Raymond's Newbie Thoughts

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Finally, It's been one year... @Terring

You won't believe how excited I was when it appeared in game, I solved many issues when  working on it, I know I couldn't make this come true without learning from you at this year. Thank you my friends!!

@all friends in this thread.

I have deleted some previous shots to save your time on loading. and I may still need to make a Building (custom Lods) for it.

[Terring 6,473]

Oh boy, this is so badass! Great job, Ray. Super villains, beware!

[pippin 73]

Now we need the Batmobile cruising the streets. You opened this door... Wayne manor? Wayne Industries? The Batcave?

[mattb325 28,880]

Very cool, indeed, Raymond - I'm super pleased you got it figured out...I'm sure this will be super popular!!!! 

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@Terring @pippin @mattb325 Thank you Terring and pippin and Matt for your compliments, There will be more challenges ahead of me, I hope I can at least finish one or two Giant works this year, Simtropolis headquarters, Minas Tirith, Old Trafford, Sunken hotel, Kremlin wall, Avatar, UI....Oh! @Terring Have we talked about an elevated ?to subway somewhere? Sorry, I did forget it, It would be possible now, Since I can write Path now.

I have some weird thoughts today, Sorry that if they're ignorant, since I almost know nothing about NAM, 

1.  Can a Monorail or Elevated Rail be laid in the middle of Avenue?

2.  I saw there was "follow_rail = true or follow_road = true," in generator when I was learning from Cori. May I ask a stupid question, What's the nature of Powerlines? I just thought it's kind of similar to network, Is there a "follow_powerlines = true,"?

[Barroco Hispano 26,695]

@Raymond7cn Do you think it is possible to reduce the occupant size of the roads? It would be interesting to be able to put mmp's on the roads. 

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

2 hours ago, Barroco Hispano said:

@Raymond7cn Do you think it is possible to reduce the occupant size of the roads? It would be interesting to be able to put mmp's on the roads. 

Hiya Alejo, Oftentimes I'm the one who ask possibilities. I don't know the answer of this, but no boundary of imagination, right?  Frankly, I had this dream before, Yes, it must be very cool.

And hope you could shed some lights on this issue I run into, it has driven me crazy a whole day!

Update: it's been solved temporarily, Though I haven't figured out the reason, however this one maybe one of them:

Spoiler

I think the problem was that you are mixing lighting types in the scene.

Mr Photographic Exposure Control in the Knowledge Base article I found states:

"For predictable results, illuminate the scene only with photometric or standard lights (not a mix), and use Physical Units or Unitless, respectively."

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/3DSMa...

I deleted all your miMentalArea lights, and replaced them with 'instanced' Photometric Free Lights. The reason for making one light, then copying it as an 'instance' is that I can change one light and have them all change at the same time.. .very handy.

The strength of these lights I made are 7500cd, then I changed the dimming percentage to 50000% resulting in 3750000.0cd

I had to give such a high cd value because when you mix Sun/Sky Systems, and Portals the lights need an insane amount of radiance to compete with the sun/sky system. An insane amount. 

You can see the difference above between the two renderings.

To get a more realistic form of Photometric Lighting you should take a look into using Photometric Web (.IES) lighting. The .IES information can give the light a more directed characteristic, like a falloff cone. Unlike spherical area lights, Photometric Web lights using IES information can be angled and shaped. This style of lighting is well suited to areas when you only want spot lighting over the tables, or against walls.

More information here: http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-8CF2ABB6-41F1-48B4-9BA3-C8E8C47941B6 (I know it looks very complicated, but in actual fact you don't need to know how they work.. .just use them).

There are free .IES files all over the web, like this set from Pixar: https://community.renderman.pixar.com/article/99/library-of-ies-lights.html

There is also an excellent free IES viewer application available here: http://www.photometricviewer.com/?i=1

So, remember to not mix standard lights with photometric lights and daylight systems. And to boost the hell out of them

Link

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@Barroco Hispano, I just made a Simple test, I modified all the can-am Lots, replace the RKT to a flat road model I made, set their Occupant size to 0.1, 0.3, 0.1, change all of their Boundaries (x1y1x2y2) in Lotconfig to 0x0080000, But still couldn't plant MMPs on the road, Maybe I lost something somewhere, Well, I suddenly thought of one thing while doing this, Why don't we overhang the MMPs?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

10 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

What's the nature of Powerlines? I just thought it's kind of similar to network, Is there a "follow_powerlines = true,"?

See this post by @Tarkus for what is known about the Power Lines Network.

Then for what's available for automata scripting in Lua, take a peek in FF1D4800 (_templates.lua). No, there isn't a follow_powerlines option.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

See this post by @Tarkus for what is known about the Power Lines Network.

Then for what's available for automata scripting in Lua, take a peek in FF1D4800 (_templates.lua). No, there isn't a follow_powerlines option.

Thank you Cori for this wonderful sharing!! I did miss something during that time.

So Power line is really a network, but I guess this special network and water pipe don't have main properties which other networks have in RUL file, I have no idea if it can be by modifying RUL, but as Tarkus said, the prospect of doing overrides is really remote, unfortunately.

RUL is interesting, as far as I have learnt by now, It seems like a program language, It also contains something as conditional statements, 1,?,?,?,? 2,d,?,?,?,?  

Also Thanks for the _templates.lua, @CorinaMarie I have looked through it, But a bit curious that why there are only follow_rail and follow_road within? Aren't there others like "Highway Avenue Street MonoRail LightRail OneWayRoad", so I guess that there are actually only two main types in game's logic, those others they just belong to them, For example, the Highway and street and Avenue = road. If so, I wonder what does Power line belong to.

Anyway, those were just hollow thoughts from a Newbie,  I couldn't do anything since computer was busy with rendering for a project, I imagine how to make some interesting tests after a while, A Monorail lays in the middle of an Avenue, T21 Puzzle pieces, Oh, I also got an inspiration of a London Taxi from that thread, I remembered that @Cyclone Boom has mentioned it to me.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

3 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

For example, the Highway and street and Avenue = road. If so, I wonder what does Power line belong to.

That's how I understand it too.

Any network intended for car and truck type automata is a road network even if said road is a street, road, owr, avenue, or highway et. al. Then rail networks are the railway, elevated rail, subway, and monorail. Even NAM's Trams are a modified version of one of those iirc.

So, my guess is the Power Line doesn't exactly belong to any network other than itself. It then has just enough coding so that the power lines between power towers are draggable. (There are exemplars to determine properties related to cells between towers and minimum height above the terrain for the belly of the catenary curves and such.)

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@CorinaMarie Ah, Ma'am, I see and totally agree with your judgement about it. Frankly, I just had this thought when I saw this:

As you know, I like Mountains in my city, and wish some sims live there, but I often struggle for the roads for this few peeps and also don't want to break the beautiful Mountain I made badly. 

Anyway, there maybe other choices to achieve this goal, before learn how to modify networks, I should learn how to use (play with) NAM at first. Thank you Cori, A good lesson today.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

@Raymond7cn a couple of ideas for how to achieve a functional cable car...

1) The most obvious network substitution I can think of would be the Elevated Rail network or one of its NAM variants. The main problem would be that you'd need to override the elevated train automata with your cable car automata. This would mean you couldn't use elevated rail and/or ground light rail in the same city as your cable car, because you'd end up with cable cars on your elevated rail/GLR networks.

2) If you're okay with cheating a little, you could simulate a cable car network using subways. The best example of this that I can think of is Paeng's SHOKing Funicular. Basically, you would make your cable car stations into subway stations. Then, you could connect your cable car stations with an invisible subway tunnel, which sims could use to travel back and forth. After that, you would connect the two stations with some eye candy lots with cable props. Paeng's funicular uses timed props to simulate the movement of the cars, which is something you could do for your own system with timed cable car props.

You might also want to check out the PEG Ski Resort, which includes a slope-friendly ski lift system similar to a cable car. It's eye candy only, but it might be useful if you're trying to figure out how to make slope-friendly cables.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@BartonThinks, Thank you Barton! I didn't know the Paeng's SHOKing Funicular mod before, wow it uses subway, what a splendid idea, I'll go to learn it later. Thanks. 

