Making my terrain mod play nice with tree controller and modding both

[monkeywater 910]

So this thread is mostly to track my progress as I play with my terrain mod, and tree controller to get them to go well together.

I have done this before, however now i find myself forgetting how i did it, so 50% of this is to remember what I did for next time, 50% is to give back to community and solicit feedback, and 50% is because it will force me to organize myself as I do this and post sexy pictures of tests. Also I will probably ask questions of those more skilled than me who have helped in the past. (thank you to @rsc204 @11241036 @matias93 @CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom who helped with my last tree controller here. This is intended to be much better)

Things that will be covered over the coming days, months, and probably more

-adjusting cliff slopes on my terrain mod and when they show up

-making trees not grow on cliffs

-building my own tree controller again, all hd but with more diversity of trees this time and hopefully some realism.

[monkeywater 910]

So firstly here is the virgin terrain encompassing low plains, high plateus and mountains

 

[monkeywater 910]

And here is how these locations look once flora blasted

(T1,TC1)

ok, and I am already confused, here is the same area, trees planted with a different terrain mod, and then the terrain mod swapped

 

So there appears to be some terrain property affecting tree growth, likely water related.

This will be the first thing I look into

[monkeywater 910]

And one other location, where trees were planted with last terrain mod, same controller

 

 

vs planting with the same tree controller and new terrain mod

 

 

So I begin by looking at the terrain in ilive i guess

[monkeywater 910]

And for comparison, this is my tree controller with the lbt baijo terrain mod which was the one i was using previously

honestly that looks pretty ok, but its not hd and frankly i was a little unhappy with max zoom aesthetics so I kept hiding the terrain under trees.  so things must improve!

[monkeywater 910]

2nd from max zoom on my TC +baijo

max zoom

[monkeywater 910]

Now with the new terrain mod, same-ish spot

 

 

yeah thats a pretty major realism difference. 

[monkeywater 910]

first a tiny test: baijo terrain with the hd terrain mod rock mod

 

it is very much an improvement but I think I'll go further than this.

[monkeywater 910]

So my first attempt to modify this:  the new terrain mod had this exemplar changing the weather patterns and water.  I know this affects tree planting, so i deleted it.  the baijo terrain mod did not have this exemplar messing with the water stuff.

(t2)

 

did this change anything on the terrain by itself?

 

when this is compared to in T1 without trees at the top, the rocky terrain textures have grown slightly .

 

does it affect tree planting?

damn it, nope.
incidentally when i flora blasted it was denser with trees in the middle.  upon taking the screenshot, a lot of trees disappeared?  is this prop pox? strange.

 

Anyway, main takeaway is that did not significantly affect tree planting. 

[monkeywater 910]

Ok lets try something new (t3)

This is an exemplar for the baijo terrain mod

 

and this is in the new terrain mod

 

I made them match but I don't think this is the secret sauce.

 

I also had a z....whatever file sitting around in my plugings folder from lowkey when i tested a diff tree controller yesterday.  it had a sflora scale range to 800 for the last row.  I did not think i needed it so i deleted it.

 

Oh yeah

 

wow!  taht seems to have done it! (t3)

 

slightly different tree positioning, but its overall a lot more what i envisioned.

 

tried in another location

ok, its official, i don't know what i am doing.  this made one location closer to initial and another worse.

 

I exited and reentered the game just in case.

 

ok it worked this time i am confused.

[monkeywater 910]

I exited the tile and reblasted trees and obtained the first (overly treed) image again.

 

what on earth is going on?

[monkeywater 910]

Oh wow.  its my minimizing the sc4 window.

 

When I take an image and minimize the game to post here, all terrain/water dependence of the tree controller is lost and it will max out trees everywhere.  opening a fresh game works again.

[monkeywater 910]

So this parameter is the sauce.

for fun here it is increased to 2000

 

[monkeywater 910]

The t1 images of the terrain had a 0.71 value for MaxNormalYForCliff

 

the below images are when i bumped this to 0.74 (t5)

it seems to look ok at low elevations

 

however with snow it looks too choppy.  but tBH in t1-t3 it was just as choppy in snow regions. 

[CorinaMarie 29,876]

@monkeywater

Testing and testing (and testing some more) is a great way to figure out what does what.

You might find the Flora Blasting? thread of interest. At first I was going to link to a specific post, but there's several things which might provide insights such as @Daeris's tricks for flora blasting that gave different results if saving, exiting and coming back to do it again, but then sometimes that didn't work, but alt-tabbing out of the game then back in did make a difference. To then @11241036's insights into the flora properties. To then a modified file I made based on their info.

 

Off topic: We've noticed all the images you've been posting in this thread are huge PNGs. CB converted these already on the server, but from now on would you use compressed JPGs instead? That saves loading time for anyone viewing the thread, reduces the storage space needed for them, and doesn't compromise the integrity of the images.

[monkeywater 910]

Thanks cori!  what is the best way to do the jpeg compression? I am not using a program, all I was doing is print screen and then pasting here?

