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RealRailway (RRW) - Development and Support

Started by Swordmaster, June 14, 2013, 08:42:19 AM

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mgb204

#980
Disclaimer:

I don't want anyone to think I'm planning on making this happen, I'm willing to help out with anyone that wants to make the Definition Alphas required to make this work. But having made 2,500 such alphas already and given the more complex nature of RRW textures, it's a combination of beyond my skill level and the amount of time I'd be willing to commit to with all the other projects I've got outstanding.

vortext

#981
Looks nice! If I understand correctly you made two Definition Alpha for the sleepers and ballast by hand? I'm wondering if that too could be automated. Maybe I could run the original RRW textures through some highpass / edge detection filters. .  &Thk/(

edit: just tried quickly and the issue is the ballast is too noisy to properly isolate the sleepers, i.e. still would need cleaning up by hand. Best I could do for now:


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mgb204

#982
In essence what I had to do was 1st take the normal alpha channel. Then I removed the rails (straight is easy, 3px wide) and created a second alpha. Then I removed the sleepers and created a third alpha channel. These three channels can then be combined to make the Definition alphas required for the automation to work thusly:



With the straight, that's very easy to realise, but after that life gets harder, diagonals are not much fun but all the different radius curves just make this a job that can't realistically be done without a steady hand and a far better knowledge of the software than I have.

As has been previously mentioned, if the multi-layered images existed for these textures, it can be automated completely, but they don't :(. One problem working with the RRW textures is that their very quality makes editing them harder than the basic Maxis rail textures, there are many subtle colour tones and this makes isolating parts from the whole very tricky.

I'd imagine the best solution would be to apply the same adjustments to the straight D0 that are used to turn the regular RRW Ortho texture into a curve to create new D0's to match those pieces. I think provided the rails matched up, this should work fine, since you don't need to be pixel perfect here. For example, if you look at the Diagonal D0 I quickly knocked up you can see I actually used a uniform spacing for the sleepers (Cyan Colour) that was not actually a mirror of the actual texture, yet the in-game results are fine.



But such things are simply beyond my skills texturing. Damn you Belfastsocrates, ever since you mentioned the bloody sleepers being wood I've come round to the idea that indeed concrete sleepers would make more sense in urban environments  :P.

APSMS

Maybe at the very least this could be combined with Noah's efforts on the GLR to make a rural (well, more like non-inner city) track set? I don't know. I'm not fond of concrete sleepers, but maybe that's just because all the rail lines in America are old, and the still set new lines with wood sleepers depending on the traffic (suburbs, etc.).
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belfastsocrates

Quote from: mgb204 on September 07, 2015, 06:36:21 AMDamn you Belfastsocrates, ever since you mentioned the bloody sleepers being wood I've come round to the idea that indeed concrete sleepers would make more sense in urban environments  :P.

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eggman121

Well I got a PM from mgb204 and was able to patch this one together...



What do others think?

I will need to rejig my repository of textures, but I would put this sort of customization after the Release of NAM 34 when the base flex track workings are mostly complete  ::)

So it is completely possible that given time there will be custom sets that can be generated but I am thinking forward again.

Also custom textures (Which there are about three base ones) will certainly come into play.

As I have said before, I generate most of my textures off an orthogonal texture. So this is why I have been able to make the textures so quickly.

I'm all ears for feedback. I would consider this to be a medium term project.

-eggman121

vester

Pretty sure the sleepers are only that clean for a very short while.
Think that it could well be concrete sleepers that Willy did, only just dirty.
Remember that he is a train driver.

mgb204

Don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy with Willy's original textures by any means, they are gorgeous and I've been using them for well over a year and making huge efforts to ensure the entire set of rail textures was RRW compatible. They may be concrete, but I think this is just a matter of personal preference, just look at the various sets for the old rail standard, people just like to have options. I must say I really like the sample texture Eggman has shown off, creating textures is not exactly my best skill but the contrasting ballast here really improves them from the mock-ups I made yesterday.

Within the NAM team there is a desire to get everyone on board with RRW, because it really is the future of rail in SC4 and if we can provide a solution to make custom texture sets a doddle for anyone to create that's only going to help us to persuade users to upgrade. Going back a few years we could rely on modders to create custom texture sets, but these days such mods are few and far between, so if it helps with adoption then I think adding some variety in the NAM options is no bad thing. Not to mention that the idea of a user-customisable drop-in replacement is a revolution in terms of what is possible.

Indiana Joe

Quote from: vortext on September 07, 2015, 04:43:59 AM
Looks nice! If I understand correctly you made two Definition Alpha for the sleepers and ballast by hand? I'm wondering if that too could be automated. Maybe I could run the original RRW textures through some highpass / edge detection filters. .  &Thk/(

edit: just tried quickly and the issue is the ballast is too noisy to properly isolate the sleepers, i.e. still would need cleaning up by hand. Best I could do for now:

Quote from: mgb204 on September 07, 2015, 06:36:21 AM
In essence what I had to do was 1st take the normal alpha channel. Then I removed the rails (straight is easy, 3px wide) and created a second alpha. Then I removed the sleepers and created a third alpha channel. These three channels can then be combined to make the Definition alphas required for the automation to work thusly:

Guys!  Just use the original RRW alpha layers.  I uploaded them a few pages back.   :thumbsup:

   

And every single other texture is available with the original alpha layers.  All 500 of them or whatever.  Don't make more work for yourself if it's already done.  :P

vortext

#989
Holy  sh.. :o Completely missed that! Well that definitely makes things a whole lot easier!  &apls

edit: links to files are found here.
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mgb204

#990
 &ops Yes, that would make life a lot easier, thanks for pointing that out.

