brtim2

Always a fan of the BATs Currently in Progress thread and always a fan of posting in said thread, it doesn't lend itself particularly well to discussion on any one individual topic or building. And as I'd like input in what I'm working on, a thread is born! Cazibahar University Stadium: Definitely my largest current project. Click on picture for fullsize, new window opening, view Seating bowl is done. Press box, grass embankment on north side, north side arches, light towers, scoreboard, field props and ramp to the underground service area are the major parts left to model. Baltimore American Building: 231 E. Baltimore St., Baltimore, MD. edit: changed to photobucket for autoVino. 14 story "filler" building with two story neighbor for older downtowns. Big plans for this model, when it's finished. Brick Rowhouses: Brick Rowhouse Hyperbole! The five models that are complete and rendered, the sixth model that will have a deck on it and the slope friendly base. These are actually the closest to being a release. They fit my ideal of what a rowhouse should look like in order to create blocks and blocks of these bad boys. There are (right now) 5 variations in a prop family. 4 different models and one of those models has a different brick texture. I'm sure I'll get around to texturing those other three to throw into the variation pile. I originally made them as Medium Wealth, but in the attempt at creating an entire city of these bad boys, my Medium Wealth Residential bottomed out. So I also have High Wealth and Low Wealth Versions of the lots, but seeing as how the buildings take up the entire lot, there is no way to distinguish between the three different wealths. I like it that way, but I'm sure some people might have a problem with that. And, best of all, I stole a page from Cycledogs' 19th Century Houses and made them Slope Friendly. Click for larger size. Here you can see all the finished models in game. The texture variation isn't that apparent, but that's the way I like it. Also, you can see how the base handles the slope. Of course, if you don't build anything right behind the rowhouse, then you see the back door and it looks weird! And what the hey, I went ahead and looked through my External HDD to see what projects I had going on before my laptop got fried. A few of the models were finished and I was playing with them in the game. Of course I didn't save the exported files, only the model files and the in game icons (I know, right?). They are finished modeling (proba

Jason: Yeah, a full block, adhering to SC4's dimensions is a bit weird. But it's a game, and I can add or drop buildings as I please! And I shall adhere to your setbacks on all my lots. Yeah for conforming! Josef: Yep, the one and only Big Crab Cake. autoVino: Yeah, I couldn't decide if I wanted to show it, but if you don't put your goals and aspirations out there, who's gonna know if you fail? lol, that's not a good way to look at things. Pats: Thanks. Baltimore is a cool place. Let me guess, this would be typical of a Bostoner (or New Yorker for that matter), you came down to Baltimore to see a Red Sox/ Orioles game cause it's much cheaper to fly to Baltimore, stay in a hotel, get a couple of tickets to OPaCY than to go to a game at Fenway, right? Woo Fenway South! Well, what are we up to? Well, putting myself in another noodle scratcher, that's for sure, lol. I really wanted to get the fire walls done this week, but I didn't. I did, however, procrastinate and found storefront shots for the little filler buildings in the middle of the block. So really excited about that! And I didn't completely ignore modeling. I did finish the store front for Golden Brother's Jewelry, a.k.a. 227 E. Baltimore St., a.k.a that building next to the Baltimore American Building. I was worried I would have to make those up based on Live Bird's Eye View photos. I don't, so yeahs! I also realized (based on Live's pixelated Bird's Eye photos and a piece of graph paper) that my doodle of Golden Brother's Jewelry was too wide. That's what happens when you try and rely on measurements in Google Earth on buildings they don't even represent correctly, lol. That's why there is a gap between that building and the gray doodle next to it. As If I were to model the whole block then I'd obviously work on getting the buildings correct compared to each other. But I have to get the GBJ building done at the very least as it fills the BAB lot streetside. I was actually hoping the buildings would be wider than my doodle, not skinnier, so this is interesting. Looks like I'll finish modeling the buildings, scale them up 133% (or so) and then see how much I can scale it horizontally. Hopefully 2.5-3 meters worth. So, wow. I think I spent more time writing this than working on modeling the entire week. Crazy right? Well, not really. My mind has been off in a different place this past week, namely 2500 miles west of here in Phoenix. Can't really concentrate when you are excited about flying on a jet plane! So it's me soon off to work, and then killing time until 0600 when I take off for Phoenix for a week of relaxing, playing and loving. Most excited about that as I haven't seen her since September. Oh, and to all those Americans out there, Happy President's Day. If you are of legal age, have a Sam Adams on Monday. I know he wasn't really a President, but he's close and he has a beer. Woo President's Day!

