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Can I make a CAM fork?

Started by speeder, May 08, 2021, 01:49:20 PM

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speeder

Basically I want a citybuilder, any citybuilder, that allow realistic cities, none of the US-only euclidean zoning nonsense.

Yet seemly all of them copy the first SimCity with the RCI system, and thus... has euclidean zoning.

So I thought of doing some modification of CAM, adding jobs to residential zones, and residence slots to other zones, to create non-euclidean zoning.

For this to work a ton of lots would need to be shipped with the mod too, unless someone figured out a script that lets you batch-edit tons of lots all at once after they are installed.


So may I do this?

fantozzi

Quote from: speeder on May 08, 2021, 01:49:20 PM

So I thought of doing some modification of CAM, adding jobs to residential zones, and residence slots to other zones, to create non-euclidean zoning.

[...]

So may I do this?

Can't see a reason why not. You should ask the original autor, RippleJet, via PM for a permission. If I remember right it's EA-related why we can't make our stuff open source. But also to show respect to the creative efford of others we should do this. If RippleJet doesn't answer it can be regarded as abbandoned ware. To add to and play with intellectual property to restore and refurbish it is something very different than destroying intellectual property. Of course there are borderline cases. But not only RippleJet you too have rights. The past shouldn't block your creativity. So my opinion is: Yes! Go! But my opinion doesn't count. Only RippleJet's.


Not shure what's wrong with euclidean zoning. Not shure if my understanding of the word match your thoughts. It's time and space being linear entities they never change. While objects can change they themselves never change. That's euclidian - or maybe my understanding is naive?

May I say something completely different?

Noticed you are strong with this modding stuff and you looking around ... there is something on my mind for years.

It always bothered me how unrealistic the game deals with unemployment. The houses get abbandoned and poulation is shrinking.

I always thought in a certain sense this is sanctimonious. As unemployment disappears when population is shrinking and so it seems you can return to a previous state.

We know in real life it's different. People will stay. Before they become refugees/imigrants situations must worsen much. They cost money and change and become a source of decline of the whole public life of a city.

You were talking about slums earlier - that's a point where our ideas meet. But those slums would have habitants the major must pay for - welfare. And he has to find new jobs for them. There could be employment agencies.

So this would be a point where the game could be definitely harder - by dealing in a more realistic way with unemployment as it could be something expensive.

On the other hand it would be interesting too if zoning could fit the NAM better. If there were FAR3 zones or roundabout zones or something like this. Also this would be a great step forward - to have growables along certain NAM networks.

If I'm right, you wouldn't need the CAM for this. There are a few lots (all ploppable) for those NAM networks we could integrate with your mod and with time this new classes of buildings would grow. I'm prety shure some batters and lotters would contribute.

speeder

Euclidean zoning is not the Math Euclid :P

It is Euclid, Ohio.

Euclid sued to be allowed to do what was back then, a totally new building codes system, it ended going all the way up to supreme court in 1926, that concluded that what they wanted to do, was constitutional and legal.

As result quickly it spread all over the US the idea of what people then nicknamed "Euclidean Zoning", that is the zoning model that SimCity uses:

1. Zones can only have 1 type of building.
2. Zones define maximum density.

On the rest of the planet often there is no zoning at all, or zones are more mixed use, research done more recently even proved Euclidean Zoning is bad idea.

Only US uses Euclidean Zoning heavily and everywhere, and this led to some US-only problems, for example the abandonment issue you complained, SC4 is very realistic regarding that, if you consider only US, among first world countries, United States is the country with most building abandonment issues, and also the country with the biggest amount of "urban prairies", that is what happens when you demolish a building, but abandon the plot because zoning prevents you from building something more useful, so the plot turns into grass.


Japan model for zoning for example is kinda-inspired by Euclid model, but smarter:

commercial zones can have all stuff residential can, with successive zones having more stuff allowed (for example bathhouses are allowed only in the most commercial type).
industrial zones allow everything commercial and residential allow.
"true industrial" is same as previous, but disallow schools, hotels and hospitals, because this zone allow polluting business.

The only SC4-style zone in Japan, are dirty/heavy industry zones, that are reserved for safety reasons only for industries, but  even then you can build any industry you wish there, even if it is a clean one.


Where I live, often you see houses converted into commercial buildings, and vice-versa, I am currently looking to buy a house, and considered buying a building that was a house, got turned into a hair saloon, and I was thinking of buying it and turning it back into a house.

------

Why Euclidean zoning suck:
1. If you plan stuff wrong in first place, you screw the city permanently.
2. If you planned it "right", even then you end with issues, for example unecessary traffic, because if a whole neighbourhood is pure residential it means the residents must travel quite some distance to buy their daily necessities, and even further distances to get to work. You also end with lots of inefficiencies because for example the best place to build an "whatever" building, is in a zone incompatible with it, for example maybe you want to use a plot full of fertile land but it was designed "dirty industry", or you want to build a apartment building downtown so executives can live in it, but area only allow offices, or you have an industrial area nearby and you want to build an office to manage it, but you can't because offices are not allowed, and so on...

fantozzi

#3
Thank you – a very interesting reading as most was new to me. Indeed there is no much thinking about zoning, where I live. We are running out of building area and some experts estimate we have a lack of 3 Million accomodations countrywide - which makes it really hard for low income population so abbandonment is not a question, every old henn house gets rented for expensive money.

