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Expanding the Maxis Building Set: Larger CO$$$ Midrises

Started by cogeo, August 03, 2012, 01:22:05 PM

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cogeo

Hi all,

I've recently been working on two mid-rise CO$$$ BATs. Unlike other BATters I prefer making BATs for the bulk of the commercial development, rather than niches with custom-sized lots and stats that are unique to them. My intent is to make BATs that compete with Maxis buildings - preferably growing in Maxis lots (they need to be similarly sized, at least around their base, and included in the corresponding Maxis building family). Making buildings that compete with Maxis' is imo preferable to blocking Maxis buildings. Blocking Maxis buildings would require carefully selecting and installing custom content, so as to cover all growth stages and lot sizes, in order to achieve smooth stage transitions and avoid overgrowth of certain custom content buildings. And we have to admit that Maxis has done an excellent job as lotting is concerned: there are lots of different sizes, covering all growth stages. Most buildings grow on several lots; it is very common to have the same building growing on higher growth stage but smaller lots. This part of work is often... skipped by many custom content developers; usually what is provided is the BAT model, the building exemplar and one lot, or (sometimes) two. This does not compare to the job done by Maxis, and that's why I'm against blocking it. The problem with the Maxis content is the poor building collection, resulting in a very repetitive look. My answer to this would be making buildings competing to Maxis' rather than blocking them - what could fill the gap then?

The other problem with custom-sized lots is zoning. Many BATs have weird lot sizes, like 5x3, 5x4 etc. This is problematic to the player in my view, as he would have to remember these custom lot sizes and perform special zoning to get them - not the best for gameplay (or use ploppables, but that's another story). Otherwise, players could leave this to the simulator, but this causes another problem, a near... building/zoning anarchy! For example, a 5x3 lot and then a 2x3 and a 1x3 just next. And these smaller lots can't grow buildings as big, resulting in a odd look. Instead, Maxis content comes in more standard-sized lots: 4x4 are for the biggest hirises, while 3-tiles deep lots can accomodate a wide range of buildings, in 4x3, 3x3 and 2x3 lots. This includes almost all of the mid-rise, most of the hi-rise, and much of the low-rise development. That is, three-tiles deep lots are almost universal, and the player can easily control them, and use them throughout the city's growth. There are several two-tiles deep lots (3x2, 2x2 and some few 4x2), and all the rest is just niches! That's all, and the player doesn't need to check lot sizes any further or perform any special zoning.




Now about the BATs. The buildings I'm making are "big midrises", similar to the Maxis' Reflect Systems Incorporated, a Euro-style building growing on 2x3 and 2x2 lots (other similarly-sized buildings are Farly Audio, Marshall Printing and Brink Real Estate, in the other three tilesets). I'm not the first to make such a building, gn_leugim has released Happy Offices some time ago. But with only one competitor, players developing Euro-styled cities are still getting a very repetitive look, as the next bigger building available (Vu Blue Denim Headquarters) has much more jobs (1142 vs 251), which means that one will get an awful lot of Reflect Systems + Happy Offices, before start getting Vu Blue.

Here is a pic of my work so far (my BAT between Happy Offices and Reflect Systems):



A closer look of the top:



The lobby area:



What do you think? First off I would like to mention that I wanted to step away from the blue colour for the widnows. Reflect Systems is blue glass, Happy Offices has blue windows, and the next bigger bulding, Vu Blue is... no doubt blue as well! So I felt that there's no room for... another blue building here. I opted to make a building with those highly reflective red/beige/golden coloured glass windows. But it seems it doesn't turn out very good. Yellow and beige colours (and the ones close) are the hardest to get right in BAT. I desaturated and toned it down, but what I got is what you see in the pic: a dull brownish surface, looking not "golden" neither "reflective" at all, and very little reminiscent of glass.

I'm considering darkening it a little, and increase saturation; maybe intensify the red component a little. Then there two alternatives I'm considering to achieve a more glassy or reflective look:
- Superimpose a "clouds" texture (in a way that doesn't add colour, only increase luminosity).
- Make the texture less opaque, and add some office stuff behind them. The problem here is that I have absolutely no experience on this. Doesn't it look dark (shadows)? Do I need some (day)light to lighten it up? Also could you please provide me with such textures or links? I have found "textures" on the web but they are just photos of the exterior of commercial buildings.

Any other idea? Or a completely new or different texture maybe?

How about the columns/frame (i mean the four outer ones). Do you think I should darken them a little more? Or the shelter at the front only?

What do you think about the top? It has a "fake" enclosure, supposed to hide the machinery etc from the street (and not only) -level viewers.

And what about the lobby? Isn't it too plain or generic? Any idea here please?

I have not yet made enough progress with the 2nd BAT, but I'll post some pics in a few days.

Regards

j-dub

I hate to make u go thru the whole render process again, the bottom catches my eye. I know this game has rendering limitations, so I don't know if it's posisble to add like a bump map or something, but looking at it so clearly up close, it does not look like I'm looking at windows, where as u did a better job with the parts of the building above the ground level. The shadows now, make the ground level look like walls. The top part, you did a good job with the roof junk, and that roof texture came out proper.

Not I don't know if it's due to pixel limations, but the door handles pop out way too strongly, don't know if you can fix those or tone them down.

mattb325

Maxis' lotwork from a techical perspective is sufficient to ensure a balanced game when the player selects more than one tile set during the process of growing a city through to stage 8. However, I should point out that of their building families, there are only a minute handful at stage 6 so this is a disctinct flaw in the technical process.

I also like many of Maxis' buildings. The aesthetics of their lot work is another thing altogether.

Regarding your building, I think it is really nice and bronze tinted glass is quite rare in custom content. Given that you are using GMAX, probably don't increase the opacity for this colour. However, I would suggest looking up your favourite office park area on Bing Maps and taking a screen shot. Make sure there are cars, trees, buildings and concrete.
Then, in photo editing software, change the hue of the screen shot to match your glass. Most photo editing software also has glass scripts, so run it through that a few times until the initial images are no longer clearly distinguishable. Lastly then overlay your current glass texture as quite a transparent layer and brighten it a little. That should be enough to pull off the look you are aiming for.

Add a slight gradient to your concrete texture, pull your mullion texture back to grey a little more and this should be a fun little building indeed.

gn_leugim

first glad to see you back batting ;)

seeing you with your question about the windows (I was about to say, not a good color to chose, but then I see it was on purpose to avoid blue) it remembers me I had to make a second lighting tutorial, for high glass surface buildings... just like yours, to describe how I made the windows and lights on the building you also present next to yours. I'llt ry to make it this weekend, so you can have a look and take some ideas.

Meanwhile, taking a look at the model it self. well... the roof is quite good (yes, starting from the top ^^) but I would change 2 things. 1- are those glass panels on the walls around the elevator shaft and so? I don't think it goes well there. and 2- the wall texture has a gradient, which is good, but when it reaches the top, it turns the texture almost white. that is not good, as it "blinds" a bit and makes detail disappear, as it is all white.

then, the mid portion. the only thing I would change is the window texture, maybe you could try a more brownish and darker texture. The wall texture apart from what I said before is good. some noise wouldn't hurt as well, but is not a need. after all this is a high wealth building, it should be clean.

Last, the lobby. it looks nice as well. few sugestions to make it look even better. Some pottery/plants, some advertises on the windows, that you can give by adding new textures inside. (given it has stores on first floor)

speeking of textures, I use a lot of these when making Office buildings now.

for store images I go here and sometimes here(in this last one you must do a search)

usually, these textures need work on Photoshop or some software like that, and are ready to use.

Any question just ask ;)

whatevermind

I love that you are doing this.  Doing something about these three Maxis buildings (the blue, tan, and white midrises) that completely take over my cities has been a long time goal, and it's an area that is definitely underserved in custom content.

Anyway, I agree with the others' comments.  The things that jumped out most to me, are:

  • Love the architecture - I think the model is a good one.
  • The white wall "stone" texture is too white perhaps, or maybe just not sharp enough, but it's not bad.
  • OMG those windows, they need texture help.  See more below.
  • That window texture however, works well at the rooftop mechanical area, because it is far more believable as a prefab panel texture, such as you would screen a mech area with, than a window.  It's actually not a bad accent texture, but it definitely doesn't work for the windows.  If you can find a working golden-window texture, I think you could keep these up at the roof area.  Maybe even stripe them for a louver effect.  Actually, why these might work so well is because you can see the back side, and see that the other side of the wall is stone, so they must be just colored panels.
  • I would also say the awning at the front door could do well as that gold panel/window texture if you ditch it for the windows. Otherwise maybe a bold blue or black or red to compliment the doors if you can get the gold windows to work.

As far as the window textures, blue and black are the obvious choices, since they're by far the most commonly used (in SC4 and the real world), but, I agree some variety would keep things interesting.  I don't know how easy these would be to replicate, but in the gold and red category, these two buildings jump out as examples:



Looking at them, I also notice that they don't have starkly contrasting wall color - in both cases it's a browner version of the window color.

gn_leugim

before I go forward with my tut, I would like to ask your opinion about this windows and lights (ignore the model at all and the rest of the textures.. just there to fill the gap)


cogeo

Thank you all for your comments.

@j-dub: Indeed, the lobby area was the biggest failure here, however neither the top is what I was aiming for! See my other replies below about this. Which shadows are you talking about? The ones at the front, or the those at the right side? I'll redesign (or at least shrink) the door handles, I just put them as a last minute addition, and didn't really spend much time on the lobby area in general.

@mattb325: I have compiled a complete list (in Excel format) of all CO$$$ buildings and lots. My own conclusion is that whether the player selects one or all four tilesets will have mininal or no impact on game balance or city growth. For each Maxis building (in any tileset) there exist similar or at least very much comparable buildins in the other tilesets (growing on the same, or other but still similar lots). The only exception I have found is the 0x4000008B family (Bunch Engineering and Ferrrara Inc), which is unique to the Chicago tileset. These offer some 500 jobs, which is in-between buildings like the ones I'm batting (~250 jobs) and the next bigger one (Vu Blue), with as many as 1142 jobs. These are all stage-6 lots (basically I'm talking about the 2x3 ones). Also buildings growing in stage-5 or lower lots are actually available in all four tilesets (eg Modde Inc, is a Houston-style bldg, but it is allowed to grow in all tilesets).

Now about the image processing tips, by "overlay" you mean blend the layers in overlay mode or simply put the one layer on top of the other (and merge them in "normal" mode)? I don't know about the Glass script you are mentioning. My editing program (PSP X4) doesn't have one, and those I found on the web are suitable for close-looking images only. Then comes the BAT renderer which messes up everything. In the pics I post below I superimposed the clouds on a flat bronge/beige texture in "overlay mode". If I had done the opposite the clouds would have been whiter. Another problem is that I can't find such proper "office park" photos you mentioned. Do you have one? I could use it for the lower part of the texture. But still, do you see my windows? This is not an all-glass building, and it's quite hard even for large items, like clouds, to get a quite convincing effect, so I'm afraid that smaller items, like cars or trees etc will just look like "rubble" or even "noise". They might be OK for the closest zoom though. Do you suggest preserving (at least part of) their colour, or instead convert them to just shadows/highlights?

@gn_leugim: About the top, the structure (and the glass panels) there are supposed to be like a "fake" floor, ie viewers from the ground (or some higher viewpoint) should not see the mechanical stuff, and instead think that there's an additional storey there. So it has to be covered with the same materials (tinted glass panels, in our case). Making it any different would be visually more disruptive, as it would tend to act as an eyecatcher, due to the contrast. It would require a material that's about the same colour but less saturated and quite "dull", to counter this effect. I chose the other way (which isn't my own idea btw) ie keep the same basic building architecture on this part of the building too, instead of using a sort of a "crown" or "superstructure". As for the walls texture, no it does not have a gradient! Pls check my notes below. Thanks for the texture links. I do have bixel's textures, but in my case they are not very easy to use because of that vertical frame. One will need to import them and than create materials with 0.5 as the U parameter (and a proper value for U offset so that you get only the left or right half). I will have to use them (or maybe another suitable set extracted from some texture on cgtextures.com) for the nightlighting. What would be best would be a collage of "generic office interior photos", which one could just put on a big box or a plane just behind the windows and get the desired effect easily.

As for your tutorial, I think the building in the pic alone is not enough, as it doesn't cover all cases. I think a complete tutorial should include the following cases:
- A building like Happy Offices, ie of a concrete/stucco/metal/etc frame and relatively small inset widows.
- An all-glass building.
- A building like the one in your pic, ie with horizontal, or like mine with vertical almost fully glass-covered stripes.
Please note that the 1st case is the easiest. The other ones are harder, because one will have to leave some dark space in-between the office rooms, to give a convincing impression of floors or vertical structural elements. Eg a lit glass panel spanning to the corner of the building, or a continuous lit stripe don't look realistic as there are supposed to be floors and columns between them, even if the exterior is completely covered by glasss. Maybe the third case could be skipped completely and include only the first two ones (a concrete bldg and an all-glass building); instead, you could make two tutorials. Also it would be very helpful to show what you are doing with that verical window frame (mullion?). I find it quite restrictive, as I usually like to model the window frames myself, instead of texturing them. I the case of single-leaf windows they are rather problematic.

@whatevermind: This "prefab-like" texture look is exactly what I want to fix! Also take a look at my reply to gn_leugim above. The effect for the walls I was aiming for initially, was stucco or simple paint, not "stone" or "marble" - not that I insist about this though. These would also need some bump effect (which I will have to put in the texture, as bump doesn't work in gmax) so as to give the impression of "blocks"; eg take a look at the bldg just next, or both of the white buildings in my other thread. Do you think that this would be advantageous?


