There is a game somewhere in the Internet that allows you to build futuristic cities. In this game you can build elevated roads with large open space below them. We can imagine cars on the roads with pedestrians walking around the city below them.
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2918/13989599719_b3d29005e8_o.jpg)
(https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5582/13989616078_fe3182f030_o.jpg)
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7399/13989610120_e9b38bdc5c_o.jpg)
Of course this requires 3D modeling and something tells me that this will be a pain in the butt. But in Anno 2070 we can find a better and simpler solution. Have a look at this video.
See? Cars
flying above the pedestrians. I'm not a NAM team member, but this is how I think about it. Pedestrian drag-able roads that allows cars flying above them. Something like this...
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2928/14176288874_a3d2438a47_o.jpg)
If this is possible, we may need to make new vehicles that replace the Maxis cars, like this one.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffc00.deviantart.net%2Ffs70%2Fi%2F2010%2F280%2Fc%2F5%2Fanti_gravity_car_skp_by_pangeranberbajuputih-d3093gv.png&hash=17100f76acaacfc418ee8a568ff9ba32fd0e0955)
But the question is, is it possible? Can we create streets, roads, one-ways and avenues with flying cars hovering above pedestrians, without the need of creating 3D models?
Had a situation once where I was testing something for the RTMT and it turned out I was missing the elevated rail prop so all my elevated trains were going from the track across an area where the tracks were missing and then back onto the track again, it wasn't a large gap ... thought I had a picture of it, but can't find it
:)
I guess it is even quite simple if it is possible to offset the automata.
Indeed we need new automata that have some resemblance to a machine that can fly. Furthermore we can use a SAM texture and fill it with pedestrian walkways, pedestrians, shrubs and greenery. And then we make the cars "drive" over it with an offset of, say, 20 meters, above ground level.
Maybe the connection to a ground level street will give the most trouble, because the automata have to come down, draw out the wheels, touch the ground and the pedestrians must jump out of the way.
Probably the way to do this is to have elevated roads that are invisible, so that the cars "look" like they're flying, but to the game, they're just on an elevated road that's invisible. You could probably do bridges in the same sort of manner.
Occasionally you could see flying cars in SC4 when you're doing something like a UDI mission and the graphics for a bridge are taking a little while for the video card to render, (if you have a really crappy video card/slow computer) but cars are still driving where the bridge should be.