NAM.dll Open Beta

[memo 1,444]

Recently, the NAM Team has started developing a DLL that complements and expands the functionality of the NAM in ways that would not otherwise be possible.

The NAM.dll was primarily developed by Null 45 and me(mo), with support from the rest of the team. We are releasing it as an open beta in order to get testing feedback from a wider range of players. The current features are already quite stable, but, being a beta release, be prepared to uninstall these files once they get included in the main NAM download in the future.

Download the DLL (currently version 1.0.3).

The DLL is only compatible with the digital Windows version of the game, 1.1.641 (reasons).

Features:

• draggable diagonal Streets
• Street tunnels (tunnel and slope mod included, using a portal model created by toja)
• keyboard shortcuts for RHW, One-Way Road, Monorail and Ground Highway (KEYCFG file included)
• disabling autoconnect for the Street and RHW tools

Have fun.

[Simizen 1,098]

will this work with NAM Lite as well, or just the main NAM?

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

it is recommended to use NAM Full to make it work to the full.

[memo 1,444]

16 minutes ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

will this work with NAM Lite as well, or just the main NAM?

Yes, the current feature set is fully compatible with NAM Lite.

[CaptCity 4,752]

This is a super addition. 

Draggable streets and the auto-connect disabling will definitley make some of my usual layout methods much more convenient.  

Greatly looking forward to future possibilities... 

[AsimPika3172 1,136]

Cool!

[Membrillo 56]

Easy dragging diagonal streets is super cool. Now we need the reason why Maxis didn't enable them: diagonal buildings. Would it be possible to do such a thing, like a secondary diagonal grid?

What about easy dragging FAR networks?

P.S. The street tunnel entrance textures are fantastic.

[Wiimeiser 444]

I wonder if RHW tunnels are possible now, or if there's still more obstacles...

[rsc204 21,808]

The key takeaway is that where previously networks which didn’t have tunnels in the game, we can ‘patch’ that functionality in. However, the Street portal existed as part of the FLUPs, someone would at the least need to make these before RHW were possible. Plus there is no guarantee it can be made overrideable for all RHW widths. It could be we can have one RHW functional tunnel, but there are potentially work-arounds for a correct visual connection to the various widths. 

[matias93 7,535]

Not autoconnected RHW means a HUGE difference for interchange-making!

[Panda 209]

I haven't had a lot of time to test, but so far the draggable diagonal streets appears to be working well. This is a big time-saver and is much more convenient than having to continually swap to the street helper pieces.

[eaglesong 108]

the Dream! I have been lusting after keyboard shortcuts for these features, especially RHW, for a long time. The diagonal streets will inspire me to use them more often. Will definitely be testing asap. Thank You!

Edit: Working perfectly for me. I use full NAM, Symphony and CAM 2.1. I primarily build very dense cities.

 

 

[11241036 5,097]

This is really a good new addition to the game. Dragging diagonal streets really saves a good amount of time. I haven't tested it in literally every way possible, but so far, the diagonal streets and the autoconnect disabling work quite fine to me. There are only two things necessary to keep in mind:

I stumbled upon some weird issues when trying to drag a diagonal street into an already existing diagonal street made with the usual zigzag technique. The same happened to me when connecting an orthogonal road with an already existing diagonal zigzag street while trying to make a curve. In the first case, I really got several narrow 90° curves in succession, in the second case, a segment of the curve was missing. Thus, it seems that the draggable and the zigzag diagonal streets cannot be combined. However, this is not that big of an issue, it just requires me to remove the zigzag diagonal street and make a new one.

The KEYCFG file overrides any other KEYCFG file, as it is the case with any other file pair with both files having the same TGI - you should probably point that out in the Readme, just in case. I had some trouble because your mod interfered with an existing mod I had installed years ago that added some other new hotkey combination.

 

While I'm at it, I just wanted to ask a question: Since the autoconnect can now be disabled, are there any plans inside the NAM team to make draggable FA-2 and FA-3 streets? This would be great, in my region, streets are the networt type I'm using the most. By coincidence, I just tried to make some concepts for these fractionally angled streets and even developed a lot-based solution. I highly doubt I'll share them (I had to bake in the sidewalk which is quite specific) and of course, I wouldn't dream of asking you to include them in any future release of the NAM, but if you are interested, I'll share my thoughts with you below.

It is necessary to develop a concept of how many cells in a city a FA streets will take up and in which pattern. I'm showing off 4 graphics now, 2 for FA-2 and 2 for FA-3 how this can be done. In both cases, I made a picture with a checkerboard background where every square has a size of 128x128 px, as it is the case with most FSH network files, and rotated an orthogonal street segment by 26.565° and 18.435°, respectively and put it over the background. Results (the colored cells are the ones taken up by the FA street):

1. For the FA-2 street, if you simply make it take up the usual 2x2 cells, it looks like this:

2. Interestingly, if you move the FA-2 street 1/4 of a cell to the top (or half a cell to either side), you can make the street take up one cell less - with only a bit of a caveat: A very small bit of the street is overhanging into another cell that is not depicted green below.

