Halisburg - Newbie's Sandbox

[imoutofusernameideas]

Hello dear SC4D fellows,

Seeing as I seem to be starting a new thread for each issue I encounter, I've decided to make one thread (and one thread only) wherein I will be asking about all the problems I run into while building my huge sandbox city Halisburg. As some of you may know, this is a project of mine to train my building skills and ultimately be able to build a beautiful, realistic city. All the questions I have (and will have in the future) will be posted here, so it would be nice if the helpfully minded among you could drop by from time to time. 

Today's questions are all about retaining walls - especially those on slopes - and the HSRP.

1. First of all we have this little gem.



On the right side of the road there will be housing on the terrace above and a medium plaza on the terrace below. To the left there is housing on smaller terrain terraces. This inevitably has created this "inner corner diagonal piece" of terrain that doesn't fit any of jeronij's amazing 'Modern Concrete Diagonal Walls' properly. Does anybody have a suggestion as to how to fix this or at least make it visually more appealing?

2. Now we come to a similar problem, this time with buddybud's 'Rural Sunken Highway Walls'.



The red circle shows what happens when I level the higher terrain to fit the square fences of the walls -> the sloped terrain will cut through the diagonal wall. The blue circle on the other hand shows what happens when I level the lower terrain. Is this caused by anything in particular? It seems my sunken motorway is sufficiently deep (15m) and I'm currently using Ennedi's Jagged Edge Mod, which should prevent such ordeals from happening if I've understood his description correctly. Any ideas?

3. GHSR overpass over sunken motorway



In this picture I have built the puzzle pieces of the onslope GHSR (NO HSR) next to the motorway. The description said the puzzle pieces should be placed so the arrows point away from the slope, which I have done. But for some reason the pieces cannot be connected to each other with the draggable Monorail. I get the error message "Cannot place on top of reserved tiles". I have tried numerous things to fix this: Lower the motorway as far as 30 metres, raise the motorway bit by bit, bulldoze the motorway underneath, make the bridge part wider - all to no avail. Is this a known issue? BTW, the image shown in question 2 is using the puzzle piece before this one which - as I understand - is actually a transition piece that "morphs" GHSR to HSR just for that little overpass piece. Or am I misunderstand this? And if so, what are the 'NO HSR' puzzle pieces actually for?

I haven't been a member here for long but I've happily come to the conclusion that there are always nice people here who are willing to help wherever they can so I hope someone can shed some light on these particular issues.

Sincerely,
imoutofusernameideas

[mgb204]

For the first problem, you could make a custom texture, but that's not ideal. Here (I'm using MAS 71's walls myself), I've used a creative solution which also breaks up the repetition somewhat:



Note that MAS's set also includes a corner piece, marked in yellow. But that didn't really fit here, so I've made a small walkway using some diagonal fillers that blend into the walls set nicely.

The second issue is a problem I've encountered with those pieces too. You need to flatten one more tile of land, but that leaves an empty hole on the other side to fill. Marrast's Embankments come with some fillers for grass, that if orientated correctly will fill the hole nicely. Although visually it's not perfect. Actually it's quite easy to make a texture hold to the height of the edge of the terrain, just adjust the settings for "elevation change" in LE.

As for HSR, sadly it can be quite a limited network in terms of some inter-network compatibility. This situation is supported, but there is no puzzle piece for the crossing itself. Therefore you need to use the alternate on-slopes with starters, then you can drag HSR over the highway. The problem with this solution is the HSR slope will need one more tile of land flattened on either side of the motorway to accommodate the on-slope pieces. If you are having problems finding wall pieces that match a given situation, you can mix/match them together sometimes and achieve good results:

[imoutofusernameideas]

Wow mgb, thanks for the quick and comprehensive answers! 

