Teirusu

Okay, so.. I decided to look into the Region Terrain Package file with SimCityPak. Here are my beginning thoughts and ideas on all the Unknown files in this package. Hopefully, this will help spark some ideas for figuring it out. The Unknown files types of 0x03e421ed and 0x03e421f0 both appear to be some kind of map files that have 20 byte headers. The 0x03e421ed files in particular caught my eye because they're all 65556 in size. 65556 - 20 = 65536 = 256 x 256. These sound like they would be the perfect files to house the starting Resource Maps. (The ones the game uses to store the water table, ore, oil, coal, etc.) 0x03e421f0 files are always 131092 in size, these I'm not as sure about but they too appear similar to the 0x03e421ed files, they also have a 20 byte header as far as I can tell. Both types have files that can contain a lot of data, or appear completely empty, besides the header, further indicating that they're maps. Further more, both types of files usually come in sets of 9 under the same Instance ID, but under different Group IDs, indicating that the files are related to each other, but the two types of files are never mixed under the same Instance ID. After doing a little more digging into the Region Package, I discovered a set of Propery files under the Instance ID of 0x2b9c4480c. There is 9 of them in total, these files, I'm pretty sure, define each region currently in the game. You might be saying, "Isn't 8 regions in the game?" Yes, you're right.. However! When I was surfing through the SimCity_app.package the other day.. I think I discovered a missing a missing region! It's a PNG file at Instance 0x2de6b6aa. Anyway, in these Prop files, the Unknown property of 0x16b7b1ef appears to be pointing to the Group ID of another Prop file and a 0x03e421f0 file. There appears to be 78 set of these Prop and 0x03e421f0 files. All these Prop files share the same Instance ID, and the x03e421f0 files -also- share the same Instance ID. (But one that is different from the Prop files) 78 is 2 more then the current number of city sites in the game, by the way~ In these Prop files, the property 0x1b53d525 appears to be the number of the city in that region. None of the values for this number go over 15. Some other thoughts after I surfed through the package again, there's 9 major sets of Group IDs that appear to have hundreds of files each under them! 0xb12de348, 0xbc357a2b, 0xbeaf0510, 0xc04182e4, 0xc2a9c48f, 0xd01fa985, 0xdb25018c, 0xe0183d94, 0xe41a82b8 What I'm beginning to believe is that each region is made up of a bunch of little map files that are then.. stitched together and that these 9 group IDs.. match to a certain region. Edit: Forgot to add the PNG of the missing region

@Tarkus Heh, thanks for the welcome. And I suppose you're right. But I was just a pioneer, an experimenter. I'm sure someone else would have eventually came around and figured these things out, perhaps. But it's people like you that put all the nails, wood, and glue together to make it function. I wish I could have stuck around more, sorry that I couldn't. But it was a fun ride of discovery, none-the-less. I remember back when I originally discovered the 'Dirt Road' network buried in the Rush Hour files. I quickly whipped up (Or maybe found some.) dirt road textures and tried it out... only to find that people couldn't actually jump onto the network from their houses. That was a disappointment at the time, heh, but it did give me the original idea for the RHW mod. I think I remember that, in the beginning, not too many people were keen on the idea. Understandably, we already had the two other Maxis highways, why need more? Well, I felt the game was missing that link between its 'Major Urban Freeways' and.. everything else. Something that represented all those US and state highways that tend to have a mix of at-grade and split grade intersections, and may or may not have multiple lanes for both directions. So, the idea was to create something inherently flexible and upgrable. The basic idea was to.. just be able to drag/paint how wide you wanted it. In my original idea and code (Rather basic code), RHW-2 was to be the 'base' of the network, then if you placed two parrallel RHW-2 next to each other, it would become RHW-4 automatically and you could drag from that as you wished. So, yes, the textures needed to be directionally-biased so you could easily tell which direction the traffic was suppose to go. (At least with RHW-4) And I figured that would make pathing easier to handle, perhaps..? I also thought about 6 and 8 lane configurations for the future, but hadn't really planned anything, but my thinking was to be able to drag/paint them like RHW-4. So, dragging another RHW-2 besides RHW-4 would automagically change it to RHW-6, then RHW-6 to 8. Having 6 as a 3-tile setup would properly simulate the added capacity while still being fairly compact. I'm thinking I would have put the median, left shoulders, and left lanes in the center tile.. then have the two right lanes and shoulders in the outside tiles. A little less silly then having to drag the shoulders, heh. The conversions been the different sizes would probably look really ugly though...

