Sgt Pepper

I didn't even notice the faint tiling so good eye. xD It does blend better but I don't want to increase the size of the texture. If I do it looks very very weird. :| So I hope this would suffice better than the previous one.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. I fixed the tiling, using that mirror option on the material editor that Gn_Leugim mentioned(I can't believe I forgot about it!) Here's the result. Better? The lot is 3x4 by the way. I lotted it myself actually. So I hope T Wrecks will be proud. You'll notice a curved subway station behind the building itself. That's not part of the lot. That's a separate subway lot. The city block I placed it in is like 3x6(was much bigger until the street there separated the rest of the block). So i filled in those extra spaces with plazas I made and a subway station to help commute, in case people someone thought that subway station was part of the lot. Well with that I believe it's ready for the STEX then?

Oh I decided to finish this last night to help subside the amount of projects I have. Marine Realty and Liassez-Faire Investments V2. I think I'm just going to leave it as is. I like it.

AAAHHHH! You're back! It looks...perfect and almost god-like right out of the BAT heavens.

Gn_Leugim- Of course. Nothing like a good re-scaling after seeing if it would fit or not. T Wrecks- Oh my a Cruise! So you've seen a lot more than just New York itself. I felt like I couldn't do the city any true sight seeing justice within just a week when I was there. But the first two days I did so much. Ah, can't really be exhausted once in New York. I barely got sleep, I saved that for when I got back home. Oh my Manhattan skyline at sunrise... That's another thing I didn't get to see when I was there. That goes on my things to do list next time I get a chance to visit NYC. I think the most memorable experience to me when I was there was being on the Empire State Building's observation deck at night. Beautiful. All the lights was like looking at stars...but on the ground and as buildings. BATed ground is something I should avoid next time then. But I'm glad you can still help me get it in game properly. I got a better look at the fountain, and yes I'll be adding more faces to it to make it more round. So yes next time we see it, it will be smoother and rounder. So, I plopped my old Insurance Plaza BAT from like 2 years ago in my game and I was just thinking how I could've made it much better... So inspired I decided to try it again for a V2 to add to my few projects I have already. But first for those who need some reference to it, here's a link to Emporis's images on it. And now what I have so far. Several things are still not modeled and a few things aren't textured. But what is textures so far is basically what is final, unless there's something that needs to be adjusted at a suggestion? This new version will just have improved textures, a more proper scale, and feature the Liberty Mural on that extra wall there which is part of the building. I left that out for some reason on my first attempt. This building is W2W with 3 other buildings(one is actually very small and low-rise and hard to notice near the back of the building). So I hope it'll fit a wall 2 wall area. However, the back of it will have an alley unless I decide to BAT the more ornate art-deco building on the back of it. The reason there will be an alley is because the outer core actually extends onto the roof of the smaller art-deco building behind it. I really don't feel like BATing the whole city block at once... So I hope that at least this building would suffice for now.

Lookin' good!

T Wrecks- I see. You're definitely well experienced with this and well versed in this information. So Maxis basically just made up stats at random with all of their buildings? Seems like it would be just trial and error really for us at this rate. But, SC4 Tool allows you to check the stats of Maxis Buildings? That would be very useful. I should definitely look into downloading it. It's on the STEX right? Or just the LEX probably? Aaron- Oh, I haven't actually BATed other buildings for NYBT for a while besides 22 Cortlandt Street(but the model got bugged ...) and recently One Chase Manhattan Plaza that would be released soon with the Querry. The reason that this isn't in my thread is simply because it's not an actual recreation of a building from New York, simply inspired by one... I know I suggested that we can BAT New York themed buildings for NYBT...but I wasn't sure we came to a consensus about that. However, if we would really like to do that, then totally, this would be in my NYBT Thread. You know I am still BATing for NYBT right? I made One Chase Manhattan Plaza and it's almost ready to be uploaded(all I got to do is finish that fountain...) I'm definitely still with NYBT Aaron, the Team is alive, we're just real slow with our progress. And of course you are a BATing legend yourself! Don't guess it, know it. But like I said, if we are on a general agreement that NYBT can also do NY-themed fantasy buildings along with recreations then this would be moved into my NYBT Thread. Did we agree already or did I miss something or not pay close attention? As I believe I have my stats corrected on this building, do you all believe that this building would be ready for the STEX soon based on the images in the now previous page?

