SC4 Landscape Designers Studio Development Thread

[jacqulina]

i havnt any problems,im just saying i have tried night and day together and the result i got was day zoomed out and night zoomed in,sorry if you didnt understand me.

[Ennedi]

i havnt any problems,im just saying i have tried night and day together and the result i got was day zoomed out and night zoomed in,sorry if you didnt understand me.

OK Jacqulina, I expected this and now I understand you well 
Unfortunately our game provides only one sky background for every zoom, and it is independent from the night/day cycle. I'm going to use different sky backgrounds in my future pictures too, and I have even more reasons to open and close the game many times during one session 

Adam

[jacqulina]

thanks and thats ok my friend

[ldvger]

So, not trying to be rude, but what happened with the idea of creating plop water that matches game water?  Was it abandoned? 

I am desperately seeking game/plop water transition techniques and finding next to nothing...it's like maybe everyone who uses plop water has given up on melding game and plop water to each other.  I have opened a thred over on ST, which led me here, and while I see some good work done here, it stops short of the actual transition from game to plop water.

Please understand, I am not being critical.  I have no knowledge of the skills required to BAT or LOT or DAT or MOD.  I am just a city builder looking for answers to me city building needs.  I also understand how RL has a way of intruding on gaming projects. 

But is anyone, ANYONE, interested in trying to crack this last remaining barrier between the great plop waters that have been developed and the great game water mods that have been developed?  Or am I the only one? 

I am currently unemployed and time weighs heavy on my hands, so if anyone is willing to point me in the direction I need to go in to create my own solutions, I am willing. 

Really, when it comes to plop/game water, the last remaining obstacle is the transition between the two.  Getting textures to match, getting land areas to match, finding credible techniques for disguising the inevitable mismatches...a bridge, a dam, or maybe even a new tile.  I don't know. 

But I am willing to learn how to try, just need some help along the way. 

Lora/LD

[Ennedi]

Don't worry Lora!

Yes, we are interested in giving players an easy method of preparing transitions between ploppable and ingame water. But in fact we can make such transitions. This theme was researched a long time ago. I think the most helpful thing would be to make a kind of tutorial explaing all possibilities and building techniques. I planned to make such tutorial from some time, but I have still too much RL work. However I will try to find a few hours tonight and collect some information about water transitions.

Some quick facts:

- It is possible to make transitions between traditional (opaque) ploppable water and ingame water without any problem. Ploppable water can be placed on the sea/river bottom. It enables making transitions and also changing the ingame water look according to ous needs. I use this technique from the first update (August 2007) in my MD (Ennedi plays Shosaloza), I know that PEG presented this method this year on his site too. The only uncomfortable thing is we need to finish the riverside (seaside) using ploppable flora or stones to cover the ploppable water edge.
- It is also possible to make transitions between canals and ingame water, the only needed thing is to have slope-conforming water tiles in the canal set.
- It is impossible to make good transitions between Transparent Ploppable Water (TPW) and ingame water. TPW can be placed on the sea bottom, but it is visible only if the water depth is lower than TPW model height. For example Jeronij's TPW is 4 m high and pieces are visible only if the water depth is less tham 4 m.
As I know, one of our friends is working on the new solution: ploppable water pieces - opaque but giving a sense of transparency  - this can be a solution of the problem. But I don't want to inform you too early, we should give a time to the creator.

Another thing to improve is to make ploppable water with a color similar to existing water mods. Our team is going to release such mod(s) soon. Unfortunately all of us are very busy now. Chris has a new job and he must concentrate on it, Silvio is very busy till September and I started two new contracts last week. Now I have one building site 130 km to the Nothwest from my hometown and the second one 120 km to the Northeast. So I have my private Bermuda Triangle now  . Especially one building site is demanding, we are working in the chemical plant close to ammonia, hydrogene and propylene installations, there is a high risk of the contamination and explosion at this place and I must organize all works very carefully.

I will try to present some water transition techniques tonight.

