The FrankU and Nexis CO-OP

[mrbisonm]

Well, FrankU has his thread about LOTting and I have my thread about my BATs (NEXIS) and since we both are working together on this Massive Farm growing Project, I decided to open this thread.
This is not only for letting both of us tell our advances with the project , but mostly to get YOUR (the Player) opinion on it.

I am creating all the props, most of them have been done and I am on a rendering "spree" right now, preparing them with custom LOD's for Frank to be able to create some good looking farm lots.
Frank has started to "pre-organize" his lot pack already and is most certainly ready to receive my BATs soon.
Now, there is a question between Frank and me that came up since the beginning, and it is about the size of the dependency list. Since most of us know here (mostly the older Players), personnally I myself am a public enemy of dependencies, I even was once at "War" (if you could call the light disagreement I had) with the CSX about this matter. Nexis Lots do NOT have any dependecies and never had, all 500 or so that can be found on the STEX, LEX or sent privately, and are still worthwhile downloading with only the Maxis props and textures. But........ even Nexis has to evoluate one day, right? So , I am ready and willing to accept a few of the major packs.....

This subject of course comes to Frank and YOU!.....(glad I got rid of this).....lol. It will up to him to deal with this matter with you. Of course, I will add my mustard also, but it finally is up to him, because it will be HIS LOTs.
Soon you will hear from him and please......let us know what you think, because....all these (60+) will be you who are going to play with them, ok?

Fred

[mike3775]

mrbisonm(fred),

I have always loved that your lots were dependency free, I have many of your nexis lots in my plugin folder, but if you are going to have dependencies, please be ones that probably have already been downloaded the most already.   I really do not mind having them. 

Keep up the great work, can't wait to see these new farms, the more the merrier on them as far as I am concerned. 

[mrbisonm]

Thanks Mike3775, it's useful comments like this we need here. Of course there won't be just two or three small dependencies, because this is a farming Mega Pack (so to speak), but it will probably be the most usefull proppacks that the "Sim-farmers" use already.
I cannot remember all of them and besides, it is up to Frank, who will use these on his lots, but I can quickly think of Jes and Gascooker props, the BSC Texture pack and JFM,MJB and Newmann props and textures. For the fields maybe Simgoober's, he has made some nice looking fields once.....etc. I think that Frank also talked about the SAM props and textures.
I let this decision to Frank......I am sure that he will use the mostly used ones.

Because these lots will mainly be used by "advanced" farming Players, they will probably and already have a good amount of these props (if not all)  in their Plugins. That is exactly why I opened this thread.
So, let's hear out the great "Simfarmers" and see what they got in their folders as props and textures!


Fred

[catty]

...but I can quickly think of Jes and Gascooker props, the BSC Texture pack and JFM,MJB and Newmann props and textures. For the fields maybe Simgoober's, he has made some nice looking fields once.....etc. I think that Frank also talked about the SAM props and textures...

You have pretty much covered everything I use for farms, plus I have a few SFBT farms

[mrbisonm]

.... plus I have a few SFBT farms

True, the SFBT has some nice farmprops also, that could surely be interesting.

Fred

[FrankU]

OK, people. Now please sit down and take a deep breath.
This is about a set of farms with some size. The dependencies list seconds that.

So where should I start... First make you eager by showing some parts of the set? Or scare the heck out of you by showing the dependencies list first?

I am not a marketeer, so this is probably the wrong choice, but you have to live with it.
You could have seen some info on this in my lot thread already, but I am going to do some short summing up here now.


Chapter 1, The Farm Lots

OK, so this is about a huge farms set.
The set contains farms from stage 1 up to 5 at the moment. You can build your farming community with almost only this set, so I recommend to use the BSC Maxis IR blocker.

Now some overview pictures.

Stage 1


Stage 2


Stage 3


Stage 4


Stage 5



Chapter 2, The Stage 0 and Farm Field lots

Now I got something unusual. I have made 1x1 small Stage 1 farms that I call Stage 0. These are farms that contain nothing more that what you see in the adjoining farm field. The result is: you see a farm field without a farm, which can grow anywhere.
So these look like the farmfields that I have made. There are 21 of them.

I have some random images of the fields.

Seven tulip fields


And some different like malus, humulus, rubus fruticosus, asparagus, cucurbita, triticum, mays.









OK, then. Got your attention?

A short summing up of the set:
About 15 farms in every stage from 1 to 5, meaning a total of about 75 farms.
Also the so called "Stage 0" farms: 21 different ones. This contains 7 flower fields, 1 pasture and 13 crop fields. These fields are not completely new. I derived them mostly from Simgoober and the SPAM, but they have been altered a bit and the seasonal properties are a bit different.

All these farm fields are also available as ploppable fields.


Chapter 3, The Dutch Landscape

The objective of this set was to be able to get a rural area that looks as much as possible as the dutch landscape. So the farm fields are edited in a way that the seasonal behaviour more or less comes close to the behaviour of the Dutch farm fields: growing time and reaping time wise.
Also most of the farms will have the pastures growing most of the time, because the Dutch landscape is dominated by pastures and grassland. Have a Google Maps view on the country if you like. You could type in "Netherlands, Deventer" and have a look around the town. It's the town I live in, by the way.
I have been thinking of includig three or four different pasture lots, but I decided not to, because I could not find enough nicely matching textures. Besides that: I think in most cases I will delete the pasture farm fields and use the terrain texture as pasture, where I (and you) can MMP props onto.
Also it would demand an enormous amount of lots in order to have the right textures next to fence lots (e.g. ChrisAdams) and the like.

So far about the farm fields.

I do not BAT.
That is important, because this is the main reason for the huge dependencies set. I had to scrutinize quite some prop packs and uploads in order to find a good amount of barns, sheds, houses, vehicles and other props that match the Dutch opinion on how a farm should look. A lot of common things were not found at all and that was the moment Fred/mrbisonm came in. He offered to BAT some props for me. Things like manure pits, silage silo's, haystacks, sheds and barns. He is working hard on them at the moment.

Why Fred? Maybe it's because both of us have a family root in the German Aachen area? I am not sure. It is certain that he knows the Dutch landscape in some way, that he likes to BAT and that he was, apparently, triggerde by my first images of the farms set.

In some of the images above you see open spaces that do not look realistic: there I hope to put Fred's props when they are ready. Probably I have to rearrange a lot of my farms when his set is finished and maybe I will be able to kick out one or two megapacks from the list that I will show you further on in this post.

(getting some coffee now)(you might take the opportunity to do that yourself too)

In the Stage 4 and 5 farms images you see some of Fred's first barn models on my lots. The final ones will look more or less alike, so I am already anticipating and lotting with them.


Chapter 4, The Set up of the Farms

In order to get as much variation as possible with as little props/lots/buildings as possible I decided to make a large group of prop families first. I released these already some time ago on the STEX: The FrankU Farm Prop Families Maxis and BSC, uploded the last version in july 2011, downloaded 598 times up to today.
For this set of prop families I used the dependencies that are neccessary for the CP Meadowshire Terrain mod. Two reasons: the dependencies are very common and this Terrain Mod is used by me, because I think it gives a good base texture for the lush Dutch farmlands. So I recommend it if you want to use my farms set.
I use these prop families extensively on my farm lots, meaning that the looks of the lots can vary very much from lot to lot.

As an example I show you here: Kuiermans Weide 1


This is the same lot! One file in your plugins folder.

So the first dependency is:

1.  FrankU Farm Prop Families V1.1

For this prop families set I needed the following dependencies:

2.  BSC MEGA Props - CP Vol01
3.  BSC MEGA Props - D66 Vol01
4.  BSC MEGA Props - Gascooker Vol01
5.  BSC MEGA Props - MJB Vol01
6.  BSC MEGA Props - RT Vol01
7.  BSC MEGA Props - SG Vol 01
8.  BSC MEGA Props - swi21 Vol01
9.  BSC MEGA Props JRJ Vol04
10. BSC MEGA Props JRJ Vol05

Then I scrutinized for other useful barns, animals and other props.
I also needed some decent base textures that went with the Meadowshire terrain mod. Naturally CP textures go with this.
So I decided to add:

11. BSC_TexturePack_Cycledogg_V 01b
12. BSC Ploppable Cattle
13. BSC Mega Props - JMyersAgriculture01
14. BSC MEGA Props - KWKVol02
15. BSC MEGA Props - Misc Vol01

Of course there are some Maxis buildings as props on the lots, so I guess you need (not 100% sure):

16. bldgprop_vol1
17. bldgprop_vol2

While I was working on my lots Simpeg came up with SPAM. A long time I have been doubting wether I should include this pack. I decided positively when I found out that I could throw out some other prop packs that I had included in the first place (like BSC textures and Newman Inc vol 1).

So there we go:

18. PEG_Spam_Super_Resource

And we have some flower and farm fields by Simgoober.

