I finally reinstalled SimCity 4 and have gotten back to the point of 2005-2006, when I had a Mac and was optimistic about BATting.
I noticed that the graphics were "tearing" (lines between tiles, even when the tile grid was turned off).
I determined that the tearing was simply the result of a bad porting job. Here's what I did.
1) First, I turned off all the mods I had (which admittedly, wasn't much) and restarted.
2) Next, I switched the resolution to 800x600. Not only did this make everything really ugly, but it didn't fix the problem.
So that's when I chalked it up to a bad port job. Thanks a lot, Aspyr. And a big real thanks to Apple for switching to Intel and making Boot Camp available.
Now all I need is a copy of Windows.
EDIT: It's possible I need the other graphics.sgr file, but I'll have to look into that.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
More news...
No progress on an improved 3DS export script yet (maybe it's time to talk to NYCJ) but other news...
• Cities XL picked up by Focus Home Entertainment (which MAKES TrackMania!)
• SimCity was on the App Store so I bought it for 99 cents. I had money left, and I wanted to play SimCity with least fuss and less money going to EA's coffers.
• Cities XL picked up by Focus Home Entertainment (which MAKES TrackMania!)
• SimCity was on the App Store so I bought it for 99 cents. I had money left, and I wanted to play SimCity with least fuss and less money going to EA's coffers.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
No, this hasn't been forgotten
In light of new updates on Two Way Roads and its promised updates, the rejuvenation of my newest blog, College Station Roads and Retail, and more, I wanted to give progress of this blog. As a test, we are going through a conversion process from a SketchUp document (not mine) which is the ALICO building. If you'd like to know more, the SketchUp link is here and the Wikipedia link is here.
The reason ALICO was picked, is because, first off, it's a cool building that I would've considered building myself, second off, it was a mostly-complete model. Here's the method I used.
First, I made sure I had gmax on my PC, and Blender (open-source) and SketchUp (the regular version is freeware) and I downloaded the model.
Then I exported it as .dae (Collada), the only export available in regular SketchUp. This unfortunately stripped the textures by putting them in a new folder. That was OK.
Blender then did the job of importing the .dae file. It was stripped of textures, but the red ALICO letters were still visible.
Then I exported it as .3ds, through Blender's unfamiliar interface.
Unfortunately, the file is 4KB, which seems VERY low for a 3d model. Hopefully, we could just chalk that up to a few missing walls, low 3ds overhead, and lack of textures. Still worries me, though, as the original was 8.8MB and the DAE was 1.2MB.
We'll need to do some retexturing work anyway for it, as well as a few other things. Hopefully this will all work out.
EDIT: Gah, the 3DS file was indeed unusable through a Mac 3DS tool called "3D Toolbox" (it can read/write SketchUp and 3DS, but I'd have to pay). I found a script designed for 3DS export to a game called "TrackMania. Then I found out that I had to import the script into an invisible folder, or so says this thread. I haven't worked with invisible folders since Yoot Tower.
I might write a tutorial on all this when it is done. Or I can just give up and use someone with a Pro license to port my file.
Suggestions?
The reason ALICO was picked, is because, first off, it's a cool building that I would've considered building myself, second off, it was a mostly-complete model. Here's the method I used.
First, I made sure I had gmax on my PC, and Blender (open-source) and SketchUp (the regular version is freeware) and I downloaded the model.
Then I exported it as .dae (Collada), the only export available in regular SketchUp. This unfortunately stripped the textures by putting them in a new folder. That was OK.
Blender then did the job of importing the .dae file. It was stripped of textures, but the red ALICO letters were still visible.
Then I exported it as .3ds, through Blender's unfamiliar interface.
Unfortunately, the file is 4KB, which seems VERY low for a 3d model. Hopefully, we could just chalk that up to a few missing walls, low 3ds overhead, and lack of textures. Still worries me, though, as the original was 8.8MB and the DAE was 1.2MB.
We'll need to do some retexturing work anyway for it, as well as a few other things. Hopefully this will all work out.
EDIT: Gah, the 3DS file was indeed unusable through a Mac 3DS tool called "3D Toolbox" (it can read/write SketchUp and 3DS, but I'd have to pay). I found a script designed for 3DS export to a game called "TrackMania. Then I found out that I had to import the script into an invisible folder, or so says this thread. I haven't worked with invisible folders since Yoot Tower.
I might write a tutorial on all this when it is done. Or I can just give up and use someone with a Pro license to port my file.
Suggestions?
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