BATs by Bipin

[Bipin 3,402]

6 hours ago, KiethMarkus2014 said:

Bipin, would you be able to release a version of your wooden fences that are half fences? (Half the height of your already released ones) I absolutely love them

I'm awfully busy IRL right now, so I'm going to have to put everything on hold. I can't guarantee anything, but if I release them, they'll be in my next set of houses. In the meantime, you can make your own from my props. Download SC4 Model Tweaker, find my fences' .sc4model file, load it into the Tweaker, click the move button at the top, and lower them on the Z axis by a few meters. You can get exactly what you want that way!

[Bipin 3,402]

Don't worry about me guys, I'm still alive!

 

Working on these houses, slowly but surely!

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

Great look!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

The house looks good, too.

[Bipin 3,402]

Thanks guys!  I think that, before I release this one I'll do diagonal versions of the other most recent house. 

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Boo!

[Bipin 3,402]

Just thought I'd let you know, I'm still alive and kicking.

School exams have taken their toll on me, as well as the wondrous world of Cities Skylines. However, my last exam will be in a couple of hours and I'll be done a series of models for Skylines soon. I'll be back to BAT before you know it!

Expect some houses and some old FLUP tunnels on the STEX soon!

[Urban Vibravant 792]

Yes! I can't wait for these. Great job so far!

[sencillo1 47]

can't wait

[Bipin 3,402]

Thanks guys! Chances are something will be released today, just not sure what exactly. Keep an eye on the STEX though!

[kingofsimcity 5,739]

Can't wait to build some serious tract housing with these!

[APSMS 1,892]

On 4/29/2016 at 11:00 AM, Bipin said:

Just thought I'd let you know, I'm still alive and kicking.

School exams have taken their toll on me, as well as the wondrous world of Cities Skylines. However, my last exam will be in a couple of hours and I'll be done a series of models for Skylines soon. I'll be back to BAT before you know it!

Expect some houses and some old FLUP tunnels on the STEX soon!

Hi Bipin,

I'm a bit late to the party. Can I suggest more side windows? I understand that there's noting to look at, but in many of these modern homes that is where the developers stick the secondary bedrooms (my family used to visit model homes all the time just for fun--especially the developments that were completely beyond our price range), and typical US/Canadian law requires certain amounts of ingress/egress ventilation, primarily for the purpose of escape in event of a fire. Also, natural light is still natural light, even is you are stuck looking into your neighbor's house all the time.

If it's too late to re-render the BATs, that's fine. They look lovely anyways; this may be something that you want to consider for future modelling though.

[Bipin 3,402]

10 hours ago, APSMS said:

Hi Bipin,

I'm a bit late to the party. Can I suggest more side windows? I understand that there's noting to look at, but in many of these modern homes that is where the developers stick the secondary bedrooms (my family used to visit model homes all the time just for fun--especially the developments that were completely beyond our price range), and typical US/Canadian law requires certain amounts of ingress/egress ventilation, primarily for the purpose of escape in event of a fire. Also, natural light is still natural light, even is you are stuck looking into your neighbor's house all the time.

If it's too late to re-render the BATs, that's fine. They look lovely anyways; this may be something that you want to consider for future modelling though.

Thanks for the reply! It's not too late for some - for those that matter. I'll be adding more windows to the un-rendered ones (mainly two storey models).

Also, you guys can expect something on the STEX within the next few hours!

[Bipin 3,402]

Due to some unforeseen circumstances (I was screening a film today, and the screening ran far longer than expected) I could only finish uploading my little set of BATs recently. So on that note, better late than never!

 

Enjoy!

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

I can see some massive FLUPing. BAT x Bipin, I ship it :3

[Bipin 3,402]

It'll be FLUPping great @Toothless Stitch!

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

The grunge meistro has returned!

[Bipin 3,402]

On 5/4/2016 at 6:22 PM, Ln X said:

The grunge meistro has returned!

...and the Suburban maestro too! I'd appreciate it if some of you could test out my latest house BATs. They're of course growables, on 2x2 low-density R$$ lots.

