Cori's Water Shoppe

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

On 5/1/2019 at 9:19 AM, Toby66 said:

I'll try PEG WATER MOD and hope it's what i want.

I'm not certain which of the Peg Water Mods you have installed, but I'm guessing it might be Brigantine.

Drop this Peg Brigantine Side Water by Cori v0.01.dat file into your plugins in the same place as the water mod. (It doesn't technically need to be that exact location as anywhere in Plugins would work, but it'd be logical spot for it.)

[Toby66 155]

Alright Corina, great.

Just that i went with the "auckland" water mod now instead. That looks MUCH better, acceptable even. Edit: I MEAN, your pic there of PEG's splash.

I missed that file and just got the, as you said already, PEG_WaterMod_Brigantine_205

..Only, weird how the font sticks.

  Edited May 2, 2019 by Toby66  
I want to stop, i edit them all, seriously.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

27 minutes ago, Toby66 said:

Just that i went with the "auckland" water mod now instead.

Well, alright then. Here's a side water fix for it: Auckland Side Water by Cori v0.01.dat

(Ofc, don't use my tweak for the Peg Brigantine. )

[Toby66 155]

Huh? Heeeey!

I can use your tweak, (CORIS tweaks! Not PEG's, i can read it from the filenames now. I get it right eventually but sometimes i'm wrong at first, excuse).

I am just a bit undecided about which one to use now.I don't want to be an ungrateful schmuck here.

Now i have TWO already finished, ready to use awesome waters to chose from.

Thanks 

P.S

(You're a lot nicer than me).

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Here's a different variation: Auckland Side Water by Cori v0.02.dat

In this one instead of the gradient going to black at the lower elevations I've got it going to a darker shade of the water itself:

 

Let me know if this is better than the first draft.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

So, I've learned a lot since my attempts above. One thing I hadn't noticed (and have now fixed) is the surface water was being changed from the original water mod. Here's auckland again, but with no change to the surface water and now fully incorporating the Maxis gradients (rather than making them myself).

Auckland Side Water by Cori v0.08.dat

Original without updated side water:

 

My new version of side water:

 

Same zoomiered:

[Toby66 155]

On 5/5/2019 at 1:57 AM, CorinaMarie said:

My new version of side water:

Excellent, much better. Is it hard, difficult to make that change?

I know from the little editing and making of game content that some of the smaller things can be really tough to get right and sometimes the dashing, good looking and appreciated parts of some creation are easy!

Edit: I mean as for making lots, if you already use textures and already made models it's just to throw those in and no graphical skills required. I would like to work on software's AI if i would go serious with anything.

And then i probably would quit after a week to be honest.

  Edited May 6, 2019 by Toby66  

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, Toby66 said:

Is it hard, difficult to make that change?

Once I figured it all out, no, not really. Some chick even wrote a tutorial so anyone can do the side water for themselves.

[Toby66 155]

But that "chick" is you right?

Is she kidding us here, oh well.

Edit: Btw, considering the length of "that chicks" post, "Get OUTTA here!!", not easy hehe.

Corina is a bit of a joker herself i think. OK, Corina is the joker and then i'll be the forum clown.

  Edited May 6, 2019 by Toby66  
Hell-o 1, 2, 3 edits. I must cut down on it. Confusing for others!

[mrbisonm 1,620]

Nice thread and practical to find all the watermods under one roof. I noticed that you did not show the one I use. It is the "DarkBlueishGreenish" watermod. I think that was the first watermod available in 2003 or 2004. I have it since and still use it fulltime. I have no idea who made it or where it came from (let's not forget that's 15 and more years ago)

The waterpicture under the plugins folder info is not that water, the little picture below contains the right watermod.

 

 

Fred

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

7 hours ago, mrbisonm said:

I have no idea who made it or where it came from (let's not forget that's 15 and more years ago)

Through a bit of database sleuthing...

Based on the zip matching the DarkBlueishGreenish.dat file name, I've managed to track it down to this file:

Realistic Water v1 by Joerg and Teirusu

I can confirm the .dat file (160 kB extracted) is contained within.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

8 hours ago, mrbisonm said:

Nice thread and practical to find all the watermods under one roof.

