Request(sort of) SAM concept applied to roads

[I9113N]

If you have ever visited my MD, you will know that I have attempted, and in my opinion, utterly failed at replacing the game's road textures with ones to suit my MD. One day in SC4 whilst making a SAM subdivision, I thought it would be totally awesome and way easier to make a RAM for my mod! That way more complicated areas of roads or whatever could remain game textures, while other areas could be MD style. This would also allow me to make special roads, such as ones with bike lanes, parking, and bus lanes.

Anyway, I wanted to know if this is possible in the first place. If so, I think the already created SAM could just be modified a bit to apply to the roads.

Of course, I realize that the people on the NAM team are probably busy doing something really important, and probably don't have much time to make a RAM. But, I think it has potential. I could see RAM textures such as old and cracked roads, roads without markings, dirty and almost gone roads, and many more.


Thanks for your time,

Ian. 

[dedgren]

What you've described, Ian, is exactly what I am working on.  You should see some of what I've been up to over at 3RR inthe next month or so.


David

[KoV Liberty]

Cool job dedregen. Send me a PM when you post some pics. And to I9113N... That is a modd I have thought about for quite a while.

[joelyboy911]

That's a little demanding don't you think, Alex?

I am also very interested in this concept. I might be interested in making textures for it, if you are looking for people to do such things.

[z]

Oh boy!  Even more RTMT stations! 

[Diggis]

While I'm not sure what David is up to in 3RR I can say this has been discussed a few times in the NAM team and to date it's been left alone for the following reasons:

1: There are many many more textures for Roads than for Streets
2: Streets are easy to isolate as the overrides don't sit well next to each other.  Roads tend to mostly intersect making transitions difficult
3: You will need to do each piece that intersects with a SAM street for each SAM texture.

If someone is doing this, good luck to them, it would be great to have, but having done the original SAM textures, it would be a nightmare.

[Tarkus]

I believe what David's referring to is along the lines of the Rural Roads mod he did (correct me if I'm wrong), which is puzzle-piece-based.  Doing a draggable setup like SAM for all these road variations would be extremely difficult and extraordinarily unlikely to happen.  Not only for the reasons Shaun (Diggis) mentioned, but also because it would potentially interfere with the NWM, which is also Road-based.

-Alex

[j-dub]

I got to say, at one point I would of liked this set up too. I know streets shouldn't be the same speed as roads, but thats an alternative for using some of these streets instead of the roads.

@I911333N While such a mod is out of question, have you considered videosean's mod? I do not remember it getting uploaded to any ex though. That defaults American style passing lines on the open roads, unlike pieces, draggable passing lines don't constrain you to the right side of the road in udi.


Right now, these 5 choices are the options I have for regular roads. Yes, I do use the RHW2 as a road in some instances. In the future, it looks like the RHW will have a different double yellow line texture defaulting it, instead of the draggable passing lines, but there will be more cosmetic lining options for that.

As for cracked roads, and potholes, that may be possible T21'ed for low wealth, but I prefer not having those type of conditions. There actually is a faded, not so new looking texture mod for roads, and almost all the other networks on the STEX called Ashy. The mod itself is kind of old, and because of that, it only does the draggable parts, so it would not match the newer stuff, like curve & FARR pieces.

[z]

I got to say, at one point I would of liked this set up too. I know streets shouldn't be the same speed as roads, but thats an alternative for using some of these streets instead of the roads instead.

Just a point to remember - it's not just the speed that is different, but the capacity is vastly different, so that streets get congested much more easily than roads.  And as congestion increases, speed drops further still.  This isn't a big issue in a rural environment where there's light usage, but in a heavily traveled urban environment, it can be quite problematic.

[j-dub]

Whoops, wrong choice of words, my bad, yeah I meant capacity. In addition to how SAM streets have better textures that can get eaten by road upgrades, alot of real single family neighborhoods don't have roads, but the default street capacity in SC4 was set too low to allow without roads. Which changing those network setups seemed like a good alternative while a road like SAM will have to forgo.