Three Rivers Region

[JBSimio]

Hi David,

I've gone a bit quiet lately, but I have definitely been checking in whenever time permits.  It's no surprise to see that the fun hasn't stopped here!  Half of the fun is finding out what you've got in store next... there seems to be an ever-changing and evolving collection of things going on.  This post would get ridiculously long if I were to comment on everything that has caught my eye over the past month, so I'll just have to settle for saying that everything looks great!  Glad to hear things went well in Texas.  You probably flew right over my house when you left San Jose... I tried to wave, but you may not have seen me.

And don't worry... I'm still pluging away at some FAB lots.   

Thanks for everything you keep adding to this game!

JB

PS... nice streetscape there, too. 

[TheTeaCat]

toppling teapots
What have you done to the roads

My goodness what an improvement. I look forward to the day these are available.

Great to hear the boys are doing well

Almost forgot made this for you, was just waiting for it to brew


regards
Derry

[JoeST]

Woow!  Simply awesome!

Simply unbelievable

[mayorfabz]

Brilliant. Simply brilliant. David, you are Santa Claus all year round. Hence the beard, I guess.

[Tarkus]

David, incredible stuff here, as per usual.  Having realistic downtown streets with side parking will add at least 100x more realism to both small towns and larger urban centers.  And I like the "NMAVE-4" there, too.

-Alex

[sithlrd98]

David, you have amazed me yet again! The stuff you come up with is truly awe inspiring and to top it all off, I still cant believe you have actual buildings in your plugins folder!

Now, on to the subject of the  road texture , these will look excellent with some small town America bats! You've raised the bar again! 

Jayson

[Albus of Garaway]

Wow.

What you've produced there is simply stunning!

[Battlecat]

I've seen a huge number of those types of streets!  They are horrible for modern city planning because they don't leave any room for bike lanes or parking, but they're a necessary and realistic evil.  Even if they don't have increased capacity in game, just the visual effect will be very useful! 

[smoncrie]

I am not sure how David is doing his new roads, but here is a very quick demo of what can be done with wealth textures.



I created new wealth textures for SAM-7 so that:

In rural areas it has gravel sides.
In low density $ and $$ areas it has parallel parking.
In low density $$$ areas it has a lot of grass.
In Medium and High Density areas it has wide paved sidewalks.

One disadvantage of this technique, is that you will probably get parallel parking textures if the road goes next to seasonal trees! (or any other lot).

[Gaston]

I've seen a huge number of those types of streets!  They are horrible for modern city planning because they don't leave any room for bike lanes or parking, but they're a necessary and realistic evil.  Even if they don't have increased capacity in game, just the visual effect will be very useful! 

That in my opinion is what is needed.  Streets with bike paths built in.  Like some of the following: linkie1,  linkie2,  linkie3.   Of course then if you are using the snow mod you'd have to have this linkie4.   lol

Quote from: smoncrie

In rural areas it has gravel sides.
In low density $ and $$ areas it has parallel parking.
In low density $$$ areas it has a lot of grass.
In Medium and High Density areas it has wide paved sidewalks.

I love it very nice indeed.


---Gaston

[Ryan B.]

As far as I know, SC4's transit engine can't differentiate between bicycle and regular vehicle traffic.

[just_a_guy]

As far as I know, SC4's transit engine can't differentiate between bicycle and regular vehicle traffic.

True, but I think it would be worth it to at least be able to see the lanes in the game. It's just like the 4 lane road in Davids last post. It looks great but its capacity wouldn't be diferent from the normal road, right? I definitly agree with Gaston, roads with bike paths would be a great addition.

[MandelSoft]

B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T!

Those NMAVE and Road-side parking lots are a really good addition to the game. Oh boy, I can't wait to try out the SAM v4!

[FrankU]

This is getting out of hand! Beautiful!

[Ryan B.]

This is getting out of hand!

I disagree wholeheartedly.  We've just scratched the surface.

[choco]

^ true that...

david's settin the bar pretty high!

[j-dub]

Love the parking bays. If this is going to be for that SAM variation, that actually would be a good idea instead of using the parking bay props that are the vanilla color.

In low density $ and $$ areas it has parallel parking.
In low density $$$ areas it has a lot of grass.
In Medium and High Density areas it has wide paved sidewalks.

I don't exactly agree with these wealth the bays appear in though. I think the medium wealth with apartment buildings and high wealth residential with the towering infernos benefits better to have the parking bays, instead of low wealth.

@Dedgren: You didn't actually go through real texture work here for this, did you? I thought this concept was already tried with the T-RAM, and what it was, the sidewalk was narrower, and the asphalt was 3 pixels wider on each side.

Even though such small measures are not suppose to be used in reality for four lanes, they are. For those of you that don't believe it, look this address up:
206 N Lincolnway, North Aurora, IL, United States in maps.google.com.

Then go to street view, and see for yourself how close the bus/car/traffic is side by side in these lanes. The only reason it is 4 lanes, is they had to pave over the curbs, really though, its only the size of three lanes. Two Hummer H1's could not fit side by side on this road, because its so narrow, a dog could not safely stick his head out the window either, they have it very clear that trucks are only suppose to use the wider lane.

As for the bicycle thing, I thought we didn't have that type of automatta, it would be nice if that was the case, and we could have working bike only networks, in addition to bike lane roads but this seems unlikely. However, Maxis did leave such pedestrian animations in the exe, but the simulator does not use.

[Korot]

Well, if I remember correctly, there was a bike in the Mysims menu, to select as pedestrian 'vehicle', as well as a segway. Perhaps it is possible to extract those and add them to bike lanes. These lanes don't have to be functional, as long as they have the animation, and the animation is related to the amount of traffic.
And don't say it is not possible, we don't know those words in this thread.

Regards,
Korot

[just_a_guy]

And don't say it is not possible, we don't know those words in this thread.

^^That's probably true. But, could there be animated props on transit networks?

[Tarkus]

^^That's probably true. But, could there be animated props on transit networks?

Yes, the traffic signals are an example.  However, those animations are stationary and restrained to a single tile.  If you animate a bicyclist and T21 them on, they're going to be basically going in an infinite loop over and over again on the same tile, which would look just plain weird.  In order to get actual, separate bicycle traffic, one would basically have to invent a new traffic type with new automata, which, to the best of my knowledge, is something that would require editing the .exe.

-Alex