RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[kbieniu7]

Oh, yes, that's quite really pretty! 

[mgb204]

Damn Alex, you are on fire with these... 

How is LHD support looking for these?

[dyoungyn]

Alex,

Looks OUTSTNDING   Only one complaint, I personally do not like the ped crossings for the diagonal slip lane on the AVE4. Finally, would love to have the capability to put a turning lane on the AVE4 onto the ramp.

[mgb204]

Actually, I'm inclined to agree with ditching the diagonal ped crossings... but I have a feeling that might mess up any setups where the diagonal runs through both sides of the avenue. One of those all or nothing choices?

[Tarkus]

Thanks, kbieniu7, Robin, and dyoungyn!

How is LHD support looking for these?

There's nothing super special happening with them on the RHD side, so LHD will work right out of the box.

Only one complaint, I personally do not like the ped crossings for the diagonal slip lane on the AVE4.

Actually, I'm inclined to agree with ditching the diagonal ped crossings... but I have a feeling that might mess up any setups where the diagonal runs through both sides of the avenue. One of those all or nothing choices?

Yeah, I wasn't entirely sold on the markings there, either.  Fortunately, they have separate IIDs and have no crossover with the "Long T" or the full "+", so there's no harm in changing them.

Finally, would love to have the capability to put a turning lane on the AVE4 onto the ramp.

I certainly would, too--it is high on the priority list for when the FLEX Turn Lanes (FTL) project gets going again.

-Alex

[dyoungyn]

Much better    Keep em coming and looking forward to FLEX turning lanes.  Great job.  Finally, more realistic slip lanes for AVE4.  Can the same thing be done with AVE6/7?

[Tarkus]

Thanks!

The FTL project will include its own slip lanes, so AVE-6/TLA-7 will be getting those.  Once diagonal intersections with RHW networks are added to the repertoire of the NWM networks, this MIS-based slip lane setup will be ported over there as well.

While I'm here, here is another little thing I did, after a discussion over at ST--median-side barriers on the L0 RHW-8S and 10S.





They'll be optional, for those of you who are using another barrier mod (i.e. Catalyst's) or don't want barriers.  Basically, I just took the L1 models (which have barriers built in), removed the substructure, lowered everything, and converted the median tiles from texture-based to model-based.

-Alex

[dyoungyn]

Now that is sweet  Even better with a more gentle curve or FAR curve.  I use FAR pieces combined with far to diagonal to create more gentle curves.  I do love the barrier and does look more realistic and consistent.   WOW, NAM 35 is going to be AWESOME

[gn_leugim]

smexy barriers!

[compdude787]

Yay, barriers on -8S and 10S! That is going to be awesome!!

[Tarkus]

Thanks, dyoungyn, gn_leugim, and compdude! 

The barrier bit may be held off until a later release, however, as there's a lot of other situations with those networks (particularly with underpasses) where I'd need to edit the models.  It's definitely on the list now, however.

On another note, I've been putting the finishing touches on some more "stuff that is perhaps not all that interesting to look at, but actually pretty exciting"™.  Namely, this latest round includes some additional stabilization for FLEX-HT, including situations where FLEX-HT is adjacent to FLEXRamps or DRIs.  There may still be a few more obscure setups that aren't covered at the moment, but the majority of them now can support things like this:



This functionality should prove useful in replicating the MHW Parallel Ramps in RHW form (and yes, this improvement has put the prospect of a similar QuickChange Xpress setup on the table in the future):



-Alex

[matias93]

Finally!!    Realistic interchanges that aren't absurdly overstretched for urban environments. 


I'm beggining to fear you'll find some kind of Windows XP syndrome with NAM 35: it will be so milestone-y that many casual users won't mind to try further versions...

[APSMS]

Well unlike Microsoft, there is no NAM support for older versions, so obviously the number one piece of advice for those casual users is to upgrade (which, in this case isn't a problem because it's not only free, but also won't break existing stuff).

Though, I guess that begs the other question of how many casual RHW users there are, since it's well, you know, RHW....

Very exiting stuff with how close you've gotten those pieces. I assume this is primarily for FLEX-based setups, however? Can the draggable patterns handle this kind of adjacency?

NVM. I see you included DRI in your explanation. This is actually pretty exciting, considering.

[Seaman]

  yay!!! This issues my "problems" with almost all of my RHW interchanges: getting hight transitions closer to ramps! Thank you so much.

[Tarkus]

Thanks, matias, Absalom, and Seaman, for the kind words!

NVM. I see you included DRI in your explanation. This is actually pretty exciting, considering.

The DRIs actually use the exact same IIDs as the FLEXRamps (the only difference is the mechanism by which they are placed), so any RUL2 code written for one will apply to the other automatically.

I'm beggining to fear you'll find some kind of Windows XP syndrome with NAM 35: it will be so milestone-y that many casual users won't mind to try further versions...

We did actually have a bit of that effect with NAM 30 and 31--the latter being nicknamed "NAM Vista" by some in the community.  We had some real growing pains then, which we've learned a great deal from, much as Microsoft did with Windows 7.  Hopefully, we won't experience another one of those moments again, and the subsequent releases will continue to improve the feel of the mod.

As we've had to scale down just what all is going into NAM 35, I think there will be further room to grow still, particularly if we can get our release engineering momentum built back up again.

-Alex

[omgitskosc]

Oh man, that ramp and height transition stabilization is a godsend. Can't wait to create some uber-compact interchanges with these. Fantastic stuff!

[compdude787]

Looks awesome!!

[GMT]

Anything new on the diagional front? new transitions, ramps, etc?

there's been so many additions in the last updates to the nam but barely anything for diagonal networks... 

[Tarkus]

There was some work done on diagonal height transitions, but it's stalled at the moment.  The ramp-style ones shown earlier this year are going to need to be reworked, as the L0-L1 design didn't scale nicely into an L0-L2 setup (as happens with the ortho versions).  There's been very little done with width transitions, and no movement on ramp interfaces since the initial FLEXRamp support was added.  Those latter two things have been in the plans for years, but it's going to need quite a bit of texture work (and model work for elevated versions) in order for things to even get started.

I'd love to do a release that's nothing but new RHW diagonal items at some point, just to finally fill that gap, but it's probably going to be several more releases before we get to it.  Diagonals are labor-intensive and easy to screw up.

-Alex

[GMT]

Just what I understood from reading the last 20 or so pages 

Thanks for the answer. gotta leave some room then for redesigning my network sometime down the road