nos.17 Lot Development

[nos.17 5,120]

8 hours ago, Belfastsocrates said:

The parking textures look a lot better. You've also saved me some work as I was going to redo the lots for personal use

I still may take these revised versions though and expand the parking spaces. You have made my life easier though!

Glad to hear that! I do agree it may look nicer with larger parking lots, but I wanted to stick to the original size because growing buildings with a footprint larger than 6x6 can be unwieldy and hard to do naturally.

35 minutes ago, kingofsimcity said:

You definitely read my mind on those grocers. Looks like I won't need to do any additional re-lotting with them, they look great!

Also, are those modified island endcap textures that I spot? I just barely compiled a test DAT for volume 2 with a full set of those offset endcaps last night. That's 2 for 2, you're officially a mind-reading wizard now.

LOL those are.       I've got a pretty good process going. I can (unashamedly) rip other's textures and Photoshop them to get exactly what I want. Most of the time they are for personal lots and will never see another use, but these are one of the few exceptions that I would have used multiple times.

It is good to hear those are coming soon; I'll strike the two textures from my dat and just use yours.

[mattb325 28,880]

They look great!

It'll save me re-lotting my own for my own personal use  (Lol - there's almost always two versions of my stuff  - the 'official' version with no more than about 3 dependencies and then the one in my plugins where I actually enjoy the lot-making using all of the amazing stuff out there)

Just watch those trees on the Waitrose lot - one is in the concrete and the other is growing through the roof.

[rsc204 21,808]

I think you've picked a popular set to relot, I too was thinking about relotting them also :). I like the expanded parking very much and am sure I'll get a lot of use out of these.

 

[nos.17 5,120]

I really am glad yall like them. Anyone has any suggestions, you know what to do....
 

6 hours ago, mattb325 said:

They look great!

It'll save me re-lotting my own for my own personal use  (Lol - there's almost always two versions of my stuff  - the 'official' version with no more than about 3 dependencies and then the one in my plugins where I actually enjoy the lot-making using all of the amazing stuff out there)

Ugggggh. I know the pain. Same here. I have been trying to shake up some of my uploads by using relatively common packs that I have never used before: these are currently using Gascooker Vol01 because I already had them in my plugins from a different project and the set is in a British-(ish) style.

6 hours ago, mattb325 said:

Just watch those trees on the Waitrose lot - one is in the concrete and the other is growing through the roof.

Yep. I saw those right after I posted and have already fixed it. Think of it as a beta...  

 

And the last two. I am currently waiting on some textures to finish off the Aldi's and other lots as needed. There's just something about these that I am not satisfied with...I think it is the parking base texture I'll have to play around with it a little. It's weird because the first three look fine imo; it is just these two.

 

[nos.17 5,120]

If yall haven't already seen,

I've also given more love to those UK Shopping Centers and will be up as soon as @kingofsimcity updates his marvelous SuperSHK texture pack (if you're reading this, there is absolutely no hurry  ).

 

High-five (or maybe rep) for those who can spot the differences; I tried to add a little more "atmosphere." They're small, but I am immensely happier with the outcome.

[MushyMushy 3,617]

Better parking entrance on the brown-roofed store and better hashed areas on the black-roofed one?

They look very good (the BATs and the lotting)!

[DavidDHetzel 1,816]

I think there's market stalls on the ALDI that weren't there too.

 

 

Man these recent uploads though are making me wish someone could take over for Bobbo (and Goober) and make more retail.

[mattb325 28,880]

Great lotting! I think you'll have to send these to me immediately to test

[T Wrecks 10,209]

The walls alongside the cargo bay and the stacked boxes really work well for the Aldi BAT, just like the better parking lot entrance and those wooden planters along the front. The other one now has more people in front of the entrance, and do I spot tiny bollards separating the front parking bays from the road? Where did you take these from?

[nos.17 5,120]

@MushyMushy  ...   

@DavidDHetzel  ...  Not quite; they were there before, but I did improve a little around the stalls.

@mattb325  ...  If you want them, I can send them...

@T Wrecks  ...   I think you got every single one of my changes. The bollards in question are actually straight out of the SHK Parking Pack.

 

 

The other day I was looking through an external hard drive I have for backups and "discovered" a whole lot of SC4 stuff I had backed up and forgot about. From my crude and unorganized days, the files are a mess and I am sure I have duplicates a few times and files in tons of random folders. However, I did come across some older creations, some of which are pretty cool.

This is one of them: The Staples Center. It appears from the Photoshopped screenshots that I intended to upload it, but clearly I never did. Is there any interest in seeing this on the STEX? I probably will make a few improvements from what you see.

  

[kingofsimcity 5,739]

Definitely dug up a treasure if I do say so myself. Even If the only improvement you make to this happens to be fixing the trees from clipping, I'd gladly take it!

[nos.17 5,120]

On 3/14/2016 at 1:15 AM, kingofsimcity said:

Definitely dug up a treasure if I do say so myself. Even If the only improvement you make to this happens to be fixing the trees from clipping, I'd gladly take it!

Thanks, KOSC. I will definitely have to change some tree placement to avoid that clipping, but am also considering doing something to the parking lot. Something about it just doesn't 'jive;" I'll have to experiment a little

[markussaage 762]

Hello folks,

and again I'm getting an error with one of your creations, nos.17. This time it is the K-Mart Super Center.
As you can see in the attached file, it looks like somethings wrong with the IID. I use the already corrected version and this happened
with the growable version.

Can you please check on it? Thanks again...

 

[tariely 4,496]

On March 6, 2016 at 10:46 AM, nos.17 said:

...interest about seeing it on the STEX

 

OH MY , YEEEEEESSSSS!

BTW, nos17, about those Clayhurst parkings I requested of you (I have them, it's OK), but I'd like to be able to point them out to friends who are looking for parkings that are good-looking, quick and easy to plop (which KOSC, however absolutely gorgeous, are not so much). Can't you solve the problem with Andreas ?

[nos.17 5,120]

On 3/25/2016 at 9:06 PM, markussaage said:

Hello folks,

and again I'm getting an error with one of your creations, nos.17. This time it is the K-Mart Super Center.
As you can see in the attached file, it looks like somethings wrong with the IID. I use the already corrected version and this happened
with the growable version.

Can you please check on it? Thanks again...

Sighhh. I was hoping I would not encounter this problem again. I suppose I shall go through every other upload as well. I think the issue arises from inadequate testing procedures before upload. I usually never physically waited for the lots to grow and just used building plop to inspect all of the values. Lucky for you, spring break is this week for me so I should have adequate time to test such things.

On 3/30/2016 at 3:02 PM, tariely said:

OH MY , YEEEEEESSSSS!

BTW, nos17, about those Clayhurst parkings I requested of you (I have them, it's OK), but I'd like to be able to point them out to friends who are looking for parkings that are good-looking, quick and easy to plop (which KOSC, however absolutely gorgeous, are not so much). Can't you solve the problem with Andreas ?

Uhhh yea....    

I completely forgot all about that. I do agree that KOSC's parking can take a little while to figure out; I definitely can get the Clayhurst lots sorted out. It really should only be some small modifications.

[markussaage 762]

Just now, nos.17 said:

Sighhh. I was hoping I would not encounter this problem again. I suppose I shall go through every other upload as well. I think the issue arises from inadequate testing procedures before upload. I usually never physically waited for the lots to grow and just used building plop to inspect all of the values. Lucky for you, spring break is this week for me so I should have adequate time to test such things.

Well, I've gotta admit it is quite time consuming if you only use Growables like I do... And annoying sometimes because of the waiting periods before our Sims finally grow what we wanna see in our cities, right?!

Thanks anyway!

[nos.17 5,120]

11 hours ago, markussaage said:

Well, I've gotta admit it is quite time consuming if you only use Growables like I do... And annoying sometimes because of the waiting periods before our Sims finally grow what we wanna see in our cities, right?!

Thanks anyway!

Yep. And the frustrating thing (for me) is that it the problem is almost exclusively due to my failure to thoroughly test all of my content, which is something I DEFINITELY should have done. However, fix really is not that hard - I just need to null a few properties in the exemplar file and (maybe) copy all of the data over to a new lot.

 

 

I am a lot happier with the Staples Center parking lot now:

There is still a little clipping with some palms in the rear that I will fix, and I also need to overdo it with the crowd props too.

[markussaage 762]

That looks very nice... I like the parking lot...

Kind regards!

[nos.17 5,120]

 

@markussaage : the fixes will be coming soon; they're next on my list to do.

[nos.17 5,120]

Back with more B62!

Spoiler

Home Depot and BJ's Wholesale be lookin like Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 buildings (which is a fantastic game, but of inappropriate style for SC4), so I will probably be lumping them in to the Forsaken Files, because, TBH, I really do not want to spend the time to make a nice looking lot for buildings like those.  

These, however, are looking really nice, and I must admit, I had a little too much fun with KOSC's parking on BJ's. I really am liking the unique parking styles. As always, comments and improvements are welcome. 

Pick'n Save

 

BJ's Wholesale

[Compdude787 916]

I'm having some problems with two of your lots, the 70's-era Safeway and the Target SuperMega Center. The 70's Safeway abandons soon after plopping; this has also been reported by several other people in the comment section on its download page on the STEX:

The query makes me wonder if it has something to with the fact that it has zero jobs. Who knows?

Also, I am having a problem with the Target SuperMega Center where I am getting a brown box when I plop the lot that goes on the right side:

Yes, I do have the required SG Super Center dependency installed in my plugins, so I am totally baffled as to why I'm still getting a brown box.  Is there something else I'm missing? Thanks!

[twalsh102 1,601]

I've discovered an issue with the latest version of your Essentials pack.  It relates to the inclusion of LBT and SHK vehicle props that are also included in other prop packs (LBT Mega Prop Pack v.01.dat and SHK_ParkingPack.dat).  If someone just uses your Essentials pack, no problem.  If someone just uses one or both of the other prop packs, again, no problem.  The problem can only potentially exist when your Essentials pack and one or both of the other two prop packs are in someone's Plugins folder.

As long as users only use content and content creators only create content that refers to the vehicle props using the props' individual IDs, there is no problem.

The problem potentially rears its head when prop family IDs are used.  From what I can tell the LBT prop pack uses no family IDs for vehicle props.  The SHK prop pack assigns family IDs to 6 different series of vehicles (shk_vi, shk_v_tzs, shk_v_tz1, shk_v_tz2, shk_v_tz3, and shk_v_tz4) with different family IDs for ortho and diag versions of each series (for a total of 12 family IDs).  Your Essentials pack has 11 different family IDs for the LBT vehicles, and uses 1 family ID for all SHK diag props and 1 for all SHK ortho props.

It all comes down to the fact that no one can control how an individual gamer is going to organize their Plugins folder, or what content they choose to use with their game.  Therefore, no matter how a particular Plugins folder is organized, it's guaranteed that one or more of the three prop packs involved will override one or more of the other prop packs, with the result that props from the overridden family IDs will not show up in-game, and the overridden family IDs will show up as missing dependencies in such tools as SC4DataNode or SC4PIM.

Simplest fix I can think of:
1.  Nothing needs to be done with the LBT vehicle prop families. 
2.  Remove the SHK vehicles that have a conflicting prop family ID over in the SHK_ParkingPack from your Essentials pack.  Any content creator that has already used your prop family IDs will just loose a small number of vehicles from the variety provided by using prop families.  Any content creator that has used individual prop IDs will not be affected.
3.  You and/or any content creator using your vehicle prop family IDs (LBT- or SHK-related) will need to explain in your/their documentation how to make sure that your Essentials pack gets loaded last in the SC4 load order to ensure your prop family IDs are not overridden by either the LBT or SHK prop packs.

Of course, depending on content and dependencies installed, a particular gamer may never see this problem.

[nos.17 5,120]

Sorry, but it has been awhile since I have last checked in here. Pretty inexcusable actually...  

On 4/15/2016 at 3:38 PM, Compdude787 said:

I'm having some problems with two of your lots, the 70's-era Safeway and the Target SuperMega Center. The 70's Safeway abandons soon after plopping; this has also been reported by several other people in the comment section on its download page on the STEX:

The query makes me wonder if it has something to with the fact that it has zero jobs. Who knows?

