Ennedi plays Shosaloza

[Schulmanator]

Simply delightful! A much deserved award for this MD! 

[Toichus Maximus]

Awesome, Ennedi! You deserve this award! Your MD has always been my favorite!

[Shadow Assassin]

Congratulations on your award, Adam!

It's well-deserved.

[warszawa]

So pleased to hear that your MD has been located in the SC4Devotion Hall of Fame! Very well deserved my friend.

Alex

[Badsim]

Hi Adam ..

Who said a few months ago that this MD should be pinned ?   

Many many congratulations to you my friend , so much exemplary  nature , so much excellence and so much utility are getting together in your Shosaloza ...
Among the three first MDs reaching this Hall of fame , your is the most deserving it .

Can't get enough ...   

Cedric .

[pvarcoe]

Congratulations Adam.

A most deserved honor!

[penguin007]

Firstly congrats on the award you have earned. Recently I have loved your updates with the rural areas. In fact a couple of the pics were so gd Ive saved them on my computer. I also love your main city you are building at the moment and I cant wait to see more of it. My favourite part of the region though has to be the area round the bridge which looks awesome.

Will

[nerdly_dood]

I see that you use long road curves a lot... May I recommend THIS so that your long curves can match better with your straight roads?

[M4346]

Wasn't it included in the latest version of the NAM? I'm not sure about that, however, as I haven't used them since the release in April... anyone know?

[Ennedi]

@nerdly_dood: Yes, I downloaded fillers fillers for long curves a few days ago, I'm going to use them in the CBD area which was built earlier. I used there avenue long curves and I like them, but there is too much greenery in their surrounding as for the city centre. This area will be rebuilt, fillers will be useful in other places too. Thank you!
Thank you also for your previous advice about SAM intersections. I downloaded SAM v3 version shortly after releasing, but forgot to install it. I installed it after reading your comment, SAM/road crossings changed their look (they look much better now!) but I still see the yellow line here and there. It seems something is not correct with my Euro textures addon, I must look at it.

@M3436: Yes, long curves are in the last NAM version. Now we have road, avenue and highway curves, it's a great improvement! And of course FAR roads presented in 3RR and used by me in last two updates are the next excellent addition 

[dedgren]

I've just spent a phenomenal evening here, Adam, having come looking for your version of the DJEM.

I. Am. So. Blown. Away!  This is the desert island MD, as in "if you could only take one..."

You'll be pleased to know you don't have much longer to wait for the Euro texture FAR.  I've completed the textures, and now we just have to let our talented friend Alex (Tarkus) catch up on all that great stuff he's got in the pipeline.  So, we're almost there!

It just doesn't get any better than this.


David

[Ennedi]

First of all, thank you!
It is really a great honour to be one of the first 3 MD authors inducted to the Hall of Fame. But it is not all.

Thanks to the ecellent idea, many discussions between staff members and then hard work of the HoF Commitee supported by the whole staff we created the new unique place in this unique site. It would be very good if the MD HoF wouldn't be only a gallery or simply a dead place with some old - even very good - pictures. This place should be alive and it should be a source of information, inspiration and pleasure.
I was very glad reading Badsim's and Shadow Assassins' introductions, both of them say that it is possible they will continue their work. I want to continue my work too.

Of course we must remember that every of us have many important things to do in real life - work, studies, family and many others. If you expect something new from us, we need to make a lot of preparation, experiments and to learn many new things. We also need to have an inspiration and some free time  So please be patient, and we will do what will be possible.

A few days ago during the HoF Commitee discussion David suggested that we should think about something which could increase the HoF value, ie to make it more alive and interesting. Maybe any additional topic, analyses, questions and answers? I don't know, maybe some of you will have any idea what could we do here except our MDs? What could be interesting for you?
I'm a member of the HoF Commitee, so if you will tell me anything about your ideas and suggestions, we will discuss it immediately.