As for the walls: each set has its ups and downs: the most beautiful ones often lack underbridge pieces or diagonal/corner fillers like that. I have now used jrj's concrete walls which feature puzzle pieces like this and have some nice additional beautifications (outlook posts, stairs) but the walls themselves are quite plain, sadly. That picture you've posted does look intriguing though; *runs off to confer with Mr. Google.*
Unfortunately I haven't been able to track down NOB's sets which I find fantastic!

As for the gaps: using the embankment fillers is actually a good idea! I'll try some stuff out.

The HSR is indeed not quite compatible with other networks, as of now I still haven't figured out how to drag a road over it without having to build a bridge. 

The next question is already waiting to be answered: RHW: is it possible to create cloverleaves and T-intersections?

[Swordmaster]

You can pretty much create anything with the RHW if you give it enough space. Here's a three-way I made yesterday:




It can be much more compact if the mainline doesn't have a bend in it, and if you use MIS (i.e. one-lane interchanges) instead of two-lanes like I did.

As for HSR x Road, either the road or the HSR will have to be an overpass, since at-grade crossings aren't allowed.


Cheers
Willy

[imoutofusernameideas]

Thanks, swordmaster!

I suppose my best option is to create a new sandbox city, plop the Maxis pieces and then try to recreate them with RHW pieces. As of now my preferred motorway is the 6C (the 6 lange thing without the gap in the middle). Is this a good starting point or is that number of lanes unsuitable for projects like this?

EDIT: Another question just popped up in my mind. From the very start Halisburg was supposed to become a typical East Coast American city but with a very strong emphasis on politics and government - I will be drawing a lot of inspiration from Washington D.C.'s Capitol Hill for my government district. For my Capitol Building I would like to use a building strongly inspired by the US Capitol Building, but not the building itself. I have already found a building that would suit this purpose wonderfully: yyoder's 'Osturland Great Hall'. The one thing I dislike about it is its golden dome, which is just a bit too ostentatious for my taste. Is there a simple way to fix the colouring? Preferably without messing up the night lights.

[mgb204]

RHW-6C doesn't always play as nice as 6S with interchanges and overpasses in my experience. To be honest whilst that's pretty much a default UK motorway setup, I believe it's not so commonplace in the US. Therefore a mix of 4S, 6S and 8S might work better, but I'm no expert on this.

Changing the colour of a model is really difficult. You can in theory edit the 20 textures that make up the model however you like. I've done this to colour correct some models but the results are seldom ideal. If you really want to change a model, the easiest way is to re-render it with adjusted textures. That requires using a 3D modelling application, but you won't be able to open an SC4 model and edit it. You need the original source files for the modelling program, which are not commonly distributed.

[MushyMushy]

I personally don't have too much trouble with 6C in interchanges unless they're super complex. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but in my city one of the major federal highways that passes through it (I-40), would be classified as 6C all the way through the city, with 8C (and some of what 10C would look like if it existed) as it approaches interchanges. Of course, the grass strip in the center appears again outside of the city, but I think they got rid of it in the city to save space. The city highway loop might also have portions that are like this (would likely be MHO or RHW-6C). I'm sure other US cities that are more dense than mine have the same setup.

[imoutofusernameideas]

Thanks for the answers, you two!

As for the Capitol Building, I suppose I just have to live with it. I will try to make a beautiful custom lot with the Editor for it and add some nightlights so it will be more to my taste.  Though as for the Editor, I was wondering whether there are any good overlay textures out there that would allow me to create all kinds of streets with all sorts of intersections (I was thinking about very slight curves that would allow for very large soft curves when put together, round intersections and such to make something similar to the roads that run along the real US Capitol). I have one set of overlay textures already that goes in the right direction but most pieces don't connect well to one another and usually only allow for slight curves that are one tile in size with the adjoining tiles required to have straight pieces on them, because other curvy pieces just don't connect well. This makes the streets look a bit boxy. Does anyone know of an overlay texture set like that? Realistic looking water textures for the editor would be welcome too!

Another thing I've noticed about the Lot Editor is that not all custom light props really light up at night (in game, they light up but do not shed lightcones around themselves on the ground). Is there a good, functional lightset out there somewhere?

As for the RHW, I will give it a bit of trial and error. Anyhow, I was wondering which pieces you, mgb, were using in the picture of your first post in this thread. Your RHW seems to have retaining walls along the outer extremes as well as the middle walls that separate the two three-way lanes from each other (much like the Maxis motorways). As you can see in my picture, my 6C pieces only have the middle wall.

EDIT: Almost forgot: I'm planning to build a reflecting pool, very much like the one found in D.C.'s Mall. Is there any water mod that could be used for this? The Can-AM allows for "ploppable" water, but this has some depth to it when placing the outer pieces (as in: the water is lower than the surrounding terrain). But the reflecting pool has its water pretty much on ground level, as in: one drop of rain would make it overflow (picture below). JrJ's ploppable water unfortunately does not have straight edges and is more suitable for natural lakes and streams, as is PEG's Pond and Stream Kit. Any ideas?

Washington D.C. reflecting pool:

[mgb204]

The picture I showed was not using RHW, it's just a re-skin of the Maxis Highway (MHW). A RHW-compatible update to the MHW, Maxis Highway Override (MHO) is an option in the NAM. I'm just about finishing off a whole load of updates to better support crossings with other networks for NAM 35. You create the network much like MHW, there are some basics ramps, roundabouts and a full t-interchange piece. Otherwise, you need to use MIS for creating junctions. It's a great first step to using RHW, since it's much easier, whilst introducing the basic concept of modular interchanges. The one drawback is, you don't get the tight/ugly Maxis junctions, so if you have a lot of MHW already, it might be hard to retrofit. I'd advise using it in new regions for that reason.

Lighting is dependant on a number of factors. When creating a model, you have a scene, think like a movie set with cameras/lights. These lights can only ever affect what is rendered, so anything on a lot that is not part of a model, will not be lit by the model. You can use light props or light cones though. The cones are what actually directs light onto game objects, usually they are linked to a light prop, but BSC Misc Vol2 for example has some cones you can plop as props.

I use the lights included with Mandelsoft's LRM, you can find his work here. I can also recommend his Stoplight Replacement mod too, both have many customisation options to fit a variety of different locales.

If you need textures for transport networks for lotting, first see if such textures already are included in the NAM? For example, the street WRC's may be just what you need on these lots? Two things you may need to know about this, textures always have one of two Group IDs, either

• 0986135E - Lot textures that appear in the Lot Editor
• 1ABE787D - Network textures, will not appear in the Lot Editor

You can simply take the textures you want to reuse, "patch" them into a new file, then re-ID all of them in one go to turn transit textures into lot textures.

The second thing is that some networks need special darkened textures, otherwise the game shows them lighter than normal. This won't apply to 99% of the street textures, but if you come across this, you'll want to colour-correct them so they match in-game. GoFSH includes a batch colour-correcting tool, so it can be done perfectly without fuss in seconds. You'll need a pre-release version to use this feature though. It also makes it a doddle to extract/package the textures in just a few steps.

Moving to the water texture, I have in mind something like Simmer2 has been showing on his railyards for ponds? Pegasus made something similar for a pond, but I think in this case a custom texture would really give the best results. I'm thinking with a few small adjustments, I may be able to knock something up from some photos of lakes/rivers I have. Do you know what size the lot will be? Ideally, you'll want some random patterns to break up any large-blocks of textures.

[imoutofusernameideas]

Thank you mgb! 

Unfortunately your explanations have left  me with more questions. (How surprising, amirite? )

1. The re-skin: Would I have to re-install the entire NAM for them? And do they only change the straight parts or the intersection/cloverleaf pieces as well?

2. The lights are a real mystery to me. I've tried to place lightcones before, but honestly they're a real b*tch to place properly. When I think I've got it right, I rotate the view and the light has moved somewhere else entirely.

