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SimCity 4 General Discussion and Tutorials => SimCity 4 General Discussion => General Custom Content Discussion => Topic started by: sithlrd98 on July 18, 2009, 05:00:44 PM

Title: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 18, 2009, 05:00:44 PM
OK, I'm actually stuck! I recently had a request to add a base to the NAM WRRC. Anyone who has tried to base texture NAM pieces knows that the textures are lightened when the game renders them. Usually, I can get pretty darn close or just a few shades ( I've had no complaints about it with the Curve mods), not enough to stick out , but this time I'm way off, no matter how many different ways  I've done them! Does anyone know the amount of color shift the game renders transportation models? Any help would be appreciated!

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: RebaLynnTS on July 18, 2009, 05:08:27 PM
I do not know what the shift is, but I do have an idea on how to find out.

Make a base texture of a single color (maybe red). Use that same texture to model a 8x16 box. place the box on the texture in the lot editor, then you should be able to use photoshop, or similar program to find out the difference between them.
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 18, 2009, 05:10:42 PM
Kinda like Gascookers Curves tut?

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: RebaLynnTS on July 18, 2009, 05:41:06 PM
Pretty much, yes.
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 18, 2009, 07:37:40 PM
I had already tried something similar before , but I did not have any good results. I really can't understand , unless it has too many colors , why I can't match it at least really close.

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: RebaLynnTS on July 18, 2009, 07:48:33 PM
I'll see if I can figure it out.

Ok, some pretty conflicting data

Some colors get lighter, some get darker, and others stay the same. I can't find a rhyme or reason.

Also some colors are changed when making them into Textures.
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: M4346 on July 19, 2009, 02:59:52 AM
This may be a long shot here, but isn't it possible - and I can actually give this a try myself - to edit the model's FSH files manually? I mean, can't I extract the 250x250 px FSH files and just add the base texture to it and insert it back into the file with the copied IIDs and other data?
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: JoeST on July 19, 2009, 03:20:15 AM
I have seen the texture-shift that Tarkus uses documented somewhere before.. maybe on the wiki somewhere....

Joe
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: superhands on July 19, 2009, 03:25:30 AM
what i eventually found out is that draggable non-model based networks like road/rail, are actually the ones that are changed. the models on the other hand, are rendered how they would be in your folder. (they might be slightly lighter ???)

I'm not to sure what controls the rendering of colour of the roads, but it would be great to find out...

take a screenshot of sc4 and then in photoshop grab the texture you want to match, and skew it to fit the sc4 tile.
and it's pretty much guess work form that point on in getting the right colour match.

-dave
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 19, 2009, 09:49:17 AM
Just to give an example...I threw together 4 lots...one has the actual base texture and the other 3 are props(Like I said , I threw this together) just to give an example of whats going on:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi180.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx262%2Fsithlrd98%2FRail-1.jpg&hash=7892301d8fca243b6402b2d32a70b4471be18102)

Which is even more confusing since I had done a NOB re-texture mod for a previous request:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi180.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx262%2Fsithlrd98%2FRail-2.jpg&hash=911a15f8fdcff8c5577484be45dcd6b6734a5ee1)

I am stumped this time around!

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: Andreas on July 19, 2009, 09:55:47 AM
I had a hard time adjusting those textures as well - it doesn't seem to be consistent over the various networks. As mentioned before, it's mainly a trial and error process while adjusting the hue and color balance.
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: M4346 on July 19, 2009, 10:13:20 AM
Quote from: sithlrd98 on July 19, 2009, 09:49:17 AM
Which is even more confusing since I had done a NOB re-texture mod for a previous request:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi180.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx262%2Fsithlrd98%2FRail-2.jpg&hash=911a15f8fdcff8c5577484be45dcd6b6734a5ee1)

The above looks good to me, and would be great to just get a grass texture on these curves. Is this available somewhere?
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 19, 2009, 10:18:04 AM
On my HDD  :D

I already did all the pieces to match NOBS original grass textured rail mod , but I could easily re-do NOBS mod to include the Darker rails(well not completely easier since some textures were dropped in Davids Re-texture) , since his was done for Maxis rails , or I could just give you the WRRC that I have with the rails sidewalk override. I really would like to get your original request figured out though since I hate it when simple things get the better of me!

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: M4346 on July 19, 2009, 10:27:47 AM
Well I use the SFBT darker textures and the SFBT rail mod (hence the grass texture request).

If you would consent I would like to have a look at this, as a workable alternative.
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 19, 2009, 10:31:31 AM
I could just attach it here or I can send it.

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: M4346 on July 19, 2009, 10:39:08 AM
You can email it to me, if you prefer, mariusredelinghuys[at]gmail[dot]com
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 19, 2009, 10:51:17 AM
Sent it...disregard first one...forgot to add override!

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: M4346 on July 19, 2009, 11:31:31 AM
Great! I love it! :P  ()stsfd()

It doesn't blend "perfectly" but it does, in my view, blend seamlessly:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi921.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fad59%2FMariusHR%2FRandom%2520SC4%2FPilgrimsRest-11Feb.jpg&hash=f598a9ec418d563bec5754ea32e2308e1406fb3f)
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi921.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fad59%2FMariusHR%2FRandom%2520SC4%2FPilgrimsRest-24Feb.jpg&hash=5669dd2f5686e21513417455d4ee610180bcf116)

What's more, your addition to my plugins folder seems to have removed the ID texture change on the streets (see image 2), which I'm definitely not complaining about!  :D

If you don't mind, I would like to keep this addition, at last my sims (and base-textured tree lots) can live in harmony with the WRRC  ;D
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 19, 2009, 11:48:53 AM
I don't see any images...and I only added the grass and gave it  0x08400000-0x08400004, along with the rail re-textures ,which unless I had a brain fart , was for the rail sidewalk/dirt wealth?


Actually , I have thought about releasing it for some time , just wasn't sure of demand for it.

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: M4346 on July 19, 2009, 11:55:28 AM
Weird about the images  ???

I don't know what happened, but I like the outcome regardless! :P
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 19, 2009, 12:09:39 PM
Let me know what other lots  (tree,etc) and their texture Ids , and I can throw an override together for all of  the textures to match the mod!

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: M4346 on July 19, 2009, 12:22:19 PM
Thanks for the offer, but I'd rather do it myself and spare you the extra effort! :P I've done it for the sandstone texture and will do it for this one as well, if you can just give me the IID for the texture you added it would be great!
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 19, 2009, 12:25:28 PM
Quote from: M4346 on July 19, 2009, 12:22:19 PM
Thanks for the offer, but I'd rather do it myself and spare you the extra effort! :P I've done it for the sandstone texture and will do it for this one as well, if you can just give me the IID for the texture you added it would be great!

Yeah,I did one for SAPs euro concrete...

Its from NOBs mod...not sure if its a Maxis one or not....0x25db0004

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: M4346 on July 19, 2009, 12:41:27 PM
Thanks! :D
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 20, 2009, 05:21:44 AM
Well,even though at the end of the day , the original requester seems happy , I still very much would like to solve this! The odd thing is , that when
Vershner was messing with one of my beta files , he posted this:

Quote from: vershner on July 06, 2009, 12:57:30 PM
I downloaded, but forgot to try it yesterday...
I've tried it now and it seemed to work fine, so I set about modding the mod to fit the sidewalk texture I was using.

I used a simple texture override rather than actually replacing the textures in your dat, and interestingly, it matched the colours properly. I didn't have to darken the texture at all.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi432.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fqq47%2Fvershner%2F90texmod.png&hash=23276e63fbb2739897c4dfceb90424d81d5916c7)

That may be a better way to do the default textures too. It's much simpler than trying to match up the saturation and brightness for hours!
So I posted this:

Quote from: sithlrd98 on July 06, 2009, 01:27:26 PM
vershner : that will work , but if you try to do the same with the roads , you'll notice a big difference , mainly because the road is texture based , whereas the curves,etc. are model based. The overall idea with this first set was  as close as possible to match both cosmetic and function as the normal Maxis roads.

Jayson

And his reply:
Quote from: vershner on July 06, 2009, 02:36:39 PM
No, that's what I mean. I already use that texture for the road sidewalks, and I used the same texture for the curve, with no adjusting for colour.
I did it as an override though, a new dat with one texture, ID f3d80089. For some reason this keeps the colour the same, so they match up perfectly.

Which is even stranger since I had to adjust that texture for my JRJ WRC mod.
So , why is it that some textures seem fine while others don't seem to be able to be matched?

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: Tarkus on July 20, 2009, 01:54:12 PM
I can confirm what Dave (superhands) said about the game actually darkening the non-model-based draggable textures, and rendering the ones applied to transit models as is.  I found that out recently myself as part of an experiment.  The exact difference I noticed on my new Hi-Def RW textures was -16 Red, -16 Green, -15 Blue.  It's likely similar on other textures--perhaps a bit less on really dark stuff.

I had generally been using -22 Brightness, -6 Hue in The GIMP to get the puzzle pieces to match the draggable textures, though I've started experimenting with natively doing the puzzle piece textures in darkened colors to begin with. 

-Alex
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 20, 2009, 02:04:13 PM
Awesome...thanks Alex , now I have a better idea to try out!

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: trapmaka on July 20, 2009, 02:41:13 PM
Awesome work Jayson!

Always thought someone would get around to doing this, but maybe I should have requested it myself  :P.

Uh question. Are you going to add textures to all the NAM puzzle peices?
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: sithlrd98 on July 20, 2009, 02:44:20 PM
Already have,at least all of the WRC/FAR pieces. I'm making a read-me for the updated FAR pieces and hope to have them up on the Stex soon.

http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?p=files&view=all&userid=127460&keyword=sithlrd98 (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?p=files&view=all&userid=127460&keyword=sithlrd98)

Jayson
Title: Re: Matching game textures to puzzle pieces
Post by: superhands on July 20, 2009, 08:38:22 PM
it might also be possible to fiddle with the s3d (in hex editor) so that it flags the render/colour change.
another idea is that maybe one of the exemplars that controls the sunlight or atmosphere properties is responsible.

but this is just my speculation &Thk/( ;D
and i havn't found anything yet to suggest this..


-dave