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Cosmetic dashed roads & more...

Started by videosean, August 08, 2008, 10:09:13 AM

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videosean




I started playing around with this old mod made by Tierusu to make the dashes closer to what I think looks proper.  In the process I found out that you can vary the textures not only by wealth but also low density vs high/med vs agriculture!  That's how Tierusu had some roads with the double yellow and some with dashed lines.  Dashed lines only appear in low density, unzoned and agriculture areas... and only on straight sections of roads.  I like the way that works so I don't think I'd want to change that at all.

All was fine and dandy until I started noticing all the pieces in the game that have double yellow lines at their edge and they end up mating with a dashed line road and while it's not terrible, it bugs me... the road ends for instance:

I know I can fix those... and I did in the 3rd verson of my efforts... but I took it another step and made the ortho roads end square just like the diagonals do.  The street cul-de-sacs are from another mod I haven't touched and the OWR arrows are mine and seperate from the dashed lines mod:

I also went another step and made small variations in the roads... unzoned and agri roads are a little darker than roads in developed areas.  The agri roads have a slight yellow/orange cast to them (though I really can't tell in my game) with the idea that they're a little dirtier than other areas because of the farm vehicles dropping dirt on them. More pics:

I don't know if I'll continue to make changes or not.  I really would like to redo every road texture in the game but it's such a huge task!  I'd like to change the dark patches just a little... like so but not as dark:

It's obvious from that picture it would be near impossible to make that kind of a change without hitting every road texture in the game + NAM textures and I just don't want to take that on all at once.  Ideally I'd never have the time to do it anyway because I'd be busy with work and other things :)
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=4847.msg171086#msg171086 - there's a link to download it there if you want to use it.

Does anyone know the IID of the texture the game uses for along the road in agriculture areas?

The one pixel offset (caused things to not line up when rotated - my road is 79 px across, the maxis road is 79px across but the outer 1px of each edge is partly transparent) is coming from the road/street being an odd number of pixels wide.  I think I should try and correct that.

packerfan386

I really like this idea, it would add another level of realism to sim city. (Although the transitions look a little rough, but I can't mod worth crap so who knows ;).) Please keep up the great work! :thumbsup: &apls

JoeST

Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

videosean


That shows my line of thinking.  Above are the original game textures, mine are directly below.  For unzoned areas I'd like to have a sort of unfinished curb edge - just asphalt and no curb basically.  High wealth I'm thinking a red brick curb, low wealth a dingy concrete curb, and medium wealth I'm undecided.  For the medium and high density curbs I'm thinking keep the same colors, but remove the lines that make them look like brick curbs.  The high wealth high/med density wouldn't be red brick colored although that would best match the game's high wealth sidewalk color I think.  This should all prove to be challenging (maybe too much) when I get to doing curved corner pieces LOL

The high/med densities would still have a solid double yellow.

JoeST

this is looking great

so you are going ahead with the pixel misalignment rectification? (ie getting rid of the odd pixels)

Joe
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

videosean

Quote from: JoeST on August 09, 2008, 07:36:49 AM
so you are going ahead with the pixel misalignment rectification? (ie getting rid of the odd pixels)
I think so.  I'm not changing the width of the roads I'm just making sure I have semi transparent pixels at the edges like the originals do.  I'm nearly positive that will fix it.

bat

Nice work there on these textures, videosean! :thumbsup:

videosean

#7
I don't think agricultural areas will be any different than unzoned areas save for some dirt  ;D  There will be a bit of a rough transition between unzoned/agricultural and other developed area roads since the unzoned/ag are a tad darker though.  I think I'm settled on these colors for the curbs and white lines for unzoned/ag.



