RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[eggman121]

As i recall the gore hill freeway Shadows Assasin was refering to was originally 4 lanes but was expanded to 6 lanes by removing the emergency stopping lane and narrowing the lanes. The same approach was recently done to the M79 calder freeway just outside the M80 ring road to increase capacity, dispite there being ample room for the construction of a third (and possably fourth) lane on each carrageway. Its amazing what a bit of paint can do. I believe there are other examples in Sydney as engineers there are great at putting roads in the smallest amount of space

Also well done Tarkus and SA on the project. Can't wait to be surprised!!!

[Patricius Maximus]

A real-life Maxis Highway

Images of interchanges that are somewhat simple and I'm sure are at least common enough that they should be included in some version of the RHW.  Ignore the pair of lanes down the middle of the right/left highway in the first two images - they are HOV lanes that switch directions at different times of day, which is (probably) not possible for SC4. Also ignore the white and green dots - I don't know why they are in Google Earth.

One of those roundabout stack thingamajigs:


A diagonal/orthagonal cloverstack thing:


All these are along interstate 395 in the DC metro area. (I think...)  I got the screenshots with Google Earth.

I've seen them as well.

The first one is a volleyball interchange with right turn ramps in the interior. Here's a real three-level stacked roundabout:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=51.572315,0.285548&spn=0.003254,0.009356&t=h&z=17

According to CBRD, it's where the interchange works best at -- when a motorway crosses an arterial. For a more horrifying experience, I suggest you look at the section aptly called "bad junctions".

The second one is a clover-turbine hybrid. I believe it was the first of it's kind. There are a few more in the Washington suburbs, and a couple in California.

- Patricius Maximus

[j-dub]

I have seen real rural highway's lanes reduced from 4 lanes to 2 just redoing the paint. Bad.

@Mrtnrln, I have made different attempts to connect the two highways, but personally I felt they were two competing networks, just like elevated-rail, vs raised rail. I know there is 3 things I tried here, but its either unfitting Maxis transition on the right, or connecting the two together on the left without a transition, this is done by demolishing the highway on slope puzzle piece off the higway, and then dragging the RHW into the Maxis highway. In your case, it may look better since you added a shoulder to the Maxis highway.

[Shadow Assassin]

As i recall the gore hill freeway Shadows Assasin was refering to was originally 4 lanes but was expanded to 6 lanes by removing the emergency stopping lane and narrowing the lanes.

Close, but no cigar. That's what they did on the M2, however... but on the Gore Hill Fwy, they actually removed the centre reservation and widened the cutting (there never was an emergency lane anyway in the first place). The M2, on the other hand, removed the emergency stopping lane, and narrowed the lanes because quite simply, there was no room in the central reservation (it was a concrete jersey barrier ). But that'll all change when they do the proper widening... in a year.

[TEG24601]

They did a similar thing in Portland on I-5 near the Interstate Bridge(s).  They had two travel lanes in each direction.  They needed to quickly expand capacity, so they broke interstate standards and stuffed 3 lanes into the space for only 2 for a short distance.  They are currently in the process of expanding bridges, but the ground-level sections are not likely to be fixed for many years.

TEG

[doorknob60]

This has probably been requested quite a few times, but I could really use a MIS -> OWR transition A RHW-6 -> Maxis HW would be helpful too. Anyways, nice job, this makes the game a lot more fum for me 

[un1]

Tgis probably been requested to but maybe you could make a RHW-4 to MIS connection and MIS curves.

Just ideas... 

-un1

[Tarkus]

Well, to respond to a few suggestions, and their current status:

MIS/OWR transition: Already done, SA posted a pic of it a couple of months ago.  It will be in Version 21.
MIS/RHW-4 transition: I had done up a prototype awhile ago, but it was a bit finicky.  I had tried to make it fully draggable, and that idea didn't work so well, so I'm going to re-try with a puzzle-piece based version.  Likely, it will be 3 tiles including the puzzle drag stubs.  It will be in Version 21.
RHW-6S/Maxis Highway transition: alidonkey (who did the RHW Curve Pieces) approached me about making that one awhile ago.  Unknown status. 
MIS Curves:  A fair amount of work has already been done on these.  Both ardecila and I have made some textures for them--I just need to get the textures in, RULed and pathed.  They will be in Version 21.  There should be at least an S-Curve, a 45-degree Curve, and possibly a couple different 90-degree Curves.
RHW-4/Dual MIS Splitter:  I can confirm what nerdly_dood said: there will be RHW-4/Dual MIS Splitters in Version 21.  ardecila has done the textures, and I should have something on that front shortly.

I'll be back with a little more later . . .

-Alex (Tarkus)

PS: To answer Kitsune's question on the specs of my new laptop: AMD Turion X2 TL-60, 3GB RAM, 200GB HD, 256MB Graphics.  It's an amazing improvement over my 4-year-old COMPAQ.

[Kitsune]

I bet, thats a very nice laptop. Eagerly awaiting v21 too.

[MandelSoft]

RHW-6S/Maxis Highway transition: alidonkey (who did the RHW Curve Pieces) approached me about making that one awhile ago.  Unknown status. 

Well, here you have one (My first gMax transit model! It took me only 20 minutes to make it.):


I've attached the model itself at the bottom of the post. And it does have all the requirements of a transit model (less than 500 polygons, divided in 16x16m pieces), except I don't know how to render a True3D in gMax. Maybe this can be usefull for the RHW.

I hope you'll like it!
Maarten

[nerdly_dood]

Ohh awesome I love progress updates for most any transit project! Thanks alex

[toxicpiano]

sounds good
I didn't know ardecila was still around.

[Tarkus]

Maarten, fine job on the transition there!  I've downloaded the file and will see what I can do with it.

Well, I do have something new to show.  I've been working on adding diagonal capacity to the MIS.  Texture is still a bit rough, but you should get the idea.



I have prelim stuff worked up for the Orth/Diag, Diag/Orth and Diag/Diag Road/MIS intersections. 

Back with more in a little bit.

-Alex (Tarkus)

[nerdly_dood]

AWESOME diagonals are something v.20 really needed! Great work, keep it up!

[deathtopumpkins]

Wow! That's looking nice...

I see a little square corner though... 

Getting even more excited for v.21

[Streetlight 725]

Can't wait to download it.looks good.

[b22rian]

Alex,

The diagonals for the mis were a great idea  ..

Because a lot of the mis ramp segments branch off at diagonals , this will make things much easier to hook up
a mis section into a road section, and should shorten the process, in area where space is a priority..
Outstanding work on everything headed into version 21, and its much appreciated   

Thanks for all your efforts as always, Brian

[girlfromverona]

That diagonal intersection is looking great, Alex! 

[Shadow Assassin]

Awesome! I was supposed to do those intersections... oh well.

[Fresh Prince of SC4D]

Nice!

BTW- When did they add gaurd rails to the RHW?