Wednesday, September 30, 2009
A cheer for progress
A few days ago, I managed to scrape together enough data to make a to-scale Payless ShoeSource, which I plan to import into SimCity eventually. For gmax, I'll try to make a house or something simple like that. Maybe a variation on this.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
From SketchUp to gmax...A Brief Tutorial
Originally written by "darkcutie", gotten from http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=42&threadid=109553&enterthread=y&STARTPAGE=1#last, and cleaned up by me.
It's much easier to create buildings props and other custom content in Sketchup Pro than in gmax only takes you about an hour or less!
After you create your work in sketchup pro here are the steps:
1. Go to "File" then "Export"
2. Select "3d model" then go to the directory you want to save your work
3. Create your new file name it as you like
4. Click export then close Sketchup Pro.
5. Open the BAT then wait for gmax to load.
6. When gmax loads go to File.
7. Click "Import"
8. Go to the folder where you saved the 3ds model then click the file of your work (default is only 3ds and prj files appears)
9. When your work appears sometimes you don't like the size or not attached together (that's the only problem whe working with sketchup pro actual size and sometimes not attached with each other)
10. If parts of your work are not attached, go to "Modify", then "Attach", then click to the parts you are attaching
11. If the size too small go to "Motion" then select scale under the PRS Parameters then under the key info you can scale your work in X Y and Z.
12. Click "Utilities" button then BAT.
It's much easier to create buildings props and other custom content in Sketchup Pro than in gmax only takes you about an hour or less!
After you create your work in sketchup pro here are the steps:
1. Go to "File" then "Export"
2. Select "3d model" then go to the directory you want to save your work
3. Create your new file name it as you like
4. Click export then close Sketchup Pro.
5. Open the BAT then wait for gmax to load.
6. When gmax loads go to File.
7. Click "Import"
8. Go to the folder where you saved the 3ds model then click the file of your work (default is only 3ds and prj files appears)
9. When your work appears sometimes you don't like the size or not attached together (that's the only problem whe working with sketchup pro actual size and sometimes not attached with each other)
10. If parts of your work are not attached, go to "Modify", then "Attach", then click to the parts you are attaching
11. If the size too small go to "Motion" then select scale under the PRS Parameters then under the key info you can scale your work in X Y and Z.
12. Click "Utilities" button then BAT.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Wild World (April Fool's!)
This was the April Fool's Day Prank of 2004 for SimCity Central.net. It was supposed to be for a new expansion pack, but sadly, not even a second real expansion pack ever appeared. Pictures are missing for this, but...
Welcome!
If you've read the news item on the main page, you're aware that SimCity Central has been granted an exclusive preview of the next Expansion Pack for SimCity 4, which until now had not been announced publicly! Your first question is most likely "Why did SCC get such an exclusive?" Let me explain:
Many of you will remember that before Rush Hour was released, Maxis held a special preview of that expansion for the webmasters of all the major SimCity 4 fansites. If you remember that, then you may also remember that due to a mixup, the owner of SimCityCentral.com got invited instead of our own Martin, owner of SimCityCentral.net. This error was not discovered until it was too late, and Martin was therefore unable to attend the special preview! Well, Maxis felt terrible about the screwup, because the person who ended up going in Martin's place wasn't even really interested in SimCity - he only went because it was a free trip!
This early preview of Maxis' upcoming second expansion pack is their way of apologizing to Martin for the error, and giving our community something special! It should whet your appetites for what is to come!
Now that all that's out of the way, let's get down to business, shall we?
First of all, why Wild World as a title?
The title was chosen because it fits the main theme of this expansion pack well, namely in terms of wild weather and more world architecture being represented. Since SimCity 4 was first released, the fans have been begging for weather-related elements to be added, and as you know, the modding community has already discovered some weather-related terraforming items that there wasn't time to make fully functional for Rush Hour. Wild World enables these functions, and adds many more.
Your cities can now experience the effects of different kinds of weather, including fog, rainstorms, and winter snowfalls. Most of these weather effects will affect the visual feedback you get about your city, such as traffic, and a few will have other effects as well. If your city experiences a long enough period of warm, dry weather for instance, you might need to add new water facilities to keep your city supplied. If you get a lot of rainy and foggy days, solar power plants might not be a very wise choice for your city's power supply.
