SimCity 2000 to 3000

[Quelquechosedautre 337]

I loved many of the buildngs in SimCity 2000.  Is there a way to import them into SimCity 3000?

[MagicSpear 52]

The buildings in SC2K each consist of a single sprite that's used for all zoom levels and viewing angles and is 256 pixels high by 32 (1×1), 64 (2×2), 96 (3×3), or 128 (4×4) pixels wide. In SC3K, not only do they have four sprites for each viewing angle and are larger in resolution by a good amount, but are pre-rendered 3D models.

The best means of getting SC2K buildings in SC3K (and even SC4 - here's the KSIM building a.k.a "Corporate HQ" as an example) would be recreation using either the BAT or external tools.

[kSlank 146]

No because the sprites are angled different

[Gernot66 186]

On 22.12.2023 at 6:44 PM, Quelquechosedautre said:

I loved many of the buildngs in SimCity 2000.  Is there a way to import them into SimCity 3000?

Erm - no, erm yes. You can do what i did extract the buildings from SimCopter or Streets of SimCity, Copter is quite close to SC2000. Else the images of sc2000 are far to small to be used in sc3k.

But i never had the idea to do all, it started because i liked to have them in a diffrent game, thus it's a selection of and i can't tell and of course not promise to recreate/convert all sc2k buildings. But some are already planned, more buildings from Streets, it's a different set and many new (and old) players are convinced it looks better as Copter. They are more architecturally aligned while sc2k (and Copter) is a tohouwabohou of architectural styles (which i like).

Another possibility is to rebuild the sc2k architecture yourself.

Sc2k "M Office 4":

SimCopter "M Office 4":

YourSoft Unlimited "Bob's Temps"

 

It's just i interprete a lot

 

But i also like Classic and i even thought about to adapt a few from the CD-ROM version because it uses a complete different building set as "classic".

latter is untextured and wasn't meant for sc3k, but it's abvious what it is, the most dense and highest value residential in SimCity Classic.

[Gernot66 186]

Since the "Office Tower 1" of SimCoper doesn't reflects exactly the one from SC2000 (mainly that it is white instead of black) i made a new one.

SC2000

SimCopter

My new interpretation

Somewhat taller and a bit wider, but fine with sc3k.

 

One thing annoys me a bit, the sc3k buildings are very tall - to tall at least for the sc2k architecture, but you see in general my models are less tall because i either kept roughly the relation as in SimCopter or when it is an own creation i depend on my eye. They are already taller as they are in SimCopter or SC2000.

just for comparison the Streets of SC version of the same building.

the cars are an addition (they are the models used in streets), i used this render to do use Streets buildings in SC2000, mainly because the architecture differs and in this manner i know how i city will look when i create one for Streets using the scurk. Yes even this one will look fine for sc3k. Streets models use more textures but are lazier modeled as Copters but the architecture is more in line and less unsorted as in sc2k or Copter. You can build nice little city quarters using the artwork for Streets.

(emulated 3dfx)

back to sc3k or the age, what do you guess naive me expecte when EA boasted before the release of sc4 "drive through your own city" - for sure not what we got then.

But unlike later releases the whole thing "sc2000" uses the same API, it showed the interchangebility of their .iff format in full glance, not only the cities use the same format. I guess times are to fast for such.

Whenever i like to drive through my own city i play SC2000 resp. Streets.

Just to tell, i am (was, foremost, there was times i played near to no other game) such an avid SimCity addicted for sure i liked to have the sc2k buildings in sc3k.

Foremost i would like to shoot them down using a "non violent" game (triple cough).

Expect all, SC2000, SimCopter and Streets, there is space enough for all of them in SC3k. But i method to use the artwork of sc2000 i don't see, well except you would use the original artwork, scale it up but that will look more as just ugly.

But just for the fun of it, let's give it a try.

[Gernot66 186]

Here we go, it looks ugly, it won't fit in scale and it always shows the same side just mirrored, but it's possible. SC2k uses a single image, to create new based on this will take me much longer as to rebuild the model and render it, for the new tower i needed about 4 hours even when i had first to alter a texture, it's not a new one it's derived from the one i used for the hospital and many other office buildings. If you like to have them good looking you will have to either paint or render them new. Pixelartwork will need much more effort as to create a relatively simple model and render it. There is a reason why i rendered the Streets and Copter Models, if i would have painted them i still would be painting (especially because i "needed" to have four different sides for the Streets set to cover each view direction, means i have to load another set to have the correct depiction like in Streets if i rotate the map in scurk).

The workflow would be to use scurk and save the building as .bmp, open it in a paint program (e.g. gimp), scale it up by factor 3 (in case for this 3x3 from width 96pixels to width 384 pixels), then i used the 3x3 template to cut out the base properly, cutted the blurred edges off and used a simple "sharpen" tool. Finally i desaturated all left blue borders from the typical sc2k zone frames. But i never will like it, it's odd only to have the same image for all four view directions.

Creating a building using a software like blender is a play.

When you look at the SimCopter models you can see how they was made, it's like i would script geometry, the stuff on the rooftops are in general extrusions, means you determine first the vectors for this object to be be extruded and extrude it then by some value, it get's obvious because some have forgotten to be extruded or someone decided not to. However, SimCopter models are handcrafted geometry, compared  to this anything made with the help of a software for this task is a play. If i use blender i start with a cube, if i script geometry i need a sketch (...one can get skilled in this, for a building i won't need one, but often i have to scribble down things or make a sketch of a certain aspect, if i like to find a position like for such an extrusion i simply interpolate vectors until i reach the position half of 10, half of 5 and so on... I former teammate of Pioneer Space Sim when he finished his first scripted model "amazing, i can hack some values in the notepad and receive a model for it").

Keep this in mind if you judge SimCopters artwork - it's handcrafted geometry, and limited by the capabilities of direct X 2, for it's time it is brilliant.

But to render one for SC3k is really a play, you can forgo half of what is needed for a model because you only render it and anything is allowed as long as it looks good, i know in advance that the image will be scaled down a lot and i can take advantage of this, neither i need to extrude i can "plopp" things, stuff it in and overlay, no matter. It's totally lazy and "forbidden" how i abuse the normal mapping (by using the same texture) but it works because the image is scaled down so much. What's left of it is a little shading more or less.

Working with a CAD is to me like LEGO or the BAT, but it's the obvious thing to do i do scripted a lot of helping functions to script geometry what is in the end nothing else as the start to a CAD. I.e. instead that i have to script the process to rotate an object i can write me a helping fuction because it's always the same stuff it has to perform. You can calculate the divisor for the texture projection yourself or write a function in which you enter the dimension and position and bingo the mesh is projected on the texture. Instead to calculate the vectors for an extrusion i can leave this up to the machine and only enter position and size for the extrusion.

So far to "using SC2000 artwork in SC3k".