sparkythepenguin

Well, then, if no one else objects, the Hilton goes to final exporting. Got the Kaiser Permenente Tower done, today it is the Federal Building's turn. Yesterday I toyed around with the parking garage of the PMC. I gridded it out, tested configurations, and found one that made sense. Also I scaled the buildings up, and I adjusted the carpet store so that the floors lined up with the main tower. Just had to shrink down the spandrel above the door and move the doorway and ground level window up. When I looked at it closely, and used Sim Ruler, I noticed that while a sim would fit through the tower's doors, one would have to walk sideways and on their knees through the carpet store door! That's fixed now! And yes, there ought to be cars on the lower level. Will add some later today. I have a headache and need to go back to sleep. Hopefully it will go away in a couple of hours...

Watch out Josef, I've that Vista isn't yet all that it is meant to be. From what the tech guys say at my local computer shop (NOT a chain of any sort), just stick it out with XP for now. At least XP's been around for a few years now and isn't as untested as Vista. Good to see some sort of Industrial lot! There needs to be more. I only know of one cigar factory. Bout time there was another!

To start off, I didn't do anything further last night. But I did get to lighting up the Hilton and fixing the lloyd 700's lights this morning (I got up late, and yes 4 am is later than I usually wake up lately). Regarding the PMC: I am suprised at how much the parking garage and scale are getting attention. This sort of reaction is exactly what I want, and I am now aiming to please. I will try to figure out a better parking configuration, and keep tweaking with the scale. Nofunk's suggestion seems solid, so that's the first thing to do. I'll throw together some new parking spot configurations and show everyone. Then you can choose the best. Why they had to stripe the garage that way, who knows? OK latest lighting stuff: A bit better... I will start now on fixing the PMC. Later (5pm or so) I shall do the final export of the Federal Building and Kaiser Permenente Tower.

Oh wow! I am so glad someone is trying to do one of the 7 Sisters! Been waiting a long time for this. Probably urban legend, but I heard that the 7 sisters came about because Stalin saw pictures of the Empire State Building and decided that if they couldn't build a Soviet version as high or higher, he'd just have seven mini ESB's built instead. Thus, if stacked atop eachother, the sisters would be much taller then the ESB. Either that or it was to prove that the USSR could build skyscrapers, and a ton of them at once.

Oh gross! (and I mean that in a good way!) Every Sim City needs some dumpy areas like the new LAR lots!

A lot to address today, sorry it is so late. I'm working as fast as I can to get these ready, but I am not going to sacrifice quality. Please everyone be patient with Bixel and I. The biggest barrier to final exporting for everything (as of this morning) is lighting. Today, I managed to get two of these lit up, and if everyone likes the lighting job, I'll fast-track those BATs. Hopefully enough people chime in so I can get at least one of them started tonite. Patience, patience people. Norcat: Not planning on Kaiser being a hospital, but the 511 Building will have a clinic version. Ric: Don't mind the messed up Hilton lot. The building is't centered right and it is a weird programming thing. I know that drive-up area well. I hate how the sidewalk narrows right there. If there's a good crowd there, everyone just gets crammed together. And don't even try to go in the oposite direction. No wonder I like walking past on the Broadway side! Andreas: The little building (actually a carpet store) is accurate. Why it looks weird is that in real life, it is just a tad uphill from the 511 Building. The lot slopes upward from the corner the 511 faces. (the corner of 10th and Washington, the awning corner). Also, the first floor of the carpet store is higher than a normal floor, even in real life. It lets a ton of natural light into the retail space. That's why the windows don't line up. And trust me, I photographed, counted windows and patterns, and drew this out many times before I believed it! And I used to visit the building almost every week! a 5x5 lot would not work. The real building is exactly about a 1/4 block, and the garage IS like that... Weird, but adds variety... Jason: I don't think the mechanical housing is counted on the 511 Building either... I haven't been that far up in the building, but the 14th floor is the highest "inhabited" floor. I think the Commonwealth ought to be bumped up a little on the Z scale.... Bixel has the model, I just mod his Portland stuff. He'll have to decide whether or not to scale it, and then send the exported file on to me. OK I scaled it up, looks a little better. And now to get into lighting. The Federal Building (I fixed the problems that I was having by digging out the Standard Plaza BAT and taking a look at what I did), and Kaiser Permanente Tower are now lit. Lloyd 700 needs some work, but work has been started on lights. /\ I don't like the intensities, but when I add Omnis in, they'll probably get flooded out... Oh and the windows on the side don't show up! They're set back too far from the edge at this angle to show up. Should I push the glass curtain wall out? The real building looks so cool at 3/4 angles due to the lights peeking out from the sides. Took me half the day so far to get the bule just right... The top floor is an open-aired balcony around a service floor. It was simply floodlit before Kaiser started to floodlight it blue. On the 4th of July, it is red-white-blue, and on Christmas, it is red and green. And it took the other half of the day to g