19. Simgoober Farm Fields Revised

And not the least important ones: a set of single model downloads. You need only certain models from the following files. They are mostly Dutch models, so definitely neccessary for the farms.

20. JS_Tobacco barn
21. vda_Langeraar Geerweg, by Vanderaap
22. Zeeland Cottages1, by Meurdoos
23. Zeeland Village 9 houses, by Meurdoos
24. Dutch Farm Pack, by Haarlemmergold

You also need Tag_One's RNP ploppable greenhouses   and RNP T1 Dutch Farmers Houses. These are only available on a SC4D disk at the moment, which you have to buy, but Tag_One is working on a new prop pack that will contain these files for you and me.

25. Tag One prop pack, name not yet known.

So the list contains 25 downloads at the time. Fred's Modern Farm Prop Packs will be added when they come out.
It might be possible to delete one or two prop packs form the list when Fred's props are available, but I am not sure. I will do my best though, without decreasing the quality of the set of course.


Chapter 5. The Question

So here's the question:
Do you think it is worth wile to download all these files in order to have a totally new rural look?

Please comment.

I must add to my defense the following:
1. Many of the above mega packs are very common, so most of you will have them installed anyway.
2. Once you have installed these packs, you will be able to add my Rewards, Churches and Windmills without downloading too many extra files, besides the neccessary models, of course.
3. After release of the set I will not be finished. It might even be possible that I quit playing the game altogether and concentrate on lotting only. I have plans to add:
- Additional Rewards
- Stage 6, manors and country houses
- Stage 7, castles and abbeys
- Commercial lots like milk factories, grain silo stations, cattle food factories, machinery stores.
- Several ploppable eyecandy stuff for your Dutch rural atmosphere.

It might take some time though.

That will be enough for today,

Greets and have fun!

FrankU

[catty]

So the first dependency is:

1. FrankU Farm Prop Families V1.1

For this prop families set I needed the following dependencies:

2. BSC MEGA Props - CP Vol01
3. BSC MEGA Props - D66 Vol01
4. BSC MEGA Props - Gascooker Vol01
5. BSC MEGA Props - MJB Vol01
6. BSC MEGA Props - RT Vol01
7. BSC MEGA Props - SG Vol 01
8. BSC MEGA Props - swi21 Vol01
9. BSC MEGA Props JRJ Vol04
10. BSC MEGA Props JRJ Vol05

This makes 9 dependency packs.

Then I scrutinized for other useful barns, animals and other props.
I also needed some decent base textures that went with the MEadowshire terrain mod. Naturally CP textures go with this.
So I decided on:

11. BSC_TexturePack_Cycledogg_V 01b
12. BSC Ploppable Cattle
13. BSC Mega Props - JMyersAgriculture01
14. BSC MEGA Props - KWKVol02
15. BSC MEGA Props - Misc Vol01

I had everything except your "FrankU Farm Prop Families V1.1" and the BSC Ploppable Cattle, couldn't find it, but am guessing its the Mayor Mode Ploppable Livestock on the LEX

[FrankU]

Hi Catty,

You might revise your reply. I just finished my post. I had made a "Save" in between, because I fearded to loose everything with some kind of disconnect problem or so. Now I'm finished.

And indeed: the Cattle file is the one you think.

[mike3775]

1.  FrankU Farm Prop Families V1.1

For this prop families set I needed the following dependencies:

2.  BSC MEGA Props - CP Vol01
3.  BSC MEGA Props - D66 Vol01
4.  BSC MEGA Props - Gascooker Vol01
5.  BSC MEGA Props - MJB Vol01
6.  BSC MEGA Props - RT Vol01
7.  BSC MEGA Props - SG Vol 01
8.  BSC MEGA Props - swi21 Vol01
9.  BSC MEGA Props JRJ Vol04
10. BSC MEGA Props JRJ Vol05

Then I scrutinized for other useful barns, animals and other props.
I also needed some decent base textures that went with the Meadowshire terrain mod. Naturally CP textures go with this.
So I decided to add:

11. BSC_TexturePack_Cycledogg_V 01b
12. BSC Ploppable Cattle
13. BSC Mega Props - JMyersAgriculture01
14. BSC MEGA Props - KWKVol02
15. BSC MEGA Props - Misc Vol01

Of course there are some Maxis buildings as props on the lots, so I guess you need (not 100% sure):

16. bldgprop_vol1
17. bldgprop_vol2

While I was working on my lots Simpeg came up with SPAM. A long time I have been doubting wether I should include this pack. I decided positively when I found out that I could throw out some other prop packs that I had included in the first place (like BSC textures and Newman Inc vol 1).

