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The Noro Cooperative

Started by noahclem, January 30, 2013, 03:41:12 PM

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What type of airport should NORO's new one be?

Passenger only
Passenger & military
passenger & general aviation (private & charter aircraft)
Passenger, military & general aviation

Gugu3

Nice looking airport!like all the details! &apls &apls

noahclem

#641
I took a break from other projects to develop one of my favorite areas in NORO a few km south of the center. There's a nice mix of plains and hills (small ones by NORO's standards but still never less than a couple hundred meters above sea level) as well as coast, lakes, rivers, and streams. I did extensive terraforming in provocatively-named Fu, trying to best reconcile the real altitude of the flood plains and the watercourses draining them, as well as add the stream that drains one of the lakes westward. The areas with and without beach textures vary by a fraction of a meter and can change appearance with simple terrain mod settings. I'm really looking forward to further development as the hand terraforming allowed me to intentionally get a lot of my favorite features of the terrain mod to show up and there's a lot of potential for scenic areas.



As part of the same project I finished construction of highway 385 including subtle alterations to it's eastern terminus which remains among my favorite interchanges in the region. More succinct than some of my monsters it still manages to combine a nice mix of local and highway-to-highway connectivity in a unique layout. I was particularly tickled when I finally got the idea to force that OWR2 FA piece up against the TIA on the right side. I'm considering a slightly more compact alignment for the top (northwest) ramp and plan to add a number of cosmetic additions to the area, including ponds, trees, lights, signage, and perhaps sound barriers, especially on the viaducts just off screen to the left here.

The coast at right is intended to be a nice beach area eventually but I'm not sure how best to do that or what should become of the lagoons when we get to that point....


I've been continuing to do a lot of work retexturing. It's easy to make little mistakes in alignment since it's not always clear whether part of a texture is a Road, OWR, half of an Avenue, or even a street and therefore where re-alignment is needed. Making diagonals line up seamlessly further muddies the picture but using the "sizeof (I used the number 9)" cheat helps get a grip on how many pixels a curb needs to slide down.

Funny how good those street lights and the sidewalk look so zoomed in :D  My Road texture there has since had it's stripes widened and brightened to better match Maxis Roads.


I haven't been working on the airport since I turned it over to Arthur for his developments but I did make a quick temporary scene featuring one of my favorite areas of his, the over-sized cargo area:

It's hard to even imagine the scale of a plane like those!


Here's the latest build of my texture project if anyone cares to play around with it ;)

Gugu3

Noah I like that interchange too :thumbsup: Looking forward to seeing some new development

gn_leugim

Quote from: noahclem on April 14, 2015, 03:05:25 AM

It's hard to even imagine the scale of a plane like those!




I guess this can give you an idea  :D  :D  :D

And good work so far, keep it going :)

reddonquixote

Hey Noah, I was just doing some research for street props and came across these safety barrier things they have around tram stops.. what do you think, should we make some of these? Would you find it useful/ useable for your tram lines?

Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.

noahclem

That looks really useful--really, really useful if I understand you right. Is that a stop where people wait on the sidewalk to the left and then cross the barrier to enter the tram? If so than it could be the basis for all stops where the road doesn't widen to accommodate a median: any stops for tram-in-road and tram-on-road at the least. Do they ever use those for stops on roads with two lanes of traffic in each direction? If so then it could be used for stops on the regular tram-in-avenue textures without needing to wait for new NAM puzzle pieces or complex transit stop modding. Certainly seems promising  :thumbsup:


Speaking of the tram project I've continued on texturing, focusing lately on difficult transitions as well as diagonals. The current build of the project, counting the avenues, is up to 347 textures--1,735 counting all zooms but more like 200 if you don't count each avenue texture once for every wealth level. In any case, progress is being made  :thumbsup:




How do you guys feel about the grass?



