NAM Issues Thread - PLEASE POST YOUR NAM QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS HERE

[puresim]

Really appreciate the help guys!

I've already experimented with ilive's Reader, so should be able to alter the capacity data of custom stations without anything catching fire. Will try all the station recommendations above, and mod where necessary.

[cogeo]

An issue that needs to be addressed in NAM is the streetlight props for roads and streets. If you lay a stretch of raod or street (and zones around it) in a non-NAM SC4 installation, you will see that streetlights are arranged regularly, every two tiles or so. If you lay (well, plop) 1x1 tiles on top of the (exisitng) road/street, some other props like benches, planters, trashcans etc may change (appear or disappear), however the streetlights layout/pattern remains unchanged. Some tiles may even get two props, eg both a streetlight and a trashcan.

But with the NAM installed, most streetlights disappear, and finally only one streetlight over four, five or six tiles will remain. The same goes for SAM. The resulting pattern (or lack of) looks very much "random" and highly unrealistic.

That is, the T21 set appears completely screwed. I would recommend that a fix is attempted. After all the visual footprint of streetlights is very small, and having streetlights in the normal layout (as in SC4 vanilla) won't result in any overabundance of streetlights or visual cluttering.

I would attempt to do this myself, but unfortunately I have little overview on this, esp how the T21 system was designed (and changed), how it was originally, and how to change the whole thing (possibly requiring removing some T21s) without causing an (existing) city to crash.

I thing someone could take a look into this.

[z]

I have also noticed this.  It seems worse at lower zoom levels.  What I have seen is that at high zoom levels, the street lights all appear to be present.  But the lower the zoom level, the more street lights are missing.

Have you noticed this problem at high zoom levels?

[dragonshardz]

I haven't noticed this at all, as far as I know all my streetlights are set every two tiles at all zoom levels. I'll check tonight when I get home.

[cogeo]

@Z: I haven't tested the different zoom levels, I noticed this at the closest zoom levels. But I think it shouldn't be any different. What do you mean by "lower" zoom levels, the closer or farther ones?

@dragonshardz: Initially (when the zones are undeveloped) streetlights are indeed set every two tiles, but as the zones develop (or you lay 1x1 tiles on top of them) they disappear.

[j-dub]

Let me tell you my experience with streetlights. I think the higher zoom levels, streetlights at those levels that are not visible closer, maybe because they are substituting for a smaller prop that can't be visible further? Maybe a fire hydrant up close can't be seen further out, so a streetlight is used instead? I assume the same thing with cosmetic addons involving parked cars, trees, tractors, bushes, flowers, manholes.

But with the NAM installed, most streetlights disappear, and finally only one streetlight over four, five or six tiles will remain.

A fix sounds good, BUT the issue with doing a mandatory DAT edit are people that made other mods that make sure streetlights were specifically patterned with the NAM and address that problem.

I do have a mod someone made that does seem to do allow the patterned streetlights, the sides don't alternate left to right all the time, occasionally a light may go across the other side of the road, but usually they will remain patterned on one side of the road, tile after tile, just No Maxis lights are allowed with that mod. The cosmetic mods are not effected. Maxis as we know has their own props, but when I added 3rd party cosmetic mods, those altered the T21's and replaced some of the streetlights, so where there used to be a streetlight, there now is a sewer there, because it was clicked over, click again, it could be a parking bay, click again, it could be a different streetlight again, click again, could be a tree, click again, you get the idea, and so on.

[dragonshardz]

I suppose lower means lower in zoom number...ie, zoom 1 is farther out than zoom 3 but is labeled with a lower value.

[z]

@Z: I haven't tested the different zoom levels, I noticed this at the closest zoom levels. But I think it shouldn't be any different. What do you mean by "lower" zoom levels, the closer or farther ones?

By "low" I mean the farther ones - specifically one through three.  I've actually seen this only one place, and that was with the underground rail tiles, which come with a street light on each side of each tile.  This sounds like a slightly different case than the one you're talking about, but the result is the same, and it sounds like the same problem to me.  The lights are big enough that they shouldn't disappear at all of those levels.

[cogeo]

Here is what I meant:

- Originally (with undeveloped zones) streetlights are OK:



- After the zones develop things get a little messy:



- Things get much worse when streets, medium and high density and wealth come into play (I have no such devlopment yet, so no pic to show - sorry).

