Change Lot Dimensions in PIM-X and adding info

[Kel9509 1,363]

Hi all, I'm trying to convert some eyecandy landmarks into a landmark with jobs.  I've done it a bunch of times in PIM-X and it works great.  By dragging the building model to the appropriate Landmark with Jobs section of PIM-X, and then creating a ploppable lot, I can copy all of the props from the original landmark lot over to my new one with jobs.  I've tested them in the game and it works great.

Unfortunately, sometimes when I drag a building model file to create a new lot, the building is turned the wrong way from where it needs to be.  And I'm not talking about it facing backwards or something, where I can easily turn it around.  Instead, the building ends up creating the wrong lot size that I need.  This means that instead of creating a 2x4 lot, it might create a 4x2 lot.  And this means that I cannot copy the props over because then they'd be positioned all wrong, and the lot would not look similar to the original one I'm basing it off of.  As far as I can tell, there is no way in PIM-X to fix the dimensions of the lot or change the length and width of a lot's size.  I'd hate to have to use the older Maxis lot editor to fix this issue, but it appears from all my research that PIM-X cannot change the lot dimensions from 4x2 into a 2x4 lot.  Does anyone have any ideas?

Second question:  In PIM-X, I've also been adding some basic LTEXT information to lots to indicate their game properties, like the amount of Cap Relief or jobs they provide.  However, for the lots that are Maxis Landmarks with Jobs, it appears that those files only augment the basic Maxis lots to add jobs.  Those files have a lot of inherited properties.  And for most of them, I cannot add additional LTEXT in PIM-X to include additional details.  Does anyone know if there's a way to add some LTEXT info to those files or do I need to edit the original Maxis lots?

 

[rsc204 21,808]

7 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Does anyone have any ideas?

Option B is to edit the values in the LotConfig Exemplar using Reader, then reload it in PIM-X to update things. But indeed PIM-X does not include this function directly.

8 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Does anyone know if there's a way to add some LTEXT info to those files or do I need to edit the original Maxis lots?

Probably because the Maxis lots all used LTEXT files to begin with, so you have two options. Edit the original LTEXT files (found in the Locale.DAT file). Otherwise you can change the Item Description Key to a unique ID and then use completely new LTEXT descriptions. However, that probably requires editing in Reader first, PIM-X only creates the LTEXT files when the Item Name and/or Item Description properties are used, it converts them to the User Visible Name Key and Item Description Key fields. If you manually add or alter these IDs, you might also have to resort to manually adding the LTEXT files too.

[Kel9509 1,363]

On 12/30/2023 at 2:18 PM, rsc204 said:

Option B is to edit the values in the LotConfig Exemplar using Reader, then reload it in PIM-X to update things. But indeed PIM-X does not include this function directly.

Thanks.  This is what I ended up doing.  It's a real shame that PIM-X never got the functionality to do more on lot editing in this way.  But using Reader, I not only changed the lot dimensions but also was able to copy the "original" building's position and apply it to the new lot, making it 100% identical.  Took a bit of time to figure out what parts of the exemplar to copy (all but the last 2 values of LotConfigPropertyLotObject) but I managed to do it.  

On 12/30/2023 at 2:18 PM, rsc204 said:

Edit the original LTEXT files (found in the Locale.DAT file).

I'll give this a try as well.  Thanks.

[Kel9509 1,363]

Apologies for bumping this thread I started earlier this year, but I wanted to ask if I'm doing things right here. 

As I noted above, when creating new Landmarks with Jobs buildings from existing landmarks, I sometimes encountered a problem where the creation by dragging the model into a new lot in PIM-X resulted in a different, larger, lot size than the original landmark.  I ended up editing the values in Reader to change the lot size back to what it was needed, and copying certain of the original lot's LotConfigPropertyLotObject values into the new lot to get it to look identical and the same size as the original.

However, I've also been trying to convert lots that are originally 2x4 into 4x2, for example.  This is actually more difficult because unlike before, I cannot copy the building position to make it correct in the new lot size (since I'm moving the building anyway).  However, I did find a way to fix things.  Here's how it worked:

1.  The original lot in PIM-X is 2x4.  The goal here is to make it a 4x2 instead:

2. I drag the original model to the lot I want in PIM-X, and create a new growable lot size as 4x4:

3. In the 4x4 lot, I can flip the model to be how I want it to eventually appear:

4. Then, in iLive Reader, I edit that new lot to be 4x2 instead of 4x4:

5.  However, when I load up that edited lot in PIM-X, the building is all messed up!  It's on top of the street.  And moreover, there appears to be no way to drag it off the building. Selecting it and moving it around doesn't work, as it seems locked it place:

6. The easy solution?  Load up that new lot in Maxis' Lot Editor! 

7. The lot appears on top of the road again:

8. Click the building and it can be moved!  Something that apparently couldn't be done in PIM-X can be done with the Maxis lot editor!  Move the building  so that it's within the 4 corners of the lot, or else you'll have a lot with the Immortal Lot problem.

