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I am working on a Lua extensions DLL that adds more functions for Lua code to call. The highlights include Lua code being able to: Run cheats and pause/resume the game. Have better access to SC4's built-in number formatting. Get or set the city/mayor names and plop lots. Manipulate the in-game camera and take screenshots. I also re-enabled the Lua error logging that Maxis disabled in retail builds, which has proved incredibly helpful when writing the mod's Lua code. Feedback and suggestions are welcome.

An island loop It's a bit tricky working in such a tight space with various levels of elevation. Glad that they all work out eventually. Built during today's stream, here for anyone interested (started at 59:40):

A longer office transition:

Traverse City after 50 years of development. This is the last city tile in the region to be developed.

@paulmc & @Tyberius06 Tabi had a set that inlcuded a Cargolux cargo plane model. I found it in a very old prop set (2007), so I don't know if it may have been included in a newer compilation somewhere. As for the Antonov, the AN-225 may have been one of srainy's (may have used another name also). I have it as a file labeled 'Demo'. Not sure why. I believe I got it from SimCity China, so it could have been a translation thing... Later: Doing some checking in the Readmes, there was a 742 Cargolux model included in Tabi's Cargo Plane Prop pack which was then included in the newer Mega Pack Vol. 2 (according to the Readmes). I think this was then included in the Airport Common Dpendency pack on SC4E. Not sure if it is the same as the one I found in that old prop set from 2007. That one is named 747 Cargolux. Later Later: @simmering corrected my 'failing' memory below... (Thanks)

Ongoing work with T21. This is a redesign of the T21 Maxis/NAM for almost all the most important parts of the networks. Here's a (very) small glimpse of what's been done:

The Demo version is here on STEX, but I assume you look for something different, @paulmc?

Yep. I made that test texture a few months ago. I hope the final result is much better. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Flak tower: Download:

I think it could definitely be done on a technical level, but the results would be entertaining and surprisingly impressive but not useful. AI understands the visual appearance of the images fed into it but it doesn't know what those things really are. On almost every roof, the left edge of the roof is going to be darker and bluer than the rest of the roof, so AI would do that as well. But we know that that is a shadow and that the width/depth of the shadow corresponds to the height of what is casting the shadow. But AI doesn't know that it's a shadow or that it is representing something in 3d space, it just knows that it's a typical visual element. And I think this would be the same for other spatial aspects of the buildings. We'd end up with MC Escher buildings. Along the same lines, but a bigger problem, the AI would need to make 4 rotations of the same building, with each rotation being consistent. SC4 is low resolution. The appearance of different materials is implied more than it is actually there, but as humans and given the context we can interpret materials. We think that the wall with brown noise on it is brick and subtly different noise but blue is painted stucco. And I know from my own BATs, where the materials are given realistic physical properties, people still misinterpret metal and concrete sometimes because they're both somewhat flat grey. So I don't think there's enough objective visual information for it to go off of. Also since it's so low resolution every pixel needs to be perfect because any smudge or artifact or unreasonable thing would really stand out. Being orthographic might confuse it. I think it would actually do a very good job of learning that it is orthographic, but when 99% of the visual information in all the images align to the orthographic angles, it's going to try to make everything (even curved objects) be at those angles, creating visual artifacts and weirdness. Nitelites would probably turn out surprisingly well but not well enough to use. It doesn't know what windows or signs or anything are. I'd figure the main thing it would learn is that dark parallelograms sometimes become brighter and sometimes don't. So I think it would also brighten things like dark vents and dark panels. Or for things like black mirrored glass facades, it would probably know to brighten horizontal rows, with dark gaps between rows, but it doesn't know what floors are, so the patterns it chose would probably be physically nonsensical. So I really don't think it would work at all but it would be a lot of fun to see what it tried to make.

