Jumpthefence

It's only been about a week, but I don't know exactly what my summer schedule looks like, so I want to get a post out while I have the chance. Early indicators say I'll be out of state with some relatives for a week starting on July 4th, and I have summer camp between the 15th and the 21st. Obviously, don't expect uploads or progress during that time; if the colonial buildings and/or advisor mod are to be released this month, they will be released without much warning. Replies: Brandon: You don't know how happy I am to still be BATing (and modding, for that matter)! Real life, you know how it can be. As for an advisor mod that replaces the current advisors with Simcity 3000 advisors, it should be the exact same thing as what I'm currently working on. But that assumes there are happy/content/mad/enraged versions of each advisor, or that they would express the same emotion regardless of the SC4 news ticker. I never played SC3000, so I wouldn't know if the advisors have different emotions (it doesn't seem that way). You'd have to tell me. madhatter106: I have no idea how my father would react to bronies. He would probably be as confused as I initially was, multiplied by a factor of 10. T Wrecks: I will keep it up! Hanson: Wow, you know NYBT is really on top of things when we BAT buildings twice. Evillions: I'm glad to hear my buildings have their niche in your cities. Tweaks: I'll be posting a full spread with all the final north, south, east, and west views sometime in the coming weeks (probably after my July 4th travels). After that, it's just a matter of exporting. Fraunces Tavern: It may not seem like much, but I upped the brightness on the walls by 25, and (to me) it finally looks finished. Van Cortlandt House: I sort of gave up on the garden; I tried all my tricks, but in the end, everything still looks kind of 'glued' on the ground with too little dimension. If anyone knows where I can get some pointers on vegetation modeling, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, this too is finished. Old Stone House: I'm really torn on this one. It's a recreation of a 1700 house; I knew that and acknowledged it when I started; yet I still feel the need to be 'historically accurate'. All day I've been wondering things like, "would a city of only 5,000 people have adequate access to iron in order to make metal stair railings?" I even swapped out some modern metal elements for wooden ones for historical material/metallurgical accuracy. Then again, I'm probably overreacting; I guess it's not worth raging at a week's worth of work just for the sake of historical accuracy. So yeah, that's finished too, rounding out my set of 4 NYC colonial buildings (don't forget the Morris-Jumel Mansion from my previous post) And Though No One Cares... Ugh, My Little Pony facial features. Why do stallions have to be so tricky to draw in the exact poses I need? Good thing I have plenty of time this week get my facial anatomy locked down before I get everything together for the advisor mod. On an even more irrelevent note, I started season 2 of MLP yesterday. And I have to say, after the "Modern Warfare" and "Pillow and Blankets" episodes of Community, and the late-night news coverage on May 1, 2011, it was one of my favorite television half-hours in recent memory. I'll post back here as soon as I can. Until then [my fellow Americans], have a happy Independence Day!

