[SA] Myriad Islands

[dertyjerzian]

I know that SA lod does not use collision, but can. And that it's reletively the exact same idea as VC. There are LOD models, but I believe many are huge chunks of multiple models, what is actually a smart move by rockstar considering LODs dont use collision. Also, some of LA is always seen, as in, is used as LOD and close up, just one model. May be like this in other areas as well.

 

The base models, to my understanding, stay at all times. You can use one LOD for 2999 DD that is exact same model, just renamed (in max, col maker, AND model, all must match, must rename everywhere!), with a close up version, only change is the name and the draw distance (299 or lower for col-bearing objects)

 

Testing with full quality models in CNG, I have found no problems just using full quality LODs, and one instead of how ever many R* used (3?!?). The full quality method looks SPECTACULAR. I don't know how performance will be affected in dense areas though.

 

And, this is not the topic for it, but, I think there is actually a draw distance depending on what direction you are appraching very high density models, I may be totally wrong.

 

[illspirit]

Okay, new coordinate offset is now -600x, +1100y, -6z, from what it was in VC.

 

And an updated render:

 

 

Download the large version here. rar'ed 7.12MB. 3000²px

[Cran.]

Just to throw in a quick idea here, it think it would be nice to see an overhead line the runs over the streets in some parts of illcom. Then it would go underground some how..

 

Kinda like the one in GTAIII

[Knife]

@illy - so are they final? Please say they are! How hard would it be for you to make new ipl's at this stage? They would be useful so I could continue with the mission script.

[steve-m]

The problem is, Steve, that illCOM would not have become a busy commercial district before illURB and illRES were large centers of population.  The railway must take a retro-fitted route since the entire area would need to have been built before the city needed a railway.

 

You do have a point. But from what I understood, the Northern islands won't be "large centers of population" at all, especially illres will be rather low density. And since the buildings on illurb will all be quite small, in reality it'd be no big problem to build a track right through the populated area, by relocating a few families and tearing off their houses, if necessary.

 

 

I've changed how I think that area should be traversed:

1024 x 1024, 59.6kB

 

The railway station would still be on the North-east corner of illURB.  There would be a gentle slope into a cutting West of the station; there would be no slope inside the station itself.  This slope would descend into a cutting.  The cutting would become a tunnel as it curved South.  There is an East-to-West road just South of the little cove/bay thing, so that could be where the railway entered a tunnel.

 

There are two problems with this design. The slope South and SE of that little bay is quite steep, maybe too steep for the track. Also, I have no idea how the track should run after leaving the West island heading East, the cliff is higher than on the East island, so again there'd have to be a too huge decline. A possible solution would be to keep the track underground and let it exit right through the cliffs in that bay, being continued at a level of about 15m along the cliffs, using a mix of tunnels and fancy wooden constructions.

 

 

But I have no idea where to put the station then. Or, we leave the station there and put cuttings on boths sides of it, so in the East the track could decline and enter the East island through a tunnel in that canyon.

[JasonB]

I assume the strangeness in the Necrosis roads is due to the fact that they go underground or through buildings alot, not because Respawn randomly slapped sections of road everywhere.

 

Cerb, with your current idea of an elevated offshor track, theres a few problems, all involving my lots and work, incidently.I already mentioned this, but that path crosses my bridge, the track would've gone under the bridge, but my bridge isn't up terribly high (although i am going to raise it's height a bit, it still won't be all that elevated, unfortunately). And where the track goes down past southern illcom, it passes down by my 4 lots there, lots where I am modelling a set of docks. If the track does cross the docks it will be at the end of them, but likely it wont touch the docks at all, but it's just something to be wary about.

 

And I was thinking about how the track could interact with my island. The western side of it is fairly flat, so it may be possible to run the track in a mostly straight (a few minor corners, nothing major) route straight down the island.

 

Also with the northern islands I think it would be better if we could try and get the track to pass roughly through the centre of the islands, rather than at the northern extremes, this gives equal access to the nothern and southern halves of the islands. Doing this would be more tricky, especially with illRES, as it has that crater deally there, and if memory serves the centre of the islands is more bumpy, and a track going through Black mesa does sound cool.

