Employing iLive Reader and Building Styles to grow specific RCI buildings

[ncamferdam 1,525]

Hello,

A while ago, I found instructions somewhere on Simtropolis outlining how you can control RCI growth such that only the exact growable you want is able to appear. I forget the details, but from what I recall the general process was using the iLive reader to modify the desired lot to have a building style outside the normal four built into the game (setting the OccupantGroups attribute as 0x00002004 or something for example). Then, there was some method (I think involving Cori's No Kickout Lower Wealth Mod) by which you could modify the city save file to only allow for that fifth "building style" to grow. The result would be that only the modified lots are be able to appear until you exit the game and undo the modification.

I can't seem to track these instructions down anymore. I think they were just outlined in the middle of a broader thread, but I'm not positive.

Does anyone recall what I'm talking about and know where this discussion was located?

Appreciated

[11241036 5,121]

In general, there is no point in doing this. I believe this whole building style thing is mostly hard-coded, and merely changing the building style property to 0x2004 doesn't do anything. There is an experimental DLL mod that allows you to create new building styles, but I don't know how it works, and furthermore, I don't know how to change the UI (user interface) to really allow you to switch between building styles. Please check for yourself:

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/36112-allow-more-building-styles-dll-plugin/

The same author also uploaded a mod allowing you to turn a plopped RCI building into a growable building. I've tried it out; it works really well, although due to the fact that I always need to use the buildingplop cheat to plop RCI buildings, I only use it punctually:

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/36180-growify-plopped-buildings-cheat-dll-plugin/

But building styles aside, I myself wrote a tutorial on how to modify a lot exemplar file with Reader to do that job for you, if you are interested:

https://community.simtropolis.com/omnibus/SimCity-4/tutorials/how-to-use-building-blockers-to-control-building-growth-exactly-r314/

[Null 45 3,140]

1 hour ago, ncamferdam said:

Does anyone recall what I'm talking about and know where this discussion was located?

 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,478]

3 hours ago, 11241036 said:

In general, there is no point in doing this. I believe this whole building style thing is mostly hard-coded, and merely changing the building style property to 0x2004 doesn't do anything. There is an experimental DLL mod that allows you to create new building styles, but I don't know how it works, and furthermore, I don't know how to change the UI (user interface) to really allow you to switch between building styles. Please check for yourself:

The mod works as we performed internal testing. The current problem is the handling of IIDs for the UI modification. We are evaluating possible solutions but as it was written by the notice we have to wait for an official release in which the procedures are indicated so that the Mod DLL can finally be used by the community

[ncamferdam 1,525]

17 hours ago, Null 45 said:

 

This is exactly the thread I was looking for, thank you.

For the record, the method outlined here definitely works (though whether or not all the effort is worth the time is another topic I suppose). The reason I needed to figure this out was because I took a year break from the game and it looks like I left one of my cities in the modified state so nothing is growing. I needed to remind myself of how to reverse the situation.

[Kel9509 1,490]

20 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

The current problem is the handling of IIDs for the UI modification. We are evaluating possible solutions but as it was written by the notice we have to wait for an official release in which the procedures are indicated so that the Mod DLL can finally be used by the community

After my work at fixing the Census Repository UI to incorporate Null's DLLs, I wondered if it would be worth experimenting with the UI of the building styles, to build out a template for a UI that offers 6, 8, or more styles.  The IIDs and other code can just be filler until the official release is done.  But I always figured that a big hurdle was that working in the UIs is hard and now that I know it, I could move things along a bit by doing some of it.

For instance, the building style UI is not multiple elements, but one in the game, #58234:

I know enough about UI editing to really edit the hell out of that thing.  I could remove the pictures and make it a list, or I could add space for additional pictures, etc.  I could make it so that the entire thing is a 2 column list of 6 checkboxes per column, or whatever.  I could extend the size of the entire UI so that it has room for 12 pictures and checkboxes and building style titles if needed.

I'm willing to help move this along since I think this mod is one that needs to be implemented. In the meantime, you can determine the IIDs for various styles.  

Maybe I'll start with a version that allows for 10 different styles.  I can remove the pictures to make it easier to work with.  

  Edited July 7, 2024 by Kel9509  
adding pictures and explanation

[Ulisse Wolf 4,478]

2 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

After my work at fixing the Census Repository UI to incorporate Null's DLLs, I wondered if it would be worth experimenting with the UI of the building styles, to build out a template for a UI that offers 6, 8, or more styles.  The IIDs and other code can just be filler until the official release is done.  But I always figured that a big hurdle was that working in the UIs is hard and now that I know it, I could move things along a bit by doing some of it.

