3D printing your simcity 4 cities

[starwolf777 2]

I have a question... can you 3D print your simcity 4 cities or parts of them if you convert your files into something else (like a .cad or something that can be printed with a 3D printer.)? I know someone has printed Simcity 2000 buildings but can you do the same with simcity 4 if you have a big enough printer? The link for the 3d printer article is http://www.3dfuture.com.au/2012/01/3d-printed-sim-city-2000-tabletop-play-set-by-skimbal/. Do you need years of experience with this stuff? Or can you just learn easily? I would also like to know how much it would cost.

[jdenm8 362]

I've seen the article before and he's not really using anything from the game itself. Everything is a from-scratch recreation of game assets.

You would have the same thing with SC4. Unless it's actually in 3D (which is very rare), you have to make it anew in a modelling program or get the model from the original creator.

[starwolf777 2]

Can you explain that better? Do you mean you would have to make every building seperately? I am wondering because I have a lot of custom buildings like the HK pencil pack by bixel and the Polaris Tower

[TekindusT 3,809]

What jdenm8 is trying to explain (I think) is that there is no way to go from an SC4 file to a 3D printing, just because the model files you see in game are renders, not full 3D models. What has done the person in the article you're linking is modelling with a CAD program from scratch buildings resembling very much to the ones that can be found in SC2K and printing that models (*.cad files, for example) in a 3D printer.

[starwolf777 2]

so I have to take a picture of that city and try to copy the buildings? Can I take the sides of the buildings and try to piece them together like they did when the first made the game in 2003? I am thinking of taking the renderings of the pictures and trying to copy the shape and colors of the buildings. Same with natural features.

What jdenm8 is trying to explain (I think) is that there is no way to go from an SC4 file to a 3D printing, just because the model files you see in game are renders, not full 3D models. What has done the person in the article you're linking is modelling with a CAD program from scratch buildings resembling very much to the ones that can be found in SC2K and printing that models (*.cad files, for example) in a 3D printer.

So i should try to match the shape and the color on my own?

I've seen the article before and he's not really using anything from the game itself. Everything is a from-scratch recreation of game assets.

You would have the same thing with SC4. Unless it's actually in 3D (which is very rare), you have to make it anew in a modelling program or get the model from the original creator.

same here try to match the colort and shape the best i can

[Bipin 3,402]

Unfortunately I can't see it working with SC4. This is due to there really only being X and Y axes in SC4, there is no Z; it is only imposed that it exists. Now on the other hand, something like Cityscape would be able to export the correct data for a 3D print, although it would have to be sent through another program first.

[LivingInThePast 364]

Yah, SimCity 4 uses renders, not full 3D models. Best you could hope for is using individual 3D models, except that the original gmax models for STEX creations are either a) held privately by users or b) lost entirely.

Or just go to Google SketchUp Warehouse Trimble 3D Warehouse and knock yourself out.

[blunder 1,079]

Do you actually have access to a 3D printer and can use it? If you do you should already know the answer to the question you're asking. If you don't then there's not much point in asking.

The files you send to a 3D printer, whatever source program you used, are true models fully defined in all 3 spatial dimensions. The "models" in SC4 are a series of 2 dimensional images from certain camera angles and viewpoints from the original model file. SC4 stitches those images from the .sc4model file together to make it appear as we see it.

So long answer short: no. Although in theory if you had the original model file from 3dsmax-NOT the files you download off the stex, (and rescaled it down) and had some way to export it to whichever program the 3D printer runs, then maybe, but unlikely.

edit: and Bipin beats me to it. oh well.

  Edited September 9, 2012 by blunder  

[jdenm8 362]

Unfortunately I can't see it working with SC4. This is due to there really only being X and Y axes in SC4, there is no Z;

Nope. SC4 has all three axes. It's a very common misconception that SC4 isn't a full 3D engine, it is (And has full support for 3D models like buildings as long as they stay under 600 polygons), it's just the buildings that aren't. Automata is full 3D, so is the Maxis Highway, every single puzzle piece (A flat plane is still a 2D object in a 3D space) and ERHW (In the latest build however, most of the pylons are not. The actual deck is though).

Buildings in SC4 are flat renders projected onto (If the creator is lazy or doesn't know better, which is the vast majority of buildings) rectangular prisms, they are not 2D sprites.

