ardecila

There is a bump map, but it cannot be perceived from this distance. It's reflecting a quick screen-cap from Google Maps. I'll try to assemble a better one with more details, but the reflections are supposed to be intentionally vague. There's probably a fine balance in there somewhere. In other, related news, I worked on the building's plaza sculpture today. Called Communication X-9, it was designed by Jewish artist Yaakov Agam. Unfortunately, it was removed last year because the building owners felt it looked dated. I thought it added a wonderful splash of color to an otherwise black and white building, personally, so I will include it with my building as a prop.

Okay, I returned from vacation. Saw a lot of interesting things, met a lot of cool people, ate a lot of interesting food. Now I need to FINISH some stuff before school begins in 2 weeks. Constructive criticism, please! The new reflections are dynamite (no small thanks to autoVino for that) but it's still missing that je ne sais quoi.

Two more pictures from different angles:

Rather than Blockbuster, I'd suggest something smaller. Blockbuster stores are large, so they usually occupy two or three storefronts. Likewise, the Papa John's seems really large... usually, they only occupy one storefront (it's just a kitchen and a takeout counter inside!). So, you could just switch the Blockbuster and the Papa John's. Also, Bank of America usually likes to be by themselves in their own building, so they can have a drive-up. When they are in a mini-mall like this, they usually have a larger space. I'd suggest a dry cleaners or nail salon for that space instead.

Thanks, nofunk. That annoys me as well. I set the Include list to Illumination only. I decided to resurrect an old favorite last week, but got around to making a rendering today. The Smurfit-Stone Building is back - and this time, it's SHINY! This is intended to be quick, since the modelling was done 3 years ago, and I just have to worry about materials and night views. SimFox, can you show me how you did the Lippo night-lighting? I'd love to do a similar effect here. Also, cloud reflections are inappropriate for SC4-view. Any suggestions there? I'm hoping to get this out before I leave for 2 weeks on Monday.

Wow, this is really good! I LOVE that firehouse. Have you considered doing any Chicago buildings? I'm tired of being the only guy doing stuff from the greatest city on Earth.

Hmm... Whatever massing the building will take, the cornice needs to resemble the one on the 5-story portion. If you are gonna go with a cool Art Deco-looking cornice, it needs to extend around the building. Your previous version looks like the owners planned some large additions to match the small original building, but forgot the cornice. However, it did include some cool ideas, like the light court, which I loved. However, a light court usually has a floor at the 2nd or 3rd floor, to use up as much space at ground-level as possible.

Floorplans aren't too hard to find... First, you need to find out whether there is vacant space in the tower. (For Detroit, this is probably not a problem) Then, you need to determine the real estate agent who is marketing the empty space. 2 out of 3 real estate firms will place the floorplans on their website. Note that these are not the architects' original plans, but drawings created by present-day architects/draftsmen who are commissioned by the realtors. Just for example, here's one I dug up for the Guardian Building. Unfortunately, the "enlarge" link is dead, or I could have gotten you a high-resolution PDF.

Jason - I couldn't agree with you more on increasing the contrast. I'll darken the windowframes. As for the roof texture - the lower roof textures are final (the ones over the baggage house/train shed). The upper ones, I will eventually replace. I'm getting tired of the "cow spots".

If you ARE indeed taking suggestions, then I would suggest the Fisher Building. I have some floorplans if you're interested - I always like to BAT from floorplans or elevations if they are available.

Okay... I did some work to make the model match the roof photo I found. It seems much more logical now. I narrowed the parapets, added a slope to all the roofs, and I added a little grey edging to the parapet wall, to simulate the edge of the asphalt roof, which is supposed to lap up onto the parapet. I also added some chimney cowls to the roof of the train shed. I also got a weird, likely Final Gather-related error in the shadows cast onto the ground plane. Good thing that won't be visible in the final render! Lastly, don't worry about the odd diagonal line on the roof - it's a texturing error that's already been fixed.

I considered making a quick script edit that would bypass all of this work by setting it to clamp in the first place. However, I could not find where S3D settings originate within the script. I have a feeling they originate from a DLL somewhere.

Hmmm... I think the STEX forum would be an appropriate place to put the BAT Links list. To be honest, the only people in there are the small number of players who do lotting exclusively, and even some of those are in the Lot Editor forum. The STEX forum doesn't really serve a need, so it seems like a good place to put such a thread.