Test Lots:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B18TZfo7TG3QcG1xRU1kWUxxVjg

Please don't redistribute them elsewhere. This download is strictly for personal testing purposes, but do report back to me on how well these houses work for you. I want to know if they grow too much or too little, and if there are any dependencies missing. Speaking of which:

Dependencies:

• Girafe's Maples V1 https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2614
• Girafe's Feather Grass https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3001
• Girafe's Chestnuts https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3049
• Girafe's Sparaxis https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2980
• Possibly required: AndisArt SC2013 Homes

 

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

I'm sorry but you are going to have to find someone else. I am currently working on a city and the game has been a bit iffy recently with CTDs.

[Bipin 3,402]

41 minutes ago, Ln X said:

I'm sorry but you are going to have to find someone else. I am currently working on a city and the game has been a bit iffy recently with CTDs.

A few people have been saying that the past week. Odd. Is it a windows 10 thing with you too, perhaps?

[kingofsimcity 5,739]

I've been playing around with these for a little bit and so far they look absolutely amazing! My thoughts so far:

The SC2013-style homes should be a dependency - the lots will not grow without the descriptor from that set.

Growth rate is much less weedy than the Diaspra but definitely not too bad; they compete well with the SC2013-style homes and Maxis 2x2s. I do have some trouble growing these with mattb325's 2x2 R$$ houses thrown into the mix but that's due to them boasting much higher capacities than normal. Not sure about the best course of option here though.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

10 hours ago, Bipin said:

A few people have been saying that the past week. Odd. Is it a windows 10 thing with you too, perhaps?

I run Windows 7. The thing is as my cities get larger the game becomes more unstable. Thus I restrict the available RAM to minimize CTDs. My current maximum is 4096MG. I slashed it to 2GB, then 1.33GB and I am currently considering 1GB as there has been recent instability.

[Bipin 3,402]

That's a shame you've had to go through all this trouble, @Ln X. Hopefully you can figure it out, Mr. Natural Logarithm.

10 hours ago, kingofsimcity said:

I've been playing around with these for a little bit and so far they look absolutely amazing! My thoughts so far:

The SC2013-style homes should be a dependency - the lots will not grow without the descriptor from that set.

Growth rate is much less weedy than the Diaspra but definitely not too bad; they compete well with the SC2013-style homes and Maxis 2x2s. I do have some trouble growing these with mattb325's 2x2 R$$ houses thrown into the mix but that's due to them boasting much higher capacities than normal. Not sure about the best course of option here though.

Thank you for taking the time to test these houses out. Your data is immensely helpful. Perhaps I'll increase capacity slightly then, to match mattb's? Could someone remind me how to do this - I assume it's a setting in Reader?

[APSMS 1,892]

To be honest, if you used the PIM-X tool to set the capacities, I would stick with that.

If you are facing other lots with more occupants or weedy behavior, I would rather yours be properly modded, than have two sets of improperly modded houses.

Stage and capacity are highly important; the PIM-X is designed to work with the CAM, but also results in a more balanced game overall, so keeping your stats in line with its tables will promote balanced growth and prevent weediness, which is always undesirable, even when you only want one kind of house (because its easier to simulate weediness than it is to eliminate the actual behavior).

I will have to try these out and see how these grow; still, two wrongs don't make a right. Remember that the Diaspra was a stage too low and this led to weediness, so keeping it in like will make it a more desirable download, especially since not everyone has poorly modded lots in their plugins.

 

EDIT: There was some poor wording about Mattb325's homes. The statements have been redacted, as Matt produces high quality work and it was not my intention to suggest his work wasn't properly modded. The above should be taken to say that a properly modded lot is always desirable over a house that will grow more frequently to match potentially poorly modded homes, since this will cause weediness among people who lack the weedy files in their plugins.

My apologies to Matt for the unfounded implication.

  Edited May 17, 2016 by APSMS  
Corrected poor wording about Mattb325's work

[mattb325 28,880]

@Bipin - the houses look lovely. There is a texture dependency that isn't listed (not sure what it is but many of the lots suffer a blank texture for me).

 

6 hours ago, APSMS said:

To be honest, if you used the PIM-X tool to set the capacities, I would stick with that.

Mattb325's houses may be slightly over-capacity, but I would rather yours be properly modded, than have two sets of improperly modded houses. Less work for me to fix, ya know?

.........................................

I will have to try these out, but I suspect KOSC's analysis is accurate; still, two wrongs don't make a right.

@APSMS - my houses are modded with the PIM-X.

