NORO...bats?

[noahclem]

Hi guys, I've been meaning to get a basic competency with 3D modeling and returned today to a bat a started maybe a year ago after feeling like a bit of a break from other projects. I tried picking an easy bat, a typical boring 70's box from the city center of Oulu, though it remains quite difficult to me   Today I finished the balconies, the external stairways, signs, and some other details, though so far I've only really figured out how to work with boxes reasonably well. The big challenge now is figuring out how to make windows on the bottom floor that can be seen through and whatever objects to go inside them. I guess I should do the same with the upper windows which would mean at least rudimentary modeling of the inside of the building. Arthur's been giving me a bunch of help but I'm a bit of a slow study   Other than that process I still need to add awnings and details on the front and all the textures and lights.



Probably won't have this one ready any time too soon but I do intend to make it as well as I can and a release would include the HD DN version I would use as well as SD/MN options. Thanks for looking and any advice is much appreciated

[Simcoug]

You are much braver than I 
Looks like a good start - Cheers for giving it a go!

[Gugu3]

Nice model!I am sure you will make great bats Noah!

[Girafe]

NORO BATs, what a surprise  and really good start by the way 

[kbieniu7]

"Typical boring 70's box'es" are usually the most interesting (at least in my opinion) because of three facts:
- they're typical boring box'es from 70's
- they might work as typical boring box'es from 80's as well
- if we use to much representative, unusual and not boring buildings too often, they became usual and boring

So, I look forward, especially as it already looks promising

Ah, advice...? Make 3D windows (cutted into a wall, with 3d frames separately from glass) not just 2D, as I used to do at my very beginnings

[romualdillo]

Good start!!   
I thought Oulu was somewhere in Hawaii until I saw google and I realized you were talking of Finnland... 

[Mandarin(a)]

Just don't give up! We all support you 

[Swordmaster]

A slow study. . . but not nearly as slow as me. I once tried learning how to BAT. I started by trying to make a box. After about 60 hours I quit. I had failed

Keep at it! But not too long huh?


Cheers
Willy

[vester]

Good start.

I tend to stick to Splines and Poly. Don't use Mesh, as it doesn't have quite the same tools to it.

You can convert any volume, like a spline with an extrude modifier, to poly by right clicking. At the bottom of the transform quad menu you find transform....


In poly's I use quickslice a lot, especially with a snap (S) turned on.

Let say you want the walls to have same depth, what I would do:
Slice up a long the outline of the windows and erase or detach the faces where the windows will be.
Then add a Shell modifier (can be found in the modifier list).
Add some thickness to the shell in Inner amont/outer amount (tend to use just one of them) and last tick off Straight Corners at the bottom.

The detached faces can be used as a starting point fro windows. (Just hide them at first). Did a tutorial at one point.
(maybe time to save it out as a seperate thread)

(Two black objects with a grey Standard material and Edged Faces (F4) turned on)

[FrankU]

"Typical boring 70's box'es" are usually the most interesting (at least in my opinion) because of three facts:
- they're typical boring box'es from 70's
- they might work as typical boring box'es from 80's as well
- if we use to much representative, unusual and not boring buildings too often, they became usual and boring

So, I look forward, especially as it already looks promising

Yes! I agree completely. And I have an additional opinion on boring 70's boxes: They might not be as boring as you thought in the first place when you take some thorough looks at them. The better ones, which you cannot always recognize at first sight, will even turn out quite interesting.
But I am an architect....

[bombardiere]

Vester gave some good advices. Although I use Mesh too.

I would have directed you to the Phillippbo's Bat essentials tutorial, but it has lost the pictures.

http://community.simtropolis.com/omnibus/simcity-4/batlot-editor-tutorials/bat-essentials-part-1-r11/

However these two are my favourite tutorials

http://community.simtropolis.com/omnibus/simcity-4/batlot-editor-tutorials/how-to-create-arched-windows-r66/

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=14690.0

The bevel and extrude are my friends

I work with separate walls and like to build the house as module blocks. I uses rectangles for windows and doorsand why not some arches and attach those to the wall rectangle. This I extrude to create a wall. I create windows etc as a block and this I can copy pasty and create ready sections.

Snap tool can be powerfull and saves time, but I haven't mastered it fully, lazy me, and I set cordinates for block parts.

[mgb204]

Vester gave some good advices. Although I use Mesh too.

I would have directed you to the Phillippbo's Bat essentials tutorial, but it has lost the pictures.

I tend to model in mostly extruded splines, but I'm still getting to grips with the complexities of BATing. That tutorial was instrumental for me, I know the picutres were good and hosted locally on ST not on an image host. Why they would be missing is beyond me, but I have them all if they need restoring... not really for discussion here though.

[reddonquixote]

Great to see you taking up the BAT 

I'd agree with sticking to Poly's rather than Mesh - To be honest I've never used Mesh I don't really know what it does or doesn't do, but Poly gives you everything you need to make a BAT.

There's not really any right or wrong way to build a model, as long as it looks like something at the end, the objective has been met  Maybe a couple of tips that might help -

1) I personally wouldn't build details like railings and balconies before I've built fundamental structures like doors and windows. That doesn't mean you can't, but I think it will come together as a much more coherent model with better proportions and scale if you start big, then go small.

