ianpaschal
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Everything posted by ianpaschal
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Hot damn that's fabulous.
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I think I got it. Well, I'm 100% satisfied with the surface of the water, which is crated using a mixture of noise and smoke maps. The colour looks good too. Thanks to reddon for the colour and transparency mix that he came up with. BUT... there are some complications. Because this has to work also for connected rural ditch systems AND a water mod, the transparency needs to have a better fall off... 1 or 2 meters I think. Gotta work on that. The bigger problem is that when you zoom out, the rivers and canals and shoreline shouldn't be a different colour than the main bodies of water. So there are two solutions: 1. Make the canal set use increasingly blue water at further out zooms so that the game water can also be more blue at further zooms and everything matches. This is possible, but I discussed it with Jason last night and he says it's highly impractical. Considering I have to make 20+ canal pieces... yeaahhhhhh... 2. Actually just make the canals somewhat steely blue so that there's no colour shift depending on zoom. In that case, I'm thinking the material below would be a good colour? As always, this kind of decision is hard to make when you've been looking at something for days because your eyes become numb to it. For this reason, I really like to get other people's opinions on it. I guess the real question is: Does the blue look silly? If it looks good, then it's done and I can go on to making the corresponding water mod.
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Campagne - Discovering the rural heart of Macondo – Part II
ianpaschal commented on gigius76's City Journal Entry in Repubblica di Macondo
I've been keeping an eye on this CJ for a while, but it's time to comment: This is hands down one of, if not the best CJs I've seen. The attention to detail: top notch. The consistency of style: top notch. The subtle use of image editing: top notch. And so on and so forth. Great work! -
nybt-forum-threads Vlasky's Hell's Kitchen
ianpaschal replied to Vlasky's topic in SC4 BAT & Lot Workshop
Ugg finally an update. Looking great though! -
True, although I'm pretty happy with the last render. Compare: ...to... I think it's just about there. And I think that picture is one of the best guides since it actually IS an aerial perspective like SimCity. Maybe slightly lighter in the shadows and reflections... but nearly there. I'm still very hesitant to do any kind of transparency simply because you do not see it in real life. Again, if it's a 20 cm deep fountain of crystal clear water, that's one thing. But whether its a river, lake, or canal, the water is verrrrrry muddy and murky here. Don't forget that Amsterdam (and all of the Netherlands really) used to be a swamp. The canals are are no pompous river walk... they're drainage ditches to keep the surrounding city blocks halfway dry. That's all.
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A WINNER IS I! \ / It needs some tweaking, but I found a method to make grey water. Simply use a white self illuminated plane over the water area and not the rest of the model. Terr derrrr! And yes, the displacement map looks weird in HD, but that's because its tweaked to a high enough level that it shows up in SD.
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Sexy tower. I love that I'm not the only one who puts more detail into a BAT that will ever be visible in game simply because it's fuuuuuunnnnnnnn.
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3ds Max - Troubleshooting & General Discussion
ianpaschal replied to Jasoncw's topic in SC4 BAT & Lot Workshop
Screen shots will definitely help this. I THINK I might know the answer to each problem, but as with all things 3ds Max, every problem has at least 5 possible causes. -
The other issue I need to tackle is a matching water mod... Transparency certainly throws a wrench in the works... the canals are very opaque but that kind of opacity looks silly on a beach... And perhaps most importantly, when viewed out far, water, even in Amsterdam, is ALWAYS blue. Really not sure how the colour shift happens with elevation. My best guess is that it's related to the angle of reflection and ambient light from buildings and trees vs. an open lake. But if they are to match, maybe I should return to something dull blue.
