Three Rivers Region

[threestooges]

Kevin: Nice work with the FAR. It looks like it was from the 20's. Good work.

Pat: I will consider entering it in the photo comp, but I'll wait until the FAR is released to the general public. It may be a personal thin, but I like to enter pictures that anyone can do with the basic stuff out there (I just could resist that one with the bridge though). I'm also still fiddling with it, so I might come up with a better one by then too.

Still looking forward to more FAR demonstrations, and congratulations jplumbley for hitting the latest '00.
-Matt

[dedgren]

Someone's collaboration quad is going out in the next 24 hours...





I'm pretty much back to where I was on March 12th, but now including the new NAM release...



I plan to send out a few a week spread over a couple of days, take a breath, then send some more.

* * *

Jason (jplumbley). welcome to the Double-0 Club.  I haven't forgotten all those overdue honors posts.

...heh- first time I haven't done an "xx99" post in a while...

* * *

Kevin (BigSlark), great pics of the FAR in use.  One of the things I was hoping to see was how the segments looked against different terrain MODs- you've given me a glimpse of the first variation- looks like Brian's (cycledogg) Olympic terrain, if I'm not mistaken.

* * *

Larry (debutterfly), toxicpiano, dave (bighead99999) check your email.

* * *

Later.


David

78321

[Jmouse]

Wonder who that could be? It's beautiful, so it will be one very lucky player who gets it!

Later...
Joan

EDIT: Gee, Joan, just no clue here either... NOT! -DE

[Doctor Soul]

I have two questions: Has there been any thought as to how FARs will look with development around them? And will there be a FAR for streets/dirt trails/the SAM in general?

Sam

EDIT: Maybe this is a stupid question, but I haven't read the whole thread yet. I have a lot of catching up to do. I'm on page 127 at the moment...

[threestooges]

I can answer the first (and will have a pic to show a little later on today/tonight). They do permit development of (at least) residential. However, some of it is 1/2 tile away from the actual road, which is no real problem since the connection appears to be functional. The second question is all a matter of time, but I would not be the best person to answer it. At any rate, I'll try to get that pic up later today, but until then, take it easy.
-Matt

[bat]

Fantastic new work and testing there! And congrats on more than 3600 replies, David!

Looking forward to more!

[Pat]

Dr Soul there is no such thing as a stupid question here at all....  To answer you I think as this is my thought here alone that FAR probley wouldnt work to well in the other settings... They may be able to pull it off but will let the master answer that in more details....

David that is a wonderful quad you have presented today!!! I wonder who that is??? Also could I be so FAR out to get FAR too lol....

[thundercrack83]

One of the quads is going out! This is extraordinary news--congratulations to the lucky recipient, and to you, David!

Starting to come together, starting to come together...but, then again, it's not like things were "apart" here to begin with!

Dustin

[jplumbley]

I can answer the first (and will have a pic to show a little later on today/tonight). They do permit development of (at least) residential. However, some of it is 1/2 tile away from the actual road, which is no real problem since the connection appears to be functional.

Well, the Traffic Simulator is based off of a tile.  Capacity is set by tile, Speed is set by the network dominating the tile, etc.  So, there is also a property within the Traffic Simulator that deals with how far a zone is allowed to be away from a network (in tiles).  The default is 1, which means, that the Zones are allowed to be 1 tile directly next to a network.  It is possible to set this value to other values, such as 2, which would theoretically, allow Sims to jump to and from a network to a zone with 1 tile in between.  Remember though, this would have some drawbacks and may not work the way you would expect in some situations.

Puzzle Pieces are extentions of networks.  Although "ploppable" they are still considered network tiles and work in essentially the same fashion beyond the fact that they are placed differently.  This means that whatever you can place next to a network which is dragged you can place it next to a plopped puzzle piece.

The second question is all a matter of time, but I would not be the best person to answer it.

I havent been contacted about such a thing, it would be possible, but of course there would be many Puzzle Pieces for the SAM compared to the Road.  Each SAM Puzzle Piece would require 14 variations.

[nerdly_dood]

Alex and I will be looking for beta testers- some folks who have MDs, preferably, who'll test these out and be willing to post some pics as how these can be used.  I'll be working on refining the textures based on what I see, and perhaps developing a few additional pieces...

I would be glad to be a beta tester:  my CJ isn't really big, and it is somewhat different from most of them here at SC4Devotion and Simtrop, partly because it's exclusively at SimCities.net.  A big update is coming soon, too.

Click to go to nerdly_cities.

[debutterfly]

I did this with the FAR...There isn't developement on the tiles farthest from the road on the puzzle piece. Yes, there were fireworks happening at the time. 


The commuters do use the road instead of the street.

[thundercrack83]

Testing, 1...2...

On the whole, the FAR is pretty easy to work with, but it was a bit tricky lining up the pieces on slopes, at least it was for me, anyway.

I'll be going back in later on and playing around some more.

Dustin

[jplumbley]

I did this with the FAR...There isn't developement on the tiles farthest from the road on the puzzle piece. Yes, there were fireworks happening at the time. 