As you know I haven't much experience in playing, so I don't know if Elevated Rail would be suitable for mountain area, However it seems there aren't any other better available options for us, ofc, If we have air lines in SC4's transit system, That would be more easier.

I delved into Power lines a bit today, not too much surprise there, Just as Tarkus said, very little Exemplars or RULs about it, I knew my ability clearly, so I can only expect NAM would make it to a new network someday.

Don't take it seriously, It's just a dream by making Elevated rail to a prop, weird Avenue T21, Ha-ha. Maybe there was already same stuffs I haven't experienced in NAM. I just have seen this when playing GTA 3 many years ago.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

6 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

@BartonThinks, Thank you Barton! I didn't know the Paeng's SHOKing Funicular mod before, wow it uses subway, what a splendid idea, I'll go to learn it later. Thanks. 

As you know I haven't much experience in playing, so I don't know if Elevated Rail would be suitable for mountain area, However it seems there aren't any other better available options for us, ofc, If we have air lines in SC4's transit system, That would be more easier.

I delved into Power lines a bit today, not too much surprise there, Just as Tarkus said, very little Exemplars or RULs about it, I knew my ability clearly, so I can only expect NAM would make it to a new network someday.

Don't take it seriously, It's just a dream by making Elevated rail to a prop, weird Avenue T21, Ha-ha. Maybe there was already same stuffs I haven't experienced in NAM. I just have seen this when playing GTA 3 many years ago.

Ah, sorry -- I meant that you could create new models for the el-rail network so that it looks like a cable car network. That is, you could create a cable car network that overrides the el-rail system. I think my post might have sounded like I was suggesting building an actual el-rail system in the mountain.

Also, am I understanding you correctly that the elevated rail over the avenue you posted was made using the power lines network?

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

3 minutes ago, BartonThinks said:

Ah, sorry -- I meant that you could create new models for the el-rail network so that it looks like a cable car network. That is, you could create a cable car network that overrides the el-rail system. I think my post might have sounded like I was suggesting building an actual el-rail system in the mountain.

Also, am I understanding you correctly that the elevated rail over the avenue you posted was made using the power lines network?

Please don't say sorry, Barton, It's my fault, However it's a bit pity that I couldn't show you that more clearly with a shot of city, since as you may know, I don't have too many metropolis, the only region in my comp was broken due to a test. Anyway, I'll show you that someday, whereas I thought at least I have gotten your valuable advices, they are indeed helpful.

Not exactly with the naughty work I made, sorry that I'm not with my comp now, It's not a power lines network but a Elevated rail, I tweaked an Exemplar of Elevated rail pylon, it used to be a Highway type, I changed it to prop, then add this prop into Avenue T21, Ofc, as you knew, it can't function. But I really want to see that scene: the train drives upon and in the middle of Avenue, then the vehicle and peeps own the Avenue and they can U turn there. I hope you could understand what I say, but it seems impossible, Right? since I thought the game doesn't allow two kinds of commutes in one network. Ha-ha, Just a dream for now.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

34 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

Please don't say sorry, Barton, It's my fault, However it's a bit pity that I couldn't show you that more clearly with a shot of city, since as you may know, I don't have too many metropolis, the only region in my comp was broken due to a test. Anyway, I'll show you that someday, whereas I thought at least I have gotten your valuable advices, they are indeed helpful.

Not exactly with the naughty work I made, sorry that I'm not with my comp now, It's not a power lines network but a Elevated rail, I tweaked an Exemplar of Elevated rail pylon, it used to be a Highway type, I changed it to prop, then add this prop into Avenue T21, Ofc, as you knew, it can't function. But I really want to see that scene: the train drives upon and in the middle of Avenue, then the vehicle and peeps own the Avenue and they can U turn there. I hope you could understand what I say, but it seems impossible, Right? since I thought the game doesn't allow two kinds of commutes in one network. Ha-ha, Just a dream for now.

