Questions about seasonal trees

[DennyFrontier 8]

I want to experiment with seasonal trees but I don't know a good place to start. Does anyone have any opinions on what the highest quality seasonal tree mods is? And I've seen some seasonal trees that you have to plant on specific dates. Is this always the case? Because it seems like a chore. Also while I was looking up seasonal tree mods, I keep seeing people talking about "seasonal tree controllers." What are those exactly and how do I get one if I need it? 

Thank you very much

[rsc204 21,808]

Trees, seasonal or otherwise come in a couple of different guises and it's worth understanding those before moving on:

• Flora (MMPs)
  An MMP is simply a tree that can be placed anywhere in your cities by selecting the tree to place and clicking where you want them. The base game comes with about 3 or 4 such trees that can be placed at any time.
• Props
  Props are used primarily on lots, so when a lot grows or is placed which has trees on it, usually those trees will be Props.
• God-Mode Flora a.k.a. Tree Controllers
  The God-Mode flora brush by default can only be used before you begin a new city. You can plant many trees and forest large areas quite quickly. A tree controller basically alters the tress that are planted by this brush. Additionally with a mod, you can plant such trees at any time during play.

I think many people would agree that Girafe is probably the best modder in terms of HD Seasonal Trees. His models are of really high quality and there is a great selection of trees/flora to choose from. Take a look at this link, where you can find all his flora. These packs contain a combination of MMPs and Props, although it should be noted those props will only appear on lots which were designed to use them in the first place. Due to game-limitations, it's not possible to make an override where Seasonal Trees will replace the non-seasonal ones.

There are a number of seasonal tree controllers, which utilise both Girafe's flora, but also other trees from other creators like CP. Take a look at this list of tree controllers:

The best ones IMHO are:

• Cascadia or Pacific NorthWest by Blunder
• Aerden by Vortext
• Central European by 11241036

It should be noted that again, due to game-limitations, in order for the seasons to be correctly synchronised, it's absolutely necessary for Flora to be planted on a specific date. This is because they models change after X days, and the starting point will always be the date they are planted. Unlike Props, which will wait to appear until this date, Flora can not be made to work this way. Both MMPs and Tree Controllers must be made with Flora, so if you do want seasonal trees, this is something you will have to accept.

Bear in mind here too, Tree Controllers will plant trees/flora, which once saved in a city, must always be present in future. Attempting to open a city with such Flora, but without having the files for them installed, will result in a CTD before the city can start. As such, it's a good idea to play around in a test region and be sure of your choice of tree controller, before you go ahead with using it. Some controllers, Aerden and the Central European for example, include special files you can keep installed, which allow you to switch to another tree controller without problems. But this is not all that common and it's something you need to keep in mind. You can't have more than one tree controller installed at any time either.

[DennyFrontier 8]

16 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Trees, seasonal or otherwise come in a couple of different guises and it's worth understanding those before moving on:

• Flora (MMPs)
  An MMP is simply a tree that can be placed anywhere in your cities by selecting the tree to place and clicking where you want them. The base game comes with about 3 or 4 such trees that can be placed at any time.
• Props
  Props are used primarily on lots, so when a lot grows or is placed which has trees on it, usually those trees will be Props.
• God-Mode Flora a.k.a. Tree Controllers
  The God-Mode flora brush by default can only be used before you begin a new city. You can plant many trees and forest large areas quite quickly. A tree controller basically alters the tress that are planted by this brush. Additionally with a mod, you can plant such trees at any time during play.

I think many people would agree that Girafe is probably the best modder in terms of HD Seasonal Trees. His models are of really high quality and there is a great selection of trees/flora to choose from. Take a look at this link, where you can find all his flora. These packs contain a combination of MMPs and Props, although it should be noted those props will only appear on lots which were designed to use them in the first place. Due to game-limitations, it's not possible to make an override where Seasonal Trees will replace the non-seasonal ones.

There are a number of seasonal tree controllers, which utilise both Girafe's flora, but also other trees from other creators like CP. Take a look at this list of tree controllers:

The best ones IMHO are:

• Cascadia or Pacific NorthWest by Blunder
• Aerden by Vortext
• Central European by 11241036

It should be noted that again, due to game-limitations, in order for the seasons to be correctly synchronised, it's absolutely necessary for Flora to be planted on a specific date. This is because they models change after X days, and the starting point will always be the date they are planted. Unlike Props, which will wait to appear until this date, Flora can not be made to work this way. Both MMPs and Tree Controllers must be made with Flora, so if you do want seasonal trees, this is something you will have to accept.

