IDS's BATs!

[IDS]

Hey all! I'm IDS, and I'm just another high school kid who's played sim games since kindergarten. I've downloaded several gigabytes of content from the LEX and STEX over the years, and for a long time I've wanted to give back, but learning how to BAT was too complex for me and the maps I made were pretty unappealing.

A couple months ago I got 3dsMax and pushed through a load of tutorials, and now I'm getting close to releasing something. However, I still have a lot of work to do to get there. I guess I'll start by showing you all my current projects and then I'll show you what I'm currently stuck on! I know I'm new to this and am still pretty green, so just be honest. I should mention pretty much everything on this list is from Minnesota (the addresses are listed for some).



So, the first one I wanna finish is called Wells Fargo Plaza. It's a 20-story office tower in a suburb about 30 miles south of me. The 3 things I'm unsure of are the roof texture, the roof junk (which I'm in the process of redoing) and the glass texture, which I just can't get right.    This is my first legit BAT, so I guess even if it's not too great, at least I learned quite a bit from the process.



Any help is appreciated  Thanks for viewing!

[Buzzit]

some of them are looking really good 

[Aaron Graham]

It's good to see that you have a thread over here.

[art128]

Nice too see you here, IDs!

About the roof junk, I think it is good like that, comparing it to the real one there's not much to add. Maybe an entrance on the lower building's roof.

[supremec]

"wells fargo plaza" is perfect for me 
And your othes BAT looking good for the moment 

[namspopof]

I like the Roof texture ! It's good !

[IDS]

Buzzit: Thanks! hopefully more and more so as I go!

Aaron Graham: Thanks good to see you're here too! 

Art128: Thanks!  I'll keep that in mind, and now I added a lower roof entrance too!

supremec: Thank you very much! 

namspopof: Thank you, I was worried about it but I think I'll keep it!

Alright, so I finally finished the new roof junk last night (unlike last time I actually spent a measurable amount of time on this stuff ) and I'm really glad I decided to stick with the real life stuff. I think it looks more accurate...maybe needs some tweaking but better than before. I also fixed the rotunda so that it overhangs the parapet like the real one. I don't know why I didn't see that before, but for some reason Emporis is shaky on my connection so I have to make the most of aerial views. I drove past the real one the other day, and it definitely has blinds so I made them more visible:

I also added some cheater trees. I didn't think I'd need full versions of poly-intensive trees just for the lobby, so I just took a few cylinders and moved some vertices for a topiary look. I know they look bad in this picture, but I think they'll do the trick when they're behind glass. I didn't feel like making the whole tree  :

I'm also experimenting with the blinds look. Lighter ones show up through glass, darker ones don't.

Oh, and since this thing takes about an hour and a half to render, I was able to make this in the meantime:

I know the brick looks terrible among other things, but I just wanted to see if I could "finish" before my render did. I'm thinking about including this one in a pack of 4 generic offices I have in progress. This one here is seen in pairs in a few cities around here.

I'll definitely be spending more time on these, of course. But that's where I'm at.

[Frex_Ceafus]

Great Work IDS 

[IDS]

Hey thanks frex! It's good to see you here 

So! I changed the roof texture and I think I found a decent balance for my windows, although I'll leave that up to you guys to judge since I've been looking at this thing all day and everything looks shiny to me right now...

Now, I'm a big believer in "finish one thing before you start another..." but these WFP renders take so much time that I can't help it:

This was really just an experiment in glass, although it is a real building that I plan to finish after I redo some modeling.

Finally, I found an old one of mine that I'm really unsure about...

It just seems really weird looking to me. I like the flared columns but the rest feels really dopey to me, I dunno...think it's worth keeping around? The most I would use it for would be an upcoming generic office pack.

[Aaron Graham]

Another building looks great.

Edit: I like the changes on the other building I think the roof looks great and to me I think the glass look great as well.

[IDS]

Thanks Aaron 

Here's the new 40% brighter roof, with a little 10% nudge for contrast for good measure:

I added the Wells Fargo logo to the side, I think I might decrease the kerning a little but I know the font is correct. I also added a simple "Wells Fargo Plaza" to the entrance.

I know there's a weird white spot at the base of the rotunda, I think that's just me forgetting to scale the interior rotunda floor after scaling it up a bit. It looks like I need to adjust some of the roofjunk now that it kinda blends in with the roof but those are both quick fixes...

Other than that, school is back in session now...but last year I had loads of free time even with really, really poor management of my time, so as long as junior year isn't some form of legalized torture like my schedule promises, we should be fine.

[Mulu2065]

This looks really nice.

[jmyers2043]

Hi IDS


Looks like you've done a number of bats. I think that I'd take one of those bats like the small library and get it into the game as a prop. Put it on a park lot and plop it into the game next to other similar buildings. See how it compares. Look at size and color palette before you get too far along.

I like the Wells Fargo bank. Nice geometry. Another thing to think about is how you'll lot it once you're done. Can make a difference about where you place doors as they'll need to match up with some base or overlay texture. As an example: Ill Tonsko used to put doorways off center sometimes. Great for variety but bad for putting on lots.

Good Luck.

- Jim

[Ramona Brie]

I like and can't wait to see more progress!

That random doodle looks like something that might have been made in the 50s or 60s.

[Utvaw]

Your bats look pretty good to me, and you take time to get the details right; I think you'll make a fine BATter indeed.

Wells Fargo looks good and I like that brown building you made waiting for rendering, it looks like a fantastic suburban office park building.

If you nightlighting is as good as your modeling I'll be eagerly awaiting the finished product so I can add them to my cities.  Keep up the good work.

[j-dub]

I swear at least seeing one of those buildings on-foot in real life. Can't remember though, oh well. Looks promising.

[IDS]

Thanks a bunch everyone!  Well it's been a while since I've updated here but I've finished up WFP and I'm ready for the day export. Here are the 4 views-speak now or forever hold your peace!

North:

South:

East:

West:

I've been practicing nightlighting and I think I might be ready now...

[XiahouDun]

Modelling looks great, and I am digging the roof texture. However, the wall textures are just bothering me. Too much repetition, its really taking away from the model in my opinion. The roof give so much feeling of life and existance, but then the walls kind of take that away

[IDS]

Ooh thank you, I am SO glad you mentioned that!  Those wall textures (the light gray concrete panels) were never meant to be permanent, this is actually what I was using:


Here's what I came up with using a multimaterial containing 18 bitmaps that I set to apply at random:


Unless you meant the streaked concrete (darker gray betweeen windows), but that would be a quick fix too.

[IDS]

Progress on the night scene: