Edvarz

Haha! 31 minutos, I loved that show as a kid, they still air it on public TV here, and yes, I still watch it sometimes. As for inescapable doom scenarios, Yellowstone eruption aside, it's funny how people make convoluted apocalyptic theories about unlikely world-wide destruction situations when we have many local threats that we could (and maybe should?) be preparing for. Like earthquakes, for example; I remembered this article I read a while ago about how unprepared cities like San Francisco or Seattle are for this kind of event (Granted, Cracked.com it's not the most serious source, but their articles tend to be well-researched, this one is). Mexico City faces the same situation as Seattle, it is built upon soft mud, (a lakebed no less) and it sits on an earthquake prone area. In 1985 the city actually experienced such an event. I wonder how many people still inhabit buildings that were left barely standing after the quake, and how many of the supposedly reinforced or earthquake-proof buildings actually were reinforced or built properly. Many of the buildings that collapsed in 1985 were public structures, government offices and social housing complexes, built in the 50's and 60's with cheap materials and in haste to flaunt the city's (and the country's) supposed leap into modernity; eventually, that dream (or rather, delusion) ended up being a not so metaphorical pile of smokin' rubble. And, of course there's also the slow, persistent threats like climate change and resource depletion. That is the stupidest part: it is a known fact that things like these will happen (or are happening) we monitor them, in fact. Yet, as these cases show, corruption, greed and short sighted folly are the real apocalyptic disasters, they're just not as catchy as cheesy Hollywood-style events.

Ha! yes, I tried several base textures but none looked as good as Paeng's. I don't know why, may be the combination of tones, but it looked the most pleasant. As for the lightpoles, that is one of the missing props in this image, I decided to go with vanilla lightpoles, spaced in a way that will look good for users of Mandelsoft's Light Replacement Mod (like me) or the Uniform Street Lighting. I really liked the end result.

Great! I learned how to use the BAT a while ago with the BAT Essentials Tutorial, and I could use a reminder, although it it would also be neat if it was fixed. I'll be following these tutorials. Thanks for taking the time to make them

Wow! this is a really cool idea, I'll surely download this mod. The original quotes are funny, but they can get tiresome; plus, some are erroneously translated in the Spanish version of the game. For example, there's one that says: "Recuperando de la tienda trasera" when it should say "Regresando de detrás de la tienda" I assume the original quote goes "Coming back from the backstore" I'll stay tuned to see how it goes.

A little something I've been working on, The lot still lacks details, I hope I can finish it on time for the lotting challenge! It will be a fully functional reward, I'll let you guess which one...

@rsc204 Thanks for the answer, I probably should have finished the lot before I started asking; I have a spare test reward lot that I was going to discard, maybe I can use that one to test the LUA scripts and when it all works as intended I can move on to make the definitive lot. @markussaage Thanks! This particular reward only has three requirements but I'll keep that in mind for future lots I intend to make.

Oh, and here's me thinking it was one of those fancy image manipulation programs I'm glad I asked however, that four color theorem article was an interesting read

@matias93 Looks great! Can I ask what software did you use?

I wouldn't know about the textures issue since I've never made any, but maybe I can help with PIM-X. Sometimes I've noticed that when you open the Lot Editor the "LE Tools" window opens but minimizes instantly, try hovering over the icon in windows' taskbar or pressing Alt+Tab to see what windows you have currently open, that's the only issue I've had so far. Also, if you want to learn how to use the X-Tool better you may want to check the User's guide if you haven't already. Hope this is helpful!

Ok, thanks for the info, I just wanted to get things straight. I'll start asking right away!

I saw this thread a while ago, but finally reached a milestone to warrant posting. It seems that I'm finally over with being a Sophomore, I'm a Junior now, and I guess the next rank will be Senior and then I'll graduate. I have to say, I've been in ST for over two years and I'm barely over 70 posts, I should come around the forums more often.

Hey! just a quick question. Do functional reward lots qualify to enter? I'm asking because I would need to ask for a bit of help in the forums and I'm not sure if that would somehow imbalance the competition.

I was writing a reply to this topic, and then I remembered this documentary about turn-of-the-century Vienna, I actually catched it here in Simtropolis while I was in lurking the forums, I think it fits this conversation perfectly, since it mainly deals with Vienna's history, art, politics, dreams and symbols. I think it shows the power of meaning and art, it even mentions Wittgenstein around the 1 hour mark. When he ended the Tractatus saying "That whereof we cannot speak we must pass over in silence" it was taken to mean that we couldn't extend our understanding beyond our written language and it's formal structures, I think the sort of early neo-positivistic thought (so called "analityc philosophy") that interpreted it this way, heavily influenced by mathematical logic, can only go so far when trying to explain the wide spectrum of human experience: even in science, which methodology it tried to copy, it falls short when trying to grasp the complex realities of research. Thought becomes, as you say, useless, sterile I would also say. Meaning has so many other ways to be realised, language it's a fluid thing, that's what makes it beautiful, I agree that it's best to look at art history to fully grasp this rich panorama, I confess I've shamefully neglected this side. In the context of this game, It is indeed interesting how we as players often unconsciously create spaces with cetain "character", this is most clearly seen, I think, in european-styled cities, with strong monumental symbols and iconographies directly inherited from monarchic values: order, structure, hierarchy; I've even seen players use terrain differences to build a sort of Acropolis. Urban planners build and lay things out to emphazise what they care about the most, and to reflect or assert certain identity, I think we do this as players too and this offers a wide, if not infinite spectrum of possibilities to play and experiment with symbols and icons, monuments and layouts. And like you say, it is not for anyone to teach players how to realise this designs, but it is certainly worthwhile to look at it from a philosophical perspective. Belfastsocrates' "Viceroyalty of Perseus" comes to my mind, he mixes monumental monarchical monoliths with civic palaces for democratic institutions, and he adds technological facilities and contemporary spaces like retail parks: this is what makes his CJ so interesting. And speaking of CJ's, the best of them often feature re-lots prominently, this is part of what makes them so great, lot making allows to focus on details only surpassed by those avaliable to BAT-ing itself, making your own lots helps to personalize everything and this attention to detail allows a coherent thematic unification in all levels. It can be said that lotting contributes to make our cities rich, complex systems of meaning much like the real cities they tend to imitate. In that sense, our cities are like the Aristotelian "mymesis", the artistic imitation of an organic being, but this perspective is not enough to fully understand the subjective layers of meaning that every player can imprint on his or her creations. You know, previously I had never thought about my city building, or cities in general on this level, thanks for waking up my mind with such an interesting topic.

Hello helpful people of Simtropolis! I recently ran the NAM installer to get rid of a couple of things I wasn't using and to update some transit stations. One of the transit stations I updated was Sim Goober's Simtropolis Station, when I plopped it ingame it looked misplaced, It didn't have this problem before, I fired PIM-X and checked the lot that was located at the original installation place (i.e. MyDocs/Simcity4/Plugins/simgoober/etc...) it looked exactly as it should, like this. So I deduced that there had to be a lot overriding that one, I traced such lot to the the "z___NAM" folder, and into a subfolder called "MTA Station overrides" where all the stations that have been updated to NAM standards are located. When I opened that lot in PIM-X it displayed the misplaced building. Now, the issue here seems to be that the original lot used a dummy building with a 60x60 occupant size and a prop for the actual station, and the file updated by NAM uses a normal building with a 90x81 occupant size, but positioned at the place where the original dummy building used to be. Now, this caused a couple of doubts on my mind. 1) Previously I assumed that NAM's station updater put the updated files where the original were located, and Cleanitol discarded the original file, it turns out that I ended up with two files, the original and the override one. is this how it is supposed to work? and, can I discard the original files and keep the overrides only? 2) This I have noticed when editing files before: If you change the Occupant size property of a building, it doesn't seem to be acknowledged in the lot file, why is this the case? can it be somehow fixed? Regarding the station, I know there is a re-lot on the STEX, I'll download it later, but this situation just picked my curiosity. P.S. I know I could post this on the NAM subforum, but my doubts were a bit more general, anyway, if a moderator thinks it should be moved, please do so.