 

I just tried to change setting and got the below image, is this a jpeg or a png?  I am not really advanced at computer stuff.

 

This is after changing the flora elevation scale range to 1000 (t6)

[CorinaMarie 29,876]

7 hours ago, monkeywater said:

what is the best way to do the jpeg compression? I am not using a program, all I was doing is print screen and then pasting here?

I just tried to change setting and got the below image, is this a jpeg or a png?  I am not really advanced at computer stuff.

There's more than one way to go about it. See this thread for various methods. (And no, your latest image is still a PNG.)

 

7 hours ago, monkeywater said:

This is after changing the flora elevation scale range to 1000 (t6)

The coverage looks good and where it changes tree types seems fine. If you are getting what you want from changing one variable that's a lot more efficient than when I edited the table that has 256 entries.

[monkeywater 910]

Today I modified the rep8 of the floraparameters line in the tree controller files.  My MaxNormalYforCliff=0.71 so 1-0.71=0.29 is what i used for rep 8.

 

It was an improvement for sure, however there are many placeswhere there are still trees and bushes on the slope so I will make it a bit more aggressive.

[monkeywater 910]

tested values of 0.29, 0.27 and 0.25 for the rep8 of the floraparameters line

 

I think I like 0.27 best.

[11241036 5,115]

Seems you're off to a good start. Nice to see that my tutorial on Omnibus is of help to you. I can confirm (at least I hope so, I hope my memory is serving me well) that most of your conclusions so far are right.

The Flora:elevation scale range property defines something I like to call "snow line": The game divides everything between snow line (in m above sea level) and sea level into 15 equally large zones (according to altitude), and everything above snow line is 16th zone. What happens in all those zones can be defined in the FloraPreferences property, where each group of 16 reps represents one of these 16 zones, starting from lowest altitude. Thus, if you raise the snow line, the zones become larger.

And I also made the experience that you need to make the 8th rep of the FloraParameters property a bit lower than 1-MaxY, because sometimes the game will end up still placing trees on rocks. I suggest, however, that you do not make it too restrictive, because, after all, it's easier to remove a tree manually from a cliffside in Mayor Mode than if you aren't able to plant a tree somewhere where you want to have one.

Also, you should know that an internal value called moisture affects tree placement. So, if your TC has considerable differences related to moisture, this may really result in different trees being placed in several test runs at the same locations for no apparent reason. I've never been able to figure out how to make the best of it, though, so I can't really give you help on this. You might want to check this mod by CorinaMarie in case you want the moisture in your cities being displayed:

And its thread:

So far, the results are also visually appealing. Keep up the good work!

[monkeywater 910]

12 hours ago, 11241036 said:

Seems you're off to a good start. Nice to see that my tutorial on Omnibus is of help to you. I can confirm (at least I hope so, I hope my memory is serving me well) that most of your conclusions so far are right.

The Flora:elevation scale range property defines something I like to call "snow line": The game divides everything between snow line (in m above sea level) and sea level into 15 equally large zones (according to altitude), and everything above snow line is 16th zone. What happens in all those zones can be defined in the FloraPreferences property, where each group of 16 reps represents one of these 16 zones, starting from lowest altitude. Thus, if you raise the snow line, the zones become larger.

And I also made the experience that you need to make the 8th rep of the FloraParameters property a bit lower than 1-MaxY, because sometimes the game will end up still placing trees on rocks. I suggest, however, that you do not make it too restrictive, because, after all, it's easier to remove a tree manually from a cliffside in Mayor Mode than if you aren't able to plant a tree somewhere where you want to have one.

Also, you should know that an internal value called moisture affects tree placement. So, if your TC has considerable differences related to moisture, this may really result in different trees being placed in several test runs at the same locations for no apparent reason. I've never been able to figure out how to make the best of it, though, so I can't really give you help on this. You might want to check this mod by CorinaMarie in case you want the moisture in your cities being displayed:

 

Thank you!  yes, your post here

has been very important for all my tree modding efforts. 

 

Thank you for the links to the moisture view files.  I might swap this one for the one that replaces the powered/unpowered view that I found attached to a post on sc4d

 

Things I am currently trying to google around and find guides for: 

-stopping all trees/flora being planted on snow

-possibly planting unique trees on snow (like snow pines)

-changing the height at which snow shows on the terrain mod.

-modding the terrain mod to move some rockier textures lower down in altitude. 

[monkeywater 910]

I also must change the below.

 

Here is the moisture view followed by the terrain shown at the very high moisture levels.

 

In other words, where there is the most moisture, this rocky texture shows up.  Low moisture areas are very green, I wonder if the reverse was intended when this terrain mod was initially created? 

So to add to my todo list is to swap the textures for each of these.

[monkeywater 910]

Ok, I am missing something, I am starting easy by trying to mod the beach, but I don't understand how the fsh files are linked to the exemplar files and the dir file?

[monkeywater 910]

I copied the desired fsh files into the beach mod and deleted the old ones.  I then generated new group and instances and rebuilt the dir file. 

the textures don't show, but at least better when i only modified the instance of the fsh it was a ctd.

Any suggestions?

[monkeywater 910]

I got it!

 

The key was to not generate a new group and instance. 

 

The key was the TGI editor to match the new fsh file instances to the old instance numbers, not try to make the directory file accept new instance numbers

[rsc204 21,865]

10 hours ago, monkeywater said:

the textures don't show, but at least better when i only modified the instance of the fsh it was a ctd.

34 minutes ago, monkeywater said:

The key was to not generate a new group and instance. 

Indeed, all the terrain based stuff uses fixed IDs for the textures, you can't just use new ones.

[monkeywater 910]

Initial terrain had a snow line that was too low at

TemperatureRangeFactor was at 0.3.

 

Increasing to 0.7 made the mountains lose the snow peaks.  0.5 was better but too high, and I settled at 0.34 to have a high altitude area have the desired terrain texture. 

[rsc204 21,865]

Finally reading some of the posts here, I wonder if you ever came across this excellent guide to customising Terrain (controllers):

http://community.simtropolis.com/omnibus/SimCity-4/tutorials/know-your-terrain-a-simple-guide-to-making-the-most-of-your-terrain-mod-r250/

Just thinking it might help answer a few of your questions. Otherwise, good to see you plugging away at all this, it's not an area that gets much love and certainly the lack of easy to find information doesn't help things.

[11241036 5,115]

On 2/21/2022 at 4:58 PM, monkeywater said:

Thank you!  yes, your post here

has been very important for all my tree modding efforts. 

 

Thank you for the links to the moisture view files.  I might swap this one for the one that replaces the powered/unpowered view that I found attached to a post on sc4d

 

Things I am currently trying to google around and find guides for: 

-stopping all trees/flora being planted on snow

-possibly planting unique trees on snow (like snow pines)

-changing the height at which snow shows on the terrain mod.

-modding the terrain mod to move some rockier textures lower down in altitude. 

I'll try to provide you with some help on your first two questions (I can't answer questions related to terrain mods, unfortunately), but it's a bit complicated:

Stopping all trees/flora being planted on snow: Basically, it's just how CorinaMarie wrote it in the Quick SC4 questions thread: Make sure to set the last 16 reps in the FloraPreferences property to 0, each, for all flora entries. This will stop trees from being planted above snow line, which is being defined by the Flora: Elevation scale range property. But there's a little caveat to this: the fact that snow may already start at altitudes lower than snow line. This is related to settings in your terrain mod, and unfortunately, I can't help you with this.

Possibly planting unique trees on snow: Depends on how you want to do this exactly - if you want coniferous trees to change to winter look, like Girafe does this with his trees, you just need to copy over the RKT4 properties from his seasonal flora items and make sure you plant all trees between Aug 4th and Sep 3rd.

If you want all trees to look like winter trees during all the year, there are two ways, depending on the flora you are using. In case you stumble upon trees which look all the year like snow trees, you again just need to copy over the RKT1 or RKT4.

However, if you need to reduce a seasonal flora item to a tree only showing winter graphics, this is being more difficult (but still possible). Please make sure to read chapter 4b4 of my tutorial about this, especially the part in the spoiler. For this, you need to know that seasonal flora always needs a RKT4 with either 16 or 24 reps, and each group of 8 reps represents a state of this flora item - in this case, a season. Girafe's trees, for instance, are usually modded in this way: They have 3 states, the 1st one being fall, the 2nd one winter, and the 3rd one spring and summer. For this reason, it is, BTW, imperative that you properly read the Readme, to find out which season comes first!

To reduce an RKT4 to one season, you need to do this:

• Find out which 8-rep group represents which season. Check the 1st rep of an 8-rep group, it is either 0x00000000 (1st state), 0x00000001 (2nd state), or 0x00000002 (3rd state).
• Delete the two 8-rep groups you don't need. In case winter comes second, as it is the case with most of Girafe's trees, you need to delete the groups starting with 0x00000000 and 0x00000002.
• Change the first rep of the remaining 8 reps to 0x00000000.

I hope this will be of help to you, admittedly, making a TC is a lot of work, especially in your mind. But congratulations on your work, it looks promising so far.

[monkeywater 910]

So I am back to this!

There was a many month hiatus in the middle, as well as some work not posted above.

Here is the current status of my current terrain mod:

 

The only thing I am currently unhappy with is the top textures.  This should be more rocky, but there appears to be strong blending effects preventing this.

 

Here is the zoom in issue.  There is a green texture on top of my rocky texture.

 

Copied some parameters (texture spread curve) from a mod that had the high elevation stuff the way I liked it.

hmm, does not look perfectly natural with the cliffs.

  Edited October 2, 2022 by Cyclone Boom  
Converted pics to JPG format.