So there we go:

18. PEG_Spam_Super_Resource

And we have some flower and farm fields by Simgoober.

19. Simgoober Farm Fields Revised

And not the least important ones: a set of single model downloads. You need only certain models from the following files. They are mostly Dutch models, so definitely neccessary for the farms.

20. JS_Tobacco barn
21. vda_Langeraar Geerweg, by Vanderaap
22. Zeeland Cottages1, by Meurdoos
23. Zeeland Village 9 houses, by Meurdoos
24. Dutch Farm Pack, by Haarlemmergold

You also need Tag_One's RNP ploppable greenhouses   and RNP T1 Dutch Farmers Houses. These are only available on a SC4D disk at the moment, which you have to buy, but Tag_One is working on a new prop pack that will contain these files for you and me.

25. Tag One prop pack, name not yet known.

So the list contains 25 downloads at the time. Fred's Modern Farm Prop Packs will be added when they come out.
It might be possible to delete one or two prop packs form the list when Fred's props are available, but I am not sure. I will do my best though, without decreasing the quality of the set of course.


Chapter 5. The Question

So here's the question:
Do you think it is worth wile to download all these files in order to have a totally new rural look?

Please comment.

I must add to my defense the following:
1. Many of the above mega packs are very common, so most of you will have them installed anyway.
2. Once you have installed these packs, you will be able to add my Rewards, Churches and Windmills without downloading too many extra files, besides the neccessary models, of course.
3. After release of the set I will not be finished. It might even be possible that I quit playing the game altogether and concentrate on lotting only. I have plans to add:
- Additional Rewards
- Stage 6, manors and country houses
- Stage 7, castles and abbeys
- Commercial lots like milk factories, grain silo stations, cattle food factories, machinery stores.
- Several ploppable eyecandy stuff for your Dutch rural atmosphere.

It might take some time though.

That will be enough for today,

Greets and have fun!

FrankU

Well a quick search of my plugins, I have most of those already, Just need a few of them.  I have Pegs, but because of conflicts with something(NAM IIRC) I simply pulled it from my plugin's

As long as there are links to the files in the readme, I will definitely grab this

And thanks mrbisonm, I was afraid you wouldn't get what I was trying to say(I seriously need to get dragon, a lot of times what I am thinking never comes up right when I type it), and I have a majority of prop packs already, which makes these lots am instant download.  Just like your lots without dependencies were ones I would instantly download.  As long as I do not need to grab 10+ files for one building, I will usually grab things.  I have no issues with downloading 10+ files either, as long as they have current links to the files(as some link but the site is down or gone)

[RickD]

The farm lots look great already. I am not too concerned about the dependencies. Most of them are common and regular downloaders should have many of them already.

[catty]

Hi Catty,

You might revise your reply. I just finished my post. I had made a "Save" in between, because I fearded to loose everything with some kind of disconnect problem or so. Now I'm finished.

And indeed: the Cattle file is the one you think.

Hi FrankU

With your additions, I would need to get these as well

18. PEG_Spam_Super_Resource
21. vda_Langeraar Geerweg, by Vanderaap
22. Zeeland Cottages1, by Meurdoos
23. Zeeland Village 9 houses, by Meurdoos

I'd made a decision not to have any of the SPAM when it came out ... so good luck with your project

Catty

[zzsteven]

That's not a bad list of dependancies; already have most of them. I'm sure will have links to them when you release. 

The lots look great, which is the pasture field?

zz

[mrbisonm]

. I'm sure will have links to them when you release. 
zz

I'm pretty sure that FrankU will supply the dependency list, once the farmpack is available.

I'd made a decision not to have any of the SPAM when it came out ... so good luck with your project

Catty

Well, nothing against Peg's stuff, but usually his works don't "co-operate" with the rest of the mods (etc) that I have, so me too, I don't have the SPAM in my Plugins, but......I somewhat "stole" some models from his SPAM datfiles, only to rebuild some of my own lots they had and which looked quite nice to me.
But I guess not every is able to do that. I suppose that Frank will not use a SPAM model on every lot he will be making, maybe I will have some similar props in my packs by then.....

Fred

[catty]

Well, nothing against Peg's stuff, but usually his works don't "co-operate" with the rest of the mods (etc) that I have, so me too, I don't have the SPAM in my Plugins, but....

