maxismike

it was probably a test effect that was left in, based off the cloud fx code. which is why it only shows up at 2 zooms. would be fun to go back and hack the effect to remove the LOD lines, then make a prop out of it. personally I wanted to ship with a set of weather props that did nothing but spawn clouds, fog, rain, etc.

http://textures.forrest.cz/ - good resource i used to use back in the day. We have a massive library of textures at EA that we tend to draw from. The big part about getting chrome right is to use an environment type map instead of explicit UV. There is a tab in the map panel of the material, under coordinates. Set the mapping type to Environ and try a cylidrical or spherical map.

Most modern power systems are done underground, unless the area is rural and $$$ is an issue. A blank lot still costs you money to plop, part of this is because you have to run sewage and power through the tile. The rest of the money goes for buying new red tape for the Bureau of Bureaucracy. The red-white towers I made for SC4 weren't supposed to be power poles, but the high tension towers like the ones that run across California. They are red-white because I found a fair amount of reference that supported it, and because it makes them easier to see. I'd like to revisit the more residential power poles in a future expansion. Personally my favorite idea for a feature is a tool that lets you plop props _anywhere_, so you could manually plop down wooden power poles if your heart desires, even if it would have no real effect on gameplay. The real things come in many different shapes and sizes, and with the BAT you _should_ be able to create and replace mine with whatever you want.

They have registration nodes in the S3D file. I suppose you could edit those and superimpose them if you just want 2 wires, but that may not draw correctly.

the lines are drawn programatically, you can't easily (or possibly at all) remove or edit them..

RushHour team photo taken today, not telling you which one I am

Very swanky looking tool, better than the ones we have here. Looking forward to using it.