Spring is here, as is usual around this time. By default, this duty has always fallen on me, which is absolutely fine with me, as I like to fuss with it and get it as good as I can. Indeed, it is a bit of a fuss getting things right.
But I mentioned to Trebor that there is no fundamental reason why only I should be empowered to do the season ground texture changes. Any estate manager has access to the region settings. At least it should be understood that this is the case... it is not only the "estate owner" who can do this.
This time, I thought I'd try to approach the problem more scientifically, and see, in particular, whether I could erase ALL the texture lines at the sim boundaries. As you will see, its a bit of a mathematical quandry, coupled with a bit of a fudge. But I thought I'd show how its done... and perhaps inspire others to try in the future.
I've made a spreadsheet as a chart to show all the settings for our 5 sims. Note that each sim has 4 texture files (the images which appear as the ground surface) and a pair of numbers for each corner. Here it is:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub ... utput=html
The description offered for the numbers in each are deceptive. It SAYS that the first number is the highest elevation in meters that the first texture appears, and the second number is the lowest elevation in meters that the 4th texture appears. In fact this is not the case. Instead, they indicate the TENDENCY for the textures to appear at those levels... a high or a low texture can actually appear WAY outside its supposedly extreme elevation.
Needless to say, this is a trial and error process.
The key things to note on the chart.
As much as possible, the same texture should be used in the corresponding slot for adjoining sims. The biggest problem we have with this is that we want a sandy beach in LA but no sand in the other sims.
At each adjoining corner, the number settings must match. Note the number pairs in the boxes, which are adjoining corners. These match.
You can see from the actual results in the CDS that the project this year has been fairly successful. The only appearance of sand outside LA is a bit at the very lowest elevations of Monastery. This is unavoidable because Monastery touches LA at a spot in LA where the beach must appear. I have compromised a bit this year and allowed grass to grow on the beach, on the end towards Monastery, in order to keep the Monastery sand very minimal. Using the number settings, we restricted the sand appearance ONLY to the west side of LA, so that in other adjoining sims, CN and AM, other textures could be used for the lowest ground levels and completely exclude all sand from the other sims.
Anyway, I hope you like the spring/summer/fall ground textures this year.
Sudane..........................
