Light rail modding help

[NoMercyx2k3 1]

so when is this gonna be realsed? I can't wait for this, I want it now

plz plz plz

[Larkyboof 0]

Date: 9/26/2004 6:28:36 PM
Author: NoMercyx2k3
so when is this gonna be realsed? I can't wait for this, I want it now


plz plz plz

quote> Jeez! No offense but could people please stop asking When will it be out!? When will it be out!? It'll be ready when is ready, if you want it so badly maybe you should contribute.


I am currently learning how to use photoshop so if i can i will try to make textures.

[theyeti2001 0]

Nice textures Mike

 

One thing tho, shouldn't the grey concrete go right to the edge, otherwise we'll end up with the same problem as the normal rail...dirt or no verges. (is that how you spell verge? doesn' look right....oh well).

 

Oh yeah, nicely said Larky. Nothing worse than seeing a new post in this thread only to see it's someone else going whens it out when's it gonna be released give us a beta I want it now.

 If they bothered to read the thread rather than just look at the pretty pictures maybe they'de realise it is still in development, and the people developing it are doing this in their spare time.

 

So people, asking when these mods are going to be released is like asking how long is a piece of string. No-one knows including the people making it. OK.

 

Yeti.

[ardecila 124]

mike: I wish you the best of luck throughout this dangerous time. Thankfully, not many people are killed in hurricanes because of forecasting, but the property loss must be terrible. Look at the silver lining, though : the FL economy will boom, after new houses are built.

The textures look good. Keep up the good work.

[mikeseith 457]

Thanks Yeti,

I don't think dirt on the verges would be a problem since this would use the ANT and not be a part of the rail network at all.

You do bring up a question I have for the7trumpets though.
the7trumpets, Do you want the areas where there is no track or pavement to be invisible (alpha channel) to let the backround show,

or do you want the entire texture's area to be filled?


I will assume you will want the backrounds to show the wealth levels unless you say no. Also a word of warning. Making the textures of the rails at the angles needed may give us some odd looking textures. I am trying my best to make them look good and it is taking much more time than I had hoped. With just a little more time I might be able to do this and later someone with better tools for this job can clean up the textures.

Ardecila, Thanks for the support. Thankfully my area never got the full effect from any of the storms. Only lost some shingles off the roof. Not so sure Florida will boom for awhile. Many of the new residents may move back up north after this summer.

Well, back to those textures...

[DuskTrooper 314]

Well, Like I saida few pages back, it should be see through, so we can add a nice tile or stone texture underneath, or whatever fits in our cities.

[kassarc16 4]

Date:9/28/2004 10:30:57 PM
Author:DuskTrooper

Well, Like I saida  few pages back, it should be see through, so we can add a nice tile or stone texture underneath, or whatever fits in our cities.

quote>

 

But the problem with that is you'd have to have the terrain be the texture, since you couldn't plop lots underneath it for that purpose.

[theyeti2001 0]

Mike. Wealth levels won't work. When you run a network piece between 2 other network pieces the middle piece won't obtain a wealth generated footpath. The network tile needs a lot touching it to determine wealth level. as in the pic below.

 

 

Yeti.

[DuskTrooper 314]

OH, these aren't lots? I thought they were lots...

[kassarc16 4]

Date:9/29/2004 7:55:57 PM
Author:DuskTrooper

OH, these aren't lots?  I thought they were lots...

quote>

 

They originally started as lots, but this project is hoping to utilize the ANT.

[neroden 0]

The unrealistic and weird result of this is that if someone wanted to, they could draw a heavy rail line which is driving along a oneway road with cars.

Believe it or not, there *are* freight lines which run down roads shared with cars.

I think it's illegal to build new ones in the US for safety reasons, but there were a lot in the 19th century, and a few survive (notably on the Brooklyn waterfront).

So I don't think this is a bad result. :-)

[DuskTrooper 314]

Date: 9/29/2004 7:53:27 PM
Author: theyeti2001

Mike. Wealth levels won't work. When you run a network piece between 2 other network pieces the middle piece won't obtain a wealth generated footpath. The network tile needs a lot touching it to determine wealth level. as in the pic below.

Yeti.

quote>

You can have a park touch it- placing a park along a road or avenue usu. results in it having that white border, too. If possible, you COULD transit enable an onroad station or lot, or something, just for this purpose, and allow that to affect how the rail/network looks.

[theyeti2001 0]

Date:9/30/2004 7:36:19 AM
Author:DuskTrooper

You can have a park touch it- placing a park along a road or avenue usu.  results in it having that white border, too.  If possible, you COULD transit enable an onroad station or lot, or something, just for this purpose, and allow that to affect how the rail/network looks.

quote>

 

You could do that DT but that would make making a tram system difficult because your road on each side of the track would have to keep making a detour from the tracks to allow a park to be placed beside it. I think the paving generated by a park only extends about 3 tiles either side of the park, so youd need a park every 6 tiles or so. While that would be fine for ligh rail portions of the system it would make the tram portions look silly.

 

Yeti

[ardecila 124]

Who other than a select few would run light rail between two one-ways? I wouldn't. It's ugly, grid-disruptive, and limits pedestrians from crossing the median. I'd rather use this rail in conjunction with a road on one side.

[Andreas Roth 607]

Date: 9/30/2004 4:46:07 PM
Author: ardecila
Who other than a select few would run light rail between two one-ways? I wouldn't. It's ugly, grid-disruptive, and limits pedestrians from crossing the median. I'd rather use this rail in conjunction with a road on one side.

quote>
Well, it might look ugly in SimCity because of all those one-way arrows, but this is a quite common setup in Europe. Instead of having a (grass or whatever) median, avenues have light rail (trams in particular) in the middle. On smaller roads, the tracks are directly on the road, but of course this isn't suitable for busy avenues.

