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Now there are other MMP tutorials like this one, but I feel a few of them only cover the basics. This one that I have is supposed to get a little more into the grit of things that allow you to create a more intricate mix of MMPs to create a diverse and lively setting. Hey everyone! Yes, I felt like making a tutorial for anyone who wants to try out MMP scenes, but may not no exactly how. So this step by step tutorial consisting of 30 pictures should be able to get you well over to doing some highly detailed scenes such as this River Scene, and hopefully, help you make other scenes with the same level of detail! To do this, you'll need the following content, so you can try it out. These are a great selection of MMPs made by some really awesome BATers. The following is listed below: VIP MMP European Signage (Optional) VIP Rural Pack MMPs VIP Girafe's Confiers http://sc4devotion.c...php?lotGET=2698 VIP Girafe's Norwegian Maples http://sc4devotion.c...php?lotGET=2740 VIP Girafe's Cattails http://sc4devotion.c...php?lotGET=2687 VIP Girafe's Bushes http://sc4devotion.c...php?lotGET=2711 Rock'n'Stones Gray Rocks RFR Plopwater pack 1 Murimk MMP Rocks - Pack 1 V1.0 (Optional) Glenni's Eyecandy bridge set 1 RRP Pasture Flora ChrisAdamas3997 http://sc4devotion.c...php?lotGET=1886 HBS Tropical Flora Pack (Mayor Mode) This is generally all you need for this tutorial. But for more MMPs, check out Marsh's extensive list of MMPs, which touches on all kinds of Mayor Mode Ploppables. What your aiming to do is something similar to this: Now let's get started... Step 1: Now not to state the obvious, but let's start by picking out an empty tile, preferably a medium sized tile. Step 2: Begin with selecting one of the RFR Water ploppables and carefully laying it out in the form of a typical winding river. Step 3: Your river should turn out as something like this, or close. Step 4: Now that you have a beautifully set out river, close in on a section of the river and raise the terrain on the right side slightly higher, but not too high as to make it noticable. Raise the land on the right side and insure that it's subtle and untracable to the eye. Step 5: Once you've completed STEP 4, you can refill the areas of the river affected by heightening the land and replacing it with the same water ploppable by RFR. LOOKS LIKE WE'RE READY TO ADD THE BRIDGE, ANOTHER IMPORTANT ELEMENT TO THE PICTURE. Step 6: Now add Glenni's metal suspension bridge on the site of where your terrain was heightened in the previous STEP. Heightening the terrain will allow you to build the bridge higher above the plopped as to avoid any texture related glitches. Step 7: Ignore the fact that the highlighted item is the bike, that'll be added later. Instead, select the small pebble-like Rock'n'Stones that you see in this image and spread them on the edges/boundary of the river like so. Step 8: By completing STEP 7, the result you should get should be something like this. Ugly huh? Well not to worry, cause we aren't done yet! Step 9: Now with the above highlighted Gray Rock from the Rock'n'Stones pack, use it and spread it around the same areas in which you plopped the small stone pebble rocks. They'll be an addition to make the edges of the river look more realistic and akin to those really rocky rivers you see in real-life, depending on what you're expecting. It also help to cover up the the base terrain on the area and fill empty space and better defining the river's edge. Step 10: By adding the gray rocks, you should come up with something like this...Still ugly you say? Well...I guess your right. So let's keep going! Step 11: There is another set of gray rock that you can use. Use the rock ploppable highlighted in this image above, to fill in more of the gaps you can see, preferably over exposed terrain to add more variety to the rocks on the river's edge. Also place them on the center part of the river to create the illusion of a small waterfall/current flowing. Step 12: Starting to look more interesting right? And when I mean interesting, I mean interesting - good! Right?...Right? Oh well, let's move on. Step 13: Now that we've got rocks covered, let's add some flora! The Cattails made by the VIP Team would be a perfect plant to add first. Use the Cattails, seasonal since we're making a more fall/autumn styled river scene and place them alongside the rocks, whether it's a little bit on the outside, or on and alongside the river and rocks. GO NUTS! (You won't see the Cattails in the following images cause it seems like I mixed the order of the images. They will be in the end images so don't worry, add the cattails first and refer to the top completed image to see how you can place them) Step 14: Now that you've placed your cattails (I forgot to add them at this point, but you should've placed them unlike me ) We can add some more flora and some larger trees in particular. More specifically, select the Seasonal Norway Maples by Girafe and place them around the river scene. Step 15: The result should be something like this. Now it's starting to pick up! Step 16: Next, use another of Girafe's MMPs, the Conifer Trees and place them alongside the maples to cover some of the exposed terrain and add variety to the flora around the river. Step 17: After STEP 16, it should look similar to this. Now it's really looking more natural and realistic! If you're image looks similar, good, it's time for you to add the road! Be careful not to demolish anything you've added this far. If it does affect any MMP around it, just replace them. Step 18: Now search for the green rye grass included in the RRP Pasture flora pack and spread it around the river alongside the maples and conifers. This will just fill in exposed terrain and give it a more 3D feel, rather than looking plain and flat. Step 19: It should now look something a little like this. A lot less plain and empty than before. That's a good sign. Step 20: Like in STEP 18, instead you'll use the Green Grass ploppable and just place it with the green grass to diversify the look and eliminate the empty feel of the clearer spaces. Step 21: Now this time, search for the HBS Gray Sand. You can place this alongside the rocks on the river, alongside the road (continuing from the suspension bridge) and anywhere along the clear grass pastures and trees to create the illusion of empty patches of dirt and stone. Step 22: Look what we have here! This is really looking beautiful eh? I'm betting that yours isn't so different, so if you made it this far, keep on going! Now we can get to the nitty gritty details in the image... Step 23: Start by adding old broken rowboats alongside the river. You can place it just about anywhere. Preferably, you should add it on the edges of the river though, rather than in the middle. Step 23: Now look for the signposts and add them on the edge of the road to make the picture a little more alive. This is totally optional, but suggested. Step 24: Now look for the Kayaks made by the VIP Team and place them on the river. They can also be place anywhere on the river. If you want them on land, be my guest! But fair warning, do avoid overlapping them during placement! Step 25: Now adding cars are really more of an optional thing, but if you want, add them just about anywhere on land. You can create a scene of a picnic or Kayakers about to get onto the river. Add them at a place where there's a clear amount of grass pasture, so it makes sense that they're there. And there you have it! A finished River scene. Now if you'd like, add some photoshopping to make it a little more compelling! CONGRATULATIONS! You've just completed a Natural river scene! Now that you've completed it, you can try making more fascinatning scenes and blending other variaties of MMPs to create your own original river scene or another type of scene of your choice, like the one below! DOMINICA ~ Jâvais River ALVERONA ~ Illusit River

For those of us who enjoy showing what we have accomplished in CJs or in the Forums, I thought it may be a good idea to form a tutorial. I am no professional at photoediting, but after much experience, I have gained a decent amount of knowledge that I thought would be a good idea to share incase you are new to the concept. You don't have to be an expert either to understand this tutorial. If you find that this is hard to follow, PM me and I'll do my best to help you out. Just remember though that photoediting is sort of the icing on the cake and really isn't essential to provide amazing pictures. Remember to enjoy the game, and if photoediting feels like to much of a burden, its not a necessity. Before: After: Getting to Know the Basics: Dependencies: What you get out of this tutorial is what you put into it. -Knowledge of how to navigate through your photoediting program (I'm using Photoshop CS5 64-bit for this tutorial) -Creativity and Patience, Don't overdo the effects and make your picture unique through them. -Yellow Pause Thingy Remover Ok, so now that we have that down, let's start with the basics. Pictures taken ingame appear in "C:\Users\-----\Documents\SimCity 4\Albums" for Windows users (Not sure about Mac, sorry). To take a picture, minimize the menu completely and click Ctrl+Shift+S. Simcity 4 provides several frame sizes for you to take pictures with. I reccomend you use either the full screen frame or the frame size right before it (5 Spacebar Taps from the full screen frame). Why? These two frames automatically size images at 1024x768 (Full Screen) and 800x600 (Frame Size Before). Since the maximum size of pictures you can post onto Simtropolis (and many other forums and sites for that matter) is 800x600 pixels, you are set to go. This is helpful to the reader who doesn't want to strain their eyes looking at smaller pictures. You can resize smaller resolutions to a higher resolution, but this may distort the image or cause blur. Resizing Images: The first thing we want to do is to understand how to resize an image before we upload it to an image hosting site (e.g Imageshack). This prevents the grey "Resized to _%, was (-x-) Click to Enlarge" border from appearing around our pictures that are not 800x600. 1. Open the image that is larger than 800x600. 2. Click Image-Image Size... 3. Change the Width to 800. If you have the "Constrain Proportions" box checked, you will see the height automatically adjust proportionally. Otherwise type 600 in the height box. 4. Click OK and then File-Save (Or Save As if you wish to keep the original size and make the resize a new image) And that's it! Not bad right? General Photoshop Knowledge: 1. You should know that if you place an image, place a shape, create a new layer, etc. while editing an image, you will need to flatten it out (right click background layer 2. Don't overdo image editing. Oversaturating or making an image to bright can hurt the eye instead of please it. 3. You should upload only images in jpeg format. Png formatted images can increase page loading times. Since the game naturally saves ingame taken pictures in png format, please use File-Save As-File Type-JPEG for ALL images you upload. Touching up on Images: So now that we know how to make all our images the same size (unless you crop your images which can change the dimensions), let's look at other things we can do to make our image more generally appealing. We'll start with the basic ones. -Brightness: Changes the levels of white emitted in your picture. Play around a bit with it and find an appealing amount. -Contrast: Changes the levels of black emitted in your picture. I personally enjoy increasing the contrast a bit in almost all of my pictures. -Levels: Not sure how to state this one. Crossing the white and black slider can turn the image negative. Mostly only handy when photoshpping mist in rainy pictures. -Curves: Adjust Brightness, Contrast, and Levels all at the same time. -Exposure:Adjust the amount of light your picture was taken in. I don't mess to much with the exposure slider, but sometimes I move the gamma correcton slider a bit in my day pics. Before (No Gamma Correction-Raw Image from Game) After (Gamma Correction) -Vibrance and Saturation: Adjust the levels of all color emitted. I wouldn't mess too much with these, but a little bit more (or less) vibrance always looks great. -Hue: Changes the definition of your colors. Red pixels can turn purple and green ones can turn yellow by a simple adjustment of this slider. I don't reccomend you do it at all though if your going for a realistic feel. -Color Balance: My favorite ones to adjust. You can make day pictures look like morning or sunset ones. You can also change the atmosphere the picture creates. Before: (Raw Image from Game) Adding some Yellow: (For that sunny afternoon effect) Mixing the Red and Magenta: (For that early morning -dawn- effect) Mixing the Red and yellow: (For those sunset shots) -Black and White: Turns all colors into black and white hues. -Photo Filter: Changes the Amount of a specific color emitted -Channel Mixer: Adjust hues individually -Invert: Inverts colors into their negative form -Posterize: Gives a poster resembling feel to pictures (somewhat of a propaganda creator in my opinion) -Threshold: Adjust the detail provided in black and white pictures -Gradient Map: Applies a semi-transparent gradient to your pics. -Selective Color: Adjust the color-balance of a specific set of color tones -Shadows and Highlights: Adjust several aspects of your picture at once here. -HDR Toning: Adjust several aspects of your picture at once here. You can accomplish great pictures using some of the preset options alone. -Variations: Get selectable previews of color balance adjustments until you are satisfied. There are many more options available. I reccomend experimenting with the Dodge, Burn, Sharpen, Blur, and Sponge tools available on the left hand column. You can also perform many adjustments by using a paint brush on a low opacity (transparency-solidness) setting. The more you experiment with these tools, the more efficiently you'll be able to use them. Let's go through a step by step process so you can get an idea of how to use photoediting programs. This will be the beginner tutorial where we go over the basics and add some special touches here and there. Beginner Tutorial: So we have this picture of a train passing by some farm fields in a fall setting. The picture itself isn't all that great (not much that's interesting), but with some photoediting we can make it alot better. First Thing I want to do is to raise the contrast. We want to bring out those fall colors. Changing the Gamma and Exposure a bit, I recieve the desired effect, but the train loses some of its textures, no problem of course. I change to the Burn Tool at an exposure of 87% and a brush size of 37. I then touch up on the train to make it a bit more textured and darker. After 2 coats, the train looks much better. Now what's better than a sunset train ride? We can use the blur tool at a very small exposure setting to reduce some of the grain and give it a softer look. I think that's enough. Time for the before and after shots! Before: After: The editing itself only took me about 5 minutes, but I've become better at photoshop over the months. This may take 30 minutes or more depending on how good you can follow. If it takes a while don't worry, you can always take a break and come back later (or quit) if you don't feel your enjoying this. That being said, let's move on to the Intermediate Tutorial! Intermediate Tutorial (1): Here we'll go a explore Photoshop's tools a bit more and even add some special effects to our pictures. The only part that is harder is that we will have to set a goal so that we can touch up on the picture according to our goal. In the Intermediate Tutorial, you'll learn how to add rain effects (from drizzles to heavy rain), fog, lens flare, motion blurs, and designs to your pictures. This will provide you a sturdy base to start editing pictures with. Let's Begin! Here we have another raw image. We'll open it up in photoshop. I want to add a light rain and make it a bit more dull with some of fog. This way we can make the picture seem a bit more interesting, let's begin with giving it a more dull feel. Now we can edit the color balance to kill any remaining bits of out of place color. So far so good. Here I will introduce the filter section. The filter section provides several filters that you can use to enhance your images such as posterization, watercolor filter, glowing edges, and several other effects. For this image, we only need Filter-Distort-Diffuse Glow... Take note of that I don't want any grain to be added and am using a very light glow for the fog. Alright, so now we need some rain. I made my own rain overlay which can be found here: Rain Overlay Save the image (a temporary spot such as your Desktop will do): Go back to Photoshop. File-Place...Then navigate to where you saved the picture and place it into Photoshop. You should recieve something that looks like this: We'll use the Screen Filter to get rid of the black while leaving the drizzle unharmed. Right Click on the image and select place to get rid of the crossing diagonal lines. Select the (paint) brush tool and "attempt" to paint over the layer. You will be asked to rasterize it. Click OK. Now we are free to edit the layer (placed image, in this case the rain) as we wish without changing the look of the background layer (foggy beach picture). I'll raise the brightness to make the drops more visible. Although the water doesn't look to bad, I want to add another effect to it. Let's find a nice overlay from Google. Using the same steps as the rain, we can place the overlay into photoshop. I'll cover all of the existing water up with the new overlay: Then I'll select the Lighter Color filter. Set it at a 30% Opacity, Select the (paint) brush tool, make sure you still have the water layer selected. Rasterize it by clicking the image with the brush tool. We can then select the Clear setting at an Opacity of 100. I then clear all areas of the overlaying water that overlap with the shore, rocks, waves, cattails, etc. Notice that I've duplicated the layers on the bottom right. You can do this by right clicking on a layer and selecting "Duplicate Layer" You can then move the duplicated layer around by holding Ctrl and moving your cursor. I used this because on the left of the overlaying waves was a slight blue tint I wanted to get rid of. I realized that was the hard way. You can just make the layer black and white by going to Image The image is then flattened and finished. But of course I have to add in two more cents. Hehe... Before and After anyone?-I realize now the effects were a little overdone. And that concludes the first section of the Intermediate Tutorial. Intermediate Tutorial (2&2.5) Here we will examine the motion blur and lens flare filters. First we'll start off with this picture of a car by the water. I want to make the setting more sunny and more tropical. Thus, I will adjust the brightness and contrast first. Then we can make the picture a bit more yellow, this is always a good photoedit tip for pictures taken in bright sunlight. And then a little bit more colorful: Time for the Flare! Although I don't like using the Lens Flare filter alot, it can help when trying to naturally brighten up an otherwise rather low lit picture. Under the following settings: And then I'll adjust the Shadows and Highlight settings to make the trees brighter. That is all! I think further editing would be overdoing it... Before: After: And that concludes this part. Now we'll look at motion blurs. So we have this nice picture of a high-speed train passing by a snowy setting. The only thing is, the train doesn't look so high-speeed... First we'll touch up the image: Make it a bit more cyan to give it somewhat of an icy effect: And now we'll duplicate the layer in order to start working with the motion blur: Filter-Blur-Motion Blur... And now we'll make sure it is in the direction of the moving train by setting it at an angle of 63. And then we'll select the brush tool with a size of 25 at 100% Opacity and change the mode to "Clear". Running this over the entirety of the train, we erase the section of the motion blur layer and recover the original background layer for the train alone. The surroundings still remain blurred. Before: After: I may have brightened it up a bit too much but anyways...Now we'll flatten, save as, and finish. This concludes Intermediate (2). Intermediate Tutorial (3): In this part of the intermediate tutorial the only thing we'll really cover is how to use the (paint) brush tool effectively. So we start with this standard picture in the suburbs. Since the trees are in their seasonal winter setting, I want to add effects that would make the picture seem as if it were a snowy Christmas Eve. We'll start by making the picture a bit darker (since winter nights aren't very bright) and raising the contrast so the original lighting still shows through the darkness. Now we can reduce the exposure and gamma correction to make it reflect the winter season a bit better. I then lower the saturation and vibrance to make the christmas lights on each house (that I'm about to add) stand out more. I choose a very small brush size (2 pix) at an Opacity of 35%. Using different colors with the same brush settings, I add some lights to this house. And then the next one as well, the process is already beginnning to get a bit tedious. I took a break by only adding white lights to this house. Not everyone puts up colored lights... Added some to the other side of the street. One house only has lights on the bushes. More were added to the houses on the top left. And then to the ones on the right of the intersection. Many lights were added to the houses at the bottom to finish the lighting. Now for some snow! I like this texture... We'll place it with the settings "Lighter Color" and at an Opacity of 78% The snow had some colorful edges. After rasterizing, I decided to put a black and white filter on it. And then adjust the brightness so that it fits in better with the surroundings. Next, I add finish it off with a nice little subtitle before flattening and saving. Before: After: And with that, we conclude this section of the tutorial. Advanced Tutorial: In this tutorial, we will cover; -Mosaics -Special Effects Let's start with Mosaics! First we need to understand some basics: Full size Mosaics are composed of 800 by = 600 pictures. Mosaics are pictures that are vertically aligned over the same area. We can align these pictures by taking them with a common area that we can use to overlap the pictures. So Here we have one picture: And Another: We open the first one up in Photoshop: Go to Image-Canvas Size... And then make the height at least 5x Bigger: So it then looks like this: We then "Place" (File Set the layer to a temporary "Hard Light" Filter and Align the Pictures. Zoom in to make sure they are aligned perfectly. Switch the layer back to Normal After this. Rasterize it. Then Crop the Picture like so: Now we do all the editing...I'll tell you the last few steps to making the mosaic after the editing. So I go to google images and find a couple of explosions that I like... And then place them using the method shown before. I used the clear mode on the brush tool to blend it in. After Flattening, I then added some green and yellow tints and reduced the saturation to make it more depressing. I have made a New Layer and then Clicked Filter-Render-Clouds. The Opacity of this layer is 31% on Vivid Light. I added Fireball Effects...The result is not as great as I would've liked but it's not terrible... Using a texture off of google, I made the rotors spin. The layer was set to multiply and free transformed (Edit-Free Transform) to make it fit with the angle. Using another picture off of google, I made some rockets. I think that's good enough. This tutorial was supposed to help you to learn about mosaics, so let's get back to that... Go to Image The information here is important, it tells me I only need to use two vertically aligned pictures since the height is less than 600 times 2. Instead, I need one 800x600 picture and one 800x404 picture. I can crop out these portions of the picture and then upload them separately (one on top of the other) to form the mosaic. So we select the crop tool and set the width and height to 800x600. Crop the area. And save the 800x600 area we just cropped to a temporary folder. Clicking Ctrl+Alt+Z once or twice should take us back to the full mosaic. Set the Crop dimensions to 800x404 this time and crop out the bottom part. Save this as something else. Now we can upload it to ST by using the following format:No spaces in between. Please note that if your mosaic pixel height is greater than 1200 (involves more than two 800x600 pictures) than use this method: 1.Crop out top 800x600 pixels: Save As: Click Ctrl+Alt+Z until you get back to the full mosaic 2.Crop out top 800x1200 pixels: Crop out Bottom 800x600 Pixels: Save As: Click Ctrl+Alt+Z until you get back to the full mosaic (if needed)3. Crop out top 800x1800 pixels: Crop out Bottom 800x600 Pixels: Save As: Click Ctrl+Alt+Z until you get back to the full mosaic (if needed) 4. Crop out top 800x2400 pixels: Crop out Bottom 800x600 Pixels: Save As: Click Ctrl+Alt+Z until you get back to the full mosaic 5. Keep going until the last section of the mosaic is 800 by(less than or equal to) 600 pixels. Then use the method above... So Before: After: That's it! Your good to go. Now for Part 2, the special effects section! Here we have a dogfight. (Yes this image is raw as well) Let's spice up the action! First adjust the brightness and contrast... And then the Color Balance... I'll make it less vibrant so it gains a more formal look... And then I created a New Layer, Filter Duplicated the background layer and added a motion blur to the duplicate. I used the brush tool on clear mode to recover the previously blurred planes. And then I'm done! Before: After: And with that we conclude the tutorial. If you stuck with me until the very end I thank you. Please remember that photoediting should not be abused. Do not photoedit pictures and claim you have created something that really doesn't exist. Use it only to help get the point across that you want people to recieve when looking at your pictures. I've actually never used GIMP before, though I hear its a great tool. I am not familiar with the interface, but I think the concepts in this tutorial will still apply. Thanks and I hope this was helpful. P.S If there is any formatting error or something that comes up, please don't hesitate to let me know. I had some trouble with the formatting of the tutorial (like less than and greater than symbols and some other stuff).

Understanding Demand, Desirability and Abandonment or "What the heck do they want, how do I give it to them, and why did they leave!?" In SimCity 4, demand is your sims’ desire for certain buildings, not so much for certain zones. Zoning will satisfy demand, but you still need to control what type of buildings are built in the zones. Knowing the desirability of the area will help you predict what will likely emerge. Each building that emerges will satisfy part of your demand, and reduce one of your RCI bars. Let’s look at each of the RCI’s. 1.) Residential Demand 2.) Commercial & Industrial Demand 3.) Controlling Demand 4.) Demand Cap 5.) Dynamics of Desirability and Demand 6.) Raising Desirability 7.) Negative Demand and Abandonment Residential Demand Residential demand means there is a need for a workforce population in your city, i.e. your C’s and I’s need people to work there. Satisfy residential demand by zoning residential. A common misconception is that players often mistake the three kinds of residential density for the three kinds of residential wealths. As a quick aside to clear this up: When you zone residential, you have a choice of Low-, Medium- or High-Density. This does not mean that only low-wealth, medium-wealth, or high-wealth sims will move into low medium or high density zones. You can have a high-wealth sim living in a low-density zone (such as a large Mansion and lots of luxury props). You can have low-wealth sim living in a high-density zone (such as tenements or apartment buildings). You can, to an extent, predict and control what level of wealth sim will move into your zone, by referring to desirability of the area. More on that a little later. So, residential demand essentially means you need a workforce. Now take a look at the C and I graphs. If you see demand for IA (agriculture) or ID (dirty industry) or CS§ (commercial service, low-wealth), you know that low-wealth residents are needed. IA and ID only require low-wealth sims to work there (they do not need medium- or high-wealth sims) so, zone some residential in an area that is most desirable to low-wealth sims; i.e., almost anywhere. Say you have demand for Co§§ (Commercial office, medium-wealth). It is important to note that anything other than IA or ID or CS§, requires a mix of low-, medium- and high-wealth sims. In the case of Co§§, you need some low-wealth sims, a lot of medium-wealth sims, and some high-wealth sims to satisfy that particular demand. Just be mindful that anything higher than IA, ID or CS§ requires more than one wealth-type of sim. So how do you know if R§ or R§§ or R§§§ will show up when you zone residential? Use the desirability data view, check to see where the brightest green spots are for R§§ and R§§§ and zone there. (R§ will pretty much live anywhere.) Should you zone low medium or high density? That’s something you need to judge. If you need a lot of a particular sim, zone high density - if you can afford it. If not, zone medium or lots of low. Also, level of wealth is directly correlated to level of education. In other words, the more rich the sim, the smarter he tends to be when he starts out (his EQ is higher). Use education to increase your sim’s EQ rating so they can qualify for higher ranking jobs and move up on the wealth scale. Even if you move completely away from ID, IA or CS§, you still need a small proportion of R§ low-wealth sims for your Commercial offices or High-tech industries (think of them as janitors or secretaries, every business needs them). Commercial & Industrial Demand Commercial and industrial demand is the need of your sims to have employment. When C or I is high, it means sims need jobs in those sectors. Satisfy your sims’ desire for jobs by zoning the appropriate C or I. Again, as for residential, you can only zone for different densities, not for different types. If there is demand for Co§§ (Commercial office, medium wealth), look to your desirability data view to find the best spots for Co§§ and zone there. As demand for business increases, so will demand for residents. The cyclic nature of RCI is important to grasp. As more jobs are needed, more residents will be required, and as more residents arrive, more jobs will be needed. Also, non-RCI buildings such as (museums, hotels, city hall, etc) will also affect your demand by providing jobs and increasing the demand for more workforce. Controlling Demand There are several ways to control and curb demand, the most prominent and direct way is through taxes. Shrewd adjusting of tax rates will help you encourage or discourage the demand types. Punish dirty industry by raising taxes for Industrial § for example (although agriculture falls in the category of Industrial §, it never pays taxes so its demand is not directly affected). Keep in mind that raising taxes to discourage demand will continue to have a negative impact on that demand type for several months, even if you lower taxes immediately. Any negative effect will last a minimum of 3 months. You can indirectly control demand by providing or not providing the necessary facilities for your sims to evolve, such as health or education. Remember, everything is connected; good health coverage increases desirability which entices richer sims to move in. Educated sims will want to move up to more sophisticated and better paying jobs. If you don’t have the educated workers, you won’t have much more than demand for just ID, IA or Cs§ jobs. Ordinances also affect demand. Clean Air Act, Tourism Promotion, Water Conservation, etc, will have some affect, read about each ordinance to find out how they affect each type of demand. Demand Caps A demand cap is an upper limit on demand that you will hit once you reach a certain population level. You may be doing all you can to encourage growth, but there just isn’t any demand. To alleviate this cap, make connections to neighbors, place parks and other recreation for your sims. Airports and seaports help raise demand caps for commercial and industry. Dynamics of Desirability and Demand Areas of land can be desirable to more than one type of developer when you zone. Which one emerges there depends on the current demand. If you have high demand for IHT (industrial high tech), if you zone without much forethought, you may not see any high tech emerge but dirty industry or manufacturing instead. The reason for this is likely desirability; you’ve zoned in an undesirable location for high-tech, possibly too near to pollution, to far from residential in a low land-value area. Checking desirable areas for High Tech industries The following factors are considered when desirability is calculated: pollution levels, crime, commute or freight times, garbage, health coverage, education coverage, slopes, radiation, traffic volume, and land value (land value increases on higher ground and/or near water or trees). Again, always refer to your desirability data view when zoning for a specific type of demand. Raising Desirability Residential desirability is fairly straight-forward, they want things any living sim would want. Good education and health coverage (shown in green in your data view), low pollution, low commute times to work, low crime, and low garbage levels. Being near a positive influence structure, such as a beach, mayor’s statue, or park will also increase the desirability of that plot of land. Conversely, negative structures such as landfills and army bases will make it less desirable. Commercial desirability can differ depending on the commercial type. For instance, Cs (Commercial service) likes to be near residential, so proximity to a residential area is taken into account when desirability is calculated. Co (Commercial office) however, does not care too much about being near residential, but prefers to be near other commercial offices. Both Cs and Co like to be near residential sims and other commercial offices of the same wealth levels, respectively. The distances to residential or other commercial offices affect the desirability of the lots they are on; so the further away a Commercial service is to a residential area, the lower the desirability. Industry has an altogether different set of desirability factors. ID (dirty industry), doesn’t care too much about being near pollution as it generates plenty on its own. ID most importantly cares for short freight trip times and flat land. IM (manufacturing industry) also mainly care for short freight trips and flat land to build on, but, unlike ID, IM dislikes pollution. IHT (High tech industry) cannot tolerate any air pollution at all, so they’ll never likely build next to your dirty industries. IHT have similar desirability requirements as Commercial office and residential; they like parks, low pollution, and short trip lengths to airports or seaports or a neighbor connection. IA (agriculture) will mainly want clean air, low traffic and flat land to develop happily, so keep them in remote clean areas of your map; it not only keeps them happy, it keeps their water pollution - of which they generate plenty - from creeping into your sim’s taps. Negative Demand and Abandonment Try to avoid getting a negative demand for any of the RCI types, this is shown by a bar dropping beneath the equilibrium line. Negative demand means there is an abundance of that developer type, R, C, or I. Though completely avoiding negative demand for the entire life of your city may be nearly impossible, it will happen at one time or another, you’ll need to understand why it has happened so you can go about remedying the problem, or avoiding it in the future. Negative commercial and industrial demand; there are more jobs than sims There are numerous situations that can arise that can send one of your RCI’s plunging. For example, if you have high commercial demand one moment (sims need more jobs in the commercial sector), and you start zoning for commercial, and then something happens to your residential demand, the result will be insufficient workers to fulfill the new commercial openings. Your commercial will dry up, and buildings will become abandoned. Abandoned buildings due to lack of power for extended length of time. As an aside: Abandoned buildings are not only an eye-sore, they are highly flammable, have increased crime and don’t pay taxes. Other reasons for abandonment other than negative demand are lack of utilities, water and power, lack of jobs or road access. If a building lacks any of these for a length of time, their occupants will vacate. Inversely, if you have high residential demand (commercial or industry requiring more workers) and you zone more residential and then your industry bottoms out, you’ll end up with more workers than jobs. The result is that excess sims move out of your city (something you do not want to happen!), and demand balance will gradually be restored. Be careful when developing new sectors, over-development could hurt you. Try to under-develop, don’t zone more than you need to keep demand from plummeting into the negative. We’ve only looked at the surface of two of the many factors that affect a sim city, demand and desirability. Remember, that everything is inter-related somehow, and to try to describe one thing without touching on another is nearly impossible for full comprehension. Understanding demand and how demand is satisfied is a key concept in beginning to understand how your city works, which in turn, helps you develop the kind of city you want. The more you understand, the more sense of control you have over the destiny of your city, and the less you feel like sitting in the passenger seat wondering what’s going to happen next.

Section 1. Terrain, Trees, and Tips for New CJ'ers Now, MMP's are great for a small area, or even a city tile; but to cover an entire region with only MMP's would be madness. That's what God-Mode Trees are for. In CJ's, people often cover their region with trees using the God-Mode Tree Controller, which is the tool used in God-Mode to cover large areas with trees. Most CJ'ers who do so also use a custom tree controller, and a custom terrain mod. Custom tree controllers replace the Maxis God-Mode Tree Controller trees with custom trees (for instance, Cycledogg's trees). Terrain mods replace the Maxis terrain with custom terrain. MMP's, custom tree controllers, and terrain mods are all ways to make your region and the cities within look better and more realistic. One way to effectively use these in a CJ is by using a terrain mod, using the custom tree controller to cover the desired areas of your region with trees, and then adding MMP's for the final details when you want to show off that area in you CJ. To cover an entire region with detailed MMP painting, only to show some parts of the region in a CJ would be wasteful. You may be thinking, "Okay, this is all great, but how do I get a terrain mod, custom tree controller, and MMP's?" To answer your question, here are some lists of popular terrain mods, custom tree controllers, and MMP's: (List in topic) Custom tree controllers (In same topic ^) MMP's (Thanks to marsh for this wonderful list!) (All MMP's used in this tutorial are either induvidually on this list, or in a pack on this list. I think.) Section 2. Creating a River Scene In this section of the tutorial, I will give you tips on how to create a river scene. Please keep in mind, this is one river, with a set of MMP's that look good together. There are many other options and combinations to make a river, and as always with MMP's, there's no set-in-stone "right" way to do things. I am merely giving you general tips and inspiration. The MMP's/Terrain I used (most of them, anyway...) to make this scene: PPond Water PEG Shoreline Plops - Gravel PEG Shoreline Plops - Rock Clusters PEG Shoreline Plops - Small Rocks PEG Shoreline Plops - Boulders VIP Cattails and Other Flora PEG Cattails VIP Rocks VIP Automata and Various Other MMP's Cycledogg Trees Cycledogg's Olympic Terrain Mod Cycledogg's Olympic Tree Controller Heblem's Ploppable Dirt Ploppable Alsphalt by ??? I think that's all. First, using one-tile PPond Water, I created a river. The shape/size doesn't matter. Next, I used 1/4-tile PPond to make the river wider, and smoother. Then, I added some PEG Shoreline Gravel for the banks of the river. (Note, after making this scene, I'd advise you to switch this step and the following steps. While it is impossible to plop other MMP's on this gravel, it is easy to plop this gravel on other MMP's. Learn from my mistake ) Then, I plopped some PEG Rocks in the central area of the scene. Some more of this... Next I added some flora; some by VIP, others by PEG. I continued to add flora, rocks, and also some dirt by Heblem. I then plopped some trees by Cycledogg and VIP, and also used Cycledogg's Olympic Tree Controller. Adding small details for extra eyecandy... And the finished product! I know I left out the bottom left-hand corner, but this was simply for the purpose of this tutorial, so you get the general idea. (This was not very good, anyway.) Section 3. Creating a Forest Scene In this section of the tutorial, I will give you tips on how to create a forest scene. Please keep in mind, this is one forest, with a set of MMP's that look good together. There are many other options and combinations to make a forest, and as always with MMP's, there's no set-in-stone "right" way to do things. I am merely giving you general tips and inspiration. MMP's/Terrain I used (most of them, anyway...) to make this scene: VIP Seasonal/Evergreen Fagus, Aesculus, Firs, Cattails, Ferns VIP Rocks PEG Small Rocks and Boulders Lilypads by ??? PEG Shoreline Plops - Sand 2 Cycledogg 2009a Seasonal Trees (I think) Cycledogg Trees Cycledogg's Olympic Terrain Mod Cycledogg's Olympic Tree Controller Flowers by ??? JRJ Transparent Ploppable Water I think that's all. Let's start off with a clean slate, and use Cycledogg's Olympic Tree Controller to add some trees. I thought this little clearing would be nice for a lake. I used Jeronij's Transparent Ploppable Water to create a nice little lake, and plopped some VIP Cattails. Next, I added some VIP/PEG Rocks and PEG's Ploppable Sand. With the transparent effect on the water, I thought this looked really nice. I also added some VIP flora. I started adding some seasonal flora (mostly by VIP, but some by Cycledogg). Remember: In order to get the full effect of seasonal flora, make sure you wait until Sept. 1st in game, pause the game, and then plop away! And went extremely overboard... This went from being a lake in a forest, to a magical pixie spring. But at least it looks nice. Section 4. Creating a Tropical/Jungle Scene In this section of the tutorial, I will give you tips on how to create a river scene. Please keep in mind, this is one river, with a set of MMP's that look good together. There are many other options and combinations to make a river, and as always with MMP's, there's no set-in-stone "right" way to do things. I am merely giving you general tips and inspiration. The MMP's/Terrain I used (most of them, anyway...) to make this scene: Heblem's Yucatan Terain Mod Rivit's Coastal Mod _marsh_'s White Sands Beach Mod SimFox Trees Heblem's Tropical MMP's and God Mode Tree Controller JRJ Rocks Goldiva's Rocks and Tropical Flora Cycledogg Trees I think that's all. Let's start off with a clean slate again, this time with an ocean shore. Then I used Heblem's Tree Controller to add some tropical trees. To give the jungle more variety, I plopped some tropical MMP's by Heblem and some of SimFox's trees. I plopped more tropical flora, some by Goldiva, others by Cycledogg, and others by Heblem. (I changed to the White Sands Beach Mod at this point, the other one I was using just didn't look right.) Adding more details for a tropical feel, including JRJ Rocks, Goldiva Flora and Rocks, and Heblem's Beach Huts.. The final product (without the grid, for added effect!) Section 5. The End? Thank you all for reading! I hope this tutorial helped you better understand MMP's and how to effectively use them to create realistic scenes in SC4. These are not the only ways in which you can use MMP's. These were merely examples of how they can be used. Think of MMP's as your medium and yourself as the artist. No one can tell you how to create art (except my art teacher), so use MMP's how you want to, in the way that you feel is right. This is "The End?" because I might create a "Part 2" to this tutorial, in which I explain other ways to use MMP's to create other scenes. However, even if I never make a Part 2, I hope this tutorial inspired you to use MMP's to create your own scenes, whether for a CJ, or for your own use. If you have any questions/comments/concerns, please PM me, and I will try to answer you as best I can. ~ Charles/Evan

Building and Rendering SimCity By Ryan Ingram, Maxis Graphics Developer Hi everyone – I’m Ryan Ingram, Graphics Developer on SimCity. I’m excited to present our building rendering technology, the part of the game I’ve personally poured my heart and soul into over the past few years. I’m proud of how it looks and I hope you’ll enjoy this peek into the mechanics of SimCity’s rendering. Here’s the building we’re going to look at – it’s a mansion that your high level wealth Sims might live in. How do we get there? Well, it all starts with triangles (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6100528/why-are-there-always-triangles-used-in-a-3d-engine). One thousand, two hundred twenty triangles, to be specific. Not much to look at yet. Let’s fix that. Here are the texture pages that the art team put together for this class of building. They have all the architectural elements needed for a particular building style. To get the best performance, we re-use the same facade texture set on all the buildings of that style. This lets us render lots of buildings in the same batch, which is crucial given just how many buildings there might be in your city. The first texture is the color map. We use a palette on it. Palletizing is a technique that allows re-use of the same texture with all sorts of different colors. The colors can be changed on different buildings, or even on different parts of the same building. The second texture is a normal map (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_(geometry)). You can kind of see the shape of the texture in the normal map already, and it’s used for exactly that reason. Here’s how this building looks before and after it’s been colorized with one of its possible palettes: I use interior mapping for the insides of the buildings – you can see lots of examples of interior mapping in Creative Director Ocean Quigley’s night videos where the lights come on inside skyscrapers. The building is split into rooms and I render the appearance of the floor, ceiling, side walls, and rear walls into each room. The mushy grey areas are actually lots and lots of very tiny rooms – the art team didn’t tune those areas since they have no windows and aren’t visible. Putting this all together, a building finally emerges! A pretty flat looking one, but it’s starting to look recognizable. The next step is lighting. Using the normal map to figure out reflection angles, our light model gives us the contribution from the atmospheric light (moonlight, in this case), along with the lights on the building itself. This also includes our ambient occlusion and shadowing. Putting it all together, it’s starting to look kind of pretty: You can see a nice specular highlight on the windows from this angle. We weren’t satisfied with just this, though. The stairs felt flat, and the windows and doors are missing something. So if you are running on our recommended spec (“Medium” lighting or higher), it’s time to bring out the big guns: relief mapping. Here’s what I want to show: We didn’t want to store a high resolution mesh for every building though – for one thing, that’s a lot of vertex memory, and it’s wasteful to repeat that same mesh for bricks, stairs, windows, doors, and so on. Not only that, but storing highly detailed geometry makes it a lot harder to scale the memory use down for lower-spec machines. Instead, we kept all of that data in a texture so that a high-resolution mesh can be reconstructed on the fly. The flat low-polygon mesh is ray-traced into beautiful high-resolution geometry with hundreds of thousands of tiny virtual polygons. We have a debug mode that lets me take the texture and re-construct the 3D mesh it was originally exported from. Here I’ve taken the door on the bottom right of the original texture and turned it into a real 3D mesh: This isn’t just a lighting trick. For example, if we’re looking up at the door from the ground, you can see the underside of the doorframe: Here’s that earlier screenshot with relief mapping turned on. Notice that the building’s facade has actual surface relief. These two zoom boxes are showing exactly the same location relative to the camera and the building polygon. The center of the “flat” one shows the window, but with relief mapping you see past the recessed window to the edge of the door. So to find the target, we’re going to step along that ray from the viewpoint, asking the mesh “what do you look like here?” There’s a tradeoff, however – querying the mesh takes time, so we want to do it as few times as possible. To facilitate this, we pre-calculated a cone for every point in the mesh. We made the cone wide enough to intersect with the geometry around it, and maybe a little bit more. It’s a cone of “guaranteed coverage” because no ray coming down and going through the cone’s center-line can pass all the way through the surface mesh and come out on the other side without hitting the insides of the cone. In this case, the cone just barely intersects the surface. Of course, we want the widest cones that we can make – wider cones allow for bigger steps, making the technique more efficient. Big steps means fewer samples are required to find the target, making the shader less taxing on your graphics card. Once the ray goes inside the mesh, we have both our old point that’s on the outside and the new point that’s on the inside. Now we know that the mesh surface is somewhere between them. To find out exactly where that surface is, we use a Binary Search. With each step, we divided the space between the points in half, always keeping one point on the inside and the other one outside. This narrows down the space really fast; it only takes a few steps to get as close to the surface as we need to. This is what the whole process looks like: Zoomed in, notice that the center of the light blue cube is almost exactly on the edge of the surface: Now from the top, the target has been hit exactly at the right spot. Here’s another example – this time we run out of cone tests before quite reaching the edge, so we gave up at that point. This can lead to minor artifacts, but it’s not usually noticeable in-game. It’ll look like the surface curves towards the edge, instead of being a clean cut. The amazing thing is that your graphics card will do all this calculation for every single pixel of every building in the game, every frame. That’s it – I hope you enjoyed reading about how we render buildings in the game.

This tutorial will help you activate the night lights that come with certain BATs from the STEX. It has been discussed numerous times in the forums and its question comes up repeatedly: How do I get the night lighting to work? There are several steps to take and most of them involve downloading additional patches and tools which will allow you to install the BAT update that activates the lights. Please note that you will need to have Rush Hour or the Deluxe edition installed or it will not work at all. *Please note, that if you do not want the SimCity 4 BAT installed, or have no intention of using it, simply download the BAT update. This will ultimately allow you to have nightlights in your cities. Be sure to use steps 1 and 4-5. 1. Patch your game Go to http://www.ea.com/simcity-4-deluxe and download the Rush Hour/Deluxe edition patch for your game. Do not forget to select the correct patch for the territory you live in. After the update is downloaded, install it. 2. Install Gmax (optional) To be able to install the BAT, you will need Gmax installed, so download Gmax for free here: http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax 3. Install the BAT (optional) After Gmax is installed, you can install the Building Architect Tool (BAT) which can be found here: http://kurier.simcityplaza.de/download.php?file=303&go=1 When you have downloaded the file, install it. 4. Update the BAT We are almost done. The last step to take is updating the BAT. You can find the update here: http://kurier.simcityplaza.de/download.php?file=307&go=1 Once more, download and install. 5. Completion Once all of the above steps are completed start up your game. Open up a city that has downloaded BATs in it - which also have night lighting mind you - and run the simulation for a short time at day time. Then switch over to night time and if you installed everything correctly the night lighting should work.

To build this interchange you will need the NAM and a slope mod. I use BRF_TunnelAndSlopeMod-bJERONI.

