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BAT Showcase

Started by mattb325, February 01, 2007, 04:07:43 PM

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mattb325

Thanks guys.... so good to see you again, Robin! Let's hope you can find some time to fire up the game again  ;)

Over on Simtrop, nycsc4 posted a link to a mid-west town, and it's kind of a 'cauldron' of mid-rise bats (if that's the corrective collective noun for bats of the sc4 kind)

Anyway, the Midwestern Regional Bank caught my eye: its a shape we have in very short supply, probably because it is far more challenging to make than a simple rectangle.....








It's nice that the ATMs are visible, too...very rare that such details remain after the render  ::)

art128

Absolutely  love that one. The texture on the lobby's roof is excellent.

Nice to see you posting, Robin....... :D
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

fantozzi

Oh ...  :o ... so sweet! It's like getting two buildings in one, both sides very different and both can be placed towards the street.

Andreas

Definitely an eye-catcher! What about a diagonal version for a corner lot that features a little plaza with fountain and such? :)
Andreas

c.p.

Or if it were turned semi-diagonally, it could be plopped along a curve.
Anyway it's great as it is. :thumbsup:
Like PaPa-J, I'm amazed at how quickly you're producing these high quality BATs. :o

mattb325

#2125
Quote from: c.p. on April 27, 2019, 10:50:44 AM
Or if it were turned semi-diagonally, it could be plopped along a curve.

What a capitol idea  :thumbsup: Have a +1

Rotated 31.5 degrees it actually fits the 2x2 almost perfectly


Less so the larger curve, but still perfectly acceptable....


It could also be put onto a traditional corner lot, too, I guess...

My modelling skills are not 'proper' (as those with the engineering building model can attest) rather it is my own very unique way of meshes derived from primitives, lines and splines. Basically it's like I'm sketching, but using a computer. It's super quick for me, but it isn't 'accurate' like how someone like Jasoncw might model. On the Bat4blender thread you can see Tomvsotis has rendered out my model and taken really closeup pictures.  ::) $%Grinno$% :P
In SC4 scale that can't be seen.
I do know how to model correctly, but it is far too slow, the results really aren't any different in game from my lazy way and I loose patience after about an hour. The only time I use 'correct' polygon methods are when I am doing really fiddly but larger details on old buildings.

Tarkus

Even better yet, that 2x2 curve is getting a draggable version in NAM 37--all the more reason to use your excellent buildings!  :thumbsup: 

-Alex

fantozzi

#2127
My personal thoughts about your "lazy way".


If you listen to artists, most of them would deny that making exact and precise copies of the things than can be seen, covers the meaning of the word art.

Or as Aristotle said:

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."

On first sight this seems not to work on bats. But it does.  :P

For me to approach the meaning of the word "art" short cartoon strips in newspapers like f.e. calvin and hobbes were helpfull - how Bill Waterson was able to express – with a few concentrated strokes of a pen – so many fine nuances of human emotions and feelings. Art is always about to leave unimportant (non-telling) details behind and find the very characteristic lines and colors, the iconic gestures and to make them a deep expression. F.e. fervency:



On bats and props it's funny that people often call it a restriction - you can't preserve all the details and have to simplyfy lines, make thin lines thicker and grids rougher ... you are forced to accentuate certrain elements and to drop others instead. People call this a restriction and a hindrance for perfection. But from the artists point of view it isn't.
Those "limitations" match the artistic aproach: to focus on the characterstics - the essential shape, the deep expression, the root of things and the iconic. Seeing the lines and lights in nature that makes something unique and to give that a form, a poem, a painting, a 3d-model, so you can share what you recognized in a special moment.

This are the reasons why I'd call you an artist, because when you create bats you always bring out what Lessing called the "fruitfull moment" and could be named different like "essentiality" or something else.

Look at the bureaus of bureacracy f.e. The remarkable thing is - you can recognize them as what they are, as if you carved out this "fruitfull moment", the "esentiality" of this kind of building.

Your transit hub stations, the civics, police, hospitals, now the hotels - all they can be antetypes for the genre. The same, if you not make it by function but f.e. by style like "neoclassic" or "brutalist" etc - or if you do "bad economy" or "good economy" - you can do all kind of subjects and always like antetypes. You find an architectual expression for what's on your mind.

So that's something quite different from making replicas and allows you even to do fictional buildings.

And this is - imho - why you, apart from being a versed 3D-designer, you are also a true artist.

 

Andreas

I wouldn't call it "lazy", but "effective". ;) It's the result what counts, and if it looks good in the game, then you did a good job, even though one might spot some mistakes in super-close zoom (who plays the game in zoom 6, focusing on all those HD props all the time?). Besides, your textures are excellent, and those are contributing a big part to the overall appearance. :)
Andreas

mattb325

Thankyou guys, I'm glad to hear that the 2x2 will be draggable...nice one!!!!

Fantozzi, thanks for the kind words  ()stsfd() To me, a life without beauty is no life at all, so I am only too happy to take artistic liberties  :D

The Midwestern Regional Bank (both versions) is now released:




Here:
https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/32888-midwest-regional-bank/

c.p.