Hmmmm Perhaps I ought to have the LOD include the underground objects too? 511/PMC Building: Yeah it needs a little bumping up. I noticed that it doesn't fill the entire lot in in Lot Editor. Also I should scale it up a little on the z scale after I do that. I thought I had scaled it perfectly a few months ago. I guess that I didn't. Time to grab the SimRuler and fix it! SC4 Portland: For most purposes, I call it PDX SC4. I have the region and everything that goes with it backed up. Just need to dust it off. It's pretty basic, as it was for a booth at a community planning day. I didn't make anything fancy other than BATs because the game is addictive enough as it is without all the stuff the community has added on. So it's not as pretty as the CJ's I've seen on here. If I were to really work on it, it's going to take a lot of time. Also I must go through my plugins and do a bunch of pruning and updating. Other than testing out BATs, I really don't run SC4. Hopefully that will change.

Sim Shady, I saw your post earlier when I woke up, and managed to run through some in-game test exports. These are low-quality exports, so don't mind the geometry. The only things I am concerned with at the moment is scale and texture. I'm quite certain a high-quality export will look awesome. I just didn't want to tie my computer up all day. Yesterday was bad enuf... (More on that below) Before I go on and post in-game shots, I would also like to add two more things: I have included Bixel's latest export of the Commonwealth (Equitable) Building in the in-game shots. I think everyone ought to see his great work. Also, I have good and bad news about some old BATs of mine. I am planning to revisit some of the old stuff and give them a badly needed update. In order to do that, I (sucessfully) brought my old BATing PC back to life, using transplanted parts from this PC. Unfortuneately, the original 1000 Broadway, Congress Center, and Portland Plaza models are lost to corrupted CD-Roms and a cranky old computer that just woke up. The good news is that the US Bancorp Tower (Big Pink), and everything else have been found and are awaiting rebuilding. The missing BATs will have to be restarted from scratch. I am currently debating wether to get ahead in BATing before school starts and rework a few old BATs before moving on to the next new projects. OK onto the screens: The Federal building is giving me headaches at close zoom levels: this effect repeats on the opposite angle too. I think it is the LODs. I had the same problem before, but can't remember what it was or which building it was... or how I fixed it! Anyone else remember? Enjoy!

That feature is sooo cool! I've actually used it to help me BAT. I ought to do a list like this for my project.

Oh wow! That's going to be awesome! I should have asked you to do the Benson Hotel. I think the textures are the same... Sounds like a busy weekend! Have fun!

Maybe that lawn has a croquet course? Or a mini-golf range. Even better: A small playground. If you want to go with plants, put in a hedge maze. I love those for some weird reason.

Why the heck not do both? Not much to it, and it pleases everyone. If you get any flack, just say it was an early attempt at a "point" tower (or "pencil" tower")!

Good to see you back Becca! Missed ya! Hope you're feeling better. Aside from the light posts, the modelling looks pretty good. The ground seems a little plain. Is that a 3d object or base textures? It needs some painted lines, etc... Storage places have parking spots, arrows, numbers on the ground, etc... I have a cool trick to add those if you want to know it. It's a but long to describe, but it did wonders on a lot of my recent BATs. It took me a bit to notice it, but the building's footprint spells out the word "HI!" Clever!

Wow, the second version is where it's at! Just be sure to mod it so that it isn't as ubiquitous as Wren Insurance. Why do I see a weird Godzilla Vs. Mothra-type fight between Wren and this building?

Welcome to the wonderful world of BATing! Often frustrating, but highly rewarding! A small building is a great way to start off. A good resource for finding out what roof junk is atop a structure is Microsoft Live Search maps. They have a cool "Bird's Eye" feature that will be of great help. Not sure if they have Bird's Eye views outside the US though. I tried to check for London, but my laptop doesn't like that site. Good luck!

Bixel: Please, Please finish The Henry! That looked so cool! Also, are you still up for doing the Bank of California Tower? Please do re-render the Commonwealth, and send it on over. I'll just delete the version I currently have. Please make sure it fits on a 2x4 lot! The less work I have to do, the better.... PSU BATed? I thought about that before. It'd have to be modular, as PSU really isn't a campus anymore, more like a college plopped into the city. I do still have the CJ-ish SC4 Portland. Needs a ton of work. More on that later. OK, Spa: Thanks for letting me know about that white texture. White's the hardest color to get! Here are the improvements so far: That better? The real building is pretty bright.... And this? Alsio I went and scaled the base right. So everything is scaled. Everything is modelled. Everything is textured, pending these changes. All I need to do is all of the lighting.

