Subject:
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Re: new site on converting LDraw buildings to Sim City 3000 Unlimited Building Architecht Plus
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.dat.models
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Date:
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Mon, 3 Sep 2001 08:34:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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1313 times
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Oh, BTW. Nice job on the highway interchange!
That looks really nice!
Mike
In lugnet.cad.dat.models, Kyle D. Jackson writes:
> In lugnet.cad.dat.models, Michael Horvath writes:
> > Yeah, before they updated their website it was easy to find all this stuff.
> > I admit their website is better now, but some of the old content is now
> > obscure or, I suspect, nonexistent.
>
> G'day Mike,
>
> Yeah, I finally started using their Site Map yesterday to find things.
> Originally I was worried it was for the entire EA world, but it's
> just for the SimCity site. It's about the best way to get around
> there now IMHO. Using it I was able to find that SC3K_URK is
> grouped with BAP. The only active in-line link to it from normal
> web browsing seemed to be from the School Design Contest page.
>
> So anyhow, before you replied I spent yesterday mucking around
> with URK. Not for the "LEGO interface" but just to figure out
> how it worked. I decompiled some existing buildings into images
> and then built them back again to get familiar with it. I also
> looked at the templates to understand what they did. They're
> the same layout as many other games used, notably CivII (and I
> believe SMAC), except for .BMP vs .GIF I think.
>
> So then I jumped on the bandwagon and made my very first custom
> landmark! No, it wasn't LEGO. You can see the results here:
> http://www3.sympatico.ca/flightdeck/Share/SimCity/
> (WARNING! Some of the images are over 300 kB.)
>
> That's my true Canadian landmark! Hehe, there's no torch,
> but eat yer heart out NYC! ;] The helicopter in one of the
> images was a nice touch. Also be sure to read the news ticker
> in one of them.
>
> So this amusing little exercise not only beautified my skyline
> but taught me the ins and outs of using Photoshop and the
> templates to make buildings. Combined with your advice for
> angles and scales, I think I can toss some buildings into it
> now. Hmmm, I'm already imagining a Classic Space city...
>
> I wonder if there's a hack yet to editing the vehicles, roads,
> etc? It really bugs me that those items are high resolution
> whereas the buildings look like crap at the closest zoom level.
>
>
> > dimensions. If you want my advice, 1 baseplatewidth in ldraw should equal
> > one tilewidth in SimCity. I came to this conclusion by comparing the school
> > bus and pedestrian size to minifigs and ldraw vehicles. The scale seemed to
> > match pretty well.
>
> That makes sense. That way small buildings will occupy one game
> tile just like the game buildings. Also I read on SC3000.com that
> roughly 25 squares equals 1 mile, if you want to give it a
> real-world perspective.
>
>
> > Also, you'll find that when you render an image in
> > povray, the baseplate will have a height equal to one tile. You don't want
> > this, so erase any indication of baseplate height from the rendered bitmap
> > in your favorite image editing utility. This insures that all your
> > buildings will line up correctly, without looking out of place.
>
> I suppose it depends on the look you're after. If you want the LEGO
> buildings to look like they were just set on the ground like toys,
> then I guess this could be left in. But I think the way I would
> handle taking it out would be to raise a floor plane 1 tile in
> L3P so it clips off the baseplate thickness. Then I guess the
> floor would have to be non-reflective so it comes out as one
> solid colour, which I can then magic-wand delete in Photoshop.
> Hmmm, I'll have to fiddle with it some more.
>
>
> > There used to be a bit more detailed tutorial on creating renderings for
> > import into SC3K on the SimCity website. But, since their website overhaul
> > I have been unable to find this information. It dealt with setting the
> > correct angles for lighting, light source intensity, and some other stuff I
> > can't remember. Don't worry about that, though. L3p's default settings
> > look just fine.
>
> The only guidelines I found were in the URK readme file. It advises
> lighting direction for each view of the building, but that's about
> it.
>
>
> > That's about it. Good luck!
>
> Thanx for all the help, Mike! Let me know if you want the file
> for my "landmark" above and I'll put it in my webspace..., it's
> still on my Win98 partition right now.
>
> Say, if we make enough of these, we should start a SimCity LEGO
> building exchange. You've got 2 up already..., comments?
>
> Thanx,
> KDJ
> _______________________________________
> LUGNETer #203, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
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