Oh, that's even better, thanks a lot!

Thanks for the answers! @rsc204 Glad I could help in something! As for the lot itself, you were right, replacing the building with Maxis' Lot Editor updated the occupant size. Should have tried that before, but I've gotten so used to the X-Tool that I forgot ye olde Lot Editor still has it's tricks. And I'll keep both files then, It's just a few extra kilobytes anyway.

Wow, I had never thought about my lotting on such a way, which is ultra shameful because I'm actually a philosophy student , although my main focus has been on philosophy of science and logic, and while I've recently started to broaden my interests to be more eclectic, there's still a big and ugly gap on my aesthetical formation which I absolutely have to mend. I do think the points you make can be broadened to SC4 in general. The way I see the game, there's two aspects of it, the management of an exponentially complex system (your city or region) and the functional and aesthetical design of it, both interesting in their own right; however, I've noticed the simulation mechanics are sometimes irreconciliable with the aesthetic side of the game (i.e. when you let zones freely develop and end up with an ugly and incoherent mess of different kinds of buildings.) when I get frustrated by it, I open an eye-candy city or the Lot Editor and create there what the game mechanics allows me not. And what you can do with the Lot Editor you can also do on a different level with MMP's or modular sets. When lotting, one of the main things I try to do is express life, I think a lot can be said to have "life" when it's props and texture placement can convey a narrative or more about it's fictional occupants. If you are making an industrial warehouse, you want to place trucks, those trucks need to be placed where they can be loaded or unloaded easily and efficiently, you also want crates, forklifts, containers, etc. If you are making a government building, you want symmetry and geometric shapes, government is all about order and structure, so order and structure should be what your lot expresses. One personal example: with my residential estate lots I try to express activity, that's why I stopped developing them while I modd a complimentary pack of timed props and prop families, to make the parking lots look like people come and go, and to make complimentary structures vary with each lot that is placed, even if the buildings and the general layouts are exactly the same. So at the core there's always a pragmatic purpose that gives the narratives meaning, but the variety of both gives us a lot of room to play and experiment with the enormous amount of elements at our disposal. On a deeper note, I try to make my residential estate lots, but also my public spaces and my cities in general, about cohabitation and coexistence, this has to do with my political beliefs about what democracy should be, really, let me elaborate. We live in an era of anonimity and meaningless interactions, this by all means extends beyond the realms of internet and social media, the rise of hate in the west is a prime example of how we de-personalize and therefore de-humanize the people we encounter or hear about in the news. In such a situation it has never been more important to watch the faces of your fellow neigbour or citizen, to see their daily lives and try to understand what they're going through, to exchange and debate thoughts and ideas in a peaceful and reasoned manner. This is another way in which the american suburb, with it's egotistically focused philosophy fails to make cities healthy entities. Parks and plazas have the power of bringing people closer together pulling them to a pleasant or important site. As such, they can also serve as a gathering point for celebrating something, or protesting injustice: Open, public spaces are a gift to the democracy of any city or town. So, back to your point, I think you can also look at a good lot like a Brueghel the Elder painting, an intricately detailed scene that describes life, but that also has a deep symbolic meaning. All of this to tell a story, like you say, to express meaning. I could elaborate a lot more on your points, but this post is already huge as it is. You have opened a very interesting discussion!. BTW, are you a humanities person? if so, I salute you!

What a nasty thing to do, and for what exactly? This type of behavior, pervasive around the internet, just ruins a fun and healthy challenge for everyone. Kudos to the moderators who were on top of it. Let the best image win fairly then!

¡Gracias!, voy a usar este set para un proyecto muy especial... I scoured the STEX and LEX searching the terms "retaining" and "walls", that's why I couldn't find them.

Hello everyone, I was digging throught the "Show us your Bridges" thread when I came across these brown stone retaining walls (on the left bank of the river) can anyone tell me where to find them? Thanks in advance! Oh BTW Maybe this is what you're looking for?