Jason, thanks for the explaination! That surely helps. The last screen I took of it was at high-quality at zoom 4. Zoom 4 seems to me to be the level that it happens the most, don't know about your experiences. I think it looks a lot better with the highest level of rendering plus the new texture. The old texture had an area with a bit of a contrast to the overall texture, sort of gray, so that may have added to my woes.... I don't know. It just doesn't look as bad as the first attempt.

I've eaten a lot of rubber chicken at the Hilton. Last one in 2000 when Oregon hosted a national conference on community based care for disabled. The final night at dinner we were treated to a Clinton impersonator.quote> That must have been fun! There's a guy that can do W's voice up at Harvey's Commedy club. It'd be funny to see them have a conversation. My favorite are Nixon impersonations. I've managed to get that voice down I guess... Darn Futurama... My Clinton impersonations aren't safe for work. OK Here are the latest changes on the first 4 BATs I textured, hopefully incorporating what everyone wants. Portland Medical Center/511 Building: (I ought to consistantly refer to it as one of those names or the other....) Darkened the roof texture Added another window texture, replacing a duplicate (oops!) Opened up the parking garage, it is now open to the elements all the way around. Added some seating around the food vendor cart parked in the lot. Adjusted the big twin HVAC things atop the south wall to look more like the real ones. Retextured the parking garage floors and walls. Used the Waddle's groundplane texture as a basis for the new pavement Federal Building Changed the red texture by desaturating. Looks more like the real paving. Added an additional window texture, one lighter for variety. Kaiser Permentante Tower: New roof texture Changed window textures 700 Lloyd New wall texture, less brighter and allows windows to stand out a little better Added a light window texture Replaced roof textures So is this better? What can be improved upon. Please also take a look at the Hilton above and speak up!

Cool to see you two chime in! Jason, please do show me what you speak of. Is there a way to fix that? I was thinking about moving the window curtain wall a little bit outward. Not too much, just a little. Also that was on a low-quality preview. Usually things like that look a lot better on high quality as it anti-aliases a lot better, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I have now went through everything everyone said and wrote them down. My task over the next few days will be to address these concerns. On some issues I feel it is important to comment upon: The 511/PMC parking garage: It is REALLY weird Andreas! I'll have to figure out how to describe the way it works... There are some parking lots in town where you don't get to park your car yourself. You give the attendant your keys and they park it for you. The attenedants are in charge of keeping track of where everything is, and can move stuff around if a car is needed that is blocked in. I think that those spaces are for the daytime workers who have some sort of deal with the garage operators. I know that the lot is attended at night and people park there after hours, but I have never seen double parking at night. Kind of funny because there are people thst live around that area that probably would gladly pay to have long-term parking. But I'm guessing that's what the lower level is for.... I do need to find some better surface concrete. Looks like I'm going to have to bust out a special move for that. The garage really has been the most annoying part of the whole thing. Blue/green colors on the PMC: The windows are actually really blue-grey-greeny and reflective. And the main metal texture (spands, main walls) of the rest of the tower is sort of a gunmetal gray. Trust me, I've spent a lot of time in this building! Hilton "Skylights": Those are blockerd up or painted over. I couldn't tell in the aerials. There is one skylight and it is over the pool to the right of the entry thing. And you definetly know it is one looking at aeriel photos. Why they made those weird things, but didn't make them glass, who knows? My best guess is to have a vaulted ceiling. I've been from the top to the bowels of this building, but I have never ever seen what is under the hexagon thing. And the one above the main entrance? I've never really looked up when I've went in that way! I know that it isn't glass because the lobby isn't naturally lit. I usually use the Broadway entry but I have a pretty good memory of the guts of this thing... Well, next November I'm sure there'll be some campaign parties in there. I'll have to look then. All the other stuff: Easy as pie. Just gotta keep trying. I think I may use one of the white textures from the Hilton to fix 700 Lloyd. The Hilton was a test for a better white texture.

Thanks everyone for the input. I'll take a look at all of these issues and attempt to address them. 99% of why I keep getting better at BATing is because y'all help me out. Ricb, what should I make the PMC into? A clinic? CO? CS??? Oh and yes, the Mac store is in 700 Lloyd, on the NE side. I think with the Portland Medical Center (511 Building) garage, I should open the rest of the ground floor up the whole way around. In reality, it is yet another one of Portland's notorious sloping lots. The tower isn't really integrated into the slope, but the garage is.... The Federal Building will be a full 4x4 block. Yet again, that block slopes and I wracked my mind figuring out how to flatten it out for SC4. OK now for the last one I had to do, the Hilton: Suprisingly I haven't yet heard from Jason.... Or Andreas. I wonder what you guys have to say...

