Update Jan 17/20: Seasons Automatic Lot Based Weather Control

Seasons Automatic Lot Based Weather Control

Update January 17, 2020

In the original release, the Greater & Lesser Rocks of Perpetual Flurries contained a GreyStone recolour that overrode the default recolour for the basegame Transport Urn object. In retrospect, I believe this was a poor design decision, and this Update corrects that. The built-in Greystone texture no longer overrides the Transport Urn default recolour. Instead some new code automatically recolours the Rocks of Perpetual Flurries to use the Greystone texture before the rocks are placed.

The one disadvantage to this new technique is that when the Rocks are first recoloured manually, they initially revert to the default master texture, instead of pointing to the Greystone. However, this inconvenience can be ignored and the Rocks can be recoloured in the usual way.


BUGFIX May 20, 2018

Thanks to croiduire's bug report, this update corrects the error that was causing a hedge that is recoloured invisible to flash blue in neighbourhood view. For convenience, this release also includes the invisible rock recolour included in 100+ Tiny Filesize Transport Urn Recolours project.


Purpose

To provide automatic lot based weather control that is user configurable and independent of season. Each of the Seasons weather conditions - Clear, Firestorm, Hail, Rain, Snow and Seasonal default - is automatically generated by the presence of an associated controller. Mixtures of weather conditions will occur according to the proportion of each active controller type that exists on the lot.

Description

1) By default, these controllers ensure that the weather on a particular Seasons lot always conforms to the desired type or combination of active controller types present. Any particular weather controller may be made inactive by a menu option.

2) If more than one controller type is available and active (i.e. Clear, Firestorm, Hail, Rain, Seasonal or Snow) they will share control according to how many of each kind are present and active. For example if a lot contains one "Greater Rock of Perpetual Flurries" (Hail), two "Lesser Rocks" (Snow), and one "Think Inside the Box Seasonal Hedge" (default Seasonal weather) then in each randomized period of from one to three hours there will be a 25% chance of hail, 50% chance of snow and 25% chance of seasonal weather. Note that no more than 10 of any active type will included in the calculations.

3) The calculated weather percentages derived from the presence of the controllers can be viewed using the "Weather Forecast" menu option on any one of these objects, whether or not they are active. If none of the controllers in this set are active then the forecast will be predicted according to what other controllers or patches are present, if any.

4) Use of the "Force" weather menu option will cause that particular weather event to occur immediately, regardless of the forecast. The selected event will continue for the next one to three hours. "Force" also causes an inactive controller to become active so it will contribute to future weather outcomes.

5) The use of these weather controllers does not prevent the rotation of the seasons, nor hot and cold temperature variations.

6) Any of these controllers may be placed indoors or outdoors and they do not require maintenance. Apart from the Firestone of Celestial Pique (Firestorm control), all controllers will remain active when placed indoors.

7) The controllers are immune to theft, repossession, eviction and fire. They may be placed underwater, on beach lots, slopes and locked tiles, and they are height adjustable if Apartment Life or Mansion & Garden is present.

8) Although weather does not occur unless Seasons is installed, these objects are each basegame compatible, becoming decorative objects in a non-Seasons game. All components of the set are visible in neighbourhood view.

9) If Seasons is installed, the two flowering plant controllers, hydrangea and rosebush, bloom only in their most typical or traditional seasons: hydrangea in summer and fall, rosebush in spring and fall.

10) If the appearance of a controller is not appropriate to the lot environment, I have included a built-in invisible recolour for each of them. To facilitate its use as an invisible object, the controller's outdoor shadow is suppressed by default, but if the object is outdoors the shadow may be enabled by menu option. In most cases the ground shadow can be made visible or invisible by recolour selection, except that for the hydrangea and the rose controllers the ground shadow function is combined with the outdoor shadow menu option.

11) Sims will use the three rocky controllers autonomously as slotted objects for the placement of small items such as bills, books and newspapers.

12) For convenience, all the controllers are available from the same catalogue section: Build Mode/Garden Center/Shrubs.

