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Buddybuds Expansive Attempts at Anything & Everything.

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

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buddybud

#140
QuoteI didn't realize there was a difference in the way the game rendered the props and models...I'm not that experienced with models and such! Smiley

Jayson
I only assume that because i have added no textures and the exact same texture is used. However i could be wrong, Im not using the standard resource key for model props. And a hidden variable was altered via hex edit. It's kind of an abnormal method but its the only way i could make flippable 3ds props that would show through the shadow alpha of the elevated network tile. I tried something else that worked but was told by goa it ++COULD++ cause issues. So i found another way thanks to his suggestions. Thats the main reason i want people to test this. I cannot be certain it will function as planned.  My main objective was to make it fully compatible. We can tweak from here. I do agree the textures should match though. Would you expect anything less??? lol.

cheers.

Edit....Out for the night. Beta on page 6 for sidewalk thingy if anyone is searching. Avoid commenting on textures, network props or alignment of pieces. All other comments welcome. Any questions just ask. Any complaints not listed above go for it. Give as much info as possible if problems arise. thanx

Pat

Hey Buddy welcome to your new home and also congrats for the pin here!!! You have certianly come back with the fire my man!!!!

Don't forget the SC4D Podcast is back and live on Saturdays @ 12 noon CST!! -- The Podcast soon to Return Here Linkie

BigSlark

Buddybud,

I tested this sidewalk mod out last night with the latest NAM Alpha and JRJ's Streetside Mod installed. The only problem I noticed is that on some rotations diagonal Elevated over Avenue sidewalks did not appear. Other than that, this looks good to me. I can't wait to see where you go from here!  :thumbsup:

Cheers,
Kevin

buddybud

#143
thanks bigslark & pat

i'll check it out today.

bud

seems i missied some other id issues. no biggy. The main thing is it functions. My next big question is how it will or will not effect traffic or ruling.....I will have to rely on feedback for that since i know nothing of these things...any comments or pointers appreciated as usual. Once i establish that i'll clean up the models and the data and go from there.

edit. well i tried it out again but without the two mentioned mods. jrj's streetside mod and latest nam alpha. (i used jrj's sidewalk mod previously) And it worked so it must be conflicts between my beta and one of those two mentioned. hmmm....don't know about the avenue issue must be an id thing or possibly a rul. I put in a request for a range of id's to avoid conflicts but have yet to get a reply from any involved. So for now i would suggest that to see the working beta do it with no plugins. I'll have to organize a bit to start keeping track of stuff. I need a pretty large range to proceed with either project and do not want to have to re-edit the same id's over and over again. hmmm....how to proceed.

edit 2. I was given the info i needed thanx to tarkus. Essentially i will have to do some homework to make sure i don't conflict with any major mods. I can't guarantee no problems at this point but it's enough to convince me to take this eventually to the next level. I'll try to split the thread and put the sidewalk stuff over there. Might take a day or two though...lol. I will however be focusing on the el-rail component for now and the models needed. With models and prop exemplars the only thing needed done will be the actual setting up of t21s. I will probably be looking for help for that down the road.

bud

choco

hello buddybud!

love your work....the ELR mod is fantastic!  &apls

not sure if you're interested, but a bridge could easily be made with your props since your using 3ds models.  if ya wanna persue it as any point, feel free to lemme know.  :thumbsup:

i'll be lurkin here either way.... :)

buddybud

Quote from: choco on January 08, 2009, 07:37:08 AM
hello buddybud!

love your work....the ELR mod is fantastic!  &apls

not sure if you're interested, but a bridge could easily be made with your props since your using 3ds models.  if ya wanna persue it as any point, feel free to lemme know.  :thumbsup:

i'll be lurkin here either way.... :)

I sure will be needing that at some point. And have put some thought into it. I'll definitely  be bugging you at some point. Cheers.

