Great idea for an upgrade to SC4

[Chorozion 0]

Okay, the game is 3d, so I am asking the simtropolis forums (modders) What would it take to render the sc4 enigne in a 3d mod that is fully functional in gameplay.

Just a short background of what I treid and faild to do. I cut out the sims2 neighborhood mode to out of sims to and used it as a template for an new engine for sc4, but that is as far as I got. Couldn't do anything else with it. But seeing as the original sc4 enigine is a potential 3d 2d engine it could be possible to tweak the game itself.

Waiting for SC5 is a lost cause it just won't happen and even if Maxis "Ahem" EA descided to make it, we would all surly be dissapointed.

So I want to upgrade SC4 and upload it to simtropolis. I see this being possible, All that is required is a camera system in the game that deals with the zoom. Adding a pitch angle and a rotation. EA could have implemented this feature in the development of SC4 to begin with but I thing the computer requirments Back then would have be horrorble. So modders with little or no free time. let do this. I might even try it but not likely I have too much on my plate right now. So take this idea and run with it.

Oh the .sgr is useles 3d sc4. However if anyone wants to still try cross-engine the sim2 with sc4. post back and let me know and I can go about explaining how to do it. It isn't that complicating but there are some big problems with it, mainly with the simulator itself. Too much work for me to complete.

[Vahr 341]

The thing is with a "3d SC4" is that everything (well, almost everything) really is a box with pretty looking detailed textures on it (aka, it will only look right at one angle).

Also there's the legal uncertainty.

[boon1234 9]

The rendering process pretty much involves analyzing the 3D model, taking pictures of it at the relevant zooms and angles (so about 24 pictures total - which is why final lot file sizes are so small, the lot is pretty much a series of small pictures). This means in game, when you see a building it is just a 2D representation using a series of photos. The game cannot be changed to see the buildings in full 3D because only at the modeling stage are they truly 3D.

Unless you put the 3D models in a totally new engine that has been made from scratch (which means it isn't SC4 anyway), nothing like this can be acheieved.

[GMT 389]

Like said several times before in this and relevant topics, sc4 model files (.s3d) are no real 3d models, even tho they appear 3d in game.

They only look right at a predefined angle of view, as you might guess it, it's the 4 view angles sc4 offers the player, basically aligned with the cardinal points of the compass; in addition to that, no other viewpoint than the birdseye-perspective of sc4 works to show the ingame-models correctly.

So if there's any variation in either one of the fixed locations, the model gets screwed up.

here's a picture of what I mean, right the ingame view (the correct one of you want) and left a random viewpoint one might chose in a full 3d environment:

you can go even further and turn this particular model to it's backside and see nothing because only the facades you can look at at the original viewpoint are textured, different viewport, different model ingame.

these's models, btw, are defined as LOD Models in BAT, gmax renders them automatically around your existing model because these LOD Models are what we see ingame: a very simple shape (often nothing but a single box), drawn around the often complex real 3d model, that gets textures so the final result looks like a complex 3d model in game, but as I said before, is nothing but a simple shape with textures.

Now one might think of taking the original 3d models used to create the .s3d files in first place, but they are not available and if they were, sc4 wouldn't even ship on a cd and take countles gb of hdd space

That's why many people refer to sc4 as a 2.5d game, the only real 3d part is the terrain, everything elsegives the illusion of being 3d on predefined views