Allow More Building Styles - DLL Plugin

[Null 45 3,132]

4 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

So just to clarify, I place that IndustrialBuidingStyleINIFiles.dat in my Plugins folder and edit it in Reader to change one or more of the INI entries to "True" to enable Industrial building styles, right?

And then, in an Industrial Lot, I can start adding building styles to them, either the original building styles or new ones that are already in my game and supported by this mod already, right?

Yes. The exemplar Purpose value of the building/lot must match the style if the INI you are editing. The intended purpose of the INI files is that they would be copied into the DAT file of an industrial building style mod. I just provided templates that others could copy as a convenience.

The idea behind using DBPF INI files is that users could install an industrial building style mod that includes the INI file(s) for the categories the mod handles, and it would automatically work without the user needing to edit any external files. It is also obscure enough that it makes it sightly more difficult for people to break their game by inadvertently stopping all new industrial growth in a specific building category, more on that below.

4 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

And any Industrial buildings that do not have a building style in their lot exemplar file will default to all styles?

No, if an industrial building does not have one or more compatible building styles it will not grow. Same as SC4's behavior for Residential and Commercial lots. If building styles are enabled for an industrial building category without any buildings being marked as compatible with one of the active building styles, nothing will grow.

What I was trying to explain in the READ-ME and INI files is that setting the Enabled value to false will preserve SC4's default behavior of treating those types of industrial building as compatible with all styles, and setting it to true will make the game check the building styles for those types. As I already explained above, the building styles being enabled will act as a blocker on industrial development for that building category unless there is a pool if buildings that are compatible with the active styles.

This is new territory for SC4 modding, but I will admit that the warning on the file page and some of the other documentation that I wrote may need to be improved.

4 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

If so, is there any reason why that DAT and the related Readme are not yet included with the overall download of the mod?  

I didn't think to include them.

[Null 45 3,132]

I updated the version 2.0 release notes in this topic to include another fix I forgot about, it fixes the Build all styles at once feature to work as Maxis intended.

[Kel9509 1,488]

16 hours ago, Null 45 said:

The intended purpose of the INI files is that they would be copied into the DAT file of an industrial building style mod. I just provided templates that others could copy as a convenience.

The idea behind using DBPF INI files is that users could install an industrial building style mod that includes the INI file(s) for the categories the mod handles, and it would automatically work without the user needing to edit any external files. It is also obscure enough that it makes it sightly more difficult for people to break their game by inadvertently stopping all new industrial growth in a specific building category, more on that below.

I'm sorry for these amateur questions I'm asking, but I'm still a bit confused.  

So if I wanted to create a new Industrial building mod for High Tech industry, called "New York High Tech Industry", as well as another one for High Tech Industry called "Hong Kong High Tech Industry", I would create a new DAT file with the DBPF INI from your template for high tech industry and enable it to be "True".  

And then, I could make some industrial lots that have an edited OccupantGroup category with my building style IDs, either one or both of the new styles (as an example).

And then, when I select one or both of those new styles in the game exclusively, assuming sufficient demand and all other factors, it will build only the new styles selected. 

But when I do not select those new styles, and instead revert back to the standard in-game Maxis styles, the regular maxis industrial lots will continue to grow?  Or will they no longer grow because the overall game assumes that since they don't have any styles they can no longer grow as they're not compatible with the overall DBPF INI file?

I guess what I'm asking is, do we need to assign styles to every industrial building, if we wanted to use this feature?

[Null 45 3,132]

29 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Or will they no longer grow because the overall game assumes that since they don't have any styles they can no longer grow as they're not compatible with the overall DBPF INI file?

Correct, the default Maxis buildings will no longer grow when styles are enabled for any industrial building type.

11 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

I guess what I'm asking is, do we need to assign styles to every industrial building, if we wanted to use this feature?

Yes. I know it is a lot of work, but it is required as Maxis didn't implement the feature in the base game. As a result, all of the built-in industrial buildings are incompatible with the new industrial building styles.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

On 15.09.2024 at 4:01 AM, Null 45 said:

Fixed the Build all styles at once feature to work as Maxis intended it to.

