rubik3

What exactly are you going to do with the road and open space? Well if all goes as planned the road will be just that....an avenue that can be connected to the rest of the city's transportation. And the open space will become just an open green area....which is what was actually there. Scrolling back through the pages I found this pic that Bigmac posted. It shows the area pretty well. I think that once the WFC is done (I think there were 2 people that were going to start building it) it will fit in nicely along that edge. I'll probably bring the grass to the edge of the lot so that the maker of the WFC can create the angle grass parts in front and match it up perfectly to my lot. I think if planned correctly it can be made almost exactly as it was IRL. It's just a matter of finding the right place to split the WFC and WTC lots. If I can get the OK from you guys to go ahead with this plan I'll start finishing up the base texture. Then I can get some renders of the bigger lot...which is now going to be 20x17.

Here's an image I pulled off of wtc3d.com which is fairly accurate. And here's what I think I can do, which wouldn't be far off. The big problem would be with zoning on that side...which won't matter once the WFC gets done. I'm not really that familiar with the transportation system so I'm unsure of how much I can make it actually act like a road. We'll see I guess.

For reference here is the original texture I used which is 2 tiles shorter. And here is a quick mock-up of another proposal which would have the top right corner slightly overlapping the lot. Of course this won't be very accurate but then again the other 2 aren't that accurate either. And here is the original lot rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise from the above pics.

Thanks for the info...i'll have that changed for the next render. Meanwhile i've been messing around with the base texture some more. I've found a better setup for the roads but it will extend the lot by 2 tiles if I do it. It will also make it a lot more difficult to zone along that side of the lot because I'm pretty sure I can't make it act like a road in that way. It also provides 8 more tiles of empty space that will have to be filled by something that wasn't really there. So if anyone has suggestions, pls don't hesitate.

Ok I rearranged the benches and added in the lampposts. I also went ahead and created the concrete planters because I think that the planters in the LE might be a little small. I'll add in the plants later. The pic might be a little small to see it but if you look closely the inner benches for the fountain have also been added.

The road textures were exported from the simcity3.dat file and converted to jpgs using Darkmatters FiSHman. I would put in trees using the Lot Editor instead of the bat trees, they would look better. I agree and have planned to use them for a while now. Along with looking good, they don't increase render times at all. However I'm afraid it might look funny as they don't accept any shadows, meaning that the trees located in the dark parts of the lot will appear as if they are glowing. Which brings me to my next problem. Since I am adding the shadows manually to the plaza, they shadows will remain at night time. So it ends up looking like an overly bright moonlight. As you can see in this image I've added in some lights to fake the glow put off by the lights in the buildings. But it ends up looking awful with the heavily contrasted shadows. Here you can see a closeup of part of the plaza. The patches of dirt will be overlaid with Maxis trees in the LE. I've also made quite a few texture changes and I think I getting close to having it blend well with the game. As you can see I've used alot of the base textures which, although not completely accurate, will make it blend a lot better than if I used my own textures. I also created the appearance of stairs though there is none. That way it can still look accurate but still be easy to add props on. Pretty much everything you see will be exported into it's own drawing and then it will be refined more. I'm just trying to get the scaling down first, then I will go back and add in the details later.

I remember that the ground was slightly lower between the nine planters and the fountain, and there were benches built into the planters. I will probably add in the benches but I'll probably leave the fountain at the same heighth as the rest of the plaza. With the base I have to make some sacrifices to make it 1. blend in with the rest of the game and 2. make it work. The LODs are already getting heavy in the poly count and adding in a circular hole would increase it to a point that I fear for lag ingame. The reason the LODs have to be so specific is so that props that get placed on top of it don't disappear into the model. I've gotten some of the basic props done for the plaza such as a couple of sculptures and planter boxes...fauna will be added in the LE. I also started working on a base texture for my fake lot. Personally I think it'll work better than trying to place it on an exact slope. But as you can see I'm going to have problems with the road textures whether its on a lot or on the model. It'll be hard to make it look like it actually was and still look right when placed in a city..

Well I'm finally going to find some time to work on the plaza today. I decided that I'm going to render what would normally be base textures. This way the slope will be exact no matter where it's placed. I fiddled with the LE for a while and just couldn't find a way to make the lot slope as I wanted it too so I'm going to try it this way. I'll be back to post another image when I get some more of the props done.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've run into a pile of work that I have to get done. Anyways thanks for the pictures as always, and hopefully I'll find some time this weekend to get some work done on the plaza. You know what I just realized? The World Trade Centre was made up of some pretty ugly buildings. It's all in the eye of the beholder. They were built with a very gaudy 70's style architecture but even with their, love it or hate it look, I think we can all agree that the New York skyline doesn't look as good as it did when the towers were standing. I also wish to ask that, since you must re-render the towers, if you could make them as buildings and not props so we can query them easily. I think that once the 18x17 lot is complete, it'll solve that problem. You'll have to have one huge city in order to completely hide the complex. Hopefully in the next couple of days i'll have some images to post of the plaza.

