praiodan's workbench / general discussion

[praiodan]

@FrankU
Thank you! 

@kelis
Thank you! Well, I've been already pondering a lot about what to model next and I have to say: I don't know yet. Of course, there's a couple of things that really attract me: The Preussischer Landtag (former lower house of Prussia, nowadays the Abgeordnetenhaus, the house of representatives of the city state of Berlin), possibly including the connection to the Preussisches Herrenhaus (Prussian's house of lords, nowadays the Bundesrat) for instance. Another option would be, living in Lichterfelde myself, creating some of the more or less elegant (mostly residential) suburban architecture of Berlin. I could also imagine to continue working on my former Bauhaus project, too. And this is not even half of what comes to my mind pretty spontaneously.
Yet, I have another 2-3 models in stock, that I could finish first (I don't like having to much stuff started and then having it unfinished ), one of them being the Geschossbau from the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart. It's almost finished, all that's left is the nightlights actually.


@peterycristi
You really better do, considering all the pain the Stabi caused my brain and my computers. 

Just FYI, if you want to save some space in a city for the Staatsbibliothek already, it will probably take like 8x13 squares (minimum).

[praiodan]

Had to take a little break due to an exam I had to make, but now here's a little update to the Staatsbibliothek, been finishing my work on the stoneworks and textures.

[c.p.]

Wow, it's a beautiful model.  The texturing looks perfect
I like the apartment building too.
Great to see you BATting again

[vortext]

Good progress. 

Out of curiosity, how large a BAT is this? My estimate is it'll sit one a 8x14 lot, or something of that size?

[belfastsocrates]

How wonderful to see you BAT'ing again! The Staatsbibliothek looks glorious.

I've always found working with your creations incredibly enjoyable and rewarding, it's great to see you back in action.

[romualdillo]

The Staatsbibliothek is wonderful!!!    It had to be a madness modelling that building!! The mixture between old and new, all those windows, corridors, patios, urns, statues... incredible!! Was kann ich noch sagen? Es ist wunderbar!!! 

[praiodan]

Well, too much time too fast gone by, but three years after the last update I have in fact finished the Staatsbibliothek. I spare you the tedious story of frustration, struggles and many many errors I ran into, that paves the labyrinthine road I had to take to render it and which is also the reason I call it "finished", despite of quite a couple of deficiencies the model still has. But I grew too tired of handling this model for more optimization processes and therefore I apologise in advance for never ever wanting to render this monster again. Instead, I hope some of you will still be able to enjoy it. But enough of talking, here are two pictures. (Please ignore the Lot for now, it's still work in progress)

[kelis]

I'm still waiting for this marvel, I can't wait to put my hands over this great model !!

[belfastsocrates]

Absolutely stunning! Worth the wait 

[mgb204]

It's great to see this marvel won't be consigned to the worst thread in the community... "The ones that never made it". So I think any small imperfections can be forgiven, but honestly the screenshots look really wonderful. I'd be pleased to have this in my cities, so it's great that you finally managed to render a finished version.

[vester]

Welcome back Lars.

... and what a comeback.


Great work 

[jeckyll]

The dome textures are repeatable. If you differentiate them a little bit, everything will be perfect. 

[JP Schriefer]

I've never been in your thread before, now I'm fascinated with Staatsbibliothek. It's definitely gonna be a masterpiece! Keep up your great work

[FrankU]

A masterpiece! I'm glad it's going to make it to some STEX or LEX... 

[praiodan]

Thank you all very much, this is overwhelming feedback.

It's great to see this marvel won't be consigned to the worst thread in the community... "The ones that never made it".

Haha so true. It was bugging me now for so long and I kinda felt remorse, since this actually started as a contribution to peterycristi's 1920s Berlin project. So in fact it is quite a relief for me. 

... and what a comeback.

And it feels very good! Although I currently am not able to actually play the game (master thesis eats all the possible time...) and model a lot. Let's hope motivation won't leave me until end of July, when I will submit the thesis and I will be free after a.. 

The dome textures are repeatable. If you differentiate them a little bit, everything will be perfect. 

I tried to adjust the UVW maps so the repeating will not be that obvious. It seems I failed that goal.  But as I said, I won't touch it again, so you'll have to cope with it. 

I've never been in your thread before, now I'm fascinated with Staatsbibliothek. It's definitely gonna be a masterpiece! Keep up your great work

Nevermind, I haven't been around in this thread for years either 

Trying to keep the rocks rolling I now also finished the Weissenhofsiedlung Geschossbau and gave the Lotting a go. For now I think this will come in the flavors 5x1 R$ and 6x2 R$$. Since this building also served as a child clinic I also think about having a ploppable Lot as a clinic.

R$


R$$

[c.p.]

Great to see these superb buildings being finished up

[praiodan]

Thank you Brian. 

Over the easter holidays I didn't find any eggs, but some other very old models of mine I now rendered. Just to give you a little context about just how old they are: I created these back in 2006 or 2007. That's in fact so long ago, they've been created in an era when I still was only using gmax instead of 3dsmax.  Therefore I'd (once again) like to excuse for lousy model quality, so it'll be just another take it or leave it release. 









These are also some of the very few buildings of mine that have no RL equivalent, although they are very loosely inspired by some planned (then canceled and now resurrected) residential developement in the green and waterish north-west of Berlin, the so-called Wasserstadt Spandau. Therefore I'll name them the Spandau Condos.

[vester]

Looks great.

Like the idea of thumbnails, but maybe you could use the following code:

Code Select Expand

[img width=240]https://picload.org/image/rclipppa/spandaucondos_ecke_front.jpg[/img]

This way you can click on it to see the full size, but stay on sc4d:

(for some reason the first one is acting up)

Not sure if you have done it, but add a gradient to your textures. (most use darker: at the bottom).

[praiodan]

Thanks vester!
I re-implemented the pictures following your advice, thanks. I was simply copy&pasting the thumbnail URLs the host provided me. 

The textures all have a slight gradient, but I quite intended it not to be too strong, since I already applied the textures well visible plaster and bricks for visual interest. And also, don't forget these actually are quite freshly built buildings, so they wouldn't have been exposed to atmospheric conditions for too long, resulting in stronger gradients and streaks. 

[vester]

The gradient is not so much a result of weathering, but how lights work.

If you have a corner the two sides will make a slight shadow.
This is what in modeling is called Ambient occlusion.

Here is a scene with no colors, just a grey material:


You can easy see how the ground sort "shadow" for the light at ground level.

If you take a picture of a white building you will see the same effect.
Having a look at Using Photoshop's Dodge & Burn to Fake Ray-Tracing by gascooker