NAM: El-Rail over Avenue

[whatevermind]

I would love to help with making some stations. I've been meaning to get into making stations for viaduct rail for some time, but never really gotten around to it, so this might be the excuse to get started on something similar. 

I don't know if my BAT skills are up to the challenge, but if you have some technical specs as to what you require for clearances, platform heights/locations, etc. to fit around the network, I'd love to take a stab at station making.

[droric]

It's just slowly progressing - mostly because I've been occupied with other things. I definitely have intentions to bring a usable initial set to completion, but what is left to do is rather boring stuff. The current build is already largely functional, but still needs some tweaking.

I attach importance to the need for new stations for these networks. It would mean a lot to me if somebody accepted the challange of modelling a station. I would gladly offer any sort of technical assistance and, ultimately, it would make me complete this project sooner rather than later. Modelling a station is something I cannot accomplish myself due to lack of experience. I am afraid, without a station the usefulness of the El-Rail-over-Avenue pieces will be rather limited.

So I'm going to give attempt to model something this weekend and i'll see what I can come up with.  I'm pretty new the 3DS max but who knows...  I do live in Chicago where we have many El Stations for inspiration.

[memo]

That would be great!

The most important thing when modelling a station for elevated networks is that the tracks should not get part of the station. It is preferrable to add them as props later on, which allows for alternative track textures and models. This means that the LODs need to be cut such that the network props are not hidden, but that will be the last step of the whole process.

In the pictures below, I've tagged the coordinates of the straight El Rail model and of the Avenue and RD-4 textures. The  trains drive at a height of 15.5 meters and an offset of ±2 meters. An overhead clearance of 6.5-7.0 meters should be sufficient for the car traffic.

Let me know if you need anything else.

I think it would be useful, albeit not required, if the stations are designed in a way that allows them to be placed at an intersection with road or avenue because transit-enabled lots don't give zone access and it is easier to circumvent this at intersections. Besides, the user has more freedom in placing the stations. There exist similar examples for El-Rail-over-Road, like Madison-Wells-Station, for instance. It also seems to be common in RL as can be seen in Chicago.

[droric]

Here is what I am planning on using as my template for the model.  I am actually off right now to get some photos to help with creating some texts and hopefully get a couple orthographic views.  I will attach them to the thread when I get back

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_(CTA_station)

Oh and memo get out of my head!  How must you always know exactly what I need

[droric]

Included is a set I shot that I am going to use for my reference images for the station.  The set includes numerous shots from under the El tracks as well and illustrates what a NRD-4 under an EL looks like in Chicago.  I am going to use the Morgan-Lake station even though its only a 2 lane underneath I am going to widen it.  Any tips on a good idea for the overall size of the station?  I was thinking 5x2 including a 1 tile overhang for the road (or 6x2 to fit an avenue under one end?)  To be honest I don't know of a whole lot of stations that go directly over an intersection (aside from the couple in the loop that are modeled) they are usually split between two or offset a bit to allow for people and buses to get in an out at the street side.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34958417@N04/sets/72157635986020954/

[GDO29Anagram]

Any tips on a good idea for the overall size of the station?  I was thinking 5x2 including a 1 tile overhang for the road (or 6x2 to fit an avenue under one end?)  To be honest I don't know of a whole lot of stations that go directly over an intersection (aside from the couple in the loop that are modeled) they are usually split between two or offset a bit to allow for people and buses to get in an out at the street side.

Just remember that it's RD-4 (the two-tiler), not NRD-4 (the one-tile variant of RD-4).

As of station implementation, a lot of inspiration can be drawn from existing stations, in particular, the Ashland Station and the Modern Overhanging El Rail over Road Station. There's another station that I don't have pictured here, and it's the 15m Arched Station and its overhang can be used either Road or Avenue.

As of station size, if overhangs were used to its full extent, it can be as small as 1x2, but 3x2 or greater should suffice, but it can be as big as needed.

For a station that would go directly over an intersection, looking at how the Modern Overhanging Stations are set up can give some ideas since, 1, it's actually quite flexible and could allow other networks of the same width to cross under the station, and 2, the use of a two-part station ensures that both sides of the Avenue have access to the station.

That's all I have for now.

[droric]

Any tips on a good idea for the overall size of the station?  I was thinking 5x2 including a 1 tile overhang for the road (or 6x2 to fit an avenue under one end?)  To be honest I don't know of a whole lot of stations that go directly over an intersection (aside from the couple in the loop that are modeled) they are usually split between two or offset a bit to allow for people and buses to get in an out at the street side.