My time is very limited. I planned something different, I was going to show the new city neighboring to Malecon. But in the same time I started to work with something different: I want to customize the terrain mod and modify the look of the whole region - terrain, trees and everything connected with them. In addition we had an interesting discussion with Phil (pvarcoe) and Chrisadams about tree controllers, and I started a new theme: weather and seasonal terrain changes  I will want to show you some first results today.

Sorry, I have no time for replies today, only a few short ones:

-Mightygoose, you are right that some of my farms are too small!  A part of them act rather as home gardens, the rest should be larger - but I wanted to make too much on the limited space  My intention was to make farmfields, but also to leave some open areas, and the valley is simply too small. In addition, most farmfields doesn't look good on slopes (farmfield props aren't slope-conforming) and only a small part of this valley is really flat. I will make bigger ones in future 

- Heblem, you said I have no nightlights in Aprica. Everything with nightlights is OK, these two dark pictures you saw are not night ones, these places are in the big mountain shadow  Btw I changed a bit lighting parameters to see what will happen if I will equalize the lighting in shadow for models and textures. But they still look different (some people know that there was a discussion about it in 3RR when we tested FAR roads).

- Badsim: I'm very glad you visited me Cedric! Thank you for your kind words, but please don't compare our work, it is uncomparable 
It's important for me if you like my work, and it's a very big pleasure for me to be together with you (and Daniel) in this section! Who knows, maybe we will create something together in future? 

- Dedgren: Thank you for visit and for testing David! I don't know how you do it, but your visits and comments always give me much addditional energy 
Thank you also for an information about FAR roads, huge civil works will start soon in Shosaloza!

Everybody else - thank you for your kind words and devoting some time to write a comment! Please visit me again!

Now to the update:

We discuss in NHP the new terrain mod project from some time. We made some preparations, a few other NHP members made their own experiments - I must say they look interesting  I'm going to modify my Shosaloza terrain too, so I started to research this theme.

I wanted to understand how works the terrain mod. If you will open the main terrain mod file in the Ilive Reader, you will see the INI file in it. If you open the INI, you will see some information about terrain and four large tables. One of them is active, it is called "Tropical Texture Map Table". It consists of 32 rows and 16 columns.



I made the following experiment:
I know that textures in the table are ordered from the highest temperature (bottom row) to the highest (upper row) and from dryest to wettest places (in columns 0 from left to right). It is explained in the INI file. To understand better how particular texture position depends on these two parameters, I prepared two special terrain mods:
- In the first I placed one texture in every row (to eliminate the moisture influence)
- In the second one I placed one texture in every column (to eliminate the temperature/height influence).
I also removed the cliff texture changing the MaxNormalYForCliff to 0 (this property is used in the Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod). I wanted to see all textures and the cliff texture covers them.
Pictures are funny because I used textures from various mods, but my intention was to place contrasting ones one close to another 
Then I tested both mods.

1. Temperature/height layers:
We have 32 layers, but the upper one (number 00) is a special one. We can call it "mountain layer". It covers all the area from a specific height to the maximum terrain height, other 31 layers cover the rest of space and every of them has a height equal to 1/31 of this space.
Which "specific height"? It depends on the "Temperature Range Factor", I discussed this property in my updates 11-14 (when I showed various terrain mods). For example, if the Temperature Range factor is equal to 0,3 (as in original Cycledogg terrain mods), the bottom border of the "mountain layer" is at about 42% of the maximum terrain height.

Here we have the terrain with the highest point about 1520 m, the MaxTerrainHeight in my terrain mod is equal to 1550 m. The rock (I used it to fill the last layer) begins at 650 m.





