Different Farm Fields

[mrbisonm]

Hopefully I put this in the right forum.
I consider myself as an excellent SC4 Player, a very good CJ'er, a medium good BATter, but a heck of a Big *0* when it comes to modding and tweaking files. I can mod Park and LM files and sometimes easier parts of Utility lots, but some others I just don't understand.

There is this beautiful, well.....there are several different models I think (2 or 3), farm called Captn' Bananas by jmyers. I just love these when they grow, except though....I hate to see the fields that come with these. ...Bananatrees.... Of course the concept is nothing but logical, but....
In my game I don't want banana plantations, I don't play southern regions where these might grow and since I am more or less playing my games close to reality, they just don't fit in my pluginfolder.
Of course you're gonna say that there's nothing easier that to get rid of them by deleting these farms in the playfolder. Yeah, you're right, but I want (definitively) to keep these growable farm lots.

Now here is my question: Is it possible and difficult to change the growable farmfield on these buildinglots that come with it? I would love to change the fields to something else and keep these lots growing without the banana trees and with other crops.
If it is possible, could someone please explain it in details how to?

Thanks in advance.

Btw, while I have your attention now, has anyone ever done a mayor people plop yet, I mean something to plop sims (or group of) in mayor mode? (not lots)

Fred

[Nardo69]

Well, I am not just a bit off-topic, bit I don't know how often my commenters went bananas when these lots and farm fields grew ...   
Only once I was asked where to download them. I remembered JMyers but wasn't able to find the download. And in the meanwhile I got used to the bananas.   

[mrbisonm]

Well, I am not just a bit off-topic, bit I don't know how often my commenters went bananas when these lots and farm fields grew ...   
Only once I was asked where to download them. I remembered JMyers but wasn't able to find the download. And in the meanwhile I got used to the bananas.   

lol...of course we get used to these bananas. I have had them for quite awhile, I think ever since they were uploaded and I certainly got used to see them, but lately I have more time to play and look at all those details while just sitting back and look at things move and grow and then I actually realized that these bananatrees just don't belong in my regions.
I tried to delete them also one time, but never was able to find these lots in my *junglebook* of 14 gb Pluginsfolder.

Fred

[Lowkee33]

That is a toughy, perhaps you can tell the computer to look for this:  CSX Farm Field - Victoria's Bananas_ae17cf51.SC4Lot.  It is inside the CSX Farm Fields Vol 1 install.  If you delete it and everything works then that is great.    If the farm uses only that field then deleting it may cause problems.   You may have to open Reader.

If you know the name of the file you want to open it is not too bad.  Every farm has fields that will grow on it.  I believe the Building Exemplar may have a Farm Fields property (if not then the lot).  The Farm Fields property will basically be a list of fields, and by trial and error you could figure out what to remove.

[mrbisonm]

That is a toughy, perhaps you can tell the computer to look for this:  CSX Farm Field - Victoria's Bananas_ae17cf51.SC4Lot. 

No, the computer didn't find the one mentioned above, but it found some when I entered the word *banana*.

- JFMBananatree
- JFM_Banana Truck rev 04-0x6534284a-0xcf2bdcf8-0x516bd80a
- JFM_Banana Truck rev 04-0x5ad0e817_0x316934ea_0x30000
- BLS GA Farm Field - BananasSeasonal_ae196879
- JMBananaReferTruck
- Farm field 1x1 JFM Bananas_d146fb3e

That's all the bananas I have in my plugins folder, I suppose it's the first one that I have to remove? Or is it one of the banana fields? What if the farm still gows, will I get those nice little boxes? lol....

Thanks

Fred

[Andreas]

Lowkee33 posted a few hints already, and this task is relatively simple indeed. The "Field Lots" property in the building exemplar file of the farm lot determines which fields are growing along the lot. As usual, comparing is the first step for successful modding. Open the "JFM Farms Vol 03.dat" in the Reader (this file contains all the farm lots), and also the "Farm field 1x1 JFM Bananas_d146fb3e.SC4Lot" (the actual farm field lot, as the name says). You can easily see the the instance ID of the field lot's exemplar file is the same as the ID in the "Field Lots" property of the farm's building exemplar file.

