Double-Deck Bridge Experiment

[smoncrie 43]

I am mostly working on other NAM stuff at the moment, but I plan to release a mod with new bridges when I can.  A double-deck bridge mod will probably have to wait until the NAM is out.

JDRCRASH, are these diagonal bridges created by dragging, or are they plopped lots?  If they are created by dragging I would like to see how it is done.

[DuskTrooper 314]

Poke poke...

Anyone home? I've been waiting for info...

[josefmayor 8]

I did not see all of the things that  you have added but I was curious to see if you had made Draw Bridges, the mods I did see were fantastic, How far is the progress on this, and when do you expect it's release?
I can't wait to download it.

[jeronij 13]

Hello to all.
I have some bad news about the Tsing Ma DD Bridge.

I wanted to finish this project. Indeed. But Rl has been delaying it, and recently some changes in my live are making me have to close this project without finishing it.I feel deeply sorry for this, but I dont have anymore the free time I had when I started the bridge, In fact I have almost zero free time actually.

I also think both the bridge and the Topic idea well deserve an oportunity, so if somebody were interested in completing the bridge, I would love to share it with this person, and support her/him to complete it.

The pending work to finish the bridge:

1) Render the accesories separately ( lane signs, highway signs and so)
2) Add night lights ( I am still not sure about the right ones, but I think I like the pink/light blue more)
3) Separate the pieces and add custom LODs to them. This is a step that my BATting knowledgement doest not allow me to make actually. As Smoncrie showed me, some advanced texturing skills are needed, which I dont have right now, to make the LOD

[qurlix 20]

DuskTrooper: Well I'm forewarding your poke to smoncrie. I'm waiting for a response on the whole thing. I probably need to resend that PM now that ST was sort of reset...either way it doesn't look like he's been here. Well, basic guidelines? Most important part: the bridge needs to be constructed from individual tiles. Every length bridge needs to be a combination of a certain number of pieces. The fewer pieces it takes the better. You are free to do what you want within each 16m x 16m tile. If the bridge is flat (it isn't always, look at the raised road bridge), the road should be at a height of 0m. A standard roadway (just the road surface) is 10m wide, but you may want space for sidewalks, usually bringing it up to 12m, depending on the texture you are referring to. Purely speaking, rails are also 10m to the edge of the gravel, but you could squeeze it down to 8m or so if you are tight on space. That should get you far enough... A couple other quick things. If you are doing a suspension bridge, you may not need to model the wires. Talk to smoncrie about that. Also, props can be added to bridge tiles if you were unaware, so don't model lampposts or anything like that in the main model. That's all I can think of, but I'm sure there's something else... (...Deep way down inside me I can feel it comin' back!" Can anyone name that tune?) -qurlix

[DuskTrooper 314]

Yes, I can easily make simple 16x16m segments. That will ease things up alot!

But, yeah, I still need to get the roadtop textures, and such from someone...

I'd appreciate it if someone attached it to a post, or something.

[smoncrie 43]

Jeronij, I am sorry you will not be able to finish the bridge. Your work was fantastic!


DuskTrooper, you can find transit textures by using reader's texture viewer. (The texture viewer is in reader's tools menu.)  You can put the texture that reader displays into the clipboard by using the <print screen> key.

Notes on modeling a bridge:

Each bridge piece covers one tile (16m x 16m).  The road (or whatever) surface usually has a height of zero.

Think of the vertical plane where two bridge pieces will join.  It is best to avoid any surfaces in your model that are in this plane; the ends of the piece should be open.

If there will be versions of the bridge for different networks (road, one-way, avenue, etc), your models should have a trough or hole where the road surface will be located.  The actual road surface can then be added by modding.  This process will make it easy to change the road surface to a different texture for each network (and it will allow road texture mods to work).

Simple bridges need only a repeat piece, a piece that includes the bridge's support pylon, and possibly a piece for the ends of the bridge.

In most cases, only one side of a highway or avenue bridge needs to be modeled.  The other side can be formed by rotating the pieces 180 degrees.

[seanwomble 0]

Awesome. No more multiple and ugly bridges every 5 seconds on my river banks!!

[hamsterTK 93]

lolz. my best freind when i lived in georgia was named sean womble. havent seen him a good 8 years. i got excited when i saw the username. course i know he's not old enough to be retired military and a medical scientist, nor does he live in perth

Anyways, this is a cool project. Smoncrie, your turning into the new Tropod.

[DuskTrooper 314]

Ok, here is a very basic bridge piece, arrayed 3 times. This one is just for practice, though:

And the bridge, photoshopped into SC4:

[dev 47]

Wow DT, that's pretty cool...the textures are great...plus I love the simple elegance of it, good work!

[hamsterTK 93]

I love the simplicity of it. it looks cool. the only thing is that the piers seem a bit thin.

Also, what tools do you need to make bridges(other than the BAT). And What kind of stuff am i going to need to know to make bridges? Im just asking now, but i guess it will be awhile since the modds/downloads and the omnibus arent done yet.

[96omega 0]

what a great bridge.....

[JDRCRASH 53]

smoncrie: Sorry I didn't answer for a while... I was searching day and night looking for that site with the diagonal bridges, but couldn't find it.
But I believe they were just ploppable.
Tch, i think id be impossible to make a draggable bridge.
And after all, there were only about 3 types of those diagonal bridges.

[vester_DK 477]

Was it these bridge you were thinking of:

They can be found on Dareka's homepage

EDIT: Well I have downloaded the file, but can't open the file.

[JDRCRASH 53]

Yeah!!

It was those!!!

[Shadow Assassin 336]

DuskTrooper, you can find transit textures by using reader's texture viewer. (The texture viewer is in reader's tools menu.) You can put the texture that reader displays into the clipboard by using the key.quote>

Actually, decode the file and save it as a .png. This makes sure you get the right dimensions.

[tlannister 1]

I just must shed a tear or two over the demise of Jernoji's beautiful bridge.

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Originally posted by: jeronij

Hello to all,

 

thanks for the feedback . Your suggestions about the model are greatly apreciated.

 

chocolatemax285, I made the windows more transparent, as you pointed. You are right, the old ones were not transparent enough. About lowering the railtracks, they are 7 meters below the highway lane ( very close to the reality) which is the required height to modd it properly.

 

vester_DK, as you may have noticed, I have no idea on designig real life bridges . I do apreciate your practical lessons btw .  And the useful pics too. I have some pics on the real bridge sections already, and as mentioned, we decided to make some changes for the game, in order to be able to see the trains trough the bridge.

 

jesselong, yes, the bridge is suposed to look like the real Tsing Ma bridge. You can see I havent worked on the cables. Smoncrie told me that the game engine places them. I think we will have to work with them once a beta version of the main model is done and can be used in game. The model will probably need some improvements to allocate them.

 

and thanks to  Dr. Frickenstein and umnoscottishhootsmon  for the big collection of ducks and bunnies   

 

Now some pics on the progress. I added some more details and I started to work with the central pylons.

EDIT: Some more details on the towers...

 

The time to place the lights is arriving. I have a problem though. I have found two night pics on the real bridge, but they are way different one from each other. You can see what I mean:

So, one looks yellow. The other one looks more pink. Does anybody know which is the right one ?¿. Or does somebody have another pic which shows the light in a real way ?¿

   IMPORTANT  IMPORTANT IMPORTANT

If somebody has a pic on the decker cables anchorage, I would really need to see it. I have only one pic where I can see partially it .

 

Thanks again for the nice comments.

 

quote>

Could we maybe have different lights for each season?  Have multiple night light maps depending on the season, like the seasonal trees?  Or something like that?

Course, probably not worth it.  I wouldn't mind something... DIFFERENT.  Throw in some red lights for the cables, and normal little yellow lights along the roadway.  The two bridge pics were likely taken with different lense filters to achieve the varying coloration.

EDIT by Andreas: Please don't quote pictures in your reply.

[smoncrie 43]

Hi everyone.

The new bridges by Jeronij and me are now available. You can download them (4.7 MB) from http://www.newspringfield.de/simcity/nam_new_bridges.zip

The new bridges are the Rural Street Bridge, The Rural Rail Bridge, the Modern Rail Bridge, the Old Road Bridge, the Plain Road ridge, the Plain One-Way Road Bridge, and the Plain Avenue Bridge.

EDIT:  You will need to remove this mod when the next version of the NAM is released.

Any comments or suggestions about these bridges are welcome.

My thanks to Andreas for hosting this mod file.

[newyorkrunaway1 110]

cool, thanks smoncrie

[Swamper77 90]

These bridges are much nicer than the ones Maxis designed. Good work Smoncrie and Jeronij!

-Swamper77

[Tarkus 6,932]

Wow.  Great job!  I'd like to learn eventually figure out how to do that myself.

[tankmank 853]

I hope this picture can help

[kristinaswan 2]

No readme for instructions...do they need to be in a specific folder like NAM or just any folder will be fine?

[Mothas 2]

Nice picture, I hope it will help the project to progress !

[Nexis 1]

It doesn't work? am i doing something wrong?

[smoncrie 43]

Opps, I guess I should have given some instructions.

The New Bridges mod requires the NAM, and should be installed in the NetworkAddonMod folder.

The new bridges show up with the Maxis bridges when you choose the kind of bridge to build.  To build a new bridge, just choose it instead of a Maxis bridge.

Nexis, does it still not work with the mod file in the correct folder?  If it is still not working, please tell me more about the problem.

tankmank, I am not sure, but I suspect that bridges with two rows of cable stays would be very hard to make.

[kristinaswan 2]

Excellent, I like them....they look great. The only street bridge until now really stunk. Had to be right at water level or you'd lose it, not all the time did I want a causeway LOL. Great work guys!!

[DOXXP29 5]

Awesome! Thanks. (Head bowed in deep respect for talents) Major improvement on the old ones.