UK Road Textures Mod - Starting project again.

[jonoboo]

Hii 

Well to start with I'd like to say hello again, you might perhaps remember me as Jono01 from Simtropolis. I haven't really played SimCity 4 properly for a while, (World of Warcraft is evils, the reason why I stopped playing is another story).

Anyway, it has been a while since actually trying to learn about custom content creation and stuff. I was about 12/13 years old when I was last learning about modding and stuff (so a good 6 or so years ago, I'm 18 now). I made mostly terrible stuff and some semi-decent stuff (Jono01 GLR Station is my favourite ).

The UK Road Textures mod was a project that I didnt really have the skills to develop back then but 6 years on and I'm going to restart the project.

I should mention that Dexter of Simtropolis was the original creator of the UK Road Textures Mod, which I was granted permission back in 2005 to contribute after lack of updates.



So down to business; I have started creating textures.


Street to Road


Diagonal Road to Orthagonal Road


Road to Street T Intersection

If possible, I would like to know if anyone has any hints or tips to make the FSH creation and alpha maps faster because it's taking ages to actually get all the stuff into FSH files and then into DATs.

I am using iLive's Reader, FiSHMAN, PNGtoFSHBatch to do this process at the moment.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Finally I would like to present a quick image of the mod in action at the moment, there is still a long way to go 



-Jono

[MandelSoft]

I see you use the OWR road textures for the roads. This texture has a glitch at the edge of the tiles, as you may see. I suggest you to use other textures, preferably from he NAM Cosmetic Re-Texture Mod (this mod will have smoother curves and intersections and various other improved textures).

[jonoboo]

I see you use the OWR road textures for the roads. This texture has a glitch at the edge of the tiles, as you may see. I suggest you to use other textures, preferably from he NAM Cosmetic Re-Texture Mod (this mod will have smoother curves and intersections and various other improved textures).

Thanks, I might just do that. How would I go about getting permission from the NAM Team to use these textures as a base to start with?

[MandelSoft]

Oh, that shouldn't be a problem. If you just modify them, you can call them your own creation

[Dexter]

I did a few months back start work on a UK road mod based off the NAM texture replacement mod:







I had finished all of the road textures except for the shared tile diagonals (pics are slightly outdated), however, I found that for most of the textures other than ortho/ortho were flipped, and thus cannot easily have non-symmetrical textures.

I would upload the work I've done if you're interested, but I can't seem to find the most recent DAT file at the moment 

Best,
-Matt

[jonoboo]

Hello Dexter 

Those textures are awesome.

I have spent this today working on textures based upon the NAM textures. The curved kerb corners do look alot better.

If you do want to upload your work I would be happy to use it. That way I can use the best of both worlds. You'll get credit obviously (you did when I started this thread even before speaking to you ).

The one thing I dont like is the street transitions, I think they are too abrupt-a-change, perhaps they would look better with the SAM asphalt streets.

-Jono

P.S The texture flip thing is a pain in the arse. You have to make your textures symmetrical like this so when it flips it wont look odd. Its the only thing that can be done as far as I know.

[djp]

Jonoboo, Dexter

This mod sounds perfect for me...
If either of you needs a guinee pig to test any of your work I would be more than willing to help out.

Let me know if you have anything I can take a look at, I'm quite a seasoned tester of SC transport mods...

David

[Dexter]

I have just filled in a few missing textures, this should now replace all the road textures (except for shared tile diagonals) with UK styled ones.
You can download the ALPHA 1.0 version HERE if anyone wants to take a look, or expand it somehow.

There's also an expermental TULEP texture replacement file HERE, although this was made before NAM 30 was released.

The main reason I stopped work on this was because I wasn't sure how exactly to tie it in with the other networks, namely the SAM, NWM and RHW, although I suppose there's no reason it can't be used in conjunction with the SFBT Euro mod to fill in any gaps.

Best,
-Matt

[djp]

Thanks Dexter,

I'll have a look at the changes you have made so far and let you know how things are looking.
Should have some results tomorrow

How's best to contact you - just post on here??

