Lot Editor - Help

[Sam 163]

Hordijk - D for Duplicate

FissileBread - make sure you delete the old base texture before adding the new one. If you have more than one base texture on a tile the game doesn't know which to show. Also make sure the file you are trying to alter is not in a subfolder. The LE always saves to the root plugins folder, so if you change a file, it will place a new version of the lot in the root plugins folder.

[Hordijk 18]

ty

[FissileBread 0]

thanks sam, that worked (the subfolders). I have another problem though. I can open most lots fine, but sometimes, especially when im opening a seaport, or station lot (not always), I get an error that says: "The lot you have chosen cannot be edited because it uses items from SimCity plugins or expansion packs that are not installed on this machine." This is rather annoying. I have deluxe, so I technically have all the expansion packs. I also have all the needed dependicies for the lots and when I open them I the game, they work fine. Why can't I edit them?

[simfreakz 0]

Hello

I have created a new residential $ highrise lot with the lot editor. No problems using the lot editor, actually is was quite fun and addicting.  I downloaded the SC4 Tool because I thought it would allow me to change building occupancy (capacity), but I cannot seem to find that option. How do I go about this?

Also, once I adjust that, I would like to upload my creation to the STEX.  I have saved my lot, and it is in my plugins folder. I suppose I should test it in the game to see if it works first, them upload it to STEX?

This is my first lot, and my first time I would upload. I am no expert at computers, and cannot figure out gmax, I don't have time to anyway.

So I guess my question is, what are the steps I should take toward making my new lot ready for STEX upload, and how do I customize building capacity?

I hope someone can help me with this endeavor, thanks.

Here is what my new lot looks like:

[Sam 163]

Originally posted by: simfreakz Hello

I have created a new residential $ highrise lot with the lot editor. No problems using the lot editor, actually is was quite fun and addicting.  I downloaded the SC4 Tool because I thought it would allow me to change building occupancy (capacity), but I cannot seem to find that option. How do I go about this?

Also, once I adjust that, I would like to upload my creation to the STEX.  I have saved my lot, and it is in my plugins folder. I suppose I should test it in the game to see if it works first, them upload it to STEX?

This is my first lot, and my first time I would upload. I am no expert at computers, and cannot figure out gmax, I don't have time to anyway.

So I guess my question is, what are the steps I should take toward making my new lot ready for STEX upload, and how do I customize building capacity?

I hope someone can help me with this endeavor, thanks.

Here is what my new lot looks like:

quote>

Hi simfreakz, is this building a Maxis building? I assume its growable since you said its R$. Hovever if you used a Maxis building I think you will have a harder time editing the capacity.

If you used a custom BAT and made a custom .sc4desc file for it then its a lot easier (you should be able to just load the descriptor in PIM and change the capacity there). The problem with using the Maxis buildings for growables is that the LE does not make a new copy of the original building's descriptor in your new lot. It just references the original which is still in the core dat file. If you want to change capacity on the building you will need to find the building exemplar file in the core dat file, extract a copy, point your lot file to the new descriptor file copy and then mod it. Its not all that difficult, but its tedious.

I use Ilive's Reader for all my modding though, as I'm more familiar with it. You can make the changes in SC4Tool, and in fact the comparer tool would be very useful.

You need to be very very careful when changing the capacities on your growables. The capacity plays a part in the lot's growth frequency among other things. So if you change it too much your lot may not grow at all, or it may take over your city. Also its not a good idea to drastically alter a building's capacity compared to other buildings of the same size, stage and type. Even if it did grow it would unbalance the game. The comparer tool in SC4Tool will help you find correct values. Just compare your building to other Maxis buildings of similar type, size and stage and base your values off that.

Also check the other stats of your building at the same time. If you used the PIM then the stats for garbage pollution will most likely be way too high. Again look at similar Maxis buildings and set the values similar to those. I think you can edit the values using the comparer but I'm not sure. You can also use the Exemplar Editor in SC4Tool. Check the tutorials in SC4Tool's help section for details of exactly how to do this.

Testing

Yes, you absolutely must test that your lots work before you put them on the STEX. The STEX is for sharing your creations with other people and if other people can't use them because they don't work, then that is a big problem. I would say that probably most of the files that are not tested before being put on the STEX either don't work at all or have major problems with them that make them unusable. So please, please test your files before you post them.

Firstly test that your lot actually grows, ie choose a suitable city and wait for it to grow.

When it does:

- get a screenshot for your

STEX

picture

- check systematically every zoom and rotation that (a) the lot looks ok, and (b) doesn't crash the game on zoom or rotation

- test the query (a) that all the labels are correct and reading the correct values (b) that it doesn't crash on query

- wait six months game time and check the route query. Make sure that sims are travelling to and from the building. Check again at 12 months and two years game time.

