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JoelMk2

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Everything posted by JoelMk2

  1. Hi - I recently started using the PlopnPaint DLL mod. So great - revoltionary really. I am having trouble with the cache though. The installer / cache builder seems to correctly load and cache everything in my plugins folder in the game install directory (in the C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition folder), but not everything in the plugins in my documents folder. Most things seem to be missing. The directory is correct and I can see that a few props from the [...]Documents\Plugins folder did get cached... Are there any obvious things that I might be missing that could be stopping all the other props and lots from being captured by the tool?
  2. Recently I unexpectedly uncovered an old hobby... and have been building away in Gmax to create more planes and other stuff for SC4. I've been enjoying modelling the planes and texturing the different airline liveries (paint schemes) and maybe a few other people might enjoy using what I've made. Today I uploaded a pack of planes I've numbered "1" - implying maybe there will be more? In this thread I'll just post a few things about it and keep a catalogue of the planes/liveries I've BATted. Feedback welcome! Catalogue Details of the airliners BATted and LOTted to date:
  3. Hi team. It's been a while but I finally finished off a new pack of planes including several of those requested over the last months/years, such as some Japanese airlines, Canadian Q400s regional turboprop planes, plus a few new regional jets and a 767. I'm not sure how much more I will manage to complete though I am hoping to upload a prop pack of cargo planes soon (unlikely I will make the LOTs for them). Work has got me very busy - I do project based work and I'm currently working on the opening of a major transit project (which is more complex in real life than in SimCity...) it is interesting work but it keeps me quite occupied!

  4. Next Gen Planes Pack 3

    JoelMk2 posted a file in Transportation

    Version 1.0.0

    139 Downloads

    After a bit of a pause, I have even moreplanes, building upon the earlier upload to add even more new planes to your airport menu list. Details below and updated catalogue of all models and liveries in my BAT thread. What's included here: Three new aircraft models: Bombardier Q400 / Q300 (a.k.a the De Havilland Canada Dash-8) - a turboprop commuter/regional airliner seating 50-80 Boeing 767 - a classic mid-size airliner first launched in the 1980s but still flying today Embraer ERJ-145 / 135 - a small regional jet And additional liveries, including responding to some requests, and to add to Pack 1 and Pack 2 Each one is lotted on a jetway lot. The widebody jets are on lots designed to fit in with the original AC Team Boeing 747 gates, while the narrowbody jets fit in with original Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 gates. There are also a few planes on 'remote' gates - using air-stairs or ramps rather than a jetway. These will link nicely to passenger walkways from the 'RMIP' sets. These are primarily for visually simulating an airport - but the planes do return some revenue to your city (in line with other modular plane lots released in the past - simulating fees paid by airlines). The ATR-72, A320neo, A330neo and 777 have been developed as updates starting with models I recovered in old files from when I was part of the SimCity Aviation Group (SCAG). All other models I have created new. Dependencies: Next Gen Planes Pack 2 - specifically the files contained under "_Common Files (do not delete)". Next Gen Planes Pack 1 - specifically the files contained under "_Common Files (do not delete)". These can be found in the Vol 1 download. SC4 Legacy - Airport Common Dependency Pack - specifically the AC Mega Textures and AC Mega Props packs. If you are already using modular airport lots you probably have this. Note on installation: The contents are structured into folders under JoelMk2/Next Gen Planes/[Aircraft Model]/[Airline Name]. If you have downloaded pack 1 you can unpack this folder to the same location, and it will merge with the existing file structure. For any planes/liveries you don't want to use you can remove either the .sc4lot file in this folder, or the entire folder (this will remove the lot and the aircraft props). You can do this if you want to reduce your plugins folder size and your Airports menu length.
  5. Hi! Sorry for the delay in replying. I’m you enjoyed seeing these new bits and pieces. I am close to finishing a small project with some previous requests from this thread. It has taken me a while as I have been busy with a new job and moving cities this year. After I finish that project I am happy to consider these requests - they sound interesting! Feel free to send more specifics.

