Three Rivers Region

[Haljackey]

Wow!  There is just some amazing stuffing happening here @ 3RR. And it is happening all the time! Nothing seems to slow you down!

That is some fantastic work with the rail curves!  I especially like the very long S-curve.  Well done!

Best,
-Haljackey

[BigSlark]

Wow! This is amazing, David! As always, I'm up for Beta testing...

Oh, I owe you some more FAR pictures, don't I? 

Cheers,
Kevin

[girlfromverona]

Just a quick question: IIRC, there is already a 90 degree rail curve in the NAM - does this new one replace that or are they different sizes?

[Swamper77]

There isn't a 90 degree curve in the NAM for rail. Just a 45 degree turn.

There is a 90 degree road turn, however.

-Swamper77

[girlfromverona]

Ah yes - that's right. I made a 90 degree curve with two 45 degree pieces. Thanks for clearing that up.

[threestooges]

Stunning... just stunning. I still don't know where you get the time for all of this (though having finished, a.k.a survived, the first year of law school I'm beginning to get an idea) but I'm glad you find it somewhere. Whenever testing time comes around, please keep me in mind. Also, nothing new to report with the FAR, but if I find something new to note, I'll send it your way. Hope you are well (and the family too).
-Matt

[ejc]

no ground-base texture would be better

otherwise this project of 60degr infrastructure allready is looking great

[Tarkus]

no ground-base texture would be better

The finished puzzle pieces won't have the ground-base texture.  The pics are of test lots David made to make sure everything fit together.

-Alex (Tarkus)

[FrankU]

So now a question that suddenly came up.

In the pictures about the FAR I see development of residential lots next to a plopped piece of road. If this is possible, why isn't there a ploppable busstop-on-road that allows development, and why is it then still that GLR puzzle pieces don't allow development either? Did you find a new way of making ploppable road parts and is it possible to use this technique on other lots? Or are you using a different kind of technique?

If this plopping technique is useable for SAM streets, than it must be possible to make ploppable SAM puzzle pieces and thus make it possible to plop short stretches of SAM.... Another feature!

[bat]

These rail pieces are looking wonderful, David! Great work on them!

[JoeST]

So now a question that suddenly came up.

In the pictures about the FAR I see development of residential lots next to a plopped piece of road. If this is possible, why isn't there a ploppable busstop-on-road that allows development, and why is it then still that GLR puzzle pieces don't allow development either? Did you find a new way of making ploppable road parts and is it possible to use this technique on other lots? Or are you using a different kind of technique?

If this plopping technique is useable for SAM streets, than it must be possible to make ploppable SAM puzzle pieces and thus make it possible to plop short stretches of SAM.... Another feature!

FrankU, I believe the pics you see of buildings + FAR are puzzle piece where as bus stations are TE-d Lots

Joe

[Diggis]

In the pictures about the FAR I see development of residential lots next to a plopped piece of road. If this is possible, why isn't there a ploppable busstop-on-road that allows development...

Because a bus stop must be on a lot, which will no allow development.  You can not make a puzzle piece transit switch.

...and why is it then still that GLR puzzle pieces don't allow development either?

Development for Residential requires road access.  And commercial requires pedestrian access at least.  GLR provides neither of these.

Did you find a new way of making ploppable road parts and is it possible to use this technique on other lots? Or are you using a different kind of technique?

I believe David is using the same technique as for the diagonal road helper pieces.

If this plopping technique is useable for SAM streets, than it must be possible to make ploppable SAM puzzle pieces and thus make it possible to plop short stretches of SAM.... Another feature!

More than likely, although how short do you want?  You can do 3 pieces already.

[Shadow Assassin]

Because a bus stop must be on a lot, which will no allow development.

Actually, a bus stop will still allow commercial and industrial development IF it is transit-enabled for road.

[dedgren]

So, how about a little



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Once again, I've taken a game quad, just more or less plopped in the rail line and FARR lots (remember, these will be puzzle-pieces, so that rectangular background will go away in the released version), planted a few trees and- there you have it.  I'd thought of doing a "game" version (no FARR) for comparison, but it was too awful looking to bear.

