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HOW TO: Build a land bridge

Started by Rayden, February 07, 2007, 05:15:27 AM

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Rayden

HOW TO BUILD A LAND BRIDGE

Well, while waiting that David brings some of his tutorials over here, I decided to make a quick one and show the ones that still don't know, how to build a bridge over dry land. The secret is, that the dry land it's not entirely "dry" ;)
For this tutorial and to achieve the final result, the bridge over dry land, you will need the Teirusu's Rain Mod. The name of the Rain Mod it's "Extra Terrain Tools" and can be found in here


#1

This is the area we're going to work on...


#2

The red area is the row where the bridge is going to be built. I did that to where to choose the place where I will place a single street tile...


#3

Find the right place, and...


#4

plop a single street tile there...


#5

... then demolish it and...


#6

... zoom that area.


#7

Now pick the "Gauge Valleys" option from the Mayor Mode Tools menu...


#8

... press Shift+1 to pick a smaller radius tool...


#9

... and gently, press a couple of times very quickly, to obtain just a little depression like on the pic above.


#10

Now, press altogether Ctrl+Shift+Alt and click the God Mode icon. From that menu, pick the option rain...


#11

... also here, press Shift+3 to pick a smaller radius tool, and ...


#12

... make it rain. If it doesn't work, pick a table and dance the "Rain Dance" around it  $%Grinno$%. Nah, give it some presses and it will eventually appear.


#13

That little spot it's the water, and usually it's just enough.


#14

Press R, short cut to the road tool and try dragging across over that water. If a shadowing bridge appears, it's because it worked...


#15

Pick the bridge to your like...


#16

... and watch it grow...  ;D


#17

This picture now, shows how meticulous I am. Most of the times, the end of the bridge it's not levelled with the rest of the bridge/road. Usually I plop a single street tile, right on that tile next to the bridge. See the red circle. It immediately levels the road with the bridge.


#18

This image shows some of the steps I do to plop winding roads across the mountain surface. I always use the street tiles, and with single tiles I keep Zig-Zagging, trying to follow the terrain incidences. When you do a zag and it shows that boring red message saying unsuitable terrain or similar, just zig it again. :P


I hope you all understand how to buid a bridge over dry land, and have a look as well at David's tutorial about it. He has a different approach, more detailed and also full of humour ;D You can find it here.

I would transcribe his tutorial over here and put it together with mine, but I don't have that kind of permission, so, hopefully he will do it when he has some spare time to ;)

rooker1

Great that you took the time to do this tutorial.  There are alot of people who do not know how to make a land bridge including myself up until a couple of months ago.  Thanks for the tutorial. :thumbsup:
Call me Robin, please.

TheTeaCat

Quote from: rooker1 on February 08, 2007, 08:11:27 AM
Great that you took the time to do this tutorial.  There are alot of people who do not know how to make a land bridge including myself up until a couple of months ago.  Thanks for the tutorial. :thumbsup:
And me untill now. Gonna have to go off and try this now :thumbsup:

Kettle's on just for the info alone &apls
Kettle's on. Milk? Sugars?    ps I don't like Earl Grey  $%Grinno$%
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - If you're not part of the solution , you're part of the problem!
"Never knock on Death's door: Ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!"
Tales at TeaTime      Now A proper NUT      TTC plays GRV II

vester

Thanks for posting this tut. Rayden.  :thumbsup:

Rayden

Thanks guys, I wish David could had upload his tutorial as well, as actually, he was the one who have teach me how to build a bridge over dry land. :)

FromTheAshes

Where did you get this rain-tool? I don't have it &cry2
Visit Vorsfelde.

sam

Quote from: FromTheAshes on April 03, 2007, 05:39:21 AM
Where did you get this rain-tool? I don't have it &cry2
Rayden put a link right at the top of his first post:

Quote from: Rayden on February 07, 2007, 05:15:27 AM
HOW TO BUILD A LAND BRIDGE

Well, while waiting that David brings some of his tutorials over here, I decided to make a quick one and show the ones that still don't know, how to build a bridge over dry land. The secret is, that the dry land it's not entirely "dry" ;)
For this tutorial and to achieve the final result, the bridge over dry land, you will need the Teirusu's Rain Mod. The name of the Rain Mod it's "Extra Terrain Tools" and can be found in here


dedgren

#7
Here's Part 1 of the tutorial mentioned earlier in this thread by Silvio (Rayden) on building "land bridges" that I did over at ST last summer.  Part 2 will follow in the next post, and describes, among others, where you can get the "rain tool."

