• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

New Additions to RTMT

Started by z, September 08, 2008, 08:31:00 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

z

This is the official thread for describing new and proposed additions to RTMT.  Comments are welcome.

The next release of RTMT will not have a lot of new content, largely so that we can get it out the door soon.  It will contain a few maintenance fixes that have become necessary in the year since the last release.  It will have a streamlined, easier-to-use installation system.  Finally, it will have three levels of station capacities from which the user can choose; these levels have been chosen to be appropriate for all the traffic simulators currently in use.  The station capacities will be updated from previous versions of RTMT based on experience that has been gained since the last release.

The centerpiece of the following release after that one will be the new version of ebina's Underground Rail RTMT stations.  It will be fully integrated into the main RTMT package, although its installation will be optional.  Ebina has already completed most of the work on this version, and has taken it to the beta testing stage.  Many of you are familiar with the first version of ebina's stations; these new stations are greatly improved, and now include stations with subway access, in addition to bus and underground rail access.  Click on the image below to see a preview picture of the stations in their current state of development.



In the final version, the station props will be customizable in the same way as in all the other RTMT stations.

Additional enhancements to RTMT are in the proposal stage at this point.  How many of them get done, and in what time period, depends to a large extent on how many qualified volunteers we get for the RTMT Team.  Some of the smaller enhancements may appear in the same version as ebina's Underground Rail stations; others may appear in later versions of RTMT; and others may end up not appearing at all.  I'll be editing this list from time to time to keep it up to date.  Here, in no particular order, is the current proposed list:


  • RTMT stations for SAM
  • RTMT stations for diagonal roads and avenues
  • RTMT stations for elevated rail over road
  • RTMT stations for elevated roadways
  • RTMT stations for NWM
  • RTMT stations for FAR
  • Rural Road bus stops
  • DAMN menus
  • An enhancement to make RTMT stations easily integrate with turning lanes on roads and avenues
  • Reducing the footprint of the 1x2 stations to 1x1 with overhang; appearance would remain unchanged
  • More customization in selecting road markings
  • Compatibility with customized sidewalk textures

That's it for now.  Please feel free to comment on the existing suggestions, or make new suggestions of your own.  We would like to make RTMT as complete and easy to use as possible, serving all your road top mass transit needs.

If you would like to help turning these proposals (or others) into reality, please consider either joining the RTMT Team as a Member or an Associate, or becoming one of our testers.  Full details can be found in the thread Call for RTMT Team Members, Associates, and Testers.

FrankU

I think this is a fantastic project.
I do use another set of RTMT stations. It is the Diagonal Intersection RoadTop SubwayBus Station
by uroncha. It is form 2005, can be found on the STEX.

http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=14010

It works fine for me, but has one disadvantage: I cannot use it together with the SAM, because, of course, it does not include the SAM textures.
It would be a great achievement if in some way it would be possible to make the street top stops in such a way that they would show the according SAM texture. But without the need for making bus- and subway stops for every single SAM texture... Because this would need almost a hundred stations....
Do you think this is possible?

cogeo

Quote from: FrankU on September 09, 2008, 07:38:21 AM
It would be a great achievement if in some way it would be possible to make the street top stops in such a way that they would show the according SAM texture. But without the need for making bus- and subway stops for every single SAM texture... Because this would need almost a hundred stations....
Do you think this is possible?

I think making street stops/stations using the SAM textures, is feasible, and is not really much work. So this could even be implemented even in the next version. Actually I have considered 2-3 ways of doing this. Can you help me with SAM? I need to know the following:
- Are the SAM textures wealth-dependent, ie change according to the wealth level of the adjacent lots?
- Can you only use one texture (or set) at a time, or instead you can have more than one texture/set in the same city at the same time?

Then we can discuss it and maybe suggest a solution.

JoeST

I dont believe they are wealth dependant, but I am not sure, and you can have many in one city at once.

hope that helps

Joe
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

Diggis

Quote from: FrankU on September 09, 2008, 07:38:21 AM
It works fine for me, but has one disadvantage: I cannot use it together with the SAM, because, of course, it does not include the SAM textures.
It would be a great achievement if in some way it would be possible to make the street top stops in such a way that they would show the according SAM texture. But without the need for making bus- and subway stops for every single SAM texture... Because this would need almost a hundred stations....
Do you think this is possible?

I have this set, and have made SAM texture versions of them for my own use.  I have a few minor issues relating to the icons, I'll look at fixing them and maybe uploading the lots.  There is no way I know of that will allow the texture of the lot to change depending on the road sorry. 

Quote from: cogeo on September 09, 2008, 09:26:41 AM
I think making street stops/stations using the SAM textures, is feasible, and is not really much work. So this could even be implemented even in the next version. Actually I have considered 2-3 ways of doing this. Can you help me with SAM? I need to know the following:
- Are the SAM textures wealth-dependent, ie change according to the wealth level of the adjacent lots?
- Can you only use one texture (or set) at a time, or instead you can have more than one texture/set in the same city at the same time?

