Slow BAT steady - Rady's first BAT attempts

[vortext]

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?

Well, if the worn down BAT has the same Group & Instance ID as the previous one, it should be replaced automagically  .

If instead you create 2 BATs with different IDs however, simply copy/paste the props from the old to the new lot in the SC4PIM (select all the 'prop' lines, right-click and hit 'copy properties'. Right-click in new lot and paste properties).

[jmyers2043]

Let's see if I understand. You have a lot with the small white barn. You're going to do a second lot with the same model but with different skins.

The easy way. Open the lot editor, and then the lot. Click replace item. Select the 2nd small barn and place it on the lot. The click 'save as'. You'll be prompted for a name. Done. 




Intermediate skills: A second way to do it is to put both buildings in a prop family. See page 46 of the SC4PIM user guide (XTool). You will have one lot. Each building will have a 50% chance to grow on the same lot. Prop families are better because are are fewer files to load at start up.




Good Luck

- Jim

[Rady]

So, here's another nights work ... gave it a little more "used" look following vortext's advice. Now let me hear what you think . Personally I can see the finish line on the horizon 



As a part of finishing my first BAT, there's the need to create icons for it. So, 2 questions:

#1: Why are there 4 icons ...?

#2: of which size and format need the icons to be?

As for the way to replace the SC4model - I created a new Lot anyway, but thanks vortext and jmyers2043 for showing me three different ways for that .. will keep this knowledge for my upcoming projects!

Ahh .. and as an addition ... I think at this stage it's only fair to give credits to DocRorlach (WorkingMan Productions) for the props used on my Lot.

[vortext]

Looks fine to me 

#1: Why are there 4 icons ...?

#2: of which size and format need the icons to be?

#1 Wondered the same, dunno (or care frankly )

#2 an individual icon needs to be 44x44 pixels, making a row of four measure 176 x 44 pixels. And the SFBT icon templates might come in handy 

[jmyers2043]

...Why are there 4 icons ...?

Ah, I see. This building will be a plop lot of some sort. Close your eyes and remember what happens when you want to select a park or a landmark. There are four states that the item icon can be. B/W if the requirements for the lot have not yet been achieved, seemingly larger, etc when you pass the mouse pointer over it. That is the reason for the four icons.

BTW - The Xtool makes creating item icons a snap.

Select the lot and right click. Select 'change icon'




Select your image. The Xtool will also do some resizing .. but it is better to do it in a real paint program.




Good Luck

- Jim

[Rady]

@ vortext: thanks for both the info and the icon template!

@ jmyers2043: thanks, already found that part of the Xtool. I will take care of the icons that over the weekend.

Having had some times to think, I realized that nightlighting still needs to be added to my BAT. So, the finishing line disappeared out of the sudden .. 

But before adding that, i do have another question. I know that there's a kind of naming convention (this is also referred to in the "LEX candidacy" thread), like Comercial Lots are named "CO$_...." IOT see what type of Lot this is at a first glance. Now, is there somewhere a document that sums up these naming convention?   

[CasperVg]

@ vortext: thanks for both the info and the icon template!

@ jmyers2043: thanks, already found that part of the Xtool. I will take care of the icons that over the weekend.

Having had some times to think, I realized that nightlighting still needs to be added to my BAT. So, the finishing line disappeared out of the sudden .. 

But before adding that, i do have another question. I know that there's a kind of naming convention (this is also referred to in the "LEX candidacy" thread), like Comercial Lots are named "CO$_...." IOT see what type of Lot this is at a first glance. Now, is there somewhere a document that sums up these naming convention?   

If you're using PIM-X to generate the lots/building descs, it will automatically follow the naming convention, I think

[jmyers2043]

If you're using PIM-X to generate the lots/building descs, it will automatically follow the naming convention, I think

Casper is correct. I name my gmax models something link this   JFM_WhiteBarn_rev 01

I'll export and make it into a I-AG buildng using the XTool. The DESC file will be  JFM_WhiteBarn_rev01

I'll use the Xtool to create the lot and the name will automatically be IR$3_5X6_JFM_WhiteBarn_rev01 ... proper naming convention

I'll use the Xtool to modify the DESC file by adding an LTEXT. Assign a cool name such as "Braying Hill Farms". Presto, the gamer sees "Braying Hill Farms" as the query and hover query.

Hope this helps

- Jim

[Rady]

Well, the SC4PIM does this indeed. The Lot has been named "PLOP_1x1_...." - I was expecting it to have a prefix that would be linked to the category I created it in (parks - neutral), like eg.  CO...  for Commercial Offices. BUt that isn't hte case with ploppable buildings obviously. SO, finished that part, now heading off to the night lights.


And that's the first result. I just added a "Omni" type of light, and added a window pane to the front window. Then I atached a blueish texture with 10% opacity to it, but as far as I can tell there is no difference to the version without the window.

#1) Daylight with window pane



#2) Night views





Due to a lack of time I suppose I won't be able to finish the lot and make an ingame pic over the weekend [EDIT: damn - forgot a vital part in that message! ], but let me just hear your opinion on that.

[FrankU]

Let's see if I understand. You have a lot with the small white barn. You're going to do a second lot with the same model but with different skins.

The easy way. Open the lot editor, and then the lot. Click replace item. Select the 2nd small barn and place it on the lot. The click 'save as'. You'll be prompted for a name. Done. 

Intermediate skills: A second way to do it is to put both buildings in a prop family. See page 46 of the SC4PIM user guide (XTool). You will have one lot. Each building will have a 50% chance to grow on the same lot. Prop families are better because are are fewer files to load at start up.

There is a third way that I use quite often at the moment. You don't need to make prop families first and it is in fact very simple. Difficulty: I'd say intermediate+ skills.
Smoncrie explained the method in this thread.

