Raymond's Newbie Thoughts

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Woww! Cori @CorinaMarie That was genius, How did you find that, I never thought they were read by binary, Just thought unbelievable since fffffff is a big number in hex, I stuck on guessing the meaning of quantize, Thank you!

BTW, May I ask that can you see a alpha channel of PNG in GIMP? I don't have it. Thank you very much!

Another BTW,  Can you share a tutorial about SC4 path to me, I have learned a bit with SC4tools, But i want to know more about those path files in simcity_1.dat, I don't know if we could make the car driving in this way:

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

6 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

How did you find that, I never thought they were read by binary,

Intuition mostly.

I figured they had to have some significance for those specific values, so on a whim, I plugged the hex numbers into the Hexadecimal to Decimal converter and looked in the Binary box. Then via trial and error setting different bit masks (converted back to hex to enter in Reader) and viewing the results in the game, I was able to highlight a specific zone type and density. I've not yet found if there are masks for wealth level of RCI, but if so there are a few other Dataviews I could create which might be useful.

 

8 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

BTW, May I ask that can you see a alpha channel of PNG in GIMP?

I'm not even sure where to look for it or what image to use if trying. This question'll prolly be one for @Cyclone Boom, @rivit, or @rsc204 as my skills in image editing are limited to color adjustments, gradient blends of two images, and other very simple things.

 

11 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

Can you share a tutorial about SC4 path

Here's the Devotion Wiki entry: SC4Path Format

Those'll be something the NAM team are most familiar with.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

Haven't had a chance to try it out just yet, but I'm loving the look of your UI reskin. The standard Maxis AI is such an eyesore, and your version does such a great job of updating the design without radically altering the look of the game. I'm really impressed at how good this looks without changing the basic shapes or iconography.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

10 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Here's the Devotion Wiki entry: SC4Path Format

Those'll be something the NAM team are most familiar with.

Might be an obvious suggestion, but if you have the NAM installed, I imagine it would be useful to compare some of their path files to Maxis files -- specifically, anything where the NAM manipulates the x/y/z axis along which automata travel. I'm thinking specifically of comparing ground light rail vs. elevated railway, overpasses and underpasses vs. traditional road networks, and rail viaducts vs. traditional rail networks.

I'd be pretty surprised if you can get automata to travel vertically using paths, though. As far as I know, the game interpolates networks in two-dimensional terms, and the Z-axis is used purely to ensure that the graphics give the impression of three-dimensional networks. As such, I wouldn't think the game has the capacity to generate paths where movement is entirely along the Z-axis.

That said, I think there'd be a way to cheat and kind of get around that limitation. Basically, you'd need piece that connects networks of different heights together along a continuous X/Y path, so that the traffic appears to "jump" from one network to the next. You could then fill in the gap with an animated prop that depicts traffic traveling vertically between the two networks. It wouldn't be seamless, but there might be a way to mask the transition so that everything looks continuous.

[hugues aroux 3,784]

Good evening, Raymond,
I don't know GIMP, but I saw a doc ... in the [layer] function -> [transparency] [add alpha layer].
On my side, I don't care too much about the alpha layer with UI FSH. I work under photoshop with transparency and save in FSH (DXT1 or DXT3) directly (see this photoshop plugin) (for GIMP it's here), I use GoFSH and Reader (insert by batch) to integrate them in a .dat. For Lots textures I use a PNG and the "Slice n Dice" function in most cases. It's GoFSH that does the job. Of course for network textures it's another matter. And here are our friends from NAM, Ron, Robin ... that you have to consult.
The FSH that appear as PNGs in Reader may be built like a PNG ??? I don't know, uh, nothing really ;-) Anyway, the magenta background (255,0,255) reminds me of a PNG.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

2 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

BTW, May I ask that can you see a alpha channel of PNG in GIMP?

With alpha channels relating to transparency of images, I've found how for PNGs and likewise BMPs too, it depends on the bit depth for whether they allow an alpha channel to be stored or not. Using the Paint.NET image editor which is my tool of choice, when saving in 32-bit mode for PNG or BMP images, this then allows the transparency to be preserved. But if using 24-bit and this is replaced with a white background instead. The difference for 32-bit is how the format supports the layer of transparency along with 16,777,216 possible unique colours. Whereas 24-bit can contain this same number of colours, but doesn't allow the transparent layer.

Using Paint.NET and it's possible to create an alpha channel by drawing a selection area on an image, and then pressing the Delete key.

Then the area appears like a checkerboard (as seen for the board in a game of chess), like so:

 

But once saving the image and this then becomes transparent. It might work similarly in GIMP too, but I'm not an expert at that particular tool. I'm unsure if it's the same for other tools (likely it is in Photoshop), but I noticed in Paint.NET there is a "Transparency threshold" slider also, and it allows this for 8-bit images also. This would have limitations for images which only contain simple colours though, because 8-bit is limited to 256 total colours overall.

In addition to what @hugues aroux posted above, I hope this might help for a bit of guidance too.

 

Edit:

Oh, and just to add in reply to this...

11 minutes ago, hugues aroux said:

Anyway, the magenta background (255,0,255) reminds me of a PNG.

I know how the that shade (value of #FF00FF in hex) is seen by the game for transparency in many things like the UI elements, including lot icons as well. For example, I remember testing that with Cori and we had to make it one value less so it'd still be seen as pink, but not made transparent.

For the MySim icons and they use 3 pixels in the corners which are purely that colour, and this way those vertices are made see-through.

  Edited July 20, 2020 by Cyclone Boom  
Added a reply to Hugues also.

[rivit 3,391]

When loading PNGs into Photoshop the ALPHA is actually a transparency mask by definition. This means that you can't explicitly see it, only its effects. This is really useful for cutouts and the like, but you can't see what has been hidden/cutoff on the rest of the source.

To see the transparency mask itself use menu Layer/Layer Mask/From Transparency - this adds a mask next to the image in the Layer View and both color and mask can viewed in Channels or by other means.

