NWM (Network Widening Mod) - Development and Support

[Haljackey]

If anyone else wants to have a crack at "regionalized" textures, though, they are more than welcome to.

Well, this was mentioned before in the TLA thread @ ST, but these are what "Suicide lanes" (the centre turn lanes) look like here in Canada:



Its similar to the USA, but the difference is that the broken yellow line is on the outside, rather than in the inside.  This lets motorists know they can enter this lane.
-For example, on a 2 lane road, if the solid yellow line was facing you, even though it is broken on the other side, it means that you cannot enter the other lane (in your direction).  However, if the line was broken on your side and solid on the other, it means you can.  Thats why, when it comes to TLAs, the broken line is on the outside here rather than inside in the USA. 
-It is from that prospective that I am puzzled why American roads having them in the inside.  I am guessing that it shows that you cannot use this lane for passing, but you can enter it to make a turn.

Anyways, just thought I should show a photo to request the texture.  I don't have a problem using the "USA" version when the TLA first comes out, but I am assuming that it shouldn't be too difficult to make a Canadian version.  All you would have to do is move the broken yellow lines from the inside to the outside, right?

Best,
-Haljackey

[jplumbley]

As a fellow Canadian, Haljackey, I do detest the broken line on the inside rather than the Canadian outside.  But we must deal with what we have.  Burgess has been kind enough to supply us with his American version textures.  When we are able to get this finally released it will essentially be upto someone else to make a similar texture replacement mod such as the Euro Mod to make a 2nd version of the textures.  We the NAM Team Members can only deal with what we are given. 

[Haljackey]

Like I said I don't have a problem with it, the textures look great right now!
-But, how difficult would it be do just move the broken yellow line?  Probably not as easy it it seems, eh?

Anyways, I don't really care about lines, traffic lights, etc. too much.  Function comes first!

[jplumbley]

Like I said I don't have a problem with it, the textures look great right now!
-But, how difficult would it be do just move the broken yellow line?  Probably not as easy it it seems, eh?

Anyways, I don't really care about lines, traffic lights, etc. too much.  Function comes first!

Very easy indeed to "move" the lines it is.  But time consuming to repackage the DAT file.  We will have in excess of 40 textures to edit  in the first release alone and it will only expand.  These 40 textures do not include wealth and zoom, zoom is done automatically by SC4Tool but wealth we must do ourselves.  So, 40 x 4 = 160 textures to edit manually in photoshop, paint, whatever, then package them using SC4Tool.  It takes alot of coordination to package an alternate texture such as this.  Imagine what myself and Diggis go through with SAM's 8 texture sets and currently at about 45 textures per set.  Each set takes probably 2 hours of work to package, atleast.  The physical editing of the textures in TLA may be only 1 minute per texture but thats still close to 3 hours of work.  Thats atleast 5 hours of making new textures and RULing and testing that Alex and I can do on something else.  If you catch my drift.

[RebaLynnTS]

If one just wanted to do a replacement texture set, they would not have to worry about the RULs, would they? Just be sure the textures are numbered correctly, and in the right order?

With all the free time I usually have, I could do that, All I would need is the base set of textures, the IDs, and a photo of what to replace them with.

[Jonathan]

No RULs would be needed to make a replacement texture set, but it some very rare cases it may be neccessary. The IIDs of the FSH files would need to be the same as the current ones.

[CasperVg]

I would be interested in creating some regional textures, i would just like to know how possible/easy/hard it is to create one of them; so if someone would be so kind to post one texture (one with yellow lines) in it so I could experiment before getting into the real work.
Just so I can see how long it will (approx.) take to create the whole set. A straight piece for the TLA-7 would be awesome to experiment with.

Thanks on beforehand,
Casper

[jplumbley]

I would be interested in creating some regional textures, i would just like to know how possible/easy/hard it is to create one of them; so if someone would be so kind to post one texture (one with yellow lines) in it so I could experiment before getting into the real work.
Just so I can see how long it will (approx.) take to create the whole set. A straight piece for the TLA-7 would be awesome to experiment with.

Thanks on beforehand,
Casper

This is the TLA-5 Wealth $$$ Straight piece.



There are some general Transit Rules to remember when making textures:

- Sidewalks are NOT part of the general texture.
- Grass IS part of the general texture to define the different wealths.
- A secondary texture called an ALPHA Texture is what is used to create the Sidewalks. (I will explain more when that time comes for those invovled, maybe with a tutorial in the future).
- Textures are easier to be made with Photoshop or Paintshop Pro by making use of layers.  And should be saved in PNG format.
- There are a minimum of 4 wealths for each texture, No Wealth, $, $$ and $$$.  (The best way to start is by creating a No wealth texture which has no grass and a transparent background behind the Road surface.  I can help with the 3 grass wealths later when we have a base set created).

Please take these things into consideration BEFORE you start making Transit Textures.

[Andreas]

I'd say the most important thing when creating/editing such textures is to be organized. If you name every single file properly according to the ID it will have in the DAT files, then half of the work is basically done already. Processing/packaging them as DAT requires some work, but it doesn't require much skills. You need some stamina and a good eye, so you won't pick the wrong files all the time, but it's more or less assembly line work. Same goes for creating the different wealth level textures; you can create one as a template, and then copy the edited parts to all other wealth levels (usually four different files per texture).

[Ryan B.]

I don't want to be mean or rude or anything like that, but I would really appreciate it if you didn't just re-color my work and post it as yours - even if credit is given. 

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.  Thanks!

[zakuten]

Odd, I didn't know that marking was distinctly Canadian... A few setups like that in the Chicago suburbs have the dotted lines on the outside, and older ones one the inside. I figured they'd just switched recently to be less confusing...

[Crissa]

jp, do you have some photoshop files of the various layers?

The ones you sent me didn't include an entire tile of grass or plain pavement...

-Crissa

[jplumbley]

jp, do you have some photoshop files of the various layers?

The ones you sent me didn't include an entire tile of grass or plain pavement...

-Crissa

Yes, I do have the grass bases in one PSD file.

What I do is take the Road Surface portion of the texture someone has made for me and set it on the top layer.  Then I turn off the layers and save as the 4 different wealth.  No wealth has no grass so all grass layers would be turned off when I save it.

[CasperVg]

burgsabre: Okay, no problem. Sorry.

[superhands]

hell, i might have a go. picked up corel paint just the other day. (sick of using windows paint)

[dragonshardz]

You mean PS-P, right?

Hover over the acronym if you're confused.

~~Dragonshardz~~

[Crissa]

That would, uhh, be really handy to have, jp.

Might even make my offerings look useful.

-Crissa

[CasperVg]

The base for what my regional interpretation. I don't think it will ever exist in reality however.
Please notice that I created 1x1 parks with the texture on it, and these have no functionality at all (plain texture)





@ Dragonshardz: how did you implement the acronym in your post?

[jplumbley]

Very good caspervg... These can be made useful   

[dragonshardz]

@casper: it's some fairly simple coding.

Code Select Expand

[acronym=PaintShop Pro]PS-P[/acronym]

This code gives you the acronym I used. Just replace "PS-P" with your acronym and "PaintShop Pro" with what the acronym stands for.

Thus, Network Addon Mod becomes NAM

Coding:

Code Select Expand

[acronym=Network Addon Mod]NAM[/acronym]

And now back to the topic at hand. Casper, it looks great and will most likely be used for the inevitable Euro mod. But, anyone who nags about this PLEASE remember that Tarkus, Jp, and the others are focusing on FUNCTION first and aesthetics second.

~~Dragonshardz~~