 

Lastly, I think it is unreasonable for us to try and stick to an ultra realistic gradient for slopes on the train track, we simply dont have enough room to accomadate such a slow incline/decline in the track. I still think that we shouldn't go overboard in the height of the slopes like GTA3, we should still make the track look somewhat real, and yet still fun.

[Gforce]

i can't believe you posted your thoughts out loud, most people round here get their arse kicked for mentioning such things like that round here.

 

give yourelf a 5 day temp ban numbnuts........

[Knife]

I was just pointing out the obvious . Now you just pointed it out again, numbnuts

[***TGR***]

LOL,

I was just pointing out the obvious

 

When did this become a warez forums? guess the rules are only for some of us eh!

 

 

[Gforce]

I was just pointing out the obvious . Now you just pointed it out again, numbnuts

you have the audacity to call me numbnuts, i'm not the noob wannabe mod/council member posting about linking people to warez you stupid little f**K!!!

 

people get banned round here for less, i'm stunned you can still post!!

 

this place has tooo many double standards............. spam monkey

[Knife]

Calm down Gforce, I got a warning blah blah. If you want me banned go and ask.

 

It was a simple little thing that I accidently did and I am sorry. Someone else posted about downloading the .exe in this topic too but oh well.

Edited October 9, 2005 by Knife

[BenMillard]

W00t, a massive render!

 

Steve, I was talking to illspirit about illRES and illURB and the general idea is for the high, North sections of both islands to be rich housing while the South sections are normal housing, maybe some blocks of flats here and there. There are a lot of businesses on illCOM and factories on Necrosis, so illRES and illURB would need to support large populations in order for there to be a big enough workforce. However, it is true that people could be re-housed and so I will design an alternative railway idea which uses a bit more of the land. Cuttings and embankments would create a lot of work for whoever makes the railway, but they will add some really cool landscaping to the islands.

 

Oops, I didn't realise that there was a big slope South of the bay! However, I think that the railway could get below it if the station is set in a cutting, like you said. Instead of a cutting to the North and South of the railway station, I think that a retaining wall could be built down from the edge of the road so the station would fit. The cliffs would be destroyed so the station could sit on a big plateau (platform) cut into the North-east corner of the island, perhaps. The cliffs from the West would curve around so there was a cliff face to the West of the station and the railway would enter it via a tunnel. Once inside that tunnel, it could start curving South straight away to remain under fairly high land as it went towards the crater's ridge.

 

That would be one solution, but I am thinking that having the station up in the North-west of that island would be a bad idea. That's where illspirit thought one of the rich housing areas would be, so a railway would never get built through it.

 

 

Jason, how much of your illCOM docks have been made? The railway could take a much more gentle curve around the South-east corner of illCOM if it could use a flyover to get across your docks. Depending on what the nearby lots are doing, it might then be possible to have an elevated railway station somewhere near there to avoid the creation of a new island. The railway shouldn't run to the seaward side of a big dockland because the ships would be blocked off by it, lol.

 

If your suspension bridge isn't high up enough for a railway to squeeze through underneath, it is probably too low to be a suspension bridge. Low bridges would use legs set into the sea bed, like the bridges in GTAVC. If we keep the illSTA idea and your island moves further East, this suspension bridge could be more like the GTA3 bridge between Portland and Staunton with ramps leading on and off it, a long span, quite a lot of height and a definite arch. It would become a real feature.

 

I agree that a comprimise between the steepness used in GTA3 and that used in reality. The problem is that because railways are such massive structures, any slight slope they have becomes very obvious. If we use slightly steeper than normal slopes, there is a good chance it will end up looking like a rollercoaster - something that parts of the GTASA railway suffer from.

 

I also agree that a serious design for a route which runs more centrally through the northern islands would be worth trying.

[steve-m]

OK guys, let's stop the SA 2.0 and warez talk and get back on topic. As said before, 2.0 is not moddable, so we can't and won't support it. If you want to continue talking about it, use this topic or one of the many others. Any more off-topic posts will be deleted.

