Daeris

Hey, thanks for posting all of this @SIM-ple Jack! There's definitely some hidden gems in there (some old and new it looks like, and wow @WolfZe you have some great content pal). Plus this might just be inspiring me to (eventually) set up an ultra western town. Good stuff. EDIT: Oh I guess I have a few things I can add to the mix! - and the power version of the above: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=485

@mattb325 How are you adding this tilt-shift effect to your pics? Is this just something you're doing in photoshop? Looks nice and fits your cities very well!

Hi fellow small-town lovers. I am just starting to get "decent" at this style I suppose (all thanks to @CorinaMarie and too many others to name), but I am happy with my progress so far! Here are some super new villages that have sprung up in the new region I'm starting. This here is Oldport (or well, in the future it will be Oldport... I guess right now it's a new port ): South of Oldport are some unnamed coastal farm villages, along Sharktooth Trail: East of Oldport, the wagon trail leads to Slyside Lake (probably my favorite layout I've created thus far): Thanks for lookin'! Happy building and I hope to have more to share soon!

Haha, danke, I appreciate these nudges and hints... just no more pop quizzes, please? Oh wow, really!? Ok ok, let me catch my breath and I'll consider sharing some things there soon! (no pressure, no pressure, no pressure, lol ) =p

Thanks CB (I hope you don't mind me calling you that... I think I picked it up from Cori, lol. If you do mind, no worries just let me know)! In a way, yes! The diagonal lots are the new ones from SFBT Diagonal Filler Lots (https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1197), but I customized the trees shown on those filler lots with the Maxis Tree HD Replacement Bonus Pack 1 plugin (specific for SFBT street mod and fillers). The hay bales and little reed grass lookin' guys are from RRP Pasture Flora: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1886 (special thanks to @The British Sausage for the recommendations). Couldn't agree more, and it's funny you mention "varying zone layouts", because I was hoping perhaps you or Cori might expand on that more. Cori has also referenced this in some of her other posts. I notice when I'm laying down some residential pockets, I have to almost force myself not to just make a row of 3x1 lots, or 2x1 lots all connected. Cori mentioned previously that switching up lot size can really have a good effect on increasing realism. It's a work in progress for me to learn this little trick, but I've been thinking about trying to improve pretty much every time I lay down residential zone now. Thank you, and thanks again everyone. I mean I really can't emphasize enough my appreciation of everyone looking at this post, and giving their insights and sharing their philosophies. Then on top of that, everyone has also been sharing super helpful technical adjustments and superslick mods to make this whole natural growth concept even easier (and much more fun). I also hope this thread helps others down the road when they stumble upon it!

You might be on to something (AKA completely correct)... I recall seeing/reading this as well. PS for the thread. Mission success for reducing monthly cost to $0 on the SFBT filler lots: And due to this I think I'm on the verge of creating what might end up being my favorite little village of mine to date: ^Look how cool this little scene looks with the round hay bales!

Oh man, if I had cookies baked I'd give them to you. You are also so helpful and I really appreciate all your insights and tips for both NAM and IRM, and a whole bunch of the other technical stuff I am no good at yet! Hmm, I should probably know this, but I'm guessing my NAM is default US textures? I definitely don't recall specifically downloading the EU textures. I'm going to have to do a little hunting on my end to see what textures I have, but I'm fairly certain I have US. Thanks again @rsc204! Thanks so much! (now sneaks off to go snag all these really cool mods...) Oh? Never heard of this lil trick. I'll have to search forums to learn said secrets (it does truly look really good). @Naomi57 Thanks for your links as well! I have those bushes, and many other BSC - VIP girafe flora! I think they are all super useful. I personally love the Rowan Trees and Elms the most. Those draggable paths I do not have and they look spectacular (oh oh this is part of what The British Sausage linked). Yay for slick mods! Thanks again all.

@CorinaMarie Wow, above and beyond as ush. Thanks so much for your specialized tutorial, it was very helpful and a big confidence booster for me to learn some of those basics! Ohhhhh do I have tooooo? Haha, jk I did it (was only a handful of farmfields into the new region). I actually didn't even know about this at all, so that is useful information. I imagine this was discovered the hard way many times by previous tinkerers who suddenly had a borked city. Yep yep, and per our discussion I ended up deciding I actually wanted to edit said fillers to offer only -2 reduction in air pollution (similar to the vanilla assets in-game, such as 1x1 small park and 1x1 grass lot). Unfortunately I couldn't locate where the heck the original maxis lots are located (Where the heck are they? I need to look/research more), but luckily I found an old post from @Cyclone Boom about the parks and grass lots. So anyways, using the handy dandy converter you linked, I learned the final hexadecimal value for -2 air pollution in Sint32 would be: 0xFFFFFFFE So I've gone thru and saved all the files, and then ensured my new copies were transferred into my plugins. Now comes the test to see if everything works as intended in-game (I'll report back if I've gone and mega-borked anything up, but I suspect I'll be ok). Thanks again! Now I think for my own next project I'll look at the RRP fences lots (which are in the water menu), and mess around with them to try and place them in another menu (since it's annoying the water overlay pops up every time I want to place some of those RRP fences).

