Thingfishs is having a B.A.T Downunder (wanna take a look)

[vester]

A great improvment with the building made up of separate parts and the textures a getting closer.

Dirty up the road a bit. It's way to shinning and new.

[sithlrd98]

Just running through this , and while I have nothing technical to add...I have seen from start to now and I think you have done a very good job!The only real critique I have is the size of the lot (not a big deal at all!).  I like the props and textures used to accompany the buildings and am looking forward to seeing it in-game!   

Jayson

[cogeo]

Also I've played around more with the tank textures which I think are looking a lot better, thanks cogeo.

I can see that they don't look all the same now. I guess you have rotated them as needed. But the texture still looks blurred to me (no details shown). Can you tell me the dimensions of the tanks (radius and height) as well as the texture's ones (width and height)? Also some tanks look white. Is this the desired colour, or the texture just doesn't show on exports? In such a case take a look at this thread.

And have a Happy New Year!

[thingfishs]

A happy new year to you too

Thanks for your thoughts there vester, sithlrd98 & cogeo.

vester: I will tackle that gravel some more. Something I've noticed but have been ignoring, is that the gravel in RL is lighter where the repeated traffic has been, whereas I've just been using burn in PS to make the tracks darker than the surrounding gravel.
Does anyone have any thoughts on whether I should continue with my current approach or try to be more true to life? and if so is the dodge tool in PS the best way to replicate the reverse effect?



Jayson: As for the size I continue to be confused as to what the right size is. On one hand I've been told a BAT is as big as it needs to be, in which case this is still missing sheds and other things that would extend it even further. On the other hand I've been told twice now that it's getting too big. The current size of 5 by 5 is my best compromise so far.
I would be very interested in hearing other people's thoughts about all this. When do you stop replicating RL size wise?

cogeo The white tanks are supposed to be white, I still intend to pick a slightly dirtier texture though. The tanks are 7.5m by 1.7m. The previous texture (a default maxis one) was 206 pixels wide by 233 high while the new ones (which are 3 variations of the same image - sourced from a photo of one of the tanks themselves) are only 50 wide by 101 high. I have posted all 4 textures in a zip on rapidshare in case these can tell you more, thanks. (I realised later it makes more sense to just post them here)



thingfishs/Ryan

[jmyers2043]

Hope you don't mind if I drop in with a couple of ideas for the next time you make some tanks ...

Looking at my top view - I put a large short cylinder to simulate a flanged top.

Create a tube and use the slice function. Clone, rotate, and you've got a bolt pattern.

A connector where the pipe fits is made of a cylinder and a cone. 

About 1/3 way down I'll boolean a grove for no reason other than to create visual interest.

Near the bottom two cylinders simulate some sort of clean out valve.

And the pipe has (at least I think) an interesting shape.

A lot of what I did is hidden by the texture I have pictured here. Some details would be a great help to a tank where a 'clean' metal texture is used as they can create subtle shadows and highlites that play against the light.

[gottago]

Hey thingfishs and happy new year!

Things seem to be moving again here on the tanks and textures front. The new wall textures are good, they don't create the moiré patterns anymore, but are a bit too pastel green--it couldn't hurt to lower the saturation and tweak the color levels a bit to calm down the color. Also, you still don't have a uniform scale to the siding--the repeats on one side are wider than the other, and the roofs have much tighter repeats--not a problem between walls and roof necessarily, but walls should be uniform with walls and roofs with roofs. I didn't realize at the outset that your building was a solid model, and this would virtually guarantee that you couldn't control scale, but now that you've rebuilt it in pieces you can easily get them to work (check out that post I wrote a few pages back about scaling textures again, it'll make more sense now). You should also put a gradient on the wide roof planes to give them more punch and accentuate their slopes.

And I agree with jmyers that the tanks look too schematic. A cylinder-wrap texture with streaks and a dirty base from rain-splash and wear would help them a lot, along with some more details like he's just posted with his knock-out tank.

The tracks look good but reworking them with a light mud color using a randomized brush will help. you might want to muddy up the edges of the gravel areas to soften up the razor-sharp edges as well.

[cogeo]

@thingfishs: your textures are right-sized (resolution-wise). They are a little stretched (but very little) so this doesn't matter. But the texture quality (taken out from a pic) isn't really good. Ie the blurring isn't caused by high resolution, they are the textures themselves who are blurry. So using another texture would improve the tranks' looks. And the texture doesn't necessarily need to be "dirty", or "leaking-like" or what, it can be dirty, leaking, rusty, shinny-new, galvanized, weathered etc, so pick the ones that would look the best in your BAT, it's you who decides how your BAT should look like.

@jmyers2043: thanks for your tutorial! Can you explain a little, what the "slice" is needed for, I mean what exactly you have to slice here?

[thingfishs]

Thanks Jim, gottago & cogeo.

I've had a play with most of the suggestions and, excepting the tanks, I think it's looking pretty good. Thanks gottago for pointing out the green tint of the texture, I think colour wise it's a lot more accurate now. I made a bigger version of the texture but it can be seen repeating a little bit. I've added a low hedge and sign out the front and have done more with the ground texture than is apparent. I haven't used a random brush in PS before, I had a go but it was turning out worse because I don't know how to use it yet. I've also surrounded the winery with the vineyards I am slowly creating (using couchpotato's de-textured props, these will be growable farms that will trigger the reward of the winery.

 

The biggest problem continues to be the tanks. Thanks for the tute there Jim Although the tanks you have created are a little different from mine but maybe boolean grooves will help with the three grooves on the side. For my and cogeo's benefit could you explain the bolt/slice section a little further. Fortunately the opening to each tank faces inward so that the central path down each row has access to the tanks on either side. Which means I can ignore them completely.
I've got a couple of photos to show the tanks a little better. My new texture has proven problematic but I will keep trying.

it's you who decides how your BAT should look like.

I appreciate you saying so cogeo, it's probably healthy to be reminded.
What I want the tanks to look like is the tanks at the winery. The big photo below was taken on my phone about a month ago so these are the tanks in their weathered state, still pretty new looking. The older aerial shot shows them from a near SC angle.

Any thoughts on how to make the top of the tanks like they are in the picture? (with a gentle curve covering the entire top and leveling out at the opening.)


 

[cogeo]

The tanks again... The new texture looks rather stretched horizontally (or shrunk vertically). If your tanks are 7.5m by 1.7m (I guess this is the radius, not diameter), I would suggest using a texture 107 px wide (2*p*1.7=10.7) by 75 px tall, that is some 10 px per (BAT) meter. But values between 64x45 and 160x112 would work quite well, I think (with the former looking more "crisp" and the latter somewhat "softened"). Take a look at this thread, for some more details.

Also make sure the texture is mapped correctly (the wide side wrapps around the cylinder, the U and V parameters are set to 1.0 in both the material and the UVW modifier, and you see the cylinder in the UVW modifier is wrapped around thetank exactly - also check the Caps check-box). Also, in the material set Blur to 0 (this will set it to 0.01 I think). To check how the texture is applied I use test textures like the ones attached at the end of this post (I guess you can make some better ones, lol  ).

Another thing you may have missed, is play with the light effects a little. In the material try setting Speculars to a nonzero value, and experiment with the Glossiness parameter too. And there is a "Metal" option as well (in addition to the default "Blinn"), but I don't know how this one works exactly, maybe ask a more experienced BATter about this. As for the texture (provided that you want to make metallic-looking tanks), I would say that you pick a "brushed metal", or "stainless steel" one, but preferably without the light/reflection effects imprinted on the texture (these should be generated by utilizing the speculars feature). Also you may have to darken them a little, as the speculars thing lights them up quite a bit.

[jmyers2043]

Any thoughts on how to make the top of the tanks like they are in the picture? (with a gentle curve covering the entire top and leveling out at the opening.)

Tank with a smooth top you say? The real ones look like they taper off to the side as well. 
I start with a cylinder and convert it to an editable poly


Collect the vertex of the top two segments and use the scale function to make the diameter smaller.


Move the vertex to the side and/or up or down until you think the top is the right shape. Remember you may have to move them up more due to the 'top down' view of the game


Create 3 tubes and Boolean some groves into the sides.


There is a question about the slice function. I'll use the slice to put legs at the bottom of the tank instead simulating bolt patterns in my previous illustration.  

Make a tube – turn on the 'slice' and I'll set the slice start and end points to only create a 10 degree portion of the tube. This is my first foot.


