Cogeo's BAT showcase

[cogeo]

Hi,

As I had posted in the Census Repository thread, I'm currently () making a new BAT, to use the Census Repository Query. The two reward buildings (Census Repository Facility and Vault) do not fit nicely in my cities. So I have picked a small civic building to BAT, which is easier to blend in my cities.

Here is a pic:


And an aerial:


My progress so far:

(obviously, there are quite many differences compared to the original building, but the purpose here is to make a BAT that will look the best ingame)

I'm facing some problems though and need some help:
- A special glass texture (check out this thread).
- Is there some way to take a mesh object in gmax and make it repeat along a path (curve)? I mean unlike the array tool, which only allows linear displacements and/or rotations.
- It would be of great help, if someone could grand me some ready-made BAT components, for the following objects:
    - Some planters (potted flowers and/or small plants). I suck with plants, and using props there (on the roof) would require very tricky LODs.
    - A nice-looking roof access thingy. The shed at the back will go of course, so I need something more lightweight and visually less disruptive.
    - A HVAC. I know there is one on the STEX, but it's bulky, and it's shape is rather narrow and tall, which makes it not very much suitable for this BAT.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

[thingfishs]

Good idea cogeo, I hope you share it. I just use the vault because I am yet to build a city in which the repository fits visually. I am actually half way through making a replacement park for the camelot counter (which I find also stands out too much in the places I tend to build. As for hvac units, there are more than 1 on the STEX, are any of these any use?

http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=17187

http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=2998

http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=12786

[cogeo]

Thanks for the links thingfishs! I think I'll take one of these, modify one of these and use it. But if someone has a more proper one (wide and low, preferably <2m tall and with many fans), please post.

I haven't yet found the glass texture I'm looking for.

There has been quite a progress with the BAT since yesterday, but I think it wouldn't be right to post pics everyday (next pic after the texturing is done).

Someone will have to teach me how to make reward scripts.

Hope it turns out good.

[CasperVg]

There is a very helpful tutorial about reward scripts by Daeley. Have a look here 

[Rayden]

    - Some planters (potted flowers and/or small plants). I suck with plants, and using props there (on the roof) would require very tricky LODs.
   

See if you can make use of this: [linkie]

It's not ready made bats, but some low polly 3ds models I had on my disk.

[cogeo]

@caspervg: Thanks for the link! I willsee what I can do with this.

@Rayden: Thanks for the models! Just one question: They are in .3DS format which means that I have to import them in gmax. There is only a little problem, they are huge and whether I check the "Convert Units" check box in the import dialog this doesn't help. Of course I can scale them down. But is this the only way to do so?

[cogeo]

OK, there has been some little progress with the BAT, and a first render. It's far from fininshed, as many things are still missing (no doors, details, decorations etc), but the basic work is done, so I would like to have some reviews. Here is a pic (click on the image again to zoom):



I think some things could be improved:
- Replace the basic yellow texture with a more fine-grained one, this one looks rather a little coarse. Do you have any? This is the finest I could find (I don't care about the colour, only the pattern, I will make it grayscale and re-colorise it anyway). Otherwise I may try creating it from scratch (just put some "noise" on a flat/uniform texture and colorise, I think this is the finest possible).
- The colour has got a slightly greenish tint, maybe make it a tad more yellow.
- I think I could scale the whole thing down by some 10%.

(Please add your own comments, ideas or suggestions).

I need some further help. Does anybody know how to mod this? I think the closest building would be the Bureau of Bureaucracy, or maybe a Town Hall (they are different Occupant Groups), however I don't know if plopping a building with these Occupant Groups causes any effects, like making it (the ingame one) unavailable or causing any simulator to work differently. Btw I have never figured out what the Town Hall really does (the game says "City government is more efficient", but I have no idea how). So, how about making it a simple plain civic/reward building with no other effects (just a moderate landmark effect, over a relatively limited radius)?

Also pls take a look at the posts above, esp that "array along a path" thing.

Thanks

[Gilikov1994]

great BAT's Cogeo

Isn't be great to have some Greek W2W?
I think that would be great to have in SC4, can you make that you think?

