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R.D.E (Rural Docklands Expansion) - WIP, Update 4 (enlarge image for a more detailled view).

Implementing a BRT System in my region. This is the terminal of the BRT System in the CBD, side to side with the Rail terminal, a complex called "Terminal Central". The complex receives 160000 passengers/day. They're also integrated with line 1 of the metro with the "Central station". The Complex also gives access to the biggest walkable complex of services in the region.

WORK IN PROGRESS -- THE JADE BIGHT II WILHELMSHAVEN WEST: (Click to make bigger.) Yo, guys -- This time we have the Northeast Industrial Park. Nothing too large -- just enough to barely satisfy the city growth requirements -- but spread out around a single freight terminal sitting on the ONLY road out of the park. (Thereby ensuring the freight trucks will use the rail terminal.) Mostly the emphasis was on using some interesting industrial buildings and dressing them out with a bunch of custom filler lots to give them that realistic touch. I also wanted to put enough room between them to allow for some creative MMP work DAO CHEMICAL COMPLEX The only glitch here, is that NBVC lotted the tank car filler dock as a train station -- so it spawns passenger trains instead of freight trains! DEAD FOREST TIMBER PRODUCTS McCORMICK & COMPANY Small and compact -- but lots of jobs. MPR METALS, L.L.C. NORTHEAST INDUSTRIAL FREIGHT YARD Again -- small and compact -- but very functional. Not a single truck gets past the loading docks. And you've got a CSX freight pulling out of the terminal yard. CSX FREIGHT -- bound for the Wilhelmshaven docks.

It's been a while since I've had to worry about memory so I don't recall the more extreme ways of making it use less memory. But in general, everything in your scene in one way or another has to get loaded into memory. 1. The model, yes, so reducing the number of polygons would help. To be honest your plants aren't really that big and lush, so you could easily replace them with something simpler (objects with noise modifiers even). 2. Textures can be a big one. When it starts rendering it converts all of the textures into some kind of internal bitmap format. For this reason it doesn't matter so much what the file size is, what really matters is the pixel dimensions of the textures. Reducing the resolution of really big textures could help. If the textures aren't gigantic though I wouldn't worry about it. 3. Final Gather also has to be saved to memory while rendering, but you don't really want to lower the rendering settings. What's supposed to happen when you run out of memory is it's supposed to start swapping things in and out. I don't know why it crashes when there's not enough memory but it does and always has.

@rsc204 this is really fantastic, thank you! I will get to work as soon as i've eaten something and hopefully post a pic later with it all looking nice and uniform As promised and without too much of a delay... as you can see it looks fantastic. What a work you have here, i'm overwhelmed! The effect is pretty wonderful i think, i'm going to have to have a little sit down, recover, and then start work on a new tile! I actually think the final effect is better than i imagined, i worried that it might look too industrial, but i think this little town is actually even prettier than when it was superlight asphalt everywhere

That's Epic! And this is just To Tutu Too cool:

If you start playing SC4 today you have to recover structures - dependencies - that have grown for 14 years. Me, I started playing SC4 in 2008 and downloaded tons of stuff and got completely confused. Deleted my whole plugin folder as I couldn't sort things out aymore, started again a second time and third time, organizing things better, learning, being more patient with the content. In my opinion it's impossible to haul inboard a development of 14 years in a couple of weeks. It's like a big tower where often one stone was layed on the other and this chain - you need this before that and you need that before this - shurely is something, if you are new, is disturbing. It's like you are forced to learn the whole sc4 modding history just to understand how some fun stuff works together. I think today starting with 'SC4 pimping' isn't easy. It wasn't easy for me back in 2009 and since then the tower grew, the relations between stuff advanced. But I know this from other games too where a big modding community had a big influence on the game development. If you join this community later, after some years - information is raining like cats and dogs about those relations - you need first this to make work that and then you need that to make work this. But if you aren't close minded - dependencies? never! - you get used to it. Takes some time and this time for everybody is different. For me it was quite long to get some understanding, I'm not that mastermind to remember all those 'dependencies', the gears of the clockwork, I tend to forget what I've downloaded 2 days before and when I open my plugin folder sometimes I'm surprised: what's this stuff? Who put that in? SC4 is a game - for fun, for leisure time - so it's okay to say, I don't want to go through all this history, I don't want to mess up with dependencies. For a game - this is a legitimate opinion. Only thing I can answer is: at first it looks like work, but later on it's much more fun. It's only 'starting' that is trouble. Later on the trouble goes away. You know - if you pick up a building here and a building there instead of downloading an 'all-in-one-solution-mega-pack' we are talking about freedom. You gain freedom by not being forced to a mainstream. Well and that's where modding starts, why people normally start modding - to overcome the limitations, expand borders. Freedom is always more complicated than doing as told. One could call this the fate of modding.

A picture postcard from Fantozzis celebration of 1000 rep points: Me Epic, you Jane. Me Epic, you Jane. Me ...

Yay! More acronyms. SC4 would be nothing without them!

The thing is, this request is actually not a bad one in any way. I started only a few years back, it's intimidating to think how much work building a plugins folder takes. Frankly, if we want to attract new players to the game and keep them playing, we need to leverage our #1 asset, content. If we remove the barriers to entry, we'll have a larger community in future. Because whilst it's true that some dedication is always required to mod any game. The amount of work most players are expected to do is simply hideous, after all some people aren't looking for a hobby, just for some casual fun. We (the community), need to unlock the barriers to entry for these people and start providing an easier way to get going. Starter packs, with everything included would be one step in the right direction. The problem is that consensus can not be formed on whether change like this is ethical or not. Well once more I argue screw ethics, it's simply necessary. Terms and conditions change all the time, it's about time we changed ours. Because if we're not careful, all those who come along enthusiastic about creating things they see others making. Those players will continue to be frustrated and go elsewhere. I really hope @djvero that you do stick with it, this isn't about you per-se. But the way things are now, is simply doing more harm than good to our little community. We need to be brave enough to make big changes if we are going to avoid going over these issues time and time again.

The AC units are going to be props. A look at the overall progress:

The village of Nieuwvliet (836 inhabitants) in the far north of Jytland. It is the northernmost town of the Ritland district some 10 miles north of the district capital Wilbertshaven. The small village centre has some old buildings dating back to the middleage. The town has the most basic needs such as a medical clinic, a primary school and a supermarket and acts as main spot for the outlying hamlets.

1000 points

Skoda 130RS

Renault R5 Turbo driven by Jean Ragnotti Sorry, I did miss those the J and K ones, thanks @raynev1...

Yup, of course. I'll create a list of files affected by a certain issue for referencing in the future.

The game's default air pollution fixing ordinances don't actually reduce car pollution. The NAM includes a parameter to change the Clean Air Act so that it reduces your car pollution by 60%. There are also other ordinance modifying mods on the STEX (the OOM comes to mind), that adjust similar parameters to make the ordinances actually work the way you expect them to. A tree buffer works in theory, but in my experience the game default trees seem to lack necessary parameters to reduce auto/network traffic and pollution, so the don't seem to work as well as surrounding a similarly polluted industrial park. Recall also that traffic is the determining factor in generating pollution. If a network doesn't produce traffic and therefore congestion, it won't make pollution but it also won't cause business to get customer traffic. This is why you get the weird effect of exceptionally busy El-Rail and monorail lines, all electric train services, being just as polluted as a heavily trafficked highway; the traffic helps contribute to customers, and reduces the slightly deleterious effect that a totally pedestrian city might cause due to lack of commercial customers.

Many good tips and themes here, I will only give one: no matter what you download, keep an ordered folder with the downloaded files, and use a clear method to organise the plugins folder. If not, you'll end like me, having to rebuild everything from scratch when having 8 Gb of custom content: it literally took me months!

Thanks, the description should now be fixed I'll try and get the rest of the reported files fixed by tonight.

