ÆRDEN ~ new streets!

[noahclem]

Extremely exciting discovery, Erik! If this works as well as it's seeming to then it will radically alter the state of T21s making them much more accessible and doubtless more numerous. Very much looking forward to see what use is made of it!

+1

[memo]

Very exciting, indeed!

I find it hard to believe that the game handles both of the Exemplar Type properties, as they have identical property IDs. At least, I would expect one of these properties to hide/override the other property, as is the case if a property ID occurs twice in a Cohort tree. I'd be interested to see whether you still get the same results if you delete one of the Exemplar Type properties and keep the other, and vice-versa.

By the way, some tools will have issues with duplicate properties. For example, my own library will preserve only one of the properties.

Something to consider is to create a parent Cohort file which contains all the non-T21 related properties, to be used for development and testing. The game puts the Cohort and the Exemplar together in the same way as you did. For the final version, you could replace the Cohort by an empty Cohort file and end up with a pure T21 Exemplar. Then again, PIMX possibly can't work with the Cohort file...

[vortext]

Thursday 

First of hello there, been a while. 

Secondly, this is most definitely not the kind of update I wanted to make, ever.



Now, the good news is the back up made at the start of the month is pox free.



Over the last week I've done quite a bit of farming in this particular tile which obviously added a ton of props from the crop fields and consequently triggered the pox. That's me reasoning at least.

So question is: what can I do, if anything, to the prop pox free back up to ensure it doesn't happen later on?

Also, as irony would have it I was actually writing a proper update this afternoon, went ingame to take some pictures and noticed missing props. .

All right, off to the prop pox thread and do some reading. 

edit

Did read. As I understand it the seemingly prop pox free tile is already beyond redemption because of the disabled props. Went back into the archives and the first back-up without any disabled props is from a year-and-a-half ago, when there actually wasn't any development yet! I do remember fooling around a lot in that period with Murmiks Waterseries and disabling timing for the boats. I'm guessing something went wrong during that time. However, I also fooled around a bit just now with the savegame file and came up with a plan so crazy it just might work. .    Will report results. 

edit2

The crazy plan hasn't delivered any results yet. However, I did manage to track the issue down to something rather interesting after bulldozing the entire tile (the back-up tile that is, since it reports to have disabled props, while apparently the poxed city doesn't).



At first I thought this couldn't be true because I'd never used any T21 in this particular tile until I had a look at the city view . .



. . and remembered that I did in fact, long time ago, very briefly tried out something . . oops. 

All right, continuing tinkering with the save game file. .



Friday

edit3

The save game tinkering got me nowhere. Instead I checked the entire region in the SC4savegame explorer and found 7 more tiles with disabled props, 4 of which are large tiles and one of those large tiles has some development. Meh.

Interestingly all disabled props are from T21s and the affected tiles were among the first I started. In one tile the disabled props actually showed an old street layout, which I have redone since. So my current theory is that at some point, very early on in development of the region, I unknowingly had a T21 in the plugins folder (with or without the necessary prop exemplars) and subsequent visits to the tiles without the T21 in the plugins caused the props to be disabled.

Something like that, I dunno. I do know I'm not happy, to say the least. 

Because what I failed to mention thus far is that the one tile which actually has the pox happens to be the first main city in the region. So that sucks. Big time. I'm not sure yet what to do. On the one hand: the longer I wait with redoing the tile, to more work it'll be. On the other hand: it has a sh*tton of (mmped) flora and intricate street and farm development, all of which I'm very happy with and will be next to impossible to reproduce. My current thinking is: develop the city further, take pictures with the city details low/high bandage and then restart the tile from scratch. I already had plans for some kind of disaster strike the region anyway so that may explain the downfall of the city, right?!

As for the other seven tiles: I'll probably gonna replace the four large tiles as soon as possible. Experience has shown farming can push the Prop Subfile over the limit pretty easy, so I'd like to be on the safe side. Three of them are empty except for sparse flora and streets running through them, the other one has some additional development. So all in all it shouldn't be too much work.

edit4

Well, I'm not sure if people are reading this, or even care at this point but at any rate some good news. Thanks to a region back up from December 2013 and the corresponding plugins folder I've been able to salvage three large tiles (and one medium tile). By which I mean: I did actually see the T21 props on the streets, which I subsequently removed. Checking the tiles in SC4SavegameExplorer confirmed there were no longer any props in the tiles. So this means I don't have to redo the flora, and more important, don't have to redo the streets. Though I will have to rework some parts and redo additional streets to reflect changes made after December 2013.

There's one large tile from the December 2013 backup which appears to be already beyond redemption. It says it has T21 props, however, I don't see them ingame and any changes made to the streets will result in disabled props. This is a bit annoying since the tile is needed for future farming. Coincidentally this one tile was the result from a config adjustment one month previous (November 2013) so I have a completely empty backup. And since it's a near flat tile, and has just one street running through for now, remaking it shouldn't be an issue.

The observant reader (if there are any left) will have noticed this leaves two medium tiles. Unfortunately the December 2013 back-ups of both already appear to be beyond redemption as well. However, I don't have big plans for them and seeing they're medium tiles to begin with I seriously doubt the Prop Subfile will ever reach the size necessary to trigger the pox. In other words, I'll leave them be, with disabled props.

The entire salvage operation will result in a loss of 537 sims. So all things considered the regional damage is relatively minor. Silver lining and what not.

edit5

Well more good news. I've restored five tiles. What's more: I've actually retraced the streets layout by first snapping pictures in the old tiles with the traffic view on and then remaking the streets in the new tiles, with the traffic view on as well. This actually went surprisingly well and fast, too. So then I figured: might as well re-developed a tile by copying the zoning lay-out of the old tile. Once again this went swimmingly. Final check in the SC4SavegameExplorer confirmed there were no disabled props in the tile. 

So with this experience under my belt I'm considering whether it's worth re-creating the main city tile in similar fashion after all. The upside is no more pox, the downside is losing quite a bit of MMP work . . 

At any rate since the issues has largly been resolved and I've been talking to myself, really, I've renamed the entry The Prop Pox Chronicles, a message in a bottle of sorts I guess. 

[11241036]

Wow, that's really sad to hear that you've caught the Prop Pox issue I've frequently heard about. I've fortunately never been affected by Prop Pox (I only heard about it from looking into the Prop Pox thread a few weeks ago), so I can't imagine what happens, neither can I help you, sadly. It seems, however, that you are on a promising way to limit its effects and repair the damage wherever possible.

Which brings us already to my comments on your MD.

* I'm glad that you take your time sharing your discoveries you made while modding SC4 or developing plugins; this will surely help several users here if they encounter similar problems. And you've really not been talking to yourself, I'm already aware of this issue and trying to find a way to make sure that I won't catch it too, so I've been reading through your last update.
* You are on a good way of taking on the challenge of creating villages/cities in the style of a time several centuries ago. I liked several of your images much, for example with Swi21's building and the Schiffenberg Monastery. Very good work (both re-lotting and designing), especially considering the limited amount of medieval plugins available for download.
* Your dirt roads and cobblestone roads are also really awesome, especially the FAR roads. Are you planning to share them?
* Your MMP work has also been great (for example your picture with the dirt road leading through a small ash forest close to a swamp); it's really a pity that some of it will be lost.

My only suggestion to improve your MD would be sharing a few pictures from a higher zoom level from time to time (not necessarily regional). From a closer look, much of your work looks fine, it just would be interesting to put the pictures together by seeing them from a higher altitude.

[JoeST]

Thank you for talking us through your process Vortex, it is an interesting read and I'm glad you shared it

[Simcoug]

What a pain, but I'm glad it ended up being less work than it could have been.  I'd never considered T21's as a prop pox cause, but it makes sense... just goes to show you have to be careful about what you remove from your plugins.  I also have a small issue with one of my large tiles that is already pretty much built up (not prop pox, thankfully)... the solution involves the 'flora off' cheat, but I'm going to use it at the last possible moment because of the hours spent MMPing the tile.  Long story short, I can feel your pain. 

[belfastsocrates]

There's nothing more heart-breaking, in the SC4 world, than seeing so much work lost or being constantly frustrated by problems with the game. I feel your pain with this also, I'm having a complete nightmare at the minute with constant crashes, glitches and issues despite my efforts to prevent them. I am pleased to hear though you were able to salvage a lot of work so there is significant consolation in that respect. I wish you well with this and hope you can begin showcasing again.

I'd never considered T21's as a prop pox cause, but it makes sense... just goes to show you have to be careful about what you remove from your plugins.

This has got my brain thinking. I removed the PEG Utopia avenue medians a few weeks ago, after using them for countless years, and reverted to normal medians. Do you think doing this could cause game instability? My apologies for hijacking with this question but I'm just curious.

[Simcoug]

This has got my brain thinking. I removed the PEG Utopia avenue medians a few weeks ago, after using them for countless years, and reverted to normal medians. Do you think doing this could cause game instability? My apologies for hijacking with this question but I'm just curious.

Vortext has a better understanding than me, but I'm guessing that it has more to do with removing the prop files associated with a T21 mod, rather than the T21 mod itself.  Again, vortext can do a much better job explaining the details, so don't take my word for it.

[vortext]

Time for replies, some admittedly long overdue.

That's a very awesome find, who'd have thought combining properties would work, I wonder if this might have other applications?

It would certainly make custom T21's possible for many more users, I don't see why it would cause problems, but I understand your caution here.

Hm yeah, didn't see a reason why it'd cause problems but given my recent experience I´m suddenly a lot more hesitant - it's gonna require some testing before deeming it safe.

Oh my word!!! 

Crazy, right?! 

Extremely exciting discovery, Erik! If this works as well as it's seeming to then it will radically alter the state of T21s making them much more accessible and doubtless more numerous. Very much looking forward to see what use is made of it!

+1

Thanks for the k-point Noah! 

Very exciting, indeed!

I find it hard to believe that the game handles both of the Exemplar Type properties, as they have identical property IDs. At least, I would expect one of these properties to hide/override the other property, as is the case if a property ID occurs twice in a Cohort tree. I'd be interested to see whether you still get the same results if you delete one of the Exemplar Type properties and keep the other, and vice-versa.

By the way, some tools will have issues with duplicate properties. For example, my own library will preserve only one of the properties.

Something to consider is to create a parent Cohort file which contains all the non-T21 related properties, to be used for development and testing. The game puts the Cohort and the Exemplar together in the same way as you did. For the final version, you could replace the Cohort by an empty Cohort file and end up with a pure T21 Exemplar. Then again, PIMX possibly can't work with the Cohort file...

Yeah I know it's rather curious it works, though iirc (been a while) it only works when the two Exemplar Types are in a particular order (Lot before T21 or the other way around). I'll look into using Cohort files, thanks for the suggestion!   

Wow, that's really sad to hear that you've caught the Prop Pox issue I've frequently heard about. I've fortunately never been affected by Prop Pox (I only heard about it from looking into the Prop Pox thread a few weeks ago), so I can't imagine what happens, neither can I help you, sadly. It seems, however, that you are on a promising way to limit its effects and repair the damage wherever possible.

Which brings us already to my comments on your MD.

* I'm glad that you take your time sharing your discoveries you made while modding SC4 or developing plugins; this will surely help several users here if they encounter similar problems. And you've really not been talking to yourself, I'm already aware of this issue and trying to find a way to make sure that I won't catch it too, so I've been reading through your last update.
* You are on a good way of taking on the challenge of creating villages/cities in the style of a time several centuries ago. I liked several of your images much, for example with Swi21's building and the Schiffenberg Monastery. Very good work (both re-lotting and designing), especially considering the limited amount of medieval plugins available for download.
* Your dirt roads and cobblestone roads are also really awesome, especially the FAR roads. Are you planning to share them?
* Your MMP work has also been great (for example your picture with the dirt road leading through a small ash forest close to a swamp); it's really a pity that some of it will be lost.

