How to rotate a prop or model?

[FrankU]

Hi friends,

The answer to my question seems very obvious, but then the question is not understood right.

I am perfectly able to rotate a prop in LE or Pim-X to my wishes when I want to plop it on a lot. But that's not the issue here.

My question is this. All props have an arrow. When you put props together in a prop family (did you know I consider myself at the moment as the Prop Family Man?) all arrows are pointing in the same direction (and the props are centered, but thats not the point here). Now sometimes I would like to add props into one family, but the arrows are not pointing the same way. A good example is trucks and trailers. There are trucks by Maxis, Simgoober, JeStarr, Gascooker and probably a lot of other people. Some of them have the arrow pointing to the front of the truck and others have the arrow pointing to the left or right. If you put these props together the result will be that sometimes the prop drives to the left/right, and the other time it drives to the front. Not very convenient.

Now the question is: Is it possible with Reader or Pim-X to change the direction of the arrow? Is there some east/west/north/south orientation exemplar value that can be edited? Or do I need to rerender the model, which I will not do?

[Lowkee33]

Unfortunately, the rotation of the model is defined in the model files.  Every model is really a series of 20 snapshots that describe what is seen at each zoom/rotation.

Changing these values is quite possible, but you wont be able to share it.  Cogeo's Model Tweaker is just what you are looking for.  If you open a file with it you will see a list of the models.  I was successful with the "re-orient" option ("rotate" was grayed out).  The support thread can be found here.

For MEGA packs it will be a process just to find the model you want.  The newest version of Reader can filter a file by instance.  A quick way to find the right model is to filter by FSH and Instance 0x#####430.  Once you know the Group and Instance of your model, you can open the pack in Model Tweaker and find it.  Just know that MT will show the instance as 0x#####000.

[FrankU]

Ah, OK, so I need to edit the model and sharing an altered model is not allowed. That's what you mean by "wont be able to share" right? Pity.
I could of course ask the owner of the model, but I'm afraid this is not going to happen.

I'll think about it, but maybe I'll just leave it as it is.

Thanks a lot anyway for your quick answer.

FrankU

[Lowkee33]

Ah, OK, so I need to edit the model and sharing an altered model is not allowed. That's what you mean by "wont be able to share" right? Pity.

Thats right.

I have also found that BATers use different shadings on their models.  Say everybody made the right side of their models a little darker.  When you rotate the model you will make the left side darker.  So then when you add it to the family and see the randomness in-game, there may be cars that are out of place because of their shading.  That probably does not matter, but perhaps something to keep an eye out for.

[cogeo]

@Franku: Releasing modified items is not allowed because they may be used in lots, and the lotmakers used them in their original form; ie you may not release modified models and props, because this would cause problems in those lots. Of course providing a fix is something different, as is the work you are making with prop families (this won't trouble lots using them as specific props). But rotating a model does affect the lots using it, so it's not suggested. However, you can do this job on copies of the model and the prop exemplar (with different IDs of course), ie make a new prop using the rotated model, but the same textures (point the original prop-pack as a dependency). See the Tweaker's documentation (topic "Further Modding Information") for details.

@Lowkee33: The Rotate operation works for models with 1 Z/R view, while Reorient for 20-Z/R ones. And the way they work is totally different. That's why they are two different operations, instead of one. See the documentation for details.

Also I think you are not right about shading. In such a case lotmakers couldn't even rotate the models in LE! "Light" in SC4 is always supposed to come from the... left side, no matter how you rotate the model or the city. See the prop shadows to verify this. So in a model, the "front" side is normally or well lit, the left one (if visible) looks somehow "overexposed", the right one looks darker (shaded), and of course there is no back side. So I think you can rotate models without such problems. Examples please?

Tip: You can click on the Help button on the Toolbar, and then anywhere on the program (toolbar button, menu item, document window etc), this displays context-sensitive help.

[Lowkee33]

See the documentation for details.

I will.  Until now my modding has been primarily Reader, but I will learn how to use your program.  I did not mean that it was broken, but I came from the perspective that I don't know much about it.  I shrunk some trees the other day, and that was terrific.

CP Vol 01 has shaded/non-shaded cars and fences.  I dont understand why myself (but am guess that, there too, is a good reason for it).

[FrankU]

@ Lowkee and Cogeo,

Thanks guys. I decided not to try this at home. I'll stick with the props that are aligned in the way that is useful to me. I'm afraid fooling around with the models the way you explained to me is going to take too much of my precious time.