The attached file should contain everything we need to fix the problem and get up and running. Follow these steps and all will be fine: Replace the original folder 7_GLR LE Textures, found inside 10 - GLR of the Automated Sidewalk Mod (SWN), with the one inside the attached file. You must remove the old folder (delete/move) first, this is a replacement not a patch. Then you'll have to re-generate the SWN mod by running the script once more. Sorry about that. Copy/move the SWN mod into plugins as before. Then copy the second folder in the .zip Lot Overrides into the z____MGB Mods\P - Sidewalk NAM folder. This contains a number of useful overrides with your sidewalks. Keep only those you need: SWN BSCSidewalkTex Overrides some textures from the BSC Mega Texture Packs. SWN Magneto Overhanging Parking Only useful if you use Magneto's Overhanging Parking Lots. SWN Paeng Bikepaths Keep if you use Paeng's Bikepaths Mod. SWN Paeng Texture Pack If you use any of Paeng's content, this is very handy. SWN SCILT A special version of SCILT for your sidewalks. SWN SHK Parking Keep this if you have SHK's Parking Pack installed. The only file you should keep from before is "Custom Sidewalks.dat". Included in the folder in Step 2 is a special Multi-FSH version of the Maxis Texture Overrides file (usually generated by MTRTDK). Plus the optional "Extension Version", which replaces some additional Lot Texture if you want more unification in-game. Lastly, you need to remove a number of options from the P - Sidewalk NAM folder: Only keep one of the rail texture files. If using RRW, that's the RRW one, remove the Maxis and PEG files. If you ran the Euro version of the scripts, you'll also need to remove all the additional TuLEPs files from the TuLEP Options folder. See "Step 3 - Create your Custom Set of NAM Textures" in the Automated Sidewalk Mod readme for further details of this. But in essence, the options mirror the choices during NAM installation. Maxis Concrete #1 for SWN.zip

I usually put a 1 tile buffer of open grass and then a sound barrier up against highways. Adding trees around the highways will also help a lot, but 10 lane highways start to pollute most when they get really busy, but by then you have your grassy areas and trees in place.

You read more than I did. I got hung up on the put it in, take it out part. It seems to me the Moolah command would be easier cause the .dll doesn't need to be removed. (Same for the Money Park I mentioned.)

I'm not familiar with this one, but the messes with taxes part doesn't seem too exciting. I believe most peeps prefer to use the Moolah <value> code to set the amount on hand to whatever they want. That's part of the SimCity 4 Extra Cheats Plugin. Personally, I like a small infusion of cash each month so I found the Money Park 10.5. It has ploppable Gnome Towers which generate 5k, 20k, or 100k simoleons per month. You can plop multiples of them to get whatever amount you need.

When I first started looking for CC (custom content) I was a bit overwhelmed with the whole dependencies things. Especially cause I had read that some dependencies require sub-dependencies which might require some of their own. So, using Google, I searched for stuff that didn't require anything else. I wanted to get a quicker start. I was still rather confuzzled about the Plugins folder and I wanted to see how it would go first. I refined my Google search to be: "no dependencies" site:https://community.simtropolis.com/files/ And I found over 300 files. Then I got interested in Peg's stuff and had to have dependencies. I picked some which had minimal requirements. Once I got familiar with the concept and how they work together and why they are required I felt better cause I was able to do it. Prolly the best advice is: This method keeps it from being too much all at once. I now go as far as to temporarily rename my Plugins folder to xPlugins and then test something new all by itself before I mix it in with my other addons. Once I'm happy with a new thing I move it to my xPlugins, delete the now empty Plugins, and rename xPlugins back to Plugins.

Not really, it depends on what you want an image to do. JPEGs are compressed, great for use online (smaller files). But that means hardware has to be dedicated to uncompressing them before you can see them properly. Generally speaking there is a loss of quality too. PNG files are not commonly used for games, they are usually very large files, but can be re-sized/rescaled without loss of quality. BMPs are most common in games. They have a balance between quality, filesize and can use dedicated alpha channels which can be very useful. That said, SC4 uses an EA/Microsoft format called FSH for compressing everything you see in game, although all source textures (like BAT models), usually start out as BMPs. Many modders prefer PNGs because the transparency is part of the image. But, having dedicated (i.e. separated) alpha channels brings many benefits and isn't really any more work to create. For example all the automated tools I'm working on rely on features supported by BMPs that aren't really possible with PNGs.

