Realistic night lighting

[kodlovag]

Hi modders,

At first I would like to show you what I already have. Then I need help to solve a problem.

So a month ago, when I flied to Berlin, I saw both Budapest and Berlin at night from the plane. I immediately started compare the picture to my sc4 cities. (I probably a bit addicted to this game  ). And I found the pictures are not similar at all. In a normal city the streetlights are very visible at night. In sc4 streetlights are mostly invisible, and buildings dominate the picture.
This is a reference image from the reality (Toronto, if I remember well, I found it on the net)


This is one of my current cities, with very average night view. (Gizmo's Day and Night mod v2, that's why so dark)


They are not similar. But... I think it's possible to make a mod which can light up the city. This is what I currently have. (Based on SimFox Day and Night Mod and modded LRM v3.)




As you can see, it's possible to make more light. AVE-4 and NWM lights are under testing, I'm trying to build a set similar to LRM prebuild sets.
My problem is: there are no lights at road crossings, every crossing remains black. I want to add lights to the crossings. I have two ideas how to do that.
1: Adding a light pole prop to the crossing tile, in an absolutely similar way how stoplights are added. I absolutely have no idea what and where to override. In game files, in NAM files... 
2: Adding a light cone model to the stoplight props. The problem is, that stoplights use ResKeyType1 (single model), and adding a light cone model would require to change to ResKeyType4 (multi model multi state). This would be the easy way, so I prefer this one. But... Up to my current knowledge changing ResKeyType of an existing prop can cause prop pox.

I don't have enough knowledge about this type of modding, so please HELP! 

[io_bg]

I've always wanted more realistically lit roads, too, and it seems this is about to change! Good luck with your project!

[xannepan]

Fantastic project.. in fact I started a thread in the NAM forum myself not too long ago trying to achieve exactly the same ..

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=11937.0

Unfortunately much like you my modding knowledge is too limited and I abandoned the project So I'm afraid i cannot be of much help to you. But so far your mod looks fantastic.


Maybe you can have a look at the thread I started... there may be some suggestions there that are useful to you.

Anyway; good luck! I hope you finish your mod.

[Badsim]

Hi kodlovag ,

I discovered your threads two days ago only . ( In fact I was following Xannepan's one ... )

Congratulations and thank you very much for your work , this is the promise of a major improvement , indeed .

I'm extremely interested in following very closely its development . 

Cédric.

[threestooges]

I can't give you any detailed steps, but I think I can give you some places to at least start looking. First, to add a light pole to a network tile, a t21 is, as far as I can tell, is the way to do it. There are a few tutorials discussing the t21 creation process: one by Swamper77 (reposted by jeronij), and another by Xyloxadoria. I have yet to use either of them, but some tinkering with them could prove useful.

Second, with regard to overwriting, and modding files, there are a few things to remember.

-When files are loaded from plugins they load in alphabetical order starting with folder names and then alphabetically within each folder. What this means, if a particular aspect of a mod is altered by two separate files, the last modification to that aspect is the one which will be used. As a result, make sure your file is the one being used during your testing.

-Bearing the previous point in mind, there is only 1 version of the NAM controller files that can be used in a plugins file. Therefore, if you do need to make any changes to any of those files, do not attempt to release them without contacting someone from the NAM team. If everything checks out there, it can likely be integrated into the next NAM release.

Third, with regard to creating the t21s, it sounds like you are looking to add something rather than strictly overwriting it. Therefore, what you will likely need is the model IDs of the props you wish to add.

Hopefully that wasn't a whole list of things you already knew, but that should at least provide a few points to start looking. Best of luck with it, it looks like a promising addition.
-Matt

[kodlovag]

threestooges:
Thanks for the help, however most of the info wasn't new. I don't know much about the NAM controller, I never met with it. This mod is a set of T21s and props, and few light cone models. So I won't make any change to the controller.

Now I'm working hard on lighting the Maxis Highway. There are really lot of HW pieces in the NAM files, most of them are diagonal, that means I must do different T21s for mirrored and non-mirrored versions. Lot of work. I expected less pieces. I'm currently modifying the Diagonal OnSlope pieces. Only the smooth EHW->GHW transition, the wide radius GHW curve and EHW over avenue roundabouts are left. Then I will have a full support on Maxis HW. (eh, I forgot about EHW over GHSR and TRAM puzzle pieces, they will come later)

Since starting of the project I already modified, wrote, overwrote and tested several hundred T21s. I'm trying to be compatible with any known mod already released and using T21s. I'm not really sure it's possible, but I will try.
Is there a list of T21 using mods anywhere? (just those work with road based networks)