Homebrew Lots and Sidewalks - Need Help Big Time!

[dedgren]

So I get to trailblaze with the first help request on this "child" forum topic...well- let's go.

As most of you know by now, I'm teetering on the edge of moving into the next phase of 3RR, which will involve collaboration with folks (about 20, so far, and counting) who will develop one or more 3RR quads under my loose (heh...can you spell "m-i-c-r-o-m-a-n-a-g-e"?  ...just kidding) oversight.

I've run into a problem, though.

...that's putting it mildly- it's really more like a head-on collision...

I plan to use cycledogg's seasonal trees across the board in 3RR.  I've tested quads-full of them and, contrary to what you might think, you don't need a supercomputer for them to work just fine.  One look at a natural (just terraforming and trees) quad clothed in January's bare trees sold me- you'll get first looks at that sort of thing soon.

...October's a knock-out, too...

As a way of making placement of several square miles per most quads of these trees easier, I've created a bunch of custom lots up to 8x8 using the LE, the Reader, and my (very) fertile imagination.  These lots use (for right now) nothing but CP's various seasonal tree props- I'll check with him about redistributing them with proper credit of course if anyone else is interested- I'll need to get permission for the collaborators in any event, otherwise each will have to go through the same laborious process (presumably, although I think maybe if the props alone are installed on the collaborator's computer there won't be any issue unless an area needs to be reforested- we'll see).

One of the big tasks that these lots will accomplish is speedy creation of tree-lined country roads.  To this end, I've made some 8x1 and 4x1 lots that can be speedily plopped along rural roads.  You'll see what I'm talking about in a minute.

A bit of backstory here- 3RR is situated in the upper midwest of North America somewhere along the U.S-Canada border.  It was, like the areas around it, laid out in sections under the "Township-Range" scheme originally devised for land division under the Northwest Ordinance [linkie].  Thus, in the relatively flat developed areas, there is a grid of roads with a mile (1.6 kilometers) between each.  More on this later in 3RR proper.

Here's what a single quad (remember- these are 2.5 miles/4 kilometers on a side) looks like.



You can see the mile square road grid broken only by the hill in the upper middle of the quad and up in the very northwest corner.  This quad will either be developed in agriculture or left in woods, with a single small town somewhere along the rail line along the eastern edge of the quad.  That's midwest scale, folks- small rural towns three to five miles apart translates to about one per quad.

...for those of you looking for a sneak-peak into the ambience of the rural areas of 3RR, this is it- don't everyone clap at once...

So here's the likely site for Quad 64's small town.  That's down the way, so I thought I'd just get started lining those rural roads with some trees.



So here's ground zero for the first plop.



We head on over to my poor overburdened "Parks" menu for a line of roadside cottonwood...



...ignore the menu choices being out of order- this is a quick and dirty effort, as noted.  I'd clean it up for prime-time...

We position the 8x1 lot where we want it-



and-PLOP!

A line of beautiful bare winter cottonwoods appears...



...alongside a now paved and no longer rural road, complete with sidewalks.

URRRRGH!

Does anyone know a tweak in the Reader that can be set to leave the road unaffected or some other trick?  I'd be eternally grateful.  My quess is that others would be as well.

Thanks in advance for your comments and input.

Later.



 

[BarbyW]

Check in the Reader that the Wealth property is not set to medium or high. Try setting it to low or to none.

[jeronij]

Check in the Reader that the Wealth property is not set to medium or high. Try setting it to low or to none.

Unfortunately this will not solve the problem. It will only change the sidewalks texture. I have spent way too many hours trying to find a solution for this problem with the rural streets, but whenever you place anything ( except landfill or farmfield ) touching the street, the texture changes to zonetype=F wich is the zone for all the plopable lots.
The zone types for a lot are:

Zone Mappings:
0x00=None
0x01=Low Density R
0x02=Medium Density R
0x03=High Density R
0x04=Low Density C
0x05=Medium Density C
0x06=High Density C
0x07=Agriculture/Farming
0x08=Medium Density I
0x09=High Density I
0x0A=Military
0x0B=Airport
0x0C=Seaport
0x0D=Spaceport
0x0E=Landfill
0x0F=Civic/Plopped

Wealth Mappings:
0x00=None
0x01=Low
0x02=Medium
0x03=High

from Swamper77's tutorial

I dont remember all the tests I made, but as far as I remember, changing the zone type or the wealth type for plopable lots, does not work to solve this 

I use some side-approachs to solve this. Place some farmlands on one side of the street when possible,
make the lots 2tiles width and transit enable one tile, add dirty street textures to the transit enabled tiles.
combine both solutions where possible.
Use plopable trees where possible.

You can see how my system works in Grand Canyon 

however, not sure if that will help you.

[meinhosen]

Dedgren, that's an interesting question about the sidewalks.  There is a small workaround that I stumbled across a long time ago (although I don't know if it will work in your situation).  It goes as such:

1.  Add zones alongside the street (as you have done already).
2.  drag a section of farm zones across the street (where the zone straddles the street (and lots, in this case)) and...
3.  before letting up on the mouse, hit the "CTRL" key.  The zone should "disappear", but will still show that you are going to plop it.
4.  Let up on the mouse button (while still holding CTRL).  The street will act as if a zone is there, and should remove the sidewalk.

MAJOR DRAWBACK:  You can't put trees on both sides of the street if you do this.

I know that's not really an answer to your question, since it limits where you can put trees, but it will remove the sidewalks.

I can illustrate this if necessary. 

[jeronij]

Dedgren, that's an interesting question about the sidewalks.  There is a small workaround that I stumbled across a long time ago (although I don't know if it will work in your situation).  It goes as such:

1.  Add zones alongside the street (as you have done already).
2.  drag a section of farm zones across the street (where the zone straddles the street (and lots, in this case)) and...
3.  before letting up on the mouse, hit the "CTRL" key.  The zone should "disappear", but will still show that you are going to plop it.
4.  Let up on the mouse button (while still holding CTRL).  The street will act as if a zone is there, and should remove the sidewalk.

MAJOR DRAWBACK:  You can't put trees on both sides of the street if you do this.

I know that's not really an answer to your question, since it limits where you can put trees, but it will remove the sidewalks.

I can illustrate this if necessary. 

mmm, sounds interesting.. I´ll have to give it a try

Thanks amigo 

[pvarcoe]

Guys, Swamper has this mod here.
It makes the shoulders of roads dirt or gravel looking in rural settings
I have not tried it, so I'm not sure if it will add sidewalks when you plop trees next to it.
Has anyone tried it yet?


hmmm, looks like it affects streets, not roads, never mind dirt roads, hmmm

[jeronij]

Mmmm I dont think Swamper's mod will solve this issue...I´ll make some more testing changing the lot/building type of the plopable to see if I get some results.
So far, I have created a lot like yours (David) and I have started to heavily modify it. I have changed several parameters, to make the lot be like a farm, and nothing. I have removed most of the unnecessary properties in the exemplar file, and nothing. I have still some options left, but I am not very optimist at this time....

[BarbyW]

A while back I made some ploppable "farm fields" for Colyn. They completely neutral but based on a farm field template and they still put the sidewalks on the roads. I'll point Swamper77 to here when I see him. He might have an aswer.

[MIncroabl]

Another solution could be using the extra cheats plugin by buggi. I mean, make your lots growable farms and use the buildingplop cheat to place them. If you don't want your sims to actually work at these tree lots, removing the jobs oughta work (?). The obvious drawback is naturally that you might end up having these lots as actual farms when zoning for them... don't know if tinkering with the Zone Types and Growth Stage setting in the reader has also an effect on the "ploppability".

[jplumbley]

[q]Dedgren, that's an interesting question about the sidewalks.  There is a small workaround that I stumbled across a long time ago (although I don't know if it will work in your situation).  It goes as such:

1.  Add zones alongside the street (as you have done already).
2.  drag a section of farm zones across the street (where the zone straddles the street (and lots, in this case)) and...
3.  before letting up on the mouse, hit the "CTRL" key.  The zone should "disappear", but will still show that you are going to plop it.
4.  Let up on the mouse button (while still holding CTRL).  The street will act as if a zone is there, and should remove the sidewalk.