2.1. Thanks for the link, I will check out his stuff. 

3. Well, the textures I have now have taken some trial and error, but now I have managed to create something halfway decent:



Although I still get some of these ugly edges every now and then:



This is just an example, stuff like this is all over the place, especially around curves and diagonal pieces. 

4. I'm not quite sure what Simmer2's railyard entails?
What I have in mind is basically something similar to PEG's pond and stream kit, more like JRJ's Urban Canals Props: http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=590

To be quite specific, I'm planning to build an avenue that divides a park from my Capitol Building (or perhaps another park, similar to The Mall), something like this:



In this (awful) picture, grey is an avenue (or two roads divided by one tile, which would probably fit my purpose better) with the circle representing a roundabout (the yellow will be some filler, whatever). The green represents a park and the red stands for either my Capitol or another park. The blue is water. So basically what would be best would be some one tile water that can act as an avenue divider. The thing with the water sets mentioned above is that on their own, the 1x1 pieces are just blue squares, it's the embankment pieces that actually make it look like water when combined. But without them, it's just a coloured square.

As for Lot Editor water tectures, I have one that looks rather realistic, although again, the 1x1 pieces do not connect well to one another. I have tried making a small refelction pool in the middle of the pathways that lead up to my capitol:



As you can see, they don't really fit in. All my other water textures look like a child ran riot with a box of crayons.


Thanks again for your help, I really do appreciate it! 

[mgb204]

1. The re-skin: Would I have to re-install the entire NAM for them? And do they only change the straight parts or the intersection/cloverleaf pieces as well?

You need to reinstall the NAM, but the installer remembers your previous settings, so you should only need to tick MHO to switch it on. Might be advisable to switch off the MHY additions too, since those would be redundant. What I was so bad at explaining is how MHO alters the way you create junctions.

It's not like MHY, where you just drag a network over/under or plop a simple interchange. You need to change how you build them.

Cloverleafs are possible, in fact special pieces are included that make them a piece of cake, the footprint is much bigger and more realistic though. T-Highway Intersections are fully supported, plop and go. Additionally two roundabout interchanges are included. But for everything else you use the RHW MIS system, making it hugely flexible in practise. The manual covers this in great detail, just to confuse you, it's also often referred to as Project Symphony .

2. The lights are a real mystery to me. I've tried to place lightcones before, but honestly they're a real b*tch to place properly. When I think I've got it right, I rotate the view and the light has moved somewhere else entirely.

If a prop is offset from the centre, say by 1m, every rotation throws it 1m away from your intended location. Sounds to me like that's the problem you are having, decide the rotation before you move it and you should be fine. Like with everything, there are so many potential options, I am probably less familiar with them than some of the great lotters around.

3. Well, the textures I have now have taken some trial and error, but now I have managed to create something halfway decent... stuff like this is all over the place, especially around curves and diagonal pieces. 

Eeek - This sort of thing wouldn't do for me  . I can literally put the entire Maxis Streets into LE textures in seconds, so if you'd like some?

4. I'm not quite sure what Simmer2's railyard entails?

You could check his dev thread . But in the meantime, I took a holiday photo with a good bit of sea to use as a base. Applied some image changes to darken it and make it more green, then made 14 Lot Textures from that that go together thusly:



And on a park lot you get:



They aren't tillable, where you can place them randomly together seamlessly, but there are enough to cover the situation you want. First seven are the top, second seven are the bottom, but if placed like I have here, I think they work well. If you'd like more blue/green, lightness/darkness or whatever, just holler. I have everything practically automated, I can churn these things out  . Sample LE textures attached.

Note: Attachment removed, these textures can now be found as part of my Texture Pack on the LEX.

[imoutofusernameideas]

 

NAM: Just open installer or uninstall first?

About the lights: Are there not just some lightposts that work on their own? I'd rather just use the cones for nightlights on buildings.