There has been some little progress with the BAT. Pics:





Here are the changes I made:   
- Darkened the walls texture a little (and increased contrast). Should i darken it any further?
- The "blinding white" effect at the top has been eased, not so much due to the darker texture, but mostly because I applied a different texure to the upper faces of the columns.
- Made a new texture for the glass (put some clouds reflections ???). Comments please? Should I darken or desaturate it?
- Reduced thickness of the window frames. However the window's shape (a protruding trapezoid) isn't easy to see, unless in close zoom and/or night view.

The lobby area remains a trouble, and I'm dry of ideas. If I make it looking like a shop, I could even use a different texture there. For an "offices" look, those glass panels spanning down to the ground level should rather be changed (eg add a slab  between the columns). What do you think?

Any suggestions please?

mattb325

#7
Quote from: cogeo on August 20, 2012, 02:53:52 PM
Now about the image processing tips, by "overlay" you mean blend the layers in overlay mode or simply put the one layer on top of the other (and merge them in "normal" mode)? I don't know about the Glass script you are mentioning. My editing program (PSP X4) doesn't have one, and those I found on the web are suitable for close-looking images only. Then comes the BAT renderer which messes up everything. In the pics I post below I superimposed the clouds on a flat bronge/beige texture in "overlay mode". If I had done the opposite the clouds would have been whiter. Another problem is that I can't find such proper "office park" photos you mentioned. Do you have one? I could use it for the lower part of the texture. But still, do you see my windows? This is not an all-glass building, and it's quite hard even for large items, like clouds, to get a quite convincing effect, so I'm afraid that smaller items, like cars or trees etc will just look like "rubble" or even "noise". They might be OK for the closest zoom though. Do you suggest preserving (at least part of) their colour, or instead convert them to just shadows/highlights?

I use Gimp and there is a blur/glass script straight out of the box (so to speak).

The clouds that you have altered look much better and it gives a more highly reflective impression.

If you want to try out the real city scene glass, then here's how.....I typed in 'office developments near athens' into google, which led me to a whole bunch of images and I settled on one that took me to an address in Koniari 43 Athens that I thought fitted the bill.
I then typed that into bing maps and got this: http://binged.it/POWvJw or http://binged.it/PsevZd here in the birds eye. It looks noisy enough, there's open space, cars, building, dark/light, trees and the like.

Or, you could grab a screenshot from your favourite CJ and get an SC4 scene. Either will suffice.

Next, if you have no glass script, what you want to do with these images is to merely suggest the tint for your gold colour.
Firstly, brighten the image & turn up the contrast, then blur it to make it not so distinguishable as a screen shot of buildings. I used a ripple effect and then a motion blur, but again, this is part of GIMP, so use whatever is at hand.

Then, I took the predominant glass colour from your project and made a new layer. I then "bucket" filled this and set a transparency. I pasted it over the top of the athens buildings scene....now I have the same bronze/brown looking glass that you have.
Then, I took the lightest tint from your scene and repeated the process, except this time, I used the eraser tool with a random style brush to wipe away the gold to get more random effects.

Then I used some noise on the whole layer.

I stopped here, but you could brighten it/make more contrast/add maybe another transparent layer for some more white highlights...you get the idea.  ;)

I've attached the result...not bad for 10 minutes effort.

Also, I'll repeat what I suggested earlier - your metal window surrounds need to be much greyer or even browner rather than the black that they are now and you'll also need to add a gradient to your vertical concrete texture, but the whole thing is looking really good  :thumbsup:

Edit: for the lobby area, you could repeat the above process but instead reflect maybe trees or zoom into a street in the birds eye view.

gn_leugim

Well, first into the changes you made: 

- Darkened the walls texture a little (and increased contrast). Should i darken it any further? Check!  :thumbsup:
- The "blinding white" effect at the top has been eased, not so much due to the darker texture, but mostly because I applied a different texure to the upper faces of the columns. Check!  :thumbsup:
- Made a new texture for the glass (put some clouds reflections ???). Comments please? Should I darken or desaturate it? not so Check
- Reduced thickness of the window frames. However the window's shape (a protruding trapezoid) isn't easy to see, unless in close zoom and/or night view. Check (but as you say, not an easy thing to see lol) :thumbsup:

I'll second what Matt said. forget the refracion/reflecion funcions on gmax, they suck pretty much... use Photoshop instead.

I use PSP CS4 but what I do is pretty much simple and should work on other versions and other software too.