Adam

[Ennedi]

Sorry for double post, but I promised to analyse GW/PW (Game Water/Ploppable Water) transitions and I finally found some time to do it. It is clearly understandable that my readers didn't find anything interesting in the announcement, so I will try to make them more satisfied now 

The transition problem is as old as ploppable water stuff. Many people made ploppable ponds, rivers and streams and they often tried to connect them with the game water. Many of these transitions were hidden by stones, ploppable flora etc. it looked sometimes better, sometimes worse. The main problem was usually a difference between GW and PW color, and visible edges of PW pieces.
But sometimes we were able to see really good GW/PW transitions, and some of them were real masterspieces. But it seems these achievements were not so easy to repeat. We should also remind Dogfight's attempt to harmonize his water mods with Jeronij's TPW. It was an ambitious experiment, but it didn't solve the problem ultimately, partially because of some TPW features (I will comment them later), and partially because many people prefer another water mods.
I also played with ploppable water from the beginning, but I used it in a different way than most people. The first thing I noticed was possibility to place PW tiles uder water. I was surprised why other players place only a few PW tiles at the seashore, but then I understood that this technique can be too demanding for some people (especially impatient ones  ). Plopping PW under GW isn't very comfortable, sometimes you plop pieces and nothing happens, but you only need to change the zoom for a while and you can see you actually plopped PW  . It is also wise to cover an underwater area by PW pieces, then change the vewing direction and look for holes, then fill them by PW pieces. You should also have very soft sea bottom without steep slopes and sharp edges, and terraforming under water is more difficult than on land. (now we have very easy solution for these problems, more about it later).
But I had enough patience and used PW more and more. Being able to place PW under GW I started to think about another ways of using it.

Here is a picture from the first update in my MD (August 2007). I covered all the riverbed by PW pieces (DT model No3, the same as in the lake above the dam). My intention was to harmonize colors of the lake and the river. I used PEG's Brigantine Water Mod.



I also used that technique to harmonize the GW color with the Somy's Gyoko Marina, which contains the water texture inside the harbour:





You can say it isn't perfect and you will be right, but how could it look without PW? 



When Jeronij released his Transparent Ploppable Water (TPW, I was very excited. I made many nice ponds and streams using it - thank you amigo!
But I noticed that it is practically impossible to make good loking TPW/GW transition. TPW model can be placed uned water, but it will be visible only if the water depth is less than TPW model height.
Look at pictures below. JRJ TPW model is 4 m high. The query on the first picture shows water depth equal to 246 m (4 m deep) and TPW model is visible. Now look at the second picture. The query shows that TPW pieces are at that place, but they are invisible, because the water depth is now 6,1 m (query shows 243,9 m).





Looking at these pictures you can also see another imperfections: Places where one TPW tile covers another one are visible as dark patches even on the slightest slope (much more than on land), and the TPW color is different than on land.
I wanted to use TPW in my creations, so I choosen the only possible solution: I made a stream of TPW, and I mixed TPW with an old opaque PW near its mouth. Then I made a transition to the sea using PW pieces.







You can see that sea bottom area covered by PW is quite large - in fact it is even larger, making MD pictures I used Terrain Properties from Cycledogg's Italia Terrain Mod where water becomes opaque at the depth 38 m. Making these pictures today I used custom terrain mod with water opacity reduced to 10 m. An intention of covering so large area by PW was to achieve an effect visible on satelite views at many rivers mouths (variable water colors). You can see more pictures of that stream in my MD (updates 11 and 12, November 2007).
(Note: All pictures except the first one showed in this message were made especially for showing them here. Some of my MD pictures are edited, and I want to show you "raw" version here)

As you see Ploppable Water can be used in various ways and nice looking transitions are possible.
But - as I said earlier - not many people are able to make good looking transitions, and still many people are disappointed of current possibilities in that area. There are also some misunderstanding in the whole theme, so I will try to explain you what can we do and what we can't.

1. We can't make a good looking TPW/GW transition, I explained it yet. It is connected with semitransparent model behaviour, maybe somebody will find a solution in future. But model transparency causes another problems too (pieces don't look good under water) and I seriously doubt if it can be improved.

2. We can place any PW under GW, no matter which water mod we use.
Players often have problems with placing PW tiles under water (some water mods seem to be more comfortable in that case such as Brigantine, also some PW types such as new PEG's Tahoe are easier to plop, it depends on their placement properties). But as I said earlier you need to chage the zoom and rotate the view to do it successfully.
But we can solve this problem very easy: All we need is to lower the sea level temporarily 
Here is a projected river mouth. Red arrows show where will be a transition and where the water will be opaque after returning to the previous sea level. I make for myself a special sea level mod, which lowers GW by 38 m - from 250 to 212 m. Why? Because water in Cycledogg's terrain mods becomes opaque from 38 m and if I use that mod the new seaside will show me this point  Everything I will plop beyond that point will be invisible.



3. Can we create perfect, seamless GW/PW transitions?
Yes and no. We can't create perfect, universal and easy to use transitions. But we can create GW/PW compositions which will look perfect at certain conditions (especially the viewing direction and positon on the map - near the centre or close to the edge?)

I checked several PW types with various water mods. Results were... various  . For example Edmonton Water PW looked very good with Brigantine Water Mod when I looked from the side, but looked bad when I looked upstream or downstream. Another combinations gave various results, but none of them was universal.
I wanted to check what will happen if we are able to harmonize PW and GW colors. So I extracted the DT Model No3 texture from the dat, checked its color in Photoshop and make the texture for water mod of exactly the same color. The GW texture was without any details, such as PW texture. Let's look at the result.
(I will say at every picture from which direction are we looking at the transition).

West


South


East


North


As you see the result isn't nice. Why? Because water texture is something completely different than the PW texture and it will always look different even if they will have the same color. I understand its a poor explanation, but to tell it better we would need to ask a computer graphics specialist (maybe somebody will help?  )
But I know one thing: The game uses two kinds of light: Global Lighting (directional) and the Environment Map (not directional). Both are a great influence on our terrain, textures and models. Lighting conditions for terrain and models are different, there is also a part of the Environment Map dedicated to game water. If you want to know more, look here.
Various texture will look different depending on the viewing direction. Game water texture is also dependent on the position on the map - water is significantly brighter near the map centre, no matter which texture we use.
Conclusion: We can harmonize two texture of different type (such as GW and PW or terrain texture and lot texture), but it will work well only at certain conditions - viewing direction, position on the map, and also - day or night, sun or shadow. Did you ever see how bright are ploppable stones or some buildings in shadow? Lighting conditions for models are different than for the terrain!)

OK, but maybe it is possible to harmonize these textures better? I made another experiment. I took my water texture, added another layer and put a custom brush with water ripples on it (white color, opacity 24%). Now I have the same texture but with some brighter details.

West


South


East


North


Looks much better, at least the seam isn't so visible. Let's look at zoom 2:



So maybe this is the way? Maybe we should make GW and PW with similar colors and identical surface details, so details will hide the transition?
But attention!! Ploppable items have separate textures for every rotation, but terrain textures use the same texture in every rotation! It is clearly visible on the game water, we always see horizontal waves, sometimes they are perpendicular to our beaches 
Maybe we can make PW with the same texture for every rotation, but it can look stupid (waves along the river?  Wait, we have them yet if we make a river with the game water). Anyway, I think it would be better to make a pair GW/PW with "not-directional" details which will look good and realistic in every rotation. Quite demanding task 

Now we are working on our new water mods, Chris is going to make some new PW pieces too and now he is preparing water mods made by him and me to harmonize with the new PW (he has choose colors yet). Unfortunately Chris is very busy now and we will have to wait for the release. If we will have a few GW/PW pairs, we will be able to check them in the game in various conditions and we will be able to say if it was worth of the effort. But we must still remember that what looks good from the West, will look different from the North. Two clors can be identical near the map centre, and they will be different close to the edge. So making good loking GW/PW transitions will always depend on the player's skills, creativity and patience.

4. Wait... And what about the new PEG's Tahoe PW? A few months ago PEG described the method of placing PW on the sea bottom (I'm glad somebody wants to popularize it at last  ) and created a new PW type which works well with the Brigantine Water Mod. Today I read that it solves the problem.
OK, let's look at it

West


South


East


North


As you see, we have the same issue here. The transition looks very good (really good!) from West and East, but much worse from South and North. I must add that Tahoe PW is very comfortable to plop, also under water

5. And now the little final discovery. Looking at the Tahoe PW I asked myself if this directional issue is relative to terrain formations (ie looks good if we look from the side and bad if we look upstream/downstream) or relative to the directions of the world (ie looks good if we are looking from West or East, looks bad if we are looking from North or South). So I mad my last experiment today.
I looked at my stream from the West. The transition looks good, but I look at it from the side. Now I covered an upper (East) side of the stream by PW pieces, so now I have a new transition and I'm looking at it upstream. And it looks good too!



