help with L.E

[VeTram]

Hi to all!...I am in a critical point to decide if i will follow with L.E lots or i will leave it , and just use customised lots from other creators...so i will ask for help sometimes , like now...
well , i am wondering if anyone can help me , to find out if there is any way to place in a seaport lot , a ship in vertical position...just like the photo below...



-I have tried many times , since now , but in game it shows that the ship is...inside the dock...perhaps there is no way ...i searched for something similar into site , but i did not find anything...thanx

[sam]

Hi Vetram. I think you need a ship prop that as suitably offset rendered. That one looks centre rendered.

What that means is that when the batter made it, they centred it perfectly on the 0,0 point in the BAT (which is normally good). But this is a problem when placing objects that you want slightly off the lot itself. Normally you can only place a prop outside the lot for 50 percent of its length or width, which is what is happening here. (You will find you can't move it off the lot more than half its length, therefore it ends up half in the middle of your dock).

To solve this you need an offset rendered prop. This means the batter has not centred it on the 0,0 point in BAT but a certain distance away, so that it can be extended further beyond the edges of the lot.

To solve your problem you will need to either find a suitable prop, or see if a friendly batter who has ships will re-render one of theirs as an offset prop for you. If you know how to use BAT you might ask them if you may borrow the gmax model and offset render it yourself. 

But don't give up lotting. I think you just picked a rather challenging task to start with.

[VeTram]

Hi sam , nice to see you here , and thanx once again for your useful informations as always.

In the case of my lot , i was interesting to use Peg's scows in vertical position in a pier , but i think they are not offset rendered props . .  so , i was thinking if i could make the same thing by making water lots with these scows , but as i read in a tutorial named "making lots with boats" the models must be models and not props..what's your opinion?  can i make water lots with these scows , and put it vertical into the port?

thanx so much  for your courage to continue...

[threestooges]

You can certainly make water lots with the scows, but that might be a bit more work than necessary. If you just want the back of the boat to be touching the pier, just extend the lot border and move the prop up. It means you wll need to have more space in the water to place the piece, but it should work. If you want to have the boat appear to be between pieces of the seaport (but not in) then it is a different matter. The reason the scow would appear to disappear into the dock would be a result of the LODs (levels of detail) of the props and buildings overlapping each other. That would be a matter of working with the LODs for particular models and might get a bit messy. Let me know which it is though, and I will try to offer what help I can. I hope you keep using the LE. It's tough to master, but it can be useful.

[VeTram]

First of all , thanxs threestooges for your answer...I must admit , that i did NOT understood exactly whatever you wrote , so let's try make things more simple..

Well , i post an image below , and now it will be easy to understand what exactly i want to do with scows....



You can easily see in the left side of the pier , those boats in horizontal position , but vertical against the dock. This is what i want to do , in the game.

I did not understood whatever you wrote about extending the lot border and move the prop up. Can you be more detailed?

As for scows appearing and disappearing in the seaport , this is not my intention , although it is a good idea , but for the moment i do not want to go so deep , in such details..so let's stay to those scows appearing in vertical position against the pier...thanx again for all your interesting..

[jmdude1]

hi vertram, im wondering if i might be able to offer up an idea.  i also wanted something similar to your photo and i also used pegs scows, and his barges, and his trawlers. hehe. it takes a lot of time but you can make each ship into a building, then make it float on the water. therefore you can postion it horizontally or vertically (correct terms??) around your port.

i posted my 1st question on this topic here:  http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2434.0

and sam then made a great tutuorial here:  http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2443.0

it does take some time and practice but once its done you have a lot of new ships/boats to add to your port, and you can plop them anywhere you want in the water while using any kind of seawall on land. if you try this, just remember that peg uses timed props (which appear at certain times of the day) and static props (which are always visible). 

heres an example of pegs barges and some japanese made ships.



also, what city is that port located in? i wouldnt mind seeing more of it on google earth.

[threestooges]

VeTram: I'm sorry if my first description was a bit confusing. First, I suggest trying the method jmdude1 posted. It will give you the most options and variety.

If you still want to use the LE and have the boat be a part of the lot, you will need to extend the lot so that you can plop the boat where you want it. The way to do that is to adjust the length and width figures (shown in the oval below).

As you may know, each tile of the lot needs a base texture in order for the LE to save the lot. Pick a base texture that is not used on the lot already and fill in the empty spaces with it. Save the lot, write down the ID of the texture, and then follow this tutorial by Jeronij. If you are not sure about working with the Reader, let me know and I will put together some pictures to show exactly what you need to do.