Create 2 layers, both set normal blending, on the bottom you put the color base, or glass texture if you will, and above the reflection. set its opacity  to a value you find pleasant. this usually works for blueish textures, but for yellowish like this you have to take off the blue color of the sky (if you are using a sky for reflection) you have two ways.

either use the "blend if grey" (click two times on the layer to open the blending and layer style window) and set the sky layer to blend only at light (white);

or, use the blue channel from the drop list and blend only if blue and set it about the same way. you can also try to invert the layers and try that way. it is all a matter of trial and error (and many renders to see how they end up)

all different ways to get what you want ;)

now about the tut, I know that building alone dont cover it all, though the light technique does not differ much from one to other. I was just questioning how good the lights were before moving to the tut :p

cogeo

Quote from: mattb325 on August 20, 2012, 03:59:48 PM
If you want to try out the real city scene glass, then here's how....
.
.
...you get the idea.  ;)
Many thanks for your reply and the help you are providing. The procedure you have desctibed amounts to a tutorial in my view! I never considered taking these steps. And of course special thanks for the texture! Much appreciated!  :thumbsup:

I tried using your texture in the model, but unfortunately the result wasn't satisfactory. Here are some preview renders:

The first pic shows the preview render using your texture unchanged. In the second one I applied the colour adjustment process suggested by gascooker, but in this case it rather made things worse. In the third one I used your texture but with much increased contrast (and somewhat reduced luminosity). It doesn't work well, I think because this model isn't all-glass, and therefore the image is "fragmented", so the viewer can't easily see details and particularly cannot "perceive" the whole scene. This can be seen in the pic in my previous post: it takes a lot of imagination (and goodwill) to "see" the clouds, which btw are much larger and more distinct objects. In addition to the fragmented picture there is also the BAT renderer that comes into play, with all its known problems, distortions, blurring, highlighting peculiarities etc. Maybe this technique works best for all-glass surfaces and for 3DSmax. I'll check if I can use it for the lobby area, although this one is going to change a lot (those large flat glass panels are about to go).

Quote from: mattb325 on August 20, 2012, 03:59:48 PM
I use Gimp and there is a blur/glass script straight out of the box (so to speak).
So you are using the GIMP. I tried it in the past, and I was shocked with its user interface  $%Grinno$% (windows everywhere, hard to distinguish icons, weird terminology etc). I googled for it today, and saw a quite updated look - there is single-window version as well. I'm gonna give it a try.


Carlos, thank you for your comments!  :thumbsup:

Quote from: gn_leugim on August 21, 2012, 04:23:14 AM
I'll second what Matt said. forget the refracion/reflecion funcions on gmax, they suck pretty much... use Photoshop instead.
I have never used the gmax refracion/reflecion features actually, as well as the bump feature (it does not work in gmax), I always perform these in photo editing software.

Quote from: gn_leugim on August 21, 2012, 04:23:14 AM
Create 2 layers, both set normal blending,...
.
.
...all different ways to get what you want ;)
Thank you for your help. I routinely use these features. You may also be interested in other blend modes, like Multiply or Overlay (imo it's very useful, you get both the highlights/shadows of the lower layer and the colours of the upper level).

Quote from: gn_leugim on August 21, 2012, 04:23:14 AM
now about the tut, I know that building alone dont cover it all, though the light technique does not differ much from one to other. I was just questioning how good the lights were before moving to the tut :p
To me, it is more important to present the technique and how to cope with various cases. Eg how to get rid of the vertical window frame in the middle, or how to nightlight an all-glass building (dark stripes between two floors - the model in the pic doesn't need them because there is a thick concrete girder between the floors). The "quality" of the lighting is of little interest to this tutorial imho - after all it's a matter of adjustments and tuning (of course they should look good, so as to lure viewers  :P).




I have made some few changes to the model. Here is a pic (preview render):



The changes are:
- Updated the glass texture. Found another texture in cgtextures.com and modified it as needed (increased contrast a little, intensified red and yellow for the highlights and blue for the shadows). My goal was to achieve a look similar to the building shown in the pic posted by whatevermind. To some degree it does, some of the windows look quite reflective, while some others are darker, and there some blue/gray patches as well. Any suggestions here please?
- Reduced thickness of the window frames a little more, and changed the colour to dark gray. The left segments of the windows are more visible now (in close zoom), although not as much as I would wish (they are well visible in night view). Making them yet thinner would risk having some of them "disappearing" (they are only 0.17m thick - round shape). Also the left frame is shifted to the right (because the vieweing angle is so); I feel that moving them further right would make the middle part unacceptably small.


I have also started working on the 2nd model. It's a quite different design. Here is a preview render:



No texturing or any details for the time being. The frame, columns, dividers, roof etc will all be white stucco/paint (or I should try some marble maybe?), and the glass will be black. I have two questions:
- Should I keep the tops of the columns as they are now (protruding into the rooftop area, or instead trim them, I mean does this look realistic and nice? Not many BATs look like this, but this is both "good" and "bad". What do you think?
- The "ceilings" above each of the three "segments" currently have the same texture as the frame. There is supposed to be a "gap" above these segments. I'm thinking using a dark texture there (some asphalt or dark tiles or so) which would make them less prominent and maybe help with the "gap" look. Any suggestions please?

