NWM (Network Widening Mod) - Development and Support

[memo]

I would like to see ave-6 T-intersection, it's ugly to convert it to maxis-ave to make a T-intersection for it :<

Actually, there are various sorts of T intersections for Ave6:



There's even a TuLEP puzzle piece for the big one.

[fefenc]

Yea, there is, I've forgot these intersections.

I'm sorry but I've forgot to mention T-intersection with normal Roads and streets, in this situation I'll need to convert the AVE-6 to maxis avenue and my network layouts keeps looking like a baloon :\

Ave 6 with normal road:


Ave 6 with street:


Thanks for answering me

[memo]

The problem with that is that there are three lanes terminating, but only two lanes to merge into. What would be supposed to happen with the middle lane traffic? I'm afraid, that's the reason why those intersections don't exist.

[Tarkus]

For the same reason, the RD-6, OWR-4, and OWR-5 also lack Road, Street, and One-Way Road (OWR-2) ending T-intersections like that.  The OWR-5 would be especially messy, as you'd be trying to merge 5 lanes into 2 at an intersection.   OWR-5 can't end at some dual-tile networks, even, including Avenue, RD-4 and TLA-5, as there's just nowhere logical for traffic to go.  I took lane configuration into account when deciding what networks got what T-intersections.  There's a few that I seem to recall having some non-functioning "vestigial" intersections, simply so that wider override networks with the proper number of lanes can latch onto them.

-Alex

[fefenc]

I've understood why AVE-6 don't have RD-2/OWR-2 T-intersections and I 100% agree with you guys, but I've tried to do an AVE-6 T-intersections with some NWM 3-4 lanes roads/OWRs and it's still not compatible with it :<

I've taken some pics:

T-intersection With TLA-3 (I'm not sure about TLA-3 because I still consider this as a 2 lane road :S):


T-intersection With ARD-3:


T-intersection With NRD-4:


T-intersection With OWR-3:


If I had at least one of these T-intersections, it would make my life a lot easier

And the textures of AVE-6 T-crossing with RD-4 and RD-6 doesn't allign correctly, it's functional (what really matters), but it looks a bit weird

T-intersection With RD-4:


T-intersection With RD-6:


Same thing applies to TLA-7 T-intersections

I love using NWM on my cities, it's an awesome tool that applies that kind of realism and beauty that the Maxis original networks lacks.

Thanks for the attention

[joshua43214]

Now don't get me wrong. I love the fact that I have a work around for this.

Any idea if we will ever see something that is actually correct for this? I would just retexture it myself if it was a lot, I have no idea how to retexture a puzzle piece. If someone can point me in the right direction I will see if I can get rail textures on them and give them to the NAM team.
Rail and NWM seem to just about impossible to do together.

[Tarkus]

Improving that side of things is on the list.  The reason it hasn't been done yet is that we're transitioning away from static puzzle pieces, and you won't see a Rail Viaduct/NWM crossing until the Rail Viaducts are draggable.  No idea when that'll happen, but it's been planned ever since the original RAM project (precursor to the modern RRW) was started.

-Alex

[joshua43214]

Improving that side of things is on the list.  The reason it hasn't been done yet is that we're transitioning away from static puzzle pieces, and you won't see a Rail Viaduct/NWM crossing until the Rail Viaducts are draggable.  No idea when that'll happen, but it's been planned ever since the original RAM project (precursor to the modern RRW) was started.

-Alex

I love draggable, draggable rules. I love flex, flex rules.

My issue with draggable sums up with a single pic

This is the 7.5m avenue ramp from the 7.5m Draggable Elevated Road Viaduct ring. The MIS ramps are old style ramps rather than flex ramps, the flex ramps tend to be very unstable close to overpasses.
Wound up having to use 15m static puzzle pieces. I would honestly trade all the draggable in the world for 7.5m puzzle pieces, Especially for rail. Rail tends to get shoehorned into and around freeway interchanges where stability is at the worst.

Puzzle pieces work pretty much all the time. Life with out puzzle pieces would be much sadder. Especially if we have no diagonal starters for when stuff deconstructs between smooth curves.

Anyway, is there a resource on how to retexture puzzle pieces? This should be easier than some other projects, the pathing is all done, and the part itself works fine, just has the wrong appearance. I will take a shot at the NWM rail FLUPS as well. I have a whole region I am just starting on, and I plan to use a lot of rail and NWM, not being able to have them cross is going to be painful

[Tarkus]

Some of the FLEX/draggable stuff is still in an early state, and the hardest thing to get right is adjacency situations, where one item butts up against another.  The way some of the FLEX stuff was rolled out, as part of the (infamous) NAM 31.0 release has probably given people a skewed impression. It's not a perfect solution yet, but further development in this direction stands the best chance of solving many of the long-standing issues that exist with the status quo, where people complain that the mod is too complex, and yet simultaneously request new features. 

Continuing on the established puzzle piece path just exacerbates this problem, especially when crosslinkage comes into play.  If we were to make 7.5m Viaduct puzzle pieces, in order to account for all possible orientations and height levels of RHW that these viaducts might cross, we'd need about 100 puzzle pieces (25 networks to cross--29 if we were to go ahead with the 12S and 10C).  NWM crossings?  13 networks there to cross, so there's another 52.  If we add elevated NWM networks, there's at least another 40 (some of the NWM networks don't make sense to elevate).  We're at about 192 over/underpass puzzle pieces now, and we haven't covered Maxis networks or other NAM features, which will push the L1 viaduct-over-X (or under-X) total up to close to 350.  There might also be some weird adjacency situation that someone finds where the puzzle pieces are somehow inadequate, which leads to requests for some exotic fillers.

Going the draggable route, however, all those situations can, in theory, be taken care of with a single starter (two, if one adds a diagonal starter).  The goal is to get things to the point where requests for static PP versions of FLEX items are as uncommon as requests for more MHW interchanges (which used to be the #1 requested item before the RHW was stabilized).  In theory, going FLEX/Draggable shifts the construction burden more onto the developers' shoulders, but with the absurd number of puzzle pieces, it evens out.

As far as retexturing something, you'd just need to know the Instance ID of the piece, and the Instance IDs of the textures you're planning to use.  With that info, you can pull up the S3d model in the Reader, and change the textures in the Mats tab.

-Alex

[joshua43214]

Ya, I understand the issue, and I also believe that the NAM team is doing the right thing focusing on draggable. It's hard enough getting volunteers to work for free when they get more complaints than gratitude, without asking them to make hundreds of new puzzle pieces.

I tried to change the textures in the Reader - no luck. I loosely followed the tutorial on puzzle piece making to get me in the right general area. The change shows up in Reader (though the bridge looks funky since it is El Rail), but the rail textures do not show up in game. No idea what the problem is, probably something simple. I am using RRW if that makes a difference. I just used the texture navigator to find the rail textures, and copied the same zoom level instance id into the SC3 file for the El Rail overpass.

Looked at retexturing the rail viaducts with NWM, but gave up when I saw how many models I would have to do. I would need them to be separate pieces from the NAM ones anyway since I need the default NAM pieces as well. This is probably the better place to start anyway since the rail viaducts set is so complete. I just wanted to avoid any network capacity issues since NWM has substantially higher caps than roads/aves/etc. I suppose I could just start on it and do it in my spare time, I would probably only do the most common stuff.

Any suggestions on where I went wrong would be appreciated (I probably made some common newbie mistake).

[j-dub]

Draggable, draggable, draggable. Even the default Maxis made stuff had it's fair share of non draggable items,

Gave up after seeing how much it would take? Considering for every network the traffic devs did here or are still progressing, more intersections/bridges, textures, and paths had to be accounted for, so that's why these situations have to be understood. From my experience certain textures only show up with hardware enabled as opposed to software. All I know is, yeah you do that, it will take a while, and a lot of trial and error. So many years Alex has been going on at this, and I can't believe actually went along with changing his appearance so many times.

