Found strange .ini file in world file on the Sims Exchange with weather settings??

[homunculus420]

Ok well I got bored with the way my town looked so I decided to browse through some world's on the exchange and check the files in s3pe for some interesting sky settings (too lazy to edit the ini's on my own) and I found this one "Weather" ini file :


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Tunable Parameters Related to Rain and Snow
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;



;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;
[TerrainRainParams]

; Specularity is a function of "wetness", but this function does not have to be linear. This sets the exponentiation used to translate
; "wetness" -> "specularity". Should be 0 < x <= 1. Lower numbers make for sharper transitions.
RainExponent = 0.2

; Just how specular is totally drenched terrain? MaxSpecular is multiplied by the diffuse texture, RainMaxSeparateSpecular is
; independent. No guarantees on keeping this distinction on low-end cards.
RainMaxSpecular = 0.25
RainMaxSeparateSpecular = 0.4

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;
[FloorPuddleParams]

; How sharp are the puddle borders? Sharper borders are less forgiving to texture aliasing. Smoother ones are less likely to look
; like well-defined puddles.
Sharpness = 0.5

; Texture scale in world space coordinates
TextureScale = 0.1

; How much darker should a puddle make the underlying floor tiles look in the case where the camera is looking directly down on it?
DiffuseMultiplier = 0.9

; How much light from the skybox should the puddle transmit when the camera angle is oblique to the puddle?
SkyboxMultiplier = 0.7

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;
[SnowParams]

; Not every snow shader actually references the snow texture. Some shaders, such as phong and the low-LOD terrain, simply use
; a snow color. This color needs to be consistent with the snow texture.
BaseRed = 0.788
BaseGreen = 0.816
BaseBlue = 0.839

; How bright is the snow specular?
SnowSpecularIntensity = .6

; High-quality snow noise uses two scales; mid-quality uses just the top scale, low quality uses just the normal. Use these
; to tune the tiling of the noise texture. This will yield the best noise breakup when neither term is a multiple of the other.
; For reference, a scake if .5 yields the same texel density as the ground tiles using the current textures.
SnowBigNoiseTextureScale = 0.081
SnowDetailNoiseTextureScale = 0.33

; Diffuse texture scale
SnowDiffuseTileScale = 0.5





Has anyone ever seen this ini file?? I've changed settings in the sky and clouds before, but I have never encountered these settings.

[Inge Jones]

Great!! Weather coming soon :D

[Arisuka]

YES!!! YES!!!!! YESSS!!!! YESSS!!!! OMYEFFINGGOD YES!!!!!!! I have been SO worried that EA would give up on making the whole weather thing work, and just let it all go. There are so many things that make you wonder how the heck they are going to make work with seasons and weather, like autumny trees in world such as with WA and Pets and already changing skies as in Bridgeport and Twinbrooks... But hell, we ARE going to have weather and seasons! I haven't dared to be optimistic on this, but still have wanted weather for TS3 so anxiously ever since first installing the game. The worry days are over, move aside sunshine, here comes the RAIN!

[BenC0722]

YThere are so many things that make you wonder how the heck they are going to make work with seasons and weather, like autumny trees in world such as with WA and Pets and already changing skies as in Bridgeport and Twinbrooks... But hell, we ARE going to have weather and seasons! I haven't dared to be optimistic on this, but still have wanted weather for TS3 so anxiously ever since first installing the game. The worry days are over, move aside sunshine, here comes the RAIN!

I suspect it would involve new textures for the pre-existing trees (for Fall/Autumn and Spring) and new meshes (for Winter), since most trees don't have leaves in the winter.

Also some custom roads will need to have a secondary texture for use in winter, in particular ones meant to appear unpaved.

[Inge Jones]

I have a slight suspicion this could be a prank thread tho... can we have a link to the download you saw this in?

[auntielynds]

I'm pretty sure those ini files have always been in the original set. I remember seeing them when looking through all the ini files. Dormant files waiting to be revived by EA. LOL.

[Inge Jones]

You saw the lines about FloorPuddles in them? I've seen ini files of course, but not mentioning rain etc. Not in TS3 anyway.

[auntielynds]

I thought I saw something with snow and rain params. I'll have to take a looksie.

[coltraz]

I thought there's been evidence of weather in the game's code since the Base.

[Arisuka]

I suspect it would involve new textures for the pre-existing trees (for Fall/Autumn and Spring) and new meshes (for Winter), since most trees don't have leaves in the winter.

That sounds like so much work, to redo eeevery siiingle tree from all the EP's too like that. That's why I've been so suspicious (and still am) because EA is a total lazy ass...



I thought there's been evidence of weather in the game's code since the Base.

Those are part of the skies. The files of the sky files have their own little "weather" patterns going on, as in Bridgeport, you got those cloudy, stormy and clear days.

[Jay290783]

The only thing that jumped out at me was a reference to phong.
It only jumped out because I noticed a reference to that when I browsed the files of Hidden Springs.
I posted about it on the Editing pre-made worlds (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=447707) thread.

Basically I was looking for the distant terrain and I found a reference to phong within one of the _key files.
This is what I originally posted for it:

I "think" I've figured out (hopefully) why the Distant Terrain won't save for Hidden Springs.
There seems to be four files listed which don't exist within the world file.
These are listed in the _key Type 0x0166038C Instance 0x08E591B650FE8D04

They are as follows:
Instance 0x000000007C9AB2A4 Name terrainDistant_dw3
Instance 0x00000000B8F61327 Name terrainDistant_dw3_ftp_autoGen
Instance 0x00000000B9105A6D Name phong
Instance 0x000000009611BE8B Name terrainDistant_dw3Mesh

So, IF my theory is correct, then I would presume that, without these four files actually existing within the Hidden Springs World package, this is the reason the DT disappears when we try to save our new worlds with the Hidden Springs files.
Have a read of my full post here (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=3639018#post3639018) if you want.
Jay

[Inge Jones]

All the same, I don't see that what you posted there is evidence in support of the premise of the original post here. I do hope the OP comes back today with the link I asked for, as I would be very happy indeed to see evidence of upcoming real precipitation :)

[homunculus420]

I have a slight suspicion this could be a prank thread tho... can we have a link to the download you saw this in?


the ini file can be found in this world: http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=3034982#

[Inge Jones]

Thanks! Downloading now :D

Hmm, certainly *looks* genuine. Apologies for my earlier reservations, homunculus. Tho' I guess it doesn't rule out a prank by the person who uploaded the lot, lol!

[Jay290783]

All the same, I don't see that what you posted there is evidence in support of the premise of the original post here.
I was just trying to point out the connection between the files in the case of this phong file which seems to be non-existant yet keeps being mentioned.
I apologise if I either didn't make myself entirely clear on that fact or if my previous post seemed off-topic. I assure you there was a connection there that I was trying to bring to light.
Jay

[auntielynds]

I thought I was going CRAZY!

Stw has all his Caw files available for that world Here (http://builders.forumotion.net/t1211-exotic-world#20673). That must be where I saw them.

[simsample]

That's one of the ini files that is in the Fullbuild0.package file (Electronic Arts \The Sims 3 \GameData \Shared \Packages):
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/2/8/4/8/MTS_simsample-1236958-ScreenHunter_03Oct.0102.12.jpg

STW (Tamlo) also did some experimenting with the INI files from Sims Medieval:
http://www.modthesims.info/showpost.php?p=3534045&postcount=15

[BloomsBase]

maybe the file is used for the fog emitter?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLiMsob36ZY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9LBlyxJtoY&feature=related

[homunculus420]

That's one of the ini files that is in the Fullbuild0.package file (Electronic Arts \The Sims 3 \GameData \Shared \Packages):
http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/2/8/4/8/MTS_simsample-1236958-ScreenHunter_03Oct.0102.12.jpg

STW (Tamlo) also did some experimenting with the INI files from Sims Medieval:
http://www.modthesims.info/showpost.php?p=3534045&postcount=15


ooooo well that explains where the file came from, thanx for showing this

[Srikandi]

That sounds like so much work, to redo eeevery siiingle tree from all the EP's too like that. That's why I've been so suspicious (and still am) because EA is a total lazy ass...

TS3 uses SpeedTree, which has support for seasonal changes for trees built in. So not as much work as all that. (Plus not all trees are deciduous, of course.)

[Arisuka]

Srikandi, wow I didn't know that! Sounds like Seasons and Weather have been kept in mind during the development, to some extent atleast... Although, I still don't like the fact that there would be autumny trees in some worlds in the summer time... :D but hey, atleast it finally starts to seem that weather is indeed on it's way.

[Inge Jones]

While it is very likely that the original TS3 design team were planning weather at some stage, the way the teams keep changing, and not to mention the prevarications of the economy, I am really not counting on anything to turn out exactly as envisaged at its conception.