The FrankU and Nexis CO-OP

[evarburg]

late question from a late comer (my companion & co-mayor) : growable is great but will there be ploppables too ?

Sometimes, one is just impatient....

[mike3775]

late to the thread but here goes :

As long as we can still use SPAM (and other agri stuff, carefully vetted) with the new farms, it would be GREAT. The dependency question is moot indeed as most of us non-beginners have them all already (and some !)

OT here, but how does the SPAM and NAM react?  I know on Pegs site it states they are not compatible, so I have not tried to use it, but what issues arises from them both being in?

[rambuckel]

Hey you two,

great work so far!  Thanks mrbisonm for the link to this threat. I somehow didn't recognize it! It would be my pleasure to see my models on your farms! So feel free to use them.

I hope they will match with your models in size. If not, please give me a short note so that I can scale them for you.

I'll surely come back to see your progresses! 

- rambuckel

[mrbisonm]

Hey you two,

great work so far!  Thanks mrbisonm for the link to this threat. I somehow didn't recognize it! It would be my pleasure to see my models on your farms! So feel free to use them.

I hope they will match with your models in size. If not, please give me a short note so that I can scale them for you.

I'll surely come back to see your progresses! 

- rambuckel

Glad to see you here rambuckel, and also glad that FrankU will be able to use your farm models also. These will surely become some spectacular farms. (not putting too much pressure on Frank now.... )
I think the scale should be right, because I have worked on mine for quite awhile to fit in with all the other models on the "market", but just to give us both an idea, I will send you one of my model barns by PM this week and you decide if the scale is ok.
Btw, I just love your stuff.


Pk, Folks....I have finally started 2012 regularily, I mean I am back to normal sleeping and working hrs. I was gone on vacation, gone with and to my family and gone just being lost somewhere for the last month and during the holidays. Something I wanted to do for a long time. That means that I am also back on the project and I will show you some "peaks" of the variations and improvements that I have been doing.

evarburg, I don't know what FrankU has in mind including in the farmpack, maybe not ploppables for the moment, but I will surely do some ploppables for my MD/CJ (The Winding River Project), maybe you could just let me know when you see them there and I will send them to you.
About the fences , the paths and the position of the existing farmlots in the menu, we will not go into this since these are not a part of our farmpack. You will have to contact the righful owners (creators) for this. The Nexis farms have been done by CSX, if they still exist and are not my creations, but only my models and ideas.

noahclem, I don't think that it is a good idea to include the VIP cows on our list of dependencies, for the reason that HD models take more space and the other cows are good enough to use and also included in existing packs that we will use. But FrankU will again have the last word on this.

Glad to hear that all of you agree more or less for the need of the dependencies mentioned above. I didn't think that several others have the dependency list that I have.

Keep an eye on this thread later this week, some nice stuff in the preview coming up.

Fred

[FrankU]

Well, maybe it's time that I do some replies.

Noahclem
I did consider the VIP cows, because they are beatiful and they are black and white, which is the most common colour in the Netherlands. I decided against them, because I have already beautiful cows. The BSC set also includes sheep and pigs and I use these too. So for the sake of a short ( ) dependency list I leave them out. And also: the SPAM pack contains black and white cows too, but they are a bit blurred and I decided not to use them. Sorry Simpeg!

Evarburg
I don't know if ploppable farms will work in game? In principle I can make them, but anyhow they will be low on the list. But they are on the list, so don't lose hope!

gn_leugim
Thanks for the feedback!

mike3775
SPAM contains a traffic controller especially for the SPAM idea of farming. This file is not compatible with NAM or CAM, what was it again? If you leave this file out, the SPAM goes with NAM and even with CAM, as far as I know. And for my farms you don't need SPAM, if you have CAM, and you don't need CAM if you have SPAM. You need one of both, because the farms are up to stage 5. And later I will add stages 6 and 7, so I advise: CAM.
From the SPAM files you need only the textures and model files.

rambuckel
Welcome here! Nice to hear form you.

mrbisonm
Good to hear form you. Did you have a good time?
The pressure on me is increasing but surely not unbearable. Noworries!
I didn't have time to do much, but the project is growing step by step.

Frank

[mike3775]

The pressure on me is increasing but surely not unbearable. Noworries!
I didn't have time to do much, but the project is growing step by step.

Take your time buddy.  Do not overwhelm yourself.  I would rather wait until and get great lots, then not wait and have ok lots, and I am pretty sure others feel the same way

[mrbisonm]

As I mentioned before I have a picture for you all, not much, but at least proving that I am active again at the moment with this project.

A couple of months ago, I have sent the first set of props to FrankU, which he experimented with and tested thoroughly. He told me that there were some strange looking effects when plopping another prop close to them, they looked like they were somehow floating. We call this the "floating effect" which is actually caused by the LOD's from the rendering.
Since everything is rendered into a single box which is roughly squared out by the program, some models have difficiluties to being plopped close to others.

That of course FrankU didn't like, nor did I. So I got into the learning of making Custom LOD's. This is new and quite difficult for me and that is one reason because the whole thing takes so much time. I have many (and I mean many) props to render and I have to create the custom LOD's first, render, test and re-render those models which didn't render properly, which happens quite often with my computer.
And while I am at it, I am remodeling and retexturing some of the models also, now that I am getting better with the BAT with every model...
But it is the LOD's which take most of my time at this moment, and I want this Pack to be as good as I can do it.
Here's a sample of the LODs. As you can see , originally the LOD's are simply square, not allowing anything to be plopped close to it, once rendered.



Here is a picture of what they look like (with the retexturing and some more detailed modeling) in the pre-render.



...and some ingame pictures. I made this lot in 2 minutes, quickly to throw in some props and make it look fairly to show you mostly what the props look like ingame and also see that we can now plop other props very close to the Nexis models.





So, while FrankU is slowly chewing up his fingernails while waiting for my Nexis propset, I will continue to do my work, which will hopefully be enjoyed by the farmloving Players of SC4.

Thanks

Fred

[rambuckel]

And while I am at it, I am remodeling and retexturing some of the models also, now that I am getting better with the BAT with every model...

Well, that's pretty much the same experience I had recently. And for the same reason I had to "experiment" with LODs. But if it's understood once it's not too much of a problem anymore.

At the moment I try to learn how to work with lights ... I did not succeed yet  , but I guess I will when I go on trying

Great work again that you just showed!

And thank you for your commendatory words about my work

Theresa

[FrankU]

And while I am at it, I am remodeling and retexturing some of the models also, now that I am getting better with the BAT with every model...

And while you are getting better with every BAT, so am I getting better at lotting every time I work on my set. I am in no way biting my nails. Every moment I can find to work on the lots I can either make a new lot or I am improving the already existing lots.
Also my Dutch team members have been testing an unfinished testset and found some things that I have to improve.
In the meantime there also came some challenges in my direction, like the maize by rambuckel. This week I redid the maize field for the fourth time (first: Simgoober, then SPAM, then another Simgoober prop, then RFR).

So I am doing and redoing ..... having fun

Fred, the manurepit looks gorgeous!

[mike3775]

Looking good Fred.  They look exactly like I expected from you, which is great. 

Glad to hear you are having fun Frank, I remember reading threads on ST, and elsewhere where people were going to take a break because it "wasn't fun" anymore and sadly they never came back either.

[gn_leugim]

awesome work on those. very well detailed

[mrbisonm]

I remember reading threads on ST, and elsewhere where people were going to take a break because it "wasn't fun" anymore and sadly they never came back either.

Yeah, I remember those too, there was an oil refinery project once on ST that I just loved, but only parts of what was shown was published (forgot the name), but heck, did I ever hate this fellow when he dismissed and left nothing behind.
This won't happen with me (or us). I have been around for too many years to leave. Unless I get struck by a fatal health problem, I will continue to have my own way of fun with SC4 playing and modeling.

Right now I am thinking about buying myself another computer for rendering the models. lol..... Some of the models take 3 or even 4 hours to render, geeez,  why is that so? These 20 or so images shouldn't take more than a minute to save. I hate that program (BAT)! 

Anyways, hopefully I will have some more pics available this weekend and maybe the first half of the Pack for FrankU by next week, if the temperatures of -20 to -25C here continue to make me stay indoors

Fred

[carlfatal]

if the temperatures of -20 to -25C here continue to make me stay indoors

Oh my - years ago i thought about going to Canada, it´s big, empty and has a lot of trees (i love trees and would appreciate if my next neighbor would live three miles away although i really like him), but then i heard how cold it could be in winter. Only reading this makes me freezing.   
Away from that: these new BATs are looking awesome, the dung seems to be real, could smell it from the pictures... 
Really, really nice work,
greetz, Carl

[FrankU]

Right now I am thinking about buying myself another computer for rendering the models. lol..... Some of the models take 3 or even 4 hours to render, geeez,  why is that so? These 20 or so images shouldn't take more than a minute to save. I hate that program (BAT)! 

This reminds me of the 90'ies. I think it was 1995 that I participated in the Europan Young Architects contest with a friend. We were doing a project of reusing an old textile factory in Almelo (Netherlands). I had made 3D-wire models of our proposal and wanted to render them into flat perspective images.

Interruption: especially the younger readers will wonder: what was FrankU doing? Well, I try to explain.
The 3D-modelling abilities of normal computers those days went no further than the ability to make wire frame models or very simple 3D volume models. If I wanted to have images with perspective I had to render a wire frame model, in order to get rid of the lines that are hidden behind other planes.

Well, so I decided to make several renderings. I wrote a small batch file, so that my computer would render several images automatically one after the other. Every image would take about two or three hours. And so I started the process in the evening, went to sleep, woke up, had breakfast, went to the office, came back and found out that the computer had stuck after the second image... Next day I tried to do the rest. After half a week I had six or seven images. Nowadays these images would take about three minutes. All together.

And I am getting really curious about the models you are going to provide, Fred. I fear/hope/expect/want that I have to redo quite some of my lots drastically.

In the meantime I have added two pasture fields. Now I can provide my lots with three kinds of pasture farm fields. That means that there will be a variety in pastures that is getting realistically varied like you see on aerials of the Dutch landscape. It is obvious that not all pastures have the same colour, although funny enough most of them have the same species of grass on them.

And working on more lots...

I have a question too.
My BNL-team members have been testing the interim-finished lots and found out that my lots grow less often than the Maxis ones do. And because I want everyone to have the ability to mix thees farms (although I myself will use a Maxis blocker) I would like to edit my lots in such a way that they grow in balance with the Maxis lots.
Now there is the question: what property has influence on the growth frequency of my lots? Is it the number of jobs? Is it that I just need to change the number of jobs on my farms? If I change them, I will do it with SC4-Pim by editing the filling degree. This way all properties are in balance.
Who can help me out on this?

FrankU

[mrbisonm]

And I am getting really curious about the models you are going to provide, Fred. I fear/hope/expect/want that I have to redo quite some of my lots drastically.

Don't expect too much there, FrankU....lol. although............................................anyways. Don't worry about having to change your lots, the mainbuildings you already have some pre-renders will be the same, except with a little more details on texturing maybe. but nothing too drastic. You will be able to use most these props as the ones before.

For your question, well.....with this I cannot help, because I have no idea of tweaking the stats of a lot. Someone surely will though.

Fred

[mrbisonm]

Does anyone have a good Tire Texture and is able to tell me how to freaking put it on a tire?
I am about to shoot my model......lol, can't get it good looking.
Thanks, much appreciated.

Fred


........hope I didn't reveil one of my secret models???

[FrankU]

Hi Fred.....

You know my answer: I haven't the faintest clue.
Maybe this is a question for the BAT help forum?

[mrbisonm]

Hi Fred.....

You know my answer: I haven't the faintest clue.
Maybe this is a question for the BAT help forum?

Thought so too, just in case.......

BTW, have a look at this PPS link to download below, quite something interesting for Farmers, a real "green farm" in the middle of the desert. Unbelievable...... . Sorry in dutch and french only, but images are quite amazing, the rest you can guess.

Fred

http://www51.zippyshare.com/v/65706672/file.html

[FrankU]

Hi Fred,

Thanks, this is very interesting. It is quite a curious PPT though. I see German, Dutch, French and English. Is it real or is it a fake?
If it's real it tells us: farming is possible anywhere as long as there is water, power and people (to do the work, but also to consume it), which makes it an optimistic message in my eyes.

But lotting this would be a stage 15 IHT lot, I'd say. A megalot of 20x20 tiles? 

Happy BATting! Does it proceed?

Frank

[FrankU]

Hi friends,

It has been quiet for some time in this thread. I hope this post will induce some reactions though.

For the upcoming farms set we need farm fields. Don't we? So I have been working on these for some time already. I showed results before, but now that the set is almost finished I thought it might be the right moment to show what it's going to be like when the set is released.
I am considering to release the farms fields as a separate upload, because some of you might want to use these fields for your own farms.

