Total modding newbie, trying to fix names / descriptions in a dat file

[DarkSoul 3]

I have the "Modular 8 Level Parking Garages" plugin, but the names and descriptions aren't exactly "complete" so to speak. 

I wanted to fix them, but this one is a little over my head in how it works. It's a single DAT file with all f the stuff inside of it, and I can't figure out what I need to change to fix the names.

For instance in game there is the "parking garage bus stop" with the description "insert ploppable description here"

I'd like to fix this so all of the names are consistent, and I'd like to add descriptions where they don't exist, but when using iLives Reader, nothing obvious works.

I've searched through the exemplars, and XML, and LD (I honestly don't even know what those are aside from XML) and made changes to the obvious instance of "parking garage bus stop" but whenever I make the changes it doesn't appear in game and simply remains as "parking garage bus stop" instead of "8 Level Parking Bus Stop" that I change it to.

How can I make these fixes so it looks nice in game and the tiles all have the titles and descriptions I set? 

[rsc204 21,857]

I suspect linked objects (LTexts) may be involved, if they exist then you have to alter them rather than the Item Name and Item Description fields. Just on my way out, but I'll take a look at the specific file a little later, but it's totally possible to modify things to work as you desire.

[DarkSoul 3]

33 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

I suspect linked objects (LTexts) may be involved, if they exist then you have to alter them rather than the Item Name and Item Description fields. Just on my way out, but I'll take a look at the specific file a little later, but it's totally possible to modify things to work as you desire.

This one is just confusing to me because it most probably uses linked objects, I mean that's exactly what it looks like to me, but I can't see *where* those objects are to rename them or what have you.

It doesn't help that I'm no modder and I don't understand how it all works, so I kinda just picked up iLives Reader, and LEProp and other stuff, and this is how I'm learning lol.

Problem is there is no "LTEXT" entries in Reader and everything is in a single dat file except for some airport shuttle related things which I'm not changing.

So I can only find like two or 3 instances of "parking lot bus stop" and "insert ploppable description here" and when I change those entries nothing changes in the game.......

I'd really like to clean this up though, I've wanted to give this thing proper names and descriptions since like 2012 lmao.

[rsc204 21,857]

So this is a pretty disorganised file, not that it's particularly unusual, but like you I prefer to work with something more logical. If you come across such a set of files, you can make life a lot easier by first filtering out only the Exemplars, which for a job like this is all you need to work with. Exemplars are best described as a set of data or properties, it's very much like a flexible database. Exemplars all have a type, Buildings, LotConfigurations and Props being the most typical ones. You probably aren't interested in anything but the Buildings, since those contain all the properties that are used by it's related lot.

Only one entry in the DAT, item # 117, uses LText files,  which work out as follows:

Item Name	UserVisibleNameKey	Name of item in Menu
Item Description	ItemDescriptionKey	Description when hovering over item in Menu

 

If either of the middle Properties exist, it will contain an ID and that is the ID of the LText used by this item. If they don't exist, the dedicated Properties on the left will be used, if those are missing I think it uses the Exemplar Name, but we don't need to get into that.

So the simplest solution for this particular Building, is simply to delete the two LText Properties, add the Item Name/Description ones if they don't exist currently, then manually input the requisite data. Note the Exemplar name, PZ1x1_Grass_4ab05a13, basically this was made by copying and editing the original Park's Open Grass lot, that's why the LTexts exist and the ones being linked to are actually in the game files, not part of the mod. It's safe to change this as described and these things happen because the Maxis tools have some incredibly short-sighted limitations which cause these issues.

Every other Buildings Exemplar has the Item Name and Item Description properties, but here's another tip to sort the wheat from the chaff. Double Click any Exemplar entry on the left pane of Reader, it will open the Exemplar Analyser. The list should fill with all the Exemplars in the opened file, if not click Search to do so. Click the fifth item 'Prop' on the toolbar, then look for Item Name in the drop down box and click Find. Now a list of every Item Name Property pops up, you can go through and edit each Property (file) in one place, just double click a line to edit it. Repeat for the Item Description when you are finished, not forgetting to save in the Main Reader window before you exit.

Hopefully this gives you a visual of how all that looks.

If all else fails, I'd filter the files I want only and add them to a patch. Highlight each item together, right click, add to patch (or entry by entry if you prefer, then click on the Patch icon to turn the selected items into a separate stand-alone file. Once you're done with that, you can edit everything more comfortably in the new file, then re-combine into a single file by DATPacking your modified one into the Original, just make sure that the modified one is loading after the original.

[DarkSoul 3]

I'm going to have to read that like 50 times to understand it.... I'm not much of a reading learner lol.

What version of reader are you using because I apparently had a slightly older version and it just didn't seem to work.

I installed a newer version and it seemed to rename the things properly until I tried the police kiosk, at which point it would throw the icons out of whack if I tried to rename it or give it a description.

SC4Tool seems to be allowing me to rename them without messing up the icons, but the one that I don't know what to do about is that one that's linked to the park.

It has no "item name" or "item description" property since it's using the Maxis (lot?). 

How can I add a different item name and description to it because right now it's just "open park area" and the default Maxis description.

[DarkSoul 3]

I got at least some of it sorted so far lol.

I have the 3 "tricky" ones renamed I think. I deleted the 2 properties and added the name and description properties and now the park has a unique name. hopefully it's still functioning the same.


Not that I'm there yet, but how hard would it be to modify the actual ploppable part so I could take put an actual police station on the model instead of just a tree and having the model "act" like a police kiosk?

[rsc204 21,857]

4 hours ago, DarkSoul said:

I'm not much of a reading learner lol

Frankly a step-by-step tutorial would take so long, I may as well just edit the file, but I hope you picked up something useful.

4 hours ago, DarkSoul said:

What version of reader are you using

In the screenshot, trusty v.093, but I have the latest one too.

4 hours ago, DarkSoul said:

It has no "item name" or "item description" property since it's using the Maxis (lot?). 

Basically the file you see started life as a Carbon Copy of one of the Maxis Lots, which in fact is exactly how the LE is designed to work. Frankly that's a bit crap, because I don't know of another application that doesn't have a 'New File' option. It's just an explanation for why this one is different as much as anything.

3 hours ago, DarkSoul said:

I deleted the 2 properties and added the name and description properties and now the park has a unique name. hopefully it's still functioning the same.

No reason why it shouldn't, LTexts are used by the game, because once defined (the ID), the game can re-direct to a set of LTexts that have been localised, i.e. everything can appear in any supported language. This is rather less important with most custom content, since usually most things never get translated, with the exception of some of the big projects like NAM and RTMT. So it's just simply to stick with the basic properties instead.

3 hours ago, DarkSoul said:

Not that I'm there yet, but how hard would it be to modify the actual ploppable part so I could take put an actual police station on the model instead of just a tree and having the model "act" like a police kiosk?

Reader is a fantastic tool for those understand the data they are looking at. I can (and do), make Lots by editing Hex values sometimes, but Reader is not and wasn't intended to be a user-friendly tool, it's poking around at the raw data. But you can do anything in Reader if you know how, whereas all the main apps have some sort of limitation.

Things like the Lot Editor, SC4 Tools and PIM-X (Highly recommended, better Lot Editor/PIM in one), are designed to help accomplish the most common tasks with more ease, i.e. they take care of the data parts for you, based on some simple input (values) or templates.

All the properties that affect any sort of Ploppable item (Lots), are contained in the Buildings Exemplar, not the model itself. Every such exemplar must link to a model, which becomes the Building upon the lot, but all the settings are within that Exemplar. If I'm not mistaken, this particular piece is already modded as a functioning Police Station, so all you really need to do is remove the tree and replace it with a different prop in the Lot Editor. This will not affect functionality, unless the tree in question is the Building on the lot, rather than a Prop. I can't think why you'd do it that way, fixing that is possible but more convoluted.

If you are keen to do more modding, it would really help to understand the basic relationships between Buildings, Lots, Models and what Exemplars really mean. I've a basic guide to the Maxis tools for beginners, which tries to explain all this as simply as possible, with some step-by-step examples.

[DarkSoul 3]

I haven't read all of that, but I'll come back to it.

