Mayor Mode Ploppable Possibilities

[hooha47]

I've been playing around with mayor mode ploppables lately, and I have some ideas for some new things to do with them, and wanted to open up a discussion to see what others think.

First, I will lay out what I see as the main advantages and disadvantages to using mayor mode ploppables, and then I will start the discussion with some of my proposed solutions.

Let's start with a definition:

Mayor Mode Ploppable  -noun These items have the following characteristics: 1. They are accessed from the Mayor Mode Menu.  2. They are single items, not on a lot.  3. They can be place using a "brush".  4. Multiple items can be accessed through one menu slot by using multiple clicks.

Advantages -

• Greater flexibility in placement due to no lots, easier to "break the grid."  (Related point, allows extra options for those who don't use LE)
• Multiple items can be placed in the same square.
• See terrain texture, no water bug.
• Especially useful in rural environments.

    
Disadvantages -

• Items don't "work".
• No seasonal or semiseasonal items/animations.
• No DAMN or MML, menu getting crowded.
• Can't bulldoze single items, must bulldoze entire square.

      
I want to focus on the disadvantages, and see what we can do to improve them. 

The first thing on our list is probably something that can't be fixed.  I don't see that we're going to find a way to plop buildings that work, and considering how ploppables are used, it's probably not very important for them to work.

The second item, seasonal and semiseasonal or timed props, I've done some research on.  You can read more here, but the bottom line is, they can be made, but semiseasonal trees can't be made to change seasonally, only randomally.  David (dedgren) has a post at 3RR about seasonal trees, but you have to plop 4 trees (one for each season) and they are invisible when you plop them (and some other complicating factors).  So, unless someone has come up with a solution, these aren't really feasible.  I do have something else related that I'll address later.

The third item, regarding menu crowding, I have some ideas for.  First, I've posted in the DAMN thread to see if it might be possible to use DAMN for mayor mode items.  MML I'm sure is out of the question, since it's a lot based system.  Another possibility, not as elegant, but workable, is to swap items in and out of your plugins folder.  To create a mayor mode menu item, you just create a .dat file that points to the appropriate prop and allows you to place it in the game.  If you remove the .dat, you just remove the menu item, not the props that you placed with it.  So you can swap items in and out of your plug-in folder, depending on what you're going to need, in order to minimize clutter.  Again, this is not an ideal solution, but at the moment, it seems to be the only way to relieve menu crowding. This is clearly wrong.  See my post toward the bottom of the page where I offer an actual solution.

The fourth item, the inability to bulldoze individual plopped items, is one I've spent a lot of time thinking about.  I'm sure many of you have had this happen:  You're working on an area (probably rural, or at least a more "natural" section), plopping some water, trees, rocke, shoreline items, etc.  Then, you plop something, maybe by accident, maybe not, that just doesn't look right.  You need to bulldoze it.  Unfortunately, it's right in the middle of a square that has several other plopped items that you don't want to bulldoze.  What do you do?  Well, my original idea was a tool that would allow you to bulldoze individual items.  That would be the perfect solution.  Unfortunately, I have no idea how to create such a tool, if it's even possible, which I suspect, it's not.  But there's another way.  As anyone who's done much plopping knows, many items allow you to hold your mouse in the same place and continue clicking to change the item you're placing.  What if the last click, instead of placing an item, placed nothing?  You plop a tree (or boat, dock, tractor, house) and you decide you don't want it, you just keep clicking until it disappears.  I have tested this and it seems to work quite well.  It has one drawback, however.  Even though you can't see anything, the game still thinks there's something there, so you can't plop another item in that exact same spot.  Now, in many cases, this isn't an issue, but I have an idea for a way to solve even this problem, but I need some help implementing it.  It is possible to place items that will eventually disappear, for example, some trees that grow and eventually "die".  Maybe that last invisible item could also "die", causing it to actually disappear from the game.  I haven't been able to figure out how to do this.  But even if it can't be done, the invisible item solution seems to work in most situations.

I think ploppables have a lot of possibilities, beyond how most players currently use them, especially if we can solve some of these issues.  As an example, here is a picture I made using only ploppable items.



When I first did the barnhouse (by SimGoober), I was doing it kind of as a joke, but after playing with it, I realized it has real potential.  I'm most excited by things like the dock and rowboat, things which work really well with ploppable water, and the tractors and things that work in rural settings.  Ploppables have more limited uses in the city, but I have some ideas there as well.  For example, I know a lot of us like to make parks that are more natural, not just a 3x3 lot that gets plopped.  One thing I never see in these parks is a restroom.  How about a ploppable porta potty for your parks?  What about a ploppable slide/swing set?  Trash cans?  Picnic tables?  If we could plop animations, you could plop a kite flyer.

