the awesome work!

[ILL Tonkso 1,239]

This stuff looks great Spa, i genuinely use your stuff so keep it up.

[spa 970]

Cristian: Thanks. If you check your e-mail there should be one from my dal account with the model files to phase 1.

Simdad1957: Yeah Perks on Quinpool is a neat building. I like the shape and it has a lot of neat little details. There really hasn't been much from Atlantic Canada. Expect that to change over the next few months

Jacqulina: Thanks

your_address_here: Shucks you know how to make a guy blush I'm not really planning more than just this Tim Hortons but I do have photos of Perks (as mentioned) and Second Cup to make at least three. There are also two Starbucks in my pile.

Ill Tonkso: Thanks. I'm honoured to know my stuff has found its way into your cities with all the great work you do. I suspect Mills Brothers with its old English style architecture must be fairly familiar to you.

So I didn't end up doing any batting yesterday, but I did spend some time on Mills Brothers this evening and the front wall is basically done, timbers and all. Below is where things sit.

Quick note about the windows. The glass texture I'm using is the same as Jennifers. I suspect it'll look better when I bat the floors. Right now it looks black because there is nothing behind it. If you squint though you can still make out the window frames and details as well as catch the bluish tinge of the transparent glass. This bat has been a fair bit of work because of all the those timber pieces. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make much more progress on this one until mid-Janurary because I don't have pictures of the back and my girlfriend took the camera to Calgary; apparently pictures of her sister's incoming baby are more important than Sim City Normally I would just go ahead and finish from my own imagination, but this is one of Halifax's  unique and special buildings and I want to make this one closer to the real thing than I normally do. So there probably won't be anymore updates on Mills Brothers until sometime in the New Year.

One other bit of news, I have joined BSC. It's an honour (humbling too!) to be included in the group. This will hopefully mean more feedback as I bat and improved overall results. You guys shouldn't notice any real changes other than that my future releases will have the standard installer and readme format that BSC uses. I'll continue my thread here alongside my own showcase on the BSC site and you'll still be able to find all my creations on the stex (although you'll likely also be able to find my stuff on PEG's site too).

Anyway, I'm heading off to my parent's place for Christmas tomorrow so I probably won't be around until after Boxing Day. So happy holidays to everyone and I'll be in touch soon.

[asturianu 4]

I checked my e-mail and i saw your post. Thanks a lot, Sam, my friend. I'm just experimenting with G.W. and I built some of them in South Lloyd, and they looks nice.

You can see them in the last update.

The Mills Bro. building is another great choice to BAT, Sam, and it looks a bit european too. But any Canadian building is the best thing for Lloyd.

Cristian

**Edit** Happy holidays and Christmas and happy new year! 

See you soon.

[tag_one 133]

wonderfull work on al the timber! it makes it really look great

happy holidays!

[tankmank 853]

You really have your hands full there and it all looks amazing keep up the ausome work

Tankmank

[spa 970]

Cristian: Thanks. I'll have to pop over to your journal and take a look! 

Tag_one: Thanks

Tankmank: Yeah. I go through bursts and busts. Usually when I finish something up I get re-energized. Being pretty much done with Garrison Woods is a good thing. I won't take on another project like that again. It became too tedious. Lesson learned.

So it was a good holiday. I didn't do a whole lot more on anything besides what I have already posted. I did however start the Perks on Quinpool Road. Below is a picture of the building in real life.

And my version

I really like this one. I like the shape and the Perks front seems to have turned out fairly well. All that's left to do is to light it up, add a few small details (eaves and lights) and then this will be off to the render. Just to give you an idea of what all the gold actually is, since most of the detail gets washed out in Sim City, below is a picture of the front.  

As for the other bats that I have been working on, Jennifer's is basically done and I'll probably render it tonight for some ingame testing. The only thing that I have changed on it is I added a chimney and two roof vents. I have also been playing around with the Broken Plate. I'm tinkering with textures and there are a few other things that I'm going to change on it. Still some polishing left to do on it. Mills Brothers is on hold until my girlfriend comes home with her camera (I need pictures of the back) but I expect to start doing some more work on Foreign Affair and Winsbys over the next few days. I'll update again when I have something of substance to show.

[Jasoncw 11,941]

Mills reminds me of a building in Detroit.

Perks is looking good too.  It looks like you spent a lot of time with the splines there.  You can't specifically see it in the render, but I think overall, the detail adds a lot.

[ACEfanatic 7]

'Start'?

O_o

Looks awesome, spa. My inner-suburban areas are going to be getting a lot more variety now...

-ACE

[gerAndi 29]

OMG

this looks so awesome spa!

I can't wait!

[jacqulina 162]

awesome work i love the details

[simdad1957 3]

Not that I'm a stalker or anything Spa, but I used to live across the street from the Quinpool Road Perks too (in Quingate Place). After King of Donair, this is starting to get spooky!! You'll have to do Park Victoria next. LOL; Just Joking.

[spa 970]

Jasoncw: Hmm that's funny. I guess Halifax isn't the only city with some fake English architecture. There was some definite time spent on those splines. The text was one of the default gmax ones but it needed to be heavily modified to fit the real Perks signs. The stars, however, were my own doing

ACEfanatic: Yeah it kind of got away from me before I got it posted anywhere! Two days of holiday work meant more accomplished than normal. 

Gerandi: Thanks.

Jacqulina: Thanks.

Simdad1957: I'll start looking over my shoulder It's funny but really not all that surprising. Halifax is such a small place and even smaller when you consider just the studenty areas on the peninsula. I also have pictures of another place you no doubt know from your days on Quinpool a place no student can live in Halifax without eventually visting, Video Difference!.... that is if Video Difference has been around for that long

So I tinkered with the Broken Plate tonight. I took the suggestions offered here and on the BSC site and I have an updated version. I think it looks a lot better and I actually like this bat again. Below is a picture of where things are at right now.

So I started from scratch on the brick and ended up with a brick texture with a more obvious gradient and more details. I have also changed the roof trim to a less glowy version, changed to a glass texture that contrast more with the window frames, enlarged and changed textures on the back wire ends, enlarged the window frames slightly (.05 on each side) and added junctions to the roof wiring. All and all I think it's a big improvement. Unless there are any last minute suggestions this one will be off to the render and then BSC testing sometime shortly.