qurlix

If you are new here, disregard the following section and go to the bottom. In fact, I don't even know anyone who really needs this chunk, but might as well keep it anyways... Begin old, outdated, material: Now that the historic post has been preserved... This thread is for planning, development, and general discussion of the RHW mod. If you are new to the mod, it is a modification of the DirtRoad network that was left incomplete by Maxis. This mod changes it into a functional 2-lane-per-direction 2-tile-wide highway that are found in many places all around the world. Feel free to ask any questions, requests, etc at the end of the thread. Links: For links to download the Real Highway Mod, see the Network Addon Mod documentation. So enjoy!

So you are proposing this as an alternative to Simlish? I must admit I enjoy a bit of conlanging from time to time. [quote name='Flyby ' timestamp='1310915192' post='1174045'] The languagehas 3 vowels, a (IPA ɨ as in roses), o (IPA ɒ as in box), and e (IPA ɔ as in pawed).

Hi everybody! I'm starting an impossible project to build a town I am very familiar with - Tempe, AZ. Yes, I want to start by admitting it is essentially impossible to meet my own requirements, but that's partially why I chose it. First, I definitely wanted something with rigid guidelines--I think accurately recreating reality is probably one of the most rigid guidelines available in a simulation. I also wanted something that would expose me to a wide variety of custom content creation, and I think I will easily get the chance to BAT, lot, and mod all kinds of plugins with the region chosen. Most importantly though, I wanted to work on something that I could obviously not finish. Otherwise I might get too obsessed with getting it completed, or too overwhelmed and unwilling to admit defeat. This way I can just let it go, and move on to other things as necessary, or just as easily drift back into the project and add a little bit after a period of dormancy. That being said, this isn't a throwaway project either. If you'd ask me five years ago if I'd miss this place when I was gone, I'd give a quick "no," but here, on the eve of my departure, I find myself seeing good qualities in so many places and feeling oddly nostalgic. Before anyone gets all weepy-eyed though, let's look at a quick rundown. The first region I'd like to work (and the one for which I'd like the highest accuracy) is the main campus of Arizona State University and downtown Tempe. I worked a long time on scaling the tiles against the map until I got something that I liked, matched roads decently, and felt reasonably accurate. And what do you know, it turned out to be quite close... the width of this part of town is around .85 miles and it was 88 tiles, which is roughly .88 miles. Perfect! (click for larger) Google Maps view (click for larger) Dark gray represents avenues, light gray represents streets and roads, dark green represents GLR/GLR-in-road, and peach areas are pedmalls. The numbered blue rectangles are the lot shadows of buildings I'm considering, and the magenta outlines are network pieces I'd like to do. I've chosen potential BATs based on uniqueness of architecture, difficulty of creation, and utility in other situations. I think most of the buildings could be rebranded as RCI lots in other people's cities, assuming my work ends up good enough for public consumption. Next time I'll look into some of the buildings I've selected, show current screens of the city, and demonstrate my first work-in-progress. Thanks for reading!

So I was browsing the vanilla DAT files and I found something of interest in a certain keyconfig file... a clue to understanding a mysterious cheat. Perhaps this has been found before (certainly others have browsed the keyconfigs), but I could find no reference. WatchMeMove - Activates the ability to pause all gameplay animations (props, effects, lights, automata, etc). After entering the code press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P to pause and unpause. While paused, pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F11 will step the animations forward a small amount (a few frames?). Frankly I found this pretty exciting, but I don't know if anybody will be interested in actually using it. The one thing I thought of was CJ makers trying to get perfect screenshots with automata. Now you can just step a few frames at a time until you have the shot you want.

RHW Problems and Testing Thread Now that the RHW has been released, please use this thread for all errors and problems you encounter, questions you have, and comments related to the testing of the mod. Current release: Alpha version 0.12 Visit the RHW Project Homepage for information. And remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. Bugs already known 1) Double icon in menu. (currently unfixable) 2) Preview model does not display for Road x RHW Puzzle Piece. 3) GLR Puzzle Piece does not rotate in sensical order. 4) El-Train, Monorail, and Ground Highway Overpass paths are incorrect. Things that are not bugs 1) Various instances of tiles of original ANT appearing at or near intersections. (These are unsupported intersections.) 2) Loss of network stability/Appearance of ANT after placing accessory pieces next to each other (ie rail crossing, street intersection, and puzzle pieces all count as accessories)

Originally posted by: tungston They are the only thing I know of that can be plopped on a coastal tile, which would make the paved beach.quote> Well, all of the regular puzzle pieces can be plopped on coastal. (Unless something has changed drastically since I last used the NAM, I believe all pieces but connectors, starters, and intersections) But most of them aren't exactly useful beach scenery! Originally posted by: Framling The only problem with pedways is that they come in such limited selection of textures - e.g. you have to go for the lamp-posted one to get white pavement. It would be great if they could be had in a greater selection of textures, and also with less prominent props (there are propped malls available, but the props stick in the middle and are usually rather prominent, i.e. no single bench with a trash bin in the corner tile). quote> This is just another instance of the NAM team trying to give everyone what they want, which they do surprisingly well for such an opinionated community. Unfortunately with the menu structure as it is, there is just a certain limit to how many variations they can/will include of a specialized piece, like the pedmalls, without extreme clutter. Making a texture/prop mod of the set you would prefer would be relatively easy. (ie changing existing tiles) An independent modder could do it, but they would have to make it load-order-dependent. If the NAM team did it officially (I believe their current policy is completely against load-order-dependence) they would have to split it into more options during install or optional plugins, which is a somewhat silly choice given the number of people who would utilize it compared to the number of people who would get confused by the extra options. Would you guys actually want a texture replacement mod for the current pedmalls though? Because I just so happen to be a bored modder with little to do. -qurlix

A few questions - Did you replace\test it on all zooms? Many of the transit network files have separate entries for different zooms. If you only replaced one model, you may want to go back and check it out in game from a distance. How did you go about choosing which piece to replace? What was its instance ID? If you just did it by appearance, you may not actually have the piece you think you do, and may be replacing some tile you haven't been testing. The holds particularly true for many of the rail network tiles, which don't always fit as you expect after the first look. Even with the basic straight pieces, the models are sometimes used in other special situations. Are you sure you don't have something else overriding your replacement? Especially considering you are modifying the HSR files, which have taken on a variety of implementations over time... We all know how easy it is to leave a stray file or two in our plugins folders after an uninstall. If you have any reason to believe it is a conflict, perhaps you should try moving all of your plugins out of your folder and modifying the default networks. (ie create your own DATs...don't go replacing things in the Simcity_#.DAT's of course) If it isn't one of those easier-to-solve problems, it may have something to do with implementation, but that's less likely given the network tiles are just remained unchanged. If you'd like a list of IIDs for basic tiles in a network I can fetch one for ya, if you tell me which network you'd like. (Presumably you are first tinkering and not going to immediately start learning RULs... ) Hope your problems are easy to solve! -qurlix

Hi, and welcome to Simtropolis! To answer your first question...yes, when people are making custom content they can cause conflicts with other people's work especially given how much stuff is out there. However this problem isn't nearly as widespread as you would expect because most uploaders take great care in ensuring their work doesn't conflict with anyone else's. And most people will make changes if they are notified about conflicts. In addition, conflicts will generally not cause things to disappear completely, so it is hard to say why things aren't showing up. (I assume you are aware many buildings are uploaded as "growable" meaning they appear in zones like natural Maxis buildings) I would double-check that there are no comments about problems with it, double-check you have followed installation exactly, and if nothing works move on. If it is something you just *need* to have, try running the game with solely that in your plugins, and if it works slowly add plugins back until you can find the point where something starts conflicting. Yes, it is considered okay to put the plugins in their own subfolders, however the more individual files and folders you have within your plugins folder, the slower (and sometimes less reliable) the game will run. If you are not experiencing much sluggishness or crashes though, then this shouldn't be a problem. If you are looking for a folder organization method, there exist several third party programs to help you track downloads, move nonessential files out of the folder, and even merge your plugins into one large DAT file (which may or may not speed up loading/gameplay). These may even solve your missing items...you never know. I would not know which programs to recommend however, as I've only recently returned to the SC4 community. [i am aware of the BSC Cleanitol program as well as DocRorlach's tools. Anyone have reviews on the matter?] On the subject of separate plugin folders, SC4 reads plugins from both of those folders, however I would recommend using only one of them until you know you won't confuse yourself if you want to remove things. I think the standard nowadays is to use just the MyDocuments one...though I am not particularly sure why. Lastly, I would start practicing making decisions not to download some things. There are over 13,000 files on the STEX and numerous more on other websites that aren't available here (I would recommend looking at sc4devotion.com especially... also threads here about Japanese creations are quite impressive) so downloading them *all* is essentially out of the question. And while the average quality is quite impressive, I am sure you will find things you will decide after using don't meet your standards or your tastes. That all having been said I hope you have a wonderful time here (it is an addicting place...I always seem to come back), and I apologize if anything is horribly horribly wrong. qurlix

