RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[droric]

GDO29Anagram:  I have included a copy of the texture with the grid layout on so you can see the tile layout.  I think this conforms to the Simcity 4 grid as I have my home grid set to 16 meters.  The piece would end up being 3x6 without overhangs, 5x8 including overhangs and starters.  I also shifted the models so the lines are equidistant. (or closer at least)

Memo:  I don't know why but I enjoy the harder tasks so I think i'm going to start on this monster shortly.  The challenge is the best part.

[MandelSoft]

I think the starts are a bit too straight. Can you compare this texture to the RHW-4 S-Curve?

[droric]

I think the starts are a bit too straight. Can you compare this texture to the RHW-4 S-Curve?

About that... I've been attempting to get the texture from the RHW-4 Dual lane shift but have been unable to get it as of yet.  I think I will have to grab the pieces out of the DAT and assemble it myself to compare it.  Unless there is another method to get the texture from a top down non rotated view.

[GDO29Anagram]

I think this conforms to the Simcity 4 grid as I have my home grid set to 16 meters.  The piece would end up being 3x6 without overhangs, 5x8 including overhangs and starters.  I also shifted the models so the lines are equidistant.

As I suspected (yes, it's as big as I thought it would be), though the starters aren't gonna be necessary since they have a tendency of flattening the ground.

Unless there is another method to get the texture from a top down non rotated view.

Regenerating the textures using Memo's tutorial? http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=15135.0

[Indiana Joe]

I think the starts are a bit too straight. Can you compare this texture to the RHW-4 S-Curve?

About that... I've been attempting to get the texture from the RHW-4 Dual lane shift but have been unable to get it as of yet.  I think I will have to grab the pieces out of the DAT and assemble it myself to compare it.  Unless there is another method to get the texture from a top down non rotated view.

Maarten already has all of the transit textures, including puzzle pieces, available as PNGs uploaded here.

I think it might be necessary to have a single and a double s-bend as with RHW-4.  For the double, put two 6S textures together (back to back, as they would appear in a two-way highway) and run the whole thing through the curve script so they are evenly spaced.

[GDO29Anagram]

Maarten already has all of the transit textures available as PNGs

Oddly enough, I couldn't find the textures in there, either.

[droric]

Hmm i'm going to get this in game to see what it looks like compared to the RHW-4 dual lane shift.  This texture has a slightly longer transition for the curve and might be appropriate for the larger highway.  Also noticed the middle lines do not line up properly of the RHW-4 dual lane shift curve piece not sure if this is by design or not.  If it looks odd I will definitely revisit the texturing portion but I think mine is close enough that the paths should line up even if I cut it down to a 4x2 piece so it is more in line with the RHW-4 curve.

[Indiana Joe]

I couldn't find the s-curve for RHW4 either when I looked back.     Well, it's easy enough to extract them from the dat.

Meanwhile, my idea about for a double s-curve doesn't look as nice as I expected.  The lines aren't evenly spaced.  Would this be considered acceptable anyway?

[droric]

Shhh but the RHW-4 curve has a similar problem in game... (look at the line spacing)  I am going to give mine a shot and see if the yellow line distance is really noticeable in game or not.  Creating the texture in max using a loft compound object and bitmap mapping doesn't have that issue.

Oh and yea does anyone know why the batch image cutter won't accept the transparency from a photoshop saved PNG (or gimp)?  I attached a sample of what I want to cut.  It's obviously transparent since the yellow background is showing through but the cutter won't give me transparent PNG files.  I did this before and had to use the alpha converter thing but I am unsure of why that is necessary as it's already transparent.  Nevermind this is trivial to do with photoshop's slice tool.

[Indiana Joe]

I like Photoshop's slice tool because you can name each slice; you don't have to go back and rename all the textures.

Anyway, if you really want to continue with lofting, I wish you luck.  But I think you'll find that it looks better when evenly spaced.  The lines don't even look that bad.  Here's the GIMP images if you change your mind.

[GDO29Anagram]

Here's the GIMP images if you change your mind.

Certain transitions beyond RHW-4 are usually about six tiles long (such as the 6S-6C transitions and the RHW-4 to 6C transitions), and the curves for 6S and above tend to be far larger than the RHW-4 curves, so to keep with the pattern, I made these six-tile variations.

It also matches with the originally-intended proposal for the 10S curve from four years ago, plus I didn't have to worry with the middle dash.

I have started work on a new puzzle piece, the RHW-10 Orthogonal "S":




This puzzle piece was created using a totally new technique that I have developed.  I call puzzle pieces created with this technique "MORPH Curves".  With this new technique the puzzle piece uses only one or two textures that are morphed to the correct shape for each puzzle piece tile.  Since it uses so few textures, it is easy to use texture (Euro) mods or adapt it to different transportation networks.

