MarcosMX BAT thread

[MarcosMX 216]

Hi and welcome to the MarcosMX BAT thread. 

BATs already on the STEX

French Quarter Bar

FedEx Kinko's

Restaurant El Paraiso

Banamex

I would like to start with the French Quarter, which is a great and famous historical place in New Orleans

So wait for an update

Thank you for reading my thread

Edit: Here are some pictures of what I have done

please comment guys Do it for New Orleans

[Kwakelaar 92]

Your models is looking good so far, just watch out for the scale, this building seems to be quite big. The height of a ground floor should be somewhere around 5m.

Great work on the doors by the way.

[MarcosMX 216]

Thank you Kwakelaar for your comments.I just made a draft and it looks a little bit larger, but I will resize it when I finish it.

Here is an update of what I've done for now

Please feel free to comment and Do it for New Orleans

[tcx 170]

Hey this looks good, hope to see more of this.

[MarcosMX 216]

Thank you so much for those comments Tcxalapa, i really like your work, especially the Latam tower, I hope to see it on the STEX.

This is 60%complete, i just have to add some walls, textures and lights, so wait for more updates

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Seems to be coming along nicely, that house... and it will be an architectural style that's pretty unique to SC4 as of now.

May I ask you if you actually modeled all these details e.g. in the railings? Or did you use the "box with partly transparent texture" trick to save polygons?

[bixel 1,223]

Pretty cool so far, really diggin it. I luv the awnings and the balconies, very Orleanian!

[onlyplace4 603]

Looking really good, will be interesting to see the finished item.

Looks to me as if those railings are modelled T Wrecks ... dang that's got to puch the polygon count up, but, hey SC4 isn't a 3d engine, so if his PC can handle it lol

[spa 968]

Hey this is looking pretty good. It'll be neat to see once you put some textures on it. Keep it up.

[MarcosMX 216]

T Wrecks, I modeled all those small details in the railings, they don't look quite right but you won't see them in SC4 right. onlyplace4, this BAT has 34.520 poly's. spa, thank you for your comments, I will texture it when I finishsome the roof and some other details, but it won't take that long......

Here a quick update,  http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/143/fq087ep.jpg{/IMG] 75% completed, I just need the roof and some small details, texture and nightlights Keep your comments coming.............

[Jasoncw 11,840]

https://www.simtropolis.com/for...UMVIEWTMP=Linear<br /> There's a tutorial on making what T Wrecks was talking about in that thread, as well as some other usefull tutorials.  I really think you should try out that method, it allows for more fine details, and in the future it can save alot of time.  The only thing to watch out for the transparent textures is that any nitemaps will not show through, so don't put them infront of any windows if you don't have to. There are some other good tutorials in that thread too. 

[MarcosMX 216]

Jasoncw. the link you gave didn't worked, buI will do a search, but I think, i don't need to do this. Thank you anyways

[Jasoncw 11,840]

https://www.simtropolis.com/ forum/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=70114&STARTPAGE=2   Sorry about the link, they haven't been working right since the forums just got updated.  Copy and paste it, and then take out the space after ".com/".  

Using the transparent texture really is the best way for what you want to do, and is the exact reason why that feature exists.  It's also good because you can easily scale the texture to make it the right size to be visible, and because finer detail can be achieved with textures than with modeling.  And since you said the current stuff isn't working right, you'll have to redo it anyway, so you might as well redo it using the better method. 

I also suggest fixing the scale with the floors now, since if you do it at the end the fine details will get squished down, and might not be visible anymore--especially since right now you're making alot of fine details.

[tcx 170]

Hi this is getting better, I only have a question, you are showing a pic from the perspective view, the details you added to the balcony shows right in the BAT preview, you know the day and night view? because I did something like that and in the preview  looks weird.

[MarcosMX 216]

Jasoncw: That link you gave worked correct;y but when is loading the page I get

this message:

ERROR: The page you were accessing requires variables to be passed to it.