Wish you all the best,

- Giel

[cogeo]

great BAT's Cogeo

Isn't be great to have some Greek W2W?
I think that would be great to have in SC4, can you make that you think?

Wish you all the best,

- Giel

Thanks for the nice comments!
I have indeed considered made some Greek W2W BATs, but I couldn't find any worthy ones (in the aerial photo above you can see some, but they are architectuarally rather... indifferent). There are some very nice ones in my home city (Thessaloniki, Aristotles' road/square) but the style is essentially Italian/Fench, and I think such BATs have been released long ago (and they are really hard to make too).


As for the BAT I'm currently working on, most modeling and texturing is done. Only some details are missing, and... the nightlighting, which I really like it and find the easiest step. Here is a low-qaulity preview (click on the image again to zoom):



The planters are from Rayden (see previous post), and they were really very convenient (I don't think I could ever make them). Thanks Rayden! 

Some notes:
- The skylight thingy barely blends architecturaly, so I'm open to suggestions here. Maybe a somehow darker glass would make it less disrruptive?
- ANy hint for the "array along a path" thing? (see the previous post). Maybe it's named differently, but I don't know how.

Thanks

[Sam Johnson]

First of all The building is really nice modelled and has nice textures so far 

I think It would be really great if you would fill up the roof terrace with some chairs, tables maybe some sun shades (except you plan something different than a roof terrace there )

And then one last thing I just want to note is that the small plants look a bit like plastic

Otherwise great BAT so far 

[cogeo]

Hi again,

I'm almost finished with the above BAT. Here is another low-qaulity preview render, with nightlights this time (click on the image again to zoom):

I think It would be really great if you would fill up the roof terrace with some chairs, tables maybe some sun shades (except you plan something different than a roof terrace there )

And then one last thing I just want to note is that the small plants look a bit like plastic

The plants look indeed a little plastic, so maybe I need to darken/desaturate them a little. The glossiness cannot be reduced, because the models have an extremely big number of (small) faces, and this is what causes this effect (they aren't mine). They are collapsed meshes, so reducing the number of faces is not possible either. As for the chairs and tables, I'm afraid they wouldn't look just right on a building like this.

The nightlights at the front and the right side are uneven. And of course some nightwindows will be turned off. Any suggestion about a better texture here (I have dled both packages from the STEX, so I'm not asking for links, just suggestions).

I'm not sure how to make the three windows at the top. Here is how the original building is [liNKIE]. Make it a "normal" nightwindow, or try to put the figures on? This is the best pic I have, and I'm not sure what these figures depict exactly.

As you can see, the title is in Greek (this is modelled), and I'm considering making an English version as well.

Also I haven't yet put any roof access thingy, and I'm still open to suggestions here.

Hope you like it.

[thingfishs]

it looks fantastic cogeo, I love the night version as well. 

With the exception of the plants though, they do look garishly green, especially the ones in the four corners. I look forward to using this repository myself...

[cogeo]

OK, I'm basically done with the BAT. Here is the rendered BAT, in its final (I hope  ) form (click on the image again to zoom):



Took 6½ hours to render in HD! The changes are:
- Fixed the plants and planters (I think they don't look "plastic" now).
- Fianlly made the stained glass windows at the top.

However there are some technical problems:
- The LODs cause some disortions in some zoom/rotation views. I think this can be solved if they are simplified a little.
- The skylight at the top isn't lit. Instead, if you look closely you will see a rather "corrupted" nightmap texture. Can anyone help with this please?
- Also the nightwindows (used the Equinox "Cerulean" blue) are way too dim. I set the global intensity to 0.85; I guess these nightmaps were designed for use with a full 1.00 intensity. Anyone having experience with this nightmap.

I'll try another render. Hope it works this time.

[cogeo]

Hi again,

I'm almost finished with BAT and lot.
I would like to thank once more all the people who have helped in any way (commenting, suggesting models and of course translating).

