GnL Lotting - Turning maxis lots into portuguese/euro looking and lot standards

[gn_leugim]

Hello everyone!

I have decided to make a overwrite of maxis lots. Because they look to American looking and they do not fit well the euro standards. So I gathered a bunch of prop packs, made some on my own, and started lotting. They are a bit Portuguese looking but I guess they can fit some other countries, namely Mediterranean countries.

I also wondered, if I am lotting them all, what can I do as well? Then I remembered that we don't have control of what grows on the lots we zone. We can set the area, and density, but that's it! what kind of building grows, where, how... nothing.  So I thought in using lots in a way to control how buildings grow. I have so far set a chart of lots (by size) and what they will grow:



note that the deep 3 size lots can be deeper if wanted and strait lots and length 3 lots can be wider. Also open to suggestions

I will soon post some images to show you how I systematize this layouts.

Now, as for lots done:

Low wealth low density single stand houses ( _ , 1x3);




several lots in a row:


And some lot blocks




Some made wider and made so blend with farmlands


Low wealth low density row houses ( _ , 1x2);



in a row



lot blocks



I'll post updates soon.

Thanks for reviweing

[Glazert]

I think the buildings would fit in well in many countries with European style architecture. For example, many of the row buildings would not look out of place in a Scottish village. i guess some of the detail of the lots is more for Mediterranean countries only.

[art128]

Nice job on them, GnL! You've managed to catch very well the Portuguese feeling of the houses, from what I remember when I was in Lisboa. Bom trabalho, meu amigo!

[FrankU]

You made a set of very fine detailed lots. I like them.
They can indeed be useful to many people, also not-mediterranean styles.

Dio you make the stats conforming to the CAM/SC4-Pim standards? Or are they overwrites of the same size Maxis lots?

[gn_leugim]

Glazert: the buildings are the standard maxis (and some from my EHA BATs). the major change are indeed the lot details, which I am afraid may not fit into other countries other than Mediterranean's

Art128: muito obrigado that's what I meant to do somehow, I'm glad to have someone who knows the original RL lots and approves the ones I made as being very similar

FrankU: thank you for your compliments

The lots overwrite the original ones, but, as I am doing the scheme you can see in the first topic, I had to change some Growth Stages so every building style are available all the time. Anyway, they are inside the +/- 1 range from the PIMX stage calculator, so no bigger unbalanced play should be notice. I runned a city with these and I found nothing wrong

Meanwhile, moving on the Mid Density low wealth lots

[Lowkee33]

Very nice looking lots there.

I do see some chalk outline props though (looks like 0xA0000001).  Props can have a property called Requester Satisfaction, and it can make the prop conditional.  Conditions are Wealth, Crime, and Garbage (wealth has 4 levels: none, low, mid, and high, defined by the property Prop Wealth).  Maxis puts many different requesters into the same family, and this way they get much more out of the family.  However, LE doesn't "turn on" the conditional, we have to do this in Reader.  For each prop on a lot, there is a LotConfigProperty.  Making the 2bd rep 0x00000001 will turn the conditional on.  If you do this, you wont see the chalk outline prop (unless there is crime).

[mike3775]

Some very nice looking there.

I do see some chalk outline props though (looks like 0xA0000001).  Props can have a property called Requester Satisfaction, and it can make the prop conditional.  Conditions are Wealth, Crime, and Garbage (wealth has 4 levels: none, low, mid, and high, defined by the property Prop Wealth).  Maxis puts many different requesters into the same family, and this way they get much more out of the family.  However, LE doesn't "turn on" the conditional, we have to do this in Reader.  For each prop on a lot, there is a LotConfigProperty.  Making the 2bd rep 0x00000001 will turn the conditional on.  If you do this, you wont see the chalk outline prop (unless there is crime).

I must be blind, I do not see any  lol

[jmyers2043]

Ah, very nice lots. I did a similar thing to all the Maxis R$ stage 1 thru 3 a couple years back. My reason was to make the lots more slope friendly. Discovering that these small homes all have foundations that Maxis never used in the game. So you can also make these small homes somewhat slope friendly too. Caveat is that there are a couple of foundations that are not that great but still better than the ugly default brown brick one.

Once again, very nice lots and you'll be rewarded with a sense of satisfaction when every thing looks so fresh and new in your next city.

Good Luck with the project

- Jim

[gn_leugim]

Very nice looking lots there.

I do see some chalk outline props though (looks like 0xA0000001).  Props can have a property called Requester Satisfaction, and it can make the prop conditional.  Conditions are Wealth, Crime, and Garbage (wealth has 4 levels: none, low, mid, and high, defined by the property Prop Wealth).  Maxis puts many different requesters into the same family, and this way they get much more out of the family.  However, LE doesn't "turn on" the conditional, we have to do this in Reader.  For each prop on a lot, there is a LotConfigProperty.  Making the 2bd rep 0x00000001 will turn the conditional on.  If you do this, you wont see the chalk outline prop (unless there is crime).

For the mother of God
I use dozens of pop families, with wealth dependent props... I have a huge task ahead yet :| I don't use LE for lotting, I just use it for Resizing and create a copy of each lot. I do the rest of the work on the PIMX, but given that crime props appear without crime, I'll assume PIMX don't activate that property either. The Reader and I will once again get familiar I guess ^^

EDIT: just checked the Reader, PIMX don't turn them on either :|

I must be blind, I do not see any  lol

Actulay they are there. And I believe that there are some mid and high wealth props around too :|

Ah, very nice lots. I did a similar thing to all the Maxis R$ stage 1 thru 3 a couple years back. My reason was to make the lots more slope friendly. Discovering that these small homes all have foundations that Maxis never used in the game. So you can also make these small homes somewhat slope friendly too. Caveat is that there are a couple of foundations that are not that great but still better than the ugly default brown brick one.

