gottago

Originally posted by: madhatter106 I don't know what you're doing, but I've never found this to be the case - when I open an already textured model, or delete a texture for that matter, this never happens to me. The only time I've discovered a completely textured model is "blank" upon loading is when I've moved the location of the textures files/folder, and gmax is looking in the location they previously were set to when I originally placed the textures. quote> Then you're indeed lucky! Obviously Evillions is running into the same glitch I found when I started out with gmax, and have seen occurring repeatedly in the situations I posted above, despite the location and contents of the textures folder not changing. Another BATter mentioned this as a good solution and indeed it is; it keeps the textures in place--at least for your current session. As he said, "gmax has Alzheimer's."

evillions: your textures aren't sticking because gmax's memory links to textures is erased every time you start a new session or change or delete a texure or uvw map. It's a pain, but as I said earlier, create a new primitive box and apply all your textures to it. Then select another element, any element, to unselect the box, then go back and re-select the box and delete it. Your textures will now be applied to the model for your current session. You have to repeat this procedure every time your model looks like that or some textures are not showing. btw, looking good--and if you want to resize to fit w2w, select all and use the change by uniform scale tab on your toolbar to make your model fit the lot.

Raysfan: If your BAT goes buggy after export, go to unhide all, get rid of your LODs, check in your material nav that there aren't any of those weirdly distorted render bmps in there, and if there are, delete them. Then select the whole model and click "save as" and give it a new name. Then close out gmax, restart with a new file, and import your renamed model by using "merge." Then make a simple box and apply all your textures to it, and delete the box. You should then be back to where you were a few hours before.

Q: I've been trying to export a clean model without success: my building is designed to fit snugly on a 5x2 lot and the LODs have been edited to make a tight box around the BAT. Before I exported in gmax, I deleted the lightrig from xref scenes, then ran a preview render to generate a new lightrig to fit the new LODs. Then I ran the export. The result in-game is perfect except for this bug--a grey square at the point where the lightrig puts its target point on the LODs, seen ingame here: Anyone know how to fix this?

Originally posted by: Evillions 1. My rendering is messed up even though I applied UVW mapping to the shapes and etc. So most of the rendering are pretty much white. But, some parts does apply normally.quote> I had this problem starting out, and another BATter said "gmax has Alzheimer's." But it's pretty easy to fix: create a simple box and apply all your textures to it before you render, then delete the box. That way it will save them in memory--at least for your current session . You have to redo that every time you muck around with your textures, gmax's memory for textures is lousy. 2. Texturing is a HUGE problem for me. I want my walls to be 1 texture, and doesn't repeat and such. Even UWV mapping doesn't even help me out one bit. Where can I find a texture that I don't need to photoshop on that looks grimy?, Since I don't have photoshop at the moment due to harddrive failure, and just got a new harddrive and RAM.quote> You can download gimp for free; I use PS but tons of people prefer it. In any event you'll have to bite the bullet and learn to use an image editor; it's essential for texturing, which is even more important than the BAT itself in many ways. Look at CS textures and arroway on the web; they've got tons of excellent textures, a lot of them are grimy from the start, but even then you're going to have to modify every important texture on your BAT to have a decent outcome. Again, check out the tutorials! I need help on backyard stuff such as stone fences, flora, sheds, etc. Also, I need to make this look good with having it to be W2W style. So any help out there that I could use? quote> Dont worry about the stuff that's not on the building itself--you'll detail the lot later in LE with other people's props (but keep track of what you use for listing dependencies).

Hi Vlasky, I just found your BAT thread and am glad you took my suggestion to heart and are doing a new version of your Red resident! It's a style of building I love and there's so little bar-shaped w2w low-rise out there like that, especially commercial stuff; the emphasis in SC4 has always been vertical when in RL it's usually horizontal, more often sprawl Re: the BAT itself, it looks great and Amthaak's nitelites are excellent. The small glass addition coming off the corner is perfect, but the addition to the main block looks off, it doesn't gel with the Red and looks tacked on. I'd either make it appear it's an addition by adding a transverse wall on the roof to suggest it was built later and texture the roof differently, or just move it over and add it to the other glass wing and make it a 3x3 (or 4x4?) square w2w corner lot and leave the end wall of the Red a blank concrete slab. You'll have to edit the LOD to get an L, but then you can do something interesting in the courtyard you'll have created in LE after. Some more roofjunk on the bare spots and you've got a really interesting little complex going there. (btw I'm a he)

Select all, then group everything. Then you can move it no problem.

