Uniform street lighting add on

[kodlovag]

Hi NAM Team and modders,

Alex pointed me to this thread, we started to work on the same project independently with just several days difference. This shows, that there is no original idea in the world at all. Or we can say, when we have the possibilities and demand for it, more project will start working on it.

I think I will continue my project in this thread, it is a better place for it.
So, my project aims the same goal as Alex wrote in the first post: create a more realistic, uniform streetlighting, and let's forget those limited Maxis light cones forever.
My mod is based on Maartens Light Replacement Mod v3, which works on exactly the same way regarding S3D and FSH files, as you discussed before. Many thanks to Maarten for making the models and allowing using it.
I would like to show what I have at this moment. Click for higher resolution picture. For more images go to my MD, link is in my signiture.


At this stage of the project I already have (more or less finished) support for, including ortho and diagonal pieces
- Maxis Highways
- Avenues
- Roads
- Turning Lanes for Roads and Avenues
- TuLEPs
- NWM pieces
- Several bridges
- NAM overpass facelift mod
No support for, but planned to do it
- One ways
- Wide radius curves
- MHW pieces in the NAM
- All bridges, including additional bridges in the NAM
- Tram on road, and Tram on avenue pieces
- Streets will only be supported, if can be solved without conflicting great streetside mods (have chance)
No support, and not in the plans
- Highway interchanges. I don't feel the power to make about thousand of T21s for the hundreds of unidentifiable pieces. I also have no idea how a piece in the middle of a network structure will react to T21s.
- RHW. This is the balck horse. I don't know too much about it.
- Intersections. I planned to do this, but I found it is not so important, also hard to modify hundreds of T21s. There are existing T21s for intersections, and I don't want to conflict for example with Maarten's Euro Stoplight Mod. If somebody finds an intersection too dark, it can be illuminated by placing TuLEP pieces around the intersection. Diagonal intersectios are still problem.

Finally, when all of the above are done, I'm planning to make 2 style and 6 color version, to fulfill everybody's needs. I collected a long wishlist in my MD after presenting the first pictures.

So what do you think? Maybe writing a longer wishlist?

[TiFlo]

Me likes. A lot. This is one of the few things that have been missing from SC4 since the beginning.

Is this going to be for Maxis night or for Dark night / True night (I can't remember the exact name)?

[kodlovag]

Tarkus
I remember quite vividly that the fire hydrants, garbage cans, etc. that cogeo brought up as displacing the streetlights are from the vanilla Maxis setup.  I've looked in all the main NAM .dats (NetworkAddonMod1-5.dat) in the Reader, sorting them to get all exemplars of GID 0x89ac5643 (T21s) together.  All the IIDs on these exemplars are in the 0x5####### range, which means they apply to NAM items, even in NetworkAddonMod1.dat, where most fixes to Maxis items are located.

cogeo
So you point out that this problem originates from the vanilla SC4/RH. But still, do you think a fix would be worth? Personally I do think so. I hate that "random" appearance of streetlights, and I like the "persistent" streetlights on avenues. As for the existing T21s, some could be somehow "redefined", so as to contain fire hydrants, trashcans etc together with streetlights and/or make them appearing on the tiles (or the side of the road) that wouldn't contain streetlights. I have also noticed that the problem gets worse in the case of different density (zone-type and development) and wealth types are mixed.

Just few hour before I read this topic first time I started thinking on the displacing streetlights. At that moment I worked on the lights for the road turning lanes, and I was unable to display the lights correctly. They seemed appearing randomly when clicked the tile, some tiles always got the light, others never. I was really confused, because I inherited working avenue turning lane support from Maarten's LRM, and I did everything in the same way, except that I started to build all the T21s from a Maxis road T21. At first I guessed the problem is that I'm using prop families because I'm lazy to make T21s for each wealth level independently. I thinked this because $$ lights are never appeared, others only randomly, worst places were mixed $/$$$ zones. Finally I found the solution in a totally different point. I don't shot it now. But I was really happy.
Then I read this topic. And I started to think more about the displacing streetlights. Because I started to build my T21 from a Maxis T21, I inherited a problem from it. Or a feature? I don't know what would it be good for. But if this bug caused the same displacing streetlights syndrome, and I started from the T21s responsible for streetlights, this might cause the same problem in the vailla game too. I've looked for all the road T21s (what I already collected earlier to make light support for roads), and I realized, that for every zone, density and wealth level roads have at least one T21 with light prop, which should result in exactly one light pole in every second road tile. A very well defined grid. What was screwed up by Maxis programmers.

