Raymond's Newbie Thoughts

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Dear Friends, The Churchill statue has been finished, It's a bit pity that we couldn't enjoy it from bottom to top,  Appreciate anyone helps me for a testing as always (especially someone who has seen it in real life). 

Churchill.zip

Park menu 1x1 Maxis's night HD

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

Very nicely done, Raymond!

It looks a very realistic Churchill statue indeed.

I really like how you've made the texturing with the lighting effects too how the reflection appears.

By the way, for when you release to the STEX and it might be worth removing the ._LooseDesc file since these aren't needed (with the descriptor bundled in the .SC4Lot file).

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you so much CB, so many stuffs in one scene, You never stop helping me. Yes, i will deal with it as you and Cori helped me with that before, Just aware of this statue maybe too big, so i plan to release two Lots (big and small), sorry about the size since i haven't been there in real life.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

 

The Winston Churchill has been published.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Today i delved into Ferry a bit, I found that i knew very little about it, even after opened the Maxis's Car Ferry with Reader and LE and SC4Tool, i have tons of questions.

What i have understood by now is there are some Effects (Effect_Dock, i may could use it) in this Lot, and some parts (3 tiles )of it is W(probably means water) and the others is L(land) in SC4Tool, then i recalled that the Ferry is very sensitive to the terrain of beach, so what if i change them to all L or W? If i change them to W, does it matter to the water depth? Or to say, what is the minimum water depth to allow ferries to appear so that ferry port could function well?

Then i had a Newbie thought again, since i seldom play with it, Does the game handle the ferry routes? If so, By what? RUL or Exemplar or hardcode? If i have two cities, each of them just has one ferry port, would they work? will the game create a ferry line between a Passenger ferry and a Car ferry? Why i haven't seen the car drives into the ferry port although i could see TE in ferry port Lot with SC4Tool?

I don't know why, i just have a feeling that the function or the theory of airport and ferry port, they are similar, so i wonder that if i can have a Lot with two functions? ferry and airport.

i thought it would be hard, however Suddenly, i thought of CAN-AM, Actually i just want sims go to my vertiport in the sea, so can i modify the canal tile props to water models?  i mean by changing the "is ground model" value to false, that would be easy if i could, then i just need to make a airport on water then connect it with CAN-AM tiles (roads), the canal boats will drive into the sea directly.

so many 'unknown' here, i really need to delve more deeper.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

②④ TE Building : Frankly i also want to figure out why there are so many newbie thoughts in my head.  Anyway, i want to see if i could have this kind of buildings in SC4:

i thought whatsoever overhangs or TE could make it.

-- Edit -- @Whte_rbt's advice about subway TE

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

W(probably means water) and the others is L(land)

Yep. The letter designations do mean those portions of the lot must be over Water for the W parts and over Land for the L parts.

 

2 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

If i change them to W, does it matter to the water depth?

I'm somewhat certain that they can be unrestricted for the water depth, but I've not looked into it. However, there is the Riebert von Aalve (Water Castle) that is plopped on water which then somehow conforms to whatever water depth, yet appears to be right on the water surface. Maybe you could peek in that file to see how it's done?

Picture of said castle:

Spoiler

 

2 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

i just have a feeling that the function or the theory of airport and ferry port, they are similar, so i wonder that if i can have a Lot with two functions? ferry and airport.

Seems likely that could work. Other lots have been made with more than one function such as bus stops being a part of a subway station and/or a passenger rail station.

 

2 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Suddenly, i thought of CAN-AM, Actually i just want sims go to my vertiport in the sea, so can i modify the canal tile props to water models?  i mean by changing the "is ground model" value to false, that would be easy if i could, then i just need to make a airport on water then connect it with CAN-AM tiles (roads), the canal boats will drive into the sea directly.

With CAN-AM being network (road) based, I'm guessing you could drain the sea water from the city tile temporarily, add the canal tiles, and then refill the sea. I'm also guessing if that worked, the canal boats would conform to the underwater terrain so would be submerged for their travel. Ofc, if the canal boat were changed to something which look more submarine-ish, that might look good.

Another possibility for connecting your floating airport with transportation would be flups similar to @Ro-Bo's How to Build Underwater Tunnel Using Flexible Underpasses (FLUPs) tutorial. The difference being you'd stop at your airport rather than make a tunnel from one landmass to another.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@CorinaMarie Thank you so much! Cori, Actually i overturned some thoughts after i posted it, but you give more possibilities about them, Thank you for your patient reading, Now i get more interesting ideas and excited about the results, i will quit modeling a while for playing SC4. I hope you don't mind if I will have a question or two in future.

