Central European Tree Controller - Development Thread (TESTING PLAYERS WANTED)

[11241036 5,100]

As its title implies, this thread will be all about developing a future tree controller which mostly uses Girafe's great HD trees and plants (along with a few plants from other authors). With this work, I'm aiming to create a tree controller that

• lives up to its namesake by just flooding everything with trees: As much as I like the idea to have a few meadows, clearings, marshes every now and then, nothing actually prevents you from just keeping a certain area devoid of trees or using the bulldozer to remove a few trees to plant some MMPs there. But it's surely tedious to fill a large area with trees by any other means than a tree controller if you want to make sure that you get a good overview picture, so you need a good tree controller.
• makes sure that there can be an almost seamless transition between god mode and mayor mode planted trees,
• keeps filesize increase moderate,
• and uses well-looking and seasonal flora.

Since I can't think of a better name, I simply call it "Central European Tree Controller" because it uses mainly trees that grow in Central Europe.

 

Current State of Development:

Version 1.03 released:

Version 1.03 (Aug 1^st, 2018):

• Two additional Evergreen versions added: one for trees that always look like fall trees, one for winter trees. You can safely remove any previous version and replace all files with version 1.03.

Version 1.02a (Jan 13^th, 2017):

• Bugfix: In-game descriptions fixed. You can safely remove any previous version and replace all files with version 1.02a.

Version 1.02 (Jan 7^th, 2017):

• Evergreen version added.
• Minor graphical fix: One RKT4 altered. You can safely install the new version over the old one.

Version 1.01 (Dec 31^st, 2016):

• Base version released.

 

I'd hereby like you ask you to test my tree controller and give me feedback about any issues or what to improve, either by PM or in this thread. For more screenshots, please make sure to check this thread, as these are too many to just include them in one post.

When downloading and installing, please make sure to follow these instructions:

• Download and install all dependencies lest you will only be able to plant brown boxes:
  • Girafe Daisies: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3251
  • Girafe Chestnuts: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3049
  • Girafe Beeches: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2995
  • Girafe Sparaxis: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2980
  • Girafe Narcissus: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2964
  • Girafe Common Spruces: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2945
  • Girafe Larches: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2892
  • Girafe Lindens: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2869
  • Girafe Ashes: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2854
  • Girafe Maples v2: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2809
  • Girafe Subalpine Firs: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2770
  • Girafe Norway Maples: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2740
  • Girafe Bushes: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2711
  • Girafe Conifers: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2698
  • Girafe Oaks: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2632
  • BSC MEGA Props CP Vol 02: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2790
• Before launching SimCity 4, make sure to start an entirely new region and remove any other tree controller from your Plugins folder. Remember: Tree controllers are (generally) not intercompatible.
• When trying, it is recommended to try it on a high variety of height levels, as the tree combinations created by this tree controller will highly depend on altitude and slightly on moisture.
• It is also highly recommended to leave your testing city without saving. This tree controller is still a WIP and previous versions may not be compatible with new versions, either. Issues, such as CTD's or unexpected behaviour can only arise, however, if our region has been saved with god-mode planted trees - if there are no god-mode planted trees, no issues will occur.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Former name of this thread: Self-made Tree Controller: How does FloraPreference Property work?

Former content of the first post:

 

Since I'm planning to start a new region, it's time to lay out the basics: I'm currently trying to develop a tree controller on my own, containing a lot of Girafe's trees, mainly for my own needs of landscape designing (however, if I'm really successful with this, I might share it, if there's interest). Unfortunately, I couldn't find a tutorial on this topic, but at least some posts scattered across sc4devotion.com helped me by providing me with some informations. I've also looked into some other tree controllers (Cascadia, Maxis, Aerden) to find out what's going on there.

I hope someone can help me with an issue I stumbled upon: I'd like to make sure that it would be possible to plant more than one type of tree at a specific location (to increase variety) - if possible, determined by the FloraPreference property. I should note that I've been able to make my controller actually work - but it only plants one type of tree. I can recall that Cascadia allows for placing several types of trees (I've counted at least 5) at least on level terrain. I've looked into the files, but I can't make neither heads nor tails with the values there.

I know as of now that setting one of the 256 reps in the FloraPreferences property to a value >0 and up to 1 will basically allow a tree to grow at a certain location (according to moisture and terrain height above sea level), but it seems I can't find a combination of values that would give me what I want. Some questions have been arising for me, such as:

• What happens if I set a value to below 1?
• Did I forget something about all of this, let's say some other property that influences the placement of trees?
• What happens if two trees have the same rep set at a value higher than 0? Can both of them appear (apparently not, according to my experiments)? What if it's not the same value?

I hope someone can shed some light on this topic. I'm not new to modding, but this is the first time I'm trying to develop a tree controller (and, actually, my first time dealing with flora exemplars). Please feel free to pose some questions if you need to know something, or point out something I've overlooked.

 

  Edited July 31, 2018 by 11241036  
Version 1.03 uploaded - edited details

[rsc204 21,815]

Well you've certainly entered one of the lesser documented areas here. I can hopefully provide some pointers, but the best people I know of to ask are either @vortext or @blunder, the creators of Aerden and Cascadia respectively.