Just wanted to share some new screenshots of the city-building interface I’ve been working on, along with a few of the construction options that are already available in the game

Hi everyone, For many, many years I visited Simtropolis regularly, always hoping for that one announcement: “SimCity 5 is coming!” Like many of you, I was deeply inspired by SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4 — and like some of you, I was also disappointed by the direction the franchise took afterward. For years, I dreamed of a game that could bring back that spark... and now, I'm trying to build it myself. I'm an architect by profession and a long-time fan of city-building games. Last year, I finally decided to take the leap and start creating my own game — CityArchitect. It’s a city-building game with a unique focus: not only do you design the layout of the city, but you also design the architecture of each individual building, using a powerful modular tool inspired by SimCity 3000’s Building Architect Tool — but far more flexible and easier to use. You can mix real architectural styles (from historical to modern), combine façade elements, roofs, terraces, and decorative pieces, and create highly customized buildings that still harmonize with the city’s overall aesthetic. The game is still in development, but I’ve just launched the Steam page and plan to release an early test version later this year. This first version will focus on the building creation tool and allow you to create small city blocks and place your custom buildings in them. The full city simulation is still in progress — but it's evolving every week. I’d love to hear your feedback, especially from people here who truly understand the legacy and magic of SimCity. You can also follow the development on Instagram at @play.cityarchitect . It would mean a lot if you could wishlist the game on Steam — it really helps spread the word! Thanks for reading — and thank you, Simtropolis, for being such an important part of my inspiration all these years. Let me know what you think!

Can you drop that link, so I can check it out. Suddenly I don't recall any kind of cargolux, ut It is possible that it was released as part of the Ultimate Airport Collection. I don't think that particular (or any) Antonov was ever made and/or released for SC4, but I'm not sure.

I'm posting this mainly to write it down since there are so many little bits to everything. The sun has a property called "angle" which is the "angular diameter of the sun as seen from earth". In other words, it's how big the sun disc is in the sky. By default this is 0.526. BAT4Max uses 2.0. This is responsible for the shadows getting fluffier and fluffier as they get further away from the object casting them.

Yes, your image rang a bell... Going back through the readmes again, there was an AN225 model included in Tabi's Cargo Aircraft Prop pack which went into the Mega Prop Pack Vol. 2 (I hadn't tried that particular search term). That means it would be in the Airport Common Dependency pack on SC4E. Checking and making a quick lot...

I was looking for the proppable version of it, I might be wrong but I think I saw it a looong time ago on a CJ or something. Maybe that doesn't exist anymore just like the actual real world Antonov , it will be missed .

Whishlisted! I'll be following your progress closely.

The color of the sun is automatically determined by the angle of the sun, presumably based on scientific information, and can't be controlled directly. Since it can't be controlled directly, the nonphysical tuning allows for some nonphysical/subjective/artistic adjustment of the presumably scientific automatic sun color. Basically SimFox made the sun slightly more red and saturated than it would be in real life. Except that the lighting rig in SC4 isn't based on real life sun angles, so who knows what the sun angle corresponds to. It could be something like March 11th at 10:23 AM in Helsinki. So basically it doesn't mean anything to us. The pixel filter is definitely a problem. Pixel filtering takes the various rendering samples (which aren't aligned to the pixel grid of the render), and weights them according to a curve, with the curve scaled to the size of the filter. Box is a flat curve (all the samples within the pixel are averaged together weighted equally). The other two are bell curves. So samples which exist near the center of the pixel are considered to be the truest sample for that pixel and are weighted more strongly, and the further away from the center of the pixel you go they're weighted lower and lower in the final average. BAT4Max uses Lanczos, which is sharpening filter, meaning that as you go further out, those samples aren't just weighted less, they're negatively weighted, exaggerating the contrast between nearby samples/pixels and creating a sharpening effect (like sharpening something in Photoshop). There are other sharpening filters but Cycles doesn't have any. And the filters it does have can't seem to be sharp without being pixelated. I've tried seeing if there are Blender add ons which add more pixel filters and it doesn't seem like it. Box (no filtering) is the worst and isn't normally used so it's bad that it's the best looking one. Also all of the BATs are looking great.

IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: CUXHAVEN By: Dreadnought & AP Chapter 51: THE PHOTO TOUR 07 BATTERY SCHARNHORST On the night of 11 November 1940, the Royal Navy launched 21 Fairey “Swordfish” biplanes from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious. Each of the “flying stringbags” carried either a bomb or an aerial torpedo and the attack formation took a heading for the main Italian naval base of Taranto. By the time the sun rose the following morning, the British had successfully executed the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval engagement in history – and fully half the capital ships of the Italian Navy rested on the bottom of Taranto harbor. Just thirteen months later, the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed Pearl Harbor and effectively put an end to the dominance of the battleship in naval warfare. Prior to the emergence of the aircraft carrier, all nations bordering the sea used a combination of battle fleets and powerful coastal gun batteries to defend strategic bases and port cities from attack by enemy battle fleets. Imperial Germany had been developing a system of coastal defense batteries since the early days of the empire in 1871. By the early 20th Century, German islands, ports, deep water channels, and naval bases were well protected by strong concrete gun emplacements mounting powerful Krupp artillery. “Battery Scharnhorst”, defending Cuxhaven, is an example of just one of the many coastal defense batteries scattered all over the world. “Battery Scharnhorst” (center of picture) sits on a headland on the east side of the Jade’s deep water channel and provides a defensive cross-fire with “Battery Gneisenau” on the western shore. (See Imperial Dockyards: Wilhelmshaven for details of Battery Gneisenau.) The site was originally occupied by an earthwork shore battery that was expanded into an enclosed fort. The earthen ramparts were backed by brick and masonry walls where heavy cannon were mounted “en barbette” on open carriages (about 1880). As the new main anchorage was constructed, it was decided to protect it and the deep water channel with a modern concrete battery along the lines of the “fortresses” constructed around Metz. Battery Scharnhorst is an all concrete bunker, replacing the previous rampart walls that had no overhead protection. The thick concrete walls facing the sea were sloped at a 60 degree angle to deflect direct fire from heavy guns, and were further covered by thirty feet of packed earth to absorb impact energy. The concrete roof was built in two thick layers with six feet of sand sandwiched between them (same theory as a protective coal bunker). In this view you can see a road entering the bunker complex through a reinforced tunnel mouth. This entrance was used for any foot traffic as well as vehicles. You can also see a rail line running into the bunker, which would bring heavy equipment, spare parts, supplies, and powder and ammunition for the guns. Goods were unloaded from the rail cars and shuttled through the bunker complex with hand-cars on a narrow gauge track. This rear view shows the two entrance tunnels as well as the small exterior entrances to the magazines used for truck traffic and small loads. As you can see, there are only four openings into the bunker complex, two of which are rather small. And there are no exterior buildings or other infrastructure elements that might be destroyed during battle. Everything necessary to the operation of the bunker is contained within its protective walls. Like a warship, the powder and shell handling rooms are directly behind each gun turret and connected to the gun houses by shell hoists. Accommodations for the gun crews and bunker staff are located in rooms along the interior rear walls, and there are dynamo rooms, food and water storage, messing arrangements, offices, and repair shops scattered throughout the complex. The roof of the bunker has virtually nothing on it. There are, of course, the five gun turrets – and a large, square, air intake shaft with a thick steel grate to prevent shells from entering. Just behind the intake shaft are three duct pipes to exhaust fumes from inside the bunker (usually cordite smoke that leaks into the structure from the turrets). Again, like a warship, the bunker operates on the “forced draught” principle. The air intake fans draw air into the bunker and create a “positive” pressure. The fume extractors remove the air around the guns, and from specific handling compartments adjacent to them. You can see earth has been banked-up along the front edges of the bunker and some vegetation has been allowed to grow. The vegetation will prevent erosion of the protective earthen bank, while also making the bunker a difficult target. In an age when air reconnaissance was in its infancy, the bunker would have to be ranged upon by warship rangefinders – at sea level. The vegetation would act as natural camouflage – or – could be removed in time of war to clear the field of fire. This is a close-up of the gun turrets atop the bunker. The concrete bunker complex with revolving turrets was inspired by similar concrete fortress installations built along both sides of the Franco-German border – but most especially by Fort Copacabana, built between 1908 and 1914 to guard the waters of Rio de Janeiro Bay, Brazil. The fort was taken out of service in 1975 and is, today, a very well-preserved national monument. The gun turret is a Krupp model CD/4-1906 fortress turret mounting Krupp model 1906 SK-L/40 12-inch guns. Note the thick concrete and steel reinforcing ring placed around the turret base to prevent shell penetration and possible jamming of the turret race. The fortress gun model was graciously provided by @Barroco Hispano. This is a close-up view of the rear area, where most of the unusual detail can be seen. The bunker was created by raising the terrain, and sculpting it to shape using the “road-piece-plop” method. (Very simple – but very effective.) The raised areas were then covered using the “Paeng” Grunge Concrete pieces to create the bunker – especially the Paeng pieces with overhanging props. Some Paeng lots were modified to handle the gun turrets, air shafts, exhaust ducts, security lamp posts, and those with sailors. The road and rail entrances are from the “WMP” Doc Rorlach Tunnel pack – as suggested by “Mattb325”. And the tunnel pack was graciously updated and brought out of “retirement” for me by the hard-working @Tiberius6 (MANY - MANY thanks). The tunnels were plopped in recesses in the bunker area, then covered over with the overhanging Paeng pieces. A bit tricky, but far better than anything else I tried. The exterior entrances to the magazines are the “PEG SNM Series” small ammo bunkers. They were modified so that the bunker prop overhangs the rear of the lot. That allowed me to plop them “into” the raised side of the bunker so that only the entrance was visible. I then used Paeng overhanging pieces to fill in the concrete wall effect. The following three pictures are landscape details. I used “Heblem Sands” brown sand to indicate earthen spots here and there, as well as using them to cover sloping sides of hills. I used the “Heblem” light gray sand texture to create the appearance of loose gravel in many places to show valleys or depressions in the hills. You have to be very careful when texturing slopes and hills. Using a texture (sand) or too much ground cover on a slope tends to obliterate it – and the sloping effect simply disappears into the “clutter”. Where possible, I used my custom made 1x1 “tree filler” lots (to save time). And I have used virtually every possible ground cover, bush, or tree MMP in the Stex Catalog to paint the terrain. It is an extremely tedious exercise to fill in the landscape in this manner – but I think it produces an excellent level of realism. NEXT TIME…… CUXHAVEN: THE PHOTO TOUR 08 MANY THANKS to @Barroco Hispano for his beautiful warship models. SPECIAL THANKS to my friend and partner, @AP, for his talents, meticulous models, colorful imagination, and extreme dedication. If you enjoyed anything – please punch the “like” button so WE will know. A comment would be even more informative. Comments and critiques requested and gratefully accepted. All questions answered promptly to the best of our ability. THANK YOU for your visit! You may wish to visit these CJ’s as well…… SERIES I: IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: WILHELMSHAVEN SERIES II: IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: CUXHAVEN Appearing – Work In Publication SERIES III: IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: BREMERHAVEN Appearing -- ??? And please feel free to drop in at… THE SIMTROPOLIS SHIPYARD https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/761469-simtropolis-shipyard/?tab=comments#comment-1766496

That means a lot, thank you!! I’m really excited to keep improving it and get a solid version out soon 😄 Thanks Cori!! The intro picture looks great! And thanks everyone from Simtropolis too @simmering, @CaptCity and @Cyclone Boom 😀😀😀 Totally agree — the creativity in this community is inspiring. Really glad to share it here! Same here — Since I was a kid I always wished for that too. Hope this project gets close to that dream! 😀 Thank you!! Can’t wait to show more soon 😄 Hahaha For a moment I didn't know how you knew I'm from Brazil too. Saudações irmão 💚💛 Whoa, I hadn’t heard of it — just looked it up! Super interesting. Love discovering those lesser-known gems. Where can we find it to play?? Really appreciate it — and thanks for following on Instagram! I’m not sure how well buildings from my game could be translated into SC4, since CityArchitect is entirely 2D while SC4 uses 3D models. Right now, I can only export PNG images of the buildings, so I don’t know if that would be enough for the SC4 BAT system. But if there’s a way to make it work, I’d be all for it! I’d love to see the buildings used in other games too — definitely not against the idea, quite the opposite.

Going smokey, going industry! 💨💨💨 built during today's stream, here:

There was An-225 created by Tabi, hosted on his site (http://homepage2.nifty.com/tabinohito/ - defunct) and on SC4 Devotion. I don't see it was restored on SC4 Evermore, unless it was merged into SC4 Airport Common Dependency Pack https://www.sc4evermore.com/index.php/downloads/download/22-dependencies/348-sc4-legacy-airport-common-dependency-pack

Hello first of all, i would like to thank you for your response. I wanted to write you the results i got after installing the Direct X Wrapper. When the game first opens, the window that appears on the screen appears as a black screen, so i cannot change servers. After starting the game, i was able to play without any problems, but after saving and exiting my city, i tried to enter the game again and load one of my saved cities, but the loading screen was still stuck. If you have any other suggestions that would help, you can write me again. Thank you again.