I modified the stats based on your suggestion T Wrecks, it should be correct this time. Hmm, what is a general Maxis "OK zone" I can work with for future reference? I feel like, thinking back I had some of my stats messed up now on previous BATs/ I don't really know specific formulas or anything to determine stats when I do it myself. I just go on assumptions based on what the Plug In Manager tells me at first and then edit that. I had no idea what Building Value and Worth really determined though. I always kept that kind of low...I thought that the the numbers each time was a messed up exaggeration on the Plug In Managers part.

Gn_leugim- I don't know actually. I guess it's because I prefer international styled buildings over ornate buildings like this(well BATing Wise ). Hmm makes me wonder about looking up some Euro International styled structures... sten1700- Thanks friend! I'm not too sure about more buildings like this, detailing a building like this is a whole other deal compared to the buildings I'm used to doing. weixc812- You're lotting work certainly pays off. I'm very very surprised with how long this took to export. It took like 4-6 hours while I was away at the fair last night, compared to my less detailed international styled buildings that take 8,9,10,11,12 hours to render. :| I wonder if it's because the roof is just a pyramid without a lot of roof junk on there... Well here's some in game shots, does it look well in game? It doesn't look underscaled does it? And for those curious of my downtown Branhattan Skyline so far...he's a very zoomed out shot of the overall area. You'll probably notice that big blue international styled building behind 40 Wall Street, that's my Chase Manhattan Plaza. I'm still wanting to get that fountain/pond done for the final lot to release later on. Of course, the area isn't even done either. There's more buildings I want to place, and a lot of buildings to replace where there's a lot of smaller Maxis/custom buildings are. By the way, the lot to this Branhattan Building I made is 2x2 and meant to grow on corners. The lot is very bare, but that's because it tightly fits the 2x2 lot and doesn't leave room for props. Since PIM X still confuses me, I just used Maxis's Plugin-Manager to get in game, here's the stats, for anyone to review and let me know if something needs to be fixed- And it's called Bankers Trust Funds now.

Pfft What Maxis Buildings?

Thought I should post an update before I cram for a American Government Exam in about half an hour. XD Gn_leugim, I hope this new shot is an improvement. Mattb325- Thank you! I fixed the UVW Mapping a bit on it, I don't think the tiling is noticeable anymore. How is it now in your view? weixc812- Lovely urban area! Oh did you re-lot most of those buildings yourself? Really nice work. And of course thank you. Geometry- Well my laptop shouldn't melt. However I'm not rendering the entire complex as one model. I may, when all this is done do something similar to what Rubrik3 did where he assembled props together in the Lot Editor. But I'm not sure. And for Branhattan, it's just an accurate New York Map I downloaded and renamed the region. skyscraper241- I explained that earlier. My rendition of the Hotel isn't going for extreme accuracy. The original hotel was actually built as a Vista before Marriott acquired the hotel a few years after. For the sake of some differentiation I thought of, I'm leaving the name as a Vista. Okay so I'm basically done with the modelling I believe. What do ya'll think? As soon as this is done I'll resume 4 WTC and then 3 WTC.

