IDS2

Welcome back. I have fond memories of reading your Grid Secrets experiments about 20 years ago.

I'd love to help with processing and verifying. I rarely download anything these days, so unfortunately I'm not much help there.

I think it looks pretty damn good. I really like the way the metal looks. The little bit of shadow you see from the metal panels being slightly inset really sells it.

ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION (13 July 2011): "Hey there. I'm IDS, and I'm just another high school kid who's played sim games since kindergarten. I've downloaded several gigabytes of content from the STEX over the years, and for a long time I've wanted to give back, but learning how to BAT was too complex for me and the maps I made were pretty unappealing.About a month ago I downloaded 3dsMax and pushed through a handful of tutorials, including the infamous BAT tutorial. A month later, I'm at the point where I'm only mildly embarrassed of my creations. I really can't go on much further on my own without some advice, and besides, what better way to learn than to know what I need to improve on? Criticism is more than welcome, I know I'm new to this and am still pretty green, so just be honest " completed projects: wells fargo plaza, bloomington, mn nelson/keillor towers generic offices 100 washington, minneapolis, mn riverview tower, bloomington, mn hiawatha bank tower retro theaters booth manor, minneapolis, mn anderson hall, minneapolis, mn postwar houses, minneapolis, mn paramount theater, bristol, tn lang-nelson, st. louis park, mn social sciences building, minneapolis, mn ralph rapson hall, minneapolis, mn canadian pacific plaza, minneapolis, mn wellstone plaza cenex building, south st. paul, mn public service center, minneapolis, mn greater refuge temple, new york, ny american zinc building, st louis, mo axa equitable center, new york, ny united labor centre, minneapolis, mn alakea corporate tower, honolulu, hi cedar high apartments, minneapolis, mn ids center, minneapolis, mn one maritime plaza, san francisco, ca prospect water tower, minneapolis, mn kenwood water tower, minneapolis, mn highland park water tower, st. paul, mn huron public library, huron, sd yat chau international plaza, hong kong doubletree hotel, milwaukee, wi tj maxx/homegoods, gretna, ne lalumiere hall, milwaukee, wi equitable building, atlanta, ga broadway ridge corp ctr, minneapolis, mn la tulipe, geneva, switzerland crossroads exec ctr, rolling meadows, il silberturm, frankfurt, germany pop building, brussels, belgium binnenhof observation tower, the hague hedge maze, valeggio sul mincio, italy bren road office park, minnetonka, mn tritech center, minneapolis, mn one sherman place, denver, co patisserie 46, minneapolis, mn 701 building, minneapolis, mn picnic shelter, lilydale, mn IDS

I'm definitely not an AI fan, but curiosity got the best of me, so I coughed up a few bucks and downloaded both packs. I will say, the results are largely as advertised, although with some pretty obvious differences. I'll concede that some of this may be user error, as I just downloaded Blender and installed BAT4Blender for the very first time tonight (my initial attempts at bringing these models into BAT4Max didn't go very well). Here's are a couple side-by-side examples of what is advertised vs. what you actually get. Again, total noob here, so someone with more experience could probably wrangle this better than I can, but the downloadable models are less refined than what is shown in the screenshots. As a jaded old man, I was honestly expecting to be scammed, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that these are actually 3D models. That being said, they're basically impossible to modify at all in their current form. Here's an example of one of the 3D meshes: Some of the others are missing big chunks of geometry: Needless to say, I won't quit BATting anytime soon, but this was a fun curiosity.

Thanks Jason, you're spot on about that I'll be returning to this one soon. All that's left is the annex and a bit of work on the roof, as well as figuring out the lotting. The base of the tower is already right at 16x16m, so accounting for a 1.6m W2W setback and the addition of the annex, it will probably need to be a 2x2. Taking it pretty easy this month. Lots of stuff cooking, but this little picnic shelter will probably be the final release of the year. I also just upgraded my CPU, which has already improved render times substantially. Some of the stuff I'm working on is pretty big and shiny, so this should help make the export process a bit more bearable.

Both are good suggestions! I'm a big I.M. Pei fan, and I've been itching to do a supertall, so consider them both on my wishlist. And now for something a little different. When Frank Gehry died the other day, I thought it would be nice to make a tribute BAT, but as I was looking through his portfolio, I realized that basically everything he's ever designed would be pretty damn unpleasant to model (at least for a scrub like myself). But the Gehry Tower in Hanover, Germany was previously on my to-do list, and that seemed pretty feasible, so I took a shot at it. Still a work in progress of course, and I haven't modeled the annex on the south side yet. But the most important question is: does this look like metal?

Well well well, look who's back for more A hearty welcome back. And with a gorgeous remaster as well! I hope this is a sign of things to come

I appreciate that you modeled the gas lines to each of the rooftop units! I work in HVAC, so I always try to model it based on actual equipment photos I've taken. For me, it's just one of those if-you-know-you-know things that makes me appreciate it when someone takes the time to replicate it accurately. I unfortunately can't speak to the white signage and gmax's lighting, but I would say that the red neon could be a bit brighter. Could the white ones be a custom night map as well?

