MGB Lot and Mod Shack

[rsc204 21,866]

19 hours ago, timoman said:

most of the TuLEPs, and 1 of 2 from the NWM roads still have that nasty grass on them, even though the rest of the network is grass-less as it should be. I'm assuming this is just because the NAM 34 retextured some of the turning lanes since you have made the mod (no big deal), but would installing an earlier version of NAM fix the problem?

NGN (v 1.0.1) is current as of NAM 34, it even supports the new MRC (Multi-Radius Curves).

If you have Sandstone on the textures with grass (TuLEPs), most likely they are coming from my sandstone mod. I will be updating that at some point, the new version will include compatibility with all my TGN options and NGN.

Quote

also -- have you got any recommendations for total, universal "no grass" mods, that would remove it from the vanilla maxis roads and transports? I use your sandstone mod and it looks wonderfully european as long as I dont use the default maxis roads

NGN should be covering the all the vanilla road textures though, if this isn't happening, you maybe have an issue somewhere. Could you show me a screenshot of how the roads look with NGN installed?

Without getting into a load of technicalities, it's not possible to include textures for puzzle pieces and have them show your installed sidewalk mod. Hence these were deliberately left out of NGN, because they need to be made with a specific sidewalk in mind. That's why I considered them part of the sidewalk mod and not a grass one.

The final part of all these texture mods is to unify everything together. So a user would install either a TGN or the NGN mod to cover the grass textures. Then install SWN (Sidewalk NAM, the replacement for the current SEN mod) for their chosen sidewalk. This would cover all the additional pieces that are sidewalk-specific. Any user with both installed would have a complete set of unified NAM textures. There will even be the option to make your own custom versions with automation, so in theory any set of grasses/sidewalk can be used.

Right now of course, that's not ready for a public release. It's probably best to make sure everything with NGN is working properly first. Then if you want to go through the remaining missing parts, I should be able to provide you whatever you needed in the meantime.

[timoman 50]

yikes...

I removed the sandstone mod in order to show you what I mean; in this picture the only sidewalk/road texture mods are NAM 34 with Euro textures, and the NGN. NGN is loading after NAM in the hierarchy

[rsc204 21,866]

21 hours ago, timoman said:

NGN is loading after NAM in the hierarchy

Are you sure about that? What is the folder named? Because everything I see here should not have grass if NGN is loading correctly. If you use the default z____MGB Mods folder, everything should be fine (assuming NAM uses the default z___NAM). Have you changed this folder name at all?

[_Michael 2,681]

Just now, rsc204 said:

Are you sure about that? What is the folder named? Because everything I see here should not have grass if NGN is loading correctly. If you use the default z____MGB Mods folder, everything should be fine (assuming NAM uses the default z___NAM). Have you changed this folder name at all?

I can confirm rsc204, My NGN works on these pics just fine. It must be your file/folder name and/or folder order.

[Talla 2XLC 36]

Is it possible to make your great Terrain Grass NAM (Sudden Valley) work with the Japanese SIdewalk Mod V2?

It has the old default Grass and messes up the nice overall Look.

[rsc204 21,866]

It should be working, since that mod is nothing more than T21s, it doesn't contain textures. Once more, I would check the load order of your mods, because something is loading after TGN that's putting the old grass back.

If you have not used the default z____MGB Mods folder from the installer, please rename it back to z____MGB Mods (that's with 4 underscores) and see if that fixes things.

[Talla 2XLC 36]

It was the Load Order, didnt pay attention . Thx

[timoman 50]

I did change the filename, from "z____MGB Mods" to "zz_MGB Mods", because in my Plugins folder, the first filename was listed before "z___NAM"

I changed it back to the original name, and now it works  very strange, maybe must be a quirk of the Windows 10 alphabetical system, and the order in my windows explorer is not necessarily the file order which SimCity 4 sees.

[_Michael 2,681]

3 minutes ago, timoman said:

I did change the filename, from "z____MGB Mods" to "zz_MGB Mods", because in my Plugins folder, the first filename was listed before "z___NAM"

I changed it back to the original name, and now it works  very strange, maybe must be a quirk of the Windows 10 alphabetical system, and the order in my windows explorer is not necessarily the file order which SimCity 4 sees.

It's not how windows sorts files that determines the load order, but how SC4 loads them. SC4 loads z__ before zz_. 

[rsc204 21,866]

5 hours ago, timoman said:

I changed it back to the original name, and now it works

SC4 sees the underscore very differently to Windows. Now the mod is working as intended, let me know if you are still missing some pieces you need covered or not .

[Talla 2XLC 36]

On 03/05/2015 at 1:44 PM, rsc204 said:

I could really use this, is this still in progress or on hiatus?

