MGB Lot and Mod Shack

[rsc204 21,808]

Time for some changes around here, after a number of years of updates things have become fragmented somewhat, so in an attempt to make things simpler to find, I am summarising everything in one place that I've created/released over the years.

• In addition to my main development thread, please find a special thread relating to all my BAT Models here
• All my small mods/fixes are being updated into my Lil' Bits thread here
• Complete information on using GoFSH texture automation can be found here
• See all my official (STEX) releases by clicking here

Probably a good time to explain that I'm both RSC204 here and MGB204 on SC4Devotion, MGB was not available to me here if I remember correctly but is my preferred handle.

Here is a quick peek at some of my more popular mods:

 

Sidewalk NAM (SWN) - Intended to replace sidewalks on NAM networks that otherwise show the default Maxis one. Available in three variants or download the repository and make a custom version for any sidewalk using automation:

MGB Euro Pavements - My own custom sidewalks

SWN for Paeng's Sandstone Pavements

SWN for Catalyst's Asphalt Sidewalk Extension

 

Terrain Grass NAM (TGN) - Intended to replace the Grass on NAM networks to match one of four terrain mods:

Berner Oberland by Gobias

Sudden Valley by Gobias

Appalachian by Lowkee

Pyrenean by Orange (TSC)

 

[rsc204 21,808]

LHD NWM TuPEPs Centre Tile Fix (Legacy Puzzle-Based)

I'm not sure why, but my LHD install of NAM 32 (yes this is an old post), doesn't have a blank NWM TULEP Center-tile. Being picky, I started out to make a single blank piece, but then I decided I didn't like the mismatch of textures, so I fixed those as well. Note this is for Euro textures and LHD ONLY, this needs to load after your z___NAM folder, but ideally in the last folder that loads to ensure no problems:

MGB - LHD-NWM-Tuleps Center-tile fix.zip

Just to be clear, any attached files like this will not be subject to support in the way released mods would be, I will try to help with any problems though. Feel free to make requests, but bear in mind I am free also to decline. I plan on doing a lot of work for LHD stuff in the future, mostly just correcting stoplines, but I generally try to improve anything I find that I dislike on the way too.

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MMP Beta Testing

Hi I have just finished a set of MMP's for trucks from JES Vol.06, if anyone would like to get these early all I ask is that you provide me with some feedback on any problems you may encounter. Please PM me if you are interested.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Oooh! I don't have time to conduct tests because I'm cooking up something on my own, but truck MMPs sound like a very good idea!

[rsc204 21,808]

I'm always busy tinkering with something or other, but have not released anything in a while, that's because I've so much in-progress work that gets put aside where I'm distracted learning something new. My recent exposure to SC4BAT allowed me to finally work out how to fix one of my annoyances, some of the puzzle pieces for the P57 (Maxis Highway Override) still have the original Maxis textures on them.

Totally I finally worked out how to fix this, and have updated the HW over CAN-AM piece to show the new P57 textures (note this works with whatever RHW textures you are using). I still need to work out how to adjust the paths from the old MHW to P57, but I am confident I can make that work, even so I'm still getting traffic with the old paths from some limited testing so far. UPDATE: RHD Paths are now in place and working fine, now I just need to find the LHD path files for it, if anyone can help with that I'd be grateful.

Once the pathing is sorted, I plan to move onto any remaining pieces that can also be fixed up, here are some examples that should work with my current methods:

[T Wrecks 10,209]

That should be useful! I'm not sure if I'll ever do much with the RHW, but the Maxis highway override may be the right thing for me. Good to know someone's on the job to fill those gaps.

[rsc204 21,808]

I've released today a pack of 8 MMP's and also the Project Symphony Puzzle Piece fixes onto the STEX.

During my working on the later, I noticed that the Overpasses from the NAM (except 7.5m Diag Ave over Diag Ground Highway) all work just fine with Project Symphony. If you are using the Japanese NAM Facelift Mod's Overpasses, this mod overrides the override in Project Symphony and reverts those pieces back to Maxis Highway. Due to the horrific number of pieces that would entail to fix, I'm going to look into it a bit more, in any case if I do make such a patch, it will be a while off as a result. Thus I've released the current pieces as a set, rather than hold onto them for ages, updates may or may not come whenever. RHD and LHD versions are both availible, enjoy .

  Edited June 21, 2015 by rsc204  

[vinlabsc3k 127]

I've downloaded the MHW Mod fix and I love it. I really needed it, but there's a flaw, it's missing the U-Rail puzzle pieces!

