JBSimio Inc.

[Heblem]

this looks interesting  as always excellent work at this one 

[Pat]

Jon that is soo looking sweet... curiouse to see what texture you use...

[threestooges]

Looks like a good start to a "request" and it'll be interesting to see just how detailed it gets. On a somewhat unrelated note, your lawyers seemed to have missed something in their writing (yes I read it all... I'm a law student, what can I say?). When they absolved themselves and the corporation of liability they refer to 'Victoian architecture' they missed the 'r' I guess that's what they get for being wordy. I do have one last question regarding BATting; I'm working on one and I've been tinkering with the lighting, and it looks pretty good (I think). However, when getting it into the game, none of the lights I've added show at night, but the model retains its daytime lighting and continues to cast shadows. Is this a problem you've encountered, and if so how did oyu solve it? Can't wait to see the continuation of the Victorian. Take it easy.

[JBSimio]

XiahouDun:  Thank you!  And welcome to the thread if I'm remembering correctly!

Heblem:  Thanks!  Do I owe you a welcome as well?  It's getting too late for me... 

Pat:  Thank-you!  I have a couple texturing ideas in mind, but to be honest, I'm not entirely sure where I'm headed with this just yet!

Matt:  The details are really going to add up when I get to the roof trim.  Ahhh... stupid lawyers!  My only excuse is that, as a company with no profit, we can't really afford a stellar legal team.  I'm sort of dealing with Bill Murray in Wild Things as opposed to Anthony Lord from Silent Witness.  (Anyone who gets both of those references probably has ADD as bad as mine!  )  To your lighting question:  I've never really had any troubles, but here are a few things you can check.  (I'm assuming that you have the "nitelite" prefixes added if your preview renders show up properly.)  If you are making a prop with the model, you need to make sure that the Lighting property is set to True.  It defaults to False in the PIM... you can change it under the Advanced tab in the PIM when you are first making your desc file.  If you're making an actual building, make sure you've given the game a minute or two to catch up.  Apparently it takes the city a month or two to get power to a newly plopped building.  Also keep in mind that the game's default lighting doesn't show up as well as it will in your BAT previews... so if the lighting is very subtle it may just be hard to see.  Hopefully that helps... if not, feel free to PM me for an email address and I can have a look at the files if you'd like.

OK... I got the building pretty much closed up now.  The roof took me forever!  There's still a long ways to go... but first the picture:



Things that will definitely change include:  The hip roof over the side bays.  It seemed like a cool idea at the time, but it's just too small to look right.  I need to do something with the trim around the rear corner balconies... just haven't decided what yet.  The third floor window over the main entry needs to be repositioned a little bit.  And I think the whole thing needs to be a little wider on the front and rear views.

I also still have to do all the roof trim.  Then it might be time for all the little extras, interiors, and textures.

Until next time,
JB

[Pat]

Jon that is looking really great!!!

[Adept2Rock]

Yeah good!!!I put this in my new french district!!!

[BigSlark]

JB,

These apartments look amazing! 

Thanks for doing a range of structures that's been missing from the game.

Cheers,
Kevin

[figui]

nice building
i'd like it in my cities

[JBSimio]

Pat:  Thanks!

Adept2Rock:  Thank you!  I usually get myself tossed out of the European districts, so that's nice to hear! 

Kevin:  Thanks!  I'm glad they will be useful.

Figui:  Thank you!

OK... this isn't the hugest update in the world, but I did manage to finish my fixit list from the previous post.  I widened the whole thing by only 4 meters, but I think it made a huge difference.  I also fixed the window, roof, and trim.  I got a decent start on the roof trim.  Some of it I'm very happy with, some of it... well, not so much yet.  But here's a look at where we stand now:



Since that wasn't much of an update, I'll make this post a little more worth while...

SHUR Taft Building



It's on the LEX somewhere... probably near the beginning right now!
Actually you can find it here

Have a wonderful evening and whatnot!
JB

[Pat]

Jon i got my copy and im proud to say im the 3rd to download.... wow im excited to get shur taft 

[BigSlark]

Jon,

I have a quick question...will the SHUR be made CAMpatible in the near future?

The Hammond Building grows a lot for me and when I only have "low rise" buildings growing elsewhere.

I like the apartment revision, it just looks better now.

Cheers,
Kevin

[Fledgeling]

 Hey JB, this is a question from those of us who opted out of CAM - is a CAMpatible building not CAMpatible with a non- CAM game? I would be very sad if i couldn't use these buildings. Actually that's a pretty big understatement!

