the7trumpets

Well, the 65535 limit (or 0xFFFF limit) is a limit for the display, and neighbor connections of a single transit tile. This means that since this freeway will take up two tiles per side, this freeway will have an 'effective' display limit of twice that. However, this will only be the case if cars equally distribute themselves across the two tiles. Same thing for the neighbor connections, each tile can only support 65535 or less, so this would in theory double it, but in practice it would only do that if cars were utilizing the freeway equally.

Thanks for that, sargeantcm. This is what I tried to point out a while ago, in the old thread. Basically avenues are different widths for the orthagonal and diagonal sections, but highways are exactly the same, just rotated. The application of this is that ANY highway interchange models can be made diagonal simply by rotating the model before slicing and exporting. One note about the interchanges: while there are 8 directions a highway can lead, there are actually 12 possible interchanges for all the rotations because of the way the diagonal tiles line up against each other. These 12 possibilities are extrapolated from the 4 90 degree rotations done by the game of 3 basic interchanges, all with thier individual pieces. In short, for each diagonal two-network interchange, it must be shifted orthagonally in the xy plane by one half tile (8 meters), and re-sliced. In interchanges where highways meet at 90 degrees (all the original maxis ones), this means there are 12 possible rotations, 8 diagonal and 4 orthagonal. However, for interchanges which have one diagonal highway and one orthagonal highway, there is a diagonal two tile wide network in each of the 8 rotations, meaning there are actually 16 possible rotations, made from 4 different rotations of the model, sliced and exported. Since we don't have the capability of exporting fully skinned s3ds from gmax, it's probably simply beyond our manpower to do all the possible rotations, since a lot of the work is in the reskinning and path/rul writing process. However, if someone does want to do all of the possible rotations to create a complete interchange set, that is what's necissary. I realize this is very confusing and possibly clouds the subject even more, but I wanted to point it out. I'll try to draw some pictures and word it intelligably, editing my post in the next day or so.

Date: 9/20/2004 10:12:43 PM Author: Gizmos robot were do you put the textures BUNNY ATTACKquote> Do you have textures to post??? yipeee!!! if that's the case The best thing would be for you to convert them to FSH files with FishMan (DXT3 compressed, with alpha maps), and then insert them into a dat file. The zip the dat file and post it here. Seriously folks, we just need some simple textures shown above, and then I'll start cracking on the RULes to see how probable/plausable this is. Textures anyone?

Date: 9/20/2004 12:54:49 PM Author: Thalassicus Once I've worked through realistic values for all the costs, could we include them as a fix in the mod? quote> I think you've done an outstanding job figuring this stuff out Thalissicus. Furthermore, you're right, that for new interchanges, we should have some method for people to determine the interchange cost other than just guessing. Otherwise none of the new interchanges will be consistant. Have you updated that excel file for the figures in your new post? Or are the calculations the same? If you have updated it, please post the updated file so that those creating new interchanges can calculate thier interchanges cost.

Well, yes and no. In theory, all that should be necissary for the entrances/exits and overpass/underpasses is to load in the models, delete the center barier and stretch the road surface to the edge of the tile. Then the road surface would have to be reskinned with a new texture, and the UV map has to be set. It's more like tying your whoes 150 times. Lots of simple steps for lots of pieces. I'm sure there will be complexities eventually, though. As a side thought, I think it may be beneficial for us to allow these to appear when there is one or two tiles inbetween also. That way if someone wants to draw an elrail, rail, or monorail line in the middle, they can

Okay folks, here's an update. Lately I've been trying to get my hands dirty with s3ds and gmax, at least to the point where I can understand at least something about these things . So, I created a model and here are the results. The RULes work. All you do is plop two freeways next to each other, and whala! Obviously the stock texture doesn't really work very well, and the UV maps aren't really aligned correctly for the railings, but you get the idea. Again, if any experienced BATTers want to lend a hand, it would make this go MUCH quicker. I'm still haveing trouble knowing how to zoom in and out in the bat .

Hrmmm... Well, I decided I should get somewhat familliar with the BAT and this process, since it's such a huge part of transit modding . Unfortunately, I simply cannot get the exporting right. I have removed the maxis BuildingMill.ms script file and replaced it with the one in the interchange tutorial, but the result is no different from using the original maxis file. I've tried replacing it and restarting the program, replacing it and rebooting, deleting the original maxis file from the disk, etc. Basically, the resulting sc4model file in the mydocuments/plugins folder still had all the FSH textures and models like it was a building, and none of them (including the s3d at IID 0x#####400) had the entire model in them. Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong? Again, I'm sorry for the elementary nature of this, I'm just trying to get started using this thing, and it seems like I can't even do the first step Anyway, I thought I remembered reading somewhere that if you installed gmax and the bat in your program files directory, you'd have problems. So I said, oh, this will be easy. Uninstalled it and reinstalled it in the default directory.....except that it didn't install the help files . So now I'm left with gmax, no idea how to use it, and no help files...great And the exporting still doesn't work [edit] sorry all, I finally figured it out. I wasn't doing the LOD correctly...eeek!!! Please forgive me ??? I also found a place to download all the help files again, so all seems to be well, for now

I tend to agree with Tropod...and I have some other issues as well. There are a few logic bugs which cause pathfinding bugs in rail junction tiles, as well as any rail piece with a RUL side of 32. Minor, but important. Much more important to me, is the inter-city commute issues which have yet to really be tracked down or understood, but there are definately issues there (see my thread in the experiments forum). In general, Maxis was very helpful and had an open ear to us prior to RH patch 1. After that, it seems they likely concluded that the game was sufficiently 'bug-free' to an acceptable level, anyway, and put a higher priority on other projects. I understand it from a business sense, and they had to do it, I just hope they do pay attention to us once again soon .

First of all, thank you for all of your work thusfar, this is really taking off . Concerning Cobblestone Puzzle Pieces: In order to make them puzzle pieces, they will have to be packaged as a 'flat' s3d object. I haven't ever done it before, but I think it's necissary for the object to have some height, just not much. As far as the drains, if you made them into props which could sit on top of the road surface s3d object, we could place them using the type 21 exemplars. It may be possible to do things like alternating sides of the road which the drain is on, we just haven't gotten super-tricky with the type 21 exemplars yet, so we don't know for sure. Look at the existing pedestrian mall puzzle piece without the center pole for an example of the flat s3d object.

Date: 9/17/2004 12:42:42 PM Author: rubberring is it possible to edit the original traffic light props or highway signs on intersections? i made some traffic signs in gmax and used it on lots as props and would like to know if it is possible to integrate this signs on intersections.quote> Yes, it is indeed possible smoncrie has done the most work with it, I believe. It involves editing type 21 exemplars which have lotconfig lines in them, which control the prop placement. There are some limitations to the logic the game uses to pick which type 21 exemplar to use, or how to rotate/filp it when the tile is rotated and flipped. But it is possible to make custom props and put them on network tiles.

oneways: 0x09###### roads: 0x00###### IIDs of the FSH files. FYI, sc_2.dat through sc_5.dat are all FSH files. it starts witn instance 0x00000100 (road texture) in sc_5.dat, and goes up in instance numbers, toward sc_2.dat. So, a higher instance number will be in a lower numbered dat file. Hope that helps!

Interesting.... So you somehow managed to turn the 'commuters' number into a number of jobs that the simulator could fill? Or am I misunderstanding? On another note, I noticed the 'Occupant Trip Zone Filter' and 'Occupant Trip Purpose Filter' properties in the automata exemplar. I wonder if since there is an 'airport' zone, whether we could use that to at least create visual automata going to/from the airport.

Ya, there are issues Tropod I just wish I could find a way to rectify them once it's messed up. As near as I can tell, the problem occurs when you save a city that is recieving sims when the wrong number of sims are coming into that city. After that, deleting network connections, destroyong one or the other city, etc, has zero effect, it's toast from there on out. This has big implications. If you have a large commercial district that depends on traffic to pay tolls to support the city financially, as well as sustain the desirability for CS and CO by contributing to high traffic, saving at an inopportune moment can mean disaster. When running several of these tests, I had my budget go from +20,000 to -30,000 a month, and desirability for CO$$$ just went away, causing many of the buildings to abandon. Unfortunately it is very doubtful that we will be able to fix this, because I seriously doubt this part of the commuting engine would be stored in an LUA or script of some sort.