Well luckily the hotel doesn't take nearly as long to render and I was able to get it done last night. I also was able to get the entry awning done though I think it still needs some color tweaks. Now it's on to the plaza so pls post any and all images you can find on any small props that existed anywhere in the plaza. I'm going to go ahead and start working on the base then go back and re-export a couple of the buildings later.

One comment: the roofs on 4, 5, and 6 look quite bland. I realize that in real life, there wasn't too much roof junk there, but could you maybe photo shop the texture a bit so that there is at least more contrast? (Of course, that's a silly request; it would take you days to change such a minor thing... so disregard everything I said...) Well at a closer zoom there is contrast and I've tweaked it quite a bit to make it look as good as possible. And if I were to go back and change it now it would mean 5 more days of exports. I think that I'm getting close to done with the hotel. I've put some random vents on the bottom roof to break up the monotony but I think it won't really matter as the towers hide a lot of that part of the hotel.

yay!!! its nearly finished! cant wait till its done-- when do you expect to release it onto the BEX? It's still quite a ways off. There is still alot of work to do. So here's the night shot. As you can see the lighting on the towers look horid compared to the lights on the small buildings. And for some reason there are hot spots on 5 (the building in the lower right corner). I'm not exactly sure why it's happening on this building as the other 2 are fine.

Well even after I got back from the beach the export wasn't done. But I woke up this morning and it was finally done. So here's an image showing the final exports of 3, 4, and 5, though I think I'll have to export 5 again as the lights aren't blending very well between the 3 buildings. I also might have to export the towers again as the lighting from the smaller buildings make the fake Maxis style lighting look awful. I'll post an image of the lighting later as I have to run a few errands right now.

Regarding the angled road, wouldnt it be possible to put the road on the lot and make it transit enabled? Shhhhh....I'm trying to leave some things a surprise. by the way, i like the texture where the plaza would normally be in the latest screenie. is that a custom? Pretty much every texture you see is customized in some way or another. Though did you get time to finish the hotel? With all of my comps resources spent on the exports for the past few days, I haven't had the time I thought I would to get it done. I figured the exports would be done overnight, leaving me the daytime to work on the hotel. But alas the exports are taking almost as long as the towers so my daytime is wasted waiting for the export to complete. I'm probably going to the beach today so I'll set 4 up to export while i'm away. Hopefully when I get back tomorrow it'll be done so that I can finish up the hotel.

That looks amazing! But are the buildings supposed to be that dark? You guys be the judge. I think I'll at least export 5 again as the night lighting is a little off compared to 6 so let me know what you think.

Well the export of building 5 took a whopping 41 hours to complete...quite a bit longer than I expected. But anyways here's an image showing 5 placed on the test lot.

I can't really tell from the pic so how much space is the whole thing gonna use? 18x17. Well, there is always an option using a road texture? I am already planning on creating some custom base textures for the project which will include a inlet road for the angled part. Could you upload it to this site as I know that almost certainly it will download here? The same download over at simcity is already located here. Just sort by most downloaded and you'll find it holding the #1 spot. Five is currently exporting and you should see an ingame shot at about the same time as last night.

As promised, an ingame shot. Remember that the hotel and the base are both draft exports and will be changed in the final version.

Time for a quick recap of the progress so far. 3WT aka Marriot Hotel - 90% complete, needs roof clutter and a few texture tweaks and it's done. 4WT aka southeast corner building - complete and awaiting export 5WT aka northeast corner building - complete and awaiting export 6WT aka northwest corner building - complete, exporting as we speak. Expect ingame shot by tomorrow. Base which includes the plaza, the underground hotel entrance, and all of the props that go along with it - 50% complete. Final lot - 10% complete. I will be taking the original WTC lots and adding in a whole lot of extra content. Just imagine the query being twice as big and you'll get an idea of how much I'll be adding. No pictures for today until the exports are done. I had planned on finishing up the hotel today but the export of six is taking longer than I expected.

Well here's the night lighting so far. I think the windows had more of a blue tint instead of the black tint on 4 and 5 so i'm thinking the color might be a little off.

Do you still need pictures of the plaza? Give me a few days to finish up the hotel then I'll need everything you have. Again nice pic DoubleJ. Six is pretty much the only building with significant roof clutter and those pictures show it well. Speaking of six, it's pretty much finished as well. Though I'm unsure if it has the same night lighting as 4 and 5 so if anyone has a picture of 6 lit up, I'd like to see it.

And now the street view of five. I think i'll call this one a rap for now and start working on six.

And now on to the fifth building. Basically the same building, same materials and roof clutter, just a slightly different shape. You can see the new curved corner pieces for the window washer which have also been put on four. I'm going to do a few more test renders but I think this one is also complete.

Well the only picture I have to go off of is the one you posted way back on page 6 or 7. It looks like I probably need to go through and redo the corner pieces but other than that I think it looks fairly accurate.