Guidelines / Rules / Tutorials

Chptrk · June 17, 2010

Guidelines/Rules/Tutorials

However, if there have been no replies to a previous update, it is requested that another new update post is not made for at least 6 hours. If you wish to add material within this time frame then please use the edit function. There are exceptions to this, for example if you are staring a new CJ and you want to reserve some posts for future content like an index. If you are unsure then please PM one of the CJ moderators or post the question in the general CJ question / discussion thread.

Deliberately bumping your CJ several times in a short space over an evening, for example, with multiple "update" posts of just one or two new pics or other content just to keep it on page one, is not acceptable.

Some people include replies with an update and some prefer to keep them as a seperate post. Either method is acceptable even if it makes a double post. It is requested to be sensible about your replies... it is not necessary to immediately reply to each comment with a new post. Waiting for at least 3 or 4 comments before making replies is appreciated.

Images can be up to 1024x768 pixels. However, Simtropolis now auto-resizes any picture over the limit, and thus it is not much of an issue anymore.

Cori Edit Start:

~~All pictures must be hosted offsite. There is more information on how to do this lower in this thread.~~

Now-a-days we prefer images to be hosted here on Simtropolis, but they should be compressed JPG images so the size of them doesn't strain our storage capacity. A recent trend seems to be peeps uploading multi-megabyte PNGs when JPGs would serve the same purpose and be 10 times smaller.

Cori Edit End.

Please convert your pictures to .jpgs as these load the fastest.

Mosaics. Mosaics are welcome and can really show a large part of your city to full effect, however the pictures must still be pasted separately, butted together without a line space and within the1024x768 limit.

Give credit where credit is due. If you a downloaded map, let it be known where the map came from. Name any mods you are using. You do not have to name every BAT, but if you highlight a particular BAT, be prepared to tell where it came from. And always give out answers to questions of particular content, don’t withhold information. But similarly, for readers of journals, don’t overload Cjers with many questions of Bats, use some initiative because it can be stressful for the CJer.

Be prepared. Post pictures from the start. If you begin your journal only explaining your intentions...then post no pictures...you stand to lose an audience. Frankly, many people could care less what you are going to post, they want to see the results now. At least post one teaser shot of your city...or even an attractive graph. Know how to post pictures...a journal with red "x"s will have no audience. Know what you’re doing before you post, if you need help then seek it from the moderators or active CJers.

Don’t steal someone’s else’s work. This might seem like a give me, but you would be surprised. Don't take a picture from someone's journal and pass it off as your own.

Don’t spam or advertise your journal in someone else’s journal. Posts such as "I like it...by the way, come see my journal! It rocks!" are not acceptable. It is acceptable to politely redirect someone to your journal if they are struggling with a certain aspect and you are able to give them an example of how you overcame a particular problem.

Suggestions are welcome - Hijacking is not.

You are welcome to make suggestions, however no one appreciates a list of demands! Please do not 'hijack' another persons CJ with your own agenda - remember that everyone is different and is entitled to present their journal in their own way and use whatever content they wish - or not.

Making comments on CJ's.

Comments are what the CJ section is all about! We want to you comment!

The CJ (City Journal) section is a friendly community orientated environment where SimCity players of all abilities and skill can post a journal of their city to showcase their work. The CJ section is also a forum for others to make comments, to offer constructive feedback and make suggestions on how the author might improve thier CJ.

The general rules of posting on the Simtropolis forums apply. They can be found here.

Acceptable Comments:

If you find a CJ that you like then, postive comments are welcome and encouraged. Do try and comment on something specific:

'The night light shot in the third pic is really stunning."

"I like the way you have used a mix of custom and game content in your update. "

Try to avoid overusing generic comments like:

"Nice pics"

"Good work"

"Keep it up"

"Can't wait for more."

Making multiple comments with the same or similar themed contents between updates, is considered bumping or spam.

Remember a real live person will be sitting in front of their computer reading your comment... ask yourself if you received this comment would it be welcome or helpful?

Also remember when people first start their CJs, they may not have any, or very little, mods or custom content. They may be still playing the game "vanilla". Vanilla or "Maxis" CJs can still be very good and worth reading. Please be patient and give new players / CJers the time and the encouragement they need to improve their game playing skills and fill their plugin folders.

If you find a CJ you do not like:

Move on and refrain from commenting or ...

provide constructive criticism and feedback.

A few well thought out suggestions or advice can be very helpful.

For example:

"The photoshopping seems to be overdone on some of the pictures, using less saturated colours would improve them."

"The pictures would look much better if the grid was turned off before taking the screenshots - just press "G" to turn the grid off."

If you wish to offer constructive critisism or feedback to a problem, then a solution should always also be offered to rectify what you consider needs improvement.

Take a moment to read what you have written before you hit "Reply to Topic".