Just remember that it's RD-4 (the two-tiler), not NRD-4 (the one-tile variant of RD-4).

As of station implementation, a lot of inspiration can be drawn from existing stations, in particular, the Ashland Station and the Modern Overhanging El Rail over Road Station. There's another station that I don't have pictured here, and it's the 15m Arched Station and its overhang can be used either Road or Avenue.

As of station size, if overhangs were used to its full extent, it can be as small as 1x2, but 3x2 or greater should suffice, but it can be as big as needed.

For a station that would go directly over an intersection, looking at how the Modern Overhanging Stations are set up can give some ideas since, 1, it's actually quite flexible and could allow other networks of the same width to cross under the station, and 2, the use of a two-part station ensures that both sides of the Avenue have access to the station.

That's all I have for now.

Thanks for the suggestions all.  Development is underway and things are starting to shape up a bit.  I decided to create the dimensions of my station off of the AVE-4 since it has the shorter sidewalk median of the two.  This should fit right on top of RD-4 as well since the overall inside size is smaller.  The station will be 2x3 and the overall dimensions will probably be around 7-11 tiles long for the platform as this will be a larger station then most.  Also take a look at my image and let me know if I can have the platform overhang like it is right now.  The track pieces are layed out according to memo's post (reference only).  I hope I can get away with the stairs being pretty steep since I can then put the elevator on the back side of one of the stairwell sections.

[z]

The most important thing when modelling a station for elevated networks is that the tracks should not get part of the station. It is preferrable to add them as props later on, which allows for alternative track textures and models. This means that the LODs need to be cut such that the network props are not hidden, but that will be the last step of the whole process.

An excellent point.  We've found out how important this is with Xyloxadoria's stations.

I think it would be useful, albeit not required, if the stations are designed in a way that allows them to be placed at an intersection with road or avenue because transit-enabled lots don't give zone access and it is easier to circumvent this at intersections. Besides, the user has more freedom in placing the stations. There exist similar examples for El-Rail-over-Road, like Madison-Wells-Station, for instance. It also seems to be common in RL as can be seen in Chicago.

I was going to mention this as well, but you beat me to it.  This is the reason all the existing El Rail over Road stations have an intersection in their middle.

The Morgan-Lake station looks beautiful, and I hope you go with it.  It's a nice complement to the older style Chicago stations by Ardecila.  And the Morgan-Lake has that intersection in the middle.  If you use the intersection, instead of having to fit everything into a 2x2 space with overhang, you can put the main station into a 2x3 area, with a bit of overhang beyond the three-tile length; among other things, this solves your problem with the stairs, which do look unrealistically steep in your picture.  The platform itself can overhang further, again as in Ardecila's stations.

Are you planning to have an elevator on each side of the tracks?  That would seem to be reasonable, especially if you space the stairs out a bit in an overhang.

Any tips on a good idea for the overall size of the station?  I was thinking 5x2 including a 1 tile overhang for the road (or 6x2 to fit an avenue under one end?)  To be honest I don't know of a whole lot of stations that go directly over an intersection (aside from the couple in the loop that are modeled) they are usually split between two or offset a bit to allow for people and buses to get in an out at the street side.

Well, the Morgan-Lake station certainly looks like it goes directly over the intersection.  And as yet another Chicagoan who spent plenty of time on the 'L' in my younger years, I remember many other stations that were centered over intersections.  From the game's point of view, it's just a whole lot easier if you do it that way.  Having worked intensively with RTMT for years, I know all too well the problems with zone access when you have station lots such as these, and these problems increase nonlinearly with the station size.  If you make the station 2x2 with an overhang, you run into these problems, and the station becomes more difficult to use in the game.  (Many people refuse to use RTMT at all specifically because of this problem.)  But if you make the station 2x3 with an intersecting road in the center, there are no such problems at all, as long as the player uses the intersecting road.  The reason for this is that although there is no network access to the El Rail over Avenue network on the two end points of the station, any zone covering these points also faces the intersecting road.  This counts as network access, no matter which direction the zone is aligned, and so you will never get "no access" zots with this layout.  Those who have used Ardecila's stations in this fashion have never had any problems.