* * *




OK, had coffee and a little brekkie.  Did a few other to-dos and now I'm back.

I'll note here again- if you've written me a message, and particularly if you've asked a question, I've been working on responses offline on my laptop over the past week or so.  I'm responding to mail as far back as [ hides face once again in shame ] March 23rd.  Don't give up!

Our most recent work on the valley left it looking pretty good.

Now we'll make it look even better.

Select the Roads tool, or better yet, press the [ R ] key.

Look at the valley carefully, trying to identify the lowest places along its floor....

...and start laying short stretches of road on them.  Things'll begin to look like this...

...and ultimately this.

Now, we'll select the Demolish tool (and I've been calling it the Bulldoze tool all along- shows you what I know) by clicking on the bulldozer icon or by pressing the [ B ] key, then click-and-drag the tool over an area that covers all the roads just put down.



Release the mouse button and...

...BLAMMO!

...sorry, couldn't resist...I'm such a maroon...

Our valley now looks like this.  Only a subtle change from before, but the "road" step makes a world of difference when the surface water is laid down.

The next step is to grade the (real) road out to where we want the bridge abutments.

I'll note here that many of my roads drop down just a bit into the valley, especially when crossing over larger rivers.  Here, to keep things simple, we'll make the bridge deck level with the grade of the surrounding plain.

Place the roads tool next to an end of the existing road...

...and lay a line of single, unconnected road tiles out to where the abutment will be.  We'll do this as well on the other side..

Then we'll drop down several meters (I usually just eyeball about 10-15 game meters) and lay another line of road tiles between where the abutments will be.

Then, as before...

fingers in your ears?

...blow the whole thing...



...

...hmmm...must be those new silent explosives...

Now, before we do anything else, we're going to press [ Ctrl ] [ S ] and...



...save the game (I know you've been doing this all along- don't get me started).

I just heard the break whistle (actually I think I just saw one of my kids start to wash the car with sand from his sandbox) so we'll stop in just a minute.  One last thing we'll do now, though, is once again select the Roads tool and lay a road tile on the floor of the valley next to the embankment we just created.



Make a cut through the embankment by laying unconnected road tiles.  I've placed a short strip of road at the end of the cut to blend the valley floor level with that beyond the bridge area.




OK, you know the drill...Demolish tool...fire in the hole!



When the smoke clears, we'll just drag our road across the valley...right?



Not!

And we'll pick this back up after the break, during which I'll discover that my son wasn't washing my car with the sand...

...he was playing "fill-er-up," with sand the closest gasoline-like substance he can lay his hands on.

Later.



Edited: 09/10/2006 at 07:22 AM by dedgren
D. Edgren

Please call me David...

Three Rivers Region- A collaborative development of the SC4 community
The 3RR Quick Finder [linkie]


I aten't dead.  —  R.I.P. Granny Weatherwax

Skype: davidredgren

dedgren

#8
And here's part 2 of the "land bridge" tutorial.

* * *


Back again.  The child is in kid jail.

insanity is hereditary...

...you get it from your children.


We actually had pretty good playtime during the earlier breaks.  I thought he was down for a nap.

Anyway, this is the moment I think many of you have been waiting for (right, Silvio [Rayden - New Haven)?).  We'll add a "game" bridge across our valley.

Back to where we left off.  We'd just found...

...that simply dragging a road across just doen't work.  We''ll just have to do something about that.

We'll first select the Mayor Mode Gouge Valleys tool once again.