Not Acceptable:

Blatantly rude replies, critisism, flaming and jerk like conduct will not be tolerated. This includes being rude or leaving flaming type comments directed to the CJer personally, the quality of their work and to other commenters.

Examples include:

"This is crap"

"New City sucks"

"XYZ couldn't tell the difference been real talent and a brown paper bag"

OK you get the drift....

Attacking, making fun of, or being disrespectful to to anyone on the grounds of ability, age, gender, ethnicity, locality, (home town, state, country), and any form of swearing masked or otherwise is not acceptable.

The Page Flip Bug - aka Papyrus Flippus Buggus.

The page flip bug is now finally dead. Yay!

All hail ST7!

Craig-Abcvs · June 17, 2010

Quicky Sticky Tutorials

To switch from Right to Left Hand Drive, there are two major steps.

Part one of two

1. Locate and go to the directory where you have installed SC4, usually it is C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe

2. Within this directory, you will see a folder name English, it should contain a file called SimCityLocale, if it does, you are looking at the correct folder.

3. Now rename this folder from English to UKEnglsh (not a typo!)

Part two of two

4. From your START menu, select Run.

5. Type in regedit into the field and click OK.

6. On the left hand directory tree, expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Maxis > SimCity 4 > 1.0

7. Change the Language value by right clicking it and selecting Modify.

8. Leave it as Hexadecimal and enter 13 into the Value Data field. Click OK.

With these two major steps complete, your sims will now start driving on the Left! If you wish to switch from the Left to the Right - rename the folder to English in step 3, and enter 1 into the Value Data field in step 8 instead.

(With thanks to etherian.)

Craig-Abcvs · June 17, 2010

Please do not bump inactive CJ's.

The CJ moderating team have noticed that there have been a number of inactive CJs recently bumped with replies. This disrupts the flow of the CJ section and needlessly takes up a space on page one away from the many active CJs.

While you are most welcome to take a look at some of the back pages of the CJ section and read some of the older CJs, we request that if the CJ is not currently active that you do not bump it to the first page by making a comment. In most cases the original author is not currently updating it and is unlikely to respond to your comments or questions.

Additionally, if you find an inactive CJ that has been bumped, please do not post a comment lambasting the bumper. Doing so only keeps the inactive CJ at the top of the list. You may report the CJ to a moderator so that we may deal with it.

If the author of an inactive CJ wishes to revive an old CJ and make new updates then that is fine.

Craig-Abcvs · June 17, 2010

Tutorial: How to Post Pictures on Simtropolis

(For Windows)

The purpose of this tutorial is to provide new forum users and CJers with a fast and easy way to post pictures on Simtropolis in three easy steps...

1. Take your in-game screen shot and save to your PC.

2. Upload picture to file hosting service.

3. Paste link into thread on ST.

All clear? No? What was that you said? Hmm?

It's not quite that easy? Of course it is!

OK... there are a couple more steps but honest... it is not that hard... even boy nurses like me can do it.

The most important thing to remember is that all pictures must be hosted off site. Most members use a free file hosting service like www.photobucket.com or www.imageshack.com . Pictures can also be hosted on any personal website that allows pictures to be uploaded and stored.

Once the pictures are hosted off-site, it is then relatively straightforward to post the pictures into a thread.

While there are many good photo editing programs available, I am just going to use good old ordinary, reliable, simple to use, anyone can do it, Paint... easily found by clicking;

start > all programs > accessories.

Tip: Don't use the in-game camera!

The in-game camera has several disadvantages in that it saves the pictures as PNGs.

PNGs can be converted to JPEGs but that is another step and just creates more hassle. To avoid this hassle I recommend using the prt scr button method of taking in game pictures.

So let's get on with posting our first ever kick butt CJ... in ten easy steps.

1. Open up your city, find a location to take a screenshot, set the zoom (1-6), minimise all menus and turn off the grid (press 'G'). ...yes that's right ... I said - Turn. Off. The. Grid.

(Not that I have ever forgotten to... . Mostly.)

Then press the prt scr button, which is just to the right of the F12 button on your keyboard. This copies whatever is on your screen to your clipboard.

2. Press the windows key, in between the ctrl and alt key on the bottom left of your keyboard. This will minimise Simcity 4 to your desktop. Open Paint. I have put a shortcut on my taskbar. When you have Paint open press ctrl-V. This will paste the screenshot into the picture field.

3. Click File > Save as and give your picture a file name. I usually save the picture to my desktop as it is the easiest place to find the pictures later. Click the drop down "Save as type" and select JPEG.

4. Click Save! The picture will now be saved on your desktop.

5. Now open up your internet browser and open your picture hosting site. As you can see I am using Photobucket.

Hot Tip: Make subject folders and sub-folders from the beginning. EG:

Simcity Screenshots

> Timbucktu

> Timbuckthree

> Timbuckfour

Once you have linked and posted a picture to a thread, it can not be moved to a different folder without breaking the link. If the picture is moved you will need to go back and edit the link in the thread. That is a pain in the butt - so make folders!

