Natural Growth Philosophies / Mindsets

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

2 hours ago, Daeris said:

Since many natural growth regions/cities are going to start with the PEG dirt roads or something similar, I noticed that streets obviously can't set up neighboring connections.

Turns out I can create my idea by borrowing one of Robin's overhanging fillers, removing the base texture from the lot and replacing the prop texture.

The connection must be perfectly level first:

 

And then there needs to be room for 3 straight piece fillers:

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

And you all know what this means...

Stay tuned for another CoriBoom™ production coming soon.

[Kloudkicker 4,565]

Just thought these may be of great use to others not using them.

 

[Daeris 1,116]

@Flann Thanks again for those helpful dragging options for rail; I'm already starting to get the hang of it.

@CorinaMarie Here is an S-curve btw, which I just figured out (didn't see it in Flann's post or I overlooked; sorry if I overlooked).

Lay rail next to the STR you want to S-curve from:

 

Drag from STR directly over 1-tile onto the new rail (ortho), and poof, there you have it.

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

14 minutes ago, Daeris said:

Here is an S-curve ...

Excellent. At the rate we are going we'll soon actually know what we are doing.

 

Random wish: Do you suppose there's a way to do the 2 to 1 / 1 to 2 transition with dragging? See how the puzzle piece won't show the underlay textures?

[Daeris 1,116]

3 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Do you suppose there's a way to do the 2 to 1 / 1 to 2 transition with dragging?

Unknown, but I'll let you know if I find out. Side note, love the look of that!

[Propfam 2,305]

9 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Excellent. At the rate we are going we'll soon actually know what we are doing.

 

Random wish: Do you suppose there's a way to do the 2 to 1 / 1 to 2 transition with dragging? See how the puzzle piece won't show the underlay textures?

What is the park at the bottom right?

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

Just now, chfzdn said:

What is the park at the bottom right?

A very special gift from @Raymond7cn (the Cori model) and @Cyclone Boom (the lotting).

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

Beta Release time!

We figured out how to totally isolate what we need for a single Working Simulated Street Neighbor Connection Offset Prop Filler Lot. WSSNCOPFL as an acronym prolly needs some work.

@Cyclone Boom made a custom PNG image to show in the menu. This is a derived work from one of @rsc204's MGB - Diagonal Filler Set lots.

 

How To:

1. Level around the road connection for 3 cells from the city tile edge:

 

2. Select the WSSNCOPFL from the Park Menu:

 

3. Plop one:

 

4. Plop another one:

 

5. Plop a third one:

 

6. Replant the trees:

 

7. Run time and use the Route Query Tool to check traffic:

 

8. Say: Damn! That's so cool.

 

The File: SAM Peg Dirt Road Overhanging Prop v0.10.dat

[Daeris 1,116]

39 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

We figured out how to totally isolate what we need for a single Working Simulated Street Neighbor Connection Offset Prop Filler Lot.

Oh wow, awesome! I'll start putting it to use right away. Thanks for this, I trust you'll get some great use out of this as well.

As for the acronym,, I'll leave that to the masters. =p

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

6 hours ago, Daeris said:

I trust you'll get some great use out of this as well.

Absolutely. I'm very excited about these too. I never liked having that bit of road marring the rural ambience.

Now, a brace of questions for when we have all the SAMs (except no need for a parking lot one) created:

1. Should they go over in the Misc Transportation menu just like the old SAM Stoppers did? (I believe so.)
2. How high up or low in a menu should they be? (This is controlled by the Item Order thinger and we can set it to whatever we want.)

[rsc204 21,866]

15 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Ofc, it's beyond my ability as I don't use GMAX or the like, but it seems to me that a set of offset props could be used where each has a 1 x 2 texture for each SAM. One would then plop that adjacent to the road and it would overlay said road so visually it would look like a SAM connection.

You wouldn't need to worry about using the Reader, these are much better as S3D based textures, like my fillers/UB lots use, rather than inflexible BATs. That said, the flaw with this type of method is that there is always some z-fighting that need's to be accounted for. Generally speaking, raising the prop that is on-top by about .2m is enough to compensate, but the results are not perfect.

:Edit: - I started on this last night and just managed to get everything together, so I just realised @CorinaMarie has done exactly as suggested, without needing my assistance first :).

