Xannepans creations

[xannepan]

Noah: at this moment I am releasing them one by one as creating each of them is still a lot off work. And I get stressed by having so many unfinished stuff laying around. But a mega pack eventually is certainly possible.

Yild: it is actually something I want to look into. In the effect dir I can set a reference to a repulsor or attractor LUA script.  Don't know exactly how that works yet and also have no idea how accurate the attractors can make effcts follow a certain paths... Perhaps even some prey and predator behavior can be put in, i.e. zebras start running away as soon as a lion appears...

HurricaneMod: your English is really difficult to understand, but I get your point by now... I really can't help you beyond what I have already said that I can share the matlab scripts... But you'd have to try to get and learn to work eith matlab first. I also don't have time to make tutorials / readme or give any explanation to the scripts. Also please note the scripts are helpful but it still requires a lot of manual editing before you can create an effect. All in all it is not easy.

[FrankU]

Hi Alex,

Didn't know NBVC's dolphins were static. Swimming is more realistic so yours have certainly a big plus!
And in the meantime you did release a whole zoo! Great! 
It just would be good if animals behaved decent and stayed behind the fences. Even my cows are running through gardens and across streets. Not good!

[xannepan]

Hi Alex,

Didn't know NBVC's dolphins were static. Swimming is more realistic so yours have certainly a big plus!
And in the meantime you did release a whole zoo! Great! 
It just would be good if animals behaved decent and stayed behind the fences. Even my cows are running through gardens and across streets. Not good!

those naughty animals.


Guys, in the mean time I discovered how to solve an issue that I though could not be solved: for the brushes in some cases lots of running animals where created while the number of animals walking at normal pace was low. I can and will solve that issue, so please keep an eye out for updates of these files.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but it really has to do with new discoveries I am still making each time I play with the effect dir...

-Alex

[Simcoug]

In the effect dir I can set a reference to a repulsor or attractor LUA script.  Don't know exactly how that works yet and also have no idea how accurate the attractors can make effcts follow a certain paths... Perhaps even some prey and predator behavior can be put in, i.e. zebras start running away as soon as a lion appears...

That is interesting!  It seems that while playing the game I do notice that the wandering llama or moose will usually stop short of zoned areas, and move off in a different direction.  I thought it was random chance, but perhaps Maxis was more deliberate in that respect... 

Great work on these animals - I'm looking forward to what players will create with these new effects

[jmyers2043]

... for the brushes in some cases lots of running animals where created while the number of animals walking at normal pace was low...

Ha, I was worried my computer was on the blink. Good to know.    Thank You.

- Jim

[xannepan]

Meanwhile I have updated the animal brushes I found issues with. All uploaded already.

Looking back at the past months I cannot help being sad that Maxis didn't pick up on this back then... there are so many things that are still possible with effectdir... They could have made good money with expansion packs.. Even today I'd rather pay for a SC4 expansion then buy SC2013.

Well never mind we just have to do it ourselves.

[noahclem]

Great to see you figured out the running/walking issue. It hadn't occurred to me that they could be walking instead but that will be very nice. And as far as the megapack thing goes, that will be nice to see but I agree it's nice to get these available instead of risking them getting lost or forgotten.

I certainly agree on the Maxis thing as well. It's hard to understand how they wouldn't have thought they could make money off of all the cool unfinished stuff they left around but I'm just glad they did leave it around instead of leaving it out. And even more glad you've dug it all up for us and shared these awesome creations!

[xannepan]

Well the strange thing is there isn't that much real unfinished stuff laying around... (except for maybe the animals)

But the effectdir framework has such a huge potential to be creative with... I'm beginning to wonder if they didn't just lack the creativity and fantasy to use

If the attractors and repulsors work the way I hope they do then we are really in for a revolution... (think about ski tracks you can lay out.. and animated skiiers following the track)

My problem is time.. and lacking an easier tool that could be used by more than just myself... I hope someday others will pick up effect dir modding....

[vortext]

If the attractors and repulsors work the way I hope they do then we are really in for a revolution... (think about ski tracks you can lay out.. and animated skiiers following the track)

That sounds interesting for sure! And what about replacing skiiers with animated water? Free flowing rivers to our heart's desire someday. . ?

[Yild]

If the attractors and repulsors work the way I hope they do then we are really in for a revolution... (think about ski tracks you can lay out.. and animated skiiers following the track)

I really appreciate your enthusiasm and work that you have done in this matter, thanks

[mattb325]

A huge thankyou for all of the new animal flora. You are a genius 

[memo]

But the effectdir framework has such a huge potential to be creative with... I'm beginning to wonder if they didn't just lack the creativity and fantasy to use

Most of us do not know the potential of the Effect Dirs either, until you come up with yet another great addition.

My problem is time.. and lacking an easier tool that could be used by more than just myself... I hope someday others will pick up effect dir modding....

