Boston Central Artery/Tunnel Project (Big Dig)

[blahdy 21]

[lrfox 2]

Wow, these look great. I am from the Area, and commute on 93 all the time. Very nice, i can't wait till you finish the tunnel transition. Are you planning on making any of those eye sore giant tunnel ventilation chimnies? Keep it up, i'll be following this one.

[mightygoose 92]

if you changed the signs they would serve as british ones as well

[blahdy 21]

Originally posted by: lrfox Wow, these look great. I am from the Area, and commute on 93 all the time. Very nice, i can't wait till you finish the tunnel transition. Are you planning on making any of those eye sore giant tunnel ventilation chimnies? Keep it up, i'll be following this one.quote>

Thanks =), I'm from the area also.

You read my mind, you can't call it Big Dig without those Vent Buildings!  They will be worked on soon.

[cammo2003 20]

The freeway tunnel project got shelved from what I recall. At the very least nothing's been done about it for several months now as far as I know.

[Fabiocb 1]

this is looking great so far, one question, will it be placed over the highway lanes (I mean transit enable lots) or it will be place beside the highway? because it would be great if it doesn't need space, as in urban areas space is rare.

congratulations.

[blahdy 21]

Fabiocb: Thanks

The way I envision it right now is to have it transit enabled. I'm looking to have two tunnel portals. The one you are looking at right now is an on-ramp portal, where you connect a road or one-way road into it to connect to the underground highway network. The other portal I will need to work on is a bigger 6-lane edition where you connect the main highway into it to bring it underground.

cammo2003: Yea, unfortunately it seems to have died... Hopefully others can pick it up again.

[beoren 0]

This looks really great! Is there a way for you to release the tunnel transition on the STEX?

[Nexis 1]

I like your Highways signs.   but should get into the STEX highway sign making business.   i like what doing great job!!!!!!

[hamsterTK 93]

actually, a week or two ago ardecila did some work on the NDEX transition., it may still come back to life...

BTW, if its anyway possible to have some lighting of the tunnel entrance that would be really cool.

[ardecila 125]

I did indeed do some work on the FWT. The only problem now is paths.... I'm trying to get them working so the cars look semi-realistic on the way down.

[blahdy 21]

Okay, here is a new pic, view from inner side of the tunnel portal (as if you are coming out of the tunnel):

starting to take a little shape, but still long way to go..

hamsterTX:  Thanks for the comment!  Yes, there will be lights.. right now, what you see is quite rough, missing a lot of details.  It will look much better as I continue to model it.  But yes, my goal is to include as much details as possible (attn to detail) while making it look nice, so to an extent it is visible in SC4, lights will be added.

ardecila: Excellent, glad to see its not dead.

[blahdy 21]

okay... at least ONE of the two walls is nearly done now...

NOW, it's *starting* to look like a real thing

Feels like driving out of Exit 23 tunneled off-ramp on I93 Southbound in Boston   Too bad many of these inner details will be lost in SC4.

[blahdy 21]

Okay, final update for today, below.  I've readjusted the height of the tunnel portal so it looks realistic (the ones I had above were too high, its like a wall standing in middle of downtown) just like the real ones in Boston.

The tunnel portal BAT is now starting take shape!  But still far from being done -- yes I know the roof is missing, like i said, far from done

[sloppet 3]

Blahdy, now that is outstanding! I would love to have sth like that in my city! Good work!

[blahdy 21]

Thanks sloppet :-)

[tag_one 133]

wow, this is superb. I love the special shape of the signs

[JBSimio 152]

WOW!!!  That looks amazing!  This is definitely worth following.

JB

[lrfox 2]

Yep, that looks identical to the real thing. great work. you're right about losing a lot of the interior detail because of the game, but you're doing fine considering the restrictions inflicted because of the game. One thing i hate about the tunnel transition (in real life) is on 93 southbound, entering the tunnel after coming off of the Zakim bridge during the day there is a blind spot where you go from the bright sun, to that small strip of yellow lights, to the normal tunnel lighting. but you're ramps and transitions are perfect. it'll be great to be able to use these.

[blahdy 21]

Okay, let me update you first..

The tunnel portal on-ramp is almost done now.  I just need to do the lane painting on the road surface itself, and other than that it's pretty much done.  Don't worry about the concrete box that covers the inner tunnel at the back of the portal -- that's supposed to sink underground when you plop it, so you should not see it unless you are doing an underground/subway view.

[blahdy 21]

tag_one, JBSimio: thanks for the support

lrfox:  yup, thanks!;  yea i've no idea why they changed that spot to yellow from normal tunnel lighting they had before, it annoys other people too (myself included) when driving in the morning.  Another thing i dont get is, on a few newly opened on-ramps (i.e. albany street) or near summer street/dewey sq., they used crappy looking 90 degrees angled dark-brown sign posts instead of the modern looking round blue ones.  Makes me wonder if they are trying to cut cost after 25+ billion dollars of cost overruns :-D

[cammo2003 20]

I'd say the less bright light may have something to do with the sign not far from it. I suspect a full-intensity light would affect the visiblity of the sign. It's great to hear that the tunnel transition is still being worked on somewhat.

[blahdy 21]

Thanks cammo2003, for your comments I'm still readjusting the lights a little, as you can see, you can also see that back-side concrete block is illuminated by light when it shouldn't be. that needs to be corrected also and lights need to be a little bit brigter and evenly covered.

But I think so far, it's a good looking progress!

[blahdy 21]

Originally posted by: mightygoose if you changed the signs they would serve as british ones as wellquote>

Do you have any real-life pictures of british version, that can be used as a reference?

[sloppet 3]

the last pic is really great! Really well done blahdy!

[blahdy 21]

On-Ramp Number One: DONE!

Ladies and gents, may I present you.. the final product..  Now... to figure out how to actually get it working in SC4..........

[lrfox 2]

I think you could PM dusktrooper or some of the NDEX admins because they have experience with this type of stuff (they have a similar subway to rail exchange). what's going to happen is that since there is no "underground tunnel" for roadways, you're probably going to have to make it a "street to subway", or highway to subway transition and use the subway as the actual tunnel. so i'd go drop a line in the NDEX forum or PM one of them and see what/ who they use to mod it.

[MiniMark 7]

Wow thats cool. Very detailed and realistic. Now does the traffic light change? This would probably be a good idea to have to "start the sunken highway". Good Job. Keep up the good work and looking forward to more updates.

[jeeper 14]

Wow, this will be one of those rare creations that can drastically improve the gameplay in SC4. I can't wait to get my hands on it!

[blahdy 21]

Thanks guys

lrfox: Yea, thanks; I'll contact them to see if we can include big dig lots to their transition package. But before I go that far though, I want to proceed with the 2nd tunnel portal first. The 2nd tunnel portal will be a ground highway-to-underground transition, not an on-ramp. I have some neat ideas as to how to model that one. I'm thinking of modelling it in balance of mix between I-93 south transition after Zakim bridge (right next to TD Banknorth/Fleet Ctr.) and Ted Williams / Fort Point entrance.

MiniMark: The model itself, no.. But it may be worth checking into doing animated lights using the automata. BTW, the tunnel lights never change to red unless there is maintenance/accident in the tunnel system forcing them to shut it down or if the entering vehicle is overheight. Underneath the electronic sign above the traffic lights is the height sensor that will activate an alarm if your vehicle is past the height limitation to enter the tunnel system. When that happens, traffic lights on both lanes turn to red, and electronic sign reads "OVERHEIGHT VEHICLE; STOP; AWAIT POLICE" -- all this happens automatically by the computerized system of course.

jeeper767: Glad to hear you like it :-) You guys are going to probably love the 2nd portal I'm going to work on. And yes, it is my goal to release all of these to STEX, when I'm satisfied with all the work in it. I'd love to see the city journals with modern state-of-the-art underground highway systems.