The good news is, many types of Neighbour Connection that are otherwise unsupported, can be made to work using some trickery. A thread here on SC4 detailed this, but sadly the images are long since gone. But I've quickly covered the Street/SAM Ortho crossing below:

1. First drag a Road across a city border, and Accept the connection.
2. Giving you a basic Road Neighbour Connection.
3. Delete all road tiles, except that which contains the NC Arrow.
4. It is safe to delete all but the last tile as shown.
5. You need to find the Underground Rail Rail Tunnel under Roads Dual Networking Puzzle Pieces in the Rail menu.
6. Tab through the options until you find Curved Rail under Straight Road.
7. Place this piece as shown over the existing Road stub.
8. Now delete the tile without the NC Arrow as shown.
9. You are left with the NC, but no actual network in-place.
10. Now we need to find the Rail Puzzle Pieces/Viaduct Rail in the Rail menu.
11. First tab through to Rail over Street Puzzle Piece.
12. Place this on the tile with the NC Arrow as shown.
13. Now using the same menu item, find the Rail over Blank Terrain piece.
14. Place this so the rail network connects with the previous piece.
15. Switch to the bulldozer and remove the Rail over Blank Terrain piece. This leaves a basic Street NC.
16. Drag street to connect the NC with the rest of your city.
17. S (Optional) - Add a SAM Starter Piece (Roads Menu) or otherwise drag a stable section of SAM into the NC.
18. S (Optional) - Complete the SAM network as required.

You must now switch to the connected city, where a road-based NC will exist. Follow the exact steps once more to convert that to Street and you are done.

[Naomi57 2,985]

26 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Should they go over in the Misc Transportation menu just like the old SAM Stoppers did? (I believe so.)

You've pulled off another amazing creative concept, Cori.   

I'm no expert at all, but I'd vote for putting these in the Roads menu, possibly somewhere near the NWM Neighbour Connector Pieces.  I see a logical relationship to these NC pieces, even though your mod is a cosmetic workaround rather than a functional workaround.  Of course, that might just mean that I'm weird.  

I'm guessing SAM Stopper lots were in the Misc Transportation menu because that's where other transit lots go.  In any case, I get the impression that SAM Stopper days might be numbered, given the NAM 38 SAM FLEX transition piece that @Flann mentioned.  

[Naomi57 2,985]

This SAM-3 neighbour connection workaround is so cool @rsc204, and appeals to my odd sense of humour, too, relying as it does on the peculiarities of how the bulldozer tends to shatter adjacent pieces in very specific ways!

I think @CorinaMarie's proposed mod is still very marvellous, in preference to the 18 sneaky steps you've outlined, but I'll remember the delightful sneakiness of these 18 steps forever ... and feeling rather tempted to try it.  

13 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

The good news is, many types of Neighbour Connection that are otherwise unsupported, can be made to work using some trickery. A thread here on SC4 detailed this, but sadly the images are long since gone. But I've quickly covered the Street/SAM Ortho crossing below:

1. First drag a Road across a city border, and Accept the connection.
2. Giving you a basic Road Neighbour Connection.
3. Delete all road tiles, except that which contains the NC Arrow.
4. It is safe to delete all but the last tile as shown.
5. You need to find the Underground Rail Rail Tunnel under Roads Dual Networking Puzzle Pieces in the Rail menu.
6. Tab through the options until you find Curved Rail under Straight Road.
7. Place this piece as shown over the existing Road stub.
8. Now delete the tile without the NC Arrow as shown.
9. You are left with the NC, but no actual network in-place.
10. Now we need to find the Rail Puzzle Pieces/Viaduct Rail in the Rail menu.
11. First tab through to Rail over Street Puzzle Piece.
12. Place this on the tile with the NC Arrow as shown.
13. Now using the same menu item, find the Rail over Blank Terrain piece.
14. Place this so the rail network connects with the previous piece.
15. Switch to the bulldozer and remove the Rail over Blank Terrain piece. This leaves a basic Street NC.
16. Drag street to connect the NC with the rest of your city.
17. S (Optional) - Add a SAM Starter Piece (Roads Menu) or otherwise drag a stable section of SAM into the NC.
18. S (Optional) - Complete the SAM network as required.

You must now switch to the connected city, where a road-based NC will exist. Follow the exact steps once more to convert that to Street and you are done.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

25 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

The good news is, many types of Neighbour Connection that are otherwise unsupported, can be made to work using some trickery.

Wowzy! That's really cool how there's already a workaround to get the job done.

 

5 minutes ago, Naomi57 said:

I think @CorinaMarie's proposed mod is still very marvellous, in preference to the 18 sneaky steps ...

So, CB and I should keep on creating the full mod for all SAMs (sans #1 ofc)?

If you tested the beta version above, how's the z-fighting for you? My tests were really just quick in and out of the game to get pics. Casually glancing at it seems satisfactory to me.

[Daeris 1,116]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

How high up or low in a menu should they be? (This is controlled by the Item Order thinger and we can set it to whatever we want.)

I'm still a NAMnewbie, so take this as just my .2 cents, I'd say any menu you guys pick is fine, but probably nestle them lower in the menu as they seem more specific in use.....although, this does make me wonder other uses of these plops. Can you in theory plop them anywhere as aesthetic streets?

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

14 minutes ago, Daeris said:

I'd say any menu you guys pick is fine ...

Alright, we'll go with Na's suggestion.

Btw, I'll be setting up a Controller file for these. The way that works is there will be two separate .dat files and if you remove the controller one from Plugins they will disappear from the menu, but still be fine for the ones plopped. Now, ofc, removing the controller isn't something that needs to be done, but if you've set up all the neighborhood connections you need for a given region and want to de-clutter the menu, this'll be an option. (I'm not going to use the MML method as that means one has to re-click in the menu after every plop. Bleah.)

 

14 minutes ago, Daeris said:

Can you in theory plop them anywhere as aesthetic streets?

Yep. Anywhere you like except in the game water, although I could prolly make that possible too.

The key thing to remember is the invisible part is the actual plop and that cell is then not usable for any zoning or other plop. You can, however, place trees (and prolly any other MMP, but untested by me) on that part.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

17 minutes ago, Daeris said:

Can you in theory plop them anywhere as aesthetic streets?

Yes, as Cori said, each we're making in eye candy form.

This means they can be placed anywhere, including beside existing street networks with no downside.

Since they overlay the actual networks, this means they're still functional as their actual type (as in road for what connects to a neighboring tile). Something we'll be considering is the wealth type for the sidewalks also, so the Dirt Road will be R$ since it's orientated to low wealth areas. Also it might be how this set can be used for more than just at the tile borders too, which is where the versatility of something like this comes in. Creative mayors like yourself (and Naomi) will likely find some clever usage of them than just their main purpose, and so that could be what provides a multitude of options. We will be making a standard Maxis street version as well as the SAM styles.

Also for the yellow connection arrow, these can always be removed using this little mod I made ages ago.

[rsc204 21,866]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

If you tested the beta version above, how's the z-fighting for you? My tests were really just quick in and out of the game to get pics. Casually glancing at it seems satisfactory to me.

If you used the S3D models as part of my filler set as templates, as standard the models should be raised by .2m already. Open the Verts tab with the S3D selected in Reader, see how in the Y column (height), all should be 0.2, these are 2D planes technically. If .2m isn't enough, you can't raise it anymore without the textures coming out of alignment, but .2m is the "goldilocks" figure in my experience.

Note too, ideally you would link to the NAM SAM textures rather than create new redundant copies of them for such a mod.

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

45 minutes ago, Daeris said:

Can you in theory plop them anywhere as aesthetic streets?

Even hanging off the side of the world.

^ I'm not going to save my tile like that tho. I have no idea if that could bork the city save file.

 

12 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

If you used the S3D models as part of my filler set as templates, as standard the model itself is should be raised by .2m.

I did indeed use your model and it works perfectly.

 

12 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Note too, ideally you would link to the NAM SAM textures rather than create new redundant copies of them for such a mod.

I did that initially, but it's the wrong orientation and I couldn't figure out how to rotate the texture within the S3D itself so I made a copy of the texture and rotated that.

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

I did that initially, but it's the wrong orientation and I couldn't figure out how to rotate the texture within the S3D itself so I made a copy of the texture and rotated that.

Ok. I moved the model 16 meters towards the arrow and 16 meters east then changed the prop rotation and now it does indeed work using NAM's SAM texture.

[rsc204 21,866]

Ah, you've gone and beat me to the punch again . I'll still post what I'd typed, I think this may prove useful:

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I did that initially, but it's the wrong orientation and I couldn't figure out how to rotate the texture within the S3D itself so I made a copy of the texture and rotated that.

It's not really obvious and requires an ancient enemy to be defeated... Math!!! Thankfully, everything can be condensed into a few simple formulas, here's one I prepared earlier:

S3D Texture Adjustments.xls

Open that up, then copy the entire UV values (Vert. tab of S3D in Reader), into the leftmost columns. Then find the right adjustment and drag the UV columns far enough to cover all the needed rows:

Now use Copy/Paste to replace the altered values in Reader, save (both the S3D with Apply, and then file itself). Then you should be good to go. 

