Well it's been quite a year or so for me with SC4, from very simple beginnings with some lots I'm starting to get a handle on how everything works under the hood. One of the things that attracted me to modding in the first place was unifying my game textures together, I wanted to be able to switch sidewalks on the fly without loosing the uniform textures that the Maxis ones have. As a result of both my SEN (sidewalk) and TGN (grass) mods I got talking to Ron (Rivit) and those discussions have led to the developments I wish to share here.
Before I even got far with SEN development last summer, I already knew a simple Sandstone replacement wouldn't cut it, I wasn't looking to make a Sandstone mod, but my work on it would lead to a way to create a mod for any given sidewalk. Whilst my efforts in this regard held much promise, a better solution was proposed by Ron, one that would pretty much automate the entire process. In essence instead of a single-colour alpha, by utilising multi-colour alphas it's possible to replace both sidewalks and grass (and/or transparency) based on the colours used within the alphas. Here is an example to illustrate what I'm talking about:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4146/35604825166_3c4dc19e2c_o.jpg)
This texture is from the Turbo Roundabouts, White areas (RGB 255,255,255) denote where parts of the original texture will be kept, whilst Green (RGB 0,255,0) denotes the sidewalk, Cyan (RGB 0,255,255) for grass and Black (RGB 0,0,0) for Transparency. Here's how this works in practise:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4017/35604825076_b19e45e22c_o.jpg)
To process them requires a custom in-development version of GoFSH which Rivit designed for this purpose, my part in all this has been in trying to create a complete NAM repository, partially so I can make custom sidewalks in no time, but also with the intent of uploading it for others to make use of. Here I've used Paeng's sidewalks and SV grass, but you can process any sidewalk or grass you wish this way.
Due to the differences in NAM textures, this process had to be robust enough to interpret different types of texture wealthing, so for example the green channel was used for these puzzle-based textures. However, for regular wealthed textures by simply switching to another RGB colour channel (i.e. using different colours for the Alphas), it's possible to do more than simply replace sidewalks and grass, it's possible to generate automatically all the wealth textures based on nothing more than a modified alpha. The additional benifit of simple customisation of grass/sidewalk (or the possibility of releasing such sets for users to customise themselves) is one huge additional benefit in respect of texture creation. Here's an example of a suitable texture from Rivit's TSR files:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4125/35514084371_9ca9a55a62_o.jpg)
This time using Blue to Denote where Grass appears for wealth 1-3 and optionally sidewalk for wealth 5-7, note, the final textures use the Alphas for transparency to avoid texture bleeding hence the sidewalks. All this is created from a single texture/alpha, in this case you can simply take the regular 0-wealth alpha and add the blue parts for the grass. Naturally the final textures will incorporate all wealth grasses and sidewalks as required, although it's possible to make a unified set by adjusting the textures used by GoFSH to a single-wealth. This whole system is exceedingly flexible and for the most part can be adapted to fit a creators requirements for how the wealth textures should appear. I have to admit that whilst I've a good overview of how to put this into practise, some of the theory alludes me still, I'm really more of a technical guy and image editing is something I've had to learn from the ground up, it doesn't exactly come naturally. The point being, hopefully Ron will jump in here and explain the more precise details of how the different RGB channels work to build up the necessary alphas/textures, because I won't be able to explain it in more depth.
Using this technique, the EU Alphas work just fine for the US textures so long as the networks geometry is consistent, for the most part this requires no additional work to create US or EU versions. Similarly when I made these Alphas for the TuLEPs, I only had to modify a small number to fully support all the EU TuLEP variants.
Right now I've completed the TuLEPs, Turbo Roundabouts, FLUPs and some other pieces. I will expand this to hopefully include every texture with a baked-in sidewalk in a repository. I don't plan to do this right now for the other NAM networks, even though the process is simple in practise, when you start dealing with 1000's of textures, there is a limit to where I want to set my goals here. However, the grass can already be automated for replacement on other networks if you are determined enough, with the addition of sidewalks it does open the possibilities up for users to seriously consider such modding without taking weeks or months to achieve. In this sense I want to personally thank Ron for creating the tools to make something that I've wanted to realise since those beginnings.
Great discovery :thumbsup:
From my understanding the turbo roundabouts are puzzle pieces so this is great for dealing with those situations.
kudos and +1 for your discovery.
I think Mandelsoft had a repository of all the road textures so you may be able to get the textures from there.
This will be great for alternative sidewalks due to the wealth which will give much variety
-eggman121
Wow, great work with this &apls Automating the process of generating variations of the wealthification would be hugely valuable and I'd have loved to have something like this to easily keep track of the grassy areas when I did the tram and other textures with grassy areas that I've already done. It's of extra importance to me since, like you, I used an SV-based texture for my grass without different shades for wealth and I've recently switched to a custom texture from Vortext for grass after he noticed tiling effects which were exacerbated be me scaling the texture down to reduce the size of the blades of grass or whatever those details are exactly. In case his change is of interest to you with your textures here's my modified SV compared to Vortext's with subtle shading around the edges for depth:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FgUOnZxJm.jpg&hash=d3b478c924c8105e60bb4eb58a373fc39bc5ee1b) (http://imgur.com/gUOnZxJ)(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F78EYoSAm.png&hash=b1e56ad8ca76d075c89e1ea8b264a1938e67443e) (http://imgur.com/78EYoSA)
I've not been looking forward to going in and redoing the grass, to say the least, but it will be much nicer to do if I'm at least adding the ability to easily make them compatible with other wealth/grass systems :)
Wow indeed, this seems very promising developments!! &apls
So, if I understand correctly, it would be quite simple to render a full wealth & zone dependent texture set, i.e. 7 unique combinations of grass and sidewalk?
Do the multi-color alphas handle transparency? Hope so because I like noisy gradients and the like. ;D
Anyway, think I'll hold of making alphas for the cobble stone roads just a bit to see how this pans out. :thumbsup:
When I say create a repository, one of the problems with Marteen's is the lack of Euro Texture support, but what I'm doing is a little differently focussed. I'm planning to include the full required Alpha Set and NAM textures complete with scripts for auto-generation in GoFSH. In theory you'd download the repository and GoFSH, then you simply need to follow a few instructions to generate your own custom set. All you need are three sidewalk/grass wealth textures, ideally with colour-corrected darkened variants. These textures will then be incorporated into a series of DATs ready to place in your plugins folder. In the first instance this should cover only those NAM pieces with baked-in sidewalks, since I've mapped that out with my SEN mod, much still unreleased which will be included once I've finished converting my personal repository to this new system.
That leaves a whole that my TGN mod currently fills for three grass variants, hopefully in future support can be extended. Making the Alphas is pretty easy, in some cases it appears automation will be possible too, ideally at some point I'm hoping others will contribute, but better still I'd love to see this adopted during texture development, that way such changes are made easy. From a development standpoint, it's actually less work overall with huge benefits in terms of flexibility. For example if you were testing different grass types, you could automate generation of different sets by changing a single grass texture GoFSH references.
@noahclem, taking that Tram Roundabout as an example, the changes to the edges are not something such an automated tool can handle. It simply takes a grass texture and applies it as a layer, so each separate texture would have the same grass pattern.
@vortext, Indeed, although it assumes that wealths 1-3 and 4-6 will keep grass/sidewalk in the same configuration, otherwise it generates the various $, $$ and $$$ variants for you from just the 0 wealth and one alpha texture, gradients are indeed possible too.
I actually do have a full repository with all Euro Textures I made so far:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Tb6LVuRM4Qa1NBODY2aURTaTg/view?usp=sharing
(Warning: this file is 480MB!)
Best,
Maarten
This really is a great idea by Ron. :thumbsup:
My concern is keeping your repository up-to-date. If something in the NAM changes, it will be really hard to update your complete repository with all those changes. It's a similar problem the Euro textures already have to fight. I am not entirely sure how your process of creating the repository works, but, assuming there are simple rules for creating the multi-color alphas, automating this entire process might be worth considering, perhaps?