Now, position the tool centered over one of the corners of the grid square that is the lowest point directly under the path of our bridge...

...and press [ Ctrl ] [ 2 ] to make the tool effect circle (the white circle) very small.  Center the circle over the grid square corner...

...and ever so quickly left-click the mouse so that the area affected by the tool lowers just a little.  You might have to do this a few times to get the hang.  It's not an exact task.  It's also best to press [ Ctrl ] [ S ] before you do it the first time.  That way if you accidentally drill to China (or, if you live in China, to wherever you folks drill deep holes to over there), you can exit the city and start right from where you were.

Now, I know everyone's downloaded Teirusu's Rain Mod and has it installed, right?  Show of hands, please.

Oh, so nobody's downloaded the Rain Mod...well, that's funny...I thought everyone was hot to trot doing these "game" land bridges.  You need the Rain Mod for that, you know...

...What?  what?  Speak up...oh, you say there isn't any Rain Mod on the STEX?

You say not under Modds (who started spelling it that way here, anyway?) when you search for "rain" or "Teirusu?'"

Well, that because it's not called the Rain Mod on the STEX.

...Why not?  Who do I look like, Einstein?  It's Dirk's STEX.  If he doesn't want to call the Rain Mod the "Rain Mod (or Modd, as it were)," I guess he has the right.

The name of the Rain Mod is actually "Extra Terrain Tools."  I'm sure there's a good reason.

...Eh, say again?  Now you say there aren't any Extra Terrain Tools that show up when you search Modds section of tthe STEX, either? Just something by Rybolton, and it doesn't include a Rain Mod?

Well, that's because there's no published link to Extra Terrain Tools from the STEX, the Modds section, or from anywhere else on ST that I know of.

...Why?

Oh, let's not start that again.

You can download Teirusu's Extra Terrain Tools Mod, which I will henceforth resume calling the Rain Mod, here:

http://www.simtropolis.com/idealBB/files/ExtraTerrainTools2.zip

Get it and install it before it even becomes harder to find.

UPDATE:  (10-22-06 11-22-08)  You can also get the Rain Mod and some other interesting things from Teirusu's website Teirusu's Niche [ linkie
].  As of 11-22-08, this link is broken -DE

Teirusu is way too humble about these great contributions.

Once you install the  Rain Mod in your plugins folder and restart the game you will see additional choices in the Level Terrain submenu under the God Mode Terraform icon.  Remember, you need to use the God Mode Cheat (press [ Ctrl ] [Alt ] [ Shift ] and left-click on the "Sun" icon while all menus are minimized)



Now, click on the brand new shiny Rain Tool icon that appears on the submenu...

...and...whoa...that's Noah's Ark territory...

We need a small, localized shower, not the deluge.

Ahhh, [ Shift ] [ 4 ] makes it all better.  Position the tool effect circle over the small depression we just created, and...

...let it rain!  If you've been successful at doing all this, you'll see some "game" water (yes, it is in fact game water- looks like it, acts like it- it is game water) appear in the area around the depression..

Now, I'm not going to go off on a discourse about the water created by the Rain Mod.  You should check it out for yourself.  You can make nifty lakes and other features that are level by nature.  There are two very limiting rules, though.

1.  Game water created by the Rain Mod, just like all other game water, will not flow downhill (or uphill, for that matter, but that's just one of Newton's laws at work, I can't remember which one).

2.  Game water created by the Rain Mod, unlike other game water, will disappear when you close your city.  Gone.  Vanished. Vamoosed.  It. Will. Not. Be. There. Next. Time.  Sorry, but that's just the way things are.

But we now have game water under where we plan to put our bridge.

...Does that have anything to do with how we make game bridges over land, you ask, perceptively...

Hoo boy yah it does!  Let's drag a road...



Oh, man, that's cool.

You even, if the bridge is big enough, get the "game" bridge choice menu.



How 'bout this one?



Interesting, but nope...this one?



Ee-yew!  I hate that bridge about 99% of the time, anyway.  Another?



