rubik3

Correct, its the base that's exporting, but it's being done by Vlakhaas. He was able to get a couple of spare servers up and running for the export of Petronas and the WTC so that I don't have to take up anyones personal computer resources. And with all of the work I'm doing on Petronas I've decided to let Vlakhaas and the BSC handle the creation of most of the lot. So once the base is done it will be sent to one of his teams for the intial lot creation...I.E. the transit enabling, the functionality of it, as well as all of the testing. Depending on how much I have to export again it may be ready by the end of July....possibly sooner.

Well I decided to cross my fingers and went with a full on high quality export. It was started about 12 hours ago and is about 30% done with the first night view. So hopefully in a about a week you should see the final lot start to come together. I will still probably have to redo a couple of the buildings, but at least the big export will be out of the way.

Well it looks like it's unanimous...and I'm glad too because I like the brighter version as well. It just makes the plaza seem more lively. So the base has been packaged up and is set to export after the middle section of Petronas, and will hopefully start sometime this coming week. I think I'll probably just have a low quality export done for now so that I can double check the intersection between the towers and the base and so that the BSC squad can get some basics of the lot done. It'll be a 5 day export at least so I want to make sure everything will work properly before committing to that export.

Well I'll go along with whatever the general concensus is. So i'll leave the decision open for a day or two, so make sure to tell me which version you like better.

Well it look like it won't work with Viz 3i. I get an error on startup, probably a script function that Viz doesn't have. Too bad too since I doubt that anyone will make a Viz script like this.

K, well I'll dl'd it and see if it'll work or not. As far as render farms go, the way they normally work is that portions of the complete file either an animation or a still are sent to different computers, and then at the end they are all pieced together. So what could be done in theory is that the east and west views are sent to one computer for rendering while north and south are sent to another. When they are both done the exports from both computers are then welded together. How it can be done is another story, but that's the theory.

K, I've toned down the lighting quite a bit and I think it looks about right. I just don't like that the daytime shadows remain...it just throws everything off and makes the night scene look wierd. I think that why I like the brighter version better as it hides those shadows a bit more.

Have you done any testing to see if the script will work with 3d studio viz as well?

Ok I took a break from Petronas and I'm trying to finish off this base so that I can have it off for export in the next week or two. I've tried to balance out the lighting so that the entire plaza is lit up but I think it might be a little too bright. But I also like the look of it so I figure I might as well get a second opinion.

Thanks for the pic Bigmac, and make sure to tell savethewtc thanks as well. It looks for the most part that there wasn't too much light except what came from the buildings. From what I can see it looks like the lightposts really weren't as bright as I have them. They look bright but looking at the pavement I really can't make out any dark or light areas....just constantly lit.

How about 9/11/4 as the day for releaseing the completed complex ? Couldn't think of a better way to honor the anniversary date.... Well as good as that sounds, I really don't want to make people wait another 3 months. I'm working on getting the BSC to the help with the lot construction so hopefully it won't be longer than a month and a half. But 9/11, if I plan it right, would be the perfect time to release the memorial edition of the lot.

I have not heard anything else about the night lighting. However, once you release the trade center, if I or anyone else finds out anything you think is significant enough, would you release updated versions? As long as I still have a spare computer available for me to export on, I'll be willing to make pretty much any changes you see. The Trade Center had lights ontop of them, and at night. White Support Cables would be most noticeable... They used directional flood lights to illuminate the mast of the antenna, the focal point of the roof. It's not like the support wires had a reason to be lit up, they were ugly and did their job and if they had been lit up they would have detracted from the focal point....the antenna. So the reason you did not see the wires at night is because they directed the light away from them. If they where white, why did you make them grey? j/w They look grey mainly because the game isn't using the alpha map correctly. I don't know why it does it but it makes the wires appear meatier and because some of the black is leaking in from the background they appear darker.