So I've been working on the building. The two street facing sides (North, East) have been done. Next would be the fire walls, which, comparatively, are pretty sparse. I wasn't sure about the east wall as documentation on that side was pretty non-existent. Although, I did just realize there should be a window on the first floor of the northern most pillar on the east wall to coincide with the first floor window on eastern most pillar of the north wall. Understand? I think I'll just switch those two pillar groupings on the east wall. And when I finished the east wall I felt it was a natural stopping point and was not in the mood to continue. However, I was still anxiously awaiting an email (darn time zones) and didn't feel like going to sleep, so I did a little doodling. This is the entire block the building is located on. The block is bounded by South St. on the east, E. Baltimore St. to the north, E. Redwood St. to the South and S. Calvert St. to the west. This was just an idea of what I could do to make this building work in SimCity in a w2w way. The orange lines below the building demarcate a 2x2 tile. Obviously it's going to be deeper than that. A 3 tile deep lot with the light gray building on South St. truncated (by a meter) will give me it w2w there. Pretty excited about that. On Baltimore St. it's a different story. I could just forget the dark gray model on this lot and have a 4~ish meter alley right there. I don't like that idea. But I could take the darker gray 4~ish meter wide building down the street and place it on the edge of this making it w2w on both edges. Not the ideal situation, but it works. But that's not really important right now. I understand this is like 19-0™, but like I said, I wasn't in the mood for sleep and I wasn't prepared to start something new. Jason: Thanks. Some how I figured you would enjoy this building. Now as I work extensively with your buildings in my cities, I would like to make my buildings play well with yours. What's your usual setback for your w2w buildings? 1 meter? Or something else? Patriot: Yeah, noticed that too. As I usually keep them snug up against something on the back end I had never noticed that. I guess I never got around to changing the blue holder with the window textures like I did the front. The whole back side looks ridiculous, gonna have to do something about that. AutoVino: Hope you venture in here! I know the first few picture are red X's and you have probably wrote this thread off, but I've changed! Can you see? It's all for you!

So, so very excited. I have always enjoyed your work, Phil. So very excited to see your development.

Originally posted by: autoVinonope. it's a "security" measure of some sort.quote> So, does that mean the City Journals, for the most part, are just a bunch of words? Or do you just not bother venturing in there? And when you see people professing their love for a building that has just been shown, do you get angry that you can't see the picture and go out and kick a wallaby?

No, it looks better than one of the Maxis buildings. I think it's darling. I really like the color variations in the textures. I could stare at it all day.

Originally posted by: Scipio But back to one of my initial questions, how do you guys suggest I do the windows (the actual glass and what not)?quote> Sorry, can't help you out there I've only put in a blurry bitmap and leave it at that. I doubled my work on the stadium! Really, all it took was some mirroring. And I found out I shouldn't reference anything cause that kept it from being a mirror-and-forget method. But I fixed that problem, and here's what I have. I was working on the press box on the east side, but I somehow caused an error (me, be the source of a problem, never!) and the program closed. As I started a new scene to then merge the finished press box into the stadium (there are quite a few polys in the stadium right now) I hopefully didn't lose much if the autosave didn't work or if the scene somehow got corrupted. This is compressed. Click for full size (opens in new window) And because the stadium is quite large and I don't like sitting on one thing too long, I began on another project. (Which is probably why I'm sitting on a lot of saved files, but 2 releases....) This is the 14 story Baltimore American Building at the corner of South and Baltimore Streets in Baltimore, MD. The first skyscraper to be built after the Baltimore Fire in 1905 (or '04, can't remember). The two story building to the right will have to be on the lot, I just haven't gotten to that one yet.

^ I agree. But one thing bothers me with the parking garage. It's the lines. They look very bright, white and thick. But then I see the lotted parking lines next to it and I can't see that discernible of a difference. It might be they are thicker and whiter than the in game parking lines, or it could be my eyes are playing tricks on me cause most of the in-game parking lines are behind shadows.

Originally posted by: SkiGeek Originally posted by: GreekMan I also urge you guys to NOT badmouth Pats when he arrives. Just don't do it, Please. quote> I speak from experience when I say that losing a Super Bowl is one of the emptiest feelings there is. (Look up XVIII. It wasn't any fun.) He is going to have a rough time. Give him a break.quote> So wait, someone can load up their signatures, pictures and almost any available space they have to talk about how good their team is and how they are the best, but when they lose, we can't give them grief because their "awesome" team lost? How is that possibly fair? We, as members of this forum, have to put up with his gaudy signature and avatar .gifs, but when it gets bumpy for them we have to hold back? That's like someone running up the score all season long, and then when his team cannot possibly win the game, walking off the field and into the locker room with time still on the clock. I remember Randy Moss did that last year and was chastised for it. I think it's fine to have a rooting passion for a team, but when you go overboard and rub it in people's faces, well then you have to be prepared for some good natured ribbing at you and your team's expense.

So can I just say that I love this thread? Cause I really do. It's a plethora of pleasing pictures and pixels. Originally posted by: allez l'om brtim2: i'm french so i don't know of thing about american football: are you doing the coloseeum of los angeles?quote> Well, no. The design is very similar, though, so I can see the connection. The LA Coliseum is one of many across the country catering to Football Factory Schools. Others include The Big House, Touchdown Jesus, Yale and Harvard. Some others have been built upon the lower bowl areas to increase sightlines, capacity and luxury boxes. Some like Beaver Stadium and probably the one this most resembles, Death Valley. But no, I am modeling Cazibahar University Stadium circa 1985. Although, as of right now it resembles the stadium pre-1985 as before then there would have been no press box.... And I appreciate the enthusiasm towards my photos, I really do, but I don't think they actually show anything. Just some concrete, a field and some seats. Now, I must admit, I'm really happy with the field, but a field does not make a stadium. Some Z5 shots of the East-Stands-That-Should-Actually-Be-The-West-Stands-But-I-Lost-My-Sense-Of-Direction, Click on picture for full size Apparently the post doesn't like two picture links together. It treats them as one link. Weird. Hmmm, maybe I'll dust off the old Bat Thread with some questions.... ...but I think it has disappeared, lol.

Train station? Did you say train station?!?!?! My goodness, it's coming!

So, can I just say one thing? I HATE curved sections. There has to be an easier way to model them. But whatever, I'm done. All I have to do is finish the East side and mirror it over to the West side. And then re-do the East side to include the Press Box. This is what happens when you build with north pointing south. Anyway, Z4-ish preview of what is done so far. (I thought keeping the pictures at my monitor's native ratio would minimize/remove the interference. Apparently I was wrong.) So, I think, for the stands and such, I am almost finished that one side. In fact, I'm pretty sure I am. I'm just gonna sleep on it to see if I should add anything else before mirroring and continuing.

Originally posted by: City Planner ... I installed the game, then installed Rush Hour, then updated the game from their website to version 1.1.638.0 then installed the SC4Update4BAT.exe update too. If those are the two things that I needed to install to get night lights to work then I've done them already and then my problem must lay in my not doing something right with the models nite windows. Perhaps they have to be a certain type of object like a plain, or a rectangle, or a box, and perhaps they need to have certain... quote>quote> So I wasn't sure what your problem was, until I read a post somewhere else on the forums that may explain your predicament. Maybe. It's worth a shot. If your building/prop/model is too close to the edge of a lot, it won't light up. It's a limitation that has a workaround (off-set rendering) but you won't actually know it's a problem until you get in game and the building doesn't light up. Is your building close to the edge of the lot? If it is, try making the lot 2 tiles wider and longer than it has to be and then test it in game.

Originally posted by: Jasoncw It looks like you have an interference pattern between the bleachers and the pixels.quote> Yeah, I see that. It's not as noticeable in the full size shots, but it still there. I'm building the stadium with the field oriented north to south, although in reality it's oriented on a line 33 degrees west of north. Will that help diminish the pattern, or is there something more cosmetic that I have to do?

So I'm having a little bit of trouble. I think I have been working on this too much the past couple of days and now nothing seems to look right. I'm looking for a second/third/twentieth opinion on it now. Let me know which you think is better. Oh, you're just looking at the stands. This is the same stadium, the one on the left is what I've been working on for ever and a half. And then I did a z4 preview and saw the stands looked, well, MAXIS-ish. I think the "Rise-over-Run" is too squashed. So, for the right side, it's scaled 133% on the "Run" side. Same "Rise," just a longer "Run." Now that I've had a night to sleep on it, I think the right side is much better aesthetically, I was just looking for other opinions. edit: Also, forgot to add: Links to full size images: Thiner Wider

Picasso would love you.