To Reapply that Transparency select the Layer and Right Mouse Menu Apply Mask.

~~~

GoFSH also knows how to convert PNGs to separated C0/A0 bmps and back again.  

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thanks a million! @CorinaMarie @BartonThinks @hugues aroux @Cyclone Boom @rivit You have given too much help to a newbie, I really appreciate them and have wrote down these tips, The attached file is the pinky Version, I guess It's would be popular around ladies.

Dear @rivit, I have tried your Mask method, it worked, Thank you, But i want to use your GoFSH, however i don't know how to convert C0/A0 back to PNG:

I loaded png and pressed save Image,

They turned to two BMPs

That's just what i want after edited with Photoshop,

Then I have on idea what the next step is, Thank you!

UI_pinky_01.zip

[rivit 3,391]

42 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

Then I have on idea what the next step is, Thank you!

In your example above if -C0 and -A0 are in the same folder, then Save File should automagically save the PNG from there.

~~

If you're working in Photoshop its faster to load the color and alpha bitmaps, and copy the alpha bitmap into an ALPHA channel in the color image then save it as a PNG. 

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

4 hours ago, rivit said:

In your example above if -C0 and -A0 are in the same folder, then Save File should automagically save the PNG from there.

Dear rivit, silly me! I still have no luck with it, here is my process:

put them into a folder

load the C0 BMP

 

But after pressing save Image, the output was that C0 BMP itself, it seemed didn't merge with A0 BMP, Thank you.

Hiya @hugues aroux, I had a little discovery today, You might have known this, I made a rough texture for UI

As you can tell, If i change the fillcolor as background color, there still would be kind of mismatched due to rough background, so I deleted the fillcolor property of this customwindow, I thought it would be transparent, but the SC4 changed the content's color to a blue one automatically, then I had a sudden thought, I changed the fillcolor to 255,0,255 :

Yes! You can see that the background became to transparent, but there still was a defect, If you look it carefully, you could see some 255,0,255 pixels left around the text. Anyway, that's my today's finding, hope it would be helpful.

PS: There are some settings in font ini file, I will go to check them out to see if that would be useful.

AA=None | BG | Color Request one of three anti-aliasing modes: none, antialias to the background, or anti-alias to a specific color (specified by the BGColor parameter). Example: AA=BG

Color=r,g,b Requests a font with the given foreground RGB color. Values are in the range of integers of 0-255, inclusive. Example: Color=234,12,0

BGColor=r,g,b Requests a font with the given background RGB color. Values are in the range of integers of 0-255, inclusive. Example: BGColor=234,12,0

Gamma=1.0 Requests a font with the given 'gamma' value. Values are in the range of floating point 0.0-10.0. A gamma of 1.0 is default,with higher values resulting in lighter font edges and lower values resulting in darker font edges. Example: Gamma=1.25

Sharpness=0.0 Requests a font with a given anti-aliasing sharpness. A sharpness of 0 is default,  with negative values being somewhat blurry and positive values being somewhat sharp. Example: Sharpness=0.1

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Oh my goodness! they worked,  Sorry for my proxy i couldn't upload shots now, I will show you that when the network is ready.

First I change aa from bg to aa=none, Then the pink pixels gone, but the font became a bit jagged.

Then i set aa=color and bgcolor=255,0,0, Strange thing happened, all the texts became to transparent, I thought i misunderstood some, so i tried many combination such as adding color=rgb or aa=255,0,0, it kept the same.

Besides I tried gamma from 0 to 10 and sharpness from 0.1 to 100, Lot of shifts between bold and thin and clear or tough.

At the end, The best for me seems aa=r,g,b, It's Strange due to undefined by the statements, I guessed that's likely without aa.

Anyway, at least it proved that something in font.ini isn't that useless as i used to suppose to be. There are still some Interesting things i couldn't understand by now!

[hugues aroux 3,784]

Hello, Raymond.
For the PNGs of the interface, no need to go through GoFSH and bmp files -C0 and -A0.
Extract all the PNGs, then under Gimp or photoshop open the desired file, you'll see the transparency -> the checkerboard in the background of the image. Make the modifications you want (shape, color), save as PNG and with Reader use the "insert" function in .dat (blank) (or any batch method,... ) . That's how I did it for my Mod Blue Skin. At no time did I bother with alpha layers ... It's PNG 24b and GIMP and Photoshop treats it very well.
To know which PNG files are useful for SC4's interface -> extract from my .dat the PNGs, you'll get all the TGIs. You'll discover that there are not so many useful PNGs (less than 300 !).
For the text backgrounds of the "Advisors" windows, it is the two small files 0x856DDBAC,0x46A006B0,0x14416264 ...65 which sets the color, it is valid for the "News" window. You remember the pink pad that I display to show the shift of the icons in the "crime" window, well it's also one of these two small files.

