C.O.R.I.M.A.P.S. - A Tutorial for SimCity 4

[Cyclone Boom 16,938]

47 minutes ago, SimQuestria said:

Hmm. I think I just desaturated the image, so that might be the problem. I'll try again.

For a quick tip, I've found using file properties in the "Details" tab one way to check the image is a true 8-bit grayscale.

As follows:

 

If you wish for convenience to see at a glance, at least on Windows it's possible to have the Bit depth set as a column in File Explorer.

Just right click and choose the "More" option and check the checkbox:

 

Back to the map format...

As @CorinaMarie explains in her tutorial, the key trick is to set the Mode to Grayscale via the "Image" tab.

Once exporting the image, GIMP detects this as the format and proceeds to save the image in the 8-bit form. This is composed of 256 shades forming 0-255 height ranges for the map elevations. The pure black being the deepest water, and pure white for the maximum height of elevated terrain.

Posting over that image for reference:

Then all being well, it'll ensure the game properly supports the rendering of your cloud map using the standard method.

 

[Divinyls Fan 21]

Hey hi there,

I tried your thingy but the part where you click on OK after selecting the Gray 1 in the blue box makes nothing happen I've got Windows 10. Is there a mod that I'm supposed to have to allow these sorts of things? I have just the game as is from Origin, SimCity 4 which has the Rush Hour stuff in it, but it displays in my Origin as SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition.

I kept making new regions in-game until I got one with the squares I thought I'd like and did the Gray thingy with clouds with that. It is a 16 x 16 thingy and I scaled the grey image to 1025 (16 x 64 + 1). I didn't bother blurring it, just greyscaled it and thought I'd just go in and soften and edit, still easier than making a whole new terrain on each square. But like I said, selecting the gray image in the blue box then clicking OK … waiting waiting, no action whatsoever the original flat ole region just sits there with clouds floating past, no new screen with Creating City, nothing. Ugh. Guess I'll just hand terraform each one … getting sick of it.

Haven't played for years and am on break after university exams, thought it might be interesting to play after studying economics and management. The only thing I'm seeing differently that I can remember, is that I'm looking at the job stats of each city. OMG getting so frustrated with those lazy sims! They want their jobs and everything right next door, all of them. And just when it's coming along nicely, its time to put in a highway and it all goes to … you know, swear word.

 

Would appreciate someone letting me know what I'm missing in the Gray thing  

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

10 minutes ago, Divinyls Fan said:

Would appreciate someone letting me know what I'm missing in the Gray thing  

Hiya.

I suspect that your gray thinger isn't set to true, 8 bit grayscale, but is actually an RGB image which looks like grayscale.

If you'd like to attach it (or send via PM) I'd be happy to take a gander at it.

[Divinyls Fan 21]

29 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Hiya.

I suspect that your gray thinger isn't set to true, 8 bit grayscale, but is actually an RGB image which looks like grayscale.

If you'd like to attach it (or send via PM) I'd be happy to take a gander at it.

Hello g'day top o the nearly midday to ya

Gray 1.bmp

Gray 2.bmp

These two are the one's I've tried. I used Word for the greyscale, then Paint for the resize and saved as bmp 24 bit.

I don't have a fancy editing software, just regular Office 365 or Paint or Windows 10 Photos.

 

BTW yesterday after having the game minimised on the region view for a few hours, then brought it back up OMG covered in clouds, what is with that! Hasn't happened before.

  Edited July 15, 2019 by Divinyls Fan  
adding a PS instead of a new reply

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

Yep, they were RGB. I've converted them. (I added a c to the end of the file names for Cori so you'll know which they are.)

Gray 1c.bmp

Gray 2c.bmp

[Divinyls Fan 21]

oi thanks mate I'll give em a go. Sorry about the delay in reply, someone wanted to borrow my pc to print something, I went and did dishes while waiting. I'll update you how it panned out.

