Paroch's Lot Editor Attempts

[paroch]

Hi all.

I remember reading a comment somewhere that when you start a Mayor Diary it is inevitable that sooner or later you will start creating your own lots to fit in with the look you try to create for your city.  Well, when I started my MD (West End), I disagreed with that comment.  After all, there is so much custom content out there, and actually playing the game is what I love about SC4, so why would I ever want to get involved creating my own lots?

Well, that comment is very true.  As I developed the region I found myself wanting to make small changes, to some lots.  Then Capo wrote a great easy to follow tutorial in his MD (Evergem) that made me decide it was worth having a go.

Now, I'm still new at this Lot Editing stuff, so any comments, suggestions or tips are much appreciated.  I don't pretend to be good at this, but hopefully this thread will show those of you who have not dived into Lot Editor that it is easy to create your own lots.  And for those experienced Lotters, you know all of this anyway!

Onto the pics...........

The thing that bugs me the most are those lots where the parking area is behind the building with no street access.  So, using the firestation and a library as an example, it was easy to re-lot and bring the parking area to the front:



And I also wanted to be able to plop my own choice of fences.  So I created the following fence lots, in straight and corner varieties for both the BSC park and SFBT park sets as I use these the most:



Schools are one of the things I enjoy creating, so here is a school I lotted by using RP and Deadwoods pieces.  You can also see I lotted a small running track and a custom football pitch with changing rooms.  The whole lot is enclosed using the fences I lotted.  (Oh, don't worry, I have corrected the path!)



Next up was football pitches.  There are plenty of footie pitches dotted around the area where I live, where local teams (both adults and kids) play.  They don't have stadiums or even seating areas, but they do have somewhere to park and somewhere to change.  So I lotted a few different configurations and here are two examples:





The next thing I wanted to create was a market place.  Now Gascooker has created the excellent Flower Market and Kingston Market, but I wanted something with a different layout.  So, using his props along with KWK's and also the Maxis market props, I lotted a series of 2x2 market stalls.  I had Romford market place in mind (in Essex, England) when creating these.  And here are a couple of pics of what I was trying to recreate:




And here is the result:








And the great thing about Gascookers market props is that the stalls open and close in line with the game clock (see the last two pics for the difference)

I'm quite pleased with the result.  And once they are set amongst "grown up" buildings I'm sure it will look good.


Next up was some housing.  One of the staples in my MD is RP's Six House Row - linkie:
http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=11262

I really like this BAT and it fits in nicely with the look I am trying to create.  But - I also wanted these houses to be set facing each other across a grassed area, with the houses not parallel to the road, but at right angles, with a pavement running from the road along past the houses.  So I re-lotted and came up with this:


RP's original lot is highlighted in blue, with my re-lotted version in yellow.  Both can co-exist quite nicely.  The two blocks at the bottom of the picture are side by side and this is exactly what I wanted.  I added a small parking area and two of Jen-p's Woodville bungalows to finish the lot.

Also in this pic is a relotted clinic (green arrow) with parking at the front, and also the school and all of its bits and pieces are re-lotted.

Well, as I said at the start, nothing revolutionary but they are already making a difference to my city building.  I'd be really interested in your comments.  Thanks for looking.

[jmyers2043]

Hello Paroch. At the risk of appearing to be a noob - Your market place pictures. The thrid one down. I see two buidlings growing but I have not figured out were the street/road is?

Otherwise - I really like the mixture of market stalls you've chosen. I like it when some of the Sims close their stalls while other remain open. This (market lot) is a super lot. 

[paroch]

JMyers,

I see what you mean re the third pic.  The NAM Ped Mall Tiles allow commercial buildings to grow next to them as though it's a road.  But it doesn't seem to allow residentials to grow.  I guess this is realistic in that you can create (as I often do) a pedestianised shopping street.

The fact you can't grow residentials on the ped mall tiles is what promted me to re-lot the six house row, because I wanted houses fronting a walkway rather than the road.

Thanks for your comments.

[jayo]

I think you need to use some better textures on the lots -other than that great-I like the last lot with the houses although i don't like the parking texture 

Great work though

[paroch]

Hi Jayo,

Thanks for your comments.  When you say "better" textures - in what way do you mean??  I appreciate that there are hundreds of different textures and each person has their own preference.  The ones I use are (I think) the SFBT textures.  If you can either describe the texture you have in mind, or let me have its name or number then I'll get them a go.

Cheers,

Paul

[jayo]

Well-I think you might benifit by downloading cycledoggs mega prop packs and texture packs including terrain textures-Theres alot of them but its well worth the wait 

[paroch]

Well, I listened to what you said Jayo, and here is a re-worked version of the residential lot, with different parking textures......



