Three Rivers Region

[threestooges]

I'm not that skilled at texturing (or photo editing for that matter) so for that part alone, well done. Overall, it looks great. I hope you found my comments on the FAR useful, and I hope that you'll need some testers for this when it's ready; I'll be happy to help.
-Matt

[Alfred.Jones]

I've been watching this thread for some time and I can't hold on anymore!!

OMG!!!!

This is absolutely amazing work David

You are a champion!!!!!

[dedgren]

Hey, what the heck...

Let's break the rail grid once and for all before midnight, Alaska time (GMT-9).



As you can see, we still have an issue with color matching at farther out (lower number) view levels.  I'm going to work on this while the pathing/puzzle-piece work is being done.  It's my understanding that the textures are pretty easy to swap out.

Here's the payoff.





So, it's off to bed.  I'll wrap the "large end" fractional angle curve up first thing in the morning, and get back to all the other things we've been working on.


David

80926

[TheTeaCat]

Stupendous 

Ground breaking ain't the word for this.


I really don't know what else to say .........

But Bravo 


TTC

[JoeST]

I really don't know what else to say .........

I am having that problem as well... Its just all too good for words...

Thankyou

Joe

[bat]

That's looking really really beautiful, David! Wonderful progress!

[Doctor Soul]

Say... not to be a spoilsport, but maybe it's time the FAR and the FARR get their own dev thread? 

Absolutely stunning stuff this is. I never thought I'd see this happen, but I just did! 

[szarkoz]

David, they are looking really great! Thanks for your work

[etherian]

I don't think any of us can even been to imagine what this will do to our rail networks, this is absolutely stunning work.

If I may be so bold as to suggest something, would it be possible for a FAR puzzle piece to turn more than 90°? Handy for hairpin turns and creating tight switchbacks for mountains.

[superhands]

those rail curves are really taking shape
and yes i did loose a couple 9's.

dave

[warszawa]

That is awesome work David my friend . The rail works are stunning! It is good to see that you are turning Sim City 4 into a more realistic game.
Looking forwards to seeing more of your work .

Alex

[Shadow Assassin]

Man, this looks awesome...

It's hard work, that's for sure.

...though I won't say that it takes me about 5 minutes to create a texture and alpha map... I've got a few tricks up my sleeve...hehe.

[Andreas]

As you can see, we still have an issue with color matching at farther out (lower number) view levels.  I'm going to work on this while the pathing/puzzle-piece work is being done.  It's my understanding that the textures are pretty easy to swap out.

David, try my SFBT Rail Texture Mod that was posted some weeks ago. It contains a file that darkens the Maxis rail texture for zoom 1 to 4. For some reason, Maxis decided to make those textures brighter, and you'd have to adjust the brightness manually for all those textures.

But if you look at other custom textures, pretty much everybody only processed the zoom 1 to 4 textures with FiSHMan or SC4Tool, so they are darker (including most of the NAM rail textures). My mod was an approach to fix this issue, and I think the darker textures look quite well in zoom 4 and below.

That said, excellent work on the new textures, and especially the alpha maps. I can imagine how tedious it is to create them, even if you can use some shortcuts in your graphics program, like it was suggested.

[dedgren]

Here they come!

These are the FARR wide curve pieces.



There's an 6x2 S-curve, a 7x3 45 degree curve, and a 9x9 (probably broken into a smaller "A" and "B" puzzle-piece) 90 degree curve.

As for the fractional angle curves and segments, there are...



...a 5x2 "short" curve end, a 7x9 "long" curve end, and a 3x2 straight segment.

* * *

So, here's a FARR enhanced rail line across a generic quad.

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


* * *

So, what do these actually look like in the game?  Well, thanks to Andreas and SFBT, pretty good.





Those were cobbled together pretty quickly- I'm sure you all will do much better once these are released.

I'm goin' outside for a while.


David

81243

[debutterfly]

Wow...what's next FARHW? 

[Tarkus]

Wow...what's next FARHW? 

Hey!  It rhymes!

-Alex (Tarkus)

[dragonshardz]

No what's next is FAR-RHW

[Tarkus]

No what's next is FAR-RHW

Well, FARHW could be considered a portmanteau of FAR and RHW . . . it rolls off the tongue better.  FaRHW.

It looks like I have my work cut out for me.

And those Rail pieces look stunning!

-Alex (Tarkus)

[Nardo69]

Be careful when walking in here it's slippery from all drool from (I guess not only) me    

If you go on like this you are going to make the MSTS obsolete ... 


EDIT:  Bernhard, wow!  A truly treasured "Double-0" moment has snuck up on us.  It hasn't been missed. -DE

[petercintn]

Hey!

Been browsing the maps of 3RR and am thoughly impressed.  David, I believe this project is umprecedented.   

And I've been meaning to coment on your little side sig, part of a quote from my favorite songwriter.  In Bents you even have Broken Arrow Lake.  (Am I showing my age here?)

Finally, you know, some folks just write books.  It would be easier!  Keep up the great work, though I've been away for awhile, I've been cheering on the sidelines.


EDIT:  Any friend of Neil's is a very, very good friend of mine.  Peter, you are the first 3RR Regular (those folks who have commented at least once here or at 3RR-ST) to catch the "Broken Arrow" reference.  Only an old man like me with a heart of gold would be working like a hurricane to keep 3RR rockin' in the free world (and everywhere else!).  Don't even ask me about Leonard Cohen, Jackson Browne and Aimee Mann. -DE