• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

Arden Tree Controller Help Desk

Started by vortext, June 01, 2011, 06:42:21 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

RickD

I guess this is what Kergelen reported?



epicblunder: I would appreciate if you could send me a fix for this issue.




I have just started trying out the mod. So far I am very happy. I especially like the transitions between leafy and deciduous forest. It is way better than in any other tree mod I have seen.  :thumbsup:
I'll post some pictures when I have more time.
My name is Raphael.
Visit my MD: Empire Bay (My old MD: Santa Barbara County)

vortext

Quote from: RickD on October 09, 2012, 01:25:42 PM
I guess this is what Kergelen reported?
Yep, that's it. And I would appreciate some summer shots as well.


Quote from: epicblunder on October 09, 2012, 01:14:26 PM
when i get to making small brushes; that might become a problem.
small brushes are a pain anyway  &sly
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

Kergelen

#202
That was the problem. As vortext said, just delete the "kSC4FloraPreferencesProperty" from the 6 exemplars and problem solved. :thumbsup:

RickD: I can send you the file :thumbsup:


Edit: Just a note. My PTM is slightly modified and the height where the snow starts is higher than the default version "Hight Snow". If anyone is interested in the future when the tree-controller will be available, I set the "MaxTerrainHeight" to 3583 (like some terrain mods by CP) so the flora just end right when the snow begins.


                                    Links to SC4 websites

Simcoug

#203
It's such an amazing sight to see all the great seasonal trees plop on my screen in huge swaths, when before I was stuck using the Mayor Mode brushes .

Here are a few pics - I am using CP's Columbus terrain mod with Lowkee's rock textures.
Fall:


Summer:


Closeup of transition areas:


I noticed that the higher altitude evergreen trees looked a little thin in spots - but you may not be able to do much due to the models you are using.  Otherwise I think it is a great controller.  I especially like the variety of deciduous trees at the lower elevations - you did a good job with the mix.  :thumbsup:

EDIT:   :D  apparently there was a word that the SC4D website didn't like in my summer pic link...  hopefully fixed now.

epicblunder

Re: logging MMP's, glad that's covered   :thumbsup:

Tested the river controller today, i did find one bug.  At higher elevation an additional deciduous appears above the subalpine firs, and i don't think it's supposed to be there:  click to expand



Quote from: vortext on October 09, 2012, 01:34:49 PM
Yep, that's it. And I would appreciate some summer shots as well.

Okie Dokie.  I'll post a bunch with shrunk sizes to save space.  Click to see fullsize.

River controller, high altitude slopes fall:


and again in summer:


River controller shoreline fall:


and again in summer:


Eastern Oregon Canyonlands in fall:


and summer:


same spot with the coastal controller in fall:


and summer:


I think it's turned out quite nicely.  At first i was a little put off by the open spaces of the river controller, but it does very well for a sparce environment.  I could see it being a montana or eastern rocky mountain terrain very easily.   &apls

vortext

@epicblunder, what do you mean 'not supposed to be there', they fit right in!  $%Grinno$%

Thanks for catching that and for the pictures as well. Glad to hear the forests bare some resemblence to reallife areas 'cause frankly I haven't been bothered with trying to recreate any particular landscape.

@Simcoug, the pictures show just fine. I'm pleased you like the variety, as already mentioned I didn't aim for realism and instead tried to cram in as many different models as possible.  ;D
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

RickD

Many pictures have already been posted and I do not want to overload this thread so I won't post any close ups for now. But I just have to post this one:



Look how awesome the forest looks in region view. It is only one tile now but compare it to the empty ones or the other ones planted with the meadowshire controller. Amazing, isn't it?
My name is Raphael.
Visit my MD: Empire Bay (My old MD: Santa Barbara County)

vortext

#207
Thanks Raphael, this one tile looks great already. I'll get back to your PM this weekend.

~

On a different note, the lots I've made for DaveN are available on the LEX! Here's a reminder what they look like.

*click pic for full size*


*click pic for full size*
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

Swordmaster

So, vortext, I've disregarded your advice to not try to make a tree controller - like just about everything else, I felt I needed one of my own making. But something kept bugging me till the end. Do you or does anyone know why I needed the "Special case only" property? Without it, nothing worked. I looked at CP and found he set it to false for the first flora in the brush, and true for the following. You didn't mention it when you showed your template, so I figured, how do you make it work without it?

Cheers
Willy

vortext

#209
@ Swordmaster / Willy, to be honest, I don't know exactly what that property is for but my best understanding is 'Special case only', 'kSC4FloraFamilyProperty' and 'Flora: Wild' properties have something to do with brushes being able to be used in godmode as well as mayormode,  However, given most of the models I use are already available as mmp I decided early on not to add more clutter to the mayormode menu and stripped all unnecesarry properties. The template I showed works fine for godmode brushes (though I stripped it too radical and since have added 'Pollution radii' back to the exemplars files  ::)).

~

And while here I might as well do a little update. After receiving feedback (thanks again everybody!) I started reworking brushes and controllers but alas, nothing seemed to work and my frustration grew so I decided to take a little brake and fiddled around with textures for the cobble stone mod. Memo's tutorial on wide curve textures proved extremely usefull, though making decent curbstones is a pain, really. However I think it's getting there, slowly but surely.


Sorry for the png . .

In addition I've also made new tramrails.


