Thingfishs is having a B.A.T Downunder (wanna take a look)

[cogeo]

Hi again,

I did take a look at the tanks BAT and the first thing I noticed is that the texture isn't well applied on the upper part of the tank (the curved one), although the "Caps" option is checked. The reason is that this part originates from the side of the tank, not the actual "cap" (top). Therefore the "Caps" only applies to the little flat (circular) faces at the top. Test this feature on a simple cylinder to see how this works. My solution to this (there may exist some better ones too) is to divide the tank into two objects. First of all make a backup of your BAT, or extract a copy of the original tanks objects. Delete the UVW modifier and convert the object to a simple mesh, then select the upper faces and in the Edit Geometry panel click the "Detach" button (give the new object a meaningful name). Or you can add an Edit Mesh modifier, instead of collapsing to mesh. Then the two parts can be applied different UVW modifiers. The lower part will have a cylindrical UVW modifier (as before). The upper part is harder to map correctly, actually there isn't a UVW modifier type that works perfectly - other BATters pls correct me if I'm wrong. The planar map type is fairly good for texturing this part (to my opinion).

To further see how the texture is applied use the test textures I posted. I'm attaching a newer version; these have subdivision (tenths) marks too, so they make things easier.

Then, there's again... the texture. Your cylinder is about 8m tall and 3.134m in diameter, ie its periphery is 3.14159*3.134=9.846m. So, the texture should be some 98x80 px large. Now there are two options about the material:
- Make one material (for use in both objects). As the two mappings have different sizes, better leave the U and V parameters to 1.0 in the material, and modify them in the UVW modifiers as needed. Also, for simplicity reasons (easier calculations) crop or resize (carefully, it blurrs details) the texture to 100 x 100 px size.
- Make two materials (using the same texture). This has the advantage that you can specify different specualr parameters in each part, as they may have different lighting requirements. Also you can
I prefer the 2nd option.

I tried the "Metal" option in the material's parameters, and found out tbat this one actually makes the texture darker, so you will need a light texture here (like the one you have chosen).

Now "all" you need is to choose a proper texture for your BAT. You can choose a (larger), select a 100x100 area, and create a seamless texture out of the selection (I use Paintshop Pro, but I guess this is available in Photoshop too). This way you can get rid of the seam (around the cylinder). But this causes some blurrness where the seam would be (this is how the seamless pattern is generated, PSP extends details of the one side into the opposite one). But this is preferable I think. And as you are interested in making the seamless only at the left and right sides (around the cylinder) and you don't care about the top and bottom, you can use a simple trick: make the selection larger, eg 140x100 and create a seamless image for this; then crop the image to 100x100, so that you can get rid of the slightly blurred top and bottom areas.

I have chosen a different texture, which I have modified a lot, and I think it's quite acceptable. You may want to find and/or manuipulate a better one.



And some tips:
- To import the modified tank into your BAT, delete the (old tanks), in the menu select File->Merge and open tankC.gmax (then select the two objects), and use the array or clone and rotate tools to make copies.
- In order to provide some differentiation (for each tank) you can go to the UVW modifier and rotate the Gizmo for the cylindrical map, and move the plane around (XY restricted) for the planar map (you don't need additional textures). But in order to do so your objects must be copied clones of the original (not instances or references). So it is advised to do so after all modelling and texturing work with the tanks is done.
- You don't need to change all materials for testing new textures, just change the image file and name it TankMetal.png (then reload your BAT).
- The reason why the lighting effect on the grooves is not strong enough, is because they are flat, straight-cut notches. An alternative could be to re-create the cylinders, subtracting two torus-shaped objects, instead of tubes, this time. Curved surfaces reflect more light than flat ones. No offence jmyers (the idea is yours anyway), but I think this would work better.
- In order to get rid of the "materials getting lost" problem you mentioned in your previous post, check this thread. Moving the BAT into a new scene, will also delete all these BAT-generated materials and clean the list - along with eliminating many gmax/BAT bugs. I always do so before exporting a large BAT, as it takes 1 minute, while re-exporting the BAT would take much more. So I would recommend doing so for the winery BAT too.

[dobdriver]

They look great things,

the old red rottler, that was the first of those franchise type joints we got when they started popping up.

