SC4Terraformer, a tool for regional handterraforming

[DarkLoki 0]

Sc4Terraformer 0.5d has been released!

You can download this new version here:

{this is an outdated version and you can no longer download it}

Please note you use this program on your own risk, you should make a backup of your region and read the included readme.txt

The program now has an installer. Open the file and follow the instructions.

I only provide a link for the program, all the credit should go to wounagaine as he is the one who coded Sc4terraformer.

And now a message form wouanagaine:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOR DIRECTX 9.0C

The Microsoft DirectX Team release a version every two months,so even if you already have a DX9.0c installed, make sure to download and install the latest one. it will include the d3dx9_26.dll

can be found here

http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/directx.html

or

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.mspx

!!!!!!!!!!!! ALWAYS MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR REGIONS FOLDER !!!!!!!!!

Thanks to Ynterboy for testing and to other for feedbacks and supports

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have fun!

[wouanagaine 84]

Hi everybody

A big thanks to Ynterboy] who keep testing despite the fact is quite buzy doing his exams !

So to sum up the change here is the list for those who don't read the readme.txt ( shame on you )

---

V.05 changes/bug fixes

Tool bar UI with collapsing items and more grouping

Using a global tool will reset the actual zone tool ( avoid applying the zone tool when you clic on the 'ok' button of a dialog )

minimum elevation is 2m and maximum is 6000m, this is for future use of the compression algorithm to do an export/import feature of the full range elevation

mountain tools changed/added : tell me which one you prefer

NEW FEATURES

CITY LOCKER/UNLOCKER :

  when you load the city, the config.bmp ( reworked for better coloring ) and a list of existing savegame will be shown. You can lock or unlock those cities for terraforming

  you can unlock/lock city after doing some terraformning ( in the Configuration Tools panel ). If you lock a city after having done some terraforming it will revert to the original elevation

  using the zones tools on a lock city works until you release the mouse, all changes are discarded ( this is for speed reasons )

  Unsaved city can not be locked (even if it is displayed as locked )

CITY SAVING

  If you have lock the city, it won't save

  if you haven't any savegame for a city tile ( identified by the config.bmp ), SC4Terraformer will create one

UNSAVED CITY  

  identified by the config.bmp

  Unsaved cities are created 30m above the waterLevel

  Unsaved cities can not be locked (even if it is displayed as locked )

  SC4Terraformer will create a savegame for the city IMPORTANT NOTE if you don't want to loose the newly created city, when in SC4 you should start a new city and save it ( go to mayor mod and save ). If you save before entering mayor mod, there will be lost of data in your regio

ABOUT BOX added 

More "professional" import dialog

INSTALLER

 

YOU CAN NOW CREATE A NEW REGION FROM SC4TERRAFORMER :

Step 1 :

  Create a region folder in your MyDocuments\SimCity 4\Regions folder  and named the way you like

Step 2 :

  Copy a region.ini from any other existing region 

Step 3 :

  Open the region.ini and change the name to the one you choose and save

Step 4 :

  Create or get a config.bmp ( should be valid from SC4 point of view ) and save it in the new folder

Step 5 :

  Launch SC4Terraformer and select the new folder

Step 6 :

  Either import or not an image ( must have the correct size ie (64 * size of bmp) + 1 in width and height )

Step 7 :

  Do hand terraforming

Step 8 :

  Save & quit

Step 9 :

  Launch SC4 and load the new region

Step 10: -------------- IMPORTANT if you want to see the region thumbnail --------------

  For each city tile, load it and save    !!!!!

WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I havn't still discovered the good way to tell if a city is built or not ( that means have you entered in Mayor mod or not )

SO CHECK CORRECTLY the lock/unlock dialog !

