Some beginners questions on LOT editor

[Rady]

Hi, so finally I started creating my own buildings and bringing the into the game. As I'm a newbe with BATing and LOTing, I started with a very simple wooden fishing pier that I need for one of my rural scenes.

Creating the model in the BAT was ok so far (follwoing some tutorials, of course), so at the moment I have the follwoing model:



After that I assigned the model to the "park" category in the SC4tool. Now I tried to create a LOT for that, but encountered some problems:

1) after placing the building, the grey box in the top view is in a different place than the buidling in the 3d-view.



Why? In the SC4BAT, I centered the whole model on 0/0/0 as described in the tutorial.

2) For zoom levels 5 and 6 in the LE, the model looks like this:



I therefore re-entered the BAT, deleted all scenes and LODs and re-created the LODs and cameras, then saved again. Do I again have to assign the model to a SC4 category in the SC4TOOL after re-exporting? I suppose not ...?


After solving these problems, there will be some more, possibly someone can direct me to some tutorial or already existing thread for that:

1) how do I get a transparent base texture? I don't always want to place the pier on grass only.

2) how do I create an overhanging lot? 'Cause what I want this lot to do is to be places on a shore and than overhang over the water (game water or ploppable water). Acutally that lot is overhanging now, but not the way I want it to be - I would like this lot to be a 1x1 lot. But when I try to delete the tile that's apparently unused, the LE tells me I cannot have a lot smaller than the building ...

3) how do I create a lot that adjust to the slope? That is, the beginning of the pier sould always be ground level, and then stretch out over a slope into the water.

Thanks for your advice!

[Andreas]

Looking at the corrupted rendering, you probably forgot to install the BAT script fix that Maxis has published shortly after the BAT release.

[vester]

I therefore re-entered the BAT, deleted all scenes and LODs and re-created the LODs and cameras, then saved again.

The easiest way to do this is choose what you want to keep. Then go to the file menu and Export selected.
Start a new scene and merge the export file into it.

This will help you out of a lot of different problems.


If you want it to go into water, the pillars need to much longer.
LODS: You will need to make a box for each pillars and one of the deck and beams.

[Rady]

Thanks, I already managed to solve the first problems.

@ Andreas: thanks, that was obviuosly the problem. The model is now rendered perfectly throughout all zoom levels, and also is located correctly.

@ vester: Thanks for the tip - I will make the pillars much longer. Can you explain why I will need seperate LODs for the pillars and the deck?

I also managed to find Jeronij's tutorlai on transparent base texture.

Now I need to dig into that overhanging slope conforming thing. Am I right that an overhanging building is created by adding an offset in the BAT? So inthat case I would need to give it an offset of one tile, and then place it on a 1x1 lot?