I'm tied up in trial today and tomorrow, so that's pretty much it for right now.  These are out to Alex (Tarkus), Markus (memo) and I've asked Andreas to take a look at the matching to see if he can do any better than I can.

If you would like to be involved in the beta test and haven't let us know, note that in a comment.  We received some great suggestions from the FAR beta testers, and will be incorporating them into the set shortly.

Later.


David

82077

[FrankU]

Thanks for the answers, Star.tortuer, Diggis and Shadow Assassin.
So three tiles is possible? That should be enough. Apparently I have not found out everything yet. But I'll get the hang of it.

[bat]

The "FARR eye candy" pictures are looking excellent! Some beautiful shots of that superb area!

[ScottFTL]

David, the FARR Eye Candy is absolutely stunning!  You've outdone yourself.   

I think some matching magic courtesy of Andreas is all they need now.  I can't wait... but I will.   

[mightygoose]

forever in awe

[BigSlark]

David,

The FARR is looking great, I can't wait to play with it, if you'd be so kind as to let me Beta test (again).


As for my next FAR report, seeing it on the Regional Transit View still boggles my mind. I've attempting to think about FAR intersections, but I'm too indoctrined to the grid to completely visualize such creations. Could you whip up an image or two of what they'd look like?

I hope you're victorious in your trial and that you and your family are doing well.

By the way, would you like some of the heat from Mississippi? Its topped 90 degrees for the third day in a row and I'm sure Anchorage could be 10 degrees warmer right now, right? 

Cheers,
Kevin

[Ennedi]

Hello David,

I finally tested FAR. Congratulations for you and Alex, this is a good stuff! 

This road was made using NAM curves a few months ago:



Today I rebuilt it. I like it more now, and you?



Now to details. Three things could be improved:
1. The short curve could be more smooth. It doesn't look very good if it is placed close to the long curve.



2. It would be good to make textures more similar to the regular road. The difference is especially visible in shadow:



3. Plopping on slopes is a bit tricky, the piece "ghost" is partially hidden by the ground. I don't know if it can be solved, maybe it would be good to add directional arrows?

There is also another issue, but it is common for all gentle curves. It is impossible to plop anything close to them. In fact, FAR pieces cover a rectangle (or something similar...) and in some places the terrain is blocked two tiles away from the piece. I understand it's a result of the piece structure and it can't be solved at once. But it leads to some problems, especially in urban/suburban environments. Maybe we should thing about some offset fillers? For now I don't take it as a disadvantage, we should live with it.

Other news are good 

I was especially interested how these pieces work on slopes, after all curves are usually caused by terrain shape  . My first experiment was to build a road on slope without any slope mod.



I noticed that there are no special limitations, FAR pieces work as normal road. But I wasn't satisfied in an uneven road shape. So I installed one of my slope mods - the Mountain620 version (it enables placing roads on the steepest slopes from my series, but it's smoothing ability is less).

The first thing I noticed was that FAR pieces again work as normal road ie. they are slope mod - sensitive  Very good!
Then I saw if the slope is too steep, I can't plop the piece in every direction. And I wasn't be able to connect the straight piece to the curve.



So I had to make some terraforming. I wanted to make the terrain more flat. But how much?
I tried to use street and road. My way of thinking was: If the FAR behaviour is identical as for road, the slope enabled by road should be enough.



...And it works!



I understood everything when I dismantled these pieces  How? Bulldozing one piece of their end.



...And I saw an "internal structure" of these pieces (long curve at the bottom, short curve above it, straight piece before bulldozing)



So the terraforming method before placing FAR pieces was now clear for me: I should drag a few (at least 2-3 better 3-4) parallel streets or roads (depending on conditions) along the projected FAR piece, ie. parallel to it's "internal" road stretches.

Now I went through all my nice valley using this method. Sometimes I had to terraform in two directions before plopping a long curve:



Thank you David and Alex! It will be a great addition, especially for landscape makers! (personally I don't like these zigzagging roads, they don't look good at closeups... )

Adam