Three Rivers Region

[rooker1]

Hahaha,
Great work photoshopping the counter David.  You really made me laugh out loud when I saw that. 
Thank you,
Robin 

[H72387]

Wow, just spent the better part of three days reading this wonderful little big huge thread and all i can say is... so this is where all the cool stuff comes from  . Absolutely wonderful stuff here.

-Peter

[dedgren]

A little red meat for transit fans...



A couple of days ago, a pretty beefy NAM update was released.  I had a few things that made the cut, notably the new FAR intersections.



There are five of them- a FAR-FAR and FAR-Ortho crossroads, and FAR off FAR, FAR off Ortho, and Ortho off FAR tees.

FAR-FAR crossroads


FAR off Ortho tee


You'll find these under the "Wide Radius Curves and Fractional Angle Road (FAR) Puzzle Pieces" Mayor Mode "Roads" submenu.



Another addition are wide radius curves for streets.



There are large and small 90 degree curves and a 45 degree curve.  These are also under the "Wide Radius Curves and Fractional Angle Road (FAR) Puzzle Pieces" "Roads" submenu, but there's got to be a more intuitive place (streets under a road menu- what a concept), so expect them to be moved at some point- I'll keep you posted.



A final new item is a FARR-Ortho rail crossover.



It's under the "Wide Radius Railroad Curves, Fractional Angle Railroad (FARR) and Double Track Rail Switch Puzzle Pieces" Mayor Mode "Rail" submenu.



There's an STR-DTR FARR crossover counterpart to this, but you'll have to wait (but not for long) for the STR Plugin update to be released.

Like I said, lots of other exciting stuff in the June '09 NAM Update.  Enjoy!

Later.


David

334204

[metarvo]

I played SC4 for a good 5 hours straight today  , mainly trying out the new NAM's features.  I've seen a fair number of RL cities that have an orthogonal grid and a fractional angle grid that border each other.  Particularly, the residential areas are orthogonal but the downtown/CBD is fractional.  As a result, the new FAR intersections are a big help for me since I often build based on what I've seen in RL.  Of course, all of the other new NAM components are great as well.  Nice work, David, and everyone else who worked on the new NAM.

[CaptCity]

Glad the new pieces "made the cut". They will come in very handy... Great job! And thanks.

[superhands]

the two things i like in the world the most have got to be red meat and anything FAR

dave

[FrankU]

I've seen a fair number of RL cities that have an orthogonal grid and a fractional angle grid that border each other.  Particularly, the residential areas are orthogonal but the downtown/CBD is fractional.  As a result, the new FAR intersections are a big help for me since I often build based on what I've seen in RL. 

As a European who has never been in the US I must completely disagree on this. The only orthogonal cities I have ever seen are Barcelona and a piece of Tel Aviv, but of course I can agree with Metarvo's conclusion: the FAR is great for SC4. It is really a great means to break the grid.
The only thing that I start missing now are FAR-BATted buildings that follow the new angles.....

[beutelschlurf]

moin dedgren, moin everybody,

... for my part, i can't do without farr anymore ...

The only thing that I start missing now are FAR-BATted buildings that follow the new angles.....

... that's for sure, if we could take this barrier to have an easy way bating buildings and props once and turn them in the LE in every possible angle, ... 
... a dream!

cheers
b_schlurf

[carkid1998]

Mmmm.. FAR Intersections!

Only one problem.. there's no euro textures

[Andreas]

Mmmm.. FAR Intersections!

Only one problem.. there's no euro textures

Don't worry, they are already in the making.

[WC_EEND]

As a European who has never been in the US I must completely disagree on this. The only orthogonal cities I have ever seen are Barcelona and a piece of Tel Aviv, but of course I can agree with Metarvo's conclusion: the FAR is great for SC4. It is really a great means to break the grid.
The only thing that I start missing now are FAR-BATted buildings that follow the new angles.....

hehe, I've actually been thinking exactly the same thing

[JBSimio]

Glad to hear that the earthquake didn't hamper you all that much, David.  I haven't been through one yet, but now that I'm so close to San Francisco it will only be a matter of time.  Luckily, I have a kitchen stocked for hundreds of people... so I don't have to worry too much about my disaster readiness kit. 

Great to see the new intersections!  I haven't had much time to play the last week or two, but you know that I'll be downloading the latest NAM as soon as I possibly can.  There are still many towns to be upgraded in Covington, and these will certainly help a lot.   

