Error with some BSC overlay textures

[T Wrecks]

Hello everybody,

today while I was assembling some lots, I stumbled upon a curious incident using some of BSC's overlay textures from the 1st Mega Pack. There were no other texture packs whatsoever in my plugins folder, so a conflict can safely be ruled out.

The problem concerns the overlay textures 0x25b74000 and 0x25b77000 (the curve and the 4-way intersection to complement Maxis' low-wealth conrete driveways).

When used on a low-wealth lot, both textures revert to the 3-way intersection of the same set, 0x25b71000.

The problem only occurs on low-wealth lots, not on lots that have been assigned the wealth levels "none" (0x00), "medium" (0x02) or "high" (0x03).

Any ideas?

[CasperVg]

My first thought was a faulty wealth-related texture, let me quote Barby on those (source: here)

Wealth Level - digit 5 - defines whether or not a texture shows up only at one set wealth level in game.  Use caution with this setting, as you should have one texture per wealth level (0,1,2,&3) if you choose this setting.  4 and above are safe to use in all other circumstances, and can be combined with the "Texture Number" to extend this range.

Because the fifth digit in both IDs is 4 (curve) and 7 (4-way), they should (in theory?) be safe. However, the ID of the 3-way has 1 as 5th digit (Low Wealth Texture). Maybe this is the culprit?

[T Wrecks]

This might be the case - the Maxis textures follow this pattern:

0x25b51000
0x25b61000
0x25b71000
0x25b81000

With the BSC textures inbetween, the picture looks like this:

0x25b51000
0x25b61000
0x25b71000
0x25b74000
0x25b77000
0x25b81000

It's very well possible that this causes the game to think "Wait a second, that's a wealth-dependent texture set there" and start switching. I'm not too familiar with texture-specific tech stuff, however.

[T Wrecks]

EDIT

Forget it, that wouldn't work, either.

[geoffhaw]

T Wrecks and CasperVg, you are right about the 0x25b71000 being the problem. 

It doesn't matter what wealth level of textures are on a lot.  The only thing that matters is the Wealth exemplar setting for the lot, or the current delapidation of a RCI Lot.

Some quick examples:

In the following screenshot, all three parks are the same, in this case all with high wealth textures.  However, the park on the left has its Wealth exemplar set to Low wealth, the one in the middle Medium wealth, and the last one High wealth.  As you can see, the game had looked at the Wealth exemplar for each lot, and assigned the texture appropriate to it.



In the next screenshot there are four parks.  This time they have a mixture of wealth textures.  Again, each park has a different Wealth exemplar setting.  As you can see, the top left is Low, top right Medium and bottom left High wealth.  The bottom right picture is how the lot looks in the LE.  This park is set to wealth 0.  In the case of a lot having a Wealth exemplar value of 0, the game displays exactly what each tile has in the LE.



So using wealth dependent textures has no effect on what is seen in the game.  It is how the lot is modded that decides what the player sees. 

This is why there is only a problem with a low wealth setting.  The game sees that there is a 0x25b71000 texture available and uses it, regardless of what is present in LE.

EDIT

These were the first two textures I ever did, and I chose IIDs that would put them in the same order of Maxis textures in LE.  Little did I know that 6 years later they would cause a problem!   

[Andreas]

Ahh, ok, that makes sense somehow, at least from an in-game point of view. So the only way to circumvent the problem would be to create a copy of the affected textures with a completely different ID, and which doesn't have wealth-dependent textures in the same range, I guess.

[geoffhaw]

Yes, if you really want that texture on a low wealth lot, it will need a completely new IID with no 0, 1, 2 or 3 'fifth' digit texture available.

[T Wrecks]

Thank you, Geoff, for summarising the issue. This confirms that my understanding of the whole texture business after skimming through some explanations wasn't so off.

So it is you who made these a long time ago, and they were even the first ones you ever created? That's funny indeed. Well, we all know that this community has advanced not least by trial and error... there were ploppable farms, which then turned out not to be the best idea after all, there were RCI blank lots, which turned out to cause much trouble, there was the discovery of road-top mass transit - and lateron the finding that TE'd lots interfere with the traffic simulator... I sure don't want to complain. The idea to squeeze these textures right into that particular spot is also quite understandable.

It's just amazing that it took six years for the bug to show up. 

Well, anyway... I can see why these textures were the first you made - because they make sense. It's so unbelievably stupid that Maxis didn't even give us a 3-way and a 4-way intersection, let alone a simple curve in that particular driveway style, when they did it for the other wealth levels!

And yes, I really want to use these textures, and I'd welcome seeing them assigned to a new, conflict-free ID. Now I can change their IIDs myself, that's not the problem. However, I don't have an overview of the ID ranges already assigned/occupied. Hence, I'd be much obliged if you could tell me some numbers that would work without causing further conflicts.

Thanks in advance!

[geoffhaw]

Just sent you a PM.

[T Wrecks]

I think it's safe to say that the new textures did the trick. 



Now the question is if (and if so, how) these will be integrated into the BSC Mega Packs? I'm going to release this lot (and a few more in that style) sooner or later. Of course I could distribute these textures together with the lots if you think that making an update (or a new dependency download) for two measly overlay textures isn't worth the trouble - but needless to say I won't do that if it's not ok with you.