BAT Showcase

[David H]

My God, it's amazing! Reminds me a lot of some building I've seen in suburban Millwaukee. (If you like that style of building, go take a look at suburban Millwaukee, WI. They have a lot of post modern stuff there)

[romualdillo]

Another great building!! 

[mattb325]

Thanks all.

I hope every one has had a happy new year - I enjoyed a much deserved sleep-in after last night's festivities 

A rare progress shot from me....





The multiple lower levels and curves were tricky - I won't be making the café on the side (or going any lower than the bottom loading dock) as it would make this BAT impossible to be used in game.

[JP Schriefer]

Wow, looks an amazing model! Great job!
Happy new year!!!!
But it's still 8:00 PM here

[Alan_Waters]

Great!!! Happy new year!

[Tyberius06]

This building is amazing! I love your work, you make beautiful buildings always!
Thank you for that! 

[art128]

Is that the LA observatory? It looks cool.

[Girafe]

Interesting design 

[romualdillo]

It looks really good!! 

[mattb325]

Thanks everyone - yes, it's the Griffith Observatory - a very cool 1930's building overlooking L.A. And, one of the only American buildings I've ever seen with absolutely no roof-junk 

I've done a render of the whole structure to see proof-of-concept.

In these pictures it is merely a prop which is allowed to over-hang the lot.

I have to re-render it as there is some weird red artefact a few metres away from the main structure in certain zooms as well as the fact that I want the foundation walls deeper.

Because I rendered the whole building both above and below ground, you get those odd dual shadows.

So with that in mind, it's probably good to get some feedback on potential use






Would you like to see it as:

* An overhanging prop (just like it is now - the shadows of course can be covered by MMPs) but as an overhanging prop it is really flexible in terms of placement.
* A slope friendly building with everything below the ground plane becoming a foundation, but this means that it won't be able to overhang the lot and you would have whatever grass I choose for the lot going down the side of your hill - again, the transition can be covered with MMPs, but it's worth thinking about.
* A building just designed for predominantly flat areas - this means I would discard everything below the ground-plane (which includes the entire concrete loading bay area on the left of the building.

(and no, I won't BAT multiple versions of the same thing, so please don't suggest that. I'm not the output of a committee    )

[art128]

I'd definitely prefer the overhanging prop version.

[Jack_wilds]

really enjoying teh subject model... its very well done in texture and color...

it will be an awesome prized bat to have in my sim city... like it alot


my thoughts...
slope friendly... angled -demand , and ortho for sure... academic college [will it fit in with JB's UofC  ] and business...


keeping an eye on this one

[Bipin]

Fantastic work Matt, you're a damn machine, turning out all these high quality BATs! 

[APSMS]

I would prefer a slope friendly lot, since I am lazy with MMPs and odd shadows irritate me, but an overhanging prop will serve as well; I can make do.

Grass color to me is mostly unimportant, as California mostly lacks grass except for when it's on a developed area, ergo the terrain grass and LOT grass should always look different (to me, anyways). I understand in wet areas this is less of an issue--terrain matches lawns more closely, but it always looked a little odd to me that people tried to match grass everywhere in their cities, cause nothing looks that uniform in Southern California.

At the least, keep it's slope tolerance. It's one of the more interesting features of the RL building. I suppose it will be modded as a landmark or a museum?

[manga rivotra]

Your latest creations are really outstanding. I love especially the research center, absolutely sublime! 

The Griffith Observatory is great too and about the potentail use : i prefer the slopy friendly building option.

Because, if I understood everything well, in this case, there will be one PROP for the part above ground and one PROP for foundations ( which will include the ramp ) together on the same lot. Which ultimately allows more flexibility for "Loters", being able to create for example one Lot slopy friendly with the foundation PROP and the building PROP together, and a lot for flat land with only the building PROP .
About the texture of the grass, there also exists the possibility to make the lot without texture. The user can then put its MMP while keeping its Terrain MOD appearance even on this lot.
And, if I may add something, it would be perfect to maintain the "occupancy size" of the Bat/PROP reduced enough to allow the addition of MMP near the building (  whatever solution you choose ) , especially near the multiple corners.

[woodb3kmaster]

Having visited the real Griffith Observatory, I can say that this is an excellent replica. Kudos to you, Matt!

From what I've read, I'd prefer the slope-friendly building option. The double shadow effect tends to distract the eye from such brilliant creations, and this one is particularly deserving of the extra effort to avoid those shadows. If you can manage it, perhaps the slope side of the lot could have a transparent base? That would give players the most flexibility, avoid having to use MMPs to cover up the transition, and better match the real building's surroundings (as Absalom has already described).

[mrbisonm]

slope friendly (or overhanging)

Darn, another great Bat!!

Fred

[belfastsocrates]

I'd definitely prefer the overhanging prop version.

I agree

[MushyMushy]

I mostly just lurk over here on SC4D, but I thought I'd chime in for this one since I've always thought this building was neat and am excited to see it being made for SC4.
Imho, I think you should do a slope-friendly version (with a foundation). As people have said, the negative shadows are really distracting, and while MMPs could cover them up, what if we wanted a road right behind it? You could just make it slope-friendly and give the lot's tiles a transparent texture so it will match our terrain mods. While this would make it suffer from the water bug, that's really not a big deal. Then we can just use MMPs to decorate the area around it just like we would with the overhanging version... except without the negative shadows.

[mattb325]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. It's fairly evenly mixed between slope-friendly & overhanging prop.

But....thanks to Manga Rivotra's suggestion, we can have both without the need for a transparent lot base under the observatory (which will just suffer the water bug and that's one of my pet peeves ).

So I've split the observatory in two parts; above and below the ground plane, and both are rendered as props. Because I had to fiddle with things like splitting stair-cases and sloping ramps in two, I decided to add a small version of the Café - that part isn't a replica - but it's a pretty reasonable compromise.

The shadow issue is fixed with this method (the above ground prop is set as a ground model as casts a shadow, the below-ground prop is not; and actually receives some shadows in certain parts) - however - because the below ground part is very large and a complex shape and doesn't cast shadows, you will need to cover some of the ground with MMPs as the foundation appears to float at certain angles.

There's not much that can be done with that as the consensus is to not have the odd shadow effect, and I think this will be a good compromise.




Despite part of the foundation appearing to float - I'm pleased with the result 

I will bat the art deco statue and make that the building - the lot can then be 3 or 4 tiles wide with NO slope tolerance and the 6x4 observatory can over-hang at the back.

As for what to make it - it could be a museum - but given that it will likely be placed far away from other buildings, few Sims will visit/work in it (it will still improve education though). I could make it a new type of reward that lifts demand caps such as IHT/R$$$/CO$$$....again, I'm fairly open to suggestions there?