Using the Maxis lot editor I can open the police kiosk tile that's inside the 8 level garages.dat file, and I can add a kiosk to it. Hell I can even save it as an sc4lot file which will come into the game as it's own tile not part of the parking garages....

 

But all I really want to do is just add that police kiosk to the tile inside the garages at file ....sorry if I'm using tile wrong.
 

[rsc204 21,857]

14 minutes ago, DarkSoul said:

But all I really want to do is just add that police kiosk to the tile inside the garages at file ....sorry if I'm using tile wrong.

Just to be super-clear, you want to remove the Tree (Prop) and have the Police Kiosk there instead, like this:

If it's just a visual change, you only need the Lot Editor (in fact, you won't easily be able to use any other tool), although I am using the PIM-X Lot Editor so it might look a little different.

Essentially after opening the lot, you can select the Props there, remove (or as I've done, move) the tree, then add the desired new Prop. Note that when the game released most of the models used on the in-game content, could not be utilised as Props. You will need to download the official Buildings as Props 1 + 2 packages and install them, or you won't find the Police Kiosk in the LE. If you need these, see the 'Maxis Files' link under ST Exchange on the site banner.

Again, this is a purely cosmetic change, but this lot is already modded to function as a Police Station, which is is no way tied to anything you see on the Lot Itself. All of this comes from the various Properties in the Buildings Exemplar, which aren't editable in the Lot Editor.

[DarkSoul 3]

2 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Just to be super-clear, you want to remove the Tree (Prop) and have the Police Kiosk there instead, like this:

If it's just a visual change, you only need the Lot Editor (in fact, you won't easily be able to use any other tool), although I am using the PIM-X Lot Editor so it might look a little different.

Essentially after opening the lot, you can select the Props there, remove (or as I've done, move) the tree, then add the desired new Prop. Note that when the game released most of the models used on the in-game content, could not be utilised as Props. You will need to download the official Buildings as Props 1 + 2 packages and install them, or you won't find the Police Kiosk in the LE. If you need these, see the 'Maxis Files' link under ST Exchange on the site banner.

Again, this is a purely cosmetic change, but this lot is already modded to function as a Police Station, which is is no way tied to anything you see on the Lot Itself. All of this comes from the various Properties in the Buildings Exemplar, which aren't editable in the Lot Editor.

 

 

Yeah that's what I want to do, and was already able to do in the Maxis lot editor (I have the buildings files....actually a replacement) but when I press save all I get is a separate sc4lot file saved in the root of my plugins folder.

So perhaps I'll check out PIMX and try it.

I'm aware it's cosmetic, but that's why I want to "fix" it lol. It's a police kiosk tile, but has no actual police kiosk on it lol.  I can see that the lot has the "building" sitting inside the parking portion so it's functioning as one, I just wanted it to match

[DarkSoul 3]

ok, PIMX isn't making a lot of sense to me....how do I load just the dat I want to work with?

[rsc204 21,857]

Just now, DarkSoul said:

how do I load just the dat I want to work with?

You know on startup when it asks which folders to load? Keep the top two (that's the Maxis content you'll need), the just select one other, the folder where you've the content you want to work with.

You still need to find the Lot in the List, but you can cross reference the Name with Reader or even the Maxis LE if you need too. It doesn't help when the content isn't well labelled internally, but I have to say that's the norm for most things sadly.

PIM-X may have a learning curve, but once past it, everything is better, just a little different. For example, the Lot Editor can not save anything in a DAT file, instead you must save a new copy of the lot. PIM-X can just update the file without messing with the icons too, the LE always messes them up on saving .

[DarkSoul 3]

7 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

You know on startup when it asks which folders to load? Keep the top two (that's the Maxis content you'll need), the just select one other, the folder where you've the content you want to work with.

You still need to find the Lot in the List, but you can cross reference the Name with Reader or even the Maxis LE if you need too. It doesn't help when the content isn't well labelled internally, but I have to say that's the norm for most things sadly.

PIM-X may have a learning curve, but once past it, everything is better, just a little different. For example, the Lot Editor can not save anything in a DAT file, instead you must save a new copy of the lot. PIM-X can just update the file without messing with the icons too, the LE always messes them up on saving .