Top row are the originalgame textures
7 Agriculture6 $ High/Med Density5 $$ High/Med Density4 $$$ High/Med Density
0 Unzoned1 $ Low Density2 $$ Low Density3 $$$ Low Density

Currently the v3x of this project has diagonal roads with sidewalks that don't match up - I need to shift all of them over 1 pixel and it should be fine.  I'm still getting a 1 pixel offset in one rotation of road end pieces (how can the dashed line not be offset too?!!) and it looks like I messed up the edge pixels being transparent too - probably an alpha mask issue :(  Another thing is in the first picture I have no idea what texture is being used for the road just past the intersection - it's not one I made it's a default.

videosean

#8
I've changed my dashed lines so that they aren't split at the tile's edge - this will avoid having double yellow butt right up against half a dashed yellow line.  I also figured out the mysterious textures near intersections... it's part of NAM and I had to put my DAT into My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\Network Addon Mod\z\ subfolder in order to get it to load after the NAM textures.

However... they are rotated 180 degrees (or flipped) from what the maxis textures are which is why I'm getting that particular 1 pixel offset.  My curbs aren't the same on each side and that's what gives that away.  I guess I'll have to rotate and try again.  I'm having no luck in fixing the ortho end pieces having a 1 pixel offset in one rotation... they're going to stay that way I guess.  My diagonals are looking MUCH better though :)

*edit* rotating the NAM texture replacements 180 degrees failed to change the 1 pixel offset.  I'm hoping it's because I did the rotate operation improperly in photoshop and am trying again.
*edit*
NAILED IT!

This image here demonstrates what is going on:


The tile there is an even number of pixels (4x4 squares) wide.  The grey object (road) is 3 pixels wide... an odd number.  You can't center it properly because for all intents and purposes you can't have a fractional a pixel and when you flip (mirror horizontally) or rotate the texture 180 degrees (top pic) and place it next to a texture in it's 0 or home position (bottom pic) you get a misalignment.  If you try to center it with 1.5 pixels on either side of the red center line you will end up with fuzzy or blurred looking pixels at the edges because whatever you're using tries to approximate what half white and half grey would be in this example and the object will appear to be 4 pixels wide instead of 3.  Anyway...
http://www.plunder.com/Cosmetic-Dashed-Roads-download-156708.htm - download with v4c that fixes 1px offest in some instances.

nerdly_dood

#9
What I'd like to see is a mod like this for roads so that they still have a double yellow line, but brighter, the same brightness/color as the line is on the DTP RHW mod available from the STEX (I've heard it's locked - verification plz? if need be i can send someone a FSH texture from the mod so they can see what the yellow color is) so anyway i like the curb ideas, and an idea for a $$ curb is a really long concrete strip with the tiniest bit of crack in the curb at even intervals, then a stretch of grass in low-density areas, then the sidewalk (like the streets) and maybe the grass can be implemented on the $ and $$$ textures, too... Anyway... I also like the no curb but white edge line for unzoned areas... but I prefer RHW-2 for roads with dashed lines.

Good work so far, though.
My days here are numbered. It's been great and I've had a lot of fun, but I've moved on to bigger and better things.
—   EGO  VOBIS  VADELICO   —
Glory be unto the modder and unto the fun and unto the city game!

Diggis

Quote from: videosean on August 13, 2008, 09:48:08 PM
The tile there is an even number of pixels (4x4 squares) wide.  The grey object (road) is 3 pixels wide... an odd number.  You can't center it properly because for all intents and purposes you can't have a fractional a pixel and when you flip (mirror horizontally) or rotate the texture 180 degrees (top pic) and place it next to a texture in it's 0 or home position (bottom pic) you get a misalignment.  If you try to center it with 1.5 pixels on either side of the red center line you will end up with fuzzy or blurred looking pixels at the edges because whatever you're using tries to approximate what half white and half grey would be in this example and the object will appear to be 4 pixels wide instead of 3.  Anyway...
http://www.plunder.com/Cosmetic-Dashed-Roads-download-156708.htm - download with v4c that fixes 1px offest in some instances.