9. Save the new lot and load it up in PIM-X again, to check that everything's ok:

This was the solution I figured out.  Unless I'm missing a step in PIM-X that permits me to select the building when it appeared on top of the street, it seems as if the Maxis Editor is a big help here.  I figured I'd post this to see if there was a better way to do this, and at a minimum, to tell people how it can be done this way.

[rsc204 21,808]

7 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

5.  However, when I load up that edited lot in PIM-X, the building is all messed up!  It's on top of the street.  And moreover, there appears to be no way to drag it off the building. Selecting it and moving it around doesn't work, as it seems locked it place:

There is a way to avoid this, by ensuring the Building is placed correctly before you alter the dimensions of the lot. Two important things to consider in this:

1. PIM-X will not allow you to move a Building that is outside of the confines of the Lot.
2. When resizing, reducing the height of a lot takes away the rows closest to the road, moving existing objects/textures downwards. Likewise when adding to it, this is where the new rows are created, moving any existing objects/textures upwards in the process.
   

It's simply a case of ensuring the Building is in the right position so that when the lot is changed it will remain selectable. For this reason similar considerations need to be made for any Textures and Props, or those too will be harder to remove.

[Tyberius06 12,189]

8 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

As I noted above, when creating new Landmarks with Jobs buildings from existing landmarks, I sometimes encountered a problem where the creation by dragging the model into a new lot in PIM-X resulted in a different, larger, lot size than the original landmark. 

This is because in the case of the original lot the occupant size in the building exemplar was pre-edited before the LOT were created out of the building exemplar or the dimension values of the building representative rectangle were post edited in the lot config exemplar. The original model size (the original Occupant Size) is based on the LOD, the boundary box of the model, but in some cases it can be larger than the actually footprint of the base of the model which can result the effect that you mentioned. For example rsc204's shows that the building has a smaller buttom, but on the top there is that railing thingy which makes it look like larger. The botton would fit onto the 2 tiles deep lot, but because of the top is sticking out over the two tiles the boundary box and therefore the building representative rectangle will be larger. They used to bypass this effect by editing the occupant size (lenght and depth) to a dimension which would fit onto a smaller lot. 

Bear in mind if you edit the occupant size to differ from the original size of the model (for example the original size would be 17 meter, but for the above detailed reasons you want it to be 15.5 to fit onto the lot), you need to keep the 15.5 at all time because the building representative rectangle on the lot will be based on this 15.5 meters and if the OS (occupant size) differs from this value it's gonna cause the bug called Immortal Lot Syndrome (ILS). You can temporarily change it back to its original size to calculate proper values with the filling degree, but then you need to change it back. 

[Kel9509 1,363]

10 hours ago, rsc204 said:

There is a way to avoid this, by ensuring the Building is placed correctly before you alter the dimensions of the lot. Two important things to consider in this:

1. PIM-X will not allow you to move a Building that is outside of the confines of the Lot.
2. When resizing, reducing the height of a lot takes away the rows closest to the road, moving existing objects/textures downwards. Likewise when adding to it, this is where the new rows are created, moving any existing objects/textures upwards in the process.

THANK YOU!  I wondered if there was a trick like that.  What you say makes perfect sense.  Although it's a shame that the Maxis editor can pick up a building outside of a lot.  If PIM-X were able to do that (with perhaps a warning when the building is outside) it would be perfect.  But this should suffice.  Thank you very much!

9 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

This is because in the case of the original lot the occupant size in the building exemplar was pre-edited before the LOT were created out of the building exemplar or the dimension values of the building representative rectangle were post edited in the lot config exemplar.

Yes, something was definitely edited.  And yes, I'm well aware of the Immortal Lot Syndrome as I mentioned it in my post, so I always revert to the original occupant size if I'm recalculating filling degrees.  I only need to do that if the entire lot is a prop or something, though.  In this case, I didn't need to touch the occupant size, as I try to avoid doing that as much as possible.

Working with lots can be very tricky, as I've learned.