Forgot.

I forgot, the blue-skin PNG file I downloaded on STEX does not include your latest discoveries, which I added.

  Edited July 21, 2020 by hugues aroux  
forgot

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you very much Dear Hugues, 

16 minutes ago, hugues aroux said:

Extract all the PNGs, then under Gimp or photoshop open the desired file, you'll see the transparency -> the checkerboard in the background of the image. Make the modifications you want (shape, color), save as PNG and with Reader use the "insert" function in .dat (blank) (or any batch method,... ) . That's how I did it for my Mod Blue Skin. At no time did I bother with alpha layers ... It's PNG 24b and GIMP and Photoshop treats it very well.

Yes, As you know, I followed this process to deal with the cinema and pink Version, But when i want to do more complicated process such as add or merged layers, the transparent layer was influenced by that, that's why i want to keep the alpha channel just work on the rgb channel and then merge them back again, Rivit taught me that Mask method worked well in this issue, however Furthermore, I'm just curious and wanna learn more about PNGxBMP of GoFSH, since i quite like this tool.

27 minutes ago, hugues aroux said:

For the text backgrounds of the "Advisors" windows, it is the two small files 0x856DDBAC,0x46A006B0,0x14416264 ...65 which sets the color, it is valid for the "News" window. You remember the pink pad that I display to show the shift of the icons in the "crime" window, well it's also one of these two small files.

Ah, Thank you Hugues, I'm sorry that my picture maybe not that clear enough, I want to change the content's color to transparent but not a same color as background, since this Version i made is kind of noisy, for instance, at least four colors there. But You did remind me that what the effect is if we change those tiny color squares to 255,0,255 ? Would that change the news content's background to transparent too? Interesting, I will give it a try, Thank you!! Anyway, if there is still no luck, I will change the advice window to a simple color, that will solve this issue.

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Too much talking of me, I want to talk with you about my thoughts as well, Along with recent discoveries, I have learned and believed that something must be hardcoded in exe file, but Meanwhile, I still also have a feeling that some others shoudn't be treated this way, Such as font and color and texture, those stuffs shouldn't be outside so that would be convenient for customizing or testing? I'm not a programmer, Cori is, but i thought it would be strange if those stuffs were coded or encapsulated, as you know, the signpost, I have found out the frame's textures in simcity_2.dat, then i also found those news's background which are also relevant to PNGs, so i thought why the Maxis coded the signpost's content color in exe? Likewise, the font's color, As you also knew that i couldn't change the font's color of some windows (query), I may could understand that some window as Graphic which might be generated by exe on time, but i couldn't understand the others, Anyways, i have these questions, sometimes it's just a bit hard to let me give up something, I guess that someday when i could see the code of exe, I would say, well, I lost!

[hugues aroux 3,784]

7 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

such as add or merged layers, the transparent layer was influenced by that, that's why i want to keep the alpha channel just work on the rgb channel and then merge them back again

...you like to complicate things, hihi , but I understand you want to test things. However, why merge layers when you can add any color with all kinds of tools, via a layer, mask... so you don't touch the 3 channels.

For the Fonts I'm discovering what you just described above. I'm very cautious about modifying Fonts. Except for the scrolling blocks, like "news", "advisers", the space of the titles (...) is very restricted and/or conditioned to the size of the block in which a text is written. This can quickly become complicated. For the colors, yes, some modifications can be really interesting. To be continued ...

I agree with you, it's strange to "code" a very small part like the background color of a graph (...). But to have myself humbly developed web applications, it happens that we deal with this kind of thing in a function, just because it's easier at that time. And a lot of developers have told me they have this kind of practice ... it's not good ... but it's easier. No one's supposed to come and see it. Well, yeah... simcity4 players, damn players . That said, maybe it's not the case here... ??

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Yes, Hugues, I agree with you, sometimes things are not such simple as i thought, There should be a reason if these were coded, I know some old time coders, they are more precise or serious with their code. not to metioned the SC4 is a great game.

15 minutes ago, hugues aroux said:

.you like to complicate things, hihi , but I understand you want to test things. However, why merge layers when you can add any color with all kinds of tools, via a layer, mask... so you don't touch the 3 channels.

Haha, Yes, You really understand me, I'm someone who want to make things to be complicated, Anyhow I would give up some strange thoughts, but i really want to know how to make GoFSH work with BMPxPNG.

[rivit 3,391]

18 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

how to make GoFSH work with BMPxPNG

I'm working on it Raymond... I'm going to dub you The BugMan because you found another one - also for me a bit of a #PNGs matter moment as I clearly tested from PNG to BMP but not so thoroughly going the other way - well rather C0/D0 both ways is fine but C0/A0 isn't.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

8 minutes ago, rivit said:

I'm working on it Raymond... I'm going to dub you The BugMan because you found another one - also for me a bit of a #PNGs matter moment as I clearly tested from PNG to BMP but not so thoroughly going the other way - well rather C0/D0 both ways is fine but C0/A0 isn't.

Well Sir, as you know, Since your splendid GoFSH is my favorite, Your work (Including others) make an important milestone of SC4, so… I'm glad to take this title, i may could challenge the Bugman of the year. @Cyclone Boom Thank you!!

Yours Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[BartonThinks 3,416]

2 hours ago, rivit said:

I'm working on it Raymond... I'm going to dub you The BugMan because you found another one - also for me a bit of a #PNGs matter moment as I clearly tested from PNG to BMP but not so thoroughly going the other way - well rather C0/D0 both ways is fine but C0/A0 isn't.

I'd be over the moon, myself, if GoFSH can be updated to produce PNGs with transparencies. The project I'm working on right now requires a bunch of custom textures, so I've been compiling them in Photoshop using elements from existing texture packs. I've had a lot of trouble converting BMPs for overlay textures into workable PNGs -- I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but I can't seem to figure out how to apply the alpha channels properly -- so if GoFSH can take care of this, it would be really great news.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

1 hour ago, BartonThinks said:

I'd be over the moon, myself, if GoFSH can be updated to produce PNGs with transparencies. The project I'm working on right now requires a bunch of custom textures, so I've been compiling them in Photoshop using elements from existing texture packs. I've had a lot of trouble converting BMPs for overlay textures into workable PNGs -- I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but I can't seem to figure out how to apply the alpha channels properly -- so if GoFSH can take care of this, it would be really great news.

Hiya @BartonThinks, I don't know if it works for you, but i could solve my issue with the method Rivit taught me, For example there is a PNG which has alpha channel, First copy the layer to a copy, then at the original layer use his method:

14 hours ago, rivit said:

menu Layer/Layer Mask/From Transparency - this adds a mask next to the image in the Layer View and both color and mask can viewed in Channels or by other means.

after that you will see this layer has been added a mask at the right side, then do anything you wish but don't Merge this layer which we just have added mask, after you have finished your work, you could drag this mask to the layer you just finish modifying, then delete the layer we drag the mask from, then at last you should get just one layer which you modified and with a original mask at the right side, the last step you could choose save (apply mask) or save as a copy of your work, I hope it helps, however Anyway, I'm also looking forward dear Rivit's great work just like you.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

7 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Hiya @BartonThinks, I don't know if it works for you, but i could solve my issue with the method Rivit taught me, For example there is a PNG which has alpha channel, First copy the layer to a copy, then at the original layer use his method:

after that you will see this layer has been added a mask at the right side, then do anything you wish but don't Merge this layer which we just have added mask, after you have finished your work, you could drag this mask to the layer you just finish modifying, then delete the layer we drag the mask from, then at last you should get just one layer which you modified and with a original mask at the right side, the last step you could choose save (apply mask) or save as a copy of your work, I hope it helps, however Anyway, I'm also looking forward dear Rivit's great work just like you.

Ah, that looks right. I'll give it a shot and see how it turns out. Thanks so much to both you and @rivit.

Edit: Took longer than I'd like to admit for me to finally figure this out, but it works. Thanks again!

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya my Dear Friends, 

After an unsuccessful work i made another not too bad Version, Hope @carlosmarcelo would like it. (it doesn't matter if you don't, I will keep making until you are happy with)

