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Three Rivers Region

Started by dedgren, December 20, 2006, 07:57:49 PM

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Pat

#4480
I will give it a crack and see what happens now brb.....


well I tired out the signs with a total sandbox and nothing else just pure vanilla and I did only notice its harder then heck to place the signs just right other then that small annoyance I didnt get that error that DTP had...

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dedgren

#4481
Well, the roll I was on stopped abruptly yesterday.

Aside from SC4D being semi-down during the forums upgrade, I had one of those days.  We'll just leave it as that things didn't go as I'd planned.

One thing I did do was to get our friend j-dub's signage (actually, to be precise, one is an overhead signal flasher) through the Plopperizer™.  The results follow.

I did the sign first.



It took me a few plops to realize that j-dub needs to rotate the sign 90 degrees to make it face the right way.  The "X" shows the point of where the cursor was when I plopped the sign- that looks good.



This time the sign is at the wrong orientation, but we can see its face.  If I were doing this, I would

1)  make the sign standard about 80 percent of its current height,

2)  reduce the "thickness" of the sign standard by just a pixel or so, and

3)  look at (in other words, evaluate) the possibility of reducing the size of the flasher housing just a bit.

I'm looking around around for a pic of a stop sign with that sort of flasher- my recollection is that they used to be very common in the area around my grandparents' farm in southern Indiana.  My recollection was that the flasher was at the top of the standard, but about the same distance as j-dub has his from the sign face.

All-in-all, an excellent effort.  I'll be looking for V2, my friend.

I really had my doubts that the overhead flasher was going to work- I just figured the game would refuse to allow me to plop it over an intersection.  So...



Woo-hah!  That's cool!  This opens up the possibility of all sorts of ploppable overhead freeway signage.

So, what are the issues?  Try as I might. I could not get the plop any closer to the intersection than you see it here.  The base of the pole that is the upper-right one is where the cursor was positioned at the time of the plop, so there needs to be an equal left and down offset to move the whole thing diagonally closer to the intersection.  I think the poles are a perfect distance apart, so that's all I'd change, position-wise.

Aesthetically, here's my suggestions.

1)  Think about whether wood poles might be more suitable for a rural setting,

2)  the "wire" is too thick and possibly too black.  I'd reduce the thickness first, then experiment with very dark grays until you get a sense of what looks best.  There is little true black in the physical world.

3)  the flasher housing, which looks like a nifty piece of modeling, is by my lights way oversized.  I would (if I could BAT, but I can't- my hat's off to you, j-dub) reduce it in size by as much as 50 percent, or to the point where you really start to lose detail.  I know we are working with small things here, but the eye will fill in a lot.

This is nifty stuff, and the ploppability is just huge in terms of creating reasonably detailed non-urban roads.  Thanks, j-dub, for letting me work with these.  I've attached a .zip file to this post, so that anyone who would like can take a look for him or her self.

Later.


David

116588


D. Edgren

Please call me David...

Three Rivers Region- A collaborative development of the SC4 community
The 3RR Quick Finder [linkie]


I aten't dead.  —  R.I.P. Granny Weatherwax

Skype: davidredgren

Toichus Maximus


bat

Great work there on these signs! And nice progress, too!

Congrats on 225+ pages!

116633

Ryan B.

David / J-Dub, here's a FHWA study on the flashing beacons.  Some pictures are included:

http://www.tfhrc.gov/safety/pubs/08044/index.htm

Also; J-Dub, if you'd like me to help with your models, please PM me for my e-mail address.

deathtopumpkins

Those are looking nice, j-dub and David!
Never seen the stop signs with flashers before, but the overhead flashers are used occasionally here.
Now let me see what I can do to get these not to work...  :D
NAM Team Member | 3RR Collaborater | Virgin Shores

thundercrack83

Wow! Things just keep raising the bar and raising the bar around here, David!

So many folks working hard to so many fantastic projects, I don't even know where to begin, but I will say--Thank you and keep it up!

Dustin

Streetlight 725

Hey Everyone,Thanks for the signs and stop signs. ;D :)

dedgren

#4488
First, a quick update on the initial 3RR roadsign set.

I'm setting up several Excel spreadsheets so I can keep track of the settings in the Ilive Reader as we create the signs and make them ploppable.  I've not entered any data yet, but these will give you an idea of what the first set will look like.

     
     

This is not a short-term project, but there's a lot of enthusiasm on the part of those involved.

* * *

I'm about to get over my aversion to the "water bug," aka the "China syndrome."  We've looked at the issue before in connection with the center-pivot irrigation (CPI) fields a couple of months ago [linkie], but I just wasn't ready to make the leap then.



What's changed?  In a few words, the great Rural Renewal Project work by Chris (Chrisadams3997), and in particular the RRP paths [linkie].  Let's look at those paths as used in Joan's (JMouse) quad, Pine Cone SW.

This is Nike Site Point, where 3RR had a Nike-Hercules surface-to-air missile battery stationed about 50 years ago.



The missile launch area was on a flat area out at the end of the point high above the waters of Hotham Inlet.



It was reached by a gravel road graded up the sheer side of the point, but that road is little more than an overgrown track today.



The track winds south down the point and enters the woods planted when the site was active in the '60s.



A closer look.



After crossing through the woods, the track becomes the gravel access road at the site's former boundary.



Logs and rocks have been placed to block the way, but they're not hard to drive around.  There hasn't been a fence in years.



As far as I am concerned, Chris's path alone makes dealing with the water bug tolerable.  What do you think?  I've attached a poll to the top of this post, and would like to hear from you.

* * *

Before you make your choice, however, take a look at this.

Here's the path, but oops- I just placed some water lines elsewhere in the quad, which invokes the bug.



...I hate it when that happens...

But, armed with Chris's solution [linkie], I respond immediately.

I (1) open the "Data Views" window of the game UI.  Then I (2) select the "Zones" view choice.



I next (3) select the "All Off" view choice.



Bug banished!



I don't think that's such a big deal.

Later.


David

116735
D. Edgren

Please call me David...

Three Rivers Region- A collaborative development of the SC4 community
The 3RR Quick Finder [linkie]


I aten't dead.  —  R.I.P. Granny Weatherwax

Skype: davidredgren

j-dub

#4489
Thanks again David. Unfortanetly, when I tried lotting this stuff it was able to be positioned differently, closer to the corner of the lot. However I had to deal with the grass texture, and one more thing to put in my already cluttered menus. I guess ploppable items regulations are different.

EDIT: j-dub, they are different, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both methods.  It would be great, though, to have your excellent work as a ploppable, and it will be my pleasure to do that for you if you get a chance to at least reBAT them with the offset. -DE

Simpson

Hey David
Your new update is very good, I love the last pic it's so réalistic  :thumbsup:
My new city is now here
The région of Kaikoura

Teaser of Lopsas[+ How did I do it?]:Lopsas

Ryan B.

Nice list, David - and not too far off of my original suggestion of 22 signs.  I think this would be excellent for a first set!

Andreas

Fortunately, the game doesn't need five minutes or so to reload the buildings after switching to the zone view when you created such a beautiful landscape - doing that in a densly packed city surely requires some patience. ;) Ideally, someone *cough* should make a SAM-compatible draggable street out of Chris' textures, but what we have now surely works nice as well. This pic is my favorite of the latest batch. :)
Andreas

threestooges

Ah yes, the old zone menu trick. Andreas is right about patience being needed in an urban area, but it gets the job done. The selection of signs looks quite doable (I can get the textures myself, but it would save some time if you happen to have them handy and could send them via pm/email). If the excitement is high now, just wait until these things start popping (or perhaps plopping) up around 3RR.

Also, I love the tree layout around Nike Site Pt. The paths and log barrier are a great touch too and, as Andreas mentioned, I'd love to see a SAM version of those paths too. Great work as always, and I'll see you around the site.
-Matt

Ryan B.

Matt, I've got those textures and will e-mail you to them later tonight.  I've got them in a more realistic yellow color.

Jmouse

Pine Cone SW is more beautiful than I could have possibly imagined, David. I'm especially fond of the pine trees which I use quite often in my own cities. The paths and terrain mod just reinforce the peaceful Piney Woods/Big Thicket atmosphere I've loved ever since I first saw it.

The sign project is progressing well, too, and the finished pack will be a fine addition to the game.

As always, looking forward to seeing the next chapter unfold...
Joan

deathtopumpkins

Well that's really got the thread abuzz.

Nice selection of signs, buy may I suggest an addition to the list [link]?

Those are some pretty paths too... Excellent use of them. I need to go mess around with them myself.
Some nice shots of Joan's quad, but are the trees supposed to be all in lines?
NAM Team Member | 3RR Collaborater | Virgin Shores

nerdly_dood

Oooh i never saw THAT water bug... until today I had some SFBT diagonal fillers that had a blank base texture, and i rotated the view and I saw that blue background grid... and then I bulldozed them and re-plopped them to fix it... I didn't know it was as easy as zone data-view then all off.
My days here are numbered. It's been great and I've had a lot of fun, but I've moved on to bigger and better things.
—   EGO  VOBIS  VADELICO   —
Glory be unto the modder and unto the fun and unto the city game!

allan_kuan1992

#4498
i thought there was another solution where you deleted the texture exemplar from the lot in Ilive reader, and i think that removes the bug completely...

EDIT:
here it is: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=23.0

- Allan Kuan

EDIT2Trust me, Allan- If that technique worked with an overlay texture like Chris's paths, you'd have heard it here a long time ago (that's the voice of trial and error sad experience talking).  No matter what you do, if there's an overlay texture and no base texture, you will get the water bug.  Oh, and big grats on making it into the "Double-0" Club. -DE

Darmok

David, those last pics made me drool, especially Chris RRP paths... and to tell you the truth the "china" bug is not a big price to pay when you compare it to the possibilities those paths give us!

Way to go!

Also like the way the roadsign project is going, hats off to all of those who are working hard on all those amazing game improvements. If only there was a way to "recode" the game so it would take advantage of the new graphic cards instead on relying on CPU power only.... Oh well.. it's still by far the best, and most creative, game in town.

Back to lurking...

"Fill the ballasts! Prepare to dive!"  &prt
Hearing gurling noises and sonar pings....
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=112.last#last

If you have a closed mind, do the same with your mouth