Is the existing El-Rail Over Avenue network in NAM not suitable? I know it has the usual metal el-rail pylons instead of concrete ones, and it has the drawback of being a puzzle piece network, but I'm pretty sure it supports the network pathing that you're describing.

See below:

Also, I'm in the same position about not having many cities to show off. All of the large cities I've made have been with the vanilla game, which I no longer play, so I abandoned those cities a long time ago. Ever since I started creating custom content, I've only built tiny towns to test things out. I'm hoping I can start building some big cities again soon!

 

[Kloudkicker 4,561]

1 hour ago, BartonThinks said:

Ever since I started creating custom content, I've only built tiny towns to test things out. I'm hoping I can start building some big cities again soon!

Same here, LOL. The Mayor in me is getting a bad itch, almost time to scratch it.

I have a feeling Ray did not know of the current Ave/EL setup in NAM. 

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

1 hour ago, BartonThinks said:

El-Rail Over Avenue network in NAM

Ah, Now my friends, you have to believe that I'm still quite a Newbie!!  Thank you Barton, I really want to quit modeling a bit for learning NAM now (how to play) I have collected enough tutorials in Youtube, MGB's tutorial comes first.

Now… Another Newbie's discovery:

@CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom Please tell (laugh at) me I'm the last one to know this trick, no bothering with S3D modifying any more.

6 minutes ago, Kloudkicker said:

Same here, LOL. The Mayor in me is getting a bad itch, almost time to scratch it.

I have a feeling Ray did not know of the current Ave/EL setup in NAM. 

We are writing at the same time, Nick, Yes, how foolish I am.  Do you like that Batman light?

[BartonThinks 3,416]

6 minutes ago, Kloudkicker said:

Same here, LOL. The Mayor in me is getting a bad itch, almost time to scratch it.

I have a feeling Ray did not know of the current Ave/EL setup in NAM. 

It's a big menu to navigate! Also, the puzzle pieces kind of make it look like you can't create intersections. I kept hitting "tab" looking for an intersection puzzle piece, only to realize that I could actually drag the road through the avenue.

 

[Kloudkicker 4,561]

9 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

how foolish I am.

We all are, in our own way! 

 

11 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

Do you like that Batman light?

Yes I do, brings back memories watching the TV show, the old one. It was so funny and but looks stupid really out dated now. Can't believe I watched it back then. LOL

But, I am REALLY excited to see the Simtropolis light your working on. Their is nothing like it, that I have seen. Keep up the amazing work and discoveries. When its my time to try modeling, you will be the Master and I will be the Newbie. 

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

32 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

@CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom Please tell (laugh at) me I'm the last one to know this trick, no bothering with S3D modifying any more.

That looks cool (and I certainly didn't know this before).

With your talent Raymond for 3D modelling, I think you're much more likely to be 1st than the last to discover such things.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@Kloudkicker You're going to be a good BATter, Nick, I'm pretty sure about this according to your have presented on Lotting and talent of art.

Regarding of Simtropolis light, I need to tidy it up a bit first, and apply some ID resources for that and other S3D models, I haven't known the standard process of this, but it won't be a big deal, will beep you at then.

5 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

That looks cool. And with your talent Raymond for 3D modelling, I think you're much more likely to be 1st than the last to discover such things.

Far more credit than I deserve, CB,  I thought I could make that more easier with Excel's functions or VBA, BTW, I have started to look for some good references of London taxi. and then… an idea of painting with MMP in SC4.

Yours,

-- Raymond

[Flann 1,709]

3 hours ago, BartonThinks said:

It's a big menu to navigate! Also, the puzzle pieces kind of make it look like you can't create intersections. I kept hitting "tab" looking for an intersection puzzle piece, only to realize that I could actually drag the road through the avenue.

 

 

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Still woking on a project, so I learnt a bit of Reader, I believe our Lotters have known these: How fresh I am.

After Analysing, This button "Lot viewer" I have never clicked, but it's really useful for T21. and also the Tree view is better than list view. but this one probably is a little bug:

The Tweaker.

And this Navigator is very helpful for Analysing:

Further understand a Lot.

