IDS's (mostly) Minnesota BATs

[IDS2 3,345]

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

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

Wow. thats a handful of projects you got there, but they all look really good, I can't wait to see textureing and further modeling.

[harishna 847]

Wow that is large collection of BAT and I will say you could finish most of them, it would be more a matter of which ones you will want to prioritize in that way it would be easier to comment on those...if you ask me I like industrial BAT, but I'll say that the office park looks pretty promising and interesting and the modeling looks good.

Not sure what you mean on 0 thickness don't show in BAT4MAX renders, first it looks to me that in most cases you are not really using BAT4MAX renders, specially the one you mentioning (the garage), second you can have a textured panel with no thickness and it will still show in the render..

About texturing its obvious that you haven't done much and therefore you still need to learn a bit, just remember that texturing and modeling are equally important.

[IDS2 3,345]

Thanks frex! and thank you harishna, and they are BAT4Max renders but for some reason I can't get the SC4 zoom previews to work. And this is an example of what I mean with the zero thickness:

All those open window frames actually have modeled windows, but when I render they don't show up...For some reason I'm only having this problem on about half of my models.

Also, I've spent my morning practicing texturing. I don't have any results worthy of posting yet, but I'll keep at it.

Also...I've been working on Wells Fargo Plaza, the last one on the list.

I'm almost done with modeling, all that remains are the entrances, windows and some other small details plus the round penthouse:

Any idea on how to go about modeling this? The curves really throw me off for some reason. It's functional office space, so those are regular windows and mullions.

After I figure this out I can get started on the roof junk and try nightlighting. I'm thinking I'll go with trunite, I've been researching it and it sounds like the simplest and most realistic option. I'd definitely do both Maxisnite and Darknite as I personally play with Darknite anyway.

  Edited July 13, 2011 by IDS2  

[gutterclub 2,729]

hi, nice models an excellent start..however they aren't BAT4MAX renders or preview renders if you will. What happens when you try a preview render? Chances are if you can't preview render you won't be able to export.

  Edited July 13, 2011 by gutterclub  

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Lovely bats, I love it when batters show off a bunch of renders on most of there project.

[skyscraper 216]

woow, thats really good

[harishna 847]

have you applied UVW maps to them? if so are you completely sure they windows are not showing or does it has to do with the settings applied? (e.g transparency, reflection, etc)

  Edited July 14, 2011 by harishna  

[Jasoncw 11,840]

They're looking really good so far.

For the round part, it's basically a cylinder, so just make a cylinder with the right number of sides, convert it into an editable polygon, and inset or extrude the faces until you get the right shapes.

[IDS2 3,345]

gutterclub: Thanks! I think I figured it out...is it true it has to be an LOD in order to get a preview? That's what I did, I converted to LOD and it suddenly worked. I'm hoping I'm on to something.

Aaron Graham: Thanks! Yeah, I'm a bit backed up at the moment I'm taking everything one step at a time, though.

skyscraper: Thanks! hoping I stay on the right track, then

harishna: yeah, I've added UVW maps, for some reason I only have this problem about half the time, and sometimes on only half the windows in a model. Here's an example, where the windows aren't any different but some show up and some don't:

I'm not really sure how to check transparency/reflection settings, but I'm pretty sure that's not it since the windows are all the same and I just cloned them into place, not model them individually. I'm still pretty sure I'm just doing something wrong but I'm keeping at it

Jasoncw: Thanks a bunch! I wasn't able to try it on the actual building (I'll explain in a sec) but I did do this and I think I got the gist of it:

Grossly misscaled, of course, but I think I understand the procedure.

Thanks again, everyone! So, I basically devoted yesterday evening to practicing texturing. I figured I should start small, so I tried my hand at the library:

It's got a loooong way to go...the shingles and asphalt roof are just the Maxis textures that I recolored in photoshop. The asphalt is pretty blurry and the shingles basically have no depth. I'm gonna try something more like this, in a much lighter shade of green:

Also, I was about to try and finish up Wells Fargo Plaza, but...the scale went postal on me:

Nearly 3000x3000 (yes, my units are still meters) instead of about 60x75. All I can think of is that sometimes when I open it up it asks if I wanna rescale to the system default unit scale instead of the huge scale I had for the file. It was already fixed and I had rescaled it to the default 1:1 scale but somehow I got that instead? Beats me. Right now it's supposed to be about .025 times the size that it is, so I scaled it to that, but that just made it .025 times too small.

