Raymond's Newbie Thoughts

[justforfun 7,802]

On 26/8/2020 at 3:22 AM, Raymond7cn said:

Hiya @justforfun, Sorry to reply you here, i just don't want to ruin the moment in that thread due to verbose words (i'm aware of too many 'I' in my English.), I want to clarify a bit in case others would thought Ray is hypocrisy, Anyway, Welcome to Raymond's newbie land!

I don't know if we have a tool of simtropolis which could count the online time, if so, i would be a challenger,  From the first day i came to simtropolis, I spent everyday in here with you, No absence, God blessed me so that i don't have any chance to waste my life as before, learning SC4 in simtropolis fills every gaps of my life even sleeping sometimes. Your great works and posts maybe not a big deal to yourself, but they means knowledge of English and culture and Math and Art and architecture and chromatics and Coding and 3ds max etc…

Yes, You could imagine how steep of my learning curve is, i mean my poor head is full of those stuffs just in one year, meanwhile, along with the more i learned, i found out the more i don't know, so much i need to work hard to learn from those great names, Fortunately, some of them are still active here in simtropolis Including you. 

In terms of playing SC4, I haven't play my cities for almost one year, I do miss it, but because of my steep learning curve, i couldn't, i knew i will forget them which i have tried my best to memorize if i pause a bit. so i kept writing even awful English, i kept modeling, i kept thinking, all i want is that my memories could be more steady and firm.

Well, Actually, i thought you @justforfun could understand me, I knew you were just encouraging Ray to learn and do more with confidence, Thanks a million my friend, if one day i could play my cities again, i may won't call myself a newbie instead of Super newbie,   it's my nature and God told me to be humble always. Anyway, by now i'm happy and enjoying the time of seeing my work in your beautiful CJs.

i'm extremely happy that i could be a newbie since my learning will never stop, so I hope experts as Robin @rsc204 would help me to keep the SC4 alive no matter what changes of my computer in future, since it's my whole life game.

Yours Sincerely,

-- Raymond

 

Honestly, @Raymond7cn, you've learnt so much and so well that I am much more of a newbie than you, if nothing else because you seem to have delved into way more aspects of our beloved game. And even when considering your BATting skills alone, you have reached high quality in a heartbit. The selfish bit of me would love you to be passionate about period buildings, rather than futuristic ones, but either way it's a delight to see you grow ever better. I know you are too humble to admit any of the above, so please let me state it in your place.  

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Dear @justforfun, 

I could accept your compliment since i see it as an encouragement in a way,  Years ago, i found that mental and physical deterioration both occur naturally with age, Frankly i felt upset, Many things that i used to try so hard to catch stray further and further away from me, Until one day Jesus told me there are still something that will be permanent as time goes by, whenever i thought of them, i will be full of power.

SC4 and Simtropolis, If you let me choose whichever of them i like best, i choose the latter, Your names are not just simple text for me, they are real living presence in my head, Long story short since i have said this in many places, I love this place, That's the reason why i'm still learning as a Newbie.

1 hour ago, justforfun said:

The selfish bit of me would love you to be passionate about period buildings, rather than futuristic ones

You might wrong here, Don't you remember that Minas Tirith castle?  Honestly Speaking, I like to make all existing or nonexistent stuffs, You will see them soon…

I couldn't love it more. whose there inside of the carriage, Queen or Churchill or Dr.CB? 

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

By the help of @BartonThinks, sims could go to vertiport(sea) for work! 

But don't know why there is no commuting of ferry, Anyway, it's good enough now and i do enjoy driving the car into the sea.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Ah, By comparing vanilla's ferry with mine, i may get the answer,  The vanilla's ferry have three tiny props which i thought they were effects, i just kept one of them which is adjacent to sea side, That's the only difference, they are 'Tag1x1x3_ferryopp_2C54 (i kept)' and 'Tag1x1x3_ferrytermout_2C53' and 'Tag1x1x3_ferrytermin_2C52', I haven't known what's the function of them, whereas i thought they are not that simple as i thought, Anyway, will try to delve into them more deeper later.

----- Edit -----

Yeah, That's it, My vertiport works! @Terring

Haha, A true sea ferry.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya My friends, A Newbie is daydreaming again, I haven't known if we have to need a ferry port Lot,

if not, it means we just need these three tiny props and put them into our Lots. then the lot could function as a ferry, the ferry line and boats are shuttling in the city. i thought game will treat them as ferry and no Commute time?

If so, it's ok, since the ferry don't have to plop on the water, we could change the building and props of it.

Furthermore, we may could change the ferry boats to Futurist flying vehicle… @Terring

[Terring 6,473]

What you have made so far is awesome and I can't wait to see it ready and in my cities. And I think I have the perfect spot for my Fairview CJ. Keep up the great work

Of course you can replace the in-game ferries with different models. You can turn them into VTOL bus-like aircrafts like this...

...or keep them as water vehicles but change their appearance into something like this.

You can even turn them into submarines for safer and cooler commute

Of course it's only up to you. I'm just giving you ideas

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Yes @Terring, I knew you could feel my excitement, so interesting, why i didn't notice them before, those aircrafts and water vehicles are wonderful, i believe i could make them. 

I made some tests after that, By now i'm pretty sure that these special props matter to the ferry's function, base on my testing, i guess that the process is :

First, without all of them, sims still could go to ferry for work if we have set the Demand Created property.

① Tag1x1x3_ferrytermin_2C52 - this one should put into the tile (TE) which connects the road, then as its name, the sims (my test is car&passenger) could be transformed into a number which may indicates people have get on the ferry boat.

② Tag1x1x3_ferryopp_2C54 - Then this one has to be put into the tile which adjacent to the water, base one the ① the game calculates the routes and generates the ferry boats driving along with the routes to another ferry's loading point (Tag1x1x3_ferryopp_2C54)

③ Tag1x1x3_ferrytermout_2C53 - same as ①, This one may could transform the sims to cars or pedestrian after they get off one ferry boat.

All of them probably have to be put into TE tiles, and these tiles connect to each other.

I don't know if they are precise or right, since i haven't found out their Exemplars, and i still have some questions about them, but Anyway, i don't plan to waste too much time on it, All resources are ready now, i should go to release this lot as soon as possible.

Some questions for research in future:

①, some things may have been hardcoded, otherwise, i should have heard of it before.

②, Their Exemplars, what else can we do with them.

③, what would happen if i delete ②. Can i have more than one Tag1x1x3_ferryopp_2C54? And the ferry boat?

④, the route of ferry, why it's not just a straight line over the sea, is there any rules.

⑤, what would happen if i put the ferry on the land and move the Automata of ferry into the sky.

⑥, Do they have to be put onto TE tiles?

⑦, some TE tiles seems strange in SC4Tool, (switch and Lotconfigure). 

⑧, what's the meaning of their name 'Tag' and '1x1x3?'?

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Sorry CB, @Cyclone Boom i'm a greedy collector. quite like this pic you made, and also you remind me that could have trees on a steep cliff with flora cheat, Besides, i'm pretty curious about what if i use Erosion brush with my opposite Png&Fsh mod… want to give it a try someday.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

On 8/5/2020 at 6:59 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Nope. None at all. The game records the coordinates of each tunnel entrance as well as what type of network and that's all. When running the simulation it calculates the time spent as if the tunnel existed for the calculated distance which gives the simulated effect that it's really there.

Here's a little example of what you can do to a tunnel (because it's not really there.)

Before:

 

After:

 

And you can see how the game treats any traveling Sims as if the tunnel did exist.

Today i played with tunnel a bit, Cori's theory is absolutely right, it's a pity i forgot to capture the shots. I raised a steep mountain in the middle and then flatten other Terrain area the same altitude, two road tunnel are orthogonal through the mountain, Then i drived (UDI) a car into the tunnel, The car could be seen in a form same as i drived it into the FLUPs. but it couldn't turn left and right at the location where is supposed to be an intersection. so it means there isn't a real tunnel there except portal, Just as Cori said.

Another interesting thing is that after i made a tunnel and then flatten the middle part of the mountain as Cori's second pic instead of a ground there, i drived (UDI) a car through the mountain, I never thought it could appear again (out of mountain) in where i have flattened, Just like some super heroes of Marvel.

Will give Terring's sharing of SC4Terraformer v11 (v1.0) a shot someday.

 

[JulianMIA 1,449]

7 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Today i played with tunnel a bit, Cori's theory is absolutely right, it's a pity i forgot to capture the shots. I raised a steep mountain in the middle and then flatten other Terrain area the same altitude, two road tunnel are orthogonal through the mountain, Then i drived (UDI) a car into the tunnel, The car could be seen in a form same as i drived it into the FLUPs. but it couldn't turn left and right at the location where presumed an intersection. so it means there isn't a real tunnel there except portal, Just as Cori said.

Another interesting thing is that after i made a tunnel and then flatten the middle part of the mountain as Cori's second pic instead of a ground there, i drived (UDI) a car through the mountain, I never thought it could appear again (out of mountain) in where i have flattened, Just like some super heroes of Marvel.

Will give Terring's sharing of SC4Terraformer v11 (v1.0) a shot someday.

 

I like that you do this kind of stuff!  Sometimes all I do is experiment and explore with whether the game will do that or do this...

I do love tunnels especially, I even prefer under-river tunnels instead of a lot of the bridges, especially for rail.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you @JulianMIA, I'm just some typical guy who prefer to do some strange researches sometimes. Still remember your Beautiful CJs, You must be good at NAM, Looking forward more of them.

----- No modeling today due to broken mouse yesterday, 3ds max may have a contract with Mouse Makers (Joke) ----- 

I want to tidy up my thoughts a bit here, They are some issues which i participated in:

①

This pic comes from This thread, it reminds me of my issue many years ago.

We have common problem on semi-transperant windmill, though haven't known whether or not it is the same issue, but i do remember that i solved my issue by turn of "Force anti-aliasing" option of ATi graphics. so i guess it's a graphics issue by now.

②

Meantime i recalled this thread by @TheCrybKeeper:

 

Looks like the same issue, but they're not IMO, since this one just is missing props, I thought it's a Prop Pox at then, But after @TheCrybKeeper solved it by setting the graphics details for the game on 'highest', and he has explained : I started this 'region', before installing the EP1 game patch, which may be an issue, so I am going to start all over with a new 'region' and see if it fixes itself.

so it's probably caused by when we patched or upgrade some Maxis updates (EP1 or BAT etc), which may reset the settings to low, then most of props disappear.

③

It also reminds me of another issue i heard from SC4D by Ripple, seems cause by Buildings as Props (bldgprop_vol1.dat, bldgprop_vol2.dat) in some Lots.

④ Prop Pox

Frankly, i have never been through this issue before, Just recalled this when discussed with Cori about immortal lots yesterday, by now all i know about it are: 1, game version before EP1 doesn't has this problem, 2, like infecting a virus which makes your props keeps disappearing one by one in your cities. 3, Mega city with tons of Lots is more easily lead to this issue. 4, seems some props in CDK3-OWW2 may cause it.  Has been fixed as Cori said below.

⑤ Immortal lots

Just learnt it form Cori yesterday, Actually, i'm pretty interested in this one, other than Props issue above, it's a Building issue. i just thought it maybe useful in some specific cases, it seems there are two kinds of Immortal Lot, I plan to do some tests to prove my conjecture after i got a new Mouse and post the process here.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

21 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

4, seems some props in CDK3-OWW2 may cause it. 

Those files have since been updated so this no longer applies.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you so much Cori, @CorinaMarie i will download it again in case i had the old one. I made a test with laptop's mouse pad.

----- Immortal Test -----

A custom Lot with LE.

Edit its X coordinate beyond the Occupant size.

Plop a fire station next to it, The liberty's Building is took away by the station.

Immortal!

So i guess the most important of this kind of Immortal lot is that "one location (coordinate) could only has one Building in game". we can make Immortal lot by moving the Building out of the Lot, or modify the Occupant size.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Ah, I have readed this post by Ripple which @CorinaMarie shared to me. kind of understand the difference now, My test above its Building was took away by other Lot but the other parts remained there, but Ripple's Immortal lot's Building stays there, whereas other parts (props etc) have gone.

I guess the reason why we are different is that i move the Building out of the Occupant size, but he modifies (increase or decrease) the bounding box x and z (width and length), i'm not sure if i understood it correctly, will give it a try later.

Besides, have seen peeps used NAM (version before 09 year & 638 patch) to create Immortal lots easily with pedmall pieces, they just plopped it on other Lots, Unfortunately, i couldn't test it due to don't have that version.

-- Edit-- Just found out an old version from my son's computer. But it seems doesn't work, Maybe the version of game matters.

Lower and raise the Terrain and then build a tunnel:

Haha, so funny, Now i'm pretty sure there is no real road in the tunnel.

I almost want to stand up and look at it from the top of my comp.

@CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom @Terring 

Now i have many Newbie ideas if i could make an Immortal Lot as Ripple's, I mean the Building stays, City in the sky? City in the sea? City underground? Still functional civics after buried? Buildings under the bridge?… Wow, the Immortal Lots are not that bad!

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

9 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Now i have many Newbie ideas if i could make an Immortal Lot as Ripple's, I mean the Building stays, City in the sky? City in the sea? City underground? Still functional civics after buried? Buildings under the bridge?… Wow, the Immortal Lots are not that bad!

This really is ingeniously clever what you've done here Raymond, and with the potential to use immortal lots to do something new and creative. Even though it's a glitch in the game which can occur with certain content, there could be usefulness in how once immortal and they behave different than normal lots.

A phrase to describe your technique would be "thinking outside of the box" in how it's looking at something from a new perspective.

Or it could be looking down into those boxes inside the small hill.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

1 hour ago, Cyclone Boom said:

This really is ingeniously clever what you've done here Raymond, and with the potential to use immortal lots to do something new and creative. Even though it's a glitch in the game which can occur with certain content, there could be usefulness in how once immortal and they behave different than normal lots.

A phrase to describe your technique would be "thinking outside of the box" in how it's looking at something from a new perspective.

Or it could be looking down into those boxes inside the small hill.

Thank you CB, After testing i kept thinking, as you can tell, i made a Immortal lot it comes out the Building was took away by others except the props and textures left. 

It's different from what's in my memory many years ago whilst a quite Newbie, at then the Building remained but others gone. but according to the theory of Ripple and Cori, it seems impossible, since it's just Building overhangs the Lot. I have made some tests but no luck, everytime the Building was demolished.

Then i thought maybe there are other ways to create a Building Immortal lot, i'm not sure, however i thought of base texture, since as you knew, when we making a Lot with LE, we usually come across two errors, one of them is the Building couldn't be out of the Occupant size, another is every tiles must have a base texture. By the explanation of Ripple and my tests, i could understand the first one, That's one location could only have one Building (lot), but i couldn't understand why every tiles should have a base texture? (it's maybe a stupid question, but i really don't know why)

I have some strange ideas for testing and plan to do them tomorrow, Have you ever seen a game as SC4 that is brain storming? (i couldn't find out a proper word) umm… i haven't, but i do love SC4.

-- Edit

Along with my conjecture i thought a while, the test i made could be considered to be one lot loses its Building during playing, so what would happen if losing base texture during playing, i don't know how to achieve it, but i do remember that i could delete base textures with Reader to make a transparent base Lot. (my lighthouse), Appreciate anyone could tell me some existed Immortal lots for digging, Thanks!

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Cool investigation, Raymond.

For the building to disappear, try your first test with the fire station already plopped. Then plopped the offset green lady adjacent. And then bulldoze the fire station. I expect it might depend on the distance the statue is offset as for what will happen. If she's offset for her building bounding box to overlap that of the fire station's box then the station's building would disappear, but if the statue's box only intrudes on the station's lot a wee little bit then no buildings would disappear on plop, but the statue would vanish when bulldozing the fire station.

Just some guessing.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

1 hour ago, Raymond7cn said:

That's one location could only have one Building (lot), but i couldn't understand why every tiles should have a base texture?

This is something which the Maxis Lot Editor enforces with requiring a base texture on all lots. Interestingly enough the game itself doesn't need a base texture for lots, although if having an overlay texture then a base texture is needed because it causes the "water bug" otherwise.

I don't use the PIM-X lot editor myself, but know that it includes the ability for saving lots without a base texture, and also to layer up multiple overlay textures as well. I tried using this tool, but found the LE function in the PIM-X quite difficult to use since it needs keyboard shortcuts. It is much more powerful though than the Maxis LE though, and must be something which just takes some getting used to. I've heard @rsc204 say good things about it, and how it's hard to go back once being familiar with more advanced tools. If interested in pursuing the PIM-X sometime, it also comes with a user guide.

For removing base textures from lots, this is possible by editing the LotConfigurations exemplar in Reader as this post explains.

Here's a picture of one of these entries which would be deleted:

 

The key thing here is to delete all the LotConfigPropertyLotObjectData entries beginning with 0x00000002 as their 1st Rep value. It's possible to select multiple rows at once by holding down the Ctrl key, or the Shift key if wanting to select multiple at once. Then after right clicking to Delete them, there's that super important step of right clicking again and clicking the Reindex LotConfig option. This is needed because otherwise the LotConfig will be invalid in how the entries aren't sequential in order.

You might know this already from your learning, but just thought I'd mention this if wanting to create lots which are truly transparent.

[Terring 6,473]

12 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Congratulations, my friend. You just broke the game

But seriously, your experiments might lead into some very interesting and unique results. For example, if you remove the grass texture of the hole...

...and replace it with building textures, such as walls and windows, you'll end up with something like the Depthscrapers or the Alice City, which were actual concepts for underground buildings and city expansions for Tokyo.

The result would like some of the buildings available at this site.

To be honest, I was never expecting that one day one of the biggest annoyances would become the research lab that could produce something promising and awesome. You really are the mad scientist of SimCity community, Ray. A prodigy who's always willing to push the limits, wondering "what if", and exploring new fields. And it's deviants like you who keep our community (and the world) moving

[rsc204 21,808]

On 03/09/2020 at 6:14 PM, Raymond7cn said:

① Tag1x1x3_ferrytermin_2C52 - this one should put into the tile (TE) which connects the road, then as its name, the sims (my test is car&passenger) could be transformed into a number which may indicates people have get on the ferry boat.

② Tag1x1x3_ferryopp_2C54 - Then this one has to be put into the tile which adjacent to the water, base one the ① the game calculates the routes and generates the ferry boats driving along with the routes to another ferry's loading point (Tag1x1x3_ferryopp_2C54)

③ Tag1x1x3_ferrytermout_2C53 - same as ①, This one may could transform the sims to cars or pedestrian after they get off one ferry boat.

All of them probably have to be put into TE tiles, and these tiles connect to each other.

I don't know if they are precise or right, since i haven't found out their Exemplars, and i still have some questions about them, but Anyway, i don't plan to waste too much time on it, All resources are ready now, i should go to release this lot as soon as possible.

These are just internal names which Maxis game to objects/exemplars used in the game. Their only purpose is to help you distinguish what they are. Whilst it is true adding certain Props or objects will make certain functions work, it doesn't always follow you want everything used by a Maxis lot on a custom one.

I believe 2 is simply the Automata 'generator', adding this spawns ferries. The other two sound like regular models or (Buildings or Props), you should be able to determine what things are in the Lot Editor.

On 03/09/2020 at 6:14 PM, Raymond7cn said:

①, some things may have been hardcoded, otherwise, i should have heard of it before.

②, Their Exemplars, what else can we do with them.

③, what would happen if i delete ②. Can i have more than one Tag1x1x3_ferryopp_2C54? And the ferry boat?

④, the route of ferry, why it's not just a straight line over the sea, is there any rules.

