autoVino's bat projects

[autoVino]

[sim-al2]

 

I saw the beginnings of this yesterday on ST, and I have to say it looks awesome!

[autoVino]

The base is largely detailed and done (modelling wise, the textures will add a whole lot more detail to it).  Still to do is a few fixes for errors in the modelling a few walls to add, a few windows, and the interior facade; all this should be fairly quick to do... ~1 hours work to do.
Also to add is roof details then I will start on the tower.

The base of the building is often largely forgotten by batters since the tower is always bigger, often easier because of the refrence photos, and ambitiouly done first.  For some reason I like bases of the buildings more than the towers themselves, since the towers are often simillar to others around the world (not to say that the base isn't either sometimes) but the base has more detail for expression by the original artist; while the tower is just a bulky object that is used to attract attention and create office or residential space (not to say that expression does not exist in the tower itelf).
In the case of this building, which is still to be named, the base plays an extremely vital role.  The design of the base, although modern, shall be used blend the building in with the ground level of the city.  The city that this is going to be built in is fairly small, although historic, so the finanical district isn't as tall as you see in larger cities.  The base is to be seen from ground level and will actually try to hide the huge tower from the pedestrians, as to not to "belittle" the surrounding architecture.  But from far away, the tower will be visible with all it's might and will fit right in with the other four or five towers of comprable size in the city's financial center.
Because the base is where a lot of the action will be going on, such as eating, shopping, etc, it is an important item to model and shouldn't be forgotton or replaced by the tower itself.  The importance of the base and its detail is limitless.

Any more guesses for the building name?

[Orange_o_]

  your new building start very well

Orange

[autoVino]

Now in 3ds max 2009... who knows if that's a good or bad thing.
For one, the new mental ray core offers faster and more comfortable working, as well as memory saving innovations such as proxies.
Proxies give you the power to reproduce or clone an object as many times as you want without having a significant impact on memory.
But a problem exists, it seems that the bat4max script does not work with the newest version of mental ray 3.6, or at least the crop is incorrect.
This is fixable, it will just take some time to play around with the scripts.

[threestooges]

It's a stunning building. What will the dimensions be in game and have you decided on a name for it yet? The level of detail you add to these works is always impressive. How long have you been modelling? Looking forward to seeing where this goes from here.
-Matt

[autoVino]

This building only has a relative scale so I cannot give you an exact zoom five preview, but the angle can be correct:


The first floor should be ~5m in height, with the successive floors being about 4; after of course a ~125% vertical scale.

In the renders above it seems that I have forgotten to save with gamma correction (or try to create an exposure setup without gamma correction).  So the renders seem a bit saturated and dark.
This render shows the approximate size.  Don't forget that this building is 35+ stories high, so there will also be a tower with it.

[autoVino]

threestooges: this is a real world building, but you shall have to guess the name    I have been modeling for over five years now, first in a free modeling program called blender with yafray as the rendering engine and then 3ds max as mental ray as the rendering engine.

Added level two of the building, needs the tower and roof then I will work on the textures (and experiment with the new mi shaders!)







these last two images had elevated exposure settings, so they look a bit foggy/washed
the first two images are, as usual, the correct camera angle, but not representative of the scale.  I will work on scale once the modeling is done, and before making texture.
I have some extra work to do this week so I may not get to working on this.

[Pat]

OMG Auto wow that building is soo stunning!!! Is it a hotel from what I see of the plans? Btw what happend to the nuke plant?

[SimNation]

Another jaw dropping building. Looks simply great.

[autoVino]

This is how the production cycle works when the only budget is a time budget:
1. Start doodle number 1
2. Build off of the doodle
3. Start doodle number 2
4. Start doodle number 3
5. Work on doodle number 1
6. forget about doodle number 1
7. take a two week long break
8. Work on doodle number 2
...And so on and so forth with breaks inserted about every 7 or 8 steps.  After about three or four cycles of this process the doodle becomes a release.  Only two models have made it thus far.

