Simplest way to remove lights from an existing road?

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Hi Simtropolanos, 

 

I've never made a road before, and would like to know how to remove the streetlights from this road:

It's the "Six-Lane Road with Median." I don't see a template for it in the road editor (which I run in -noworkshop mode). Is this a vanilla road?  How do I get the template  into the editor pls?

Thanks, 

Ami

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I have just discovered that it is a NEXT2 road.

Can I get a template from a NEXT road?

[Bad Peanut 826]

2 hours ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

I have just discovered that it is a NEXT2 road.

Can I get a template from a NEXT road?

if you load the editor with a local version of NEXt2 or without -noworkshop (although other mods may remove menu's etc) you will be able to use the road as a template

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I copied the Next2 folder ("812125426") from steamapps/workshop into my local appdata/.../Addons/Mods directory but no new templates appear in the road editor. Is there another trick or something else that I have to do? 

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I don't get it. I've activated the mod locally. When I start a new game in -noWorkshop mode, I see "Next2" stuff in the options, but none of the roads appear in the toolbar.

[Bad Peanut 826]

1 minute ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

I don't get it. I've activated the mod locally. When I start a new game in -noWorkshop mode, I see "Next2" stuff in the options, but none of the roads appear in the toolbar.

I've never had this problem.  Sorry

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I can't run the editor in online mode. I tried. After waiting for like 15m I was able to load and save the road. No way in hell could I ever edit it with the editor slogging along like that. I even published the road and downloaded it. I still can't see it or its template in -noWorkshop mode. 

 

Now you can see why I really wish we had a fix for network skins.  Is there any chance you would make me a version of this six-lane road with medians without the streetlights? I very much need it for my Berlin and for the memorial project that I am working on.

 

such a simple thing, driving me crazy

[Bad Peanut 826]

21 hours ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

I can't run the editor in online mode. I tried. After waiting for like 15m I was able to load and save the road. No way in hell could I ever edit it with the editor slogging along like that. I even published the road and downloaded it. I still can't see it or its template in -noWorkshop mode. 

 

Now you can see why I really wish we had a fix for network skins.  Is there any chance you would make me a version of this six-lane road with medians without the streetlights? I very much need it for my Berlin and for the memorial project that I am working on.

 

such a simple thing, driving me crazy

I'll give it a shot - maybe I'll run into the same problems though

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I'm continuing my efforts. I managed to export the .obj via mod tools. Every time I tried to dump the texture, mod tools would throw red errors and fail.

 

Here are the meshes for the segment and node (dunno if they would be or use to you). 

https://www.coh2.org/file/16905/sixlane-w-median-meshes.rar

 

thanks in advance for helping me. Even loading and saving the road and sharing the .crp would be a great help to me.

 

Maybe I will add the trimmings (my custom streetlamps and MrMaison's new linden trees) and release this as my first road. 

For the cobble texture on the median, would you put that in the road diffuse, or add it later? I was reading about stretching issues.

[Bad Peanut 826]

Have you tried the harder route of disabling all mods except next2 in online mode and running the editor then? It'll allow you to run the editor without all your other mods interfering. 

Draw back is you will need to keep a mod list so you can reenable them all before loading your save up. 

Ive 100% been able to clone next roads and mom tracks in online mode. 

I'll try to get a crack at it this saturday. 

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Yes, I did that. I saved out the road and confirmed that it existed as a .crp in my assets folder. But the asset would never appear -- not in the game and not as an editor template.

 

Here is my loltastic attempt at a first road. 

I have no idea what I am doing.

 

It it possible to do roads at a width of 40m? I know that's not a standard size.

Why is my texture all white? Here is the sad diffuse I made from a screenshot of the Next2 road:

[Bad Peanut 826]

18 hours ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

Yes, I did that. I saved out the road and confirmed that it existed as a .crp in my assets folder. But the asset would never appear -- not in the game and not as an editor template.

 

Here is my loltastic attempt at a first road. 

I have no idea what I am doing.

 

It it possible to do roads at a width of 40m? I know that's not a standard size.

Why is my texture all white? Here is the sad diffuse I made from a screenshot of the Next2 road:

in order to get your textures right make sure you include all the texture maps listed on the wiki, and adjust the colour of the road when you've done that.

[Bad Peanut 826]

@AmiPolizeiFunk what are you intentions with using the new road. Are you going to upload it to the workshop? or just use it privately until network skins is updated? then switch the network skins?

[Bad Peanut 826]

also I did disable all mods except NEXT2 and here it is in the templates folder:

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Yes I got that far too, and I re-saved the road. The problem is that the game doesn't show my saved road anywhere. Also LSM throws errors when I load a map:

Did I do something wrong when I saved it? Do I have to plop all versions of the road (elevated etc) in the Asset Editor for it to save correctly?

 

I don't know what my intentions are with the road. Mostly I want it for myself and for my Berlin build, so I can take release screenshots of the Tiergarten memorial that I'm working on with the correct lighting!

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Before I go much further with this, is it ok to do a road with "Half-Width" = 20? (40m wide road)

Also, what is causing the weird z-fighting at the edges of the road?

[Bad Peanut 826]

19 minutes ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

Before I go much further with this, is it ok to do a road with "Half-Width" = 20? (40m wide road)

Also, what is causing the weird z-fighting at the edges of the road?

it is ok, BUT remember how the zones work, because you aren't using a multiple of 16 it will not align the 4x4 zoning grids to other roads.

 

in terms of z fighting, lower your pivot point by 1mm (0.01m) or raise your mesh the same amount, either way - your mesh should be that tiny bit above the pivot so it doesn't clash with the terrain.

Here's another thing you could try:

You could clone a normal vanilla 6 lane road, and then use the "import from another road " option to find the six lane median meshes.

then you could use modtools to copy across individual lane properties or make your own attempt to matching the properties to the textures.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Thanks for the suggestion. If you ever get a chance to save out the next2 six-lane road with median as its own individual .crp, I'd really appreciate it. I'm far enough along with my road from scratch that I think I should keep going with it. Right now I'm trying to make the nodes but once again I feel completely lost, even after reading as much documentation as I could find. Where should the node model for median endcap go? I'd tried using a mesh from a modtools export but something must be wrong as the endcaps aren't showing up  in the editor:

 

this is how they look in blender:

[Bad Peanut 826]

12 minutes ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

Thanks for the suggestion. If you ever get a chance to save out the next2 six-lane road with median as its own individual .crp, I'd really appreciate it. I'm far enough along with my road from scratch that I think I should keep going with it. Right now I'm trying to make the nodes but once again I feel completely lost, even after reading as much documentation as I could find. Where should the node model for median endcap go? I'd tried using a mesh from a modtools export but something must be wrong as the endcaps aren't showing up  in the editor:

 

this is how they look in blender:

the cap is there but it's really squished up! so if you exaggerate the cap in your mesh you'll see it more. If it wasn't there, there would be a blue void on the end of your road.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

I rotated the node model 180deg and got this:

I'm at a loss as to what to do with this. I have no example of how node meshes with medians should look. 

 

P.S. thx for the tip up about moving the model up .01m, that worked perfectly!

[boformer 3,169]

The easiest way to remove lights from a road is the creation of a little mod that does it for you, like this one:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=547126602

I can create it for you, just send me the internal name of the road (in ModTools) and the internal name of the prop you want to remove (in ModTools)

and no, it does not affect performance.

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Hi Boformer, thx for the offer. What's your opinion on the status of Network Skins? Do you think its a conflict with other mods that is causing issues and framedrop? Or did something major change with the CO Parklife code?

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

It has taken me two full days to do this:

I'm not sure if I should celebrate or cry.

 

&*#&$%^&ing nodes with medians. 

[Bad Peanut 826]

12 minutes ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

It has taken me two full days to do this:

I'm not sure if I should celebrate or cry.

 

&*#&$%^&ing nodes with medians. 

Compromise and cry with happiness!

Seriously looks fantastic! And i hope you're feeling more confident with the road editor and we might even see some more from you in the future!

Definitely release the beast 

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Heh yeah, definitely more comfortable. UV-scrolling in nodes still does my head in tho. Can anybody explain that part of the tech?

 

 

Also, how do you make those cool graphic thumbnails?

 

[Bad Peanut 826]

17 minutes ago, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

Heh yeah, definitely more comfortable. UV-scrolling in nodes still does my head in tho. Can anybody explain that part of the tech?

 

 

Also, how do you make those cool graphic thumbnails?

 

I kind of just photoshop them together based on the vanilla ones.  

Start off with a vanilla one as a base layer.  Then on a new layer, eyedrop the right colors and start drawing over the top and match the alignment. 

Thumbnails are 109x100 i think so make sure it's centered on that

[AmiPolizeiFunk 446]

Anybody got a large road "elevated" mesh? (I've found that exporting meshes w ModTools leads to vertex normal problems which leads to weird shadowing)

[boformer 3,169]

On 31.8.2018 at 5:42 PM, AmiPolizeiFunk said:

Hi Boformer, thx for the offer. What's your opinion on the status of Network Skins? Do you think its a conflict with other mods that is causing issues and framedrop? Or did something major change with the CO Parklife code?

No idea, I think it works correctly. The frame drop on my machine is less than 5 frames.