• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

dobdriver's new tricks

Started by dobdriver, March 26, 2010, 12:30:59 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

dobdriver

#20
G'Day Devotees,

Gee twice in one day!

Thanks Vortext, I had been meaning to release them here for yonks. I think I need a round tuit. I like having the game look non standard.
Oops sorry.  :)


The next pieces are from the backgrounds I made a couple of years ago without the fancy stuff. Just the replacements for the region and the city.


Still in beautiful HD though and colour.


Although one probably can't see it.


But closer anyhow.


Hmmm the compression sort of kills 'em.


Unfortunately there is no zoom in regional view.

And now available on a LEX near you.


That's it for now.
Thanks for looking and have a great day.

Cheers
dobs

noahclem

I'm a big fan of your water mods and it's especially nice that you did the 1024x1024 textured one (if I remember the Appalachian-compatible numbers correctly). Thanks for sharing the details here! The background mods like very nice as well  :thumbsup:

epicblunder

Excellent!  The new water looks great.   &apls

Terring7

They all looks great :thumbsup: , but... what happen to your user interface panels? The buttons looks more awesome and futuristic! &dance
"The wisest men follow their own direction" Euripides
The Choice is Ours
---
Simtropolis Moderator here. Can I help? Oh, and you can call me Elias (my real name) if you wish.

dobdriver


G'Day Devotees,

Finally, I've made a mod totally different to anything that has been seen previously!
Not just a re-hash or hack of something that has been before.


Mail here too.


Thanks Noahclem, If people make high quality terrain mods, I don't mind making high quality extras.

Thanks Epic, Have you tried any?

G'Day and welcome Terring. Ah my UI mod, I may finish it one day and release it ;<) There are bits missing from dat 1 though. Thanks mate.


Okay, who here loves the quality that .SC4M maps can provide? Hmm, just about everyone! A couple that aren't so sure shuffling over at the side.
Now, who likes re-rendering them into SC4 colours? Well as I expected, nobo... Wait is that someone down the back. Drat just a shadow flickering. Nobody.

While I cannot make SC4 render sc4m maps like standard jpegs and what not, the need to render quicker came about due to the large maps I can now make. Currently I am rendering Hawaii at over 700 tiles and Luxembourg with 988 tiles (it will probably be my largest map), enter the Speedy Rendering Mod.
Not one's typical game fixing/changing mod but a helper that makes rendering cities a simple triple click affair.


White writing and the hourglass, one is saving and returning to the region.


Green writing and the arrow, one has not clicked enough. Click anywhere and the map will save and return to the region.

I've made three of them to suit each of the lower standard resolutions of the game. Only one(1) is required though, whichever matches the resolution one saves in. It works in both windowed mode and full screen and is a boone for those who render their entire maps before building on. (Not necessary if one only renders one tile then starts building on it.)

A single dat can be dropped into the root of the plugins directory but if one is using a modified UI eg. SimMars then it needs to go in a z folder as it must load after the UI.

To use it:

Start SC4 and once the region has loaded place a ball bearing or other heavyish object on the F8 key.
Triple click a city tile, that's it wait for the city to return to the region and then triple click another city tile.
When it opens the tile will be darkened and Save and Exit to Region will be in white with an hourglass. If the writing is green and an arrow cursor displayed, one has not tripled clicked. Click anywhere on the screen to save and exit but that dear friends is wasting time.

Remove and keep safe for one's next masterpiece when all tiles are rendered.


And so that is it for today.



Thanks for looking and have a great day.


Cheers
dobs




epicblunder

Well that sounds just downright handy.  I have a pair of large maps almost ready but i've been slacking because i don't want to spend several hours rendering each one.  If this ends up shaving off a decent chunk of time it'll be well worth it.

Aye I've tried out some of the water, but only a few (haven't had the time to put much focus into anything it seems like).  I do like the color variety, but i'm far from testing all the options.

Terring7

"The wisest men follow their own direction" Euripides
The Choice is Ours
---
Simtropolis Moderator here. Can I help? Oh, and you can call me Elias (my real name) if you wish.

Izidor44

Hi Dob'

Actually, rendering those tiles is the worst part of mapping IMO. Reducing time of this LONG process is great !

Can't wait to give it a go !

Cheers,

Izi

Swordmaster

Hi dobs!

You know that zooming to 5 or 6 before saving gets you a much better image? Without the squarish look you get now.

Just a trick of mine.


Cheers
Willy

Kitsune

thats a nice mod... but a 988 tile map ??? Holy .. did you finally find a way around the unplayable side of the map - like what happens to the LA map?
~ NAM Team Member

carlfatal

Ha, downloaded it! Now i am happy, this is a wonderful little tool. Often i only render maps as they look beautyful as they are, others cause i am always looking for maps i would like to develop. Also i work with the terraformer, when i play a map, so this tool is most appreciated.  :thumbsup:
Thanks a lot, greetz, Carl

Lowkee33

How about that UI?  That's pretty sweet.

dobdriver

G'Day Devotee's,

Today I have made some new patch files to suit Gobias's terrain mod and the Himalayan Astral Hanky. I had to include a new quad z patch directory to ensure it loads after his triple z terrain directory. Why he didn't just poke it into a folder named Gobias is beyond me. Talk about making things difficult!

Thanks Epic, I hope you did find it downright handy, For some speed info I rendered Detroit (a 440 tile beast) in a single session today in 2 hours and 50 minutes flat. That's around 2.6 tiles per minute. prior it would have taken me at least 3 and a half hours or about 2.1 tiles per minute.

Thanks Terring it is very useful.

G'Day Izi, Have you tried it out yet?

Thanks Willy for the tip, I will certainly give that a try. But using the mod doesn't allow to do anything but click, click, click in region view.

G'day Kitsune, Nah I haven't found anything for that but... I did find out that running SC4.exe through the 4GB patcher allowed it to open a config.bmp of 224x224 pixels. Now that is one huge map. This was done on a Toshiba laptop running 16GB of ram.

Thanks Carl, I am thinking now of ways to save continuously without having the need to create a new region image each tile. This is the big time killer on large maps.

Thanks Lowkee, I shall continue to plug along with it. Hopefully one day it will be finished.


Thanks and have a great day.


Cheers
dobs



dobdriver


G'Day Devotees,

Over the coming months I am going to finish the UI I started about 3 years ago, as such I will not ne taking any map requests until I have uploaded this monster.

So to begin I thought I would show a few screens of the UI with both finished and unfinished bits.



























Thanks for looking and have a great day


Cheers
dobs

supremec

Really Nice!! It would be a good changing  &apls
Click on the banner to see my BATs

Deltacity101

How's that UI mod coming along?

Shroud

Wow! This UI mod looks sweet.

martintallon

Is it possible to make a set of plugins like your rendering mod or as extras with your mod to activate the tree paint brush for say light medium and heavy tree planting when speedy rendering?
From the book "Footfall"
Necessity isn't the mother of invention, the scifi writer is. Someone reads a book and says I can make that work and they do it.

vortext

#38
I don't think that'd be possible since light, medium or heavy tree planting depends on how long the flora brush is applied. However, have you checked out Whatevermind's Standalone Flora Brush yet? When zoomed out it'll cover an entire large tile at once, thus speeding up the process. And if you weigh down / lock the mouse button you can just walk away and leave the game alone for a bit while lush forests are being planted.  :)
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana