NDEX Texture Pack vol1

[evarburg]

I have those in my Permanent Deps folder. I just recently linked five lots showing up in my Park Menu to them (after some sleuthing). [hope the image shows up]. Those had me flummoxed for a long time as I had no idea where they came from and didn't know how to search for them. No that I Know, I'd like to know also why three of them plop an invisible 1x1 that needs dezoning and bulldozing. Two plop, (but unfortunately not the ones I would like to use as sneaky MMps) ; they all appear in the buildingplop cheat, with numbers. Seeing that, I opened the .dats in iLive : lots of FSH in that sea, and a few exemplars. I don't know what to do next. Comments ? Advice ?

[twalsh102]

Evarburg,
I hate to tell you this but there is some more sleuthing to be done.

I started with an empty Plugins folder, added NDEX Texture Pack Volume 1 as the only custom content, and started the game.  Those tiles you show do not show in my Parks menu.

I next looked at these DAT files in both Reader and SC4DataNode.  Of the two DAT files included with this Texture Pack, only one (NDEX Foundations and Retaining Walls 1.dat) has any exemplars.  I found four, three of which are building foundations, one of which is a retaining wall, and none of which will show up in any in-game menu.

The numbers you saw in the buildingplop cheat are the IIDs.  If you can pass those on, we can help you find the source of these lots.

Tim

[evarburg]

Evarburg,
I hate to tell you this but there is some more sleuthing to be done.

I started with an empty Plugins folder, added NDEX Texture Pack Volume 1 as the only custom content, and started the game.  Those tiles you show do not show in my Parks menu.

I next looked at these DAT files in both Reader and SC4DataNode.  Of the two DAT files included with this Texture Pack, only one (NDEX Foundations and Retaining Walls 1.dat) has any exemplars.  I found four, three of which are building foundations, one of which is a retaining wall, and none of which will show up in any in-game menu.

The numbers you saw in the buildingplop cheat are the IIDs.  If you can pass those on, we can help you find the source of these lots.

Tim

Darn ! And me so proud of having sleuthed all by myself with the Reader (a year ago, I wouldn't even have thought of it ; six months ago, I would have run away from it, foaming at the mouth). But now, very sedately, I just got the number & names from the buildingplop cheat :
0xed83d36 retaining_wall_tanbrick 1x1
0x2d83c76 retaining_wall_brownbrick 2 1x1
0xad83d6f retaining_wall_rivrock 1x1
0xed83ab4 retaining_wall_flagstone 1x1

Those are showing up in my park menu. The AWOL one in buildingplop is named "neat brick" in the menu. It plops as simple sandstone. Some of the names in the menu differ from those in Bplop. For instance, one is "wetbrick". Kinky.

[twalsh102]

Well, even with the info you provided, I wasn't able to identify the source of these buildings from the resources I've downloaded.

Barring someone else being able to identify these, I can think of a couple options available to you, one a pain in the ...., and one that's actually relatively simple (funny how things are always relatively simple if one is already familiar with the process).

The painful method is the testing by half method.  If you're not familiar with this, it basically entails removing half your custom content from you Plugins folder, starting the game, opening an new city, and checking to see if the buildings in question show in your Parks menu.  If so, you know that the source isn't in the content you removed already.  Close the game.  As remove content, keep it segregated in case you need to add the content just removed back into Plugins.  Again remove half of the custom content from your Plugins folder.  Retest to see if the subject buildings are in your Parks menu.  Continue this process until they no longer show in your Parks menu.  At that point, you know that the source is in the content you just removed.  Switch the just removed content for the current content, and continue the process until you've narrowed down the possibilities to only the most likely suspects.  Obviously, if you have a large Plugins folder, this can take some time, and is thus the cause of the PAIN.

The "relatively simple" process is relatively simple if you already have the latest version Rivit's SC4DataNde tool installed and are somewhat familiar with how it works.  If you don't have it installed, you can get it at http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27675-sc4datanode/ .

The "relatively simple method":
1.  Open DataNode and have is scan your Plugins folder, if it isn't already set to automatically do so at startup.  The scan may take some time depending on the size of your Plugins folder.
2.  Once the scan completes, on the right, click on TGI View, and then All Exemplars.  This now creates a list of all the exemplars that exist in both your Plugins folder, as well as those that exist in the game files.
3.  On the right, click on the CSV icon.  This will pop up a box telling you that you are about to create a report on xxxx number of items.  Click OK.  My "environment" included 107,000 exemplars.
4.  This process has just created a CSV file that you can open in Excel.  You can find this CSV file at \My Documents\SC4DataNode\report.csv
5.  Once you open the report in Excel, you can search the file for one of IDs you have by using the find and select tool (leave off the leading "0x" when entering the ID number) (NOTE:  just in case you weren't aware of this, normally IIDs consist of 8 alphanumeric characters after the initial "0x."  However some programs when reporting or listing IDs, will leave off any zeroes at the end).  Or you can re-sort on either the I column to look for the IDs you have, or the name column to search for the names you have.
5.  Once you have located one of the items in question, you can look in the FilePath column to see the source of these exemplars.
See, simple!!

Hope this all made sense.  Please ask questions if not!

Tim

[evarburg]

Well, even with the info you provided, I wasn't able to identify the source of these buildings from the resources I've downloaded.

Barring someone else being able to identify these, I can think of a couple options available to you, one a pain in the ...., and one that's actually relatively simple (funny how things are always relatively simple if one is already familiar with the process).

LOL. Yes, I know the asspainful method. And I do have datanode and (mostly) know how it works. I was hoping to spare myself nevertheless (I am a Simple Player, I am always somewhat... intimidated when I do SC4 tech :-) because everything pointed to NDEX Textures -- but of course it can be in any NDEX building I've got in my plugins folder, right ? Sigh. I'll go datanoding, then. A big thank you for taking the time and trouble, Tim !