As far as I know, I think the Flora Cluster type property is where you want to be looking. It's much the same as with MMPs, since both are made from Flora. The ID here is the IID of the next Flora Exemplar you want to be selected by the brush. I would think that the values for kSC4FloraPreferencesProperty should align, so that an item of flora that comes after another has the same values. I.e. Based on the elevation/moisture the tree controller picks which flora set to plant, the clusters then cycle through the various different options that can be planted in that spot. If an exemplar has no Flora: Cluster type property, that simply means it's the last flora item that is within a particular group.

Hopefully there is something there that you can test with to see if I've got things right. I was looking into this idea too, since I wanted something custom myself. But time and lack of really clear instructions have so far kept me away from the idea. One tip though, make sure you've a well organised spreadsheet or similar. Detailing all the groups of flora, with the relevant TGIs for each plant, including the seasonal variants. By and large, you only need the Group ID, since for most models, that's all that changes. But watch out, I've come across Girafe's flora recently where the same group ID was used for multiple models, each with unique Instance IDs, although it's not common. Having everything organised in this fashion will be a great help further into this, especially if you are tinkering.

[vortext 573]

As @rsc204 already said the Flora Cluster Type property strings multiple item together. I had, at one point, made a three-part series on tree controllers in my old thread, however, imageshack has devoured all the accompanying pictures. .   I'll see if I can find the pics again and rehost, or maybe rework it into a tree controller tutorial of sorts. Anyway, maybe the text is still of help to you, part 1 is here. 

As for your specific questions: the Flora Preferences Table works in a binary fashion (i.e. 1 & 0) and only 1 exemplar per slot. If there are two, or more, exemplars the loading order of dat files, or the exemplar order within a dat file, will determine which flora exemplar shows.

Also note that once you start stringing Flora Exemplars via the Cluster Type, and create what I called a 'brush', only the 1st exemplar needs to have a Flora Preference set - the rest will follow suit. You can use this to your advantage, for example by re-using part of certain brushes in other places. Or for example making different 'starter' brushes and point them towards the same brush for the end items. Final, and important note: you cannot 'loop' brushes. That is, you cannot point the last flora exemplar back to the start of the brush. This will cause the game to freeze and you'll have to force quit.

[APSMS 1,892]

On 9/20/2016 at 3:23 PM, 11241036 said:

(however, if I'm really successful with this, I might share it, if there's interest)

There is always interest for more tree controllers using high quality or HD flora.

For one, I've deleted all the tree controller trees in my region to prepare for either an edit to Vortext's controllers (to suit my taste) or to switch to Cascadia which would probably better match my region.

I've toyed with the idea of making my own, but tbh the longer I can put that off, the better, because there are a host of other things I'd rather do with my SC4 modding time (from whence doth this time come that ye speak of?). So honestly, as long as it works well and looks good, I doubt there would be lack of interest, even if adoption rate remains low due to the inherent problems with swapping controllers.

[11241036 5,100]

First of all, thank you guys, particularly @rsc204 and @vortext for your advice. Thanks also for explaining terms like "brush", I thought for a long time that a brush would be the same as a controller. It's easier to think if you know the terms. I guess I'll have to try around with linking various different flora items together with the clustering ability.

Also, BTW, thank you Vortext for linking to your tutorial. It would be great to see the pictures. Since, however, some image hosters have a tendency to devour images, how about you make a PDF file and attach it to a post in your MD or a tutorial over at sc4.devotion?

I'd also like to share some information about what I've done meanwhile:

I made further experiments, especially with the Cluster property, by linking four different flora items together, let's call them tree A, B, C, and D. However, at first, A, B, and C ended up being overgrown pretty quickly by tree D. Then I thought about additionally increasing Rep 11 and 13 from the FloraParameters property, as these seem to increase the space a flora item needs. My thought was: If I could make sure that tree D requires much space while still allowing A to be placed in between, this would help me growing a higher variety of trees. The result was much better, tree A remained there, although now D didn't grow anymore. Thinking that I probably just exaggerated the values in Rep 11 and 13, I just copied the FloraParameters properties from one of the brushes found in the Cascadia Tree Controller (the values there are much lower and only increase slightly from A through D), and the result was somewhat successful: I've been able to grow all 6 trees about evenly. I'm not entirely satisfied, because, like Vortext pointed out, it is not possible to set more than 1 tree for a slot, which means that I have to stick with a few flora items I can string together with the Cluster property, but at least that's better than flooding an entire city tile with the same kind of tree.

Now the only thing that remains would be tinkering with Rep 11 and 13 and comparing the flora items on my wish list with the possibilities I currently have, so to be able to create a somewhat dense forest, but without having the trees grow literally inside each other. This will, however, most likely take a good amount of time, since real life will pretty much keep me busy the next weeks.

[blunder 1,079]

@11241036  @rsc0405  @vortext   I'm really kicking myself now for never doing that comprehensive flora modding tutorial i had planned.  (RIP dev thread)

You are on the right track with the rep 11 and 13 controlling the spacings, but i'm pretty sure there was a third rep involved too....... been too long and memory is a little fuzzy. I'm on my laptop right now and don't have time to boot my desktop and go digging around tonight.  I will check my documentation saturday.

Basically you also need to balance it with the flora cluster click radius to get the effect you want.  It will take trial and error with all 3 values to get the effect you want.  If you poke through the different brushes in Cascadia (your flora A through D in your example would be what we call a single brush) you'll see that each brush is different.  Here's an example in-development shot of several of the brushes from Cascadia lined up.  Each row is a brush, the flora on the right is the first click, and each flora item you move left is another click.

You'll find radii should range from 1-8 for the reps.  A radius of 8 gives a diameter of 16m, which is a whole sc4 tile.  Small stuff like wildflowers can have a radius of 1, but you want to use small stuff judiciously or you'll encounter exponential filesize bloat.  Remember that one of the reps controls the unoccupied space on click required for an item to be placed, while another controls the space a flora item occupies after it is placed.  These values do not have to be the same and will control the density of your eventual forest.

Feel free to ask any questions you have.  I will be able to answer better on weekends when i have more time and will be on my desktop.  Cheers.

[11241036 5,100]

@blunder Thank you very much for your attention and your answer. After reading it, I'm having two questions:

* Which reps exactly, out of the two reps 11 and 13, control the unoccupied place required / the occupied space after a flora item is placed? I've read through some of the threads over at sc4devotion.com, but this tiny bit is still unclear to me.

* You used the terms radius and diameter in context with these reps. Is the space occupied actually circular or square-like, like we know it from the Lot Editor?

 

[blunder 1,079]

@11241036  Sure thing.

OK i found my reference.  Rep 13 is clear space required for plopping, rep 11 is the horizontal space it takes up after it is plopped.  No other MMPs can be plopped in this radius EXCEPT if the height difference between the existing flora and the plopping flora exceeds the 14th rep of the plopping flora.  (the 14th rep is not so useful for god-mode tree controllers, but allows some interesting possibilities for mayor mode MMP brushing)

The other rep that is useful is rep 8.  This is the maximum slope allowed, and how you keep trees from being plopped on a rocky slope.  Whether the land shows the terrain mod texture or the rock mod texture is controlled in the Terrain mod's terrain exemplar by the value MaxNormalYForCliff (MNYFC).  For most newer terrain mods, and old ones that have a Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod, this value is .77.  Rep 8 should be 1-MNYFC, so for most tree controller brushes rep 8 should be .23.  In cascadia I used .33 because i like the appearance of adjusting the MNYFC to a lower value of .63-.67.

All the other reps are related to seasonal timings, spreading seedlings (not worth bothering, imho), or are unknown.

edit: and yes, the values of reps 11 and 13 are the circular radius in meters, not a square. rep 14 is straight height in meters.

[11241036 5,100]

@blunder Thank you again

I'd like to share some pictures of the WIP. I've made some experiments with altering the values of rep 11, rep 13, and cluster radius. This is the way I'm currently working with the different brushes, and my reasons why:

- The trees will only be planted depending on altitude, tree placement will not be affected by moisture. I seriously don't know how the game handles moisture, and which areas are more/less humid, therefore, it doesn't make sense to me to make tree placement dependant on moisture. And even if I knew, I can't think of any sensible way of how to integrate the concept of moisture into my work, especially since there's no in-game rivers or lakes.

- I'm using tree groups rather than single trees, for various reasons: It helps keeping filesize moderate (especially with conifer trees), it helps growing dense forests, as I like it, and some of girafe's trees, most notably larch and oak, only come as groups, anyway. The downsides of this decision are clearly: Sometimes trees can "hover over the abyss" at the end of the city, and sometimes they literally grow inside each other.

Please feel free to post your opinion and suggestions on how to improve my work. Please note that these pictures are still subject to changes, if possible/necessary. I'm planning to introduce 11 different brushes, for different height levels, although some of them only vary slightly. 5 are already nearly done, 6 more are planned/under development.

__________

1st brush (VeryLowDec):

• Leafy forest, for very low altitudes
• Trees: ash, linden, maple, norway maple, oak
• Issues: Somehow, the ash trees are dominating the scene. I haven't been able so far to solve this problem.

 

2nd brush (LowDec):

• Leafy forest for the next altitude level
• Trees: ash, beech, linden, maple, norway maple, oak

 

3rd brush (MedDec):

• Leafy forest for 3-4 different altitude levels, will be the dominating type of forest
• Trees: ash, beech, maple, norway maple, oak

 

4th brush (HighDec):

• Mostly leafy forst, with a few conifer trees already appearing.
• Trees: ash, beech, common spruce, norway maple, oak
• Issues: The spruces are taking up an unrealistic amount of space. Currently they are on the highest tier in the "clustering order", but most likely I'll change this, so I can give them lower rep 11+13 values.

 

5th brush (LowMix):

• Mixed leafy/coniferous forest, with leafy trees still slightly dominating the scene.
• Trees: beech, common spruce, conifer, norway maple, oak

This one gave me the most trouble, due to the immensely differing model size of the trees, which required giving the coniferous trees much smaller rep11 and rep13 values than the leafy trees. However, by just doing that, only very few leafy trees would appear. Currently, the beeches are having a low rep13 value, but a high rep 11 value, allowing them to be placed quickly, but taking up much space, making the growth of other leafy trees more difficult. The result: The beeches are dominating, and they are growing inside each other; but the distance of all other trees is OK to me, as well as the amount of coniferous trees compared to leafy trees. A solution could be replacing the beech groups by single trees, but that would somewhat lower the color variety.

 

I hope you like this so far, again, you are welcome to post your opinion. Further brushes will mostly include mixed types of forest, as well as purely coniferous forests and one with only bushes and flowers.

[vortext 573]

Exciting to see a new seasonal controller!

Attached to this post a file which overrides the power graph with moisture values, thus making them visible ingame. Also note, the flora preference columns represent moisture, akin to how rows represent height. Unlike altitude however, not all sixteen possible slots actually show brushes ingame. To the best of my recollection columns 7-8-9-10 are responsible for most of the brush placement. The outer ranges show hardly at all, on steep slopes mostly.

Oh, and I would also really like to see summer pictures, if it's not too much to ask.

 

[Mandarin(a) 35]

Very interesting work! I appreciate your effort   

[blunder 1,079]

Nice! Looks like you're off to a good start.

You don't need to know a lot about how the moisture works, just that it is closely linked to terrain slope.  The tool vortext links is very handy.  I would caution against using only one brush for each row of the florapref table.  On hillsides you will see unnatural looking banding as you go up in elevation. As vortext said, the middle 4 values of each row are by far the most that will be seen.  Either column 8 or 9 is for flat ground, the other will show on nearly flat ground, then as you go out in the row each column will show on progressively steeper terrain (generally).  The outside 2 columns generally show up on terrain that is steep enough to show rock on a typically modded terrain controller, and thus will probably not show if your 8th rep is .23.

Even if you only use 2 brushes per row of the table, it will help immensely to break up the banding pattern that you will soon encounter.  You could have brushes with larger trees for the middle 4 values of each row, then have brushes with smaller trees for everything else in the row, and it will give the appearance of smaller trees growing on more exposed slopes (or in the small creek valleys on hillsides).  Then you can have each brush take up 2 rows of the table instead of 1, and stagger their overlap.

So to sum it up the row looks like this (generally. remember there are other things going on besides just slope to control moisture):

Values 1,2,15,16: very steep slope. Probably will not show if you mod rep 8 for standard terrain mods.

Values 3,4,13,14: steep slope. Occasional creek drainage on mountainsides.

Values 5,6,11,12: moderate slope. Also the walls of small valley.

Values 7,10: gentle slopes.

Values 8,9: one is for flat ground, the other almost flat ground.

Some exceptions: row 1 is special. 80% of the useage other people will get out of your tree controller comes from this row as it's the first elevation interval above sealevel, so give this the most tuning and attention to detail.  Also stuff that shows up along the water's edge is in this row.  Don't recal exactly but it's somewhere in values 4-6 i think. Vortext probably remembers better.

Generally leave row 16 blank. There are some shenanigans with elevation that happen here.

Snow in your terrain mod will generally show up in row 15 and even 14, so you will have to tune which value to leave blank so you dont have green trees growing on white snowy ground.

I'm surprised you're using clusters of flora instead of individual trees and gotten it to look as good as you have: using clusters typically leads to a lot of graphical problems.  Keep up the good work!

[11241036 5,100]

@vortext Thank you for attaching this file to your post. I've tried it out; however, the values I'm getting don't make much sense to me The northern hillside always seems to be humid, and the southern hillside seems to be dry. Well, whatever, I've installed it and I'll see what I can make with it.

@Mandarin(a) Thank you.

@blunder Thank you very much for your detailed description. I'll keep everything in mind; I'll only have to make some fine-tuning with the brushes first. Since you mentioned that the trees growing on the lowest elevation level will be seen most, I'll most likely skip on the first brush shown in my last post because it's the one I like least.

It took me a while to answer, since currently, real life keeps me busy. I've been developing the remaining brushes, currently, I'm having 12 brushes (not 11, as initially intended). This is still subject to change, because since blunder mentioned the unnatural banding effect, this might make creating additional brushes necessary. I haven't stumbled on this banding effect so far, but I'll eventually make some experiments with my tree controller on hilly terrain, anyway, so I'll keep this in mind and find out on my own.

The next 7 brushes are for higher elevations and include mixed leafy-coniferous forests, purely coniferous forests, one brush with shrubby fields, and one with flowers only, the latter two for very high elevations, just below the snow line. This is a table showing all trees I'm using currently:

(Light green = leafy tree; dark green = conifer tree; very dark green = bushes; purple = flowers; ComSpruce = common spruce; SubFir = subalpine fir, NW Maple = norway maple)

 

Brush 6 (MedMix): The variety of leafy trees is decreasing, however, the difference to Brush 5 is hard to spot - actually, this is being done on purpose, to make smooth transitions between different height levels.

