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Bobbo662

Started by Bobbo, March 01, 2007, 01:48:00 PM

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Bobbo

Hi  :)


Some of you may know that I've upload my material on the Simtrop's BEX - mostly gas stations and shopping centers, and as well on Peg's website as well.

The reason I'm here is because I want to become a better BATter.  I know with constructive criticism, receiving pointers/suggestions  to help improve my skills, especially in the texture arena, I know that I can become a great BATter and help make the community, and the game more interesting!  ;)

In the past 4 yrs my health hasn't been that great, and with that I had with "health issues" on my mind, so if I, in the past, seemed rude (to those that tried to help me) - please accept my apologies - I'm really a nice person - and since I had my last surgery (in Jan '07) - my health status is drastically improving.  So now that part of my life is in the past, I like to extend my talents further with the help from you all. 

Ripplejet has become a great big help to me in the modding area of my BATs recently, I'm grateful for what he has taught me, and has done for me.  I also like to thank Simgoober, and Deadwoods for giving me pointers on my BATting skills, and Barby for her Megalot tutorial, that was awesome Barby!!! :)

Well - here goes.  Ripplejet back in December told me about my missing Parent Cohorts in my lots, causing my buildings not show up in the game.  So I went and locked all 73  of my BATs, and started from scratch - trying to replace what I could, and to make some new BATs as well.

One that I had redone over again is my Texaco Fuel Station:



Though I have since replace the top part of the canopy, to a grey metal canopy (replacing the black)

here are ingame shots of Texaco:



side view:



This is will replace the old Texaco station that I had done couple years ago.  Any pointers, suggestions please will be great!  Texaco is on a 4x3 lot.

Here's something I had done to replace the old Wal-Mart I did couple years back:



The Wal-Mart is on a 6x6 CS$ lot. 

I also went back to my older stuff - and re-scaled them down as much as possible, trying not to gover 6x6 lot size.  Maybe one or two might be larger - but I'm working on it ;)

Here's one of my older BAT's that I had done couple years back.  What I did here was I retextured it, and re-scaled it down to fit on a 6x6 lot.



and a nite shot:



I've gone back to my older stuff to fix like "light leaks" that you may see around the edge of the roof.

And then I made some new stuff, like  Domino's Pizza, and Little Caesar's Pizza! Pizza! - like the little express shops you may see along the Boulavard.  Here you see in game shots:



Each of those buildings are on 2x2 lots. 

I want to thank Ripplejet again, for his help in modding my lots - "You've been a big help  to me my friend, thank you!"


I think I will stop there for now.  Please if you stop by and are reading this - please - give me sugguestions or any advice that you can that will help me to grow.  Thank you!  :)

BarbyW

It is good to see you here, Bobbo. I was really pleased to see that you were one of the few people to actually use the growable megalots so I hope you will still have some. I'm not sure about the Safeway roof but then I have never seen one in RL and yours might be spot on.
Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened. TP



Barbypedia: More alive than the original

Nealos101

Firstly, you certainly deserve to have your lots on the LEX IMO - You are a good person and you create awesome retail/stations/grocery stores which are littered in thier thousands around San Portello...  :satisfied:

Secondly, have you actually considered making actual families for these buildings? Say for example the texaco station, where instead of just one kind you could put multiple kinds in and make each and every lot different? That could be an awesome addition but really that lies with you and your patience lol.

Thirdly, do you have google Earth, and if not, would you like me to go hunting for roof shots I could get for you, to help you improve/alter? Not saying there is anything wrong with the roofs you do, that is...

No real criticisms for you though dude, everything you do looks good to me :thumbsup:

Nealos101

Bobbo

Quote from: barbyw on March 01, 2007, 02:12:43 PM
It is good to see you here, Bobbo. I was really pleased to see that you were one of the few people to actually use the growable megalots so I hope you will still have some. I'm not sure about the Safeway roof but then I have never seen one in RL and yours might be spot on.

Thanks Barby  :)  I'm glad to be here, and I still use the growable megalots, you did a terrific job on the tutorial  &apls.  Yeah, my texturing isn't so great, I have to admit - but here's a picture of that particular Safeway that I had based it off from.





:D At times, when you don't have very good pictures of buildings, then that's when your imagination comes into play - and then when that happens  :D at times you can get alittle carried away.  But, I'm here to learn! :)

Bobbo

Quote from: Nealos101 on March 01, 2007, 02:23:47 PM
Firstly, you certainly deserve to have your lots on the LEX IMO - You are a good person and you create awesome retail/stations/grocery stores which are littered in thier thousands around San Portello...  :satisfied:

Secondly, have you actually considered making actual families for these buildings? Say for example the texaco station, where instead of just one kind you could put multiple kinds in and make each and every lot different? That could be an awesome addition but really that lies with you and your patience lol.

Thirdly, do you have google Earth, and if not, would you like me to go hunting for roof shots I could get for you, to help you improve/alter? Not saying there is anything wrong with the roofs you do, that is...

No real criticisms for you though dude, everything you do looks good to me :thumbsup:


Nealos101

Thank you Nealos, that's a very nice compliment - thank you.  I try to do my best in what skills that I have, but I'm here to further my skills, and what SC4D is doing is a great opportunity! 

I thought about  making Families, but  :D when you get so many request - I feel as though I'm becoming a manufacturing company and pumping out request left and right, and not taking time to make Families - but - that's no excuse really,  I really should take time to do it (if I can do it -  now that I'm thinking about it)  - Ripplejet knows what modding does to me  &mmm especially to my brain  :D

Oh, thanks, I can get Google Earth - that's a good idea! Thanks for suggesting that! :)

Nealos101

QuoteThank you Nealos, that's a very nice compliment - thank you.  I try to do my best in what skills that I have, but I'm here to further my skills, and what SC4D is doing is a great opportunity!

Yep - I myself kinda tried to firgue out how to follow through what I was doing until Jeronji told me; after that it hit lol. Good luck - Will try to help you on the way seeming as you helped me.

QuoteI thought about  making Families, but :D when you get so many request - I feel as though I'm becoming a manufacturing company and pumping out request left and right, and not taking time to make Families - but - that's no excuse really,  I really should take time to do it (if I can do it -  now that I'm thinking about it)  - Ripplejet knows what modding does to me &mmm especially to my brain :D

You hit the spot for why you are a good person lol, so many requests fulfilled you barely had time to do something like that. If you ever get the idea it would be cool; would probably save you from repetitive requests some day?

QuoteOh, thanks, I can get Google Earth - that's a good idea! Thanks for suggesting that!

Trust me it helps ;), without it my roof on my newest version of my Casino would still look shabby.

Nealos101

BarbyW

Bobbo, I can help with families too and you must really start to think of yourself not take continual requests. Say "ok guys this is the pack. I may do some more at some time but I'm not taking requests just for a while."
Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened. TP



Barbypedia: More alive than the original

wouanagaine

Nice to see you here with new creations bobbo

I won't comment on your bat skills, I can only say I like them maybe the roof of texaco is a little bright for me,
I will certainly get into the modding part when it will be time, but I'm sure Ripplejet has teached you everything to be known.
BTW Did you fix all your locked lots or are you still in the process of fixing them ?

Anyway your lots will get a place in my plugins folder

New Horizons Productions
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Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

Bobbo

Quote from: barbyw on March 01, 2007, 02:42:45 PM
Bobbo, I can help with families too and you must really start to think of yourself not take continual requests. Say "ok guys this is the pack. I may do some more at some time but I'm not taking requests just for a while."

Thank you Barby  ;D  I definately could use some help!  You are definately right  - my partner was concern that I was spending 24/7 on BATting, and not taking time to rest.   /wrrd%&

Bobbo

Quote from: wouanagaine on March 01, 2007, 02:44:40 PM
Nice to see you here with new creations bobbo

I won't comment on your bat skills, I can only say I like them maybe the roof of texaco is a little bright for me,
I will certainly get into the modding part when it will be time, but I'm sure Ripplejet has teached you everything to be known.
BTW Did you fix all your locked lots or are you still in the process of fixing them ?

Anyway your lots will get a place in my plugins folder

I really don't like the red texture on the roof of Texaco either (Same problem with the new Pizza Hut I made too - the red is horrible color to work with in texturing (IMO) , that's my problem  :D how -to-do- texturing that is pleasing to the eye (I guess that's how to say it  :D)  Thanks, I can use the help in Modding, poor Ripplejet is getting overloaded with my BATs (poor guy  /wrrd%& - I'm worried I'm over loading him - but he says he loves it)

No, sometime ago, I had backed up some of my BATs (Gmax files) onto a cd-rom, well - I can't extract them off the cd-rom, so over half of them are gone (so I'm trying to replace them as quickly as I can - so I'm still in the process of working on them, out of 73 - I've got about 20 of them done (some new - to replace the ones that are totally gone, and some old one's that I still had around)

Thanks wouanagaine  :)

Bobbo

Back in early Fall '06 I was gonna BAT a Mayflower Moving Company - and had started making the trailer for my BAT building as props.  But then I had my surgery, and so I had not completed it - but this is what I'm wantin' to do - I notice in SC4 - you see the moving cargo/vans moving the sims into their new homes, but there isn't a so-called moving company in the game.  Here are a couple shots of my Mayflower Vanlines Trailer in Gmax, and render shot, plus the actual pix of the 18 wheelers



which then I decided to change the graphics on the back end to this:



and then the render shot:



and then shots I based it off from:



and the tail end



This was something new in what I was doing, I've never BATted trailers or 18 wheelers.  So eventually, I want to get back into making a Mayflower Moving Company.

Naryanna

Hi!
I just pooped in to tell that I like your work so far and I am certain that I will like it in future to. I am sorry to hear about health problems you had/have but I am very glad that that is improving! Wish you best luck!

I like your fuel station very much. It looks great and the roof texture on Safeway... lovable for my eyes. I dont know how it looks in real life, but I do like what you have done.  &apls

Bobbo

Quote from: Naryanna on March 01, 2007, 04:16:26 PM
Hi!
I just pooped in to tell that I like your work so far and I am certain that I will like it in future to. I am sorry to hear about health problems you had/have but I am very glad that that is improving! Wish you best luck!

I like your fuel station very much. It looks great and the roof texture on Safeway... lovable for my eyes. I dont know how it looks in real life, but I do like what you have done.  &apls

Hi Naryanna :)

Thank you for stopping by, and for the wonderful compliment :)  I'm glad you like the Texaco Fuel Station, though I'm not too satisfy about the red texture - so tomorrow I will be working on that part. :)

Please stop by again  ;)

joelevan

#13
I was just looking at some of the 'older' stuff on the STEX and ran into your gas stations! I use your stations exclusively in all of my neighborhoods! Personally I would LOVE to see your stuff updated and uploaded here. Maybe even have BSC BTE added??? Anyway, I love that you are STILL doing great work. More, please, more!!!

Joel

Bobbo

Quote from: joelevan on March 01, 2007, 04:26:29 PM
I was just looking at some of the 'older' stuff on the STEX last night and ran into your gas stations! I use your stuff exclusively in all of my neighborhoods! Personally I would LOVE to see your stuff updated and uploaded here. Maybe even have BSC BTE added??? Anyway, I love that you are STILL doing great work. More, please, more!!!

Joel

Hey Joel  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  I had backed up all my Gmax files (majority of them my gas stations) and now the cd is corrupt, and I can't get to those files, so they are lost :(  But - I'm planning to redo them eventually.  That would be awesome to have BSC BTE added - maybe one day  ;)

Thanks for stopping by - and if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Bobby

joelevan

Quote from: Nealos101 on March 01, 2007, 02:23:47 PM

Secondly, have you actually considered making actual families for these buildings? Say for example the texaco station, where instead of just one kind you could put multiple kinds in and make each and every lot different? That could be an awesome addition but really that lies with you and your patience lol.

Nealos101

I would agree...I think your gas stations would be wonderful in 3 sizes, small (1x2), medium (2x2) and large (2x3)...or something like that. Also if they were both ploppable AND growable. That way my Sims can all have access to gas for their cars and snacks for their bellies.

Joel

joelevan

Quote from: Bobbo on March 01, 2007, 03:33:18 PM
I notice in SC4 - you see the moving cargo/vans moving the sims into their new homes, but there isn't a so-called moving company in the game.  Here are a couple shots of my Mayflower Vanlines Trailer in Gmax, and render shot, plus the actual pix of the 18 wheelers

This was something new in what I was doing, I've never BATted trailers or 18 wheelers.  So eventually, I want to get back into making a Mayflower Moving Company.

This is a great idea! I had not thought of that, but brilliant! that second picture is great! I love the detail you put into the doors. I can see the locking mechanism and everything!

Joel

jmyers2043

#17
Hello bobbo. Good to see you here. I like some of your bats and have them in my game. Particularly the retro gas stations (Mobile, Texaco, and one other that escapes me right now) ... I've actually lotted extra ones so that they have better chance of growing and I tend to make them historical if they grow on a nice corner. Scale is a slippery little critter in Sim City and Maxis wasn't very consistent. I always have some sort of idea what kind of Maxis building I am shooting for and try to stay with the range. Recent example is my dirty industry. I saw that the Maxis MPR Metals was growing too frequently and I wanted some variety. So batted some dirty industry and tried to stay within the same footprint as the Maxis counterpart. I say this because some of your buildings are big. Such as the multi island Texaco you've presented above for critique. Also compare the lot size with the WalMart you did (6X6) and 4X3 Texaco seems a bit large. The roof on the Texaco is an improvement over the bright red roof you did on a previous gas station. But before I get to far .. I'd like to know what 'paint' program you are working with before I make too many texture comments? I mean – I can make suggestions but am not sure if you can deliver if you don't the 'fancy' tools that I and others use. Many folks in the BSC have Photoshop. A somewhat expensive program. I use Paint Shop Pro (more reasonably priced at around $100+ dollars) and I believe that Peg and Jeroni also use Paint Shop as well. It does everything that I need for altering and making downloaded textures more Sim City friendly.

Having said that – and looking at the Dominos and Little Caesars. The colors are very vivid. Almost to the point of looking like plastic. Couple of things to keep in mind. I always put a gradient on all my textures. Even brick. Making the upper part of the wall a bit lighter than the bottom adds a bit of realism to the walls.  I also use a random pattern to lighten, darken, parts of the wall. Now this can be done freehand using 'dodge' and 'burn' in a paint program, or you can do what GasCooker did, use broccoli. (My apologize for taking over you thread - I was just going to make suggestions but thought that a demo would be better)

Brick Wall starting point. I'm going to do a square building so I'll use a square image. I will tile the brick longer if the wall is rectangular. This is to avoid repetition of patterns.


Add a gradient. the bricks at the bottom of the wall are about 20 to 30 RGB darker than those at the top of the wall.


I grabbed some brocccoli, used the threshold tool to make the white/black image. One can use other images to create other patterns. Experiment a bit.


I layer the black white image at about 30% opacity. I used the 'darken' tool during the layer process. The white part of the broccoli image has no affect on the brick while the black parts darken. (if that makes sense)


This is how it would look on a building. 



Hope you don't mind me picking at Dominos a bit. I'd probably search for a texture of blue stucco. Alter the color saturation, brightenss, or contrast to get the right color. (wouldn't be as colorful as yours) Do the gradient. Do some sort of random lighten or darken. And Bob's your uncle. Hope this helps.
Jim Myers  (5th member of SC4 Devotion)

deadwoods

Nice work on the models you've shown above. I'd back up some of the comments on texturing by suggesting you reduce the saturation on some of them like the Pizza stores. Whilst newly painted buildings often burn your retina's up close, if you were looking from a block away, they wouldn't be so bright due to the dust in the air. Looking from a plane (e.g. zoom 1-3) they would appear even more dull. So keep the colours, just desaturate a bit.

The new Texaco roof is much better. Next is to make a single texture rather than having one texture repeat seven times. What I do is work out roughly how wide/high a texture needs to be (like you've done, get the size right in the BAT and see how often it tiles) then go into a picture editing tool (such as Photoshop or Paintshop Pro) then paste the texture and repeat it the number of times to get the same size as the BAT surface (so for your Texaco it would be repeated twice vertically and seven times horizontally). Then I use the dodge/burn tools to make it look less repeated. Once it's done, I apply it to the surface in BAT and set the UVW map so it only covers the surface once. Hope this helps.
David, aka deadwoods

Bobbo

#19
Quote from: jmyers2043 on March 01, 2007, 06:04:31 PM
Hello bobbo. Good to see you here. I like some of your bats and have them in my game. Particularly the retro gas stations (Mobile, Texaco, and one other that escapes me right now) ... I've actually lotted extra ones so that they have better chance of growing and I tend to make them historical if they grow on a nice corner. Scale is a slippery little critter in Sim City and Maxis wasn't very consistent. I always have some sort of idea what kind of Maxis building I am shooting for and try to stay with the range. Recent example is my dirty industry. I saw that the Maxis MPR Metals was growing too frequently and I wanted some variety. So batted some dirty industry and tried to stay within the same footprint as the Maxis counterpart. I say this because some of your buildings are big. Such as the multi island Texaco you've presented above for critique. Also compare the lot size with the WalMart you did (6X6) and 4X3 Texaco seems a bit large. The roof on the Texaco is an improvement over the bright red roof you did on a previous gas station. But before I get to far .. I'd like to know what 'paint' program you are working with before I make too many texture comments? I mean – I can make suggestions but am not sure if you can deliver if you don't the 'fancy' tools that I and others use. Many folks in the BSC have Photoshop. A somewhat expensive program. I use Paint Shop Pro (more reasonably priced at around $100+ dollars) and I believe that Peg and Jeroni also use Paint Shop as well. It does everything that I need for altering and making downloaded textures more Sim City friendly.

Having said that – and looking at the Dominos and Little Caesars. The colors are very vivid. Almost to the point of looking like plastic. Couple of things to keep in mind. I always put a gradient on all my textures. Even brick. Making the upper part of the wall a bit lighter than the bottom adds a bit of realism to the walls.  I also use a random pattern to lighten, darken, parts of the wall. Now this can be done freehand using 'dodge' and 'burn' in a paint program, or you can do what GasCooker did, use broccoli. (My apologize for taking over you thread - I was just going to make suggestions but thought that a demo would be better)

Brick Wall starting point. I'm going to do a square building so I'll use a square image. I will tile the brick longer if the wall is rectangular. This is to avoid repetition of patterns.


Add a gradient. the bricks at the bottom of the wall are about 20 to 30 RGB darker than those at the top of the wall.


I grabbed some brocccoli, used the threshold tool to make the white/black image. One can use other images to create other patterns. Experiment a bit.


I layer the black white image at about 30% opacity. I used the 'darken' tool during the layer process. The white part of the broccoli image has no affect on the brick while the black parts darken. (if that makes sense)


This is how it would look on a building. 



Hope you don't mind me picking at Dominos a bit. I'd probably search for a texture of blue stucco. Alter the color saturation, brightenss, or contrast to get the right color. (wouldn't be as colorful as yours) Do the gradient. Do some sort of random lighten or darken. And Bob's your uncle. Hope this helps.


Hi jmyers  :)

Thanks for stopping by - I really enjoy your wonderful work, especially those industrial BATs that you do - they are just beautiful!!  I remember you mentioned that you liked my Retro Mobil station back at Peg's site. 

I have to 101% agree with you, the building scale in SC4 is really odd.  It can be very difficult to try to scale a building that  you are BATting, plopping it down into the game, and then having something from Maxis growing next to the building you must made being really small in size, that is growing next to another Maxis building that is larger than what you would think be the same size or smaller.  I do have a problem with scaling my buildings, like you mention about my Texaco Multi Island above, being a 4x3 lot and comparing it with Wal-Mart's lot which is 6x6 - you're right - the Texaco should be much smaller compare to the Wal-Mart.  And you can ask my partner, my mind isn't quit made to handle math skills - computing figures in Gmax  ;D so majority of the time, I'm trying to size it with my other buildings.

I do have Paint Shop Pro vers 9.01 - I just recently got it couple months ago, so I'm learning the in's and out's of the program.  The example that you have shown me above (the brick wall) is very interesting, and I'm willing to learn how you do the technique.  Though I do use the 'burn' and 'dodge' tools - but the technique that I do is way off.  The broccoli technique is something I would like to learn - like I said, your work, the way you texture your buildings is breath-takingly beautiful!  Your buildings look so realistic!

This technique that you mention above I grabbed some brocccoli, used the threshold tool to make the white/black image. One can use other images to create other patterns.  is what I want to learn to do in PSP.

The biggest problem I'm having as you can see is the colors.  The reds, blues, orange etc - they look terrible - like for example the red in the Texaco Multi-Island - to me it looks "blah" though I don't want it to look "blah" but it does - I guess I should do what you and Deadwoods had mention - desaturate the textures.

@ Deadwoods - thank you for stopping by!  :) I agree with you 101% about reducing the saturation on the Pizza stores.  What really burns the retinas is the red on Texaco above.  Would the 'burn' and 'dodge' be a good thing to do with solid colors???

You mention "...to make a single texture rather than having one texture repeat seven times..." I had never thought of that.  So bascially take a brick wall texture that you are gonna use on a building and work with it so that it doesn't look the same on all 4 sides.  I've started to do something alittle different - having 3 sides using brick textures, and then the back wall like stucco or something. 

Deadwoods, I've really enjoyed your work - you've been a great inspiration to me b/c of the work you've done with your Servos - you are the one that inspired me to start BATting American service stations :)

Well, I want to thank both you and jmyers for really giving me helpful suggestions!  Tomorrow I will be playing around with the Texaco Multi Island - scaling it down some more, and texturing, and then I'll post what I have done.