autoVino's bat projects

Pat · July 21, 2007, 07:47:14 PM

Auto that is stunning i cant wait to see more of it - pat

autoVino · July 23, 2007, 07:31:42 AM

Glad you like it!

Anyway, I have a zoom five ready here. Beware! It's huge!

Also, I started on another casino:

and while we're on the topic of casinos, who can guess what casino this is (don't right click properties, please, be ethical in your guess

)?

enjoy!

Diggis · July 23, 2007, 07:35:44 AM

I'm not all super up on my casins but isn't it the MGM grand?

EDIT: Just checked.

autoVino · July 23, 2007, 10:27:06 AM

Nope! But really close, in fact the mgm grand is almost right across the street!

Anyway, I got boolean happy:

This right here is the mgm grand, it has more interesting roof junk than the previous casino (and I swear that it looks bigger when you're inside!)

Pat · July 23, 2007, 11:20:41 AM

is it the mirage? btw its looking sweet the new casino - pat

autoVino · July 23, 2007, 01:11:55 PM

patfirefghtr Glad you like it! the Mirage looks alot like the casino, doesn't it? But no...
This is, I think, the Mirage:

Anyway, I added some casutics to it and a little bit more.

And here's a perspective shot of the other casino:

edit: just wanted to get these pictures in before I go...
The Old Morrison Administration Building:

And to finish off today here's a ground view picture of the waterfall casino:

enjoy!

freedo50 · July 24, 2007, 11:45:28 AM

Absolutely stunning textures on those windows, these casinos could be a great addition to the game.

Fred

Pat · July 24, 2007, 11:47:52 AM

OMG WoW....

autoVino · July 24, 2007, 01:41:41 PM

freedo50 Glad you like it! The textures are a bump map applied to a raytrace material with a yellow golden colour on it.
patfirefghtr Glad you like it!

I worked on the base of the casino some:

Of course, you won't be able to see this part, but just to know it's there, right?
Btw, that first casino I posted is called Mandalay Bay Resort Hotel and Casino, and to the far right, you can see a part of the Luxor Hotel and Casino (the pyramid part, and It looks amazing inside of it!)

edit: I added a monorail to the building, and I did a test render of the monorail isolated:

Now to show how bad gmax is: It took gmax 21 minutes and 59.03 seconds to export a simple transparent box (the lods).
It took 3ds max 5 minutes and 52.88 seconds to export a more complex model (the monorail) the size of those boxes.
Quite a difference!

I gotta tell you, there's a conspiracy going on. Autodesk is saving all the good stuff until you pay, lol

autoVino · July 25, 2007, 08:12:15 AM

*bump*

Anyway, a little update on the big 'ol egg building. Changed the window texture and I tried to run an export of it last night. Mental Ray froze with endless "no photon calculations stored" errors...

I think I know how to fix it now. The error is coming from the nightlights that don't illuminate any casutic generating materials or for that matter any casutic recieving materials. They only illuminate standard old materials. I figured that it takes 30 minutes to do a z5 render so it would take about 1 hour and 30 minutes to do a whole step of the export... 6 hours to do one zoom and progressively less to do the next, and so on and so forth. I estimate 10 or 11 hours to do the whole thing! Better get those sleeping pills, cause I don't get any more than 8 or 9 hours of sleep...

Anyway, enought talking, time for some zoom five results (Click here, about half a megabyte in size)
Enjoy!

callagrafx · July 25, 2007, 09:52:49 AM

QuoteI gotta tell you, there's a conspiracy going on. Autodesk is saving all the good stuff until you pay, lol

And some...Gmax = £0, 3DSMax 9 = £2,900.00 In any case, there IS no renderer built into GMAX, that's added by BAT.

Models = superb btw.

Pat · July 25, 2007, 04:30:20 PM

Auto that is eggtastic!!!!!!!!

autoVino · July 25, 2007, 05:44:30 PM

callagrafx To tell the truth, I'm pretty sure that gmax does have a default scanline renderer (the one that bat uses) because all the scripts are written in max script which can't creat it's own renderer but can call up a default renderer. In 3ds max, it is renderer.production or renderer:#production that sets the renderer and renders... so maybe a perspective renderer can be built for gmax too! Glad you like the model, though!

edit: hmm that's strange, the web says that gmax has no renderer, but then how does sc4 bat render? Maybe I'm missing something...
patfirefghtr Glad you like it!

