NAM Team's Super Special Thread for the month of November!!

[GDO29Anagram]

Hey, is that 7.5m RHW too?

7.5 meter is the new normal.  You can also get 15, 22.5, and 30 meters--choose your flavor.  Sprinkles?

I should remind you guys of overall dev:

L0, L1, and L2 versions of the MIS, RHW-2, RHW-3, RHW-4, 6S, 8S, 10S, 12S, 6C, 8C, and 10C networks are all planned, with 12S and 10C likely to be for a future release. In other words, all networks are being given L1 (7.5m) networks, and any network that doesn't have an L2 version (15m) will be given one.

L3 and L4 (22.5m and 30m) is strictly reserved for MIS, RHW-4, and 6S, because anything wider would be too uncommon to be elevated further than L2, and we literally cannot accommodate L3 and L4 crossings into the IID scheme. Well, we theoretically could, but that would mean doing everything all over again, which we can't afford to do at this point.

The curves you're seeing for the S-networks are draggable.

-----

Something that's also somewhat relevant is preparing your terrain mod to be P57-ready. For those who have a DJEM (Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod), you'll know that it's to make diagonal sunken highways to be less jagged, but if you've ever taken the time to notice, it only works for the soon-to-be phased out standard of 15 meters.

There's a way to make it work for as low as 7.5 meters:



Open up the Reader, then open up your DJEM or terrain mod. Locate the Exemplar file shown above, then change the value "MaxNormalYForCliff" to 0.95. The reader will round down, but that won't matter. Save and exit, and your terrain mod/DJEM should now be ready for 7.5-meter sunken highways.

[Tarkus]

^ Excellent tip, Ganaram!

RUL2 compilation continues . . .





-Alex

[Durfsurn]

O:

[sunv123]

 




Diagonals Rule the world!

[mike3775]

Awesome Tarkus

[epicblunder]

Hold up.

Something that's also somewhat relevant is preparing your terrain mod to be P57-ready. For those who have a DJEM (Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod), you'll know that it's to make diagonal sunken highways to be less jagged, but if you've ever taken the time to notice, it only works for the soon-to-be phased out standard of 15 meters.
Open up the Reader, then open up your DJEM or terrain mod. Locate the Exemplar file shown above, then change the value "MaxNormalYForCliff" to 0.95. The reader will round down, but that won't matter. Save and exit, and your terrain mod/DJEM should now be ready for 7.5-meter sunken highways.

Won't this also effect the natural terrain?  IIRC, this value effects at what degree slope the terrain goes from showing terrain textures to rock textures.  For instance Gobias has this value set at .65 and Lowkee at .77.  For building on a flat map i don't suppose it would matter but if there's any kind of natural features in your cities, like coastal cliffs or prominent hills (think Rio) this will probably change how your landscape works.  I'd recommend testing that first.  Just a thought...

[Swordmaster]

Well, a higher MaxNormalYForCliff results in more frequent appearance of the cliff textures. It might not turn out badly, though, depending on what kind of map you use.

Cheers
Willy

[GDO29Anagram]

Well, a higher MaxNormalYForCliff results in more frequent appearance of the cliff textures. It might not turn out badly, though, depending on what kind of map you use.

Well, that's the side effect (or rather, the basis) of how a DJEM works, anyway; The cliff "shape" is better suited for placing highway wall lots, whereas a lower MNYFC value would just make diagonal sunken highways horrifically jagged.

[Lowkee33]

Hmm, would this be something the Appalachian installer should implement?

[Indiana Joe]

Hmm, would this be something the Appalachian installer should implement?

I would say no.  I would think that Y cliff values as high as .95 would result in a large portion of your landscape being rock textures (especially if the terrain's bumpy or hilly).  It's a 5 second fix using the Reader so I'd leave it at a more reasonable default value.

I think my personal plan will be simply to make all diagonal sunken highways with walls down at 15 meters.

[GDO29Anagram]

To those reluctant or sceptic to how I came up with such a strict value, hear me out on this:

I've already tested the 0.95 MNYFC value, and have had it in effect for months, even before P57 was even conceived. Plus, I've tried other values, and 0.95 was the only value that worked.

The biggest visual change out of doing so was that it actually makes your terrain feel taller than it would otherwise. Think about it; It's only just now that the development of 7.5-meter networks has gone into full gear, and if you've done the time to do the math, 15 meters (that's already with the 30% height compensation) is nearly 50 feet. You can squeeze another deck between that.

7.5-meter height differences using a 15-meter DJEM will actually make 7.5-meter networks feel squashed, and Daniel (Shadow Assassin) once showed an interchange using 7.5-meter overpass pieces, but no 7.5-meter DJEM. My first impression: That's too squashed.

With the visual effect that a 7.5-meter DJEM would induce, a 15-meter DJEM would then be conceived as being too tall. Thing is, that's been the standard for elevated for years, so it would appear blasphemous to go so low.

I've had an old city that I had left undeveloped, but it was saved while it had a 15-meter DJEM in effect. I re-saved it using a 7.5-meter DJEM, and found almost no difference.

BEFORE:


AFTER:


Of course, this is using rather shallow mountains, so the effects of a DJEM would be more apparent on a much steeper mountain. Then again, a 15-meter DJEM would do even more apparent damage to a region with NO DJEM than a 7.5-meter DJEM would do to a 15-meter DJEM region.

Here's a better comparison:



See how tall 15 meters is now?

Now before you go tell me to change a tried-and-tested value, I would advise you to try it for yourself. Rather, consider it beta-testing, or in this context, alpha-testing.

