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Buddybuds Expansive Attempts at Anything & Everything.

Started by buddybud, November 12, 2007, 03:22:54 AM

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noahclem

Glad to see you making progress with this set again! Best of luck figuring out the texture and rendering problems too. I can't offer any help at this time but I'll try to learn from the answers you get also  :thumbsup:

Aaron Graham

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buddybud

Quote from: mrtnrln on February 03, 2012, 02:58:15 AM
My main guess is that the different models have different clipping settings. Try to look what clipping settings the models that look right have and compare it to the ones with wrong clipping settings.

Thanks for the advice. Turns out the crappy looking textures where using highdef for all zoom levels where as the clearer ones only had highrez for the closest zoom level only. I won't say how long it took me to figure that out! :P All the textures are backed up so i can fix the culprits which there doesn't seem to be many of.

jdenm8



"We're making SimCity, not some dopey casual game." -Ocean Quigley

buddybud

#444
Quote from: jdenm8 on February 05, 2012, 05:31:23 AM
Are you running an nVidia card in your Laptop? If you are, This thread may be of interest.

Ya i've been watching that thread. Sadly i have an intel integrated graphics crap. Specifically the Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset with a GM45 Gpu. I have the latest drivers and software but it's quite limited for controls. Thanks for the heads up though. Much appreciated! Luckily the game runs just fine except for that prop bleeding issue when using hardware rendering. I can zoom in and out to temporarily fix the issue to see things properly, but it goes out of whack when i scroll around. Using Software Rendering works flawless but i loose the detail i'm accustomed to. I can live with it. Just somewhat annoying.

I've referenced NorthCountryDudes Simtropolis tutorial on adjusting the GraphicsRules.sgr and VideoCards.sgr but so far with no luck. But that may just be my incompetence. :P

Thanx again...
Bud

JonM

This is amazing! So great to see brand new things like this still coming out for sc4!

buddybud

Thanks JonM....

A bit of an update.... After overcoming my fear of relearning Reader, I started compiling the dats and fixing the erroneous texture problems. I'm halfway done the regular puzzle pieces, compiling and testing each piece one by one. I should finish that by tomorrow, then move on to the network intersections...ie el over street, road, ave etc. I'll have to add zoom models to the elrail for some of those, to avoid the highrez texture problem, but it's pretty straight forward and shouldn't take more than a couple days.

I've previously compiled the Skin Prop's into dats. And the regular pieces are being divided as thus. Puzzle pieces, Shadows, Highrez graphics and Low rez. Puzzle pieces have all the relevant exemplars and s3d network models. Shadows are just shadows and are separated since they are unneeded if you have either shadows turned off, run in software mode or just prefer the default maxis shadows.  High rez and low rez are separated cause as we all know that highrez for 30 or 40 network pieces is a huge filesize difference. with 17 textures compiled and 10 to go the difference is 1914kb for high vs 156kb for low. So the choice is offered leaning heavily on low rez :P High will be an optional download obviously. But they do look yummy and will be great for cj's closeups etc.... don't know how i'll get them hosted though  &mmm



One thing to note concerning highrez is it's not all bad. The railings for the skin are the only other high rez content on this mod besides the optional network textures (station is another story). Because they are themselves small the size is not outrageous and they are far superior to any regular bated railings i could do. So there are some ideal uses for them i think.

With hindsight and time away i have to say that i would never suggest an almost fully bated approach to networks like what i've attempted here. Though a lot of useful knowledge and techniques have arisen. Proving i guess that in a true scientific method approach, a failed experiment can result in just as much useful information as a successful one.  :satisfied: But i digress....lol.

Back to work cutting and pasting dats  :'(

Bud







jmdude1

things seem to be moving well here. the quality of your work is amazing.  i forsee a big jump in the contributions to the 'show us your rail' thread when all is said and done.

did it take long to get used to all of the tools again?

buddybud

#448
Quote from: jmdude1 on February 08, 2012, 12:05:46 AM
did it take long to get used to all of the tools again?

I probably spent more time in the last couple of weeks staring at reader, and then going and reading forum posts instead. lol. Once i jumped in it actually was quite intuitive again. But ya some things where more difficult than others to figure out so far. I haven't tried using bat yet and i imagine that will be about the same.

Some of the tools like SimCityTool are very friendly and straight forward but reader is and remains a bit of a nightmare to stumble through. :P

Quote
update...but don't want to bump...



we seen this before but i've been cleaning up the rail s3d models and textures for the different zoom levels. The roads and streets where in good shape but the rails where not completed to my satisfaction. As for the textures the network intersections will have two variations on this.... Standard models that are compatible with all and the above that are wealth dependent. Took awhile to figure out how to make them blend as they now do but i got it worked out. Just finishing the diags. Forgot how much work and, well fun this is.

I also cleaned up the bridge a bit and made textures for all zooms and with the help of choco implemented a shadow under it. Right now since this beta is strictly for the vanilla rh i just edited the ini files in the simcity1.dat but when i move on to a nam implementation i will have to have a bridge controller patch or something. The other nice thing, was that because of choco's knowledge i realized i could map existing shadows of the orth and diag el rail to the el network intersections via the ini also. Strangely EA only used this method with one puzzle piece. Who knows why :P

Cheers
Bud

JoeST

Awesome sawce here Bud, those shadows look awesome :D
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

jmdude1

i agree with joe...excellent shadows! great details. im glad to see there are others here who are able to offer some knowledge to helps things along.

keep up the great work!

Girafe

The Floraler

This is the end, hold your breath and count to ten, feel the earth move, and then...

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *    *   *   *   *   *    * 

sdrls

One word.  "WOW"

ok just a couple more,  The attention to detail on those is amazing.  Those look almsot spot on to the ones on the Tracks here in some parts of Chicago. 

buddybud

A few replies

JoeST & jmdude1 :  Thanks, I do believe those shadows add depth to the whole wood based el, adding to the illusion! But to be honest they themselves are not new just how i was able to implement them. Instead of providing a new shadow fsh for each and every intersection, instead they are remapped via a patched ini file where the bridge shadow controls are found. So with the roughly 20 vanilla rh el intersections, instead of providing 20 more shadows i just remap from the straight and diagonal shadows from the base network...and as jmdude1 said "im glad to see there are others here who are able to offer some knowledge to helps things along", which is why i like being part of this community effort so much .... :thumbsup:

Girafe : Thanks man. You've been a big inspiration to me also. Because of that, I appreciate the complement that much more!

sdrls : I like hearing that because that's what i am aiming for. Though admittedly i use a mish mash of various styles from any turn of the century el networks i come across with a bit of hokey pokey of my own thrown in.

Over the last couple days i just did some research by playing with the last available nam and microbials facelift mod. Mostly to see how difficult it will be to adapt this work with that. Along the way i submitted a graphics bug fix for the nam el for some minor artifacting and alignment issues....only one so far but i know of a couple of more. I figured that as i was addressing my own i might as well fix the existing ones.

So whats left? Well i need to complete the cleaning and compressing of the rest of the network intersections. which are el over 1-way, avenue and highway. Then compress the the station and properly implement that. Like the bridge the station will over write the default station. These network intersections are taking longer cause i never properly addressed a bunch of graphical issues with them. But they're just a bit time consuming and not difficult to manage. The rail under el was the worst but i finished that for now.

The biggest headache concerning the loss of the station models will be nightlights. I never rendered any. However i know i can flub it using photoshop and some modding trickery. But that will wait. Besides that the only unmodded puzzle piece from the vanilla is the el to sub transition.

Concerning Nam implementation, I don't see any problems so far. I'll need to alter a couple things and such but it looks completely feasible. However I'm not sure about compatibility to the Microbials face lift mod, It would need a heck of a lot of work to merge the hundreds of t21's in his mod with mine. But again thats not a focus at this time, but it looks doable just incredibly time consuming.....

Bud

buddybud

#454


Finished mostly with the network tiles. I added all the proper zoom levels and fixed some minor graphical glitches and it's now mostly seamless. I'm really happy with the zone dependent sidewalks.  Basically i just need to compile the station and replace the original maxis one with it plus lot a couple more configurations. Besides that i just want to go through the files and double check the naming conventions and make sure all my ids etc are in good form (the el over ave.dat has 150 files or so alone to give an example.) Couple more days of work given time, no more than a week tops... but i'm closer then i was ever before. Feeling good  :satisfied:

Bud

Girafe

Seems to be really promising, thanks for finishing this excellent project  ;)
The Floraler

This is the end, hold your breath and count to ten, feel the earth move, and then...

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *    *   *   *   *   *    * 

vortext

Great news to learn this project will be finished  &apls  &apls

A few questions though; are there any transition pieces to tram? And how about the dual network? Would be nice to see those in style as well, since it looks pretty awesome. In any case, keep up the good work  :thumbsup:
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

buddybud

Quote from: vortext on February 18, 2012, 03:38:14 AM
Great news to learn this project will be finished  &apls  &apls

A few questions though; are there any transition pieces to tram? And how about the dual network? Would be nice to see those in style as well, since it looks pretty awesome. In any case, keep up the good work  :thumbsup:

"$Deal"$ As stated quite often this first release be vanilla rushhour only. I could go on and on about how every aspect of this mod has been painstakingly tweeked and modified using many methods either not used before or are very uncommon. Or, you could read the whole thread  $%#Ninj2   ::) But in short if the beta goes smoothly then yes nam is next....after all i'm on the team :P

But before i go further than this release i must ensure that the thousands of individual modifications are all in order and will play nice with nam. Off hand i can say that for the most part it should be a smooth transition since many of the individual components that make up each tile can be reassembled for new network configurations. The designing and implementation was the hard part, the rest is mostly lotting and filling in some blanks like on slope models and ramps.  And actually if you go back farther in the thread you'll see i played with some nam configurations already, like onslope models, ramps, pedestrian malls and road/street under rail. But hey...after the beta's out there's no reason why others can't help compile some of the other lots...lol.... runs and hides  

the not as sarcastic as he sounds...
Bud

vortext

Quote from: buddybud on February 18, 2012, 04:36:09 AM
"$Deal"$ As stated quite often this first release be vanilla rushhour only. I could go on and on about how every aspect of this mod has been painstakingly tweeked and modified using many methods either not used before or are very uncommon. Or, you could read the whole thread  $%#Ninj2   ::)

$%Grinno$% Kinda have this nasty habit of asking questions first, than go on and read. Sorry 'bout that, it was only beacuse I got exited  ;)
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

buddybud

Quote from: vortext on February 18, 2012, 04:50:03 AM
$%Grinno$% Kinda have this nasty habit of asking questions first, than go on and read. Sorry 'bout that, it was only beacuse I got exited  ;)

Not a problem man... I've been guilty of the same thing a million times. It is a good read though.....almost as exciting as voltair or dostoevesky :P