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Wide Radius Road Curves

Started by dedgren, April 09, 2007, 02:30:48 PM

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dedgren

n.b.:  I posted the following first over at Three Rivers Region.  I think this might be of wider interest to the community, though and, as you will see, I make a shameless solicitation toward the end.

* * *

Well, the more I thought about it, the less satisfied I was with my hand-drawn road curve yesterday.



So, here's three variants drawn in vector graphics.  All are 175'/56m radius curves.  The biggest radius game curve is about 75'/24m.

A 90 degree turn (4x4 gridsquares).



A 45 degree turn (3x2 gridsquares).



An S-curve (4x2 gridsquares).



My knowledge runs out here (well, not actually- I can dice them up and run them through SC4Tool to create a texture set, then assemble them into custom lots).  I orginally thought of these as pure eye candy, though.  Alex (Tarkus) has indicated he can help with transit pathing.  I don't know enough about textures to know whether these would best be used as overlay textures or if I should add "ground" on each side.  I can do anything with these that folks "in-the-know" would suggest, but what I'd most like to do is spin the project to someone who could take the lead and get these in the game somehow.  I'd be happy to continue to help, and can cook up just about anything now that I have the hang, graphics-wise.

I'm starting this thread in the "Help!" forum section and have, as noted, made the first post the same one I made earlier on 3RR.  Now, it's back to that project (although I intend to follow through on my original plan, which was to do some 150'/48m wide eye-candy airport runways that match up with some of the great stuff out there, to include diagonal runways).

Later.


David
 
D. Edgren

Please call me David...

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Tarkus

Hi David-

Well, there's actually a few different ways to go about it.  The first would be to create a Transit-Enabled Lot, and a second would be to make it into a puzzle piece.  There's also a third possibility, which would be to incorporate these textures into some sort of RUL override, such that they could be made through a draggable method, like the NAM roundabouts (i.e. build an awkward diagonal curve and have it turn into your S-curve). 

It may also be possible with that method to script the game somehow such that that conversion could be optional, as exists with the Extended Elevated-to-Ground Highway Transition in the NAM, though I haven't personally messed around with that part yet. The latter two options would be eligible for NAM inclusion, and thus, I'd recommend them over doing a TE Lot. 

In order to get the TE Lot to function properly, it would still require just as much pathing as the making a puzzle piece or RUL override in order to make things look and function correctly, plus it would also be subject to some of the less desirable properties of TE Lots, including the infamous crashing bug around puzzle pieces, and you couldn't lay two of them adjacently to make a cohesive network.

I know that at least for the latter two options, you will need to make them into an overlay texture, complete with alpha mapping, and you may have to with the TE Lot as well (though it's been awhile since I've done that).

Hope that helps!

-Alex

thundercrack83

These curves look fantastic! I hope that you all can figure out how to make these work because I think it would be a great addition to the game. One question, though: Would you be able to have some way to include intersections within the curves, especially the 90° and 45° angle turns?

Frankie

I like the looks of these textures, I hope they can become puzzle pieces  :thumbsup:

TheTeaCat

This is an interesting project. Its a great idea and I for one would like to see this as a completed work. Shall keep an eye on this.

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dedgren

The S-curve- assembled and TE'd so it will connect to the game road.  The "game" S-curve is the other one.



...can you tell which is which?

Ignore the awful grass texture matching.  I did that in about 30 seconds as it wasn't the point.

Here's the same thing with a few trees and stuff here and there.



Picture a quad transformed by more realistic curves...


David
D. Edgren

Please call me David...

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Skype: davidredgren

Emperor Stormont

Oh I love the curves, so much more realistic and a 100% must for a city, would love to be able to use these in my cities, esp the surburbs. Great work  &apls

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Gaston

Very nice indeed, David.    Wish I had the knowledge to give you about the "how to" aspects of this.   Alas, I am sill ignorant in the ways of this.   LOL


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stewart_garden

I agree with all those above - these would add much needed realism to the game's road curves.  I just wish I had the skills to offer more than yells of support from the sidelines.