Clone the foot and rotate 180 degrees. Clone again and rotate 90 degrees, clone again and rotate 45 degrees. You now have 8 evenly spaced feet holding the tank off the ground.


This will be my clean metal texture. I hope the blue tint will give the tank a stainless steel look.


I think I need to tinker with the top a bit more. But that's how I'd start the process. In reality? I'd try a couple of other textures just to see if by chance I can improve the look. I may add a gradient so that it's a smidgen darker at the bottom. Plus the tank needs more details like a clean out valve, possibly a lid or cap with a handle on the top spout thing. Some pipes going to or from ... things like that. There is nothing wrong with embellishing a bit to add interest.




Good Luck.

[thingfishs]

Thank you very much cogeo & Jim for some very useful info.

Particular thanks to Jim for going above and beyond here and creating a custom tutorial for me

I have turfed the old tanks and started again following your tute and already they are looking much more true to life.





However they continue to be plagued by blur. This time I am using 5 variations of jim's texture. (side note: it seems when you make variations of textures your changes either barely show up at all or are horribly blatant, finding that sweet spot in the middle is a real art)

This texture is 455 wide by 431 high which I figure to be plenty. I will reread your suggestions on all this cogeo and see if I can figure it out. Also how do those test textures you posted work?



Also this group of trees shows fine diagonal lines. In the LE I lifted some of them by 10cm until they all looked good, but in game the lines are showing again, what do I do?

[cogeo]

Also how do those test textures you posted work?

These textures can help you determine how your materials and mappings work. All you have to do is (temporarily) change the texture (in your material) to this one and see how it is applied on your objects. For exmaple, you can easily see if it is tiled or cropped (and how much). The numbered ones are for testing multi-materials.

My suggestions about the texture size (resolution) were made assuming that the texture will be applied once (not cropped or tiled). So if you apply this texture you must see it wrapped once around the tank, with the yellow stripe at the top and the green at the bottom. After you're done testing, change the texture (Diffuse Color) with yours.

Also this group of trees shows fine diagonal lines. In the LE I lifted some of them by 10cm until they all looked good, but in game the lines are showing again, what do I do?

This happens when shadow is cast on another model (textures have no problem). Also if the models' LODs overlap.

[thingfishs]

Thanks cogeo,

I said I thought that the resolution of the texture would be plenty, then remembered you saying about high resolution causing blurriness too. So I changed the resolution of the image to 107 by 75 and then tried 160 by 112. I then tried an alternate texture, also reduced to 160 by 112. In all cases the images were set to 1.0 in both the material thing and the UVW map panel. In all blur was reduced from 1.0 to 0.01 (the lowest it seems to go)



107 by 75, with specular at 10.



160 by 112 (I forget what the specular level was here)



New texture, specular at 20.

I prefer the new texture, but there still seems to be some blurriness. It seems worst to my eyes around the bend at the top of the tanks, is there something that can be done to improve the situation. I also had a play around with glossiness & metal without too much effect yet.





So this is the winery now, with my preferred texture thus far for the tanks. I have added the small garden strip by the front door but because of the proximity to the building am unable to place but the smallest plants in LE, not the camellia bushes that are there in RL. Have continued to play around with the ground and building textures as well. While this is my favourite version of the window thus far, any advice to make it better would be great.



Also I'll repeat my night lighting question from earlier. Is it possible to illuminate the courtyard from a light which is on the small building, keeping in mind that they are separate props. I don't understand much about nightlighting yet. I've had a go but am unable to see anything in render. (they are prefixed correctly)

[cogeo]

Maybe the texture(s) you are using are blurry in the first place. Try a different texture. Also I did you take a (big) texture and shrunk it? Resizing (shrinking) causes blurring too! Better crop an area from the texture (provided that the "details" shown don't look unrealistically big.

If you can send me a part of your BAT (a tank), along with the texture(s) it uses. I could take a look - but I don't promise anything. There are two ways to do this:
- Select a tank and then select File->Save Selection.
- In a new (empty) scene select File->Merge, and in the list displayed highlight one of the tanks and click OK.
My e-mail is public.

As for nightlighting, you can place a nitelite anywhere you want. It doesn't need to be contained inside the LODs. For lighting the courtyard, you can try Omni(s) or Spot(s). I think Omnis would work the best (also set the Attenuation and/or Decay parameters, to achieve a realistic effect).

