Auto emergency activity SC4

[matias93 7,535]

28 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Magnasanti, it is you?

I love how you both have become an administration & modding team by now

[Sam4 22]

interesting! plz don't forget to make it compatible with (software) you will notice that the car of police shows good  only if your harware turned on, so therefore i decided to tell you before do anything because maybe someone would like to play the game at softwrae setting

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

4 hours ago, Sam4 said:

interesting! plz don't forget to make it compatible with (software) you will notice that the car of police shows good  only if your harware turned on, so therefore i decided to tell you before do anything because maybe someone would like to play the game at softwrae setting

Thanks for the heads up.

What we're planning is the mod package to include two parts:

1. Flashing lights for the Maxis emergency service vehicles (individual files).
2. Generators in different "alert" levels to modify the rate in which they show up (select one).

As such the flashing lights of the standard Maxis emergency vehicles can be toggled on, then made to appear more or less frequently depending on one's personal preference. Also it'll be possible to switch them over at any time between loading any given city tile. That way the police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances will behave in the same way as custom vehicle models. Therefore with the Maxis automata working in both software and hardware rendering modes, it'll be fully compatible.

For those emergency service automata overrides like your NYPD vehicles, the actual generators will control those too. They may still require hardware mode if containing HD textures (which software rendering doesn't support). Basically if not wanting to use Maxis vehicles, the flashing lights will need to be enabled using specially created files like the "Random Flash" ones Cori attached on the previous page. In due course we'll be publishing an illustrated tutorial explaining how to edit the necessary exemplars in Reader. That way anyone who wishes to do this for personal use can apply flashing lights to their own emergency vehicles of choice.

I hope this clarifies.

[Sam4 22]

i think my idea it's not understood yet! while it's really very very simple and i will suggest another thing again, ok i have a mode called (swat) which is special police truck (independent) you will find dat. below, just download it into your plugins and open sc4 then you will notice that this swat truck appearing in whole the city, so what you have to do is to change the props of swat truck to becoming police car porps then add some lights flashing i think you will be able to that, in the end we will get something called (fake police) which roaming around all the city from edge to edge, just for some visual tricks simply.

this is swat:

E8_swat_van.dat

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@Sam4

I might understand now. Basically you want the various mods you've posted here to simply be converted to regular automata which can appear anywhere in the city, but have flashing lights. I've done that for the prior 3, but the SWAT Van doesn't have an S3D file for the flashing lights for me to reference.

Anyhow, give this a try and see if it's what you want. They will persist based on what automata setting you use. For instance I have the NAM Standard one and they appear and disappear rather quickly just like any other regular automata. There is a Radical choice in NAM to make all automata stay around longer. (It does seem to me as regular automata there are too many popping in and out, but that might just be my own opinion.)

SAM Emergency Vehicles as Regular Automata.zip

[Sam4 22]

@CorinaMarie

yeahhhh that what i mean exactly and now we have some emergency roaming in our city thank yuo corina we love you, also you can add some more features to be realistic mode just if you want, but you forget to creat another normal dat. for software '-'

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@Sam4  I tweaked your post since it was a quote of me, but with your words typed inside.

Anyhow, I'm glad it's what you want. In the process of figuring this out I only recently learned how to convert them to standard automata. I'm not sure what else could be added for more realism tho. And for software mode, those weren't provided so I only tweaked the files you attached.

[Sam4 22]

39 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I'm not sure what else could be added for more realism tho. And for software mode, those weren't provided so I only tweaked the files you attached.

i don't know if you can edit at zoom hex because the flashing lights disappear when i zoom in the map, and also as i said before we wouldn't like everyvehicles lighted (one on and one off), these additionals called features.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, Sam4 said:

i don't know if you can edit at zoom hex because the flashing lights disappear when i zoom in the map, and also as i said before we wouldn't like everyvehicles lighted (one on and one off), these additionals called features.

Ah.

For the zooming I presume you mean further out than level 3 (1 & 2). That's controlled by a setting in Graphics Rules.sgr. @Cyclone Boom found that a couple of hours ago and we each changed ours so vehicle automata could be seen in every zoom level. The problem for that was it lags the game considerable with so much more of the map showing and more to display.

For all of them having flashing lights now, when they were tied to the police stations it selected randomly whether or not the cop cars had the flashing lights, but how it did that I don't know. As regular automata now, then I don't know any way to change that. One thing I could do tho is create an additional one of each which don't have the lights on to be spawned randomly thru out the map.