Click 'Browse' and navigate to where you saved your picture. Double click on the picture file, and it will be inserted into the upload field.

6. Even Hotter Tip: In options set the upload size of your images... that way even if your screen shots are large, they will automatically be uploaded to the correct size for posting on Simtropolis.

7. Click upload... and wait for the internet fairies to do their thing... and.... now your screenshot is on the WWW! Yeeeeeah!

Now the thing you are looking for to post pictures on Simtropolis is the Direct Link.

(Other websites like www.simpeg.com have different forum software and the image code link is used... )

8. Find the picture you want and left click in the direct link box... this will copy the link to your clipboard.

9. Now we are ready to post our picture into a thread on Simtropolis!

Open up the thread you wish to post the picture in.

Click reply.

Type in your text.

Click the insert image button. This opens up the insert image box.

Use ctrl-V to paste the link into the URL box.

10. Now click 'insert image'. The picture will now show in your reply window. Click reply to message...

You should now be the proud owner of your very first picture posted on Simtropolis!

Craig-Abcvs · June 17, 2010

How to Make a City Journal

By MrCinatit, author. With help from Hym, photographer.

This article has been copied from the Omnibus and the original can be found here:

How to Make a City Journal

Please PM MrCinatit or STomnibus if you have any questions about this article.

So, you want to make a city journal. Hopefully, you are reading this before starting. This might be a lot to go through, but it is important for the success of your journal.

Part one: The Basics

First, the ten golden rules:

Images MUST be 800x600 or less;

Host your images offsite;

Follow the forum rules;

Give credit where credit is due;

Be prepared;

Don't steal someone else's work;

Don't advertise your journal in another journal;

Respect your readers;

Do not get impatient for replies;

Update with regularity.

Before we get into those too deeply, I would like to quote a post made by Dirk when the City Journal forum was first created, “The rules still apply.”

Guidelines:

1. If you're starting a journal, be sure to clearly let us know if you are using any cheats or special trainers. We don't want to be misled.

2. Try to keep idle chatter to a minimum; we want each author's threads to be clean and clear as possible. Feed-back, comments and recommendations are welcomed, if the author wishes, but keep it constructive and friendly. Moderators will delete replies that seem irrelevant or inappropriate.

3. Authors, please keep your screenshots as small and concise as possible, if you're illustrating only a small area, there is no need to capture the entire shot of your screen. Use the SPACEBAR to resize your in-game camera. Full-screen shots should be used judiciously so we can keep these threads loading fast. That's it! Have fun!

Okay, back to the ten golden rules:

Images MUST be 800x600 or less. Period.

It helps on bandwidth. It helps those who do not have DSL nor cable modems. The math is simple; large images take longer to load than smaller images. The longer a reader must wait to read a journal as images load, the greater a chance you have in losing that reader.

Additionally, larger pictures cause a scroll issue. The effect of a picture can be lost if your reader is forced to scroll to see the entire picture. This large picture will also force your text to stretch out, meaning the reader must also scroll back and forth to read your journal. If you make the reader work, you stand to lose an audience.

If your pictures are larger than 800x600, a moderator WILL DELETE THEM, without warning. Consider THIS your warning.

Host your images offsite.

This is the only way to post pictures on Simtropolis. Simply put, images hosted offsite saves bandwidth, which saves Simtropolis money.

Follow the forum rules.

Readers love stories of passions, victories and defeats. However, we ask you do not use graphic language to convey these feelings. Use your head.

Give credit where credit is due.

If you are using a downloaded map, let it be known where the map came from. Name any mods you are using. You do not have to name every BAT, but if you highlight a particular BAT, be prepared to tell where it came from.

Be prepared.

Know how to post pictures--a journal with red "x"es will have no audience. Post pictures from the start. If you begin your journal only explaining your intentions, then post no pictures, you stand to lose an audience. Frankly, many people couldn't care less what you are going to post; they want to see the results now. At least post one teaser shot of your city, or even an attractive graph.

Don't steal someone else's work.

This might seem like a give me, but you would be surprised. Don't take a picture from someone's journal and pass it off as your own.

Don't advertise your journal in another journal.

Posts such as "I like it--by the way, come see my journal! It rocks!" are not acceptable. Do not take to hijacking another journal.

There are exceptions. If another journal writer is struggling with building canals, it is acceptable to say "come take a look at my journal, I've done this and it works". Just don't beg for comments for your journal in another author's thread.

Respect your readers.

Yes, you will get the occasional stupid comment. Some comments are downright insulting. Try to be patient. Do not ridicule your readers--again, an easy way to lose an audience. Make an attempt to reply to every person who has replied to your journal--it is common courtesy, and can personalize your journal.

Do not get impatient for replies.

If you update at 2 in the morning, don't expect 20 replies in two minutes. Give people time. Once the comments start rolling in, replies are acceptable--once again, this is courtesy.

Update with regularity.

A journal with a daily update will get more replies than one with weekly updates. Hey, let's face it, people have short memories and even the greatest works of art are forgotten if hidden. Very few people can update every day, but a consistent update system will keep a continued interest in your work. Nonetheless, don't be surprised to find your journal buried on page 3 after one day--there are many journals out there.

Oh, I forgot one, and it is most important: Have fun with it. If you enjoy your journal, the reader will enjoy it. Not all journals are long and winding stories about some guy stuck in a computer game, but don't be afraid to try something different, whether it is through the story line, Photoshop, or statistical graphics. Use your imagination.

Part Two: Resizing Your Images

Let us go to actually posting the pictures.

First, your city pictures will be found in you’re My Documents/SimCity 4/Albums folder. However, the pictures might not be the correct size. As I said, pictures must be less than 800x600. As Dirk said several months ago, “It's quite simple really: the rule of maximum 800 x 600 per posted picture is firm. That means 801 x 601 will be deleted without any preamble.”

Please post responsibly. No one--and I repeat NO ONE--is exempt from the above rule. We could easily change the limit to 640 wide, or none at all. Let's not go there!

Thanks, Simtropolians, I know you'll do the right thing, and please remind your fellow members if they break the rules to change their picture before a moderator or admin catches it; because by then, it'll be too late!

If you do not have a photo editing or paint program, I suggest you download IrfanView, a free picture editing program. IrfanView is a simple program; let’s take the picture below:

Yes, it is 800x600, but I want to downsize it. First I open IrfanView, and the file:

We then click on the "image" tab, then the "resize/resample" tab:

You will then see this screen:

Now, say we want to crop that picture to get rid of the game icons. We can also do this with IrfanView. First, take your curser and "highlight" the areas you want to keep, as shown below:

We then open the "edit" tab, where we have a few options:

I use the "crop section" tool, which gets rid of everything around the box. We now have this:

Other things you can do to make your pictures look better:

Crop your picture to get rid of the icons.

Get rid of all the U-Drive-It icons (you can also just turn them off before taking the picture), all the no-(fill in the blank) zots, etc. They are a distraction, unless you are making a point. It also helps to get rid of the zone colors.

Look at your settings.

While your game might run better with low settings, a city journal is more pleasing when the reader can see everything in your city, like cars, people and swing sets in backyards. When taking a picture, change the settings to high--this will present your city in a better light.

Consider showing day and night views.

Time is on your side. With the day-night settings, you can present your city in many different lights. Day, night, morning, evening--variety is your friend.

Get the edges out.

When possible, crop out the city edges in your pictures.

Don't be afraid of Photoshop--but don't overuse it.

Borders around pictures can make your journal stand out. However, people can be blinded with too many graphs and glitter.

Part Three: Posting Pictures

As I said before, offsite images help Simtropolis bandwidth (still, images need to be under 800x600). Here are a few sites:

ImageShack

Simvision

Photobucket

If you know of any other image-hosting sites, please PM me. I use ImageShack. Now for some information on hosting images off-site:

Why host off-site?

Simtropolis the site we all love and visit everyday runs basically on donations but it eats a lot of bandwidth, making it very slow. Hosting on other sites saves bandwidth, helps Simtropolis to run faster, and saves money.

How to host off-site?

I am using Imageshack, since it has no bandwidth limitations to the pics, and is an easy-to-use site. This is the simple part; you just need some organization and the help from ImageShack.

Step 1: Select a picture you want to host. For this tutorial, we’ll use the pictures that we have created above.

Step 2: Open ImageShack.

Thankfully, it is a simple site, just some ads and that yellow frog. First of all, click on the topmost button (the “Browse” button). It will open a mini-Explorer so you can browse your computer to find the picture; after you have found the right one, click “Open” in the mini-Explorer, then click in the other button (the “host it” button). Wait a few seconds, the site is getting it uploaded into the servers...

Step 3: Bring it to Simtropolis.

Ooh, look at all those little URLs; well forget them all but the last one (I know one of them has image tags but this method is simpler). Select the last URL and copy it to the clipboard, either select it and press "Ctrl+C" to put it in the clipboard, or click in the "copy" image for the site to do this automatically.

Now, we insert the hosted picture into Simtropolis. Find the thread that you want to post the picture in (most likely your own CJ), and click on the “Reply” link in the bottom right-hand corner of a post.

Click on the button highlighted in blue:

You will see this window:

In the field that says “URL,” paste the link that ImageShack provided you.

Click OK and your picture will appear in your post.

You are now on your way to creating a city journal.

One final word: now that you have created your city journal, you might want an audience. When posting in other threads, what better way to advertise your journal than with a link, or even picture, in your signature?

If you have any questions about this article, please PM MrCinatit or STomnibus.

Craig-Abcvs · June 17, 2010

CJ Mosaics

There have recently been some great mosaics in a number of different CJ's. Mosaics are welcome and can really show a large part of your city to full effect.

However the rules for posting images on Simtropolis still applies.

17. Image Size. The maximum size for images is 800 x 600 pixels horizontally or 600 x 800 pixels vertically. Stacked images or mosaics are permitted. It is preferred that images are posted in .JPEG format. Please be courteous with file size.quote>

If you wish to post a mosaic in your CJ then the images must be stacked, that is, posted as a series of images that are butted together without a linespace.

There are three basic options to post mosaic pictures on Simtropolis:

1. Post the images separately, horizonally (800x600) or vertically (600x800).

2. Post a link to your image hosting site. A link can be either plain text or an image that is within the 800x600 limit.

3. Post the image as an attachment. This will put a small thumbnail at the bottom of your post.

The reason for this rule is simple. A single large image takes much longer to load than several smaller ones of the same size. Depending on how many images are on a page it can sometimes take several minutes to load.

Please be reminded that moderators can and will delete oversized images without further warning. Some moderators may delete the image and leave a link but this should be considered a courtesy and as such should not be expected.

ilikehotdogsalot · June 17, 2010

Craig asked me to post my tutorial here, it looks long, but trust me, the process is very quick, I just made sure to be very thorough

HOW TO MAKE A MOSAIC

a tutorial by ilikehotdogsalot

Hey guys, I made a How to make a mosaic tutorial in April earlier this year, and since then the tutorial has helped many of my good friends and members who hadn't touched photoshopped at all since they had bought the software. I decided to give the tutorial a whole makeover, with new information that I didn't have in the first tutorial. I hope you all enjoy this second version, It may look time consuming, but it really only takes 5 minutes, I just tend to write a lot of information

NOTE: This tutorial is intended for beginners - experts, basically everyone. You only need basic knowledge on how photoshop works.

STEP 1: Open your Simcity 4 game, and load up the city tile you wish to photograph.

STEP 2: Once your city tile is opened, minimize Simcity 4 [do this by pressing the ESC and CTRL keys at the same time]. This should take you back to your desktop.

STEP 3: Open up Photoshop, [i will be using Version CS2].

STEP 4: Create a new document. Depending on your computer's resolution [the size of your monitor], The size of your document will be different than mine. My monitor is 1208 by 1024 pixels, so I will be creating a document size 1208 by 10241 pixels [you don't want the length to be too short or else some of your pictures may not fit]. ex.) If your computer's resolution is 800 x 600, You want to make a 800 x 6001 document.

STEP 5: Now that your photoshop document is all ready, Head back into Simcity 4.

STEP 6: Photograph the area in Simcity 4 by pressing the PRT SCR SYSRq key located in the top right section of your keyboard. This key will photograph your whole screen, so make sure you have the pause and menu hidden!

STEP 7: Now that you have your first picture for your mosaic photographed, Minimize Simcity 4 [press ESC + CTRL keys at the same time].

STEP 8: Head into your Photoshop Document.

STEP 9: Press CTRL + V at the same time [the shortcut for the paste option], and your picture that you have just taken in Simcity 4 should appear in your Photoshop Document. Sorry for the small picture.

Congratulations! You've taken your first picture for your mosaic! That wasn't so hard, eh?

STEP 10: Head back into your Simcity 4 game to take the second picture of your mosaic. Now, to do this correctly, only move your arrow keys up or down, do NOT move them left or right, as this will cause the 2nd picture to mis-align with the first. Use your judgment on whether you're going to far down or up, as this will also cause the pictures to misallign, if you make a mistake, just head back into the game and try again [to take a picture, you press the Prt Scr SysRQ key, mentioned earlier in the tutorial].

STEP 11: Now that you have sucessfully taken the second picture of your mosaic, Minimize Simcity 4 [Press ESC + CTRL keys at the same time].

STEP 12: Head back into your Photoshop document.

STEP 13: Press CTRL + V key at the same time to paste your screenshot into your document. You will notice that a new layer will be created. Layer 1 = Your first picture, Layer 2 = Your second picture, Layer 3 = Your third picture, and so on...

STEP 14: If you want to do more pictures for your mosaic, Simply follow the steps I have mentioned above. I will take one more photograph and paste it into Photoshop to finish off this mosaic, but you can do as many as you'd like. This picture will be Layer 3.

STEP 15: Now that you have all your pictures ready and set to go in photoshop, We will begin aligning the separate pictures to create the mosaic effect.

STEP 16: Select Layer 2 and move it up with the arrow keys so that it aligns perfectly with Layer 1.

STEP 17: Do the same with Layer 3, and move it up with the arrow keys so that it alligns perfectly with Layer 2. Here's what it should look like when completed:

Great! We're done with aligning, and now have a great looking mosaic!

STEP 18: Select the Marquee Tool and select the entire mosaic area like I have done below.

STEP 19: Do the command EDIT > COPY MERGED. This copies all 3 layers of your mosaic.

STEP 20: Make a new document in Photoshop, and press CTRL + V [the paste command], and you should have your mosaic nice and neat in one layer.

You did your first mosaic! Now is the time where you can do all your photoshop work, adding color, borders, etc.

QUICK NOTE: These next steps are MANDATORY if you wish to post your mosaic in Simtropolis, but OPTIONAL if you wish to post your mosaic in SC4devotion and other simcity 4 fansites.

STEP 21: Select Image > Image Size from the toolbar, and change the Width to 800, leave the Height alone though.

Now we will be breaking down the mosaics into different picture pieces so they abide by Simtropolis' 800 x 600 image limit.

STEP 22: Press CTRL + R at the same time, and you should notice a ruler appear.

STEP 23: Select the Marquee Tool, and in the menu you should notice a small feature named Style: [drop down box] Select 'Fixed Size' from this box. Next to it, There is a width and height feature with two fill in boxes. Put in 800 on Width, and 600 on Length.

This feature makes a 800 x 600 [750 x 600 in my case] marquee box, which allows you to seperate your mosaics into many different 800 x 600 seperate pictures.

Now, Remember the ruler tool I mentioned earlier? For this step, Click on it, and drag it down with your mouse. This should bring out the guiding ruler. This will help you decide where to put your next marquee box so all your pictures align again.

STEP 24: Drag the guiding line tool to the bottom of the marquee box, and then let go of the mouse. This should make a blue line on the bottom of the marquee box like shown below.

This blue line will guide you on where to put your next marquee box, and is extremely helpful for this separating process.

Now that the area you want to separate it marqueed, It's time to copy and paste it into a new document.

STEP 25: Do CTRL + C [copy command] to copy the marqueed area.

STEP 26: Create a new document.

STEP 27: Press CTRL + V to paste the copied area into your new document.

There you go, You separated the first part of mosaic! It may be tricky at first, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, it'll take no longer than a few seconds

STEP 28: Go back to your mosaic document.

STEP 29: Click with the marquee tool selected on right under the blue line, and it should make a marquee box. You can move the marquee box up or down with the mouse to make sure it aligns with the blue line

STEP 30: Repeat steps 25 - 27.

STEP 31: For the third and final picture, just repeat steps 28-30

STEP 32: Once all your pictures are all seperated, save each one by doing the command File > Save as...This will trigger the popup box that allows you to save, I assume you all know how to save an image

Make sure to save it as a .JPG so IE users in Simtropolis are able to view the pictures.

STEP 33: When the popup box comes up asking for quality number, choose 8. Too big and it'll be too large of a file size, too small and you will lose a lot of quality in the picture.

STEP 34: Upload your images to www.photobucket.com or any other image hosting website of your choice.

STEP 35: Click 'Reply' on the topic you wish to post your mosaic in, and put in the mosaic images like shown below:

STEP 36: Click 'Reply to Topic' and you're DONE!

Hope you guys liked this tutorial! Drop by a comment or PM if you have any questions!

Zelgadis · June 17, 2010

A Simple Guideline for CJ's

The City Journal Section is primarily for showcasing cities from any city simulation game... for example Simcity 4, (or earlier versions), Simcity Societies, etc.

There are many different styles of CJ's and this brings a fantastic and varied content to the CJ forum. This is great for the readers.

While additional non-game related content, that is not directly related to a city simulation game is welcome, this should not generally be the main focus of the thread, but rather it should stand to support the actual city game content.

The CJ moderating team appreciates your understanding and cooperation with this.

Zelgadis · June 17, 2010

How To Take an In Game Screenshot (Mac)

Press Command + Shift + 3. That will take a picture of whatever is on your screen (whether it's simcity or not) and plop it right on your desktop as a PNG file.

Additionally, if you're playing SC4 in a window or if you want to take a picture of only part of your desktop, press Command + Shift + 4 and you can draw a box around whatever you want a picture of. Again, your computer will plop the picture right on your desktop as a PNG file.

ISF

bourneid · June 20, 2010

How to Create 3D Effects

3D is the big thing in gaming these days, just look at any of the coverage from E3. Well I have a sweet little tutorial for you all on how to create simple 3D effects for you journal images, without the need to plop down 3-4 grand.

So take any image you have taken in SC4.. here I have borrowed some from ilikehotdogs journal World.

Open it up in photoshop. Do any editing that you intend now.

Create a new layer... Now is the time to create a hight map... Black being the highest area... white being lowest. Meaning the areas that are the darkest will be the areas that stick out the most..

Below is a quick hightmap created for the above image... now I just did a simple quick map... you will want to do a lot cleaner one I am sure.