Once again, very nice lots and you'll be rewarded with a sense of satisfaction when every thing looks so fresh and new in your next city.

Good Luck with the project

- Jim

Thank you
about the slopes, they will have few, most of them have short lot foundation thresholds, and will use a new foundation I made too

[noahclem]

Very nice and well-organized project  I especially liked the way those low-wealth, low-density rowhouse lots turned out    Good luck continuing!

[Lowkee33]

I have a huge task ahead yet :| I don't use LE for lotting, I just use it for Resizing and create a copy of each lot. I do the rest of the work on the PIMX, but given that crime props appear without crime, I'll assume PIMX don't activate that property either. The Reader and I will once again get familiar I guess ^^

EDIT: just checked the Reader, PIMX don't turn them on either :|

Yeah, it's a little bit of bs.  To add, most props that we have made have wealth requesters with the wealth set to 0x00.  This doesn't mean "No Wealth" it means "Wealth level 0".  To have no wealth, the requester and prop wealth properties just aren't there (something that PIMX can't do when making props unfortunately).

In your main Sim City folder there is a file "DetailPriorities.ini".  It lists all of the props and the detail settings they need to appear, the families that should be set conditional, and the names of all of the families.  The file includes the line:

Advanced users may want to experiment with tweaking some of these values to get different results.

But alas, I haven't been able to get Maxis LE (which would be more likely that PIMX) to actually use this file...

[gn_leugim]

well it says:

This file contains extra information about specific SimCity objects that the lot editor uses to make lots.

So maybe it is just informational at all. Anyway, I have to set props manualy.

So, to see if I got it right, I need to turn the second rep on the LotConfigProperty and set it to 0x00000001 is it right?

[Lowkee33]

indeed 

[Kergelen]

Very nice lots here.
What a variety of props you used!

[metarvo]

Nice job, Gn_leugim!    The lots that you've shown look so much more professional than the Maxis defaults, with the fences and outbuildings.  Although I'm an American player who generally builds in an American style, I do use Euro buildings as well.  The idea of diagonal and FAR lots is a big win for me and will probably get me using the set even in non-Euro settings.

[gn_leugim]

Lowkee33: "Challenge accepted!" ^^

Kergelen: thats true, I can count at least 16 dependencies, just for props :| with textures may be around 18~19. But many of them are standard dependencies so most of people shall have them already.

metarvo: thank you very much About the diagonal and FAR lots, was an idea I had, which maybe could become a standard for lotters. growable far and growable diagonal are way much better than plop ones. nevertheless, the corner of these will have to be plopable anyway I think =\

Soon I'll show a "test box" of all conformations I have in mind and how they look on game

Now, some more lots done, namely low wealth middle single apartment density ones (_ ; 1x3 and 3x3)

some single lots


and some more


a block of lots with the details of the "backyards"


Once I finish off the mid density R$ I'll take care of the props conditionality

Thanks for (re)viewing

[gn_leugim]

I am almost done with the Mid density R$, soon I'll show you how it ended

For now let me show you my plans for the diagonal lots. There are a few already, but if I recall, all of them are plopable landmarks. I want to change that, I want growable diagonal residential lots. For this purpose (but not this only) I made the table you can see on the first post. it sets to each type of lot, a given type of building / configuration. as you can see there, for diagonal single standing houses (not row or w2w houses) it was assigned the 2x2 lots. here I'll show you why, and how it works.

I first thought of making the 1x2 left corners for diagonal lots, but when I used it, I found something bad, the houses were indeed diagonal, but the lots look odly, as they were still ortogonal. So, I figured out I had to find a way to make the entire lot look diagonal too... how? here is how:

first we need 2 items. the lot it self, wich is a square (2x2), with diagonal wall props (may not have them) and a 1x1 filler lot (again with or without you bab.. er, walls I mean)



so, when the lots grow (you may have to  buldoze some pairs of 1x2lots sometimes) and apply the filler lots on the gaps between them



now, there is one thing you shall notice:


the lot you see (lets call it the "Visual lot"), this is, the yellow outlines, is in reality made up of 5 different lots. the lot it self (red) 2 quartes of the filler lots (brown) and 2 quarters of other lots (green). For this reason, and to prevent strange texture looking lots, I'll make them all with the same base textures, so they will present uniform

Tell me what you think

[Lowkee33]

In my defunct MD (Link) I had a fair amount of diagonal lots.  I had 1x2 and 1x1 lots, and the way I controlled them was they had their own Tile Set.  Probably not the best solution for a project you want to make public though.

If you get into mid/high densities, you might want to make the base textures be the same as the BSC park system.  The park system has a set of base textures that all have the same ID, and in this way you can switch them out for a different feel.  Each base texture has a matching sidewalk texture, so the edges always match.

[gn_leugim]

I did take a look at your MD (very good one btw ) and I see what you did there but like you say, for public release may be better to tweak on the lots and not on the tile set.

Thank you for the suggestion of the BSC park system, but I believe it won't be the best option on the table for this issue. you know, eventually you will have low, and mid, or mid and high densities on the same cities (who knows if not all three), and I was thinking in making them look different from each other. I just have to set a given texture for each density I believe. but I only can tell for sure when I get there, making the lots on mid density.

[Lowkee33]

From what I remember, low density doesn't trigger the sidewalk texture, but I could be wrong.

Also, diagonals are technically corners, so you can add a little control that way too.