gottago to BAT

[gottago]

Hi everyone, and welcome to my BAT thread. I hope you'll enjoy the projects I'll be presenting here, and help improve them both technically and esthetically.

I finally gave in to the BAT bug recently, after putting it off for months because I knew it would be a time-hole and a distraction to RL, and of course I was right. But I also realized there's always some free time somewhere, so I finally installed gmax and BAT, and really enjoy learning to use it.

Initially I plan to concentrate on BATting low-rise commercials--buildings 5 to 12 stories tall, that would fit 2x4 to 3x6 lots ingame, and especially w2w commercials-- as I am (re-)building a region based on Cologne (Köln), Germany that caught the prop pox. There are a good number of Cologne landmarks available and a wealth of German and Polish residentials, but during my first go at it, I quickly realized that there are a very limited number of low-rise commercial lots out there, which make up the fabric of the city center--just how many times can you plop ill tonkso's Trowbridge House or Simfox's great Qui Tao? 

Cologne is an important regional and cultural center, severely bombed in WW II and subsequently rebuilt in a chaotic and banal though endearingly Kölsch Modernist style, that has only a handful of actual highrises--almost all commercial buildings are no more than a dozen stories tall. Here is a pic of the downtown surrounding the Cathedral:



and a view of a typical street:



These long, low, simply gridded-out postwar commercial buildings are ubiquitous in Cologne, as they are in most RL cities, for that matter, but are severely under-represented in SC4, doubtless due to the appeal of creating eyecatching CAMpatible skyscrapers for Bladerunner-stye megapoles.

So, faced with this situation, instead of pointlessly wishing that this or that BAT had instead been flipped over on its side, I thought I'd get to work myself and create the BATs I want to use. Luckily for a BAT noob like me, the buildings themselves are for the most part simple boxes, repetitively and rectilinearly detailed, so I could jump right in.

Well, this post has gone on long enough, time to show something--and get some help!

[Fabian93]

Great project.
I am personally not a fan of skyscrapers either and I try to avoid building them. So I can't wait to see what you are going to do  , since there is a real lack of european, low rise, commercial buildings - especially of those which would fit quite well in a W2W block.
Looking forward to it 


Fabian

[gottago]

So here is a MS Virtual Earth screen capture of my first BAT project, a building on Cäcilienstraße in Cologne:



and a street view:



Just the sort of building I'm after.

And here are preview renders:





The BATting wasn't that hard in the end, though I made many mistakes and once had a boolian meltdown/crash that erased a whole night of unsaved work, which taught me the "save often" mantra.

Right now I'm working on textures, and can't get them to stick--after applying the UVW map modifier, then loading and applying them, the latest textures erase the earlier ones, and when I save and close gmax, the textures are gone when I reopen--I just get this grey color for everything I applied previously. You can see the glitch in the two render photos above--the first has newly applied roof textures, and the second render, after doing some other stuff, shows that they have disappeared. Yet the MN shows the textures in place and properly linked. Very strange.

I am using some textures that are single bitmaps, which I load as "standard" materials, using the "diffuse" upload in the "map" window in the ME. Other textures are loaded with diffuse, specular and bump maps loaded together in the same way, and I have all the texture files (all are .bmp's) saved to C:\gmax\Maps.  If anyone knows what the problem is, I'd love to know!

PS. The building has an open atrium on the roof, and I'd like to put some tables and the like up there--if anyone knows of or has some gmax files that could be uesful, I'd very much appreciate the heads-up.

[SimGoober]

Nice looking building... Definitely useful in game

For the textures, GMAX pretty much only uses Diffuse textures; specular and bumps don't work.  And I seem to remember GMAX having issues with BMP files. though I could be wrong.  I use all JPG format (the files are smaller), and never have any issues.

[Orange_o_]

Very nice work. 

For your texture problem before exporting or rendering you must apply all textures (one to one) on a new box, which you then remove, to "refresh" the memory of Gmax. 

Pour ton problème de texture, avant d'exporter ou de visualiser il faut que tu appliques toutes les textures (une à une) sur une nouvelle box, que tu supprimera ensuite, afin de "rafraichir" la mémoire de Gmax

[gottago]

Thanks Fabian93 for your post--I hope you'll like the BATs.

And thank you SG and Orange_o_ for your comments and the information; I hope you'll drop by from time to time--it's great to have feedback from the masters 

For the textures, GMAX pretty much only uses Diffuse textures; specular and bumps don't work.  And I seem to remember GMAX having issues with BMP files. though I could be wrong.  I use all JPG format (the files are smaller), and never have any issues.

I'd read in several tutorials that .bmp was the way to go, and I had the feeling that bumps wouldn't be useful in the end, so this will simplify texturing a lot. Good to know.

