non-asian branch of SimFox' pixel torture chamber

[thundercrack83]

Coming together nicely here, SimFox. The bricks look good! Keep up the good work, my friend!

[SimFox]

Here is a "low-rise" assembly:




So, basically, what I'm trying to do is to recreate in BAT the way these are built in real life. So that great variety of sizes and overall shapes could be assembled.
There are few difficult points in making this - for instance texturing the roof. Doing it with bitmaps will lead to repeat of same pattern... to avoid this it would have to be done procedurally  - that will be next task as, practically, all the modules of this particular subset -P44T is ready.

[callagrafx]

I sometimes use a texture within the procedural (as a colour map) and that usually produces a decent result...also by using an overlaid gradient you can get the effect Jmyers mentioned.

[dogfight]

There are some very beautiful BAT's here SimFox. I don't understand what is meant by procedural, I guess I'll have to do a search to find out. Also I'm curious how you can create such big scenes without your computer running out of virtual memory. I have a very fast machine with lots of RAM (maxed out for windows XP) but still have trouble rendering with the "Simtroplois" maxscript (no problem just rendering in 3dsmax9 though). How big are your poly counts if you don't mind me asking?
PS:
I also have learned much form your input in the 3dsmax threads on Simtropolis. Thanks

[callagrafx]

There are some very beautiful BAT's here SimFox. I don't understand what is meant by procedural, I guess I'll have to do a search to find out. Also I'm curious how you can create such big scenes without your computer running out of virtual memory. I have a very fast machine with lots of RAM (maxed out for windows XP) but still have trouble rendering with the "Simtroplois" maxscript (no problem just rendering in 3dsmax9 though). How big are your poly counts if you don't mind me asking?
PS:
I also have learned much form your input in the 3dsmax threads on Simtropolis. Thanks

A procedural texture is a method of creating textures that are calculated, rather than a bitmap.  There are a number of these maps built into Max and the one Simfox is using on the wall is called Tile (you can use it for brick too, just change the "bond").  Have a read of the help on procedural textures and have a play, they're extremely effective, especially to avoid the dreaded bitmap texture tile effect.

As for memory, have you enabled the Windows 3GB switch?  If you have XP 32bit, Windows will only allow an application to address 2GB at the most, so no matter how much RAM you put in, that's the upper limit.  By applying the 3GB switch, you are telling XP that applications can use more system RAM.  For details on how to do this, read my post > HERE <.  It doesn't matter if you do not have 3GB or more RAM installed, XP will then just use the VM pagefile.

I've rendered something along the size of Simfox's Moscow Red (using FG and GI) and on a Quad Core 3Ghz 64Bit system it took around 6.5 hours.  The BAT4Max script renders each view 3-4 times (depending on lighting) and this equates to up to 80 renders.  I would show it, but it's a secret

[SimFox]

Dogfight:
Just as Callagrafx said the procedural maps/textures are those that are created with a certain procedure/calculations during the render - hence the name. These types of maps has few advantages over bitmaps.
First of all they are resolution free. If you try to zoom in on any bitmap image you start to see degradation of quality, with procedurals being calculated on a fly (similar to vector graphics) you can zoom in endlessly without loosing ANY of the quality. Because they are not a bunch of pixels stuck together but a mathematical formulas.
Second advantage is very small memory footprint that comes with these virtually infinite quality. With bitmaps to avoid this quality loss I mentioned above you try to get as big map as possible but that means large files sizes. during render all those maps are loaded and occupy memory space.
Third advantage is that procedurals being just mathematical formulas are infinite in space. What it means is that there will be NO tiling. Well that depends on formula of course. Some formulas may be cyclical and create say stripes or checker pattern, but other are infinite where each point on X (and or Y) has unique value on Z. and this brings us to
Third - procedurals can be 3 dimentinal unlike any bitmaps...
To take full advantage of those 2 last properties you should assign your mapping space to World coordinates. This way your "texture" occupies the entire universe. That's right UNIVERSE! It stretches billions of light yeas to the limits of time-space itself , starting for the XYZ 0,0,0 on the screen in front of you!!

About this particular one I've used to create bricks appearance... Well, it isn't tiles. When doing 3d or any graphics for that matter - you're creating illusions not documenting reality. Probably best illustration to this concept are the paintings of impressionists. Come close to Monet painting and all you see are just smudges of paint, step couple of meters away and voilá beautiful, breathtaking, ALIVE scenery. Tiles are great for some occasions, but by trying to recreate life as it is, they have some limitations making them in same cases incapable of doing just that! First limitation is that it is 2 dimensional map. Second is that it is only partially procedural and it is NOT infinite. That means it requires UVW mapping being applying to whatever you put it on and it will follow that mapping plus you'll run into tiling issue rather sooner then later on large objects with small tiles.
I needed illusion of brick, not bricks, and I needed it being everywhere - UVW free. So that where ever I place piece of geometry with material using that map it will give unique, random look. So I used cellular map (modified after a fashion, of course) -it is infinite, doesn't need any UVW mapping and does a convincing result at he zoom levels that are used in game and even at somewhat large perspective renderings.

Memory wise...
well I'm in fully 64bit system - OS, MAX etc... but even 32 bit system would have to run quite far before hitting the memory wall. Often it is bitmaps hat are culprits here. Most problems with Script aren't really memory related as people think. Over the years quite a few things get changed in MAX hat made the script less compatible with the program. One of the biggest and most visible was move after max 7 to two separate unit system - display one and System one withing MAX. That is the reason for not being able to use classic night windows and some problem people experienced (me among them) with script. For instance if your MAX system units are set to inches your export will fail. Script also does a lot of things that are totally redundant and not optimized to work with max. All in all it is LONG overdue for major shake-up that would deal away with about 70% of code. For instance all those passes Callagrafx mentioned - in reality only 2 needed (instead of 3½) it is only a matter of organizing and processing info obtained from them.

About your problems...
if you can render with max and can not with script then it is NOT about either memory of size of your model or polygon count. It, most definitely, is rooted in some of the script inconsistencies.

Polycount
This scene is actually very light. What you see on those last renders (lower rise assembly) is about 90 000 polygons. This number could be still reduced (may be even by half or more) but there is no point to it.  Number of polygons (unless it runs into several millions shouldn't be problem even on 32 bit system with relatively modest about of memory - eg bellow the OS limit. For instance my CandyGarden (on STEX) has about 2,5 million polygons and had been made on 32 bit system (AMD x64 3500+ but still 32 bit XP) and tool about 1,5 to export.  So polygon count isn't the main issue even in regard of time it takes to render something. It is pixel count of resulting image that is main factor and all the processing you assign to them - GI and the rest of zoo.

[Shadow Assassin]

The brick/tile/whatever (I can't really see what it is ) procedural texture looks quite good. It suits the building very well. Why not do the same with the roof, just with concrete instead?

[thundercrack83]

The low rises look stunning, too, my friend! You are certainly banging out the fantastic content here!

[SimFox]

SA:
Well do you mean the green part of the roof? or the dark grey one...
The issue with either of them is that the pattern shouldn't be just accidental and chaotic as in case with "bricks". It needs to be eitehr regualr as with roofing tiles (on green part) or proximity and some such based for the flat roof tops. Both could be done procedurally with some degree of success, but it may prove not time efficient, plus result wouldn't be in most cases quite as good as some bitmap texture may be.
Thundercrack:
thank you :-)

[jmyers2043]

Hi Sim Fox
Technically, the geometry of the bat is great (both tall and short versions). The only thing that that I could nitpick at is the height of the ground floor. I guess in Finland that ground floors are the same height as floors 2 through XXX. I am used to seeing ground floors that are about 1 ½ stories high. Especially when the building is 5 or so stories and higher.  I assume that your floor height is around 5 meters high ... so I'd make the ground floor somewhere in the 7.5  and based on the SimCity top down view I may even go higher.   The taller version of the orange color brick building comes to mind as one that could use a bit of a ground floor stretch.  The second thing that I would nitpick at is the lack of a gradient on the large surfaces. But I don't think that you are of a mind to change that so I'll stop bugging you about it. 

[dogfight]

callagrafx and SimFox: Thanks for your help. I have looked through a few tutorials on procedural maps and they have given me a start. It's quite complicated so I'll take it slow Thanks for both your help

[SimFox]

anytime dogfight, anytime!
JMYERS2043:
well... first of all this building isn't from Finalnd, but from Moscow - it is a typical and cheapest newly constructed type of accommodations you'll find in the city. So I guess it should be R$... but crazy real estate market makes even this to be quite pricey square meter in a block like that in the outskirts of city would set you back as much as sqm in some of the best locations in very very good buildings in say Berlin. So, not sure what should it be... but i still think it probably should be R$ as already R$$ are built there with individual unique(sh) designs...
Speaking of floor hight... well since this is a building made from standardized prefabricated pieces  ground floor (that is non residential btw) is of same hight as the storeys above but it itself is elevated above ground about 1 -1,5 m so in total it is about the 1,5 floors till the second  (first residential) floor. and my model is faithfully recreating it. So total hight of ground floor is 1,5 times of the normal floor. So I guess it is an optical illusion...  Regular floor hight is in the case of this building 3,9m as I have followed the original hight of 2,7+,3m and applied 1,3 stretch to it. And Ground floor is 5,85m in hight.

Here is a first attempt at texturing roof:

[Antoine]

WoW Incredible work !!! so realistic !!

[SimFox]

I've changed the roof tiles a bit; tell me if that is progress or regress...
also color wise...

[Shadow Assassin]

The roof tiles look much better, they look a little cleaner.

It fits in with everything else, too.


What about one with Colorbond sheeting rather than tiles?

[SimFox]

SA:
In a way it is a mix of those mats of sorts... Bump map is pretty much in the form of Colorbond...
here is first try of base mat:

[sc4luv2]

I see, I like them, just one suggestion, why don't you get one with other roof textures, (seprate lots) and do them. (it's just a suggestion.....)

Also, it's a goodun' 

*my 45th post*

[Shadow Assassin]

I like the concrete tiling at the bottom of the building, it looks worn and suits the texture beautifully.

This building looks like it'd fit beautifully in SC4. I wouldn't mind seeing diagonal variants of this building, just for something different.

[rooker1]

I really like this model.  There is a building near where I use to live that looked just like this.  The base looks fantastic, but I wander if it's possible to make the white a little more faded, dirtier. I just think it's too clean.  IMHO.
But I can't wait to check this one out, great job.

Robin   

[dogfight]

Hello SimFox. I'm not sure if your interested in opinions or not but I'm in favor of the green roof over the blue For my own knowledge, the very top flat roof (grey squares). Is that a bitmap with an added noise map? I also like what you have done with the base, again is it a bitmap and a noise map added? Just curious