Uniform street lighting add on

[xannepan]

Just few hour before I read this topic first time I started thinking on the displacing streetlights. At that moment I worked on the lights for the road turning lanes, and I was unable to display the lights correctly. They seemed appearing randomly when clicked the tile, some tiles always got the light, others never. I was really confused, because I inherited working avenue turning lane support from Maarten's LRM, and I did everything in the same way, except that I started to build all the T21s from a Maxis road T21. At first I guessed the problem is that I'm using prop families because I'm lazy to make T21s for each wealth level independently. I thinked this because $$ lights are never appeared, others only randomly, worst places were mixed $/$$$ zones. Finally I found the solution in a totally different point. I don't shot it now. But I was really happy.
Then I read this topic. And I started to think more about the displacing streetlights. Because I started to build my T21 from a Maxis T21, I inherited a problem from it. Or a feature? I don't know what would it be good for. But if this bug caused the same displacing streetlights syndrome, and I started from the T21s responsible for streetlights, this might cause the same problem in the vailla game too. I've looked for all the road T21s (what I already collected earlier to make light support for roads), and I realized, that for every zone, density and wealth level roads have at least one T21 with light prop, which should result in exactly one light pole in every second road tile. A very well defined grid. What was screwed up by Maxis programmers.

I'm sure you are now curious to know what caused the problem. In about half of the T21s the prop line what gives the light pole had the LOD value of 0x00000011. What is not a valid value. Valid values are 00, 10 and 20. Or 11 (also 21) is also valid, and means randomly appearing prop at the defined level of detail? But why is that applied on streetlights? So, its a one bit error. Only one bit. Everything is corrected now, see the image in my previous post. The vertical road has streetlight at every second tile. On a $$$ medium density commercial area. These roads have almost no streetlights earlier.

I just wanted to pint out that VIl has started a topic and posted a mod to correct the problem... I suggested Vil to get in touch to see if it worthwhile to team up ;-)


http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=12539.msg365426;topicseen#new

[kodlovag]

Beta testing is still in progress. There are more bugs, than I expected.
Meantime I made the blue lights version.
Here is an image with mixed yellow and blue lights. It's possible to freely mix the colors by network and wealth.

[Ciuu96]

Wow, looks really nice! I like the blue version too! 

[Lowkee33]

Looking real good.  Hmm, is there anything to be done about the shadows (because of the "sun") at night?  Perhaps look into the DarkNight mod for the lighting exemplar (Or the exemplar labeled "21" in the SimCity_1.dat navigator).

[kassarc16]

Oooo, I like the blue lights! Great to know this project's modular.

[SimFox]

I can't applaud enough  for you fantastic work here!
It is going to revolutionize the way cities look at night!

And I'm also interested if something could be done about the shadows. They do "spoil the show" quite a bit. Unfortunately nothing in Lighting Exemplar could help the problem. At least not without the cost for the day view. Problem is that game doesn't really have a distinctly produced night view, it simply tints and darkens the already generated day one. Said exemplar controls some aspects of both. Ideal solution would be to turn (for any dark night mode) them off altogether. Of course it cold be done in the UI graphic settings of the game. At least that works with setting them to Low settings with nVidia cards and then saving game.
It would be great to know if it would be possible to control this functionality through the modd.

[noahclem]

Wow, this thread keeps getting better all the time! Can't thank you enough for all your great work kodlovag! 

[kodlovag]

I can't applaud enough  for you fantastic work here!
It is going to revolutionize the way cities look at night!

And I'm also interested if something could be done about the shadows. They do "spoil the show" quite a bit. Unfortunately nothing in Lighting Exemplar could help the problem. At least not without the cost for the day view. Problem is that game doesn't really have a distinctly produced night view, it simply tints and darkens the already generated day one. Said exemplar controls some aspects of both. Ideal solution would be to turn (for any dark night mode) them off altogether. Of course it cold be done in the UI graphic settings of the game. At least that works with setting them to Low settings with nVidia cards and then saving game.
It would be great to know if it would be possible to control this functionality through the modd.

I'm thinking on nighttime shadows as moonlight shadows by full moon. It exists in the real world. Not a problem for me.

I will finish all the color versions tonight. That means the mod is done. Some really final testing, hopefully without major troubles.
I'm expecting the release at the next week. But this was true for each week since the beginning of January.