In other news, my laptop is getting old and has been infected for a while with something I can't beat with anything, and I've tried about everything. Last night something deleted ALL my "default programs," so when I try to run ANY program now I have to manually find the .exe, and even then it often won't work. I'm gonna back everything up and restore this thing to factory settings as a last resort, so I might be gone for a couple days while I fix this.

Thanks! IDS

  Edited July 14, 2011 by IDS2  

[wallacet 336]

not bad for being new to this! keep up the good work and you will soon be a pro!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

If you go to customize there are options for setting up units. When you open max it automatically makes an empty scene with those units settings. When you then open a file, the prompt is asking if you want to use the units from the scene you're currently in (the empty default one), or if you want to use the units in the file that you're opening.

tbh units confuse me, lol. But if you know that the file you're opening has correct units, then you should use the units set up from that file.

I don't know what to do about the scale problem you currently have. If you have a copy of the scene somewhere from before the scale problems I'd go back to that and re-do the work. Depending on how much work you think it would be you could also just remodel the whole building from scratch (it goes a million times faster the second times around). The scale tool isn't exactly as it seems, and using it on entire objects (rather than sub-objects) has side effects that have consequences when it's used in extreme situations. The scale tool doesn't actually just change the size of an object, it acts like an invisible modifier which changes the size, so the object is actually still its original size in a strange way. The easiest way to see this is to make a box that is 10x10x10 meters, and then use the scale tool on it a bunch, and you'll see that the box is still listed as being 10x10x10 meters even though it doesn't appear to be.

Anyway, it's important to get your units properly set up in a scene before you do any modeling.

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

Nice Work

[IDS2 3,345]

wallacet: thanks! it's a steep learning curve but I'm up to the challenge.

Jasoncw: Oofdah, did I ever have a heck of a time trying to fix the units I got lucky, turns out I did have a backup but it was pretty much like starting over again. I guess I've learned my lesson about backing up.

Frex_Ceafus: Thanks! I've got some progress today, fingers crossed that it's in the right direction!

Alright, so I basically restarted the whole Wells Fargo Complex because the only other save file I had was the very beginnings of the tower. Luckily it did, in fact, go much faster this time around. The modeling is now about 80% done, all I really have left is all the roof junk and some working with the round cap of the tower (quite pleased with it, but it still looks a little icky). Then I can move on to texturing! Boy oh boy...

Also, I worked more on texturing the library I decided I wanted purple instead of green. I think the new roof asphalt texture is just fine, but the purple shingles are a bit off...too large, perhaps? And they have this weird striped effect. Back to the drawing board, but I'm getting closer...

When I look closer I can see the stripes almost look like they belong there. They really don't, but if they don't look too stupid I might keep them.

IDS

  Edited July 16, 2011 by IDS2  

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Look nice, I think the roof pipes and the roof shingles are a little to big, I also think that the brick may need little more work, but your going in the right path.

[delija21 295]

Some really nice projects going on here...Wells Fargo Complex is looking very promising, can't wait to see textures on it

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

Good Work, Definatly in the right direction.

  Edited July 16, 2011 by Frex_Ceafus  

[IDS2 3,345]

Thanks guys! Alright, I worked a little bit on the library textures. Aaron, I scaled down the roof pipes and I'm working on making the shingles smaller too:

I'm thinking I have to redo that shingle texture in photoshop. I just noticed how awful that grey shingle texture looks as well, so both are a complete redo. I also made the bricks a bit larger, but I'm working on a new texture anyway. The one I have looks too tiled. Now I have to figure out how to do the window textures...

I can't find the Arch and Design material template...anyone know how I can find it? I found it once but I don't remember where it's at.

Also, I finished modeling Wells Fargo Plaza, roof junk and all. It'll look a lot better with textures.

I'm starting to think I might model the lot, too, with custom trees and such rather than goofing around too much in Lot Editor. I kind of have an idea in mind, but I was wondering if this is a good idea?

