Raymond's Newbie Thoughts

[Flann 1,709]

On 9/21/2020 at 12:05 AM, Raymond7cn said:

 

Yes you can tell, They won't overlap or overwrite, they will appear Randomly in each tile, So i got more ideas for the Next tests about randomize, To be continued.

Would this mean it would be possible to create a street tree mod with random seasonal trees?  That is, rather than rely on prop families to randomize the trees (and therefore have mismatched trees between seasons), you could use multiple T21s with different trees but the same position and the game would randomize it?

 

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya @Flann , I should apologize to you first, I totally forget my custom T21 Mod of JRJ's, Sorry! It's all about my poor head, I will share it to you tomorrow here. (i'm in bed half sleeping)

And yes you are right, That's why JRJ's T21 is pretty flexible, Because of different T21 which matches each transit type and wealth and RCI, You could hardly see duplicate scene in your city, Not to mention there is also prop families.(by learnt a bit of T21 lately, i may figure out his secret about designing ideas.)

But i remember that one little unsatisfied thing for me at then is the tree, the original tree in that mod is too big compare with adjacent houses, so i replaced them to Girafe's HD trees, then Robin helped me to sloved the seasonal issue with change RKT property, Long story short,  i thought you would know it after i share my modifying tomorrow. Sorry! 

[Kloudkicker 4,561]

5 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

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?

Hello, I ran the test and I see the same weird thing with the propellers(Pic 1), even after releasing the plane from my control as it fly's on it's own(Pic2). Sorry that is all the help I have.

[Max4k 721]

21 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:

 

The Sky Farming looks cool and have bunch of files saved.  Is there any way to just use a few plopable buildings for just 1 map without any other of the features to grow random on map Im working on ?

Within the region Im working on, I plan on later on using a few maps to be future in theme and fully use all the Sky Farming files

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya @Flann, The attached file is @jeronij's Mod i tweak, z_____Jeronij.zip

The left side is all @Girafe's HD seasonal trees i'm using now, Sorry that i forget which i used for this mod, but it won't be harmful if you download all of them, You could get them from LEX. And i dimly remember that i may use Tweaker to change one Jeronij's tree, couldn't memorize its name as well.

Besides, i also put a file z_lk_floratuningparameters_seasonal_maxis_or_other into zip, it will keep all the seasonal trees changing together.

I hope it would be helpful for your research, And all of these are credited to @jeronij's great works. I'm still learning and benefit from his countless splendid works.

-- Edit --

BTW, I also modified SFBT' T21 mod for SAM and diagonal roads, Likewise a french Avenue mod, and the option of Jeronij's sidewalks, i modified the $$ and $$$ identically, That' all, Hope one day i could bring my own T21 mod for you.

[Max4k 721]

There are soo many trees, I've come across that name a lot while downloading things, and see there is a tool to BSC - VIP girafe MM flora separator (v1.0)  that keeps things together in menu.  That is really great feature.

 

[Terring 6,473]

@Max4k, the Peg's skyfarms comes with a large variety of lots, some of which are plop-able and easily to recognize them because they have the word "landmark" at their .SC4lot file. Keep only the lot files with the "landmark" at their name and move the rest of them outside of your plugins folder. Then you can move them back when you need them.

[Max4k 721]

Ok, Ill take a look. I know there are 5 main things, but think there were a few other packs and some of the single plopables might need some other files or textures.

I'll mess with all that another time.  

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

17 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

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,

I've been looking into this for a few hours and I'm still completely confuzzled. I changed and tweaked a bunch of things in the plane's exemplar (the matching 1172000 one) and those 4 propellers still appear. Then I changed the tag on your airport to be the Crop Duster creator, changed your plane to its IID, and there are still 4 propellers. I really expected to just get one if any.

So, then I changed the Maxis jumbo jet plane to a Crop Duster since it's very similar in size to your plane and, oddly, it does not get them.

^ This is after flying it around and checking from every angle.

It somehow seems to be related to your S3D and while I don't know much about those, that seems rather impossible to be the culprit.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@Cyclone Boom @CorinaMarie It maybe coincidence. Don't know why everytime my issues point to effects.

As you know i just want to drive airplane i made. After dealed with the textures i stuck into that weird propeller. base on the research lately, i knew it's an effect and locate the propeller's files easily. But not too many clues there, i couldn't figure out how the game references to them. Then after tons of tests i still have no luck though there is only s3d left. I want to give up at then.

Well… you know Ray would never give up so easily.  i was thinking maybe the secret is in S3D, I checked every data carefully, Then at the end…

My goodness, I never paid attention to these hex values (FX_ names in Effdir) since i thought they are identical to prior tabs, But i couldn't modify it with reader.

But Cori has taught me that with H2X, Right? 

But after i deleted those infos (export with reader first) the plane disappeared, it might be still there but i couldn't see it.

Then i checked it again,

I changed some hex identically to PROP's value (Prop's value is null there IMO,)

 Annoying propeller has gone! Frankly, By now, i expect more from Cori's great project, since i got more Newbie's ideas after understood more about relationship between S3D and Effdir.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Opps, @CorinaMarie Thank you Cori, Please Check the post above. You are right, The issue is caused by i made my plane with a template of fireplane, so those info in REGP is preserved there.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 minute ago, Raymond7cn said:

Opps, @CorinaMarie Thank you Cori, Please Check the post above.

 

I'm glad to see you fixed it. I never imagined it'd be in there even tho all my tests said there was no place else it could be. So, I now surmise you'd copied the fire plane to have a basis to start from and those effects were in the file.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

4 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I'm glad to see you fixed it. I never imagined it'd be in there even tho all my tests said there was no place else it could be. So, I now surmise you'd copied the fire plane to have a basis to start from and those effects were in the file.

Yes Cori, I just knew that the S3D is not that simple as i thought before, it could reference to effects as well, I want to add some effects into the S3D, it must be very Interesting.

But by now, i want to continue with my thoughts a while, i was playing with those parameters of plane in LUA a bit. You could see there in my file there is a copy, I just wish that it could act as much as a real plane, Anyway, still trials and errors, Hope anybody who has experience on driving plane could give me suggestion. (BTW, i also was making a WAV of speech between pilot and Tower)

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 minute ago, Raymond7cn said:

(BTW, i also was making a WAV of speech between pilot and Tower)

(Seems I heard them in the game. )

 

While we're chatting, here's the latest CB and I've been creating:

^ This is just a template test for a single DWORD. The underlying functions will be what can be called from anywhere.

One important thing for the Effect Dir editing is that DWORDs can represent one of three different values. Thankfully @xannepan documented all of that. All I had to do was figure out how to deal with those conversions in my language. The Float32 is the most complicated (linky), but it turns out I didn't have to jump thru too many hoops to make the conversion bi-directional and match up. (There is an inherent margin of error with Float32, but nothing to worry about since Reader and every other tool shows the same little differences.)

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

@Raymond7cn

Absolutely fantastic detective work once again! Another mystery solved.

It was very challenging to know the source of the problem there too, and checking in DataNode and I did notice how the IID was the same as the Maxis S3D file (11720000), but it wasn't clear how the propellers were being added. Now you've found the way to edit the hex data and remove them, I suppose it'd be worth using this new S3D file for any other future jet planes you might create. Then a consideration is with the IIDs so there could be new instances made.

The Boeing 787 plane model you've made really is most excellent by the way.

It is a bit limited how the Maxis planes can fly, but I think it might be possible to improve the flight paths. On the theme of Effect Dir and it just came to mind while typing here how @xannepan created an air traffic controller mod. I've never tried this personally, but it might be something of interest to explore.

One thing is for certain that the editor Cori is developing hopes to open up many new possibilities.

[thecitiescenter 3,045]

8 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

@Cyclone Boom @CorinaMarie It maybe coincidence. Don't know why everytime my issues point to effects.

As you know i just want to drive airplane i made. After dealed with the textures i stuck into that weird propeller. base on the research lately, i knew it's an effect and locate the propeller's files easily. But not too many clues there, i couldn't figure out how the game references to them. Then after tons of tests i still have no luck though there is only s3d left. I want to give up at then.

Well… you know Ray would never give up so easily.  i was thinking maybe the secret is in S3D, I checked every data carefully, Then at the end…

My goodness, I never paid attention to these hex values (FX_ names in Effdir) since i thought they are identical to prior tabs, But i couldn't modify it with reader.

But Cori has taught me that with H2X, Right? 

But after i deleted those infos (export with reader first) the plane disappeared, it might be still there but i couldn't see it.

Then i checked it again,

I changed some hex identically to PROP's value (Prop's value is null there IMO,)

 Annoying propeller has gone! Frankly, By now, i expect more from Cori's great project, since i got more Newbie's ideas after understood more about relationship between S3D and Effdir.

