Show us your Bridges

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Whaaat? Curved bridges?? FAR bridges? Someone pinch me.

[tonyr 926]

Beautiful bridges guys!

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Whaaat? Curved bridges?? FAR bridges? Someone pinch me.

I'm not gonna pinch you until my someone challenges my challenge. 

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Curved bridges would be easy enough thanks to draggable FAR, but that's done with puzzle pieces.  Some advanced trickery with the DBE.  I presume you have to lower the land underneath the puzzle pieces after placing them.  Before you spill anything, McDuell, I request another angle of that bridge.  I'm sure we can figure this one out.

[11241036 5,105]

An old double pedestrian bridge with an artifical small island in the center of the river.

 

Hope you like it.

 

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

I think I got it.

 

The only way, as far as I can tell, to achieve a variable-direction bridge is to create puzzle pieces that can be placed on top of Road, RHW, One Way Road (maybe), or Rail; that's because they have those pillar exemplars; theoretically any single-tile network can be made to follow VDB behaviour, and to an extent, so can the other single-tile networks because of how network hierarchy works: drag one network of higher hierarchy over another one of lower hierarchy and you replace that network with another. That's how Street is upgraded to Road is upgraded to One Way Road is upgraded to Rail is upgraded to Elevated Rail is upgraded to Monorail.
 
The problem with the two-tile networks is that if you try to drag it over Road (or something else), you'll create a giant land spire.
 

 
(By the time you watch this, about an hour from now, it will have already been uploaded.)
 
McDuell's either hiding giant land pillars under those things, or he used a Road scaffolding and modified the MWHO puzzle pieces such that they have a Checktype that looks like this:
 

CheckType = Z - groundhighway: 0x04040404 road: 0x04040404

 
That's the best possible hypothesis I have.

[McDuell 301]

 

Just me fooling around and exploiting the game ...

This is why "Diagonal Bridge Enabler" should be called "Draggable Bridge Enabler". Theorteically, this can work with variable-width, variable-direction, and curved bridges, all of which can, theoretically, be draggable.

You're gonna make a curved bridge now, because I said so, aren't you?

 

 

Curved bridges would be easy enough thanks to draggable FAR, but that's done with puzzle pieces. Some advanced trickery with the DBE. I presume you have to lower the land underneath the puzzle pieces after placing them. Before you spill anything, McDuell, I request another angle of that bridge. I'm sure we can figure this one out.

Ganaram was first of you both, so a curved bridge it'll be.

One thing I can assure you: There is absolutely no photoshopping involved!

 

 

 

And another picture. No FAR trickery this time, but I put in some slopes instead. The technique for building this one is the same as before.

 

McDuell's either hiding giant land pillars under those things, or he used a Road scaffolding and modified the MWHO puzzle pieces such that they have a Checktype that looks like this:

 

CheckType = Z - groundhighway: 0x04040404 road: 0x04040404

That's the best possible hypothesis I have.

 

Nope, as this would be waaay too advanced for me. I'm no modder, just trying to do stuff with whatever already exists.

[cmdp123789 710]

Please teach us how... I know its a game for some of you.. but some of us are very tempted to try it.. ehm ehm me... So, can you please tell us how you did it?

 

BTW, does it work with elevated systems? 

[timmie 988]

What is this sorcery?!

[Toby Ferrian 875]

Did somebody say curved bridges?

[cmdp123789 710]

Changing the sea level? You can edit in reader.. Is that it?

[mayorplease 116]

One thing I can assure you: There is absolutely no photoshopping involved!

-snip-

-snip-

What on earth? McDuell, what have you done? How can this be?

 

I know we are not worthy, as in:

But seriously, HOW????

HOW???

[TekindusT 3,809]

@McDuell:

 

How do you do it...?

 

[Toby Ferrian 875]

Changing the sea level? You can edit in reader.. Is that it?

Yes, but only because I made the land on which the bridge was built a bit too high when I had the DBE on.

[Huston 5,799]

Did somebody say curved bridges?

 

 

SWEEEET

 

My boring straight bridges

 

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

I know how to make curved bridges, but not FARHW...

[cmdp123789 710]

Can somebody tell us? I mean.. Im dying here 

[mayorplease 116]

Can somebody tell us? I mean.. Im dying here 

As me being the mayor here, I officially demand FARHW BRIDGES FOR EVERYBODY 

 

Oh wait, now I get it. It's the february challenge, right?

FARHW bridge ftw??? 

[McDuell 301]

I haven't that much time at the moment, but I promise that I'll explain the trick in a later post (if it'll still be necessary until then).

 

Just this: Technically, you don't even need any plugin in the game for this 'magic'.

 

 

Meanwhile, I have two more pictures (same technique as with the bridges):

 

 

 

[mayorplease 116]

Meanwhile, I have two more pictures (same technique as with the bridges):

Ehm, ok. So there is a slope where these retaining walls are, but the slope isn't technically high enough for the tunnels to be built.

Now how is this connected to the bridges?

I don't get the link between those two, neither do I understand how these tunnels can exist.

This MUST be sorcery MCDuell!

You better come up with an explanation sooner than later Mr. MCDuell or I see this happening.

And you don't want that

[Toby Ferrian 875]

This MUST be sorcery MCDuell!

Yeah, I'm gonna put my money on black magic and/or satanic rituals.

[Terring 6,476]

A land bridge on Mars, connecting a secluded colony with the rest of them.

 

 

[cmdp123789 710]

Please you have to let us know how to do it!!!! I mean wow!! its like you found a way to trick the game with heights... its amazing the things that we can actually do with this new trick 

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

I haven't that much time at the moment, but I promise that I'll explain the trick in a later post (if it'll still be necessary until then).

 

Just this: Technically, you don't even need any plugin in the game for this 'magic'.

 

 

Meanwhile, I have two more pictures (same technique as with the bridges):

 

That's some MC Escher sh**

 

Hmmm, no plugins.  I highly suspect you've found some trick to move the terrain without triggering the destruction of nearby objects.  About how long does it take one to make an impossible bridge or floating tunnel?  Are we talking like 2 minutes or more like hours?  Any saving/exiting the city involved?

 

Technically this could be done by exiting the city and altering the terrain with an outside program, but that sound too tedious.

[McDuell 301]

OK, time for revelations.
 

...
Any saving/exiting the city involved?

Technically this could be done by exiting the city and altering the terrain with an outside program, but that sound too tedious.

Give this man a cookie!

Indiana, you guessed it about right in your first assumption already.



As I said before, you don't need any plugin in the game to achieve this kind of bridges, floating tunnels, et al. All you need is:
- SimCity4 (duh!)
- The big magic wand: SC4Terraformer (get it here from the SC4D LEX)

The Terraformer allows you to change the terrain in mayor mode cities without destroying anything that might been already built there. It does not touch any existing trees, flora, building, networks, etc...

A note of warning: As the SC4Terraformer was programmed for Windows XP, I don't know if the Terrafomer will work on your machines. I somehow remember that some people had troubles running the program on newer systems and Windows versions. A number of them managed to get it to work with the compatibility mode, others couldn't. So there is, unfortunately, no guarantee. Fact is that the Terraformer works on my Windows7 64bit version without any problems at all; I don't even have to use the compatibility mode. So all I can say is that it might also work on your machines.

Having said that, it's finally time to build something. I'll take the floating tunnel as a (short) tutorial example.


First, lay down your network (or lot, flora, whatever ...) you want to manipulate the terrain underneath it. The important part here is only the highway, you don't actually have to place the El-Rail and Train networks yet. Save the game and exit.



Now, backup your region in case anything goes wrong.
Start SC4Terraformer, select your region and unprotect the cities where wou want to change the terrain.


Scroll to the part to be modified ...


... and flatten the area.


Save the region. Mind the warning and be sure to choose 'no' in this case, else your city or modification is gone.


Start SC4 again and load your city. It should now show like this.


Build something.


The DrawPaths cheats shows a fully working tunnel.



In this case, I started with a flat terrain and built the FARHW part first. Then I dug the river trench with the Terraformer. Back in SC4, I put down the rest of the networks and the other bridges over the now existing river.



Have fun exploiting.

 

 

(And I really hope that I have avoided getting run over by the Angry Mob Fun Run ...   )

[mayorplease 116]

Thanks for the great explanation

Very well explaned and very good job finding this trick!

Thanks for sharing!

 

And I really hope that I have avoided getting run over by the Angry Mob Fun Run ...

It was close, but yep, you avoided it

[timmie 988]

You are a true Simtropolis-hero, McDuell

[cmdp123789 710]

You deserve a medal.. A recognition.. Something! There has to be an award for you... I will talk to the mods to see if we can give a medal or something for your great achievement!

[Huston 5,799]

That's an unbelievable discovery. I can already see all the potential wave of pics containing multi-angular and curved bridges This is an ingenious method. A little tricky though

[Terring 6,476]

Can you place buildings inside the gap between the tunnel entrances-exits? It would be awesome to have highways going through buildings. Something like this: