RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[girlfromverona]

Look at those curves!! 

[deserteagle332]

how do i download

[Tarkus]

choco, glad I could help!

deserteagle332, welcome to SC4D!  You need to be registered for the Exchange, which is separate from the forums, if you are not already.  (Just click the "BSC File Xchange" button in the upper right corner to access it.)  Once you've logged onto the Exchange, you can download the RHW--you'll need to install the NAM January 2009 first, though.  The links to both files are up in the top FAQ post of this thread.  If you are on the Exchange without being logged on, you won't see the Download links.

-Alex (Tarkus)

[berubium]

With regards to the MIS issue about it switching directions.  A possible alternative could be to have the opposite facing MIS lanes meet the road in a roundabout...  Here is the crudest of crude sketch to demonstrate.  || = road & ---> = directional MIS.

            ||
            ||
            ||
-------> O <-------
            ||
            ||
            ||

[remanh]

This may be a little too late, but Smoncrie, I just have a small question about that suspension bridge.  It might be just me, but I have never seen a 2 way, 4 lane highway bridge.  In rural areas with 4 lane highways, 2 separate bridges are built.  In urban areas, normally the bridges hold six lanes.  (My guess as to why: slower speeds need a higher capacity to remain as efficient.)  Is there any way that you could make a 2 tile, 6 lane bridge connecting to an RHW-4?

[JoeST]

Thanks for the answer Alex. It was just a suggestion to minimise the amount of overriden and thus obsolete textures and make them swappable. and possibly make it easier for texture-ists to make sure they have every override.

Joe

[writingliberty]

Actually - regarding the bridges - I have only personally ever seen ONE highway bridge (not counting overpasses over the equivalent of "roads" and "avenues", and even in those this is sometimes true) that carries traffic in both directions. In most cases I am aware of (and we have LOTS of highways around me, I live in Southern California) the two directions of traffic are carried on seperate bridges. Though admittedly we don't have a lot of rivers around here, there are several bridges around various bays along the coastline, over steep canyons in the mountains, and also I refer to the bridges that carry through traffic on the "upper" highway at interchanges.

The one exception is the northern end of CA-75... which is a massive 5-lane "raised" bridge with movable median (which is moved every day, to provide 3 lanes of traffic in the direction of travel during the morning and evening commutes, and 2 in the opposite direction) that soars into the sky something like 300-350 feet and is about 2 1/2 miles long, crossing the center of the Port of San Diego. The purpose of building that was nothing less than the capability to drive a nuclear powered aircraft carrier under it.

[pitty]

Hi folks,

I tried around a little bit with the texture editing. Thats when the idea of "eye-candy-acceleration-/deceleration lanes" came on my mind. These are quite normal in Europe although this one is pretty short
I'm still learning how to but i get better every day.

As far as i know a Euro set with dark asphalt texture is always in the works, thats why i use this ashy or concrete like one and because this is just like all the highways in northern germany look like.
hope you like it
greetings
Pitti

[choco]

i would rather have more bridge options than none.....

the name may imply rural highway, but not everyone uses this mod strictly for rural areas.  theres a good clip of us that exclusively use the RHW as a replacement for the FHW.....but the suspension bridge is impressive by many respects! 

  jmo....

[Patricius Maximus]

Just checking in here, and I'm liking the new developments in the RHW. And Tarkus is already teasing us  . But it doesn't matter much, as I like to be teased... to a certain point.

3.1 is looking to be a good addition to 3.0, which is great but is lacking in a few select areas, one of which I have noticed.

I have created a ring road in one of my cities, and the northern portion is elevated. The interchanges are unaviodably closer than usual, and may pose a mild weaving risk. The only MIS ramp for elevated RHW at this point is the Type A ramp. Normally on the ground I would have the Type C ramps, so an extra lane is introduced, thereby reducing weaving risk. But, this option is not avaliable on elevated sections, so weaving risk there is increased.

I think a Type C ramp for elevated sections of RHW should be introduced in a future release, perhaps coinciding with wider elevated RHWs.

[Nique]

Maybe.

In thinking a little bit more about jmvl's quandry with the overpasses, I did think of another possible solution which would be more flexible than making even more puzzle pieces--draggable transitions between the various RHW networks.  The existing overpass pieces can thus be used, since there would be no other puzzle piece or Puzzle Drag Stub to cross.  I have an idea of how to set it up already, too. 

All the textures for the RHW are included in the main RuralHighwayMod.dat file in the FSH format.  Just about everything else in the mod aside from the RULs are also contained.  However, if you were to just open it up in SC4Tool under Texture Scanner, it's possible to see just the textures, extract all of them as PNGs with the proper IIDs without having to bother with the rest of it.

Unless you have Vista, which doesn't like SC4Tool. 

-Alex (Tarkus)

Microsoft Virtual PC with Windows XP on it can fix your Vista problem... but!! i really hope that this software will be updated to let it work on vista as 6gb extra on my harddisk just to let sc4tools and FiSHman run is allmost insane.

[MandelSoft]

That onramp looks good, pitty. Even though its only eyecandy, it will make the game more realistic.

[Haljackey]

Hi folks,

I tried around a little bit with the texture editing. Thats when the idea of "eye-candy-acceleration-/deceleration lanes" came on my mind. These are quite normal in Europe although this one is pretty short
I'm still learning how to but i get better every day.

As far as i know a Euro set with dark asphalt texture is always in the works, thats why i use this ashy or concrete like one and because this is just like all the highways in northern germany look like.
hope you like it
greetings
Pitti

Huh.  Kinda reminds me of other accel/decel prototypes made way back when:





Then again, no MIS existed back in the early days, you you had to use a road/one way for ramps.

Best,
-Hajackey


Images retrieved from my SC4 archives.  If you want to see some more old pics, follow the link in my sig.

[smoncrie]

Remanh, it is certainly possible to have 3 lanes in each direction, as there is a very similar Maxis highway bridge. However, I think that a 6-lane bridge should connect to a 6-lane highway.  This means that a 6 lane bridge made for RHW would be designed to connect to 6S or 6C.  This is also the case in a bridge with 3-lanes in one direction. I confess that I have not thought much about how they would be connected at the ends.

I have not checked to see what RHW-8 would require but RHW-10 would need one (modified) ground highway bridge for each direction.  (I suppose 10 3.5m lanes could be squeezed onto a single bridge, but capacity would be reduced.)  It might be interesting make a version of my suspension bridge with 5 lanes in one direction, but I would have to take a closer look before I know how practical it would be.  Hmm...The lanes would need to be squeezed down from 5m to about 4m, still that's better than Maxis highways (~3.3m), still have to check if the ends would be a major problem...

Writingliberty, I think the choice of using separate bridges for each direction or one for both directions is influenced by the length of the bridge and if the bridge needs to be high enough to allow ships pass.  Suspension bridges usually have very long spans and allow ships to pass.

[edit] I guess this means that a one way suspension bridge would not be a good idea, and realistic RHW-10 suspension bridges can not be made.

[Jonathan]

Microsoft Virtual PC with Windows XP on it can fix your Vista problem... but!! i really hope that this software will be updated to let it work on vista as 6gb extra on my harddisk just to let sc4tools and FiSHman run is allmost insane.

Besides the cost of buying XP

Jonathan

[Swamper77]

Microsoft Virtual PC with Windows XP on it can fix your Vista problem... but!! i really hope that this software will be updated to let it work on vista as 6gb extra on my harddisk just to let sc4tools and FiSHman run is allmost insane.

It may be awhile before SC4Tool gets updated. SimRolle is still around somewhere, probably busy with Real Life. DarkMatter wrote the FiSHMan tool and has been gone from the community for a long time now. So FiSHMan will never get updated. The reason I will never upgrade to Vista is because of the modding tools that I use for this game. 90% of my toolset won't work if I switch to Vista.

-Swamper

[Patricius Maximus]

the name may imply rural highway, but not everyone uses this mod strictly for rural areas.  theres a good clip of us that exclusively use the RHW as a replacement for the FHW.

How true. Although for a long time now in the official title 'rural' is in quotes, so it is mostly vestigal. Got to call it something. In my showcase region, FHW is almost obsolete. In most cases RHW can do the job better, more efficient, and with more customization than FHW. FHW is currently useful for these things (at least with me):

- The center of collector/distributor systems
- Urban sunken highways
- Tight urban freeways

Compare those select uses to the RHW's limited usefulness back in 1.2 and 1.3. Things sure have changed since then, and for the better. Much better.

That new texture set Pitty's creating looks... distinctive and useful. The light asphalt textures could find some use in some regions that I can think of, such as those with older highways.

[A200]

Why do you continually call the Maxis Highways the FHW (fake highway) It isn't a "fake" highway!!! It is simply a different type of freeway, far better accustomed for urban use and in CBDs than the RHW is But the RHW is better in rural areas and areas where you have enough space to take up a whole city tile in a big interchange 

Sorry, but this is one thing that annoys me around here, the continual bagging of the Maxis Highways. If you want to call it something, call it the MHW.  People around here seem to have very little respect of Maxis' work in designing the game and creating the transport types, and it some people here seem to have a big chip on their shoulder that the work they produce (which might I say is at a high standard) is better than the original game itself.

A200

[Haljackey]

Why do you continually call the Maxis Highways the FHW (fake highway) It isn't a "fake" highway!!!

Well, its kind of an unofficial name.  Some refer them as FHWs, others Maxis highways (or MHW?)


I still call them what they were named in-game: ground and elevated highways.  When I say this, everyone knows what I'm referring to.  When I say RHW or El-RHW, I am referring to that network. 

Still, its nothing to fight over.  Typing FHW is a lot faster than typing ground highway or elevated highway, and thus the short for was born.  The same goes for RHW, NAM, HSR, etc.

Best,
-Haljackey

[j-dub]

I still use the MHW but without the shoulders. First time, the highway restyling kept the Maxis texture, but added a shoulder, thats why I don't consider the Maxis highways fake, at least now.