NAM General Discussion Thread

[Corlian 2]

Date:5/18/2004 11:54:11 PM
Author:Briman

This comment is in line with those who have said the stack interchange didnt look right due to elevations. It looked kinda flat.....you would never see a railroad going over a frewway interchange. But you would see an interchange go over a railroad. Im sure there are exceptions that could be brought to my attention. But still if you think about it the railroad is still the flattest part of the whole thing.

Ummm... thats why railroads have so many bridges ...to remain as flat as possible. The bridges are there for a specific purpose...to maintain grade....or lack of it.

quote>

You make a lot of assumptions here, some that are valid and some that aren't.

The only important thing is that yes, what I was asking for with that kind of grade never exists in real life.  But if I could make what exists in real life, I wouldn't have this problem.

[Casper3141 60]

 

is it possible to make these into a road/on,offramp type network for custom highway exits?

[Corlian 2]

Date:5/19/2004 12:35:03 AM
Author:The Great Chozo

And on a side note, a Railroad should never overpass a surface road, unless the surface road is sunk below grad, and the grad of the rail remains the same as it crosses the road. So I suggest to not waste any time on this, because just simple doesn't happen in the real world. I have never seen a rail overpass a road, and I have been to the dirtiest of industrial areas in Houston, Galveston, Texas City, and other spots around the Southeast Texas coast, and have NEVER seen this.

quote>

I've never seen one in all of Southeast Texas, but it makes particular sense that it wouldn't exist there because of all the space.

Rail overpasses don't exist at the grade we would be using here in Simcity.  What I asked for is unrealistic.  But rail overpasses with much much longer grade certainly do exist.  When the unrealism was first brought up, I googled it and found examples in a couple cities right away, but I've seen it myself in Chicago and New York, and if I thought hard enough I could probably come up with an example in L.A. or the countryside.

I wanted it because I can't make tiny little dips in the road right next to a highway, and I can't make a road overpass with short blocks, like exist time and time again in real life.  I didn't want to cut one of my cities in two because of rail traffic.

Sorry for asking.

[Briman 5]

Date: 5/19/2004 12:47:57 AM
Author:

Date:5/18/2004 11:54:11 PM
Author:Briman

This comment is in line with those who have said the stack interchange didnt look right due to elevations. It looked kinda flat.....you would never see a railroad going over a frewway interchange. But you would see an interchange go over a railroad. Im sure there are exceptions that could be brought to my attention. But still if you think about it the railroad is still the flattest part of the whole thing.

Ummm... thats why railroads have so many bridges ...to remain as flat as possible. The bridges are there for a specific purpose...to maintain grade....or lack of it.

quote>

You make a lot of assumptions here, some that are valid and some that aren't.

The only important thing is that yes, what I was asking for with that kind of grade never exists in real life. But if I could make what exists in real life, I wouldn't have this problem.

quote>

I was responding to a question you asked....why is it people are not in favor of rail over roads. I added some of the realistic views I learned from usung railroad sims and some from what I have learned about how and why railroads were built the way they are. I only assumed to help your understanding of (maybe) why not too many are in favor of rails over roads.Realistically thats why there arent too many rails over roads. As you yourself said ...terraforming. It is alot of work. but thats in game. Not in the real world

[Casper3141 60]

lol...even though some seem to think its unrealistic to have a rail go ever roads and highways like that...i dont really care cause it saves me the hassle to make a tunnel

[Briman 5]

Date: 5/19/2004 12:59:53 AM
Author:

lol...even though some seem to think its unrealistic to have a rail go ever roads and highways like that...i dont really care cause it saves me the hassle to make a tunnel

quote>

Well I for one would like to see a realism movement in city design in SC4. Not to say your points arent well taken. I understand what goes into placing the underpasses for rail in cities. I have just started working with the ones recently posted. it does take some redeveloment to get them to fit in. But hey, isnt that what SC is all about.Remember (or maybe not)in SC3k you only had one city to play. Now you have regions. Allcities work of one another. I think redevelopment is what needs to take place to get the newer features created by thes modders into your existing cities. To me that is alot like real life. Realistic.All cities in the real world go through it ans new technologies come online. Imagine if New York never redeveloped to install subways. Or LA to put in freeways. Redevelopment can revitalize those cities you have given up on...that you no longer play because you think you cant make em better.The modders batters and lot designers have seen to that. .......I LOVE THIS GAME........