Yes, the SAM textures are wealth dependant in that the grass and footpath will change depending on the wealth, exactly the same as normal street.  We have considered making the roadway wealth dependant too, although haven't looked more into this yet.

For your second point... you haven't used SAM have you?   :D  The point is that all textures are available through a puzzle piece, which you plop and drag from, starting the texture.  There are currently 9 I think, although bus stops for the dirt roads are possibly not so critical, and neither for the parking lots.  I think there are 4 or 5 that would be needed at present.

cogeo

@JoeST and Diggis: thanks for your replies!

The current version of RTMT (V3) uses textures without the little grass strip. It wouldn't lokk nice, as the busstop or subway props would be half on the grass and half on the pavement, plus it wouldn't look realistic either as the grass would be destroyed by the passengers! So these are using an all-pavement texture for the sidewalk part (plus the street texture part, of course). I guess this isn't going to change in V4. So the same design principle could be used for the SAM textures too. That is, without the grass strip there would be no need for wealth-dependent textures (btw what do you mean by "footpath"?). Making wealth-dependent textures is feasible, but the problem is that these are (TE) lots, not networks, and lots have their own wealth. All RTMT lots and buildings are wealth-neutral (contain no wealth settings), and this does work, eg you won't get mid-wealth streetlights when all the housing around is low-wealth, but I think it's impossible to make them affected by the surrounding lots, so as to make the wealth-dependent textures feature work. The wealth for RTMT lots is none, which defaults to mid-wealth. But as said above, all these problems can be avoided by using a texture without the grass, which fortunately looks better as well.

I can't think of a "perfect" solution satisfying everyone.
There are two ways for making RTMT stations with SAM textures:
- Make an additional RTMT (base) texture with the desired SAM texture for the street part and the desired sidewalk mod texture for the sidewalk part (no grass). Make three additional RTMT stations for streets (using this texture instead of the standard RTMT street texture). This has the obvious disadvantages of allowing only one SAM texture (with RTMT) and requiring three additional station lots. It's not scalable either, as it would require another three station lots for each supported SAM texture.
- Make props using special flat models (16x16m large, 0.2m tall) using directly the SAM textures. These props can be grouped as prop-families, using a selection mechanism like the one in current RTMT (prop-families mode). Prop-families in SC4 are used for variety (eg take a look at the vending machines in the ingame subway station) but I didn't actually intend in variety when using prop-families in RTMTV3, at least in the way they are usually used in SC4. I just wanted to be possible to have, say, a certain bus-stop model along the main avenue, another one in the suburbs, and a different one in the industrial area. For this reason prop-family implementations in RTMTV3 are contained in two propfiles; by installing/uninstalling these, it is possible to specify the prop to be selected in each plop. This selection mechanism was devised by me, and I have to admit it's tiresome and awkward, but does allow selecting props. I though the extra effort (for players) would be worth in cases like CJs (and actually some players had asked for this) but I have seen very few cases of players using this feature correctly (see an example in Ennedi's MD, Sholasoza). Many players just plop the stations having all datfiles installed, and this causes the props to be selected randomly (as usual), resulting in a weird, often funny look, eg two different shelter models in the same busstop lot, or all-different models throughout the city! Actaully many players think that this is the only possible way to use the prop-families feature, though the opposite is clearly stated in the readme (which I doubt if players actually read). So a mechanism like the one described above, along with all its minuses (complexity, hard to use) can be used, but I'm afraid it would cause trouble to many players. Another problem is that the current road markings scheme (those BUS/STOP and SUB/WAY markings - implemented as overlay textures) wouldn't work for streets with SAM textures (they would be obscured by the flat model descrined above). But someone could say this isn't much of a loss, as markings on cobbled streets wouldn't look realistic either.

Which "solution" really looks best to you? Do you have any other method to suggest?

z

A short disclaimer here:  I haven't used the SAM, either.  But after reading what cogeo has written, I think there might be a complete solution here.  It basically involves using cogeo's first solution, but actually making separate RTMT station sets for each SAM texture.  This is a fair amount of work, but it should be straightforward, and this is the type of thing we're trying to get team members for.  The biggest question here is what to do with all these stations - you clearly don't want to just dump them in the menu.  Instead, I would suggest putting them on a TAB ring with the existing street stations.  That way, no more menu space would be taken up, but you'd have access to all RTMT stations for all SAM textures.  What do you think?

Tarkus

Quote from: z on September 09, 2008, 01:33:21 PM
Instead, I would suggest putting them on a TAB ring with the existing street stations.  That way, no more menu space would be taken up, but you'd have access to all RTMT stations for all SAM textures.  What do you think?

That's a nice idea, z, but unfortunately, it's not possible to put Lots in a TAB Loop.  The TAB Loop capability is only possible for puzzle pieces, as defined in RUL 0x10000000, and to my knowledge, it's not possible to turn a transit station into a puzzle piece, other than simply producing a strictly eyecandy one.

If you are looking at ways to have more stations without putting additional burden on the menu systems, you can either use the MML (Menu Management Lot) technique that cogeo used with RTMT 3.5, or there's also a new menu development technology, DAMN (I never learned what that stood for, actually--and I'm an acronym fiend :D), which Daeley has been working on.  He posted a Development Kit for new DAMN sets here, where you can also read more about it.

