romualdillo's little BATs & Problems

[Missvanleider]

incredible pictures, some all of those buildings look amazing, and the portraits themselves are remarkable

[bombardiere]

With this superb work I can hardly wait for to see how your R$$$ look like. 

Your colour palette is bit too brownish for my taste, but then again I come from the North where the Grey is fashionable colour.

Can that Ford model be an automata? If so, I want it.

And last but not least, I've decided to rework my lots growth system and systematize it (even more). I'll try to mod my lots (I still don't know if it's possible, so if you know anything about it, any advice will be welcomed) to limit height and not density. That's what I've thought for any lot size:

LOW DENSITY:         1-2 floors
MEDIUM DENSITY:    3-4-5 floors
HIGH DENSITY:        6-7-8 floors

Yes, the lots can be modded. Not with PIMX or Maxis lot editor, but with for example iLives Reader or SC4Tool. PIMX usually gives good stage levels and it is possible to adjust one up or down, so I don't usually mess with those, but I regularly tamper with the Density Level.

When I build historical cities, I follow very similar density model than your are thinking. Expect that for me a wall-to-wall building is Medium Density even if it has only 2 floor, and higher buildings if those are stand alone are usually Low Density.

I have adjusted most of user made Bats I use for historical build. This way it gives me more control when historical cities don't go up to the skyscrapers. I am actually surprised that a big city like London had only few higher than 6 floors buildings made before 1900 or late 1800's.  Lack of the lift is one reason, but only partly and planning regulations seems to had a big impact. Paris on the other hand goes a little higher, so there a 8 floor city building is not that uncommon in 19th century.

[kelis]

Madre mia que pasada !!! I know we have to use english as a main language here but I couldn't resist, those pictures and those buildings... the pictures looks like real pictures, man I hope you can finish your work soon, because when these buildings are available I think that a new world is open for us, especially for the people from Spain, with your buildings finally we can make a real Spanish city.

Gracias por tu trabajo compañero / Thanks for your work 

[romualdillo]

Thank you all!!!

bombardiere: Thank you! Actually, the Ford Model T is an automata. If you look at my early posts you'll see my experiments. The R$$$ will take a little, until I finish the other ones.

Now a preview. I was bored of doing houses and I started a new building. I'm reconstructing a ruin again. It's a theatre in the city of Ferrol, Galicia, Spain: Teatro Renacimiento.



I hope you like it!!

[Simmer2]

Great project you have picked   

[c.p.]

Looks like a very elaborate ruin   Nice detailing on the model, as always.

Your growth system makes sense, and you can mod the lots in PIM-X or ilive or SC4Tool.

Another possibility, if you want more gradations of control, is to make adjustments the Stage Growth Cap settings in CAM (if you use it).  So for example, you might limit areas without water service to stage 1 or stage 2 (one story?), or areas without fire service to stage 3 (3 stories?).  You wouldn't be able upload this with your buildings/lots (I don't think so anyway), but it might be a way to get more out of the set, so you can have neighborhoods that max out at a wider variety of heights.

[APSMS]

I really like your buildings, but for some reason to me the facades seem flat. Like they're textured boxes. Exquisite textured boxes, no less, and they look great at night, but for reasons unknown they seem flat in the daytime shots.

Maybe the BATted elements are too subtle, or not pronounced enough? I'm not sure.

I really hate saying it, too, because at night they look stunning, and even in the day they look fantastic, aside from that nitpick. It just feels like the window alcoves and door shelters don't have any depth to them. Maybe you can work on that, or help me understand why I see it that way? It's kinda like looking at a Google Earth 3D view of a European city.

But they would look really fantastic in an Endora style region!

[romualdillo]

Simmer2: Thank you!!

c.p.: Thank you!! I've never used CAM (I've never been interested in skyscrapers), but I didn't know those features. They sound very interesting. I'll take a deeper look to CAM to see if I can get clear with all that modding. 

