Wide Radius Road Curves

[Elektra]

Sexy curves and some 'tude'.    You couldn't ask for anything more.  I think these have brought the game to a whole new level. 

[Tarkus]

Thanks everyone, and David, I'm especially glad to hear you like them and it looks like you're putting them to excellent use.   I may have to use them in my next update of Argentum, if you don't mind.

As far as the whole "finicky" plopping issue, that's something I've run into with just about every NAM puzzle piece, and it drives me crazy as well to get the dreaded "NAM Sinkhole".  They were particularly painful to deal with when I was initially testing the RHWMIS before I had Preview Models in and was blindly plopping stuff down.  It's something I'd personally like to see fixed if possible, since it can be rather annoying at times.  I believe it has to do with the ConsLayout settings on the RUL file, though memo may know more.

-Alex

[memo]

I don't know more because I've never been confronted with this issue. The only puzzle piece which brought this issue was the road onramp. Though I have an idea referring to the ConsLayout. (BTW, the issue doesn't occur on flat land.)
+ doesn't affect the slope a puzzle piece is built at.*
- and | indicate a straight network tile, so the slope is changed due to the settings of the slope mod. Besides, straight networks only have slopes in the direction of the network, but not crossways. You probably understand what I mean.

So if there is a road connection to a puzzle piece, there are certain limitations regarding the slope-conformingness, since the connection has to be plane crossways to the road. Thus it doesn't make sense to use + for the tile next to the road connection, but - or |. And maybe for the other tiles as well in order that the slope mod applies to them.

*However, it is affected if there is a connection to a normal network on the adjacent tile. That's why the implementation of onslope puzzle pieces with which I'm currently experimenting is so difficult.

Well, it's just an idea.

[Darmok]

Hi David,
I'm the ghost of ST past!   
Hehehe... Slowly returning to an "almost" normal pace, I think it's been at least a month since I've been to SC4D! Not even to lurk! Geez...

< ...snip... >

Back to your long curves project, I've read the whole thread this morning and just can't believe all the efforts all of you have put into this project!
This will really revolutionize the game!
Well that's about it for now.
The best to you and family my friend.
Take care
-John

Mod Edit:  I took the liberty to edit John's post, as he noted in 3RR that he had mistakenly left in some non-wide radius curve references here.  John-it makes way more sense now.  Thanks so much for commenting on this project.  -DE

[wouanagaine]

Just a question, how does it shows in Regional View ?

[jplumbley]

Waaa...  Memo I actually almost followed that.  Its been a while since I have looked at the puzzle pieces so I would have to refer back to as what those +, -, | actuallly meant... But I followed it, and I think if I remember correctly + means empty square, and to ignore as is.

[Gaston]

Wow guys these are looking great.     If you need someone to test "The Long and Winding Road" [ Linkie ] puzzle pieces, let me know.   


---Gaston

[dedgren]

These are just some pics of errors encountered in laying the wide-radius curves last night for you folks to chew on during the day.  I'll post some details tonight, but am in haste right now.













This last is an artifact road texture that appears in the oval gridsquare position whenever any lot is plopped in either of the two gridsquares pointed to by the arrows.  It replicates every time- I only took one pic.




David

[Tarkus]

David, it looks like that last one may be the result of wealth level activation coming from the seasonal tree lots.  Something I thought I had fixed, but apparently not.

And memo, I actually have had strange things happen with the puzzle pieces on almost entirely flat land as well.  Come to think of it, though, it has been a problem only with multi-tile pieces like the Road onramp.

-Alex

[Filasimo]

hope ya guys are able to fix that error but i must say what could be useful of those sinkholes......u can actually make them a tourist site.... "come one, come all, come visit SC's pit to nowhere!" 

[dedgren]

LOL, Filasimo-

what could be useful of those sinkholes......u can actually make them a tourist site.... "come one, come all, come visit SC's pit to nowhere!" 

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "watch out for that curve, it's a doozy!"

* * *

OK, so here I am with a few hours on my hands to work on fixing up the cr-ppy way (jaggies, moire patterns, you name it) that the road surface textures look at smaller scale (3 and below) game view levels, and I'm just beginning to realize how little I actually know about any of this.  Help me here, folks, if you can.

I created textures based on 96 dpi based on 128px by 128px per gridsquare.  My sense is that the game engine then scales them down to 64x64, 32x32, 16x16, and 8x8 gridsquare sizes on the fly at the different view levels, or does it all at once in memory when the puzzle piece file is scanned on boot-up with the rest of the plugins file.  I also (think I) know that the game does not deal with the .bmps I created but rather .fsh files, which I presume are a proprietary to SC4 image format.

So, while I'm prepared to create much cleaner textures at different levels (a frickin' pixel at a time if I have to- that's how passionately I feel about this project), am I headed in the right direction or just spinning my wheels?  Ordinarily I love to take the time to learn the details of this stuff.  Right now, for many reasons, I need to be (and you want me to be- trust me on this) just focused on result.

So, Alex (Tarkus), memo, anybody...

1.  Should I create road surface textures at each of the decrement levels I noted above, at different ones, or is that just a waste of time?

2.  If I should, what format (.bmp, .png, .fsh?) should they be in?

3.  If I need to work in .fsh format, is there an editor?

4.  If I'm all wet, what is it that I can do (please be excruciatingly explicit)?

I can do this right now or clean up the yard...

Thanks in advance for all your help, folks!


David

[Tarkus]

Hi David-

Well, you're not all wet, fortunately.