I had a tough time deciding how to do the markings with these. Which areas should be yellow or white (in non-Euro configuration) and where there should be curbs. After looking into several examples from Paris Arthur provided as well as investigating Minneapolis and Melbourne in streetview I decided to do them like this:








Slightly outdated textures combined in game



I couldn't find the RRW crossings for some reason so I made these ones on my own:



Current state of the 1-tile networks which I've not done much to yet: In the one on the left, tram-in-road, the gray area will be filled by whatever sidewalk mod is installed but I'm not real happy with the way the sidewalk interacts with the rails, which seems to be a limitation of these "sidewalks" and also caused me to drop the curbstone patterns from all the model-based networks. What would you guys think of the TIR being colored the same way as the TIA is now? Would it look too much like the one on the right? Or we could really get crazy and make it grassy instead of pavement.



Another problem I'm wrestling with is the difference between maxis yellow stripes and the ones I've used for these smaller networks. I like my size/scale and look better but definitely don't have the motivation/time to change every other yellow line texture to my style. So can they coexist peacefully or do I need to make mine look more like theirs?



Finally, here's something a little different: A plan I drew up for the tile on the east side of the bridge crossing the opening of the bay



Looking forward to hearing what you guys think  :)

Vlasky

Looks lovely! However I would suggest aligning the blocks of the tram path to the curves of the road on the the str8 to diagonal curve. Like what you did in the S curve. Somehow looks more realistic. ALso on the rail crossing the Ave in the second example! I love the shade of the concrete on the tram paths.
My Thread - Vlasky going global BATs - http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=15573.0

reddonquixote

#647
Wow what a huge update and amazing amount of work... where do I start!  :P

Regarding the safety barrier - the tramstop itself is a normal one in the middle of the road. Its the same configuration as the other ones we've made except this one doesn't have a shelter or platform. These are very common. You would cross at the lights (some have pedestrian zebra crossing access) then wait against that railing thing until the tram comes. The yellow safety barrier thing is to direct cars away from the tracks/ place where people are standing. So I guess if we were going to make this style we'd need the railings as well as the tram sign. Actually, I just made one instead.. a picture tells a thousand words:





What do you think?

Regarding the grass... I think it would be a good alternate/variation, but personally (selfishly?  :P ) I wouldn't want them all to have grass. (I can only think of a couple of places where there would be grass in Melbourne, all suburban areas)

I got some more pictures, maybe these will be inspiration for you..

Here's the Light Rail outside the Swimming Centre in Albert Park


Here's where the Tram-In-Road transitions to the Light Rail in Albert Park


Closer view:


Where your tramlines are crossing through the roads made me think of another potential challenge for you  ;D

A notorious intersection, I think its the start of Royal Parade (or around there)... A major road intersects at a T-junction, there's a tramline in the major road intersecting with a light rail transitioning into a tram-in-road... looks out for trams!!


And these are quite common, trams passing through roundabouts (do you have these already?)
This one is just outside Queen Vic Market/ Flagstaff Gardens


With the boom-gates, I can't think of many examples, there's some in Port Melbourne, but where I can see them, they always sit on the side of the road rather than on the median strip. Not sure if that's a common thing or not, just thought I'd mention it.

(Now I'm going to press post, I hope I got the right images to go with the captions  :D )

Edit:
Here's another view of the intersection at Royal Parade. I didn't realise before, but the tram line splits off just before it intersects with the other tramline. I've tried to draw where the three tram lines go:


Edit again:
Here's a simplified diagram I made of it. (Light grey is the road and dark grey is the tramline) (please excuse my rudimentary photo shopping skills)
Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.

kelis

You are doing and amazing job with those tram textures and models. I can't wait to see the models and textures together.

Keep up the good work here  &apls &apls
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art128

There is this area in Oslo where the tram does a 90° turn from on road to grass:





Maybe it'll give you some ideas for the transitions.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

romualdillo

OMG!! This is looking better and better!!!  &apls

Gugu3

Beautiful stuff as always Noah!!! &apls &apls

pezzajn

I really like your GLR texture, and am grateful that you are planning a US (yellow median lines) version.

