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[SOLVED] Base texture problem with SC4PIM LotEditor

Started by Krasner, October 28, 2016, 10:28:29 AM

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Krasner

Hello everyone,

I started a few days ago to make some lotting experiments for my own use at first, with the Lot_X. But each lot I made to this point have the very same problem : the base textures I applied are not showing permanently, but randomly after zooming in and out, and are replaced most of the time by maxis concrete, that wasn't showing in the LE at any time :



I tried many base textures, including various BSC stuff and vortextures, and it's always the same. I red the Lotting part of the SC4PIM user guide like a thousand times and I can't find what I forgot to do  /wrrd%& As always I learn slowly, I guess I just missed some step somewhere  &ops
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gn_leugim

Either the textures you have in the pplugin folder are currupted, or the lot files are. try make one lot, minimal editing, just place the texture and save, plop in city and play arround, zoom in/out, rotate and etc. and see if that happens. If not, it may be related to how you modded the lot. I had some isntances of textures going wild, fixed by making from scratch.

noahclem

That sounds worryingly like what I've been experiencing. Robin offered me some advice but his thinking about errors with batpngfish being a problem shouldn't make sense with those old, tried and true BSC textures. I hope you're able to sort this out and wish I could offer more help. I am a huge fan of the building you show in the lot and have made some nice lots of my own for it in my current city. Can I ask what the building on the left is with the fractional angle wall?

mgb204

I don't think this problem is the same one Noah.

When you create a lot with PIM-X, by default it will add base textures to the lot. If for some reason, you do not have any textures used upon a lot "Loaded" when you start PIM-X, it will appear as if no texture exists. However, they will still be there and if you add another, you'll end up with multiple base textures on one tile. Otherwise, perhaps for some other means, you have put more than one base texture on a tile. Either way that leads too...

Z-Fighting, which simply means when two objects are at the same height, the game does not know which it should display. So they fight for the space and as you move around or zoom, the renderer refreshes the lot and it's random which of the multiple textures will be shown.

The solution is simple, remove all the textures on the lot and start over. If you can't do this in PIM-X, or your attempts to are not working for whatever reason. The gaurenteed way to solve this is using iLives Reader:

  • Open the Lot with Reader and select the Exemplar for the LotConfiguration.
  • Find all the entries (properties) named "LotConfigPropertyLotObjectData" where the first "Rep" of the value field starts 0x00000002 (2 = Textures).
  • Highlight them all (textures), then right click and select "Delete Property".
  • Do not forget to right click and select "ReindexLotConfig", otherwise the lot will be broken.
  • You can now save the lot and all textures will be gone.

You now just need to go back to PIM-X and be careful to only use one texture (Base) for each tile. You can use multiple Overlay textures on a tile, but it two parts that are not transparent collide, once more you'll see z-fighting in-game.

Krasner

I tried your solution mgb204 and it works perfectly  :thumbsup: Obviously default base textures aren't showing in the LE for me, for whatever reason. So I opened a test lot with the Reader, deleted all the textures and then re-texured it :



Thanks a lot to everyone  ()stsfd()
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mgb204

When you load PIM-X, you get the list of folders to load from. Usually, it's the top two that link to the SimCity Dat files location (i.e. the SC4 install dir), then the second is the Plugins Directory inside of the Install Dir. If you don't tick the first one, it won't load the textures/props from the base game, hence they appear to be missing on new lots. Worse still, if PIM-X doesn't load the textures on a lot, it won't allow you to select/remove them either. So when making new lots, you should remember to load the base SC4 content, even if you don't plan on using them for the lots you create.

Krasner

Thanks again mgb204. You were right, again  &idea In fact I'm running the PIM with a fake plugin folder, I choose to do that because it's much more convenient to move the few stuff I want to mod from the real folder to the fake one, than displace from my plugins all the things I don't want to use. Of course I move this fake folder so the game can't read it when I play. I just forgot to move the Simcity .dat files in the first place  &sly

I'm so sorry   &cry2
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mgb204

Thing is, with the Maxis LE it loads the entire contents of the plugins folder. But with PIM-X if you organise into folders, you have full controll over which to load, so it's not necessary to keep them elsewhere when lotting.

Krasner

Quote from: mgb204 on October 29, 2016, 01:41:02 PM
Thing is, with the Maxis LE it loads the entire contents of the plugins folder. But with PIM-X if you organise into folders, you have full controll over which to load, so it's not necessary to keep them elsewhere when lotting.

You're right it's much better.
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