Thank for the k-point :)

I don't think a modelling process that allows you to efficiently and enjoyably create so many excellent (and popular) BATs can be considered "incorrect".

mattb325

Thanks cp  ;D  :thumbsup: One of these days I might make a tutorial on how to make a skyscraper from scratch in under 20 minutes..... :D

I've uploaded the Amethyst Suites & Inn.



Here:

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/32890-amethyst-suites-inn/

Tyberius06

Hi Matt!

As always beautiful creations! I love the Amethyst Suites building. It's so nice and brutal and w2w comaptible!  &apls &apls &apls

Thank you very much!

- Tyberius
You may find updates about my ongoing projects into my development thread here at SimCity 4 Devotion: Tyberius Lotting Experiments
or over there on Simtropolis into the Tyberius (Heretic Projects) Lotting and Modding Experiments.
I'm also member of the STEX Custodian and working on different restoration projects on behalf of non-anymore-active custom content creators.
Current projects: WMP Restoration and SimCity Polska Restoration.
Member of the NAM Team and RTMT Team.

fantozzi

#2133
Quote from: mattb325 on May 01, 2019, 05:21:07 PM
One of these days I might make a tutorial on how to make a skyscraper from scratch in under 20 minutes..... :D

Impossible. You may know, there is this movie "Space Balls", where the space ships travel fastest at "ridicoulous speed".  %BUd% If there was an opposite to this "ridicoulous speed" they would name it "fantozzical speed".  :sleeping:

Yesterday I was in France, making a short visit to the Minster of Strasbourg ...

... which would be a bat to slow you down.

After that I went to a supermarket and bought a box of "Coeur De Lyon" (https://www.frenchclick.co.uk/images/product/medium/382.jpg) and today I opened the box and it's so perfect and the smell fills all your inside, it's a treat, like heaven, like ...

... like your bats.

There's only one difference from perfect aged camembert.

I don't get fat from your bats. So I can enjoy them even without the remorse of unhealthy pleasures!


mattb325

#2134
 Thanks guys!

$%Grinno$%

20 minutes might be a slight exaggeration, but in the current era where all newer batters are just downloading/purchasing models from a 3d site, texturing and then putting into game via gmax, a basic skyscraper is certainly achievable in well under 60 minutes from start to finish using either gmax or 3dsmax. PS: I'm not making any value judgement about the practice, it's just a statement to preface the fact that modelling something from start to finish is an achievable alternative and achievable within the same timelines as using pre-made models.

In fact it is quicker for me to do a boxy skyscraper than a basic family house.

Skyscrapers are honestly pretty boring structures in reality, which is why I haven't made too many.

Take the crosstown hotel:


Clicky clicky

I have exploded it out.

The main elevation wall is made up of only 5 elements and they are all basic shapes:

1. The glass. This is just a rectangle converted to an editable spline (per the phillipbo tutorial - which was actually written in partnership with Maxisbrian, one of the lead Bat artists from SC4) with the spline duplicated to make the bottom triangular piece and then extruded by 0.05m
2. The window frame. This is completely unlike the phillipbo tutorial in that it is made of a single line whose segments are duplicated horizontally and rotated and duplicated vertically and the whole thing is set to renderable. You can see the settings in the side panel...achievable in both gmax and 3dsmax.
3. The glass floor infill. Again, just a line per point 2.
4. The concrete floor infill. Again, just a line per point 2.
5. The big diagonal piece: again, just a line per point 2.

And that, essentially, is the whole skyscraper. Together with roofjunk that I have made over the years and re-used, you can see that it really isn't a difficult thing once textured correctly.


Edit: @fantozzi, the thing I miss most from my time living in Europe is the cheese....amazing  :popcorn: Unfortunately in Australia, all cheese by law has to pasteurized/stored chilled and it just never tastes the same  &cry2

art128

I'd be very interested in a tutorial showing your way of making skyscrapers. My current technique of modeling is way too high poly to be able to make skyscrapers....
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

PaPa-J

I'd be interested in a tutorial as well. A chance to learn from a master would be awesome! :)
Lighten up, just enjoy life,
smile more, laugh more,
and don't get so worked up
about things.

mattb325

Thanks guys, I'll put something together.

@Art128, I'm not sure if my method is necessarily lower poly count. It is lower object count which also plays a part in render times. The PC I use for SC4 playing and modelling is an old clunker: Windows 7 and only 4GB of RAM  :bomb: I have a few other tips and tricks to reduce render times (out of necessity on such a low spec PC) which I'll add in, as well.

I have made the Engineering Department an Ortho building.



Here:
https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/32896-engineering-department/

Also released another Sydney recreation:




As you can see by the in progress shot, using just lines also works well for far more complicated structures

Available here:
https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/32898-amp-tower-sydney-cove/

mattb325

Another couple have been released:

Natura Apartments (I had almost forgotten about these....)



Here:
https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/32903-natura-apartments/

And the ortho version of the old NYPD Police Headquarters (the diagonal will follow soon):



Here:
https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/32907-old-nypd-headquarters-new-york/

matias93

I know it will sound exaggerated, but you cannot know how much fitting that pair of buildings are to my city! This is simply perfect, like a glove...

"Lets be scientists and as such, remember always that the purpose of politics is not freedom, nor authority, nor is any principle of abstract character,
but it is to meet the social needs of man and the development of the society"

— Valentín Letelier, 1895