[Casper3141 60]

your right but i either make a tunnel half the time or have me freeways convert to elevated ones for a moment...well i got to go watch chappelle show

[Smurfer2 7]

The interchanges that ANT have inspired are quite cool. TGC, that has to be my favorite so far. I'm looking forward to seeing some of these interchanges in game.

 

The avenue interchange is unique. I have never seen one in real life. Though it did take some creativity to come up with it.

[The Great Chozo 34]

Date:5/19/2004 12:41:13 AM
Author:Equinox

Date:5/18/2004 9:50:59 PM
Author:ardecila

Ardecila's interchange #2:



Anyone interested?  I'm probably going to do it with an earth base.

quote>

I'm REALLY interested in that one!  The stack looks to me like a waste of space when you could be doing a lot more efficient things ... this however isn't so ... expanded.  I really like this and if you smooth it out, I will be using it a lot in my cities.

quote>

 

EQ,

If you think the stack I made is a waste of space, then you must think that the Maxis made cloverleaf is a waste of space as well. The dimensions of my stack are 16 x16, which is the same dimensions of the cloverleafs. They have to be those dimension, or they can't be properly put in the game.

[the7trumpets 10]

I'd just like to point out that the 16x16 dimension is simply an upper limit. It is fine if an interchange is smaller than 16x16, but neither the north-south or the east-west direction can have more than 16 tiles.

Great work though! I do hope you find a way to change the supports to fit better with the elevated highway support look though, otherwise it won't really look seamless in a city.

[The Great Chozo 34]

Date:5/19/2004 5:50:11 PM
Author:the7trumpets

I'd just like to point out that the 16x16 dimension is simply an upper limit.  It is fine if an interchange is smaller than 16x16, but neither the north-south or the east-west direction can have more than 16 tiles.

Great work though!  I do hope you find a way to change the supports to fit better with the elevated highway support look though, otherwise it won't really look seamless in a city.

quote>

 

I was aware that the dimensions were a maximum, however, I don't think that this kind of stack can be done accurately, and aesthetically on a smaller grid. There are some intersections that exist that can be done smaller than 16 x 16, but I haven't worked on those, nor have I thought about them.

It isn't a matter of finding a way to change the columns. It is a matter of me sitting down and doing it . All I have to do is make some four sided columns, and replace the octagonal ones. I could do that in an hour tops. (and don't worry about the textures as I said in an earlier post, and as I am sure you already know, those textures will be stripped and reskinned with the in game textures.)

I am work right now, but when I get home I will make those changes, and save it as a seperate model. I will post a shot of the changes, and also post the ground to ground interchange as well.

T.G. Chozo

[The Great Chozo 34]

Date:5/19/2004 12:56:31 AM
Author:Corlian

Date:5/19/2004 12:35:03 AM
Author:The Great Chozo

And on a side note, a Railroad should never overpass a surface road, unless the surface road is sunk below grad, and the grad of the rail remains the same as it crosses the road. So I suggest to not waste any time on this, because just simple doesn't happen in the real world. I have never seen a rail overpass a road, and I have been to the dirtiest of industrial areas in Houston, Galveston, Texas City, and other spots around the Southeast Texas coast, and have NEVER seen this.

quote>

I've never seen one in all of Southeast Texas, but it makes particular sense that it wouldn't exist there because of all the space.

Rail overpasses don't exist at the grade we would be using here in Simcity.  What I asked for is unrealistic.  But rail overpasses with much much longer grade certainly do exist.  When the unrealism was first brought up, I googled it and found examples in a couple cities right away, but I've seen it myself in Chicago and New York, and if I thought hard enough I could probably come up with an example in L.A. or the countryside.

I wanted it because I can't make tiny little dips in the road right next to a highway, and I can't make a road overpass with short blocks, like exist time and time again in real life.  I didn't want to cut one of my cities in two because of rail traffic.

Sorry for asking.

quote>

Corlian,

You don't need to apologize for asking about that. I was simply stating my opinion. Who know someone else may want this bad enough and decide to make a model. If that is the case, then more power to ya, and I won't try and stop you. That was just my humble opinion.

I actually find it useful to use highways to cross rails. you can use an avenue that turns into a ground highway, which immediately elevates and crosses the rail, then immediately slopes back down and turns back into an avenue. You can have neighborhood streets connect to the avenues that cross the rails. This is a realistic solution to your problem. I use this is a number of my cities, I will get you some shots of this when I get home.

Please don't be afraid to ask or request for something. You never know, you may ask for something that will turn into one of the best ideas anyone has had, but you won't know that if you don't ask.

TGC

[ardecila 124]

TGC and anyone else who wants it: Attached to this post is a zip file containing an orthogonal and diagonal version of the SC4 elevated cloverleaf in 3ds form. It contains the supports, but you can convert it to a ground cloverleaf by deleting the supports, aligning the pivot point to the bottom of the object, then moving the object to the origin (0,0,0).

[FireSka 20]

Great Chozo and ardecila, those both look bad ass. Chozo, that looks exactly like the overpass by my house in Houston!  I would love to see those fully functioning in SC4, it would be the best thing I could download for the game since I don't think the cloverleaf interchage is as realistic and it takes up too much space.  Keep working on these, espically the leg textures.  these rock!

[ardecila 124]

I'm sorry, Casper. I don't understand what you mean. The circle doesn't seem to have anything unique in it. Could you sketch it in Paint or Photoshop or something?

[Tropod 144]

Just a note to those creating these interchanges/junctions in the Bat: I'm aware some of you already know about this, but for those that don't:

 

Anything network related being created [in BAT], the whole thing needs to be in pieces [in BAT]. Think of it like a jigsaw puzzle; you have a picture as a whole, but made up of smaller pieces; well that's exactly how these different interchange/junctions need to be made. Basically, each piece needs to sit/fit onto a single square in the game.

 

[the7trumpets 10]

Yes, tropod is right about the pieces. But we also need the entire model as a whole for the effectDir file to refference as a preview image before you plop it.

I know almost nothing about 3d modeling, but in essence, the final product needs to have an entire model, as well as the whole model broken up into 16mx16m square tiles (game tiles). So, if it's easier to make th model and then cut it up, fine. On the other hand, if it's easier to make the pieces, and then glue them together, go for that . Great job evertyone!


ps- I should have an update about the SLR ANT possibilities soon.

[Arphaxad Locus 0]

Drool. I can't wait for all of these to become functional, working things that I can use in my game. Maybe I should just leave simtropolis for a while and then come back and see what has been accomplished. It would be a nice surprise. But I doubt I could do it.

[redlotus 16]

First of all, I'd like to apologize for not being around the last few days.  My company decided to send me out of the country on a business trip.

 

I wanted to add a few things to Tropod's last post.  First thing is to clarify what he's said.  We don't need any models to be completely broken up so that all of the individual pieces/parts are restricted to one tile.  However, the fewer pieces that span more than one tile, the easier it will be to get them into the game.  This relates directly with the second thing:  supports.  Please try to keep each of the supports within a single tile.  If it's absolutely necessary to have a few span tiles, it's not a big deal, but I personally think that this could easily be avoided.

 

The third item is a little bit touchier.  Please try to keep the on/off ramps from exitting/entering at the corner of a tile.  I don't have a problem if a small part of the model hits the edge of a tile at the corner.  It's just very difficult to create the path files if the middle of a ramp hits the corner of a tile.

 

If anyone has any questions about what I've outlined above, feel free to send me a PM or give me a holler in chat.  I won't be able to get into the chat rooms much this week, but I'm usually there during the evening (ST time).

 

Thanks,

 

-red

[The Great Chozo 34]

Date:5/20/2004 10:42:39 AM
Author:redlotus

First of all, I'd like to apologize for not being around the last few days.  My company decided to send me out of the country on a business trip.

 

I wanted to add a few things to Tropod's last post.  First thing is to clarify what he's said.  We don't need any models to be completely broken up so that all of the individual pieces/parts are restricted to one tile.  However, the fewer pieces that span more than one tile, the easier it will be to get them into the game.  This relates directly with the second thing:  supports.  Please try to keep each of the supports within a single tile.  If it's absolutely necessary to have a few span tiles, it's not a big deal, but I personally think that this could easily be avoided.

 

The third item is a little bit touchier.  Please try to keep the on/off ramps from exitting/entering at the corner of a tile.  I don't have a problem if a small part of the model hits the edge of a tile at the corner.  It's just very difficult to create the path files if the middle of a ramp hits the corner of a tile.

 

If anyone has any questions about what I've outlined above, feel free to send me a PM or give me a holler in chat.  I won't be able to get into the chat rooms much this week, but I'm usually there during the evening (ST time).

 

Thanks,

 

-red

quote>

I made my model with those things in mind Red, hey after all you did teach me . There are two supports that I know will need to be moved, but I have placed the majority of them in one tile. They aren't necessarily in the center of that tile, but at least they are contained in it, and not split by the boundary.

I have a question about the positioning of these things when rendering. On the bridges they were centered on the origin and only one side was needed because of the mirroring aspect of them. Well are these cloverleafs mirrored, or will ALL of the pieces be needed. Secondly, some of the pieces that will be sliced, will need to be, say, in the top right corner of the tile. So, when rendering do they need to be positioned as such, or can they simply be centered on the origin? I hope this is clear, if it is not, I will catch you in chat. Welcome back .

T7T -

It has been my experience that it is FAR easier to slice AFTER you have created the model. If you try to model it in pieces, you lose continuity and some pieces don't fit together correctly. I do have one word of warning about slicing. If your model is fairly complex, then when you apply a slice modifier to the whole thing, it will lag like crazy. I don't know why the slice modifiers lag like that, but they do. I have found it easier to ungroup EVERYTHING and then at each tile border, just slice individually the pieces that cross that border. This makes the slice modifier behave a little better, and is easier to work with.

Chozo

[Tropod 144]

Date:5/20/2004 3:37:49 PM
Author:The Great Chozo

I have a question about the positioning of these things when rendering. On the bridges they were centered on the origin and only one side was needed because of the mirroring aspect of them. Well are these cloverleafs mirrored, or will ALL of the pieces be needed. Secondly, some of the pieces that will be sliced, will need to be, say, in the top right corner of the tile. So, when rendering do they need to be positioned as such, or can they simply be centered on the origin? I

Chozo

quote>

Some good points there.

Generally, if people are going to render the pieces themself, first they need to know what they're doing exactly, as there is a few particular things that are different when Rendering pieces for Interchanges/Junctions [for those unsure of this particular aspect, PM either myself or Redlotus] as opposed to rendering something like a building.

Secondly, generally the pieces should be rendered in BAT at X:0, Y:0 [Hopefully those values are right.The height should not be changed]. Basically, the piece needs to be centred in BAT. However, the piece should be centred in Bat in such a way that it is what it will look like in the game, in its puzzle position. So if it has an off-set from the edge [as a piece as part of the whole model] then when its centred in Bat it needs to maintain this off-set from the edge [hopefully that will/does make sense?].

As for what pieces will be needed: technically speaking, not all pieces will necessarily be needed, it may depend. We could actually get away with reducing the number of S3D files needed [& thus the file size]. So for this reason, least for the time being, it's probably best if people creating the models just send the final [unrendered] BAT product/model file to either myself or Redlotus [PM us for email address for those of you who don't have it], making sure the final unrendered Bat model has been made according to the previous guidelines mentioned in previous posts [& also make sure it is Gmax compatible].

[The Great Chozo 34]

Date:5/20/2004 4:05:52 PM
Author:Tropod

Secondly, generally the pieces should be rendered in BAT at X:0, Y:0 [Hopefully those values are right.The height should not be changed]. Basically, the piece needs to be centred in BAT. However, the piece should be centred in Bat in such a way that it is what it will look like in the game, in its puzzle position. So if it has an off-set from the edge [as a piece as part of the whole model] then when its centred in Bat it needs to maintain this off-set from the edge [hopefully that will/does make sense?].

quote>

This makes perfect sense to me, and answers my question exactly. It will take some time to slice this up, but I will do it.

T, I know you have dial up, so when I send you the pieces, I will most likely send you several e-mails, so it is easier for you to download. Red, I don't know what connection you have (I assume it is cable), so I will send you as many pieces as I can send in one e-mail, and then if I have to send another I will. (This is assuming that both of you want the pieces, if only one of you wants them then let me know. I will start the bidding at 100 Simoleans   jk )

I haven't talked to you guys in awhile, I hope everything is allright in your worlds.

See you on the flip side.

TGC

[MTLT_17 26]

You are officially G O D

 

G-Good

 

O-Obsessing Others

 

D-Damn Straight that is good Iwant it now!

 

Great Job now all we need is a Y Interchnage!

[cjosowski 0]

Must post congrats on the stack interchange, can't wait to get my hands on that.

Just a small thing on that though. I'm not sure on the situation in the US but here in the UK other than the whole problem with weaving movements etc. stacks are used where space is at a premium (as land usually costs more than the concrete here). The 4level stack in development here isnt a huge amount smaller but it is one problem i do have with the interchange in SC4 in that it is huge and takes up loads of space, especially in a dense city area.

Similarly with the Y avenue interchange it does seem excessivly big in terms of land take.

Otherwise, great work guys

[MTLT_17 26]

If you place this into a RH addition will you make a ground style stack change that would be great.

 

-MTLT

[+Guest]

Date: 5/19/2004 11:47:52 PM
Author:

Great Chozo and ardecila, those both look bad ass. Chozo, that looks exactly like the overpass by my house in Houston! I would love to see those fully functioning in SC4, it would be the best thing I could download for the game since I don't think the cloverleaf interchage is as realistic and it takes up too much space. Keep working on these, espically the leg textures. these rock!

quote>


You mean this one? (Beltway 8 and I-45 South)
(obviously the one Great Chozo and ardecila used as their model )



http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?t=4&s=11&x=715&y=8192&z=15&w=2

Never could have dreamed something like this would ever have a chance of making into SC4! Now it's time for crazy interchanges like I-10 & I-45 north!

[ruskinator219 0]

me!!!! i want to use it!!!!! oohh that's so good!!!!!!


after this, can you try going for the double deck freeway project since i sort of started it back in february, and was never completed.

[ardecila 124]

jigger: I was going to use that at the beginning, since TexasFreeway.com calls it the perfect stack, but then I saw this one . TexasFreeway says it was built on extremely small right-of-way, and I thought a stack like that would go better in SC4. But as I started to make some of the changes people requested of me, it evolved into a form rather like what you just posted.

As for the avenue interchange, that came from my noggin, when I was designing a SimNation capitol city. There are realworld examples, but I didn't know that at the time I thought of it. There's a picture of a real-life one from Dusseldorf, Germany in Marrast's thread.

[the7trumpets 10]

Great job on all the interchanges folks, I hope to be able to help with paths and Rules once the models are complete.  But now, I have an update on my testing with using the dirt roads network as a surface light rail network.  Be forewarned, there are still many unknowns:

It IS possible to get el-trains to use a dirt road:

 

For some reason, the route querry arrow goes directly from the dirtroad tile next to the first station to the second station, instead of following the dirtroad all the way until it gets to the station.  It's sort of hard to see, but you can see it a little bit in the first pic.

 

So there is some wierdness.  This is what the congestion graph looks like:

 

Not only that, but in order to get the trains to use the dirt roads, you have to give the el-trains a non-zero speed for the normal road network in the traffic exemplar.  This makes no sense to me yet, but that's the way it is.  Of course, el-trains don't actually use the normal road network since there aren't any paths for them to travel along on top of the normal roads.

 

 

Does this mean it is impossible?  No.  But unless we figure out why this happens, we will likely have to set el-trains to not create any traffic.  The only downside to this is you could unrealistically have 5000 trains using one piece of track and they would not slow down or show heavy traffic congestion in the traffic congestion data view.  This would be better than the alternative, however, where any network you put slr on top of would have blood red congestion and be extremely slow.

 

So, I don't think this is a huge opposition, but it does make me worry slightly since I'm not sure why this is happening.  It just doesn't make much sense that you would have to assign speed for an el-train to the road network in order to get it to go on a dirt road.  The only hypothesis I have is that the #RoadRules# title in RUL 0x00000013 and 0x00000014 are somehow making it think it is a road instead of a dirt road.  However, the street, avenue, and oneway rules are titled #RoadRules# as well.

 

In any case, it might make more sense in general to take the congestion property out of el-trains.  That way when there is heavy el-train traffic in the median of an avenue, it doesn't slow the street down too much.  I guess just let me know what you guys think.  It's boggling my mind a bit, but maybe I'll get a grasp here in a little while.

 

 

 

In short, it is possible, but like the single tile highway ANT idea, it has limitations.

 

What do you guys think?  Personally I like the SLR (surface light rail) idea better, but I completely take myself out of this decision because I want our decision to be whatever the community will enjoy and use the most.  Again, my idea for SLR is a ground passenger light rail system which could have individual train tracks (like passenger trains and el-trains) or tracks integrated into lanes of roads or oneways, and medians of avenues.  If you would like more elaboration, just ask.

[Sabretooth78 808]

That stack interchange looks absolutely incredible, like it was actually made by Maxis!  My only criticism is, wouldn't it look odd in the game since the supports are shaped differently from the elevated highways in the game?  Also (forgive me if this has been asked already), are you also working on a ground highway version?

 

Also, has there been any development into Single-Point or Trumpet interchanges?

 

-Chris