Orange_o_, I don't really understand your post--do you mean that I should create a new box primitive, then apply the texture to it, then delete the box, and repeat this for each texture, before saving? Or apply all the textures to one box one after another? (Gmax--what a weird program!  )

[Orange_o_]

In fact Gmax is sick with Alzheimer's  ... Indeed, we must create a new box next to your Bat that you select. You open textures, and one after the other you do "apply".
This allows Gmax to remember the paths of textures, textures and avoid gray.

After that, you delete the box.

[gottago]

Merci pour ces précisions--I'll try this method out and hopefully have some real texture progress to show next week, when I'll again have some free time wake up the 'old patient,' who seems to have some bizarre quirks you would never realize otherwise

[gottago]

I've finally got some free time again and have finished the model of Cäcilienstraße and pretty much completed the day textures and am now starting nitelights (oof). I'm waiting 'til everything is done before stretching the bldg vertically--right now it's still a bit squat. So here are some new preview renders:


South:



West:



Comments and suggestions are appreciated!

[Earth quake]

Simply wonderfull bat, I really like the textures, just perfect.
but it missies some things on the terrace. (là ou il y a les dalles marrons si je n'ai pas été claire)

[art128]

That's quite a nice re-creation there Gottago ! I really like the shape of that building, and the textures used are really nice. The roof junk seems a bit little, by that I mean some more aeration thingy would be nice... even if when I see the bird eye picture, there isn't soo much.. 
Anyway, good work with it. Also, as E-Q mentioned, I think some chairs and tables in the "inner terrace" it would be nice.
-Arthur.

[wouanagaine]

Really nice, but as Arthur said, just add more stuffs on the roof, this is the part you'll mostly seen in SC4, so don't hesitate to put details in it

[Orange_o_]

perfect, the texture is very well worked.

Adds perhaps some elements on the roof

[gottago]

Thank you Earth quake, Arthur, Wouanagaine, and Orange for your supportive comments--it's very good to get feedback!

Apparently the unanimous opinion is to add more roofjunk, and I was planning to arrange the terrace with tables and chairs and perhaps a few small trees in planters but haven't done that yet--I want to respect the "Ordentlichkeit" of the real building re: hvac, vents, etc., and have the eye focus on the terrace.

I have the perfect model for the furniture but it is a .max file and I can't import it, so if anyone can export the file in .gmax or .3ds, please let me know, it would be a great help.

Also, a question re: nitelites for BATters: what is your favorite rgb color formula for outdoor lights? I'm having a lot of trouble finding the right tonality.

[Orange_o_]

I can perhaps help you to Nitelite, but I do not understand your question. can you tell me the question in French?

[gottago]

Salut Orange,

Bon, pour nitelites, il faut définir une couleur pour le "hotspot" de la lumière qui consiste à 6 données : red, green, blue, hue, saturation et value. J'ai du mal à trouver la formule qui donne un effet convaincant.

(In doing nitelights, you have to define 6 variables to create the hotspot color of the projected light... I'm having trouble finding a formula that is realistic.)

[zero7]

Also, a question re: nitelites for BATters: what is your favorite rgb color formula for outdoor lights? I'm having a lot of trouble finding the right tonality.

The way I generally choose colours for nitelites is to ask what kind of lights they are.

Tungsten - slightly yellow
Sodium - orangey-yellow
Flourescents - generally blue-white

Generally the colour cast has much greater effect than you would expect for the level of saturation so keep it subtle.

[gottago]

I've been trying to export a clean model without success: my building is designed to fit snugly on a 5x2 lot and the LODs have been edited to a tight box around the BAT. Before I export, I delete the lightrig from xref scenes, then run a preview render to generate a new lightrig to fit the modded LODs. Then I run the export. The result in-game is perfect except for this bug--a grey square at the point where the lightrig puts its target point on the LODs, seen ingame here:



Anyone know how to fix this?



Edit: ok, to sweeten the pot to get an answer here are some preview renders











When I'd nearly finished the BAT, I stumbled upon a website of the history of Cologne in pictures and found out what building I was modeling (lol!) It's the Volkshochschule Studienhaus, or Cologne Community College, and so will be a college ingame and also a CO$$ on a 2x5 lot.

The building was built in the early 60s and features a large bas-relief on the entry facade by the sculptor Arnoldo Pomodoro (translation: Arnold Tomato) which I modeled as well, as the original facade was quite bare. The building is freshly restored and I added all the contemporary details to get it as close as possible to RL (and fitted out the bare atrium). Hope you like it!

[Tomas Neto]

Wow, awesome work my friend!!! Fantastic BAT!!!   
Sorry, I don't know how to fix this?

[Earth quake]

Wow, the bat is really awesome and splendid.
It's just perfect (and do you have a night render ?)