Bipin's BAT Boutique

[deora]

It is good to see you are back and you have more or less recovered from your hardware/software trouble.
A complete computer failure is never an easy thing to handle,this is more of a modern day nightmare...

About the Tunnel Entrances,they are really looking sweet.First i scratched my head and was kinda puzzled why you placed the same tunnel piece three times next to each other.
Haha,my eyes fooled me so i just noticed the details later.Love the directional signs and it`s good to see variations for One Way Roads and Road.I wonder if the NWM 4Lane One Tile Road transists very well on the tunnel entrance.

[Bipin]

Thanks for the kind words guys. Computer issues are indeed problematic; it's one of the many reasons (besides having the equivalent of 300 megapixels to work with) that most of my art/photography is on film. 

Good catch there noahclem. Here's an alternate version:
(snip)

I'm not sure if you understood me but the width of these roadways is around 150% of regular roads and around 190% of that of streets. Roads in the US are often unnecessarily built to 12'/3.64m lane width which is less than half of this BAT. This looks outstanding besides the scale but scale is a big enough issue it might warrant a rethink

Ah, I think I get it now.  You're saying I should widen the shoulders and thus narrow the lanes? I recall fixing this right before 3dsMax messed up on me. I saved the new lane setup as a different texture (not an update to the old one). It seems the model file was not completely up to date and called the older, wider texture as the one to use. No worries though, this shouldn't be that difficult to fix. I guess the current models will inadvertently fill the role of 4-lane, 1 tile wide avenue and work for some of the other NAM networks. I'll re-render them to better suit the normal, vanilla road/OWR lanes. Also thanks for the link, I enjoy reading about those sorts of things!

[cjak007]

Cjak007, don't worry about you're language, Your request is perfectly reasonable!  I've been quite busy the last several days and consequently have no time to test things out, so I'm hoping these are the right files you are thinking of:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B18TZfo7TG3Qb1BUMWRpMmM4Rms/view?usp=sharing

Give it a try and let me know if they work. In other news, I'll have screenshots of the FLUPs 2-lane road, OWR inbound and OWR outbound tunnel portals soon. I just need to fire up the game and capture the images, so stick around folks! 

Thanks a lot! That's the exact file I'm looking for. I will check their functionality in detail soon.

[noahclem]

Glad you enjoyed the link and look forward to seeing narrower ones. Good idea on using these four 4-lane-1-tile networks 

[Indiana Joe]

Yeah I think a good thing to aim for would be to have the white shoulder lines match up with the edges of the road going into the portal.

Also notice how the base of each pole on the sign overhangs into the aperture.  Either widening the space between the poles so they're back on the walls, or pulling the walls in a little bit, would look good.  Just don't narrow it too much; 10 feet feels plenty wide above ground but nobody likes those really narrow tunnels.  Gets claustrophobic.

These are minor details and it of course looks superb as usual!  Keep it up!

[Bipin]

Yeah I think a good thing to aim for would be to have the white shoulder lines match up with the edges of the road going into the portal.

Also notice how the base of each pole on the sign overhangs into the aperture.  Either widening the space between the poles so they're back on the walls, or pulling the walls in a little bit, would look good.  Just don't narrow it too much; 10 feet feels plenty wide above ground but nobody likes those really narrow tunnels.  Gets claustrophobic.

These are minor details and it of course looks superb as usual!  Keep it up!

There is too little room to widen the gantry, which is why they must rest on pillars that taper into the wall, towards the bottom. In widening the shoulders however, this problem will be resolved. There will be ample room for vehicles, despite the gantry's position, with narrower lanes. 

[joshua43214]

I have found 8 lots that are causing menu errors.
When I scroll down a menu to the problem lot, an empty space occurs and the cursor is out of sync.

Check out the attached image, you can see me pointing 3 icons below the wmp power pole that is highlighted. Only the icon for the short chimney is visible, the icons for the medium, tall, and cooling tower are all missing.
Removal of the wmp stuff does not fix the problem - it is not a conflict with wmp.
Removal of any individual chimney does not fix the problem, all 4 lots must be removed.

The problem began about August of last year when I installed a bunch of new plugins including a lot of Bipin ones. I just now got around to doing some general clean up of my plugins folder and figuring out what was causing my menu issue.
I have seen the same issue when watching some YouTubers play, though I have no idea what is causing their issue. My plugins folder is only 3.7gig right now, but it has been well over 5gig in the past with out this issue.

The affected lots are

Power Menu:
bipin_chimney1_7fa763af.SC4Lot
bipin_chimney2_9fa7663f.SC4Lot
bipin_chimney3_5fc2086a.SC4Lot
bipin_coolingTower_7f9e990e.SC4Lot

Water Menu:
bipin_waterTower_7fc46a39.SC4Lot

Parks Menu:
bipin_GravelMound1_ff151f18.SC4Lot
bipin_GravelMound2_1f151f2d.SC4Lot
bipin_GravelMound3_3f151f69.SC4Lot

Since I have not had this issue in the past, and the issue is fixed in three different menus by removal of only these Bipin lots, it is most likely that the issue is caused by these lots.

I would really love to know what is causing this issue. I love the chimneys and often use them, so I hate to remove them. I worry that the conflict could cause other issues that are not readily apparent.

-Josh

[vortext]

Most likely it's not a conflict but an issue with improper icon IDs or icons missing all together.

[joshua43214]

Most likely it's not a conflict but an issue with improper icon IDs or icons missing all together.

That is my feeling too. They do have icons though, so they are not missing.

I am tempted to load them up into the icon creator and just redoing them and see what happens.

My worry is that it Is just the tip of the iceberg so to speak. Where one conflict exists, another might be hiding.

Either way, it is an issue that Bipin should be aware of.

[Bipin]

I have been told this issue arises with the use of LEprop and subsequent modification of the lot in Lot Editor. Those were the first lots I used LEprop with, so that may very well be the issue. If you do indeed load them up in the icon creator, let me know what you find. Everything appears alright on my end, although I did have an issue before I released these lots with the icons appearing blank. On my end, at least, it looked like it was fixed... 

[Vizoria]

Any chance of a release date for those FLUPs? And also are you nearly finished with those RHW highway walls? They looked really promising!

[Bipin]

I've tested the FLUPs out and they seem to work well. You can expect them by the end of this week. As for the MSE walls, those still need some work, but it's getting closer!

[vortext]

Don't know what may have caused it but I checked your Industry Essentials and I'm sorry to say but most of the lots don't have a proper icon. 

[joshua43214]

It did turn out to be the icons.
I tried using the SC4LotIconCreator but the outputs still need editing, and they look crappy in game since they have no transparent border, and the hover/selected borders do not conform to game standards.
I didn't like the template for borders I found online either.

I just went ahead and made a border template that matches the default style in the game. It took longer to add them in the reader than to make a new icon set in the Gimp

Attached is a set of icons for the 8 faulty ones I described above, and pair of templates for new icons in both .xcf and .psd format.

You can go ahead and use them in an update if you wish Bipin with no obligation to give me credit. I am just grateful to have your bats in the first place.

For any others that want to fix this problem, follow the instructions here:
http://wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Inserting_a_custom_menu_icon_with_the_Ilive_Reader
for details on how to replace custom icons. The icon name_number matches the name_number shown in the Reader.
The tutorial is slightly out of date. In the new tutorial where it says "right click and select info," instead you have to click "bat" in the ribbon and select "file info."

To use the border template:
Find an image for the icon
resize the icon image to 44x44 pixels
open the template in either Gimp or Photshop
add a new layer to the template
paste the resized image into the new layer 4 times in a row. If the icon is for an un-lockable item, the left-most icon should be in grayscale.
move the new layer to the bottom so the borders show
export as .png and use IlivesReader to add it to the bat.

These images can be used or redistributed in any freeware by any and all who wish to with no need to give me credit for creation.

[Bipin]

That is some excellent work joshua, thank you very much.  You definitely deserve credit, anything else would just be downright silly! I will certainly release these as an update. Expect the change to occur on the same day I upload the FLUPs. 

Thanks for the support everyone. I appreciate your continued support for both my model creation and subsequent troubleshooting. 

[Bipin]

Sorry for the double post but I thought I'd mention that I may not be able to upload my BATs on the weekend, as previously stated, due to some family issues. My cousin and her fiance were in a car accident. By all accounts they should be okay, but the car, not so much (they bought it two days ago and totalled it when they got T-boned in it on icy roads). They're in a bit of a logistical, financial and to a small extent medical nightmare right now, which I need to attend to. 

[weixc812]

Sorry to hear that...hope they're all well

[Bipin]

Thanks for the kind words weixc812. Things have more or less returned to normal, and I'm grateful for that!



Seeing as I am still very much a part of the SC4 community, I want to make structures that can be used in both CSL and SC4. This translates to structures which are suitable being viewed from afar...



...and close up.



Enjoy!

[noahclem]

Excellent looking models  . Imho your houses remain the best there is in their style and along with namspopof's and iirc vnaonod's the best ever made for this game. Wishing the best for your family

[seraf]

The houses look very good How many poly for each? I'm afraid my models will never be suitable for the C:S