Xannepans creations

[sunv123]

Oh my gosh........ thatisoneofthecoolestsc4relatedthingihaveeverseeninmylifeohmygoshthatisamazing. (it's not just a mix up of letters)

YOU NEED TO KEEP GOING.... I LOVE THE RAIN RIPPLES AND IT WOULD BE SWEET IF THE SNOW COULD STICK. Keep it up dude.

[vortext]

This is so, so cool!! The water ripples are just. . .    . . couldn't believe my eyes.

Now I'm wondering, performance issues aside, if a fullblown thunderstorm would be possible?! 

Keep up this awesome modding!! 

[NCGAIO]

I am trying to make the snow stay on the ground. Fairly sure I can simulate something with the section in the effdir that controller terrain textures (same as a volcano casts an ash like texture of the terrain). Again my main concern is peformance impact.

Similarly to the mod rain creates water over the terrain?

If so then maybe also suffer the same problem of not being saved by the game.

The combined effects of rain on the water is really a good illusion and even manages to look like the raindrops are those responsible for water ripples.

Regarding performance you may have noticed that even in the case of a clean map  this type of effect has impacted the scrolling.

....Who could have imagined that ten years after the game's launch we will have weather controller?!

Well .. we must consider that despite not having current tools for debugging Effdir in 2005 the Gizmo had something very near ...

Gizmo - Weather Mod

The launch of the effect that would be the problem was in another area (CSI-trigger) that could have been done with Lua script for any given condition.

[Lowkee33]

You're doing awesome work.

Not sure "what" your raindrops are: are they a "pure" effect, or something from a FSH?  The snow that I made was a FSH.  In an attempt to reduce the strain on the computer I made the FSH have more than one snowflake on it.  I then had the FSH spread out across most of the screen.  The total effect was that although each flake had a sibling that was moving exactly the same, it was hard to find it in crowd of other snowflakes.

Your effects look much different than mine.  Mine had starting point way up in the Y axis and then fell down into the world (the snow flakes could go behind buildings/flora).  Yours seem to be on a layer in front of the world.

The video is (add curse here) awesome!

[xannepan]

Lowkee: Sofar both raindrops and snowflakes are FSH based effects. I had the same idea of replacing them perhaps by FSH containing multiple drops or flakes. Adding rotation and alhpa variation over time perhaps can be used to get rid of any left repetition. Otherwise think I used exactly the same approach as you did, with the exception that I didn't want to flakes and raindrops to fall all the way down to the surface in order to shorten the time a particle needs to be simulated
Moreover, I didn't like the drops gliding along the terrain once they touched the ground. (I just found out I can tune u24 in sec1 to also stop that from happening). Anywaynthat's probably the main reason why it looks different.

I currently only spread out the drops over an x,z from +500 to -500 area. Not sure how to always get them to spread out over the complete map size. Did you have a look at that already?

NCGAIO:. I am not sure I completely understand your latest response Are you saying it is possible to create a lua script to make the rain or snow start, depending on a certain other condition? That would be very intersting!

Sofar on my new MSI laptop I have no performance impact at all on a clean map.

About the ripples. I could easily have each raindrop causing a ripple of its own. But I decided to splits these effects so I could control the number of raindrops and the water ripples independently. Again the main reason is performance management.

About uploading the planes: I'd be happy to share them already in this stage. I am considering of just uploading a public beta release. Otherwise I'll send you a pm with another link.

[Delecto]

Fantastic work on the rain and snow, sc4 enter a new dimension in 2013! 

About your graphical problems, try lowering your graphics settings in SimCity. When I bought my last NVIDIA graphics card, I've put all the settings to the maximum and I encountered the same problems as you.
Lower settings solved my problem.

I hope it help! 


SAM.

[Andreas]

It's amazing to see what the original Maxis crew planned for SC4 and added it to the basic game, but apparently locked or deactivate due to time and/or performance issues. I wish EA would have picked up that some day as another expansion pack, together with some small bugfixing and extensions, like better menus (less scrolling) or more building styles. Whenever I see a new screenshot of the upcoming SimCity 2013, I get more and more disappointed of that cartoony plastic dollhouse look. Anyway, my current PC (three years old now, but equipped with an SSD since a couple of months) is powerful enough to run SC4 smoothly, so I won't stop playing that game anytime soon (if I ever find some time to do so anyway).

[mave94]

Such an amazing work! I thought it was impossible to make a weather controller, but apparently it is possible. I like the ripples in the water. It's just, wow!

[xannepan]

Thanks for all the nice comments once more. It helps. I am excited for all the new discoveries I am making... the boring work of actually finishing something.. starting the game a 1000 times for testing is not as much fun... I hope I can keep up with it...

Andreas: rain is the only effect in the effect dir that was left behind by Maxis. The snow and the water ripples are my own creations, but off course inspired and preceded by the work gizmo and lowkee have done (except for the ripples  ). Actually, the idea for the water ripples comes from the volcano effect. When the lava hits the water there are red ripples. I just created my own fish and tuned the settings a bit (removed the desctructive properties). But indeed the effectdir lays out the work for many more new things that can be done in simcity.

Just some ideas for the future, of which I am sure they are now possible to realize.

-Skiërs skiing downhill. 100% sure it can be done. Just need to create a skiiers animations, the effect dir won't be that difficult
-Automatically raising the terrain once you plop a NAM on-slope puzzle pieces... Fairly sure it should be possible, but needs a lot of work. (the volcano effect does something similar, ie raising the terrain be a predefined height). Main uncertainty is attaching the effect to a puzzle piece and activating it during plopping.
-1x1 tile terrain raising brush with a specific predefined elevating heigt. Same as before yet propably less challenging. (MAybe we can get rid of the leveling lots)
-New animals (done that already... just need to fine tune before releasing it)
-Purple rain.. lol
-All kinds of cool fountains
-car/motor racing tracks
-ice rink with real ice skaters

Meanwhile.. anyone dreaming of a white Christmas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMqKKZ2CMEk&feature=youtu.be

Still needs much tuning, and I am sure there are some limitations to how easthetic I can make it look. The major concern remains  performance impact. But on this undeveloped medium sized map sofar I experience no issues. And I am  also fairly sure I can make the mod much more efficient (which is the boring work I'm affraid).