As you see, the last layer covers most of the total space, from 650 m to the highest point (1520 m). All other layers are present, but each of them covers only 650/31 = 20,97 m. If the slope is steep, the blending area between layers can be larger than the layer itself.
Look at the closeup on the steep slope:



On the moderate slope it looks better:



A diggression: Thanks to contrasting textures we can see how they blend totgether. Borders look artificial and because of it we must collect neighboring layers wisely, we should use similar neighboring layers to create nice transitions!
Another example of the unnatural border:



Looking at these pictures you can appreciate Cycledogg's skills, there are no so strange transitions in his terrain mods 

OK, but what can we do to make more space for these 31 layers to see them better?
We can do two things:
- Increase the MaxTerrainHeight to make the last layer border close to the highest terrain point. I have the highest point = 1550 m, I made MaxTerrainHeight = 3500 m.
- Increase the TemperatureRangeFactor to achieve the same goal. I changed this property from 0,3 to 0,75.
Here is the result of increasing the TemperatureRangeFactor:





Layers are wider and easier to research now.
The second method gave exactly the same result.

OK, but what to do to change the temperature?
Here is something new: I've taken the "Weather" exemplar file from the simcity1.dat, made a plugin from it and changed a property called "mfYearlyAmbientTemperatureVariation". Starting the game at winter and running it for six months I can change the ambient temperature.
And... nothing  Any texture didn't change it's height.
I checked also my second terrain mod (various textures in columns). The result was the same ie any texture didn't move to the another place.
The conclusion: It seems textures don't change their height when atmospheric conditions change. But I will make further experiments, there are more temperature connected properties in the Weather exemplar. Maybe one of them can unlock textures height?

2. Moisture layers:
Here is my second mod - one texture for every moisture level (represented by one column in the INI file). As you see, the terrain look much more interesting now  :





I returned to my Weather exemplar, changed Temperature Variation to 0 and increased the Moisture Variation (it's original value is 0,5, I changed it to 5). And... it works! 
Comparing textures in the particular place in summer and winter I saw that textures move 2-5 columns to the left in winter (it means that the whole terrain is wetter in winter and dryer in summer - after all this is a tropical texture map table!)

And this is the key to make real seasons in SC4 

I will show you it on examples, but earlier I must tell you that I use a special terrain mod: this is my modification of the Italia Terrain Mod.
I would like to ask you for comments and suggestions. This is an early stage of the terrain mod development and your comments will be very helpful.
I must emphasize that this is only my modification of the original Cycledogg's mod. If I will prepare something useful and ready to release, I will discuss it with Brian (Cycledogg) first.

Area 1 - summer


Area 1 - winter: not too much changes but it's a lower terrain part


Area 2 - summer


Area 2 - winter: you can see more snow mostly on the north slopes (North is on the right)


You can see these changes only running the game and clicking pause in summer and winter. After stopping the game you must change the zoom level to see changes. The terrain changes every week, so you will see smaller changes in short periods.

Area 3 - summer


Area 3 - winter: we look from the west, we can see more snow on west slopes too.


You can say there is not enough snow in winter (and some other textures are still green), but it was enough difficult  and I will make more experiments!
My goal is not only snow in winter, but also replacing green grass by something more apropriate in this period 

Of course we can make even more snow in winter (and better winter textures):


But in this case I had to use a little additional plugin. It should be placed into Plugins when we want to have real winter and removed after we want to change the season.
I have an idea: I can make such mod (and for spring and fall too  , it can look great with seasonal trees!). But would anybody be interested in it? Tell me please!

3. Another function of the Weather exemplar:
I showed you that we can increase seasonal changes. In my opinion it opens new possibilities - I will try to make the whole landscape changing with time in a harmonious way - snow, grass and flora. It will be difficult, I will be happy if somebody would help me.