David

[Dexter]

I don't mind really, you can post here or PM me, whatever's eaiser 

Best,
-Matt

[jonoboo]

I have just filled in a few missing textures, this should now replace all the road textures (except for shared tile diagonals) with UK styled ones.
You can download the ALPHA 1.0 version HERE if anyone wants to take a look, or expand it somehow.

There's also an expermental TULEP texture replacement file HERE, although this was made before NAM 30 was released.

The main reason I stopped work on this was because I wasn't sure how exactly to tie it in with the other networks, namely the SAM, NWM and RHW, although I suppose there's no reason it can't be used in conjunction with the SFBT Euro mod to fill in any gaps.

Best,
-Matt

This is brilliant mate. I prefer your broken centre line which is longer.

I'm going to merge the two, I'll PM you a copy when Ive had a look after work.

[jonoboo]

I have done this FARR 90° curve.



I gave it the double white 'no overtaking' line for the centre marking.

The curve was designed so that the only half the textures are needed and it is simply flipped to the other side. Its a shame to be fair because I wanted to add the deflection arrow like this.



Feedback would be awesome.

[djp]

That looks really good, it's a shame you couldn't include the arrows - but it would be never ending if you added every possible road marking.

One thing - should that type of corner just be a single solid line. I think normally if the road aproaching the corner has a single dashed line, this just continues into a solid line.
I may be wrong

[Dexter]

@jonoboo:  I like that !  Just for future reference, FARR stands for "Fractional Angle Rail Road", but anyhow generally that is just refered to as a large smooth curve as opposed to FAR.

@djp:  Generally on a curve that sharp, a double solid line would be used as it would be too unsafe to really overtake there in either direction.

[djp]

I stand corrected..

Had a quick check and couldn't find any reference to a single solid line anyway
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_070306

[jonoboo]

@jonoboo:  I like that !  Just for future reference, FARR stands for "Fractional Angle Rail Road", but anyhow generally that is just refered to as a large smooth curve as opposed to FAR.

@djp:  Generally on a curve that sharp, a double solid line would be used as it would be too unsafe to really overtake there in either direction.

FARW sounds better. Fractional Angle Railway 

Here it is ingame anyways.



Will start on the others when I get chance.

-Jono

[djp]

I've had a look at some of the basic junctions, really want to clarify a this stage what set-up you are going for
I use Rivit's TarSealed street mod, so some of my junctions may look a little odd with the street change, but it is handy to see where changes have been made

These junctions all look fine - stop lines on road junctions, give way lines on street junctons. Some street furniture may need moving/removing as it's now in the roadway on the curved corners


Any angles junctions don't have stop lines - is this intensional, or not yet done?


I'll have a more detailed look tonight, is it only road/street junctions at this stage? AVE/OWR/NWM worth looking at?

Cheers

David

[jonoboo]

Any angles junctions don't have stop lines - is this intensional, or not yet done?

They are intentional due to a game limitation.

Basically the game uses one texture for each diagonal junction and flips it. Here is an example of what happens if we add stop lines etc and don't keep the texture symmetrical.

Texture as designed.


Example of the texture the game would display with a junction inverted from the first texture.


The solution is on diagonals we have to keep the markings symmetrical.

I am currently redoing junctions to make the pedestrian crossing markings more visible and some other changes. Will update everyone as soon as possible.

-Jono

[Dexter]

I didn't put stop lines on any of the diagonal pieces because of the flipping issue - they'd end up having the stop line on the wrong side of the road at some setups, so I figured that it would be better to just avoid using them on anything that isn't symmetrical.

As far as avenues are concerned, I suppose the dotted crosswalks could be used for them with stop lines where there's signals, but again the same rule about mirrored textures would apply to just about all diagonal textures.  Ditto for OWR, although maybe the oppentunity to do something with the unequal lines could be used.

Best,
-Matt

[djp]

Well that's rubbish

I also have issue with stop points using drawpaths - nearly all diagonal road/road junctions show the stop point on the wrong side



That corner looks good btw