[vortext]

-Skiërs skiing downhill. 100% sure it can be done. Just need to create a skiiers animations, the effect dir won't be that difficult

What?! That's just crazy! Crazy good, that is.  

The snow effect on the ground looks great, too. Hope you can keep your interest while doing the tedious bit. 

[metarvo]

I've always wanted to have weather in game.  This will work well with some of those snow terrain mods out there.  Amazing job!

[jeckyll]

-All kinds of cool fountains

Yeah that will be very useful!

[xannepan]

One of the downsides of the current approach with the snow is, that it covers everything, even the roads....  Not sure how to solve that, unless the pothole effects (a texture which only appears on road) contains a yet unknown secret I can make use of (reverse).

[DebussyMan]

These effects and weather are awesome! 

Given your now vast knowledge on the subject, I was wondering if you could consider developing a mod that I've always wanted: pre-automobile traffic! perhaps some random sims walking down the actual street (not only sidewaldk) along with horse drawn carriages, or one or two 1910ish motorized vehicles. And now that we're at it, perhaps changing the sims' graphics to something more adequate clothe-wise. 

Not sure if all that is possible, but certainly has been a dream of mine for a long time. I remember a couple years ago Swamper started tinkering around it, but he's gone now and nothing was achieved. 

[xannepan]

It can be done, no doubt about it. Again, time is the only issue. As for the pedestrians, these are not real 3D models (unlike most other traffic), but also here new animations could be created. It is a lot of work though. Apart from that the main constraint is that currently the reader cannot import 3d animations. So for that a new program/ script needs to be developed. But also that is possible since the 3d format is known.

Replacing a car by an existing horse model for example is easier. I believe there are soms funny mods out there already that replace train automata by girafes
Adding a non animated carriage model to a horse may also something that would be possible, a bit more difficult perhaps. A remaining issue would be traffic speed. It would seem silly to have pedestrians walking ith the same speed as horses and carriages. There is no known way (to me) to vary speed between automata travelling on the same network type.

If you'd be willing to attempt animations, I'd be happy to dig into writting an import script to get them into the game

-alex

[gn_leugim]

[WannGLondon]

Alex, you make the game a better experience, one mod, lot or project at a time. Love the snow.

[NCGAIO]

  Some observations to help develop ...

"-Skiërs skiing downhill. 100% sure it can be done. Just need to create a skiiers animations, the effect dir won't be that difficult"

Models of animated skiers Full3D already exists in the game ... just  reskin the wakeboard and swimsuits for a Snowboard with winter outfits.

"Main uncertainty is attaching the effect to a puzzle piece and activating it during plopping."

I also thought about putting an effect on parts of the CAN-AM but would be added to the controller do not think it would happen!

"As for the pedestrians, these are not real 3D models (unlike most other traffic"

Well .. pedestrians who walk following the sidewalks are really animated 3Dfull models, as well as police activities, firefighters in firefighting, crimes and many others scenes.

"Apart from that the main constraint is that currently the reader cannot import 3d animations. So for that a new program/ script needs to be developed. But also that is possible since the 3d format is known."

This is not exactly true ... yes there is a way to import 3D animations for the reader, a little laborious yet!

"Adding a non animated model to the carriage horse may Also Possible That would be something, a bit more difficult perhaps"

As the animated model horse is already present in the game then only enough to attach the model of a chariot. But this would have to be modeled for no overlapping triangles over the horse to avoid blinking effect when joined.

"There is no known way (to me) to vary speed between automata travelling on the same network type."

What determines which network is to be followed as well as other details for particular automata or group of them is expressed in respective Lua script.

[xannepan]

NCGAIO, Yes you are right! There is a skier in the game, it just moves a bit strange for a snow skiers. But perhaps for a first beta version it's not that bad.

Can you please give me some indication how to import animations in the reader? I have tried and have no clue.

Same for the LUA. Can you offer some help/hints how to do it? I really like to make a LUA script (if possible) that generates weather. I seem to remember that there is a moisture property in the game that 'behaves' seasonal (amongst others). Perhaps that would be something that can be used to trigger rain and snowfall and thunderstorms. I am trying to find some inspiration by looking at other effect triggers in the game. The pothole effect and garbage effects are interesting. They seem to be triggered by time and funding properties. So far I haven't found any lua script for that yet...

BR,
Alex

[xannepan]

Is there anyone with enough experience in the effect dir that knows exactly how paramater u1 and u2 in section 1 work (u1, u2 is the designation used in the reader).

I already figured a few things out

1) xxxx8xxx has something to do with the effect being displayed on the watersurface
2) xxxx1xxx has something to do with the effect spreading out (randomly?) over the entire terrain (without the need to specify initial x and z shifts). This seems to work for the terrain texture effects.
3) xxx11xxx same as above but now for s3d based effects... not completely sure about this one
combination of 1) and 3) ==>
4) xxx19xxx same as 2 and 3 but now for s3d based effects on water surface (the water sparkle controller works this way)

I think these parameter should be interpreted as a series of 32-bits and that each bit controls a specific behaviour property.
Unfortunately as some many parameters remain unknown results remain highly unpredictable. I just found out that my rain effect kills as waterfalls from flowing. This can only mean there still is a bug ...

Edit: corrections on next page