I'm guessing from your screenshots, you've offset the texture by 16m to stick out by a tile?

3 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

I think @CorinaMarie's proposed mod is still very marvellous, in preference to the 18 sneaky steps you've outlined, but I'll remember the delightful sneakiness of these 18 steps forever ... and feeling rather tempted to try it.  

Don't fall into the trap of seeing 18 steps and assuming it's more complex than it is. I think I may have gone overboard in the process here, but it can be condensed thusly:

1. Make NC with Road and delete all but last tile with NC Arrow.
2. Overplop this with the Rail Curve under Straight Road URail Piece, again delete the tile without the NC Arrow.
3. Place a Viaduct Rail over Blank Terrain piece on either the left or right of the NC. Press TAB 10 more times, place the Viaduct Rail over Street piece over the NC Arrow.
4. Delete the Viaduct Rail over Blank Terrain piece and connect everything up. Override with SAM optional.

I've been using this and other tricks from that linked thread for a while. Super useful for diagonal and would you believe it, some FAR NCs. Personally I'm a fan of never having items in the menu I don't absolutely need. So knowing a workaround exists, I wouldn't want to fill my menus. However, I'm quite sure you're right that others may just want a simple solution and prefer the Plops, not to mention I'm sure people would find other uses for them beyond NCs.

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

3 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

I'm guessing from your screenshots, you've offset the texture by 16m to stick out by a tile?

I started with your x2 $$ Sidewalk which had one texture on the lot itself and one texture in the overhanging prop. I removed the lot texture so that part'll be invisible. Then swapped the Material Tab IID to the NAM SAM for Peg Dirt Road. That worked fine, but when plopping it was cross-wise to the road. That's when I just made a rotated texture.

Now, by moving the model itself, that puts it in a different orientation and the real SAM texture works so it's very much better this way.

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

Working with the SAM 2 - Herringbone.

The NAM's texture for them (appropriately) leaves room for the sidewalks to show thru. In this pic, you can see that the color of the lower 3 cells (where I've plopped the overrides) isn't the same color as the top one. And that top one is caused by the plop diagonally adjacent so nothing I can do about that. You'll also notice that the street edge doesn't match up perfectly along the left side. I believe this is a consequence of the overhanging prop needing to be raised 0.2 meters.

 

Should we skip the fancier SAMs and only do this for 3, 4, and 5?

[Matrim Cauthon 344]

31 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Should we skip the fancier SAMs and only do this for 3, 4, and 5?

I'd suggest 11 as well, for short freight truck exits in industrials areas.

 

6 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Should they go over in the Misc Transportation menu just like the old SAM Stoppers did? (I believe so.)

I'm going to agree with Naomi here. Road menu is logical and really, there are far far too many things in my misc menu already heh.

 

Regardless, this is brilliance.

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

1 hour ago, Matrim Cauthon said:

I'd suggest 11 as well, for short freight truck exits in industrials areas.

Good idea.

As it turns out that color difference was due to the diffuser which I've now tweaked:

^ So, the minor alignment glitch isn't enough reason to skip any of the SAMs IMO. It really only shows at z6 anyhow.

 

Edit: Well, phuck.

Zoning residential, growing R$, and now the regular SAM gets the darker sidewalks.

[Kloudkicker 4,565]

2 hours ago, Matrim Cauthon said:

I'd suggest 11 as well, for short freight truck exits in industrials areas.

I agree, the SAM 11 would be real nice.

[CorinaMarie 29,884]

7 minutes ago, Kloudkicker said:

I agree, the SAM 11 would be real nice.

Thanks. We are back to all SAMs will be included. The only question now is which grass for each. I'm leaning towards the R$$$ grass for the better ones like Herringbone, Cobblestone, and Brisk Red.

Sample for Herringbone:

^ If the nearby homes were R$$$ then that part would match the fillers.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

16 hours ago, Daeris said:

As for the acronym,, I'll leave that to the masters. =p

So, we ended up laughing about WSSNCOPFL as an acronym, and have decided to just go with it for its quirkiness.

Pronounced: Wizen-Ko-Pffff-El

----------

And just adding to what Cori said above...

While we could technically create versions per wealth level, our thinking is to make the "best fit" option for each. So in this sense, the dirt roads (SAM-3) would have the R$ grass, and then the more posher styles such as the Herringbone are high wealth orientated. The idea then would be to choose which SAM style goes better in certain neighbourhoods anyway, and keep to a theme of dirt roads for the rural cluster towns, while the richer people would have the cobblestones and such.

Here's a list of the SAM style options:

• SAM 2 - Herringbone Brick Streets
• SAM 3 - Peg Dirt Roads
• SAM 4 - Peg Gravel Roads
• SAM 5 - Trolca's Dirt Streets
• SAM 6 - Klinker Streets
• SAM 7 - Hableurg's Asphalt Streets
• SAM 8 - Cobblestone Streets
• SAM 9 - Brisk Red Brick Streets
• SAM 10 - Moonlight's Japanese Streets
• SAM 11 - MGB IndustrieSAM

Does this seem like a reasonable compromise? Which styles might be best for Low, Medium, and High wealth?

(And we're off for a break now, so discuss among yourselves till we get back. )

[11241036 5,115]

If I'm allowed to butt into the discussion like this: The idea of using rsc204's filler lots to make a road neighbor connection look like a SAM one is very good, but there is a way to make life much easier: You can entirely just plop a filler lot on a network like this (I'll show it with rsc204's Underbridge lots, with the street lot):

1. Make a road neighbor connection.
2. Remove all but 1 tile of it.
3. Connect any street/SAM network to it. You'll see that on the one tile just at the border, the network shows both road and street - and only there. Believe me, this works, I've done this several times.
4. Bulldoze the tile shown in the screenshot. (This was somehow necessary, I believe rsc204's lots are only TE in one direction - towards the street.)
5. Plop one of the default filler lots directly into the gap, facing towards the end of the city.

I only used the filler lots for this picture, nothing else (I had NAM installed as well, but I actually didn't need it.)

 

2 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

So, we ended up laughing about WSSNCOPFL as an acronym, and have decided to just go with it for its quirkiness.

Pronounced: Wizen-Ko-Pffff-El

----------

And just adding to what Cori said above...

While we could technically create versions per wealth level, our thinking is to make the "best fit" option for each. So in this sense, the dirt roads (SAM-3) would have the R$ grass, and then the more posher styles such as the Herringbone are high wealth orientated. The idea then would be to choose which SAM style goes better in certain neighbourhoods anyway, and keep to a theme of dirt roads for the rural cluster towns, while the richer people would have the cobblestones and such.

Here's a list of the SAM style options:

• SAM 2 - Herringbone Brick Streets
• SAM 3 - Peg Dirt Roads
• SAM 4 - Peg Gravel Roads
• SAM 5 - Trolca's Dirt Streets
• SAM 6 - Klinker Streets
• SAM 7 - Hableurg's Asphalt Streets
• SAM 8 - Cobblestone Streets
• SAM 9 - Brisk Red Brick Streets
• SAM 10 - Moonlight's Japanese Streets
• SAM 11 - MGB IndustrieSAM

Does this seem like a reasonable compromise? Which styles might be best for Low, Medium, and High wealth?

(And we're off for a break now, so discuss among yourselves till we get back. )

Sounds like the most suitable solution. I rarely use any SAM network close to the edge of a city, except SAM 3 (in agricultural zones). And if I am this picky that I don't want to see a certain wealth level on these textures, then I'm supposed to design my city accordingly, anyway. Your suggestion would surely help it.

As for the topic of natural growth: I usually like to think of a certain historical background for most of the settlements/villages/cities I'm designing. The most important questions seems to me:

Why would people settle at such a location? The city I'm living in has already existed in the ancient Roman Empire, featuring an important harbor at the shores of the lake of Constance. Some of the mountain valleys in close proximity, however, have been settled centuries ago by Swiss immigrants who had been granted special rights in exchange for removing forests in these remote valleys and delivering milk and cheese to other villages. In some dry areas, easy access to tap water may be a considerable reason to settle there. Other cities may have started as small hamlets to serve merchants along an important trade route, developing over time to huge cities. People have settled near such a remote location like Hallstatt (until about one century ago Hallstatt has only been accessible by boat over a lake) because salt was available nearby.

What would happen to them over time? In the 20th century, tourism became one of the most important sources of income for Austria. This could help remote mountain villages to survive because people who like skiing and hiking would travel there and spend much money. Industrial revolution may cause some smaller cities to expand like crazy because their location would be somewhat crucial (easy access to resources such as coal, iron, wood, as well as short transport routes for export). Some towns in North America have only been founded because people have been searching for gold, and after the mines were exhausted, they were abandoned.

  Edited December 1, 2020 by 11241036  
Adding philosophical stuff