(I've actually been analysing, and have modded, some of the properties in terrain mods for quite a while now and found that things such as sea level mods, DJEMs, extent-of-beach mods (how far a beach extends from the shore), and water transparency mods all rely on the same exemplar (the Terrain Mod exemplar itself), and that if you try to mix and match several of these, then it all falls to bits when you load up a city. It's effectively the same as loading up multiple terrain mods at once: The last one gets loaded. Trust me, I found out the hard way, so I know where I'm coming from with this.)

[epicblunder]

I'm not questioning the validity of a 7.5m sunken highway, or the dimensioning involved, or your math.  Indeed, a 50 foot hole for a sunken highway is ridiculous.  I also agree that because of sc4's scaling, a 7.5m sunken hole looks like nothing, despite it being a much more realistic height.  My concern is the drastic visual effect on the terrain that will come from cranking MNYFC to .95, so i took your suggestion and did some testing. 

Let's go to the San Francisco pier.  Appalacian with a MNYFC of .77: (click for full)


Here's what happens when we change it to .95:


Now granted that's not a huge change; those two hills on the bottom only have cliff textures popping up around their base's, but it's not an improvement.

Let's move up the coast a little bit.  San Francisco's waterfront a couple tiles north at .77:


More of the waterfront.  Here we have an actual hill on the top worthy of the name, and a bump on the bottom that is barely there at all.  At. .95:


Hmm... That hill is now almost completely cliff, and what was once a little bump on the bottom now has a ridiculous ribboning around it's base.  That's not what i'd call an improvement.

Let's move north of the golden gate bridge a couple tiles and find one with a minimal amount of hills compared to it's neighbors.  Again at .77:


And at .95:


Yuck!  And that is what is going to happen to any map that isn't flat like a pancake:  You're either going to have flat land or rock textures and it will look bad, essentially trading one realism for another (and these were moderate hills at worst, not something like Hong Kong).  Also notice offshore that a cliff suddenly appears.  Changing the MNYFC makes that first slope cross the threshold to pop rock textures.  That slope is there because of the technique drunkapple uses when putting water on his maps, and since he uses the same technique, that offshore cliff will also pop up along the whole coast on every single one of his maps that has water. 

If someone wants to make that tradeoff then that's their choice and perfectly fine, but i'd hesitate to recommend everyone go ahead with such a drastic change to their terrain mods unless they're building in the netherlands.  I think i'll pass on using 7.5m for my sunken highways until there's a BATed embankment  that will cover the jagged edge rather than screwing up my terrain.

Just a thought.

[jcluvzgamez]

It seems we will need new Hole Digging Lots for 7.5, 22.5, and 30m. I am new to SC4devotion, and I am a Huge NAM/RHW/NWM fan. LOVE the new 10s transitions, I can hardly wait!   

[Indiana Joe]

Epicblunder demonstrated what I said perfectly.  I've always been big on the whole "15-meters-is-unrealistically-tall" idea, but it really doesn't look that bad in the game, and I'll take that over those ugly rock textures on every little slope.  I'll be leaving my Y cliff value at .85.

Besides, the only thing you have to avoid is diagonal sunken highways at 7.5 meters.  That's a pretty specific situation; in fact I almost never do diagonal sunken highways.  Too much of a pain to do overpasses.

There's also the alternative of using 3D overhanging walls to cover up the bumps.  Someone would have to make a set that works for 7.5 meters, though.

[GDO29Anagram]

I'm not questioning the validity of a 7.5m sunken highway, or the dimensioning involved, or your math.

. . .

Yuck!  And that is what is going to happen to any map that isn't flat like a pancake:  You're either going to have flat land or rock textures and it will look bad, essentially trading one realism for another (and these were moderate hills at worst, not something like Hong Kong).

It just occurred to me: The rock textures can theoretically be replaced with more grass, so that ANY MNYFC value wouldn't even matter. At all.

[Indiana Joe]

I'm not questioning the validity of a 7.5m sunken highway, or the dimensioning involved, or your math.

. . .

Yuck!  And that is what is going to happen to any map that isn't flat like a pancake:  You're either going to have flat land or rock textures and it will look bad, essentially trading one realism for another (and these were moderate hills at worst, not something like Hong Kong).

It just occurred to me: The rock textures can theoretically be replaced with more grass, so that ANY MNYFC value wouldn't even matter. At all.

I've thought about that before.  What you could do if you wanted cliffs is paint on some rocks with a terrain brush.

[Lowkee33]

The Max Y for Cliff still matters.  The creation of a cliff effects the way that the grid's polygon is drawn.

[Indiana Joe]

Yeah, exactly.  You would get the diagonal fixing effect but you just don't have rock textures.  You wouldn't have cliffs anywhere, but like I said, they could be applied using a terrain brush.  Someone should make a cliff-painting brush.  You could even have different types of rock faces with that approach.

Of course it would all be easier if we could alter the geometry of the terrain so you get the desired effects on non-cliff slopes.  But that's hard coded, right?

[Shadow Assassin]

There are terrain brushes on the STEX, BUT there's one rather big caveat with using them.

The brush information isn't saved when you exit the city. So basically, you apply them, exit the city, all looks good. Go back in, and your terrain changes are gone. Noooo.

In any case, I prefer a 15m cliff as opposed to a 7.5m cliff, because when you look at it this way:



...and even when you multiply it by 1.3, it still doesn't justify a cliff appearing at 7.5m. Not steep enough.

tan^-1(19.5 / 16) = 49.14 degrees
tan^-1(9.75 / 16) = 31.36 degrees

Better to only leave it as an option.

[GDO29Anagram]

Inhibiting all frustrations...

My justification for going for a 7.5-meter DJEM is such that the shape of the cliff would be less "funky", and my "workaround" for how visually jarring it would be is to change out the cliff textures with grass textures.

I thought it'd be simple to explain...