Oversized building on small lot

[Frigid]

I've made a building which is meant to go in a 1x2 lot.  I've put it on a lot, and it looks fine.  The only problem I have is that the way I rendered it, the LODs were too big and are bigger than the building, so there's a lot of empty space on the model, making it bigger than the 1x2 geometrically, but not visually.  I'm not really in the mood for re-rendering it all, but i will if I must.

I'm wondering if it's still possible to save the lot even if the building doesn't fit completely in the lot.

Thanks

[spa]

I can offer you some advice. If I understand what you're saying your LODs are bigger than the building? If that's the case you should really rerender it. There is no reason to have LODs larger than the building because large LODs will make placing props next to your building impossible should someone want it on a 2x2 for example. Below are some suggestions, (many of them are basic and you may or may not know of already). I don't know exactly what your problem is from your description (a picture would be helpful) so hopefully at least some of my pointers will address your issue.

1. Go to the bat panel in gmax and reset the LODs.
2. If 1 doesn't work to make tight lods delete lods 4 and 5 and than manually change the settings on LOD3 so that the LOD fits your building snugly. Copy LOD3 twice renaming the copies LOD4 and LOD5. After that you'll be able to rerender.
3. Make sure your building and LODs are centred on the X and Y axis (very very important). If they're not go to edit select by name and hide all your lights and lods. Then go select all and move everything to 0 and 0 on the x and y axis. Unhide your lights and lods. Move the Lods to x 0 y 0. Finally, groups all your lights and then manually slide them into place on the top view so that they are approximately where they were before (you can't move lights to 0, 0 in the same way because gmax generates wonky pivot points for lights which means that 0, 0 isn't actually 0, 0 for them).

Hope that helps. One other quick pointer. Often LODs don't fit for w2w buildings because the lods are ever so slightly off. If your building is slightly oversize, say 16.05 across or some other tiny amount, you can use the scale tool when everything is selected to shrink it ever so slightly to fit. Alternatively, if the distance is small enough, you can manually alter the size of the LODs using the SC4 tool or ilive reader after you've rendered. If that's what you want to do generate your model and make a desc file. Then using either tool (the SC4 Tool is a lot easier here because you don't have to deal with hexes) open the desc file and manually set the object size so that it's 16 across instead 16.05. Your building will now fit on a single tile across. Note that this method won't work for large size problems because your building hasn't actually been reduced in size and its edges will pile up on top of other buildings that grow next to it.

Now if you want to rerender and keep your original lot all you have to do is keep the files you have now, rerender and make a new desc. Write down the ID of your new model and desc file so that you can identify them. Next open up your old lot in the lot editor, select the building tab and click replace building. Scroll down until you find the ID that matches your new desc file and select it. Save your lot with the new building. Then you'll be able to delete your old files and still keep your lot.

Hope this has been of some use.

[Frigid]

Ok, thanks, I guess i'll re-render all my models.

[Colyn]

A serious warning ... if you should use this model as a BUILDING it will suffer from the "Cannot bulldoze" syndrome.

When you do buildings that is tight fit ... make very sure that when the building is selected in the LE the white border shows on all 4 sides of the building footprint.