I have a feeling that whatever the final result is, My dream could come true in a way, since supported by a powerful team, CoriBoom™

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

There is a way to do highway thru buildings, can't remember the thread tho. It involves constructing a tunnel thru a hill then removing the hill to place the building. Weird, weird system.

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

Just thinking on this you could also just render a building with the tunnel entrances, make it into an overhanging prop on a 1x1 lot and just plop next to highway.

Or more flexibly make a tunnel entrance lot that converts car and freight traffic into subway (probably with slightly overhanging model to make contact with buildings), plop one on either side of the building then link with subway rail.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you @Whte_rbt, we always share the same opinion, but i never thought of the subway TE idea, Yes! In my city (real), there are some malls they function as subway station as well underground, Wow, you just inspire me a super idea about my simtropolis headquarter, Thank you!!

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

The download speed of that water castle is so slow, (1k/s) so i began to make some fun first,

As Cori said, I can change the 'L' to 'W', 

First rep of LotConfigPropertyObjectData

00000000 Building

00000001 Prop

00000002 Texture

00000003 Flora

00000005 Water

00000006 Land

00000007 Transit

Then i could plop ferry in the water.

I change the Terrain parameters for clearly observing, so the Building part is floating on the surface, but the prop parts parallel to seabed. --Edit -- Are there some parameters of Exemplar could change this? (Building bottom, prop top)

Next step, i plan to add some jobs to the ferry tk see if sims will go to there for work. --Edit-- which one could add jobs to civic Lot? (Demand Created, Demand Satisfied, Capacity Satisfied)

Along with testing, some interesting stuffs:

Air whale

maybe a Time and Space Gate. 

[rocker289 75]

Ray Before you go off Check this out

PEG Oceanographic Institute

Half on land with road

The rest in the water

Have a look

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you so much! @rocker289 i will learn it as soon as possible, i'm extremely grateful for all of you who cares about my newbie project. Thank you!

[rocker289 75]

Like Cori said

You are not a newbie

[thecitiescenter 3,045]

On 01/09/2020 at 8:23 AM, Raymond7cn said:

②④ TE Building : Frankly i also want to figure out why there are so many newbie thoughts in my head.  Anyway, i want to see if i could have this kind of buildings in SC4:

i thought whatsoever overhangs or TE could make it.

-- Edit -- @Whte_rbt's advice about subway TE

You could also just model the tunnel and the highway into the model itself, and then TE it.  All you'd have to do is make sure the entrance height and width lines up to one of the available road pieces (elevated highway, elevated RHW, or Road Viaducts).  The easy/lazy way would be to overhang it, or even lazier way, just offset the building when rendering and run the road or highway or ave or whatever you want right thru it 

 Anyhow, hope you make this, it'll look great in my Osaka map!

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you Steve, @thecitiescenter i got it, i will try my best to help you to beautify your Osaka(大阪) city,  Just be patient my friend, since i got many parallel jobs. Oh, i love this game.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

It's so strange! Today i made many tests for vertiport, I will post the pics later.

1, i want to figure out why the ferry i modified its props set on the seabed but the Building part is on the surface, then i opened that castle Cori shared to me, Compared with the differences between their Exemplars (Building and prop), i couldn't see too many differences, i changed some of them such as Occupant size, the props were still under the sea.

2, Then i replaced the props of castle with my vertiport, the vertiport appeared on the surface of the sea.

3, i was aware that maybe due to the ferry itself, then i modified a stadium with my vertiport, No problem, the props appeared on the surface.

4, Then i wanted to make sure if it's ok with airport, I tried to modify that sea-airport which @Terring shared to me, it seemed as not an airport but a Landmark with some airplane effects, Anyway, the props appeared on the sea bed.

5, I opened Maxis's airport, i found that couldn't change its size with LE, Then i recalled some info i heard from Tarkus that airport is a specific Lot, so i just added my props and plopped it in game, The props still appeared on the sea bed...

I'm very interested in this issue now, and plan to do more further tests later, Anyway, there is still good news, i tried the Flups trick that @CorinaMarie told me, it worked like a charm! i even could UDI it through the seabed, so amazing to see the cars there, Thank you, Cori.

[Terring 6,473]

On 1/9/2020 at 10:23 AM, Raymond7cn said:

②④ TE Building : Frankly i also want to figure out why there are so many newbie thoughts in my head.  Anyway, i want to see if i could have this kind of buildings in SC4:

i thought whatsoever overhangs or TE could make it.

