Mod The Sims - Discussion: Lot Size, Orientation, Rotation, etc.

Mootilda

6th Sep 2007, 04:56 PM

This thread was spun off from the LotExpander thread, since this is more about modding lots than about the LotExpander tool.

Here's a link to a Table of Contents for this thread. We're trying to organize the thread so that it's easier to follow the topics that matter to you:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1818481

Here are some pointers to interesting research and tutorials:

Building to the edge of a lot:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=254032

Adding and Subtracting Roads from a Lot
How to Create a Corner Lot:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1778052&postcount=11

Moving the Road and the Front of a Lot
How to Rotate a House on a Lot:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1778075&postcount=12
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=255110

Changing the Terrain for an Existing Neighborhood
Adding Roads to an Existing Neighborhood:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1920389#post1920389

How to Remove Fence Posts from a Lot:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1801146&postcount=513

Here are some pointers to interesting downloads which have come out of this research thread:

HoodReplace - Replace Neighborhood Terrain:
http://www.modthesims2.com/member/showthread.php?t=279992

Shrinking the Size of a Lot (currently in testing):
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1801236&postcount=518

Portal Revealer:
This tool allows you to see, move and rotate portals on your lot:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251392

Sunny mini lots:
Residential: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251798
Community: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251800

Row Houses (currently in testing):

Walls 1 Tile from the Edge of a Lot: (safer than walls on the edge):
plasticbox: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=281667
aelflaed: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=282179
niol: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=282280

Walls On the Edge of a Lot: (may cause crashes)
plasticbox: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=254042
aelflaed: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=254686
Inge Jones: http://simlogical.com/slforum/index.php?topic=916.0

Posts on other websites regarding our research:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=10117.0
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=10087.0

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Original Post:

From: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1761475:

I can find round-pool mesh (gmdc) in the 3D folder (by finding "pool" or poolShapeWall in simpe), material definitions in the related shaders... (by searching "round" in shader scripts) but the latter one I've found is related to the graphical treatment only.

I'm unsure if you're interested in material shaders, but there may be something helpful there:
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=Talk:ShaderLotskirt
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=Talk:ShaderTerrain
niol, thanks for your help. I'll take a look at those and see whether there's anything useful.

So far, all of the problems with the lot expander have been new record instances which aren't documented in the sims2wiki... I'm hoping to find some time to update the wiki with the information contained in the lot expander code.

I suspect that the rounded pool problem is a bit different... existing record instances that aren't quite being handled correctly...

I've never done modding before and I don't think that I have the skills down yet. I'm used to having descriptions of file formats and access to source code. Each new problem with the lot expander has required me to develop a new debugging technique (new for me, I mean). Once I determine what the problem is, the solutions tend to be pretty easy.

Thanks again. I appreciate any help that people can give.

niol

6th Sep 2007, 07:56 PM

Mootilda,

I guess the shaders cam only help gain the insight on how Maxis design the lots.
But now, there're also beach lots... just hope it only affects the vertexes and meshes...
haven't been able to get it fresh, have to wait for at least a few days. :)

Once you realise the challenges, you'll learn to overcome it... I see that you're planting great fruits... :)

Anyway, if you may tell more about how the lots can be modded more even manually, I bet you will get willing audience including me... :D

Thanks for all your wonderful efforts again... :anime:

Inge Jones

15th Sep 2007, 07:15 PM

at Mike's

17th Sep 2007, 12:52 PM

That's terrible Inge , I also have the same problem myself, I like "Veronaville", but to make a great neighboorhood, I want to try to make diverent style of rowhouses for the citycentre, but because I don't have the skills I have to wayt till the lot expander is ajusted, or a new tool is developed... It's up to me to be very pacient...

Mootilda

17th Sep 2007, 06:16 PM

I have revisited this thread to see if it's yet possible to make shorter beach lots :) I have one neighbourhood terrain where the road is very near the sea. Although I can place a beach lot, it "reclaims" too much land before it dips to the sea.
Can you explain to me what the problem is?

Is this occuring because the lot expander levels the expanded land? Is there some other problem with the lot expander that I might be able to look into?

Or, is this a different tool that you're requesting? If so, can you explain what you need the tool to do?

niol

18th Sep 2007, 05:31 AM

Mootilda,

I guess Inge might have meant to mod how a new beach lot affects the neighbourhood terrain curvature along the sealine.

Inge,
By the way,
Can the neighborhood.txt script affect that? (the txt script we use to make highly inclined lot templates etc...)

Inge Jones

18th Sep 2007, 07:57 AM

Yes it's because the beach raises a lot of the land up from the sea. This was meant to be a very narrow strip of beach along the road, just room for a fishing shack or a seafood stall. So I thought if I could have some different lengths of lots, it wouldn't happen. I don't think tinkering with the config will help, because the beach/sea portals are already placed on the lot template and they decide where the sea begins. It may be that shrinking from the road edge is what is needed.

But I remembered that MaryLou made some tiny lots after this tool was made, and I thought that was connected with it in some way?

niol

18th Sep 2007, 03:00 PM

For a lot page, it tends to start to count from the lot's left top away from the road. This is also true to floor tiles.

If I didn't misunderstand what she did, she might have used the lot expander in base game configurations to expand some empty lot templates Andi8104 released on this same thread and surely alter the lot zones for the community ones.

BTW, for lot re-zoning, there're 3 major ways to make lot templates for all EPs and the base game.
1. cheats under EP1 UNI without UNI content. (simplest & easiest)
2. mod the neighbourhood package as Andi8104 had shown. (not hard)
3. lot file replacement with a community lot of the same dimension specs. (easy)
Only the first method requires EP1 while the other two do not take any EP to switch the lot zone.

Newly created lot basically has no specific data but just the basic format and data copied from the lot template.

Well, I wish I could dig into it but my another game copy is still on the make :P (a new OS copy + defrag + new installation + etc)

Mootilda

18th Sep 2007, 05:38 PM

Can the neighborhood.txt script affect that? (the txt script we use to make highly inclined lot templates etc...)
BTW, for lot re-zoning, there're 3 major ways to make lot templates for all EPs and the base game.
1. cheats under EP1 UNI without UNI content. (simplest & easiest)
2. mod the neighbourhood package as Andi8104 had shown. (not hard)
3. lot file replacement with a community lot of the same dimension specs. (easy)
I wonder whether someone could provide me with links to the information about the neighborhood.txt script and to Andi8104's post about how to mod the neighorhood package?

I've never tried to make a beach lot, so I don't really understand the issues involved at this time.

Mootilda

25th Sep 2007, 09:17 PM

How to Interpret U10 and U11:

If you use SimPE to open a neighborhood and go to the Lot Description for a lot, there are two hex numbers which are of interest: U10 and U11. These two numbers are currently displayed at the top right of the Lot Description Editor Plugin View in SimPE.

U10 tells us the location of the road(s):
0x01 Left
0x02 Top
0x04 Right
0x08 Bottom

U11 tells us the orientation of the lot in the lot file, ie where the front of lot is. It also determines the location of the sun on the lot:
0x00 Left (sun at back left)
0x01 Top (sun at front left)
0x02 Right (sun at front right)
0x03 Bottom (sun at back right)

In general, you will find that these two numbers are paired as expected. To see this in action, open some lot files in SimPE and select "Texture Image" in the Resource Tree and [lot id]!terrain_txtr in the Resource List. The TXTR Editor Plugin View shows a picture of the house and road on the lot. The picture is rotated in the direction specified by U10 and U11 in the neighborhood package.

Here are some examples from Pleasantview:

Lot77: 210 Wright Way
U10 = 1 & U11 = 0
Road on left and house faces left:
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_628622_N001_Lot77terrain_txtr_128x128.png

Lot40: 35 Woodland Drive
U10 = 2 & U11 = 1
Road on top and house faces top:
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_628623_N001_Lot40terrain_txtr_128x128.png

Lot73: 250 Main Street
U10 = 4 & U11 = 2
Road on right and house faces right:
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_628624_N001_Lot73terrain_txtr_128x128.png

Lot79: Woodland Park
U10 = 8 & U11 = 3
Road on bottom and house faces bottom:
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_628625_N001_Lot79terrain_txtr_128x128.png

In order to have more than one road on a lot, you just need to add the hex numbers for the locations of the roads (U10) together, for example set U10 to:

Left and Top: 1 + 2 = 3 = 0x03
Left and Bottom: 1 + 8 = 9 = 0x09
Right and Top: 2 + 4 = 6 = 0x06
Right and Bottom: 2 + 8 = 10 = 0x0A
Roads on all sides = 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15 = 0x0F

If you don't understand how to do hex arithmetic, just add the numbers together normally and then convert numbers greater than 9 using the following table. Please note that this technique for hex arithmetic doesn't work in the general case, but will work for us because the numbers involved are small:

10 = 0x0A
11 = 0x0B
12 = 0x0C
13 = 0x0D
14 = 0x0E
15 = 0x0F

As an example:

Brandi Broke's house
Lot36: 55 Woodland Drive
U10 = 3 & U11 = 0
The house is facing to the left and the road is on the left and top of the lot:
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_628639_N001_Lot36terrain_txtr_128x128.png

Warning about multi-road lots:

Each road will take up one full neighborhood square (which is equal to ten lot tiles). So, a lot needs to be bigger for each road which surrounds it, just to get the same buildable area. Since the maximum size of a lot is 6x6, a lot which is surrounded by roads on all sides will have a maximum buildable area of 4x4.

Mootilda

25th Sep 2007, 09:49 PM

How to Create a Corner Lot:

First, read this post to understand the U10 and U11 fields in the neighborhood package:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1778032&postcount=10

Instructions for adding roads to your lot:

1) Backup your neighborhood before trying this technique.

2) Ensure that your lot has enough room for the new road: one additional square in the neighborhood view, or ten additional tiles in the lot view.

3) Open the neighborhood in SimPE.

4) Determine the orientation of the lot (U11).

5) DO NOT, under any circumstances, change U11. This is very important. If U11 doesn't actually match the data in the lot file, you can cause major problems.

6) Determine where you want the new road, based on the orientation of the lot and the current road location (U10).

Here's a trick that I use to get the values right:

First, draw a very rough sketch of your house and the current road, viewed from above, on a piece of paper.

Then, rotate the piece of paper so that the road is at the left, right, top or bottom of the page, depending upon the old U10 and U11 values.

Now, keeping the paper in the same position, mark where you want the new road(s) to go. Each new road will either be at the left, right, top or bottom of the page. From this, we can determine the new U10 value, by adding the U10 values for each road location.

7) Change the value of U10 as discussed above. SimPE works best if you leave the existing "0x0" prefix and just change the last hex number.

8) Commit the change, save the neighborhood file and exit SimPE.

9) Start the game and go into the neighborhood.

10) Use the "Move or Rotate Lot" tool in the "Lots and Houses - F2" menu to move the lot so that it "snaps" to the appropriate roads.

Voila! You now have a corner lot.

Please note, I just tried this technique on Don Lothario's house at 150 Main Street. I used the LotExpander to increase the lot size by one on the right side (as viewed from the road), then changed U10 from 0x04 to 0x06. It worked like a dream.

Mootilda

25th Sep 2007, 10:20 PM

How to Rotate a House on a Lot:

While thinking about adding and removing roads from a lot (see post above), I realized that this technique will also work for changing the orientation of a house on a lot. There are several Strangetown lots which annoy me because the front door faces the side yard.

I used the following technique to rotate 57 Road to Nowhere in Strangetown by removing the existing road, adding a new road near the front door, and then changing the orientation of the lot and rotating it in the neighborhood.

In other words, we don't actually rotate the house on the lot. Instead, we move the road and change the orientation of the lot in the neighborhood. Because of this, the direction of the sun in relationship to the house will not change.

First, read this post to understand the U10 and U11 fields in the neighborhood package:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1778032&postcount=10

Instructions for rotating a lot:

1) Backup your neighborhood before trying this technique.

2) Ensure that your lot has enough room for the new road: one additional square in the neighborhood view, or ten additional tiles in the lot view.

3) Open the neighborhood in SimPE.

4) Determine the current location of the road (U10) and the current orientation of the lot (U11).

5) Determine where you want the new road, based on the current orientation of the lot and the current road location. Remember, the house will remain in the same place on the lot, but we will move the road and the orientation of the lot.

Here's a trick that I use to get the values right:

First, draw a very rough sketch of your house and the current road, viewed from above, on a piece of paper.

Then, rotate the piece of paper so that the road is at the left, right, top or bottom of the page, depending upon the old U10 and U11 values.

Now, keeping the paper in the same position, mark where you want the new road and front of house to go. This new road will either be at the left, right, top or bottom of the page. From this, we can determine the new U10 and U11 values:

U10 = 1 & U11 = 0 House faces left, road on left
U10 = 2 & U11 = 1 House faces top, road on top
U10 = 4 & U11 = 2 House faces right, road on right
U10 = 8 & U11 = 3 House faces bottom, road on bottom

6) Change the values of both U10 and U11 as discussed above. It is important that the U10 and U11 fields match: for example, if we are going to move the road to the left side, then we need to change the orientation of the house to left as well. SimPE works best if you leave the existing "0x0" prefix and just change the last hex number for both of these fields.

7) Commit the change, save the neighborhood file and exit SimPE.

8) Open the lot file in SimPE and change the portals.

See my post on moving portals:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1778523

You can also check out Andi's original post on creating a 1x1 lot for information about changing the portals:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1376196

9) Start the game and go into the neighborhood.

10) Use the "Move or Rotate Lot" tool in the "Lots and Houses - F2" menu to move the lot so that it "snaps" to the appropriate road. A portion of the lot may appear to be bright blue... don't worry, this is completely normal and will be fixed in the next step.

11) Go into the lot. You will need to delete the old road (just treat it as a set of floor tiles) and move the mailbox and garbage can. To do this, you will probably need to turn moveobjects on temporarily. Then, save the lot and return to the neighborhood view to ensure that everything looks right.

12) Run a quick test to ensure that the portals have moved correctly. You want to check that each of the following groups enter and leave the lot at the expected point:
- Pedestrians
- Transportation like cars, carpools, buses and taxis.
- Service vehicles like maids, gardeners and handypeople.

plasticbox

25th Sep 2007, 10:28 PM

Mootilda

25th Sep 2007, 10:56 PM

Mootilda, thanks for this info =) I haven't quite wrapped my head around it, but I'm very happy to see that there is a way to change the orientation of a lot! You wouldn't believe how often I've rebuilt houses because of the stupid sun ... this is quite a relief.
I'm still trying to get the tutorials "right". I have these notes in my blog on thesims2.ea.com and I'm trying to turn them into a proper tutorial with pictures. This is probably a better place for this stuff, anyway (especially because it's so much easier to add pictures).

I'll also look into changing the portals and try to write up a tutorial for that. Just give me some time to work it all out.

Sorry for the frequent changes, but I realized that it's helpful to have this information as 4 separate posts: U10 and U11, portals, adding roads, and rotating lots.

Please let me know if anything isn't clear and I'll try to fix up the tutorials. I find that it really helps to look at the texture images in SimPE... that's how I figured all of this stuff out.

plasticbox

25th Sep 2007, 11:10 PM

Mootilda,

the wording of your posts is excellent -- the only reason i said "can't wrap my head around it" is that it's midnight here, I was in the office until 11, and I'm just .. done. Not even *trying* to think clearly anymore.

In the same spirit, a (possibly useless) followup question: what happens with the visitor portals upon lot rotation? Do they rotate with the street automatically (are they tied to the street on a technical level), or is it hit and miss? Just asking because I expanded lots to the left/right a few days ago, and the "outgoing" portal (where pedestrians leave) sometimes didn't move .. they walked to the middle of the lot and vanished.

aelflaed,

I'm not keeping any secret knowledge =) (because you say "that must be what I need to do") -- the only way I managed to make lots with different orientation was that I could use 2 different orientations to start with (Numenor's 2x2 lot is opposite to Andi's 2x1). I think Mootilda's posts above are the key to differently-orientated mini lots!

eta: oh cool, I just stumbled over this post http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1376196#post1376196 -- this might be the key to row houses? I've GOT to try this. I've built some row houses on overlapping lots on the weekend (which is really easy with the lot expander :lovestruc ), but the flickering of the overlapping part is just unbearable in-game. Pity, as they look great in neighbourhood view.

aelflaed

26th Sep 2007, 12:40 AM

[QUOTE=plasticbox]
I'm not keeping any secret knowledge =) (because you say "that must be what I need to do") -- the only way I managed to make lots with different orientation was that I could use 2 different orientations to start with (Numenor's 2x2 lot is opposite to Andi's 2x1). I think Mootilda's posts above are the key to differently-orientated mini lots![QUOTE]

plasticbox, I realised you just started with the lots facing differently, but that info isn't any help until I can make the lot smaller than the original - which hopefully I will now be able to figure out.

How did I miss Andi's instruction Post? I went all through this thread, thinking it must be in here. And it is. Now I have to see if I can work it out - not a programmer, but fed up with sun-behind-house-syndrome.

I do look forward to Mootilda making the Expander work in minus numbers - that will be very handy!

I will fiddle with SimPE and see if I can work it out. Thanks for the pointers everyone.

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 12:52 AM

Mootilda, thanks for this info =) I haven't quite wrapped my head around it, but I'm very happy to see that there is a way to change the orientation of a lot! You wouldn't believe how often I've rebuilt houses because of the stupid sun ... this is quite a relief.
I re-read your post and realized that this probably won't actually solve your sun-direction problem for existing houses. Sorry.

For aelflaed's question about empty lots, my technique should be adequate. But this only works because there's no existing house, so moving the location of the road should change whether the sun comes in at the front or at the back.

When a lot is "rotated" using my method, the house and (I assume) the sun stay in the exact same location. The only things that change are where the road and the "front" of the lot are.

I haven't looked into this sunshine problem very much, but I think that it's difficult to solve for an existing building. Within the lot file, there are lots of arrays, each with their own format. Each array would need to be rotated individually. Now, programs are usually really good at this kind of thing, but not even Andi understood the format for some of the arrays... and I can assure you that I'm still struggling with them too.

It's possible that the "difficult" arrays could be ignored, since this is what the LotExpander does (more or less) and it works. I could write a program to rotate all of the arrays that I actually understand. Who knows whether this would actually work... I'm still trying to understand what each array controls.

I will certainly put this on the to-do list, but it seems pretty difficult so I'm afraid that it won't get a high priority.

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 01:06 AM

In the same spirit, a (possibly useless) followup question: what happens with the visitor portals upon lot rotation? Do they rotate with the street automatically (are they tied to the street on a technical level), or is it hit and miss? Just asking because I expanded lots to the left/right a few days ago, and the "outgoing" portal (where pedestrians leave) sometimes didn't move .. they walked to the middle of the lot and vanished.
The portals are not tied to the roads, so the "rotation" technique outlined above isn't complete yet. However, it should work for an empty lot, since Andi documented how to change the Portals for an empty lot.

I'm going to look into how to move the portals for a non-empty lot to another side of the lot... should be similar to the existing LotExpander logic.

Once I've figured that out, I'll write a tutorial. I might even try to make 1x1 lots for each direction, if no one's done it yet. Then, people can expand the 1x1 lots using the LotExpander to get the sunshine where they want it.

The current LotExpander is supposed to move all of the portals. If it doesn't work on a particular lot, then please let me know. If you attach a copy of the lot, I'll try to find and fix the problem.

aelflaed

26th Sep 2007, 01:24 AM

Oh dear, very first problem - how do I make SimPE open the Basegame Starter Proi neighbourhood? It wants to open the full game information.

I do want to make a basegame 1x1, because that's what I want to use.

I'll go check Numenor's Starter Pro thread in case I can find it there.

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 02:22 AM

Oh dear, very first problem - how do I make SimPE open the Basegame Starter Proi neighbourhood? It wants to open the full game information.
Instead of using:

Tools / Neighborhood / Neighborhood Browser

you need to use:

File / Open

and then open the N###_Neighborhoood.package file directly from the correct location. Unfortunately, I can't point you at the "correct" location for the Basegame Starter Pro tool.

aelflaed

26th Sep 2007, 04:18 AM

(...)
you need to use:

File / Open

and then open the N###_Neighborhoood.package file directly from the correct location. (...)

Thankyou! SimPE is full of buttons that I don't know how to use - this process will teach me a few more things I suppose.

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 06:40 AM

Thankyou! SimPE is full of buttons that I don't know how to use - this process will teach me a few more things I suppose.
If you're not too familiar with SimPE, then my "rotate a house on a lot" technique is probably your best bet, since it involves the fewest changes. It looks complex, but the hardest part is just deciding which values to use for U10 and U11.

Changing the portals is pretty easy, as well. Just follow the last part of Andi's post. Most houses have the portals in XOBJ Instances 3-8 and you can verify this in the hex editor. Look for the following strings in the corresponding OBJT Instances:

Portal - Pedestrian
Portal - Car - Service Start
Portal - Car - Service Stop
Portal - Car - Start
Portal - Car - Stop

Note that there will be two different Instances for the Pedestrian Portal; you need to change both.

If you need any more help, please let me know. I'd love to see a 1x1 lot with the sunshine in the other direction.

Inge Jones

26th Sep 2007, 08:25 AM

I've never taken any notice of the sun direction. It does seem silly though that although we can now "see" the neighbouring roads and houses, the current lot is still firmly divorced from the terrain it sits on. Also annoying is that when you play a lot that is sitting near the water and is therefore on a part with sandy effect, it makes all the hood look like it is sandy (apart from the roadside verges grrr!), but when you are in a grassy lot, it makes even the waterside lots look grassy.

I have had an idea for building row houses. Could you take a 2x2 lot, build one of the row houses in the centre of that, using 10 tiles, then hack the lot to reduce the size just to where the house is? That might get round the problem of not being able to place walls on the edge of the lot.

plasticbox

26th Sep 2007, 09:55 AM

The current LotExpander is supposed to move all of the portals. If it doesn't work on a particular lot, then please let me know. If you attach a copy of the lot, I'll try to find and fix the problem.

OK, no it didn't work like that for me. I expanded some 1 tile wide lots to 2 tiles wide, and the spot where the pedestrians leave ended up in the middle of the sidewalk (not at one of the ends) .. I think I've thrown these lots away meanwhile, but I'll test this some more and get back to you. Within the next few days, or maybe on the weekend.

(Also, I seem to recall you -- or someone else looking at the lot expander -- saying they have difficulties with Andi's originally german comments in the code .. if this is still an issue, maybe i can help? Let me know? German is my first language)

how do I make SimPE open the Basegame Starter Proi neighbourhood?

I solved that -- for the LotExpander, not SimPE, but the issue is the same -- by moving the NXXX folder to FullGame/Neighbourhoods (so that the expander can find it), then fiddling with the lots, and then moving it back .. as long as you don't run the full game while it's in there, nothing can happen to it. Maybe an "Open .." feature would be nice for the LotExpander too? OTOH the clientele that uses both the base game starter *and* the lot expander is probably around 10 people on the planet .. perhaps not really worth the effort.

Could you take a 2x2 lot, build one of the row houses in the centre of that, using 10 tiles, then hack the lot to reduce the size just to where the house is?

Yes, that's what I meant above =) -> http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1376196#post1376196 -- this might be the key to row houses?" -- this is where Andi describes how to decrease the size of a lot; it's been there for a year or so ($%§/!') but I only saw it when Mootilda linked to it somewhere. This should work, with a 3xN lot to start with and then decrease the size by 1 on both sides. I think.

aelflaed

26th Sep 2007, 09:57 AM

Hi again

plasticbox, Mootilda showed me an easier way to find the right neighbourhood. File menu / open / browse to the correct file. Easy and obvious, proving I just have a blockage about the whole thing.

I've been trying both Andi's method and the move-the-road method. With both, I can do the first bit, then I just don't understand SimPE enough. Or else it's too many numbers, not sure which. I'm finding it very hard to follow the instructions, or to know if I'm looking at the right bit of information. A tute with screenshots of SimPE would be useful.

I did find the info about U10 etc very understandable, and had no trouble with that part of the process!

I agree that moving the road will be simpler, and that is my current aim. I had no trouble altering the road to the correct side. (Looks funny with the mail and rubbish on one side, with the roadway still on the other!)

However, I can't work out about changing the portals, which I need in order to do either method. Sigh. When hubby is available I will ask if he can help. He programs, so that may solve it.

If not, I'll be back here. Thanks for your patience.

(edit - might as well ask) I have had to replace missing portals on some of my lots in the past, using somebody's fix, so I do understand that they exist and all that. But what exactly do I have to do when I have identified the right portal info? I don't understand Andi's instructions on that at all.

(edit) Hubby has no idea either, but thinks we're looking in the wrong place for the portal information. Aaargh!

Where do I "open the lot file in SimPE?" Maybe I'm starting from the wrong place altogether.

