Network Skins (Coming 2016)

[boformer 3,169]

Exams and work are keeping me busy, and I also got engaged My life is changing rapidly.

To be honest, I'm not sure if and when I will come back.

[Badi_Dea 476]

1 hour ago, boformer said:

I also got engaged

Congrats! that's wonderful news 

I know we have all come to value your knowledge and experience. Selfishly, I hope you stick around; but take care of your life first, no matter what.

 

[Lost Gecko 481]

I wouldn't have said it better than Badi_Dea. So I'll just say a huge thank you for your hugenormous contribution to the game! And best of luck for the rest!

[Avanya 2,605]

Congratulations, that's great news!  Clearly the trick here is to get your fiancé hooked on Cities: Skylines.  

Like the others I hope we get you back at some point, but real life and happiness comes first always.  

[Judazzz 1,936]

Congrats on the exciting changes in your life!
I hope you'll remain active within our awesome little community, although I can perfectly understand that that may be hard to achieve (you gotta focus on what's most important in your life!) So hopefully we can welcome you back soon, but if not, my eternal gratitude goes out to you for all your contributions to make a great game that much greater still. It wouldn't be the game it now is if it weren't for you! 

[Abrams 1,744]

Congratulations!

I hope one day you'll come back,but of course take your time and don't feel pressured!Real life always comes first.

In anyways,you have my heartfelt thanks due to your awesome mods!

[baduncansd 14]

11 hours ago, boformer said:

Exams and work are keeping me busy, and I also got engaged My life is changing rapidly.

To be honest, I'm not sure if and when I will come back.

Awesome news about getting engaged.  Congrats.  Hope to see you back soon.

[Bolduck91 54]

Thanks for everything. It's been a real pleasure following the development of all amazing mods, projects and discussions you've put out for this game. You've been a big piece of this awesome community we have here and I will never forget what you accomplished. Best of luck !

[boformer 3,169]

Thank you all for your kind words. It's not like I'm gone, I'm still here.

[Distanced 114]

Congratulations! Hope to hear more from you soon! 

[baduncansd 14]

17 hours ago, boformer said:

Thank you all for your kind words. It's not like I'm gone, I'm still here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gfvsims 169]

Congratulations, @boformer! That's lovely news.

[jstatha 6]

@boformer congrats man.  My wife survived a decade of SimCity4  as did the marriage and now she's already immune to CS and how much time it consumes 

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Hi @boformer

 

I'm wondering where Network Skins stores its data? I somehow lost all of mine today. And when I go back to older savegames, the my custom network skins in those games is also gone.

[boformer 3,169]

12 hours ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

I'm wondering where Network Skins stores its data? I somehow lost all of mine today. And when I go back to older savegames, the my custom network skins in those games is also gone.

It stores the data in the savegame. The data is probably still there, but the data loading fails (the data will be lost when you overwrite the savegame).

Why does the loading fail? This could be caused by a newly installed or recently updated mod or asset. Check your output_log.txt for errors.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Ok thx for the reply. I have many iterations of the savegame, so I hope that I can recover the data. I'm not 100% sure when it started happening, so I'm not sure if my newest savegames have been "saved over" or not. Here is the output_log after loading a savegame from 3 days ago (this savegame should be uncorrupted, but it fails to load the network skins data):

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/c054d79bf74b639f742dc73833317341

 

thx a million in advance for any help that you make time to give. I really appreciate your work and your time! <3 

 

edit: I loaded an older savegame from a few weeks ago and it worked. Are my newer savegames hitting some other kind of invisible limit?

[boformer 3,169]

59 minutes ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

Ok thx for the reply. I have many iterations of the savegame, so I hope that I can recover the data. I'm not 100% sure when it started happening, so I'm not sure if my newest savegames have been "saved over" or not. Here is the output_log after loading a savegame from 3 days ago (this savegame should be uncorrupted, but it fails to load the network skins data):

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/c054d79bf74b639f742dc73833317341

NetworkSkins loads the data correctly. There are a 2 errors in the log:

PloppableRICO: Error while enabling the RICO tool
NetworkSkins: Error while loading sprites for the customizer window

It's unlikely that these errors cause the failure.

What happens when you use NetworkSkins now? Does it save correctly?

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I've found the first savegame where the error appears (Apr 12th), so the errorlog that I uploaded to github already has the missing network skins info embedded in the savegame. I'm not sure what I should do to continue to debug this.

 

edit: I can continue working from the last uncorrupted savegame. Thankfully, I haven't done anything major since then. Do you think it was just a corrupted save process? I've pinpointed the first bad save to a time when I was shooting a bunch of super high-res screenshots with no LOD etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the bad save occurred while I was doing that as I was really maxxing out my rig for those pics. I guess it's another thing I have to be mindful of in the future.

 

Should I do anything to address those other bugs that you noticed?

[boformer 3,169]

2 hours ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

Should I do anything to address those other bugs that you noticed?

Just ignore them.

