City of Arts and Sciences - Valencia

[LucaPdor]

Hello all!

Nice to meet you, Community! I'm Luca, I'm writing from Italy, and like all the people here, I LOVE SIM CITY!
I'm new in BATing, I've just re-installed SimCity4 Deluxe after years of un-use (SHAME ON ME!) and I don't even have a developed region where I can play...
...but give me some time, and I will learn all the stuff I need to know to edit the game and help the community grow! 

So, now that we know each other, let's start exposing my "Plan for Conquering the Universe"... From now on called PCU.. 

I've spent my vacation time in Spain, this year. In Valencia, more precisely. It's a wonderfull city!
I've stared at the awesome Calatrava's "Ciutad de las Artes y las Ciencias", and now that I'm back in Italy, I found on my mailbox the LEX DVD! 

So, basically, I will try, in my spare time, to create it for the use of the community!
It will be a long time project, I suspect, as the events of life leave few time to work on dreams... But we can try, isn't it?

Here they are some pictures of the City of Arts and Sciences, for those who don't know what I'm talking about...

Hemisferic and Palace of the arts at night


Hemisferic at day (Opened. It's an eye!)


The museum of science


The Agora (Still under contruction...)


The bridge


The Umbracle (basically a parking lot wit a pedestrian walkway on the roof...)


and finally the Oceanografico (Acquarium)


Some more consideration on the next post...

[LucaPdor]

...just before I start discussing about the way I want to split the complex in individual lots, I'll post a screenshot of my progresses on recreating the Hemisferic from scratch...
...just to remain in theme with the section of the site...

Here it's the preliminar study of the BAT in AutoCAD:


I'll pass to the Building Architect Tool as soon as I can GED RID of the compatibility issues with Vista...
(When trying to install GMax, the Windows Installer tells me that Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 is already installed...  )

I'll follow up...

CIAO! 

[LucaPdor]

Ok, let's continue with the PCU...

Here it's the plan of the site taken from GEarth (Sorry, the pic is big...)


I'm not yet considering the bridge (rightmost part of the site, not included in the pic), the Agora, and the Acquarium.
Let's concentrate on the heart of the complex...
Here you can see, from left to right, the "Palace of arts", the Hemisferic, the Umbracle (at bottom) and the Museum of science.
Beetween the Palace and the Hemisferic there is a bridge (it could be an avenue bridge... we'll discuss later).

I'd like to respect the actual size of the buildings, so let's see how big they are. The Hemisferic is 100 meters long, so here they come:

Purple: Palace of arts - 13 X 9 Landmark lot (perhaps museum?)
Blue: Planetarium - 11 X 9 Landmark lot
Green: Museum of science - 15 X 12 Museum lot
Cyan: Umbracle (Parking) - 26 X 4 Parking and Landmark lot

Each building could also have several "states"... For example, the Hemisferic can be opened, or closed (see 1st post), and the Museum has a big glassed roof, so the inside is always visible, so that different expositions could be shown over time...
So, here it's my first question to the community... (  )

Do you think it could be a good idea to use seasonal lots? How do they work?
In my opinion it would be great if I can have 4 states for day and night for each building... They would look awesome when finished!

Ideas? Suggestions?   

Ciao!

[LucaPdor]

Small update...

Some progress with my baby!
Don't you think it deserves some comments? 




Do you think I will be able to export it directly in 3ds without having to reconstruct it in GMax?
This was started like a small study on the shapes, but it is going deeper than I tought...

Ciao!

[DebussyMan]

This is a very interesting project, and very ambitious as well. So far it looks great 

About your question: I believe it is possible to make them seasonal (or maybe change according to the time of day, just like maxis people's props) and I think they'd look great. Now, I don't know how to do it, but I'm sure one of our Mod extraordinaires like Barby would gladly help you accomplish that.

Keep up the good work.

[psander5]

I agree, this is a very interesting project and a very ambitious one!  Looking at your initial models though it looks like you'll have no problems making it work for SimCity.  It seems like you've thought through the planning of the project pretty well.

As far as I'm aware, the maximum size of any single model is 16 SimCity tiles.  The lot that you have on your plan (the cyan one) would need to be modelled either in 2 parts and stitched together in the LOT editor, or shrunk to fit the limitations.  From your gridded picture the model of the canopy would be almost 18 tiles long.  In my experience GMax won't export a LOD that's larger than 16. 

There is a way to export from 3dsMax.  You can use the BAT4Max utility to export, although you still need to use GMax to export the LOD's.  It means you don't have to remodel/transfer the geometry to GMax though.   

