Dirt Roads in CAW, simple, easy, and looks good!

[Samiallmighty]

Hey y'all! I was in a simmy mood this morning and I really wanted to play a "country" neighborhood. Now I may be the only one but Riverview is too full of buildings to be a true "out in the middle of nowhere" town. So I decided to create my own. Being as authentic as I possibly could, I wanted dirt roads, and this is how I made them.

When you go into CAW and pick/create a neighborhood, click the "Road Placement and Editing Tool" button.

http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/Samiallmighty/sdd.jpg?t=1267384191

After you click that a side panel will appear. Next click the button called "Create Custom Road"

http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/Samiallmighty/sdd2.jpg?t=1267384401

A new window will appear and you will get this screen:

http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/Samiallmighty/sdd3.jpg?t=1267384542

Name your road, I named it Dirt.
Next you click the "..."/ browze button next to Street Textures: Base Texture
This will bring you to the Source Textures window. Click the file with the name: dirt_light_base.dds
For the Detail Texture click the file called: dirt_street_detail.dds

Next you will move onto the Sidewalk textures.
Click the "..." for the Base texture and pick the file: dirt_light_base.dds just like the Base texture of the road.
For the Normal Map click the file called: dirt_sidewalk_base_n.tga *You will not see the .tga but it is a .tga file*
For the Opacity Map you click the file called: dirt_street_opacity.dds

And Last you will move onto the Intersection Textures:
Click the "..." for the Corner Texture and pick the file: dirt_light_base.dds
For the Corner Normal Map click the file called: dirt_intersection_corner_n.tga
And for the Crosswalk Texture click the file called: dirt_intersection_crosswalk.dds

After you've done all of this your screen should look like this:

http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/Samiallmighty/sdd4.jpg?t=1267385227

Click okay and you will see your road in the list of Roads. To make the dirt road show up when placing, you must right click and select the "Set Road as Active" button. When you place the road it should look like this!

http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/Samiallmighty/sdd5.jpg?t=1267385511

And that is how you make a dirt road! I hope everything went as smoothly as it should! :up:

[Winterhart]

Thanks for the tutorial. It works great. My problem is I am no good at creating in CAW. Would you be willing to share your empty Riverview with dirt roads? You are definitely not the only one who likes a more rural world. :lovestruc

[rae92]

When I make this dirt road, it looks different and the intersection looks all wrong. I chose the same files as you (as I have seen others use the same files and I've tried this several times) but I get this result:

http://i43.tinypic.com/kbr8s8.jpg

What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this and get a proper dirt road?

[hrabia]

why intersection texture look that:

http://dominique07.wrzuta.pl/sr/f/1ZmG2UUlkTy/strzyzowanie

i did like you showed, so what is wrong? :)

[Samiallmighty]

Hmmm. I am not sure why they are all coming out differently. My computer had just recently deleted it's brain (system32) and so I had to start fresh, my game isn't even working anymore. However, as soon as I get back to simming, I will try and make an empty neighborhood!

[Alundra]

I've seen several dirt road tutorials which all end like this so I was wondering if anyone found the answer?

In all the screenshots I've seen everyone elses has a dark blue line on the left but mine doesnt. That's the only difference I can see...could that be why it wont work?


Here's some screenies, one is this tutorial one is the other tutorial I tried. I've tried to work it out myself by playing around but after an hour of searching and trying to fix it I'm admitting defeat (for now).

http://i51.tinypic.com/2gw8dhc.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/2q063o9.jpg

[simsample]

It's just the way that the game handles the intersections- they way they are 'mapped'. You won't be able to get them much better than that, I'm afraid.

If you take a look at Twinbrook, you will see that they used a tarmac road with the transparent edges, like Samiallmighty's dirt road. Wherever there is an intersection they have disguised it by using asphalt terrain paint. So you could always try doing the same thing with a dirt texture.

rae92, your transparency is wrong- you have black instead of transparent. Check the textures you've used.

[Alundra]

It's just the way that the game handles the intersections- they way they are 'mapped'. You won't be able to get them much better than that, I'm afraid.

If you take a look at Twinbrook, you will see that they used a tarmac road with the transparent edges, like Samiallmighty's dirt road. Wherever there is an intersection they have disguised it by using asphalt terrain paint. So you could always try doing the same thing with a dirt texture.

That not only upsets me, but makes me want to slap EA. WTF were they thinking?! Wouldnt you fix an issue when you encountered it? I'm so tired of developers who are more concerned with "workarounds" instead of tackling the problems!

Theoretically, could we rotate our textures/opacity/normal map/what ever and fix it? I'm going to give it a go tomorrow so I'll let you know how it goes :D.

[gelallite]

thank you! I almost had it right!

[aurica]

I'm new to CAW & and I really like to thank Samial for doing this tutorial up. Much appreciated!

[laylaflame]

intersection looks funny:(

[simsample]

laylaflame- please see posts #6 and #7.

[Sleepdrunk]

So I guess there is no mod that "fixes" the intersection to fluently fit the rest of the dirt street? The advice was to "spray" the map at every intersection to get rid of the ugly broken cluttered edges? o.o