[thingfishs]

Thanks Dobs & enormous thanks to cogeo

While I'm not quite out of the woods yet (there's been some unexpected rendering/texture problems), cogeo's remodeled version of my version of jmyer's version of the tank is looking great. Texture mapping can only achieve so much is the message I am getting from you and Jim. Now I struggle to see the previous problem as purely "bluriness", and now that it's nearly fixed I can't quite work out what's been fixed. (I know what's actually changed but visually I can't work out exactly what was bothering me, but certainly having clear definition of the join/seam has helped)
Although as far as I'm aware all the tanks now share the same texture (although at different rotations etc.), the two rows in the front are clearly different from the two at the back. The front ones to me look pretty bad while the back rows are looking great, I might just make them a fraction darker and if I can, shinier. Also the edges of the ones in the foreground are uneven. I can see this when I'm arranging the props and depending on tiny changes in placement the edges might be straight or they might be warped.
Huh?

- You don't need to change all materials for testing new textures, just change the image file and name it TankMetal.png (then reload your BAT).

Nice one, nothing like good lateral thinking.

- The reason why the lighting effect on the grooves is not strong enough, is because they are flat, straight-cut notches. An alternative could be to re-create the cylinders, subtracting two torus-shaped objects, instead of tubes, this time. Curved surfaces reflect more light than flat ones. No offence jmyers (the idea is yours anyway), but I think this would work better.

I don't want the grooves any more pronounced than they already are but I hear what you're saying and it's something I'll keep in mind for future projects. Thanks for all your detailed info & advice cogeo, it really is much appreciated.





Also here are updated versions of Red Rooster & Hungry Jack's. They now have close to right sized car spaces and HJ's textures continue to be a challenge.
As always, feedback is most welcome.

[gottago]

hi thingfishs,

The tanks seem to have taken on a life of their own, and look much better--you're in excellent hands here, but they still don't have a true polished metallic look to them and some further tweaking of specularity/glossiness might help them. What you need is some fill light in the shadows (represented by the reflected light in the shadowed area of a glossy "material ball" in your ME), which right now just grade to black. Basically it would be good to get a strip of lighter grey to appear after the darkest shadow on the far right as the cylinders round themselves out. If you can't get it by tweaking, then burn a thin-ish, light/white vertical strip into your cylinder texture and rotate it so that it falls into the shadow and mimics the back light.

The fastfoods are fun and well lotted but can use some work. So...

Hungry Jacks: you've got to set your props (sign, etc.)  to cast shadows. The taupe wall texture should be lightened up, right now it looks drab and the first version was more successful. The texture of the flat roof to the left looks out of place--it's the same color as the walls; a dirtied-up asphalt color would be better. The roof junk should be different colors/textures than the roof itself and the whitish coping could be thinner and I'd give it a metallic flashing on top with a noticeable repeat. The window textures should be changed from the gradient you have now; grab a screenshot of some actual windows and tweak it a bit, and make a greyscale/alpha from it and load it in the opacity channel of your ME. Also, inset them into the frames deeper to give some shadow play.

Red Rooster: as above re: windows & roofjunk. The burnt orange wall texture is too saturated and again I wouldn't use it for the roof of the drive-thru; use an asphalt-like texture there, and dirty up the edges. Again, the white coping is too thick and could use flashing, and you need to have something going on on the whitish flat roof to the right--ribs or joints and/or a low-relief coping--right now it looks too schematic.

Also, you have a scale problem with this one; if you look at the ingame pics, the building is both too small and too large--it's about 1/4 to 1/3 overscaled in comparison with its smaller neighbors, and it doesn't look like there's enough building there to serve its functions. Make it bigger and smaller 

[thingfishs]

Thanks gottago for a raft of ideas.
Okay, I am feeling good about the winery, it's looking just about done to me. I love the new tanks, although they still don't look like shiny metal (after much experimenting with glossiness and specular levels). I've added a vine fence which I think I like, played around with the roof textures, changed the window and a few other small adjustments. I am feeling quite proud of what I've been able to achieve with this.

 

As for the fast food joints I have followed most of your advice there gottago, and they're looking much better. I forgot to change the "coping" (learning lots of new terms here, oh & what's flashing?) on the drive through bit in the red rooster, but elsewhere both buildings are looker better for the reduction. Changing the proportions, particularly of the Red Rooster, helped hugely. As did moving the windows back into their frames more. The windows actually are photos of windows but do look like simple gradients. When you say make an alpha map of a window, what area of the window is black/white? I'm a bit lost with that bit.
I also couldn't work out how to make a prop cast shadows I had a look but couldn't work out which command was for that (I take it it's not called shadows)

How can you tell which car props are timed and which aren't? The ones I've used in the winery come and go but the ones here are static.

