Raymond's Newbie Thoughts

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@Terring Haha, pretty busy there Terring, There is good aspect to do those tests as a Newbie, wild and random thoughts, i knew there are definitely tutorials about T21 somewhere, but i tried my best to hold myself don't look at them.

This is my first prop of car, Not so bad yet, It's a pity that probably couldn't have this performance when final rendering. @BartonThinks i will try my best to keep up your pace.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

It's beautiful, @Raymond7cn. Blown away by what you've accomplished already.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@Whte_rbt @Cyclone Boom @hugues aroux

The first pic of Korver's CJ is almost what i meant before,  he seems to make some overhangs HBS Rocks there, Now i kind of have an idea, @Whte_rbt has metioned a possibility that have some Lot which could use our Terrain mod's texture so that it fits well. I used to think it's impossible since model's fsh structure is different from that, But i forgot the True3d model. Anyway, i will give it a try someday.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya @BartonThinks, I export it with a personal feeling about dimension, You could take a look along with your Lots, If you think it's ok there, i will go to make more color Version of this Model.

 

VCR-1-0x6534284a-0x3b615859-0x7cef5792.SC4Desc

VCR-1-0x5ad0e817_0xcc70c605_0x30000.SC4Model

[BartonThinks 3,416]

It looks excellent --  can't wait to test it along with other props.

I'll let you know how it looks dimension-wise compared to other vehicles. It looks a little big in comparison to the Maxis cars, but I'm not sure what the standard dimensions are for custom content vehicle props -- I know most Maxis buildings look undersized next to similar BATs, so the same might be true for cars. Should have an answer for you sometime tomorrow!

In any case, this is very exciting stuff. I'm so impressed with the modeling. 

[Max4k 721]

Lot of great info.  I did not know all these Mods are as sophisticated and this site almost reminds me like the XDA-Developer Android forums..lol. 

Lot of interesting stuff, and was reading about Lot Editor to enable transit for lots.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Dear Cori, @CorinaMarie 

I have a question about LTEXT and Lua, I thought the LTEXT file its content is actually String type of data, SC4 refers to it by TGI through Item Description Key or User Visible Name Key etc. so my question is that can we add Variable into its content? For instance, i want to add more infos when i hovering the Lot so that i could see its Exemplar name and Exemplar ID, How to achieve this with the correct grammar of Lua? Thank you!

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

4 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

I have a question about LTEXT and Lua, I thought the LTEXT file its content is actually String type of data, SC4 refers to it by TGI through Item Description Key or User Visible Name Key etc. so my question is that can we add Variable into its content?

I know how Cori is currently busy with her Effect Dir editor programming, so I'll just post with what I've seen until she gets here later...

With the LTEXT files, when opening the SimCityLocale.DAT inside Reader and it allows these language strings the game uses to be searched through.

Filtering by the file type:

 

Inside the top box I've entered in #mayor# as the variable to search for, and another I know is #city# for the current city tile name. I don't think capitalisation matters for this, because some start with a capital letter and while most others don't. The checkbox on the side for LText must be enabled there before clicking the Find button.

For how this might work with the Lua side of things, we'll have to wait for Cori since she's the programming expert. It might be how in her C.O.R.I  Reports that those variables can be displayed in the same syntax using the hashes (#) to enclose each. I know that the variables don't display in some places like the game menus, at least without there being something done via the Lua to make them appear. It might be that certain places and they're not supported to display. They do show in the news feeds though which the game recognises automatically, and also lot queries too I believe.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you so much, CB, @Cyclone Boom I have got the point, let me delve into it a bit by myself, Actually, it's not a big case, I just felt a bit hard to look for props one by one when making a T21 mod. so i want to make a big Lot which include all props, then put it into game for obviously searching. Weird thought!

Well, I kind of worry that Cori would finish her great program too fast, i probably leave all works in hand to learn it otherwise. LOL, It's a joke, Good Luck! CoriBoom™

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya @Cyclone Boom, i have found the answer, Thank you, You are really a repository!!