Ignore the basic SAM curblines and again, excuse me for the png

While I'm pretty happy with the textures the biggest challenge for now is to esthablish a workflow which can withstand me changing my mind, e.g. increase stone size a bit without having to rework all textures manually. Especially because I plan to have an unique texture variation for each network tile. So yeah, it's requiring me to do some serious preplanning before actually doing any texturing, which almost seems easy.  $%Grinno$%

All the while I've also been steadily working on Enseade so I'll leave you with the latest state of affairs. At long last I've achieved somewhat believable clouds (thanks to Ol.S / Benoit) and for the first time tried my hand at rain, a little too much perhaphs?
And yes, it's almost the same area shown as the previous mosaic since I don't want to give away too much, yet.  ;)

*click pic for fullsize*

Kinda silly shadows still show, if only I'd known it was going to rain beforehand!  :D

Bye for now.  :)
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

Gugu3

Wow Vortext amazing pictures!I really like your work! &apls

Swordmaster

Thanks for the quick reply. What happened to me is that, with that property absent, only the last model would plop in god mode. When I added the SpecialCaseOnly, the brush showed all models. The same happens when you remove it from the CP controllers - that's how I figured it out. All this seems to be regardless of whether there's a mayor mode item for the brush.

Beautiful picture, by the way. Not too much rain at all! (Then again, we're used to that over here.)

Cheers
Willy

whatevermind

 :angrymore: Just deleted my mostly written reply. Anyway...  "$Deal"$

FloraFamily from my understanding is similar to prop families. This is part of the bug with City Halls that can cause random trees to appear on the lot. Andreas suggests (in a post I just lost the link to) to delete this property for this reason on new flora.

Flora:Wild simply determines if it can or can't be planted in God Mode. True = plantable, False = not plantable. So if you want something to be part of a controller, set this to True, if you want it to only be plantable in Mayor Mode (or completely unplantable), set it to false or delete the property altogether.

Special Case Only - Basically, set to False means that you can plant this flora, either in God Mode, Mayor Mode, or both, depending on other settings. Set to True means that you can't directly plant this, it can only be accessed through some other tool or occurrence.

Examples of Special Cases:
God Mode tree controller - first flora in a cluster cycle is set to False, you can plant this. Remaining clusters in the cycle are set to True - you can only get these by clicking the brush and letting it cycle to the higher clusters in the cycle. Both Maxis and c.p. used this feature. This also helps keep your menus cleaner, since something set to True won't show up in the Flora menu.

Non-plantable flora - such as flora that could only be called by a lot, or are truly special case, such as burnt trees - these have the value set to True, and you cannot plant these, but they can still show up in the game. Maxis has a few of these, such as the burnt tree and the cactus.

Hope that's useful.  :)

vortext

#213
@Gugu3, thank you!

@Willy, you're welcome and I'm all too familiar with rain as well.  &sly

@whatevermind, sure is usefull.  :thumbsup:

Quote from: whatevermind on October 24, 2012, 07:14:41 PM
FloraFamily from my understanding is similar to prop families. This is part of the bug with City Halls that can cause random trees to appear on the lot. Andreas suggests (in a post I just lost the link to) to delete this property for this reason on new flora.

I gathered it was something like a prop family from the name, however, how does it work? Can one assign a new ID to it, add it to a number of items in different brushes and then simply make a new brush by using to the FloraFamily? That would open up another realm of possibilies but I haven't been able to get it working like I imagine it would.  Any idea if this is even possible and if so, what such an exemplar would look like?
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

Swordmaster

Thanks whatevermind; very helpful. I've been testing it out, and it seems to work so that you can use different brushes in a city without having to delete trees from the previous - another thing scrapped off my to do list.

Sorry Vortext, I haven't toyed with the Family property, though. And sorry for spamming your thread! (We need something like a general tree controller thread, I think.) Won't do no more  :)

Cheers
Willy

noahclem

Beautiful pictures  &apls  The rain effect is perfect  :thumbsup:

Simcoug

I like the cobblestone textures - will your mod be part of the SAM or will it replace the maxis street texture? 

I also like the rain mosaic - very realistic looking.  I'm looking forward to your CJ.

whatevermind

Just to follow up on Flora Families, I did some research on the topic - check out the results.

Also, regarding a thread on tree controllers, there is this one which has been dead for four years, but is already a thread dedicated to the topic, not to mention a great resource for anyone starting to work on tree controllers. So, rules against reviving dead threads aside, I think that would be the place to take any new discussions on tree controllers.

OK, done hijacking, gonna go stare at that rainy village picture some more, because, wow.

vortext

#218
@ Willy, no worries and don't hestitate if you've any other questions. Quick word of warning though, be carefull with removing brushes from the plugins without bulldozing first. While the trees aren't visible anymore, they're in fact still present in the savegame and if you tried to terraform an area where trees once were, the game will CTD for sure.

@Noah, thank you!

@Simcoug, the aim of the Comprehensive Cobble Stone Mod, as it's called officious, is to replace the default GLR, GLR-in-street and GLR-in-avenue with new textures. So the main part of the mod will eventually be a texture override for puzzle pieces and regular avenue, though the streets might end up as a new SAM set given there're some ranges left.

@whatevermind, thanks for the thorough investigation, it never occured to me to try use FloraFamilies on lots. Too bad it doesn't seem to have any use for tree controllers though. And maybe I'll write a step-by-step tutorial for tree controllers once it's released, since the thread you linked to is quite old indeed and doesn't cover all the things that go into making one.
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

Swordmaster

Quote from: vortext on October 28, 2012, 07:25:57 AM
@ Willy, no worries and don't hestitate if you've any other questions. Quick word of warning though, be carefull with removing brushes from the plugins without bulldozing first. While the trees aren't visible anymore, they're in fact still present in the savegame and if you tried to terraform an area where trees once were, the game will CTD for sure.

Not if you keep the flora exemplars. You just remove them from the God mode brush, but not from the game. So, every different tree controller you make has all of the flora exemplars, but only the relevant ones are enabled with the specialcaseonly property. This seems to work.

Cheers
Willy