Streets: What would you suggest I do? SUre, I'd love to have those streets look smoother I just don't know how.

Water: Are those textures LE only or ploppable lots as well? (Trying them out right now in LE, btw)

EDIT: mgb, will you marry me? That water looks stunning!

P.S.: Are there some overhanging round (overlay) textures around? I'd like to make my own roundabout fillers.

[mgb204]

NAM: Just open installer or uninstall first?

The installer takes care of everything for you, so just run it again and it will update your install as required.

About the lights: Are there not just some lightposts that work on their own? I'd rather just use the cones for nightlights on buildings.

The LRM pack comes with such you can use for the LE. I prefer the light cones in them to most other props. SWI21 Vol1 or 2 has some nice lamps, but they have very subtle lighting. SHK's parking has bright lights, but I find the beam too focussed for some purposes. I use all three often, but the LRM ones are best when you want the light to cover a tile nicely in light. In fact, usually you need to skip every other tile to stop things getting too bright (causes visual nastiness).

SUre, I'd love to have those streets look smoother I just don't know how.

Attached is all the NAM Street textures for use in the LE. I didn't include any of the transitions to other networks, since that's opening a can of worms. But it does include the WRC's, so you can make and transition between nice curves.

Another thought occurs though, Maxis didn't properly mirror many textures, so sometimes they don't fit together properly when rotated. Press M with a texture selected to "Mirror" or flip it. Doing this and rotating it can make textures work in more situations and sometimes alleviate such issues.

Water: Are those textures LE only or ploppable lots as well? (Trying them out right now in LE, btw)

You could turn them into lots if you like, it wouldn't be that hard.

P.S.: Are there some overhanging round (overlay) textures around? I'd like to make my own roundabout fillers.

Textures themselves cannot overhang, unless they are part of a prop. But I'm not sure exactly what you mean by overhanging here. Overlay textures with Grass (high quality) can be found in Vortextures 1, great if you are using SV terrain. Otherwise, the BSC textures may have something.

[imoutofusernameideas]

Thank you! (And my proposal still stands!  )

About the roundabouts: I have loaded some of my roundabout filler lots in the meantime and noticed that the round parts are not actually textures, but rather the buildings themselves that overhang the lot. What I mean is that I want to build on a 2x2 lot but have it overhanging so it will fit the NAM roundabouts nicely.

EDIT: After searching Mandelsoft's gallery, I've noticed he has quite a few LRM's. Which one do I have to download?

[belfastsocrates]

In regard to the water for the ponds. A few of the canal sets have water tiles available as props that you can also use to create a large pool, either placed on one large lot or as individual plopped lots.



@MGB - Was trawling my LE to find the standard straight Japanese SAM texture, to no avail, to create a zebra crossing for my university sports complex! So I'm stealing that attached download! Oh...and the pond textures as well

[mgb204]

Thank you! (And my proposal still stands!  )

After all these years... if only I'd known the power of game textures  .

The latest versions of LRM (5.0) have many separate downloads. In essence, find the style of lamppost you like (I went for UK Themed, but there are plenty of options) - and download it. LRM 4.0 and earlier are older versions, those with "XX Set" after the title should all be v5 variants. You can always switch them later if you want a change though.

Adding props to a roundabout using overhanging props is possible, but I'd consider T21'ing them on there instead. It sounds more complicated than it is, a T21 is just a lot, but instead of being something you plop, the props attach themselves to network textures. Of course there is a little more too it than that, but that's the best way to do it.

For the easiest way , use Coego's model tweaker to move (offset) the prop so that it ends up where you want it. 1 tile is 16x16m, so the middle of the roundabout would be 16m away from the edge of the lot. You need to mess with the model, because SC4 will not allow you to put a prop more than halfway outside the lot otherwise. The tricky part of this is making a duplicate model, otherwise all instances of the model will become offset (usually not desirable).

