JB School Packs - Because school shouldn't be boring!

EDGE4194 · November 01, 2008, 06:22:08 AM

i love eisenhower elementary. the style looks perfect for an early 60's school building. nice work jon.

JBSimio · November 01, 2008, 04:13:41 PM

Pat: Thanks! We'll be really close when you start seeing a University of Clayhurst thread here...

I guess I'd better buy a coffee maker since I never touch the stuff.

Allan: Thanks!

Caspervg: Thank you! A CML would be nice, but if that time comes I'd much rather be surprised by what it says... I think it would mean more if I didn't "write" it.

Spa: Thank you! You have a point about the air vents on Eisenhower... although I'm not sure why. I've never changed the size of those for any building... strange. Simple adjustment to make though.

Edge: Thanks!

Well, this one is basically closed up now. It should sit on a 5x3 or maybe 5x4 lot... which is a little bigger than most of the other elementaries but not really by much. I think the height and the mass of this one should give it a pretty decent capacity though. I'm still debating one or two minor changes in the back for this, but after that we'll be down to roof junk, textures, and lighting. Here's the latest...

More later (maybe tonight... but that depends)

JB

TheTeaCat · November 01, 2008, 04:16:17 PM

Yep looking good

As Usual

Nice work once again

TTC

JBSimio · November 01, 2008, 11:30:12 PM

Derry: Thank you!

I made the a first pass with the textures this evening. I'm not entirley sure if I like it or not... here's a look:

I can't even really say what may or may not be wrong with things but there's just something that doesn't sit right at the moment. Could be nothing... who knows? I guess there's really not much else to say at this point, so we'll just revisit things tomorrow!

Have a great night,
JB

XiahouDun · November 02, 2008, 12:00:16 AM

Very nice.

Reminds me of this school near me. It is actually was abandoned, and is now a paintball field

Maybe have a gym as a freestanding prop to go with it?

paroch · November 02, 2008, 12:26:15 AM

Hey Jon,

I think the texture is looking good there. When you say there's something that doesn't sit right, I guess that's because you've had a picture of this in your mind for some time now, and this texture doesn't match it. So I guess I'd say what was in your mind??

To me it's fine. I guess if enything it may be just a bit too uniform. It looks quite an old design, and yet the bricks all look pristine. Maybe it's a high wealth school, so they can afford to keep it looking spick and span. But if this was a state run school, then you can bet that at sometime some of the bricks would have been paineted, or had stuff screwed into them, or other such "vanadlism". But seriously, it's fine and would certainly grace many a city in SC4 world.

Hope all good with you btw.

Tale care,

Paul

tag_one · November 02, 2008, 01:37:24 AM

The textures look good to me, I like the brick walls a lot

DFire870 · November 02, 2008, 11:37:29 AM

I haven't posted in here yet Jon, but all of these schools look fantastic! We always need more variety with school buildings. This elementary school is great as well, I really like the brick texture. It kinda gives the school that old-ish urban look. Perhaps you could make the texture "grungier" like what paroch said.

-- John

JBSimio · November 02, 2008, 12:29:51 PM

XiahouDun: Thank you! A free standing gym is a nice possibility... the only problem being that I've never been to a school that has one. So I really don't know what kind of form it should take.

Paul: Thanks! Actually, the texture matched fairly well with what I had planned... I think it's the roof that was throwing me off. After all the multi-level, "messy" roof lines I've had on the past several buildings, this simple one just seemed lacking. I added some "patches" although I may have to redo a couple of them.

Tag_One: Thank you!

John: Thanks! I always have trouble making this brick color "grungy"... my tendency is to end up with something way too dark. I'll toy around a little more though.

I made a few small changes. I added a little bit of red to the brick and then threw in some newer patches here and there. The patching wasn't difficult to do, but it was very time consuming. Some of them could probably use a couple tweaks still. I also changed the window frames to something a little lighter. I did save the original textures, so going back to them would be pretty simple if need be. Here's a look...

Better? Worse? Fix this one or go back to the first one? $:-\$

JB

papab2000 · November 02, 2008, 12:42:53 PM

I like it.

Looks like the schools still in use in Detroit, minus the bobbed wire fences.

Zaphod · November 02, 2008, 12:54:30 PM

I think it's fine. I prefer the warmer brick color anyways, I think it will look better when you lot it. You know looking at your BAT renders with a black background might make you get a different impression of your color choices...

Anyways just something funny about the previous comment about the pool...say you swam 6 laps back and forth in a pool, something that most people can do, would be 12 times across 1.5 tiles, or 18 tiles, which is approximately one quarter the distance across a small city tile.

This only brings up more about relative distances in the game. For example, if you travel a total of 6 miles on a bicycle during a normal day, that would be riding across 4 and a half large city tiles.

I think if we could warp ourselves into the game we'd all be star triathelets

DFire870 · November 02, 2008, 01:08:24 PM

Ooh, I really like both, but the second one that's ore red is perfect.

And the school kinda reminded me of a building, but I couldn't remember what building it was until now. It used to be Austin High School, but now it's the home of one of the local community college's campuses. Here's what it looks like on Windows Live Local: Link. If you want an idea for a gym, there's one on this campus, it's to the northwest of the big building on that map (near the boiler's smokestack). Now it's an auditorium, but it used to be a gym when it was still a high school.

-- John

JBSimio · November 02, 2008, 04:50:02 PM

Papab: Thanks! I found a great batch of pictures with Detroit schools recently... but this isn't one of them.

Zaphod: Thank you! I was never overly concerned with the color itself... more of an unknown feeling that something wasn't right but I couldn't pin down what it was.

John: Thanks for the link!

A couple more changes and some lighting...

I added some skylights over the stairwells... call it part of a more recent remodel if you like... mostly just to give the roof a little more interest. I may still change a thing or two, but this one should be just about done. One more to go!

JB

later... And here's a very early look at it. This will definitely end up as the largest elementary school of any pack so far. Not quite as big as the high school, but probably not very far off either.

Just a teaser for now...

JBSimio · November 03, 2008, 10:56:27 PM

I didn't quite manage to get as far with this as I had hoped today, but it is slowly taking shape. On the same note, the overall size of this is quickly getting out of hand.

I'm already pushing 10 tiles wide... although the good news is it wouldn't go any further than that. I may take out a glass panel or something to shorten the wings, but I'm not sure yet. It might just end up being ridiculously big...

Anyway, here's a look:

The roof textures are just temporary, so ignore that for now. Still no front entry, but it should be fairly plain where that's going to be. I really just ran out of time to really start in on it. Once I get past that, I really don't have any idea where I'm going with the rest of it though...

Should make for a nice surprise for all of us!

Til next time,
JB

Pat · November 03, 2008, 11:03:33 PM

Jon where do I send a bill to for a new keyboard lol.... great job here wow!!!!!

Howling · November 04, 2008, 12:39:22 AM

I'd like to quote a well known song: "I'm so excited!" And yes, I cannot hide it

JBSimio · November 04, 2008, 09:15:13 PM

Pat: Thanks! You can send the bill to a large YMCA camp in Michigan. I'm sure they still owe me a few things...

Howling: Thank you!

Another somewhat small update... I made a few size adjustments and made a very small beginning on some of the back areas. Most of it is just roughed in and will undoubtedly change, but I'm still just trying out some ideas at this point.

I'll try to get more done tomorrow when there isn't so much happening on CNN...

JB

art128 · November 05, 2008, 01:38:10 AM

that school look awesome my friend

Geronimo · November 05, 2008, 02:17:05 AM

Yupp, lookin really good! Great work so far!

JBSimio · November 06, 2008, 11:49:03 PM

Arthur: Thank you, my friend!

Geronimo: Thanks! I'm glad you like it.

Well, this is coming together a little bit at a time. I'm quickly learning that my choice in angles for this has made things much more difficult. I keep having to rotate things around... check the fit... rotate them back to work on them some more... and over and over and over again.

So here's another small update:

In other news... I decided to start exporting these and getting a couple lots done. South Elementary was the first to go... so here's a look at that:

Not a whole lot to say on this one... it's a pretty standard "Maxis like" lot to match the earlier school packs. This is 4x4, but with the extra height from the second floor, the capacity is almost double what Lincoln or Parkside have (which are also 4x4 lots for those of you keeping score at home). That's about it for tonight...

JB