My first building pluggin has a few minor problems

[pjk64 6]

HI.

 

I used PIM to create a lot (a high school) from an existing model.

I then used Ilives Reader to modify the exemplar to fit my requirements and created a .dat file.

I used the Lot Editor to, uhm..., view the lot, and not much else.

 

Here's a picture of the school (It's the one with the red arrow and the #2 next to it)

 

 

1) How can I get the icon in the tools menu to have something other than a black background? And how can I get the building to appear bigger (aka - closer) in the icon?

 

2) How can I get the building to plop 90 degrees from where it's plopping? I want the street access on a different side than the current setup. Specifically, the front of the building is facing the 'street' while I'd like it to be what is facing the avenue.

 

3) Why does the (extra cheats dll) info show the building as unwatered? I can assure you the plot is fully watered, if not the building. You can see that I set the building up to consume water, it just isn't doing it. And yes, I let the game run for several months. The underground view shows no footprint of the building (not a brown unwatered nor a blue watered). To the underground view, the building doesn't seem to exist.

 

I have Photoshop, though I have never used it.

 

Hey, thanks to anyone who replies.

 

*** In fact, when placing the building on the map, there is no blue footprint nor an arrow indicating front street access. How do I add this aspect?

[pjk64 6]

Well, I've figured out how to get the "preview" when placing the building, but it still does not connect to the water system. Other than the icon having a black background and the building itself not being rotated 90 degrees, where I'd like it, it does educate and employ sims.

 

(I wonder if anyone besides myself will ever read this post?)

[T Wrecks 10,209]

(I wonder if anyone besides myself will ever read this post?)

No need to wonder.

 

OK, in order to make the building face the direction you had in mind, you'll have to rotate it in the Lot Editor and overwrite the lot with the properly rotated version. That's pretty easy.

 

As for changing the icon, there is no simple automatic process. You'll have to make an icon manually in Photoshop or GIMP. You'll need a good screenshot of your building to begin with.

 

The actual graphics for the icon is a PNG composed of four icons, each measuring 44×44 pixels.

- Icon as it appears in the menu when it is neither selected nor the mouse cursor is over it and you cannot build the structure (greyed out)

- Icon as it appears in the menu when it is neither selected nor the mouse cursor is over it, but you can build the structure

- Icon as it appears in the menu when it has been selected last, but the mouse cursor isn't currently over it

- Icon as it appears in the menu when the mouse cursor is over it

The only difference is the frame that surrounds the icons, and the fact that the leftmost icon should be in greyscale. You can find a template for the frames here.

 

Basically you'll have to proceed as follows:

• Take a screenshot of your building in SC4
• Open the screenshot in Photoshop, select a suitable square section, and cut it out.
• Resize the square cutout to 44×44 pixels. (Sharpen and enhance contrast if necessary)
• Erase the corner pixels of the cutout so it doesn't "underlap" the icon frames later. IIRC, the set templates of templates I linked above contains a template for this purpose: simply erase the corner pixels until the red background shines through.
• Insert the rounded cutout into the actual 176×44 px icon template with the frames layer. Make the frames layer invisible for now.
• Clone the inserted cutout three times and arrange the cutouts exactly side by side. Make sure you get it right to the pixel, or the icon will "jump" in game.
• Convert the leftmost cutout to greyscale, leave the others in colour.
• Make the icon frame layer visible again and put it in the foreground. This will give you an idea how your icon will look in game.
• Collapse everything into one layer.
• Save as PNG (to keep the transparent background for the rounded corners)
• Open your lot using iLive's tool LEProp. The actual process of exchanging the lot icon there is pretty self-explanatory.

Beware that when you open your lot in the LE and save again, your wonderful custom-made icon will be overwritten by a crappy, automatically generated LE icon once more! So make sure you save your custom icon.

 

I hope this will give you some first pointers - feel free to ask if you get stuck somewhere.

[pjk64 6]

 

Here is my building in the LE. I've read that to rotate the building, one must press the pg-up or pg-down keys. These do nothing. Also, I've read in the manual that items in the 2D view should be selectable, but my 2D view has nothing in it to select. The model is: 0x020A000 and the lot was created with PIM. Can this be done by editing properties in Ilive Reader instead?

 

I want to rotate the front of the building such that the gray arrow points to where I've placed a red arrow. I guess i want to move the street there as well. Though I have no clue how to do it. Also, could this have anything to do with why the building never connects to the city water system?

 

As for the icons...

 

I'll try what you've suggested after I get the building setup properly.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

You need to select whatever you want to rotate first, so try going to the "Building" tab, clicking on the grey box that represents the building, and hitting PgUp/PgDn then.

[pjk64 6]

 

As you  can see by the above image, my icon now has a (non-blank) background and the building's front is now where I want it. It also connects to the city water system.

 

As it turned out, there must have been something wrong with the original .dat file I created because I could not select anything under any tab in the LE, and I got an error when trying to open the lot with the SC4Tool. So, I recreated the entire pluggin from scratch and all issues were solved in one fell swoop.

 

Thanks for pointing out what *should* have occurred in the LE so I got the clue that my original work had gone awry.

 

And I didn't even have to delve into the murky pool that is Photoshop!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Whoa, now that's odd. I have never heard anything like that. Good to know that you were able to solve your problems, though!

[Cyclone Boom 17,016]

1) How can I get the icon in the tools menu to have something other than a black background? And how can I get the building to appear bigger (aka - closer) in the icon?

...

 

T Wrecks has well explained the manual process.

 

An alternative way is using the SC4LotIconCreator. This is a new tool developed by Yild, allowing the four icon styles to be made from a custom image.

It might be a useful option to consider, especially when creating multiple lots.

[pjk64 6]

Thanks for the link. I'll give it a try...

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Hm. That link leads me to the Google start page. When I tried to search for the tool manually, I couldn't find anything.

 

What I did find was a related discussion here.

EDIT

 

Wait, I think I found it. Here's the link to the download page. Thanks for making me aware of that tool, Cyclone! So far I'm making all my icons manually, and it is kinda tedious.