Although I have another project going (and I admit I probably should be working on it now instead of working on what I'm about to show you :-[), sometimes I get bored and decide to work on something else. The "something else" happens to be a custom parking lot project that will include orthogonal and diagonal parking lot tiles. So far, the orthogonals are going fine, and I can display pics of them if requested, but it's the diagonal lots that are giving me trouble.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg520.imageshack.us%2Fimg520%2F8707%2Fdiagpklotdev.jpg&hash=743b53f59a53e0a24fd73e5e54532cda3589da97)
Using a combination of CP and LBT diagonal cars, I have attempted to make my own overhanging diagonal parking lot tiles. The surface texture is actually an overhanging BAT. The problem is that the boundaries of the 1x1 tile prevent me from placing cars in some segments of the lot, as illustrated by the tile near the top of the picture. As a result, I have eight parking spaces that no cars can be placed in, since they cannot be placed outside the 1x1 lot's boundaries in LE. Is there a way to get around this? Any help will be appreciated. :)
Hmm far as how to tackle that problem I honestly have no clue but I do have to say this is looking wicked!!! I hope someone with more knowladge can help you out Metarvo!!!
Metarvo, I am just making a guess here, based on looking at your grid, and making calculations.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg5.imageshack.us%2Fimg5%2F4830%2Fmetarvodiagonalparking.jpg&hash=229df593d60bba9e15598a48b1315666f33480ef) (http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=metarvodiagonalparking.jpg)
Unfortunately it looks like in this case you may have to go back to making another lot, with just the diagonal cars, but you won't need the diagonal texture to fill those gaps, since the lot that does have the diagonal texture will hang over the lot with just the diagonal cars on it. It looks possible. I tried retracing the grid. To be honest, I didn't notice that 8 space gap problem initially looking at the picture, because real parking lots do have spaces in between clusters. THEN AGAIN this could be just the game making gaps when you make parking lots, it likes to leave gaps, and not have all the cars appear at once, sometimes I notice it won't plop any cars at all, but they may appear later.
Metarvo, Can I make a couple of suggestions? 1st, you need overhanging props. There may be some in one of the packs, hopefully someone who makes lots of cars will pop in and answer that for you.
Secondly, it looks like you are using static props. Check out some of the packs for families and timed props. There should be some good ones in there. The families will mean each plop will have different cars and spacings.
Quote from: Diggis on March 04, 2009, 12:34:19 AM
(...) you need overhanging props. There may be some in one of the packs, hopefully someone who makes lots of cars will pop in and answer that for you.
If not, you can always make such overhanging props (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=4093.msg128642#msg128642) yourself. A bit painful, but possible.
There's actually an excellent diagonal parking lot prop in prepos mega pack vol 01. Maybe you could use that one?
There is an 'easy' way to make offset prop, using Resource Key Type 4 which is in usual case the following format
0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x27812821, T,G,I
the 2nd, 3rd and 4th reps represent the offset in 1:0x10000 scale
if you want to offset your prop 1m in the x direction:
0x00000000, 0x00100000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x27812821, T,G,I
The main problem with such a Resource Key Type 4 is that LE is not displaying it correctly ( ie you won't get the same result in LE and in SC4 )
Hope that help
I would suggest, given recent findings, you make sure you give the prop a new IID before doing this too.
It's time for...
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg212.imageshack.us%2Fimg212%2F9821%2Farvopklotrepl.jpg&hash=c30aaf17b3ca5d63162463b91022aab7e71c24f1)
Pat: Thank you for the compliment. :)
j-dub: As for the missing cars, it was not so much an issue of the game making gaps, but it was an issue of not being able to place cars in those positions in the LE at all. I do realize that real parking lots are not always 100% full, but the pattern of the missing cars was too predictable and grid-like, two things which I like to avoid when possible. I did implement your idea of making new lots, as seen in the pic at towards the bottom of this post.
Diggis: I looked through the two packs I am using, which are from CP and LBT, and found no families as described for diagonal cars that allowed different spacing. For this, I plan to make a series of lots with differing amounts of cars on them. I did, however, find that the CP set includes diagonal car family props that allow random cars to appear, so I have replaced all CP static car props with prop families from the same set. The results will be seen below. As for the new IID, I have not gotten that far yet. I'm not brave enough to alter someone else's props yet. :-[
Gwail: I checked out the tutorial, but unfortunately it's all Greek to me right now. ;D Maybe I need to study it more, but it looks good. Thanks for the link. :)
metasmurf: I know about that diagonal parking lot prop, and I'm positive I have it in my Plugins folder. It's a great prop, and I may even use it sometime, but it looks a little too high-wealth for what I am doing. I am simply trying to make an ordinary, "boring" parking lot.
wouanagaine: Actually, that does look easy. Thanks for the help. :) I have a question, though. Where do I use Resource Key Type 4, as I've never used it before? Do I use the Reader?
Here's a progress shot, using prop families and additional lots:
9-1
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg89.imageshack.us%2Fimg89%2F5545%2Farvodiagpklotdev02.jpg&hash=7770bba69830c626dad0eb153c286d7485cc9c6c)
The three lots used to build this lot can be seen at the top of the pic. There is still a four-space area with no cars that appears in regular intervals near the edge of the parking lot, but it's not as noticeable as before IMHO. The orthogonal version of this lot can be seen in the lower-left section of this pic.
EDIT:
9-2
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg156.imageshack.us%2Fimg156%2F7052%2Farvodiagpklotdev03.jpg&hash=f9c25f6787a6bfa5ecde0c8a92ac2977f7e66739)
Here's another update, this time at night. The positions of the streetlights on the diagonal lots have been altered to better match the orthogonal lots.
EDIT
Much better. &apls
The only other thing, I noticed the diagonals would look better off with only having one pair of lights in the middle, instead of two pairs of lights on the same tile. Thats what you did with the ortho lots on the left. Then again, I guess we could always make that quick change in the LE, but since I see this as a LEX release, since its the only diagonal parking available, I don't think everyone getting this has LE working for them.
:thumbsup:These are awesome looking parking!
Will there be more parts such as an ortho-diag parking transition and maybe a lot that pavement would go past the road or avenues sidewalk to appear visually connected to the street or road or whatever?
Quote
wouanagaine: Actually, that does look easy. Thanks for the help. I have a question, though. Where do I use Resource Key Type 4, as I've never used it before? Do I use the Reader?
Yes, and you need to remove the Resource Key Type 1
And as Diggis said, you need to make a new prop with new TGI, not just changing one inplace
Nice progress BTW
Well, it looked easy, anyway. Wouanagaine, what did you mean by creating a new prop? I've played around in the Reader and don't know where to start, since I've never done this before. By the way, the props I am using are from the BSC MEGA Prop pack - CP Vol01 (http://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1180) and the LBT Prop Pack 3 (http://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1524), which are contained in DAT files. Is it okay for me to modify them? I apologize for all the questions, but this is confusing to me. %confuso Any help will be appreciated. :)
As I understand it (and I unfortunately have not tested this yet, but will hopefully be able to in a moment to get pictures) it should just be a matter of copying the pertinent files from the Reader into a new dat file. Strongly recommended to save a copy of the original file before messing with the Reader.
Step 1: Locate the file in the Reader (its TGI info should be handy when in the LE as I recall, so searching the mega pack should just be a matter of searching for the instance of the exemplar in the list.)
Step 2: Find the files referenced by the prop exemplar (look at the TGI info by "ResourceKeyType1" and search the main list for the first four numbers from the Instance (the last four seem to dictate zoom, rotation, etc)
Step 3: Select all files found in steps 1 and 2 (ctrl+click to select non-continuous selections)
Step 4: Right click an entry and select Copy Files
Step 5: Paste these files into a blank dat (one loads up automatically when the BAT opens) and save this dat as your new file (with a new name obviously).
Step 6: Create new TGI info:
6a: I've noticed that props made through the LE seem to be assigned a distinctive Group number. The one for JBSimio's work seems to be f105e8db (I used his mega pack vol 1 for this), mine seems to be 53ed56b1, check an output from your PIM to find out what yours is and use it to help prevent potential TGI conflicts
6b: Make sure the exemplar reflects this new Group ID.
6c: If there is an Instance conflict, change the first four numbers in the Instance to something new, but leave the last four the same as they were (and make sure this is relfected in the Exemplar too. Or just Generate New Instances with the Reader.
Step 7: Save the dat once more and test it.
Hope that helps, and avoids that whole prop pox issue. If anyone who knows the details sees any issues in this, please let me know. Nice work on these metarvo.
-Matt
Metarvo liking the progress there and any news at all???