Thanks!

 

8 hours ago, mrbisonm said:

I noticed that you did not show the one I use. It is the "DarkBlueishGreenish" watermod.

With CB's detective work finding the STEX file name, I can confirm the water mod you use is in my original post. (It's right between the ELSHA WATERMOD and the Drunken Water Mods, The Blues and Greys. In HD!). You can use Ctrl+F on that page to search for "Realistic".

And the image there looks like this:

 

Btw, this would be a good candidate for using my: Cori's Side Water Alternate Paint Scheme (Tutorial).

[mrbisonm 1,620]

.....and I thought I was the only one that knew this watermod before I thought  it disappeared......lol. I have been using it since it was uploaded.

 

[simcitynate 134]

This is so cool. Thanks to all who've contributed. Yet another reason I really wish I'd joined this community sooner. 

I'm just wondering though, is it possible to have different water for each city, or at least each region? Wondering the same about the rock, beach, and terrain mods. 

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

54 minutes ago, simcitynate said:

I'm just wondering though, is it possible to have different water for each city, or at least each region? Wondering the same about the rock, beach, and terrain mods.

Yes, this is very much possible.

It would require switching around one's graphical mods (for water, rock, beach, and terrain) before starting the game. That way those content items would be loaded and then displayed in the tiles you wish. These types of mods are interchangeable because they're not stored as data within the saved file format.

With water for instance, if having a "blue lagoon" style in a tropical region, this could be added to your Plugins folder, removing any other water mod. Or alternatively setting the loading order so that one gets processed last by the game, overriding any others as named.

An exception might be for certain tree mods if they're placed as MMPs in individual cities. I'm not completely sure about tree controllers though and how they work, but I believe they're an override of the Maxis default trees using the flora brush. Those types which are saved in the tile would need installing again or else there'd be a dreaded crash to desktop (CTD) when loading said tiles. For water and the rest though, it's very much an option to swap them around and change them up without ill effect.

It might be worth having subfolders inside of your "SimCity 4" folder in Documents for storing duplicates of your Plugins folder. The idea would be to have folders stored there which the game otherwise ignores, such as named "Plugins - Tropical" for the sunny beach style of mods, or "Plugins - Alpine" for mountainous undulating terrain. This would be duplicating everything else though (such as the NAM), so probably isn't the most efficient approach. The game will only load the one named Plugins however, meaning the other folders can be named 1 character different and not be seen.

For an automation method, I've not personally tried it, but you may find SC4 Launcher a viable way to enable or disable certain content items on the fly. Or alternatively a possible adaption of my screen switching tutorial could be an option also. This would involve using batch file scripts to move certain mods in and out of your Plugins as needed. Only if you're completely comfortable with batch files and have a system of backups would I recommend that method.

If doing alternating certain mods for individual cities, a consideration is how tile snapshots won't appear to match uniformly with different types of graphical mods used in each. For water and the oceans would appear like a checkerboard if so. There is a way to skip a new generated snapshot by pressing Ctrl+Shift+S to save. It would need a bit of experimentation though to get all matching up visually with using a certain water mod to update the regional view appearance.

[simcitynate 134]

It works! Thanks. Now I'll just go ahead and experiment with the other mods. 

[simcitynate 134]

I was wondering if anybody has any suggestions for making waterfalls. I've already downloaded a bunch of water mods, but I want to make sure there aren't better options. The one that looked most promising is below. It has animated turbulence, but unfortunately it can't be viewed at zoom 1 or 2. When that far back, it completely disappears, making it almost pointless for me, as I'm usually on zoom 2. I noticed a few other people bring up this issue, but there was no response. Also, none of the ploppable water I've come across matches the original nuclear blue of the game. Anyway, I'd appreciate any ideas, thanks.  

 

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

Will you ever be covering ploppable water, maybe with side-by-side comparisons to game water, Cori?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

34 minutes ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

Will you ever be covering ploppable water, maybe with side-by-side comparisons to game water, Cori?

I hadn't considered it and with as many irons as I have in the fire now, I suspect it's highly unlikely I will.

Ofc, if you want to make one that'd be wonderful.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

 

Ofc, if you want to make one that'd be wonderful.

That sounds like a great ...way to pass the buck.

I've got 4 or 5 canal sets(including 1 I think I got from a French site. A couple of stream sets, a sunken canal, irrigation streams including add-ons. And that doesn't include all the transparent waters, and water mods in this thread. And hardly any of them are compatible with each other or game water. Honestly, I wouldn't know where to begin. This task requires the genius that is Cori!!! *

 

 

*did she buy that?

 

BTW, you might want to warn about some of the mods in here, as they don't retain a consolidated color through out a large region. I'm currently using one called icy arctic and it looks nothing like your pic. But I used it in another region, and it did.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

None of these work now for me. Bloody nile=blue, green=blue, black=blue etc. And it's not even the game default (atomic)blue. I emptied out my plug-ins to see if something was conflicting with them and got CTDs with every mod. I tried putting them in the plug-ins in the GOG folder and got nothing. Any ideas?

[+Guest 760649]

On 26.1.2020 at 2:35 AM, SIM-ple Jack said:

That sounds like a great ...way to pass the buck.

I've got 4 or 5 canal sets(including 1 I think I got from a French site. A couple of stream sets, a sunken canal, irrigation streams including add-ons. And that doesn't include all the transparent waters, and water mods in this thread. And hardly any of them are compatible with each other or game water. Honestly, I wouldn't know where to begin. This task requires the genius that is Cori!!! *

 

 

*did she buy that?

 

BTW, you might want to warn about some of the mods in here, as they don't retain a consolidated color through out a large region. I'm currently using one called icy arctic and it looks nothing like your pic. But I used it in another region, and it did.

If someone makes all the channels there are compatible, I'll probably die of excitement.
So stop it ... I have nothing else to drive me crazy........

[rsc204 21,808]

On 26/01/2020 at 2:35 AM, SIM-ple Jack said:

I've got 4 or 5 canal sets(including 1 I think I got from a French site. A couple of stream sets, a sunken canal, irrigation streams including add-ons. And that doesn't include all the transparent waters, and water mods in this thread. And hardly any of them are compatible with each other or game water. Honestly, I wouldn't know where to begin.

Canal water is very different to the in-game waterways/canals. Those sets are typically BAT models and colour matching them (just the water), requires a mirror of the original files setup. In practise we have basic models and textures available to work with SimGoobers Canals and the remastered version by Callagrafx, along with Mas71’s JRP (Japan River Project). I can tell you from first hand experience you’ll struggle to render Callagrafx’s water unless you use 3DS Max 9 and ALN’s BAT4Max. Despite hours of messing around, I never could work out how to setup 3DS Max for rendering matching water for the JRP either.

Trying to do this without the release of the template models and original textures, such as are available in the examples above, would require you to be extremely good working with textures, but even then, you probably won’t get a perfect match. I think this goes a long way to explaining why it is not been something that’s generally available.

The list of creative solutions to transfer between different water types is very long. From overhanging tunnels to culverts with something In between, or even rapids and MMP masking parts of transitions. Direct transitions between water types would likely look weird too, because it’s not something that looks natural if it’s too abrupt. 

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

2 hours ago, WolfZe said:

If someone makes all the channels there are compatible, I'll probably die of excitement.
So stop it ... I have nothing else to drive me crazy........

 

4 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Canal water is very different to the in-game waterways/canals. Those sets are typically BAT models and colour matching them (just the water), requires a mirror of the original files setup. In practise we have basic models and textures available to work with SimGoobers Canals and the remastered version by Callagrafx, along with Mas71’s JRP (Japan River Project). I can tell you from first hand experience you’ll struggle to render Callagrafx’s water unless you use 3DS Max 9 and ALN’s BAT4Max. Despite hours of messing around, I never could work out how to setup 3DS Max for rendering matching water for the JRP either.

