Zero7 - BAT studio

[wallasey]

Ohh! Oriel Chambers! Notably one of the first office blocks to be built.



The only image of it I have to hand...situated on Water Street underneath the world famous Liver Buildings. The 60's building next door is meant to be their contemporary interpretation.

Very much looking forward to seeing how this develops! If you require additional images, I can get them for you although the last time I went past, the building was shrouded in scaffolding!

[alj]

Got it. Oriel Chambershttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriel_Chambers, "world's first metal framed glass curtain walled building".

What I find interesting is, that it is categorized as "modernist architecture" in the "Architectural style" category in that Wikipedia article, while you were announcing a move away from modernism.

Looking forward to seeing it in game.

[zero7]

wallasey - Thanks for the image and the offer to find more.  Between flickr and google street view I think I've got enough to make a decent attempt at Oriel Chambers.  Though I'm not sure what is going on at the back of the building.  The left hand 'door' at ground level is actually a gate to an alley, so I would guess there's something at the back of the building.  For SC4 purposes, though, the left and rear walls are going to be left blank as they'll be w2w with other buildings.

alj - That's interesting.  I suppose it's a transition building.  The metal frame and curtain wall construction is what we associate with modernism, but the way the building was clad clearly marks it, visually, as a Victorian building.  The architect, Peter Ellis, has a second building in Liverpool, 16 Cook Street, which doesn't try as hard to hide the structure and definitely starts to hint at modernism - particularly in regards to the amount of glass compared to the building next door which was built just a year earlier (1863 compared to 1864 for 16 Cook Street).

[wallasey]

Np.

Ahh Cook Street. When first built it was a building which people loved to hate due to the look of it. At the rear is a marvellous gothic wrought iron spiral staircase.

Pevsner has written about it in his Merseyside edition of his series.

Looking from the other way...

[zero7]

I'm afraid there will now be a pause in BATting output of indeterminate length....



...Civilization V has arrived! 

[RickD]

Can't blame you. Just ... one ... more ... turn 

[zero7]

Can't blame you. Just ... one ... more ... turn 

Hasn't hooked me quite as much as IV did, but it's still early days.

Still, that means I've fired Max up again.

Here's a little residential as a warm-up model before picking up on Oriel Chambers and Zerohe Pavillion.  A contemporary take on the chalet bungalow ...

[peter007]

it's looking nice zero7 (as always)

[zero7]

peter007 - Thanks

Here's an in-game preview of the house.  A little bit of detailing to do and then onto nightlighting.

[zero7]

Hi everyone.  I may not be uploading anything to the Lex at the moment, but that's because I'm not lotting anything.  Buildings are still getting made.  If nothing else, there'll be a prop pack containing any finished models before Xmas. 

The latest is a big slab of a building inspired by 'Factory for Leatherwork', commissioned by Hermes from Berger and Anziutti architects and located in Bogny-sur-Meuse in France.  My model maintains the mass and general design cues, but is otherwise fictional - it will carry the name Hermes Leatherworks as a nod to the real building and will be I-HT in game. 

Here's an in-game preview - nightlighting is next to do.

[TiFlo]

Very nice, as always with your work!

[art128]

Nice looking building there Zero ! 

[zero7]

TiFlo, art128 - Glad you like the look of the latest building.  I thought it would be a good idea to create a large, low building - there aren't that many about.

Here's some initial work on the nightlights.  As usual lighting the interior space has shown me that I need more interior detail.  I'm also planning to add some lighting underneath the building in the parking areas.

[TiFlo]

You're on the right path.

Also, is there any way you can make the roof texture somewhat dirtier? No a lot, just a tiny bit so it doesn't look like it is brand new.

[vester]

Looking goooooood.  

How have you done the skylights ?
(materials and lights)

Might be something that I can use on one of my project!

[zero7]

Hi vester - the skylights are really simple.



There's a 4m x 4m hole cut in the roof using ProBoolean for each skylight and then the skylight itself if a simple Pyramid primitive positioned over the hole.  The lights are in between the skylights in the corridor running through the centre of the building.



The material is just a basic matte, translucent plastic - I've used the Autodesk Materials Plastic / Vinyl in 2011, in 2009 these were called ProMaterials.



The lights are photometrics, configured as fluorescent and set to cylinder shape.  Also notice that the intensity has been set to 700%, this is because there is a large amount of ambient light already present in the DarkNite scene so the 100% that you'd normally use for a realistic night scene shows up as really dim.  The floors in the building are a polished concrete material, so there's a fair amount of light reflected back up towards the skylights as well.

[zero7]

This is a follow up on the skylight material for vester who is interested in trying to create a frosted glass material. 

On the Maxwell Gardens subway station I created something that may be a useful pointer towards a frosted glass.  Close up, the glass above the entrance looks like this:



There are images further back in the thread for day and night views of the subway station if you don't have it in your plugins.

The material settings are shown below - the key thing in getting the frosted effect is a noise bump map.  In this case size 0.03 and fractal - changing the size will change the visibility of the effect and you could also use a bitmap if you wanted a specific pattern.  Cellular might also be interesting to experiment with.



Again the base is the Promaterials translucent plastic, but there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to get a similar effect with a bump map applied to a glass material.

Experiment. Have fun. And, hopefully, get the effect you're after.

[Aaron Graham]

I had to stop here beauitful work on your model I really like the night lights.

[vester]

White and clear glass is easy to do.
Colored glass is quite another thing.

[zero7]

vester - For coloured glass you should be using the arch & design materials - start with one of the glass presets and then the place to add colour to your glass is 'Colour at Max Distance' in 'Advanced Rendering Options' / Refraction

The word 'Glass' is physical frosted.  The blue cubes are physical glass - the left hand cube is solid; the right hand one has a shell modifier applied to make it hollow.  The sphere is 'thin-walled' and the glass 'panels' at the front are spline extruded 5mm.  If you look at where you can see the edges of the dark blue cube through the panel you'll also notice that one panel has a slight frosting effect - made using the bump map method described previously.   

Edited to add:  A different angle that shows the difference in the two panels.