Three Rivers Region

[Sheep49]

Love the tutorial!

Keep up the great work!

Welcome to the page 246!
Yey! I'm the 4900th poster!

[metarvo]

It's great that you are revealing your "trade secrets," David!    I perform each step as it is completed.  I try to avoid diving into a new step until it is completely posted, though, since I would be lost without your tutorial.   

EDIT:  Oh, I got #4901.  Congrats, Piotr, on ringing the bell.

[debutterfly]

I always wondered what the 3RR Plopitizer^TM was...Thanks David...Always waiting for any beta testing 

[bat]

Nice work on the newest part there! And congrats on 246 pages, more than 4900 replies and 136015 views!!

and btw, this is my 5900th post at this forum!!

[thundercrack83]

You are definitely providing a great service to the community with this tutorial, David! Then again, that goes without saying because everything that goes on here in 3RR is a service to the community, to say the least! Perhaps "Godsend" would be a better way to put it!

And congratulations on reaching 4900 views replies (Thanks, Pat!)--only 96 to go before the big 5K! And congrats to you, as well, Piotr, for joining the "00" Club!

Dustin

[Pat]

David and here I thought you was done with the tut and well I guess I should have waited a wee bit longer lol.... I will wait till you tell me you are so done with the 3RR Plopperizer^tm.... Also Dustin dont you mean 4900 replies and not views lol... congrats to you Piotr for joining the double 00 club!!!!

EDIT: Indeed I did! Thanks! - Dustin (thundercrack83)

[Sheep49]

OK, this maybe a stupid question, but is there any award for being ..00 poster? Or is it just the fact that I start a new page and that's all?

BTW, I love the name of your tutorial. 3RR Plopperizer™ sounds lovely.

[thundercrack83]

Hey, Piotr!

Check out the 3RR Honors List--David's behind a bit on giving out the awards, but rest assured, he won't forget!

Take care, my friend!

Dustin

[Heblem]

lol who will get the 5k post, cant wait to know who 

[kalanc69]

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID!!

I hope you had a happy birthday, and I hope that you are doing well. I'm sorry I haven't been on in awhile, but real life reared its ugly head and has kept me busier than a one leg man in a butt kicking contest! Anyways, great work once again, and I can't wait to see what you come up with next!

[sithlrd98]

Great job on the 3RR Plopperizer^tm tutorial!  It has answered many questions that I've had but been afraid to ask. It has to be one of the easiest to follow tutorials out there... Great job!

[dedgren]

Turning a prop into a plop - A tutorial (Part Ten)

This is the tenth part of the 3RR Plopperizer™ tutorial.

Previous parts can be found as follows:

  Part One [linkie]
  Part Two [linkie]
  Part Three [linkie]
  Part Four [linkie]
  Part Five [linkie]
  Part Six [linkie]
  Part Seven [linkie]
  Part Eight [linkie]
  Part Nine [linkie]

It's just about all downhill from here, folks.

Let's check where we're at on our list.



Creating and editing the exemplars are about 80 percent of the work.  We'll now move on to

4)  Edit the text of the LTEXT files in the file edit pane.  This step is going, after what you've just been through, to seem too easy.  We're going to edit the properties of the two LTEXT files of our .dat as highlighted here.

Fig. 79


So, what the heck is an LTEXT file, anyway?  Well, I wouldn't want you taking things on faith, so let me show you.  LTEXT files are the text that appears in the flyouts when you hover the game cursor over a mayor mode menu icon.  Here's the one for the example file RR crossing sign we've been working off of.

Fig. 80


As you can see, there's bolded text in the flyout that tells you what the item represented by the icon is, and then there's additional text that gives you further information.  That's pretty much the division of labor between the two LTEXT files, as well.  You'll note that in the topmost of these files, the type and instance numbers that make up the overall TGI number are the same as in the one just beneath it.

Fig. 81


The group numbers, however, are different.  The topmost LTEXT file has a group number of "4a5e093c", and the other has a group number of "4a5e095c".  That's all it takes- just one character's difference between the two TGI numbers makes them two entirely different files.