  6. Diagonal Planes Pack 1

    JoelMk2 posted a file in Transportation

    Version 1.0.0

    301 Downloads

    Happy New Year to all SC4 airport fans. I am here to offer more new planes, this time 45 degree diagonals, to add even more options to your airports. Details below and updated catalogue of all models and liveries will be added eventually in my BAT thread. What's included here: Diagonal versions of the plane models included in my previous two uploads: Airbus A220 Airbus A320neo Family Airbus A330neo Airbus A350 Boeing 737MAX Boeing 787 Dreamliner Boeing 777 Each one is lotted on a jetway lot. The lots are designed to visually fit in with the original AC Team gates, with specially developed diagonal versions of the ground markings. The jetways are positioned to connect neatly to diagonal terminal/concourse pieces all found in the SC4D LEX Legacy Ultimate Airport Pack. There are also new diagonal boundary extension lots, these will help connect the different airport pavement surface line markings to original orthogonal line markings. These are primarily for visually simulating an airport - but the planes do return some revenue to your city (in line with other modular plane lots released in the past - simulating fees paid by airlines). The A320neo, A330neo and 777 have been developed as updates starting with models I recovered in old files from when I was part of the SimCity Aviation Group (SCAG). Original 777 model credit to Pilotdaryl. 787, 737MAX, A350 and A220 models I have created new. Dependencies: Next Gen Planes Pack 1 - specifically the files contained under "_Common Files (do not delete)". These can be found in the Vol 1 download. SC4D LEX Legacy Ultimate Airport Pack - specifically the AC Mega Textures and AC Mega Props packs. Note on installation: The contents are structured into folders under JoelMk2/Diagonal Planes/[Aircraft Model]/[Airline Name]. For any planes/liveries you don't want to use you can remove the .sc4lot file in this folder, or the entire folder (this will remove the lot and the aircraft props). You can do this if you want to reduce your plugins folder size and your Airports menu length. In game, these lots will show up way down the airports menu (possibly at the bottom, depending what other lots you have). This is to keep them somewhat separated from other lot packs, including in future when airport lots can be better organised via new submenus using the Submenus DLL.

  7. Show us What you're Working On

    JoelMk2 replied to Haljackey's topic in SC4 Showcase

    I love GLR either way but these options would take it to a new level!

  8. Show us What you're Working On

    JoelMk2 replied to Haljackey's topic in SC4 Showcase

    Working on rural areas, and experimentimenting with applying the More Building Styles DLL to agricultural areas. I wanted to create large, sprawling grass-fed cattle farms (beef? dairy?) and farmed forests for building materials and paper production - and give control to other agricultural and horticultural areas. For this area I used pastures with textures by Vortext, farm props from Pegasus and SPAM, and some other bits and pieces. All the forests and farm fields shown are grown I-R (the fence borders are plopped) including the cows. I got the cows and trees to appear with some 'organic' randomness by creating custom prop exemplars with random chance property in play.

  9. Building Styles Master IID

    JoelMk2 replied to Ulisse Wolf's topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion

    Okay, I understand and sorry you are feeling that way. I’ll wait / keep working on my idea and be prepared to rework to change the IDs later.

  10. Building Styles Master IID

    JoelMk2 replied to Ulisse Wolf's topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion

    Hi, I am not sure if range allocations are still being made given the discussions in the community styles thread, but I would like to request a range for a farm styles mod. If suitable, could I have the range 0x0000207# - currently unallocated as the public one? User: JoelMk2 Style Type: Public IID and Private IID Numbers of Styles: 16 Public IID and 16 Private IID
  11. At this stage you have to have a degree of modding skill - in particular to update the custom buildings you’ve downloaded to be assigned to your custom building styles. In other threads there is discussion about community building styles (a shared approach to a number of new styles) and I suspect downloads will become available in future to add buildings to the new styles without needing to do your own modding. It just hasn’t got to that stage yet.
  12. Initial tests suggest... it works! Thanks @Null 45. Amazing stuff.
  13. I will be slightly sad if this proves to be the case, but still excited about other uses of the DLL. I’m not sure what else I can change to further test. Interested to hear if anyone else has tried making I-R building styles. Thanks again.
  14. Thank you again for engaging with me about this, and for the suggestion. I have tried this to see what patterns I can observe, and noticed a few things. I haven't found anything that could help me fix it yet. The below sections contain excerpts (not the full log) because if I leave the game running for any length of time, many many more lines are generated. In all circumstances, these lines repeat a lot (the numbers vary, though 27 appears often). 27 seems to correlate to positive/successful result in this log, perhaps. When the farms are not growing it returns a "BuildFarm returned 0" message which repeats. I assume 0 means negative/failed result. When the farms do grow (e.g. if I remove the Building Style property from my custom building), it returns "BuildFarm returned 27" When other lots (e.g. Commercial) grow the return is slightly different as the return is just "Build" not "BuildFarm". In the case below I grew a single commercial building on a 1x2 tile.
  15. I took my two lots and added them just to a single custom building style (0x2860), then used the options to log the outcomes. This is still with no other I-R plugins, and Maxis I-R blocked. Upon opening the new city before selecting any custom styles (near the top of the log file): 0x14d88851 (I-r1_1x2_FOR_D_Shed) doesn't have any supported building styles. [...] 0x3a892a43 (IR$1_1x1_SFBT_Weinberg_Huette) doesn't have any supported building styles. I think this looks good(?) as this is the expected message at this point? I assume this means doesn't have any supported building styles [active at the time of logging that line]. Upon selecting my custom style (temporary ID 0x2860) and using the debug cheat: 1 active styles: 0x00002860 [...] 0x14d88851 (I-r1_1x2_FOR_D_Shed) supports building style 0x2860. [...] 0x3a892a43 (IR$1_1x1_SFBT_Weinberg_Huette) supports building style 0x2860. In theory this looks good too, as they now appear supported by the active building style. However still no growth, despite having demand, power, road connection etc. I'm not sure where I am going wrong. Has anyone else here developed custom I-R styles and hit any hurdles?
  16. Thank you for the fast reply - however, I don't think that is the problem. I only created one I-R growable lot per style (so two in total at this stage of testing), and I can grow them easily (filling several I-R zoned blocks, all zoned areas) by either: Removing the Building Style property from the building exemplar, or Removing the DLL from the plugins folder I've used the same test tile throughout which has high demand for I-R. I guess it is partly working, as I do want it to block development when the relevant style is not selected. It's just that I can't seem to get it unblocked by selecting a relevant style. FWIW they didn't grow when I selected all the checkboxes and 'Build All Styles at Once' either. I will look again tomorrow and see if I've made any mistakes that I'm not noticing now.
  17. Hey all, I started experimenting with this DLL, and have a question. Can you assign building styles to I-R buildings? I hope to set up a mod that allows me to control farm styles - e.g. to specifically grow vineyards in a selected area to create a 'wine region'. I made a start, but so far I haven't had much success. This is what I did: Started with an empty plugins folder, installed DLL and CoriBoom UI Created/edited a limited test set of I-R buildings and lots (anchor I-R growables, and their farm field lots) in two categories (pine forests, and grape vines) Added the Building Styles property to my I-R building exemplars with a unique ID for each of my two categories* Edited the UI INI so that my category names would show up Added a 'Block All Maxis I-R' mod to the plugin folder (so my new lots are the only ones available to grow) Went into the game, everything looked as expected in the UI, so I zoned some I-R areas. However, no farms grew at all, and my yellow I-R zones were empty. I did some troubleshooting: Used the 'ActiveStyle' cheat, the dialogue box showed the ID of the desired style. Removed the DLL to test my lots. They grew normally, both categories growing at the same time. Reinstalled the DLL, and also reinstalled some other I-R lots (not modded with new Building Styles at all), these grew as expected, my new lots did not grow with them. It's quite possible I have done something wrong - but wanted to check in case maybe it's not compatible with I-R at this stage? *I confess I used IDs in a range not assigned to me, only for me to experiment and learn, I would request an ID range properly before going further!

  18. poll SC4 Building Styles Community Vote

    JoelMk2 replied to Ulisse Wolf's topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion

    I agree with your point about democracy but as I see it this is also a project for which this element of the design needs to be frozen so the build can continue. Someone (or some group of people) has to make a decision to enable progress. The makers have chosen to consult / conduct a vote in this case.

  19. poll SC4 Building Styles Community Vote

    JoelMk2 replied to Ulisse Wolf's topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion

    This was only a few days in to a month-long voting period. Maybe the results should have been hidden from everyone until voting closed to allow the process to run its course (I don’t know if that’s possible on the forum but when we vote in elections we don’t know the count until after polling day). We also accept the results of elections even when the numbers are very close. I think the closeness of the vote reflects what I said which is that there isn’t a clear ‘best’ way (rather there are continuous possible tweaks and variations) but nonetheless something has to be chosen so things can go forward. If there was another vote on new options I feel the discussion would look just the same all over again. I don’t think a consensus is being found here at this stage.

  20. poll SC4 Building Styles Community Vote

    JoelMk2 replied to Ulisse Wolf's topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion

    I've been reading along this thread as I find the discussion interesting, but I've noticed many new unique suggestions for the classifications, essentially new options compared to the two proposed for the vote. I think this reflects that ultimately there is no straightforward 'best' way to categorise the buildings of the real world nor those of the fictional world of SC4, and it's a matter of allowing some compromises to allow the mod developers to move forward. Everyone will have their own unique idea for how the buildings they like could be included. The debate could go on forever. It seems to me like the makers of the mod have already read many perspectives in the previous thread(s) and decided to take in a vote on two specific proposals. I don't think new proposals should have been introduced here nor should the proposals be amended after some people have already voted. Further - those who want some other specific controls, or a specific style not found in the current proposals on the ballot, can use the additional custom styles to add this level of control to their own gameplay (if my understanding of the mod is correct), so I also don't personally see the need to cover every eventuality within the community styles. I thought they were just meant to give us a starting point to cover (with broad strokes) a good proportion of existing content, while further customisation is possible for those who want it.
  21. I'm glad you like! It'll probably take me a little while to finish/upload but next pack I expect to include the Japanese airlines (as requested), Dash-8s (particularly Canadian ones as requested), and freight airlines... watch this space. Here's a few more bits I've been working on
  22. Started on a few...
  23. Started on something...