- look for any unexpected delapidation or abandonment

- check all the data views at 1, 6, 12 and 24 months game time to look for anything undesirable happening around your new lot (eg garbage build up, mayor rating dropping, pollution build up, congestion etc)

- check the charts for any undesirable city wide effects, eg spike in power usage, water consumption, garbage build up etc

- save your city and exit. Check that you can get back into your city (ie no crash on loading the city)

- run the city for a while and see how often your lot grows. Is it too much or too little?

- check that it needs only the dependencies you listed, ie try it with only the listed dependencies in your plugins folder and look for brown boxes or missing textures

- its advisable to play your new lot in several different cities to see that it works under different conditions

Once you have done all this, package up your lot and then test the packaging:

- make a readme and check that it lists the dependencies and building stats correctly

- zip all the needed files - readme, readme images (keep them small, 250 x 128), lot file, descr file (if not merged with lot)

- test that your zip file unzips all the needed files correctly and to the correct locations (check you have used relative path names for sub folders).

- check that you lot works, using the content from the zip folders, not your original content. Don't forget to check the readme works.

If all goes ok and you have fixed any problems you found then make up your STEX description text and upload your file to the STEX.

[simfreakz 0]

wow! thank you Sam for answering my questions

I'm not sure what "descriptor" and "PIM" are, but I think I get the idea. As I am constrained by time, I won't be able to do all this immediately, but I will let you know how everything goes.

Yes, I am using an existing Maxis building... actually one of the highrise tenements is hidden inside the mesh of Conrete Manors that I used as props. But yes, I understand what you mean about the building capacity. I intend to bump it up only slightly, since it is roughly 2 concrete manors put together. But if I can't figure that out, I'll be happy with the existing roughly 1,500 capacity, or whatever it is. I wanted to make it around 2,200 or so.

I intend to follow your testing advice, and I'll see what happens. Thanks again for your time.

[Sam 163]

PIM = Plug In Manager. It is used to make descriptor files (.sc4desc) for custom BATS. The descriptor file contains a building (or prop) exemplar. It is this building exemplar that specifies most of the common properties and values, for example the number of residents/jobs, income or monthly cost, water and power usage, park or landmark effects for example.

The building exemplars for the maxis buildings are not in .sc4desc files, they are in the SimCity_1.dat (one of the core dat files, the others contain mostly texture/fsh files).

If you are using a Maxis building, the easiest way is to extract a copy of the building exemplar from the simcity_1.dat file, give it a new iid and then make the changes you want, before putting it on a lot. If you do it that way its a bit easier than trying to do it after you have made the lot.

[The_Poe 0]

My apologies for my ineptitude: I can't seem to open the Lot Editor.

I keep getting this error message: LotEditor.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows. You will need to restart the program...

Version is 1.0.12.0

[Bacon914 0]

Just a Quick question. In the lot editor, lets say I'm editing a park lot. Would it be possible to place a residential building in that lot? Or are my building choices restricted by lot type? Thanks.

[skyliner22 16]

I cant seem to open lot editor either. Its like loading but then nothing loads; basically freezes up!

[Sam 163]

Bacon914, if you want to make a residential lot you must start with a residential of the appropriate wealth and stage. The building must always be matched to the appropriate lot type. Technically you could start with a park, but the modding needed to change it to a residential would be extensive, and you would find it much easier to start with a residential lot. Why do you want to change a park to a residential anyway?

Sorry Skyliner22, I have no idea what would be wrong. If you have a lot of plugins, it could just be taking a long time to load. Mine can take twenty minutes to load with my full plugins folder.

If that isn't the problem then I suggest you look in the tech support section on the official site, or read through the pages of this thread to see if anyone has had a similar problem and how they fixed it.

[Szarik0371 4]

Hi i have problems with LOT i make building export it and in plugin manager i move this to prop but when i open LOT i no have this there. I work with this tutorial https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=136&threadid=76188&enterthread=y and i do everything what tere is ;/

sory for my english i have bad english

[Sam 163]

Szarik0371: Check that the prop is not too big to fit on the Lot. Each square tile on the lot is 16x16 metres. So if your model was 32 metres wide in gmax you would need to make your lot at least 2 tiles wide, probably 3. The Lot Editor will only show you props that can fit on the lot.

Also check in gmax that you haven't made your model 10 times the size you intended, its easy to make a mistake.

[Sim shady 12]

sam, I know there is a way to get around props being too big for their lots; like buddybud's works. My understanding is that you change the occupant size of the lot, which i have had mixed results with. when i change the occupant size to 15 by 15 by 15, i can use big props on 1 square tile, but the prop is set way far away from the lot. To rephrase that, my overhanging props aren't able to be placed on the center of the lot.

solutions are appreciated!

