PIMX Official support thread

[wouanagaine]

This is the support thread for PIMX



Added by CasperVg (04/01/2012):
If you experience any problems running SC4PIM on Windows 7 SP1, please install the patch that can be found here.

That file fixes a problem introduced by Win7 SP1 that causes some of Python's (programming language) required files to become corrupted, thus making SC4PIM fail to start. Fixing it is very easy, all you need to do is replace one file with a new one.


Added by RippleJet:
Please make sure you have also installed the latest SC4PIM New Properties XML Update.

That file will be updated and reuploaded whenever an error in properties or formulae are found.
Thus, please make sure that you've always got the latest updated new_properties.xml file!


PIMX went to public life after 2 years of heratic coding, more than 100 revisions, a stolen laptop with full recovery of sources from the executable, 131 pages of posts, almost none of them without RippleJet or Barby posting, and I haven't count the number of formulas Ripplejet wrote down nor the amount of ruined time spent by testers loosing their works because of stupid bugs.

PIM-X & LE-X couldn't have been made without the help of the following great people I want to thanks :

Special thanks to Ripplejet aka "superformulaman",
Special thanks to Barbyw aka "the goddess"
Without any special order many thanks to Callagrafx, Andreas, jmyers2043, SimGoober, Colyn, Vester, Swamper77, Serkanner, Jplumbley, vil, Indisguise, simrolle, JBSimio, Daeley, Rayden, jestarr,freedo50, marcszar, SandraSim1, sawtooth, D66, Sam, M4346, Couchpotato, rooker1, c.p., Heblem, Tag_one, jeronij, xxdita, mattb325, zero7, diggis, tooheys, Hogmeister, Shadow Assassin, Capo, BigSlark, citynut, Travis, paroch, jmouse, Unassigned, Cockato-210893, sarjm, Sithlrd98

German Translation : Andreas
Various graphics logo/icons/signatures: Callagrafx

So before you ask a "stupid" question and to respect the work done and amount of free time spent  by those people, please be sure you'll get and read the user guide

Also PIMX is known to work on my machine, so PIMX is officially labelled




It has been developped under XP at the beginning and Vista for more than 1 year
It has been tested under XP, Vista and Win7

If you have a problem running SC4PIM:
-Download the GLU32.dll and GLUT32.dll from http://www.dll-files.com/ and put them in SC4PIM folder
-Download the GDIPLUS.dll from http://www.dll-files.com/ and put it in SC4PIM folder
-Download the MSVCP71.DLL  from http://www.dll-files.com/ and put it in SC4PIM folder

If you have a problem running the LotEditor-X window, with weird message, and you have an Intel GPU card:
- Download http://downloadcenter.intel.com/T8Clearance.aspx?sType=&agr=Y&ProductID=&DwnldID=17407&url=/17407/a08/winvista_15124.exe&PrdMap=&strOSs=&OSFullName=&lang=eng
(This for vista 32bits, if you have another system, browse the site to find yours ) - Thanks to Travis for identifying the problem

When you report a bug, please be very specific on what you did, what files you had selected ( if appropriate ) and post a link to that file if publicly available
Posting "it doesn't work" obviously won't give you any chance I'll look at your problem.

Due to RL, my ever limited free time and my own willingness, no new features will be develop, so note that if you ask for requests, they won't be done unless I need them to play SC4

[wouanagaine]

FAQ and troubleshooting

On Vista or win7,  I can't see models
Make sure you disabled Aero [linkie]
Make sure you downloaded GLU32.dll and GLUT32.dll from http://www.dll-files.com/ and put them in SC4PIM folder

On win7 and with an ATI Card,  the textures in the LotEditor are incorrect
Make sure you have your latest ATI Drivers up to date. [linkie]




...more to come... unfortunatly 

[dragonshardz]

Awesome, it's out. Means I can ditch LE and the PIM. Here's hoping I don't EVER need to return to this thread with a problem.

EDIT: First startup...thumbnail loading window is like a look into the guts of SC4. And it loads just fine. Noticed it doesn't come with it's own icon, I can whip one up real quick from the logo @ the top of the page if you'd like.

