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(Q AND A) |
What is SCURK?Scurk stands for Sim City Urban Renewal Kit, or S.C.U.R.K. The programs was added to the Sim City 2000 game package a year or so after the original use of the game. The program was meant to allow a game owner to change and customize the buildings in the original SimCity 2000. For a period of Time it was also available for separate purchase from Maxis, at about a $20. Purchase price, but was not very successful. It should be noted this was well before the SCURK'ers got hooked on reproducing copies of real buildings.Will you send me a copy of SCURK?NO, NOT A CHANCE.Where can I get SCURK?The only current way to purchase the SCURK program currently is to purchase the SimCity 2000 Special Edition, which is a CD which contains SimCity 2000, Several Extra Tile sets, extra cities, extra scenarios, and the SCURK program in both the DOS and Windows-Win 95 version. It sells for under $20 and much less with some careful shopping around in major software outlets. The game can be purchased on line. One link to this is at the SimCity 2000/3000 Resource Center. Which in itself is a great source of SCURK information. Is version is a bargain even if you do already own a SimCity 2000 version without SCURK.How do I download the images at Scurk Mountain?There are several different methods of downloading materials for use in SimCity 2000. The images on display at SCURK MOUNTAIN, have been saved from many different peoples SimCity 2000 Cities. The images have been produced by them using the SCURK program. Each version of SCURK makes it possible to save these images, but often in different formats. Because of these different needs depending on versions, I chose to convert all these images to the .gif format. Downloading the individual .gifs are very easy. With most Browsers, Simply place the cursor over the image you want, and right click on it. A pop up window will appear. Choose the ’SAVE AS’ option, making sure you take note as to where you want to save the image on your hard drive. DO NOT CONFUSE DOWNLOADING THE IMAGES, WITH USING THE IMAGES IN SIM CITY 2000. Instructions for using the images are covered in answer to the question How can I use the .gif images in this and other sites in my cities? which is discussed on the next page of this section .In addition to the above, collections of images found at the SCURK LIBRARY and at the SCURK HALL OF FAME can be downloaded at my special DOWNLOAD PAGE, which is located at another site.What are .mif and .til sets?There is always a lot of confusion about .mif and .til file name extensions . These name extensions do not represent graphic image files, in spite of being very similar names to those used in some graphic programs .MIF and .TIL are the file extensions are the names Maxis gave for the instructions as to what buildings fit where within the SimCity Simulation. A .mif file is used to name a city set of images for the Windows Version of the game, and a .til file is used to name a city set of images for use with the DOS version of the game. I am not familiar with the MAC and other versions but they too have their special formats for these City collections of images.Why does not’t SCURK MOUNTAIN provide .mif and .til City Collections of Images?Because almost every other SimCity Web Site provides such downloads. The compete city downloads are easy to offer on a web site, but are difficult to illustrate in a way that shows you what you are downloading. I made a decision to take a different approach in my pages. I chose to display the beauty of SCURK images, with the hope that anyone could enjoy the talent these artists have been able to use in developing those images. Putting the images together into complete city sets is a personal thing, and it would be hoped anyone interested enough in SimCity 2000, would be willing to put together their own sets.Do you provide cities for SimCity 2000?I do not make a practice of making cities available at SCURK MOUNTAIN. There are many great sources of SimCity 2000 Cities out there. As long as there continues to be good SimCity 2000 sites providing good collections of cities, and tile sets there is no need to repeat their efforts. If those sites begin to quit, then I would consider offering cities.How can I use the .gif images in this and other sites in my cities?NOTE — [I have answered this question many, perhaps hundreds of times via email. That led me to develop the following email response. Do not expect this to be a quick fix answer to your question. Be sure to follow and study the material at the suggested links that are included. …the answer follows]…… There is no simple answer to your question, so I am afraid this may come up a little short. First you must own a version of SimCity 2000 that includes the Urban Renewal Kit (SCURK) It will be found in the form of files mixed right into your mail SimCity 2000 folder. Those files will include a program named scurk.com which must be run separately from SimCity 2000. Its purpose is to allow one to change buildings within a provided set, draw new buildings, or perhaps pre-design a whole city. Those of us into this have taken it on ourselves to make the massive collections of custom real-life buildings that you find on many web pages on the internet, including here at the SCURK MOUNTAIN LIBRARY and the SCURK HALL OF FAME. I think it is safe to say the use of SCURK in the way it is used today, took a direction Maxis probably never intended. Perhaps therefore, it is unfair to blame Maxis for giving us a tool which they failed to give instruction for the way we use the program today. It seems that Maxis, in all their wisdom, used a different graphic format in each of their several versions of SCURK. ie .bmp for the Win and Win95 version, .pcx for the DOS version and something totally different for the Macs, as well as variables that seem to occur in several other special versions. The .gif format seems to be the one that can at least be converted to whatever each version needs and also is visible directly while using your browsers on the internet. (.jpg's might also work, but would present the same problems). While exact directions for this procedure are complex, and vary with the system you are using, perhaps I could help a little. You need to carefully convert the .gifs from the internet to whatever format your version of SimCity 1000 needs, using a program like Paint Shop Pro or Live View PRO. These Shareware programs are available for free TRIAL use by downloading them from sites like http://www.winfiles.com . Sometimes problems will also surface in converting the files, because authors have not always adhered to the SimCity Color Pallet when they prepared the original images. There are also some size differences such as the Windows version allows for much taller buildings that he DOS version, so those with the DOS version might have to shorten some of the buildings and not be able to use others. For additional help with this problem (and almost any other problem you have with SCURK), I strongly recommend you study, or perhaps even print out the SCURK Help files found at http://www.sc300.com/sc2000/ --The SimCity 2000 Resource Pages . Wren, the Webmaster of this site, is a master of explaining how to get around these difficulties in a way that almost everyone is able to succeed in the conversion." I hope you find the above some use. It takes patience, but I guess that is the challenge that keeps us all working with SC2000 and SCURK 4 or 5 years after we bought it, when most other games are back on the shelf for good after 2 or 3 months. There is also good help, many images, tile sets, and cities available for download at the various Web Sites linked at my SCURK LINKS PAGE.Do you also cover SimCity 3000?Do you also cover SimCity 3000? The short answer is yes. My site is SimCity 3000 BAT Cave, and is located at http://www.oocities.org/TimesSquare/7497/ in the Fall and early winter of 1998, I thought that by now we would be phasing out our coverage of SimCity 2000 and SCURK in favor of building an emphasis on the coverage of SimCity 3000 and BAT. This entire site was redesigned to make room for SimCity 3000 coverage. In fact, when SimCity 3000 was finally released, it was disappointing to say the least and it seemed Maxis was doing everything it could to discourage our being able to effectively covering the game. Even though I was very disappointed in SimCity 3000, I had hoped that the Building Architect tool (BAT) would redeem the game.. The fact is I built about 6 buildings with BAT, when I realized the worst building I had ever build with SCURK was 10 times better than the best I could do with BAT.SimCity 3000 is a good game for someone who likes this sort of Simulation, as long as there is no real expectations that it will improve on the SimCity 3000 game play. It is different, maybe a little better than SimCity 2000, but did not even come near to equal to the hype surrounding the development of SimCity 3000. To make a long story short, I decided to discontinue development of BAT CAVE. The material that is there is of good use to the beginner in SimCity 3000, but except for updating the links once in a while I have no intention of expanding the coverage WILL THIS Q AND A SECTION BE EXPANDED?As new questions arise, they will be answered. If there seems to be a decreasing emphasis on SimCity 2000 coverage by other web sites, then I will try to fill any void created by their absence and may even take a new approach to providing cities and .mif/.til set. When these pages started over 4 years ago, I had less than 100 people a week visiting SCURK Mountain for at least a couple of years. There is now less than 200 people a day visiting the site. That’s not the almost 400 per day that existed a year ago, but is well worth the continued effort to keep developing SCURK MOUNTAIN.LES FREEMAN |
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