And another thing- i have to reset my password whenever i log in, because whenever i try it with my old password, it says username is not found, but if i reset my password i can log in. So i will not be posting much but i do check up this thread alot!



So I love all your buildings, I actually need these apartments in my cities because even seeing them, there is no  way I think I could play without them. And I don't even have them yet. I cant say how much I am looking forward to putting these in my cities and rebuilding the plugins folder that was lost when my hard drive crashed – these will be the bones of my downtown smallish Midwestern cities when I get around to remaking them.

Sorry for the long post but I don't know when I will be able to log in again.


P.S.
Would understand if your tired of 'wat about...' questions but I have one more that has not mentioned. The field and track for your school pack.

Thanks again!

[threestooges]

The expansion of the building does look better. The only comment I would suggest for it this time is to widen (or just uncrease the number of) the railings on each balcony. The straight poles (as they look now) seem a bit contemporary/polished and not quite within the victorian style. Though that could change with a good texture too. It's amazing just how quick you can put something like that together and how good it looks too.

In reference to the BAT lighting issue, I took a couple pics in game one game year after plopping it. All lights have the nitelite prefix, they show up fine in the test render, but as you'll see in the pics, something is odd when it goes in game (perhaps I'll just try another export... I have some finishing touches to add anyway).
day
night
(didn't want to clutter up the page and take away from your actual work. Note that the shadows exist in the night pic as though it was day. Thanks again for your help on this.)

[Bluebeard]

JB you are 1 heck of a artist.

[RippleJet]

Hey JB, this is a question from those of us who opted out of CAM - is a CAMpatible building not CAMpatible with a non- CAM game? I would be very sad if i couldn’t use these buildings. Actually that’s a pretty big understatement!

CAMpatible buildings are those that have been modded with the "X" Tool.
They are perfectly in line with in-game Maxis buildings, and grow perfectly well whether you have the CAM or not.

[JBSimio]

Pat:  Thank you!  I'm glad to finally release something again!

Kevin:  I hadn't really considered going back through the older stuff for CAM because I thought it was all small enough not to really matter.  However, I didn't take the Hammond Building into account when I thought that.  You make a fair point and I will take a look at it.

Fledgeling:  To expand on RippleJet's answer (which is exactly what I was about to type... lol), for the Taft Building, having CAM or not will make no difference.  The highest growth stage, which is the CS$$ version, is still stage 8 which will grow without CAM.  (Actually, I haven't gotten CAM installed yet either due to my absence over the summer.)  That's a little strange about the password thing... did you ask our wonderful host about that?  I'm glad you like the new apartments.  The athletic fields and the rest of the add on pack has been gathering dust.  The textures were released with the BSC Texture Mega Pack Vol 2... but that's about it so far.  Travis has been doing some great fields lately so I'm not sure when I may return to that project.

Matt:  Thank you!  Their are actually more railing spindles there, but the JPEG compression is washing them out.  While you're probably only seeing 3, there are really 7 there.  I'll take a look at your pictures when I get home tonight and get back to you on that part.

Bluebeard:  Well thanks!  And you are one heck of a supporter... which is always greatly appreciated!

RippleJet:  Thank you.  It's good to see that I would have given the right answer even though I am a bit behind on all this "new fangled" stuff!   

Just catching up on some replies for now.  I should really do some work!  More to come later!

JB

[rooker1]

So, I'm gone for a couple of days and you already have another building in the works.  This is going to be one $*%%'va collection. 
I really like the roof on this last one.  Very realistic and I love the styles.



Robin   

[JBSimio]

Robin:  Thank you!  I'm glad you like them!

I'm having a bit of a hang up getting the textures the way I want them for the Victoria Meadows building, so I took a little break from it.  In the meantime, just to prove that I haven't abandoned anything... here are a couple very early lighting shots from the grain elevator:





Still some adjustments to make, although I am going for a little bit of a harsher effect this time.  Overall I'm pretty happy with it.  I love how the light plays off the different distribution pipes!  No it wasn't really planned... I knew they'd get something, but I didn't expect it to look as cool as it does (in my opinion anyway!)

JB

[meinhosen]

Wow!  Seeing that elevator made my day... that's twice you've managed to do that this week (the newly released SHUR building was the other).  Aside from that- everything you're working on is looking good. 

[Fledgeling]

   I love it, it looks just like the ones that completely dominate the landscape here in the upper midwest, though there are *nudge* no canals *nudge* up here at all. Looks great.