This is something I have searched a lot, but I was not able to figure out.
I want to make some buildings and lots (both growables and ploppables) which just "sit" on a slopped terrain, and do not flatten or otherwise "terraform" the terrain, just like the GLR puzzle pieces do. These do not change the terrain, actually you have to prepare the trackbed yourself first and then plop them. This is the preferred behaviour, as it allows the player terraform the terrain to his/her wishes.
I checked some buildings like the ingame beaches, jeronij's walls etc, but haven't got any clue. Any tutorial or advice on this? I don't which all the relevant properties are and what exactly they do. Also how the "foundations" (both the building's and the lot's) work. I would be grateful if someone could help. Better yet write a tutorial and make the thread sticky, I think it's not just me, this is something of general interest.
To make a lot conform to the terrain, you'll have to set the "Foudation threshold" parameter higher than the "Elevation Change: Lot Max". This can be done in LE, in the Lot -tab. One thing to remember with this is that you might end up having the building's doors above ground, as the building still centers itself on the 0,0,0 point it has been rendered on (this is the reason many Maxis lots do not conform to terrain). The BSC "Slope friendly" buildings have been modeled to have stairs, walls and such beneath the XY plane, so it'll appear that the building has actually been built with the slope in mind.
MIncroabl, thank you for your help. Are those the only slope-related properties? I think there are more properties, both on the building and the lot exemplars.
The props and buildings can be made slope friendly by setting the property Orient To Slope to "True" You can do that with PIM or the Reader.
Quote from: Rayden on July 15, 2007, 05:55:07 AM
The props and buildings can be made slope friendly by setting the property Orient To Slope to "True" You can do that with PIM or the Reader.
That property only works for props, not buildings. I've tried in the past.
-Swamper77
Exactly, the Orient to Slope property not only applies to props only, it's also a completely different thing, it determines if the model should be inclined or stay upright on a sloped terrain (Rayden, thanks for the reply anyway).
What I need is information on how properties like LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation, LotConfigPropertyRetainingWallTypes, LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeAllowed, LotConfigPropertyMinSlopeAllowed and Building foundation (did I miss any?) work together to achieve the desirable slope/foundation behaviour. My only reference for now is the information in properties.xml, but I would like some deeper insight.
LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation
= If the slope exceeds this value, a lot foundation will be used. This will heavily terraform the slope.
LotConfigPropertyRetainingWallTypes
= The wall type that will appear if this lot cuts into a hill.
LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeAllowed
= The maximum slope this lot will appear on.
LotConfigPropertyMinSlopeAllowed
= The minimum slope that is required for this lot to appear.
Building foundation is the building's own foundation that will appear if the lot follows the sloped terrain. Otherwise, the building would partially float in the air. You can make custom foundations with the BAT and assign them to your buildings.
If the 'LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation' is higher than the 'LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeAllowed', a lot foundation will never be used and the lot will follow the terrain.
I suggest that you read the LE's Manual, there you will find more information.
OK, researched it further, some interesting findings:
- The Building Foundation property can be used in both the Lot and Building Exemplar (specifying the foundation type to be used for the lot and the building respectively), and can contain different values.
- The lot foundation (if terraforming has taken place) will only appear next to networks or other lots, not on empty terrain.
- The only way to make the lot "sitting" on the terrain is to set very high values to both LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation and LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeAllowed properties.
- The above properties apply to ploppables as well, not just to growables as the LE documentation claims.
- The only way to make the building not using a foundation is not having the Building Foundation property in the Lot Building Exemplar AND having the Parent Cohort property pointing to a non-zero cohort! It doesn't matter if that cohort contains a Building Foundation property itself! Looks like it's not inherited! If Parent Cohort is 0,0,0 a building foundation will be displayed no matter if the Building Foundation property in the Building Exemplar is present or not (if not, a default dark brown foundation is used).
It was the cohort settings that confused me so much. Still, what I want to do is make the building not using a foundation, because my buildings do not show models (they are hidden), and having an empty flattened area in the lot (with a foundation) looks odd. I'm looking for a technique not requiring defining a dummy (almost empty) cohort, didn't find a suitable cohort in simcity_1.dat either. Hope there is a better way to achieve this. If you do have some insight please post.
Haven't yet tested how these work with props, any clue?
Try modifying the Occupant Size property to something like 0.1,0.1,0.1 or even smaller. That's the trick I've used to make dummy buildings.
EDIT:
I've used this property:
Resource Key Type 0 = 0x5AD0E817,0xBADB57F1,0x0E110000
This is what the default Maxis parks use. Remember to remove the Resource Key Type 1 property.
Thanks MIncroabl!
Btw do you have a link to those BSC Slope Friendly Lots, I want to see what they have done.
Here's (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=24) one by c.p. It seems that he has used a custom foundation instead of modelling the building's lower portions, but the result is effectively the same.