So for the lot size, I'd recommend 2x3, corresponding to Ardecila's stations.  Again, the main model can have a little overhang on each side so that things aren't too squished together.  The overhang can be as large as necessary, since the platform is going to overhang beyond the station building itself.  Again, this is exactly what Ardecila does; if you look at Ganaram's picture, you can see that the main portion of the station is actually about four tiles long, with a half tile on each end being an overhang.  The entire station, including the platform overhang is nine tiles long.  I seem to recall that Ardecila went to great pains to make these stations to scale as much as possible, so I would recommend the same lengths.

I would also think that where you have an avenue crossing an avenue, that would be a very natural place for a station.  So I would recommend a variation on this station that would have room for an avenue underneath.  I would just stretch the middle out, making the lot 2x4 (total size with overhanging platform would be 2x10) so that the stairs on each side end up in the right place.  The Modern Overhanging El Rail over Road station is laid out like this, although it uses a large overhang and two separate stations.  As the person who did all the modding for this station, I can tell you that it's a mess to create.  It's also been difficult for users to build these stations.  It takes a lot of fiddling around to get them right, whereas with Ardecila's stations, you just plop them, and you're done.  Xyloxadoria's overhanging stations have one big advantage in that you can run any network underneath them.  But if we assume that an El Rail over Avenue would intersect an avenue in this case, and an El Rail over RD-4 would intersect an RD-4, then this extra flexibility is not necessary, and the stations are much easier to build and use if they are based on a 2x4 lot, with the avenue running through the middle.

Finally, to comply with the MTA standards, I would recommend a bus stop on each of the two sides of the station, along with subway access (which is of course optional).  The bus stop can be the Ninja sign that's used for the other NAM stations; it's already included with the NAM props.  As long as there's an elevator in the station (which I gather there is), the subway access can simply be implied.  Players are free to use it or not as they wish.

Just remember that it's RD-4 (the two-tiler), not NRD-4 (the one-tile variant of RD-4).

Yes, that was my mistake - I was thinking of the section of the section of the Wabash 'L' in the Loop that is essentially an NRD-4 (although in reality it's an NOWR-4 - anyone want to build one of those? )

[droric]

The most important thing when modelling a station for elevated networks is that the tracks should not get part of the station. It is preferrable to add them as props later on, which allows for alternative track textures and models. This means that the LODs need to be cut such that the network props are not hidden, but that will be the last step of the whole process.

An excellent point.  We've found out how important this is with Xyloxadoria's stations.

I think it would be useful, albeit not required, if the stations are designed in a way that allows them to be placed at an intersection with road or avenue because transit-enabled lots don't give zone access and it is easier to circumvent this at intersections. Besides, the user has more freedom in placing the stations. There exist similar examples for El-Rail-over-Road, like Madison-Wells-Station, for instance. It also seems to be common in RL as can be seen in Chicago.

I was going to mention this as well, but you beat me to it.  This is the reason all the existing El Rail over Road stations have an intersection in their middle.

The Morgan-Lake station looks beautiful, and I hope you go with it.  It's a nice complement to the older style Chicago stations by Ardecila.  And the Morgan-Lake has that intersection in the middle.  If you use the intersection, instead of having to fit everything into a 2x2 space with overhang, you can put the main station into a 2x3 area, with a bit of overhang beyond the three-tile length; among other things, this solves your problem with the stairs, which do look unrealistically steep in your picture.  The platform itself can overhang further, again as in Ardecila's stations.

Are you planning to have an elevator on each side of the tracks?  That would seem to be reasonable, especially if you space the stairs out a bit in an overhang.

Any tips on a good idea for the overall size of the station?  I was thinking 5x2 including a 1 tile overhang for the road (or 6x2 to fit an avenue under one end?)  To be honest I don't know of a whole lot of stations that go directly over an intersection (aside from the couple in the loop that are modeled) they are usually split between two or offset a bit to allow for people and buses to get in an out at the street side.

Well, the Morgan-Lake station certainly looks like it goes directly over the intersection.  And as yet another Chicagoan who spent plenty of time on the 'L' in my younger years, I remember many other stations that were centered over intersections.  From the game's point of view, it's just a whole lot easier if you do it that way.  Having worked intensively with RTMT for years, I know all too well the problems with zone access when you have station lots such as these, and these problems increase nonlinearly with the station size.  If you make the station 2x2 with an overhang, you run into these problems, and the station becomes more difficult to use in the game.  (Many people refuse to use RTMT at all specifically because of this problem.)  But if you make the station 2x3 with an intersecting road in the center, there are no such problems at all, as long as the player uses the intersecting road.  The reason for this is that although there is no network access to the El Rail over Avenue network on the two end points of the station, any zone covering these points also faces the intersecting road.  This counts as network access, no matter which direction the zone is aligned, and so you will never get "no access" zots with this layout.  Those who have used Ardecila's stations in this fashion have never had any problems.

So for the lot size, I'd recommend 2x3, corresponding to Ardecila's stations.  Again, the main model can have a little overhang on each side so that things aren't too squished together.  The overhang can be as large as necessary, since the platform is going to overhang beyond the station building itself.  Again, this is exactly what Ardecila does; if you look at Ganaram's picture, you can see that the main portion of the station is actually about four tiles long, with a half tile on each end being an overhang.  The entire station, including the platform overhang is nine tiles long.  I seem to recall that Ardecila went to great pains to make these stations to scale as much as possible, so I would recommend the same lengths.

I would also think that where you have an avenue crossing an avenue, that would be a very natural place for a station.  So I would recommend a variation on this station that would have room for an avenue underneath.  I would just stretch the middle out, making the lot 2x4 (total size with overhanging platform would be 2x10) so that the stairs on each side end up in the right place.  The Modern Overhanging El Rail over Road station is laid out like this, although it uses a large overhang and two separate stations.  As the person who did all the modding for this station, I can tell you that it's a mess to create.  It's also been difficult for users to build these stations.  The stations have one big advantage in that you can run any network underneath them.  But if we assume that an El Rail over Avenue would intersect an avenue in this case, and an El Rail over RD-4 would intersect an RD-4, then this extra flexibility is not necessary, and the stations are much easier to build and use if they are based on a 2x4 lot, with the avenue running through the middle.

Finally, to comply with the MTA standards, I would recommend a bus stop on each of the two sides of the station, along with subway access (which is of course optional).  The bus stop can be the Ninja sign that's used for the other NAM stations; it's already included with the NAM props.  As long as there's an elevator in the station (which I gather there is), the subway access can simply be implied.  Players are free to use it or not as they wish.

Just remember that it's RD-4 (the two-tiler), not NRD-4 (the one-tile variant of RD-4).

Yes, that was my mistake - I was thinking of the section of the section of the Wabash 'L' in the Loop that is essentially an NRD-4 (although in reality it's an NOWR-4 - anyone want to build one of those? )

Does the entrance being only on one side of the intersection still count as being over an intersection?  Below is a picture I took today from of the Morgan-Lake station.  The majority of the station is on the back side of the photo and the platform only extends slightly past the intersection in the foreground.  If the station needs to be placed in such a way that the roads intersect in the middle do pedestrian entrances need to placed on both sides or does all traffic enter at one point.  I haven't created a transit lot yet.  It might be important to note that I can move the model back and extend the stairs back (to remove the steepness) so its 6x2 with a piece of the model overhanging an intersection.

And I'll be sure to get those bus stops in 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34958417@N04/9986409346/in/set-72157635986020954

[z]

As the details of this discussion are starting to get a bit technical, I have continued this part of the discussion in the new El Rail over Avenue thread on the private NAM board.

[ei8htx]

Well I hope you guys post here when it's finished.  I've been checking the thread daily to see what developments are coming.

Also, this verification just to post a message is beyond ridiculous.

[droric]

Well I hope you guys post here when it's finished.  I've been checking the thread daily to see what developments are coming.

Also, this verification just to post a message is beyond ridiculous.

[ei8htx]

Very nice!

[Kuewr665]

Neat, a station with platforms that are sufficiently long! 

[z]

Also, this verification just to post a message is beyond ridiculous.

That goes away after the first few posts, when the system is sure you're a human.  It was put in place only because we were having a really terrible spam problem without it.

[droric]

Quick Update:

Well its starting to look a'lot like a train station   I might make the glass more transparent if I can detail the inside sufficiently (learning how to BAT still).  Comments questions concerns?

Bonus points to who can identify which train station this is modeled after.

[Girafe]

A really good start,

it reminds me some of metro staton from Copenhagen

[APSMS]

Wait, are you suggesting that it's not the Morgan-Lake station that you mentioned previously? Or it is and you're hoping we haven't read your previous posts?

[droric]

Wait, are you suggesting that it's not the Morgan-Lake station that you mentioned previously? Or it is and you're hoping we haven't read your previous posts?

Err hah okay never mind.  I got mixed up thinking I didn't post what station it was in this post.  So yeah hoping you didn't read my previous posts?   

[RepublicMaster]

The station is looking very nice Droric!