RisKFactoR

Hey, I was wondering if someone would like to try to attempt to make a couple of buildings? (None of these pictures are mine.) Below, pics numbers 3-6 of the Peter Herdic Hotel. I had attempted this building like two years ago, in order to learn Gmax, but alas, I got too caught up with a few web projects, my teaching job, and learning Adobe After Effects and Flash. Learning another program, especially a 3D program at this point in time, is not really feasible. So, without further ado: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=19277.0 Photo number 7 of the Presbyterian Church would also be cool, but alas, I have no other photo of different angles atm. (None of these photos are mine, either.) And if you take a peek at the 11th photo down. It is the Weightman building. It is probably one of my all-time favorite archtectural peices from any town or city I have ever vistited. If someone could take on the project of the Weightman Building, I would be most pleased! Next time I go home (leaving this Tuesday for Christmas/Winter Break,) I can take pictures of this wonderful building from all the different angles. Unforunately, I have no idea how to get a birds-eye view of the thing, except of course for Google Maps. If any of those other photos catches anyone's fancy if you may be inspired to make one, lemme know. I can take many photos for when I am home. Also, anyone interested in making beautiful Victorial-style mansions from the mid-to-late 1800s, the city has tons of them. EDIT: I noticed the rules about adding photographs to requests in here. I didn't think it quite appropriate to actually uploads photos from someone else, so I just provided a link. I probably will bump this thread with a new post after winter break, with photos I took myself.

I was just looking and debating about d/l this building, but judging from your pics, it does look incomplete. As other have said, and you have noted, Roof Junk!! But something else that really catches my eye, and irritates me quite a bit: Too much "sidewalk" in front of the building, with only those fancy lights in the middle. Perhaps you should add some benches, and maybe a fountain with some sort of flower garden around it or something? Other than that, not bad for a first try! Hell, even this is better than anything I could ever do. I tried my hand with gmax...read all kinds of tutorials and whatnot....and got nowhere with it. I'm more of a web designer/layout guy, than a 3D artist. lol.

Oh, I was disagreeing with you earlier, because you weren't quite clear about which game you were talking about....CXL 9 or 11. But yeah, I agree. CXL 11 does indeed, have more positives than negatives. But 9 was just straight up terrible. It was a totally incomplete game. I had a demo, or a hacked verion of it or something at one point, and immediately uninstalled it. What turned me off: Only mass transit you could build were buses. No subways or anything. Lame. But I have faith in Focus Home, and from all accounts, CXL 11 is pretty damned good. So I'm sold on it. (I was saying "Home Interactive earlier, wasn't I? Focus Home is correct.)

I would have to politely disagree about the "many more positives than negatives." At least, as far as Cities XL 09 is concerned. Not sure about 11. It looks promising enough for me to actually purchase the game. But I would highly suggest that the OP does not purchase the first CXL! Go for the second one, the one that Home Interactive created. CXL 11.

Originally posted by: Ilikeseattle It is a standalone expansion. You do not need Cites XL original to play Cities XL 2011 but you get a 50% discount.quote> Hey, cool! Sounds like Imma havet to open my wallet for the game then. Kudos to Focus Interactive for making a new city sim game come closer to living up to its potential!

Hey, been a while since I last posted to Simtropolis, but I have a question real quick. Forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere, or is not the appropriate thread to ask this in (short on time!) I was wondering if you need CXL 09 in order to play CXL 11 with fully functional features taht come with the game? I heard it mentioned that 11 was an "expansion." I hope it's not the case, for I was completely turned off from purchaseing CXL 09 due to the restrictions of single player mode, and refuse to spend any money on that piece of garbage. However, since CXL has changed hands, and the current developer has unlocked all the features for single player mode, I would gladly open my wallet even if it cost more than $20. So long as you don't need CXL 09.

For lack of a better place to post this, I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of a landmark called "Francolopis Place" by any chance? Reason why I ask, is simply because I seem to be missing some dependancies for the thing. It has been in my plugins folder literally FOREVER now. I think itmay have been one of the first things I have ever d/l, and believe it or not, I do not beleieve I have ever used it in any of my cities, ever until just tonight. I found out I am missing some parts of this building.... :/

tl;dr. Sorry. I just want to respond to tahill79s claim that organizing your folders is not totally necessary: While you have a good point about that (I have 4GB of RAM on my HD using Windows XP, so load times are not that big an issue for me whatsoever. It generally loads pretty darn quickly no matter what.) And you may have all of your files just kinda scattered wherever in yuor plugins folder and will not change the nature of the game. There is 1 flaw in NOT organizing your folder, and I have come to huge gripes over this issue: Back in the day when I first purchased the game and started d/l a bunch of custom content after about a year of owning SC 4 in my sophomore year of college back in 2004, I was running all of my d/l files perfectly fine. Until one day I downloaded this one idiotic infamous 1x1 park. Nowhere in the descriptions of this park did it say that it is a "money" park that will earn you like $1 mil/month. Well, I placed this park in my main city, and ran a few months of sim time with it, and came back with like $8mil in my city treasury. I was just like "*****?" Went back to the community and asked about this strange phenomenon, and got many replies all saying it was the fault of some park that someonme had created without proper descriptions on what it does. They told me to just delete it from my plugins folder. LOL, what a joke. I couldn't find it in my plugins folder anywhere, and most of the files had crazy names such as: CO$$$1_3x2bkh_cc3a122.SC. I then decided I would just create a seperate folder on my desktop and completely clear out ALL files from my plugin and just dump them into my desktop file asnd reintroduce each file at a time. Unfortunately, I also had textures mixed in with these files, so it was never readily apparent what each file was, even after numerous tries of testing. So I just decided to just add all the files that were NOT 1x1 back into my plugins folder, and go around adding one of the 1x1 files at a time, and hopefully I would find the damned thing. Took me many months, and tons of headaches to ferret out the offending file. To this day, I still have no idea what all of my files are and what they do. Most of them are organized, but my original files I had d/l back in 2004 are all still a jumbled mess, which is alright since I do not have any inconsitencies as far as I know. Actually, I was wondering if there was a quicker/easier way to figure out what a particular file is/does because I would absolutely LOVE to clean that horrible mess up sometime once and for all?

Ok, here is the beginning stages of my first BAT. Before I delve much further into it, I was wondering if anyone thinks these measurements will turn out all right? This is what I eventually want to create: I have been pretty meticulous with the measurements of the building itself in comparison to the windows, spaces between the windows (the wall itself) and the door. As you can see in the first photo, I have the wall's length at 48 meters long. Given that, The building has 14 windows across the whole length. And the space between each window is about twice the width of each window. There are 18 "spaces" counting both sides of the building. 1. So I took (18*2)+14 = 50. (Explanation: The spaces are each twice the width of the windows. So I had to multiply each "space" by 2, and add the 14 windows to get 50 equal "parts" across the entire length of the wall.) 2. 48/50 = .96 = Each window. (Explanation: 48 = total length of wall, divided by the 50 equal parts in number 1) Since each "space" is twice the size of each window, therefore: .96*2 = 1.92 = Each "space" between the windows. My math check, to make sure it comes out to EXACTLY 48 meters, or 16 tiles times 3: 1.92*18 = 34.56 .96*14 = 13.44 34.56+13.44 = 48. The entire length of the wall. Now for the questions. 1. I think it is more important to try to fit all 14 windows into the building across. Since it is only two stories tall (I am making it "12 meters" tall), should I be as meticulous about it's height as well? The door so far is going to be 3 meters off the ground, with stairs leading up to the landing from both sides (See image of the real building. Unfortunately there is a X-mas tree in the way, but if you look closely, you can see what I am talking about with the left-side staircase). There is also quite a bit of space between the second floor windows and the roof. So the building is "actually" about 2 - 3 stories tall. So is twelve meters a good number to use for approx 2-3 story tall building? They way I came up with the number 12 is that in the tutorial, it says a "normal" ceiling is 4.5 meters. The guy who wrote the tutorial said to use a 5 meter tall ceiling for businesses. So two 5 meter tall floors (the ceilings are actually quite high on the inside IRL) = 10 meter. I added another 2 meters onto that to make room for the bottom and top. Should I go back and make it taller? And if so, how much taller? 2. Is this going to be a 3x3 building in SC4? I would also like the grounds surrounding the building added to the 3x3 to equal a 6x6 lot.. Also, since the building is a rectangle, not a square, should I try to fit the building into a 3x2, or 3x1 space instead? (It is longer than it is wide, so I would like, at this stage, to be sure the building is going to take up 3 SC4 tiles along the road. and maybe have the back end of the building extend 2 tiles deep.) I am going to leave about 2 tiles for the grounds in front of the building, and maybe a tile on each side as well. The parking is around back, and also on the back and sides of the building. Here's the basic layout I want: P = Parking. B = Building. G = Grounds. R = Road So maybe it'll be a 5x5 lot instead, and the building 3x2. PPPPP PBBBP GBBBG GGGGG GGGGG RRRRRRRRR Was thinking of making a layer of parking above the top line of Ps, making the entire lot 6 tiles deep instead. I would do a lot of detailing in the parking stalls, adding decent looking light poles, and little grassy islands with a tree on it or something. Second option: PPPPP PPPPP PBBBP GBBBG GGGGG GGGGG RRRRRRRR The answers I get will go a LOOOONG way for me to establish basics measurements for any buildings I make in the future. My collection is going to contain tons of buildings from my hometown during the Victorian era. It used to have the highest concentration of millionaires in the entire world back in that era, so there are MANY MANY wonderful, beautiful, buildings in my town that I would absolutely LOVE to create and share with the community! Thanks in advance!

Aight! sounds good! This is going to be fun! Never thought of using Google Earth to figure out the real-life dimensions. So you think I should make it about 15 meters high then? In fact, I am going to adjust the height to 15 meters anyway. It is a rather large building. The ceilings on the inside have got to be no less than 12 feet high IRL. Each room looks almost like a king's throne-room. I think I may have to start over, because I just thought of how to do the front wall. There are 3 sections on the front. Both the left and right hand sides stick out further than the center. Each side has 4 windows, with 6 windows upstairs straight across. This is the 4th time I am going to start over already lol. I have the very beginning of the tutorial down pat though at this point, so at least I am learning, and getting the very basics down first.

Ok, that's some pretty good advice there. Never thought of actually putting it in-game at this point. I'll go ahead and do that. And no, I do not mind any constructive criticism either. In fact, I welcome any and all criticism, as long as it actually contributes something. I already have all the windows placed, and am happy with the front of the building so far. I can see one of the biggest hurdles I'll have to face is figuring out how far out both ends of the building have to stick out from the main structure. There are 4 windows on each side that are "pushed" out from the middle section. Reason why I picked this as my first building, is because it really is not all that complicated. It is just a rectangle with a bunch of windows and a couple of doors, and a few pillars. I think it is actually a lot less complicated than some of the Victorians I would like to eventually get into, as well as the Weightman Building, the Penn Tower, and the Genetti Hotel. Also, you think I am really looking too much into the measurements? I was thinking it would important to keep track of as many statistics as possible, especially in the beginning of creating a building, so that the texturing will go that much smoother, and there would be sufficient detail. But I'll see how much texturing is involved when I get to that point.