Let's look at what left mouse clicking on the topmost LTEXT file in the file directory pane will bring up.

Fig. 82


Well now, that's a completely different looking file edit pane.  Actually, though, it's really pretty much the same- just that LTEXT files only have one property: a line or lines of user-entered text as you see here.

Now, check out where this text shows up.

Fig. 83


That's pretty straightforward, isn't it?  And, you guessed right.  The second LTEXT file property

Fig. 84


provides the information displayed in the lower half of the flyout.

Fig. 85


Now, how do we edit these puppies?  Well, it's almost too easy.  Click on the topmost LTEXT file (TGI: "2026960b 4a5e093c de531000") to bring the file edit pane back up.  Highlight the current text by left click-dragging the mouse cursor over it.  Now (1) type, if you're following along, 3RR TS Phone Pole

...then press [ctrl] and [enter] at the same time...

then type 1 Bar orthogonal and (2) left click on the "Apply" button.

Fig. 86


Couple 'a questions- Why'd we do the [ctrl] and [enter] bit?  Well, that's the only way to insert a line break into the text in an LTEXT file that I know of.  If you only have one line, well hey... just type that one, and you don't need to worry about the [ctrl] and [enter] keys.

The second question is, "but I'm doing my own ploppable BAT object..." Actually, that's not really a question, but I'll answer it anyway.  Type any little old thing your heart would desire, my friend.  And we'll leave it at that.

...we must be getting close to the end of this tutorial, folks.  I've now lived with it for a week- maybe I can take it as a tax deduction!...

The second LTEXT file (TGI: "2026960b 4a5e095c de531000") is incredibly easy.  Do the same stuff as for the first one, but replace the word "sign" with "pole" in the second line.  Don't forget to click "apply".

Heh!  I thought this was going to be a ten part tutorial.  Well, I was wrong.  Meet me at Part 11, here [linkie], and we'll wrap this up.

David

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[sim-al2]

blank alert! 

Nevermind, it's being fixed. 

[art128]

another awesome work David 

[Pat]

Hey David that is looking good there and Hows the Boy's as seen as your in Helena?  I hope they are doing well as well as Heather!!! Give my love to them from both me and Vicki ~k~

[inspecter]

Any pictures of the Single-Track-Railroad kin action?

[dedgren]

What we got he-ahh... is a fail-yaa... to communicate.

A little bit of me died today, when I read the news about Paul Newman [linkie].  While I didn't always agree with Mr. Newman politically, he was a great actor and a fine and good man.  We could all learn something from the example he set.

Folks, Part 11, the last part, of the 3RR Plopperizer™ tutorial, is coming up.  Right now, I'm going to go listen to Dire Straits "Telegraph Road" [linkie] really loud.  Somehow, it seems fitting.

...Who ARE these guys?...

Later.


David

137040

[thundercrack83]

I saw the news about Paul Newman, too--we've lost a legend.

And "Telegraph Road" is not only fitting, but a fantastic song, all 14:15 of it! Love Over Gold may be my favorite Dire Straits album, actually. "It Never Rains" is probably my favorite, though "Industrial Disease" is another great SC4 tune!

Enjoy your weekend, David!

[girlfromverona]

Wow - I had no idea how much went into plopperizing props!

Very sad about Paul Newman - he was truly a legend.

[dedgren]

Turning a prop into a plop - A tutorial (Part Eleven)

This is the eleventh and last part of the 3RR Plopperizer™ tutorial.

Previous parts can be found as follows:

  Part One [linkie]
  Part Two [linkie]
  Part Three [linkie]
  Part Four [linkie]
  Part Five [linkie]
  Part Six [linkie]
  Part Seven [linkie]
  Part Eight [linkie]
  Part Nine [linkie]
  Part Ten [linkie]

Well, this is the last part of this now very long tutorial.  I thank everyone for bearing with me- I didn't have any concept of how this would turn out when I started out a week ago.  I guess I thought I could somehow squish it down a bit, but the Reader is not that friendly or forgiving an environment.  I figured I'd better be thorough, and you folks would be the best judge of where you could fast forward.