[Igorp133 28]

@boformer, I know that life keeps you busy, but is there any chance that Network Skins will be updated to support changing of monorail tracks' pillars? It would be great to build something like this... (tram tracks beneath monorail)

[boformer 3,169]

32 minutes ago, Igorp133 said:

I know that life keeps you busy, but is there any chance that Network Skins will be updated to support changing of monorail tracks' pillars? It would be great to build something like this... (tram tracks beneath monorail)

Of course, that's a quite simple change. I will look into it in the next days.

[Ryno917 102]

On 6/5/2017 at 4:22 AM, boformer said:

Of course, that's a quite simple change. I will look into it in the next days.

Is there any chance on the custom segment textures module still being released (and for quays)? That's still one of my most wanted features.

[boformer 3,169]

2 hours ago, Ryno917 said:

Is there any chance on the custom segment textures module still being released (and for quays)? That's still one of my most wanted features.

Not right now.

[Igorp133 28]

@boformer With the new road modding tools new possibilities are available. Can you share your plans about updating your awesome mode to extend its functionality, for example support of train and tram tracks?

[boformer 3,169]

2 hours ago, Igorp133 said:

@boformer With the new road modding tools new possibilities are available. Can you share your plans about updating your awesome mode to extend its functionality, for example support of train and tram tracks?

Quo vadis, Network Skins? That's a good question.

I think the ability to replace trees, street lights and bridge pillars is still great. I'm not sure if replacing meshes and textures is still in scope, now that we got the official tools.

What exactly do you have in mind when you think about "support of train and tram tracks"?

[Avanya 2,605]

I think Network Skins is definately still very useful - it's much more flexible than new roads for every variation. I could see a use for textures as well since I'm guessing Network Skins would be better at adapting to new roads compared to a mod like Roads United. So for those that would like to reskin roads to a specific style that would be handy - otherwise we'd need new roads with just different textures, since Roads United seems unlikely to be updated to keep up with newly released roads (afaik it doesn't support the MT roads yet). That is ofc if Network Skins would work with new roads without needing updates every time.

[Igorp133 28]

2 hours ago, boformer said:

Quo vadis, Network Skins? That's a good question.

I think the ability to replace trees, street lights and bridge pillars is still great. I'm not sure if replacing meshes and textures is still in scope, now that we got the official tools.

What exactly do you have in mind when you think about "support of train and tram tracks"?

First of all I think about possibility to choose catenary support both for tram and train tracks. The second is to change the textures of tracks. There are so many varieties of tram tracks IRL and the only on in CS.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

omg road-surface swapping added to network skins would be sweet. Can we do more than just flat decals? For example, could we swap in a diffuse+normal map? I'm thinking about cobblestone streets (there are thousands in Berlin). I'd love to be able to select "cobble" as a surface texture, but only if it was really high quality and included some kind of bump map.

Conversely, it would be great to be able to completely remove the road markings from any road via Network skins. Detailers love to do their own street paint. I'm not one of those, but I often find myself spamming the NEXT2 "Two-lane plain street" in a variety of situations simply because it doesn't have any markings. 

[boformer 3,169]

15 minutes ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

omg road-surface swapping added to network skins would be sweet. Can we do more than just flat decals? For example, could we swap in a diffuse+normal map? I'm thinking about cobblestone streets (there are thousands in Berlin). I'd love to be able to select "cobble" as a surface texture, but only if it was really high quality and included some kind of bump map.

Conversely, it would be great to be able to completely remove the road markings from any road via Network skins. Detailers love to do their own street paint. I'm not one of those, but I often find myself spamming the NEXT2 "Two-lane plain street" in a variety of situations simply because it doesn't have any markings. 

It was always planned to add something like that, but with the release of the new network editor, it doesn't really make sense any more. The goal of NetworkSkins was to offer an alternative to mods like "MoreTrainTracks", "Traffic++" and "NetworkExtensions" which can be safely disabled at any time without destroying the city.

[ArkenbergeJoe 35]

Hallo, ich schreibe mal in Deutsch, damit Google keinen Kauderwelsch rausgibt....

Hab mal eine Frage, ist der Mod nicht mit GreenCities kompatibel? Ich habe damit große Probleme. Es blinken Props und Bäume, sogar Buildings verschwinden auf einmal. Ich habe sämtliche Mods deaktiviert und nur den NSM extra laufen lassen. Ohne diesen, aber auch mit allen anderen Mods, wird die Grafik, also die Stadt, wieder normal dargestellt. Durch das Deaktivieren bleiben wenigstens alle Verkehrswege erhalten bleiben, wenn auch nur Standard.

Ich würde ihn auch gerne in Green Cities weiterverwenden wollen, da ich nicht für eine Pappelstraße oder unbeleuchtete Autobahn stets ein neues Verkehrssystem im Editor erstellen möchte.

Der Mod ist laut STEAM seit 7 Monaten nicht aktualisiert worden, wird er denn überhaupt noch weiterentwickelt?

Oder muß ich letzlich doch für gleiche Straßen, nur anderen Laternen oder Bäumen nunmehr extra neue Verkehrswege erstellen, was ja auch möglich, aber unnütz wäre?