Mayor Mode Ploppable Possibilities

[thingfishs]

That sounds really promising Stefan. I must admit, though I've got DAMN installed, I haven't figured out how to use it yet. (I've been busy learning to BAT, I haven't actually been playing that much) But if it allows the creation of unique menus then, why isn't it better utilised and will you marry me?

[hooha47]

adroman, I will send you a PM and we can figure out what you want to test.  Thanks a lot for the support.

thingfishs, I'm afraid you are going to have to eat those words.  You can easily hide individual MMPs from a large pack with my method, however, my method may be irrelevant.

Stefan, that is really good news.  I tested it with removing just the ItemButtonID property and it works, so you don't need to remove the ItemIcon property.

For those who don't know, DAMN (Daeley's Advanced Menu Navigator) allows you to create your own menus using the news ticker window.  Creating your own menus for DAMN was really intimidating until Stefan came along with his SSPTool, which makes creating your own DAMN menus really easy.  It also allows you the option to hide the items from the normal menu.  It makes scrolling through endlessly long menus a thing of the past.  And thingfishs, I have no idea why it's not more widely utilized, I can't imagine playing without it anymore.  Now that we'll be able to use it for MMPs, it's an even more invaluable tool.

[tamorr]

   Well that's good to know, I'll definately await the pics for them and any other you've found within that pack. Yeah I love his style of Waterfront/Canal walls and water... I can definately see plenty from that set.

  As for the mention of DAMN, I probably could see some use of it with the MMPs. As I prefer MMLs for most of my stuff, there are some things that are definately better with DAMN. It is a great system, and since that is the only way feasible to hide/unhide things per say with MMPs, I would actually use DAMN for something other than a few sets I have in mind to use with that system. I primarily use MMLs, my own custom and others that were made... This definately shows promise, and hopefully the seasonal or semi-seasonal is worked out somehow, but as you said that will be for a later date.
   Patience is always a virture I have for these kinds of things.   Have you ever checked any of the LBT Prop packs for anything? I am unsure but there may be some small props that might be suitible.... If not it is just another thing in idea to see. Also were any of the flora stuff from FC (French Connection) from BLaM ever done into MMPs. There is a whole lot of stuff among that collection... Mainly flora.... but hey MMP could use many types of Flora for rural areas... Plus there are some fountain stuff I believe... It's been a bit since I've looked into those packs, as I have only scoured the surface of FC Props.

[Ennedi]

Hooha, I must say I follow your thread with a great interest. I also think that ploppable items have a great potential. There are some players who prefer the "sandbox mode"  and Mayor Mode ploppable stuff is extremely useful for them. Also there are a lot of players who appreciate the simulation aspect of the game, but they want to make their landscapes and cities more diversified and realistic. Only a few small ploppable object placed in a creative way (such as your boat and a small pier at the lakeside) can make a great difference.

But there is one thing I must warn you about: Mayor Mode ploppable items sometimes rotate by 90 degrees when you plop them. I saw it when I tested Barby's ploppable tractors, we discussed it and Barby said that we can't disable that rotation. It is not very important when we plop trees, but become much more important when we want to plop vehicles, small buildings or other objects such as Simgoober's bridges.

I tested your trees (and I can say I like them a lot!  ) and I saw you made a family with the same prop repeating twice. It is very wise. I would suggest to use the same trick for ploppable buildings etc., to give the player a second chance when the plop rotates in the unwanted direction after first click.

But we can do even more: Let's say we have a small building - for example a chalet or a rural house. It would be nice to make a family using only that building but rotated accordingly to the FAR roads directions (ie. not only 0 and 45 degrees, but also two additional FAR angles - they are something about 18 and 72 degrees, but I don't remember, you should check it in 3RR). In that case you should make a family with the ploppable building positioned at angles 0, 18, 45, 72 degrees - and repeat this cycle twice (because of the rotation issue I described above). Other orientations could by achieved by rotating the viewing direction.
Edit: Having such ploppable buildings we could place them along FAR roads and FARR railways.
It would be the next, very nice step on the way to break the grid   

Somebody could say that it would cause an incredible amount of menu icons (we need many ploppable props  ). But if Stefan says that it will be possible to use SSPTool for ploppable items, we have a solution - without it I wouldn't suggest to make a family consisting only one prop.

Adam

[hooha47]

tamorr, I believe these are the cherry blossoms you were referring to (not the tree, but the blossoms on the ground):



I also did some fall leaves from one of Porkie's prop packes.  I have those BLAM prop packs, but haven't had a chance to install them and see what's in there, but I will.  Thanks again for the suggestions.

Adam (Ennedi), thank you so much for your comments, and for testing my trees.  I have made all of these with the same prop repeating, sometimes several times, for exactly the reason you stated.   As far as I know, that's another 3RR innovation (there's a surprise, an innovation coming from 3RR  ).  The MMP seasonal trees that are available on the 3RR exchange were made that way, and David wrote a lengthy tutorial showing how they were made.

I agree with you about making them align with the FAR angles, that would be great, but my understanding is that would involve redoing the models so that they are situated properly.  I don't know how to do this, and imagine it would involve getting permission from the original creator of the models.  If there's some other way to do it, I'd love to know how.

I haven't had a lot of time to do much more, but I'm hoping to get some testing done and start getting these ready for release in the near future.

[tamorr]

Yeah I belive those are them alright.    Nice work... Yeah BLaM has some interesting props indeed, and worth it when you can... Have the D66 ones' been done? I don't remember...

Either way it is always nice to have a more selection when it comes to MMPs.

[SimNation]

I think I figured out what that texture problem I was having before was. The 2nd parking lot I plopped to test to see if it would reoccur did not have the same problem. As I was trying to recreate it..it dawned on me that I had one of the BSC custom airports (the helipad) sharing the same road with it. I think that when the helipad upgraded it probably caused the modular parking lot textures to get funky. I am not certain..but my other parking lot that I made has not texture glitched. Hopefully the airport upgrading was the problem...if it occurs again I will make sure to post the problem.

[gazac48]

now that I've got your attention, what would you like to see made ploppable? 

real color Beach Sand to used with ploppable water