[thingfishs]

thanks again cogeo,

I did shrink rather than crop the texture & it was huge, so cropping it did reveal too much detail. So I chose a new gentler version, have cropped it and still they are blurry.


(Just the foreground section of tanks have been changed)

Why haven't I had this problem anywhere else in the project, just these tanks?!? Originally on simple cylinders and now on the editable poly versions, the common link seems to be roundness. Do round things have to be dealt with differently? Each of these tanks have a UVW map, with cylinder & cap selected, is there anything else to do?
Though I'd rather not trouble you I may end up taking you up on your offer there cogeo.

(I think this new version may be less blurry, I can't tell anymore, my eyes are going blurry themselves from staring at these things. How do these look to other people?)

[thingfishs]

Whilst I bide my time trying to figure out the blurry tank & night light situation I thought I'd show you another of the ideas I've dabbled with since I discovered BATting wasn't beyond me.

This is Hungry Jacks, originally the Australian arm of the Burger King corporation. The name was changed because a small take away shop in my home town was already called Burger King. Hungy Jacks or HJ's is the second most prominent take away food business in Australia after Mcdonalds and though the Burger Kings available for SC appeased me when I couldn't BAT, now I have to have an actual HJ's.

Clearly this has a way to go, this is not laid out, I have just created the props and put them all together on a LOT to see them in game. I realise everything's too big but it is in proportion so it will be easy to rescale. This BAT has a grey roof plane but I hid it during the modeling process and forgot to unhide it, which is also why the different coloured strips on the roof stand out so much (both in height and colour). When I re-opened the gmax file it was corrupted so I'm going to have to add everything to the roof again.

   

   

The angled part of the roof seems almost white despite it's texture which I'm guessing is because of the angle relative to the light source. Any advice on dealing with this?
Any other thoughts on anything else to do with this or the winery...?

Also I've changed some setting in gmax and now when I try to move an object the coloured axis pointers don't appear which means my movement isn't restricted to an axis. How do I reverse this?

Thanks.

(I started another thread a while back which turned into dealing specifically with the vineyard farms that will trigger the winery reward. In case anyone hasn't seen it the thread is here: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=9668.20)

[joelyboy911]

It looks superb. We have Burger King in New Zealand, but I would still use this in my city, for sure. I'm thinking of doing something like this too, featuring a handful of McDonald's all based on ones in Palmerston North. There are 3 which I have in mind: One is a traditional style thing with red-roof and yellow details etc, however, it has a more modern McCafe attached at one end, another is in an older wall-to-wall building, and the last was only completed last year, and was built in a very modern style.

I think the only way to help the white roof situation would be to darken the texture, or to adjust the specular levels of your material.

I think tapping the X key helps the thing with the axis pointers. As for the winery, I think there's a lot of empty space at the rear of the section, or is that grass placed alongside?

[kwakelaar]

This is looking very good, both with the new textures and with the parts that you have remodelled.

[dobdriver]

the old google snoop cam..

[thingfishs]

Thanks very much Joel, Kwakelaar & Dobs

I was torn while doing the HJ's between the old style & the new one but yeah you're right Joel, why not do both. I've lotted the HJ's & with some modifications have turned it into a Red Rooster, Australia's biggest (I think) non-imported fast food franchise. They have nice red buildings and I am already liking how this is looking in my test city. The parking spaces are too small so I will fix that. Can anyone recommend a/some good all purpose car prop packs. What's the best way to get some realistic timed prop cars in the carpark?
I am also going to make a 2 by 2 version as well.

This is the first time I've actually placed one of my buildings in amongst others and it's pretty exciting. What can I improve with these?

 

 
(also the tree props on the red rooster lot are going into the building next door, they will soon be moved as they already have been on the Hungry Jacks one).

Thanks for your thoughts on the winery Kwakelaar. It's been a long journey that hopefully is nearly over...

Joel I eagerly await your Mcdonalds set. If you want I can easily just change the sign to a Burger King one and make two versions, I might do that anyway. Tapping the x key hasn't helped, does anyone else know how to get the coloured axis pointers back in gmax? As for the green strip at the back of the winery, that's not actually part of the lot and I'm of the understanding that the 5 by 5 section that I want will be able to be transferred to a new right sized lot (maybe via reader?)