We had a chance to catch up with the guys behind Synekism, a city simulation game focused on dynamically generated content. Check out our last interview with them here, and read on to see how things have progressed. 1. So, it's been a year since we last talked to you, what's the state of Synekism today, compared to one year ago? Unfortunately (or fortunately), since May of 2011 we've mostly done research. Of the work we did do, most was code sanitation and only some went towards user-visible features. Our feature creep has therefore turned into a feature drought. That said, I think it was a necessary slowdown, with the thinking-to-doing ratio almost ready to favour doing. On a factual user-visible level, we've added lot density controls, a ray-traced screenshot feature, camera alignment controls, data maps for density and land value, a new zoning layout which attempts to keep lots perpendicular to their road, and buildings no longer take up the entire lot. Synekism, however, is still very much in the early alpha stage. We've also lost a team member bringing the count down to two. Nothing to worry about though. 2.What kind of traction have you picked up in the community? And has the feedback you've received to date shaped your project in any way? Our website host hasn't complained yet about bandwidth spikes but I'd say we've gained a fair amount of attention, especially considering the limited state of Synekism. We'd like to especially thank those few very persistent players that have provided most of the feedback. It was no viral social trend but I think we did ok and it seems to be stable. Feedback has definitely shaped Synekism in the past year. The best example was the multiplayer feature. We didn't even finish it before we were told it was NOT something we should focus on. It was a "cool" feature that people would "try" but would never become an integral part of the game. However, most of the feedback that improves Synekism at the moment is bug discovery since there isn't much depth yet. I should add that besides feedback we got a tonne of suggestions and ideas that will certainly shape Synekism in the future. A Work in Progress: Buildings in Synekism Density Map 3. So you relented on the multiplayer feature from the community feedback. How did you see multiplayer playing out? What were the high-level mechanics or concepts you had at the time? We basically wanted to make it possible for two or more people to work on the same city at the same time. This would have been in real time. When your friend deleted all the roads (because he wasn't your friend) they would disappear from your copy of the city as well and in that instant. It would have been similar to a real-time strategy multiplayer game. The primary inspiration for our little multiplayer excitement was that we used to compete in SimCity, the challenge usually being first to a million population or something arbitrary like that. In retrospect, our little skirmishes were not a major part of our city simulation fun, and even so, it was just as much fun without a network connection as it would have been with it. Maybe we'll explore multiplayer later on but for now we're sticking to single player. A Zoomed-Out Look at Zones in Synekism 4. Did the announcement of the new SimCity have any effect on your development (goals, direction)? We obviously can't compete with a giant like SimCity head-on. It wasn't so much a problem when we were competing with a 9 year old game but -1 year olds present some challenge. So, yes, we're still processing the news and changing our long term priorities accordingly. The goal is to further define the unique aspects of Synekism, like procedural buildings, and introduce additional fundamental differences into the mix. It might blow up in our face but we might as well take advantage of the "indie" development freedoms. The announcement was also partly responsible for our recent break of tradition and pause from monthly releases. We'll be working over the summer to address some of the goals stated above and will return on September 1, 2012. But written updates should continue throughout. 5. We have been learning how GlassBox is an "agent-based" simulation. Can you tell us a bit about Synekism's intended simulation engine and how it might be the same or different? I think I'm just at the point now where I know enough computer science to partially grasp the magnitude (just the magnitude) of GlassBox's complexity. This is clearly something a few years old with parents way smarter than myself. Based just on that I can assure you Synekism's engine will not be similar if it tried. That said, one of the concepts we're playing with and will try to prototype over the summer is planet-sized city areas. Not regions, but continuous, no-loading-screens, buildable, planet-sized areas. Keep in mind I had the words "playing with", "try to", and "prototype" in the same sentence. My point is that we're going macro and agent-based simulation will probably not work well on the scales we're after. Therefore, Synekism will focus on statistically driven simulations. The details are still blurry right now though (as in, we have no clue). 6. Sounds ambitious, we'd love to know what you've come up with over the summer. So, I noticed in March you guys started a company, Idimoris. To me, it looks like an indication that Synekism might be moving out of the side-project and into a more full-time venture, is that accurate? Is the company being backed? Any plans on building the team further? Idimoris was actually started before we launched. It was just the name of our "registered" general partnership as we didn't have the money nor was it worth incorporating at the time. It's still a partnership today (with one less partner). The website came about because someone generously volunteered his design talent. It was also not a bad idea to have something at www.idimoris.com since Synekism's publisher meta data says: Idimoris. Unfortunately, none of us can commit to Synekism full-time for the next couple of years due to either full-time work or school, because we are our own and only backers, so it will technically remain a side-project. This might also be the place to address a common suggestion we get which is to put the project up on Kickstarter. It's a valid course of action and we might get enough to not starve while we work on Synekism full-time for a while. The plan would be to get Synekism up to what we call "pay-worthiness" faster and start living off the project. However, and to be honest, as much as I love this genre and this project, I also like my full-time (9 to 5) job which not only gives me better odds against starvation but also exposes me (having just graduated) to seasoned industry talent that easily carries over to the Synekism project. My partner is in a similar position. Therefore, accepting any financial backing right now would be inappropriate since it won't really speed up development. Regarding the team, unless we come across a really dedicated programmer or designer that would be fine working for the sake of the work alone, I don't think it will grow within the perceivable future. Real growth would have to wait until we have a more solid direction. 7. And lastly, what are some of your goals over the next few months? Anything else you'd like to add, share or hint at? Thanks for taking the time, we'll catch up with you again! Well, both of us will have some serious time off this summer (like a month) and our work load in general has just halved so we hope to get some serious work done. The planet idea I mentioned earlier is our first tackle as we'll try to see how crazy it really is. The planet push will also force a new save file. We're actually looking at adopting a serious database engine for our saves (probably Firebird). The UI needs to be re-done as we have too many short-cut keys and often avoid new feature because they would require UI changes. Our graphics engine also needs some attention. Forcing you to stare at boxes is just cruel without so much as shadows or anti-aliasing. These are some of the main goals for the September re-launch and the rest of the year but I cannot commit to anything at the moment until I get to work and see which of them are insane and which are border-line insane to implement. Moving forward, we will of course post updates on the 1st of each month on our progress. We haven't done as much in the past year as I had hoped. I wish I can promise 2012 will be better but I've learned my lesson with promises like that. All I can say is that the project is alive and well and that I'm as curious about where we'll be by the end of the summer as anyone else. Thank you for this opportunity! We are humbled. Additional Screenshots:

If you have any questions about the content of this article, please pm Xyloxadoria Introduction This is a tutorial on how to create T21 type exemplars. Before we start, here are a few basics about them: T21s can be put on any transit network you want. If you are making your own transit network, you can use T21s to add as much detail as you want to them, T21s don't have the polygon limit that transit models have After you create a T21, it will always appear on the network Most transit tiles already have T21s, you will mostly be adding to them. In order to make them you will have to know how to use reader and Lot editor Okay lets get started. Today we will be adding highway mast lights to the RHW 6-C Here is a picture of what it will look like when it is competed: As you can see in the picture, there are the competed lights, and the normal barriers. The normal barriers have already been added using T21s, so we can use that data and add our own. *You must download Filesfort21examplartutorial.zip in order to have the necessary files for this to work. Finding The File In order to get them you will need reader. Go to reader and open the main RHW file. After it opens, press the exemplar analyser button. A new window will pop up. When it pops up press the search button, then press the filter button. Un-check all on the right side then only leave "21 network lots" checked. Then press refresh. Your screen should then look like this: Close out of the filters window, and you should now only have T21s listed. Now you need to find the file for the existing RHW 6-C center barrier. Lucky for us, the RHW creators were nice enough to label it for us. Its near the bottom of the list and is called "RHW-6C-Barrier-Center. Selecet that file, and right click on it. After that, select "sync with file ?" and it should go to the file you will need in the RHW DAT. Right click on the file that is now selected , and pick " Copy File(s)" Then, go into the blank.dat on the left, right click in the middle blank area, and pick "Paste File(s)" You are now done with what getting the file that you will need to change, so now all thats left to do is change it. Keep the new file you made open, you will need it later. Exemplar Value Information In the file, you will notice a bunch of values which i will explain here: LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes defines what zones your props will appear on, make sure to put all the ones you want in the values are as follows: 0x00=None 0x01=Low Density R 0x02=Medium Density R 0x03=High Density R 0x04=Low Density C 0x05=Medium Density C 0x06=High Density C 0x07=Agriculture/Farming 0x08=Medium Density I 0x09=High Density I 0x0A=Military 0x0B=Airport 0x0C=Seaport 0x0D=Spaceport 0x0E=Landfill 0x0F=Civic/Plopped LotConfigPropertyWealthTypes is for wealth: 0x00=None 0x01=Low 0x02=Medium 0x03=High Flips Allowed is for mirroring: 0x00= Both 0x01= Mirrored 0x02 = Non Mirrored The last one that you need to know about is kPropertyID_NetworkPlacementPattern It defines the pattern that the props will appear in. The pattern happens on a 4x4 grid, and each value defines a 1x4 column. Put four of them together to make the full pattern: Creating a T21 Okay now that you know what everything does, you can start actually making the T21 itself. The first thing you will need is a empty lot to place props on. So go into Lot Editor, find a empty lot and save a copy. I use the open grass area for this. Make sure to remove any props so that you don't confuse existing props with the one that you are going to be adding. The reason for this lot is to help with the placement of props for the T21. Now you have that lot, you can begin to use it to layout how your lot will be. Go back to reader, and have the Lot file and the T21 file you created open. Go to the T21 file first. There should be a LotConfigPropertyLotObject item there that starts with 0x00000001. That's a prop. copy it and paste it into your lot file. Then right click in a blank area of the Lot file, and pick re-index lot config. After that save the lot, and open it again in Lot Editor, If everhing above worked, you should now have a single RHW barrier prop on your blank lot that you created earlier. It can help to place the props that you will be replacing. The first thing i did was to replace the normal barrier with the "Boat" barrier. Add a prop type in RHW and it will show up. Use the existing barrier to place the boat barrier, then remove the old one. Now , you have to add the actual lampost prop, the lightcone prop, and the concrete block prop i made (my concrete block prop is optional, it solves a barrier/lampost blending issue, get it in the attachment) When you are all done, you should have a lot that looks like this: After you save it, the lot file will now have all the prop placement data you need. All that's left to do is copy the prop placement data into the T21 file. Now, once again, go into reader and open the lot file and the T21 file. Go to the lot first, and find all four props, they should be a LotConfigPropertyLotObject or a LotConfigPropertyLotObjectData item that starts with 0x00000001 Copy the properties over, and before you paste, delete any prop exemplars that are already there, as this is a total replacement. If you were adding more you would need to keep it. After pasting the properties into your T21 file, reindex lotconfig and save. Now you will have to change the placement pattern ID Go into the kPropertyID_NetworkPlacementPattern and change what is there to 0x01,0x02,0x04,0x08. That will make the lights appear every 4 tiles. You can put any value you want here. I just did every 4 becsue i think it looks the nicest. And also if you want to you can change the name of the file by changing the Exemplar Name value, but this wont effect anything. There is a property in the file called Exemplar ID that defines what ID your file has. You will need to change that number to be one higher., so that your file is unique. Just change 0x5EC4B100 to 0x5EC4B101 then reindex lot config, save the file and you're done! Replacing existing T21s There's one more thing that has to be done. Since the T21 on the existing barrier was made to appear on every tile, one more T21 needs to be made to eliminate duplicates on every fourth tile. To do this, go back to the original file and make a second copy of it in the file you created earlier. Keep everything the same, there's just one thing that needs to be changed, and its the network placement pattern. Change it to 0x0E,0x0D,0x0B,0x07. Don't change the exemplar ID so that this will overwrite it. Then re index lot confing, save the file and you will fianally be done. Now, just place the file in your RHW folder, rename it with a zzz_ at the start (so that it loads last) and go to the game and test it. Other Useful Information and Tips This section has some extra Information that will help you when creating T21s Adding on to Existing T21s If you're going to be adding on to existing T21s to have something that appears every tile, you will need to add your props to the existing T21s and then make additional T21s to go where the old ones don't. Otherwise your props will overwite the old ones completely and only yours will appear. Using T21s from other files If you want to copy stuff from other T21s into a existing T21, all you need to copy over are the props Using Mutiple T21s on the same tile You can have more than one T21 on the same tile as long as they use a different pattern. If there is the same type of pattern on a tile, one is chosen at random. Creating a T21 to eliminate duplicates like what is mentioned above will eliminate this. Creating T21s for Lots That Don't have one To create a T21 for a tile that doesn't have one, first take a existing one that is similar with other properties. You will then need to change the kPropertyID_LotConfigNetworkTileId to be equal to the smallest FSH instance value of the tile you want to add t21s on to. The FSH file is the road texture used on that tile, and the smallest value is typically used for the zoom 1 texture. To find the FSH file for the tile, open the file you think its in, sort by entry in reader, then scroll through the FSH section until you see the texture you want to add to. Look for the smallest instance value to the right and use that. Sharing Values As with most other things in the game, each T21 ExemplarID has to be unique. If you are thinking of making your own T21 project, check in the appropriate thread to request a value range and to see if the values you want to use are already being used. About This Tutorial This tutorial was created by Xyloxadoria with help from buddybud Tarkus and other NAM Team members

Heyyy there, SimCity world! In this tutorial, we go over the process to reskin a vehicle (or automata) in SimCity 4. Today, I'd like to teach you how to make a "reskin" for any vehicle that you choose. I always wanted a tutorial like this when I was first starting out, and someone has yet to write one for Simtropolis. The programs we'll be using are very basic, some are a little outdated, however, they've always been the go-to programs for me. Step 1, The "skin" we'll be modifying: Find an automata vehicle that you wish to reskin. For this tutorial, we're just going to use my tram. The STEX link for my file can be found: Step 2, Programs we'll need: There's a few programs we'll need for this process. FiSHMAN Beta, which can be found here. Unzip/extract the file, no installation required. iLive's Reader, which can be found here. The help/support/FAQ topic for iLive's Reader can be found at SC4 Devotion. Unzip/extract the file, no installation required. Of course, we'll also need some image editing program, even Microsoft Paint will do. Step 3, Extracting the FSH file from iLive's Reader: Open iLive's Reader, and click the logo in the top left corner, and select "open". Navigate to the folder of my tram that we downloaded earlier and click the DAT file. Once the file opens, click the "Fill the List" button. Next, click on the FSH file. What you see in the display window to the right is how the "skin" will be displayed in-game. Now, right click on the FSH file, and a pop-up menu will appear. Select the first option: "Save selected files". NOTE: Unless otherwise prompted, the all FSH files will be saved to the directory "My Documents" --> "ILives". Step 4, Opening the newly-saved FSH file in FishMAN Beta to convert it to a PNG image: Note: If FiSHMAN Beta seems to crash upon startup... If you are running Windows XP/Vista, then download this file from the BSC LEX exchange. If you have not registered for the BSC LEX, then you must do so HERE. To install the fix... Extract/unzip the folder and copy the file "fishlib.dll" into your "FiSHMAN_Beta" folder, making sure to overwrite the existing file in the folder. =========================================================================== Launch the FiSHMAN Beta exe file, and then click the "open button". If FiSHMAN crashes about startup, read the text above for a possible fix. If this doesn't work, feel free to send me a private message and I'll help you troubleshoot. Once the program opens, select the "Open" button, and then navigate to the newly-saved FSH file that we saved in ILive's Reader. Once again, the default location for this file will be: "My Documents" --> "ILives". Now, you should see a screen that looks like the one below. Click on the "#1" under the "Bitmap" folder. This is where our FSH file is. Now that we see our skin on the right side, it's time to export an editable PNG file from the FSH image. We now right click on "#1", and hover over "Export", and then click "Color". We're now prompted with a "save as" box, from which we save to any location. IMPORTANT: Change the file type to "Portable Network Graphics", or "PNG". This is a file type that can be edited by MS Paint, and other image editing programs. After you've saved, close the program, and don't save any changes. Step 5, Editing the image: We're now ready to edit our PNG file!! We can open the file up in any image editing program, and edit away!! I'm going to use MS Paint for simplicity's sake. IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not edit over/shift any of the windows or lights. These aspects have their own template in ILive's Reader, which must be edited itself. We'll save that for another day. For time's sake, I'm not going to make any changes to the image, however, the process is the same if you do. Once you're done editing, save the file, and make sure the format is still "PNG"/"Portable Network Graphics". Step 6, Converting the PNG image back into a FSH file: Now, we'll need to open FiSHMAN Beta, again. This time, when the program launches, click the "Open" button and open the same FSH file that we saved from ILive's Reader, earlier. This time, we're still going click on the "#1", however, we're going to hover over "Insert", and click "Bitmap". A new window will open up titled "Insert New Bitmap". Click on the button to the right "Bitmap file", and navigate to the PNG file that you edited in the image editing program. Make sure that the file type is set to "PNG image", so that we can find our new edited image. Now, click "Ok" on the "Insert New Bitmap" box. It's not necessary that we alter any of the other settings. Our new image file is now inserted. Now, go to "FIle" --> "Save As", and save the file. Make sure the file type is "FSH". In our next step, we'll insert this FSH file back into the original ILive Reader DAT file. After the FSH file has been saved, we can close FiSHMAN Beta. Step 7, Inserting the new FSH back into the DAT file: Open ILive's Reader, and re-open the original DAT file from earlier. Be sure to click "Fill the List", just like last time. Now, select the FSH file. Next, right click on the FSH file that we just selected, and click "Insert File" on the pop-up menu. We need to find new FSH file that we made with our edited image in it. Once you click "Open", if you are prompted with a box similar to the one below scroll down to "FSH file", and click "OK". If you are not prompted with this box, do no worry, everything will still work. There should now be two FSH files. Right click on the old one, and in the pop-up menu, click on "Remove file". Now, click on the logo in the upper left hand corner, and click "Save As". Make sure to save the file as "DAT" file. Well, there ya have it, you know how to reskin a vehicle! This will work for any automata vehicle: train, car, bus, boat, or plane!! Feel free to send me a private message with any inquiries or feedback! ~ B-more4

Level: Intermediate Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this article. This tutorial walks through my approach to creating custom lot icons that show up in the game menus. The tutorial assumes the following knowledge: A basic understanding of graphics formats, such as PNG Familiarity with Adobe Photoshop (a recent version, such as 8.0CS) Familiarity with loading icons using one of; DarkMatter's EasyGen, iLive's Reader, or iLives LEProp If using the Reader, you will need to understand TGI's and IID's. This tutorial walks through how I've been creating custom icons. There are some slicker mechanisms created by Andreas_Roth and GasCooker, but I'll leave it to them to upload these. Attached to this tutorial is the Photoshop template I use. Background This tutorial arose out of my frustration with the existing custom icon creation mechanisms. Currently there is: The icon files generated by LE. Yep, say no more. The sample template supplied in the "Help with Icons" download by Metabomb. It creates close to what the game supplies, but the corners are angled rather than rounded. DarkMatters EasyTweaker - but this doesn't create icons using the full 44x44 image you supply, it takes roughly the top/left 75% of the image (he was working on fixing this at the time of writing). iLives LEProp - but it doesn't create the four icon "strip", just loads what you give it. Now I like to create stuff for the game that is in sympathy with how the game does it. With menu icons this means rounded corners, transparency and the right thickness borders (yes I know it's pretty anal). So I started to play with a new copy of Photoshop and then Adobe ImageReady. Why ImageReady? It has a Rounded Rectangular Marquee tool that I thought the vanilla Photoshop didn't. I later found a way to do rounded corners with the Photoshop Marquee tool. So the rest of this tutorial uses Photoshop. Before we Start Before we start you will need the following: Adobe Photoshop (preferably a recent version, this tutorial may not work on older versions) An image you will use for your icon (the icon portion will be 44x44 pixels) The icon strip template (see icon_base.zip). Be aware that the "highlighted" icon (the one on the right of the four) has a 3px solid white border that curves around the icon. So you need to be careful of anything within 4 pixels of the edge and 7-8 pixels in from the corner. Don't expect something on the edge of your 44x44 pixel image to show up properly. FYI, the icon strip template was built in ImageReady (you could do it in Photoshop). It has the four 44x44 icons as per the standard game ones; The "locked reward" greyscale icon. It has a 1px rounded border, black with 40% opacity, created with a Style of "1pt Black Stroke No Fill". The "normal" icon. It has a 1px rounded border, black with 40% opacity, created with a Style of "1pt Black Stroke No Fill". The "currently selected" (last one used) icon. It has a 1px rounded border, black with 80% opacity, created with a Style of "1pt Black Stroke No Fill", and a 3px rounded border, white with 40% opacity, created with a Style of "3pt White Stroke No Fill". The "highlighted" (mouse currently over) icon. It has a 3px rounded border, white with 100% opacity, created with a Style of "3pt White Stroke No Fill". This is about as close as I could get it to the ingame ones. Steps to Create the Icon To create a custom icon in Photoshop using the template: Open the icon_base.psd file and expand the view to 400% (Ctrl+=). This will make it easier to work with later on. Open the image you want to use for your icon. I find it easier to first crop it to 46x46 pixels but you don't need to. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool and set it to Fixed size of 44 x 44. Select the area you want for your icon with the tool. Choose Select -> Modify -> Smooth and set the Sample Radius to 5 pixels. Your selection should have rounded corners like in the following picture. Copy the selection (Ctrl+C) and paste it (Ctrl+V) onto the icon_base.psd file. Move the new layer (what you've just pasted) to the very left, so that the image is touching the left border (it should line up with the left most grey border). Next we convert this layer to greyscale. There are a few ways to do this. The way I've done is to select Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation and set Saturation to -100 and Hue to +30 (makes it a bit lighter). Close the dialog. Paste the image again (Ctrl+V) and move it left to line up with the second border (it should touch the greyscale one you were just working on). Paste the image again (Ctrl+V) and move it to the right to line up with the third border. Paste the image again (Ctrl+V) and move it to the right to line up with the fourth border. It should be hard against the right of the base image, i.e. you should now have for copies of the image (one greyscale) touching each other with no gaps. It's highly likely that the new images are on top of the borders. To fix this you will need to go to the Layers box/tab and move the new layers down so that the borders show. You might want to save this file as a Photoshop File (.psd) but it's not necessary. Do a "Save As" to save it to a .PNG file. You must save is as not Interlaced (i.e. on PNG Options dialog, select None). You should now have an "icon strip" (a 176x44 image) ready for loading into your custom lot. Importing the Icon into your Custom Lot There are a number of tools you can use to do this, such as DarkMatter's EasyTweaker (in DatGen), iLive's Reader and iLive's LEProp. EasyTweaker and LEProp are very straightforward, with a button to import the custom png file and replace the LotEditor-generated icon. Using the reader you will need to import the custom icon file and either Set the TGI values of your custom icon to the TGI values of the LotEditor-generated one, and remove the LotEditor-generated one, or Give the custom icon a new/unique IID and change the "Item Icon" exemplar to point to the new IID. You should also remove the old icon png file from your lot file. That's all that's needed. You should now see your custom icon in the game menu. One thing to be careful of with custom icons. If you modify your custom lot using the Lot Editor, it will overwrite the custom png file (if you've used the same IID). This means you will have to reload the custom icon if you use the Lot Editor on the lot. That's pretty much it. If you have any questions, PM deadwoods or email at st_deadwoods@optusnet.com.au.

Welcome to the first is a set of tutorials designed to help make your cities look more pleasing to the eye! Before getting started it is important that you have some essential downloads: Beaches for Irregular Coastlines Goldiva's Mayor Mode Tropical Sea Set Goldiva's Mayor Mode Tropical Tree Set Ocean River Mod (Water) Note: When installing this mod, follow the readme closely. You can choose two water colors. One will show up in deep water; the other in really shallow water. Some of my favorite Embankments/Walls: Walls Pack 2 Getting Started: The first step is properly terraforming the coastline. As you can see in the picture below, it is important to leave the water directly offshore of where you want your beach to be shallow. There are two reasons for this: 1) The reefs will show up nicer if you do this because of the ocean river mod allowing a different color water. The beach will not have a steep drop off to a strange texture appearance. 2) The second step is to soften the coastline. This is done is god-mode.You can go back into God Mode once in mayor-mode by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Shift and the clicking on the god-mode icon. Also you can change the size of the god-mode tools by hitting Shift+1-9, with 1 being the smallest. I usually use about a 3 or 4. You can also see in this pic that I chose a light green water for my shallow water and the blue for deep water: The next step is placing the actual beaches themselves (they should be in your parks menu). Something you will notice is that the beaches have an ugly line underwater where they stop and the ocean floor begins. We are actually going to use that to our advantage. Use Goldiva's reef pieces to place along that border. Don't be afraid to place a bunch. You should get something that looks something like this: You can see that the reefs act as a border to blend the beach and ocean. Also they will only show up in the shallow water near shore and then fade out as you move deeper. Making it look Nice: Now that you have your beach, there are a number of ways to make it look nicer. One thing that I find looks really nice it place a wall behind the beaches. Since the area should already be sloping down towards the shore from the softening, all that you need to do is level off a flat line using the road tile method: Placing single road tiles next to each other levels the surface to the height of the first. This method is used by many SC4 players to level surfaces for walls, sunken highways, etc. It is easiest to simply level the terrain height for your wall to the height of the flat land inland from the beach. You should get something that looks like this, with a nice flat surface to place your wall on: Now all that is left is adding the wall of your choice and adding trees/boats etc. The trees in fact do serve a purpose of making the transition from wall to beach look more natural, so use lots and mix of the types as well. Goldiva's tropical set contains some great ploppable boat props which can be found in the mayor mode flora menu. Experiment and have some fun. Hopefully you should get something like this: An Additional Example: In this pic a different water mod was used, but again I used tons of trees along the border of the beach and golf links inland. Why you may ask? It allows you to create an impression that the area is not built on a grid by blending the borders. Most of all experiment and have fun! If you have any questions about this article, please PM an admin.

Choose the layout of the highway with roads. (No picture, it’s too simple) Then, with street tiles, level out the area you want the highway to be. This must be 4 tiles wide, for optimum effects. My ground is completely flat, so I don’t have to worry. You only need it for 4 tiles, if you like to make overpasses, and to keep it simpler. Then, whip out the hole digging lots. Demolish the street tiles first, though. Choose the one that is called sunken. Plop it every other tile, on BOTH sides. Drag through with roads. Now you have a pit for your sunken highway. I didn’t finish mine, but you can fully do your network. Make sure to level those edges, with street tiles. I also want to transition one side to an avenue, later. You’re almost done, now. Just drag the highway through your pit, and you have the basics. You can add some eye candy to your highway, now. I used the sunken highway eye candy kit, (http://www.simtropol...sunken&type=all) and retaining walls (http://www.simtropol...=walls&type=all). Here’s an example with the sunken highway eye candy kit! Overpasses This works best with retaining walls, and Pjot's add-on. Search Pjot on the STEX, and download the add-on. I will construct a road overpass, but you can construct any kind. Just use the other kind of puzzle piece. You can even construct pedestrian overpasses with the “Ped mall” button. First, build the sunken highway. Then, in the roads menu, click on the road puzzle piece tool. Cycle through with the tab button, until you find the OnSlope puzzle piece. You can use either the T one, or use the straight one. It depends on the situation. Place this on both sides. Note how I demolished my eye candy sides. Then, click on the road puzzle piece button again. Cycle through with the tab key, until you find the road over highway piece. Plop that in the middle of the pieces you made before. You are done with that overpass! Check it out! It looks real nice doesn’t it! Well, let’s add the side eye candy again. This time, it’s with retaining walls. Well, here is an example with sunken highways. The areas are not developed yet, but they will! It’s much more complete, and hopefully it’ll give you ideas for your cities!

Important note: This method can ONLY be used prior to development taking place. If you attempt to raise or lower land levels during an existing game you will destroy ALL development. The following method will enable you to produce sharp edged waterways to your city map prior to development. In the first example we will create a straight edged coastline. You will need smoncrie's hole digging lots in order to achieve the desired results. Go into God Mode either before establishing your city or after by clicking ctr+shift+alt at the same time as selecting God Mode and raise the level of the whole map by a single click only. Switch back to Mayor Mode and select the 26m monorail hole digging lot and lay down as many as you need in order to provide an area large enough to provide you with a workable area. It is not necessary to lay down the hole digging lots for the entire expanse you wish to create as you can easily expand your original selection by using single street or road tiles..or by using the Mayor Mode levelling tool for larger areas. I tend to use a combination of the two...levelling tool first and then tidy up the edges with road tiles. Once demolished and tidied up with road tiles, you will be left with an area of lowered terrain as below: Now, go back to God Mode again and lower the terrain one click. You will now have your first stretch of straight coastline and you will be able to check the depth of the water. As you can see, laying down a single 26m monorail (which is the deepest in the set) produces only a shallow water depth. If you want deeper water than this you must repeat the process and each hole digging lot will result in a different water depth. Here, I have used the 26 monorail lots twice in order to create a deep water coastline. Obviously this kind of coastline is unrealistic not only because of its absolute straight edge, but also because of the sharpness of the land edge. However it has many uses, some of which will be covered in due course. Now you have the basic concept of creating the coastline, we shall look at ways of using the method in your cities. In this first example I will create a level beach using the standard in-game beach lots. In order to reproduce this design you will need a slope mod. In this instance I am using the slope mod created by bones1, but other variations will work just as well. So first of all, create a straight coastline as below: Now, go into God Mode and raise the level of the map by one click. Once you have done this, draw a road on the first raised tile of the shoreline along its whole length. Next go back into Mayor Mode again and draw a road straight down from the raised to the lower level at each tile. Because you created a road on the upper tile, the slope will extrude giving us a "raised" descent to the lower level. If you do not draw the upper road first the slope will indent and push the upper level of your shoreline back. Repeat this for the whole length of your shoreline. Now go back into God Mode and lower the level of the whole map...incidentally it is not necessary to demolish the roads you have created as they will be destroyed when you lower the land level. You will now have a sloping shoreline. Add the in-game beach lots to your shoreline and you're done. You may feel that the slope of your beach is too high and if so, we can easily remedy this by lowering the level of the land for a few tiles back from the water's edge. Again, using smoncrie's hole digging lots (this time I have used the sunken version) lower an area of tiles from the first raised tile back inland. Remember, each hole digging lot will produce different results. Experiment to find the height you require. As you can see in this example, once you have lowered the terrain the land sits much closer to the water level. Once you are happy with the height of your shoreline, you can raise the land and create your slope using the road method described previously. The result is a shallower angle on the slope of the beach as you can see in the comparison image. So, thats the basics covered for your coastlines. Now, you can also use the same method for canals, rivers, harbours and ports. Lots included are by jeronij and marrast. And finally, if you have the imagination, lots of spare time and nothing else better to do, you can also go regional !!!

A1.01: Basics and Technical Issues "One small step for Mayor, One giant leap for Sims-Kind." -- Sim Mayor. A1.01.1: Query the Hottest Keys The query option is one of the most important tools in the game. Use it to determine a whole host of information. You can also use it to click on any building and then change the name of it. Although that does not make the building historical or unalterable. It can still be destroyed by the computer when redeveloping. And if you want to follow a MySims or a car or change the traffic lights, simply do this: [Query] + [shift] + [click on object] You can check out the list of hot keys at the back of the provided manual although most of them seem quite useless and superfluous to me and seems only to appear there to fill up the back of the manual. For example there is a hot key of obliterating the city. I do not know how you play your city but this is not C&C, there is little violence and you would definitely not need a hot key for obliteration. The following are the more useful hot keys, the hottest of the hot. 1) Home & End: Turn the building around for placement. 2) Shift: Turns off auto roads. Simply press shift after dragging the zone but before releasing the mouse button. 3) Esc: Undo. Sort of. Cancels zones, roads, etc, only if you have not released the mouse button. 4) G: Shows the grid. Great for counting and planning. 5) /: Query. Use with bulldoze to prevent accidental demolition. 6) B: Bulldoze / Demolish. 7) Ctrl S: Save City 1) (Home or End) Turn the building around for placement. 2) (Shift) Turns off auto roads. Simply press shift after dragging the zone but before releasing the mouse button. Make sure that you have the patch installed. 3) (Alt) Switch the layout of the zoning before laying it. 4) (Esc) Undo, sort of. Cancels zones, roads, etc, only if you have not released the mouse button. 5) (G) Shows the grid. This is great for counting and planning. 6) (/) Query. Use it with bulldoze to prevent accidental demolition. 7) (B) Bulldoze / Demolish. (Control) (F) Dispatch fire fighters. 9) (Control) (P) Dispatch police. 10) (Control) + (Shift) + (S) Takes a picture of your city as it is appearing on the screen at this moment. This is a very useful hot key as it allows pictures which may not be possible if you went through the clicking on all picture button process. 11) (Spacebar) Centre on Cursor. 12) (Control) + (Shift) + © Toggle terrain contours. 13) (Control) + (S) Save City. 14) (F12) Exit 15) (Control) + (Shift) + (Alt) + ® This is to record a clip of your city. 16) (Control) + (Shift) + (O) Just in case you are wondering, this is the obliterate hotkey. A1.01.2: Multiple City Save Games and file locations 1) Save Games For those of you who complain about the lack of save games slots, you could always just copy the region to another folder. Go to: MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Regions This is also the place to put any cities you download. You have to place the city in the region in want it to be. 2) File locations A) Album: MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Album B) Bug Report: MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Exception Reports C) Recorded Animation: MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Recorded Animation D) Original Regions: C:\(or wherever you installed the game) SimCity 4 > Regions This is for if you messed up the original regions and want the original back. E) Music for the game / Custom Tunes: SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Region > Music SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Mayor > Music A1.01.3: Custom Tunes & Animation 1) Tunes You can play your own music simply by placing the music (MP3) into this folder: For Region Music: SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Region > Music For City Music: SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Mayor > Music Then when you play the game open up the Audio Option and select the custom tunes. 2) Animation Simply hit (Control) + (Shift) + (O) to begin. Enter in the various information such as file name, rate, time, output and frame count. The clip will be stored in your Recorded Animation folder. A1.01.4: Technical Issues Firstly, I should state that I am NOT a technical expert or even a technical person at all. However, these problems occurred frequent enough for me to pick some things up.1) Game Requirements: You can easily check the requirements on the box although the game really requires a lot of power such that even if you are above the recommended your cities if they are huge may encounter lag. There is a good test program to test your computer systems vis-à-vis the game requirements. It is found in the game folder itself: SimCity4 > Support > SimCity 4_EZ.exe 2) GDriverWindow--DirectX Error (1) This is one of the most common problems I see. The error you will most probably see is "The configuration file (Graphics Rules.sgr) cannot be parsed using built-in rules." There are two plugin folders. The one I am talking about is the one in your MyDocuments folder. MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Plugins Do not place any of the downloaded things into this folder if not the game will not start. I suggest that after installation of the game and the patch you go and check this folder out to see what should remain in there. Nothing. The reason why an uninstall does not work is because the game does not delete the SimCity 4 folder under MyDocuments unless you actively specify it. Delete what ever you have placed there. 3) GDriverWindow--DirectX Error (2) However, there is another more drastic method. Since I am not well-versed in computers, I am unsure as to whether is this message a generic type for multiple problems or not. If above solution does not work then you may attempt to try this but do it at your own risk and discretion. A) Uninstall SimCity 4 including the SimCity 4 folder in MyDocuments. B) Reinstall: After that do the following: i) Double-click on My Computer. ii) Double-click on C: drive (also labelled local disk) iii) Double-click on Program Files. iv) Double-click on Maxis. v) Double-click on Sim City 4. vi) Double-click on Apps. C) Open SimCity 4.ini file i) Right-click on the SimCity 4.ini file and a menu will appear. Select "open" and left-click to open the file. The found is found in: C:\(or wherever you installed the game) > Apps ii) You will now see notepad open the file up. It will look similar to this: [code][Directories] Data=..\ PlugIn=..\Plugins\ [Graphics Drivers] OpenGL =SimGLRef.dll, C4554841 Software=SimGLSoft.dll, 7ACA35C6 D3D7 =SimGLDx7.dll, BADB6906 [Current Graphics Driver] ;Driver = C4554841 ;OpenGL Hardware ;Driver = 7ACA35C6 ;GRPoly Software Driver = BADB6906 ;DX7 Hardware D) Editing You will need to make edits to the [Graphics Drivers] and [Current Graphics Driver] sections so that they appear as follows: [Directories] Data=..\ PlugIn=..\Plugins\ [Graphics Drivers] ;OpenGL =SimGLRef.dll, C4554841 Software=SimGLSoft.dll, 7ACA35C6 ;D3D7 =SimGLDx7.dll, BADB6906 [Current Graphics Driver] ;Driver = C4554841 ;OpenGL Hardware Driver = 7ACA35C6 ;GRPoly Software ;Driver = BADB6906 ;DX7 Hardware [/code] E) Hopefully that will help you but I make no promises. 4) Graphics options As usual there is a trade-off between speed of the game and quality of it. Patch 2 will automatically set the options rather low, at least in my opinion. So if the graphics look bad, simply change the quality and determine if you can stand the lag in the game. 5) EA Technical help If you have problem operating the game simply send them a message. It is under their technical support, Ask a question tab. You do not need actually need to know their address. This is their main support site. http://techsupport.ea.com Although it should be noted that, often your first reply will be an automated one but do not despair and persist. I did once think of sending in multiple mails just to determine the various sets of automated response and trigger words but I think that sort of would be frowned upon. 6) Permanent Green Highlight Bug If, you see your hospitals or education highlighted as green even if they are not selected, do not worry. Simply go to the data view, and select the respective health, education, etc view. Then after selected, click on the all off. They will no longer have the green glow. A1.01.5: Registration The registration process I recalled was quite complicated. If I remember it correctly, this is the process: 1) Register once on your computer by filling up the form after installation, which will then send a signal to the main site. Or go to the Support folder and click on SimCity 4_eReg.exe to register. 2) Then you have to register a second time also with the same key, which is at the back of your CD case at their official site. 3) Failure to do the first registration before the second will give you a error or invalid key message 4) Enter your email correctly and make sure it does not get directed to your junk folder. Click on the activation and you are done. Again if you have problems send an message to them. They solved, my problem within hours. http://techsupport.ea.com This I must say is one of the most complicated registration process ever. However, it is a good effort against piracy. So if you see anyone or if anyone asks you for your key, do NOT give away your key. And also report all piracy regarding the game to this EA email address: piracy@ea.com For online piracy email contact: piracy2@ea.com A1.01.6: Updates 1) Check all files updated The patch update is problematic. Whether you patch automatically or do it manually, make sure you check that all the relevant files are indeed updated. The list of files can be found on the patch page. Although, I personally seem to have a problem with the ’dbghelp.dll’ file as it not only did not take the 2003 stamp date but it seems to have taken a 2001 stamp date. 2) Patch Log You will have a patch log called: sc4_patchlog.txt It is found in the same folder as the patch file you downloaded if you used the automatic patch. Not too sure where it would be if it was done automatically. This lists what files were patched and whether was it successful at the patch. 3) Region Identification The second problem is for those who has problem with the automatic patch and have to do it manually. Make sure your region is correct. The problematic is the Asian edition. Just because, you live in Asia and bought the game there does not mean that the game is an Asian edition one. If it is English, there is a high chance that your edition could be the North America one. I do not think there is a way to actually determine your region by looking at the files or game itself. The things that could your is an American edition are: (i) Right hand drive and (ii) American spelling. However with regards to American spelling, I am unsure whether is it similar for all the English games. If it is not then look for words such as "harbor" v "harbour" or "color" v "colour." The spelling without the "u" is the American spelling. These words will sometimes appear as park of the message in the news ticker. 4) Failed patch Finally, if you game did not patch properly as in the files were not fully updated, the only way to resolve it is to reinstall everything. A1.01.7: Online Play: SimCityScape You can find more information at the site but this is a brief overview. This online gameplay is available at the official website: http://simcity.ea.com/scape/ http://simcity.ea.com/ 1) Requirements Microsoft’s Internet Explorer version 6 or better. ActiveX Java Registered user Game updated with Patch 2 2) 9 Regions Available Amarica (Large City size: 20 Cities) Discovered in 2003, Amarica is the new world. Griffinland (Large City size: 42 Cities) In a world where water reigns, Griffinland springs to life. Dan’s Grove (Small City Size: 43 Cities) Farmer Dan ran a pistachio orchard on this soil, until approached by a developer. The region has been growing ever since. Emlee Valley (Medium City Size: 18 Cities) Pioneered by Maxoids, additional settlers have been moving in ever since. Molon Island (Small City Size: 47 Cities) Islands rise from the oceans forming this vast archipelago. Sea Shaw (Medium City Size: 47 Cities) With recent development interest, Sea Shaw promises to undergo a real estate boom. Lake Lucky (Medium City Size: 41 Cities) Formed by a giant asteroid 3 million years ago, Lake Lucky is now a vacation haven. Big Ben Basi (Medium City Size: 47 Cities) The lands have been shifting beneath these shallow waters, making it prime realestate for developers. Wee Burg (Small City Size: 45 Cities) In the wee county of Wee Burg, little cities populate the quaint countryside. Cook County (Large City Size: 24 Cities) The wind sweeps across vast stretches of plains, as if whispering “develop me.” Templinton (Medium City Size: 18 Cities) Civilizations have always grown from the fertile river valleys, Templinton is no exception. Annarondacks (Large City Size: 15 Cities) Lakes, forests, and numerous winter sports resorts, attract many tourists, and was once the site of the 1964 Winter SimOlympics. Spider Mountain (Medium City Size: 38 Cities) Once inhabited by a spider so large, no one dared move into the area. Nowadays the spider has taken up a career in a travelling sideshow act, leaving the region spider free. 3) Game Play concept It is quite simple. You get to pick one region and you have up to 5 days to play with it and to end your turn. You may upload it and make as many changes as you want. But after 5 days or if you choose to end your turn early your turn is up then another person can take over. You may not play the same city consecutively although you may play a city multiple times. After certain amount of time, Maxis will reset the region and the good ones I suppose will get into their hall of fame. 4) Download Region You can download their "premade region configuration folder" and place it at My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions\ to extract and create your city. It is a 2k zip file. Yes, 2k I did not have a typing error. It is small. This is not required for playing the online game and download it only if you want to duplicate their region for your own play. A1.01.8: Simtropolis Patch This is not an official patch at all. It is put together by fans of the game. It is located at the Simtropolis site: http://www.simtropol...ategory/9-modd/ The following is one of the official words by Maxis on it: ’Users install, run and download those "mods" from Simtropolis completely at their own risk. Maxis is NOT responsible for ANY errors, crashes, problems or any other issue that you may have if you have downloaded and applied any unofficially supported mod files to your game. Nor is Maxis required to help anyone who has altered their game with any patches/mods/downloads that are not from Maxis themself. Players should also expect that any future patches and/or expansion packs and SimCityscape "may" NOT function properly with the game if you have downloaded any unofficial mods/patches/files and applied them to your game.’ A1.01.9: City Size There are three city size that you can select. And each tile is 16 by 16 metres. A) Small: 64 by 64 tiles = 1024 metres / 1Km B) Medium: 128 by 128 tiles = 2048 metres / 2Km C) Large: 256 by 256 tiles = 4096 metres / 4km

For the Eager, Yet Overwhelmed Newcomer New to SimCity, Simtropolis, or been out of touch for a few years? Wondering what the heck a NAM or a BAT is? And just what the heck is up with those brown boxes?! This article will take you through the basics of registering your game, whether from a hard copy of the disc or from Steam, the essentials of Simtropolis, and a jumpstart into the world of Custom Content, to bring your game to a level beyond what you could imagine is possible. I would like to thank A Nonny Moose for his contributions and influences on the creation of this article. Rush Hours, Deluxe Editions, SimCity Boxes, Oh my! Before starting on registration information, we should make a clarification on just what the differences in these versions are. The short answer is nothing. When Maxis released Rush Hour, the expansion pack to the original SimCity 4 game, they released two versions: one simply the expansion (SimCity 4: Rush Hour); the other, a version that included both the original game and the expansion pack (SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition). It makes absolutely no difference to the game whether you own the Deluxe Edition, or Rush Hour. Now, just what is the SimCity Box? After the release of SimCity Societies in 2008, EA released this version which contains SimCity 4, SimCity 4: Rush Hour, SimCity Societies, SimCity Societies: Destinations, and The Sims Carnival: SnapCity. The story here is the same with Rush Hour and the Deluxe Edition: it makes absolutely no difference. In the event that you happen to be a long time player who does not own Rush Hour or the Deluxe Edition, it should be noted that the expansion pack is required to make use of 99% of the custom content available on this site. I will explain that further later on. Registering and Updating the Game Before playing, you need to pick up the two (2) necessary EA-released patches to your game for it to work correctly. In recent months, it has been noted that the official EA SimCity 4 Deluxe site has been taken down. So as not to leave these players hanging, some mirrors have been set up containing the assorted official updates. Important note: If you purchased your game from an authorized download source, you may not need any further updates. Check the properties of the game's .exe file. If it indicates you have version 1.1.641.0 or if you already have version 1.1.640.0, you will not need further updates. For the standard, PC version updates, check out here: SC4Devotion Own the Mac edition and can't open .exe's? Check out this thread: Bought your copy off Steam? Steam comes pre-patched! Yay! You should apply the two updates to the game in this order: EP1 to fix bugs, and the BATupdate to allow nightlights. When you are finished, you should check to see that the version number of the .exe file for the game in Program files/Maxis/Apps has been updated to 1,1,640,0. This is proof that your updates worked. Optional Upgrades and Tools You may notice on the mirror sites, a number of other downloads available. Among these are new landmarks, new rewards, the Lot Editor, and Building Architect Tool (BAT). These are all optional, and are not necessary for the games function or the addition of but do add content, and functionality. So, just what do these BAT and Lot Editor things do? The Lot Editor allows you to construct new lots, using the buildings, textures, and assorted prop pieces included within the game. The Building Architect Tool (BAT) allows you to construct new 3D models, and is what is used to create new buildings, trees, seawalls, spaceships, and everything inbetween. Using the Lot Editor and the BAT in tandem, the world is yours to create. It should be noted that both these tools have a sizeable learning curve. We do have a number of tutorials here to get you started, the most notable of these being the BAT Essentials Tutorial in the Omnibus. Unleashing the Game At this point, your game is ready to go! The appropriate patches are in place, and the game is as optimized as Maxis and EA could make it. So where to now? Many players are happy to play the game without any custom content, relying simply on what Maxis has provided. It is indeed very possible to create beautiful cities using only what content Maxis provided. But, many would also point out that the game can be so much more. In the 8 years since the release of the game, the amount of custom content available brings the game to an entirely new level. Players can recreate their hometowns with stunning accuracy, watching roads twist and curve, with even the correct corner market in place. Players can build in the desert, in futuristic settings, or on Mars. The custom content community has taken a finite game and given it infinite possibilities. And the question I'm sure you're asking by this point is, where do I begin? There are a number of exchanges available for you to browse. Here on Simtropolis, the STEX is perhaps the largest, and one of the oldest exchanges devoted to SimCity 4. The other primary English exchanges are SC4Devotion LEX and the PLEX (now on the STEX). You could say that SC4Devotiion is the high-tech site, and that Pegasus is the theme site, and you wouldn't be far wrong. Most community exchanges both require free registration in order to download, as Simtropolis does. The SimCity community expands far beyond English speakers, however - other communities include German and Japanese sites. Growable? Ploppable? What? As you browse the exchanges, you'll notice these phrases on assorted files throughout. The answer to this could not be simpler. A growable lot means that it will grow on its own with the appropriate zoning, as if it were any building created by Maxis. Ploppable lots allow you to plop the building as if it were a landmark. Some ploppables retain their commercial/industrial nature and provide jobs as though they were grown. It should be noted that at early points in the exchange, you may run across residential ploppables. These do not work, and will abandon some time after plopping. So, I've Downloaded Some Stuff. Now what? Installation of downloads really is simple. This article by our fearless Dirktator outlines the process of installation. Some downloads now come with .exe installers, which simplifies the process even more - the installer does all the work for you. The next question you may have is where the heck do I find my ploppable items in the game? Some items will be pretty intuitive as to where they are located - Educational facilities are located in the Schools menu, policing facilities in the Police menu, etc. But what about that great skyscraper advertised as a ploppable? Those will generally be located in the Landmarks menu. Nearly everything else (parks, churches, etc.) will be located in either Parks or Rewards. And if you just can't find it anywhere, consult the ReadMe that should have been included with the download. It should state where it is located in the menu system in game. Brown Boxes, Everywhere! Uh oh! This may look tragic, but it doesn't mean your game is wrecked. You just missed downloading some dependencies. Wait, what? Dependewho? Dependencies are separate files that a lot uses to complete itself. If Download A cannot find the appropriate dependency, it reverts to the lovely boxes you can see in the picture above. It may not look like it, but each lot is actually filled with bits and pieces of other files to make the bigger picture. The trees, the benches, the garbage cans, the swimming pools you see on assorted lots are all individual pieces, that come together to create a house, a park, or a shopping complex. All downloads on the SimTropolis EXchange are required to list all dependencies needed to work properly. If you've looked everywhere and just can't find that dependency, or if the dependency package is locked, please make a post here, and one of our friendly members will help you out. You may have further questions in regards to dependencies. As with installation, I would like to refer you to another article that goes into much further detail. The Dependency Debate by north_country_dude goes into great detail about the pros and cons of dependencies, and answers a few of the common questions you may have about them. So what should I download? Building tastes vary from person to person. Personally, I prefer the drab, 1970's concrete buildings, while many prefer the sleek, glass modern skyscrapers. Because of this, I'm not going to recommend any particular buildings - but I can recommend some mods that are considered the best and the greatest. Network Addon Mod, or the NAM. This mod was first conceived with the discovery of an unfinished road network Maxis left in the game. The talented modding community has taken this and turned it into entirely new road networks, gave us roundabouts, and allows us to create true metropolitan cities with roads to match. This can be found here on the STEX, or at SC4Devotion. If you're interested, here is the "official" NAM FAQ Thread with links to the different parts used with NAM & answers to common queries. If any issues come up while using NAM, there's also a support thread here. Various NAM Team members including Tarkus frequent the thread and gladly help out. A terrain and water mod. When you first launch the game, the grass and water seems realistic enough. A bit off perhaps, but hey nothing can be perfect. Not true - modders have been able to create new textures for the terrain and the water, which makes the Maxis textures look like off-coloured drawings. Cycledogg has made a number of varying terrain mods, and there are assorted water textures on the STEX, each varying for the kind of water your city needs. SimMars. Certainly this mod is not for everyone, but this article would be deficient if it weren't mentioned. SimMars transforms SimCity to Mars, complete with textures, buildings, road networks and music to match. The work done on this is exceptional, and it sits with the NAM as the greatest projects to improve the game that SimCity has seen. Everything else listed here. Livin in Sim has created this top ten list of great mod's that should be essential. A few other members have listed their contributions as well, and I would highly recommend them all! From there you could look through the CJ section to get ideas or run through the STEX and other exchanges to see if anything "jumps" out at you. As I mentioned before, if you can't seem to find something, make a post here and someone is bound to help you out. How do I win? SimCity is different from most games, as there is no set end point. Your success is based on goals you set. For many, a balanced budget and proper governance of a successful city without "godly" intervention (ie. cheats) makes a successful game. For many, the accurate recreation of a real life city is the goal, generally with the assistance of assorted budget cheats. For others still, it's simply to create the best city they can. Set your own goals and adjust as you achieve them. For all flavours of player, however, we do have an assortment of tutorials here on Simtropolis to help you on the Omnibus. The sections that will interest you most are SimCity 4 Reference and SimCity 4 Tutorials. Check back from time to time, as we do continue to add articles! Hopefully, this article has helped you get started. If you have any further questions that this article didn't answer, the folk in the forums and the chatroom are always eager to help, and any member of the Simtropolis Help Squad would be more than happy to give you some tips to the right direction.

Creating functional landmarks EDIT: I am aware the pictures are missing, I shall sort this when I have time, took me a while to realise. This is my basic guide that shows you how to add jobs to a landmark. It will be far from perfect, as I’m doing it from memory. It’s a common question in the Chat room, so im making one that should be easy to follow. This tutorial requires: Ilives Reader (http://www.simtropol...e-reader-0-9-3/) It is possible without creating your own model, as long as you have the .SC4model file. Don’t know if it works if that is compressed in a Dat, I’ll try it later. Right then, to business. I’m going to use http://www.simtropol... Because I like the BAT, and it looks right for a CS$ which is what I’m going to make. (Obviously that’s not all you can do, but I need one and this is a good excuse.) It’s normally an Resi building, but Plop able Resi’s are a bit buggy, so don’t attempt it. First find the model and stick it, and only it, in your plugins. This makes the Lot editor and such open quicker, and it is easier to remove mess after if you want. Landmark Quick hint, add LM and GR to the exemplar names. Makes them easy to distinguish later. The landmark one doesn’t need too many changes from default, Budget cost will be removed later anyway. Change the item name and description if you want a different name in the menu. The only Real area that needs editing for this is the wealth section. MAKE SURE ITS THE SAME AS THE WEALTH YOU ARE GOING TO USE. I set mine to low after this, as I was doing CS$, but for CO$$$ it should be high. This isn’t needed for everything, but I’ve had crashes on some of the ones I didn’t do this to. Best be safe. Growable The only things that need Changing drastically are the in game features. Capacity satisfied is normally MILES higher than a city can provide, so lower that. (If you’re using more than $ the higher values when you click it are the lower wealth.) Don’t worry about the hex code on the left when you click there, ill deal with it later. You’re also going to want to change the Pollution and consumption figures; as if you look there they are incredibly high before changing them. That’s really it; you can change other stuff if you want. None of this is really necessary, but if you want it to have any useful purpose then do it. Lotting Make your landmark Lot, no need for a growable. Just get this done, not really major, but it needs to be done before the modding itself as Lot Editor can strip away the modding you do, leaving the files useless. It may not happen at all, I’ve only had it happen once, but it is a possibility. This is where using an empty plugins folder comes in useful, as if, like me, you have 5 GB of plugins it takes a while to load LE. Now we get onto the hard bit... Modding This is the tricky bit. Open the Lot file in reader. Go to filters and select only the exemplar box. Click refresh underneath the boxes. Once you’ve done that you should get 2 exemplars. For the minute we want the one that looks like this. Remove these ones. These are what ties it to the landmark and interfere. So remove them. A few require editing, but I’ll get onto that later. As ever, you can remove more, and edit more, but that picture there shows the ones that really need to be removed. (Just right click delete property.) Now open the Growable. (If you close remember to save, reader wont prompt you.) You need to copy these properties from that exemplar over into the landmark Lots exemplar you just edited. (Right click copy and paste or CTRL+C CTRL+ V) (EDIT also select growth. Dont know why, but I forgot it in this pic) Now we need to do some cleaning up. This is what the landmark exemplar looks like now. (Or should.) To start with we need to clean up occupant groups. Double click on it. Delete the bottom two, and then go to the Growable exemplar. When you do, you should be able to see quite a few there. We want the second one down. Copy that over, by copying its hex code from the bottom into the other one, separated by a comma, the others aren’t needed as the ploppable shouldn’t grow, and we don’t want the game to think it should. You should get this once you press the apply next to the text box in the bottom. Press the apply next to cancel to continue and save. The next tricky bit. This bit is a bit of trial and error unfortunately, ive not managed to work all of it out. The other exemplar within the Lot has some properties, which also require editing. These are the 3 in question. Zone types is an easy edit. Simply double click, and add the code 0x0F into the box. Wealth types is also simple. Add 0x01 for low wealth, 0x02 for medium and 0x03 for high wealth. Purpose types is harder, they are all different. I’m going to look into various files to find them, but for now this is what I’ve found out. CS$ 0x02 CS$$ 0x02 CS$$$ 0x02 CO$$ 0x03 CO$$$ 0x03 I-D I-M I-HT 0x08 Just for reference, R is 0x01. (Again, dont make a ploppable resi. Not worth it.) So just as an example, if you’re confused, mine now looks like this. Remember I said you don’t want to confuse the game and make it grow this Lot? Well just to be sure make the “Growth stage” one 0xff. This sets the Stage to 255, which even the CAM can’t manage. (No pics, im sure you get how to do it by now.) This Lot is now testable in game, well done. As always, don’t worry about asking me for help, I’m normally found in Chat and if you can’t find me there PM me. Timmystwin. Ill look at this if its put in the omnibus and correct it if theres anything to do, but this is a good enough one to follow.

Article originally found in sc4ever.com Toll booths are quite possibly the most unbalanced thing in SC4K. For a modest fee, you can get 20 cents per month for every car or bus passenger that travels through the toll. This can be abused to make massive amounts of money. I've had a city that made $10 000 profit per month on tolls alone. Toll booths are pretty simple. Your Sims usually travel from residential to industrial, or residential to commercial. If their route goes through a toll booth, they give you $.10/month. Toll booths add a few minutes to their trip, and give you money in the process. Build a ground highway to connect your residential and industrial zones. Make sure it's the only road connecting them. Place avenues at the ends of the highways, and connect them. Now, put toll booths all along the ground highway. Do the same thing between residential and commercial zones. Now wait a few months, and check your income. You should be making huge amounts of income from the tolls! As long as the sims have to take that highway to work, they'll pay a huge amount in tolls. A well set up network will give you more money from tolls, than you will get from residential taxes. (Sick, no?) Even Sims that take the bus have to pay the toll. But, busses don't make congestion like cars do, so they can drive around the toll more easily than cars. Make sure they can't, so you can get income from bus fares, and the toll. If the highway gets cramped, build another one, set up the tolls, and connect it to the same avenue. Build bus stations to reduce congestion, and make more money at the same time. Why ground highways? Ground highways are cheap. Highway toll booths handle the most amount of sims. Sims drive the fastest on highways, so more sims will be able to get to work. A good highway can have 8 tolls, giving you $1.60/month for every car or bus passenger that needs to travel on that highway. Sims pay 10 cents on the way to work, and 10 cents on the way back. Toll booths cost $5 a month to maintain. So, as long as you get 50 cars going through, you'll break even. One last word of caution: Toll booths add up to your commute time quickly. If your sims have a commute time more than 100 minutes, they'll start to lose their jobs, and leave your town. You'll still get bucketloads of cash, but a few buildings will rot. It's nothing to worry about on a small or medium map, but be careful in region play.

How to Make a Region-Wide Street Map (Google Style) In this tutorial, I will show how I put together a region-wide street map with a Google map style. I used an HTML editor, Paint, and GIMP to achieve this result - District of Wenzel Street Map - look around the whole page and you will see the images straight from SC4 and others that are more complete with Google style. Part 1 - Preparing Base Image Now we will gather the necessary map images from your region, so we can put together an accurate street map based on your SimCity. First, go in-game and take pictures of the street traffic data map in each city of your region. Now edit each of those images through this process: Open Paint or your favorite editing program and open the SC4 picture. Now take the select tool and roughly cut out the actual map. Copy the selection. Now open a new image and resize it to 512x512 pixels. Your selection will be about half this size. Paste that selection into the new image. Do not click off the selection and resize it, not the entire image, 200% of the original. This will make the actual map 512x512 pixels. Now adjust the selection so that no white is showing on the edges. Do not stretch! Just reposition until the map is all on the image. Now deselect everything and resize the entire image to the appropriate size of the city. For example = SMALL = 256x256 pixels, MEDIUM = 512x512 pixels, LARGE = 1024x1024 pixels. You can use your own sizes depending on how large or small you want the map, but the scale must be the same, 2 x SMALL = MEDIUM, 2 x MEDIUM = LARGE. At this point, I would suggest creating the HTML page that will take all these image tiles and place them together like your region. It will make lining things up and checking while working on the Google style much easier later. Part 2 - Stitching Together a Region-Wide Map Open an HTML editor or a text document. I use HTML Beauty, since it has an in-program preview and many tools to write HTML for you. We will create a table to put the images in the appropriate places within the region. Open your SC4 region config file or have SC4 open to region view. Now let's create the table. First put in the code for a table [code]<TABLE></TABLE>[/code] . Remember to always close your tables, rows, and columns. Make sure to make the cellspacing and cellpadding and border all "0", otherwise you will have white space between each map piece from your cities. Now in your region or your config map you must figure out how many SMALL tiles across your region is. My region is 32 SMALL tiles by 32 SMALL tiles. So I will have 33 columns and 33 rows. Why 33? When I designed my page with only 32 x 32 things were jumbled for some reason, so this is what works, so you should put an extra blank row and column. The first row and column doesn't need to be a certain size though you can designate a size with [code][TR height=""][/code] or [code][TD width=""][/code] So now we will make the first row (the blank row). Look at the picture and copy that code. For width put the size of your SMALL city map image, in my case 256 pixels. Make sure you have 32 [code]<TD width="256">&nbsp;</TD>[/code] , plus the first [code]<TD>&nbsp;</TD>[/code] . I added a border, change that border="0" to ="1" in the TABLE line and then I previewed to see the row. The boxes are not really 256 pixels wide yet, but they will be once content (pictures) are added. Make sure after all the [code]<TD></TD>[/code] (Columns) you close the row with [code]</TR>[/code] . We now have the first row (1/33). Copy everything [code]<TR>[/code] to [code]</TR>[/code] and paste on the next line. That is your second row! Now remember how we designated the width of each of those 32 columns at 256 pixels. Now you must designate the next 32 rows at the same [code]HEIGHT=256[/code] . [code]<TR height="256">[/code] Now copy the entire [code]<TR>[/code] to [code]</TR>[/code] and paste 31 more times or the appropriate number of rows you need. Here is another look at the result (with borders on!). You can see that the second row and every row beyond the first one are 256 pixels in height. The columns still are not the right size, but don't worry about that right now. Now you must make those boxes resemble your region config. To do this start in the second [code]<TR></TR>[/code] , leaving the first row blank. Edit the second [code]<TD></TD>[/code] . Now for example in my region the upper leftmost tile is a LARGE tile. So I will change the column width to [code]<TD width="1024">[/code] . Now that I've done this, I've bumped three other columns out of alignment, so I will span those columns to fix it. Add [code]colspan="4"[/code] . Now immediately remove the next three [code]<TD></TD>[/code] in this row. Now we also want this box to be 1024 pixels in height so add rowspan="4". Now we must eliminate four [code]<TD></TD>[/code] from each of the next three [code]<TR></TR>[/code] . I didn't do it this way, but a great way to remove the unnecessary code is to use the comment code [code]<!-- Code you wish to remove -->[/code] . This way you can see how many columns you have removed. To check your work, view your HTML document in your internet browser, it should resemble your region. If things look wrong, go back and make sure each row [code]<TR></TR>[/code] has 33 columns taking into account the colspans and rowspans. I am not sure if the preview will look right with just blank tiles, so insert your pictures into the right spots before previewing. If they do not line up, make the appropriate corrections to your rows and columns, rowspans and colspans. If you preview it with the borders on there will be many white spaces but you will see your region the way it looks when you have the borders on in SC4 region view. Turn off the borders for your final product. Now you have a stitched together regionwide map. You can stop here like I originally did and just label your streets right on the SC4 view, or you can continue and place layers over it to make a slick looking map of any style you wish. Next, I will show you how to do a google-style overlay using GIMP. Part 3 - Adding a Google Map-style Overlay Now you will need GIMP or a similar picture editing program for this next part. Now select any of the "tiles" you created earlier and stitched together to form the region map. You may do the overlay with any and all tiles, even if there is only one road running through it. Open it in GIMP. Note the file type is .xcf. ALWAYS save a version of your map as this, so you can easily edit it in the future. (I just saved my downtown map as an .xcf and the program for some reason merged all the layers, so I must go back and rebuild the entire map to make future editing possible again, SIGH.) To start you will have just a background. Now we must create the Google grey background, COLOR CODE: ede6dc. Create a new layer as shown on in the picture. Once created, your picture will be completely grey. Go to the layer task bar on the right and press the eye next to the Grey Background to hide it for now. Now create a transparent layer called Water. Make sure it is "above" the Grey Background and the base Background. Now pick a water color, COLOR CODE: 99b3cc, and paint over the water in the SimCity data view. Make sure you do this on the Water layer. You can add your own waterways that aren't shown in the dataview, for instance if you use ploppable water lots. You can hide the water layer to your liking. Now create a Streets layer "above" the water, grey, and background. I zoom in 200% to lay out the streets. To lay the streets, use the paths tool. Now set the first anchor point of the street. Note the circle on the right edge of the map just north of the river. In the lower left corner, you can see the coordinates of the point (1025.0, 258.0)...the 258 is important to note to get a straight line (if your street is straight, that is). I placed the other anchor at the end of the street at the same vertical coordinate 258.0. Now right-click, edit, stroke path... I use a 4 pixel line for one-tile in SimCity. This only applies to streets and roads. For rail, I use 2 pixels. Stroke and there you go. A street. MAKE SURE THIS IS ON THE STREET LAYER. Now when working at the edges of the map section I would suggest saving as .xcf, but also saving a .jpg after each stroke to check if it lines up with the adjacent sections. Just open your HTML file and refresh everytime. I unhid all the layers and now the map looks nearly finished. Now we must add the grey outlines to the streets. Duplicate the Streets layer. Alpha to Selection on the higher Streets layer. Select the lower Streets layer. Right click on the picture and select Stroke Selection. Set your stroke for 1 pixel and COLOR CODE: c1b59e. And there you go. Now just add in street names, etc. You can create more layers for parks, universities, etc. Just remember to place in the right order. ALWAYS save a copy of your work as .xcf with all the layers, so you can edit later! Save as a jpeg and upload your HTML and pictures to a website for viewing by the general public! Good luck. Check out the District of Wenzel Street Map for examples of all I talked about. Use your browser's zoom out ability to see more of the map at once.

Please PM Soldyne if you have any questions about this article. With all the plugins and BATs and Lots and Mods we shovel into our game our menus are bound to get full with all kinds of nifty little toys. Unfortunately that list can become quite cumbersome rather quickly. The worst part of it is that when we install a package of lots such as a modular park set, it is quite often the case that not all the lots in the set are all nicely bundled in the same area. Whats worse is when you have many lots that you use over a over again but those lots are stretched out over your ever expanding menus and you spend all day just scrolling through your parks so you can plop a single flower garden. What if you could rearrange your menus? What if you could put all your favorite parks and tranist lots at the top of the menu and all the lesser used pieces at the bottom? well, with a little patience and planning you can. What you will need is ILive's reader and this guide. Step 1 Go into your game and really look over your menus. Look at your parks menu, transit menus, land marks and rewards lists. Think to yourself how your game playing experience could be made simpler and more efficient if only things were moved around a little bit. Make a list of exactly what lots you want and in what order you want them. If you find a park lot that you just dont use, the best thing to do is delete it from your plugins folder. If you dont use it then why spend the time to load it? Step 2 Once you have the order of each menu established, you must start to assign some numbers to them. The smaller the number the closer it will be to the top of the menu. You can use negative numbers as well. The range of numbers that I have experimented with is -10000000 to 10000000 although you really should not need to use such a wide range. I use -10000 to 10000. Granted, I don't have that big of a parks menu, but I have a personal numbering strategy that works for me and allows for future additions without me needing to renumber things later. Lots can have the same number assigned to them (you can assign the number 2000 for example to all of your BSC parks). This will ensure that all those lots will remain together in the menu but their individual order may be random. Please note that the default maxis lots cannot (and should not) be easily altered with this method. Because of that you should assume that all default maxis lots are numbered as 0. Anything with a negative number will be above the default lots in the menu and anything with a positive number will be below. Anything not numbered or numbered as 0 will appear mixed in with the default lots. Step 3 Quit your game (if it is still running) and make a copy of your plugins folder. For now you can just copy it to your desktop if you like. This is to make sure that if you make any wrong or undesirable changes you wont have to worry. Step 4 By now you should have downloaded ILive's Reader. Get ILive's Reader from Simtropolis (or anywhere else you can find it). I have tried this method with SC4Tool and other lot manipulation tools but ILive's reader is the easiest one for this purpose. For those that know ILive's reader you probably know where I am going with this, for those that are new to modding lots, this program can seem a little daunting at first. Just pay attention to the steps and all should be fine. As long as you have a backup plugins folder you might want to experiement with this progam, you may find it helpful! Step 5 Open ILive's Reader and select the "Open" icon from the top left corner. Drill down through the folders until you find the plugins folder you wish to manipulate and select one of the lot files (or a .dat file which contains the lot) you wish to rearrange. Step 6 Now that the lot is loaded in the Reader, you should see three sections of the program on the screen: The left column has the file name with an icon. The middle column has a bunch of cryptic nonsense like LD File, Exemplar File, PNG File. The right column has even more cryptic nonsense which is different depending on what you select from the middle column. In the middle column you should find at least 2 lines which start with "Exemplar File". If you selected a file with one lot there will be two of these. If you opened a .dat file with many lots then there will be two of these lines for each lot in the .dat. Start selecting these "Exemplar File" lines and look at the right hand column. One of these files will produce a large number of "LotConfigPropertyLotObjectData" lines. This is not the correct Exemplar File line. Keep selecting different Exemplar file lines from the middle column until you see things in the right column such as bulldoze cost, park effect, item name, and so forth. When you have a correct Exemplar file line, look in the right hand column for a line that reads "item order". Chances are it will not be there. If "item order" IS in the right column, you can simply double click the line and a new window will appear. In the center of this window will be a box that contains the word "value" and beneath it a strange number that looks like "0x##########". For those of you that are not math or computer science majors this is a hexidecimal number. Dont worry about that. Double click on the "0x#####" thing and type in the number you want to give to this lot which you determined in Step 2. You can enter the number in hex (not recommended) or enter it with a regular decimal number (better). Only use whole numbers and do not include commas, decimal points or letters or leading zeros. You can and must include a minus sign at the beginning if you wish to assign a negative number. When you are done entering the number, simply click on the apply button at the bottom until the small window dissapears. This sometimes needs two clicks (there is a reason for this but it is not worth explaining). The program will translate the decimal number you entered into a hex number. If "item Order" is NOT in the right column, you first need to right click in an empty space of the right column and select "Add Property" from the list. When you do, a window will appear. At the very top of the window will be a box with the label "Name" and a value in the box which reads "!Unknown!". Drop the list down and find the value "item order". The list is very long but is in alphabetical order. Jjust be patient, its there. When "item order" is selected click on the button to the right that says "add" and a box will appear to the left under "value". Enter the number for the lot that you assigned in step 2 above. Use only whole numbers, no commas, no letters, no points, no leading zeros. You must put a minus sign in front of the number if you want a negative number. When the number is entered, hit the apply button at the bottom until the window dissapears. Step 7 Once the "Item Order" line in the right column has been updated to your satisfaction, click on the icon of your lot in the left column and click the save icon at the top left. If you dont save then all this work will have been for nothing. Step 8 You can either repeat the above steps to order more lots or close ILive's Reader and open SC4 to check out your menus and make sure things are working as planned. Continue all of these steps until your lots are ordered to your pleasure or until you go mad - whichever comes first. --------------------------------------- It should be noted that many of the better BATer's and Lotters out there already know how to do this with their lots. So if you have a lot of PEG lots (usually given positive numbers) or any of my Urban Beautification Lots they will already be numbered. I use -6000 to number my lots to ensure they appear at the top of my menu. You may want to put them somewhere else. I say this because you may number a lot with -1000 and expect it to be at the very top. If you use my lots they wont be, so be careful before you think that things are not working right. When you are playing around in ILive's reader you can mess with the other stats, however, many of the stats for a lot should not be changed. Use your best judgement and remember to have backups! Good luck and happy gaming. If you have any questions about this article, please PM Soldyne.

Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this tutorial. Have you ever wanted to have a city without traffic? No cars, no buses, no trucks? You know you have, but Sim City doesn’t seem inclined to let you get away with it. Now, you have free, unsolicited advice on how you can create a historic city and have it vehicle free. As we know, free advice is definitely worth twice what you paid for it. So, let’s see how to make this happen. First, we lay out a fake road. This is actually Jeronij’s rural embankment (straight shown here… diagonal used elsewhere). The residential embankment, shown above, could work too, but it has the fence line on one side, so you probably want to stick with the rural. The rural looks more authentic as a street as well. Be sure to use the home and end keys to orient the street in the proper direction. This will be a T intersection. Using the diagonal embankment pieces, you can get off of the grid and get some angled roads. You have a upper diagonal and lower diagonal angled lot from which to select. As you can see, the balance of the tile is covered with trees. So, you probably will want some sort of greenery at the turn instead of having a building facing out and having its entrance obscured with trees. The diagonals are only half of what you need for the road, so you will need to rotate the lot and plop another set alongside to finish the road. When finished, your road will be 1 tile across, but the extra trees will make the construction take up 2 tiles across. Note how the trees sort of stick out in a zigzag from the road. You will want to soften that with other lots in your final product. After a while, you create more of an old world looking free-form pattern of cobblestone roads. But, these are technically parks, so they are not transit enabled and growable / ploppable RCI lots will have a fit! How do we solve this? How do we get some Sims to their jobs via a non-useable eyecandy transit system? Observe! If you are placing commercial or industry, try pedmall tiles from NAM to provide transit access. Hook those up to a subway station to allow for transit between pedmall segments. The sub stations will be quite unhappy without the pedmall lots, found in the roads menu. You can use the sandstone or grass lots as effective camouflage and they also have pedestrians, providing movement in an otherwise static cityscape. Landmarks, such as these timber framed houses, do not require transit access and can be placed just about anywhere. You can save the pedmall tiles for lots which truly need access. Note the path between subway stations in grass tiles. That’s a pedestrian mall… counts as a road, looks like plantings. See the movement on the grass… gives more life to it as well as needed access. The transit system is in place and my ploppables are going in. All of this is connected by subway. Commute times are tolerable and cars avoided. Commercial businesses will grow if they can touch the pedmall tiles. I start filling in the blank areas with trees to smooth out the diagonal road jaggies. Foot traffic gives life to the town, which would otherwise be very quiet. Will it work? Yes! Residential will not grow in this will nor will it work if you plop it, but commercial and industry are fine with it. The beauty of the pedmall set up is that the Sims think they are in cars, but they are not. Following these steps will net you a traffic free neighborhood – full of old world Schulmania charm. Try it sometime… the Supreme Wirdle will purr for you.

Article originally found in sc4ever.com Achieving such results as the title suggests is actually relatively simple, just plaster your city with trees. It's relatively inexpensive for what it does and will do all three things mentioned in the title. I started placing trees and all my manufacturing and dirty industries immediately converted to high-tech. And if you're feeling particularly lazy (as this process can be very tedious), then use that cheat to get full God mode back and use the tree tool. Note: If your High-Tech demand is still high, but the rest of your non-High-Tech industries aren't converting, then just keep plastering the area with trees, it seems the more active and intent you are on placing trees, the more likely it is that High-Tech industry will develop there. The increase in trees also server to expand the size of commercial and residential development as well, although the effect is not as profound as it is on the industrial sector.

Money Saving Tips for any City Design Please PM Soldyne if you have any questions about this article. Part of building a successful city is making it economically prosperous. I have noticed that a lot of new and old players alike seem to have trouble balancing the budget. This seems to be the number one problem that chases a lot of newcomers away and makes old players turn to cheat codes and money lots. I myself started the game having problems but as I read through the countless posts here on Simtropolis and did some of my own experimentation with game mechanics, I have compiled a list of money saving tips to help keep new cities in the black. This list is a compilation of ideas about how to cut costs in a city. There are numerous (if not too many) threads about how to make money but cutting costs can make earning money that much easier. I want to say before hand that this is a compilation of ideas from myself and ideas from numerous other players here on the forums. As such, I will not take full credit for these ideas but I am also unable to give total credit to any specific set of people for any particular idea. 1.) Manipulate Funding on Civic Buildings: This is probably the most common piece of advice and yet the most overlooked by new players. Use the query tool and select either a hospital or educational building. Here you will see some information about what the buildings capacity is and how much it is being used. Slide the bar down until the capacity is just slightly more than the usage and you can have large medical centers servicing small rural towns for mere dollars and still gain the full benefits of the coverage. Another idea is to lower the ambulance/bus radius coverage of the building. Most people don't do this because they may not be aware of it, but if you lower the coverage funding to 0 you will still get a radius of effect. The radius will be smaller but it will still be just as effective as full coverage. There are other benefits to doing this as well. Lowering coverage funding can allow you to have lots of buildings of the same type for very little funding. In fact one of the problems with civic buildings in larger cities is that they get over capacity very easily. A hospital for example can only hold about 3,000 patients at full funding (the same capaict for a single residential high rise), but in a large city you will need multiple hospitals to handle the thousands of patients. If you lower the funding on radius you can afford to put in more hospitals at strategic locations to better handle the need and it will actually cost less overall. 2.) Keep Education to a Minimum: One of the most common and useful goals of most cities is to attract High Tech Industry. To do this you need education. The question then becomes how much education do you really need. While utilizing the above idea you can raise EQ to about 120 by only using elementary schools and libraries. Libraries are quite cheap. You can satisfy quite a bit of demand for §10 - §20 a month and libraries increase land value and desirability where ever they are placed. Most people think that you need colleges, museums, high schools and universities to get HT but this is not necessarily so. As far as education is concerned it should be one of the first civic buildings placed (perhaps even before your fire station). It takes a long time for a new city's EQ to raise to an acceptable level for IHT so start educating your sims as early as possible. When you are ready to have your EQ raised to a higher level, you can start adding the other buildings. Remember that the college, university, and museum each affect an entire city. I have had cities as large as 500k and more which only needed one of each. More colleges and museums will only benefit your city if your first ones are over capacity. Tip: you need many museums to get the major art musem reward, but once you have the reward placed in your city you can get rid of the extra museums. 3: Saftey Last: One of the most common pieces of advice is to place your first fire station when you have your first fire. This is good advice. When you are trying to balance your budget, only place fire stations in trouble areas where you seem to have lots of fires. When your city has a healthy income then you can work on better fire coverage. Police stations are the last thing to get put in. Crime in SimCity4 is determined by population and education levels. The higher the education level the less crime there will be. I had a city of 500k with an EQ of 200, no police stations and only 6 crimes on average per month. If you have a good education system (as described above) you wont need police stations to handle crime. Police stations do increase desirability and will help to attract more residence but is not a requirement and should only be considered as a last addition to most city designs. 4.) Manipulate Funding on Power Stations: Yep, just like you can with civic buildings, you can manipulate funding to the power stations to reduce costs and reduce power output. With a new city, a 6,000MW power station is producing way more power than you will need. Simply move the slider to a lower funding level and keep raising it as you need more. It will still produce just as much pollution but for a small city just starting out its not a big deal. 5.) Never Use a Water Treatment Plant: Most people (myself included) when starting to build our first cities will put all the utilities in the same spot; power, trash, and water pumps. The problem with this is that if water pollution levels near a pump rise too much, then they stop working. Most people will put down a water treatment plant to quell the problem. This costs a LOT of money. To fix this problem before it starts build your pumps as far away from your industry, power, and trash facilities as possible. I usually put them on the opposite end of the map. Give your pumping station its own wind power plant (and reduce its funding as well) and you will never have to worry about water pollution again. Your advisors will still complain about the pollution but your pumps will keep working and that is what matters. 6.) Free Trash Disposal: Landfills are the first trash option that most people fall back on. Tthis is the worst option by far. It is expensive, and takes up way too much space and has a huge negative desirability. The incinerator is what a lot of people go for when the landfill gets full. However, the incinerator is very expensive, being §1,000 a month. For a large city many incinerators may be needed. another option is to create a trash city where the entire city is nothing but incinerators and/or landfills and then export the trash to the neighbor. all of the options are very expensive. One option which is very much overlooked is the idea of funding your incinerator for §0 a month! Thats right, you can fund the incinerator for no money and it will still burn up to 500 tons of trash every month. You can have 1 or 10 waste to energy plants burning your trash and it will cost you nothing to maintain. There will be a small cost for trash pick up but that will be very small. The only draw back is that the pollution is still produced. To get around the pollution you can download Simgoobers Modern Waste To Energy plant from the STEX. The idea with that lot is that filtering technology has been improved so the lot produces less pollution. Tt has a higher plop cost and higher monthly fee but with this idea the fee is waived. -------------------------- Those are all the money saving tips I have for the moment. Have fun and if you learn of more, be sure to pass them along on the forums.

Pt2 Let’s do the small details on the large fountain now. These are nigh impossible to do with polygon modeling so let’s delve into the wonderful world of spline cages. To start create a shape like this. Use a circle converted to an editable poly for the portion of this. This is the curvy embellishment. Also, notice how all of the vertices are lined up and ready to be made into quads. This is imperative to do. Again planning on making quads makes your life much easier in the end, even more so when you are creating a 3d model from splines alone. We are starting to make our spline into 3d geometry now. Select all the edges and drag it out to clone it. Then do the same and then scale it down a bit. You will need to move vertices when you scale to get it right. If we refined this now and put surface on it, it would be a flat edge, then it would go straight and slope down. If you look at the reference, this bit has the long curving part a flat surface, then the circle bit at the end has this going in, then going out kinda sloping thing, and it finishes up making a hole. Select only those 3 edges, and use the scale tool and move tool to add these details in. Now, use the refine tool to refine all these vertices. Go from one side of it to the other, making sure to keep the flow of the line you are using right. Don’t connect a vertex out of sequence. You can always go back if you make that mistake, but if you do, make sure you notice it. Keep the back end unrefined if you want. We will be using symmetry later anyways so it won’t matter. Now we will put a surface modifier on. After I refined my cage, I noticed that the middle circle had a flat bottom. I didn’t mind that on the rest of it, but I wanted it to be round in the middle. So I just adjusted the Bezier on the points at the bottom of the circle and it was fixed. When we look at the reference image again, though, we notice that ours doesn’t completely match up. The circular area protrudes a bit further than the rest of it, and there is a flat spot at the very top right on the side. Because of how we modeled this, this is an easy fix. For the protrusion, I added an extra refine loop around it after I went back to the bottom of the stack, and then I selected all the edges above it, and I scaled it up. That gave me a nice result that I wanted. (You can preview the end result by clicking that little white column thing right below the stack) For the flat part, drag those two vertices out and adjust the beziers. Here I’ve created the second part of the details on the corners of the bottom using bevel and then NURMs on a cylinder. Create the Cylinder in a horizontal view like left to remove the step of rotating it. You should be able to do this part on your own by now. Now just position it so that it faces off at the right angle and position from your base. Then, using the pivot position change, rotate them and create 3 instances around the base. If yours looks a bit off, like my cylinders do, you can select them all, bring orientation dropdown to local and move them like that. It will move them in regards to the pivot point, so basically your movements will be instanced We’ve finished these small details here. Let’s move on to the slightly more difficult embossing on the flat square between these last details. Zooming in it looks like it is an oval with two circles connected to it that go in and out and such. Looks like another good time to utilize spline cages. To start this, make 2 circles, on big, one small. Make them into ovals. The big one only half of it has to be oval. Attach the two circles together after overlapping them. Then, fillet the vertices that are within the other circle so that they are lying on the line of the other circle. After you fillet them, there should be two sets of overlapping vertices. Weld those together. Then, for the sake of quads, fillet the rightmost vertex. Yours should look like mine. Now, we will start to get these shapes in for the details of it. Delete the left half of the shape that we’ve done nothing with. Then, mirror the shape and make it an instance. Scale down what’s left of the big oval. It will have a portion missing. Do the same with the smaller oval. It will also have a portion missing. For the cloned big oval. Move the vertices straight left to where the mirror is and the instanced vertices are overlapping. Then, using “create line,” complete the ovals. It will be funky. Use the Bezier handles to get them back into shape. If you do this right, yours will look like mine. Here I’ve done some scaling and moving around to get some dips and some definition to this shape in 3d. to get the more circlier shape in the middle I just dragged the edges in. I left all the vertices unbrought to the mirror to show what you could get. Using the spline selection tool can also be useful here. I moved the vertices in towards the center and I also did the same process with the “ear” of the monkey (it’s not actually a monkey but it looks like a one eyed monkey atm. Not much to explain here. The detail has some little things coming off the ears in the picture, so lets add those details. Take the vertices where those notches are and fillet them. But, keep in mind, we want this to be very clean, so also fillet the vertices that would be refined later. You can see a line of them coming from my pic. Then, divide all of the edges you just created EDIT: Don’t divide the edges. It ends up needing to be deleted anyways. I used the lasso selection for this. Then, once you have all the vertices made, fillet the vertices on the notches, you only have to do those, nothing else because we can create quads there. Divide the segment you just created, and filet it again. Drag the first edge on each out to about where mine are, then drag the next segments out to where mine are. Yours should look like mine. Now we refine. Don’t get discouraged if this takes you a while. It was a hard one to refine. I added a small small detail that I shouldn’t have that made it way harder. Remember to rotate the camera around to get the right perspective on what you need to refine and click next. Here I just rotated it and moved it so that it fit flush against the base. I also added a symmetry modifier and deleted the instance we were using as a reference to see what it would look with both sides. After you add the surface modifier, though, make sure to add an edit poly. Then, I selected some rings of the middle and moved them back and forth to give it a little bit more depth. After instancing it around, this is what we have so far. Now we go to the detail on the rounded pillar. It seems to be a circle with some sort of weird splash kind of looking thing coming out from a rod looking thing (great description, I know) Here is the beginning of the shape. Create a circle and use that as a base to spline cage this. This is one of the few cases where it’s more efficient to allow triangles. There is a cross indent in the shape, and the easiest way to do that, is to make there be a cross during refining. After you make the shape of this spline cage, fillet all the vertices then refine it. Once you do that, add surface modifier and an edit poly. Then, select your cross you just refined, and extrude it a bit. Create a separate cylinder and align it to the spline cage object you made. Give it 8 segments around, and a lot up and down. Then, rotate it 22.5 degrees so that the flat faces are flat. After you do that, Draw a spline with a curve like the bottom one. Copy it by dragging it up and say about 10 copies. Then change each one a little bit to give that kind of undulating pattern in the real thing. Try to line them up with the polygons on the cylinder. Now we use one of my favorite tools. This shape we are trying to create with all the different curves and such is very difficult to make with only one shape and polygon modeling. I’m not experienced enough to figure out a more efficient way than this. Create a very small circle. That circle will be copied along your spline you drew creating geometry along the way. It is how I did a lot of the details on the tribune tower, my first real detailed thing I’ve done. Anyways, to use loft, go under geometry then compound objects with your spline selected, select loft. Then, select “get shape” and choose your circle. You will see geometry right away. You can adjust the amount of steps to make the splines it takes under skin parameters. Loft all of them, then slap a symmetry modifier onto the circular base with the cross. I made a little background thing for my whatever these are. After you have the symmetry going, attach everything. I put nurms on mine cause it was a bit choppy. I am not too pleased with my result though, so I’m going to see if I can use polygon selection and scale tool to fix it a little. I just dragged some of the lofts down and copied them to add a bit more density to it. What we do next, is explore a new modifier, and one that we only used briefly before. Once you get your detail centered, apply a bend modifier to it. Increase the angle to about 80 or so, and find the axis of effect that causes it to bend from the middle outward, like it would encompass the pillar. After you bend it to get a general fit, add a FFD 4x4x4 to the detail. Go under control points, grab the top section and bring it towards the pillar so it bends the detail in. Do the same with the middle ones. Experiment with it. Try not to get the pillar going through the detail. Now instance it all the way around to add some symmetry to it all. Now create a spline with the shape of the one I have created and use your scaling and moving to create this cage. When you scale the spline, there will be some weird stuff going on so you’ll need to move vertices individually and adjust beziers. Add surface and edit poly and symmetry to get geometry and symmetricalness. Now instance it around your fountain. This time make 7 copies and rotate it 45 degrees. That is what we’ve done so far with the fountain. Let’s start working on the next detail. There is a ring of engravings underneath the big part of the fountain. Select two edges that I have selected on your model (NOTE: What I have selected here ended up not being sufficient, I went back and selected just one more up also) it probably won’t be the same exact look, but hopefully it’ll be similar. With those edges selected, hit the similar graphite modeling Connect the selected edges with one new one. Select the edges you just created and select similar. Then chamfer them a good amount like so. This kind of detail is easy to add. Select a new polygon and select similar again. Then use bevel and inset to create some details like this. The next step will be a bit difficult. There are goat’s heads all around the main part of the fountain. We will try to make the goat’s heads somewhat detailed, but again, we will be using spline cage modeling to do this. Before we do something like this, we have to plan a bit, though. The goat starts with a kind of oval neck, then it swoops in with that neck around to a face that is still kind of oval, just top heavy; we can use the same shape the we started for that and just edit it a bit. The ears can be made from a separate shape that we include into the main head. The horns can be made using “extrude along spline” and a circle we make using our previous method. The rest of the details can be added while making the spline cage. With something like this, I am going to model it entirely based on scale regarding itself then scale it down to fit with the fountain later. Ok, let’s get started. This is the shape I will use for the base of my goat’s head. What it seems to do is scale down and move upward in kind of a sloping way so I can scale and drag my base spline I just created. Note: because this part is going to be hard to conceptualize, I am going to be doing very stepbystep instructions on this goathead. This is my cage so far. I made my base shape curved a bit just by draggin back the middle vertices. Then I dragged the top vertex, but not as fast as the middle to give that shape that the goat heads have. Then we create the sort of curving in sharp at the bottom and up shallow at the top by scaling down the spline and dragging it out and up. This will be the neck of the goat. I included the side view of what it looks like also. I’ll be honest with you guys, this goat head thing is a totally new thing for me. I have had a lot of trouble with this, and I think I found a method that finally works. I made a spline cage entirely out of the one shape. I was using a surface modifier and a symmetry modifier all throughout making the spline cage modeling. Notice how it narrows in the front to make the basic shape of the goats head. I moved vertices around quite a lot. I spent a very very long time figuring this out. Try and copy the shape and layout of my mesh as best you can. Make sure to use the symmetry modifier. It’s a life saver with this one. I also used about 8 steps on surface modifier. This Is something I do know how to do. Stay in editable spline mode. Drag up a vertex sandwiched in between to loops real close to eachother so that when you drag it up, it will make that crease like in mine. Then, move the beziers on the next vertex over so the point downward and cause lips to form. Move some vertices around and inward to sculpt the countours of the goats face in a bit. As you can see I have a mouth and the area for the nose in there. I also have some cheek structure. Again, I’m pulling all this out of my ass, so bear with me. Next, try and find an area where the eyes would fit well. Goats have wide eyes, as you can see in the picture so I’m thinking about here I drew in the features of the face we will add, the horns, the ears, the nostrils and the ears. It’s starting to look kind of like a goat, I’m a bit surprised tbh. Add two refine loops where you think the eyes would be, make the middle edge loop the one that will define the eye. Adjust the vertices convert the vertices to Bezier corners. Then Bezier it in to get the shape. The way I placed my loops caused this shape to form. I’m doing this all in editable poly mode with show end result on. I would turn edit poly off so the subdivision isn’t visible. If you want to just see the cage, hit f3 to pull up wireframe mode. Here’s an example of my beziers for the eye. To create the eye lids, create 2 concentric circles just bigger than the eye socket you created, convert to editable poly and attach them. Then, add a lathe modifier on top of it. Lower the degrees to about what I have and change the direction of effect so it looks like an eyelid in the perspective we are looking at. The back won’t be there, but it doesn’t matter. Create a sphere, very self-explanatory, and position it in the middle of the eyelid. Then, move the eyelid and eyeball into the socket we created. Attach it to the edit poly below the symmetry and it will appear on both sides. I scaled mine a bit horizontally cause it looked a bit like that in the picture. Hey! This is starting to look pretty nifty. Now let’s work on the ears. So let’s look at the ears. They start kind bulbousy, then sag down to eye level. Make this kind of shape as a start. It’s not set up for quads yet, but we can just fillet the last point to prepare it for that. Here is the base cage for this. To make this do that same as always, scale and move vertices. Notice how I differentiated a bit between the bulge of where the ear connects, and the actual ear. This will be refined and it will slope into the thin part of the ear Here I’m starting to refine. But look, part of this mesh, where it differentiates, isn’t ready to be quaded, this could be a problem, let’s think of how we can fix it. A very simple solution would be to add more detail to the thin part of the ear. Why don’t we do that. Here it is fully refined. Adding that extra bit helped! As you can see, I filleted the end of the ear and that also turned out pretty nicely. I also decided to make a little crease there by doing some Bezier work after refining. Place it on your goathead. You can edit it more here if you want, just go to line and show end result. Edit it ‘til you’re happy then attach it to your goathead. This is it now. Now we’ll do the nose. We will use a very similar technique that we used for the eyes. Just add one refine loop this time (remember to keep quads) Try and place it near the bottom of the nose ridge thing. Once you do that, you can turn the vertex closest to the nose into a Bezier corner. Then, just drag it into the area you want the nose and it’ll create those slits you want. Voila! Next is the horns. We could go a few ways with this one. We could extrude along a spline, or we could do a loft. I think I want to do a loft instead. More options for manipulating the product. You all should be masters at making Bezier curves by now. Make on that looks like this and prepare a circle for the loft. Mine is a bit too small, you want to make it about as big as the base of the horn will be. Apply a loft and get shape is the circle. (In the background you can see I increased the size of it a lot. In loft, go to deformations. Here, we can change the shape and how the loft works. It’s a really powerful tool if you utilize this. If you click on scale, a curve editor pops up. This changes the scale based on how far along the loft the shape is. You can see how the horn starts off thick, becomes thinner fast, then mellows out a bit then goes to a point. In the curve editor, that thickness at the beginning corresponds to being at 100% scale, then going up a bit. It drops down in scale very fast, then it mellows out in the curve editor, etc. You can create points with the “create control point” button. It’s the button with the explosion on it. Then you can drag them around the curve editor and make them beziers and such. That’s how you can get this nice curve. Create your loft and try and match my curve editor the best you can. If you want you can experiment. It doesn’t really matter much. Btw, this curve editor loft thing is honestly something I just recently discovered. I enjoy it a lot. The possibilities of unique shapes and stuff are very high. Now attach your horn to your face and it’ll go to the other side. Now you have your goat made! Woohoo. Now just align it to your fountain rotate 45 degrees and make 7 copies and render. This fountain is getting pretty nice, no? The rest of the fountain will be detailed in part 3. Right now, this is 33 pages on word so I would rather split it up a bit more…

