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Planting the Seeds (Flora Works)

Started by Lowkee33, February 12, 2011, 02:34:22 PM

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Lowkee33

There are only 3 seasons for flora, I opted out of including the spring versions for most cases.  I felt the spring Cherry was not something to set aside.

My best hope right now is that you planted them at the wrong time.  The timing of flora starts the day that you plant them (un-like props).  General rule of thumb is to plant on the 1st of Sept (Southern hemisphere would be March 1st.  Actually, there are 30 days when you can plant seasons correctly, and off the top of my head I think these are the 7th of August to the 6th of September.  I like to do late August to get the desirability boost faster.  This sounds like you paused, planted, built the city, and then paused/planted at a different time of year.  The timings wont ever sync up again.  The fix would probably be more complicated than just demolishing the trees and starting all over.

If you planted them all on Sept 1st, then may I ask how long you ran the simulation for?  These trees have been tested for 100 years of cheetah.

Any luck?

TiFlo

#21
What you describe definitely sounds like what I did and what is happening to me. I planted my trees whenever I felt like it, so I must have missed the right date quite a few times. I had no idea about that though, I'll make sure I remember. Thanks a lot!  :)

I guess I'm off for some fun time destroying and replanting trees. Should take 1-1:30... I'll get back to you once I'm done doing that and if anything wrong occurs.

Unless of course you tell me your Girafe's tree controller is on the way. In which case I'll just happily clear cut everything and wait for your new work to come to the rescue.

Late EDIT: Ok, I'm a moron. I had an obviously more thorough reading of one of your seasonal flora sets Readme. Guess what: it's all there. The dates for planting, how the cycles work, what to do and what not... Thank you for not shaming me with a RTFM first hand, which would have been well deserved anyway.  :-[

Lowkee33

No worries.

I would say to keep planting trees.  Long story short, the behavior of tree controllers and terrain mods are connected by the Weather Exemplar.  This is something that I feel Maxis turned off at the last minute, leaving us with different conditions between God Mode and Mayor Mode.  The worst is wind.  Wind is responsible for one side of a hill being a different moisture level than the other.  This is a welcomed effect, as it means we can have pines on the north side of a hill.  However, wind appears to do a 180 once Mayor Mode is entered.

At this point, I feel I will have to release a modded weather exemplar (or a host of various mods of the weather exemplar) in order to have a tree controller or terrain mod to work the way that I would like.

Mulu2065

I lover the new trees you added today, all of your work is much needed. Thanks to you, I have plantable seasonal trees of all CP kinds, I love it!!! &apls

Lowkee33

Thanks Mulu2065 :)

I had just uploaded when I saw the NAM update, surprised anyone noticed it  ::)

Only question now is, whats next?  Know of any other sets ready for seasonality? (anyone?)

marsh

Very nice. How about JENXPARIS' Seine River Banks. He made trees especially for them included in that upload.

I may turn them into mmp's but not seasonal ones. I love the trees but having to bother with planting them all at the exact time is too much bother for me.

evarburg

#26
Quote from: Lowkee33 on March 17, 2011, 05:23:37 PM
The Seasonal Flora Patch is now on the LEX -http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2612. :)


Yes, but for me (on a Mac) it dezips only as "txt" et "URLS", no data. Which is also what it did with the plugin itself, but (for some reason that escapes me), that did dezip correctly the day after (!!!???) ; not the patch, though. And so I can't use your wonderful trees remix... What should I do ?

mod edit: fixed the quote.

Lowkee33

Quote from: evarburg on September 21, 2011, 07:03:04 AM
Yes, but for me (on a Mac) it dezips only as "txt" et "URLS", no data.

  Hi Evarburg.  On a Mac, have you tried File Juicer.  Pretty sure the readme states that this is a solution, but I don't have a Mac or ever tried the program.


Gringamuyloca

 :thumbsup:
What a great way to start the day!  &apls

Thanks Lowkee.
Tamara

marsh


Badsim

Thank you both ( Carl & Alex) , I enjoy that nice & precious addition to the SC4 seasonal flora . Platanus are very common in Europe , used as alignment trees in the cities and along rural roads ... ( I don't know anything about their use in America or elsewhere in the world .  ::) )

&apls

Cédric.

°   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °


Lowkee33

Working on replacing every Maxis flora with HD versions.

First are the small bushes:


Next are the RKT5 trees:


These need some modeling work, but I'm more concerned with the fact that the LOD (not custom) is bigger than a FSH.  There are 14 faces now, I could do a quick fix and be back to 6.  I could also get rid of the trunk through the roof issue and be left with 8 faces.

Still to do the palm and toilet paper trees (and see how RJ over wrote them).  Then the other RKT1 trees that Maxis has.  I should probably override the tree controller too.  Right now it's just to get some better looking lots without having to do much work :)


Edit:  Oh, also a base texture replacement.  Still some work there, but I'm a little textured out right now.