Why are you writing that as though it's a new discovery?  We all knew that was the problem, which is why we told you the only way to elimnate it was to retexture the whole lot.  The reason your centre line lines up is because it's centred on the tile 1 pixel either side of centre.

videosean

#11
Sorry if what I said sounded like I was acting as if nobody knew.  One of the reasons I didn't want to change the width is because there are so many other things that doing that might affect.  I really hoped I could work with the original widths so as not to throw off any other mods that have been made over the years.

What you're saying sounds like a good idea nerdly_dood.  I'll make something along those lines as soon as I can :)  I might make the curbs 1pixel wider than they are since I could barely see them in the game but I'm not sure yet.  This whole odd pixel thing is just workin on my nerves but I think I'm going to have to make even pixel width roads if I want to stop running into things that frustrate me.

j-dub

#12
Awesome work replacing the curb with a white line in rural areas! It looks a lot better now. Would it be possible to round the corners more on the NAM road turning lanee intersections?

Edgware

#13
currently the dashed to double yellow transitions don't seem right.  i looked it up and found some in rl.   and here's how i saw that they did it.
i don't know how this would be done but i have how its done in rl in the attachment

EDIT:  well after thinking about how texturing is done, i'm not sure if this is possible.  then again you guys know way more than me
Cities:

Tenian
Montgomery
Marketville
Bel Air Columbia

videosean

Quote from: Edgware on August 16, 2008, 04:04:25 PMEDIT:  well after thinking about how texturing is done, i'm not sure if this is possible.
With what I think I know it's not possible... but you never know.  There are plenty here that know more than I do too.
How do these curbs on low density look nerdly?  In the 1st image I copied some of the new roads over to the right side over the default road textures to get a feel for what it will look like when the new ones meet up with old textures in the game because it will happen at curves & intersections unless I find time to do everything.  These are 80 pixels from curb edge to curb edge, 2 pixel wide curbs, the dashed is still low density and double yellow is med/high density and the sidewalks will go where the grass tiles disappear.  The 2nd image has (top to bottom) new $$ LowD, previous 79px $$ LowD, Maxis road, new $$ Med/HighD.

I tried making some pink textures with IDs running from 0x00004B80 to 0x00004BF0 and didn't see them appear on the roads in my game.  I was kind of hoping there could be some more variations to explore but it doesn't look like it.

j-dub

Well, theres a chance. Your first release of this texture, right before the road-T intersections, there was a double yellow line, two tiles before the T on the part that doesn't have the left turn lane. That was realsitic how the dashed lines had the double yellow line come after them in that situation. The most recent release though, allows the dashed lines to go all the way to the T now, but could you be able to use the solid/dashed texture transition on those tiles instead?

videosean

#16
Nice catch j-dub :)  I think you're absolutely right and now I'm glad those duplicate textures are in the RTL!  I still don't know what texture the game uses for the sides of agri zone roads :(  Actually I haven't been able to track down the exact sidewalk textures either but if I could find the 'dirt' texture I had thought about making it a part of the diagonal agri road texture so that the green edge follows the diagonal edge of the road instead of the way it is by default.

http://www.plunder.com/CDR-VS-download-157236.htm  v40d is still at 79px and will match NAM and Maxis textures for the most part.

nerdly_dood

Good job on the curbs, they match what I had in mind rather well.
My days here are numbered. It's been great and I've had a lot of fun, but I've moved on to bigger and better things.
—   EGO  VOBIS  VADELICO   —
Glory be unto the modder and unto the fun and unto the city game!

videosean

#18

Slow progress on an even number pixel width road system... not giving up yet!  The diagonal sidewalk/grass size will be changed - as it is now it wouldn't match up properly in the game and I didn't realize that until I started working on ortho to diag curve pieces.  The one with white lines and grass doesn't have any proper curbs in the image yet - white lines + sidewalks isn't on the agenda.

j-dub

Thank you for starting to fix that, the Maxis curves curbs had no reason to be so sharp to beging with.