Hey all! Recently I've been working on an Omnibus article, but I realized I didn't have all the info I need, so you know what I did? I came here! That's right, I need your help in figuring out some things. In case you are wondering, the article is on cheats, something that no one has the complete info on. No one even has near complete info on it. I searched the internet high and low, and what did I find? Almost nothing! (though I did find a handful of sites that quoted my exact words on cheats from two years ago ) So now I'm setting out to right the wrongs of the reference world, but as I said before, I need your assistance... But why delay? Let's begin! For all responses please state what version of the game you have (ie SC4, Rush Hour, or Deluxe and which Patch[es] you have) Test 1: Set your system date to December 25th. Enter a blank city and make some huge mountains. Go into mayor mode. Is there snow? Run the simulation for 1 year. Is there snow at any point? Test 2: How many and which of the following button combinations will open the cheat window in your game? Ctrl+X, Alt+X, Ctrl+Alt+X, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+X I think 2 is enough for now. Thanks in advance! -qurlix

Felt like blowing the dust off the profile for my near Hexannuarian party. (Technically the original forum software was already running in December anyway, so the celebration isn't all that preemptive) What all you cool cats doing around here anyway?

I really like that I get to follow up one of the newest members...and here I am stopping by nearing 5 and a half years! (well counting from the original site Oct '02 anyway...only a little over 5 years since official ST version 1!) I wish I could've hung around more in the last 2 years, but alas sometimes the real world requires attending... Glad to see everything going smoothly even after all the rough patches. Anyway, just wanted to check in on the place the taught me so much. Happy building!