I got this one when seeking some reference for vintage cars, 

Wow, i love it so much at first glance, Is it a bus or vintage RV?  Anyway, i'm going to make it.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya @dmn, The Boeing 787-9 has been finished, you could put it into game to check out the effects (4x4 park menu, HD), I'm really not very experienced in plane, Hope you pay more attention on the dimension and night scene, The references are just pics come from Pinterest. Anyway, tell me your thoughts then.

AF787-9.zip

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Quit of modeling today to have a rest, I played my thoughts about multiple train mod a bit, 

Just modified the IID of one of train mod (E.g. 0x10a90000 --> 0x10a91000), Then the game spawned two trains and cars in the meantime, But Unfortunately, the cars mixed up instead of coming with its engine.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Learning Diary of True3d modeling:

Today i don't have too much modeling instead of learning 3ds max from Youtube, I did find some good channels about that, Frankly i just have finished watching 3 Videos, But it's enough for me to understand why i couldn't make a good True3d model for Automata.

Yes i could make some high details models now, i may good at it, but to make a low-poly model is indeed a big challenge to me (each grounds's polygon < 500), it breaks down every habits i used for Building or Props modeling, so Actually, as far as it goes, all i have made for True3d their works are more related to Photoshop.

However i got more knowledge from Youtube, experts on game modeling, they usually use Render to texture to bake the high-poly's texture to low-poly, Yes i have used it before, but got unsatisfactory output, i couldn't deal with it due to limitation of mental ray, i haven't learnt others (Vray Arnold etc).

(Pics from Cori)

This is the first Tractor model i made with mental ray Render.

Fixed with Photoshop.

Changed to scan line Render. 

You can tell from pics above, Actually the high-poly model is way more beautiful than these, and also i couldn't tell that how many ray miss when i experienced with mental ray for Render to texture, then i had to solve it with tedious works on Photoshop.

Until today, I figured out a solution in my mind after Learning, i thought i could get a perfect Render with AO (Ambient Occlusion maps...) map and scanline RTT, then i could use Photoshop to adjust the blend mode so that i could get more realistic textures.

Besides, i also noticed that some details couldn't be recognized by game's Perspective, even though, i have to make more trials and errors to understand this better.

After the vintage car Props for Barton, i will go to validate these theory while making Futurist cars and Tractors. 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Hiya, Raymond.

I'm glad to hear you and @Cyclone Boom figured out the LText and/or Lua part you were asking about.

I've been relearning an old, yet powerful programming language I have and I've been sidetracked from the site while I work on the Effect Dir editor. The interrelations and variable length of the records (due to one or more reps per line) complicates things. I've written a new conversion routine where I keep track of every single hex byte of the file and its location/offset. Next I'll be parsing out the sections first and then the entries per section.

Spoiler

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@CorinaMarie Wow, You are kind of a Hacker, it's pity i couldn't help though i extremely hope so, The offset when i used to decode the simcity4.exe is a very complicated thing which i couldn't understand until now, however i thought i could understand it becomes complicated due to one or more reps per line.

Yes i have got the answer about LTEXT, Actually it's in your CORI report which CB directed me to, Thank you.

Long story short, i'm delving into a decent way for my Automata project, and i learnt a bit RUL file, my goodness, so complicated, and there seems also has some relation between Network pieces and effdir, You can imagine what a mess there in my head now.

Anyways, we all looking forward the return of the queen, i will try my best to control my excitement at then. Good Luck! CoriBoom™

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Yeah, as you've learned, the offset is nothing magical.

It's merely the position of each individual byte in the file and then shown as a hex number. They start counting at 0 offset for the first position, but otherwise it's quite straightforward. If you are counting by DWORDs (instead of single bytes), that's 4 bytes at a time so the first DWORD would have offset of 0 compared to the beginning of the file. The 2nd DWORD would be offset by 4, then 8, then 12 (and here's where it'd start looking hexy as 0x0C for that 12), and so on counting by the byte length of said DWORDs.

