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High Speed Rail Project (HSRP)

Started by Jonathan, August 19, 2007, 02:07:34 AM

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belfastsocrates

Quote from: vershner on July 09, 2015, 02:59:36 AM
Quote from: noahclem on July 08, 2015, 10:55:15 AM
Integration with RRW and perhaps even rural GLR. The ability to share tracks and stations when desirable could add lots of neat options and add value to the network as a whole.

I'd hesitate on making it dependant on RRW. The RRW texture looks wonderful in a rural setting, but a lot of people won't choose it for an inner city. However, I agree that the ability to share tracks with ordinary heavy rail would be really useful. The other advantage of this would be that people who didn't want an HSR in their city could then use it to run an additional type of train on their ordinary lines.

I'd be in agreement with this, I love the RRW texture and how they're being developed further but they don't suit a city or urban environment in my opinion.

A unique nation fusing technological prowess and unparalleled grandeur

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination" - Oscar Wilde

noahclem

Quote from: belfastsocrates on July 09, 2015, 04:44:34 AM
Quote from: vershner on July 09, 2015, 02:59:36 AM
Quote from: noahclem on July 08, 2015, 10:55:15 AM
Integration with RRW and perhaps even rural GLR. The ability to share tracks and stations when desirable could add lots of neat options and add value to the network as a whole.

I'd hesitate on making it dependant on RRW. The RRW texture looks wonderful in a rural setting, but a lot of people won't choose it for an inner city. However, I agree that the ability to share tracks with ordinary heavy rail would be really useful. The other advantage of this would be that people who didn't want an HSR in their city could then use it to run an additional type of train on their ordinary lines.

I'd be in agreement with this, I love the RRW texture and how they're being developed further but they don't suit a city or urban environment in my opinion.

Interesting to hear people say they don't like RRW in urban areas as I'd never heard that before. What is it about them that doesn't seem urban to you guys or what do you imagine rails in urban areas looking like? You know it's "RealRailWay" not "RuralRailWay", right?  ;D

Since future NAM rail development will only be RRW-based I don't think it makes sense to base HSR on anything other than RRW. That doesn't mean it'd need to have the same colored ballast, sleepers, or even rails, but having RRW's gauge and minimum turning radius would seem like the obvious way to do it.

Love those old pics, Stephen  &apls

vershner

Quote from: noahclem on July 08, 2015, 10:55:15 AM
Interesting to hear people say they don't like RRW in urban areas as I'd never heard that before. What is it about them that doesn't seem urban to you guys or what do you imagine rails in urban areas looking like?
Essentially, the browness of it. To me it looks old and disused. Perfect for rural lines, but not for busy city ones.
In the UK railways are typically more grey. If they're old ones then the ballast and especially the sleepers are often pretty dark. Those new RRW-HSR pics posted above look closer, but they're a bit too pristine and bright. (fine for HSR though)

I also miss the shine. I appreciate that in aerial photos the shine is not visible, but I never actually see railway from that angle myself, so in my mind's eye railways always have a shiny top. 

belfastsocrates

#1003
Quote from: noahclem on July 09, 2015, 05:06:55 AM
Quote from: belfastsocrates on July 09, 2015, 04:44:34 AM
Quote from: vershner on July 09, 2015, 02:59:36 AM
Quote from: noahclem on July 08, 2015, 10:55:15 AM
Integration with RRW and perhaps even rural GLR. The ability to share tracks and stations when desirable could add lots of neat options and add value to the network as a whole.

I'd hesitate on making it dependant on RRW. The RRW texture looks wonderful in a rural setting, but a lot of people won't choose it for an inner city. However, I agree that the ability to share tracks with ordinary heavy rail would be really useful. The other advantage of this would be that people who didn't want an HSR in their city could then use it to run an additional type of train on their ordinary lines.

I'd be in agreement with this, I love the RRW texture and how they're being developed further but they don't suit a city or urban environment in my opinion.

Interesting to hear people say they don't like RRW in urban areas as I'd never heard that before. What is it about them that doesn't seem urban to you guys or what do you imagine rails in urban areas looking like? You know it's "RealRailWay" not "RuralRailWay", right?  ;D

Since future NAM rail development will only be RRW-based I don't think it makes sense to base HSR on anything other than RRW. That doesn't mean it'd need to have the same colored ballast, sleepers, or even rails, but having RRW's gauge and minimum turning radius would seem like the obvious way to do it.

