Different Farm Fields

[mrbisonm]

Never mind the cuppa......Geeez, I'll send you a whole pot!!!

Wow, Thanks, that is indeed appreciated very much. Saves me a lot of trouble finding the id's and then trying it ingame only to find out that I didn't use the right id.
Most likely useful for anyone else who wants to have a large variation in farmlots. Thanks,


Fred

EDIT:  Hey Derry,
do you think one of those farmfields above is good enough to use as a tea-field for Diarmuid McGormain in WRP ?

[shoreman905]

Great Derry, thank you.   

[Lowkee33]

Has it been a month already?  I keep thinking of doing this, so I am going to do it

From TeaCat's list:

SG_Farm_Fields_BSC_sf.dat:

Code Select Expand

0x0f33bd8b,0x4f043e6e,0x4f33af03,0x4fo43e28,0x4f33af03,0x0f07d36c,0x0f043eb2,0x4f33bd45,0xef33bdfa,0x8f2d2317,0xcf33afe0,0x4f33bbb1,0x4f33afc6,0xcf33bbbe,0xcf33be20,0xcf33beaf,0x2foc2ab5,0xef33be4b,0x8f33bf18,0x8f33bfaf,0xef33bfce,0xef07a216,0x8f33bfee,0x0f043df9


Bls_fieldsmerged_sf.dat:

Code Select Expand

0x8f924d9d,0xae196879,0x6e1bd45d,0x8dce3765,0x8dce7e3d,0x4df87daf,0x8dce4ebd,0x4e61b2e0,0xee587ec0,0xae1102b8,0x0dc3b733,0xad79e66f,0x8dee18ec,0xad79c821,0x6f057b94,0x8f924df0,0xedd7f461,0x4ebe953c,0x8dce4577,0x6e17f4bd,0x6dce3305,0xcf263c04,0xcf6fb746,0xade2eacf,0x8dc73040,0xee2a0390,0xae1ca1a7,0xaf1e2c5a,0xef869c6e,0xef88174f,0xef881884,0x8f869d50,0xaf869ce9,0x8f869f6f,0xaf86a039,0x4f869fcd,0x2f86a06a,0x0f1b7cdc,0x8f866a8a,0xef86a0cb,0x2f86a115,0x6f1b7d21,0xaf86a095

These lists can be copy/pasted into the "values as text" line to make a farm use all of the fields.

Putting them into code seems to be a good way to display them.  If I triple-click on an instance the whole line will be highlighted (like the web address bar on a browser).

[FrankU]

I have a related question that came up after I had worked with the tutorial Lowkee33 had written on the first page of this thread.

With Pim-X I made farm field buildings out of the flower models in the BSC Mega props misc 1. Then I made farm fields out of them.
The models I used show 4 or 5 rows of flowers and they cover half a tile. So in the lot editor I added the correct base texture and put a prop of the same flower model next to the building. Now the flowers cover the whole tile, leaving just a narrow path in the middle.
When I plop the lots with the Buildingplop cheat they look OK. I have no image, but I guess you tend to believe me here.

When I added the instance values of these lots tot the flower farm I had lotted myself the farms started to grow exactly as Lowkee33 had promised. The only thing is: I miss the prop! The tile is half empty.

What could be wrong? Please?

[Lowkee33]

The "building" on a farm field is invisible, so you need to make that other flower row as props.  You can use the blank one from PIMX as the building.

Also, the Building exemplar and the Lot exemplar have to be the same Instance ID, otherwise the game behaves like the farm field doesn't really exist (Try demolishing it, or put the game on Cheetah and see if other farms grow on top of the fields.  This doesn't mean your Lot can't use multiple fields.

[FrankU]

I have just put my 20 months old son in his bed (my wife and daughter are on a birthday trip out of town. While laying him in bed I thought that maybe not the prop but the building was missing.
And that's exactly what you told me. Thanks.
So I repaired that by copying the prop on each lot. The lots look fine now.

Now your second remark: indeed my farms are overgrown with a second farm. So I should indeed do something.
What I have been doing is exactly what you told in reply #6 of this thread.
So now my question is:
What buildings and what lots are you referring to?
I have made a building out of the SFBT barn that is on the lot you can see above. Then I have the lot with the barn on it. Then there is a field with flowers (actually I have 13 different fields) and all these fields are lots and all these lots have buildings.
So there are two kinds of buildings and two kinds of lots involved. Must they all have the same instance ID? Or only some of them?

Please explain to me?

[Lowkee33]

I am going to explain this like I am from Silence of the Lambs or something.

1)The SFBT model was dragged on to Agricultural Industry:  This is the Building Exemplar (.desc)
2)The building exemplar was right clicked and a growable was made:  This is the Lot Exemplar (.lot)
3)A model was dragged to the Farm Field and the field was made: The Farm Field Building (.desc)
4)This field was made into a growable and field is a lot:  The Farm Field (.lot)

Okay, I had to double check this as well.     