They have varying footprints and sizes which give varying capacities.

Those which have footprints close to the Maxis dimensions have values almost identical to the Maxis houses.

Those with larger footprints than the Maxis houses have higher capacities.

It is that simple, and my houses are modded correctly. I know that some people baulk at 25-35 residents in a suburban-looking house, but the game doesn't see it the same way.

If all my houses were 12 residents or fewer  in line with Maxis (or even 2-6 like Real Life), then it would be very difficult to create large suburban areas and still feed into regional CO/CS and IND demand.

 

[rsc204 21,808]

I think badly modded is a term I would use to define something that was really out of whack with the game. In the case of most of the buildings and lots out there, a better term might be to say they are not modded consistently. If anything, PIM-X was an attempt at rectifying this, since everything put through PIM-X should in theory all correspond to the same values, thus providing a consistent set of compatible content for users. I do find PIM-X's values a little on the high side compared to the Maxis content. I think this is because PIM-X is really best suited for use with CAM.

And here is the crux of the problem. You make buildings, they don't grow easily, so people complain. As a creator, you want people to enjoy your works, so you try to modify them to improve their chances of growth. But in reality, this is inter-connected with a given set of custom content that's installed, something where no single set of values will work with every setup the same.

Using PIM-X to create the values is probably the best way to go, since that at least provides consistency for the most number of users. Some may find that high, others might think they are low. Ultimately, those who really put a lot of time/effort into their cities/plugins are probably going to adjust the values to fit their style of play. There is no magic value that's just right for everyone.

[Bipin 3,402]

Thanks for the tips and feedback everyone!

 

3 hours ago, mattb325 said:

@Bipin - the houses look lovely. There is a texture dependency that isn't listed (not sure what it is but many of the lots suffer a blank texture for me).

 

Screenshots would be much-appreciated!

[APSMS 1,892]

21 hours ago, mattb325 said:

@APSMS - my houses are modded with the PIM-X.

They have varying footprints and sizes which give varying capacities.

Those which have footprints close to the Maxis dimensions have values almost identical to the Maxis houses.

Those with larger footprints than the Maxis houses have higher capacities.

It is that simple, and my houses are modded correctly. I know that some people baulk at 25-35 residents in a suburban-looking house, but the game doesn't see it the same way.

If all my houses were 12 residents or fewer  in line with Maxis (or even 2-6 like Real Life), then it would be very difficult to create large suburban areas and still feed into regional CO/CS and IND demand.

My apologies. I have not personally reviewed your houses, and wasn't trying to make a statement about the state of your work. Personally I love most of the stuff you do, with some exceptions for your earlier work (which I understand you acknowledged to be improperly modded). I think I have 98% of your work sitting in my plugins folder, and would have some very bland cities indeed if it wasn't for your homes, so thank you.

I was more making a generalization that Bipin should not tune the behavior of his houses to match improperly modded ones, simply to make them grow more often, because two wrongs don't make a right. Rather that, if he is competing for growth among poorly modded houses, that he should choose the right stats over the advantageous stats, because the game balance is affected and the weeds tend to make themselves known.

I apologize for not being clearer, and for not being as specific in my admonishment of a potentially detrimental stat assignment. I will see if I can modify my original statement to better reflect what I was trying to communicate. Obviously the part about how your houses are modded should have been obvious given the nature of your relationship with the BSC, so there was some clear memory lapse on my part. Again, I'm sorry for misrepresenting you.

[Bipin 3,402]

If someone could send me pictures of my lots growing, I'd like to see 'em. I'm interested to know if only certain lots are growing. Perhaps it's a problem on my end, but I need to confirm if it's an issue with my modding of these lots.

[Bipin 3,402]

Okay, so this is hopefully the final test release before the big reveal! Have a look at the file below, I'd appreciate it if you downloaded it and gave it a try:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B18TZfo7TG3QcUJCcDFEWkZTQk0

Dependencies (remain the same after V1 release):

• Girafe's Maples V1 https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2614
• Girafe's Feather Grass https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3001
• Girafe's Chestnuts https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3049
• Girafe's Sparaxis https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2980
• AndisArt SC2013 Homes Please test the growability of my lots without this mod installed!
• Sudden Valley Textures Please test the growability of my lots without this mod installed!