Part of the reason for keeping it quite focussed right now to the baked-in sidewalk pieces, they don't change too much from version to version. OK take NAM 32 for example and you'd have to add El-Train over Ave/RD-4, Turbo Roundabouts and Draggable Road Viaducts. The Turbo Roundabout file took around 3 hours, the others are much smaller and only 10-15m jobs. I think this approach is manageable, in any case it's a mirror of something I will be doing anyway given my desire for uniformity. When you try to expand this to every NAM texture, that's a whole new kettle of fish I'm all too familiar with, I also don't think that would be easy to keep on top of.
From my initial testing though, regular network textures seem quite automatable, for example I did the whole Bikepath set without making a single alpha. The problem with automating puzzle pieces is that there are no wealth textures to build the new Alphas from, so these pieces will remain a manual job. From my work on TGN, with the exception of RHW, in theory at least, the automation should be able to cover all the non-pp textures.
Probably a good moment to chime in (sorry Robin I was a bit slow) - hereunder a summary diagram of the Wealthing and Edit Auto processes now supported in GoFSH (I'm still writing the documentation). This is worthy of study if only to let the principle sink in - if you can easily think in RGB channels this is a doddle, otherwise you need to take the colour approach to understanding how it works.
GoFSH now has a scripting capability - in effect you can tell GoFSH how to construct an entire modd as far as the textures are concerned. My last TSR modd took 15min to assemble from its C,D files. Robin made his variant of it from the masters and its scripts without touching the files - he supplied his grass and paving textures.
In working my recent TSR, and with other sets Robin and I have tried out, we've seen a space saving of about 60% making the colour and definition (C,D) bitmaps which zip to about the same size as the output .dats that will be used in game. Most of the effort saving is in the edit process, 2 maps per texture to get up to 40 mips saves a lot of work. Being able to modify "fixed textures" instead of manually editing them is a real advance too.
When we thought about how this could work at large scale, we concluded that a certain discipline would need to be introduced in the repository - someone would probably have to be the Keeper of the Textures (one who issues the ids, and locks the door), a register of used textures (texture sets) would be needed (I'm not aware that one exists), as also a check in/out process for the repository. This isn't really any different than what is needed for any sub-project of NAM today when thinking about how a project, and then its .dats comes together. It does require everyone to buy in to have any chance of success.
Once made, textures don't change very much - they are made, fixes applied and then they only see large scale revision, if at all. If a master repository exists then derived works (i.e. special grass/paving variants) can always be keyed back to the masters - which need to be stored at high colour resolution given how the .fsh process is lossy. Maarten's US/EU road repositories are probably the best place to start - there are almost certainly others with NAM Masters too. The repository could be the public master copy and should become the basis for derivative works.
However, right now I see all of this as fodder for thought and discussion - it wont come about overnight, and in any case, I think more people should try out the tools and methods to see what else we have missed. The product is reasonably stable, is being tested all the time but isn't finished. Also there's NAM33 to get out of the door...
Questions are welcome anytime.
Progress continues on the main repository, in the meantime I've put together a small preview for the RTMT textures so people can see how this all works. You can find this small repository here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a-xam4s-dBbuvCPubtVa8XvBwK1vlU1w/view?usp=sharing), note that the in-development version of GoFSH is required to utilise this which can be found here. You can download GoFSH on the STEX (http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/23407-gofsh-fsh-texture-editor/), you need the latest version (May 16) or newer for the scripting capability.
I've cobbled together some basic instructions for how to do this, although the process is quite intuitive, expect more detailed documentation with the final product.
:update:
- Link to release version of GoFSH now included.
- Updated link.
I have a few requests:
1. Proper handling of wealth 7 textures. As it stands, 0 and 7 (and in most cases, 4-6) are all sharing the same exact thing. I've had an idea of integrating proper wealth 7 textures by making them work the same way as 1-3 wealth textures: dirt sidewalks.
As it stands, integrating that feature, as far as I can tell, may entail commandeering one of the colour channels for wealth 7 and adding another separate alpha for wealth 0.
2. This goes hand in hand with wealth 7 textures: selectively choosing which wealth textures to generate via checkboxes; IE, one for wealth 0 by itself, one for wealth 1-3, another for wealth 4-6, and one for wealth 7. That way, one could choose to generate wealth 0 and wealth 7 only, or any other combination of the four.
Quote from: GDO29Anagram on May 16, 2015, 08:27:44 PM
I have a few requests:
1. Proper handling of wealth 7 textures. As it stands, 0 and 7 (and in most cases, 4-6) are all sharing the same exact thing. I've had an idea of integrating proper wealth 7 textures by making them work the same way as 1-3 wealth textures: dirt sidewalks.
As it stands, integrating that feature, as far as I can tell, may entail commandeering one of the colour channels for wealth 7 and adding another separate alpha for wealth 0.
Just off the top of my head (Ron would be able to give you a better answer), this is difficult to achieve, certain exceptions to the general accepted rules of wealth have to use workarounds to process correctly. Ultimately such automation must work by making certain assumptions, however sufficient options exist to have enough flexibility to work around such issues, here's an example of that in action:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4287/35604824866_f6116773ac_o.jpg)
So here is a regular SAM1 texture (C0) and the definition (D0) (blue will be grass for 1-3, black is sidewalk). However, this will assume the 0 Wealth is blank with no grass (as is typical), but for SAM1 all the 0 wealth textures should have full grass instead. The Additional D0 was generated by simply removing both the Green and Blue channels from the original D0, this can be bulk automated with Batch in Photoshop for a set of Alphas (I guess similar automation exists in other programs too). I simply generate the usual 0-3 textures with the first D0, then overwrite just the 0 Wealth textures (in the same script, running later) with the new textures generated with the Additional D0's.
Quote2. This goes hand in hand with wealth 7 textures: selectively choosing which wealth textures to generate via checkboxes; IE, one for wealth 0 by itself, one for wealth 1-3, another for wealth 4-6, and one for wealth 7. That way, one could choose to generate wealth 0 and wealth 7 only, or any other combination of the four.
I believe the scripting system has sufficient flexibility to do this right now, but so long as you are comfortable with files/folders again it's possible to have as much control as most users would need. Automation will always have some limitations ultimately, I've been striving to find a solution to this for a year, I had done pretty well, but my systems had two flaws, one relying on having a "blank" template texture to automate adding the sidewalk layer and secondly having photoshop to process them.
I'm very excited at the developments Ron has managed to realise here, right now I don't know of a quicker way to do this. GoFSH is the Swiss Army Knife of texturing now, oddly though it seems to have been overlooked by many, I wish I'd known about it a year ago when almost every forum post pointed me towards using PNGs and certain other tools. One of the key benefits of GoFSH is the quality of the finished textures, great efforts were made to keep everything at the highest quality whilst keeping file sizes efficient.
Ganaram, thank you for your feedback -
both of the items you mention are possible but will have to go on the todo for now.
1. The wealth 7 texture has not been tackled except in theory at the moment. Right now its the same as Wealth 0 but can be filled with a different dirt. Because this is not a common requirement as yet I had contemplated adding an ALPHA (real one) to the D0 explicitly for this (applying the same rules as the other components) when the need arose. Doing this will affect the display of such textures. I have used special alphas to make rural textures but have done these as a separate run with common C0 and A0. An exception thus.
2. Same goes for the 0,1-3,4-6, 7 choices. They're not usually separates so this is why the options evolved as 1-3,1-6 and 1-7. All quite possible and will only be implemented in Scripts (which are the way to use the C,D methods)
Ron
After 3 months of hard work, I am finally getting ridiculously close to finishing the automated sidewalk repository for the NAM. I've checked every piece that can be plopped and dragged and am pretty confident that if a texture currently exists with baked-in sidewalks, it can be taken care of.
Over 2000 replacement textures take about 10-12m to process, when finished you will find your sidewalks and grass on the following networks:
- Pedmalls
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4262/34802480264_c96b1db677_o.jpg)
- MHW Interchanges
- FLUPs
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4259/35643864155_8173ecc076_o.jpg)
- RHW Interchanges
- TuLEPs (choose from one of 6 TuLEP variants)
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4128/35643862405_14992cf3e6_o.jpg)
- Viaduct Rail
- Draggable Road Viaducts
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4229/34834874863_c6cf579a8f_o.jpg)
- URail
- Turbo Roundabouts
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4121/35604287456_3f42f5e18c_o.jpg)
- El-Rail over Road, Ave and RD-4 Networks
- Complete unified GLR set - that's GLR Drag & Puzzle, Rural GLR, TiA, TiR, ToR, TiS and even the extended dragable GLR too.
- RTMT / NAM station textures
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4040/34834872923_77517ee474_o.jpg)
- Other misc. textures.
Options to generate a set for either US or EU textures, both with either LHD or RHD support and options to cover Maxis, Peg 205 and RRW crossings exist (Note: rail crossing support is Maxis only for GLR).
To make your own set set is very simple, download my resources (200MB+, zips nicely to 20MB though) and a copy of GoFSH (needed to process them). Add your custom textures to GoFSH (it can handle multiple sets if desired), then simply point the program at one of my included scripts and click Run. When finished, just copy the newly generated folder containing your custom mod into your plugins directory. I will include step-by-step instructions for finding/copying any existing textures from your game for this purpose, absolutely no modding experience is required, everybody can have a custom NAM if they want it.
Here are some more examples of those textures in action, here I've used a custom sidewalk from a texture by GTC and Terrain matching grass:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4258/34802484244_f64ab6ba3e_o.jpg)
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4213/35256932760_70dddd7e03_o.jpg)
This is a tiny fraction of the whole that I'm able to show off here, a few textures fixes and finalising the documentation is all that's left to do right now. If you've one of my TGN mods installed, combined with the final output you should have a complete set of NAM textures (excluding RHW) that match your grass in addition to whatever custom sidewalks you might be using.
This. Is. Awesome! I can't wait for you to release this. :popcorn:
Making a modding tutorial is hard enough but a package that helps us do it all ourselves? Priceless. :thumbsup:
Can someone send him a K-point?
Quote from: APSMS on June 21, 2015, 07:23:03 PM
Can someone send him a K-point?
Done :thumbsup:
Again great work mgb ;D
-eggman121
And for anyone eager to get their hands on it early, here's (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mc1hZhabuou_zSqwEUFe20X-pnDMGN0m/view?usp=sharing) a preview release.
Currently the documentation is complete, but needs some work. Some texture issues may exist, but it's 99% there I'm certain.
:Edit:
- And the first derp appears... the developer-intended script "BuildAll" contains errors, please replace it with the attached version. The regular scripts are all fine.
- Updated Version contains fixed script (Oct 20). No changes, I just needed a new link since I moved the file.
Congratulations on getting all this to the point of release! Looks great and is a huge achievement &apls
Looks like I'll be saying goodbye the the Japanese FaceLift mod very soon :crytissue:. Great work so far! &apls
Quote from: trabman11 on August 06, 2015, 04:11:35 PM
Looks like I'll be saying goodbye the the Japanese FaceLift mod very soon :crytissue:. Great work so far! &apls
Don't throw it all away just yet... from the beginning I've been using this mod, so most of the work I do compliments it rather than replacing it's functionality. This automation will not cover the original Ploppable viaducts for example, eventually those may be relegated to legacy support in the NAM when the draggable replacements are better supported. I've also yet to work on the WRC/FAR pieces, for much the same reasons, since the draggable versions simply don't require a mod for sidewalks, it seemed redundant. Once I get to the point of official release I will document which components of the Jap NAM FL you might still require in more detail, but by and large it does make a lot of it unnecessary.
Mgb love what you are doing here with the wealth of the textures for Sidewalks and grass!!! I would slap ya with a K-Point if I could :thumbsup:
Fantastic work! ;D
This is a great project and a big step forward for everyone.
I downloaded GoFSH and your repository today and gave it a go just now. I use Sudden Valley, Gobias' Sidewalk Mod and NAM 33 Preview.
Extracting the *.bmp was no problem, but running the US_RHD script immediately returned an error.
Fatal Errors encountered - Missing D0? with EDIT, ending RUN
Shortly after thtat message, GoFSH stops working with the following error message:
Description:
Stopped working
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: gofsh.exe
Problem Signature 02: 2.8.5.38468
Problem Signature 03: 557ff8ee
Problem Signature 04: System.Drawing
Problem Signature 05: 2.0.0.0
Problem Signature 06: 55962b8e
Problem Signature 07: 198
Problem Signature 08: 16
Problem Signature 09: System.ArgumentException
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2057
I probably made some mistake somewhere, I'll keep you updated :)
The error tells me that it's not been able to find the D0's (Definition Alphas) which are required for generation.
The most likely cause of the error, you've moved files/folders after extracting the zip file or altered them in some way. For the scripts to work everything must be extracted exactly as contained within the zip files. Simply moving one of the scripts or texture folders will cause this error, it must be keep as is, as one whole to work. Unless you want to modify the scripts to account for changes at least.
I downloaded the package again to be sure, and I ignored the options this time. But the error remains the same.
Through google I found some tips to check .NET for errors, but they didn't help yet.
I suspect some changes I made to my Win7 installation, maybe I'll try to reinstall Windows tonight. Was planned for quite some time anyway.
I'll report any changes :)
One thing that might cause you problems is admin privileges, depending on where you've installed the files. I'd make a temp folder in your user documents for extracting the archive, that should be pretty safe. Ensure you've administrator access to your machine also.
-Update-
I'll double check the installer if you still have problems. I've moved on so far from the original pre-release that I'd probably have to download it myself to be sure of the results.
Just checking the downloaded package now. Under Win7 64 with full Admin rights I can run the US_RHD script from My Documents\Temp\ without error to completion.
GoFSH should not install without the correct version of .NET installed. For help with GoFSH you'll need to speak to Rivit since that's his baby. That said I'm pretty sure that's not the problem here. The error tells me it can't find some of the included textures, since they do exist, your computer or GoFSH is not able to access them at the expected location for whatever reason? Hence I'm thinking Admin rights if you are sure you've not moved or altered anything in the folder "MGB Sidewalk NAM Public Repository".
To be clear the folder/file structure is very specific within this folder. Simply removing/renaming anything can break the script entirely.
I've just heard another user with a similar problem. I checked the link to GoFSH and there are multiple versions available for download. The scripts were written for 2.8.5, I ran the testing on my latest build 2.8.8.1283. I couldn't say with certainty if the scripts would work with newer versions. Too much has changed and my files are very different now. Therefore if you've a newer version than 2.8.5 installed, I'd try uninstalling it and using 2.8.5 for the moment.
Otherwise I'm looking into the problem, I'll report back if I can replicate the issue.
:Update:
In the other case the problem was the use of 512x512 textures. Per-chance are you trying to use Gobias' HD sidewalk textures to generate your set? If so, either re-scale the textures to 128x128 or find the SD textures (also included for each set) and use those instead for generation.
A terrific mod...
Worked beautifully right out of the box.
I was able to edit the alphas that you enclosed and run the script to create my own no-grass mod.
Thanks for the work.
Actually I've been moving my Terrain Grass NAM repository to work with the newer automation method used for the Sidewalk textures. I can switch between two sets of Definition Alphas on the fly that changes the generated results from grass to show full sidewalks on all the NAM textures.
This is based on TGN, for which I tried to track down all the regular grass textures and change, so it should be up to date with NAM 33.
The current pre-release of my No Grass NAM (NGN) mod can be downloaded here (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwm0CI4NsrdaTlY1VUNEMXNQdU0). It's pretty much finished, although you might find a couple texture problems. Feedback on any problem textures would be helpful to ensure a better quality final release.
I was just thinking the other day that I'd start a thread asking if there were a mod like this somewhere, and now here it is :D The moderators must say if this is correct and proper and all of that, but to my mind your continuous work on everything sidewalk-related really deserves another K-point
&apls
Hello guys,
I'm writing here because I want to know more about this... I really want to adapt my sidewalk textures to the rest of NAM pieces, specially with the GLR but I have a lot of questions... How can I do it ? One of the links is broken...
can somebody help me with this ? I'm using the last version of NAM.
Thanks and Greetings
Which Link is that?
Probably the one to GoFSH, sorry it keeps changing I have a hard time keeping up with it. Although I sense we're nearing a proper release for that soon :).
For now, you can find that here (https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=a1d4fa46b2686f98&id=A1D4FA46B2686F98%216554&Bsrc=Share&Bpub=SDX.SkyDrive&sc=Documents&authkey=!AoHxt74IBFblVZc). If you are having other problems, let me know and I'll help you however I can.