Also, I am having a problem with the Target SuperMega Center where I am getting a brown box when I plop the lot that goes on the right side:

Yes, I do have the required SG Super Center dependency installed in my plugins, so I am totally baffled as to why I'm still getting a brown box.  Is there something else I'm missing? Thanks!

I am sorry I really don't see these things sooner as it is notoriously easy to miss feedback posted in the comments section as I will not get a notification. The lot does indeed have zero jobs in game but the Reader is telling me it has 120. That is something I need to look into and promise I will in the next few days.

With respect to Target, I am an idiot.     SG_SuperCenter01.dat is actually required, from SG Super Center 1. When populating the dependency list, I probably forgot which one I used and then used the wrong one as the images on SG's uploads are switched: 1 shows the buildings that are enclosed in 2 and vice versa. An unfortunate situation and I am genuinely surprised no one before you has caught it.

While I am on the topic, I am probably going to remake the SuperMEGA Center; with KOSC's new parking textures out, there is absolutely no reason for me to be content with what I have done one and a half years ago.

 

On 4/15/2016 at 7:48 PM, twalsh102 said:

It all comes down to the fact that no one can control how an individual gamer is going to organize their Plugins folder, or what content they choose to use with their game.  Therefore, no matter how a particular Plugins folder is organized, it's guaranteed that one or more of the three prop packs involved will override one or more of the other prop packs, with the result that props from the overridden family IDs will not show up in-game, and the overridden family IDs will show up as missing dependencies in such tools as SC4DataNode or SC4PIM.

I think I understand what the problem is. My families in no way should override anything Heblem (LBT) or shokthrpy (SHK) have created. In my essentials file, if you venture into the Families folder, I have included an excel sheet containing the details of all the families I have created. You will notice that none of the family instance IDs will overlap with anything from the SHK pack (proof). All of the original SHK families are prefixed with 0x5f85b and mine with 0x5f85e. However, you will see that each of the families will reference the prop instance IDs from each pack. This is fine: I am basically saying that this specific prop is to be included in this new family.

If however, you are talking about prop family IDs overriding each other, that is also a non issue. Before uploading version 1, I was sure to request my own family ID range at SC4Devotion (I can provide you the link but the site is down now). Certain mods there (either JMouse or catty-cb, I can't remember) keep a master list of all ranges ever assigned to make sure that no user uses IDs which will conflict with anyone else's.

If that answers your question, great, if not, feel free to continue to ask until you are satisfied. I would love to continue the discussion with you should it be necessary. At this point, I am assuming that your questions come from just inspecting the files, and not having encountered any actual overrides/errors. Is that correct?

 

 

Again, @Compdude787 and @twalsh102, I am truly sorry that it has been roughly a month and a half before I have gotten back to yall -  truly unacceptable.

  Edited May 30, 2016 by nos.17  

[Compdude787 916]

20 minutes ago, nos.17 said:

With respect to Target, I am an idiot.     SG_SuperCenter01.dat is actually required, from SG Super Center 1. When populating the dependency list, I probably forgot which one I used and then used the wrong one as the images on SG's uploads are switched: 1 shows the buildings that are enclosed in 2 and vice versa. An unfortunate situation and I am genuinely surprised no one before you has caught it.

Thanks, I just downloaded this one and hopefully it's all good now!

[twalsh102 1,601]

What, you mean real life doesn't take precedence in your house?  No apologies necessary!

Rereading my original post, I can see where it appears I'm saying the nos.17 essentials totally overrides SHK_ParkingPack.dat and LBT Mega Prop Pack v.01.dat.  I should have described the issue as: depending on file load order, parts of one or more of the three prop packs will override parts of one or more of the others. 

My original post was in fact due to a "missing dependency" issue I ran into when checking one of the lots in my plugins folder (I forget which one at this point).  Both SC4DataNode and Pim-X were reporting missing dependencies.  By opening the lot in the Pim-X lot editor and comparing the location of the missing dependency "zot" with an image of the lot that came with the download, I was able to determine the missing dependency was in fact a vehicle or vehicle cluster.  The vehicle dependency for the lot was supposedly satisfied by SHK_ParkingPack.dat.  In this case the "missing" prop family was 0x5f85B90d (which I discovered was the tz4-diag family).  This family did not show up at all in Pim-X (just as it is missing from your proof screenshot).  At that time I had my Plugins folder organized such that SHK_ParkingPack.dat was loading before nos.17 essentials.  If I rearranged load order and restarted Pim-X, the "missing" family from SHK_ParkingPack.dat reappeared, but your two SHK families went missing. SC4DataNode showed prop exemplar overrides, either prop exemplars associated with your SHK prop families, or the original prop exemplars in SHK_ParkingPack.dat, depending on which prop pack loaded last.

