Three Rivers Region

[Ryan B.]

 

Now you're speaking my language, David!

For anyone who may be interested, I'll post the MUTCD-approved colors and their color values (both in RGB & Hex) here.

[dragonshardz]

Tired or not, Part One is interesting, Part Two should be as well.

[sithlrd98]

I have to say , although I knew there were "standards" , I actually thought they were controlled by one entity completely. I did not realize that the states had that much control! Of course since many states have extremes in temperature / humidity , it makes since that there would be slight differences in material , etc.

So how wide are Hyer's lanes?  Some fool with a tape measure decided to play in traffic and find out⁹.

So, Hyer is built to lane width standards, which doesn't help much when one of these


is in front of you in a no passing zone.
David

⁹  Don't try this at home.  3RR is not liable for resulting death, serious injury or for embarrassment resulting from the looks of curious neighbors and passing motorists.

David, aren't you glad he didn't invite some of his buddies while you were making these measurements...couldda been messy!

Jayson

[dragonshardz]

I actually thought they were controlled by one entity completely.

WE ARE , YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED.

[sithlrd98]

Uh, wrong thread...

Jayson

[Albus of Garaway]

I loved that car peeking around the corner. You must have had to jump right out of the way to avoid getting pummeled! Ha ha, anyway, I can't wait to see where all this is going. I can tell it seems like something big.

-Jason

[sithlrd98]

After reading it again , a question popped up in my head. As we saw , your re-textures are 10 meters ...what are the Maxis ones? And also , how can this affect those other projects?...just a little anxious!

Jayson

[MandelSoft]

I always found the Maxis road textures too wide (5 meters per lane? In the Netherlands, some 4-lane road have 2 meter wide middle lanes!). 3.3 meters seems a reasonable width to me.

[carkid1998]

Heh, a car is coming on that first pic! The people in it probaly thought that tape measure was one of those average speed check things and slowed right down!

[ldvger]

David, you are a man after my own heart.  This is exactly the type of thing this foolish woman has been known to do in the name of accuracy and exactly the same kind of mind-numbing research I go off on 4 hours tangents doing.  I can't help it...I think I must really be OCD because it's like I get a hook set in my brain and am helpless to resist the pull of whatever impulse of the moment has me caught.  A few weeks ago we are discussing traffic lights/signals and how they are rigged to poles or hanging from wires and I, very seriously, considered borrowing a ladder and taking my tape measure out the the middle of the steet and actually measuring both the signal fixtue itself (and of course then drawing it up in CAD) AND it's distance above the street.  Then I'd probably have wanted to drop a plumb line down from it and measure it's offset from the center of the intersection, which would mean I would then have to measure the intesection to determine it's center.  Same thing when we were talking about stop signs a couple of months ago and again just a few days ago when we were talking about sidewalks. 

Today, while waiting for this update to load, there was a little ad at the top of the page for an engineering firm that designs roundabouts and that got me thinking about cul-de-sacs and how Maxis default lots don't allow us to create radial lots like those that occur in RL around cul-de-sacs.  I've been thinking about learning how to BAT and LOT and MOD, so I starting thinking how one could create a large ploppable lot, maybe 20x20?, that contained a cul-de-sac and radial lots laid out around it.  Once the base LOT had been created, how hard could it be to then rotate it so that it could be affixed to diagonal streets, and then all the FAR streets, etc?  Of course one would also have to BAT all the houses that sit on the lots around the cul-de-sac and if used a lot (like they are in RL housing developments), it could get kinda visually boring, so of course there'd have to be variations. 

See...that's how my brain works.  Glad to know I'm not alone with this gift/problem (and it really is both).

Lora/LD

[sithlrd98]

First off , again the road re-textures are great! Really love the euro...just wish the ERTM  and these blended just a tad better.

Well , while we wait for more explanation on "road standards" I thought some of you (if you haven't already) , should check out some of the FAR conforming BATs by JonM . Although I got them as  soon as they were released , since I don't play as much , tonight was my first time.



Of course , they amplify just how bad my T-21 mod actually is Wait , you mean that tree wasn't supposed to grow there? I thought it was an atrium!...its on my to-do list

Anyway...just trying to kill some time...

Jayson

[dedgren]

I can see I'm holding things up here...