Well, when I stand back an look at it, it just feels like this is a continuation of the great SC4 division movement...I know ST no longer is fast enough to support active discussions, like those oft found in modding, but I also think that preferred location relies more on what's popular now rather than what will be the best in the long run. I suppose it is no one's fault in particular, though. Possibly giving the NAM team more structure from the beginning would've made these decisions more clear, but that may have killed the original development. But SC4D will eventually succumb to the same faults that ST did (and it appears to be doing so at a faster rate than ST)...and then, should the inter-site community still be alive...there will probably be an exodus to somewhere else. And in response to the "annoying requests"...I feel those were OUR people (this is me speaking as a former NAM team member). Sure the number of newbies was increasing everyday, but everyone has the capability to learn - those people could all some day become extremely valuable community members. Heck, I would have never became a modder if someone hadn't showed me some kindness immediately after I had asked some dumb*** question. I saw the fact that more people were asking questions and making requests as something endearing; more people were there to appreciate the project; more people trusted us enough to ask us for help, to ask to be a part of something. If I found something wrong with a game I normally wouldn't ask the makers for help, because I'd expect some sort of processed response that wouldn't be personal. These people would come to us as friends, sometimes make jokes (despite often not being funny), and tell us they'd really like to be able to use what we had made because they enjoyed it. After all if you're going to make something in the world, you will only encounter two types of people, those who cannot truly appreciate its greatness, and those who think they can do much better. Personally I prefer being surrounded by the former, but the choice is yours. I am also very worried about the meaning of sanctuary. It has synonyms along secluded and separated, words not conducive to communication. I am thankful for the creation of the Nextwork...it may be one of the only hopes to maintaining a real SC4 community. Meanwhile, the expression "getting work done in relative peace" sounds to me like "getting work done without outside input". Do you really think SC4D is immune to hordes of people asking stupid questions anyway? What, are they punished more quickly? Religious or not, unwillingness to forgive is the worst sin of all. And as much as you personally believe this is not influenced by any politics, it is. It is influenced by the politics of what people think is right for the community. The system of "competitive creativity", for example. Modding and BATting has gradually taken a turn; people are much more interested in their personal projects and getting a name in the community than in helping others for the benefit of the whole. That was the way it was in the very beginning too. But then official teams were created (the Modd Squadd and the Batt Squadd - later becoming the BSC) and for a while these teams helped individuals get better and spread knowledge. But eventually a few on these teams (and it was only a few, in no way any sort of majority) worried about too many people becoming skilled and "diluting" the power they had. So gradually their views permeated and it became accepted that one's personal projects should almost always outweigh helping someone else. And so here we are, a community that seems to be slowly destroying itself. Another hidden political influence: the choice to separate when things go wrong. It seems once anyone sees a problem they feel necessary to start from scratch. Things can be improved, saved, salvaged. When disputes arise it seems like there is never an effort to work it out with the people in charge...the people who feel wronged always have to leave. This has happened in at least 5 major instances over the last 3 years. (I am not talking about any particular incident) Maybe there are tasks we could actually help around here with... How long has the omnibus existed? How many articles have been written for it? Sure there are quite a few on some topics, but that thing has been there so long it should be a complete compendium of SC4 knowledge! There are volumes of information that have just been lost with those who knew them. Ok, I have used up my current time...I would like to emphasize that although I got pretty riled up here and I am leaking some of my personal bias into my argument, I did not intend to direct this message to any person or group. I don't want to characterize any choices anyone has made as evil, or even "incorrect" for that matter. Sure, a perfect community is probably impossible, but that doesn't mean we stop trying. All that I set out to say was one thing, and this is to every single person in this community - I know time is precious when you are increasing your post count or shaving a polygon count or whatever, but just STOP...THINK for a second: be human! Think of others, help someone out, say something meaningful, don't do things just to be rewarded. If I can even convince one of you to do this, all my time here has been worth it. Though in truth, I have to say all this time here has already been worth it. I've spent 3 years and 8 months (10 if you count pre-ST-independence) in this community, and I have never made the top posters board, never won a trixie, never been member of the month, never been a mod or a CO...in general my existence here was pretty unremarkable. I have but 3 notable creations, but none of them were the result of anything original. (I was guided through the creation of the Cul-de-Sac mod by Tropod, the flowing stream mod was nearly all thanks to research by gizmo and karybdis, and the original RUL inspiration for the RHW came from Teirisu) So in essence, I was barely here. And yet I have never been more profoundly affected by the internet. The people here had always been supportive; if you were confronted by one of the loud, negative members who came and went, there would always be a PM from someone who supported you and told you to not be discouraged. ST changed me personally, how I interact with others, my sense of humor, a little bit of everything. And I can never thank the people here for that enough. So if I have upset anyone, I'm sorry. I just wanted to protect something I cared about. qurlix.

This is just a shame. First the NAM, now the RHW... This movement is out of hand and I'm willing to speak out against it. I might just have to try to fix my old computer and get SC4 and my modding files running again. (Or even start from scratch if necessary!) Hmmmm...

Hometown - Adell Population - 640 nuff said

LivingInThePast: The game processes two dimensional FSH files and three dimensional S3D files a lot differently, causing the exact same texture to come out looking a lot brighter in game when part of a model compared to a flat network. (In the picture, the both the regular RHW and puzzle pieces reference the exact same FSH file) I haven't had a chance to darken the RHW textures for puzzle piece use yet...that will probably be the very last thing I do before release. Dexter: I really like your work! And coming along very quickly...I'd better speed up. Personally, I prefer the darker asphalt...it just looks more modern to me. And being from the US, I guess I just expect European designs to look a lot newer, or at least a lot different. Though I'm probably not going to be using the textures myself, so my opinion should only be taken half-heartedly. -qurlix

