Whatevermind's House of Wonders

[whatevermind]

It's been a while since I've posted here, but it's not for lack of messing with things. I've just mostly been doing more maintenance type stuff, no real release potential, nothing that hasn't already been done, etc. Something a little different today though.

I had mentioned a while back, prior to releasing my flora brush mod, about trying to get multiple flora brushes to work from the flora brush button in the God Mode menus - which is essentially the same thing as taming the mythical beast of custom submenus. I never did get very far with it back then and ended up releasing the mod as a replacement for the Maxis brush, and didn't really pursue the idea any further.

Well, the other day I came across this post by GoaSkin that got me thinking about the custom submenus again, and so I fired up the old project and dug a little deeper to see what I could find. Working with terrain brushes in the God Mode landscaping menu, since I had a lot of those pieces already laying around, I mapped out the menu structure and tracked down as much of the parts of it as I could find and ran a few tests, etc. Long story short, I came to the same conclusion that everyone else seems to have done - that it's not really possible to create custom submenus.

I was able to add new tools to existing menus, as you can see below:


That's all been done before, such as in the extra terraforming tools mod; it was really just to prove that at least the "adding new things to menus" concept/process worked as expected.

But attempts at linking a new menu to the flora button failed to do anything at all, even break the default menu structure. So, it's entirely possible I just missed something along the way, but everything I could find seemed to point to the old conclusion that there's just something in the EXE that we can't get to that is necessary to generate new menus. I suspect that it is either an exemplar or INI linking submenu keys to particular menus (as suggested by NetPCDoc), or more likely from what I've seen of the menu file structure, a set of "button exemplars" in the EXE that are linked to particular buttons in the UI and define the button's function - whether to tie it into a particular tool, or fly out a submenu, etc.



On an entirely different topic, that question in my last post about the Rewards LUA still holds, I still haven't found any other mods that replace that file, but I'd be interested to know if they exist.

[Simmer2]

Hello whatevermind.
Great work I see, however after installing your mod I noticed that every single oak in my cities are now brown boxes.
I did not save the game and exited the game, I then proceeded to remove your folder and when I reentered the game all the oaks are still brown boxes:(
I reinstalled your mod again and when I use the tool it just drops brown boxes.

Please help.

Sim2

[whatevermind]

Did you install anything else at the same time? There's nothing in my tree brush mod that should change what trees you see - it just changes how big or small of an area you plant at once.

I'd try the following to make sure:

• Empty your plugins folders - then put back in only the tree brush mod.
• Start a new region. Open a new city.
• Plant trees.

If you still have problems, please let me know. If you can get a screenshot as well that might help. Otherwise, if that works, then the problem is something else in your plugins. Good luck!

[catty]

...Long story short, I came to the same conclusion that everyone else seems to have done - that it's not really possible to create custom submenus....

I did have a go ... quite a few years now at trying to replace the MySim menu or at least some of its menus I gave up in the end, but still do wonder as you can add more MySims and Vehicles to the various tabs if instead of them you could add something else in their place 

[whatevermind]

  NEW ITEMS ON THE LEX!! HOT AND FRESH LOTS FOR YOU!! 

Hello everyone! Hope you've all had a great 2016...and 2015...and 2014...and...how long has it been? Anyway, I have some new uploads for you all, some garbage facilities I made a few years ago and have finally gotten around to uploading. All told, there's three lots in this upload, a Garbage Export Facility that's meant to replace your landfills; a Recycling Center; and a Waste-to-Energy Plant. All of these are basically replacements to the in-game facilities, but with higher capacities, and better looking.

So, what's the backstory on these, you ask? Well, it goes like this. SC4 does a terrible job handling garbage removal. Or well, it's very good at it, but it wants you to stash your garbage in ever growing landfills. People started working on other ways of dealing with trash almost as soon as the game was released. Some people put it on boats to float forever in SimOcean. Some people ship it out of town on trains. Some people simply drop it over the edge into the Abyss. I've tried them all, and they work great, but I wanted a fourth option.

I liked the idea of the rail export facilities from SFBT and Twrecks, but often had cities without railroads, and while you can stick those lots on the edge of the city and fake the look, that bothered me. So, inspired by their great works, I set out to create a series of road-based garbage export facilities.

The results are:


The Garbage Export Facility
This lot replaces your landfills. Garbage trucks come here to drop of their loads, which are then sorted and reloaded onto new trucks, which take the garbage to distant points to be disposed of. It is a corner lot, as it has vehicle access on two sides. One of these beauties will handle a city up to about 200,000 residents, particularly in combination with the recycling center.


The Recycling Center
This lot replaces the default in-game recycling center. It does basically the same thing as the default building, but it has higher capacity and looks more realistic.


The Waste-to-Energy Plant
This one was basically created just to fill out the set, but if you use W2E plants, it's a helpful addition to the family. If you'll notice, those blue trucks from the export facility, loaded up with incineratable garbage, come here to drop it off for burning. It's all a very efficient system.

Typically, I use one export facility and one recycling center in my cities, and in the larger cities add a second of each, and it has been solving all my garbage problems for the last 2-3 years without fail. The W2E has been less extensively tested since I don't often use them myself, but I still ran it through the usual gamut of tests and it performed exceptionally well.

Special thanks to Marrast, cnut, and jestarr, who's excellent BATs are used on these lots.

So, where is it, you ask!?!?! Well, it's right here http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3471, on the LEX, so come and get it!

Enjoy, y'all.

[Vizoria]

I like how these lots use older textures but still look good.

[compdude787]

Wow, welcome back!! I'm going to be downloading your stuff shortly!

[brick_mortimer]

Thanks for these beautiful lots 

I like the 'generic' Industrial look and the way they can blend in (without heaps of garbage etc.).

[FrankU]

Very nice lots indeed!
I mostly use one large waste to energy lot. It is an old one and considering the stats it should be called a cheat. This set is nicer.

[whatevermind]

Thank you all, and you're most welcome! I hope these lots come in handy! 

[vinlabsc3k]

I like very much this LOTs, but they are too clean and small for their category.


Happy New Year!!