Welcome anyone to help me with testing, BTW, I really appreciate if someone could name this one for me, I'm not good at it. Thank you!

Progress : 3/5

UI_Holiday.zip

[hugues aroux 3,784]

This version has a little retro side, the purple of the buttons looks like the covers of my childhood notebooks.
My heart goes out to the previous ochre version.
For the name, with "holiday" you expect sunshine ;-) ; I lack inspiration so I would say : "retro" !

[carlosmarcelo 975]

2 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Hiya my Dear Friends, 

After an unsuccessful work i made another not too bad Version, Hope @carlosmarcelo would like it. (it doesn't matter if you don't, I will keep making until you are happy with)

Raymond, thank you.
It's nice to see that despite all the work, you seem to have fun and remain firmly committed to doing something good for everyone. 
I tested this file and the previous one (UI_cinema) and both worked 100%.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

①⑤ Forrest Gump : I have to say i'm also a film buff, so After i learned more about BAT, I will try my best to bring those stuffs of my beloved movies to you, this is the first one, Actually, I had this thought when i was modeling that bus stop Lots.

I made the chair and the trunk, but stuck in Gump's head, I mean hair.

when i was watching this part, I cried, We was like peas and carrots again, so wanna make a big tree like this, Does it look like Flipped?!

Shrimp boat

This House

I remember that someone has made a lighthouse like this.

I know there are many classic lines in this movie, But this is my favorite part, When i got tired, i slept… one on top of the other,…long enough for the stars to come out…

~~ Raymond

[rivit 3,391]

Ok @Raymond7cn and @BartonThinks - here's a new version of GoFSH which I'd like you take for an excursion

It should: make PNGs of C0/A0 bmp pairs, C0/D0 pairs with channel swizzles (p57 of the manual), loose (unpaired) A0, C0, D0, and other random BMPs 24 or 32bit. Then it should also go the other way correctly from PNG to BMP splitting those with transparency into C0/A0 or pairs. Choosing texture group only works when going from PNG to BMP. 

I have not flown this over the Atlantic yet so there may still be cases that ditch. Consider this a BETA test please.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

@rivit I just gave it a whirl with one of CP's overlay textures, and the results are perfect. Even after I got the alpha mask to work in Photoshop, the edges always looked a little "off" on some of the textures, so it's great to have this functionality available while I build up some basic photo editing skills.

I haven't reached the point where I'm attempting to edit transit textures, so I might not be the best person to test the C0/D0 functionality, but it's something I'd like to get into in the future, so I'm really excited to hear this should work for that too.

Edit: Just for comparison's sake, here's a look at what the texture in question looks like using GoFSH vs. my attempt to get the alpha mask right in Photoshop. I'm sure it's just a matter of rookie mistakes on my part, but I really appreciate the difference in quality.

Edit 2: Tried to figure out the C0/D0 stuff to see if I could give it a proper try. Not quite sure I can wrap my head around it just yet. That said, the program successfully generated all of the necessary PNGs (including the transparencies) in the click of a button. Wish I could be more help. Again, really appreciate the tool and all the work that you (and mgb) have put into it.

 GoFSH

 DIY

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you so much Dear @rivit, it works for my former project, haven't tried more complicated stuff, but at least it works like a charm by now, Thank you!

---

@carlosmarcelo @hugues aroux Thank you very much my Friends, I will take that name 'retro', it's more nostalgic, I like it.

---

Today i failed with gradual change, it's such a pity that i couldn't have it due to some UIs are flexible:

maybe someday i would go back to deal with it, however i think it's sort of impossible.

---

Opps, silly me, It just needs lot of effort, I thought i could fix it, My dear Friends, would you think this version is worth to perfect? just thought not too much people like rainbows.@CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom @hugues aroux @Terring @carlosmarcelo

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Well, @Raymond7cn, since you mentioned me I'll be honest.

I love what you are doing and learning, but I'm personally very happy with the Maxis colors. I'm used to them and they seem like a comfy pair of shoes to me.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

4 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Well, @Raymond7cn, since you mentioned me I'll be honest.

I love what you are doing and learning, but I'm personally very happy with the Maxis colors. I'm used to them and they seem like a comfy pair of shoes to me.

Sorry to bother you Cori, I totally understand you there, Yes that's why i haven't changed too much of the icons and shapes, Anyway, i will try to fix it since you mentioned the learning, and i'm very happy that you can tell me your true feeling, That's what a friend does, Thank you!

Yours,

-- Raymond