The game tutorials suggest the "euclidian zoning" but - correct me if I'm wrong - the game's zooning tool don't force you to keep it that way. The zones give you just control what to grow - industry, commercial, residentials but you can mix them up. With the industrial revolution mod by T Wrecks giving control about separation of heavy industries and high tech industries you can f.e. plant the big dirty stuff outside the city and IHT inside the city. And you can zone commercial next to residential.

Then on the visual part there are so many bats like in old european city centers - where on the ground floor there are shops and above them several floors with residentials.

So your mod would aim on this type of buildings with mixed usage?


speeder

The idea is make those "european bats" functional, have residential zones also ahve jobs (something an 2008 mod already do), and also allow residences in the other zone types.

To pull this off (I am not even sure it is 100% possible) it would require not only editing what each zone do, but changing the lots themselves.

art128

Nothing is preventing you from editing lots. The only thing is if you want to upload it you'd have to link the original model as a dependency.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

speeder

How that works? What tool can do that?

fantozzi

#7
You would use ilive's Reader. As you would make a new category of mixed used bats you would add new values to the RCI - so making RCIM, I guess this would affect different properties as it should work for ploppables too.

As it is a visual question which buidings/lots fit into the new type you will have to do it by hand. There is no indiciator to make it a batch process imo.

I'm afraid you would run into the same problem as CAM.

When CAM was released the BSC team (by this time very influencal) was excited and made big packs with camyfied lots. Creators offered two version for download one working with the mod, one working without the mod.

After a short time the euphoria was over, batters left the scene, new batters did come and they didn't care much for the Colossus Addon Mod and most (almost all) of the new releases came without a CAM version.

If you use CAM today or you stay with the old models or you edit, what you download, yourself to be "campatible". Obviously most players won't do that work to adjust every lot to work with the mod.

So problem won't be what happened in the past. Of course you can edit all lots that are already there. But you can't edit the lots still to come after your mod is released. And little by little - like ivy in a fairytale - they may grow all over your mod.

Basically all mods that involve lot or bat modification must become a standard all modders and lotters take part in so it remains valid.

I like the idea having more zones. Imagine - we could do pure W2W zones and edit W2W bats exclusively for the new zone.

I would ignore the lot editing. Leave it to the players that want to have the benefits. Like CAM today. I would just do the mod and edit the maxis lots that are in question. And the rest remains an individual decision of the player.

Tarkus

On the subject of "mixed use" zoning . . . are you thinking of something along the lines of niloluiz's RCImulti mod and its "home jobs" feature, or, knowing your familiarity with some of the game's more obscure aspects, something involving the mysterious "Allow Joint Occupancy" property that apparently exists in the game unused?

It sounds like the type of thing you're trying to do is more in line with RCImulti than with CAM, though I'll note, there's nothing stopping anyone from making a 15-stage/extended stage mod that isn't CAM.  I believe Tropod was messing around with the game's ability to utilize stages higher than 8 some time before the CAM entered development (and IIRC, this was part of what inspired the CAM).

I'm sure regardless, if you were able to get RippleJet out of hiding (something which many of us would welcome--I know I certainly miss him being around), he'd probably be intrigued, and might be able to provide some insight.

Regarding the matter of CAM/non-CAM, it's a pretty even split between the LEX and STEX.  The BSC was all-in on CAM content, so pretty much everything on the LEX after about July 2007 (when CAM 1.0 was released) is CAMeLot/CAMpatible, whereas there is virtually zero CAM content on the STEX (Jasoncw had a few buildings, and I think that's about it), though anything Residential or Commercial at Stage 6 or lower, and Agriculture at Stage 1 should work both ways.  There haven't really been a lot of buildings/lots released on the LEX in recent years that get into CAMeLot territory. 

If it used SC4PIM/PIM-X from wouanagaine, the stats formulas that program uses are all designed with the CAM in mind.

-Alex

twalsh102

Speeder, there is a Building Exemplar property titled "Allow Joint Occupancy" which would ostensibly allow multiple developer types to occupy the same building (such as Residential buildings having first-floor businesses). But apparently Maxis never implemented this.

You might want to take a read through this thread: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=8711.msg271241#msg271241

speeder

I did see that.

So my idea was test what happen if I do something like the RCIMulti.

Both giving jobs to residential, but also giving housing to commercial/industrial.

Specially to commercial.

Right now the game allows you to "satisfy" multiple zones, but only one of them apply at time.

If you make a building that satisfy both residential and commercial, it will satisfy residential if it spawns in a residential zone, and will satisfy commercial if it spawns in a commercial zone, this behaviour maybe can be leveraged too, but I am not sure how.

fantozzi

That's something different now, imo, assigning numbers of Sims to different types of work than having new zones to group lots into aditional classes like f.e. W2W or FAR3. Having special zones where those mixed lots would grow adds some fun to the game - but this home job mod that's already available feels more like a cheat.