diagonal/odd angled airplane gates

[Seaman]

hello community

Im currently working on a nice little airport and was wondering if there are any angled gates available. A research during the last weeks brought some things up:

- the glory days of sophisticated aircraft related modding seem to be 2008-2012  (over four! years have passed since then??? we're getting old)

- diagonal lots seem to be quite rare and most of them seem to be lotted props for private use

- if it's the only way, I would lot it on my own, but I can't find any diagonal planes with attached jetways as props

- there used to be some diagonal props around (also as a dependency for some lots) made by Tabinohito. His japanese page went down and my japanese isn't good enough to find support/hints in the japanese community. Some of his props survived in the LEX, unfortunately not the diagonal ones... 


I'm searching for help by the wise community of SC4 devotees! Maybe some of the old "grandmasters" like voltair are still around... ?

here some examples what I'm looking for:




and here

[fafalone]

Have you tried getting in touch with the guys who made those? I've tried some custom lotting like that before but have had trouble with the gate and plane models being separate, it's hard to get them to align properly in all views. Not sure if they went back and edited the models or not, if so that's not really something I can do.

There are some existing diagonal gates too if you really dig deep into what's out there. Like the pre-fab airports, those models can be pulled and custom lotted.

[Seaman]

There are some existing diagonal gates too if you really dig deep into what's out there. Like the pre-fab airports, those models can be pulled and custom lotted.

yeah, I've seen at least one diagonal gate in the prefabs but didn't dare to dig for that.

I postponed the obvious solution of just contacting the guys behind the showcases since I thought they wouldn't be around anymore, but I've just seen at least Josh6 is still checking in for simtropolis every now and then.

[Seaman]

Ok, I although josh6 and raja_indy14 over at simtropolis didn't respond to my consideration, I think I've figured out that they almost exclusivly used the props from the AC prefab airports. BTW the prefabs are amazing lots, incredibly detailed and my goal is to somehow make something similar on a modular basis.

I've found the props, but strangely, I can't find the props in the LE when I open other lots than the prefabs. Is it just me going crazy or is there an actual reason for this?

for example: when I open the prefab stage 9 lot, I can see the 0x15a90dd6 prop, an 45° AmericanAirlines 737-8. I can delete it and replop it in the LE. But when I open an empty lot to fill it with the B737, the LE cannot find the 0x15a90dd6 prop. 

I've also stumbled on another (theoretical) question. In case I do manage to rip off the props from the AC prefabs and use them on my own lots and somebody else wants to have these lots, what would it need to publish them on the LEX? I'm mainly concerned about the "legal" issues here. Is it ok to just publish them by mentioning the AC Team as credits and dependency?

Is anyone of the AC team still alive? RippleJet's last activity was 2 years ago...

[mgb204]

Check the files that come with the lots. If the prop exemplars are not loading, then you won't be able to use them. I don't use these things, so it's a lot of work to download them all to check. But if you can provide with with a link to the specific files in question, I'd be happy to dig around a little for you.

[Seaman]

ok, mgb here we go. I've located the 737-8 in the AC MEGA Props Vol04 (v1.0).
The exemplar name is "ACB-VLT_737-8_American_NL45". Do you need something else to quickly find it?

I just mentioned this plane as an example for my problem:

I've found the props, but strangely, I can't find the props in the LE when I open other lots than the prefabs. Is it just me going crazy or is there an actual reason for this?

for example: when I open the prefab stage 9 lot, I can see the 0x15a90dd6 prop, an 45° AmericanAirlines 737-8. I can delete it and replop it in the LE. But when I open an empty lot to fill it with the B737, the LE cannot find the 0x15a90dd6 prop. 

Just in case someone lateron stumbles upon this: in this dependency are some diagonal/fractional angeled planes with jetways, somehow ready to lot for yourself... (pretty obvious if you look into the description or the teaser pic, but easy to miss if you just download it as a dependency in a hurry).

This would solve my "legal" question from above as this dependency is made to use it?!

[mgb204]

Having quickly downloaded the AC MEGA Props Vol04 file, I have no problem finding and adding the plane in question.

I'm using PIM-X, but the name of the item is "ACB-VLT_737-8_American_NL45", the prop appears right at the top of the list of props (order by name).

So I figured I'd try to check this in the Maxis Lot Editor, low and behold, this particular prop simply doesn't appear in the list of props. Even when searching by it's ID. This is very odd, since when I reduced the props being loaded (by temporarily moving most of my plugins), now the prop does appear in the list?

A little more testing revealed the most likely problem. The prop is quite large, if your lot isn't at least 5x4 tiles, it won't fit on the lot. Sure enough, when I reduce the lot size, the prop is no longer available. But when the lot size is at least 5x4 the prop re-appears once more. This is a limitation of the Lot Editor, it will never allow you to see items that won't fit on the lot you are modifying. So if you find props missing, try enlarging the lot to see if that helps before going further.

To answer your other question, if you make lots using dependencies, you can release those freely. The only condition being that you must no include the dependencies as part of your upload. You should always link to those files instead.

[Seaman]

So I figured I'd try to check this in the Maxis Lot Editor, low and behold, this particular prop simply doesn't appear in the list of props. Even when searching by it's ID. This is very odd, since when I reduced the props being loaded (by temporarily moving most of my plugins), now the prop does appear in the list?

A little more testing revealed the most likely problem. The prop is quite large, if your lot isn't at least 5x4 tiles, it won't fit on the lot. Sure enough, when I reduce the lot size, the prop is no longer available. But when the lot size is at least 5x4 the prop re-appears once more. This is a limitation of the Lot Editor, it will never allow you to see items that won't fit on the lot you are modifying. So if you find props missing, try enlarging the lot to see if that helps before going further.

heavens... so it wasn't me going crazy, what a relief! Thank you very much. I tried to reduce my plugins, too, but it didn't work for me... I'would have never thought about the lot size.

Unfortunately, there are some other questions I would like to ask.

a) Are there any perils if you're not in bounds of the lot with your prop footprint? I've found some other lots, where some bigger props overhang (with the footprint). The LE doesn't seem to like it though.

b) uhm... what would it take to bring, for example, this 737-8 on a smaller lot, maybe 4x4? Is it 'simply' using PIM-X instead of the LE or is some exemplar modification needed (like reducing a stat with the reader)??

[mgb204]

The way the LE works, once the prop/building is upon the lot, you should be able to save it. So you can adjust the lot size, add the prop, adjust it back and see if that works. When you place an item on a lot, you see a big blue box, this is the "bounding box", not necessarily the size of the actual prop. The bounding box is based on the "Occupant Size" property, which is in the prop exemplar. You can freely adjust this property, to make the footprint of the prop smaller. There are some potential problems with this, a prop with nitelights, won't show lighting if it overhangs too far outside the lot. The general rule is no more than half the width/height of the bounding box can extend beyond the lot borders. There are ways to cheat that too (offsetting props).

For now, I'd try my first suggestion, because that doesn't require modification to the props. If that fails, adjusting the occupant size will work. But, if you release the lot, you'll need to include your modified Prop Exemplar, or it may cause problems.

PIM-X is generally much more flexible than the LE, because it was designed to remove silly restrictions like this, for example you can also save a lot with no base texture. It takes a bit of adjustment, but if you are planning to make custom lots, within 5 minutes of using that tool, it's unlikely you'll ever want to open the LE again.