At this point, you need to drop the word “Newbie” from this thread. Its false advertising 

[+Guest 760649]

2 hours ago, thecitiescenter said:

At this point, you need to drop the word “Newbie” from this thread. Its false advertising 

Nobody buys the "Newbie" scam any more....

[rivit 3,391]

Yes, Raymond - you've found one of the bugs in Reader which happens if you save the S3D after altering it in any way. It will also bork an s3d if you increase the number of frames per second to display.

The only way to fix this with Reader is to export the S3d as a decoded file and hexedit the changes by hand and reload the S3D into the dat. Its fiddly as you need to recreate the correct offsets in the REGP chunk.

However there is a better way:

Use the SC4Reader v1.57 or later tool by Tropod (on SC4Devotion) - which has fixed that save bug, and actually displays the existence of effects in the model view and allows you to edit the Effects properly with a dedicated decoded tab.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@thecitiescenter @WolfZe Thank you Steve Wolf, Until yesterday, I just knew i could use "M" to mirror a texture for pattern with Lot Editor, So let me keep this word for a while, But i know what you are saying is an encouragement to me. i will keep learning.

@rivit Hiya Rivit, now i thought i got one more step to the Bugman of the Year status. And i did have tried to run SC4Reader before, But it always crashes down in my comp (Win10), Including compatible mode, It's a pity, I will give it a try again someday, Thank you very much.

[+Guest 760649]

4 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

Until yesterday, I just knew i could use "M" to mirror a texture for pattern with Lot Editor

This works out? I didn't know ... Then I'm a newbie now too....

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

18 hours ago, thecitiescenter said:

At this point, you need to drop the word “Newbie” from this thread. Its false advertising 

 

16 hours ago, WolfZe said:

Nobody buys the "Newbie" scam any more....

This does not bode well for my "SIM-ple Jack's 5th Anniversary Stupid Ideas and Brain Farts" thread I had planned for next month.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya My friends, This is my first video and first flight, Please sit down and buckle your seatbelt.

Hi Steve, @thecitiescenter You must be good at it, Looking forward your advice, I have tried my best to adjust those parameters, but I still need to optimize the landing procedure a bit, Anyway, Thanks to all of you for helping me to make dream come true. (don't look at my city too carefully, haven't got time to beautify it)

@CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom @Terring

BTW, Cori's Rina's Rivers is such a wonderful Region.

[Terring 6,473]

Thank you for flying with Raymond Airlines

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

Hiya My friends, Just come here to say i'm still active, I couldn't access simtropolis normally due to a special period in my country.

These days i have been through a lot, I tried to use this wrapper in my comp, Unfortunately, i failed, and i screwd up somewhere with wrong deleting and adjusting, Long story short, i have restored everything back to normal (even better than before) by the helps of CoriBoom™, Along with restoring, i googled a bit and learnt some about why my laptop couldn't use dedicated Graphics for SC4 instead of indicated card.

Let's pass over that long history of Microsoft's Intel structure with Nvidia (or AMD&ATI), That agreement is still changing, Anyhow our old game is Direct7 (DDRAW) not Direct3D, so due to the limitation of laptop, i could only use a wrapper (dgvoodoo) as a Virtual Graphics which redirect orders from Direct7 to Direct9 or higher. Otherwise the Nvidia's driver couldn't support DDraw even though i have set those two rule files and Nvidia control panel correctly.

Along with digging i also found that some new laptops could achieve my goal, it could manually switch Graphic's working mode to dedicated card only mode, One of them is Lenovo Y9000k, I pretended that want to buy it and gave it a try in the store, SC4 worked perfect with GeForce 2060. I guess that it's since SC4 could only find out one Graphic card. (Not an advertising here, and haven't tested it with enough cases)

But it still not the case what i want to talk about, When i came to simtropolis one year ago, i spent almost one month on how to play SC4 with my laptop decently, My comp's spec is HP i7 indicated card intel 670 and dedicated card Nvidia GeForce 1050ti, I still remember that my comp was screaming then when my big city's population went up to 1.5m. Anyway, after tons of trials and errors, finally i had half success in a wrapper "dgvoodoo". The reason of half is that even though dgvoodoo could make SC4 runs in dedicated card, but it has some flickering in full scree mode and a bit screen tearing in window mode. (i will show you that when my Network is back to normal)

Then one year later this wrapper gave me some lights couple days ago, (How to run SimCity 4 Natively above 1920x1080 in Hardware Mode!!!) Though as i said i failed finally, but i thought it maybe more better in future after solved Dd7to9 = 1.