-- Edit -- @Whte_rbt's advice about subway TE

The idea of roads, highways and even railroads crossing buildings, just like the above real world example, has been a very common trope in futuristic cities visions, especially in the older ones. Back then, the best way to describe how a city will look like into the future would be "big buildings and lots of cars". Since the most impressive engineering feats of the early 20th century were bigger and better dams, bridges, canals and skyscrapers, it seemed only reasonable that the cities of the future would had buildings bigger and taller than ever. Add the obsession and devotion of cars, especially during the 40's to 60's, and you'll end up with urban battlefields between "more and bigger buildings" and "more and bigger roads". The result were visions with buildings big enough to let huge roads crossing them. Something like these:

Here in SimCity 4 we have some buildings that you can cross a transportation system in them, and obviously I'm not talking about elevated train stations. Some of them are TE and specialized to accept only one type of transport to cross them, like Raised Transit Park 1 made by @bixel...

...and others are over-hanged props that allow multiple kinds of transportation to cross them, such as Rail thru building Bulowstrasse made by @Odd from Sweden.

At first, the game had only 3 elevated transportation systems (highway, El, monorail) and all of them had 15 meters height. Now, thanks to NAM, not only we have more 15 meters height systems, such as elevated roads and high speed railroads, but we have also 7,5 meters and 30 meters height elevated systems. That's a lot of elevated transportation systems, with endless of combination possibilities. That would lead into ludicrous variations of the same building and that's just too much, both for you the creator and for me the player.

So, for convenience, I would suggest you making those buildings as over-hanged props, allowing plenty of different elevated roads-railroads-whatever to cross them. Same designs but different results. If you want, you can make your buildings even more useful by making them working as transit hubs as well. Something like the Overpass [15m] ⇔ Overpass [30m] Mutual transfer station made by Bripizza (I think also available in NAM), but making it look like a skyscraper or something.

[Terring 6,473]

27 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

4, Then i wanted to make sure if it's ok with airport, I tried to modify that sea-airport which @Terring shared to me, it seemed as not an airport but a Landmark with some airplane effects, Anyway, the props appeared on the sea bed.

5, I opened Maxis's airport, i found that couldn't change its size with LE, Then i recalled some info i heard from Tarkus that airport is a specific Lot, so i just added my props and plopped it in game, The props still appeared on the sea bed...

Looks like a game limitation to me. Since floating airports are not very common in real world, Maxis didn't programmed the in-game airports to be constructed in water and stay on the surface. If I understand right, airports are supposed to provide a huge commercial cap relief, so what I would recommend you is to remove the airport functionality of the vertiport and make it as a landmark that provides the huge commercial cap relief (maybe by giving it a big city-wide landmark effect), giving it so the benefits of an airport without being an airport. As about the ferries, if they are a pain in your head, you might want to remove entirely the ferry transit and use the FLUPs instead. Of course I'm not a modder, so I'm sure somebody else will give you better advises on modding your vertiport.

By the way, this...

...looks like you accidentally made an underwater city

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Ah, so many… @Terring, Thank you so much!

I wouldn't feel strange if someone already had the same thoughts as mine, since we all love this full of possibilities game. After learnt the tutorial of NAM by Robin on Youtube, i didn't have too much time to play them due to beginning modeling then, so Actually, i only have been through 7.5 and 15m, ah, i have a sudden and random thought now, Can you built a multi-layer Highway system, such as up the 7.5 is 15 and then 20? and then 30 and …100? haha, i don't know if it's possible, it's just exited to dream of such transit system through those Skyscrapers like a futurist city. Thank you Terring for your overhangs idea, i plan to make it within my simtropolis headquarter.

Haha, yes, i had the same feeling about underwear city part during testing, whereas not all of our sea are transparent, and Yes, you're right, i have changed my plan a bit since i don't want to waste too much of time on it, I want to make whatsoever a Lot which could float on the sea with some airplane effects, and i thought if this lot could provide Jobs, we could use Flups so that sims could work there. By now, I just want to make sure why some Lots's props are floating, but some others are on the ground(seabed):

Here is a simple test i just made, as you can tell, i didn't change much with these vanilla lots, i just add "Water" properties into them(bright blue arrows), Then they are different in game, Big plaza and Baseball stadium's props are floating on the surface, but the areabase and ferry are on the seabed. I couldn't see differences between them right now, Maybe hardcoded by game, Still need to delve a bit, You could try it simply with LE, it's quite interesting.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

Hey, @Raymond7cn -- I might have a solution to the vertiport problem.

Short version:

• Create a water compatible lot. Add your props as needed.
• Set "LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation" to "0"
• Set "LotConfigPropertyRetainingWallTypes" to "0x194B0000"

Let me know if this works. If it does, I'll explain how I figured it out/what I think the problem is. If it doesn't work, well...

