Texture problems

[Tyberius06]

Hello!

I need some help, or advice or just an explanation, what the f*** happend in this situation (pictures down).
So the situation. I was just playing the game, built some retaining walls, pedmalls a lot of cosmetic stuff, when I noticed that some of the retaining walls what was built earlier (weeks ago), is missing, or at least the base textures were missing, but the props were still there, and than I saw, that the Shinjuku station's base textures were missing aswell (mostly rail tracks), and than realized, that a lot of stuffs what I made weeks ago are missing their base textures, but I checked (double-checked), that all the necessary folders and files are in my Pluging folder and I remember, that when I started to play with the game a few hours ago, everything was normal, every texture was fine. So during the these hours with playing, something went wrong (I didn't push ALT-TAB, I had not left the game until I saw something was not OK).
So what happend!
Can anyone help?
Thank You!

[mgb204]

This is the "water bug". Whenever a lot has an overlay texture but no base texture this will happen. Switching to the zones view and back should temporarily fix the problem, but it will keep coming back. What you should do is track down the missing textures and install them to fix the issue permanently.

[Tyberius06]

I don't understand.
Do I need to find one specific LOT, what may causes this problem, and fix that, or what? Today in the begining of my play was everything OK, and than a few hours later, some texture started missing (each of them was built weeks ago, not today), but if I rebuild them, they will be OK again.

[mgb204]

The problem here is that you have not installed textures that are included on the lots (i.e. missing dependencies). Otherwise the lots themselves may have been badly designed (less likely). Until you install those textures, this problem will keep happening. So find the buildings affected, check the documentation that came with the download and find and install any missing textures.

It doesn't matter when they are built, if the base texture is missing, but the lot includes an overlay texture, this problem will keep returning. The bug that makes the funny blue squares appear won't occur for example when re-starting your city. But go into the water menu and suddenly it will show up. Either you install the textures, so the correct textures appear, thus avoiding the bug. Or you jump back and forth between it missing textures (usually by itself this looks odd) and showing the awful bug-texture.

[Tyberius06]

I'm not sure we talking about the same thing. I was in game while the textures disappeared from the LOTs. When I started the game every texture was OK, there wasn't any bug. After a few hours of playing, I noticed the missing textures "suddenly", but they were there earlier (I was ingame the whole time, so I couldn't remove any of the folders or anything during that time), or even last night, and since than I haven't moved any folder from my Plugin Folder.

On the pictures there are several LOTs and all misses their base textures, but if I build now again the same LOT next to the previous one, it looks everything OK with the new one. (see the first picture).
On the second picture those messed up LOTs use the same base texture or dependencies, than the other ones (what are look nice) next to them.

[mgb204]

Yes we are, I knew it was the water bug within seconds of seeing the image.

You can either trust that you need to find missing textures, or keep asking me/others to spend more of their time explaining how the game works until you realise you are missing textures. If you don't understand my answer already, I'm at a loss how to explain it another way. Either way, you still need to install the missing textures, so why not give that a try?

[APSMS]

Hi Tyberius06,

I would suggest redownloading the dependencies for the LOTs that you have, in case the version you currently have is either outdated, corrupted, or incomplete.

I have had similar issues before with BATs I was sure I had all the dependencies for previously, only to discover my version was missing from my plugins folder, and my other dependency was downloaded from an outdated source.

At the very least, this eliminates the possibility of it being user error.
I am not sure why the LOTs show up fine first, and then wrong afterwards, but the water bug is extremely similar, and looks the same after the conditions mgb204 described (and in your pictures). The game does have a bad habit of substituting textures and models for missing files initially, and only later revealing that said files are missing--this has happened to me as well, and it requires due diligence and patience to solve.

Hope this helps!

[Tyberius06]

Thanks everything, but it didn't help. Both you're just repeating the water bug and the missing textures, and I guess you're right, but there's no missing textures. I think most of these buildings use the BSC texture vol. 2 and that is in my plug-in folder.
My main problem, how could this happen during the playing. I can repeat myself. I was ingame when it happend. Approximatly at 5 PM I started playing, and was everything fine, I'm sure, because I continoued some retaing walls (JRJ new concrete), and half of them was old, and after 1,5 hours I noticed that some other retaining wall texture was missing (other kind of JRJ new concrete wall), and than noticed the missing park textures (as the pictures shows above - CLC Gardens and The Jason Promenade), and the weird blue square thingies on the Cruise Port, and than the missing textures from the Shinjuku station, than I saw, that most of my building has missing textures what I built earlier (NOT today) even those retaining walls what I continoued (not the new ones, but the old ones).
If I have missing textures, the new LOTs should do the same problem, but they appear just fine. I replopped the Shinjuku stations (after this incident both wing had missing base textures), and they look fine, and I has not changed anything in my plugin folder.

But I triplechecked now. I have all the dependencies.
Thanks again. I just start replopping everything, and hope it's not happening again...

[mgb204]

The thing is, what you are describing and showing is the textbook definition of the water bug. A very common problem that's widely known about.

The number of times I've heard people complaining that they did have the dependencies installed, only to find out later they didn't, makes me very wary here. It always makes the most sense to look at the most likely explanation with the simplest solution first.

You say "I think most of these buildings use the BSC texture vol. 2 and that is in my plug-in folder"

I'd be a lot more confident if you'd said "I've checked all the documentation for these downloads, and verified that every dependency is present in my plugins folder." I accept it's possibly just the way you worded it, but before I embark on troubleshooting at great length, a problem that I'm unaware of. I do want to be 150% sure you have actually taken the time to go through the dependencies properly. Because the statement you made, sounds like the sort of thing someone who hadn't bothered to spend the time reading the documentation would say. If you take a shot of how one of those problem areas looks before the bug appears, I'll consider looking at alternative options once I'm satisfied there are no missing textures.

Because the alternative is wasting a lot of both of our time trying to fix something that isn't broken, should you later find out you don't actually have all the dependencies.

[APSMS]

Thanks everything, but it didn't help. Both you're just repeating the water bug and the missing textures, and I guess you're right, but there's no missing textures. I think most of these buildings use the BSC texture vol. 2 and that is in my plug-in folder.

But I triplechecked now. I have all the dependencies.
Thanks again. I just start replopping everything, and hope it's not happening again...

But did you re-download the dependencies?

I understand that they are already in your plugin folder, but I have had this happen to me before, and the files were in fact in my plugins folder. It just happened that the files in question were corrupted.

The water bug, btw, happens completely in-game, and can manifest itself midway through playthrough (as the game doesn't always recognize missing textures right away). There are potentially other things that cause this problem, but it would reassure us a lot more if you did the most basic thing and redownloaded and reinstalled all the necessary dependencies before continuing, as we lack access to your setup and it would narrow things down a lot if we could eliminate this variable from our considerations.

[Tyberius06]

Well, I started redownload the big dependency packs, but some LOT doesn't have texture depenency on the dependency list (I know they have texture dependencies, just not on the list). I have RDQ State Library of Victoria, and that doesn't mention any texture dependency, but it's affected by the same issue.
But I ran into an other question, which I has not realized before. Can renamed custome LOTs cause similiar issues? I discovered some of them, which I changed and renamed with Lot Editor, but the old ones haven't been deleted, not all of them. I didn't touch any of those Lots on the pictures above, but I changed different Lots (1x1 plain dirt lots) and left them in the game, but replaced them in my plugin folder. But those look fine, just another Lots not.

[vortext]

I have RDQ State Library of Victoria, and that doesn't mention any texture dependency, but it's affected by the same issue.

Just checked and the lot uses vanilla textures so if it's affected as well it might indicate the game files became corrupted. For some reason or another SC4 files are quite susceptible to corruption (actually had to replace a corrupted SC4Model file just yesterday). If the issue still persists after you've re-downloaded & re-installed the dependencies, it might be worth re-installing the game itself.

Another culprit might be the graphics card itself - did you perhaps install any new drivers recently? Also, which OS are you operating on? It could be a windows update screwing things over, which wouldn't be the first time either.

At any rate, it definitely is a weird and highly unusual issue. 

[Tyberius06]

So I reinstalled the game, redownloaded and reinstalled the texture packs, but everything is the same. The old Lots lost their base textures (I made some custom Lots and I used for base texture the 0x258f2000 base texture, and under some of these Lots the base texture also disappeared), but if I rebuild these Lots, the new ones looks fine as they should be.

But I have a new and bigger problem.

So I started to demolish and rebuild all the corrupted Lots in my city and during that I made some custom Lots. Now I maybe made a huge mistake, because first I built these buildings, and I saw those don't look like nice, so I wanted to relot them but hasn't demolished the original ones. I made the relotting and I replaced the old lots with the new ones in my plugin folder, and than run the game. The city was loaded, I saw the changed Lots in the city in their changed state, and few seconds later I got a CTD.
So I put back the original Lots into my plugin folder, but again got a CTD, I removed these plugins from my Plugin folder, but again CTD, I tried to load in a previous version of this city tile (that was nearly empty, just a few roads, highways and rails) and I got CTD with that older City aswell. The neightbour cities loaded properly. The CTD is coming only this city tile right after it's loading in.
I can't do anything...

Any suggestion? Because in this last year I lost this city because of Prop Pox (after this with the terraformer I made a new city based on the old one), from the new city once disappeared most of the props (this time I made a mistake and after lotting I forgot to put back the datpacked files into my plugin folder), and the base textures and now this CTD problem...

So I am a pretty much upset right now.... 

[Simmer2]

So I reinstalled the game, redownloaded and reinstalled the texture packs, but everything is the same. The old Lots lost their base textures (I made some custom Lots and I used for base texture the 0x258f2000 base texture, and under some of these Lots the base texture also disappeared), but if I rebuild these Lots, the new ones looks fine as they should be.

But I have a new and bigger problem.

