Today I had a chance to sit down with Bixel and Paulvmontfort, the "Founding Fathers" of the HKABT (Hong Kong/Asian BAT Team).  The HKABT is a team that makes custom BAT (Building Architect Tool) Buildings for SimCity 4.  HKABT has released hundreds of BATs across multiple websites.

You can see their downloads on the STEX, and on the Sc4d LEX.

Who started HKABT? (Hong Kong/Asia BAT Team)

Bixel: Paulvmontfort and I. Though instead of creating the team first and the content later - we created content independently in the beginning, we quickly noticed each others work and we formed a friendship and decided to work together. I think it was sometime in July 2005 I had just completed Philipobo's BAT tutorial and I wanted to make some buildings for Simcity 4. I had been a fan of http://skyscraperpage.com and had been browsing their building diagrams for quite some time. This is a web page of a bunch of artists that make a 2nd image representation of a building, and they have catalogs 1000's and 1000's of buildings. What really struck me as facinating was that Hong Kong had a lot of tall buildings, and a whole bunch of them were residentials which was amazing becuase no other city boasted such a huge amount of tall residentials.

Like just about everybody else I was already a big fan of NDEX and Simgoober. I wanted to create something I felt was lacking and would fit well with the NDEX universe of architecture while at the same time bringing something new to the table. Since I had already become facinated with Hong Kong's architecture thanks to skyscraperpage.com making HK residentials was a natural choice.

My 1st couple buildings were horrible - I was still learning. At the time Bat4Max just came out, and my roomate at the time was pestering me about using gmax and encouraged me to step it up a notch and use the real deal 3ds Max. Soon enough I was able to do bigger more realistic re-creations of my beloved HK buildings.

After I had released some pencils towers and Paulvmontfort got his 1st Lippo Centre out we decided to merge forces and create the team. T Wrecks become our 3rd member and his enthusiasm kept me and Paul going. In the beginning we just had the name HK Building Team and no logo, but there were concerns not to put ourselves in such a tiny part of the world, and we had some new members (Sim Fox, DmScopio) that wanted to branch out to similar architectural styles so we modified the name to HKABT or Hong Kong/Asia BAT Team. People that showed work and dedication to the effort joined us, Skyfire (we miss u!), Simfox, Jesselong, HONG KONG, Cockatoo-210893, ilikehotdogsalot and other people who gave us inspiration and photo reference help.

Paul: 4 years ago, I got a PM from someone, I don't remember his name, asking to participate in a team concentrating on HK buildings. I got the message because I was working on the Lippo Centre at the time. Bixel also got this message if I remember correctly. He was then working on the Harbourside. I then PMed bixel about starting a BAT team and so the HKBT was born.

What kind of buildings have you done?

Bixel: I have done so many, but its like 0.001% of the amount of interesting buildings HK offers. I browse through a whole bunch of HK building fan forums and grab as many photos as I can making mental notes on certain ones to be made into game content. I learned quickly that one or two photos wasn't enough, especially for the big projects. I needed floor plans websites and developer descriptions. Most of the buildings I have done are the big big mega complexes they have over there.

The HK Developers like to call them landmarks and they have super slick websites and visual media to compliment their buildings. I left most of the commercial stuff to Paulvmontfort and others, since generally - they didn't interest me enough and making textures for those windows is a pain in the butt. I concentrated on the residentials because after so much exposure to them I became a little obsessed over them. I kept trying to get information about them like what the rents were, do they have fiber optic Internet, who lives there, and do they like living there - stuff like that.

Paul: I've specialized myself in commercial buildings. However, I did some attempts at residential as well.

Do you do 3D for a living?

Bixel: I have done a little bit of work. I made a bunch of building assets for a car commercial and short video of them being animated. But since then I haven't done anything professionally mostly because I need to get my portfolio created. But generally yes I would like to do 3D and get paid.

Paul: I'm a student in architecture. I don't do 3d for a living but I do use it for visualization in my school projects.

Why HK Buildings?

Bixel: I have done a couple of buildings from my home town Portland but generally once I pull up those images of HK residential towers I get all giddy and I just have to make them.

Paul: I once found an image of the Lippo Centre on the internet. I was very fascinated by the building at the time, and I still am. I then started looking at other HK buildings. That's how I got interested in HK. But mainly also because of the HKBT.

Related Entries:

• Interview with BSP

Interview with the HK-BAT Team