Revamping Maxis Transportation Textures for HD

[debutterfly]

Hi, I'm Larry (debutterfly) and I've been playing SC in general for 10 years (wow has it really been that long?). I don't like the Maxis road textures in general because they look fuzzy and unrealistic. I'm new to doing any sort of modding so bear with me. My technique for revamping  these textures is to use GIMP 2.0 and have modular road markings for different types of intersections and pieces. Also, I'm getting rid of those aweful yellow lines at street intersections. Com' on is that really realistic in the U.S. I've been quite a few places in many different states and on Google Earth and have never seen those markings for streets. Anyway, here's some beginning progress with some pieces complete.








Comments are welcome.

-Larry (debutterfly)

[cogeo]

This is a huge task!

I do have a reservation though, it is still unknown if and how much this would stress the graphics engine. And here we are not talking about a BAT or a small prop, it's the network stuff, which is being used all over the place. The items (textures) themselves are not very big (though we should rather make our calculations based on their uncompressed sizes), but they are instantiated many times (for every network tile); we don't know how big a load this is and what kind of stress this causes to the graphics subsytem. If the number of instances isn't important (ie if only the size of the objects determines the memory needed, not the number of instances), then it's not a very big deal, our current graphics cards should be enough (or maybe a card with a faster chip), otherwise we will need more memory (on the card) too.

[Jonathan]

Maybe you could start with the base of the network, then see how it affects your game,
so just do the Corners and Orthogonal and Diagonal, so no intersection or more complex textures first?

Also the change from grey to black street/road is a bit sudden, could it be more merged?

Jonathan

[cogeo]

Yeah, the orthogonal and diagonal ones make up for the vast majority of the city's network(s). So, making just these textures will tell you how it affects the game. It will look crappy, but what you need to do first is to see its effect on the game performance; it doesn't make sense to do all the work, only to find later that it's unusable.

[mightygoose]

well i am currently using a HD sidewalk mod.... maybe you could start testing with that as well....

[choco]

i lovw the sidewalk mod goose!     HD is the way to go....even if i have to buy a new machine!

[Ryan B.]

So far so good!  I do have a suggestion:



For this image, can the transition be smoothed a bit, so that it takes up more of the tile, like so:



EDIT:  This type of transition can be used for any type of transition. 

[io_bg]

I agree with burgsabre