APSMS: Ouch! That hurts!  Now seriously, you're not the first one talking about the boxy appearance of my houses. I can't do anything about their general aspect. Consider that Spanish houses are Arabic houses with European walls. (Talking about Arabic things, I was surprised at "alcove" being an English word)

About the facades, there might be different reasons for their "flatness"

1. They need more "pronouncing". Well, I don't think this is really the problem. All details, alcoves and shelters are oversized to 200 or even 300% to look deeper.
2. There are too many details. Well, I work with Sketchup and I tend to model everything to the last detail. Many of these details get lost in the final render, despite being oversized. Pehaps modelling with less detail would give better final results, but that's impossible for me, because everything seems "unfinished".
3. The Gmax render. I use Gmax and not 3ds Max, so the final result has less contrast than a 3ds Max model. Perhaps if the shadows were stronger, the facades wouldn't look that flat. Oversizing details doesn't help much up to certain point, and things look weird in other perspectives. I try to work my textures to make up for this effect, but obviously the result will never be the same. Why do I use Gmax? Because my computer is old, and 3ds Max runs extremely slowly. 
4. Buildings are small. Well, if buildings are small, their parts will be small, too. I can't make miracles.  Perhaps when I start making bigger buildings they would look better.

These are all the possibilities I can think of. I'm sorry this was not an update, but if there is any possibility to improve my work I'll try it. Thank you!

[romualdillo]

I've been working on the lot modding, and sadly it happened what I thought it would happen. Up to Growth Stage 4, buildings don't grow on low density zones, even if they're modded to grow on them. I can change the zone density from medium to low when they've been built, but I can't find the way to make the buildings grow on them. So I'll have to change my growth system, and make everything grow on growth stage 3. It's unrealistic but it's the only way I can think of to limit the buildings' height. 


I think this is going to be impossible.

If you have any idea or advice. I'd like to try it, because I don't want to make everything GS-3.
Sorry, no new pictures! 

[vortext]

Up to Growth Stage 4, buildings don't grow on low density zones, even if they're modded to grow on them.

Genuinely confused as to what you mean, exactly. Stage 1 t/m 4 grow just fine on low density zones, and medium and high density for that matter. Also not quite sure why an issue with zone density would mean all lots need to be stage 3 - which I'd strongly advise against btw.

And if you allow me making some other advice; years ago when I just started lotting/modding I made a huge lot set and tried to carefully distribute stages over zone density as well and found it's actually highly impractical. Say you restrict stage 1,2,3 to low density, and stage 4,5 to medium. Now if you want to upgrade a section of low density lots to medium, all the low density lots will be destroyed in the process! Because the low density lots cannot grow on medium density zones. So the city population takes a hit, thus decreasing the changes stage 4,5 will actually grow. And you cannot start the city with medium density zones either, since the low density stage 1 lots zones won't grow at all. 

So long story short, trying to manage city growth by means of lot zone density requires a lot of effort without much practical benefit. It's much, much easier to restrict building height in a city block by simply making lots historical. Honestly, don't stare yourself blind on this. I know I did and while doing so lost a lot set due to mismanagement (and ignorance I might add  ).

Anyway excuse the wall of text. The theater is looking great! 

[romualdillo]

Well, what I wanted to test at first was if the growth levels were really attached to zone density, and, if not, use zone density as a way to limit building heights, just like this:

LOW DENSITY:         1-2 floors
MEDIUM DENSITY:    3-4-5 floors
HIGH DENSITY:        6-7-8 floors

But now I know that if I mod a lot to be growth stage 4, and as "LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes" I write Low, Medium and High density it will never grow on low density. So I understand growth stages are attached to zone density, and I can't use zoning the way I wanted. Sure I can use all types of density, and control the buildings' growth with my plugins folders, but I wanted to try this system first. Honestly, I didn't think about the plugins folder when I wrote the last update because of my frustration, but now I see it's better to keep the growth stages, even if the buildings don't grow as I wanted them to. I only thought about all the buildings growing on the same density. But well, if you don't mind having same height buildings growing on different density zones, and different height buildings growing on the same density zones, neither do I. 
(I hope I've explained myself correctly this time) 

[bombardiere]

So you have set a Stage 4 building for all Densities, Low, Medium and High and it refuses to grow.

Hhhhmmm. I have to admit that I am not 100 per cent sure, but that should be doable. I don't know anything in the game that should stop it. In fact, when it tested my Clerkenwell Close upload, I had a version for all densities. But I need to check if it was a stage 3 or stage 4 lot. I will come back to this.

PIMX is happy to offer low density for stage 5 lots.

I think Maxis did set their stages as 1-3 for low, 4-6 medium and 7-8 to high, but they did it with lotting densities and not with anything in the code.

In fact, if I understood correctly what you want to do, then in principle it should be feasible. As I said, I have followed very similar principle. But I need to confirm that I really grow stage 4+ lots in the low density.

