Arden Tree Controller Help Desk

[APSMS]

I believe replacing the -w with a -f should run in fullscreen. I unfortunately have not tested tree controller on steep slopes, but this makes me curious to find one to try it on.

-Absalom

EDIT: whoops. Willy got to it before me.

[art128]

Well, Art clearly indicated he has a clean plugins folder, so that rules out a controller conflict.

Maybe I should rephrase: I mean a 'conflict' among my controllers. Though they are compatible with each other, they cannot be used all at the same time.

I always read the readmes, so I know what shouldn't be used together etc.

Also, no. Only one of your controller at the same time.

Perhaps do you want a list of everything in my plugins? Maybe there is a clue somewhere inside the list.

Also, my game is installed through steam, if that could case a problem...

[vortext]

I always read the readmes, so I know what shouldn't be used together etc.

I know you do but still: check, check, double check. 

Also, my game is installed through steam, if that could case a problem...

Maybe?  Also, do you play full screen or in windowed mode?

At any rate, I'm baffled with the third picture. That type of forest near water is only used in the Coast controller yet somehow it appears while using Inland. So it seems the game just makes up preference tables? Or mangles up the Flora cluster types? I really don't have a clue at this point. .

Edit: small succes. After booting about a dozen times in full screen I finally got to see the infamous borking! 

Edit 2: even more succes. The borking is caused by a faulty preference table. Something tells me there're more . .   

[art128]

I run in 1280*720 windowed.

I double checked, triple checked.

[art128]

Willy and I have managed to make it work.

I just put in my plugins, Aerden cost extended and the dependencies ( just the necessary .DAT, not the whole plugin)

And it worked.

Here's a list of things I had in my plug in with it didn't work:



And these two
-SimCityLocaleINI_Default_SupportsDisplayingJapaneseTexts.dat
-z_Winter Shadow Patch.dat

[vortext]

Glad to hear it works now, I also fixed the borking issue for the Coast controllers on my end.

Looking at the plugins, it's probably the SFBT_CP_Street_Decideous_Trees, iirc Victor had the same issue a while ago.

Also, the z_Winter Patch is solely for cosmetics, i.e. picture taking. Do not use while treeing, nor save the game with the file present.

[art128]

I've probably found what causes my problem.

I've tested again with all the the files I mentioned, didn't work ( another sign that shows it doesn't work: it plants the trees in winter mod, not autumn)
So, I tested with only the Japanesetext.dat and the winter shadow patch. Not working.
Tested without the japanese text.dat, so leaving just Aerden, dependencies, and the winter shadow patch. Not working.

I believe that this is making the whole problem.

Is it supposed to be in the plug ins when planting the trees?

[vortext]

another sign that shows it doesn't work: it plants the trees in winter mod, not autumn

Do not use the Winter Patch unless you want to take pictures in winter time with proper shadows!

So, I tested with only the Japanesetext.dat and the winter shadow patch. Not working.
Tested without the japanese text.dat, so leaving just Aerden, dependencies, and the winter shadow patch. Not working.

I don't know what the Japanesetext.dat file is, then again I imagine it's for Japanese characters so it shouldn't interfere. And again, I cannot stress this enough, do not use the Winter Patch while treeing! Maybe I should leave this darn file out when updating.

[art128]

And again, I cannot stress this enough, do not use the Winter Patch while treeing!Maybe I should leave this darn file out when updating.

Would be great if you could say it in the readme, I think it'll prevent more people to do the same error as me.
(Not just saying  " for cosmetic purpose " but also " Don't use it while planting the trees!  " or something along those lines)


Going to see with my whole plugins, without the winter shadow patch, to see if it works.

Also, it's a bit stupid from myself, as I don't take pictures during winter, I don't need it.

[vortext]

Would be great if you could say it in the readme, I think it'll prevent more people to do the same error as me.
(Not just saying  " for cosmetic purpose " but also " Don't use it while planting the trees!  " or something along those lines)

Yes I know, especially since you're not the first to run into this issue. . .   I'll update the controllers & Read-Me asap.

[whatevermind]

Just to throw a suggestion out there, when you do update, you might want to split the winter file into it's own upload, heavy on the disclaimers. I think that'll save a lot of confusion down the road.

As to the borking, I don't know if I ever did say anything on that, took me awhile to figure out what you guys were talking about, but it's completely normal behavior. The Maxis controllers regularly do it if you alt-tab out of full screen. I haven't seen it nearly as often with custom controllers, but I think that's:

• having learned to work around it and by habit restarting the game if I have to alt-tab; and
• Maxis only has three tree types, so when your pines stop planting on mountains, it stands out - a lot of custom controllers have much smoother transitions, so it's probably not so obvious when it does happen.

[xtsigs]

Great tree controller. Thanks.

It is causing one annoyance for me, however. I can't get rid of Maxis Palms on R$$$ streets and lots. I use "Sayonara! Maxis Trees," but I've tried every other "no palms" mod I could find. I take the Arden controller out, Maxis palms are replaced. Put it back, the Maxis palms return. BTW, I do load Sayonara after Arden.

I actually want no palms as the seasonal trees don't really look right with palm trees to me.

Thanks, again.

[epicblunder]

I take the Arden controller out, Maxis palms are replaced. Put it back, the Maxis palms return. BTW, I do load Sayonara after Arden.

It sounds exactly like Aerden (or something else) is loading after Sayonara.  Although you might think the palm replacer is loading last, you can use Rivit's sc4datanode to check and make sure.  That tool will also tell you which files are overwriting others in case you have multiple things overwriting the palms.