It only goes one folder deep in my plugins folder though, so I can load "buildings" but not "buildings\8 Level Garages" and I can't even find the police parking garage tile in PIMX for some reason. I can see the "buildings" which are just two cylinders, but I can't find the actual parking garage piece with the tree.... the one in your picture above.

[DarkSoul 3]

I feel like I'm missing something or using the wrong PIMX or something because all I can really do is just see lists of the (exemplars? files?), there's like literally nothing I can do.

[DarkSoul 3]

ok seriously I have no idea how to do what you did in PIMX.....  I don't  know where to drag the what to do what with what to modify the existing piece already in the dat file 
I also can't even find the "parking garage police kiosk" piece to add the kiosk to it, such as you've shown in the picture so I\m guessing it's already made of pieces......
 

[rsc204 21,857]

The thing is, if you just read the manual for PIM-X, everything is covered in-depth with step-by-step walk-throughs that explain the basics.

You say you aren't a 'visual' learner and I'm doing my best to accommodate your needs here, but it's imperative you pay attention to things, for example, the download description of PIM-X states:

Quote

You are recommended to download and read the
SC4PIM User Guide
before using this program.

Which links to this PDF manual, without which you really aren't making life easy for yourself.

Above is a 6 minute capture of me showing how to find/edit the lot in question, which is my attempt to more easily show you what I'm talking about. But it's clunky and has no audio, because editing a video like this to look professional is too much work in context.

Case in point, I forgot to alter the settings to take account of the higher resolution monitors I bought last summer :/ - so the bottom right is all cut off... I've uploaded a fixed version now.

Hopefully thought this will at least make the process clearer for you, but at some point you simply must go through the manual. Not least because everything in PIM-X's LE uses Keyboard shortcuts, which again are all listed in the documentation and without which you'll quickly come unstuck again.

[DarkSoul 3]

I've been looking through the manual, and it isn't making a lot of sense. It's showing me how to make a new growable lot, which isn't what I'm trying to do, and even following it word for word just so that I've gone through the tutorial and things still don't make any sense in any applicable way to what I'm trying to achieve. 
I don't learn like 99% of people, hell I might be neuro-divergent for all I know, but I could spend all day reading about carpentry, starting with the basics right up to the very advanced and I would still barely be able to stick two boards together. I could however *watch* a carpenter build a cabinet and then make the same cabinet with a better understanding of how to do it than anything in the book. I also can't ask the book questions.

That being said I greatly appreciate the time you've taken to not only try to help me here, but also going so far as to put together a video. You've shown just in this post that it clearly isn't an incredibly hard thing to do..... you must understand that it makes me feel incredibly stupid not being able to figure out what is a simple thing, especially after spending an entire day trying to do just that.

I'm trying to learn how to do this stuff, but it isn't as easy for me as it seems to be for most people. It's especially difficult since there doesn't seem to be much in the way of videos about it that I can find.


 

[DarkSoul 3]

I'm following along now and it's already been considerably helpful. 

I couldn't make sense of what the tutorial was trying to get me to do, but it was easy to see that you clicked on "Lots", picked the building and it showed up down below. I also happened to notice the exclamation mark, which I gathered meant unused or something wrong with that one. 
So there are a couple of extra things in the plugin that aren't used and can be deleted just for cleanup purposes.

Again, thank you for the video.

[DarkSoul 3]

ok, I've become stuck.... I can't seem to rotate the overlay like you did.....

[rsc204 21,857]

2 hours ago, DarkSoul said:

you must understand that it makes me feel incredibly stupid not being able to figure out what is a simple thing, especially after spending an entire day trying to do just that.

Actually I sorta got the impression that you were sticking in there, so your patience should be rewarded. After all, spending 20m typing instructions actually takes longer than making a 6m video which get's uploaded as-is to YouTube.

10 minutes ago, DarkSoul said:

I can't seem to rotate the overlay like you did.....

Which is where the lack of audio doesn't help, but I've a limited window where that's possible here without interruption. It also inevitably means the video needs editing and rendering with turns a quick task into anything but.