Update:
Release version of GoFSH (http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/23407-gofsh-fsh-texture-editor/) with scripting capability is now on the STEX.
Hello and Thanks for the quick reply.
Actually I'm not sure what I have to do, I've try to read the readme but I'm not sure what I have to do, where I have to start, etc...
Few months ago I've created my own sidewalk mod, it works very good in my asian cities but It does not affect the GLR and intersections and I would like to change that because I would like to make something that I have on my mind...
Is there another way ? or the only way is using GoFSH ? I never use that programa and I have no idea how it works...
Thanks for your time and Greetings :thumbsup:
Well it really depends on a number of factors.
The preview of the automated sidewalk mod covers everything. However, it splits the output into a number of DATs, so you can only use those pieces you require.
GoFSH's scripting capability is key to the process. Rather than manually extracting and editing each texture. Simply download my repository, install GoFSH and run the included script from my repository in GoFSH. Out comes a mod containing your sidewalks on all the NAM pieces. Step by Step instructions are included for running the scripts. If there is a step you are stuck with, post here and I'll walk you through it.
I tried again but I'm not able to do it... I just don't understand the way to do this and I starting to feel stupid %confuso ... I think I will wait until the final version is available... in any case I will give you the link of a sidewalk mod that I found yesterday...
http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3327
Is it possible for you use this sidewalk "Catalysts Asphalt Sidewalk Extension Mod" and your mod and then send me the files via email for example ?
Sorry for the inconvenience ;)
The final version won't be any different. The process is as simplified as we can make it. The hardest part is probably extracting the sidewalk textures. But GoFSH makes that very simple. That's not completely documented, since the feature was not around when I wrote the readme.
However, I know too well many prefer "Ready to Use" mods. As such I will release a few sidewalk variants with an installer for such purposes. As it happens, Catalyst has already agreed for his sidewalk mod to be one of the supported ones. I can do one better, since I already made a preview for Catalyst's mod. I believe it's only in EU RHD guise right now, but you can find that here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwm0CI4NsrdaUzBaTlNkekFGUXc/view?usp=sharing).
Hopefully I will be able to get other sidewalk creators on-board with this too.
Thank you so much ! It works good with that sidewalk mod.
I don't know why, I mean I never had problems with the programs of simcity world, but yesterday I was trying to make this and I was not able, today I took with more patience and the result was the same... may a tutorial with pictures could help ? If you have time you can try :D
I think this mod is a very nice addition for the game, I always wanted to use the GLR system but those maxis textures...
now we can have the mod with our own textures... I hope in the future I'm able to create the files for my Asian cities with my concrecete sidewalk texture...
Thanks again for your help, really thanks !
Such a readme with pictures does exist. It goes into everything step by step, check the folder "~Readme" in the extracted repository it should all be there.
Is there a Way to give the ugly default Maxis GLR Textures Custom ones like in your old MBG SEN?
Btw really nice Tool, now i can change my Textures within 10 Minutes :thumbsup:
Quote from: Mikey Knox on October 30, 2016, 04:15:13 PM
Is there a Way to give the ugly default Maxis GLR Textures Custom ones like in your old MBG SEN?
Btw really nice Tool, now i can change my Textures within 10 Minutes :thumbsup:
There are potential issues with releasing those in their raw form. As such until now I have refrained from doing so.
GLR is by far and away the largest single element of the mod, over 50% of the textures overall if I remember correctly. Therefore I have yet to come up with a better alternative to using the default Maxis middle textures with sidewalks on the edges.
Yesterday night I followed all the instructions (excellent instructions by the way!) for replacing NAM sidewalk textures with Paeng's sandstone sidewalk texture. After fifteen minutes or so gofsh had done its job and I opened the game, anxious to see if I had got the desired results. Regrettably I had not. NAM curves of streets, roads, avenues, rail (RRW), and GLR had no sidewalks at all.
Today I realised I was applying this to NAM 35, while your repository is probably built for 34. Is that correct? Is a method of applying this to NAM 35 coming up any time soon?