Bud.

buddybud

#146

and med wealth orths


well i've been busy. I should have a new beta by the end of today. As you can see above i am finishing up avenues. So far I've completed the road, street one-ways and almost the avenues. I'm just adding and modifying the medium props. Again I'm only covering the intersections for the the non nam rushhour version of the game, only because its the base of the game, and i have to start somewhere. With this completed for el rail, i will be able to make the same for monorail and elevated highway in a very short period of time and then venture into nam territory, and simply recycle all props and t21's along the way. its just a bit repetitive but easily done.

i decided to alter the texture id's for the sidewalks since it is only a few minutes work to make a patch for other sets. It looks 100% better now in my opinion. The biggest problem is with streets. The reason being that the grey textures turn out almost white, the contrast is huge. Essentially the same issue as with the sidewalks. So for this upcoming beta I also altered the street texture creating a new id. Thus it will be moddable but not immediately compatible with existing street mods. Thats all open to debate though.

Anyways back to work.  ::)

Bud

edit...ave orths all done.



NEW BETA!!!!
REMOVE PREVIOUS BETA IF YOU HAVE IT INSTALLED!!!!
Covers
RushHour Roads, Streets, Oneway, & Ave intersections with El-rail Complete, for no-wealth, low, med & High...Orth and Diags
Load the two files found in the zip after nam if you have it.
The texture file has the new textures for the sidewalks and orth street.
Please report any problems here....Brown boxes etc...
The textures will not match with other sidewalks mods as it stands but can be very easily adapted to. It should work with road top texture mods. The textures will not match with other street mods as stands but can be very easily adapted to those also.

YOU MAY NEED TO FORCE THE PROPS BY DROPPING AN APPROPRIATE WEALTH LOT TO TRIGGER THEM......


Let me know what you think.

Cheers Bud.


Gotta do a tutorial next. (yah.!!! tutorial done)



dedgren

Testing, testing...

It looks like it's going to be an interesting evening.


David
D. Edgren

Please call me David...

Three Rivers Region- A collaborative development of the SC4 community
The 3RR Quick Finder [linkie]


I aten't dead.  —  R.I.P. Granny Weatherwax

Skype: davidredgren

sithlrd98

Awesome...looks great!I grabbed it also...let ya know of any problems!

Jayson

Haljackey

Swwweeetttt!   ;D 

I might just have to test this out for myself.  Thanks so much for the effort put into this, it really shows!

Best,
-Haljackey

buddybud

#150
Well only a couple downloads, but then again apperently something called the Nam was updated recently....... :thumbsup:

So from here i'll let this stand till i get some more feedback. Silence is a good thing but i want to see if conflicts arise. So ill jump back to my El-rail for a bit and try to match the progress and complete the non nam bits first. A nice chunk being already completed with this beta and the new s3d props make things alot simpler. whoot.  ;) 

Edit

Well looking around and seeing that there is still little info available on t21's i thought i'd upload a sorted version of the beta. Since it is composed of close to 400 t21 and 3ds prop examples it would be a good resource for others. i broke it up into seperate dats found in three folders, t21s, Props, Textures.

files

textures
STandSW_Texture01.dat

t21s
1Way-El_Inter_RH.dat
Ave-El_Inter2_RH.dat
Ave-El_Inter_RH.dat
Road-El_Inter_RH.dat
Street-El_Inter_RH.dat

Props
1WayDiag1.dat
1WayOrth1.dat
AveDiag1a.dat
AveDiag1b.dat
AveOrth1.dat
RoadDiag1.dat
RoadOrth1.dat
StreeOrth1.dat

Note.....These are exactly the same as the above beta just sorted into seperate files. Do not release these because iid's might change etc.

Well i started some highways anyways, looks much better then the ingame alternatives. took sometime finding the exemplars and models..lol...but i got em.



streets finished....

buddybud

Well as always i bumped into a problem. I started with replacing the road under highways and quickly realized the problem it would create with ramps. So i decided to try and change the ramps of course...lol. i've always hated those crappy little walls..But I couldn't find the right ones so i started with these. I ended up editing the preview model first by acciedent and confused the heck out of myself when it didn't work. lol...any ways...

i removed the walls and replaced them with my sidewalk props. It now has a t21 so can be easily modified from here on out. The problem is this is wayyyyyy labor intensive. So i'll just do it for the ramps that are effected...ie elevated. The models in the simcity dat are such that reader can't save them properly after edited. So i essentially cloned the various needed vertices and groups and created a new model and patched that over the existing. I should be able to recycle the model for the equivilant one ways etc. The avenues and oneways should go quickly after that.