Conclusion: How does your transition look depends of the directions of the world, not on terrain formations!
So if you will choose the PW and water mod, test the transition between them in two viewing directions: North-South and East-West. There is a big chance your transition will look much better in one of these directions.

Adam

[Battlecat]

That's an absolutely fascinating discovery regarding plopable water.  I'll have to keep that directional bias in mind going forward with my journal.  Thanks for taking the time to write it up, it's an excellent look at the evolution of plopable water as well.

[ldvger]

Adam-

Some excellent transitions shown here and same for explanations of how to achieve the effects.  A couple of questions:

Where does one find/download the DT Model #3 water mod you use?

What do the transitions look like with waves turned on?

Also, while I have attempted to use PW under GW by first raising terrain in God Mode, plopping water, the lowering terrain back to normal, all my plop water get bull dozed.  And, if I try to PW under GW without first raising terrain, my PW tooltip flies out telling me I can't build on water.  Is there some setting in my game I need to change to plop PW under GW?

Lastly, how does one change the color of water mods and PW?  I am willing to experiment with making transition pieces, but I haven't a clue how to modify existing stuff.  Just point me in the direction of a tool or tutorial and I can probably take it from there.

Lora/LD

[joelyboy911]

Just wondering - are the beaches in the pictures of the first page of this thread a future beach mod? Also - can such a mod be made to override the beaches in a terrain mod?

I also look forward to using the water mods proposed earlier (green one takes my fancy). You're doing great work.

[girlfromverona]

Hey guys! Just wondered if you're still working on this project or whether it has fizzled out? (I really hope not!)

[Ennedi]

Hey guys! Just wondered if you're still working on this project or whether it has fizzled out? (I really hope not!)

Don't worry girlfromverona, the project is not dead!
Yes, we had many problems. We had a quick progress at the beginning, but both my friends had to limit their activity. Silvio had too much RL work, Chris started a new job and he hadn't time too, so I stayed alone. I decided to create terrain mods myself, but I was sick for a long time and when my health improved, I had a lot of RL work too  . Finally I started my work.
I'm on the long way now. I'm working with various problems:

Snow without unnatural straight borders and jagged edges (here in zoom 6  )


Natural transitions from beach to grass




I'm also trying to harmonize terrain textures with ploppable flora to increase landscaping possibilities


I collected many textures, now I have to divide them into groups, assign to various terrain mods, landscape types and vegetation levels. It will take some time.
I make many experiments too. For example I wanted to know where to put a texture into the Terrain Texture Map Table to have it in the specific area. So I filled all the Map Table by one text texture and put another texture only in one column (each column is responsible for the specific moisture range, there is also some "moisture noise" to make the landscape more natural, but it makes arranging the landscape more complicated and unexpectable). Now I know that - for example - the texture from 5th column appears on hilltops on the South side



But it doesn't appear on the North slopes



I checked all Terrain Map table columns and all sides that way. I also saw that we usually have more than one texture at the particular place. What we see is usually a mix of two or more textures (but one is more visible than others at the given place). It explains why we often have blurry textures even when the source texture is very good, but if we know how to work properly with multiple textures blending together, we can achieve spectacular effects 
As I said, this is a long way... But don't worry, I will try to show you some nice landscapes soon 

Adam

[Rayden]

Also, while I have attempted to use PW under GW by first raising terrain in God Mode, plopping water, the lowering terrain back to normal, all my plop water get bull dozed.  And, if I try to PW under GW without first raising terrain, my PW tooltip flies out telling me I can't build on water.  Is there some setting in my game I need to change to plop PW under GW?
Lora/LD

I haven't tried Adam's technic but I believe it involves either a command while using the extracheats.dll or by modifying temporary the terrain mod. I'm sure Adam will explain that better.

About the project, let's see if after the holidays I can get some extra time free to give an hand on this. I even didn't had much time to release my rock mods.

[girlfromverona]

That looks wonderful, Adam! So glad you're still working on this. I totally understand about RL commitments. Look forward to seeing more progress when you have the time. 

[JoeST]

ooooh, swish *drools*

looking fantastic as usual

Joe

[mightygoose]

i would say welcome back but im currently speechless

[Frankie B]

i would say welcome back but im currently speechless

+1


Fabulous work.....absolutely fabulous 

[Girafe]

 

Hope to see more soon