hjanfield

For the advocates of going 3D: You all forget about the computational power required. I don't want to look at blurry textures in my game just because I don't have the latest and greatest video card. The absolute minimum a good looking, full 3D version of SC4 would require would be equivalent to Supreme Commander on it's absolute highest settings. Massive. Relative to most games, SC4 has hundreds to thousands of additional models to render in each shot. It also has exponentially more textures. It has hundreds of times more things to keep track of and compute - and this project plans to add much more. All of this means more memory to store things, more graphics power to display it, more computational power to keep it running. Ever wonder why on a semi-modern system, SC4 can pause itself anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds? The PC can't keep up. Slow gameplay on a system with less than a gig of ram? It's the game swapping data in and out of memory because it has so much to store. I too would like to see a full 3D game, but as a programmer (and a game programmer, at that) and a realist, I know it can't be done right now without serious compromises. On the other hand, development will take some time. Another option is having multiple "render paths". Many newer games include many render paths (basically loading a different graphics engine depending on the system). It's more complex than simply loading different sets of models and textures and particles based on the low/medium/high settings. Some games have different render paths for systems that have pixel/vertex shaders versus systems that don't. Others for DirectX9 vs DirectX10 vs OpenGL. We could go a little further, having one render path for standard 2.5D graphics, and another for full 3D. Initial downloads of the game can offer the choice of 2.5D or 3D, since each will have a different set of base files (basically all included buildings - UI, automata, etc should all be the same). Plugins released later can be released simply in 3D. Users of the 2.5D version will have a short delay after installing a new plugin, while the 3D textures are mapped to the assorted 2.5D views and LODs, and saved. Once someone upgrades, switching to 3D is as simple as downloading a replacement set of the base files (since the 3D versions of the plugins would probably be kept) and the new executable. A summary now that I'm done thinking and writing on the fly, instead of thinking things through first: While 2.5D is a better option now, what about 1-2 years from now when this game is ready to play? With proper planning on the LODs, tight code, careful attention paid to the capabilities of low/medium/high settings (with separate settings for terrain, buildings, automata, weather effects, lighting quality, etc), I think 3D would be possible. The core game could be designed around it, with the purist programmers writing a parallel 2.5D render path. Most of the 3D stuff is actually possible. The biggest limitation is displaying models - they'd have to be limited to certain angles, or just look funnily-textured. But if the 2.5D user's own system did the one-time rendering of plugins, it would save a lot of bandwidth (and still allow the 9-views or 17-views people want)

sc4melbourne: No, actually. I have a long writeup for a grid-free transit and lot system which I will post at Simcities in the next couple days. I think most of you will like it. Even a small grid will limit you. I have used a system similar to what I've designed in another game, so I know it works, and in this game it would work without performance hits.

Just thought I'd throw in some comments and corrections... chop off my head later. Legality: I saw some mention of the legality of making a SimCity clone. It is legal to create a game identical to SimCity as long as no money is taken in. Same goes for a game merely based on SimCity. The only real restriction is not including copyrighted content (basically any data from the original game). If for some reason we wanted to do this, you can get around that by including ability to load SC4's data files. It requires the players to own SC4, obviously. Tiles: I've been wondering why even having tiles at all? If the idea is an SC4 clone, then yes, we want tiles, but all the new ideas being thrown around are pointless. If the idea is deriving a new game from SC4, then why not throw out tiles altogether? Consider the track-laying design of "Railroads!" (or, for those who don't like the dumbed-down design, Railroad Tycoon III). The game dropped the fixed tiles and allows free flow of tracks and buildings. Tracks can run at any angle, any slope, any curve, and buildings can sit at any angle. Buildings such as train stations align themselves to the track - even along curved areas. This design would translate well into SimCity. Roads can be drawn along any path you choose (this is not terribly difficult to texture, by the way). Modifier buttons can be used to make it easy for the user to do different things - like press Ctrl if you want to draw a gentle curved road instead of a straight road, or press shift if you want to smooth the terrain into a gentle slope (rather than following the terrain). Lots could be drawn in any shape (finally allowing those odd-shaped lots often found circling cul-de-sacs, or diagonal corner lots!). -- Even if an SC4-like fixed view is kept, we can still go without the grid and allow free-form city building. To go with this entire system, buildings would each have their own rules (which need only be examined once, when plopping/growing the building). Let's use a small office building for an example. Say the building itself is 20m x 30m. So the rules would specify that the lot needs to fit at least a 24m x 34m rectangle (to allow minimal walking room), with a 24m side facing the road (and preferably, though not necessarily, aligned to the road - odd shaped corner lots could fit a 24x34m rect, but not be able to align to the road - some buildings could require alignment, others not care). The rules could also specify that the lot needs to allow a minimum of 12 parking spaces. Any remaining room could be filled with additional parking, gardens, and other misc props. Odd-shaped spaces left over from the lot planning could be filled with grass or concrete. (Luckily all this lot planning need only be done once!) SimCity 4: Not 3D, not Isometric: Lord Kronos is correct in that SimCity is consider 2.5D - 3D rendering with fixed 2D viewpoints. The explanation can be found directly on the SimCity 4 web site right here. An excerpt: The other pages explain why they used the fixed positions rather than full 3D. This link is required reading for many of you. Game Engine: Non-programmers are confusing game engine with graphics engines and interfaces. There are many excellent, free graphics engines out there. But the game engine is what we need to write: The code that says how the game works. Also, the graphics engine will need to be carefully chosen, as most are optimized for FPS games and would actually not work well with this type of game. KISS design: To elaborate on roqratt's comment, let's keep the side issues out. We don't need to worry about weather, automata, My Sims, U-Drive-It, or many other things for a long time, other than basic planning. - A team of programmers should focus on getting a graphics engine selected and laying out the file formats we will use. (Don't just jump in with XML as an answer to everything for data - although the most flexible, it is also the slowest to load and bulkiest to distribute. Fixed formats do have their uses.) - A team of logistics people can lay out the game design. This is probably the biggest job, especially in the start. First items to work out are grid size or no grid, and then the scale. I believe it was pointed out that a realistic scale can actually kill a game like this... can be true. This needs to be discussed some more. - Modellers can start working on buildings once a scale is worked out. Hundreds of house, townhouse, condo, apartment, gas station, office, etc models need to be created. Industrial lots can be done in pieces, allowing many different buildings to be put together. (With planning, houses could be done like this too, allowing infinite variety in-game) More later...

I don't have time to read this entire thread right now, but I will throw in that I have some experience in game design and development and am more than willing to join such a team, if you can convince my wife to give me the time But a team would need good leadership and clear goals and design philosophy before any work starts. I've been on a couple "Free***" game clone projects and democratic groups always splinter and fall apart... I've been tossing around the ideas for a FreeCity clone for some time now (as I'm sure many here have), so if a team is being put together, please contact me immediately! Also, I don't know if it's been covered, but on the LOD comments on the first page, LOD can also be abused to improve performance on low-end computers. While there would obviously be low-polygon models with low-res textures for zoomed-out views, you can also include some medium-resolution textures but continue to use the low-polygon models, making rendering easier on low-end systems. Another interesting feature to help our low-end system friends (like my poor little XP2400/R9600 system, heh), if the game has a fixed trimetric display like SC4 is viewport saving and scrolling. In a game like SC4 you usually spend thousands of renders looking at one spot.. you can save a lot of effort with this method: You render your terrain, buildings, roads, etc, then save the screen. You then separately render automata, animations (ie. water, building animations), etc with blank stand-in polygons to hide things that would be behind buildings. Clouds can be layered on top as well. After that, composite everything and pass it on to the antialias system and display. On the next render, you can pull up that saved screen, re-render your automata, animations etc. This system also saves a lot of render time on the UI. Rather than copying the separate images every time (adding to dozens of screen copies per frame), do it once, save, then output changing text. This is essentially how all of Windows works. But anyway. Bleh. I'll catch up on my reading later. Have your people call my people. We'll do lunch at Depessie's.

In regards to the abandonware comment... - Abandonware is generally considered to be software no longer available for legal purchase. Not only can you still purchase SimCity 4, but it's still kept on the main retail shelves (not the bargain bin). This speaks well for the longevity of the game. Few old games stay on the shelf that long. Starcraft and Diablo are two others that have stayed on the shelf, even 10 years after their release... - "Abandonware" is a term used to make piracy of old software/games sound legitimate. As for distribution: Editing the binary without distributing original data is simple. No original code should need to be distributed. People have been doing it since the dawn of commercial PC software. Professional-strength programs like RTPatch Pro are commonly used by EA. Patches can update code in two ways: One is to ensure the user has the exact same file as the one the patch was written for (as simple as calculating a CRC or MD value for the file being patched and checking it against a stored value)., then update specific bytes with new code. The other is to scan a file for a code block (which may move around in different versions of the file), and then replace the bits you want changed. As for different file versions: As I understand, each "SKU" has a different binary. Some support unicode (properly); others right-to-left text. I don't know why Maxis couldn't simply roll all those features into one version... As for encryption: Earlier you said the patched Windows versions were unencrypted. Are you rescinding that now? Too bad that, at least in the US, breaking encryption is illegal. We could probably get away with it here in Canada (hey! Simtropolis is Canadian! heh heh heh...) A decrypter would be effective.

It's not always about the number and size of your roads. Look at the City Journals (in the City Journals forum) of some successful large-population cities and study their transit networks. Even the worst traffic nightmare can be improved with some tweaks. (PS. Screenshots of your city, and a transit map, may let us help you better).

Use the traffic map and route queries to identify where bulks of people are driving. Sims take odd routes sometimes - they'll drive through 5 neighborhoods to get to work rather than use your well-placed highway a couple blocks away. A good way to alleviate this is to cut off the areas: Rather than having every area connect to every other area (allowing Sims to drive whatever path they feel like), bulldoze roads or install roadblocks to limit their access. Force them to leave their house and use a major thoroughfare to get where they're going. Also keep in mind that Sims will not walk more than 6 tiles to use mass transit, and that some transits cater to different classes. You will often find that rich Sims will not use bus services, while the poor may not always use El-Rail or GLR.

Here is a smaller example from an area with limited room, in my hometown in central British Columbia. Highway 97 was built decades ago as a city bypass, and then the city grew around it. Two-way frontage provide business and residential access along it's length through the denser area. Keep in mind that the entire width of the highway, offramps, and frontage roads is less than 250 feet. A few years ago one of the more frequently used and accident-prone areas was upgraded with the offramps being described. This link shows the offramp - slightly north is the onramp. Across the highway you can see the old style, which is used everywhere else along the highway. About 4 blocks south shows how they tie in to roads (one side shows a left-turn access). On a side note, I always use ground highways to simulate roads like these... the offramp-to-road provides a similar effect to this. Avenues don't seem to adequately simulate these smaller highways - I'd like to see ground highway intersections like this (among others) without having to switch to slower, lower-capacity avenues... Yes, I'm venting my frustration on trying to recreate a very hilly, curvy hometown (where I no longer live) in griddy SC4... BTW, viewing this town with Google Earth makes more sense, to see the hilly topography this is all built around - an Elevation Exaggeration of 3 (in Options) is most realistic.. the maps make the city layout look weird. It's especially fun to follow highway 97 north through the mountains... One interesting fact is that, despite what Google Earth shows, the river does not actually slope 30 degrees where the bridges cross.

That looks exactly how my game looks when the graphics quality (in-game options) is not set to High. Shouldn't be a sporadic thing though, except for at different zoom levels. Check it out.

A more unusual option, if not concerned about ferries, is to make a land bridge and use lots to cover the embankment. I know there are some out there that work quite well for this effect, and make it appear there are tunnels or that the "bridge" is floating. I just can't remember any right now. But this would let you create something like the Kelowna Floating Bridge (image) ... which is a 640m (7/8 mile) long, floating bridge, mostly about 15 feet above water level except for the lift span (which lifts up to 60 feet of clearance) in the foreground of the picture.

Terraforming for tunnels under rivers is already covered above... but another option you have is the "Big Dig" lots and knockoffs ("Avenue Tunnel", "Trashy Avenue Tunnel", and variants with roads, etc). These lots convert road traffic into subway traffic and vice versa. You plop the lot at the end of two avenues, and run subway lines between them. For realism, they obviously shouldn't cross any other subway lines. These have an added bonus of actually looking like under-river tunnels, as they make the road appear to go down underground (rather than into the side of a hill). As for the monorail, you will notice that in game and in real life, monorail performs poorly on slopes. In most areas with a monorail, they go to pains to keep a monorail track flat. You can too. But seriously. This is where ground highways come in handy. For the smallest possible transition, drag your elevated highway to one tile short of the monorail track. (The track can be laid out ahead of time.) This should leave a 3-tile gap in your highway: blank terrain, monorail track, and blank terrain. Now select the Ground Highway tool and drag it across the ends of the elevated highway. Done! You now have a section of highway that drops under your monorail (or el-rail, or (with some extra work) a NAM raised road/rail/etc), with a total transition length of 5 tiles.

Liberty City, Vice City, San Andreas, and London were all covered in the original game (and expansion pack), but that didn't stop them from reusing them in GTA 3, VC, and SA. A remake of GTA London 1961 or GTA London 1969 would be interesting. Also interesting would be the time period: GTA 1 & 2 had no real set time period ... in the newer ones, we've had the 70s, 80s, and early 90s so far - will they be brazen enough to do a more modern-era game, or jump back to another time? (How about 1940's Chicago? I heard there was a little bit of gang activity back then... )

So ... we had GTA 1, 2, 3, VC, SA ... shouldn't this be GTA 6? Do VC and SA not count anymore? It would be like EA releasing a Need For Speed 4 now, since the last numbered release was Need For Speed 3: Hot Pursuit.. since which we've had (on PC) NFS: V-Rally 2, NFS: High Stakes, Porsche Unleashed, Hot Pursuit 2, Underground, Underground 2, Most Wanted, and Carbon... Nothing wrong with skipping a number. Nobody misses Leisure Suit Larry 4

IIRC, you cannot replace streets (gray-colored) directly with one-way roads. You also cannot replace small portions of road (black-colored) with one-way. You either have to bulldoze the existing street, or replace the entire road with one-way at once (click at the first tile, and drag all the way to the end - or go intersection to intersection).

I've been reading up on the SC4 filetypes, but the information I can find on the DBPF format seems to have some holes. I'm wondering if any of these have been figured out or updated. The only good post I can find on Simtropolis is from 2003, and the only detailed web site is from 2004. Is there any other information that may help me, like a list of known Type IDs?

The data I've found shows that DIR files have a Type of E86B1EEF, and that is all that is specified. But I've noticed that Directory files created by the Reader always seem to have a TGI of E86B1EEF:E86B1EEF:286B1F03. Is there a reason for this specific group and instance? Also, I would presume that only one DIR file should be found in each .dat.. even the SC4 .dat files have only one each. What should be done if multiple DIR files are found, or if the user tries to insert extra DIR files? Can the game handle multiple DIR files?

Just wanted to confirm... The Sims2Wiki link, as well as a post here on the forums, say compressed files consist of a 9-byte header: DWord Compressed Size, Word Compression Type, and 3-byte Uncompressed Size? Is this correct? Is there anything special about the number, or do I just cast it to a typical UInt32?

Thanks for the info and links. Would The R&D forum be the best place for me to post any future questions on the files? Also, are there any known oddities with dealing with the assorted SC4 files? Also, SimCity 4 checks *every* file in the Plugins directory for DBPF formats, not only the .SC4* and .dat extensions, correct?

Wal-Mart often carries "SimMania" packs and such, which I've sometimes seen include SimCity 2000.

You can safely use unused properties to store such information. In fact, in one of the programs (probably Reader), I noted Author, Team, etc properties which I doubt were part of the game.