Ofc, you can mix and match too where you have some as Bytes, some as DWORDs, and others as single WORDs and you just count by the length of them. (1, 4, 2 in the preceding for offsets 0, 1, 5.)

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

----- Learning Diary of True3d -----

After two days continuously digging into True3d modeling, I thought i finally got something. At the very beginning, I thought the Automata modeling is very esay, since i could make some complicated models with gorgeous effects, why couldn't i make some low-poly models which is just something like child's toy?

Just because of this prejudice i run into a misunderstanding about my issue, i misjudged the reason that why my low-poly's texture is awful is since i haven't got an optimized settings of render. Then i learned many tutorials about baking (render to texture) high-poly to low-poly, but whatever i tried following those tutorials step by step, i still have many Ray miss in my baking map.

Then i reconsidered my problem again, i made some tests with teapot model but different render (even Vray and Arnold), Furthermore, i looked through other's True3d, i thought the problem isn't about render. it's about the way. my initial thoughts are wrong.

1, The SC4's True3d model is kind of special, For the performance of game, The polygon should be less than 500.

2, The map of s3d is just one map.

3, True3d models are Pretty small in SC4.

So the tutorials in Youtube, they are not very suit to SC4, Or to say we have to focus on the Essential of them, That's we just need one small UVmap, If i think about this question from the scratch, i just need a model and its unwrap texture. For that, i needn't to make a high-poly model.

Actually i just need to make a low-poly model, then baking its light or normal texture to pictures, Use Photoshop to blend them together.

I have made many tests to prove this, If the model is complicated enough and a whole poly, baking high to low will have ray miss (scanline is the best but still could has this issue), If the model is simple, then whatever the texture or light is complicated, No problem, ofc, should select a proper render, E.g. AO map for mental ray. If i render each parts of the complex, still No problem.

so the last problem is that how to bake a perfect map for low-poly so that you could see it as a more realistic high-poly? I have tried smooth and other modifiers and appropriate unwrap UV, it's ok there, The AO map could make our model more real, (it reminds me that when i was learning painting.)even i just only used Photoshop to make texture, it's still better than baking high to low and then fix those red spots. 

It's a pity that i forget to capture some shots during testing, i will record that after i make the first one successfully. Here is one shot for record.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Modeling is a great way to let off stream, High-poly is still my best choice by now. 

@BartonThinks Model No. 2.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Today i saw this post, 

It's Interesting, i never heard of this mod before, however i agree with 11241036's answer, especially after learned that from @BartonThinks, I don't think any slope mod can do this, Then i thought this a while…

Frankly, as a quite new before, (maybe still is) I used to want those houses could be oblique with the same angle as the slope, Yes i have seen some "slope friendly" Buildings, but they are still stand uprightly there, Maybe we could add Orient To Slope to "True" Property, but i just dimly remember that Property can be used for props, but do not know if it works on the Building. And also i could tweak the parameters LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation and LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeAllowed properties to a high value so that Lot could sit on the Terrain uprightly, But i just knew it works for ploppable Lots, How about growable lots? What will happens if we delete the Building Foundation property?

many questions came up then, but i had a Interesting thought, Can i change the maxis's foundation or retain wall?

After a bit researching into simcity_1 and 2.dat with reader and LE, i found out them and made some custom tweaks:

There is a foundation i made for all kinds of Maxis's Lots. Isn't it a good looking Building of Foundation?  They couldn't be transparent with my testing.

But i couldn't understand this:

Shouldn't their foundations are flatten? Interesting, And this:

This inclined car has a Orient To Slope to "True" ? Or it's a True3d prop? Interesting! Anyway this is retain wall:

Not so bad there,  I have tried to make FSH morr bigger (128--＞256), No problem! And these are some info i got about vanilla foundation and wall.

Foundation GID : 0x1ABE787D Type 11

Wall GID : 0x891b0e1a Type 15

SimCity 2

Maxis Foundation(0x890b7315) 69f70000~4

Maxis Foundation(0x890b7313) 69f60000~4

Maxis Foundation(0x890b7312) 69f20000~4

Maxis Foundation(0x890b7315) 69f30000~4

Maxis Wall(0xc96d2137) 7AB50E44-891B0E1A-69FB0000-A0

Maxis Wall(0xc96d2136) 7AB50E44-891B0E1A-69FA0000-A0

Maxis Wall(0xc96d2135) 7AB50E44-891B0E1A-69F90000-A0

Maxis Wall(0xc96d2134) 7AB50E44-891B0E1A-69F80000-A0

Maxis Wall(0xc96d2132) 7AB50E44-891B0E1A-695C00C6-A0

- But i still have some questions, what are those hex numbers which we could see from LE during Lotting. such as 0xc96d2136, they are not Exemplar or FSH's ID. And can i make a Foundation model since i saw RSK1 there in Foundation's Exemplar? what are those properties represented in wall's Exemplar? Anyways, That'd be pretty interesting if i do some tests someday.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

You would end up with buildings that look like they are melting on the landscape. One of the things the game gets right, and a basic rule of architecture, is that the foundation should always be level. You wouldn't be able to walk in a building that followed the terrain, much less build one in real life. Even the famous cantilevered houses on the California coast are level-

as well as geodesic domes-

In the end, you'd end up with a city that looked like it was built by Salvador Dali.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

4 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Modeling is a great way to let off stream, High-poly is still my best choice by now. 

@BartonThinks Model No. 2.

It looks amazing. I'm blown away by what you've accomplished already.

I still need to double-check the size of the first prop, so I'll go ahead and do that sometime this evening.

 

Edit: Also, as @SIM-ple Jack was saying, I don't know how much luck you'll have with sloping buildings. I've tried to use this property on props before (specifically fences), and the results always look like they're melting, just as Jack said. The only exception I've found is for ground level props that are tight to the ground, like flower patches. Even then, the results are sometimes really ugly.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

Hey @Raymond7cn

I went ahead and created a test lot with your original prop, plus a number of vehicle BATs from other creators. Here's a screenshot:

Based on this test, I would say that the model's a little bit too big right now.  I'm not planning to use all of these props -- there are a few others that look too big to me as well -- but the ones I'm planning to use are all scaled a little bit smaller.

I checked the occupant size of some other props and then ran your model through the Model Tweaker program a few times to try and find a good match. When I scaled your model to 80% of its original size, it looked like a good fit.

Here's what that the lot looks like in-game with your model at 80% size:

I'm not sure that 80% size is exactly right, but I think something close to that would probably be ideal.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

32 minutes ago, BartonThinks said:

Hey @Raymond7cn

I went ahead and created a test lot with your original prop, plus a number of vehicle BATs from other creators. Here's a screenshot:

Based on this test, I would say that the model's a little bit too big right now.  I'm not planning to use all of these props -- there are a few others that look too big to me as well -- but the ones I'm planning to use are all scaled a little bit smaller.

I checked the occupant size of some other props and then ran your model through the Model Tweaker program a few times to try and find a good match. When I scaled your model to 80% of its original size, it looked like a good fit.

Here's what that the lot looks like in-game with your model at 80% size:

I'm not sure that 80% size is exactly right, but I think something close to that would probably be ideal.

Got it, @BartonThinks I'm going to make 5 Models of vintage car and each of them has variety of colors, And also i want to make this one i saw from Pinterest lately.

Can anybody tell me more about this bus or car? Just a name of it is ok, I pretty like it.

BTW, I wonder that can we drive (UDI)plane from Airport? I couldn't find it except some effects landing/take off from Airport, Thank you!

[BartonThinks 3,416]

That's a Volkswagen bus, which was very popular in the 1950s and 1960s, I believe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Type_2

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

Great job Raymond with everything you continue to research and create!

 

35 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

Can anybody tell me more about this bus or car? Just a name of it is ok, I pretty like it.

This I know as a Volkswagen Campervan vehicle, but it could be described as a bus also depending on different parts of the world.

In addition to what @BartonThinks posted above with the Wiki article, here's a few resources I found about the history of them:

• Link 1
• Link 2
• Link 3
• Link 4

 

35 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

BTW, I wonder that can we drive (UDI)plane from Airport? I couldn't find it except some effects landing/take off from Airport, Thank you!

Yes, the small Maxis landing strip allows UDI from the planes which are there on the side:

 

These appear with the "Gnome" props as can be placed in the Lot Editor list:

(I've highlighted the 3 which appear in my above pic.)

Then the game allows them to be used for the UDI missions.

It might be possible to place the other types from this list too, and like the Marina ones would be the different types of boats which appear on the waterfront. Probably not all of these are for UDI though, as I know there's no mission for the seaports and so it'll just spawn the cargo ship.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you so much!! @Cyclone Boom @BartonThinks I have totally understood that bus now, and it's a pity that we couldn't drive the airplane, But i plan to bring some surprise for you.  Just give me couple of days to make my dream come true.

[Terring 6,473]

13 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

So now we can turn the walls into buildings too? That's awesome. It looks like my experiments with the 3D cities, for which I've made a set of textures that can be placed on slopes to turn hills and craters into buildings, like these examples:

That gives me an idea about your textures. If you can use them in a plop-able building specialized to be placed on hillsides, you might get something like this:

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

12 hours ago, BartonThinks said:

That's a Volkswagen bus, which was very popular in the 1950s and 1960s, I believe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Type_2

60's and 70's. It was commonly called a "Hippie Wagon".

7 hours ago, Terring said:

So now we can turn the walls into buildings too? That's awesome. It looks like my experiments with the 3D cities, for which I've made a set of textures that can be placed on slopes to turn hills and craters into buildings, like these examples:

 

 

That gives me an idea about your textures. If you can use them in a plop-able building specialized to be placed on hillsides, you might get something like this:

 

I like this idea a lot. Basically converting seawalls into RCI. I mentioned, a while back, transit-enabled vertical elevators that could span different levels of terrain, set into mountains. That would work with this. The styles on the seawalls are limitless. Hope you do this. It would work for fantasy and non-fantasy cities.

Nice sneaky Trump reference btw.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Thank you, @Terring @SIM-ple Jack, Actually i just found that maxis uses many RKT1 props for Foundation, such as ferry or some commercial Buildings, some of them are garage sand wooden supports, and Terring, we share the same idea again! I will make some special supports someday.

But by now i run into an issue, Appreciate anyone who could help me with a test. Unzip the attached file into Plugins, plop a medium Airport in your city, then you will see an Boeing airplane there, use extra cheat's UDI to drive this Boeing, I want to know can you see this Weird thing?

Whatever i changed still could see this propeller, but after i deleted my Lot and it turned back to fighterJet plane, it's gone, I'm really confuzzled. I don't know if it's relevant to effdir, But i just replaced the S3D model, I'm afraid that it maybe caused by some changes when i dealing with vertiport issue, so Anyway, Thank you very much!

Boeing787-9.zip

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya My friends, Really sorry that i need a help again, Sometimes my head is pretty like a one-core CPU, 

Today @Kloudkicker detected an issue of my vertiport:

He found that my Lot's Transit Switch Traffic Capacity is 3000 but transit station capacity is 5000, Frankly i might don't change this default value of ferry due to don't want to set it before knowing what happens, and i dimly remember that if i set this value too low, it will become to bottle neck with NAM, Or it will ruin the route selecting if i set it too high. Anyway, i don't have enough experience which leds me to think. Appreciate again for any tips about this, Thank you!