6 Lane Freeways?

[_MostlyHarmless 17]

im from chicago and the 90/94 (Dan Ryan Expressway) is 16 lanes wide!! there are 4 local lanes and 4 express lanes. on top of that, the city decided to squeeze the South Side red line in the middle median. i could not find a good pic for it, but it looks similar to the one right above, only with el tracks running in the middle

[NintendoMaster128 30]

In Las Vegas, we have some pretty wide avenues too!

[SC4 meister 7]

Date: 7/12/2005 1:11:00 PM Author: Cataclaw I also believe 6 lanes is pushing it a bit. Yes, there are certainly places in the world where 6 lanes are found, but let's face it, it's quite uncommon. 5 lane highways are a bit more frequent if not still a bit rare. Still, a 5-lane highway would be killer for that downtown core! How about something like this using your excellent idea but adapting the real estate for 5 lanes instead of 6: Here in Quebec, our highways all have yellow stripes on the inner lane and a white stripe on the outer lane. Modern highways also have 'bumps', little 'grooves' on the right side of the white stripe to warn drivers when they're veering off the side. For those fatigued truck drivers mostly Let me know what you think. (PS the pic is a photoshop I made, I have no actual modding skills)

quote>

 

Ummm, wow, talk about reviving an old thread, course, I've done it too.  So, since this thread has been revived, is there any progress on this project?

[Romie 1]

I hope they do get this finished.

 

Btw, In New York we have some of the widest avenues in the world!

[Rockford 0]

I say we get back working on this project Anyway, i would like to make it double decker

[_MostlyHarmless 17]

a double decker road would be cool too, such as Wacker Drive in Chicago's Loop (remember Blues Brothers?) although i would like to see a wider highway as well

[mikeseith 457]

I would love to have some large freeways in the game. I have seen some CJs where people have had 2 highways meet and go along in the same direction and I got an idea.

How about 2 puzzle pieces for one way highways. Using the multi-highway bug/cheat you could connect 2 streams of traffic onto one six lane oneway highway and using another straight puzzle piece you could make the highway as long or short as you wish, then use the end piece on the other side to split traffic onto the 2 other highways again.

I have made 2 .3ds models with textures in the hope of jump starting this project again. They would take up a 2x2 area and should fit onto the ground highways. I used models from the NAM as starting points for these. I have no clue how to make these into actual puzzle pieces, but I'm sure there are those out there who are able to path these.



Here is the updated link to the models: highways models

[thatmonkeysim 8]

you pretty much trying to make highway interchanges with the puzzles if im getting you right.... right?

[Hordijk 18]

Wow.. if this is going to work I would certaintly love it

I love Highways

[_MostlyHarmless 17]

yea the NAM definitly added some great stuff in terms of highway options. i hope that some more interchanges can be made and more highway options in general can be developed...what, i dont know :[

[mikeseith 457]

I made those 3d models into props with the BAT and placed them in the game (I also found out that the straight piece was the wrong size. If anyone is interested in working on this, please post and I'll make a corrected file available)

Hopefully this shows my intent a little better...




Seeing these in game I realize that dragging the actual highway onto the puzzle piece may work but the outside piece may not work (maybe it can be changed to a oneway road enterance?).
Please do not comment on the shade of the roadway or the color of the walls...I did this to see if it could be done and it is a rough draft. If some folks want to take a stab at this then I'll do some work on them to make them mesh better with the game.

-Just tossing ideas around-

[kassarc16 4]

I think the best way to do this is not to rely on a technique/bug that not everyone uses nor knows about. All puzzle pieces would be the best way to do it, though not without a lot of work.

[.beebs 0]

Well, you could just add a little thing on the download page, or in the readme saying how to work that bug.

[mikeseith 457]

just search the forum. use multi highway and you will find lots of info on the multi-highway bug/cheat.

[Teirusu 38]

Well, seeing as Trumpets hasn't been around for a while, I guess I'll take a stab at this.  I can't guarantee anything soon as I do have my other projects that I'm working on, but I'd love to see these in-game.  If you can post the corrected models Mikeseith, I can see what I can do. 

P.S.  The first two models you posted were standing vertically instead of laying flat on the ground.   Either that or they imported wrong in the reader.  *shrugs*

 

-Teirusu

[Tropod 144]

I haven't looked at the models, but usually extracted models appear vertically in Gmax & need to be rotated 90 degrees before being worked on or rendered (on the Z-plane. or maybe it's the X-plane, I don't recall exactly).

 

[ardecila 124]

Also, the import function to the Reader rotates the models 90 degrees forward, so what would normally be the top is the front.

This is due to the fact that SC4 has different spatial assignments to the Y/X-axes. Many games do this - I believe it is somehow related to DirectX/OpenGL, whatever SC4 uses.