(WITHOUT CHEATS!) Please PM soldyne if you have any questions about this article. The number one question asked on the forums by many new and old players alike is "How do I make money?" The easy answer is to just give a link to the STEX and tell them to use a money cheat. Well, the better way is to build your city efficiently and to learn how the game works, which is what this tutorial is designed to teach you. First I must say that I have a ton of plugins going on in my game but 90% of them are for aesthetics. The only mod I have that affects game play is the Network Addon Mod which only affects traffic. Since this tutorial is about getting a city started and how to make money in the early stages, that mod will have little effect on the outcomes. With that said, this tutorial is designed to be replicated by anyone even if all they have is the vanilla version of SC4. I also try to give a few hints on how to start a new region, what to think about when planning a city and I even give a few city building design tips along the way. For the most part though, this tutorial is about making money and creating an efficent city. City design is really up to each individual player as that is the fun of the whole game. Before we start, I also want to inform the reader that I have a small reference guide in the Omnibus which will be very handy in developing a new city called Money Saving Tips For Any City Design. The best way to make money is to not spend it! Also, a quick note on challenge. I always use the easy setting, and this tutorial is done on that setting as well. For a tutorial/experiment on making money with high challenge (or at least not going bankrupt) check out Voar Tok's experimental CJ here Never Go Bankrupt Again! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first thing to consider when starting a new region is where you want your city to develop. Think ahead as to where your downtown and central business districts (CBD) will be. Then consider the surrounding areas. Here is a nice small region which is actually the Fairview region included with the game by Maxis: I would like my CBD to be along the shore line as many real life cities grow up near water and rivers. Since it will be impossible to get skyscrapers at this point, we need to consider to outlying areas first such as the industrial and suburban areas. These areas will be used to build our region population and to feed demand for our CBD later on. Here is a good place for a nice bedroom community: Right next to it is a great place to start an industrial city with power and trash support for the region: It is important to mention that with region play in SC4 it is an excellent idea to segregate your zones right from the start. Keep all the pollution in its own private city square like dirty and manufacturing industry, power production and trash handling. Make neighbor deals right from the start for power and trash as this will help save money in our residential city... no point in paying full price for 6000 MW if we are not going to use it all, right? Not only that, the neighbor deal will help the industrial city pay for the power upkeep and help reduce maintenance costs. it sounds like a good deal all around doesn't it? In our suburban city, this looks like a very nice open area to start our development: Since we wish to have our industrial neighbor connected to the east and our CBD to the south we should start in the south east corner of the map: The next thing to do now is consider how you want your road network to look. In a suburb, avenues and streets are your main tools. Avenues are your main roadways where your commercial will be. The streets make up your neighborhoods and connect to the avenues. In a suburb we will not want to go beyond low density. In some cases, depending on your design, you may want a few small areas to be medium density, but low density is the main zone size for a suburb. Also, we will probably want to keep lot sizes to 1x1 or 2x2. If you zone 3x3 you run the risk of attracting R$ sims. These guys give a lot of money, and we want money, but R$ sims have a lot of disadvantages for a new region. They are very demanding, will only work in very particular commercial zones (and High Tech-IHT to some degree) and they take up a lot of space and have a low population count. The main disadvantage of R$ in a new community is the job preference. We are not going to have any jobs for the R$ for quite a while, so what will happen is that they will move in, displace all the industrial workers, then abandon and you have a nice big, dilapidated city. In other words, R$ is bad news for a new region, so, we will use lot sizes in our suburbs to limit R$ growth. (technically, R$ won't grow without water, but, the job problem is real and will become a big problem later on when we put in water, so, it is a good idea to plan ahead now and keep zones too small for R$ to develop. When we are ready for R$ we can zone bigger.) I have chosen the following layout for my initial suburb. Notice I have two avenues with connections to the south and the east and use streets for the res zones which are only 1x1 in size. I put a tile between the zones to add parks and trees later on, but for now it will remain as empty space. Something else to consider at this point is mass transit. This is something that most people overlook early on in a city's development. Here in a suburb though, mass transit is usually not used to a great degree. I prefer to use bus stops in my suburbs along with highways. I sometimes use subways but not too much. Mass transit will become a much bigger factor later on in our CBD however, so just keep it in mind and dont forget about it. Now that we have our zones we need power. To get power, we need to talk to our neighbor. Here, in Powerton, we can see our avenue connection from suburbia. While we are here we can plop a coal plant, an incinerator and make a connection with some wires. One point of interest here is the incinerator. If you drop funding of the incinerator to $0 you can still burn trash but it just wont produce any power. Some people find this to be cheating, but, you will still be paying money for the trash in a "pick up and delivery" charge in your utilities menu. The $1000 maintenance fee is just for the power production which we don't need right now. Also while we are here, we can zone for some industial jobs to prepare for our new residents. Let the simulator run for a month or two to allow the game to realize that you have placed a power plant, incinerator and industrial zones. Some of the zones may begin to grow and this is ok. After a few months, save and exit to region. Dont worry about the temporary loss of funds, we will fix that in just a bit. Back in Suburbia we start things up and make a neighbor deal. Some people say they have trouble making neighbor deals. I usually don't. If you are having trouble making a deal for power and trash at this point read over this checklist: For power - is there a powerline connection to the proper cities? - is the selling city producing a surplus? - is the buying city in a deficit? This question is weird. If you have a power plant somewhere in the buying city and the total power produced is enough to power your city (even though it may not be connected) to all the zones then the game will not allow you to buy power from a neighbor. This includes far away wind generators which may be powering distant areas. Make sure that your buying city has a total power deficit by checking the power graph. For trash - is there a road or avenue connection to each city and does the selling city have an incinerator/landfill with road access? If there is no road access then no deal can be made. - does the buying city have a need to export its trash? This is the same situation as described above for power. Now hopefully, you can make some neighbor deals. At this point I will assume you have and we can move on. Let the simulation run for a bit and you should get some houses popping up. One of two possiblities will occur at this point; either you will get a flood of people moving in or you will get one or two houses to develop and thats it. If you only get a few homes, dont worry, this is expected. The way SC4 deals with neighbors and development is complicated, you have to remember that even though we have industrial zones in our neighbor, there are not that many of them. The game will try to extrapolate a projected growth of zones in the neighbor city, but only up to a certain point. Either way our next goal is to expand. Since this is a suburb we want to expand outward, not upward. Start to expand your road network out and keep your avenues free for commercial development and leave plenty of space for residential neighborhoods and future parks. Hopefully, after you have expanded with enough res zones, the simulator will start extrapolating jobs in the neighbor and you will start to see houses growing all over the place. I call this the "popcorn effect." Once the demand starts to fill in the popcorn will stop popping and that is when you need to start working on something else. At this point, you may gaze down at the budget and realize that you are making money! But dont get ahead of yourself, we are just beginning. Uh oh! A lot of our new residence are complaining about commute times. Huh? Commute times? They are no more than 5 minuets from the industrial city! What are they complaining about? Abandonment due to commute times is also a sign of unemployment. Sims will drive around all day until they find work, if they dont find work then they complain that work is too far and start to leave. The briefcase can also be an indication that there are not enough of the right kind of jobs available. This is the problem that R$ brings. R$ will only work in very high class jobs and will complain about commute times even if there is a commercial zone with available jobs right next to them only because they dont want to work at bob's grease pit. In our current case, we really dont have enough jobs, so back to the neighbor to develop more work! Things are developing nicely! Oh no, whats this? Its a FIRE! Well we knew this would happen eventually. Place a small fire station next to the fire and it will dissapear eventually. A few people have complained that they hate having to put fires out all the time. What those people fail to realize is that a fire will never break out in your city within the radius of a well funded fire station. If you have an area that is fire prone, put in a station and the problem will dissapear. And whats this? Even with a coal plant, incinerator, and fire station, this little industrial center is actually turning a profit! Once the industrial popcorn is done popping save and exit and go back to suburbia. The next thing to do is to keep expanding. We want more neighborhoods and thus more people. Remember to keep your main roads clear for commercial develeopment later on and just have fun with the neighborhood designs. Notice that until now, we have not put in any civic services of any kind. The sims dont need them. Sure they want them, and our city will remain dumb and sick until we put them in, but the goal of a young city is to get your cities roots firmly planted first, then make people happy. Usually, the first civic building you will place will be... A fire station! The pattern you may have noticed here is that we expand the res zones until we have a drop in the popcorn and they start complaining about jobs. Then we develop the industrial sector and go back for more people. This is the leap frog technique of region play going back and forth between city squares to let the game update the neighbor cities. Our next goal is to start working on education and building up demand in commercial and IHT. For now, you can look at your population and budget and see that making money is as easy as fixing a bag of popcorn! This ends Chapter 1. Chapter 2 will cover the addition of civic services, manufacturing industry and commercial development. We will also disscuss the effects of education and wealth levels on demand and developer types. Chapter 2: Pop 5,000 - 25,000 (Education and Manufacturing) Please PM soldyne if you have any questions about this article. To recap where we are now we have about 7000 sims in the Fairview region living in a nice quite suburban community with an industrial neighbor next door providing the much need jobs. Suburbia is still in need of jobs: ...and Powerton has room to spare: But, we are starting to out grow our standard leap frog routine of "zone and switch" which got us this far. Now we need to start attracting some big business. To do that we need to add some water: Notice that I put the water pump as far from the industry as I could (well maybe I could have put it further but you get the idea). I also gave the pump its own power supply. This is important since we dont want our water supply to be dependant on our main power source. As our cities grow we may experience rolling brown outs where certain sections of the city lose power for a short time. This could be catastrophic if our water pumps shut down all of sudden. So always give the pumps their own power. Now that we have water big industries can start to build but for now we have no more demand and must go back to suburbia and make more homes: LET THERE BE WORK and so there was and the people saw that this was good and wanted to move in to our city! There was much rejoicing At this point it will be a good habit to start checking all of your graphs for important information. check on power usage, water usage (none yet), garbage levels, and anything else you can think of. If your city is starting to get close to running out of any of those then renegotiate your neighbor deals or build more utilities. Our current situation is good. Things are stable and everyone is mostly happy. However, we dont want a small low class suburb forever so we need to start thinking about bigger and better things. Just like in Powerton, we need water to get to the next stage in development. In our case we want more R$ to move in. The reason for wanting R$ is not because they pay more taxes (although that is nice). We want R$ because they are the driving force for all things in SC4. They produce the most demand for manufacturing, IHT and most of the Commercial sector, also, they prefer to use mass transit more than any other wealth class. Ultimatly R$ is what will support our region and will eventually make up the bulk of our population. So our first step in attaining all of that is water: Since we are doing so well with income and have plenty of money to spare I suggest we layout all of our pipes ahead of time. This will save us a lot of stress later when we start to expand as all areas of the map will already be watered. Lay out your pipes with 12 spaces in between each. This will provide the most efficient coverage. The next step in providing for R$ is education. Education coverage will not only increase desirability for R$ but it will also affect how our demand will change. The more educated our sims are the more sophisticated their tastes in jobs becomes. As it stands all of our population is demanding farms and ID. If we want IM and IHT as well as more commercial demand (so we can begin on our CBD to the south) we need to have high education. To get the most out of your education system you have to understand how the game works. Different education structures provide different amounts of education to different age groups. In a young city with no health coverage, there will be many young sims. This means that we need an elementary school. Right now, a HS or college will do us no good as there are not enough older sims living here to take advantage of them. One thing you can add at this point is a library. Libraries affect nearly all age groups the same by providing a bonus to EQ at every age level. Not only that libraries are cheap. Unfortunately, education does not come without a price. Please note, that I am using the Large Elementary School which is unlocked as a reward. By now your city should be big enough to have unlocked it . If you have not unlocked it yet, then keep expanding until you do: Another thing to think about when placing schools is coverage. Make sure that most of your sims are covered by your schools and libraries. We dont need to cover everyone just most of them for now. For the moment we only need 2 sets to get the best coverage: By now you may be worrying about the high cost of the school system. Not to fret! Using the query tool click on one of the schools. You will see that there are two sliders here, one for staff funding and the other for bus funding. For now our bus coverage is acceptable. It is the staff funding we want to reduce. Slide the bar to the left until the total student capacity is reduced to a number that matches the current usage (if current usage is 0 then let the simulation run for a month or two). Then add about 200 for wiggle room. Do this for the libraries and other schools and now we are making money yet again: Now we need some direction. Lets look at our demand graph. AH HA! The education system is already at work. Now we are starting to see some Industrial Manufacturing (IM) demand: So to satisfy that demand we go back to Powerton. When we arrive the first thing we should do (for any city) is check our graphs. By now we may need to add another power plant and possibly another incinerator. If you are using the 0 funding technique for the incinerator then make sure to reset the power funding levels on all new utilities that get plopped. Another interesting concept to mention here is the idea of industrial parcelization. Most of the time when you zone industry it does not make those little boxes with arrows (parcels). This lets the industry grow randomly and can create a lot of litle 1x1 industry buildings. To encourage big industry to grow we need to parcelize the zones. We do this by holding down the CTRL key when we zone. Holding down CTRL and ALT will cause the zone to face in a different direction (for instances when zoning on a corner). Just experiment and you will eventually see what I mean. For more information on Industrial parcelization see StarrDarcy's thread on the subject: And now we have our big industry moving in: And our first IM building! Back in Suburbia we do what we do best; EXPAND! This is a good time to relax and enjoy the music. Be creative, have fun and make interesting neighborhoods. We want to take our time here because the education system we just put in is going to take a while to get up to speed. After a while we will see that more and more manufacturing demand is comming our way: It seems that back in powerton we have quite a few big industries popping in and all of our parcels are filling up nicely: So guess what? We expand some more and keep expanding until we have 0 industrial demand: I want to point out that water pollution is a real issue in an industrial city. Notice that no matter how much I expand I do not put industry any where near my water pumps. Industry can cause quite a bit of water pollution and even at this distance it looks pretty bad: So I suggest adding a bunch of trees (with god mode if you like) just to be safe. The reason we do this is to prevent our needing a water treatment plant which happens to be very expensive. So long as the query tool says that the water pollution is acceptable then we are good to go. Meanwhile, back in Suburbia: our education is on the rise: Hmmm, whats this? Industrial High Tech Demand along with IM! Our schools are doing very well! Also take note of the ID demand. It is in the negative. This is because all of the ID workers are starting to get an education and are looking for jobs in IM . Are we starting to see how the whole education/demand thing works? And just to keep on track we are doing very well on income: Now that we have some IHT demand it is important to go back to powerton and start manipulating the taxes. In powerton we want a strong IM labor market NOT IHT. If IHT starts moving in then the pollution will cause them to abandon and we are left with a bunch of buildings that have nothing in them. So to prevent IHT from moving into powerton we set IHT taxes to 20%, and while we are here we might as well relieve some more IM demand: OK, Back to Suburbia (getting dizzy yet?). Things in our little burb are looking good and income is high. Now is the time to start thinking about health care. Not all sims in a population of any city will be old enough to work. With poor health care the average age of the city will be low and people will die off before they have a chance to retire. To help increase the number of sims in our city that are of working age we need good health care. In other words a city of 10,000 sims and low health care will have fewer workers and lower demand than a city of 10,000 sims and high health care. So here is the cycle of things with health care: better health means a higher percentage of workers in a given population. More workers means more demand for jobs. More jobs means more demand for workers and thus higher population. The cycle continues and grows and that is how we build a region. Our city so far will need 2 hospitals for best coverage. Again, manipulate funding of the hospitals to ensure that our expenses remain below our income. Another important aspect of the game which needs to be addressed at this time is that of Demand Caps. Demand Caps are a whole article unto themselves so I will only discuss them briefely here. When a population gets to a certain size the game has a cap which forces the demand to drop and no more of that developer type will grow. If demand cap relief is provided the cap is raised and more of that developer can come into the city. The initial demand cap for R$ is set to 2000. We are getting very close to that now so we need some relief or else our city growth will stall. The best relief for residential is parks. The large flower garden and the large plaza provide the best demand cap relief. Thats right, plazas provide demand cap relief for residential not commercial. commercial gets demand cap relief from neighbor connections and airports. One of each park should give us about 16,000 demand cap relief for all wealth levels. Our next concern is commercial development. Our sims are getting more educated and are starting to demand more commerce. Zone your commerce along your main roads and let the sims build to their hearts content: Another thing we can do while we are here in suburbia is to start providing for some of that IHT demand we have been saving up. IHT is nearly pollution free and has the same desirability requirements that residential does. We can very easily build a small IHT district right here in the city which will help by reducing commute times for the those people on the west side. Before we start to zone, however, we must set taxes for ID and IM to 20% each or we might get a few stray IM buildings in the mix which can really screw us up (because of pollution). OK, great, our city is off and running. By now we need to check on our education levels and by the looks of it, education is starting to level off. This could be due to many things such as abandonment or it could be due to our population getting older. When a residential building abandons and new sims move in all of their statistics are reset to 0. this means 0 EQ and 0 HQ. So when we have lots of abandonment (common in a new city) the average education and health will seem to stagnate or fall. At this point in our city's evolution stability will be difficult. To address the issue of our population getting older we can simply add a High School. One HS should be sufficient for our small town: All of our primary services are now provided for and everything is going according to plan. Now we just keep expanding and growing our population. Add a new set of schools to cover any new development. Keep a close watch on power, water, garbage, demand and jobs. Remember that when adding new residents to the city our average education and health will seem to stagnate or fall. Give the game a few years to allow the new population to get up to speed before making any rash judgements. Now that suburbia is starting to stabilize lets check in on powerton one more time. It seems that even with extra power plants, incinerators, and lots of water pumps we are making quite a profit: Before we end this chapter there is one last concept to cover: mass transit. Our region is growing quite a bit now and the people on the west side of suburbia have quite a trek in the morning to get to the east side of powerton. Our first and best option at this point is bus stops: Once we put in bus stops in powerton we must let the simulation run for about a month or two to let the game realize what is there. When you start to see some busses on the roads then you should be ok to save, exit, and go back to Suburbia to set up some bus stations there. There are many guides, FAQs and topics about mass tranist already on the forums so I will try to make this brief. Mass transit needs at least two stations to work; one in a residential area, and one in a job area (commercial or industrial). Try to have stations no more than 12 tiles from each other as sims are too lazy to walk more than 6 or so to get to them. Don't expect to make a profit off of mass transit in a suburb. The population density is not high enough for it. When we start getting into medium density and more that is when we will start to see profit in mass transit systems. For now, our mass transit system is here to help reduce commute times and help stabilize the city. As we end this chapter on making money I want to show a few graphs about where we are. We are starting to see more commercial, IM and IHT demand, our education is steadily rising, our R$ population is looking healthy, and above all we are MAKING MONEY! At this point you can start to decorate your city. Parks are more than just eye candy. They provide much needed residential demand cap relief. Don't go overboard though since you will have to pay for it all. also, your population should be stabilizing which means that while you decorate your education should be increasing steadily. In Chapter 3 we will start to focus on commerical development, IHT growth, and try to build up some more neighbors to help our regional demand. CHAPTER 3: Commercial Development and High Density Zoning Please PM soldyne if you have any questions about this article. So far in this guide we have taken a new region, untouched by human actions, and built a quaint little burg of single family residences supported by heavy industry and corner grocers. The region is starting to become a rather popular place though, and the mayor (that's us) has high hopes for high rises. In this chapter we will be exploring the more advanced aspects of city building where we start to attract tall buildings, crowded populations and advanced technologies. The only way to get our Central Business District up and running is to build a healthy supporting region. There are two main reasons why we need a large, stable region: increased demand, and stage caps. We have already discussed demand and all the intricate ways in which it is influenced including health and education. One thing about demand which is important enough to mention again is how each developer type influences demand of the others. Demand influence is a big circle; a resident from a certain wealth level and education level will demand a certain percentage of both commercial and industrial type jobs. Even though this one resident will only work at one of these jobs he will still create demand for both. When we zone for both types we will get businesses to move in to fill the demand. when the businesses (comm and ind) move in they in turn generate their own demand for more workers of a particular type. So, to fill this demand we zone more residential and the cycle continues. This is how the simulator is designed and this is how we build our region. I call it the "Leap Frog Effect". This is also why a new city is so hard to get started because we have so few workers and jobs generating such a little amount of demand. It is difficult to start but once the demand ball gets rolling it will be hard to stop. Knowing this important bit of info is integral in controlling how your region will develop. If you want your city to develop in a certain way then you must affect your residents with varying civic services (health levels, education levels, wealth levels) to generate the right kind of demand in other areas. For instance high and medium wealth citizens of high education will create more demand for CO$ and CO$ (for our CBD) where as low education and low wealth will demand more CS$ and ID. The Prima Guide for SimCity 4 actually has a very nice chart which details the relationships between wealth levels, education levels and demand generation by developer type. Get this guide if you don't have it already and get to know this table very well. The next concept to understand is that of stage caps. Don't confuse stage caps with demand caps. Demand caps will limit the growth of your population overall within a single city. These can be increased by placing rewards, parks, making neighbor connections and just doing what it is you are supposed to do anyway to make a city healthy and stable. Where a demand cap is related to population size within a city, a stage cap is realted to building size within a region. stage caps are a way for the game to limit the size of your buildings and is directly related to your population size and so is limited by demand caps as well. In other words, to get skyscrappers you need to have a very large population. The game will not allow (without cheating) high rises in a region of 30,000 people, it just wont happen. The good news is, that your total region population counts toward the stage caps in every city in that region. If you have a region with 1 million people and start a new map you can easily start zoning with high density and get skyscrappers right away (so long as you have the right kind of demand, desirability and utilities). There are 8 building stages. Low density zoning will allow for stages 1-3. Medium density zoning will allow for stages 1-5 and high density zoning will allow for all stage sizes (6-8 being your sky scrappers). Tto even start thinking about stage 6-8 buildings we need a population of at least 100,000 sims. So you have 100,000 sims in your region and still don't have a sky scrapper jungle? This is because you can only have a certain percentage of your buildings in each stage level. The percentage of level 1-3 buildings is much higher than larger buildings in a small city. when the population grows the percentages shift toward the taller buildings. Even with 100,000 sims you might only be allowed to have 1-2% of your buildings as stage 6 buildings but still not be allowed stage 7 or 8. So for every 100 buildings only 1-2 of them are allowed to be stage 6 (as an example). As the population increases the percentages for taller buildings increase. If you want a large high rise forest then you are going to need at least a 500,000 or higher population and even then most of your buildings will still be in the 5-6 range. The good news is that once sky scrappers start showing up they come with quite a bit of capacity. A high rise may have as many as 1000-2000 people in it, all of which will create demand for more jobs which in turn create demand for more residents. Best of all, each new skyscrapper that builds adds its large population to your overall region total. So, you can easily see that once a region starts growing it can be very easy to keep it growing. The biggest problem then is to make sure it does not grow out of hand or collapse under its own weight. but, I am getting ahead of myself. Back in Fairview we still have a small region size. Our overall goal in all of this (other than making a profit) is to build a CBD on the north riverbank (to the south of suburbia). But to do this we will need a much higher population. So our current goal is to attract more people. The best way to attract more people is to ensure that our commercial and industrial demands are always satisfied (near zero). If we have demand for either of these types then we must zone more area for them to develop. We can also spend some time zoning for more residential, but, keep in mind that the more residential you zone for the more unemployment you will have. Here is what I have done with suburbia to finish it off. I added some high class citizens to help increase our CO$ and CS$ demand and I added more suburbs to help bolster the overall population. Fariview is actually a rather small region with many small maps. This will make it difficult for us to satisfy our demand in the surrounding areas. Remember though that a true artist will not see obstacles, only opportunities! Use what you have here and use all the information from the previous chapters and other guides out there to start expanding the region around suburbia. I have chosen to satisfy IHT demand by building Industrial parks to the west. One thing to remember here is that power can only be be bought or sold, not both. This means that each new city you start must also be touching a power producing city or produce its own power. This can be good if you want to start a new ID or IM city, but with a res, comm, or IHT city it can get a little hairy. Do your best and use your imagination but try to use the techniques you have learned up to this point to keep each new city in the black and making a profit. With IHT taken care of we can start concentrating on increasing population. Gridburg to the south west of suburbia will be our first attempt at a more urban landscape. We will give this area a more gridded and planned feel with the road layout and zone all of our areas ahead of time. Here we are going to start right off with medium density. our region population is big enough right now to afford us a decent number of stage 4 or 5 buildings. We are lucky that the city just to the west of gridburg is just big enough to provide for one power plant and one incinerator to get us up and running. Once we get some power and water into our city we can let the simulator loose and see what happens. With our region population and neighbor demand feeding our city we are blessed with an inundation of 27,000 people in just under 6 years! This is the effect of region play; new city to urban sprawl in the blink of an eye (don't you just love popcorn?). Don't forget to allow room for education and health. in a city with medium density you will start to have a problem with overcrowding in your civic buildings (health care especially). if you have overcrowding just build another building of the same type in the area. the load will be spread nearly evenly between the multiple buildings. You can also experiment with the bus/ambulance radius funding. A smaller radius will be responsible for less people. A good tactic for urban areas is to have many civic buildings with a $0 bus/ambulance funding level. This will allow the service to concentrate on a small area and allow you to create small neighborhoods and reduce overcrowding. It can also be a great money saver! One of the problems with larger buildings is that they tend to eat up a lot of power and make a lot of trash. The good news is that with 27,000 R$ and R$ in the city we qualify for a solar plant! the solar plant allows us to produce home grown power with no pollution. This is what I like to think of as a tactical use of reward buildings. At this point we can start planning our CBD (finaly!). Here we are also going to want a grid layout but with more avenues. Remember this will be a true CBD meaning that it will have no residential or commercial buildings at all. We are going to have a lot of traffic comming into the city so we need to plan mass transit and roads ahead of time. To save money we will only build avenues in one direction and roads in the other. this will help reduce maintenance costs overall and will give us a guidline when we zone. We will lay out our zones facing along the avenues and leave the roads as though they were alleyways between the buildings which will give our CBD a more NYC look and feel (IMHO). Of course, this part is all about design which is up to you. but, it is important to think about mass transit and your road layout before the developers start building. Once you get high rises in there it will not be very easy or cheap to upgrade roads to avenues. Another problem we have is that we dont have a small city next to our CBD in which we can build a power town. We do have an empty city to the east but this would be better served as another medium/high density res city to help increase population and demand. So, how do we handle power and trash? Power is easy. Remember that gridburg won the right to build solar power plants. these plants will produce enough energy for the city and plenty left over to sell to the CBD. the CBD will have power and gridburg will have extra money to pay for the upkeep. The trash however, will be more complicated. We will need to export the trash from Downtown to its neighbors. the neighbors then need to export that same trash to either another neighbor or a trash town. By now we have two or three trash towns, so the difficulty will be in getting the right amount of trash exported to the right place before it piles up and starts driving people away. in addition to avenues and roads we will want to have some mass transit here. With the kind of large population we are expecting we are going to need something more than just bus stops. Rush Hour offers many forms of mass transit, but, subway is (IMHO) the best choice. it takes up very little space on the surface (stations mostly), it is the second fastest form of transportation (monorail being fastest) and is the easiest to lay out (you can have 90 degree intersections with subway, all the other mass transit forms need gentle sloping curves which take up more space). Maintenance is not that bad on subway but the initial cost is the killer. When layout out your new zones and networks leave ample space for mass transit stations. also remember to go back to your residential cities and add subway and bus stops there too. At first only connect a few subway stations up and wait for the simulator catch up. also, make sure not to overspend. Ensure you are still making a profit and let the bank account build for a bit before finishing your subway masterpiece. At this point in the game our CBD will be quite small and sickly. We dont have nearly enough demand or population to have the kind of city we want. Our next step is to do what we have been doing from start; expand, grow, and develop. Increase you population and raise your demand and stage caps. Here is how I expanded my region and started to get high rises (stage 6 buildings). I built another residential town to the east of the CBD and built some more industrial areas to the east of that. I then expanded to the south bank of the river and started building on the south side. Here is waffleton. 53,000 sims in just under 13 years. As always profit is a standard. South Ville is directly south of downtown across the river. it was very difficult to connect this city to downtown via the bridge. it took some fancy terrain modification to make things work out, but I got it and now this city is growing like crazy; 67,000 sims in 11 game years! Also, notice that I am now starting to get stage 6 buildings for my residential population. Just one step closer to our CBD! Finally we go back to our Downtown CBD and we can see that demand and stage caps are working in our favor. the CBD is building up just as planned but we are still not seeing many large buildings. this is just a matter of not having enough commercial population in the region, and, by now, we should all know what to do about that; expand, expand, expand! One last thing you should know is that demand is only shared between cities if there is a land connection between them. this means that for city A to share its demand with City B there must be a road, highway or avenue connection between them. Ferries will not work, nor will airports. I am not sure if subways, rail or monorail will work, but you can experiment with this if you like. road connections are not only important for commercial and industrial demand cap relief but they are also vital to the concept of regional demand. This particular region is not the best for developing huge CBDs. it was merely chosen to be a quick easy tutorial region. once you are confident that you have learned all the lessons presented in this guide feel free to try larger regions or even design your own. the more space you have for building the easier it will be to get he megalopolis of your dreams. There is really nothing more I can teach you at this point. - You know about the demand cycle and how education, health, and developer types influence demand. - You know about stage caps and region population. - You know about buying and selling resources and why its important to keep pollution away from the populace. - You know about demand caps and how to increase them; parks for residential, connections for commercial and industrial. - You know how to manipulate funding for utilities and civic buildings and why it is important and how it affects your bottom line. - You know the basics of mass transit and why it is important to plan for the future right from the start. - You how to start small, build slowly, make short and long term goals. - You know why it is important to keep your demand satisfied as much as possible and how to influence your employment rates using health and education. - You know how to manipulate developer types and wealth levels with zone sizes and tax manipulation. - Best of all, you now know how to Make Money The Easy Way! Good luck and keep playing and experimenting. you can always contact me through a PM or start a thread in the forums for a public discussion about my guide. If you have a good question then I am sure there are many others who can benefit from its answer.

Links to other parts of this tutorial: part1, part 3, part 4 Finite Details - Foundations, Decorations, and Overhangs: So now we have a pretty basic building with windows and doors. Looking better, but not complete yet, huh? The first thing we're going to want to add to this building is a foundation, or, well, the illusion of one. It's been my experience that most commercial buildings have concrete slab foundations, so there is no need to raise the building into the air. Instead, we're simply going to put a base around the bottom to simulate building decorations I've seen quite a bit in real life. To start with, make sure you are on the Create tab, then click on the "Geometry" button. Next, you'll need to click the "Box" button. The difference between geometry and splines is that splines are two-dimensional (flat) shapes, while geometry are three-dimensional shapes. In the left view, create a box of any size (just like you created a rectangle, but instead of just dragging the box, you'll now also have to move the mouse back and forth to give it some depth - pay attention to your front, top, and perspective views to see when you've accomplished this). Good, but "Houston, we have a problem." Now we've got a nice little box (or nice big box, depending upon how large you made yours). It's also probably not in the correct place. Welp, we're going to fix that. NOTE: This is one of those shapes where gmax doesn't move it based on the center. Instead, gmax will move it based on the "top" (the initial rectangle you created for the end). Just like the Extrude Modifier, you can reverse the direction of this box by making the height negative. To make something that will show up well in SC4, but isn't overwhelmingly huge, change the parameters of the box like shown. Because this box was created in the left view (and gmax recognizes the initial rectangle you made as the "top"), the length is top to bottom, the width is front to back, and the height is side to side (in the 3d world). How did I arrive at 7.25 for the height? Simple (do you still have that notepad file open?). We don't want the foundation to cross in front of the door because it would partially block it, and I'd be willing to bet that would violate some Sim City Fire Codes. To remedy this, we'll need to figure out the distance from the edge of the doorway to the end of the wall. The door itself is 2.5 meters wide, and the wall it sits in is 16 meters wide. Subtract the width of the door from the width of the wall and divide by two. 16 (wall) - 2.5 (doorway) = 13.5 / 2 = 6.75 We're not finished with the math yet. Since this foundation decoration is going to go all the way around the building, and we don't want unsightly corners (and to save a little bit of hairy fixing later), we also need it to let it stick off the end half a meter. (The box is centered within the wall, so half of it is sticking out the front. Since the box is 1 meter thick, it will protrude 0.5 meters from the wall.) Because we're going to place it exactly even with the edge of the doorway, we're going to need to add half a meter to the length of the box so that it sticks off the end 0.5 meters. 6.75 (distance from edge of doorway to edge of wall) + 0.5 (how much it'll stick out) = 7.25 The X, Y, and Z were pretty easy to figure out. The wall is sitting exactly on the X axis and protrudes back into the building, and we want the box centered within the wall, so we make Y = 0 (remember, this will be moving it front to back, so we change Y). We also want the box sitting exactly even with the edge of the doorway, which is 2.5 meters wide. Because the door is centered on a wall that is also centered (it's midpoint is sitting on the origin), then we take half the width of the door (1.25) and make it negative because it's to the left of the origin. Last, the box will need to sit on the ground, and it's half a meter thick, so Z will be half of the length, or 0.25. Confused yet? Didn't know all that figuring went into making those boxes around the base of the building, did ya? (If you're still confused, re-read the Quick Guides to Geometry on the Getting Started page.) If you need to, for now, just make the settings like I show you. It's sometimes difficult for people to grasp geometry in the 3d world (I know it took a while for me to catch on at first), but with time it will become second nature. Rename the box "Foundation - Decoration". To save a heck of a lot of math, simply clone your box, change X to equal 1.25 (that'll put the "top" of the box on the exact opposite side), and change the height to -7.25 to reverse its direction. To continue the box around the building, clone "Foundation - Decoration" (not the copy of it you made - trust me). To put it on the side wall, we'll first need to rotate it. Notice when you first use choose the "Select and Rotate" button that gmax shows the Z rotation as -90? To rotate it 90 degrees more, we'd type 180 in the Z rotation box (I just typed "180" and the BAT changed it to negative - but either way you type it in you'll get the same results). As we need to put this box on the wall, centered within it (just like the decoration on the front), hit the "Select and Move" button, then make X the same as the X for the left wall (-8.0). Finally, because the wall is 32 meters long, you'd change the height to 32 meters so it goes from the front edge of the side wall to the back edge. This next one is very simple. Clone "Foundation - Decoration02" and (using "Select and Move") make X = 8.0 to place it on the right wall. To put the foundation on the back wall, clone "Foundation - Decoration" first and make it's Y = 32 (the same as Y for the back wall). Now, do the same with "Foundation - Decoration01". You now have the picture above. See that unsightly gap between the edge of the doorway and the start of the foundation? We are going to fix that, but it'll take a little explaining. To fix it, first we'll need to make the boxes the correct length. You could go through all the math like we did for the front wall, but I'm so lazy that I don't want to go through all of that again. Instead, do this: We already know the back door is 1 meter narrower than the front door. To put the "tops" of the boxes in the correct place, we'll just need to subtract half that distance from X. 1.25 - 0.5 = 0.75 (remember that for one side X is negative) Since we're moving the "tops" of the boxes in by half a meter inward, we need to add half a meter to the height. 7.25 + 0.5 = 7.75 (remember that for one side the height is negative) Viola! We now have our foundation in place. Take a serious breather now - I don't know about y'all, but my wee little brain is a bit fried... Ok, break over. Didn't think I was going to let you sit there and do nothing forever, did you? At any rate, next we will be creating the overhangs on the roof. Don't worry, this'll be far easier than the foundation. The first thing you're going to want to do is clone the foundation piece on the left wall. Be sure to rename the copy "Roof - Overhang". To place it on top of the wall, use a Z move of 5.25 (we're simply moving it up 5 meters to place it on top of the wall). Clone the new piece, and change X to equal 8.0 (this places it on the exact opposite wall). Next, we'll need to make the piece for the front wall. Do this by cloning "Roof - Overhang01" and Z rotate it by -90 (rotating it by 90 will make it turn the other way). Notice how it doesn't line up on the right-hand side and how it's way too long for the left? That's a pretty easy fix. First, change the height to 17. Why 17 you ask? The front wall is 16 meters long, and we need this piece to overhang by 0.5 meters on each side. 16 + 0.5 + 0.5 = 17. Next, you'll need to change X to 8.5 to place the end of the box even with the overhang on the right wall. It's 8.5 because half of the wall's length plus the 0.5 meter overhang is 8.5 (refer to earlier explanations if you're having difficulty understanding this point). Now that you have perfect placement for the front overhang, clone it and change Y to equal 32. This places it on the back wall. See, that wasn't so hard, was it? You know, now that I look, our front and back doors look a little plain. Let's do something about that, shall we? Most commercial buildings have an overhang of some sort over all of their doors. BAT Tutorial, Inc will be no different. I think a nice, rounded overhang for the front door, and a simple, flat overhang for the back door. First thing's first, select "Wall - Front" and hide unselected. That way, all that other junk won't be getting in our way. Turn 3d Snap on and make doubly sure that you have the Grid and Snap Settings set to Vertex. Next, on the Create Tab and Splines Button, pick "Arc". Just to forwarn you, this will get a little bit tedious, but I think you should have enough basic knowledge to get into something a little more advanced. I guess Emeril would say we're going to "kick it up a notch - BAM!" In the front view, snap the arc on the top two vertices of the door frame. Notice that arc is different than creating a line, instead of only clicking the vertices you want to add, you need to click and drag. Once you have the mouse button released and the line created, move the pointer up and down to see how the "curve" gets into the arc. We're not looking to make anything huge, so move the pointer until the arc is just about like I have it and left-click to finish it. NOTE: If something doesn't turn out exactly the way you want it to, or you accidentally do something you didn't intend to do, Edit >Undo (or keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Z) can save you. There is a limit to how many times you can "undo", but as long as you catch a mistake early enough, it can save you from redoing something all over again. Undo is my absolute best friend! Next, change the radius of the arc to 2.5 to give it the desired width. You do not have to worry about the "From" and "To" boxes (this is similar to a slice operation, but I'll explain that later). This will make the arc move upwards. The reason for this is because the arc is a almost like a sliced section of a circle, and when you increase the radius of the circle, it moves the edges outward from the center (I'll get into all of that sometime later). The arc is too high on the wall to make a proper overhang, so we'll move it down by doing a Z move to 1.5 (you're actually moving the center of the circle down, but that's not really important right now). Now, make a cloned copy (do not make an instance) of the first arc and Z move it to 1.8. Make sure 3d Snap is still on and snap a line onto the ends of both arcs. Remember that when creating lines you only click where you want gmax to put the vertices. Also, don't forget it will let you click forever, so hit "Esc" after you've placed the second vertex. Move over to the other side and repeat. Just like we did when we attached window openings and doorways to the wall, place an Edit Spline modifier on one of the arcs and attach the lines and other arc. They will now become one object. Now, you'd put an extrude modifier on it and change the extrude amount to 3.0. What the...??!!?? Just what in the heck happened there? Welp, good thing for y'all that I know how to fix it! First thing's first, right-click on the Extrude Modifier in the Modifier List and pick Delete. Now, I can tell you what happened. Whenever you create an object like this and simply attach the splines together, gmax will only extrude the faces. This is because gmax doesn't see it as a solid object, but instead a series of faces more or less grouped together. To fix this, we'll have to Weld the vertices together to create a solid object to extrude. Don't worry, it's not as difficult as it sounds. First of all, change your selection method to "Vertex" in the Edit Spline rollout. Next, make sure that you have "Select" turned on and not "Select and Move" or "Select and Rotate", and drag a box over one of the corners on your shape. You can't see it here, but you are actually selecting two vertices (the vertices will show with those funny green boxes attached to them). Now, down in the Geometry rollout (where the Attach button is) hit the "Weld" button. When that's done, the little box down by the X, Y, and Z boxes will say something like above. You'd then repeat this operation for the other four corners (the vertices where you snapped the line). Notice that each time you do that, the "out of x welded" number will change. That is because you created one vertex out of two, thus reducing the total number. Now you can put your Extrude Modifier on the object and change the amount to 3.0. Rename the object "Overhang - Front". Whew, that was a lot of work, but now we've got a nice-looking rounded overhang to go over the front doorway. It looks kinda strange just hanging there in the air holding itself up, doesn't it? We'll take care of that now, and believe me, it's much simpler than making the overhang! Create a cylinder in the top view (create tab >geometry button >cylinder) of any size. Don't forget that since this is 3d geometry, you not only have to create the circle, but you also have to give it depth, so pay attention to your other views. Move the cylinder to the approximate place that I show it (doesn't really have to be exact) and change the properties as shown. I really only changed the radius and height, but look in the front view to make sure the cylinder actually sticks into the overhang a little. Rename the cylinder "Overhang - Support Front Lg". I don't think it would look quite right having just a plain 'ol pole sticking into the ground, so to give it the "illusion" of having more detail than it actually will, clone your cylinder (make a copy and not an instance) and change the parameters like shown. This will put a base on the pole. Rename the small cylinder "Overhang - Support Front Sm". At this point, group the two cylinders and name the group "Overhang - Support Front", create a clone, and X move (change the value in the X box) to be the positive of the number currently there (for mine it was -1.445, but yours may be slightly different). That will put a new column exactly on the opposite side. Now would be a good time to save again. Finite Details Continued The back door also needs some sort of overhang, but it's going to be a little simpler than the front. First and foremost, switch the top view to back (right-click where it says "Front" and go to Views >Back) and it wouldn't be a bad idea to use the "Arc Rotate" to move the perspective view around to the rear. This isn't absolutely necessary, but it does help when you're doing a lot of modeling around the back of a building. You may now want to hit the "Zoom Extents All Selected" button to re-center and zoom all views on your rear wall. Now, you'll want to turn 3d Snap off (it can get very complicated if you have the object snapping to all sorts of wierd verticies). Create a box of any size in the top view, and change it's parameters as shown. Next, you'll want to make sure that X is 0 (centers it on the door), Y is 32.7 (puts part of the rectangle in the wall a bit) and Z is 3.6 (puts the overhang above the door). Rename the box "Overhang - Rear". Looks a little plain, don't it? We'll fix that. First, turn 3d snap back on, and snap a line on the top of the box (notice you will only snap the line onto the two sides and the front - it'd look a little strange with the line showing on the back too). Don't forget to add an edit mesh modifier or this line won't show in the final render. Rename the line "Overhang - Rear Decoration". Now, clone your line and move it down until it lines up with the bottom face of the box (pretty easy when it's only got four sides). Still in the top view, create a cylinder of any size and change its parameters as shown (you could reduce the number of sides if you wanted, but its not really important for this). Line it up with the overhang (I didn't change X and Y, I simply moved the cylinder into a place that looked about right), but do a Z move to 3.8 (makes it stick out of the top of the overhang). Rename the cylinder "Overhang - Rear Support". It's supposed to be a support, but it really won't support much just sticking straight up in the air, will it? We'll need to rotate the cylinder so that it sticks into the wall. Make sure you pick "Select and Rotate", and do an X rotation of 50 (rotates it clockwise 50 degrees). Perfect! Now, just clone the cylinder, be sure to switch back to "Select and Move", and change the value for X from negative to positive (to place it exactly on the opposite side). Whew! I'll bet you didn't think that all of that went into some of the detailing, did ya? Don't worry, if you need to take a break, by all means do so! Minute Details Roof Junk and Whatever Else Comes to Mind Let's take a minute to review. You should now know how to create a wall, with the appropriate openings, using extruded splines. You should also know how to create windows, doors, their appropriate frames, and add some detailing to a building. It's starting to look more like an actual building, but there are some very important things missing. Whenever I get to this point, I try to think of things that a building like this might have. Roof junk like HVAC units (stands for "Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning" or "High Volume Air Conditioning"), ducting, and piping is the first thing that comes to mind. Since the perspective in SC4 shows more of the roof than anything else, roof junk is critical to a realistic building. This doesn't mean that should be your only focus, however. Other things like corner decorations, window sills, light fixtures, electric meters, and pavement (under the overhangs) can also lend themselves greatly to creating the perfect building. Remember at all times that the motto of Vu Industries Construction Division is "Details, details, details." The more you add to a building, the better it will look in game. There does become a point where the detail is too small, but you'll learn where those limits are the more experience you gain with the BAT/gmax. Since the roof junk is the most critical, we'll start with that. I'm going to start by making a simple HVAC unit. Because it will be easier to model this whole thing "on the ground", hide everything before you start. In the top view, create a box of any size and adjust the parameters as shown. Next, move it to be exactly in the center by adjusting X, Y, and Z just like so. At this point, "Zoom Extents All Selected" can come in very handy. Rename this box "Roof Junk - HVAC Base". Now that we've got a solid base, we're going to need somewhere to put all the "mechanicals" this HVAC unit will need. Still in the top view, create another box and adjust its parameters as shown. Since we want this box to sit on top of the other one, we'd adjust X and Y to 0 and Z to 0.25 (the base will stick into the box a little). The reason why X, Y, and Z are so easy here is because we created the box in the top view, so gmax looks at the bottom of the box (the initial rectangle) as the "top" and uses it to establish where the coordinates put something. Rename the box "Roof Junk - HVAC Mechanical". I believe it's absolutely critical that you understand why gmax moves objects around the way it does. It can save a lot of guesswork for you later if you understand these concepts (making it easier to manipulate objects in 3d space and save on modeling time). If you don't get it right now, don't fret about it too much. Once you've modeled for awhile and re-examine the movement system, you will really understand why everything does what it does. Ok, enough of my preaching. *Puts soapbox away.* On with the tutorial! So now we have a nice HVAC box, but that wouldn't look very good in the game, now would it? Next, we'll need to add vents to the front. In the top view, create a cylinder and adjust it's parameters like so. Notice that I checked "Slice On" and made it "Slice From" 0 and "Slice To" 180? What this does is tell gmax to cut the cylinder in half. The "Slice From" and "Slice To" fields are degrees on a circle. See the diagram below. You'd also want to move it to the X, Y, and Z shown to put it exactly on the front of the mechanical box. NOTE: If you uncheck the "Smooth" box, then gmax will show the individual planes that make up the faces of the cylinder. With that box checked, gmax attempts to smooth out the surface. It is not able to do that when its given too few faces, however. If you have a complete cylinder (no slicing done), 18 sides is the minimum to show a completely smooth side - at least from my experience. Anything less than 18 and the sides start to look a little flattened. I wouldn't add too much more than 18, however, as the more you add, the more to texture later (and it will increase the export time). Rename the cylinder "Roof Junk - HVAC Vents". This is basically how gmax assigns the degree increments to the circle (I didn't show all 360 degrees - I'm sure you can fill in the blanks). Keep this in mind, it can become very handy for you later. So, the reason that the slice above worked as it did is because we told gmax to remove everything between 0 and 180 on the circle. Take note that you can enter degrees down to the thousanths (or x.xxx), so you can get pretty darn exact with it. Also, if you wanted to slice from 0 to 270, you could either type it in as "From: 0" and "To: 270" or "From: 0" and "To: -90". I find it a little difficult to keep track of what I'm doing when I put negative degrees in the spots, so I usually stick to the above. This is independent of the view you are in, it's based on the top of the cylinder. You also might notice that when the cylinder is sliced, what's remaining still has 9 sides (see the last picture). Keep that in mind as you're modeling - if you got just the right look for something and slicing it made the object come out all wrong, you'd need to make adjustments to the sides. I know what you're saying now, "Enough of the geometry, let's get on with it!" Alright, alright, don't push... LOL. We've got a good start to an HVAC, but it has no ducting! Well, to take care of this, we'll put some on the back. First, create a cylinder in the left view, and change the parameters like so. Since we're only going to want an "elbow" joint, be sure to slice as shown. This will give you that nice 90 degree angle cut that you want (you could have also sliced with different degrees and simply rotated it - but I believe in keeping everything as simple as possible). Now, make X, Y, and Z like so to put it in a good place. Rename the cylinder "Roof Junk - HVAC Bend Pipe". This next part's gonna get a little tricky, just thought I'd warn you. What I want is a nice elbow joint without being one complete piece (ie - I don't want the whole thing just to look like it is a section of a cylinder). To do this, I'm going to do something that seems impossibly complicated at first, but once you get the gist of it won't seem so difficult (make sure your cylinder has "Cap Segments" of 5). First, apply an edit mesh modifier to your cylinder and make your seletion method "Vertex" in the edit mesh rollout. Next, change your selection method to circle (next to the "Select Object" button on the toolbar, there's the button that looks like a box with dots around it - hold that button down so you can pick the circle) and drag to select the inside two sets of verticies, which will turn red. Now, hit the "Delete" button on your keyboard and gmax will get rid of the verticies and any "faces" that were attached to them. This is how I wanted that pipe to look. NOTE: The bottom and back of this shape is now empty, meaning that if you look behind or below it, you'll just see empty space like it's not even there. That could be fixed, but since you're not going to see it from that angle in the game, there really isn't any point to bother with it (though I will get into fixing things like that on a later page). Since we're going to need two ducts (one for the inward flow, and one for the outward), you'd simply clone your object and X move it like so. The reason it's not simply 0.25 (the first one's X was -0.25) is that gmax is going to move this object based on it's top and not the middle of the object, just like the roof overhangs. So, to move it to the exact opposite side, we'd change X to the opposite of the first X and add the width of the duct, giving us 0.75. Well, now, the HVAC doesn't do us any good if it blows all of the air onto the roof, now does it? To attach your ducting to the building, create a box in the back view (not the top view this time) and change its parameters like shown. To put it underneath the bend pipe, make it's X, Y, and Z thus. Notice how it sticks down below the bottom of the base unit (and will therefore stick into the roof)? Do not worry about that at all, it's perfectly OK for it to do that. Even in a building with all transparent windows, it will not be visible from the view in the game unless its extremely close to the edge of the roof. Rename the box "Roof Junk - HVAC Ducting". To place another duct, clone your existing one and change the X to -0.5. Congratulations! You now have a completed HVAC unit ready for texturing. Before you get too deep in celebration, it would be a good idea to group all of your HVAC pieces (Group menu >Group) and name it "HVAC". Next, unhide all and move the group like shown. The reason I had to group them first is so gmax moved them as a single unit and not individual pieces. If you didn't group them first, then tried a numeric move (typing values in the boxes), then it would have made the X, Y, and Z of each individual object what you typed in - meaning they'd have all been piled on top of one another (and the only thing you'd be able to see in perspective is the larger mechanical box). Definately not what you'd want to happen! There will be more than one HVAC on this building when we're done, but to save some time on the texturing later I'll leave just one there for now. After it's textured, you can clone it or array it. Now would be a good time to save your file. Links to other parts of this tutorial: part1, part 3, part 4

