Learning

[Junior road builder 1]

Hello, I'm the mother of Junior road builder, a 10 year old boy on the Autism spectrum. He is extremely high functioning and his is obsessed with US infrastructure. His sole use of Sim City is highway building. You sould see the sign walk chalk drawings he does on our neighborhood sidewalks and driveways! I know he's my son but everyone who sees them is amazed and he's had this passion almost since he could walk.

To get to the point, he wants to get into to designing his own freeways and signage instead of downloading those of others and I have no idea what that entails, only that it has something to do with .bat files. Can someone enlighten me? It would be wonderful if someone wanted to mentor him in his quest.

I know this is not a typical post so thank you for your consideration.

[iLovePwnage 2]

ahah thats cool i wish my mom helped me with sim city 4, why doesnt he just post here himself though. o, and tell him im obsessed with the usa infrastructure as well, no, i dont have autism though

[The Avatar 1,089]

Hello. I think it's wonderful that you are doing this for your son.

If your son is interested in designing and creating signage for freeways, he should get into BATting. BATting is the process in which a model is made using the Building Architect Tool (or BAT, for short). Then, that model is placed on a lot using the Lot Editor, and given properties, like pollution, using the Plugin Manager, which is a part of the BAT. This process can be complicated, so here are some tutorials for beginners: BAT Essentials - This tutorial is a complete guide for beginners to BATting, covering the tools available, and providing step-by-step instructions on how to create a model/BAT. - This tutorial gives instructions on how to BAT highway signs.

If your son is interested in designing and creating his own highways, he should contact a member of the NAM team. In SC4, there are several mods that add a large amount of new transit networks to the game. The Network Addon Mod (NAM), and it's optional components the Real Highway Mod (RHW), and Network Widening Mod (NWM) are three of the main mods that expand upon the game's transit networks and add new networks. The RHW, specifically, adds a completely new highway system to SC4 with realistic colors and markings (textures, in SC4 speak), allowing for the creation of realistic, custom freeways and interchanges. In order to learn how to create highways for himself, or for the community, I suggest that he look over the Modding - Transit section of the forums and contact a member of the NAM Team. Some of the members are less active, so I suggest contacting either Tarkus, Ganaram Inukshuk, or MandelSoft. All of the members of the NAM Team are helpful, friendly people, and I'm sure they can help your son and guide him in the right direction.

Many people here at Simtropolis also love infrastructure and transit in real-life, too. Your son will feel at home here.

[Jasoncw 11,940]

I think he should start with BATing though. I think it's possible for a 10 year old to make highway signs using the BAT. But the kind of modding that the NAM team does is more advanced, and I really can't imagine a 10 year old learning it. So have him start with BATing, and then later on he can move onto other modding.

iLovePwnage: His mom has to post on his behalf because you have to be 13 to be registered here.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

If your son is interested in designing and creating his own highways, he should contact a member of the NAM team.

...

Some of the members are less active, so I suggest contacting either Tarkus, Ganaram Inukshuk, or MandelSoft. All of the members of the NAM Team are helpful, friendly people, and I'm sure they can help your son and guide him in the right direction.

Maarten's on a camping trip, so it's either me or Alex, but I tend to be here more frequently than any other NAM Team Member. Here's my recommendations:

NAM 30, Hotfix 301, and at least RHW and/or NWM. NAM by itself has all of the main NAM files and Hotfix 301 is just a mere update meant to be installed after NAM 30, and both NWM and RHW add additional network types and additional network widths. Install in this order:

http://www.moddb.com...don-mod-windows

http://community.sim...hotfix-package/

(The order of these two doesn't really matter)

http://community.sim...od-for-windows/

http://community.sim...ng-mod-windows/

I recommend RHW for the obvious reason that most sign packs out there ( for example) were made for RHW. There's, of course, Maarten's sign tutorial that Luigi pointed out; It has most of the things you need to know in the way of sign making. RHW also makes for customisable interchanges (where you'll be using most of those signs for, anyway), far beyond what the prefab interchanges can do. Highways can go up to 10 lanes wide (five per direction), and you can also make asymmetrical setups (such as three lanes going one way and four going another).

I also recommend NWM because it adds additional network widths to the pre-existing non-highway networks (AVE, OWR, RD), and adds one more network common in North America: The Turn-Lane Road network (TLA, as it's called), you know, those road networks with the solid yellow lines in the median and the dashed yellow lines on the inside? Additionally, two-way NWM networks can go up to lanes wide (3 per direction), and one-way roads can go up to five lanes wide.

You don't need advanced RULing knowledge to know how to use any of the two, unless you want to make something special for it. You just need to know the practical use for each network:

RHW-2, RD-2, OWR-2 - These are the base networks (the default networks) for every other network out there, meaning they are all required to draw every other network; RD-2 for TLA, AVE, and all RD networks, OWR for all other OWR networks, and RHW for all other RHW network. They are all two lanes in total. The only other network that isn't based off of these networks is the default Avenue.

RHW (Widths of 2 and up to 10) - Used to build complex or simple highway networks.

MIS - Used primarily for interchanges. Part of RHW. It looks like a stretch of highway with just one lane going in one direction.

Road (Widths from 2 to 6 lanes; Yes, they say MAVE, but they really should say RD) - Road networks whose two directions of travel are separated by a set of double yellow lines. Can be found in residential areas, especially RD-2. The special Road networks are the ARD-3 (asymmetrical road) and the NRD-4 (Narrow four-lane road).

Avenue (Widths from 2 to 6 lanes) - Road networks whose two directions of travel are separated by a concrete or decorated median.

Turn-Lane Avenue (Widths from 2 to 6 lanes, but labelled using odd numbers) - Road networks whose median is used as a turning lane. Identified through its solid outer yellow lines and dashed inner yellow lines.

One-way Road (Widths from one to 5 lanes) - It's a one-way road. More common in urban areas. Has more capacity than that of Road in that real-life OWRs have this advantage. May also be found in residential areas, but just one lane at most.

Chances are, you'll find at least two of these networks somewhere in your town or if you look through, for example, Google Maps, and if you're so inclined to play with the NAM networks any further, try doing so in a test city. Good luck.

  Edited July 24, 2012 by Ganaram Inukshuk  

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Many thanks

Dude, please stop saying thanks for everything. All the post you have made are posts like "Goog point", "thank you" or "many thanks". It would be ok but you're saying thanks for things where a "thank you" doesn't even make sense. And I seem not to understand what you are trying to tell us :|

  Edited July 24, 2012 by skyscraper241