For instance, the building style UI is not multiple elements, but one in the game, #58234:

I know enough about UI editing to really edit the hell out of that thing.  I could remove the pictures and make it a list, or I could add space for additional pictures, etc.  I could make it so that the entire thing is a 2 column list of 6 checkboxes per column, or whatever.  I could extend the size of the entire UI so that it has room for 12 pictures and checkboxes and building style titles if needed.

I'm willing to help move this along since I think this mod is one that needs to be implemented. In the meantime, you can determine the IIDs for various styles.  

Maybe I'll start with a version that allows for 10 different styles.  I can remove the pictures to make it easier to work with.  

The problem of additional styles is a bit complex as it involves not only UI editing but also assigning IIDs to the various styles and creating a modular system of architectural styles without making the styles fixed. In addition, some people have advanced a hypothesis of a hybrid system i.e. some fixed styles and some modular ones. So if we do not solve the problems of styles it becomes useless to modify the UI. 

 

[Kel9509 1,490]

On 7/7/2024 at 7:59 PM, Ulisse Wolf said:

The problem of additional styles is a bit complex as it involves not only UI editing but also assigning IIDs to the various styles and creating a modular system of architectural styles without making the styles fixed. In addition, some people have advanced a hypothesis of a hybrid system i.e. some fixed styles and some modular ones. So if we do not solve the problems of styles it becomes useless to modify the UI. 

I appreciate the thought that's going into how to assign building styles.

In any event, as a proof of concept, the building UI can easily be edited.  Here's what I made in a couple of hours of edits.  I just quickly went through the Building Sets sections and added styles that I saw, so don't take this as representative of anything other than an example.  If the DLL mod is not installed, then obviously it won't work right:

I just assigned new building style codes to the "new" sets.  So Paris is 2004, Hong Kong 2005, and so on.  I even created new LTEXT files for the style names so that they can be translated if needed.  Here's the code:

I left in the pictures of the boxes and the pictures of the 4 existing sets, in case those need to be edited or expanded.  

As for modular styles, don't forget that not only do we have a DLL mod for new styles, we also have a DLL mod for exemplar patching that can edit building exemplars on the fly upon loading.  By using exemplar patching, new multiple styles can be assigned if needed to a list of buildings.  All you'd need to do is create an exemplar patch for a particular building set style, and add the building IIDs to the patch, and then it'd work in tandem with any building style mod.  (This is fundamentally the way that the submenu system works, by assigning the submenu to each building in the exemplar patch.  I've used this in my own game to assign various lots made by Kingofsimcity to the Parks submenus, for instance.)

Maybe Null45 can weigh in here but I see no reason why exemplar patching can not assist with assigning new building styles.  It seems better to be able to download one mod, an exemplar patch, than to have to re-download a ton of buildings that have been edited for a particular style.  In fact, if that's the case, the patch for one set can be released in various versions as more buildings are added to it (or a new patch could be made for newer buildings, etc).

[Ulisse Wolf 4,478]

20 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Maybe Null45 can weigh in here but I see no reason why exemplar patching can not assist with assigning new building styles.  It seems better to be able to download one mod, an exemplar patch, than to have to re-download a ton of buildings that have been edited for a particular style.  In fact, if that's the case, the patch for one set can be released in various versions as more buildings are added to it (or a new patch could be made for newer buildings, etc).

We are currently in a golden period where we can make the changes directly in the RCI lots because we have to recalculate all the statistical values to make them compatible with the PIM-X standard, and many are not. So in the end using exemplar patching in RCI lots is considered unnecessary because of the planned changes that are taking place. 

Unfortunately, RCI lots are a can of worms in that they involve complex simulations and so you have to have a standard to make things work properly with the various simulations (CAM, IRM, and SPAM)

[Kel9509 1,490]

29 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

We are currently in a golden period where we can make the changes directly in the RCI lots because we have to recalculate all the statistical values to make them compatible with the PIM-X standard, and many are not. So in the end using exemplar patching in RCI lots is considered unnecessary because of the planned changes that are taking place. 

Unfortunately, RCI lots are a can of worms in that they involve complex simulations and so you have to have a standard to make things work properly with the various simulations (CAM, IRM, and SPAM)

Aren't you taking on a bit too much? 

1. Figuring out each of the various building styles and possibly sub-styles (or overlapping styles), trying to thread a needle in a debate about how things should be done.

2. Going through thousands of lots and not only fixing their values in PIM-X for standard, CAM, IRM, SPAM, and other mods, but also then assigning the approved building styles there too (and submenus also?)

3. Expecting people to redownload hundreds or thousands of lots, or large patches of lots, in order to use these new features.

I can understand your hesitation in seeing a hundred new styles being made, but I don't know if the community is expecting to really wait on this mod until all of the above is done.  Who can say how long it will take?  It sure sounds like it'll take years.