Links to other parts of this tutorial: part2, part 3, part 4 Introduction Everybody was asking for it, so here it is. This is going to be an all-inclusive tutorial on the BAT that will take you from starting the model to getting the lot into SC4. I hope to establish all of the absolute basics you will need to create the building of your dreams, texture it, light it, export it, define the properties in the Plugin Manager, place it on a lot, and seeing it in game. There will be a few of the more advanced features covered, but by and large this will be a basic tutorial for beginners. Below you will find the index of all pages (I divided each section into a different page to save page-load time for all those on dial-up, and to save my sanity when trying to organize this tutorial). This tutorial will cover a Commercial Building, but the lessons learned here could easily carry over to a Residential, Landmark, or even an Industrial Building. I chose Commercial as they are usually boxes, and it would be easier for me to explain to you (and for you to model) a rather simple building. Without further ado, I now present the tutorial. Getting Started (At this point, I am assuming you already have gmax, the BAT, the Plugin Manager, the new Lot Editor, and the SC4 patch installed on your system. If you don't yet, go get them now.) Well, to begin any good tutorial, we'll have to begin at the beginning. In this case, we need to familiarize ourselves with the BAT/gmax. Firstly, open the BAT by double-clicking the "SC4 BAT" icon on your desktop. NOTE: I refer to the "BAT" and "gmax" as interchangeable terms. In reality, gmax is the modeling program, the BAT is simply the pre-made Maxis lighting rigs and export tools (among a few other things). Just remember that if I say "the BAT" or "gmax," I'm referring to the same program. Once you get the BAT to open, take a minute to look at the interface. It's broken down below: Command Panel - you'll be doing most of your creating from here. This is also where the "rollouts" everybody talks about are. I refer to this panel often, but I'll put screenshots to show what I'm talking about. Main Toolbar - extremely useful shortcuts to the menu bar commands. Bottom Bar - the two most useful things here are the X, Y, and Z boxes, as well as the "Snap" button (discussed later). Menu Bar - just about everything within the BAT can be accomplished from here, but many are duplicated in other tool bars. Bottom Bar #2 - all your zoom, rotation, and pan commands are here. Viewports (not numbered) - four different views are shown here. The default is top, front, left, and perspective, but you can customize them to show anything you want them to. If I ever say "start out in the left view", then I mean to use the Left Viewport when creating whatever I'm having you create. Helpful Tips Regarding the Zoom, Pan, etc Controls: Zoom - with this button clicked on, you can left-click in a viewport and, by moving the cursor up and down, zoom in and out. Zoom All - similar to the "Zoom" button, but it zooms all active views at the same time Zoom Extents/Zoom Extents Selected - zooms the view out a fair distance (haven't been able to figure out the difference between the two selections yet--but I'm sure there is one). Zoom Extents All/Zoom Extents All Selected - "Extents All" moves all active viewports out, "Extents All Selected" (when pressed) zooms in on whatever object(s) are selected. Region Zoom - my favorite, allows you to drag a box into one of the viewports--when you let go of the mouse button, the view zooms into and re-centers on the box you created--the box is not an object. Pan - with this button clicked on, you can left-click in a viewport and move the view around. Arc Rotate - very fun to play with; with this button clicked on, you can left-click in the viewport and drag the view around to any angle your heart desires. Min/Max Toggle - very simply, it makes the active viewport large enough to fill the area that all four viewports are currently occupying. NOTE: Any button with a little arrow in the lower right-hand corner (look really closely at the picture above at buttons 3, 4,and 7) means that button has more than one option. If you click and hold the button, gmax will pop a little box above the button giving you all possible choices. Take note that all of the button choices are available, even the currently selected one. Now you're going to want to make sure the units are set up correctly. The BAT does ship with these set up automatically, but it never hurts to make sure. After all, you wouldn't want to spend two days modeling your dream building and then realize the scale is way off, would you? Take note that with these settings, the grid lines that are shown will give you the SC4 scale. In other words, the lighter-colored "blocks" will be 1 meter on each side, and the darker-colored ones will be 16 meters on each side - or one tile in SC4. Customize>Units Setup Ensure "Generic Units" is selected. Customize>Grid and Snap Settings Home Grid>Grid Spacing 1.0 and Major Lines 16. Customize>Preferences System Unit Scale: 1 Unit= 1.0 meters Helpful Tip Regarding the Viewports If you right-click on the viewport name in the upper left-hand corner, it will give you this menu. You don't necessarily need to worry about all the options, but the most important ones I will explain. "Wireframe" is the default view for the Top, Right, Back, and Left viewports. The "Other" option gives you additional display options (I'm not going to explain them all - you can experiment and see what they do). If you uncheck "Show Grid", the grid lines will be hidden - unless you really want to do this I wouldn't recommend it. The "Views" option will let you pick from all of the different available views (the only views you need to concern yourself with at this point are Front, Back, Left, Right, Top and Perspective - but you can choose to see your model from perspective of one of the cameras, or lights, or anything available). The "Configure..." option will take you to the same window as Customize >Viewport Configuration... You can play with that to see what it can do, but it's not really necessary. How To Select Objects (selected objects become highlighted in white) Click on individual objects--using the cursor, click on individual objects in one of the viewports - if you hold down "Ctrl" on your keyboard, then you can click on multiple objects to select them (if you accidentally select something you didn't want to pick, simply click on it again with the "Ctrl" key still held down. Drag Select--hold down the left mouse button in a viewport and drag a box around the object(s) you want to select - when you release the mouse button anything within the box will be selected. Select By Name--press the "H" key on your keyboard (this is know as a "hotkey") and it will give you the "Selected Objects" window (above right)--you can choose to hide things you don't want to see and use standard Windows list selections (discussed below) to pick from the list--notice that you can select by name (type what you're looking for in the blank box above the list), so name everything. Windows Selection Methods "Shift" select - hold down the "Shift" key and either use the arrow keys or cursor to move up/down the list (you must have at least one object already selected in the list) - this is a "sequential" selection "Control" select - hold down the "Ctrl" key and click on names in the list - very useful if you want to select multiple objects that are not listed sequentially. Quick and Dirty Guide to Basic Geometry Part 2 (3d World) This is a rough approximation of the 3 dimensional world. Keep in mind that here, the 2d world (that of the X and Y axes - also known as "the ground") lays completely flat, but it retains the same grid point system. Unlike the 2d world, however, the 3d world also adds the Z axis, which moves up and down above and below the 2d world. This also adds another value to the point system. Anytime you move "up" (above ground), Z is positive. Also, whenever you move "down" (below ground), is negative. So, in this system, if you wanted a point that was 3 spaces to the right, 2 spaces back, and 5 spaces down, you'd represent it like this: (3,2,-5) This is the world you will be dealing with in the Front, Back, Left, Right, and Perspective viewports. Think about it like this: If you wanted to move a wall to the right, 8 meters, you'd make X = 8. If you wanted to move the same wall backward 16 meters, you'd make Y = 16. If you needed to move that very same wall 3 meters into the air, you'd make Z = 3. This example would also be expressed as: (8,16,3) Keep in mind that even though the Front, Back, Left, and Right viewports look like the 2D world, they are in fact a flat representation of the 3d world. Don't worry too terribly much about keeping this completely straight - if you ever get confused, the little X, Y, Z thing in the lower left-hand corner of the viewport will remind you which way the axes are oriented. I hope this didn't confuse anybody, but I think at least this basic understanding of geometry is very important if you want to model in the 3d world. I'll try to explain it the best way I can as we go along, and it'll eventually become second nature to you. NOTE: One tile in SC4 is 16 meters by 16 meters. This means that if you want your building to be a certain size, you will need to keep this in mind. For example, if you want the building to fit one a 2x3 tile, then it would need to be no larger than 30 meters by 46 meters (2 meters subtracted from each side as the Lot Editor does not allow overlap on buildings). Please keep this in mind as you are modelling--nothing is more heart-breaking than exporting your model only to find it's way out of scale. It is possible t scale the entire thing later, but that can become extraordinarily tedious and can be avoided by keeping this in mind at all times. If you zoom out far enough in the viewports, the smaller "blocks" (the 1 meter boxes) will disappear and only show the larger "blocks" (the 16 meter boxes). This is very important to remember because when you first open the BAT, this is how the blocks will show (only the 16 meter boxes will be seen). If you model to the grid like this, you're building will be HUGE. OK, enough preaching. I was in the National Guard at one time, so my motto, like so many in the Infantry, is K.I.S.S. ("Keep It Simple, Stupid"). There is no need to make anything more complex than it has to be, and the simpler I keep something the better for my wee little brain. I refer to this concept often, so just forewarning you! You're now ready to start modelling your building! There have been many tutorials, explaining things in many different ways. It can become confusing. I tend to model with "extruded splines", so that's how I'm going to explain it to you. Hope it doesn't confuse anyone. Before getting started, it's a good idea to sketch out your idea (or, if modelling from a real-life building, make sure to have plenty of pictures and facts about it available). I usually don't sketch anything out as I prefer for my building to grow "organically", but I will at least have a general idea in mind. When I first began modelling, I always kept a notepad file open with the dimensions of everything I modelled. I know, that's very tedious and anal, but it really helps. Trust me, when you get part-way through a building and forgot how large the front windows are, or how wide that loading dock door is, or how tall the building itself is, you'll be kicking yourself for not jotting it down for easy reference. Besides, with more experience, you can always "eyeball" it later. I do NOT recommend eyeballing it when you are first starting out - you might be heartbroken later on when something didn't turn out exactly right (trust me on this - plenty of heartbreak here) and you'll spend a lot of time guessing at things and not actually modelling. Let's get to it, shall we? The building we're going to create, "BAT Tutorial, Inc", is going to fit within a 3x3 lot in SC4. Why 3x3 you ask? Well, because it's my tutorial and I can make whatever I want, and (even better) buildings scaled this size are small enough to be actual businesses without losing the details you're going to be toiling upon - oops, i meant "working on", Vu Industries slipping through there, sorry bout that! Besides, I think 3x3's are perfect for a small business (gives you plenty of room for detailing the lot - like parking lots, which take up an entire tile by themselves). The building itself will be 1 tile wide by 2 tiles deep. This means that it can't be any larger than 16 meters by 32 meters (don't worry, when you start modelling your buildings, you can fudge, and add a little here and there, just remember to not get too carried away or else you'll end up with a 12x12 before you know it!). Do not "model to the grid" (in other words, don't base your building on the grid lines you see when you first open the BAT). When you first open the program, the viewports are zoomed out far enough so that each box is 16 meters square instead of 1 meter. Don't say I didn't warn you. We're going to create the front wall first. To do this, we're going to create a rectangle by clicking the "Splines" button, then clicking the "Rectangle" button. The cursor will turn into a cross-hair when you move into the viewport (gmax is telling you that you can now create a spline). Within the "Front" viewport, click and drag a "box" of any size (do not get all caught up in creating the perfect size right now - it can more easily be changed after creation). Now, gmax will helpfully name it "Rectangle01" and give you the current size in the "Parameters" rollout. Since this building will fit within a 1x2 box in SC4, we'll need to resize it. MaxisBrian suggested that to model buildings with "normal" ceilings to make the walls 4.5 meters tall. Since this will be a business, and most businesses have taller ceilings (not to mention it makes everything nice and even), change the Length to 5 and the Width to 16. Since the settings are correct, any number you type in a box like this is already set to "meters". That's what was meant by "1 Unit = 1.0 meters". NOTE: The BAT will create the object directly on top of whatever axis you're looking directly towards. So, if you are in the "Front" or "Back" viewport, the object will create with it's Y coordinates at 0. If you're in the "Left" or "Right" viewport, then it will created with it's X coordinates at 0. At this point, you will need to rename your object. I have my own particular naming scheme of object type-object name. This way, it's much easier to find by name later (if you're looking for the left wall, you'd go down the list until you find "Wall - Left"). You can also define it's color if you'd like. It's not too terribly important, but it can help the object stand out (and give you an idea of your color scheme for later). This object will be named "Wall - Front". NOTE: I can't stress this enough: NAME EVERYTHING. Even if you don't feel like it, even if it's too hard. For the sake of your own sanity, give everything a name. You'll thank me later when you have literally hundreds and hundreds of named objects to sift through to find that front door frame. To keep everything as simple as possible, it's best to move your rectangle so that it's centered. Select your rectangle (click on it in the "Front" viewport - unless it's already selected), then click on the "Select and Move" button. Now, make X = 0, Y = 0, and Z = 2.5. Whenever you move something around in this manner, it's helpful to remember that this will move the object relative to it's center (with a few exceptions, but I'll mention those if and when it comes to those objects) - meaning that these coordinates put the center of the rectangle at zero on the X and Y axes, and 2.5 meters in the air. Didn't ya just know all that math you learned in school would be good for something one day? Don't worry about the "building needing to be centered on X and Y for export" at this point - it's very simple to do later, and this will make modeling much easier for you. TIP: When you're moving things around, sometimes the objects will get out of view. You can easily re-center the viewports on the selected object by hitting the "Zoom Extents all Selected" button. Now, we're going to create a door. Simply create a rectangle in the front view (since the wall is sitting directly on the X axis, the door is already sitting in the wall) and adjust it's Length and Width like so. The settings for this door are not exactly to scale, but this makes a good-sized doorway for a double-door, or an entrance into a foyer. Notice I didn't change the name or color of the object? I'll explain in more detail later, but trust me, it's not necessary. Now, using the "Select and Move" button and the X, Y, and Z boxes, move the door to X = 0, Y = 0, and Z = 1.8 (this centers your door on the wall and makes it 0.2 meters off the ground - half the door's height plus the 0.2 meters). I trust that you know what that'll look like, so I won't post a screenie. Now, we're going to make windows for this wall. Still in the front view, create another rectangle and set the Length and Width thusly. This one is also probably not to real-world scale, but I think it'll look nice when all's said and done, so there. LOL. (Not to mention the fact that it will make everything much simpler.) This is where the settings for the grid come in really handy. Notice I made the window exactly two meters wide? Using the grid behind it as a reference, click on the "Select and Move" button to line it up with the grid lines like below: Notice how the X and Y arrows have changed? Y will always show as a green arrow, Z as blue, and X as red (unless there's some place I overlooked that lets you change their colors). If you hover the pointer over them, the bar below/beside the point will turn a different color, indicating it's "active". When this happens, you can left-click and hold, then any movement you make will be restricted to that axis. In other words, the way it is now, no matter which way I move the pointer, the object will only move up and down. Very, very useful. This is true regardless of the viewport you're currently in, including "Perspective". What kind of office building would it be with just one window on the front wall? To fill in the remaining space, you'll need to make more windows. There are at least two different ways that I know of. "Array" (the button that looks like a dot with several spheres around it in the Main Toolbar) and "Clone". It's not necessary to array here, as there are so few windows (but I will get into the Array tool sometime later). What you're going to want to do is "Clone" your existing window to create an exact copy. There are two ways to accomplish this. From the Menu Bar, you can go to Edit & Clone (sometimes very useful), but that creates a copy directly on top of the existing shape. The easiest way to make a clone in this example is to hold down the "Shift" key on your keyboard, then drag the rectangle (it helps to use the movement technique described above for this so you don't have to re-align your windows vertically). Take note that there will be the outline of the new object while you move it. When you release the left mouse button, gmax will give you the window below. Don't go and get all click-happy here, you have an important choice to make. If you choose to click the radio button next to "Copy", then the new object will be an exact duplicate of the object selected. If you click the radio button next to "Instance" then it will also be an exact duplicate, but any changes you make to the original also affects all instances (copies) of it. In other words, if later you decided this window should be 1.5 meters wide instead of 2.0, then you only have to change the original and not each and every single one. Extremely useful for a large project. You also have the option to make more than one copy, but I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you really, really want to. Also, if you choose to, you can change the suggested name that gmax gives at this point. After all those decisions are made, simply click "OK" or hit the "Enter" key on your keyboard and your copy is created. Conversely, if you hit "Cancel" or the "Esc" key on your keyboard, the action is cancelled and no copy created. You don't have to make all of the windows copies of the first one. Unlike the real world, it doesn't hurt to make a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy... You can simply clone the last object you placed so you don't have to click and drag all the way over to the other side. Did I mention I'm also lazy? TIP: It might be useful at this point to make a clone of one of the windows and put it off to the side. Since these windows are simple rectangles, you don't absolutely have to, but it will save you from having to create it all over again later on...... I did mention I'm lazy, right? Got it so far? Ready to go on? Good. Now we're getting into the fun stuff. The first thing you're going to want to do is "collapse your object to an editable spline". Huh? What did I say? Don't worry, that blank stare you probably have right now is exactly how I felt the first time I saw that in print. To do that, select the "Wall - Front", go to Modifiers Patch/Spline Editing Edit Spline. The Command Panel will change to this: Whoa! There's a whole lotta stuff there, huh? Don't worry, most of that is not anything you need to concern yourself with (at least, not until you get closer to claiming "expert" status on the BAT). The only two buttons you need to concern yourself with right now are "Attach" and "Attach Mult.". If you click on "Attach", then you can go into one of the viewports with the pointer, which will turn into a funny-looking cross hair with bubbles around it (can't get a screenshot of one, but if you try it you'll definately see what I'm talking about,) when you hover over an object. That can be very useful, but a little tedious. Instead, we're going to click on "Attach Mult.", which gives us the next window: From here, you'd select the splines you want to attach. Notice I didn't pick "Rectangle06"? All that we want to attach to this wall is the windows and doorway. Rectangle06 is the last copy I made of the window and put off to the side. If you attach it, strange things will happen when we get to the next step. - Be sure not to attach it. - Once you have everything selected, click the "Attach" button or hit the "Enter" key on your keyboard. *Poof* The BAT has now made all of your other objects a single object. This is why renaming the windows and doorway was unimportant before. Since they have all now become one object, they will take on the name and color of the spline with the "Edit Spline" modifier on it. At this point it might be wise to rename the extra rectangle as "Windows - Opening". That wall doesn't look very much like a wall, does it? We'll take care of that in the next step. TIP: If you're ever confused as to which direction X, Y, and Z are (they are constants, but in a 3D environment such as this, it's easy to get turned around), the little bugger in the corner of the viewport helps tremendously. It shows you which axis is which in the current view. Take note that is independent of the X, Y, and Z displayed with the "Select and Move" tool - those are dependent on the view that you're in. This is because for "Select and Move", the orientation of X and Y is based on the object and not the real world. A little confusing, I know, but play with it for a few minutes and you'll see what I'm talking about. Now you want to "slap an Extrude Modifier on it." Basically, go to Modifiers, Mesh Editing, Extrude. Surprised you, didn't it? Shocked me when I first saw it, too. No worries, though, all you have to do is change the "Amount" to something more appropriate. To give your walls some "depth", my suggestion is 0.3 - in real-world terms this means that your wall is 0.3 meters thick (or for we Americans who *refuse* to learn the metric system, that would be 0.98 feet - but because I'm lazy we'll just call it 1 foot). I know what you're going to say - "But phillippbo, we're not making a bunker, we're making an office building. Why is it so darn thick?" Simple. In SC4, there are some things that need to be exaggerated or else they don't show very well. Trust me on this one, 0.3 is a minimum for wall thickness. Congratulations! You have now successfully made the front wall with it's appropriate openings. Now, go to File & Save As... and save your model. With all the horror stories I've heard about the BAT, make sure you save it often. It might not be a bad idea to also save several copies (put one on your desktop, on a diskette, or if you have a burner onto a CD-R). This way, if something goes all buggy and your file becomes corrupted, then you don't lose but so much work. I save all of mine in the "gmax/Scenes" folder instead of the "gmax/gamepacks/BAT/scenes" folder. Some people have mentioned that their files have become corrupted saving them in the BAT/scenes folder, and none of mine have yet, but you never can be too careful! Creating Walls B - "Completing the Building" Now that you've got the basics down for creating wall with extruded splines, we need to round out our building. Some people model one complete wall at a time, which is fine if you're modeling after a real-life building. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. This is not how I model, however. I think it's best to get the basic shape down, then add detailing to it later. Alrighty then - are we having fun yet? As you'll recall from before, this is where we left off. We're going to need to make some more walls! I'm going to make the back wall next. You actually have two choices here: create an entirely new wall or clone the existing wall and move it back. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to clone the front wall. Since I already know how far back I'm going to move the wall, I'm not going to use the "Shift/Clone" method. Instead, I'm going to use "Edit > Clone" method. You get the same clone window, but this time it's important to pick "Copy" instead of "Instance". This will become important in a few minutes. Be sure to rename your wall "Wall-Back". To move your wall, we'll use the "Select and Move" button. It is not necessary to select your new wall is it will already be the wall selected. Make Y = 32 and hit "Enter" on your keyboard. Your wall will now be moved back 32 meters. Note: Notice how the grid lines become darker every 16th box? This is one reason it's very important to make sure the settings in the BAT are correct. With it like this, you can easily see the scale of your building because each darker box represents one tile in SC4. (I zoomed out in the top viewport to show you.) See how the front wall extends out from the X axis instead of going behind? This is not too terribly important but to keep with my K.I.S.S. theme, I'll show you an easy way to fix that. First you'll need to select "Wall-Front". Then you'll need to change the Extrude modifier... wait a sec. What? Seems that all of our options are gone. I guess we'll just have to create the wall all over again.... .....unless you want to use the method below: In the Command Panel, click on the "Modifier" tab. This is actually where most of the rollouts you'll be working with are. Now we can see our extrude amount and change it. Remember how our wall extended out from the X axis? It's a quick fix, simply change the extrude to -0.3 so that the extrude reverses itself. Whew, that was a close one. Don't even have all four walls up yet and already having problems. I don't really think that I want the back door looking exactly like the front, so we're going to change this. Remember this is only one way to do it, but if I tried explaining every single possibly way to do something this tutorial would have never been finished. The front wall is going to be in our way. You could simply move it, but then you'd have to move it back. I'm lazy and don't want to go through all of that trouble. Instead, I'm simply going to hide it so it's not getting all in my way. Do this by selecting "Wall - Front" and right clicking. It gives you the above menu. You can do many, many things from here, but we're simply going to use the "Display" functions (the greenish color). If you pick "Hide Unselected", everything but the currently selected object will disappear from view. That's not what we want, so we're going to pick "Hide Selection" so that the front wall will disappear from view. (I'm sure you can picture what this will look like - so no screenie for this either - you don't really want me to burn out my copy of Fireworks, do you?) To make changes to the existing object, we'll need to edit it. Select "Wall - Back" and go to the Modifier Tab. In the modifier list, click the plus beside "Edit Spline" to display the edit spline rollout. Select "Segment" so that we can move the sides of the rectangle around (notice you can also use the buttons in the "Selection" rollout below). If you choose "Vertex" you can move individual vertices (corners) of objects around and "Spline" lets you move entire rectangle around. Now, the back wall should look like the above picture (sorry about the lack of white lines around the edges of the wall in the front viewport - happened when I resized the picture). Using the "Select and Move" tool, you can either eyeball it (ugh), or you can type values in X, Y, and Z. Since I'm going to make this door narrower, I'll pick the right-hand side of the doorway (whichever segment, vertex, or spline is currently selected will show in red) and in the X box replace 1.25 with 0.75. Now, select the opposite side of the doorway. Notice the value for X is now -1.25? Geometry, gotta love it! This time, replace the -1.25 with -0.75. This makes the door 1 meter narrower - perfect for a single door. Now, you'd click on "Extrude" in rollout to finish editing your object: You can now unhide your wall (right click in the viewport and pick "Unhide All") and zoom back out to see your creation. The next step is to create the side walls. Again, there are many ways to do this, and I'm only going to explain one of them. Create a rectangle just like you did for the front wall, but this time do it in the left viewport (to get back to where you can create a spline, pick the create tab - directly to the left of the modifier tab - and click on the splines button): Don't forget that we're going to have to re-size this wall (make the settings like above - the walls are 5 meters high and the building is 32 meters long - still have your notepad file open?). Rename the wall as "Wall - Left". Also, don't forget that this wall is sitting directly on the Y axis. Using "Select and Move", change it's position thus. I'll explain the X, Y, and Z to make sure you understand why we're setting them like this (remember that when using typed-in values like this X is always side to side movement, Y is always front to back movement, and Z is always up and down movement). If you really don't want to know why and just want to keep modelling, skip past these next few screenies. First of all, we need to move the wall out to the where it should be on the left-hand side of the building. Since the center of the wall is sitting at point 0 on the X axis, we'll need to move it left by half the length of the front wall (the front wall is 16 meters wide, so we need to move the side wall 8 meters). Remember my quick guide to geometry on the "Getting Started" page? Because we're going to be moving to the left of the origin, X would be negative. Next, we'd need to line it up properly with the front and back walls. Since we are moving the wall backward and going above the origin (in the 2d world), we would change Y to be a positive number. Since we're moving the middle of the wall halfway between the front and back walls, Y = 16. Lastly, just like the front walls, we need to put the wall so that it's sitting on the ground, so Z = 2.5. Jeez, that math can really get tedious, huh? Don't worry too terribly much if you don't get it right now, I just wanted to put that information out there to try to help everybody understand why the system is the way it is. Take a breather, you need it! Moving right along, remember that window I had you clone way back on the last page? You'll find out why it's important now. Instead of having to create new windows, all you have to do is pick your window (you don't need to make another copy of it - this is what we needed it for) and rotate it 90 degrees. To accomplish that, press the "Select and Rotate" button, then type 90 in the Z box. Remember, if you put a negative number here, the object will rotate clockwise. If it's a positive number, it'll rotate counter-clockwise. For this object, that's not important at all (but it will be important if you are going to rotate 3d objects). Also, if you move the pointer over one of the arrows, it will turn into a circular arrow. Just like with the "active arrow" method on the last page, these arrows will also change colors when they are "active". When the arrows are active, you can left-click and drag the pointer up and down to rotate manually. Very useful when trying to get perfect alignment, not so useful when you're trying to rotate by an exact amount. Remember the tip I gave you on the last page about the "active arrow" movement (where all movement is restricted to whatever arrow is colored differently)? This is where it can come in handy. Make sure you select the "Select and Move" button - otherwise you will rotate the window when all you want to do is move it. With that method, the only thing you will need to do manually is move the window opening back until it lines up with the grid just like on the first wall. "But, phillippbo," you ask, "it's still way out from the wall. I thought you said that'd do weird things when it comes to extruding?" You are very correct. What you will need to do now is type the same value for X that you have for Wall - Left (-8.0). Now the window is sitting perfectly on the wall. Ok, so at this point you have a side wall with one bitty little window in it. That just won't do. You could use the same method we created the front windows, but there's gonna be so many of these. I'm so lazy, I don't want to do that. Instead I'm going to use a handy little tool called "Array". Make sure that you are in the Left viewport, and, with the window opening selected, click the "Array" button in the Main Toolbar. It will give you the window above. Now enter -3.0 for the X box beside the number one, make sure that the radio button is selected next to 1D, and make sure the "Count" boxes are like shown. You'd then hit "Enter" to change the "Total in Array" box or OK to create the windows. Take a look at the "Total in Array" box (number 5). This will tell you how many objects you are cloning, and can be extremely useful. NOTE: Just like with the Clone tool, you can choose to make copies or instances here. Numbered items 1 and 4 are all that we are worried about right now, but I'll explain all of them (for items 1 through 3, only worry with the "Incremental" column for now): NOTE: "Array" is one of the tools where X and Y are no longer constants in "real world" terms (like my geometry lesson) and are based on the viewport that is currently active. Based on the view that's active (as far as gmax is concerned, that's your "perspective"), X will always move left (negative numbers) and right (positive numbers) and Y up (positive numbers) and down (negative numbers) when you're using 1D cloning. It's a little much to explain here, but 2D cloning is a bit different. Move - indicates how far you want each copy to move - based on the object's side. For example: if you had a square that was 3 meters wide and you wanted each one to be 1 meter apart, then you'd enter 4 here. Rotate - tells gmax what kind of "spin" you want to give the cloned objects. Haven't played with it much, but it can be very useful if you master it. Scale - indicates how much you want to scale the cloned objects. The number you type in here is a percentage. For example: if you wanted each copy to decrease in width by 25% each time it was copied, you'd enter 75 in the X box (you're telling gmax that you want each copy to be 75% of the width of the previous copy). Can be very useful, but I haven't found a use for it yet (at least, not in any of my buildings). Array Dimensions Box - how many copies you want to make. For 1D, it's how many you want created across (in this case, we're making 10 windows). For 2D, it's how many up/down. And 3D does some interesting stuff (I over-simplified what 2D does - but that's not important right now). Don't worry if the above seems a bit much. It took me about a week of playing with the "Array" tool before I could figure out what it did. I've only given you a basic idea of it's function here, it's a very powerful tool that could be a tutorial in and of itself. Enough of that, on with the tutorial! Now you have your 10 windows going back along the wall. Whoa there, partner! See that unsightly gap at the back? Normally, I'd go through the effort of playing around with the window's width or the array distance until I got it pretty darn close to perfect. Since I'm trying to keep everything as simple as possible, however, we're just going to leave it. Besides, I can use that to show you an important lesson later. What you'd do now is put an "Edit Spline" modifier on "Wall - Left", attach all of the windows, and extrude by -0.3 (this prevents the wall from extruding out from its current position). Then, you'd clone an instance of your wall and put it on the opposite side (change X to 8.0 and change your extrude to 0.3 to make the wall extrude inward instead of outward). Don't forget to rename the new wall "Wall - Right". You should now have this: Don't worry about all that silliness at the corners where the color is bleeding over. As long as you use the same texture for the side walls as the front, that shouldn't show. Congratulations! You now have four walls with all the appropriate openings. Important Detailing: Windows, Doors, and the Roof So, now we've got four walls, but we're far from done. Now, we're going to add some details to make our building begin to look like an actual building. I'm going to start with the roof. In the top view, create a rectangle of any size, then adjust it's length and width like shown (this will make it the exact same dimensions as the building without having to make hairy adjustments - see, It's a Good Thing™ that I had you make sure the walls extruded the way they did). Now, to center it, set X and Y like shown so that the middle of the rectangle is moved to the center of the building. Just like we did for the walls, place an Extrude Modifier on the rectangle and set it to 0.3. Since we want this to be on top of the wall, make Z = 5. Rename the rectangle "Roof - Surface". Farther down the page, I'm going to show you how to make transparent glass. Because the windows will be transparent, we're also going to want a floor in this building. To do this, make a clone of the roof, rename it "Foundation - Floor", and make it's Z = 0. You'll end up with the picture below: Next, we're going to make doors. For this step, it's very helpful to hide anything you're not working on. Since we'll be working on the front door, select "Wall - Front" and "Hide Unselected". Next, you going to want to turn "3d Snap" on. It's actually pretty simple to do this, click the button shown below. NOTE: The 3d Snap button has more than one option: 3d Snap, 2.5d Snap, and 2d Snap. The only ones you'll be worried with are 3d and 2.5d. See the picture below for an explanation about their differences (just remember that if you hold down the mouse button, a little window will pop up giving you the different options). Click the "3d Snap" button down near the Z box, then go to "Grid and Snap Settings" (Customize >Grid and Snap Settings...) and pick "Vertex". There's a lot of options in this window, and most of them are self-explanatory. Just be sure that when you close this box that you use the "x" in the upper right-hand corner. Do not click the "Clear All" button unless that's what you really want to do (don't laugh - we've been trained by Windows to hit "OK" or "Cancel" inside windows like this - it's very easy to hit it without thinking about it). When you create geometry with the 2.5d Snap on, it does line it up with whatever you were "snapping" to, but gmax creates the shape on the X or Y axis (depending upon which one you're looking directly towards). With 3d Snap on, gmax does the same thing, but this time places the vertices of the rectangle directly on top of the ones you are snapping to. Don't worry, I'm going to show you "snapping" in more depth below, just remember that 2.5d puts it on the axis, 3d puts it on the object. Back to creating the front door. After you click the "Rectangle" button, and before you actually create the object, go into the "Mesh Settings" rollout (you will probably have to click the "+" symbol next to the name) and check the two boxes shown. These boxes will make sure that the rectangle you create will not be a simple rectangle, but will be rounded like in the 2.5d and 3d Snap pictures above. The default thickness is 1.0, but we definitely don't need a shape that thick (or else nobody would actually be able to fit through the door). Change the thickness to 0.3. A little note about the "Sides" option. The way it's set now, the "tube" that makes up the sides of this rectangle will have 12 faces. If you are going for a rounded look, you'll need to put at least 10 in here. If you're looking for something a little more squared-off, then anything less than 6 will do nicely, but there is a minimum of 3 sides (it takes at least 3 faces to make a 3d object). Don't worry, if you put anything smaller than 3 here, gmax will change it for you. In the front view, move the cross-hair around until you get a blue cross on the top-left corner of the door opening. Gmax is now telling you it's going to "snap" to that vertex. Drag your rectangle until you get the blue cross on the lower right-hand corner of the door opening, then release the mouse button. Rename the rectangle "Doors - Frame Front". NOTE: Anytime that I say "snap a into ", I'm talking about doing what I just showed you. Lastly, we're going to give this frame the illusion that it's actually a door frame and not some kind of decorative piece. In the top view, zoom in on the door opening and drag the door frame backward until it's outside edges line up with the front and back faces of the wall. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: In order for any geometry created like this (by clicking the two boxes) to show in the final render, you will have to "collapse to an editable mesh". (Go to Modifiers >Mesh Editing >Edit Mesh). Now, to create the door for this wall (there can be many ways to do this, I'm just going to show you a very simple way right now), repeat the above steps (you may want to hide the door frame so the rectangle doesn't try to snap to any of the verticies on the frame - just don't forget to "Unhide All" after you're done with the door itself), but this time be sure to uncheck the "Generate Mapping Coord." and "Display Mesh" boxes after you've created the new rectangle (make sure your door frame is not selected when you do this) so it will be a simple rectangle. In the top view, you'll want to move your new door so that it's centered (front to back) in the frame - with 12 sides on the frame its really easy - you'll see what I'm talking about. Rename the rectangle "Doors - Front". Be sure to add an Edit Spline modifier to the door (that way, it's easier to change later). This isn't completely necessary at this point, but it would be a good idea to go ahead and put a UVW Map on this rectangle (Modifiers >UV Coordinates >UVW Map). We aren't going to be texturing it just yet, but when you put the map on it, the door itself gets "filled in", like so: The next thing to do would be to create windows. Just like I said before, there are many, many ways to accomplish this. For the sake of K.I.S.S., I'm showing you one way. First, you'll want to snap a rectangle in the window just like we did for the door frame, but this time we'll only have the thickness set to 0.2. Why, you ask? Simple, how many window frames have you seen that are the same thickness as door frames? (Don't answer that, I'm sure you could prove me wrong.) Rename the newly created frame "Windows - Frame". Next, we're going to create a spline line to act as the "divider" between window panes (you know, where the lock always is). The easiest way to do it is snap a line across the top of your window opening (you may want to hide the frame so that you don't have any trouble - just "Unhide All" when you're done with the line). Keep in mind that when working with lines, unlike most other shapes, you don't click and drag. Instead, you only click when you want gmax to put in a vertex. Therefore, be sure to click when the "blue cross" comes up for each of the top corners of our window opening. Since gmax will let you put in limitless verticies, it will have the next vertex showing, ready for clicking and placement. To avoid making any more verticies, hit the "Esc" button on your keyboard. Don't forget to "Unhide All" to allow the window frame to show, if you hid it before. Next, move the new line down until you get it where you want it (it is OK to eyeball here). Now that you have the line in place, put an Edit Spline Modifier on the "Windows - Frame" and attach your line (just like we did when we attached the window and door openings to the walls). It will now become one object. Don't forget to add an Edit Mesh Modifier to your complete window frame, or else it won't show in the render. Make sure you do that now because you'll kick yourself if you don't. This building is only going to have 28 windows, but a medium-sized office building could have hundreds - meaning a lot of tedious work for you later if you don't take care of that now. Just warning you (trying to save everybody some of the heartache and pain I've gone through). Ok, ok, enough of the preaching. The next thing you'll need to do is snap another rectangle (again, hiding the window frame can be useful) in the same opening, uncheck the "Generate Mapping Coord." and "Display Mesh" boxes after the new rectangle is snapped, apply a UVW Map to it, and rename th... Editor's NOTE: The final text for this tutorial has been cut-off/lost at some point. Hopefully it can be restored in future. In the meantime, here is the basic version of what you need to do: Apply the UVW Map to the Window, giving it a new name. Copy this new set of window shapes (after attaching them together) to all the other windows. All the information to clone items in this way, including rotating them can be gleaned from the rest of the guide. Once you've got all the windows in, named them appropriately and ensured each one has both a UVW Map and a Mesh modifier applied you should be good to start part 2. Links to other parts of this tutorial: part 2, part 3, part 4

The Gmax (BAT) Fundamentals video tutorial series consist of all the essential information new users to the BAT require. The videos contain explanations on the tools and modeling methods mentioned in the tutorial, while displaying visually how to apply each one. The tutorials available and the topics they review are listed below. *It is recommended to download the Gmax model for this tutorial. **Requires the Simtropolis Tools script. Please Note: The videos are text-based tutorials and hence have no audio. Gmax (BAT) Fundamentals - Part 1: Overview Video Length: 26:52 Minutes The Tutorial Includes The Following Topics: 1:00 - Settings 2:16 - Viewports 5:07 - View options 8:23 - Command Panel 9:53 - Creating objects, shapes, lights and helpers 12:11 - Repositioning Pivot 12:50 - Display Settings 13:21 - Utilities 14:18 - Preview 14:30 - Tab Panel 15:00 - Selecting 18:39 - Moving 19:56 - Rotating 20:25 - Scaling 21:15 - Centering 22:56 - Undo & Redo 23:29 - Grouping 24:22 - Hiding 25:00 - Copying Gmax (BAT) Fundamentals - Part 2: Functions, Operations and Techniques Video Length: 30:42 Minutes The Tutorial Includes The Following Topics: 1:00 - Creating objects 3:00 - Editing Mesh 4:43 - Slice 7:37 - Lattice 9:23 - Boolean 11:22 - Creating shapes & splines 13:51 - Lathe 15:11 - Weld 16:28 - Loft 21:31 - Outline 22:07 - Extrude 22:32 - Modifiers 24:09 - Mirror 25:44 - Array 28:02 - Spacing 29:10 - Align Gmax (BAT) Fundamentals - Part 3: Textures and Lighting Video Length: 27:22 Minutes The Tutorial Includes The Following Topics: 0:52 - Applying Texture 2:54 - Opacity 4:03 - UVW Map 8:13 - SC4 Window Light Mapping 15:45 - Inner Lighting 21:59 - Spotlights

Downloading the Application IMPORTANT NOTE: It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that you completely read the ReadMe for the application and ensure you have the correct version of DirectX and any other supporting files. 1) Both SC4Terraformer and SC4Mapper are both available from the SC4Devotion LEX. (Note that you must register in order access the LEX.) 2) Create a folder on your computer's hard drive and name it SC4Terraformer. 3) Download the application (it is a zipped archive) and save it to the SC4Terraformer folder you created. Installing the Application 1) Unzip the archive ensuring that you use the "Use Folder Names" option in order to reconstruct the necessary folder structure for the application. 2) The application is installed -- there is no installer file that needs to be run. 3) No other zipped archives need to be unzipped. DO NOT unzip the library.zip file. Opening A Region 1) To run the application, navigate to the sub-folder in which you unzipped the application and double-click on the file named SC4Terraformer.exe.\ 2) The application's ReadMe file is displayed and can be closed, if desired. 3) In the Browse for Folder dialog box, highlight the region folder you wish to open and click the OK button. 4) A Loading Region dialog box is displayed as cities are being loaded. 5) In the Report dialog box, click the OK button to open the region. 6) The SC4Terraformer Main Window, SC4Trraformer toolbar, Overview and Slider Window open and display the Fairview region. Creating A New Region 1) In the SC4Terraformer Main Window, click on File - Create a region (or, press Ctrl+N). 2) In the Region creation dialog box, in the Region Name field, type in the a name for your new region. 3) In the Width and Height fields, type in the desired dimensions for your new region. 4) Leave the SC4M file field blank. 5) Click on the OK button. 6) A blank, flat region is created and is ready to be terraformed. IMPORTANT NOTE The default configuration bit map created by SC4TF when creating a new region is 4 x 4 pixels and consists of all small (red) city tiles. If you wish to use either medium, large or a mix of city tile sizes or, a specific tutorial calls for a specifically sized config.bmp file, you must create the appropriate config.bmp file yourself using a graphics editor application. Once you've created a new region, overwrite the config.bmp file created by SC4TF with the one you just created. The next time you run SC4TF and open the region you created, it will be configured to use the config.bmp file you created. The config.bmp file created by SC4TF can be found in the following path: \Documents\SimCity 4 \ Regions \ [REGION_NAME] \ config.bmp (Where [REGION_NAME] is the name given to the region in Step 2 above.)

Recommended skill level: A basic knowledge of Gmax. First we need a model to light up. I already have one ready, but this process can be used on any model you like. Here is an example: As you can see, we have a box, with two floors and four windows.. the two from the left side have frames, but the right ones don't.. why? well, Step number one on lightning is how you texture your windows!! For the left windows, we are gonna use a transparent glass texture.. like this: After applied we should get something like this: How will the others be textured? With a special texture.. both transparent and opaque.. like this: As you can see on the material navigator, we have for the new material navigator two different maps, a diffuse color and an opacity map.. this last map will tell where you will see the texture, where you will not see, and where you sill see it, while able to see through it, in this order, where the map is white, black and gray.. the final result can be seen at the viewport. After both textures are applied lets see how it looks.. Both windows are a bit dark.. that's because the background can be seen through, so we have to change that too. We will do that by creating two rectangles (the same number of floors) and extrude them by 0.0m.. so we get flat planes which we put on the beginning of each floor like this: Now let's do a preview: Don't know what was better.. the dark or the pink. The second step is to texture the floors. So we are going to select the pink planes and texture them.. with what? Well, the best textures are more yellow, but also have all kind of colors on it.. shall have shapes on it too. Having things that you should see on the building you are making is also good. This is the one I'm using: So, when you do a new preview again we should get this: Now they are much better. It looks like the house has life. Final step on lightning is the actual lights! Now we are going to compare the standard night maps used by many with the method we are using from the beginning. First select both glass planes and change them names to: nite_window or something alike.. This will enable the night maps to these planes. After this, create a omni light, and add some color to it, I usually make them like this: And change its name to nitelite_1 for instance. copy it as much times as much windows you want to light up. place them centered with the window and put them ~1.5m away from them, next to the ceiling. Through trial and error you will be able to adjust the multiplier to best results, and then you should get something like this: As you can see, there are some differences.. My method brings a bit more life to the building.

