Three Rivers Region

[JBSimio]

I warned you that I would be back... 

Excellent new intersection, first of all... I hadn't thought of that one yet, but it's sure to come in handy somewhere! 

Back to the FAB's for a minute... yes, that's what I've decided to call Fractional Angled Buildings from now on.   There are a couple points worth noting in David's schematic above, at least to me from a BATter's viewpoint.  Foremost is probably that the side walls of any such W2W buildings should probably remain on the orthoganal axis as shown.  (The back walls are probably not as important, but the same would be more asthetically pleasing if the side walls are to be orthoganal IMHO)  Immediately, I'm sure somebody is saying, "But why not just take a building and rotate the whole thing to be done with it?"  The simple answer is that things get messy in a hurry.



The black here represents a standard 3 tile (with a little overhang for the visual) FAR road piece.  The green would be a typical 1x2 lot.  Notice the building hanging over both the front and the right of the lot... then also the bare left side of the lot.  This is alright if you plop several of these in a row, but sooner or later there will have to be an ending on one side or the other... and then what?  Craziness ensues, right?  (And not really the best kind, either)  The measurements are also slightly different.  If you rotate a normal W2W building (of 16 meters wide) by 18.5 degrees, the front wall will no longer reach the other edge of the lot.  The total width of the front wall would need to now be 16.872 meters to span the orthoganal 1 tile lot.

Something else I should mention about this first picture:  You may be wondering why the lower left hand corner of the building isn't flush with the front of the lot.  The reason is quite simply the widely accepted setback that most W2W buildings use.  Typically, orthoganal W2W buildings have a setback of about 3 meters from the front edge of the lot for extra sidewalk room.  The BSC came up with this long before I started making buildings (as I later learned)... I used it on all of my Smalltown, USA buildings... Spa also uses the same measurement for many (if not all) of his smaller shops as well... and I'm sure there are plenty of others.  The way I've oriented the building in this picture basically means that if you were to plop an orthoganal W2W building to the left (say on a straight to 18.5 FAR curve) the front walls of the buildings would still line up pretty well.

So, since rotating the entire building, while doable, may not be the best option... we come back to the idea of orthoganal side walls, as David illustrated.  This simply means that the overhang is confined to the front of the lot... along the road where nothing else is going to be built anyway.  The land next door, on either side, is still open to anything that might come into play.



So this would be my rough schematic, showing essentially the same thing.  The green lot is now 3x2 as David originally suggested.  The only difference is that each individual building is the same size, creating some variety in the back.  (In reality, I probably wouldn't quite go this far since there is over a full tile of "alley" space behind the right hand building)  I kept the same setback across the entire front, so curving back to orthoganal will still match other buildings on either side.  Various corner configurations are another story that I haven't looked into yet, but the idea would be pretty much the same.  The other nice thing about the 3x2 lot size is that it will always match up with the standard FAR piece, whereas a 1x2 would need to have several configurations depending on where along the road you're trying to place the building.

I definitely intend to play around with this idea some more tomorrow.  I may even have a couple rough mock ups ready by then, just to see what happens.  In the meantime, this has been an overly long summary of what I've been thinking. 

JB

[beutelschlurf]

moin JBSimio,

... sounds good to me, ... if you need some help, so let me know!
if it work with the diagonal, why not on other angles ...
the stuff with having buildings which could be placed next to the angled roads of the farr would be great and add a lot of realism!

b_schlurf

[KoV Liberty]

I like the new FAR setup! I had no idea!

[frdrcklim]

Aside from the FARR pieces, the sidewalks that will accompany them will be the next best thing .

[z]

I like the new FAR setup! I had no idea!

You ain't seen nothin' yet.   

But yes, a lot of us have had ideas, yet it's really something to see David and others turning them into reality. 

Meanwhile, I think JBSimio's got the right idea - as long as there is an orthogonal zoning grid underlying everything, his approach seems to be the most pragmatic.  I assume that everyone has been talking about ploppable buildings so far.  Is there any way it would be possible to make growable FABs?  That is, is there something in the FAR (or that could be encoded in the FAR) that could tell the corresponding zones to grow FABs of the corresponding angle?  I'm a little bit like David here - my knowledge of these matters is limited enough that I'm also not constrained by any notion of what can and can't be done.  But it seems that growable FABs would be the ultimate coup.

