NWM (Network Widening Mod) - Development and Support

[vortext]

Planters and lightposts for the NWM are added with additional mods, for example. There're plenty of others too, so it might be wortwhile to do a little searching.

[sancho_chase]

Good link, thanks.  That mod seems to only allow one wealth at a time?  Maybe I'm reading it wrong....

I did try a search using your key words, on both LEX and STEX and the only relevant link I found was the one you referenced (and one other 'tree beta' for ave-2).
Do you have any other links to share?

Thanks again!

[vortext]

Sure, here you go. Wait, there's more!

Okay I cheated, the last one actually is a texture mod but I couldn't think of just one sentence this time a day, coffee please! 

[sancho_chase]

Yes, I found those too.  I was really looking for the larger ave (ave 6 I think) that is essentially the NWM version of maxis aves. 
Which you provided in the original reply, thanks.  I imagine there are others for the 6 and I just need to continue the search.

Thanks for your time.

[Opkl]

I hope a tree side mod will be made for the OWR-4. It's sidewalks are so wide and empty.

[Hellken]

Yes, I found those too.  I was really looking for the larger ave (ave 6 I think) that is essentially the NWM version of maxis aves. 
Which you provided in the original reply, thanks.  I imagine there are others for the 6 and I just need to continue the search.

Thanks for your time.

From simcitychina:
http://www.simcity.cn/thread-108982-1-1.html
http://www.simcity.cn/viewthread.php?tid=83513&extra=page%3D1%26amp%3Bfilter%3Dtype%26amp%3Btypeid%3D11

[sancho_chase]

Wow, I'd seen hints of this, but never any links; cool. 

Check out this well known haljackey youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YlR2nSB-ZU&feature=youtu.be

He even mentions the mod, but doesn't say which one.  I don't think it's this simcitychina mod....

[Haljackey]

Check out this well known haljackey youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YlR2nSB-ZU&feature=youtu.be

He even mentions the mod, but doesn't say which one.  I don't think it's this simcitychina mod....

Are you referring to the sandstone TuLEP mod? Grab em right here: http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/26617-sandstone-texture-mod-for-network-addon-mod-nam/

Ave-6 median: http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/26790-maxis-styled-ave-6-median-pack/

[sancho_chase]

Haljackey - The man of the hour.
That's what I was looking for and what vortext provided the link for.
When I first read the requirements they didn't make sense; now I get it.  I really just wanted to know what you were using in the you tube video.

One thing that still eludes me is the implication of this statement from the Maxis-Styled AVE-6 Median Pack read me:
Since the AVE-6's median is locked in the middle, it won't be able to touch any zones, and therefore, any sort of wealth- or zone-dependent T21 won't work.

I'm new to this T21 concept - what is a wealth or zone dependent T21?

[vortext]

T21 are the type of files used to get props on transit networks. Basically they're 1x1 lots assigned to a specific network tile, e.g. straight, corner, 4way, etc.

In normal circumstances, the wealth and zone densities of the surrounding lots determine which T21 shows. For instance, in vanilla SC low wealth residential zones shows wooden lightpoles while highwealth commercial zones show modern, white lightposts. However, since the median tile in AVE6 doesn't touch any zones, wealth and zone density don't have any influence on them.

If interested, here's more info.

[sancho_chase]

T21 are the type of files used to get props on transit networks. Basically they're 1x1 lots assigned to a specific network tile, e.g. straight, corner, 4way, etc.

In normal circumstances, the wealth and zone densities of the surrounding lots determine which T21 shows. For instance, in vanilla SC low wealth residential zones shows wooden lightpoles while highwealth commercial zones show modern, white lightposts. However, since the medium tile in AVE6 doesn't touch any zones, wealth and zone density don't have any influence on them.

If interested, here's more info.

Excellent description. 
This website is great - I've been using it to customize simcity for about 2 years and this is the 1st time I've needed to ask a specific question.
Thanks again.   

[Indiana Joe]

I know this is a bit off-topic for the thread, but it's continuing the current discussion.  I've always wondered if the wealthification textures can be changed to be completely transparent?  (Would be very useful for RHW)

[MandelSoft]

No, it can't. The wealthification is applied to hide sidewalks, something that's not acceptable when making diagonals or motorways.

[Indiana Joe]

But couldn't you make sidewalk textures transparent as well?

[Tarkus]

The issue is that if you did that, all sidewalks for all networks would become transparent.  The only way of which I'm aware to completely turn off sidewalks would be to make the affected networks be 100% model-based.

-Alex

[GDO29Anagram]

I know this is a bit off-topic for the thread, but it's continuing the current discussion.  I've always wondered if the wealthification textures can be changed to be completely transparent?  (Would be very useful for RHW)

A note on wealthificaiton, wealth grass, zoning, and sidewalks: Both the grass and the sidewalk textures are tied together, but if you look at a texture, all you see is the grass that lines the sides and the transparent areas where the sidewalk shows through.

If you place any type of zoning along a network that has wealthification, sidewalks will appear on the network. If that network has assigned wealth grass textures, those will also show.

Wealthification is governed by 4 or 7 textures, and they are ordered by wealth and density level:

0x######0# - Unzoned. If there are no other wealth textures, this texture will be used throughout every wealth and density level. This is why if you try to place zones along a diagonal RHW-6C or a diagonal AVE-6, you will get large sidewalks. This is not an intentional design feature; it's because we didn't assign any wealth textures.

0x######1#, 0x######2#, and 0x######3# - These are the low-density wealth textures, one for each wealth level, low, medium, and high.

