tzotzil99

LE showing flora prop all crazy depending on zoom Hey, not sure where to find the answer for this but I'm sure it has happened to others. I've got a flora prop I rendered in BAT, popped in and out of PIM, and then wanted to use it in LE, but when I zoom in, the prop suddenly shows up as random jagged building edges, instead of the flora prop. It looks like the correct prop in the farthest out zoom, but then turns into something else. In PIM, the prop looks fine in all directions and at all zooms. What would cause this? I don't think its a rendering issue, and I rendered the prop twice just to be sure. I've never had a LE issue before so I'm not sure what is to be done. Anybody know the answer? Thanks:)

Houston, ugly as sin, hot as you know where, pointless as a chicken's lips, just the worst place to drive through (no walking unless suicidal) and have to look at, and at night its so humid and everything stinks. at least LA has mountains when the smog lifts and it runs out against a beach, not mud flats and industrial waste. lots of crap cities here in Amurrka but Houston is truly specially heinous. what a great thread this is, luv the trash talk

Green roof, yeah!! So much of what we look at in game is rooftop, what an opportunity to model some of the new enviro-green-planted rooftops that are getting put up in the real world all over the place on residential commercial and civic buildings. Everything you do is pretty fantastic, I look forward to seeing how this turns out

Groovy pink and grey building, we need way more art deco and art nouveau buildings for the game. I need to learn to do curves and rounded edges like that madhatter does awesome roof textures, look at his forum and check them out. I just had a lot to say about color elsewhere but here I just wanna put my 2 cents in for MORE saturation with the pink, even the grey, although you really need to export that model to get an idea of how the textures will look. Miami has great colors, get crazy man

Cool, a Qatar house, I look forward to seeing what you do with it. Is the house supposed to be multifamily, or rather, multigenerational as they are in the mideast? Then it really might be more like our multifamily units rather than big single family homes. I second thingfish in that houses are tricky and your building might be easier to judge plopped next to small apartments of 2 or 3 stories. So far I like the taller version.

Simbourgeois: Thanx mate, I'm glad the first comment was positive Yemen does have towns on the water so that might be a great place for a row of these. madhatter106: LOL, yeah that blue is intense. I based my texture on this pic of me in front of where I stayed in Chefchouen Morocco, where many of the buildings are exactly this intense blue. a view from the rooftop of this guesthouse, the upper portions of the houses are lighter and more bleached out but down at street level the blue is as saturated as its possible to get I was working up to try modeling something like this famous house in Marrakech, also a crazy helloooo blue, also my pic here's 2 of my pics of walls in Marrakech which i also used as a basis for texturing the morrocan house verions pink and orange More pics later but first: you bring up a very valid point about style and whether these would blend in or not with the other content out there in people's plugin folder. BTW, I LOVE your naughty nimby stuff, I buldoze nasty Maxis buildings 'till yours pop up, but yeah they might not look right next to these saturated houses. But...you could always make a Fatimah's Belly Dance Bar or Abdul's Hashish Hookah Lounge to fit in with a set like this, right? (subtle hint here) harishna is right to point out that there is some pretty cool colorful stuff out there on STEX and LEX already that might work with these (thanx for commenting, can't wait to see your finished UNAM library), but there is also no doubt that I might need to mentally commit to BATing enough models that a town or neighborhood using these models would work, or inspire others to do something similar. Xannepan's amazing buildings wouldn't have been as useful before so much more fantastic euro stuff got created. Again, as accessible to *****ie modeling as a lot of basic latin american/middle eastern/north african/southern european/indian architecture is, I'm suprised there isn't more stuff like this out there. Ideally, I think it would be fun to provide enough basic models that people can create lots that can look like they belong in any of a bunch of more tropical or desert type cities. As you'll notice in the pics to follow, there are a lot of similarities, being basically cubes, rectangles, arches, arcades, maybe balconies, but lots of color or blazing white. The Yemen houses though, yeah they are just crazy unique. Really fun to model though, I guess I just have to commit to making enough that a real in game working neighborhood would be viable. psander5: Thanks for the welcome and the advice on dealing with my w2w challenge. Once I'm back up to speed, I'll need more specific advice on how to adjust the LOD for final render. Right now I have a vague sense of what you mean but there is SOOOO much I've forgotten SimHoTToDDy: Same thing, I didn't even know you could trick LE, I'll have to ask you later on exactly how to do that. I like those buildings you linked, they are more generic developing world concrete and more useable, but perhaps too generic to make it as much fun to model and texture as I want. I admit, my own aesthetic is pretty comfortable with a level of color and distinctive architecture, and this might not be true for a lot of people who play the game. I do really love that we can find post soviet grime, MBEAR's Istrinian lushness, world suburban, Asian concrete, old style Japanese, euro of all kinds and types and time periods, latin american, rural american, even now medieval content. Evillions: Hey man, working class, not slum! Just kidding Yeah, when I started out on this project, the intention was to create enough little individual cubes and rectangles that I could put together a whole bunch of varied rows and use them for dense ethnic neighborhoods. I've just got quite a ways to go to get there yet. But on that note, just as I've re-lotted and themed some of the latin american/egyptian/middle eastern/jen p's art deco houses (LUV those, they make great middle eastern type houses https://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1292), I'm hoping these could be used the same way for people as props. On the issue of color and saturation: I admit this might just be a personal preference, but i think the brightly colored buildings and lots already created look super good in the game. One of my first downloads was these bright casas tradicionales https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=4242 which I used in a map I covered with volcanos and little villages and the old super slope conforming farms that BSC first put out (before they were updated and had to be put on flat ground or be covered with hideous foundations). The map was gorgeous, surreal even. My style of play is slanted towards fantasy anyway, so keeping things super realistic in a north american or euro way isn't what I often do, although that of course is fun too. However, I will totally admit that there are challenges to creating saturated buildings for the game. Not the color so much, but how it is textured. In real life, these buildings are often painted, intense, uniform in color, and super clean above the mud line. However, in the game if they get textured this way, they look plastic, fake and shiny. This is a problem I've noticed in some of my favorite ethnic-style lots where I wish I could just tweak the textures. It sort of means making them a lot messier, dirtier, bumpier, more textured then they might be in real life in order to look 'right' in the game. This is something I tried to do with models I worked on. Its even harder perhaps when trying to recreate the brilliantly whitewashed buildings (that often live right next door to the colored buildings in the real world) from these same regions for the game. They look overexposed, featureless in blasted white shininess, and just wrong. No disrespect, but as much as I liked and used kevinman4404's egyptian themed buildings, the textures were too light blasted for me. Using colors was my escape from dealing with the challenge of how to make super white buildings look good in the game. Still on the issue of color, here are some pics of buildings I find inspiring (I've got a folder I used to collect stuff from the web) and would LOVE to see people model for the game. And again, don't these look a lot simpler than a good chunk of what people are making (not for them to stop, but does everybody need to do just super hard stuff) now? Notice they come from all parts of the world. Here from Tirana, the capitol of Albania where there is a current mania for brightly colored buildings. Wouldn't it be great to add some of these to a post soviet concrete city along with the new polish and ukrainian inspired BAT's? Here's a row of lovelies from Ireland Here's some of own american San Francisco painted ladies Here's a pic from Jodhpur India, this isn't my pic but I was there and I have pics like this, its pretty scenically amazing (and more intense blue psander and madhatter) A rooftop view of a city in Morocco (Rabat I think, where they filmed Blackhawk Down) Some from Mexico, Guanajuato and Oaxaca to be exact, also places I've been to and loved for their intensely colored urban spaces Some from Brazil where I used to live, lots of beautiful old houses in the Northeast, some newly colorful favelas further south Here's a generic concrete building in Egypt like the ones you linked for me SimHoT but this is the kind of color I'd use if I modeled and textured it And now check out this Ndebele house from South Africa, talk about no fear of color and pattern!! Need to wrap this up. Thanks for all the comments, I'm just relieved not to have been shot down right away. Once I get back into some sort of confort zone with gmax, I'll tweak what I've got and see what you think. Perhaps on that note, is it worth starting with 3d max, I've got 8, and the BAT for max? I'm just super intimidated by learning something that is truly new, not just relearning something I used to know. Do the existing gmax tutorials still pretty much cover how to do things or are there new tutorials specific to 3dmax? Where are they? In case it matters, I'm totally not proprietary with my own stuff, if anybody wants these gmax scenes or any others I post pics of later, let me know and tell me how and I will be happy to email them to you to play with on your own. I'm not sure how to attach the textures or if you can, but that might be something you can tell me. And when it comes to lighting, I fantasize that I could just send my scene to a litemaster and have them do it and mail it back to me. Anybody who offers gets a gold star on the forehead Later all you madBATters