*Beep Beep* Just wanted to pop in say what a fantastic job the NAM Team has done through out the years on both RHW and the NAM in general. You guys have really done a bang up job and RHW has come out better then I could have ever hoped for considering what SC4 gives us to work with. Its basically came to be, and more, that I envisioned all those years ago. It actually brings manly nostalgic tears to my eyes. Being able to come back every now and again to see my past creations and ideas come to fruition in the numerous city journals.. and see that people still enjoy them to this day, always brings a smile to my face. Like seriously.. this big~ ^______^ ..Maybe even bigger! Thank you, -Teirusu P.S. ...NAM pony is BEST PONY!

All shall bow down before me... For I... have created rain. There seems to be three more hidden terraform tools in RH: Lake, Spring, and Rain. Spring seems to be a stream creating tool... unfortunately it looks broken. I can''t get it to do anything. BUT, Lake and Rain work!... somewhat. Basically, they fill in depressions in the terrain with bodies of water at just about any altitude. UNfortunately, the water they create isn''t saved.

Date: 10/4/2005 9:34:32 AM Author: Keiran Halcyon Regarding the new road turn lanes in the latest NAM: I'm having trouble staying in the right lane in UDI.  My vehicle keeps going into the turn lane, and then from there straight through the intersection (or worse, into a right turn).  I still get where I want to go, just not through the correct lane.  The civic automata don't seem to have this problem, and I have yet to try it out in a real city with real sims.  Can something be done to correct this behavior?quote> I've tried to fix it before but couldn't get rid of it myself. The problem lies in the fact that the game sees the paths for left-turn lane as an additional lane. (In short, it treats the tiles with the left-turn lane like highways or one-ways. Try lane-switching.) The civic automata, however, do work correctly because the game tries to keep the automata on paths that line up. (Sometimes the game screws up in this regard and you'll see pathing issues, like automata 'jumping' paths. Tropod has described this issue several times.) -Teirusu

Hey Qurlix and Nooneatall, I'm not sure how you decided to make this intersection... http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/RHW--2005.09.06_road-to-RHW1.jpg align=baseline> But, why don't you make these puzzle pieces instead of using RuleOverrides, then have the game default to a standard intersection when normally draw, like how it is now, but with updated textures to match. (If that's what you decided on then please disregard this post. ^^; ) -Teirusu

Just so everyone knows, both at-grade intersections and proper exchanges as possible. I'm not saying that's how it will be eventually, but it's possible given the tools that are available. (Timewise, who knows.) Also, the ANT will remain as a single-tile 2-lane, bi-directional highway, but with the possiblity to upgrade it to a 2-tile 4-lane highway. So the idea is, the look and the feel of should be pretty much up to you once everything is finished. -Teirusu

To further illustrate the point that the ramps are okay. Here's the exchange between IL-59 and IL-38, small short ramps. The ramps connecting to IL-59 are light controlled, but the ramps connecting to IL-38 are not. https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//teirusuimage3.jpg align=baseline> -Teirusu

That looks really great! Nice job! At some point though, this will probably conflict with street roundabouts once they get finished. Unless they're coded specifically not to. That might be a little trouble some, really depends on how these are coded. -Teirusu

Date: 9/2/2005 5:52:07 PM Author: nooneatall Firstly, rpagejr@ec.rr.com, please watch your language! And it might be wise to read a few threads about posting on Simtropolis. Secondly, I'm back! I've just been on vacation... Name-wise, I think this project is okay for now. We could argue over the name, or we could get some work done. The second seems much more worthwile. As for lighting, everything can be done with network props. We can even make The Great Chozo's highway lights appear on these highways, though it might take a bit of tinkering to get right. That reminds me, I think that I might have had a brainwave about network props... I'm just wondering if you can make them zone/wealth dependant, meaning that when the network is placed beside RCI zones, we could have a type of railing/ soundwall appear. I believe that the NetworkPieceID has one variable (in the instance, second to last I think) for zones/Wealth, if I'm not mistaken. Could adding network props for just this instance mean that they appear only for tiles of that zone/Wealth? Does this make any sense? And, as for that road-to-RHW piece, would it be possible to make it 1x5? Because it would it in that space, with proper merge/ exit lanes. There is enough spare room on the side of a tile to do that. I believe the five-tile width would be much more realistic. -noonequote> Short answer, yes. We can control which zones and wealths that network props will appear. As for the 1x5 ramp, its possible, but definitely complicates coding, and what do you do in cases where there isn't space for 5 tiles worth of ramps? Shorter ramps or the draw fails? -Teirusu