Love those old pics, Stephen  &apls

It's current colour of RRW that means I don't use it in an urban setting, the brown colour makes it look more rural/suburban. The HSRP texture above is more what I'd like for an urban setting, albeit they're very clean, which I'm fine with for HSR.

I think it's more personal preference rather than what's 'right'. As vershner mentions, being a Brit I'm more inclined to like railways that are more 'grey'

I think the options you've raised above in regard to keeping the gauge but amending the colour of ballast and so on could work really well.
A unique nation fusing technological prowess and unparalleled grandeur

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination" - Oscar Wilde

noahclem

Quote from: vershner on July 09, 2015, 06:10:29 AMI also miss the shine. I appreciate that in aerial photos the shine is not visible, but I never actually see railway from that angle myself, so in my mind's eye railways always have a shiny top. 

Shine is a pretty strange thing since it depends on both viewing angle and amount of rail traffic. Ultimately it's a matter of taste but I considered my view on the subject closed when I realized the part of the rail that could potentially be shiny is so much narrower than a pixel. But then when I started making HD rural GLR textures from scratch I realized the shiny part would be about a pixel @ 256px textures, and got tempted to mess with it, but ultimately decided not to confuse things any further :D

It's unfortunately that none of the RRW texture mods that were started seems to have gotten finished as having options would be neat and there are fairly big differences in the way tracks look in different areas. I'm quite happy with the current look of RRW in my urban areas but I'm all for options and variety is the spice of life. Assuming I ever get my GLR etc textures finished I'd be interested in making an HD RRW texture mod at some point but I doubt I'll ever get around to it.

Moonraker0

Quote from: eggman121 on July 06, 2015, 04:22:33 PM
I know that the HSRP was designed for the Vanilla Monorail Network to be left alone but Who really uses the current monorail network in its vanilla form?  %confuso
Well, to answer that, I use it all the time, and I'm sure plenty of people use the monorail network besides me.  The new NAM smooth curves make it a lot nicer, and I have a mod for alternative pylons that look better IMO (not sure if this is what you count as "vanilla monorail".  But I have to agree with what someone mentioned about it being unrealistic in some ways, namely switches having non-smooth curve radii, and somehow the train passes through part of the double-tracked beam without the beam actually moving like a real monorail switch would. ???

I personally hope that HSR isn't going to be changed to a monorail network replacement.  I was wondering, though:  why is it a monorail override in the first place?  Perhaps something I don't understand makes that easier to implement (not unlikely), but I've always tried to use both monorail and HSR, and ended up giving up on HSR before due to the problem of me not being able to find any automata for that network that look right for both monorail and HSR trains.  I was thinking, maybe it makes more sense as an override for the rail network for this reason; I mean, both regular rail and high-speed rail are types of conventional railway networks (two rails), and monorail is completely different.  Just thought I'd throw that out there, but of course I don't understand the intricacies of coding a new network so maybe it's hard to implement it that way, or it would take forever to convert it to rail-based.

Hmm, then again, I guess one would probably want different-looking automata for regular trains and high-speed ones too, though.  Still, the automata would probably be more similar between the two and it might be easier to compromise with one train model.  It's a shame that that has to affect T-RAM and HSR due to the game not allowing modders to make completely new networks with different automata. &mmm

In any case, it's still good to see new developments going on around HSR.  I also was wondering, as far as wider-radius curves are concerned, would it be feasible to make HSR or GHSR wide curves visibly banked along with the wider curve radius?  Perhaps that would be more realistic to have along with the flattening of the GHSR network.

These are just a few things I'd thought of involving HSR; develop it how you will of course, but I just thought I'd mention these ideas in case they seem good to other people too.  (Sorry if I overlooked something; I just now skimmed through reading the thread.)

jaredh

RRW should absolutely be a no-go unless you are really interested in updating many hundreds of lots/stations that have the much better other textures.

RRW textures are pretty ugly IMHO (and others also I read).

mgb204

I think it is important to understand that RRW is not actually a texture mod for Rail, it a total re-working of how rail works in Sim City, the default brown rails are simply a texture for use with them that comes with it. A number of the new features that will make it into RRW that are currently in progress will simply not be compatible with the old Maxis Rail, RRW is the future development of Rail within the NAM.

