RHW (RealHighway) - Development and Support

[Fresh Prince of SC4D]

Congrats to the NAM Team and longevity of the RHW Project!

[teddyrised]

Happy 5th birthday to the Rural Highway Project! I've been a huge fan to it since it first came out (remember the grey highway textures?), and has not stopped using it ever since.

I would really like to extend my most sincere gratitude to all those who have initiated and contributed to the project in any way - without you guys, creating custom interchanges and realistic expressway networks would still be an impossible dream in SC4. You guys have made playing the game very more worthwhile with this amazing addon.

I guess the Maxis engineers will be surprised that you guys actually came out with a whole new network from one that they have abandoned (and hidden), heh

[Terring7]

Great job guys, happy birthday and keep going

[superhands]

happy birthday!

Im writing this with cake in my hand, literary its arvo tea!

-dave

[Nexis4Jersey]

I think theres a conspiracy going on in the NAM / RHW dept ......ive noticed the RAM team has slowly gone extinct........Railways vs. Roads......sounds like US history being repeating in the SC4 community   

[noahclem]

I miss RAM development too      But if I can continue the metaphor, there has been talk of new high-speed trains on America's east and west coasts--and even speculation around Chicago. We can only hope a similar (potential) renaissance for SC4 rail comes about 

[GDO29Anagram]

Hey guys...? You might wanna take that over to the RAM Department... They'll know what to respond with... That is, if they have anything to respond with...

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?board=212.0 

Yeah, I too am up for a RAMaissance... (What a name...) And needless to say, people have also been hoping for a TRAMaissance, too... (That's for the TRAM Department...)

[Tarkus]

I think theres a conspiracy going on in the NAM / RHW dept ......ive noticed the RAM team has slowly gone extinct........Railways vs. Roads......sounds like US history being repeating in the SC4 community   

Well, actually, the first release of the RAM is just shy of 2 years old, while the RHW's first release is 5 years old, so not quite.  

The basic situation with the RAM right now is that there's actually a substantial stockpile of partially completed content: textures and models for three additional networks beyond STR, plus a myriad of switches and fractional angle content, much of which incorporates an additional angle beyond the standard 18.4/71.6-degree FARR.  Most of the folks who were really into the RAM have had extended cases of RL, and the rest of us already had our hands full with other projects.  I've done "pinch hitting" where I can--I have starters in place for the new networks and ported over some override code for them, but there's a massive amount of pathing to be done, which is the main hangup.

And needless to say, people have also been hoping for a TRAMaissance, too... (That's for the TRAM Department...)

There actually was a TRAMaissance of sorts already (I like the portmanteau ).  The repertoire of T-RAM and Tram-Avenue pieces has expanded a great deal in the past few NAM releases--there was a dedicated group of predominantly German NAMites from the SFBT, who worked primarily on Tram and FLUPs content.  If you look at the "new feature" lists of the NAM releases from last year, you'll notice the majority of the additions are to TRAM, FLUPs or URail.  They really accomplished quite a lot in a fairly short period of time.

However, Chrisim, who has been one of the key developers on that side of things, is taking a hiatus, so things are likely to slow down on that front for awhile, though he did leave a few semi-complete things that will likely make their way into the next NAM.

Just to get things back on topic . . . here's one of the new RAM networks crossing an RHW-2:



Now to really segue--you may notice something *different* about that RHW-2.  Look closely . . .

. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .

Yes, those are new textures on there.  Each "major" RHW release--2.0, 3.0, and 4.0--has coincided with a change in the default texture set.  (Why should 5.0 be any different? )  The scaling has been revamped some after some new measurements I did on representative RL highways showed that, in general, the lanes were too wide and the shoulders too narrow.  I've also tried to get things a little less "bright" this time around, and take advantage of some new techniques developed by Dave (superhands) and toja (with some help from SimFox) to vastly improve the smoothness (and geometric accuracy) of any curve texture.  An example of what I'm talking about:



The new scaling also means a couple other things--it has resulted in some of the Wider RHWs being a bit narrower, which has had a particularly positive impact with the RHW-6S and RHW-8C.  The RHW-8C also no longer needs an overhang, and it's now possible to place two RHW-6S networks directly parallel one tile apart with a decent result, as shown below.  As the stubs still have the current public release textures on them, you can see how things line up.



-Alex

[GDO29Anagram]

There actually was a TRAMaissance of sorts already

Well, what I was thinking at the time was NWM-TRAM... And the only semblance of "development" were just the textures that were posted on the NWM thread.

Getting back on topic,... Looks like an RHW-NAMaissance may be coming... I, too felt that the RHW lanes were too wide, and what's more is this: I looked at the RHW 10S and compared it to RHW-6S, and thought that it may be possible to create an RHW-12S. Would this NAMaissance result in making the development of RHW-12S potentially possible? I think that's far off... But I'm still surprised by whatever happens here...