Also, if I want to move the road on the 1x1 lot, will that work? Effectively I'm just swapping which side of the rectangle is the road, and which the building space. Or do I need to start with a 1x2 lot? But then I would have to crop it anyway. Aaargh again!

Sorry to be so dense. (Maybe someone else should do this - might be quicker, and less painful all round.)

(edit, yet again) I have successfully moved the road on MaryLou's 1x1, and the light angle is now correct. However, presumably the portals are all wrong, so the carpool will probably arrive in the middle of the house.

When I find out how to do the portals, it will be marvellous.

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 05:42 PM

Hi everyone. I've been trying to respond to some of these posts, but ModTheSims2 keeps going away, so I've lost a bunch of what I typed.

I investigated the portals yesterday and started work on a tutorial with pictures. However, I understand that the LotExpander logic doesn't always work. Here's my suggestion:

Let me work on a tutorial to describe what I know. Then someone else can see whether they can actually get it working for the 1x1 rotated lot. While they are doing that, I'll look into why the LotExpander fails to move the portals correctly (sometimes? all the time?).

As for the Row Houses... I have some ideas on how to approach this. I think that it might be testable with a good hex editor (one that allows deletion). Try a base game lot with walls but nothing else. This should reduce the amount of work which needs to be done, but still be able to prove or disprove the whole concept.

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 06:54 PM

Inge Jones has created a tool which allows you to see, move and rotate the portals on a lot. This is much easier than changing the portals in SimPE. Get the tool here: http://www.modthesims2.com/member/showthread.php?t=251392
[End Update]

Where do I "open the lot file in SimPE?" Maybe I'm starting from the wrong place altogether.
First, you need to determine filename of your lot. Here's the method that I use:

In SimPE, open the neighborhood and select the Lot Description for your lot. In the plugin view on the left-hand side, you will see the Instance underneath the Version. For example, in Pleasantview the Broke family house, 55 Woodland Drive, has an Instance of 0x00000024.

To convert the Instance from hex to decimal, just bring up the Windows Calculator and choose Scientific from the View Menu. Now, click on the Hex radio button and type in the Instance. You don't need to type in the leading 0x or the leading zeros. For the Broke family house, I type in 24. Now, click the Decimal radio button and the number will be converted. The Broke house is stored in lot 36.

In SimPE, select Open from the File menu and navigate to the Lots subdirectory of your neighborhood. Open the file Lot###.package, where ### is the decimal instance number that you calculated above. You can verify that you have the right lot by selecting jpg/tga/png Image in the Resource Tree and browsing through the pictures. (I thought that the house name was there somewhere, but I can't seem to find it right now).

Also, if I want to move the road on the 1x1 lot, will that work? Effectively I'm just swapping which side of the rectangle is the road, and which the building space. Or do I need to start with a 1x2 lot? But then I would have to crop it anyway. Aaargh again!
Yes, just use the existing lot. There is no need to expand it. A 1x1 lot is really a 1x2 lot, with one of the tiles taken up with the road. You want to move the road to the other tile and the house will be built where the road used to be.

Sorry to be so dense. (Maybe someone else should do this - might be quicker, and less painful all round.)
"Teach a person to fish"... and maybe I'll get a chance to play the game again! ;)

I have successfully moved the road on MaryLou's 1x1, and the light angle is now correct. However, presumably the portals are all wrong, so the carpool will probably arrive in the middle of the house.
Almost there...

When I find out how to do the portals, it will be marvellous.
Here's the quick version:

[U]How to Move a Portal:

1) First, backup what you've done, in case this doesn't work.

2) Open the lot file in SimPE (see above).

3) Although the Portals are usually stored in XOBJ Instances 3-8, it is wise to check this before making any changes.

3.A) In the Resource Tree, select the Object (OBJT) which has the larger number of entries.

3.B) Sort the Resource List by Instance by clicking on the word "Instance" in the Resource List title:

Name Type Group Instance (high) Instance <- Click here!
3.C) The OBJT Instances should now be sorted numerically from 1. If they seem to be in reverse order, just click on "Instance" again to sort them in the other direction.

3.D) Look through the OBJT entries to find the 6 Portal Instances. See the following two posts for additional information:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1778248

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1780690

4) Select Object XML (XOBJ) in the Resource Tree and sort the Resource List by Instance.

5) You will want to change the Portal coordinates in the Instances that were found in step 3.D. Select one of the XOBJ Instances that you want to change. Choose Hex at the bottom of the screen to go into the hex editor.

6) You need to change the two 4-byte floating point numbers (AKA "Single"s) at bytes 80 and 84. Since SimPE displays the byte numbers in hex, you need to look at the Single value stored at 0x50 and the Single stored at 0x54. (You can confirm this using the Windows Calculator to convert from Decimal 80 to Hex 0x50).

Click the mouse on the byte at 0x50 and drag to select the four bytes from 0x50 and 0x53. Now, look under the array. You will see the bytes that you selected displayed in various formats:

Byte: Int:
Short: Long:
Single: Double:
Binary:

You want to change the "Single" value. Just type the number that you want and then press the Enter key; the value in the array will change to reflect what you typed. Don't be worried if the four hex bytes look odd to you... floating point numbers are not stored in an obvious format.

You will need to change two Singles per Instance at 0x50-0x53 (X) and 0x54-0x57 (Y). See the following post for additional information:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1780690

7) Now, the only problem left is deciding where to move the Portal. Your lot is 1x2, so one corner of your lot is at coordinates 0,0 and the other is at either 10,20 or 20,10 (depending upon the U11 value).

This means that the values of the portals should be between 0 and 20. Since I haven't gotten that far in my investigation, you could just try experimenting. I'd look at the current values in these two Singles, to see whether you can determine what they should be changed to. See below for an example.

8) After changing both Singles for this XOBJ Instance, then commit and repeat for the rest of the Portals. Finally, save and exit and test the lot in your game.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

As an example, let me show you what the portals for the Broke house look like. The Broke house is a 3x3 lot, facing left (U11=0), with a road at the left and another road at the top (U10=3).

From the string values in OBJT Instances 3-8, we find the type of portal:

Instance 3 = Pedestrian
Instance 4 = Pedestrian
Instance 5 = Car Start
Instance 6 = Car Stop
Instance 7 = Service Start
Instance 8 = Service Stop

From the floating-point values in XOBJ Instances 3-8, we can determine that the current portals have the following coordinates:

3 Pedestrian X=1.5 Y=9.5
4 Pedestrian X=28.5 Y=9.5
5 Car Start X=1.5 Y=5.5
6 Car Stop X=20.5 Y=5.5
7 Service Start X=28.5 Y=4.5
8 Service Stop X=12.5 Y=4.5

Here's what I can deduce from these numbers:

- The bottom left corner of the lot is at X=0 Y=0.
- The top left corner of the lot is at X=30 Y=0.
- The top right corner of the lot is at X=30 Y=30.
- The bottom right corner of the X=0 Y=30.
- The game likes the portals to be at least 1.5 in from the edge of the lot. Because your lot is so small (only 10 wide), I might try 1.0 or even .5 in from the edge, instead (just to see what happens).
- The sidewalk closest to the house is at Y=9.5
- The side of the road closest to the house is at Y=5.5
- The side of the road farthest from the house is at Y=4.5
- The Car Stop and Service Stop portals are not at the edges of the lot. Instead, they seem to be closer to the mailbox. So, this probably indicates where we want them to stop while at the house. Fooling around with these values may allow us to have more cars on the road.

How do I know this?

The transportation objects, like carpools, buses, and taxis (Portal - Car) start at X=1.5 and stop at X=20.5. We know that these objects come onto the lot from the right side of the house and leave from the left side (when viewed from the front). Because of the U11 rotation, this puts the car start at the bottom left of the lot and the car stop closer to the top left.

The service objects, like maids, gardeners and handypeople (Portal - Car - Service) start at X=28.5 and stop at X=12.5. We know that these objects come onto the lot from the left side of the house and leave from the right side (when viewed from the front). Because of the U11 rotation, this puts the service start at the top left of the lot and the car stop closer to the bottom left.

Pedestrians come onto the lot at the front of the house, from both directions. Thus, there are two Pedestrian portals at X=1.5 and X=28.5.

Cars always travel on the side of the road closest to the house, thus Y=5.5, just slightly to the house-side of the first 10 tiles, which contain the road.

Service cars always travel on the side of the road furthest from the house, thus Y=4.5, which is within the first 10 tiles and thus on the road, but slightly to the side which is away from the house.

Pedestrians always travel on the sidewalk closest to the house. Thus, Y=9.5, which is just within the first 10 tiles (which contain the road and two sidewalks).

I hope that it's obvious from this how I derived the coordinate system. Now that we understand the coordinate system, it should be easy to decide where to move the portals, based on the new location of the road.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Aha I found an interesting picture in one of Andi's posts:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1376989
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/3989/xobjjg5.jpg
Here's my version (I just find it easier to think about things this way around):
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/8/9/2/5/2/MTS2_Mootilda_629221_Road2.JPG
They should be identical... it's just a question of which picture works for you.

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 07:25 PM

I have had to replace missing portals on some of my lots in the past, using somebody's fix, so I do understand that they exist and all that.
Do you have the link to the Portal fix? I'd be very curious to see this. Thanks!

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 08:00 PM

I've never taken any notice of the sun direction. It does seem silly though that although we can now "see" the neighbouring roads and houses, the current lot is still firmly divorced from the terrain it sits on. Also annoying is that when you play a lot that is sitting near the water and is therefore on a part with sandy effect, it makes all the hood look like it is sandy (apart from the roadside verges grrr!), but when you are in a grassy lot, it makes even the waterside lots look grassy.
Yes, that is unfortunate. I can't think of any way that we can fix this... have you complained to EA?

I have had an idea for building row houses. Could you take a 2x2 lot, build one of the row houses in the centre of that, using 10 tiles, then hack the lot to reduce the size just to where the house is? That might get round the problem of not being able to place walls on the edge of the lot.
This is an ongoing discussion. See post #385 and replies:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1767050

I'd love to see someone test this and see whether the concept is fundamentally sound.

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 08:42 PM

The current LotExpander is supposed to move all of the portals. If it doesn't work on a particular lot, then please let me know. If you attach a copy of the lot, I'll try to find and fix the problem.
OK, no it didn't work like that for me. I expanded some 1 tile wide lots to 2 tiles wide, and the spot where the pedestrians leave ended up in the middle of the sidewalk (not at one of the ends) .. I think I've thrown these lots away meanwhile, but I'll test this some more and get back to you. Within the next few days, or maybe on the weekend.
If this is a common problem, then I ought to be able to reproduce it fairly easily. I'm still pretty new at this and I appreciate all bug reports. Because of what happened with Andi, I feel a strong need to document all bugs, suggestions, techniques, etc.

Does this problem with the portals occur all of the time, or only when expanding 1x1 lots to make them wider?

The logic for the portals is pretty complex, but I'm wading through it. I'm sure that this is fixable. I've put it on my to-do list.

(Also, I seem to recall you -- or someone else looking at the lot expander -- saying they have difficulties with Andi's originally german comments in the code .. if this is still an issue, maybe i can help? Let me know? German is my first language)
Thanks. I especially had problems when I first took over the project, since I didn't have a clue what the program was doing and the language barrier didn't help. Since I've been working on it, I've been converting the variable and function names to English, as I figure out what they are for. For the moment, I think that I have things under control. However, I might ask you for translation help in the future.

Maybe an "Open .." feature would be nice for the LotExpander too?
Yes, this is something that I've wanted as well. Another item for the to-do list.

Inge Jones

26th Sep 2007, 08:46 PM

I'll spend a bit of time playing (testing?) this when I have finished these wretched sunbathing towels that have already taken four times as long as they should :D

Mootilda

26th Sep 2007, 08:53 PM

What exactly do I have to do when I have identified the right portal info? I don't understand Andi's instructions on that at all.

(edit) Hubby has no idea either, but thinks we're looking in the wrong place for the portal information. Aaargh!
Yes, your husband was right. When I pointed you to Andi's post, I accidently confused OBJT (which has the "portal -" strings) and XOBJ (which contains the actual portal coordinates).

I suggested that you look at the OBJT Instances to ensure that the portals are actually stored in Instances 3-8. However, it is the corresponding XOBJ Instances which need to be changed.

I'm really sorry about that. I can see that this might have been confusing. I've fixed it in my original post, so hopefully no one else will have a problem with this.

aelflaed

27th Sep 2007, 03:36 AM

If this is a common problem, then I ought to be able to reproduce it fairly easily. I'm still pretty new at this and I appreciate all bug reports. Because of what happened with Andi, I feel a strong need to document all bugs, suggestions, techniques, etc.

Does this problem with the portals occur all of the time, or only when expanding 1x1 lots to make them wider?(...)

I have enlarged the 1x1 lots, and the pedestrian portals were off. Can't remember about the others.

Do you have the link to the Portal fix? I'd be very curious to see this. Thanks!

Here's a link...
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=83684

There was actually another thread related to this, about the millions of nannies/pizza boys accumulating on the lot (which was what I had noticed). At the time I only had basegame, but the fix worked anyway.

it is the corresponding XOBJ Instances which need to be changed.

I'm really sorry about that. I can see that this might have been confusing. I've fixed it in my original post, so hopefully no one else will have a problem with this.

Thanks for your tutorial post above. I will try again and let you know how I go. By the way, the lot I have half done is pretty weird - I suppose the game thinks there is road on both halves, and won't build or place items on either side without the cheat. And the carpool didn't come at all, although the mailman and visitors did alright. Anyway, I'll go see if I can finish the job now.

aelflaed

27th Sep 2007, 04:05 AM

I did just fine up to this point, and now I'm lost again:

Select one of the XOBJ Instances that you want to change. Choose Hex at the bottom of the screen to go into the hex editor.

We want to change the two 4-byte floating point numbers (AKA "Single"s) at bytes 80 and 84. Since SimPE displays the byte numbers in hex, we need to look at the Single value stored at 0x50 and the Single stored at 0x54. (You can confirm this using the Windows Calculator to convert from Decimal 80 to Hex 0x50).

Click the mouse on the byte at 0x50 and drag to select the four bytes from 0x50 and 0x53. I will try to post a shot of the screen I'm looking at, in case that helps you point me in the right direction.

We do seem to be getting there. In very small increments.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 04:29 AM

I have enlarged the 1x1 lots, and the pedestrian portals were off. Can't remember about the others.
OK... I think that I can see the LotExpander code which is causing this problem. It really doesn't look like it will work properly when expanding 1x1 lots. I'll have to think about what the "correct" solution is, but I should be able to fix this fairly easily.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 04:54 AM

I did just fine up to this point, and now I'm lost again:

We do seem to be getting there. In very small increments.
The "small increments" are because I'm figuring things out as we go. Once we get this working, I should have enough information to write a proper tutorial (unless you'd like to do it).

OK, you seem to be in the right place. However, you haven't selected the 4-byte floating point number at 0x50 and your screen is too small to see the display of the number at the bottom of the screen. Once you've selected the 4 bytes, you'll need to scroll the bottom part of the window down until you can see the "Single:" number.

I've attached two screenshots. One is the OBJT Instance 3, to show where it says that Instance 3 is the Pedestrian Portal (I believe you've already seen this).

The other is the XOBJ Instance 3. I have selected the 4-bytes starting at 0x50 and highlighted where the floating-point number (single) is displayed.

You will type in the new number beside the word "Single:" and press the enter key. Then, select the next 4 bytes in the array and continue.

Would you mind typing in the X and Y values for the 6 portals, and what you've decided to change them to?

niol

27th Sep 2007, 05:18 AM

Lol, problably list out all the 16 possibility and link changes in the portal placement to the estimated outcomes for a change for lot expanding instances.

If the beginning origin of a lot is the top left corner end, the answer may be there. This's at least true to how flopor tile is mapped.

The portal is nornmally moved by moving the mailbox which is associated with it, and that's how I switch the portal direction on the broke corner lot. To change the portal direction is to change the mailbox's direction with the moveobject cheat in-game.

Mootilda
,
:dances for you:
Thanks for all the great details and infos... :)

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 05:35 AM

Actually, from what I know about Andi's 1x1 lot, I'm going to guess what the values are:

Pedestrian X=1.5 Y=9.5
Pedestrian X=8.5 Y=9.5
Car Start X=1.5 Y=5.5
Car Stop X=5.5 Y=5.5 (not so sure about this X value)
Service Start X=8.5 Y=4.5
Service Stop X=4.5 Y=4.5 (not so sure about this X value, either)

Assuming that I'm right about the values above, and since we're rotating the lot 180 degrees so that it now faces to the right, I'd suggest the following new values:

The pedestrian portals are still in the same X position, but are now 9.5 from the right side, rather than 9.5 from the left side:
Pedestrian X=1.5 Y=10.5 (20-9.5)
Pedestrian X=8.5 Y=10.5 (20-9.5)

The cars now come in from the top right, rather than from the bottom left, but still stop near the mailbox:
Car Start X=8.5 (10-1.5) Y=14.5 (20-5.5)
Car Stop X=4.5 (10-5.5) Y=14.5 (20-5.5)

The services now come in from the bottom right, rather than from the top left, but still stop near the mailbox:
Service Start X=1.5 Y=15.5 (20-4.5)
Service Stop X=3.5 (10-6.5) Y=15.5 (20-4.5)

Perhaps this picture will help.

Now, just rotate the picture based on the value of U11. The bottom left corner is always X=0 Y=0. The top left corner has coordinates X=lot size (ie, 10,20,30...) Y=0. The bottom right corner has coordinates X=0 Y=lot size.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 05:41 AM

The portal is normally moved by moving the mailbox which is associated with it, and that's how I switch the portal direction on the broke corner lot. To change the portal direction is to change the mailbox's direction with the moveobject cheat in-game.
Really? I didn't know this. So, is this only for the pedestrian portals? If so, it's definitely an easier way of changing those two portals, anyway. It sure would be nice if this would work for all of the portals... much easier than using SimPE.

aelflaed

27th Sep 2007, 05:51 AM

Once we get this working, I should have enough information to write a proper tutorial (unless you'd like to do it).

We'll see how frustrated I am by the finish...

That post helped me understand which things to highlight, and I went into the OBJT thing to see what portals were which - and it seems that 7 and 8 in my lot are actually the mail and rubbish, while 1 and 2 are the other two portals. Good thing I looked.

the current values seem to be
01 service start 50 = 8.5, 54 = 4.5
02 service stop 50 = -9.5, 54 = 4.5
03 car start 50 = 1.5, 54 = 5.5
04 car stop 50 = 0.5, 54 = 5.5
05 pedestrian 50 = 8.5, 54 = 9.5
06 pedestrian 50 = 1.5, 54 = 9.5

I haven't changed the values yet - have to go out, so I will fiddle some more later - I think I know WHAT to change now, just not what to change it TO. I'll read your instructions some more and try to get my head around it.

Would you mind typing in the X and Y values for the 6 portals, and what you've decided to change them to?

If and when I work it out, sure! Thanks for your continued patience.

(edit) have just seen the newest posts above, so will compare that info later too. Thanks everyone.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 07:01 AM

That post helped me understand which things to highlight, and I went into the OBJT thing to see what portals were which - and it seems that 7 and 8 in my lot are actually the mail and rubbish, while 1 and 2 are the other two portals. Good thing I looked.
Yes. I'm surprised, since the information about the portal instances being 3-8 came from Andi's post about creating the 1x1 lot - the very lot that you're trying to change!

Anyway, I changed my post above to reflect this... no more assuming where the portals are.

the current values seem to be
01 service start 50 = 8.5, 54 = 4.5
02 service stop 50 = -9.5, 54 = 4.5
03 car start 50 = 1.5, 54 = 5.5
04 car stop 50 = 0.5, 54 = 5.5
05 pedestrian 50 = 8.5, 54 = 9.5
06 pedestrian 50 = 1.5, 54 = 9.5

Wow! A negative number for the service stop? I wonder what that means?

The other numbers look similar to my guesses...

I think that the 1x1 lots are a bit odd, since they have so little space for vehicles at the front of the house. I wonder whether Andi fooled around with these a bit to find values that actually worked?

aelflaed

27th Sep 2007, 11:42 AM

Breaking news...

I changed the values,and all the portals now appear, although somewhat oddly. The cars and services have swapped sides of the road (and directions - the driver is still to the centre of the roadway). All vehicles halt about level with the middle of the house/mailbox. The pedestrian and paperboy enter the lot at about the right point, but slightly off the path.

Still can't build without the moveobjects cheat. Any idea what is causing that?

The values I currently have are
car start X 8.5, Y 14.5
car stop X 9.5, Y 14.5
service start X 1.5, Y 15.5
service stop X 19.5, Y 15.5

I haven't altered the pedestrian portals from what I said earlier.

How would I alter what side of the road the cars are linked to?

Edit - I tried putting the mailbox down the side of the lot, and the paperboy appeared in the middle of the road and then walked over to put his paper beside the mailbox as usual. So I moved it back again. Proves that shifting the mailbox alters the pedestrian portals.

niol

27th Sep 2007, 12:30 PM

just a fast guess, the negative value may be directionally relative to the mailbox-linked portal.

Just incase,
the lot description Ltxt instance number may be related to the lot file name number

Ltxt instance number : lot file name number : in-game lot name
0x00000010 : N001_Lot16.package : 150 Main Street
0x00000012 : N001_Lot18.package : 170 Main Street
0x00000024 : N001_Lot36.package : 55 Woodland Drive (Broke corner lot)

aelflaed

27th Sep 2007, 02:09 PM

I changed the values,and all the portals now appear, although somewhat oddly. The cars and services have swapped sides of the road (and directions - the driver is still to the centre of the roadway). All vehicles halt about level with the middle of the house/mailbox.

I've been fiddling with the portals, and this is my latest setup:

Service start 9.5, 14
Service Stop 3.5, 14
Car Start 2.5, 15.5
Car Stop 9.5, 15.5
Pedestrian 9.5, 10.5
Pedestrian 1, 10.5

This seems to work fine, but the vehicles are still on the wrong sides of the street (actually, since I'm Australian, it's the correct side, but not the Maxis side). I vaguely remember seeing a mod somewhere that changed the side cars drove on - maybe that's the clue (or maybe they were moving the road, just like this.)

The cars and people all line up properly on their pathways now.

My next big question is, how do I enable the building/placing again? Currently, none of this can be done anywhere on the lot without the moveobjects cheat. I was wondering if this is one of the other things Andi was changing when he reduced the lot size...cleverer heads than mine will have to think that one out.

If the building problem can be fixed, the lot is ready. I'm quite proud of having got the numbers to perform in the end. I may even do a couple more lots, just for practice.

I will be away now until Tuesday, so I'm hoping someone will tell me how to enable the building when I next look. Thanks again for everyone's help so far.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 04:54 PM

This seems to work fine, but the vehicles are still on the wrong sides of the street (actually, since I'm Australian, it's the correct side, but not the Maxis side).
To swap the side of the road used, we just need to swap the Y values between the Car Portals and the Service Portals:

Service start 9.5, 15.5
Service Stop 3.5, 15.5
Car Start 2.5, 14
Car Stop 9.5, 14
Pedestrian 9.5, 10.5
Pedestrian 1, 10.5

This makes sense... the service start and stop should be at the far side of the lot (closest to the lot height of 20), whereas the car start and stop should be closer to the house (ie, closer to the edge between the two tiles at Y=10). The pedestrian portal is even closer to the house than the cars, since pedestrians use the sidewalk on the house-side of the road.

Note that this will not change the direction that the cars are travelling. If that's wrong, too, then we'll need to change the X values as well.

I will try to create a picture to illustrate this and attach it here.

My next big question is, how do I enable the building/placing again? Currently, none of this can be done anywhere on the lot without the moveobjects cheat. I was wondering if this is one of the other things Andi was changing when he reduced the lot size...cleverer heads than mine will have to think that one out.
This is a potentially more disturbing problem.

My initial suggestion is to run the LotExpander, but don't expand the lot (ie, leave Front, Back, Left and Right as 0 in step 4, then click on Next). You will get a warning message:

"No Value Changed

"You didn't change any of this Lot's Values. So the only effect is unlocking all tiles of the lot. Tiles will only remain unlocked until you replace the lot the next time. Is this your intention?"

Click on the "Yes" button. The LotExpander will unlock all of the tiles on the lot and you should get a final screen to that effect.

Unfortunately, there's a possibility that this will only fix the lot temporarily. If you run the game and move the lot in the neighborhood again, the game will relock anything that it believes to be a road tile. If you find that this relocks both tiles, then we have a more difficult problem on our hands; let me know and I'll do some investigation.

If the building problem can be fixed, the lot is ready. I'm quite proud of having got the numbers to perform in the end. I may even do a couple more lots, just for practice.