To answer your questions, the way that the textures are usually imported and processed into the game is as follows.  Basically, when the texture is finished, it needs to be at a 128x128 pixel size.  PNG, JPEG and BMP are all generally supported formats for conversion to FSH, though PNG tends to produce the highest file quality and as such, it is preferred. 

There isn't really a "FSH editor" per se, but there are two programs that are capable of converting these formats to the SC4-Native FSH format are SC4Tool (through the Texture Creator feature) and darkmatter's FiSHMan (they can also convert FSH to PNG, etc.).  Basically, you only need to produce the texture at the 128x128 pizel size, as the importing process will actually create the downsized versions in both programs.  Technically, as far as I know, it's also possible to import from a smaller size (64x64 or even lower) but then the conversion would be upsizing the 64x64 to 128x128 as part of the process, and would get all distorted. 

The game engine doesn't actually resize the textures on the fly, but rather, it loads a different texture based on the view level.  The puzzle pieces, generally, however, almost always rely on the 128x128px FSHs, except some of the GLR pieces.  The way most conducive to improving quality would likely be through using a higher resolution on the 128x128 PNG prior to importing to FSH. 

One other thing I probably should point out is that the game engine treats FSH files that are part of 2D/Texture-based networks (Roads, etc.) differently than those that are part of 3D/Model-based networks (Maxis Highways, El-Rail, all puzzle pieces, etc.).  The textures on 3D networks tend to come out much lighter than those on 2D networks, and one has to compensate by darkening them. 

If you want to see an example of this, try using anyone of the RHW puzzle pieces--neither qurlix or I bothered to darken the RHW textures for the pieces, so they stick out like a sore thumb.  (Though that will change soon.)  There is likely some sort of percentage which they need to be darkened by in order to match up, though I'm not certain what exactly that is--I'd have to do some trial-and-error.

Hope that helps!

-Alex

[Andreas]

Hehe, I know your feelings, esp. when it comes to "make it pixel by pixel" - that's how I actually created the 90 degree GLR curve texture back then. It was still in early alpha stages, and nobody was there to create textures. The rest could be taken from the in-game el-rail textures, but obviously, no 90 degree curve was available, so I literally made it pixel by pixel, since my texture skills are rather mediocre (all my automata skins were drawn in a similar way, by using the pen tool ). Anyway, I'm not an expert on textures at all, but here's what I know:

1.) As far as I know, puzzle pieces are textured models, rather than plain textures. So if there's only one texture, the game will rescale it as needed. For a better look, I guess separate models and textures for all zoom levels have to be made.

2.) The game needs FSH textures, but it's easy to convert them from PNG, BMP or another lossless format. Don't use JPG, because it tends to produce artifacts when processing it more than one time.

3.) Use your normal graphics program and save them as PNG, as suggested in 2.) You only need to make the 128x128 pixel version, FiSHMan or SC4Tool will create the other sizes automatically.

EDIT: Oh well, ALEX just has posted some in-depth info, but I'll post this anyway. 

[Glenni]

That's....Pretty much what you would expect from roads here in Norway... the potholes of doom

[dedgren]

Alex (Tarkus) (and anyone else who would like them)-  Here's a V2 of the 90-curve road surface textures on a transparent background.  If you can send them back as before once incorporated, I'll stay up late and 'speriment.  They are darker, a little duller, have a gray line on the edges like the "game" roads, and I've blurred them just a tiny bit (all documented so that I can further tweak as necessary).


David

[dedgren]

V2 on right.  More in a bit...

[jeronij]

I usually convert the Maxis textures to greyscale, and then change the brightness to -25/-20 (sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on the texture itself)
For the USA road ( yellow double line), I simply play with the PSP copy and paste tools until I get a texture with the greyscale background and the colour texture as a new layer.

I works partially well for me and I use this quite primitive technique with the bridges I am creating. I hope this may help.

[thundercrack83]

You're getting closer, David! Keep pluggin' away!

[dedgren]

We're baaa-ack!

Okay, I got up really early this morning and completely redrew in vector graphics the 90-curve at double-scale.



I've added a straight section of road at each end to further blend the transition from curve to "game road (I noticed that it was so much better looking on the 45-Curve and S-Curve, which each already incorporate a short straight section at each end of the curve)- that's in the circle, with the same thing turned 90 degrees on its side at the other end as shown by the arrow.  I've further tweaked the gray border, which I was not happy with last time.

Alex (Tarkus), I stuck with the same radius curve in the same gridsquare divisions in the hope that this would preserve as much of the work you've done as possible.  Could you please redo the 90-Curve as a 5x5 gridsquare curve along the lines I've described and email it back when you can?  I'll test it as before and, if everything looks right, you'll have new road surface textures right back for the 45- and S-Curves, and we should be close to wrapping this puppy up.

V2-1 of the 90-Curve road surface textures are attached.

Thanks to all who have stopped by and provided helpful info.  I'm still puzzling over why the game engine appears to scale the game roads so smoothly- I am hoping that doing the vector graphics at a larger size then reducing and smoothing the output will help, but we'll see.


David

[Tarkus]

Hi David-

Thanks for the updated textures!   With the extra straight pieces on either end, I will actually have to re-code the RUL file in order to get it to work, though since it's a straight piece on the ends, that will make that process much simpler, and thanks for keeping the radius the same--that means I can re-use memo's paths.

I've got a little RL to take care of this afternoon, but tonight I should have some time to mess around with it.

-Alex