[SimFox]

True, however those shadows do not fall ON TOP of lit areas... like shadows in game do...
I'm eagerly await your mod. Haven't really been playing for ages, but this is one thing that would definitely spark my interest to play again!

[Lowkee33]

True, however those shadows do not fall ON TOP of lit areas... like shadows in game do...

Well, I suppose it does.  When the moon is full it certainly makes varying shades of shadows with my porch light.  Downtown though? Not so much.

I guess for the "perfect" night pic, one would set the sun pitch to 90, a quick play at the lighting exemplar results in this game oddity.

[kodlovag]

Colorful cities. It's easily possible. Almost any weird color combinations. Whatever you want.





Green light district

[Girafe]

Awesome job 

in the last picture the lights are more greenish, will we have a choice in the colors or it will depends only on the wealth of the area ?

[tag_one]

Love the green lights! Looks very similar to the light those new LED-streetlights create 

[kodlovag]

Awesome job 

in the last picture the lights are more greenish, will we have a choice in the colors or it will depends only on the wealth of the area ?

You can independently select the colors for all of these lights:
STR $
STR $$
STR $$$
Roundabouts
Road $
Road $$
Road $$$
NWM $
NWM $$
NWM $$$
Maxis HW
Bridges
AVE-4 $
AVE-4 $$
AVE-4 $$$
AVE-2 $
AVE-2 $$
AVE-2 $$$
PEG Utopian Avenues
NAM Overpass Facelift Mod

TuLEPs get road and NWM lights.
One-Way gets road lights.
Standard Maxis streetlights are replaced by the STR lights on every lot and T21.

All bridges use the same light color at this moment. Should I split them for STR+RD+OW (single tile networks) and AVE+MHW (double tile networks)? Further splitting is not easily possible, I definitely won't do it for the first release.

[mattb325]

Absolutely brilliant work that you are doing here

The ability to have multiple coloured lighting is the icing on the cake

[MandelSoft]

Wow! You seperated the different lights groups even more than I did for the LRM! Impressive.

One question, will this mod be compatible with the LRM or will there be a seprate version for the LRM?

Best,
Maarten

[kodlovag]

Wow! You seperated the different lights groups even more than I did for the LRM! Impressive.

One question, will this mod be compatible with the LRM or will there be a seprate version for the LRM?

Best,
Maarten

USL directly replaces LRM v3.0 regarding T21s, and uses the same prop IDs. But USL comes only with the Maxis pole set, LRM prebuild pole sets must be rebuild for USL. I plan to do this after rerleasing USL, as a separate pole set mod/addon (LRM pole sets for USL), maybe you can help me... Not a hard task, just the light cones must be replaced, and several new props must be added. LRM Prop Pack 01 is compatible, and the only dependency, but props don't get automaticly new lights.

I'm also planning a classic pole set for USL.

[kassarc16]

Awesome work with the colors!

I'd always wondered if there was a mod to make all the streetlights Uni-wealth. Would that be an option here?

[kodlovag]

Awesome work with the colors!

I'd always wondered if there was a mod to make all the streetlights Uni-wealth. Would that be an option here?

That would be a new pole set. Just select the pole and color you want, and I can make it later. Uni-wealth pole set for USL.
It's much easier to do it for the vanilla game, just several props must be replaced.

So here is a new todo list of pole sets:
- Maxis pole set for USL (already done in 6 colors, comes with USL as default set)
- LRM pole sets for USL
- Classic pole set for USL
- Uni-wealth pole set for USL

[MandelSoft]

USL directly replaces LRM v3.0 regarding T21s, and uses the same prop IDs. But USL comes only with the Maxis pole set, LRM prebuild pole sets must be rebuild for USL. I plan to do this after rerleasing USL, as a separate pole set mod/addon (LRM pole sets for USL), maybe you can help me... Not a hard task, just the light cones must be replaced, and several new props must be added. LRM Prop Pack 01 is compatible, and the only dependency, but props don't get automaticly new lights.

I'm also planning a classic pole set for USL.

OK, I can help you with that. The LRM contains quite a lot of light props, but fortunately, some always have the same light color. By the way, I believe you have the following colors for the USL, right?:
- White
- Orange
- Yellow
- Green
- Blue
- Red?

Best,
Maarten