ardecila

Okay... I found out that my library doesn't have Trains magazine. So I'm headed downtown to the Harold Washington where I can make the appropriate photocopies to use as reference and make this station as accurate as possible. I'm also gonna take some photos so that I can accurately finish some BATs that have been sitting around for VERY long, including Smurfit-Stone, Prudential Plaza, and some others. In other news, I decided to do some work on an interesting building that's been sitting on my HD since I got Max last summer. Although this looks like a station, it is not. This is the McCormick-Tribune Campus Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). It was designed in 1997 by Rem Koolhaas and completed by 2003. The trains run in a tube that is designed to lower the sound and tactile vibrations and make the building fit for occupation. Inside the building, you can barely hear the trains; it's amazing. I was given a personal tour by an architect from the local firm that coordinated with Koolhaas. The place is fascinating, although the orange-tinted mens' room goes a bit too far. It is the only building in the city (other than the CTA stations) that spans an elevated track. This is intended to be a quick BAT, so I can practice with modern-looking glass and mullion systems, getting the reflections right, and making accurate night lighting.

Seriously?

That's great! I love that building. (sorry to hijack Jason's thread) - Tonks, pathing won't be hard at all now that I have the DrawPaths cheat that lets me see the paths in-game.

No - if you want the terrain-conforming to work, then you just have one model (using Resource Key Type 0). Or, if you'd like the textures to anti-alias a little better, you can use Resource Key Type 3, which is one model for each zoom level. That's a good point about budgeting the polys. Computers today are on average more powerful than they were when SC4 was released, too, so most players can handle a higher polygon count.

Originally posted by: haljackey Holy crap ardecila! That looks amazing ! Is that a ground highway overpass?quote> No, it's just a road overpass. The outer areas are for pedestrians, and the inner areas are for vehicles. Andreas/Nardo69 - I will experiment with greater areas by importing some buses and trucks and testing their heights relative to the clearance. Like Nardo69 mentioned, many of these viaducts were designed before semi-trucks were common. Typically, the roads underneath these viaducts are lowered rather than raising the tracks, but the sidewalk remains the same, so you get an interesting situation where the sidewalk is 4 feet above the road while underneath the tracks.

Okay. I can do texturing myself.. that's just a "clay" rendering, with the rail tracks shown to avoid confusion. The tricky part will be converting this to a lower-poly model to make it into a puzzle piece. However, I will place some little bush and tree props on the grassy areas. Anyway, the advantage of such a lower puzzle piece is that the existing elevated rail and rail viaducts can cross over it.

Okay... here's the viaduct I'm working on, with a track height of 14'. I'll eventually scale it up, so it'll probably turn into 17 or 19 feet. It might be a few weeks until I can finish these pieces, and even then you'll have to wait until the next NAM comes out, so I don't know if it's worth your while to try to integrate our station onto these.

Okay, I made the demonstration piece that I mentioned earlier. It is an accurate representation of a viaduct that the Chicago & North Western built running north from the city center. The tracks are at a height of 13', or roughly 4 meters. I stress again, this is what exists in many American cities. However, it looks quite short in the zoom 5 view, and I think a bus or freight truck would collide with the overpass in the game. So I will vertically scale it somewhat to 5 or 6 meters.

Why is it a problem? I typically have lock to paths enabled anyway, and being able to drive off-road onto certain lots would be quite useful when you're making a CJ.

If the airport poses a significant roadblock to the growth of Downtown Tampa, I'm sure the city government would be working to remove it. Being a big city has nothing to do with skylines and everything to do with what life is like at the street level. Also population (haha), but cities like Boston manage a big-city feel with a population under 1 million because of dense development, narrow streets, and lots of pedestrian/transit activity.

Thank you, ArkenbergeJoe and Andreas for your response. What if I made the lower viaducts as a different set of puzzle pieces in the existing rotation ring? There's not a ton of pieces right now compared to, say, the avenue puzzle pieces. Is that acceptable to everybody?

This is in response to a discussion that began in Jasoncw's BAT thread, regarding the height of the rail viaducts. Originally posted by: Andreas RothRegarding the elevated rail tracks: Sure, 16 m is somewhat unrealistic, but it's the default height of all NAM overpasses and the elevated highway as well. 8 m might be more realistic, even with the game perspective that makes everything short, but I'd say it's not feasible to change everything yet again. Also, I appreciate ArkenbergeJoe's work very much - maybe it doesn't look exactly like the rail viaduct Tonksi posted above, but hey, he did take the challenge and actually started working, rather than suggesting thousands of things, but not getting into gear.quote> I appreciate ArkenbergeJoe's work and respect his intentions. I understand how much work is involved in replacing S3Ds with new textures, as I am currently replacing the entire el-rail network with new models. Different models for each zoom level, changing the IIDs, keeping models low-poly, and making simplified textures.. it's all a big hassle. I should have commented at the early stages when he could have easily changed the design. Also - I am perfectly willing to put the work in to lower the rail viaducts if enough people think there is a need for it. It annoys me enough that I am willing to commit the necessary time to do the job. However, I really don't want to do this without approval from the NAM Team. If given a week or two, I will produce a demonstration piece of a lower viaduct (American-style). I'll also see if Tonkso is willing to help me create a European version of the lower pieces.

Originally posted by: Andreas RothRegarding the elevated rail tracks: Sure, 16 m is somewhat unrealistic, but it's the default height of all NAM overpasses and the elevated highway as well. 8 m might be more realistic, even with the game perspective that makes everything short, but I'd say it's not feasible to change everything yet again. Also, I appreciate ArkenbergeJoe's work very much - maybe it doesn't look exactly like the rail viaduct Tonksi posted above, but hey, he did take the challenge and actually started working, rather than suggesting thousands of things, but not getting into gear.quote> Andreas Roth: I'd like to discuss this further, but I think we need to move the discussion out of Jason's thread. It is only a tangent here. I have posted my reply in the NAM Discussion Thread (the one here at ST).

Ditches could work. I've never seen a ditch run in an alley behind a commercial street, but I'm sure it's possible. Usually, raised viaducts were preferred because they caused less intrusion on the cross streets during construction. In certain circumstances, though, a ditch (referred to as an open cut) was used to cut back on noise pollution, and to avoid splitting up neighborhoods with "Chinese walls". I've considered a modd to lower the raised rail pieces now that Tropod is gone, but I think I'd just anger several batters who have already done stations, as well as the NAM team which has put a lot of work into the existing set of pieces. ArkenbergeJoe, for example, is doing a modd to replace the current pieces with stone viaducts, although he's not changing the height (to be honest, his pieces don't look beefy enough to be real stone construction). Also, rail viaducts in North American cities have no definite style or height. There's the High Line in NYC on a steel viaduct, in other cases the railroads built earth embankments with concrete walls at varying heights. Sometimes there's a concrete viaduct wall on one side of the tracks and a smooth slope down to ground on the other. It would be tricky to represent the range of designs with just one set of pieces.

Well, I was envisioning the platforms extending in the one direction, but an archway through the base of the tower would allow passengers to go that way too. I know the raised rail pieces are very high - it's a pet peeve of mine. When they were being created, I advocated for a lower height, but Tropod, I believe, wanted them to be at the same height as the road puzzle pieces to allow midair grade crossings. I don't know about terraformed viaducts. Most people make raised viaducts with smoncrie's Ground Lifter lot, which raises the land to 15m, same as the puzzle pieces. Hand-terraforming would give inconsistent results, unless the platforms were separated into a prop (which would raise or lower depending on ground height) but then a believable door into the building could not be created if the platform height changes.

Sorry about all the suggestions.... I've looked at quite a few railroad stations. The train platforms are very short - this could not even berth most subway trains, let alone a full Amtrak-style intercity train. I'm not suggesting you go go out to 18 tiles here (), but 7 or 8 tiles would be better. The platform extensions could either be an overhanging prop, or you could include it on the lot and then fill the blank space with some other of your buildings. Also... would you consider changing this station to integrate with the NAM's raised rail pieces? In most Northern cities, the railroads were grade-seperated between 1900-1920, so by the Art Deco age, most stations would have been designed this way. Otherwise, the station would have been built as a stand-alone building, because grade crossings in a busy wall-to-wall commercial strip are a recipe for disaster. Here's another question - would you consider making the raised portion of the building into an atrium with a skylight? The way I see it, passengers would enter into a grand atrium with a skylight, and off to the left would be the ticket counter. Then, in the atrium, a grand flight of steps would go up to a second-story waiting room, with schedules and benches and such, and then they could walk out the second-story doors onto the viaduct to board their train. Last suggestion (I promise!): pull the facade of the raised portion out from the other facade. What is Art Deco about if not setbacks?

