RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[io_bg]

Inside FAR ramps FAR MIS to RHW4 transitions

[MandelSoft]

Oh yeah! That will definitely help to create C/D-freeways Way to go!

[Twinsfan14]

Eureka!

[louistsw]

Just waiting for

[The Last Citybuilder]

I like the NAM and stuff, but I am a little bit confused...
Because I have never seen bridges on land(viaduct purpose) that are 15+ m high (except when triple stacked), here in the Netherlands the most common height is max. 5 m.

Why isn't that height used in the NAM, in my eyes that will look far more realistic.


- Q

[samerton]

@ Shadow Assassin:  That looks amazing..! 

[noahclem]

Awesome work Shadow Assassin! I don't know if simcity gets much better than that special place where FA & RHW meet 

@ The Last Citybuilder - I strongly agree with you on the 15m height being way too high. There are projects in the works involving 7.5m elevated networks which for me is really a perfect height. Here's why:

1. The scale of SC4 is generally 10-15% off so 15m isn't quite as high as it sounds like.
2. Bridges/viaducts have a decent amount of thickness to them so 7.5m wouldn't mean that the ceiling above you is 7.5m high.

I'll be hoping with you that these "half-height" networks show up in the near future!

[mtg]

I'll be hoping with you that these "half-height" networks show up in the near future!

they will! 

[MandelSoft]

I like the NAM and stuff, but I am a little bit confused...
Because I have never seen bridges on land(viaduct purpose) that are 15+ m high (except when triple stacked), here in the Netherlands the most common height is max. 5 m.

Why isn't that height used in the NAM, in my eyes that will look far more realistic.


- Q

That's excactly my opinion too, but I have some things to add.

First, SimCity4 squashes the height, making objects look a little less tall than they really are. 7.5m would be a good approximation of a 5m viaduct.

Second, there are plans to make such lower viaducts. All current viaducts are recently classified as L2 (level 2 or +15m). L1 viaducts (+7.5m) are in development, and there are further plans to create also L3 (22.5m) and L4 (30m) viaducts.

Best,
Maarten

[Ciuu96]

@ SA

Whoa, those pieces look great! Really nice work! 

[ivo_su]

I know that I started  doing  elevated  RHW-6 and I'd love to show me clover intersection  RHW-C6  with other RHW-6. Otherwise, future local lanes look amazing.

All the best guys
- Ivaylo (Ivo)

[Nego]

@ Shadow Assassin: That's going to be so useful! Great work! The FARHW and FAMIS is really coming along! Can't wait for more.

[Tarkus]

A little more on the whole elevation thing, to add to what Noah and the Maartens have said.  The general advice in the SC4 modeling/BATing community is that things should be upscaled 130% on height, as otherwise, they'll look squashed in game.  5m * 1.3 = 6.5m.  The ERHW and EMIS models have a 1m substructure, so the low point on a 7.5m high model will be 6.5m.  It works out perfectly.  Go any lower than that, and you also risk having taller automata clipping the bottom--I decided to play "ERHW Limbo" back in 2009, and this was the result of an actual 5m ERHW: 



As you can see, the Maxis freight trucks are ghosting through the entire substructure.    The tallest automata models I'm aware of are some of the Swamper77/jestarr intermodal rail cars, which are 5.375m high, which would result in penetration through the road surface itself on a 5m model, but with 7.5m, the rail cars still have 1.125m of clearance before hitting the substructure.

redlotus designed many of the original Elevated Viaduct content included in the NAM (it was initially in one of his pre-NAM "bugfixes" from 2004).  He made the decision to go with the 15m height (15.5m on Rail-type networks, actually), because it fits with the game's default elevated networks.  The existing Elevated Rail and Monorail are at 15.5m in height.  Most of the Maxis Elevated Highway base network pieces generally have their paths at 15.7198m.

In addition to L1 ERHWs at 7.5m, there are plans to produce other viaduct content at this height at some point in the future.  In case anyone's wondering, we're not going to produce anything higher than L4 (30m), as even with the 130% scaling taken into consideration, that's still a little higher than the ramps in the Dallas High-Five Interchange (which, as I recall, top out at 75ft/22.8m--at 130% scale, that's 29.725m). 

The L1 content won't be in the next release, but it's certainly possible that it'll make it into a 4.x series release.  Speaking of 4.x series releases, even beyond the FARHW content and the other new features you've seen here, I may have an ace or two up my sleeve.  Not ready to show my cards, though.

-Alex

[Haljackey]

One more thing to sweeten the pot.

The elevated RHW-2 has made significant progress:



SA: Pure awesomeness.

[GDO29Anagram]

If we can't go any higher than L4, why not go underground? A six-level stack could be achieved, if one of the levels is tunnel-based. (Just saying... )

Now if THAT (Refer to Tarkus's picture) were to happen in RL, THIS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKJTZwjvmj8 would happen.

It amazes me to see how far RHW has gone since... RHW 3.0. (I started looking at all the progress on the forums since 3.0.) Whatever happened to "RHW-8C isn't possible since its shoulders would make it take up five tiles"? Simple: Overhanging shoulders. I doubt that was foreseen when 8C was first brought up...

Now, this concerns the FARHW stuff: We got ONE transition down, thanks to SA... What about FARHW Ramps? (Not Ortho E/F ones...) Let's see: A/C ones (Parallel to FARHW, duh; Footprints for them would be tricky...), and B/D ones (They'd branch out diagonally in one orientation, but orthogonally in another orientation). E/F ones are tricky... Unless another degree of FAR is developed into RHW...

Here's something that I find tricky in the C/D type ramp nomenclature:
- In the RHW-4 C/D Ramp, the beginning end is a 6S, but in the RHW-8C C/D Ramp, ITS beginning end is STILL 8C (It's actually MIS, but can convert to 8C). So should the RHW-4 C/D Ramp be a RHW-6S C/D Ramp, or should the RHW-8C C/D Ramp be a RHW-10C C/D Ramp?
- This is a conundrum that I've been foreseeing for when C/D Ramps reach the cutoff of RHW-10S, because using the original nomenclature would require a 12S for a 10S C/D Ramp (Which isn't a problem since a 12S is theoretically possible, but what happens to the 12S? It would require a 14S, yes.)

(I may just need to once again update my RHW Ramp chart once again...)

[Nego]

If we can't go any higher than L4, why not go underground? A six-level stack could be achieved, if one of the levels is tunnel-based. (Just saying...)

But remember, the RHW can't make tunnels, and as of now, there is only FLUPs for the RHW-2. Plus, if there were FLUP pieces so that you could make a full 6-level stack, having that many FLUP pieces would take up a lot of HD space. It would also be a long tab cycle.

[GDO29Anagram]

But remember, the RHW can't make tunnels...

Not unless you use an Ave or OWR tunnel... (Remember Haljackey's three-level stack?) FLUPs are a viable option, but people can use (And have used) the OWR FLUPs as workarounds for a currently unavailable RHW-4 FLUP.

[drjumbajookiba]

SWEET

[Original]

Great Job!!   

[Floydian]

I have a request for two pieces that I hope could be included in the next release or made as a plugin before that:

RHW-4 45 degree to FARHW
RHW-4 45 degree ground to elevated slope transition

Cheers