*low, deep tone* Mmmmmm.... You rang...? *cough* Anyway, how I did that was actually pretty simple. (Well for me. ^^; ) I basically detected when two roads were next to each other... *cough* and replaced the textures *cough cough* with a new one that had grass on one side. Then, I copied all the avenue network lots that had the value 04006100 for the Network PieceID property (0xC9A5A1BE). 04006100 is the straight orthogonal piece for avenues, btw. Then, I gave all the copied network lots unique IIDs and changed their Network PieceID property (0xC9A5A1BE) to that of the replacement texture. -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... Date: 8/24/2005 2:04:28 AM Author: dedgren Ardecila- You are the Interchange God! Grew up in Naperville, my dad did some of the post-tension concrete work on those really loooooong 355 bridges up by Morton Arboreatum over the E-W Tollway the last few years before he retired.  I remember when 55 was US66, and Alternate US66 used to drop down through Romeoville and Joliet.  Just looking at your great work brought all that back. Thanks. D. Edgrenquote> Alternate US66 is now mostly Route 30. Route 30 comes from Joliet, cuts through the Louis Joliet Mall, intersects I-55 just outside the mall area. Then, 30 continues on into Plainfield and merges with Route 59 for about a 1 1/2 blocks (Which makes for horrible traffic. btw. Try to avoid going North on Rt. 59 through Plainfield during... well most of the day. ) then it splits off again, going west right through the downtown of Plainfield (Well, that IS downtown Plainfield right there... If you want to see a bunch of Mom and Pop stores, that's the place to go, through I think quite a few of those places are now insurance/lawyer offices, grrrrr....) Anyway, it turns north towards aurora, and along this part of 30 you can spot several old, cheap motels that have been there forever... After that, 30 merges with 34 but no longer follows the old US66 route. The Alternate US66 continued north from this intersection/point along what is now Hill Ave and Hill Ave continues towards downtown aurora. Along the way you'll spot one of the few drive-in-theaters that still exsist around here, sadly, it recently closed. -Teirusu

nealos101, Thank you for your bug reports, that intersection bug I didn't know about, and I've been hoping to find some time to hopefully see what I can do about that slope problem, samething with the roundabouts. Oh, and thanks for telling me Tropod, I forget to visit this thread sometimes. It's sooo big. -Teirusu

qurlix: Glad you got the code working. But like I said, a lot of RuleOverRides will be needed to get this solution to work %100. Intersections will definitely compilate things a bit, because of the different possible intersection configurations between bi-directional ANT and one-way ANT/other networks. Either way, just PM me if you have any questions. nooneatall: I think that texture is perfect! Good job! -Teirusu

Ahhh, goodie! This is something I always wanted to do with the ANT network, but never found the time to start it, sadly. I'm very glad someone finally has found the time to make this happen! And Qurlix, I believe there is a way to make to make the game tell apart the two lanes. If you look in the NAM: Developement Thread a few pages back (Sorry, I forget just how far back.) you'll see a few posts I created that demonstrated an experiment I did with the ANT network just for this reason. (It's Page 8 actually, and somehow, some of the pictures got overridden, whoops. ^^; ) The general idea was to use RuleOverRides to either: A.) Detect when two drags of ANT network were next to eachother, side-by-side, then replace the textures as needed. (The replacement textures would then have paths going in the right direction.) The result was a 2-tile wide ground highway-like network. Paths would line correctly and everything. No need for special puzzle pieces to control the direction of traffic. (Which is what I think your doing here...? ) B.) And detect when you were dragging from one side of a ground highway/avenue, and again replace the textures as needed so that the paths lined up correctly. The nice way about doing it this way is that the ANT remains a 1-tile wide bi-direction network by default, however, by dragging two ANT's next to each other, or dragging from one-side of ground highway-avenue, it would turn into a 2-tile wide freeway or high-speed one-way road. The problem with doing it this way is that quite a LOT of RuleOverRides would be required to get this to work properly. Anywho, since some of the screenshots got overridden (My fault since I used such simple names. ^^; ) here's some of them again just to show this graphically. And here's the code I used in the RuleOverRides File: ;Multi-Lane transformation 0x5e004b00,0,0,0x5e004b00,0,0=0x5fe04b00,0,0,0x5fe04b00,2,0 ; ;Enforcing Multi-Lane ; 0x5fe04b00,0,0,0x5e004b00,0,0=0x5fe04b00,0,0,0x5fe04b00,2,0 0x5e004b00,0,0,0x5fe04b00,2,0=0x5fe04b00,0,0,0x5fe04b00,2,0 ; ;Enforcing Multi-Lane incase of split ; 0x5e004b00,3,0,0x5fe04b00,3,0=0x5fe04b00,3,0,0x5fe04b00,3,0 0x5e004b00,3,0,0x5fe04b00,1,0=0x5fe04b00,1,0,0x5fe04b00,1,0 0x5fe04b00,3,0,0x5e004b00,3,0=0x5fe04b00,3,0,0x5fe04b00,3,0 0x5fe04b00,1,0,0x5e004b00,3,0=0x5fe04b00,1,0,0x5fe04b00,1,0 0x5e004b00 is the ANT network straight orthogonal piece. 0x5fe04b00 was my test piece with the highway texture. In order to get dragging from one side of a ground highway/avenue to work, one would have to created special intersection pieces in the IntersectionSolutions File. However, that bit of code up there will get option A to work. Feel free to use it, experiment with it, etc. If you have any questions just ask. P.S. Sorry for the long post. -Teirusu

