Wes.Janson Lot Projects

[sithlrd98]

Wow...lookin good! Just noticed(sorry)this thread. Really has a kinda small town feel. I lot about as good as I BAT...well actually my lotting is better than my BATting, but you get the idea! ;DGreat job


Jayson

[joelyboy911]

Very nice!

[wes.janson]

Jayson: Thanks for checking it out. Don't worry about your lotting skills, you more than make up for it by being able to T21!

Joelyboy: I should be thanking you.. that suggestion made them look waaaay better in my opinion.


I've been working on some civic lots to go with these. I need a break from the commercial/residential lots, and this seemed an easy choice before I attempt to work on some low stage industry lots (Mostly Jestarrs, because there is sooo many and they are all great bats, though I can easily see myself throwing in some of Simgoober's and Gascooker's bats as well).

I'll throw some pics up tonight after I get home and the put the kid to bed.

Edit: I got myself a prop family range today, so I am going to make some families of my favorite C.P. trees. This way I don't have to rely on using the 'trees medium' family in conjunction with the SFBT C.P. Tree Mod.

[wes.janson]

So... I have no idea whatsoever on how to use BAT, and I was wondering if someone could either show me how (Or do it for me.. I'm lazy ) to make an invisible building (Kind of how the C.P. small residential set works) that I could I use for various lots. I tried to use some of Jestarrs props to make a freight station for the STR, but I could only get it overhang properly against the rail when using the prop, as buildings can't overhang the lot boundries.

Any help will be much appreciated.

[BarbyW]

Please don't use an invisible building. You can make new exemplars in PIM to put onto lots. If you are having problems, please ask for what you want and I will make basic lots for you to what ever size you request with what ever model you need. These will just be the right size with the building and a set of Maxis base textures.

[wes.janson]

Oh.. what is wrong with invisible buildings, if you don't mind me asking? I always found it useful when doing re-lots small residentials. I use Brians(C.P.) small greek victorian buildings with other house props because I like the stats and since they weren't planned for release I never had to worry that the query and whatnot never had the same name as the actual props.

I got it to work with the small ortho out building from Jestarrs Sterling Consolidated as long as it was a 2x3 transit enabled lot (with NCDs new STR texture pack from the STEX). I just made a new exempler in the PIM and it worked.

My hope was to have a 2x2 lot that sits next to the rail line (the less transit enabled lots I use, the less chance of CTD), but then the building wouldn't be able to overhang the boundries to sit next to the rail line properly.

I, personally, try to stay away from the PIM as much as possible. I can never figure out the proper stats (garbage and whatnot) to use. I've always put it off whilst we wait for the PIM-X.

[Pat]

Hey Tyerel the problems with the blank lots is they tend to make other buildings go ummm wiggie so to say... IE a Super Wal Mart growing in on a lot that you know its not supposed to read as a Super Wal Mart but it is, then you get into a immotral lot sydrome....  Otherwise looking at what you have been doing is sooo WOW!!!!

[wes.janson]

Pat: Thanks for dropping some knowledge!

I wonder if I could use a small prop that wouldn't look out of place on a freight station (maybe a pallet, or some trash) and make a building exempler out of it. That way I'd still be able to use the actual building prop the way I want to. I know there are some empty pallets in the Jestarr Prop Packs that I have decided to use for various freight lots. Does this make sense?

Since invisible buildings lead to such problems, should I make new exemplers for my C.P. relots?


Another question. Looking at building exemplers in the Reader I noticed that a high wealth CO$$$ exempler will contain the amount of R$$$ employees, but also the amount of R$ and R$$. Why is this and what is the math for figuring out the ratio?

[Andreas]

Invisible buildings can cause brown boxes, if the invisible building model is missing (and it's hard to see if it's missing or not ). They also might cause immortal lots because LE seems to have a bug when using buildings with resized occupant size. In case you use the invisible building on a lot that has a prop that extends the lot borders as actual building, editing the lot will reset the occupant size, and the invisible building might exceed the lot borders (which, again, you cannot see easily).

[RippleJet]

Oh.. what is wrong with invisible buildings, if you don't mind me asking?

In addition to the dreaded Immortal Lot Syndrome, there are a few things that don't work with prop exemplars in the same way as with real building exemplars.

• First of all, unless you know how to properly mod props, the hover query won't work. Hovering with the mouse over most available custom props would only show the name of whatever lies behind the prop building in the isometric view of the game.
• Secondly, you cannot bulldoze a building in the game by pointing with the bulldozer at a prop. Instead you would once again bulldoze whatever lies behind the prop. If you're lucky, it's the lot that the prop is standing upon, but that isn't always the case...
• Thirdly, you cannot route query a prop building. If you want to route query such a lot, you would have to query the lot itself, and not the building.

[wes.janson]

Looks like I'll be spending my free time reading through some various tutorials! I usually don't have to worry about this because since the far majority of the buildings I am using have come from the LEX and therefore I know that they are modded properly. I just use the existing building exempler as it's quicker and I trust it.

So.. if I want this to work properly (i.e. visually) I will have to probably make a transit enabled lot. It's the only way I can see it sitting next to the STR in the manner I want. I might just do a quick mock-up of a TE'd lot and then post a pic and stats for help on that end of it. I am assuming since STR is mainly a visual override that normal rail transit enabling should work fine?

Once again, Pat, Tage, Barby, and Andreas; thanks for the help. 

[wes.janson]

A double post. Sorry.

Below is a pic from Lot Editor showing how if I were to do a 2x2 lot I would need the building to overhang.
My question now is.. would David's method of using the reader to offset models work with this? I assume that the building would then sit within the lot boundries, but visually appear to overhang?

[sithlrd98]

Why not leave it as is? Looks pretty good like that.(if it were 3x4) Making it offset is rather tedious but I think it could give the desired effect. Does it have to be a 3x3?

Jayson

[Pat]

Tyerel looking good with the freight station there!!!

[wes.janson]

Jayson: I wanted a 3x2 non transit enabled lot. Basically something small and I usually keep my roads 2 tiles away from rail lines in more rural areas. Since I can't get it to look good that way so I've decided to go with the 3x3 transit enabled lot. I use Swampers No Dirt Mod though and it really bugs me when you get the base texture on TE'd lots. I deleted the base texture, leaving the rail overlay. I'll get occasionally get the good old black hole doing it that way, but that's a quick fix if I want to use it in any pictures.

Pat: You're kind words are always uplifting! 

Now for progress! I haven't added any trees/rocks/whatnot to these because I haven't sat down and made a prop family yet. It's just so time consuming and I'm lazy. So they will seem somewhat empty.

Front


Back


Transit enabling works!



Now to get on those families!

[Leodido]

Nice job, I really like this small building !

[RippleJet]

I would still make that a 3×2 lot, with an overhanging building (not prop)...

1. Create a new freight rail terminal descriptor for this building in PIM.

2. Open the newly created SC4Desc file in Reader and edit the Occupant Size property.
The Occupant Size contains three decimal values, width, height and depth of the building.
In this case, change the depth of the building to e.g. just 1.0 m and save the file.

3. Open LE and replace your current freight terminal with the one just created.
This time you will be able to move the building, so that it overhangs the edge of the lot.
Since the Occupant Size has been reduced, you will not get the Immortal Lot Syndrome.

[wes.janson]

Ripplejet: Thank you! Your advice worked perfectly. 


Here some new shots of the freight station. I changed the lot around a bit and am not quite happy with it yet, but I'll figure it out eventually. I'm not too excited about the lights I've chosen. I use Pegs Rural Lamp mod because I like the model. It also would mean one less dependancy file as the current lights are the only thing out of Gascookers Mega Props 01 on the whole lot whereas Peg's mod just uses the same iid of the maxis low wealth streetlight.

Front


Back




I also started on a small stage on IM lot because sooner or later I have to get to those pesky industry relots.

This is just a relot of Jestarrs plop lot. I intend to just copy the prop placement over to a growable.

[RippleJet]

Excellent!

Just a slight warning, now that you have started to tweak the Occupant Size.
Never do that on a building that is already placed on a lot.
That is the most common way of triggering the Immortal Lot Syndrome.
Only change the Occupant Size on a recently created SC4Desc file that hasn't been used on a lot before.

[wes.janson]

I've always hated the Maxis city hall and so I decided to do something about it. After searching through prop pack after prop pack, I finally decided to use one of JBSimio's buildings from the Clayhurst Univsersity. There are three main lots involved with this, two 9x4 lots and one 5x2; as well as some 1x1 filler lots that I had to use to make this fit in with the NAM 5x5 90° road curves. I wanted a bit more grandeur amd elegance to go with my government buildings and I hope I achieved it. Here is my first attempt. As always, constructive criticism is appreciated and praise is very much encouraged. 

Front Shot: Day



Back Shot: Day



Front Shot: Night



Back Shot: Night