So I'd like this thread to serve two purposes.  One, an ongoing discussion about ploppables and how they can be improved.  Two, a showcase/request for new ploppables.  I've already started to make some, which I will show here (you can see some in the picture above, and some in my LEX candidacy thread).  One thing I should state:  I am not a BATter.  The ploppables I have created all use props created by others.  So, what else is out there that should be made ploppable, and what else can we do to make them easier to use?

[tamorr]

I don't know if it has been done, but how about those cherry blossoms that MAS71 has around his Cherry trees? I know it is another tree, however those blossoms definately would look nice to be able to MM it in game.

   I'll have to think long and hard about any others that might be feasible as a MM. Since I myself have only so much knowledge on the inner workings I can't really point out or help in that area, but I'll keep my eyes peeled and observation in check when I do notice something.

[Stefan79]

Hi hooha47,

I've asked daeley (DAMN) to add/change some code from his DAMN menu, so it might be possible to use the DAMN also with MayorModePloppables.
And of course I will improve my SSPTool-DAMN Creator to support this.

So, there a one point less on the list with disadvantages...

Stefan

[Andreas]

Those are some interesting ideas indeed, and I'm glad you're taking the challenge to deal with them. As for your first negative item (Mayor Mode ploppables being not functional), I'd say that's a minor issue. If you want a functional item, you'd simply use a lot, which might have some other small disadvantages, but usually, it's bearable.

As for the seasonal/semiseasonal thing, I'd assume the more or less random change every 24 months or so that David mentioned is caused by the underlaying mechanics that allow growing flora items - those are basically props that change over the time as well with a certain cycle. I don't know the exact specifications of those by heart, and how much you can control this cycle, but it's probably worth to have another look.

I can't say anything about the DAMN at the moment, but you're right about the MML - that is for lots exclusively. One approach to reduce the number of icons is packing more props into the plopping cycle; in case you'll find a set of similar trees (or any other props), you could provide a wide range of different tree models with just a handful of icons.

The most interesting idea you mentioned so far is the "blank" item at the end of the plopping cycle. I think a viable approach to this is using a very small invisible prop (this technique has been used quite a few times already when creating lots without an actual building). The game just places a prop as usual, but it's invisible (transparent/too small), so it doesn't occupy a lot of space, and hopefully will block only a very small portion of a tile, and you can try to plop another item nearby.

[Pat]

I love Mayor mode Plops personal and Hooha you got my attention..

[hooha47]

tamorr, I'll look into those blossoms.  Thanks for checking in, let me know if you come up with anything else. 

Stefan, that's great news.  I'm monitoring the DAMN thread for further developments.  That would be great if we could use DAMN for mayor mode items.  Thank you so much for working on that.  It's much appreciated. 

Andreas, I appreciate your input.  I've been looking for an invisible prop, but I haven't been able to find anything.  What I've been doing is just using all zeros for the RKT1 values.  I don't know if this would cause problems in some way.  In my very limited tests, it's worked fine, but I don't know if that technique will lead to problems.  Any ideas?  Does anyone know where I can find invisible props? 

As to the seasonal stuff, here's what I think is the most relevant part of the conversation jeronij and David had in the link from my first post.  It's a quote from c.p., who seems to be the resident expert on this topic:

One thing preventing true "seasons" is it seems that the first of every month, the game checks 1/24 of the flora in the city for changes that may need to be made, so that it takes 24 months for all the trees to be checked and changes made (growing trees for example).  This 24 month period can be reduced to one month (I forget the exemplar where you can do this), but the resulting game lag is horrible.  But maybe there is a way around these things?

I'll check with David, since he seems to be doing ground breaking work on ploppables.  My assumption is he didn't get any further with this, or we'd probably have semiseasonal ploppable trees by now.

Pat, now that I've got your attention, what would you like to see made ploppable? 

I'm working on a few more things, then I'll post some pictures of what I've made so far.

[Andreas]

Andreas, I appreciate your input.  I've been looking for an invisible prop, but I haven't been able to find anything.  What I've been doing is just using all zeros for the RKT1 values.  I don't know if this would cause problems in some way.  In my very limited tests, it's worked fine, but I don't know if that technique will lead to problems.  Any ideas?  Does anyone know where I can find invisible props?

I think this might be sufficient already (but some more tests couldn't hurt). RKT1 is simply pointing to the ID of a model, and if you zero that out, it won't display a model (or trying to display that model, which usually results in a brown box if the model cannot be found). It appears that Maxis provided some invisible models as well, since I know some examples where those have been used as "spacers" for certain props, such as the highway signs. The T21 Exemplar is configured in a way that it uses an "ad-hoc" prop family, with additional REPs after REP13, pointing to "invisible" signs that are used - this is the mere reason why those signs don't show up on every highway tile, but only occasionally.