It was annoying that the lamp-post grew in the middle of the entrance to the parking lot!

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Another problem I encounter in-game is when you develop a tile to a point where farming demand dies completely, but you still want to develop some farms...... so, here is my first attempt at a ploppable farm, with ploppable fields (wheat-although the wheat just got harvested!)



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I'm also in the process of setting up the government buildings in my MD, so I wanted a Presidential Palace:




This is Kwakellar's Kolhof Palais with some relotting to change it from a farm to a more "presidential" building.


And to go with the Presidential Palace, here is the National Assembly Building:

front:


back:


And so you can see what I have done to the lot:


Meister-Z's Rathaus in the front, with my re-lotted version behind it.  I wanted to create more space around the building, get rid of the parking and add some formal looking fence with gatehouses for security.  The statues and banners (in national colours) are supposed to add a bit of gravitas to the lot.

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I also created a new residential lot based on where I used to live, but cannot get it to grow.  I'll play around with it in the SC4Tool and see if I can get it to grow.

Well, that's all for today - What do you all think?

[Jmouse]

Paul, I'm so glad you pointed your tread out to me! You know I'm up to my elbows in LEing, too. I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment - have a church function this afternoon - but I'll be back to study more carefully and comment.

Until next time...
Joan

[FrankU]

It is just too much to comment everything in detail.

In general: I like your lots a lot.

The school and the football pitches are nice.
The market is great.
I love your last version of RP's housing. It is just what I could use to recreate a Dutch town. The parking area is very realistic.
And your palace is even better.

My experience with ploppable farms is that it is too much work plopping everything. Also it feels like kiling the game. I mean, if I start plopping the farms, why not plop everything? But that is just a personal thing. I once lotted some farms myself, but never seem to have use for them.

[jmyers2043]

Hello Paroch

I like the farm you've done. You made the drive way to split to the home and the barn. The other thing that caught my eye was the large front door of the barn where you have a coral. I would never have thought to do that until I saw this lot. Good Show.

<edit>

One thing you should know about farms. The Maxis lot editor will always make a farm as a stage one. You will need to use ILives reader if you wish to have it grow as a stage two or three.

[capo]

Hi Paul,

Well there's only one thing to say: your lotting is a lot better then mine. Excellent work, the 6row homes look great but the presidential building has to be my favourite.

[jacqulina]

wonderfull lotting there

[squidi]

helo paroch

u showed some good work here and i like the residentials from your last post

now i have a small suggestions for you
on the meister Z rathaus i would add some apper props of single persons between the people clusters

continue the good work

cu

[paroch]

Hi all,

Thanks for your comments and support, it is appreciated.  Some specific replies:

Joan:  Good to see you here - you know I value your opinions, so please comment away!

FrankU: Thanks for the feedback.  If you'd like the revised RP Lot, let me know and I'll be happy to provide it (if I can work out how to set up a link to it!).  And I'm glad you like the market - I think they're my favourites.  And I agree with what you say about plopping farms.  I try to plop as little as possible.  But in my Great portland and Wardour cities I want to surround the developed area with some farms - but of course, now that they are developed and advanced cities there is no agricultural demand at all.  So these were developed just to fill a specific need.

JMyers: Thanks for that.  I must admit that I've not worked out how to use Ilives Reader for growables - I must read up on a tutorial.

Capo:  You're too modest!  But thanks for the compliment.

Jacqulina:  Hey, thanks.

Squidi:  I've seen your WONDERFUL lots, so I take your comment as a big compliment.  I have added some individual people into the Rathaus as you suggested and you were right - looks better.

The drawing board is a bit empty at the moment, but hopefully there'll be more soon.

[paroch]

Sorry to double post - but it's been a while.

I've been following Casper's thread on this board and it's kind of inspired me to tweak some lots I'd already created to see if I should try and get the uploaded on the LEX.  So I guess I'm after some feedback here to see whether I should start a LEX candidacy thread.......

I decided to go with the Market Place lots I created.  Mainly for three reasons:
1- they have limited dependancies
2- I don't think there are too many market place options available
3- Because there are 11 different lots they can be used as "puzzle" pieces to create any shape or size market place you want.

There are six 2x2 lots as follows:

and


And 5 1x1 lots as follows:


Each lot is a ploppable Landmark, and is found in the landmark menu.  For use in my own game I put them in the fire menu but with no fire capabilities to make them easier to find.  I assumed that this would not be ideal for uploading.
The only problem with the landmark menu is that I think for most of us it is very full and also, the market lots have got spread throughout the menu - most near to the top, but three of the 2x2 lots almost at the very bottom.

And here's two pics at different levels to show how the lots look when plopped together to create a large market place:

and


Some other things to note about the lots:
- The base texture is the same as the NAM Ped Mall "Centre Pole", so they can be plopped next to a ped mall to create a seamless look.
- GasCooker's stalls are timed props so the stalls open and close.
- The people are all Maxis standard props - again the VAST majority of them are timed, although I have discovered one that is there all the time (feedback welcome).
- The timing of the stalls and people does add a certain realism and life to the lots (IMO)

Dependencies:

BSC Mega Props - Gascooker Vol 01
BSC Mega Props - KWK Vol 02
BSC Mega Props - D66 Vol 01
BSC Mega Props - SWI21 Vol 01

D66 is needed just for one stall in one lot, the "flowerstall"
SWI21 is needed just for the lampposts.  I tried to find the lamppost used in the Ped Mall "Centre Pole" but just could not find it.  SWI's was close - so if someone could point me in the right direction I could change it and cut out one dependancy.

Stats etc:

5 of the 2x2 lots have the following stats:
Plop cost:100
Bulldoze cost:20
Air Pollution: 3 over 5 tiles
Water Pollution: 2 over 5 tiles
Garbage: 10 over 5 tiles
Radiation: zero
Flamability: 10

The Market Hall (by KWK) has the follwing stats:
Plop cost:300
Bulldoze cost:100
Air Pollution: 10 over 10 tiles
Water Pollution: 10 over 10 tiles
Garbage: 20 over 5 tiles
Radiation: zero
Flamability: 10

The five 1x1 lots have the following stats:
Plop cost:50
Bulldoze cost:20
Air Pollution: 2 over 5 tiles
Water Pollution: 1 over 5 tiles
Garbage: 5 over 5 tiles
Radiation: zero
Flamability: 5

The querey brings up the standard "Landmark querey" with the phrase "PCH Market Place", apart from the market hall which has a park querey - maybe I need to change that.

I've not produced a readme (yet), as never done that before and need to read up on that first.  Also, showing my lack of computer skills, I don't even know how to zip them into a folder for uploading (should it reach that stage).

I'd really appreaciate your comments on this one.  Should I go for the LEX candidacy with these lots or not??

And of course, I cannot fiish without thanking Kwakellar and Gascooker for their props.  Without them this would not have been possible.

[xxdita]

Seems that these should be functional landmarks, with jobs? SimGoober wrote a tutorial on how to do it.
Making the ReadMe is quite easy with SC4Tool. If I can be of any assistance, before you begin your LEX Candidacy, let me know.

[CasperVg]

I like the market stalls very much, great work! A cool idea would be to use the variable BSC Park texture, so that the textures chosen by the user would be used with the stalls. Again, great work!

EDIT: Typos! Oops...

[BarbyW]

Paroch, I think the lamposts used on the ped mall tiles as shown in your pics are the Streetlight1x1x11_$$$StreetlightBanner. There are 4 $$$ Streetlights so it may be one of the others, I'm not 100% certain exactly which one.
If you read the psots that are stickied at the top of the LEX Candidacy forum and accept xxdita's help I see no reason why you shouldn't open a candidacy thread. The scrutineers are hard to please but people do get there in the end.

[Jmouse]

I think you should go for it, Paul. We see a lot of markets set up in the spring and summer, so I can identify with your lots.
Around here we call them "flea markets," and they're usually one-time weekend events, not full-time outdoor stores like they have in some other countries.
So if I got my hands on your market lots, I'd place them in a fenced enclosure with a few props to make it look like a fairground. Maybe a barn, a couple of corrals. etc. Also I'd give them a different base texture to fit in with the Southern U.S. definition of a marketplace.
I offer this in the spirit of suggesting that perhaps your lots could be used in a greater number of ways than you originally imagined.
And did I mention that I really like them!

Until next time...
Joan

[FrankU]

Oh yes please! Bring your lost to the public!
I like them very much and am fond of modular stuff, because it gives me versatility to use them my way.

I have one tip: if you want your lots to appear next to each other in a certain menu, you should give them an Item Order number in the exemplar file. You need the Reader to do this. It is quite easy.
If you give them all the same number, you will see the cheapest on top.
There is surely a tutorial that explains you how to do it. If only because I read it myself to learn how to do it. Am afraid that I can't find it right now, but probably every scrutineer at the LEX will know how this works.

I used this method to give my menus some order...