The Query Doctoring Thread

[Mexicanboy13r 12]

Wow Arthurovitz!  You amazing me! These menus look so wonderful!

[Daeley 46]

I did a little update on the questions.. might add a few more... i'm wondering if anyone actually reads these though

[greyveil 37]

I have followed the whole thing, and it has helped me alot, I do still refer to it from time to time! thanx Daeley  

[mntoes 271]

Yes I read it too! Very handy to have this kind of help.

[simcitygame 40]

hi daeley hi have a problem : the query crash the game but i don't understand the third question of your doctoring thread
thank.

[cogeo 960]

Hi Daeley,

Answering Question No 4 you mention transit fares. Which field ID reports the transit fares payed by a transit-enabled building? I've tried to find it by myself but I couldn't (don't know any SC4 (or other) query that does so). Where could I find this information?

Also more information on field IDs in general?

Please also see my post at https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=63661

 

I would greatly appreciate any help.

[Daeley 46]

well I'm afraid if no query has it, it might be impossible to display.

it IS possible there is a message ID wich points to the trasit fares generated by the building, but considering the enourmous range of possible ID's this is like searching a needle in a haystack... sorry I couldn't give you any better news

[simcitygame 40]

hi daeley hi have a problem : the query crash the game but i don't understand the third question of your doctoring thread
thank.

 

can you help me please

[Daeley 46]

hmm... do you understand how areas work? If you don't there isn't much I can do... the basics are explained in the tutorial and I can't explain it much better than that.

[cogeo 960]

Date: 5/26/2005 3:03:45 AM Author: Daeley

well I'm afraid if no query has it, it might be impossible to display.

it IS possible there is a message ID wich points to the trasit fares generated by the building, but considering the enourmous range of possible ID's this is like searching a needle in a haystack... sorry I couldn't give you any better news

quote>

Thank you for your reply, anyway.

[praiodan 78]

I know, this is a truely newb question (yeah, I just began on making own querries)... and actually it's answered (see n

[Daeley 46]

I can see the problem there :-) I'll explain with a picture:

 

Those two are what I refer to in my text as the inner window (the (0,0,292,500) one) and the outer window (the (257,74,549,517) one). The outside window coordinates define where on the screen the query will be put... for example, if you start those with (0,0) the upper left corner of the query will be in the upper left corner of the screen. If you start those with (100,100), the upper left corner of the query will be 100 pixels away from the top and the left border of your screen and so on.... still with me so far?

 

The inner query window must be equally large as the outer window but it's coordinates must start at (0,0). The reason for this is as follows: by doing so, you allow everything inside the query to be placed to a simple coordinate system where (0,0) is the upper left corener of the query. If you didn't do this then, for example, the rectangle (12,41,280,59) would need to be entered in as (12+257,41+74,280+549,59+517) = (269,115,829,576). Since that's not very easy to write and debug, you should see why the inner window is needed.

 

Now onto your bug: have a look at the values I underlined. You should note that the outer window has a vertical size of 443 and the inner window has a vertical size of 500. This will cause the game, in the best case, to ignore everything that's outside 443 (like the close button) or, in the worst case, will make the game crash. If you simply expand the outer window to have a vertical size of 500 the query should work.

 

oh and yes... I used a calculator (the windows one... nice tool ) 

[praiodan 78]

Thanks great master It's all working very well now. THANKS!

P.S.: Yeah, the windows calculator is very cool

[praiodan 78]

It's me again and I hope you can help me a second time

I was working on a new querry. In the Reader everything looked ok, but when I tested the querry in game, it seems to have screwed up a little bit...




See that cross. Have again no clue what it is... Hope you can help me again

[Daeley 46]

I would say the game is probably trying to stretch your background picture... try decreasing it's area with 1 or 2 pixels in each direction.

[praiodan 78]

Omg, something I could have seen myself
But thanks again Daeley, you again saved my life(as a modder... )!

[Andreas Roth 616]

@praiodan: These are looking nice! However, I suggest to lower the saturation of the background pic a bit, so you can read the stats better.

[praiodan 78]

Thanks, it's a good idea

[JBSimio 152]

Greetings oh great Modding Expert types,

I was recruited to make custom queries for the seawalls Jay Stimpson has been working on and I've hit a (hopefully slight) snag with the custom WAV file for the Query Sound.  Hopefully this will make sense.  Here's what I've done and where the problem is:

I created a seperate DAT file with the UI, PNG, and WAV files in it.  Then I went through to every lot file and changed the GUID and SFX Query numbers to refer to this DAT file.  Simple so far.  (Maybe I should mention that there are 14 different lots in this package.)  I went into the game to test everything, plopped one of each lot and started clicking on them to test the queries.  The query itself (with picture) works fine for everything... no problems there.  The sound, however, only plays for the first three lots that I click on.  After that, no sound plays at all for the other ones.  If I go back to one of those first three, it will play again.

Some extra things I know:  It doesn't matter which three lots I choose, it is always the first three.  I've exited and reloaded the game several times and I can say that every lot does work.  It doesn't matter which three are the "chosen ones"... but then it's like the sound locks to those three and only those three.

Any ideas?  Is there a limit to how many lots a single WAV file can be linked to?  Is there something else that I'm flat out missing to make this work?

Thanks in advance!

JB

[Andreas Roth 616]

Do you have a TRK file for the custom sound? If you use the ID for the WAV file, it doesn't work properly, so you have to link the WAV file to the TRK file and use this ID in the Query Sound property. I suggest to take a look at Pegasus' files, for instance, or check out the SFBT Tram Museum, where I have applied this technique (look into the SFBT_StraBaMuseum_UI_Automata.dat file).

[JBSimio 152]

TRK file?  Hmm... sounds like something new to play with!  (For me anyway)  Not sure if that's good or bad.  I'll have to look at that and see what I can find.  Thanks Andreas!

JB

[Andreas Roth 616]

Pegasus wrote a short tutorial once, maybe you'll find it with the search function. You don't need to edit much with those TRK files, basically fill in the ID for the WAV file (XA instance) and maybe adjust one or two parameters. Field 23 seems to be the sampling rate and Field 24 is for adjusting the speed.

[Shadow Assassin 336]

Er, I seem to be having a problem with my query. The second line of info I put in doesn't appear right...

How do I fix this? It should be showing up as No. of Cyclist Pileups (it's fine in ilive's reader, btw). For some reason it's showing up as that.

EDIT:Ah, never mind. I figured out what I was doing wrong.