Thank you for breaking through one of the most annoying stumbling blocks that building styles suffered from. Outstanding work. Tested. And the problem is definitely, certified solved.

I have to admit though, ironically, that I actually feel it is now quite weird to see all checked building sets growing all at once. 

[Kel9509 1,488]

On 9/15/2024 at 6:36 PM, Null 45 said:

I know it is a lot of work, but it is required as Maxis didn't implement the feature in the base game. As a result, all of the built-in industrial buildings are incompatible with the new industrial building styles.

So Industrial Building Styles is more of a master-switch.  Either on, or off, and no in-between.  Ok.  I think that this feature might be useful to those who use the IRM mod, which really replaces most of the default Maxis lots anyway.  Or for those who have "historical" cities which use older looking buildings, an industrial style might suit that sort of gameplay perfectly.  

Still, I wonder if there's a way to patch the Maxis lots easily enough so that at the minimum they'd all have the 4 basic default Building styles?  Then, adding new styles won't be so bad.

Also, one question - why does the Auto Historical Feature not apply to Industrial lots? 

[Null 45 3,132]

2 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Still, I wonder if there's a way to patch the Maxis lots easily enough so that at the minimum they'd all have the 4 basic default Building styles?

Possibly. I am not very familiar with the lot/building override side of SC4 modding, so I can't say how difficult that would be.

2 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Also, one question - why does the Auto Historical Feature not apply to Industrial lots? 

I forgot to update that feature for the industrial building styles.

[Null 45 3,132]

Release version 2.0.1, which fixes the auto-historical feature for industrial building styles.

[CorinaMarie 29,926]

7 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Still, I wonder if there's a way to patch the Maxis lots easily enough so that at the minimum they'd all have the 4 basic default Building styles?

I seem to recall there is some sort of batch feature in Reader when wanting to add or change an exemplar property to all the same thing in all exemplars in a file. It's been too long ago that I don't remember any specific How To details, but maybe one of our experts can provide a hint.

[Null 45 3,132]

I just noticed that the industrial building styles fix that I added in v2.01 also applies to plopped lots with any supported building styles. I am not sure if that is something that I need to fix.

[CorinaMarie 29,926]

13 minutes ago, Null 45 said:

I am not sure if that is something that I need to fix.

So plopped industrial will become auto historical too?

I believe that's a good thing since peeps could simply toggle off the master checkbox (once that UI is ready) if they didn't want that to happen.

[Null 45 3,132]

2 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

So plopped industrial will become auto historical too?

Any growable or plopped RCI lot that the active building styles apply to would be marked as auto historical. I don't think that side effect will have any negatives in-game, IIUC SC4 doesn't replace plopped lots.

The source of that change is that I switched from checking for growable zone types to checking the lot's building styles. That was necessary to avoid marking industrial lots as historical when the player is not using that feature.

[Kel9509 1,488]

5 hours ago, Null 45 said:

The source of that change is that I switched from checking for growable zone types to checking the lot's building styles. That was necessary to avoid marking industrial lots as historical when the player is not using that feature.

I was hopeful that the auto-historical option would apply to all growables, including standard Maxis industry regardless of building style.  So you needed to switch from growable zones, to styles, because if you didn't, industrial lots that grew would ALL be historical even if the box wasn't checked?  Yikes. 

Anyway, maybe it doesn't make sense for the historical option to apply to any building regardless of building style.  It IS a building style mod, after all.  So just to be clear, if you don't turn on industrial building styles, the auto-historical will only work for Commercial and Residential growables?  I think that's probably ok.  I can manually tick the historical box on any industrial building I want to save anyway.  And the idea behind this feature is to save a specific style of neighborhood or business district (or industrial district) that has a distinct style, which means it should have a building style.

I would like to explore more about how to create a patch for the Maxis industrial lots to give them the standard Maxis building styles.  I'm not familiar with Reader enough, or the base game lots and their properties, to do it.  It'll require some exploration on my part and a lot of reading.  I'm afraid, though, like the ploppable lots that RaphaelNinja did, it would require a gigantic amount of editing for every single industrial lot in the game.  But at least with that patch, you could turn on industrial building styles and grow industrial buildings for now before larger industrial building style mods are created.

