Additional SAM textures - Nominations open

[j-dub]

I think there is a number of spots left, there are a little bit more blank spaces in SAMv4 tab ring, just don't know if anyone reserved those.

[Nexis4Jersey]

Did anyone think of Old street texture , with potholes ,or old cracks or patch's of roadwork's   

[j-dub]

Don't worry. If you lower your funding you will get potholes. Roads get so bad that damaged roads will show up red in the simulator map. Nerdly Dood's streets are in fact cracked up severely.

[Nexis4Jersey]

I was aware of that but , how about some realistic looking old worn out roads , for like Urban decaying Ghettos or underfunded Rural back roads.  Maxis Potholes look like black holes and not pot holes! 

[Diggis]

The problem with worn out roads is that every single piece of straight road is 1 texture.  So any obvious feature, like a pothole, will show up on every tile.  These could be added through T21's however, which is something I have considered doing.

[Pat]

So Shaun in essence it would more or less be a network prop that is weirdness to think that a pothole could be that lol....

[Diggis]

Pat, chances are the ones that appear now are exactly that.

[joelyboy911]

Are you still looking for new textures at all? I was thinking that a black chip-seal and a reddish chip-seal might be good? I could try to make them, but I would need to know exactly the number of pieces that are needed before I decide whether I have the time/skills/tools etc that are necessary. 

[Diggis]

Hmmm, exact number of pieces.  There is on the LEX a SAM creation Kit, with all the pieces needed in it.  However, you actually need to do 4 times as many because of the different wealth levels.

I've just done a quick check one of the original sets I did... There are:

~75 different textures x 4 wealths + 2 alphas for each (which are already done for you) which gives ~450 textures of which 150 are already done.

Once you have the first 5 done it's pretty simple from there as they form the basis for all other pieces.

[gottago]

...Actually there are about a zillion textures, give or take

I've done a full set using the LEX guide and tried it out ingame with high expectations, but boy is it glitchy.

A few observations, from what I noticed doodling streets and intersections to see how they render--I'd greatly appreciate any help from a SAM-master:
The SAM reverts to Maxis streets whenever a SAM street has intersections to other road networks on 2 adjacent tiles. I tested this on the other pieces and this happens universally. You'd do this rarely ingame, but it is annoying nonetheless.
Also, it suppresses normal signage at intersections, though streetlights and occasional trees will appear.
Street roundabouts just don't render on any SAM pieces for me.
The Diagonal Wide Corner 0x5e577X00 is either misused or incorrectly drawn for its purpose when coming directly off a T junction and leaves a nasty sharp edge jutting out. In this situation, you would want the piece to have the curve coming to the center of the edge of the tile at the area where it abuts the T intersection (just like a 90 degree standard piece), and the top of the piece looking like the Diagonal Wide Corner. Very strange.
A horizontal SAM street crossing a diagonal avenue (Ave T Diag 0x5e558X00) will render properly on one side, but show a missing texture--i.e., nothing at all, just a grass tile--on the other. Is there a missing mirror piece here?
There's a missing piece: two streets coming to a right angle which touch a diagonal street. Schematically, it looks like a V with a bar underneath. No SAMs have this texture. Is there a way to find out what this piece is, and also what the misread turning piece mentioned above is?
The glr pieces--are they supposed to appear when using draggable glr? They don't.
The Ave Transition Straight 0x5e54cX00  and Ave T Street 0x5e55fX00 pieces are rendering as default Maxis though IIDs are correct.

I made my set with Euro textures only, replacing Trolca's dirt streets. I put my file in the NAM/SAM/Textures folder and removed the corresponding SFBT Trolca Euro textures from that mod. Is this the right way to load the file, and do I have to mod the type 21 and path files in any way as well?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

[Diggis]

You might need to post some Pics of your problems.  The SAM doesn't cover all instances yet, so that may be some of your problems.

[gottago]

Hi Diggis, here are some pics of my problems:

The missing corner/diagonal street intersection:


The tight turn glitch:


The diagonal avenue not drawing correctly and missing tile (files properly ID'ed):


Avenue ending into street not rendering (file properly ID'ed):


The non-rendering roundabout and the avenue/street transition rendering default maxis for all SAMs (files properly ID'ed):


A problem with diagonal streets (and a missing euro texture on the roundabout?)


The first pic shows one of those missing instances I believe.