[mikeseith 457]

OK folks, here are the textures I have been working on. They are not perfect but I think you might be able to get a start with them. I did not give them group or instance ID numbers, I didn't know which to use.

All of the requested tiles are in there as requested by trumpets. there are 3 wealth levels. I hope it works.

textures

[Swamper77 90]

Mikeseith,

 

The Group ID for network FSH files is 1ABE787D, for future reference.

(Edited 10/1/04 2:14 AM Server Time, after discussion with Tropod)

 

-Swamper77

[Larkyboof 0]

Well, now that we have the textures is there any chance someone could get them into the game? unless no-one isn't working on that now, The textues look great mike!

[Daeley 46]

well all we need is for T7T to take a look at it now... he's probably a busy man these days, so we'll just have to let him take his time

[mikeseith 457]

Thanks Larkyboof. As Daeley said, we will just have to be patient and see what T7T can do now. This is going slowly now, but when it all comes together I think it will all be worth the wait.

[Blade 0]

From some one that lives in Melbourne, Australia. I just wanted to say Well done to all involved in this project. From what i seen so far its going to look fantastic. I have put a hold on building one of my cities until this mod comes out. Wanted to give my city a feel of home about it.
Thanks Mike and crew for all your fantastic effort. Keep up the good work.

- Blade

[GingerBlokey 30]

This is going to be really good.
Hi daniel who is 13

[mikeseith 457]

Hello all. I just finnished a group of modern-looking trams. Hopefully this will keep some interest in the project while we wait for a breakthrough.

[flrscf 0]

Oh, mikeseith, I love this project! And those modern trams look great. Good luck with finishing this project. It is fantastic

[theyeti2001 0]

Beautiful work once again Mike. One thing I'd suggest tho is making both ends of the tram identical rather than a rounded end and a flat end. Most trams have a drivers booth a both ends, when the tram gets to the end of the line, the driver changes ends.

 

Yeti

[Speedy 0]

Yes, it looks great  The most trams do have driver booths at both ends... Is the light rail mod going to have on or two wagons? if it's two maybe you just could point the two flat ends to eachother. But if there is to be one wagon... you should make them the same... But once again this looks great. Really hope you figure this out... cheers...

[Blade 0]

Mike,

Just a few questions regarding the tram stops....
How many different configurations of tram stops is their going to be? I have seen single track tram stops, and what looks like a triple track stop in this post so far but will there be a double track stop as well?

Also I noticed you have 4 different coloured lines/trams, is there going to be one big major tram stop/depot that will have all 4 lines?
Was thinking something that may have for example road/tram/tram/tram/tram/road. I hope you understand what I mean.

- Blade

P.S. great work on those new trams.
P.P.S Thanks Yeti, you read my mind regarding the trams having both ends rounded.

[mikeseith 457]

Blade, A funny thing about the stations is if you have 1 touching another than you are going to have the wrong trams on the wrong lines. Its the same concept of putting a regular train station next to the rails, even though the station is not on the rails it still generates trains.

The multi-line stations you see above are actually a bus stop and a subway station. The actual lot is 3 tiles long and 1 tile wide. The building is a prop I made that is 3X3 and hangs over both sides. The rail platforms fit under the prop from the sub stop or bus stop and looks like one seemless building. You can put them together and it looks like 1 large transit stop. This way the rail platforms don't touch and the red trams stay on the red line, blue trams on the blue line and so on. This seems to be the only way to make a multi-line tram station and make it look like one building. Also you can have road-tram-tram-tram-tram-road. Or road-tram-tram-road-tram-tram-road. You can run a road right through the station.

About the trams. I may have a redo of the trams with both ends rounded. The trouble is, the model I used probably won't be able to be used for it. So, these trams will probably be offered as another option with the beta. This way we will have the original trams in the 1st post, these newest trams and some trams that are rounded on both ends.

Now, I had better start looking through those train models again.

[Larkyboof 0]

Those trams look AWESOME mike!

And if you made one or two more wagons that would be even better!

[sparkythepenguin 90]

All I can say is wow! I'll hold off on my MAX light rail (Portland's system) station pack until this mod is done!

A few things I've noted:

The large, 3 track transfer station reminds me of one on SF's Muni system.

Will you also have the overhead wires based off T poles in the center of the tracks? Many systems use those for cantenary system support. Also, it would be neat to have single-tracked sections so that trains could move through one-way grids.

Also, some systems are called hybrid, using a combination of open-cuts, overpasses, tunnels, freeway medians, and ballasted trackways as well as paved tracks. Some ballasted tracks have concrete ties. I think just texturing or modeling may work for this.

Another interesting thing to see would be Island platforms. You know, a single platform in the between the tracks. It may be impossible though due to game limitations...

Also, would it be possible to add a second type of tram to the tracks? Here in Portland, we run replicas of our old trolleys on the same tracks as the modern trains. It makes for a striking scene which would be cool replicated in the SC4 world. I'm thinking here like how you can run freight, passenger, and steam trains on the regular rail tracks.

Whenever you're done and want models of trains from Portland, San Diego, or Seattle's upcoming system please let me know! I'll try to fit them into my BATing schedule..

I can't wait to replicate my beloved MAX system now!

5 raised pantographs for this project!!!

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