I do have rail, avenue, and oneway (not shown) puzzle pieces added. They are functional... Just a few texture issues I'd like to smooth out with those. (I accidentally used the oneway texture for the avenue - why the lines look wrong. Plus I need to darken the RHW texture) I'd explain more, but I'm in a hurry. -qurlix

bwatterud: Are you asking why it is there for one or why it isn't there for the other? I put it there for the first one because it allows drivers to take the corner a little bit faster and get a little bit of space for acceleration and decceleration within the 1 tile texture boundary...plus, I figure sims are like lemmings and need to be guided as much as possible. I couldn't do the other ones similarly because the paths cross in the opposite direction: (top is right-hand drive, bottom is left-hand drive) If most of you prefer them both to just end rather than split, I can change that easily. But don't ask whether I can do both and make it an in-game choice, because I can't. JCarter: I'm not planning on stoplights because from my experience, these kinds of intersections only rarely have stoplights in reality. (the highway's flow is high priority) The avenue intersection (slated for v20) will have stoplights. As for stop lines, they won't be available in the initial release because we want the textures to be more international (and sensical to left-hand-drive users) I will probably release a more North American set of textures shortly afterwards. Tarkus: Awesome to you as well! Looks like some great progress! I can't imagine how difficult these widened network rules are going to be, though... -qurlix

Alright...finished up with road intersections... For those of you who pay attention to detail, I am aware one of the textures is a pixel offset. I have working paths for the tiles, but I stole them from the street intersections, so they need just a little reworking: That's about it for the individual elements in v17. After this, I just have to add inverted copies of every RUL I've written so far, and then a few causality pairs (pardon the quantum mechanics ) and voilá, we're at a release. -qurlix It: (EDIT) There already is an avenue transition as of v12. It will not be changed for the next release. The highway transition will be available in v17, but it will not look correct. (This is the only piece that can be drawn whose textures do not match. I felt it was a necessity to include, but do not have the time to figure out why I can't get it to look right.)

To clarify to everyone: the old version of the RHW may function correctly with the new NAM, but having it installed prevents many elements from the new NAM from appearing in the menu and/or working correctly. (like diagonal street puzzle pieces, underground commute rail pieces, ground highway to puzzle piece ramp, etc)

WAAAHHHOOOOO!!!!! I'm a tetrannuarian. Or a quadrannuarian. Depending on which prefix you prefer. I'm obviously impartial to "quad" m'self cause it has the "kw" of "qurlix." Though I do like tetrahedra, tetris, and tetrafluoromethane, which all have "tetra" in them. Though "quad" has quadriceps, quaternary, and quadrangle goin' for it. It's a tough decision... I've been here for four years! I better write an inauguration speech for my next term.

Here are the diagonal double blends. On the left are the crescent pieces and on the right are the S-bend pieces. And on the far right is a glitch...that RUL must have an error. I'm obviously going to try and make the edges a little smoother, but w/e: for now I'm just going to party because I got these darn things done! And when I say "party" I mean sleep, wake up, go to class, then work on the diagonal end A, orthRHW x diagRail, and diagRHW x orthStreet pieces. That's a party. -qurlix

pilotdaryl: Well, I can extend the texture, but then you lose the ability to have grass between when the carriageways are immediately side-by-side...not to mention diagonals would have to extend way to the edge and become all squarey. But I'll definitely look into once v17 is out Another alternative would be to replace all the sidewalk textures with grass. It would make for an interesting CJ story anyway... all: As a gift to all you lefties I've made the textures a little more internationalized by removing direction-specific stop lines (see the street and rail intersections). I'll probably release the original textures in an optional texture mod as well. Also in the picture you can see an "unable to build" message which, although seems unimpressive, actually demonstrates that I've made it almost impossible to screw up your network by drawing the wrong intersections. (I've disallowed 90% of the ints that don't have RHW textures) Also I got the double-blends working, but they don't have alphas yet so they're not much to look at. And I actually figured out the path bug with the flat one-way ramps so now they can carry traffic: Bridges are definitely suspended until release after next. Just having crazy glitches with those. I also have an open texture contest for everyone! I need a texture for a road going completely across an RHW carriageway. Basically everything I came up with was horrible. You get one tile and one tile only (128px by 128px). The winner will win a fabulous...incredible...prize...of some sort. Or at least their name in the credits. (I'll try to think of something better) That's all for now. Check ya later. -qurlix

Tarkus: Sorry...I'm talking about flat one-way ramps: -qurlix