Missing Grounds of Factories

[RedDunoVn 17]

Guys help my factories' ground is missing. 

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

14 minutes ago, RedDunoVn said:

Guys help my factories' ground is missing. 

Missing dependency. Either you missed it when downloading, or the creator forgot to list it. You'll get these once in a while. You can add new base textures in LotEditor or take the lazy route- plop a lot of trees around them. If you can provide the lot name, somebody might be able to help you.

[rsc204 21,866]

Unless I'm mistaken, these look very much like the default Maxis Industrial lots, in which case the missing textures suggest a problem with missing/corrupted game files. The other potential option, again assuming no custom lots are in use, is that some mod is overriding the affected base textures to be fully-transparent, which doesn't really work and leads to the water bug as seen.

Can you confirm if you are using any custom lots downloaded from the exchanges in those pictures?

[RedDunoVn 17]

On 24/11/2020 at 11:06 PM, rsc204 said:

Unless I'm mistaken, these look very much like the default Maxis Industrial lots, in which case the missing textures suggest a problem with missing/corrupted game files. The other potential option, again assuming no custom lots are in use, is that some mod is overriding the affected base textures to be fully-transparent, which doesn't really work and leads to the water bug as seen.

Can you confirm if you are using any custom lots downloaded from the exchanges in those pictures?

Yeah, I've installed the Industrial Revolution Mod before. Then this error came and I deleted the mod

[rsc204 21,866]

Right, then you will need to bulldoze any affected lots and let them re-grow and the problem should go away. Looks like the modified IRM lots are still there, which is why the textures for them are missing. 

[RedDunoVn 17]

16 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Right, then you will need to bulldoze any affected lots and let them re-grow and the problem should go away. Looks like the modified IRM lots are still there, which is why the textures for them are missing. 

oh ok thanks

 

[Daeris 1,116]

@rsc204 @SIM-ple Jack

Hiya, I am reviving this thread from about a week ago because I am actually realizing I'm experiencing this too.

I do not have Industrial Revolution Mod installed, and from what I'm seeing these garbled textures are in base Maxis industry buildings, such as Dolan Dye and Farley's Foundry.

 

 

Not sure what may be causing this, as I don't think I have any industrial texture mods installed, but I'll have to go on the hunt. Any ideas?

[Daeris 1,116]

Going to mess with this and see if this problem may be CAM-related somehow. Or perhaps my first glitch of trying to run CAM and SPAM together. Investigating.

[Daeris 1,116]

Ok, without CAM bigger industry started growing right away.... this is expected since with no CAM the growth stages aren't as stretched out.

However, those actual ground textures are still looking garbled and definitely a mess:

 

Can anyone confirm, is this just what the industrial ground texture is supposed to look like? Definitely seems off to me.

Going to mess with SPAM now and see if somehow it's related there.

[Daeris 1,116]

Since I'm a returning player, perhaps this is just a case of me not remembering how crummy the old ground texture is for dirty medium-density Industry. I've seen some other screenshots where I guess this just seems to be the texture. I would say, perhaps it's eye-opening to me to start, since I am using CAM, my first industrial area is basically only growing super small warehouses and such, and therefore all the open ground space is being filled with this ground texture (making it more noticeable). Perhaps as I enter into greater growth stages for dirty industry it will become less apparent.

[rsc204 21,866]

3 hours ago, Daeris said:

perhaps this is just a case of me not remembering how crummy the old ground texture is for dirty medium-density Industry

Exactly right, Maxis seemed to leave the Industrial lots until last and they are sadly neither very detailed, interesting or particularly nice to look at. That was literally the goal behind TWreck's Industrial Revolution Mod, to provide a transformed and coherent set of Industrial lots, to replace those in the base game. CAM users need the special IRM for CAM variant, but I urge you to consider this (IMHO) must-have mod. The number of dependencies used isn't all that high, considering the returns and most of them are really common, i.e. most people using mods will have most if not all already.