[mikeseith 457]

Ok, here are the improved models. I rotated them and there is now a 3rd merge model flipped around. Now, You may have to reposition them to make them work. I used 2 programs to do the work (Carrara studio3 and milkshape), so they could be a little to the left or right of where they need to be. Good luck folks.

Highway models

[newyorkrunaway1 110]

this is amazing!!!!!

[eklinsb 1]

Speaking of highways, and by the way these will be cool in the game; does anyone know of a way to make a mod that makes the sims prefer highways over roads and avenues?

[qurlix 20]

mikeseith:  I will gladly also help out with this project.  I don't know about using the multi-highways, as I doubt they can be defined in the RUL-ing or used technically.  Anyway, I think I've got the hang of using puzzle piece technology now...

My plan for the setup: (sorry for the text-pic)

 

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

< < -  \ ~~~

H H  -  - ===

H H  -  - ===

> > -  / ~~~

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

 

Where the >'s an <'s are oneways, the H's are a ground highway, and the ='s, ~'s, etc are your pieces.  Verbally, the center three lanes on either side of the median of the 6-lane-hwy (to be referred to as 6LH from now on) connect directly to a ground highway, and the outer three lanes on each side connect to a oneway of the appropriate direction, like you suggested.

 

Hopefully, this'll be a snap!  Foreward with the 6LH project!   (Unless you can come up with a better name...just make it concise...three or four letter project acronyms make things a lot easier)

 

 

eklinsb:  Sims already prefer highways to some extent.  A mod like this is possible, but it would need to change the carefully tweaked settings within the NAM's pathfinding and network-variable files.  Of course, that is assuming you have the NAM.  Either way, this is a problem you would find in real life: if there is a much shorter route on a back road, many people would take that road instead of the highway.  If conditions arise that the short route is a poor choice, such as the fact that it would take longer due to slower speed, or the road gets congested, both sims and real people will gradually go back to the highway.  Maxis' settings were programmed on the basis of human logic, and your issue is one that you are supposed to deal with in the game.  If you must get them on the highway, build a tollbooth or something to annoy those road and avenue drivers.  If you still want to change the values..I believe they reside in an exemplar...but I'm not quite sure...I'll let someone else answer that question...

 

Make that a 0% chance...Frink out - qurlix

[sjh123 0]

How about a transition from 6 to 3 like this?

http://www.boomspeed.com/dantaye_2002/6to3.JPG align=baseline>

[Teirusu 38]

Mikeseith, those look really good.  But I just remembered something and now I feel really stupid for not mentioning it before.  Sorry.

If we're going for puzzle pieces (And we'll need a few at least) We need to kinds of models.  The first kind is whole models, much like you provided.  They are used for the previews.  But the second models need to be individual pieces of the single model.  These pieces all fit on single tiles and they are arranged in-game to create the whole puzzle piece.  If this sounds confusing read the interchange tutorial.

 

Also, I think it might be possible to use RUL coding to create these.  I believe this is what Trumpets had in mind originally.  For RUL coding, we would need just the individual models.

 

-Teirusu

[mikeseith 457]

so...your saying that the models have to be chopped into 4 pieces and remapped?

If this is right, I'll go ahead and do it. It may take some time though...

[Teirusu 38]

Exactly.  Though, with the straight piece, only two models are needed.  The top and bottom should be the same.  But, I think seperate models should be used for the left and right side.

-Teirusu

[Keiran Halcyon 0]

mikeseith, check your PMs.

[Rymac91 15]

Date: 7/16/2005 2:15:54 AM
Author: sjh123

How about a transition from 6 to 3 like this?

quote>

well if there was a toll booth before that it'd be great...
Is this going to be a 2 way 12 lane highway or a one way 6 lane highway? just thought I'd ask.

[Rockford 0]

I like the idea of using Lakeyboys highway kit and converting it to a three lane. however we could try to work on the interchanges and things. we could also make a 4 lane highway like the avenues. and lets make truck blockers and put them on the highways so the trucks wont get in the cars way.

[mikeseith 457]

here are the parts!
The original merge piece pictured a few posts back:
hiway merge 01.3ds - hiway merge 02.3ds - hiway merge 03.3ds - hiway merge 04.3ds -- texture file= 0000b.bmp

the mirror image of the original merge piece pictured a few posts back:
hiway merge mirror 01.3ds - hiway merge mirror 02.3ds - hiway merge mirror 03.3ds - hiway merge mirror 04.3ds -- texture file = 0000b.bmp

the straight pieces right and left side:
hiway straight right 02.3ds - hiway straight left 02.3ds
texture file= 0000s.bmp

This didn't take nearly as long as I thought. Either I did everything wrong or I'm getting the hang of it. Anyway, good luck piecing these things back together again.


and here is the link for the .zip file >>>> LINK

[Rockford 0]

Are we to put those in our plugin folder for use?