Will continue to watch your developments.  And cannot wait until you release it.
:popcorn:

APSMS

Hi Noah,

Glad to see the development you've been making. I know I've been lurking, but I've been following the progress closely.

To answer your question, keep the yellow lines as they are. I really like the fineness in your tram lines, and TBH it irks me a little, but not as much as seeing absolutely perfect roadways everywhere in SC4, which is also something I can't change. IMO the difference is only visible in Z6, and even then only when you put the two next to each other. I would much rather have the better textures in the hopes that it will be possible to revamp the old ones to the new spec, than turn the lovely new pieces you've made and "dumb them down" to the older, lower quality ones (lovingly made, I'm sure, but still lower quality).

Re: Tram Grass; I'm not sure your questions regarding the grass are all that relevant. Unless you are unwilling to redo the existing pieces that already have grass on them....Despite the move away from puzzle pieces, it seems like certain things benefit from this implementation, and tram variations (I mean, come on, there's only 1) seem like no exception. Starters hardly seem practical, but I'm not familiar with the underpinnings, so....

As for the pavement differences between TIR and TOR, I'd say whichever is fine, but I kinda like how they differ from each other. It may also allow for the creative to adjust the appearance using purely in-game methods (and maybe Photoshop) rather than resorting to things like LOT-based cities (which are always an "option" regardless), since TIR is sidewalk dependent, and the TOR is set in stone. I should also say that personally, I like the asphalt appearance (I see it a lot around SD), but your work is so well done that I'm more than willing to support the change.

As a final note, I wasn't aware that Willy actually made RRW crossings, hence the need for the RRW Upgrade mod by Rivit, so you probably didn't miss anything.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

My Mayor Diary San Diego: A Reinterpretation

noahclem

~Thanks for the great feedback!~


Quote from: Vlasky on April 18, 2015, 10:15:41 AM
Looks lovely! However I would suggest aligning the blocks of the tram path to the curves of the road on the the str8 to diagonal curve. Like what you did in the S curve. Somehow looks more realistic. ALso on the rail crossing the Ave in the second example! I love the shade of the concrete on the tram paths.

Thanks and welcome!! I like the aesthetics of the tramways with the concrete bent with the curve as well but there are some drawbacks to it. Most obviously, it gets more difficult and time-consuming with complex intersections but there's a geometric component. When trams go around turns the middle of the cars will be in a different position relative to the rails then the front and back, requiring a wider clearance as you can see in the pic Arthur posted:



Choosing one of those two options makes the other virtually impossible. I've been a bit inconsistent in which technique I've gone with so far. As part of what I've been working on most recently (roundabouts) I revamped the pavement around the 2x2 tile intersection pieces trying to pay special attention to pavement:





Not perfect but about as close as I can get to the best of both worlds without sinking so much time into them that it wouldn't be practical to do a whole set that way ;)


Quote from: reddonquixote on April 18, 2015, 04:06:31 PM
Wow what a huge update and amazing amount of work... where do I start!  :P

Regarding the safety barrier - the tramstop itself is a normal one in the middle of the road. Its the same configuration as the other ones we've made except this one doesn't have a shelter or platform. These are very common. You would cross at the lights (some have pedestrian zebra crossing access) then wait against that railing thing until the tram comes. The yellow safety barrier thing is to direct cars away from the tracks/ place where people are standing. So I guess if we were going to make this style we'd need the railings as well as the tram sign. Actually, I just made one instead.. a picture tells a thousand words:

[img

[img

Regarding the grass... I think it would be a good alternate/variation, but personally (selfishly?  :P ) I wouldn't want them all to have grass. (I can only think of a couple of places where there would be grass in Melbourne, all suburban areas)

I got some more pictures, maybe these will be inspiration for you..