Cheers
/N
Do you mean this?
http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/29775-mgb-sandstone-euro-nam/
Quote from: Ernestmaxis on March 24, 2017, 04:57:48 AM
Do you mean this?
http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/29775-mgb-sandstone-euro-nam/
Are you sure that works with the latest NAM? It was last updated in 2014, i.e. before the latest version of NAM was released. Before I tried going down the GOFSH route, I tried MGB's TGN and NGN mods. None of those worked, since they are prior to NAM 34 even.
/ N
I dont know but you can give it a try.
I'm afraid that's not going to work. Otherwise mgb wouldn't have started this thread and wouldn't be working on an SWN mod. Thanks for your help nonetheless.
Quote from: nattemorris on March 24, 2017, 07:19:36 AM
I'm afraid that's not going to work. Otherwise mgb wouldn't have started this thread and wouldn't be working on an SWN mod. Thanks for your help nonetheless.
No, Ernestmaxis is right. You can use either mod, they are identical for the most part. You see whilst SEN was designed only to work with Paeng's Sandstone sidewalks, I ensured during its creation I had all the bits needed to make it for other sidewalks too. Then Rivit came along and made GoFSH's automation and all the pieces were in place to offer a user-friendly solution for others to make custom variants themselves. But the two mods are created from near-identical sets of textures.
The only downside with using the SEN mod over the automated version is that it's only for EU texture users and a little out of date. But it still works and the additions from that to the automated version are practically non existent. So I'd use SEN for now unless you are using US textures or want another sidewalk. When the final SWN mod is finished, that will have some major changes, but that's not publicly available since I'm working on it right now.
Just a little info about how mods work, making something for NAM34 doesn't mean it won't work with NAM35. Such mods simply don't work this way. These are texture overrides, so unless the NAM texture IDs change (which pretty much never happens), it doesn't matter how long ago the mods were created. In practise all that occurs is that some new textures may not correctly display. Since NAM33 there have been 3 new textures with baked-in sidewalks.
The imperative thing with either mod is ensuring it correctly loads after the NAM, specifically the z___NAM folder. Long and short place either mods folder into a folder named z____MGB Mods to ensure this happens correctly. If you are having problems, most likely you didn't copy the output (the automated files don't install automatically) or you changed the default folder name.
I've had some time to work on SWN, what with two 12-hour train journeys this week. I'm hoping to be able to release that shortly at which point the fist major update for the Automated repository will happen. But the changes are so huge it's taking a very long time to put everything together.
Quote from: mgb204 on March 24, 2017, 08:33:23 AM
No, Ernestmaxis is right. You can use either mod, they are identical for the most part.
Brilliant!
Quote from: mgb204 on March 24, 2017, 08:33:23 AM
but that's not publicly available since I'm working on it right now.
I'm glad you're still working on it.
Quote from: mgb204 on March 24, 2017, 08:33:23 AM
The imperative thing with either mod is ensuring it correctly loads after the NAM, specifically the z___NAM folder.
In previous attempts I had done just this, but after doing the GOFSH thing I forgot. So I tried, and it worked! With a couple of caveats...
Only dragged NAM curves get the desired sidewalk texture, while plopped NAM curves don't. But maybe that's a feature and not a bug, so to speak.
At any rate, I at least partially managed to get the desired result, which I am very, very grateful for. Thanks a million!
Cheers / N
The older plopped curves that exist as conventional static puzzle pieces can't support proper wealth textures, unlike the newer FLEX and draggable curves. Most of them are considered deprecated or soon-to-be-deprecated.
-Alex
Quote from: nattemorris on March 27, 2017, 12:41:00 AM
Only dragged NAM curves get the desired sidewalk texture, while plopped NAM curves don't. But maybe that's a feature and not a bug, so to speak.
Not really either a feature/bug, since my mod has never supported such old legacy pieces. The main reason being that a better solution exists as part of
this existing mod (http://community.simtropolis.com/omnibus/simcity-4/tutorials/instalation-and-configuration-of-the-japanese-nam-facelift-mod-r283/). For the most part these legacy pieces are really out of date too as Tarkus states. Although until the OWR and AVE pieces get Flex replacements I know they are widely used. But for any road curves, you are better off learning the new drag patterns. If you are not familiar with those, take a look at
this video tutorial on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RIC8atOrC4) which will explain it all. :D