Rural Renewal Project

[FrankU]

Chris,

Some comments:

The underbridge concrete is very useful. In too many situations the underbridge stuff that can be found on LEX or STEX is not useful to me: because of too explicit looks, or because the lot needs to be placed next to the bridge, but I do not have place for it. The Maxis rocktextures under the bridge are definitely not OK in urban areas nor in rural areas. A standard concrete material would be very appropriate. Maybe a question to the NAM team?
Of course there are many kinds of diagonal materials, support columns and barriers to be found. I would say: start with something that has a generic look. I, at least, are not that kind of perfectionist that I feel the need for a special kind of underbridge construction. What you show here is very useful already.

And another thing, looking at the bridges: the construction of the bridge starts exactly at the point where the ground goes down. This is, constructively speaking, too late! The bridge lies on the high ground, so there should be some construction already. I'd say at least half a tile.

What you show here is very good, although everything always can be better. But let the perfecvt not be the ennemy of the better....

Your grasses and other flora: they are more than welcome. But because of my cautious nature I wait for them to be released on STEX or LEX. This also counts for your fences.
When are they to be found there?

[jacqulina]

thanks chris for the new flora i cant wait to try them,the bridges are very cool

[bat]

Great work on that stuff there, Cris!
And also looking forward to that new flora!!!

[Chrisadams3997]

FrankU:  Well, these overpasses are overhanging lots, so you still have to use another tile in order to place them.  That's the only way to place something under the bridge that I'm aware of.  That said, rural overpasses don't usually have too much close to them to get in the way .

As for where the construction starts, I agree.  I would have to build onto the bottom of the bridge something that looks like The underside of the RL pic I showed of the one overpass.  The only problem is that this approach requires you to build the overpass for a specific length.  I would have to make at least a 3, 4, and 5 tile long one for each overpass, instead of just two sides that could be used for any length.  But I'm likely to play with it and see if it's worth the trouble.

But because of my cautious nature I wait for them to be released on STEX or LEX. This also counts for your fences.
When are they to be found there?

There are two reasons I haven't moved to get them 'officially' released yet.  One is just getting to the clerical work of packaging and writing readme's. The more important one though is that I'm still adding a few things right now, and I don't want the official release(s) to be piecemeal.   That said, the only reason it's still 'beta' has little to do with stability, etc., but is exactly what I just said.  I'm still deciding just what exactly is going into the first packs to be released.  So while I'm still adding little parts here and there, I've decided to make peacemeal releases here for those most interested, then they can replace the 'beta's with the final package when it's released.  But I'm taking precautions that they stuff released here will be fully supported in the final version, so nothing will have to be replaced.  It's far enough along at this point that there are no 'fundamental' changes occurring that would require destroying old lots or flora.

For instance.  A flora type is defined by it's IID(or IID's if there are multiple cluster types.)  This is what the game really "see's" when you plop down your favorite tree.  For the new Reed Grass, it would be 0x0DDE1038.  If I place down a number of these on a tile, leave the game, go into it's dat, and replace the model reference(reskey1) to that of, say, a PEG pine tree.  Next time I enter the game, every 'reed grass' is still there, but instead it shows a PEG pine, the new model I put.  Of course I wouldn't do that.  What I'm demonstrating is that if I decided to update a model between a beta release of a particular flora and a later final release, you'd never have to do anything, it would just update.  Same thing for any changed properties.  As long as I keep the same IID's for everything(which of course I am doing), it'll all still be there.

The only case I can immediately think of where this is not the case is when a lot is relotted.  The old lot in this case must be destroyed and replaced to show the new state of the lot.  But if you never do that, the old lot will function just as it did before without problem.  It just won't look like the new lot.  That said the lots for both the fences and paths are all finalized at this point, so no worries there.

Anyway, don't want to bore everyone with too much more of this technical talk , I just want to let you know it's alright to go ahead and make use of this stuff now rather than wait for "official" releases.  That's a big part of why I'm releasing them as I am here.  And if you'd rather wait, then, well, they'll be released when they are released .

heww, now I'm outta breath.  but moving on .

Jacky:  Thank you Jacky, hopefully I'll have some more work done on them soon.

Bat:  Thanks, and did you see the link for the new ones?  It was back at the bottom of the last page.


AND, nothing really new, so here's a picture.  Gotta keep people entertained, right?



Chris

[Travis]

I love the overpasses- I've always disliked how the default puzzle-piece ones look in rural areas. That last picture is great too...might I ask (being a city-boy ) what the red thing near the cows is?

Oh, and by the way...

The old lot in this case must be destroyed and replaced to show the new state of the lot.

There's actually a catch to this- textures will be shown as they were saved in the LE, and if there were only textures on the particular lot, (your gravel roads come to mind ) re-plopping wouldn't be needed. When props come into play though, re-plopping will be needed to get them to show.

[Ennedi]

Hello Chris!

Here are some pictures from me - more in Shosaloza tonight (?  )
The new grass works very well! 
(At the first picture you can compare two methods of making farmfield border)







Good stuff mate! 
Adam

[Chrisadams3997]

Travis:  I figured someone would ask .  It's a cattle feeder for liquid supplement, usually primarily made from molasses and urea.  here's a RL pic.

There's actually a catch to this- textures will be shown as they were saved in the LE, and if there were only textures on the particular lot, (your gravel roads come to mind ) re-plopping wouldn't be needed. When props come into play though, re-plopping will be needed to get them to show

Well, that's even better than what I said!

Ennedi:  Very cool.  I always get excited when I see that you've posted something because it's always so good.  The kind of situation you show here is very similar to my inspiration for making the johnson grass.  There is a path running alongside a creek/drainage ditch near my apartment with a thin strip of tall grass and weeds between it and the bank that made me realize I needed a more precise flora for such things than the first type of grass or the flowers could do.  And here you've thrown it right into that role.  Looks great.

Can't wait to see your Shosaloza update.

Chris

[mightygoose]

oh my lord i spent a good 8 hours today working with your stuff and i have an image to show how your stuff can revolutionise a forest environment, used with CP plop rocks, and fallen trees, plus jrj plop water, the results are magical.....

[Doctor Soul]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ennedi]

Fantastic work mightygoose!

It loaded a while  6000x4000 pixels, over 24 GB (edit: 24 MB of course  ) you say... Not easy to be a forester 
Your patience is great, I see all these flowers, stones and logs! And you gave very good example how much space needs a serious interchange to look elegant and realistic - I like it very much!

Adam

[mightygoose]

nah it took about 8 hours, the photoshop file is 1.2gb, the jpeg about 78mb.

[bakerton]

Hi Chris, I have been lurking once awhile and so far, awesome. The structures for the bridges looks better than ingame version. All I am saying, keep the work up and keep it coming. JKB

[Chrisadams3997]

ahhhhhh, only 8 hourse, lol.  The only words I've got for that interchange-and it's surrounding forest-is epic.  When Adam(Ennedi) comments on someone's patience, well...

I particularly like the little pond up at the top.  Oh yeah, the roads are nice too (warning, watch for massive understatements)

Chris

[Pat]

COUGH OMG COUGH OMG WOW!!! John that is just breath taken what you did with Chris new goodies!!!!

[klaascornelis]

Wow its all fantastic it motivates me to get started on my ural areas.

So is there any official release of this peace of art, or is it still in betatesting?

Greetings
me

[bat]

Wonderful pictures of this stuff here, Ennedi, Cris and mightygoose!!!

[Chrisadams3997]

Doctor Soul:

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll take that as a compliment .  Welcome.

Bakerton: 

The structures for the bridges looks better than ingame version.

Thanks for stopping by .  I guess you mean the NAM pieces, as without such incredible work, we wouldn't even have such overpasses 'ingame'.  I guess it's quite the compliment to the NAM teams work that those are just considered 'ingame' now .

Klaascornelis:  Welcome.  Since I'm still adding in little parts here and there, I haven't made an official release yet, but the parts that I've linked to in this thread are all 'finished' I'm rather confident to say at this point.  For more on the subject, see my post near the top of this page.

Bat:  Good to see you in here again.


Now then,  I'd promised a discussion on using the fences on slopes last week, and I've finally gotten around to putting together some images for a short tutorial, so here goes.

RRP Fences Slope Tutorial
(you know it's a serious post when I start pulling out the formatting,
horizontal rules and all )

Part I: Slope Friendly (SF) Pieces

Just below the normal "1x straight" piece in the menu, you run into a bunch of icons with a different colored background and the letters 'SF' stamped on them.  You might have even wondered to yourself, "what the heck does 'SF' mean?"  Well, if you read the title of this part of the tutorial, you should have figured it out .  These are an atempt to improve on the normal 'stairstep' method of conforming a fence to a slope.  So lets have a look at them.