After that i looked through Github along with dxwrapper, Guess what? i found out this one by narzoul.

DDrawcompat

DDrawCompat download link

I gave its latest Version a shot, Then… Amazing! Though even though SC4 still ran with my indicated Intel Graphics, But Whatever i zoomed in/out or how fast i dragged the screen, None issue there, i built a big city with HD trees everywhere and moved very fast, the FPS still above 60 and the whole process is quite smooth. Unbelievable that it happened on my indicated card and just need one file be put into app folder (this is the biggest ddraw.dll i have ever tried). 

I noticed that this wrapper hasn't been released officially, however i still have sent a mail to narzoul with my results. I want to know if he could make a configurable Version. Anyhow it's pretty promising.

And i have no delay in modeling, @BartonThinks Model No.3

@Kloudkicker, Sorry Nick that i don't want to ruin that thread with my personal case, I hope my finding would be a bit helpful to you, Good Luck!!

[BartonThinks 3,416]

1 hour ago, Raymond7cn said:

And i have no delay in modeling, @BartonThinks Model No.3

You're a machine, Raymond. This is absolutely gorgeous work.

If I can make a tiny request, I'm not sure how many of these you're planning to make, but if you can model one of these two versions of the 1912 Model T, that would fill a huge gap for me.

Right now, I don't really have a ton of options for mid-wealth vehicles for 1900-1925 or low-wealth vehicles for 1925-1950. But a basic version of the 1912 Model T would be perfect for both.

Spoiler

 

[Flann 1,709]

3 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

After that i looked through Github along with dxwrapper, Guess what? i found out this one by narzoul.

DDrawcompat

DDrawCompat download link

I gave its latest Version a shot, Then… Amazing! Though even though SC4 still ran with my indicated Intel Graphics, But Whatever i zoomed in/out or how fast i dragged the screen, None issue there, i built a big city with HD trees everywhere and moved very fast, the FPS still above 60 and the whole process is quite smooth. Unbelievable that it happened on my indicated card and just need one file be put into app folder (this is the biggest ddraw.dll i have ever tried). 

I noticed that this wrapper hasn't been released officially, however i still have sent a mail to narzoul with my results. I want to know if he could make a configurable Version. Anyhow it's pretty promising.

I just tested this out and it seems to work very nicely!

[Kloudkicker 4,561]

Hay @Raymond7cn, 

I'm glad to hear your back up and running. Thanks for the update, that's good news. I was wondering if you could share your dxwrapper config file. I would like to review it for fun and for better understanding in what I'm getting involved in. I'm learning as I go also. And no need to apologize, trial and error is a fundamental building block of everything. I now know that I didn't have to do a restore. I found an option in my cards properties that has an "Roll back driver" option. It should by in all the same places that you can download it from. Like the geforce experience app.

Very nice looking models, by the way. The cars makes me want to go old school gangster style.🐱‍👓... Keep up the good work.

Peace,

 

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

@BartonThinks, Your reference is just in time, Barton, I'm going to make 5 Models and each of them has various color versions, so exactly two Models left for 1912, and i pretty like them as well.

@Terring @CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom Sorry my friends, i'm going to stop Tractors and Futurist Automata a while, i have to prepare a birthday present. Almost forgot it.

@Flann Thank you for feedback, Flann, May i ask about your comp's spec, I want to know if your are using a laptop or a PC, and how many Graphics there and what's the driver of them. I want to send these infos to the author as well, he is collecting the issues now, Thank you very much!

Yes @Kloudkicker, I will share them to you later back home, I have recorded the process while testing. And Thank you for the compliment, You could follow @BartonThinks's project if you do like a gangster style, lol.

[Flann 1,709]

11 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

Thank you for feedback, Flann, May i ask about your comp's spec, I want to know if your are using a laptop or a PC, and how many Graphics there and what's the driver of them. I want to send these infos to the author as well, he is collecting the issues now, Thank you very much!

No problem:

My desktop PC is custom built, running Windows 10.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

GPU: nVidia RTX 2070 Super (driver : GeForce Game Ready Driver 451.67 (released 07/09/2020) )

RAM: 16GB

All SSDs

 

Edit:  This just happened:

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Just a little more nothing.

Spoiler