I will be away now until Tuesday, so I'm hoping someone will tell me how to enable the building when I next look. Thanks again for everyone's help so far.

I also want to thank you for the work that you're doing.

You are not just creating a 1x1 "south" facing lot, which will be something that other people can use.

You're also helping to develop a procedure which other people can use to rotate their own lots. I'm really hoping that (at the end of this all), all of this information that we're generating can be pulled into a great tutorial, or even notes for a new "LotRotater" program.

Inge Jones

27th Sep 2007, 05:06 PM

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 05:13 PM

just a fast guess, the negative value may be directionally relative to the mailbox-linked portal.
Initially, I assumed that the portals had to be on the lot itself, which meant that one value had to be between 0 and the lot height, and the other value had to be between 0 and the lot width.

But, I realized that this may not actually be true.

We've all seen how sims and cars "magically" appear out of thin air near the edges of the lot.

If you zoom out from the house, so that you can see the lots on either side, a portal value which is outside of the expected range could mean that the pedestrian or vehicle will appear within the road or sidewalk of the next lot over.

If this actually works, it's a really nice feature.

Not only could we see our visitors coming sooner, but it might solve the problem that small lots can't handle too many vehicles!

Just incase,
the lot description Ltxt instance number may be related to the lot file name number

Ltxt instance number : lot file name number : in-game lot name
0x00000010 : N001_Lot16.package : 150 Main Street
0x00000012 : N001_Lot18.package : 170 Main Street
0x00000024 : N001_Lot36.package : 55 Woodland Drive (Broke corner lot)
Yes, this is the method that I use to determine the filename of a lot. Too bad that SimPE doesn't display the lot numbers in decimal, as well as hex.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 05:31 PM

I tested the principle of the row houses and I believe it would work. It didn't go quite right because I found it impossible to accurately edit the huge rows of hex where I should have deleted two chunks of bytes on every line over several files. It's not realistic to do that manually, so I hope shrinking will be included in the lot expander.

Anyway I got a lot 11 lot-tiles wide (I meant to make it 10) and unfortunately I deleted the left hand 19 rather than the left 10 and the right 10 as I had intended. Again something including it in the program would easily help with.

I started by building a simple square building on the centre 10 tiles of a 3x2 lot. The walls remained standing on the edge of the lot and therefore could be used as the party walls of a row house.
This is excellent as a "proof of concept".

I agree with you that this is much better suited to a program... I wish that I had more time to devote to the LotExpander, or that there were other people to help with the programming. However, I've got this pretty high on my to-do list; your work will encourage me to work on the issue of decreasing the lot sizes.

If you clone this lot and put three of them side-by-side in the neighborhood, do you still see the flickering at the edges of the lots?

I didn't think that a lot size of 11 would even work. Well, another assumption bites the dust.

Inge Jones

27th Sep 2007, 05:55 PM

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 06:44 PM

Ok, well I put three in a row, and there was no flickering at the edges of the main part of the lot. But there was some on the left-hand column from the pavement and across the road. I think that might be explained by the lot might have been confused about what size it was. For example, as I started with a 30 tile wide lot, which is 0x1D, I changed that to 0x0A. But in some places it said 0x1E or 1F, and then I changed it to 0B or 0C respectively. But maybe that was not right. I believe that if the lot had been a safe and sound 10 tiles all the way back, the flickering would not have happened. Or if it had been 11 all the way, or anything consistent for that matter lol :D
Sounds like you made the correct changes. Each of the arrays in the Lot file store their information in a different format. If the original size seems to be 1 tile too large or small, then you need to have the new size for that array be 1 tile too large or small. If you don't, then the game could crash when it tries to access the array.

It seems more likely to me that the flickering was caused by having a lot which was 11 tiles wide. I suspect that the game wouldn't like that very much, although it's handling the oddly-sized lot better than I thought that it would.

Would you say that this is an improvement on the "overlapping lots solution", even if we can't remove the flickering near the road? Sounds like these lots might be sharable, since you are able to move them around.

Inge Jones

27th Sep 2007, 07:28 PM

Absolutely it would be much better visually as well as much easier to use. I don't think the road will flicker when the lot is the right size. Actually if you look carefully under some circumstances the lot edge flickers anyway, it's just that it's such a thin line of flicker it isn't obstrusive. Yes I put the lot in the bin and then could place it as much as I liked.

I really was very careless in my editing and I didn't do all the 2D array stuff at all once I saw how it hurt my eyes to try and edit the hex. Perhaps if I had done every bit according to instructions there would be no flicker at all.

Another problem with overlapping lots is the sims from the current house walk through the next door house walls. They can't do that if the lot is the size of their home only.

Actually, I can't think why EA made it impossible to build walls at the edge in any case.

niol

27th Sep 2007, 07:46 PM

Lol, Inge
That's really eye-opening...

Now, I'm wondering the largest lot ever 64x64 and the daring size larger than 64!
What willl that be even if it may mess up. :D

I guess the graphical flickerings is due to 2 sets of graphical presentations just happening to compete with each other to get presented on the monitor. If the graphical presentation of one of the overlapping lot can be graphically silenced, probably trying some floor tiles of layers lower than "0" can help hide a side of a connecting lot ...

added some feedbacks... :D

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 07:58 PM

Absolutely it would be much better visually as well as much easier to use. I don't think the road will flicker when the lot is the right size. Actually if you look carefully under some circumstances the lot edge flickers anyway, it's just that it's such a thin line of flicker it isn't obstrusive. Yes I put the lot in the bin and then could place it as much as I liked.

Another problem with overlapping lots is the sims from the current house walk through the next door house walls. They can't do that if the lot is the size of their home only.
This is really excellent information, Inge. Thanks so much for looking into this.

I'm sorry that it will take a while to actually implement this in the program.

Inge Jones

27th Sep 2007, 08:02 PM

niol

27th Sep 2007, 08:39 PM

oh, just 1 tip for those who still don't know this,

whenever a lot can't be placed back, it may be good to just quit the game and refine the alterations again.

I kinda thought the pick-and-dump action is for lot with updated road side only. I don't know.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 08:43 PM

On a separate issue, I have just tried using the expander to try to extend a lot under the sea surface. I started off with a 3x1 lot, created on a steep slope and then placed by the sea so that it dipped the land and became flooded. So far so good. Then I wanted to extend the lot out further to see, with the plan of building a pier.

Unfortunately the instructions to pick up the lot and align it to the road spoilt my plans, since the game did not allow me to put it back down as it was now encroaching onto the sea area.

Is there a way I could have done this and not need to pick the lot up after expanding? Should I have expanded the front instead of the back or something?
I haven't fooled around with beach lots before. However, you shouldn't have to move the lot within the neighborhood to regenerate the road. This is especially true if you don't expand the lot width (that is, the measurement of the lot along the road... also called the lot "frontage"). Note that a lot created like this may not be sharable...

Do you have Bon Voyage? Have you tried using the new beach lots?

Inge Jones

27th Sep 2007, 08:52 PM

Oh yes I have used beach lots, they are great! But I was just using the normal lot with the old method of flooding for this purpose. I chose to expand the back of the lot, but it seemed to grow forwards, meaning it went across the road it had been placed on, and the road was over the road, if you see what I mean. The instructions tell you that you have to pick the lot up and line it up with the road, but obviously you can't do that if you're hoping to have it overlapping the water.

I can't use a beach lot for making a pier because you can't build past where the beach starts. And anyway they are already full length.

niol

27th Sep 2007, 09:03 PM

lol Inge,

probably forgot about this. :)
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=250533

niol

27th Sep 2007, 09:13 PM

May make it optional for users who want more...
Thanks regardless of your decision...
:)

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 09:23 PM

I chose to expand the back of the lot, but it seemed to grow forwards, meaning it went across the road it had been placed on, and the road was over the road, if you see what I mean. The instructions tell you that you have to pick the lot up and line it up with the road, but obviously you can't do that if you're hoping to have it overlapping the water.
I think that this has to do with the orientation of the lot in the neighborhood.

When the LotExpander expands a lot, it has this logic:
if (Lot.Orientation == 0)
Lot.Top -= FrontYard.Value;
else if (Lot.Orientation == 3)
Lot.Left -= FrontYard.Value;I haven't really looked at this code and the meaning of the "Orientation" field, but I suspect that this is what's causing your lot to move forward after expansion. I believe that the code is trying to ensure that the lot remains in the correct location, but it's not succeeding in your case.

Can you tell me what the "Orientation" of your lot is? SimPE displays the field as Below, Left, Above, or Right...

As well, can you tell me the U10 and U11 values for your lot?

Inge Jones

27th Sep 2007, 09:28 PM

lol Inge,

probably forgot about this. :)
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=250533

I didn't forget about it. I gave it a jolly good go this afternoon, but no amount of move_objectsing or constraining boolprops would let me use build objects within those sacred reserved beach tiles! Was it really a beach lot, or just a lot by the sea?

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 09:50 PM

May make it optional for users who want more...
Yes, I think that the LotExpander should try to expand lots in-place. That is, the road that's in front of the lot should remain in the same place in the neighborhood. The only exception would be if the lot is expanded in front. Then, I'd like to see the LotExpander move the lot back from the road an appropriate amount (that is, unless the user checks "Over the road").

I believe that this was Andi's intention with the code above, but it's clearly not sufficient.

In other words, I think that this is another bug which needs to be fixed. I have added this to the "to do" list.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 09:54 PM

I didn't forget about it. I gave it a jolly good go this afternoon, but no amount of move_objectsing or constraining boolprops would let me use build objects within those sacred reserved beach tiles! Was it really a beach lot, or just a lot by the sea?
I have no idea whether this will work, but you might want to give it a try:

First, back up. (I probably don't need to tell you this, but I've seen too many corrupt lots...)

Create a true "Bon Voyage" beach lot.

Run the LotExpander, but don't expand the lot (ie, leave Front, Back, Left and Right as 0 in step 4, then click on Next). You will get a warning message:

"No Value Changed

"You didn't change any of this Lot's Values. So the only effect is unlocking all tiles of the lot. Tiles will only remain unlocked until you replace the lot the next time. Is this your intention?"

Click on the "Yes" button. The LotExpander will unlock all of the tiles on the lot and you should get a final screen to that effect.

Now, try adding your pier.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 09:56 PM

Is there a way I could have done this and not need to pick the lot up after expanding? Should I have expanded the front instead of the back or something?
I suppose that it couldn't hurt to try expanding the lot at the front, rather than at the back... it might be a temporary workaround to the bug which is causing your lot to move "forward" in the neighborhood.

Of course, the correct solution is for me to find and fix this bug, so that there is no requirement for you to move the lot at all.

Inge Jones

27th Sep 2007, 10:08 PM

Can you tell me what the "Orientation" of your lot is? SimPE displays the field as Below, Left, Above, or Right...

As well, can you tell me the U10 and U11 values for your lot?

U10=2
U11=1
Orientation=Above

The problem I can predict with growing the lot from the front is that the lot is road-height at the front. Then it will expand backwards with most of the new part at road height. When I try to sink it to be under the sea, there will be a ridge at both sides. The idea of having the back already beneath sea level and expanding the back was supposed to be that all the newly grown part will be naturally already beneath sea level.

A similar problem would arise from using a beach lot for a pier. When you place a beach lot, it pushes out the land until nearly the bottom of the lot. If you try to dig out afterwards you get the ridges.

I would love to see if we can make the lots go out to sea even further than the largest lot supplied in the game - real piers can be very long. The lot does not have to be very wide, so the total size need not be too large.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 10:14 PM

added some feedbacks... :DNiol,

I looked at your screenshots, but wasn't quite sure how to interpret them.

http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/0/2/5/7/MTS2_niol_629974_0x00000028-35_Woodland_Drive-U10_06-W2H3L48T78.jpg
The picture above obviously shows how the U11 value affects the rotation of the lot within the lot's allocated space in the neighborhood. I assume that you used the "rotate a lot" technique, but didn't move the lot in the neighborhood to "snap" it to the road. Is there anything else that we should be getting from this picture?

http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/0/2/5/7/MTS2_niol_629976_2-sided.jpg
The picture above looks like a 1x1 lot (really 1x3) which had a second road added in the back yard. I assume that you used the "add a road to a lot" technique to get this. How did you get the second phone booth and garbage can?

http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/0/2/5/7/MTS2_niol_629978_lotDescriptionListing-labelt.jpg
Great picture! Lots of useful stuff there.

http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/0/2/5/7/MTS2_niol_629977_N002-Strangetown-U11.jpg
I'm just not sure how to interpret the picture above.

Inge Jones

27th Sep 2007, 10:21 PM

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 10:50 PM

U10=2 U11=1 Orientation=Above
Thanks. Let me look into this and see whether I can come up with a solution. This is behavior that I'm not familiar with, so it may take a while.

The problem I can predict with growing the lot from the front is that the lot is road-height at the front. Then it will expand backwards with most of the new part at road height. When I try to sink it to be under the sea, there will be a ridge at both sides. The idea of having the back already beneath sea level and expanding the back was supposed to be that all the newly grown part will be naturally already beneath sea level.
Yes, I understand. OK, bad idea on my part.

A similar problem would arise from using a beach lot for a pier. When you place a beach lot, it pushes out the land until nearly the bottom of the lot. If you try to dig out afterwards you get the ridges.
I didn't know that the Bon Voyage beach lots did this. OK, another bad idea on my part.

I would love to see if we can make the lots go out to sea even further than the largest lot supplied in the game - real piers can be very long. The lot does not have to be very wide, so the total size need not be too large.
I haven't tried expanding a lot to be more than 6x6... it would be an easy thing to disable that check in the LotExpander, but I can't guarantee what would happen. If we manage to get the piers working with the smaller lots, I'll give you a test version of the LotExpander, so that you can try longer lots. If it works well, perhaps I can add this as an Advanced feature in the LotExpander.

I have one more thought on how to work around this problem:

When you initially created your lot, I assume that you placed an empty lot into the neighborhood facing in the direction that you wanted the lot.

Try adding the empty lot into the neighborhood facing in the opposite direction. Build something on the lot (just one wall is enough), then move the lot to where you want it. This should set the U10 and U11 fields to a "better" choice.

Then, try your initial experiment again (lower land, flood, expand backwards). I think that there is a possibility that this will prevent the LotExpander from moving the lot back from the road while expanding.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 10:55 PM

Maybe we can use these techniques to extend the roads in a hood. If we can construct and position new lots without having to place them in the game, they can have their portals and the road can be created in build mode on the lot. If the lots are placed close together the road will appear and behave exactly as if it was in the hood already - except maybe the little vehicles won't run on those roads in nhood view. But that's ok, they can be for quiet cul-de-sacs.
Might work. But, I hate having lots that I can't move around.

... OK, I thought about this some more and realized that there is a fundamental problem. In order to place the lot initially, there has to be a road. The game just won't let you place a lot unless there's a road. Of course, I suppose that you could try changing the Lot Top and Left values (and even the Z value - which I assume is the height of the terrain) to move the lot from a location with a road to a location without a road.

I suppose that you haven't seen my "Adding Roads to a Neighborhood Terrain" technique yet?

Give me a few minutes and I'll post it here.

Mootilda

27th Sep 2007, 10:59 PM

Adding Roads to an Existing Neighborhood:

Update: The following program replaces the need for this tutorial, and will keep your decorations intact:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=279992

------------------------------------------------------
Tutorial (now obsolete):

I managed to add roads to the existing Strangetown neighborhood, without destroying the existing families and their relationships!

Here's how... just make sure to back up your Sims2 directory, in case you have problems:

Make the changes to the Sims2 SC4Terrain Strangetown.SC4 file using SimCity 4 Rush Hour (or Deluxe, I suppose). Then use the changed terrain to generate a new temporary neighborhood.

Using SimPE, export two things from the new neighborhood: Neighborhood Terrain Geometry and Neighborhood Terrain. Then import those files into the real Strangetown, with reload, replacing the existing terrains.

Unfortunately, this will delete the decorations in the neighborhood, but they were very easy to replace... well, all except that one rock in the middle of the road circle near the Specter residence. Don't forget to add smoke to the crashed spaceship.

In addition, I had a couple of pieces of road disappear near the Curious place and near one of the empty houses. However, this was very easy to fix by just going into those houses and making a change to them, such as moving a door temporarily, then saving. The road pieces reappeared.

Also, the landscape is a bit lighter than the original one. I have no idea why this is or how to change it, but it doesn't seem like a big deal.

Finally, don't forget to delete that temporary neighborhood when you're done.

Voila!
------------------------------------------------------
A variation of this technique can be used to fix existing roads in a neighborhood, if you still have the original terrain available, or if you have a backup of the neighborhood package from before the roads were mucked up.

I used this technique on a neighborhood where the roads and landscape had become "stepped" because of changes made when adding and removing lots.
------------------------------------------------------
I also used this technique to "port" the Life Stories neighborhoods to The Sims 2. For some reason, the terrains that EA includes with Life Stories don't actually match any of the neighborhood terrains. Since I wanted exact copies of the neighborhoods, I used this method to replace the terrain of a newly created neighborhood with the Life Stories terrain.

niol

28th Sep 2007, 04:14 AM

sorry, I was rushing after getting excited with the talk here and that I finally got a parellel 2-sided lots working including its re-importation. I've been wanting 4 that type of lots for a long long time, esp when I can make it manually.
the pix file names also provide the rest of the infos for the conditions.

the 1about the strangetown,
I build 4 30x30 lots in 4 different directions to show U11 and the orientation
A == Above
B == Below
L == Left
R == Right

sorry 4 the shorthands 4 now, I'm soaking a hand.

now, I'm wondering about U0 and U4 and U1
the 4 lots for the U11 demonstration all have
0x00000003 & 0x00 & 0x0006
but, the 2-sided lot has
0x00000001 & 0x01 & 0x0006

as for the phonebooth and the trash bin, they're "eye-dropperrable"with the moveobjects on cheat. :D
but I still personnally prefer to reserve the original pair to replace them with the newly added to avoid if there may be a problem on lot-sharing. surely can go wild in an exp. setting now :D

the simpe scn-sht is my try to show the known value positions graphically esp 4 those unfamiliar with the hex interface. :)

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 07:53 AM

I shall shortly go and test some of these ideas. In the meantime Mootilda, now this project is taking off so interestingly, do you think it is a good idea to start your own thread for it? That would mean you can always update the first post to have the latest release and instructions.

You could ask a moderator to split the thread starting at an early post by you, which you could turn into your header post. Then you won't leave all this discussion behind here.

Numenor

28th Sep 2007, 08:43 AM

I second Inge's suggestion. I could split the thread starting from Post #364 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1747180&postcount=364). I could move Posts 1--363 to a new thread, so that who has subscribed to this thread will still come here and find the LotExpander by Mootilda.

Of course, Mootilda should edit her post #364 to include the credits to Andi and a link to the "new" thread where we moved the old posts (I'll provide the link as soon as I split this one).

Mootilda - If you are interested, PM me.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 02:04 PM

I just want to confirm that creating the lot in a "Below" orientation in the first place does allow it to be extended out to see without having to realign the road. It seems to me however, that if it is possible to code this way, it would be more userfriendly for the Expander to always keep the road anchored in place by default (apart from any fun advanced options you can let us have :) )

Might work. But, I hate having lots that I can't move around.

I tend to always build in-situ as I like to make sure the building is sympathetic to the location. So I particularly like building on sloping ground with an interesting view. The trouble with lots for sharing is they tend to have to have fairly flat edges, and you have to make any dips or elevations in the centre of an otherwise flat geography. So I am not bothered by a lot that cannot be moved.

niol

28th Sep 2007, 02:10 PM

Numenor,

How about separating the infos and the problems posts from the chats or thanks or spams by the way?
:)

Thanks in advance regardless of any decision about this and no need to response to this post.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 02:59 PM

I finally got a parellel 2-sided lots working including its re-importation. I've been wanting 4 that type of lots for a long long time, esp when I can make it manually.
Yes, it's pretty cool and so easy to do.

as for the phonebooth and the trash bin, they're "eye-dropperrable"with the moveobjects on cheat. :D
This brings up an interesting issue: Andi's code only expects to see the standard 6 portals. However, if the portals are tied are tied to the mailbox (and the phone booth?), then it's possible that we'll be seeing lots with more than 6 portals. Do you find pedestrians coming onto your 2-sided lot from both the front and the back?

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 03:07 PM

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 03:16 PM

I just want to confirm that creating the lot in a "Below" orientation in the first place does allow it to be extended out to see without having to realign the road.
Excellent! I'm so glad that this worked. This indicates that the code needs to look at both Orientation and U11.

It seems to me however, that if it is possible to code this way, it would be more userfriendly for the Expander to always keep the road anchored in place by default
Agreed! I've put this on the to-do list. As I said before, I believe that this was Andi's intention, but the code just wasn't sufficient.

Thanks for checking this out.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 03:28 PM

Is there anything else you would like me to be trying out or testing at this time? Anything you are trying to find out?

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 03:31 PM

How about separating the infos and the problems posts from the chats or thanks or spams by the way?
Yes, I was thinking about this last night. Perhaps I should start a new thread for each of my "tutorials". I can see both good and bad points for this...

Good:
- Comments on each technique would be separate, so it would be easier to follow and find things.

Bad:
- More posts means more complexity for me, since I'd have to keep track of them all... Although I could put links to them in this thread.

Hmmm... sounds like the good outweighs the bad. If no one else has any negatives to add to this, I think that I'll try moving some of these posts to new threads tomorrow.

Does anyone know where posts about neighborhoods and lots should go?

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 03:36 PM

I am inclined to agree that it would be troublesome to have everything spread out over too many threads. I only suggested the split in the first place so that you would get control over the first post so you can update it with the most important information about releases.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 03:54 PM

Hmm I am having trouble carrying out the instructions for the road addition and removal. My SimCity game refuses to offer me the sc4 file for importing. I have tried renaming it to look like all the others it allows me to import, and putting it in downloads and some of the other regions, but it just doesn't list it for me.
Unfortunately, I don't have SimCity 4 installed right now... here's what I think that I did:

Run SimCity 4. Create a new region called TheSims2. Exit the game.

In \My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions\TheSims2, edit the config.bmp and change it to a 1x1 (pixel) BMP. Change the color of the pixel to red (Red=255, Green=0, Blue=0).

Copy the terrain .SC4 file into the Downloads directory. I usually try to keep this directory pretty empty, so that it's easy to find the SC4 that I want. I don't remember having to change the filename.

Run the game again. The TheSims2 region will have only one small city in it and the downloads directory only has 1 small city in it, so it's easy to find.

The first time that I did this, I didn't have SimCity 4 Rush Hour installed. Turns out that Strangetown was created with Rush Hour, so it wouldn't import.

If this doesn't help, let me know and I'll install SimCity and see whether I can give you better instructions.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 04:00 PM

That's my answer anyway - the one I am trying to open was made by me in RushHour, which I uninstalled. When I reinstalled today I only installed the basegame :)

BTW I have been making small regions using greyscale heightmaps to create my sloping lots. If anyone would like a region made to a particular spec to test anything, let me know.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 04:27 PM

Is there anything else you would like me to be trying out or testing at this time? Anything you are trying to find out?
Feel free to take a look at the my to-do list... I've been trying to keep it up-to-date. The funny thing is: the more stuff that I fix, the larger my to-do list seems to become. ;)

I'm hoping that niol will be able to quickly answer my question about having more than 6 portals on a lot, since he has a two-sided lot already made. It also looks like he might be trying to figure out the U0, U1 and U4 values for lots in the neighborhood package.

And aelflaed has been making good progress on getting a South-facing 1x1 lot, generating a lot of interesting information about the portals.

Since you've been looking at the Bon Voyage beach lots, you might be interested in seeing whether there's some way to make alternate sizes for them. I haven't looked at the internals of these lots, but there must be something which tells the game where the swimmable water starts. This must mean that there's a minimum size. I wonder whether it's possible to make a 1x3 beach lot (1 for the road, 1 for the building, 1 for the water)? At some point, we need to understand the beach lots better if we want to be able to expand them... I noticed that when a beach lot is expanded, the water in the expanded area looks odd.

And, of course, any help with making the tutorials more understandable - screenshots, wording, additional information - would be greatly appreciated.

Finally, it would be really helpful if someone could look over the old posts, looking for lost chunks of wisdom that might be worked into a tutorial, or lost bug reports that should be entered into the to-do list, or even lost ideas and suggestions.

Does any of that sound interesting to you?

Oh, I almost forgot. Did you want me to disable the size checks in the LotExpander, so that you can try making a really long pier? Another interesting area for exploration.

plasticbox

28th Sep 2007, 04:33 PM

BTW I have been making small regions using greyscale heightmaps
Inge, do you have a pointer on how this is done? I faintly recall that it was possible somehow .. but I've no idea where to look for info (not a big SC4 fan).

So many thanks to you all for your research on the row house thing =) I can't even keep up with reading all of this, let alone try out a few things, but it looks like a lot of progress is happening now all at once! If it became possible to build real city lots, that would be like five new EPs to me :lovestruc

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 04:34 PM

I would love you to disable the limits on the tool, yes please :D Perhaps there should be an "advanced" tickbox though so that casual users don't get caught out!

The beach lots - yes there are portal objects on it which I have identified. But what I don't know yet is whether they are *required* to be in an exact spot. I was wondering whether to try and give the portal objects a model each, with a controller that can show and hide them. I did something like this with Sims 1 - the show/hide I mean, cos they did already have graphics associated with them. The Sims 2 portals do not at this time.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 04:41 PM

That's my answer anyway - the one I am trying to open was made by me in RushHour, which I uninstalled. When I reinstalled today I only installed the basegame :)
Let me know if you have any further problems with this technique. If I remember correctly, it's important to do the terrain geometry before the terrain.

BTW I have been making small regions using greyscale heightmaps to create my sloping lots. If anyone would like a region made to a particular spec to test anything, let me know.
Actually, I'd love to have a terrain made. However, I'm not sure about the specs. Here's what I'm trying to do:

I'm looking into changing the LotExpander so that it gets the terrain of the expanded land directly from the neighborhood terrain, rather than just expanding the existing lot terrain out. What I need is a neighborhood which would allow me to test terrain with roads near water and hills.

I suppose that the bumpier, the better (up to a point). Right now, the LotExpander expands the land in up to 8 sections: front, back, left and right, plus the 4 corners. So, lots with terrain changes in each of those 8 sections would make for particularly good tests.

I haven't finished the code changes yet, so there's no hurry. But, eventually I'll want to test this pretty thoroughly before releasing it to the general public, since this is a major code change.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 04:52 PM

Inge, do you have a pointer on how this is done? I faintly recall that it was possible somehow .. but I've no idea where to look for info (not a big SC4 fan).

1. Make a file called config.bmp 1 pixel in size and colour it pure red. Save as a 24bit bmp
2. Make a greyscale .bmp file called anything you like, sized 65x65. Colour it white for the highest bits through to black for the lowest. Sea level is about 83,83,83
3. Create a new region in SC4. Exit the region and go into a different one while you copy the config.bmp you made over the config.bmp the game made in the new region.
4. Go back into your new region and now it should be only one small city in total size.
5. Press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R and you will be able to navigate to your grayscale heightmap. After choosing it, your terrain will be shaped like your heightmap.
6. Create a city with roads on this small region. Save and exit the game.
7. Just move the City - Whatevername.sc4 into your Sims2 SC4Terrains folder

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 04:57 PM

The beach lots - yes there are portal objects on it which I have identified. But what I don't know yet is whether they are *required* to be in an exact spot.
If you had any notes about beach portal names and IDs, locations in the lot file, etc. - that would be really helpful information.

I was wondering whether to try and give the portal objects a model each, with a controller that can show and hide them. I did something like this with Sims 1 - the show/hide I mean, cos they did already have graphics associated with them. The Sims 2 portals do not at this time.
This sounds excellent. It would be a great step towards allowing people to fix "broken" portals.

I'm considering replacing Andi's portal logic completely and just moving the portals to a specific location on the lot, based on the size and rotation of the lot and the location of the road. I'd really like to add the beach portals to this.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 05:23 PM

I would love you to disable the limits on the tool, yes please :D
OK. I attached the ZIP file here. I have no idea what will happen. Please let me know.

WARNING to everyone:

This is an UNSUPPORTED test version of the LotExpander, with the size checks disabled. Use at your own risk.

Here is a link to the current supported version of this tool: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1747180

Perhaps there should be an "advanced" tickbox though so that casual users don't get caught out!
If you find that this works well with the size checks disabled, then I'll consider making it an "advanced" feature.

[Update:]
Test version deleted. Didn't work.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 05:56 PM

Each beach portal consists of 6 tiles (plus their out of world master, making 7 OBJDs) which are arranged in a strip. I believe the strip runs from road to sea orientation rather than side to side, because the tiles do not all have the same functions. Only the two ends perform portal functions. The four middle tiles have a function that is something to do with "slope" so I assume that is the place where the sim goes down that steep slope just before actually breaking out into a swim.
If I am correct that means there should be as many beach portals on a beach as its width in tiles.

The GUIDs of the portal tiles are as follows:
0x132F810B
0xB32F810C
0x332F8108
0x932F937E
0x332F9387
0x532F9398
The master GUID is 0xF32F8109 but that may not appear in the file (or not in a contiguous location) as it is out of world

Names: "Beach - Portal", "Beach - Portal - 0, 1" etc

In the lot I examined, the beach portal tiles began at instance 0xD8 in the OBJT resources (but I had all sorts of custom schools first, so this will vary between users). Then I noticed that there were also animation effect holders for the waves, so they have to be taken into account, too.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 07:01 PM

I expanded the lot to 12 tiles deep, moved a family in and built a long pier. It looked great apart from the lighting not looking quite right on the road area. I could save it with the family on, before building anything, but if I tried to save it after making only the tiniest change in build mode, the application crashed while saving.

plasticbox

28th Sep 2007, 07:07 PM

5. Press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R
Thank you =)

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 07:48 PM

Expanding a beach lot:

I placed a 4 tile wide beach lot. I then expanded it by one tile each side. These are the results.

niol

28th Sep 2007, 08:18 PM

I've got lost in deleting the infos in 2D and 3D arrays... here
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1376196&postcount=106

I've got a "broken" lot acting like a 10x20 lot while graphically like 30x30 lot. :slapface:
In the lot view, half of the grassy terrain are occupied by the unbuildable road rows/columns.
:lol:
May view the pix according to their filenames in numeric order.

The first pic shows the in-lot view before the neighbourhood relocation.
The second shows that I was trying to build a partition like walls over the road sectors but failed.
The third shows I removed the road tiles with the moveobjects on cheat.

Attached is the exported lot file and the lot file and the N003 neighbourhood file.
Also included is the exported paralellel road-tiled 30x30 lot.
I've already trimmed their useless jpg files to reduce their sizes as suggested by andi's posts.

As for the 30x30 lot screenshots, I guess the pix tell most already.
But note that the bill-collector had passed the road to the edge in the buildable area while wandering, and then it has to move back to about 5 to 6 grids away from that end to get prepared to leave the "world".

It seems the first service vehicle is assignedly placed past the mailbox intentionally for further service vehicles to place after it.

Added after Inge's posts:

Wow, it seems the grassy land has been elongated and pushed the beachline out... Wow... while part of the road is flooded with beach water for the pier lot... a mishap phase for terrain mapping... seemingly?

Yay, Inge, you're amazing, you just made the bit that breaks the limit again... So a lot can be much larger than 64 for a particular side... Ultra Zest! :bunny:

Seemingly, if the beachlines can be figured out and how it is added from the template for various lot sizes, beach lot be long like the pier lot! :lol: :Pint:

Also, to add an extra mailbox and barbage cans,
may get the collection files here (http://daydream.etowns.net/S2hacked.htm) to put >1 in a lot to test... :D
Gonna try so half a day later... I've 2 go 4 now.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 08:48 PM

niol

28th Sep 2007, 08:57 PM

Jus' a fast Q...

Can a "cap" be added?

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 09:18 PM

Maybe we can use these techniques to extend the roads in a hood. If we can construct and position new lots without having to place them in the game, they can have their portals and the road can be created in build mode on the lot. If the lots are placed close together the road will appear and behave exactly as if it was in the hood already - except maybe the little vehicles won't run on those roads in nhood view. But that's ok, they can be for quiet cul-de-sacs.
Here is another good area for research.

I believe that the Neighborhood Terrain (NHTR = 0xABD0DC63) contains the information about the roads in a neighborhood:

http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=NHTR

If someone were to create a very simple SC4 Terrain (flat terrain with one road strategically placed), it might be very simple to experiment with adding and removing roads from the neighborhood package, and to come up with a simple tutorial. Perhaps this could even be turned into a simple tool.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 09:33 PM

Expanding a beach lot:

I placed a 4 tile wide beach lot. I then expanded it by one tile each side. These are the results.
Yes, this is the problem that I was talking about earlier. The LotExpander is trying to decide how to expand the terrain based on the terrrain at specific points inside the unexpanded lot (I could go into more detail, if anyone is interested). Depending upon the rotation of the lot and what the terrain looks like at specific points along the edges of the lot, this can be disasterous. It works particularly badly for hilly terrain and beach lots.

I could make the logic a bit better by increasing the number of places that the lot terrain is expanded outwards. But, this isn't the "correct" solution.

I am hoping to get the terrain for the expanded areas from the neighborhood terrain directly. This should work perfectly for a lot which is already in the correct location.

For a lot which is expanded at the front, there may still be problems because the lot will have to be moved back from the road. However, I believe that there will be less problems, even with this type of lot.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 09:43 PM

I am hoping to get the terrain for the expanded areas from the neighborhood terrain directly. This should work perfectly for a lot which is already in the correct location.

For a lot which is expanded at the front, there may still be problems because the lot will have to be moved back from the road. However, I believe that there will be less problems, even with this type of lot.

I agree. My hypothetical, but typical, situation with that beach lot was that when I first placed the lot, it pushed the land out in a way that made look awkward in the coastline. That was due to the sculpting that happens in order to line up the land with the beach portals. My hope when I expanded the lot was that I could use those new parts to soften the edge between the beach lot and the terrain beyond.

The method of sampling extra points on the to-be-expanded lot would *not* work for this, since the expanded bits would be just as incompatible with the surrounding geography as the beach lot was. Using the terrain geography to provide the countours for the expansion would be ideal, because even though it would not line up with the beach countour, at least the awkward join will be within the lot and therefore may be smoothed using the terrain sculpture tools.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 09:57 PM

I could save it with the family on, before building anything, but if I tried to save it after making only the tiniest change in build mode, the application crashed while saving.
OK, this makes sense to me. Here is my understanding:

- When a lot is modified using the "build" menu and then saved, the game attempts to regenerate the 2D and 3D arrays. The game was clearly unequipped to handle the oversized lot. (FYI: This is why the LotExpander requires the lot to have been built on; it expects those arrays. - Aha! I just realized that I could probably fix the LotExpander so that it would be able to expand completely empty lots...)

- Unless a lot is modified using the "build" menu, the game will usually save without trying to regnerate the information in the arrays. This explains why you were able to save your family before building.

- I have always assumed that the game has a strict rule about lots being a maximum of 6x6. If you use SimPE to open "Texture Image" in the Resource Tree and [lot id]!terrain_txtr in the Resource List, you will see that each lot is "allocated" a 6x6 space and the (rotated) lot is placed somewhere on that 6x6 area, based on U11. You can see this in the pictures from my discussion of U11:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1778032

I'm not sure why, but the pictures under "Texture Image" convinced me (more than anything else) that the game has a strict limit on the size of the lot.

I wonder whether there is any way to use the fact that the game doesn't regenerate the lot arrays unless the build menu is used?

Update:
I just tested this and even moving or placing furniture can cause the 2D and 3D arrays to be regenerated.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 10:02 PM

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 10:23 PM

I tested the principle of the row houses and I believe it would work. It didn't go quite right because I found it impossible to accurately edit the huge rows of hex where I should have deleted two chunks of bytes on every line over several files. It's not realistic to do that manually, so I hope shrinking will be included in the lot expander.

Anyway I got a lot 11 lot-tiles wide (I meant to make it 10) and unfortunately I deleted the left hand 19 rather than the left 10 and the right 10 as I had intended. Again something including it in the program would easily help with.

I started by building a simple square building on the centre 10 tiles of a 3x2 lot. The walls remained standing on the edge of the lot and therefore could be used as the party walls of a row house.
Inge,

I thought of a couple of other useful tests with your 11x10 lot with the wall at the very edge:

1) What happens when you try to add a roof? Hopefully, the game won't crash.

2) What happens if you try to build on the lot? I assume that you can continue to build normally, except around the very edge of the lot.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 10:34 PM

I didn't build on the lot before using the expander! I must have missed that instruction. I did however go into it to get the mailbox etc placed before expanding. Do you think it might make a difference if I had built on it first?
No, I don't believe that it will make any difference. If the arrays didn't exist, then the LotExpander would have failed with an error. This instruction is from Andi's original upload:

http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/3/2/0/9/1/MTS2_Andi8104_360245_LE1en.jpg

If you changed the terrain, that probably counts as "building". I think that almost any tool from the "build" menu will make the game generate the arrays. Moving the mailbox may have been enough.

Inge Jones

28th Sep 2007, 10:35 PM

I did try building and saving on the places I was allowed to do so, and there was no problem. I did not try colouring the walls, and one side of each row house will probably need a one-tile dead space and a dummy party wall or else the party wall will flicker where both lots have one. Still I think this will still look a lot more authentic than the larger dead spaces we are having to use now.

As for the roof, I was assuming the structure of the house would be fully completed before reducing the size. I can't build on that edge any more now, since it is regarded by the game as within the 2-tile exclusion zone. So the player would design a terraced house, build it, chop the sides off and then take it to the bin and place several of this same model of house side by side.

WRT the roads, so far I have spotted that I think one of the SimPE labels is wrong. I built a flat terrain with a 4-tile long road and nothing else, and am analysing that.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 10:53 PM

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 11:25 PM

the 1about the strangetown,
I build 4 30x30 lots in 4 different directions to show U11 and the orientation
A == Above
B == Below
L == Left
R == Right
It's becoming very clear to me that "Orientation" is the orientation of the lot in the neighborhood and U11 is the orientation of the lot within it's allocated space (which is really an indication of how to interpret the lot arrays). When you first place an empty lot, they will be related. However, as soon as a lot is rotated, the two values diverge.

This explains why different lots in the lot bin have different "preferred" directions; ie, where the arrow for the road points when a lot first comes out of the lot bin. I've attached screenshots of 3 different Maxis pre-made lots coming straight out of the lot bin - without rotating them.

It's really funny that EA decided to have two different orientations: one for the lot within the neighborhood and one for the arrays within the lot. Things certainly would have been much simpler if the lot array was always facing in one direction.

The only thing that I can see which is actually affected by the U11 value is the sunlight. It would have made a lot more sense for EA to get the direction of the sunlight from the neighborhood orientation and then the lot arrays could have always faced the front of the lot. Then, it would be really easy for us to choose the direction of the sunlight.

Of course, this would have destroyed my "rotate a lot" technique.

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 11:40 PM

Anyway, if you may tell more about how the lots can be modded more even manually, I bet you will get willing audience including me... :D
niol,

I wanted to ask whether the stuff that I've been posting is the kind of thing that you were looking for, or whether you had something else in mind?

Mootilda

28th Sep 2007, 11:52 PM

Jus' a fast Q...

Can a "cap" be added?
I'm afraid that the question was a bit too "fast"... I don't know what you're asking. :)

Mootilda

29th Sep 2007, 12:12 AM

I have reconfirmed that trying to save a lot longer than the normal maximum crashes during save if you have made any building alterations. So it may sadly turn out that Maxis only agrees to read in a certain number of bytes or something and gets narky if it hasn't met the end of array in that time.
Here's the most likely explanation for the crash:

EA / Maxis has allocated one or more fixed-size 6x6 arrays for the lot. If too much lot information is written, then it overwrites something important. Of course, a good programmer who wasn't rushed would have coded for this possibility, so that the program wouldn't crash. Crashes are so frustrating and much harder to debug.

I suspect that the people at EA are always rushing to get the next Game / EP / SP out the door, so they didn't have time to protect themselves against us modding these files.

So, was your lot smaller than 36 total neighborhood tiles? If not, you might want to try again and see whether a lot which stays within the 36 tile limit crashes or not. It might at least let us have oddly sized lots (1x36? 2x18?).

Oh, and should I leave the link for the unsupported version without the size checks? It's dangerous to use, so I'm tempted to delete it, but if other people think that it's useful to have around, I'll leave it here.

niol

29th Sep 2007, 03:18 AM

Lol Mootilda,

As for the unsafe version, probably just keep it on this thread with warning. It's definitely nobody else except the users' fault while it opens up the possibility for the willies to try things out.

As for the "cap", I meant to add some limits on how the lot be affected by default over-writing.

The quote in post 108 was from a much older post much earlier than your instruction and info posts. It can still be valid coz there're still more things for me to learn here... But, I'll try to catch up more things...

As for the array and lot orientations, many simmers and modders always wonder why Maxis did not corelate/extend the neighbourhood sunlighting and shadowing to the lots. But according to a post by a parent of a Maxis temporary staffs, it seems to me that Maxis has a "big" list of contract workers. The insufficient time scheme and poor inter-communications between these workers may just have done their own arts and the coordinators and/or the managers may have tried so hard to pull the things together.

Even the material shaders, sometimes, I wonder why they didn't just simply make out mutual common standard material for most if not all types instead of presuming that many material possibilities are impossible or unnecessary. Then, with preset limits to variate some common ones to save the check points. After all, it might be practically impossible to re-construct the whole hierarchy due to the rushes?
I guess there're a bunch of coders working on different things at the same time and occasional coding conflicts seem inevitable. A fast fix is often encouraged yet not often the best or even much better solution.

Just think about that they have to release the EP or what with the obvious bugs.
It seems so hectic. Or, Maxis knows the simmers will buy it anyway however the release is so bloated or full of bugs.

I can be sure quite amount of TS2 graphical designers for the texturing didn't know they can save quite amount of textural resources with repository recolouring by controlling the diffusion scalar. Let's think of Nero's Smartstart interface. So as the TS2 meshers "couldn't think of how the subsets should be better separated for more efficient, more detailed and easier recolouring. Probably, they weren't given sufficient time to sort things out clearly.

I assume if they did, probably at least a quarter of the space can be saved. :rolleyes:

And if they implement more on the masking, all those masked textures could have been repositorily used that saved further space resources yet maybe increasing the computation load a "bit".

After all, I want Maxis to concentrate on their qualities rather than to lock up certain infrastructures for inhibiting non-commercial modding. It's modding that helps a big part to sell the game. :Pint:

Oh well, for the 1x1 lot, Andi said certain infos have to be cut off, and this I don't quite get. Was he saying what to do or just explaining why we do so based on what we believe we know? I missed the time to ask him further coz I got distracted by other things at the time. :|

Sometimes, I see there're some other offsets with similar values or even the same value to be changed. They're itching me :bunny: that I keep on wondering if those can or should be changed like the stated, esp. for those very close to the stated ones. You know, that very instinctive assumption that they may be related.

Mootilda

29th Sep 2007, 05:32 AM

Oh well, for the 1x1 lot, Andi said certain infos have to be cut off, and this I don't quite get. Was he saying what to do or just explaining why we do so based on what we believe we know? I missed the time to ask him further coz I got distracted by other things at the time. :|
Let me try to explain what I believe that Andi is saying:

Each of the 2D Arrays, except Instance 0x3B76, contains (Width X Height) objects of size 16 bytes, where Width and Height are stored as 4-byte integers at bytes 81 and 85 of each 2D Array. In a non-empty lot, you would have to determine where each row of the array (height value) started and ended, so that you would be certain of deleting the "correct" objects to reduce the size of the lot.

However, in an flat empty lot, all objects in the array should have the same value, so it doesn't matter which objects you delete. The only things that matter are that you end up with the right number of valid objects, which is (new Width X new Height), and that you replace the old Width and Height at bytes 81 and 85 with the new Width and Height. Andi also gives you the calculation for the new Width (X * 40 + 1) and the new Height (Y * 40 + 1), where X and Y are the Lot Width and Lot Height (for example, 2x3). The U11 value determines which of X and Y is the Lot Width and which is the Lot Height, but you can probably figure out which is which by looking at the initial values.

2D Array Instance 0x3B76 has different calculations for the Width and Height, and stores a different type of objects, but the principles are the same. you need to reduce the size of the array and replace the Width and Height with the new values.

3D Arrays are also very similar, except that they have a Width, Height and Depth. With a non-empty lot, you would have to determine where each layer of the array (depth value) starts and ends, and where each row of the layer (height value) starts and ends, to ensure that the correct objects are deleted.

However, since this is a flat empty lot, there is only one layer (Depth = 1) and all of the objects are identical, so it doesn't matter which objects you delete, so long as you end up with the right number of valid objects, and as long as you replace the old Width and Height with the new values.

3D Arrays are further complicated by the fact that each 3D Array contains objects of a different size. However, Andi has provided a table of the 3D Array Instances and the size (in bytes) of the data that each Instance contains.

Does this answer your questions?

Please note that I have not verified Andi's data, although this information is available in the LotExpander code. I know that there are other record types, but I assume that Andi has listed all of the record types and Instances that exist in an empty lot in the base game.

Sometimes, I see there're some other offsets with similar values or even the same value to be changed. They're itching me :bunny: that I keep on wondering if those can or should be changed like the stated, esp. for those very close to the stated ones. You know, that very instinctive assumption that they may be related.
If you could tell me the name and / or ID of the records in question, I might be able to answer your questions. Many of the record types have the record name, such as "2DArray" and "3DArray", embedded in the record.

I do believe that Andi is relying on the lot being empty and flat to reduce the complexity of these edits.

niol

29th Sep 2007, 06:20 AM

Inge Jones

29th Sep 2007, 08:29 AM

So, was your lot smaller than 36 total neighborhood tiles? If not, you might want to try again and see whether a lot which stays within the 36 tile limit crashes or not. It might at least let us have oddly sized lots (1x36? 2x18?).

Yes, I started with a 3tile wide lot, which is what I used to make the 12 tile long lot. Then later I decided to try expanding in steps. I got to 3x6 fine, then expaning to 3x7 caused the same crash. I think I will try over-expanding sideways too. If that worked better it might point to a field that wasn't updated properly when expanding backwards. I am constantly being surprised by discovering obscure flags Maxis leave lying around in unlikely places. May be one that means "allow oversized lots" lol.

WRT keeping the unlimited lot expander - It's in this research thread isn't it, rather than the tool download thread? I think it's justifiable to keep research tools here that might be dangerous - it's not going to be listed with the MTS2 downloads.

Road research: I am not sure if it's worth putting much effort into researching the road data, unless you think it will help the lot expander directly. The thing is, it's going to be as impractical to ask people to edit hex to add a road as it is turning out to be to edit the hex to shrink a lot - ie one slip and you're lost! Someone would have to write a graphical interface to it. And since there is always the method of editing the hood in SC4 and reimporting it, a road editor is no priority.

The lot shrinking is a far more useful thing to be working on, as I believe it will give us successfull row houses. Even if the row houses are not as useful after all, there are reasons people might want to shrink a lot so it fits in a particular location. Another good use for lot shrinking would be when you have two adjacent lots that both want lowering to match or have a river running along the bottom of them. At the moment you just can't get rid of that ridge between them. You can expand them both to smooth it out, but at the moment you can't shrink them back to their original size so they have to remain overlapping and flickering. I am sure that everyone would find a use for getting rid of that sharp ridge, and with this use, there would be no extra objects to get rid of. You could even have a lot stretch mode that did not move the portals, which would be used by people solely planning to immediately shrink the lot back again.

PS I was wrong - portals do have their own placeholders after all. I am beginning work now on an object that will help to reveal them and make them movable.

at Mike's

29th Sep 2007, 01:08 PM

What Inge had done with her lot, that is what I ment with the Lot expander, to ajust it to make this a general, alone not with individual tile's but with hole blocks of 10 tile's at the same time, I've got 2 buildings already waiting to be ajust to be smaler... to a 1x1 lot, with the walls to the edge... Great work Inge, and Mootilda for trying to make a tool for this... If I had the skills than I didn't need to ask it to you guys and girls... But I don't have the skills to do this myself... many thanks from me to all of you...

frog

29th Sep 2007, 03:00 PM

Where is the lot expander.

Inge Jones

29th Sep 2007, 03:15 PM

Where is the lot expander.

http://forums.modthesims2.com/member/showthread.php?t=175884

Mootilda

29th Sep 2007, 04:44 PM

Just a quick observation note:
I've rotated the 2 mailboxes on a residence lot so they're not paralellel to the roads.
When there's a family in the lot, no changes in the a cab direction.
Then, I try with an empty lot, when I move in a family, the cab move at right angle on the lot rather than on the road.
And ten, I call the services and the cab again , they remain on the road.
So, it seems the mailbox only affect the transportation when a family moves in a lot.

Interesting information. Did you do anything on the lot (the one with the newly-moved-in family) between calling the cab the first and second times? Specifically, did you use anything from the Buy - F2 or Build - F3 menus?

Thanks very much... I now get it better. :)
I'm gonna retry to edit the lots more to see if I can get it done... again...
I'm glad that I could help.

I was thinking about this last night and realized that I've been making another assumption, based on the LotExpander code and Andi's initial instructions for creating a 1x1 lot. If my assumption is incorrect, then decreasing the size of an empty lot might be much easier that we believe:

I wonder whether we actually need to delete the excess objects from the arrays? For most, if not all, of the record types and instances, the array is the last thing in the record. There is a possibility that the game is coded so that it just ignores excess data in the arrays. If so, an empty lot would be very easy to decrease in size. If not, the game will probably crash right away, so it would be wise to run any tests in a window.

Mootilda

29th Sep 2007, 05:16 PM

Yes, I started with a 3tile wide lot, which is what I used to make the 12 tile long lot. Then later I decided to try expanding in steps. I got to 3x6 fine, then expaning to 3x7 caused the same crash.
Sounds like the worst possible scenario for us... the game expects a maximum height and a maximum width, rather than just a maximum size.

I am constantly being surprised by discovering obscure flags Maxis leave lying around in unlikely places. May be one that means "allow oversized lots" lol.
Wouldn't that be wonderful? It's clear that Maxis is too rushed... they work on a lot of things that don't get finished, and they don't have the time available to clean up afterwards.

Road research: I am not sure if it's worth putting much effort into researching the road data, unless you think it will help the lot expander directly. The thing is, it's going to be as impractical to ask people to edit hex to add a road as it is turning out to be to edit the hex to shrink a lot - ie one slip and you're lost! Someone would have to write a graphical interface to it. And since there is always the method of editing the hood in SC4 and reimporting it, a road editor is no priority.
Yes, this is really research for a separate tool. I don't believe that it will help me with the movement of the road at the front of the house, from within the LotExpander.

Have you found that my "adding roads to a neighborhood" technique worked for you? The primary problems that I can see with expecting people to use that technique:

1) Not everyone has SimCity (although I bought it recently at EB Games for under $10).

2) Not all existing neighborhoods have associated SC4 files.

The Life Stories neighborhoods are a prime example. None of the three SC4 files that Maxis included with the game actually match the terrain for any of the three included neighborhoods.

It's possible that we may be able to extract the SC4 information out of the neighborhood package. I tried one quick attempt when I was first trying to add roads to existing neighborhoods, but the attempt failed. Another area for research.

3) The technique destroys many / most of the neighborhood decorations, although there may be some as-yet-unresearched way to get them back.

The lot shrinking is a far more useful thing to be working on, as I believe it will give us successfull row houses.
Yes, I also believe that shrinking a lot should be a fairly high priority.

Unfortunately, it's a major code change. I've been trying to get some of the smaller easier changes out of the way first.

Of course, nothing is as small and easy as I hope - turns out that the Lot class isn't actually working - when I tried fixing the Lot.Top and Lot.Left, I found that the fields weren't being updated in the package. When I went to look at the Lot class, it's clear that it needs a major code cleanup - it's doing way too much work and failing miserably.

You could even have a lot stretch mode that did not move the portals, which would be used by people solely planning to immediately shrink the lot back again.
I think that this is a great idea. I need to fix the portal logic anyway, so this should be an easy addition.

PS I was wrong - portals do have their own placeholders after all. I am beginning work now on an object that will help to reveal them and make them movable.
Would it be possible for you to explain placeholders to me, or to point me at some additional information? I am such a newbie when it comes to modding.

niol

29th Sep 2007, 05:31 PM

Lol, probably add a warning to the download thread to discourage spammers or "thankers" to post here.

I don't mind if there're occasional irrelevant or repeated suggestions and I do that when I look back :P , but just hope to keep here as topic-oriented as it can.

After all, that is my poor tolerance on certain things.

3 screenshots to tell a property about the portal.
I ordered a sims to call delivery, and the trucks stopped on 1 side, but I moved it to the another side with the moveobject on cheat to confuse the routing a bit.
The delivery sims seemed to be confused for a while but then finally retrieve a new routine to reach the truck and drive the truck in the same direction on the another side of the road!

Eg2:
a firetruck was called and I U-turned the truck, and it drove along the opposite road way to quit.

eg3:
the bug truck was violently moved to the lot's buildable area :D and it still works.

So, the portal only calls for the service vehicles to load in the lot at some predefined common positions, but probably at least doesn't require the vehicle to be exactly at a particular location in order to "leave the world" just as we see in the atypical driveway instances. Being able to mod the lot orientation can also enable more ways to place driveways and more. I thought bhav was the only key to it.

As for deletion of objects in the arrays of both 2D and 3D,
The up-messed lot is an instance of that. Yet, I could have made more than 1 mistake during that trial..

I 'm gonna try a copy of it and remove all the arrays after the stated offsets and the depth offsets for 3Ds (as long as I figure it out) to see what will happen after my excercises... :D

Inge Jones

29th Sep 2007, 05:39 PM

Would it be possible for you to explain placeholders to me, or to point me at some additional information? I am such a newbie when it comes to modding.

STR# 0x85 holds model names. To get the object to show the model named in String 1, you code it as "Stack object's graphic :- 1". EA have a model called nullModel which is sort of just blank space. They also created a model called "placeholder" which is a square box with an arrow on it. Most of their portals have placeholder in string 2. I had to make a patch to add it to some invisible objects I also wanted to see. Quite simply my portal revealer tells the portals to display their other model. And when you've seen enough it turns them back to their invisible one.

There is a menu for when your lot is populated, and also so you can use it on unpopulated lots, when buying it all portals become visible and to hide them again you sell the object. I can upload it soon.^H^H^H^H in fact here it is now.

Edit: Updated portal revealer in next post.

Inge Jones

1st Oct 2007, 02:39 PM

Mootilda, here is the test terrain you asked for. It has all sorts of dips and wobbles, and some beach. Ask me again if you need any special feature.

I have also uploaded the patch to make some of the go-here tokens revealable, and an updated revealer, which now includes the wave effects.

I was thinking... you were going to try and get the expanded bits to follow the countours of the existing terrain... It occurred to me that you don't have to do that for every vertex, only the very edge seams of the expanded lot. The player can easily contour the in-between parts of the new bits to blend in as they wish, the only thing the player would not have in their power is to get rid of the ridge at the edge, which won't happen any more if you are able to implement your idea.

BTW I also managed to use a beach portal to get my sims using a standard waterside lot as somewhere to swim. But I had to make a couple of small tweaks to it so they didn't test if it was a beach lot! I can upload a customised beach portal elsewhere later.

Mootilda

1st Oct 2007, 04:42 PM

Mootilda, here is the test terrain you asked for. It has all sorts of dips and wobbles, and some beach. Ask me again if you need any special feature.
Excellent. I am just getting to the point where I will need to do some testing of my new logic. This should really help. Thanks so much.

I have also uploaded the patch to make some of the go-here tokens revealable, and an updated revealer, which now includes the wave effects.
Looks like this will be very useful in determining what to do with the portals.

I've completed the code to keep the lot in place in the neighborhood. At the moment, I'm finishing off the logic to get the expanded terrain from the neighborhood package. Then, I'm going to take a look at Tsouka's problem with the paintings; hopefully an easy fix. I think that the portal logic is a pretty small change, so that's next. Then, decreasing the size of the lots, which is a major code change.

I was thinking... you were going to try and get the expanded bits to follow the countours of the existing terrain... It occurred to me that you don't have to do that for every vertex, only the very edge seams of the expanded lot. The player can easily contour the in-between parts of the new bits to blend in as they wish, the only thing the player would not have in their power is to get rid of the ridge at the edge, which won't happen any more if you are able to implement your idea.
Yes, I thought about this, too. However, the smoothing logic was a breeze, thanks to a friend of mine who knows a lot more about game graphics than I do. So, it's too late... that part of the logic is already done! The only problem remaining (I hope) is rotating the lot terrain from the neighborhood package based on U11 and Orientation. I'm really hoping to have this done very soon.

BTW I also managed to use a beach portal to get my sims using a standard waterside lot as somewhere to swim. But I had to make a couple of small tweaks to it so they didn't test if it was a beach lot! I can upload a customised beach portal elsewhere later.
That sounds like a great thing. I'm sure that there are a number of people with non-Bon Voyage beach lots that would love to have this fix.

Were you able to make the lot < 6 deep? I just can't believe that Maxis only released those huge beach lots.

Inge Jones

1st Oct 2007, 05:00 PM

Were you able to make the lot < 6 deep? I just can't believe that Maxis only released those huge beach lots.

Well it wasn't a beach lot, just a small one that I had first created on a slope so that it became "flooded" when placed near the sea. So what you can see the Sim swimming in is the old-style sea water. It would be easy to make buyable waves too. But what I can't find yet is how the beach lots make the sea water reflective - water seen from non-beach lots is that dead looking blue gel. Niol is the expert on water shading, he might be able to fill in the missing information for me :)

Mootilda

1st Oct 2007, 05:20 PM

Research topic moved over from the LotExpander thread:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1783030

But, there should be a place to store the painting graphics in a lot pacakge so that it loads everytime the lot is accessed. Will modding the painting slot help figuaring its potential location easier?
There are several 2D and 3D arrays that Andi didn't understand well enough to determine the correct format. One of these, he just sets to zeros. I looked at the array briefly when I first took over the LotExpander, but couldn't determine the format, either. Since the LotExpander seemed to be working, I thought that there were more important things to spend my time on.

However, if the problem with custom paintings is caused by the LotExpander, then my suspicion is this misunderstood record instance.

If someone wanted to help me with this problem:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1782710
they could try making a lot with custom paintings, similar to the ones in the bug report. These portraits were created within the game using 'Paint Portrait of...' on the easel. Delete the 3D Array (0x2A51171B) Instance 3 using SimPE, then let me know whether the custom paintings are still there. If you can determine the format of this 3D Array Instance, so much the better!

In general, I could use a list of what is stored in each of the 2D and 3D Array Instances. This technique is a really easy way to compile such a list:

1) Create or find a lot with interesting features. Backup.
2) Using SimPE, delete one of the 2D or 3D Array Instances.
3) Run the game and see what's missing from the lot.
4) Restore from backup
5) Repeat for all 2D and 3D Array Instances and other interesting lots.

I'm imagining a table similar to the following:

Record Record ID Instance Contains:
2D Array 0x6B943B43 0x00003B76 terrain, roads, sidewalks
3D Array 0x2A51171B 0x00000003 custom paintings

Of course, eventually this information should make it's way into the Sims2Wiki:
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=InternalFormats

I intend to update the Sims2Wiki when I have a break from the LotExpander, but I'd be very happy if someone wanted to do some of this work now.

niol

1st Oct 2007, 05:35 PM

Inge Jones

1st Oct 2007, 05:46 PM

Lol, I kinda doubt that people without BV can get their sims to swim in a pond with just the beach portal due to lack of some transitional animations or more, so release it for BV users who wanna use it in their normal lot's sea lake or ponds... :D

No it doesn't work on ponds at all. I think EA hardcoded that the sims cannot go where there is pond water. Testing with a pond with water in, the sim just gets a slope icon. Using exactly the same pond, after a land-lowering click in the right place has let the water go down, the sim can happily pretend to swim in the now-empty pond. On the other hand, sea water is not counted as water at all. A sim will quite happily walk under the sea if you tell him to.

With the custom painting problem, could it be the material definition and texture is stored on a part of the lot you deleted?

niol

1st Oct 2007, 05:54 PM

Yes, the ocean reflection is defined in the neighbourhood shader that I'm working on :P besides modding or building lots. It's only slightly related to the reflection shader, which I just finalised my modifications these 2 days, for only the fallback material. Maxis reused the EP5 Swim-pool's Hi-end pool surface pass function with some modifications to make the ocean reflection and wavy animation. Maxis modded its own codes! The day I checked it, I was screaming for the irony and realised I needn't do that modification on the lotskirt water which now we call the beach in a beach lot. I'd add the swim-pool codes there, too but now Maxis saved my work :P .
I'm gonna try to make fewer EP versions of the neighbourhood shaders mods that may include modified lines as alternative choices for users. so as the swimpool ones. I'll see what seems right.
And surely, I wanna see a beach with big waves to engulf the poor sims :P .

But I'm not an expert.

No, that's not my lot, it's the user "Tsouka" stated in Mootilda's post. But, I'm gonna try too now...

Also, I missed the neighbourhood water (lotskirt water, the now ocean or beach water)-based lake, sea, pond since NL, may check the linked to see what I mean if not.http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1366976&postcount=4

Mootilda

1st Oct 2007, 05:59 PM

As for deletion of objects in the arrays of both 2D and 3D,
The up-messed lot is an instance of that. Yet, I could have made more than 1 mistake during that trial..

I 'm gonna try a copy of it and remove all the arrays after the stated offsets and the depth offsets for 3Ds (as long as I figure it out) to see what will happen after my excercises... :D
I was thinking last night about the results from your first test. As far as I could tell, you ended up with strips of unbuildable land in the middle of the buildable portion of the lot. I believe that there is a 2D Array Instance which controls which part of the lot is buildable; I'd have to research this.

If I am correctly interpreting the results of your test, I was wondering whether there might be a quick fix for these unbuildable areas... Have you tried running the LotExpander on the "messed-up" lot and not specifying any expansion (ie, Front, Back, Left and Right all set to zero)? You will get a warning message:

"No Value Changed

"You didn't change any of this Lot's Values. So the only effect is unlocking all tiles of the lot. Tiles will only remain unlocked until you replace the lot the next time. Is this your intention?"

Click on the "Yes" button. The LotExpander will unlock all of the tiles on the lot and you should get a final screen to that effect.

Now, make sure that all of the excess road and sidewalk tiles are deleted and save the lot. With any luck, the unbuildable areas will become and remain buildable.

Inge Jones

1st Oct 2007, 06:02 PM

Well - if you can make the entire lot buildable, we won't have to shrink lots to get row houses :D

Mootilda

1st Oct 2007, 06:05 PM

With the custom painting problem, could it be the material definition and texture is stored on a part of the lot you deleted?
As far as I know, the LotExpander doesn't delete any part of the lot. The only exception is the 3D Array Instance 3 documented above. That's why I suspect this particular record instance.

Inge Jones

1st Oct 2007, 06:09 PM

As far as I know, the LotExpander doesn't delete any part of the lot.

Oops! Oh yes lol! I was getting too eager for the shrinker :D

Mootilda

1st Oct 2007, 06:13 PM

Well - if you can make the entire lot buildable, we won't have to shrink lots to get row houses :D
That thought just occurred to me as I was typing that post.

Has anyone tried this? I must admit that I'm not familiar with this section of the LotExpander code at all. I'm making some assumptions about what kinds of things it might be able to fix.

I should definitely look into this before starting to work on the logic to decrease the size of the lot. If anyone learns anything before then, please let me know.

[Updated:]
If the unlock feature doesn't work for townhouses, it's possible that Andi only unlocked the normally-buildable areas of the lot (ie, he left 2 spaces locked around the outside of the lot. So, the fact that it might not currently work doesn't mean that it will never work... just requires me to try to figure out some code that I've been avoiding so far.

[Another Update:]
I tested this and it doesn't unlock the tiles at the edge of the lot. So, I need to research this whole issue.

niol

1st Oct 2007, 06:20 PM

The mislocated road pieces can be built with the moveobjects on cheat already, but simPe had been giving me some hard times to save lots properly in-game until I turned it down for a while before I run the game again for proper saving on the neighbourhood and lot files...
The problem is only that simpe prevented these files to get over-written by the game even the files are closed in simPe.
Just some dumb moments for the memory dumps.

Oh yes, knowing how the lot edge is locked to build is the way to probably disable it :D
But, I'll worry about the stability of the resultant. I had used fences as default replacement for the wall-1 wall partition and built it at the edges of a testing dummy lot. Access to that lot without the default replacement crashed the game but at least not a deadly crash to the whole game system like some custom windows do that I had to reinstall the whole game :D .
So, a by-passing strategy is necessary to stabilise partitions that "support" the next level of gridlines in a lot or enervate the check.

No it doesn't work on ponds at all. I think EA hardcoded that the sims cannot go where there is pond water. Testing with a pond with water in, the sim just gets a slope icon. Using exactly the same pond, after a land-lowering click in the right place has let the water go down, the sim can happily pretend to swim in the now-empty pond. On the other hand, sea water is not counted as water at all. A sim will quite happily walk under the sea if you tell him to.
...

Can sims become moving pond plants? :D
]
added the attached 3 pix for the next post.

niol

1st Oct 2007, 07:11 PM

So, I made 30x30 lot in strangetown
1. + a sims family
2. + painting slot on the top left 1st ground grid (deleted later)
3. sims max creativity by insimenator
4. paint still life with "c" (Paintinglot001-paintingStart.jpg, Paintinglot002-paintingIntermediate.jpg, Paintinglot003-paintingFinished)
5. With "moveobjects on" cheat, painting over persons (Paintinglot004-paintingOverSims-mot.jpg)
6. Somehow the painting got diagonally placed at the third grid from the top left of the lot (when the road is closer to the viewer) in the base game (EP0) :) (Paintinglot005-paintingDiagonallyPlaced-EP0.jpg)
7. + Inge's shrub teleporter plus to turn the sims a townie (Paintinglot006-TeleportorInge.jpg, Paintinglot007-sims=townie.jpg)
8. PaintingSlot is removed (Paintinglot008-SlotPaintingRemoved.jpg)
9. sims's graphical and the painting are stuck in the lot even after reload. (Paintinglot009-simsPaintingStuckInLot.jpg)

The attached are the lot.package file and the exported file.

Special Notices:

3D array
0x00000000: repeated chains
0x00000003: ---01x10-00x20--- repeated chains after Andi's stated offsets.
0x0000000C: "random" sparse values -000000-0N-

txmt:
#0x7fdf25b4!painting_540dd470_txmt for the painting material definition
txtr:
#0x7fdf25b4!painting_540dd470_txtr for the painting graphic

ObjT at least first few ones have portal infos just in case for readers who just didn't know.
instance 0x0000000C : easel infos
instance 0x0000001B : easel painting
instance 0x0000008B : easel painting
instance 0x0000008F : easel pallette

I skipped obj xml (I'm sleepy at the moment)

unknown type 0x6C589723 holds the lot name

That's it for now except the unchecked obj xml

I need a nap now :P .

The other 3 pix are attached in the previous post.

Inge Jones

2nd Oct 2007, 12:04 AM

Experiments with 3-D array resources. Lot included tree, fish pond, swimming pool, roof, railings, modular and non-modular stairs, portrait, still life, foundation, walls, floors, wallpaper, furniture.

Deleting each one of the following in turn resulted in:

3D-00 Sidewalk, road and floor tiles missing, leaving just space. All objects still apparently supported in previous places.

3D-01 Terrain contour info. Terrain flattened to road level leaving all objects where they were in absolute co-ords (ie now sunk or floating). Walls gone (except loft walls). Roof and railings collapsed onto ground. Pond just a black shadow. No new objects can be placed

3D-03 Nothing
3D-09 Nothing
3D-0A Nothing

3D-0B Interior objects have shadows as if they are outside. Half-down walls setting all walls remain up. Fully down walls still works. I would say this is losing the info about what is inside and what is outside.

3D-0C Nothing
3D-14 Nothing
3D-15 Nothing
3D-1B Nothing
3D-20 Nothing

At no point did I lose the textures on my portrait or still life. Was I meant to also test an actual custom painting?

Mootilda

2nd Oct 2007, 12:49 AM

Experiments with 3-D array resources. At no point did I lose the textures on my portrait or still life. Was I meant to also test an actual custom painting?
This is all useful information and, for now, I'll add comments to the LotExpander code about your findings. Must admit that I'm surprised at how many records you deleted that had no effect.

My intention is to try to reproduce Tsouka's problem:
I have Nightlife and Pets, no stuff packs. The portraits were created from within the game with the 'Paint Portrait of...' option on the easel.
At this point, I don't know how to reproduce her problem. I don't even know whether her problem is caused by the LotExpander (although it seems likely, since it always seems to occur when running this program).

I guess that the first thing that I'll try, when I get a chance, is to create a painting using Tsouka's method, and then expand the lot. If the painting survives the process, I might try installing just Nightlife and Pets, then try again. If the painting still survives, I might ask for her lot, to see whether I can reproduce the problem with or without her custom content. If that doesn't work... hmmm, guess I'm stumped.

Once I manage to reproduce her problem, I'll try deleting the 3D Array Instance 3, to see whether it affects the custom painting. If not, I'll probably look through the code to try to find other record instances that have "strange" logic. I'm just trying to figure out where to start looking for a problem with this type of painting in the LotExpander code.

I must admit that this seems like a horrible way to approach the problem, but I just don't know how else to find a problem like this when I don't have access to the game source code. I really am a newbie when it comes to modding and my skill-level is pretty low. As a programmer I'm fine, but modding seems to require a whole new set of skills.

If anyone has any other ideas on how to approach this, I'd love to hear them.

aelflaed

2nd Oct 2007, 03:21 AM

I'm back! What a lot has happened here over the weekend. I had a little trouble finding what related to me again, but I'm up to speed now.

To swap the side of the road used, we just need to swap the Y values between the Car Portals and the Service Portals:
(...)
Note that this will not change the direction that the cars are travelling. If that's wrong, too, then we'll need to change the X values as well.

I thought I had done that, but maybe I only changed one set of values - the cars moved onto the Maxis side of the road, but the direction didn't change. I'll have another go.

I will also try the suggestion of running LotExpander on the lot to see if that re-enables the building area. I agree, that is a far more serious issue than what side of the road the cars travel on.

I'll report back later.
....

(edit) I changed the portal values, but as happpened before (I DID try it), the cars moved to the other side of the road, without altering their direction at all. The values I used were
Service start 2.5, 15.5
Service Stop 9.5, 15.5
Car Start 9.5, 14
Car Stop 3.5, 14

The cars aren't completely in the other lane, though, more in the middle of the road. But definitely facing the same direction.

Also, I can't use the LotExpander on this lot. My old version seems to run, but offers only the fullgame neighbourhoods, without a browse option. The newer version Mootilda has posted won't run, and gives me this error "Index was outside the bounds of the array." I posted this error in the LotExpander thread, too. I already tried re-downloading.

In any case, if LotExpander won't show me the Minigame neighbourhood, how can I use it on this lot? If I put the lot temporarily into my full game, won't that make it unusable when it gets back to the basegame Starter? Does the new version have a browse option?

Stumped again.

Inge Jones

2nd Oct 2007, 10:54 AM

I guess that the first thing that I'll try, when I get a chance, is to create a painting using Tsouka's method, and then expand the lot. If the painting survives the process, I might try installing just Nightlife and Pets, then try again. If the painting still survives, I might ask for her lot, to see whether I can reproduce the problem with or without her custom content. If that doesn't work... hmmm, guess I'm stumped..

No need, I've just confirmed this myself. I have all EPs and SPs. On the same lot I was using for my previous tests, just using my saved version to overwrite the one in the hood like I always did, so not even the Sims have changed their activities. I ran the lot expander on it and expanded it one tile to the right. Went into the game, and the portrait and still-life had writing all over them. So I would say yes the Lot Expander is losing custom painting materials, but no it's not to do with any of the 3DARYs. I did test deleting instance 0x03 *twice* to make sure, but my paintings were fine.

Interestingly, the expanded part of the lot turned into a fish pond, with fish, and the man was actually allowed to fish there. I have a feeling I could have made it swimmable, too! Image attached.

Mootilda

2nd Oct 2007, 02:18 PM

No need, I've just confirmed this myself. I have all EPs and SPs. On the same lot I was using for my previous tests, just using my saved version to overwrite the one in the hood like I always did, so not even the Sims have changed their activities. I ran the lot expander on it and expanded it one tile to the right. Went into the game, and the portrait and still-life had writing all over them. So I would say yes the Lot Expander is losing custom painting materials, but no it's not to do with any of the 3DARYs. I did test deleting instance 0x03 *twice* to make sure, but my paintings were fine.
Thanks for doing this. Obviously this is going to require some code investigation on my part. I now have a theory about where to look for the problem.

Does anyone know whether this worked in earlier versions? Even better, does anyone know when it stopped working?

Interestingly, the expanded part of the lot turned into a fish pond, with fish, and the man was actually allowed to fish there. I have a feeling I could have made it swimmable, too! Image attached.
Yes, I've seen this as well. We definitely need the neighborhood terrain for these lots! Unfortunately, it's not going as smoothly as I had hoped and I need to take a break to look at aelflaed's issue with array bounds.

Ah, if only I could clone myself a couple of times. ;)

Mootilda

2nd Oct 2007, 03:24 PM

I changed the portal values, but as happpened before (I DID try it), the cars moved to the other side of the road, without altering their direction at all. The values I used were
Service start 2.5, 15.5
Service Stop 9.5, 15.5
Car Start 9.5, 14
Car Stop 3.5, 14
Your portal values certainly look right to me. This must mean that there is some other value in the file which determines the direction of travel. I have been assuming that the vehicles would always travel from Start to Stop. This will require some more research into the portals.

Does anyone else here have any ideas on this?

The cars aren't completely in the other lane, though, more in the middle of the road. But definitely facing the same direction.
Until we fix the direction of the portals, I wouldn't worry about this. This should be easy to fix by tweaking the values a bit.

Also, I can't use the LotExpander on this lot. My old version seems to run, but offers only the fullgame neighbourhoods, without a browse option.

In any case, if LotExpander won't show me the Minigame neighbourhood, how can I use it on this lot? If I put the lot temporarily into my full game, won't that make it unusable when it gets back to the basegame Starter? Does the new version have a browse option?
Try the TEST version of the LotExpander, below:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1785958

Mootilda

2nd Oct 2007, 07:19 PM

3D array
0x00000000: repeated chains
0x00000003: ---01x10-00x20--- repeated chains after Andi's stated offsets.
0x0000000C: "random" sparse values -000000-0N-

txmt:
#0x7fdf25b4!painting_540dd470_txmt for the painting material definition
txtr:
#0x7fdf25b4!painting_540dd470_txtr for the painting graphic

ObjT at least first few ones have portal infos just in case for readers who just didn't know.
instance 0x0000000C : easel infos
instance 0x0000001B : easel painting
instance 0x0000008B : easel painting
instance 0x0000008F : easel pallette
Thanks so much. Based on this information, I was able to find the problem with the portraits. Now, I just need to figure out how to fix it.

unknown type 0x6C589723 holds the lot name
I knew that it was in there somewhere... just couldn't seem to find it when I wanted it.

Inge Jones

2nd Oct 2007, 08:01 PM

The new version works nicely for expanding flooded lots backwards into the sea, without worrying what orientation they were created, so thank you for that :)

Now, am I to understand the custom painting info was in 3Darray instance 0xC? Because I swear my custom paintings didn't go funny when I deleted that one.

Mootilda

2nd Oct 2007, 09:07 PM

The new version works nicely for expanding flooded lots backwards into the sea, without worrying what orientation they were created, so thank you for that :)
Excellent. Sorry that the rest of the neighborhood terrain is taking so long... turned out to be a harder problem than I thought.

Now, am I to understand the custom painting info was in 3Darray instance 0xC? Because I swear my custom paintings didn't go funny when I deleted that one.
No, not in the 3DArray at all; that was a false lead. The tests that you and niol did helped me to narrow down the problem... I must have been working on this problem in a background thread in my brain, because all of a sudden, I knew what the problem was.

I'm hoping to have a new version really soon... would you mind testing it again with your custom paintings?

Inge Jones

2nd Oct 2007, 09:23 PM

I accidentally deleted the paintings lol - meant to put them inthe inventory before moving the family but at the last moment got distracted. Never mind though he can paint really quickly now :D

niol

2nd Oct 2007, 09:50 PM

No, it can be due to the sims or other things,,, along the course for the whole testing, or even irrelevant completely that we have to look at somewhere else. At least it's less complex than a built lot.

All the listed are to further reduce the field of search. The differences are unnecessarily specific or directly related to the portrait problem.

But one thing I'm pretty sure, the character scene means the game can't get to the txtr for portrait picture to show up, so missing txtr file or anything on the related referencing pathway can be the case. Yet, not missing the material which in turns should have caused blue flashing. It's not material syntactic error with the magenta flashing. It's not the red or yellow flashing either.

The portrait in question still existed in the lot properly only missing the texture. So, it can be the reference linking the texture to the portrait is broken or not moved along with the portrait object's location.

Inge, you can use the one I've posted, too.. if you want...

:)

Inge Jones

2nd Oct 2007, 10:33 PM

It's my bedtime now, but I have the paintings done and ready to test the new version with my morning cup of tea, if it's ready then :)

aelflaed

3rd Oct 2007, 01:20 AM

Your portal values certainly look right to me. This must mean that there is some other value in the file which determines the direction of travel. I have been assuming that the vehicles would always travel from Start to Stop. (...)

Try the TEST version of the LotExpander, below:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1785770

I have messed with these values enough in this process to know they don't necessarily move from start to stop anyway - should have mentioned it, I suppose. Sometimes things/people have appeared on the edge of the lot where they always do, when I have put the value somewhere in the middle of the lot. On the x values, anyway - the road-to-rear axis seems to respond as expected.

I will try the test version - thanks.

Interestingly, I have just tried putting the lot into my full (Seasons) game, just to see what happened, and it worked perfectly - all the correct tiles were buildable and placeable, and the normally-locked tiles were locked. Go figure. However, the original lot, and the re-installed version of it, remain locked all over in the basegame starter. Weird.

I'll go see what I can do with the test LotExpander. Thanks.

EDIT - Aaargh! Same error as before with the 1.2.5 version. Does that mean it's something wrong in my system?

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 02:02 AM

I have messed with these values enough in this process to know they don't necessarily move from start to stop anyway - should have mentioned it, I suppose.
This is valuable information; I'm obviously going to have to look at the portals some more. I'm sorry that moving the portals has been so difficult; I honestly thought that this would be a pretty simple process.

Interestingly, I have just tried putting the lot into my full (Seasons) game, just to see what happened, and it worked perfectly - all the correct tiles were buildable and placeable, and the normally-locked tiles were locked. Go figure. However, the original lot, and the re-installed version of it, remain locked all over in the basegame starter. Weird.
Yeah, this seems very odd. I've been thinking about installing the basegame starter, to try to look into the rotation / portal issue. However, it sounds like you're having a lot of problems with it. I really don't want problems with my development machine.

I suppose that it's time to consider installing just the base game on my secondary machine. Luckily, I won a copy of Deluxe right after purchasing Bon Voyage, so there's no legal issues involved. And, since it's just the base game, it may even run!

EDIT - Aaargh! Same error as before with the 1.2.5 version. Does that mean it's something wrong in my system?
At this point, I really don't know what the problem is. I know that you're using the basegame starter, but I really don't know much about how it works. Do you have this directory:
\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods

If not, try creating the directory structure, even if everything is empty. Then, try running the new LotExpander 1.2.6 again. If this works, then it's an easy thing for me to fix. In the interim, I'll take a look at the code and see if I can figure out what might be happening.

aelflaed

3rd Oct 2007, 02:34 AM

This is valuable information; I'm obviously going to have to look at the portals some more. I'm sorry that moving the portals has been so difficult; I honestly thought that this would be a pretty simple process.
(...)
At this point, I really don't know what the problem is. I know that you're using the basegame starter, but I really don't know much about how it works. Do you have this directory:
\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods

The directory is there. Same error. I could try to uninstall the starter, although I'm not sure if I would lose anything I need to keep - have to do some checking beforehand. I don't have any other computer to install things on. Anyway, I really want it to work for basegame, so everyone can use the results.

The portals themselves weren't so bad, once I knew what to do - it's just unfamiliar, and I need to do it all with the Starter Pro (to keep things interesting?). Obviously I should have started this discussion two months ago, when I didn't have any expansions! I've barely played Seasons, since I'm spending all my computer time messing with basegame stuff.

Maybe I should try altering a larger lot, just to see what happens to that.

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 03:54 AM

Here is a version of the LotExpander with my changes to date. Please let me know whether this solves your problems.

WARNING to everyone:

This is a TEST version of the LotExpander. Use at your own risk.

Here is a link to the current supported version of this tool: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1747180

Changes from Version 1.2.5:
1) Add a Browse button to allow the user to select neighborhoods which are not in the standard EA Games\Sims 2 directory.
2) Fix a potential crash when using the "Unlock All Tiles" functionality.
3) Do not move the lot in the neighborhood when expanding.
4) Fix problem with disappearing custom paintings.
5) Attempt to run when the game installation has been modified. Note that this does not yet allow the LotExpander to be used with the AnyGame / BaseGame Starter.

Update:
Removed the TEST version. Look for the new Release version, coming soon.

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 04:07 AM

The directory is there. Same error. I could try to uninstall the starter, although I'm not sure if I would lose anything I need to keep - have to do some checking beforehand. I don't have any other computer to install things on. Anyway, I really want it to work for basegame, so everyone can use the results.
No, don't uninstall the starter. I'm sure that we can figure this one out. Originally, I was thinking that your problem was the directory on the disk. Now, I'm beginning to suspect that the basegame starter changed your registry and the LotExpander expects the standard Sims 2 registry keys.

I'll check what the LotExpander is doing with the registry and see whether I can get rid of any assumption that the game is actually installed.

I know that this is a terrible way to figure out what's wrong, but I'm sure that we can do it, if you can just bear with me.

aelflaed

3rd Oct 2007, 04:33 AM

(...) I'm beginning to suspect that the basegame starter changed your registry and the LotExpander expects the standard Sims 2 registry key.

I'll check what the LotExpander is doing with the registry and see whether I can get rid of any assumption that the game is actually installed.

I know that this is a terrible way to figure out what's wrong, but I'm sure that we can do it, if you can just bear with me.

I figure you're doing most of the bearing. I'm just bumbling!

Is there some question that should be asked of Numenor, if you think it's the Starter altering things? I never know what to ask, being very clueless about computer stuff really.

There is a newer version of the Starter, but I haven't changed over yet as I don't have BV and am in the middle of this process.

I've been fiddling with another lot in the meantime, a 1 x 2 (I think, it's confusing - the lot goes two squares back from the road, rather than alongside it). I had no trouble swapping the road, and am fiddling with the portals - the service stop portal is right on the edge of the lot, and the pizza boy won't get his pizza out of the boot - presumably this is why Andi had a negative value there, but I can't work out what to put in to fix it now. However, it's also interesting that this lot also has an unbuildable section where the road used to be - which makes it function like a 1 x 1, but the rear of the lot is still counted in the Y values, and is visible in the neighbourhood view.

I'm attaching a picture of the 1 x 2 lot, showing all the portals in use! (and the pizza chappie standing there...)

I could go and ask something on the Starter Pro thread, if I knew what to ask - willing but clueless, as always. Let me know if there is any way I can help, other than keeping coming back here to check for the latest update.

thanks.

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 04:57 AM

I figure you're doing most of the bearing. I'm just bumbling!
OK, I believe that I have handled the situation where the registry has been modified after installation. Please download once more and let me know what happens.

I've updated the TEST version; download it from here:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1785958

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 05:02 AM

Obviously I should have started this discussion two months ago, when I didn't have any expansions!
Ah, but two months ago, I didn't know C# or .Net and had never done any modding or even looked at the LotExpander or SimPE code.

So, I'm not sure that I would have been any help at all.

It's really hard for me to believe how much I've learned in the last month and a bit.

I've been fiddling with another lot in the meantime, a 1 x 2 (I think, it's confusing - the lot goes two squares back from the road, rather than alongside it).
Yes, I find this whole thing confusing as well. The main problem is the way that Maxis allows rotation of the lot in two completely different ways: one inside the neighborhood (Orientation) and the other inside the lot itself (U11). There doesn't seem to be any consistent terminology for describing the lot size; 1 x 2 can mean either 2 from side to side along the road, or 2 from the front yard to the back yard. And then there's the problem that every lot has at least one additional row or column for the road. No wonder you find it confusing!

I had no trouble swapping the road, and am fiddling with the portals - the service stop portal is right on the edge of the lot, and the pizza boy won't get his pizza out of the boot - presumably this is why Andi had a negative value there, but I can't work out what to put in to fix it now.
The Start Portals should be near the edges of the lot and the Stop Portals should be near the center.

However, it's also interesting that this lot also has an unbuildable section where the road used to be - which makes it function like a 1 x 1, but the rear of the lot is still counted in the Y values, and is visible in the neighbourhood view.
I continue to hope that the LotExpander can fix this with the "Unlock All Tiles" functionality - if we can ever get it working with the BaseGame Starter, that is.

aelflaed

3rd Oct 2007, 06:01 AM

OK, I believe that I have handled the situation where the registry has been modified after installation. Please download once more and let me know what happens.

I've updated the TEST version; download it from here:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1785958

Sorry, no change. I deleted the previous versions, both 125 and 126, and tried un-raring the new test program both straight into the folder (where everything goes when I download it), and into its own subfolder.

:cry:

I don't understand about the Orientation button (as distinct from the U11 etc). I changed it once to see what would happen to the lot, but couldn't tell what had altered. So many mysteries.

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 06:14 AM

Sorry, no change. I deleted the previous versions, both 125 and 126, and tried un-raring the new test program both straight into the folder (where everything goes when I download it), and into its own subfolder.
OK, I'm stumped. Leave this with me for a while... I need to look at what the LotExpander is doing between the first and second screen, other than accessing the Sims 2 directory and registry. There must be something else in that section of the code which is failure prone.

I can't help but think that this might be related to the BaseGame Starter. I suppose that you could ask whether anyone on that thread had any idea what might be wrong. Perhaps there is someone who has managed to get the LotExpander working with the starter?

aelflaed

3rd Oct 2007, 06:27 AM

OK, I'm stumped. (...)I can't help but think that this might be related to the BaseGame Starter. I suppose that you could ask whether anyone on that thread had any idea what might be wrong. Perhaps there is someone who has managed to get the LotExpander working with the starter?

Okay, I'll go bug someone else for a while...

By the way, the service stop portal won't move - the car appears (and halts) right on the edge of the lot, no matter what value I put on it. I've now tried (3.5, 24), (7.5, 24), (-9.5, 24), and (12.5, 24). This wouldn't matter for anything but the pizza, I think, unless one of the other services gets stuff from the boot too. Must be related to Andi's minus value, surely? But it's beyond me.

I'll go jump up and down on the Starter Pro thread for a change. Thanks for all your patience.

niol

3rd Oct 2007, 06:35 AM

In the past few days, I played the base game families hard to learn that come-home sims (say, when the at work command still on), pedestrian sims and NPCs after entering the lot, they all have to walk to the mailbox before they try to sort to an entry of the house thru the game routing logics. When non-residential sims leave a lot, they have to move to the 5-6 tile from the edge before they can "leave" the world regardless of the fact that they might have been at the edge already.
So, ther're at least 2 ways for sims to leave the lots. One is thru the vehicle and one is thru the pedestrian. The residential sims don't leave thru the pedestrian but only by specified side of the road while the non (esp. the drives of the vehicles) can do both sides of the roads.

For the vehicle direction, the start and stop seem to mean the points where the vehicles are placed. As for the direction, if this is related to the lot orientation like the driveway orientation, then we've got both ways to head to the preset point(s). But, I'm unsure if they're really co-related. It's only that 1 more way to try things out. If they're co-related and solved, lot builders of driveway and garages can have easier time to do their arts.

Rugs are also an interesting objects coz Maxis decided its graphical components are stuck to the floor grids and they can rotate.

Yes, the Base game Starter is meant to alter the registry infos for every use to ensure the chosen game version to load from what I read about it.
So, a relative variable setting for it is necessary.

Inge Jones

3rd Oct 2007, 08:28 AM

aelflaed

3rd Oct 2007, 12:12 PM

Inge Jones

3rd Oct 2007, 12:54 PM

What portal revealer, Inge? It would be nice to find something that I could just turn around in-game...

I posted it in this thread, in message #122

aelflaed

3rd Oct 2007, 01:19 PM

I posted it in this thread, in message #122

Aha. Thanks.

Is it likely to work for basegame? I probably overlooked it before, because it's in among BV-related discussion. Also, does it just show the direction, or does it allow you to change it? I already know which way they are going on these lots.

General update on my portal issues - I have fixed the service cars stopping too close to the edge of the lot - reversing the values works a treat. New values are:
Service Start (3.5,24) for a 2x1 lot, or (3.5,14) for 1x1.
Service Stop (9.5,24) for a 2x1, or (9.5, 14) for the 1x1 lot.

Much better. Now they can order pizza. And both lots have the cars travelling in the Maxis directions, just with the service and car portals on non-Maxis sides of the road (i.e., swapped).

Cheers everyone - sleeptime here.

Inge Jones

3rd Oct 2007, 02:04 PM

Dunno if it will work with basegame, I do everything in the latest EP and some of the resource formats might require that.

When the portals are revealed they are also made selectable and movable and rotatable etc etc.

niol

3rd Oct 2007, 02:30 PM

So, the "directional problem" of the garage and driveway can be solved like this. :D

And BTW, what made the lot lose the txtr referencing in the portrait case? Since this is fixed, and I assume the "error" is found.

What's more? Now, we can dig deeper to track how Maxis lock the edge and by what means that will stabilise walls at the lot edge.
BTW, how about graphically silence the expanded terrain for rowhouse lots to avoid the graphical glitch in the over-sized lot overlapping strategy? (so, adding a feature to the lotexpander to overwrite those reference to be null before and after use for common known fixed sizes.)
Or else?
Anyone that works can save further works unless it's meant to dig much deeper. :)

Inge Jones

3rd Oct 2007, 02:48 PM

Niol the remaining problem for a graphically repressed overlap, is that the sims may still be seen to walk through next door's house walls, so you are forced to also overlap fencing. Although I tend to be amused by these funny little things :D

niol

3rd Oct 2007, 03:05 PM

May use invisible fences with maywalkover = 0x00000000 to block your trespassing sims.. :D
I'm gonna have to update the fences I've made, too.

Surely, can also use inviisble object to block sims access :P .

Suddenly, thinking of if modded invisible tiles can do the job.
moonlight_muse
Invisible Floor Tile
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=166311

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 03:19 PM

And BTW, what made the lot lose the txtr referencing in the portrait case? Since this is fixed, and I assume the "error" is found.
Andi's original code was deleting the entire txtr structure; ie, every txtr instance. I suppose that this worked fine, as long as nothing important was stored in the txtr records.

One of the newer EPs started storing custom pictures in these records, but I didn't realize that there was a problem, since I never expanded a lot with custom pictures. More on my testing strategy later.

I've been trying to understand Andi's LotExpander code as the need arises - sorting out each record only when there's a problem with the record. Since I didn't know that there was a problem with the txtr records, I never really looked at what the txtr logic was doing, or tried to understand why. More on my development strategy later.

After some experiementation, I changed this to delete only 3 instances of the txtr record: roofs_txtr, terrain_txtr, and terrainLmap_txtr. I'm not sure that it's actually necessary to delete all three of these to ensure that the game regenerates the information associated with lot size, but these three at least seem to be sufficient.

The primary problem that I had with this record was the lack of a flag to specify the type of records stored: roofs, walls, pictures, ... I could only find one way to distinguish between the different types of data: the file name. In general, I don't believe that it is a good programming practice to rely on string values (because of internationalization), so I decided that I should probably be deleting specific record instances, rather than deleting based on the type of data stored in the record.

One alternative would have been to delete only known txtr instances, but there are probably an "infinite" number of these: walls_0_txtr, walls_1_txtr, ... That lead me to try to find a "minimal" set of records required for the task.

Basically, I changed the default behavior for unknown txtr record instances from "delete" to "keep". This should also prevent future problems, should EA decide to store additional information in the txtr record.

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 03:59 PM

I thought that it might be useful, for anyone considering modifying the LotExpander code, if I talked a bit about my development and testing strategies.

I have had one major problem working on Andi's code: it's a big "black box". Andi obviously understood what was stored within the lot records, but the format of the records isn't documented in any way.

There are very few comments in the code (and they're in German, which I don't understand). The Sims2Wiki often has little or no information, and the information that's there can be out-of-date. So, I'm left to rely on the source code to describe the record formats.

Unfortunately, Andi's code isn't written in a way which reveals the record structure... for example, instead of reading the "block version number", the code just reads and throws away 4 bytes. Please note, this is not meant to be a criticism of Andi, it takes a lot of time and effort to write code which reveals both the known and unknown structure of records. Andi did a wonderful job with this tool and I really appreciate his contribution.

However, when a problem arrises with one of the records, the source code doesn't help in any way. So, as I manage to understand something about a particular record, I have been trying to "document" my understanding within the source code... to make the LotExpander more "translucent", if you will. When I get a break from the LotExpander, I hope to take this information and update the Sims2Wiki.

Even if I don't currently need a particular piece of data within a record, I've been trying to document what that data is. I've been trying to code to allow for future EPs (the custom picture fix is an example of this). I've also been putting a lot of debug code into the LotExpander, to ensure that the programmer is warned when a new record instance or a new version of a known record instance is encountered. And, I've been "translating" the code into English. I hope that, over time, this will make the LotExpander easier to maintain and to upgrade for future EPs.

Once the LotExpander code has been changed, testing becomes an issue. Since I'm only one person with limited time, I've been trying to automate some of the testing.

My strategy until now has been to try to ensure that things continue to work exactly as they did. So, I added a "testing" mode to the code, which will attempt to expand every known lot in every direction. This gives me good code coverage. It also allows me to do a byte-by-byte comparison of the lot files before and after each change.

For the most part, my test cases have been the Maxis-made lots that come with the default neighborhoods and subneighborhoods. I have also been testing the Maxis-made lots which appear in the lot catalog. These two sets of lots allow testing of many of the new features in most of the EPs and SPs.

Believe it or not, the fix for the custom paintings is the first time that the LotExpander actually changes the format of an expanded lot so that it is different from an expanded lot created using Andi's last version. Previous code changes have only affected lots created with EPs and SPs which were not supported by Andi's code.

niol

3rd Oct 2007, 04:03 PM

Thanks goodness, the essential txtr files to delete can be located.
Gonna try this in that failed lot.
:D

Thanks for the explanation BTW.

:)

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 04:05 PM

Yes, the Base game Starter is meant to alter the registry infos for every use to ensure the chosen game version to load from what I read about it.
So, a relative variable setting for it is necessary.
I don't have the BaseGame Starter installed, so it's a bit difficult for me to test the changes that I've been making, which depend upon the directory structure and registry keys.

If anyone else has the BaseGame Starter installed, it would be wonderful if you could try using the LotExpander on a lot in one of the starter's directories. If you are able to use the LotExpander, then aelflaed's configuration becomes more suspect. If, on the other hand, you get the same error... well I guess that I'll just have to install the starter and see if I can figure out what's happening.

Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 04:13 PM

The portals are directional. If you use my portal revealer, you will see arrows on the placeholders. The start and stop names only describe destinations for the vehicle to do parts of its animation. They need to be aligned to the direction of travel, and the other portal must be in a straight line from there; the driver cannot navigate between two points by steering or anything :D
Is the portal direction the only factor? Or, does the road actually have a direction associated with it. If so, is there any way to reveal the "direction of travel" at particular points on the road?

Later: I confirm that the latest version preserves the custom painting textures.
Thank you. I'd like to release this version, but I was really hoping to solve aelflaed's problem first... perhaps if someone could confirm that the directory and registry logic are OK (by testing with the BaseGame Starter), then it's worth releasing anyway.

I have a little (I hope it's little) request to make. In the lot picker, please can you put the package name next to the lot name? I usually can't remember WTH silly name I gave my lots, especially ones I made just for testing, and the only way I can tell which lot I am meant to be expanding is to look in the Lots folder and see which one had the latest modified time on it. I would have to open it in SimPE to find out what its name is.
This shouldn't be a difficult change. Let me look into adding an "Advanced" button which revels the package names.

{Added:}
If the portals are directional, can you tell us how to set the direction?

Inge Jones

3rd Oct 2007, 04:16 PM

How much of a priority is it to get this working with the basegame starter? Don't people normally use that just for testing their hacks? Would you be doing serious building under BS or AS?

niol

3rd Oct 2007, 04:20 PM

lol, may try the translation engines.
http://translation2.paralink.com/
http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/
http://www.freetranslation.com/

Lol, may ask some German-speaker members here as a few of them had shown up these threads before. May take a note on them...
Say,
plasticbox
http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=178282
If I've remembered correctly, he has shown up to be willing to help the language translation from Deutsch to English.
:)

added:

Mootilda,

As for the registry infos affected by the BGS or AGS, just go and bother Numenor with a nice "virtually literal " kiss... :D

Inge,

For a lot-builder who want most of the made lots to be compatible for all game versions, building it in a base game config. is necessary. Now Aeflaed wants to make importable 10x20 lot templates of different lighting directions.

Although I'll keep a base game copy in one of my HDs, I still wanna run various game versions from those fuller game verions in other HDs :P .

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 04:30 PM

How much of a priority is it to get this working with the basegame starter? Don't people normally use that just for testing their hacks? Would you be doing serious building under BS or AS?
I'd really like to see this working. I've been thinking about installing the BS or AS on my machine, to help with my LotExpander work. Right now, I can't open the neighborhood packages in SimPE because I have Bon Voyage installed, which makes modding the files much more difficult. I suppose that I should just buckle down and install it and work out any problems.

For the rotated 1x1 lots, this is also imperative. I have a philosophy that lots which will be shared should always have the minimum necessary EP /SP requirements. The AnyGame Starter seems ideal for this.

However, your point is well taken. Let me do some additional testing on the latest version and I'll release it before working on the AnyGame / BaseGame Starter any more.

Inge Jones

3rd Oct 2007, 04:34 PM

Right now, I can't open the neighborhood packages in SimPE because I have Bon Voyage installed

Oh, I've been opening them in SimPE ok. Don't you use the QA version? If you're not in the QA but wish to have the latest version I'll make it available to you. I am sure Quaxi won't mind a bit under the circumstances.

Mootilda

3rd Oct 2007, 06:05 PM

Oh, I've been opening them in SimPE ok. Don't you use the QA version? If you're not in the QA but wish to have the latest version I'll make it available to you. I am sure Quaxi won't mind a bit under the circumstances.
Thank you. I've just been using the released version... I suppose that I should have looked into getting the QA version, but I never have. For now, it would be wonderful if you'd give it to me.

Inge Jones

3rd Oct 2007, 06:33 PM

Mootilda, you have PM.

aelflaed

3rd Oct 2007, 10:44 PM

How much of a priority is it to get this working with the basegame starter? Don't people normally use that just for testing their hacks? Would you be doing serious building under BS or AS?

Well I do. Having not had EPs for ages, I really appreciate the efforts of the creators who made objects etc that I could use, and I am still building in basegame wherever I don't want to do something specific (like a dorm or a garage) that will require an EP anyway. This is my first plunge into modding (very unexpected). And I'm only making it because I wanted my building photos to look bright on the correct side of the house!

However, I'm only one person, and if it is the BGS that is causing my LotExpander to break, then other people could be enjoying the benefits of Mootilda's work sooner, while I wait for it to be worked out. Haven't had any response yet on Numenor's thread, but I'm sure he's busy too.

I'll try Inge's revealer and tell you if it works for me.

EDIT - Inge, the revealer didn't crash my base game, but I can't find it anywhere either.

Where should I be looking? Maybe it's one of the many things that lie invisibly in your game (using up space), and then leap out at you when you install an EP.

I really appreciate all the effort you people are putting in to help these things work.

Inge Jones

3rd Oct 2007, 11:15 PM

It's a yellow and red spotted flamingo, near the pink one in the catalogue.

aelflaed

3rd Oct 2007, 11:44 PM

It's a yellow and red spotted flamingo, near the pink one in the catalogue.

Nope, no new flamingos in my game. I bet it would turn up with any EP, though. Oh well, it's presumably proving useful to others - would have been nice to make it so easy!

plasticbox

3rd Oct 2007, 11:50 PM

Mootilda,

I've looked at the source files (mostly v1.2.1) for german leftovers, below is what I found -- perhaps some of it is still helpful.

Also, about the BaseGameStarter: I'm not keeping up with this thread so I'm sorry if this is a useless/redundant comment, but I've been using BGS+LotExpander before with no problems at all .. I moved the "building site" neighborhood folder from BaseGame to FullGame, used the Expander, moved the folder back and voilà. Maybe that would be a workaround for you, aelflaed? Again, sorry if you already tried that, I simply don't have the time atm to read this entire thread (wish I could! =) but maybe this helps anyway.

Apart from that, Mootilda, you totally should install the BGS! I *hate* installing stuff on unfamiliar OSes but the BGS was really easy and painless. And the customer support is excellent =).

OK, translations:

From v1.2.5, LotExpander.cs:

// My best guess at german to english translations, based on usage:

// Anzeige = Title (text)

Display, as in: the text that appears on the display (this is fetching a string right?)

// Erklaerung = Information?

Explanation .. it's sorta more in-depth than "Information". This is the text about how to deal with the lot in-game etc? I'd probably call it Instructions then.

// Weiter = Next (button)
// Zurueck = Previous (button)

Yup (Back is actually better than Previous)

// ZuScreen = Next screen?

ToScreen or GoToScreen I'd say -- with "next" I associate a *linear* order, and I've seen ZuScreen<number>() in the context of case a few times (i.e. not linear) .. but I think you renamed it Screen<number>() now which is also fine.

// Breite = Width
// Hoehe = Height
// Tiefe = Depth
// Alt = Old
// Neu = New
// AnzBytes = Number of Bytes (per object / structure)

NumBytes, yes

Everything else is correct -- good guesses! (And aren't we all glad that the syntax itself is more or less plain english =)

More stuff from v1.2.1:

LotExpander.cs:

Auswahl = Selection
DateiListe = FileList
LotEigenschaften = LotProperties

Einschraenkungen = Limitations, Restrictions (depending on what the string actually says .. off the top of my head I don't remember)

//NB-Package ändern = change NB package
//Lot-Package ändern = change lot package

Fortschritt = Progress

// Diese Methode nur, weil SimPE GeneratableFile.Save() hier nicht funktioniert!

This method only because SimPE GeneratableFile.Save() does not work here! (sentence no verb in german either =)

LotExpander.Designer.cs:

I'm not sure what all the XML type stuff is. There were some borken comments in LEStrings.Designer.cs too (I didn't look at that too closely since the strings have already been translated) .. I think they're at least partly not written by Andi, but somehow inserted by a germanified coding tool? Is this "Designer" some kind of windows interface toolbox / window manager / UI thing? Clueless mac user here ..

/// <summary>
/// Erforderliche Designervariable. = required Designer(?) variable
/// </summary>

/// <summary>
/// Verwendete Ressourcen bereinigen. = clean up "used resources" (garbage disposal?)
/// </summary>
/// <param name="disposing">True, wenn verwaltete Ressourcen gelöscht werden sollen; andernfalls False.</param>

True if "verwaltete" (literally, "managed" .. could be anything between local, private, locked .. ?) resources are to be deleted, otherwise False

#region Vom Windows Form-Designer generierter Code = Code generated by Windows Form-Designer

/// <summary>
/// Erforderliche Methode für die Designerunterstützung. = Method required for Designer support
/// Der Inhalt der Methode darf nicht mit dem Code-Editor geändert werden. = The content of this method must not be changed with the code editor
/// </summary>

Links, Rechts, Hinten, Vorne = Left, right, back, front (but I think you've figured this out already)

R_DESC.cs:

Zeichen = Characters, CharCount
Anzahl = Count, Number

R_2ARY.cs:

around line 64: DifBreite = Dif means Difference I'd say

Line 64: //Viertelzeilenweise am Ende einfügen = insert "quarterlinewise" at the end (i.e. in increments of 1/4th of a line or row)

Long german compound here: Viertel = Quarter (one fourth); Zeile = Line, Row; weise = wise (as in likewise)

Likewise, line 100: //Viertelzeilenweise am Anfang einfügen = insert "quarterlinewise" at the beginning

Line 143: //Header und vorhandene Daten = Header and available (present, existent) data

Line 145: //Am Ende einfügen = insert at end
Line 172: //Am Anfang einfügen = insert at the beginning

R_2ARY_3B76.cs

Line 70: //Zeilenweise am Ende einfügen = insert "linewise" (line by line / row by row) at the end

R_3ARY_0C.cs

Line 187: //Spaltenweise am Ende einfügen = insert "columnwise" (column by column) at the end

R_2ARY_5CEE.cs, R_3ARY_01.cs

see above (Am Ende einfügen, Am Anfang einfügen etc)

R_WGRA.cs

Line 144: //Daten manipulieren = manipulate data
Line 160: //Rest bleibt unverändert = rest remains unchanged

R_OBJT.cs

Line 91: //BR und BW müssen hinter BlockID stehn! = BR and BW must go after BlockID!

Portale.cs, R_3ARY_03.cs, R_LOT.cs, R_WRLD.cs, R_TMAP.cs, R_ROOF.cs, R_XMTO.cs:

didn't see any german

Program.cs:
/// <summary>
/// Der Haupteinstiegspunkt für die Anwendung. = the main loop for this application
/// </summary>

Thanks for all the work you do. Hope I was able to contribute something.

Oh and for the record: I would *totally* do some serious building with Expander + BGS combined. I'm working 2 jobs at once right now, which means I CAN wait =) but I'm looking very very forward.

aelflaed

4th Oct 2007, 12:43 AM

(...)I've been using BGS+LotExpander before with no problems at all .. I moved the "building site" neighborhood folder from BaseGame to FullGame, used the Expander, moved the folder back and voilà.

plasticbox, that was such a totally simple suggestion, and no-one made it before. And it worked! Thankyou!

I moved the neighbourhood folder into my full game, ran my outdated LotExpander, and put the folder back. Result - all tiles unlocked, including the rotated road.

I shifted the lot to a different part of the map. Result - locked the road and edge tiles, buildable area stayed open.

I put the lot into the catalog and re-placed it on the map. Result - Lot functioning normally.

Haven't yet tried packaging the lot and re-installing it, but I suppose that should work too. Hallelujah!

Of course, there is still an issue with the updated LotExpander and the BGS, but the lot I have been modding appears to be fixed. The only thing still odd is the cars.

Actually, I have realised it isn't the direction of travel per se that is reversed. Moving the road has resulted in just that - the road has been moved, but NOT ROTATED on the lot. So the cars are still going just as they were, but we are now looking from the other side of the road, so to speak. If I change the values so they go into the Maxis-standard lanes, THEN they will be travelling in non-Maxis directions.

Interesting. Don't know how to change it, although Inge's revealer might well be the answer if I could use it.

So I'd still like to be able to use the new LotExpander with the BGS, but the biggest problem with my modded lots appears to be dealt with.

aelflaed

4th Oct 2007, 03:11 AM

I've made two new rotated lots, and the process seems to work fine as it now stands. The cars are still slightly wrong, as described, but everything seems to function and look okay. And I understand what to alter, and how.

I am attaching the most recent rotated lot - I'd appreciate it if someone would take a look and report if there is anythiing else that needs to be changed. I'm pretty excited to think I may soon be able to upload them.

The lot has a small house on it, furnished for one or two, so you don't have to build anything - but feel free to test building and placing new things, since that's one of the problems I was having. There is no custom content. The sunlight should be at the front and right of the house, as viewed from the road.

I'd like to know the lots transfer correctly to someone else's game before I share them.

Thanks everyone.

niol

4th Oct 2007, 03:18 AM

wow, interesting trick plasticbox has given out...

so such change can affect how the lot to be locked?

wow, it seems to me that's too fast to share a modded lot...:D this lot is not just simply trimmed off of the useless jpg alone.

anyway, I'll use it in 1 of my testing neighbourhood... :D

aelflaed

4th Oct 2007, 03:49 AM

wow, it seems to me that's too fast to share a modded lot...:D this lot is not just simply trimmed off of the useless jpg alone.

anyway, I'll use it in 1 of my testing neighbourhood... :D

Thanks, Niol.
Naturally, the lot I've uploaded above is just for testing purposes. The light should be at the front of the house and to the right side as you look from the road. This is opposite to Andi's ones. I haven't posted any pictures, but I will if asked - I'm trying to keep the size of the post down. There is no custom content in the lot.

Once I knew what to change, it was fairly easy, since I was starting with Andi's work already done - no way do I understand what was required to shrink the lots in the first place. Most of the work has been done by others, really - Andi and all of you here!

If the lot stands up to testing, I'll complete the set and submit them.

niol

4th Oct 2007, 04:12 AM

Every phone option but the transportation option are working well in my that only trial.
I started a new 1-sims fam to test it out. it's missing. guess it's due to no community lot in that neigh yet.

May try an another trial.

After adding a comminity, the transportation option shows up.. :) yay

aelflaed

4th Oct 2007, 06:20 AM

Every phone option but the transportation option are working well in my that only trial.
(...)After adding a comminity, the transportation option shows up.. :) yay

Excellent!

Do I need more than one person to test? Otherwise I can go ahead.
I found the transport option lacking, too, until I put a community lot into the neighbourhood. :)

Thanks for checking the lot for me, Niol.

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 06:40 AM

Do I need more than one person to test? Otherwise I can go ahead.
I would wait until the portals are working well before uploading the lot.

I tried Inge's portal revealer on your 1x1 lot and was able to move the portals and rotate them, so that they worked perfectly.

If you'd like, tomorrow I could use SimPE to try to determine what changed in the portals between the old (base game with funny portals) and new (non-base game with correct portals) lots. This might give us a hint as to how to change your portals using SimPE, so that the base-game mini lots that you upload are perfect.

Oh, and I used a two-person family to play with your 1x1 lot. Somehow I ended up with about 8 visitors inside that tiny little house!

Looks like you are very very close to having this finished.

By the way, it's really much nicer having the sun at the front of the house. This type of lot would make a wonderful addition to the 1xN and Nx1 mini lots currently available.

I suppose that I should try using the LotExpander on your 1x1 and 2x1 lots, just to make sure that everything still works. Tomorrow...

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 06:44 AM

I have also uploaded the patch to make some of the go-here tokens revealable, and an updated revealer, which now includes the wave effects.
Inge, this is a wonderful tool! I finally had a chance to try it today and I love it. Is there any way that we could get a base-game version of this?

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 06:54 AM

so such change can affect how the lot to be locked?
Yes, it's a nice feature of the LotExpander. Andi really did a good job with this program. I wonder whether I'll ever understand it completely?

Unfortunately, unlocking all of the tiles doesn't currently allow us to build to the edge of the lot. I'm going to have to research how this feature works before I'll be able to determine whether we can unlock the edge tiles for building.

Did you ever try unlocking all of the tiles on the 1x1 lot that had the funny road problem?

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 07:04 AM

I've looked at the source files (mostly v1.2.1) for german leftovers, below is what I found -- perhaps some of it is still helpful.
Thank you. This is very helpful. I'll let you know if there's anything else that I need translated, but it looks like you answered most of my questions.

Oh and for the record: I would *totally* do some serious building with Expander + BGS combined. I'm working 2 jobs at once right now, which means I CAN wait =) but I'm looking very very forward.
Are you getting the same error that aelflaed was seeing?

"Index was outside the bounds of the array."

I think that the only way for me to fix this problem is to install the BaseGame Starter and try to find and fix the problems, then do the same thing with the AnyGame Starter. Trying to debug this without having them installed is really not working.

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 08:22 AM

Nope, no new flamingos in my game. I bet it would turn up with any EP, though. Oh well, it's presumably proving useful to others - would have been nice to make it so easy!

Do you have *any* custom objects (not bodyshop-type cc) showing up in BGS? I had to uninstall BGS after a short trial because I could not get my objects showing up while using it. As far as I know there is nothing about that flamingo that should prevent it showing in the catalogue for an early game *even if it doesn't work*. If you do have one or more custom objects showing up in your catalogue please can you point me to, or send me, one of them so I can try and spot what the difference is?

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 08:23 AM

Inge, this is a wonderful tool! I finally had a chance to try it today and I love it. Is there any way that we could get a base-game version of this?

Well - if I could use BGS with *any* cc it would be a start. At this time I simply don't have any way to test it.

plasticbox

4th Oct 2007, 08:27 AM

Are you getting the same error that aelflaed was seeing?

I did not get any errors. However, that was with v1.2.4 (or whatever version was the current one in mid September) and an older version of the BGS (the one with the Uni bugfix) ... no idea if and what might have changed since then.

aelflaed

4th Oct 2007, 09:55 AM

Do you have *any* custom objects (not bodyshop-type cc) showing up in BGS? (...) please can you point me to, or send me, one of them so I can try and spot what the difference is?

Yes, I do have other CC working in my BGS configuration. From memory, I have MaryLou's Independent Expressions windows, Marvine's new spiral stairs, Numenor's recolourable stairs...is this enough? Do you want objects? Objects I can't think of so quickly...the single-tile dressers made from end tables, can't remember who made them. I haven't put many objects into the BGS, mainly build items.

When I had the real basegame, I often found custom items that were supposed to be compatible, that didn't show in my catalogue, although other BG players seemed to be using them. All those objects (if I hadn't weeded them out along the way) duly appeared when I got my first EP.

I suppose this is the same thing happening now with the BGS. Why it should happen in one person's basegame, and not another's, I have no idea.

I used a two-person family to play with your 1x1 lot

Is that a typo? I thought I only uploaded a 2x1.

It's amazing how little space you really need in a well-designed house. (I once had a family of five, including twin toddlers, living in a single-bedroom-and-loft, nine by nine squares. I LIKE compact houses. I finally took pity on them when she got pregnant AGAIN and let them move.)

I could use SimPE to try to determine what changed in the portals between the old (base game with funny portals) and new (non-base game with correct portals) lots. This might give us a hint as to how to change your portals using SimPE, so that the base-game mini lots that you upload are perfect.

I have been fiddling with more lots this afternoon. The community lots have several minus values. So far, the road changes are fine, but I haven't checked the portals in-game yet.

I'm looking forward to creating a set of lots facing sunwise, and it would be nice to fix the cars just that bit more.

Cheers!

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 10:49 AM

Ok try this flamingo. I exchanged the OBJD for the one in the original objects.package, and put it in Build Mode catalogue under double height windows.

Edit: updated upload in later post

aelflaed

4th Oct 2007, 12:40 PM

Ok try this flamingo. I exchanged the OBJD for the one in the original objects.package, and put it in Build Mode catalogue under double height windows.

Okay, got that one. It appears in the right place. But how do I use it? It just seems to be a normal flamingo...no extra menu that I could find.

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 12:50 PM

Ergh! I forgot to change the group number of the new OBJD.

Try this one

niol

4th Oct 2007, 12:59 PM

How to use the flamingo?
Just got the latest version... I'm using it in the base game copy.

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 01:04 PM

How to use the flamingo?

As soon as you buy it, all the portals will become visible and movable. When you sell it, they will become invisible and unmovable again.

If you have an inhabited lot, you may also use the flamingo's menu to choose which portals to show. I can add other types of invisible lot object on request.

aelflaed

4th Oct 2007, 02:02 PM

Try this one

Wow! This is simply brilliant!

So much easier than guessing about the values, especailly if you're like me and NOT a numbers person.

Fascinatingly, the markers are not where I thought they were, even on lots that were working. One lot had all the markers in the middle of the buildable area, even though the portals had tested okay in play.

I'm attaching a few pictures. The last one is a standard lot, not messed with by me. The other two are before-and-after pics of a 1x1 community lot I rotated today. Shifting the position and direction of each marker is very easy (needs Moveobjects cheat), and now my cars will travel in the correct places.

One of my community lots seems to be totally without portals. Don't know what happened there - may have to start that one again.

Thanks for making this tool usable for me, Inge, it's fantastic.

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 02:09 PM

Lol! No wonder your pizza man was having conniptions!

aelflaed

4th Oct 2007, 02:58 PM

A few more bits before I go to bed...

Pretty much all the lots I have rotated had the portal markers on the buildable area - obviously this isn't impossible to play, since some of those lots have been functioning fine except for the car directions. Sometimes, two or more of the markers were piled on top of each other in the back left corner of the lot.

I looked at one or two un-altered Andi lots - the portals were on the road or footpath as expected, but often WAY off the edge of the property.

I've shifted a lot of portals in the last hour or so, and will do more testing tomorrow. (have to look with SimPE to see what the values are now...)

For tonight, I'm attaching the blue house again, its portals altered with Inge's flamingo. Will someone please test it for me again? The cars will hopefully be right, and everything else as well. No flamingo included - I'm sure you've all got it by now.

Pics attached show the position of the portals in the old version and now.

Mootilda, I've remembered where you got a 1x1 lot I'd been working on. That house is even tinier than the blue one here. (But cute)

We're really getting there at last - many thanks as always.

niol

4th Oct 2007, 04:47 PM

still couldn't get the portal revealer work in my base game copy.

it just override the statue flamingo with the same bhav and menu and that's all.

still trying more...

no it doesn't work and still the same.
I've already removed all other mods or downloads leaving just the reflection mod and my pool surface tiles.

aelflaed, did you use the BGS-based base game?

My base game copy is still pretty clean and new.

gonna delete the thumbnails to see if that helps.

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 04:50 PM

Is that a typo? I thought I only uploaded a 2x1.
No, it is not a typo. I downloaded your 1x1 rotated lot from your LotExpander bug post.

I knew that the portals were more broken in the 1x1 lot than in the 2x1 lot, so I wanted to see whether Inge's portal revealer could be used to lend insight into the portal problem. Although I knew that you didn't want to release the lot under Bon Voyage, I thought that the research into the portal problems could be done with any EP.

I need to determine how to set up the portals correctly using a hex editor if I'm ever going to get the LotExpander's portals right. I'm trying to figure out where the direction of the portals is stored, since it seems to be different than the X and Y that we've been using to position them.

So, as far as I can tell, there's only one more thing that needs to be tested with your 2x1 lot before it's ready: whether the LotExpander works on it. I'll try that today.

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 04:52 PM

still couldn't get the portal revealer work in my base game copy.

it just override the statue flamingo with the same bhav and menu and that's all.

still trying more...

You missed my post a few back where Aelflaed was saying the same thing and I realised I had not changed the group number on the OBJD. I fixed it and uploaded it again. Remember I couldn't test it myself in the basegame.

niol

4th Oct 2007, 05:00 PM

oops, sorry.
I didn't realised that there were a few posts new to me posted in-between the last post I saw and my old post.

gonna test it right now... :)

ya, it's working and it can show all known portals...

Thanks... Inge... :bunny:

Maybe, you can release it a s build mod for lot-builders who are concerned about the portal positions...

Go check more thing now, me...

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 05:26 PM

I have thought of another reason why shrunk lots will be much better for row houses than overlapping ones. With overlapping ones you have place the lot first, then expand it before you can build. You won't be able to just make the house one time then place several of them in a row.

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 06:21 PM

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 08:08 PM

For tonight, I'm attaching the blue house again, its portals altered with Inge's flamingo. Will someone please test it for me again? The cars will hopefully be right, and everything else as well. No flamingo included - I'm sure you've all got it by now.
I tested expanding your new rotated 2x1 lot. As expected, the lot expanded just fine, but the portals were not moved correctly. I'm going to point people at Inge's flamingo until I can get the movement of the portals fixed properly within the LotExpander.

aelflaed, I think you have a "go". This lot looks great!

Now, would you like to think about making a tutorial for people, or shall I?

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 08:19 PM

Should I make my flamingo have its own thread now?

niol

4th Oct 2007, 08:49 PM

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 08:52 PM

Should I make my flamingo have its own thread now?
Yes, please. It's such a wonderful tool that I'd really like more people to see it. Let me know and I'll link to your new thread in my original post.

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 10:10 PM

Bleagh - it's gone in the moderation queue. Could be there for... some time.

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 10:13 PM

Not necessarily true for overlapping lots, this kinda lot can still be shared and made multiple copies at once by file replacement at lot folder.

As long as the dummy replaced lot fits in the original lot specs of the expanded lot, just copy the lot for multiple duplications and rename them accordingly. I don't see that a hard job to do so.
This is a technique that I've used from the beginning, but I'm not sure whether some people would find it too difficult. I suppose that someone could try writing a tutorial about overlapping lots... The technique is very do-able once you understand the orientation issues.

A lot file seems to record the fence posts to record where the walls and fences are at. What do you think?
How to fool the game to recognise the walls as fences while avoiding the gridline atop of the walls to cause crashes?
I'll really have to do some research into this... I just don't have any idea how these record types work. Certainly, the wall graph (WGRA), wall layer (WLAY) and fence post layer (FPST) might be good places to start the research.

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 10:15 PM

Bleagh - it's gone in the moderation queue. Could be there for... some time.
For now, I'm pointing people at your version on this thread. Perhaps you'd like to write something about the tool here, for now. You could always delete your post here once your other thread is accepted.

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 10:18 PM

Well wouldn't it be easier for you to temporarily add it to your lot expander thread? That's where the people will already be, anyway.

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 10:26 PM

Well wouldn't it be easier for you to temporarily add it to your lot expander thread? That's where the people will already be, anyway.
I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure what you're asking. I've been going back and putting some pointers to your tool in various posts that require manipulation of the portals. If you'd like me to do something else, please let me know.

I was just thinking that it would be really helpful to have a quick "tutorial" on using your tool. Specifically, how to install and use the flamingo, a picture of a lot with the portals in the "correct" location, and an explanation of what the different portals do.

If you'd like, I could certainly try to write such a tutorial...

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 10:33 PM

I was suggesting you upload it as an attachment to the first post of your Expander download thread until it's own thread gets approved. After that, delete the upload and replace it with a pointer to the new thread.

I am not sure it's ready for a tutorial. I feel as if it's still in development really. There may be other things we can add to it. Actually it happens to be a belief of mine that the tutorials should not be written by the toolmakers, but by helpful experienced users of the tool. That way the writing is more empathetic and it leaves the toolmakers more time to continue development. You're too valuable working on the Lot expander/shrinker to be spared for tutorial writing :D

I already put how to use it in the thread I created, and I can answer questions there.

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 10:37 PM

Inge Jones

4th Oct 2007, 10:42 PM

aelflaed is eager to do it, aren't you aelflaed? ;) There is not a lot to say about the flamingo in particular, perhaps more to say about portals in general.

Yes Mootilda it's fine by me I wouldn't have even made it if it wasn't to help your project.

niol

4th Oct 2007, 10:45 PM

Mootilda,

Thanks for your further suggestion on a way to use the lot expander.
The 10x20 lot seems to be fixed now... The unbuildable stripes are gone after tile removal but I still have to use moveobjects on cheat to get rid of the edge tiles. Then, I saved the lot and exit back to the neighbourhood.and voila the graphics and others are fixed... The previously unbuildable became buildable ever since.

Actually, the confusion I had was about if I had to use a freeware hex editor to trim the arrays one by one... You can imagine why I felt dense...

I've added back the mailbox and garbage can. :anime:

Now, I'm gonna have to check or even fiddle it with the portal modding... :D

... after my nap...

Thanks Mootilda, Inge, aelflaed, and etc... nice good job you all have done... :)

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 11:01 PM

The 10x20 lot seems to be fixed now... The unbuildable stripes are gone after tile removal but I still have to use moveobjects on cheat to get rid of the edge tiles. Then, I saved the lot and exit back to the neighbourhood.and voila the graphics and others are fixed... The previously unbuildable became buildable ever since.
I'm glad that the LotExpander was able to fix these problems. I definitely need to add this step to the "Rotate a Lot" tutorial, and possibly other places as well.

Actually, the confusion I had was about if I had to use a freeware hex editor to trim the arrays one by one... You can imagine why I felt dense...
So, did you have to trim the arrays to get this to work? It certainly is a much easier procedure if you only have to change the height and width, without having to delete a bunch of stuff.

Does this mean that you now know how to decrease the size of an empty lot by hand? Is there anything that you want to add to Andi's instructions? Or perhaps to my interpretation of Andi's instructions? ;)

Mootilda

4th Oct 2007, 11:20 PM

niol, do you remember this lot?
I finally got a parellel 2-sided lots working including its re-importation. I've been wanting 4 that type of lots for a long long time, esp when I can make it manually.
Could you attach that lot here? I'm going to try to get the portals working properly and your lot looks like an ideal test case. Thanks!

niol

5th Oct 2007, 07:52 AM

For if we have to trim the array, no, we haven't to as we use the lot expander as you suggested to remainthe same H and W values (no change) and let the lot expander to "unlock the tiles" and this may be a sense different from using the cheat "moveobjects on".
My assumption on that they had the same sense of meaning while that's quite likely my own error!
"just using the cheat" couldn't help in that case for at least some reasons (I might make mistakes on something I failed to remember or recognise). Yet, I'll need further confirmation to be completely certain coz I still don't understand the whole thing completely...

So now I tend to believe Andi was actually trying to describe what it's happening when we alter the H and W values in the 2D and 3D arrays but not to tell us to trim the arrays one by one... Thanks goodness.

So, actually decreasing the lot size is much easier than I thought. But surely, the portal technique is important to fix such lots.

As for the 2-sided lot, it's really not too much special, the road portals still remain the same old ones on the first road. coz I didn't really move the portals and the mailbox only affect how the graphics presents when a family moves into a lot. Somehow, the cinematic camera renders things (including the in-game settings) differently from the general camera. But it seems my base game copy tends to take the additional mailbox (not the default one) as the first stop for pedestrian sims. So they have to bend their pathways before reaching to the exit portal.

Note, I've checked that lot with the portal revealer, and there's only one set of portals
But now with portal revealer, and if we can duplicate the necessary portals to the additional road side. Then, we're up to experiment to test how 2 or more sets of portals may work with the present game settings. :D If good, one more feature. If failed, we need find a pathway or alter it or omit it if we don't want that option that much (so, it's more like it's good to have but not miserable not to have).

Anyway, it's attached here (http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1782056&postcount=95)

There is not a lot to say about the flamingo in particular, perhaps more to say about portals in general...
Oh yeah, you've got at least 1 audience here... :D

aelflaed

5th Oct 2007, 09:27 AM

Input from Numenor:

@ Aelflaed - I don't know the internal structure and functions of the LotExpander. However, if it currently doesn't read the mini-game neighborhoods, it's very unlikely that the BGS can cause or fix the problem that you mention.

I can only you give a hint that can help you use the LotExpander (or the Clean Installer, or any tool that reads the save-game folder).
Let's say that you want to modify a lot that is in your "Up2Seasons" mini-game; open your AppFiles folder, and you will see many ".reg" files: choose the one named "Sims2_Up2SSN.reg" (each possible mini-game has its own .reg file). Double-click on it and then confirm the modification in the registry.

Then start the Lot Expander, and you should be able to operate on the Up2SS mini-game.

When finished, it's VITAL that you double-click on the file "Sims2_Full.reg", so to restore the Registry to its normal values!

from aelflaed ... Maybe this is of some interest to Mootilda.

aelflaed

5th Oct 2007, 09:54 AM

I've got a few things to add about the portals (and the flamingo) after using them all afternoon today...once the kids are in bed I'll put it into writing. Now its dinnertime, so I gotta go.

Inge Jones

5th Oct 2007, 10:01 AM

Bon Appetit!

aelflaed

5th Oct 2007, 11:57 AM

Back again...brain dump starting now...

Aelflaed's Notes regarding portals and spotted flamingoes

portals are usually at values of something-point-five. Whole values are
possible, don't know if it makes any difference. Not that I can see.
Inge's Flamingo shows the position of portal markers, but moving a marker doesn't seem to move the actual portal consistently.

Most / all of my original rotated lots came out with the markers in the
buildable area of the lot, not on the roadway or path. Some of these lots
appeared to be functioning perfectly, except for the service vehicles using the carpool lane and vice versa. After moving the markers into the right places, the lots still function.

Andi's lots had the markers in the right positions parallel to the road, but
some were a long way off the edge of the lot. Don't know why. Maybe so the cars didn't fade out in that ugly way at the edge of the lot? I don't think they do that on Maxis lots, but it's a long time since I used one!

Andi had negative values in some places - one on the RL lots, and two on some of the community lots (by MaryLou?). When I left negative values in my portals, those portals failed to appear on the comm. lot (1x3 vertical) at all.
Andi may have altered the instances (is that possible?) so that 1 - 6 are the
portals, since he stated that 3 - 8 were normally used by Maxis portals, but
none of the Andi/Marylou lots I have been using reflect that. All have the
portals in 1 - 6.

When markers were re-instated on the lots where they were missing, they tended to appear piled up on each other in the back left corner of the lot.

Vehicles don't halt in a consistent spot relative to the appropriate marker. On
different lots, the taxi stops with the rear wheel on the marker (3x1), the
front wheel on the marker (2x1), with the whole car well behind (1x1), or
centred on the marker (2x1). This may be affected by the size of the lot in
question - the lot where the car stops before reaching the marker is a 1x1. Why the middle-sized lot should allow the car to centre on the marker, I dunno. On each single lot, the stopping place is consistent.

I have had pedestrian portals functioning ten squares into the building area,
because that's where the SimPE value was set, although the marker was in the correct place on the footpath.

Moving the markers in-game did alter the SimPE values on the lots, although not always as in the lot just mentioned.

Vehicle portals need to be set right next to the median line on the appropriate side of the street.

Moving the portal markers DID fix the lane chosen by the vehicles to match the Maxis standard. Changing the values alone in SimPE did not.

I haven't yet modded a fresh lot with my latest experiences in mind, but I will. I'm thinking to move the road in SimPE, use the flamingo and moveobjects cheat in-game to fix things up, then go into simPE again to see what happens to the values. At this stage, Inge's flamingo is VERY helpful in checking the portal placement and getting the cars onto the correct lanes, but you'd still probably need to use SimPE to tweak things.

Following are the values for different-sized lots in the orientation

U10 = 04, U11 = 02,

as correct as I can make them. I'm hoping both values and markers in my rotated lots reflect these numbers! Horizontal means the lot is wide along the road frontage, Vertical means the width is towards the back of the lot. (I think this is the same as Marylou's method).

1x1

1 Service Start (1.5, 15.5)
2 Service Stop (6.5, 15.5)
3 Car Start (8.5, 14.5)
4 Car Stop (2.5, 14.5)
5 Pedestrian 1 (8.5, 10.5)
6 Pedestrian 2 (1.5, 10.5)

1x2 (Vertical)

1 Service Start (1.5, 25.5)
2 Service Stop (6.5, 25.5)
3 Car Start (8.5, 24.5)
4 Car Stop (2.5, 24.5)
5 Pedestrian 1 (8.5, 20.5)
6 Pedestrian 2 (1.5, 20.5)

1x3 (Vertical)

1 Service Start (1.5, 35.5)
2 Service Stop (6.5, 35.5)
3 Car Start (8.5, 34.5)
4 Car Stop (2.5, 34.5)
5 Pedestrian 1 (8.5, 30.5)
6 Pedestrian 2 (1.5, 30.5)

2x1 (Horizontal)

1 Service Start (1.5, 15.5)
2 Service Stop (14, 15.5)
3 Car Start (18.5, 14.5)
4 Car Stop (7.5, 14.5)
5 Pedestrian 1 (18.5, 10.5)
6 Pedestrian 2 (1.5, 10.5)

3x1 (Horizontal)

1 Service Start (2.5, 15.5)
2 Service Stop (16.5, 15.5)
3 Car Start (27.5, 14.5)
4 Car Stop (11.5, 14.5)
5 Pedestrian 1 (28.5, 10.5)
6 Pedestrian 2 (1.5, 10.5)

This is doubtless disorganised and incomplete, but maybe it's helpful in some way.

aelflaed

5th Oct 2007, 12:12 PM

I tested expanding your new rotated 2x1 lot. As expected, the lot expanded just fine, but the portals were not moved correctly. I'm going to point people at Inge's flamingo until I can get the movement of the portals fixed properly within the LotExpander.

aelflaed, I think you have a "go". This lot looks great!

Now, would you like to think about making a tutorial for people, or shall I?

Excellent - thanks for testing. Check my notes about possible lack of consistency, though, when using the flamingo - SimPE may still be required, as far as I can tell.

I'm a bit nervous about trying to make a tutorial - I'll probably get all the figures wrong! I'd like to finish the set of lots first, in any case, now that I'm so close.

Ditto, tutorial for Inge's flamingo. I'm sure I'd need a lot more help with SimPE and all - I'm using it, but that doesn't mean I'm understanding it!

the mailbox only affect how the graphics presents when a family moves into a lot

No, because there was that time I put the mailbox down the side of a lot, and the paper boy appeared in the middle of the street and walked to the mailbox to put down his paper. Can't remember what he did after that.

Inge Jones

5th Oct 2007, 12:15 PM

portals are usually at values of something-point-five.

That will be because the whole numbers signify where the grid intersects. To get them to be centred on the centre of a square, you need to have them moved by .5 of a square.

Inge's Flamingo shows the position of portal markers, but moving a marker doesn't seem to move the actual portal consistently.

Can you explain this in more detail? What did you see that made you say to yourself "oh this is inconsistent" and what had you expected instead? Can you give a concrete example?

Re: tutorial - maybe it's just too early yet? We're still coming up with theories only to discard them a day later.

niol

5th Oct 2007, 01:28 PM

After all, we may help one another out to check tutorials for accuracy, right?
Yet an another worried wondering here...

BTW, from the numbers for the portals, it seems that the number count is also done from the top left corner when the road is at the bottom. This is the same as floor-tiling as well.

Out of all those listed instances, I believe that as long as 1.5 is left from both ends of a road is already a safe approach.
For exactly where the vehicles can be placed properly, this probably depends on the vehicle body length (from the fore/front/head/start/beginning to the "-hind"/"hint-"/back/tail/end). So, just prepare for the longest, the limo or the helicopter or even the UFO... ? Then, that will leave some ranges of locations for custom likes.

...
No, because there was that time I put the mailbox down the side of a lot, and the paper boy appeared in the middle of the street and walked to the mailbox to put down his paper. Can't remember what he did after that.

Erm.. I was talking about the cinematic scene for a family move-in but not a normal scene for a pedestrian pass-by. This I'm pretty sure the mailbox can't affect the portal for anything.
It's just that I suspect the mailbox is the first location for pedestrians (NPCs entering the lots on feet, neighbours, called friends...). Then, they start to search for an entry point of a room (for a closed room, then it's the doors or garages; for an open room, it's the gaps, and in this case they even enter it and seemingly getting lost. :lol:)

...One tiny tile more than 60 in any direction and the game crashes when you save it :D link here (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251381)
Omg... So 64x64 won't be the largest...? 64x64 may just be for the graphical limits for a lot page? :|

Somehow, I wonder a lot file can call to another lot file for extra info storage while fooling the game to read the extra set of data anew in terms of process.. But then, the game is forced to run a lot as if it's running >1 lot. :lol: just a short-minded wonder... :rofl:

BTW, I've answered your post in another thread you pm-ed me for. Thanks for reminding me of such :)

Inge Jones

5th Oct 2007, 01:38 PM

Omg... So 64x64 won't be the largest...? 64x64 may just be for the graphical limits for a lot page? :|

Ok, I was speaking loosely, which seemed appropriate for the context of that thread. The lot expander currently allows only multiples of 10 so that is all I could test it for. Maybe you can get those 4 extra lot tiles in.

aelflaed

5th Oct 2007, 03:12 PM

That will be because the whole numbers signify where the grid intersects. To get them to be centred on the centre of a square, you need to have them moved by .5 of a square.

That makes sense! Obvious, really, but I have trouble getting my head around the grid for some reason.

What did you see that made you say to yourself "oh this is inconsistent" and what had you expected instead? Can you give a concrete example?

I tried to already, maybe not very well. I'll try to explain clearer tomorrow - I've had to do some judging this evening, and I really have to get some sleep before I think any more.

BTW, from the numbers for the portals, it seems that the number count is also done from the top left corner when the road is at the bottom. This is the same as floor-tiling as well.

Yes, even though I have to keep recounting anyway. It's those numbers, which is why I'm not a natural modder.

I suspect the mailbox is the first location for pedestrians (NPCs entering the lots on feet, neighbours, called friends...). Then, they start to search for an entry point of a room.

Sorry, misunderstood.

Good night, all.

niol

5th Oct 2007, 03:20 PM

10x20lot.jpg
To show you the fixed 10x20 lot.

avant-apres.jpg
Here're my moving the portals around in the parallel 2-sided lot.
The upper is the "before" while the lower is the "after".

pedestrian1.jpg
To show the first group of guests called by a residential sims. They show up from the moved pedestrian portal properly.. yay...

pedestrian2.jpg
To show the second group of guests called by a residential sims. They show up from unmoved pedestrian portal.

runover.jpg
Probably, service vehicles just run over one another when crowed or suddenly appear in the gap available...

cab.jpg
Finally, the cab comes... It appears the portal position I did is a bit off. So, for the directions, it's still spirally/rotationally symmetric for the angle at 180*. We'll see if that remains true in corner 2-sided lots.

Note this parallel 2-sided lot is made from a 30x30 lot.

...
Yes, even though I have to keep recounting anyway. It's those numbers, which is why I'm not a natural modder.
....

Lol, it can take times to get used to it.... :)

Mootilda

5th Oct 2007, 05:08 PM

Aelflaed's Notes regarding portals and spotted flamingoesVery helpful information here. I love the name "Brain dump". Some of my "tutorials" are obviously more in the line of "brain dumps".

Moving the portal markers DID fix the lane chosen by the vehicles to match the Maxis standard. Changing the values alone in SimPE did not. My investigation yesterday leads me to believe that the hex value at 0x96 may be the direction of the portals (subject to the U11 value, of course). Pedestrian portals are always 0x00. Values for vehicle portals appear to be 0x00, 0x02, 0x04, 0x06 for the four different directions. Today, I'll see whether I can correlate these values with the U11 values, to give them an absolute direction: portal pointing Left, Top, Right, Bottom.

Following are the values for different-sized lots in the orientationThis information is exactly what I need to get the portals working in the LotExpander. Andi's logic attempts to move a generic portal based on it's previous position and the new width and height; this logic really doesn't work. So, I'm going to try setting each portal position based on the type of portal and the size and rotation of the lot.

This is doubtless disorganised and incomplete, but maybe it's helpful in some way.Still very useful, even if is it disorganised and incomplete.

Anything which requires me to play the game a lot (such as verifying portal behaviour) really seems to slow me down. Having these values (along with the portal direction) should allow me to come up with a reasonable algorithm for setting up the portals on an expanded lot.

Mootilda

5th Oct 2007, 05:17 PM

Excellent - thanks for testing. Check my notes about possible lack of consistency, though, when using the flamingo - SimPE may still be required, as far as I can tell.Yes, that's why I actually play-tested your lot before and after expansion. The LotExpander portal logic definitely needs to be fixed, expecially for the smaller lots and lots expanded at the front.

I'm a bit nervous about trying to make a tutorial - I'll probably get all the figures wrong! I'd like to finish the set of lots first, in any case, now that I'm so close.

Ditto, tutorial for Inge's flamingo. I'm sure I'd need a lot more help with SimPE and all - I'm using it, but that doesn't mean I'm understanding it!That's fine. It may be too early to think about tutorials yet. I'm very happy to update my tutorials with everything that you've learned... I enjoy writing tutorials. Just thought that you might actually want to do it.

Mootilda

5th Oct 2007, 05:44 PM

So now I tend to believe Andi was actually trying to describe what it's happening when we alter the H and W values in the 2D and 3D arrays but not to tell us to trim the arrays one by one... Thanks goodness.You must remember: we don't have to worry about most of the information which is stored in the arrays, because the lots are empty. Decreasing the size of an existing (built) lot will require those arrays to be trimmed correctly.

I believe that Andi might have been trying to explain how to decrease the size of the arrays in general, and then noting where the process is made easier by the fact that the lot is empty.

Which brings up an interesting question:

After building on the lot, does the game trim the (un-trimmed) arrays correctly? One way to check is to see whether the size of the arrays decreases to match Andi's calculations:

- 2D Array should have a size of:
height X width X number of bytes per objects

- 3D Array should have a size of:
height X width X depth X number of bytes per objects

Note that the height, width, and depth indicated here are the dimensions of the arrays, which are sometimes 1 more than expected (possibly because the array holds vertices, rather than tiles), or which are a multiple of the expected value (possibly because a tile can hold mulltiple objects).

You should also test expanding these lots, to ensure that the LotExpander is not confused by the additional (un-trimmed) data.

So, actually decreasing the lot size is much easier than I thought. But surely, the portal technique is important to fix such lots.I'm so glad that the arrays don't have to be trimmed for an empty lot. Makes this technique much more do-able.

As for the portals, I'm hoping that Inge's tool will help people who are using a manual technique and aelflaed's research will help the LotExpander to move the portals correctly.

As for the 2-sided lot, it's really not too much special, the road portals still remain the same old ones on the first road. coz I didn't really move the portals and the mailbox only affect how the graphics presents when a family moves into a lot. Somehow, the cinematic camera renders things (including the in-game settings) differently from the general camera. But it seems my base game copy tends to take the additional mailbox (not the default one) as the first stop for pedestrian sims. So they have to bend their pathways before reaching to the exit portal.I wanted to try moving the service portals to the back of the lot, both for my own interest and to ensure that the LotExpander can handle odd cases. I hate to have the LotExpander crash on people who may not even realize that their lot has some oddity.

Note, I've checked that lot with the portal revealer, and there's only one set of portalsPerhaps the maximum number of pedestrian / car / service portals really is 6. I know that Andi coded with this maximum, but I want to make sure that the LotExpander doesn't crash if it's possible to have more.

Inge Jones

5th Oct 2007, 05:52 PM

I feel sure the game will be very happy with extra portals. They're just objects. Whether sensible use would be made of them is another matter. But usually the code just says "set to next object of type" and the sim looks for *a* portal of that type. When it finds the first one it is happy. It doesn't care that there were 20 more it could have used.

Mootilda

5th Oct 2007, 05:56 PM

From: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251381
Is ther a way to make your lots bigger than 6x6?Nope! A team of us just proved there isn't by testing an unlimited version of the Lot Expander. One tiny tile more than 60 in any direction and the game crashes when you save it :DAnd from here:Omg... So 64x64 won't be the largest...? 64x64 may just be for the graphical limits for a lot page? :| I'd just like to point out that we haven't "proven" anything. All that I did was disable the size checks in the LotExpander. I didn't try to ensure that the LotExpander properly created larger lots. I'm just not familiar enough with the LotExpander code to be sure that this is a fair test of the issue.

I'm willing to put this research onto my To-Do list, but at a pretty low priority. I think that shrinking lots is a much more important ability than making them huge.

Inge Jones

5th Oct 2007, 06:12 PM

I'm willing to put this research onto my To-Do list, but at a pretty low priority. I think that shrinking lots is a much more important ability than making them huge.

Agreed.

Mootilda

5th Oct 2007, 06:12 PM

Input from Numenor: [...] from aelflaed ... Maybe this is of some interest to Mootilda.Yes, this might be helpful, when I get a chance to look at this issue. For now, this has been moved lower in priority because the simple changes that I made (to the directory and registry logic) didn't fix the problems. I thought that I might be able to give you a quick fix, but I was wrong.

I believe that the only way to solve this problem is to install the BGS and see what the issues are. At this point, I don't even know whether this is an easy problem or a hard one.

In general, the smaller a problem is, the more likely I am to try to fix it. The idea in software development is to aim for the "low-hanging fruit" first. Often 90% of the problems can be solved very quickly - with less than 10% of the work. The final 10% of the problems take much more time that the first 90% altogether.

This is why I haven't tackled the "decreasing the size of a lot" issue yet. I know that this is a hard problem, so I want to get some of the smaller stuff off of my list first.

When I first took over the LotExpander, I was just looking for problems which prevented people from using the program. Now, I'm trying to fix the "bugs" which don't crash the program, but which make it less useful.

Using the neighborhood terrain has also turned out to be a harder problem than I was hoping, so it has also been moved down in priority.

niol

5th Oct 2007, 06:36 PM

lol, just a quick request. Inge,
Can you make the portals into a collection file, then one can duplicate it and make it available to different lot types. So, oine cn easily add the portals whether to add back the missing ones or add additional ones to some unsuspected locations :D

Inge Jones

5th Oct 2007, 06:44 PM

Yes they need to be made buyable. I'll just do a pack of modified OBJDs but it might be better if everyone makes their own collections because I don't think they are cross-compatible across EPs

niol

5th Oct 2007, 06:59 PM

ermmm... I thought the portals are only referenced to be called in lot files. and the defaults obj guid ID won't change across EPs?

Anyway, if that doesn't work, I'll have to try that out at a later time.

I can tell I've already forgotten how a collection file looks. gonna have to re-dig it.

Inge Jones

5th Oct 2007, 07:01 PM

It's the collection packages that are not compatible. The buyable portals will be fine. I can stick them in the same place as the revealer.

aelflaed

6th Oct 2007, 02:38 AM

When markers were re-instated on the lots where they were missing, they tended to appear piled up on each other in the back left corner of the lot.

I got the missing markers back just by altering the values in SimPE. In case that wasn't obvious.

Vehicles don't halt in a consistent spot relative to the appropriate marker.

Maybe this is where the value is a whole number, rather than a .5? Actually, no, looking at the values I posted, there's only one whole number remaining, and it isn't a taxi portal. Mootilda, I would suggest changing that whole value just so it matches everything else.

I have had pedestrian portals functioning ten squares into the building area, because that's where the SimPE value was set, although the marker was in the correct place on the footpath.

Inge, this is one instance that made me think the flamingo wasn't giving a consistent result. On this particular lot, I had moved the road successfully and changed the portal values in SimPE (getting the numbers wrong of course). When I looked at it with your flamingo, I then moved the markers into the correct positions. The values in SimPE did change, although I'm confused about the maths now and can't say if they were right or not. When I played the lot, the pedestrians still appeared in the wrong places - where I had put the value, not where the marker was. Looking in SimPE again, the values reflected my observed pedestrians, not the marker. Now that it all matches, everything works.

This lot also had two minus values, which I left in to see what would happen. Those two markers (Serv Start and Car Start) didn't appear at all, although the taxi still arrived (in the middle of the park). When I changed the neg values in SimPE, the missing markers appeared at the back of the lot and could then be placed correctly.

I'll try a fresh lot after this - that may make the functioning clearer. Didn't mean to complain, just reporting.

Mootilda, I can probably be convinced to do a tutorial once the lots are released. I think I understand the process well enough now, but I want to experiment with the flamingo and SimPE combinations some more too. And you're all seconded as tutorial-checkers.

I'm happy to have my LotExpander error on the backburner for now - I am able to use the old one for current needs. Obviously I'd like it fixed eventually, so I can enjoy your updates.

Going off to try a fresh lot rotation - report back later.