I can only think of two things. Modified lots are broken, something has gone wrong in the density change. Or capacity satisfied is a factor here. You may have competiting buildings which have higher capacity and the SC4 prefers to grow those instead of what you want. I have some buildings which grows like a weed as these have higher capacity in that growth stage and the game prefer fill the demand with higher capacity buildings.

Vortext advise is good one. Making a building to grow only in medium or high density can lead to annoying side effect.

[romualdillo]

I think it's not a matter of capacity, demand or even water. I've tested my buildings alone in my plugins folder (so there's not other building to grow in the testing city tile, maxis one were blocked). The capacity satisfied is higher than the one in the previous stage: 28 inhab. against 21. I thought about water, but water connection was present. The building does grow with lower growth stages, and when zone density is set to medium, the building grows normally... It walks like a duck, swims like a duck and sounds like a duck. It should be a duck, but it might be a platypus. 

Lot's Exemplar File:


Building's Exemplar File:

[bombardiere]

The building does grow with lower growth stages, and when zone density is set to medium, the building grows normally...

Sorry, does the sentence miss a word "not"? "The building does not grow with..."

I did a quick test. However this is by no means conclusive and may be I created a false positive.

But I attach a picture. The building in the middle, my recent terrace town house building, is Stage 4 building. I changed the lot so that it would grow on Low, Medium and High density. And it grows.   That is a low density zoned lot. Same as one on the right. I even demolished the building to make sure.

So in my opinion Stage 4 and perhaps higher, do grow in the low density.

However this building was a bit reluctant to grow, so there might be other factors.

I do not spot any error in your file, so that seems to be correct. How did you made the lot? I am a lazy person and sometimes I use Maxis' LE and just swap the buildings on previously made lot. Occasionally the game do not recognise these swapped lots and the new building does not grow. My guess is that something get corrupted.

[romualdillo]

The building does grow...  with lower growth stages, but I can't make it grow in low density zones...
I used a previously made LOT, I changed name, building, growth stage and instance with reader and the rest with PIM-X. Perhaps the building doesn't grow in low density zones because of that, but it grows very fast when zone is set to medium density, so I think that might not be the problem.
Well, I'll keep trying. Thank you very much for your help and interest! 
An idea: Your lot is 2x2, mine are 1x2, perhaps that's a factor... 

[bombardiere]

I tested a bit more and ok, I have to say to get Stage4 grow on low density is very hard. I spotted only two occasions. It seems that the game can't fill an empty lot with Stage 4   building strait away, but wants to make low Stage building first. When the lot has Stage 3 , it seems happy to be content with that and do not want to move upwards.

My test city has population of 10 000 and I use CAM 2.  I may be on the Stage 4 stresshold, so may be that is why growing is so hard.

Hopefully some one with more experience can shed more light, as now I got curiosed too.

[romualdillo]

Finally, after several attempts the Growth Stage level 4 building grew on a low density lot. It's difficult to make it grow, as bombardiere said, but I think I prefer it this way. Thank you very much for your help and interest!

[vortext]

Yeah the game does have a few preferences when it comes to lot density, stages and upgrading.

Another one which you want to keep in mind is the game prefers to upgrade the oldest zones first, the rational being that a city grows from the center out. Since you start with low density zoning which cannot upgrade you may find it difficult to get medium density lots to grow, as these are newer zones. And again, if you rezone the low density with medium density in the center, you only exacerbate the problem because it'll destroy low density, thus the population takes a hit and you still have new medium density zones in its place. So it kinda forces you to build from the outer parts of a city inwards, with the overall growth being sluggish because it goes counter to some of the core principles of the game. Honestly, it's not practical, nor worth the effort imho.

[romualdillo]

Hmm, I think I got what you mean... Well, it wasn't my intention to mod the low density lots to grow only on low density zones, because I didn't want the existing buildings to get destroyed if the zone is upgraded to medium density. I prefer things to grow naturally. Everything low density will grow anywhere.
The "problem" is, as bombardiere mentioned, that GS 3 low density lots won't upgrade to GS 4 low density lots (at least this upgrade will be extremely rare), but as I said I think I prefer it this way.  You'll always have the option of medium density zoning.

[vortext]

Well, it wasn't my intention to mod the low density lots to grow only on low density zones, because I didn't want the existing buildings to get destroyed if the zone is upgraded to medium density.

In that case there's less of an issue indeed. I just recalled what I tried to do and it didn't quite work out as anticipated, so it'd be a shame if after a lot of trouble you'd arrived at the same conclusion.