Nijomi's BAT's

[WC_EEND]

Looks good, although in the lower left view, the rear of the shelter appears to be gone

[Nijomi]

Boy opacity is a pain in sc4. Will have to try some things out for best glass.



Glass had to low an opacity setting. I can see some rendering artifacts along bottom of back glass is there a way to eliminate this?

[jmyers2043]

Hey Nijomi

Are you talking about the saw tooth pattern - right bus stop bottom of back wall?

Couple of thoughts ... how is the model positioned verticle? Are the components that are supposed to be a ground level exactly at Z=0.0? This may be a LOD or the model causing some kind in game shadow. I recently did a small pile of dirt. There was a dark edge at the base of the model. I knew it wasn't the model as the dirt was exactly at zero. Turned out that the LOD was on the Z axis = .017 and that was causing my in game glitchy edge.

The thing I'd try would be to raise the glass at least .3 meters above ground level.  Or put a different materal at the back such as metal framing, block, or brick at ground level.


- Jim 

[cogeo]

This may be caused by the modelling method you have chosen for the back panel of your shelter and/or the material settings.

If the panel object is a Plane (mesh) and the material is not double-sided, this is normal. You can try making the material double-sided.

But the preferred method would be to make it a box, or an extruded rectangle (a very thin one, just some 2cm thick).

Also, opacity is indeed a pain in SC4 as you have already mentioned. (Semi)Transparency only works satisfactorily, if there's another object behind the (semitransparent) object. Otherwise it is rendered either as fully opaque (if opacity is ≥50%) or as fully transparent (if opacity is <50%). So set the opacity of your material to at least 50%.

If you want real semitransparency, take a look at my Semitransparent Rail Stations on the STEX. This is a quite different thing though, requires modding of the exported models (easiest done by using my SC4 Model Tweaker tool - released on the LEX). It can also give you troubles with the LODs and/or double glass sections, as well as the way it merges with the lightcones of streetlights. Some of these may be possible to fix, but some others really hard, or even impossible. But you can experiment. In any case, test thoroughly.

[Nijomi]

Thanks guys,

If you want real semitransparency, take a look at my Semitransparent Rail Stations on the STEX.

It is your work with RTMT and your Stations that have got me interested in modeling for SC4, I do have 3ds max experience but mainly character modeling and vehicles. The glass panel is made of 3 uvw mapped extruded rectangles 0.015m thick with bevel edges. I am in the process of transferring over to 3ds max, as the modeling tool set in gmax is reminiscent of max 2 and I had forgotten how limited and bad at lofting, booleans and chamfering that was.

[Nijomi]

Swapped to max, missed the tools too much. Simplified the shelter to a basic shelter (will make different designs, hopefully a family)


Looks fine to me.

Game images not as clean.

[Girafe]

Max much better 

It seems you have a problem with the glass:

- at first the aluminiumbars and glass are strange, at the top of the bus stop your glass panel goes over the aluminium bars, as it must to be "inserted" between aluminium bars. In this case you will not have glass texture above aluminium.

- use only mentalray materials (mi) with already selected metal textures or glass (you could change them but no standart textures ^^).

- your glass is too opaque according to me and little bit noise will be appreciate.

Feel free to ask more if you need 

[Nijomi]

Thanks Girafe, the rear glass does not have an upper metal support it sits in a slot in the roof, now rendered with mr glass do I alter the opacity by adjusting the Transparency under refraction. How would I add noise to the mr glass material.

[Girafe]

It looks much better, for your mentalray material, use Arch&Design and after you can check an option near the color and go to noise 

[Nijomi]

Bit more texture tweeking required me thinks.

[Nijomi]

I think this is getting better



At the moment the shelter and sign have been rendered as one prop, I will however render them as separate props when I have more props ready to use. The Sign is a Manchester bus stop sign texture taken from a photo.

The lot editor seems to pixel shift objects as you move them about the lot to position them, as can be seen top left edge of the shelter (above left image). the model viewed in PimX does not have these glitches.

The scale seems to be just right now and even on GLR in Ave has enough room so sims can pass by. Is it possible to have wealth dependent bus stops, in areas of Manchester where vandalism occurs the glass is replaced with ridged steel panels, and I would like to have the low wealth bus stop reflect this.

Can anybody point me in the right direction to turning this into a functioning road top lot.

Next step is to add lighting, and more props to make it interesting without too much clutter. Time to re read some tutorials I think.

Thank you all for your help so far.

[Nijomi]

Scratch the request to turn this into a functioning road top bus stop, figured it out by looking at some other rt bus stops. One question though to add glr in ave is it just a matter of adding the correct transit switches to the lot.



I need to remove the base texture which I believe is possible with PIMX tool. 

[cogeo]

Scratch the request to turn this into a functioning road top bus stop, figured it out by looking at some other rt bus stops. One question though to add glr in ave is it just a matter of adding the correct transit switches to the lot.
.
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I need to remove the base texture which I believe is possible with PIMX tool. 

Why make efforts with the lots, modding them, TE-ing them etc? Finally players don't like having two or more roadtop sets in their installation.
Better make them props for RTMT, whose appearance is custmoizable. You can select the textures and markings (or no markings), select the props, have or not have ancillary props (bus-sign, timetable, phonebooth). In prop-family mode, the main props (busstop shelter, subway entrance and GLR shelter) can coexist with the ones included in the RTMT pack, and you can specify which ones will appear in each plop.

[Nijomi]

Ok will do that, these are a learning execise for me and I get a bit carried away with finding out how things work.
For RTMT props am I right that I just need model and description files with the model centered on x and y axis and facing south.