But there is also an opposite goal: Some of you make fantastic regional view and seasonal changes are rather uncomfortable for those people. If you want to make a good regional view, all city tiles should look the same, there shouldn't be visible texture differences along city borders.
Of course you can use only one terrain mod in every city and you should only remember to save each city in the same year period. But we can make it easier.
I made a special "No Seasons" mod using the Weather exemplar. I changed yearly temperature and moisture variation to 0.
The mod works very well, I tested it opening two neighboring cities, saving one of them in summer and the second one in winter. I didn't see any differences in the regional view.
But... I can't remove all changes. Most terrain texture files (FSH) consists of two textures. One of them is used in summer and another one in winter. I hoped that disabling the temperature change I will disable these texture changes, but there is another mechanism here. It seems textures change at the particular date.
But fortunately these changes are very subtle. Look at the area below in summer


And the same area in winter


These differences are not important in the regional view IMO. But I would like to be sure, so I attached this mod to this post. Please download and test them.
Attention! This mod can change your terrain look. Temperature and moisture are constant all the year, but these are yearly average parameters. So your terrain will look rather like 30th March or 30th September than in summer. Anyway, please test it, if results will be unpleasant, we will think more 

I attached three zips to this update: No Seasons mod, Seasons mod (this one which I showed on my pictures, it increases moisture changes) and an unchanged Weather exemplar for those who like to play with such things 

I also made a kind of a texture guide to make completing textures easier. I extracted all textures from CPT No 3 and CPT No 4 files (for one zoom only) to see them during the texture map preparation. Look at the picture below, you can see summer and winter versions for every texture:



Now some relax: A small lake in summer and winter (My version of Italia Terrain, Seasons plugin in action)





The stream and Chris' flora. I suppose these olive-green textures with some rocks will look very good with Chris' grass and flowers, I must learn to use them together. Here are first attempts 





First snow



That's all for today. Thank you, my friends!

[wouanagaine]

Great update as always Adam 

Very thoughful post

One thing that should be noted in allowing seasonal change, is that if you want a great regional shot, you'll need to save each city at the same game week so all weather/season conditions match, so all textures match and you won't see glitches between cities edges, that is why as a "regional pic lover' I will put 0 in the Temperature Variation to 0 and Moisture Variation property, this should do the trick !

I usually set the TemperatureRangeFactor to 1, and the MaxTerrainHeight to 100m above the maximum height of the map I'm playing, to have like you the whole range of textures displayed

And damn even if it is a tutorial update, you made amazing shots !

[JoeST]

uhh.... WOW!!!... simply put, you are brilliant

and quote:

And damn even if it is a tutorial update, you made amazing shots !

Amazing shots indeed, Thankyou very much

Joe

[Simpson]

Hello Adam,
OMG for your great update 
I love your work and the terrain mod of you are traying to experiment is looking good
The lake is very beautiful and the cascade too 
You make a very realistic job so congratulation
Happy to see more

[Shadow Assassin]

Indeed - some excellent shots.

I love that terrain mod as well... it looks great, especially with your rock mod.

It'd be nice if it was released...

*wishful thinking*

[Badsim]

Hi Adam ,

Once more , major interest with such little indispensable things :
Have downloaded your Mod , need to find enough time to try it now ... I really don't play at all for the time being . I'm following as eagerly the RRP ... a revolution more than a renewal . Thanks to Chris , Jestarr and the first experimenters - you're one of them - That said , I'm less convinced by the flora ... needs surely a lot of subtlety , dexterity and , most of all , parsimoniousness to avoid this too much impressionist touch ( for my personal taste    ) on your pictures .

Thank you - to be there- .

- Badsim: ... Who knows, maybe we will create something together in future? 

Who knows indeed !   

[thundercrack83]

Hello, Adam!

Once again, your wealth of knowledge has impressed me to the point of being overwhelmed, my friend! Your terrain mod looks fantastic, too!

All you do here is magnificent, my friend--I can't wait to see what's waiting around the next corner!

Dustin

[Jmouse]

Adam, you keep giving us more and more terrific ideas to work with! And with the map you're using. I'm not surprised you're concerned with high places! Of course, the only snow-capped mountains I see are in pictures, but some nice realistic ones in game would be great.

Thank you so much for sharing your many exemplary talents with the rest of us!

Joan

[bat]

A wonderful new update there! And great testing on that! Wonderful work!

Looking forward to more from your Shosaloza!