[jplumbley]

Hi Diggis, here are some pics of my problems:

The missing corner/diagonal street intersection:

The tight turn glitch:

The diagonal avenue not drawing correctly and missing tile (files properly ID'ed):

Avenue ending into street not rendering (file properly ID'ed):

The non-rendering roundabout and the avenue/street transition rendering default maxis for all SAMs (files properly ID'ed):

A problem with diagonal streets (and a missing euro texture on the roundabout?)

The first pic shows one of those missing instances I believe.

1.  That diagonal interesection was never RULed to my knowledge since no texture was created for it.

2.  Is just a bad draw of the RULs, does this get fixed when you click with the Street Tool on the adjacent intersection, 90 turn or striaght piece next to the 90 turn?

3a.  The two with the missing textures, means your texture is either not ID'd properly in the DAT file, or it is simply left out of the DAT file.
3b.  I do not remember if I wrote the RULs for that intersection type.  Does this work with other SAM sets?

4.  I do not believe I wrote the RULs for that interesection type.

5. The roundabouts should work...  What SAM set did you make your DAT file replace?  Try replacing changing it so that it replaces one of the other sets with the textures working for the roundabout.

6. Again, I do not believe the RULs were written for that intersection type.


At this point in time, I do not have SC4 or iLives Reader installed and cannot view let alone edit the RULs to make updates.  So, I cannot fix them at the current time.

[Shadow Assassin]

2.  Is just a bad draw of the RULs, does this get fixed when you click with the Street Tool on the adjacent intersection, 90 turn or striaght piece next to the 90 turn?

To my knowledge, that only happens when you do a ortho-diag street T next to a 90 degree curve. You may need to add an extra line of RULs that revert that back to the normal texture only in that situation. Hopefully that will fix that problem. I think I'll have to dust off my RUL2 editing skills and see what I can do about that, and then maybe it can be ported into the next NAM build if it's successful.

I think SAM v5 really should focus on increasing the stability of certain configurations... both for the default network (which was modified) and the SAM sets.

[jplumbley]

To my knowledge, that only happens when you do a ortho-diag street T next to a 90 degree curve. You may need to add an extra line of RULs that revert that back to the normal texture only in that situation. Hopefully that will fix that problem.

Most probably...  There is probably some conflicting RULs there and just need a few extra ones to complete the stability for them.

I think I'll have to dust off my RUL2 editing skills and see what I can do about that, and then maybe it can be ported into the next NAM build if it's successful.

I think SAM v5 really should focus on increasing the stability of certain configurations... both for the default network (which was modified) and the SAM sets.

I put my support behind anyone who is looking to take the lead on modify SAM into the next version.  And I am willing to provide any assistance, where there is a need.

[cogeo]

How many "slots" are still available?

[jplumbley]

How many "slots" are still available?

I think Alex has setup the starter pieces for the rest of the slots.  Atleast I hope he did.

There can be 16 sets in SAM the way the IID system is structured and there are currently 8 SAM sets included.  THere are a number of sets started in this thread which if completed could fill up the final 8 slots.  But, the way the SAM is setup, it is very easy to replace one of the default DATs with a different DAT including another set of textures you may want to use over a default set.  So, there is 16 slots, but you can have unlimited choices to fill those 16 slots.

I would really hope to see some of the textures in this thread come to fruition one day.

[dedgren]

I'm continuing to work (currently at about 20% complete) on the RealRoads project, which would in some parts be SAM-based.  I would be happy to coordinate with anyone interested in doing their own work on SAM stuff.

Feel free to PM.


David

[Tarkus]

I think Alex has setup the starter pieces for the rest of the slots.  Atleast I hope he did.

I've got 6 additional slots set up at the moment as requested last year.  I can add the other 2 easily if needed.

-Alex

[cogeo]

There can be 16 sets in SAM the way the IID system is structured and there are currently 8 SAM sets included.  THere are a number of sets started in this thread which if completed could fill up the final 8 slots.  But, the way the SAM is setup, it is very easy to replace one of the default DATs with a different DAT including another set of textures you may want to use over a default set.  So, there is 16 slots, but you can have unlimited choices to fill those 16 slots.

Thanx for the reply!

Is there some sort of document (even a simple text file) explaining which textures one should make, and what each texture is, ie the IDs assignment scheme (with explanations, if possible)?