Vintage Downtown Buildings and Apartments.

[jpetersjr]

Some slow progress on the building.

NY Office Building Render 6.jpg

A little more progress.

NY Office Building Render 7.jpg

Some more slow progress.

NY Office Building Render 8.jpg

[jpetersjr]

How do you copy and paste in sketchup??

[railbard]

A big city building housing a TV or radio station would basically be just that, a big city building. You might put a marquee style sign (big) or station call letters in a neon or other sign on the roof, some antennas, that kind of thing. A modern TV/radio outfit would have satellite dishes on the roof, possibly a microwave tower of some sort.

If the TV/radoi studio were a little more suburban or rural, it would have its own building and the big tall tower located close by.

[jpetersjr]

The copy and paste operation is working very well.

Here's a little more progress on the building.

NY Office Building Render 9.jpg

The top two floors will be observation floors with the gated in balconies.

I will also do a version with a radio station. Can you find me a picture of what a radio tower looks like?

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

This building is another great choice for a model! If you keep going like this you'll soon have an entire early 20th century downtown in RW!

If I may add a bit of constructive criticism, this model looks like it will have a massive polycount (many thousand). That is, if I interpret the screenshot correctly and you used the SketchUp draw tool (lines & rectangles on faces) to add details to the facade. Generally, every object should use as few polygons and textures as possible -- especially since RW uses quite a lot of high detail rolling stock, so the graphics engine has quite a lot to deal with anyway.

What you could do to avoid having to add new lines (faces) for all the windows and also to avoid breaking up the facade into individual 'segments' is to paint all that on the texture. This way it would suffice if a single rectangle is used for the entire facade, with a brick texture with a few painted on windows that tiles across the facade tile so that you'd get multiple floors and rooms. You would end up with less than 100 polygons on that building, with the same amount of detailing.

Cheers,
Michael

PS: Here's a small-scale example of what I mean by "windows on texture" vs. "windows as 3D parts":

Left: windows only painted on texture, 2 triangles. Middle: windows as faces, created with SU draw tools, 22 triangles. Right: the same, but with windows extruded inwards (push/pull tool in SU), 46 triangles.


Now imagine that on an object that has hundreds of these wall segments and you can get a picture of the polycount you'd be looking at.

[jpetersjr]

I've figured out how to do this, did this with the train station, but this only works if I don't want to make multiple versions of the same building. Since I will be making more then version of this with different brick textures. I make the windows completely flat and not sunk in some to save on poly there. Also, I've made all the columns on the side of the walls 2d to save on poly there. As well, I've deleted every floor line from all of the 2d columns on the sides of the walls to save poly there.

I am interested in seeing how some of my buildings act in a scene when many are used if someone would be willing to test them for me. I'll send all my new buildings over to that person so they can test them as well.


As well, a little more progress.

NY Office Building Render 10.jpg

[jpetersjr]

Hi,

This building is another great choice for a model! If you keep going like this you'll soon have an entire early 20th century downtown in RW!

If I may add a bit of constructive criticism, this model looks like it will have a massive polycount (many thousand). That is, if I interpret the screenshot correctly and you used the SketchUp draw tool (lines & rectangles on faces) to add details to the facade. Generally, every object should use as few polygons and textures as possible -- especially since RW uses quite a lot of high detail rolling stock, so the graphics engine has quite a lot to deal with anyway.

What you could do to avoid having to add new lines (faces) for all the windows and also to avoid breaking up the facade into individual 'segments' is to paint all that on the texture. This way it would suffice if a single rectangle is used for the entire facade, with a brick texture with a few painted on windows that tiles across the facade tile so that you'd get multiple floors and rooms. You would end up with less than 100 polygons on that building, with the same amount of detailing.

Cheers,
Michael

PS: Here's a small-scale example of what I mean by "windows on texture" vs. "windows as 3D parts":

Left: windows only painted on texture, 2 triangles. Middle: windows as faces, created with SU draw tools, 22 triangles. Right: the same, but with windows extruded inwards (push/pull tool in SU), 46 triangles.


Now imagine that on an object that has hundreds of these wall segments and you can get a picture of the polycount you'd be looking at.

Alright, I'm going to try it your way. I'll just have to make a new texture when I'm going to repaint it in Crafter later, but hopefully this will make the model work better in Crafter.

[jpetersjr]

I've finished redoing the building and now have started on the texturing.

Once finished the building will be the biggest I've ever built.

NY Office Building Render 11.jpg

NY Office Building Render 11B.jpg

And on floor 24 and 25 are the inclosed balconies, where the person would stand inside and look out onto the citym surrounded by fence.

NY Office Building Render 11C.jpg

[jpetersjr]

Some more slow progress on the new office building for RW, from the late 1930's.

NY Office Building Render 12.jpg

NY Office Building Render 12B.jpg

[jpetersjr]

Worked on the 2d columns and put on the name of the building.

NY Office Building Render 13.jpg

NY Office Building Render 13B.jpg

[jpetersjr]

Some more slow progress this morning. I expect that I should be able to put it into the game very soon. Last will come the sidewalk for the base.

NY Office Building Render 14.jpg

[jpetersjr]

The new NY Office Building 1 V1 in game and compared to the size of the other buildings.

NY Office Building 1 V1 A.jpg

NY Office Building 1 V1 B.jpg

NY Office Building 1 V1 C.jpg

NY Office Building 1 V1 D.jpg

NY Office Building 1 V1 E.jpg

The NY would stand for New York Office building. I'll do a couple more versions of this building and a couple more buildings of similar size for the new set. Hopefully I'll be able to release it soon, the entire set.

[jpetersjr]

Just put some more buildings into RW today, Miscellaneous Buildings, these would feature some of the many unmarked businesses that often reside in a big city.

Misk Buildings 1 A.jpg

Misk Buildings 1 B.jpg

Misk Buildings 1 C.jpg

Misk Buildings 1 D.jpg

[dejoh]

Looks fantastic. Remember, each building had roof access for repair and maintenace.
Also, each building had incinerators with chimmneys and boiler pipes.
The side of the structures are begging for wall painted signage, if viewed from a street corner.
Great work, you've come a long way.

[jpetersjr]

Looks fantastic. Remember, each building had roof access for repair and maintenace.
Also, each building had incinerators with chimmneys and boiler pipes.
The side of the structures are begging for wall painted signage, if viewed from a street corner.
Great work, you've come a long way.

Of course, it would be nice to have people repaint the buildings. They can add paint on the sides and even make them look old and full of Graffiti.

So far, haven't seen very many repainted buildings in this sim.

Of course, some times I leave out chimneys and roof entrances to save on poly. I probably later will make some clutter items including chimneys, roof entrances and water tanks for use on the buildings.