ardecila

Oh, so you're not using One-ways at all. That clears up a lot of things. My point was that, in the RUL Overrides file, there is no way that I know of to distinguish between ^^ and ^v for Oneways, because of the way that network is tied to the EXE, etc.

Date: 9/27/2005 11:22:08 PM Author: qurlix Anyway, the way the RHW mod works, however, the lanes will be distinguishable.quote> You mean you set up the RHW OneWayRoads to distinguish between ^v and ^^? I'd be interested to find out how you did it. I have a lot of ideas for a double-wide oneway road, and it'd be great if that was implemented.

YES. This is possible. In fact, this is how the Rural Highway Modd works. You draw two ANT networks next to each other to get the interstate-highway textures. The issue, is that because of the way One Way Roads are set up, it's not possible to differentiate two oneways going the same direction from two oneways going in the opposite direction. Simply not possible. So, if someone did your idea, it would be five lanes as one roadway, regardless of how the traffic flows.

What texture do you put on your glass? I noticed it on the Train Shed, where the glass has some wonderful shading on it that makes it look 1920s-ish. Do you use a bitmap, or just an opacity map, and, if so, what opacity and color values? Thanks - I just really like that glass.

Well, not entirely. The AB format is, as far as I know, a directory of references to other conventional sound files (XAs). Of course, this would not account for the large filesize of the ABs. Perhaps it contains complex logic for sounds, or maybe even the sounds themselves. We just don't know.

I believe the IID must start with 0, and the package ID must match it.

Here's Chicago's highway system: Oddly enough, it was quite difficult to find a stylized map of our interstate system that didn't include distractions like town names or county lines. I had to cobble one together from a vector graphic I found at a realty website, and my own efforts in Photoshop. At any rate, that's the system. The biggest problem currently is the width of I-80, which handles nearly all truck traffic coming from Ohio and the East Coast, and compresses it down to a 6-lane (total) highway. Efforts are underway to alleviate the problem, but the construction has taken up 1 existing lane, and even 2 lanes at some points. Wicked bottlenecks down there. Note: the northern red segment (extension of IL-53 to meet I-94) is a huge controversy right now. There are actually grassroots efforts both for and against the project. The southern proposal is in a much less dense area, and it'd just be cutting through farmlands and such. However, it probably will not get built anytime soon unless the state decides to help fund the plan for a third airport at Peotone (right where the proposal stretch meets I-57).

Right now, I'm considering Syracuse, Rice, and Virginia. Oh, and Michigan, too. If all else fails, I could get into Illinois pretty easily, seeing as I live here in IL. They all have campuses that seem pretty cool, as well as top-15 architecture programs. I also hope to get some sort of a grounding in Transportation Engineering, because I am highly interested in designing things for transit buildings (stations, terminals, bus stops, etc.)

I'd like to request an optional patch to remove the checks on rep. 16 values in Expert Mode. I'm currently making a lot for NDEX that has custom paths with IIDs in my personal range, i.e. 0xAFxxxxxx. However, SC4Tool only recognizes the IID as valid when it conforms to some sort of standard used by the Maxis network paths' IIDs. Could someone please write a patch that removes these checks? Thank you.

Date: 8/31/2005 11:20:33 PM Author: qurlix But right now I'd better switch back to working on the highway mod or nooneatall will come after me for not finishing the diagonals! (Not that I don't deserve it) -qurlixquote> LOL - for a second there, you sounded rather like Polyphemus the cyclops (from the Odyssey)! Maybe nooneatall had that same idea?

Date: 8/31/2005 12:12:52 PM Author: Tropod You plan to just export them manually (as opposed to rendering them)? quote> Yes. In doing so, I avoid the monstrous time-consumption and the varied pitfalls of skinning. (The Reader's import filter preserves UV data from the 3ds files) I'll have to export each one out of gmax seperately, but I then have a tool than can batch-convert the MD3 exports into 3ds, which will then need to be imported into Reader.

Date: 8/26/2005 11:08:02 PM Author: Teirusu ardecila That looks nearly spot on! Very nice! But... your missing one key detail! What I refer to as 'The Crosses'. Originally, I believe they wanted to make I-355 go further south, however, some time during the construction they scrapped that idea and instead ended I-355 at I-55. Only problem is they had already made the 4 concrete pillars to hold the 4 future road decks over I-55. Each of the pillars was designed to hold, at least, 3 or so lane deck. Unfortunately, when they switched gears on the project, the 4 pillars weren't aligned properly to hold the two single-lane ramps, so they built new supports for the ramps and just left the 4 pillars where they stood. So, every time you drive through the I-55 & I-355 exchange, you see 2 pillars on each side of the I-355 ramps holding up nothing but air... -Teirusuquote> I only go through there a couple of times each year. I did have a chance to check it out on the way down to the State Fair, though. It was pretty much what I had expected from the maps I had looked at. Crosses - Oh yeah, forgot about those things. Aren't they there for the I-355 extension, which should be starting construction... any day now? Anyways, I didn't want to take realism TOO far.... dedgren - Thanks! Unfortunately, all the fun work of creating an interchange has been done. Now comes the ridiculously-long busywork period of slicing up the interchange into 1-tile pieces, exporting them into 3ds format, then importing them into the Reader...

No, I'm sure it caused dilapidation. If it didn't, that was probably because you had a road touching another side of the lot. Somehow, the game recognizes the TE lot as having network paths, so it doesn't show a No Car Zot, but it also doesn't allow the sims to go from one lot to another, so you have to build a street on the back or side for the Sims to get in.

Who ever said that the SC4 garbage units were tons? I believe the garbage units are just an arbitrary unit that is mapped to the landfill system, i.e. x number of units = 1 tile of landfill.

Red - I also use Deep Exploration to fix my models, but I actually convert it to DXF in order to bring it into gmax. The DXF importer is a much better-written plugin, I've found, than the 3ds importer.

Thanks, all! I just noticed a need and filled it. I fixed the texturing issues and I am now experimenting with grass embankments. Even if I do decide to make such embankments, I will set them up as lots to be plopped around the interchange, so you can choose whether you get it or not. Tropod - Currently, the interchange is at 3430 polys, which gives each tile an average of 33 polys (there are 104 total tiles). Is that within acceptable limits? I'm used to using exorbitant poly counts on UDI vehicles, since there can only be one at a time, but I dunno about interchanges. Duke87 - There was another reason why I kept the trumpet going to the left. Interchanges have a 16x16 tile-size limit. Maintaining the same scale that I am now, if I had extended the trumpet to the right, the total interchange would have exceeded the 16x16 limit. In other words, if I had wanted to run it to the right, I would have had to decrease the turning radius, making the ramps have much tighter turns and, IMO, making the interchange less realistic. Besides, I think the interchange is much more compact and less sprawling in this form.

Actually, we're dealing in hex, so it's not a tens digit, but rather a sixteens digit.