 

Brush 7 (HighMix): Subalpine fir trees are entering the scene. I'm currently considering to resort to Beech B or Beech C instead of Beech D since there's only little difference to Brush 6.

 

Brush 8 (LowCon): Only conifer trees. This is the only brush containing only evergreen trees.

 

Brush 9 (MedCon): Larch trees (seasonal) entering the scene. Currently, they unfortunately are dominating slightly, I'll try to remedy this effect.

 

Brush 10 (HighCon): Only subalpine fir and larch left, but with 3 varieties. The distance between trees is greater than before; this has been just a coincidence, but I'm considering to leave it this way because the climate is getting colder and colder.

 

Brush 11 (LowMount): Beyond the forest line, only bushes and very few dwarfen trees are growing. I'm not really satisfied with this one because there's little to no variety, especially with the bushes. I also don't want to plant the bushes closer to each other in order not to bloat filesize too much.

 

Brush 12 (HighMount): Just below the snow line, only wild flowers and very few bushes are growing. I've taken the liberty to alter the original RKT4 properties to make the flowers actually really bloom in spring and summer; this has been necessary because if I had kept girafe's default values, the flowers would bloom in winter. Main exception: Here, daisies are actually blooming in fall, because there are actually flowers that are blooming in fall, and I needed it to improve the sight a bit.

There are two pictures for different zoom levels.

 

 

I hope you liked these pictures so far. Next step: Fine-tuning all brushes, and making experiments on hilly terrain to try out what blunder recommended. Please feel free to tell me your opinion on my work so far.

[rsc204 21,815]

Excellent progress here and I really hope you find time to see this project through to completion. Things like tree controllers are hardly ever being created these days, not to mention a third HD-Seasonal option can only be a positive thing.

Obviously a lot of what goes where is really a subjective thing, as such I can't see any glaringly obvious issues to point out here. Perhaps consider utilising some other flora, such as VIP's Ferns to add to the non-tree brush. It might also be nice to lightly mix some similar props into a few of the tree brushes too, which can add some diversity.

[11241036 5,100]

@rsc204 Thank you very much Adding a few flora items such as ferns to the alpine brushes seems like a good plan; I'll give it a thought. About adding these into the other brushes, however - while I do really get your point (and believe me, I already laid out some plans for such a tree controller), this seems to be somewhere between difficult and impossible to me. It's already troublesome enough to handle 5-6 flora items per brush and balancing them, especially with the transition between all of them. If I can find a way to include other flora items than trees, I'll do it, for now there are no real plans for doing this.

Meanwhile, I've been balancing the brushes and I've out them together. It has been difficult, because for every brush I've tweaked, another brush had to be modified too, this seems like a neverending work. Before proceeding with some screenshots, I'd like to point out the current issues I'm seeing:

The banding effect mentioned by @blunder really entered the scene, but it doesn't disturb me too much, actually. The transition between leafy and mixed forest is smooth enough for my opinion, and to make a smoother transition between mixed and coniferous forest, I'll just need to add an additional conifer tree. After all, it makes sense that the forests change according to height. The transition between the conifer forest brushes and the alpine brushes (shrubs, wildflowers) bugs me somehow. I'm currently considering to add many more entirely different brushes for the alpine section to increase the variety in a way that one could barely notice any banding effect anymore.

I'm also, BTW, considering of lowering all brushes by one row since currently, all flowers are growing on rocky fields barely below the snow line. Unfortunately, the height of snow appearing for the first time does also depend on the terrain mod you've installed. Currently the highest brush plants flora items on row 14, I'll probably make some experiments with other terrain mods to see if it is really necessary to lower all brushes.

Long story short, I've created a test city (large city tile) that looks like this (large picture):

All height levels are included, so I can test all brushes. Since it is a large city tile, I've only covered a few areas with trees, otherwise, it would take me too long to make a screenshot. The next two screenshots show my tree controller in action on all height levels, in both fall and summer:

 

 

I've also been making experiments with the brush on lowest altitude since this brush will play the most important role. I've got two pictures to share with you; only one of them will become reality.

Picture A:

 

Picture B:

 

That's all for now. Note that this is still a WIP and changes are possible. Please feel free to post your opinion on this.

[11241036 5,100]

Important note: The beta version has now been released (attached to the first post). I'd hereby like to invite you to test it. Make sure to carefully read and follow the instructions mentioned in the first post.

__________________

Well it's ben a long time of inactivity. Real life really keeps me busy these times. Fortunately, I've found a little bit of time now, and so it's time to continue my work here.

There's actually not much to mention, aside from that nasty banding effect mentioned by @blunder that disturbs me especially in the upper height levels, notably at the transition between trees, shrubs and flowers.

To try to improve my tree controller, I've basically followed blunder's suggestion: Some plants are now represented on two height levels, on one level, they are located in the center 4 columns, and on the other, in the peripheral columns. Unfortunately, in the testing city shown abouve, that didn't change things much. I forgot to make screenshots, but I didn't like the result better, anyway.

However, I've tried the new tree controller in an entirely different city, at an area where the terrain is highly uneven and mountaineous. The results there look much better.