Waiting for a final review, I have made an alternative model, with the title in English. Here is a pic:



I have also added some custom fences, and following Barby's suggestion, changed the good old Maxis texture. It's derived from BSC mega-pack, but modified as needed (10 pavement tiles instead of 8 in a lot tile - better matches the building's and fences' dimentions).

Also tried a different (diagonal one), again derived from the BSC pack:



Which one you think looks best?

I have alerady made the installer, and the BAT is about to be released in the next few days.

Thnaks

[thingfishs]

it looks great cogeo and will certainly become my new Repository. Personally I like the diagonal one better.

[SimFox]

Oh! It is a sweet little building.

First paving, though is no good. it is totally flat (unlike good old maxis ones) it look like something thrown in in MSPaint of something. Just see the contrast between it and the game paving next to it. Second on the other hand, although also flat like most of the textures in custom texture packs has saving grace of the quit tight and very very fitting pattern. So I'd say it looks very good. You can still make it a bit better by introducing some variance into it. For instance add a layer in Photoshop with "difference clouds" and mix it with the base as overlay, or soft light. Play with opacity to get to the point where you ca not really see the pattern of clouds but just have some slight and random looking variations in the base texture.

I'm not sure if this is not too late, but you may also a bit reconsider the color of the top floor windows. first of all there is this contradictions here - you skylight is blue(ish) and your windows are yellow. Also the particular hue of yellow is a bit "toxic" looking. may be you can resolve the conflict with skylight, or at least give windows a bit more welcoming tone. either more incandescent feel or them more cool fluorescent.

With facade itself you can aim at it at the angle one rectangular direct light at about 30-45 degrees from ground facing up and set it to some smallish value to provide sort of ambient street glow. You can also choose some hue complimentary to the one you use on night lights illuminating facade.

So these are couple of my thoughts... but overall it is lovely. Would it fit into W2W environment too?

[cogeo]

SimFox, thnaks for commenting!

The pavement textures are indeed taken out of BSC Mega pack and modified a little (basically resized), to achieve better-fitting pattern/dimensions. Yeah, I could add some variation, it may look a little better then. As I'm not sure if I'm allowed to use them this way (modify them and include them in my pack), I would consider even making an all-new one. Btw which one you like most, the orthogonal or the diagonal one?

About the top floor windows, they are indeed differnt, as they are actually stained glass (vitrail) with figures, while the others are common office windows. Here is a pic of the actual building [liNKIE]. I think it wouldn't be nice to change the stained glass ones to blue(ish). Btw waht do you mean by "toxic"? The techniques used in the two types of windows are totally different; the top-floor ones have a (semi)transparent material with an opacity mask (to make the figures more opaque) and a "backlight"-type plane behind them (which I illuminate with a direct light); the other ones are the well known... nitewindows, for which I elected to use a blueish tint to look more office-like. I used the Maxis blue windows. Looked into others too, but couldn't find a one looking really better. Equnox Cerulean looks nice (and has some softer tints too) but it's quite dim (esp next to the pillars), others like DTISE have large "blobs" of high contrast (to the much lighter background) etc. Any other suggestion here? Btw here is a (draft) preview with the beige nightmaps. Do you think it looks better? There's definitely less contrast here, but they still "look" different. What would you suggest about the top-floor ones, increase/decrease hue, saturate/desaturate them maybe? I'm not sure if making them identical to the other ones would make it look really better. Another possible approach would be... make a derivative nightmap instead. I mean take the beige nightmaps and increase hue a little; this would make them more yellow (ease that brownish look), making them nore in line with the top-floor ones, and a little more office-like (compared to the original beige). What do you think?

As for the ambient light, well... there is already here. Take a look in the pic (the facade and the east wall, even the fences). I have used three different lights here, because I had to confine the light to the space between the pillars (otherwise it interferes badly with the lights at the pillars). The ambient-like lighting is more intense at the right third of the facade (and this was intentional). Should I increase intensity? The rightmost balcony looks almost like an "overexposed" photo shot, and I'm afraid increasing it further will make no good. What do you mean by hue "complimentary" to the one used in the facade? (btw currently they are all white).

As for a W2W version, the real building is actually W2W (so the east/west/north walls in this BAT are fictional), and I really considered making a W2W one, but found the dimensions almost impossible to fit into W2W. A 1=tile-wide one would be too narrow, while a 2-tiles-wide one would totally distort the whole thing. Sorry, can't find any possible solution here.

[SimFox]

All I'm gonna say is just an opinion of mine.  I'll try to explain and justify it though... so...
1. overall lot issues.
base texture the diagonal one doesn't really cut the mustard imho. In any way. It doesn't fit the building in terms of color,  It doesn't fit game sidewalk textures in same term either. The difference/conflict I would say is small, but none the less is there and like small head-ache very annoying. Just because of its smallness, so to say. Would it be bigger it could become a contrast or something along those lines, but as is it just like hitting neighboring key when playing piano – close, but ruins things... Another thing is the way the tiles are "cut". The lines are too sharp and cleat to be believable – this is a common problem with custom textures – vast majority of them (including those for say RHW) – their way to obvious SG nature.  They all are missing finishing touches that would really make them good. I speak purely visually here...
The other custom texture (A, I believe,) is far better. It blends very well, imho, into the paving texture, perhaps by providing contrast enough as not to look as ugly twin. It also interplays wonderfully with texture on the building patio roof. Roof is more yellow... I guess to make it sort of close to the walls (later about that). but still the pattern is important both similarity of the overall squares and contrast in terms of having a filler square in the lot texture – it sort of provides hierarchy – lighter on top, heavier on the bottom. Of course in real life things like that probably wouldn't be a matter for consideration as building are rarely designed to be viewed from such an angle.
The third option – games Highwealth paver... Well in my opinion it is worst of the game's pavers. it is too unnaturally pink. And it doesn't go too good with building either. But the texture itself – quality of lines, apparent random imperfections - are all big plusses. And the color, well it may be jus my thing.
2. Lot elements. I would consider making them part of the building... or rendering them with dummy building (set to be invisible to the camera) so that they, particularly those stone, chain holding thingies (not sure what is the proper name for them) will not stick like they do now in the shade.
There are several ways to do it. First to make them part of the building model. Second to render them separately with dummy building set to be invisible to the camera but still casting shadow. Both these methods have one shortcoming of shadow being cast not the same way it is in game. This is result of the way game "lighting" works. And would it be recreated in BAT it would be really not flattering for the buildings creating way to long shadows from any architectural elements on the facades.
There is a third way. Getting game to cast shadow on that prop. For this it's LOD needs to be no taller than 0.3 meters. In order to fit the whole thing into such a low LOD it would need to be bigger in X and Y. This isn't really a problem as you can simply change those numerically in SC4Modle file of the prop immediately after export. The shadow may cut a bit to straight and it would be double on the shaded part – but that wouldn't really be noticeable.  The sunny shaded part may still look to bright...
Anyway all of those have their shortcoming and it may take some experimenting to see which one would look better. Flower platters by the virtue of not being too bright don't really stick out too bad though.

On a building itself I said toxic about the yellow... Well what I meant is that it has too much green in it. Both light and the wall paint. Because of it overall day view looks a bit alien in the game that has little this sort of green in it. And I spoke of the nightlighting from those pictures you've posted. It is that combo of lime-ish green of the lights and building walls with light purplish of Maxis night mixed by the not too perfect masks generated by GMAX that brings up little poisonous feel of it... But situation is far better in Dark night since that purple is gone and without it light also look far more natural...
Top floor windows, now after you've explained what they are look... well look different and normal sort of. But that really calls for the knowledge of the fact. So it is a bit touch a go situation. Without the story it just looks odd.  It in itself doesn't carry enough info to be self-explanatory even at zoom6.
Light going along columns ... May be they could be extended a bit farther and given more gradual fall-off /far attenuation, so as to envelope the capitals as well. This could kill two birds, so to say. You'll get rid of that purple mixing with lime-ish plus remove that dark shadow that looks a bit odd right next to the brightly, even overblown lit tips of capitals swirls.
As for ambient/environmental lighting I thought of one not on the sides of the building but rather one on the front of it. Right now the stands of the columns are so totally dark while the stuff rind next to them is lit. Of course this could be accomplished with some elaborate lighting set-up, but it does remove any though of real ambient lighting as two things next to each other are lit in such a radically different manner.

Anyway those are just my thought on the matter. But at the end it is you creation and you have to be happy with it!

[cogeo]

SimFox, thanks for the detailed comments and suggestions! I really appreciate that you take all this time to review this BAT and make suggestions. It's not just a polite response, I mean it!

About the texture, I indeed prefer the orthogonal one because it matches the building and the fences' dimensions better. So does the maxis one too, but as you said (and I agree completely) is awfully pinkish, and does not blend well with the building's colour. Actually texture A (derived from a BSC one) wasn't only resized, I also performed a slight colour adjustment too (removed some red and some blue) so as to ease its pinkish apprearance. If you put them next you can see the difference, but maybe it wasn't enough. I will see if I can fix it a little more, and add some variation, as you suggested in your previous post.

The roof texture has nothing to do with the pavement, it was all about re-creating the real building as accurately as possible (take a look at the pic and the aerial in the first post of this thread). This is how the colour of the wall was selected as well. The texture was custom-made; took a B/W "noise" texture and set the colour and saturation myself; then applied the curves adjustment suggested by gascooker's tutorial. The good thing is that I got EXACTLY the real colour ingame. The bad thing is that it looks somehow "sour" ingame, compared to the other buildings (you said "toxic"). I had noticed this quite earlier (see my post on Apr 14), did make an adjustment, and I was quite satisfied, but it seems it wasn't enough. Maybe I could try reducing hue a little, some 2 or 3 points, but not more. In no case this should become a "warm" yeallow, it is actually yellow with a slight green, rather than red tint.

As for the other lot elements (marble/chain fences) by "sticking like they do now in the shade" you mean that they look too bright while they should be shaded by tbe building? Well, this is quite a bit of work, and as the whole simcity is made this way, I hope players will forgive me for this.

About the columns' lighting, they are not any spot on omni light, actually I tinkered with these a lot and wasn't getting satisfactory results, so I ended up using a direct light with a custom projector map. And of course, the little light at the capital tips isn't really light escaping from the spotlights at the column's base (though this is supposed to emuilate), it's actually a special (omni) light, which I can try optimizing a little more, to better emulate this effect. Btw, what purple and lime-ish are you talking about? Ok, by "purple" you mean the maxis night mask I quess. But nothing is really lime-ish here, all lights (with the exception of some small lights in the interior) are white, and the columns' texture is gray/white (a really neutral one, no colour or tints). Could you point me (on the pic) what exactly looks lime-ish (on the column and/or the capital)?

So about the ambient lighting, you're talking about the columns' stands only? Yeah, I competely forgot these! How about the lighting in the areas between the columns? Does this look OK to you? I will have to add some lights to the stands too, it looks a little weird now. There's even some little light on the doorsteps, but none on the column stands.

As for the nitewindows... I tried making a render with a more yellow (instead of beige) nitemaps. Here is another low-quality preview. I just modified the beige nitewindows a little (increased hue by 15 units - no other adjustments). It looks better imo (than the original beige), mostly resembling incadescent lighting. There's less contrast to the top-floor ones, but rather looks not very much suitable for an office (even civic) building. Ideally this should resemble standard office cool white (4000° fluorescent), without being blue or blueish. I'll try to make one and see the results then.

[SimFox]

Textures.