I also need some help with the BAT:
I find it very frustrating when I have to apply a UVW map to a set of objects. :bomb: This is quite needed when you are applying a large textures, eg walls, where you have a texture with a gradient. The UVW map cannot be applied if an object in the set references another. Of course using referenced objects (instead of single ones) is the way to go, esp during the early stages of the model devolopment, when details have not yet been finalized and you want to be able to make changes to one of the objects and have them automatically applied to the others. So when you want to apply the UVW map you need to select each model, right click and select "Make Unique" in the popup menu - this doesn't work for a multi-selection. Is there some way to do this automatically (eg by running some script)? I would greatly appreciate any help here.

Thanks for reading!

gn_leugim

well, actually the refraction and reflection works on gmax, only the result is horrible XD (i speak of my gmax anyway, who looks different form others as only allows the night maps to be set to 1 or 0 :| )

and now that I look at your second building (I'll be right on it) I remember I have a other unfinished model when I made the Happy Offices. I can maybe try to resuscitate him and use it for the tutorial (it is full glass building btw... first and only glass building eheh)


Now, into your new building. It is somehow quite early to say something as textures are not in place yet and they make a lot of diference, and still some details are missing, but I have to say it is a daring design. have you forget we are making, maybe, european buildings or chicago's, and not XXV Century buildings? :P Ok, I'm joking, the style is unique and well done  :thumbsup:

the top of the columns I say yes! keep them. now about the segment celling I don't know what you mean by gap.. you mean there should be a space between the vertical columns and the ceilings? Maybe you could retract a bit the first and second (counting from ground level).


oh, and about the first tower, I like the new glass texture, but a bit darker wouldn't hurt much no?  :thumbsup:

mattb325

Quote from: cogeo on August 21, 2012, 11:39:16 AM
Quote from: mattb325 on August 20, 2012, 03:59:48 PM
If you want to try out the real city scene glass, then here's how....
.
.
...you get the idea.  ;)
Many thanks for your reply and the help you are providing. The procedure you have desctibed amounts to a tutorial in my view! I never considered taking these steps. And of course special thanks for the texture! Much appreciated!  :thumbsup:

I tried using your texture in the model, but unfortunately the result wasn't satisfactory. Here are some preview renders:




I also need some help with the BAT:
I find it very frustrating when I have to apply a UVW map to a set of objects. :bomb: This is quite needed when you are applying a large textures, eg walls, where you have a texture with a gradient. The UVW map cannot be applied if an object in the set references another. Of course using referenced objects (instead of single ones) is the way to go, esp during the early stages of the model devolopment, when details have not yet been finalized and you want to be able to make changes to one of the objects and have them automatically applied to the others. So when you want to apply the UVW map you need to select each model, right click and select "Make Unique" in the popup menu - this doesn't work for a multi-selection. Is there some way to do this automatically (eg by running some script)? I would greatly appreciate any help here.

Thanks for reading!

Lots going on here....!

This tinted colour really is most challenging, hence why there are so few of them game.

Now all three of your buildings look OK, but the third one is closest to the mark, it's just too green; decrease that, and you should be fine. Additionally, you should be adding some white highlight areas and don't be afraid to increase noise and contrast. The point is, you don't want anything too visible to be reflected anyway.

Even though I gave you the texture; it is far from final, you should take a picture of the glass in the front view port and add random areas of glass 'glossiness' to each individual pane using the dodge and burn. Dodge should be white and the burn should be the light bronze tint in your case.

Take a look here:



I have done exactly the same steps as outlined in this post and last (except I used a glass script to randomise my image). I have changed the tint of the texture and you can see it in the blue areas. But I have also gone over each pane with white in the corners of windows, saved it again and then re-applied the texture.

This method looks more believable than the next render which looks like the building is reflecting a sunset.

One other trick that you can try. What are your specular/glossiness settings for this glass UVW map? Using the BAT, you can tweak these parameters and it works sufficiently. Maybe pick a lemon tone, turn the specular up to 300 and the glossiness to 30 and see how that goes with your colour shift? Additionally, textures within the BAT are set to have a blur of 1.0 - you can change that setting too for a single UVW map if you want sharper glass reflections.

The changes to the metal areas look really good.

As for the issue with the UVW map, not 100% sure from your description, but have you tried to group all the objects and apply a map over the group? That might help.

cogeo

Quote from: gn_leugim on August 21, 2012, 01:53:20 PM
Now, into your new building. It is somehow quite early to say something as textures are not in place yet and they make a lot of diference, and still some details are missing, but I have to say it is a daring design. have you forget we are making, maybe, european buildings or chicago's, and not XXV Century buildings? :P Ok, I'm joking, the style is unique and well done  :thumbsup:

the top of the columns I say yes! keep them. now about the segment celling I don't know what you mean by gap.. you mean there should be a space between the vertical columns and the ceilings? Maybe you could retract a bit the first and second (counting from ground level).
This is not an ultra-modern design. You can view the building I was inspired from here. It has been there for decades. You can zoom to see the "gaps" I was talking about.


Quote from: mattb325 on August 21, 2012, 03:39:07 PM
Now all three of your buildings look OK, but the third one is closest to the mark, it's just too green; decrease that, and you should be fine.
Which "third" building are you talking about, there are four renders shown (3 on the first image, and 1 in the 2nd one). Also by "green" you mean the "gray" dark areas? I put all pics in psp and added an adjsutment layer, with saturation set to the maximum. All four buildings got a red/orange colour, including the darker areas on the fourth building! This can be an optical illusion caused by adaptation of the eye to the brighter red/orange areas. I don't know if this can or should be worked around. I believe that ingame, with more models (and therefore colours) to compare against, a more colorful background, instead of that absolutely (?) "neutral" black (esp if there is some truly green grass), this phenomenon will at least be eased.

Quote from: mattb325 on August 21, 2012, 03:39:07 PM
Even though I gave you the texture; it is far from final, you should take a picture of the glass in the front view port and add random areas of glass 'glossiness' to each individual pane using the dodge and burn. Dodge should be white and the burn should be the light bronze tint in your case.

I have done exactly the same steps as outlined in this post and last (except I used a glass script to randomise my image). I have changed the tint of the texture and you can see it in the blue areas. But I have also gone over each pane with white in the corners of windows, saved it again and then re-applied the texture.
Isn't this A LOT of work? Please note that I have applied one texture to all windows, and the front side has as many as 15x7=105 window panes. And if I do it for say, the bottom-right corner of a window at the 6th floor, shouldn't I do it for the top-right corner of the window at the 5th floor as well (the one just below it)? I think this technique works best (and is easier to apply as well) for relatively small inset windows, rather than for large, almost continuous glass surfaces. For example, could it be applied to the glass texture at the top-left part of your GE Money building? Especially for this one it would be that hard though because you have the panes on the texture, but how about models like mine (it would be really hard to make it coincide exactly with the other parts of the model, eg the frames and the columns, without having some sort of a "guide").

Quote from: mattb325 on August 21, 2012, 03:39:07 PM
One other trick that you can try. What are your specular/glossiness settings for this glass UVW map? Using the BAT, you can tweak these parameters and it works sufficiently. Maybe pick a lemon tone, turn the specular up to 300 and the glossiness to 30 and see how that goes with your colour shift?
Why use speculars (and particularly gmax speculars) in a material applied on the same flat surface? It has no curved areas, neither multiple flat surfaces facing the camera at different angles. Therefore speculars would have a uniform effect on the whole texture, something that can be easily done in any photo editing SW, and be definitely easier to control.

Quote from: mattb325 on August 21, 2012, 03:39:07 PM
As for the issue with the UVW map, not 100% sure from your description, but have you tried to group all the objects and apply a map over the group? That might help.
What I mean about the UVW map? For example, the window frames in my first BAT are all referencing the original one. So when I had to change their thickness, I didn't need to go through the 360 objects and change the thickness for each one (or instead delete them all except for one, make the changes, copy rotate and reposition them and then create arrays again). I only changed one model and the change was applied to the rest, as they are all referencing the same object. The problem is that if you want to apply a UVW map to a set of objects, they need to be unique (not referencing one another). So you need to go to each one and select "Make Unique", which is very tedious. Of course I have put them in a group, but this doesn't change the fact that they are referenced objects.

mattb325

#13
Hi Cogeo, to answer the specifics:

1. I am referring to the third building in your first preview render where you present three buildings side by side;

2. There is known colour shift in GMAX which must be taken into account (as you are aware) Rather than relying on an optical illusion, I have used the eye dropper tool on your image. The darker areas of the glass on the left most building are RGB 197,170,103. This is 77% red, 67% green and 25% blue. On the right most building these same areas are RGB 161,136,70. This is 63% red, 53% green and 27% blue.
All perfectly reasonable and to be expected as the contrast has been turned up to sharpen the reflection, but as there was already an element of green in the image, this has been exacerbated and you have lost the red undertone in favour of blue which is why I said it turned 'green', and also suggested that you decrease that. The lighter colours on the leftmost building are RGB 243,209,138 (95% Red, 82% green and 54% blue), on the rightmost they are RGB 214,185,119 (83% Red, 73% green and 32% blue). Both of these changes indicate the loss of the ruddy undertone in favour of a blue green.  Adding white areas to mimic glossiness will further make the the trick believable;

3. I have posted some findings on the BSC about adding specular tones and maps and how they work in GMAX. The findings are contained within posts 39 and 40 in 'JMyers Public Works Department' on the BSC private board. I only gave you that option as you didn't seem 100% comfortable in photo editing software and this achieves an outcome quite quickly. I see from your post that you can easily do this in photo editing software, so I am glad that my assumption is incorrect;

4. Thanks for the clarification of the referencing. There are no other ways that I am aware of to counter this. I approach modelling buildings differently and would have made the window frames a single object: either a spline or a mesh (you can change large areas quickly by moving groups of vertices depending on the viewport) which easily allows me to apply a texture over an entire series of objects and ensure that gradients follow the whole building wherever possible.

To your other point about texturing, yes, I suppose it is a lot of 'work', if viewed that way.

Texturing takes me two-thirds to four-fifths of any project in GMAX and while it's easier to denigrate GMAX's (many) shortcomings in favour of the new software, adept texturing will likely always be unavoidable.

I never view batting or texturing as work...like painting or drawing I find it very relaxing, so my slant on doing these tasks is very different from what I'm now seeing here (of course it's possible I'm mis-reading the tone of your post  &mmm); so I guess I'll leave the suggestions as is.....

whatevermind

On stucco vs marble - it was more the noise of the texture that led me towards some sort of stone - though honestly it passes just as well for stucco or painted concrete.  I think it looks fine as is in that regard.  Definitely an improvement in the gold/white building's window texture.  Someone mentioned the latest render looks like it is reflecting a sunset - and I agree - but I think that the suggestion of adding some highlights would counteract this.  Maybe less shadow area as well - something like shifting the entire texture towards highlights just a little to give more of a daylight reflective quality.

The smaller window frames are also an improvement.  I didn't notice they were trapezoidal until you mentioned it - if you want them to clearly look as if they pop out of the building plane at all, you'd probably at least need to double their depth.  However, I don't think this is critical to the appearance, and they work fine as is.  As for the lobby, I think the latest render is the best view of that area yet.  I also think what awkwardness remains can be solved in the lotting process with some landscaping. A simple planter or some shrubs or trees will fill that void and draw the focus away from how the building actually meets the ground.

On to the second building, I very much like it.  I would keep the columns running all the way up as you show them.  Besides, it creates an interesting and playful rooftop without being so wild as to demand your attention.  The gaps seem to come through fine, I don't see any need to darken that area - the shadows from the fins and the floor above already give it enough definition.  One minor detail that does look a bit off is the curve of the windows and fins.  From the front view, the windows look to bulge and follow closely to the same outer edge as the fins, with the bottom of the segments showing that they are in fact ever so slightly in from the fins.  From the side view, it looks like the windows are a vertical surface, separated by curving (trapezoidal) fins.  Both work, but the two coming together makes the corners a bit awkward.  I think I would go with the smoother look of the fins beginning and ending in plane with the slabs, as it looks from the front, instead of creating these little ledges at their tops as it appears from the sides.

gn_leugim

ok, after some work, I have it done (I believe)

Single stand render:



and next to it's conterparts (as props)



I will probably make my tut around this building  :thumbsup:

jmyers2043

Quote from: gn_leugim on August 23, 2012, 03:01:56 AM
ok, after some work, I have it done (I believe)

Single stand render:

OK! I like the blue glass. It's very believeable.

Other comments: Nice shape to the building, good roof texture. Your next tall building should have an elevator mechanical room on the roof. That room where the cables, pulley's, relays, are housed that run the elevators up and down. Shorter 4 or 5 story buildings that use hydraulic elevators usually have some sort of venting. A structure (sometimes only waist high) on the roof with large vents that let air escape when the elevator goes up or down.

- Jim

Jim Myers  (5th member of SC4 Devotion)

Swordmaster

Very nice building, but I'm not sure 16 floors would still qualify as a midrise.

Cheers
Willy

gn_leugim

Quote from: jmyers2043 on August 23, 2012, 05:31:09 AM
OK! I like the blue glass. It's very believeable.

Other comments: Nice shape to the building, good roof texture. Your next tall building should have an elevator mechanical room on the roof. That room where the cables, pulley's, relays, are housed that run the elevators up and down. Shorter 4 or 5 story buildings that use hydraulic elevators usually have some sort of venting. A structure (sometimes only waist high) on the roof with large vents that let air escape when the elevator goes up or down.

- Jim

I knew something was missing  :bomb: I shall not forget next time. I dont't know either if this bat is going to see the light of the STEX or LEX so, never mind about this one ^^

Quote from: Swordmaster on August 23, 2012, 05:55:19 AM
Very nice building, but I'm not sure 16 floors would still qualify as a midrise.

Cheers
Willy

Well, we are just following the maxis standards :p