The Great Chozo

Joerg, I noticed in the comments line of the building download screen, that you were having problems making the Blue Rock growable. I just tried it, and had no problems. I don't know why it is doing that to you, but it works for me. I had to build it on a CO$$$ 4x4 lot, but it works. Toroca posted a comment that said he got it to work as well. So if you want Toroca or myself to make some growable versions for you, let either one of us know. The building looks superb in the game. TGC

so is this thread unusualfire's worst traffic jam pics, or EVERYONE'S worst traffic jam pics. so far I only see his traffic jams. I would post mine, but I don't have any. Traffic in my cities is always pretty good. and I don't run my game with Cars and Sims on high. TGC

[bEGINQUOTE]

[bEGINQUOTE]

Afrothunda, You dropped my jaw, and not many CJ's have been doing that lately. This is absolutely beautiful. That university you created, among other things, is off the hook. You even present your journal in a very pleasing visual manner. This is great, I will follow it. The Great Chozo

Trolca, I actually kind of like the design myself, but that is just me. I do think that it needs some more textures and details around the sides, but my intuition tells me that you aren't quite done with it yet. If it were my BAT file I would probably add some more angles to it, not curves, but hard angles. Have you ever seen a movie by John Carpenter called, The Ghosts of Mars? It starred Ice T, and Natasha Henstridge (mmmmmm, Natasha, oh sorry) as the main characters. Those two escaped the conflicted area on a train, and I think that train is almost exactly what we were looking for. If you have seen the movie, then you should know what I am talking about, if you haven't then oh well. This is a good start, and don't trash it just yet, you have three other team members, and a little under a year to work with. I am 100% confident that with our assets and skills and the time we have, we can get the trains looking very good. Tinker around with some other designs, you never know, you could stumble onto something even better than what you have already posted. Chozo

Don't worry about the time red, I'm not concerned about that. I have had posts eaten too, and I know how you feel. What you posted is all I needed to know right now. I will have to talk to you later on down the road (hehe, pardon the pun) but for now, this is good enough. Thanks Chozo

Whiteshark, The desert terrain makes your region look beautiful. It reminds me of driving through West Texas up on the Caprock. You have the high plateaus, and then the rivers cutting out canyons in the bedrock. This is unlike anything I have seen in a CJ before. I am going to have to watch this one from now on. Well done. The Great Chozo

This is a question for Redlotus or Gizmo28 ONLY, please no answers to this unless you are one of those two people. Ok you guys here is the question. This is regarding bridges and the support heights. It occured to me while making some bridges last night, that I may need to build the supports that go waaaaaay down. Here is a picture courtesy of MrBisonM to explain: As you can see from point A to point B is the bridge's unique architecture, this much I know about. From point B to point C is where the question lies. Do I need to build these kinds of support extensions in Gmax, or will the game put them there? If I need to create them myself, then how high should I make them able to go? I don't think they need to be the maximum height that the terrain will allow, because no one will be building like that anyway, but what would a reasonable height be for this? If I do not need to create them, then here is another question. Is there a set distance between the end of the bridge's unique architecture and the bland concrete columns or can that distance be set by my choosing? It appears to me from the shot, that the columns actually vary from bridge to bridge, which signals to me that I need to create them myself. Also, it almost looks like the columns can be made very simply with about four pieces, and then the game will repeat certain sections of the column according to the height of the bridge. I figured I would ask either one of yall before I went off and did this. I don't want to waste time on something I don't have to do, if that is indeed the case. Get back to me at your convenience and let me know what you think. If any of this did not make sense let me know and I will try and clarify it for you. Again, please do not answer this unless you are Redlotus, or Gizmo28, or you are on the transportation team and have an answer for this. Thank You The Great Chozo **(the picture of the bridge is MrBisonM's. He posted it in the Your Best Looking Bridge thread. I took it and made the graphical additions you see above. I don't want anyone yelling at me because I took his picture, so that is the reason for this disclaimer.)**

Vatt, that is exactly what I was thinking. That is a nice sketch. I will copy that image, and then see what I can come up with. That is a good design, and I like it. I think it can be improved on, but hey, that I why we are a team, and not just one. I am still working on some designs for the last sketches you posted. I have just figured out how to play with the free form deformation modifiers, so I am going to use this on some of the structures you posted. TGC I

---------------- On 3/19/2004 6:46:06 PM redlotus wrote: So much going on. Where to begin? Well, first of all, the monorail IS a 3D network. So are the ground and elevated highways, and the elevated rail. They won't be easy to change, but with DarkMatter working on DatGen and ilive working on the Reader, this may become a little easier in the future. TGC, I was aware of the 'issue' that you pointed out above. For some reason, the game only has network lots for every other network tile. In order to have a continuous tube along a striaght road I had two choices: send the model that you sent me back so that you could make it 32m long or place the model at both edges of the tile. I figured that putting them on the edges would be a quicker solution and that you would prefer not having to redo the models./emoticons/2.gif> This brings us to a huge problem that I've stumbled upon. Unfortunately, there are no network lots for curves or transitional network pieces. This means that we will always have holes somewhere in the tube lines. At this point I do not know of any possible solution to this problem. Because of this, I believe that the project to use the network lots should be put on hold. The modd team and I will continue to look for ways around this problem and keep everyone updated if we find anything new. If anyone has any ideas, I am certainly open to suggestions. -red ---------------- Thanks for the warning Red. I was just getting to the point where I was going to start talking to you about the curves and how to approach those. I had a feeling there was going to be a problem there, but I didn't realized it was going to be like THAT. It isn't the end of the world. The two most powerful forces in the universe are human ingenuity and the human imagination so I know we can get around that. I will finish up the few alternative tubes I was working on, and then put them aside until I know for sure if they are going to be canned. I had started to make textures for the roads and avenues, and after what you said we may have to seriously use them. I will focus the energy I was spending on the tubes to the textures, since that is what we will most likely end up using for the transportation. The vehicles will now need to appear more pressurized than we had originally thought. This will also solve the problem of how to connect buildings to the tubes and how to approach the bus stops and subway stops. I'm dissappointed to hear about that, but I think it will turn out just fine in the end. It may even open up some other possibilites that we had previously ruled out because we were going to use tubes. As far a redoing the models I wouldn't care one bit. The way I redesigned them the second time was a versatile one. I took into account that I may need to change them again in the future. So after the second re-design all I would have to do to change the length is just copy the single piece and put the copy in line behind the first, and voila, you have a 32m. long tube piece. Now it seems that I won't even have to do that, but you never know. Keep me posted on anything that may allow the tubes to be put back into the game. Well, I can now focus on the designs for the mass transportation systems. Vatt will post some sketches up here tom. of some suspended networks that he is envisioning. I will work with them, and finish what I started from his earlier sketches. Along with those projects I will start building more and more bridges of all different styles starting with the road bridges, since they are smaller and easier to manipulate and mod. I am going to see some SXSW (South by Southwest) concerts this evening, but after that I will be home to work on the BAT stuff, and if anything comes up please let me know either with a PM, e-mail, or a post. Later folks. The Great Chozo

Here's a little something special: Damnit Jimmy I have told you a million times to put your space suit on BEFORE you leave the house. I am sick and tired of cleaning your breakfast off of the windows!!!!!! Redlotus, look at the next pic. Something happened while you were modding the transit files. The tubes are one tile in L and W, but they are built at the junction of two tiles. The screenshot explains it: I will probably just wait until you show me how to mod these to fix it, but I thought I would let you know. You may know the problem already. Also in the screenshot are the 3 zones. I didn't know if the red terrain was going to throw off the appearance of undeveloped zones, but apparently it will be just fine. I know this isn't our department, but I figured I would test that out anyway. Well the networks aren't finished yet obviously, but we have gotten somewhere at least. Chozo

---------------- On 3/19/2004 10:10:24 AM GouRou wrote:are monorails 2d or 3d models? ---------------- GouRou, I'm pretty confident that monorails are 3D, as are the elevated rails. The 3D designs will take longer, but will look better. I am up for anything. Give me a good design Vatt, and I will build it for you. I have two projects going right now. Fixing a workaround for the automata problem, which is taking me longer than I though, but I am getting somewhere. I need to get with Redlotus in the near future so he can show me how to mod the transit networks. That way I will be able to test these new tunnels immediately instead of having to send it to him, and bog him down with work (which I don't want to have to do /emoticons/12.gif>). Second, I am working on the designs that Vatt posted earlier for elevated rail, surface rail and stations that correspond with those tracks. As well as the elevated to surface transition. Being that we hadn't found a good use for the monorails up to now, I think the idea of a suspended system would be great. It would add more variety. The Great Chozo

---------------- On 3/18/2004 7:33:45 PM azwethinkweiz wrote:Aww heck, i just wrote a great long reply to TGC's post, but the server timed out and i lost it. I doubt anyone would have read it anyway (I wouldn't have!) Basically, what i said was agreeing with TGC... draw ideas from any futuristic/funky new technological resources that we can, from Futurama to The Jetsons, from Minority Report to Star Wars, from Oddworld thru Half-Life to G-Police. But when it comes to implementing thees ideas we have make them our own, not simply copying. Its just some of the ideas are seemingly still 20th century Earth, rather than 21st/22nd Century Mars. I doubt that in 100 years time, on another planet, passengers and freight will be moved from one place to another using diesel-powered vehicles on metal rails, seeing as the diesel technology is already 50 years old as it stands in 2004, let alone the 100 year-old tracks they run on. Right, i'm off to bed... good night zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ---------------- OK, I am only replying to aswethinkweiz's post. I haven't read the two below it. We are not using diesel power. You gotta give us more credit than that!!!!! Technology that is prevalent on Earth at the time of the initial Mars settlements, will be the technology that is implemented. If it is tried and true then, we are going to go with it, as opposed to create a brand new technology. There are places on Earth that are far harsher than Mars, and we have conquered some of them with our engineering know how. So a lot of what you find on Mars will have a lot of Earthly influences. We will do it right, trust us. And hey if you don't like the final product, then don't install it, that simple. I think you will like what we come up with though. Peace The Great Chozo