Ever since SimCity 4 BAT came out, I've been working on the World Trade Center, I'll finish about the same time you do, haha. But yours are 100% better than mine! Don't feel bad that mine is better than yours. I've been working on this project for over a year now (well over 6 months before the BAT came out) so it'll be hard to top anything that has had that much detail put into it. Luckily I've found access to an unused computer so I might start exports this weekend. So Bigmac and everyone else, this is the last chance to change the night lighting on the plaza. I can only stall so long before I start seeing a hungry pack of wolves in front of me waiting for it's release.

Hate to be the bear of bad news, but the North Tower of the World's Trade Center's Spire, didn't have cable cords holding it up. It was free standing. Well I've modelled everything including miniscule details that the normal person has never even noticed before....I guess in this case this is one of them. I give you support wires http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=142001 There are only a couple of small errors that are tough to pick out, but sorry, the support wires were actually there....just painted white to blend in with the sky. In actuality though they weren't really support wires as they didn't bear any load except during high winds.

Well it looks like that base is going to be one huge export. Equinox tried to export it but after a day of rendering it hadn't even finished the first view yet. Needless to say it's tough to find a whole weeklong chuck of time to export this. So we've (Equinox and I) decided to hold off until he goes on vacation in a couple of weeks to let the bat clunk away. So I'm kind of stuck at a standstill at the moment. There is still a small amount of work to do but I'd like to wait until the base is exported to make those changes. So until then I'm going to put this project on the back burner and try and finish off the small amount of modelling that Kdrax wasn't able to finish off on Petronas. For now you can find me here, at the BSC Petronas Towers Thread .

Also, buildings 4 and 5 look to be misaligned at the plaza entrance. Ya, don't worry about the alignment yet as I'm still waiting for the base with shadows to be able to refine placement of everything. And speaking of which, Equinox has the base exporting as we speak and should be done sometime this week. This is both a good and a bad thing. It's good because I can finally have every object in game, the bad thing is that the light nighting isn't final yet, or at least it isn't confirmed final. But I think once I get the night lit plaza set against all of the night lit buildings, it will look perfect. I'll be taking a break from this project for the next couple of days until the base is done exporting but the only prop I have left to export is the skybridge. Then once I get the final base inserted I'll have to take a close look at all of the buildings to see if any of them need to be exported again.

i should have a backup somewhere, but it will be at least a month old... FYI JEC autobackups can be found in the GMax/Autobak directory. Just select open, move to that directory and select all file types. You can then go into detail mode and find out which one is the most recent file. It can save you hours of headaches as the most your are going to lose using the autoback system is about 20 minutes of work.

Here's a few more ingame shots of another days worth of prop exporting. I have to go through and double check but I think I'm getting close to done exporting the first versions of the props. When I get the base exported I may have to redo some of them but hopefully not. The first image has people in it but I guess I took too long alt-tabbing between photoshop and SC4 so they disappeared by the time I got back to take the second screen.

this week is the last I can offer for such a massive undertaking unless you were to do what kd5rax did and run through and delete every unused polygon you can scrounge I've gone through and optimized it the best I could but it will still be a multi day export, but at least it shouldn't take a week now that those extra polys are gone. Basically anything I need help exporting is a multi day task. So I understand if you don't want to waste your summertime peak hours to do exports. You should make it CS$ or something, so we can finally end all our CS demand problems! I know that the WTC had various jobs and wealth levels but I think it's only fitting that they have the highest wealth possible. I just wouldn't feel right making it a lower wealth building. Maybe I shouldn't of gotten my hopes up. Oh well, it will be great when it comes out. I love all the functions you want to put in it. It may be taking forever but I definately think it'll be worth the wait. If there's enough desire for it I may release a beta landmark lot without all of the extras so that you can at least have it in your cities while your waiting for me to modd everything. But I really don't want to release an incomplete lot so there's going to have a be a huge outcry for me to do it.

Yea! We're closing in on the completion of the WTC. Trust me, it's not as close as you think. The buildings and props are almost done but after that, it's done to the nitty gritty of making the lot work the way I want it to. I figure there is probably another 2 weeks of export time, depending on how many buildings I export again, then another couple of weeks of making custom base textures, UI Query, hopefully some custom sounds as well as the custom paths for the angled roadway. Then figure in a few days of comprehensive testing. So in reality it's still probably a month away (damn how many times have I said that now....I'm starting to sound like a general contracter with my time estimates. In a month I'll probably say it's a month away again.) How many jobs will the plaza have? Will it have a fuctional bus and subway stop? Other than that, I'm more than pleased with it. I think i'll make the entire plaza have 50,000 jobs, 20,000 for each tower and 10,000 for the rest of the complex. The lot will also have, but not limited to, the following: Subway with capacity for 50,000 commuters (number might be changed if I can find the exact number for the average/day of actual commuters) Bus Stops with an as of now unknown capacity. Parking Garage with an as of now unknown capacity. A small police force with no cars, much like the police kiosk in game. A small fire dept. with most likely 1 or 2 trucks with a small coverage radius. A monthly income from ticket sales to offset any costs. As well as the huge custom query that will go along with it.

I still cannot believe that the they used such a coarse cut of stone on the WTC. Admitedly, I had never been there, so I can't really comment... But still, it seems so out of keeping with the sleek, utilitarian design of the towers... If the stone is original then I definately have to agree that it doesn't go along with the overall scheme of the lot very well. But if it was added during the renovation then it does fit in with their plan to warm up the plaza. I'm not quite sure if the stone was original or not though, all I know is that it was there in most of the pictures i've seen. A day and a half ago I decided to do a high quality render just to see how the final product would look. A whopping 26 HOURS later it finished rendering. So with some simple math it means that the export might take as long as 5-6 days in it's current form. Needless to say it's way to long for an export and I'm about to spend the day trying to refine the geometry so that I can cut down on some polygons. But I think it's otherwise ready to export...pending an ok on the night lightings. Here's another pic of the overall complex at night and I need to know if it's good to go. As of now I have the 9 lamppost lights in the plaza, as well as the ambient lights coming off of the surrounding buildings, but there's also supposed to be some sort of lighting coming from the roof of the small buildings.

Ok I think I can check the coffee shop as done but I think I might put some trim around where the coffee shop intersects the stone. Now all I have to do is finish up the night lighting by Monday so that I can send it off for export.

Thanks for keeping watch Bigmac. If we can't find the info there then I don't know if we ever will. I've been working on a logo for the coffee shop and basically used a central perk logo I downloaded and modified it to fit my needs. I think it will be small enough that it won't really matter but it'll make a difference being there.

I'll most likely have it as a seperate release but I haven't really thought that far ahead yet. I'll probably have 2 seperate additions to the BEX one being a dat file with all of the models and base textures I'm going to use, then one being a zip file with the lots I release. The reason for 2 downloads is that I plan on updating the lots package more than the models and I don't want to make everyone download another 15 megs of model files just for a new lot (which there will be many) I think I can definitavely say that the shop was a NY Coffee Station. If you look at the top left of the plaza picture Bob posted you'll notice the Cosi Sandwich Bar. So now all I have to do is figure out what the coffee station's sign looked like. But it's unlikely we'll find a pic of it so I'll probably end up having to make my own version of it. So now that I have the sign figured out it's on to the last part of the base....the night lighting. Apart from adding in the Starbucks stand in the northeast corner of the plaza it's the only thing keeping me from exporting the thing. Here's the lighting scheme so far.

Nice pic of the layout Bob, though I think instead of confirming what it is, it scratches one from the list. The shop I'm trying to figure out the name for was the one on the corner of west and versey underneath the hotel. In that pic I think it's showing the greenhouse as being inside of the hotel. So I think we've narrowed it down to either the NY Coffee Station or the Cosi Sandwhich Bar. But it is interesting to see that indeed there was a starbucks there hiding in the corner of 5WT. I dredged through the pages of this thread and found a picture I've been looking for, for ages and it does show some kind of shop there, though you can't quite make out what it is.