Three Rivers Region

[tooheys]

Damn, would have to reticulate some very old splines to rebuild that  But would love to see it.

[JoeST]

Damn, would have to reticulate some very old splines to rebuild that  But would love to see it.

Oh man...that was terrible fantastic

Joe

[metarvo]

Hi, David!    3RR gets a little lonely during the extended absences, so I'm glad to see that you're still around.  How did you manage to find that boat, anyway?  It looks ancient.  At least you did give us the length, which will help with the BATting when someone decides to give it a try.

[threestooges]

Well now, that's a fancy old relic there. Never BATted a boat before, but there's a first time for everything I suppose. Since no one else has annouced an intention to BAT this that I've seen here, I think I'll 'speriment for a bit (but don't let that stop any of the BATters out there who actually know what they're doing).
-Matt

-edit:
After a little work, and a preview render, I found out that the game's perspective effectively hides most of a boat's hull when it tapers down like that. The cabin is under way now, as is the rest of the deck. It's going along fairly well too except for a little problem with the extruding of the curved face in the front. Since it's right out of the shop, the textures are a bit clean, rest assured,they'll be dirtied up before it's done.



As for the problem with the cabin section. I made 2 arcs for the top and bottom of the wall, connected vertical lines at the endpoints, and used a similar process on a smaller scale for the windows, like a basic rectangular wall, just with arcs in the mix. I welded all the corners and extruded, but the middle window gets blocked out and the faces aren't clean. It's like there are invisible vertices or something that the extrusion is showing. If anyone knows a potential cause of that, thoughts would be appreciated.

[adroman]

That looks awesome threestooges!

Can't wait to see it in action, 

Havva good one.

[JBSimio]

As for the problem with the cabin section. I made 2 arcs for the top and bottom of the wall, connected vertical lines at the endpoints, and used a similar process on a smaller scale for the windows, like a basic rectangular wall, just with arcs in the mix. I welded all the corners and extruded, but the middle window gets blocked out and the faces aren't clean. It's like there are invisible vertices or something that the extrusion is showing. If anyone knows a potential cause of that, thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi Matt,

This appears to be one of those areas where GMAX falls short.  Many people would probably suggest using the bolean function to cut windows out of the wall (most likely made with a tube in this case)... but GMAX also seems to have some quirks when it comes to texturing such a piece later.  In fact, base on what you've shown here, any textures you apply to this wall will also be screwed up along those shadow-like "folds" and such that you can see on the wall.  I have some thoughts which I will PM to you shortly. 

JB

[mayorfabz]

Quote from: threestooges on Today at 11:48:40 AM
As for the problem with the cabin section. I made 2 arcs for the top and bottom of the wall, connected vertical lines at the endpoints, and used a similar process on a smaller scale for the windows, like a basic rectangular wall, just with arcs in the mix. I welded all the corners and extruded, but the middle window gets blocked out and the faces aren't clean. It's like there are invisible vertices or something that the extrusion is showing. If anyone knows a potential cause of that, thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi Matt,

This appears to be one of those areas where GMAX falls short.  Many people would probably suggest using the bolean function to cut windows out of the wall (most likely made with a tube in this case)... but GMAX also seems to have some quirks when it comes to texturing such a piece later.  In fact, base on what you've shown here, any textures you apply to this wall will also be screwed up along those shadow-like "folds" and such that you can see on the wall.  I have some thoughts which I will PM to you shortly.  Wink

JB

Jeeze how did I end up on the Klingon version of 3RR??

Sorry I am but a total BAT-Ignoramus 

Good luck on your 3D endeavours,
Fabien

[Gaston]

Jeeze how did I end up on the Klingon version of 3RR??

Perhaps these links might help then Fabien

• KLI
• Tables
• Phrases

Hope that helps   


---Gaston

[JBSimio]

I thought I was going to just send this to Matt personally, but then I thought it might be useful to some others as well... so I decided to just post it here. 

Anyone who BATs knows that there are many countless ways to accomplish the same thing... so by no means am I presenting this as the ONLY solution.  It might not even be the best one, but it is the method I use most often and I know it works fine with GMAX which doesn't offer all the extra options that Max users are able to use.  So here is my suggestion in the hopes that it will help Matt or anyone else who might be interested.

1.1


For the bottom and top portions of the curved wall, I would just use tubes.  The settings shown here are just for the sake of example, but this would give you a front cabin which is 6 meters across.  Notice also that "Slice On" is checked and the from and to coordinates below will give you a half circle facing the front.  The center of the tube is also at 0,0 which will be important later.

1.2


For the top of the curved wall, I just cloned the bottom portion and increased the outside radius to give it the overhang seen in David's original picture.  The high-lighted piece is another clone of the first piece, but with the sides changed to 5 and the smoothing turned off.  This piece (Tube03) will become my template for making the window section of the wall.  Let's hide the bottom and top sections and make some windows now.

1.3


Basically, I just snap a regtangle to the corners of one single section of the tube... preferably the front one.  You'll notice in the rest of the pictures that I adjusted the height (labeled length in the parameters) of this piece to 1.9 to avoid having it looked squashed.  Not really important to what we're doing, but I just mention it to avoid confusion.  The important thing here is NOT to change the width of this piece.

1.4


This will now be the wall for our window to sit inside.  I just cloned the original rectangle and made it smaller for the window opening.  Then I did an edit spline, attached the two rectangles and extruded them to make the wall.  Note that because we traced the front of the curved wall, I extruded the piece -0.3 (negative).  This will make a difference in how the edges line up!

1.5


I then added a window frame (and glass, which you won't see a separate picture of) and centered both inside the wall.  I also add any UVW maps and final modifiers I need before moving on.  At this point, I will now group all three pieces (wall, frame, glass) to make them act as a single section of wall.

1.6


Here is the most important part... and possibly the only real tricky thing to do.  Make sure you have the top view high-lighted.  Select this newly formed group and then click on the Hierarchy tab.  Click the box that says Affect Pivot Point Only and make sure you have the Select and Move button pressed.  Now go down to the x,y,z coordinates and move the pivot point to the center of your original tubes.  (Remember how they were at 0,0 at the beginning?)  I also recommend after setting this option that you then click on the Select and Rotate button as well and make sure that the rotating pivot matches your moving pivot as you see in this picture.  (For some reason, GMAX doesn't always accept the changes automatically like it should)

1.7


Now, we can simply clone and rotate the other four wall sections into place.  Make sure you click back to the modify tab first!  Try also not to switch the view while doing this as it tends to reset the pivot points (same annoying glitch I just mentioned for some reason.)  All we need to know is how much to rotate these new pieces by.  Well a half circle is 180 degrees, and we want it divided into 5 sections... 180 divided by 5 is 36.  So, with the Select and Rotate button, we just enter 36 for Z... the others would be 72, -36, and -72.  Five wall sections... all lined up and ready to go!

1.8


And there it is... I would probably also add a "window sill" and other trim pieces using arches or tubes and then go from there.  I also made a couple adjustments for the new window height and thickness to cover the inside of the curve a bit better.

JB

[threestooges]

Not only have you demonstrated an excellent work around (proof again that there is more than one way to skin a cat in the BAT), but you have also answered a question that's pestered me for some time: namely how to modify where the axis pivot origin thingy is for model pieces. While I was hoping to have a perfectly round front, this will certainly do the trick. I'll have a go at it here today or tomorrow (paper coming due, but shouldn't be too bad). Thanks Jon!
-Matt

[abcvs]

Congratulations to David for the addition of ST-3RR to the Simtropolis CJ Hall of Fame.

The Simtropolis City Journal Hall of Fame includes the following City Journals due to their intricate design and long following of fellow SimTropolis members. The journals here have inspired many generations of Simtropolians and their followers have nominated these journals for several trixies.



The Three Rivers Region

Author: Dedgren (David)
Type: Project, Development, Educational
Genre: Collobaration
Started: Mar-12-2006
Concluded: Dec-25-2008
Trixie Wins: 2006: Most Edcuational CJ, CJ's Statistical Addiction Award
Total Pages: 73
Total Replies: 2175
Total Views at Conclusion: 68157
Total Views: @ Sep-30-2009: 76738 (*That is over 8500 views since 3RR was closed.)

From the first pages, where we learned how to organise our plugin folders and turn off the U-Drive it icons, to the last page where we marvelled at the extraordinary sight of a fully functional, draggable single track railway, David has kept us on the edge of our seats, never quite knowing what will crop up next in this amazing journey of virtual city building simulation.

One of the early major highlights of 3RR was when it was discovered how to make 'land bridges', that is a bridge above sea level, which was never intended to be possible by the original Maxis creators. David, however is never one to simply accept that the way the Maxis developers intended for us to play the game, should be the only way to play it - FAR from it.

This screen shot is of David's first ever land bridge... and it changed the way we built in game bridges forever. The original 3RR tutorial How to Build a Land Bridge is now in the Omnibus.



The other notable acheivement and lasting contribution to the Simcity City Building community was the developement of the FAR (Fractional Angled Road) and FARR (Fractional Angled Rail Road). Now taken for granted by many, these came to us courtesy of many late night, airport waiting area sessions on David's trusty laptop.





The last screen shot that David gave us was of his yet again game changing, STR (Single Track Rail), one of his last major projects before he retired ST-3RR.





Of course as David would oft beholden and remind us... there is always much more going on over at 3RR SC4D.

[JoeST]

congratulations David,

[metarvo]

This is a well-deserved award, David, and you have most certainly earned it.  Those four quads at the beginning of 3RR have multiplied and resulted in a huge region, many new transportation options, and several helpful tutorials.  You have the right to be proud, David!

[Ryan B.]

David, what an honor!  3RR is definitely deserving of that award!

[dedgren]

Thank you to the folks at ST for the recognition of 3RR-ST as HoF-worthy.

I'll have more to say about that in a bit.

Thanks too to my friends who have taken an interest in the boat.  We'll be returning to that, too.

* * *

The default RealRoads set is progressing slowly but surely.  It took most of the past week to overcome a severe aliasing problem in the diagonals.





Later.


David

444166

[adroman]

Congrats on the award! 

Those RealRoads really (alliteration, eh?) live up to their name, they look brilliant!

Well done... 

[ecoba]

David,

The Real Roads are looking fantastic. The textures on them actually- in my opinion- look like the many RHW-2 textures combined into one great network.

I will most definitely be using the Real-Roads to the best of my ability when they are released.

Have fun, my friend,

Ethan

[metasmurf]

Can't wait for the real roads 

[just_a_guy]

Awesome and very realistic roads! They really do live up to their name. And congrats on the award

[metarvo]

Now, this is The Real Thing.  I just knew there would be some closed-door 3RR development going on while you were away, David.  Good work!