Along with these new effects, a number of new disasters have been added, most of them weather-related. One of the best is the hurricane. This isn't fully functional yet, since there are still some issues with water and wind effects to sort out, but when it's done it's going to be one nasty disaster that will require serious effort on your part to recover from. There are also mudslides, blizzards, and a few more we're not allowed to talk about yet. The subject of disasters brings up another highly-requested addition - the ability to enable random disasters! Test yourself by enabling this option and seeing how well you can cope when the Big One levels your commercial center, or Hurricane Will arrives and ruins your waterfront!
What can we expect that's not weather-related?
The short answer - LOTS! Probably the most interesting additions are two brand new tilesets. First, the one everyone expected, considering the popularity of the one in SimCity 3000 Unlimited; the brand new Asian tileset! We can't show you much of it just yet, but here's a sample of the style you can expect.
Not to worry, the Asian set will be a worthy successor to the one that was in SC3KU, and will include everything from this sort of small, classy, low density structure to the towering, garishly lit skyscrapers you can find in major cities like Tokyo and Hong Kong.
In addition to the Asian set, an all-new Middle Eastern set has been designed! Middle Eastern architecture is something that hasn't been well-represented in this genre yet, but it will be with Wild World! In the Middle Eastern set, you will find buildings and styles common in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and many others, and the set will include examples of the modern-styled structures being constructed in these areas today, as well as the more traditional styles that can be found all over the region. The level of diversity possible in your cities will increase dramatically with these additions.
Along this same track, Maxis has responded to another fan request, which was the ability to designate different areas of the city as areas where only specific tilesets can develop. This is accomplished using a new layer, similar to how you lay water pipes and subways underground. What you do is switch to this layer, and use a new set of quasi-zoning tools to tell the game which tilesets are allowed in a given area. Anywhere you don't specify one or more tilesets, the game will develop buildings normally, using whichever of the six sets happens to be active.
There will also be a significant selection of user-created content. Not everyone in the world has Internet access, and Maxis wanted to make some of the best creations available to everyone. To that end, a number of the best user-created lots and buildings will be included. We're not allowed to provide details on which ones just yet, as Maxis still needs to work that out with the content creators.
What else can we look forward to?
Unfortunately, except for a little bit about some of the new transportation types, there isn't much more that we're allowed to talk about just yet since it may change before we release, but rest assured there's plenty more in this pack.
Now, about those transportation types. The first thing that was done was to finish the dirt roads. Those were originally supposed to be available in Rush Hour, but the design team ran out of time and had to sacrifice them in order to make the release date. They're ready in Wild World though! In game terms, they work a lot like streets do, except they're even cheaper, and since they're intended for rural areas rather than city streets, they allow faster truck travel than the city streets do, and busses can't use them at all. This makes them best-suited for rural areas where the focus is small towns and farming. They won't be too useful to you in your office complexes!
There are new highway types in this pack too. The most common requests were for a double-decker highway that's only one tile wide, and a wider superhighway for use in REALLY congested areas. Both of those will be available for use, and they'll have advantages and drawbacks when compared with the other transit types. The superhighway will allow faster speeds and a greater capacity, but your sims definately won't want to live nearby. They'll be beneficial to commercial complexes though. Another addition was a three-tile-wide version of the original ground highway that includes center HOV lanes for vehicles with at least two occupants. These should go well with the carpool ordinance from the original version of the game!
One of the more interesting new transportation features is the new "Commuter Airport." This is intended to allow gamers to simulate areas like the Northeast US where it's not uncommon for business executives to travel quickly between various locations by commuter jet. These airports are sort of like a funky cross between monorails and ferries. They're like monorails in that they're mainly for commuting between cities rather than inside one city, and they're like ferries in that they can connect with any other airport for commute purposes. This addition should open up some interesting possibilities for very large regions, and long-distance commutes.
I regret to inform you that this is all we're allowed to share with you for now. But keep an eye out for updates! As soon as we get the go-ahead, we'll be releasing more information and screenshots of some as-yet unseen new features!
We weren't given anything concrete for an estimated release date, however, it's safe to expect the expansion to be available in time for the Christmas shopping season at the very latest.
Interestingly, the multi-highway lanes were spoofed with a multi-lane highway bug that was known to exist. And the dirt road WAS left out of Rush Hour, but since then, it has fully evolved into the RHW and all its multi-laned glory (yet no HOV lanes, sorry folks). If you have pictures of the faked expansion pack, leave a comment!!
Taken from http://web.archive.org/web/20040621174238/www.simcitycentral.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8223&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
Welcome!
