Need help with some simple editing...

[theclashrules 0]

I've just downloaded the LOT editor and I started with a very simple task... Removing trees from some fence lots I found on the STEX. I enter the program select the LOT, delete the trees press save and exit. Then when I enter the program again, and click on the same LOT, the trees are back! This does not happen if I use the "save as" button but then I have my LOT and the original LOT and even if I remove the originals from the plugin folder, they show up in the game and take up valuable parks menu real estate!!!! Is there a way to simply edit the original lots without creating duplicates?

Thanks very much!

[Tonnakin 2]

Hello theclashrules,

Do you know where you put the original file? Either remove that from the plugin folder, or (if you are really certain you don't want the lot with trees) drag the newly created file (directly placed in the plugin folder by LE) into the map of the original file, and keep the new file.

[theclashrules 0]

Thanks! The files also came with a DAT file so should I remove that from the plugins folder as well? Also what do you mean by this:

Originally posted by: Tonnakin

) drag the newly created file (directly placed in the plugin folder by LE) into the map of the original filequote>

Thanks

[Tonnakin 2]

You said the lot came with a DAT file? Try running the game with the DAT file in another folder (any folder, just not inside the plugin folder or any subfolder).

About what I meant with "drag the newly created file (directly placed in the plugin folder by LE) into the map of the original file", you'll see a duplicate of the file you editted in the Lot Editor. You then drag the duplicate in the same folder where the original is (but this is only when you editted a LOT file, and not a DAT file).

[Sam 163]

Could you please post a link to the exact file you downloaded so we can clearly see what it is you are trying to use as your starting point? Its very difficult to help otherwise and here's not much we can do to help if we can't see the file you are talking about for ourselves.

[theclashrules 0]

 The file is farms fences by suico. Thanks Junior! I'll let you know if it works

[Sam 163]

Now that's much easier.

There's good news and bad news.

The bad news is that the dat file is a mixture of lot configs and model files, so you can't get rid of it or you won't have your models.

The good news is that it shouldn't be difficult to work around it, people do it all the time.

What you need to do is this:

1 Remove all your plugins except this dat file to a Plugins Disabled folder, separate from your plugins folder, so they won't load into lot editor when you start it up. Only keep the files you really need to use to make your revised lots in your plugins. This is important.

2 Put suico's dat file into a separate sub-folder in your plugins, eg Plugins/suico/

3 Make your lots (eg remove the trees you want) and Save. Theoretically this should put a lot file for each in your root plugins folder, and each should have the same TGI as the corresponding lot in the dat file. This is important and you may need to use Ilive's Reader to confirm this if it doesn't go to plan.

4 If you did this right you should now have in your plugins only your suico sub-folder and a number of separate lot files you just made. Grab all the lot files and put them in a new subfolder that starts with zz_ , eg zz_suico_lots_override.

Test that this works in the game, ie that you only have your new lots. If you have the new and the old lots then the TGIs are not the same as the originals.

What this process does is this:

The original suico dat file loads first, because it is in a folder that loads earlier, due to the lower sort order of the name (suico versus zz)

The zz folder loads after the suico folder.

This causes the lot files in the zz folder to override the ones in the suico dat file that have the same TGI.

What was happening on your first attempt was this:

You made your lot files the right way, but you probably left them in your root plugins folder. This caused your new lots to load first, then suico's original lots loaded aftwerwards and overrode them. The last version of a file that loads is the one the game uses.

Easy solution.

Once you are sure this all works ok, you can put the rest of your plugins back in your plugins folder.

If it doesn't work, please let us know exactly what you did step by step so we can find out what went wrong.

[theclashrules 0]

I went through the steps put the files in the right folders and left the dependancy file in the plugins folder. I went into the game and the originals were still there. You said that if the originals were there also, then the TGI were not the same. So how do I fix that? Thanks for your detailed instructions!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Did you really SAVE or SAVE AS?

Sam explicitly asked you to state EXACTLY what you did in each step, as "I went through all the steps" isn't helpful at all and takes us back to guessing. Often someone thinks he did it all like it was mentioned, but in the end it turns out that he missed (or misunderstood) that crucial little detail. It's finding this detail that will do the trick, and you are making the job very complicated by keeping this important information to yourself.

