SAM - Street Addon Mod

[SimNation]

Love how your street looks. Keep up the good work. Maybe hope for someone to make some good worn out cracked streets is not to far off in the future as well.

[marsh]

looks great 

[Diggis]

Love how your street looks. Keep up the good work. Maybe hope for someone to make some good worn out cracked streets is not to far off in the future as well.

The problem with cracked worn streets is that there is only 1 texture for each street section.  This means that it would be highly repeating.  We've looked at ways to do extra textures but failed everytime so far   T21's would be one way around this but require flat models of cracks.

[j-dub]

Well how hard would it be to do multiple full intersection BAT's made with crack textures on the models? (i am not asking for this, just curious)

[tag_one]

Not sure what you ment with a 'full intersection BAT'. But modeling a plate with a crack texture doesn't sound isn't very challenging. The most difficult part is finding or making a nice crack texture. Maybe I'll have a look when I'm back from work 





It's simple:
- make a box in max
- add a concrete texture on it
- add an opacity map to the texture (black background with white cracks) in max
- render and make prop
- add prop to network with a T21 exemplar

I attached the file for those who are interested.   

[j-dub]

That does look good on the straight segment. See? You knew you could do it. The only thing is making more cracked variations. I bet everyone else is going to appreciate those cracks, they look good on grey, but I bet some people are going to want that happen on the road networks.

Now, as for Diggis' comment on cracked textures on the streets, I don't remember if Nerdly Dood did crack the intersections, but I never noticed the repetitiveness of the same tiles. I guess that you consider it is just a game, and I have played plenty of other games where you get used to the repeating factors. However, T21 cracks could mean the streets can be wealth dependent that wealthier areas have pristine pavement, where as rural areas will now be able to look the part.

I should mention that the initial walking snake texture replacement I had, the texture ShultzCity posted, was wealth dependent. Only the highwealth areas or rural/unzoned areas had that texture. So I guess cracks could be a wealth texture thing to, then again that brings us back to the crossing. I don't know how that texture artist did it, but the walking snake textures actually look old, and despite the intersections being the same, you can just see right past that fact, and like the texture for what it is.

[nerdly_dood]

My cracking method involved using the "draw line" tool in PhotoFiltre, to use, i think it was 80% gray at 60% opacity, with antialiasing enabled, and just drew them manually. I think the lack of apparent repetition turned out quite nice, as I didn't make any effort whatsoever to have the cracks match up along the tile edges.

I think I still have the files buried somewhere, maybe eventually I'll have time to do more work on them...

[vistla]

I've seen some CJ/MD's that have diagonal SAM's. I myself cannot figure out how to do it. When I try, it (a couple of squares) always temporarly turns brown and then disappears. The diagonal street will remain where I put it but it becomes invisible. At first, I thought that I simply had a conflicting file but I removed everything, except the new NAM, RHW 4.0, NWM, and the SAM, from my plug-ins folder and am still getting the exact same effect. It should be noted that I have a new computer with windows 7. Perhaps that's it. I don't know. Has anyone else had this issue? Is there a tutorial somewhere for how to make diagonals? I would greatly appreciate anyone's help/insight into this matter.

[j-dub]

So even if you try to drag SAMs curve by curve by curve, it don't change to a diagonal? As for tutorials, I did this a real while back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/xCGxve_-CXY

[vistla]

Yeah, I've tried it both ways, i.e., the "zig-zag" method and the diagonal "helpers". I've tried it with (SAM) starter pieces and then corner by corner, and I've tried laying down a "vanilla" diagonal street and "touching" it with a SAM street. All with the same results. I really wonder if maybe it's a Windows 7 thing, as I've noticed that other things, such as SC4mappper for example, used to work on my old computer but do not on my new one. I'm not sure though. I just thought that maybe I was doing something wrong.

[j-dub]

Does Windows 7 allow you a run in compatibility mode option? That could make it behave. When Vista first came out, the SC4 tool had to be set to run in compatibility mode, because Vista's setting could not read the texture files associated to that program. Considering how I can see the textures in compatibility mode, in theory, the same compatibility mode option should work for you, but I don't know, never used Windows 7.

[Diggis]

That sounds like you don't have the NAM diagonal streets plugin installed.

[vistla]

I'll try the compatability mode (although I'm not exactly sure how to), and I think that I'll uninstall/reinstall also. I'm not actually all that computer savy. It's ironic because I'm a machinist by trade and can write CNC program for complex aerospace parts but pc/video games baffle me. You may want to consider that the next time you board an airplane, as it's people like me that make the parts.  If I could ever find the free time, I'd learn how to BAT/MOD, etc...as I'd love to contribute as all of you do. I can barely find the time to even play the game. Anyways.........(I have a tendancy to "ramble", sorry!) Back to the point; Is the diagonal street plugin seperate or with the core files? If it's seperate, where would I find it? THANKS to both of you for your help, BTW!--Vince

[z]

The option for diagonal streets is in the main NAM installation; it's an option under Plugins, and it's selected by default.  The easiest thing to do here is just see if it's in your Road menu; it has its own entry.

[vistla]

No, I mean that I'm unable to make diagonal SAM texture (cobblestone, herringbone, etc...) streets. Of course I have the diagonal "vanilla texture" (grey) streets that come with the NAM. I'm sorry, I did not make myself clear.

[vistla]

Yeah, I just now noticed, as I looked back through the last few posts, that diggis had typed NAM instead of SAM. Again, I appologize for any confusion. As I said in my initial post(8 spaces back), it's the diagonal  SAM's that do not work for me. Also, @ J-dub; that video link for youtube is broken.

[j-dub]

First of all, be careful when you double post, this can make certain people angry, secondly, try the video link again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCGxve_-CXY
Do you even have SAM v3 in your NAM plugins? SAM v1 doesn't do diagonals.

[vistla]

OK, I've managed to get the situation resolved with my computer and the game. It works now. Thank you, very much!

[MOREOPTIONS]

Love the lamps and signs,  the wires are also great,.. By the way.  have any of you seen the dragable urban power lines?  had them before but with new format , have lost them and still till this day, have been un able to re-locate them..   I would like to be able to use them in the county and the heavy ones in the industrial settings you know what I mean....  God Bless.

[j-dub]

MoreOptions, are you referring to the tall grey power lines instead of the red and white ones. I thought the name of the person that did the draggable grey ones was Fukuda. Those power lines may be on the LEX, because I thought thats where I downloaded them from.

The other thing MoreOptions, is on the STEX there is another power line mod that gets rid of the power lines all together so you can place lot based power line poles down instead. It is incompatible with the mod I mentioned above though. Unfortunately, I do not have the exact links.