Could you perhaps briefly state what kind of features such a tool should have?

[NCGAIO]

But the effectdir framework has such a huge potential to be creative with... I'm beginning to wonder if they didn't just lack the creativity and fantasy to use

Well .. in this case we can not forget that this was not the purpose of the game is not it? After all it is a simulator situations for cities and as such he had a large processing load at that time, with all the details of this work

Although somewhat confusing the part of the animation until brought a quirky realism to the  (game) simulator with some creative freedom. Simply complete the missions in the game especially the aquatic missions  to realize it.

Now as everything has a processing cost of the option taken at that time was the most effective although the development of the hardware chart currently has rendered it obsolete.

My compliments for the creation of mods Fauna  mainly the Dolphin as something that did not exist in the game since the maxis only left the "swimmingdolphin" ( 751)  so the idea of repeating the structure of the horses was very good.

Just as a suggestion think should replace ..XX00c00 by ..XX0000 because despite being the model more labored he gives the impression of being stopped when various lots are ploped near and exclude the "animal_place_dust" since it has no effect on water.

Also as sugestion with respect to the Dolphin  a boat maybe as the fishing boat would be more realistic to use as a marker for the batch as below.




Maybe would be a tool very useful for placing propables Water that could have varied models as suggested in the controller aerial  mod maybe through an installer.


Again congratulations, great job

[NCGAIO]

...with animated water? Free flowing rivers to our heart's desire someday. . ?

For those who have a good micro can try this effect which was erroneously called water flow unfinished but  it is actually used to the situation of burst of pipes to flood the surrounding areas.

With a little mod might be possible to increase the breadth and really occupy a river with two or three tiles.

But not for any machine, with all certainty!

Wave3 FreeFlowing Stream Mod

[vortext]

Yes, I'm aware of the freeflowing water mod. What I meant was being able to 'steer' the water, similar to how one could potentially lay-out ski tracks Alex mentioned.

[NCGAIO]

As there is no the possibility of having two different levels for the texture of the "water of game", so to speak, all the water flows could only happen in flat maps and also restrained by the  lowest point on the edges of flux.


So the only way I see to simulate water in unevenness is plopando simulation with lots of "orient slope" as one who was in CAN_AM.


As regards the skiers and other aquatic automata currently they can only be shown at sea level by existing effects, not even raising the models make they appear.

[xannepan]

Good idea om the 000 and c00 replacement. I have left the animal dust in because I think I can tweak it such that it will appear above water.. Shouldn't be difficult. Same goes for the water boats and skiiers, I can make those appear above land with a few bit settings. (For those of you wo are interested I have added signficant amount of new information on the wiki, effdir sections)

For free flowing water, my first idea is to improve the textures of the waterstream and waterdrop effects that are used in qurlix and jeronij mods. The probem with these effects is that the color settings were tuned to the original maxis water color. I can adjust those colors fairly easy so that it fits better with current color variations of the water. I don't think I can make this particular effect steerable though because it uses a FSH instead of a Model resource. I also want to make additional waterfall effects, improve the existing ones but also include some variations... Not too difficult

Anyway this is all still far out.

For an editor let's see what I have already:
A readeffdir script: fairly stable, but doesn't take into account all excotic redirections yet. Not really a huge problem since there are only a few effects that use these
A writeeffdir script: idem.
An isolate effdir script: works in most case, and isolates a single effect including most redirections from the maineffdir and outputs the isolated effect
An appendeff script, for putting two effects into one effdir file.

I think the scripts are fairly easy to port to python or c++ or what have you.

The reason I am stuck to matlab is because of the build in grid editor for variables and matrices. So a grid based editor with some specific delete, copy, cut, paste functionallity is what is needed to make a great tool.

Lowkee is working on something, but he hasn't been around for some time...

Hope I have answered most questions.. I am of to work now.. Bye

[xannepan]

Okay. I have fixed the "dead dolphin" graphical issue NCGAIO suggested. I also have the placement dust working on water. It is usefull., because it indicates where near the surface the Dolphins and whales will actually appear (the circular marker does a bad job here, because it is positioned at the bottom of the river/lake/sea/ocean, while the animals are created near the surface).

I will upload the updates in a minute.

Next is adding some custom birds. Crows to begin with, maybe some aras and flamingos.

-Alex

[noahclem]

Nice improvements    If you're taking requests I have a silly-sounding one that I would actually really enjoy: wooly mammoths, re-skinned from the elephants. The could fit in nicely with a lot of the winter stuff going on these days 

[xannepan]

Nice improvements    If you're taking requests I have a silly-sounding one that I would actually really enjoy: wooly mammoths, re-skinned from the elephants. The could fit in nicely with a lot of the winter stuff going on these days 

Noah... are you any good in reskinning? If you send me the FSH texture I can put them in in 15 minutes