[Sam 163]

I don't know what is going wrong with this one. I tried the above procedure on one of the lots, SCB_Cerca_Fazenda_Arvores_Quina_1_liso_verde, however there is something wrong with the building exemplar in the new lot file, as it crashes when it is clicked on in the Reader. The other file types in the new lot are fine.

I fiddled with it a bit in the Reader and created a hand made lot file which still crashed. I suspect that might have been something in the exemplar names or item name or item descriptions like special characters. At least when I changed them all to something like Test, the crashing stopped.

However the new lot is not overriding the old one for some reason. The TGIs are indeed the same, I even renamed the lot files and exemplar names to be the same, but it is still not overriding the old lot file which is very odd.

Edit:

I followed the previously listed procedure on my hand built lot file (which also had the exemplars renamed, item name and item description as well as file names changed) and it worked. So I have no idea at this point what is really going on here.

Edit 2:

Ok after a lot of work and trying different things I found that as well as the listed procedure, the file extensions have to be the same, then it works. So once the lots are made, you also need to change the .SC4Lot extension to .dat, as the original was in a .dat. That's really strange, as I thought the idea was, and I'm sure I've seen it work before, for the .sc4lot files made by LE using Save, should override any files in the core dat file.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I can confirm your 2nd edit. I recently tweaked spa's new uploads for personal use, and in the process I made individual lot files override the lot config exemplars in the original DAT. You've really made me curious now.

[Sam 163]

If it helps I'll try to reconfirm all this tomorrow and write up a more exact method of what I did as towards the end I started trying rather random things. It is rather late here though now. It is entirely possible that I've overlooked something but it will be hopefully more apparent after a bit of a break.

[theclashrules 0]

 Sorry people...

Here's my steps..

1. Removes all plugins from folder except for the DAT file, and the dependancy file, castle props

2. Open Lot editor, remove trees

3. press SAVE AS, rename them and exit

4. repeat for all 14 LOTs

5. Go to my plugins folder and there are my 14 new LOTs 

6. Make folder for the DAT file and I named it "suico"

7. place DAT file in folder

8. Make new folder called zz_suico_lots_override

9. Place new lots in said folder

10. Open game, no change. 

I did not do the step checking the TGI because 1. I have no clue what that is, and 2, i don't know how to change it, and 3, if I did all the steps correctly it would seem like the problem would be with the TGI stuff and so I could ask smart people like you guys about it. Thanks for your help. 

[Sam 163]

TGI is the Type, Group, Instance number. All files in the game have one which uniquely identifies it (except for a few special cases like the DIR files). If you have two files with the same TGI then the game can't use both, it will only use the last one it loaded on startup. We are trying to make this "feature" work to our advantage, and normally it is very simple. But as I said earlier, something is different about these files you have chosen and it is not working the way it usually does.

This is a picture of part of the inside of suico's original file as seen through the Reader. The bit within the yellow rectangle is a single "Lot" as made by the lot editor. It has five files within it. The bit within the red border is a TGI, from left to right, the Type, Group and Instance identifier of the file.  The entire pane to the right is the "Lot Exemplar" ie the arrangement of props, textures and other items as well as various other properties as set in the Lot Editor.

[Andreas Roth 607]

Originally posted by: T Wrecks

I can confirm your 2nd edit. I recently tweaked spa's new uploads for personal use, and in the process I made individual lot files override the lot config exemplars in the original DAT. You've really made me curious now.quote>

For some reason, there seems to be certain inconsistencies in the loading order when using files with *.dat extension. It appears, that *.dat files are always loaded last, even though *.SC4Lot comes after *.dat alphabetically. Remember that weird behavior with some MML mods? Only when changing them to *.dat, it suddenly worked properly. Come to think of it, Maxis introduced the *.dat files with the additional landmarks, so maybe they wanted to make sure that they always load last.

[Sam 163]

Thanks Andreas, that sounds familiar. I knew it had been seen before but couldn't remember the details.

So, theclashrules, it looks like you have a couple of choices -

Firstly, remaking similar lots from scratch would probably be fairly simple. Most of the necessary props seem to be from the Maxis castle set.

Or you could keep the lots you've already made and either put them all into a dat file of their own, or rename the extensions to .dat instead of .sc4lot.

[theclashrules 0]

Huzzah!!! Problem solved. The last solution worked! Thank you very much.