[rsc204 21,866]

That's just the regular Diagonal Bridge Enabler rail bridge. The RRW part is just some texture overrides. Actually, whilst I remember, I've also made a fix so you can make DBE bridges with RRW installed too, find that attached to this post. The textures for them can be found here (you'll likely need both).

 

[Talla 2XLC 36]

When i remove the DBE Folder (with the zDBE RRW Textures.dat) i get this. Even with only the zDBE RRW Textures.dat in the Plugins Folder it looks off

[rsc204 21,866]

So the file zDBE RRW Patch.dat should be placed with the DBE files. It overrides the original rail bridges, because the ID was changed for RRW, you couldn't previously make such a bridge with RRW installed. That file should remain with the DBE and removed from your plugins when not building a diagonal bridge.

The textures however (zDBE RRW Textures.DAT) need to load after any other rail textures and be in your plugins at all times. If you place it into my z____MGB Mods folder, then they should display as intended. The texture fix also supports the 15.5m Viaduct versions of the DBE bridges too.

[Talla 2XLC 36]

The dreaded Load Order...

[metasmurf 705]

Two small requests.

1) zzzNAM_Retexture_and_Cosmetic_Mod_Culdesac_Plugin_Superhands.dat (US road markings) doesn't seem to be covered by your NAM grass texture mod (Sudden Valley, uniwealth). If I load it before your mod the culdesacs won't show up, and if I load it after it has regular maxis grass sidewalks

2) Would it be complicated to convert the grass pedmall texture to correspond with the grass used for the rest of the mod? Reason for asking is that the grass pedmall is perfect as a OWR roundabout filler when you don't want any sidewalks when working with the RHW.

[rsc204 21,866]

The current versions of TGN/NGN only feature support for the default US or EU cosmetic retexture mods of the NAM. Without getting too technical, let's just say adding them to the installer is a lot of work, even though it's simple in practise.

As for the pedmall, I have such textures, only they have fallen under the remit of my SWN (Sidewalk NAM) mod, not TGN. That might seem a little odd, but if I did it the other way round, I'd have to hugely complicate things, or risk overriding custom sidewalk pedmalls, with Maxis sidewalks once more. TGN is really just the first part of my texture unification project, paired with (the to be released) SWN, everything in the NAM is unified around your sidewalk and grass preferences.

For now, the easiest solution was to attach a couple patch files, based on your requirements. One for the main grass pedmall and another for the cull de sacs, both for SV Unified Wealth are attached for you. Proving the issue of providing such files with a grass mod, some of the CDC textures may now show a concrete base. This is because the puzzle-piece versions of these textures have sidewalks baked-in. What sidewalk should I then include in this scenario? Logically the default Maxis ones would have to be included. So there is a balance between getting the grass you want, without potentially messing with any mods that add the sidewalk you want. In this case, if you tell me what sidewalk you are using (a link to it would be helpful too), I can customise these one-off textures to avoid the problem. The same applies with NGN, since to generate those for you manually, I really need to make them for a specific sidewalk to work optimally.

This is why the need for both TGN and SWN to co-exist will be necessary, if you want full control over your textures. To ensure the maximum flexibility for users, both mods will eventually be released in a package, allowing anyone to auto-generate custom variants. That way, such a mod will never be limited to only those options supported by releases. Not to mention technical hurdles to adding support for minor texture variations, simply don't apply to releasing it this way. If you check back to this post re: SWN, you can see some of the advantages of using a sidewalk and grass mod together to unify everything.

 

[rsc204 21,866]

It's been a little while since I posted any updates. So I figured I'd pop in and leave this here:

[matias93 7,535]

I think I'll cry, so much years needing this... Now, if diagonal routing for the CAN-AM were possible, everything would be perfect

[_Michael 2,681]

@matias93 Please forgive me for my ignorance, but what it new?

[rsc204 21,866]

36 minutes ago, matias93 said:

Now, if diagonal routing for the CAN-AM were possible, everything would be perfect

Funny you mention that, I was thinking much the same. Technically you can do it with curves, but the zig-zagging would be visually unappealing. As it would only be one extra piece, perhaps I can look at that one.

33 minutes ago, _Michael said:

Please forgive me for my ignorance, but what it new?

Diagonal pieces, at least for CAL's remake, they haven't existed until today.
 

[_Michael 2,681]

1 minute ago, rsc204 said:

Funny you mention that, I was thinking much the same. Technically you can do it with curves, but the zig-zagging would be visually unappealing. As it would only be one extra piece, perhaps I can look at that one.

Diagonal pieces, at least for CAL's remake, they haven't existed until today.
 

 

Oh, well if that's the case, I'm looking forward to getting to know these!  

[rsc204 21,866]

Progress is going well, I've 4 out of 6 pieces finished, the last two just need touching up so they align correctly.