[hooha47]

Some pictures of what I've been working on.  You've seen the rowboat and the dock by Simgoober:







And some more boats by LBT (with all 4 versions of SGs rowboat at the bottom):



And a seaplane by RT:



Some horses by RT (I also did some bulls by RT as well):



Some random farm props:



Some bridges by Simgoober:



Some park stuff (I'm working on various playground items as well):



And then some trees, first these eucalyptus and gum trees by MattB325:



Wood cherry trees by Mas71:



And then these 3 sets of seasonal trees by JENX:







Let me know if any of these have already been done, and any other feedback.  (I did a bunch of SG tractors and then realized they are already on the LEX.)

Thanks for your feedback again Andreas.  I'm still testing the blank model at the end idea.  I think it has some real exciting possibilities.  I've already found it quite useful when preparing these pictures.  I'm trying to figure out a way to make the invisible model occupy less space.  The area that remains unploppable after you've plopped an invisible model is bigger than I'd like, and I'm not sure how to make it smaller.  Any ideas on this?

And again, any other ideas for items to make ploppable?

[joelyboy911]

Wow, they are nice! 

I had always wondered if it would be possible to make the effect props, like the fountain and waterfall ones ploppable in this way. Though, I guess it probably isn't...

Still, think how it would be if it was possible... no need for square waterfalls on lots...

Also, the maxis amill props, that have little groups of people... then again, they might fall into the same category as the effect props.

Anyway, what you've done so far is amazing. If you want someone to test them out... 

[thingfishs]

hey hooha, only just found this thread. So andreas has already suggested the tiny prop thing, any luck? And you're already working on some realistic animals, though it looks like you've got plenty for just a horse one. I'll keep scratching my head...
As for expanding the role of MMP's (mayor mode ploppables is just too long to keep saying) I, as you know, am greatly in favour of it. Good work with all this.  As for further DAMN compatibility 

[tamorr]

   Once again, I'd have to say the Cherry blossoms, ummm the ones that are on ground by MAS71 I think. I see you got the trees by him... Very nice to see more. Also good to see some more of SGs props able to be in MM. I wonder if the Canal stuff has been done, I mean the paddle boats and such, plus gondola... unless those have been made part of the water model... That would be a bummer if they were.

Oh well, let's see... Has any of CARCH's been done that way?

[hooha47]

joelyboy911, thank you very much for your comments.  I agree, if we could plop animated or effect props, that would be great, but I'm pretty sure it's not possible.  I did make an MMP (I like thingfishs 3 letter acronym for mayor mode ploppable) for the kite flying animation.  It plopped a static kite flyer with an oddly oversized shadow.  I still think something like that could be useful, but only if the shadow problem can be fixed. 

thingfishs, I've tried some really tiny invisible props, but they seem to work exactly the same as what I was doing originally, pointing to a non-existent prop.  As for DAMN, I know Daeley and Stefan were going to look into the possibility.  I'm hoping we'll know more before too long.

tamorr, you're previous post was what prompted me to look at those Mas71 props.  I haven't seen the ones you are referring to.  If you can find out which prop pack they are in, I'd be happy to make MMPs for them.  I'm going to check on the canal stuff too, that's a great idea.

I thought I'd seen that somebody had done some more farm props, like feeding and water troughs, but I can't find them anywhere.  I'd love to do them, but not if they're already out there.  Does anyone know?

I've been working some more on the seasonal/semiseasonal idea.  I have working semiseasonal MMPs, but they only change approximately every 2 years.  I've done a lot of tweaking and testing, and haven't been able to get them to change more often than that.  thingfishs and I were talking about making trees this way, that shift between two versions of the same tree, just slightly different from each other, to give the effect of your forest moving and being alive.  The biggest hurdle to this would be the lack of appropriate models.  Also, I'm not sure how much these semiseasonal MMPs slow down the game.  So this brings me to my last point for now . . .

joelyboy mentioned testing.  I am going to need some help testing a few things.  I want to make sure using the non-existent prop doesn't have any negative effect (and some feedback on the whole concept)*, and I want to see if using a bunch of the semiseasonl MMPs slows the game down.  So if you're interested in helping me do some testing, and some playing to see if some of these are useful, let me know.  You can post here or send me a PM.  If you're interested, I'll give you more details on what testing I would like to have done.  A lot of it will require you have a fairly well developed city, and either the willingness to back it up or suffer the consequences if for some reason my MMPs break your game. (I think that's unlikely)

*Just to clarify, I created most of these MMPs so that you cycle through various props.  At the end of the cycle is an invisible prop.  This allows you to essentially get rid of a misplaced plop without having to bulldoze the entire square.  The one known drawback, this invisible prop still occupies space, so you can't plop anything else there.  I find it to be very useful sometimes.