My only suggestion to improve your MD would be sharing a few pictures from a higher zoom level from time to time (not necessarily regional). From a closer look, much of your work looks fine, it just would be interesting to put the pictures together by seeing them from a higher altitude.

Thanks for the kind words! The cobble stone roads will most definitely be available at some future date, still have to do add quite a bit of network connectivity. Before the pox issue interfered I was actually working on the street intersections. I'll see about images from higher zoom levels. You're right I tend to avoid those as I don't really like the way the farm crops look from afar, and some BATs have LOD/render issues at larger zooms. But I could make a massive mosaic at zoom 4 or 5 and just scale that down, couldn't I? 

Thank you for talking us through your process Vortex, it is an interesting read and I'm glad you shared it

Glad to hear! 

What a pain, but I'm glad it ended up being less work than it could have been.  I'd never considered T21's as a prop pox cause, but it makes sense... just goes to show you have to be careful about what you remove from your plugins.  I also have a small issue with one of my large tiles that is already pretty much built up (not prop pox, thankfully)... the solution involves the 'flora off' cheat, but I'm going to use it at the last possible moment because of the hours spent MMPing the tile.  Long story short, I can feel your pain. 

It was a unpleasant surprise to say the least, and I hadn't considered T21 props as a cause of pox either. Though I'm still not sure what exactly caused the props to become disabled: missing prop exemplars, duplicate prop exemplars with different timing, or perhaps even missing T21 exemplars (though the latter seems unlikely to me). But yeah, it goes to show one has to be careful managing the plugins folder, even when it's quite small and consists of nothing but custom content. Lesson learned. Sorry to hear you'll have to wipe all flora at some point, not a pleasant prospect.

There's nothing more heart-breaking, in the SC4 world, than seeing so much work lost or being constantly frustrated by problems with the game. I feel your pain with this also, I'm having a complete nightmare at the minute with constant crashes, glitches and issues despite my efforts to prevent them. I am pleased to hear though you were able to salvage a lot of work so there is significant consolation in that respect. I wish you well with this and hope you can begin showcasing again.

I'd never considered T21's as a prop pox cause, but it makes sense... just goes to show you have to be careful about what you remove from your plugins.

This has got my brain thinking. I removed the PEG Utopia avenue medians a few weeks ago, after using them for countless years, and reverted to normal medians. Do you think doing this could cause game instability? My apologies for hijacking with this question but I'm just curious.

As said I'm not quite sure what exactly happened - but most likely it involved the (mis)handling of the prop exemplars, not the T21s. If you re-clicked the avenues once the T21 mod was removed (so the default T21 props show up) there shouldn't be an issue. If you want to be sure check the city tile in the SC4Savegame Explorer for disabled props. Then again, prop pox is largely an aesthetics issue and I haven't read anything about it causing other instabilities.

This has got my brain thinking. I removed the PEG Utopia avenue medians a few weeks ago, after using them for countless years, and reverted to normal medians. Do you think doing this could cause game instability? My apologies for hijacking with this question but I'm just curious.

Vortext has a better understanding than me, but I'm guessing that it has more to do with removing the prop files associated with a T21 mod, rather than the T21 mod itself.  Again, vortext can do a much better job explaining the details, so don't take my word for it.

Exactly my thinking indeed. I plan to do some experimentation with the back-up tiles from December 2013, since some already have disabled props, while others I could still see.





So for those wondering: after I redid the streets and zoning in the affected tiles I spend an evening in the main, poxed city and asked myself: 'if, hypothetically speaking, I were to do this tile again, is there anything I'd do different?'