EDIT2: Definitely going to need to take a good long read through the readme to figure out what everything does...but it seems that in addition to picking your building and creating props, and lotting, you can do some basic editing a la the ILive Reader.

[BarbyW]

EDIT2: Definitely going to need to take a good long read through the readme to figure out what everything does...but it seems that in addition to picking your building and creating props, and lotting, you can do some basic editing a la the ILive Reader.

Please do read the User Guide very carefully. It is not so much a Readme as an essential guide. Anyone who posts a query or problem here who hasn't read the User Guide will not get much help, sorry but that is the way it is.

[wouanagaine]

You can make an icon, but I really don't know when and if I'll implement it

And yes, PIMX is complex, so it is better to read the manual to get what it can and cannot do, and to understand how to do things right

[Bobbi]

Hello, wouanagaine.
I found a problem:

PIMX showed 28 error-information windows.


And they said something like this:

Code Select Expand

OverlayLoader : Error addind fsh 0x7ab50e44-0x0986135e-0x594cb303 from F:\Documents\Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\BSC\BSCTextures\BSC Textures Vol 01.dat



And at last, PIMX crashed.

PS: PIMX takes too many memory resources.

[BarbyW]

Bobbi: have you read the User Guide? Are you trying to open SC4PIM with too many plugins?
Read the User Guide carefully and properly

[MAS71]

  Congratulation to completed the PIM-X 

Wouanagaine and all of great staffs,
Thank you very much for PIM-X and your bigest efforts !!

Unfortunately, I can't get enough times for use it now,
but I'll do the best for support to japanese users about PIM-X too.

and
I could confirm that Japanese-Language (japanese.lang) was worked right (I made before).
so I want to sharing it later with announcement about a PIM-X in japanese forum as well.


well,
I hava a question now 
When I make .SC4Desc of Ploppalbe-R$($$,$$$)(Fanctional LM-R$) from SC4Model.
Where(what category) should I drag SC4Model to ??


Thank you 

[wouanagaine]

Hi mas san

Thanks a lot

There is no R Landmark as they are not functionnal in game, just drop your model in a eyecandy landmark

I haven't included your japanese.lang as I add many new texts this week. So please use the current.lang as a new base

Feel free to post it or update it to LEX when you're ok

Take care

[MAS71]

Thank you Wouanagaine for reply a quickly.

There is no R Landmark as they are not functionnal in game,

Did I misunderstand or/and misswriting again ?

I(we) have a lot of Ploppable-R$ works in the world.
When we make it, we always used a corrected "RCI Blank Lots Set"(Solved a problem of "Blank-Lots")
or
we made them by manualy with ILiveReader and more,

Do you say that
"PIM-X can not make Ploppalbe-R$ Lot" ?
or
"We should not make Ploppable-R$ Lot" ?

just drop your model in a eyecandy landmark

and what next step in PIM-X ?
Should we make Lot by manualy with Reader and/or SC4Tool with SC4Desc which made by PIM-X?


and
About Language-file, It's ok.
It need to check again and re-make it for a latest "current.lang" I think so.


Thank you for your helps.

[Korot]

MAS71: Both.
Plopable, functional R$ lots don't exist. The sims simply can't find a route to work, and thus the building abandons. You simply can't make a functional residential plopable, period.

Regards,
Korot

[RippleJet]

I(we) have a lot of Ploppable-R$ works in the world.

You might want to read this, Masuda san!

Ploppable Residentials, Functional or not?

Regarding ploppable residentials, please consider this:

The residential capacity reported is depending on desirability factors.
If desirability goes down, and the actual capacity drops below 50%, the building will dilapidate or become abandoned.

The biggest residential desirability factor is the employment. If people can't get employed they usually leave as soon as possible.

Desirability can be increased through other factors, e.g. education, health, land value, park effect, lack of crime, etc.
If you're able to compensate the negative effect of unemployment by these factors, you obviously are able to plop residentials.

Likewise, freight time is a desirability factor for industrials, but not as severe as the unemployment for residentials.
Thus, plopped industrials have a lot better chance of surviving.

For a plopped residential not to abandon right away, the desirability factors must be right when plopping.
That is the reason you have to plop them on top of an existing residential building with a good existing employment.

but...

First of all, even if the desirability is high, the chances are slim that you will get any occupancy in the residential building when you plop it.
Secondly, if you do manage to get an occupancy in it, the chances are still very slim that it would stay occupied for any longer period.

My experience is that it isn't worth the hassle to try to keep the desirability factors high enough for a building where unemployed people live.
Once you for some reason have managed to get a reduced desirability in the area (increased traffic, pollution, crime, etc.),
the building would become abandoned. And once it has abandoned it will never, ever become reoccupied.

Thus, knowing this, I have always said, and will always continue to say, that plopped residentials do not work.
Most people elsewhere wouldn't understand the more subtle explanation given here.

and what next step in PIM-X ?
Should we make Lot by manualy with Reader and/or SC4Tool with SC4Desc which made by PIM-X?

Right-click the building exemplar in SC4 PIM and create a lot... it's all explained in Barby's guide...

[Andreas]

Barby's guide is invaluable indeed. In the past, I only skimmed the draft now and then, but now that I have translated it into German for SimCityKurier, I finally realized the full potential of SC4PIM - that is, the whole number of things of what you can do (and what you can't do ). The same goes for the NAM readme. If I wouldn't have translated it - and by this, read it thoroughly - I'd know much less about it. But once you read everything in detail (and replay the steps either in your head or with the program itself), there's virtually every question answered already.

[MAS71]

Thank you for your polite answers Korot and Ripplejet. 

Oh I see...
I can understand very well about a Ploppable-Residentials, especialy, thanks to a quoted by Ripplejet.
Ye, It's really subtle issue.

Ok,
I understand well that it can not make a Ploppable-Residentials by PIM-X, as well.
Thank you again for helps and advices ! 

[hooha47]

First, thank you so much to everyone who worked on this.  It's obviously an outstanding new tool for creating custom content.  I love that I can see props in the lot editor, and the snap to grids



I do have one question, and forgive me if I'm being obtuse.  I have read the guide, but one thing I can't seem to find, is how to "save as" in the lot editor.  I want to edit a lot and save it as a new lot, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it.

Thanks in advance for any help, and again, thank you for giving us this wonderful tool.

[RippleJet]

I do have one question, and forgive me if I'm being obtuse.  I have read the guide, but one thing I can't seem to find, is how to "save as" in the lot editor.  I want to edit a lot and save it as a new lot, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it.

No, there is no "save as".
The only thing you can do is making a similar growable lot out of any ploppable one,
by right-clicking the lotconfig exemplar and selecting "Create a similar growable lot from this plopable".

Thus, if you want to create both a growable and a functional ploppable lot, create the functional landmark first, and finish that lot.
Then right-click and create a similar growable lot.

In order to copy the layout from one lot to another ploppable lot,
you'd need to copy the LotConfigPropertyLotObject properties between those lots (but not the one having Type: Building).

[hooha47]

OK, I know how to do that.  Once again you've answered my questions.  It seems like you do a lot of that around here. 

[Andreas]

Well, the thing is, you don't really need a "save as" feature anyway. The Maxis LE is using it, because you have to open an existing lot, remove everything (or at least some parts), change the building and then go from there. SC4PIM creates a blank lot whenever you're making a new descriptor (= a new building) anyway, so you don't have to start from an existing lot at all. So it's just another philosophy. As said before, copying an existing layout isn't very hard, but then again, if you really want a "save as feature" (i. e. for creating a series of similar park lots or something like this), you can easily use the Maxis LE for this, and then edit those lots with SC4PIM, and all the advanced features that it's offering.

EDIT: Yay, 3000th posting!

[wouanagaine]

In order to copy the layout from one lot to another ploppable lot,
you'd need to copy the LotConfigPropertyLotObject properties between those lots (but not the one having Type: Building).

To copy, select the lines with  LotConfigPropertyLotObject, right click, and you'll get a 'Copy properties', then go in your destination lot examplar, right click somewhere in it, and you'll got 'paste properties'
and IIRC, you can even select the one with the building, PIMX will not copy it. ( not in your case Tage, because you're too advanced  )

EDIT: Yay, 3000th posting!

Nice 3000th post

[RippleJet]

( not in your case Tage, because you're too advanced  )

You're the one being advanced here!