  24. Simizen's Mod Madness

    JoelMk2 replied to Simizen's topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion

    My testing/playing suggested that you can grow an I-R lot without farm fields... I removed some farm fields from my plugins and some farm lots subsequently grew without creating fields to fill up the zoned area (i.e. the field lot was not found so the field didn't grow and the space remained empty - I'm not sure whether this creates any issues though). So possibly you could use this to create growable 'extraction' industries that don't generate a 'field' of oil wells/whatever. I kind of wonder why this needs to be growable though. To get the desired effect using tools/mods/DLLs we already have available could mean: Create a building style specific to the type of extractive industry Assign some specific lots to that building type In-game, zone a precise area for the desired lot(s) to grow, while the specific building style is activated, and wait for them to develop. Why not just use ploppable oil wells/mines/quarries (and whatever supporting buildings you want to have) and have fewer steps? I know that in the real world these industries are often privately-owned (i.e. would 'grow') but going through all the steps to get a growable outcome seems like almost as much 'Mayoral micromanagement' as plopping. And policy-makers do have a huge influence on whether, where and how extractive industries can operate IRL too through environmental plans and approvals etc. It is possible to create good looking scenes using ploppable lots (with jobs - to be realistic in that sense), then create the rest of the scene with custom lots and/or MMPs to complete the look, e.g. if it's an open-cast mine - terraforming the land to reflect the shape of the mine, plopping machinery, rocks, stockpiles, waste piles etc. Same would be true for oil fields with areas of pipelines and oil pumps? When I get some time to play (I'm in the middle of moving house and starting a new job this month...) I plan to do a bit more work on my ideas around segmenting and controlling types of farm development in any case, and adding some forestry stuff. This might be a starting point for more and for some form of mineral industries to be included.

  25. Simizen's Mod Madness

    JoelMk2 replied to Simizen's topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion

    Hi! I have been thinking about farms, and I wonder if we have some similar ideas. I haven't posted anywhere else yet about this and this seemed like as good a place as any. I was thinking about how to gain more control over farm development and different kinds of 'primary industries'. Why? At the moment if you zone for farming you get a random allocation of different farms (main lots and field lots) in growth stages. I use SPAM at the moment which contains field lots for corn, wheat, tomatoes, hops, grapes, pastures and they grow in a mixed pattern. To me this doesn't always represent the real life pattern of agricultural development where the choice of crops and farming systems varies depending on landscape, soil, elevation, climate, etc. Some areas might have a predominance of one crop (e.g. wine regions where grapes are the predominant crop and little else is produced, or plains that might have huge expanses of wheat cropping, or areas where pasture-based farming of cattle or sheep is the main activity). I also wanted add forestry to represent plantation forests (e.g. pine forests that are grown for producing various products including paper, construction materials/timber, etc). Plantation forests are also being used as part of carbon farming/emission offsetting in some places. You wouldn't expect to see this very often in the same area as vegetable crops though. Vegetables would be cropped on flat, fertile soils while forests can be planted on hills and more remote areas. How? I have yet to develop or test any of this but my idea was to look at using the Building Styles DLL mod to create building styles for different agriculture/horticulture/forestry types (e.g: Pasture, Vegetables, Grapes, Fruit Orchards, Forests, Corn/Maize, Wheat, Grains). I would then re-mod existing I-R buildings/lots (maybe SPAM and its addons to begin with). And maybe create some new ones (e.g. farm fields representing forests - these don't currently exist AFAIK). The modding (I think) would involve altering the existing I-R buildings so that each building only spawns a single farm field type, and allocating that building to the relevant farm-based building style. Many of the existing farm buildings currently spawn a variety of field lots (at random) so this would (I think) involve creating duplicates so that each instance links to a single field type. This would make it possible to control the growth of the farms and include or exclude any types of crops you don't want to see in a given area. Perhaps this could also be used (with development of the right buildings/lots) to enable growable mines/oil extraction. I don't really have a vision myself for how that would look from a LOTting perspective. I am not sure whether your wider concept is possible (effectively I think you are proposing separating Industry and Ag/Resource into two completely different zone types and adding higher-density resource zoning). But perhaps my ideas would enable some of the outcomes?
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