MAJOR DRAWBACK:  You can't put trees on both sides of the street if you do this.

I know that's not really an answer to your question, since it limits where you can put trees, but it will remove the sidewalks.

I can illustrate this if necessary.  [/q]

Well, this is interesting.  I do have an idea for a workaround for not being able to put trees on both sides of the street.  Make them overhanging props, with your strip of trees on both sides of the street while only having the lot on one side.  This allows you to draw your zones on the opposite side of the street, through the overhanged part.

[jeronij]

Ha ha ha, I am glad to see so much creativity together   

Some of the suggestions are quite interesting. I want to call your attention if you want to use overhanging lots, specially on slopes. The bigger they are, the more problems when placing it on a slope 

[keithsed]

Ah.........

I sure hope I don't put my foot in my mouth and show how little I know.  I'ts happened before and I'm sure it will happen again soooo . . . if I'm out to lunch just tell me. OK?

But... If I understand the problem you're talking about, could this help?  My understanding of the problem is you don't like the look of trees planted next to a country road that causes sidewalks to appear . . . right?

Check out this file at STEX

http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=3234

I haven't downloaded it and I have not tried it out to see what it does.  Maybe you mod brains can look at it and see if it would be a good starting point to fix the problem.  The picture on the download page, looks like it shows house with a "worn out road" plopped down in front of the house.  The plopped road is a road that needs repair.  It looks like the plopped road in front of the house doesn't have any sidewalks on each side if the road, just green grass and dirt.  There are sidewalks on both sections of the "good" road on each side of the plopped road.  Hmmmmm... I thought would this also work on tree planted roads? 

Maybe this would work if you plop it down in front of the country road flanked by the trees that have been placed along the road.

I hope I'm not out in left field with this, if so pretend you didn't see this post.    I found this file by searching for "roads" at STEX.

Keith

[jplumbley]

@keithsed   That isnt too bad of an idea.  It seems plausible, if you use a 1x1 TE for a dirt road street texture and put those trees into an overhanging position you would be able to do this.  I myself would not want to go this way with though as TE lots are finicky and are a pain sometimes.

@dedgren   Have you figured anything out yet or tried anything?  I would like to see if you have figured something out to deal with this problem.

[moganite]

 I know i am a bit late on this one.

As I understand it when you plop your lot the game goes looking for a sidewalk texture and plops one on the basis of road and wealth content.

I have a crude idea what if there was no sidewalk texture to plop or it was refering to one that exists or is completely transparent(null)?

I dont know if these have been considered already before asking for assistance
Now has a wealth level other than 0-3 been used?
is it possible to make the part that plops sidewalk not plop or plop a null texture?
what if a texture was made for side walks and it was defined as a wealth not 0-3 but -1 or 4 and it was referenced?

whats in the lanfill that prevent the same thing from happening?

[dedgren]

Thanks to everyone who has commented in this thread.  I was holding off on my response until I had enough time to do the issue justice- likely will have that the weekend of the 20th-21st.  I really appreciate the thought that everyone has put into this issue.


David

[Badsim]

Hi David ,



I know a trick to solve this using just LotEditor & SC4Tool... I don't have your rural street mod & ground texture but It works with mine so I think you can try this as well .

1- I've created the same context .


2-Create a lot (1x1 , from Pz1x1 _grass for example) with base texture & overlay corresponding to your rural street ."Save as" that you want ...


3-With SC4Tool , make it street transit enable .


4-Plop this Lot 2 tiles from the road  observing this orientation .


5-Obviously as there's a Lot , sidewalks are appearing ...so I'm now in your situation .


6-Go back to LotEditor , extend the Lot to 1x2 texturing the new tile with your grass texture ( not sure though that you'll find it , I've created one corresponding to the game just to illustrate this ...) & obviously your street overlay. Just "Save" .



7-Just launch again the game , the new tile have been automatically written .


8-You can verify , there's a lot now "invisible" ...this is still perfectly transit enable ,


9-You can even drag again the street , sidewalks don't reappear.


The inconvenience of this method is that you can't use again this Lot when it has been extended , so if you have several connection like this to realize , be sure to realize them all before ...
I Hope to be clear and useful in your case .