blahdy

Current bridge (river delta crossing) I'm working on. A work in progress. Other side: Ground level view: Zoomed out:

Just finished working on my new international airport in Cities Skylines: Planes taxi'ing: Coming in for landing: Road connections; airport is fed by its own highway; airport railroad will be built later: Interchange where airport highway interconnects with rest of the highways: Night operation:

Thanks In anticipations for the HD rendering, quality and details of the models are being dialed up to enhance realism. One of the first things you will notice with the new big dig models is a new, realistic concrete texture. It features photographic realism by using a highly detailed real-life picture of a concrete boat section on big dig tunnel system, and also features specular map so that it responds more realistically to light exposure during day time renders. Here are some close up photos of the above ramp models so you can see the new concrete texture up close.

Well... after about 2 years of absence (I moved to sc4d while ago then got busy with other things for a long time), the Big Dig is making a come back apperance to the Simtropolis community. To give you an update, the Big Dig modeling project has been integrated into a new transit modding team that is on the rise, known as the Freeway Experts (FX). It's been difficult months for me and for FX members during the integration period, causing many of modeling projects being conducted for the Big Dig to be canceled -- for a good reason though. One of the core founding philosophies for the FX team is that we are very strict about realism when it comes to modeling and making American freeway systems for SC4. We have a team of members participating in a committee known as 'FXDOT' that reviews various state and federal MUTCD engineering documentation and set standards for dimensions and textures for things like sign bridges, sign supports, jersey barriers, etc that will go in as T21's and various props for upcoming releases. During this transition period, many existing Big Dig modeling projects were found to be inconsistent with realistic standards set by the FX team, so I've been recreating everything from start with FXDOT engineering standards to enhance realism. Below are pictures of ramps that have been recently completed. They were pretty much finished in the past several days and are ready to make their way into SC4 in High-Def, once BAT4Max is upgraded for HD compatbility and various rendering export tests are completed on our rendering server. This is picture of new off-ramp that will replace the ones you have in your cities today if you are using the orignal Big Dig 1.0 released back in 2006. It is 2 tiles by 8 tiles and allows you to hook up two one-way roads in a Y-split configuration to connect to your CBD street network. The ramp is based off of a real ramp, known as "Ramp C" in South Boston for an I-90 exit. And this is picture of a new on-ramp that will replace your existing Big Dig 1.0 ramp. Its dimensions are 1 tile by 10 tiles and hooks up into normal one way road. This ramp is fictional but its form factor has been inspired from downtown I-93 ramps in Boston (it's a mix of ramps A-CN and CN-SA). And you guys probably remember this off-ramp made back in 2007 and was also successfully imported into the game. This is Ramp CS-SA, a real-life off-ramp in I-93 southbound lanes. It has been attempted various times to try to get it as realistic as possible, but during FX integration/transition times, it was one of the first projects to be cancelled/striked from the list, then get rebuilt from scratch with stringent FXDOT realism standards. How it used to look like back in 2007, you guys all remember this pic: How it looks today in 2009 after being rebuilt from scratch under FXDOT realism and scaling standards: So... there you have it... there are other tunnel portals being worked on for highway connections, pictures will come later on.

amazing this thread is still going on after all these years Some great shots here guys, keep it up.

I agree with Andreas Roth here entirely -- and that's exactly the logistical reason we've found for the move. The Big Dig project has also moved to SC4D.

If the US raises the tax maybe just a teenie bit, like around 5 to 7 percent, it does help, because the US has a huge cashflow and cmon, look at the economy, it's still recovering. quote> Practically all of revenues from US federal income tax is used to pay off the debt on government issued bonds and treasury securities, which are sold at the Federal Reserve market place anytime the govt prints more money as they can't seem to control their spending. So... if you have excess cash on your hands, you should go ahead and open up a money market funds account that specializes in govt issued bonds/securities while the return is good Raising tax would help in terms of cashflow for paying off the debt, but with the tendency to spend in Washington, it is realistically not going to do anything to solve the issue. We have potential! We just need to save more. Even if we go into a recession, there's still advantages to it. Think about it.quote> Yep, indeed.. [

I've been following this project since 2003. First of all, much of the cost is private sector investment (this may most likely turn into world's largest BOT franchise or similar (Build->Operate->Transfer)), with little burden on taxpayers to pay for it, so that's a good start there. Anyhow, other than the fact that a foreign company is being awarded contract instead of an American company, I fully support this project. It also includes a bullet train proposal, which is quite frankly, badly needed in the U.S. in my opinion as transportation and mass-transit advocate (it is true however in US, air traffic is far more advanced and utilized than that of rail transit). I hope they break the ground soon and build it.

Big Dig STEX Maintenance Notice: Hello everyone: Please note that all Big Dig files uploaded to STEX currently will be temporarily removed on either end of this month or by July 1st for a maintenance work. What's being done: To make things easier for people, instead of making people download different dependencies, I'll be creating a new installer that installs both original Big Dig (1.0) release and all the subsequent component releases thereafter. The new mega installer will replace the existing STEX files to make things easier for everyone. So if you wanted to grab the files before the maintenance, do it quick, do it now!

shasta: No. But there will be converter/adapter lots that convert traffic between RHW_Tunnel and Subway_tunnel while sitting completely underground, so both networks are backwards compatible.

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Originally posted by: LivingInThePast What's that weird lane that seems to go nowhere?quote> That's the subway connector tunnel. The RHW-MIS entrance tunnel portal does not convert RHW traffic into subway, unlike existing big dig ramps. Instead, it will be the first tunnel piece to convert traffic into the new, experimental "NAM/RHW Underground" tunnel system. The problem with NAM/RHW underground tunnel is that it will create compatibility problems for people already using Big Dig based on subway. So, to solve that problem, we decided to make this ramp to convert not just RHW->RHW_Underground, but also Subway->RHW_Underground, for backward compatibility. Instead of just switching on "subway->RHWunderground" through lot transit enablement, we also wanted people to see it with their own eyes. So, we have an extra lane that surfaces from underground (presumably from subway big dig network), then go back into tunnel again into RHW underground network.

Okay, months-long work of engineering is now unveilled... The RHW/MIS tunnel entrance portal is rendered to game env. Pics below at URL. Again, same with ramp CS-SA, there will not be any vehicle automata (but it will completely function w/o any problems), due to LOD limitation issues. Pics: http://216.93.240.36/~blahdy/stex/big-dig-tunnel-portal/rhwmis/sc4tx1.jpg http://216.93.240.36/~blahdy/stex/big-dig-tunnel-portal/rhwmis/sc4tx2.jpg http://216.93.240.36/~blahdy/stex/big-dig-tunnel-portal/rhwmis/sc4tx3.jpg http://216.93.240.36/~blahdy/stex/big-dig-tunnel-portal/rhwmis/sc4tx4.jpg http://216.93.240.36/~blahdy/stex/big-dig-tunnel-portal/rhwmis/sc4tx5.jpg http://216.93.240.36/~blahdy/stex/big-dig-tunnel-portal/rhwmis/sc4tx6.jpg Tarkus: Let me know how you want to get this file for modding... I'll hand this over to Andreas Roth for now in the meantime, but drop me a message in MSN when you get a chance. thanks!

TheOneThird: I am kind of planning on making a separate realistic elrail->underground transition that is not tied to any road system (stand alone rail transition). The one I've been working on is based on Boston's Big Dig project. As for standalone elrail->underground transition, I'm currently hunting for pictures of nicely done, modern subway tunnel boats around the world during free time.