After digging deeper, I got a bit confused.  By whatever method you ended up doing so, the prop exemplars that you created for the KevDan families, and all but two of the LBT families (nos.17_LBT_VehiculoFamilias_1c45deg.dat and nos.17_LBT_VehiculoFamilias_1c90deg.dat) were done the "correct" way (to avoid conflicts) in that you ended up with prop exemplars that were essentially copies of the existing prop exemplars in the LBT and BSC-KevDan prop packs, but with one added/changed property (building/prop family ID) and with changed TGIs.  If the same thing had occurred (i.e. changed TGIs) with the two SHK families and the two LBT families referenced above, this   issue wouldn't be an issue.  I wasn't able to check the Jim_CarProps family or the three B62 HwySigns families as I couldn't find the models for those props.

[DavidDHetzel 1,816]

Can't wait for the Pick-N-Save. Have memories of going three with he grandparents when I was a bit younger.

[nos.17 5,120]

While I have been quite quiet here for awhile, nothing is quite quiet in my plugins folder. I have had a major project in the works for awhile and have recently started it and finished the first segments.

Basically, I am going through every single B62 building I have created and re-uploading it, for three main reasons:

1. To (hopefully) once and for all squash the annoying cohort issue with many of my lots that caused invisible buildings to grow on maxis lots or maxis buildings to appear on my lots. Much thanks to @markussaage for finding and helping me debug these errors
2. To finally have a consistent menu grouping when using Building Plop cheats. Some lots are grouped in alphabetical order by name and are very apart in the list, and for a period I tried to have a few different uploads use the same building (which did not turn out to be too effective). All lots will now be consistent: B62-PLOP_xxxx or B62-CS$$_xxxx, etc
3. Building stats (especially jobs provided) will be generated by PIMX for more accurate job counts. I suspect some of my earlier lots had trouble growing because some of the largerish lots had relatively low numbers of jobs; I had tried to make it realistic for real world standards instead of SC4 standards. That will be fixed. 
4. There are also few lots, which to be honest, I am not proud to call my own. I will be going back to revisit old lots and put them up to par. I will also be modernizing as necessary, converting old SHK parking to KOSC Superparking.

 

--------------------------------
My Plan for updating:   

(Someone please tell me if this will not work or if there is a better way)

Since I have so many uploads I will be updating, I figured it would be unfeasible to update them and make users redownload every single file. Thus, I figured I would upload a fix with all of the redone lot and building exemplars and include a Cleanitol file to make sure all old versions are removed. The current files on the STEX will then be modified to contain only the model files and necessary descriptors: all lot related content would be in this single new upload. Users would, of course, be free to delete any content they do not have and/or not want. I believe that this is the most feasible option right now to update a huge number of lots (probably around 100+) in a manageable download size-wise.

Expect a huge image dump of new updated lots as I get more complete. I aim to get at least 2 sets done per day.

 

 

On 6/1/2016 at 10:44 AM, twalsh102 said:

After digging deeper, I got a bit confused.  By whatever method you ended up doing so, the prop exemplars that you created for the KevDan families, and all but two of the LBT families (nos.17_LBT_VehiculoFamilias_1c45deg.dat and nos.17_LBT_VehiculoFamilias_1c90deg.dat) were done the "correct" way (to avoid conflicts) in that you ended up with prop exemplars that were essentially copies of the existing prop exemplars in the LBT and BSC-KevDan prop packs, but with one added/changed property (building/prop family ID) and with changed TGIs.  If the same thing had occurred (i.e. changed TGIs) with the two SHK families and the two LBT families referenced above, this   issue wouldn't be an issue.  I wasn't able to check the Jim_CarProps family or the three B62 HwySigns families as I couldn't find the models for those props.