Method To Fix Rendering Error Jasoncw ran across this problem after rendering his VanWingerden Plaza. (You can see it if you look at the lobby - the horizontal streak). It is straightforward to fix, but depending upon the extent of the problem, it may take some time. Jason's error only happened once on his model, so it was a good candidate. You Will Need: iLive Reader Rendered SC4Model file (I will be using DuskTrooper's Montauk Gas Company Building) 1. Place the model in-game. Plop it several times in different positions and rotations. Rotate the game view, as well, and zoom in and out. Determine the full extent of the problem, i.e. which zoom and rotation it happens at. Also take note of where on the model the problem occurs. Write this information down, or take a screencap to help remember. 2. Exit SC4 and run iLive Reader. Open your SC4Model file. Within the file should be three types of component pieces: FSH images, S3D models, and a DIR file. We will only be focusing on the S3Ds. Sort by "Entry" (which means filetype). Now pinpoint the S3D that represents the specific zoom and rotation combo that you identified earlier. Look at the instance number of each file to determine zoom. The third digit from right is the zoom number, minus 1. So an S3D with instance 00030400 is zoom 5. 3. Now that you have found the correct S3D, we need to identify the group that the problem lies on. Look at the picture below-left. You can see a faint vertical line to the right of the building. This glitch has the same root cause as Jasoncw's error. Now look at the picture below-right. The model is broken up into 11 seperate squares, called groups. Each one has a different texture. The checkboxes on the left hide each group, one-by-one. Go through each checkbox until you turn off the group on which the problem occurred. We find that the problem on this model occurrs on meshes 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11, but on another model, the problem may occur on a different group. 4. Now that we've pinpointed the exact location of the problem, we're going to fix it. Above the model display window is a table, with a row for each group in the S3D. Drag the edge of the Name column to the right so you can read all of the titles. Find the row whose name ends with the group number you found earlier. The first problematic group is number 1, so we select and expand the row ending in 1. Looking closely, we see that this row refers to Mat Block #1. Typically, a group and its Mat Block will have the same number, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule. 5. Now go into the Mats tab and select Block #1. See the two drop-downs where it says "Wrap Mode"? The setting in this drop-down box is the heart of the glitch. Change both to Clamb (it's supposed to be clamp, but there's a typo in the program). Perform this on any other problematic Mat Blocks. Now hit "Apply" at the top, then save your model! Voila! Your problem is solved. Feel free to test it in game. For a technical overview of the cause of the problem (though it is meant for a separate program, the concepts are alike) please visit this site:Panda3D Texture Wrap Modes

Damn, dedgren... you beat me to it! I love those ramps... I have fond memories of visiting the Mars Cheese Castle, accessed from I-94 via one of those ramps.

Just like in Max' Unwrap UV, if you move a vertex beyond the boundaries of the texture, it moves onto a second version of the texture adjacent to the first one. The texture is endlessly tiled. An S3D works the same way. Two vertexes have a V coordinate below zero, placing them below the edge of the first tile and into the second. This gives a line of pixels from the top of the texture. There may be a way, using iLive, to eliminate this error. You may want to do this, depending upon how extensive the problem is... do a little experimentation and see which zoom/rotation combos produce the error. Also, find out if the error recurs after plopping the building several times. If it happens every time you plop it, then I will show you how to fix it. Otherwise, if it only happens once in awhile, it's really not worth the effort.

gws, I've considered ordering a back issue from the publisher... but it looks like I may not have to. A guy in Elgin apparently acquired a ton of issues, and he listed them all on eBay for $8.50 each. By the way, before you put an order in for the article, you should know... it's actually September 1969, not November. My bad, sorry. On a side note, I found a picture on the website of the Chicago Historical Society, taken from the top of the bell tower, looking south. It finally shows some details that I had to make up earlier, including some of the roof structures/junk, and.... the parapet wall, which is considerably thinner than I expected. Jason and SimFox, you get your due diligence. I've noticed that I'm kind of obsessing over minutia on this building. I think I sorta feel a duty to preserve the building in 3d form. If the National Park Service thought it was worth hiring an architect to measure and document the building before it was demolished, then somebody should use all of that and rebuild it, even if it is virtual.

Okay, I've been fiddling with the night-lighting on Grand Central. I finally got access to the picture that gws1227 mentioned, at the Harold Washington... quite valuable. I've never seen Trains magazine before, but it looked interesting. I browsed through the index and, lo and behold, the magazine did a long article with many pictures when the station was closed, in November '69. Unfortunately, the library's archives only go back to '74, so I won't be getting access to that article. My version.... the orange glow of the sign did not come through in the render.

Yup, that's the line I'm thinking of. Finally, someone who knows what I'm talking about! Buses and trucks can make the underpass, which is why I have raised the tracks to 4.75 meters now to allow trucks to clear... but accommodating the double-decker London buses would ruin the realism. I'll probably do something with type-21 exemplars to allow bushes and scrub to grow on the grassy parts. Trees would be somewhat unrealistic... railroads usually keep them trimmed back, I've noticed, probably to avoid them dropping sticks and leaves on the tracks.

Oh, god.... Jeff Park would be a nightmare, with the curving highway and Blue Line beneath in a trench, then the Metra above with the embankment... no, it's really not possible in SC4. People would have to do extensive terraforming to get it looking even half-decent. Regarding the "park" thing: I live out in the NW burbs.... There's one conductor on the Metra NW line who makes all these jokes about the 6 stops in a row with "park" names. i.e. "We now begin our tour of the Parks. First is Irving Park, then Jefferson Park, followed by Gladstone Park, Norwood Park, Edison Park, and Park Ridge." River Road (now called Rosemont officially) is an interesting idea, but very ugly architecturally. To be honest, if they repainted the whole Blue Line, it would look 100% better; they did this to the Dan Ryan Red Line (which has similar station designs) and it looks amazing.

The L tracks acted as a barrier seperating the student living/eating areas from the academic areas. IIT wanted to break that barrier and create a more inviting campus. Previously, there was a parking lot beneath the tracks, and students would often cut across it to get between dorms and classes. Koolhaas studied the paths that students took across the parking lot, and those paths became the hallways, entrances, and sidewalks of the building. It was really a great idea, which led to a lot of really unusual triangular spaces and rooms within the building.