Slow BAT steady - Rady's first BAT attempts

[Rady]

Well I think that you should better reduce the X- Y- axis 
-Ernst

Ok, did so. Reduced the x, y dimension to 88% (now pls. don't ask "why 88%?". It just seemed to be a proper value ...)

Look good, just do what they said.

Yesssirr!!


Now, for today, a few in-game pictures how the resized barn fits into the environment:









What do you think?


The next thing I will concentrate on is the textures for the roof and the walls, and of course I immediately run into the next problem. I applied a new texture to the front wall in GMAX, and this is what it looks likein the perspective view:



However, the rendering proces end up with that (extracted from the Reader):



As you clearly can see, the texture isn't rendered correctly - the dirt strains are missing ... any suggestions are warmly welcomed!

[peter007]

Have you UVW mapped or unwrapped your textures?

[harishna]

sometimes the textures in gmax "disappear" this is a very common and annoying problem, I'll recommend you to start by cleaning your scene materials get rid of all the un-used ones. Then before rendering click on all the little checkered box (the white and blue one) even if its on, click off and on again and do this for all your textures. Some people apply all the textures to a dummy object before exporting, but I think if you follow what I suggested once you will be fine until it happens again .

[mattb325]

Hello Rady, this is a great first BAT. I'm really glad to see all the little details that you have added to the walls, roof etc. It really makes the model very interesting.

However, this model is still underscaled on the z axis. The sims - giants that they are - are taller than your barn doors 

I would recommend scaling it up by at least 20% (I'm aware this is only supposed to be a small, 1.5 storey barn). The width is fine, but the BAT is a little shallow; once you have scaled it on the z axis, you may have to tweak the depth as well.

I would make sure that your first floor is no less than 4.5 meters tall. This will be larger than the single storey low-wealth Maxis homes that you are comparing it to, but will fit in better with most of the content (Maxis and custom).

Additionally, as Girafe mentioned, don't be afraid to dirty up your textures in photo-editing software. At the moment, your roof texture doesn't really blend in with the textures around it and certainly doesn't render the same in game as in your viewport previews.

There has been much talk over the years on why and how to fix textures (so I won't go into the details here - a search of some of the many BAT tutorials will yield results) but suffice it to say that all textures need tweaking prior to using them in the BAT

I have taken the liberty of making a couple of very minor tweaks which took only a moment or so:
* Desaturated the texture by about 20%
* Added a russet/brownish gradient
* Made some very quick dodge/burns

All up it took less than a minute, and was done in the GIMP - a free tool.

You could add moss, water stains and so on. The same could be done with the walls: but the results will definitely allow your barn to fit in with the games' pallette

Good luck  

[Rady]

Have you UVW mapped or unwrapped your textures?

Yes, I do have an UVM-Map applied ..

sometimes the textures in gmax "disappear" this is a very common and annoying problem, I'll recommend you to start by cleaning your scene materials get rid of all the un-used ones. Then before rendering click on all the little checkered box (the white and blue one) even if its on, click off and on again and do this for all your textures. Some people apply all the textures to a dummy object before exporting, but I think if you follow what I suggested once you will be fine until it happens again .

OK, I will see .. I also thought about simply importing it into a new scene file to see if that helps. Normally, before exporting, I manually delete the LODs and the xref scene, then I re-create the LODs and re-set the lights an cameras.

Hello Rady, this is a great first BAT. I'm really glad to see all the little details that you have added to the walls, roof etc. It really makes the model very interesting.

Thanks you! Posts like this help me get over the setbacks more easy.

However, this model is still underscaled on the z axis. The sims - giants that they are - are taller than your barn doors 

I would recommend scaling it up by at least 20% (I'm aware this is only supposed to be a small, 1.5 storey barn). The width is fine, but the BAT is a little shallow; once you have scaled it on the z axis, you may have to tweak the depth as well.

I would make sure that your first floor is no less than 4.5 meters tall. This will be larger than the single storey low-wealth Maxis homes that you are comparing it to, but will fit in better with most of the content (Maxis and custom).

OK, will do so. Actually, taken from the real object, the ground floor is 3 m high, the scond floor is about 4 m over all (top of ground floor to top of roof). From what I heard/read so far I took my real vertical values times 1,3 to get the game vertical values.

Additionally, as Girafe mentioned, don't be afraid to dirty up your textures in photo-editing software. At the moment, your roof texture doesn't really blend in with the textures around it and certainly doesn't render the same in game as in your viewport previews.

There has been much talk over the years on why and how to fix textures (so I won't go into the details here - a search of some of the many BAT tutorials will yield results) but suffice it to say that all textures need tweaking prior to using them in the BAT

I have taken the liberty of making a couple of very minor tweaks which took only a moment or so:
* Desaturated the texture by about 20%
* Added a russet/brownish gradient
* Made some very quick dodge/burns

All up it took less than a minute, and was done in the GIMP - a free tool.