The only thing that I start missing now are FAR-BATted buildings that follow the new angles.....

Interesting thought.  Hmmm...   

See you soon, good sir!
JB

[ldvger]

I, too, wondered about buildings, ploppable or otherwise, and how they will work with the new angled roadways.  If we build along the road ways, will the diewalks automatically fill in the angled space like they do with the game-generated 45 degree angled roads?  And if not, will we get the no-road car bot for all buildings placed on an angled road? 

This thought came to mind last night, while fooling around on the game-provided San Francisco region, which I started working on while I was in California at the end of May, giving my MD a bit of a rest.  The scale of the SF region bugs me, as I doubt it's scale accurate, but oterwise it's been kinda fun to rest my brain by playing a plain vanilla game.  Last night I was laying down roads and avenues in the western side of the main peninsula and created a big diagonal avenue, which is also when I started thinking about how buildings would work with the new NAM FAR angles and curves.

Something else I have noticed.  I am now using a height mod and it's creating all kinds of strange roadbeds.  While I like that the mod creates a more realistic slope to roads, I'm not much digging the way it reacts in a hilly terrain like SF.  I guess I should have removed the mod from my plug-ins folder before I started, because now I have wierd canyons and roadbed mesas all around the cities of my SF region.  I haven't got more than about 20 hours play into the region yet, still laying out roads and infrastructure, so I'm thinking of deleting the region and 1) rescaling it to a RL accurate scale 2) starting over 3) removing the height mod. 

Lora/LD

[dedgren]

I spent about an hour last night after reading Frank (FrankU) and Jon's (JBSimio) posts trying to find old pics of commercial W2W storefronts along Ogden and Archer Avenues in Chicago, which are famously FAR-like in orientation as they cut across the city.


"Chicago Daily News Map, 1938" - personal collection


"Chicago Daily News Map, 1938" - personal collection

While I found lots of pics, I was not successful in running one down that depicted the sort of angled W2W storefronts I recall from my youth.  So, here's a quick and dirty schematic I've drawn up of what I think Frank's idea might look like.



The FAR puzzlepiece is at the bottom and would include the sidewalks.  The green is the lot.  The outline of the overall W2W building is dashed blue.  The overhang off the lot is light blue.  The individual stores- two or three side by side to a lot- would be ortho along the front to back axis and have FAR-oriented storefronts on the street.

As I said to Jon in an exchange of PMs, I am not a BATter so am not constrained by any notion of what can and can't be done.  I'm hoping this is feasible and that we might have one or two of these shortly to look at.

Later.


David

335368

[JBSimio]

I'm about to serve lunch here, so I'll keep this quite short for now.  This is pretty much what I had in mind as we discussed earlier, David.  At first look, I can see no reason why this shouldn't work.  Adding sidewalks to the FAR pieces will make it quite a bit simpler too.  (Although I do hope there will still be the non-sidewalk options for rural areas)  I'll be back with more thoughts and ideas in a couple hours. 

JB

[sithlrd98]

Most of the FAR pieces have already been sidewalked , by who was that guy....Oh yeah,me!  So that won't be as hard! I have not tried to T-21 wealth textures yet , next on my list!

Jayson

EDIT:  Heh...



-DE

[Ryan B.]

I am not constrained by any notion of what can and can't be done.

This is the driving force behind all the awesome things that have been done for SC4.  If the phrase "pushing the envelope" was in the dictionary, a picture of one of your magnificent rural scenes would be above it.

Into the breach again, my friends - into the breach!

[dedgren]

And a final logical FAR intersection step.



* * *

Another '70s icon bites the dust...



R.I.P., Farrah Fawcett (Majors).

And an '80s one, too.



I wasn't a fan, but when he was big, he was really, really big.  His life just shows how badly things can turn out, no matter who you are.

R.I.P., Michael Jackson.

Later.


David

335473

[BarbyW]

You caught me lurking again so I have to comment. 
Love what you are doing even if I rarely use the FAR stuff.

[metarvo]

As far as sidewalks go, I suppose they will be good for urban areas.  My personal preference would be sidewalks for the normal FAR pieces but not for the rural FAR pieces (the ones that come with dashed lines).  Of course, that's just my §2.

Now, the new intersection looks great.  This is one more piece that will make the orthogonal vs. fractional grid I described earlier that much more possible.  Good job, David!



EDIT:  No worries, my friend.  No sidewalks in rural areas might as well be my motto- they don't belong there. -DE