[Knife]

Well as it looks like illy has the final coords now I am happy to continue with the coding just as soon as I have the islands in the right place.

[Cran.]

Replace files in /models/txd

 

http://tjbp.net/upload/LOADINGPACK.zip

 

 

I couldn't be f*cked to figure out which needed to be replaced. So in did both and still don't know which one

[Lazlowrocks.]

K, I have 2 problems. I click VC on my desktop, then click new game, it gives me that loading bar, and when it finishes loading, it minimizes. And then after that, It takes me at least 15 - 20 minutes trying to get it back up. Any solutions?

 

 

 

And if that can't be solved... How do you uninstall Myriad?

[Knife]

I have never heard of that problem

 

If you want to get rid of myriad to start again you need to uninstall vice city and then re-install vice and then myriad again.

[mickarrow]

on topic: so far what's been mentioned is illsub, illcom, new islands and JasonB's island. Now what I'd like to know is how it's going with Respawns' island. I saw on illspirit's render in the train-topic that it showed the roads, so it's going to be converted (released) too. But is this really going to be the case or is Necrosis of the map? It's been quite a while since Respawn showed any progress, or interest in the Myriad-forum for that matter.

Now I know he once said he won't be showing any progress very often, and that it'll be done when it's done... But his last post concerning Myriad dates from februari.....so

[Knife]

Yeah it would be nice to see how Respawn is doing with his island. He said it would be ready by now.

[Platinum Card]

Are there any sve files for Myriad? Everytime I star a new game or Load one from Vice City it stops loading near the end. Could anyone help me woth this problem?

[TRC_Shane]

is the latest Myrid Islands mod more stable? i have the older one and it crashed every 10 seconds. this looks like a realy good mod and i realy want to enjoy it for more than 10 seconds at a time. much appreciated

[JasonB]

Are there any sve files for Myriad? Everytime I star a new game or Load one from Vice City it stops loading near the end. Could anyone help me woth this problem?

If the game crashes when starting a new game, having an already saved one wont help, because obviously the install of Myriad is broken. And don't try and load a game saved in Vice.

Try uninstalling Vice, then re-installing it and use the Myriad installer. Or if you have a completely unaltered backup copy of Vice, replace Myriad with that, then install Myriad again.

[caponester]

Bloody good work BH

 

They look for Vice Cityish, which I'm not sure is a good thing

[Knife]

is the latest Myrid Islands mod more stable? i have the older one and it crashed every 10 seconds. this looks like a realy good mod and i realy want to enjoy it for more than 10 seconds at a time. much appreciated

If you use the installer and follow all the instructions everything should be ok. You may still get crashed though but not too often.

[scarafce]

owsome ART and i dont think they look vice citysh .. maby only this 1 with palm trees.

[Black-hawk]

Haha, thanks guys.

And it's not Vice-ish. >:|

 

Anyway I've been trying out some other color combo's, they look rather nice.

 

Also, Diesel suggested using different colors for each piece. For example Black/White, Black/Grey, Blue/White, Red/White etc... Hmmm ok 1/2 different colors seeing as white is still there.

 

No previews yet as I'm still experementing.

 

EDIT: Oh snap.

Crap demo:

How about that sort of style only with more detail?

Edited October 15, 2005 by Black-hawk

[AleXXX]

Other house for mine AleXXX Mansion lot(illsub_c1_r2). For viewing large image, press to image:

[Black-hawk]

Low poly rulez

Does not.

Ok it does but I can't seem to grasp the meaning of low-poly. ):

 

An interior for a mansion I'm making.

 

 

Btw it's not textured or anything, just some sketches etc...

 

Alex: Kruto, no lishnih kustov i derevjev ne pomeshalo bi.

[BenMillard]

Sorry for the bump but JasonB and I just had a very productive MSN conversation.

