ardecila

There's a bug in the TMG building, so the author removed the link. I modelled that a while ago, but the sheer detail level forced me to stop.

Yeah - The problem with the lights is that we have to have full s3d files. My lights are only on extremely simplified, regular LODs - A box with a hole cut through it for the highway and a trough on top for the road. That's how I got it into the game for the screenshots. Once you make it full 3d, you have to use 3d lights, too. We may be able to do that, though. Just put the existing light-cone s3d into the overpass s3d files. As for the cycling, we can just use the tab cycle function. [slaps forehead] The reason I asked was because I could do a variety of retaining-wall/ overpass styles. I'm gonna ask PEG for help/permission on modifying his CDK lots so they match my overpasses.

OK, guys . . . I'm ready to render my avenue Y-int. Any last-minute constructive comments you guys have? I could also use constructive comments on the overpasses. BTW, what are the limitations on the code that allows the Toll Booth to be represented by one icon? Can I use this code to create one icon for my Urban Overpasses? Oh yeah - there are more now. The train one is the same but with a special Train on concrete roadbed deck texture, the onewayroad one has the onewayroad texture (w/o arrows), and the avenue one is double-wide with a 3d median. Lights have also been added.

OK . . . I might run into Marrast's problem here. You can't have two network types cross on a lot and still provide visual continuity. What I'm probably going to do is copy some stuff from RedLotus' original rail overpass to make it ploppable like a lot, but rather a network tile, which can have two networks crossing. Fortunately, it's all above ground, so it can be done. RedLotus: I could use some pointers here on the networks crossing. So far, the only thing I CAN do is make the networks connect on the edges, but only the highway can go through at the moment. So what else do I need to make them cross? I'd like to do this completely myself, because the paths would be very simple.

The highway is technically not sunken. It's placed in a perfectly normal 12-click-deep 4-tile-wide ditch, with sloped sides. Then I used an edited version of PEG's regular CDK walls to make it LOOK sunken. I would suggest editing them like I did. They look a little weird when you place 50+ lots with a crowd prop on each. The downside to this technique is that in order to make the PEG lots show the sidewall foundation, they have to take up an additional strip of free land on the backside of the highway, making the net width for this method 6 tiles. Yeah. A 6 tile-wide swath through your city, and only two tiles are transit-enabled. But if you want the look . . . The only new thing in the picture is the overpass, which CAN be done. Right now, I'm scrounging up all the info I can find about SC4PATH files, which will let me run cars across the top. After that, it's only a method of consulting with an expert lot-builder.

Can anyone say:

awesome!

Here's my refinished avenue intersection (ramps smoother, supports added, reconfigured according to RedLotus' avoid tile vertices doctrine)

New Orleans, LA or St. Louis, MO gets my vote. Southern cities work well, since most have newer construction, a variety of wealth levels, and would fit within the bounds of a region.

The ground highway version can be done easily by removing the supports and moving the rest down so the main highway decks are at 1 meter. Elevated highways and ground highways use the same deck pieces. SPUI: If someone can explain the difference between this and a diamond, I'll give it a shot.

jigger: I was going to use that at the beginning, since TexasFreeway.com calls it the perfect stack, but then I saw this one . TexasFreeway says it was built on extremely small right-of-way, and I thought a stack like that would go better in SC4. But as I started to make some of the changes people requested of me, it evolved into a form rather like what you just posted. As for the avenue interchange, that came from my noggin, when I was designing a SimNation capitol city. There are realworld examples, but I didn't know that at the time I thought of it. There's a picture of a real-life one from Dusseldorf, Germany in Marrast's thread.

I'm sorry, Casper. I don't understand what you mean. The circle doesn't seem to have anything unique in it. Could you sketch it in Paint or Photoshop or something?

TGC and anyone else who wants it: Attached to this post is a zip file containing an orthogonal and diagonal version of the SC4 elevated cloverleaf in 3ds form. It contains the supports, but you can convert it to a ground cloverleaf by deleting the supports, aligning the pivot point to the bottom of the object, then moving the object to the origin (0,0,0).

Wow! Great job, Chozo! I like how you moved the flyover merge out onto the level ramps. That way, the flyovers don't have to curve so sharply. The ramps look a little narrow for SC4 scale, though. A freight truck navigating that thing wouldn't look that great. Are you going to put the Maxis-style supports on it? For SimMars, it looks great, but for most people's terrestrial highways, the supports look a little too Flash Gordon-y. But it still blows mine out of the water. I look forward to driving this thing. iamrobk: I've always wanted to do this with avenues, only underground (but RedLotus proved we couldn't do such things underground). You can't make this kind of an intersection currently, so I figured I'd fill it in. I'd do it with highways, but I'd have to drop a lane to make it look good, reducing it to the capacity of an avenue interchange. I could do it with avenues, with a gray av texture. You could meld highways into it.

Ardecila's interchange #2: Anyone interested? I'm probably going to do it with an earth base.

7: Great idea. I'd like to see what the readers think, since they're the ones who'll have to put up with it, but I think it shows promise. I'll try to incorporate it tomorrow. Something I've seen on some stacks is that the flyovers start part-way down the corner ramps, moving the merge point away from the highway. Kurumi's diagram will show you what I mean. I actually had supports on the larger version, but I decided to just redo them instead of scaling them. They weren't that great anyway. Final plans: once I finish the shape/supports, I'm going to do cosmetic work, mainly to replicate the stack I'M most familiar with, I-295/I-90 stack at O'Hare airport. There really aren't any photos on the internet, but it's pretty typical. If anyone has any cosmetic suggestions, feel free to bring them up. Not to be selfish. I'm really enjoying the progress on the ANT network. I'm particularly interested in the SLR idea. I could really use this as a ground component of the subway-elevated system. And if someone can come up with an highway overpass that goes over one direction, then SLR, then the other direction, that'd be pretty cool. We could have trains on highway medians.

OK, 7. I scaled it down. But you can forget the high-capacity ramps. I could make them wider, but that'd be one ugly interchange. The highway feeders are almost 45 degrees to the highways already.

codyg: The ramps are 7 meters wide. The capacity is already 2 lanes. But, as redlotus pointed out, my texturing is just to give you an idea. If and when my stack is converted to S3D form, it will be textured then. I did just edit the current texture to have two lanes, however. Could someone tell me whether they are single-line or double-line, white or yellow, solid or dotted? OK. I've been working on the height issue. Try to think of the ramps as two-lane and see if they look any more accurate. If not, could you give me a desired maximum height so I can scale? Thanks. Dusktrooper: Being from Houston, I'm sure you have a LOT of experience with stacks. What did you mean by crude? If you meant faceted: 3rd change: I put a MeshSmooth on the ramps (except the areas where the ramps come together). It looks much more natural now, but less like it belongs in SimCity 4. Since these interchanges have to be full 3d files, smoother ramps are going to cost YOU in poly counts and, therefore game speed. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him:

All shall reply to this post . . . . For I have created the STACK! Do you guys have any comments? I still need to add supports, and connect the ramp structures to the main highway structures. Can anyone possibly help me with creating a texture for the area where the the ramps merge into the main traffic? Any help here is mucho appreciated. Thanks.

Sure, it's possible. You can do it now, but you still need 3 tiles on each side of the highway network and there's an ugly hump on both sides. The hump problem is fixable by replacing the first sloped section, which is curved, with a straight sloped section. But then it looks ugly when you lay it out normally. If someone can create a new overpass like this, with both an overpass and overpass intersection, I'll do some rough renders of Viaduct Rail. I just have no idea what steps I would have to go through to turn ANT Network into Viaduct Rail. Can someone summarize?

While the new ANT Network is great and all, what use does it have? We basically have a new network that looks exactly like a road, but without some of the functionality. I could accomplish the same effect if I zoned properly. Is it possible to make this a rail or highway network? If so, my choices would be either Viaduct Rail (ground rail on top of a concrete/dirt berm) or Urban Highway (sunken, with vertical walls, and allowing flat overpasses and onramps). Anyway . . . something I've been looking for since I came to this board intersection-wise is the existing highway interchanges broken up. 1/4 cloverleafs, one-way side off/onramps, 1/4 perpendicular off/onramps. I believe the7trumpets looked into this a while ago. That would earn my eternal thanks.