I feel that the current stage of the building (or at least height-wise) is sufficient.  I don't like the large tower that is superimposed over this building so I will omit it from this version; furthermore the current state is something that is missing from the game, a mid-rise detailed building.  Many of us model massive buildings for ambition and small buildings for practice (or ambition if they are numerous).  Why not create something that is missing from the game as a new form of ambition?

It is unrealistic for a city to be completely comprised of large mega-structures, and it is detail that is key.  How can one create detail when it is always blocked by larger structures, to the point where only the top is visible?  It is not the top that is important, but the base.  The top merely marks a milestone of development and is not important to life, comfort, and practicality; in fact it may hinder it.  The only thing it gives is beauty viewed from up above, and not from below as most of us are.  It may be the purpose of the game to do this, but I believe that is should be equally the purpose for the detail down below to be visible.  The small guy is just as important as the big guy.

[Pat]

hear hear Auto that is so true!!! Its time for the small guy to take a stand!!! 

[autoVino]

I got attacked by this virus (link to description) that spreads through external (and internal) drives, including USB drives.  Luckily it didn't do any serious damage if any at all, it was just a nuisance until removed, which was quick once I figured out how to remove it without it re-appearing itself upon removal.

Here's an update:
Some basic texturing:  I will work on the poly and textures some more to try to give it some detail highlights:
The glass texture currently looks very uniform, but that will be adjusted later on.

[threestooges]

I still have no idea of this building's real world counterpart, but named or not, this is going to be an excellent addition when you get it done. I'm guessing all the white marks are relfections from the glass?
-Matt

[autoVino]

yup, forgot to turn them off for simcity render as they will look "unrealistic" in such an environment.  I'm actually deviating from the design quite a bit.  The building should be twice as tall, the facade modelling is slightly different but concept is similar, and the facade material is different, slightly. 
different lighting rig (by Jasoncw), forgot to turn off exposure control, or at least set it to non-physical lighting


I have turned on ambient occlusion (radius set to 1m) to make the details more visible and make the render more accurate.
The building is correctly scaled now.  Till next week(end).

here are the full version
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x62/autoVino/mid-012.jpg
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x62/autoVino/mid-014.jpg

[Orange_o_]

I like your prodution cycle, i 'have aproximately the same...


I like very much the glass windows.

Your batiments is an example for me, and a true happiness to be contemplated

[autoVino]

Snowed in this morning, so I took the liberty to add a little bit more detail and experiment with lighting.  Jason's rig seems to have confused mental ray and it started rendering what looked like the reflectivity element for mi.  I switched back to the standard rig and changed the white balance.  I also optimized FG and AO to create a quick and dirty but good looking effect.

Here are some renders (re sized, click to enlarge):

[autoVino]

 
some minor things to finish before playing with mr proxies!  The roof shingles need adjusted mapping coordinates, the roof tiles (1st level roof) needs some small detail, benches, carts, etc; as well as a door(s).  Then the plaza in front of the entrance needs to be detailed (that will be with mr proxies)

I've adjusted the coloration to fit the default maxis buildings pretty well, in my opinion, as well as set the rig up for convincing results.  A cunning mix of GI, AO, FG, and caustics allows for a very quick calculation for the render, but because of the glossy materials and the detail (with anti-aliasing) each render averages to 20 to 30 minutes on my old horse.

[Pat]

OMG WOW Auto that is simply amazing!!!! Are you going to lot it or do you need a lotter??? BTW which part is the front of the building?

[autoVino]

I feel that some people will be unhappy if I lot this building, that is model the lot in 3ds max, because of how unusable the actual model will be for custom lots, so I am planning to render a "clean" version that can be customized via lot editor and a version that will have a ray traced lot.  You can lot that version and release it if you like. 
Currently I'm building the surrounding lot:


Click to view the full resolution.