[Propfam 2,288]

18 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Still woking on a project, so I learnt a bit of Reader, I believe our Lotters have known these: How fresh I am.

After Analysing, This button "Lot viewer" I have never clicked, but it's really useful for T21. and also the Tree view is better than list view. but this one probably is a little bug:

The Tweaker.

And this Navigator is very helpful for Analysing:

Further understand a Lot.

I have been using the Navigator for some time to create bypasses for Maxis buildings blocked by TSB's blockers by right clicking the allowed buildings and click (Group) Add to Patch, one by one. It might sound silly to use blockers to block Maxis buildings and instead of using custom buildings, allow some Maxis' to appear using bypasses. But, that's what've I been done.

Hope you succeed!

[Wiimeiser 444]

I rarely if ever use GLR despite always installing it, or El Rail in general. Maybe if it was easier to use and didn't mess with zoning. I wonder if the zones avoid the paths?

On 21/06/2021 at 4:00 AM, Raymond7cn said:

What is even going on here? I'm guessing the billboard gets randomly placed sometimes, but what about the rest?

If you're looking for something to do for a simple lot, but one that's deceptively complex, I was thinking of a transition between BSC Parks and Paeng Parks paths/grass (I actually have been for a few years now). The issue is that there are three different Paeng textures, both texture sets are swappable, Paeng Sand actually uses the beach texture for some reason, and IIRC in both park sets the path is actually a single square texture filling the whole lot and the grass is a separate texture on top of the path texture. Using SFBT Parks might be a workaround, since the SFBT Sand Parks have transitions to three of their other four sets...

Also, BSC Parks and RPK extenders for placing them under elevated RHW.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

54 minutes ago, Wiimeiser said:

I rarely if ever use GLR despite always installing it, or El Rail in general. Maybe if it was easier to use and didn't mess with zoning. I wonder if the zones avoid the paths?

What is even going on here? I'm guessing the billboard gets randomly placed sometimes, but what about the rest?

If you're looking for something to do for a simple lot, but one that's deceptively complex, I was thinking of a transition between BSC Parks and Paeng Parks paths/grass (I actually have been for a few years now). The issue is that there are three different Paeng textures, both texture sets are swappable, Paeng Sand actually uses the beach texture for some reason, and IIRC in both park sets the path is actually a single square texture filling the whole lot and the grass is a separate texture on top of the path texture. Using SFBT Parks might be a workaround, since the SFBT Sand Parks have transitions to three of their other four sets...

Also, BSC Parks and RPK extenders for placing them under elevated RHW.

Okay,  I think I can explain what's going on in that screenshot. That said, this might get a little confusing. I believe it might help to break this down into three separate explanations.

1. How the Navigator works...

When you look at an exemplar in the Reader's main window, some of the properties in the exemplar will refer to other files.To understand those properties, you need to individually look up each of those files. The Navigator simplifies this by collecting all of the sub-files into one place.

For example, a file might have the "User Visible Name Key" property, which will simply list a HEX value that refers to an LTEXT file. If you want to know what the LTEXT file says, you need to look up that file separately by searching for the HEX value.

The Navigator pane simplifies this process by allowing you to see these relationships in one place. If you look up an exemplar in the Navigator and you see a "User Visible Name Key" property, you don't need to look up the LTEXT file separately. The Navigator will list the LTEXT file as a sub-file, and you can click on it in the Navigator to see its details.

It's important to note that many sub-files in the Navigator have their own sub-files, which means you can end up daisy-chaining your way through properties in several files. Speaking of...

2. What Raymond's looking at...

In Raymond's screenshot, he's pretty deep into the Navigator. At this point, he's no longer looking at the lot file itself. As far as I can tell, here are the steps he took:

• First he opened up the "CS$1_2x2" lot exemplar. The navigator then lists all of the properties of that lot that link to other files.
• One of those properties is the building associated with the lot. In this case, that's "CS$14x14_1ChiSmallShop1_05CD." Raymond selected this in the Navigator.
• At this point, he was no longer look at the lot exemplar. Instead, he was viewing the information for the building exemplar that is linked to the lot.
• When Raymond opened the building exemplar, he was now able to explore the sub-files for the building exemplar. These include the S3D models for the building. Raymond clicked on one of those.
• When you click on an S3D file in the Navigator, it will list the FSH file for Zoom5 as a new sub-file. Raymond selected the FSH file, which is what he's looking at in the screenshot.