You can see this much more clearly on the 3x3 Plaza Lot from Maxis, but the effect of using multiple Overlay Textures, that is Lot Textures using transparency, on the same tile, causes some visual issues. If you zoom in-out or rotate the view whilst looking at the Plaza, each time the screen refreshes, it must once more decide which "order" to put multiple textures, which are in fact at the same height. This is what is meant by z-fighting, z being the height coordinate used by such games. There is no value for z for lot textures, meaning there is no way to tell the game in which order to display them. So instead they jiggle about "fighting" each other whenever they are drawn. I believe you may also be seeing a similar effect on some of the Industrial lots.

[Daeris 1,116]

46 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

CAM users need the special IRM for CAM variant, but I urge you to consider this (IMHO) must-have mod.

Oh wow, yet another mod I wasn't even aware of. This looks great! I knew IRM wasn't CAMpatible, but had no clue there was even a special version for CAM.

After a brief glance, it looks like I just need to ensure IRM CAM-version loads after CAM. Is this as simple as utilizing the z-folder naming trick? I noticed my CAM install actually installed CAM into an a_CAM folder, so I think that author basically did so to ensure it's most likely loading first.

EDIT: Instructions on IRM CAM variant page: "To do this, place it in a folder within your plugins folder which comes alphabetically after the CAM folder."

  Edited December 1, 2020 by Daeris  
Extra info found to help clarify.

[rsc204 21,866]

Just now, Daeris said:

a_CAM folder, so I think that author basically did so to ensure it's most likely loading first

Yup, as such IRM for CAM shouldn't need any special load ordering, so long as the folder containing it starts with a letter after a, you'll be fine.

Just bear in mind, IRM makes changes to the lots, that mean it doesn't really work properly if you have existing Industrial already built. But if you bulldoze any existing Ind, then leave the zoning in-place, it would re-grow quite easily. See the documentation for more specifics on this.

[Daeris 1,116]

@rsc204 Thank you for your help and for recommending the IRM CAM variant.

Quick question if it suits you. The mod page mentions: "As with the original IRM, the separation of industrial lots into two different zone densities only works if you do not have any other non-Maxis industrial lots in your plugins. If you do, you will have to use the Reader to change the "LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes" attribute of each additional lot, so that it adheres to the IRM setup. Additionally, if these lots are not CAMpatible, they should be converted using the PIM-X tool. Otherwise, these other industrial lots will clash with the IRM or the CAM."

I don't have a ton of extra non-Maxis industrial lots in my plugins, but I do have a few. I'm not quite understanding what I need to change on those lots. Can you explain this in other words? I haven't messed with the Reader to make any adjustments on anything yet, but I was thinking about snagging it to try and adjust a few other .dats. Guessing I should definitely snag Reader if I'll need it to adjust some lots. Just not fully understanding what I need to change.

[CorinaMarie 29,882]

@Daeris I'll answer the part I understand.

First off, grab and install iLive - Reader 0.9.3. Then get The Reader, Beginners Guide and study it.   Next read the section GAMEPLAY on the Industrial Revolution Mod page. Essentially what you will see there is Dirty industry has been set to only grow in Medium Density Industrial and High Tech only in High Density. (Maxis default is either in either.) This allows keeping them separate based on which density you zone in your city.

So, you open up your custom content for some addon industrial building. There are (at a minimum) two exemplars and the Lot Configurations one is where the type of zone it can grow in is set.

Picking a random one of Maxis you'll be looking for the LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes entry.

Said entry highlighted in blue here:

 

Now what does that 0x08, 0x09 mean? Go to the Lot Configuration part of the SC4Devotion Exemplar Properties page to see:

^ Notice how the Name Value of Reader corresponds to the Property No. on the Wiki. In this case 0x88edc793 and the Name columns will also match.

So, if the one you are working with is Dirty Industry, you'd remove the 0x09 whereas if it's High Tech then you'd remove the 0x08. For Manufacturing, you'd look at the building itself and see which category you feel it goes in best based on what @T Wrecks said, "Old-fashioned I-M brick factories will be restricted to medium density, where they will mix well with any I-D buildings. Modern-looking I-M facilities will be restricted to high density and will integrate seamlessly into any high-tech area."

For the PIM-X part, that's used to reconfigure the growth stage and prolly a slew of other things so it's balanced for jobs and whatnot. This part I only know conceptionally so I'll leave that for the experts.

[rsc204 21,866]

PIM-X combines two Maxis tools, the Lot Editor used to make custom lots and the Plugin Manager, used to make Buildings/Props to use with lots. If you open a non-CAM lot using this application, you can just right click with the Buildings Exemplar open and select to "Recompute Properties as...", this will ask you for a filling degree, with that value it will automatically work out the correct stats for the building and CAM growth stage. Note this process doesn't work properly if a Lot uses an invisible or tiny prop for the model on its Building. But that's not typically the case, even then you can work around it, it's just a bit more involved to do.

On 02/12/2020 at 12:46 AM, Daeris said:

"As with the original IRM, the separation of industrial lots into two different zone densities only works if you do not have any other non-Maxis industrial lots in your plugins. If you do, you will have to use the Reader to change the "LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes" attribute of each additional lot, so that it adheres to the IRM setup.

So IRM changes the Industrial zoning, fo Medium Density is I-D and High Density are I-HT, with I-M split between the two. One key benefit of this is that I-HT hates pollution and often abandons easily if next to dirty I-D or some of the more polluting I-M lots. Rather than worry about how nice a given lot lots, it's more important to keep the more polluting I-M lots with the I-D ones (Medium Density), whilst the less polluting ones are fine as High Density Ind. However, lots not designed specifically for IRM will still work, they just won't necessarily conform to the IRM setup for what grows in which zoning types. As Corina shows, it's pretty easy to put right once you've worked out how.

[Daeris 1,116]

@CorinaMarie @rsc204 Ok, I've downloaded the reader and trying to get acquainted, this is definitely beginning to head a bit into the over-my-head behind-the-scenes category, but I think I will be able to figure it out. I've located the "LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes" value, and should be able to adjust those for any industrial lots I want to tweak, and then resave a new copy (keeping my original .SCFLot file in case I make any mistakes.

One thing I've noticed, is a lot of the IRM lots already seem  to have this zone value assigned properly (no surprise there I suppose).

^For example, the IRM I-HT SkyLimit Satellite Research center is already designated as I-HT (and nothing else). Again, no surprise. So I'm guessing I may only run into a snag for older or non-IRM industrial lots I've downloaded (again not many, but I will look through them all).

 

Thanks for your help, if you think of anything else that might be helpful, lmk, again this is heading into over-my-head territory, but I've always been a decently quick learner I suppose.

[rsc204 21,866]

21 minutes ago, Daeris said:

So I'm guessing I may only run into a snag for older or non-IRM industrial lots I've downloaded (again not many, but I will look through them all).

Exactly, it would be a waste of time checking those included with the IRM and its various Add ons, especially with regards to the zoning types.

25 minutes ago, Daeris said:

and then resave a new copy (keeping my original .SCFLot file in case I make any mistakes.

Certainly this isn't a bad idea as you get aquatinted with editing. But in this specific case, the worst you could do is add the wrong values, which could be rectified by just correcting them. You can't break anything just by changing this value, at least not that can't be very easily fixed. So once you've got comfortable with the process, I'm not sure I'd bother with making backups for every file. Trust me, a balance is best, you can have so many Backups and Archive files/versions, it's soon just a total mess and out of control if you aren't careful.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

50 minutes ago, Daeris said:

Thanks for your help, if you think of anything else that might be helpful, lmk, again this is heading into over-my-head territory, but I've always been a decently quick learner I suppose.

I'll just throw in a quick mention about the LEProp tool.

See my post here for a brief overview about it.

Basically this is a small program designed for simple lot property editing, developed by iLive also (who made Reader). It isn't a replacement for Reader or the PIM-X tool, and far from it at that. I like to use Reader 0.9.3 myself as it's so much more powerful. However if you just intend on editing basic lot stats like costs, functions, and pollution, you might find LEProp is a viable alternative. This has the advantage with the user interface being designed to edit the properties in a user friendly fashion.

It doesn't for instance have the ability to edit the aforementioned LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes or any of the LotConfig properties, and so it's really the case of using a tool for a particular trade. Of course, we're here to help with anything else if you're unsure. You're doing well, and you'll get there with it all.

[Daeris 1,116]

@rsc204 @Cyclone Boom Oh no!

 

Well I'm both hopeful and a little bummed. Hopeful, because I guess you could say I'm on the right path and this is definitely going to look much better than the base game once I get it figured out. I deleted the old Industrial zones, and re-zoned, and all this grew. Seems like I must be missing a texture somewhere? Which is strange because I'm like 99% sure I absolutely retrieved all the dependencies listed for IRM. Any of you know of a hidden texture dependency I might be missing?

 

[Daeris 1,116]

You know what, I bet it's this: 

 

Will install and find out.

UPDATE: Unfortunately not this.

  Edited December 4, 2020 by Daeris  
Updating

[Daeris 1,116]

@Cyclone Boom @rsc204 I did it!

I was missing this: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2177

It's plainly listed and I guess I just skipped it. Ugh, sometimes a long day at work gets the best of your brain. Thank you all again for your help and for being so kind.

[rsc204 21,866]

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

It's plainly listed and I guess I just skipped it.

We've all been there!

If I may make another suggestion, my SAM 11 mod (part of the NAM), was designed to blend in perfectly with IRM textures for both I-M or I-D areas. It replaces all the sidewalks and grass with concrete that matches the IRM lots:

I-D zones are identical to I-M, due to game limitations, the three Industrial types only have two zoning types, which controls this. The development shot above gives a good example of what can be done using IRM, some of the IRM Fillers and SAM 11 together to creation realistic Industrial parks. I'll link to the IRM fillers, if you are using IRM, you should find them indispensable:

• I-D Fillers
• I-M Fillers
• I-HT Fillers

[Daeris 1,116]

@rsc204 Thanks again! I have even one more question plz.

The IRM for CAM mod page says this: "The lots here cover only the ones in the IRM base pack, and do not include the IRM addon lots."

I'm guessing this mean if I want to DL any of the expansion and add-on IRM lots, I'll need to CAM-ify them myself, is that correct? If so, can you give a quick idea of how to do this with the Reader? I'm guessing I will need to go in and apply a growth stage to any of the expansion and add-on IRM lots. Is that essentially what CAM-ifying something is? Lastly, if it is, does it just come down to personal preference of what growth stage I think a lot should be in my case?

[Kiwiwriter47 473]

Interesting....about time factories got parking lots.

[rsc204 21,866]

On 05/12/2020 at 12:28 AM, Daeris said:

"The lots here cover only the ones in the IRM base pack, and do not include the IRM addon lots."

Let me have a chance to look into that, I'm guessing that means the base set of IRM only, but almost from the beginning, there have existed extra lots for IRM. I'd be a little surprised if those didn't make it in, given the date the mod was made (I remember the discussion that led to it's release).

The "Fillers" I linked too are not growable lots, so they will work regardless of CAM, having to CAM-ify only applies to growables. 

On 05/12/2020 at 5:08 AM, Kiwiwriter47 said:

Interesting....about time factories got parking lots.

These are the IRM fillers, you don't even have to use IRM to use these lots.

On 05/12/2020 at 12:28 AM, Daeris said:

I'm guessing this mean if I want to DL any of the expansion and add-on IRM lots, I'll need to CAM-ify them myself, is that correct? If so, can you give a quick idea of how to do this with the Reader?

Outside of the original addons, more recently TWrecks made a W2W addon, additionally there have been a good number of individual additional lots, using some of the best Industrial Buildings out there. All the lots used in those packages, will likely need to be changed for optimal use with CAM.

I wouldn't use the Reader, it is much easier to use PIM-X, which in many ways would automate the task. I found an old thread where modifying the W2W lots was discussed in detail:

As you can see, the process can be involved, but like most SC4 modding, it just requires learning the Steps, then repeating them. If you have any questions, it might be better to start a new topic specifically for talking you through things step-by-step.

Developments relating to CAMifying the IRM Addons can be found from here on my dev thread.