I love this building in real life, so its great to see such a worthy version for the game! I think making the roof textures messier is a big improvement, even if it is 'fake' in relation to the real building, where like you said they probably resurface and repaint it often making it uniform in color and texture. Its a strange paradox that for buildings to look more real in the game, they sometimes can't look as clean and shiny as they do in real life! Your nite pic of the real building was great so I LOVE the way you added lights that highlight the mural at night. I can't wait to see the final version of this finished. I know I got strangely intimidated near the end of my first project, fussing with this and that, I had to force myself to see it through and hope it was 'good enough' for a first project (although of course it could have been better). Keep up the good work P.S. I'm impressed you are taking on 3d max. I hope you will comment on how it is to transition. I'm having to start all over myself (I can't remember how I did most of what I have already modeled way back several years ago) and I debated starting with BAT for max (I have max8) instead of gmax but there aren't as many tutorials and it really intimidates me. I only use it now to put free plant and xfrog models in 3ds format to get into gmax. Do you find that the setup and tools are enough like gmax that you don't feel like you are starting from the beginning? Where are you finding tutorials?

Oh man, those texture quirks are tough. Texturing is probably my favorite part of trying to BAT, but also the part that gave me biggest headaches as I remember. I often decided to just re-map and re-texture from the beginning in case there was something weird that I missed as I fussed and fiddled. I always have previous saved versions I can go back to as well. It makes for some repetitive work but it can take so much time to figure exactly why something inexplicable is happening in just one part of the model that it probably evens out in the end. This looks like it will be another wonderful building to download. Playing with a euro theme gives you all the best stuff!! I'd love to see another in game post render pic with the new textures. I enjoyed your explanation for why you cleaned up the building. We get to be gods in the game and can alter what we like for our own reasons and that is way fun. I was just in Spain last year visiting a friend and stopped to see the cathedrals in Burgos and Leon, both with famous glasswork (I do stained glass myself). Both have been scrubbed and renovated over many years and they probably have NEVER looked like they do now for most of their hundreds of years of existence. Yeah, so maybe they aren't as atmospheric as they might have been all stained and crusty but there is no doubt those who spent their lifetimes working on building them would have enjoyed seeing them in their idealized state.

Hey all A few years back I plunged into the whole custom content making aspect of the game and had a blast, along with the usual frustrations and plunges of despair. Then RL intervened and there was no time, and as we all know it takes a LOT of time to do what you want with all the great tools that have been developed. I'm just now trying to sort through my crazy system of files on my old PC (switched to mac for anything internet related, what a relief) and seeing what if anything can be salvaged or continued from that time. I managed to release one BAT on the STEX, https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=16037 and I've even seen it in a few CJ's which makes me happy. I was working on some Middle Eastern/North African styled residential models when I stopped. Now I'm faced with the task of pretty much relearning everything from how to BAT to how use the updated tools and create some good reliable functional lots for the game. I hope its not as tough as it was the first time around!! Anyway, here are some shots in game of stuff I had managed to render and stick on a landmark lot. I'm hoping to hear back if people like it and think it would be worth finishing up and releasing. I'll probably complete them enough to use in my own game, but if the feedback is positive, I'd be more motivated to really tackle finishing up the nitelighting and loting of these models in a way that adds to the game. I used the ingame photo taking button and I have to say I think the buildings look better in the game itself than in the pics, not so overexposed and harsh. I think my renderings were test renderings anyway so I'll have to to a high quality rendering and then see how they look. But for now, this is all just meant as a teaser to see if anybody thinks this stuff is worth anything. A quick note on my approach: I tend to play smaller towns and rural, and not just because its easier on my computer. I like the immense variety of vernacular architecture around the world and that is the kind of content I wanted to try creating. I admit the game is definitely geared for more traditional modern NA/Euro/East Asian content, but hey, its a game and for me fantasy is as much fun as trying to get more realism. My models are inspired by real buildings and styles (its addictive itself collecting images online and from the library) but these are my interpretations of what I think would be fun to look at, rather than really trying to go for super authenticity. I've done a lot of traveling and living around the world and real life buildings and landscapes are often way more intense and dramatic than anybody might think who has only seen the world of shopping malls and suburbia, lovely as those can be (?)... Here is a row of small north african styled houses. I was hoping they'd be w2w but they are just a scoche too big for LE so I had to put them on a 3x1 lot and I"ll have to figure it out later on how to make it work later. I never did find a clear answer on exactly how wide to make my model in gmax so that its w2w, oh well...next time. I think I modeled pretty near to the gridlines in gmax thinking it would work to make them fill up the square. view from the front and rear I remember playing around with creating rooftop details (so MUCH of what we actually get to look at is on top and not in front where we spend so much time creating detail and texture) but this rendering seems not to have included a lot of what I created. There's some of it in the next pics but I'd add a lot more if/when these get finished. Just a quick observation here from a novice batter: this style of architecture is super fun to do because it involved lots of cubes and arches, arcades, crenelations, and amazing textures, none of which is all that difficult once you start getting the hang of it. Way WAY WAAAAAY easier than some of the truly amazing european stuff found on STEX and LEX for example. I'm really a bit surprised more people haven't tried their hand at it as a way to learn gmax. Not to say there hasn't been great latin/middle eastern stuff made already. Still, there is so much more that could be done. Here are some differently colored versions of the model that I turned into the lot for the STEX. Again I'd hoped to use these as part of a set of w2w growables once I'd made some more models. I'll have to figure out the dimensions required to make this possible. The palm is a free model I got on turbosquid way back when, I think its one of the freebies that xfrog releases from time to time, I just did the texturing. I'm still looking for this model in my gmax files, I was happy to see it made it onto the lot way back when to remind of its existence! On another lot (no pic yet) I found some props I'd textured of ocotillo, opuntia cactus, joshua trees, papaya, a couple more palms and yucca, and agaves. I'll have to find those too. Here are some Yemeni inspired houses, which were a blast to create. I'm going to add some pics of real Yemeni houses from google so you get the idea that as outlandish and ornate is these are, the real things are truly amazing. I guess I hoped somebody other than me might like the challenge of using these to create a ittle neighborhood as part of a mutlicultural city in the game. So, let me know what you think but be kind. Its not going to be to everybody's taste to be sure. But for those who actually like this kind of thing, let me know what you think works and what might be improved. Kudos to all those who made and make the tutorials, answer frantic questions, keep up this site and others, and in all ways make Simcity the addictive joy that it is

A lot of great work was done on these, I hope simaddict1000 didn't run into any more computer trouble, it would be great to see these get finished. Having lived in San Francisco, these row houses look pretty authentically flavored to me, I'd even love to see some really colorful versions. A question I haven't found answered anywhere obvious (but of course I could very well have missed it right in front of my face): if BATing for w2w like this, how wide in gmax did you make your models? I know from the original tutorial you are supposed to leave some leeway on both sides, but if you want the model to really go w2w after rendering and for lot placement, do you model to the gridline in gmax? Any advice on this would be appreciated. Its one thing to fiddle with scaling in size after modeling, but I can't imagine squeezing or stretching lengthwise would be easy at all. Sorry if this post is seen as bumping, I'd honestly like to hear that these houses are still in the works

Man, how many ways can you say amazing?? are there emoticons for gasping? Really incredible, i love love love your pedestrian districts, I've gotta figure out how to make that work. every update here is impressive. like everybody else i'd love to visit this place:)

Absolutely incredible, i hope you feel a stupendous amount of satisfaction at having created something so inspiring and beautiful (especially considering how much work it must have taken)!!!! Did you learn to landscape like that by trial and error? Any tutorials you can recommend for creating those amazing roadways and all that slope friendly development? How do you avoid all the ugly foundation walls with all those hills? What is your favorite slope mod if you use one? I LUV your pathways all over that amazing landscape. Are those streets or park paths and what did you use to make them? Do your sims get to wander all over the places you make for them or are they eye candy mostly? I wish we could see them walking on those magical paths down to the water. What rock plops do you use, they are perfect for the terrain and your rivers are amazing. Sorry for all the questions. Its been years since I played with Simcity and I now have a mac so i have to start all over with the downloads and mods. I'd love to start with what you are using as your kind of cities and landscapes are the ones I'd love to try making myself. Keep it up, it really is wonderful to see what you do:)