This is the area without trees:

 

This is the area with the previous version (only one brush per height level, and it covers all moisture levels);

 

This is the same area with the new version (v0.13):

 

I personally think that the last version looks best. All of this seems to me that my tree controller seems to look much better in uneven terrain than on smooth hills (see my previous post). Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to alter the tree controller to make it look better on smooth hills. If anybody has a solution to this problem, please let me know.

Other than that, as already mentioned, I think that it is time now to unleash my work on the community. I've attached a testing version to the first post. Please check the instructions there.

[matias93 7,535]

Wow! That looks pretty neat indeed. I wouldn't use it right now just because my current region is a subtropical island, but it is clear your huge work is giving great fruits!

About the differences between the evenness of the terrain, I would say that that is only noticeable when the trees are applied on an uniform way (i.e. with a big brush over everything). When foresting, it is recommendable to use small brushes and to locate the trees only on shadowy places.

Talking about that: are you using the moisture properties to locate the trees, or only the altitude ones? You can achieve a much more detailed and varied result if you use those properties (more details and an useful mod here)

[vocar 80]

Alright, let's start Happy New Year everyone! I hope it will be much better than the previous one in every possible way.

Right now, I am working on a huuuuge project of making about 40 pieces of 11x7 huge tiles regions of Balkan Peninsula, so, as one can imagine, I am more than interested in this kind of a tree controller. I even tried to take part in testing it, several weeks ago, but I couldn't install it properly. I am using Sudden valley terrain mod, which, in my opinion proved to be the most East-Central European soil look-a-like. 

Now, when this controller became available on the Stex, I tried to install it again, but it was a failure again. I already had all of Giraffe's fantastic tree models, and rest of dependencies. I also took a patch for terrain mods ( since Sudden valley wasn't written as a listed mod, I installed patch for maxis standard terrain - and any other not in the list.)

All the regions are brand new. Right now, I am rendering them from Terraformer to sc4 playable form. I am also painting water surfaces that are above sea level.

When I tried to some trees, all the trees were from Maxis tree controller. Any idea?

 

P.s.

Is there any possibility to ask someone to make PEG water lots for more than 1x1 square since it is veeerrrryy annoying to make huge lakes by painting them with 1x1 tiles?

[11241036 5,100]

@matias93 Sorry, forgot to write you an answer.

I'm actually, at least partly, using the moisture properties to locate trees, like this:

• Deciduous forests look a little different in wet, medium, and dry areas. The difference is rather subtle, but it's there.
• There's no difference with mixed forests. I couldn't find a way to implement it properly, it's already hard enough to balance them due to the different model sizes, the fact that only a few deciduous tree types grow together with conifer trees and I'm somewhat restricted to only using a low number of trees.
• About conifer forests: I couldn't see any point in making a difference there between moisture. As already noted, I'm using the moisture property to break up the banding pattern.

Thank you, by the way, for your interest in my work here.

 

@vocar How did you install the files that come with this download? The Maxis TC disabler file should actually prevent Maxis trees from being planted with your tree controller. What have you done exactly with the files?

To make the tree controller work, do not install all files that come with this download. Please read the readme for more details. You need:

• the file Maxis TC Disabler.dat in any case because it disables Maxis trees,
• the file Central European Tree Controller v1_01.dat

to make the CETC work. You only need the two other .dat files if you want to uninstall the CETC but you already have trees in your region that have been previously planted with the CETC.

By the way, you don't need the Seasonal Flora Patch for the Sudden Valley Terrain Mod. It already contains the necessary settings to make seasonal flora work. But I don't really think that the Sudden Valley Mod should interfere with my tree controller or any TC else.

[vocar 80]

On 1/4/2017 at 0:20 PM, 11241036 said:

@vocar How did you install the files that come with this download? The Maxis TC disabler file should actually prevent Maxis trees from being planted with your tree controller. What have you done exactly with the files?

To make the tree controller work, do not install all files that come with this download. Please read the readme for more details. You need:

• the file Maxis TC Disabler.dat in any case because it disables Maxis trees,
• the file Central European Tree Controller v1_01.dat

to make the CETC work. You only need the two other .dat files if you want to uninstall the CETC but you already have trees in your region that have been previously planted with the CETC.

By the way, you don't need the Seasonal Flora Patch for the Sudden Valley Terrain Mod. It already contains the necessary settings to make seasonal flora work. But I don't really think that the Sudden Valley Mod should interfere with my tree controller or any TC else.

 Hello, and sorry for not answering before.

I followed your instructions and installed it correctly, so I could see trees. Apart from problem that I have some boxes instead of maples in areas where lowland were changing to hills ( although I had installed them long time before, and I'll do it again ) my biggest objection is that it doesn't work for some altitudes of let's say higher than 650m. To be precise I tried it on a self made region of Bansko, Bulgaria, with highest peak Vihren (2914m). In my region, due to inaccuracy which I made on purpose it is 2716m (2966 in Sc4 Terraformer ). I started testing tree controller from that high descending and the trees finally started showing on some 650m heigh. Do I have to change something on my terrain itself ( using Ilieve's reader)?

