Threestooges and the BAT

[thingfishs]

Hi threestooges,
Great looking building, it reminds me of a chicken farm I know. I agree that the roof texture could be improved when compared to your awesome looking walls. The left hand side of your roof has some diagonals in it and I think overall I would try lowering the contrast on it slightly and lower the brightness on it by a bit more. (disclaimer: I don't really know what I'm talking about )

[Jmouse]

Hey Matt! The roof seems to be a combination of what appear to be darker grey oblong tiles scattered among lighter grey horizontal strips. Almost as though the roof can't decide whether it wants to be made of shingles or corrugated tin! I see you've included some light brown weathering, though, and it looks great.

As it stands, the roof just looks a bit unnatural to me, and I hope I've explained myself in a way that will be helpful to you. Once again, let's see what the experts have to say. Our master BATters here have always been very generous in providing constructive critique and excellent suggestions.

Later...
Joan

[gottago]

hi threestooges, really good-looking warehouse/shed, the griminess is very convincing.

About the roof, you're using a texture that represents standing-seam copper that has weathered green (verdigris). It's an expensive material and would only be used on churches or historic public buildings.  The scale is off too, it could be 20% larger; this is why jmouse can't decide what it is.

Something like this would be more appropriate, standing-seam zinc, appropriately grimed up:


The square-pillow vents are pretty overscaled and shiny-new, which makes them stand out too much--if you shrink them by 20-30% and put a dull, grimy metallic texture on them they'll fit in much better. Also, it might be good to remove one or two pairs and re-space them--you've got quite a lot for that size structure. If I'm reading them wrong and they're supposed to be skylights, they need more transparency and a duller, darker texture.

Hope this helps!

[threestooges]

Replies:
-thingfishs: Free range chickens eh? Maybe a farm lot in the future perhaps. It is large enough for it. The diagonals, I'm not sure what causes them, but it's not the texture. Rotate it 90 degrees and it's fine. It might be something about the slope of the roof that's causing the issue. At any rate, there's a new texture there now which also seems to show it a bit. Thanks for the reply.


-Joan: Perfect clarification Joan. Part of that dark spot light spot thin was me trying to make certain sections look a bit more worn. New texture up though. As always, looking for thoughts.


-gottago: Thanks for the quick lesson on the roofing. To be honest, I saw it and thought the color and seams looked good. If it was copper, it would quite likely be the target of theft with the price of copper where it is these days. Someone would get to work, and find the roof gone. To avoid this problem, contractors have decided to try out the standing-seam zinc. They messed with it a bit, and it's not on the new version of the building. Thanks for the texture. They are meant to by skylights, but the opaque kind that let in a soft ambient light that diffuses easily. I did try to grim them up a bit to fit with the rest of the building though.


Here it is in its newest form, still waiting on doors, and likely some additional junk for the roof if it's needed:


-Matt

[thingfishs]

I think this still needs some work, there are obvious lines of colour along the roof from the texture repeating. I'm sure gottago will suggest how to best remedy this. It's also now got too many skylights for my book (there's no pleasing everybody ) I think it will look better.

The chicken farm in question is a basic open plan building the entire floor of which (the one time I actually peered through a hole in the wall, whilst heavily inebriated... ) was covered with tiny yellow chickens. (I swear ) Not exactly free range I fear.

you're using a texture that represents standing-seam copper that has weathered green (verdigris). It's an expensive material and would only be used on churches or historic public buildings.

Who knows this stuff? , I'm impressed.

[Monorail Master]

Wow. I like your chicken farm Matt, good job

-Matthew B. Green
(yea, I'm the other Matt  )

[thingfishs]

Wow. I like your chicken farm Matt, good job

(it might just be destiny )

[gottago]

Who knows this stuff? , I'm impressed.

Pretty basic stuff for anyone working in architecture, actually  

I also I agree with the rest of thingfishs' post: the roof texture looks better but is creating stripes/repeats in both directions--always a potential problem when you tile it using UVW maps. Best way to avoid this is to tile the basic texture in photoshop, making a large 1-to-1 texture the same dimensions as one roof element. Then you can dodge and burn the tiling out and grime it up to your heart's content.

You also might want to tweak the color a bit to kill the purple-magenta cast and bring it more in line with the siding--drop the saturation and push it a bit more towards green--it'll make it look more aged, too.

Also agree with tf re: the skylights, but it's your baby and do what you like best.

[threestooges]

Hey, more than a year later, and I'm going again. I figure this is a decent start for a KFC.



I have a few signage options going too.



Both of which should be flexible enough for other companies too. Any thoughts on the other ones would be welcome.
-Matt

[Jmouse]

Glad to see KFC back on the menu, Matt. This is something I could try LOTting. And speaking of...could you send me a picture of the small station's footprint? A top view in the BAT would be ideal. Maybe I can use it to show you why I had problems with it and you might be able to set me on the right track. No pun intended of course!

[threestooges]

Didn't know if you meant "small" as in the the small one I'm working on, or the smallest one I  gave you (which was the middle one in the set), so here's an overview of all three:

[threestooges]

Moving along on the fast food front, here's something that those of you from California should recognize (and likely begin drooling as a result):



In-N-Out Burger, complete with its distinctive sign (day and night version):



Yes, I know it needs roof junk. I just need to get to the point where I can make it look convincing, and not just a pile of boxes.
-Matt

[Jmouse]

Looking good, Matt. And if course you know the drill: Besides some roof junk and dinginess, maybe darken the bottom edge of the structure a bit. The thing that worries me is the zigzag rooflines and zigzags at the base of the walls. It could be my monitor causing the problem. I don't have an HD graphic card, so that might be the reason.

I hope you'll finish this up. It feels great to complete a project you've had on the back burner for much too long!

[threestooges]

If by zigzags, you mean the two larger models, that's just an artifact of zooming in on the render (that's how it'll look at zoom 6) and saving it as a jpg. It'll be fine in the game. I thought I'd dirtied up the base of the wall texture, but apparently I didn't do it well enough. I'll have another stab at it though. Thanks for the feedback Joan.

[threestooges]

Slowly improving (hard to get worse) on my texturing. Thought I'd get some feedback if I could.



Any other thoughts are welcome too, as always.
-Matt

[Jmouse]

Geez, we don't even have 3-track rail yet and he's already  making bridges for it. I like the metal texture with what appears to be rust spots, Matt. The RL side of my brain tells me a bridge would be made out of something that wouldn't rust or coated with something that would prevent rust. The SC4 side tells me the rust looks better than shiny metal. 

[jmyers2043]

Hey Matt

Nice looking bridge segment. How many bridge segments are between each trestle? I'm thinking the trestle model will be a way to solve rust spot repitition.

- Jim

[threestooges]

I was planning to have 1, 2 at the most, of these segments between each pillar. I know I'll need to do something to avoid rust spot repetition, but how would you recommend doing it Jim?
-Matt

[Cali]

Wonderful work. It's been awhile since we had an updated more realistic version of kfc and in n out. I love it...

[threestooges]

Progress:



-Matt