Copy just the hight map into a new document... (select all ctrl-c open new doc crrl-v). Save that image as Displace. Close that doc and go back to the origianl image... you can now get rid of your hightmap layer... you wont need it anymore.

Make a copy of your origianl image layer..

On the copy layer go to Filters/Distort/Displace

You will get this menu... use the settings I have here.

Now on that same layer.. go into the blending options menu.... and uncheck the red channel as I have done below..

Here is the final image....

Now just get yourself a simple 3d glasses... (I made my own from a sheet of clear plasic and colored the lens... just make sure that Red is your left eye

here are some others I have done

Well thats it... hope to see some of you'all trying this out in your journals..

Craig-Abcvs · June 21, 2010

Quick Tutorial: Avoiding the ingame camera PNGs... (Windows)

A more detailed tutorial can be found here.

If you want to avoid having to convert the in game camera PNGs to Jpegs later (you can do it in Paint though) you can take pictures this way:

Set game to turtle.

Minimise all your menus in the game.

Set the zoom you want 1-5. (Zoom 6 is too fuzzy for good screen shots)

Hit prt scr (next to the F12 button)

Hit windows button (between ctrl and alt key)

This will minimise the game to desktop.

Open Paint. Start>Programs>Accessories

Ctrl-V to paste your pic.

Click file>save as

Make a new folder in my pictures if you wish (Right click>new>newfolder>give it a name

Give the pic a name

Save as type>drop down menu>select Jpeg

Click Save - (saves directly into your folder to upload to imageshack or photobucket later)

Minimise Paint

Maximise SC4

Take next shot...

Windows key... and so on...

If you have existing PNGs that you want to convert just open them up in Paint, click save as> and choose Jpeg option in "Save as type."

Craig-Abcvs · June 21, 2010

How to Post a Full Region Picture

From my ::to be said in a spooky voice:: original CJ...

Well I finally plucked up enough courage to ask someone how to take a full region shot. It is a clever program from SC4D called Region Census, which operates independantly from SC4. So for those of you going... pfft I already knew that... please excuse my excitement!quote>

*Wow... my first ever 'terraformed by hand after playing the game for only six weeks region'... now that was scary...

Zelgadis · August 1, 2010

Images in the Details portion of the CJ section

Images in the Details portion of the CJ section are to be no bigger than 300x50. This is the same, as you can see, as the maximum signature image size.

The "details" section is the part that you can see in the new CJ section next to each CJ's avatar.

TowerDude · August 23, 2010

Animated rain Tutorial by Towerdude

Ni Hao, welcome to this tutorial on how to make an animated rain effect for your CJ's.

This is created by using GIMP, and my version is in french, but all the buttons are in the same place

1----------------

Start up GIMP

2----------

3------------

Add a layer 8 times

4------------

You have your 8 layers (notice that i only have 7

, i added one later)

5-------------

Select one

6---------------

So then you add noise, and go an the 4th option (Jeter in french), you do it for the first one, and you leave the standard setting

that window appears

You rename the according to the the proportion of noise you are going to add

for the first one you left it at 50 (prgramm standard) and from layer to layer you do the number the layer title indicates you

8-------

You're image will look like this and you're thinking "What the hell"

9------

So then you go on "Blur" and use the first option, a window pops up and you put the same settings as on my pic

You apply it to each layer , do not change any settings from layer to layer. You end up with this ↓

10----

You then need to duplicate your background 8 times.

And them you organize them like that ↓

And after that you fusion them downwards

You will end up with this

You go on filters→animations→play

And then you see the magic

Exporting

When saviing it save it as a .GIF

And then you wait for export

There you go

nathanthemayor · September 14, 2010

11. Religion and Politics. Discussion concerning religion or politics is only permitted in designated threads in the General Off Topic and Current Events forums. Discussion must be about the issues, not each other.quote>

I have a ?:are we allowed to devote a section of our CJ to explain the politics of our fictional country or about what religions our country has,etc?

Zelgadis · September 14, 2010

Yes, you are allowed to do that. What rule 12 is about is preventing flame wars over real politics and religion situations. So long as no flame wars erupt in your CJ, the mods aren't really going to take notice.

ISF

nathanthemayor · November 6, 2010

There have been tutorials for rain and snow on ST, but not fog. So ntm will present you a tutorial to add fog to your CJ pics. If you have any questions, concerns, etc, send me a PM.

1)Take a pic. I'll be using this one which has appeared multiple times on my CJ.

2)Open up a photo editing program. I am going to use Microsoft office 2010.

Note:Add any borders, labels etc, after you edit, because the fog may cover it up.

3)Find "Brightness and contrast" and click on it. In this case, it is under "Getting started"

4)This is what you will see:

5)Adjust the settings. I like to use 17 for brightness and -78 for contrast, although you can expiriment to find a good possible combonation. The goal is to increase the brightness but reduce the contrast.

