SFBT Releases

[Bluebeard]

Thanx Chrisim I'll give it a shot.

[threestooges]

I just wanted to pop in and thank you for uploading the historic tram station. The style is just what I was looking for (and if it's around, i'm going to look for the original one/make it myself) and it's great to have another station for the avenue GLR.

[metasmurf]

cheers for the underpass remakes. i find it very useful

[khoianh94]

Excellent work again, although I won't use the rail viaducts too often in my cities. But I will use the historic tram station. 

[Bluebeard]

Got a question on the Marrast Underpass.
   The file came with Euro Roads but I don't use Euro Textures.Can I remove the file without damage?.Thanx

[Andreas]

Yes, just delete the "z_Euro Road Textures Mod" folder. I guess I should have made that optional in the installer, but then again, I'm so used to the Euro textures that I always install them, if available.

[Bluebeard]

Thanx Andreas for the quick reply.

[SC4BOY]

Do you know if the catenaries have an MML? I suppose maybe the whole thing will be obsolete with the "auto placing" you're working on.

[khoianh94]

I don't think that you need an MML for the cantenaries. The electricity menu is quite empty by most of the SC4 players. 

[Swesim]

The catenarylots are most welcome, however I am a bit disturbed by the fact that You can´t plant trees on the lots like in Frogface´s mod.
Is there an easy way to work around this problem until You are done with the "autoplacement" mod?
//Fredrik

[khoianh94]

The catenarylots are most welcome, however I am a bit disturbed by the fact that You can´t plant trees on the lots like in Frogface´s mod.
Is there an easy way to work around this problem until You are done with the "autoplacement" mod?
//Fredrik

Open them in the Lot Editor and plant trees on it.

[Andreas]

You are done with the "autoplacement" mod?

No, I'm not done yet, and it will take some time, unfortunately, since I'm rather busy. The basic features were easy, but the sheer amount of crossings, junctions etc. still give me a lot of headaches.

[Andreas]

It's been a while since the last release, but I've been quite busy in the meantime. Here's a little Easter surprise that I have shown briefly a while ago.

SFBT Rail Texture Mod by Andreas

I'm sure most of you have noticed that Maxis made the in-game rail textures for the zoom levels 1 to 4 brighter than the zoom level 5 textures. This becomes apparent when you're using lots with custom rail textures, such as those that NorthCountryDude has created, and also the Network Addon Mod. Those textures are significantly darker in zoom 1 to 4, and it looks rather ugly in most cases. That's why I created a mod that darkens the in-game rail textures, so there's no color shift anymore. It was quite tedious to search and extract all about 80 different Maxis rail textures, but I'd say it was worth the effort.

Now that I had extracted the Maxis rail textures, plus the same amount of alpha maps, I had another idea - I remembered an old mod that smoncrie started ages ago at Simtropolis, where he also posted a preliminary alpha version. The mod included wealth-dependent textures for the RCI zones, so if you draw a rail line through a low density residential zone, the dirt texture below the rails would turn into grass - and in high density commercial zones, you'd get concrete instead. The mod never got finished, though, and we were stuck with just two textures: straight and diagonal.

Swamper77 also created a mod that removed the ugly dirt texture, but unfortunately, it removed the texture entirely, including agricultural zones and landfills. So I decided to finish what smoncrie once had in mind and processed all rail textures for the three wealth levels, both as grass texture and as concrete texture. If you don't like the concrete in medium and high density residential and commercial zones, you can also choose to install the grass textures only. Rural areas still have the dirt, and industrial areas will always get grass textures, as well as rails next to ploppable lots. Together with the darkened rail textures, I think the overall appearance is much better now.

 

 

 

 

[CasperVg]

Wonderful work, Andreas! It looks superb. Another addition to my pluginfolder.

[JoeST]

Great balls of fire... WOW, thanks Andreas will add this to my essentials now

Joe

[Andreas]

Due to time constraints, the new SFBT releases are rather delayed, but I finally managed to package some new items - and more will follow soon, this time for real.

SFBT Semaphore Signals Prop Pack by royal

royal, one of the railway experts in the SFBT, has been creating a huge amount of rail signals. The first pack is a set of classic semaphore signals, more sets with modern signals are in the making right now and will be released later. The semaphore signals have been a typical view in Germany and other European countries for decades, and although most of them have been replaced by electric light signals, you can still find them along rural railways throughout the country. This prop pack contains a total of 92 different props, with distant (approach) signals and main signals, virtually all of them rendered in different rotations (orthogonal and diagonal), as well as offset versions that can be placed on lots next to railway tracks.

 


SFBT Ahrweiler Station by royal

Ahrweiler is a beautiful town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, located in the Ahr river valley, which is famous for its great red wines. royal often visits his grandmother, who lives in that region, by train, so he knows that station very well. This download contains three lots, one with the historic station building, and two train stops that just have platforms, with different lot sizes. All lots feature the aforementioned semaphore signals, but if you prefer a more modern look in your city, you don't need to install the prop pack, which means that the signals won't be displayed in that case.

 


SFBT Commuter Stations by Kenworth

Kenworth is one of the other SFBT rail experts, and he was BATting some German train stations as well, this time from the Leipzig area in Germany, where he lives. The set contains five commuter train (S-Bahn) stations, each one modeled after real-life stations as well. Two of the stations were especially designed for the NAM overpasses, they feature an escalator prop that fits perfectly to the rail viaducts or road puzzle pieces. The elevators are merely eyecandy, but they surely look great, I'd say! Another two stations have parking lots and also feature an integrated bus station, they are intended for rural areas, where more room is available. Only the stations with parking lots accept commuters that arrive by car, but they also serve as bus stations, which makes them perfect for "park & ride".

 


As I said, more new stuff will follow soon, including an updated version of the SFBT Essentials, so please make sure that you have the latest version if you want to use the upcoming downloads!

[paroch]

Hi Andreas,

They look pretty special to me.  And I can't wait to see the stations with the overpasses.  The small picture looks like you have the entrance to the station on a road bridge over the rails.  I have wanted to see this for such a long time.  So many stations in the outer London area are like that.  And funnily at the BSC Euro meet last week Diggis, JBSimio, Arne and I were talking about just such a station and whether it was possible.  So what great timing!

I look forward to downloading these.  I assume they are, or will be on the LEX?

Regards and thanks to the SFBT team for this great piece of work.

Paul

[Andreas]

I look forward to downloading these.  I assume they are, or will be on the LEX?

All items that are showcased here can be found at the LEX - just click on the link in the headline, above each description text.

[JoeST]

They are looking FANTASTIC Andreas, thankyou

and a big thankyou to the rest of SBFT

Joe

[toxicpiano]

It all looks very nice Andreas