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In the time lapse video, yes, The water was certainly green, in the shadows (water colour in 3ds Max) and blue in the centre (reflection colour in 3ds Max) from the sky. Which begs the question... does it appear greenish because of the trees lining the canals? What if I stuck in tree models and kept the water grey/white in colour? Would that cause blue reflections in the centre and green on the sides? Maybe... but then I'm dealing with trees and... bleh... Thanks! The saturation has a lot to do with the gamma correction making everything a bit on the dark side... but I didn't change it because of the amount of moisture here and the lack of sun, everything tends of have a slightly richer colour (as compared to dryer climates where everything, tends to have a sort of bleached appearance from dryness and sun). I really love aerial photos of Amsterdam where you can really see just how colourful the city is: But I will give it a try and see how it looks. Also, in that picture, the water is decidedly brown like what I had in my last render. ARRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
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Yeah, grey has been impossible to achieve. But yes, the water should be completely opaque. It's not right for a fountain but no real water (non-filtered/pumped water) looks like that. In all honestly, I have no idea how deep the canals in Amsterdam are because they're 100% opaque. Deep enough, in any case, to haul all of this out from under the waterline. Depending on the photo the actual water looks varying degrees of brown, green, or grey... so I'm still not quite sure what to do in that regard, but transparency is definitely not the right option. Also, check the lower right hand corner of this video at 2:13. I am considering moving back towards green water with white reflections (which will appear blue). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3EzfQU9_ns
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Alright guys and gals. I think this water is about done. Thoughts? Also, I modeled and textured the new bridges. Thoughts? And a quick picture of how incredibly great my UVW unwrapping skills are...
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That's actually exactly how I got it. The numbers on top refer to the hue/saturation/value sliders for reflection colour. Basically my goal was to use a light peach colour to neutralise the normal blue reflections. I think it's working out alright, although I don't care for the fact that it looks a bit orangey in some places, when really it should just be a dull grey colour.
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Alright, it's not perfect, but messing with the reflection color seems to have neutralized the sky somewhat. This is using the Hue/Saturation/Value of 0.06 - 0.65 - 0.9 And this one 0.06 - 0.625 - 1.0 I'm not sure which one I prefer. I think the latter though, the first one is a bit dark...
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It definitely does. I remember back when BAT4Max was first being developed, there was a lot of discussion regarding red and blue casts to the light that the game has (or at least that Maxis content has). I was getting pretty tired of it yesterday, but the idea is this: I have managed to make grey water by increasing the red and green values of the water very high and having blue be zero, so that when it reflects the blue from the sky, the entire thing appears neutral in colour. Unfortunately, though, this makes the water very light in colour so the next thing to try is adding some transparency and sticking a non-reflective black plane just under the water surface to bring it back do a deep murky grey. It's kind of crude though so I'll also keep my eyes open for better alternatives.
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Glad you like 'em Niels. I am wondering though if I should try a different "model" though. Because of some ways the LODs work, I can't build anything other than plain wall within 2 meters of the end of the tile, which is problematic for T pieces like the one in the render. Something like these might work better, and maybe be a bit more interesting architecturally. The inspiration is as follows: I think the last one is probably my favourite. What do you think?
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Well the tower on the front of the hotel proved to be tricky. Very tricky. Very very I-need-another-piece-of-scratch-paper tricky. So I decided to start texturing the canal set. After spending some time compositing dirt and moss and wood textures, I had the perfect pylons. Naise. So, then I finally installed BAT4Max. Let's see how those sexy pylons look at zoom 5. "Underwhelming" would be a good word to describe it. I'm also debating whether or not to increase the scale of the brick texture. They're already bigger than real life but they're just a brown smear right now. Curious what other people have done with brick surfaces. Also I'm trying to figure out if I can get rid of the blue cast to the water. Typically NL is pretty overcast and the result is that the water is rarely as blue in appearance as the MentalRay sky reflections are. I'd like to, between water mod and canal set, get this kind of look going on: As always, feedback and advice welcome.
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UPDATE 4 17 March 2014 Thanks guys! I'm nearly done with the annoying roof area in the curve, so I'll be starting the tower soon, and should have most of the geometry done tomorrow-ish.
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UPDATE 3 17 March 2014 As I mentioned in my last update, I have several projects going on (I'll make a list in the first post) so I'm kind of bouncing between them. This is one of the more typical BAT projects. It's a simple recreation of the Scheepvaarthuis, in Amsterdam. This building used to be an office building for 6 shipping companies, but is now home to the Grand Amrath Hotel: And my version: I live very close to it and always thought it was a gorgeous building so I decided to recreate it. One thing that is nice is its rather unique shape. The model above is tweaked slightly in proportion and angle from the original so that it will fit neatly into the corner of a 45 degree to FAR transition puzzle piece. When I have the other side of the building in, I'll do a render with some road lines drawn in. This took a while, but it's actually getting very close to finished very fast. The delay was largely because there was a lot of math involved in making it with the weird angles. The solution is that it's made of hinged modular pieces, that I already UV mapped when they were at 90 degrees, and then swung into position. So the model is quite large, but it's already ready to have textures slapped onto it. SO. MUCH. TRIGONOMETRY.
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UPDATE 2 12 March 2014 Alright, I've been working on several projects, but here's the first one! That's right, yet another canal set. This one though I hope to provide with better real water integration, and for the first time ever, some really nifty little transit puzzle pieces to make 1x1 bridges. They should be easy enough to make since they're straight and are simply a 16 segmented arch with the road texture on top.
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Nice! Thanks for the screen shots Duke! In chat I was trying to remember when my favourite version was and I remember it was the almost totally grey UI which I think was your middle shot. I seem to recall that one being a really nice, clear, no nonsense kind of UI.
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I like this CJ a lot. I am also laying the ground work for a Dutch CJ, but that involves reading a lot of history because I find that kind of thing fascinating. Some constructive feedback if you like: The terms "old church" and "new church" really are as literal as it gets. So the old church should probably be smaller and older looking, and have medieval and gothic architecture, while the new church can be more ornate with baroque influences from the 1700s. So in that sense the date for the old church is a little old for the style, but pretty good. It's the new church that is somewhat of an anachronism. That BAT would actually make a good old church because it is smaller, more brick and less window, less ornate, etc. and should be from around 1300 or so. So in 1300 when Amsterdam was still just barely founded, the church was small and dingy while the Westerkerk (the BAT you used for the old church) was built on the canal rings 400 years later at the height of the Golden Age of Amsterdam, as well as when architecture was completely slathered with ornamentation. If it sounds like I am nitpicking, I am. As I said, I do really like your CJ, but I also think it's totally awesome to make up history for a city, but then some research is always nice! And of course that 2nd picture of the old church looks great with the canal houses in the background. The dates need work, but the aesthetic is spot on! Nice work. P.S. Also, the warehouses next to the Marienkerk are a few streets over from where I live. I walked by the other day and thought, "Oh, those would make a nice BAT," but it looks like someone (Vanderaap?) beat me to it! >.<
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An introduction to Mitagra
ianpaschal commented on 89James89's City Journal Entry in The City State Of Marinko
Nice stuff James! I'm glad you actually showed the terrain development. Although it's less polished, it makes for much more interesting reading. Also my name is ianpaschal, not iampaschal. :P -
I'm still trying to figure out what to do in that respect. I will want to make a mod that removes all street side props anyway because they will also interfere with canals. I'm tempted to just include "building side" street junk as overhanging props on the front of buildings, and "canal side" street junk as coming off of canal pieces (or buildings if there is no canal present.
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Well I'm leaning towards using real scale since I might as well if a whole city will be custom content. The other thing I will probably do is make all buildings overhang the front of the lot by 2 meters reducing the street scape to 12 meters. Between the 3-4 meters of sidewalk this is no problem. The other thing though, if we say the average person is 1,85 m and again use the 12->16 conversion, that comes out to 2,47 so that would be further evidence to the fact that "16 meters" is really symbolic number used for what is really a 12 meter tile system. Bleh I just don't know. I suppose though I can start creating models real scale and then decide if I want to scale them up or down later.