I hope that was a better description than my last one.

[VeTram]

thanx for all replies , guys 

jmdude1 , thanks for the informations , i will use it exactly after using first Jeronij's way .  As for the photo from Google , type the word Piraeus ( in Greece) in Google Earth , and you will find it. Piraeus is the biggest harbour in Greece and one of the biggest in Europe.

As it is already too late at night here , and after spending some hours ..working on the above project , i will only just ask two questions for now , and i will return back tomorrow with details..

well , first question is the following....after reading again and again Jeronij tutorial , i want to mention that in Reader , in lot examplar i found two properties in properties list with the value equal to 0x00000002 with the base textures that i used . I followed step by step the tutorial but at the end , it doesnt say exactly if i must delete both properties , and also where i must select Reindex LotConfig and how many times....

and the second question , is that i can see after using the Reader , in L.E my lot with the boat standing without textures , but when i put it in game i cannot add the lot into game...am i using something wrong with Land and Water tiles?  in what tiles i must use water and in what tiles i must use land...( i admit that using land and water in lots , is not something that i have completely understood and i might use it wrong.. really is there any informations about how to use correctly water and land tiles in L.E ? )..

here is and a pic for more help



and another one to understand what i mean



and when i put the land in the middle  of tiles (1x5) then i get the following result as seen in the pic below



..thanx and i will return tomorrow

[jmdude1]

thanks for the location of the port in greece. i always like seeing large ports to get ideas.

as for your questions, i think i may know the answers, or some idea. if im wrong i hope somebody can correct me. 

1. you should delete any base textures that you want invisible on the water. also, i think your ship is sinking to the bottom due to the foundation threshold. try to set it to 90 and see if that works.
    as for the reindex, i dont think it matters how often you do it, either after every change, or at the end when all changes are done. to reindex, just right click on any property listed, and then       
    select reindex.
2.  as for this question, you seem to have solved your problem since you were able to plop it in game.

maybe threestooges can offer more info to your questions. and thanks for posting the pics, its helps a lot.  good luck.

[VeTram]

thanks for all,  also jmdude1

i followed your suggestion but it did not work...i am waiting for  threestooges , or any other friend who knows , for help..

thanks once again. 

[jmdude1]

ah, sorry i couldnt help more.  but ive re-read this thread and sam made a comment that jogged my memory. i remember reading somewhere that you cannot place props on the water cause they will always sink to the bottom, thats why i had to convert my ships into buildings and then create a building lot which floats on water. the only way to get a prop to float is to make sure it's offset. you might try one of pegs trawlers. i am pretty sure that 1 or more of them are offset and should appear on the water, unfortunately pegs scows are not offset. 

actually, a good idea might be to try editing 1 of pegs lots (or any others) which have a boat on it. it might give you an idea of how it works.

maybe somebody else will jump in here and offer their expertise.  keep at it, the L.E. is a great tool.

[VeTram]

...so , according to jmdude1 post above , i used peg's trawlers to see what will happen , and here is the results...





as we can see , it is better now as the ship do not sink , but still it is not what we want as the lot seem to be under the ship (as photo) ...i also think that the ship do not seem that sit in the sea level....

thanx again jmdude1 

[threestooges]

VeTram: Sorry I haven't checked into this thread recently. I remember reading a discussion about that 'black hole' thing that seems to be happening, and I will see if I can find out why it is happening now. Jeronij's method (I thought) was supposed to avoid causing that. One thing I suggest you try is to go into the graph menus of the game and select 'zones' and then turn it off. This is a trick used to try to get rid of that hole. I will do some research and see what else I can come up with, but if anyone else has any suggestions in the meantime, please feel free to jump in.

Also, to make placing the lots easier, you only need 1 land and 1 water tile in the LE. Try to keep them spaced apart. The land and water tiles REQUIRE the space they are on to be over land or water. If they are right next to each other, it can make placement difficult on shallow sloped shorelines. Try to give it 1-2 spaces between the land and water LE pieces.

-edit- After a quick look around the forums, I noticed something in sam's boat making tutorial here go about 2/3 through the first post to the part that says 'Getting Rid of the Building Foundation' and try that. I'm not sure if that is the solution, but the symptoms seem to match. I will keep looking, but that might be a good place to start.

[VeTram]

threestoges , thanx for answering , but here are my more recently news...

I thought to read some of sam tutorial "making boats that float on water" and i set the Foundation Threshold to 50 , the Lot Elevation Change Maximum to 50 ( this is the price originally set up by peg)  and the Lot Elevation Minimum Change to 0.  After that i went into Reader and followed jeronij's tutorial , deleting the texture properties , and here are the results...

..............

much better hm?...

so , the colclusion is that WE NEED SHIPS OFFSET RENDERED , but as we have mentioned peg's scows are NOT offset rendered...so the question is for jmdude1 ....how manage to make the scows vertical to dock , as seen in his first post into this thread??  jmdude1  ??

[threestooges]

Good to hear you got things working and that all that is needed is an offset prop. I would wait to hear jmdude1's response first, but from the looks of the picture he showed earlier, those were made with sam's boat making tutorial and plopped separate from the lot. Thanks, by the way, jmdude1 for figuring out that offset prop thing.

[VeTram]

sam wrote , that if we drop the .dat file into root plugin folder ( does it means my documents\plugins ?) and use the PIM , you can have the xml file....as i even do not know what is the xml file , i did so , and i can not see anything in the PIM..  really what is xml file , and how do we know if a dat file has xml file??....jmdude1

[jmyers2043]

WE NEED SHIPS OFFSET RENDERED

The green trawler is based loosely on the "Andrea Gail" from the movie Perfect Storm? I've done another trawler called the "Maggie May" off the left hand side of the dock. These are offset rendered and float nicely. Note how the hull below the water line is visible in shallow water but (pictured further down) does not when sailing in deep water. I set Peg's and City nuts ships on this concept lot for comparison (details, scale, color palette).

I have plans for more commercial ships. But those things take some time. I find it interesting that you guys are working on sea side lots. Other people are working as well and hopefully we'll all arrive at the same destination.

I'm trying to figure out how to make sailors and place them on board in working positions. I've been searching for tutorials on how to make models of the human body for that past week and a half. Extrememly difficult to do in gmax! But I'm learning. I'll get there. 


Andrea Gail comparison with Peg's larger commercial trawler..


Side View with dock and dock props.


Andrea Gail heading out to sea (the water line is more obvious)


Rockport boat house

[jmdude1]

well its good to see you got things to work for pegs trawlers, although, threestooges is right about the scows, they are not props but buildings (the ones in my pic), which means that they are their own seperate lot, not attached to any dock, but with careful plopping you can get them reasonably close to the dock, or next to each other or sailing off into the sunset, its up to you.  the only downfall with this is that for each boat lot you create, you will add another icon in your menu list. i have about 25 boat icons in my seaport menu which are mostly pegs stuff. these of course can be organized to be placed in any menu or menu position you want, but that can be done once youve got your boat lots made.

in the links i posted earlier there was another link to another great tutorial by andreas which is at the bottom of this page:     http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1791.0
i think this will help you when trying to create your floating scows and it will answer your question about xml files too. 

just another small note, none of these ideas are actually mine...hehe...im just recycling what ive learned from others who have helped me. 


jmyers2043: im liking those boats that youve made, very nice, are they released anywhere? or do you know where to find other boats?

[VeTram]

jmdude1 , thanks once again for all your help since now , and i hope to help me a little more just to come into a final conclusion.

so please tell me a bat file is the same as a model file?


the only model files that i have into my PIM is the three model files that came with the game

where can i see bat files or model files ( if this is the same) from my plugins folder in PIM?   

[jmdude1]

i believe that the PIM only reads your plugins root directory (my docs/sc4/plugins). basically a bat is a model. techincally though, you would use bat (building architect tool) to create a model (ie. a building).  so you want to use the .model file.

so if you read andreas' explanation in the previous link i gave you i think you should be ok. when opening pegs scow .dat file, each scow has 3 exemplar files, 1 is static (always appears, there are no numbers after the name) and the other 2 are timed (appear at certain times of the day, includes the times in the name), so choose carefully as to which one you want.

so when you are finished your new file will be a .desc file (which andreas explains about) and then you will create a lot file (edit a landmark). you should be able to replace the landmark building with one of pegs scows. then you can save it, remove the base textures and youre good. since the scow is now a building, it wont sink to the bottom so i dont think you need to edit the foundation or threshold this time. if you do all the scows, you will have a lot and desc file for each scow, and all the model files will still be in pegs original dat file.