The FrankU and Nexis CO-OP

[mrbisonm]

let me see if I can make a quick video tutorial then 

Doesn't have to be a video tut, as long as it is detailed with a few images. Hey, thanks, much appreciated.

[gn_leugim]

I like to make videos I will do more soon, maybe on texturing or so. I have taken the screen shots, now all I need to do is editing, but I'll do it tomorrow morning already a bit late into the night 

[mrbisonm]

I like to make videos I will do more soon, maybe on texturing or so. I have taken the screen shots, now all I need to do is editing, but I'll do it tomorrow morning already a bit late into the night 

Ok, if you like doing vids, I'm not going to stop you.

Fred

[noahclem]

Great looking sheds     Also, I really enjoyed the last history lesson on Dutch farms, as well as your bike FrankU 

[gn_leugim]

As I promised

http://youtu.be/ChSQ3VFZ1QU

(if possible, can a mod make edit the post and make the video show up, as I can't do it =\)

[mrbisonm]

Ouffff!

That looks like it's beyond my capacity of 3d modeling with gmax. You said that it's made easy........lol.....I had the first look at the video and nothing seems easy on that.
But, I will look at the video a few times this weekend before I say it's too difficult for me.   I will try hard, promissed.

I'm a successful loghome designer irl and I still do all my 3d drawings on real paper (you know that kind we only find in museums these days.....lol)and with ink and pencils. No computer implicated. My plans are still simple blueprints since I started in 1971. Although I have 6 computers (maybe more, don't really have counted them lately) in my office, my staff and apprentices use the computers all the time. I only check in once in awhile, not knowing what all this is about, bvut I like what I see....lol. And I fully trust one of them who I made responsable to transfer all my plans onto the computer since more than 10 years now.
So you see, I always rely on other people when it comes to computers. Only simcity made me get interested in computer gaming many years ago, when one of my sons showed me the vanilla of SC before the millenium and I got hooked.

I simply do not (maybe don't want to neither) understand the world of these programs. I always find that there are toooo many options for absolutely no reason, making things more and more complicated.

Yes, I will try and hopefully find out that it is easier than I see it with this tutorial video. Thanks gn_leugim, really appreciated.

Btw, that video is well done and I also love the song that you added. 

Fred

[gn_leugim]

well, type to make that hook from sc4 make you grow in computers :p

most of the stuff I do in the video is rather simple you will see, anyway, any question, fell free to ask

and glad you like the video/song

[FrankU]

Dear friends,

It has been silent for some weeks here. But do not fear: we are going to finish the farms packs sooner or, probably, later.
Fred is working on his props set, which is going to be great, I promise you.
I am, meanwhile, working on some sideprojects like RL, a BNL housing lots set and my own Rewards project.

The most important development to be mentioned in this thread though is the fact that I am stuck in the production of stage 6 and 7 lots. Of course I thought: this is just a matter of dragging the desired model onto the "buildings - Industrial I-a" property in SC4-Pim, and make an applicable lot. But it's apparently not that easy.
I think Jom Myers might help me out here, if you read me....

I tried the above and got a lot. I gave the building a filling degree of 8, giving me 181 jobs. The lot that popped up gave me the choice of appointing it to stage 4, 5 or 6.
When I raised the filling degree and the amount of jobs above 1000 (thousand!) just for experiment, the choice was still 4, 5 or 6.
So no 7 at all and besides that a totally absurd amount of jobs.

So, how do I make a stage 6 and a stage 7 lot? Please help me?

I have selected a delicate set of models for this series....And I like to finish it. Someday. Somehow.

[mrbisonm]

Yuuup! I will be back very soon, just have some RL things to clear up at the moment.....give me a week or two. Thanks


Fred

[CasperVg]

Dear friends,

It has been silent for some weeks here. But do not fear: we are going to finish the farms packs sooner or, probably, later.
Fred is working on his props set, which is going to be great, I promise you.
I am, meanwhile, working on some sideprojects like RL, a BNL housing lots set and my own Rewards project.

The most important development to be mentioned in this thread though is the fact that I am stuck in the production of stage 6 and 7 lots. Of course I thought: this is just a matter of dragging the desired model onto the "buildings - Industrial I-a" property in SC4-Pim, and make an applicable lot. But it's apparently not that easy.
I think Jom Myers might help me out here, if you read me....

I tried the above and got a lot. I gave the building a filling degree of 8, giving me 181 jobs. The lot that popped up gave me the choice of appointing it to stage 4, 5 or 6.
When I raised the filling degree and the amount of jobs above 1000 (thousand!) just for experiment, the choice was still 4, 5 or 6.
So no 7 at all and besides that a totally absurd amount of jobs.