How to Mirror an Object There are two ways in the BAT to easily mirror an object/objects. One messes up textures and makes things look bad, the other does not. You are free to choose which one you want to use. This is shown as a way to mirror entire buildings, but it can easily be adopted for individual pieces if needed. 1: First, create your object, whatever it may be. For the purpose of this demonstration I will have a block of houses that I will mirror to increase the number of models for a prop pack. 2: When everything is created and textured, group everything together. This way the entire group is mirrored, and not the individual pieces in a selection. Models grouped together. 3a: Now here is where the two different methods diverge. The first, and most obvious way is this: Select the group and click Mirror Selected Objects at the top of gmax. Don't use this one. 3b: Now if you press that button everything should mirror (dependent on which axis you select) and it looks ok. But this is what you get when you render. wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong 3c: That's why we don't use this method. We instead do the following: 4a: Select the group and mosey your mouse pointer over to the Parameters Rollout. Click the arrow down and you should see Mirror. Those red boxes are not there automatically. This is just to highlight what to click instead of having you search for it in the dark. 4b: This will mirror the selected group in a way that is pleasing to the eye in the viewport and in the renderer.

Thanks Jason. This is a classic example of 'over thinking' things. That's a much, much better plan than what i was thinking of doing. Thanks very much!

So, with the loss of the BAT Workshop and all, i'm guessing all 'how should this be done in an optimal way?' posts should go here, in this thread? Eh, well it's going here anyway. Ok, so I'm trying to create a brick arch and I'm not really sure how to texture it. This is what i have so far: What i have done for this look is taken a normal Soldiered Brick Texture and used a cylinder UVW map (as shown by the small cylinder at the bottom.) I know that's not right, but i'm not sure of how to make the bricks arch like this: So, short of actually having to make a new arched texture, i'm not sure what to do. I would think there would be a very, very simple way of applying a flat, soldiered brick layout along an arch, but i can't find it. So, even from the 3ds Max users (as they seem to be the more 'experienced' users) I could use a simple push in the right direction!

If you made one big box and edited faces, you're gonna have to use the UVW Unwrap modifier. I think that involves making a large texture of EVERYTHING you are to show and telling gmax to only look at certain areas of the texture per piece of the building. And that's all I know. I've never actually used it, lol. I've only ever made pieces and applied uvw maps. If I understand what you did and what you are asking, then yes, it can be done. However, it's much easier (i think) to make pieces individually and texture them that way.

Don't know if this message is redundant, but would it be possible to make this unarchivable? Seems like some important stuff. I know it just helped me and feel that it could help some others. Done! N_O_Body. Now if someone were to clean this up and organize it, it might make a good article for the Omnibus.

That is a small high school football field, lol. You seem to be missing a god 20 yards from it. The goalposts should be at the endline, you have them at the 3 yard line. No bueno. The field itself looks good, though. A minor suggestion would be to fix what looks like a very abnormal straight line. It seems as if there is some weathering that stops abruptly at the left hash marks. But like I said, I think the texture is done really well besides that minor blemish. You say this is part one, what other parts are you thinking of adding?

REMEMBER TO PROOFREAD! Somewhere my English teacher is holding her head in shame, haha. Originally posted by: El Burro Brtim2- Could you tell me in more detail what it is exactly you want me to do to these textures... and which textures your talking about?quote> Ok, so apparently my mind is not quite here. By wall, i meant building. The entire low building that flanks the complex. You have them rotated so that the taller ends are diagonal from each other, instead of facing the same side of the complex. This is what I should have said if I had actually proofread my post up there: "El Burro, could you render a copy of your low, long building that flanks the cooling towers to the north and south as such that one is a mirrored of the other? Mirrored along the x-axis, basically." To which Jason would have responded (which he dutifully did): " The mirror tool is broken, you might run into strange texture issues if you use it." And then I would have shown everyone how to mirror something that does not mess up the textures. (which I did). But then I realized that I would actually need to see more of the building to see if there is an actual need for the building to be mirrored, or if I'm just talking crazy. I think i'm talking crazy. So lets go back to square one: El Burro: Are those two separate buildings (the long, low ones flanking the cooling towers to the north and south) or is it one building prop rotated with one wall saying 001 and the other wall 002?

Originally posted by: El BurroDo you mean the Out Buildings (the long, thin ones to the front and back of the compound)?quote> Yeppers, those are exactly the ones. Originally posted by: Jasoncw The mirror tool is broken, you might run into strange texture issues if you use it.quote> True, that's if you use the button, not the rollout. Meet me in the BAT - General Discussion thread.