JBM-Modding Questions (Help only)

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

it wont let me upload the file

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

ok worked this time...

 

I did not have the LAG in LE .... It was in SC4

 

But I had dozens and dozens of props on the lot. With the new model its no lag now.

 

Mary

 

[GrampaAl 76]

OK, I had a look at your lot. It seems fine as far as pointers are concerned. However, this lot, the little 1x1 field, has 25 props. Ouch. This will cause the game to lag a whole bunch. Please try to limit the number of props on the FIELD LOTS to Max of 9.

The number of props on the main farm is not such a bad problem, there are only one of those, but with the little 1x1 that grows around the farm, there are many of those.

So a 4x4 main farm that has 16 tiles total (4x4=16) and has less that 9x16 or 144 props is not as bad as 16 each of the 1x1 field lots which also has 9 props on each.

Now the 4x4 farm has way less than 144 props I am guessing. So now maybe you can see how having the growing 1x1 lots around the farm can cause a cumulative problem of very large proportions.

Now, with props that are to be use on the little 1x1 field lots, you really need to make them in strips so you can have 5 or 6 strips on a lot. Each prop counts as ONE prop, does not matter all that much how large or small it is just the total count. So 5 long strips is way, WAY better than 5 rows of 5 props per row which is a total of 25 props!

I hope everyone else watching this thread is learning about farm design from our discussion.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Date:10/15/2004 11:45:26 AM
Author:GrampaAl

OK, I had a look at your lot. It seems fine as far as pointers are concerned. However, this lot, the little 1x1 field, has 25 props. Ouch. This will cause the game to lag a whole bunch. Please try to limit the number of props on the FIELD LOTS to Max of 9.

The number of props on the main farm is not such a bad problem, there are only one of those, but with the little 1x1 that grows around the farm, there are many of those.

So a 4x4 main farm that has 16 tiles total (4x4=16) and has less that 9x16 or 144 props is not as bad as 16 each of the 1x1 field lots which also has 9 props on each.

Now the 4x4 farm has way less than 144 props I am guessing. So now maybe you can see how having the growing 1x1 lots around the farm can cause a cumulative problem of very large proportions.

Now, with props that are to be use on the little 1x1 field lots, you really need to make them in strips so you can have 5 or 6 strips on a lot. Each prop counts as ONE prop, does not matter all that much how large or small it is just the total count. So 5 long strips is way, WAY better than 5 rows of 5 props per row which is a total of 25 props!

I hope everyone else watching this thread is learning about farm design from our discussion.

quote>

Ok I'll pull it back into Bat and put it in rows. Thanks for the help. I hope this has helped other too.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Hello

 

I need some help again, I have just receaved a request for a seasonable crop. Can you help me figure this trick out.

Thanks.

PMiller

 

[GrampaAl 76]

Oh, Oh! This one is going to be harder.

Rather than plunge in right now, here is what I suggest.

The secret is in the Props. So take a look at one of the existing lots that have seasonal crops, and make sure you study the Prop exemplar for the crop that is seasonal in appearance. You should see about 4 new and different properties that you may not have noticed before. The reader will explain in the bottom window what each of these properties is.

I will myself be releasing a lot in the not too distant future which uses some of these techniques.

None of this is really secret, all of it is contained within the SimCity4_1.dat file.

However, it will probably be a whole lot easier to study an existing lot which is no doubt simpler than the Maxis supplied items.

There as usual 2 or three different ways of accomplishing this effect. However, be warned once again, these seasonal things, although cute, are a real drain on the computer resources as well. In fact, once I release the lot, I will let you know here, and we can use it as a course of study. However, you can right now take a look at some of the others already on the STEX.

Already some of the seasonal crops have been blamed by some for slowing down their cities. And they are correct. It takes a good computer system to display these particularly on the little 1x1 lots that have too many crops already.

Come back around the end of the month, or the beginning of November and let us know what you have discovered, and where you have gotten stuck, and from there we can probably get you on the right track.

Good luck. Have fun. And above all, enjoy the adventure of discovery.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

hello and thanks for your reply.

 

I will look at them and study them and try to figure out what the new lines have. I have noticed several lines in the exemplars for which I do not understand or have seen used prev..

