Just for fun but looks good!

Perhaps u wanna make a tut for 3ds max to show us how do render and create this buildings?

Iam working with sketchup pro but its hard to get the same look like age. Which version of 3ds max do u use?

Thanks man.

I'm using the 2012 student edition.

That building looks great. It might just be the zoom, but the bricks look a little small though, maybe scale down the texture repeating to get a bit more detail out of it.

Thats my problem, my texture arent very good and looks not like age2.

So i want to try my best at 3ds max with rendering!

If you are interested in creating something for AOE1, check this thread. Some nice buildings were already created there.

[This message has been edited by aoe_scout (edited 05-07-2013 @ 01:32 PM).]

That thread's pretty interesting, I'll have a post in there too.

Though the buildings I'm making are intended to work in AoE 2.

It's just a case of experimenting. Tbh, when I downloaded that template however long ago, the first thing I did was remove all of the little boxes and just make one really big pink box as the base. This really helps for making automatic transparent backgrounds when converting to the AOK palette.

Use the smaller squares as a guideline for your scale, so at least you know the comparative size of what you're working on to the next piece. The varied size and scales of buildings in AOK make using 3ds max units pointless. The squares give you a rough idea.

The rest of it is, like I said, experimenting. At the moment they look a little too close up. The camera angle and everything from that template is fine. Just try zooming out a bit with the camera. I'd say a 15-20% increase in the camera height would look about right, especially on the 2nd building.

So i want to try my best at 3ds max with rendering!

You're work won't radically improve just by using 3ds max. You need to improve your general 3d design and texture skills.

The scale of your castle is all wrong. It's too short and too wide - not really fitting with AOK. The camera is too far away, but zooming in would give you scale issues like I just mentioned.

The textures are too flat (and tiled) and there is not enough detailing on the building itself. Try changing the scale of the building. Heighten the walls, 'squidge' it in a bit on all sides, and decrease the tiling amount on the texture. I guarantee you'll get a better result.

[This message has been edited by Tatsuo (edited 05-07-2013 @ 04:26 PM).]

I feared as much, but at least that way I have a little more freedom to do it in a way that's logical to me. I've been using the large squares on the grid as equal to one in game, and then scaling the model up to render, since the preset file seems to be zoomed out quite far. I think I just need to figure out how much to scale them and it should work fine.

Thanks for the tips.

Hello Tzontlimixtli and good luck with the new buildings! After you render the building you can import the image in turtle pack's slp editor, add the tile's grid and see how big it is. After some time you'll recognize what size it should be for 2x2(houese), 3x3(barracks), 4x4(market), 5x5(wonder?).
Also if needed slightly resizing could be done with photoshop or copy-pasting. I did that with some of your old indian buildings.
Btw the babylonian/persian tc looks great. Is it for bronze or for iron age?
Oh and Hades, good work man! You'll improve, talk with the ToME team, i think they make their buildings in sketchup.

[This message has been edited by todler (edited 05-08-2013 @ 03:23 AM).]

Really? I never noticed the grid option in there. I'll have to go back and look again!

Thanks, it's for the Bronze Age. Though it's supposed to be Greek. After doing a little research it turns out Greek architecture was quite different to what it would become in Classical Greece.

Here's the Greek city of Mycenae in the Bronze Age.

Actually i haven't used the tile grid for the buildings, i don't know how to enable it and i might be mistaken. Tetsuo should know, coz i've seen one of his screenshots with that grid, but it might be only for the terrains.
I see. You have good ideas for the architecture!

@Tatsou
thx for your advise.

I work even three weeks with sketchup, so i need to improve my skills.

I know that my Building dont match up with aok. As you said, its to big and to less detail at all.

Im just fitting out, what is possible to do to get the look like aok.

Well, I haven't tried them with a grid yet, but I've been sticking to a single scale at least.

Babylonian walls

Bronze Age Greek houses and Barracks:


I'm still going with Mycenaean Greece for now. Things should get "interesting" when I get to the Iron age. Circular tiled rooves, agoras and whatnot. :P

wow i like the buildings...great job!! make some more for the ancient civilisations especially...

Wow that's great work! I like the babylonian wall also! Just the doors are a bit too high, they should be 2/3 of that size and the white color on the walls is too pale in game, you can change it to the red from the tc. Also could you add some curves and more shapes to the buildings(especially houses)? Because they are with too straight angles now and like squares.

This is a superb project. I love checking the page everyday to see new and lovely items posted. More more! I want to see what you can produce for Sumeria, Minoa and Indians?

@Todler

Here's the alterations I've made to the first house, based on your critique.

The smoothing of the corners really helps make it look less like it's been plastered with a set-square. :P Though I quite liked the bleached plaster, I think this looks good too.
EDIT: I added a couple of steps to the doorway, hopefully it'll give it a better size.

@Charging_Knight

I'll be doing Sumeria eventually, though in the same way AoE 1 covered Sumeria. For now I'm just attempting to create the basic building sets used by the Civs in the first game.

[This message has been edited by Tzontlimixtli (edited 05-08-2013 @ 07:46 PM).]

Wow again! Great improvement already! Well you can leave the bleached square white(marble?) walls for the egyptian set, this way that one will look more unique . Yep i think the red(clay/bricks) texture is better. Idk did Mycenaeans used white painting for their walls? Also the idea for the steps is excelent.
Btw from what material should the gray framework be made? If it's wood(looks like it is), could you recolor it similar to the steps but a bit darker maybe? So the wood should look like a brand new one.
Also i like the stuff you placed around the houses: pottery, player color kettle?, fence, small tree and the tiles. But could you add somewhere(maybe in the third house coz i already like the scheme of these ones) the player color water barrels/containers like in AOE1? Maybe one on the roof tops, but it'll be kind of strange .

[This message has been edited by todler (edited 05-08-2013 @ 09:52 PM).]

@Tzontlimixtli, do u have got an explanation or tut for me how to render with this settings http://aok.heavengames.com/blacksmith/showfile.php?fileid=5841?

I got now the student version of 3ds max and by comparison to sketchup its an huge programm.

Great looking buildings! I really like them!

@ Todler The framework is indeed wood. I'm currently trying to saturate it a bit more without making it look TOO colourful. :P
As for more clutter, I'll have to fire up AoE again and see what they have.

@ Hades85 I'm afraid I'm not really sure where to start when it comes to giving tutorials for 3DS. My methods change all the time while I try to find what works best. If you follow some tutorials you find online I'll try to answer any questions you have, though.

I have imported my sketchup model to 3ds max.
With settings from your link.

Now i asked myself how to render my buildings like yours?

What steps did you?

I think u used 8bit palett but where can i choose it?

sorry for my english its not very well.

[This message has been edited by Hades85 (edited 05-09-2013 @ 05:42 AM).]

Well, I deleted the smaller squares, since they just got in the way, and I made the bottom one big enough to fill the screen and changed its colour to magenta (255, 0, 255).
Then I imported my model to that file and rotated/scaled it as appropriately as possible and clicked render.

which render preset du u use? And what kind of texture? Did you create the texture with 3ds?

I just click the render button at the top left. The file downloaded from here has all the settings for AoE. I made the textures myself. For a lot of things they don't need to be too detailed, since the palette can strip away a lot of colour sometimes.

EDIT: I decided to give myself a change for a bit and work on some other building styles.
Here's a Stone Age dwelling:


And an Egyptian town centre in the Bronze Age:

[This message has been edited by Tzontlimixtli (edited 05-09-2013 @ 01:04 PM).]

The wood on the greek buildings should be lighter and like it's just cut down, not grey or brown either. I like the egyption tc and the stone age house!
Did you came up with the desings yourself? Coz they are very good/unique/fitting with the game.

Hmm, well I'd imagined the wood would be bleached a little from the Greek sun, or just weathered in general. I'm not entirely sure which colour I prefer at the moment.

To avoid cluttering up the the thread with images, here's my imgur albums with what I've made so far.

Stone Age
Egypt
Greek

The designs are based on both AoE1 and 2, 1 for how the buildings in general should look, 2 for the scale and character. Other than that I've just been Googling for anything relevant and deciding how I think they should look based any historic material I find.

Your graphics are outstanding! I like the egyptian houses, the granaries and the greek gates.

Thanks.

I don't know how far I'll get before I have to stop, I've got a couple of exams due at Uni and then I'll be building portfolios and looking for work, so this might be put on hold soon.
But I will finish it, I'm enjoying it too much to leave it half done.
When it IS done, I'll release it as a modders' resource. I've always wanted an AoE1 remake. :3

[This message has been edited by Tzontlimixtli (edited 05-11-2013 @ 06:48 AM).]

I check your albums everyday :P. Nice new archeries and stone age house! could you make the greek one a bit slim at the main building and place round tower, like the granary on top? Also you can make the wood on the greek buildings in player color.

Those are really great buildings tzontli I specially like the egiptian ones will you share them with the guys of the aoe1 in aok mod?, by the way do you acept requests? :P

Thanks again for the feedback guys! I agree about the "fat" archery range, I'll look into that. But I'm not sure the houses would benefit from adding player colour to the beams.

At the moment I'm not taking requests, since I have quite a lot on my plate besides this, I'm afraid. The AoE1 mod uses the original AoE1 building scale and they've come quite far already, so they've said they won't be changing that.

These look great! Good work!

The greek iron age roofing is great! Could you put the stone wall texture from the tc to the houses too? I very much like the clay chimneys.

Yeah for the aoeI conversion mod we won't be adding new buildings but I'm sure your buildings could find some use. Either for the aoe userpatch or any pre-medieval aok mod.

You're also always welcome to help us at the aoe forum with those new aoe buildings if you're willing to render your graphics to aoeI format and size.

I can't seem to make that particular wall texture "work" with the houses. Their rustic shape looks a little weird with the clean-cut blocks. :P
I'll see if I can get some nice brickwork in there, though.

@ Jan dc

This is very good to hear.

I just had to test these out to see if they're definitely in scale. And guess what... They are!

[This message has been edited by Tzontlimixtli (edited 05-13-2013 @ 08:45 AM).]