I tried to post this last night, but Simtropolis stopped responding for me, and hasn't worked again until now... so here it is again. Actually, that's entirely wrong, RippleJet. The problem lies with there being multiple ways to "name" a lot in the SC4 exemplars. The method the LE uses causes all copies of a lot to have the same name; renaming one will rename all of them in your city, plus the menu icon; but only in that city. Those changes will also be lost upon exiting the city. Most modern lots do not suffer this problem. To fix this problem, you DO need to learn some basic modding. Here's a step-by-step method. I hope I have this right. Maybe a seasoned pro can confirm this ... To start, download and install iLive's Reader from the Modds & Downloads section of this site. 1. To prevent accidents, make sure you make a backup copy of the file you are editing in another directory, outside your Plugins folder. 2. Open the .dat or .SC4Lot file of the lot you wish to edit. 3. Click "Fill the List" if the file list does not come up automatically. 4. Select each Exemplar file individually and look at the "Exemplar Type" property (which is usually right at the top). You want one with an Exemplar Type of "Buildings". If there is only one lot in the file you opened, you will properly have two Exemplar files. If you have more, don't panic. a. If there is more than one exemplar with an Exemplar Type of "Buildings", there are likely multiple lots in this file. You will need to figure out the right one to edit based on Exemplar Name/Item Name properties, or other means of identification you can get from in-game (for example, Plop Cost). b. When looking at properties that are numbers (like Plop Cost), keep in mind that all properties with a type of "Uint.." or "Sint.." (but not "Float.." numbers) are in Hexadecimal format. You can use Windows Calculator to convert between hex and decimal. Switch to Scientific Mode, click Dec, type a number, and click Hex. This also works in the reverse manner. 5. Look for an "Item Name" property, and delete it. 6. Look for a "User Visible Name Key" property. Change the value to "0,0,0" (this will change automatically to "0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000", so don't freak out). If it doesn't exist, add it, again with the value "0,0,0") 7. Find the "Exemplar Name" property and type in the name that the lot should be called. For example, "Jimbob's Police Station". 8. Be sure to save your changes before closing the program (or loading SimCity), because Reader does not prompt you to save. 9. Load SimCity 4 and test your changes by looking at the menu entry (it should have the new name you've given it), then plopping two copies of it. Rename one of them, then check the name of the other - it should not have changed, nor should the name on the menu. This will rename the lot, and will also allow you to rename individual buildings within your city, without affecting every copy of it. These new individual names will also be saved with your city. Hope this helps. On a side note, is there someone out there who has access to the database that would allow people to submit fixed files? A lot of old lots, even by professionals here, have glaring errors like this (even "Custom Ploppable" or "<Type your Name Here>" names, like on Tonks' Police Station and the Boulevard Divider) that I, and probably many others here, have fixed in our own files...

Some of my largest questions (some of these were already mentioned): (Perhaps this belongs in the "source code requests" thread... although this is about us doing things ourselves) - Theoretically, can DLL code be used to implement new draggable networks, such as rural highways, the GLR, and the many other requests? If not, could the primary game source be modified in such a way as to allow this? - Can DLL code modify the menu system? Preferably allowing us to implement entirely new menus. Personally I would like a DLL which will allow me to hide most or all of the standard menus and allow me to design my own menu system. Not everyone likes the same setup. I would be happy to do this myself if provided with the DLL interface code. I also know LUA, should some scripting be involved (or need to be injected into the SC4 engine). My idea would involve a plugin DLL and a setup program. The program would make a list of all plugins (basically everything that is in the menus now), and allow the user to reposition, rename, and re-icon every item to whatever menu setup they prefer. Want all your residential ploppables in your residential zoning menu? Highway walls on a submenu of the highway menu (if we can go that deep)? Done. The program would then leave a data file in the plugins folder, which the menu DLL plugin would load, and setup. Mmmm...no more scouring the 5,000 item long landmarks and parks menus...no more walls under power menus... yeah. - What about other things that have proven hard or impossible, like creating new ordinances, game events, disasters? Even implementing a new, smarter Edge Reconciliation tool (which even on matching cliffs from one city to the next, always insists on cutting my cliffs down to gentle slopes) - New terrain tools would be nice as well, especially if we can make use of dialog boxes. I would like to see things like selecting a strip or block of tiles, and telling it to slope up exactly 5 meters on each tile, starting from the level of the bottom tile. Also SC2000-like terrain tools, being able to select a whole tile and perform actions on it (like drop tile 16m). No more being restricted to rail/road slopes, or whatever people have created lots to do. I figure this would be fairly easy with Lua code, the only difficult part being a way to select a section of tiles (maybe a zoning tool can be tapped into for that). Or perhaps simply having the tool operate on zones that people don't usually use, like landfills. (Come on, who really uses landfills anymore with the assortment of waste-using facilities, nevermind PEG's Abyss garbage dump...) I'm sure I could think of more if I wanted.