choco's attempts at BATing bridges

[choco]

hey folks...


finally have a lil something to report.  learned how to create props 


thanks cogeo! 


maybe needs some lights...

[art128]

very nice bridge 

[Toichus Maximus]

looking great!

[Simpson]

Wow great bridge 

[choco]

thanks y'all.....they're coming along OK.  still lots of work to be done though....


finally got all the ID conflicts/exemplar properties squared away, so each bridge finally shows up in the selection menu.  also fixed some T21 problems which were causing random props to appear on the pillars. 

otherwise, just waiting for the testers to do their thing.  should give me time to learn the RULs.....
enjoy, and thanks for lookin! 

[threestooges]

Good work on those. I'll certainly give these a shot next time I go through a testing period. Good luck running through the RULs.

[papab2000]

Nice work 

[FrankU]

Oh, very nice bridges! I am fond of cable bridges too.

[art128]

that's awesome my friend 

[LP_Green]

those are some nices bridges. i like them and you're getting better and better. I'll be coming back to see your progress.

[choco]

well, this wont be much of an update....but this blasted game does some weird things no doubt.  first up, catenaries!



not quite sure where these came from, but why are they not used in the game? 

next one is more curious.....



this is a problem.  it only happens on one pylon, only on the end pylon, and only on one side of said pylon.  either way, i dont want to end up using props for all the cables.....they dont look quite as nice as the exemplar controlled cables. 



still RULing the night away, and getting nowhere fast.     maybe time to swallow my pride and ask for directions.... 

[Swamper77]

well, this wont be much of an update....but this blasted game does some weird things no doubt.  first up, catenaries!



not quite sure where these came from, but why are they not used in the game? 

They appear once in awhile on the elevated rail network. Maxis has one prop that displays it and about 3-4 copies of the prop which display an invisible model. Tweaking the prop exemplars is probably the easiest way to make the show all the time.

-Swamper

[Andreas]

This is pretty neat. Do you know if there are also diagonal props available?

[choco]

@swamper77: funny that they would put them in, yet not use 'em....    maybe i can learn to make a mod to display them.....haven't really looked into anything other than bridges thus far.  thanks for the info though!

@andreas: i took a quick look and didn't see any diagonal catenaries, but there was another with some "stop lights" on the cross bar.


so i threw together another bridge is afternoon....basically just a quick mock-up to see how it would look.  not too pleased really (dont mind the textures)....



the major issue as i see it is the dimensions of the hsr tack model.  since its a full 16meters wide, the surrounding pillar must be outside the ideal limit in order to make any kind of cable/suspension bridge.  the edge of this model is already 11 meters, and if i go any farther out it may start to get visually glitchy.  it just kind of makes it difficult to scale correctly.

so this'll be on the back burner till i figure out something that fits better.     
 

[cogeo]

You are getting better and better Ryan!

I've got an idea. How about making this bridge?
More detailed photos can be found at Google Earth.

[choco]

its almost eerie that you posted that request....


just put an initial set of textures on this morning....



one element that i changed was only that i made it a fan style rather than a harp. 

[cogeo]

What a surprise?!

Hmmm, and the proportions are a bit skewed I'm afraid. The pillars have to be wider at the base. The upper (vertical) part should also be a little shorter (proportionally) I think.

What's that thing at the top?

And the cables would rather need to be modelled.

There are needed custom streetlights too (I would offer to make them and add a lightcone too if you are bored).

Needs more work I think.

[choco]

said i was keepin busy....


i agree about the proportions.....but there is a big limitation with this model.  the "pillars" you mention, the 4 rising into the central upper support, are as large as they can be when using a single piece (hence ID) for the pylon.  f i split the pylon in half, i could accommodate larger pillars. 

the maxis elr track prop is 10 tiles wide, and each pillar is 2 tiles square.  10+2+2 is 14 tiles, leaving 2 (one on each side of the track prop) so the LODs dont obscure prop.  i can easily go to 24 tiles wide in x (in BAT), but i can only go 16 tiles in y.  since its a square model (to keep that proportion), i used the smallest of the 2.  i plan on tweeking it to find the limit of the LOD, as this was only the second export of this bridge. 

im not sure the name of the thing at the top; on the fan bridges, there's typically a steel collar that the cables loop over (or thru) to keep them in place.  i dont like that either.....but again, just a first export.  making it a harp bridge is easy though.....something i notcied about the real bridge: is the deck suspended abouve the pylon surface?  the attached pic shows something i haven't seen on any other harp bridges....typically the cables start a few meters from the deck supports, so why would this bridge have cables in this configuartion? 


im finding out that cables as props look substantially worse than the maxis cables.  particularly in zooms 1-3.....maybe im making the LODs incorrectly?    


streetlights on a light rail bridge?  i would like to enable lights on it (the blue and yellow) like paulv did for his bridges, but i haven't even looked into it yet.  however, if you have the time to make some cones (as i have no clue how), i would gladly add them in.  i hadn't decided if i was going for realism or not, as i can't get textures to look like the real thing.

more experience needed....

as always, i appreciate the feedback.    

[cogeo]

I don't understand what you mean about limitations. Where do these limitations come from? Can't any model be as large as needed? I especially don't understand those 10 (?) +2+2 tiles. Or those 24 tiles (?, you mean meters?) along the x axis, and the 16 tiles along the y axis. The LODs should be "hollow" in the interior, for the automata to be displayed correctly, being roughly of the same shape as the pillars (maybe a little simplified).

The bridge doesn't really "sit" on the pylons, it's completely cable-stayed, so as to allow lateral movements, as the area is too earthquake-prone.

I haven't seen that "collar" in any photo.

And most importantly, the bridge is NOT a rail bridge. Look at wikipedia, it says it has two lanes per direction; in reality it connects to the highway system of the area, so I think the most suitable SC4 network type should be highway (unless you are talking about another bridge).

As for the cables, these should be white; autovino has found a solution that allows real antialiasing (though we could experiment with custom solutions too). It requires 3DSMax, but this should be no problem.

As for the streetlights, I didn't say I will make a new lightcone, but I will use one of the existing ones (add it to the new/custom lightpoles), lol!

[jacqulina]

very nice work