I've always thought the Maxis T21's were a little lacking, particularly at intersections. They get the job done, but that's about all. So, I've decided to try my hand at picking up a little bit of T21 modding in between work on my other projects. This will be an American HD T21 project that will eventually cover Maxis intersections as well as NAM intersections. I haven't gotten that many done, but here is a proof of concept pic:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg20.imageshack.us%2Fimg20%2F7091%2Fmtat21000.jpg&hash=29294b677a6d3e9f560d8065fc74473347dec7a3)
The four variants at this Street T-intersection are: yield, stop, all-way stop, and traffic signal. Unfortunately, there is no way to pick which one appears, because of the nature of T21's to be selected at random. Not shown is the Maxis default Street T-intersection T21's, which I have not been able to override. Also, the traffic signal is currently red only, and is only eye-candy because street intersections are not signalized in game.
Looking good so far! :thumbsup:
Hello metarvo. Great work :thumbsup:. I'm also working on a t21 sign mod and have many of the signs created. If you check the "show us your road signs" thread you can see some of my work. Maybe we can work together so our mods don't conflict. What do you think?
PM me if your interested
Fresh Prince of SC4D: Thanks for the compliment! ;)
Eggman121: Thank you for the kind words. ;) I've checked out your mod, and it looks good. :thumbsup: It looks like your mod is mostly covering RHW and roads for now, so maybe I could concentrate on streets (including SAM) and AVE-4, or possibly some NWM networks. Another area I may emphasize is diagonals, which are notoriously hard to T21 (but the effort can pay off). It appears as though you're doing some of those as well.
Here's a little more progress:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg195.imageshack.us%2Fimg195%2F7427%2Fmtat21001.jpg&hash=11b8efb1fffc349cd2c24139a1c1643b634e4a54)
These are the ortho 4-way street intersection T21s. Note that the yield and 2-way stop T21s are repeated for north-south and east-west intersections.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg822.imageshack.us%2Fimg822%2F6238%2Fmtat21002.jpg&hash=5195c751b72e370c2a21e929935000761b26b0f0)
Here are some of those diagonals I've been talking about. This was hard ??? ; I had to learn about RTK1xm, and I had to arrange the props counter-intuitively to get them to work right on the mirrored intersections. Note that there are no yield-only DxO T-intersections because of unusual geometrics. This is also what led to "No Turn On Red" signs being included on the diagonal signalized approaches.
Speaking of signals, I've been meaning to learn how to animate them so that these intersections will have signal phases rather than lights that are continuously red. While I suppose "real" signals in SC4 terms would be desirable, I've been leaning towards eye-candy signals instead, since SC4's traffic signal system is broken anyway.
Great work. As I would say, T21 modding is probably tougher than RULing. So keep it up!
Cheers
Willy
Nice Work there.This mod is going to look very good when comes out.
Great work Metarvo &apls
I'm just wondering what you did to make the stop and yield signs appear facing ether North South or East West? That could be very useful to me as I embark on making signs for the FAR x O and FAR x FAR intersections that are draggable.
Quote from: Swordmaster on June 13, 2013, 07:46:41 AM
Great work. As I would say, T21 modding is probably tougher than RULing. So keep it up!
Cheers
Willy
It is a bit tough coding T21 onto networks and sometimes finding the necessary IID files can be a nightmare. For the draggable FAR networks I am having to read the RUL code to find the necessary files which is a bit of an adventure.
Anyway keep up the good work :thumbsup:
-eggman121
Quote from: eggman121 on June 13, 2013, 07:25:57 PMIt is a bit tough coding T21 onto networks and sometimes finding the necessary IID files can be a nightmare. For the draggable FAR networks I am having to read the RUL code to find the necessary files which is a bit of an adventure.
Anyway keep up the good work :thumbsup:
-eggman121
While I applaud you digging into the RUL files, I also want to let you know I'd be happy to provide the necessary support in those areas should you need it. I have all the road and street network IIDs handy.
Cheers
Willy
Quote from: Swordmaster on June 13, 2013, 09:09:14 PM
While I applaud you digging into the RUL files, I also want to let you know I'd be happy to provide the necessary support in those areas should you need it. I have all the road and street network IIDs handy.
Cheers
Willy
Thanks Swordmaster. That support would be most helpful indeed. ;D
Willy (Swordmaster): Thank you for the kind words. ;) Of course, you're an expert at RULing. RULs still look like Klingon to me. $%Grinno$% Which reminds me, I've been meaning to talk to you about those OxC (ortho x curve) intersections. I guess I'll have to do those, too.
Lewis (Lewis2567): Thanks. ;)
Eggman121: Thank you for the compliment! ;) Unfortunately, the only way I know of to get the signs to randomly face N/S or E/W is to make separate T21s for the two directions. This runs the risk of the T21's facing the wrong directions at an intersection, but a little patience with the mouse pays off.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg405.imageshack.us%2Fimg405%2F599%2Fnll8.jpg&hash=1bdb698733f062162674bcf190edd5ba64167ef1)
Here are some OxD intersections.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg153.imageshack.us%2Fimg153%2F3604%2F42rp.jpg&hash=56d5f90b4b8fc50b743b88f02988e1fb98402da6)
Here are the DxDs. There is a lot going on here; some intersections are composed of two tiles and therefore two separate T21's are in play. It may take patience (which I don't always have ::) ) to get matching T21's on the two tiles. Otherwise, there's a chance of yield signs, stop signs, all-way stop signs, and traffic lights being mixed on one intersection — which is a no-no. Also, some T21's make use of offset props. These are needed because signs or lights may need to be placed on what would otherwise be a straight diagonal street segment.
Eggman121 is also making an excellent T21 mod (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=15930.msg461719#msg461719) that will cover NAM networks (including SAM) and NAM additions to Maxis networks. So, I may decide to concentrate on Maxis Street intersections (with each other and with other networks) for now. The diagonal streets in particular needed this treatment since the intersections had nothing. In fact, Maxis didn't even make a diagonal stop sign prop, but I'm fixing that. I will also point out that I may not cover railroad crossings at this point, because Jondor has done an impeccably good job on those.
Great work here Metarvo!
Quote from: metarvo on June 15, 2013, 09:29:12 AM
Unfortunately, the only way I know of to get the signs to randomly face N/S or E/W is to make separate T21s for the two directions.
Most likely you'll have to fool around
kPropertyID_RotationsAllowed. Memo elaborated on N/S & E/W directions here (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=70.msg110013#msg110013). This thread (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=12539.msg365426#msg365426) might be of interest too when it comes to diagonals.
Quote from: vortext on June 15, 2013, 10:22:46 AM
Quote from: metarvo on June 15, 2013, 09:29:12 AM
Unfortunately, the only way I know of to get the signs to randomly face N/S or E/W is to make separate T21s for the two directions.
Most likely you'll have to fool around kPropertyID_RotationsAllowed. Memo elaborated on N/S & E/W directions here (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=70.msg110013#msg110013). This thread (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=12539.msg365426#msg365426) might be of interest too when it comes to diagonals.
The OxO street intersection always has the same rotation in the game, so in this case, RotationsAllowed won't have any effect. Making two seperate T21s with different Lot-Layouts is the only way I know of to get the random layouts in the game.
Quote from: metarvo on June 15, 2013, 09:29:12 AM
Here are the DxDs. There is a lot going on here; some intersections are composed of two tiles and therefore two separate T21's are in play. It may take patience (which I don't always have ::) ) to get matching T21's on the two tiles. Otherwise, there's a chance of yield signs, stop signs, all-way stop signs, and traffic lights being mixed on one intersection — which is a no-no.
I have just racked my brain on how to solve this issue, but came to the conclusion that there is no ideal solution. My idea was to use offset props to store the entire layout on a single tile, but unfortunately there is no way of knowing whether it is a diagonal T or + intersection.
So much cool stuff going on right now... It's hard to keep track! Great work so far!
Looks great so far!
I assume you would want an IID list for those curve intersections?
[tabular type=0]
[row][data]short curve[/data][data]long curve 1[/data][data]long curve 2[/data][data]s curve[/data][/row]
[row][data]0x5f593f00[/data][data]0x5f592e00[/data][data]0x5f592f00[/data][data]0x5f594300[/data][/row]
[row][data](https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.majhost.com%2Fgallery%2Fswm666%2FNAM%2Fstreetcurveintersect%2F0x5f593f00.png&hash=f9e286b4cd968238c155a9dfaaa09921d4072b78)[/data][data](https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.majhost.com%2Fgallery%2Fswm666%2FNAM%2Fstreetcurveintersect%2F0x5f592e00.png&hash=4600a746f6e35216e42350149c0ed3873426344a)[/data][data](https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.majhost.com%2Fgallery%2Fswm666%2FNAM%2Fstreetcurveintersect%2F0x5f592f00.png&hash=3a70ca6c015442904cb2cc2e24961fb246312ff1)[/data][data](https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.majhost.com%2Fgallery%2Fswm666%2FNAM%2Fstreetcurveintersect%2F0x5f594300.png&hash=bca44c14f1bd5c71ae64b8e9490ca483cf5f59eb)[/data][/row][/tabular]
On a related note, I've been meaning to extend Superhands' retexture mod to include the diagonals and curves. One thing that's been holding it up is that I would ideally transform the diagonal T intersection to use two different tiles.
A little preview:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.majhost.com%2Fgallery%2Fswm666%2FNAM%2Fstreet_retexture.jpg&hash=3876a5f2e89618f6071674ebe688fbf0ebe79450)
Would this clash with your approach? It only involves one or two new tiles IIRC.
Cheers
Willy
Thanks for the IID list. Now I won't have to hunt for those. ( ;D )
It doesn't look like this will affect T21 placement too much as far as the intersections go. However, I suppose I could always come up with additional T21s if new intersection tiles were included.
By the way, good work! :thumbsup: My eyes jumped out a little when I saw those diagonal cul-de-sacs. I haven't thought about what I would include on cul-de-sacs (as they're not intersections), but I guess some type of dead end signage might work.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg838.imageshack.us%2Fimg838%2F4634%2Fef4s.jpg&hash=3a98c6f8e158eb8bfab3f6487cee93cafee0dde8)
I've finally figured out BAB and I'm trying to get signal phases going. These are still eye-candy to some degree because their phasing has nothing to do with SC4's stop points. I suppose it wouldn't be that much more effort to just make real ones, but those tend to fail on diagonals and the Sims don't always obey them anyway. Now, it's more like they'll never obey them.
Wonderful work!!!! :D