The Instance of 3 and 4 needs to be the same.  You should change the lot (4) to be the building (3). 

You can thank Andreas for this knowledge.  You can't make a farm field in MaxisPIM (I think), so I guess Field makers of the past only used Reader, and Maxis as an example.  This was an oversight of PIMX which will be fixed in due time.

[Andreas]

Yeah, I experienced the same problem when making the SFBT Vineyards. For some reason, the field lot created in SC4PIM is causing this problem, although the properties look exactly the same. After lots of comparing, I finally found out that the instance ID of the lot exemplar file needs to be the same as the one for the building exemplar file. If you change this in the Reader, it should work as intended.

[FrankU]

Hi Lowkee and Andreas,

Thanks for the clear answer.
It is not like you are from the Silence of the Lambs. I have quite some experience in life and communication as a vital part in it. My experiences show that most communication is caused by misunderstanding, while all people think they agree.....
In other words: there is almost always more misunderstanding than you think and so it is wise to be very explicit. I thank you very much for the answer. This cannot go wrong, as far as I can see from the office where I am now.

Somewhere this week there will be time to edit the lots. You'll hear from me.

Well, anyway it worked. My flower farms grow perfectly with only the flower fields. No double farms on the same lot. So everything should be OK now. Thanks for your help.

But every answer raises new questions. So here I go:

1. It is very weird. In my post 5 places up I showed you a growing farm lot with an invisible building. So I added another prop, because Lowkee told me the building is indeed invisible. After the latest editing Lowkee told me do do in his last post I grew my farms and found out the buildings are visible. So I deleted the second prop and my farm fields look as intended. So I have visible buildings now. Maybe a bit superfluous: I made all the buildings out of the flower field models by D66 in the BSC mega props misc vol1.

And

2. After my farm fields have grown and some experimenting with screen settings I found out that:
A. With hardware rendering my shadows look decent, with software rendering they look like vague clouds on the ground around my objects.
But that is not really the issue here.
B. Some buildings cast shadows and some don't. The props that I have made out of the same models never cast shadows. Is it possible to edit this behaviour or is it something that is built in the models? And hence editing is not possible?
The stupid thing is that every second row of flowers casts shadows....

[RippleJet]

For a prop to cast a shadow, you need to add the property Is Ground Model and set it to True.

[Lowkee33]

That actually makes sense, that once the building/field connection is correct that the building will show.  The whole thing is a little strange still.  

Another interesting property is "Prop: Random Chance", or something like that.  This value is the percentage of chance this prop will have at appearing.  I believe this is how the sprayers are sometimes on a maxis field and sometimes not.  In conjunction with timing, this can make for a tractor that may or may not appear at harvesting.  I suppose it could even be given to the field props themselves, so a farm could have good or bad years.

PS, I would also dare to say that double posting with new info isn't so bad.  An edit doesn't show up as a new reply, so I would have never seen that you posted here had Tage not replied.

[FrankU]

@ RippleJet:
Thanks. In order to be able to do this without editing the BSC MEGA Props - Misc Vol1 I copied the exemplars I wanted to have shadows into a new dat file. Then I changed the value into true and saved the file. I did not generate new instances, because then I would have extra exemplars in my plugins. Now it is only a matter of overwriting. The disadvantage is that I always have to load this file after the Mega props pack. But it works splendidly!

@ Lowkee33:
Yes, a double posting would have been smarter and I thought of that later. And I was going to do this when I found out that you and Ripplejet gave me already the needed answer.
The interesting property you mention could be something to experiment with, but not at the time. At least for me.
I have now more or less finished my farms stage 1 with the flower fields. I have growables and plopables, Thanks to your help.
Now I have to commence with stage 2 until 5...!

[Lowkee33]

I did not generate new instances, because then I would have extra exemplars in my plugins. Now it is only a matter of overwriting. The disadvantage is that I always have to load this file after the Mega props pack.

But you do have extra exemplars.  They both take up load time, but one gets overwritten.  I would recommend making a new prop exemplar with your properties.

I am using Random Chance for day/night timed cars.  The Random Chance happens for every timing change, so one day there will be a car, the next there won't...  Pretty realistic parking lots can be made with one huge family of cars that have a random chance.  I haven't seen a car one day and a different car the next day though.

Another thing, if you make a prop exemplar in PIMX you will see that you always have the same group ID.  This is actually the same ID that BAT would give you if you didn't have the modelnames fix.  The ID is based off of your computer, and it is therefore unique to you.  I would recommend using that Group ID whenever you have the chance.  The Instance is the time of creation so it is best to leave that alone for props.