Error Code: 100

>could you tell me the aouthor or tilte of that tutorial, i really need to see it<

>tcxalapa, the first picture is a preview, I don't know if you can see it, the background is black. I had a similar problem with this BAT, I made I moved a vertex by accident and the whole figure looked weird in the preview, but i solved this<

Thank you for taking your time reading my stuff

[tcx 170]

lol, sorry i didn't see that pic, my bad.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

That's weird, it works for me.   The author is zmveliger and the thread is named ZMV next bat: Persian Mosque

[tcx 170]

you have to erase the final part of the link, it has "<br" that has to go: https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=70114&STARTPAGE=2&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

[MarcosMX 216]

Tcxalapa: thanks for the link, I don't know whether to use it or not, because I can't find a good texture or image of the reilings, but check out the picture>
Jasoncw: As I said i don't know whether to use this method or not. I will do a draft to see how it looks in the game.
Here is a picture, i started texturing.

Good comments are always welcome

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Well, I guess you could model one section of the railing, move it so that you see it nice big and flat on your screen, take a screenshot and use this screenshot to make a texture, I guess.

[MarcosMX 216]

What you mean I could model one section, but it looks cool like that. I don't know why you guys don't like it.

[tag_one 132]

it looks great, I really love the amount of details you put in the front, I can't wait to have it in my city

[tcx 170]

Just want to say something: it's not that people don't like, I feel that they are giving you some advice, is up to you if you make what they say, you can do what ver you want with your creations. I like it, and I think everyone is trying to help you, this is the point of showing you work, to make it better.

[MarcosMX 216]

tag_one: Thank you, I also like your team's work.>

tcxalapa: ah ok, thanks for that advice. Today is not my day, you know>

>This BAT is 80% complete, I just need to add the night lights and small details<

[T Wrecks 10,209]

LOL, yes. I didn't want to say that I don't like it, on the contrary! I just thought that it must be much, much work to actually model all these tiny details and that all the polygons may slow down your computer considerably. So it may be easier to work with some advanced BATting tricks, but that's something totally independent of the building you are currently... well... building. *g* But if everything works fine for you, all the better.

[onlyplace4 603]

We DO like it Marcos ... it rocks. What T Wrecks is saying is you could model just one section of the railings, do a largae face on render (so it's flat without distortion, and against a black background), take an image of that render, and then use that as your texture. Let me demonstrate thoguh unfortunately this will only work in 3ds max as you cannot choose the camera angle or viewport to render in gmax. However, I am sure that if you do not have max someone here will be glad to render the image for you ... heck, if you want me to I will do it for you. Anyway, the description might help a few peopel, so here we go.

Firstly draw your object and give it a 100% white texture

then render it in the front viewport and save the render.

Now import that render into something like Photoshop and crop it accurately to the boundaries of the image so you end up with

Now use that image as an opacity map and apply whatever texture you want to show through as a diffuse map. In the pic below I simply used the green shader of the texture map, and to prove that this works I put the words behind the lattice.

And that's all there is to it ... simple huh. The difference is that the lattice had 240 polygons and the plane with the texture just 2!

Hope that helps. If you want me to render the texture for me just say so, but I would need a 3ds or max file. You could always simply draw the object in Photoshop and make an alpha map that way, remembering that in your alpha map everything that is 100% black will be 100% transparent.

[MarcosMX 216]

T wrecks: As I said to tcxalapa, Today i feel like the world is against me, but anyways, My computer is one year old and I don't use its memory too much, that's why it can hold too much poly's. To do a draft, it take less than 2 minutes.
Onlyplace4:Thanks for that tutorial. I will use it next time, I just want to eport this thing, you know, I got bored with this BAT.
Here is are two pics, im ready to nightlight it and Export it



What you think about it? Does it need any changes?
Thank you for replying guys

[tag_one 132]

amazing toturial onlyplace tnx for sharing this with us. I've just a small question. is it possible to use opacity & diffuse maps in gmax and how do I do that

[onlyplace4 603]

Looks good to me ... I would reduce the UV map on the rear wall a tad so that the bricks are a little clearer (yep I know they'll be out of scale, but it helps to reduce the tiling effect and the flatness, and lets people see that they are bricks). Other than that with good nightlighting this is going to be a great addition to the STEX.

[MarcosMX 216]

Here is a quick update, I just need your comments

That's all for now guys