Like the original rail, modders will eventually create new textures and users will be able to select between different choices of rail styles. In the same way, changing the direction of how HSR works at a fundamental level will not define what textures can be used in conjunction with it. As with anything new, it may take a while before an interested creator comes up with new assets, but such textures will never be set in stone.

noahclem

Quote from: jaredh on July 09, 2015, 11:50:05 AM
RRW should absolutely be a no-go unless you are really interested in updating many hundreds of lots/stations that have the much better other textures.

RRW textures are pretty ugly IMHO (and others also I read).

The guy that made the textures (and the rest of the mod) looks at track all day, as he works driving a train, and he did a thorough satellite and aerial pic survey before making the RRW textures. If you think those textures are ugly that basically means you think train tracks are ugly if portrayed realistically. Next time you feel like complaining about someone's work try being a little less insulting about it.

jaredh

Whether I think the textures are ugly or not still doesn't justify breaking HSRP permanently by tying it to RRW.  There are plenty of people who don't and never will use RRW for multiple reasons.  My reasons far exceed the textures.  It breaks essentially every single rail enabled lot in my 4gb of plugins.

RRW should be treated just like the maxis highway replacement.  Optional.  Tying it into all the other rail projects that have been done over the years make it *not* optional.  Please keep this in mind.  Don't break the HSRP by tying it to RRW.  Don't break ANY rail extension by tying it to RRW.

Likewise, don't break any highway extension (say SAM or RTMT) by forcibly tying it to RHW.

These are bad decisions for the NAM in my opinion.  They force current users to decide if they want to keep all the functional stuff they already have, or essentially walk away from many mods that won't work anymore.  Forcing that decision for me personally would ensure my NAM relationship would stop with 32.

noahclem

You're kind of hovering around it but can't quite seem to put an important point together: future highway development is going to be RHW-based, both because it's fundamentally and drastically superior to the original highways and because it's the developmental path chosen by the people willing to donate uncounted hours of their time into creating it. For the same reasons, future rail development is going to be RRW-based. This is a reality you can either choose to accept or pointlessly protest against. No one is forcing you to download the NAM for free and no one is forcing you to check boxes to install these superior transport systems. If you want to see improvements to the old, inferior networks you should learn to mod and then travel to a parallel universe where transport modders haven't discovered RRW or RHW yet.

mgb204

Quote from: jaredh on July 09, 2015, 02:13:48 PM
Whether I think the textures are ugly or not still doesn't justify breaking HSRP permanently by tying it to RRW...  It breaks essentially every single rail enabled lot in my 4gb of plugins.

No it doesn't, the textures simply won't match up correctly, nothing will cease to function and non-matching textures does not = broken.

QuoteRRW should be treated just like the maxis highway replacement.  Optional.  Tying it into all the other rail projects that have been done over the years make it *not* optional.  Please keep this in mind.  Don't break the HSRP by tying it to RRW.  Don't break ANY rail extension by tying it to RRW.

RRW is optional, if you are happy with rail as it is, fine you can continue to use it. If you want to use features that are part of the new RRW feature set, you have to accept that as a new network it won't be compatible with everything.

Simple lot texture changes can be fixed very easily for the most part in the Lot Editor, few passenger stations have complex textures that don't exist already. Despite protestations to the contrary it's not actually a time-consuming process for those willing to put in a little effort for a nicer game experience.

Anyone is free to contribute to the NAM/community, including those wishing to develop for the original networks, I don't know of any member with such desires within the NAM team however.

QuoteLikewise, don't break any highway extension (say SAM or RTMT) by forcibly tying it to RHW.

Sorry, what now? SAM and RTMT are nothing to do with Highways/RHW.

QuoteThese are bad decisions for the NAM in my opinion.  They force current users to decide if they want to keep all the functional stuff they already have, or essentially walk away from many mods that won't work anymore.  Forcing that decision for me personally would ensure my NAM relationship would stop with 32.

No one is forcing anything, the installer has options you can select from so control is kept with the end user.

It saddens me a little when people speak like this, actually it's quite a selfish point of view you have and one that infers progress is a bad thing. All the cosmetic overrides in the current NAM, Moonlights El-Rail and BTM mods, the Maxis Highway Override and RRW (amongst others) may be lacking some compatibility of the original Maxis networks, all of which are kept in the NAM as legacy support, but they also improve upon the originals massively (imho). If we all thought like you, the community would be stuck with all the original ugly Maxis networks to this day. I for one appreciate having the choice of using newer much improved options which is why I'm working hard to bridge some of the compatibility problems using them brings.

What you are actually advocating is to stop giving users the choice and pigeon-hole development to existing networks only. I don't think that's better for anyone.

dragonshardz

I saw those pictures of eggman's work on HSRP 2.0 and all I can say is yes, please, more!

Tarkus

To add another voice to the discussion here, speaking from both my capacity as an Admin and as a long-time NAM developer, constructive criticism is fine.  Throwing the word "ugly" around as if it were nothing, however, is not particularly constructive. 

I've been heavily involved with the RHW project for almost 9 years.  I recognize and accept that it's not everyone's cup of tea, though I have done what I could over the years to try to simultaneously fulfill the demand for new functionality but in a more user-friendly package, and it's accumulated a pretty substantial userbase in the process.  That said, there are diehard Maxis Highway users that are out there, and we've kept that in mind.  With the way we've approached things, there's been no real disruption to existing MHW functionality as there's been all this RHW buildup.  Sure, there's been no new significant developments with the MHWs (aside from the Maxis Highway Override/Symphony) for quite some time, but there were few MHW developments even before the RHW, due to the labor-intensive nature of making even minor additions to the MHW.

With the Rail side of things, we're going to end up treating it just like we treated the MHW.  If you want to keep using the default spec Maxis Rail, that's quite alright, and just as you could in NAM 32, you can just not check that "RealRailway" box.  (It wasn't checked by default, anyway, as the version available in NAM 32 is in an early stage.)  That said, also like the case of the MHW, it's likely that this will be the end of the line for new additions to the default Maxis Rails, at least with our current group of developers.  There hasn't really been any new Maxis Rail content for 4-5 years, in any case, though as mgb204 previously mentioned, if someone were to come out of the woodwork and develop content specifically for Maxis Rail or even the MHW, they'd be welcome to contribute. 

With HSRP, there's been a surge of renewed interest in the project, and we're still shaking out just what our approach with it will be going forward.  Designing things to meet with RRW specifications could potentially open a lot of doors for HSR, as it'll allow for parallel development.  It is good that we are having a discussion about where the project goes from here, particularly when it comes to the details of implementation.

Now, getting back on track to answer a couple questions:

Quote from: Moonraker0 on July 09, 2015, 06:41:55 AM
I was wondering, though:  why is it a monorail override in the first place?  Perhaps something I don't understand makes that easier to implement (not unlikely), but I've always tried to use both monorail and HSR, and ended up giving up on HSR before due to the problem of me not being able to find any automata for that network that look right for both monorail and HSR trains.  I was thinking, maybe it makes more sense as an override for the rail network for this reason; I mean, both regular rail and high-speed rail are types of conventional railway networks (two rails), and monorail is completely different.  Just thought I'd throw that out there, but of course I don't understand the intricacies of coding a new network so maybe it's hard to implement it that way, or it would take forever to convert it to rail-based.

Hmm, then again, I guess one would probably want different-looking automata for regular trains and high-speed ones too, though.  Still, the automata would probably be more similar between the two and it might be easier to compromise with one train model.  It's a shame that that has to affect T-RAM and HSR due to the game not allowing modders to make completely new networks with different automata. &mmm

The decision to use Monorail was something that was determined in February 2006, on the first page of the original HSRP Development Thread at Simtropolis (sadly, most of the pics are gone--good ol' Imageshack &sly).  vester was actually the first to suggest it--he was seconded by several others, and the project's founder, Murakumon, agreed by day 2 of the thread.  The reasoning for using Monorail was because it was a lesser-used network, and had been the fastest rail-type transit network in-game.  The original version (before it became a NAM project and was converted to a starter piece system to co-exist with Monorail) also had a modified Traffic Simulator Exemplar, which upped the speed of the network even more.  One of the arguments levied against using Rail at that point had to do with freight vs. passenger usage. 

There's been some HSRP ideas we've discussed internally on the NAM Team involving using alternate path types to get around some of the automata and speed issues.  Due to some of the weird limitations that Maxis hardcoded into the game, the Monorail network only accepts Type 7 (Monorail) paths.  The opposite, however (putting Monorail paths on Rail), appears to be possible, per Olasz's experimentation back in 2007, and he had at one point been trying to create an HSRP-to-Rail connector.  This idea was floated at one point in conjunction with the RRW project, due to that potential for parallel development.

A large part of the reason why going back to a Monorail replacement has been discussed has been overrides, as well as the hypothesis that most users aren't building both Monorail and HSR in their cities.  The original HSRP actually included modified Monorail INRULs to accomplish the wider radius curves and switches that are the trademark of the network, whereas the current starter-based system requires RUL2 overrides in order to accomplish the same thing, as the base Monorail uses much tighter radii.  A RUL2-based setup is inherently less stable at its core than a base network, where everything is handled by a smaller amount of INRUL and RUL1 code--compare, for instance, the default Road network versus the AVE-2 in the NWM.

Quote from: Moonraker0 on July 09, 2015, 06:41:55 AMadding new paths with a different transit type, and then adjusting the Traffic Simulator Exemplar to properly handle that.  That hasn't progressed beyond the idea stage, so we've yet to actually build a prototype and see how well it works. 
I also was wondering, as far as wider-radius curves are concerned, would it be feasible to make HSR or GHSR wide curves visibly banked along with the wider curve radius?  Perhaps that would be more realistic to have along with the flattening of the GHSR network.

Unfortunately, there's no yaw or angle data accounted for in the SC4 path specifications, so the automata can't really follow the banking all that well.  It might be possible to approximate the elevation change going into the banking, but the trains would continue to run exactly parallel to the underlying terrain, which would end up looking rather odd.

-Alex

belfastsocrates

Calling the RRW ugly is incredibly offensive and wholly uncalled for. I may not be a fan of the current colouration but I can appreciate the immense work that went into, and is still going into, the project. The RRW project is a massively significant improvement on what has existed before and the array of crossings, switches, curves and other pieces look fantastic.

I very much look forward to using them in the future if someone does indeed create a mod or option to adjust the colouring. I may even give them another go in their current format and see how they look.



A unique nation fusing technological prowess and unparalleled grandeur

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination" - Oscar Wilde

vershner

If HSRP were rolled into RRW would additional textures be required? When I did the textures for HSRP it required orthogonal & diagonal straights and switches, plus one transition to rail. The curves were not required because the models just use the straight texture.

ps. Just for the record, I certainly wouldn't call RRW 'ugly'. It's beautiful, but best suited to a rural setting.

Jonathan

#1016
I'm not entirely sure whats happening with the RRW and HSR. Sorry for leaving this project in quite a mess, multiple times, university has take up a lot of time, and when I've had free I've had to focus on projects that earn money :/

But I have had a few days suited to doing mostly repetitive tasks with the TV on in the background :P So here are some files to make the GHSR flat/remove the blue side barriers, I don't mind if they're uploaded, modified, not used, or anything :)

(Pretty sure I managed to get all the pieces at least in the GHSR tab ring and the draggable network, but if there are any I've missed and it's wanted I can do them)

titanicbuff

cool- I don't even use the HSRP in my cities at all- but man that looks cool.
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eugenelavery

Sorry to be joining this conversation late, but I have one question. Is there yet a HSR, or Monorail mod that can cross RHW networks and maintain its modified appearance? Being a stickler for aesthetics, this has always prevented me from being able to use any such network.

mgb204

Erm sort of.

I'm not sure about HSR, but all should be able to cross the Maxis Highway Override which can connect to RHW-4 nicely.

BTM can cross stretches of NWM which can be a useful workaround for some RHW networks too, just transition to NWM for the crossing so about 4-5 tiles.

It's actually something that came up on my radar recently too, I may look to try and include some crossings in a patch at some point. It's one of the difficulties with monorail I have too.

I know BTM has/had the code to work so it should be a case of updating the models, something that shouldn't be so hard for me to accomplish, I may well try to do something about this assuming any possible changes to the monorail network wouldn't cancel it out (ID changes aside).