So, yeah. texturing is still not my strong suit It's true, you really can't find good textures, you have to make them yourself.

  Edited July 17, 2011 by IDS2  

[T Wrecks 10,209]

WFP is looking good so far!

As for modeling the lot, I think it's a decision that should be made on a case-by-case basis.

IMO, modeled lots only look convincing if they don't clash with the rest of the game content. This, in turn, can only be achieved when the ground and flora doesn't look too different from Maxis counterparts. On smaller lots that wrap tightly around the building, you might even get away with a more "alien" setting, but especially when large horizontal surfaces are involved, it takes some skill and know-how to model and texture grounds and trees that won't stand out in a way that disturbs the impression of a coherent scene.

Especially of the lot is more expansive, you'll also have to take into account that the size of your LOD box will increase considerably, slowing down renders and increasing file size.

[Ceafus 88 1,794]

Good Work.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Well done. Like that!

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I can't believe I missed this! These are some great projects. Good luck with them all!

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

To find the Arc & Design template you have to click on sky to enable the arch & design, but you can try to look at the material editor and click on a box on where you want you texture to be and click on standard and a pop up will come up, when it does in the search by name type in arch and you should see it. I hope that helps.

Click

  Edited July 20, 2011 by Aaron Graham  

[IDS2 3,345]

T Wrecks: Definitely gave this some thought after what you said I decided I'll just stick with LE since I'm pretty fluent in that already. Thanks! However, what about a ground plane for window reflections? I have one of those and it's pretty large, it's invisible to the camera but does that mean the plane itself won't appear in the export?

Frex_Ceafus: thank you!

skyscraper241: thanks!

Sgt Pepper: Thank you! as it is I'm having enough trouble with these two but I'll hang in there

Aaron Graham: Thank you so much! I was looking all over for it, very much appreciated

Alright guys, I've come up with a first draft of texturing WFP. I'm not sure about a lot of it, but at least I understand the procedure for window reflections now. For some reason my BAT4Max previews aren't working at all for this file, along with getting a totally washed out or totally pitch black scene, so I might have to go back to an untextured version and retexture it again so that I can hopefully get it to work. I tried importing the model into a new scene, minus the cameras and lights, but I still have the problem.

So, here's what I've got for a first try:

For one thing, the glass looks goofy to me (the reflections are of a random ingame picture). The grey stucco on the panels under all the windows also lacks a lot of detail, as do the concrete columns. If I could get my BAT4Max renders to work, maybe they'd be more pronounced.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

You understood the principle of a ground plane for window reflections perfectly right - it's supposed to give the windows something to reflect, but will not be part of the render. Since I don't use BAT tools myself, I can't tell you which buttons to press and which levers to pull. However, you obviously have the right setup already, because on your last picture, the windows are reflecting something, and there's no ground plane to be seen.

What's happening with your light rig, though? The light seems to be pointing in a totally wrong direction.

[Kifflom112 355]

Holy &@$%, this is gonna' be good. I I need all of these buildings.

[IDS2 3,345]

T Wrecks: It's all working just fine, except that picture is a viewport render, not a zoom 5 render. For some reason the addition of the ground plane makes it screwy. The lighting rig: I think it might just be that the light is aimed at the opposite side of the building, but I can't do any renders right now to find out.

zulu2065: Well thank you, I aim to please If I'm lucky, I'll be able to release most of them.

Alright, so here's a bit more on the problem I'm having with preview renders. I was able to make them fine without the ground plane, but as soon as I added it and hid it from the camera, I got the "unable to create bitmap" error:

My hypothesis was that I needed to reset my lighting rig, and I tried it but I'm not sure if I did it correctly. Upon examination of the error message, it told me I had no LODs, but I did...full error message (can I save space by hiding this in a spoiler alert box somehow?): EDIT: not actually an error message, problem solved.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Script file guard

-- Examine its value to see how many times the script was run.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if (guardSF_Preview == undefined) then

(

global guardSF_Preview = 0

)

guardSF_Preview += 1

Global B4M_Preview

fn SF_Bat_Preview =

(

if $LOD*.count==0 then

(

messageBox "no LODs were found in the scene. \nPress Re-fit LOD's button in Parameters Roll-out and, if needed, edit them"