So, how do I make a stage 6 and a stage 7 lot? Please help me?

I have selected a delicate set of models for this series....And I like to finish it. Someday. Somehow.

I think the CAM Stage 7 for agriculture was meant for historical/heritage sites in the beginning. I checked out the CAM Stage6/7 Agriculture Pack, and it seems most of those have their stage set manually (PIM-X suggests Stage 3-5 for most of them if you recompute it). Let me look into the properties file and see what settings were made.

EDIT: Looked into it, it seems PIM-X wasn't set up to make Stage 7 farms by default. From the new_properties.xml:

Code Select Expand

<STAGEvsDENSITY purpose="IR" wealth="0" ratio="16,32,60,100" baseTex="0x25db0000" />
Which means you need a density 16 for Stage 1, ..., density 100 for Stage 5. Basically, only values for Stage 1-5 were entered. So the suggested stage will never be higher than 5 (you can choose 6, because it allows a one stage difference). However Stage 7 will never be available by default. Not sure if that's a mistake or intended though. I've personally set mine to

Code Select Expand

<STAGEvsDENSITY purpose="IR" wealth="0" ratio="16,32,60,100,150" baseTex="0x25db0000" />
to fix that. That should enable PIM-X to go up to Stage 6 as suggested stage (so it makes Stage 7 available). You could add a density for Stage 7 as well, but that would make the next stage available (which would never grow) and therefore the last stage is never added in new_properties (residentials and commercial density only goes to 14, for example). I've attached my edited new_properties.xml below if you want it.

[FrankU]

Hi Casper,

Thanks for the quick answer. But pityfully I don't understand some parts of your post. So here are the questions:
- What on the dark side of the moon is density?
- In the code line you show I see four ratio values: 16, 32, 60 and 100. So stage 1 ratio is 16, stage 2 = 32, stage 3 is 60 and stage 4 is 100? Where is stage 5?
- And so you added 150 for stage 6? So does that mean that I have to give these lots very high job amounts?
- The fix attachment is meant to replace the original new_properties.xml?

Maybe it's better that I set the stages by hand, like in the original CAM farms set? I'd like my farms to cooperate with these, so the values should be more or less alike, I think. I presumed that SC4-Pim would take care of that, but it apparently does not.
Then please someone should show me where to look and what to edit, because this is over my head at the moment.

Maybe you or someone else from the CAM team could tell me what to do in order to make proper CAM stage 6 and 7 farms?
Of course I could edit and rename the original lots, assigning new IID's by hand etc.... But I don't think that is wise.

Thanks,

Frank

[FrankU]

Bump....

Maybe, to make clear the question was serious, I should show you the first result of my coming Stage 6 set.
While I am still waiting for Fred's farm props I used the old ones I had already in my earlier farms. Just a new old building that you might recognize.
I present you version 1 of: Huis De Kranenkamp.



And



The lot is 9x10 tiles. It is surroundend by my forest "farm" field, like it will be in the game when all is finished.

Comments please?
And maybe someone can help me with finding out how to modd the stages 6 and 7 in a proper way?

[gn_leugim]

gosh, very well loted, but is that a farm? it looks like a manor house

if I get it right, the trees around them are the farm lots right?

[vortext]

Very nice lot Frank! 

Also rather clever to use forest farm fields, the lot blends in just perfect!

gosh, very well loted, but is that a farm? it looks like a manor house

Well I think that's just what stage 6/7 farms are supposed to be. In fact I wouldn't mind if the farm stuff was ditched in favor of some horse stables and guesthouses, so it would appear more like a proper estate for a landlord / baron / duke or something.

Unfortuantly I don't have time to look into the nitty-gritty of those stages (and I can't test if they'll actually grow anyway) but I'll say it would be unwise to tinker with the existing lots indeed. And I wouldn't worry too much about the number of jobs because as I understand it, stage 6 & 7 were never meant to be proper farms to begin with. As evidence I would point to the fact stage6 & 7 are not mentioned in the Stage Density Limits and Stage CAPs thread and instead are reffered to as Woodland Preserves and Historical Landmarks respectivelyover here. My suggestion would be to take a close look at the original lots and see which occupant groups they use, in addition to the number of jobs they have and try to keep your lots in line.

Keep up the good work! 

[jmyers2043]

I like the house near the barn. It is where the landscaper lives?

- Jim

[FrankU]

@ gn_leugim
Thanks! And indeed : that was exactly what I had in mind. A manor.
The lot itself contains some trees and shrubberies around the edges. The rest of the forest is made by the surrounding farm fields tiles that are disguised as forest.
Technically it is a farm lot: IR, so we have the opportunity to add farm fields.

