Rural power lines

[metarvo]

 

You... did... what???



That's amazing, Katten Gustaf.  I will definitely have to play around with this one.

[Katten Gustaf]

Homefryes - here is a close-up of the towers. There is no diagonals yet and the models are rather crude, I just made them as a proof of concept.

[homefryes]

Well, Katten, for "crude" (as you say) models, they're not half bad at all. My only suggestion on the wooden poles is that the insulators should hang, rather than be top-mounted, as wires spanning such a distance would need the ability to "swing" (in RL, of course). Diagonals should be a pretty simple thing to make -- and junctions both orthogonal and diagonal. In any case, I'll say again that I think this is a really neat concept you've come up with.

— Don

[Katten Gustaf]

Glad you liked them, and as you say, making diagonals, junctions, etc just needs some basic BATing— the only tricky part is lining up the towers with the wires. Some specialised pieces for endpoints, turns, river/road crossings and the like might be nice too.

[homefryes]

Well, they're done! I have completed my utility poles, and they're available for testing (send me a PM if interested). Here are some images to show:























Enjoy!

— Don

[projectadam]

Don,

These are looking great Quick question, are there four different wooden power lines (of course with all of the different angles)? I was going back through the old posts and I thought that it looks like you have made four different styles. I do not know if you have considered or what kind of trouble it would be though to make one with a transformer drum? Just a thought I would throw out there and do not want to cause any added major work

[homefryes]

Oops, projectadam, I forgot to show any good pics of one. There is one to the far right of the library (above), but it's a side view (not head-on). It's not like what's in your picture, however. Since I was going with the "old" theme, my transformers are black. There are some instances (above) of poles with 3 transformers. But the single transformer poles were included (they were a late addition, and not included in any of my previous documentation).

— Don

[projectadam]

Oops, projectadam, I forgot to show any good pics of one. There is one to the far right of the library (above), but it's a side view (not head-on). It's not like what's in your picture, however. Since I was going with the "old" theme, my transformers are black. There are some instances (above) of poles with 3 transformers. But the single transformer poles were included (they were a late addition, and not included in any of my previous documentation).

— Don

Great news Don, the color of the drum is no problem compared to how awesome these are

[buddybud]

question....

sorry if this has been addressed already.
Are you peeps still struggling with batted or 3ds slopeconforming wire props. If so i may be able to provide a tutorial on how to do it. It would be somewhat constrictive. orth and diags would be possible, though any slope you would want to prepare via a slope mod.... Also if you wanted drooping wires as opposed to tight straight wires you would need to have a fixed distance between poles for each type of model.....

Anyways there were far to many powerline threads to go through so if this is just spam please ignore or delete.....

Bud

[j-dub]

buddybud, you know alot of people would like to know a tutorial on that.

[buddybud]

just to show i'm not full of crap....

that picture is of the railing used for my elrail. It looks crappy in itself. No attempt to span multiple tiles was made. But the principle is the same. The reason i said it would be restrictive is because it is truely slope conforming. Bumpy terrain=Bumpy line. If spanned multiple tiles then the problem becomes aligning everything together but bumpy terrain becomes possible inbetween. I believe some imaginative design may make something workable. I've been playing with 3ds props that would look much better because of the higher resolution. These can conforming in pretty much the same way. I will look into the seeing if reusing the existing lines is possible. If short telephone poles stretching from one tile edge to the other was used it would be very easy. The farther apart the more difficult it becomes to get things to line up.

Anyways again i wasn't trying at all above, just providing an example. IF this is what your looking for let me know and i'll throw something together. Don't want to waste anyones time.....

Bud.

[metarvo]

This is definitely something I'd appreciate, buddybud.  So far, the only truly slope conforming wired power lines that we have are the default Maxis red-and-white ones.  So far, the solution has been to do without the wires, but that's something that I have been somewhat reluctant to do with the poles that I have BATted.  For some reason, the wires just seem like they should be there, at least for long distance transmission lines.  The possibility that wires can be slope conforming is quite interesting to me.  I do use drooping wires with most of my wired poles, and they are designed to be the same distance apart, so this will be no problem for me.

[j-dub]

Buddybud, that wire looks just fine, as a utility wire. The black parts are where the poles would need to be. Anyway, in the future, I think a decorative draggable utility network could use just that.

[buddybud]

Well if a 1x1 is all you need it can be very easily done and also be able to make it look the way it should. Give me a week throw together a tut. Sorry but it will take me some hours to do.....But yes thats very feasible.

Bud

[metarvo]

It has been suggested that I start a support thread, so I have decided that the time has come to start my own topic [linkie] in the BAT Projects section.  I will still post in this thread, but my new thread will be my home base of operations for my BAT creations.

[buddybud]

still here. had to deal with a burst pipe over the last couple days. i'll try to get something together before the end of the weekend.

Cheers.

Edit....

Alright this is what can be done for 1x1 orths.

Heres a picture of a simple telephone line. As stated before the ground would have to be prepared with a slope mod.



Ok to get the desired effect the models are done in two groups.

A a standalone Telephone pole and B two Sets of wires comprised of three pieces each.



Lets start with the pole

What you need is just a simple model. What is important is where it's position is when rendered.
Below we can see my telephone poll. its about 16m tall with an extension below ground. More about that in a minute. It's centered slightly off the 0,0 point at roughly 1m. I did this because i imagined i was designing this for beside a rural road. It also adds the benefit of being able to position it more easily when it comes time to lotting. Below that is a picture of the lods. Note i forgot to move the bottom of the lods up to ground level. The result is the shadow glitch seen above. The shadow starts before the object. This can be fixed just by raising the bottom of the lods.




render the poles and put them through the pm. Make them ground models and NOT slope conforming. We want them to stand straight.

Next bring the pole onto a test lot. And place it accordingly. You only need one because the next tile will provide the next. Alternatively you could have a Half pole at each end.



Wires.

Ok the poles are the easy part. Now the wires.

The first thing to consider is expansion. The way to do this is to create seperate parts of the model that overlap. Lets look at this.
Below we see the wires on a slight incline and we need them to stretch in the shown direction.



In the perfect world we would design a model such as below but it will not stretch in the desired direction on a slope.



Instead we will split it up and have it overlap. So from a side view we see how the three sections of wire are arranged. NOTE THIS IS NOT THEIR FINAL POSITIONS. On top they are all aligned in place. Below in seperate color we see each prop individually. note that where they overlap they are actually flat.



Ok now we have our three parts of the wires we have to actually move them into a proper render positon. Lets look back again at the initial photo. Below ive show with the red where we want the rotation to occur and the line extending shows where in relation to the ground we want it to occur. This may seem confusing but it's got a simple awnser.



Here's what we do. Simply locate the position down to z=o. Exactly where you want it to pivot in relation to the pivot points in the picture above. Each piece is lowered and the slid so that the pivot point is where you want it to rotate. See the following three pictures.





Note the lods will have to be tight on these wires. For this reason ONLY HAVE THE WIRES APPEAR ON CLOSE ZOOMS!!!! I can't stress that enough.

now once you positioned your three new models render away.
import into pm and set as non ground model and as slope conforming. Also block the top three zooms....two at the minimum.
open up your lot and bring in your three wire bits and put them in position. It will look like this.



Use the ctrl and up arrow keys to move the wires into positon. The middle piece in my example is .5 m lower then the outside pieces.



Next just duplicate the three and lower to the bottom position.




end result.



Below is attachment with the models. Have fun and if this is indeed what you want i'll continue this with diagonals. If your in a hurry check out my tutorial for slope conforming diagonal props for t21's in the nam tutorial threads.

Also note that when used on parks or other plops the raised props can be disturbed and collapsed. When on a t21 this will not happen.

Cheers
Bud

Edit ....after all is said and done i realised there is a way to do this without having to prepare a slope. It would instead use overhanging props. Hanging from one of the two oposing edges back into the tile. If you don't understand and want to see this let me know and ill add that but it too would take a couple days.

over and out

[choco]

bud,

you are brilliant, Sir!


if someone can donate an ortho pole model, i can begin working on a bridge for these as well. 

edit: need my eyes checked.....


nice discovery! 

[metarvo]

How did you figure this out, Bud?  It's great!  Thanks to this tutorial, my attention has been drawn to some new methods of power line construction.  When I tried to place my power lines in a new city tile, I dreaded the thought of having to cross a slope, since the lines were not slope friendly.  Earlier in this thread, I did post a pic of a conversion from my metal power lines to the red-and-white Maxis defaults, but work on that is on hiatus, partly because the transition was constructed illogically, and partly because of the prospect that slope-friendly ploppable power lines are quickly becoming a reality.  I wonder how this would work for the huge lines that I tend to BAT, since the default span for the ortho section is 9 tiles. 

Of course, I always welcome any diagonals  .  The lack of ploppable diagonal poles is one of the main factors that led me to make custom power lines in the first place.  I do have one question, though.  What slope mod are you using?

[MandelSoft]

You are simply brilliant, buddybud! Thanks for sharing this method.

[rooker1]

Incredible buddybud.
How you figure this stuff out is absolutely remarkable.

Robin