City of Branhattan (no fancy banner...yet) Hello everyone and welcome to my very first CJ attempt! My CJ is going to be about my favorite city of Branhattan that I'm creating. It's a large city in the nation of Prosperous that is vastly growing. The Branhattan Metro Area is full of great buildings and intresting neighborhoods and districts. It's skylines are full of random art-deco and modern skyscrapers, down to beautiful mid and low rises. It is also full of interesting history. However, it's still a work in progress, as it is a re-creation from my busy imagination. Let's take a look at a few pics- A part of Branhattan's largest park, known as Fair Greens. One of the famous parks in the city, famed for certain City events and it's zoo. It's zoo is full of animals that are desendants of previous wild life that existed in Branhattan years and years ago before the Metro Area took over. The Park it self also boasts two natural lakes left un-touched by construction. You can see the second smaller lake peeking out in the upper right. Here is another pic, showing the varied and random buildings the city has to offer- Here, you can see most of the historic Art-Deco buildings mixed with many more modern structures that mix in the area. One of the most famous and tallest skyscrapers is the Art-Deco Chrystal Building(currently 3rd tallest) built by Walter P. Chrystal in the early 30's and was part of the seemed to never end Race To Have Prosperous's Tallest Building that lasted about 50 Years. And for our last pic in this update, a night shot- Here, you can see the famous skyscraper(the dark brown one with the slanted glass paneled roof), PS(Pump&Scoot) Gas Co. Center peeking out behind some local apartment buildings in an area in the Financial District. Pump & Scoot Gas Co. are well known Gas Stations around every SimNation, and decided to build their HeadQuarters in one of the busiest districts in Prosperous. It was built in the Mid 70's by PS Gas Co. CEO Sayl McOyal, who started the Pump&Scoot Gas chain in the late 40's. Most of their oil comes from off shore Oil rigs not to far from Branhattan. Well that's it for now, stay tuned for the next update which will be a historic one! And please bear with me here, it's my first CJ. I'll try to make it intresting and fancy as I go. I hope the pics are the right size, I got them around the 800x600 or 600x800 range. I hope ya'll like it so far! Comments, welcome!

I like the top one better. Looking good so far. Oh and that little repositioning of the seams did make a good subtle difference. If I may ask what happened to that other apartment BAT you had on the previous page? It looked just about done. Not sure about that BAT problem and Heck no statement or who it was directed at. But okay.

Gn_leugim- Oh Reader is more murky water for me. Oh my desktop is...somewhat fine now. It's as old as me and I think it finally is dying out because it's slower than ever and sometimes won't even turn on, or if it turns on it won't do anything. And then it won't even properly shut off. Pressing Start then shut down, it can sit at that shutting down screen for like over a day so I'd have to press the power button manually. But I have my laptop now so it's all good for now. T Wrecks- Ah, well the glass texture I am using is one I use often with my recent creations, I guess it's hard to tell because of the darkness. So I'll take that as I need to brighten it up a bit and probably redo some mapping on it? By the way, this texture I'm using(that I also used on Chase and B5 and a few others actually) is from the background of a Read-Me. They made this blue background from the Maxis Glass, edited with like a different background pattern or something and it well looked like a good alternative to the unedited Maxis Glass. I can fool around with this some more for a more preferred result though. Hmm I suppose it would. Having more of a glass base instead without the podium? My glass awning is different from the real one, but recreating the real one would probably be better, but I think the real one is actually bigger, or at least wider. I made the podium out of inspiration from the actual base(which is essentially the elevated plaza being its first floor). I could remove it and use a different approach to it. When you say this, do you mean just Rubrik3's basic lot with the transit enabled area? Or do you also mean to include his elevated plaza as well? Doing that with his elevated plaza... Hmm I'd have to redo the bases of my Twin Towers then. Where part the base is at the plaza level and another part is at street level so like two different lobby levels(like the real one and unlike the version of the lobby I made). While I'm still working on my WTC buildings slowly but surely, I started back on this one from a few pages ago. My Downtown Branhattan Skyline is pretty "empty" of the buildings I would like to be there so I remembered the purpose of this one- The very top isn't done(the pyramid as well as the base of the pyramid). But this is basically it now. I decided to just not make it W2W. It tightly fits a 2x2 lot.