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ExiLe

Great work on the roads, even though I am uncertain of the 'usage/time spent' is worth it. ;)
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&apls

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...coming soon

dedgren

#10
Over at ST in this thread [linkie] ST member memo said

Quotededgren, I can help you with the paths. If you send me the Lot, I'll try to assign proper paths.

I responded today with
Quote
Hey, memo- thank you for the offer of assistance.

A  bunch of questions (thanks in advance for your, or anyone else's, time in responding)- if you "assigned proper paths," what does the lot become?  I'm guessing not a puzzle piece (but I'm just guessing).  I'm presuming as well that pathing does not make the lot appear in the "road" portion of the submenus.  Does pathing mean that it remains just a lot with paths?  How is that different from transportation enabling?  Will pathing allow a properly configured lot



to connect directly to diagonally laid out roads (which transit enabling apparently does not).

Part of the reason (the part beyond the basic desire to learn something about this in general) I'm wondering about some of these things is because they impact how the lot is set up.  Should the road be a base or overlay texture?  Does pathing somehow free it from being on a lot altogether.

I'm going to duplicate this post over at SC4D- again, I really appreciate your interest, and hope that this can go somewhere.

I raise the same questions here- any transit geeks out there with answers?


David
D. Edgren

Please call me David...

Three Rivers Region- A collaborative development of the SC4 community
The 3RR Quick Finder [linkie]


I aten't dead.  —  R.I.P. Granny Weatherwax

Skype: davidredgren

FromTheAshes

What an awesome idea! Please create a euro-textured version too!
...and, of curse, a transparent base in the final version  ;D
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memo

The Lot becomes a transit enabled Lot, but with paths in order that cars follow the route of the road. Nevertheless, the paths can also be used to make such a puzzle piece. Paths only contain values which describe the route of automata.
Unfortunately, it isn't possible to put Lots into the road-submenu.
Diagonal transit-enabling is indeed possible. You can therefor use the values 01 and 03 in SC4-Tool. Don't mind about the description, it's a bug of SC4-Tool. ;) However, your diagonal texture doesn't fit to diagonal roads of SC4 because it crosses the tile in the corner. It should look like this:


The road texture should be an overlay-texture. You need to reserve your own range in the BSC-texture index, if you haven't already. However, if the base is transparent, the Lot is susceptible for the water-graphics-bug (?).
Did that answer your questions?

jplumbley

Im not the best transit geek... Actually far from it!  Alex can atest to that :P

But I have done some playing around with it, it might be a good idea to try to make these curves work with RUL overrides.  That would cause less issues and on top of that its draggable.  Its only a matter of finding a way to override the textures without losing something elsewhere.

For the S-Curve, it may be best to use the same RUL as the Roundabouts use.  That way when you draw that specific layout, your S-Curve will appear rather than the ugly one!  And the awesome part about your S-Curve is you have is drawing so well that it fits in the same tile footprint as the original one.

It looks awesome though Dedgren!
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jeronij

Oh, no, another interesting project going on, and I am so busy with the bridges at the moment... ::) I will keep an eye here anyway.

Also, I think that using RULes would make these curves more useable. Better than puzzle pieces indeed. But more complicated probably  ;)
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Tarkus

#15
Well, I can say that I'd prefer the RUL override implementation over doing a Puzzle Piece or a TE Lot.  The override wouldn't actually be that tricky if one used 0x00000008 (the Road Roundabout RUL, as jplumbley mentioned) due to its setup being more accommodating for large-scale overrides.  Plus, the curves would likely allow building on their sides more readily as far as I know, which may be a little trickier with puzzle pieces, even if the 0x10000000 RUL file were coded such that the surrounding tiles were blank.