If you've read the news item on the main page, you're aware that SimCity Central has been granted an exclusive preview of the next Expansion Pack for SimCity 4, which until now had not been announced publicly! Your first question is most likely "Why did SCC get such an exclusive?" Let me explain:
Many of you will remember that before Rush Hour was released, Maxis held a special preview of that expansion for the webmasters of all the major SimCity 4 fansites. If you remember that, then you may also remember that due to a mixup, the owner of SimCityCentral.com got invited instead of our own Martin, owner of SimCityCentral.net. This error was not discovered until it was too late, and Martin was therefore unable to attend the special preview! Well, Maxis felt terrible about the screwup, because the person who ended up going in Martin's place wasn't even really interested in SimCity - he only went because it was a free trip!
This early preview of Maxis' upcoming second expansion pack is their way of apologizing to Martin for the error, and giving our community something special! It should whet your appetites for what is to come!
Now that all that's out of the way, let's get down to business, shall we?
First of all, why Wild World as a title?
The title was chosen because it fits the main theme of this expansion pack well, namely in terms of wild weather and more world architecture being represented. Since SimCity 4 was first released, the fans have been begging for weather-related elements to be added, and as you know, the modding community has already discovered some weather-related terraforming items that there wasn't time to make fully functional for Rush Hour. Wild World enables these functions, and adds many more.
Your cities can now experience the effects of different kinds of weather, including fog, rainstorms, and winter snowfalls. Most of these weather effects will affect the visual feedback you get about your city, such as traffic, and a few will have other effects as well. If your city experiences a long enough period of warm, dry weather for instance, you might need to add new water facilities to keep your city supplied. If you get a lot of rainy and foggy days, solar power plants might not be a very wise choice for your city's power supply.
Along with these new effects, a number of new disasters have been added, most of them weather-related. One of the best is the hurricane. This isn't fully functional yet, since there are still some issues with water and wind effects to sort out, but when it's done it's going to be one nasty disaster that will require serious effort on your part to recover from. There are also mudslides, blizzards, and a few more we're not allowed to talk about yet. The subject of disasters brings up another highly-requested addition - the ability to enable random disasters! Test yourself by enabling this option and seeing how well you can cope when the Big One levels your commercial center, or Hurricane Will arrives and ruins your waterfront!
What can we expect that's not weather-related?
The short answer - LOTS! Probably the most interesting additions are two brand new tilesets. First, the one everyone expected, considering the popularity of the one in SimCity 3000 Unlimited; the brand new Asian tileset! We can't show you much of it just yet, but here's a sample of the style you can expect.
Not to worry, the Asian set will be a worthy successor to the one that was in SC3KU, and will include everything from this sort of small, classy, low density structure to the towering, garishly lit skyscrapers you can find in major cities like Tokyo and Hong Kong.
In addition to the Asian set, an all-new Middle Eastern set has been designed! Middle Eastern architecture is something that hasn't been well-represented in this genre yet, but it will be with Wild World! In the Middle Eastern set, you will find buildings and styles common in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and many others, and the set will include examples of the modern-styled structures being constructed in these areas today, as well as the more traditional styles that can be found all over the region. The level of diversity possible in your cities will increase dramatically with these additions.
Along this same track, Maxis has responded to another fan request, which was the ability to designate different areas of the city as areas where only specific tilesets can develop. This is accomplished using a new layer, similar to how you lay water pipes and subways underground. What you do is switch to this layer, and use a new set of quasi-zoning tools to tell the game which tilesets are allowed in a given area. Anywhere you don't specify one or more tilesets, the game will develop buildings normally, using whichever of the six sets happens to be active.
There will also be a significant selection of user-created content. Not everyone in the world has Internet access, and Maxis wanted to make some of the best creations available to everyone. To that end, a number of the best user-created lots and buildings will be included. We're not allowed to provide details on which ones just yet, as Maxis still needs to work that out with the content creators.
What else can we look forward to?
Unfortunately, except for a little bit about some of the new transportation types, there isn't much more that we're allowed to talk about just yet since it may change before we release, but rest assured there's plenty more in this pack.
Now, about those transportation types. The first thing that was done was to finish the dirt roads. Those were originally supposed to be available in Rush Hour, but the design team ran out of time and had to sacrifice them in order to make the release date. They're ready in Wild World though! In game terms, they work a lot like streets do, except they're even cheaper, and since they're intended for rural areas rather than city streets, they allow faster truck travel than the city streets do, and busses can't use them at all. This makes them best-suited for rural areas where the focus is small towns and farming. They won't be too useful to you in your office complexes!
There are new highway types in this pack too. The most common requests were for a double-decker highway that's only one tile wide, and a wider superhighway for use in REALLY congested areas. Both of those will be available for use, and they'll have advantages and drawbacks when compared with the other transit types. The superhighway will allow faster speeds and a greater capacity, but your sims definately won't want to live nearby. They'll be beneficial to commercial complexes though. Another addition was a three-tile-wide version of the original ground highway that includes center HOV lanes for vehicles with at least two occupants. These should go well with the carpool ordinance from the original version of the game!
One of the more interesting new transportation features is the new "Commuter Airport." This is intended to allow gamers to simulate areas like the Northeast US where it's not uncommon for business executives to travel quickly between various locations by commuter jet. These airports are sort of like a funky cross between monorails and ferries. They're like monorails in that they're mainly for commuting between cities rather than inside one city, and they're like ferries in that they can connect with any other airport for commute purposes. This addition should open up some interesting possibilities for very large regions, and long-distance commutes.
I regret to inform you that this is all we're allowed to share with you for now. But keep an eye out for updates! As soon as we get the go-ahead, we'll be releasing more information and screenshots of some as-yet unseen new features!
We weren't given anything concrete for an estimated release date, however, it's safe to expect the expansion to be available in time for the Christmas shopping season at the very latest.
Interestingly, the multi-highway lanes were spoofed with a multi-lane highway bug that was known to exist. And the dirt road WAS left out of Rush Hour, but since then, it has fully evolved into the RHW and all its multi-laned glory (yet no HOV lanes, sorry folks). If you have pictures of the faked expansion pack, leave a comment!!
Taken from http://web.archive.org/web/20040621174238/www.simcitycentral.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8223&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
Friday, September 4, 2009
Vintage Reviews: SimCity 4 (GameGirl)
One of the cool things about SIM games is that historically, they were not oriented toward any particular gender. This is kind of shifting, thanks to EA's exploitation of all SIM games to "casual gamers", which is "everyone except for males 13-30". SimCity 4 was one of the last of its kind, something guys and girls can play alike. Heck, in SimCity 4, you can place a female statue either to yourself (to the ladies), or your beloved girlfriend (to the guys), or some random woman (to guys without close friends of the opposite sex, in that case, you should've picked the male version). That said, even in the days when much of the games were the "save the princess/girlfriend" variety, SimCity always stood out because it wasn't sexist. This review today comes from GameGirl which I stumbled upon looking at the archived version of SNGaming.com. Oh, and by the way, this review is no longer on GameGirl.com, which I confirmed. They made one mistake, however: SimCity 4 is not rated T.
Taken from GameGirl.com's archived version
SimCity 4 (PC)
Will you be a Bloomberg or a Marion Barry?
By Susie Vee
PLATFORM:
PC
PUBLISHER:
EA
DEVELOPER:
Maxis
GENRE:
Simulation
ESRB:
Teen
SCORE:
The entire Sim empire, from The Sims and its various expansion packs to lesser-known efforts like SimAnt, all trace their common lineage back to one game – SimCity. More than a decade ago, gamers fired up their primitive PCs to play mayor and take a small burg and turn it into a bustling metropolis.
Will Wright’s simple but deeply complex urban simulator let you plan city neighborhoods, supply power, water and essential city services and maintain the delicate balance that keeps real-life cities from imploding. Both educational and entertaining, SimCity and its sequels were found in classrooms and home for years.
The latest edition, SimCity 4, takes all the classic SimCity ideas and gives them a solid graphical polish while adding plenty of new elements for today’s more demanding gamers.
One great new addition is the highly interactive God Mode, where you can terraform the landscape to your heart’s content before even starting a city. It’s very amusing and provides some nice real-time 3D warping graphics, but ultimately, you’ll do just as well picking one of the pre-existing parcels of land.
Setting up simple residential, industrial and commercial zones, your city can begin to take shape fairly quickly. And, if you’re not careful, it can just as easily spiral out of control. Like some Robert Moses project gone haywire, a few wrong turns can leave you with uncontrollable traffic, areas with no power or a just plain undeveloped downtown.
Knowing what to do in these circumstances can be a bit tricky. The game manual covers some useful tactics, but is annoyingly sparse on basic gameplay mechanics. For that, you’ll have to slog through the non-too-thorough in-game tutorial. That will give you the very basics, but from there on in it’s largely trial-and-error.
In the actual game, a series of advisors and news alerts will key you into problems, but their advice can be vague at times. Often you’ll build something and have no idea why your simulated population isn’t making full use of the things you give them.
It’s also easy to accidentally put down buildings the wrong way, so that your Sims can’t access them. Try building a hospital that no one can drive to and you’ll see what we mean.
Another tip for newbies – start off slowly. Build too much too soon, and your expenses will quickly outstrip your tax revenues. And once you’re in a hole like that, you might as well pack up and move to the next town over.
Of course, SimCity 4 has all the great disasters that SimCity is famous for. This time, we get volcanoes, earthquakes, meteors and even a giant robot from, presumably, outer space.
If you’re so inclined, you can even get more personalized feedback than found in the news ticker by importing Sims from your existing Sims game.
Despite the game’s impressive 3D graphics, SimCity 4 is still basically a 2D isometric affair. Even without worrying about sweeping cameras and high-poly models, the game is sluggish, even on high-powered systems. Chances are you’ll find scrolling around your city to be a bit of a pain, as you wait for the camera to catch up, or the 3D models to fully render. It’s too bad, there’s no reason a high-profile release like this couldn’t have been performance-tweaked a little more.
If you’re a SimCity fan, you’ll obviously want to play the new version. If you’re new to the genre, and you’re looking for something different than the usual shooting or platform-jumping fare, then you’re encouraged to check this game out.
PLATFORM:
PC
PUBLISHER:
EA
DEVELOPER:
Maxis
GENRE:
Simulation
ESRB:
Teen
SCORE:
Taken from GameGirl.com's archived version
SimCity 4 (PC)
Will you be a Bloomberg or a Marion Barry?
By Susie Vee
PLATFORM:
PC
PUBLISHER:
EA
DEVELOPER:
Maxis
GENRE:
Simulation
ESRB:
Teen
SCORE:
The entire Sim empire, from The Sims and its various expansion packs to lesser-known efforts like SimAnt, all trace their common lineage back to one game – SimCity. More than a decade ago, gamers fired up their primitive PCs to play mayor and take a small burg and turn it into a bustling metropolis.
Will Wright’s simple but deeply complex urban simulator let you plan city neighborhoods, supply power, water and essential city services and maintain the delicate balance that keeps real-life cities from imploding. Both educational and entertaining, SimCity and its sequels were found in classrooms and home for years.
The latest edition, SimCity 4, takes all the classic SimCity ideas and gives them a solid graphical polish while adding plenty of new elements for today’s more demanding gamers.
One great new addition is the highly interactive God Mode, where you can terraform the landscape to your heart’s content before even starting a city. It’s very amusing and provides some nice real-time 3D warping graphics, but ultimately, you’ll do just as well picking one of the pre-existing parcels of land.
Setting up simple residential, industrial and commercial zones, your city can begin to take shape fairly quickly. And, if you’re not careful, it can just as easily spiral out of control. Like some Robert Moses project gone haywire, a few wrong turns can leave you with uncontrollable traffic, areas with no power or a just plain undeveloped downtown.
Knowing what to do in these circumstances can be a bit tricky. The game manual covers some useful tactics, but is annoyingly sparse on basic gameplay mechanics. For that, you’ll have to slog through the non-too-thorough in-game tutorial. That will give you the very basics, but from there on in it’s largely trial-and-error.
In the actual game, a series of advisors and news alerts will key you into problems, but their advice can be vague at times. Often you’ll build something and have no idea why your simulated population isn’t making full use of the things you give them.
It’s also easy to accidentally put down buildings the wrong way, so that your Sims can’t access them. Try building a hospital that no one can drive to and you’ll see what we mean.
Another tip for newbies – start off slowly. Build too much too soon, and your expenses will quickly outstrip your tax revenues. And once you’re in a hole like that, you might as well pack up and move to the next town over.
Of course, SimCity 4 has all the great disasters that SimCity is famous for. This time, we get volcanoes, earthquakes, meteors and even a giant robot from, presumably, outer space.
If you’re so inclined, you can even get more personalized feedback than found in the news ticker by importing Sims from your existing Sims game.
Despite the game’s impressive 3D graphics, SimCity 4 is still basically a 2D isometric affair. Even without worrying about sweeping cameras and high-poly models, the game is sluggish, even on high-powered systems. Chances are you’ll find scrolling around your city to be a bit of a pain, as you wait for the camera to catch up, or the 3D models to fully render. It’s too bad, there’s no reason a high-profile release like this couldn’t have been performance-tweaked a little more.
If you’re a SimCity fan, you’ll obviously want to play the new version. If you’re new to the genre, and you’re looking for something different than the usual shooting or platform-jumping fare, then you’re encouraged to check this game out.
PLATFORM:
PC
PUBLISHER:
EA
DEVELOPER:
Maxis
GENRE:
Simulation
ESRB:
Teen
SCORE:
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