⑤, what would happen if i put the ferry on the land and move the Automata of ferry into the sky.

⑥, Do they have to be put onto TE tiles?

⑦, some TE tiles seems strange in SC4Tool, (switch and Lotconfigure). 

⑧, what's the meaning of their name 'Tag' and '1x1x3?'?

1. Yes parts of how ferries work are probably hardcoded and have not been fully deciphered.
2. Well typically with Exemplars we have the ability to make new instances of things or modify existing instances' properties.
3. Try it and see, I honestly don't know.
4. Probably there are rules, for example a minimum sea depth and minimum clearance for bridges come to mind. Again, not a lot has been deciphered, but the game works out routes for Automata to follow. However from what we know, sims don't actually travel on ferries, they just sort of warp to the city border with some time compensation on their commute. It does seem that this time compensation is not sufficient to prevent it being a very quick and thus easily preferred method of transit.
5. My guess is because there was no water, it wouldn't work. It might be interesting to make a few tiles of water next to the station, suitable for ferries, just to see if you need a complete path for ferries to work or not. I have a feeling @CorinaMarie may already have done some testing in this area.
6. TE Tiles is just adding the correct pathing to enable Automata to use a lot, which is not a valid transit network. They are from a functionality perspective completely unnecessary. TE Switches, defining which transport modes can be changed between are what handle the actual sims using a station. Take the Maxis Rail Station as an example, it doesn't sit on a network, just touches the rail, but its switches are setup so it works as a station. Of course such switches for multi-modal stations can get quite complex, if you need them to.
7. Could you post a screenshot please?
8. Again, just names although I believe Tag has some meaning to the developers. 1x1x3 relates to it's size, if that's anything like the RCI lots in game, it's probably the dimensions of the object in meters, but of course it could be something else altogether.

15 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Haha, so funny, Now i'm pretty sure there is no real road in the tunnel.

Indeed the tunnels, with the exception of the portals do not actually exist or otherwise reserve game tiles. Meaning you can be pretty creative terraforming after building them, without affecting the tunnel.

4 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

It's different from what's in my memory many years ago whilst a quite Newbie, at then the Building remained but others gone. but according to the theory of Ripple and Cori, it seems impossible, since it's just Building overhangs the Lot. I have made some tests but no luck, everytime the Building was demolished.

Then i thought maybe there are other ways to create a Building Immortal lot, i'm not sure, however i thought of base texture, since as you knew, when we making a Lot with LE, we usually come across two errors, one of them is the Building couldn't be out of the Occupant size, another is every tiles must have a base texture. By the explanation of Ripple and my tests, i could understand the first one, That's one location could only have one Building (lot), but i couldn't understand why every tiles should have a base texture? (it's maybe a stupid question, but i really don't know why)

As CyloneBoom pointed out, the Maxis LE requires every tile of a lot has at least a base texture upon it. PIM-X doesn't have this limitation, honestly if you are modding at your level, you will probably be kicking yourself you didn't install it earlier. It also allows you to save files within .DATs and do many other things modders like doing.

I had a problem when I made my Pedestrian Bridges, using the bridge (8-9 tiles long), as Props, the night lighting wouldn't work because they overhung the lot. So I made them the Building on the Lot instead, reduced the Occupant Size (so it's still within the lot), then offset the model using Model Tweaker, so it all lined up properly. Have a look at these lots, you can get away with Offsets without triggering the Immortal Lot Syndrome, provided the Building's footprint fits on the Lot.

[matias93 7,535]

2 hours ago, Terring said:

something like the Depthscrapers or the Alice City, which were actual concepts for underground buildings and city expansions for Tokyo.

severely off-topic, but I'm almost sure that wouldn't be any more earthquake resistant than surface buildings of the same height, it would just crumble in a different way.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Woww! Quite nervous when so many veterans inspect Newbie's dorm. Thank you!

Dear matias @matias93, i'm not sure if i understand you well, if so, you're right, as you can tell from my animate pics, those grass textures (on the wall of hole) are not very stable, it appears when i drag tunnel through it, it's gone when i surround the Immortal lot with road. even the Immortal lot itself i have no idea if it's really Immortal.

