SimFox's Pixel Torture Chamber

[jeronij]

I dont think your reputation has anything to fear about actually 

And thanks for that great technical explanation about the lights, which I personally find really useful 



Oh, and yes, perhaps Fred is a bit overzealous, but I prefere it this way 

[freedo50]

SimFox, I do appreciate that english is not your first language and maybe some of the subtleties of your original thoughts became "lost in translation", but I thought it was better to moderate the sections I thought were inappropriate, rather than let an argument start. After all, the original post can be restored if Jeronij and the other mods agree that I was overzealous, but if you had offended someone, that would not be so easy to fix.

Oh and your explanation was very interesting to me, as one who wishes he could BAT  .

Fred

[Pat]

WOW the information i found here simfox was very good... Just a thought though how about transfering some of those post over to tutirols section? ? ? ?

[Sim Shady]

....... .....Simfox, your first language is not english?.. you write it better than i do on the forums, and im native English speaker, with a little Texan drawl thrown in it 

To echo Pat's comment, i think this should be copied over to tutorials section, this whole thread is teeming with exceptional BATing techniques

[SimFox]

No, English isn't my native tongue...
But I thought I have a reasonable command of it though... well...
Anywho, about putting this into the tutorial section... I have nothing against it; the only consideration is that it hardly constitutes a tutorial. More like any informative piece. I'm not sure of rules here what should go where. I have a thread for this sort of things on big  Simtropolis called Forces of light and the Geometry of shadows where I been collecting this sort of bits and pieces. I may recreate something like this here as well, just don't know in what section...

[callagrafx]

It might be worth setting up a general 3DS Max subforum as there seems to be more and more discussion on it.  I'll talk to my fellow mods.

[Diggis]

Anyone who can use anywho, and get away with it has more than a reasonable command on the language.   

BTW great buildings, and interesting discussions.

[Pat]

  LoL Diggis you are soooo very right... anywho so simfox the only reason why i said that this bit should be
moved to the tut section is because i think it would serve as a long reminder to anyone who run into the same problem as lee had pointed out and speaking about lee that would be awsome to see a new thread devoted to
3ds max... as im wanting to get into batting an what nots...

[jeronij]

I please you to be patient.... we are looking for the best place to preserve this information 

[SimFox]

BTW, Lippo Centre has been uploaded to STEX. Come and get it... if you want it that is...

[Krio]

Lippo Centre is awesome  When lurking at ST, I saw your non-HK bats. Those reddish Moscow towers and I think they look cool, though maybe the red should be little darker  And that Glenni's suggestion making Finnish non-highrises was good  But don't do the Cirrus, the Box isn't cool. Btw, what is your native language if it's not english or finnish?

[SimFox]

Benqt:
he he he;-)
Actually it is Russian. But I've been speaking English more then half of my life as my normal daily language so I would count those two to be on almost equal footing. In some respect and situations English is in fact easier for me and is anyway often a preferred language. But I do use Russian on regular basis so it is quite good too ;-)
Finnish is a weakest link here... as it is mostly limited to work... And even there English takes over a lot. All the private life is almost entirely in English as it is the only common language everybody in my very international circle/circuit speaks well.

BTW here are the latest pics of the "red" building:

[Pat]

WoW simfox that is a nice red building....   

[Shadow Assassin]

I can just see that building in a complex. The way it's set up in the shot would look just perfect for a twin tower sort of thing.

[SimFox]

I consider complex to be something that is linked together structurally not just compositionally. But of course these could be arranged in various manners. The continuation on this and othe non-asian building is in my new "non-asian torture chamber" in here  LINK

[SimFox]

Here is one Blast from the Past for your judgment.
This is a model of Silver Tower. original is located along 3rd Ring Road in Beijing.
I say it is a blast from the past because it is my very first BAT, or to be precise it was my very first one... Making it I learn my first skills, but also made a lot of mistakes. That lead to the sort of dead end. This was partially doe to luck of understanding how materials and lights worked in 3D environment. So to solve those I put the project on ice and went into Lighting Rigs, Global Illumination , physically (about) correct materials etc... Well you know the rest...
I always meant to come back and finish my baby. But somehow never got around to it. This last week since I couldn't really render anything (for the reason of  updating computer), so yesterday I though to take a look at my old stuff and to my horror realized that I don't have anymore original model files for this one!! I felt quite sad from the loss. And on that quite powerful emotion just went and remodel it all over again. Work that took me 3 weeks last time around somehow was finished in one day.
So here it is Silver Tower of Beijing (so far in "clay")





Building like first time around is modeled to the real life size not stretch coefficient used. Normally I model with 1,3 coefficient right from the start. Of course it only applies to major measurements in the building like hight of the floors, windows, doors and such. But all the minor elements are kept unaffected - like say horizontal elements of window frames have same cross-section as do vertical. I thought sometimes about is it a right way? Or should the streching be done AFTER the entire building is ready. On this tower I decided to try this method. What thoughts do you revered members of SC4Devotion have on the matter??

Among other things I finally decoded to make an experiment and see of LODs for entire Mentro Harbour View complesx will be exportable in GMAX. I had my doubts after autoVino made a suggestion that only 16 256x256 pixel tiles could be used to texture the LOD in game. Luckily it went through without a problem. This is very encouraging news for me!!

Reduced the picture widths to 1000 /RJ

[jeronij]

Thanks for pointing the "1.3" technique  . I try to adjust the measures visually, but having a rule make things much easier 

What I dont understand is if that building ( which is again a very nice and interesting model) has been done using the 1.3 or the streching techinque...

And great to know that those big LODs will be useable by the GMAX¡¡¡

[SimFox]

Nope this one is 1:1 so it is sort of squashed.
1,3 coefficient will make cube look like cube from game camera point of view...

[mightygoose]

hmm, tbh i think post stretching might be the better way, as it means that all the detail is still coherent.

[Shadow Assassin]

It's a very nice building. It'd fit quite nicely into wall-to-wall situations.

As for the stretching thing, maybe it'd be better to pull it upwards by a scale of 1.3, but wouldn't it depend on how things are done, really?

(By the way, if that overhang is semi-transparent, you'll get a black background on it... but there's a workaround - you'd have to edit the alpha maps so they show up)