 

We think that the best solution of illCOM will use two railway stations, one of them on a new island:-

1. There will be a fairly small, raised station on JasonB's South-east illCOM docklands. This will be a bit like Portland. The railway will exit from the South-east of his docks, then curve over the sea torwards the North.
2. A new island called illSTA will be created to the East of illCOM. JB's island will move (much?) further East and his bridge will become longer, bigger and higher to allow the railway underneath it. A bridge will link illSTA to illCOM and a sophisticated underground road will link illSTA to JB's island.

The Shape of illSTA

The island would be a man-made oval - a rectangle with a semi-circle on the North and South ends. The island would be tilted slightly clockwise, so that the railway would head North by North-east over it. The railway would run across the long middle section of the island on an embankment. There would be a tunnel through the embankment for the minor road and maybe some extra tunnels pedestrian.

 

On the South-West side would be a ground-level carpark with the freeway running along the West edge and around the North-west corner. On the East side would be restaurants, shops, a small picnic area with the minor road weaving between them. There might be one or two tourist things like a boat house giving rides around the Northern islands, maybe a helipad for tourist trips as well.

 

The overal size of illSTA would be determined by the length of the longest train and the radius of a comfortable semi-circle for freeway driving. I expect it would be a similar size to illSUB but without the beach areas and a bit narrower.

 

 

The illCOM Bridge

This will be a four-lane bridge running from a junction on the East section of illCOM four-lane road. The bridge would curve towards the North and would not be flat, a bit like the GTAVC bridge on the East coast of Starfish Island. It would arrive at the South end of the Western edge, curving to run parallel with the edge. There would be a traffic light junction for a minor two-lane road which would run across the illSTA island to the East section.

 

 

The illSTA Underground Freeway

JB's island will be linked to illSTA by an ambitious underground freeway. JB's island already has an underground bypass running from the North to the South, so the illSTA tunnel would connect to this. However, the junction would connect to the East side of the bypass and then curve in a big loop anticlockwise (counterclockwise) towards the North and around to the West. During this loop it would descend gradually to be low enough to get underneath the sea bed. You don't want to see a massive freeway tunnel running through the sea when you're diving!

 

It would exit from the North-west of JB's island (not too far North, though) and approach illSTA from the East. It would arrive directly in line with North semi-circle but a few meters inside the curve. The reason that illSTA is an oval is because the underground road will spiral upwards inside of the oval shape. This prevents the need for steep slopes and hairpin corners to get from underneath the sea bed all the way up to the illSTA ground level.

 

Now, here's the cool part. The inside of this spiral will have the multistorey, underground carpark for the railway station. The spiral will be in its own tunnel and the car park will be set quite far inside it. It would not extend into the inner parts of the curves so that some elevators and some stairs could run through here.

 

Each level of the car park would be the same for all sections; it would not be split like the Washington Mall carp park in GTAVC. Halfway along the East and West straights of the freeway spiral, there would be a flat section with a road leading into that level of the car park. The spiral would rise by one level each time it completely half a circuit to prevent the road being extremely long and will allow it to use a taller tunnel than the park levels. I think there would be five to ten levels of the car park.

 

The road emerges onto ground level as it curves around the North of the island. The railway embankment might need some fancy shaping so that the road can still have a fairly gentle slope to reach the incoming freeway. The slope would run all the way around the North-west corner and some way along the West edge.

 

 

Summary

Because the engineering for illSTA is very advanced and complicated, I would recommend that a very experienced and reliable modeller creates it. Someone with a great deal of experience, free time and who has good attention to detail. Only the base land of illSTA and the island would need to be created before it could be prelit by Steve-M and illspirit, after the entire railway has been built. The underground parts could be built after the land has gone through this process.

 

I have faintened the main map render and fiddled with the colours so it printed out green land with black roads on a white sea. I'll gently scribble on it in pencil over the next week or two so I can get the shape of the new island and the new bridge sorted out. Does anyone owning a lot on the East of Myriad want to make way for the bridge to illSTA?

Edited October 13, 2005 by Cerbera

[Mark]

 

RAWR! I must say I really like that idea, all of it . Sounds cooooooooool - GTAuron