What do ya think?



Bud


Elaclairee

What I think?

I think I have no idea what it is you're doing anymore, but it seems impresive from what you say about it.  ???


But whatever it is you're doing, keep up the work, cant wait to see something that I can actually understand.... been lost for a few pages now.  &sly

BigSlark

I am thoroughly impressed. I haven't found any issues with the latest beta so far, I'll be sure to let you know if I do. Keep up the groundbreaking work!

Cheers,
Kevin

buddybud

#154
Quote from: Elaclairee on January 21, 2009, 06:01:06 AM
What I think?

I think I have no idea what it is you're doing anymore, but it seems impresive from what you say about it.  ???


But whatever it is you're doing, keep up the work, cant wait to see something that I can actually understand.... been lost for a few pages now.  &sly



Hi Elaclairee
i'll let you spot the differences... ::) 
I'm essentially adding sidewalks that respond to wealth under elevated networks. I always felt maxis never completed this aspect of the game visually. It's a minor detail to some but has been an eye sore to me since it was released....

Cheers

Thanx Big slark

metarvo

#155
Yes, you really do think of everything.  This is very nice work here, Bud.  :thumbsup:  I never noticed the lack of wealth dependent textures underneath elevated networks, until I read this thread, but now I see why something had to be done about it.  I would install the files now, but I have a program called SC4 running, so I can't do it just yet.  ;D  Of course, my eyes were drawn to the telephone poles that appear in some of the recent pics, but that's only natural.  :)
Find my power line BAT thread here.
Check out the Noro Cooperative.  What are you waiting for?  It even has electricity.
Want more? Try here.  For even more electrical goodies, look here.
Here are some rural power lines.

Elaclairee

Ah, I see now. Thanks for explaining it.

With that, the elevated rail re-skinning, and wealth dependent textures.... this should make things very awesome indeed. Hopefully your pc doesn't die again and you lose yet another massive pile of groundbreaking work.  :P

j-dub

Well then I'll have to try your most recent modding then. I had tested your sidewalks under the el-rail recently, and everything so far appeared to be in working order. From what I understand is you somehow turned textures into props? I am puzzled to how you did that, because those props not only have traffic textures, but even the modded textures!

sithlrd98

Quote from: j-dub on January 21, 2009, 09:47:24 AM
Well then I'll have to try your most recent modding then. I had tested your sidewalks under the el-rail recently, and everything so far appeared to be in working order. From what I understand is you somehow turned textures into props? I am puzzled to how you did that, because those props not only have traffic textures, but even the modded textures!

That's the real brilliance of this mod , and one that I hope to understand a little better for , something......

Jayson

buddybud

#159
Quote from: j-dub on January 21, 2009, 09:47:24 AM
From what I understand is you somehow turned textures into props? I am puzzled to how you did that, because those props not only have traffic textures, but even the modded textures!

The key is that those are not standard props. They were s3d models created from within the reader. They are then converted to a prop using a modified prop exemplar. Since they are true 3d models you can attach a texture iid to them. So if you attach an iiD for low wealth sidewalk it will show whatever current texture you are using for that. It works the same way as any texture mod. The two types of textures are shown because the model is composed of two parts each with its own iid. If you used a road top texture mod it would change the network texture also. They can be used on a t21 for network placement or on a lot if you had a purpose for it. It's all kinda new. I also attached a conform to slope attribute so i can use them for road/street under el and whatever else i can think of.

Create new iid if you decide to play with them because i don't want to pollute my own mods...hehe.

Edit....Once they are officially released i would hope to see them used for other mods....there is no point in making more than two of any of these unless you would be improving them or using them for a different purpose with different sets of iid's. But that's a couple weeks away yet.

Cheers.