[sithlrd98]

Well, just to let you know...I have started on the sidewalks to accompany my original mods, with the newest(well...not the most recent) FAR transitions in the newest NAM.



Now all , with the exception of what David just showed are well under way....

I hope I don't get shot for the next pic.....




Those intersections come in handy when you don't want a stoplight! 

Jayson

[tahill79]

I was going to PM you to see if you were making them for the new additions.  Thanx for the hard work and cant wait to download these.

[buckbeach]

Glad to hear that the earthquake didn't hamper you all that much, David.  I haven't been through one yet, but now that I'm so close to San Francisco it will only be a matter of time.  Luckily, I have a kitchen stocked for hundreds of people... so I don't have to worry too much about my disaster readiness kit. 

JB, aside from the food, just be sure you have sufficent water for several days, a good flashlight and a pair of tennis shoes (for walking around glass and other rubble) near your bed and a good tool to turn off the gas.

Buck
Los Angeles area

[just_a_guy]

It's been to long since I've been here. And it seems things here are just as great as ever.

JBSimio: Wouldn't it be better to have 2x2 and 1x1 lots for the FARR instead of a 3x2? This would allow posibly more variation and well...
Who knows? Maybe something might fit in that empty 1x1 space of back alley.

Over all I really the whole FARR lot idea. I've been trying my hands at batting for a while and maybe I can help in the future by making some of these lots.

[dedgren]

Mmmm- busy here today!

These are for our great friend Don (homefryes) for use in his great MD Ashtabula [linkie].



Like I've said there, his implementation of fractional angle road and rail couldn't be closer to the vision I originally had in conceiving it.  Don's work is a masterpiece!

Later.


David

335881

[JBSimio]

I started playing around with a couple FAB mock-ups this evening... but I don't have anything worth showing just yet.  In the meantime, I'll respond to (I hesitate to use the word "answer") a couple thoughts and questions... at least as far as I see things. 

if it work with the diagonal, why not on other angles ...

The biggest difference here is simply the angle itself.  The original 45 degree angle is simple to work with.  If you move one tile to the right and then one tile down, you're right back where you started.  With the FAR angle, it just doesn't work that way... you'd have to move three tiles to the right before moving one tile down if you want to end up back in the same place.  The other two tiles fall somewhere in the middle, which complicates things a little bit more.

I assume that everyone has been talking about ploppable buildings so far.  Is there any way it would be possible to make growable FABs?  That is, is there something in the FAR (or that could be encoded in the FAR) that could tell the corresponding zones to grow FABs of the corresponding angle?  I'm a little bit like David here - my knowledge of these matters is limited enough that I'm also not constrained by any notion of what can and can't be done.  But it seems that growable FABs would be the ultimate coup.

I'm definitely not an expert on this one, but to the best of my knowledge I don't think this is possible.  I remember at the beginning of my university project, I had hoped for a way to force a certain street texture based on the lots around it.  (This was at the very beginning of the SAM we know today and not long after various sidewalk mods came into play)  I had hoped to assign all university lots with a specific OG which could dictate the style any street which touched one those lots.  The answer there ended up being no... and as far as I can tell, the opposite theory of forcing buildings based on corresponding roads is also mostly beyond our limits.  Aside from assigning lots to a corner setting, I don't think there are many options here for growables.  Growable FABs would certianly be possible, but I don't know that we would be able to control where they grow or limit them to the "proper" locations.  So ploppable lots seem to be the safest method at this point.
 

JBSimio: Wouldn't it be better to have 2x2 and 1x1 lots for the FARR instead of a 3x2? This would allow posibly more variation and well...
Who knows? Maybe something might fit in that empty 1x1 space of back alley.

This kind of goes back to my response for B_Schlurf.  1x2 lots would be ideal, but unfortunately we would need 2 or 3 versions of each lot to make it work.  If we're standing by the ploppable theory, that means three more menu spots for every single lot.  A look at a single FAR piece should explain why...



Here you can see the three placement options for each FAR section of road.  In theory, there are three different lots that could go along each piece.  Homefryes did an excellent illustration of this in his MD, actually.  It seems that the number three position doesn't even work as the game doesn't recognise it as being accessible.  Even if that remains true, there are still two different options.  The problem is that those two options cannot be treated the same way...



Let's say we have a 1x2 lot with a W2W FAB placed on it.  The first picture shows what would happen if we simply moved that lot over to the middle tile of the FAR piece.  Obviously, just plopping the same lot won't work here.  The second picture shows what would happen if we moved the same lot over and then down one tile (which we could do if this was a normal diagonal road)... again this doesn't work (and would in fact be disallowed by the road).  The only way to make the same "building" work in both situations would be to have two different lot configurations.  One where the building overhangs the front of the lot by a few meters, and a second lot where the building overhangs the front by quite a bit more.  But this means two lots for each building... the more variety you add, the longer the menus become.  I think that with some creative arrangements, we can use 3x2 lots... mixing and matching different buildings... to achieve just as much variety with fewer menu icons to scroll past, especially with a variety of corner buildings thrown in.  I could very well be wrong about that last bit... but that's my best "logical" guess right now. 

And Buck... I'm required to keep about 300 gallons of bottled water in the kitchen at all times up here.  Plus I have about 10 gallons at my house just for me! 

JB

[girlfromverona]

JB: That makes sense. I can't wait to see your first mockup! 

Jayson: Are those sidewalks ploppable or do they show up automatically on all roads? I really like to be able to control which roads have sidewalks and which don't...

David: Thanks for the link to Ashtabula! Looks like another great MD. 

[rooker1]

David and Jon...
What a fantastic idea.  I had no intention of using these Far/Farr pieces in my cities because I believe the way the building would line up with them would not look good, although the pieces themselves are brilliant David.  But if you guys could figure this out, I would be using these every where with new found enthusiasm.
I do have a suggestion.  The back of the building don't necessarily need to be ended in the same position.  Vary lengths would add a lot of realism and make the alley way narrower on the third position building.  I would like to see enough space in the alley for parked cars and garbage.
This sould like a fantastic project and I would love to offer my help.....maybe some lotting. 

Robin 

[Speedbump Joey]

Love the research, planning, and development that is going on with this.

[dedgren]

An oversight...



These have been done for a month and a half.  I'll get them to Andreas Roth before the day is out.

I hope later today to also be picking our ploppable water terraforming tutorial back up.  And we are all watching what Jon (JBSimio) is doing with the FAB with huge anticipation.  It looks like a great weekend coming up!

Later.


David

336322

[metasmurf]

You know I love euro textures Let me tell you, I have enjoyed the FAR pieces very much 

[sithlrd98]

Jayson: Are those sidewalks ploppable or do they show up automatically on all roads? I really like to be able to control which roads have sidewalks and which don't...

I hope to have some progress to show sometime this weekend. Now that I am comfortable with changing textures in S3D files , I think I have an idea of what is needed to make these and my other mods Wealth dependant.

Jayson

[JBSimio]

This is extremely quick and dirty... but maybe a little something like this?



I had to use Dan's method [linkie] to create the sidewalks, but the concept is most certainly doable.  The building on the far left is a standard Smalltown, USA lot to show how the FAB lots would line up.  Obviously, this new 3x2 is nowhere close to a finished state... even the rough outline of the buildings doesn't mean much other than for the sake of the visual.  It shouldn't be overly difficult to come up with a number of possibilities here.  I've started thinking about shop fronts put into prop families (much the way Maxis did) which would add even more random variety to each lot.  It wouldn't be difficult, just a little touchy to make sure each one lands in the proper place... but that's for another time. 

JB

[dedgren]

Holy Mackerel!


David

336450

[io_bg]

I bet Maxis wouldn't recognise their own game if they saw this picture...