Urban Brick Street/Road Project

[josefmayor 8]

I was driving around downtown Tampa the other day with my girlfriends mom and I saw parts of the town I hadn't seen before, because they were ghettos, but now the city has cleaned them up and these houses on them are like 500k$ and they are on old brick streets and stuff, there are also countless numbers of old brickstreets in downtown, such as Franklin St.
My goal is to either take the existing brick street mod, and expand on it, or use a texture from NDEX (I think it is) using the pinkish red brick texture and adding sidewalks that work well.
I have no idea where to start or how to start, so can anyone help me?
I looked for tutorials but I was unable to find them.

Here are photoshoped models.
Using NDEX brick Tile:

Using existing brick street mod


My preference is using the NDEX base texture because it looks more realistic to real brick streets.
Here is a comparison to Franklin St.


Since I was lazy I will add dashed lanes in the next model update.

This is a picture of a brick street park that I downloaded and changed the texture to the NDEX Brick Texture


UPDATE: This is what I want it to look like in a straight way.

[hamsterTK 93]

cool. is this going to be ploppable puzzle pieces or is thise going to replace the street textures?

IMO i think puzzle pieces would be better because you would only want some areas with streets like this.

[josefmayor 8]

I was going with Ploppable puzzle pieces.

I'm going to need to learn how to do all this stuff, if all I have to do is import the texture and make it a transit enabled lot then I'm going to need to learn how to import it as a texture, and I'm goign to need to learn how to make it transit enabled.

I finished the texture. I need to go back and make the dividers more realistic. but this is the basic version.

I'm going to need help on making it a working transit lot. Any willing?

EDIT://

So now I've been bored and working, so I made it into a lot to see what I've got so far.

I need to edit the grassy area a little more so I can add grass that matches it and make sure the tree fits.

Next Question, I'll be using PEG's Seasonal Trees. Which one of them should I use

Orange, Red, Purple.

What I'm going to do in the next update is shift the green space into the middle so when lined up it flows better. Then I'm going to work on the Seperator.

[Meastro444 1]

om going with Hamster TK on this one, but it looks beautiful, i wat this in my city, sure thing

[sunrise7 0]

it is very nice work!really like it!keep it on.

[kant01 5]

Hey josefmayor,

really nice modifications to the brick streets there. That will make a nice addition, I think.

I look forward to seeing your progress on this.

[ianpaschal 77]

Looking good....but 2 things....

The bricks should be smaller, and if possible, bumpmaped for a not so flat plastic look.

two, i dont know, but in the netherlands, where im from, we have lots of brick streets, but no "hokey pokey" old fasion street lamps, they're all modern looking.

You might want to consider that.

but looking very good mate!

[josefmayor 8]

I think I'm done with the base texture now. If anyone has any improvement suggestions I'll gladly consider them.

Here's the lot.

Next) I have to do intersections.

Responces: I'm using premade textures, however I will go back and bumpmap it or what ever it's called, just tell me how, and I'll do it.

Thanks for all your kind words and suggestions, I'll do my best to help make this look the best it can possibly be. What I can try to do to make the bricks look smaller is resize the brick texture and add either cut and paste more to fit a 128x128 map or just make a 2x2 block and resize from there to make a 128x128.

We'll see. I'm going downtown for lunch, i'll take some pictures of Franklin St. and show you a comparison.

Ok So I've finished the first intersection but it's the same mod i'm using for all of them so it shouldn't take long I just need to fix it up and make it look better.

So here's the basic Model.

Here's ingame progress: (This is only a park right now)

I spotted a problem, the lines are not centered so they are off on the bottom.

I also need to make it more realistic looking, it's too flat.

Ok I'm going to need some help. 1) Transit enabling, I need somone to make it so that people can drive on it and stuff will grow on it.

2) I need some walk throughs on how to make it bumpmaped so it looks realistic.

3) I need help with the road textures (stop lines, crossing lines, etc)

EURO PLAYERS: Post pictures of your countries' brick road so I can release 2 versions, American & Euro

[tag_one 133]

wow nice progress, they look very good. transit enabling can be done very quickly with the SC4 tool

[Simfan34 11]

This is very nice! I anticipate its realease. Now, we new a Euro street mod-compatible avenue. Otherwise, keep it up. If you need help,ask me.

[prince_of_sims 0]

really great modification of an existing mod. goof job. now where did the bunnies go??

you know what you could do? get a bunch of similar looking trees and make them into prop families. then put the prop family onto your lot. this way, the trees generated will be random with each plop.

wish i knew how to do that, but i dont. i just know the mechanics. maybe a forum search will help you.

and if you need help Transit Enabling, give me a PM. i'd be happy to help you provided i can find the time.

[Andreas Roth 629]

One note of caution: You can't plop two transit enabled lots directly next to each other, so between every lot, there has to be a regular network tile. And transit enabled lots don't allow any development next to them (i. e. you can't plop them on a road in front of a building, this will cause them to abandon soon, with the "no road access" zot showing up).

For real network tiles that are fully functional, you will have to make puzzle pieces, and those will have to be incorporated into the NAM (otherwise, they will be incompatible with it, since the master RUL file has to be modified, and there can only be one of these files). Once you have created a full set of lots, it's not too hard to convert them to puzzle pieces, though, so you only have to "convince" one of the NAM modders to do it.

[ScruffyDeluxe 0]

Originally posted by: josefmayor I think I'm done with the base texture now. If anyone has any improvement suggestions I'll gladly consider them.

...I also need to make it more realistic looking, it's too flat.quote>

How's this? I noticed that the roads in one of your in-game shots had thin gradients near the edges, so I had a quick blast in PSP7 with the select tool and some feathering.

There's a PSD here if you want to apply the effect to any other puzzle pieces you have, but I dunno how to go about doing curves.

[prince_of_sims 0]

wheeee..... i'm often amazed by the uber helpful people here =D

[josefmayor 8]

REPLIES:

Prince of Sims: Thanks buddy, but this looks like a job for *Super hero voice* THE NAM TEAM (echo)

So If they like it I guess it'll be in the next NAM?

Andreas Roth: Is there a way you can lobby for me? I think this would be a great addition to the NAM. Thanks for your comments

ScruffyDeluxe: Thanks a lot!!!! Yeah I forgot to crop it all the way so yeah.

Simfan34: Thanks for your comment, I'm working on getting it done, however I'm kinda busy with life stuff. It'll be done by October, or else it won't be finished til Febuary, because I wrestle full time October - Febuary.

[smoncrie 44]

This is almost a tease, because I do not intend to do any more work on it, at this time.  I did it a few days ago, based on josefmayor’s first post.  I almost did not publish it, but I thought that people might like to see how it looks.

To do it, I replaced the dirt street textures and added a type 21 exemplar to my drag able dirt street test mod.

As for alternative drag able networks, I am still not sure if they are feasible because I have not yet found a good way to handle a large number of different intersections.  I am still working on it, but don’t expect anything soon.

P.S.  You probably should have low, medium and high wealth versions of the texture.

P.P.S. You don’t need a prop family because you can achieve the same effect by adding extra reps to the LotConfigPropertyLotObject property.

[josefmayor 8]

Thanks smocrie, I love your work on all your mods and stuff

That's pretty sweet, So I should make 3 versions of each texture?

I'm going to start working on more intersections when I get the chance.

I am going to need to either make my own or find adiquate street textures, the one I used for my first intersection is not good enough.

I'm going with the over all base of it with the brick crossing.

I think I need to space out the yellow line a little more

[allan_kuan1992 6]

This is very interesting... I tried doing something similar, but the project died after a few posts... Hope this project will go through with a release. Good work...

Allan

[tag_one 133]

josef, tnx for asking my help. you've asked me to make your texture look less flat, but I think ScruffyDeluxe texture will solve that problem if you need help with something else like the intersections or with different models than the maxis ones feel free to ask

[jacqulina 162]

these are wonderfull a great addition to the game excellent work thanks

[josefmayor 8]

I just finished placing the brick texture on most of the intersections.

What's left?

Road Textures. I need some PSDs of road textures that will look realistic on the brick road. For reference to anyone who wants to help me, use the first intersection I posted for the road texture I need. Which is the white lines, those are really the only things I need.

The only special intersection piece I need is for the Brick Xing, which I'm using a Tampa Brick X example. shown here

So what I need is a semi transparent circle. For the crossing I think I'm just going to go with the zebra path, unless anyone thinks I should use the special brick crossing?

I think I'm only using that on the regular road ped crossing.

I was thinking about making a Brick Oneway mod, but that might be too much work for now, so I will think about it in the future if there is a demand for it.

Thanks everyone for the comments, it means a lot to me.

Edit by Andreas: Image changed to link - please refer to the rules, 800x600 max.

Edit by josef: Fixed Image Size, sorry, it looked 800x600

[ScruffyDeluxe 0]

I made a couple more bits!

Seeing as crossroads can't really have zones develop by them, maybe there could be a few ploppable ones with different patterns in the centre?

An idea for pedestrian crossings.

I have no idea how the sand-coloured bricks would look in-game, but might I suggest making the lane divider out of contrasting bricks, rather than a double yellow line? This idea seems appropriate for areas where traffic is rather light, IE. §§§ residential suburbs, pedestrianised shopping areas, etc.

I really want to see this project come to life, so much so that I'm willing to attempt making CURVES (omg!)

[josefmayor 8]

In Tampa they don't use the double line in the urban neighborhoods like Tampa Heights, they only have lines in the city, so I'm gonna make 2 versions, one with, and one with out.

Thanks Scruff! That looks amazing! I'm going to start working on the Road-Brick intersections today.

I'll post my progress when I have some lol

[sunrise7 0]

just so good,so beautiful!

[josefmayor 8]

Here are my basic intersection texture.

This is most of them, Since I'm making two versons, I need with road textures (yellow lines etc) and one with out. I need somone to help me make a realistic looking white stop line.

Scruff, if you'd like you can take the intersection portion and improve on what I have right now.

I really like your brick x'ing, that's really cool, can you do the samething for the Brick T?

I'm doing all the bases with medium wealth, the final version will include all wealths.

Thanks sunrise

EDIT: I just noticed that I need to take about one pixel off of a couple of 'em I'll do it later...

[rushman5 33]

How about making them a ploppable park, transit enabled, and have a park/helth/business effect, somewhat like shadowAssasin's cycleways. We could put them in alleyways and stuff, to look really cool!

[josefmayor 8]

If you want I can release a park version for you.

that wouldn't be a problem

I just finsihed the RXR Crossing, and I was just thinking for reaism, I was going to add a texture that you would see in real life if you were comming up to a rail road crossing.

I need to find the texture and make it since it does not exist in Sim City.

Then I need to find out how to make it look real.

I have finished all the bases except one.

What's left?

Street Textures, then making into lots. Then it's up to the NAM team.

[Edizz 1]

wow,these are beautiful. I cant wait till these come out, sorry i dont know anything bout modding an stuff

[ScruffyDeluxe 0]

Well it appears that I'm on the team

[tag_one 133]

those textures look very cool! I can make some old looking stoplights for your intersections or some old looking benches if you want to