Show us your Bridges!

[joshua43214]

OK, Fess up on the fractional angle bridge.

I get the diagonal and curved bridges. That is easy by changing the water level in your terrain mod or using SetSeaLevel 0 (SetSeaLevel breaks everything else though). I use this often enough since it looks much better than the diagonal bridge controller and works on any network we have angled on slope pieces.

Did you a way to modify the games true North?

-Josh

[figui]

wow. i'm with no words. are there any more steps the nam team can climb?

[noahclem]

Fred, that's a lovely bridge and a still better presentation of the construction and the purpose of the route. A nice reminder of the potential of SC4 to tell stories and for stories to bring a city to life--your signature ability I suppose 

@McDuell - the suspense is killing me

[McDuell]

I don't have much time at the moment, so I'll explain the trick in a later post (if it'll still be necessary until then ...)

Just this: Technically, you don't even need any plugin in the game for this 'magic'. 


I'll leave you with two more pictures until then. (The technique is still the same as with the bridges).





I'll be back!
M.

[McDuell]

OK, time for revelations.

As I said before, you don't need any plugin in the game to achieve this kind of bridges, floating tunnels, et al. All you need is:
- SimCity4 (duh!)
- The big magic wand: SC4Terraformer (to be found here)

The Terraformer allows you to change the terrain in mayor mode cities without destroying anything that might been already built there. It does not touch any existing trees, flora, building, networks, etc...

A note of warning: As the SC4Terraformer was programmed for Windows XP, I don't know if the Terrafomer will work on your machines. I somehow remember that some people had troubles running the program on newer systems and Windows versions. A number of them managed to get it to work with the compatibility mode, others couldn't. So there is, unfortunately,  no guarantee. Fact is that the Terraformer works on my Windows7 64bit version without any problems at all; I don't even have to use the compatibility mode. So all I can say is that it might also work on your machines.

Having said that, it's finally time to build something. I'll take the floating tunnel as a (short) tutorial example.


First, lay down your network (or lot, flora, whatever ...) you want to manipulate the terrain underneath it. The important part here is only the highway, you don't actually have to place the El-Rail and Train networks yet. Save the game and exit.



Now, backup your region in case anything goes wrong.
Start  SC4Terraformer, select your region and unprotect the cities where wou want to change the terrain.


Scroll to the part to be modified ...


... and flatten the area.


Save the region. Mind the warning and be sure to choose 'no' in this case, else your city or modification is gone.


Start SC4 again and load your city. It should now show like this.


Build something. 


The DrawPaths cheats shows a fully working tunnel.



In this case, I started with a flat terrain and built the FARHW part first. Then I dug the river trench with the Terraformer. Back in SC4, I put down the rest of the networks and the other bridges over the now existing river.



Have fun exploiting. 

[mrbisonm]

Kinda a tricky but well thought. Excellent find.

Fred

[eggman121]

Well done McDuell 

I am thinking that we can avoid the use of the terraformer tool by upgrading the DBE

That way you can just plop the Project Symphony Pieces onto the RHW aka Dirtroad network. Maybe a RUL0 rebase edit to make the pieces compatible with the dirtroad.

Also I can make some T21s to give support.

I will do some investigation.

-eggman121

[Simcoug]

Wow, that would be pretty awesome to have FAR bridges with T21 supports 

[Durfsurn]

Well done McDuell 

I am thinking that we can avoid the use of the terraformer tool by upgrading the DBE

That way you can just plop the Project Symphony Pieces onto the RHW aka Dirtroad network. Maybe a RUL0 rebase edit to make the pieces compatible with the dirtroad.

Also I can make some T21s to give support.

I will do some investigation.

-eggman121

Interestingly this is how I thought it was done - via DBE and dirtRoad, rebasing the desired piece to work with dirtRoad. Could be interesting...

-Billy

[mgb204]

Fantastic stuff 

What would we do without a bunch of curious people who keep thinking of ways to get around the limitations of the code. I look forward to seeing where this goes...

[Dantes]

A great revolution! \°Ö°/ Impressive performance! The results for the city builder completely new opportunities to express themselves creatively.
These bridges are initially s very unusual in sight, this is something really new. 

[DJSun1981]

@McDuell: And? When can we see a Tutorial "How to build FAR bridges over normal water" on youtube in "show us your videos"  

[FrankU]

Well, this again shows what we are in fact doing with this game: we are not building things on ground, we are editing binary files in a way that they show us images and processes....
No real engineer would feel like making bridges or tunnels this way....

Great findings and a useful tool for editing our cities. Thanks McDuell! 

[noahclem]

I'm still processing the potential of this trick. There are many potential applications--most excitingly for me TIA bridges are finally possible, albeit without any bridge or viaduct models as part of them. Thanks!!

[FrankU]

Isn't this finding good for a Karma point?

[art128]

Isn't this finding good for a Karma point?

Already done a few days ago.

[FrankU]

All right then. One should be enough.

[noahclem]

All right then. One should be enough.

I was thinking the same thing. Checked to see if one had been awarded, saw that it had and considered giving an ultra rare, non-accidental second K-point for the same achievement   Since that's essentially never done I decided against but I have to say there's not too much more karma-worthy things than this!

[eggman121]

Remember McDuell's Photo...

Well, guess what 



-eggman121

[art128]

Stop showing off and work on your OSITM!!