[11241036 5,100]

@vocar This is actually no malfunction, this is (partly) intended: At very high elevations, the CETC just doesn't plant anything. I'm imagining that this is an altitude just beyond snow line. However, it can also depend on your terrain mod how high exactly the trees from the CETC (and any other tree controller, for that matter, at least for those that don't plant trees on the highest altitude levels) can go: Some terrain mods contain a so-called flora tuning exemplar file which influences at up to which height trees can be planted.

I've never been tinkering with this file before on my own, so I can't tell you how the result will look like, but I heard that you can do the following:

 

Search for your terrain mod and open it with Reader. Then search for an exemplar file that contains the property Flora: elevation scale range. It should have the following TGI:

• Type: 653428a
• Group: 7a4a8458
• Instance: 1a2fdb6a

This file controls how the 16 so-called elevation rows - which control at which altitude the trees in my tree controller (and most likely of any other TC) grow - are distributed. The value there is meters above sea level (Maxis default = 800m), which means: The first 15 elevation rows are spread equally between sea level and this value. The 16th elevation row covers anything above. The CETC only plants trees/flowers on these 15 rows, which means: At an altitude higher than the value at the flora elevation scale range property plus your usual sea level (Maxis default = 250m), no trees will grow.

If you can't find an exemplar file with the TGI listed above, then the game resorts to default Maxis values, as usual. In this case, search for your SimCity_1.dat on your PC, it contains a flora tuning exemplar file. To override Maxis values, just copy only this exemplar file to a new .dat-file. The simple solution is: Just change the value at the property Flora: Elevation Scale Range to a higher value (your desired in-game height value - sea level value).

If you have further questions, please feel free to ask. It's now late in the evening, so I may not have thought of everything.

[HORSEY 17]

Hello. Ive encountered a problem with this mod. I used it a little while ago then suddenly had to stop playing but crucially lost some files. Ive installed all the trees, and the BO Terrain with high altitude settings. But my tree controller is not planting any trees at any altitude at all. I cant for the life of me work out what the problem is being that these are the only mods ive installed so far. Some enlightenment on my problem from anyone would be much appreciated 

[HORSEY 17]

15 minutes ago, HORSEY said:

Hello. Ive encountered a problem with this mod. I used it a little while ago then suddenly had to stop playing but crucially lost some files. Ive installed all the trees, and the BO Terrain with high altitude settings. But my tree controller is not planting any trees at any altitude at all. I cant for the life of me work out what the problem is being that these are the only mods ive installed so far. Some enlightenment on my problem from anyone would be much appreciated 

To add to this.. trees work as mmps but the god mode controller doesnt work. I did add GTM warrior mod aswel for ease of planting before installing the CETC

 

[11241036 5,100]

@HORSEY That's strange, I've tried out the CETC combined with the God Mode Tools Mod and the Berner Oberland Terrain Mod, but they work fine. Since you haven't installed any other mod, I can only imagine the same explanation I told to vocar: Starting at a certain height, the CETC doesn't plant trees anymore. You might have installed a map with very high average terrain where probably almost no parts of the terrain are below snow level. If you are playing on a custom map and you are not sure about this, please post me the link to the map you are playing on.

Edit: It's also possible that you just installed ALL files that come with the download of the CETC. Do not do this. If you keep the disabler file and/or the uninstallation helper file, you won't be able to plant new trees as the purpose of these two files is helping people uninstall the CETC if they so desire.

[kschmidt 6,164]

CET controler & CPT or Maxis controller, addum about terrain controllers ?

This week I installed CET on a blanc instalation and one with CPT Olympic terrain. On first ran the flora patch with maxis or other controller. Some question ? Except maxis there can not be any other controller or can maxis controler aswell disabled.  In this first installation withot terrain mod´s no tree´s appeared in the standard maxis regions; does the tlle need to be completely free of maxis trees or use flora off parameter and save ? Second instalation I added with CPT Olympic terrain; flora patch needed, there a cpt zzz for that in the installer ? As well without flora patch only the tree controler added no tree´s appeared ? Compatiblility issues; CPT combined, or maybe I need to edit the CPT Olympic setup ? Level of region or map as described be a issue or maxis region or custom generated sc4mapper or terraformed region ?

Sincerely yours,

kschmidt

[11241036 5,100]

@kschmidt Sorry, it's pretty hard to read your comment. Please try to write full sentences; I can barely understand your issue. Did I get this right: You're asking about the compatibility of the CETC with various terrain mods, and about compatibility of several tree controllers? What happened exactly, did no trees grow at all, or did you get brown boxes? Did you install all the dependencies?

From what I know (which is, admittedly, rather little, since tree controllers are highly advanced mods), I can tell you this:

1. The terrain mod should barely have any influence on any tree controller whatsoever. The only property of interest there is the "snow line", which affects how narrow/wide the different vegetation zones between sea level and snow line are. Since I do barely know anything about terrain mods, I can't help you much there (especially regarding visual results, such as actual snow; it's entirely possible that you might end up accidentally planting trees in snowy areas, and unfortunately that's something I cannot change). You might want to read the article I've written about this (see link below).

