Francis90b

A bit better than the previus version, but still not there...i'd say to still lower the contrast of the bricks, especially on the sides that have quite a "dotted moquette" feel. Are you sure rust would be so noticeable on HVAC units? I'm not saying it shoudn't be there, i'm saying that perhaps it should be slightly less strong, especially for a building that's still occupied. What's happening on the ground floor, aside from the garage door? There's a painted wall there i guess, but the paint is so dark that it almost feels like a "block" - perhaps desaturating it and making it slightly lighter would help. All in all it's not bad (and there are some nice touches, BTW!), but i would advice you against "finishing this quickly"...

Ok folks, some math: 1 sc4 tile= 16 mtrs. Building widht=60,40 mtrs or 190 ft (190 x 0,3048 = 57,9 mtrs) - therefore 60,4 or 57,9 mtrs. In each case it would be interesting to see why the author decided to fit the building in a 48 mtrs (3 tiles) wide LOT. NOTE:If you follow the "60,4"widht value, that would mean (64-60,4)= 3,6 - this means two 1,8 mtrs sidewalks on both sides - as it is more or less in SC4.

It's the Chase tower, 10 south Dearborn street. It will be interesting to see how it turns out .

Oh yeah, one of my favourites as well - and i'm really glad to see it here!

Wow! That's all i can say - when i looked for something similar i found nothing, and i took a decent look! I'm sure that if you look more into your HD, Vlad, you might find even Atlantis !

1) As far as i can gather you have modelled those houses following the proportions of RL buildings, and with dimensions made to fit with a specific Maxis reference? 2) If so, and if you have also vertically scaled them by 133% to counterbalance the visual effect of the perspective used to render things, then you should be fine.... If the answer to both questions is "yes", then you shouldn't worry about anything...your houses should look correct next to maxis ones - which was what you were aiming for, right?

PROJECTS -Generic tunnel ventilation shaft model 1 In Progress: -Commercial buildings 1 -Cross river tunnel (phase I) -Federal style and greek revival rowhouse sets. LENGHT SIZE OF MY MODELS Some of my models aren't BATed according to SC4 LOT size.Here's a list, with their relative lenght: -Commercial buildings: 26 W 38th street:7,6 mtrs. -Rowhouses: Jones:6,4 mtrs. Henry:7,2 mtrs. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The BAT i'm currently working on is a a generic tunnel ventilation shaft, based on the ventilation shafts over the southern tube of the Lincoln Tunnel in NYC. Here are the four zoom 5 previews, in clockwise order from top left S,E,W,N. And here is the south preview in a white background, you can use it to test how it fits in a generic SC4 landscape (or in any pic you might have).Cutting and pasting a SC4 render into another image is not difficult nor time-expensive, but it might be tedious...so i've thought i could simplify the job for you . Feel free to share your mind.

Well, concerning the front setbacks of the yellow building on my sketch, you can do anything with them...just bear in mind that they often were not very deep. I'd say you might make some small setbacks (1,2 - 1,6 mtrs) every 2-3 floors starting from the 6th-8th floor. Remember to leave enough depht on the topmost setback from some elevators and stairs to fit there - and remember to leave a gap between the back of the yellow building and the skyscraper (at the very least 3 mtrs). Making them line up with the newer building does not make much sense...since the infill was built decades before the skyscraper, how could his architects have foreseen the new skyscraper's massing? 99 Wall street could be a good reference. Take a piece of paper and design it there before trying putting it in the BAT - you'd get a better idea about what to do, and a smoother process later.

I need to model a corbel for a BAT, however i'm having a bit of trouble with that. The corbel should have a curved section on it's side, and a front section having flutings on it, more or less like the corbels shown supporting the cornice on this building: If the corbel had no ornament on it's front side, i'd have modelled it as a spline, and then extruded it as needed. Flutings forced me to take a different approach, that is, to model a series of splines that would depict the profile of the corbel at different points (e.g. at the corbel's edge, where fluting begins, when it reaches maximum depth, and so on) - then attach them together and apply a cross section modifier to it - then apply a surface modifier on the top of it, and then convert the result into an editable poly. I got rid of the existing smoothing groups, and applied a turbosmooth modifier to the poly - problem is, shading on it is quite odd, especially at the bottom: Aaron suggested me to check for smoothing groups, but resetting them and then applying them again did not go as expected. The model shown there is a tiny detail, 0,2x0,5 mtrs...however, it shows me a problem i could encounter in any case, should i model a tiny corbel or an aircraft carreer....therefore, i'd be interested in looking for some way to fix it. Despite knowing in theory about loft or sweep, i never managed to get the expected results from them...it could be said they were fun to look at, but not fit for what i was aiming for . So, i'd like asking you for some other quick, effective and reliable way to model things like this. EDIT: Other than this, i'd also like to know how people BATing modular models, like airport terminals, sea walls and similar, can make their models bleand seamlessly. If i recall correctly, the trick should be to make a model that's slightly bigger than the area it is expected to fit, crop the LODS so that they include just that area, and then there shouldn't be any seam between models once they're put one next to each other - am i correct about this?

I agree, they're looking great. I'd see some shade of orange or cream, in place of tan...

Not really. This is what i meant. The yellow mass with blue edgea is the filler building, the gray mass with red edges is the skyscraper. The gap (in white) is the gap you should leave between the back of the filler building, and the skyscraper.

So far, you have two problems - how the two masses relates to each other, and what the green mass is going to represent. 1)Masses. 1a)The gap between the skyscraper and the green building would not make much sense.The green building probably does not need it (a pre-existing structure (*), probably built to fuction as that), and the skyscraper could probably do without it, either. I happened to read an interesting theory about the changes in skyscraper design in the 50's...among all the other differences, one of the things you'd notice is that their mass is, generally speaking, more thick than the one of older buildings - well, what i read (and that makes sense to me) is that better artificial illumination (and wasn't that exact time neons and fluorescent lighting began to be widely implemented?) reduced the need for natural lighting, and therefore allowed for buildings with a "thicker" mass. 1b) The green building should have a back side open to natural illumination (i.e. non W2W) - if it is built to be something else, and not just part (connected to, and functionally being part of) the bigger skyscraper. (*)When i said "older, pre-existing structure" i said that the green building, or a past incarnation of it (read it either way) was an obstacle that the designers of the skyscraper had do deal with - they couldn't tear it down, so they had to design their new building around it - in the merry BATing world things could happen the opposite way, lol, but IRL that's pretty much that. 2) Style I don't think it would really make sense to make a building that appears to be built around the same time - i'd go for either a more recent style, or for an older one. If you go for a more recent style, it's quite unlikely what you will do could be an office building - if you look at it, most of modern office buildings take up larger parcels of land, and infills are often residential pencil towers or showrooms, sometimes speciality shops. This is also partially true for past, prewar times...most of the small, short and narrow art decò or revival buildings you'd see in midtown mahnattan were not built as offices, but as showrooms, light manifacturing lofts or speciality shops. I'd say to go for a building clad in a simple, utilitarian art decò (this way would look as an older building) - or with a significantly more recent building (that would look different in time and style from the skyscraper next to it, and would let you intuit the skyscraper was built that way because there was something next to it - that was replaced by the "modern" infill - hope it rings clear...anyway) My best take would be a small art decò building, very utilitarian in it's look (could be linked to the dozens of small manifacturing or showroom purpose-built buildings built in 20's and 30's around midtown manhattan, especially the Garment district) - and would not be excessively hard to make (while an even more older building might take more time and effort) - sense, and simplicity - what to ask more?

All of them would be feasible, however, I'd say C1 or C2 - if you are not going to pursue B.

The building was actually built as the administrative headquarters for the province (oblast) centered around city of Kalinigrad. To me it would look like a nice complement to some administration building like Maxis's Bureau of bureocracy just fit for commie cities...or perhaps even a (large) city hall (look at Boston ). I don't really see it as a residential building, and to be honest i have difficulty imagining it as an hospital as well...however, i see no pb with it if someone else might like it that way.

As a neutral statement, i'd say that if you work on Gmax from the start, you would need to import things, and this would probably more convenient. Some people there have used or used Sketchup as you did, as part of their BATing process - i don't feel like discussing the pros and cons of it, as i have no true experience with it - however, i hope people who are into this subject might. This said, it's a nice, little project, a good one to learn things with - let's see how it turns out .

I said i might adapt the two brownstones by replacing their ornaments with the ones the original one had. Colour-wise is a guessing game, as there are no pics other than that B&W drawing (i tried looking for that). However, i was also thinking, why not having you make a version according to your wishes? To me, a contextual version, taking into consideration the urban fabric in the neighbourhood and the design of similar buildings, and designed taking care not to put too much "interpretation" into it (the design you see, you could easily see it, nothing had been "invented") was enough. You seem to have a different opinion on the subject, and your points are points i'd say are worth of consideration.However, while suggesting things to other people i often took action in first person to see my expectations realized - maybe you should do the same .

Thanks Aaron. Cmdp 123789, I did the two brownstones to avoid the "gap" problem - which would have forced me to either scale up the brownstone, or "interpret" the alley that in SC4 would be left next to it - neither of them being a realistic option. Now, i might put the facade of the existing ones next to them.This said, i could, i think, recreate any situation in which the brownstones found themselves during their time they shared together with the Bromley - (1940 - today). This is one perspective drawing of the Bromley, with the brownstone next to it, still having all of it's ornaments.Definition is not clear, but clear enough to tell you what was going there - for example could i see that the design of the trims around the windows, and of the front entrance, is different. (link) I might even get myself to make two models, one with flat wall, the other according to how things looked there. As a passing note, i'd say that the more ornate brownstone designs are somewhat rare in SC4...except some stuff from Marcszar, one nice Greek revival from Don Miguel, and a couple of very old other models - so, if it's possible to add an ornate brownstone to the game while keeping realism to the Bromley, i'd go for it.

Yep, the RL thing was probably a brownstone, that had been completely stripped down of it's facade and reclad.It's hard to infer from what's left what there was on it's facade before. Since i decided that it was not convenient it for other reasons - see the notes i wrote about that - and decided to design another building in it's place, i somehow ruled out the idea to recreate it's appearence - i must say, it wasn't even deliberate, and now, with your post, it's the first time i think (i'm fully aware of) this possibility.

GC, your feedback is welcome, now and always . I oblige about building things - if laziness allows me to - you should bear in mind that other than being perfetionistic i'm also quite lazy, and if only i could get myself to be more diligent, some things i'm working on would be long finished, lol. This said, here it is now: Now i'm in the middle of modelling the front yard. Aaron, i'd like to see a preview of the back of the Bromley.

It's true that row houses often have different heights, but it's also true that when they sometimes were built in sets, as part of a slingle developement - e.g two twinned 12 ft rowhouses - and when it happened, they sticked to the same height . This said, if and when i'm going to design a rowhouse pack comprising different types and designs, something that's not going to happen now, be sure that they're going to follow the height design, style or their real life counterpart might dictate

I'm afraid you might have missed my point, Aaron - in short, there it is - i'm afraid people won't necessarily see it's floor height as good, and in the upload description i won't have so much room to explain my design and my choices - and since you're the one that's uploading things, you might be held responsible for that, even if you are not. In order to protect you from this, i'm going to study a design that's exactly the same, just with slightly lower floors, that could fit better with what someone's expectations might be.

I think the bricks on the Hamilton Arms would need more work - contrast between "bricks" is a bit excessive. If you are like one of those painters who tried to paint a whole canvas by using "dots" of colours, then it's fine - however, if the result is that the dots are visible (they stick out, rather than blending in a canvas, which is what does it happen if, for example, i look at a canvas painted the way I described by being too near to it)...well, the illusion crumbles.

It is now my turn to post there - to show one part of the work i'm doing for Aaron, more precisely something that could lead lead the Bromley (or 129 east 35th street) one step closer to completion. The realistic recreation of the Bromley by Aaron led to an 8 mtrs gap on the lot, behind the building - which had to be filled somehow.I offered myself for the task, and Aaron kindly accepted. One option was to recreate the building that, in real life, lies immediately behind the Bromley on 35th street - a stripped down 20 ft wide brownstone. If you do some math, you can easily realized that the said brownstone could not, alone, fill the gap. It would have been possible to scale it up until it reached a widht of 8 mtrs, slightly more than 26 ft - but in this way it would have looked out of proportion with Aaron's work, that's usually done close to RL scale - while I acknowledge that there are a lot of scaling criterias for BATs (the myriad of maxis ones, plus the myriad of BATer's ones) - having more than one on the same lot seemed a bit excessive to me, lol. Additionally, a scaled up and wider brownstone would have been in sharp contrast with the urban fabric of the neighborhood where the Bromley is located - it's rowhouse stock is mostly made up by very narrow buildings, ranging in widht from 12,5 foot to 20 foot, seldomly venturing into wider widhts. Therefore, i decided to rule out the existing brownstone as a possible candidate, and to look at other options. One of them was to create, rather than one wide brownstone, that would have been unrealistic, a couple of tiny, twin brownstones, equally dividing the remaining space between the Bromley and the LOT edge. I found this to be a possible choice - some existing brownstones in the neighbourhood measure from 12,5 to 14 foot in widht, and the room left by subdividing the "SC4 parcel" gap in two parts was of slightly more than 13 ft. I then set up into designing the two twinned brownstones, each four floors tall (without counting the basement) as many existing brownstones in the area, and each having two windows per floor on the front facade, as the vast majority of 12 to 14 ft brownstones you might find, around 35th street or elsewhere. I decided to not recreate a specific building, but to take design and dimensions among brownstones and rowhouses i had surveyed on my own in the past - this said, the amount of "free interpretation" had been almost negligible - no significant amout of "liberty" had been taken on the design, and what you will find there, you're likely to find in extremely similar way when looking at real life. This could be said for every detail and design choice i took. This said, it's time to look at a couple of elevations: Those were sketches i did in Paint - and Paint was more than enough to do a to-scale sketch, in which to study the proportions and the dimensions of my building. It's now time to take a look at how this would look like next to the Bromley: One look at it would tell you that the building is too tall. However, while this assumption might be true if we just look at how we expect things to be, there are many more things to be considered - things that in my opinion might turn this seemingly right assumption into a wrong one. Here they are: 1)Floor height is not a fixed thing IRL - it can change widely from building to building, and, i can tell from experience that this is quite true as far as rowhouses are concerned - and to a lesser degree, about apartment buildings too. IRL buildings might have floors lining up one next to each other, or being significantly taller or shorter (this does not mean that you're free to do stop evaluating things and think everything it's possible and valid - on the contrary, it should encourage you to look more and think more, and never fossilize in your thoughts ) 2)All the floor heights i've adopted for the brownstone fall among the range of floor heights i've noticed while surveying brownstones for my own scopes - this, coupled with the fact that Aaron did a realistic depiction of the Bromley, leads it and my building to be two buildings BATed to realistic standards, with a widely differing (but justifiable) floor height. 3)By looking at the real, existing situation existing around the Bromley, the 20ft brownstone i mentioned before is more or less as tall as mine, having the same number of floor - therefore, it is reasonable to assume their floor heights is similar. Therefore, i think i have enough points to call the assumption about my design being "too tall" unfounded. While Aaron kindly agreed to let me meddle into his BAT, and to texture and nightlight the models i will send him, the models themselves are my own responsibility - all of the questions, objections and criticisms concerning my models are therefore to be adressed directly at me - i'm going to follow the discussion and reply when necessary. It comes to my attention that i would probably not be able to write such a throrough explaination into the upload's description, and that people might be prone to ignore subtle distintions such as "who's responsible for what" - after all, everything will be uploaded on Aaron's behalf, right? - so perhaps Aaron might be victim of unfair criticism (unfair because uninformed, and directed against the wrong person) - in order to protect him from such a regrettable situation, i'm also going to study a version of my design with shorter floors - that could be slightly more fitting with people's expectations, while at the same time keeping the realism and accuracy standards i think i should follow. Additionally, i think that anything I bat should be exported as a prop, so that people could remove it and replace with something they see as more fit, should my design not be of their liking.

Oh, on this one, my friend, we might agree- we might just disagree as about which one should be the choosen one .