[Sam4 22]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

And for software mode, those weren't provided so I only tweaked the files you attached.

swat van and lapd police are hd thus those modes aren't compatible with software but you didn't edit on gta police, can i want to it

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, Sam4 said:

swat van and lapd police are hd thus those modes aren't compatible with software but you didn't edit on gta police, can i want to it

If you have the SD versions of those I can add the flashing lights code and make them regular automata too so they aren't tied to stations.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

@Sam4

Just to complement what Cori said above...

To my knowledge, there's no method of making the game automatically downgrade HD textures to become SD ones. It would probably depend on the models being re-exported in the lower quality from their original source files. When high definition textures are used in custom content items (including custom buildings), it requires hardware rendering. So this means for the game to successfully run in software rendering, it requires all models to be compatible with standard definition textures.

If you do have the custom automata in SD, Cori can apply the flashing lights onto them so they generate as normal vehicles like those which are HD. Then the game can run in software without crashing. However should they only be available in high definition, I'm afraid converting them to SD is most likely beyond the scope of possibility.

Should it be helpful as Cori kindly offered, it's possible for new instances of the automata to be created which do not have flashing lights. That way there can be some emergency vehicles driving around with them, and also some without. The idea then to simulate ones driving back to their stations after an emergency is over.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

4 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Should it be helpful as Cori kindly offered, it's possible for new instances of the automata to be created which do not have flashing lights. That way there can be some emergency vehicles driving around with them, and also some without.

I have created a secondary set of these with new IIDs. However, it seems whichever I have load first gets about 99% of the screen time in the game. I'll need to look into it more to see if I can find a way to balance them.

[Sam4 22]

On 10/21/2018 at 3:16 PM, CorinaMarie said:

Police Car Expansion Pack.LA Police Car+CXL SUV+GTA4 Stockade V1.1-256 - Random Crime.dat

ok let's do same thing with (LA Police Car+CXL SUV+GTA 4) regular automata and more lights flashing red & blue

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

19 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I have created a secondary set of these with new IIDs. However, it seems whichever I have load first gets about 99% of the screen time in the game. I'll need to look into it more to see if I can find a way to balance them.

@Sam4

Following on from this, Cori didn't quite have enough time to further investigate it yesterday morning. So she let me check what might be needed, after doing most of the work herself in creating the base format with edited exemplars. Then after discussing this earlier, how I should post what I did and the result. So here goes...

Through a bit of trial and error, I found assigning unique IIDs to each of the models allows both versions to generate instead of one overriding the other. This means all being well, the following package will be fully functional with and without flashing lights (for the police car, fire truck, and ambulance, and the SWAT van which has no lights assigned). All of them are added to the automata selection, meaning there are 7 extra vehicle instances which the game randomly chooses from.

Here's a preview pic from my testing:

(Not all are shown pictured above. However as can be seen, there are some emergency vehicles with their flashing lights, and some featuring them turned off.)

And here's it is:

Sam4 Emergency Automata.zip  (984 kB)

Just extract the zip and place inside your Plugins (removing the previous flashing lights set if present) and you should be good to go.

[Terring 6,473]

The idea of random emergencies makes the cities more alive and realistic. Even in a "utopian" city you'll have emergency situations from time to time. But shouldn't the cars pull over when an emergency happens? You're a driver, you see a fire truck behind you with flashing lights, you pull over to let the fire truck pass. You can see that in UDI missions. So why not here as well? It's a game limitation or something?

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

58 minutes ago, Terring said:

But shouldn't the cars pull over when an emergency happens? You're a driver, you see a fire truck behind you with flashing lights, you pull over to let the fire truck pass. You can see that in UDI missions. So why not here as well? It's a game limitation or something?

That would be a nice feature.

As highlighted below, there is actually a variable in the BehaviourState table which controls this in the game's LUA scripts:
 

	-- used in "state" field of templates.automata_behavior table
BehaviorState = {
	DEFAULT = 0,          -- resume default behavior (e.g. walk or drive along road paths)
	DISAPPEAR = 1,        -- fade out
	BEE_LINE = 2,         -- break from paths and head straight towards/away from attractor
	CROWD = 3,            -- stop at current location, watch attractor
	QUEUE = 4,            -- line up along closest path and wait
	STRIKE = 6,           -- striking sim behavior
	IDLE = 7,             -- wait for some event
	RIOT_LEADER = 8,      -- move in random directions in riot mode
	RIOT_FOLLOWER = 9,    -- follow another automaton in riot leader mode
	SCRIPTED = 10,        -- tick behavior implemented by a lua script
	RANDOM_WALK = 11,     -- move in random directions
	IGNITE_OCCUPANT = 12, -- used for arsonist automata, USE WITH CAUTION :)
	PLOP_JUMP = 15,       -- jump in response to a building plop (special purpose event)
	PLAYER_DRIVE = 16,    -- controlled by player
	BUMPED = 17,          -- collided with another automaton
	MAGNET = 18,          -- pulled towards (or away from) attractor, regardless of elevation
	COLLIDE = 20,         -- vehicle is controlled by particle collision system
	PULLOVER = 21,        -- vehicle pulls to the side and stops
}

(Interestingly there are gaps in the numbering sequence. Maybe Maxis planned to include others or removed them, or could there be hidden undocumented ones?)

When driving an emergency service vehicle in UDI mode, this state of 21 is what I suspect gets triggered upon pressing the Enter key. There's probably also a "force field" radius which controls the area in which civilian automata will pull aside the road to let police cars, fire engines, and ambulances safely travel past. When another automata detects the presence of an active approaching emergency vehicle, it sends the instruction and causes a pull over to take place.

In terms of automata, it may well be possible to implement such a function via custom LUA code. Then activating the pull over state when flashing lights are on (from the Model key referencing them). I have a feeling this would need to be done via a generator as opposed to regular spawned automata. The set I've attached in my prior post above are adding general vehicles which spawn and fade. Really in both cases however, the flashing lights are just an eye candy effect visually replicating the appearance of an active emergency response. So while generators are a different technique in how variables can control the rate and quantity (to what extent how many spawn from a given location), seemingly it'd require logic to instruct other surrounding vehicles to pull over.

Likewise I think it would be a nice bonus for them to travel faster. Also when stuck in traffic, not simply scoffing those donuts, but actually making a proper effort to get past. Also even running red lights when needed. I'm not sure whether these are additional aspects of realism possible to implement, or indeed limitations of the game. I do know there are certain things which are locked down in the internal code, and that makes lots of this guesswork through trial and error.

As a disclaimer, this is a field of SC4 modding Cori and I are only now becoming more familiar with. So we might plausibly be able to do it, but I can't say for sure.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

18 hours ago, Sam4 said:

ok let's do same thing with (LA Police Car+CXL SUV+GTA 4) regular automata and more lights flashing red & blue

I can do that. And that mod has both SD and HD sets so I can make one of each. I can't say for sure when I'll have time as RL has been throwing a few curve balls at me.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

9 hours ago, Sam4 said:

you can  also do same

I have done so in order to keep this thread on track.

For a little background, I'm a contract worker in the residential appraisal field so my schedule varies day by day as well as other chores in RL and sometimes urgent issues here on ST behind the scenes. That's why I can't give an exact time when I'll get those other police cars tweaked to appear as random automata. At the outside limit tho, I will get them done over the weekend if I haven't had time sooner.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@Sam4  As promised (and as you've been reassured on more than one occasion), I've made tweaks to the SD version of the police cars from this: Police Car Expansion Pack which will work in both software and hardware rendering in the game.

The attached file here is a modification which anyone can do in Reader and I'm providing it simply as a convenience for you because you are currently not able to do it for yourself. The cars are regular automata now and will appear with red and blue flashing lights and non flashing lights versions.

Here's how they look in the game:

 

Police Random Automata SD.zip

 

[Sam4 22]

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@Sam4

Could you post a couple more screen shots of the one you want deleted and show them in the daylight? I want to be sure I get the right one. Also, I have some errands to run right now and won't be back for a couple of hours. When I return I can look into this. Removing them should be an easy edit.

Edit: I'm a little confuzzled because the red arrow points to a police car, yet you are calling it a van.

[Sam4 22]

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Turns out the van is the SUV. I believe I've got it so it doesn't show up now. Keep in mind I don't really know what I'm doing so this is just my hack job to the files.

Police Random Automata SD No SUV.zip

[Sam4 22]

finally thanks to everyone who are supported this mode to be exist, and special thanks to CorinaMarie & Cyclone Boom & Terring & matias93 & rsc204 i would say you are the best sims at ever.
actually this topic should be renamed to (Regular Automata and Random Flashing Emergency).

Flashing The Lights the officer sam idea.rar