In all seriousness, I need to apologize here to my great friend Jayson (sithlrd98).  Folks, this guy is probably the single thing that's keeping my wildly undisciplined self on the straight and narrow in terms of getting a couple of things done.  He's held my feet to the fire with respect to several key aspects of the road and rail retexture initiatives.  I keep sending him responses to his PMs saying variations on the same thing: "soon."  Well, Jayson, my talented friend, soon is just about here, almost, shortly.  Let's take one of those steps this evening.

I promised everyone yesterday a "Part 2" to my Lanes and Lines post.  Well, you know those drug trials where they stop the whole thing in the middle and just approve the trial medication because it proves to be so phenomenally effective?  Here's the SC4 equivalent of that situation.

This is a RealRoad.



The lane width is 4 meters/13 feet.  I know that's wider than the minor road that was the subject of my last post,



but it represents, as so many other things the reality of the game constrains us into doing, a necessary compromise.  The centerline and edgelines are much closer to RL scale.



I know, I know... you want to see a side-by-side...

...actually end-to-end...

...comparison.  Well, check this out.



Here's the scale dimensions of the centerline on the retextures I've been working on.



A meter/one yard wide!  Three times the RL width!  The RealRoad dual yellow centerline is four pixels wide, which reduces the width by half.  Remember that the MUTCD allows six inch/15cm centerline striping.  We have now achieved a scale road centerline.



I'm showing you the unpaved shoulder variant.  There will also be a paved shoulder version for major arterial roads, thus increasing the number of options available to you.



These are clearly rural and low density suburban roads.  I still have a number of issues to think through, but I intend to commit substantial time this fall to completing this project, which will be a part of a larger effort that involves SAM V4.



Stay tuned.

Before I move on, I need to also note the incredible contribution of Stephen (smoncrie) with, among other things, his MORPH Curves.  They perfect, to a large degree, the puzzle-piece approach to smooth curves.  Our great friend Stephen has made huge, but quiet, contributions to this game over the years.  He is one of the unsung heroes of the SC4 transit MODding community, and a really nice guy to boot. 

Anyway, this week is no less complicated for me than the last.  I fly to Helena, Montana on the red-eye early Wednesday morning to meet Heather, who's already down there, and then accompany Joshua



to the same hospital in Texas where his brother is for further treatment.  Josh need a course of medication that can only be started in a highly controlled setting, but we are very hopeful that it holds a great deal of therapeutic promise.  Keep your fingers crossed for him.

So, posting will probably be a bit irregular until we're back on Sunday.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Later.


David

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[projectadam]

David,

First for the important stuff, I will keep your family in my thoughts and prayers through the week. Hope things go well with the treatment.

Secondly, the roads look EXCELLENT. It has always been one of my gripes that many roads are around 8 - 10 meters and many avenues are actually 16 meters. Now all you need to do is find a way to change the entire scale of SC4 so that the tiles are 8 meters x 8 meters

EDIT: Something I have also always wanted to see in my downtown areas are bike lanes. Therefore, if you want to add another project to all the projects you already are working on, I know at least one person who would love to see them

[mayorfabz]

David,
Mes pensées vont vers toi et ta famille. Je croise les doigts pour la réussite du traitement.
Sorry, when I mean to say sthg really important, I am more comfortable to revert to my mother tongue, for fear of writing something that might be misunderstood. Anyway I'll think of you guys.

And projectadam, you can count me as a strong supporter of these bike paths. Although I figure it might be a little too urban setting for 3RR (Pineshore excepted) I would love to doodle with those.

Rainy greetings from Montréal

Fabien

[BarbyW]

David, good luck with Joshua and the new meds. I will be thinking of you and Heather and hope all goes well.
Now I have to make a quote:

Visits to Europe (most recently 1982)

All I can say is that it is time you re-visited Europe. There have been a few changes in 27 years. Maybe next Euromeet.

[metasmurf]

Wow new roads, they look real good  Here's an example from my country



Probably around 7-8 meters wide

[Ryan B.]

That's a great-looking road, David.  I wonder where it leads . . .

Good luck with Josh & through your travels!

[Flatron]

Wouldn't it be more easy to double the buildings scale and let the roads as they are?

[Ryan B.]

Wouldn't it be more easy to double the buildings scale and let the roads as they are?

SC4's original roads were not well done, so why not improve them as well?   

[dedgren]

I'd note, Flatron, from a practical standpoint that it is far easier (although still a daunting task) to redo the game's roads than to rescale every building (and basically every other BAT object) ever created for the game. 

By way of reassuring folks generally, I am working on completing the default and Euro road retexture sets before I move on to serious work on the RealRoads.


David

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