jmh

Hello again, Sorry I've been away for so long, but real life has kept me busy this week. But things are returning to normal I think. I have begun modeling the next building, not much to show yet. As for Sanford Law, I think there is a slight philosophical difference of opinion, in that I don't mind things that are flat to appear flat. However, I am submitting these buildings here to garner advice on how to make them better. That being said, I have pushed the window frames out a bit on Sanford to accentuate them more. I'm still tinkering with textures, so no pictures today. I'll see if I can get some up tomorrow. ___ jmh

madhatter106: I must admit I'm rather reluctant to alter the front on the blue side, since it is nearly flat in real life; I'm trying to go for realism, but at the same time I'm willing to make concessions for the game. I'm on the fence for this one. I'm not quite sure what you mean by adding a "layer edge" on the top of the cornice though. As for the back doors, I think that is a victim of aliasing by the renderer. ___ jmh

Now back to business. I need comments on the next building. It's the one that the arrow is pointing to, of course, and the other three views are in the lower right of the picture. I'm still not sure about all of the textures, but mostly I'm happy. I'll give it a couple of days, and if there are no serious issues with this one, it might be ready for the STEX by Monday, after I lot and mod it. In the meantime, I'm starting on number four, but I'm not sure what I will call it, as the occupants have changed several times over the years. More on that later. T Wrecks: Hello again. I appreciate the encouragement. ___ jmh

Aha! I failed to change the submission type to BAT, and I missed the file descriptor thingy at the bottom of the submission page. Those are fixed (BAT / industry), so Cowell Steel should show up in the appropriate location on the STEX. Italian Gardens and Just Dance will go up today, which lets me resume work on Sanford Law (which still needs texture tweaking, lotting, and modding). Aaron Graham: Hi there, thanks for stopping by. ___ jmh

Hello again. I uploaded Cowell Steel Structures to the STEX, but I'm not seeing it yet. Is there some lag time before submissions become visible, or did I mess something up? I'm going to wait for the next files until I get this sorted out. harishna: I have tweaked those canopies down quite a bit. They are props, and so did not get adjusted when I re-exported the model. It took me a while to figure out how to replace the old versions with the new ones without having to completely re-lot the building. nofunk: Hi again. I was wondering if anyone would remember that. . . I was inspired by JBSimio's work, and really wanted to flesh out my small towns, so I'm back at it. Thanks everyone for stopping by. ___ jmh

Hello again. It looks like I picked a bad time to start this thread, since Simtropolis disappeared all of last week. But it did give me some time to tweak things and play around in gmax. Pertaining to the tweaking, I took the time to send some textures through the washer a few times until I found what I think is the right amount of bleach. The results are much better. A few in-game pictures. I also made progress on the next building, Sanford Law Firm, and should be done with modeling. Textures are another matter. The next picture is the first time I tested it in game (the arrows point to my buildings, of course). It's hard to tell about the textures on the newest one (the one on the left), because the color on my new monitor at home is off somehow. Everything is rather bright and I haven't managed to get it adjusted quite right. But on other monitors it looks much better. It does have a very lightly colored roof, but I think I might need to darken it a little. Give me your opinion. Also, as I said, I've been experimenting in gmax and learned a few things about how it handles texture mapping that should be very helpful in future BATs. That's a single cube with a different texture applied to three individual sides, and then each is uvw mapped independently, which is why the 3 on top is at a 45 degree angle, to show the mapping. Pretty nifty and handy. I've gotten the modding done on the first two buildings and tested them in-game. Since I had the time, I also made ploppable versions for those that want them, and plan to do so for all future commercial buildings. Responses LRLight76: Hi there. Happy to see another Arkansan here, and I'm honored that your first post was made here. I'll have to check out the Little Rock Union Station some time. I've don't believe I have ever seen it before. SimHoTToDDy: The cornice on Italian Gardens really is rather subtle, even in real life. Very few of our buildings in town have a real cornice, and those stand out. But I did try to emphasize the one on Italian Gardens a bit more since it was too hard to see. Spike345: I'm glad you approve, and I promise I'll start uploading these to the STEX on Monday, barring any major issues. That's all for now, thanks for looking. ___ jmh

Thanks for stopping in T Wrecks. Yes, I have been fighting the saturation/brightness battle with these. They look great in GMax, ok in the lot editor, and have a radioactive glow in game. I wish they had synced the three program's displays better. ___ jmh