  Edited September 9, 2012 by jdenm8  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The fact is the SC4 is not 3D no matter how your mind interprets it. Pretty good fake, in many ways and quite ingenious. The answer is no.

Besides, has any one see a "colour" 3D printer? All the ones I've seen on various expositions appear to produce plaster casts except the one on "Eureka" which is fantasy.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

I heard this somewhere, and it's the idea that SC4 is 2.5D. It's a 2D game, with the half-dimension being the "false" depth.

Buildings are 2.5D, in that they're like this:

You'd have to be at the correct viewing angle for the buildings to even appear 3D. The Brusspup vid I found is a 2D analogue of what I mean.

Then you have parts of the game that are absolutely 2D: The idea of height in transit networks is completely absent in the game, which is why same-direction double-decker networks of identical transit types are completely impossible.

Has anypony ever read Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott? I like to make that analogy when regarding the idea of height in transit networks.

So unless it's the actual transit infrastructure or the automata that runs atop it, nothing is pure 3D.

This is a little off-topic, but there was a food printer I once saw from a vsauce video. Still, the colours of the foodstuffs wouldn't really blend well like with a 2D printer.

  Edited September 9, 2012 by Ganaram Inukshuk  

[Bipin 3,402]

That's what I meant, that SC4 is 2.5D. while the Z-axis does exist, it is simply not the same Z axis as in the physical world. Buildings, despite being 3D, are only only truly 3D from fixed angles. I suppose you could relate this to sidewalk chalk art or optical illusion/forced perspective sculture, where the work appears 3D from one angle, but in reality isn't.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

That's what I meant, that SC4 is 2.5D.

Except that I didn't see the actual term "2.5D", and that I wanted to give an actual example.

[Bipin 3,402]

That's what I meant, that SC4 is 2.5D.

Except that I didn't see the actual term "2.5D", and that I wanted to give an actual example.

You said "2.5D buildings" at the top of the post, second line of text.

[ulsa2 7]

can't you just take your image, make it clear-ish red using an editing software, then make a copy clear-ish blue. next just overlay them on top of each other... exept i now realize why that might not work, because the buildings are allready fake 3-d, so it would look wierd.

[vortext 573]

The perspective used in SimCity, and many other video games for that matter, is formally known as isometric. Each axe is represented equally, which is why there's a bit of trouble scaling BATs and stuff.

Now for the matter at hand, I guess you could export the S3D files for a BAT so you'll at least have a rough estimation of size. Though keep in mind one BAT might be broken down into multiple parts and the S3D file is in no way a proper representation of the actual building you see ingame. So yeah, probably best to start modelling from scratch.

[GMT 389]

Buildings in SC4 are flat renders projected onto (If the creator is lazy or doesn't know better, which is the vast majority of buildings) rectangular prisms, they are not 2D sprites.

you can easily see this in the s3d files in reader. what in bat creation happens is, there's a picture taken from the respective perspective and this picture is projected on - in most cases - a simple box or a fairly simple shape somewhat along that of the original model, so the overall result is that the building appears to be a real 3d building, while in fact it is only a simple, textured box which, correctly aligned with the viewpoint, looks like a house. together with some alpha-mapping, the game can simulate buldings with high complex structures and still keep the poly-count very low. unfortunately this only works with fixed viewpoints.

here's btw a picture I already showed a while back in a different thread to show what all the viewpoint chitchat actually means:

the right side is the final ingame model correct viewpoint, the left side a random rotation of the same model.

note that this building is a "complex" structure in the ingame model roughly following the shape of the house. and also note that the non-visible sides aren't textured. If I'd turn this particular model around, you'd look at the very same texture from the back. so you can say that every viewpoint has it's own model in the actual file, same for every zoom level.

here comes the next big problem with a 3d print of a sim city 4 city. while it is possible but hard to get the original models of custom content, you can't get the original, complex models of the non-custom content. they're gone. forever.

on a sidenote: that's why I don't particularily like the 2.5D definition of sim city. In fact the whole game is fully 3d, the terrain is, the buildings and props are, same for cars et al. but due to the fixed viewpoints maxis took a really really smart move and reduced the complexity of the buildings and props so the game does at least keep cool on the gpu.