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RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

Started by Tarkus, April 13, 2007, 09:10:49 PM

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Tarkus

Quote from: Wiimeiser on January 01, 2021, 02:34:35 PM
(And will there be D2 and E2 splitters and Wyes?)

Eventually--not for NAM 40.  There's a decent probability (also post-NAM 40) we'll rebase the A2 and B2 to be RHW-3 instead of RHW-6S, as so far, the RHW-3 base is proving to improve stability--though we'll have to see how it performs once we get NAM 40 to its first internal build (which should be happening quite soon).

In the meanwhile . . . FLUPenstein's monster doesn't sleep . . .



-Alex

Wiimeiser

Underground interchanges are now a reality. Boston Big Dig overhaul?

Also, what about RHW-3 F Ramps?

And these upcoming splitters will be useful in parclo interchanges (Two lanes coming off and into turn lanes with one lane going onto the highway)
Pink horse, pink horse, she rides across the nation...

Tarkus

Indeed, if you've followed the RHW and the plans to go underground over the years, we're pretty much to the point I've always envisioned with it.

Anything to do with C and F ramps is likely on hold until FARHW gets its long-awaited FLEX treatment.  Priority with the ramps once that happens is to cover everything that currently exists in puzzle piece form.  I'll also note, we're very close to being able to completely relegate the non-FA puzzle piece ramps to Legacy status.  There's just a few more obscure ones (the outside "shift" ramps) left.

That said, this isn't the last you'll see of new RHW-3 stuff this release cycle.

-Alex

Wiimeiser

#13063
I wonder if we'll get a version of that RHW-6/7/8C splitter with RHW-3 in place of the RHW-2?

Also, I infrequently use the outside shifts. I'm guessing they're not coming this version, though.

And you forgot about the Volleyball pieces, too. Will those be FLEXed?
Pink horse, pink horse, she rides across the nation...

Tarkus

If you're referring to the "D1 Dual Shift Inside", the prospect of having the inner RHW-2 instead be an RHW-3 (which would make it some sort of strange hybrid) hasn't been on the radar.  In general, expansion of "inside" ramps isn't a priority at the moment, save for possibly an elevated version of the D1 Dual Shift Inside (not in NAM 40). 

The Outside Shift FLEXing was one of many things that was started and shelved during NAM 37's development cycle.  They started running into INRUL interference with the various S-to-C FLEX Width Transitions (FLEX-WTs), and that's a large part of the reason those two features haven't gone back into the development stream yet.  Neither is going in NAM 40--FLEX-WT is pretty high up on the priority list for future releases, though I won't commit publicly to it being a NAM 41 thing.

I didn't count the Volleyball Pieces--they're not technically "ramps", albeit they are under the old puzzle piece ramps button.  They are on the list for FLEXing, mainly as doing so will allow them to be easily elevated--as is the DDI. 

And, as I promised some more RHW-3 . . . Girafe made FLUPs portals for it as well.  You'll also see there's a special version of the RHW-4 portal for when two RHW-4s are side by side.  This doesn't require any additional FLEX pieces, instead relying on RUL2 code to detect when the two portals are directly adjacent to one another.



And the underground components:



The RHW-3's underground counterpart also got the DRI treatment:



-Alex

Wiimeiser

So there's compatibility issues somewhere?

Also, what happens if you have the two RHW-4 portals the other way around, or have them both the same direction?
Pink horse, pink horse, she rides across the nation...

mgb204

Quote from: Wiimeiser on January 10, 2021, 11:16:56 PM
Also, what happens if you have the two RHW-4 portals the other way around, or have them both the same direction?

You get a RHW 8S portal... well I doubt that happens automatically, but the point being, why would we support such, when that would in essence be RHW 8S?

Likewise, I don't see a good reason for coding them such that two networks "flipped" like this would be supported either. If I understand you right, you are talking about the use of a LHD setup in a RHD game? Ultimately, you could still have each individual tunnel if you really needed such. But since every supported configuration requires a dedicated model to be made, code to make it function, and more besides, it's a lot of work. What you propose is a combination of redundancy and a setup that makes little sense, my question is why would we add such things?

Tarkus

Indeed, all that would happen is that you would get the single/separate versions of the RHW-4 portal, as seen on the left.  Such setups are too specialized for us to justify a combined portal.  The only planned combined portals for the S-type RHWs are going to be same width/opposite direction ones.  Everything else will result in the single/separate portals.

I'll also note on the matter of the Outside Shift ramps vs. the S-to-C FLEX Width Transitions, there's also some questions regarding scale.  The new spec FLEX-WTs for S-to-S and C-to-C setups lengthens those transitions from 3 tiles long (as they are in their current puzzle piece form) to 4 tiles long, to match with the FLEX Height Transitions (FLEX-HTs).  The one exception is MIS to RHW-4, which is remaining a 2-tile transition.  (And before anyone asks, yes, the prospect of combined FLEX-WT/HTs is on the table down the road.) 

The existing S-to-C transitions (i.e. RHW-6S to RHW-6C) are 6 tiles long.  The Shift ramps that would seemingly tie into them, however, vary in length, and all are shorter than the actual transitions (which involve no lane drops).  Excluding starters, the RHW-6C D1 Dual Inside Shift (the one with RHW-2 coming out the middle) is 4 tiles long, the RHW-6C D1 Dual Outside Shift (turns into two RHW-4s and two MIS Ramps out the bottom) is also 4 tiles long, but the RHW-8S D1 Dual Outside Shift (turns into RHW-6C and two MIS Ramps out the bottom) is 5 tiles long.

