SAM - Street Addon Mod

[simplaya1234]

The white background has been left on purpose.  The reason for it is so that it gives you incentive to remove it after you have stabilized the new texture.

There is NO way to stop the texture once it is started.  Due to the way that this mod had to be made it is IMPOSSIBLE to stop the texture unless its a puzzle piece is made.  This has not been made and wont be made for quite some time due to other things that need to be done first.  As stated before in this thread the best way to "Stop" a texture is by creating a road connection between the 2 tiles where you want a conversion.

Once again, transition pieces will not be made for quite sometime due to other things that are higher on the priority list.

Okay, to make sure I completely understand, what you're saying about the white texture is that I can bulldoze it once I plopped to how I want...... Right?

Also, about "stopping" the texture to some certain intersection in the game, you mean right now the only option I have is to use the road instead of the street plop. Is that correct?

[Paris]

Also, about "stopping" the texture to some certain intersection in the game, you mean right now the only option I have is to use the road instead of the street plop. Is that correct?

It's late in the land down under, so I'll be breif and if anyone is interested I will elaborate tomorrow evening after work.

In the current release of SAM there are a couple of ways to stop the texture exactly where you want and begin another without the bleeding. There is also a way to have textured roads of 3 and 4 tiles long, no external Mods involved 

[jplumbley]

It's late in the land down under, so I'll be breif and if anyone is interested I will elaborate tomorrow evening after work.

In the current release of SAM there are a couple of ways to stop the texture exactly where you want and begin another without the bleeding. There is also a way to have textured roads of 3 and 4 tiles long, no external Mods involved 

Please explain!

[Meastro444]

i hope this aint a clone of one other guy who said he had awesome things....

[Paris]

Hi  Meastro444 - no clone here. I've seen some of the posts you refer to, but unlike him I deliver.

Hi jplumbey - First up, thanks for the amazing add-on. I've been playing SimCity since it was first released in '89 on the Amiga. One thing I always wanted was to recreate the country town where I grew up and thanks to your work I am closer than ever. When Chris Adams releases his rural set the dream will be achievable 

I spend hours testing new additions I download for the game seeing what I can and can't achieve. I have a collection of buggy lots that do things they are not supposed, but perfectly meet my wants and I refuse to relinquish them when the designer updates to fix strange behaviour. It's only been a week or so, but I must say, SAM if full of wonderful surprises.

1)

Image "3-4 Tile SAM" shows the steps to get SAM streets less than 5 tiles long.

Lay starter piece
Bulldoze anchor tile, leaving road/rail tile section.
Drag street from one side to the other, it doesn't matter which side you start the result is the same, 3 or 4 tile stable SAM streets.

The downside, depending how you want to use the short street, is at 3 tiles long you cannot start a connection from the middle tile it is still a reserved tile, both the ends, however, are fine. At 4 tiles in length only one of the 2 centre tiles is reserved so T intersections are no problem.

The 3 tile SAM street is where parking lots come into their own, especially behind shops and in small alleys. And if you want 2 different SAM textures, say asphalt and parking lot to meet (great for freight areas and shopping centres), then the next section explains how to make it happen.

2)

Stop SAM textures bleeding

Image "Stop Texture" shows the steps involved. They are basically the same as short streets, except the direction you start dragging a street from is important to achieve stability and impede bleeding.

Lay 2 starter pieces, with a empty tile between, facing away from each other.
Bulldoze anchor tile, leaving road/rail tile section.
Starting from each of the tiles you bulldozed drag a street away the centre, making sure both are the same length for better stability. The minium lenght you can have is 3 tiles and making them longer doesn't seem to make a difference.
To fill the remaining centre tile drag a street over one of the existing ones towards the centre. It is important to start form the far side of the piece that remained after you bulldozed the initial anchor tile; If you don't, expect disaster.

Sure, the transition is somewhat abrupt, but as you noted elsewhere on these pages a puzzle piece would solve this and while they are on the drawing board it will be a while before they become reality.

All transit paths, buildings etc that I tested work as they should with either of the above methods.