As a matter of fact, I'm not dead. And if you're reading this, you're not either. Good to hear. Admittedly, I've become really out of touch with anyone who visited my thread with more-than-patient expectations, and considering the way things are going, I don't forsee that changing anytime in the near future. I'm not a fan of writing (English was consistently my worst subject this year), and to me the time it takes to write these responses is time I could spend modelling a bench or making roof textures or something. No harsh feelings of course, I still love the ST community as much as I always have, and I'm lurking nearly every day. I just really wish my computer would write my thoughts for me. Even though I haven't reported on my progress in the past few months, that doesn't mean there hasn't been any! I'm going to start from March/April; most of my work from the winter months was either not NYC-related or produced a half-finished model that I didn't have the heart to finish. To start, on March 26th, a user by the name of rh1346 sent me a message basicly telling me he liked my work and suggesting I do some colonial buildings. I was quite impressed by his incentive, so I told him I would get right to work once I returned to Massachusetts in mid-April. And even though he probably never got that message considering he hasn't been online since March, I'm standing behind my promise! I chose 4 colonial buildings from NYC; it was easy considering the New York and New Jersey campaigns included some notable battles of the American Revolutionary War, and many colonial buildings involved are still standing. First up in Fraunces Tavern in Lower Manhattan. George Washington and his 'bros' fancied drinking there, such as it was after the British evacuated the city at the war's end in 1783. The textures are a bit dark; I'm probably going to up the brightness of the walls and pitched roof by 25 or so. Then there's Morris-Jumel Mansion, the oldest house in Manhattan, and temporary headquarters for both Americans and Britons during the Battle of NYC. I'm pretty content with this one, though I may rotate it 10 degrees CCW to have it show off more. That'd also allow me to do some cool stuff with the lot. Next is the Van Courtland House, which was used by Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Washington during the war. In the picture, it still has a ways to go. The flat roof and chimneys have stand-in colors and I have a lot of work to do with that garden. Gosh, it's a beautiful garden, but it's so intricate that I don't even know where exactly to start with the geometry. Finally, the Old Stone House (who came up with that name?) in Brooklyn, which was a fighting point of the Battle of Brooklyn, "the first major engagement of the Continental Army after the Declaration of Independence" according to Wiki. I have only basic geometry at the moment, but it's only 8 by 16 meters or so, thus I can probably finish it by the end of June. If I may, I have an interesting (albeit not NYC-related) tangent to go off on: I saw the first episode of MLP:FiM on June 3rd, and quickly fell in love with the show. HEADS UP, DREW'S A BRONY NOW. Since then, all I've been wanting to do is draw ponies. It got to a point where it cut into BATing time, so I had to ask myself if it was possible to somehow overlap Simcity with MLP. The last day of school, I got an idea: maybe I could make a mod to replace the advisors with drawings of ponies! Well, that'd reconcile everything perfectly! After school, I got home to discover that no advisor mods existed (at least I don't think so, I saw something on Simcity China that could have been an advisor mod, but Google Translate didn't make it very clear)... so... I guess I'm a pioneer! I got about 9 hours of sleep in the next 48 hours, and ta-da: I still can't believe that after almost 10 years, an advisor mod has never been made. It seems modders believed it was hardcoded in the .exe, but it you treat the advisors like automata S3D files, they're as moddable as planes, trains, and automobiles. I'm no modder, but it seemed simple enough... after 2 sleep-deprived days... Now all I need are 28 pictures of ponies... I originally thought of replacing each advisor with one of the Mane 6 (plus Vinyl Scratch or somepony), but my brain simply cannot reconcile the idea of replacing Camille Meadows, the absolute worst advisor, with Fluttershy, who is best pony. Plus, how would everypony else line up? I think I'm just going to draw OCs based on the Maxis advisors and use those. It might take a few weeks considering I have driving school and summer work, but whatever. If I need help, I can easily get in touch with Ganaram; his work on Deviantart is consistently amazing. I'm guessing there are a lot of potential questions y'all have (I'm still figuring out if this is entirely possible); feel free to ask.

I've been lurking here for a while, and I really like how this building is up coming along! At the moment, the only thing I'm questioning is 'what's up with the flashing on the parapet?' It varies from light to dark in a couple places, and it just looks odd to me. Something more consistent would look better. Also, the fire escapes are particularly vibrant, and I would knock the saturation down a few points. However, I've never seen the building this is based on (so I can't really complain). Details... Details... Keep up the good work!