I'm sure you are now curious to know what caused the problem. In about half of the T21s the prop line what gives the light pole had the LOD value of 0x00000011. What is not a valid value. Valid values are 00, 10 and 20. Or 11 (also 21) is also valid, and means randomly appearing prop at the defined level of detail? But why is that applied on streetlights? So, its a one bit error. Only one bit. Everything is corrected now, see the image in my previous post. The vertical road has streetlight at every second tile. On a $$$ medium density commercial area. These roads have almost no streetlights earlier.

[kodlovag]

Me likes. A lot. This is one of the few things that have been missing from SC4 since the beginning.

Is this going to be for Maxis night or for Dark night / True night (I can't remember the exact name)?

This is for dark night. I'm working on realistic night scenes. I don't know how it looks at standard nights, never tried.

[TiFlo]

Sweet, thanks!! 

[interim]

Loving the look so far. I'll be watching as this progresses for sure.

[xannepan]

kodlovag ; any news? 

[kodlovag]

I had no computer access during the Christmas time. So no news.
Next step is roundabouts, then bridges. After them I will make the color versions. Then I'll collect everything into Release 1.

I would like to use 'Uniform street lighting add on' or something very similar as the name of the mod. I think it's better than my 'Realistic night lighting of road networks'. Also easier to search for the word 'Uniform'. Only 24 hits on STEX.

[xannepan]

'Uniform street lighting add on'  sounds good to me! Looking forward to it!

[noahclem]

I agree! This should be a great addition to the game! 

[MandelSoft]

An acronym for that name would be USLAN... Me likes 

[kodlovag]

Update

I'm currently working on T21-ing bridges. I think I underestimated the problem, but finally I figured out how to correctly nightlight bridges. Pic below shows the Large Steel Arch avenue bridge, probably the most complex bridge in the game. All others will be easier to nightlight.

[Badsim]

Glad to see you're still on it , Koldovag ... working thousands of T21-s must be particularly uninviting , repetitive and time consuming ... but looking at the stunning result , it is worth it . Hope you'll be rewarded for that major improvement .



Cédric.

[xannepan]

What a fantastic picture of the bridge 

[Girafe]

Indeed fantastic progress on the lights. I really like this warm color   

[Glazert]

I am really very impressed by the work on this add-on. It makes it even more likely that when it is released I will waste time by simply watching night fall over cities.

[strucka]

Wow! Great work!  this really makes the darknite mods worth installing and using the night playtime. =)

[kodlovag]

It's good to hear you like it and worth to spend the time on it. Yesterday I finished two bridges, the Long Suspension and the Stone Arch. One bridge per hour. There are at least 30 bridges...

I also have a question. I'm using the bridge RUL files to identify what pieces are used in a particular bridge. I found, that there are 11 avenue bridges in the game, but RUL file for avenue bridges contains only 7 or 8. Where can I find the others? For example the plain/level ave bridge and the medium suspension bridge are missing. The long suspension bridge is called medium suspension in the RUL file. I couldn't find road bridges in the NAM bridge controller, just in the MAXIS files. Is there no additional road bridge? Or just doesn't require RUL file...
I think I still can't understand everything about bridges. Can somebody help me? Or just show me a topic where can I find more info about bridges.

[Blue Lightning]

Some bridges don't have complex bridge RULs, as they are fully handled by its exemplar. Looking in the Network INI file (NetworkAddonMod_BridgeController.dat) section regarding bridge exemplars will give you the IID of the parent bridge exemplar, which can then lead you to the IIDs of the individual pieces.

[kodlovag]

Thanks. First I tried to work only from the parent bridge exemplars, then I realized some bridges has much more pieces than can be collected only from the exemplars. Then I found the RULs, but I was confused, because not all bridges were entry here. Now I see the role of the INI file too, and how the bridge RULs are applied. And you are right, the missing bridges from the RULs are all can be easily handled by a simple algorithm, and only require a bridge exemplar. Thanks for the help again.

Project update: I completed 4 avenue bridges yesterday