2. In general, tree controllers are NEVER compatible with each other. Some tree controllers may be programmed this way, but unless this is explicitely stated, I really recommend against combining tree controllers. Most likely, one of the TC's will suppress the other (at least partly), which may yield unexpected results. I can't even tell you which results, this depends on the TC's you are trying to combine, and on loading order.

I haven't had it in mind to make the CETC compatible with other tree controllers, and unless there's something I have not seen, the CETC should not be compatible with any other available tree controller.

3. About the Seasonal Flora patch: The following terrain mods, as far as I know, do not need it: Lowkee's Appalachian Terrain Mod, and Gobias' Berner Oberland and Sudden Valley. But this only makes sure that the trees are seasonally changing - without this patch, you should at least in any case be able to plant trees in the first place. You only need this if you install the seasonal version of the CETC, by the way - the evergreen version works fine without it.

 

To make it sure: You only need these files to make sure the CET to work properly:

 

EITHER these two (seasonal)

• Central European Tree Controller_Seasonal v1_02.dat
• Maxis TC Disabler.dat

 

OR these two (evergreen)

• Central European Tree Controller_Evergreen v1_02.dat
• Maxis TC Disabler.dat

 

For all you girls and guys out there that are interested: A good while ago, I wrote an article with some basic informations about how to modify/edit a tree controller:

 

[kschmidt 6,164]

2 hours ago, 11241036 said:

@kschmidt Sorry, it's pretty hard to read your comment. Please try to write full sentences; I can barely understand your issue. Did I get this right: You're asking about the compatibility of the CETC with various terrain mods, and about compatibility of several tree controllers? What happened exactly, did no trees grow at all, or did you get brown boxes? Did you install all the dependencies?

Thank  you, I will try these again ! Default maxis maps maybe use Ctrl x flora  off or remove any fora in god mode. Terrain level as you mentioned mayb e issue, averag low land shold show some ! First install without any terrain mod see no tree´s plop work. Flora patch require certain listed terrain´s lke Gobias, CPT; last opted for maxis or other but no terrain was yet installed; maybe the problem as a terain mod mostly used in combination with the patch. Gobias Berner Oberland mayb one to pick yet have no average idea of a low to medium level terrain sample as it´s more mountain like, CPT Olympic maybe to greenish and CPT Meadowshire I like most for coastal maps and it´s central eastern some greyish look might be best in this case !. Disablers Maxis TC disabler, disabler evergreen and seasonal only required if theer any CETC trees left changing tree controler maintaining old ploped one´s  Experimenting some time with rather different terrain´s setups: snow, desert like (where trees are irrelevant), russia with some CPT8 tree models for a tundra like idea, this beside water mod file adjustmet of the sc4 envirometal setups !

Sincerely yours,

kschmidt

[kschmidt 6,164]

PEG & Leaf trees ?

Today again took a look at the CET controler ! Terrain set to CPT Meadowshire, Flora patch default and low snow Meadowshire. All files installed under ZZZ_terrain_mod. Mostly I see fures, some leaf tree and a lot of PEG props ?

Any idea what went wrong ?

Sincerely yours,

kschmidt

[11241036 5,100]

Seriously no. This should not happen if you merely install a terrain mod. I've looked into the Meadowshire terrain mod files and there's nothing that should be able to interfere with a TC. Are you sure you haven't installed some other files? To be sure, you might want to make a test on a new region and with only the terrain mod and the CETC and its dependencies in your Plugins folder, no other files.

Do you, BTW, mean this terrain mod?

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=58

There are also two tree mods with a similar name available on the LEX, namely these two:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=59

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=60

These are tree controllers, therefore, they will not be compatible with the CETC. If the readme says "god-mode trees" or the like, it's a tree controller.

[kschmidt 6,164]

1 hour ago, 11241036 said:

Seriously no. This should not happen if you merely install a terrain mod. I've looked into the Meadowshire terrain mod files and there's nothing that should be able to interfere with a TC. Are you sure you haven't installed some other files? To be sure, you might want to make a test on a new region and with only the terrain mod and the CETC and its dependencies in your Plugins folder, no other files.

Do you, BTW, mean this terrain mod?

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=58

There are also two tree mods with a similar name available on the LEX, namely these two:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=59

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=60

These are tree controllers, therefore, they will not be compatible with the CETC. If the readme says "god-mode trees" or the like, it's a tree controller.

No, there no other mod active ! Medowshire tree mod I haven´´t touched yet.  Will try it on a instalation without PEG sorting out ! At least there are trees but subsequent real terrain level disctinctive tree groupes except fures I can not distinguese. Some maps doesn´t plop SC4M, grey bmp config does work ohter not any tree´s at all, courious the water level is to low Flora path offers default, low and high snow cap, do I need one and wich one ! PEG Mountain Resource and related logging scene removed, at least there´s no random watch toweres and shrubs. High level and lower leafth tree´s do remain poor ! Absolute, coastal and low level should show leaf trees, hilly and mid mountain level´s should show them aswell ?

Sincerely yours,

kschmidt