Contents

a) The Avidly Aquaphilic Hydrangea, §92 - the Rain Controller mesh is derived from the basegame hydrangea and the foliage uses its built-in recolour. Used without other controllers, the Aquaphilic Hydrangea's Incessant Rain could suggest rainforests, lighthouses, or aquatic planets like Kamino. Unlike the basegame hydrangea, both the foliage and flowers are recolourable.



b) The Fair Weather Rose, §101 - this Clear Sky controller is an adaptation of the basegame rosebush mesh with its own set of flower and foliage recolours. Used alone, the Rose would be appropriate for underground, domed, and outer space environments. I have included several recolours, including Rosa Caroline de Sansal which is cited as perhaps a fair weather rose.



c) The Firestone of Celestial Pique, §104 - the Firestorm controller is in the form of an egg-shaped rock. Fireballs are not a true weather event, but an effect caused by failure of the Weathernaught 57X aspiration reward. The effect ignores building roofs and will cause fireballs to fall inside, so this controller is programmed to be inactive when placed indoors. Because this effect does not naturally cover the whole lot, when a Firestorm occurs all outdoor controllers in this set (not only Firestones) will create fireballs. If the controllers are distributed in separated locations away from buildings then the Firestorm can be spread out in a convincing and realistic way. I could imagine Firestorms as evocative of a volcano, a meteor shower, dragon flames or the wrath of the gods. The fireballs are intentionally non-destructive. The Firestone egg mesh is slaved to the basegame "Ancient Transport Urn Sculpture" and can use any of these 100 or so recolours.

d) The Greater Rock of Perpetual Flurries, §103 - the Hail controller appears to be a small outcropping of grey rock. While Unceasing Hail by itself would be unusual, this weather could be evocative of cold, bleak environments. Like the Firestone, this mesh is slaved to the basegame "Ancient Transport Urn Sculpture". The download includes several snow themed recolours.



e) The Lesser Rock of Perpetual Flurries, §102 - the Snow controller is a half-sized version of the Greater Rock, and it is linked to the Transport Urn in the same way. Its Unending Snow may be useful for more extreme locations where the standard winter snowfall is just not enough.

f) Think Inside the Box Seasonal Hedge, §152 - the Seasonal (default weather) controller utilizes the basegame "Boxy Lady" hedge mesh. This controller's main purpose is to make the effects of the other controllers less extreme by including periods of standard EA Seasonal weather. The source object is non-recolourable, so I have included recolours that are dedicated to this controller only. Because this controller has essentially no effect unless working to balance other controllers, it may be quite useful simply as a recolourable hedge to replace the EA non-recolourable original.



Compatibility

These objects are based on and work in a similar way to the Weathernaught 57X aspiration reward. Use of the Weathernaught will override any of the controllers, but the controllers can also be used to override the Weathernaught if desired. These devices will also cancel the effect of Mootilda's No Weather On Any Lot for the specific lots where they are installed.

The controllers are unlikely to cause any conflicts at the code level because they do not modify any semi-global or global BHAVs.

Terms of Use

You may include any of these objects or recolours in uploaded lots, whether for free or pay. It is nice but not necessary to provide a credit and link to this page.


Credits

GIMP 2 and Microsoft Paint for graphics texturing, processing, sizing, and labeling
Milkshape 3D, Ultimate Unwrap3D Pro and UV Mapper Professional, for 3D modeling and mapping
Jfade's Compressorizer for minimizing file size
Numenor's AnyGameStarter, for development and testing
SimPE, PJSE, and CEP for Sims 2 object creation
Lot Credits for the Screen Photos:
The Firestorm rages at beryllium's Viking Temple in Old Uppsala
"Snow With a Chance of Hail" is at tye's Whiterun marketplace
"There is No Weather in the Mines of Moria" is from V1ND1CARE's The Halls of Moria


Polygon Counts:

The Avidly Aquaphilic Hydrangea - 834 faces, 2038 vertices
The Fair Weather Rose - 1162 faces, 1095 vertices
The Firestone of Celestial Pique - 442 faces, 243 vertices
The Greater Rock of Perpetual Flurries - 134 faces, 94 vertices
The Lesser Rock of Perpetual Flurries - 134 faces, 101 vertices
Think Inside the Box Seasonal Hedge - 674 faces, 1051 vertices