SC4 Devotion Forum Archives

SimCity 4 General Discussion and Tutorials => SimCity 4 General Discussion => Topic started by: SIM1966 on December 27, 2016, 07:25:04 AM

Title: corner textures ?
Post by: SIM1966 on December 27, 2016, 07:25:04 AM
hi

i was wondering is there such a thing as a corner texture, i have roundabouts and diagonal roads streets etc... that have a horrible splodge ( ? ) and it all looks very squarish...is there a way to sort this. i hope this makes cense.

As always many thanks in advance.

Ian.
Title: Re: corner textures ?
Post by: mgb204 on December 27, 2016, 09:12:28 AM
If you are talking about making them using the Street, Road and OWR networks in-game, here is a YouTube tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RIC8atOrC4&index=2&list=PLM3PEmgLUV_m-S79gAcjNkUL3uVPJQ_yW) that shows how to correctly draw them all.

If you mean for use in the Lot Editor on lots, then if nothing exists, that would be very quick to rectify. It might help if in that case (or if the tutorial doesn't help), you post a screenshot so we can see exactly what's going wrong.
Title: Re: corner textures ?
Post by: vester on December 27, 2016, 03:42:55 PM
Maybe you can post a picture of the horrible splodge.
A picture tell so much more than words can.
Title: Re: corner textures ?
Post by: APSMS on December 27, 2016, 10:28:31 PM
It sounds like there is a missing texture somewhere and he's getting that RGBK square that shows up as a placeholder, but I'm not sure if that's accurate or why that would be.

A picture, as vester pointed out, is worth a thousand words. Please post one so we can quickly diagnose your problem.
Title: Re: corner textures ?
Post by: SIM1966 on January 03, 2017, 02:11:38 PM
picture as requested.

Title: Re: corner textures ?
Post by: mgb204 on January 03, 2017, 03:06:36 PM
Thanks for the picture, it's clear that what you want is the diagonal "zig-zag" effect to be gone.

There are a number of potential solutions to the problem, but you need to bear in mind how SC4 works. So for most networks, when there is no zoning, you just see the roads. But when you zone next to a network, if will alter to match both the wealth and density of the buildings surrounding them. In short for low density R/C you get wealths 1-3 with three types of grass. For med-high density R/C you get the matching wealth pavements (sidewalks). But when you plop a lot, in almost all cases, the textures only ever show the $ wealth (yellowish grass).

A set of diagonal fillers, such as these (http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/29797-mgb-diagonal-filler-set/), allows you to transition to other grasses, sidewalks etc, but as someone once said, all you are usually doing is moving the problem over by one tile.

In my personal attempts to minimise this problem, I've a bunch of half-sidewalk/grass lots that use models not textures, this way they can show transparency. This solution is not perfect, since such models only work on completely flat land. But creative use of the two together can often improve things.

Another trick is to hide the edges with trees/flora that mask the problem. Yet another common fix is using MMP grass/foliage to break up the pattern of the grid.

I also think my TGN (Terrain Grass NAM) mod helps to combat the issue of diagonals, by more closely matching the network grass to the terrain. That's less useful unless you are using one of the 4 supported HD terrain mods. Here's an example of what TGN makes possible:

(https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2788/32816734306_3af1019446_o.jpg)

You can find the mod on the LEX here (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3323).
Title: Re: corner textures ?
Post by: Seaman on January 03, 2017, 03:14:40 PM
This problem is a regular issue with SC4. As you know, the game is based on 16x16m quadratic tiles and most of the assets in the game are based on several of these tiles. As your city grows (and you download more custom content) you will surely find several buildings (like roads, parks, houses etc.) with different "base textures". In your example, the creator of the park next to the road used a different green base texture than your default texture used by the roads. The diagonal roads are based on a zigzack tile pattern and therefore you get this ugly "corner texture".

Enough explanation (I'm not an expert anyhow). I'm sure you want a solution!
Sad news first, there isn't an easy solution to this. Instead there are several workarounds that come to my mind:

my ideas might be depressing, but in my eyes, the problem you mentioned is actually a key criteria to recognize the amazing players of SC4. Some of the amazing city journals and major diaries on this site get their amazingness from keeping an eye on the used textures and solving issues like yours. What I want to say: solving that is actually pretty hard!

EDIT: ah... MGB was faster. He's always around to help!  &apls