Caliban

My first BAT building.. 30 St Mary Axe in London, aka the London Gherkin. It is to scale as accurtely as I can make it. The night lighting gave me some hassles due to BAT limitations. Any comments are welcome.

I have been working with Lord_Quillian2 on a replacement for the Maxis huge lightrig. In case you don't know the huge lightrig that comes with BAT is seriously flawed. Not only are the lights positioned differently from the other rigs, making for inconsistant lighting, but it also has badly set shadow maps which cause very bad render artefacts. Examples rendered by Lord_Quillian2 of EmergentFungus's great One Canada Square building. The left is lit by the Maxis rig and the right by our replacement. As you can see the Maxis huge lightrig causes the whole building to be plunged into darkness and the corner to be strangely illuminated as if rounded (this is due to the bad shadow map settings, such as the bias, making the renderer misinterpret how the shadow should fall) Our new huge lightrig works basically as a 250% scale big lightrig but with carefully corrected shadow parameters for the best tradeoff between quality and memory usage. Why you should use the fixed huge lightrig As can be clearly seen in the example above, the fixed huge lightrig addresses all the problems inherent in the current Maxis one and produces large buildings that are lit in keeping with the other BAT lightrigs. When you should use the fixed huge lightrig If you model is using the Maxis huge lightrig that came with the BAT you should use this fixed version instead. If you are unsure which lightrig you are using, you can check by doing the following. Note: If you are unsure whether the scene is currently using the appropriate size lightrig press the Reset Lights and Cameras button first. Select XRef Scene... from the File menu. This will pop up the XRef Scenes window. You should see one file listed in the XRef Files section. If this file is TB2_CameraLightRigHuge.gmax you need to use our replacement (TB2_CameraLightRigHuge_fixed_v1.gmax) How to use the fixed huge lightrig 1) Download the new rig (attached), unzip and put in the gMax gamepack directory BAT/scenes/CamLightRigs. Default location would be c:/gMax/gamepacks/BAT/scenes/CamLightRigs 2) Go to the Display tab of the Command Panel and untick Helpers from Hide by Category 3) Select XRef Scene... from the File menu. This will pop up the XRef Scenes window 4) Click the filename in the XRef files to highlight it and press Remove 5) Now press Add. In the Open File dialogue navigate into folder CamLightRigs and select file TB2_CameraLightRigHuge_fixed_v1.gmax 6) Press Bind and select the helper TB2CameraHandle. You can do this either by clicking on it, or, if the scene is dense with geometry and you can't easily click on the helper, by using the following. After pressing Bind click the Select by Name icon. Untick Helpers under List Types then press Invert. You should now only have 1 (unless you use helpers alot) option in the list, which will be TB2CameraHandle. Just double click it (or select it and press Pick) to complete the bind. 7) Finally close the XRef Scenes window. The bind stage is very important as it is this that makes the model (well lights and cameras really) rotate for the different views.

Thanks Yes it is using the Catmull-Rom AA filter. The library it refers to is the night textures library feature that CycleDogg has implemented. Unless you intend to use this feature there is no need to worry about it.

ak-ak-adak The first thing to check is try opening the model in the iLive reader and seeing whats there. If you have the proper fsh files but the s3d's are bad then the LODs are screwed up. Placement is indeed important in Max and follows the same rules as in gMax. The position should match between the 2 programs of course but thats pretty much a given seeing as you export the LODs for gMax to use.

I export my LODs from gMax in Draft mode and haven't had any quality problems.

Thanks , heres a night shot.

Well as you asked for feedback and progress shots I thought I'd show you what I've been working on. This is the over a million poly model I have mentioned before. I have exported it many, many times with the BATforMax exporter in Max 6 with very few problems (just the odd BAT error every so often) It uses bump mapping and a few procedural textures, as well as CycleDoggs wonderful night library feature. With no nightlighting the export takes about 8 minutes, with the nightlighting this is increased significantly to 50 minutes, with much of that time used for behind the scenes stuff.

I have also had a number of errors with a variety of error numbers, but in general it works fine for me. The first time I tried with nightlights it was always erroring but then I found a nightlight had mysteriously acquired a multiplier of 867 (I probably had it selected when I typed something else). Correcting this removed the problems for most exports. I'm mainly working with a model of over a million polygons, bump mapping, 20 plus night lights and the great new night library feature. The new tools for processing and replacing the fsh files are great btw The addition I would most like to see is a night preview.

Update sounds great I'll give it a whirl in Max6.

Have you tried using a better AA filter than Area, like Catmull-Rom?

Well I've tried it with 3dsMax 5 and it works great so far. Haven't tried nightlights yet but I'm about to. As for distributed rendering I don't really see it as necessary. 3dsMax renders so much faster than BAT theres no real need to split off views to other computers.

I downloaded your file and can't see any problems. The vertices are indeed all welded and when I try to extrude I get a properly capped solid shape.