Part 2!] How to create Puzzle Pieces? A basic tutorial about making Puzzle Pieces in SimCity 4 Original written by Joris (jmvl), NAM member Edited and translated by Maarten (mrtnrln), NAM member 1st edition (Dutch): August 2009 1st edition (English): August 2010 Contents 1. Introduction 2. What's a Puzzle Piece? 3. Requirements - 3.1. What does SimCity 4 need? - 3.2. What do I need? - 3.3. Reserving ID's 4. Creating textures - 4.1. Creating PNG files for your textures - 4.1.1. Transparency - 4.1.2. Cut you texture down to size - 4.2. Convert PNG to FSH 5. Fill up the DAT-files - 5.1. General - 5.2. Empty tiles 6. Creating paths - 6.1. Where are paths saved - 6.2. The structure of a SimCity 4 Path File. - 6.2.1. General - 6.2.2. Header - 6.2.3. Paths - 6.2.4. Stoppoints - 6.2.5. Other important notices - 6.3. Pieces without paths - 6.4. The SC4 Path Creator - 6.4.1. Introduction - 6.4.2. Single Frame View & Multi Frame View - 6.4.3. The "Path View" - 6.4.4. Saving path files 7. The RUL 0x10000000 file - 7.1. What is the RUL 0x10000000 file - 7.2. Where can I find the RUL 0x10000000 file - 7.3. Editing the RUL 0x10000000 file - 7.3.1. Important notice before editing the RUL0x10000000 file - 7.4. The structure of the RUL 0x10000000 file - 7.4.1. Introduction - 7.4.2. The TAB-Ring section - 7.4.3. The "IntersectionInfo" section - 7.4.3.1. The Header - 7.4.3.2. The Layout section - 7.4.3.3. The Defenitions section - 7.4.3.4. Rotating/Mirroring your Puzzle Piece - 7.5 Defining rotated/mirrored versions of your Puzzle Piece - 7.5.1. The Basics - 7.5.2. Be creative! 8. Mirroring Puzzle Pieces Horizontally 9. Creating New Menu Buttons 10. Q&A - Pathing problems - RUL 0x10000000 problems - Other problems 11. Further details 1. Introduction This tutorial mainly handles the technical aspect of "flat" puzzle pieces. "Flat" pieces are two-dimenstional objects, for example the RHW ramp interfaces, the NWM transistion pieces and the Smooth Curves. "Non-flat" pieces are for example the elevated networks and the Maxis Highways. The only difference between the two is creating models for the pieces. "Flat" pieces are far more easier to create than "non-flat" pieces. Why did we write this tutorial? Joris (jmvl): "When I was learning how to make puzzle pieces in SimCity 4 back in March 2009, I discovered that the available information about this subject was scatterd and not clear enough at some places. Therefore, I wrote some notes about creating puzzle pieces back then. However, I learned more about puzzle pieces and applied my knowledge immediatly, I had no time and motivation to keep up my notes. Therefore I decided to write a document for myself (and maybe for others too) in May 2009. However, I didn't write a thing until june 2009, when Maarten (mrtnrln) asked me by PM at SC4 Devotion what technical aspects there where for creating puzzle pieces. I said to myself: 'It's now or never!' Then I wrote this document about how to create puzzle pieces for Maarten, for others and for myself. Thanks to this manual we shall never forget the procedures for creating puzzle pieces." Maarten (mrtnrln): "This tutorial was really helpful to me at the time. Back then I made a few puzzle pieces for the RHW v4.0, like the B-style RHW Splitters and the Cosmetic Pieces, that are now used a lot by people. In June 2010 people ask how to create puzzle pieces. I have this tutorial around on my harddisk for months, but it's in Dutch, so the majority of the community isn't able to read it. Therefore, I translated the whole document and posted the translation at SC4 Devotion, so anyone can read it. We'll never have enough tutorials, and never enough custom content creators either." I hope you find this tutorial usefull. If the document contains any mistakes, unclear or missing information, please send me an PM. I will correct these issues as soon as possible. You can also contact me for any questions or suggestions. Notice about the Y and Z co-ordinates In this tutorial, the Y-axis or Y-co-ordinates are always used as the height-axis of an object. This is because in the Reader, the Y-axis is also the height-axis. However, in gMax and the SC4 Model Tweaker, the Z-axis is the height axis. See table below: Reader axis:gMax axis:XXYZZY2. What's a Puzzle Piece? A puzzle piece is a ploppalbe (placed manually) transit object. It's fully fuctional for traffic and UDI vehicles. Because puzzle pieces have their own paths, you can determine how traffic is going to move over these pieces. Sometimes, a more technical term for puzzle pieces is used: "Interchange-base Related Item" (IRI). Puzzle pieces often used for objects you can't just simply drag some sort network to create it. Puzzle pieces can be placed in TAB-rings, which contain rotation rings. Thanks to TAB-rings, more than one puzzle piece can be accessed by one menu button. Technical speaking, all puzzle pieces are 3D-models; each section of a puzzle piece is one S3D model. The puzzle pieces and their location in TAB-rings can be determined by codes in the RUL 0x10000000 file. Puzzle pieces should not be confused with Transit Enabled LOTs (TE-LOTs). Both have their own paths, and both pieces can be accessed by traffic. However, there's a big difference between a TE-LOT and a puzzle piece. Puzzle pieces are ploppable sections of transport networks, whereas TE-LOTs are LOT-based. TE-LOTs are ment to look like transport networks, but in fact they aren't transport networks at all. TE-LOTs are often used for toll boths and "Transit Switches" (like stations). In the Zones View, TE-LOTs are invisible, whereas the puzzle pieces are completely visible. 3. Requirements 3.1. What does SimCity 4 need? In order to make a puzzle piece working in SimCity 4, the following is required: - New codes in the RUL 0x10000000 file. - One S3D model for every tile of the puzzle piece. - One S3D model for the preview model of the puzzle piece, containing all models from every tile. - One path file for every tile of the puzzle piece. - One EffDir file for the preview of the puzzle piece. - One LTEXT file for the description (shown in-game) of the puzzle piece. - FSH-files for textures. (Without textures, you would barely notice the puzzle piece. That would be a waste http://sc4devotion.com/forums/Smileys/JasonSmilies/wink.gif ) 3.2. What do I need? In this section, you can find software and web applications you can use to create your SimCity 4 puzzle pieces. Some programs (marked in bold text) are essential, others are mere tools that make creation of puzzle pieces easier. All of the following applications are used in this tutorial. There's a difference between software and web applications. Software requires to be installed on your computer, whereas webapplications can be used by a webbrowser (Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, etc.) Software: - SimCity 4 + Rush Hour or SimCity 4 Deluxe. Without this program, creating puzzle piece has no use. - iLive's Reader 0.93 (or higher) - SC4 Path Creator 1.60 (or higher) - Batch PNG to FSH Tool NOTE: After installing the PNG to FSH tool, open the directory where you installed the tool and open groupid.txt. Replace the entire content of the file by 1ABE787D and save the file. - A text editor, like Notebook. Web applications: - JMVL SimCity 4 Online Transit Modding Tools 3.3. Reserving ID's To prevent any conflict with other pieces and NAM plugins, you require to reserve unique ID's for each puzzle piece you make. We always reserved our ID's for the RHW Mod by contacting Alex (Tarkus). In fact, it's quite unclear in the NAM Team who can be contacted for reserving unique ID's. The best place you can request for free ID's is at the corresponing topic in the NAM Creations section. The ID's you have the reserve are Instance IDs (IIDs) and HighwayIntersectionInfoID (HIIID or H3ID). IIDs are used for identifying the files packed in DAT files. IIDs have to be unique, because otherwise they overwrite eachother. You'll need a whole range of IID's, because your puzzle piece contains more than one model or texure. It's important that you reserve a start-IID and a end-IID. Every puzzle piece has a AutoTileBase IID. This is the first IID from the tile in the upper left corner of your puzzle piece. The size of the IID range depends on the size of your puzzle piece. You can easily dertermine your IID by using the IID Grid Table Maker. You simply fill in the AutoTileBase IID, the width and the heigth of your puzzle piece and after clicking "Show IID Grid Table", a table appears on the screen. H3IDs are used in the RUL 0x1000000 file. These IDs are required for linking the technical layout of the puzzle piece to the models, paths, etc. and for placing puzzle piece in different rotations (and mirrored versions). Usually 4 H3ID's are required (one for each rotation), but when puzzle pieces can be mirrored, you require 8 H3IDS, and ever 16 H3ID's when one way traffic is involved. Please check first how much H3ID's you actually require before reserving them. Most of the times, the IDs are assigned projectwise. All NAM features and related mods have an IID that start with a 5, since this whole IID range isn't used by Maxis plugins. Each project has their own IID range. The RHW Project for instance has an IID of 5C###### to 5E######. The H3IDs are also assigned projectwise in a simillar way. Also, before reserving IDs, it's wise to say what you're creating. Maybe someone else is making something simmilar and we can try to fit the piece into the existing IID scheme. A third thing that has to be unique is the name of the Effect Dir (EffDir). This links the correct preview model to the RUL 0x1000000 code. In theory, this name ought to be reserved, but in reality this is not the case. There's a huge combinations of names that can be used, and the chance that someone uses your EffDir name is very small. One syntax you can use for your EffDir name is: preview Some examples: EffDir Name:Puzzle Piece Name:preview_rhw4misrampsstyleaxdlRHW-4 to RHW-6C with 2 MIS sections leftpreview_rhw4misrampsstyleaxdrRHW-4 to RHW-6C with 2 MIS sections rightpreview_rhw2_to_2misRHW-2 to 2 MIS sections As you can see, there's a logical connection between the EffDir and the puzzle piece name 4. Creating Textures 4.1. Creating PNG files for your textures A puzzle piece is nothing without textures. It's quite important to create the textures before starting to make the rest of your puzzle pieces. After you have reserved IDs you can start making textures. You can use any advanced image editing program (not MS Paint, but PhotoShop or the GIMP) to create textures. It's also wise to make a dedicated directory where you can save your textures. Then you can easily find them. All textures should be eventually saved in PNG-format (you may want to keep an multi-layered PSD-file or something similar for later texture editing). Depending on the quality of the texture, one tile has the following size in pixels: Quality:Size (in pixels):SD128 x 128HD256 x 256 Usually, SD textures are used, due to smaller filesize. Also, the difference between end results of HD and SD textures is not that big. 4.1.1. Transparency FSH-files are the texture files of SimCity 4. FSH-files contain two layers: the colored texture layer and the black-and-white transparency layer. White parts of the transparency layer show the color image of the texture in SimCity 4, while the black parts are invisible. Technically speaking, you need two images of your puzzle piece for your textures. However, PNG-files can contain transparent pixels. If you want to have transparent parts in your PNG-image, do the following: 1. Open your texture with an Image editing program. 2. Fill in the transparent surface with a color that's unique in the image (only the transparent surface has this color). Try to make it similar to the puzzle piece, so any errors later are less visible. 3. Check the RGB value of the background color and note it somewhere. If you can find a hexadecimal code (a numbering system that goes from 0-9-A-F), skip the following two steps. 4. Open the Windows Calculator and enable the Scientific Mode (View/Scientific), 5. Fill in every value separately in decimal mode (Dec) and convert it into a hexadecimal value by selecting "Hex". Note the values down. 6. Open the Alpha/Color Blender from your web browser. 7. Click on "Browse" button next to "Alpha/Color Blended image file" and select your puzzle piece PNG file. 8. Open the "Advanced settings" tab and change both hexadecimal values to the Hex values you noted down. 9. Click on "Get Color PNG" and overwrite the puzzle piece PNG file you just edited. 10. Presto! You now have a PNG file with an transparent background. 4.1.2. Cut you texture down to size Puzzle pieces can be no bigger than 16 x 16 tiles due to the limitations of SimCity 4. Also, a puzzle piece texture must be 1 x 1 tile big. Fortunately, the Image Cutter can do the job for you: 1. Click on "Browse" button next to "Image" and select your puzzle piece PNG file 2. Fill in the AutoTileBase IID 3. Fill in the resultion in "Maximum height per image" "Maximum width per image" (default settings: 128 x 128) 4. Click on "Get Cut Images" and save the ZIP-file. 5. Unpack the ZIP-file, and there you have it: Your puzzle piece cut into pieces with a size of one SC4-tile. 4.2. Convert PNG to FSH PNG files can't be used for textures in SimCity 4. Therefore, these files should be converted into FSH files. The Batch PNG to FSH Tool converts PNGs to FSH textures and saves them into DAT-files. The Batch PNG to FSH Tool recognises transparancy in PNG images and uses them to build the transparency layer of the FSH file. Let's create some textures: 1. Open the Batch PNG to FSH Tool 2. Click on "Add" and select the textures you want to convert: //www.simtropolis.com/library/Omnibus/CreatePuzzlePieces/png2fsh01.png 3. Check if your PNGs are really transparent. If you see this, your image is really transparent: //www.simtropolis.com/library/Omnibus/CreatePuzzlePieces/png2fsh02.png 4. Fill in the corresponding Instance IDs and set the End format to A-E. This prevents the "Sidewalk Bug" to occur. 5. When you are finished, select "Save dat" to save your DAT-file. IMPORTANT NOTE: create a dummy DAT-file where you save your new textures (give it a name like "Textures_Add.dat" or something simmilar). Otherwise the Batch PNG to FSH Tool overrides the complete contents of the file. 6. Copy your textures into the DAT-file where you save your final puzzle pieces somewhere in the NAM folder. 7. Save the file and you're done! 5. Fill up the DAT-Files 5.1. General Now our DAT-file only contains FSH-files. But there are more things required to make a puzzle piece working in-game. We are going to generate some S3D, EffDir, Exemplar, LTEXT and some dummy-SC4Path files (we are going to define the paths in the SC4Path-files in the next chapter). The Puzzle Piece Maker generates all the files you need for "flat" puzzle pieces. The Puzzle Piece Maker currently has no support for "non-flat" puzzle pieces. The only thing you can do when creating these pieces, is copy the models from another file, re-index it and edit it manually in the Reader, but this method is not recommended for beginners. We simply start with creating a "flat" puzzle piece with the Puzzle Piece Maker: 1. Fill in the AutoTileBase IID in the "AutoTileBase IID"-field 2. When the textures have another AutoTileBase IID (which is often the case for mirrored pieces), fill in the AutoTileBase IID from textures in the "AutoTileBase IID textures "-field. 3. Fill in the width and the height (in tiles) of your puzzle piece in the "Width"- and "Height"-field.' 4. In case you make a mirrored version of your puzzle piece, check the "Mirrored version"-checkbox 5. Select "A-E" at "End Format IID" 6. Choose 0 or 3 at "Resource Key Type". RKT 0 uses one model for all zoom levels, while RKT 0 uses a different model for each zoom level. 7. Fill in the text that's shown in-game (when placing the puzzle piece) in the "Description (LTEXT)"-field. 8. Fill in the EffDir name in the "Effect Dir name"-field. This must be an unique name. You'll need this name later when creating the RUL 0x10000000 code for your puzzle piece. If you forgot the name of your EffDir, you can find it in the EffDir file under Section 13. 9. Fill in the Exemplar name (the name each exemplar of your puzzle piece gets) in the "Exemplar Name"-field. You can use the EffDir name for this (without "preview_") 10. Make sure that "Use 'default' SC4Paths" is selected in the "SC4Paths"-section. 11. Make sure every file type is selected. 12. Fill in the download location in the "Download Location"-field. This is the location where your ZIP-file is saved. 13. Click on "Build DAT Entries". A ZIP-file is now generated. 14. Extract the ZIP-file. Make sure it's extracted in a directory with the same name as the ZIP-file. 15. Open the Reader and open the DAT-file where you saved your textures. 16. Select "Edit/Insert (Batch Method)". A new screen appears 17. Click on "Browse" and go to the location where you extracted your ZIP-file and select "batch.txt" 18. Click on "Insert." You get a message all files where succesfully imported. 19. Don't forget to save the DAT-file! 5.2. Empty tiles? Often you don't want a square puzzle pieces. Some tiles of your puzzle piece may be empty. If they are, please follow these steps: 1. Find the S3D files you don't want to use and note down their IIDs 2. Now also select the SC4Path and Exemplar files. 3. Right-click on the selection and select "Delete Entries." 6. Creating paths Finally we have our DAT-file filled with the required files. But it's not finished yet; The SC4Path-files should be defined, as said before in chapter 5. Since we've selected "Use 'default' SC4Paths" in the Puzzle Piece Maker, all path-files have dummy paths. In this chapter we're going to change that. 6.1. Where are paths saved? Paths are defined per tile, just like the S3D-models of the puzzle piece. Paths are saved in ASCII text in SC4Path-files. The IID of these files correspond with the S3D-model with the same IID (these two are linked together). With the IID Grid Table Maker you can make a table with all the IID's of your puzzle piece, which may help you to find the right IID for your SC4Path files. 6.2. The structure of a SimCity 4 Path File 6.2.1. General A SC4Path-file has in general the following structure: - Header - Path 1, path 2, path 3, etc. - Stoppoint 1, stoppoint 2, stoppoint 3, etc. SimCity 4 always reads the SC4Path-file one line at the time. Commentaries always start with "--". This line will be skipped by Simcity 4. 6.2.2. Header The header defines properties that will have effect for the whole SC4Path-file. The header is the only section in the SC4Path-file that should not contain commentaries. Only in this tutorial, I'll ignore this rule just to explain what everything does. The structure of the header of a SC4Path-file looks like this: Code: (SC4Path-file Header) SC4Paths -- Introduction line. All SC4Path-files start with this line. 1.2 -- Version number of the SC4Path-file (1.0, 1.1 or 1.2) 1 -- Number of paths in this SC4Path-file. 0 -- Number of stoppoints this SC4Path-file contains. 1 -- The "3D-Key" (0 or 1) Notes: - SC4Path version 1.0 and 1.1 don't give as much support as version 1.2 does. Also, the structure of version 1.0 and 1.1 is different compared to version 1.2. It's recommended to use version 1.2 for your path files to prevent any confusion. - The "3D-Key""defines if you can choose your own path in the U-Drive-It mode. "0" enables this option, while "1" disables this option. It's advised to use "1". Technically speaking, "1" stands for 3D network pieces and "0" for draggable network pieces. 6.2.3. Paths Depending on the number of paths, the SC4Path-file has a seperate section for each path. The paths define how people and vehicles move on a puzzle piece. The structure of one path section looks like this: Code: (SC4Path-file Path Section) -- car_1_2_a -- This comment is used for the name of the path by several modding programs 1 -- "Transportation Type Identifier" 1 -- Path ID. This must be unique! 1 -- Entering wind direction 3 -- Leaving wind direction 0 -- "Junction key (0 or 1) 2 -- Number of path co-ordinates. 2.5,8,0 -- Path co-ordinates no.1 (x,z,y) 4,-8,0 -- Path co-ordinates no.2 (x,z,y) Notes: - The path name has the following structure: -- ___. You can leave the path name out of your path-files, but it's advised to use them anyway, because you can easily have an overview of your path files. - The "Transportation Type Identifier" tells SimCity 4 which vehicle will be using this path. There are six known "Transportation Type Identifiers": - 1. "car" (all road-based traffic, except for pedestrians and GLR) - 2. "sim" (pedestrians) - 3. "rail" (heavy rail vehicles) - 4. "subway" - 6. "el-rail" (elevated rail and GLR) - 7. "mono" (monorail and (G)HSR) - The Entering and Leaving Wind Direction tells SimCity which direction a vehicle enters the tile and which direction it leaves. The wind directions are: - 0. West - 1. North - 2. East - 3. South - 255. Special (Neighbour connections, dead ends, etc.) Fortunately, the SimCity 4 Path Creator has these wind direction IDs on the sides of the screen, so you can easily what the Entering and Leaving Wind Direction of a path is. For instance, the red path in the image below enters the tile at the south (3) and leaves the tile at the north (1). //www.simtropolis.com/library/Omnibus/CreatePuzzlePieces/sc4paths01.png - The "Junction Key" determines if a switch appears for this path in the UDI mode (1) or not (0). Although this feature is only used for rail networks, it should always be present in the SC4Path-file! - Every path should start and end at the edge of the tile, except if the Entering and/or Leaving Wind Direction is 255. Otherwise, this path will not appear in SimCity 4. 6.2.4. Stop points Depending on the number of stop points, the SC4Path-file has a seperate section for each stop points. The paths define where vehicles stop to prevent colisions. It's very important that the stop points are defined after all paths. Otherwise SimCity will crash. The structure of one stop section looks like this: Code: (SC4Path-file Path Section) -- stop_car_1_2_a -- This comment is used to recognise the stop points for users. 1 -- Left Hand Drive (2) or Right Hand Drive (1) 1 -- "Transportation Type Identifier" 1 -- Stop point ID. This must be unique! 1 -- Entering wind direction 255 -- Leaving wind direction 3,6,0 -- Stop point co-ordinates (x,z,y). There's always one stop point co-ordinate! Notes: - The path name has the following structure: -- stop____. You can leave this note out of your path-files, but it's advised to use them anyway, because you can easily have an overview of your path files. - Stop points also determine which vehicles give way to other vehicles and controls which traffic flows may go at stoplight intersections. 6.2.5. Other important notices - Paths that contain errors don't show up or are red flashing when using the "ShowPaths"-cheat from ExtraCheats.dll. - The Path and Stop Point IDs are 1 or higher. - The Path IDs and Stop Points IDs don't depend on each other. That means you can use an ID twice: one for a path and one for a stop point. They both will have an unique ID. 6.3. Unpathed pieces/Dummy Paths Sometimes there's no need for a puzzle piece tile to have paths. Unfortunatly, when a tile has no SC4Path-file, SimCity4 will be laggy during the construction of the puzzle piece. To prevent this from happening, you can make a Pathfile only containing a header and a dummy path. Fortunately, the Puzzle Piece Maker makes these dummy path files, so you don't have to edit the SC4Path-files for the tiles you don't want to contain paths. 6.4. SC4Path Creator 6.4.1. Introduction In the early days of SimCity 4 Transit Modding, we didn't have any visual application for editing path files. Fortunately, one of our members, Daeley, has created a Java-application for this job, the SC4Path Creator. This tool significantly simplifies the creation of paths. The program also contains some very useful functions, such as flipping and mirroring paths, the ability to see multiple SC4Path-files at once and using a texture as background, which makes the creation of paths even easier. 6.4.2. The Single Frame View and the Multi Frame View The Single Frame View contists out of a Path Editor, which I'll explain in detail in the next section. The Multi Path View is ment for puzzle pieces that contain more than one tile. When your piece only constists out of only one tile, you can skip the next paragraph. In the Multi Frame View, you can see all the path files at once. You first have to define the size of the grid to the size of your puzzle piece. It's advised to use '128' as rect size instead of the standard value '150', so you have the right scale. Every tile opens a new Single Frame View window when you click on it, so you can edit the paths. NOTE: When you open a Single Frame View window of a tile and then return to the Multi Frame View, you can add or delete pathing co-ordinates by simply clicking on the tile. 6.4.3. The Path Editor //www.simtropolis.com/library/Omnibus/CreatePuzzlePieces/sc4pathcreator.jpg With the Path Editor you can edit any path in any desired tile. Each path has it's own color, so they can easily be recognised. In the menu "Path Options\Select Texture", you can select a texture image as background, to simplify the path creation. Most other functions are speaking for themselves. Still I want to bring some other things to notice: - When you have more than 6 paths at one tile, some paths will appear in the same color. - When you flip or mirror a path, the Entering and Leaving Wind Direction aren't changed automaticly. You need to edit those manually. - When you create a new path, the Path ID is set to 0 of that path. You need to set this ID manually to an unique number. - When you add some pathing code into the Code Editor, check the header if it's set to the right number of paths. If not, the path you just added will be deleted when clicking on the "update"-button. - When you've added some code and clicked on "update"-button and you see no change, then there is a bug in your code. - Although SC4Path files can contain notes, the SC4Path Creator only allows it at the first line of a new path. When you make notes at any other place, you'll see no change when you hit the "update"-button. - The SC4Path Creator 1.60 doesn't support stoppoints. Any stoppoints made will be deleted. It's advised to make the stoppoints at the end. - The SC4Path Creator 1.60 unfortunatly has no save function. When you shut down the SC4Path Creator and didn't save the code anywhere else, you can start all over agian. 6.4.4. Saving path files Of course, you'll need to save your paths somewhere! When you finished creating paths with the SC4Path Creator, you can save them with the Reader in a DAT-file by following these steps: - Select the text from the Code Editor in the SC4Path Creator. You can use CTRL+A (Select All) to be sure everything is selected. - Copy the code (CTRL+C). - Select the corresponding SC4Path-file in the Reader. - Click on "Edit". - Select the code that's already in the SC4Path-file to override it (NOTE: CTRL+A doesn't work in the Reader). - Paste the new code (CTRL+V). - Hit "Apply" - Save the DAT-file when you're done.

SECTION E: HANDY REFERENCE CHART, FUN STUFF & BUILDING CATALOGUE "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moo-cow coming down along the road and this moo-cow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo." - James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. This section includes multitude of things. It includes funny things in the game, good SimCity 4 websites, a catalogue of all buildings in the game and its info. Finally, I have complied several tables throughout the guide into one handy reference chart. Oh, and one more thing since I do not know where to put hits information, the game contrary to some, does not begin in 1900 as flight was not invented then and in the game you can build a huge airport. E.01: Fun things to do 1) Dispatch Police You can dispatch the police under the emergency button to catch the criminals. You will see the police catching the criminal and placing the criminal into the car. To determine where the criminal is use your data chart. If however, most of the time when your police arrives, the criminal has moved away, do not worry. Often the criminal is still around the area. Therefore, you could always blanket the area with multiple police vehicles so that at least one can catch the criminal. 2) Change Traffic lights You can change the traffic lights and lock at the traffic jams that you will cause. However, I belief that only the animation is affected rather then the game play itself. [Query] + [shift] + [click on object] E.02: Easter Eggs, Game Observations Well, these are more of game observations than anything. 1) Un-dead comes forth I have seen this once and initially I thought un-dead walk the cemetery every night. But upon reading the message boards, I realised that the zombies only appear during October. Anybody with me that EA or Maxis should tie up with whatever the company that is doing Buffy so that we can have a "Buffy" reward once we have three cemeteries? Or maybe they could also team up with fox and create an X files division in the local police station. 2) Brotherhood of Nod One of the high-tech buildings is called Kane Tiberium. Perhaps, this is one of the weapons manufacturing plants or refineries. GDI commands you to use your "lightning storm" to destroy this nefarious Nod base. Also the high tech building Havoc Bioenhancements is also from C&C. 3) The Sims I have not played "The Sims" but from what I gather these items relate to them. A) Signs on Commercial Stores: On some commercial stores, you can the "The Sims" sign on the store front. B) Hot tub: The hot tub in the backyard belongs to the Sims. C) Servo the Home Robot: It is not an alien attack disaster but it is a robot from The Sims. D) Sim Names: Bella Barium and Goth mechanics, both manufacturing buildings are supposed to refer to characters from the Sims. 4) Drive Through Cinemas The movie turns on at about 7pm to about 4am. A very short movie of alien space ships making crop circles and planes attacking the ships. It is the intro to SimCity 3000. 5) Prisoners escape When your police station or jails are over-crowded, sometimes there will be a jail break. You will see prisoners running away. 6) Zoo escape When funding is too low, sometimes, the animals will run out and scare the Sims around the animal. 7) Toxic Truck and Fear When you place the toxic truck rewards there will be toxic trucks moving around the area spilling green goo. If the truck passes anybody on the road, that person will run and scream. For best effect use a cheat to place the toxic dump next to a casino. See those conga lines break. Casino and conga lines There will be a conga line outside the casino. 9) University Graduation In late June, you will see the court yard filled up for a graduation ceremony. Slow down your game speed for this last only a few days. 10) Death of My Sim When your MySim dies you can see his soul move up to heaven. 11) Car from Buildings A mayor's car comes forth when you place the Mayor's House down. A black car appears when a cemetery is placed. And for TV Station, TV vans. 12) Strange Happenings When you place the advanced research lab, you will see a glowing thing moving around the area of the lab. 13) Air Base When you place the transport add-on, you will see those exhibition jets flying around. Also like the Army base, you will see troops marching around the camp and there will be tanks driving on your roads. 14) Graffiti Although this is not a crime in the game, it often appears in areas where there are crime. Look around to see the graffiti. 15) Taxis This is not too spectacular but often I wonder where do they appear from. They would definitely appear if you have a train station. 16) Maxis Self Promotion On some retail stores, you can see either the Maxis sign. 17) Flasher or any crime Use the data view to determine the location of the flasher and zone to that location to see this display. This works with any other crime. By the way the pie throwing is also quite funny. But sometimes you may not see any crime in progress. 18) Golf Club There is a nude swimmer at the pond at night. 19) Disease Lab I have heard that once in a while you can see monkeys escaping from the disease lab. E.04: Funny News Ticker Messages The following is a list of all the funny news type messages that appears in your ticker box. I have split them up loosely into various categories of humour. If you spot any others or spot a mistake, send a mail to me. Fluffy the Wonder Cat: Broccoli: Llamas: Coming to life: Discoveries: City News:

Adoxx's Traffic Tutorial Hi guys, I'm running some tutorials on YouTube and got some questions to go deeper into my latest tutorial. I'm going to show how I make my layouts, metro connections, highways, .. in a way they are used at fullest. I prefer to make a layout with a grid of Avenues and One Way Roads. We are focussing on getting a Metropolis so we need to get everything right so we don't have to change anything later on. I make blocks of 9 x 13 or 9 x 15 Tiles, This way you can zone 4x4 buildings and place some transport inbetween. If you want to get your Sims to their jobs, and I mean fast, the GLR won't do it. As you can see I replaced all the Avenues with the GLR, added stations on every block. This makes it easy to travel short distances very fast. The stations uses Trams and Busses. But what if your sims works at the other side of the city? Well, we need to create a Subway Traject. Add a subway station every 3 Blocks, close to the GLR Stations. Connect them to each other by making a Traject like this: You can drag the Subway all the way to the other side of the City. More Coming Soon!

A work and investigation by myself A number of people pass though the HD (help desk) door and ask about links to demand mods and stuff related to demand mods. But what do they actually do? How do you use something like a ID boost to fix up a city? These questions shall be answered in this mini-tutorial. 1. What is a Demand mod? A demand mod is a mod designed to "explode" the demand on a particular demand. For example, a demand mod for residential $$ will explode that particular demand to 6000, the in-game's maximum demand cap, and thus, you will have highrises in no time. 2. Where can I find such mod? There are several: http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/26720-radicle-rci-demandgraph-mod/ By gamzdude, works on CAM, no manual file plugin. http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/22391-super-demand-mod-not-demand-ordinance/ By RadicalOne, unknown if it works on CAM, manual file plugin use. http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/20114-un1-graph-enlargement-mod/ By Un1, no demand mod, increases the demand cap to 12000 and 8000 That is it. ( though I have seen several I have not found, if found, please PM me) 3. Useage and warinings The demand mods are powerful, sometimes too powerful, they can turn cheap saloon towns into metropolis in a few game years, or turn a desert into habitable heaven. However, if your intention is to "have it real" you should not use it alot. The way to use a demand mod if you want it that way is to open a city, build your city up to a point, then when the city is still a bit new ( when you don't have so many highrises) you remove the demand mod and leave it alone (though you still mantain it). The city should stay with the same numbers for a while and then plumment because of growing buildings. When that happens you should either choose to fix the demand by adding "demand boosts" or in other words parks and attempt to play the game as it should be. A word of warning, sometimes the mod grows residential $$$ and then go bust because of lack of CO$$$. This happens because of logic. Ever thought of RL? Well it works this way, $ and $$ are mostly the larger population that work in a city and usually $$$ are a few (though some 20 sometimes go into a building). Well, what happens if you got more of that? you get no jobs sots! and thus you get problems. One way to fix this is to remove the demand mod for residential $$$, that way, you can avoid more problems in a city. If you need those $$$, they will grow alone by the $ and $$ demand and the CO$$$ mods. If you can't still figure it out PM me or go to HD in chat and call for me that way I can help you, any other questions should go to my PM box. As always, LC

A gmax® B.A.T. Tutorial Part 1 Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this article. Author: Larsz Required: gmax®, the Maxis BAT gamepack Recomended: Complete the gmax® Tutorials (in order to get familiar with the gmax® user interface)User Level: Beginner Using Splines and Snaps together allows the user to create precision objects in gmax®. A Spline object is a very versatile object with many editing tools. Snaps make editing Splines easier. This tutorial explains how to use Splines and Snaps to create simple and compound objects. I would recommend completing the gmax® Tutorials that are available from discreet.com before beginning this tutorial. Compound Splines Let's create a compound object made up of edited splines. Some setup first. When you Start the B.A.T. you will see 4 Viewports; Top, Front, Left and Perspective. I am not sure why the B.A.T. starts zoomed so far out, or maybe it is just the way it starts for me but we want to work with meters and not tiles. To find out the distance between the gridlines, Left Click inside the Front Viewport to make it the active Viewport, and move your mouse to the 0,0,0 Point and then move the mouse to the first gridline to the right. Look at the value in the X Coordinate box. The value in the X Coordinate box indicates distance in meters from the 0,0,0 point. 16 meters is indicated by the first gridline in the picture below. Either use the Zoom Tool or scroll your scroll wheel on your mouse up to Zoom In until you see gridlines inside the Major Gridlines. We will be working in the Front Viewport to begin with. Make sure the Front Viewport is highlighted, then press the "w" key on your keyboard. "w" is the hotkey to toggle the active viewport from Minimum (4 viewports onscreen) to Maximum (Active viewport onscreen only). Front Viewport Maximized We are now setup to begin. Step 1. Create a Rectangle and an Arc. Rectangle Setup Make sure the "Grid Points" snap is checked. I usually leave "Vertex" checked as well. To open the "Grid and Snap Settings" dialogue, Right Click the Snap button. To "Turn On" the snap, Hold the Left Mouse button on the Snap button and select "2.5". Left Click + Drag the rectangle shape, Right Click to End the Rectangle Creation - I created a 3x3 Rectangle Arc Setup We are going to create the Arc using the Vertex Snap. Make sure that the Grid Points snap is not checked. The Rectangle shape has 4 Vertices (Vertex plural), one in each corner. We want to create an Arc that caps the Rectangle. To create an Arc shape, Left Click + Hold on the upper left Vertex of the Rectangle. When you hover the cursor near a Vertex you will notice how the Snap works. The Vertex you are near will have a Cross highlight. When the upper left Vertex is Snapped (highlighted), Left Click + Drag to the upper right Vertex. When you see the Snap, release the Left Mouse button. Your next Left Click will finish the Arc shape. Move your mouse to see how the Arc will change based on the final click. Notice how the Radius Value in the Parameters Roll-Out of the Arc changes as you move your mouse. Create your Arc with a 1.5 Radius like the image below. If you can't get the Radius to stop exactly at 1.5, get it as close as you can. Left Click in the Radius entry box and enter 1.5 for a value. As long as you haven't completed the Arc creation you can edit these values. To end the Arc creation, Right Click in the workspace. The Rectangle and Arc have to be converted to Editable Splines. Select the Arc, Right Click, Select "Convert To.." and then select "Convert to Editable Spline" You will also have to convert the Rectangle to an Editable Spline using the same procedure. You will be converting a lot of shapes to an Editable Spline as you work with Splines. The only Spline shape that doesn't require conversion is the Line shape. A gmax® B.A.T. Tutorial Part 2 Author: Larsz Required: gmax®, the Maxis B.A.T. gamepack Recomended: Complete the gmax® Tutorials (in order to get familiar with the gmax® user interface) User Level: Beginner See http://simtropolis.c...0&enterthread=y for links and the first part of this article Step 2. Breaking Stuff Select the Rectangle. Left Click the Modify Tab. Left Click the Exand/Collapse Toggle to expand the "Stack" and display the Sub-Objects. Troubleshooting - Your object is not an "Editable Spline" If you get to this point and your Object window looks like this: You have not successfully converted the object to an Editable Spline. Follow the instructions on the first page to convert your objects to Editable Splines. Select the "Segment" Sub-Object. A Rectangle object is made up of 4 Segments (Sides). Left Click on the Top Segment of the Rectangle Press the Delete Key on your keyboard. Yes, we don't want that Top Segment anymore. While we are here, why don't we make what is left of the rectangle a little taller. Snaps not only work when you are creating objects, they also work when you are editing those objects. Select the Vertex Sub-Object. Check the Grid Points Snap. Select the Move Command. Select the Lower Right Vertex of what is left of the Rectangle. Move your mouse near the lower right Vertex so that you see the Vertex Highlight. Left Click + Drag the Vertex down. Because the Grid Points Snap is enabled, you can only Move the Vertex by the Grid (or Vertices if there were any others). Drag the Vertex down 3 Grid Points and release the Left Mouse button. You will notice that the Grid Point Snap Highlight is a large (1x1 grid) crosshair. Now do the same for the lower left Vertex. Left Click Editable Spline to select the Object (we are done working with the Sub-Objects for now). Uncheck the Grid Points snap. We still have 2 separate objects. Later on we are going to want to make this a 3D object. It is currently only a 2D object. In order for the 3D modifiers to work correctly later, we need 1 solid object. Splines can be connected to each other, in fact attached Splines are great for manipulating objects. We want to Attach the Arc and what is left of the Rectangle together. Again, make sure that you collapsed all the Sub-Objects and that the Rectangle Editable Spline is selected. You will find the Geometry Roll-Out under the Object/Sub-Object window. You may have to use the Roll-Out Scroll Bar to scroll down. The Scroll Bar is very small and easy to miss. Left Click the Attach Button. Now, move your cursor over the Arc. You will see the cursor change to the Attach Cursor. Left Click to Attach the Arc to the Rectangle. Right Click in the workspace to end the Attach operation. The 2 objects have now become 1 object. Let's name the object, Frame. Even though we have attached the two objects, Frame is not a "Closed" Spline. We have to Weld the Vertices where the two objects meet. In order to Weld the Vertices, we have to work with the Vertex Sub-Object of Frame. The Weld command is found in the same Geometry Roll-Out as the Attach command. Here is the setup for the Weld. The Weld operation is a 2 step process. The first step is to select the Vertices you wish to Weld. You select the Vertices by Left Click + Drag a selection box around the Vertices. The Selection Box After releasing the Left Mouse button when selecting Step 2 is to Left Click the Weld button. Make sure there is a positive value in the box next to the Weld button. The default value of .1 should work fine. Our objects connect in 2 places, you will have to repeat the Weld operation with the Vertices on the left side where the arc and rectangle meet. Left Click Editable Spline in the Object window to select the object Frame. The object Frame should now be 1 solid object, we can test this using a 3D modifier, Extrude. A gmax® B.A.T. Tutorial Part 3 Author: Larsz Required: gmax®, the Maxis B.A.T. gamepack Recomended: Complete the gmax® Tutorials (in order to get familiar with the gmax® user interface) User Level: Beginner See http://www.simtropol...0&enterthread=y and http://www.simtropol...4&enterthread=y of this article for links and more information. Step 3. Testing the Frame object The best analogy I can think of for the Extrude modifier is Play-Doh. Play-Doh makes toys that you put Play-Doh into and by forcing the Play-Doh material through a hole, you create a formed shape. Think of the object "Frame" as the hole that you are going to force 3D material through. By Extruding our 2D object Frame, will will create a 3D formed shape. To setup for Extruding, make sure the object Frame is selected, the Modify tab is active and that you are at the Editable Spline level of object Frame. Extrude Setup Left Click in the Modifier List to expand the list. There are several Modifier Groups, the Extrude Modifer that we are looking for can be found in the Mesh Editing group. Highlight the Extrude modifier and Left Click to apply the modifier. After you apply the Extrude modifier, you will see the following screen. Make sure that the Cap Start and Cap End settings are checked. To see the Extrude modifier at work, press the "w" key on your keyboard to return to minimized viewport. Left Click inside the Perspective Viewport and zoom in on the Frame object. The best way to see the Extrude modifier at work is to Arc Rotate the perspective view. You can use the Arc Rotate tool, or you can hold down the Alt key + Middle Mouse button and move the mouse to change the viewpoint. You will also notice that the Frame object is solid but it is flat. Left Click the spinner up button next to the Amount box to change the thickness of the object. If your object matches the above picture, Save your model. After saving, feel free to play around with the extruded object. You can change the Amount, turn the Extrusion modifier On/Off using the "light bulb" toggle or uncheck/check some of the parameters. One of the useful features of creating this object as an Editable Spline is that you can go back into the Editable Spline level of the object or even the Sub-Objects and edit. The Extrude modifier will adjust the extrusion accordingly. When you are done playing, Open your saved model, do not save the changes when prompted. If your object does not match the above picture, you can fix the problem without losing your work, another benefit of working with Splines. I will run through a troubleshooting and repair. Troubleshooting - Weld FailureIf the Welding of the 2 initial shapes failed, your Extruded object will probably look like this. You can leave the Extrude modifier in place and go "down the Object Stack" to the Vertex sub-object level and Weld the vertices just as you did earlier in the Welding operation. After you are done editing, return to the Editable Spline level and then Left Click on the Extrude Modifier to see your changes. SummaryAt this point, I would recommend going through the tutorial a couple more times until you can do it from memory. You can create nearly any shape using this technique and the only 3D to worry about is which viewport you are working in. Feel free to experiment with the other Spline shapes like Circle and Star. The other shapes behave the same way when converted to Editable Splines. I will cover "holes" or "openings" in the next part of the tutorial, but if you are up to it, simply create a shape inside the existing shape, convert it to Editable Spline and then Attach it to the existing shape. As long as the hole shape is a closed Editable Spline, completely within another Editable Spline and Attached it should work fine. I will also cover all of the Snaps in the first part of the next tutorial, but feel free to experiment with them as well, Endpoint, Midpoint and Perpendicular are very handy when dealing with geometry. I am certainly no expert with gmax®, I learned the hard way, trial and error. I think it is important that you get real comfortable with working in the Object Stack and understand how it works. When I first started playing with gmax®, I usually just deleted objects and started over when they were not right because I didn't understand how dynamically the Object Stack works. I was also accustomed to working with Autocad and it's set of Snaps and it took awhile for me to get used to snaps in gmax®. It is also important to realize that for most people, including myself, you will have to do things many times in order to understand how things work. Please make sure you understand the concepts in this first tutorial before continuing onto the next part. Here is a window frame I created with Editable Splines. ** Note ** If you are going to try to Export this model using the B.A.T. Export, make sure that you move the model up so that the entire model is above the Y plane. If you have any questions about this article, please PM STomnibus.

Skill Level : Intermediate Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this article. The purpose of this tutorial is to help lot builders build the most functional lot possible, so that it functions as closely as possible to a Maxis made lot. The most common type of plop made is a commercial lot, so I will use that as an example. Commercial Offices and Services (CS & CO) lots are made almost identically, so the steps are the same. Residential plops will not work properly in game; they tend to abandon over time. This is a known problem, and does not seem to be able to be fixed, so I wouldn't start there. Industrial plops are also possible; the steps should be very similar. Ploppable industrials may not function quite as well as a Maxis lot, but get pretty close. For this exercise, I will make a Cs$ Lot. To complete this process, I will use four programs; Plugin Manager, Lot Editor, Ilive's Reader and Ilive's LEProp. Reader can do everything that LEProp can do, but LEProp is simpler for some steps. You could also use DarkMatters DatGen, it should work just as well. I started modding using Reader, so am most familiar with it, which is why I'll use it for this. You should be fairly comfortable with these programs before attempting this, as you will do a lot with them. The Plugin Manager and the Lot Editor are available at the official Simcity Site : SimCity.Ea.Com. Ilive's Reader and LEProp are both in the Mods section of SimTropolis. There are numerous methods used to do this process; this happens to be the method I use, and find the easiest to deal with. It also eliminates the chance of the plop lot "growing" on it's own, which other methods sometimes have a problem with. A note on lot wealth. It is easy to want to assign your lot to a higher wealth group (Cs$ instead of Cs$). Be realistic here; many jobs out there are lower income, so the buildings should be as well. And demand for high wealth lots is low in newer cities, so only established cities will have higher wealth lots needed. The process of doing this will be done in stages, as follows : Part 1) Build Your Model Part 2) The Plugin Manager Part 3) Building the Lot Part 4) Modding your Lot Part 1) Build your model If you haven't figured out the BAT yet, then this is not the place to learn it. Once you have a model of your own, or one you have down loaded and wish to change, then continue. The only thing I will mention here is before you start, make sure your model has an appropriate name. For the ease of everyone involved, start a naming convention along these lines: Begin the name with a "tag" unique to yourself. Generally, a few letter abbreviation of your screen name works well. I use "SG_" as a prefix to all my lots, as my screen name is SimGoober. After that, follow it with a name that accurately describes your lot, and is unique to it. "SG_Store" isn't very helpful when trying to remember what file is what, but "SG_ToysRUs" is. You can edit the name of the file once it is created, but it would be better to rename the model before export, so the name of your GMAX file is the same. Part 2) The Plugin Manager. If you are converting an existing lot, you can skip this step. Just be sure the lot you want to convert has a landmark and growable version, as you will convert the landmark using the values from the growable. If you don't have both, you may want to start from scratch. For a new creation, follow along. Make sure your model file is in the root directory of your My Documents/Simcity/Plugins directory, and not a sub folder. Your directory name may be a variation of that, but it should be similar. If your model is not there, it won't show up in the Plugin Manager (PM). Open the PM, and you should get a screen similar to this: If you are not getting the full menu of building choices down the side, then you have a problem with the PM, and need to resolve it before continuing. Most likely, you will need to update your game, and reinstall the PM from the Maxis website. Now, in my picture there is only one model showing, for SG_ToysRUs, so I will use that for our demo here. You may have numerous files showing yourself. If your file is not showing, then one of two things has happened: 1) You didn't put the file where you should have. 2) You added special characters (#,$,%,^,etc) to the name. PM only recognizes numbers and letters. First, we will make a desc file for a growable lot. If you don't want a growable as well, you can delete this file and the lot we create later afterwards, but this helps to get a baseline for some of the values you will need for your functional landmark lot. You can also open this file later to copy some of these values over, which might be simpler than adding them in on their own. Click on the model file, and drag'n'drop it over the Cs$ branch of the File Types tree. This will start the process of making a desc file. If you just click on "OK" at the bottom, you will get a desc file with all the default settings. Don't do that yet, we need to make some minor changes. You should get a screen that looks something like this There are five tabs across the top, but we are only concerned with the "required" one. This is where we will do all of our changes. On this screen, I will go down the options one at a time: Building Value : You can ignore, or change to your liking. Bulldoze Cost : You can ignore, or change to your liking. Capacity Satisfied : This is what tells the game how many occupants (in this case jobs) the building supplies. It will be 2,4, or 6 numbers, depending on the wealth level (Cs$, Cs$, or Cs$). These numbers are paired; each pair set to a lot wealth. The first number tells the game which lot wealth these occupants go in, the second how many. Don't mess with the first number in each pair, only the second. You can edit the 2nd, 4th, and/or 6th numbers to what you like. The PM generally puts fairly accurate numbers here, but they may differ from what you want. Construction Time : Generally ignore, unless you want to change. Exemplar Name : Edit this, and add "_Grow" to the end. This is not necessary as the game goes, but makes it easier to tell which desc file is which later, as they all share the same names for the same model. Trust me, just do this for simplicity sake. Flamability / Max Fire Stage : Generally, leave as is. Pollution at Center : Generally, leave as is, though edit if you feel it is necessary for your lot. The third number is the amount of Garbage this lot produces, and the PM tends to make it pretty big; you may want to reduce it. Pollution Radii : Generally ok as is. Power Consumed / Water Consumed : Edit if necessary, the water value tends to be high. Worth : Generally, leave as is. This info will help you make a lot that functions more realistically in the game, as you will apply this information to your landmark desc file as well. You can now hit Enter to save this file. Ok, now we will make the landmark desc file. Go back to the top of the left hand menu, and click on your model file again. Now drag'n'drop it over the Landmark branch of the File Types tree, and you should get this screen : I'll Go through these options as well. Several of these could be edited to match the growable now, but it is easier to do in the Reader later, with fewer keystrokes. That also reduces the potential for mistakes. Budget Item Cost: Generally, Landmarks have a cost per month, but Commercial buildings do not. You can edit this if you like, or ignore it. We will fix that later. Bulldoze Cost : Edit as you see fit. Personally, I generally make that 10% of the plop cost, but it can vary a lot. Exemplar Name : Again, edit this name, and add _LM to the end. Flammability : Ignore for now Item Description/Name : These are fairly self explanatory, just be brief with both. The name should be just that, and the description a brief tag line. You can get creative here. Landmark Effect : I'd leave this alone, as you probably won't want it on a functional lot. We will remove this property later. Max Fire Stage : Ignore for now. Mayor Rating Effect : Similar to Landmark Effect. Plop Cost : Edit this to a reasonable amount. The default is 110,000, which is fine for a big fancy high rise, but for a local gas station it's a little unreasonable. Pollution at Center / Radii : Ignore for now. Power / Water Consumed : Ignore for now. Wealth : This is an easy lot killer, as if you mess this up, your lot will crash the game. For a Cs$ lot, it is low (1), Cs$ is medium (2), and Cs$ it is High (3). Make sure this matches what lot wealth you have picked. This was the final bug for me to figure out, and a simple one to overlook. Now you can save this file (hit enter), and we are on to building the lot. Part 3: Building the lot Before building your lot, it is a good idea to clean out your plugin directory. Temporarily move any down loaded lots, mods, and the like to a "storage" folder, only keeping those with props or textures you REALLY want to use on your lot. There are two benefits to doing this 1) The Lot Editor will load faster, and the lists of props will be much shorter and more concise. 2) The props you use won't be from a lot that someone else may not have, which is what is referred to as a "dependency" . Those props depend on another file being present on everyone's system. Open the lot editor, and choose any Landmark lot, which will begin with the letters "LM". The Sphinx lot is a good one to use, as it has very few things on it to remove. Under the lot tab, increase the lot size to accommodate the building you have created. If in doubt, or you building doesn't show up later, make it bigger. You can always make it smaller once you building is on it. Under the building tab, click replace building, and navigate to the one you want. For simplicity sake, remove all the props, overlay textures, and base textures, by deleting them. For the best results, start with a blank slate and add things to it. Make it a practice to always delete an overlay or base texture before applying a new one. On occasion, the one "underneath" may not get deleted, and may show through in game. Add whatever props, textures, flora, etc you want to get the desired affects. Once you have set the lot up the way you like it, do a "Save As", and rename your lot. I am going to stress again using a naming convention; the lot name should be very similar to your model and desc file names. This makes organization much neater and easier. For my lot, the model was SG_ToysRUs_xxx.sc4model , the desc file SG_ToysRUs_LM_xxx.sc4desc, and the lot file SG_ToysRUS_xxx.SC4lot . The xxx are the numbers Maxis assigns while creating the file. There are many benefits to doing this from the first lot on; just trust those of us who have learned the hard way. You may also want to include the lot size in the name, for quick reference. I have taken to doing this recently, ie : SG_2x3_ToysRUs_xxx.Sc4Lot Now is also a good time to make another copy of this lot, in case you mess up the conversion, and need to start over. Do another "Save As", and add "Backup" to the end of the name. If at any time you need to start over, you can delete the faulty copy, and make a new one quickly from your back up. Exit the lot editor after this. Now, Test your lot in game. It will not be functional yet, but it should show up as a landmark. You are not testing for the affects of this lot, but just for appearances. Test it under day and night conditions. If you want to go back and change anything, now is the time. Do not progress to the modding stage until you are happy with it. After it has been modded, sometimes the lot editor will have problems reading it. Also, if you go back and do another save from the lot editor, you may lose some or all of the modded content, and it is not always obvious what is or is not missing. I learned this the hard way also. Now, once you have the lot looking the way you want it, it is time to build a growable version. If you don't plan on releasing or using it, make it very simple : add the building only to the same size lot and do a save as. You'll need some of the values from this file to get the plop to work better. To make a growable lot, open the Lot Editor, and scroll to any file that begins with "Cs$". This will be a growable, low wealth commercial services lot. Note that medium or high wealth look very similar, they just have more dollar signs. Be careful to choose a lot from the correct lot wealth, and make sure it is an "s" (services) lot, and not an "o" (Office). The numbers after that describe that actual lot, but it doesn't matter which one you pick, as you will change everything. Open it up, and edit everything just like the Landmark you did. Then go back to the main "lot" tab before saving. Now before doing a "Save As", look at some of the informations here. The two main things are the lot sizes, and the growth stage. You want to use those when naming this file. The game won't care what you name it, but it makes things a whole lot easier for yourself and the community at large to maintain the naming convention that Maxis started. This way, it's easy to tell at a glance that this is a growable lot, and what growth stage it will appear at. Name your file as such : "Cs$" + the growth stage number then the width x depth, then your tag, then the lot name. It should look something like this : Cs$2_3x4_SG_ToysRUs . This tells us at a glance what type of lot this is. It will also make a lot of us happier when we download your lot, that you payed attention! Part 4: Modding your Lot This is where we will use the Reader program, available from Ilive. Ok, now open the Reader program. Open the file for your lot, and you will get a list of different file types. Click on one of the Exemplars, there are usually two. One is a Lot Configuration file ,the other is the Building file.. You can easily tell which is which by the second property "Exemplar Type". The Building exemplar will look like this: , Note : The very first property is the Parent Cohort. In the past we edited this field, to make the lot behave as the other similar Maxis lots. We have since learned that this is not necessary, and can actually cause problems. The original list of Parent Cohorts used actually also ties this lot to a building family. This resulted in you building occasionally showing up on the wrong lot! Also, when these values were first determined, we did not have access to the Plugin Manager. With that program, the need to change this field has become redundant. Leave it alone; there is no need to edit anything here. Let's do one minor house keeping thing first. Change the property "Exemplar Name". Right now, we are actually working on a copy of the LM desc file we made, copied into this lot file by the Lot Editor. Since this lot will no longer be a Landmark lot, we should change that suffix from "_LM" to "_Plop". This way, if we use the Lot Editor to make another lot with the landmark desc file, we can be sure which version we are using. It can be confusing in the Lot Editor, as if you opened it up again right now, and went to the change buildings tab, there will be two listings for this building! One is the desc file, the other the lot. Unless you know the Instance numbers, you can't tell them apart. Actually, if you won't be making another Landmark lot with this building, it is best to now delete that desc file. It serves no further purpose. Now we begin the editing process. There are numerous properties on a Landmark lot, that are not necessary, or not wanted, on a functional commercial lot. There are also numerous with values different from our growable, and we want them to match. So what we will do is delete a bunch of properties, and then copy and paste them from the growable desc file. This is much simpler than adding them one at a time, or editing them each, and reduces the possibilities of entering the wrong values. Please note that almost all values shown for the properties in Reader are in Hex format. That is why they look weird. You don't need to understand that format to use it, as Reader will translate any new data to Hex, if you do it right. Basically, any time you need to manually enter a number, do it one of two ways: 1) Enter it decimal format. When you hit apply, the Reader will change it to Hex. 2) Enter the full hex number, starting with "0x". This is what to do if you are making a minor tweak to an existing number. First, let's delete the unwanted properties. Select the first property to delete; "Pollution at Center". Now, while holding down the Ctrl key, very carefully click on each of the following properties, as shown in this picture : Now, very carefully, right click over any of those properties, and select "Delete Property". If you have difficulty Deleting these as a group, it can be done one at a time; it's just a little more tedious. You will be asked to confirm. Do so, and they are gone! Now we need to add in the correct values. We can do this one of two ways. If you right click over the properties area, you can select "add property", and add properties as necessary. Then you add what you want, as well as the values you need. For what we want to do here, there is an easier way. We will copy the properties we want from the growable desc file we created earlier. Open the growable desc file, and select the exemplar file. Don't worry, Reader can have several files open at once, and they are all listed down the left side. We want to select several properties in this file, and copy them to the lot file. First select the Exemplar file, then select the properties; do this by clicking on one of them, then while holding the Ctrl button down, select the rest as well. Select the properties as shown here: These are the properties, and a brief description of what they do : 1) Purpose : Describes the type of lot this is. In our case "Services". 2) Capacity Satisfied : The number of occupants (jobs or residents) this lot holds, in each wealth category. 3) Pollution at Center : Pollution types. Easier to copy than enter manually! 4) Power Consumed : Again easier to copy 5) Flamability : ditto 6) Query Exemplar GUID : The type of query this lot uses in game. This is the default commercial query in our case. 7) Construction Time : Optional. Use if you want this lot to appear under construction when plopped. MaxFireStage : Again, copying is easier. 9) Pollution radii : Ditto. 10) Worth : The lot worth. For use in case it is destroyed by a disaster. 11) Occupant Types : Types of Sims that work here. Ties to Capacity Satisfied, and Occupant Groups. 12) SFX: Query Sound : The sound that plays when the lot is clicked on. 13) Crane Hints : Related to Construction time. 14) Water Consumed : Another one to copy. 15) Building Value : The value of the building, for calculating taxes. Once they are selected, right click over one of them, and select "copy properties". This is a real handy tool, which helps keep everything neat and simple, and reduce errors. Then go back to the lot file, select the "Building" exemplar, right click over the properties area, and "Paste Properties" into your lot. This is the easier way. Again, you could add these properties in one at a time, but this way reduces chances of errors. Now there are just a few clean up things to do. First, lets look at the "OccupantGroups" Property For Landmark lots, there should be three values here. The second two are not necessary, and we want to add a new one. Double click on this property and a window opens up with the details. Select the second and third values, and click on remove. Now open it again, click on add, and type in the value "0x00013110". Click the first apply button , and you should see two values in the top and the bottom. Hit the bottom apply button, and this window closes and the changes take affect. What this does, is add the property "Building:Cs$" to the Occupant groups. I got the value for this from the field directly above the OccupantGroups one : OccupantTypes. The very last value here (in this case, there is one, but for higher wealth lots there are more) is 0x00003110. To get the corresponding occupant group, add a 1 to the fourth position, making it 0x00013110. This field is a minor detail; to my knowledge it only affects the way the in game My Sims function, but it may have other affects as well not understood. It is done in the Growable desc file this way, so I do it this way here as well. The last item to look at is the "Item Order". This could be skipped, but is worthy of a note. This property sets up where the lot will appear on the landmark menu. All Maxis lots will have a value of "0", and custom lots default to "1". There is a thread on the SimTrop forums by BigRedFish that explains how to use this value; I would suggest reading it. Here is a link to it : Item Order Exemplar. I use a unique value here myself, and all my lots should group together on the menu. As long as no one else picks my value, it will stay that way. Most custom lots on the STEX maintain that "1" value, and are mixed together. The very last step is the most important : SAVE. None of these changes will take effect unless you save the file before exiting. Now we will make a couple minor edits to the Lot Config exemplar. These changes allow the lot to function a little better in game, and also prevent this lot from trying to grow. By modding the landmark lot into a functional plop, we have made it very similar to a growable lot. On occasion, the game will forget the difference, and try to make this lot grow. We can fix that by editing a couple fields. First open the Lot Config Exemplar: (Note this section has been added, so new files were used for the pics. The values are not the same as the above lot) Depending on the size of your lot, and the number of props used, your version probably has a lot more of the "LotConfigPropertyLotObject" properties. We need to directly edit three values, and optionally add a fourth. The first value is the "Growth Stage". It defaults to "0x01", which is stage one. Although this lot shouldn't grow at all, we can guarantee it won't grow by changing this. Double click on this property, and in the bottom box, change this to "0xff". Hit the top apply button to change it, and the bottom apply button to exit. This changes the growth stage to decimal value 255, which doesn't exist, so the lot cannot grow. The next two values to change are : LotConfigPropertyWealthTypes & LotConfigPropertyPurposeTypes. For a landmark lot, these are usually left blank. For our purposes, we want to have these the same as the growable version of the lot we made. Open that lot, and get the values from there to change these two properties. In this case they are "0x01" and "0x02". The last field is the optional one. If you want this lot to appear to go through the construction phase when plopped, you need to add one property here : LotConfigPropertyDoConstruction. Add this by right clicking on the properties side, and select "Add Property". Then use the scroll down list at the top until you find this property. At the bottom box, enter "0x01", and hit the two apply buttons. Time to save again, you should be done! Once you have saved, you can exit and try your lot out in game. Don't forget to move all your lots in storage back into the plugins directory. If your game crashes while using this lot, especially after clicking on it, you probably missed or messed up one of two things : The Capacity Satisfied fields / Lot Wealth relationship, or the query. If the lot wealth doesn't match the types of jobs assigned, the lot may crash, or show "0/0" for jobs. If you have the wrong type of query selected, the game might look for information to fill in this query which this lot doesn't have, and crash. You are now done converting your lot. There are many more custom things you can do, but that is not in the realm of this tutorial. One quick and easy custom thing to do is add a custom menu icon. You can do this easily if you are good at editing pictures. Open the lot with LEProp, and "save" the menu icon at the bottom of the screen. You can then edit it in a graphics program. MsPaint that comes with Windows can do a fair job for something simple like this. Once you are done, you can "import" your new icon back in, in LEProp again. Also, in LEProp, you can edit the description and name of the lot. One quirk of LeProp; if you save the file from this program without adding text to these fields, It may save blanks here. Actually, it creates text files with these values to use instead of the name and description you added in the PM. LEProp can also add other basic custom content as well. Play around with it, and you can change what menu the lot appears in, the descriptions, query sounds and other things. I would suggest just experimenting a bit to see where it goes. Credits Thanks to Cerulean, Deadwoods and Vlakhaas for help with the original version of this tutorial. For the updates to it, the information was learned mostly from GrampaAl, with a few points from Swamper77 as well. Actually, a comment from Swamper77 started the whole process of "re-learning" this process. Thanks to all! enjoy!

Please PM RalphaelNinja or STomnibus if you have any questions about this article. B.A.T. Preview by RalphaelNinja “gMax”, the lesser brethren of Discreet’s award-winning 3ds max, is built for gamers to create their own in-game content of which SimCity 4 is now added to the growing list of gMax ready games. As with any software tool, gMax is daunting to the uninitiated of 3d graphic programs. However in the hands of a 3d artist we will soon see every imaginable and unimaginable building in the world. Tools like the B.A.T. (Building Architect Tool) basically extend the shelf life of games. With longer shelf life, the game is given time to evolve into a mature product. For those who are impatient with waiting for the B.A.T., remember that B.A.T. portion is only a plug-in to gMax; providing the final export function to SC4. Learning gMax is mandatory if you wish to create buildings/props for SC4. As of this preview of the B.A.T., this is the second beta generation. Support for transparency and some night lighting has been incorporated. In this quick preview, we will take you through the steps of creating a transparent window and porting this over to SC4 as a lot. The process may evolve with the next B.A.T. release. What we get You will need to get gMax from http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax before you can install the plug-in. With the second B.A.T. beta, there are three parts to the tool. gMax plug-in (self installer)SC4 plug-in manager (takes your gMax rendered image and converts it to a building or prop)LotEditor (new version that allows you to replace existing buildings with your own). Running through with gMax Starting up the B.A.T. shortcut you will see.. <br style="page-break-before: always;" clear="all"> Creating a Transparent Window Before we can show you how the Plug-in interacts with gMax, we need to create a “sample box” for it to render. There are many excellent tutorials written by the community, so the following is only a quick overview of the process. Click on the “shapes” icon, select Rectangle and draw two rectangle in the front view. Select both objects and right click (known as the quad menus) to convert the two rectangles to Editable Spline. Select one rectangle, Select the Modify icon, then scroll down the command panel until you see Geometry where you will find the Attach button. Select Attach then click on the second rectangle. This connects the two rectangle. The connected rectangle should still be selected when you Extrude them. adjust the Extrude amount to about 5 (default is 25). Go back to the create tab, Shapes, Rectangle and add a window pane. With the window pane selected, slap a UVW Map on it. This allows us to adjust the opacity of the window pane. With the UVW Mapping selected from the stack, click on the material editor (red ball), click on New and select Standard for the “New Material” popup window. Change the opacity to about 70, click on “Show map in viewport” icon and click on Apply to see the transparency effect in the perspective window. Add the prefix of Night_ to Rectangle01. This is the tag that tells the Render to illuminate this object when rendering. Adding a box behind the transparent window will provide the visual clue that we are looking through a window. Select the “create” icon, Geometry icon and Box button to create a box behind the window pane. Use the “Select and Move” button to position the box. <br style="page-break-before: always;" clear="all"> The gMAX SC4 Plugin Rollout A drum roll is heard as we finally reach the pinnacle of this preview; the B.A.T. rollout tools. By clicking on the “hammer” we see the addition of the B.A.T. button which reveal three additional rollouts; Export, Parameters and Preview. Playing with the preview allows us to see the “Day & Night” rendered image of your building. You can select the direction of the view (ESWN) using the View Navigation and the Zoom from levels 1 through 5. The preview Quality allows you to select Draft, Low, Medium and High (default is low). For a complex building at 4 million polys it takes 15 minutes to generate a low quality preview. The parameters rollout controls the positioning of the LODs (level of detail). That red box that you see surrounding the Window frame is the area of export. With the latest beta, the refit LOD’s button ensures that your complete model is encapsulated (otherwise you could find a large slice of your building missing). The Night Window parameter controls the glowing color of your night windows. There are three color choices; Beige, Blue or Green. Basically these are just bitmap images from the Maps directory of which you could probably replace with images of your own choice. Remember that this is only in the current Beta and the choice of how Night Windows are generated may change with the final B.A.T. The Opacity parameter of Night Windows doesn’t really control the opacity (allowing you to see through the window at night) but rather controls how the final brightness of the window. To ensure that all buildings retain similar camera and lighting effects, the Reset Lights & Cameras repositions any L&C changes that you made. Exporting to SC4 With the current beta, once you click on the “Export” button, depending on the complexity of your model, you can either have supper or go to bed. At 4,319,100 polys, the building at the beginning of this preview took about 12 hours to render on a P4 3ghz/1gb ram (hyperthread) computer. Maxis is looking into adding a Draft Export mode to allow for quick renders. Similar to a scanner, images are generated line by line for five different zooms in four different directions. A total of 20 different images are generated and stored as fsh files within a .SC4MODEL file (it is actually a .DAT file with a different file extension). A short three minutes later, we are ready for the next phase… SC4 Plugin Manager The plugin manager creates a SC4DESC file which is the link between your rendered fsh images (stored in the SC4Model file) and your Lot Editor. The generated SC4DESC file can either be a building or a prop. The left column is all the building types that you can use to typecast your rendered buildings on the right column. By dragging a gMax render from the right column into one of the types on the left column, a building of that type is created. The above illustration shows the Sample box being dragged and dropped into the prop type. I’ve merged all four tabs into one image to give you an idea of the properties that you can edit. Once you have changed the properties, click OK to generate a description plug-in. Last Step, Lot Editor There are two choices to bring your newly created building into SC4. If you dragged and dropped your rendered building into one of the civic building types such as police, you will need to open an existing police lot and use the building tab in the Lot Editor to replace the building with your own. The second option is to create a prop of your building of which you can use any lot (including the blank lots from Simtropolis) to add your building. The illustration uses a R$ blank lot (expanded to 3x3 lot size) before selecting the sample box prop. The lot is resized to 2x1, from 3x3, after the prop is positioned. Base is added. Use save-as to generated a new lot. We are done!!! Seeing your New Building In game

Maxis has released the first video in a video-blog series entitled "Insider's Look: GlassBox Game Engine." It seems like we've heard a lot about the engine since SimCity was announced, but Dan Moskowitz, Gameplay Lead for SimCity takes the time in this video to walk us through some specific examples of what the engine actually does: As Dan notes, the video isn't intended to be representative of the game's final graphics, so it's important to keep that in mind when watching. Still, the video does show off some gameplay aspects that we can hopefully look forward to when the game launches. I was particular drawn towards the ability to customize and upgrade certain buildings, such as a fire station, from within the game itself.The extent of possible customization is unclear at this point, but any customization at all will be nice for us non BATers who still want to change how certain buildings look and function. A quick glimpse at terraforming and zoning abilities look promising as well. The main purpose of this video is to show off the Glassbox engine, and it seems every bit as powerful as we have been led to believe so far. As the video explains, the simulation consists of several interacting aspects, from resources like coal and workers, to resource-carrying "agents" like pedestrians and vehicles. All of the effects and animations are directly affected by the simulation rules, so nothing that you see is without a purpose. Check out the video below, and stay tuned to Maxis's developer blog and Simtropolis for the game updates.

This tutorial is aimed at teaching anyone competent with Gmax or 3DSmax techniques for making simple industrial BATs. Please note that this is not a tutorial for a beginner, you must understand the basics of BATting prior to following this tutorial. These are techniques that I use for my industrial BATs, and my thoughts on them, so it is not necessary to follow each section through to the end. In the tutorial, you will learn to use mesh to your advantage, as well as specific settings to simple objects, and the manipulation of them through all viewports. Part I: Modeling a chemical tank In the first part, I will teach you the basic modeling of a chemical tank. You may be looking at real life examples, and thinking 'this seems impossible!'. Well, don't fret, it isn't. ;-) All you need is a bit of practice, and enough time on your hands to follow this tutorial. Our goal is to make a detailed and well-textured chemical tank, like so: ----->>> So, lets start off. In the top viewport, create a cylinder. We will use different setting than default to attain what we want. Give the cylinder the settings: radius: 7, height: 32, height segments: 9, cap segments: 1, sides: 40. Now we will turn it into into a tank. Start by switching to front viewport, and choosing the 'Edit Mesh' modifier in the righthand panel. Make sure your cylinder is selected when you do this. Now click on the expand button to the left of the 'Edit Mesh' modifier, and choose 'vertex'. Next you should select all the vertices on the very top of the cylinder, and scale them down with the 'select and scale' tool. Continue to adjust each level until you get a nice shape, similar to that of a chemical tank. If you don't get it right the first time, you may always adjust it until it looks okay. Then move the levels up or down to make the shape like the following: Now that we have the basic shape, let's go on to the details. We will start by adding some rings to keep it nice and sturdy. In the top viewport, create a tube directly above our tank, with the following settings: radius 1: 7.2, radies 2: 6.8, height: 0.5, height segments: 1, cap segments: 1, sides: 40. Now duplicate the tube and move up by 4m. Keep doing this until you get to the the taper beginning. Now, create a box in the top viewport, with the following settings. Then position it so that it is at the edge of the cylinder (as shown), and between the top and bottom rings. Now duplicate the new tall box, and move it to the opposite side of the cylinder. Select the two (hold ctrl to select multible objects at once), and duplicate through rotating from the top viewport, and rotate 90 degrees. Now select all of the tall boxes, and duplicate by rotation and rotate 45 degrees. Now select them all once more, and rotate duplicating half of 45 degrees (22.5). It should now look like this: You may now want to choose a nice concrete or metal texture for these beams. Don't texture the main cylinder yet, though. Let's go on to the railings. In the top viewport, create a cylinder, with a small radius (for a railing) and about 1.5m tall. Use the same ration duplication method as you used for the support beams, to create a circular railing for the top. Move one of the original tubes up to create a rim forop. Then create a torus to finish it off: You may use the same techniques that you have just learned to make a nozzle/spout for the tank, or leave it as it is. Now, to end this part of the tutorial, we will texture the tank. Find a nice texture. I like to use leaky concrete textures, since I think they look okay. For now, let's use this texture here: Apply this new texture to your tank, and go modifiers > UV coordinates > UVW map, and choose cylindrical. Now edit the 'Gizmo', and use your move and scale tools to adjust the position and size of your texture. There we have it! Our tank is mostly done. You may want to add a bit more, but everything concerning the tanks can be made nicely with the methods used and applied in this tutorial. Make a nice render of your tank, and you are finished! Be sure to check back soon for the next part in the series!

Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this article. Table Of Contents 1. What is the Lot Editor? 2. Keyboard Controls 3. Step 1 /Creating a new lot The "lot" Tab 4. Step 2 Ground and Overlay Textures 5. Step 3 / Buildings and Props 6. Step 4 Flora 7. Step 5 / Water or Land?? 1. What is the Lot Editor? The Lot Editor, or LE as I will be referring to it as, is a program made by MAXIS for the players of SC4 to add or edit lots in SC4 (SimCity 4). To download the LE (which is needed for this tutorial) please visit http://www.simcity.ea.com. 2. Keyboard Controls Keyboard Shortcut Function: Arrow Keys - Push selected object in up or down directions Shift + Arrow Keys - Push selected object 8x how far it would go w/out shift Ctrl + Up/Down Arrow - Raise/ lower elevation of selected object Ctrl + Shift + Up/Down Arrow - Raise/ lower elevation by 8x Page-Up / Page-Down - Rotate selected object M - Mirror selected texture Delete - Delete Selected Object D - Creates a duplicate of the selected object Esc - Escape Selected Prop 3. Step 1 /Creating a new lot /The "lot" Tab Now. to get to the good stuff. Open up the Lot Editor Your Screen should look like this: Select the lot you wish edit We will work on a new park. Scroll down the list until you find Pz 1x1_Grass. Select it and push ok. Now you have opened up the open grass area lot. You notice you have a 3d view and a 2d view. Below the 3d view you have a set of tabs. In this step I will tell you about the Lot tab. It should already be selected. First we will change the size of our park lot. In the "size" box, enter 5 for both width and depth. Notice that every time you change something, you can view it in the 3D. Also in the lot tab are the foundation and elevation change boxes. In this lesson you won't need to use them, consult your LE manual for more information on those. Now select how you want the road to be on this lot. You can choose this from the "Corners" box, this isn't really important except for looks. 4. Step 2 Ground and Overlay Textures Now onto making the base of your lot. First we will look at base textures. Select the "base textures" tab. Select Add Item. Cycle through the list until you find grass number 0x25f40000. Place the grass in each empty tile within the lot. You have just added the base texture and now we will move on to the overlay textures. Select the "Overlay Texture" tab. Your lot should be like this A B C D E 1 * * * * * 2 * * * * * 3 * * * * * 4 * * * * * 5 * * * * * * = grass base textures We now are going to add a path using the overlay textures. Find path # 0x25933000 it's the dark straight one. Place it vertically in tiles d5 d4 b1 and b2 and rotate it once to make it horizontal and place it in tile c3 (for tile #'s refer to grid above) You should have something like this now: A B C D E 1 I 2 I 3 -- 4 I 5 I & I = pathway Now to add turns. Find turn # 0x25963000 it's the dark turn. Select it and place it in tiles b3 and d3 you will need to rotate at least one of them. It should be like this now: A B C D E 1 I 2 I 3 '- -- -, 4 I 5 I '- & -, = Turns Congrats you have just mastered the basics of lot making.. Continue farter into the tutorial to learn about props and other things. 5. Step 3 / Buildings and Props Lets start off with buildings. You can't add buildings to a lot; I'll just say that now. A building appears as a grey rectangle on the 2d view. So lets go into props. Select the props tab. Select Add Item, inside this list you will find various objects that are used to personalize a lot, such as cars, swing sets, and trees. We are going to add a small pond to start off with. Open up the list and up in the top type "water hazard" to find the small pond. Place it wherever you like. Now, for trees type in "largepine" to find the pine trees, select them and place them in various spots on your lot, you can also get other types of trees by selecting the other types of trees that are in the same area as the pine trees in the list. If you scroll up a bit you will find some flowers, place those in there also. You are now almost done with your lot 6. Step 4 Flora ... Or plants to the normal person, are just like the trees that are in the props menu, but these grow, don't choose these unless you want the trees to grow which can take a while. The only thing that is in this menu is the tree. 7. Step 5 / Water or Land? Notice that there are two tabs left. They are land and water; only select these if you are making something that extends outward into the water. You place the water tile where you want it to touch the water and place the land tiles where you want it to touch the land. You finished product should be similar to this: Mine may be a bit more detailed than yours does now. That's ok, just experiment with the Lot Editor, read through the prop list, and find out what's there. Soon, you too will be able to create wonderful looking lots. If you have any questions about this article, please PM STomnibus.

Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this article. Introduction I don't really have much to introduce. Basically this guide is all my own work it relates to the editing (modding) of the Maxis/EA game christened SimCity 4. Modding is basically a way of editing the current parameters of the game to something more unbalanced. (For example: a building can hold 500 people by default we can edit it to hold 5000 people.) The guide was inspired by the work of the Modd squad on the simtropolis site and contains details of how to copy some of their earliest modds. A key tool needed is the Ilive reader, which can be found in the modding section. Well that's enough information for just now have fun modding. Beginner Lessons Lesson 0 - How to back up simcity_1.dat Lesson 1 - Creating odinances that bring in 5000 per resident Lesson 2 - Here I present Fire/police station mods Lesson 3 - The modding of traffic system Lesson 4 - Water purification edits Lesson 5 - Landmark mods Lesson 6 - Park (open grass used as example) mod Lesson 7 - The airport modifications Lesson 8 - The school/Clinic mods Lesson 9 - Editing low wealth building numbers Lesson 10 - Modding the rest of the residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Advanced Lessons Modd tutorial advanced appendix A "An ordinance for unbalancing everything" Modd tutorial advanced appendix B "A copy of buggies old Modd (demand editing)" RalphaelNinja's Tutorial on Lot Descriptions and Lot Naming How to Change the Lot Name Finding an Unknown Property Finding Modd Inspiration and Planning a Modd Hexadecimal Lesson, oh joy How To Test Closing Statements Let's Start Modding Foreword: All these were created on the simtropolis web site as a means of adding new variety to the SimCity 4-computer game for the P.C. As yet they have not been tested on a Mac. I must stress now that all modding as done at your own risk and I am not held liable for any damages caused to your P.C., the game or your general will to live resulting from your usage of this guide. Good luck with the modding. - Funforfree99 Lesson 0. First Thing's First: How to back up simcity_1.dat Find it in your program files and then maxis then simcity 4. copy the file to your desktop and leave it there. If anything goes wrong simply replace this file. Lesson 1. Creating ordinances that bring in 5000 per resident. Open your ilive reader and load simcity_1.dat Open the analyser click tree then search Find the plus sign beside ordinances and open it Search for the ordinance named smoke detectors Click it and in the data that appears on the left choose cost per resident double click this info line and edit the value that can be edited. ( a negative number means you are losing money for purpose of this lesson change it to 50000) While we are here lets also change the flamability rating. Find the line named % effect on flamabillity and change it. (1 = normal flamability 0= no flamability 100000=super flamability) Close analyser and save Test out the patch. Lesson 2. Here I present Fire/Police Station modds As detailed above get to examplar trees. Find the plus sign beside civic buildings and enter it. Find large fire (or large police) station and double click it Let's start with radius. Double click radius of effect and edit the value to 11111. clack apply and lets make this a strong radius. You should be able to find two other radius values (center and outer strength) simply edit these two to be equal (using of course your center valueas both) Now to add more trucks Be Warned This Could Crash Your Game If You Go Overboard With The Numbers! ind fire: trucks and change its value to 0x00000099 Find no to dispatch and change its value to 0x99 Apply all changes and save your file. Lesson 3. The modding of traffic systems. Usual start up. Get to the exemplar tree. Open the plus sign named simulator. Open exemplar traffic simulator (hard that). Considering that we have only worked with one value so far think of this as the next stage. Find the value named walk speed (road,rail etc) Open this and Take a guess at a good speed for people to walk at. repeat through all values. (Leave all values that are set at 0 to 0.) Move on to the next line car speed and repeat 5. Continue this for bus, truck, frieght pass rail and subway One more value to edit and that is capacity. Change these to adequat figures once again leaving 0's at 0 Apply, save and test. Congrats another home made mod to go into your collection. Lesson 4. Water Purification edits. Get to examplar tree and find water. Choose water TREATMENT (not prurification) plant I think someone asked for how to remove the water it uses. So find water consumed and double click it and edit it to 0x00000000 Apply and either save or edit water produced from 0x00000000 to 0x00004E20 to get 20000 units of water. (maybe) If you want to change price edit plop cost to 0x00000000000001F4 (price of wind plant) Quit and save then test Lesson 5 Landmark mods Get to examplar tree and find landmarks Find the empire state building and open it's details. Choose plop cost and edit it's value to 0x0000000000000096 ( thats §150) I would have to leave you to discover other values although 0x0000000000000001 MAY give it to you for §1. I'd also like to introduce at this point SFX sounds. Find sfx, query sound and edit the value so far I have found the following sounds 0x2A8C9F38 american anthem (white house) 0x4A55BA9D school sound 0x6A62C900 fire sound 0x8A4C6575 army base 0x2A55BC25 movie sound There are many more these are simply examples. now find examplar Lm8x4_empirestatebld Here we should be able to find lot config property sizes and these can be edited to 0x01 and 0x01 (a 1 by 1 building) Apply, save, close and test the new mods. Warning: Don't try and put 1 by 1 buildings leaning over the edge of the map, the screen will just crash! As for the park (grass mod) to §2 this just gives locations and edits Lesson 6. Park (open grass used as example) mod examplar tree find park open grass area plop cost Edit to 0x0000000000000000 (free) (Why should you pay for grass?) save and test Not a particularly full tutorial but I was basically repeating myself. Have fun dudes and Ilive thanks for the compliment! Lesson 7. The airport modifications Get to examplar tree Find in park the value named airport international 1 Go to the very bottom of this set and edit the value named lotconfigdoconstruction change the value from 0x01 to 0x00 (stops need for construction) This can be reversed in buildings that do not need construction i.e. The empire state building. This next stage I will need help with. In my original post I produced instructions to edit capacity however this just changes what we are told is the capacity when creating an airport. Any one going to tell me where I can find true info on this. Save close and test. Lesson 8. The school/Clinic mods From examplar tree we want to get to civic buildings Find large medical centre and find the value named capacity, user visible text. Open it and put in 0x00009999 repeat this for the other value that begins with patient cap. For any inquisitive types there is a radius to be increased (see above) and a new value named HQ boost (EQ if school building) This can be edited as high as you want health to go. Also find sfx, plop cost, and power and water consumed values both of which can be changed to 0x00000000. Save, quit and test Lesson 9. Editing low wealth building numbers. Get an examplar tree open Find residential § Within this find cute house In the values find residence or jobs a building ... Edit the second value to 0x00000099 (this gives around 143 people) Apply and save then test You will find my lessons beginning to thin slightly I expect you to know what am talking about now and so it is less necesary to go into detail. This mod only shows its true effect on new buildings. Lesson 10. Modding the rest of the residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Get to the examplar tree and find residential §§ You should be able to find any house and then its number of residence (see other tutorial) there should be 4 values. We are only interested in the second from the top and the bottom values. The first value we are looking for (second from the top) gives the number of low wealth residents that live in the house. the other value (bottom) is how many medium wealth live in the building. Now we will move on to high wealth residential. As above find a house and then find the residence value. There will be 6 values once again we are only interested in the second, forth and sixth values. In the same order as above the second is low wealth residents, forth is medium and the final value is high wealth. All these ideas remain throughout commercial and industrial. Save all the changes, take a deep breath that you have finished the course, test, then wait for any extra tutorials that will appear here. Modding advanced appendices. This was my idea to have some fun after teaching all the skills in previous tutorials. They serve no use other than to give those who feel the need to work to higher skill levels something to do. They involve the adding of examplar and sometimes some general messing up of the code. Once again it isn't my fault if you badly screw up your computer or game with these. Good luck. Modd tutorial advanced appendix A "An ordinance for unbalancing everything" Get to the examplar tree and find an ordinance to edit. I am starting with clean air act. Edit the two existing properties (% on air pollution and % effect on ID demand) to 0 each Now to add more values if you right click in the value box you should see "add property" this is what we want so click on it and an editor window will appear. Simply choose the appropriate value in the top box for example find % effect on crime. And choose it. For this example just put in float as its type and click on the edit box. Enter 0. Click accept. Repeat the step above for any other values you feel necessary and use previous knowledge to edit its cost. Save close cross your fingers close your eyes and test. Modd tutorial advanced appendix B "A copy of buggies old Modd (demand editing)" Get to the examplar tree and find a civic building to become your modifier. Open its properties and add something like %effect on cs§§§ Edit this to as many times as you want it multiplied by. Save test and leave comments for me. RalphaelNinja's Tutorial on Lot Descriptions and Lot Naming You will need ilive's Reader program (available from the Mods Download Section at Simtropolis). Create a txt file using notepad (don't use wordpad or word as it creates weird chars) and type in your description. save. Start up the reader program Click on Open and navigate to the My DocumentsSimcity 4Plugins directory Changes "files of type" to "All Files (*.*) You should be able to see <your new lot name_xxxx>.SC4Lot file. Select your lot and click on Open Click on the "Fill the list" and the left panel will show the files that are part of this lot file. On a blank area on the left panel, right click and select insert file Find the text file that you wish to insert, you can use my xa.txt as an example. Once you have selected a text file, it will prompt you for file type. Select XA file and click OK If prompted, No entry selected. Append to end? answer yes Highlight the new unknown XA file and on the menu bar on top you can find "File". Click on "File" and a panel called "File Info" will pop up showing Entry ID (mem) of 20269608 00000000 00000000. Click Edit and follow the instruction below. Type <leave at 2026960b> Group <random # consisting of 0-9 and A-F up to 8 chars> so ABCDEF01 is valid Instance <random # consisting of 0-9 and A-F up to 8 chars> so ABCDEF01 is valid Write down all three numbers as you will need them for your description key Click okay Select an exemplar file (there are usually two of them) and look for "Exemplar Name" on the right panel. Find description key and double click on it Enter the same address as you created above in the same order. Type, Group and Instance. Click Apply once you are done. Now Click on save. then click on [x] to get out of the reader program. How to Change the Lot Name You will need ilive's Reader program (available from the Mods Download Section at Simtropolis). Start up the Reader program Click on Open and navigate to the My DocumentsSimcity 4Plugins directory Changes "files of type" to "All Files (*.*) You should be able to see <your new lot name_xxxx>.SC4Lot file. Select your lot and click on Open Click on the "Fill the list" and the left panel will show the files that are part of this lot file. Select an exemplar file (there are usually two of them) and look for "Exemplar Name" on the right panel. If you are using the Blank Lot, you should also see "<Type your Name Here>" in the Exemplar Name field. If you cannot find Exemplar Name (3rd line from the top), check the other exemplar file. Using Reader 5.4 or higher, you should be able to double click on the Exemplar Name (right panel) which pops up Property: <Type your Name Here> Click once on the text string under Values to overtype the string (it should be highlighted). If you begin typing now, the name will be overwritten with whatever you type. If you click on the field again, it should prompt you with a cursor allowing you to edit the name string. Type in your new Lot name. Click Apply If you are not using the blank lot, you will need to zero out one more value in your lot in order to make the name appear in SC4. Look for the name "User Visible Name Key" and double click. There are 3 fields in here. Simply click on each one and type 0. What you are doing is actually cancelling out the pointer to a name string text file. Click Apply. Now Click on save. then click on [x] to get out of the reader program. Finding an Unknown Property. Load up your reader and go to the exemplar analyser, look through a header you are interested in, for exmaple civic buildings. look through the propertys for one named unknown. Try to see if you can notice the value as a feature in game (write down this value at this point) Edit it dramatically (easier to see a change), and save as a patch (.dat format) for ease of removal if there is a problem with the game. Load up your game and test the feature you think you have edited. If you were correct (the feature was changed) repeat steps 3 and 4 for other values, checking them all then goto 5. If you were wrong return to step 2 and try again. Step 5, post the new propertys number (found underneath property name) on the all the exemplar propertys the reader knows I guess I should add something here. You should really add a step in here somewhere somehow. I say this because a number of properties exist in more than one exemplar file, and it is for this reason that when looking at an Unknown property, one must also be aware of any other Exemplar files that contain this unknown property. So if you wanted to know what (other) Exemplar file(s) contained an Unknown property: (in the Exemplar Analyser window) copy the Property value down (this will be the hex value in the "Name Value" column). Then press the Left Prop button and select the ##Unknown## item near the top of the drop down menu; and then enter the Property value in the value box, and click find and it will bring up all the Exemplar files containing this same property, and show the properties' associated value. You can also edit any of these file(s) properties in this (Left) Prop window. Thanks to Tropod for adding this! Finding Modd Inspiration and Planning a Modd. Think of the type of modd you are trying to create, for example; bug fix, unrealistic (cheat), balance modd, llama division style modd (my division, for fun, unnessacary modds), or lot modd Think of what you are wanting this modd to do, what features it needs, what it should do in game, what features it has/will have, what values will need to be changed. Begin looking through threads for any help, or previously created modds you can look through in order to help you along. Sit down and prepare top create your modds, keep your plan nearby and try to keep to it. Create and test your modds, then you can make your own thread, if you are changing multiple values (like in the venice modd) test 1 edit before you sift through 100 to find a problem. Remember modding should be fun! Hexadecimal Lesson, oh joy Hexadecimal is a form of counting that uses base 16 (we use decimal (a base ten system), from decem latin word for ten (although number systems also have routes in greek)anyway back to topic...) base ten uses ten symbols as numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (the numbers from 0-9) base 16 uses 16 symbols 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F (base 16 counting from 0-15) in base 16: A is equal to 10 B, 11 C, 12 D, 13 E, 14 F, 15 10 is 16 15, 21 20, 32 to work a number out in hexadecimal: (from hex to decimal) go to collums as so: -->( /16) -->(/16) --> (/16) 4096's 256's 16's units (*16)<-- (*16)<-- (*16)<-- (In above diagram: to calculate you collum header take the previous one and multiply by 16) If in hexadecimal you have the number FF you have F 16's and F units (for FFFF F 4096's F 256's F 16's and F units) Start by multiplying your 16's collum by the number in it (F translates to 15) 16 * 15 = 240 Then add your units (F units(F = 15) 240 + 15 = 255 FF = 255 for FFFF: 4096 * 15 = 61440 256 * 15 = 3840 16 * 15 = 240 1 * 15 = 15 ______ total = 65535 Now did that make any sense? here is a list of numbers in base 16 up to 20 0=0, 1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=4, 5=5, 6=6, 7=7, 8=8, 9=9, A=10, B=11, C=12, D=13, E=14, F=15, 10=16, 11=17, 12=18 13=19, 14=20 This is my longest and most comprehensive lesson so far, be sure to PM me with any mistakes you find so that I may correct this work. Thankyou. Also for those not interested inb this theory stuff there are quick ways like using windows calculator How To Test This I feel is necessary as I am constantly asking for people to test the mods that they have created. I would ask you to create a simple test city (small size) with nothing more than a few blocks of residential connected by a long road to a few blocks of industrial. These can be powered by wind power plants. Save this city just the once and be prepared to keep adding to it. When actually adding features keep them close to both areas and query them to test capacity. If they provide additional features (like dispatch) test these. Quit without saving and make any changes you feel necessary. Repeat whenever you have changed something in the game Closing statement Feel free to distribute this throughout any sites as long as it contains the following statement: " This guide is not endorsed or franchised by Maxis E/A or any affiliates of the company. The guide is all the work of funforfree99 and originated at www.simtropolis.com Ilive reader was created by Ilive." Thank you and goodbye. Funforfree99 Modd tutorial guides writer. Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this article.

Ok guys, here’s a tutorial because several people have asked me for one. This tutorial will cover different modeling techniques that you can use to create hard surface geometry of various shapes and natures including spline cage modeling, polygon modeling, some workflows, and the many different modifiers you can use to help make modeling easier. There will be no texturing covered in this tutorial at all as I am not proficient in that yet. Also, I use 3ds max 2012, some of the methods used here may not be available in previous versions of 3ds max, and more will probably not be available to gmax users. If you have any questions or comments message me. Also, if you know of a more efficient way to do something that I did here, please tell me. I don’t pretend to know the best ways to do things, I’ve just been requested to do this tutorial. I have decided that modeling a small park would show the best variety in modeling techniques available. 1. Plan out what you want to do (I’m not very good at this, that’s why I like to do real world examples, but I can’t really do one for this, so if it doesn’t look the best overall, don’t blame me) In this park I want to have a central fountain, some paths going around it that branch off to 4 gazebos 90 degress from each other around the fountain. And then paths that around those gazebos. Here’s the prototype, crappily drawn in paint. The rectangles are benches, and the circles are trash cans. I’m going to base the fountain itself off a real life example. I did a google search for park fountain and found one I liked that would fit the middle, the wicker park fountain. These are two reference images for it that I will refer to a lot of the way throughout the modeling. I have a bench that I made for a previous project when I was learning modeling and a trash can I made for a different building. I will show you how to model the bench and the trash can. The bench took quite a while as it was pretty detailed and I wanted to get it right, the trash can was just a quick 5 minute model Here is the image of them. For the path I may or may not model it as cobblestone, depends how I’m feeling and if I have covered how I would do it. For the gazebo I found a random limestone gazebo that I liked the look of. This one looks like it might be a challenge for me, but it’ll be fun. Let’s get started. Let’s make the units feet and inches, I like working with real world scale when doing detailed work. Under customize, click units setup and make the screen look like this. Keep in mind, the modeling style I’m showing right now pays little attention to the number of objects in the scene, and no attention to polygon count. If I were trying to keep everything part of one object it would be a lot more difficult, but when modeling for simcity4 it doesn’t matter. However, I do try and manage my scene well with layers and I do attach objects when I can. When working with a large/high poly scene, layers can greatly speed up workflow, as well as reduce lag. Let’s set these up a bit. In red is the button to access layers Blue is the button to add a layer Add some layers. Right click the name and select rename to rename them. I will be working with 4 layers to begin with, the fountain, gazebo, misc. (benches and such), and the base and paths. In green is what you click to make that layer active. An active layer means that everything you create will be put into that layer. I want to work on the fountain first as it is the centerpiece to everything. So click that box to check it as active layer. To start the fountain, make a circle spline that has a 10 foot radius. (20 foot diameter seems about right) and center it at 0.0.0 by right clicking the arrows of the circled green tickers. The, convert it to an editable spline. The fountain seems to have these things that jut out and are circular, to start this, go to vertice selection, select all the vertices on the circle, then use the fillet tool, in green, and drag the vertex ‘til it’s about as far as the widest vertices. Then, go to edge selection, and hit “divide” it should be a bit low on the menu and you might need to scroll. Your circle should look like mine. Now, delete the two edges that you created by dividing on the right side. We will eventually copy all the geometry over to the other sides so it is not necessary to do those. After you delete the edges, notice that the fountain curves in a bit before having the protrusions. Select the two open vertices, and moving in one direction (if your move gizmo is locked, hit the “x” key, you can also resize it with + and - keys) Since it is beziered, it will create that dip. Now, create a circle about the size of the gap you create when you deleted the edges. Then 0 it out on the horizontal axis. Fillet and divide the top and bottom vertices. Delete the edges on the inside of the big circle. Select the big circle and attach the smaller one you just made. Then, weld the overlapping vertices. It should look like the screen at this point. Now, select the big curve in edge mode. Hold shift and use the scale tool to scale it down so it makes about the width of the hole in the smaller circle. Then, move around the vertices on the newly created segment and try and get the width as uniform as possible all throughout the curve. Center the last point on the vertical axis. Then, divide the segments of the detached half of the circle, the closest segments to the middle. Divide those segments in 2 (set the number up to 2) Then, weld the vertices of the inner large curve to the end point of the circle. Create a smaller circle inside the are you are working with that just about matches the width of everything else, center it on the axis and attach it to the main body of the fountain. Then, take the point indicate in red, and drag it up and to the left. It will look a bit weird. You have to mess with the beziers to make it a smooth going together. If your gizmo is getting in the way, hit x to lock it. At this point, your fountain should look like mine. Ok, now, the vertices I selected aren’t there before. Divide the edges they would be on by 1. Then, delete everything that is not encompassed by that white box while in edge mode. Then, mirror the object horizontally, mine was the x axis, and make an instance. Make sure to do an instance. Then, select them again, make sure you aren’t in a sub-object mode, and rotate them 90 degrees while holding shift. A box will come up about copying, make it an instance, and set the number to 3. This will rotate and make an instance 2 more times for you. Once you have the instances set, we are going to use the refine tool. Make sure the boxes connect and linear are checked when you make it. We use this tool to create quads throughout the spline so that editing it will be simple later on. To use the tool, hit the refine button, then select the vertices you want to connect. It will create a line in the order of your clicking, so be aware of that. When you have finished the line you want, right click. Then select refine again. (there is a refine connect tool in the right click menu) do this until your fountain looks like mine. I left some vertices unconnected as you can tell. These are where the different splines meet. To save hassle, leave them unrefined until later. Next, select one of the pieces, and select “make unique” circled in red. Then, attach all the rest of the pieces. Select every vertice, set the value for weld to about 1 inch or so, and weld. This will make everything one piece. Next, put a surface modifier on it. At first it will look terrible, set the threshold, in green, to a low number like what I have. After that you will notice some holes, those are from the spots you didn’t refine. Go back to editable spline and refine those. After you do that, you may or may not notice some weird thing going on at where I circled in purple. This is because of a bad quad. The quads are made up of 2 triangles, and one of the hypotenuses of those triangles is extending beyond one of the points. To fix this, just drag the point that’s being messed up out of the path of the triangle. This will have happened at every spot. This is poor planning on my half, but it’s not a big fix. After you do surface, put an edit poly on the stack so you see all the subdivision. Now it should look like mine. Next, Select everything in polygon mode. Extrude that about 1 foot using the window extrusion circled. After you do that, deselect the part of the smaller circle on the inside half to where it meets the bigger part. Use the lasso selection tool circled on the top left. Hold the left mouse button to show menu, and release to select the tool. After that hold alt and make a freehand circle around the parts you want to deselect. Then, extrude a foot again. Yours should look like mine. Now we learn the selection tools we have, or at least some of them. On the top of the fountain, select 2 outer edges. Then, hit the loop tool circled in red. Drag the loop down a little bit. Then, move into the next outermost and do the same thing. And then the middle. In the end you should have a little bit of a curve. Now, we will curve the smaller area. Select two outer edges on the middle curve and hit loop. It will only select that one spot. You could do the same thing to every spot, or, you could use the graphite modeling tools. Circled in green, after you have made the first loop selection, go to the selection tab in the graphite modeling tools. If yours aren’t there, select the thing highlighted in blue on the top panel. In the selection tab there is something labeled similar. Since we have worked with instanced objects, everything is the same, so what you select on one portion is the same as the rest, so it will make that selection on all of the smaller curves. Do the same thing as you did with the outside with these. Then, the loop around the outside of the fountain. Select one of the edges and hit loop. Then use the chamfer tool to make it into two segments. (Btw, you can move the loop up if you want if it isn’t in the right spot.) Then, select one of the segments running between the two loops you just made, and hit ring. This should select a ring of segments around the fountain. Hold ctrl and click on polygon selection. This will transfer your current selection into polygons. Use the bevel tool now to make an indent. Finally, select the border tool and select the middle loop and the smaller circles, not the outside border, and select cap. Yours should now look like mine. While this may look kinda messy in the middle, it’s all quads, and none of them are overlapping, which is good imo. Anyways, next thing we do is to add a similar type of beveled ring to the one we had outside, on the inside. To do this easily, let’s utilize the graphite modeling toolset again. Underneath the edit dropdown, there’s a very handy little tool called swiftloop. It creates a loop in anything that has quads. It won’t go through n-gons or triangles unfortunately. But that’s why we made sure to keep everything quads in the beginning. What we want to do is select swiftloop, and hover over a vertical edge, it will show you a preview of a loop going all the way around. Left click and a loop will appear. Right click to exit swiftlooping. Now if you go to edge selection, the loop you just made is selected. Do the same thing as you did on the outside here. Next, select the polygon that is the base. Let’s use the inset tool now. Inset it, but not too far, because of the nature of the polygon we’re working with, if we inset too much, polygons will start to overlap and all hell will break loose, instead just inset a bit, then use the scale tool to scale it the rest of the way down. Now use the extrude tool and the scale tool a few times to create that little raised platform in the middle. It is the stand for the actual fountain. I would say to use bevel, but bevel is basically inset and extrude combined, and we went over why inset can’t work here. So just extrude a little and scale it down a little, and do that over and over a few times ‘til you get a kind of notched platform. Then select the detach button and choose to detach as a clone. This will be the polygon we use to start the fountain. At this point yours should look like mine. Now we start working on some of the smaller parts of the fountain. To start this shape off, create a cylinder about the height of the inside part of the circle. Make sure there’s 12 sides, and 6 height segments. Add FFD cylinder to the stack. FFD uses “control points” to control the shape of an object, but when they are moved, it makes the change to the actual object with a curve. Select the bottom control points and use the scale tool to shrink them. You will see the object shrink at the bottom. Select the top points and scale them up. Next, add an edit poly on top of ffd. Select the top polygon and we’ll use the bevel tool to add the indent there. Start off with a short bevel in height, but about a 45 degree angle inwards. Then do another short bevel and angle it less inwards, more like 10 degrees. Then do the same height again except for 10 degrees out. And finish with 45 degrees outwards. You should have the indented ring now. Now, use the bevel tool to create the domed top. You can pretty much see how I did it with the wireframe. Ignore the hole in the shape, I messed up a bit there. Here’s something deceivingly difficult. Making a clean hole in a rectangle. Select a ring around where the extra horizontal line is and connect it. Then do the same with where the extra vertical line is. Then, use the cut tool to cut the vertex at the corner of on rectangle to the other end, making sure to include a vertice at the intersection between the vertical and horizontal lines. Make another diagonal going the opposite direction. There should be a rectangle with all 4 midpoints marked, both diagonals, and a single point in the middle. Select that point and chamfer it pretty wide--about as wide as the rectangle. If it doesn’t look very circular, deselect the top two points, go to the scale tool, where it says “view” click that dropdown, and select local. Now scale the points that need scaling in the direction that the rectangle faces up and down in til it looks pretty much circular. Now, extrude in a negative direction into the object. Try and make it so you extrude a very small amount at the beginning of the extrusion, then go to the end of it, then do a little bit more. We are going to apply NURMs to this object, and extra definition keeps the shape of it. Add a swiftloop around the circle like I have. Here it is with NURMs added. Nurms is located if you have an editable polygon in the subdivision surface area. Before you apply nurms, detach the top polygon as a clone. We’ll use that as part of the cup of this water fountain thing. Here’s the cup, using almost exclusively bevel. NURMs will be added again later, but I wanted to show the basic wireframe of it to facilitate your modeling of it. I was forced to use extrude and scale at the smallest part of it. It’s not much of a hindrance though, don’t be afraid to use that. Here it is with NURMs. To make it go into all 4 slots in the same position. Go to the hierarchy tab I believe it’s called. (circled in green) select affect pivot. You can now move where the pivot point is. Select align, circled in red, and align the pivot of both the chalice cup thing, and the weird cylinder thing to the main fountain. Deselect affect pivot. Now rotate it 90 degrees while holding shift. Make 3 copies. Make them instances. This is the cup again. I messed up just a bit on one of the steps when making it. The cup has a raised section shown that has a lot of ridges. To raise the section, select 3 edges going vertical, select ring, and then convert selection to polygons. Then, in the extrude window, select “local normal” from the normal dropdown (it’s the top one). Now make it extrude it a little bit. You’ll notice that where it meets the stem, though, it goes up. To fix this, hit alt+x to make the cup see through. Then select the two loops that are raising the geometry, bring them down. Now, select the 3 loops that you just extruded out and open the connect window. Give them like 6 or 7 connects. Then select the two edges I have selected. In the graphite modeling tools open up the menu I have open. At the bottom right of this menu there is a dot gap, set it to 1. Then under the loop area, select the section that has a 1 green-1 gray-1 green. This will select every other edge now. The dot gap is the amount of edges it skips when it is selecting a loop or ring. Then convert the edge selection to polygons. Extrude those polygons in a little bit, doing the same multiple trick to get the NURMs prepared. With many polygons, adding swift loops to each shape is impossible so It’s good to do it early. What you do need to swiftloop though, is right at the edge of the section vertically. You can kind of see mine now. If you don’t do that, then your mesh will get completely funky. I would check it out if you do it tbh, just to see what it looks like. Here I used the same technique I just used all over the cup. I don’t really need to walk you through that. I also rendered it from a distance, I was going to do closeup but something got messed up with the renderer and I don’t feel like fixing it. As you can see, though you don’t know what the details on the cup exactly are from a distance, the fact that they are there adds a whole new dimension to the cup. I wouldn’t put that much detail into something so small for a BAT, but it is the same principle. Ok quick heads up on the next step. I realized I was an idiot when I was doing this, so bear with me. I underscaled the entire fountain pretty much so I have to fix that… What is good though, I kept my stack intact. One of the benefits of surface modifier. So, I could just go and edit the editable spline I started with. Fixing it was a kind of long process to go through but it really showed the usefulness of symmetry. Next we’ll make the fountain in the middle. To make the fountain, start off with a box with a square base. About the size of the middle part of the fountain. The initial pedestal is made entirely with bevel. Then, once you get to the part with the round column, use the same technique used before when making the hole for the smaller fountain thing, just don’t backwards. Then the rest of it was again made using bevel only. Select one of the horizontal edges, select loop, then select ring, and deselect anything above or below the edges I have selected. Then, using the connect window, set segments to 2, and raising the pinch amount, make the 2 segments created be near the other edges. Something like 80 or 90 will work. This is for the nurms later. The reference photo has an octagonal shape for the fountain bowl, and round for a lot of other stuff. here it is with NURMs Wherever there are supposed to be hardish corners, do the loop, ring, deselect, connect, pinch trick. Try not to let the new segments you put in go over to any non-cornered areas. Right above the first bowl, use the exact same technique used before on the cup to add detail. At the base, select the faces across from each other, use inset, then do the same for the other set of faces, then with all of them selected extrude once, then a tiny bit extra. This render is what has been done in part 1. We’ve covered polygon modeling, and basic spline shapes so far. In the next part we will cover at least spline cage modeling, and lofts to finish the fountain and start on the miscellaneous stuff.

Making Pleasing Downtowns and SkylinesBy: Mikeaut1 Please Private Message Mikeaut1 if you have any questions regarding this tutorial! Welcome to "Making Pleasing Downtowns and Skylines". Hopefully this short little tutorial will help you get some ideas on how to build realistic and fantastic looking skylines and downtown areas. In this tutorial I will cover: Some tips on how to make skylines look better and more realistic. Some BATs that are worth downloading to improve your skyline. Some tips for creating rural and suburban downtowns. Some BATs that are worth downloading to improve rural and suburban downtown and business centers. Part One - Skylines Skylines define your bigger cities. To have a pleasing skyline, here are some tips that you can consider to make your skylines more pleasing and exciting! 1. Using Custom Content One of the benefits of Simtropolis is the STEX, where there are thousands of great BATs and LOTs that you can download and palce in your cities. The continuous use of Maxis buildings becomes tedious, so one suggestion is to go into the STEX and download some of the highest quality BATs and LOTs available for the game. There are many skyscrapers that can easily fit into any skyline of choice available on the STEX, so get downloadin'! 2. Diversity in Buildings The trick to a pleasing and realistic skyline is to have diversity in your skyline. Who wants to see 7 Wren Insurances dominating your skyline? Try to limit the amount of repeated buildings by bulldozing them and using a different tileset. You can also bulldoze the lot until a different building appears, without changing the tileset options. But to have a skyline that is diverse and has a variety of buildings and landmarks will definitely be given attention, especially in city journals. 3. Balancing Your Skyline Many skylines are over the top and stretch for miles and miles in each direction. If you are going for a mega-metropolis outlook, then this is fine. But if you are striving to create a realistic skyline with diversity, balancing out your skyline is one of the essentials. If you are using custom content, try to varietize your skyline by including smaller buildings and taller buildings. Also, try to balance between residential and commercial buildings in your city. This doesn't only help your city's economy, but it helps balance your skyline and diversify your city. Part Two - Downtowns This section is more for smaller city downtowns, rather than bigger ones. You'll find that creating realistic, pleasing downtowns parallel making pleasing skylines. 1. Using Custom Content You'll be surprised, but there are many suburban and rural buildings located on the STEX that could really fit well in a downtown. Also, many of the Maxis in-game buildings for smaller downtowns (like Ken's Dinner Theatre for example) are overly repeated automatically. Try and take advantage of the STEX's custom content; you'll find that it really benefits your downtown areas. 2. Diversity in Buildings Yes, basically the same as the above section. You don't want a downtown consisting of the same building. So diversify your buildings and make your downtown unique! 3. Balancing Your Downtown For smaller, rural downtowns, balancing is essential. Try to stay away from the square-like downtown. For example, you have a downtown in a rural environment, and there are four roads meeting where downtown should be. Don't fit the downtown in between those four roads. The result would be that your downtown looks squarelike and cubed in. Downtowns, especially rural and suburban ones, should fluctuate between circular shapes or narrow shapes. Avoid the square! You'll find that a circular or narrow-circular downtown, easily accessible by many roadways will look much better and pleasing. Part Three - A List of Recommended Custom Content for Skylines Here are some recommended authors of BATs and LOTs that can fit in your skyline: /Zumi/ -- /Zumi/ is a great BATter who has made many great BATs and LOTs in the past. They really fit into any skyline. NDEX -- NDEX is the award winning BAT team on Simtropolis who has created dozens of buildings, ranging from suburban shops, to towering skyscrapers. NDEX's material is recommended by anyone on Simtropolis. Ill_Tonkso -- Ill_Tonkso is now a member of NDEX, but has released several buildings for great skylines before his induction into NDEX. Worth a look at! JtPortland -- An excellent BATter who has released many skyscrapers for skylines as well in the past. Part Four - A List of Recommended Custom Content for Downtowns For downtowns, here is some authors of BATs and LOTs: SimGoober -- Easily one of the best for suburban and rural downtowns. There are some highrises, some midrises, and some complexes for downtowns that work well. Also his creations of real-life stores and shopping centers help push the realism into the game. He is a part of the BSC, the other famous BAT team on Simtropolis. Kevdan25 -- Includes an array of many fast food chain restaurants that any downtown may have. He is a great, realistic BATter, and contributes to BSC, the other famous BAT team on Simtropolis. Part Five - Some Examples Astoria, MayorTim Santa Terra, Chicago333 Sa Penya, Jeronij

Please PM Mikeaut1 if you have any questions about this article. Introduction Welcome to my guide to creating realistic suburbs in SimCity 4. I am glad to bring you this tutorial. Hopefully, it will benefit you when you zone suburbs in your SimCity. It will teach you the basics on how to make realistic – looking suburbs, if that’s what you’re aiming for in your outer city areas. I. What is a suburb? Suburbs – Inhabited districts located on the outer rim of a city, or located completely outside the official city limits of a city or large town. Usually, suburbs are characterized through single-family homes and smaller populations, which make up one metropolitan area. In the United States, a large percentage of the population lives in suburban communities, located not far from major economic centers in the region. Living in the suburbs means more responsibility: paying higher taxes, keeping your lawn and gardens neat, and having a clean appearance to your house. Actually, the suburbs are known for single-family homes. Very rarely are there larger apartment complexes located in the suburban neighborhood, except for community centers or retirement homes. American suburbs include a variety of architecture, including many forms of different houses. For example, there is the Cape Cod Homes, Shingle Houses, Split Levels, Victorians, and Tudors. Fortunately all of these homes appear in game, and some on the STEX. This is just one element to spicing up your suburban neighborhoods. American styled suburbs are greatly looked upon. The miles and miles of sprawling suburbs outside our major cities of Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago often characterize the architecture of the major city as well. Most suburbs are also a haven for middle class citizens. Shopping is also a big industry in many of the suburbs, and business is run through shopping icons like department stores and malls. Let’s continue with our tutorial by presenting you with how to create realistic suburbs in SimCity 4. II. Building In Game Here is the major part of the tutorial. We will discuss basic layout in the suburbs, some facilities that are greatly suggested in the suburbs, and much more. A. DISTANCE FROM DOWNTOWN Usually, suburbs start after some medium wealth growth just outside a major city’s downtown. The way you must zone is having your medium wealth circle around the higher growth of your city, and then easy your way into gentle suburbs, usually an avenue blocking the mid dense to the low dense growth. Picture By MayorTim (Gotland 2) In MayorTim’s great example, the suburbs should be zoned after some mid dense growth around a downtown area. If you look at aerial photos of the New York or Chicago metro areas, you will see a spread of mid-dense growth surrounding the downtown, and then sprawled out suburbs. Picture by Chicago333 (Mandursuro) Chicago333 also represents his beautiful suburbs in this aerial photo of his city, Santa Terra. The same method was used here. So basically, suburbs should be outside of downtown and your mid dense growth altogether. This is the best and realistic method to use when building in your city. B. SOME FACILITES FOR YOUR CITY So, what is different with education and health in a city and in a suburb? Usually, suburbs have a better educational and health system than in urban areas. Urban areas have a larger population to tend to, so funding for health and education may be lower in a city. In your suburbs, try to fund your educational and health facilities more than in your cities. Don’t under fund; this will cause some picketing and strikes in your cities and suburbs. C. CITY LAYOUT By far, city layout determines the realism of a suburb in SimCity 4. Many people like to build grids in their suburban communities, which is all right. But a better realistic approach to building suburbs in SimCity 4 is to make your residential streets a bit windier. Usually suburbs are a bit griddier if they are closer to a downtown. But as you move farther outside the city, the suburbs seem to open up and tend to wind around a bit. Avenues and other major thoroughfares wind through the suburbs, and streets are for the residents. TIP! For a more realistic approach, save your lower density commercial zones for avenues and some roads, and keep the streets for your houses and residential development. This is a very realistic point to building SimCity 4 suburbs and comparing them to real-life suburbs. Here are some pictures of realistic suburbs that compare to real life suburbs. Make note that commercial services appear more on the avenues and important roads, while residential sprawl is located off those roads on designated streets in neighborhoods. Also, make a note that the suburbs aren’t griddy, but more spacious and realistic. Picture by Chicago333 (Mandursuro) Picture by Mikeaut1 (Euphora) Picture By Mikeaut1 (Euphora) Usually suburbs with highways that wind through them look more realistic then just a straight highway through the whole region. TIP! Another great idea for realistic suburbs is adding in small parks or gazebos in your residential areas to increase desirability. Tennis courts, gazebos, and small or medium parks will up the desirability, making more houses appear. Also, grass or adding trees will decrease pollution, and increase demand. Picture by Jeronij (Simtropia) So, lets go over some major aspects of this section. 1. CITY LAYOUT Saving commercial zones for larger capacity roadways and saving residential zones for the streets is a good idea. Avoiding griddy suburbs, unless suburbs are within great proximity to a downtown or large town. Highways should try to wind through your suburbs rather than run straight through it. 2. FACILITIES Educational and health should be well funded. Near your schools, try to include a baseball diamond or some tennis courts for a more realistic suburban school. Small clinics should be placed around your suburbs. Think of each clinic as a different type of doctor. (Ex: pediatrician, chiropractor, dentist). 3. LOCATIONS Remember that mid dense growth should surround a major downtown first, and then start your suburbs, easily outward from the city. Griddy suburbs are meant for suburbs that are inner lying and immediately after a downtown (a bit unrealistic). III. Suburban Essentials So, you know the basics about building suburbs. Keeping your grids near the city, your educational and health facilities fully funded, and keeping your commercial buildings on the main roads. So what’ll make your suburbs from there seem 110% better? Simtropolis is the answer. Simtropolis, being the ultimate SimCity 4 community on the web, offers thousands of lots and bats that could easily change the look of your city. From lots and bats, to modifications, your city will look awesome with some of the downloadable items. There are many lots and bats meant for your city suburbs, and they are located right at your fingertips… on the STEX. Recommended BATTers, Authors, and Links The following four people are noted for their outstanding contribution to improving suburbs in SimCity 4. Simgoober – Simgoober has created all sorts of bats and lots, for both urban environments, and suburban. Just by typing "Simgoober" on the STEX, over 200 creations pop up. He is well known for his batting of the major hotels such as Best Western, Days Inn, and Hampton Inn. Also, he has created some very nice suburban restaurants, town homes, and stores. The Plop a Shop lots are a great addition for your suburban communities, and include stores such as Old Navy, Famous Footwear, and Pier 1 Imports. There are some dependencies so please read the readme. Don’t forget he major shopping icon of the suburbs: the Mall. A mall is a large collection of stores brought together in one huge building. Several anchors like Sears and Hechts are included within a mall, as well as dozens of other stores and usually a food court. Fortunately, thanks to Simgoober, we have a mall ready on the STEX. The Suburban Mall. There are many dependencies. Please read the readme and collect the dependencies associated with this lot. Rob_2616 – Rob’s Urban Housing Mod modifies all R$ suburban homes and adds a detached garage, backyard props, and some trees. They come in 1x1, 1x2, and 1x3 lot sizes. I personally think this mod is amazing, and it should be an essential for your suburbs. All of the SimCity 4 pictures shown in this tutorial use the mod, and the suburbs look great! Joerg – Known for his contribution to some towers and a beautiful Target on the STEX. His Target store looks great in the suburbs. A very important necessity for any suburb is department stores. Large department stores like Wal*Mart and Target offer middle class citizens a great place to shop for everyday needs. Joerg has created his outstanding Target model on the STEX. Kevdan25 – He is well known for his amazing talent on batting many of the world’s famous fast food restaurants, including McDonalds, Taco Bell, KFC, and Wendy’s. His restaurants look great, especially in the suburban environment. Kevdan25 has a great collection of amazing restaurants. There are 2 pages worth of great stuff. SUMMARY OF THIS SECTION Basically, this section explains that the addition of department stores, malls, and other suburban stores to your suburbs will make your communities much more rich in detail, and realistic. There are hundreds of items on the STEX designated for the suburbs, and some authors are listed above. I forgot to mention that some schools and hospitals that are better looking than the original Maxis buildings are located on the STEX. Well, that’s about it with this tutorial. If there is anything you would like me to add to this tutorial, please PM me! THANKS SECTION I would like to thank Chicago333, MayorTim, Rob_2616, Simgoober, Joerg, Jeronij, and Kevdan25. I have gotten permission from them to use their pictures in this tutorial. Thanks to them for enhancing the tutorial, and contributing so greatly to the community. If you have any questions about this article, please PM Mikeaut1.

Please PM crazychickensc12 if you have a question regarding this tutorial. Creating Multi/Split Highways in SC4. Requirements are SimCity4 RushHour Or Deluxe to be able to build Ground Highways. No additional Mods or Downloads are required, in these pictures I am using the Highway Asphalt Texture and Olympic Terrain Mod, neither of which are required for this tutorial. Let's Get Started! 1. We start by laying down some ground highway. 2. Then we will drag a rail through the part we want detached. 3. Once the rail is layed it will look like this. 4. Then we demolish the rail. 5. Time to lay down another ground highway so we can get the other half of our original back. 6. Now drag a rail through the opposite side of the highway so you can have traffic going both ways. 7. Now it is split. 8. Demolish and you have created your multi/split highway. Now we will try it using a different method. 1. Lay down two parallel ground highways. 2. Drag an Elevated highway through the middle of the two ground highways. 3. It should look like this. 4. Demolish the Elevated highways and you are done. For some great Interchanges using the Multi Highways visit this thread. (Click Here) Please PM crazychickensc12 if you have a question regarding this tutorial.

Synekism is an indie city-building game with some ambitious goals to redefine the city-building genre. From Synekism.com: Synekism is a city simulation video game focused on dynamically generated content. The project was started is currently maintained by three university students in Canada. The game style is that of an open sandbox. The player can designate residential, commercial and industrial zones and watch them grow. One can also zone government lots to raise desirability. The key features of the game are grid less environments and dynamically generated buildings. The lack of a grid means total freedom when placing lots and roads allowing more realistic looking cities. Procedurally generated buildings allows for more visual variability. Instead of pre-created models a building is generated depending of location-based desirability and city-wide demand. From Wikipedia: Synekism[1] is a concept in urban studies coined by Edward Soja. It refers to the dynamic formation of the polis state - the union of several small urban settlements under the rule of a "capital" city (or so-called city-state or urban system). Soja's definition of synekism, mentioned in Writing the city spatially, is "the stimulus of urban agglomeration." I got a chance to discuss the project with Damian, the Synekism team leader to get a better sense of what Synekism is about, and where it's going. --- Who are you guys? How many of you are there? What do you guys do? Nobody really, just three friends from olden times, all full-time under-grad students at various universities in Ontario. Whose branchild is Synekism? What motivated you to create it? So I (Damian) triggered this project almost two years ago and it was for a combination of having some fun, learning something, and stirring up some heat in this somewhat forgotten genre, industry wise. I thought that even if we don't end up big we could at least encourage some more development, more competition. How long have you been working on it? Development officially started on May 18, 2010. What makes Synekism distinct from city-building games that have come before it? We're *trying* to remove as many restrictions from the user as we possibly can. We started on a gridless and dynamic foundation to begin with which is why the game lacks detail at the moment. We'll eventually go further and remove the map size restriction as well and basically try live up to the sandbox nature of our genre. Synekism is also being designed with dynamic content in mind. For example, once the buildings actually look like buildings they will not be static pre-made models that simply plopped here and there, rather, from a set of puzzle pieces each building will be generated according the type, density, class, neighborhood, time period, and the shape/location of the lot, and probably many other factors. Naturally, lots can already be many different sizes and shapes. Of course, we are building on the shoulders of the giants that came before us and so we'll also include the successful features that made previous city-sims great. Downtown Downtown 2 The notion of removing as many restrictions from the player as possible intriguing, so the question is: if Synekism is intended to be more than just a sandbox toy, how does a "game" dynamic fit within a game-world devoid of restrictions? I think that's the beauty of city sims (and simulators in general): that you don't need to worry about gameplay per-say as long as you are accurate in your simulation. I like to compare city simulation to painting, the only difference being that the paint is alive and can thrive or die off depending on which paints, brushes and canvases you choose to use and in what proportions. Makers of paints, brushes and canvases don't specify precisely what you may and may not do with them. However, there will still be restrictions. For example, just like good quality paints are expensive so will the various tools in our game cost the player dearly. Equally, keeping one's city alive will require a delicate balance between taxes and public spending. Total freedom is obviously not desirable. So is the idea eventually then that the buildings are generated procedurally? Yes, but also with support for static buildings like landmarks or player-made buildings. So with dynamic content in mind, what are the ways you envision users creating and contributing content? So the procedural generation part (and this is still up in the air at the moment) will use puzzle pieces to generate the buildings. These pieces will simply be wall and window types and they will be used to create each floor of a building by repeating (and possibly scaling) the 3D model of the piece as many times as necessary. More complex but similar logic will be used for lobbys and rooftops. The point being that, as with real life, buildings should look like they were built specifically for the lot they are on and not simply "plopped" there. Players will be able to create custom puzzle pieces as well as restrict the building shapes their puzzle set will work for. With that in mind, there will still be the option to create full static buildings by selecting that puzzle set and shaping the building manually. Such creations will simply be ploppable (maybe with limitations on the number of duplicates per city). We are also looking at in-game customizability of the transportation network tool. So for example, you could create a "brush" that paints a 4-lane avenue with streetcar rail in the center and using a specific type of street lights. You can then share this with other players, just like you can share Photoshop brushes. Gridless How would you address performance concerns when it comes to these massive and potentially limitless complex cities? Let's just say the box buildings will be in the game for a good while. When we do introduce higher quality buildings they will only be turned on for the closest buildings to the camera, with the rest of the city still just boxes. As we improve our performance you'll be able to see more detail at once. As with limitless city sizes the exact approach is still being debated. Content will of course be loaded on a per-need basis but in steps, so you might go to your second city on the other side of the planet in a couple of seconds but that city will slowly load up all it's buildings. One thing I will stress is that we really want to avoid any loading screens. I know we are failing that goal now but that's our aim anyway. In terms of the simulation of entire planets we working on a way to "approximate" the running of a city that is not in the player's focus. Not too much detail on that yet. What kind of things do you have in mind that you guys would definitely want to see in a city-building game? Where do I begin? For one, the game should be able to accurately reproduce any real city (as in, trace in exactly the map of that city). Furthermore, one should be able to, without excessive plopping, accurately re-create the density, wealth, and zone type distribution of the real city, as well as its traffic patterns and public transit use. All this while looking picture perfect. I am going over the top here, a bit, and I should say that there are a lot of sensible features that are currently either missing or not properly implemented. Multiplayer is one. I think Minecraft proved that sandbox games not only can be multiplayer but can excel at it, if done properly. A truly accurate and flexible transportation network, including traffic simulation and public transit, is another big one. And what we are trying to do, which is to remove the size restrictions and create huge and persistent regions. I think we can do better now-days than individual city file loading and saving. Naturally, there is a lot more to add here. Highshot What can you tell us about the actual city simulator at this point? Is the intention to remain close to the SimCity recipe? For the most part, yes, we are sticking to SimCity's recipe. Why change something that worked so well? There will be some differences which hopefully fix some of the minor annoyances that the SimCity simulator created (like the infamous NO JOB zots). One major difference will be the way we approach public services. Basically, if you don't touch it it will balance itself, moderately well. So for example, if you don't build any schools whatsoever, the simulator will spawn private schools which will address some of the educational needs of the area. If, however, you decide to take matters into your own hands and see if you can do better - the simulator will back off and give control over to you (in degrees of course). Beyond this we'll just have to see. I have to say, that's a pretty awesome set of goals! So if I get what you're saying, it sounds like Synekism, the concept as it is right now, is leaning toward a more sandbox-type toy than objective-based game? Maybe a loaded question, but would you say that you're catering to hard-core city simulator fans more and casual players less? So, in short, yes to both questions. I should, however, expand the second "yes" a bit. So, although the core city sim players are our focus, we are trying to make the game as "automatic" as possible. So, take my example above. If you just want to zone and zone and just worry about the balance between the three major types then you can very well do so. The rest of the game will be automated at some adequate level. Some examples of automated aspects of the game may include education, healthcare, police, and even fire protection services. However, player-controlled (or state-controlled) services have the potential to be a lot more efficient than the vanilla automatic implementations. You'll see the first attempt at covering levels of complexity in our next major release (May 1st) with lot density controls. Overview Mode What and when is the next milestone? Well, this coming release in May will start looking at multiplayer in an experimental sort of way as well as introduce lot density control. The summer will mostly see fixes, stability and performance updates as we prepare our code for bigger features (but we will always have new features each release, even if minor ones!). As for the next major milestone, I think it will come towards the end of the year with an engine upgrade. After that, the predictive reliability becomes negligible. Once again, I could go on forever on the subject. We will likely start a blog soon to expand some more on our plans as well as get feedback. Looking forward to seeing where this project goes! Thanks for taking the time, and keep us posted! Suburbs Town Zoning Zoning --- If you're interested in checking out a city, you can load the save game file here. To download the latest build of Synekism, check out: http://www.synekism.com/ If you have your own questions, feel free to post them below.

This tutorial covers the making of an arched window using GMax using the "welding" method. I would like to credit Baco for his help with this tutorial. Enjoy! -by mntoes Let's begin. Draw 2 rectangles and an arc like so: Next right click on both rectangles and the arc and convert each to an editable spline. Right click on the rectangle for the window and add an edit spline modifier. Select the rectangle for the window again, click the “edit spline” modifier” Select the “+” next to the “edit spline”. Select “segment” pick the top segment of the rectangle ( in red here) Choose “edit” from the top menu and select “delete” You should now have this:- Click again on the rectangle for the window and select “attach”. Now click on the rectangle for the wall and the arc. These will now become one object. (Should all be the same colour?) This is the important part! Click on the “editable spline” and select “vertex”. Now zoom in and select the “+” surrounded by a square at the end of the line for the arc. In the geometry roll out pick “Weld”. Drag the green and red arrows until the +/square is over the “+” below (belonging to the rectangle). You should see:- Select “yes” and repeat the same for the other side (you can only weld one point at once). Now select the outer rectangle and add your “extrude” modifier and the amount of extrude (I use -0.4). If you want more than one window you can always clone the window (after you have welded the vertex) then move the copy to where you want it. You could also use the array tool but I am still not quite competent at this yet, so it’s a case of just trying. PS. clone the window before you attach it to the wall rectangle. When it comes to the window frame you can follow Maxis Brian’s tutorial but do the top bit with an arc and attach it to rectangle window frame. It is up to you if you delete the top segment of the rectangle or not. Hope this helps. I had to mess around for hours to understand this but finally got the hang of it. Regards Mntoes.

A new modding tool is out there, but it's out with mixed reviews, lets check it out and see what we can make of it. The tool is the Building Architect Tool, or B.A.T, or even BAT for short. With this tool it's possible to take a 3d object created in gMax or another program and through a short process get it into the game. I said short, it should be noted that the term short is relative, as some people will find it short, and others will find it excruciatingly painfully long. Why do I bring this up you may ask. Simple, it highlights the good and the bad of the BAT in a simple way. For some the bat and it's post processes are quick and painless, for some others it's a process that is doable, but long and tedious, and for the vast majority, it's a royal pain in the arse that seems to be half magic, part mind reading, and a good portion luck, that is, if it's doable at all. I will say right up front, that from the perspective of this article, that the BAT will be considered intermediate, not impossible, but not easy. It will be a process that can be done, given time and patience, and a few help files. I will also say up front that this is NOT a review of gMax, that in itself is often confused with the BAT, but it's not the BAT, it's gMax, a 3d modeling tool. If you don’t understand what a 3d modeling tool is, by gosh, it's probably going to be just a bit harder than intermediate to use the BAT, now isn’t it. gMax is not easy; it's also not hard (hold onto those tomatoes and eggs a moment). gMax is a complex tool, but that does not make it hard, it makes it complex. All too often we pair complexity with difficulty, when in fact this is not the case! gMax is complex, but you don't need to know every part right away, all you need are the basics, and an understanding of why you need them, plus a good tutorial. What gMax is, is lengthy. The process to make a 3d building or anything else is a long process, not hard, but long. For many, 24 total hours can’t be spent building a McDonalds or Park Plaza. Much less the hundreds of hours needed for some sky scrapers. At no point is the modeling hard, it's tedious and time consuming. With that clarification out of the way, we can proceed with our review of the BAT proper. The BAT is a plug-in for gMax which takes a scene and renders it from many different angles and 'zooms', although it's worth noting here that a trick is being played, for all of the cameras are the exact same distance from the object. Keep in mind that things aren’t always what they seem, and this is why the BAT is by necessity a sophisticated tool. It may not look like much in its rollout, but its feature rich, just about everything you could want in an exporter is present. It is missing a couple notable things, such as bump map support, reflective map support, and other types of eye candy. These do give the tool a few negative points, but they also understandably require a great deal of understanding of 3d to work with, and quite possibly Maxis wasn’t quite up to the task, at least, not in their time frame. The tools’ other functions however give it a good standing, the ability to preview any zoom, any direction, night and day, plus thumbnails (yes you CAN move the thumbnail camera around) give the tool a plus that it would get a truly poor rating without. Its ability to handle night spots and textures with global intensity is a nice touch as well. The rendering is pretty good overall, and it is almost possible to make Maxis quality buildings for the game. However, the process isn't done yet. BAT really should have been BATs, for even when done exporting the process isn’t done. We must take our singular building model and apply building properties to it so it behaves like a building when in the game. The Plug-in Manager is a beautifully powerful tool that allows you to make ANY standard building and set all of its properties. If a person wants a new fire station, it can be had, with any properties the person would like. Modding gave rise to the multiple purpose buildings, and it's these that the Plug-in Manager cant handle, given the length of time that this ability has been out, one would think Maxis would have taken this idea and worked with it, but it would appear they did not. Once your building is prepared with its fresh properties, it's time to build a lot for it. This is where the 3rd and final tool comes into play. The Lot Editor, or LE has been out for quite awhile, and already thousands of lots have been created with existing content, giving rise to an absolutely incredible wealth of new content. The updated LE can now open BAT/PM created content and plop it down on an existing lot. It's now worth pointing out the obvious, why hasn’t the ability been added to choose from a standard lot and modify it? No answer, maybe it would be too hard, or too time consuming, we don’t know. Aside from that pitfall, nothing else stands in the LE's way to greatness; it truly is a powerful tool for game design. In here you can even preview your building before it gets put in game, what shows up in here is what will show up in the game proper. Once you have added your building to a lot and added the appropriate assortment of Props.... Hey, can the BAT create props? Yes it can! Choose to add your 'building' as a prop in the Plug-in Manager. Once all that is squared away... your done. Seriously, that's it; in summary it's not all that much work, it just takes time. The BATs are wonderful tools for modding SimCity, and while not totally complete, almost no system of tools could be made to deliver beautifully detail-rich buildings with any less amount of effort on the modder’s part. Right after release a call went up asking why a building block style BAT was not created. The simple answer is it would be at too great a sacrifice. For example, take the Hydrogen Power Plant. Given simple blocks, how would you create one of those? well... well.... hmmmm, but, but... hmmm.... well.... Uh huh, simple answer is you'd need really small blocks, which is counter productive, because you would spend all your time placing blocks. Whereas in gMax, you can drag out huge swaths of cubes, balls, and then cut and mold them until you have yourself a new Power Plant, then texture away. The reverse complaint about the BAT circulates in some places, that the BAT is too simple. ... ... ?! ... Too simple!! you ask? Well yes, as noted the BAT isn’t quite complete, it's missing many advanced features that make buildings shine. The most notable is Bump Mapping. Bumping is what makes bricks look like bricks, and not pictures of bricks. The bump gives the illusion of depth by making minute shadows where light would normally create shadows. These tiny details give huge benefits to the eye, which is naturally used to seeing bricks, not pictures of, your eye is very hard to deceive, but bumps can do it. Without bumps, it's just a picture. Bumps aren’t the only thing missing however. About the only thing that exists are diffuse maps (textures), and opacity (seeing through something). While to many this is enough to create dream buildings, it's not all there could be. So the proposition was brought up for Maxis to release their creation tools that used 3D Studio Max. The problem is that few are rich enough to afford it, seeing as retail price is around $3,500 and 'student' price is very nearly $1,000. Obviously that would limit the reach of the BAT to a minority. Of course, it's only a small minority that will create buildings of a good quality. No more than 500, tops, considering how many thousands upon thousands play the game, if not millions, that in itself is a minority, but it's nothing compared to the 10 or 20 of that number that can afford 3d studio max. So Maxis made a choice, they would create a tool simple enough for the majority, but powerful enough to compete with their own buildings. This cut a good portion of the population who are barely able to even play the game; however, these people won’t be the ones that create marvelously detailed buildings, at least, let us hope not. So when it's all factored down, we're left with gMax. The modding community might bend to the wishes of the masses and build tools to simplify building creation, but it's hard to say. Some in the community are already building tools to allow them to use 3D Studio Max. Only time will truly tell the success of this suite of tools, and only time will tell what vista's we will all have in this ever changing landscape of SimCity 4. The final Opinion from this lowly writer? 7 out of 10 for the BAT itself, its missing features cripple the power this tool could have had. Its existing features however are magnificent, and do it credit, the creator of it should be proud for what was done. 9 of 10 for the Plug-in Manager, it is elegantly efficient for the task it was given, and gives nearly total control. 7 of 10 for the Lot Editor, it does it's job, but it's lack of some well needed features keep it down, Maxis has had time to implement them, and even though they are short on time, these features would have been no harder than what is found in the Plug-in Manager, simple templates for new lots. Overall rating I give a 9 of 10, because as stated earlier, there just is no more efficient process for going from 3d model to game. Once a person is familiar with the system and options, it's a very swift process, just takes some practice. Good job Maxis, you do deserve credit, nay-sayers can’t appreciate what you've created, but I can, and while it has a few shortcomings, you did well. The BATs are good tools, they do very well their tasks, and for that I give them a high rating.

Level: Advanced Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this article. This is a technical guide/tutorial on creating custom light props that actually light up in the game (at night). The tutorial assumes the following knowledge: Familiarity with iLive's Reader utility Understanding of the key SC filetypes, such as FSH and S3D files A strong understanding of TGI's and IID's There are two parts to this document, a technical overview of the components involved in in game and custom light props, followed by a mini tutorial on creating custom lights. Some of this stuff is fairly complex, and there are some areas where it's easy to make mistakes, so I'd advise doing this stuff carefully and take a few backups. I had many frustrating nights trying to get it right. Thanks to Karybdis, Pegasus and the BSC team for help with this. Background When looking at the props we wanted to add to the Amsterdam Centraal Station lot, I found some funky blue lightpoles in front of the real station and thought they'd be great for custom lights in the game. I know smoncrie had played around with this a bit and written a brief tutorial. Pegasus has also been playing with custom light models. In the end I was able to create the lights I wanted, but it was a long process. Lights and LightCones, A Technical Overview Before jumping headfirst into creating custom lights, we need to look at the technical aspects of the Maxis lights and lightcones. If you skip this section and go to the tutorial, you'll get yourself into strife, guaranteed. Files and Relationships The following points describe the files used by lghts and their relationships: To build a custom light you're concerned with two models, the lightpole which you would build in the BAT, and the light it "produces" (such as lightcone). You can refer to the supplied ones or copy the supplied ones and tweak to your liking. Each model (e.g. lightpole and lightcone) consists of two filetypes; the FSH filetype (Type = 0x7ab50e44) and S3D filetype (Type = 0x5ad0e817). These are normally in a 1:1 relationship, one FSH file per S3D, but some S3D files share a FSH file (such as the standard MAXIS lightcones). Each model will have either one (1) FSH/S3D file pair or twenty (20) FSH/S3D file pairs. The BAT will produce twenty (for each of zoom 1-5 and each direction combination). Some MAXIS models only have one pair of FSH/S3D files. This is usually where the model looks exactly the same in each direction and zoom level (such as the lightcones which are basically a spherical shape and look the same in each direction). Prop exemplars refer to the S3D file (either the single one if there is only one or the ****0000 IID one if there are twenty of them). This is done through the Resource Key Type 4 exemplar property. If this points to an invalid model, you will normally get the brown box. Each S3D file refers to a FSH file (or "texture") through its Material ID (under the Mats tab in the reader). If this points to an invalid texture, you will get a box in Red/Blue/Green. GID's and IID's For the lights to work in both day and night, all models (both the lightpole and lightcone) must use a GID of BADB57F1 (0xbadb57f1). If you don't for custom lights, you may see what you're expecting during the day but at night you'll either get the brown box or an unexpected model. Because you must use a GID of BADB57F1, and only the first four characters of the IID are used as a unique reference (the other four are used for zoom and rotation) you have to be really careful when allocating IID's. There seem to be great chunks not used by MAXIS (3***, 5***, 7***, b***, d*** and f*** based on a quick check of the simcity_*.dat files). I've been using 4DE*. The Standard MAXIS Lightcones MAXIS provide four lightcone models: 0x5ad0e817,0xbadb57f1,2cb70000 - a large cone approx. 13m high, radius at base of 4.5m 0x5ad0e817,0xbadb57f1,2cb80000 - a medium cone approx. 10m high, radius at base of 3.5m 0x5ad0e817,0xbadb57f1,09c6e584 - a smaller/flatter cone approx. 6m high, radius at base of 2.5m 0x5ad0e817,0xbadb57f1,29da0000 - a small globe of light as used with the $ lights These are shown below against a 10m x 10m grid. These S3D files refer to one of two textures (FSH files): 0x7ab50e44,0x1abe787d,09c6e584 - lightcone; used by 2cb70000, 2cb80000 and 09c6e584 0x7ab50e44,0x1abe787d,ea89e9ee - globe of light, used by 29da0000 Building Custom Lights There are three stages to creating custom lights; create your own lightcone models (optional, you can use the supplied ones), create your own lighpole models, and putting them together. Creating your own LightCone Models Theoretically it's possible to create your own complete lightcone model (i.e. create the S3D + FSH files) but it would be a lot of work. The simplest way is to use the existing MAXIS lightcone models and tweak the FSH file. You will need custom light models if you want different light colours (as Peg has done with his Peglites). Also if you are going to use multiple lightcones on a single light that will intersect, you might want to reduce the brightness of the light (otherwise you'll burn your eyes out looking at the intersection of the lightcones). You will need to copy both the MAXIS S3D and FSH files into your own .dat file (reader). You need the S3D file as it refers to the FSH file. You use the normal FiSHman and image editing tools to change the FSH file and upload it. You will need to ensure you set the GID of your custom files to BADB57F1, the IID's to something unique (within the BADB57F1 set) and that the Material ID points to your custom FSH file. Creating you own Lightpole Models This is just standard BAT work. Two things to remember: You should make your poles equivalent to the light model sizes (i.e. approx. 11-12m tall, approx. 8-9m tall or 6-7m tall). If you are going to have multiple lightcones hanging off a single pole, you will need to know the X,Y co-ordinates of the light sources (bulbs) in your model. Once you have exported the model from the BAT and created the model as a Prop in the Plugin Manager, you will need to go through every S3D file and FSH file in your .desc file and change the GID to BADB57F1 and the IID to a unique value (same unique value for all files). You will also need to go through the S3D files and set the Material ID to be the unique ID you have set for these files. This is a critical step and it must be done correctly. Putting it all Together The key to putting it all together is the prop exemplar file. There are two properties you must have: Nighttime State Change - 0x01 means "change to state 1" Resource Key Type 4 - this replaces the Resource Key Type 0/1 that is the default for single state/single model props. Resource Key Type 4xm is used to tie changing props to game activity (such as traffic lights). I've removed it and the props seem to function ok. The resource key type 4 contains a variable number of sets of values. Each set contains eight Uint32 values. Each set of values represents one model (such as lightpole or lightcone) and state (daytime = 0, nighttime = 1) combination. For example a light with three lightcones would have five sets of values (i.e. fourty all up): SET1 - reps 1 - 8 - nighttime model for lightpole SET2 - reps 9 - 16 - nighttime model for lightcone #1 SET3 - reps 17 - 24 - nighttime model for lightcone #2 SET4 - reps 25 - 32 - nighttime model for lightcone #3 SET5 - reps 33 - 40 - daytime model for lightpole An example of this is shown below: Each set of eight values contains: the first REP is day (0) or night (1), although I think the values can be different things, because there is the Nighttime State Change property that say's "at night time use state A" (where A is normally "1" corresponding to the value of the first rep). the second, third and fourth reps are the X,Z,Y represent the offset from the centre of the prop. the fifth rep will be either: 0x27812820 if there is a single S3D file for the prop/lightcone etc. which corresponds to Resource Key Type 0, or 0x27812821 if there are 20 S3D files (for combinations of N/S/E/W at zoom 1 - 5) which corresponds to Resource Key Type 1. [*]the sixth, seventh and eigth reps are the T,G and I values for the prop/lightcone. To work out the X,Z and Y values, you need to convert from Hex to Decimal and then divide the number by 16^4 (i.e. 65536). For example, the $StreetlightDiagonalAVE_2CC1 uses two lighcones (5ad0e817,badb57f1,2cb70000) with the following dimensions: From what I've seen the Z value refers to the height of the cone base above the ground. So my example above using the custom lightcone of 4DE00000 has the following X,Z,Y values for the lightcones (rep #2, #3 and #4): #2 .63m, -1.5m, 1.12m #3 .63m, -1.5m, -1.12m #4 -1.3m, -1.5m, 0m Here are three lights I created for the Amsterdam Centraal Station lot (day and night views). There are actually three light cones per light pole. That's pretty much it. If you have any questions, PM deadwoods or email at st_deadwoods@optusnet.com.au. If you have any further questions about this article, please PM STomnibus.

Specialized Cities - Sardines and Apples by thy451 PART 8: SPECIALISED CITIES -- SARDINES AND APPLES In the last part of this section, I will make a short discussion on how to achieve those specialised cities, cities that are built only for one purpose only. All other considerations are thus disregarded. These are not the best cities in the sense of high wealth or high profits but they are the best in terms of their particular vision and purpose. B8.01: Sardines: Concept The purpose of this is to pack as many people as possible into the city. It is not about how much profit or how advanced the city is but how many people can you squeeze into one city. B8.01.1: The Higher you go... To start off, you need first to get those high wealth residential buildings. So build as you normally would. You have to make sure that all residential buildings are of stage 8 and highest wealth ($) level. It must be high wealth not low wealth buildings. Place as many parks as you can. Start off in on area rather than do it throughout the city, unless you can afford all the parks. B8.01.2: The Greater the fall Once you have secured the neighbourhood and make it rich, it is time to cause the buildings to be distressed. As each level of fall in wealth level, the same building will hold more. This is why I told you to move section by section. Since after removing all those parks, your maintenance levels would fall. Thus you can proceed on to the next area. Therefore start removing those desirable parks and maybe even education. But I do not advice removing health facilities as the longer the people live, the larger your city will become. B8.01.3: Upwardly Mobile Poor Remember, it is a fall in desirability not an increase in commute time, even though changing the commute time for the worse would lower desirability. This is because this city is primarily going to hold a lot of people and if commute time is high, no one will move into the city and you may get buildings that become abandoned. A good advice would be to place the low costs buses. It will help you generate some additional income to make up for the loss in taxes from the rich. And also it will improve commute time in this overcrowded city. B8.02: Fresh farm produce, Yummy... The concept for this is to create a viable sustainable farming community that is profitable. I used the word sustainable because the farms must be able to exist many years later and not be pushed out due to development or lack of people working in the farms. B8.02.1: Home Schooling This is the most important thing about creating a sustainable farming community, there must be no education. Not even a library. This is because once a Sim starts getting educated, they will no longer want to work at the farms at all. If that happens, these Sims will have no jobs and the result is that they will soon leave the city, thus causing your buildings to be distressed. After that, a new batch of ignorant Sims will move in and the buildings will be back to normal. But this would not last long. You will have this cycle of distressed buildings or massive waves of reconstruction over and over again in the city. B8.02.2: Market for the produce To allow this farming community to prosper, it is best to have big neighbours with huge demand. That way the demand will rub off on your city, which is not likely to generate that much demand herself. B8.02.3: Migrant Workforce An added way to bring in more cash other than construction of those polluting industries is to make use of the fact that people can travel and work in different cities. You could build a commercial area at the edge of the map so people from the neighbouring city can come here to work. Or you could build a residential area for the poor such that these people go and work in the richer cities. This also helps your richer city as they need not have low wealth housing in their city. B8.02.4: Green Water Belt Given that farms pollute the water supply, you should place your water supply away from the farms. Also try to leave a distance between the farms and the residential area much like the Green Belt idea for air pollution. Commercial zoning in between is acceptable since they do not complain about the water. Although if one was working in an office, I am sure that one would not want their water for making coffee to be green in colour. But I suppose Sims enjoy their morning coffee with a tangy pesticide flavouring.