[Divinyls Fan 21]

Thank you. It worked. But I picked bad clouds Awful. What did you do to convert the pics to 8 bit? So I may try out some others. Also, the config thingy, I read the part at the start of this tutorial about a mapper but that it works on windows 8. Is there one for windows 10? To make a smaller config? Maybe I could grab the config for Fairview and move the squares around like a puzzle in Paint, do you reckon that'd work? and then save it to replace a config in a new region, or does the other file have codes that make only the 16 x 16 size generated by the game work? Sorry to ask so many questions.

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

I don't know about other programs, but in GIMP I did this:

5. Convert to grayscale. Go to the Image Menu and select Mode --> Grayscale.

 

For the config thingy, you can create that from scratch with regular Paint. Just paint in 4x4 pixels in blue (RGB 0, 0, 255) for where you want a large tile, 2 x 2 pixels in green (RGB 0, 255, 0) for medium tiles, and 1 x 1 pixels in red (RGB 255, 0, 0) for where you want small tiles. Save that as a standard RGB color file in 24 bit and it'll do the job for you. Then do the math to match up with the size needed for the grayscale and you should be good to go.

So, if you happened to want 4 large tiles to be your entire region, you'd make the config.bmp be 8 x 8 pixels and all painted full blue. Then the math says the grayscale is 8 * 64 + 1 for 513 x 513. If you wanted 9 large tiles in the region (3 x 3) then the config.bmp is 12 x 12 and the grayscale is 769 x 769.

And no worries about the questions. That's what we're here for.

 

[Divinyls Fan 21]

I found an app from the Microsoft store called Pixel Art. That might make a config what do you reckon? A 10 by 10 might be a manageable size eh. I'm mucking around with it, but its all a bit weird to me! I am old. And an editing one called Image Editing Tool, which has a grayscale thing, but it doesn't say what kind. Would you happen to know?

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

Unfortunately, I only know my very old Photoshop Elements 2.0 (which I dearly love) and GIMP which is the open source free one. For the config.bmp, you should be able to make that in just about anything. Standard Windoze Paint or any other graphics editing program. For things which mention grayscale, the main concern I have is if they mean true 8 bit grayscale like you need or are they referring to de-saturation removing the colors so it looks exactly like grayscale, but is still 24 bit RGB when saving the file.

Is there some reason you can't (or don't want to) use GIMP? The price is right and it's damn powerful for things it can do beyond this mapping stuff.

[Divinyls Fan 21]

I hoped to make do with what my pc comes with. I thought the pixel art thing was free from Microsoft but its not I've spent all day doing this now so I think I might give up. I'll make a nice dinner. Thanks for all your help.

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

1 minute ago, Divinyls Fan said:

Thanks for all your help.

My pleasure. And keep in mind GIMP is truly and totally free. (Should be a linky to it in my first post of this thread.)

[peek-a-boo 29]

Good Lord! I'm far too dumb for these many directions. 

[simcitynate 134]

This is excellent, thanks. I used a picture of clouds to create mountainous areas within a larger region I made with Photoshop. Then I used the smudge tool to break up the edges.

I'm wondering about how you paint trees on the region though. Is there a way to cover a region in them at the same time?  

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

2 minutes ago, simcitynate said:

I'm wondering about how you paint trees on the region though. Is there a way to cover a region in them at the same time?

While you can't paint the trees on the entire region all at once, you can use a game command once inside each city tile.

@Cyclone Boom explains that here.

[Cyclone Boom 16,938]

As @CorinaMarie said, the flora blast command is the most efficient way to plant trees throughout a region. It depends on repeating the process in each tile, but once you're satisfied with the strength of the planting parameters, it can be pasted in (Ctrl+V) and then Enter to execute the command.

It doesn't require the Extra Cheats DLL either since this is in the game by default.

Additionally this topic contains a bit more info about the flora blast with compatible tree controllers:
 

 

[Marclinech 0]

Why can't I do that with this map? I press shift + ctrl + alt + R, insert the directory, but nothing happens.

