gottago to BAT

[Delecto]

Hello Gottago, I made a quick stop here to tell you that I love your accomplishments. 

Good luck with 3dsmax.


DEL!

[gottago]

Sam Johnson & SimNation, thanks for dropping by and commenting and I'm glad you like the kind of buildings I'm doing--I plan to stay with these sorts of CO and IND for a while. And pics of the textured Köln Kabel are below.

Guillaume, just pm me when you're ready 

Delecto, thanks for your post and I love your BATs as well--the latest ones are really terrific. And 3dsMax2010 is just an amazing program, the renders are light-years ahead of creaky old gmax. It's a kick to watch the little white target boxes skittering around the previews resolving the image--great stuff

Well, texturing Köln Kabel has been a (re-)learning experience, as 3dsMax's rendering is fundamentally different than gmax and initial renders were, except for the level of detail possible, pretty disappointing. So there was a lot more photoshop work and ME tweaking this time round, especially with the roofs and the whitish walls, to give them a sun-stuck appearance while still holding onto texture and detail.

It's very impressive that even at 72dpi you can still see the hairline seams on the asphalt roof and the grooves on the walls--impossible with old gmax. And shadows, no comparison.

So here are the latest renders:







Figuring out 3ds nightlites and nite export are next. Been staring at it for too long, so comments are very welcome.

PS: a question for 3ds users: I isolated something and forgot what it was, now I'm reminded about it every time I reload the scene--how do you track it and de-isolate? The help files are less than helpful about this...

[mightygoose]

that looks superb, very nice work on the textures

[Delecto]

The roof textures look perfect IMO... Dirty but not too much.  beautiful!


DEL!

[rooker1]

That look amazing.
I really like all the small details you have added in, including the brick for the front and back building sections.  Maybe those two section could have a different roof texture as well.  Just a thought.

Robin

[thingfishs]

looking awesome gottago

I wish I could offer something, in fact I look forward to finding fault in your work, hasn't happened yet. The texturing looks fantastic, you seem to have come to terms with the rendering differences. I love the dirty edges of the roof, maybe the middle of the roof (between the rows of skylights) could have a very small amount of dirt/variation. Now that I look closer the seam running right down the middle looks slightly odd. You mention being able to see the hairline seams which is fine, but would the colour of the asphalt change from one side of a seam to the next as it does in the middle. (I assume the roof surface is flat, that there's no undulation on either side of that middle seam - meaning subtle shadow isn't the reason for the darkness on the right hand side)

I must say your thoughts on 3ds versus gmax make me very tempted to make the plunge myself, I think it's just a matter of time. I never expected to start BATting, but I'm really enjoying it and if 3ds is as much better as you say...

I am amazed at the jumps in quality between your BATs. Your first one was great, your second a lot better, and now the same again. (if this trend continues...) I really look forward to seeing where you are able to get to with all this,

Ryan

[Girafe]

So nice Gottago   

more we need this type of industry, a future good addition 

[SimNation]

Fantastic work man. I love  its realistic size and look wish more industrial batters made bigger sized lots like these.Very nicely done so far.

[Sciurus]

I love, I love and I love again!
I want it NOW!!
And I've already PMed you, but you're never there

Guillaume

[mcdrye]

Oh my, fantastic textures! Great work! I can't wait to have this in my city it's a size that is more realistic yet we don't see much of it ingame (thinks of stupid 1X1 tile Maxis industries) 

[zero7]

The factory looks excellent.  Very nice size and a style that's pretty universal.  Should look great in game.

For nightlighting the first thing you'll need to decide is whether the factory works a night shift.  If not, then you'll want security lighting around the outside walls (which you'll also need if they are assumed to be working) and one or two lights inside the factory to indicate where the security guards are active.

If you're going for the night-shift look, then decide which areas of the factory are going to be working - normally only the factory floor and refreshment areas will be lit - offices and storage areas will be in darkness.

In terms of lighting types - for the security lights you can probably get away with self illuminated textures on the light models themselves.  For the interior lighting I'd create some interior walls to isolate the areas you want to have different light levels and then use either photometric free or standard omni lights to provide lighting.  All interior lighting for a factory is going to be flourescent so if you go for omni's rather than photometrics you'll want to create them with a blue-white cast.

Also you might want to consider some additional lights outside the building about 12m high in what would be the car park and loading areas with sodium light cast (yellow-orange) to provide some exterior ambient light.  Particularly if you are going to use the SimFox DarkNite option.

That sums up how I'd tackle the nightlighting for your factory - hope it gives you some ideas ...

[gottago]

mightygoose, Delecto, Girafe, SimNation and mcdyre, thanks for the great comments, I'm glad you all like! And yes, it is meant to be an antidote to those pesky little IND fillers that grow like weeds on big lots. Plop it and crush them!   

Robin: Thanks very much for your comments! And you're right that the roof on the annex could have a different texture to set it off more, but I'm modeling an existing building and trying to make it as close to RL as possible, and the whole complex uses the same roofing material.

