Arden Tree Controller Help Desk

[vortext]

Hm yeah, Jack_wilds it sounds like there're a number of things going on. Diggis already gave sound advice, here's mine.

First of all set the CPU count to one in the shortcut. Next start a completely new city without any terrain mod - don't forget the Seasonal Flora Patch though - and check if this eliminates the edge crash problem. Hopefully it does.

Now in order to make the switch from CP-Columbus No-7 tree controllers, use the 'Flora off' cheat. Please note this will eliminate all flora, including carefully crafted mmp scenes. If you don't want to lose those you'll have to bulldoze every single CP flora item manually. Either way, save-and-exit once that's done. If everything went well, you can now use my controllers without problems. If you still experience CTDs when you try to terraform an area, there're still some of CPs flora left.

Let me know how it works out!

[M4346]

Thanks for the great work and effort put into this tree controller!

I'm had a bit of a problem though, as depicted below:



It happens with both the seasonal and evergreen extended river tree controller, on all elevations, close to or far away from the water.

I have triple checked the dependencies and have every single one of them.

It turns out that I still had the BETA version of the ALN Pasture Flora, and while they worked fine on their own and were unchanged (in terms of models) in the final version, their IIDs / packaging must have changed and they weren't referenced / picked up by the seasonal tree controller.

You therefore need the most recent / latest / final release of the ALN Pasture Flora 

[vortext]

I'm had a bit of a problem though, as depicted below:

What do you mean, exactly?! This is the special neon edition! 

It turns out that I still had the BETA version of the ALN Pasture Flora, and while they worked fine on their own and were unchanged (in terms of models) in the final version, their IIDs / packaging must have changed and they weren't referenced / picked up by the seasonal tree controller.

You therefore need the most recent / latest / final release of the ALN Pasture Flora 

Most likely that's what happened indeed. Glad you got it sorted out. Though I guess this demonstrates yet again Read-Me files are there for a reason! 

[vortext]

Double post, because strange as it is, I've actually ran into a problem with seasonal flora myself. .

Thing is, after learning my mouse a new trick for supereasy tree-ing and being a bit dissatisfied with the current state of affairs anyway, I've started the region all over (Again! Third time is a charm, right?!  ).

I used a previous back-up of the region to start with which already had some flora in place. For some tiles I used the 'flora off' cheat to clear them. However, now I find the seasonal flora is broken in those particular tiles. That is, flora remains in autumn state througout the year. 

Really strange and it left me wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem? Also, maybe using the 'flora off' cheat isn't such a good idea after all. . ?! 

[gn_leugim]

I haven't., as I never used that cheat to be honest =\

[vortext]

Nevermind, already found the solution! 

Also, to use it a second time you have to use Flora on before using Flora off again.

This is the crux! Apparently, you've got to use 'Flora on' every single time after you used 'Flora off' to clear a tile. Then and only then will the seasons work properly. 

Also, for folks dreading to tree an entire region and who've got a decent mouse (i.e. one that allows you to assign different functions to keys) it might be worth while to do a little exploring in the configurations panel and see if there're any functions which mention 'locking' or something. I've got a logitech mouse and set the scrollwheel to 'scrolllock' which together with Whatevermind's flora brush turns out to works quite convenient.

To tree a tile, all I need to do now is open it, zoom out, select the flora brush and click the scrollwheel, just once! Then I can sit back or do other stuff, come back 5 minutes later or so and the entire tile is treed! To deactived to flora brush I simply click the scrollwheel once more. Yay, no more going up-and-down to check if everything is covered, all the while holding down the left mouse button untill RSI sets in! And it works for every other godmode brush, too, which makes terraforming a heck of a lot easier as well! 

[Jack_wilds]

that is what I found with the cheat... to 'flora off' close out of city and game... return to game and city then 'flora on' and for the most part -no apparent issues, works ok... but now I find that I ain't getting forests like I want, I am using the 'inlet' variation... but that is my fault for the game play I use; as I have set elevation lower through the region to manage a better more reasonable appearance transition to 'sea side' areas... I also chose to use the deciduous trees but now I miss the mix of pines in the wood lots too... thats my $0.02 worth

[vortext]

Jack_wilds, you can lower the treeline as well. With the Reader, change the value for Flora: elevation scale range, a property found in the Flora Tuning Parameters exemplar, which itself is located either in the Seasonal Flora Patch for CP's or the controller file for Lowkee's and Gobias' terrain mod.

[Diggis]

This is the crux! Apparently, you've got to use 'Flora on' every single time after you used 'Flora off' to clear a tile. Then and only then will the seasons work properly. 

Glad I saw this, pretty sure some of my cities need me to turn that back on... 

[Smeel]

Wow, this is the best tree controller I've seen yet, thanks for sharing this with us, it looks absolutely amazing!
I do have a little problem though... I'm having trouble switching between the evergreen coast and the evergreen Inland. My game ctds when I've planted trees with one Tree controller, and then save to exit, switch the TC to the other one and try to use the God mod flora tool again.

The way  I want to use it is to have the Inland tc to plant before I build, since it doesn't fill the whole tile, and then switch to the coastal tc. Have I done something wrong? The evergreen TC's are supposed to be interchangeable, right?

PS: Now I remember that I actually used one of the seasonal TC first, could it be related to that?

