My first (reasonable) attempt at BAT

[david1314 44]

Ok, so I finally picked up Gmax again (used to play around with it a bit for flightsim), and I'm quite happy with what I am still capable of doing with it.

Anyway, I'm stumbling through slowely and figuring out the ins and outs of the whole thing, and think I should probably get some advice.

First off the pics, cause it's what I always like to see:

I want to make the corner pillars more Granite looking and the inner pillars more Steel looking, and then move up to a Granite fascade on the next section of the building, or perhaps glass, and the culminate it in a glass dome (shooting for like 240-250m + 30m for a spire)

Anyway, I'm a lurker in these forums (I'm VERY active elsewhere), always here, always reading, but never posting...I'm waiting till after this post to see how many times (If any) I've posted before.

But back to the point, with textures, do you guys tend to doctor up your own (like take one base texture and paint dirt/dust/etc. over it), or use one texture for a whole project?

Next, with scale, when building sky scrapers, how big would you usually go? I know the 16x16m thing, and think it's a good guide, but for a 4x4 building, is 60x60gu too large of a base?

And for flooring, do you add that in yourself (if the ground floor is visible), or do you just let the lot textures take care of it?

And how much of the 'relief' of a building is done with texturing? Do you typically build in indentations and protrusions for things like windows and doors, or do you let the textures take care of most of it? Like if there's a textured surface of a building (perhaps where a different building material protrudes from the fascade), will you do this independantly of the building, or opt for a flat building and let the textures pick it up? I can see obvious advantages to both.

And with windows/night lighting, would you typically do 'sheets' of windows, where it's just a single polygone and chop out (or add in) night lighting, or do each window individually (well in bulk, but copy around the windows to where the night lit ones belong).

Thanks for your help guys, hopefully I'll have something to reward it with soon.

Edit: stupid question: How do I get line spaces to show up above?

Edit again: Made it a bit more readable.

[Constantina 5]

You are not doing a very bad job here. I like the curves.

[hyped_up_boy 15]

ooo nice!    uh... what is it supposed to be?  but, it looks good so far!

[Jasoncw 12,060]

For most things I make my own textures from scratch with photoshop. My windows are usually customized. with my Fisk Insurance on the stex (and other buildings that have that same type of windows), I take a screenshot of the front wireframe view of the building in wireframe, put it into photoshop, and then I make the windows on top of that. Then in the BAT, I select all of the window planes, give them that texture, and then they all get the same uvw map. With anything else it's the same thing. Most the time I use the same texture for the whole building, but that texture has a slight gradient on it (so the top is brighter and the bottom is darker), and some random dirt on it.

How much of the lot you want the building to take up is up to you. Maxis doesn't seem to have any standard for it. It depends on what you want to do with the lot. I'd leave a little bit of room for props though.

If you have something translucent and no floor underneath it, it will blend with the black. So you need to put a floor in there or it will look bad.

For windows, almost all of the time I think using a texture for the frame looks bad. I'm sure someone could pull it off and make it look ok, but for really nice looking windows you need to model the frame. I suggest taking a really good look at how maxis makes whatever kind of window you want to make. Take the best looking maxis window as an example though, some of the maxis buildings actually aren't very good and wouldn't make a good reference.

Try to model everything you can, but if it's not working out then make a texture for it, because it can have finer details, but at the cost of looking flat.

For windows like on Fisk Insurance, I use the method I described above. For windows that are smaller and seperated by more wall (like the Detroit Free Press Building) I just give each window pane one out of a handfull of individual window textures. For big facades of glass I do the same as for Fisk Insurance, but with alot more accuracy. The tutorial that talks about dividing polygons apart for making the nitemaps confused me. Like I said, I just make a pane for each window and then give them all the same uvw map. I think my way is more modular since you can add or subract windows at any time before making the texture. Then at the end before I render it, I click on each window individually to turn it into a nitemap, and it takes a few minutes.

There is a space problem with FireFox for some reason, and you'll need to use html. <*br*> is like pressing enter once, and <*p*> is like pressing it twice (take out the *).

[david1314 44]

hyped_up_boy said:

what is it supposed to be? but, it looks good so far! quote>

It's the atrium of a sky scraper (I think, it's actually quite massive, I might make the roof a bit more stylized and make that a standalone and stick a dome or something on top).

To put it in perspective, the outer section is like 60mx60m, and it's about 22m tall (7 stories), and as it stands, it's all one room (the inner section is about 36x36m) So that's about 4 squares in the game by 4.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the building finally, but I have three conceptual ideas going:

1. I was thinking last night, and I think I'm going to start with the 60m base, and morph up to a 40m diameter cylindrical building like the RenCen in Detroit. (Morph through 100m, and 100m of strait cylinder) and then a further 20m of dome and 30m of spire which would give 240+30m. This would be a glass tower, the obvious draw back to this is that I want to duplicate the curved sections, and this will make windows a nighmare.

2. My second is more WTC looking, with a John Han***** Center feel to it. Again duplicate (and elongate) the curves for a gentle taper to the top. The sides would taper more then the front (if the front tapers at all). The top would be cylindrical again, and topped with the dome/spire.

3. The 3rd idea is to go with a granite fascad, for which I'd probably Do a rectangle of sorts, and a simpler taper to an octagon near the top for the dome. I'm kind of leaning towards this cause I want to follow the home-town Denver sort of style. Again with the dome and spire (to break slightly from Denver). This would include a parking garage starting 70' in the air . Hopefully I'll have something more soon.

@Jasoncw, thanks for the input, it sounds really good. That was sort of what I was thinking for windows anyway. (except for the texturing thing... I like that idea).

[david1314 44]

Ok, so first off, I've gone with the first, option above, and it's looking REALLY cool to me at least (I'll have some more pics soon I hope.

Anyway, my problem now is I cannot figure out how to do away with parts of solids I don't want around.

As you can see there is pink behind the glass. Is there an easy way to delete the excess? I forget the terminology for it, but I do know some 3d programs have where you can remove all the intersecting portions of solids/elements.

Is there something really obvious I'm missing? thanks again.

Edit: Ok figured it out... if anyone is having problems with this, search help for "Boolean" it is the tool you use.

[david1314 44]

Ok, so I finally worked out all my issues I was having with the BAT, and actually have something to show for my efforts.

I just did a draft render for the sake of time and testing, but it gives a good idea. It was my first good application of texture (good in that it worked, not in the quality necissarily), my first playing around with lighting at all, and my first success at getting something from scratch into the game.

Here are two pics of it, it's just barely taller than the Tokyo Tower, and is absolutely dwarfed by the CN tower. This makes me question the actual scaling of the building, as in gmax it was at 300m, but in the game it was 335m (by tokyo tower scale), but against One Liberty Place (a DL from here), it was about equal with that at 288m. It was just shy of the John Han***** center, about the same 335m from above. Compared with One Canada building, it was about 40-50m taller, placing it at around 280ish as well. At any rate, I serious question the 3/4 scale that is suggested. I think it's somewhat closer to about 90-95% of gmax. I'll go with the simtrop buildings, because my experience is that 3rd party addons for games tend to be a little more accurate than the releases.

Anyway, enough banter, here's the pics:

I'm tentatively working with the name Senate Spire, because as I envision it, it will have some building at it's base that I plan on being a historic (no replace) Senate Chamber for my city.

As it stands (hah, pun!) It's a copper plated upper structure (both the dome frame and spire) and an aluminium facad support. So, do these look about right? I don't think you can really see it in the pics, but there is a slight gradient on the alluminium texture (blue->yellow from the ground up). I think that accents the copper plating nicely. Unfortunately, you cannot see the bottom dome (and I think I'll be getting rid of it to cut down on render time), but it's a mirror of the top.

Anyway, what does it need in the way of details, and what should I do for the base? (I'm thinking a greek inspired structure), but a modern base for a park adjacent to my historic senate chamber would be cool too, so I'm curious what other people think would look best. I'm still trying to get the nightlighting looking a bit better, there are red blue and green lights spaced such that they overlap on places to generate the secondary colors. It looks good in gmax, and OK in SC4, I'm hoping rendering and reworking them will improve the lights. I want to add a restaraunt on one of the 4 levels, and I think I'll put an iron fence in on the top observation floor. I'm thinking exterior glass elevators would be cool, but they would be a lot of polygons for not a lot of gain. Another cool thing I'm considering is a grass circular base, with a concrete bunker style base structure to it, and have it look like a mound with one side cut out for entrance.

Anyway, I'd love some feedback, so fire away!

[bixel 1,228]

Well its pretty good, of course the only thing I can think of is texturing, some sort of entrance will be needed, but I'm digging it so far.

[david1314 44]

Ok, more pics (YEAH!)

As you can see, I've gone with the bunker style base, and stuck a wall around it (there is a brick texture, but for the sake of my sanity, I've done a draft/low preview). I didn't do much to the top as far as daytime goes, so you can view that pic above. Any input from anyone on the details I should add? (I'm going to add some lights to the base, and perhaps some simple giftshop looking stuff inside. I'm thinking I might just use a flat texture behind the windows for the interior of at least the ground floor.) I'm wondering how well a flat texture might work for the upper levels, cause a restaraunt style texture would really cut down on polygons. I did remove the lower part of the dome glass, but kept the frame for casting the shadows... So this was a good reduction in polygons. Is there any way to simplify the wall post tops, because as they are, they're about 100 polygons each I think, and for something so small, that's a big amount.

Thanks for input bixel. What did you mean by texturing? Just adjusting it to look better?

A full view durring the day time:

A full view nighttime:

A view of the base (Day):

A view of the base (Night):

A view of the top (night):

And a massive (2000x500 full view durring day)

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Hmm... this looks really nice so far. I like the gradient on the concrete texture. What I like less is the proportions. IMHO, the top section is just too tiny. Take a look at the CN Tower in comparison: Nobody would build so massive supports for such a tiny top. Don't be afraid to make it wider! You could easily double the diameter.

The night lighting effects are rather cool, that's for sure. I just don't dig the shape of that top section somehow, I dunno... just my taste, I suppose.

Oh, and one suggestion for details: Even if this is just an observation tower, once there is such a huge tower around, you can bet that there will be interest in taking advantage of that fact and putting some antennae and satellite dishes for radio, TV, mobile communication, weather radar etc etc onto that tower, maybe on an additional ring above (or below) the top section, or on its roof - or at several of these locations at once. Just have a look at some more real-world towers, and I bet you'll get some inspiration.

[tag_one 133]

wow looks really great, I love the nightlights

[david1314 44]

Ok, I'm getting one low quality preview render to show here before I send it off to the final high quality render.

I was Driving past the University of Denver, and something dawned on me about copper, it's not really so coppery in color as it is just green. So I've opted to go with brass. New additions are the people standing looking out (this is just a 32 polygon per floor thing, no 3d or anything, just to give an impression. Even at LOD 5, it's not that visible). I've also added the giftshop/entrance at the bottom. I changed the roof because I didn't like how I had the elevator column under the dome. You lose a little eye candy, I lose about 1/3 of the polygons to render. The flag is a little something just for me, you can find out what it means if you want to research it .

The Final Base:

The Final Top:

The Back Story of the Senate Spire:

Ok, this was actually purpose built for my city. It's got obvious likeness to the CN tower, and this was deliberate. I liked how the tower looked as my city's centerpeice, but didn't like how it dwarfed everything. So this came up.

In 1934, the new Senatorial Chambers were built in Ilcyrium (a city with suspicious geographic like ness to London ...thanks to whoever uploaded that map btw), and the old Senate became disused. The old building simply was not of size to manage the Senate's size, nor the offices thereof. The Senate Square district was also in decline, and Senators, fed up with pick pockets and homeless people moved (rather than fixing the problems). Immediatly thereafter, the district became the formost slum of the city, populated by opium dens, and a center for the now forming crime syndicates. In the 1970s, the growing CBD, and the addition of South River Station and the South River Commercial area moved towards Senate Square. Begining in 1979, a revitalization hit the district, the old Senate Building was renovated and turned into The Ilcyrium Museum of National History. Two years later, in 1981, construction began on the Senate Square building (an as yet undesiged by me building, thinking Denver's Wells Fargo Center aka the Cash Register building for inspiration) and the Senate Spire. The Spire was commissioned by the Senate to be the maximum structural building height allowed in the city of 285m (spires were allowed to go higher to 310m). More a show of affluence than a functional building, it's primary use is tourism promotion. It was completed in 1984 and rests directly over the then newly renovated Senate Square (the central convergence of 8 major roads of Ilcyrium). There are only 4 occupiable floors in the entire building, the ground floor and 3 floors in the Spire-Deck. The ground floor 'bunker' is occupied by the admissions room, the gift shop, and a lobby to the Spire Bistro as well as 6 elevators to the top (2 to each observation deck, and 1 to the Bistro). The 2 lower floors of the Spire-Deck are observation decks, each with an 80 person capacity. These two floors are packed with tourists from 7am opening till 2pm closing. The Spire Bistro is on the top floor, boasting 10, 4-seat tables each with a picture window, and a full bar with an additional 40 seats. The bar is invite only, and the tables are $400 each for one of 3 dinner seatings (4, 7, or 10:30), and $150 for one of two lunch seatings. In addition, one can expect a $150 a plate price tag plus drinks. The elite of Ilcyrium are often found in the Spire Bistro. Despite the $2.3 million annual rent of the Bistro and the income from tourists, little profit is made on the building between advertising costs (the primary usage of the income from the building) and maintenance (there are one full time window washer and 4 full time polishers keeping the spire, the frame, and the support pylons shiney). The investment of $95 million in the Spire itself of the totally $430m revitalization project was deemed a success, especially considering that Senate Square is the most up scale district in the city.

*(all prices in $USD, no simmoleons ).

Hopefully, if all goes well I will be trying to upload this tomorrow.

[GMT 389]

yes, the top section could be a little bigger.

the nightshots are awesome, although I can't see a difference between night and day at the base unit.

what I'd suggest further, as for the top section, some more details, like interior stuff or maybe "reflections" in the windows (textures that look like they reflect something, best)

anyway, I'll have an eye on that

[david1314 44]

Originally posted by: GMT yes, the top section could be a little bigger.

the nightshots are awesome, although I can't see a difference between night and day at the base unit.quote>

Oops, lol, I either uploaded the same file twice, or didn't copy the right URL for one of the files.  You can see the newest base up 2 posts.

And maybe I'll do a second version with a different top some time.  But next up to bat (hah! pun again!) is the Old Senate Building I keep speaking of.  I'm debating weather to do a knock off of the Pantheon or the Parthenon, or do a hybrid of both.  I'm leaning towards columns supporting a dome structure in a small circular building...anyway, I've got at least two more projects I want to do before I revisit this.

[david1314 44]

Ok, I got it rendered last night, I'm still doing the testing of it (40 views takes a while to check). I like how it looks, but all the criticism of the top level makes me want to adjust it a bit. I do think it would look better with a larger one too. Perhaps I'll do the 2006 renovation of it.

Anyway, I think I should have it release in the next few hours, or tomorrow when I return from school.