I myself don't see much of a need for additional stages. As Tropod stated, the stages are controlled by population size, so there really isn't a way to attach additional prerequisites to a stage like rewards. Therefore, the Developer will start growing lots assigned to a stage when a set population number is reached. As DuskTrooper mentioned, we could use them as 'Super 8's' per say... maybe even arcologies? Heh heh... But nothing much more. What I think might be more useful, however, is if we could add our own Developers; like R$$$$, residential services (People converting their homes into offices like if they were a lawyer, dentist, accountant-person-thingy, eh stuff like that. , Industrial Warehouses, or CO$$$$. -Teirusu

Yeah, that was I. The dashed line modd for roads is https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/download.asp?fileID=4445&topicID=63700&forumID=124&catID=13 If you want it to work with ANT you should be able to change all the IIDs to 0x5Exxxxxx -Teirusu

Oh! Also try renaming the 'NetworkAddonMod_Avenue_Turning_Lane_Plugin_Beta.dat' to something like 'ZZZ_NetworkAddonMod_Avenue_Turning_Lane_Plugin_Beta.dat' too. -Teirusu

Guys, Make SURE you have not only deleted all of the old NAM files but ALSO the old roundabout and diagonal street files from your plugin folders as well. -Teirusu

I had a chance to mess with this tonight. I basically tried to create a road-top bus station using the two methods described. Neither seemed to work. (As I thought, it would be too easy that way. ) The LotResourceKey doesn't appear to work with these highway 0x0B Exemplars. Nor would they function as a bus station, but it did spawn buses like Tropod described that it should. And, like Tropod said, the bus station UI window would appear, but it would have no capacity data or anything. Basically a non-functional UI. Oh well, so much for that idea. But, it's great that Park Effect works for these guys. I'll have to use this for some of the pieces on the roundabouts. -Teiusu

While messing with the the Lighting exemplar in hopes of figuring out why there's a bright spot in the middle of water , I stumbled upon this. Not sure if anyone else has found this but I thought it was worth mentioning. Apparently, property 0x29189BEB (Texture Floor) is adding brightness to all terrain textures, effectively white fadeing them. This is what it looks like with the property set at it's default: 0.1 When it's set to 0.0 Plains w/snowcap before... After... Pretty big difference, no? Here's a Dat for you guys to chew on. -Teirusu

Public service announcement! Road Roundabouts Beta 03 and Diagonal Streets Alpha 02 are now part of the new July 25th NAM, please remove ALL of the custom files you might have from these two projects (The packages I posted here on this thread) and instead use NAM and the optional plugins it comes with! Also, big thanks to Frimi for providing new textures to blend the diagonals to straights. These new textures are in NAM. That is all. P.S. Always wanted to do that. -Teirusu

Thanks DarkMatter and NewYorkRunaway. DM, long time no talk to! I like how DatGen is coming long, btw. Very nice. I'll have to keep messing with this exemplar, there's several interesting shadow effects here. -Teirusu

.........Soooooooooon! ^_____^ And Frimi sent me and Tropod a batch of corrected textures the other day to better blend straights with diagonals. They look very nice. Hopefully, Tropod can include them into the next NAM. If not we'll release a seperate file. -Teirusu