Look kinda funny on flat ground, don't they.  That's why the first rule of SF pieces is, well, don't use them on flat ground.  They are set to 15, 30, and 42 degrees, corresponding roughly with 5m, 10m, and 15m of slope change per tile and come in straight(plus a mirrored version) and diagonal varieties.  To show the difference in effect, we'll start off with a normal straight piece used going up the follow hill:



Now I'm going to replace the most 'stairstepped' pieces(those on the steepest slopes) with SF pieces:

1) Destroy the normal fence pieces to make room for the SF pieces

2) Select the most appropriately 'sloped' SF piece.  As you get more comfortable placing these, it'll become easier to tell which will work best at a given slope.  If you can only place it from one side, you'll have to select the straight piece that points in the right direction, but more on that shortly.

3)  Now, refere to the image below.  Note that the 'slope' of the fence rails follows the slope of the hill, pointing towards the top of it, as indicated by the arrows(which are not ingame, they are just placed here for clarification.)  Then Plop



Thats it.  No, really--it's that easy.  Note in the next picture that I'm placing one on the opposite side of the slope, so the direction of the fence also has to be reveresed, again with the fence beams pointing up the hill.





Additional Note:



Something of a suggestion, avoid hard ridges.  It'll give a smoother fence line.  The closest slope in the picture rises directly by 15 meters to a plateu.  While the SF fence handles this just fine, the connection to the flat piece looks unnatural.  In the second slope, I've lowered the angle they attach at so that the 'flow' of the fence is preserved.

Part II: Working with Diagonals on slopes



Diagonals should always follow the 'spine' of a slope, as represented by the yellow lines above.  Plan or terraform accordingly.  Unless you just really like them coming out deformed .

Of course any slope that lacks a spine, such as the rest of them shown in the pictures above, can have a diagonal travel either direction on it.

Part III: Working with 2x1 fence tiles on slopes





There are things that these tiles, which include the 2x1 curves shown in these pics, the 'S' curves, gates, etc., CAN and can NOT do on slopes.  So lets take a look at the numbers above:

1)  Yep, it's just a piece placed on a flat spot of ground, when all else fails, you can flatten the ground where these will be placed(with road tiles) and connect them going up the slope with SF pieces.

2)  They can NOT travel along a slope, unless it is a very minor slope.  The pieces orient to the slope, which in this case causes them to bow out away from the posts.  If you look at the red arrow, it points to the space left between the curve and the final post.

3)  They can NOT be placed on a hard ridge(or depression) as shown above going up(or down) a hill.  This will result in:
      a) One part of the fence leaving the ground as shown above, or...
      b) One part of the fence going into the ground.
   Even where these effects are minor, it will cause the fence section to not connect up well with the next section of fence.

4)  They CAN be placed on a slope going up(or down) hill, as long as:
      a) Both tiles have very nearly the same slope
      b) that slope is limited to about 3m rise per tile
   The more it goes over this amount of slope, the more disconnection occurs between the curve(etc.) and the final post.

Now lets talk about preparing ground for curved tiles(etc.) to go up a slope:



Shown in yellow is the (poorly drawn) line that the new fence pieces will follow.  It's a good idea to plan out your fence with, say, a line of plobbable trees first, figuring out where you'll have to smooth before hand.  Below where each tile will go, I've drawn out railroad to smoothen the ground.  I use Ennedi's medium slope mod, and it produces a very good slope for these.  More lenient slope mods(or the original Maxis values) might not produce as good of an effect, though I haven't tested them.

Note that I've drawn them out an extra tile on each.  This helps produce a better connection between each fence section.

You can also use the raise and lower terrain tools(press Shift-1 and Shift-F1 for the smallest brush size) if you are comfortable with it for fine tuning, depending on just how smooth of a grade you want.  Just using the railroad has worked fine for me so far however.

After It's smoothed, destroy the Railroad tiles and plop in the fences.  Here's my end result here.



Additional Note:

Even without such preparation, at the higher zooms the fences generally look fine on light slopes, so it's really only absolutely necessary in spots where you'd like it to look perfect, such as for pictures and such.


Hope that's informative for everyone.  If you have questions or comments, I'll do my best to address them,
Chris

[Diggis]

[Pat]

Hey now Diggis I thought there was some type of rule that you had to say something and couldnt just use
                                                                                                                                               

Even though I totaly agree, that when words fail all one can do is just drop their jaw!!!

[Orange Julius]

After looking at this thread's content and MightyGoose's artwork...all I have to say is...
All of this was absolutely INCONCEIVABLE five years ago when SimCity 4 was new!