Get a load of this little pond. There's a lot of coke bottles and cigarette butts in it.

A island fortification i built using some different techniques A few more shots

Audi Quattro (1980's..?)

Experiments in Road Textures and T21s - Untouched snapshot, no MMPS in this scene.

NOT PLANNED - Sub Heading: Chat Room Who's Online So, I noticed near the bottom of the Forums Page we have: Could this be added to the Chat Room Intro popup? I feel it'd be a nice addition. We get lots of peeps who pop in, say nothing, and leave and my guess is they are just checking to see who is there. Mod edit: I forgot about the Sub Heading so I added it. - Cori

Just to say, this works so well, I think I'll add it to one of the official SWN releases when it's all ready. It may clash a little with the industrial, although the IRM uses different concrete textures, so I think it will be fine. I've always liked this concrete texture personally and used it in lotting, but it really looks great as a sidewalk. Some of the Maxis textures are quite high quality, but not many. I'm very glad you are satisfied with the results. SWN is basically something that came from my desire for a uniform sidewalk. It's been so many hours (possibly into the 1000's) to get to where I am today. But it's so very close to completion, when it is, this sort of uniformity will be available with a tiny fraction of effort for every sidewalk mod, even custom ones. So I'm always pleased when people want to take advantage of what I've created. The other great thing, if you want to use a different sidewalk in future, no problem, anyone is free to change them without having to loose the uniformity.

Thanks everyone for all the reports so far! We'll be adding these to the lists which will appear below the opening post. Absolutely, any such effort to improve functionality should not be detrimental to what the original author intended. All creators have artistic license, and this will not be diminished in any way. Instead, only to resolve any major issues. By "major", these would be aspects which following testing, are found to prevent the content working. Whether that be missing models, conflicts, or data corruption. Doing so would be beneficial for everyone involved (both authors and the community). The biggest challenge is to determine and categorise what are considered dysfunctional errors. So before embarking on the latter stages of such a project, we'd need a clear checklist of faults, and to ensure any fixes do no more than bring the content up to how the author envisioned. It would also be necessary to at least send a courtesy PM to the author, and give them opportunity to respond and fix anything to their own accord. If they decline of course, and prefer their files to be left as they are, we'd totally respect that. Perhaps with the stages of testing, it could follow a similar principle to aviation, with how aircraft are checked and maintained. Here they are scrutinised for defects, and then repaired as needed. However, upgrades/alterations won't be made to the fundamental design, without being instructed by the manufacturer. Maybe not the best analogy since defects in STEX files don't increase -- they are static data files after all. But I think this gives a bit of an idea what could be achieved in the long run: A standardised process for checking a range of issues across the board. In any case, unlike aircraft, the original version can be preserved and remain available using the versioning system on the STEX. Of course, there would need to be lots of groundwork in place beforehand, and further collaboration needed across the SC4 community. So for now, let's focus more on external issues such as the formatting, which are separate from the files themselves. Great, thanks. Can I just request that for each example of an issue with a file, please leave at least one instance which can be used for further investigation. For things like the formatting, there are so many files affected that it's impracticable to fix them all by hand, at least if we can help it. That's where a batch fix would be the ideal way forward, also avoiding the confusion of physically updating the file (changing the "Date Modified"). Since there's no way to perform silent edits, people may think the actual file has been changed.

LOL

The single most efficient way to avoid lots of traffic pollution is to have plenty of alternative transportation options in place for your sims to use. Subways, elevated and normal rail, bus lines, ferries, pedmalls, etc. Never underestimate how many trees or parks you need. You can never have enough in any city tile and they help stimulate growth as well as control pollution, especially for all residential and commercial zones. It also helps to not run 8 or 10 lane highways through towns or cities. They're better suited for the outskirts with bypasses and spur lines of 4 or 6 lanes to run through developed areas and re-connect. There are some great videos on YT about the RHW. @Haljackey has probably the most extensive and innovative highways in his cities so check out his stuff both here and on YT and also check out the "Show Us" threads here on ST for ideas and inspiration for pretty much every kind of development, especially highways and interchanges.

^ This. I downloaded the Enyati Urban College file. (The STEX page has formatting problems and I have reported that in the STEX Issues - Community Report Thread.) Anyhow, the Readme file does list 3 dependencies and all 3 links are broken cause they were created prior to one of the ST board software updates. Furthermore the 2nd dep appears to have two sub-deps of its own. Here's the updated list: Old file name: BSC Texture MEGA Pack New file name: BSC Textures Vol 01 (v1.0) Old file name: BSC Essentials Files New file name: BSC Essentials (v1.0) Sub-dep: BSC MEGA Props Misc Vol02 (v1.0) Sub-dep: BSC Textures Vol03 (v1.0) Old file name: BSC SG FloraPack Vol 01 New file name: BSC MEGA Props - SG Vol 01 (v1.0) After installing I couldn't plop it in a new test city due to city requirements so I made a temporary tweak: Then I plopped it and clicked it with the Query Tool: Another thing which seems odd to me and I don't know if it has any meaning, but there seems to be an internal dependency listed: ^ I don't have that dat file, but the College seems ok without it. Let us know if this helps. Edit: @Samerton has fixed up the STEX listing with proper formatting and all the correctly linked deps.

I think I will have to give them all a try.

Did you install the dependency files listed in the readme?

Oh shoot. If Larks is posting then I'm late! 8 years since February 10th! All because I wanted the Sears Tower in my game. That's crazy how fast it's gone by.

@11241036 just honored me with my 3,000th reputation point. Massive thanks!

Italdesign Giugiaro Parcour Concept (Lamborghini V10 5.2-litre, 550HP mid rear engine)

Building/planing coastal town

Small update on Decatur. It's located on a stretch of land between two waters in a hilly region. Not the easiest terrain to work with, but it sure is fun!

Very nice! @Thin White Duke

I could use some help trying to figure out what to do with the surroundings.

Kaijo Metropolis update. The metropolitan city has now breached the 2.0 million population benchmark. This is a huge milestone for me as this is the first time in my SC4 journey to reach 2 million sims in one region. Another milestone is Hakata Ward reaching 900k residents. This is also the first time that I reached 900k in one city tile. Hakata Ward is also the most extensive city I build in terms of transportation networks. It's so huge that now SC4 freezes once in a while, it's true. Here is a throwback of how it had evolved. This was how the city looked with 1.18 million people. (December 8, 2016) A few days later, with 1.77 million residents. (January 7, 2017) And now with 2,07 million residents. (February 14, 2017) The city has so much concentration of tall buildings but I'm trying to keep it balance with medium and low residential too to make it more realistic. Here is how the transportation system in the city looks like. Now that a I have quite a stuff in my city, this means a future Teiko update is probably coming soon. Make Teiko Great Again.

Decatur, MC.

WORK IN PROGRESS -- THE JADE BIGHT II WILHELMSHAVEN WEST: (Click to make bigger.) Yo, guys -- Down at the south end of the BodenSee we have a small marine recreational area that is a little more accessible than the big marina -- Brockett's Landing. Originally a single rickety pier built generations ago by old man Brocketts, the family has gradually expanded and modernized the facilities (not by much) and turned the family home into a gasthaus on the ground floor with their living quarters upstairs. The local anglers and less wealthy boaters find it a friendly little place to drop in and get their "keel" wet. Not a very big place, the landing is tucked in along the shore beneath the residences on the bluff and behind the hospital. Not very "ritzy" either, they never bothered to pave the road. It ain't much -- but the Brocketts are happy in their little enclave and it makes them a good living. And here we see a couple of boaters from the big marina passing offshore.

For creating river docks/inland ports I started to expand DocRorlach's Rural Docklands with additional lots. I thought this is something easy to do but I ran into several problems with the seawall props which aren't easy to use as tailored for his own lots. I must confess - I'm close to shipwreck with them. So I'm probably giving this up. Now here are two pictures with what I got so far - including all the poorness I don't get right. Ah .. *grief*. (as I used RTK4 values to offset the cranes the shadows are wrong - left side, first picture - and so on).

Here are a few pics of my refinery after is has been detailed as promised. Wish I could have incorporated @Jerenable desalter more, but I already had everything laid out and mostly detailed when he released it.