@ vortex
The farm on the lot contains two small houses for farmworkers.
This question needs some historical explanation. In the Netherlands we have roughly speaking two kinds of "manors". I don't know the correct term in english. What I mean is: houses for the rich in rural areas.
Type 1 is a house built by someone who earns his money in the rural surroundings. Usually this is technically a farmer's family that has done well during several centuries and got that rich that personnel and allottees (right word?) do the farming while the family does things that give themselves the opportunity to keep their hands clean. The personnel lives partly on the estate, but mostly on tenant/allottee (which is correct?) farms on the surroundings. The house has a direct economic relationship with the countryside. It is in fact part of the countryside.
Type 2 is a house built by someone who got rich somewhere else: in industry, in a colony... wherever. So this house has no direct economic relationships with the surrounding countryside. It just sits there and enjoys the view.

The lot I made tries to look like a manor of the first type.
Do you think I succeeded? Maybe I should hide the farm a bit more from the house by adding trees and a hedge. 

I tried to understand the thread about CAMelot counters and Occupant Groups, but it just raised another question: if I make a lot with SC4-Pim, does it automatically contain the correct occupant group so that it is counted in the CAMelot counters? I'd like my farms to be counted in!
And I could not find anything that helps me making the stage 6 and 7.

@ Jim
You are one of those guys who knows a bit more about this stuff. Could you give me some advice?
Yesterday evening after the uploading I considered to take the original Stage 6 and 7 lots and edit them with my own lotting skills. Exchanging the model's TGI in the building exemplar would give me the correct looks. Only resizing and renaming, and avoiding of overwriting the original lots is something I cannot think how to do that... So probably this is not a good solution too. Opening the lots in LE will definitely spoil the building file...
Maybe just opening the building file of these originals will help me.
Is it maybe so that I can make a stage 5 lot in SC4-Pim (job amount wise) and then edit some properties of this lot in Reader will make it stage 6 or 7?

Thanks

[jmyers2043]

Let me see if I understand. You wish to change the building and the growth stage and avoid using the lot editor? 

Make your new building into a farm using the XTool. Increase the fill until you have 100 jobs or more. All the pollution, wealth, consumption numbers will be correct.

Open the LOT exemplar using iLives reader. There are a lot of properties beginning with 0x00000001 and 0x00000002. Find the one property starting with 0x00000000. Double click. A window will open. You will see 13 reps. The 13th, and usually last, is the IID number of the building. Replace it with the one you just made. right click to re-index the exemplar just to be safe, then save.

The only thing left is to change the growth stage. That should do it.

To test. Change the growth stage temporarily to 1. Open up a bare bones Maxis only test region. Put GrandPa Al's no Maxis Farms mod in your folder along with your new farm. Zone some RCI and some some farm zones. The new and improved farm should be the only one that can grow. Change the growth stage back to 5 when/if successful.

- Jim

[gn_leugim]

The lot I made tries to look like a manor of the first type.
Do you think I succeeded? Maybe I should hide the farm a bit more from the house by adding trees and a hedge. 

you did! here in portugal we have some similarity on that like this example here

you got it 

[FrankU]

Hi Jim,

Well, in fact I'd like to know how I can make proper Stage 6 and 7 farming lots.
After having read your post I did some thinking and took a look in the building and lot exemplars of one of my farm lots. Growth stage is one of the properties in the lot exemplar.

Now please read this and confirm if I am on the right track.

1. I select a model and make it an Agricultural Industry building. The building exemplar is made. I change the filling degree in such a way that I get the number of jobs I want.
2. I make a growable lot with this building. The SC4-pim decides it is a lot of growth stage, say 4. Then I do the lotting. I save everything. The lot exemplar is in the plugins folder now. It is called something like IR$4_9x10_....etc.

Until now this is what I did when I wanted to make the lots from stage 1 up to 5.

3. Now I open the lot exemplar in Reader, select the Growth Stage entry. The value is 0x04, because it was a Stage 4 lot, remember? Now I change the 0x04 into 0x06 and I have my stage 6 farm lot? Is that it? Is that really all?
And now I also change the occupant group in order to let the Camelot Counter count it as Stage 6. Right?
And I rename the lot file into IR$_9x10...etc

Please tell me what I have overlooked....

And @ gn_leugim
Thanks!

[jmyers2043]

Is that it? Is that really all?
And now I also change the occupant group in order to let the Camelot Counter count it as Stage 6. Right?

Yes. That is all.

There are no capacity requirements for stage 6 or 7 farms due to the nature of the lots. I like to think of them as wild cards. They can be anything. Remember, a stage 4 farm needs to be near a water source, a stage 5 near a fire station, and a stage 6 farm has to be near a park.


- Jim