Swamper's Garage

[Citynut]

... will see if I can convince one of the great Batters around here to make a pet shelter for us ... and or have to build one myself, but that will take at least a year as I can not BAT even if my life depended on it.

I'll see what I can do about the animal shelter - we are lacking one big time and the dogs are running wild in the city 

[Swamper77]

For what ever reason recently, I had the idea to create a tow truck for the game. I don't know what prompted this, but the idea came to me while I was away from home and my computer systems. Here's what I have so far from 2 days worth of work:




Yes, that is a car that has pulled over for the tow truck at the top right corner of the picture.

To allow the lightbar to function, I had to define the vehicle as an emergency vehicle in the scripting routines for it. It's the only way to make the lightbar work properly. So, it has no siren yet cars will pull over for it. I also created a new FSH image for the lightbar (it's supposed to be orange/yellow). The truck cab has been adapted from one of the Rescue Units that was released with the pack of North American emergency vehicles that is on the BSC LEX.

It is currently using the UDI sound bank of the City Bus for the diesel engine sound and other UDI sounds. It is available for UDI when you have a commercial zone in your city, and the icon is in the main UDI Menu for Land Vehicles. When buildings with a certain OG appear in the city, a tow truck will appear on the roadway nearby. So far, only Maxis buildings have this OG unless someone has added it to their lots during the modding process. The OG in question is 0x21001 (Building: Commerical Car, which is a Maxis OG that is used by the MySim System for messages about a car-related business near a MySim's house).
Just a small tweak after I created the above image: I changed the image for the active lightbar so it's more yellow:

The previous version of the light image was more red. I did three passes with the "Replace Color" function in Photoshop CS to get this version. It looks much better and matches the lightbar better.

PS: The perfect song to listen to while doing automata work: "Traffic" by DJ Tiesto

-Jan

[Glenni]

Very , very nice swamper!

Always wondered where the heck those tow trucks were!

[Pat]

Jan very very awsome, I bet now since you have done this tow truck some one will do a actual garage that would spawn this baby    You are the truelly the automat god. I cant wait to get my hands on this truck - pat

[Swamper77]

@Glenni: I'm glad you like it. I will see about making an European version (narrower) next. This one takes up almost the entire lane on the game's roads. I have a Sprinter van and one of the Maxis freight trucks that I can borrow the cabs from for the European version.

@Pat: All someone needs to do is attach the Occupant Group 0x21001 to their building/lot and the truck will spawn when that building is present.

-Jan

[Pat]

Hmmm that one im gonna have to learn then...
I take it you would do that in SC4Tool but what catagory?

[Swamper77]

Pat,

I hardly use SC4Tool unless I'm trying to set up comparable stats for jobs/pollution/utility usage/etc. I do almost all my modding through iLive's Reader application.

-Jan

[Pat]

Jan Thank you i will try and learn Ilives reader then and see what i come up with when you release the tow truck

[Swamper77]

For Glenni and other European members of this site, I've started working on flatbed version with help from Andreas and Rayden. Here's what I have:



Rayden sent me a RAR file of three models for the same vehicle. Each model is a different variant of the same vehicle. The model is closely representative of this particular model, but with an extended cab:


The yellow body paint was suggested by Andreas via a message and some pictures he provided me with. In Germany, the trucks are painted yellow for visibility and because some are part of an auto club:

But as I said, the most common "tow" truck looks like this (and it's usually bright yellow in Germany, both for safety reasons and because yellow is the color of the ADAC (automobile club)

-Jan

[Andreas]

Nice work so far! Do you plan a customizable logo, like you did with the fire truck? Then I would be able to put "ADAC" onto the sides.

[Adept2Rock]

Bravo!!!It's good!!!!!ADAC is only in Germany ! but i love the model!!

[HabLeUrG]

really nice trucks!  tons of details in these

[Pat]

Jan is that how the lighting hits that it looks as the one headlight is on or
is it a wig wag pattern?

[Swamper77]

@Andreas: I'll see about making a customizable image slot for the vehicle.

@Adept2Rock: I will see about making some generic colors for the European Flatbed when I go to release it

@Pat: It's just the way the lighting is in GMAX on that model. Both lights are the same color and brightness on the model. The GMAX lighting rig is just making them look different. When I make the skin, it will look better. Those two pics are only previews of the detailed model that I am using to make the automata model and the skin for the automata model.

-Jan

[Adept2Rock]

Ok!!!Do you have any projects??!!If you need ideas!I'm here!!!

[Glenni]

nice start Jan, looking forward for this one.

[Pat]

Jan thank you and im looking forward to your next update on this wonderful
project - pat

[Swamper77]

Yesterday, I finished up the basic automata model for the European Flatbed Tow Truck. At the moment, I'm thinking of releasing the UDI tow trucks with one condition: You must choose between the American model or the European model for the main model. At a later date, I may release other tow trucks which will require this first set of files to be installed.

There will also be a "shared" file for the UDI tow truck. This file will have the yellow light effect image, UI components, and LUA scripting routines for the tow trucks. It will also be required for all future releases as well, so I don't have to include the same files for each of the tow trucks.

Here's a screenshot from one of my cities:

The Status Window to the right has a couple of custom text strings in it, and this entire interface will be used for all the tow trucks. I may change the bottom panel's dashboard to something more appropriate for a tow truck. It currently has the default dashboard that the regular traffic and MySim vehicles use. The lightbar is functional, but I didn't activate it before I took the screenshot with the "Print Screen" key. It is similar to the one used on the American model, but smaller in size to match the smaller truck.

There is only one downside to this UDI tow truck (American or European): You won't be able to tow other vehicles with it. I couldn't figure out how to make the vehicle tow other vehicles. It is beyond my capabilities to do so. However, I may make a variant of the European model with a wrecked car sitting on. I'll need to locate a suitable 3DS model for that first, before I even attempt to do that.
Next, I will be adding a panel to both sides of the cab so the company/group name of the firm that owns the tow truck can be customized. I will also assemble another "Developer Files" set so people can make their own skins with my raw images and a clearly written tutorial.

-Jan

[Adept2Rock]

Ok!!Nice work!!what's UDI??I don't understand this word!!

[Pat]

Jan that is soo awsome! i wish i knew how to mess around with the devolper files. That would be cool to
see more trucks!  just a thought though wouldnt it be the same as like in the coast guard boat towing?
or havent you messed around with that boat? Just a thought...  Adept UDI stands for you drive it, if im not mistaken?