2) I try and keep the objects in the same colour palette as the final building (e.g. Red brick walls would be red geometry, windows would all be pale blue geometry etc), it makes the building more comprehensible during the modelling and it will make texturing easier later. (You should try and have every object separated out by the texture that will be applied to it)

Good luck! I look forward to seeing this progress 

[noahclem]

Thanks a lot for all the feedback guys--sincerely grateful and a bit surprised at the response to my humble little building. The tips will definitely help a lot. I hope I'll be able to re-do the building as a series of real 3D boxes with holes punched out without losing all the detail work that's actually been done--can definitely understand suggestions that the basic parts of the structure be done before the details as it seems a lot more challenging to try to fit the re-done boxes of the structure. Anyway, I've got my work cut out for me catching up on all the tutorials and updating the bat. I've not been batting since before, in part due to being unable to export the LODs to/from BAT to be able to actually use the bats. My old install of BAT apparently lacked the ability to export in HD (though I had thought the LODs would be the same for HD but the textures double resolution), so I uninstalled it and when I tried to reinstall there was a conflict with my Intel HD graphics process which I wasn't able to resolve. Has anyone ever had a similar conflict with Win 7?

I actually ran into that problem when working on another batting project: exporting Xannepan's models from the LEX to HD. Before the export trouble it seemed to be going great. I even changed the base textures to the sidewalk mod I've been using in my MD as Arthur thought it would improve the night lights (not shown in picture).



Given the number of models he's shared on the LEX this could make a huge changes to what's possible with HD European city centers like what I'm trying to build. And unless I'm remembering wrong, he permits uploading of altered versions of his models as long as credit is given, so these could be shared if I ever get the BAT to work.

[belfastsocrates]

Ohhh HD Xannepan's models!

Glorious

[mgb204]

My old install of BAT apparently lacked the ability to export in HD (though I had thought the LODs would be the same for HD but the textures double resolution), so I uninstalled it and when I tried to reinstall there was a conflict with my Intel HD graphics process which I wasn't able to resolve. Has anyone ever had a similar conflict with Win 7?

SC4 BAT completely lacks this feature, the scripts for BAT4MAX are necessary to enable it.

Take the GPU out of the equation, switch SC4BAT to use the HEIDI (Software) Renderer, even with my NVidia board (also have Intel on-board), the support for modern cards is not there so this is necessary.

Hopefully you can launch SC4BAT to modify this? If not, then I believe you can set a switch to activate this during startup, I'd have to dig to find that though.

HD Xannepann models is a great idea though 

[romualdillo]

HD Xannepan's models... Sweet!!! 

I use SC4 BAT, but I had to install 3ds Max and BAT4MAX to export in HD. It may look weird using SC4 BAT when I have BAT4MAX, but my computer is too slow to run 3ds Max properly with my models. I only use it to create automatas.

[JP Schriefer]

Wow that's going to be great!

[noahclem]

Thanks guys 

Glad I'm not the only one excited about the potential of HD Xannepan. There's a ton of them and if the time it takes for one angle of zoom 6 preview render with my machine is anything to go by it should completely feasible to HD process all the of models he's uploaded that aren't too big. I think the newer ones use truenight lighting which might double the render time (?) and there are some questions of how best to handle the ground/floor textures where they exist but once the system gets running it should rely more on computer power than any ability of mine to deal with modeling   A particularly exciting possibility, which would actually require a bit of actual modeling ability, is the Seine bridges. More important than working them in HD would be the possibility of adapting them for NWM, GLR/dual networking, and even just widening the sidewalks--lack of sidewalk space, especially on the original Maxis bridges has always been a pet peeve of mine. But don't let me get too far ahead of myself, I'm sharing dreams here, not things I'm yet confident in having the time and ability to do.

Based on what Robin is saying my old install of GMAX should work if properly modified by BAT4MAX. My BAT4MAX seems to work fine in my 3DSMAX but I wonder if installing gmax to D: instead of C: (SSD v HDD with the SSD unusually having plenty more space these days than the HDD) caused trouble with that. I restored my old GMAX that I later added to the C: drive but apparently that install referenced the D: drive installation so I restored that too. Will keep posted on any luck or lack thereof I have with the process

[mgb204]

Based on what Robin is saying my old install of GMAX should work if properly modified by BAT4MAX. My BAT4MAX seems to work fine in my 3DSMAX but I wonder if installing gmax to D: instead of C: (SSD v HDD with the SSD unusually having plenty more space these days than the HDD) caused trouble with that. I restored my old GMAX that I later added to the C: drive but apparently that install referenced the D: drive installation so I restored that too. Will keep posted on any luck or lack thereof I have with the process

Ran into the same problem. If I recall, BAT4MAX just installs them as if it was in C, just move the folder to D, you should be fine. It only installs scripts that run on startup of gmax. You'll know it's right when the option "HD" appears in the preview rollout. If it's not working, uninstall gMax and reinstall it on C, hopefully it won't be necessary.

As for how to deal with bases on models - REMOVE THEM!!! Sorry for caps, I know why they are used, I just wish they weren't. If you absolutely must have one, use a generic concrete that doesn't look awful and out of place. Someone referred to these earlier, "they look like bathroom tiles". I agree, no Maxis please.