Thanks for your useful info CB. This helped me during my little Reader project tonight. I am making some minor adjustments to SFBT Filler lots so they are only reducing pollution -2, similarly to the vanilla assets.

Yes, by all means, even if you just push me in the right direction I should be able to tweak remaining lots after I learn it for just 1. I was hoping we'd do it in Reader actually. So plz don't feel like you need to go above and beyond (I've already stolen so much of your time, but super appreciate you being helpful). Also, no rush of course! I'm on your time-frame. Thanks, I'll take a peek!

Off to a good start learning and messing around with the SFBT fillers! Pics below, and some questions (haha, and @CorinaMarie & @Cyclone Boom thought I were gonna let them rest... muahaha). ^SFBT fillers creating a perimeter around some farms. I do think these are mighty useful (along with the diagonal versions), and I think I'll end up mixing this look in with my hand-painted Rowan & Elm trees surrounding my farms. I am liking the way the Rowans and Elms look with the Maxis trees. I also set up my SFBT fillers to only use HD Maxis deciduous trees and HD Maxis pines, and I think it's blending together nicely (not bad for a first start anywho). ^That said, anyone know how to get rid of these odd city-style sidewalks on the dirt street? I feel like I should know this already. I could have swore I already downloaded something to prevent this, but guess not. ^SFBT diagonal filler with the dirt street going through. I'm definitely pleased with the ability to break the grid with this method. Here I used the tree & fence/brown field combo, and then just placed some Rowan trees on the brown portions to help it better blend into the fields. I need to practice this more because there are some other options (including a transparent option on the field side), but I'm not super savvy with it yet. I can definitely see you can create some great scenes with this though. ^Some of the SFBT fillers in the little farming port I created just to start out this new region. Again, I think they play pretty well with the Maxis trees and the Rowan & Elm MMPs. ^Just wider shot for perspective and fun. ^Annnnnd, this is mainly why I pinged our renowned and esteemed Admins. I think I know what I want my Reader tweak project to be. So the only downside I'm seeing using these lots with my natural growth playstyle, is that they each have a $1 maintenance cost and I think they each are also acting as parks to reduce air pollution (not necessarily opposed to the later). However, when you're making little farming communities, it's going to be tough to push a profit when each little plop I'm making is going to City Beautification budget. I am thinking I want to edit the lots to have $0 monthly cost (since I'm using them as decor), and I want to ensure the pollution reduction isn't anything unfair or OP. I'm not opposed to just cheating some $$$ into my account, but the main reason I don't like to do this is because I like to use the income of a city, and its budget, as decision-making factors in the natural development of that city-tile. I kinda like the monthly budget being "authentic" if you will. Think this might be a good Reader tweaking project for me? EDIT: Oh oh also wanted to ping @The British Sausage one more time (sorry!). I was looking more at your pics and wow you just really blend your stuff so immaculately and awe-inspiringly. In the pic below, can you let me know what the red gate is? I don't think that was part of the SFBT filler lots from what I'm seeing (unless I just haven't seen it for some reason). I'm seeing a green chainlink fence option, but not that really cool red gate you have there. Also, to achieve that blending, are you basically painting in texture plops from some mod? You did say you were creating fields using MMPs. I would be more interested in using MMPs to blend like it seems like you might be doing. I have SM2 Sands textures for example (not that those would be useful here), but it looks like you have something similar for farm fields (may have overlooked what you said you use in your post.... sneaking back to look now). EDITx2: Found it! The RRP stuff is is the water menu (there are so many, and I can see you can get EVEN MORE creative with these)! Lol, sometimes I'm a trip. I think I'm finally starting to get so many mods I need to commit where they all are to memory. However, if you could keep me posted on any texture packs that would be great.

I deleted the file/folder mentioned in previous posts, and they are now accessible in my park menu without plopping the 1x1 MML, and I can plop them endlessly. I only tested this quick, but seems to be fine for me, and I think the diagonal lots will be fine with it (will report back if I experience other issues).

Hmmmm, isn't this what like sirens and mermaids and witches and con-artists and ne'er-do-wells and politicians and lawyers and cult-leaders say?

Haha, don't worry I'm sure I'll find something soon (careful what ya' wish for!) Think I'll give ya' guys a little reprieve for tonight though. =p (I think..... =p )

Oh sheesh, thanks so much I was on the hunt.

Hmm, I'm not seeing where the MML file is actually. After installation, the Diagonal Filler .SC4Lot files are in one folder, but I'm not seeing the actual MML file. Are you saying to simply delete/bulldoze the Lot in-game? EDIT: The readme for the mod says: "Also contained is a MML mod for the entire set of lots. The Menu Management Lot Mod allows it to shrink an entire lot collection to a single icon, which contains a special "construction lot". Once you plop this construction lot in your city and let the time run for a while, the other lots are unlocked, similar to the in-game rewards. If you bulldoze the construction lot, the icons are hidden again, once you restart the game." So, perhaps I just need to bulldoze the lot in-game?

Not in the game atm, but I think there were perhaps 2 dozen or so. Not too many. That's a good idea!

Yeah I like them to some degree, but perhaps now can see why @The British Sausage was saying he meticulously plops and designs his farmlands (which perhaps is getting away from the natural growth method), especially if you need to do so 1 plop at a time and reselect! =p Wow, even more amazing at what he creates then as it certainly takes some patience! =p More tinkering and searching needed on my end. Thanks Cori.

@The British Sausage (or anyone else who knows!) Hey hey, one more question (for now hehe) about the SFBT diagonal fillers. I noticed that after I select one and plop it, unfortunately it deselects and I need to select the plop I want in the menu again. Is that how it's supposed to work? I'm hoping there is a way I can just keep the ploppable selected so I can quickly place a bunch of the desired ones around whatever farm-field I'm working on. Or, in your experience do you need to reselect the desired ploppable every time you place one? Hoping this makes sense. Oh oh, also (guess this is 2 questions, hehe), I noticed you have to place the 1x1 SFBT lot in order for the SFBT diagonal lots to become available in the menus. Do you just prefer to plop this somewhere hidden and then let it be, or do you place one each and every time you re-enter the city-tile you're working on. I suppose if I have to keep it plopped somewhere, I can hide it in a forest or corner somewhere, or tuck it next to a port or something. I'll find a spot to hide it if I must. Danke in advance!

Haha, again why you two are the best. Here I come thinking I am going to do something nice for ya' and you end up finding something I hadn't seen yet! Haha.

@CorinaMarie Hey Cori, just found these files and was going to test them out: They are Dutch in design (not rustic/western like I might prefer), but I still think it's pretty cool they offer power! I might start using these in place of just plopping Maxis wind turbines. Just thought I'd ping ya' in case you hadn't seen these.

Oh wow, how had I not seen that before? There's all sorts of hidden treasures on these forums isn't there? Thank you; this makes me feel better for not getting the gist of it yet. =p Just more to still learn. I agree, modding is definitely part of the fascination of this game and why it's still going so strong. I hope you and Cori know how appreciated you two are (as well as the many other creators that toil to make the game so enjoyable for the community).

Haha, I have the .dat open in Reader but that's about the extend of my comfort level. I have a ways to go before I decipher what it all means. I think I'll need to reference @11241036's tutorial and work to understand everything a bit more before I can make the changes myself. Most of what you said there unfortunately went over my head. Haha, touche touche! The more I looked at the beachy trees the more I think I liked how much more green and lively it made that little island.

@CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom You two are the absolute best! At first glance I think that looks pretty darn good! The more I see the Maxis trees again (after using another TC) I'm enjoying the variation at different elevations (sans those high-elevation scrubby bushes), so yeah I think I will plop this in the plugins. I don't think I'll mind the pines at the higher elevation, but I do think that may be perhaps a bit too much tree on the sandy beach area. Do you think that would be a simple edit on my end? If so, I'll gladly make it (perhaps with a nudge of help from you, lol... plz?). It's about time I try to tweak some stuff on my own (usually I'm just a scaredy-cat).

Well the mystery most certainly continues, but I can say alt-tab definitely did something in my experience. I'll try to explain what I experienced. I just started SimCity 4 back up, went back in to do more flora blasting. All tiles in my region had been given a once-over with the flora blast, to create the regular forest and the denser dark green forests, and the bushes at higher elevation. So now I was going to go back in and give them a 2nd pass of the flora blast to add trees in the high-elevation bushy spots (since I don't prefer the bushes, and giving it a 2nd pass worked for me earlier). ^Went into this tile to give it the second Flora Blast 999 999 999, and all it did was end up just adding maybe a little more of everything that was already there (AKA basically just more bushes in the spots that already had bushes). I left the tile, came back, tried again, and still the same result. My earlier trick wasn't working any longer.... so then I alt-tabbed to test that out.... ^After alt-tabbing out, then coming back into SimCity 4, I did another Flora Blast 999 999 999 on this same tile, and BOOM, this time the trick worked and it now adds the light green deciduous trees on the high elevation (on top of the little bushy guys). So, can't say I really understand what is occurring yet, but just providing some (hopefully helpful) information for others.