Bear in mind here too, Tree Controllers will plant trees/flora, which once saved in a city, must always be present in future. Attempting to open a city with such Flora, but without having the files for them installed, will result in a CTD before the city can start. As such, it's a good idea to play around in a test region and be sure of your choice of tree controller, before you go ahead with using it. Some controllers, Aerden and the Central European for example, include special files you can keep installed, which allow you to switch to another tree controller without problems. But this is not all that common and it's something you need to keep in mind. You can't have more than one tree controller installed at any time either.

Thank you. That's really everything I need to know. Can't wait to finally start adding some color to my neighborhoods. Cheers

[Max4k 721]

I noticed lot of Seasonal trees are only during certain time seasons and the leaves all drop. There are 3 trees I really like under Landscape>Mayor Mode

Chestnut Seasonal  , Rowan and Beeches all have nice Fall colors.

How can I get these trees permanent all year round and like disable the Season clock ?

[Flann 1,709]

On 10/8/2020 at 1:43 AM, Max4k said:

I noticed lot of Seasonal trees are only during certain time seasons and the leaves all drop. There are 3 trees I really like under Landscape>Mayor Mode

Chestnut Seasonal  , Rowan and Beeches all have nice Fall colors.

How can I get these trees permanent all year round and like disable the Season clock ?

Unfortunately, I don't believe there is a way to disable the season clock.  Instead, you would need to create new MMP flora using just the fall model.  I've never done it before, but I would imagine that you could do this using Reader by copying the evergreen flora exemplars and changing the resource key to the seasonal model.   @rsc204 probably knows better than I do.

[Max4k 721]

That's good, I don't  need to fiddle with the game that deep. I thought there were some trees that were permanent as well, but don't see any

[rsc204 21,808]

On 08/10/2020 at 8:43 AM, Max4k said:

How can I get these trees permanent all year round and like disable the Season clock ?

You can't disable seasons to my knowledge, at least not to do what you propose, which is actually accomplished much more easily. Each such tree needs a Flora Exemplar with an RTK4 property that specifies which trees to use. If you alter all the IDs that point to Summer, Spring or Winter models, to have the same ID as the Autumn tree, even though they still "change", you will end up with what you want. If you try overriding or altering these Exemplars to not be seasonal, you could potentially seriously screw up your game (Prop Pox).

Here is a typical RTK4 Property of a Flora Exemplar (from an MMP with seasonal trees):

0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x27812821,0x5AD0E817,0xDDBAB460,0x00030000,
0x00000001,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x27812821,0x5AD0E817,0x9DBAB50E,0x00030000,
0x00000002,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x27812821,0x5AD0E817,0xFDB9A26E,0x00030000

Be aware that I've added line spaces to make it more readable. The only bits you'd need to worry about in this example, are those parts in Blue. The last three reps of each 8-rep grouping, are the Type, Group and Instance IDs of the models to show. In this example, they are ordered as Autumn, Winter, Summer models. In other words, it's the first ID we see that corresponds to the Autumn model. Whilst this isn't set in stone, due to the mechanics of seasonal flora, you probably will find any such Exemplars in the same order, especially if you have to plant them around September the 1st in-game.

So by making the following change, you'd only ever see the Autumn models:

0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x27812821,0x5AD0E817,0xDDBAB460,0x00030000,
0x00000001,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x27812821,0x5AD0E817,0xDDBAB460,0x00030000,
0x00000002,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x27812821,0x5AD0E817,0xDDBAB460,0x00030000

Of course you will need to cross reference the IDs with the actual models (trees) to be sure you've got everything right. Bear in mind too, some models may require you alter the Instance ID as well as the Group ID, which this example doesn't.

[Max4k 721]

Is Java used to design some of this stuff ? Like the sparkle in the Lake Water by PEG ?

If there is a way to do that with water tile, Im sure Tree could sparkle or some effect like Christmas lights.  Pretty neat.

[rsc204 21,808]

On 13/10/2020 at 6:04 AM, Max4k said:

Is Java used to design some of this stuff ? Like the sparkle in the Lake Water by PEG ?

So far as I know, SC4 doesn't use Java at all.

The sparkles are an effect/animated model, you can make animated models for SC4, but it's very limited in terms of the size you can use. You'd need to get the Bitmap Animation Builder (BAB) tool from SC4D. Specifically though, the one PEG (and many others) used, comes with the game itself.