We're at our step 5 now...

5)  Add a new PNG file and assign it TGI numbers in the directory list pane, and remove the old PNG file from there.

The PNG file creates the ploppable's mayor mode menu icon.

Fig. 87


Now, I'm not a real big fan of the game's graphical user interface (GUI).  All those big clunky icons...  Truth be told, I'd far rather have some sort of indented text list option, but that's a topic for another day.

So, as long as we're going to have an icon-based GUI, it might as well look as good as we can make it look.  Here's the icon set I've created for Matt's one bar phone poles.

Fig. 88


Now, the creation of these PNG files, while not that complicated, is beyond the scope of this tutorial.  As before, I recall that there might be a stand-alone tutorial in this regard already written out there- please speak up and let me know if you would be aware of one and I'll post a link.  Otherwise, I'll be writing one shortly.

So, DL and unzip to a place where you can find it the "Phone_Pole_1bar_Orth.png" file that's at the bottom of this post.  Once you've done that, head on back to the Reader.

Left mouse click on the PNG file in the directory list pane.

Fig. 89


As you see, a view of the current icon strip is displayed as the single property in the file edit pane.  Next, right mouse click on the PNG file in the directory list pane.

Fig. 90


Heh!  Just when you figured the Reader was done throwing curve balls at you, you get this mess.  What we're going to do next is pretty straightforward, but this submenu ought to give you an even greater sense of the complexity of the program.

Left click on "Insert file"

Fig. 91


A file selection subwindow comes up.  Navigate to wherever you just saved your unzipped file, (1) left click on the filename, (2) confirm that the "File name" is correct, and (3) click "Open".

Fig. 92


So, you thought the Reader had run out of new and different things, eh?  This little subwindow simply has you confirm the file type of the file you are inserting.

Fig. 93


...really wondering what a "MAD" file is...

(1) Left click the "PNG" file type to select it, then (2) left click "OK" to input the selection.

Fig. 94


This returns you to the main Reader screen, where you see in the directory list pane that you have gained a new PNG file.  Note that the group and instance numbers are empty- just eight zeroes each.

Fig. 95


We'll now fill in those numbers using the "File Info" subwindow last used early in the tutorial to edit our .dat file's TGI numbers.  First (1), select the new PNG file by left clicking on it.  Next (2), left click the "File Info" button on the task bar.  This (3) opens the "File Edit" subwindow.  (4) Left click "Edit" in the subwindow.

Fig. 96


Now (1), type 6a386d26 in the "Group" text entry field and de531000 (or whatever other base instance number you chose if you are doing your own ploppable BAT object) in the "Instance" text entry field.  Then (2), left click "OK".

...thanks very much to our great friend metarvo for catching the second (and incorrect) reference to "Group" here.  It's now changed to "Instance", and another eagle eyed reader has joined the 3RR Fact Checkers...

Fig. 97


Back at the main Reader window, we see after left mouse clicking on it that our new PNG file has the complete TGI number we just entered.

Fig. 98


The last thing we'll do in connection with our .dat's PNG file is remove the previous one.  We start by (1) right mouse clicking on the old file and (2) left clicking "Remove" in the drop-down menu.

Fig. 99


Confirm the remove (after a last nervous glance to check and make sure you're deleting the right one) by clicking "OK".

Fig. 100


A left click on your shiny new PNG file in the directory file pane shows your menu icon .png as the property in the file edit window. 

Fig. 101


So much for the PNG file- we're on to the next to last step, which is just a couple of clicks.



6)  Reindex and rebuild the DIR file in the directory list pane.  This step is done by first (1) right mouse clicking in the DIR file in the directory file pane, then (2) left clicking "Reindex" in the drop down menu.

Fig. 102


Next (1), right click in the DIR file again, then (2) left click "Rebuild Directory file" in the drop down menu.

Fig. 103


That's it for this step- told you it would be easy!

7)  Save the file again.  Left click the "Save" button in the task bar.  That's it- you're done...

Fig. 104


...and so is this tutorial.  Thanks for following along.


David

137080