Doesn't toast my biscuits.  How about...



Ohhhh, yeah.  That bridge was made for right there.  A click of the "Accept" button, and you too have joined the teeming millions that will now also be creating "game" land bridges everywhere in your cities, because it's so easy, and the secret is out.

A heartbreaker of a rule, though.  Just like the game bridges that are automatically created over game "water table" water, you can't place any transportation network (street, road, rail, etc.) under the bridge.  That is just so frickin' limiting.  In fact, it stinks, and if I could do one thing and one thing only to change SC4 tomorrow, that would be the capability I'd add.

...then the next day, of course, I'd add diagonal tunnels, and then the next day...

More about this issue, on which I'm pretty passionate, in a later update.

So here's what we have.



Stepping back, a "no grid" view.



Tomorrow or the next day, when I conclude this update, we'll jump into the very shallow waters of surface streams, and find out how to make them something you'd want to have in your city.

That's it for today.  Take care 'til next time.



Edited: 10/22/2006 at 11:40 AM by dedgren



* * *

Enjoy!


David

D. Edgren

Please call me David...

Three Rivers Region- A collaborative development of the SC4 community
The 3RR Quick Finder [linkie]


I aten't dead.  —  R.I.P. Granny Weatherwax

Skype: davidredgren

rooker1

Wow, another great tutorial.  Thanks alot for the link to the terrain modd too.

Robin   :thumbsup: &apls
Call me Robin, please.

Rayden

Nice to see your tutorial in here, as I said before, being the result the same, still, yours it's a bit more recreative and also, on a different type of terrain.  :thumbsup:
I'm sure everyone will enjoy that as well. ;)

dedgren

I vote for Rayden...

...oh wait, that's the pic contest thread...


David
D. Edgren

Please call me David...

Three Rivers Region- A collaborative development of the SC4 community
The 3RR Quick Finder [linkie]


I aten't dead.  —  R.I.P. Granny Weatherwax

Skype: davidredgren

threestooges

#12
Well speaking of diagonal tunnels and adding things to the game... It is possible to build roads under a bridge. I know that such things like under bridge road connectors exist (I have seen them somewhere in Darmok's Anduin Valley Revisited at ST) though I don't know (or think) that it is transit enabled. What I do know is that it is possible to create overhanging props and other such visual tricks. It is possible though, to create tunnels under bridges where roads would not otherwise work:



To make the tunnel work, there needs to be an open tile on either side of the bridge (at least if using smoncrie's hole digging lots) which could be used to cover up evindence of a tunnel. With this in mind... if there is someone out there with knowledge of overhanging props that is able to act on it, it seems to me that it should be possible to make a visual road top to "hide" the tunnel and give the appearance of a road. I believe something similar has been done by Badsim with his train set up in his MD AntigOne.

jlouhill

I keep trying to get this rain mod and when i download the extra terrain tools2 I don't get anything I don't already have. The only extra tool I have is a pipesinkhole tool. I have tried everything I could to get the rain mod and it doesn't show up in the tools in god mode. HELP %confuso

Rayden

#14
If you downloaded the right plugin and had it installed correctly, it will be located in the menu shown bellow. The name of the Rain Mod it's "Extra Terrain Tools" and can be found in here




Follow any of the tutorials carefully and you'll achieve what you're looking for. ;)

jlouhill

Thanks Rayden, I see where I was making my error. I have located it and it works fine now.  :thumbsup:

SC4BOY

Hmm.. I have checked all the references to the RAIN TOOL, and had no problem finding it at both the teirusu site and from ST4. The problem is that both files are password protected for unzipping. No one else mentions this. Am I overlooking something?

oldrogue

Wonderful 2torials, just downloaded the rain doflanger and will install before I play next....thanks guys a big help for me.
Sometimes I go into my own little world....but it's ok, they know me there.

pigtailsboy

I thought you could build land bridges without water?

threestooges

You can, but usually the height has to be substantial to prevent the simulator from just making a plain slope. The water trick is good for bridges of any height.