6)Unless you want to mess around with other settings, there you go!

jakehh · November 15, 2010

God Mode In game

Step one;

Hold Control + Alt + Shift and Click on the God Mode Icon (Shown Below)

Step Two;

A menu will show (Refer to below for God Mode if unsure)

Step Three;

Enjoy Being a God and a mayor!

Toothless Stitch · June 18, 2011

Making a waving flag

Welcome!

This is a tutorial how to generate a waving flag.

I use the german version of Gimp but I think it'll also work with Photoshop.

Let's start off:

1. Start Gimp.

2. Go to file and click to "New" (I chose 720x450).

3. Add 2 new layers.

4. Choose a layer and use the Rectangle Selection Tool and draw a rectangle with this settings.

5. Fill it with a colour you like.

6. Repeat step 4-5 with the second layer and choose another colour. It should look like so.

7. Click to merge down and put the 3 layers together.

8. Go to google search and search for "wrinkled material", choose one and copy it into gimp. (I searched for "stoff falten" cause I'm german)

9. Add it as a new layer.

10. Scale this layer like so.

11. Place it on the background.

12. Now put the background layer over the material layer.

13. Lastly lower the opacitiy of the flag to 50%.

Congratulatios!!!

You made your first wavin flag.

That wasn't difficult, was it?

Hope this tutorial will help you making flags.

Edited June 18, 2011 by skyscraper241

Schulmanator · June 20, 2011

Cool! Nice work and thanks for doing this.

Jeffmaster223 · June 30, 2011

is there a tutorial for making polls?

Toothless Stitch · July 2, 2011

I don't know if this is the right place but it's very easy. You are only able to make a poll if you atrt a thread in the Forum or if you start a CJ. Just click to "Manage Poll", make a Topic Title fill in the question and the answer choices, click to add a another choice to fill in different answer choices. That's it.

TowerDude · July 5, 2011

MOSAICS IN PAINT

GAH Photoshop nnooooooo :boggle:

in fact paint, all my mosaics are made in paint, and it's not that hard you need, and all of it is free! :read:

1-paint

2-pictures

3-A sharp eye

So let's get started

Taking the pictures

not that hard, jut start from the top of you your mosaic, and take pictures being sure to have common space, the bottom of the first picture is the top of the other

Like this

Making the mosaic

Yet again simple !

open one picture, the top one

Extend your picture downwards

And then open the next picture on the highlited button, here "Collez a partir de" that would be "Copy from" or your equivalent

then use your sharp eye with the move button to position the pic well

then select what you want to be the mosaic, often you can save it as such, but here I had a little placing problem

and then some Photo editing in GIMP and you can do this !

the possibilities are endless

SIMplemente · March 3, 2012

I've been playing to SC4 Rush Hour for more than 10 years and I havent got a clue about how to take good pics for a CJ!

Thanks to Craig-Abcvs for ... well, for everything and for making me feel like silly! LOL

Toothless Stitch · March 17, 2012

You play it for more than 10 years. It was released in 2003! LOL

CaterpillarKing · July 23, 2014

Do you guys use any modifiers to the RCI and demand when building your perfect city? If you don't want to admit it that's fine, I'm just curious if anyone does it because I just want to know the conduct and such on this topic.

Compdude787 · July 23, 2014

I think demand mods are generally discouraged by many community members because of how they mess up your simulation. However, many of use use the SPAM, which could be considered partly a demand mod for Agricultural industry in that it keeps up demand for agriculture even in cities with good education and whatnot. This is mainly because in the base game, agriculture was never really completed, and was only meant to be a stopgap measure to help your city along early in its life, only to later be replaced with skyscrapers.

Kim Sunwoo · December 23, 2014

Hello, everyone.

I noticed today that Simtropolis is automatically resizing (and therefore downgrading) the quality of my pictures.

The picture I'm linking (from imgur) is 800x750 (width x height) and it is displayed something like 870x815. Why is that? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Kind Regards.

Edit: I already figured out what happened... The most stupid thing in the world. It seems I had press cntr+scroll and made the page be 1+ larger

Schulmanator · September 13, 2015

Having trouble getting your SC4 disk to work lately? Check out this thread for a possible cause and solution:

Guidelines / Rules / Tutorials

43 posts in this topic Last Reply February 15, 2021

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Guidelines/Rules/Tutorials

Table of Contents

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How to Make a City Journal

By MrCinatit, author. With help from Hym, photographer.

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bourneid 13

How to Create 3D Effects

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TowerDude 2,186

Animated rain Tutorial by Towerdude

Ni Hao, welcome to this tutorial on how to make an animated rain effect for your CJ's.

This is created by using GIMP, and my version is in french, but all the buttons are in the same place

1----------------

2----------

3------------

4------------

5-------------

6---------------

that window appears

8-------

9------

10----

Exporting

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