Speaking of the lot pavings, the one we like is quite good as is. I don' think there is a need to really do anything about it as it is quite densely patterned as is. Any addition could overcrowd it. As roof goes it is quite good too, but the color be less sour and more sweet (I guess this means less green and more red).
Custom making texture really evolves something else then the steps you have described, cause what you get after those will still be generic. It would become really custom when you would add some imperfections dirt etc in a very specific and logical for this particular model places. More than that, imho this method is flawed. You see the thing Gascooker suggested is actually counterproductive. The whole point of rig is to exactly introduce that color cast. That's why lights in it are not white. Don't you think otherwise people at Maxis would actually set it so? So before devising some method one must think of the rational behind existing system  the circumstances. After that one may proceed to, first of all, clearly define objectives, check their compatibility with environment and only after that start devising technical means to achieve those. The color cast is essential. It is the glue that binds models together. That's why I spend quite a time developing rigs for Max that would imitate the lighting used in game rather than simply make it "accurate" or what ever else.
Another issue concerning the color of the building is the fidelity of the source. Generally speaking you should always approach your sources critically. The best is actually see the real thing. But even that isn't quite straight forward. People thing seeing color is easy, in fact it is not. It takes quite a bit of practice. If it is impossible to see real thing and all you have to go by are photos, then you should first of all evaluate overall quality of the picture. And although color fidelity could be quite independent of other quality criteria having good exposure, low noise etc will help you in determining REAL color, or at least approach it.
In this respect I'm puzzled why did you selected that very low quality shot to make your determination. IMHO it isn't really good for anything apart of some knowledge of the roof layout and general pattern of tiling there. It is so small and so awfully overprocessed that it is only unlikely to bear any resemblance of reality it is also worthless in determining some approximation of it through additional manipulation - too much has already be done, so you don't really have anything original left there.

The other bigger image is far better as a starting point but even that one should be taken as is and here is why:

here is the original:	and here is version in which I have restored white balance

As you can see the building is actually pink, not yellow. It also seem to be in two close but none the less distinct hues. However you should be cautious about that. The picture had been taken with really poor quality camera - probably the phone with very simple (to put mildly) lens, so that distinction may in fact be simply distortion introduced by that little piece of plastic. My advise would be to forget about this difference and just assume that facade is of the same color (barring detailing, of course). To be most accurate you should try to get this color from the spot as central as possible and one that is as flat lit as possible. Actually in this sense this is a good shot cause the whole thing is in shade, this is always preferable as it is easier to white balance such shot. 

here is your model colorl:	here is what it should be

Of course this is not the whole story. Different camera manufacturers and even software manufactures have they own idea how color should be mixed - remember digital camera takes 3 b&w shots to create one color mix. Here is same very RAW image I made myself with Nikon D300 (saved in loslessly compressed 14bit NEF). All is same (including white balance), the only difference is how colors mixed according to

adobe:	Nikon:

Now take a look at sky... Both are done in Adobe Camera Raw, simply by selecting different engine - adobe standard or camera standard. I give this example to illustrate how complicated it all may become. But it is a bit of a fine point now and things are greatly amplified here because there is a bright sun lighting in the shot. Would it be done on the overcast day the difference may be unnoticeable.

Marbles... well I don't think it all that complicated to make them into shadow receiving prop even in GMAX. But it is up to you. I only want to add that there is not point not to improve something when it could be...

The column lighting is problematic cause you have mask going through gradual transition right across it. And it is a nasty one. Rather than change illumination level it actually changes hue and at some points lit up part is actually darker than not lit. This is main reason why I did developed truNite to get rid of this nasty blending and odd colors it produces. But since you are on GMAX your best bet would be to not allow it to show too much on such attention pulling detail as column in the facade. So let the light envelope, lit the entire column. You may actually add third light, straight ahead of column. You don't need give it "source" lamp though.
I guess my impression of lime-ish came exactly from this odd blending going on the facade. Here is a color i pulled from it with somewhat amplified saturation:


Ambient lighting is by definition should be everywhere. Just make sure it is not so strong as to clash with the game street.
As for the color of night window you can make it what ever you want - all it is just a 256x256 bmp bitmap. But you should be careful speaking of color temperature. As such it is an approximation. Real thing would be the light emitted by black body object at said temperature in Kelvin degrees. Yet no light is actually heated black body object. Also such a perception is a subject for color balance be it photo or even human eye. So just goo by hue -what looks right - since you don't have control over white balance settings in GMAX.

PS.
when you link images do so to the direct link rather than that imageshack general page - it has all to much irrelevant rubbish there and picture never right size. clicking on it opens all sort of additional pointless interfaces and adds - quite annoying.