Tag's Residential Projects

[Andreas]

Positively ugly, and ridiculously shabby.
In other words, perfect ghettos.

What he said. A few of them maybe, slightly different, in a prop family would make a nice addition to the game - esp. since it's a midrise, which are rarely BATted by anyone.

[tag_one]

citycapitalizer, Thanks!

j-dub , Thanks! From a distance it indeed looks like the same building is build over and over again. But if you look closer you can see differences in brickwork and details on the buildings. Like this:


This is also what I'm planning to to in my ghetto packs

Andreas, Thanks! I'm planning to do quite a few of them with different details and some color variations.

I've been working again on this project and I finished another building. This building has beige textures instead of dirty brickwork (in case you didn't noticed ). It also has a small chimney on the side of the building. Here's a picture:

[io_bg]

Good work on that building but in my opinion the stairs in front of its entrance are too steep

[tag_one]

^^ Thanks for your comment, I changed the stairs a bit as you recommended

[pingangster]

This is a great little project you've got going here, Tag_one! I can never get enough ghetto buildings I'm looking forward to your next update!
-Pingangster

[RebaLynnTS]

Very nice work.

[tag_one]

Thanks for your comments Reba and pingangster, I'm glad you like them

Here are the first ingame shots from the buildings. The three buildings I rendered grew nicely next to each other:


and the back with the 'back yard'


At the moment I've only 1 R$ lot done with a building family on it. I'll make some more lots so that there's a bit of variation between the plants and the garbage

[SimGoober]

Looks good!  One minor idea; to make a more subtle variation, pretend the builder made a mirror image of the floor plan.  Most of the building would look the same, but minor details would flip; say the elevator access on the roof would be on the other side, and the main entrance would be flipped.  Subtle changes that might work.

Here are the first ingame shots from the buildings. The three buildings I rendered grew nicely next to each other:

Ahh.. so you got all three variations to grow side by side?  Nice!  May earn a new nick name "BAT tamer" ... 

[tag_one]

Thanks Jeff! The BAT Tamer, that sounds quite cool

Here's another image, the ghetto is taking shape now. ATM I've 7 buildings rendered. I'm planning to do 3 more to get a nice number of buildings.

[SimNation]

Love these ghetto apartment sets you are working on man. They look realistic compared to their real life counter parts.

[pingangster]

I love the buildings, but I'm not so sure about the lots. I would suggest a more urban looking lot, with alleyways, dumpsters, etc. The forest look doesn't quite fit in with the ghetto environment.
-Pingangster

[j-dub]

That picture, the second in game one actually seals the deal that it is a bad neighborhood in SimCity. I think for the lots, the grass texture needs to be duller, for that matter we have Maxis textures that would actually work in this situation to purposely make these lots look bad, but in reality you may just see cracked asphalt at the bottoms of these buildings, but a texture that would compromise it with being ghetto and keep the plants would be that dull mud texture Maxis supplied in the Lot Editor. I don't know the exact ID's, just what they look like. The first picture with the lively trees is very uncommon, the second one where the trees are deader seems right. So, back to Lot Editing, to resolve the nice looking ground issues, there also are prop families of garbage such as dumpsters, bags, and stripped/wrecked cars that are vital for these lots. There also is the chalked body one, which I will see that building after building in some of my cities. Those should all be in the Lot Editor already.

[Andreas]

Well, even in a run-down area, the trees shouldn't be affected by the decay. On the contrary, you might see trees and bushes everywhere, slowly growing over the development, as nature is taking back what was once taken from it.

[joelyboy911]

Yes, Andreas, but its really for effect.

It makes the whole place look distressed and somewhat decrepit, like even the plants wouldn't want to live near that. It looks hideous - Well Done!

These ghettoes look superb.

[tag_one]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I relotted the lot and added a more urban feeling to it:


I haven't used the maxis dirt textures as I didn't liked them much. I think this industrial concrete texture will do the job as well

[Andreas]

Ah yes, those lots fit a lot better indeed. I like the dense bushes and trees along the lot border in particular - perfect flora that doesn't seem to be maintained at all.

There seems to be a glitch with your buildings, though. Look at the area where the facade touches the ground: it's not a straight line, but it looks "fretted". Maybe due to the method you used to make them slope-friendly? It wasn't that apparent on the grass lots, but on the new ones, it really stands out.

[tag_one]

Thanks Andreas! The glitch is because of the custom LODs for the building. To show the basement level without too much annoying glitches I covered the building in custom LODs. I didn't want to give the LOD too much poly's so the shape for the emergency stairs goes all the way down. This causes the small glitch you noticed. These glitches are underneath all the stairs. On the street side I covered them with garbage. In the back I didn't because I didn't found the look of it annoying. It looks a bit like an airshaft for the basement windows. But if you and other don't like it, I'll place some props on it

[Andreas]

Well, there are probably ways to reduce those glitches, but I'm not a BATter, so I can't provide any hints on that, unfortunately. Maybe someone else has an idea. But as you said, it's probably sufficient to place a few props there (dumpsters, bushes etc.) for hiding the worst parts (i. e. the building corner above the dog house).

[SimNation]

Man...I have never seen anything so ghetto looking in a long time. Fantastic!

[j-dub]

Much more realistic work Tag.