• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

Adding Props to Resized Lots

Started by dsrwhat316, December 27, 2008, 10:37:08 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

dsrwhat316

Foreword

Yes, I'm back with another tutorial! This one expands upon the resizing tutorial originally created by metasmurf (also found in this subforum).

In my previous tutorial, we weren't able to add props to the resized portion of the lot. Now, thanks to Paul's (squidi's) discovery, we are now able to add props to that resized area. Let me explain better with some pics:



This is Goldiva's Water Taxi, found on the STEX. Using iLive's Reader, the textures were removed to make the lot transparent. A tutorial on how to do this was created by jeronji, which can be found by clicking here.




Now let's start with our lot. In this example, I'm making a pier using Goldiva's Water Taxi. Due to the Threshold and Elevation Change numbers need to make this lot shown above, I couldn't make the entire pier out of one lot and place the Water Taxi props on the lot. The Water Taxi would "sink" to the bottom, thus hiding it from view. Instead, I created a small portion of our new pier. The reasoning for this will be explained soon  :thumbsup:




Now here's an in-game shot with the Water Taxis and our "partial" pier lot plopped in place. With that done, let's save our game and exit.




Okay, now we're back to the Lot Editor. I have extended the lot to fill the bare space in the previous pic. Props were also added to make the lot complete. At this point, we are done with the Lot Editor. *Note* When saving the lot, be sure to click on the save button, not save as.




Back in-game, we see our newly resized lot. But you'll notice that you can see props only on the original portion of the lot and not the "extended" portion. Here's where Paul's (squidi's) technique comes into play...




Open up the Graphics Menu as shown above. Change the city detail to another option. (Ex.: mine was originally set to high, now I'll set it to low) Save your game and exit.




Open your game again and return to your city. Go back to the Graphics Menu again and change your city detail setting back to its original state (Ex.: I'll set mine back to high). Save your game yet again and exit.

Start up your game (again) and return to your city (again). Let's see what it looks like now:




Huzzah! It worked! I have to admit that I was skeptical, at first, when this technique was first introduced. But after seeing it in action, I don't know how I ever survived without it.

This technique can be applied to putting base textures underneath NAM curves, as well as the FAR. Refer to my other tutorial for more info on this.

Special thanks go out to Paul (squidi) for discovering the technique and for granting me permission to publish it. Thanks also go to metasmurf for his original tutorial that first taught us how to resize lots and to jeronji for his transparency tutorial. I hope to see people put this technique to good use!

~ Dan
Custom Lotting at its Finest:

Last updated: 2/9- I'm Back! +  A Teaser (of course...)

TheTeaCat

Now thats one nifty little trick  &apls &apls

Gonna have to try that myself :D :D

Now that is worth one of these
to be sure  :D :D

:satisfied:
TTC
Kettle's on. Milk? Sugars?    ps I don't like Earl Grey  $%Grinno$%
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - If you're not part of the solution , you're part of the problem!
"Never knock on Death's door: Ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!"
Tales at TeaTime      Now A proper NUT      TTC plays GRV II

Pat

Hey Dan I am surprised I didn't notice this tutorial till now wow!!!!  Very great and user friendly this one is!!!

Don't forget the SC4D Podcast is back and live on Saturdays @ 12 noon CST!! -- The Podcast soon to Return Here Linkie

Fabian93

Hey there,
so I tried this out today...
well it didn't work the way I wanted to...
Have a look please (sorry for the big .png pictures):

So I layed down my roads... A street splits into a broad avenue  :)


Everythings fine, I layed down my 1x1 Lot (that I've made before)
Then I opened the LE and edited the Lot, and of course resized it.
After that I opened the game again, set my quality to low, closed and saved...opened again, set my quality to high, closed and saved, opened again (the way you described in your tutorial).

Now I had a look on my Lot:


Hm, everything seems alright, all the props are appearing (except the Amill props, but they're timed props). But where are my roads?  ()what()
They're still there...
Proof:


I just can't see the road, the road does not appear.
I've seen your other tutorial "Texturing NAM pieces" (or so), there you work with the same procedure and your roads appear, too. But why are MY roads hidden under the lot?
Now the question is, how can I make my road visible??

Thanks for your tutorial and future help,
Fabian


Battlecat

As simple as that.  I guess the code of the game must reload all the lot details when you change the detail level of the game.  Good to know, I think I can put this to very good use!  Thanks!   :thumbsup:

JoeST

Fabian, you could try adding the roads as textures on your lot? as I believe the lot textures are ontop of the road textures? or am I missing something?
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

Fabian93

Yes, that's right, the lot textures are on top of the street textures.
Hm I never thought about that, but I'm not sure if I'd find the exact textures in the LE, since my street has some strange "shape" (sorry I can not explain it better)... I really don't know if those textures are available in the LE, at least I have never seen them there.

But thanks for the tip  :),
I'll have a look for the textures,
Fabian

dsrwhat316

Yes, sometimes the base texture you used in the Lot Editor will show through the roads. This is a minor setback to this technique. As stated by Joe, you can use street overlay textures to disguise this. If you don't have the texture you need, you can extract them from DATs using this tutorial. Let me know if you need more help!

~ Dan
Custom Lotting at its Finest:

Last updated: 2/9- I'm Back! +  A Teaser (of course...)

CabraBuitre

I realize that was posted back in April... but I'm wondering, Dan, if the reason why the road textures plopped over the top is that (some of) the roads aren't simply NAM curves but are straight Maxis pieces.  As we discussed earlier via PM's, I think that was ultimately the problem with my rails... I was trying to put a base underneath the NAM curve AND the straight/diagonal pieces of my rails on both sides of the NAM orthog-to-diag curve.

Seemingly, with the road overlays, like you said, it should appear correct, for the most part...  I wonder if we can convince the NAM team to release the NAM overlay textures for the FAR curves et al as a texture overlay pack..  :-\  

I mean, it's not like they're BUSY or anything....!

Check out Abelfarei!

dsrwhat316

Quote from: CabraBuitre on June 30, 2009, 06:30:52 PM
I wonder if we can convince the NAM team to release the NAM overlay textures for the FAR curves et al as a texture overlay pack..  :-\

Well, if you have the initiative, this can be done yourself. Using the Transit Texture Tutorial you can create your own overlay textures from the NAM FAR/FARR curves. Just make sure you acquire your own Texture ID range by visiting the BSC Texture Index otherwise texture conflicts may occur.

~ Dan
Custom Lotting at its Finest:

Last updated: 2/9- I'm Back! +  A Teaser (of course...)

sithlrd98

Something I'm doing may help with the texture showing through on the curves. However....it kinda opens up another can of worms! I will have another beta release on my wealth mod sometime tonight , along with re-released NAM models as I spoke with Alex via PM and think that for the time being , they should be an override to the NAM models.

Jayson

Kabuto23

Thanks for the tutorial, dsrwhat316. :thumbsup: I played around with it and came up with this:

The main commercial area in the town are two NUTs marketplaces that I edited to match the Med style Residentials nearby. Unfortunately, I had to either drag a road or place pedmall tiles to connect both of them. Which, to say the least looked very ugly. So, felt this would be the perfect area to try out your tutorial and it worked beautifully. Now all I have to do is some tweaking to get the stalls to line up.

Cheers
~Kabuto23
Speed never killed anyone; suddenly becoming stationary... that's what gets you.
-Jeremy Clarkson