Okay.. I'm fairly certain that this thread is dead. But something I've ALWAYS wanted to know is how automata/UDI are spawned. What controls their behavior, and is it scripted somewhere in the DAT files? I talked this over with DM and Kary several times, and we came to the conclusion that the AE file (has a header of AE) must contain this scripting. My end goal is to be able to create my own "Tag" props that control where on a lot an airplane or ship will return to. The airplane Tag props use the "Airplane Hangar Type" property to link with an automaton, and the ships/boats each have their own unique property in their respective Tag exemplars. I have a whole air force worth of new UDI planes that I'd love to release, but this is holding me back.

Originally posted by: nerdly_dood HOLY MOTHERF---!Is that a BATed lot or is that a dragged highway?quote> Halfway in between, actually. It is real 3d like a highway, but it is placed onto a lot. Really, all it needs are paths and some other work and I could put it into the next NAM. Unfortunately, I REALLY don't want to make any more pieces than you see there (like interchanges), mainly because I'm working on other stuff. If y'all can live without exits on the diagonal portions, then I'll do the work to get it out.

Chelsea and Greenwich Village I can't speak for, but "SoHo" comes from "SOuth of HOuston" Street. They shortened that to SoHo, although they obviously had the London neighborhood in mind. So there is a reason for the borrowing. Much of Lower Manhattan IS like London in many ways (lots of subway lines, 3-4 story buildings, extremely expensive apartments/houses/condos, boutique shops, historic buildings, etc). Oh, and I have something that may be of help.

Originally posted by: Jasoncw The picture makes me more sad it was torn down. I bet it would have been cool looking out the window of the train as you came in.quote> Yeah, I agree... the bright sign beckoning you into the bustling Loop. That picture has an odd angle, though - the photographer must have been standing on top of one of the "butterfly shed" platform shelters. They don't usually provide any access to the tops of those, so the photographer probably had to go to great lengths for the shot and haul over a ladder - just proving the point of how phenomenal this building was. Milwaukee currently has a pretty small Amtrak station which is getting renovated with a new bus terminal and a new, very modern glass facade, scored by mullions with random angles. When it was originally built, it featured kitschy, 60s architecture. Now it's being replaced by kitschy 00s architecture. At least it looks better to my eye, but it doesn't improve station amenities one iota. This replaced a beautiful late 1800s station in a similar style to Grand Central. I didn't get a chance to perform the changes on the model before I left for South Bend, so I had to delay the rendering.

Originally posted by: Jasoncw The picture makes me more sad it was torn down. I bet it would have been cool looking out the window of the train as you came in.quote> Yeah, I agree... the bright sign beckoning you into the bustling Loop. That picture has an odd angle, though - the photographer must have been standing on top of one of the "butterfly shed" platform shelters. They don't usually provide any access to the tops of those, so the photographer probably had to go to great lengths for the shot and haul over a ladder - just proving the point of how phenomenal this building was. Milwaukee currently has a pretty small Amtrak station which is getting renovated with a new bus terminal and a new, very modern glass facade, scored by mullions with random angles. When it was originally built, it featured kitschy, 60s architecture. Now it's being replaced by kitschy 00s architecture. At least it looks better to my eye, but it doesn't improve station amenities one iota. This replaced a beautiful late 1800s station in a similar style to Grand Central. I didn't get a chance to perform the changes on the model before I left for South Bend, so I had to delay the rendering.

Yeah, it's JUST the sports museum now. They have a nice gift shop (I bought a vintage-style baseball bat there, as well as a Miguel Tejada shirt). Camden Station only serves the MARC commuter trains today, though, and even most of those go to Penn Station a couple miles north of downtown. It doesn't need to be very big. I'm just happy the building's still there, as well as the warehouse.

Yeah, these things were featured in a Land Rover commercial/billboards last year. I thought they were joking... guess not. Either way, very cool stuff.

Chicago has had some fairly long buildings - all of them warehouses. The longest one was built by the North Pier Terminal company, which was actually controlled by Chicago's first mayor (yeah, we've had corruption THAT long). It went the entire length of Ogden Slip and then continued underneath Lake Shore Drive almost to the beginning of Navy Pier. Today, half of Ogden Slip has been filled in. The part of the warehouse fronting the filled-in portion was demolished. The part east of Lake Shore Drice was also demolished, leaving about 1/3 of the original warehouse, which still stands today as North Pier, a combination mall/residential development.

Building proposals fall through all the time, especially in cities that AREN'T New York, Shanghai, or Dubai. Chicago has at least 50 different buildings that were planned but never built. 12 of those proposals would have been world's tallest buildings if they had been built.