Well, I’m beginning to see why I normally ‘carpet bomb’ my thread; a lot has been going on, and (for once) I mean that in a good way. I figured out how to make building and prop families (oddly enough, there weren't any tutorials findable on ST – I might change that if I find time) and I’m excited because this creates a lot of opportunities. I also hammered out the details and numbers behind the BATing technique I used on the international building in my previous post. I’m pretty sure I want to write a tutorial for that, because I see a lot of time-saving potential. I’m also working on the second quarter of the interchange, and I have at least one small project floating around in my head, slated to be done sometime before the new year(??). In addition, my new computer is officially up and running. Of course, RL is being its usual self and getting in the way, but I don’t need to tell you that. However, I only wanted to post about one thing; the Walkups under Construction have been successfully made into a building family, and they appear like this in-game (except more randomized): They’re plopped as CS$ buildings that employ (I think) half a dozen people each. I assumed construction sites don’t need a whole lot of workers, at least not as many as a store of the same size. Those will be up on the STEX soon (hopefully this week), in addition to the Chinatown buildings. Replies: Aaron: It's apparent that there are a lot of ways to do night lighting. You've gotten that method to work for you, while I'm still having some difficulty. To each his own, I suppose. Brandon: The plaza texture was originally the Maxis open paved area that had a pale shade of pink (which I assume was further pink-shifted by Maxis to blend with the rest of the game). I changed the hue to a more suitable tan one, but it does seem awfully saturated, and bright too. The fence color may look different after the building is rotated 45 degrees; I want to be dead-set of the geometry before I finalize textures. And yes, the diagonals are all set. They're 16 meters on each side, and each wall section is about 22-23 meters long.

Okay, I'm going to carpet bomb my thread, and then it's back to work. First off: Sorry I've been sporadic in my posting on Simtropolis; I got a new computer and at the moment I'm trying to, in essence, move a large portion of my life from a 2005 XP Compaq to a 2011 Vista Dell. Currently, I have the old computer at my desk with half a dozen attachments, so it's a pain to move. However, if I understand Moore's Law correctly, this new computer can do renders 8 times faster, which I'm psyched about seeing. But anyways: Aaron: Thanks! T Wrecks: Thanks for the link, I've seen under-highway scenery in city journals, and they sure make it look cool. As for simplicity, I'm doing everything I can. Liberater444: I already have plans to implement the first two, I'll have to see what I can do about elevated grass. Thanks for the ideas! Chinatown: I really had my work cut out for me with some of these Chinatown buildings, namely with the nightlighting. I decided to try the style outlined in this Omnibus article, where there are actually two variations of a building, a day scene and a night scene, and they're combined into a single model after export. One of the major pros of these extra steps is that geometry can be added to only the night scene. By doing this, I was hoping to add a garage door (at night) to the gift shop on the corner of 80 Bayard Street. Well, long story short, everything went wrong. First I was getting some Maxis FSH files (FSH files are like picture files that construct the BAT model) mixed into my final product. I found the Texture Fix available on SC4D and that cleared everything up. Next, my nightlights weren't working, which required a few more renders with reset LODs, merged files and the like. Finally, and worst of all, the garage door was not showing up in-game. This was never resolved, and I don't know what the problem is; I think I followed the tutorial word for word. It does leave me to wonder, though, do gmax and BAT4Max render in a fundamentally different way, for which reason I can't interchange FSH files? Personally, I use gmax. If the answer is yes, I'll know where I went wrong (although I won't be getting 3dsMax anytime soon). If the answer is no, I'll see what else I can do, but I've already done at least 3 or 4 dozen renders. I'm not even exaggerating, so I just want to release these soon, as they are. The final night scene is shown below; it's not exactly what I wanted, but there are by no means any major flaws. Walkups: <Link> I have to link to the final renders; the image is too large to appear on the thread itself. Anyways, these are partly done rendering. The building in lines 1 and 4 doesn't have any transparency, so I'm not worried about it. The other two, however, have a transparent material that intersects with the background, which is something Simcity might have a problem with. As far as I know, any material below 50% opacity becomes solid, and anything over 50% becomes invisible. Anyways, I still have to run some tests to see if that's true, but I hope to release these soon, probably around the same time as the Chinatown models. I should also note that I will be releasing these as only ploppable, because I believe growing a construction site is... just pointless. Interchange: I'm pretty happy with leaving it at that, with the exception being the interior of the parking garage needing more cars; I don't think I can put in every detail(although I have to see what my new computer can handle), so that's a good balance. I guess now it's onto sides 2, 3, and 4. Then I'll tackle the roof. "Pro" Tip: What appear to be cubicles modeled into the international style building are actually just a projected image. I created the office and cubicles in a separate model, took a picture of the render, and made a material out of it in the interchange model. Next, I applied the material to the floor of the office, rotated it 22.5 degrees couter-clockwise, and adjusted the position. There are some perspective issues, for which reason this won't work in all cases, but the building's glass obscures it just enough. It's still an idea I'm just messing around with, but it seems viable as a way to save time in rendering. P.S. Should I post smaller updates more often, rather than these "carpet bombs" that take forever to write, read and are so few and far between? It's probably gotten out of hand if I need a break while writing a reply. I sincerely hope everyone is well. God bless.