Trying to do this without the release of the template models and original textures, such as are available in the examples above, would require you to be extremely good working with textures, but even then, you probably won’t get a perfect match. I think this goes a long way to explaining why it is not been something that’s generally available.

The list of creative solutions to transfer between different water types is very long. From overhanging tunnels to culverts with something In between, or even rapids and MMP masking parts of transitions. Direct transitions between water types would likely look weird too, because it’s not something that looks natural if it’s too abrupt. 

Those are great answers to the post I made in January. Unfortunately, they don't help with the water mods I asked about 2 hours ago, above WolfZe's post.

Allow me to quote myself-

3 hours ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

None of these work now for me. Bloody nile=blue, green=blue, black=blue etc. And it's not even the game default (atomic)blue. I emptied out my plug-ins to see if something was conflicting with them and got CTDs with every mod. I tried putting them in the plug-ins in the GOG folder and got nothing. Any ideas?

 

[matias93 7,535]

4 hours ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

None of these work now for me. Bloody nile=blue, green=blue, black=blue etc. And it's not even the game default (atomic)blue. I emptied out my plug-ins to see if something was conflicting with them and got CTDs with every mod. I tried putting them in the plug-ins in the GOG folder and got nothing. Any ideas?

Sounds like you installed some mod that changes the water colour which wasn't being overriden with the further mods you tested. And surely, another plugin you had causes CTDs when uninstalled without demolishing the affected elements beforehand.

I guess your best chance is to get back to your previous configuration, take a screenshot to look for the matching texture here, identify it and then remove only those files from your plugins folder.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

13 hours ago, matias93 said:

Sounds like you installed some mod that changes the water colour which wasn't being overriden with the further mods you tested. And surely, another plugin you had causes CTDs when uninstalled without demolishing the affected elements beforehand.

I guess your best chance is to get back to your previous configuration, take a screenshot to look for the matching texture here, identify it and then remove only those files from your plugins folder.

I finished a region yesterday morning, so I had nothing in my regions file, except for 1 blank medium tile I keep in for testing downloads. I thought while everything was empty, I'd try a different water mod. That's when I found out none of them work. But I did track down the culprit-  Peg's Stream Kit. I remembered downloading it months ago, and noticed my game water never seemed to change from region to region, even though I was using different terrain mods with their own water. I don't have probs with any of Peg's other stuff, but I never saw the SKit in game. Everything's fine now.

[TogaMasterJohn 705]

Thank you for your awesome list, Cori! Last night I finally had some time to get back into the game (after 3-4 months of not much time) and I remembered your set of 'shoppes' - really nice and quite helpful! I'm looking at changing up the view a bit; not too much from vanilla but at the same time have it look a little more realistic.

Anyways, would you happen to know if the Coastal Modd waters (specifically Steel and Tropic) still allow the whales to be visible? I love seeing them in my rivers, coastal areas, and the like!

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, TogaMasterJohn said:

Anyways, would you happen to know if the Coastal Modd waters (specifically Steel and Tropic) still allow the whales to be visible?

Offhand, I don't know.

But, I suspect they do as otherwise it'd mean the opacity was set to 100% and I really, really, (really) doubt @rivit would hide such wonderful creatures.

[TogaMasterJohn 705]

1 minute ago, CorinaMarie said:

Offhand, I don't know.

But, I suspect they do as otherwise it'd mean the opacity was set to 100% and I really, really, (really) doubt @rivit would hide such wonderful creatures.

Cool! I'd sure hope not, because whales and llamas really help to define the humor in the SimCity franchise (SC2000 onward). I shall try it out then. Thanks!

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Post 1 updated with:

The following is HD so you will need to have Hardware Rendering or you will get CTD.

Water Mod contained in VIP Terrain Mod by Cédric. (Attached to this post on Devotion.)

Note: In addition to the Water Mod there are also Beach, Rock, and Terrain mods. The following pic has all 4 installed:

^ Thanks to @Indiana Joe for mentioning this one.