IL- What's wrong with the shadows? I don't see the problem. About the roof, I took a look at it in Bing Maps- It's awfully bland and clean isn't it? For now I think you'll have to decide whether or not to recreate the cleanliness of this roof, or dirtying it up a bit for the sake of the game. But this is a recreation, so I'm sure you're going for this clean appearance. I will say that the roof, when I looked at it in Google Earth is actually tiles or plates. I think you should go for that appearance, with some contrast on it.

Gn_leugim- I added a slight blue hue to the hotel this time. I think it looks much better now. Sounds like this PIM X can do a lot more than I even know. IL- Well that's because the model is far from done. Haha. It's in a very early stage I was just showing what I had so far. Geometry- I'm making all the buildings but it won't be an accurate representation of the buildings exactly. I wondered about once they are all done having a Landmark lot with all the buildings on it but I'm not sure about it at this time. T Wrecks- Oh my computer specs. At least I switched to my laptop recently. Renders are much faster. I was actually surprised to learn that the North Tower took actually over 17 hours. Chase took about/around 12 hours or so. I may have exaggerated but I remember it taking all night starting around... Hmm... I can't exactly remember how many hours Chase took exactly. It seemed around 12 since I started it late in the evening or at night and then it finished early next morning so 12 is an estimation but it felt right. I could have sworn I wrote down the seconds that it took down somewhere to tell someone... About that trick making it growable even with it surpassing 6 tiles in length, is this in Reader or PIM X? Or something within the Lot Editor itself? Oh and did you all know that the graphics card to my desktop(long before I switched to my laptop) actually melted before? It was quite a surprise when me and my dad took it out to replace it with a new one. Well, at least the computer didn't explode. Okay I haven't done much at all but this is where I am at- That's a general idea of what the shape of the base will be(on that side). It's definitely different since my version won't have an elevated plaza(like how the real building was situated on). And the roof is obviously far from done still.

Those seams and plates, I'd say you did a good job fitting them right onto the model. EDIT: Upon closer inspection(funny how you notice things at a second or third glance) some areas that could be adjusted- Red: I notice there's a seam here but I had thought it was actually where the wall cut off but I was wrong. Now in the blue areas there is no seam like that. So I would say either add that "end" seam to the blue areas or remove that "end" seam in the red areas if you can. I mean some people may or may not notice it. So it's purely up to you. Now saturation wise of the texture itself, I think that could be improved.

Gn_leugim- I'm an old school kind of guy what can I say. xD I tried downloading the PIM X and boy I was so lost in it with how different it was. Quite confusing... But I guess it'll take me some time to learn it if I can find time to do so though. And thank you very much. T Wrecks- Thank you, would you like to do the modding and lot for this one as well when you get a chance? As for the BATed ground, I put that there when modeling it since I wanted the area where the escalators in the lobby that go down hidden. I mean thinking on it now fitting the LODs properly would have made them hidden anyway. However, the BAT is already rendered and exported. As much as I'd like to, I'm not sure if it would be much of a difference without the ground. However, if you insist I could remove it and rerender it. I think it took about 12 hours to export so it could be something to do overnight again if insisted. Oh I also love that photograph there. You also went to New York this summer? I went during July and have over 1,000 photos. How was the trip? Speaking for myself I loved the experience, it was so different for someone like me coming from deep down south but at the same time I felt like I was home while there. The trip reminded me about my inspiration for NYBT. Ah and seeing the buildings that were BATed before was pleasurable. I don't have much, but my idea for the fountain to be a separate prop on an optional bigger lot for Chase is this so far- It should be about the same size as the real one. I measured the diameter of the sunken pond in Google Earth. I believe it could fit a filler for Round-abouts as well. I'm not sure if it's small enough to fit a road round-about just yet but obviously it would fit in the middle of an Avenue one with lots of space around it. There will be an interior modeled for it, and of course once it's exported the LODs will make the underground area hidden in lot editor and in game(except of course seeing it behind the glass in the sunken area).