If you want to change the fields that grow along with the farm lot, you need to determine the IDs of the desired field lots. You can add more than one field lot by adding additional REPS into this property, just add more IDs in the "Value as text" line, each one separated by a comma. As usual, click on the "Apply" button next to this input field first and then on the other "Apply" button below before closing the editor window - and naturally, don't forget to save the farm lot (the DAT file in this case).

In case you want to add the IDs of the Maxis farm fields, use this line: 0x00024100,0x2A6E4309,0x2A6E431D,0xAA6E4328,0x6A6E4332,0xEA6E4721,0xEA6E4722 It's not necessary to remove any of the banana field lots from your plugins folder, and I think you should keep the banana truck, as it's also used on the actual farm lot (unless you remove it with the Lot Editor, i. e. for removing the palm trees and such).

[Lowkee33]

That's all the bananas I have in my plugins folder

lol.

Andreas is correct about this.  I have provided a few pictures to help explain what she he said.

I will also add that SC4Tool can make this easy.  Open the banana field in the "Exemplar Editor".  You will see a folder tree type display.  When you click on "Field Lots" I believe you will see a bunch of unchecked boxes and one checked box.  The checked box is the banana field, and the unchecked boxes are the Maxis fields.  Unchecking the banana field and checking the Maxis fields will also work.  SC4Tool will also make a .sav file, which is a backup, and that should be taken out of you plugin folder.

But here are the pictures for Reader.  This first one is a Jmyers' Tobacco farm which oddly enough, only grows tobacco...



I have put a blue box around the "Farm Lots" property.  The value "0x8F33BFAF" is the ID of the field.  The fact that there is only one ID here means that it is the only field that will grow with the farm.  By reading the readme, I know that this is a SimGoober field.  When this field is opened in Reader it looks like this:



Notice that it's Instance is the same as what the Jmyers' farm pointed too.  Also see on the right that it is called a Tobacco Field.

Okay.  The Farms in Jmyers' Vol 2 have a lot of fields that can grow.  So I opened that up in Reader:



There are 18 fields that can grow with this farm.  If you double click on this property a box will appear.  At the bottom of the box there is a line called "Values as Text".  Copy/pasting this line into the "Farm Lots" property in the Tobacco farm would make the Tobacco farm grow with 18 possible fields.

[Andreas]

Andreas is correct about this.  I have provided a few pictures to help explain what she said.

Small correction: I'm not a girl. But don't worry, people confuse me all the time - must be the Lisa Simpson in my avatar (which I'm using since almost ten years now...).

[Lowkee33]

Well, I am sorry.  I guess it's better than calling a girl a guy...  I think I've called you female a few times now, wont happen again.

Yep, add Lisa Simpson to my American pronunciation of Andreas and there you go.  Unfortunately there is no emoticon here for "humbled"

[Andreas]

Heh, no worries - actually, I'm kinda flattered, I suppose. 

[mrbisonm]

Here's something to clear that

lol.

Andreas is correct about this.  I have provided a few pictures to help explain what she said.

Generally it is : Andreas = ♂   and  Andrea = ♀

Thanks for explaining and also for the pictures, that will surely help. I still have two questions about this. First, if I open the "JFM Farms Vol 03.dat" in the Reader and delete all the farmfield  numbers and replace them with the ones that Andreas mentioned by Maxis, will I have these *Banana farms* grow with Maxis fields?
Second, how about if I chose to create my own fields, could I incorporate them also?
Which numbers will I have to use to do so and what files?
I mean , when I create my own field with BAT, then after rendering I have a model file, do I need the .desc file to open with Reader to get that instance number to use with the JFM datfile?
Btw, thanks for mentioning the Reader, because the SC4Tool doesn't run on my computer (nor the SC4Terraformer) because my computer is in french and there's a lot of accents here and there, which do not want to cooperate with these programs. I have no problems with the Reader though and therefore understand it a little better also, but like I said, I'm a real 0 when it comes to alternating files. Thanks to both of you.

Fred

[Lowkee33]

Generally it is : Andreas = ♂   and  Andrea = ♀

Thanks.  How is this name pronounced?

To answer your questions:

1)Yes.  Or you could open the SG fields found BSC Farm Fields - SG Revised in Reader to see what Instance they have to give your farms custom fields.

2)Also yes, although I am not too sure about the process.  I do know that fields are actually .Lot files.  I imagine the best way to make the .lot is with PIMX, but I have not tried it yet.