And I personally would like to see 0x10000000 get freed up some.  It has a finite number of spaces for puzzle pieces (there's 4,096 possible rotation loops, if you use the entire range from 0 to F on the last number--65,536 if you count the individual instances in the rotation loops), where as the others are much less limited.  (And with the number of pieces I'm having to make for the RHWMIS, I need as many open loops as I can get--it would be impossible to make a lot of that stuff draggable and offload it to another RUL. :D)

And jplumbley, I agree 100% with you about trying to find a way to do it without replacing anything.  I believe the NAM does have some LUA scripts for optional overrides, like for the Extended Ground to Elevated Highway Transition.  Whenever you connect a Ground Highway to an Elevated Highway and the Highway is straight for a certain number of tiles, it actually pops up a dialog box that asks you if you want to replace the standard Maxis transition with the NAM Extended Transition. 

It may be possible to do such a thing with these curved pieces.  Unfortunately, I haven't really messed around with LUA scripts, so I'm not even remotely skilled with it.  And as far as I'm concerned, you're an alright transit geek.  It's partially my fault for not getting those TLA-5 overrides done yet. :P

-Alex

jplumbley

Quote from: jeronij on April 11, 2007, 11:04:53 AM
Also, I think that using RULes would make these curves more useable. Better than puzzle pieces indeed. But more complicated probably  ;)

Actually Jeronij, I dont think it would be all that complicated... Especially if we use the RUL 0x0000008 (Roundabouts one)..  It is designed so that if certain tiles are drawn to create a certain pattern of textures they will get overriden with a new set of textures defined in the RUL.  This method will allow for users to zone right upto the curve without losing the 2 corner pieces lost when using a puzzle piece.

@Tarkus  I dont know anything about LUA scripts, but if I am not mistaken Daeley, might know a thing or two.  We could inquire there.  Find out what is possible in that regards.

Im also wondering if we can actually get Lakeyboy's Avenue Slip Lanes to work using 0x00000008....  It may be easier than what I was trying with 0x00000002 (the one with RHW)... I think thats the number.
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jeronij

JP, I should have added "...for me"  ;)
I am glad to see that there is knowledge enough to deal with this project  :thumbsup:
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Is the Daeley Tool on the LEX not the thing to use to make the PATH Files ?
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memo

Quote from: Tarkus on April 11, 2007, 03:00:41 PM
Plus, the curves would likely allow building on their sides more readily as far as I know, which may be a little trickier with puzzle pieces, even if the 0x10000000 RUL file were coded such that the surrounding tiles were blank.
Firstly, I have to contradict. Development is also possible next to puzzle pieces, for instance the single diagonal streets puzzle pieces. ;)

Moreover, I don't think it's feasible to use the RUL file 0x00000008 in order to replace the "ugly" S-Curve by the new one because one additional tile would be required.
These tiles would be required for the new S-Curve:

But only these are occupied by the ugly one:

Since the aforementioned RUL file can't add a tile, you need to think of another layout.

I'd prefer a puzzle piece especially because it's slope-conforming and I don't expect many possible bugs or I rather do expect bugs with rule overrides or the like. However, it's just my opinion. ;)

Quote from: jplumbley on April 11, 2007, 05:41:26 PM
This method will allow for users to zone right upto the curve without losing the 2 corner pieces lost when using a puzzle piece.
Have you ever used a big puzzle piece or interchange-base related item such as a cloverleaf interchange? ;) It doesn't waste the corner tiles, but they are useable for development. So unlike Lots, interchange-base related items don't need to be rectangular.

Quote from: Tarkus on April 11, 2007, 03:00:41 PM
And I personally would like to see 0x10000000 get freed up some.  It has a finite number of spaces for puzzle pieces (there's 4,096 possible rotation loops, if you use the entire range from 0 to F on the last number--65,536 if you count the individual instances in the rotation loops), where as the others are much less limited.  (And with the number of pieces I'm having to make for the RHWMIS, I need as many open loops as I can get--it would be impossible to make a lot of that stuff draggable and offload it to another RUL. :D)
I'll definitely keep you from using all available rotation rings. ::)