Here's a visual comparison on all the latter:



With the improvements in the ability to bend textures (thanks to rivit's Bender tool), we would be able to theoretically get a 4-tile-long S-to-C transition looking quite a bit smoother than the present puzzle-based RHW-6C D1 Dual Inside Shift (the ramp in the upper right).  The prototypes of the FLEX Outside Shift ramps are in fact 4 tiles long, and making the S-to-C transitions the same length (instead of the current 6-tile-long prototypes, which match the puzzle pieces) would allow us some additional modularity/flexibility.

Here's what a 4-tile-long RHW-6S-to-RHW-6C transition with the geometry improvements would look like:



-Alex

AsimPika3172

More FLUP... More FUN!!!!  :bnn: &hlp I will waiting!  :thumbsup: &apls :popcorn:
I loves Sim City forever!

roadgeek

Quote from: AsimPika3172 on January 11, 2021, 06:26:40 AM
More FLUP... More FUN!!!!  :bnn: &hlp I will waiting!  :thumbsup: &apls :popcorn:
Indeed! Klyde Warren Park is looking more and more like a reality!

Wiimeiser

If you want my opinion on the shift lengths, the inside shift is perfectly fine as is, the way it's arranged it doesn't need to be that long at all, but the others could probably be synced whichever way, be it 6, 4, or even 5.
Pink horse, pink horse, she rides across the nation...

noahclem

Exciting news! That old 6S-->C transition with all the dead tiles blocking other highway options has been a builders bane for so many years :D Personally, I'm a big fan of the geometry of the 8S/C version @6 tiles--though I'm admittedly obsessed with wide angles (one might even call me obtuse  ::) ). If the code works such that S-->S transitions and S-->C transitions are best done in a similar space then I'd say go for convenience and uniformity there, but if not I'd humbly petition for the old, longer layout :)

Gugu3

Been away a good while! Looks like a lot has happened :D :D
Very exciting times ahead!

roadgeek

#13073
I don't suppose Flew WT will be like Flex Fly, with the ability to drag orthogonal RHW underneath or an L1 or L2 over the WT, because I'm sure that would take a lot of coding.

Jack_wilds

that is some additional activities to teh rhw...  :thumbsup:

but, now, with all this under ground work there needs to be a magnifying glass of all shapes and sizes and depths

&idea

an observation tool to see to other levels and aspects of teh game...

... "$Deal"$

to pick full underground level 1 and see everything there...
or pick see all utilities or just pipes or just power or just water...
even pick subway level and all action there...
under ground rail its own level and viewing...

just a thought or to...   ;)

:satisfied:

Tarkus

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

I'll note, the prototypes I've done on those S-to-C FLEX-WTs are already 6 tiles long across the board, whereas all the FLEX Outside Shift ramp prototypes are 4 tiles long.  I'm leaning toward the 6-tile approach, particularly since it might allow me to do some . . . interesting things . . . with the RHW-2-to-4 transitions.

To answer your question, roadgeek, pretty much any of these FLEX implementations we've created are theoretically capable of that.  That's definitely true of FLEX-WT.  It would indeed require quite a bit of code--somewhere in excess of FLEXFly itself, which is actually only a paltry 104,282 lines of RUL2 for FLEXFly-V2 (removing L0 RHW-2 crossing support kept that figure manageable).  Figuring out a workable IID scheme would probably be the most difficult bit, and it's not anything I'd expect to see anytime soon, but it's not off the table. 

There's also the fact that I suspect people are going to start requesting non-RHW under/overcrossings, which adds quite a lot to the line count--hence why those haven't been added with FLEXFly.

Jack_wilds, to answer your question about the underground view, we're pretty limited in terms of what we can do with it.  By all appearances, the game has two underground views--Pipes and Subways--and that's it.  I'll never say never, based on my long time doing this (indeed, who would have expected New FLUPs?), but at this juncture, I'd say it's extremely unlikely.  I'll also note that both eggman121 and I experimented with Subway-based Underground Rail, and suffice to say, the game didn't like the Passenger and Freight Train transit types on the Subway network very much. 

We're looking at killing all the fiddly URail crossing pieces by adding Rail paths onto the FLEX Overcrossings that New FLUPs added, but the base URail is presently out of reach for that sort of reimplementation.  My attempt to do a "Dual-Network" FLEX piece setup (a la Hybrid Railway) didn't go all that well, either, as it left above ground components.

-Alex

Wiimeiser

I don't think Non-RHW FLEXFly crossings will be needed in the shorter term, except for RD-2. If you want an AVE-4 crossing you can just temporarily convert it to RHW-4. A lot of this is why I strongly believe WRHW-2 (and Rural Roads and RHW-2, for that matter, but that's too much of a tangent) should be made draggable, as a workaround for there being no L0 RHW-2 support for stability reasons.

I never would have guessed that metro and rail were that separate that subway would refuse rail traffic, despite the fact the two networks are exactly the same IRL...
Pink horse, pink horse, she rides across the nation...

roadgeek

Do we have any updates on diagonal Flex Height transitions? I tried one the other day, and the only thing that can transition heights on a diagonal, is RHW-2.

Tarkus

The Diagonal FLEXHeight transitions as they exist in NAM 39 support L0-to-L1 RHW-4 and L0-to-L1 MIS , as well as L0-to-L1 RHW-2 (without auto-RHW-2 out the end).  If you're using RHW-4 or MIS, and they're not overriding the RHW-2, then there's likely some sort of adjacency or other situation that's interfering with the override.

-Alex

roadgeek

OK, I am actually using RHW-6S, and it is not overridden, and I happened to notice that it only advertises RHW-2, so I can't say that I actually tried MIS or RHW-4.