Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 7th Mar 2020 at 11:32 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 3, World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, Island Paradise, Into the Future
Default Instance ID Designation
I have asked before how lakes are made (without ocean water level) and was linked to several threads and articles on the subject, all involving hex editors and such. I don't understand the first thing about hex editor (I don't even know what a hex is, aside from it's longer name being "hexadecimal", whatever that means). Yesterday, while looking for a very specific kind of map (and not being able to find one at the time), I opened up CAW to see what I could do to change that. Got me a heightmap, imported it, smoothed out the rough edges, and got to work on a potential rural American map. My map has this perfect little valley in an otherwise mountainous region which is great for a lake! I did some digging to find those threads and tutorials again on how to build a lake using water planes. After a LOT of confusion, a little headache, and a nap, I think I finally got the hang of it.


I did some poking yesterday, but thought I broke it, as my CAW crashed at one point trying to load the map. I decided to go to bed and mess with it the next day. Today is the next day, so I started up CAW to find that I now had a lake!
Now, I need to fill in the rest of the area with more water planes. Due to the shape of the area (especially the dam on the west side) and the fact that water planes are rectangles, I have to use several. Using a flag pole as a coordinate marker, I marked corners for 18 more planes (not including the one I did yesterday that is already there). In one of the tutorials, I read a post that mentioned something a bit odd: when editing the final file to tell the world how many water planes exist, 10 is designated as 0A (due to the files being hex based?) instead of the normal 10 (0-9 is designated normally, then 10 is 0A, 11 is 0B, etc). This poses the main question of this post:
My first water plane is file 707CA200_00000000_0000000000000000%%+UNKN, where 707CA200 is the type, 00000000 is the group, and 0000000000000000%% is the instance. My second water plane is file 707CA200_00000000_0000000000000001%%+UNKN, third is 707CA200_00000000_0000000000000002%%+UNKN, etc, all the way to the tenth at 707CA200_00000000_0000000000000009%%+UNKN. What is after this? Is eleventh (11) named 707CA200_00000000_000000000000000A%%+UNKN or 707CA200_00000000_0000000000000011%%+UNKN?

Also, in the last file (90624C1B_00000000_0000000000000001%%+UNKN.bnry) where you tell the world how many water planes exist, I would write "01" if I only have 1 water plane, and "08" if I have 8 (which would be files 707CA200_00000000_0000000000000000%%+UNKN through 707CA200_00000000_0000000000000007%%+UNKN), and "0A" if I have 10. Does this mean that 19 would be "0I" (ninth letter in the alphabet) and 20 would be "1A"?

I hope this question is not too complicated. I don't even understand what a "hex" is or how it works, let alone how to try to explain any of this. I hope I am not just spreading my confusion here.

Any help is much appreciated!
Advertisement
Mad Poster
#2 Old 8th Mar 2020 at 12:58 AM
There are 16 digits in the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system. They are 0 through 9 and then A through F. Thus we count 8,9,A,B (meaning in decimal eight, nine, ten, eleven). There are no hex digits higher than F.

Instead of ones, tens, and hundreds places, we have ones, sixteens, and two hundred fifty-sixes places (powers of 16 instead powers of 10).

So 0A in hex is ten in decimal, 0B is eleven, 0F is fifteen. 10 in hex would be sixteen. 13 in hex would be nineteen and 14 would be twenty. 20 in hex would be thirty-two in decimal. 100 in hex in a context that allows three-digit numbers would be two hundred fifty-six in decimal.

Does that help at all?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#3 Old 8th Mar 2020 at 1:10 AM
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 2A, ... Alright.

Complicated, but simple. Normal numbering goes from 0 to 9, then loops back with a 10, then again with a 20, and so one. Hex numbering is similar, but goes from 0 to 9, then A to F, THEN loops back around with a 10 (10 to 1F), then again with 20 (20 to 2F) and so on? Makes me curious as to what happens after 9F, but that is a question for a different topic.

So, would that make my file after 707CA200_00000000_0000000000000009%%+UNKN be 707CA200_00000000_000000000000000A%%+UNKN, or does this hex numbering only apply to amounts (in the 90624C1B_00000000_0000000000000001%%+UNKN.bnry file)?

Basically, does the "instance" (the 0000000000000009%% in the file name) conform to hex numbering or normal numbering?


[EDIT]
Also, another question. This one probably belongs in a new topic, but I don't know how the moderators would feel about my posting two separate topics in this section so soon.

I attempted to open my world file in S3PE to add in my new water planes and update the 90624C1B_00000000_0000000000000001%%+UNKN.bnry file to account for the new planes, but when I saved the world CAW gave me an error stating that it "Cannot load a packed file (0) in The Sims 3 Create a World Tool". I have even tried both methods of "editing a premade world" (treating my current world as the "premade" I am trying to edit), but the error always prevails. This effectively puts me at a roadblock in my workflow (kinda hard to build an area around a lake when the lake does not fully exist).

Is there any way to solve this, or is there a particular way to insert the water plane files into the world without breaking it?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#4 Old 8th Mar 2020 at 3:16 AM
Well, I managed to get my edited world open after reinstalling CAW (I really hope I don't have to completely uninstall and reinstall the program every time I edit a file in s3pe), and the lake WORKED!


I ended up replacing the barrier dam with a larger one (from Into the Future) with a road over it. The larger, thicker dam made it so I could do larger water planes without worrying about a corner sticking out the other side of the dam. This means fewer hex file editing.

Here the what the "low side" of the dam looks like (with the lake in the background):
Mad Poster
#5 Old 8th Mar 2020 at 4:33 AM
Quote: Originally posted by bobgrey1997
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 2A, ... Alright.

Complicated, but simple. Normal numbering goes from 0 to 9, then loops back with a 10, then again with a 20, and so one. Hex numbering is similar, but goes from 0 to 9, then A to F, THEN loops back around with a 10 (10 to 1F), then again with 20 (20 to 2F) and so on? Makes me curious as to what happens after 9F, but that is a question for a different topic.

9F + 1 = A0. There is nothing special about "9" in hex, it's the number that comes right before A.

Afraid I have no idea on the rest of it, I've never even used CAW. I know how to spell it, but not much more than that so would have to defer to the others here.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#6 Old 8th Mar 2020 at 6:54 AM
That's what I was thinking about beyond 9F. Normal sense would say "10 is after 9, so 100 (0 is after F)", but in this case, A is after 9, making it A0. That would also make A0 equivalent to 160 if I comprehend it correctly.

Thank you for helping me understand this complicated mess (and for helping me learn a new form of math!)

Hopefully, I can find someone who knows more about editing worlds in S3PE and opening the edited file in CAW again (or, would it be them finding me...?). However, I don't think I will need to edit the world further in S3PE (hopefully), as the only think I can think of that I needed to do in S3PE was create this lake, which is done now.
Back to top