If you see problem send me a word about what is on your city. I basically check for transport network and buildings ( thanks to Karybdis )

WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

---

What's next

for v.06 I plan :

    More robust code in case of corrupt region

    Visual clues about the lock/unlocked cities in the report ( something like a cross in the bitmap )

    Visual clue about the city you select in the report ( a blanking or white square instead of the green/blue/red )

    On saving, warn you and let you decide what to do if you have terraformed a city with trees or building and not locked it ( v.05 it will write the elevation and that may result on weird result in game ( still playable, but you need to bulldoze everything under the changes )

    If you quit without saving, ask you to save or not

    Import/Export of the full elevation range

---

Thanks again for testing and your feedbacks !

Take care !

[mjig_dudy 11]

downloaded, the new version and is now working well, if a little slow, on my computer.

id like to say that this is a absaloutly fantastic

[SimmsCity 22]

When you're talking about a saved city tile do you mean a tile that has a city growing in it already or just a tile square that is completely blank. This is about the important note, on saving and not losing a newly created city. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[wouanagaine 84]

mjig_dudy do you have lock some cities tiles ? It may cause severe performance drop. What I suggest is that you can unlock everything then before saving relock the tiles that need it relocking tile will respawn in original forms

SimmsCity, Saving a city that has already been built ( either trees planted in god mod or either built in mayor mod ) will lead to weird situations in game. With the current version you are not prompt for saving or not the city, only if you lock it , it won't be saved. In future version I will display a warning about those cities and let you choose if you want to save or not. if you decide to save, I will ask for removing tree/building/network or not. I choose this path because you may want to terraform some part of a city you know are not build and want to reconcile with adjacent tiles. Hope I'm clear, but to sum up with this version you may not want to save cities with building or network in it.

If I found trees but no network or building I consider you have been on the city in god mod

If I found network or building I consider you have enter mayor mod

If the city has been either in god mod or mayor mod, I lock the city by default

If I found no tree no building no network, I consider the city writeable and unlocked.

Take care

[SC4BOY 21]

well i've played around a bit with your last release .5d .. coming along well... I like the keybd interface and the "feel" of the editing tools.. 

I'd like to propose an idea to you. I like to form a "pallete" to build the terrain on and the tool doesn't help me much. When I think what would be useful for me to start it is this... I'd like to be able to draw isoclines that set the terrain "basic levels" .. that is to "sketch" the terrain levels at some level of granularity and then shape upon that "basic layout" the shapes of individual mouintains and valleys and the more refined shapes.. for example I might do the following:

            30

oooooooxooooooooooo 

ooooooooxoooooooooo

xooooooooxooooooooo

oxooooooooxoooooooo

oooxooooooooxoooooo

oooooxooooooooxoooo

xooooooxooooooooxoo

oxoooooooxoooooooox

oooxooooooooxoooooo

       10               20

Where the x's are points on lines of equal elevation like a geological map. Each of these lines would be the shape of the terrain in "steps" of a certain height. The picture above might then be the rouigh shape of a terrain that slopes from upper right above 30 meters to lower left under 10 meters in steps of (for example) 10 meters. I would then shape in hills or valley shapes or apply your "smooth" "errode" etc tools to the overall shape to give more realistic shaping of the overall terrain and iindividual valley or mountain features to this.. this I think would save LOTS of time in shaping a new terrain to fit your mind's eye.. 

I probably haven't explained this very well, but I hope you get the idea.

I also noted another "odd" thing happening.. If I were working with a tool (say mountains) and had edge scrollling on, when I scrolled to the left or the bottom, the "tool shape" would vanish. I could only get it to reappear by touching either the right or top edges. When I did this the tool shape would  show up again.. Don't know what causes this, nor if this happens to everyone or just something odd about me. 

Just keeping you in touch  with some of my thinking.. thanks again for taking your time on this nice tool.

[wouanagaine 84]

SC4Boy. Interesting idea, the fact that before starting SC4Terraformer I have thought at a sketching tool for jpeg creation as I also suck at terraforming . This go to the wish list !

For the odd thing, I need further exploration, I haven't seen this bug on my pc, what I can say is that the mouse shape can disappear if the terrain is below 0m, so this can happen if you are actually pressing the mouse and edge scrolling at the same time. but releasing the mouse button willl make it reappear as the terrain under 0m will be discarded.

