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CP Terrain Mods - Seasonal Quality

Started by M4346, October 09, 2008, 07:20:35 AM

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M4346

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if any of you know, Adam specifically  :P, how to remove the seasonal element to CP's terrain mods, specifically on the Missouri Breaks and Meadowshire Terrain Mods.

It's not that I don't like it, it just doesn't match up well in the region view for pics to present in my MD.  $%Grinno$%

I'd appreciate any help in this regard!  ;D

M
New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dedgren ♦ dmscopio ♦ Ennedi
emilin ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley ♦ moganite ♦ M4346 ♦ papab2000
Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine

Ennedi

#1
Seasonal terrain changes are caused by the exemplar file called Weather Tuning Parameters, located in simcity1.dat. Changes can be blocked by installing a mod overwriting this exemplar and decreasing temperature and moisture yearly changes to 0.
I made such mod and attached it to one of my last updates in Shosaloza. I attach it to this post too.
After installing it the terrain will look as in March or October, and it will not change during the year.

However, there are a few subtle effects which will still remain:
a) Terrain textures usually have two versions which differ very slightly one from another. Both textures are located in the same texture file and they appear randomly every time when you open the city. It was done by terrain mods creators to achieve more natural look of large areas covered by one texture.
I suppose these changes will not have any significant influence on the terrain look.
b) There is another factor having an influence on terrain textures: Wind and it's direction. More wind = lower moisture in specific areas (slopes exposed on the wind, hilltops etc.). The wind direction appears randomly with years in the given range. Brian (Cycledogg) tried to decrease this range to 0 (ie. to have the constant wind dirction), but results weren't promisive, the terrain looked unnatural. This feature needs more experiments.
These changes can appear in long periods, but if you have a 100 or 200 years old city and the neighboring one will be new and undeveloped, it is possible you will see the difference. Conclusion - we should develop all our cities in the region.

There are also a few effects connected with maps and the way the regional view is created (the game takes the Zoom 1 city view as a base). They can cause regional view imperfections too, but most of them can be avoided. It's a theme for another discussion.

I want to show all these effects and I'm going to make a new thread for them, but I still haven't enough time  :)

Adam
New Horizons Productions
Berethor - beskhu3epnm - blade2k5 - dmscopio - dedgren - Emilin - Ennedi
jplumbley - moganite - M4346 - nichter85 - papab2000 - Shadow Assassin - Tarkus - wouanagaine

M4346

Thank you very much Adam! I truly appreciate it!  ;D

I find terrain mods INCREDIBLY interesting and LOVE experimenting with them on the AMAZING NHP maps! hehe

Thanks for your contributions to the 'literature' in this regard, I'm sure I'm not the only one immensely grateful for this!
&apls &apls

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dedgren ♦ dmscopio ♦ Ennedi
emilin ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley ♦ moganite ♦ M4346 ♦ papab2000
Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine