CDS Discussion

We are testing a new road source for possible proposal to change many of the estate roads. I have installed it in two small places in Neufreistadt:

Road to the Edge

and

Road to Freidsee

This is NOT the main road to Friedsee from NFS, but rather a tiny new path from the valley.

Anyway, please have a look and tell us what you think. Unfortunately, the roads are not season change. But if we like them and decide to convert to them in many areas I will contact the creator and see if she will create a season change version.

Sudane................

I like it and if it had season change it would be perfect. While it fits nicely at the Road to Friedsee, I see a little issue at the Road to the Edge: the T-shaped junktion shows an unnatural ending of the ruts - it would be more like a railway junktion in reality. I hope you get what I mean, it is hard to explain.

Tan, you're totally right, it's illogical. There is no piece in the set. So I did a not entirely satisfactory jury-rig for the problem there... you should check it out. Ultimately its another request to the creator... who may get overwhelmed by the volume of requests from one little purchaser who paid her L$650.

Sudane...........................

Gaius made an ingenious proposal in the RA meeting regarding this roads proposal and what to do it the creator doesn't develop winter textures... just make the roads transparent! Ha! Neat idea

But.... it would be very weird. The roads function not just as textures applied against the ground, but also prims with physics (meaning that the roads are sort of bridges that you walk on as you walk through the landscape). If we made them transparent for winter, you would have the very uncanny experience of walking through the air, in many places way above the terrain. And that terrain may be a bit of a mess... it's a LOT of work to get those roads merged into the terrain in a natural fashion, and what you don't see of the terrain under them can be quite messy.

Sudane............................

I have no problem with no season changing roads. Let´s just imagine a snow plow cleans them every morning long before the first citizen awakes

Sudane Erato wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:37 am

But.... it would be very weird. The roads function not just as textures applied against the ground, but also prims with physics (meaning that the roads are sort of bridges that you walk on as you walk through the landscape). If we made them transparent for winter, you would have the very uncanny experience of walking through the air, in many places way above the terrain. And that terrain may be a bit of a mess... it's a LOT of work to get those roads merged into the terrain in a natural fashion, and what you don't see of the terrain under them can be quite messy.

Obviously not an ideal solution! Though if the land under roads are more refined ruts, perhaps that will keep the illusion of walking through roads? I didn't really expect it to be, haha. Have you heard back from the creator? Alternatively, we could ask for the textures from the creator to apply if we want to make the roads snowy. I am sure there are many other work-arounds!

Guillaume Mistwalker wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:09 am

I am sure there are many other work-arounds!

Agreed. I did hear back from the creator. He said he had no plans for an season change feature, but that when season-change time came around he might consider it. So that was friendly and open-ended enough to provide hope. And other options exist. I'm not so good with Photoshop, but if the creator gave us AO files of the textures, I know there are some of us who could make nice snow textures with them. And Rosie has been experimenting with a texture-change HUD that we could use to apply them.

So... yes... there are options... including Lil's excellent idea of engaging efficient snow-plowing teams during the winter months!

Sudane.................

I am sure there are many other work-arounds!

First of all we need to make sure it´s a solution that is easy to handle. I wouldn´t want to make Archie change the textures in every single road prim twice a year manually

While the proposed mesh roads are indeed nice for the warmer months, I am not comfortable with using them as they exist now as a full-year solution. I do not like these work-arounds. The texture includes green grass between the dark grey tracks. This is not plausible for even the best maintained winter roads surrounded by a snowy landscape.

The creator can choose to offer a season-changing road set or simply the texture itself so we can modify it as needed ourselves, including our own texture change script. If this is not possible, then I would continue to look elsewhere for our roads. I would not commit to installing these roads today, hoping that maybe someday the creator will offer a more suitable version.

Another test road!

Skye just released a new version of its Rustic Roads, so I've replaced the short test stretch between NFS and FDS with this new version:

Road to Friedsee

This road, as with the other we've been testing, is not season-change. BUT, Studio Skye often releases "after the fact" "Plug-ins" that add season-change capability to the product.

Another, bigger, but. This road has a really unique feature. The terrain part of the texture is mapped on the prim separately from the dirt track part of the texture. This means that when you lay the road down across a terrain, you can then take the actual texture of the surrounding terrain and apply it to the road, and, voila, it matches perfectly! I've done that for the test road, although you can't tell very well since the test doesn't sit right on the real terrain... it's surrounded by rocks.

Anyway... check it out. It may be more suitable than the road we've been testing.

Sudane...................

Thank you Sudane, the Skye rustic road looks interesting.

It is convenient that this is the same creator of our more recent region infrastructure including mesh objects and textures. We can be hopeful that a season change add-on will be offered "soon".

The ability to change the terrain part of the mesh separately from the dirt track is appealing; however, in CDS that would be a most labor-intensive process to manually change each road segment's texture to match the ground texture, first as the ground textures do change by elevation and region, and secondly with the season. Ideally, we need a "one-click" scripted option.

I am also a bit concerned that the segments do not join precisely, due to the challenges of our varied terrain.

At yesterday's RA meeting, it was agreed to continue to study alternatives to our existing Botanical roads for our rural areas. A solution to the season change issue is the primary concern. We can be hopeful Skye will soon offer a plug-in.

Sudane, could you reach out to Alex, and see if he can confirm any plans and possible timeframe?