(edit: When adding nightlights, which part of the winery LOT do I add them to?)

[gottago]

Those tanks! I think your problem is your texture--gmax doesn't have much capability to render something like glossy metal properly--basically you have to do it for it and just paint or accentuate shadows, highlights, reflections, etc onto your textures to get the effects you want.



Try this texture on the tank sides with a fair amount of spec and gloss, and rotate it so that it's natural highlight falls to where the light strikes the tanks in your pic below (SSE, or 270 degrees)--that's the view that counts, the other rotations you don't really see the tank sides that much.

If you want horizontal grooves, just paint them on with PS.

I'll post back re: the fastfoods a bit later...

[kwakelaar]

If you are working with the Maxis plugin-manager you need to put "Is ground model" to true to get the shadows.
The winery is looking excellent, you can go on tweaking endlessly but at some point make the decision to move on to the next project.
I would like Gottago suggest sinking your window frames deeper into the walls. Now it is looking like the windows are glued to the wall.

[thingfishs]

Kwakelaar: Thanks for your thoughts, "is ground model", cheers. Believe me, nobody want the winery finished more than me. It's taken a lot longer than I originally envisaged, and with university looming I really want to get on with other things but the tanks have really been holding things back. imo they were a too weak link in the project. But now with help from all quarters I think the tanks are finally looking like the real thing. Which leads me to...

gottago: thank you

That's just the right texture. When I first applied it things were screwy, but I threw away all the UVW maps and voila!



Do these need any subtle manipulation to make them fit in better with the rest of the colour scheme? (maybe they're a bit dark because the winery looks a bit light by comparison)
Where do I put the night lights?


(edit) an update following gottago's advice below... (btw gottago, by luminosity do you mean brightness?)

[gottago]

The texture looks better, especially on the tops of the tanks, but you're right it's still reading too dark and brown. I just played with it here in PS and try this: desaturate by 50%, push up luminosity by 30% and contrast by 15% and see what you get.

Re: nitlites, you only have that one window so put an omni inside above and behind it (you'll need a light-colored floor slab inside to give it something to reflect off of and might have to enclose it in a "room" to prevent light leaks), and why not a target spot or omni beneath both the open roofs to the right of the tanks to give some interest elsewhere on the lot.

About the fastfoods, coping is the wider, flat piece on top of a parapet, or low wall surrounding the roof of the building, which keeps out moisture. Its usually sheathed in sheets of zinc or some other metal. In RL those white tops would be capped with a metal coping. Flashing is a metal strip put between a roof and a wall, or above a window or door, to prevent moisture leaks (I actually misused the term in my last post).

Also, watch out with those parapets--on the RR, one end is jutting out to the left at back, and on HJ they don't all look to have the same width.

The windows on the RR still look like gradients but I assume they are supposed to have shades--if that's what's going on, I'd darken the upper part of the glass below the white shades to kill the gradient look and make it more readable.

And the roofjunk still looks too much like the asphalt roofing; try a few dirty metal textures on them to make them pop more and give them some variety.

PS. Also on HJ the windows are too big and too high--in comparison to the cars they look way overscaled and the frames too big. Maybe make them thinner and double them up

[manchou]

Hi thingfish !
I like your creations ! It's wonderful ! But be carful tour BATs and props haven't got any shade ! I don't now if it is normal !

A+

manchou

[puresim]

Hi thingfish,

Just wanted to say that I think your winery is looking great! I've only just found this so quickly skimmed through the pages, but it's obvious that you're dedicated into making this perfect. Seeing your photos of the real building and then the screenshots of your SC4 building is very interesting. I think it looks very realistic

Looking forward to this being released!