Bahia.rar

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

2 hours ago, Marclinech said:

Why can't I do that with this map? I press shift + ctrl + alt + R, insert the directory, but nothing happens.

Bahia.rar

It needs to be a true grayscale image. Yours happens RGB even tho it looks like gray.

Try this: Bahia-Grayscale.zip

It rendered like this for me:

[Tomatobird8 7]

I've always liked messing around with the terrain importer and importing all kinds of grayscale images to build citites. It works really well for grayscale images that have specifically edited flat areas and then steep hills or cliffs. But not for gradual slopes. SimCity applies what looks like heavy erosion to the map and it makes the ground look veiny and ugly. Building on this kind of terrain is also not a pleasant experience.

What I'm trying to achieve is very smooth gradual slopes that does not have this heavy erosion. I've tried solutions like a "No Erosion" mod or SC4 Terraformer, which can definitely get rid of the eroded look, but they also get rid of smoothing which makes elevation changes extremely clear and ugly.

Here's what I would like to see instead:
So my question is, what is the most efficient way for me to get smooth gradual slopes like in the image above? Is there a way to import a map and have smoothing applied to it without the erosion? (Example was imported with sc4terraformer and smoothed manually in game)

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

@Tomatobird8

After some testing, the best I could come up with would be to increase the value for NumSmoothingIterationsAfterWaterErosion in Terrain Properties exemplar. While that's still not what we'd want to have it take place during the render, it does save multiple clicks when opening each city tile and using the Smooth button in Terrain Effects menu.

Before:

 

After Single Click of Erode Button:

 

As you prolly know, some terrain mods include the Terrain Properties exemplar (6534284A-88CD66E9-00000001) so if you want to test the one I made, be sure it loads after that. Now, if you like the effect mine has, but your existing one has other features you like, we can edit that to set the 0x00000040 value mine includes.

Here's the file if you'd like to try it: Terrain Properties - Smooth After Erosion = 0x40.dat

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

@Tomatobird8

Me again. I figured it out.

Turns out what needs tweaking is in an INI file (00000000-8A5971C5-AA597172). I have another mod you can test and the smoothing now happens during the render. Ofc, remove my prior file if you have it installed and the same applies as I mentioned before about loading after any other terrain mods which might contain the Terrain Properties exemplar and now this INI file.

Pure Vanilla Render:

 

Render With New Mod:

 

The file: Terrain Properties - Smoother During Render (Erosion = 0.67).dat

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

On 5/18/2021 at 8:01 AM, Tomatobird8 said:

Building on this kind of terrain is also not a pleasant experience.

 

But it's gold for replicating desert terrain.

What version of GIMP is obsolete? I have an old version, but I don't really use it for mapping, just FX. My regular PS is much more versatile than GIMP.

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

1 minute ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

What version of GIMP is obsolete? I have an old version, but I don't really use it for mapping, just FX.

It's really only in relation to my tutorial. They've changed it so much that my step by step images cannot be followed directly. I imagine if one uses GIMP everyday and keeps up with the release notes for each update, it's prolly fine. (Likely even better than prior versions.) So, as long as one thoroughly understands GIMP and all such changes along the way, it likely still has the capability to do exactly what I outlined originally.

 

4 minutes ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

My regular PS is much more versatile than GIMP.

Same for me with Photoshop Elements that I've had for years and years. The key reason for using GIMP in this tutorial was so peeps wouldn't have to pay for a program and could follow along with all the steps.

[LuFeDuTi 1]

Excellent tutorial! I wanted to know if it's possible to create a map with help OpenStreetMap to SimCity 4.

[CorinaMarie 29,621]

6 minutes ago, LuFeDuTi said:

I wanted to know if it's possible to create a map with help OpenStreetMap to SimCity 4.

I'm not familiar with that at all so I don't know.  

(Tho I'll guess "No" unless OpenStreetMap can output a grayscale image as a height map.)