)

else

(

If gcamerarig.curcam != undefined then

(

local meshMaxX = 0

local meshMaxY = 0

local boxRadius = 8

local PPT = 8

local zoomSizes = #( 8, 16, 32, 73, sfhd )

local curRot =#( "South", "East", "North", "West" )

local testPt = (point3 0 0 0)

local BBdim = $LOD3.max - $LOD3.min

local myBB = box width:bbDim.x length:bbDim.y height:bbDim.z

myBB.center = $LOD3.center

hide $LOD*

hide myBB

local RenderCam = FreeCamera ()

renderCam.transform = gCameraRig.curCam.transform

z = -23.898 +myBB.center.z

move RenderCam [myBB.Center.x, myBB.center.y, z]

RenderCam.Target_Distance = gCameraRig.curCam.Target_Distance

RenderCam.OrthoProjection = true

RenderCam.name = "Preview: " + (curRot[gCameraRig.curRot]) as string + " Zoom"+ gCameraRig.curZoom as string

local maxPt = myBB.max

local minPt = myBB.min

for vrtIndex in 0 to 7 do

(

if ((bit.and vrtIndex 1)>0) then

testPt.x = maxPt.x

else

testPt.x = minPt.x

if ((bit.and vrtIndex 2)>0) then

testPt.y = maxPt.y

else

testPt.y = minPt.y

if ((bit.and vrtIndex 4)>0) then

testPt.z = maxPt.z

else

testPt.z = minPt.z

CamPt = fnTransformPt TestPt (inverse RenderCam.transform)

local camX = abs camPt.x

if (camX > meshMaxX) do meshMaxX = camX

local camY = abs camPt.y

if (camY > meshMaxY) do meshMaxY = camY

)

testPt.z = 0

scrSZ = meshMaxX + PPT

local cellMinX = meshMaxX

local cellMaxX = -meshMaxX

for vrtIndex in 0 to 3 do

(

if ((bit.and vrtIndex 1)>0) then

testPt.x = boxRadius

else

testPt.x = -boxRadius

if ((bit.and vrtIndex 2)>0) then

testPt.y = boxRadius

else

testPt.y = -boxRadius

camPt = FnTransformPt testPt (inverse gCameraRig.CurCam.transform)

if (camPt.x > cellMaxX) do cellMaxX = camPt.x

if (camPt.x < cellMinX) do cellMinX = camPt.x

)

renderFov = 2* (atan (scrSZ/gCameraRig.curCam.Target_Distance))

renderwidth = ceil((zoomSizes[gCameraRig.curZoom] * 2 * scrSZ)/(cellMaxX - cellMinX)+.5)

renderheight = ceil((((meshMaxY+ PPT)/scrSZ) * renderWidth)+.5)

renderCam.FOV = renderFov

B4M_Preview = render camera:RenderCam

delete RenderCam

delete myBB

)

else

(

Messagebox "No view current camera is set, please select a rotation or zoom from the Preview rollout"

)

)

)

I'm pretty bad with understanding this stuff so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Anyway, while I resolve this issue I'll be doing a bit of work on this model I came up with in 30 or so free minutes I had today:

This is a recreation of the Southdale Medical Building at 6545 France Avenue South in Edina, Minnesota. I felt like being specific just now Modeling is about 70% done, I'll be doing the older version of the building before they ruined it with a shiny new entrance. Okay, well maybe not ruined, but it doesn't match the original 50s building at all. I like my buildings nice and boxy and ugly.

  Edited August 12, 2011 by IDS2  

[Sgt Pepper 864]

I can't help with this issue you're having in Max...I wish I could but I only use Gmax and can some how manage with that.

I must say, I really like your building choices. Boxy and "ugly" are some of the best stuff around if you ask me. Great work!

[Aaron Graham 4,417]

Have you tried merging your model in a new scene, if not try that. I tried my best to get this error but I can trigger the error. Your models looking good.

[harishna 847]

I guess you used the option to create a plane that comes with BAT4MAX, I think I had this problem once...but can't remember exactly, why don't you check the size of your LOD's