[mrbisonm]

Thanks.  How is this name pronounced?

To answer your questions:
.

In English, as it is written...

Thanks, I will try out everything you folks said and see what I will come up with, now the only problem is that I cannot find the "JFM Farms Vol 03.dat" file in my enormous plugins. Could it be under another name?

Fred

[jmyers2043]

I've been busy with Challenge 10 and almost missed the conversation.

JMyers Farms Vol 3 was the banana plantation series. They were originally at Peg's web site and was an exclusive there. But he removed them some time ago. They are not available anywhere at this time. As Nardo69 put it ... he was only asked once where to find them and I've never been asked what happened to them.    I do not have the "original" originals and the banana planatations on my HD have been altered for CAM farming. Basically, the original banana's grew mostly as stage three because Maxis Vanilla farms favored stage 3 at the expense of all others. 

I was going to change the bananas myself as there are a lot of Peach growers in South Carolina. I made one peach tree but spent so much time on it that I lost interest in making others. 


@ Fred - what is it that you need - or - would like to have??


- Jim

[Lowkee33]

I was wondering about that.  1, 2 & 4 are on the LEX.  3 doesn't even show up on google...

[mrbisonm]

@ Fred - what is it that you need - or - would like to have??


- Jim

Hey, the great Farm master himself.... What I need is not important, but what I would like is to transform the bananafields on these Capt n' Banana farms into something else. Let's say, I am kinda of tired of seeing those banana trees on almost 20 % of all my farms. I like all your other farmfields though and I probably have them all.

The one existing farmfield that I like to have growing with your ever so nice Banana farm buildings is from this file: SG_Farm_Fields_BSC_sf.dat

It is the last one called : SG Farm Field - Wheat Seasonal



...or (and) maybe I will make something new in gmax. If I understood correctly above, I think we can have more than just one field growing with a farm, right?

So, how do I go about it to make the change of these banana into straw. What do I have to delete to get rid of those bananas before I go bananas....lol.. and what number from where do I have to add where?

I haven't tried what Andreas and Lowkee33 explained above yet, not sure if I understood everything right either, but I have to try to see if or if not I can do it, and I didn't have the time (maybe courage) yet.

Btw, I found other "banana files" while going through my 14 Gb pluginsfolder carefully to figure out what file exactly I need to tweak. I haven't found that ""JFM Farms Vol 03.dat" yet, but I found  "JFM Farms Vol 04". And I don't think these buildings are in this file.


- Farm field 1x1 JFM Bananas_d146fb3e
- JFMBananatree
- BLS GA Farm Field - BananasSeasonal_ae196879

Never thought to find so many Banana props in my plugins....Aye.

Below is a picture of the farmlots I like without the banana growable fields.



Thanks for helping, guys.

Fred

EDIT:  I just found the "JFM Farms Vol 03.dat" file hidden in one of my "Nexis" documents. If you want it PM me. Btw, if you ever look for any SC4 File, I have an external HD with over 85,000 files, everything that I ever downloaded since 2002 concerning SC4. Many of them aren't available on the net anymore since several years.

[Andreas]

I still have all the original ZIP files with the installers as well, so if anybody needs something, feel free to PM me.

[mrbisonm]

I still have all the original ZIP files with the installers as well, so if anybody needs something, feel free to PM me.

Whoa! What do you mean by *ALL*? lol.....that must be over 150,000 files?

[Andreas]

I meant Jim's files, not "all" that ever existed for SC4. But checking my archive, I have about 5000 individual BAT downloads (not counting the STEX/LEX/SimCityKurier CDs/DVDs) - still quite a lot, considering I'm somewhat picky about quality and such.

[TheTeaCat]

Hi Fred

To get those farms to grow wheat instead of banana's you need to change the field lot property in the building exemplar.

the id you need is this one 0x0F043DF9 which is what I used in a lot I made.
Thought I'd save you the trouble of trying to figure it out 

Its really easy to do, open the building exempler, double clik on the field lots and another window opens. delete the id that are there, replace with the one above, clik the "right" apply button, then the "left"one. the window will close. right clik in the right hand pane and select reindex. then save the lot and test in game - it should work (hope I got that right what with my  memory and all )

Hope that helps
Derry