Tanks a Lot

Option 1 is already basically done, since I didn't discover the old hidden base trick until later. As a modder, I prefer the looks of option 2, and since I'll probably want to do them for myself anyway, I might as well go with option 3, and give everybody the choice.

Just to illustrate the difference, here is a screenshot of a building with a base and one without: Without the base, I can add foliage to help it blend in with the ground better, it wouldn't look good to have it growing out of the top of the base. But here's the downside on those 4 buildings: Aris' great terrain mod, but in somebody's living room.

I was really happy to find a way to hide the base, but there is a pretty big issue with 4 of the buildings, and I'd like to get a consensus (if that's even possible) on how to handle them. The only way to remove the base on these 4 is to remove the inner floor as well, which means whatever terrain the building sits on will replace the inner floor. It's not a pretty site viewed from within the building, but the outside looks much better without that base, and it fits in with all the other baseless buildings. Option 1 is to just leave the base there as it is. Option 2 is to remove the base and inner floor. Option 3 is to have optional files, so people can choose which version they prefer. I figure each building would need 4 optional files, the base and 3 wall BMPs.

That really sums it up, I get my share of both. Some other brave soul is going to have to do the modular buildings, I'm not even close to half way through the independent buildings.

I haven't given up yet, but doing these things from scratch takes a long time. I can show a preview of what I've been working on lately.

Looks like another winner, well done. The animated GIF preview is a very nice touch.

You can only install 1 HQ per side at any one time. Game limitation.

The masterpiece is done! Outstanding work as usual. Juju worked extremely hard and the quality shines through. He was gracious enough to respond to user requests, and came up with many options to make everybody happy.

I'm really glad to hear that, hopefully the patch will show up soon.

Uh oh. As a tester for this beauty, I hope I can keep writing him emails, telling him what a great job he's doing.

Juju did about all that can be done with these, and they a very nice improvement from the originals. Thanks again for making the game look even better.

Not that I'm aware/capable of doing. Even if there was a way to make walls and roofs invisible, there would be window reflections floating in the air, along with window and door frames. They all seem to be hard coded into the game, so I can't even put windows or doors where I want them, or adjust their size at all.

This is the last one I've finished so far:

Building 6:

A few shots from building 5:

Thanks, that means a lot coming from you. Can I call you collect?

I just wanted to give a little update regarding my painfully slow buildings mod. Here's a few pics from building 4:

I'm still plugging away at them. I've got about 6 and a half I consider done at this point, but they are really tough for me to do. Plus, I keep getting distracted looking at all these great mods from Aris.

They may not have been enjoyable to mod, but they certainly are enjoyable to look at, so thanks for sharing them.

I hope you are patient, because it takes me a long time to do each building. I'll try to keep the range of wall coloring for most buildings fairly limited for consistency, but it will mostly be between gray and yellow, so there should be some room for different shades.

For Bimmer: I made the wall a little less gray and a little more beige, and replaced the red bricks under the plaster to brownish stones. More accurate?

Well done, that's a neat trick. I tried playing around with the bases, but it looks impossible to really do anything with them. Modular buildings don't have a base, so adding a layer of plants to the bottom of the walls should work... I think.

Thanks Bimmer, nice pics.

The first 2 buildings are entirely grayish plaster, with exposed bricks where I added damage. I can try swapping out the reddish bricks for light beige stones, but isn't gray colored plaster acceptable? Or is it supposed to be light beige too? Changing the chimneys from brick to stone would be a pain, it was very tough to get the bricks to line up, since one side gets stretched vertically. I'd like to see those color photos, thanks.

Again, the walls don't go down to the ground with independent buildings, they hit that big base, so anything added down there will only look like it's growing out of the base, not the ground. I tried experimenting with different type plants a while back, and at least the potted plant can be said to be sitting on the base, the others just don't look correct growing out of the base. None of them, or anything can help with the sharp edge between building and ground. So it's basically (1) no doodads at all, (2) things like potted plants that can appear to sit on top of the base, but will be flat from angles or (3) ivy or other foliage that grows out of the top of the base not the ground.