So now my attention is turning to new pieces. I figured I might as well make any new stuff for SG's original canals too. This 270° bend for example:

Like the regular diagonals, I can convert these files to 3DS Max, then I just need to alter the textures to make matching versions for CAL's Canals. I've got to make the mirror of this piece, then perhaps, FAR Canals too.

Addendum: Quite how someone can be so inept with working out the angle, but still make the model, I don't know. However having thought about it, the angle is not 270°, but 135°. Since the straight is only rotated by 90°, then a further 45°. If I was better at math, I'd be better at making BATs .

[rsc204 21,866]

So just for fun, I thought I might call these the "CAL SG MB MGB Diagonal Canal Pieces". But who cares about names, what we have is 8 new pieces that expand CALs canals into the diagonal realm:

I just need to handle the lotting/modding parts now, then I'll get these out as soon as I can. There are some small visual imperfections. But when things line up in one rotation, but not others, what exactly can you do about it? Overall though, the issues are very minor compared to the new functionality on offer. I could spend countless hours trying to resolve them, but I think these are much better released as-is.

Update:

The additional 135° bends for SG's original canals are now available on the LEX.

[nos.17 5,256]

Looks great to me! I have always liked CAL canals, but never really used them because of the lack of flexibility. Thanks to you, that's a non-issue now.  

How were you able to replicate them so closely? Did you get access to the original models?

[rsc204 21,866]

5 hours ago, nos.17 said:

How were you able to replicate them so closely? Did you get access to the original models?

It's a little convoluted, but the simple answer is yes.

@SimGoober released a 1x1 straight model file for making the original pieces, in addition Callagrafx released the same for his updated versions. So that gave me the textures and basic layout to work with. I also need to give a huge thanks to @mattb325, he made diagonals for the original SG Canals and was kind enough to pass me the model files for them. This saved me the work of remaking all the pieces myself. So without all three members selfless acts, providing their work for others, this simply would never have happened.

As for making them match however, that's a bit of a nightmare, because I'd been trying for some time to do so. I always had the same problem, despite using the exact texture setup Callagrafx did, the water was never right. So I started to research as much as I could find out about CALs setup for making them. Eventually this led to me using 3DS Max 9 with ALNs BAT4Max (not the one by SimFox), which finally rendered them with the colours correctly. I'm literally rendering them on a unique PC setup, created purely for this purpose, so as not to mess with my current 2011 install of 3DS Max.

So right now I have the 6 pieces MattB made converted for CAL's canals and 2 new pieces for both sets. I am starting to think about adding FAR support too. But for now, I will release these diagonals, if FAR works out, that will come later.

[NCGAIO 562]

On 22/07/2016 at 1:08 AM, rsc204 said:

 I am starting to think about adding FARsupport too...

Great ...     until would return to play with  canals 

Perhaps with new interest from more some baters may be possible to regain this old JonM project.

 - Urban Rivers Project

And also reuse a abandoned project for more realistic traffic on propable water 

it would be a great thing about canals

[rsc204 21,866]

@NCGAIO, both these suggestions I'd like to see too. For JonM's Urban Rivers, to my knowledge nothing was released, without at least the model files, it would probably need making from scratch.

I'm just doing a bit of lotting, I thought this one might be useful to others, since it's FAR-3 based Residential:

There are currently three lots which need to grow together or they may not look right. So not the easiest perhaps, but that's 3x6, 3x7 & 3x8 R$ High Density lots. Which hopefully you won't have too much to compete with.

The tower blocks themselves are FAR, so I wanted to make it blend well on FAR roads. Inspired by @kingofsimcity's FAR-based office lots. Keeping with KOSC, it's possible to expand the on-lot parking using his parking lots (lower image).

There is a second FAR-based tower also by @ILL Tonkso which I plan to make lots for too. I think I would make the lot footprints the same, so both towers could mingle together without looking out of place.

[rsc204 21,866]

I'm pretty much finished with the Lotting on the first set of FAR-Towers. The second model is orientated differently, so I'm leaving those for now.

Dependencies will be a number of Girafe's trees/flora/urban pack, SHK Parking + KOSC's Add-ons and obviously, the original models by Ill Tonkso. There will be two sets of lots, a second without the parking and flora, with much reduced dependencies, which I guess some may prefer.

By default they show the installed sidewalk/grass, the pictures show a custom TGN (grass) override along with custom sidewalks. The lights used are also Maxis ones, in the example they are overridden to display lights from LRM.

These are Stage 7 R$ High Density lots, with around 1,600 Residents for the single towers and 3,000 for the double towers. So in total that makes for around 6,200 for all three. Other than tweaking the growth stages, all other properties were generated with PIM-X, so should be well balanced.

[rsc204 21,866]

You may have seen that I've finally uploaded my small convenience store to the STEX:

If you were one of the first 44 downloaders (i.e. before now), please re-download. I noticed an error had slipped into the Lot Files which prevents the building family from working as intended.