A little bit of that unfortunately, and while I could have done something about it, there wasn't anything I was desperate to have, I do have some of his older stuff like the garbage chute and barges, but mainly I stick to what's available on the LEX, and that's not a bias in favour of the LEX against other sites or creators, its just I do RTMT beta testing and it makes testing alot easier when you know your plugins are fairly standard as far as modding is concerned, so any problems that show up in beta testing is easier to spot, especially when you use the UK version of the game which sometimes doesn't work as well as it should.

[mike3775]

Peg makes some great lots(I love his navy lots and some of his port lots and his random forest plops), but like has been mentioned, to many things conflict with others.  He has some wonderful farm lots IMO, but the conflicts unfortunately are to much to work with. 

If these lots have some, no big deal, as long as its not to many

[mrbisonm]

I thought about the SPAM stuff being a Peg Production file. I have tried ALL his tuff and most of it does indeed conflict with many other files which I rather keep in my game, so I decided long time ago not to use anything that comes from his files, except extracting the modelfiles and do my own lots and mods.
The the idea came to me last night that the SPAM resource file is only a propdat,nothing more, no mod nor game files (lots). It shouldn't interfere with anything, so I downloaded it, made some quick lots with these and used them in the game without any problems for several gameyears.

So I can say without any worries nor doubt, that the SPAM resource file is totally troublefree and competant with any other files, if only used as a model propfile.

Depending of what this file contains (I will have a closer look at it this weekend), I will see if I cannot produce similar models and include them in my Pack, whih then will eliminate the necessity to download another dependency.

mrb

[mike3775]

I thought about the SPAM stuff being a Peg Production file. I have tried ALL his tuff and most of it does indeed conflict with many other files which I rather keep in my game, so I decided long time ago not to use anything that comes from his files, except extracting the modelfiles and do my own lots and mods.
The the idea came to me last night that the SPAM resource file is only a propdat,nothing more, no mod nor game files (lots). It shouldn't interfere with anything, so I downloaded it, made some quick lots with these and used them in the game without any problems for several gameyears.

So I can say without any worries nor doubt, that the SPAM resource file is totally troublefree and competant with any other files, if only used as a model propfile.

Depending of what this file contains (I will have a closer look at it this weekend), I will see if I cannot produce similar models and include them in my Pack, whih then will eliminate the necessity to download another dependency.

mrb

Thanks for testing them 

[FrankU]

Hi all,

Thanks for the feedback. You make me feel a bit less awkward about the dependencies.

It's clear that most of you don't have the dedicated Dutch files by Meurdoos, Haarlemmergold and Vanderaap. These will be neccessary in any case.

Fred alreday solved the discussion about PEG's SPAM files that I use. I do indeed only use the resource file, which has no game play interference at all. It is just a set of three files with models (and adjoining props) and textures. I use many of them, so don't be shy, the files are harmless and you can use them without risking your game.

I am a bit astonished about the bad experiences with PEG's stuff. I use (if I play the game, which I haven't for some months) his stuff extensively and never had any problems. Well, I did have Prop Pox, although not having the feared beach umbrella, but nobody knows if this problem is caused by some other PEG file.

And of course I will provide links to all files when the set comes out.

I also have some backup from my BNL team members. Some of them will test my first partial set this vacation in order to see if the farms follow the game rules. Of course you will hear about the results.

Regards,
Frank

[zzsteven]

Thanks Frank.
No, I don't have any of the Dutch files yet. It takes time to start DL'g stuff from a new team, having it posted on the LEX helps greatly. The "quality control" aspect of the LEX is a very important componant to my downloads. 

Have used Pegs stuff alot and have never had a problem. YMMV

zz

[mike3775]

Thanks Frank.
No, I don't have any of the Dutch files yet. It takes time to start DL'g stuff from a new team, having it posted on the LEX helps greatly. The "quality control" aspect of the LEX is a very important componant to my downloads. 

Have used Pegs stuff alot and have never had a problem. YMMV

zz

The stuff from PEG I have issues with are his lots that go along the water(like his navy bases, etc) because for some reason, when those get plopped, they go lower in the water than other shore based lots do(it may just be me), which drives me crazy because using terraformer's seaport option, should work, but when plopping his lots, it actually goes a tad lower then the surrounding land, which then I have to bulldoze and then raise the land higher then the surrounding to plop them, then hope the next lot doesn't go lower again(and a few times even doing that with raising, it goes lower than it should).  Thats the main issue I have.