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

1 hour ago, BartonThinks said:

Hey, @Raymond7cn -- I might have a solution to the vertiport problem.

Short version:

• Create a water compatible lot. Add your props as needed.
• Set "LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation" to "0"
• Set "LotConfigPropertyRetainingWallTypes" to "0x194B0000"

Let me know if this works. If it does, I'll explain how I figured it out/what I think the problem is. If it doesn't work, well...

Thank you very much! Barton, i will go to see what happens with your tips.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

I ran a quick test on my own and I'm 99% sure this solves the issue.

The screenshot below includes two lots from the Historic Harbor set. Both contain props. The lot on the left (props below water line) has been modified so that the "LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation" value is "90." The lot on the right (props above the water line) has not been modified and has a "LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation" value of "0."

(Note: If you rotate the view, the blank square at the bottom of the lot on the right disappears.)

By setting the "LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation" property to "0," a lot will always have a lot foundation. If the lot is placed in water, the game treats the lot as if it's built on a foundation that ends at the water line. This way, any props contained on the lot are brought up to the water line as well.

The "LotConfigPropertyRetainingWallTypes" value of "0x194B0000" creates invisible retaining walls, which gives the illusion that the lot and props are floating. If you choose a different type of retaining wall (e.g., brick), the lot will appear to be sitting on a giant pillar rising out of the seabed.

When I modified the "LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation" value and changed it to "90," the lot on the left no longer created a lot foundation. As such, the lot conformed to the ground surface (in this case, the seabed), which caused the props to appear underwater.

Note that props and buildings are made to "float" in completely different ways. Buildings cannot appear below the water line, so they will always appear to be floating. Unlike buildings, props can appear below the water line, so the only way to make them "float" is to force a lot foundation with invisible retaining walls.

The reason why the stadium and plaza props appear to float is because both of those lots already had a "LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation" value of "0." Maxis did this because these props need level ground to appear properly in-game.

The ferry terminal and Area 51 base lots are designed to conform to slopes, so they won't automatically create a lot foundation. As such, the props for these lots conform to the seabed surface. However, the buildings for both lots appear to float, since buildings cannot go below the water line.

Hope that helps. 

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

It helps! it helps! Barton, @BartonThinks Solved! Sorry that i'm stuck on something now, i'll reply you with my understanding tomorrow, Thanks a million!

[BartonThinks 3,416]

1 hour ago, Raymond7cn said:

It helps! it helps! Barton, @BartonThinks Solved! Sorry that i'm stuck on something now, i'll reply you with my understanding tomorrow, Thanks a million!

Glad to hear it. I knew it must be possible because of Historic Harbor and some other lots I've used in the past, but until this morning, I had no idea how they worked. Took at least 20 or 30 minutes of comparing different exemplars before I spotted the lot foundation property.

Hopefully whatever you're stuck on has an easy answer.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Well, i couldn't sleep,  here is an example of my understanding:

Succeed! BTW, The area 51 base's LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopBeforeLotFoundation=1.Haha.

These parameters about foundation and wall,

Building Foundation,

LotConfigPropertyRetainingWallType,

LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopBeforeLotFoundation,

LotConfigPropertyMinSlopAllowed,

MaxSlopAllowedMaxSlopAllowed

Frankly, i never paid attention to them before, i guess that since i'm still quite a newbie. so i never thought of it's relevant to my issue. Now i believe i have got all of them, Thanks a million, @BartonThinks   I'm looking forward the next project now, Automata and Props of Tractor and Vintage Car and Futurist Car.

Yours,

-- Raymond

[BartonThinks 3,416]

That looks correct to me. The only thing I'd add is that, with these kinds of lots, I think you always want to set the value for LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopBeforeLotFoundation to "0." That way, the lot will have a foundation, even if the ground is completely flat. If you set the value to "1," like you did with the Area 51 base, the props would still appear under the water if the seabed is completely flat.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you @BartonThinks, Sorry that i might not discribe it clearly due to too excited, I mean the Maxis's vanilla Area 51 base's LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopBeforeLotFoundation = 1, After i changed it to "0", The Props could float on the surface, Just as you said, Always "0" is good for me, Thanks again!

[BartonThinks 3,416]

2 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Thank you @BartonThinks, Sorry that i might not discribe it clearly due to too excited, I mean the Maxis's vanilla Area 51 base's LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopBeforeLotFoundation = 1, After i changed it to "0", The Props could float on the surface, Just as you said, Always "0" is good for me, Thanks again!

Aaaaah. That makes a lot more sense.