OK, I went through and started texturing! I've managed to get 4 of the 5 done so far. Hamster: Yup it's in Vancouver, Washington. AKA the Couve, VanWa hahahaha! And for those wishing to nail it down further, it is probably the first major building in downtown Vancouver that you see coming off the Interstate Bridge. It is almost directly north of the Columbia! And yes, all these buildings will have plopable versions. I always give you guys plenty of options Aside from the Union Bank of California Tower, I don't know if any other building in Portland has more roof junk, particularily communications stuff. That is actually the REAL mural, the texture is taken from a pic I took two summers ago. The carpet store that is in the smaller building put it up. I really don't know how to describe what exact function this building has. Pacific Universtiy has a couple of floors for their med students and a teaching clinic, otherwise, private doctor practices occupy the building. Even the retail is medicine-related: An optomitrist and a pharmacy. So it could be CS, CO, a college, or a really big medical clinic (but NOT a hospital) I have no idea if that smaller building predates the tower or was built as an aside.... More more more!!!! Kaiser Permanente acquired naming rights to this building in the 90's and it serves as the regional HQ for the health insurance end of their business. There are a number of Kaiser hospitals and clinics in the Portland area too. 700 Lloyd, like the Kaiser Permenente Tower, is surrounded by a sea of parking lots and garages, none above 2 stories high. A major investment property firm, Ashworth Pacific, owns this tower and its huge lot (I'm only making the tower, not the boring parking lots). The rumor mill here often speculates often about a "Superblock" development incorporating 700 Lloyd into a new campus of high rises. Officially this is planned but has been on hold since 2001. Portland's Federal Building was originally planned to go where the historic Pioneer Courthouse still sits. Then-Congresswoman Edith Green was fiercely opposed to this and led grassroots-energized movements at the federal level to save the courthouse and cut off funds for the project. The feds then moved it to what became Portland's "Government Square", and recieved funding. After completion, the building was ironicly named after Representative Green and another prominent then-Congressman, Wendell Wyatt. Allrighty now, I'll shut up and let you all go for it. Do these textures look OK? These are now entering the most crucial phases of my BATing process. Maybe tonite or tomorrow I will have the Hilton done.

I hope to have all the detail modelling done tomorrow, and hopefully textures and lighting will get through next week. The Jackson Tower and Commonwealth Buildings will have custom queries as they merit them. They're quite special buildings. The others aren't really noteworthy in any signifigant way. Just so a realistic CJ of Portland can have some more empty lots filled in. But then again, evweryone seems to really like them. But alas, sorry no custom query. Not too much unique or to say about the boxes. I have 5 more things cooking, but first things first.... HINT: One of them is not in Portland or even the State of Oregon, but it is in the Portland Metro Area. Probably the most unique building in that town....

Sorry for the lack of posts. I just don't really go and post stuff much except in here. Haven't really felt like talking about stuff and been more about actually doing things... You'll see! I have got Bixel's Commonwealth Building, and will have it and Jackson Tower out soon. I'm striving for a personal best, something I can pass off as my own version of the "Oktoberfest" that BSC does so well. So with that said, enjoy the following 5 BATs that I have been working on the past two weeks. 3 of them went from 0 to nearly fully modeled in the same week! Off the shelf again is the 511 Building, AKA the Portland Medical Center. I even got all those mechanical thingies on top modelled in! I decided to jump across the river to slap together two 1970's highrises in the Lloyd District, the Kaiser Permanente Tower and the 700 Llody Building: Kaiser Permenente Tower: 700 Lloyd: Back into Downtown for another bit, since tax time is coming up, the Federal Building BAT should get people familiar with where to go at the last minute: And last, but not least, you can't have mid-century monstrosities without the downtown Hilton: The base was added later (replacing a truly UGLY, unfriendly 60's design) and took me a whole week to BAT it just right... Just thought I would let everyone know what I have been up to. I haven't gone away, and by far I am not yet done. Its nice to take winter term off! I've gotten so much done!

Jason, more purple in which texture? The walls, awnings, and/or anyother? bbfan02, is that a good thing?

Happy New Year! OK hopefully this is not too yellow and the awnings are desaturated enough: I used the white buildings in this area to compare the new wall textures. working on some other projects as well... Want to get this one out of the way soon.... Modding to begin soon hopefully. Any changes better be small ones that you want. The point of no return has been crossed!