To make the sea alive: sailing boats

[Ennedi]

We have more and more excellent ships (Somy, Jeronij etc. - thank you all!). But what about ploppable sailing boats?

I know, there are some Maxis ones - their movement is the best side of them. But there are only a few of them and they aren't colourful. See below:



As you see, the sea is not very interesting here (this is Mediterranean Sea near St. Maxime in France - cloudy weather happens here too), but these sails add a lot to the landscape.
I must say I'm not a BATer, but I think it can be quite easy to make some charming sailing boats. I think it is possible to use a typical body from any existing BAT (we have some marinas etc.) - maybe 2 sizes - smaller and bigger, and the only thing to do would be various sails. Maybe it could be a family - each click gives another one?
Two additional things would be great:
1. To make diagonal boats
2. To make sailing boats wchich could be used on land (many of us use ploppable water)
What do you think about it?

[Swamper77]

If someone is willing to BAT the models and provide me with either the GMAX scenes or the .3DS exports from 3DSMAX, I could make these boats into automata as well. The sails won't turn as the boats do, but they will be moving on their own across the water if I convert them to automata.

-Swamper77

[Ennedi]

Swamper77,

Thank you very much for your declaration! It's a nice information that such good specialist was attracted by my idea 

I think we have now two ideas:
1. to make ploppable sailboats (for players who want to create a static scene)
2. to make sailboats automata - great idea! I have read also your post in "new mods requests" - both themes are connected. But I have one question: what about paths of these moving boats? Is it any way to control them?

[jacqulina]

excellent idea

[Swamper77]

But I have one question: what about paths of these moving boats? Is it any way to control them?

There are no paths for the boats on the game's water. They just "drift" about on the water in your city, much like the air traffic flies above the city when you have an airport present. There is no way to control them except for when they appear, which usually requires a marina to be placed in your city for the boats to appear on the water.

-Swamper77

[Ennedi]

Swamper77, thanks for the explanation!

Such random boat movement will be also great, especially if there will be more of them (thanks to changing their amount using method you showed in another thread) - and if it would be more kinds of them.
I think the game doing something with paths of such objects - never have I seen any of them going one through another... Of course you can see it often if you use ploppable objects in the same time on the same area 

I still think both ideas (ploppable boats and automata) are worth to develop.

In addition, I have the next idea  - ploppable boats without sails  It would be possible to build an amazing custom marina using for example PEG OWW Pier Set and these boats...
I'm very sorry I don't know how to do it - but I have simply too much work in RL, and I'm afraid I haven't enough talent to be a BATer, maybe I will try to learn LE...

[bat56]

Ennedi, this is an excellent idee!!! 
I have some sailing ship and other boats on my hard disk and in 3dMAX.
If that interress somebody, I will try to see what that gives in the game!?!?

A small example of what I did but not exported  yet.


I have others of them but not on this PC, I will show them later to you... I leaves in vacancy 5 days.
see you next week!

[mightygoose]

OMG why have these not been released sooner....

[Swamper77]

Ennedi, this is an excellent idee!!! 
I have some sailing ship and other boats on my hard disk and in 3dMAX.
If that interress somebody, I will try to see what that gives in the game!?!?

@Bat: If you could export them to .3DS format, I can use the models in GMAX and turn them into automata.
Be aware though, that I will remove some of the details like all the rigging ropes since they will be too small to see

-Swamper77

[bat56]

Swamper77: It is brilliant...! leave me until Wednesday to gather all the models, and then I will post pictures in my BAT thread to
choose among the different ships.
That should be done the best possible one!!! it will be an innovation for the game...  many people will like that I think.....me the first. 

When it is ready, I can send them to you via your address email???   

[Swamper77]

Bat,

That would be fine. The address that is attached to the envelope icon below my avatar is the one to use.

-Swamper77

[stevenpete]

Today I downloaded the ExtraTerrainTools2, which will put "Rain" in an area.

Would it be possible to:
1. Create a small lake indentation
2. Fill it with water using the "rain" tool.
3. Build, lets say a Skulling Club harbor on the shore and,
4. Have Automata skullers running about the lake?

If this is possible, it would be a great idea to continue the idea with other water sports, like:

Water Skiing
Sailboats,
Sail Dinghys
House Boats
Fishing Boats
Jet Skis
Hobie Cats
Kayaking
Canoes
Scuba Diving
Snorkeling
River Rafting
Tubing down slow rivers

You could even have a small pond with skinny dippers that only swim at night.

The PEG Hawaii Vacation water texture had a sperm whale in it. I wonder if it would be possible to have lakes and rivers that would spawn other automata fish, beavers,

With a texture mod, and if the water does not flow down stream, that would also be a way to get skiiers to ski down slows.


...if it's at all possible.

[Swamper77]

The boats stick to the game's default water level and will not appear on the water added by the "rain" tool. I've tried several times to get them to appear on the "rain" water and they will not. So your idea with the Skulling Club will not work on water created by the "rain" tool. It will work with the default water that is present in every city tile (the landscapes hide it on inland tiles).

The whale is an effect that is controlled by the game and its EffectsDirectory. It does not depend on any water mods to work. The more water you have in a city tile, the greater the chance of seeing it/them.

-Swamper77

[stevenpete]

That's still great news. So small lakes, at sea level using the Maxis water, will still generate automata of different sorts on that lake. Cool.

And here I was elevating PEG to God status, thinking he made a whale in my oceans. Well, he's still made my ponds and streams and forested most of my parks.

[Madeira aka Constantina]

it will be great when these mods are released.

[Ennedi]

@stevenpete,

The second way to develope the idea of water sports is to improve ploppable water. Even existing water pieces gives some interesting possibilities, the only thing wchich is needed to it is to make various objects (boats, canoes, watrfront lots) ploppable on the land. If the waterfront lot is made as an offset one, it can be placed both on the ingame water and on the land. I made some experiments with it looking for waterfronts, boats etc. for my mountain lakes in Shosaloza 
The ploppable water looks artificial, but I'm sure it is possible to improve it, and many people use water mods without waves, wchich look very similar to the ploppable water.
Of course ploppable water never will be transparent, and you will not see whales in it