All of the highway textures are in the 0x02###### FSH series, which are all located in Simcity_4.dat So, you were just looking in the wrong dat file . Have fun! [edit] Okay, the new threads are up. If you have a specific request, or are developing something, there is a new thread for you. General discussion/comments will stay in this thread.

Yikes, that was a lot of info in a small space! Date: 9/16/2004 11:11:17 AM Author: Tropod As for car-based/enabled puzzle pieces; I wish someone would explain this to me (too). I'm a little lost with the whole aspect of it to be honest. The way I see it, cars would still simply just commute *through* them, just like they would any other section of (road-based) network. So if by using them, sims find a more efficient path to use, well they'll just use them (instead, & visa versa). That's not to say it's a bad idea though, far from it, I just wish I understood it a bit better. quote> Anyway, Tropod, here's an answer to that question, hopefully: As I said earlier (no fault attatched since you've been gone for a few days), the benefit is largely cosmetic. It basically allows strip malls to be created with semi-realistic looking parking lots surrounding the commercial buildings, and the buildings still being developed. You are correct, about the possibility of sims commuting through these puzzle pieces. However, the paths would be written sucn that cars could not cross over parking spaces, meaning it would be possible to design a parking lot that you would have to weave around enough that drivers wouldn't cut through the parking lot because it's no longer a short cut. Will drives still commute through these tiles? Unfortunately, probably yes. It largely depends on how you design the parking lot. An idea I proposed quite a while back was to actually use transit enabled lots (duck and cover, hoping Tropod doesn't hit me over the head ) as the entrance tiles to the parking lot. The advantage of doing it this way is that we could use the transit switch cost to deter drivers from taking a short cut, while those who have to drive in to work would gladly go through the transit enabled lot, because it's the only way to get to work. However, the converse idea, of using all puzzle pieces and using RUL overrides to make the network tiles next to the entrance puzzle piece line up with it (and actually have a driveway), has one other benefit. You wouldn't be required to draw a street into the entrance tile to actually see automata turning into the parking lot. To be honest, I'm a bit torn on which is the better approach. Since we can do it without the transit enabled lot though, I'm inclined to think we should do without. Especially since mayors can completely eliminate the possibility of commuting through the parking lot by only having one entrance/exit to the parking lot. If this doesn't clear it up, please ask again. I'm sorry for the confusion I've insued by my ramblings on this subject in the past.

Date: 9/16/2004 6:09:26 AM Author: simmax However, does it explain why, in times of development, the sims can use a road which is a dead end on the other side? quote> Well, honestly these two 'issues' don't explain that, that's more because of how the pathfinding works. Each city knows if there are available jobs in each wealth type in each of its neighbors. Once you create a neighbor connection to a neighbor with at least one job of a wealth type that the sims need, the sims in your city will begin commuting there. Upon entering the neighbor city, the simulator will only allow as many sims in as it has jobs for within that city and in its neighbors. This is usually not a problem, unless the road is a dead end. In that case, no sims will come through the connection point. Connect the road to the rest of your transit network, so that the sims can get to the job that is in your city, and to your other neighbor connections, and immediately the same number of sims who were exiting the region connection in the residential city will be entering in the working city, provided you're not looking at it during one of the development spurts.

Date: 9/15/2004 8:22:23 PM Author: BrandonTheGreat the7trumpets, would it be possible to make a road, avenue, etc. over C/D highway mod or something like that? It would work nicer if a mod was possible to do a DIRECT connection from express to local and vice versa without having to convert to avenues. That was why I asked in the first place! I didn't expect to get an answer to look at the multi-highway tutorial. I want to know, is a highway to highway onramp possible without converting to one ways and is it possible for a road, avenue, over C/D highway.quote> Sorry if I wasn't clear before. Yes, it would be possible to make the interchanges. The difficult (and possibly impossible) thing is actually drawing the C/D highways without the use of the multi-highways technique. The connection between express and local, and vice versa, would essentially be a ploppable interchange, accessable from the interchange menu. So yes, the connections between express and local, as well as onramps and overpasses/underpasses from other networks would be possible, they would just require someone modeling them as interchanges, and going through all the steps in the interchange tutorial.

Since those instanceIDs helped so much, here are the diagonal straight pieces: the 'outside' of the diagonal freeway, with only one direction of lanes on it: 0x02002204 - elevated highway 0x0a002204 - ground highway the 'inside' of the digaonal freeway, with both directions on the same tile: 0x02002204 - elevated highway 0x0a002104 - ground highway As a side note, even though I've never used gmax, I've often wondered if it would be easy to take a model and just rotated it 45 degrees and re-align it on the grid to make a diagonal version, and then scoot it up half a tile (along the orthagonal direction, if there is an orthagonal network) to make the alternate diagonal version. However, I don't really understand how the chopping and everything like that occurs, so it might be more complex than I'm making it out. Also, I'm not absolutely certain that the highway lanes are the same size in the orthagonal and diagonal setups. I know the avenue is more squished (median taken away) in the diagonal version, which is why the Avenue Y model couldn't simply be rotated and turned into a two orthagonal - one diagonal avenue Y from the current two diagonal one orthagonal Y setup. [edit] sergantcm: If you want to tackle avenue onramps, you may want to take a look at some of the 'left over' FSH textures maxis left in the 0x0200#### series, in SC_4.dat. There are about 10 textures that look like they were made for two lane ground highways, and then for some reason they decided to use the existing elevated highway models and textures, just without the supports. The orientation and look of the ramps looks like it would be symilar to something you would need, though, so it might be worth a look.

Sign me up for RULes!!! If nobody does the paths, I don't mind doing them, but the RULes are my strongest area. However, #4 and #5 look identical to me, just flip along the vertical axis and rotate 180 degrees. This means you only really need to do one of them.

Date: 9/15/2004 5:17:18 PM Author: sargeantcm Now, to counter my own personal requests, if someone can get me the elevations, thicknesses, widths, etc (basically all critical dimensions) of an SC4 highway segment (particularly ground highways), I'm offering to model a trumpet interchange, and possibly one of the Y-splits joexcooldude requested (#17 on your list). I'll ask for this basic 'startup' data since I'm too backed up with my own stuff to spend time farting around with the minutae. Perhaps this data is (or can be) listed somewhere central for the general BATing public? -Chrisquote> Sure! I'm not really sure of the demensions. However, I can give you the next best thing: The straight orthagonal elevated highway piece is located at s3d IID 0x02001504 The straight orthagonal ground highway piece is located at s3d IID 0x0a001504 both of these s3ds are in sc_1.dat, the textures they use (FSH textures at the same IIDs) are in sc_4.dat good luck!

Date: 9/15/2004 4:54:56 PM Author: greyveil the7trumpets, I am currently working on a webpage that contains visuals of all the existing interchanges in the NAM, you think we need to put this in the first post, and if so, in which of the new threads?quote> That's great! I read about you making that web page, but I didn't know for sure if you'd have time or not. I'll probably put it in both the 'requests' and 'bugs/problems' thread, since people wanting to make requests need to ensure that it's not possible yet, and people experiencing bugs might be helped by a visual representation like your site. Since Tropod just posted that he's back (whew... thank GOODness!), I PMed him about the new threads, just to make sure he's okay with it. Once he has made his opinion known, I'll put up the threads.

Date: 9/15/2004 12:40:36 PM Author: Tropod hhhmmm.....So much for intentions. Guess I just love this place wwaaayyyy toooooo much; it really is like a magnetquote> YIPEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! Does that mean I can take a vacation from simtropolis from a day, now that Tropod's back??? Huh, Huh? It's GREAT to have you back, man.

Date: 9/15/2004 4:18:31 PM Author: BrandonTheGreat I see I am being ignored again, please can you tell me if my post earlier on this page is possible for mods?quote> Sorry about that I wouldn't exactly call 30 minutes being ignored, but you did ask a long time ago, and in this thread, if you don't get an answer in 12 hours, it's on to another page . (which is why I need to get those new threads made). Anyway, using the 'multihighways' trick, it is possible to create orthagonal 4 tile wide psuedo-highways. It should already be possible to create orthagonal side ramps to the non-express lanes (outer two tiles). Interchanges, diagonal ramps, and over/underpasses, however, would have to have every single interchange edited slightly and have rules rewritten for it. As for drawing these networks without using the multi-highways construct, demolish, etc. procedure, it's doubtful. There is a chance (a slim one) that we could use the ANT as exterior lanes, and just use the same models as the normal highway. However, the main problem is travel direction. Since it would be a oneway network, I'm not really sure off the top of my head if there would be any way to make the rules and paths work, to keep the traffic flowing in the correct direction.

Date: 9/15/2004 4:10:42 PM Author: edcase2k4-thugangel1983 whew.. all them numbers on a bright screen is not good for my eyes when im this tired! im trying to find the four (eight?!) rotations of the simple straight ground and raised highway pieces.. and also for the simple off/on ramps on to these pieces. ive been looking at the RUL file but struggled to find these particular ones. i want to get on to some modelling lol EDIT actually, ive found them i thinkquote> I'll give you a little head start here The straight elevated piece is located at IID 0x02001504 The straight ground piece is located at IID 0x0a001504 To find the interchanges, look at the top of the RUL file at IID 0x10000000. Look at the comments to the right, there are two large sections near the top named Parallel Ramp and Perpendicular Ramp. Find the interchange you want from the comments to the right of the lines with all the numbers under those headings, and then find the section which starts: [HighwayIntersectionInfo_0x0000####] Where the #### is the first number in the line commented with the type of interchange you're looking for. There are typically three interchanges for each type that are detailed in full, and the other 9 rotations are coppied, flipped, or rotated from those 3. There are three instead of two because there are two different possibilities of how the tiles can line up when two diagonal networks come together. Hope that helps!!!

Date: 9/15/2004 3:36:04 PM Author: Thalassicus Ok, I'm a little confused: what exactly do I need and in what format? Do I need to do all 5 zooms of the texture, or will that be handled through the ingame renderer, and I just need to convert the Photoshop files to BMP then FSH and stick them in a DAT? Or should I texture the images onto 4 flat blank models and send them to you? I formerly only had experience with BAT's and lots, and any seperate area of SC4 modding has a steep learning curve quote> Sorry about that, Thalassicus. I think during part of this process I was incorrectly thinking we were going to do them with normal 2d-style RULes, which really isn't possible. Silly me Since it is a '3d' network piece, all we need is one model for each tile. The in game rendering engine will size it accordingly. The FSH textures are not the end product, you'll just need them to skin the 'flat' s3d models. So what I need is an s3d, with an accompanying FSH for each tile you want in the game. After doing some more thinking, it's quite possible to use the override rules to create actual visual entrances to an entrance puzzle piece. This has several advantages. First, it will be blatantly obvious for anyone making a parking lot whether or not thier parking lot will work. Secondly, it will not require people to draw a network into the entrance lot in order for them to see automata turning into the parking lot. Third, it will just look cool . All that is necissary to make this look right is to make your 'entrance' tile (the one with the arrows) meet up seemlessly with a 02 RUL side street. This probably means adding some sort of shading where the oil stains and tire tracks fade out, so that it looks correct. As an example: RRRRRRRRRR RPPPPPPCCC RPPCCPPCCC RPPCCPPCCC REPPPPPCCC RPPPPPPCCC RCCCCCC RCCCCCC R= road P= parking lot (non entrance puzzle piece) E= parking lot entrance puzzle piece C= Commercial zone In this example, the R texture immediately to the west of the E parking lot entrance tile would change to the FSH file at IID 0x00aa0800, rotated clockwise 270 degrees (3 turns). I'll probably duplicate the tile for the different wealth classes and remove the beginnings of the tree lawns so it doesn't look weird. But all that's necissary is for the entrance side of the entrance lot (west side in the above example) to line up with the applicable street texture, and fade into the parking lot texture you're using. To recap, in case I mudled the issue even more, I need a 'flat' s3d model skinned with your custom FSH textures for each tile. I only need one per tile, the game will size and rotate/flip as necissary. oh, and great job recapping some of the requests