So much to study and admire here: even the shrubs in the planters on the terraces above the entrance portico are excellent--so open and realistic. Chapeau!

tcxalapa: darken up your unlit windows and give them some variation so they fit better with the lit ones, right now they look untextured. Hope this helps!

You make the little details just like the big ones, only smaller, lol. They don't have to be very complex; most detail will be lost in-game. You just need patience but it will pay off. Check out phillipbo's BAT beginner's tutorial in the ST omnibus section; it walks you through creating a simple building step-by-step and covers all the basics. Excellent starter tutorial on gmax/BAT, highly recommended.

The building looks great ingame--really kills the neighbor to the right--and the window reflections are as good as it gets. Only problem I see is that the paving needs to be extended--those glass bay windows touching the grass don't look realistic.

Congratulations Amthaak, that is one fantastic bat--the quality is really superb!

Kellydale2003, Great gift! thanks a million for the seating--it will come in very handy and if/when the project ever gets out I'll be sure to credit you. Re: your problem facade on the lowrise (assuming you're not working from RL), two things might help you there: I'd try a version where you continue the lower height of the stone wall across the gap to the slab that is inset in the glass box--as it is now, the gap feels off--it needs the local symmetry of both stone walls at the same height to make the gap itself read as its own element and not a transition. For the entrance, I'd simplify it: lower the roof of the entrance overhang to the level of the bottom of the glass facade, either fill in the glass above or leave one story open as you have it now, and make the overhang itself much thinner, with two pillars--or why not having it cantilevered with no pillars and glass instead of concrete? My 2c fwiw, great stuff and thanks again for the file--it's really kind of you and much appreciated.

I vote for a 60 degree crane, too, and have to say that that low-rise building is terrific--that is one gorgeous BAT. The skyscraper under construction is also a knock-out---great work there, very unusual. BTW, where'd you get the outdoor furniture on your lowrise BAT? I've been looking for exactly those kinds of gmax models meself, for exactly the same situation.

I'd say your latest attempt is much better and don't know why you would want blue-tinted water, unless you are indeed trying to represent blue-tinted water. For an aquarium that size, the water would essentially have little to no color at all--unless you hadn't cleaned the tank in a while The only things I see that are "off" is that the water has too much rippling--it's not a swimming pool after all--and the waterline on the left face is too prominent and too blue.

The best way to improve performance if you have lots of custom content is to use Wouingame's Datpacker, available at the SC4D LEX: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=26 (You'll have to register to DL.) It's an excellent program that packs your plugins folder into a few mega-dat files and speeds up loading and performance spectacularly, especially on older machines such as yours. This is a must-have, IMO. You have to do some prep work to reorganize your docs/plugins, move mods to your C:.../plugins folder (all of which you should do anyway) and it only takes a few hours to get things straightened out if they aren't already, but once you run it, you'll never look back. Simply a great program.

I just stumbled upon this thread and wanted to leave a drive-by compliment, as delecto your bats are excellent and the lots by twrecks do them perfect justice. Congratulations for a wonderful collaboration, and delecto it is great to see you BATting these lower-density buildings, there is a real need for them.

Just found your thread and I'm happy I did--excellent work on your building! I also agree with kellydale that the reflections on the last render photo are too prominent and could be more subtle. The pool area is very well done, but I see one problem there--the light coming from inside the building casts no shadows from the support pillars--it looks like the whole area behind the pool is open, which could not be as there must be support columns there. Also, looking at the entry facade, to my eye the first floor of the actual building above the open arcade needs a stronger, better-defined base. By this, I mean the bottom of the lowest row of bay windows should have a slightly protruding sill beneath it, or perhaps a continuation of the terrace at the center--as it looks to me now, the bay windows seem to hang in the air without support. Otherwise, it is an excellent job. Bravo!

The Manhattan-style brick apt. bldg. is good, very typical of NYC, but I see a few basic problems: first, you should remove one of the lightwells--that semi-detached back corner they create is unrealistic. I'd just extend one lightwell to the corner--essentially making the building a thick "L." Also, you should remove the quoins (the saw-toothed corner blocks) that run along the base of the building--quoins only appear on corners, vertically. Last, and it's mostly an esthetic question, I'd give the building a larger, more projecting cornice, with a low wall above it, and raise the roof to accommodate it. The top floor is usually done this way in these old NYC pre-war bldgs.