Anyway, I spent the whole day rendering a first hand monorail ride! 33 seconds, but it took 5+ hours to render (the hunny thing is, original estimates were 1h and 43min... way off.)
Click on the thumbnail (at the bottom), and allow it some time to load.
I'm also planning to do a shorter render video of driving down the small road and looking at the front entrance, but some time later.

As for the egg shaped building, I'm planning to do a test render with caustics enabled, that is, too see if I can get it rendered without Mental ray freezing up.

enjoy!

hmm the thumbnail is a bit large...

XiahouDun · July 25, 2007, 06:23:31 PM

Quote from: autoVino on July 23, 2007, 07:31:42 AM
and while we're on the topic of casinos, who can guess what casino this is (don't right click properties, please, be ethical in your guess )?

enjoy!

THEhotel at Mandalay Bay is looking great

. Do you plan on making the skywalk mall between the Mandalay and Luxor?

To your statement of Mandalay and Mirage looking alike, the Monte Carlo, Treasure Island, and Venetian all have a very similar "Y" shape, and the Bellagio has a "-(" kind of shape to it.

I was planning on making some Vegas casinos once I got the skills to. I've wanted to make the Luxor (complete with all the pyramid's lighting) and Bellagio since I first started considering BATing months ago. No need for me to do the Mandalay now, because thats about as perfect as you can possibly get right there

Excellent work.

autoVino · July 25, 2007, 07:37:45 PM

Glad you like it, XiahouDun ! The only thing is that this isn't the Mandalay Bay and theHotel... it's loosely based off of that, but not really the same. But I am planning to do that casino and some others on the strip!
As for the shape, I completely agree. The "y" shape is very common on those casinos, maybe because it offers a stable large building and with those three wings allows for more hotel space.

Anyway, mini update for now:

I did a basic design doodle, so to speak, of the monorail station. I also toned down the contrast of the sunlight.
As of now, I'm going to start the render of the egg building, and see if I can't get it to run...
enjoy!

Krio · July 25, 2007, 07:42:53 PM

Oh my Guinness! These are wonderful

pics like these makes me thinking, that should I get 3dsMax too

XiahouDun · July 25, 2007, 09:13:53 PM

Quote from: autoVino on July 25, 2007, 07:37:45 PM
Glad you like it, XiahouDun ! The only thing is that this isn't the Mandalay Bay and theHotel... it's loosely based off of that, but not really the same. But I am planning to do that casino and some others on the strip!

I should have rephrased that. Maybe it would be better if I said that it does it great justice? It looks stunningly similar (side from a little smaller and the changes in the non-tower areas), and very easily can be viewed as a replica, even if its a modified one. No matter how you say it though, "great" needs to be included in the comment.

Side note, I blame you for my expierimenting with lights in GMax just now, testing ideas for the Luxor

Pat · July 26, 2007, 12:45:40 AM

OMG WOW Auto you been a busy little bee... I loved the vid and how it gave the feel as if you was almost riding the line, to bad there wasnt any sound effects to it...

SimFox · July 26, 2007, 01:32:05 AM

Well the WEB seems to be wrong on the one. Gmax DOES have a renderer - and it is a early version of Scanline. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to render anything in it. Although it is possible to create render entirely with MaxScript, BAT scripts do nothing of sorts. What is missing from GMAX is renders GUI (Graphic User Interface). BAT is filling that gap plus throws in some automation to boot.
Here is the proof for both BAMX BAT and naked GMAX:

autoVino · July 26, 2007, 07:50:30 AM

Bengt Glad you like it! You should get 3ds max, it's definatly worth the cost.
XiahouDun I'd have to agree, there is some resemblance between this hotel and mandalay bay. Glad you like it! Good luck with experimenting with gmax and its lighting!

patfirefghtr Maybe I should've added sound... but I don't know that much about video making in general. Glad you liked it, though!
SimFox I knew gmax had a renderer in it... but is it really possible to build a complete renderer just using max script? That would be nice, but probably not as fast. As of now, I have some limited know how as to how to use max script. Does anyone know how to call up the renderer in gmax, though?

As for right now, I don't have a clear cut update, but I can update on the status of the egg building. I did a test export last night, and it got about 50 percent done (it didn't crash or do anything silly, just was running really slow) before I decided that was enough and turned it off (it rendered for about 10 hours straight! I guess my prediction for 11 hours was way off. It's that perspective render that causes problems, most of my rendering time is from photon calculations, the rest of it goes pretty quick).

My question now is: is there any way to do photon calculations once for the whole scene, kind of like baking the scene, but not for textures but for caustic calculations?