[xtsigs]

You were correct. SC4DataNode reported that Arden was loading after Arden even though the Arden Controller was prefixed by "zzz" and the Sayonara Palm Replacement was prefixed by "zzzzz". From what I understood that meant that Sayonara should have loaded after Arden. I prefixed Sayonara with a tilda (~). Windows Explorer displays the directories in the following sequence:

~zzzzz_Sayonara Maxis Trees
zzz_Arden Tree Controller v2

But sc4DataNode now reports Arden loading before Sayonara and the palm trees are correctly replaced.

Of course, the replaced trees are not seasonal.

I've been reading through the dialog in this thread. It seems as if one can overlay multiple controllers as long as they have a common base of some sort. E.g. the various versions of the Arden controller can be used sequentially without bulldozing the trees before swapping them out with one another. I wonder if it would not be easier and more flexible in the long run to create a series of controllers that can be layered by planting in sequence. You might want to plant trees first, then underbrush, then rocks (larger boulders on flatter areas graduating to small rocks on the steeper slopes), then stuff that goes right along the shoreline, or whatever. At first brush (no pun intended), it appears that once one understands the layout of the controller table, then it is just a matter of patience to plug the flora into the proper slot.

Thoughts? I'm willing to work on it (I have several decades experience in software and database development, now retired) if you need it, but I don't want to delve into it if my thinking is flawed. Also, any pointers on how the exemplars break down would be most appreciated. If you need help with drudge work, I'm willing to pitch in.

Thanks again for your help.

[Natuurzoon]

Hi there,

I know no one has posted in this thread for quite a while and I'm reving it again , but it does seem to be the right place to post a problem I'm having with this controller.

In several city tiles, the seasonal changes are slowly getting out of sync, shifting several months. I always make sure I plant the trees around late August and at first everything works fine, but then suddenly, it starts to shift as time passes. In two city tiles, the winter trees change to summer trees in May instead of March, and in one city tile that change happens in June.

I hope that there's someone who knows of this problem and it can be fixed, and if not, at least prevented.

Many thanks in advance.

[vortext]

Admittedly I neglected this thread for a while, my apologies.


It's the first time I've heard of the issue as you describe it, Natuurzoon. The timing of seasons is controlled by the Flora Tuning Parameters. If you have a modern terrain mod (Lowkee or Gobias) this should be in order, otherwise you'll need the Seasonal Flora Patch for the appropriate terrain mod.

If you already have this in place, then another possibility would be that some random plugin inadvertently includes a set of Flora Tuning Parameters, thus overriding the proper settings. For instance, Gizmo's underwater flora comes with a few terrain related files iirc.

I'm also curious: how long have the cities been running for? Or rather how many years after the initial planting does it take for seasons to get out of sync?


xtsigs, your thinking is correct for it's indeed possible to create a set of flora brushes and use them in a iterative fashion, thus arriving at highly customized flora combinations. It's actually how I go about in my own region, and in the past I have given some thought to the idea of releasing a set of brushes. However, I decided against it because it would a nightmare to provide support. See, in order for such an approach to work, you'd need two versions of each brush (enabled/disabled) and constantly swap between the two depending what you're working on. This alone will cause plenty of confusion among average users who just like to 'plug-n-play', so to speak. But here's the real kicker: if you ever, at any time, fail to load a brush already in use (which is a considerable risk given the file swapping) and save the city, you will inevitably end up with CTDs when terraforming the terrain where the brush used to be. And there're no brown boxes or other signs a brush is missing from the plugins. And yes, I had my fair share of CTDs. 

So in short: yes a set of individual brushes would allow superior flexibility and customization far beyond what a single, 'monolithic' tree controller can provide. However, such an approach would need an impeccable tracking system of what brushes are in use, and ideally handle the swapping as well. If you are still interested in the idea, I'm all ears. 

[Natuurzoon]

It's the first time I've heard of the issue as you describe it, Natuurzoon. The timing of seasons is controlled by the Flora Tuning Parameters. If you have a modern terrain mod (Lowkee or Gobias) this should be in order, otherwise you'll need the Seasonal Flora Patch for the appropriate terrain mod.

If you already have this in place, then another possibility would be that some random plugin inadvertently includes a set of Flora Tuning Parameters, thus overriding the proper settings. For instance, Gizmo's underwater flora comes with a few terrain related files iirc.

I'm also curious: how long have the cities been running for? Or rather how many years after the initial planting does it take for seasons to get out of sync?

I have the Missouri Breaks terrain mod and the corresponding flora patch.

As for other plugins, I have a plethora of seasonal tree related plugins actually  . For instance, I have the MMP's of the cascadia tree controller by Blunder (I followed the steps to only get the MMP's, not the actual tree controller).

I didn't pinpoint when it actually started happening in two city tiles, as it started happening a long time ago and I wasn't aware of the issue and thus not paying attention. I did however notice that two days ago, it suddenly shifted in a third city tile somewhere past the 2000 year benchmark. I know one of the affected tiles is well past 2000 years as well, but the other one is closer to 1000 - 1500 years.

Minor shifting however can occur fairly soon after the founding of a city. I noticed that in quite a few tiles the change from winter to summer trees shifts from March to April, but if I just let the game run for another year, it corrects itself. With the major shifts however, waiting for several ingame years doesn't seem to work .

Hope this gives some more insight.

[Mikey Knox]

Is it normal that on Complete Flat Ground you just get tiny little Pieces of Trees (Normal Inland)?

[vortext]

Yes. 

It's by design, the forest density increases with altitude.

[Mikey Knox]

Then i finally found my Tree Controller, i always wanted one who doesnt just blast everything with Trees 

Thx