April 2064 Ronnie Sullivan died 78 years old. He was the former chairman of Sullivan Oil and chairman of Bounty Industry Association. Since 2020 married to Cristina Sullivan, with whom he got their daughter Vera and son Stephen. Ronnie chose a funeral in Abbey of the Holy Mother, in the spirit of his grandmother Sister Sullivan. The Abbey was full of people. Basically, every living descendant of his grandmother came. Besides his own bloodline, the Dubois and Sánchez families. Most of the political establishment was there, with Counsil Members, Ministers as well as ranked bureaucrats from the Legal Department. Many members of the higher classes came, factory owners, professors, generals, and the like. Also, many commoners, come to say farewell to this special man, and of course a lot of people from the press. Ronnie Sullivan was laid to rest in the Abbey Park.

That interface is delicious! And having roads with specialised lanes from the base game on would be akin to a pipe dream for the NAM Team; I know for sure that @Lucario Boricua would enjoy it enormously.

@matias93 - I agree it sounds plausible. The buildings that @justforfun makes are all made that way (by hand) - essentially a scaffold mesh with textures over them just like automata are made. They would not have self shadowing or cast shadows in SC4 but that doesnt mean they couldn't (be made to) look like they do. Looking at the 3d-ness of the pics at the top of this post the meshes will be mostly be more complicated than one prism - but the principle remains intact - assembly from relatively simple meshes. In the end it degree of difficulty depends on their internal representation in the building tool, which looks quite slick, and a willingness on the part of the author to subvert its intent from his own (game) uses for it. I can imagine win-win sharing scenarios of ideas/content going both ways though. For instance, apart from S3D and FSH for SC4, if you can get buildings into an .obj mesh format with or without textures then they become exportable to a number of 3D rendering tools tools including Blender. Thence going the other way with meshes made in the right way isn't necessarily impossible either. Be sure though, between brainstorm and implementation is a fair bit of software work.

'BSCBATProps KWK Vol 04' is in 'BSC MEGA Props - KWK Vol03', which is 'SC4D LEX Legacy - BSC Common Dependencies Pack 9c' (link above). (from readme file)

That's really interesting! It looks very impressive. !!

Your screenshots triggered my memories. Don't know if you heard of this - a city building game called "城市百分百". Made in Taiwan back in the 2000s I think. It never has much exposure outside Taiwan / Hong Kong though - probably never have an English version. It has a very similar art style and building customization system to yours. Worth taking a look.

It looks really great! Expecting to see some carioca feelings...!

Wow! This will totally flip the game for sure, in a very positive and groundbreaking way. I am so excited. I will be following this and of course partaking when the official release occurs! Keep up the great innovative work

Thank you so much! I’ve been working hard to make the building system both detailed and flexible — really glad you noticed and enjoyed it! 😊 Thank you so much for the kind words and for sharing the link — I really appreciate the support! 🙏 Thanks a lot! I definitely took inspiration from SC4 and SC3 for the visual tone. Right now, I’m focusing on polishing the creative side — especially the building tool — but I’m planning to add city simulation elements like transportation, mixed uses (a single building can have multiplele uses), population demand, and even some economic systems over time. Step by step! Thank you! Really glad it caught your attention — and I appreciate you checking it out on Steam! My tool is built entirely for CityArchitect and isn’t compatible with SimCity, but it’s definitely inspired by the BAT from SC3000. About the BAT, I don't think you can use it to create Simcity4 buildings, if I'm not wrong... Thank you so much! I completely agree. Being able to create your own building, mixing up different architectural styles, can make the cities much more diverse, unique, and less repetitive. I’ll keep working to make the game as creative and satisfying as possible

Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the content — I’m putting a lot of effort into making the building creation tool flexible and fun to use, while keeping the visual quality high. Your support means a lot!

