SimCityPak - Modding Tool

[gothic0023 18]

you know if you can do it, and get the texture coloring to work out. I am going to praise you, because honestly I have not figure out the texturing issues and how the game sees colors or if it is just that easy as build a mesh and implant colors. If you can do it, show us that it works. Then I am all up for it, I do not want to stifle anyone that may come up with a way to change buildings. Just right now I am frustrated because I am just bumping my head on making cars, and re-using textures. I also need to do some recoloring of a vehicle or something just to have something to present to the community and looking at these car models are a little crazy because some of them I can not tell exactly which car in the game they should be. 

[dcbenji 22]

you know if you can do it, and get the texture coloring to work out. I am going to praise you, because honestly I have not figure out the texturing issues and how the game sees colors or if it is just that easy as build a mesh and implant colors. If you can do it, show us that it works. Then I am all up for it, I do not want to stifle anyone that may come up with a way to change buildings. Just right now I am frustrated because I am just bumping my head on making cars, and re-using textures. I also need to do some recoloring of a vehicle or something just to have something to present to the community and looking at these car models are a little crazy because some of them I can not tell exactly which car in the game they should be.

I'm working on a tutorial that explains the Color Palettes that SimCity uses for coloring buildings. I've already created one that explains the building materials if you want to check that out.

[gothic0023 18]

Love the video and I sat through both on the explination of the building materials, I am really looking forward to the explination on how the game sees colors. Tonight I had tried again just to do a general recoloring of a mesh through 3d editor and some reason everytime I tried to import the new colored mesh into the game it did not like it and Citypak would shut down on me. Which is all possibly because I did not use the "materials" as you had shown in the video. 

[mgomrjsurf 16]

Good Video. Iv'e used Turbomax or what ever the Program was to build Mids for past Simcities and I know you can't just Build a Box you also need a Sign on Building if it's Wendy's,CVS and so on.

[gothic0023 18]

I think what we are trying to say is that this is more complicated then just designing a mesh and mesh signs. The 3D images are probably the easiest part, it is what makes the 3d image come to life that is more complicated. When it comes to buildings hence the color tray thing that I brought up. Just because you put a color on something in paint shop with the buildings does not mean the game will read that color. According to the way the buildings are supposedly constructed, which is the three layers you see in the video. Which is another part of the problem, how do you define red when the material examples in the open up materials is hot pink. Does that mean hot pink = red or orange in some cases. So I really do think you know your models and how to make those. I am just not sure you are fully getting the complication in bringing the building to life. The other part is from the materials page that maxis use to define these buildings under the graphic folder is that of making out what each piece of the material for the building is supposed to be.  To see the mess I recommend you tinker around and see what happens, that was the only way I figured out what road blocks are happening. I had thought I was over complicating the buildings, so I just tried to import a normal recolored mesh in place of a building and simpak closed down on me. Which means eithier it is a glitch of just recoloring is not read properly by the program files.

[dcbenji 22]

Love the video and I sat through both on the explination of the building materials, I am really looking forward to the explination on how the game sees colors. Tonight I had tried again just to do a general recoloring of a mesh through 3d editor and some reason everytime I tried to import the new colored mesh into the game it did not like it and Citypak would shut down on me. Which is all possibly because I did not use the "materials" as you had shown in the video. 

Yes, the link between the game materials and a custom mesh has to be coded into the building's "Material Info Texture". With the 3DS Max tool Oppie has worked on, you assign a pre-existing material set that you have exported using SimCity Pak to your mesh. When this textured model is exported, the 3DS Max tool writes all of the vertex information for what part of hte material set is applied to what part of your mesh to the title of the 3DS max material itself. SimCityPak is able to read the information written in this material and in turn write it into the building's Material Info Texture.

Problem is that the tool is buggy, and the materials on a building in game don't look like they do in the 3DS max viewport. The tool needs more development.

If you import a collada file into SimCityPak and it hasn't been created using the 3DS Max tool (which hasn't been publicly released/still in development), SimCityPak will crash. You can however import an uncolored, untextured OBJ file into SimCityPak - swapping it in for a pre-existing building - then export the package file, stick it int he SimCity Game Graphics package and your model will show up in game. it will just look like crap because there won't be any colors or textures assigned :/

[AidanA28 17]

So, with simcitypak, I can design and create mods?

[migamin 38]

Sure. Don't give up trying to do what you want to do. Everything is possible (ok it isn't)

[gothic0023 18]

yes AidanA with simcitypak it allows you access to files to be able to create mods, and so forth. I would read up on the tutorials though, and you do need at least some kind of paint shop program. As for more complex stuff I am still trying to figure it out. Anything is possible if you work at it long enough, like me working on getting all my buses to show up.