In this case the "pattern" is unstable too, ie when you lay 1x1 sections on the road (like in the pic below), ie the streetlights arrangement changes every time you lay such a section.



Could someone provide a fix (or explain how to change this, and where these can be found)?

@Z: Not seeing the streetlights in the farther zooms sounds quite reasonable, they become so small that you can't see them, I believe. Also the AppearanceZoomsFlag propertry for the streetlight props is set to 0x0000001E, which means that they should be visible in all but the farthest zoom. In some streetlights the ResourceKeyType4xm property is wrong too, though I'm not sure if this plays a role in this case.

[z]

@Z: Not seeing the streetlights in the farther zooms sounds quite reasonable, they become so small that you can't see them, I believe. Also the AppearanceZoomsFlag propertry for the streetlight props is set to 0x0000001E, which means that they should be visible in all but the farthest zoom. In some streetlights the ResourceKeyType4xm property is wrong too, though I'm not sure if this plays a role in this case.

I don't really expect much out of Zoom 1, it's true.  But the lights start dropping out at Zoom 4.  Here's a sample at Zoom 3, where a fair number are missing:

You can actually see traces of the former lights, although they're mere shadows of their former selves (if you'll excuse the expression).

[MandelSoft]

I don't really expect much out of Zoom 1, it's true.  But the lights start dropping out at Zoom 4.  Here's a sample at Zoom 3, where a fair number are missing:

I think that's just a game render error.

[z]

I think that's just a game render error.

I'm no expert on rendering, but this is equally present in hardware and software modes - isn't that unusual for a rendering error?

[ebina]

@Cogeo: I was able to reproduce the problem shown in your screenshots with empty plugins folder, NAM was not a cause of inappropriate streetlight placement pattern.

I found one of Maxis T21s for orthogonal road piece is different from others. NetworkPlacementPattern of other T21s are 0x01,0x02,0x04,0x08 or 0x04,0x08,0x01,0x02, but a T21 I fixed was 0x01,0x02,0x04,0x0C. Could you try attached patch to see if it fixes the problem?

EDIT: Updated patch. Please remove the old version (y_T21_CAADA9B6_NPP_1248_TEST.dat) before installing the new version.
y_Maxis_T21s_Fixed_10252009-1.dat contains two fixed Maxis T21s, z_NAM_OWR_Arrows_Reduction_Plugin_T21_Fixed_10252009-1.dat contains a fixed T21 for one way road arrow reduction plugin.

[Andreas]

Hmm, if the Maxis T21 is broken, then it's no wonder that the bug translated to the SAM as well, since I merely used a copy of the Maxis T21's and changed the texture ID assignment.

[ebina]

Hmm, if the Maxis T21 is broken, then it's no wonder that the bug translated to the SAM as well, since I merely used a copy of the Maxis T21's and changed the texture ID assignment.

I checked Maxis T21s for orthogonal OWR and street, OWR has the same error but street has no error so I think SAM is safe.
I'll update the file attached to my post above to add OWR fix including one for arrow reduction plugin.

EDIT: Have updated the patch, please see my post above.

[Une_ame]

Thanks for all the help you provide here.

I used to play with the previous version of the NAM until I decide to try the new one (June). I found out that some of my cities's buildings have a "no road connection" sign above them when everything was fine before. After a while, above a couple of those buildings, the "no road connexion" sign desapear but the other one (the majority of them) experience abandonment. I change the controllor from Z to B but the problem remains .

As a result, I decide to buldoze the road in front of those buildings and rebuild them, but nothing change .

I start to understand where this bug comes from when I see this:



It seems that part of the road is out of order.

I don't now if this question has already being ask but do you guys have any idea how to solve this??

[Andreas]

Could it be possible that you forgot to install the Road Turning Lanes plugin? It looks like the road intersection is not carrying any traffic on those three tiles that are usually displaying the turning lane textures.

[Une_ame]

Yeap, since I have no idea what is that Road Turning plugin!

Is it something I must download ? (+ I've got a pretty old version of the european textures plugin).

[Andreas]

The Road Turning Lane Plugin is included in the NAM, but not selected by default, so if you had it before, you probably forgot to select it while installing the latest version of the NAM. As for the Euro Road Textures Mod, a new version/update was released shortly after the latest NAM.

[Une_ame]

you probably forgot to select it while installing the latest version of the NAM

You were right Andreas, I reinstall the NAM (with the latest euro-road textures mod) and be more carefull with this option and everything went back to normal .

You deserve a big DANKE !