Help with Reader Tweaker tool

[SIM-ple Jack 17,445]

15 hours ago, Kloudkicker said:

This is convincing me to learn reader for a new years resolution. 

When you do, maybe you can teach me. I'm more interested in the Tweaker, as I have no intentions of modifying in-game lots, just custom stuff. I'm not sure I have it in the right place, as all I can get it to upload are game lots, and all of the controls are "ghosting".  Currently it resides in the folder that holds plug-ins.

[Cyclone Boom 16,977]

On 24/12/2020 at 3:51 PM, SIM-ple Jack said:

I'm more interested in the Tweaker, as I have no intentions of modifying in-game lots, just custom stuff.

You might find this tutorial useful which @BartonThinks posted, explaining how to use Model Tweaker for scaling a building. It is a highly powerful tool, and the ability to tailor BATs to our own personal preferences certainly sounds beneficial. I imagine there's a lot can be done with the flexibility of editing.

Hope this helps for starters. I'm sure those familiar with Tweaker can assist you with the setup and to tweak anything specifically.

  Edited December 26, 2020 by Cyclone Boom  
I since realised it was a different Tweaker!

[SIM-ple Jack 17,445]

51 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

You might find this tutorial useful which @BartonThinks posted, explaining how to use Model Tweaker for scaling a building. It is a highly powerful tool, and the ability to tailor BATs to our own personal preferences certainly sounds beneficial. I imagine there's a lot can be done with the flexibility of editing.

Hope this helps for starters. I'm sure those familiar with Tweaker can assist you with the setup and to tweak anything specifically.

I think you misunderstand. Tweaker seems pretty straight-forward.  I just want to use it for population adjustments, cost, and lot pollution and consumption. Not altering sizes or re-lotting. I've used it to make lots with the Blank RCI lot. But that seems to be the only custom lot I can import with it. When I start the programs,  I get these messages-

 

 

 

Then it opens. What SimCity folder?  What SimCityLocale.dat file field?  What Option Screen? Am I supposed to load ILives into the plug-ins folder or elsewhere?

[Cyclone Boom 16,977]

@SIM-ple Jack

Ah. I understand now. You're referring to the "Tweaker" tool inside Reader, not the Model Tweaker which I associated that name with. My bad!

Which version of Reader are you using?

There is a difference between 0.9.3 and 1.5.4 with the options panel, so I just want to be sure I'm looking at the same thing. I have seen that error message before, and know it can happen while having the game running when editing files. (Since they get locked down and can't be opened.)

[SIM-ple Jack 17,445]

0.9.3

[Cyclone Boom 16,977]

Thanks for confirming.

So what this involves in Reader 0.9.3 is clicking the Option menu at the top, and then "Options" in the dropdown.
(It's more unintuitive in 1.5.4 by clicking the logo in the top left, but I'll not explain about that here.)

In 0.9.3 as follows:

 

Then this panel will appear:

(Your other settings may well be different, but we'll not worry about those. You can have a play around with them if you'd like.)

 

From the error message you found, I believe what might be the issue is how there is no "English US" folder in the GOG installation. As such with being an invalid path, it cannot find where the locale file is. So this needs to point where the .dat file belongs.

Try setting both the highlighted paths as I've got above.

Here they are so you can copy them in directly:

SimCityLocale.dat file
C:\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\English\SimCityLocale.DAT

SimCity folder
C:\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\

Then press the OK button at the bottom, and Reader will prompt you to restart the program:

 

At this point, close Reader down and open it again, which then allows the new options to be loaded up (from a configurations file).

All being well this should fix the issue, and allow you to use the Tweaker and other Reader modules without error.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,445]

23 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

All being well this should fix the issue, and allow you to use the Tweaker and other Reader modules without error.

No go. Actually, the only difference with mine and your bars was the US in the 1st addy. Then I realized that my game was in folder (86), so I added that. No go again.  I thought of moving the game out of that folder, but that's usually how I break things...by thinking.

Here's where I'm at-

 

and here's where I'm at with Tweaker-

[Cyclone Boom 16,977]

31 minutes ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

Actually, the only difference with mine and your bars was the US in the 1st addy. Then I realized that my game was in folder (86), so I added that.

I see, and so with the game installed to the Program Files (x86) location, this means it won't need to reference the GOG path.

So let's try these for the paths:

SimCityLocale.dat file
C:\Program Files (x86)\SimCity 4 Deluxe\English\SimCityLocale.DAT

SimCity folder
C:\Program Files (x86)\SimCity 4 Deluxe\

For the 2nd one, I notice in your pic there is no space before the (x86) part. Just make sure to add that too.