[thingfishs]

Thank you very much puresim & manchou (and thanks once again gottago, cogeo & jmyers for your significant contributions during the battle of the tanks... we won! )


Well it's been quite the journey but I think it's just about done, though I've still got some night light issues to resolve. There's still some timed prop work to be done also but visually, in daytime at least, I am happy with it. It might not be apparent but I've spent quite a bit of time fine tuning many small details since the last update. I've also added my late dog Elle, flat out asleep on the lawn where she spent so much time back in the day. She will be a timed prop as well.

manchou: I've finally learnt how to make the props cast shadows so it should be looking OK now. As for shade being normal, I had to go and check but yeah, it's at the winery too.

puresim: I appreciate you taking the time (even if it was a quick skim), to evaluate my recreation and I'm glad you think it's living up to the original.












There's still problems though. I have finally got night lights to show up in my render, previously I was attaching it to the small building where it is in RL shining over the courtyard but it wouldn't show up. Then it occurred to me to put it in the ground prop itself and I was moving again. However they aren't showing up in game. I've always been a daytime only player of SC4 so I never bothered about the night light update. Now I have, I have updated the game and CC buildings that were previously dark now had light. But not the winery.

Any ideas of likely causes?

[manchou]

Thanks to your anwers ! I really like your LOT ! I'm impatient to see your LOT finish !   

[cogeo]

Now I have, I have updated the game and CC buildings that were previously dark now had light. But not the winery.

Any ideas of likely causes?

Maybe set the Light property in the prop exemplar to 1 (=True) ?.

[thingfishs]

The lights are on!!

Thank you cogeo

[thingfishs]

Thanks manchou, I'm glad you like it, and it's nearly finished.



I have finished with the day mode but still have the timed props to deal with (the picnic on the lawn, workers in the winery, my dog, cars, tractor etc) Unfortunately my guy that's helping me with the timed props is currently unwell so I may have to learn to do that stuff as well, I'm a bit intimidated by number work. I've slowly been figuring out how to do nightlighting but it's been frustrating. I've mostly been having trouble with the cellar door window (the small building), trying to have a good looking low light. I'm not too fussed about the night lights as I'm pretty much a daytime player, but I'd still like to get them a bit better if I can. Another thing I struggled with was how to make a small red (for eg) light that might be on the side of some machinery or something. I know how to make it red, just not to make a convincing very small light. Any thoughts on any of this?

   

[gottago]

Hi thingfishs,

Re: the nitelites, in general they need to be brighter--right now they're too subtle to really stand out and be read properly, but the colors of the lights themselves look spot on. The small window in particular is way too subtle to notice if you're not looking for it.

For the red lights--do you mean something like a bare bulb? I've never tried something like that but you might want to treat it like neon: make the bulb and set the red texture to be self-illuminating, then point a target spot at it with a red light, and tweak the light cone and falloff to make it glow properly.

[Diggis]

The light on the ground also needs to light the building some what.   At the moment you have a large pool on the ground with no light on the building.

[thingfishs]

Thanks for your thoughts there gottago & Diggis.

Diggis: The light on the ground comes from a sensor light which is on the corner of the cellar door (small building) This is where I have a target spot. I'm not clear on what you're suggesting, are you saying I need to position the current light differently so that it catches some of the building or that I should have additional lights shining on the building?

gottago: I'm talking about the small kind of lights you have on machinery that tell you that it's on (for eg.). On second thought they're probably too small to be seen from distance anyway. As for the cellar window being too dim, I struggled a lot with the omni inside when it was brighter, it just seemed to produce a blanket wash of light that looked really poor. Then I tried to add some objects inside to break it up a bit but that just resulted in odd shadows. Light is a curious thing to play with, I'm still getting my head around the fact that it's not the light but what the light hits that makes the effect.

Also now that the winery is just about complete I thought I should show the vines here that will trigger the winery reward. Although they are still being worked on I am almost happy with them.

 

[gottago]

To liven up night windows you can either use a photo from RL with stuff going on inside and set transparency a bit lower or use a plain grey-blue texture and raise transparency and put a "busy" texture on the floor. Some people use old posters or even pics of old master paintings, and Prepo made a good set of textures to use like this that represent schematic furniture that IIRC is on the stex, or maybe posted here somewhere.

Re: what Diggis pointed out: what you need is another target spot to add a light wash across the wall below the light source; right now the pool of light looks disembodied and you don't know its source.

The vines look good but the green is bright and will get pretty aggressive when you lay out a big field of them. Try mixing in some darker, muddier greens and even darkish grey/ochre in your leaf textures. Also, you've got tiling going on in the rows, so flip some of your models.