I've attached a SAM 10 texture for you BelfastSocrates, be aware it's HD as standard though. I could re-scale it, but you should be able to add it to a lot easily enough (I think).

[imoutofusernameideas]

So I would have to download a so-called 'T-21' and then use Modeltweaker on it?

As for the street textures: Unfortunately in game they end up like this:



Why does this happen?

Nightlights: The Osturland Great Hall does not have nightlights on its entrance (between the columns and the main doors; the US Capitol has them, there's a picture below for comparison). I would like to add some nightlights to it with the LE, but when I move the cones they disappear just as they reach the columns (they "move into the building" if you know what I mean). Does this have anything to do with Occupant Size or is the issue with the building itself, therefore making it impossible to light the space between columns and entrance?

Great Hall current lights:



US Capitol lights:

[belfastsocrates]

There's a few spotlight props that might work for the portico entrance. I can't remember exactly the exact name of the props but I can have a look in LE and let you know.

If that fails you could photoshop lighting on the entrance section. If you're not confident with image editing you can send you images to me and I'll try to recreate a lighting effect.

I'm pleased you're using the Great Hall building, it's a great design by Yoder, someone I much admire. His CJ was also sensational.

[mgb204]

So I would have to download a so-called 'T-21' and then use Modeltweaker on it?

Yes/No, either you create a T21, it's just a file that works like a lot, usually you should start with a template (i.e. another T21). If that sounds too complicated, model tweaker is another way to achieve what you want by overhanging it from a lot next door.

Give me the details of the prop in question, I've templates for the Roundabout lurking somewhere. It's better T21'd in place. Then you have Option C, simply override the existing NAM prop with yours, that's nothing more than copying a file and changing the ID. It will mean the existing roundabout prop will never appear though.

As for the street textures: Unfortunately in game they end up like this:

Whoops... that's my fault  . I didn't want to re-ID 50+ textures manually, so I just changed the group ID as I mentioned before. The problem is, when the game sees two competing textures with the same Instance IDs, it will default back to the network textures. Therefore rotations and other things can be out of sync.

The Water textures use my unique IDs, so they won't be a problem. The SAM10 texture attached here does too - please download the fixed version, if you've got the old one - since it's just one texture. But manually re-IDing 50+ textures is not my idea of fun. So I've randomly generated a new 4 digit code and cross referenced it against my plugins folder, I saw no conflicts and would be confident you won't experience issues. If you do run into some (we all have different content), we can try another set of numbers . This way at least I can quickly set IDs in a few seconds. To be clear, these are not release-quality, they are intended for personal use.

...but when I move the cones they disappear just as they reach the columns

Each building/model/prop has something called a LOD and another thing called a bounding box.

Occupant size dictates the size of the bounding box, those are represented by the coloured rectangles you move around in the Lot Editor.

The LOD is something that is created to fit a model, essentially it tells the game where items take up the 3D space. To avoid collisions (where two objects share a space), if two LODs collide, one will simply not appear, even if the LE makes it look like it will. Sometimes you can wing it by moving things about a bit, other times not. At it's simplest, a LOD simply joins the extremes to form a rectangle. A good LOD will fit the model more-tightly, so you can place items close by or even inside it. If it's a basic LOD, then indeed you are going to have problems fitting many props anywhere "inside" this rectangle, so the front walls for example.

Note: Attachment removed, these textures can now be found as part of my Texture Pack on the LEX.

[vortext]

The problem is, when the game sees two competing textures with the same Instance IDs, it will default back to the network textures. Therefore rotations and other things can be out of sync.[...] So I've randomly generated a new 4 digit code and cross referenced it against my plugins folder, I saw no conflicts and would be confident you won't experience issues.

The problem rather is the network texture IIDs use 0,1,2,3 in the fifth digit, thus triggering wealth families when their GID is changed for use in LE. Unfortunately changing the first four IID digits will not solve it, nor will changing just the fifth in one fell swoop as that will result in duplicates.