0x######4#, 0x######5#, and 0x######6# - These are the high-density wealth textures. These are the same as the low-density wealth grass textures. Most networks don't use this, but the RHW is the only network that does. As mentioned already, this is to hide away the sidewalks that appear, especially when you only have an 0x######0# texture present.

There's also one for -##7#, which is used for agricultural zoning, but that's almost never used.

The difference between each and every texture, from -##0# to -##6# is the presence of grass that lines the sides of the road deck. Each texture will have the same road deck.

Because of the transparent areas for the sidewalks and the "baked-in" nature of the grass, it's incredibly easy to make sidewalk mods, but incredibly hard to create zero-grass mods. Sidewalks are governed by just three textures: Low-wealth, medium-wealth, and high-wealth, whereas wealthification (wealth grass) is governed by the network textures themselves, and there are THOUSANDS of them.

It's also for this reason that de-wealthifying an entire network is insanely hard. Model-based networks, such as Elevated Rail, Monorail, and MHWs, don't have any wealthification assigned to the networks, because there was never any wealth grass textures to assign for them. Other networks, like elevated RHWs (soon to be either L1, L2, L3, or L4, depending on what we're talking about, though they're all effectively identical for this case) are also model-based because they, too, have no assigned wealth textures. You can theoretically assign wealth textures to such a network (and it has been done with several of the NWM networks, TLA-3, AVE-2, ARD-3, NRD-4, and OWR-3), but it'll experience some rather funny properties which are too subtle to notice at first.

Back to the original question: How do you de-wealthify the entirety of the RHW without affecting everything else? Easy:

1. Replace all of the sidewalk textures with blank textures.
2. Replace all 4000 RHW textures with de-grassified versions.
3. Replace the textures of EVERY network (AVE, RD, OWR, Street, SAM-1, SAM-2, SAM-3, SAM-4, SAM-5, SAM-7, SAM-8, SAM-9, TLA-3, AVE-2, ARD-3, OWR-1, OWR-3, NRD-4, TLA-5, OWR-4, OWR-5, RD-4, RD-6, TLA-7, AVE-6) with textures that have sidewalks built in.
4. (Optional) Create compatibility versions of the 20+ networks you modified to work with other sidewalk mods.

In other words, you'd probably need to change out about 70000 to 100000 textures in total, and that's including mipmaps and wealth levels.

Or the easier but still excruciatingly tedious method of converting the RHWs to model-based networks:

1. Create models for each and every RHW network tile.
2. Create new path files for each RHW network tile.
3. Create exemplar files for each RHW network tile.
4. Uproot the entire file structure of the RHW so that there are no wealthified textures whatsoever.

There also exists a fundamental problem called user preference: Some people like the wealthification, and in many cases, it's absolutely necessary. You'd end up upsetting those who want wealthification.

Plus, it's actually quite easier to create a texture-based network tile than to create a model-based network tile; Aside from the IIDs, a texture-based network tile only needs textures and paths, whereas a model-based network tile would need textures, paths (and these would actually need a different TGI than that of texture-based network tiles, making pathfixing harder for the untrained wannabee transit modder), models (and you would have to assign the texture manually if you didn't have a program to do it for you), and an exemplar to tell the game what the tile is.

[Indiana Joe]

I actually might look into editing the textures and removing the grass and sidewalks.  I'd only do it for my most commonly used textures: the orthogonal and diagonal tiles of MIS, RHW-2, RHW-4, and maybe 6-S for all wealths.  That would come out to what, several dozen to a few hundred textures?

This would be something I do myself.  The problem I have is that the current grass that shows up hardly blends with anything (that I use anyway).

[memo]

The issue is that if you did that, all sidewalks for all networks would become transparent.  The only way of which I'm aware to completely turn off sidewalks would be to make the affected networks be 100% model-based.

As far as I know, whether this will work is also a characteristic of the network type. For example, this works for Avenues, but not for Roads.

Back to the original question: How do you de-wealthify the entirety of the RHW without affecting everything else? Easy:

1. Replace all of the sidewalk textures with blank textures.
2. Replace all 4000 RHW textures with de-grassified versions.
3. Replace the textures of EVERY network (AVE, RD, OWR, Street, SAM-1, SAM-2, SAM-3, SAM-4, SAM-5, SAM-7, SAM-8, SAM-9, TLA-3, AVE-2, ARD-3, OWR-1, OWR-3, NRD-4, TLA-5, OWR-4, OWR-5, RD-4, RD-6, TLA-7, AVE-6) with textures that have sidewalks built in.
4. (Optional) Create compatibility versions of the 20+ networks you modified to work with other sidewalk mods.

I think I could pretty much automate this process. I even had been contemplating of doing so as again and again users ask for this, like I have seen Casper (CasperVg) complaining about the rail's dirt in his videos, and Gobias about the wealth's grass that do not match his terrain mods.

Or the easier but still excruciatingly tedious method of converting the RHWs to model-based networks:

1. Create models for each and every RHW network tile.
2. Create new path files for each RHW network tile.
3. Create exemplar files for each RHW network tile.
4. Uproot the entire file structure of the RHW so that there are no wealthified textures whatsoever.

That would not be too difficult, either. Your points on the paths are insignificant, though.

As for the user preference, that is why re-texturing mods come with several options.

[MandelSoft]

Problem is that there are a very, very few members that even do re-texturing...

[dragonshardz]

Problem is that there are a very, very few members that even do re-texturing...

Editing textures to remove wealthified grass is far easier than making new ones. It's a daunting amount of very tedious work, but it's not very brain-stretching work.

That said: memo, if you want a hand making this (transparent grass textures) a viable option, I'd be glad to help.