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Feel free to re-package, bundle or re-distribute any of those things any way you may find useful... This permission is valid for ALL content I ever created and/or published anywhere - whatever you find, you can use any way you deem fit, no strings attached except for a small notice as to the origins.

If that helps anyone to fill in small gaps in their collections - wonderful!

As I'm sure Paeng would have been ok with this, I am expanding the permission I received from Paeng regarding his SC4 Custom Content to include @Tyberius06 and also the Simtropolis Staff including @Cyclone Boom and @CorinaMarie

-catty

As luck would have it,  I had a paper printout of the tutorial tucked away in a box, unfortunately no pictures, anyway I PMed him a copy of it and am also going to add a copy of it here as a just in case backup.

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I just released my version of an animated south African flag on the Simtropolis exchange, and I've had one or two inquiries as to how it done.

Rather than tell people through PMs etc, I thought a (hopefully) simple tutorial might be in order.

However, before I start, credit where it's due. I shall be using Ilive's Reader and Dark Matter's Fishman programs.

Also, I based my new flag.dat on Pegasus's "One Flag Many Nations" lot. Although this may not now be available for people who have not already downloaded it, the method should work if you extract the relevant files from Maxis's American or Canadian flag lots from the official SimCity 4 site.

The process is really just a series of simple steps really, with just one huge tricky one in the middle!!!

Step One

Load the flag.dat file of your choice into the reader, and highlight the FSH file

Step Two

Save the decoded file by right-clicking over the shaded FSH file. When the dialog appears, choose the folder you want to save in and also type in the name you want to save to. IMPORTANT don't forget to add .fsh to the name you choose, the program will not this for you. This step will save two files, YOURNAME.fsh and YOURNAME.fsh.TGI

You won't need to do anything with the TGI file, but it has to be there. IMPORTANT once you saved the decoded file, Remove the FSH file in the original.dat file (using the same method) and save the whole .dat file to a new name, eg YOURNAME.dat

Step Three

Open the Fishman program and then open the YOURNAME.fsh file, expand the Bitmap part of the tree and you should see something like the screen-shot below

The flag animations use seven different bitmaps and you are going to have to save each one twice.

All the seven different bitmaps have two versions: ColorOnly and AlphaOnly. For Bitmap #1 make sure that the drop-down box shows ColorOnly and save the bitmap as image1.bmp. IMPORTANT make sure the Save As Type drop-down box is on Windows Bitmap. Once you have done this, change the top drop-down box to AlphaOnly, the image will change to a simple black and white version with the flags in silhouette only. Save this image as before but as image1a.bmp.

Repeat this for all seven bitmaps, saving as image2, image2a etc.

Step Four

This is the tricky one! Open all of the imageN.bmp's in your favourite image manipulating program and redesign every single image on all seven ColorOnly bitmaps to the flag of your choice. (I wish you good luck and good patience!) There is of course no need to do anything to the AlphaOnly images.

Step Five

Assuming you haven't given up yet, once you have got a new set of image1.bmp, image2.bmp etc, its time to reintegrate them back into an .fsh file. Go back into Fishman, open up the YOURNAME.fsh file and delete all seven of the original bitmaps by rightclicking on them and selecting remove.

Step Six

Rightclick on the Bitmap part of the tree, select Insert and then Bitmap

You should now have the dialog box as shown below. IMPORTANT you must insert your modified Bitmap files in the original order. Use the browse selectors to locate your modified image1.bmp ColorOnly file and the original image1a.bmp AlphaOnly files. Next, and this is IMPORTANT select the FSH Bitmap Type to be "... with Alpha". Once done, press OK and repeat for image2 etc.

Step Seven

When you have inserted all seven ColorOnly and AlphaOnly pairs of Bitmaps, save the whole file as YOURNAME.fsh (you may want to change the filename to YOURNAME1.fsh)

Step Eight

Go back into the Reader and open the previously saved YOURNAME.dat file. Rightclick anywhere under the list of files in the middle panel and choose "Insert & Compress file". Navigate to the YOURNAME1.fsh file and press "open".

You should then get the warning message "No entry selected, Append to end?". Select "Yes".

Step Nine

You should now have a file list with your FSH file at the bottom of it. IMPORTANT you must now rightclick again in the empty part of the middle panel and choose "Rebuild Directory File". Once you have pressed this, nothing seems to happen, but believe me it has, and without it all your work will have been for nought.

Step Ten

Save the whole.dat file, place in your Plugins directory and enjoy. (If you are using Pegasus "One Flag ... " lot, make sure that this is the only .dat file of this type in there).

Hopefully all of the above is clear. Apologies if some of steps might seem obvious to the more experienced modders out there, but I myself have found that when following some tutorials, some of the simplest unexplained steps are the ones that catch me out.

If I go for this, is there any "must have" mods you would suggest. Many to max some production or something like that?

If you are not sure how to convert decimal to hexadecimal, or like me prefers to just use a website, I've also found this one

https://www.binaryhexconverter.com/decimal-to-hex-converter

to be quite useful.

So this is the missing list I did originally, since then a number of these plugins have been uploaded, so this topic is to work out what's been uploaded, what still needs to be uploaded and what's still missing.

BEX PEG 9x9 PPond Water Plop by Becca (RebaLynnTS)    
Cruise Ship Port for CDK 3 by Becca (RebaLynnTS) 
Cruise Ship Port for CDK 3 Ends by Becca (RebaLynnTS) 
Cruise Ship Port for CSX Pier Mall by Becca (RebaLynnTS) 
Cruise Ship Port Fillers by Becca (RebaLynnTS) 
Cruise Ship Port Fire Station by Becca (RebaLynnTS) 
CW Soldier Props2 by Pegasus    
Deadwood Sunken Plazas MML - By Chrisim by Becca (RebaLynnTS)    
DEDWD Raised Park MML By Chrisim by Becca (RebaLynnTS)    
Dr Gonzo's ArtGolf Golf Course MML by Becca (RebaLynnTS)    
Drawbridge - No Scows Version by Pegasus    
Fanta SPAM-MMP by Craig-Abcvs    
Faux Walls by Paeng    
FiRE by Becca (RebaLynnTS)
Gettysburg Seminary by Guest    
Horses by Paeng
How to Float Your Boat by Pegasus    
MMS (Modular Motel System) 1 - Parking Lots by Becca (RebaLynnTS)
MMS (Modular Motel System) 1 - Transitions by Becca (RebaLynnTS)
MMS (Modular Motel System) 1 - Plaza Lots by Becca (RebaLynnTS)
MMS (Modular Motel System) Resources by Becca (RebaLynnTS)
MMS (Modular Motel System) Set One by Becca (RebaLynnTS)
MMS (Modular Motel System) Texture Pack by Becca (RebaLynnTS)
MPK (Modular Parking Kit) - Core Set by Becca (RebaLynnTS)    
NBVC Lumber Yard by Pegasus    
Nightowl Extenders by Paeng    
NOB Walls and Bridges by Becca (RebaLynnTS)    
OWW2 CSP Transitions by Becca (RebaLynnTS)    
Paeng's Urban Canals by Paeng    
Parking Lots Vol 02 by Paeng    
Parks Administration by Paeng    
PEG BlackBeard's Fountain PLaza by Pegasus    
PEG CDK-OWW Ferry Landing by Pegasus    
PEG Common Sims (GMAX) by Pegasus 
PEG CSK Add-On 2: A Means to an End by Pegasus
PEG CSK SCOWS Prop Pack by Pegasus
PEG CSK2 Hanging Gardens by Pegasus
PEG CSK2 Random Traffic by Pegasus
PEG CSK2 Small Port (Functional) by Pegasus
PEG Forest Add-On 1 by Pegasus
PEG Firetruck Shadowfix Patch by Pegasus
PEG Forest Pack by Pegasus
PEG Hanging Gardens PATCH 07-06-05 by Pegasus    
PEG Memorial Park - Funeral Fix by Pegasus    
PEG Military Aircraft Props - Volume 1 by Pegasus    
PEG Modular Construction Units by Pegasus    
PEG Mountain Trail Head by Pegasus    
PEG Pier Rail Props by Pegasus    
PEG Pine Forest by Pegasus    
PEG Pond 3x2 Water NAM Extender by Pegasus    
PEG Ponds - Patch 6-1-4-05 by Pegasus    
PEG PPOND Locks by Pegasus    
PEG PPond Swing Bridges by Pegasus    
PEG Seasonal Woods - MTP Update Patch by Pegasus    
PEG Stream Kit - Patch 6-14-05 by Pegasus    
PEG Trail Park 2 - Add On Pack 1 by Pegasus    
PEG Trail Park 2 - Boardwalk Style by Pegasus    
PEG Trail Park 2 - Country Roads Add-On by Pegasus    
PEG Trail Park 2 - Trail Blazer Edition by Pegasus    
PEG Trail Park 2 by Pegasus    
PEG-BAT Sat-Com Center by Pegasus    
PEG CDK3 Basics Cement Patch by Pegasus 
PEG CDK3 Small Ferry Landing by Pegasus    
PEG MTP Avenues by Pegasus    
PEG MTP CS$$ Replacement Mod by Pegasus    
PEG MTP CS$$$ Replacement Mod by Pegasus    
PEG MTP Terrain Mod 2 by Pegasus    
PEG OWW2 Patch 2 - Budget Fix by Pegasus    
PEG OWW2 PierSet by Pegasus    
PEG-SF SkyFarm DIY Kit by Pegasus
PEG-UT Mall Canal PATCH by Pegasus
Pond Park Family Resort by Paeng    
RCi Beach Lots by Becca (RebaLynnTS)    
Schmucker House by Guest    
Seasonal Tree - Southern Hemisphere Mod. by Pegasus    
SG Nimby Pack by Paeng    
SimCity 4 Selector by Becca (RebaLynnTS)    
Streetside Diagonal Parking by Paeng    
The Three Islands by Vandy    
Transitions and Turbulences by Paeng

EDIT: Colour Codes

GREEN has been uploaded to the club files

YELLOW has been uploaded to club topic "Paeng's Forum Attachments"

BLUE has been uploaded to the STEX

Am open to suggestions on the best way of adding this information to Simtropolis  

Anyway a full demo version was provided free-of-charge to any person that set up an account on the PixelActive forums in 2010 the company was sold to another company owned by Nokia at which point the forums were deleted .... a few months later this company was merged into another Nokia company, after than I lost track of who owned what, but CityScape as a product ceased to exist.

Anyway the point of this post is since PixelActive company and its website ceased to exist back in 2010 I have had the demo, manuals and a traffic mod file over at the CityBuilders website, as my site is going to be closing down later this year ... is this something people want to have saved and if so how.

Demo is 140.3mb in size zipped, manual is 20.3mb in size (279 pages) the quickstart guide is 6.8mb and the traffic mod file is a few bytes in size ...

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CityScape is the rapid urban modeling tool that allows users to build both custom and real-world environments quickly and easily. With CityScape, developers can focus on designing their world rather than the labor involved in creation. CityScape's unique feature set allows users to produce environments magnitudes faster than with traditional object modeling tools or scene editors alone.

CityScape Benefits:

Rapid Urban Development -

• Roads: Instantly create complex road networks with freeways, interchanges, bridges, overpasses, on/off-ramps, and cul-de-sacs.
• Props: Populate cities with buildings, trees, power lines, and imported props, manually or automatically.

Active Adjustments - Making modifications anytime is as simple as click-and-drag. Terrain geometry, road networks, and props adjust to changes naturally.

Automatic Traffic Data Generation - Traffic data is procedurally generated with the road network and automatically updates whenever the network is modified.

Supports Popular File Formats - 3ds Max*, Maya*, COLLADA™, OpenFlight 16.3, and GIS data formats (shapefile, elevation data, projections, building outlines).

Commercial Game Engine Support - CityScape can import/export to Emergent's Gamebryo 2.6.

Collaborative Multi-User Support - Teams can work on different portions of the same world simultaneously while CityScape merges changes to the shared world automatically.

While Simtropolis was having some technical issues my website hosting account at HostPapa come to an end, I must admit I was expecting a more sensible close-down message from Hostpapa than the one they put up, as visitors are probably going to assume reading it that this is something temporary.

A few things have still got to be uploaded to Simtropolis and I also have complete backups of the site so if anyone is looking for something that was on the site and its still not over at Simtropolis then let me know and I'll get it sorted out if possible.

A bit of a relief in a way now its gone as real life issues have meant I wasn't spending the time I should have on keeping the site running properly ... am looking forward to maybe getting back to playing SC4 again, will still be playing Banished and now Luke (Banished creator) is back making a new game and has just started a new development blog

http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/

If its anything like his blog when he was creating Banished will be well worth following in the future.

Goodnight CB Website am going to miss you and of course my fellow administrator on the site ... Jmouse who died last year the site was never same after her passing.

-catty

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Since I live in Hamburg, it was obvious that I want to build a harbor.
Since I now have time as a volunteer, it was also allowed to be something bigger...... ;-)

It's NOT the Port of Hamburg but it's heavily inspired ....

The whole thing was created on a flatland landscape, completely without water.
Although was a miserable fumbling, only to work with the channel system but I think it was worth it.
Now come a few fine works ..........

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The pictures are not sorted, but like from the album

Greetings and regards,

Wolf