Entry no.4 - The RHW IRP (Interchange Rebuild Project)
A little progress report on what I call the IRP - Interchange Rebuild Project.
Highway system map:
compared to the original pre-CJ map:
Seems every week or two the map changes, there are multiple changes in this version. One section of a planned highway was rerouted and renamed 704(originally part of 705). As a result two other highways had to be renamed to maintain numbering consistency.
I use a specific method when it comes to highway numbering. Highways which travel in a predominately east-west direction are odd numbered starting from the north. I made provisions in the future for the inclusion of highways 701 & 703 in the area further north of the map. As of now, that whole area of the region has yet to be built. Which is why the first east-west highway on the map is 705 and not 701. Highways which travel in a predominately north to south direction are even numbered. Unfortunately I never planned for the inclusion of highway 704 as I started numbering the north-south highways from the east. So after its inclusion, the highways were numbered 702, 700, 704 from the west. That completely ruined the consistency I had. So I reversed the numbering for highways 700 & 702. That's something that would likely never happen IRL because of the resulting confusion renumbering established highways would cause. Of course thankfully in the SC4 world we make the rules 
My sim will have to abide by my logic.
The biggest physical change in the highway system/map is the complete elimination of all remaining maxis highways. The region had gone from about 80/20 maxis/RHW to 25/75 maxis/RHW during the time I've been working on the CJ. After a long trial period I've finally decided to incorporate the project symphony mod. The mod is not without its faults, specifically the lack of diagonal elevated ramps is a bit problematic for my region considering I have multiple sections of diagonal elevated highways with ramps. I'll have to figure out some sort or work-around for that. In addition two of my largest interchanges (700/702/707 & 702/704) use the elevated diagonal highway over straight NAM maxis highway interchange. Which will require some massive overhauls. But ultimately I decided that streamlining the appearance of all highways in the regions is worth dealing with those issues. Plus I actually enjoy the challenge of trying to rebuild interchanges. It's what I specialize in - making compact RHW interchanges in dense urban areas. By compact I mean compared to the average RHW interchange, most of my interchanges will be/are still huge compare to the maxis highway ones. My goal is to make them as small as physically possibly while still retaining smooth curves, gentle sloops and merging/acceleration lanes. Basically, compact but still realistic. Where necessary I do make use of hybrid features i.e. avenues, one way roads and tunnels. Currently I'm simultaneously working on rebuilding 4 of the "Big 9" interchanges. Here's a glimpse of the progress I've made so far.
First up, The Whirlwind
Interchange between highways705/707 - 90% complete)
It may not be obvious as to how it got that name from these closeup photo's but if your familiar with RHW ramps, then you might have a good idea as to how the whole interchange looks like. This interchange makes use of a dozen flex height transitions, which is why it was a really pain in the arse to build. Break one and the whole thing shatters like a glass house, which unfortunately happened several times during the trials and tribulations of building it 
The Original version:
RHW progress:
Five Points Interchange
Interchange between highways 700/702/707 - 50% complete
The center of this 5-way diagonal over straight highway, 5-level edit* 7-LEVEL interchange(yes, you heard right I did say SEVEN) while dealing with 3 different terrain levels which couldn't be avoided. In the preview photo It doesn't appear nearly as complicated as some of the others in this update, but from the direction of some of those ramps I think its clear that this will not be a conventional interchange.
I'm RHW'ing this thing(and that rail line can't be moved):
RHW progess:
The Black Hole
Interchange between highways 702/705(N) - 90% complete
A 5-level interchange between two collector-express highways, yet all the curved ramps of this fully accessible interchange can be seen in a level 3 zoom. The only one of these interchanges that wass already built entirely from the RHW. However there are few problems with the interchange that need to be fixed such as;
The non-functioning flex-fly ramp:
Fixed version:
The new 5th level(4 above, 1 below ground) of the interchange:
Spaghetti Junction
Interchange between highways 704/707 - 80% complete
This ridiculous interchange features a dozen flex fly curves and extends into the next city over, the mosaic shot only covers about half of its length:
Original version:
RHW progress:
Which of the new/rebuilt interchanges do you think looks most interesting/promising so far?
RE: Your Comments
89James89
Glad you found it interesting. I really enjoy incorporating technical things such as that into the game.
SimCoug
Thank you!
Kim Sunwoo
Thanks for the high praise. I was planning on having this CJ be more visual but there seems to be a fair bit of interest in technical details so I'll be adding more of those updates.
Mymyjp
lol & yes it will be made available, but a few things are holding back a release. I want to render my BAT's in a higher detail using a program like 3ds max. Currently I use gmax to make and render my BATs - the version of which I have is almost 10 years old now. Safe to say I'm not happy with the rendering detail it provides. A lot of the thin lines, which my BAT's trend to have a lot of, are heavily pixelated/blurred and I don't see that happening with many of the newer BAT's people have been releasing for quite some time now. So I recently downloaded 3ds max. After reading through a lot of technical tutorials I've managed to figure out a way to transfer my BAT's from gmax to 3ds max 2015 and that was not easy, for a while I wasn't sure it would even be possible. But alas it was and yay! I thought. But now the problem is the models are not coming out clearly on 2ds max. In fact the details are even worse than with gmax and they're practically invisible at the farthest zoom level. There's a quite a few threads dealing with technical issues involving 3ds max over on sc4devotion. I'm fairly confident that there is a solution to my problem somewhere in there but to be frank, I find trying to troubleshoot software issues to be incredibly tedious and as such I don't have the motivation to do it at the moment. So for now I've put it on the back burner. But I promise I will get to eventually, especially when some of the even more interesting and elaborate BAT's I've made start popping up on my CJ 
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