I'd have to say, everything looks better now. In fact, I'm forever appalled by lane width inconsistencies between Ortho RHW-4 and Diag RHW-4. I was gonna suggest an overhang method as used with some NWM networks (Such as Diag OWR-3), but you took the backwards approach: As opposed to making Diag RHW-4 wider, there are now plans on making the Ortho RHW-4 narrower, and more realistically scaled, as you stated.

As far as I can deduce from your pics, Tarkus/Alex, aside from what you said in your descriptions already, is this:
- RHW-6S overhang is smaller.
- The paint lines are faded.
- The new texture sets for RHW 4.0 (And up) are potentially incompatible with that of RHW 5.0. (Blue Lightning, how's your DarkPhalt texture set gonna fit to what's being planned...?)

[mightygoose]

om nom nom.

[noahclem]

Wow, that's awesome news!! 

While the old lane widths for RHW weren't excessive per se, 5m/16ft would be very uncommon in RL. Those parallel 6S's look nice and I'm enjoying imagining how an avenue tunnel under an 8C would look (with both entrances directly adjacent to the RHW). It's interesting to note that 2 RHW-6s adjacent would cover almost exactly 2 tiles, the same width as a certain largely redundant, under-scaled network (that unfortunately requires 3D models to alter  ).

Sorry to here about Chrisim's bout of RL but it happens to the best of us    And it's a very pleasant surprise to know that additional rail content is in the works 

EDIT: If two RHW-6S's fit nicely in adjacent tiles like that...then any RHW-S will fit nicely adjacent to and RHW-6S! Which means Maarten's beautiful RHW-10 parallel splitter could be redone without the empty tile between the RHW-4 & -6 

[kassarc16]

Ah, it's always good to get a glimpse of what's going on behind closed doors!

Just had a thought, has Modular Multi-tile RHW ever been experimented with?

Need 6 pieces: Outer Shoulders (with or without additional lanes), Inner Shoulder: Separate (with or without additional lanes), Inner Shoulder: Compact, Full Tile Filler Lanes.

I foresee quite a few ramps, transitions, and under/overpasses though, but it would allow much greater freedom with lane designs that the current set pieces.

[Dexter]

Wow, it all really looks great!  Regarding the Maxis highways, I seem to remember a few years ago someone was working on a mod to retexture and repath them into a 4 lane network, so they kinda looked like elevated avenues.  Pity it was never finished, it looked much better 

[j-dub]

especially now, when you look at RHW-6, it was not a bad idea, to use RHW for the six lane purpose, and put the Maxis back to four lanes so it was scaled better, but then again, there now already is El-RHW. Maxis was going to originally do a four lane highway, since they left some unfamilliar cement textures behind, but it looked nothing like what that proposed retexture mod you mentioned was.

And Tarkus, love the new retexture, it makes me wish roads looked about that great from the start, because this just has a lot more realism, I wish you could shove it in Maxis face, and show them how this game could have had looked with better textured, smoothed curved roads from the start.

[MandelSoft]

^^ Yes, SC2000 did have six-lane freeways:


But SC3000 did not:


But that's an off-topic subject 

[Ciuu96]

The new textures really look great, huge improvement to the before ones, as you said smoother and less bright.

[offtopic?]

Also, what actually happened to that 4-lane MHW mod? Was it just abadoned, or was there some other reason it could not be completed? 4-lane MHWs would just be so awesome, I have seen a picture of the mod and it looked great!

I guess no models would have to be changed, so just re-texturing stuff couldn't be so hard. Of course pathing adds lot of difficulty to it. Maybe I should consider doing something, even though I know nothing about pathing.

[/offtopic?]

[Haljackey]

Regarding the Maxis highways, I seem to remember a few years ago someone was working on a mod to retexture and repath them into a 4 lane network, so they kinda looked like elevated avenues.  Pity it was never finished, it looked much better 

Also, what actually happened to that 4-lane MHW mod? Was it just abadoned, or was there some other reason it could not be completed? 4-lane MHWs would just be so awesome, I have seen a picture of the mod and it looked great!

I guess no models would have to be changed, so just re-texturing stuff couldn't be so hard. Of course pathing adds lot of difficulty to it. Maybe I should consider doing something, even though I know nothing about pathing.

You mean these guys?



(Dug up from my archives. I believe Shadow Assassin made these)

Oh, and if your posts are referring to modding highways, then I don't think you're off topic in this thread.

[Ciuu96]

Yeah, I meant that. If SA or just somebody would pick that project up and continue the development, it would be great. I mean it looks like it's pretty far already, I thought that there weren't any interchanges done yet.

[MandelSoft]

Well, this picture is quite old, even before I signed up here and on ST (which is two or three years ago). I guess the project files are lost or stored somewhere no one will look. But a restart of the project might be possible (maybe using the current RHW-4 textures  )

[Battlecat]

Great to hear so much is still in the works.  Those revised textures look fantastic and I'll be eagerly waiting to apply them to my region when it comes out! 

On another note, I thought I should mention that I just stumbled across the fraction angle RHW pieces while working on my region and they work beautifully!  Thanks for the great work!