[AidanA28 17]

Ok, installed SimCityPak and extracted it.

Actually, i think I'll get mods to work for me before making my own

[migamin 38]

The easiest way to understand what a mod does is to look for changes from original file *tip*

[AidanA28 17]

Hmmm. intresting. looking into that soon.

[AnusPanda 0]

Any chance of making a slight ammendment to the codeplex guide regarding package names?

I prefix all my files with 'test' or 'z', so they stand out in the folder structure. But The engine reads packages alphabetically and ignores duplicates. The EA files start with 'SimCity', so all mine were being ignored. Took me a good half hour of swearing at the tool to realise... slow day. I'm not staying long, was just curious what was('nt) possible wiht the engine and that was driving me bananas.

[migamin 38]

Any chance of making a slight ammendment to the codeplex guide regarding package names?

I prefix all my files with 'test' or 'z', so they stand out in the folder structure. But The engine reads packages alphabetically and ignores duplicates. The EA files start with 'SimCity', so all mine were being ignored. Took me a good half hour of swearing at the tool to realise... slow day. I'm not staying long, was just curious what was('nt) possible wiht the engine and that was driving me bananas.

 

To be sure that your mod overrides original data, you have to put up a name that comes before original packages. You can also try to implement your own mods without the need to override. That's clearly not as easy as overriding

[molee20 0]

ausserhalb  der  region bauen Mod 8.0  link  hier: http://ul.to/no8obcbu

[migamin 38]

Gehört das hierher? Ausserdem - das ist ein englisches Forum, da solltest du eventuell englisch lernen und schreiben hier

[Tobse 37]

hmm es könnte aber eher ein virus sein, so wenig info's wie molee gibt

MEHR BESCHREIBUNG, SCREENSHOT

 

 

hmm i think its look like a virus, so i dont follow this link 

[Nico Robin 70]

how changed graphic or color for building pls??

[mandar 0]

hello guys.....

i am new to modding .....

i dont have any knowledge as such of modding 

but i want to make my own mods....please help me ...

i saw the tutorial but dint get exact idea what to do.

example...i want to extract oil and other ore and all quickly .....but i am not able to do ....how should i make amod of that....please help

[Athorium 0]

Hello Oppie, I'm having problems with SimCityPack, I tried with 0.1.0.8 and 0.2.1.0 and with both I have the same problem.

 

When I check the files, and see some RW4 archives the program crashes without reason, and when I try to see any PROP file shows me a red message and do not load the properties.

[Trylk255 23]

BASIC MODDING TUTORIAL: https://simcitypak.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Modding Tutorial&referringTitle=Documentation

Err... Link is corrupted. The correct URL is :

 

https://simcitypak.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Modding%20Tutorial&referringTitle=Documentation

[__ZyGo__ 5]

Hi guys!

 

Just a question: You all know that we had a DEBUG MODE until Maxis released the v2.0.

As we can play offline mode, does anybody try to re-enable the DEBUG MODE woth the offline v10?

 

If so, we could have access to FOREST TOOL, TERRAFORMING, REGIONAL EDITING, et caetera...

 

Am I dreaming?

Did i miss a point?

[HELLER 0]

i to would like that to happen if possible its pretty bad when you have all these builds that can be unlocked but out of those builds you could only use something like 5 or less of them because of map space or other reasons such as restrictions

[Little Harty 3]

@ Athorium i had the same problem when changing computer i found this worked for me! Think it was mayor magnus on simcitypak help post Well, I finally figured out why I could not run SimCityPak without getting the aforementioned error.  Someone posted at CodePlex that you need to have http://www.microsoft...s.aspx?id=20914 installed.  Apparently the XNA DLL that comes with the program is not the final solution.  Now I can finally view property files. all credit goes to him for looking it up on codeplex.

[Buggi 684]

Hmm, is there an english language version of the property definitions?

[Little Harty 3]

0.2.1.0 is in dutch but 0.2.0.0 is in english BUT i find it easier using the newer 1 as there are more instance names even tho i have to use google translate to find out what they are it gets easier to do the more you use it

[CapTon 592]

SimCityPak went 0.3.0.0 yesterday http://simcitypak.codeplex.com

[Little Harty 3]

Thanks for letting us know CapTon where do i find a list of changes and things as at first look it looks a lot different but would like to see the change log and it is still in dutch is there a way to change this or should i just keep using google translate? As always thanks Cap

[CapTon 592]

You should just keep using Google Translate and you can find a list of changes here: https://simcitypak.codeplex.com/releases/view/121893

[Yayie 311]

is there a list of known id codes that I can follow?

 

Im still seeing tutorials here and there, and the codes makes me blind, I need to understand what I'm seeing first.