From your pictures it looks like the vertices are already welded. Are you sure there are still 2 selected or did it work on one attempt without you noticing? Does it extrude as a solid shape with capped ends? Its pretty hard to guess what the problem might be without seeing the file. Could you attach it or PM me so I can see.

The Weld Threshold is how far apart vertices will be selected to welded together. It is the number in the numeric value box to the right of the Weld button in the Command Panel. If you have multiple vertices selected and they aren't welding increase the number in the box. If they look like they should weld but aren't it might be because they are not in the same plane but you cannot tell from the orthographic view. Have a quick look in perspectibve to make sure they are in line.

To create a truncated cone effect use a spotlight pointed nearly parallel to the surface and use the hotspot and fallout sizes to control the area of effect. You can also use attenuation to set where the light starts and stops.

There is a radio button for Circle or Rectangle in the Spotlight Parameters section of its command panel rollout. Aspect controls the proportions of the rectangle. Move it by selecting the light and moving it with the move tool. If you are using a Free Spot rotate it to face the right direction. If it is a Target Spot move the target with the move tool.

Date: 5/10/2004 1:37:36 PM Author: hey, i'm having trouble understanding the directions to install rig.. there are things you tell me to push that isnt even here... or witch rollout do i use... you should be alittle more detailed... sincei have installed the rig that best i understood, i get a code failed code six... and i know that it isn't me memory... have plenty of that and speed to...never had this problem til now... quote> Sorry, been too busy to check the forums for a few days. Looking at the model file in the export problems/serious questions about model height of model and a few other things thread you appear to have successfully replaced the rig. I'm not sure which items you are refering to when you say they don't exist? I'm sorry to say that the export problem is indeed memory. From the other thread you say you have 1Gb. That isn't enough to export a very large building (even with virtual memory on). I don't know why BAT is so memory intensive, and can only say what my testing and other posts have shown.

Date: 5/7/2004 11:13:35 AM Author: I have finished another paris building. I have put it twice on the 2x2 lot above together with the earlier corner building. This should agree with wall-2-wall standard. I have used a sidewalk width of 3 meters. I'll post the gmax files also (tomorrow). I wish neon lights were possible for the green cross (which you often see in Paris' pharmacies). I tried a rectangular green colored night light 'including' only the cross but apparently the inclusion/exclusion option doesn;t work with lights. Does anyone have any experience with this. Alternatively, maybe someone could design some neon props.... -xannepanquote> No the include/exclude for lights does not work in the BAT renderer. However, I've downloaded your gMax model and making the green cross pharmacy sign light up will be simple. Just create 2 directional night lights pointing at each side of the cross. Place them so they don't also illuminate the building and give them a suitable multiplier to be nice and bright. Its a nice looking model. The only thing I don't like is the moss on the roof. Not because its there but because it doesn't look much like moss, the colour is too uniform. Try getting an image of moss and merging that into your texture instead.

I think a pub would be good. As I was travelling to work on the bus the other day i was thinking about how little rural stuff there is in Simcity, at least English looking stuff anyway (the bus goes through lots of villages) and how nice it would be to make some decent villages as well as cities in a region. If you make it into a pub I would suggest 3 things. 1) A sign (goes without saying) 2) A small roofed porch bit (just an open wood frame) with a step and nice welcoming nightlight in it 3) You make the building into an L shape as its a little small for a pub. The back bit would be the kitchen etc and thus wouldn't be fancy, just white without the tudor effect as you can't see it from the road. Anyway, looking good, keep up the good work

Date: 5/7/2004 9:01:46 PM Author: How did caliban do? Did something happen again?quote> Unfortunately, although the export had been progressing well, my computer decided to reboot itself during the day and thus I got home from work to XPs Welcome screen and a failed export.

Sorry, I forgot I had renamed the file when I combined 2 zips into 1. The link has been edited to work now. If you projection map a curve the texture will be distorted as the lines will get further apart as the curve gets steeper (don't know if I explained that very well). This wouldn't be too noticeable on your roof though as the curve is shallow. The easiest way to achieve proper mapping is it make a box, apply a box UVW map to it and then apply a bend modifier after that. To correct it for a curve you need to unwrap the UWV and manually alter it.

Couple of questions, How is the roof made and when is the mapping applied in the stack? Also, I'm not sure if ths the right type of roof but have you tried the texture I made for mrbisonm? Metal Roof Pack They tile well but the repeat is too obvious for large stretches (I made them fast) I would use them as a base and add more dirt variation if I was planning to do a large roof section. EDIT: Link now works

You've been doing great work on all your new building In what way are you having problems with that tin roof texture (other than the fact I think you either need a new texture or better tiling)?

When editing with photoshop you can do just about anything colour wise using a combination of blending modes and adjustment levels. It also means you can save a layered version of the image so any parameter can be tweaked in seconds.

I haven't got round to sorting out what it needs to be scaled to in order to look right as a prop, but I've attached the gMax file if you want it.