So I started to demolish and rebuild all the corrupted Lots in my city and during that I made some custom Lots. Now I maybe made a huge mistake, because first I built these buildings, and I saw those don't look like nice, so I wanted to relot them but hasn't demolished the original ones. I made the relotting and I replaced the old lots with the new ones in my plugin folder, and than run the game. The city was loaded, I saw the changed Lots in the city in their changed state, and few seconds later I got a CTD.
So I put back the original Lots into my plugin folder, but again got a CTD, I removed these plugins from my Plugin folder, but again CTD, I tried to load in a previous version of this city tile (that was nearly empty, just a few roads, highways and rails) and I got CTD with that older City aswell. The neightbour cities loaded properly. The CTD is coming only this city tile right after it's loading in.
I can't do anything...

Any suggestion? Because in this last year I lost this city because of Prop Pox (after this with the terraformer I made a new city based on the old one), from the new city once disappeared most of the props (this time I made a mistake and after lotting I forgot to put back the datpacked files into my plugin folder), and the base textures and now this CTD problem...

So I am a pretty much upset right now.... 

Remove everything from your plugin folder.
Open the previous version of your city.
If it opens fine then start by adding a few packs at the time, I would start with all the NAM folders first.
Note what packs you are adding in the plugin and keep starting the game until you get the CTD again.
Then remove all previous packs before the last and try to start the game with just the last one.
If you get CTD then further break down that last pack until you isolate the one at fault.
Do not save the city while doing the testing, always "quit without save"

If you get a CTD while opening the city with nothing in your plugin then the city file is actually corrupt.
Nuke it and start over.
I had that happen once to me, rare but it happens.

Sim.

[Tyberius06]

I emptied the whole plugin folder and tried to load in the city (oldest version, almost plain). The same result. Right after it was loaded in I got the CTD. I saw a little box with the missing plugins, but right after this, the CTD was coming.

[Simmer2]

I emptied the whole plugin folder and tried to load in the city (oldest version, almost plain). The same result. Right after it was loaded in I got the CTD. I saw a little box with the missing plugins, but right after this, the CTD was coming.

"If you get a CTD while opening the city with nothing in your plugin then the city file is actually corrupt.
Nuke it and start over.
I had that happen once to me, rare but it happens."

Sim.

[FrankU]

Hi Tyberius06,

I just read the whole thread.
I don't know what exactly caused the disappearance of the base textures, although I was thinking of Prop Pox.
But what you wrote about making custom lots while you left the original lots in your folder and in your cities and the CTD issue afterwards leads to one conlusion only (in my opinion): the save file of your city and the plugins folder of your region is a mess and therefore I think the best thing to do is start all over again, with a freshly made (or downloaded) region and a new plugins folder.

If you have lots in your plugins that are plopped or have grown in your cities and then you replace them with changed lots with the same name it leads to the fact that you have two versions (or maybe even more if you saved the lots in between) of the same lots in your cities and in your game files. This evidently is going to lead to corruption. Never ever do that again!
You may replace lots by edited version only if you are completely sure there is not one left in your cities in the whole region! Best thing to do is: do not relot, but add a new lot, showing the newly wanted looks. Then you have two different ones. No overwriting, no corruption.

Good luck! I realize you have to throw away a huge amount of work.....

[Tyberius06]

Hi, FrankU,

Yepp, I will start all over again with a new map. With this regeion/city I have no luck anyway, I've just spent a lot of time with it.

About the Lotting thing, I'm still learning how to use the PIM-X, the LE editor, the Reader. But yeah, I usually use the LE to make new contents, but I'm not sure how to make complete new lots with the LE, thats why I started to learn how to use the PIM-X.
For example I don't know if I make a relot, and than change the names with the Reader, why couldn't see the changed name ingame under the menus, just the old Lot's name.
But this is OFF-topic.


Thanks all of You your advices and helps!

[vortext]

For example I don't know if I make a relot, and than change the names with the Reader, why couldn't see the changed name ingame under the menus, just the old Lot's name.

Because the game does not identify the lots, or any other files for that matter, by name but by a rather large number instead - namely Type Group Instance address or TGI. Since you did not change the TGI there were simply two identical lots in the plugins folder as far as the game is concerned. And in case of duplicates it'll display the info from the file which loads last.

Making new lots with PIM-X is very easy, have a look here and here. While the tutorial deals with making a growable, the method is the same for all lots. First you create the building exemplar, then create the lot exemplar.

In case you want to make a relot, you can simply generate a new lot using the existing building exemplar (provided you didn't make any changes to it of course). If you just want to do minor aesthetic work, like replace the trees or something, you can copy/paste the props & textures from the old lot lot over to the new, thus retaining the original layout.

Sorry to hear you have to start over again, but on the other hand I'm glad you haven't given up all together. Just be careful and make plenty of back-ups, of both the region/city tile and the corresponding plugins folder!

[Tyberius06]

Hello!

I've tried to refresh few of my custom content with a shorter plugin folder for PIM-X, and I realized that the 0x30301000 overlay texture (I think it's a diagonal grass texture) is missing, and I can't figure it out, which pack contains this (and other diagonal overlay) texture.

Thanks for any help!

- Tyberius