6 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Cool investigation, Raymond.

For the building to disappear, try your first test with the fire station already plopped. Then plopped the offset green lady adjacent. And then bulldoze the fire station. I expect it might depend on the distance the statue is offset as for what will happen. If she's offset for her building bounding box to overlap that of the fire station's box then the station's building would disappear, but if the statue's box only intrudes on the station's lot a wee little bit then no buildings would disappear on plop, but the statue would vanish when bulldozing the fire station.

Just some guessing.

Yes Madame, i never thought of it would matter if i change the distance of offset, will give it a try today, and also as my wild thoughts above, i want to know what would happen if i make the base textures exceed the bounding box.

Meanwhile, i want to know how to transform reps (4~10) into understandable decimal coordinates.

5 hours ago, Terring said:

A prodigy

 

5 hours ago, Terring said:

mad scientist

Dear Terring, Quite sure i'm not one of them, since i always throw out those strange questions, and most of time its you and other specialists give the answer, so how about call me Curious boy?  Thank you for your wonderful pics for inspiration as always, That's why i often beep you.

6 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

This is something which the Maxis Lot Editor enforces with requiring a base texture on all lots.

Dear CB, Frankly, i just want to figure out why there is a strict rule about base texture, i mean how did the developer consider it even if some vanilla Lots don't have it. i konw it's nonessential to our works, Just curious due to Immortal lot's digging.

3 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Could you post a screenshot please?

Dear Robin, This is just a simple question to myself, since i didn't have much time on delving at then, so i just left a note for my poor head. will post a shot when i get home.

3 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Again, just names although I believe Tag has some meaning to the developers. 1x1x3 relates to it's size, if that's anything like the RCI lots in game, it's probably the dimensions of the object in meters, but of course it could be something else altogether

Please forgive a Newbie is wondering everywhere,  This was the first time i knew there was such a special prop, (excited) they are very tiny so that i even didn't notice that i deleted some of them, i thought you're probably right here if it represents meters, i just curious why they are not 1x1x1 at then. 

Thank you for your other valuable tips, Appreciate the efforts you put into this as always,  i will do more tests as you point out later.

-----

Appreciate anyone could provide some existed Immortal Lots which Building part couldn't be demolished, No disrespect to them, i do respect for everyone's hard and great works, it's just for learning. Thank you.

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

5 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

Meanwhile, i want to know how to transform reps (4~10) into understandable decimal coordinates.

Here's the most I've seen about it.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

@Raymond7cn

Also in addition to the link Cori posted...

Just in case since there's a little more info, I noticed the LotConfig article is on the SC4D Wiki as follows:

LotConfigPropertyLotObject

I notice back in March how @smf_16 had kindly restored this article from when it went missing over there in the software upgrade a year or so ago, where previously it needed the Wayback Machine internet archive to view the info previously on there.

[Terring 6,473]

8 hours ago, rsc204 said:

⑤, what would happen if i put the ferry on the land and move the Automata of ferry into the sky.

 

8 hours ago, rsc204 said:

My guess is because there was no water, it wouldn't work. It might be interesting to make a few tiles of water next to the station, suitable for ferries, just to see if you need a complete path for ferries to work or not. I have a feeling @CorinaMarie may already have done some testing in this area.

I remember I had asked last year if it's possible to expand the ferry system into the sky, using their abilities to create functional heliports and airports, so our Sims could commute by air taxis and helicopters, just like in Cities in Motion and Cities: Skylines with the Sunset Harbor DLC.

But according to Corina, it cannot be done as a transportation route, as those are already defined and no additional ones can be added.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@Terring I do remember this post and once asked Cori about her pics. Thank you Terring, You're the man in charge of inspiration. I will make some tests tomorrow to see if i could…

Hiya Cori and CB,@Cyclone Boom @CorinaMarie

i made a test today for the formula of rep (4~10).

This model's dimension is width in 5m and depth in 2.5m and height in 9.3m.