Looks good! Wishlisted!

Magnificent, the game looks really promising. Being able to customize buildings is a really important option I think, it will make building even more unique. Sometimes, that's what's missing in today's city-building games. And the graphics are very nice too, a bit retro (ho nostalgia) in the vein of SC3 and 4, but so much nicer than CS 1 and 2! I'll be keeping a close eye on this one!

you'll find it here https://www.sc4evermore.com/index.php/downloads/download/22-dependencies/188-vip-vnaoned-props-pack-vol01 Hope this help

Everest Energies Gas & Oil Refineries Greystone Pulp & Paper Mill

Hello everyone, friends. I don’t know about you, but this week has been a bit tough for me 😊. Maybe it’s because I got extra tasks and requirements for building the houses — but let’s go step by step! We realized that it’s about time to start adding industry to our city — after all, people need somewhere to produce goods and products And that turned out to be a ridiculously tricky question... The thing is, we had absolutely nothing for factories. No textures, no sector bases, not even solid ideas. And even industry comes in different types! The first thing I did was check the section of this forum where members shared screenshots of their factories, ports, and other industrial areas. That helped a lot! I'll try not to get too detailed, but in the end we settled on heavy industry — we wanted factories with pipes! My son generated references for factories in MidJourney, so we had something to start from. Next, I tried to sketch some 3D shapes for potential factory buildings — more like industrial structures. Then I designed and printed a sketch version. No textures — just to test if I could assemble it and whether everything was accounted for. I only do this when buildings are particularly complex. But everything worked! The building came together well. So I moved on to working on textures, which I put together in Photoshop. Then I had to design the pipes and the baseplates, which took almost the whole day. In the end, we had in our hands: Printed factory models Printed factory pipes Industrial sector baseplates And as if that wasn’t enough (honestly, I was already getting a bit tired by that point), my son goes: “Let’s record everything on video, and I’ll learn video editing and publish how we build the houses on YouTube...” But I played it smart. I said, “Okay, but I won’t be in charge of that. If you want to — do it. If not — don’t.” And that’s how we agreed. I now have to remember to turn on the webcam when I’m building — we decided that my hands should be visible in the frame. I understand that filming a video is not the same as having it ready to publish, so deep down I hope he either won’t have time for it or gets bored of the video thing. But then my friend, a programmer, showed up. He’s totally amazed by what we’re doing (he’s also a fan of SimCity4) and said: “I’ll make a website where people can download your building plans for free.” At that point, I honestly started losing enthusiasm for building paper houses 😅 Because I’m not really a high-energy person, and I was just too lazy to deal with all that. But my friend said he would handle everything — Photoshop, uploading, etc. All I needed to do was send him the files... So OK. Don’t forget to send source files to my programmer friend so he can make some kind of site I don’t fully understand 😊 That’s it for now. I’m kind of mentally exhausted... but I switched to assembling factories — and that was cool. A bit tricky at times, but I enjoyed it. First, I made a whole bunch of future factory pipes using ink tube casings from pens of different diameters. Then I prepared all the baseplates. To be honest, I ended up changing the layout of the factory buildings from my original plan. Then I cut everything out and started gluing it together. Overall, it turned out quite fun… BUT IT TOOK A LONG TIME!!! Regular houses are much quicker to build. Designing something from scratch is definitely a serious challenge. But we managed. My son built the simpler ones, and I took on the more complex ones. At the moment, this is how many we’ve built so far: Now let’s enjoy the final look 😊 Right now I’m planning to make some small organizers or boxes to store all the little parts — there are a lot of them, and everything’s kind of scattered... I also want to make around 6 more heavy industry factories and then switch to a new theme. But the city is growing! And it’s going to be awesome. I already like how it’s turning out. Thanks for your attention. To be continued...

And the work goes on! Before working on the AVE-4 network, I'd like to complete all possible options for the three basic networks (RD-2, OWR-2 and OWR-1). That is: - Covering (all) available street and SAM replacement networks. - Make T21s, RHDs and LHDs - Make bus stops and subway stations for the three existing networks. This will correspond to SENT version 2. Only from version 3 onwards will AVE-4 be available, with of course all the same options as for the previous version. Here are a few images of the street and SAM replacement networks: