Bridge in diagonal ??

[Geepaze 0]

I was wondering if we will be able to build bridge that cross water in diagonal...

I don''t know if you had the same difficulties as me to build nice region play when highway suddenly turn in 90

[awall 31]

Ive always wanted them. And i think alot of people have always wanted them, but i havn't seen any evidence of them in any rush hour articles. But lets keep are fingers crossed

[toroca 162]

I don't remember if it was in a chat or one of the long-dead threads in the BBS, but this HAS been answered. A developer specifically told us they had to choose between giving us Diagonal bridges or giving us more KINDS of bridges. They chose to give us variety first, since far more people have complained about the lack of bridge variety than have complained about the lack of diagonals. Now, that's been a couple of months ago, so there's a chance diagonals have been added, but I wouldn't count on it.

[ALTX 41]

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On 9/8/2003 10:46:36 PM toroca wrote:

I don't remember if it was in a chat or one of the long-dead threads in the BBS, but this HAS been answered.  A developer specifically told us they had to choose between giving us Diagonal bridges or giving us more KINDS of bridges.  They chose to give us variety first, since far more people have complained about the lack of bridge variety than have complained about the lack of diagonals.  Now, that's been a couple of months ago, so there's a chance diagonals have been added, but I wouldn't count on it.

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nope - maxismike defenitely no diag bridges i think

[Buggi 685]

Alt is right, (as is mike) there are no diag. bridges.

It would probably be an additional 100 megs of textures just to cover the new bridge types if they were to do them diagonal. @@;;

[toroca 162]

Would it though? Couldn't they just map the same textures to appear at a different angle, similar to how the wall textures are used in The Sims? I mean, it's not the same as with the stuff on the ground like roads and rails, those of course they have to add new textures because of intersections. But bridges don't intersect, so I don't see why they'd have to add new textures just for that.

[DarkMatter 21]

Yes, you would need new textures. SC4 is a projection game, which means that whenever you change the angle of something thats views from the same camera angle as the same item NOT at an angle, you need a whole new set of textures (5 textures, one for each zoom level). If they add 10 new bridge types, thats 5 zooms * 4 angles * 10 bridge types * however many different meshes there are for each bridge (pylons, land connections, piers, etc. etc.). Thats at a minimum say 600 textures, probably plenty more than that, JUST for non-angled bridges. Add angled bridges for each type of bridge, and you immediately double the number of required textures. I can't say how much space that is, but its a lot.

[Asmodean 0]

well who cares, this is the year 2003 there are diagonal bridiges and there are also large hard drives to store the extra textures. hell it will prolly be in another expansion i guess....

[ROBO1964 0]

never mind...I rethought my idea out

[DarkMatter 21]

Well, strait depends on your point of reference. If you have a round island that can be connected to the mainland by bridge, your might want to build bridges like this:

 

 

While you may consider only one of those bridges (gray) to be strait and the rest diagonal, all four could be considered diagonal depending on how you rotate the image. Same thing with SC4. It has 4 angles from which you can view. Sometimes a bridge that goes strait from one side of a body of water or chasm to another may need to go at a 45 degree angle in the game to be "strait" from city A to city B. We can't do  that right now.

 

As for this beeing a modern age with plenty of hard drive space, I don't think thats the problem. I think the problem is packaging and distribution costs. With so many more textures (my guess is that it will probably take about 1000 textures for all the bridges and their parts, which means 2000 textures if they add diagonal bridges) they are going to need extra space on the distribution media. If they are talking distributing on CD, and the target list price really is $20, then adding diagonal bridges will probably make it either EXTREMELY difficult to put on the available media. One thousand textures takes up a lot of space. And I havn't even mentioned yet the space needed for extra 3D models, which I forgot about before. For every angle you need the same number of 3D models as you do textures. If you add diagonal bridges, you also double the number of 3D meshes needed, so thats 2000 meshes as well as 2000 textures. That doesn't include other things required to make bridges work, like exemplars, cohorts, RUL and SC4PATH files that define where on these bridges cars and people will show up and how they will behave, etc. It will require a lot more work and a LOT more space to add diagonal bridges for all the types of bridges they have in the game, which is quite a few when you take into account roads, ground and elevated highways, avenues, train tracks.

 

I personally can easily see the issues about adding diagonal highways with RH. Its a major task to add extra bridge types. To add diagonal bridges, they not only have to double the amount of information for the new bridge types, but also add extra information for the existing types. Thats a ton of work and a lot more distribution media space required, and isn't practical for the timeframe they have had to work on RH. Thats my three cents on the subject.

[the7trumpets 10]

I'd just like to say one thing:

 

I hope that the ammount of money maxis has had to spend hiring people simply to draw textures at different angles and creating 3DM files at different angles will convince them to completely abandon the visible grid system for SC5.  If all networks were based on dynamically created 3DM files, stretched and angled to fit, it would require far fewer textures, etc etc etc.

 

The intersections would be a minor challenge to figure out, but it would certainly be a lot easier to include new transportation types as well as get really realistic looking cities with roads at any angle and lots of any shape (not just rectangular).

 

I don't know, SC5 probably won't be out for another 2 years, so who knows what will be in there.  I just think they could have made it a lot easier on themselves to create new networks and bridges if the game structure were different than the projection 3D system DM alluded to.

[Asmodean 0]

yeah, good point. its alot easier to make a set of "rules" that all use the same textures rather than make seperate textures for each thing.

[brett_131 0]

i just read on the new transportation options on the sc4 website, maxis could pick either diagonal bridges, or a whole crapload of new styles of bridges, they picked the styles of bridges....good choice maxis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DarkMatter 21]

I agree, I'm glad they added new bridge styles. That will add some severely lacking variety to cities.

[DuskTrooper 316]

I read that there might not be any diagonal bridges, because in the time it took them to make 47 regular bridges, they could only have made 3-4 diagonal bridges.  That sucks.

[jimbo 0]

you dont really need diagonal bridges....if you want you r bridge to be at an ??? angle from a certain aspect of your city, you can improvise and just build your city at a different angle from the start.

[Alecks 0]

A diagonal bridge is necessary to make San Francisco bay bridge for example because if this city map(the peninsule) is built in diagonal and the bay bridge straightly it mean that we have to make the city's buildings along diagonal road and this would take many more time to build than bridges although this would necessary too at the end.And also this bay bridge is in two part and the angle between is more 45

[+Guest]

please do not revive old threads!

and no, there's nothing that could be done about creating diagonals, unless some batter makes one and a modder transit enables it

[6459978. 106]

Well there actually is a quasi-reasonable solution to the diagonal bridge dilemma.

It involves using puzzle pieces (from the NAM) to build the bridge. As you can see in the picture below, it works reasonably well, and it's fully functional. But there are drawbacks. The water must be very shallow. Also, the puzzle pieces follow the contour of the land, so there is always going to be a slight depression in the centre of the bridge. But better than nothing, right?

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//bridgeeee.JPG align=baseline>

[Traffic_Jam 0]

Intresting, I've never known that!

[Deako 0]

That very cool, 6459978.!

[toxicpiano 125]

hey i had  a thread on that ages ago! look:

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=66197&forumID=23&search=1&searchstring =

 

[Glenni 1,447]

it would be cool though.....

[ianpaschal 77]

I was thinking at one point, what if you made custom bridges?  YOu would need a new one for every different water gap, but that would be realistic.

There are Diagonal transit enabled lots, what if you made one that look like a bridge?

 

You could even have it the right height if you made the road surface and top of it the building and then made the supports the foundation?

 

I dont have a lot of time on my hands, maybe someone could tell me if that works........