A dangerous question to ask for sure as it unleashed the critical eye. 

That one street there for instance, it doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? And those stretches of meadows didn't quite turn out as I wanted and that MMP-ed pond is actually a major hindrance. And why did I flatten that bit of land over there, it doesn't even match the neighbor tile. . and wait a minute, what if I raised that bit so that. . lemme try that real quick. . oh yeah much better! And what if the walls would then. . oh my yes! 

Long story short: I did in re-start the poxed city from scratch. Even went as far to make a new greyscale for it, combining the latest state of affairs (with bridge approaches etc) with the unhampered version so to get rid of the aforementioned flat land (honestly, no idea why I did that ). I re-did the most important streets last evening and about to rezone the most distinct farm fields. Luckily the residential farm houses, outside the city, are all large & TE-ed lots and therefore very easy to regrow at the exact same location.

The biggest source of regret is that I couldn't replicate the distinct flora pattern the region has at lowest elevation. I know it consists of my inland controller with oak forests. However, the latter were inherited from a previous iteration of the region, when I used a different terrain controller & flora patch. The combined result was the oaks were dotted throughout and the additional Inland trees nicely intermingled later on, like so.



Alas, no luck recreating it. On the flip side, I did find a nice little flora brush hidden in what I thought was a nulled and outdated tree controller, so now the oak forest has some undergrowth with ashes, berries and flowers.


yay sheeps!

So, with the most important routes and zoning nearly recreated and a bunch of new ideas to improve the city things are looking up. I'll leave you with a little teaser of what's to come. 

[carlfatal]

I did read the whole part about your pox problems, sorry to hear. But good to see you playing again.
I love the shot with the oaks. Maybe the sheep is a wild one? There must have been sheeps around before mankind, some much more dangerous ones... 

And the picture of the town is stunning. What BATs do you use there? I´ve never seen them before. And looking at them makes me thinking about a new attempt for a better lot set, than I did years ago (and never finished). 

And completely offtopic: Often I´ve learned a little bit while reading your MD, and although I am no great modder, it widened my understanding of SC4. Currently I am detecting the possibilities of your team based historic harbour (the best puzzle ever, thanks to you, Simcoug, and KrashSpeed a lot for  ). My question is: How can I change the texture on the prop, that simulates the wooden base of a dock? Maybe to have railtracks at the quai? I´ve made some new fillers for this set, while playing my current region, and now I would like to know more... 

Keep it on! 

[vortext]

Yeah in hindsight I may have overreacted a bit out of frustration, I did see the view count go up after all. Anyway, glad you liked the pic, it's the first one out of the new tile!

The BATs you see are by Xannepan / JENX which he sent me with the intention to make a medieval lot set - which I'm obviously still working on. However, seeing he has moved on to Cities and numerous models have rendering errors I'm not sure if they'll ever be made public.

About the Historic Harbor project: we had plans for both your ideas (alternative base and rail addon) and much, much more. Unfortunately Krashspeed went MIA shortly after release, almost a year ago now, and he hasn't been online since. 

Given Krashspeed did all the BATting the project has slipped into extended hiatus, though we still have access to Krashspeed's dropbox which contains some unreleased materials. However, other projects came on our respective paths so it's still sitting there to this very day.

Now, as for the dock base, even though I made the initial texture, they're actually executed as props. So in order to change appearance, you'd have to make a number of props to replace them. Since they're flat models it shouldn't be too hard. I even thought about making a replacement set myself as I would actually like to have a more weathered look, and it would be a nice, relative simple way to get familiar with BATting. If you or someone else decides to make a dock base variant I'd be happy to assist!

At any rate, glad to hear you're enjoying the set!

[mgb204]

Figured I should chip in too, perhaps a bit late but if indeed the pox has come to your cities that would be very sad. By the sounds of things it seems you've not lost a large amount of stuff in the process - it's hard to imagine how you'd feel loosing a region like this, one can only guess at the countless hours of toil behind its creation.