6 hours ago, Null 45 said:

I just noticed that the industrial building styles fix that I added in v2.01 also applies to plopped lots with any supported building styles. I am not sure if that is something that I need to fix.

I'm not even aware of a plopped lot that HAS a building style.  Even for the residential ploppable lots I've made, I haven't included building style coding for them (though at one point I thought it might be necessary if you growify them).  I've got a ton of commercial lots that are ploppable, and none of them have building styles.  So maybe this concern isn't so bad.  

[Null 45 3,132]

40 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

So you needed to switch from growable zones, to styles, because if you didn't, industrial lots that grew would ALL be historical even if the box wasn't checked?

Yes. I was previously checking if the newly created lot was zoned as residential or commercial, but now I check the purpose value of the lot's main building (Building exemplar property 0x27812833).

2 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

So just to be clear, if you don't turn on industrial building styles, the auto-historical will only work for Commercial and Residential growables?

Correct.

57 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

I'm not even aware of a plopped lot that HAS a building style.

The lot itself doesn't, but the main building on the lot usually does. AFAIK the only difference between a plopped growable lot and a regular growable lot is the zone type that SC4 assigns to the lot. For growable lots it will be one of the 9 RCI zones, but plopped lots use their own zone type.

[Null 45 3,132]

Release version 2.,1.0, which has the following changes:

• Added an optional Auto-Growify check box.
• Added optional radio buttons to control the growth of Wall-to-Wall (W2W) buildings.
• Updated the BuildingStyleInfo code to support providing style names for industrial buildings.
• Allow the optional check boxes and radio buttons to be placed next to the Build all Styles at once and Change Styles Even N years radio buttons.
• Included the industrial building style template folder in the download.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

Great work! Now that I read the description for the new version, I finally got it where the W2W property should be added!  Practice is always better than theory.

[Null 45 3,132]

Release version 2.2.0, which allows the building style ids and names to be set in a BuildingStyles.ini file.

The BuildingStyles.ini file simplifies the process of adding custom building styles into the game when using a suitable Building Style Control template.
The building style ids and names that are defined in BuildingStyles.ini will be automatically mapped to the corresponding Building Style Control check box, these Building Style Control check boxes use button ids in the 0-127 range,
See the README or the comments in BuildingStyles.ini for the format details.

Note that the installation instructions in the README that is part of the STEX download have been superseded by the installation instructions on the STEX file page. I forgot to add BuildingStyles.ini to the required installation files before uploading the STEX release, and I can't replace the archive without uploading a new version. I updated the GitHub release to have the new README.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

Is it normal for buildings assigned to a custom building style to replace lots occupied by vanilla buildings?

I just had a bizarre situation in which a 3x3 ""Small shops" was replaced by three 1x3 custom BATs. Is this normal? I had no idea it could happen...

[CorinaMarie 29,926]

12 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Is it normal for buildings assigned to a custom building style to replace lots occupied by vanilla buildings?

Sure, there's nothing to prevent that and the game likes to replace lower density (3x3) with three 1x3 lots. It doesn't matter whether the tileset is standard Maxis or any of the new custom ones.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

37 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Sure, there's nothing to prevent that and the game likes to replace lower density (3x3) with three 1x3 lots. It doesn't matter whether the tileset is standard Maxis or any of the new custom ones.

Understood. Thanks. I thought that lots are "booked" for particular style as soon as something grows on them. Good that we have an auto-historic feature.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

14 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Sure, there's nothing to prevent that and the game likes to replace lower density (3x3) with three 1x3 lots. It doesn't matter whether the tileset is standard Maxis or any of the new custom ones.

Come to think of it, it could be beneficial to have another NKO-type mod which would prevent that behavior.

I can think of a situation in which someone wishes to have 3, 4 building styles enabled in a city but does not wish for some styles to creep into certain neighborhoods.

If there is nothing to prevent BATs from overgrowing other BATs with different styles, then a player has to go all out "hysterical" in a particular neighborhood. This, however, means that buildings will never be upgraded also within their own building sets, expected in a given area.