Here's the Light Rail outside the Swimming Centre in Albert Park
[img

Here's where the Tram-In-Road transitions to the Light Rail in Albert Park
[img

Closer view:
[img

Where your tramlines are crossing through the roads made me think of another potential challenge for you  ;D

A notorious intersection, I think its the start of Royal Parade (or around there)... A major road intersects at a T-junction, there's a tramline in the major road intersecting with a light rail transitioning into a tram-in-road... looks out for trams!!
[img

And these are quite common, trams passing through roundabouts (do you have these already?)
This one is just outside Queen Vic Market/ Flagstaff Gardens
[img

With the boom-gates, I can't think of many examples, there's some in Port Melbourne, but where I can see them, they always sit on the side of the road rather than on the median strip. Not sure if that's a common thing or not, just thought I'd mention it.

(Now I'm going to press post, I hope I got the right images to go with the captions  :D )

Edit:
Here's another view of the intersection at Royal Parade. I didn't realise before, but the tram line splits off just before it intersects with the other tramline. I've tried to draw where the three tram lines go:
[img

Edit again:
Here's a simplified diagram I made of it. (Light grey is the road and dark grey is the tramline) (please excuse my rudimentary photo shopping skills)
[img
http://Thanks a lot--I'm really excited for these new stops! The mockup models already look great  :thumbsup:

Seeing all the examples of the tram in Melbourne is really helpful to me, for figuring out how best to redo the existing pieces, for figuring out how to implement our upcoming tram stops, and for planning the future features I hope to make for the tram system. Having exceptionally little first-hand experience, being pointed in the right direction on these things is invaluable ;)

Your comment on the roundabouts got me interested in those and I've almost finished redoing the existing pieces. I hope to make more options available with them, including more complex layouts, but I'm making myself stick to finishing remaking the existing stuff before moving on to new stuff. I'm easily distracted so I'm not letting myself get too excited about the future before I finish what's in front of me for fear I'll abandon this project before completion :D  In general though I am planning to have at least some options for complex and unique setups, though the almost limitless variations of tram intersections mean there will always be limits.

Looks like grass will be an option, not default anywhere :)


Quote from: kelis on April 19, 2015, 02:11:54 AM
You are doing and amazing job with those tram textures and models. I can't wait to see the models and textures together.

Keep up the good work here  &apls &apls

Thanks!!! Will try to get some stations put together in the near future ;)


Quote from: art128 on April 19, 2015, 05:41:14 AM
There is this area in Oslo where the tram does a 90° turn from on road to grass:

[img

[img

Maybe it'll give you some ideas for the transitions.

Thanks Arthur! Helpful indeed. I don't know where I'd be without all the examples you helped me with :)


Quote from: romualdillo on April 19, 2015, 07:49:52 AM
OMG!! This is looking better and better!!!  &apls

Thank you very much!


Quote from: Gugu3 on April 20, 2015, 01:45:46 AM
Beautiful stuff as always Noah!!! &apls &apls

Thanks Guglielmo!

Quote from: pezzajn on April 20, 2015, 01:58:51 PM
I really like your GLR texture, and am grateful that you are planning a US (yellow median lines) version.

Will continue to watch your developments.  And cannot wait until you release it.
:popcorn:

Thanks and welcome! At first I wasn't sure whether to have US as default (like the rest of the NAM) or Euro as default (like the existing tramways) but fortunately there's so few center lines with these that it doesn't much matter :D  I plan to make Euro and US versions of everything, not least because I enjoy using both.


Quote from: APSMS on April 20, 2015, 07:46:11 PM
Hi Noah,

Glad to see the development you've been making. I know I've been lurking, but I've been following the progress closely.