[Sam 163]

Yes, you can modify the occupant size property. I only ever do it very slightly though, eg if my model is 16x16 and I want it to fit on a 1x1 tile without risk of the effects of overhanging props, I may resize it down to 15x15 or 14x14. I don't do it radically though. I think Simgoober also used the technique on his canal lots avoid join lines between them. I haven't really noticed any problems with the prop not being centred, but as I said I normally only use minimal resizing, and I normally only use centre rendered props. Maybe offset rendered props behave differently.

The other way is to make the lot initially much bigger, place the prop and resize the lot. But you can only ever have the prop overhang by 50% of its size. However you run risks using props this way. For example if you place the lot and another grows or is placed next to it, any nightlighting on the original lot will stop working.

[ja/att 61]

I just finished the tutorial to make my LM functionable but when it came up in the game ALL the props were missing. The base and overlay textures were present but none of the in-game and custom props were there. Any ideas?

[ja/att 61]

Please disregard above, apparently if water is not laid prior to plopping the lot then the props are omitted, but they show up just fine with an established water source. Sorry

[SystemUK 0]

Hi

I have created an airport terminal so chose an airport lot to add it onto but I cannot resize the lot.

Cheers

[jayo 44]

Originally posted by: skyliner22 I cant seem to open lot editor either. Its like loading but then nothing loads; basically freezes up!quote>

 

wait for about 5 mins and it will load

[tek-69 0]

I'm new here and to lot editing, please bear with me. I made a 4x4 park fountain park with with all tiles having grass and a fountain except the center tile, this is set to plaza and has a fountain. It looks correct in the lot editor but when i plot it down in the game it makes the center tile grass as well, which makes it look horrible. Any ideas what im doing wrong?

[Sam 163]

Perhaps you didn't delete the original base texture from the centre tile. You can't have two base textures on one tile of a lot, or the game just picks one or other at different times - very messy. Before putting a base texture on a tile in the LE, make sure you have deleted the one that was there previously, you can't just plop it on top.

Also check you are not using a wealth dependent base texture. The fifth digit of the texture iid should not be between 0 and 4 or it is wealth dependent.

[tek-69 0]

Thanks i fixed both issues and now it looks great.

[bakercity 270]

I am making cutom stoplights (which are based off sut ups in Wisconsin USA) and I can get the poles right, but I can not seem to get the lights on the poles. Every time I put the lights on the poles, I get them on the poles, but when I try to switch views, the lights do not stay on the poles. Can anyone help me on this weird and confusing problem. Thanks. JKB

[Sam 163]

bakercity, I'm not sure what you are referring to?

[tungston 19]

Bakercity, two things, it's really hard to get props to the right height, so from different angles it doesn't line up.

Second some of the props are offset, as I think some of the default lights are. By offset, I mean the light is not the pivot point of the prop, so the light can be outside of the edge of the lot. So by rotating the light prop, you may be able to get it to line up.

In the Lot Editor no props can be outside of the lot, so props are offset to fool the Lot Editor into thinking it is inside the lot boundry. One example is the waterfront lots that Pegasus makes, they extend over the lot boundry so they look like they are on the water, while the lot itself is all on land.

[bakercity 270]

Thank you for the help. I will see if the help here works for me. Again thank you. JKB

[bbfan02 23]

Hi everyone. This is my problem.

Every time I open the lot editor (Which has been only about 3 or 4 times), it does not start and it does not respond and I end up having to close it. Whats the problem?

-bbfan02-

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

bbfan2: try waiting a while...that worked for me.

 I'm looking for some in-depth tutorials on the Lot Editor. Last night I tried adding some flora to a couple of lots but see no results in the game. I wonder what I'm doing wrong. The lots I played around with are ploppable. 1 was a cruise ship terminal, and the other was monorail shops. I see the files I saved in the plugins folder but when I plop them in my city they remain unchanged. I tried save and save as with the shops and still no change. I read the manual but it does not address this issue I have.  These lots were downloaded so I wonder if that have anything to do with it. I read through this thread and saw others with this same issue but did not see any answers to this. Any help is appreciated...thanks in advance.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Ok....jmdude helped me on this one.

jmdude wrote:

when you save a file with the lot editor it saves to the root plugins directory rather than to the directory where the orignal file is found. try removing the original lot file from the plugins folder and see if that helps.  i wouldnt delete the original, just move it out of the plugins folder, just in case.quote>

[tungston 19]

Mr_Maison:

Is it possible you have a duplicate of the lot before it was edited, loading later? The last lot to load will be the one that shows in the game.

I have had some of the "flora" props not show up immeadiatly, but after time they appeared. What causes this I don't know, but maybe somehow they have to have time to grow.