Everything I read about the pox wouldn't suggest T21's could be the cause, if you made changes to the RTK settings of prop exemplars used in T21s then maybe it's possible, or perhaps with the nightimestate change theory that's recently been proposed also. But simply removing the props and saving the tile, whilst that's really bad practise - don't berate yourself, I get into much trouble with all the modding I do making a mess of cities from time to time - I didn't think it could cause the pox?

Anyhow, hopefully you can get everything back on it's feet, about 2/3rds of the time I suffer loss due to CTD's, I find I'm happier with the second attempt so it's not always a negative.

[manga rivotra]

"Prop pox" is a nightmare that I had the misfortune to know several time ( like a lot of people i suppose ) without other solution than to use my hundred save game  . In these cases there, it is very difficult to not give up. So, I am very happy that you have find a way to continue this great MD and thanks to amaze us again

[bombardiere]

Sad to hear about the prop pox. It is a fear that it lurking out there.

The BATs you see are by Xannepan / JENX which he sent me with the intention to make a medieval lot set - which I'm obviously still working on. However, seeing he has moved on to Cities and numerous models have rendering errors I'm not sure if they'll ever be made public.

Shame. These medieval half timber houses look superb. And in to style of what I am currently working with. What kind of rendering errors these have? The buildings looks squashed in certain zooms and orientations? It has happen to me too. Especially when I had a brief test with 3ds Max. I have read a post that it may be fixed with iLive reader, but I haven't tested it.

About the Historic Harbor project: we had plans for both your ideas (alternative base and rail addon) and much, much more. Unfortunately Krashspeed went MIA shortly after release, almost a year ago now, and he hasn't been online since. 

Another shame. I really liked this project. Very much into what I like in SC4. I don't have Krashspeed's skill level, so sadly I can't pick it up.

[noahclem]

I almost described those beautiful pictures as "unreal", meant as a compliment, but I think they'd be better described as "amazingly real"   Stunning work which again showcases your attention to detail and prowess with textures. Glad you seem to have resolved your pox issues (yay for backups!). I'll have to read back through to pick up all the details and anything else I've missed but wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed the update first

[Vizoria]

What a lovely medieval town, while the custom tree controller is pretty amazing spawning grass and flowers around the trees. Also I am glad you have resolved most of the prop pox in your older city tiles.

[Pat]

Vortex I read the whole thing on Prop pox and I learned a lot (bad pun) ;-) anyways thank god for a backup, I know i was happy I stored a backup of my cities to my XHD cause back in april of this year my puter had a meltdown and got wiped and nothing from SC4 was salvaged by the repair man ugh....

[feyss]

This game is so cruel. You spend hours and hours trying to make something good looking and it ruins everything in less than one second for no apparent reason.


Great pictures though. It just looks like another video game. I can't wait to see more 

[romualdillo]

I'm glad you could recover most of the city tiles!!! I'm looking forward to seeing more of the new and improved city!!!

[carlfatal]

Thank you for the speedy answers, Eric! 

One thing is, that I really understand, why Alex decided to leave us and join the C:SL community, I tried the game and was totally impressed by alone the vanilla version. And although I know his decision, I would think, he never would be angry, if you would ask him to repair the BATs. I mean, these are damn great models, and they would give a lot of opportunities to create old town centers. And also I am sure, that I am not the only one, who would like to build with them.

To the harbor: I hope, Krashspeed is fine, - I mean, this sounds strange, if someone vanishes without a word. 
Making BATs by myself - well I only have a netbook, and I don´t try to install the BAT here. I am still happy, that I can play SC4 and use all the tools like the reader or the PIM. The only thing I know, is how to create lots - and now I try to "play" SC4 the first time with fun. 
But I really would like to know, how to make textures, mostly cause I am totally a railroad freak, and realistic rail properties still are, what I miss in SC4, although I see mgb´s work on the RRW.

But I am not here to talk about all this OT stuff. I am eager to see more pictures of Aerden!