Vario's Bat Shed- Current Project: Apartment block

[Vario80]

Your welcome AutoVino! 

Well after this big project, i decide to go back to something smaller.
I started drawing some wood houses they are mainly meant for my scandinavian based region, but you can also enjoy them as well.

This is the first one, it's based on a fishing lodge on the norwegian archipilago of the Lofoten.
Note: This is only the model, it's still untextured but i'm going to add a nice wooden texture tomorrow.

[Q-Tips]

Great. More to look forward to.

[Vario80]

Thanks Q!

Here's an update, the house is almost finished, notice the varying nightlights in the interior of the building.









I'm not very satisfied with the nightlighting on the fifth and seventh pic, it's a bit too bright, but the rest should be okay i think.
Sorry for the different picture sizes btw...

[HabLeUrG]

maybe active cast shadows or reduce the intesity of the nighlight, excellent work in that home 

ahh something else to the model, the windows edge looks too wide, you could reduce it a bit more 

[kwakelaar]

First thing that strikes me is the size of the door compared to the windows, one or the other must have the wrong size. I think the windows look like they sit too low on the wall, mostly for wooden buildings like this the windows are rather small. It is cold in Lofoten
I like the texture for the wall, also the colour looks right, think maybe you could try some traditional red rooftiles instead of the grey diagonal tiles.

[Mulefisk]

As we say in Norwegian: Nydelig! (Beautiful)
It's nice to see someone filling in the strange lack of Norwegian buildings in SC4. 

[Vario80]

@Mulefisk: Takk for din hyggelige tilbakemelding! 
(Transl. Thanks for your nice feedback), yes there is certainly a lack of scandinavian buildings in Sc4, actually i created these buildings for myself to get a more scandinavian feel of my current region "Storland" it's not meant to be a cheap rip off to "Urland" or "Osturland" btw but rather means just "Big Land"

@Kwakelaar: Thanks for the suggestion, i have made the windows smaller now and also set them a little higher, unfortunality because of that i had to remove the grid on the windows, otherwise it would have looked quite weird...

@HableUrg: Thank you for that nice comment, i reduced the Mesh settings of the frame so it should look much better now.

Update:

Well here's a new preview in a different wall colour... BTW i have already planned to release them as a set, so there won't be just one home but four or five all with different wall colours available...









Hope you like this version even more,

Vario. 

[Glenni]

House is little oversize vario, i that door is 4 metres, the house is just huge.

How about a rescale?

[Andreas]

Looks more like the door for the dog. The building looks really nice, though, great work so far - you're also getting a lot better with the textures lately!

[Vario80]

@Andreas, Glenni: Thanks for the feedback, well right now the door is just about 2 meters high, i think i'm going to make it a little higher and larger. But the scale of the house should be okay i think, it has currently a height of about 11 metres (including the chimney) that should be okay for a small single family house (i think )

[FromTheAshes]

One Sim in SimCity is about 2,5m tall. You should think of that size when you make a door. (BTW: The door is mostly the thing I start with making a BAT, because I can align everything to that scale.)

[Vario80]

@FTA: Thank you for that useful advice, i'm going to post an update of the houses later on.

Meanwhile i started (and have almost finished) another building, this time it is a lighthouse it's standing on the beautiful east frisian island of Norderney the place which i call my second home, since a lot of my relatives live there and here i have also spend several of my summer holidays.

Now to the building. It is 54 metres high, and therewith the highest building of the island. It's standing in the centre of the island, about 6 kilometres east of the town of Norderney, and besides a few houses in the vicinity of the lighthouse there is nothing so it can been seen from all over the island. The building is built completely of bricks and the beacon can be seen as far as 20 nautical miles (38 kilometres).

Here's a preview.




Hope you like it. I'm going to release it as a landmark, but if i can get it done i would also like it to function as a reward (like the game light house) 

[Vario80]

Okay now that the lighthouse has been released let's go back to my previous work, the fishing lodges.

The models have now been rendered and put into the game.
They will be available in five colours, pink, mint, green, yellow and red. They are growable (R$ stage 2) and will host up to 11 occupants which is a reasonable number (at least in terms of the game) i think.

I also added some stuff to the lots like fences, flowers, trees and a norwegian flag. 
(Note: The flag prop is from the Maxis "International Day of Peace Prop Download" so if you want to have a flag from another country on your lot, just change the flag prop.

Here's an ingame screenshot, it took quite long to get these desired row.
Daylight


Nightlight


Hope you like the results 

Vario

[kwakelaar]

I think they look very close to the real thing, only thing is the scale. Have you tried to place a sim in front of your door?
The red on the boards covering up the roof would most likely be white.

I like your lighthouse by the way, off to a nice start.

[Vario80]

Thanks a lot for the feedback Kwakelaar, about the scale well i think i should have tested it before uploading with the sim people props perhaps. Great you also like the lighthouse, i also tried it to make it a reward, but i messed something up while doing this, the lighthouse indeed showed up in the rewards menu but i couldn't choose it even though that the set in requirements were all met. Also the game sometimes started to freeze.

Here's a new building i started working on, it's an apartment block, typical for lots of cities in Germany and many other european countries.
It's based on an apartment block not far away from where i live, actually the real block consists of three houses (number 20, 22 and 24) my version will have two houses.

Here's a preview of one of the houses, not very much to see right now, the building is untextured and i started with cutting out holes for the windows and the door, the hallway windows got the window frames already.
Also the real building is not painted in green, but in light grey.

[Vario80]

I hope double posting is allowed. I've finished now the whole foreside of one house of the block.
I also added the balconies like they appear on the real apartment. Before i continue with the rest of the building, i'm also going to add some details like curtains on the windows or maybe the staircase in the hallway.

Here are some additional previews:




And here's a picture of the real building, in case you have no idea what kind of buildings i'm talking about.


Not very spectacular building maybe (in fact these are mostly social flats) but fits perfect to every residential area.

Feedback is always welcome! 

Vario

[Krio]

Looking excellent 

In here Helsinki, those kind of buildings are very common in residental districts, like in Oulunkylä or Töölö.  I'm really looking forward to see this released.

[Pat]

Vario i could have sworn i commented on your great skill... But it looks as i was wrong and for that im sorry... Wow those houses are real nice and cute so to say i was wondering since they look like cabins is to make a wood color version no fancey colors.... the apartment block is looking real great soo far cant wait to see more of it - pat

[kwakelaar]

Looking very close to the real thing, nice work.

[Andreas]

The 50's residential building looks excellent so far. They will be a great companion to stephenhh's buildings. Be sure to make a few versions with different colors and textures, and maybe orthogonal and diagonal versions, so we can get more variety.