The basic keys mirror the main game and Maxis LE (which has additional buttons), a complete list can be found in Pg 64 of the PDF manual:

Home/End - Rotate selected object Left/Right
PgUp/PgDown - Rotate view

T - Work with Base Textures
V - Work with Overlay Textues
B - Work with Buildings
P - Work with Props
F - Work with Flora
H - Pan display.

40 minutes ago, DarkSoul said:

I also happened to notice the exclamation mark, which I gathered meant unused or something wrong with that one.

I think this was used in the creation of the second Buildings Exemplar, but got left behind in error. Indeed that shows it's faulty, mostly because it doesn't link to a Lot File, therefore does not work. Indeed removing it should not cause any problems, but you'd have to do that in Reader.

I did start making some tutorial videos for using the modding tools last year and the basics of using PIM-X is on my list of things to cover. But as things stand, I don't know for sure if I'll be able to get to that in the near future.

[DarkSoul 3]

I saw the keyboard shortcuts, but the problem seems to be that I can't select anything? perhaps I'm in the wrong mode, I must've overlooked those shortcuts in the manual.

I am looking in the manual as I go also, it's making a bit more sense now.

[DarkSoul 3]

I've done something wrong it seems.... I don't have the kiosk available in the props. it ends at CV8x8x2...... then just moves on to elevated rail

[rsc204 21,857]

1 hour ago, DarkSoul said:

but the problem seems to be that I can't select anything?

Bear in mind here, I added an overlay and changed the base texture, since it's a common task I figured it's useful to see it in action. However, by default the lot in question only has a base texture, so there wouldn't be anything to select.

1 hour ago, DarkSoul said:

I don't have the kiosk available in the props.

16 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Note that when the game released most of the models used on the in-game content, could not be utilised as Props. You will need to download the official Buildings as Props 1 + 2 packages and install them, or you won't find the Police Kiosk in the LE. If you need these, see the 'Maxis Files' link under ST Exchange on the site banner.

[DarkSoul 3]

56 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Bear in mind here, I added an overlay and changed the base texture, since it's a common task I figured it's useful to see it in action. However, by default the lot in question only has a base texture, so there wouldn't be anything to select.

I had to change what I was working with to overlay. I saw what you did there

I have the "Maxis Prop Names Query Fix" which apparently replaces those two files... I also have those two files though(Moved out of the dir) so I guess it doesn't completely replace them.......anyway, I put them back, reloaded and there was the Kiosk.
Will I need to keep those there, or can I delete them again after I modify this lot? I'm asking because of the supposed "replacement"

[rsc204 21,857]

54 minutes ago, DarkSoul said:

I have the "Maxis Prop Names Query Fix" which apparently replaces those two files

Yes as I understand it, functionally they do the same thing, but it could well be that they are named differently, so wouldn't be in the same place in the list.

[DarkSoul 3]

26 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Yes as I understand it, functionally they do the same thing, but it could well be that they are named differently, so wouldn't be in the same place in the list.

I just realized something, way up above you said, and I quote "You say you aren't a visual learner" ..... I can't find where I might have mistyped something but if I did I meant to say that I AM a visual learner. 


Anyway I have the prop placed, I'm just slowly going through the video and I've been pausing, doing stuff otherwise and then coming back, which is why I'm still in the middle of it this time lol. 

I'm almost done now I think. 

[DarkSoul 3]

all done with it..... looks great now thanks to your help.

I was going to edit the "garage open park area" tile that we talked about above, but I can't locate that one? I thought it would be the PZ1x1Grass exemplar but that just opens up the airport spawner lot......

Where is that open park tile?

[DarkSoul 3]

oh.... I think it is the airport spawner....along with the entrance too. Damn.... how many shuttles are needed to go to the airport lol

 

 

EDIT .... It IS the spawner lol

[DarkSoul 3]

So now I want to put the airport spawner in the entrance of the garage instead of in the park area because honestly that makes way more sense to have airport shuttles coming from the garage instead of a park lmao.

I've got the entrance open, but I'm not sure where I'd find that spawner though. It's in the 8 level garages.dat file though I think....but it's a building?

[DarkSoul 3]

found the spawner, it is a prop not a building.  I put the spawner in the entrance lot and it doesn't spawn any vehicles. but on the open park area it spawns TONS of airport shuttles.