I am going to start a CJ for one of my favorite cities I have ever built. It is using the Fairview default map (which probably will not get many reviews, or very good ones, just from that one fact alone.) This region is far from the prettiest regions I have ever done. It is also my very first region I have ever started going WAAAAY back to 2003! Which is one of the reasons why this is one of my favorite regions. Another reason why it is one of my favorites, is that when I first started it, I was taking photos of every single city in the region, beginning in the 5th year (I have been using the 20th century...soo....1905, in other words), and I also take photos every 5 years that have been simmed. When something special gets built, I also take a photo, close-up, if you will, of that particular neighborhood. I have a VERY good story line, IMHO, that goes along with each city. EVERY SINGLE CITY in the region has STRUGGLED quite a bit. And each one always goes through phases of prosperity and depression, which is also one of the reasons it is my favorite region. It just FEELS VERY realistic. There have been money problems, crime problems, fire problems, pollution problems. All of them are on hard mode, and I have NEVER used any cheat, except once. That one time I used a money cheat simply to pay off all my loans, because there was no way to recover the economy, it was so bad, and I kept getting kicked out of the game. So I just "pretended" that the federal government issued an "emergency" supplement to that particular city. Also, this region has grown, as I have grown. I have gotten to know the game pretty well inside and out through this region. I have made MANY mistakes, most of which have had lasting effects that are going on till this day. From terraforming mistakes, to zoning mistakes, to over-spending my budget. Putting high-pullution zones right next to my most affluent neighborhoods where I have had the most income coming in, just to have those neighborhoods decline, and the city itself losing money in those taxes. There has been a HUGE battle between farmers, industry, city goverment, corporate offices, and, of course, the "People" themselves. I have a VERY nice little story in one of my cities that features this LARGE battle, that nearly destroyed the entire town. In the end, the town and townspeople had to come up with a compromise with the farmers and industrialists. That town is now one of the biggest success stories in the region (and no, that is NOT the town that I cheated in either.) This one town of which I speak has taught me a lot in how to balance industry/commercial/residential/government in VERY limited land space. And since I have never organized any of my photos in the photo album of this game, it will take me some time to first, get them all in order before I start posting in my CJ. Like I have said, tis not one the prettiest regions by any means, but is still very intriguing. It has CHARACTER, and HISTORY....at least for myself anyway. Besides, it does not mean that there AREN'T any pretty places within the region. I have been going on a d/l spree lately getting various BATS and MODS (I have been using the NAM from day 1 though.) So there are going to be places that are rather.....redundent. Mostly some of the low-density residential, and high-density industrial. Most commercial areas, I think, I have done the best job on. But in the future, I hope to break this redundency with my new BATS and MODS I have gotten from the community recently. (I used to d/l random buildings, without renaming any of them. Some buildings worked like a charm, others....not so well. And since I have not renamed any of my buildings, in the root directory, they look like this, for example.: R$$Br367hBH_654$Hju. I never understood what the hell THAT is supposed to mean! I have had to root out troublesome BATS and delete them as I run across them through many hours of deleting/testing the region to get rid of all those damned brown boxes. Took me a LOONG time to figure out which BATS in-game went with which file in the directory. Some buildings, if I delete them from the directlroy, the city does not load right. So I had to try to figure out which building it was after loading all those old BATS back in to make it work again.....bah! forget it, I can't really explain the process very well. Just know it took tons of hard work to figure out how to both clean-up, and keep, my plugins folders organized. Hence, the redundency in my cities. Now that that project is over and done with (FINALLY!) I have been going through the STEX and d/l the highest-rates BATs and MODs. Hopefully some of those growables I have d/l will begin to appear in the game to break that redundency. I can also now place landmarks and such to do the same Anyway, people can feel free to leave comments if they wish. The only comments that are not needed are ones in which your going to tell me "how boring the low-density residential looks," or "you should get more BATS," and etc....I now have a ton of very good BATS that have been highly rated by the community. They have all been renamed so that they are consistent with their actual name in-game, in case there are any problems. They just have not appeared in the photos yet. It will take my cities up until about 1960 or later before I start seeing them appear. After 1960, that is when those comments about "boring neighborhoods" can come in. However, you can leave comments on what I "should have" done. Maybe there are more things that I can learn from those comments. Most photos will start out from 1900-1910. After 5 years of playing the game off and on, each city is now up to 1950. So if you leave comments on what I "Should do" with the early photos, it's kind of late for me to do anything now. Although, I would still appreciate constructive criticism on what "should have been done." I will update this CJ as often as possible to try to catch up to where I currently am at now. my next post will start with my first city in the first 10 years of construction. Then the next update will be my second city in ITS first 10 years and so on. Anyway, this is probably the longest intro post in the history of the STEX, and I will end it here!