Simply stated:
1. You make your lot
2. You open the lot in Reader
3. You open the lot exemplar and look for the lotconfig... entry (it's one of the entries with 13 rep counts) of which the 13th rep has the IID of your prop.
4. You open this property and add a 14th entry.
5. In this entry you type down the IID of the second prop.

Save and close. When the lot is plopped the game chooses between the 13th and 14th rep.
You can add quite a long list of reps, so you can even exchange the model by several different models. It works very good and you never have to worry about prop families. You can decide the variation on every lot independent of all other lots.

Nice barn by the way! 

[vortext]

You can add quite a long list of reps, so you can even exchange the model by several different models. It works very good and you never have to worry about prop families. You can decide the variation on every lot independent of all other lots.

darn nifty, if only I had known that earlier 

[jmyers2043]

... but let me just hear your opinion on that...

I like the barrel you did near the door. I usually start to put things around and about my bats when they near completion. Inside open doorways, etc.

You already have some things but a few more items in your library can't hurt. I hope you find these things useful if not now then maybe in the future. Includes gmax models and textures. You'll probably have to reapply the textures as you'll not be able to duplicate the file paths.




DL link:
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/7/4/1237795/forRady.zip



Good Luck

- Jim

[Rady]

@ FrankU: thanks, so this way I also could replace an existing SC4Model with a new one, I suppose (like I stated - replace Version 1 of my Barn on the existing Lot by Version 2 without having to create the whole Lot again).

@ jmyers2043: Thank's a lot!! Great stuff indeed ... I'm already looking for a place to put the coffin .. 

I think I need to place some stuff inside the barn, since one can see fairly good inside it.

[Rady]

Ok, there are good and bad news.

Good news - as you can see, I seemed to have made some progress with my barn. I used some of jmyers stuff in and around my barn (cannot really see it inside, I think I would have to re-position it), and I changed the position of the pickup because otherwise it would overhang the lot a little.



Bad news - nightlighting is not working ingame:



although I do have a light applied in gmax, as you can see from my earlier images.

Which isn't that bad at all.

What really hurts is that I now receive an error message when I try to open my barn in gmax. And from what I remember, that means my barn is dead now with now chance to recover it ... that's why one should always make a backup of his gmax file after some time. Unfortunately I remembered that only after my file got corrupted 

But anyway - here it comes in handy that I still have the first version with the "clean" textures, so .. well, let's see it as some extra training course in modelling ... 

Apart from that - what do you think about my barn in general, and any advice regarding the nightlighting at hand?

[FrankU]

I like the barn a lot, but I don't really understand why you would BAT also the stuff and the truck around it. Isn't it much more flexible to add them as separate props? That's what I would do if I knew how to BAT.

Hope you recover your files!

Back up; I have a small script with a link to my desktop. I click it, the computer copies all "My Documents" onto a separate disk and then shuts off the computer. Always a backup of yesterday's work at hand.

[Rady]

I like the barn a lot

I don't really understand why you would BAT also the stuff and the truck around it.

Well, the truck, the crates, the man and the tree are props actually. The rest is included in the BAT, mainly for the reason that this is my first BAT and I didn't know better  .

I still have to figure out where a prop can be placed and where not. Look for example at the little "garage" with the trailer: would I be able to place a prop under the roof? Will it be visible then, or will it be hidden? In my opinion, it must be hidden, because the free space under the roof only is a rendered image, not an actually free space.

But I could have (and will with my next BAT) added some stuff as a prop. However, I think there is no way of free rotating a prop (only 90° steps), so the pallets, planks, bricks would at least have to be BATed that way and then added as a Prop.

Well, as I said - I still have to figure out the best way how to do all this ...

[jmyers2043]

Hey Rady

and I changed the position of the pickup because otherwise it would overhang the lot a little.

This is the phrase that had us scratchging our heads. I was also thinking what FrankU brought up. Your explaination tells me that you're doing just fine.    

Good Luck

- Jim

[Rady]

Hey Rady

and I changed the position of the pickup because otherwise it would overhang the lot a little.

This is the phrase that had us scratchging our heads.

I'm sorry. 

So, this tells me I have to be more precise, even if it's half past midnight 

Thing is, first I had the Pick Up (prop) positioned the other way round, as you can see from my first images of the finished lot. But that way, the Pick Up (prop) would be overhanging the edge of the lot. Which wouldn't be dramatically, but would result in some (minor) restirctions about what can be plopped / buildt next to this barn. E.g. imagin a growable rising there, and my Pick Up intruding into their living room's wall.

So I decided to park my Pick Up the other way round. You never know who's gonna move in beside you ...

[FrankU]

Ah yes, your explanation is clear now.
Funny isn't it? You always think you are giving clear infomation and every time someone stands up and says: hey, what are you doing? I don't understand.... or just begins to argue about somethig you never thought about. Especially when it is past midnight!
Communication is more difficult than people think. That's what I have leaned in my almost 50 years on this Earth.

Anyway: small props being part of a BAT is not a problem. And it is possible to make the garage in such a way that we can lot things under it. I don't know how you should do it, because I know zilch about BATting, but there are plenty of examples around.

Succes!

[Rady]

Ok, I finally accepted that my Barn is lost. OTOH this opens the opportunity for a second BAT training, this time in 3dsmax.

Unfortunately there won't be to much time this week, since I have to prepare for

• carnival parade (need to prepare a trailer with my friends) and
• my wife's 40th birthday, which comes along with appr. 30 people entering our house on saturday, all willing to eat and drink as much as possible ( )

but I hope to be able to spend some time on my beloved barn next week.

So stay tuned for the next update!