Real Highway (RHW) - Development and Support

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

That's a really neat way to fit a roundabout under a highway.

It's a Volleyball.

[eggman111 8]

Hmm, I didn't see any traffic lights so I figured it was supposed to replicate a roundabout. Yeah, I see the volleyball now.

[jdenm8 362]

Yeah, there aren't any traffic lights because I have no experience making T21s. There should be traffic lights on both pieces by release.

[eggman111 8]

No problem. I guess that will be the first RHW piece with a traffic light on it, unless I'm forgetting something.

[nathanthemayor 1,263]

One thing I must say is that hopefully the upcoming RHW will have avenue/rail viaduct pieces for diagonal stretches of RHW, paticulary RHW-6S, and hopefully diagonal ramps as well for RHW-6S.

[Tarkus 6,933]

One thing I must say is that hopefully the upcoming RHW will have avenue/rail viaduct pieces for diagonal stretches of RHW, paticulary RHW-6S, and hopefully diagonal ramps as well for RHW-6S.

The inclusion of more viaduct interactivity is unknown. The plan has been to make them draggable, but that's more likely to be synchronized with the NWM updates for NAM 32, and it might not much sense to make a bunch of puzzle pieces at this point. We're still finalizing the ramp lineup.

-Tarkus

[elavery 1,013]

Are there any additions to RHW in the new NAM in terms of how it crosses bodies of water? There is a lack of RHW bridges out there so at the moment using RHW with anywhere that has some water seems kind of limiting.

[Tarkus 6,933]

You're in luck on that front. All RHWs, except the 6C and 8C (due to being 3-tile networks), will have bridges in NAM 31.

-Tarkus

[Wiimeiser 452]

I heard there are issues with Symphony bridges though, as modifying the existing bridges has proven to be extremely difficult if not impossible. The only compact RHW bridge has no LHD paths, so LHD Symphony users will be out of luck and will have to use Avenue bridges or, worse, viaducts

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

I heard there are issues with Symphony bridges though, as modifying the existing bridges has proven to be extremely difficult if not impossible.

Completely false; Doing so now would've taken too much time.

Let be me more specific: There are a lot of differences between MHW bridges and RHW/PS bridges (dimensioning issues and modelling), and to convert between one and the other is not only legal, it likely would've taken a lot of time to do so.

Refer to: http://sc4devotion.c...40838#msg440838

And to answer your second question, yes, LHD bridges are possible. https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=15238.msg440851#msg440851

  Edited January 22, 2013 by Ganaram Inukshuk  

[Tarkus 6,933]

The only compact RHW bridge has no LHD paths, so LHD Symphony users will be out of luck and will have to use Avenue bridges or, worse, viaducts

Also not true. It's a requirement that official NAM release items have LHD compatibility. And it's a 2-second fix to add LHD support to that bridge. Simply copy over the paths so they end with "F" instead of "0" on the IID.

-Tarkus

[jdenm8 362]

Also not true. It's a requirement that official NAM release items have LHD compatibility.

That's one reason BL released it independently.

Everything was setup for the LHD to work on that bridge by the LHD developer of the time, but the bridge ended up being packaged incomplete, missing the LHD paths (Which it wouldn't need in the first place if it was in a different IID range).

There's a few more Dual RHW-4 bridges coming in the next NAM, one of which is a conversion of one of the Maxis bridges (The only such one done before it was decided the process was too complex and time consuming) as well as two others using models from two previously unreleased bridges.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Looks like the FAQ will need another amendment...

[Teirusu 38]

*Beep Beep*

Just wanted to pop in say what a fantastic job the NAM Team has done through out the years on both RHW and the NAM in general. You guys have really done a bang up job and RHW has come out better then I could have ever hoped for considering what SC4 gives us to work with. Its basically came to be, and more, that I envisioned all those years ago.

It actually brings manly nostalgic tears to my eyes. Being able to come back every now and again to see my past creations and ideas come to fruition in the numerous city journals.. and see that people still enjoy them to this day, always brings a smile to my face.