[joshua43214]

Oh I understand the issue quite well. I am actually a molecular geneticist and a computational biologist, some aspects can not be automated and must be done by hand. I am used to working with stuff orders of magnitude larger that also have to undergo rigorous peer review, and 9 times out of 10 it the research is a dead end.

I appreciate the phenomenal amount of work that goes into creating a set of puzzle pieces more than most people do.

I am happy to take a shot at this and share it when I am done.
It is not a hardware/software texture issue, the textures were simply not affected in game.
I just need someone to point me in the right direction, not remind me of how mysterious and difficult it is.

[mg1990]

Hi there,

I have a short question. Are there Tuleps for the elevated Rail in avenue? Thanks

-MG

[jdenm8]

It is not a hardware/software texture issue, the textures were simply not affected in game.
I just need someone to point me in the right direction, not remind me of how mysterious and difficult it is.

There's a few different things that can go wrong. I'm sorry for starting with something so low-level, but just to double-check, you've pressed the 'Save S3D' button before moving away from an S3D file didn't you? It's a common error I make myself.

Aside from that, all I can think of is file ordering issues. Make sure your override file is in the Z__NAM folder so it overrides the default one correctly. Failing that, I can whip up what you want relatively quickly.

Are there Tuleps for the elevated Rail in avenue? Thanks

Nope.

[joshua43214]

Sorry for the really slow reply, got terribly sidetracked...

Make sure your override file is in the Z__NAM folder so it overrides the default one correctly. Failing that, I can whip up what you want relatively quickly.

This is probably the problem. I had (mindlessly) put the mod in my joshua43214 folder along with my other custom mods.

Thank you very much for the offer. I am going to try and get this to work, since I would also like to convert some of the other NAM curve pieces to RHW-4 for 2 lane ramps (the 45 degree pieces to not fit together properly and are too big for ramps). Tighter curves in dragable will probably not be stable enough, so puzzle pieces are the way to go. Rather than waste NAM team time with the request, I would rather make them up myself, and if they come out well I can just donate them to NAM to do with as they wish.

I am currently up the steep part of the Python learning curve, so I am not sure when I will get back to this, hopefully later this week one my current work project takes proper shape.

[GDO29Anagram]

Tighter curves in dragable will probably not be stable enough, so puzzle pieces are the way to go. Rather than waste NAM team time with the request, I would rather make them up myself, and if they come out well I can just donate them to NAM to do with as they wish.

Never underestimate the power of draggable components.

[Durfsurn]

Spot the new feature... (Please note that this feature will not be released in NAM 33.). Those tree's are there to help disguise the new feature and they will disappear when I zone over them and then develop those zones . Also check out an updated, zoomed out pic here.



-Billy

[odrzutowiec]

Is this a 6 lane road overpass?! Would be awesome to use it in my cities! Wow   

[compdude787]

Nice 6-lane overpass! Why won't it be released in NAM 33, though?

OTOH, does that mean we can expect NAM 33 soon? Hmmm....

[GDO29Anagram]

Nice 6-lane overpass! Why won't it be released in NAM 33, though?

OTOH, does that mean we can expect NAM 33 soon? Hmmm....

Not necessarily. We still haven't decided on a new NWM range since we're giving the NWM a P57-esque treatment (possibly dubbed P51, moving the NWM from the current 0x5100####-0x5120#### to a higher range), so a lot of stuff would end up shifting around still.

Plus, we're missing one key developer: Alex. From what I know, he's really busy and it could be that way for a while.

As it stands, we're down to just me, Daniel, Markus, Stephen, and a few others popping in and out taking the brunt of the immediate devwork for what is already slated for NAM Thirty-Three. What's known for sure is that it's almost all RHWdev. If you think that we're leaving out everything else, please realise that RHW is our testbed for implementing new dev strategies, and once it's shown to work for RHW, it becomes applicable to everything else. The only reason we have elevated Road, One Way Road, and Avenue viaducts that are draggable is because they were based off of RHW, both by models and by code.

- Ganaram I.