Hello Simtropolis! Welcome to Russellville. This is a project that I started four years ago (yes- four, 4, IV, 00000100 -years) but, after a computer meltdown, was unable to continue. I was relegated to an ancient, slow computer for a couple of years and so never got back into SimCity and BATing. However, I've kept the idea alive and have recently returned to playing SimCity and am resurrecting my BAT project. The focus of the project is the buildings of the town where I live, which you know is called Russellville if you have been reading closely. Specifically, I'm doing the historic downtown, those wonderful wall-to-wall buildings that are under-represented in SimCity, even after getting JBSimio's wonderful collection. There are a few other buildings in town that I would like to do as well, a few notable items that stand out for one reason or another. And, if I can find enough old photos, I might attempt to recreate some of the lost buildings that have burned or been knocked down through the decades. So lets get started here. My first BAT ever was of Cowell Steel Structures, where I spend 8 hours a day wiggling my fingers (typing on a keyboard, that is). The model files and textures of this BAT seem to have been lost in the computer crash, and I don't remember if I had a backup anywhere. It was complete however, and lotted and I have been using it in my cities reliably for some time now. So I will be officially releasing it on the STEX soon. Some pictures: Industrial Manufacturing, 70 jobs Grows reliably if you force zone a 4x6 industrial lot (Hold Ctrl key while dragging the zone). My next building was going to be the Sugar Creek foods building in the downtown. Unfortunately, what little progress I had was lost to the black hole, but I'm searching for copies or backups still. I wanted to do that building to add another good industry to the game, and to force me to model all of the great roof-junk so I could recycle it for later buildings. This one is unfortunately in limbo for now. However, I decided to move on to what I wanted to do in the first place, and that is the w-2-w buildings in the downtown. And so I present to you my first effort - Italian Gardens: (edit: This is an early lot version, the final has slightly different props) Commercial Service $$, 35 jobs. 1x2 corner lot, Chicago and NYC tilesets, stage 2. This is the oldest building in Russellville, built in 1875 by Mr. J. L. Shinn (who was a serious contender for the name of the town, I could have been living in Shinnville). It survived the fire of 1906, mainly because it is across Main Street from the fire. It has had many tenants over the years, including a gas station and the town's original telephone company. For as long as I have lived here, it has been home to the restaurant Italian Gardens and the second floor has unfortunately been vacant. J. L. Shinn Building circa 1900 This will be released soon as well if there are no serious objections to the BAT or lot. I've had it grow several times in my cities already. Both of these are night-lit, but I don't have any pictures on hand at the moment, sorry. Next up is Just Dance: Commercial Service $ 20 jobs, 1x2 lot, Chicago and NYC tilesets, stage 1. This one has a unique pitched roof on it that none of the other roofs have. There is some detail I have left off because I can't get to a vantage point to see it clearly. The right hand side is Just Dance, which teaches Tap, Jazz, Ballet, and on occasion Ballroom Dancing. The left side (the pink stucco facade) was until a few years ago a barber shop, and is currently vacant. It does, indeed, fill its entire lot in real life. I'm mostly happy with this one, except for the roof texture seems a little too bright, so I might be toning it down before release, but it should come very soon either way. So that's it for the moment. Next up is Sanford Law Firm, which I haven't begun at all, so no pictures on this one. ___ jmh (edited to make the pictures show up - oops!)

Is it possible to tie the elevation of a prop to the building rather than the terrain? I'm trying to place a canopy on a building over a window. On flat terrain everything seems to be right, but if the lot is sloped and the building has a foundation, the prop follows the terrain and appears lower or higher than it is supposed to. Since trying this, I have noticed that the Maxis buildings also have this problem with storefronts sitting on the terrain and showing up on the foundation instead of the building itself. ___ jmh

I would like to request America's first national 'park' (or reserve as it was called then since the parks system was not yet created). Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs Arkansas. (The view from North Mountain Observation Tower - East end of Historic District The Back side of the U.S. Army Hospital is on the left hand side.) (The view from North Mountain Observation Tower - Middle of Historic District The tall building in center is the Medical Arts Building, the large two-winged building is the Arlington Hotel.) The park includes Bath House Row; the largest collection (8 currently standing - only 3 pictured here) of bath houses fed by natural hot springs. Across the street are historic buildings that are mostly art galleries and shops now. (Taken from the Promenade behind the bathhouses.) (Taken from Promenade behind the bathhouses of buildings across the street. The red roof in the foreground belongs to a bathhouse) Up on the side of North Mountain is the U.S. Army Hospital. At the end of Bath House Row is the famed Arlington Hotel which has it's own hot springs and the Medical Arts Building which housed the offices of the doctors that worked at the U.S. Army Hospital at one end of the downtown and the city hospital at the other end. (Medical Arts Building on left Top of Arlington Hotel on right) (Side view of the Arlington) (Side view of Medical Arts Building) The Medical Arts Building has 16 floors and was built in 1929. It stands 180 feet tall and when constructed was the tallest building in Arkansas - a record that it held until 1960. The back portion (on bottom-right of photo) was constructed on a rock protruding from the wall of the valley beginning on the fourth floor. I would love to see all of this (and more!) either as one lot or a collection somehow. Info on the web is almost non-existant but I would be willing to travel there (about 1 1/2 hours away) to take more pictures and even measurements if possible.