Hope that helps! :thumbsup:

-Alex (Tarkus)

z

Quote from: Tarkus on September 09, 2008, 01:41:39 PM
That's a nice idea, z, but unfortunately, it's not possible to put Lots in a TAB Loop. 

That's really too bad - TAB loops are so useful.

So MML is certainly a possibility.  If only 4 or 5 SAM textures are currently needed, then that would mean 12 or 15 stations, if you include subways.  One question is:  Do people really want subway stops on SAM streets?  Or would they just seem out of place?  Without subways, you'd only need bus stops, and that would mean a total of 4 or 5 additional stations, which might be reasonable to put on the main menu.  Or if you want the full complement of street stations, that would mean 12 or 15 stations, and for that, you'd want something like another MML piece.  Of course with all the other features being proposed, DAMN menus would be ideal, but I have no idea when they're going to be ready.  Does anyone else?

Meanwhile, if cogeo is willing to implement this for the next version, as he says, that's fantastic!  I'm sure that he and I will be able to work out the menu issue for now with no trouble, in that case.

JoeST

z: DAMN menu's are still in beta, but are perfectly useable and from my testing i found no bugs.
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

Shiftred

Is it possible to have a RTMT station at a rail, glr, or elevated rail crossing?

z

Quote from: Shiftred on September 09, 2008, 09:04:05 PM
Is it possible to have a RTMT station at a rail, glr, or elevated rail crossing?

If you mean at the actual crossing itself, with props surrounding the other network, the answer is no.  But if you mean directly next to such a crossing, then the answer is yes, though you may have to do some terrain smoothing in order for everything to connect up properly.

Diggis

#12

It's only residential Lots that are effected by having a TE lot in front of them, Com and Ind work fine with a TE lot in front of them.  And with one of the sets there are T and 4 way stations which work great too.  So there is no need to waste space.  Personally I use them cos they look more realistic.  I also tend to link them up using BSC trail parks.

b22rian

Hi all..

Really love what is going on here...

Z, cogeo, testers and other contributing.. all of you are doing a nice job here and off to a wonderful start..

I have a question for Diggis though..

Quote from: Diggis on September 10, 2008, 12:55:53 AM
Personally I use them cos they look more realistic.  I also tend to link them up using BSC trail parks.

When you say "link them up"..
Do you mean more from an eye candy or visual perspective..or are some of the BSC park series actually transit
or Ped- enabled ?

Thanks, Brian

Diggis

Quote from: b22rian on September 10, 2008, 03:25:06 PMI have a question for Diggis though..

When you say "link them up"..
Do you mean more from an eye candy or visual perspective..or are some of the BSC park series actually transit
or Ped- enabled ?

Visually only.  If I have to leave a gap for the RTMT I use the BSC Parks to create a path between the lots, to maybe another street.  It's not functional, but it looks real.

b22rian

Quote from: Diggis on September 10, 2008, 03:28:31 PM
Visually only.  If I have to leave a gap for the RTMT I use the BSC Parks to create a path between the lots, to maybe another street.  It's not functional, but it looks real.

Ok, thanks diggis for replying so quickly..

i agree its still sounds and im sure looks very Kool :satisfied:

Brian

redraider147

well according to what jplumbley said, wouldn't the planned intersection RTMT lots circumvent the problem in question? yes it would cause some issues with pathfinding and capacity, but this could be avoided with transit switch costs and larger capacities....

zakuten

I don't often take sides with arguments and such, but please, let's keep this on simply developing new RTMT and not turn this into a discussion of feasibilities and simulator effects. Some of us just want to play.
Visit my MD Respublikii Anaksii , or the reboot CJ "Kara`i Shores" since the region wiped, at http://www.simtropolis.com/cityjournals/?p=toc&id=919 !
All comments are welcome! (Hopefully someday I can re-splice 'em together, but we'll see)

z

#18
Quote from: redraider147 on September 10, 2008, 09:42:32 PM
well according to what jplumbley said, wouldn't the planned intersection RTMT lots circumvent the problem in question? yes it would cause some issues with pathfinding and capacity, but this could be avoided with transit switch costs and larger capacities....

The planned intersection lots actually offer no more functionality than the existing RTMT lots; they would exist merely for a more varied appearance.  And if you reread cogeo's post, you will see that there are no zoning problems at intersection lots.  I will shortly be posting a message to the RTMT FAQ explaing in more detail some of the functionality of the current lots when used at intersections, so you may want to check that in a while.

Quote from: zakuten on September 10, 2008, 10:31:51 PM
I don't often take sides with arguments and such, but please, let's keep this on simply developing new RTMT and not turn this into a discussion of feasibilities and simulator effects. Some of us just want to play.

I'll second that!  We developers have limited time, and we'd much rather spend it developing RTMT for you and answering appropriate questions than getting bogged down in off-topic discussions.

z

I've realized that the NWM is eventually going to need RTMT stations, so I've added it to the list in the first post of this thread.