Flann

Thanks for looking into it. I loaded the patched bmp into gmax and as you predicted, it is visible but upside down. Like you reported, I also experience no issue with Photoshop so it does seem to be a gmax issue. While not the most pressing issue, it is rather annoying as I'm getting source textures in PNG format from Tarkus and modifying them for the ramp interfaces. I want to use the modified version as a reference while I design the ramp models. The extra save step is just one more tedious thing to do, but not necessarily difficult to overcome. If you can fix it easily I'd appreciate it but it's not a show stopper. - Flann

Hi Ron, I'm experiencing an issue with PNG to BMP conversion. I've just run some PNGs through and found that the resulting BMPs don't work properly with GMAX, it refuses to display them at all. I'm guessing maybe it's an issue with the file header? This was done with GoFSH 3.8.3. Look at the statistics: I've attached one of these PNGs. I can get working BMPs by resaving them with Windows Paint, or encoding to FSH and decoding them again, but it's not an optimal workflow.

What you've discovered is exactly how the starter piece is defined. It is this combination of street and road that produces the SAM 6 tile. When you use the starter piece it is invoking this configuration. Most of the time, starters and other flex pieces are defined using layouts that are impossible to draw, but in some cases such as this, they were chosen to be things thought to be difficult to draw and/or unlikely to be used. TLDR, this is expected behavior.

Can you verify which version of the NAM you are using? I am having difficulty reproducing this bug so any more information you can provide about how you placed the items would be beneficial. A1 ramps for 6S are only supported for ground level highways (L0) because the RHW-6S models overhang into the next tile and will clip into the elevated MIS model.

Maybe check out this video for some ideas:

I'll briefly demonstrate two possibilities. On the left, I've drawn the pattern for the Draggable Ramp Interface (DRI) and on the right I've plopped the equivalent FlexRamp Type A1 ramp. Both are equally useful and it often comes down to personal preference. 1.) 2.) Completing the pattern creates the base A1 ramp which is RHW-2. 3.) extending the RHW into RHW-8C converts the ramp into the 8C version of the ramp. 4.) The FlexRamp does the exact same thing on the other side. For more info check out our documentation section on ramps: https://www.sc4nam.com/docs/feature-guides/realhighway-mod/#onofframp-ramp-interface-basics

Hi - check the documentation with NAM 45, there is a feature guide for FLUPs. Let us know if it answers your question. Edit* that particular guide is also available here on our new documentation website (which is a work in progress) https://www.sc4nam.com/docs/feature-guides/flexible-underpasses/

Yes that is normal. The game loads the NAM controller into memory during the first load of a city during a game session. Subsequent city loads during the session will be much quicker.

Hello - First of all, it is normal for there to be two SimCity 4 directories as you described. The user plugins are, with rare exception, installed into the plugins folder found in the documents folder. You do not need to install the NAM or any other plugins twice in the manner which you have described. Regarding the freezing - if the game is crashing when trying to load a city, the culprit is likely failure to apply the 4gb patch to the game exe. If it's freezing in some other fashion, please share more detail so someone may be able to offer more assistance.

MGB's sidewalk NAM (SWN) repository has textures for the GLR pieces but I believe the inner portion surrounding the rails themselves will remain with the Maxis sidewalk texture because there are no suitable definition alphas to redo them in that way. If you are up for a bit of work, there actually are textures for the rails themselves with transparent backgrounds that could be used to make new definition alphas for the GLR pieces. Look in the GLR dats for 5F888004 - 5F88AD04. You'd have to do some image editing in Photoshop or elsewhere, reassign some IIDs, and maybe some more advanced functions in GoFSH to make it work but it should be possible I'd hope.

Is your game by chance from Origin? I am not an expert on this subject but I believe the version is not properly patched and is not able to be patched which EA should be ashamed of but apparently aren't. If this is the case I suggest seeking a refund from Origin and buying the game from Steam or from GOG.com (best choice). It does occasionally go on sale for $4.99 but unfortunately not at the moment. See @Tarkus blog for more info on this problem https://simtarkus.wordpress.com/category/origin/

Very very nice work. Looking forward to reading more.

This is really great to hear. I'm very relieved to know that CorinaMarie is still with us. While we await her return to the site, I ask my fellow Simtropolis members to consider the positive vibes and helpful attitude she brings to the community and to bring a little bit more of that here everyday. We can all be more Cori-like in the short and long-term and this place will be better off for it.

Hi there, For resolutions above 1080p in hardware mode, I believe it is necessary to use a direct X wrapper. It's not too difficult to set up. See this thread: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/759666-how-to-run-SimCity-4-natively-above-1920x1080-in-hardware-mode/ edit: There are numerous wrapper options, see this thread as well: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/759813-test-of-various-directx-wrappers/?tab=comments#comment-1739771 double edit: I am using DDrawCompat, it works great

When I returned to the game and the SC4 community a few years ago, I was pleased to find that Simtropolis was still a welcoming gathering place for the community where one could go to share their work and seek help with the game. This place has always been a helpful and positive corner of the internet and it reminds me of earlier days of the internet that I loved when I was growing up. Without any doubt, CorinaMarie played a big part in maintaining that beautiful community spirit here that we all know and love. You could always count on her showing up to offer a helping hand with whatever question or problem we encounter as players and modders. She showed great curiosity and was an innovator in many key modding areas. While her game-related legacy is certainly impressive, her impact as a community leader and friendly figure here on the forums has undoubtedly been felt by anyone who has spent any time participating in forum discussion, and the magnitude of which I have a difficult time expressing adequately. I admire the way Cori and Boom together skillfully managed this site and community and I'm very saddened to see the team at half-strength. It will be a huge loss should she not return. My condolences to you @Cyclone Boom , I know you must be missing your friend dearly.

Hello everyone. I've recently opened my eyes to the expansive world of SC4 modding so I thought I'd start a thread to document my work and questions that arise. In particular, I've taken an interest in texture modifications via GoFSH. Thus far I've successfully replace some dirt paths in CP's BSC_TexturePack_Cycledogg_V 01.dat : Eventually, I would like to work out a way to replace all of the textures in this pack to be more consistent with my new preferred terrain mod, Gobias' Sudden Valley. CP's textures are great, but I would like a more unified look. At the same time, I'd like to keep some of the elements of CP's textures, like the flowers and tall grass elements of the lot textures. For reference, here are all of the textures that CP used to create this massive pack: Looking just at the grass textures, we can see there's about 13 varieties, not counting the multi-FSH textures. By contrast, Gobias' SV Base Textures has fewer varieties. Thus, replacing CP's work with this would greatly increase homogeneity. One way I intend to honor the original style of CP's textures is to find a way to replicate the placement of flowers and tall grass texture onto the Sudden Valley base textures. I'm not sure if I will stick with the original colors or try to use colors that match some of Girafe's flora. At any rate, I'm still a photoshop novice so this may take some time. However, once the replacement textures for CP's base set is in place, it should be relatively straight forward to recreate all of the rest of the textures because I can use the alphas from the overlay textures in the pack to create replacement combinations. Where paving exists, I will create new definition alphas to facilitate automatic texture generation in GoFSH. All in all, it's looking to be quite a bit of work but I am excited to work it all out. ---- Switching gears to a much more manageable project, Industrial Revolution Mod fillers. @T Wrecks released excellent filler lots to compliment his IRM mod. @kingofsimcity followed up with an excellent FA version: KOSC teased in the description that grass versions to match @rsc204's TGN mods would be forthcoming, but alas, they have not I'm trying to tackle this issue. I've successfully made a simple GoFSH script to replace the grass texture with whatever you might want it to be. However, the thought occurred to me that T Wrecks original filler set automatically adjusted to my SV Base textures. I thought this might mean that the T Wrecks diagonal fillers were created with the grass as the base texture and the pavement as the overlay, but on closer inspection it is the inverse, the grass is the overlay. KOSC's pieces are the same way, the difference being that T Wrecks' pieces are overridden by MGB's TGN and KOSC's are not. Given all of this, likely the best solution would be to have TGN override these textures as well, rather than a myself throwing something out there. All said, I'm curious whether or not it would be a good idea to have these types of lots created with the textures inverted, i.e, creating overlay textures for the paved portions and using grass as the base. Would this not allow for the grass to switch with whatever terrain mod is installed, assuming it has a base texture replacement? Are there issues with that relating to slicing up and distributing the original NCD lot textures? Interested to hear thoughts on this. Cheers, Flann

In short, no I haven't really made any progress on either of these things. I'm glad you think they look good, that might just be the inspiration I need to get them more complete. Most of the time I spend on SimCity 4 these days has to do with NAM related stuff but I think it'd be worthwhile to revisit some of these projects which I started before that. Thanks for stopping by.

Hi, I think this would be a nice change. If you're interested in giving it a go, then I would suggest downloading the latest GoFSH from here and reading through some of the manual. Long story short, you need identify the proper texture (we can help you with this) and then create a modified version along with wealthing alpha layers that can be fed back into the program to create an override of the existing NAM textures.

The first part is underway They're FLEX pieces as making them purely draggable is much more difficult when two networks are involved. I would also like to see draggable OWR-1 ramps from avenue and road networks (including maybe road-based NWM) but there is grumbling about backward compatibility and making a draggable OWR-1 ramp would probably mean doing away with the existing OWR-2 connections. A FLEX piece solution may be possible for that as well. Double post, sorry mods.

Coincidentally, this has come up internally again just recently. We know about the gap in functionality and are working to address it. These orthogonal over diagonal (OxD) L1 RRWs are actually in progress and may see light of day sooner rather than later. Probably sooner than the DxOs and DxDs.

With a few exceptions, there are generally not mirrored textures in the source textures. In situations where a mirror is necessary, the network RUL code will tell the game to mirror the texture. Generally, mirroring is used in the code when rotation is insufficient, where pieces lack the appropriate symmetry, often diagonal intersections. Directionality also plays a role. Some one way networks like the RHW use mirroring more due to the directional striping. RHW has certain pieces like ramp interfaces which are near mirrors except for the chevrons so they have two distinct textures defined. Also, the road roundabouts have a couple of texture pairs which are exact mirrors, but this is more of a legacy remnant of early development. Things are typically only mirrored if they have a need to be, as it can be mentally taxing to account for it in the network RUL. Good luck with your project

Hi, I believe you'll need a slope mod to get that sort of effect. The vanilla slope parameters for monorail must be somewhat forgiving. Try this one: https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/18043-brf-tunnel-and-slope-mod/

Origin has been an ongoing problem distributing a version of the game which is not compatible with NAM and other things. While there may be a way to persuade Origi to provide you with the proper patched version ( 1.1.641 ), it is probably not worth the trouble compared to buying a compatible version of the game from retailer GOG.com. In fact, they are currently selling the game for 75% off, just $5 USD. I would go ahead and buy that and try to get a refund from Origin. https://www.gog.com/en/game/simcity_4_deluxe_edition

smf_16 created a website for the growify tool https://www.growifier.com/ I'll also note that CasperVg created a dll mod which introduces a make historical hotkey and an auto-historical cheat which will allow you to easily keep the entire city historical. Read the thread here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=18501.msg532924#msg532924 Download it here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=18501.msg532936#msg532936