Here's a second batch of files I found that had SC4Model and SC4Desc files, but no SC4Lot files. I might have lost those in a plugins folder purge years ago. I went ahead and created blank lots for each of them so they could at least be placed in the game. Arena - author unknown Creighton's Corporate Plaza - SimNic Electronics Inc - author unknown Left Boot and Shoe Co - author unknown Sydney AMP Tower - SimNic The Mushroom - author unknown Aesti Dominci Tower - The Monkey's Uncle Tower 42 - author unknown Arena.zip CreightonsCorporatePlaza.zip ElectronicsInc.zip LeftBootAndShoeCo.zip Simnic_AMPTower.zip TheMushroom.zip TMU_AestiDominciTower.zip Tower42.zip

I've recently come across a number of old plugins that I think are from SimCityCentral, Simphoni, and the official EA exchange. Those sites are all long gone, but with the Wayback Machine, I think I've been able to determine authorship on a few of them. I did my best to make sure that none of these are on the STEX presently, but please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these, or if the authorship is incorrect. Small Train Stop - Martin Large Train Stop - Martin Turning Torso - author unknown Maritim Ulm - author unknown Sandbridge Court - Constantina The Glow Ball - author unknown Peace and Friendship Square - author unknown Martin_SmallTrainStop.zip Martin_LargeTrainStop.zip MaritimUlm.zip TurningTorso.zip Constantina_SandbridgeCourt.zip GlowBallPark.zip PeaceAndFriendshipSquare.zip

I realized that I've been using the same image for night reflections for almost every BAT I've ever made, and I finally decided that I'm not a huge fan of it. Here's an attempt at making something with a little more visual interest, but I'm still thinking about whether it's too far in the other direction. I also bumped up the brightness of the interior by a couple notches. I'll have to sleep on it, but I'll at least export the day scene tonight, and start the night scene tomorrow if I decide I like it.

Thanks guys Bolshevik - always happy to hear a request! I don't do commissions, but I love getting more ideas. I keep a very active to-do list, so by all means send your ideas my way! Continuing the theme of trying to post more preview renders. Because I've been spending too much time doodling, I had a hard time figuring out what I would actually be finishing for this month's upload. Finally getting this one out the door in the coming days, just making some final adjustments. I've overall not been thrilled with how my night scenes have turned out this year. I was mostly going for moodier lighting, but I think they largely turned out too dim and repetitive, so they don't blend very well with a lot of the other BATs out there (including my own). I will be working on improving them, starting with this building.

I believe this is what you're looking for: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7430.msg238749#msg238749

Agreed with ACE re: the glass noise. I think the reflectivity is fine, it's just the bump strength. Lately I've been working on a few buildings that have that dark mirrored glass, and it's a pain to get right. Also really nice to see Accenture in the mix. I have a fun memory of getting lost in there a few years ago and eating a falafel that tasted suspiciously like it was cooked in one of the fryers at the Popeyes next door. Nice work!

It can be tricky to get the scaling right on those single story buildings. On one hand, if you're going for realism, something like 5x7-8x10 is accurate. On the other hand, sometimes a smaller form factor can still look "correct" in the game. Look at JBSimio's schools as an example - they're mostly 4x4 or 5x4, but a lot of people still use them (although I've had to stop using them because I can't unsee the scaling issues). One thing I've found is especially noticeable with single story buildings is that you often need to over-scale them a bit more than usual so that they don't look too squished relative to houses, sims, etc. The game camera already squishes things, but it's definitely more apparent when you don't have multiple floors. I really like the modular modeling approach. Also makes it easy to do color variations.

If you're looking for more exterior lights, maybe a wall sconce next to the patio door? Definitely not necessary though. I don't think you're missing anything.

Thanks guys I've been BATting at such a speed this year that I haven't posted many preview renders, which I think is a shame. I was just chatting with gutterclub the other day about some of our favorite preview renders that have been posted over the years, and afterward I spent a good deal of time combing through the "ones that never made it to the STEX" thread admiring some of them once more. That got me to thinking - I don't post nearly enough preview renders anymore! I intend to start fixing that, because I think previews are a ton of fun. For starters, here are a couple I cranked out this weekend that should be going up in a couple hours. A bit short notice, but I have a few behemoths in the works that I'll show off soon. This will make me 10 for 10 on BATs released every month this year, which has been a blast, but I'm also looking forward to being able to return to some larger models. Cheers all!

This is an interesting experiment. I haven't ever tried to assemble the theoretical best case scenario, but I did take a partial stab at it once. For this attempt, I created a set of 1x1 cheat lots to provide jobs to avoid the congestion headache of everyone having to commute to neighboring tiles. I was running the NAM, and I believe the radical ordinance mod, but no CAM. Since I didn't fully terraform everything flat to achieve the perfect grid, I would suppose that I could get closer to ~20 million if I filled in all of the water. The best I've ever gotten on a small tile is 1,318,119; extrapolating that to a large city tile gives 21,089,904, so the ~20 million figure more or less checks out. I would suppose that, in theory, you could achieve greater density by replacing all of the buildings here with Ong Condos that had fully dilapidated to RS$ from RS$$$. Looks like the building capacity in that case is 20,778 on a 4x4 lot, which would give you the greatest density on a sims per tile basis out of all of the vanilla buildings.

I think the interior looks great (as does the rest). It's something I rarely take the time to do, but I do think it makes a difference, especially for a building like this with large floor to ceiling windows.