The commuters do use the road instead of the street.

This is actually something  is caused by how the paths are setup.  You may have Puzzles Pieces where there are actually no Paths in one tile of the Puzzle Piece but still requires a texture to complete the "look"... So because the paths actually dont touch this tile, it means that the Sims cant exit their homes through that tile.  There may be a way to fix this by adding an extra path or two to that "unpathed" tile in the Puzzle Piece.

[pvarcoe]

Dustin, those shots look great.


I have been experimenting too. I have been rebuilding the road up to Teton Pass in my old Terraforming Teton region.
I have been dealing with a fair bit of elevation change, and it has been tricky.
I have made good use of the 45 and 90 degree corners as well.
I have found that I really need to prepare the surface before placing the FAR pieces.
More so than average. But the results have been worth it, I'd say.













So far, so good. The upper part of this pass has really tight corners, it should be interesting.
But so far, I'm finding the FAR super!

[thundercrack83]

Your pictures are looking great so far, too, my friend!

I'm glad I'm not the only one that found working with the FAR on slopes to be a bit tricky. It's hard to keep track of where the pieces are going to connect, but when they do, they sure look fantastic!

Dustin

[threestooges]

This is just to get back to the post I made earlier today showing residential development around FAR pieces.



You'll note the no road connection zots. These houses developed well enough, they have jobs etc, but it doesn't look like those tiles connect. Keep in mind that this was a quick test so I didn't put much into making it look pretty.

Well, the Traffic Simulator is based off of a tile.  Capacity is set by tile, Speed is set by the network dominating the tile, etc.  So, there is also a property within the Traffic Simulator that deals with how far a zone is allowed to be away from a network (in tiles).  The default is 1, which means, that the Zones are allowed to be 1 tile directly next to a network.  It is possible to set this value to other values, such as 2, which would theoretically, allow Sims to jump to and from a network to a zone with 1 tile in between.  Remember though, this would have some drawbacks and may not work the way you would expect in some situations.

That is really cool to know. All I know about puzzle pieces is that they work, so every bit of information I can get on them is helpful. So if I understand this correctly, when pathing files and all are written, it is essentially what amounts to roads filling the area of the puzzle piece with appropriate looking textures on top?

-debutterfly: Great use of the roads in having them hug the development like that. It look good.

-Dustin (thundercrack83): Those are some nice rural shots. The last one though, with the intersection, looks especially great.

-pvarcoe: I agree about the difficulty regarding slope building. Terrafroming beforehand is very useful, but also tricky as you noted. One thing I noticed, but not building on slope often I don't know if it can be easily corrected, it that the ghosted plop piece hides itself in the hill making it tough to see what it will look like when placed, etc. But you have certainly done a good job using them.

Excellent work here. I think David is going to have quite a bit of feedback to work through when we get done with these things. Also, it's interesting to note the quads are beginning to make their way out. I think I recall whose that is and I think it'll be in good hands.
-Matt

-edit-: the link to the FAR pic I posted of that island on the previous page has now been fixed.

[Tarkus]

the ghosted plop piece hides itself in the hill making it tough to see what it will look like when placed, etc.

That's actually a very good point, and something I can change very easily.  All I need to do is raise the preview model height a little.

And everyone, thanks for all the feedback, and all the fantastic pics--I'm thrilled to see how all of you have found creative uses for them.

Also, congrats to my good friend (and transit modding co-conspirator) Jason (jplumbley) on post #3600!

-Alex

[Swamper77]

You'll note the no road connection zots. These houses developed well enough, they have jobs etc, but it doesn't look like those tiles connect. Keep in mind that this was a quick test so I didn't put much into making it look pretty.

The "No Road Connection" Zots are due to the fact that there aren't any paths on the tiles in front of those houses. Since the FAR puzzle pieces go at an odd angle, "filler" tiles are made as part of the puzzle pieces so the road graphics don't have any "notches" or missing tiles. The "filler" tiles are pieces that have graphics on them, but "blank" path files so the game doesn't lag when you try to build the puzzle pieces. The "filler pieces" are just there to make the puzzle piece look good in the game.

-Swamper

[Jmouse]

The purpose of this experiment was to start with the straight road under the bridge and get off the hill using as many FAR pieces as possible. Also, I wanted to try and follow the ridge that heads off to the southeast.  There is no PSing except to size the pix, BTW.













Conclusion: Starting out on slopes is not for the faint of heart. Practice on level ground first to see how the pieces work together. Also, I would like to find out more about terrain preparation – I spent a lot of time in god mode and blew up a whole bunch of asphalt! 

Hope this helps out a bit...
Joan

[threestooges]

-Swamper: Now that it a good piece of information to know and makes perfect sense. So does that mean all puzzle pieces must be rectangular, or is that just to accommodate the necessary textures (not to suggest anything for this project, but just for my own knowledge)?

-Joan: I know what you mean about the asphalt thing and I would like to hear how others have best prepared the terrain to avoid as much trial and error as possible. The results look great though. Do you happen to know what the elevation change over that stretch of road is (from the terrain query cheat thing)?