[rsc204 21,808]

I plan to get around to all the missing pieces, but as soon as you start working with Diagonals it becomes a lot of work to re-build S3D files manually so that the textures will fit. Therefore I released this first set to test the water with only a couple pieces figuring that GLR and CAN-AM are far more used than URail and other features. Given it was around 10-20 hours work for just 5 puzzle pieces, I can't put a timescale on any future updates, but rest assured it's on my todo list so it should happen eventually.

[rsc204 21,808]

As usual I find myself attracted to certain projects at certain times, that's a nice way of saying I can be unfocused, however, my motivation is ripe right now for some heavy-duty texture work for the Gobias SV NAM mod I'm working on.

This would have been too mammoth a task if I had to make the textures, but Memo from the NAM team kindly gave me his custom wealth texture tool that makes most of them for me, so thank you so much, there are just too many files to have asked someone else to run it for me.

Currently I'm working out how best to package everything, but I've got working textures for Streets and 4 SAM variants, roundabouts and a few of the RHW networks, here's a very early preview to show what to expect:

I envisage two options, the usual Multi-Wealth arrangement or the option of using a unified single texture ($$ works best, so that's what I plan to make). I don't know at what point I'll become sick of the sight of textures yet, so to begin with I'm looking to cover all Streets, Roads, Avenues and some puzzle pieces.

The sudden motivation comes from finding the missing piece to completely automate the process of unpacking and repacking dat files recently. This makes working with textures (after the initial setup) very quick, for the most part it's just the job of any texture changes and packaging right now. That said, with such a large mod, that's a fairly daunting thought just thinking about it, ergh. I'll write up a tutorial at some point on my process for textures, here's the short version without much explanation:

 - Open dat in reader, use the File, Export All Files function to put the entire dat into a Temp folder.

 - I've made a .bat file which removes everything that's not an FSH, and also deletes the MipMaps I don't want.

 - Batch process them with FSH2PNG MkII into PNGs.

 - Batch re-name the files to the following format 0x00000000 (one operation only is required).

This takes all of 30 seconds to do, maybe a couple minutes with a really large file tops. I now have a complete set of all the textures I could want to work with, and they are all named so that when I re-import them using PNGtoFSH Batch the TGI's are taken care of. Given my improved processes, I will consider doing US textures for this mod, but don't take that as a promise I will work on the EU version first.

[TPB 562]

This is great stuff! I was starting to grow tired of those maxis grasses.

Is there perhaps a method to replace the grass that grows on lots so it matches Gobias'? Or are those textures built into the lots? Just realized this is exactly what gobias plugin does... neat.

I'm looking forward to that tutorial,  seeing IIDs scroll by in my dreams due to my recent work with textures.  

Any chance you could upload a larger resolution image for the preview? It's hard to actually see the grass in that image.

[rsc204 21,808]

Curse my attempts to save space on photobucket (I compressed the image), oh for the good old days when my ISP gave me some hosted storage as part of my subscription I could do with as I please, I yearn for an old fashion FTP server again... I've added the roads (including FAR/WRCs) today to the mod, here's a close up 1920x1080 (edit: sorry the full size image is long gone) image that clearly shows things, I really think this works best with the single $$ Wealth grass, but for now I'm using all three as that's the base mod:

Both of the latest Gobias Terrain mods; Sudden Valley and Berner Oberland come with an optional mod eg. SV Base Textures.dat that does this for the Maxis grass. I've combined it with my custom Maxis base and overlay textures, an override for the half (triangle) Maxis grass overlays and prop overrides. I have most of my custom content (assuming it was lotted with all Maxis items) already showing the terrain grass, my sidewalk, my custom Girafe trees and some other props I've been slowly overriding. I personally think lotting this way is more beneficial, you can make a single lot, and provided people have override mods in place they magically transform to fit every users preferences. Of course when you release such an empty lot Mr Troll will come along and tell the world how pointless it is, so you think sod it I won't bother to release any more lots then. Anyhow, back to the textures - or maybe I should go to bed, it's like 6am here .

[TPB 562]

That is looking absolutely amazing, I am definitely a new user of the SV Base Textures replacement and waiting eagerly (and patiently) for you to finish that! 

Don't listen to Mr. Troll. It is anything but pointless. Personally I am a big fan of things that work that way, that are "forward compatible" so to speak.

That is just solid product design as I see it.

From what I am seeing you are doing the RVT TSR tiles as well too, WOO!

[mayorplease 116]

I've released today a pack of 8 MMP's and also the Project Symphony Puzzle Piece fixes onto the STEX.

Hey rsc204, I have downloaded your "MGB - MMP Pack Vol1" from the STEX. It's great

Loving the trucks, I have one question about the rail cars, though.

In the screeshot you added on the download page, how did you plop those rail cars on top of the tracks?

The game won't let me plop them on dragged rail, I just can't get it to work

[rsc204 21,808]

Sadly you cannot place MMPs onto Transit networks, it's a game limitation, worse still you can't plop them in the empty spaces either, the entire 16x16m space is occupied . The screenshot uses a test lot I created which simply has some railway textures on it, it was really more of an example of how they could be used in connection with lots for railway sidings/freight terminals you will find on the exchanges. MMPs are not the most versatile way of using such props, they were made by request for another user, so I figured others may also find them useful. Personally, I would create a new lot for such sidings, that way I can use timed/random props to make it less static, but I've found the MMPs useful for dressing up some existing lots where there were just empty sidings.

[rsc204 21,808]

Quick update: The euro version of my Terrain Grass NAM (renamed) mod is now available in three varieties, Berner Oberland, Sudden Valley and Appalachian. US versions to follow shortly.

Update of the Update: US version is now uploaded too.

Single Wealth versions of BO/SV mods to follow shortly .

  Edited November 5, 2016 by rsc204  
Links removed: Obsolete, see the STEX for the 4 current editions of TGN

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

That's great!  For the US version, did you do the NAM updated US textures?  Rather than the old Maxis ones?  Superhands updated the curves and intersections a few years ago and now those are bundled in the NAM--as a standard feature, I think.

[rsc204 21,808]

Basically to create the repository files (those the mod is then based off) I extracted all the Maxis networks from the SimCity dats, after that I progressively added/overwrote them with the textures from the NAM files in the order they would usually load, so hopefully if all has gone correctly, they should all be the latest ones. I have to say I don't usually use the US textures, so it's a bit of a blind spot. I had the US version done first, because I had to create a copy of this US repository to load the Euro textures in the same way.

The upshot is, I've got a number of packaged "master" files which I can run through the automated process and after a few minutes it will churn out 95% + of the textures to make a new grass version of them. Road and Street networks are de-coupled from the mod, so once the repository was updated and new master files created, they can be changed easily too. It's just those final 5% that take any time to work with.

:Update:

All Unified Single Wealth version have now been upload too, so that's it for now. Thanks to everyone who's downloaded any version of the TGN, a lot of work specifically went into making something acceptable for distribution and I'm glad to see that my time has been well spent on this. It's not about the numbers for me, but seeing over 350 downloads in a couple days is really fantastic .

  Edited June 21, 2015 by rsc204  

[rsc204 21,808]

I'm hard at work on updates to unify my Sandstone and Terrain Grass mods, this will include full US support for the soon to be renamed for obvious reasons Sandstone Euro NAM. I'm also close to finishing v2 of the SAM7 Bikepaths I helped Catalyst with in addition to the T21 mod which will add bikes and come with options for more European signage. Actually I want to unify all my major mods so that they work in harmony and share a common folder, I'll therefore be updating most of my texture mods in the next few months. I've some add-ons planned for the TGN too, for example matching overhanging fillers for the grass. Such fillers currently exist for Paeng's Sandstone sidewalks, but I like to be free to use different sidewalks and it seems that there are not many other sidewalks with such pieces. So to kill two birds with one stone (or maybe 3), it seemed to me it would be better to create a set of template fillers based on Lot Textures, this way the textures could be simply swapped out when required. After a painful learning curve with the reader, I'm getting the hang of making such props, I've already made a base set of them:
 

 
Currently they show a custom Sidewalk mod I'm working on, but they match whatever sidewalk is installed, note the colour matching is pretty spot on, I've copied Vortext's use of a diffuse layer to correct the usual colour offset problem. I still need to lot them, not to mention work out how many other pieces I want to make. I'm thinking of some WRC fillers for starters, perhaps FAN fillers too, I'd be interested to hear what people would like to see. The grass ones will be set to use the Maxis Grass texture IDs, so if you have overrides they will match your terrain somewhat. I'm also thinking I could use them for other things like park textures and industrial fillers. Once the pieces themselves are created, copying them and changing the texture is very easily done.

:EDIT Feb 2019: These pieces are now properly released and can be found in this set:

I've also started updating the Project Symphony pieces again, I'm still taking it easy and aiming to cover Ortho pieces first.
 

 
 Today I've updated 2 of the U-Rail pieces and the Overpasses from the Japanese NAM Facelift mod to be compatible with PS. I hope to finish the Ortho pieces and have a release out in a week or so.

[SimCoug 5,973]

Awesome progress! Glad to see you are still plodding along with these really useful projects.

[rsc204 21,808]

Just uploading a Preview version of the Sidewalk Compatible Overhanging fillers.
:Update 02/2019: Finally these have been released on the STEX, see my previous post in this thread for a link to them.).

Currently there are 8 lots, find them in your Park menu after the Maxis stuff, there are a few extra props that might be useful for lotters too.

I know that the props themselves need some adjustments, for example the 16mx16m square prop doesn't actually cover 16mx16m, it seems I need to include a small overhang on each of them to make them fit better, which I will work on next. For now though I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions for new pieces that would be useful as fillers.

  Edited February 15, 2019 by rsc204  
Attachment Removed, please download final version, now on STEX

[rsc204 21,808]

Sorry for the double post, but this is an exciting development I can't keep to myself:

So the DBE-Patch for Project Symphony/Maxis Highway override will be included in the next update now.

RRW support for DBE looks promisingly simple too

[rsc204 21,808]

Just a quick update or two, I've updated two mods on the STEX, first my Maxis Highway Override Patch, now at v2 with many more supported networks and DBE support. Secondly, I've uploaded an additional preview version of my MTRDK, it's now a full automated process to make them with the optional scripted version included. Enjoy.

[rsc204 21,808]

Using the same process as both the RTMT and MTRDK automation, my latest project to automate texture replacements for sidewalks is coming. Basically I will provide the resources to enable anyone (regardless of ability) to create a totally custom set of NAM textures, similar to a Sidewalk Mod like my Sandstone Euro NAM. The difference being that you can take whatever sidewalk (and optionally grass too), you are using and generate a complete set of NAM textures to match. Here's an example I made using a texture by GTC and grass to match my terrain:

Creating your own custom mod is a doddle thanks to Rivit's new automation capability for textures. Included with the latest version of GoFSH, a texturing application for SC4. It takes only a few steps to create:

1. Download my resources
2. Download/Install GoFSH Application
3. Set up your textures to use with GoFSH (full step by step instructions will be included)
4. Point GoFSH towards my resources and click run
5. When GoFSH is finished, copy the newly created folder containing your ready to use custom NAM mod into your plugins directory.

Options exist for US and EU textures, each supporting both LHD and RHD variants, with support for Maxis, PEG 205 and RRW rail crossings. Here's a list of the supported networks/pieces:

PEDMALLS
MHW Interchanges
FLUPs
RHW Interchanges
TuLEPs (choose from any of the 6 NAM TuLEP variants)
Viaduct Rail
Draggable Road Viaducts
URail
Turbo Roundabouts
El-Rail over Road, Ave & RD4
Complete Unified GLR
RTMT / NAM Stations
And more...

Actually that's not the whole story, I've gone through every possible menu, dragged every intersection I could find and checked though every variant of the NAM textures imaginable. This mod will (if desired) replace every texture with baked-in sidewalks within the NAM with your custom textures. I'm pretty confident I'm able to meet that goal with this project. No longer will you have to choose between a new sidewalk and compatibility with the NAM, all sidewalks are now combatable using this process, giving you results like this:

I'm in the final stages of preparing this mod for release, so keep an eye out for updates soon.

[rsc204 21,808]

I've updated the SAM7 mod today to V2, amongst other things this includes the awaited T21 mod to add bikes onto the SAM7 streets. TGN variants will be added over the coming days too.

[cmdp123789 710]

Definitely a great addition to the game! Thanks for the content and the help throughout the different threads!

[Girafe 1,729]

The v2 looks good, 2 strange textures:

- when diagonal bike street is ending on straight bike street (there is a strange shadow not sure if it could come from another plugin I have)

- bike street crossing avenue (the mid part of the avenue in strange but I agree that this case in real life is really rare)

[rsc204 21,808]

The v2 looks good, 2 strange textures:

- when diagonal bike street is ending on straight bike street (there is a strange shadow not sure if it could come from another plugin I have)

- bike street crossing avenue (the mid part of the avenue in strange but I agree that this case in real life is really rare)

Well in no small part thanks to the wonderful bike props you made for them

I'll take a look at the textures tomorrow, the sets I'm using have changed so many times, I may have released some faulty ones in error. I'll be sure to fix any problems.

[rsc204 21,808]

Just looked at these today.

The red, yellow and green circles show the possible combinations of the avenue intersections. If you bring the bikepaths through the intersection on the green circle then they also will appear for the red circle. Since in the red circle the bikepaths would not be continuing, I didn't like this setup, so compromised and left the green ave-crossing as cars only. Since I'm a lot more skilled with textures since I made these pieces, I'll make an effort to connect the two parts with a pedestrian crossing, now I see them again I think there should be a pedestrian crossing here anyhow so the bikers could use that to cross to the other side too.

A tiny piece of the paving between the street and sidewalk has somehow been cut from the texture causing the other problem, that's an easy fix, but well spotted.

[rsc204 21,808]

It's about time...

...for MLs El-Rail to be compatible with RHW once again.

[cmdp123789 710]

Finally.. for real!