I hope I made my point clear. I just feel that the game's mechanism brings us back to "day one" in a way, where some BATs may still fully dominate a cityscape, regardless of building style boundaries.

On 25.09.2024 at 5:25 AM, Null 45 said:

Allow the optional check boxes and radio buttons to be placed next to the Build all Styles at once and Change Styles Even N years radio buttons.

Please forgive my ignorance, but I can't see the extra checkboxes after running the newest version. Do I understand correctly that I have to edit the UI first to enable them? Or are these provided in some other download?

[Null 45 3,132]

3 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Come to think of it, it could be beneficial to have another NKO-type mod which would prevent that behavior.

That may be possible to implement, the subdivision and aggregation are handled by methods that could be skipped when the "Keep Lot Sizes" mode is active.

I had considered writing a DLL that logs return values of the various lot growth methods, and this feature would overlap with that. I already have very chatty logging for the building styles code, so adding another setting to log the broader lot selection code wouldn't be too much trouble.

3 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I hope I made my point clear. I just feel that the game's mechanism brings us back to "day one" in a way, where some BATs may still fully dominate a cityscape, regardless of building style boundaries.

The code that handles the lot redevelopment doesn't appear to take building styles into account when deciding what lots to redevelop.

3 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Do I understand correctly that I have to edit the UI first to enable them?

Yes.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

50 minutes ago, Null 45 said:

That may be possible to implement, the subdivision and aggregation are handled by methods that could be skipped when the "Keep Lot Sizes" mode is active.

I had considered writing a DLL that logs return values of the various lot growth methods, and this feature would overlap with that. I already have very chatty logging for the building styles code, so adding another setting to log the broader lot selection code wouldn't be too much trouble.

That is wonderful news and I am happy you consider this option. Take your time! It would be fantastic and greatly help to preserve some BATs from becoming erased from the city.

I think it would also follow the natural way cities develop - IRL some areas are not redeveloped and some are protected due to their architectural or historical significance.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,926]

5 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Do I understand correctly that I have to edit the UI first to enable them?

I've been modifying CB's orignal 32 Slot version from long ago to incorporate Null's new features:

But until it's ready, there is one you can import into Reader to create a .dat from that .zip file in Null's post.

 

I'm currently having trouble so I'm not sure if I've messed up while tweaking. The Build Every x Years doesn't seem to grow anything, yet the moment I switch to Build All at Once, the houses shoot up.

Then if I select some new styles:

 

The moment I change to any other view (or even re-click the T-Square and Angle button for building styles), they all disappear:

 

And if I exit to the region and come back in, it loses my text from the INI and defaults to the internal caption= text:

 

Here's what I have in the INI:

[BuildingStyles]
0 = 0x2004,N,0x2004 from INI
1 = 0x2005,N,0x2005 from INI
2 = 0x2006,N,0x2006 from INI
3 = 0x2007,N,0x2007 from INI
4 = 0x2008,N,0x2008 from INI
5 = 0x2009,N,0x2009 from INI
6 = 0x200A,N,0x200A from INI
7 = 0x200B,N,0x200B from INI
8 = 0x200C,N,0x200C from INI
9 = 0x200D,N,0x200D from INI
10 = 0x200E,N,0x200E from INI
11 = 0x200F,N,0x200F from INI
12 = 0x2010,N,0x2010 from INI
13 = 0x2011,N,0x2011 from INI
14 = 0x2012,N,0x2012 from INI
15 = 0x2013,N,0x2013 from INI
16 = 0x2014,N,0x2014 from INI
17 = 0x2015,N,0x2015 from INI
18 = 0x2016,N,0x2016 from INI
19 = 0x2017,N,0x2017 from INI
20 = 0x2018,N,0x2018 from INI
21 = 0x2019,N,0x2019 from INI
22 = 0x201A,N,0x201A from INI
23 = 0x201B,N,0x201B from INI
24 = 0x201C,N,0x201C from INI
25 = 0x201D,N,0x201D from INI
26 = 0x201E,N,0x201E from INI
27 = 0x201F,N,0x201F from INI

 

So, as yet, I'm not sure if there's anything on my end or not.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

6 hours ago, Null 45 said:

That may be possible to implement, the subdivision and aggregation are handled by methods that could be skipped when the "Keep Lot Sizes" mode is active.

I had considered writing a DLL that logs return values of the various lot growth methods, and this feature would overlap with that. I already have very chatty logging for the building styles code, so adding another setting to log the broader lot selection code wouldn't be too much trouble.

I re-read your post and would just like to make it clear that I did not mean subdivision and aggregation mechanism itself, which I believe is beneficial and necessary.

What I mean is that it might be useful to prevent cross-style redevelopment of already developed lots (of course both situations may sometimes coincide as my question has shown).

In other words, when a BAT grows, it should only be replaced by a BAT that belongs to the same building style (unless it is destroyed, bulldozed etc.).

So, to make long story short, both our ideas could be incorporated into the mod by providing the following options:

[checkbox] - Prevent cross-style redevelopment

[radio button1] - Enable subdivision/aggregation

[radio button2] - Disable subdivision/aggregation

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

Just a thought for...

6 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

[radio button1] - Enable subdivision/aggregation

[radio button2] - Disable subdivision/aggregation

If this is a viable option to be implemented via the DLL side, I wonder whether the radio buttons for subdivision could be combined into one control?

Then it could be:

[checkbox] - Prevent subdivision/aggregation

(Unchecking would then allow subdivision, as the game default.)

[Null 45 3,132]

8 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

So, as yet, I'm not sure if there's anything on my end or not.

Both issues are bugs in my code, which I am working on fixing.

10 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

What I mean is that it might be useful to prevent cross-style redevelopment of already developed lots (of course both situations may sometimes coincide as my question has shown).

In other words, when a BAT grows, it should only be replaced by a BAT that belongs to the same building style (unless it is destroyed, bulldozed etc.).

I am investigating to see if that is feasible to try and implement. I found a method that the game appears to be calling with both the new lot configuration and the existing lot, it checks that the lot size match, the wealth types are compatible, etc. But I am not sure if that is the correct function to patch, and I also have no idea how to test it.

4 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

If this is a viable option to be implemented via the DLL side, I wonder whether the radio buttons for subdivision could be combined into one control?

A checkbox makes more sense than radio buttons in this scenario.

[Null 45 3,132]

Release version 2.2.1, which has the following changes:

• Fixed a issue with the INI file building styles not activating.
• Fixed the INI file building styles check box text being reset when reloading a city.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

Meanwhile, I would like to ask for a bit of extra information on the W2W occupant groups. Although we have the values, I do not reallly understand what the groups you listed mean...?

On 10.02.2024 at 10:23 AM, Null 45 said:

More Building Style DLL W2W: 0xD02C802E  Industrial W2W
BTE: Comm. W2W: 0xB5C00A05 Can be used with commercial buildings 
BTE: Res. W2W: 0xB5C00B05 Can be used with residential buildings
BTE: W2W General: 0xB5C00DDE Can be used with both commercial and residential buildings
SFBT: Hamburg W2W: 0xB5C00F0A ???
SFBT: Paris W2W: 0xB5C00F0B ???

As you see I have a problem understanding what these three occupant groups are dedicated for. Could you elaborate? I'm not sure if I get it right but I assume that Hamburg and Paris W2W are specifically dedicated for a family of some specific downloads, right?

[Null 45 3,132]

51 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Although we have the values, I do not reallly understand what the groups you listed mean...?

The DLL uses the presence of one of those occupant groups to detect if the building is W2W. In the W2W only mode, only buildings/lots that have one of those occupant groups will be built. Or in the W2W Blocked mode, only buildings without those occupant groups will be built.

55 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

As you see I have a problem understanding what these three occupant groups are dedicated for. Could you elaborate? I'm not sure if I get it right but I assume that Hamburg and Paris W2W are specifically dedicated for a family of some specific downloads, right?

The 0xD02C802E occupant group is one I created to identify W2W buildings, it has since been renamed for industrial W2W. The other 5 groups were already present in New_Propertries.xml, and I detect them for compatibility with existing buildings. Based on the ids they appear to have been created by the BSC, but I don't know anything beyond that.