[CDB 3]

It seems that I can't reload my region in the new Terraformer. After the backup, I loaded it in the program yesterday evening and I made some changes; then, I loaded the region in the game and I fond something strange: all the blank and unterraformed cities had become water instead of land. No problems with the already developed cities, though. Today, I tried to load the region in the terraformer to make some other changes, and the program doesn't work: after the loading phase, the window of the program shows, but there's no view of the region and after a while, the terraformer freeze. What's happening?

[wouanagaine 84]

Hi

CDB

For the unterraformed cities, it is normal they are water, that's my savegame, so I can easily spot which one I write.

For the bug, well I think I need to put some information when something is wrong .

What you can do, is try to remove savegame one by one from your folder ( keep a copy elsewhere ), and test each time if Terraformer freeze without that city.

Once you find the offending city, I'll be happy to get a copy of it ( via rapidshare.de or the way you want ). I've fight a lot with different version of savegame, and for now I knew 3 , but maybe you have another one. or it may also something completly different, just my guess

SC4Boy I have realize a speedup version, and if ynterboy have some time to test it, it will surely upload it. It is really a great optimization and you will see the difference!

Thanks for testing and your support

[RiverCocytus 0]

ah, yes. It would be most expedient if you could assign a height in meters to the brush you are using, so you can be more accurate with your terraforming.

[wouanagaine 84]

RyverCocytus Good idea, I will laso add a status bar that shows you the height under the mouse, the city it belongs etc..

CBD. I have thought about your bug, the thing changed between v.04 & v.05 is that I look into the savegame for the name of the city, do you have some special character in any of your city or a lengthy name ? And I also check the config.bmp and validate it ( maybe I'm not validating it correctly )

Thanks for supports !

[CDB 3]

Originally posted by: wouanagaine CBD. I have thought about your bug, the thing changed between v.04 & v.05 is that I look into the savegame for the name of the city, do you have some special character in any of your city or a lengthy name ? And I also check the config.bmp and validate it ( maybe I'm not validating it correctly )

quote>

 

Just read both your posts, I was AFK for dinner; I think that I actually have some special character: I've got the Italian version of the game, and "New City" in Italian becomes "Nuova Città". I've seen that the "à" wasn't displayed correctly in the Terraformer (in both consolle and editor window), but in the previus versions that doesn't seemed a problem.

If the problem is that, I fear that I have a lot of "screwed" city names, the game creates them by default.

EDIT:  Wait, I've already loaded that region once in the Terraformer v. 5, yesterday evening, even with a lot of terraformed and saved new cities, and everything worked well. The problems began when I tried to reload the region after playing it a bit. I didn't build any new city in that session, only loaded and saved the terraformed cities.

EDIT2:  Just loaded the region in the Region Census; I've seen that all the unterraformed cities had become "Nouvelle Ville", while the terraformed ones had become "Nuova CittÄ". May this help?

Thanks for your concern, in the maintime I'll try your first advice.

[SC4BOY 21]

I wonder if there is a way to "visible" all the "water cities" all at one time in a new region instead of having to load and save each one? The terraformer works great, but it is tedious to bring all the squares in one at a time.. or do you use some other approach that I don't understand? Surely you don't do each city square in a region after you have formed it.. or do you only work on one city at a time?

On the "topological map" idea to make it a tiny bit more understandable (or maybe you know what I mean already?) A quick sketch on even the REGION map might look like this:

(see the small attached picture.. I don' t know how to show the pic HERE, but it is just a tiny sketch)

This would outline a land with a shallow valley running from upper left to lower middle with a steep valley coming in from the upper right. The center would be a below water level (lake, or whatever) in a broad area in the middle. 

I feel like I'm working too hard to show a simple idea.. lol.. well anyways.. that's it for me.. haha

( Oh cool.. it worked well enough.. sorry for the lousy graphics. but it kind of gets the point across.. the topo info can be VERY SIMPLE and VERY ROUGH.. no sophistication here cause the real work would be done with the terraformer tools.. hehe)  .. well thanks for listening..