Like seriously.. this big~ ^______^

..Maybe even bigger!

Thank you,

-Teirusu

P.S. ...NAM pony is BEST PONY!

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

So I decided to look at one of the the few recorded instances of pre-V3 RHW:

(I like this one because it's tutorial-ish, plus comparing then and now is a really fun exercise.)

What I can tell from this old instance:

- Textures are directionally-biased, not directionally neutral

- RHW-4, RHW-2, MIS, and 6S only.

- 6S needed its shoulder to be dragged out

- EVERYTHING (the PPs) was under one button.

- No proper NCing

[Tarkus 6,933]

Teirusu, it's awesome to see you! And you deserve a lot of credit--you really got the ball rolling on the whole override network phenomenon with your initial work almost 8 years ago, and I (and the rest of the NAM Team and community) owe you a great deal for that.

-Tarkus

[Teirusu 38]

@Tarkus

Heh, thanks for the welcome. And I suppose you're right. But I was just a pioneer, an experimenter. I'm sure someone else would have eventually came around and figured these things out, perhaps. But it's people like you that put all the nails, wood, and glue together to make it function. I wish I could have stuck around more, sorry that I couldn't.

But it was a fun ride of discovery, none-the-less. I remember back when I originally discovered the 'Dirt Road' network buried in the Rush Hour files. I quickly whipped up (Or maybe found some.) dirt road textures and tried it out... only to find that people couldn't actually jump onto the network from their houses. That was a disappointment at the time, heh, but it did give me the original idea for the RHW mod. I think I remember that, in the beginning, not too many people were keen on the idea. Understandably, we already had the two other Maxis highways, why need more?

Well, I felt the game was missing that link between its 'Major Urban Freeways' and.. everything else. Something that represented all those US and state highways that tend to have a mix of at-grade and split grade intersections, and may or may not have multiple lanes for both directions. So, the idea was to create something inherently flexible and upgrable. The basic idea was to.. just be able to drag/paint how wide you wanted it.

In my original idea and code (Rather basic code), RHW-2 was to be the 'base' of the network, then if you placed two parrallel RHW-2 next to each other, it would become RHW-4 automatically and you could drag from that as you wished. So, yes, the textures needed to be directionally-biased so you could easily tell which direction the traffic was suppose to go. (At least with RHW-4) And I figured that would make pathing easier to handle, perhaps..?

I also thought about 6 and 8 lane configurations for the future, but hadn't really planned anything, but my thinking was to be able to drag/paint them like RHW-4. So, dragging another RHW-2 besides RHW-4 would automagically change it to RHW-6, then RHW-6 to 8. Having 6 as a 3-tile setup would properly simulate the added capacity while still being fairly compact. I'm thinking I would have put the median, left shoulders, and left lanes in the center tile.. then have the two right lanes and shoulders in the outside tiles. A little less silly then having to drag the shoulders, heh.

The conversions been the different sizes would probably look really ugly though...

[Tarkus 6,933]

Hey, you're most welcome, Teirusu--it's great hearing about the foundations of everything we do today.

A little development action . . . working on the improved stability.

-Tarkus

[Ziggomatic 0]

Can I get this topic going again? I'm having the same problem as Maximum Matt - I can't get my RHW-8S to work between neighbor cities.

 

My preferred setup within a city is two parallel RHW-8S thoroughfares with a pixel median between them. As far as I can tell from searching all over, I'm supposed to first connect to the neighboring city in the default fashion. So for each pixel 'lane' of my highway, I connect to the neighboring city, which brings up the default "Create a Connection" dialogue box four times. I accept the connection each time, and it ends up looking like this:

 

 

Then I put th blue RHW invisible loop connector in the median on the edge of the map, and overlay RHW-8S Neighbor Connector pieces over both connections (making sure the lines are right). Going to the neighboring city it, it looks like it works, with four RHW poking into the neighboring city. However, the connection doesn't function for commuter traffic. If I connect it the same way as from the other side (with the RHW neighbor peices), it still doesn't work. I can set up neighbor deals, and freight trucks travel accross the connection, but commuters from my residential city won't cross the connection to the neighboring industrial zone.

