Zero7 - BAT studio

[Orange_o_]

I thought that it was this one but ... 
I am the same opinion as Gottago on black texture, which should be more reflective

[zero7]

Great little building there!

I'd only remark on two things: the glass is too uniformly black and needs some reflections/highlights to make the receding planes stand out. And for some reason the ground floor area, especially the sentry box, looks too bright yellow compared to the band of stone on the top floor and could be toned down a bit. It will be a good transition building; there's not enough commercial out there at this scale.

The cladding is the same colour on all of the front of the building.  The only reason I can think for it looking brighter is the light bouncing between surfaces.  The glass is very reflective already, but I probably need to give it something more distinctive to reflect.

The 'sentry box' was meant to be a large Japanese-style vending machine.  I guess I'll have to make a detailed model rather than the approximation I've used - I'd decided it was oversized already.

I'm also going to add some thin vertical frames to some parts of the window.  At the moment the nightlighting removes all definition of the shape of the glass.

[gottago]

Did you put a gradient on the cladding? That would help to tone down the base. And maybe the vending machine just needs another color to set it off; it could be smaller as well, agreed. And btw thanks for the suggestion about tones for the lighting, makes very good sense.

[tr0ub1es0me]

sorry for going off-topic a bit, but i just wanted to ask if you know who's BAT is in the last screenie you posted - the terraced townhouses with shops on the bottom floor and a telephone box outside? i'm not sure if i have that one.  i probably do, but...

out of interest, actually, do you know what the one is on the far-left of the street, also?

great progress on the "ministry of information". i'm also liking the small office building. very modern. definitely want to use that at some point.

[zero7]

sorry for going off-topic a bit, but i just wanted to ask if you know who's BAT is in the last screenie you posted - the terraced townhouses with shops on the bottom floor and a telephone box outside? i'm not sure if i have that one.  i probably do, but...

out of interest, actually, do you know what the one is on the far-left of the street, also?

great progress on the "ministry of information". i'm also liking the small office building. very modern. definitely want to use that at some point.

In the last screenshot the shops with the telephone box outside are gascooker classics.  The one on the far left is a mattb325 one, I think.

The w2w office building has now been released.

[zero7]

Sorry for the lack of updates.  Football Manager 2010 has arrived and I'm also giving Cities XL a go.  I'm sure the lure of BATting will bring me back before too long ... it always does 

[zero7]

I'm sure the lure of BATting will bring me back before too long ... it always does 

Well, it didn't take long did it?!   

Despite dabbling with two other games I've still managed to do some work on my second 50m w2w building.  This one is mixed retail and residential, so will be Cs$$ and R$ when it is released.  There's mainly detailing and nightlighting still to do on it ...

[zero7]

Well the second of my 50m w2w buildings is finished.  I've recently changed my laptop and updated my version of Max which means I'm now waiting for the next update of Bat4Max from SimFox before I can successfully export it for the game.

Here's the nightview of the Natama building:


The model I'm currently working on is an apartment block (admittedly a rather radical one):

[Evillions8]

How are you so good at this?   Can you give a few tips on nightlighting and window texturing?

[zero7]

How are you so good at this?

To borrow an Americanism - 'How do you get to Carnegie hall?'   

Seriously though, I've been creating buildings since 2004 and I'm not the most technically adept modeller - I'd never be able to create the curvy buildings that dmscipio does so beautifully for example.  I've just learnt how to pick buildings that work for me within the limited range of my modelling skills (most of the time anyway).

Can you give a few tips on nightlighting and window texturing?

There's no big secret about my windows - I just use the Max glass materials with a little tweaking of colour and reflectivity together with a ground plane with a cityscape on to give something to reflect.  My nightlighting always seems to get commented on so it may be worth me running through how I approach it, just so that people can compare to some of the tutorials out there, though to be honest I think spa and jbsimio use pretty much the same techniques as me.  I'll see what I can come up with.

In the meantime, some progress on the pyramid apartments:


... and a very early shot of the next building in my 50m w2w series - this one is a 1x1 corner lot:

[thingfishs]

Hi zero7,
I love this shot, beautiful, soft, varied nightlighting.

Here's the nightview of the Natama building:

I still haven't had much luck with windows so would appreciate any further info you can offer, like what sort of tweaking you do to the maxis glass texture.

[Evillions8]

Is it possible to model a high-rise W2W?  Like tall as 40th Wall Street and make it into a W2W?  I just need to know just for SimMars uses.

[zero7]

Is it possible to model a high-rise W2W?  Like tall as 40th Wall Street and make it into a W2W?  I just need to know just for SimMars uses.

Yes, of course - my Wedge Tower is w2w as are some of bixel's pencil towers.  The only thing that defines a w2w building is that it is built right against it's neighbours.  In the SC4 context that generally means that it is a multiple of 16m wide so that it fills the width of a lot, but there's no reason why you couldn't take buildings of other widths and place them w2w to make up a multiple of 16m.

For SimMars, you'd probably have problems adapting existing buildings, but creating new w2w highrises is certainly possible.

[zero7]

Just a quick post to prove I'm still here 



There's been progress on the pyramid apartments too, but it's not at a point I want to show. 

[alj]

That´s a pretty cool building on the far left. Very uniqe. Does the "M" stand for "Museum"? Can´t imagine any other institution to dare such architecture.

[zero7]

That´s a pretty cool building on the far left. Very uniqe. Does the "M" stand for "Museum"? Can´t imagine any other institution to dare such architecture.

The 'M' is a nod to the building I've taken inspiration from, which is the showroom and office for a very upmarket retailer in a city that has a track record of innovative architecture.

[BarbyW]

Nice one, Richard. It that from Leeds?

[zero7]

Nice one, Richard. It that from Leeds?

You mean there's another Leeds somewhere that's a hotbed of architectural innovation - the city it's from is nowhere near as exotic as Leeds      Somewhere a bit further East  ... and I don't mean Hull!

(it's based on the Mikimoto building in Ginza, Tokyo, though adapted to my 50m series)

[zero7]

Here's an update on the pyramid apartments.  Lots of work on balconies to do before the day model is finished ...

[gottago]

The pyramids are very funky and I could definitely see something like this built in the Netherlands--a stepped gable roof turned entirely into a building, very clever design. Also there's a project in Paris for a big pyramidally shaped mixed-use building next to the convention center--much longer, also flat sides, but same general idea.

2 things on the model that caught my eye: the blank wall on the lowest level on the left bldg above the entry, and the thin gap between the center balconies on the third setback--I'd move the two pyramids closer together so that the outer walls at this level overlap and you get a single balcony there, or if this throws all the geometry off, just fill in the gap by extending the walls.