That being the case, I should be able to whip up the D0's for the existing base set if Eggman wants to cover the new textures he's creating.

:Edit: OK this is a game changer right here, I've finalised the base DTR networks and lot textures, sample attached.



Remember any ballast and sleepers can be auto-generated with just two textures, so it looks like a fully-automated user customisable RRW texture set is a possibility that conforms to the original standards of Willy's set.  ()stsfd()

Still some way to go, but knocking up the D0's is now a reasonably quick job, thanks Indiana Joe for pointing me in the right direction on this.

Just to show you some possibilities, I've knocked up an animated GIF:


vinlabsc3k

It's unbelievable!! :o

Quote from: mgb204 on September 08, 2015, 05:42:25 AM
...

Just to show you some possibilities, I've knocked up an animated GIF:



I like most the 2nd (urban?), the 4th (rural?) and the 6th (industrial?)  &hlp

It would be ideal a starter, as the SAM, for different texture! ;)
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eggman121

Quote from: vinlabsc3k on September 08, 2015, 12:11:54 PM
It would be ideal a starter, as the SAM, for different texture! ;)

These are just going to be different texture varieties. There will be no SAM setups!

This is due to technical constraints.

-eggman121

JoeST

that is so great, thank you for showing us all those combinations XD
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Indiana Joe

Yep, it's certainly nice to have all the templates right there.  Easy enough to plug in some color scripts and you can get all the colors of the rainbow.

However, as many NAMites have found out over the years with RHW textures, simple re-color mods leave much to be desired when it comes to balance and detail.  Many attempts to create concrete highway textures through a script have been trashed because...it just doesn't look as good.

Different materials have different textures to them.  That's why wood or pavement doesn't convert to concrete very well.  I could never get satisfactory results in my experiments just by recoloring Willy's textures.  Each textural set needs its own shadows and details.

With the right balance of shading and textural noise, you get that 3D effect.  Here's my example with concrete ties.



If you guys manage to create a simple program to make texture sets to order, I still think that would be phenomenal.  But I don't think, in it's current form, it stands up to custom made textures.  Needs a lot of tweaking.

I definitely LMAO'd at cheese & bacon though.  Wiimeiser would probably appreciate some ridiculous textures like that  :thumbsup: $%Grinno$%

mgb204

Quote from: Indiana Joe on September 08, 2015, 02:54:56 PM
Yep, it's certainly nice to have all the templates right there.  Easy enough to plug in some color scripts and you can get all the colors of the rainbow.

However, as many NAMites have found out over the years with RHW textures, simple re-color mods leave much to be desired when it comes to balance and detail.  Many attempts to create concrete highway textures through a script have been trashed because...it just doesn't look as good.

Different materials have different textures to them.  That's why wood or pavement doesn't convert to concrete very well.  I could never get satisfactory results in my experiments just by recoloring Willy's textures.  Each textural set needs its own shadows and details.

With the right balance of shading and textural noise, you get that 3D effect.

Absolutely correct, the technique for automation was envisioned for the grass and sidewalk parts of road networks to be replaced. Whilst you can use it for a number of other potential uses, there are some drawbacks with automation that simply require manual work to resolve. That said, unlike say CP's path textures which I tried but could not get satisfactory results with, in this case I think the end textures are good enough for use. Of course if someone came along and made a complete set of properly made textures the quality would be better, but right now given the small number of such people within the community this at least should help to provide some alternate options for those users who find RRW is not to their particular tastes. The 3D effect is sort of kept, because the gradients of the alphas dictate how much of the imported texture is utilised, it's not 100% perfect, but I'm happy enough with the results that I think we have something acceptable for use here.

Bipin

I too like the 6th texture; the concrete slabs. Though they are all quite nice, even if the cheese is a bit questionable... ;)

Girafe

#997
Amazing job with this semi automation  &apls

However from a personal point of view, I would prefer to see a fully finished RRW with Willy s texture before seing alternative textures.

It s more about going deeply than largely.

So many things are still missing with the current RRW textures but it s only my opinion  ::)
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Themistokles

This is really wonderful! &apls &apls

But as of yet I think that Willy's originals are still my personal favourite -- as far as I'm concerned Swedish railbeds are quite brownish in urban newly built sections, too. So I agree with Girafe, that depth's the most important.
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mgb204

Quote from: Girafe on September 09, 2015, 11:36:09 AM
So many things are still missing with the current RRW textures but it s only my opinion  ::)

Indeed as of NAM 32 I would agree with you.

Myself, Rivit and others have worked very hard to bridge these gaps for NAM 33's release. I also know Rivit has plans to update the RUM for RRW for NAM33 to omit any files that are no longer necessary and where required add any missing textures. I already have a pretty complete set (in fact if gaps exist, I don't know of them) as does Rivit as we collaborated together on them a few months back.

Therefore if you are having problems with missing textures after NAM 33 is installed, please do point them out and one way or another the textures will be updated/uploaded swiftly  :).