help on manipulating the building dimensions in reader...

[Filasimo]

hey guys i have a question in regards to manipulating building dimensions in reader... thanks to some very helpful people i have been able to teach myself and learn a crash course in basic modding. im interested in resizing the property so that the model overhangs, in other words the gray box is smaller than the building im trying to resize a 3x4 building property to a 1x1 size so i have more flexibility in placing it in my lot. if anyone could help me in defining the values to resize it to 1x1 you would be my biggest hero...thanks! 

[Andreas]

The size of the grey box is controlled by the "Occupant Size" property in the building exemplar file (usually located in the SC4Desc file created by the Plugin Manager). The size is in meters (width/height/depth).

[Filasimo]

hmm ill probly look into that bc i was following twrecks tutorial that someone sent me which is like my holy bible to modding . the dimensions was in the xml file according to twrecks guide and i tried to resize it to 16 width 16 depth 16 height so i can get the grey box within a 1x1 tile and it didnt work the way i wanted it to. if you could show me how to set the dimensions to that equal to a 1x1 tile i would really appreciate it andreas 

[Andreas]

The XML file won't be recognized by the game, it's only a "form of communication" between the BAT, the Plugin Manager and the Lot Editor, so the values get transported to the next application. I. e. when you render a model with the BAT, it will create a *.SC4Model file that contains the actual 3D models with the textures, and the aforementioned XML file with certain data about the building, including the size. Now when you drag your *.SC4Model to a building category in the Plugin Manager, it will create an *.SC4Desc file that contains a building exemplar file and another XML file. This one will be used by the Lot Editor to determine certain properties for the *.SC4Lot file that you make in the Lot Editor.

So, as a small step-by-step tutorial, do the following: Design your model in the BAT and export it (or just pick a model that you downloaded somewhere. The *.SC4Model file should be placed in \My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins (no subfolder). Now open the Plugin Manager, select your model and drag it to one of the categories (i. e. "Landmark"). This will create a *.SC4Desc file. Close the Plugin Manager again and open the *.SC4Desc file with the Reader. Click on "fill the list", and then select the exemplar file in the left pane. Locate the "Occupant Size" property on the right. It should be one of the first properties in the list, and the numbers should match the size you (or the creator) gave it in the BAT. Double-click the property and edit the values to your liking. Depending on the lot you're creating, it might be enough to reduce the numbers to 16, but if you have to move it further around, you could also make them even smaller.

Just remember that you can't move the grey box beyond the lot borders, and if it's very close to them, the lot might become indestructible. So just to be sure, keep it a few pixels away from the borders, and in some cases, this is only possible if the size is very small (smaller than 16 meters). If you have edited the values as desired, click on the "Apply" button to the right of the input line, and then to the one at the bottom of the edit window. Now save the *.SC4Desc file. If you open the Lot Editor now and pick a lot to start with (if you selected "landmark in the Plugin Manager, you'll need a landmark lot here as well), and when you click on the button on the "buildings" tab, your model should show up in the list, even if your lot is rather small.

[Filasimo]

awesome i shall try it and see what i come up with thanks so much andreas you are God! some of the other things i would like to learn is the ability to create prop families which i will read up on in jeronij's tutorial hopefully this will now speed things up on the project our team is working on

[edit]  thanks so much for the mini tut i tried it and it worked  beautifully and solves most of my problems...now i needa tweak the custom query settings bc im still getting the maxis default garble on the query