I too think it would be great if you made them seasonal.  It is possible to use timed props (not sure if timed buildings work), but that would mean exporting multiple versions of your model.  If your computer can handle it, and your patience can tolerate it, I think it would be a fantastic thing to try.   I'm not sure how the game would handle large models that transition, but it's certainly worth an experiment.  The same idea had crossed my mind when planning some stadia I intend to make, having an empty mode and a 'game day' mode.  I'll be sure to watch this project to see how it works for you

[LucaPdor]

DebussyMan: you're right! Timed props... Mumble mumble... I will somehow figure how to do that...  untill BarbyW will tell me how to! 

psander5: Thanks! I got Bat4Max, and I've also imported the whole scene in 3D-Max... I've just to get rid of some glitches, mainly bidimensional stuff that seems to be indigest to 3ds. Next updates will be textured, and more adeguate to SC4 scenarios!

Here it's the Hemisferic in it's final design stages...


... and here it's the original one...


I think I've reached a reasonable "resolution"... Working further on the details would only be a time loss.
However, I'll finish some interior parts that are likely to be seen from outside, like the pistons behind the moving walls, and some detalis of the floor.

Expect some new textured and SC4-like rendered views in a few days! 

Ciao

[Pat]

wow this is looking interesting and mighty big project that I will have to follow for sure!!!

[Cali]

so far a great start ...

[SimFox]

My sweet god!

Calatrava!!

Great buildings! and great model! Will be honored to help you with you possible Max issues...

One thing that would be crucial in the realization of this project is well set materials...

[LucaPdor]

Pat and Cali, thanks! I'm spending on this "small" project great part of my spare time... And it's not much... So, I really appreciate comments! 

SimFox, I agree with you! Textures are the elements that can make even a poorly designed model looks great.
So, for now, I'm just concentrating on recreating the textures in the more accurate way I can...
...and as I have not yet ready a full update, I'll just show you how I am recreating the famous Calatrava White Mosaic...

Almost 70% of the structures in the City of Arts and Sciences are paved with this pattern:


closer look


daylight look...


Recreating the mosaic is a crucial part of my project, so perhaps I'll modify this textures many times before I find a correct one...
For now, let's try recreating it in Photoshop...

Do you like PS tutorials? 

Let's start with an empty image. I've chosen a 512 X 512 texture. Not so big, but I think it will fit my needs.
Apply the "Textures -> Stained Glass" filter to the blank image...


... to obtain something similar to this...


Now, the smarter part...
A texture like this will be used for big surfaces, so it must tile smoothly, without hard transitions.
In order to tile in the right way, the top border must naturally fade with the bottom one, and so should do the left border with the right one.
I will thus work on the top and left borders as shown below:

Create a guide for each intersection of the gray line with the top and left border.


Then, using the eraser tool, delete the gray segments that intersect the right and bottom borders, like shown below:


Finally, using the brush tool (set to the same width, color and fade of the existing mosaic grid) create the "missing segments" following the guides, as shown below:


I think there is no need to be more precise in this phase, as each mosaic piece will only be 2-3 cm long, when applied on the model. Probably there wont be any SC4 model in whitch the mosaic will be visible!  Anyway, I'll recreate it... We'll see!

So, now we have a mosaic-like gray grid that tiles perfectly. Now we have to add some cement-like effect to the gray lines.
Let's see...
Use the "Select -> Color Range" function to select the white spaces and invert the so obtained selection to select only the grid lines:


Then apply to the selected area a "Texture -> Grain" filter:

...obtaining something like this:


Now simply desaturate the image so obtain a grayscale version:

We're done... save the image! I think the resulting image can be used even for bump map... We'll see...

Ok, we have the texture! Or at least a preliminar one...
Let's test it in 3DS Max...




I think this is a good start!   

Perhaps it needs some more specular highlight...

Ideas? Suggestions?

Ciao, Luca

[Cali]

wow! beautiful mosaic. i wonder if it was possible to make a multicolored one? but still wonderful. great work

[Pat]

Interesting is what I got to say...

[CabraBuitre]

Wow, keep up the great work!

[Frankie B]

An absolutely stunning project, I'm very impressed by the sheer effort you have put in thus far.

Has you made much progress since your last update?

[LucaPdor]

Hello guys! Sorry for my long absence...
I've made some progress, but I've not yet an update for you...
I am not able to install the BAT on my PC. I don't know why, but it seems it goes in conflict with Microsoft Virtual PC.

In the meanwhile, I've worked a bit on the textures, and I also completed the Hemisferic model, with all the details.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to post an update till I'll have a BAT up and running, and this could take a while...

Hope I can solve my issues soon!

Ciao,
Luca.

[tcx]

graet texture!!! looks awesome in the model.

I hope you can solve your problems with the BAT.