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Pure Bits & BATs

Started by puresim, January 12, 2010, 12:00:05 PM

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puresim

Pure Bits & BATs

Hi All. Thought I'd show some of my SC4 experiments here to see what you all think :D


puresim

#1
Engine Shed project

Initially based on a railway Engine Shed found in North Yorkshire, England.

It's the first building I've created for SC4, so go easy on me! I'm happy with the way it looks in Blender, but when it's put into SC4 I'm not sure:


Click here to see a larger picture.

[removed some photos]

Is the roof too dark/saturated compared with other buildings?

It's currently a ploppable IM. That's it for now. Feedback welcome :)

mightygoose

thats really great, you should set yourselfs up a candidacy thread.
NAM + CAM + RAM + SAM, that's how I roll....

thingfishs

Really good for a first effort &apls
It's a well made interesting building, I would use it.

However I think the roof texture is much too bold, that definitely needs a healthy desaturation. This will help it blend it better with the walls as well as the rest of SC.

rooker1

I have to agree with the others.  Great start, but the roof needs some more work.
I hope you do start a candidacy thread HERE at SC4D.

Robin  :thumbsup:
Call me Robin, please.

puresim

#5
Thanks guys, it's nice to hear that it's not a complete disaster ;D

I'll desaturate the roof and lighten it too, looking at the shed amongst the other buildings it sticks out far too much &mmm

I need to rethink what I'm going to do with the lot around the building, I'm not sure the green works in an industry environment. Any ideas?

rooker1

I think you might need another roof texture. 
As for the ground texture....what about a concrete and dirt one with some trucks by the side doors.  I might also consider getting rid of the parking in the front and just place a few parked cars along the side and back.
I also would not TE the LOT, it doesn't line up well enough for that.

My two cents....
Robin  :thumbsup:
Call me Robin, please.

cogeo

#7
What's wrong with the roof texture (and I can see this at the first glance), is that it's way too dark. It's much darker than any other building around. And thus the contrast to the (light) yellow wall becomes too high as well, which isn't pleasant to the eye. So you need to lighten it up quite a lot first, and then you can tell better if it needs to be desaturated and how much. Often darkening causes a perceived saturation increase, so it would be best to see what you need to do with saturation after you are done with luminosity adjustment.

The wall texture is a little weird too, but not really bad. I think there is something wrong with the colour balance, maybe you could try reducing the red components a little, or instead increasing greens (better do not bother with blues, what this will effectuvely do is adjust saturation, which I think is quite OK). For determining the optimum values for these adjustments you will need to experiment and make several test exports. Do not modify the original texture and make successive adjustments on it, this can result in distortions like gammas, inbalancies etc. Better add the proper adjustment layers on the original texture, and export the adjusted image every time (with the same name), and test your BAT with this exported one.

There is also this tutorial by gascooker, explaining how to adjust textures. The procedure might look tedious ar first, but you can do it once and then copy the adjustment layers to other textures too. But I don't think this is needed in this case, as you are quite close here. All it would do is decrease reds and incerase blues, which in a yellowish/brownish texture will reduce saturation significantly, making it almost gray. But you can try it (and keep the adjustment layer for your next BATs).

Also the material of the doors is too dark as well, and not convincing at all. What is it exactly, wood, rusty metal maybe??? I think a better texture here would work wonders.

puresim

Thanks for the feedback guys. I went through 3 other texture variations until I found the one I was happiest with. For today it's a quick and dirty update to the lot itself, some of the timed props missing from the screenshot make it appear emptier, but that's ok. I completely agree with Robin the TE road looked out of place, so my next mission will be to create 1 or 2 texture overlays to unify the lot with the TE more...



cogeo thanks for the link to the texturing tutorial, that's actually very useful to know (will read through it properly tomorrow while at work).

This definitely isn't anywhere near finished, but was really useful to get all the feedback. Stay tuned for more :thumbsup:

mightygoose

NAM + CAM + RAM + SAM, that's how I roll....

puresim

#10
Thanks mightygoose! ;D While I'm still awake, here's another recent model and lot experiment:

Liquid Fuels & Co.
Fuel shipment manufacturing industry.





The main building is a BSC prop, as are the trucks and trains.

thingfishs

it looks a lot better now :thumbsup:
There's no longer a problem that stands out, I personally think the roof could still be improved but it looks completely fine as it is. I find the lines on the roof texture, particularly on the long part of the building the train runs through, to be slightly odd. I would try rotating the texture so the lines were vertical with the ground like the other roofs surrounding your building. However on the other section of your BAT the texture is far more consistent and I think looks good, maybe if you can make the roofs match rather than rotating it.
But release it as is and I'll still be downloading it...

puresim

Thanks for the feedback thingfishs. I see what you mean about the roof, it's not as defined as the other smaller building's roof, although I'm not sure why that's happening because it's the same texture. I think scaling up the roof texture may help define the edges more and solve the smoothness. I'll carry out some tests.

While I was away I started another building (which I'll show later) and also worked on this:




I still need to work on the custom texture for the Engine Shed, but at least I have some custom props in there now. As always any comments welcome!

thingfishs

nice semi there puresim :thumbsup:

I'm still not convinced by the roof. My personal inclination would be to drop that texture entirely, it looks like it's been drawn with coloured pencils and you can see the marks where they've coloured darker. Love the building though.

puresim

Quote from: thingfishsit looks like it's been drawn with coloured pencils

But I'm very proud of my pencil drawing skills! :D

Seriously thanks for the comments and for bringing a smile to my face. Following your inclination I've demolished the old roof and installed a new one:




mightygoose

NOOOOOOOOOOOO - i loved the old timber roof, this new one for me is a step backwards...

ok they new one looks well new... and shiny and great but the old one is just what i was after, rough and dirty. if you are adamant on changing it, please release both versions...
NAM + CAM + RAM + SAM, that's how I roll....

thingfishs

I can't shake the feeling mightygoose doesn't like it ;)

To me it looks more convincing as a roof surface, but not necessarily for this building. I think with the beautiful old building you have the new roof looks too, well new. Feeling partially responsible  &Thk/( I had a bit of a search for examples...



The house on the top right is an example of an older place with a tiled roof, they are grimy etc. Do you use PS?


gottago

Sorry mightygoose, I've gottago ( ::) )with things re: your original roof texture; it does look like a colored pencil drawing.

Anyway, an old train shed built in the days of steam engines--open, coal-fired furnaces on wheels--would never be built with a wooden roof; it would catch fire within weeks. It would either be slate or metal.

Try this out--it's a non-tiling slate roof texture that's already grimed up. It should look good with the stone:



And the semi looks very good; I'd just say that the trailer looks pretty short in comparison to such a big cab.

callagrafx

Something like this really should have a corrugated iron roof....There are loads of textures available for this type of roof.  Here are a few:

http://cgtextures.com/textures.php?t=browse&q=39335

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it

Diggis

I'm with Mightygoose that the new roof was a step back.  If you are going to continue with it you'll need to dirty it up some, it's too consistent and doesn't look like it's suffered 100 years of grime.   All the photos you posted had patched roofs too.  However, corrugated iron could work well too.