Better Cities Imperial City Lighting Overhaul

NON GLOWING TOWER ADD-ON NOW AVAILABLE under optional files. _______________________________ Better Cities Imperial City Lighting Overhaul v 1. 4 _______________________________ By OC3, June 28, 2011 This is currently no longer compatible with Better Cites v 5. 1. 6 and 5. 1. 7, due to the fact that BC used my work without my permission and incorporated some parts of this mod into those versions. At my request, they have reportedly removed these unauthorized elements, so version 5. 1. 8 may be compatible, although I have not confirmed it. FIRST, a note about performance. Don\'t assume that this will be a performance killer. It\'s not. In fact it should IMPROVE performance. It actually runs smoother inside Imperial City than it does in say, Bravil, or Cheydinhal, even around the palace. So if you are using Better Cities, you definately should use this. How can it improve performance?... When I was working on this I discovered that there were originally 2, yes 2, light sources inside of each streetlamp and wall mounted lamp in Better Cities IC. As if that weren\'t bad enough, light sources that overlap each other cause a severe perfomance hit as each pixel is lit twice. Not only does that kill performance, it creates an ugly greenish tint near the light. But that\'s not all. Those 2 light sources used animated flames. Yes, 2 animated flames, that you could not even see, inside each lamp. This mod eliminates one of those animated light sources from every lamp in imperial city!! So even though I have added a few light sources, the total number is actually FAR less than before. So enjoy the prettier lighting with no performance hit. What it does... ________________ In general, it makes the lighting in the Imperial City much more realistic and Immersive. Specifically, it does three main things, and some other smaller ones. First, the streetlamps have been remodeled so that the flame inside can be seen. It\'s quite nice to see the flame dancing around inside each lamp. This applies to all lamps, wall mounted or street. Also, I fixed the issue of the lamps sound running even when the lamps are off. Secondly, The arboritum has been given the best overhaul of any of the districts, except maybe the palace. The proprietors of the arboritum hotel have have illuminated the various interest points and pathes of the arboritum with candles at night which will actually turn off and on at appropriate times, and also added some lamp posts to the arboritum to give it some light at night also. Most importantly, they have have improved the waterfall to be much more robust and built a sitting area next to the waterfall. The pond is now a wishing well full of coins beneath the floating water lillies. I also removed the railroad tie looking stepping stones and replaced with a flagstone texture. The removal of the stepping stones may give a slight performance boost. It will look the best using Detailed Terrain, I highly r