To answer your question, keep the yellow lines as they are. I really like the fineness in your tram lines, and TBH it irks me a little, but not as much as seeing absolutely perfect roadways everywhere in SC4, which is also something I can't change. IMO the difference is only visible in Z6, and even then only when you put the two next to each other. I would much rather have the better textures in the hopes that it will be possible to revamp the old ones to the new spec, than turn the lovely new pieces you've made and "dumb them down" to the older, lower quality ones (lovingly made, I'm sure, but still lower quality).

Re: Tram Grass; I'm not sure your questions regarding the grass are all that relevant. Unless you are unwilling to redo the existing pieces that already have grass on them....Despite the move away from puzzle pieces, it seems like certain things benefit from this implementation, and tram variations (I mean, come on, there's only 1) seem like no exception. Starters hardly seem practical, but I'm not familiar with the underpinnings, so....

As for the pavement differences between TIR and TOR, I'd say whichever is fine, but I kinda like how they differ from each other. It may also allow for the creative to adjust the appearance using purely in-game methods (and maybe Photoshop) rather than resorting to things like LOT-based cities (which are always an "option" regardless), since TIR is sidewalk dependent, and the TOR is set in stone. I should also say that personally, I like the asphalt appearance (I see it a lot around SD), but your work is so well done that I'm more than willing to support the change.

As a final note, I wasn't aware that Willy actually made RRW crossings, hence the need for the RRW Upgrade mod by Rivit, so you probably didn't miss anything.

Thanks very much for the thoughtful reply and kind words :)  I'm glad you like the finer yellow lines and think I'll take your comment as justification to continue with them (not that I needed any I guess  ;D ). It's certainly within the realm of possibility that I'd rework the road (and OWR) textures later on and I've already had to make basic versions of them just for use in pieces that intersect with them or use curves based on them. The yellow lines on them are about 25% wider than on the TOR but still closer in size to those pieces than to the original roads.

My plan has been to redo the existing pieces with grass in the tram right-of-ways though I've been tempted to commandeer those TiA pieces for the station-width pieces I've planned. I was just throwing out the grass idea here as I hadn't found anything I'd been happy with yet. Here's what I'm thinking now for the two one-tile networks:


I'm thinking the bold yellow lines separating car and trams on the TiR and the traffic shading and center lines on the ToR may be enough to differentiate them. And in any case the conflict between the sidewalks and the tram rails is fixed.

I know Willy made crossings because he asked what I thought of them over skype while he did it--still no idea where he hid them though :D


As I mentioned earlier, I've been working on roundabouts after reddonquixote brought them up in the last post. I'm staying away from extravagant future hopes for now but am really happy with the difference I was able to make just by switching to the new texture specs and maximizing the smoothness of all curves. It's been a pretty neat project as 1) it's really small and 2) it seems really cleverly designed. I had some confusion about which things were supposed to use model colors and which ones texture colors as some things were behaving in a way I didn't understand. I was further confused and the process took a little longer than it should have for less than 30 textures (without counting wealthification) but everything's done now except for a sidewalk error and the under-highway texture and with no paths needed to be changed the whole thing is on the verge of releasable--not that it's of any real use without the rest of the package  ::)  Anyway here's a bit of that:




An intersection I made for a transition to the super-stop alignment:



And today's project:



After the roundabouts are finished I might work on the TiR  if the new texture survives public scrutiny. Thanks and I look forward to hearing your thoughts :)

Gugu3

Lovely stuff Noah!I like it &apls &apls

Simcoug

amazing texture work - you will get no complaints from me  :thumbsup:

Terring7

Oh boy, those textures are so badass!

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The Choice is Ours
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gn_leugim

 :thumbsup:

good work. I'll just keep...  :popcorn:  :P

reddonquixote

Yes! The roundabouts look fantastic  :thumbsup: (Sorry for the distractions, these are just too exciting  :bnn:)

Noah, can you give me some lot-size preferences for the Tram Stops, I'll export these and send across to you (now I have some time again !!) - I assume 1x32 but please confirm?





Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.