BAT Showcase

[fantozzi]

Just late night thoughts: maybe on the roof of the town hall there could be something - a small flower garden with benches a pigeonry and an old man feeding the pigeons a hidden cannabis plantation. Something forgotten or a secret hideout nobody is aware of. Don't know.

[Andreas]

a hidden cannabis plantation.

Another non-descript civic building, as they can be found everywhere. I love that useless piece of civic art in particular!

[Kitsune]

a hidden cannabis plantation.

Just counting down the days till October 17th here ..... 

[fantozzi]

a hidden cannabis plantation.

Just counting down the days till October 17th here ..... 

What I had in mind was a dialectic play with "public" and "refugium" - in the middle of the public place there is a secret spot within nobody knows. But regarding Canada, I have to confess my idea with the cannabis plantation wouldn't work.   

If all those things become legalized - ... man!  I didn't change much but became totally middle-class. Not long ago I was enfant terrible.  They destroy all the insignia of left-wing heroism.  Sex, Drugs, Rock'n Roll - today this is called "recreational activities".

[mattb325]

So I'm guessing if Simtrop goes down after next week, it's going to take a whole lot longer to fix  ....

I like the idea of a secret(ish) spot: do you think the sim-stoners might like this?






With all of this FAR stuff, there will need to be little filler pieces....so this is as good as any!
So you can get an idea of how it might start to come together:

[Andreas]

I don't smoke weed, but that little park is cute alright, definitely a spot to hang out for a while. Maybe you could add a little fountain effect to the pond, if there isn't one already?

[mattb325]

It's a sunken park, so the effect won't work....i'd have to bat it in which looks naff.

[bladeberkman]

Love it! I haven't got a clue about BAT-ing, but I wish more talented BAT-ers would create parks like these. I think of Cockatoo's UN Park for example. Or Darknono's plaza on the CBT AON Center. Seeing as there are folks who devote all of their energy to creating flora alone, I suppose it must be difficult to pull off.

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27089-united-nations-building/

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/28952-cbt-aon-center/

Really looking forward to this FA civic collection; you've outdone yourself again. 

-Blade

[fantozzi]

You know, whenever you do something with water, you hook me - best modelled water surfaces on this planet, imho.

Shure, that's the canadian version. They can sit down by the friendly sound of gargling water and have a ... smoke. Perfect. (OFF TOPIC - my translation website knows even the word "Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster" which, according to Leo.org, in german is the "pangalaktischer Donnergurgler" -  )

Now ... sorry, folks ... I need a rest.

Maybe it's only the weed, but so sorry Matt, the library building confuses me. On the left side, the wall and the HAVC on the roof, they aren't parallel, so perspective gets confused. Also the very short wing, direction north and forming the L-shape is quite slim - if I compare it with the park bench from the water - maybe 8 meters? And in the square on the ground floor, little bit right, there is a quite strange reflection, looks like a skew-whiff bulding reflected there? The impression is even boosted by the small water, where the entrance isn't parallel to the borders/walls of the park but to the HAVC left - so the entrance repeats the conflicting lines on the left and causes quite some confusion for the eye. Looking at this library makes me dizzy. But maybe it's because it is a library and it's a kind of Winnie the Pooh thing:"'When you are a Bear of very little Brain, and you think of things, you find sometimes that a thing which seemed very thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.'

Sorry for the demurs.

[mattb325]

Thanks Blade. I love darknonnos work and the flora on both that and the UN building are beautiful!

So many good batters have left the community; there are only a few left and they are are seldom active. Let's hope they pick up the pace this Northern winter, otherwise it means you'll all have to put up with my crap 

As for the Library and these angled buildings. I am glad they confuse. They are supposed to challenge the perspective and the odd SC4 viewing angle, not coddle it. I have deliberately chosen not to model simple boxes and then flip them 18.4 degrees, but rather have modeled complex and obtuse shapes along many different angles prior to rotating the main facades (only) at 18.4.

In real life, when new buildings run at skewed angles like this, it is because they are infill; they are subject to vagaries of old street alignments.
The perfect grid of Manhattan is the exception to city layout, not the rule. So when a building is put into this environment its design has to make a number of concessions such as street-scape, historical context, height restrictions, massing, boundary set back and over-shadowing of neighboring structures.

So you don't get a box with each side neatly 16m: you get impossible elevations and crazy stepped areas. Even in perfectly aligned New York, the buildings are referred to as a ziggurat design so as to stop a huge wind-tunnel and dense shading at the street below.

To the library specifically....this was from my 'vault' and I never intended it to be a FAR-3 building. Its main angle runs closer to 20 degrees, so when you team it with an 18.4 degree reference point, it gets even harder to discern where things start and finish. Add to that the fact that I have chosen deliberately reflective materials and there is much to throw the eye.

At a reference point of -26.6 degrees (ie a rectangular lot) which approximates the viewing angle of SC4, it is less confusing:


Make no mistake, this is a complex building. But realistic. A building like this will house multiple spaces; probably a day-care on the ground floor; it would also house an exhibition space and multiple staff offices, server rooms, stair cases, fire escapes etc. These all have to be somewhere in the building. Also any space deeper than 15m is effectively way too dark inside and has to be artificially lit.

These benches (I only ever made one and have reused it many times) are 2m. The back upper section of 3 floors only is 10m (33') wide:


You can squeeze a lot into a 10m width. Look at this real floor plan for a real house (10m is a standard detached block width these days). In just 9m you have a garage, an entrance hall and a media room all of which have to conform to minimum standards for such spaces.


But what I like most about all of these buildings is the confusion. Take a look at the hospital. All of these main sides are parallel on plan, but because I have made multiple set-backs and angled just a few other components slightly, at the resulting viewing angle the main walls appear to almost approach the notion of classic perspective.


The park is the same. Off-centre entrance that leads down to an oddly angled elipse. The confusion is deliberately heightened by sinking the whole space and then using the exact same texture as Maxis' street tiles for the paving which is skewed at 18.4 against the in game standard. The confusion is deliberately reinforced with using the same paving texture for the planter walls.

Hopefully, these can mess with everyone's head 

[Guest]

I really like this building, even if the angles are not parallel to the streets. Breaking the parrallel gives more realistic results I find, and you realize your BAT in a surprising way. I like your way of thinking, you are a bit like an architect! In any case continue, you do your BAT in a masterful way and as you said so well, there is less and less creator, so the community needs you!

[fantozzi]

Its main angle runs closer to 20 degrees, so when you team it with an 18.4 degree reference point, it gets even harder to discern where things start and finish. Add to that the fact that I have chosen deliberately reflective materials and there is much to throw the eye.

At a reference point of -26.6 degrees (ie a rectangular lot) which approximates the viewing angle of SC4, it is less confusing:

That's true, yes.  Also the previous pictures were cut on the left side because main subject was the park. Now that the bat is seen in a whole it's easier. I have to consider that in the context of a city the problems I had yesterday will disappear. Thank you. 

[mattb325]

Thanks! (Not going anywhere until the current 3ds license runs out in January    )

Added a mirror piece for the above park, and added another park filler piece (plus a mirror version to handle the other side of the far-3 rotation):







And I never thought I'd see the day when I'd do a car park (plus a mirror as per above)...but anyway, these fillers are incredibly necessary for the dead zone areas on the far-3 network where RCI doesn't grow.





There are still a few more park pieces to add: but these will be textures using the game's base white squares and asphalt + the overlays that CP uses. That way, together with the batted parks + car parks + NAM pedmalls you'll be able to get reasonably seamless filling of the inevitable blank spaces between the FAR buildings.

There are also another couple of buildings to add before wrapping this little project up: most likely a museum and a modern church

[bladeberkman]

YAAAAAAAS!  BAT-ed parks!

[noahclem]

Happy sim/stoners indeed 

Love the batted parks--definitely great to have more fillers to make FA areas more convincing looking and the sunken effect is a nice addition and something it would be nice to see more of. Love the explanation of the building origins and your strategies making them, as well as the note on realism with them. It's awesome when we can make our FA areas look like their simply best-filling the urban environment around them and appearing as natural fits!

Are those your own trees and bushes? Look great    I don't suppose any of it will be seasonal or HD? I'm plenty happy with them in SD, non-seasonal format so please don't take my question as suggesting anything otherwise

[Guest]

Many thanks for these lots! They are beautiful and very practical! he pedestrian crossings are yellow, it's normal?

[fantozzi]

The pedestrian crossings are yellow, it's normal?

Depends ...


... somewhere in Poland:



In Toronto:



In London:

[Andreas]

I've never seen zebra crossings at such an entrance of a parking lot; there might be a stop line for the cars that exit the lot, but then again, it really depends on the country and/or region.

Since we can exchange textures easily, we can adapt SC4 to our likings (such as with the various NAM road textures), but I'd say if this zebra crossing is BATted into the lot, it might be better to export the model without any markings at all.

That said, I really love the idea of such an infill parking lot, since FAR roads are often pretty hard to use in an urban environment (I never tried so far...). The park looks just as great, and I should try to use some FAR section at some place just to use those spiffy lots.

[Kitsune]

The pedestrian crossings are yellow, it's normal?

Depends ...


In Toronto:

That aint my toronto !  Well... we prolly have a crosswalk a plenty like that... but that particular intersection is definitely not here.

[mattb325]

Thanks guys

The intersection is in Sydney - Taylor Square to be precise 

Noah, the bushes and trees are mine. Believe it or not, the shrubs are either boxes or spheres with a noise map....super easy. 3DS also has a few trees pre-loaded and it is a modified version of that, so I can't really take credit. Neither the trees nor the bushes IMO would stand up to HD and would make a poor cousin to the really good stuff that girafe does, but that said, I might tinker with making it seasonal SD. 

As for the crossing, I rather like yellow, and as Fantozzi said it depends...but for its placement while I'm pretty sure that pedestrians in all jurisdictions have right of way over a car entering a carriageway, unfortunately distracted drivers looking for a car space tend to forget this rule, so these sorts of crossings are really, really, really common the world over to forcefully remind drivers to obey the rules...cue 5 second google search montage:



So I'll be leaving it like it is.

I've done the museum:







Obviously the FAR is not done yet....