Three Rivers Region

[nerdly_dood]

This thread at Simtropolis has a bit of useful information about the latest epic hack. There seems to be a consensus that these are a bunch of cyberterrorists - how powerful they really are remains to be seen.

What an exciting time to find myself in the Double-0 club...

EDIT: It seems that most of the imageshack images have been restored... That may be because Imageshack is on its way to being back to normal, or perhaps David is reuploading images at Photobucket...?

[thundercrack83]

The textures seem to be coming along swimmingly, David! Keep up the fantastic work, my friend!

Dustin

[dedgren]

By Gosh- some of these actually do exist!



Here's where I was a couple of hours ago before we took Tristen out for pizza.



It's not so much a big job as it is tedious.

Some of the redrawn intersections make you wonder what was there before.



In fact, that's just about why I've taken the time.  Here's what an S-curve looks like with the default game pieces (I've used a lot to trick the game into displaying them).



Pop in the retextures when we finish them up, and...



...you get what we should have had when the game was released.  It's six years late, but better late than never.

* * *

I don't know anything about the ImageShack problem, but it gives me cold chills.  3RR has about 8,000 pics uploaded there, and while I have backups... sheesh, what a job to fix if something happened.

Later.


David

349082 - we are averaging almost 900 page views a day this month.  Thanks so much, and especially to the couple of lurkers who've stepped out into the light.  Welcome, one and all!

[Tarkus]

David, those new textures look literally millions of times better than the ones Maxis gave us--thank you for undertaking this daunting project.  These are just amazing!

-Alex

[superhands]

David you do know that showing these sort of pics around here will cause people to become very very anxious about such an improvement and such a radical change!

no longer will i have to be drunk to play the game as the beer goggles will no longer be needed

great work



dave

[thundercrack83]

I think Alex left off a few zeroes when he said "millions of times better!" Unbelievable job, David--these new textures look just incredible, especially that orthogonal-diagonal intersection!

Enjoy your weekend, my friend!

Dustin

[metasmurf]

Not bad my friend 

[JoeST]

Not bad my friend 

understatement of the millennium

they are FAN-TASTIC!

Joe

[frdrcklim]

understatement of the millennium

they are FAN-TASTIC!

Joe

Curvetasterrawesodible .

[Andreas]

Way to go, David! I guess I shall wait with the update of the Euro Road Textures then. Now someone needs to fix those T21's with the traffic lights, though, in some cases, they look quite off. 

[JoeST]

could you possibly make them with intersection lines or pedestrian crossings for inner city use?

Joe

[metasmurf]

Way to go, David! I guess I shall wait with the update of the Euro Road Textures then. Now someone needs to fix those T21's with the traffic lights, though, in some cases, they look quite off. 

In some cases they look on



Would be nice to have puzzle pieces so we could have both.

[MandelSoft]

Way to go, David! I guess I shall wait with the update of the Euro Road Textures then. Now someone needs to fix those T21's with the traffic lights, though, in some cases, they look quite off. 

I'm T21ing the stoplights in a dutch setup (I always didn't like the US setup in my Euro styled regions) and replacing them with my own models. They look a lot better than the in-game lights (more details: HD, pedestrian lights, advanced stoplight setup) but they aren't animated. I've already done all Maxis intersections and NAM overpasses. Now I just need to fix a few NAM tiles when I'm not busy with doing something else 

Best,
Maarten.

[Andreas]

While I'd love to have a European setup for the traffic lights as well (in front of the intersection, rather than behind it), I was referring to the improper rotation of the traffic light props in David's pic, actually. They point to a position where there is no road at all, which looks somewhat odd. Also, there should be four traffic lights, rather than two of them.

[dedgren]

Thanks for the comments!

An important point for folks appears to be the paraphernalia that goes with intersections- crosswalks, stop lines, signals- that sort of stuff.  Andreas sort of summed things up for me:

Now someone needs to fix those T21's with the traffic lights, though, in some cases, they look quite off.

Here's my thinking on that.  I am getting to the point of conceiving of road textures as just that- the basic texture unaffected by the surroundings.  To me, a scene in the game is spoiled by unwanted stuff where it doesn't belong, like "high wealth" grass, streetlights or crosswalks in undeveloped areas.  I have accordingly been working on a City/Urban Area set of road textures that would be available as one or more SAM sets to continue roads into built up places.  I previewed a taste of this idea during my participation in GRV II.





The next thing I am going to learn how to do is T-21ing.  I'm just not all that eaten up by the idea that everything has to be automatic or draggable.  In particular regard to intersections, it seems to make sense to me to have a basic road intersection with no traffic control as the default draggable.  Two-way and four-way stop signs and (I believe) even stop lines can be done with offset ploppables.  Higher capacity intersections, which could include turn lanes and signalization as appropriate, would be done with a set of T-21d puzzle pieces.  I'll make the retextures generally available- nobody needs to be locked into my vision- but that's where I'm headed.

Oh, and as for Euro textures.



I've finally figured out the right parameters for a vector graphic Euro centerline, which will make redoing the curved segments much easier.

Later.


David

349550

[Glazert]

I've finally figured out the right parameters for a vector graphic Euro centerline, which will make redoing the curved segments much easier.

That's wonderful news!

[riiga]

Absolutely stunning work David! 

- riiga

[metasmurf]

While I'd love to have a European setup for the traffic lights as well (in front of the intersection, rather than behind it), I was referring to the improper rotation of the traffic light props in David's pic, actually. They point to a position where there is no road at all, which looks somewhat odd. Also, there should be four traffic lights, rather than two of them.

Thats very true. Ive never seen the road signalled only from 2 directions in a 4way intersectioin.

Oh and great job on those euro textures David  .

[metarvo]

Also, there should be four traffic lights, rather than two of them.

This is one of the things that has always bothered me about the diagonal intersections.  With just the Maxis defaults, it is possible to create two types of diagonal + intersections.  One has signals on all four approaches, which is definitely my preference if I want signals, while one has signals on only two opposite approaches.  In addition, a diagonal T intersection has only one  traffic light, located on the "stem" of the T.  However, I'm sure David has something planned for this. 

[ldvger]

Some comments on traffic lights.

The ones shown above are way too large in scale in comparison with the vehicles they control.  I can look out my window as I type this and see a traffic signal fixture hanging in the intersection above the corner my apartment sits at.  Without finding a ladder, stopping traffic in 3 directions (one street is a one-way), and actually measuring the fixture, my architect-trained eye estimates the fixture to be approximately 15" wide by 30" tall, and it's hanging maybe 16' above the street.  If you look at the pics above, the signal fixtures appear to be about 3' wide and 5' tall (using the firetruck to guess scale/size...they are about the same size or slightly larger than the door of the firetruck).  They seem to be at about the right height off the ground, again using the firetruck for scale, but the pole they are attached to seems also way large.  It looks to be about 2' in diameter when in reality (ah reality, gotta love it) the base of a fixture pole (at least the ones I can see from my window) is only about 10" and tapers to maybe 4-6" at it's top.  It also sits atop a square concrete plinth that is slightly tapered as well, 14" square at it's base and 12" at it's top, standing maybe 18" tall above the sidewalk.  Lastly, while it's been many years since I drove a car, I can't recall ever seeing traffic signals mounted on the sides of poles, i.e. standing out away from the pole.  Aren't the signal fixtures (here in the US anyway) usually mounted on the face of the pole?  That is, for those that are not suspended in the air over the center of the street on a cable that stretches across the intersection, usually from the streetlights that light the intersection (one on each corner).  

It may be that scale has been somewhat ignored on purpose.  Making signal fixtures and poles that small may make them close to invisible in the game, I don't know.  And if the signal fixtures where too small at RL scale, then the actual red/yellow/green lights would also not be worthwhile to render, let alone animate.  And way back when David and others were working on telephone poles it was determined that showing telephone/electrical wires would of necessity either be impossible or badly out of scale, so suspending signals in the middle of the street may also present the same conundrum.  However, maybe the issue of not planting signal poles (or streetlights, for that matter) directly into the ground could be addressed.  I know nothing about modifying games tiles, but seems to me adding a plinth base shouldn't be all that hard.

Gorgeous day here in Seattle, 85 delightful degrees, not a cloud in the sky, soft breeze wafting up into the city from the bay.  Maybe instead of working on maps today I will fire up my digital camera and wander around town taking pictures of various roadside attractions...

Lora/LD