So far I haven't been successful at getting this method to work for crossroads, but end to end, T sections and left and right turns are no problem, occasionally fiddly but achievable; sometimes 2 starter pieces of the same texture work best at intersections starting either side of the second texture they are to overlay, the method is the as a straight join with the second texture replacig the blank in the posted images.The second texture should be layed first for the sake of stability.

Images "T Texture and T Texture2" are some examples from my test city. After reading your main post and FAQ's again, I can't help think you have achieved more than you realised.

Hopefully this answers you "Please explain!" post.

Cheers and thanks again for you time and effort,
Paris

[Shadow Assassin]

I am going to back up what Paris is saying, because I have experimented with a similar approach, and it works. It depends on the situation you've put it in, though.

[Alfred.Jones]

Nice investigating Paris

Very helpful!

[freedo50]

Good work Paris! I'm going to say sorry, on behalf of the community, for you being accused of being a clone, but the NAM boards are the boards that the certain someone generally frequents when he/she manages to get another clone. Thanks for being understanding and sharing some of your knowledge. 

Fred

[Meastro444]

yay, no clone 

now, i am not able to follow it completetly, si it possible to have pictures with it?
i know, you have them attached, but use Photobucket or Imageshack to upload pictures . then you can place the pictures where you want it.

regards

Meastro444

[Diggis]

Nice work Paris.  It's amazing how people manage to take what others do and head in an unforseen direction.  Nice work!

[Paris]

Thank you Fred.

And thanks all for the kind words, glad I am able to help.
Sorry Meastro444, thanks for pointing me to Photobucket & Imageshack I will certainly use them in the future. 

[Meastro444]

oh, dont feel bad i am just giving constructive critisism

keep it up though!

[schm0]

Paris: Your tutorial was very handy, but I've found a situation where the new textures do not stop where they are meant to, and that is when they meet up with any normal Maxis network.

Note below that the texture reverts to a normal street at the intersection.



The leadup to a T-intersection with a Maxis network should look like it does when you stretch the SAM across the road, as seen below:



Also, the texture here is slightly off base and the street signs are missing, but the leadup to the road looks very nice.

Paris, in this way, I would say that "controlling where the texture stops" is not entirely supported in the current version. Have either of these two issues been covered already?

[SC4BOY]

1) Image "3-4 Tile SAM" shows the steps to get SAM streets less than 5 tiles long.

2) Stop SAM textures bleeding

Thanks! Can't wait to try out your hints!

[Palpatine001]

Interesting work indeed Paris

Will try these hints out for sure with the SAM 

[Diggis]

Thanks Schm0.  The texture stopping is a slight error in the code, will be updated next time, as it's a major redownload.  The texture offsetting like that is a maxis error, due to the road being an odd number of pixels.  If you drag the street in the other direction it will fix it.

As for the lack of signage, we haven't added T21's to the mod.  Not sure when these will come about although there are some in the works.

[Crissa]

jp, howcome the thread header doesn't link to the files?

-Crissa

[j-dub]

Lots of times I play with Cntrl R to get streets, and R to get roads, without the icon menu. So Accidentally, I found a shortcut for SAM. Without going to the icons menu, it seems the SAM variations can be "dragged" by themselves with certain combinations of angling roads to streets.

Is that what was originally intended? Maybe someone else can try this, to see if it works for them, as you can see there are other angles I didn't approach here that seem possible.

[jplumbley]

@crissa  ... I have nothing better to answer other than I am lazy?

@Jdub  This is a simple side effect of the SAM.  These are intersection options that have not been activated because in many cases it would be impossible or very rarely created.  You "could" start a SAM variation this way, but I think its easier just to use the puzzle piece.

[j-dub]

Honestly, I don't even remember, it was a complete accident when I was in the middle of trying to figure a new layout for a neighborhood. I have no further intention to use it that way, but I just like to discover new things. I don't really use sam until the nieghborhoods fully built, for example, more low, go dirt, more high, go brick. Thats the beauty of your wonderful mod. Of course doing it the way I found out wouldn't work when you have something built up, so yes the menu is a better way.