So, essentially, Raymond is four separate files deep into the Navigator: Lot exemplar -> Building exemplar -> S3D file -> FSH file

3. What in the world is up with the FSH file???

Normally, the FSH file for an S3D model would only contain an image of the model itself. In this case, we would expect to see the brick building. But the cars, billboard, and shopfront are a little bit confusing.

As far as I'm aware, this was a space saving trick used by Maxis. Instead of using a new set of FSH files for every building and prop in the game, Maxis combined the FSH files for some of the smaller buildings and props. This allowed them to save space because they could include fewer FSH files with the game.

In this case, multiple S3D files are pointing to the same FSH file. However, instead of taking the entire FSH file, each S3D model only takes the part of the FSH that it needs. So in the case of the building, it's simply grabbing content from the upper left corner of the FSH file and ignoring everything else.

(Note: This is the part where I might be a little bit off-base. Someone like @rivit would know more about this, so he might be able to tell you if I've got this completely wrong or if I'm explaining this incorrectly.)

Hope that helps!

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

On 6/21/2021 at 8:40 PM, chfzdn said:

I have been using the Navigator for some time to create bypasses for Maxis buildings blocked by TSB's blockers by right clicking the allowed buildings and click (Group) Add to Patch, one by one. It might sound silly to use blockers to block Maxis buildings and instead of using custom buildings, allow some Maxis' to appear using bypasses. But, that's what've I been done.

Hope you succeed!

Hiya @chfzdn, Sorry for the late reply, I was just working on a project in these insanely busy days. busy, busy.  Believe me, I have done way more silly things than you expect, we all probably have such period before, Apparently, I'm a little slower to learn than most of peeps.

1 hour ago, Wiimeiser said:

What is even going on here? I'm guessing the billboard gets randomly placed sometimes, but what about the rest?

Hiya @Wiimeiser, Sorry that maybe I'm wrong due to the first time on Navigator, whereas I thought this is an integrated texture (FSH) for many models, they refer to this map through their UV coordinates separately. though their angles look like a bit weird, however it doesn't matter to the Lods, the Lods only need to know where does those verticals refer to, I thought it would be more clearer if we rotate that map for 90 degrees.

1 hour ago, Wiimeiser said:

I was thinking of a transition between BSC Parks and Paeng Parks paths/grass

As you know, I'm quite a Newbie in many areas, Maybe except modeling now. Sorry that I couldn't get this issue very well, Would you mind show me some pics about this, Never mind if not convenient for you, I thought other Specialists can help…

Opps, @BartonThinks, what a coincidence, I was almost beeping you.

Edit:

@BartonThinks Were you sitting next to me when I learnt these? Exactly, Barton! And you were right about S3D and FSHs (IMO), I thought @rivit would agree with me as well.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

@Wiimeiser @Raymond7cn

Regarding the BSC/Paeng park transition, that would not be an especially complicated project. However, it could be time intensive. The question would be how many separate transitions do you need? As far as I can tell, a bare basics set would only require two textures:

• An all-grass base texture that transitions from one grass texture to the other
• An overlay texture that includes a grass texture transition and a BSC path transition. You could design the BSC path transition so that it could be used overtop of Paeng's path textures. That way, you don't need to create a new path transition for each of Paeng's textures.

However, this would only allow you to transition from one park to the next along straight paths of a fixed-width, and the grass transitions wouldn't be able to handle things like curves and corners. If you want to allow for a wider range of transitions, that could take a lot more work, as well as some advance planning.

 

Edit: @Raymond7cn for the FSH thing -- it's something I vaguely remembered from a while ago, but I couldn't remember where I read it. I'm not very knowledgeable about how the game's S3D models work (I have no idea what a UV map is!), so I wasn't sure that I fully understood how this worked. Glad I got it right (or at least mostly right).