3. In the case of FA-3 streets: This is how it would look like when using the usual 3x2 cells way:

4. This is how it would look like if you move the street half of a cell to either side. It takes up one cell less:

 

I hope you weren't too much annoyed of me sharing these thoughts. I would like to hear your thoughts about this, and maybe a statement of the NAM peeople to this, if possible. As noted already, I made some lots with overhanging graphics as sort of a proof-of-concept, with solution 2. See below how it looks like when laying out zones. If you are interested, I'll share a picture of this area when I'm finished developing it. You can also have the graphics files if you want, but you should check them first - it took me hours to make them, especially with my limited graphics skills, I'm quite surprised that they turned out quite acceptable to me.

[Null 45 3,041]

9 hours ago, 11241036 said:

The KEYCFG file overrides any other KEYCFG file, as it is the case with any other file pair with both files having the same TGI - you should probably point that out in the Readme, just in case. I had some trouble because your mod interfered with an existing mod I had installed years ago that added some other new hotkey combination.

That is documented in the readme on GitHub: https://github.com/NAMTeam/NAM-dll?tab=readme-ov-file#additional-network-tool-shortcuts

[CityNut607 622]

This is amazing!! I am very excited for this new era in SC4!! 

[Flann 1,709]

On 2/25/2024 at 6:02 PM, 11241036 said:

I would like to hear your thoughts about this, and maybe a statement of the NAM peeople to this, if possible.

Thanks for sharing your proposal.  I think FA street is probably in the cards now that the dll promises to eliminate the autoconnect problem.
 

While nothing is set in stone, I think the most likely approach would be to mimic the patterns in use for FA roads.  For one, the patterns in use don't require an overhang and have adequate space for sidewalk and pedestrian paths, which for the street network is arguably more critical than the road network.  Second, reusing the road pattern will reduce the development burden as the implementation has already been worked out.  Third, re-using the pattern prevents requiring the user to memorize another drag pattern method.

[Propfam 2,288]

Can we really enable NCs on streets and OWR? I mean, without using workaround like NC pieces we have now for pseudonetworks.

[nathkel 31]

This DLL is worth the DL just for the draggable streets alone! No more looking for the right puzzle piece!

I did have a problem with editing the KEYCFG sheet though. I opened it in iLives 1.54, commented out the shortcuts i wanted to get rid of and changed a couple of others. I saved it but it didnt take when i went to play. Is there something more i have to do?

[rsc204 21,808]

If you have an error in the KeyCfg Exemplar, the entire thing will be ignored and revert to the defaults. So check your syntax carefully would be my advise. 

[nathkel 31]

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

If you have an error in the KeyCfg Exemplar, the entire thing will be ignored and revert to the defaults. So check your syntax carefully would be my advise. 

No, i found it... I cant have the KEYCFG file open in iLives when playing! 

Im hoping we can someday use this dll to assign key strokes to cheat codes. For example one key press to toggle drawpaths and hidepaths. Is that possible with this dll?

[rsc204 21,808]

Not at present, but a number of folks have expressed interest in making a shortcut for them, so it’s being looked into. 

[Lucario Boricua 7,028]

@11241036 Looking at your proposed fractional angle street footprints, these are my opinions:

• For FA-2, I do prefer the full footprint (2x2 blocks offset by 1 cell), I don't think it's acceptable to have the sidewalks removed from the street.
• For FA-3, I do prefer the compact footprint (the half-cell displacement), making the footprint a bit narrower compared to the road counterpart. It doesn't lose the sidewalk and allows more of the terrain to be available for development, rather than using so much space with roadway right-of-way. Some other NAM team members and players might instead prefer to maintain the full 3x2 footprint to ensure that streets can be upgraded to roads 1:1.

[Eggman121 1,035]

On 2/26/2024 at 11:02 AM, 11241036 said:

This is really a good new addition to the game. Dragging diagonal streets really saves a good amount of time. I haven't tested it in literally every way possible, but so far, the diagonal streets and the autoconnect disabling work quite fine to me. There are only two things necessary to keep in mind:

I stumbled upon some weird issues when trying to drag a diagonal street into an already existing diagonal street made with the usual zigzag technique. The same happened to me when connecting an orthogonal road with an already existing diagonal zigzag street while trying to make a curve. In the first case, I really got several narrow 90° curves in succession, in the second case, a segment of the curve was missing. Thus, it seems that the draggable and the zigzag diagonal streets cannot be combined. However, this is not that big of an issue, it just requires me to remove the zigzag diagonal street and make a new one.

The KEYCFG file overrides any other KEYCFG file, as it is the case with any other file pair with both files having the same TGI - you should probably point that out in the Readme, just in case. I had some trouble because your mod interfered with an existing mod I had installed years ago that added some other new hotkey combination.

 

While I'm at it, I just wanted to ask a question: Since the autoconnect can now be disabled, are there any plans inside the NAM team to make draggable FA-2 and FA-3 streets? This would be great, in my region, streets are the networt type I'm using the most. By coincidence, I just tried to make some concepts for these fractionally angled streets and even developed a lot-based solution. I highly doubt I'll share them (I had to bake in the sidewalk which is quite specific) and of course, I wouldn't dream of asking you to include them in any future release of the NAM, but if you are interested, I'll share my thoughts with you below.

It is necessary to develop a concept of how many cells in a city a FA streets will take up and in which pattern. I'm showing off 4 graphics now, 2 for FA-2 and 2 for FA-3 how this can be done. In both cases, I made a picture with a checkerboard background where every square has a size of 128x128 px, as it is the case with most FSH network files, and rotated an orthogonal street segment by 26.565° and 18.435°, respectively and put it over the background. Results (the colored cells are the ones taken up by the FA street):

1. For the FA-2 street, if you simply make it take up the usual 2x2 cells, it looks like this:

2. Interestingly, if you move the FA-2 street 1/4 of a cell to the top (or half a cell to either side), you can make the street take up one cell less - with only a bit of a caveat: A very small bit of the street is overhanging into another cell that is not depicted green below.

3. In the case of FA-3 streets: This is how it would look like when using the usual 3x2 cells way:

4. This is how it would look like if you move the street half of a cell to either side. It takes up one cell less:

 

I hope you weren't too much annoyed of me sharing these thoughts. I would like to hear your thoughts about this, and maybe a statement of the NAM peeople to this, if possible. As noted already, I made some lots with overhanging graphics as sort of a proof-of-concept, with solution 2. See below how it looks like when laying out zones. If you are interested, I'll share a picture of this area when I'm finished developing it. You can also have the graphics files if you want, but you should check them first - it took me hours to make them, especially with my limited graphics skills, I'm quite surprised that they turned out quite acceptable to me.

If I may I made FA-2 and FA-2 Short (Formerly FA-2 Alt) for the Real Railway and FA-2 Short for the HRW.

This geometry has existed since NAM 37+ IIRC.

Below is a picture of the FA-2, FA-2 Short and drag patterns.

This may be of use for your endeavors.

-eggman121 (NAM Team member)

[CahosRahneVeloza 385]

I just found out about this and I don't know where exactly I should place the bundle, both the NAM.dll and the support .dat files folder.

Should I place the NAM.dll file in the top level of of the Documents > Plugins folder, or in the game's install plugins folder?

... Or,

Can I place it inside of the NAM install folder?

And what of the support files? Can I paste the folder inside the NAM install folder?

[Null 45 3,041]

56 minutes ago, CahosRahneVeloza said:

Should I place the NAM.dll file in the top level of of the Documents > Plugins folder, or in the game's install plugins folder?

Either one will work.

57 minutes ago, CahosRahneVeloza said:

And what of the support files?

The should be able to be placed anywhere.

[CahosRahneVeloza 385]

I think I've hit a bit of a snag while testing the dll as the Street Tunnel portal model isn't showing in game for me. A tunnel does gets built but the model is missing and the ground texture where both ends of a tunnel should be becomes invisible, as if suffering from the Water bug.

After a few hours of fumbling within my Plugins Folder I finally found what was causing my problem...

It's the Ancient BRF Tunnel and Slope Mod I still use...

If you guys can suggest a newer Slope Mod I can replace the BRF Tunnel and Slope mod that is better and will not conflict with the one that comes with the NAM.dll package It'd really make my day

 

  Edited February 6, 2025 by CahosRahneVeloza  
Addendum - I managed to track down what was causing my issue

[Simizen 1,098]

I think certain elevation angles still break it, but in general it still works (I had similar at one point and that's what I was told)

[Lucario Boricua 7,028]

9 hours ago, CahosRahneVeloza said:

If you guys can suggest a newer Slope Mod I can replace the BRF Tunnel and Slope mod that is better and will not conflict with the one that comes with the NAM.dll package It'd really make my day

 

You actually don't have to change the full slope mod, you can make sure the NAM DLL supplemental files load after the slope mod to ensure the tunnel properties are overridden.

But, if you wanted to change the slope parameters, my best recommendation is to use the NAM Tunnel and Slope Mod, either the Moderate Vanilla Style (easier to use) or the NAM style (more realistic and made to match the NAM FLUPs and ramp-style height transitions).

 

 

 

     Let us know how it goes, we hope it makes your gameplay experience that much more fun!     

[CahosRahneVeloza 385]

@Lucario Boricua Woah~~!

I didn't know this newer NAM Slope Mod existed. Thanks man

  Edited February 7, 2025 by CahosRahneVeloza  
Addendum

[CahosRahneVeloza 385]

I deeply apologize for the double post as I still strictly adhere to the olden rules of teh interwebs which includes, "thou shalt not Double/multi post on any forum thread".

But seeing as nobody has commented on here after my last one, and two whole weeks have passed since my previous post, I thought maybe it'd be fine this time.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask if the Street texture on the "Street Tunnel portal" is baked into the model or not? Because if it's not I might ask @hugues aroux to add support for it for his WestWind Streets mod