ÆRDEN ~ new streets!

[bombardiere]

Wellcome to the dark side. Knowing what are your interest are, I will be having a close eye on your projects.

You have learned fast. An excellent start. Stonework looks good. Are you using a bump or displacement map? I haven't got those working with the SC4 render. Not that I have tried very hard.

is there a way to batch render objects/layers/scenes?

I am not an experient batter, so my answer is not definete, but If there is a way, I don't know it.

This may be refering to a situation when you have a big and detailed building, which takes hours to render. Today with modern computer, Bat renders haven't been that much an issue, but I understad that during the early years the CPU demands of the rendering were very taxing to the computers ten years ago.

[Mandarin(a)]

Yay, an update! Don't know where to start, because everything is just amazing! Lots, streets, models, SC4Viewer ...
Yeah, regarding that - my report: I can rotate it, move it, but when I try to zoom, it goes to the top-left edge of screen and stays there. If I press space bar, it appears again at the center of screen, but then I can't zoom in anymore. I am using Firefox on Windows 7. Hope that helps somehow ...
Otherwise, all good, everything you do looks so interesting

[vortext]

Thanks Mandarin(a) for your report. I had a feeling that might be one of the issues, as I experienced the same when switching over to Chrome for testing. It seems there's no standard output value of the scroll-wheel, and consequently the zoom function breaks. Will have look into that and hopefully come up with a more reliable zoom method.

Edit: yep quick investigation reveals the delta value - as the output of scroll wheel or touchpad is known - is notorious for varying widely across browsers, operating systems and devices. Luckily there are also mutliple Javascript libraries available to standardize the output so it seems very doable to rectify the issue. 

Thank you bombardiere. I actually used both a displacement and bump map for the stonework, and the latter is comprised of a normal texture, with an additional bump texture. As for the batch render, I specifically recall Diggis mentioning he let all his grass pond models render while at work, which is were I got the notion there must be a way to batch render.

[vortext]

Double post because for those that experience the same issue as Mandarin(a) (or don't have a mouse with scrollwheel ) I added zoom function to the up and down arrow keys.

Please let me know if you still encounter issues, others than the known 'stuck in a corner' bug when using the mouse srollwheel.

[11241036]

Wow, all I can say about your new SAM textures, is that I'm overwhelmed. That really looks like something I'd like to see in the next NAM, especially since they are draggable.
And good luck with overhauling your lot set. I can truly imagine that this will be a tedious work that takes a lot of time.

[romualdillo]

Great work as always!! 
I think you've mastered BAT in short time. It was certainly your next step, you had already a great eye for models.
The dovecote looks really good. The textures look fantastic, I never could put the bump and displacement maps to work in Gmax. They looked weird. Your textures need only a bit of photoshopping to add some dirty and green, and I think they'll be fine.
I hope you find the time to finish your projects soon. They'll be really an improvement to the game, and you know I'm waiting for them with avarice. 

[Simmer2]

Extraordinary as always, Erik.
I'm still in the infancy of batting but I can certainly help with any texturing if you wish.

Nick

[compdude787]

Nice update! I'm happy to finally be seeing draggable WRCs on SAM streets!! I think that's what it'll take to make me start using the SAM now.

[FrankU]

Beautiful work Erik!

[Gugu3]

I like what i see

[metarvo]

Nice work on those streets, Erik!    I see red brick streets in downtown or historic districts a lot, and they often run at unusual angles or curves, so this is quite the bonus.

[belfastsocrates]

The pictures didn't disappoint at all! I absolutely love the peat digging progress. It's something you seen in rural Ireland and the smell of burning peat in a fire is just amazing, one of my favourite smells!

The dovecote looks beautiful as well!

[JoeST]

your city viewer is really cool I'd love to help out with it! I've run into some bugs with it being too big for my window and the click-to-pan thing activates even when clicking on scroll-bars which is weird when trying to move so you can click-to-pan from something other than the top-left corner XD Oh and zoooming in too far and then out seems to pan too

[c.p.]

The dovecote model looks great.   The stone texture is really good.  With some dirt streaks or other irregularities and maybe a slight gradient, it will be awesome.

Also, I'm looking forward to the draggable SAM curves

[mgb204]

As far as I know, the key to underground LODs is don't model them. If you only model the parts above 0m on the ground plane, then the model should show without producing visual artefacts. Bump maps don't work in gMax at all (buggy), but in 3DS max, I was advised they don't really help with smaller objects, which seems sound. A displacement map does however, so you should probably just stick with that. The base of the dovecote is fine I'd say, just needs some texture tweaking which I'm sure you've the skills to deal with. Perhaps you'd get better results re-making the roof a different way. That's one of the wonders of 3DS max, there are so many ways to go about everything, you just need to find what works best for you. I'm pretty confident once you've got a basic handle on 3DS max, you'll be flying along. Since for me, texturing is really the complex part of modelling that takes all my time. Of course, 3DS max is a complex beast, but you seem to off to a solid start. 

[Girafe]

Lovely projects, it s nice to see you starting BATing and it looks promising 

[vortext]

Wellcome to the dark side. Knowing what are your interest are, I will be having a close eye on your projects.

You have learned fast. An excellent start. Stonework looks good. Are you using a bump or displacement map? I haven't got those working with the SC4 render. Not that I have tried very hard.

is there a way to batch render objects/layers/scenes?

I am not an experient batter, so my answer is not definete, but If there is a way, I don't know it.

This may be refering to a situation when you have a big and detailed building, which takes hours to render. Today with modern computer, Bat renders haven't been that much an issue, but I understad that during the early years the CPU demands of the rendering were very taxing to the computers ten years ago.

Thanks for the welcome, it really is a black hole which sucks up all my time!  In my inexperienced and humble opinion you probably should look into bump mapping now that you're using 3DSMax as well. So far I found it's a pretty great way to get neat additional details, useful for brick walls and the like. As for batch rendering, still not found a concise answer, but I've started to look into MaxScript just to see if it'd be possible in the first place.

Yay, an update! Don't know where to start, because everything is just amazing! Lots, streets, models, SC4Viewer ...
Yeah, regarding that - my report: I can rotate it, move it, but when I try to zoom, it goes to the top-left edge of screen and stays there. If I press space bar, it appears again at the center of screen, but then I can't zoom in anymore. I am using Firefox on Windows 7. Hope that helps somehow ...
Otherwise, all good, everything you do looks so interesting

Thanks once more! It had been a while indeed, glad it's well received! 

Wow, all I can say about your new SAM textures, is that I'm overwhelmed. That really looks like something I'd like to see in the next NAM, especially since they are draggable.
And good luck with overhauling your lot set. I can truly imagine that this will be a tedious work that takes a lot of time.

Thanks! The lot set is going to take some time yeah, but it's been some time since I done serious lotting so I'm looking forward to it!

Great work as always!! 
I think you've mastered BAT in short time. It was certainly your next step, you had already a great eye for models.
The dovecote looks really good. The textures look fantastic, I never could put the bump and displacement maps to work in Gmax. They looked weird. Your textures need only a bit of photoshopping to add some dirty and green, and I think they'll be fine.
I hope you find the time to finish your projects soon. They'll be really an improvement to the game, and you know I'm waiting for them with avarice. 

Thanks! Though honestly 'mastered BAT' might be bit off an overstatement. .  Also, on advice of APSMS and mgb204 I started using 3DSMax as it's actually free to use on a educational license - which they don't seem too strict about handing out. Maybe worth considering for you as well? Anyway, there're quite a few things on my plate indeed, but that keeps things interesting!

Extraordinary as always, Erik.
I'm still in the infancy of batting but I can certainly help with any texturing if you wish.

Nick

Thanks Nick! Will keep the offer in mind! 

Nice update! I'm happy to finally be seeing draggable WRCs on SAM streets!! I think that's what it'll take to make me start using the SAM now.

Thank you! Long overdue, aren't they. I'd very pleased if more people will start using SAM because of it. 

Beautiful work Erik!

Thanks Frank!

I like what i see

Thank you!

Nice work on those streets, Erik!    I see red brick streets in downtown or historic districts a lot, and they often run at unusual angles or curves, so this is quite the bonus.

Thanks! It'd be really nice to have this functionality for SAM indeed. 

The pictures didn't disappoint at all! I absolutely love the peat digging progress. It's something you seen in rural Ireland and the smell of burning peat in a fire is just amazing, one of my favourite smells!

The dovecote looks beautiful as well!

Thanks, glad to hear that! It's quite a distinct smell indeed, not sure if I'd count it among my favorites though. . 

your city viewer is really cool I'd love to help out with it! I've run into some bugs with it being too big for my window and the click-to-pan thing activates even when clicking on scroll-bars which is weird when trying to move so you can click-to-pan from something other than the top-left corner XD Oh and zoooming in too far and then out seems to pan too

Thank you, I thought it was pretty cool as well!  Definitely gonna take you up on that offer, will get in touch some time this week. 

The dovecote model looks great.   The stone texture is really good.  With some dirt streaks or other irregularities and maybe a slight gradient, it will be awesome.

Also, I'm looking forward to the draggable SAM curves

Thanks! That means a lot coming from such an experienced BATter!  Also pleased the SAM curves are well received!

As far as I know, the key to underground LODs is don't model them. If you only model the parts above 0m on the ground plane, then the model should show without producing visual artefacts. Bump maps don't work in gMax at all (buggy), but in 3DS max, I was advised they don't really help with smaller objects, which seems sound. A displacement map does however, so you should probably just stick with that. The base of the dovecote is fine I'd say, just needs some texture tweaking which I'm sure you've the skills to deal with. Perhaps you'd get better results re-making the roof a different way. That's one of the wonders of 3DS max, there are so many ways to go about everything, you just need to find what works best for you. I'm pretty confident once you've got a basic handle on 3DS max, you'll be flying along. Since for me, texturing is really the complex part of modelling that takes all my time. Of course, 3DS max is a complex beast, but you seem to off to a solid start. 

Thanks Robin! I figured out the LODs (more on that below) and the underground bit wasn't the issue, can just make it a simple plane indeed. As for bump/normal maps, in my limited experience so far they actually produce better results than just a displacement map, at least when it comes to brick and roof textures. And yeah, there really are a lot of options and ways of doing things indeed.   

Lovely projects, it s nice to see you starting BATing and it looks promising 

Thank you!



So, today more of my adventures with 3DS max, starting with the peat project. I'm happy to report the issue with the gap/overlap of the trenches has been solved. It turns out I was on the right track by extending the model, however, the LOD needs to remain a 16x16 meter polygon. It was a proper moment as on a abstract level I already knew the geometry of the LOD is more-or-less independent from the geometry of the actual 3D model but this was the first time I experienced the practical implications. The transparency on the other hand is another story. .



Here's how it comes out of 3DSMax, not very pretty. So okay, what about setting the transparency with SC4ModelTweaker?



Slightly better but still not what I want. 

During careful observation of Diggis' grass streams, to figure out the LODs, I'd also noticed the textures of his models had a green background, rather than the default grey. So I changed the background color to brown and gave that a go.



Slightly more acceptable, yet still not what I'm after. .   

But you know what?! Fine! FINE!! 

I want to use the trenches on farm fields, which need LE textures anyway so I'll just use those to create the dirt sides of the trenches, and only model the underground bits. It'll mean slightly more work, between prop and LE texture, to arrive at a cohesive whole but on the bright side the props will be smaller since they won't cover an entire tile.

Anyway, staying with the farming theme I tried my hand at another item which is sorely lacking imho: a haystack. Now I know Wallibuk made some, however, as nice as his buildings are the haystacks are really quite underwhelming (if you're reading this Wallibuk, no offense, I'm a big fan of your models and use them extensively!).



On the left the first try. It looked a bit too dark to me so I turned on the shader on the hair modifier. It totally sounds as if I know what I'm doing right?! 

Honestly the thought process went 'shader → something to do with light → lets see what it does!'. 

Anyway. On the right the second model, colors are quite nice so I went a bit crazy and made the big stack in the middle. But as has been established, SC4 just can't handle transparency on BATs too well – even though technically there isn't any. The strands of hair straw are just too tiny to properly render so I'll have to trim them, and maybe push them inwards a bit, closer to the surface of the model underneath. Though the rendering takes a bit of time, these stacks are easy and fun to make so expect more as they'll make for good MMP material. 

As for the dovecote, I cleaned up the model, properly unwrapped the roof and now having some fun with composite maps to get texture variation. Also, holy sh*t 3DSmax can handle layers within PSD files as bitmaps, that makes organizing textures soo much easier!

In the meanwhile let me introduce my next BAT project.



It's a replica of a wohnstallhaus located in a museum in Germany. The Germans have a way with words, as the term roughly translates to dwelling-barn-house. Or in other words, it provided shelter for one or two families, along with their livestock. Inside it'd be sectioned off into an area for the people which contained a fire pit, an area for the animals and an area for storage. The very top of roof is open on both sides to provide ventilation – much needed ventilation I'd imagine.

Anyway, I figured it'd be a nice step up. Slightly more complicated to model but still quite easy, no windows, chimneys or anything. So, here's my take on it.



Not quite done with the textures yet, and there's an annoying issue with light somehow peeking through the top of the roof. But I still want to add the proper branches there anyway, so I can hopefully fix that as well.

And that's it for today! Thanks for reading! 

[compdude787]

The stuff you're working on is pretty nice! Great work!

[Themistokles]

Well, you're doing this the detailed way... and to me everything looks really good.

[...] they'll make for good MMP material. 

They sure will!

[JoeST]

Thank you, I thought it was pretty cool as well!  Definitely gonna take you up on that offer, will get in touch some time this week. 

I'll be waiting feel free to email me direct rather than relying on the forum pm if that's easier for you?