[vortext]

Yes, the evergreen versions ought to work interchangeable as well. The good news is I've managed to replicate the CTD and it's rather odd it seems bound to this specific combination, as it doesn't happen the other way around. Nor is it related to your initial use of a seasonal tc btw (though I wouldn't recommend using seasonal and evergreen interchangeable). The bad news is I can't exactly pinpoint the problem right away. There're a few clues to investigate though, I'll get back to you asap. Until then it seems it's not possible to do what you want. 

[Smeel]

Thank you for the swift answer! Once again, fantastic work with this mod

[vortext]

Alright, found the culprit. Turns out the problem wasn't in the Inland controller. Instead there was this one item in Coast and River which wasn't properly converted to RKT1 and caused CTDs when those controllers were loaded after usage of Inland. An updated version will be uploaded shortly. Files have been updated. 

[aka.john]

Is there an updated list for dependencies?  I've got all of the ones that are listed in the pdf (I downloaded the mod about 10 days ago) but I am getting a lot of brown boxes popping up when I try to use the G*d mode tree populator.  Also, every once in a while the tree populator will not populate any trees at all (wasn't a problem before installing the tree mod).

Thanks.

[vortext]

Is there an updated list for dependencies?  I've got all of the ones that are listed in the pdf (I downloaded the mod about 10 days ago) but I am getting a lot of brown boxes popping up when I try to use the G*d mode tree populator. 

No, dependencies have not changed so if you get brown boxes, something obviously is still missing. CP vol1 was updated a while ago, perhaps you still have the outdated version in the plugins?

Also, every once in a while the tree populator will not populate any trees at all (wasn't a problem before installing the tree mod).

Never happened to me, so not quite sure what's going on. Though it sound like another flora brush in your plugins is interfering. Could be a remnant from a previous tree controllers (CP provided a larger flora brush iirc) or maybe a mmp is giving trouble. Does the tree controller load last? If not, see if it make a difference if it's located in a 'zzz_tree controller' folder or similar.

[dragonshardz]

I'm just wondering, where is this Seasonal Flora Patch the readme mentions - the LEX download linked to is actually a download for some of girafe's props and I can't find any sort of patch in the tree controller download.

[vortext]

Thanks for pointing that out!    Bit strange it'd escaped my attention though. 

Anyhow, here's the Seasonal Flora Patch.

Once again the LEX download will be updated. Files have been updated!! Thanks again BarbyW!

[vortext]

Double post because, well, time to get back into the swing of things.   

First of all I discovered how to make proper 256 pixel multi-fsh textures, which imho look just a tad better compared to 128 pixel textures. Admittedly it was by lucky accident, however, I'm glad SC4PIM handles them smoothly now, instead of throwing error messages like it would previously. What's more, it appears I've cracked to secret to generating multiple, almost completely seamless textures. 


In closest zoom.

There're four textures involved here and I dare you to find a single seam! You can though, look closely! 
It requires no tedious manual labor, other than hitting the 'randomize' button and judging whether or not that particular variation would be a nice fit. Another example.



Six textures involved here and again all are pretty much seamless. Yes, the colors still leave something to be desired but more important is the fact that finally, the texture doesn't turn into a monochromatic blur when viewed from afar!



This was somewhat of a issue and some textures still suffer from it but I've found a little post processing goes a long way to counter this.


Meanwhile, over at Simpeg interesting developments are taking place.



The so-called Historic Harbor set - a collaboration between me, Simcoug and Krashspeed -  is starting to shape up quite nicely. The pieces can be directly plopped into water so you don't have to bother terraforming as much. However, the orientation of the deck, combined with curves and diagonals proves to be a challenge. Most likely there'll be two menu entries for each piece, with a 90 degree difference in deck orientation. Unless we can come up with a clever alternative. . any suggestions, perhaps?

Also, I wanted the pieces to be located in the seaports menu, which is easy enough to achieve by changing the Occupant Groups. However, it turns out when I do this they no longer show in the city budget. Not under parks, nor under seaports, where I would expect them to be. Does anyone know how to get the pieces back into the city budget? Either as parks (while retaining their position in the seaports menu!) or ideally, if possible I'd like them to be accounted for as seaports, though with a small monthly cost per piece. Any thoughts on the matter are greatly appreciated!

At any rate, lets continue. Did I already mention there's neat stuff going on over at Simpeg? 



Like, really neat stuff.



All the props go to Krashspeed!   pun intended! 
Basically he takes any idea I and Simcoug throw at him into consideration. Quays, sure why not?! Some (medieval) harbor cranes, no problem. Though iirc he came up with the horse tram, which is frigging awesome if you ask me. Latest I heard he has become a dressmaker. . 


And finally something I've been playing around with the last couple of days.



Nothing special really, it just hit me this would probably be a good flora mixture to go along rural streets.



At the moment I'm contemplating wether or nor to add Murimk's flat rocks into the mix. What you do you think?
Maybe it'll turn into a more extensive street mod as I do have a few more ideas (though this already is quite dependency heavy ). Or maybe it doesn't, I'll see.

That's it for now! 

[Gugu3]

Cool stuff!

[epicblunder]

Nice Roadside.   

IIRC, murimk's flat rocks are SD.  If you're considering single flat rocks and want HD i'd suggest taking a look at nbvc's temple path stepping stone rocks.