 

 

 

 

I appreciate the initiative you are taking on this. You are most likely right. I made these awhile and really didn't truly know what I was doing (barely trying to find a tutorial), and I assumed that I was fine since they worked. To be honest, I probably used those LBT car families on like 1 or 2 lots, and as I revisit them I will probably terminate LBT car use there too. So you believe that the fix is as simple as changing the TGIs for those families? It would be great if that were the case...

The Jim car props are from the Jim CarProp Pack. Again, I used these on like one or two lots, but might use them again in the future as they're solid models. B62 Highway Signs have been unfinished in limbo for like 2.5 years. It is a really simple job but I never got to it as I wanted the upload to contain MMPs and that effort has stalled. I could probably dig them up if you like, but as they are unique models, I don't expect there to be any of the errors similar to above (but you never know)...  

On 6/3/2016 at 8:43 PM, DavidDHetzel said:

Can't wait for the Pick-N-Save. Have memories of going three with he grandparents when I was a bit younger.

Its coming soon... I ran into a few problems with it but everything should be ok now

  Edited June 23, 2016 by nos.17  

[markussaage 762]

I was really a pleasure to help you out here.

Thanks for the very kind words! I'll be there to test your new creations...

Kind regards!

[twalsh102 1,601]

12 hours ago, nos.17 said:

So you believe that the fix is as simple as changing the TGIs for those families? It would be great if that were the case...

I actually tried it on a backup copy.  All the overrides went away, regardless of which order any of the three prop packs were installed.  Actually, all you need to change is the Instance ID.  Simple to do in iReader since you can highlight any number of exemplars, right click and choose "Generate new instance."  What you end up with is the original Prop Packs with their original IIDs and whatever Family ID references (or lack thereof) that existed with the original prop exemplars, and your prop exemplars with different IIDs and whatever Family ID you want to use, and no overrides.

No need to bother with the B62 signs (at least not on my account) , as I was only stating that I couldn't check them out because I couldn't find the original prop pack they were based on.  Like I mentioned previously, I wouldn't even have stumbled upon the issue except I was checking out a lot for missing dependencies and found that part(s) of one of the dependencies listed (SHK_ParkingPack) had been overridden.  If I had just plopped the lot (or let it grow), I would probably never have noticed that vehicles never appeared in a particular block of parking spaces.

But that does bring up another subject:  None of your prop families (SHK, LBT, KevDan, JimCar) will work properly without the models (on which the prop exemplars are based, old or new IIDs) already being installed in a users Plugins folder.  Therefore, you should probably consider those original prop packs where the models exist, as dependencies for nos.17 Essentials, and list them as so.

 

[nos.17 5,120]

7 hours ago, twalsh102 said:

Actually, all you need to change is the Instance ID.  Simple to do in iReader since you can highlight any number of exemplars, right click and choose "Generate new instance."  What you end up with is the original Prop Packs with their original IIDs and whatever Family ID references (or lack thereof) that existed with the original prop exemplars, and your prop exemplars with different IIDs and whatever Family ID you want to use, and no overrides.

 

Cool! Thanks so much. I will fix these soon and maybe run them by you as a double check. As a content creator, I really should learn how to use DataNode. I have it installed and at the ready in my SC4 Utilities folder, but never got around to actually learning; it's a shame as it could come in handy in a lot of situations.

That is also the problem with these kinds of errors: they are mostly invisible if one does not do thorough testing. And I am the first one to admit that my testing regimen is definitely not thorough.  

7 hours ago, twalsh102 said:

None of your prop families (SHK, LBT, KevDan, JimCar) will work properly without the models (on which the prop exemplars are based, old or new IIDs) already being installed in a users Plugins folder.  Therefore, you should probably consider those original prop packs where the models exist, as dependencies for nos.17 Essentials, and list them as so.

 

Technically, yes. I did this for a few reasons: a) no one ever likes cascading dependencies, b) (I assume) very few people are actually using those families on their own custom lots, so in the lots I created which use those families I add the cars as a direct dependency even if the props themselves are not directly used. As you said, as long as they are in the plugin folder, everything is good. I figured this would be simpler for users instead of downloading a dependency for a dependency package. You catch my drift?

On that note, however, I do think it might be a good idea to at least mention in either the readme or description that it uses props located elsewhere.