Girafe

the idea of replacing all the ugly trees from maxis by HD ones has always been a dream.

Seems you are already started :)

&apls &apls
The Floraler

This is the end, hold your breath and count to ten, feel the earth move, and then...

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *    *   *   *   *   *    * 

noahclem

That's great! A very promising project  &apls  Those horrible trees drive me crazy but re-lotting everything is too big a task.

FrankU

Sounds like a good idea! The Maxis trees are not so good. In my cities I usually use the SFBT tree repalcement mod that replaces all Maxis trees by CP and/or PEG trees. I don't exactly remember. And I am not sure if it replaces all shrubs.

But my guess is that you make new models of all kinds of trees and shrubs, and that they replace the Maxis if you put the mod in the plugins folder? So you don't need to relot anything, but you just plop in the mod? Is it necessary that you make new tree models? Maybe you use existing beauties?

Frank

Lowkee33

I don't know that there are enough HD plants to replace the Maxis set.  I made all of the bushes in about a day, probably less time than going through a bunch of MEGA packs looking for the perfect thing.

These models are going to replace the Maxis models, meaning no re-lot and no re-grow.  There won't even be any exemplars involved.  Jeroni has a Maxis bushes as MMP mod, and all of these would get replaced too.  To do this, I have to make the models the same TGI of the Maxis ones, and it is easier to make new models than to search around for permission.  I'm also going to do a bunch of S3D work, lowering the amount of faces in the lesser zooms, and I might combine FSH to use less new instances.

If the LOD is rendered at a 22.5 degree angle, then there is only need for 4 faces rather than 6.  This will also make the FSH that are used smaller.  We'll see about that one, it seems to work pretty well for models that don't have a "front" (like a tree).

There aren't any RKT5 HD trees that are made to look like they are growing (that I know of).  These will also replace the Maxis MMP flora.  I will be making the palm tree as HD, so will need to learn my way around the Maxis overrides that exist.  There is also the Maxis Toilet Paper tree to make in HD, and it's similar override.

whatevermind

You had mentioned back around last May that you were working on a seasonal tree controller using Girafe's trees, and I was just curious how/if that was coming along?  I ask mainly for two reasons:

1.  It would be an awesome mod, and I encourage work to continue in case it died for lack of interest.

2.  I'm still tossing around the idea of making my own tree controller, and lately I've hit on the idea of adding seasonal trees to it, so it would be immensely helpful to know if you ran into any insurmountable technical issues on your own project.  Figuring out everything that goes into a tree controller is one of these "down the rabbit hole" adventures, and every few days I think I've figured out everything I need to know about it, only to find some game changer buried in the forums - so who knows if I'll ever actually make the thing.

However, my latest understanding is that a seasonal tree controller is based on four things that are necessary to make it work (beyond things required for a one-season controller):

  • Seasonal tree models (which there are many of out there),
  • Your seasonal tree mod (or equivalent),
  • Using RKT4s in the tree exemplars,
  • Getting the right settings in the appropriate parts of kSC4FloraParametersProperty

By now, I get the impression that most if not all of kSC4FloraParametersProperty has been deciphered, but I don't recall seeing the full description anywhere.  So, do you know if anyone has ever published a full description of this property, and where that might be?  The information on it is just extremely scattered, so I'm hoping someone who more or less understands the property might have compiled that knowledge along the way.

apeguy

It's nice to see that you're working to replace maxis trees. To be honest I'm surprised this wasn't done ages ago. ()what() I look forward to seeing this completed! ;D

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Lowkee33

Which subscriber to listen to?   :P

With the terrain mod done I am sort of modding things piece by piece.  You know, equal forces in all directions, going no where :)

At some point I will replace the Maxis flora.

@Whatevermind:  You're on the right track.

1:  Indeed
2:  You don't need this, I already provided it.  The reason there are so many is that the same exemplar makes the highest altitude that trees are planted in god-mode.  This is a different height for every terrain mod.  I included the patch in my terrain as well.
3:  Yes.  Or you can use RKT5 (like the Maxis trees that grow), but if you don't have your own models, you will need permission (and then do a bunch of modding).

4:  I think most of them are figured out.  Some exactly, some to be able to get what we want, and others enough to know what they have an effect on.  Some are pretty clueless.  For example, we know rep 7 has something to do with seasonality, but only that certain settings seem to with make it work or not.

In a strictly seasonal sense, I think the settings we have now are sufficient for a tree controller.  In the "CP_Vol01 as seasonal Flora" dl, you will find 2 and 3 season flora.  Just copy/paste the parameters from them.

As you may know, there is more to the parameters than just seasonality.  Perhaps we should have a place where all of the parameters are listed.  I'll get my act together...

I hoped that helped, getting tired over here...