[BarbyW]

hooha, I have made a MMP of some D66 cabins and also the props out of dedwoods forest stuff. I'll get them sorted out for scrutineering and release. This is just to let you know what has been done.
If Orange_o_ would finish his agricultural props they would be really suitable for MMP but he hasn't yet done them all.

[tamorr]

   I believe the blossoms are found with or a link to in his Canal Set.

   It's a separate download link within that.

  But like I said before I am unsure if it is a whole model with the tree or the blossoms are separate, or even might be texture... I haven't really checked, but I am assuming they are a model, soo....
   Yeah there is a whole lot of stuff for canals within that would be good and why I suggested it... Might also want to try some of JB's or Newman Inc/city nut stuff... But unsure....Well they do have some good small props.

[joelyboy911]

Well, I'll be able to do some testing, starting next week. Thats when my exams finish. 

Good Luck! 

[Battlecat]

Nice mix of stuff you're working on here.  Really looking forward to getting my hands on a few of those items in plopable form!

[hooha47]

Earlier in this thread, and in my LEX candidacy thread, I wrote something that is clearly in error.  I stated that you can plop a bunch of trees, remove the dat that allows you to plop the trees from your plugins folder, and the trees would still be there when you reload your city.  This isn't exactly true.  The trees will still be there, in a sense, but you won't be able to see them. (You can, however, still bulldoze them.)  So clearly, swapping the dats in and out is not a solution to the menu crowding issue.  I have, however, come up with a solution that works much the same way. 

I have created files that you can swap in and out of your plugins folder that make the menu items disappear, but not the items plopped from them.  When the files are in your plugins folder, the items no longer show up in your menu.  When you remove the files, the items once again show up in the menu.  Either way, all previously plopped items remain visible.  Again, this is not an ideal solution, but I think it's a workable alternative that can help provide some relief to menu crowding.  I've made these for most of the files I've been working on, and it would be quite easy to make them for any existing MMPs.  I'm not sure whether it would require the original creator's permission to release them. 

For anyone interested, you essentially just copy the original files in Reader, remove the "Item Icon" and "Item Button ID" properties from the first exemplar (the one for the first item that plops.  These properties shouldn't be present in subsequent exemplars, but should be removed if they are).  Then, to reduce the size of the file, I delete the png and the LTEXT for the description (not for the name, so already plopped items can be queried).  I rename it with "no menu" at the end of the name, and then just put them in a "zzz" folder in plugins.

So is there any interest in this?

Oh, and before I forget.  Barby, thanks, that's good to know.  I may have gotten to those, but I won't now.  tamorr, I think I found those cherry blossoms, I'll post a picture soon.  Thanks for that link, there were some other things in that prop pack that I am going to make MMP for as well.  joelyboy, whenever you're ready, let me know.  I'm in no particular hurry.  Battlecat, I've been thinking of Adara, and some other rural MDs, as I've been working on some of this.  I can't wait to see you make use of it.  If there's anything in particular you want, let me know.

After I get some testing done, and confirm that everything works the way it's supposed to, I'll be ready to start releasing what I showed above.  And then I'll start looking into the whole semiseasonal idea some more.  thingfishs and I have been working on some interesting new ideas.

[adroman]

I for one are very interested... this is an excellent, excellent project that I hope gets released, eventually...

if you're still looking for testers, count me in 

Havva good one,
Adrian.

[thingfishs]

I like the idea hooha but am not sure how it will work in practice, sounds like it might get a bit fiddly (ie not much simpler than having a few extra icons) and then when you want to plant them again... I guess if it could be one or two folders/dats that dealt with all your mmp then it would be pretty straight forward, but I'd still probably just leave them. What I want to do is remove the items that I never use. The most annoying thing for me is when trees (for eg.) come in packs and it's all or nothing (like buying an album for one song), I am slowly finding replacements for some things and removing entire packs of trees. What I want is a stable (dream on) plugins folder. I may have wandered from the path a bit there...

Having said that the cycledogg/jeronij (and others) collection in my flora menu is 35 items from memory and though it comes as a pack there's NO WAY it's being replaced. However I don't use all the configurations and would happily remove some of these. I think they come as part of the terrain mod, would I be able to remove some of these by this method? If so then I'll eat my words in the first paragraph. 
←that's me getting ready to eat

[Stefan79]

Hi together,

I'm the programmer of SSPTool which allows you to create DAMN menus. With them you can easily hide lots and in my next version (will be soon on the LEX) it will also be possible to add MayorModePloppable. So you can create a menu with just trees or other MMPs for example and easily get access to them.
With hooha47 method to hide the MMP icons from the menu (I will implement this in my program) you will get all advantages you want. So, you don't have to get into detail with iLive Reader and edit the DAT files for your own which could damage them.

@hooha47: Does it need to remove both properties ItemIcon and ItemButtonID or just ItemButtonID?

Regards,
Stefan