Just as a demo I will change the two RHW-10 textures to RHW-6S and then to RHW-4 to get:



Since I just changed the textures and did not actually create new puzzle pieces, the drag starter tiles at each end did not change.

[droric]

Sooo i think i'm getting close but am having trouble with the RUL0 entry.  The preview shows in game so i think everything else is good but I can't place the piece.  Here is my hack job on the RUL0 entry...  If my texture looks bad i'm going to go ahead and use the ones linked by GDO29Anagram since they match my piece size exactly.

Code Select Expand




[HighwayIntersectionInfo_0x0000521B]
;Added by droric 09/15/2013
;Real Highway RHW-4 Dual Lanes Shift
Piece = 0.0, 0.0, 0, 0, 0x5E14A806
PreviewEffect = preview_rhw_6s_dual_lanes_shift

CellLayout =.+aa+
CellLayout =.bbb+
CellLayout =.bbb+
CellLayout =+bbb.
CellLayout =+bbb.
CellLayout =+bb+.
CellLayout =.ee..
CellLayout =.^...

CheckType = a - dirtroad: 0x02000000,0xff000000 check
CheckType = b - dirtroad: 0x02000200
CheckType = e - dirtroad: 0x00000200,0x0000ff00 check

ConsLayout = ..||.
ConsLayout = .|||<
ConsLayout = .|||.
ConsLayout = .|||.
ConsLayout = .|||.
ConsLayout = .||..
ConsLayout = .||..
ConsLayout = .^...

AutoTileBase = 0x5E14A801
ReplacementIntersection = 0, 0
PlaceQueryID = 0x5E14A801
Costs = 500



[MandelSoft]

I see the problem: you're missing a horizontal cursor character "<" in the CellLayout section. Maybe that's borking the RUL0 parser.

[droric]

I see the problem: you're missing a horizontal cursor character "<" in the CellLayout section. Maybe that's borking the RUL0 parser.

Hey thanks for that catch martin!  There were other problems as well I had my < ^ pointing to .'s in the code.  But now I have this, still a little funky.

I don't think the middle yellow lines being not equidistant is even noticeable in game.  Any opinions?  And it appears this code breaks the dual shift RHW-4 piece... i think i should probably reserve those IIDs and HID3s now

[Indiana Joe]

The curvature still looks too sharp; try to smooth it out if you can.  Or use Ganaram's 6-tile textures.  Best to meet existing standards rather than disregard all the plans.

But good job getting the puzzle piece working.  That's the most important part.

[GDO29Anagram]

Out of this entire dev frenzy, I ended up making the textures for a 6C+8C (or 7C) curve.

I could go about making the puzzle piece for this, along with the 6C and 8C variants, in one of two ways:

Option one: Cut it in half to produce a 6C and 8C half. Placing the 6C half and 8C half together yields the 7C variant, and placing two copies of the same half yields either the 6C or 8C curve. Only two puzzle pieces would be needed, each about 2x6 size. Would use less of the puzzle piece "sheet" (see below) and two-thirds less paths, s3ds, and exemplars.

Option two: Produce three different pieces for a whole 6C, 7C, and 8C curve. Would need three 4x6 puzzle pieces.

I'd go for option 1 to be super-conservative about everything but since I'm here right now, I'm actually gonna let you guys (along with the people watching at home) to help me decide.

Footnote for those watching at home: When puzzle pieces are made, their textures occupy part of an imaginary "sheet" that's 16x16, which is also occupied by other puzzle pieces of similar purpose. There are different "sheets" for each network and even more sheets for each type of puzzle piece for each network, but nothing for the 7C network, because the 7C is merely half-6C and half-8C and there is no IID range for a 7C, only 6C and 8C.

[droric]

The curvature still looks too sharp; try to smooth it out if you can.  Or use Ganaram's 6-tile textures.  Best to meet existing standards rather than disregard all the plans.

But good job getting the puzzle piece working.  That's the most important part.

I agree that his texture is much better and I will go ahead and use it.  I couldn't figure out how to make the s curve in gimp so i was using max.  I was using a 6 tile texture but after changing the textures noticed that my RUL was only displaying 5 tiles so thats part of why my curve looked so sharp. 

Ganaram I hope you don't mind if I use your textures for these pieces.

[Indiana Joe]

I agree with the half-piece idea for the C networks.  The less crowded the tab-rings are, the better.

[Wiimeiser]

I say split them up, we're already doing that for the FARHW-C

[mortaldanger]

I need some help real quick.  I'm not sure if this is the place to ask it or not, but here goes.

How do I connect two elevated MIS pieces over RHW-4?  I'm attempting to do this exactly:

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=6843.msg352620#msg352620

The T-bone intersection.  I can't figure out how to connect the MIS sections over the highway.  Where is the piece located?  Thanks.