 

I have several props for which I have started so I will finish them and get them ready for my nov1st release.

 

I also have two lots for which need work to get out in November also.

 

Is there a lot you recommend looking at that will perhapes be easier to figure out? Thanks again

PMiller

 

[GrampaAl 76]

Any PROP that has seasonal properties.

I am looking at one now:
prop_bls_Pumpkins_Seasonal.

Here are the properties that I see that are different:

1. Simulator Date Start. This has two values, the month and the day that the simulator is to start.

2. Simulator Date Duration. This is how long in days the prop is to display before it disappears.

3. Simulator Date Interval. This is how long the time is before the simulator starts all over again. (usually 365 days), but could be a different time period.

4. Resource key type 4. WHAT!!! Now this one is the most difficult.

This one has 8 values. The first 4 are all zeros.

The fifth value is 0x27812821.

The next three values are the TGI of the MODEL which is the model of the prop to be displayed.
---------------------------------------
More on this later.
---------------------------------------

My question for you now, before we get off onto another topic. You originally wanted to know how to get a farm lot to grow. Then you wanted to know how to attach a small 1x1 lot to grow around the farm.

Are you satisfied that you can now do this repeatedly. Doing one lot once is fine, but can you do it again and again. If not, you should practice this until you are quite sure you can do it everytime. When you feel you can, that is really when you are ready for the next step.

Is that next step seasonal lots? If so, do you have enough machine power and memory to handle this. If you do fine for you. Now how about the rest of the community. Will they have adequate machine power? If not, you run the risk of people complaining that your farms are slowing down their machines (a good sign in a way, since you now know that are actually using your farms) but do you want to accept this risk. Maybe if you do this, you should also warn the general public that your lot contains seasonal props and they can possible cause a serious LAG to their cities if they have large farms with these seasonal props.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Date:10/19/2004 8:33:33 AM
Author:GrampaAl

Any PROP that has seasonal properties.

I am looking at one now:
prop_bls_Pumpkins_Seasonal.

Here are the properties that I see that are different:

1.  Simulator Date Start. This has two values, the month and the day that the simulator is to start.

2.  Simulator Date Duration. This is how long in days the prop is to display before it disappears.

3.  Simulator Date Interval. This is how long the time is before the simulator starts all over again. (usually 365 days), but could be a different time period.

4.  Resource key type 4. WHAT!!! Now this one is the most difficult.

This one has 8 values. The first 4 are all zeros.

The fifth value is 0x27812821.

The next three values are the TGI of the MODEL which is the model of the prop to be displayed.
---------------------------------------
More on this later.
---------------------------------------

My question for you now, before we get off onto another topic. You originally wanted to know how to get a farm lot to grow. Then you wanted to know how to attach a small 1x1 lot to grow around the farm.

Are you satisfied that you can now do this repeatedly. Doing one lot once is fine, but can you do it again and again. If not, you should practice this until you are quite sure you can do it everytime. When you feel you can, that is really when you are ready for the next step.

Is that next step seasonal lots? If so, do you have enough machine power and memory to handle this. If you do fine for you. Now how about the rest of the community. Will they have adequate machine power? If not, you run the risk of people complaining that your farms are slowing down their machines (a good sign in a way, since you now know that are actually using your farms) but do you want to accept this risk. Maybe if you do this, you should also warn the general public that your lot contains seasonal props and they can possible cause a serious LAG to their cities if they have large farms with these seasonal props.

quote>

All Valad questions. Let take the 1st one 1st.

No I am not positive I can do this every single time. So I will probably practice more.

second question. I am aware of the machine speed. I barly have enough memory to render some of the smaller stuff I do...

I will take the question of computer speed up with the person asking for the prop to be seasonable.

I also intend to come out with 2 versions of the lot one being seasonable and one not so the user will have a choice of which lot to use.

Thanks for the concerns and I will take them all into account. I will prop wait to do seasonable stuff and maybe see if someone can do it for me right now.

thanks again for your quick reply.

 

[Daeley 46]

just a small suggestion here... I'm not that good with editing lots, but I do have a few farming cities (hence my Rural setting mod) and I have felt the cpu issues myself. One time I decided to build a large farming city with the NO-IR mod by GrampaAl - thus only getting the CSX and BLSGA farms.

It worked fine in the beginning, but when my city got larger than a 1/4 of the map the lag was starting to get really bad and by the time I had 1/3 of the map filled I had to stop working on it because it went sooo slow... (my system at that time was a P3 800Mhz with 320Mb RAM btw)

 

to prove my point I'm gonna throw a few simple calculations around here... say you want a little crop with props... you can easily have 10-20 props per 1x1 crop tile, correct? Now make these seasonal (x4) that becomes 40-80 props per tile. Grow the farm on a 10x10 land and that becomes (x100) 4000-8000 props... Grow 15 farms and you get something around 90.000 props! See where the performance issues are coming from?

 

It is a proven fact that farms with texture field lots will not cause all these problems, so my suggestion towards you would be to try to put as few props as possible or even just textures on your 1x1 field lots, and add as much detail as possible to the actual farm main lot. If you eventually get to understand seasonal props (good luck on that btw... it looks very complicated to me), you can allways add them to the main lot - or issue a performance warning when you place it at STEX.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Daeley

 

Thanks for the info. I am aware of the computer lag. I most likly would not have asked about it if I was not asked to make one.

 

I gave up textures a long time ago as they never seemed to be exceptable. I am better at BAT than i am at drawing or making textures so I gave that up.

 

I will most likly stick to normal bats for now and not try to attempt the seasonable ones..

 

 

Grampa Al,

So as not to lose site on my origial goals I am going to take a step back ward and concentrait on doing just growable for now. I do not want to lose any help I am getting from you.

 

Thanks both Daeley and Grampa Al for your help and comments.

 

Daeley

Will you be avable to help me once again with custom UIs when I get the growable stuff down? I would like to learn that next. It will prop be about another month or two before I attempt it but would like help should I still need it. I lost most if not all PMs you sent to me a while back regarding UIs so I might need to ask a few questions again. I will try to keep them brief and to the point.

 

thanks

PMiller

 

[Daeley 46]

I cannot guarantee I will always be able to answer your questions quickly or very elaborate, but you're always free to ask questions.

[GrampaAl 76]

On those seasonal props. A warning certainly is in order. So far, there are NO 4 season props, only two seasons that I know of so far.

Mary, we had just started on the seasonal props, and our little discussion so far was for only ONE season. An on/off type of switch that is timed.

To do truly 4 seasons would require a separate prop for each season, so the calculations that Daeley presented above would indeed be true and look like a total worst case scenerio.

So you do remember my recommendation to use strips for props, and not more than about 4 of them even then.

Now even if you should carry this all the way with 5 stips per 1x1 lot, and then 4 seasons as well, that would be 20 strips total, and would indeed result in eventuall disaster.

What I believe BLS GA has so far used is 4 or 5 strips, with only two seasons for a total of 8 to 10 props per 1x1 lot. Even that is a strain on lesser systems.

Daeley mentioned that at that time (maybe still I don't know) that he had only 320 Megs of RAM, and that is seriously not enough for what he was at that time doing.

I now think that we ourselves at BLS GA need to provide warnings to folks that these farms can eat more resources that big cities.

Not all, but some of the more recent. Those which have more than 5 props per tile.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

 

This is 15 strips. So yeah thats gonna be a big problem. That was why I was starting to wonder if I should do it in seasons or not. I did ask the person if really wanted it to be done and explained that it will be a large drain on CPU and RAM..

 

[GrampaAl 76]

Yep this can be heading for trouble. However, just think of what that would have been without strips. 15x15 or maybe as many as 225 props. That would have been a total disaster for a 1x1 lot.

Now I actually rather like the appearance of those strips, you are really getting better here and those look nice. Performance will be crap, but the visual is nice.

If you were to take every other one and rotate it 180 degrees would it look less consistant. Maybe it is better with the rows between where the tractor went. Not sure.

Since you have the ability now to combine one prop into a strip of props, how about combining all 15 strips into ONE prop that spans the entire lot. Now THAT could be something. A single prop that looks like that would be a real achievement in my view. I would be proud to use that prop on one of our lots as well. Also with a single large prop, the performance issues would be practically gone.

Please remember to save this original strip, since you may not like the single prop when done, and wish to do some further work on it with the strip prop to combine in different ways. Can't really tell until you see the final or a preview result.

You are humming now.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

I will try that and see how it works. Thanks

 

Mary

 

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

ok Tried to make a whole field in bat and well I keep running out of memory. To many cylendars required for a feild.

 

I only have 256 megs of ram.

 

PMiller

 

[GrampaAl 76]

256 Megs of RAM? Ooops! that is too bad. You will be limited by that in what you can do, not only with the BAT but with the game itself. I'm rather surprised that you have not seen a number of problems in the game already. If you have even half of a medium size city which is primarily farms, I would expect you to be seeing serious lag, especially if you are running on high graphics mode.

Can your partners do it for you. Maybe they has more RAM?

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

hi

 

well an hour in a half later I got the prop made in Bat now I got to get it rendered. something like 6000 or more cylendars. WOW!

 

XP seems to be handling it it just makes the virtual mem bigger and shuts other stuff off. that might allow me to render the thing.

 

It did keep running out of mem I would have to wait like 5 min or more just to clone another section.

 

Yeah I have run into lag problems with SC4 . I usually end up turning stuff off.

Well in about an hour I am going to try to render it and hope that it does render. My only partner is Johnb and I am not sure what mem he has.

 

Well talk to you later.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

I have a question.

 

I was watching the history channel last night and it accured to me that the one think lacking in the game is a Natural Gas Company. Is it possable for one to be implimented. I don't mean do it myself granted I don't have that kind of skill. I was just wondering if it could be done at all. Just a courouse question.

 

Grampa Al,

Johnb has less memory than I do so he won't be able to render the file for me either. I got to about 3 rows and the computer told me I was out of Virtual Memory. Is there any way to get around that?

 

[GrampaAl 76]

Well, you could increase the size of the virtual memory, but what that does is beat your hard drive mightily. I don't recommend it.

Now as I understand it, you were able to do two rows but not three. At least you got the number of props cut in half. Had you been able to get three rows combined, you would have reduced the number of rows required to 1/3 of the 15 which would be 5. That at least would be a workable number.

You might try sending a few PM's to some known good batters and ask it they would be kind enough to clone your one row and to combine it 5 times to have a prop that is 5 rows wide, which would then only require 3 of those props to make up the entire width of the lot.

It will need to be someone who has significantly more memory that you have. 1 gig or more of RAM should do it I would think. I have 1 gig but know nothing of the BAT so wouldn't even know where to start.

Unfortunately for quite a few here, I suspect memory problems are the downfall for some who wish they could do more.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

I tried to ask  DM last night only I had to get off the computer. I will see if I can contact him again and see if he can do it for me. I'll get back to you.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Hi Grampa Al,

 

I am posting this to show you I think I pretty much have getting a growable down. This one I do not yet have a field lot for I was going to try and take that Rice paddy prop and turn it into hay for a hay field. Not sure if it would work but thats was the idea.

 

At anyrate here is the farm I just kinda tossed together.

 

This part of the farm making seems actually quite easy. Now that I know what I am doing...

Thanks for all your help.

 

***************

QUESTION

**************

ok now that I have it growing at a low stage how do I change the stage growth and or the lot growth. like I showed in the prev messages when I 1st started. what line is it? Some of my farms I would like to be at a higher stage.

[GrampaAl 76]

Hello Mary: Glad to see you seem to have that first stage down. Heh! Do I see a little bragging here? lol. JBM Farming eh! Nice touch.

First a small warning, those darned animated horses, can eat away at your RAM also. I would maybe use only one of those effects props, maybe two at most. Just a recommendation.
--------------------
Now for the stage. This being a Horse farm, and horses eat the hay from a stage 1 growth farm, I would make it Stage 2. Now if you later make a slaughter house or a glue factory that is on a farm lot that would be a stage 3. Get what I mean.

So, to change the stage this is real easy. Look at the Lot exemplar, and see the property called Growth Stage, change the value 0x01 to 0x02. Wow, that was easy wasn't it!
----------------------
For the little lot that grows around this, how about making a hay field with JohnB's hay bales. I would think a couple of bales per field would be fine. Now if we could get those bales to appear at different times, that would be cool wouldn't it. Don't ask! We aren't even close to that yet.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

ok thanks....

 

Well maybe just a hair bragging...LOL......... I love my work can't ya tell...

 

umm whats the difference between

 

Lot Stage which is a 2

Growth Stage which is 1

 

What is the difference with these two and do both of them need to be changed?

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Date:10/21/2004 5:57:22 PM
Author:GrampaAl

Hello Mary: Glad to see you seem to have that first stage down. Heh! Do I see a little bragging here? lol. JBM Farming eh! Nice touch.

First a small warning, those darned animated horses, can eat away at your RAM also. I would maybe use only one of those effects props, maybe two at most. Just a recommendation.
--------------------
Now for the stage. This being a Horse farm, and horses eat the hay from a stage 1 growth farm, I would make it Stage 2. Now if you later make a slaughter house or a glue factory that is on a farm lot that would be a stage 3. Get what I mean.

So, to change the stage this is real easy. Look at the 'Lot' exemplar, and see the property called 'Growth Stage', change the value 0x01 to 0x02. Wow, that was easy wasn't it!
----------------------
For the little lot that grows around this, how about making a hay field with JohnB's hay bales. I would think a couple of bales per field would be fine. Now if we could get those bales to appear at different times, that would be cool wouldn't it. Don't ask! We aren't even close to that yet.

quote>

ok hello

I will take out all but one of the effect for the horses. I really did not like the outcome of the animation. Yea that would be easy Geez should have thought before asking...LOL.. I have sent two of the props I was working on to Johnb but might try to do them myself.  I am putting a hold on this farm for the time being a major hold on it actually. for reasons I don't want to go into. 

Thanks for the help on it though.

 

Regarding the rice paddies. I will not be doing seasonable. I can see from the props I am trying to do that RAM playes a large part in the game and I certanly do not have that kind of RAM. So taking a deep breath step back and make doubly sure I can do the second part in lot making for the farms.

I really need to learn to settle down and take one thing at a time.... Geezz or I will never get my stuff done for November.

[GrampaAl 76]

Thankyou for the information. I do feel you are making progress and realizing the limitations that you have as well as all of us have.

 

My own personal limitation is also memory, but not of the RAM variety if you know what I mean. I can remember things from when I was 10 years old, but yesterday or even this morning. What happened then?

 

Yes, stepping back from time to time to take a breath and practice what we have learned, maybe even make some notes in a notebook or bring them up to date is very useful. I make plenty of notes, and then I modify them when I learn more.

 

So, when you are ready, we shall be here. Bye for now.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

ok I am having some major problems getting a 1x1 lot to work

 

Now when I try to get the farm to grow  the game kicks me back to the desktop

 

ARGGGG this is getting frustrating. I have tried everything I can think of. The LD file keeps getting messed up also. I'll post a pic in a few of the exemplars.

 

 

here is the field LD file

 

 

here is the Field Exemplar.

did I put something in wrong?

 

here is the building Exemplar

 

Is this right while i am at it.

[GrampaAl 76]

Ooops! At the moment I am confused.

 

First the LD file we don't need at all. At least I don't. So after you reply here I will edit the above to remove that picture.

 

I see a lot exemplar from a 1x1 lot. I also see a building exemplar, but this is not for the field lot is it? If so, that is the problem.

 

Are these both in the same lot file?

 

You really should have a Farm lot, like we did above. One that grows. Then a completely different 1x1 lot that represents the lettuce field. Then we just set the pointer in the Stacy's farm lot to point to the little lettuce field.

 

Is this what you have or do you have something different?

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

ok I posted the building one in case the problem is there.

 

I got the farm to grow but then went and did the 1x1lot and got it all set up. Got it to grow again but found I did not get the IDD right. cause it did that field growing 1st then the lot itself. like the sunflowers did when I 1st gave it a shot. Now when I redid the 1x1 and told the building exemplar to look at it .

 

Ran the game and placed the Farm tiles to grow the farm.

It stopes the game and boots me back out to the desktop no matter what I do to the file it still boots me back out. I can attatch the file if you want to take a closer look at it and tell me what I did wrong.