 

Any thoughts? What am I doing wrong?

 

Thanks for helping a dumb new guy out! 

[Haljackey 17,385]

One of my very first stretches of RHW, still kicking around after all these years...

Click for full size!


There are only a few remaining users that have the first version of the RHW in their cities, and NAM 31 still has legacy support for them!
 

[aaaling 83]

One of my very first stretches of RHW, still kicking around after all these years...

Click for full size!

<snip>

There are only a few remaining users that have the first version of the RHW in their cities, and NAM 31 still has legacy support for them!

 

 

Wow, really?

[loger95 4]

Having a problem. My sims have no idea how to use the new highway (RHW), now they cant get to their jobs on the other side of a river.

 

Anyone know what the problem might be? and yes I'm new to this mod.

[timmie 988]

Could you provide more information? In this case a picture could be useful

[loger95 4]

I use two "space-saving diamond interchanges", which can be found on the RHW guide.

 

The sims does not use the highway to get to work, and that is the only road that goes there.

 

When I use the "sims mode" thingy the highway+interchanges works fine.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Can you post a picture with the drawpaths request (extra cheats dll) in operation.  This should show whether there is any pathing problems for your Sims.

[frozener 0]

in dire need of some help in laying down highways in NAM 31, when I try to make onramps part of the main highway either disappears or turns into a non-matching puzzle piece; please see the provided screenshots

 

 

 

 

i also have this issue with one of the wider highways

 

 

is there a tutorial anywhere on how to properly to make highways in NAM 31?

[Shortsonfire 67]

Hey all, Ninjachin again with some more questions about the NAM/RHW. I have been asking around in the live chat, but that has been unhelpful. I'm attempting to build a sunken highway using Crazychicken's Omnibus tutorial and I've found myself unable to locate a couple pieces, specifically the "Single-Sided Parallel Ramps". Here is an image of my hwy bar with the Mac file "${65}" and here is an image of my hwy bar with the file renamed as "z___NAM" like instructed in the "Future of NAM on osx" thread. In both you can see that there are a couple pieces missing that were apparently in NAM version 29. Cycling through all of the stock on/off ramps didn't help.

Cycling through the the transition/ramps/symphony pieces I found an on/off ramp that works with the ground highway, but it messes up the terrain. Not only that, but I couldn't find any MIS pieces that attached to it. I couldn't drag anything on or off of it either.

You'll also notice that the inner yellow line is gone as well.

This process is turning out to not be as step by step as I had hoped with Crazychicken's tutorial. Any insight on this would be much appreciated.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Cycling through the the transition/ramps/symphony pieces I found an on/off ramp that works with the ground highway, but it messes up the terrain. Not only that, but I couldn't find any MIS pieces that attached to it. I couldn't drag anything on or off of it either.

You'll also notice that the inner yellow line is gone as well.

Well, the tutorial you're referring to was made years before Project Symphony came along, and Project Symphony was not intended to be used with that kind of tutorial. (Plus, you have some Euro textures lodged in your Plugins folder somewhere.)

Even more, PS disables the buttons for all of the original highway pieces, so on top of that, you're using the wrong puzzle piece.

Here's my question: Do you want to use Project Symphony or not?

[Indiana Joe 1,751]

Guys, those things should be reported in the  The use of a release date this time led to a rather buggy release.  (Hopefully the bugfix update will be done in the next few weeks).

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Guys, those things should be reported in the

Except that (and fortunately) those bugs have already been reported.

-----

And for frozener, this is how you draw out a triple-tile network the right way:

It's the same principle as the network shown above. You need to make sure there's the "space" between each road. Also, it's also advised to draw things out using the RHW tool before adding in starters.

  Edited March 14, 2013 by Ganaram Inukshuk