This is the Top Left in LE.

This is their coordinates in theoretic. I made four of them with LE, they are Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right.

At beginning, i figured out the integer parts easily, whereas i couldn't figure the decimal part by transforming it to decimalism directly, Then i recalled some i learnt from school. But still no luck after i got a formula from google, Anyway, finally i understood that it turns out i mistook Ax16^(-n) to -Ax16^(n), but it's should be Ax(1/16^(n)). so this below is what i got today:

I'm afraid that there maybe mistakes due to couldn't got the real coordinates, so i just tried to match them in theoretic.

PS: I forgot to say that though i couldn't understand all about this formula of decimal, but i guess that we may just need the decimal parts of the sum, For instance, F333 should be 16/16 + 3/256 + 3/4096 + 3/65536 = 1.01, but we just need the decimal part, so ≈ 0.01 ≈ 0. Corrected by code master below.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

19 hours ago, rsc204 said:

My guess is because there was no water, it wouldn't work. It might be interesting to make a few tiles of water next to the station, suitable for ferries, just to see if you need a complete path for ferries to work or not. I have a feeling @CorinaMarie may already have done some testing in this area.

Just as @rsc204 said, it doesn't work without water, I have made many tests, For instance, tweak of water and TE and land on bus station and a car ferry, and finally by surrounding two ferries with water but without water connecting to them, The ferry stopped working. so i guess the principle is that SC4 gets the Tags (at least two) and then finds the shortest path along with the water has appropriate depth between them. And this part must be hardcoded, since finding a path in water tiles seems very hard, This process reminds me of this: @CorinaMarie GOL 

 

Yes, these Tag props are pretty special, along with these ferry props i also found out others such as helicopter and airplane. but they are very simple in Exemplar, i have tried to add a Is Ground Model property but nothing happened, even the instance id just references to 0x00000000, i guess it means nothing and the only matters to exe is just its Exemplar id IMO.

One interesting things is that i found after i deleted the water parts of car ferry, it could be plopped on both land and water.

Next step i will see what would happen if i delete one of these three Tag props, and then try one last test to see if i could make Building Immortal Lot.

Frankly i have been quite satisfied i could have a functional Vertiport in the sea, Not to mention the researching itself is enough for fun. Along with digging, i'm highly eager to make a big Beautiful ferry waterbus just as in Vancouver we could drive RV into it.

-- BTW, Just as Robin mentioned, the 1x1x3 is prop's dimension in meter, i found that in Exemplar as Occupant size.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

4 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

F333 should be 16/16 + 3/256 + 3/4096 + 3/65536

Ok, I admit I've not analyzed this thoroughly, but I believe that first part would be 15/16 since F in hex is not 16?

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

4 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Ok, I admit I've not analyzed this thoroughly, but I believe that first part would be 15/16 since F in hex is not 16?

Thank you Cori, You are right, Silly me! FF333 ≈15.95≈16m, so there is impossible to have integer part with the sum, since hex don't have 16, it's 0~15, Thank you Cori Holmes! 

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

I played with Immortal Lot for a whole day, i made a Mortal Killer  lot for test, but whatever i modify, such as 2x or 3x Occupant size increasing, or adjust the sequence i plop the Lots, or adjust the width and depth offset, i couldn't make a Immortal lot with the Building remains, always the Building was gone but others (base texture and props) stand.

After that i installed variety versions of NAM (07,08,0901) which i heard that they could make Immortal lots, have tried FAR and pedmall methods but no luck.

It seems this kind of Immortal Lot has been fixed in a way, have no idea what it is, @catty-cb Sorry to bother you Catty,  when i was searching i found out a post where you seemed to mention your experience of Immortal Lot, dimly remember its name is "MaxisLand"(is it a Lot? i couldn't find it out), and that looks like a Building Immortal case, Do you still remember this one? Thank you!

That's all for now, i have learnt enough so that will try to avoid of making Immortal Lot with my works though it's a little pity i couldn't try my Immortal ideas, Anyway, will go back for modeling soon, I have bought a new Mouse.