Wow... and what a year it's been! Great work everyone, let's keep the ball rolling! Happy Birthday NYBT!

I can't find anything to add; everything is looking absolutely wonderful!

Hmm... only two weeks between updates? That's got to be a fluke. Maybe a server error. Nah, that ain't happening again, ha ha, I don't have that much free time! Or do I? I do have work this summer, between school prep and farm/garden work (which, in Massachusetts, is the same as rock collecting thanks to our unique geology), as well as side projects, but I am managing to get a good bit of BATing done as well. Replies: AlexandrosB13: My bad, I was missing air conditioners on that "completed" building. I probably would have added them when I did window variations, which are also not done. You know, you're really good with air conditioners and the like; your buildings always have the most detailed and abundant ones on ST. Coincidence you noticed my lack thereof? I think not! Francis90b: Relatively interesting at least... Sgt Pepper: Then again, your state has to deal with hurricanes, flooding, cyclones, as well as dozens of tornadoes per year (well, according to Wikipedia). And Massachusetts? Blizzards, and a tornado once in a decade. We'll be alright. Harishna: What do you mean seperately? At the moment, I have a set of 3 Chinatown models to render, and a set of 3 under-construction models to render, which will be two seperate uploads. They're just not uploaded because I loathe rendering. Aaron Graham: Coming right up! Todd: I just know this monster is going to turn on me and destroy my computer's memory and CPU; I'm taking as many precautions as necessary, which is no easy task, but I'm sure it's for the better. DCMetro34: Hmm... I don't recall using "ProgeCAD"... I must have been something else. Final Under-Construction Model: It's not necessarily done; I'm not completely happy with the color balance. The walls and roof of the right bulding are too light, and the windows are definitely too dark, so I'll add lighter variations. And I think the back door is missing... Then I have to render a bunch of models? Uuuuuggggghhhhh... maybe Wednesday... I can easily distract myself on Wednesdays. Monster: So here's the concept, however revolutionary or incredibly moronic it may be: normally, when one places a highway cloverleaf, specifically an elevated one, there is a lot of wasted place directly around/under the interchange. This can be complemented by some overhanging props or trees, but I've never seen anything that fits to supplement the interchange in a relatively urban environment. What I'd like to do is create an overhanging prop to do just that. I'm not sure if I want to do the whole thing on a single tile; I think I'll create four variations for each corner of the interchange. However, no matter how it's cut, it's still a 200 by 200 meter monster. There's my 1% of inspiration, and now comes the perspiration. -Here's how it's going so far (zoom 5)- This is only a quarter of the monstrosity, and even then I'm barely into the geometry. It might take a while. The purple boxes give you an idea of the highway in relative scale, and the cloverleaf extends over the pink roof, which will be subdivided for texturing ease. The complex geometry such as the International style building's base will be changed, and photos will replace some geometry pieces. It's not necessarily NYC-based, but it has inspiration, especially in the building styles. Therefore, it'll be in this thread, but I don't plan to talk about it a whole lot. Any ideas, tips, or comments would be greatly appreciated for something like this. ----- This post took me more than an hour and a half to write; I'm just not a fan of Simtropolis' BB Code Editor. I'll post again when I feel like it. Seeya.