In fact the only thing I need to do now is replace the not yet perfect Maize model by the final one that is being BATted by rambuckel from the RFR team. Then wait for rambuckel to upload her prop pack, finish the readme, and upload.

For the set I scrutinized all prop packs that I needed anyway for my farms set, so there are no extra downloads neccessary. The list is quite long for those who want to use these fields for their own farms. I guess I can do you a favour if I make clear in the Read Me which dependency is exactly needed for which farm field. They will be separate files in the upload, so you can delete what ever you don't want.
And of course there is an additional folder with ploppables available.

I tried to make all fields seasonal as much as I could with the available props I had available. This means that some fields have as much as 10 stages, but others no more than 6. And some aren't seasonal at all: the meadows, forest and tree nursery.

The crops have their Latin names, because I could not choose between my home language (Dutch) and our international language (English) so I chose the historic international language.

The Flower Fields
First I worked on Simgoober's tulip props. I made my own prop exemplars out of the models provided by Simgoober, because I wnated the tulips to grow in a realistic manner, that also looks good in game.
In rela life the tulip fields are not grown because of the flowers, but because of the bulbs. This n\means that the flowers of the tulips are to vbe seen a very short time, just some weeks. After that the flowers get cut off and the green of the tulip grows some more time. In these weeks the bulb grows furter. Then in the end all plants get reaped within a very short time.
So waht you see when the flower fields grow is this:
1 - An empty field.
2 - 1/3 of the green tulip plants show up.
3 - 2/3 of the green shos up.
4 - The field is full of green tulip plants.
5 - 1/3 of the flowers show up.
6 - 2/3 of the flowers.
7 - All flowers.
8 - Flowers are cut off, the green remains.
9 - All is reaped, an empty field remains.
The cycle is one year.
For the fun and beauty of the flowers I made the time that the flowers show much longer than in real life, because otherwise we would be looking at an empty farm field for too long.

Simgoober made seven colours, so I have seven flowers. I tried to find a name of a real existing variety that matches the colour.

Here they are:

Tulipa Golden Apeldoorn


Tulipa Joffre


Tulipa Maureen


Tulipa Menton


Tulipa Ollioules


Tulipa Orange Bouquet


Tulipa Shirley


The Seasonal Fields
Many props by Simgoober and SimPeg (from the SPAM) are useful for seasonal props. I also liked some props from several other prop packs. Because I wanted the crops to grow in my own way I made new prop exemplars for the used models. Your plugins list will show a lot of FvU_* props when you add this set!

The following crops have two stages: first the youg crop grows and over it (mostly about 1 meter higher) another prop grows to resemble the full grown crop.

Aspagargus Officinalis (Asparagus
)

Beta Vulgaris (Sugarbeet)


Brassica Oleracea (Brussles sprout)


Cucurbita Ficifolia (Pumpkin)


Rheum Rhabarbarum (Rhubarb)


Solanum Tuberosum (Potato)


The following two fields have three stages.

Triticum Aestivum (Wheat)
A low young crop, a medium crop and a full grown crop.


Zea Mays (Maize)
A young crop, a full grown crop and the remaining stubbs after reaping.


The following fields have different crops with less stages. Some of them remain visible the whole year: either green or yellow, existing or not existing, carying fruit or bare... Depending on what I had.

Humulus Lupulus (Hops)


Malus (Elstar) (Apple (this time no Steve Jobs involved))


Ribes Rubrum (Red currant)


Rubus Fruticosus (Blackberry)


Rubus Idaeus (Raspberry)


Non Seasonal Fields

Some fields are not seasonal: the meadows look the same all year round. Not very realistic, but what can I do? We need seasonal textures for this, or flat props that cover a whole tile. If someone feels like working on these I will make farm fields out of them! I considered to make the fields seasonal by adding Chirsadam's grass props, but that would be too unrealisitc in the end, I thought.
The forest is not seasonal too. Although there are many seasonal trees in my dependency packs (CP!) I can not use them on these farm field, because the fields are filled with prop families, otherwise the result would be too repetitive.
And the tree nursery has no seasonal effect, because conifers don't loose their needles/leaves in our climate.

Hortum Arboribus (tree nursery)


Pratum 1 (Meadow, SPAM texture)


Pratum 2 (Meadow, CP texture)


Pratum3 (Meadow, Maxis texture)


Silva (Forest)


That's all folks. Comments are welcome!