Help making regions

[Sky Guy 163]

Hi, as some of you know, i barely aked another question, but for the past few months, I've been searching the forums... nothing. Could someone please tell me how to make my own map greyscale. I've tried to use the tutorial on sc4ever, but I need more detail. (as you probably already know, im on a MAC.) Please help me, I want to make aCJ: i already have the downloads, etc.

[Sky Guy 163]

Hi, as some of you know, i barely aked another question, but for the past few months, I've been searching the forums... nothing. Could someone please tell me how to make my own map greyscale. I've tried to use the tutorial on sc4ever, but I need more detail. (as you probably already know, im on a MAC.) Please help me, I want to make aCJ: i already have the downloads, etc.

[Hamish 1,369]

Well, I dont know how to tell you the process in detail, but heres what you should do. Open up a image edditor, Or any thing that lets you draw. Draw what you want your region to look like, remember that black is the deepest you can go under the sea and white is as high as you can go. Normal flat land is around 86 for red green and blue. The drawing of the map is hard to go into detail but you may need to experiment a bit. You then savce this as a greyscale jpg file. Then you need to make a config file. Read this it will tell you what you need to know about configs. Then you need to place the config in a new folder in you regions folder located inside the SimCity 4 folder in you documents folder. Name the new folder what you want the region to be called. Open SimCity 4. Press control+alt+shift+r at the same time. Find the jpg file and click on it. It will then load the cities 1 by 1. This may take some time depending on the computer.

There you have it. Ask more questions if you dont really get it.

[Sky Guy 163]

Is there a simple application (not like photoshop) that i can do it on? Because the only application that i know of that can do this kind of thing IS photoshop. Could you list some please? Also, I want to get some of the default maxis regions back that I deleted, just for fun. I've heard alot about uninstalling the game, how do I do this?

[Hamish 1,369]

I used appleworks for a little while, but when I got a new digital camera it came with an application that I use now, sorry cant rember the name. Search the apple website, they might have some thing.

Uninstalling, delete all the simcity files then re-instal the game. BUT back up all of your cities and plugins, albums or anything that you really dont want to lose. Yes uninstalling will give you back the maxis regions.

[Sky Guy 163]

Thanks for all the help, I have one more question: is it possible to change the city sizes after I've terraformed? if so how? Thanx

[Hamish 1,369]

Yes and no. Yes if the cities havent been built on. If they have then the cities will be lost. If you do need to change them you can change the config file to suit what you want. But, take care because it might delete the region so I suggest to back up the region that you are going to change, just to be safe.

[Sky Guy 163]

Im not sure if I understand completly, what i want to do is create a new region with all small cities, so Ican terraform with accuracy of a drawing that I made of what I want my region to look like. Then after Im done terraforming, Iwant to change the config to all Big cities, then start incorperating the cities. Can I do this? Because I tried before, and when I went back into my region, it was invisible. Also, how would I make a backup of my region without terraforming a new one?

[tungston 19]

If you change the config.bmp after terraforming, as changing the city sizes [colors], you will lose the terrafoming. You can only add to the bottom, and/or right of the config file, without losing the terraforming.

All you need to do to backup a region is to copy the folder. If you want to use that copy, you might want to rename it [the region].

[Hamish 1,369]

Yeah, make the config before you terraform it and you might need to adjust the jpg size.

[Jacob Rock 0]

I didn't know how to start a region either and was also very anxious to start a CJ - but I found Rebel13's website and decided to try out one of his greyscales. At first I thought I would create an imaginary city on one of these maps, but decided it would be cooler to recreate the actual city the greyscale is of.

www.rebel13.com/SimCity/Home.html

Hope this helps give you some ideas. Can't wait to watch you start your CJ!

[Wanderlust13 0]

when you say this may "take some time" how long, approximately, are we talking? 20 minutes? 40? an hour? i've followed the instructions you listed above and waited for at least half an hour and nothing seems to be happening at all. should i just wait longer? or might i be doing something wrong?

[Hamish 1,369]

"Take some time" depends on how fast your computer is. But you know that it is working because imediatly after you press ok the cities will start loading one by one. That is the part that will take some time. If you press ok and nothing happens then exit SC4 and make sure that the image is a greyscale jpg.

[Black Griffon 0]

I'm having some problems related to importing regions, sounds like the same thing Wanderlust13 has.

Here's what I do:

Download config.bmp and the greyscale (specifically the map "Corsica")

Create a folder named corsica, place the bmp in the folder and the greyscale in the regular regions folder (for easy access and all that)

Open the game and load the region

Press ctrl+shift+alt+R and press OK on the greyscale

And then nothing.

I've tried putting the greyscale in the region folder, renamed the greyscale to "greyscale" (I was getting desperate), but nothing happens. The game doesn't freeze, it just stays the way it was. The region is correct in relation to the BMP file, but it's all flat grass.

[stereohype 0]

How are all of you Mac users pressing an ALT button? Do we mean apple?

(edit)

oh... dur

[siso43 13]

it's simple do what hamish has said you and the other goes easy.

[Hamish 1,369]

The only reason that the region might not work is because the jpg might not be a greyscale jpg. Open a image editor or msomthing along those lines and try to see if you can save it as a greyscale jpg, or their might be an option to make it greyscale. I dont know, ever program is different.

If it still doesnt work, Make a new region and start again. If that doesnt work you could try moving the jpg to somewhere else. Just some suggestions.

[schradinator 0]

@Black Griffon - I had the same problem with the 'Corsica' map. It seemed to be because of "holes" in the config.bmp file but none of my attempts to fix that (creating a new, fully colored config.bmp file) were successful. I just gave up and found another island map to play with :-)