Fargo

Welcome back, everyone! It is nice to have Simtropolis back after that unexpectedly long hiatus. The pictures from my posts to this thread are restored; my STEX uploads will soon follow. Despite the site's downtime, my BATting has not ceased. In fact, I would say it has accelerated. So, it is time for some updates. The work continues… Work continues apace on 1 S Wacker. The roof junk needs some refinement, as do the ground floor interiors. I finally figured out how to use the material offset setting in the solidify modifier. With it, I was able to create the effect of a metallic film on the glass enclosing the atria. I really like how it looks, especially at night. More progress updates Here are the latest previews of a number of my works in progress. Teasers Finally, I think it's time I share some projects that I have been keeping under wraps. Since I have posted too many previews already, I thought it might be fun to tease them instead. Some longtime followers of the BATting subforums might recognize three of these, which a BATter who has not been seen for many ages once attempted, but never completed, much to the chagrin of us Chicago architecture fans. Can anybody name them?

30 LaSalle is nearing the finish line. I did a test export to compare the glass and lights to some similar style BATs. Feedback welcome.

@Urban Vibravant Thank you for the feedback. I took your suggestion and adjusted the Chase sign. The final result is below. (Note: for the MN preview I forgot to enable the glow/glare effects) These are the settings I used for the glare (with streaks set to 1 and angle offset at 45 degrees) as against the default settings. I didn't have any reason for setting them the way I did, other than I just liked how it looked. I don't know what would be realistic, so I am not wed to them. In case you have missed it, 2 N LaSalle V2 has been uploaded to the STEX. Someone has informed me that I forgot to include the lot exemplars for the growable lots, so I have to fix that, oops. I will hopefully be uploading its next-door neighbor 30 N LaSalle before week is over. Here's a preview: I still have to add lights to the base. I am not really pleased with the way the lobby on the rear side of the building looks, so I'll be adjusting the glass, interior lights, and floor material. The interiors of the upper stories look a bit bare so I want to model some crude furniture. There are some planters at the base so I want to model those as well and include them as separate props.

Lest you all think I’ve been doing nothing for the past month, here are previews for the updated 2 N Lasalle. After finally finding a close-up photo of the roof I was able to model the roof junk a little more closely to the real thing. I have also spent a lot of time tweaking the materials, especially the glass, and have added denoise and sharpening filters in the compositor, making for a much cleaner night render.

Wonderful work as always. Is there any chance you took inspiration for one of your "doodles" from a certain office building that was recently demolished along Highway 100? When I saw it being taken down some months ago I thought of doing a recreation myself. In any case I am glad that it will be immortalized in SC4.

Thanks y'all for the feedback. Decreased the bump strength on the window. Will wait to separate the window panes to break up the noise until after I have finished modelling the base and interiors, since creating so many separate objects slows things down considerably. @ACEfanatic02 I would follow your tinted glass tutorial but I am not sure how to implement coat tinting in Blender 3.6, which I am stuck with so long as I am on this pre-2015 Macbook I have been alerted that my growable lot for 2 N LaSalle is not functional, which comes as no surprise to me since I was brand new to modding growable lots and didn't really know what I was doing. Since I'll need to update it anyway, I am going to do a re-export that improves upon the materials: Will eventually do the same for 20 North Clark as well.

Further progress on 1 S Wacker, featuring interior blinds and support columns

You were so right about the glass on 1 S Wacker. Does this look more correct?

Previews incoming… Firstly, progress updates on 1 S Wacker, Florsheim, and 200 W Monroe. God willing and the creek don't rise 1 S Wacker will be available on Patreon mid-November. 200 W Monroe should be hitting the ST Exchange soon. Although I indicated in my previous post that I was going to finish up more of my WIPs before pouring effort into new projects, at a certain point I found it too hard to resist. In addition to eight BATs previously begun, you will find first previews of three buildings by the late great Helmut Jahn.

Previews I realized it's been three months since I posted an update. In the meantime I've been chipping away at various works in progress. Here's two models that are approaching the home stretch: 125 South Wacker Following @ACEfanatic02's advice, I've experimented further with creating material masks for subtle surface wear. 1 South Wacker I remodelled it from scratch after my initial attempt a while ago and am now getting down to the finer details. Textures are a work in progress. A progress report on this project I began a year ago I've made another color-coded aerial view of the Loop to visualize my progress towards recreating downtown Chicago. Green = completed Yellow = significant progress; base, roof junk and night lights remain Orange = modest progress, i.e. four walls and a roof Brown = started but no significant progress to share Pink = will start modelling when the rest are done Purple = may do eventually, but no plans to start as yet. The future My goal is to complete all of the yellow-coded ones within 6 months and the orange ones within a year, before tackling the rest. It's an ambitious goal for sure, but I don't think it's totally unrealistic if I have the right motivation. To this end, my plan is to set up a Patreon along the lines of those by other BATters to offset some of the costs (read: the espressos I consume in the coffee shops where I get most of my work done) associated with modelling on this scale. The idea is to follow the early access model and release one BAT per month to donors, before I upload them here within a reasonable timeframe as the ST guidelines specify. In any event, I'll continue to upload straight to the STEX regularly, while reserving my more involved works for prerelease on Patreon. More details forthcoming.

@kaimai Did you already try doing this?