Three Rivers Region

[sithlrd98]

I see someone has been playing with S3D files again! It is very addictive when you get the jist of the setup! I've made some interesting items by doing so...of course none of it is game worthy 

Warning: Hijacking ahead!

Also, since we are talking about "bleeding edge" , I have started to do the wealth alphas/textures and wonder something:



Should I try to stay true to the Maxis sidewalk width or just wing-it? Some pieces are already giving me a headache , and since I don't do grass in my cities unless its in a park , I'm just trying to get a feel.....After reading this , I think the context may have gotten a little skewed....What I mean is , none of my roads have grass edges!

This is the Maxis piece:



But some pieces like the 90 curve and straight pieces have wide side walks. So , it's up to you guys and gals...please let me know!

Jayson

[thundercrack83]

Ha! It looks like somebody got to the rocks with some spray paint, David!

Keep up the monumental work you're doing here, as always, my friend!

Dustin

[hooha47]

This is truly the most amazing thread.  I have no idea what it's about, but the innovations that continue to come from here have revolutionized the game.  I just want to thank David and the 3RR gang for all you've contributed to the SC4 community.

And where can I download those multicolored rocks? 

[j-dub]

sithlrd98, I think this is the time to say that the sidewalks not be as sharp as Maxis had them. I like what I see so far with the sidewalk curving. However, going to the bottom, from what I can see, it looks like there is no sidewalk on the bottom right corners on your version, which will need a tweak, but it looks like the sidewalk width on the left of your version is better then how Maxis' narrows down.

[ldvger]

Should I try to stay true to the Maxis sidewalk width or just wing-it?

I have a feeling my comments will just make your headache worse and if so, my apologies!

But, you all kmow me, ever the RL comparisoner.  Sidewalk widths in RL vary by location and are dependent on pedestrian load, or how many folks use the sidewalk at any given time.  Urban sidewalks are quite wide, often 8-10 feet from curb to edge of building, and rarely include a planting strip.  Street trees, if present, are usually in grated sidewalk wells and very near the curb edge.  This would be especially true in the city's commercial core, the high density areas.  As density decreases moving out from the core of the city, sidewalk width decreases as well, as fewer people use them less often.  Planting strips also become more common, usually along the curb side.  In suburban areas, at least here in the western US, sidewalks are not a given, as suburbs are designed primarily for an automobile-centric population.  Where they do exist they are generally narrow, 36"-48" wide, and almost always buffered from the road by a planting strip.

In RL, sidewalk requirements are a governed by several things.  The first one is zoning.  Different zones have different requirements.  Also dependent and zoning governed is right-of-way and building setbacks, which also play a roll in sidewalk requirements.  Right-of-way is the distance from the centerline of the street to a property edge.  Sidewalks are usually a part of the right-of-way rather than existing on privately owned property.  As can be expected, the width of the right-of-way varies, just like a sidewalk, on expected load.  Building set backs can be measured from either the property line OR the center if the right-of-way and sometimes both.  For example, the building may be required to be both a minimum of 100' from the ROW centerline AND 20' minimum from the front (that side abutting the street) property line.  This is one reason why corner lots become sometimes problematic for architect types like me, as the design must fit within parameters constrained by 2 ROW restrictions rather than just one. 

In an urban setting, buildings normally fill up the entire allowable pad footprint.  Front setbacks are usually entirely filled by sidewalk.  Normally there are no side setbacks...buildings are abutted one to each other.  Rear setbacks are usually determined by an alley ROW and rarely include allowance for sidewalk.  If a sidewalk does exist in an alley, they are usually narrow and do not include plantings of any kind. 

And of course, there are no sidewalks at all in rural settings and often no curbs, either.

So, my suggestion for game sidewalks would be to make then density dependent rather than wealth dependent.  We have 3 basic zones: residential, commercial, and industrial, although I consider the farming zone a seperate zone of it's own.  For each zone other than farming we have 3 densities, low medium and high.  So, I guess this would mean creating different sidewalks for 9 seperate conditions.  If one were REALLY ambitious, one could then also add in a wealth dependency and as (I think) there are 3 levels of wealth in the game, that would mean 27 conditions.

Shall I mail you some aspirin now?

Lora/LD

[dedgren]

Just a (heh!) drive-by...

I've finished the first tweak of the default road retextures, and that's before they even went out in the beta.  I found a mistake that I'd made on about the fifth or sixth 512x512 master I did that I wound up replicating through about half of the 40 plus remaining ones.  Oh, well- that's why they need the equivalent of a spell-checker for graphics programs.

The result, though, is good- at least I think so.  Everything that I'm looking for to line up at this point does, and I feel like the master retextures create a new baseline to work from.

If anyone remains out there wondering why I seem to be devoting such an inordinate amount of time to this-

before


after


Any questions?

...I didn't think so...

Off to do the same for the Euros.


David

362369

[girlfromverona]

Absolutely brilliant, David! 

If the opportunity's still out there, I'd love to best test these...

[sithlrd98]

OK, so I still have no clue as to a "standard" sidewalk width , although my head does hurt after reading your post Lora

The pics posted last night were just preliminary , since right after I posted I was told that I just happened to pick one of the pieces that were being re-tweaked by David!

I think that the walks are way too thin on the diags , but that's just my opinion , and as I said before...I despise the grass edges mainly since combined with the sidewalk just doesn't look right.

Jayson

[jmyers2043]

Hey David.

Well - well - I almost am without words. Very close and well done.

[Battlecat]

That looks fantastic David!  Have to say, this mod you're working on will make some more interesting and unfortunately realistic road configurations possible.  Particularly, narrow, winding roads with lots of sharp corners, like you demonstrated above.  I'm looking forward to seeing the final edition. 

One quick question on this project: Are these changes going to impact your FAR and Wide Radius Curve textures or have you already done those mostly to your new, high quality standards?

[dedgren]

I noted about a month ago that I was thinking about a whole new approach to the game's roads.  As I've been working on the default and Euro road surface retextures, I've begun to flesh the ideas that have been floating around my head out.  The recent questions posed by Jayson (sithlrd98) about sidewalk width are very timely.

Here is a cross-section of the 128x128px retexture of the default road surface.



The pixel widths of the road surface and shoulders were arbitrarily set by me when I did the new PNG.  Well, not that arbitrarily- the old default graphic was pretty close to this.  I just made everything uniform and symmetrical.  No more one-pixel offset.  Now everything lines up.

The meter/foot measurements are based on the "official" gridsquare size in the game as being 16 meters by 16 meters, and my notional US corresponding measurement in feet being 50 feet by 50 feet.  If you divide 16 meters by 128 pixels, you get .125 meters- about four and a half inches, per pixel.  The shoulders (in other words, the non-road surface portion of the texture square) are thus three meters wide, being 24 pixels times .125 meters.  Three meters is (very) roughly nine feet (remember, my measurements in feet are notional).  This makes for a kinda-sorta realistic road surface width of 10 meters, or about 32 feet.  Each lane, excluding the centerline and curb areas, is about 4.5 meters/say 15 feet wide.  In the United States, the minimum lane width for a modern interstate highway is 12 feet/3.7 meters, and most "Class A" two-lane roads follow suit.  Fourteen foot/4.3 meter lane widths are not uncommon.  So we'll accept the game default road surface, as now retextured, as setting the standard.

...to be continued later in the day- gotta go to work...


David

362763

[Ryan B.]

I'm interested to know where you're going with this . . . I think I'll have to pull out my copy of the MUTCD. 

Happy Friday - and, as always, my best wishes for you & your family.  Hope everyone's doing well.

[sithlrd98]

Just remember one thing David...sometimes I need things "dumbed down" as I usually over think and overlook the easiest way of doing things , and in turn go around my elbow to get to my...well you get the idea!

Also, I am still trying to see exactly what was changed on some pieces from the original Road_Retextures_090710_01.dat and the newest upload in the Devex.I have not compared all of the pieces , but have not seen much of a difference , if any at all.


Jayson

[Pat]

David looking real great wow!!! 

[dedgren]

Attached to this post for those who would like to participate in the beta of the default road retextures is the necessary file, which should be installed in a "load last" subfolder of your "My Documents" SimCity 4 Plugins folder.

The only requirement for participating in the beta is that, within the next week or two, you post your feedback here at 3RR, with pictures as appropriate.  Please note that the set does not yet include railroad level crossings and a few other things.  These are IID seventh position = "0" textures: wealth related textures are under development.

The Euro textures will follow, likely tomorrow.

Thanks for helping with this work.


David

363317

[CCFC]

I'll help, I have plans to run SimCity 4 in the near future.

[carkid1998]

Every thing's looking great, and I'm glad you solved that one pixel offset thing(it drives me nuts!)

Ryan

[sithlrd98]

I noted about a month ago that I was thinking about a whole new approach to the game's roads.  As I've been working on the default and Euro road surface retextures, I've begun to flesh the ideas that have been floating around my head out.  The recent questions posed by Jayson (sithlrd98) about sidewalk width are very timely.

Here is a cross-section of the 128x128px retexture of the default road surface.



The pixel widths of the road surface and shoulders were arbitrarily set by me when I did the new PNG.  Well, not that arbitrarily- the old default graphic was pretty close to this.  I just made everything uniform and symmetrical.  No more one-pixel offset.  Now everything lines up.

The meter/foot measurements are based on the "official" gridsquare size in the game as being 16 meters by 16 meters, and my notional US corresponding measurement in feet being 50 feet by 50 feet.  If you divide 16 meters by 128 pixels, you get .125 meters- about four and a half inches, per pixel.  The shoulders (in other words, the non-road surface portion of the texture square) are thus three meters wide, being 24 pixels times .125 meters.  Three meters is (very) roughly nine feet (remember, my measurements in feet are notional).  This makes for a kinda-sorta realistic road surface width of 10 meters, or about 32 feet.  Each lane, excluding the centerline and curb areas, is about 4.5 meters/say 15 feet wide.  In the United States, the minimum lane width for a modern interstate highway is 12 feet/3.7 meters, and most "Class A" two-lane roads follow suit.  Fourteen foot/4.3 meter lane widths are not uncommon.  So we'll accept the game default road surface, as now retextured, as setting the standard.

...to be continued later in the day- gotta go to work...


David

362763

This is where I am confused as to what to do...if I go with the Maxis straight alphas , then I can get a good idea (I think) of just how wide they should be throughout. Showing your pic , and this one:



We can see that there appears to be not that huge of a difference. So , where do I go from here? (or am I missing something?)

Jayson

EDIT:  Hopefully tonight, my friend, all will become clear. -DE

[dedgren]

It's the first sunny day in about a week here, so I've used it to finish the steps.



I enjoyed myself.



Now it's clean-up, though.



Gotta put away all those tools.  And I still need to mow the back yard.

Later.


David

364061 - As we passed 363400 right around midnight, we wound up with 23K page views for July- thanks for making 3RR part of your day!

[sithlrd98]

Looking good David! Mowed grass yesterday...hotter than hell outside! I hate the Summer!

Jayson

OH, yeah...its almost 10:00pm and its still 80 outside!