You could add moss, water stains and so on. The same could be done with the walls: but the results will definitely allow your barn to fit in with the games' pallette

Yes, that's the really hard part indeed. I've been woking with GIMP for a long time now, since I'm doing desktop publishing for a hobby, so I do have quite some knowledge. However I still have to learn a lot until I'll arrive at your skills ... Thanks indeed for the altered texture, it will be a good "tutorial" trying to reproduce that with my current texture.

Good luck  

Thank's, this is well needed

[Rady]

Ok, worked a little on the texture part ... here's what I've got so far. I'm still batteling the fact that the textures do look so differently in GIMP and gmax and then finally in the rendered image. It's like one would use three completely different textures ... makes it kinda hard to find the right texture without trying several times ..


I haven't tweaked the proportions yet ... so let's discuss the textures:











I'm quite satisfied with the front view. The decals on the rear wall seems kinda too big, whereas the decals on the left side (above the additional roof) are way to small. Maybe I will put some additional junk at the rear wall, so that the decals on the wall are not the only "eyecatcher".

Bit .. let's hear your comments!

[namspopof]

Good.
Perhaps decrease the brigthness. 

[Buzzit]

decrease brightness a bit and you got a really nice building 

[Girafe]

I agree with my two colleges, decrease the brightness,

and surely by decreasing it you will have to increase a little bit the saturation to keep a nice color

[Rady]

@ Girafe, Buzzit, namspopof: thank's for your advice. I will take care of that as soon as RL allows me so.

Meanwhile, maybe time for some questions of general BAT interest:

#1: In the material editor, when selecting a texture bitmap, I can open the respective dialog both with the button at "ambient" and "diffuse" --> what's the difference? And sometimes one of these little buttons has disappeared (mostly the "ambient" one) ... 

#2: when "picking" a material from an existing object, I have access to the section called "basic blinn parameters" where e.g. I am able to set the "color" value, which kinda works as brightness correction (as far as I observed). How do I access this section right after creating and assigning the material to an object? Right now I have to deselect the object and re-select the material with said "pick" function to access this section?

#3: What's it all about this "poly count"?? Is this just a gmax problem for rendering? Or is this something related to how many objects I do hve in the LE? And is there a common measure the poly count should not exceed?

Edit: Found some time this evening, and this is how far I have come. Increased the height by appr. 20%, and also increased the depth a little, as suggested by matt. Tweaked the roof texture as suggested by girafe, buzzit & namspopof.








Some thoughts on my side:
#1: the trailer (underneath the fly roof) seems a little bit too small
#2: the pallet (see red circle in pic #2) should be somewhat larger, too, IOT to be recognized as what it is.

Now .. your time for comments, folks! 

[Buzzit]

woah it looks really awesome now!
can't wait to find that building in my simworld 

[Girafe]

Good progress indeed

I am not an expert on Gmax, I left long time ago but the texture stay according to me a little bit too bright above all the wood texture.

However your colors fit well with the other BATs especially the farm.

But for a first attempt it's really nice 

Regarding you #3 poly account, it's how your model is heavy. It counts all the poly of your scene.
It deals only on Gmax or another 3D software but has any incidence on LE (Gmax is 3D after exporting your have only images so 2D)

There is not an appropriate "limit" for exporting. The only limit you have is how many polys my computer can render. After this your computer and gmax will bug and stop.

But don't be afraid if you have a recent computer and your are rendering tiny things as you do there will never be problems.

(On 3dsmax, for some project we can rise 5 millions polys).

[Rady]

@ Buzzit: Thanks ... unfortunately I think you will still need some patience until this is released on the LEX ... 

@ girafe: Thanks! I worked on the wall texture again and toned it down, but it still seems to be a little bit too bright ... on the other hand, it resembles my barn nicely, so ... let's see.

So, now back to our DOC (Desired Objects of Comparison  ) - here we go with the latest results:

[jmyers2043]

Hi Rady

..... #1: In the material editor, when selecting a texture bitmap, I can open the respective dialog both with the button at "ambient" and "diffuse" --> what's the difference? And sometimes one of these little buttons has disappeared (mostly the "ambient" one) ... 

#2: when "picking" a material from an existing object, I have access to the section called "basic blinn parameters" where e.g. I am able to set the "color" value, which kinda works as brightness correction (as far as I observed). How do I access this section right after creating and assigning the material to an object? Right now I have to deselect the object and re-select the material with said "pick" function to access this section?

#3: What's it all about this "poly count"?? Is this just a gmax problem for rendering? Or is this something related to how many objects I do hve in the LE? And is there a common measure the poly count should not exceed?

I'd like to be able to answer your question but I can not. I don't think many use those parameters either. I do all my texture altering in Paint Shop Pro ... not on the fly in gmax.

I read with interest your travails and struggle with scale. We've all gone through it. My suggestion is to compare your barn with other barns ... although it looks more like a farm outbuilding or large shed. Nevertheless it should be compared with other farm buildings.

Example: Maxis homes are really really small and you'll need to create a doorway about 3.8 meters if you want it to fit in with other stage 1 R$ Maxis homes and the Cycledogg homes in your picture. My typical barn door is no shorter than 5 meters high and larger doors are usually something like 6 meters high. I try to imagine a tractor and rider exiting or entering.

I guess i don't have too much to say. You've gotten some great help from Matt325 ...

I've learned over time to have an have an idea of scale before I start a project. I look at similar buildings and find the LOD size. (iLives reader or the XTool has that sort of information). That will get you close at the start of the project and you'll only have to do a small amount of scaling at the end.

You will probably have to create some distance between some of the buildings becaus of an inherint difference between building types. Commerical vs. Farm vs. housing. Don't place the huge Maxis red tractor next to a structure because one or the other will look odd. Break up distance between a home and a barn with a fence, a small garden, or cloths line, etc . . .

BTW - I should say that I do like your concept. The barn is a nice shape.

Good Luck

- Jim

[vester]

#1: In the material editor, when selecting a texture bitmap, I can open the respective dialog both with the button at "ambient" and "diffuse" --> what's the difference? And sometimes one of these little buttons has disappeared (mostly the "ambient" one) ... 

Did a little researcd on that:

The help files explain it very well.

Ambient color is the color of an object where it is in shadow. This color is what the object reflects when illuminated by ambient light rather than direct light. Ambient color areas in the scene will not appear any darker than the ambient light setting.
You can lock a material's ambient color to its diffuse color so that changing one automatically changes the other.

Self-illumination creates the illusion of incandescence by replacing shadows on the surface with the diffuse color. As you increase self-illumination, the self-illumination color takes over from the ambient color. At a setting of 100, the material shows no shaded areas, although it can show specular highlights.

Well the ambient color is locked to the diffuse by default for a reason - most people don't use it. If you're using software rendering, then a combination of the shadow color lighting parameter and GI will give you the desired effect. Ambient color is a poor man's replacement for those things, and a crappy one at that. Self-Illumination on the other hand is pretty handy in certain circumstances, like when you want something to...oh say, self-illuminate

Link

[Rady]

Ok, finally I found some time again to proceed with my little BAT project. Have been busy feeding, carrying around and playing with my now 17-month-old daughter, but now the time has come to shift some time into this again.

First, I finally managed to find some props that would go nice with my barn, and that's how far I've come so far:



I decided to leave it without base texture, since personally I will use this Lot in rural areas, so I like to blend it in with ploppable flora like this:



Second, I'm not sure whether the settings are ok. So if someone could have a look at them and give some advice as how to adjust them so that the Lot fit's in. Especially Landmark effect (I tend to set it to zero), Flammability, Plop COst, and so on.

SC4Model values


Lot values


Third, I cannot find a tutorial to make the lot at least moderate slope conforming. I know it cannot be placed on steep slopes because then the Props would be floating in mid-air or gone underground, but there should be the ability to place it on very moderate slopes without getting a retaining wall. I know it has to do something with treshhold and maximum slope or so, but I cannot find a proper description out there. So if someone could link me up, I'd appreciate that.

Fourth - feel free to add any further comments & suggestions!

[vortext]

Very nice little shed, though imo a bit too white. Maybe do a worn down version as well? In any case, keep up the good work 

[Rady]

Very nice little shed, though imo a bit too white. Maybe do a worn down version as well? In any case, keep up the good work 

Unfortunately I had the same thoughts ..  so still some way to go.

[vortext]

Very nice little shed, though imo a bit too white. Maybe do a worn down version as well? In any case, keep up the good work 

Unfortunately I had the same thoughts ..  so still some way to go.

I guess so  Anyway, only now did I actually read the rest of your post 

The settings seems to be ok. However SC4PIM also contains an option for a neutral building, located in the 'parks' menu. That way, it has no park or landmark effect whatsoever.

Secondly regarding the slope conforming issue. In the lot file, set the 'max slope allowed' to 200 and the 'max slope before lot foundation' to 201. Or other values, key point is the latter is larger than the former. Next open the building descriptor and set the 'building foundation' to 0x194b1000. If this property isn't present you must add it, otherwise the lot will conform to the slope but the building will still have a red brick foundation (as outlined by the LOD). Hope it helpes 

[Rady]

Ok, I'm going to do a more worn down version of my little barn as a seperate Lot anyway, but one question out of curiosity: Could I replace the existing SC4Model that I used with this Lot in SC4PIM by an altered model? Or do I have to create a whole new Lot?

Thing is, if I e.g. only alter the roof and wall texture of the barn, I wouldn't want to put all the props in place again, but have only the "old" model replaced by the new one. So is this possible?