No, the Fence Post U11 testing is done.

I still need the following tested:

- Edge walls and roofs with weather (ie, do the walls and roofs on these shrunken lots protect the sims against the weather in Seasons?)

- Fence posts in Bon Voyage (mainly, we need to determine whether there is a newer version of the Fence Post Layer which causes the LotExpander to crash or fail.

- Trellis fences (are they handled correctly by the LotExpander?).

The only problem is that we have no way to tell vehicles which portal to use... so you might end up with boats on the road and cars in the water.

Yes, they are very easy to move.

I haven't heard about anyone making smaller beach lots with the LotExpander yet... someone should definitely try this. Those EA/Maxis beach lots are WAY too big!

How hard is it to tell a non-beach lot that it is now a beach lot? If it's easy, then there's probably no need. If it's hard, then it would be really nice if you could share your hacked version.

If that turns out to be a problem, the workaround would be very simple: put flooring underneath the roofs.

A perhaps more crucial question would be .. does Seasons actually recognise the *walls* on the border as proper walls? Has anyone playtested in winter yet?

If not, then we'd need a second inner wall to protect sims from the weather -- not a big deal either (proper walls should not be as paper thin like sim walls anyway), but we'd have to keep that in mind when building.

This is a bit off topic, but I'm trying to organize this thread a bit by adding some pointers in the original post, so that people can find some of the interesting topics being covered in this thread. If you have a specific post that you think would be useful to people, please let me know and I'll add it to the original post.

If you have a post which is "almost" useful, please feel free to update it so that it contains all necessary info... I did this with the Fence Posts - couldn't seem to find any post that contained all of the information in one place.

If you know of other threads that seem related, perhaps we could add some links to these, as well?

I believe that there may actually be another way to resolve this issue. Although I don't know this for sure, I think that there may be something in the lot file which specifies whether a tile is protected from the weather or not. This would require some research, but it might solve any problems without additional walls and roofs.

First, of course, we need to determine whether there are actually any problems that need to be solved.

I had posts without fences when I shrank one lot where the fence was a little too far over the edge. The fence disappeared and the posts remained, and then removing another square of fence (inside the remaining lot) also left the post behind. I should still have that lot if you want anything checked.



I had the wooden arch fence, which I think is the one you mean, on one of my test lots yesterday, and the posts etc were fine.



Yes, they are like that. I suppose they have drainage put in.

If the roof is built without end walls, due to being at the edge of the lot, I doubt it will be weatherproof, judging from A-frame houses I have made in the past.

However, I am child-free today, and intending to play my full game (WOW!), which means Seasons. So I can play plasticbox's rowhouses, or build my own, and see what happens on shrunk lots.

I've stopped working on the tutorial for now, waiting to see what version I should tell people to work with, and how much SimPE needs to be included.

aelflead, yes I think that's the asme fence. Good that it shows ok. But the point I was trying to make is: it is a different type of fence as it allows overwirte/co-occupancy of a grid line with another fence. Which means different coding, right? Maybe not, I know nothing....

Interesting about the roof type there--I would be interested in seeing an example of the drainage used I know it must be there--may be no more than a sloping of the trough between towards the front or back...doe sit snow heavily? Sorry, getting off topic....

I think using floor tiles for 'weather proofing' the ceiling will work. I have used this before, usually the clear tile RGiles made.

Also: I don't think any off lot animations exist, like being able to see pedestrians coming for those off lot portals. I think this because we never get driveby cars. No off site animations mean that a wall built at the edge will not have rain 'coming in' through it, I think....

My guess is that there are just two separate entries at the same location, for the two different types of fences.

You can see the drainage in some of the pictures:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...4&postcount=544

Thanks! I see the gutter system that drains the roof. From the looks of the guttering system in those pics it appears to be much superior to the American style guttering...no surprises there..... Very nice building style. Andi did a few lots in this style have you seen them?

Your talking way over my head about the fence files -- I just know that the trellis one is different lol and nicely so as I have in the past had the desire to put two different fences together, wanting the posts from one to be with the rails of another. I thought it worth entering into the discussion about where the post data resides because it may be different for it.

I've been playing plasticbox's second rowhouse in Seasons, and it's weatherproof. No snow coming in anywhere, although I had to play all through one winter and into the next before getting a snowstorm to test with.

I also made a rowhouse of my own, well partially. It seems to work fine (no sims yet). Fences good. I was able to add a railing to the modular stair after shrinking, but not to replace the stair itself, had I wanted to.

I notice in these row houses that the neighbouring eaves do bleed through the upstairs walls into the house being played. Mutantbunny can avoid this with a flat roof!

The green border on all the lots was fine when I began moving sims into the houses.
I also note that the pizza deliverers coming to the rowhouse were confused, possibly by the two front doors - they fetched the pizza, but then wandered back and forth on the far side of the street, making no attempt to ring the doorbell, until at last they dumped the pizza and drove off. Still got charged for it, though.

Lol, I've yet to catch up with the thread somehow from page22 of 23 pages...


[neighbourhood - terrain & +roads]

Mootilda & Inge,

To check out if a location in-game is inside or outside, may use this trick, esp. patul's addition.
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=204112


[build mode - partition infos]


Mutantbunny,

For infos related to fences and its allies,
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...6&postcount=513
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...6&postcount=517
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...6&postcount=532
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...1&postcount=466
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...5&postcount=534
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=222081
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=204112
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=106473

Sorry, have to rush for hiking ...

I don't know what sets a beach lot apart from any other for the purposes of this test. The test chain eventually devolves to a Lua script, and at that point I stop being able to follow what it's doing.

I have no reason to believe these walls and floors or roofs will function any differently from any other. It's only the building tools that get difficult on the edges of lots. My prediction is that if you can't see a gap, then the game won't either It has to be born in mind that even with non-shrunken lots there are places in a house where the sims are not safe from the weather - notably the attic space, if the gable wall is taller than a normal wall. In this case you need to build the loft in two stages which is illustrated somewhere on MTS2

Wretched thing lost my last post and I can't be bothered composing it again. Basically I was explaining set-to-next to MutantBunny and saying yes I think it should be possible to have boats.


Ah! I will hang this here too: Mootilda, the business about the road staying anchored... Actually is it possible to make not anchoring the road another advanced option? It has occurred to me that it might be useful to be able to make a "landlocked" lot to fill in at the back of smaller lots, which is no longer hogging the road. Maybe fill it in with a lake or something. It can still have its own portals so the sims can visit it. Or it could be for remote cottages in the woods that would look stupid with a main road running across the lot.

It could even be moved around, by a series of expanding in one direction and shrinking in the other.

Naturally these would be unsharable because the minute you picked them up they would insist on needing a road to be placed again, but still people can use the feature for their own game.

Good to hear that. Thank you.



Oh! Mine did that too. I didn't recognise it as a glitch .. my sims were making out on the sofa and didn't pay attention to him. Pizza at the doorstep suited them just fine.

I attributed this mainly to playing without hacks .. I have a few that deal with routing in my normal game. I don't use delivery much, but I remember from Base Game times that it was a rather long winded process .. Maxis AI at its finest. Perhaps now the pizza dudes are confused because they can't do their usual "walk to back door of garden shed, then back to front door, haha" procedure with row houses?

I say this is a feature, not a glitch =). Pizza that's still hot!


ETA: it can't be caused by having 2 front doors: I had removed the front door and garden gate of the second house during testing.

Oh. I'll have to check that in my game. May be another thing to investigate.

[lot-neighbourhood terrain sync.]

aelflaed,

I'm really lost on what terrain problem or lighting problem you've spotted, can you show a big pic of it or direct me to that post... I'm losing tracks on this...


[build mode - roof infos]
[build mode - partition infos]

All,

The roof we make from the roof tool will make open attic rooms, not a closed room. I think there's an 3D array about closed grids but haven't confirmed that yet. Besides, there may be other flags or neutral data there for the game engine to define.

But as long as we build walls to seal with the attic walls, the room will be closed and counted as "inside" as hinted by the thread I linked in the previous post.

The another way around the weather proof issue is to unlock the attic walls out to fill the gaps.

The linked has a linkage around this issue.
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost...88&postcount=23


[roads non-stand.]


After all, there're still some users who know how to replicate and share and use these lots by means of file-replacement as long a the providers give out the values of U10, U11, Left, Top. I think that should be fine. I know this leave out those who don't dare to swap files, but that;'s the simplest way I think of presently.


[beach lots] - normal lots to beach lots?





I tend to think the water is deeper. I can never open the cres and gmdc files of a lot package... I'm unsure if any difference in the mesh itself. What makes things harder is that whenever a wall is built, one more set of mesh is added into the gmdc file. Also, there're other things added into it.
Probably, extracting separate meshes may help?

I assume the beach lot may have some different invisible controllers embedded as well. better check out the ObjT listing instance 0 for that.

So, it's not as straight forwards and simple as it sounds. But, who knows if someone can figure some easy tricks? :D

I was really thinking in terms of a simple flag value stored in the lot file: 1=beach 0=not beach. Like with community lots and dorms etc.

niol: thanks for the links! I THOUGHT I was caught up on the background reading for this lol....never enough...

Mootilda: Tried to run the debug version: I have attached the eror detail that was generated. There was no txt file generated.

I THINK I know the problem (I'm a bit slow...):

When I got the Net 2 version you linked me to, upon install, it told me that net 2 was already installed as part of the OS (may be true for all Vista versions?) so it is not registered in the programs list which is why I thought it wasn't there--but undoubtedly why SimPE was running ok.

much later EDIT: The LE won't run on Vista 64 yet (tried up to version 1278.)

I believe that this is very simple. Set the road (U10) to 0x00.

[Update:]

Of course, these lots won't be movable until you set the road back to the correct U10 value, but they should be completely buildable... at least, after deleting the road and sidewalks, and then running the LotExpander to unlock all of the tiles.

Inge,

Sorry, I didn't add Mootilda, too. Actually, I was really talking to you two about my view on it.
I forgot the quote button will only quote the content of only one post... and I didn't proofread my post.

my fault... :red face:


Mutantbunny,

Nah, that's not my intention to make you feel bad.
I know those threads or posts don't commonly get into the scene coz not too many people are interested in fence-arch or some less common things.

Flag for community lots and dorms stored in:

Neighborhood Package:
0BF999E7 DESC or LTXT - Lot description
Offset 0x0C - Lot Type
- 0 - Residential
- 1 - Commercial
- 2 - Dorm
- 3 - Greek house
- 4 - Secret society
- 5 - Hotel
- 6 - Hidden Vacation Lot

Lot Package
6C589723 LOT
Offset 0x4A - Lot Type (see above)
Offset 0x4B - U10
Offset 0x4C - U11

I believe that the next byte is a good candidate for a beach flag:

Offset 0x4D
- 0x01, 0x03, 0x13, 0x21, 0x23 (not beach)
- 0xA3 (beach)

Looks like a bit field, where the top bit is whether the lot has a beach.

Info based on a small sampling of beach and regular lots. Anyone have any further information on this?

Regarding row houses -- I've put together a tutorial, it was stickied the second it went online .. would be great if any interested parties could doublecheck whether it's complete and understandable .. like everyone else, I'm never really sure if I can keep up with this thread.

Mootilda, since it's basically one big LotExpander advertisement: can you make me aware when you post the next version? PM or post in that thread? So that I don't point to outdated versions, I mean. Thank you =).

I'm afraid that I'm out of ideas. I'm not actually that familiar with .NET... when I took the program over, it was already set up to use .NET 2.0. When I asked my friend with more .NET and Vista experience, he was very discouraging, saying that it was impossible for me to support this without a Vista machine.

You could certainly try copying the .NET DLLs over to the LotExpander directory. You might even ask over at sims.ambertation.de whether they had to do anything special to get SimPE to work with Vista. I'm willing to make changes to the LotExpander, if we can know what needs to be done.

The LotExpander just looks for the special "My Documents" folder in the registry... I don't actually specify the path anywhere, this seems to be driven by .NET.

My only other suggestion is to move your neighborhood directory over to your XP machine temporarily, so that you can run the LotExpander there, using the Browse button. Then, move the directory back to your Vista machine to run the game. I know that it's a bother, but it seems do-able.