[wouanagaine 84]

CDB. Nouvelle ville is the name for french version, as I have the french one. Even if the A is not correctly displayed in sc4terraformer I'm pretty sure that's not the problem. I'm stuck for now. I'm glad you can test my first advice and hope you can find the offending city. Can you also check your region folder to see how names of savegame are ? I create savegame of the form of "City - New city(000-001).sc4" where 000-001 is the location of the city. If you have load and save in sc4 the name have change to City - Nuova Citta(xxx).sc4.

SC4Boy. Do you mean in SC4 ? For now it's the only way, but I plan to do something about that in V.06

EDIT : Got the idea, I will first implement a height tool as RiverCocytus ask ( way easier ) but I already have look at the kind of tool you show us so surely on short coming version. I plan the same with color indicating the height ( blue =water, level of green = heihgt, gray = cliff, white = snow etc.. )

Hope that helps

EDIT 2 : As I don't want to bump :

To keep you inform

for v.06 I plan :

    More robust code in case of corrupt region

    Visual clues about the lock/unlocked cities in the report ( something like a cross in the bitmap )

    Visual clue about the city you select in the report ( a blanking or white square instead of the green/blue/red )

    On saving, warn you and let you decide what to do if you have terraformed a city with trees or building and not locked it ( v.05 it will write the elevation and that may result on weird result in game ( still playable, but you need to bulldoze everything under the changes )

    If you quit without saving, ask you to save or not done

    Import/Export of the full elevation range done

added

    Zone tools way faster done

Expect v.05e tomorrow with only the tools faster, other features for v.06 perharps next Monday or sooner depending on the bug of CDB

[MrGScoTT 3]

I'm a true lurker, but this tool forced me to put words of the page.  I will download and try this out immediately.

[statusquo80 4]

Is there a way to see the city borders? It would be helpful to see the borders so I can better plan my region. Thank you again for such a usefull tool wouanagaine!

[wouanagaine 84]

MrGScoTT Thanks for supporting, unlurking and testing

statusquo80 I plan it, I will use the config.bmp instead of the color texture, pressing G will cycle thru normal rendering, grid rendering, config.bmp rendering. Will be on V.07 I hope

Thanks all and Take care

[Sir Montherin 0]

I downloaded V.05 this evenung, got a missing .dll error, updated my DirectX, and the program ran fine - until I tried my first tool. I am going to try a reinstall, but for now, all I can do is fly around a region.

[wouanagaine 84]

Sir Montherin, thanks for testing. Is there any error message ? and what are the symptoms ? a crash, a freeze ? and which tool did you use, or is that bug with all tools ? That's weird ,but getting more and more tester is the best thing as bugs will pop up in different situation. Oh and BTW can you also try it in the Timbuktu region to see if the tools work on it ?

Thanks and take care

[choco1 4]

wouanagaine, this tool is amazing! As I said in my other post this is revolutionary, and will change the gameplay of myself and many simcitiers!

I have had a play around with the tools releases, and this is just stunning! I am really impressed with this. Well done! This is news worthy I think!

Cheers, choco.

[SC4BOY 21]

Thanks for the note.. sorry to take so much time explaining the obvious.. I didn't know if you were familiar with topological maps with isoclines, but it sure makes it easy to "sketch" a region without playing with tools until you get the "lay of the land" done... Sounds like you are making the WONDER into the MIRACULOUS..

[wouanagaine 84]

choco Really big thanks for your support

SC4Boy I hope I hope... I will release another tool for isolines that will produce a grayscale jpeg that you can import either in SC4 or SC4Terraformer

So just a question for all of you

here are 2 dialogs boxes I want to be sure everybody understand as they will pop up when saving city that is either in mayor mod or in god mod with trees ( city that you have unlocked , locked city are not save )

Are they :

Correctly written in english -> provide the correct english if not please

and

Do you understant them correctly and do they provide enough informations for you to choose the right button

EDIT : The buttons will show in your window language

To keep you inform

for v.06 I plan :

• More robust code in case of corrupt region -> maybe delayed
• Visual clues about the lock/unlocked cities in the report ( something like a cross in the bitmap ) done
• Visual clue about the city you select in the report ( a blanking or white square instead of the green/blue/red ) done
• On saving, warn you and let you decide what to do if you have terraformed a city with trees or building and not locked it ( v.05 it will write the elevation and that may result on weird result in game ( still playable, but you need to bulldoze everything under the changes ) in progress
• If you quit without saving, ask you to save or not done
• Import/Export of the full elevation range done

added to initial plan

• Zone tools way faster done
• Draw tool at specified height done
• bug on the mouse cursor when edge scrolling fix done( I hope )
• Mayor mod is now 100% reliable done( thanks to Karybdis )
• about box with hyperlink to simtropolis done I like coding things like that
• statusbar added showing you the actual tool, the x,y and height of what is under the mouse done

[Wraith101 0]

---

Just quickly, I am sure someone can go over them for the proper grammar later.

Your second dialog box. Change all 'mod' to 'mode' !

and oh, by the way. Fantastic job you have done here. Well done!

[jasperdeman.nl 1]

I know one of us is going to win a Trixie at the next awardshow! And it sure as hell ain't me!

I said it before but you rule!

Some suggestions(/requests):

- Set a certain tile at a certain height. Example, I want some tiles at height 275, i choose the tool and click! They're that specific height.

- Copy-Paste.

- That's it for now... But I'll be back!

[Battlecat 14]

I think the text you've got in those dialogue boxes is very clear.  Unlike many programs, at least you're explaining what happens when you hit each button. 

It all looks good, wish I was home so I could test out your most recent version. 

[Meastro444 1]

what are those zone tools exactly? is that tool a leveler tool? if not so, could you please make one, because that is one of my favorite tools

Meastro444

[Starmanw40 6]

This is awesome! would you be able to use this tool for cities terrains too?

[bourneid 13]

is there anywhere that you have a step by step tutorial on how this program works...I opened a region, made the changes...and saved...but it has no effect.....

[jacqulina 162]

this is wonderfull thanks for your hard work

[wouanagaine 84]

Wraith101 thanks ! corrected

jasperdeman.nl, well I do this for thanking the simtropolis community, as I suck doing lot or bat or map, and as I rock and enjoy coding and that's remember me my days when I was a professional game programmer , especially the battle with bug I can't reproduce on my test pc

for your suggestions

A) do you mean flatten a tile to a certain height or add a certain height to the tile ?

B) This will require a lot more code if you want a copy/paste with random selection, or I can do a clone tool ( like the one in photoshop ) that will be more easier

Battlecat Thanks, I send V.06 to Ynterboy and he is surely testing it

Meastro444. I made a difference between global tools which apply to the whole region in one click ( like erode, equalize, raise or lower the terrain ) and zone tool that apply only to the terran under the cursor. And yes there is a leveller ( if it is what I think ) , there is a "make harbor" tool that flatten the land to an height of 1m above the water ( as the peg leveler ), there is a flatten tool, that flatten the land at the height pointed by the mouse, and for v.06 I added a draw tool that flatten the land to a specified height

Starmanw40. Don't get the point of your quesion (my bad english sorry ). If you mean edit only one city yes you can, you can lock all other cities and so the changes can only be made in the unlocked city

bourneid Certainly I will make one, I will edit this post to avoid bumping if nobody else post before I finished it. But if you have made changes and saved, you need to go in the city in SC4 to see the change, actually I haven't update the region view that is plan for v.07

jacqulina post at the same time thanks for your supports

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And for all, I have got some PM about a missing dll called MSVCP71.DLL, this one can be found here

And I also recommend you to install the Net Framework 1.1  as it may resolve some problems

Thank you all for your supports, suggestions and feedbacks