If this doesn't work, please post the path name for the SimCity 4.exe from your desktop shortcut used to start the game. That will then help determine the paths are correct for where these need to go. They do need to be exact so Reader is then able to load them up when it starts.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,445]

1 hour ago, Cyclone Boom said:

I see, and so with the game installed to the Program Files (x86) location, this means it won't need to reference the GOG path.

So let's try these for the paths:

SimCityLocale.dat file
C:\Program Files (x86)\SimCity 4 Deluxe\English\SimCityLocale.DAT

SimCity folder
C:\Program Files (x86)\SimCity 4 Deluxe\

For the 2nd one, I notice in your pic there is no space before the (x86) part. Just make sure to add that too.

If this doesn't work, please post the path name for the SimCity 4.exe from your desktop shortcut used to start the game. That will then help determine the paths are correct for where these need to go. They do need to be exact so Reader is then able to load them up when it starts.

Desktop shortcut-

"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -CPUCount:1 -w -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1280x1024x32

"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition"

No go.

Tried it this way in ILives option-

"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps\SimCity 4.exe"

"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition"

and that got rid of the messages in ILives, but Tweaker still is messaging, and when I tried the import, I got a crash.

[Cyclone Boom 16,977]

That confirms the correct path, and so I believe this should do the trick for the 1st box:

SimCityLocale.dat file
C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\English\SimCityLocale.DAT

The difference being how this points directly to the Locale file which contains the game's language (LText) files.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,445]

Well, I've pretty much exhausted all options on this. None of these addys will connect Tweaker to my game, although it seems to have hooked up ILives. I have moved the apps to the C file, plug-ins, desktop, etc. and tried again. No luck. I tried the standalone BTweaker. No luck. And no buttons in the program. Just that panel pictured above. That older version probably works, but it's probably not around anymore. All my other apps(LEProp, LotEditor, assorted map programs, Files2Dat, Landscape Designer, etc.) all hook up fine for some reason, but not Tweaker, the one I wanted to use. So, my options are: Wait till somebody invents a version I can use without problems, continue re-making everything using the blank RCI lot, which will double the size of my plug-ins because I have to load the original along with the re-modded lot as a dependency, or spend the next year trying to learn what all those number strings mean in ILives. I might have a park modded by next Xmas.

[Cyclone Boom 16,977]

@SIM-ple Jack

I've got an idea...

With the paths confirmed set to:

SimCityLocale.dat file
C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\English\SimCityLocale.DAT

SimCity folder
C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\

(Please just double check this, as the SimCity folder needs to be set correctly for the next step.)

Then close Reader and open it again.

Next see this on the sidebar and click it:

 

Next a list of the main .dat files should appear on the left hand panel.

Click the simcity_1.dat one:

 

Reader will load it up and display a progress dialog:

(The program might freeze up momentarily while this happens.)

 

The list of files will appear in the Reader panel. Just ignore those.

Next click the Tweaker button: 

Tweaker will load up, and initially appear blank as per your pic:

Then in the top left, open the dropdown menu and select the developer type.

In the below image, I've chosen "Residential $" which then allows the R$ buildings to be selected in the list.

I clicked the Small Cabin to show the properties it has:

 

I must admit I'm unfamiliar with using the Reader Tweaker itself personally (since I edit exemplars directly in Reader), but hope it finally works for you.

(By the way, I moved our posts into a new topic for clarity.)

[SIM-ple Jack 17,445]

 

They didn't exactly make it intuitive, did they? That app has been in and out of my trash can more times than I can count. Thank you very much for bringing that safari to a merciful end.

I was going to say "You know Christmas is over when all the Christmas threads get re-named!" until I saw this-

31 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

(By the way, I moved our posts into a new topic for clarity.)

[rsc204 21,821]

On 24/12/2020 at 6:18 PM, SIM-ple Jack said:

I've used it to make lots with the Blank RCI lot

I’d exercise caution using this file if it’s the one from the early days. If I recall correctly there is something fundamentally wrong with how using this process works to make lots.

If you want to know how to make new lots, I’ve a step-by-step beginners tutorial to do it here:

1 hour ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

They didn't exactly make it intuitive, did they?

Bear in mind, the ‘loaded’ file in Reader is where it get’s it’s data to work from. So until you actually load a file, in this case via a shortcut to the main SC4 data files, it won’t have any data to work with.