Ryan, thanks for your wonderful comments and studying the model so closely. Re: the flat roofs, they're actually two slightly sloping planes so that central seam you noted is mostly produced by that. Pretty subtle I'll admit but again it's like that in RL. And if you can, take the plunge for 3dsMax, it's such a great program (I'm starting to sound like a shareholder  )

Guillaume, thank you! Sorry I've been pretty busy right now but we'll connect soon, promise.

zero7 thanks very much for the excellent, detailed advice on lighting it up--lots of great ideas in your post that have got me rethinking before taking the nitelite plunge. There is a fair amount of downlights on the building itself, but now I'm pondering whether to BAT the whole lot to light it properly with custom security light masts and all that, and skip running it through the LE entirely.

I haven't looked for good IND props yet--obviously it needs tons of cable spools and large trashbins, both of which are already BAtted and were going to be added as a dependency file, and I just assumed gascooker had done all the necessary other stuff in this vein--he seems to have propped everything IND--but now it might be best to go the whole nine yards and do it totally custom.  Hmmm. Very tempting, but BATting new versions of forklifts and crates and all that, too? Well, it would make a nice prop pack...

[zero7]

I haven't looked for good IND props yet--obviously it needs tons of cable spools and large trashbins, both of which are already BAtted and were going to be added as a dependency file, and I just assumed gascooker had done all the necessary other stuff in this vein--he seems to have propped everything IND--but now it might be best to go the whole nine yards and do it totally custom.  Hmmm. Very tempting, but BATting new versions of forklifts and crates and all that, too? Well, it would make a nice prop pack...

Take a look at jestarr's prop packs before you think about BATting any industrial props; there's a good chance that most of what you want is already available there.

[Sciurus]

Guillaume, thank you! Sorry I've been pretty busy right now but we'll connect soon, promise.

Ok, no problem

Guillaume.

[vnaoned]

This building is espacially well done. the textures are just amazing.
It looks so real. Hope you'll make an HD version of this wonderful BAT.


Good luke for all the props!

[gottago]

Merci vnaoned! I will make an HD version and post the file here for upload, but I don't think an HD version of this BAT would be a good idea for most users--it is very big (and getting bigger, see below) and having it in HD would put a big strain on most players' systems.

After a long downtime while sorting out problems in my gmax installation which prevented me from doing any exports, I finally have 3DSMax and Gmax in sync and did a first test daytime export to see it plopped in-game:



Ignore the bizarre lot overhang--the model hasn't been centered yet for export. First thing I noticed was that the building is far too small in relation to other IND BATs--it even looks small in comparison to the garbage trucks. Right now it is scaled to fit a 7x4 lot and was reduced 27% from RL and not yet stretched vertically. So next step is to enlarge it back to its actual scale and stretch it up as well, making it most likely a 5x9 lot, maybe even bigger still.

Also, there is a nasty line of saw-toothed, black-and white-artifacts that run around the base of the model, which are easiest to see in the shadowed areas. This is the main reason for this post: I'm hoping that someone knows what is causing this and how to fix it. Any help or comments are always welcome!

[gottago]

The day model of Cologne Cable has finally been exported and I wanted to post the night views for comment before finishing the export and beginning lotting.

The model was enlarged and looks like it will occupy a 10x6 lot, perhaps larger as in RL there is a huge yard for storing the finished cable spools and the building would probably look squashed on a smaller lot (to give an idea of scale, the smaller pics below are zoom4 renders at 100%). jes has great props perfect for this and I've also exported my own cable spools and scrapbins to use as well. (I'm still looking for convincing chainlink fencing so please post your favorite.)

Following zero7's suggestion, the exterior lights are tinted orange-purple to imitate sodium lights and the interiors greenish blue to mimic fluorescents. Only half the interiors are lit, the other half have very low light levels to suggest the factory has a reduced night shift.

[thingfishs]

It looks spectacular gottago

With each project you're getting better, I look forward to sinking my teeth into my next one.
Having the lights off in one half of the factory is a nice touch. It's the little details...



I love the lighting along this face of the building, subtle enough that it doesn't look too fancy for a factory but still pronounced enough to make it look a bit special.



The only thing I'd query is why this section is so lit up?
I'd also be inclined to make that a bit darker so that the aforementioned lighting stands out a bit more.

[gottago]

Thanks things for posting about those two areas--looking at them again, I realized I'd forgotten to check "cast shadows" for those down spots. The new light effects are much better and the old pics are swapped out to show the results.

Re: the niche with the tanks, in RL (thanks to the great resolution of MS Virtual Earth pics) you can see that there are three big spots set high on the wall above that area to light it--doubtless because otherwise it'd be a big, very dark spot at night. So the lighting there mimics the RL security lighting, though with 3 downspots it's probably bright as stadium lighting at night.

[metasmurf]

Regarding fences, these are pretty good http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=19338

jes also has some in one of the megapacks (can't remember which one)