Street names (yes, again... :p)

[Philemon1976]

Please consider a Feature for naming streets.
Could be as simple as zoning districts, just as a visual candy... With a toggle on and off for example
World be the cherry on the top!

 

[vinolik]

Yes please!!! We can already name districts and roads would be totally completely awesome

 

[Hapydude101]

I can't deny, This is something I really want to see in the game.

 

[GMeador]

In the paxcon video it was stated that virtually anything (naming a cim was demonstrated) can be named. Street names should be no problem.
BUT turning them all off/on at the same time with a toggle... that's another story.

 

[Decrendo]

Could street naming work like setting out a bus route? You could determine the start and end points of a street, clicking points along the way to make sure it follows the exact route you want it to. They'd be editable then too if a street gets extended.

Of course, dealing with the sheer amounts of streets in a city would probably be totally overwhelming.

 

[Inge Jones]

Could street naming work like setting out a bus route? You could determine the start and end points of a street,

That addresses what I was about to comment, which is that a street in most if not all citybuilders is not one entity. It's a collection of segments that happen to be lined up in a way that we humans identify as a street. The game would definitely need to have a list of segments stored in data under each street name.

 

[Zed68]

That addresses what I was about to comment, which is that a street in most if not all citybuilders is not one entity. It's a collection of segments that happen to be lined up in a way that we humans identify as a street. The game would definitely need to have a list of segments stored in data under each street name.

I think they already answered something like what you say. Streets are not an entity and it would be more difficult to name them than naming humans or pigs.

 

[Philemon1976]

Maybe its not as simple as I think, but I think as You can already summarize a whole bunch of houses to Form a District- why should it be so difficult to give a row of street segments a name- and no deeper meaning like adresses or statistical infos?
It seems an easier task than building districts with all that mathematical background...
Just a thought...

 

[Inge Jones]

Well, then you have the problem of how to show the street names. If you are expecting them to actually show like a street map, each segment will have to work out how many other segments share its name, and decide how many characters of that name will be shown superimposed on each segment. The segment group will have to be put into some order, west to east, north to south, so the groups of characters are shown in the right order and not as an anagram.... All this presumably at Load time and any time you name, create, subdivide a street.

 

[NorthStars]

I think they already answered something like what you say. Streets are not an entity and it would be more difficult to name them than naming humans or pigs.

Totally agreed... if the street name were really connected to something that had to be defined as a street entity, I'm sure that would be a big challenge as you're saying. But what about just having a label that gets plopped down at a given spot? It means that it wouldn't be visible from all locations along that street (only the spot where I put the original label), but wouldn't the coding behind that be easier, since it's not actually associated with the street itself?

 

[NorthStars]

Taking my thought above one step further, and thinking in a more general way about the original question, does anyone know if we can define a major street as a district? It might take some creative painting of the district boundaries, but what's to stop us from just defining the area of a major avenue as a district, and calling naming it "Avenue Foch" (a great wide avenue from Paris) or something like that? Shouldn't the label then appear on the map in the right location?

I'm not saying that's what I really want, but wouldn't it be a work-around until some better option gets produced?

 

[Zed68]

Taking my thought above one step further, and thinking in a more general way about the original question, does anyone know if we can define a major street as a district? It might take some creative painting of the district boundaries, but what's to stop us from just defining the area of a major avenue as a district, and calling naming it "Avenue Foch" (a great wide avenue from Paris) or something like that? Shouldn't the label then appear on the map in the right location?

I'm not saying that's what I really want, but wouldn't it be a work-around until some better option gets produced?

It's not a bad idea but it would be a tedious way of doing it... and I think districts can't overlap, so you can't use this AND have districts in the same area.

 

[Philemon1976]

I think the tools are already ingame. So lets hope a dedicated modder will find a way to make it - at least in the Form it was in Sim City 4... Just a label, simple and neat

 

[NorthStars]

It's not a bad idea but it would be a tedious way of doing it... and I think districts can't overlap, so you can't use this AND have districts in the same area.

I was more thinking of something where the tiny district I create for the street is totally surrounded by the real district, like this:

The left image would be the area I'd first paint (in green) for the new street name, but then I could go back in with the district paint tool (on the right side image above) and push the edges of the main (surrounding) district right up to the edge of the avenue or boulevard I am trying to name.

The biggest problem I see is that the street names would appear in the same font & size as the district names, which wouldn't be the ideal.

 

[Philemon1976]

And if you really want to name every single street in your city - and not just the big avenues - you'll end up in a disaster of network patchwork. most streets are crossing each other and I'm afraid, that won't work... and your statistics for the "real districts" wouldn't be very useful...
districts and streets shouldn't be allowed to be equal in hirarchy, the end resultwould be chaos.

 

[NorthStars]

And if you really want to name every single street in your city - and not just the big avenues - you'll end up in a disaster of network patchwork. most streets are crossing each other and I'm afraid, that won't work... and your statistics for the "real districts" wouldn't be very useful...
districts and streets shouldn't be allowed to be equal in hirarchy, the end resultwould be chaos.

All true... I would only be doing this for a few main roads, and I would be trying to only paint the road itself and the boundaries, in order to not affect district stats too much.

Like I say, though, it's not a substitute for what we really want (some way to properly name streets, or at least to pin labels), but it's a way I might be able to simulate the effect on a limited basis.

 

[atsrchitect]

1. Create a brush based off of district brush.
2. Apply code that makes the application of this brush attach only to roadways.
3. Create naming feature similar to districts that stays centered over the center-line of the road. Edited to add: and stays parallel to road center-line.
4. Scale text based on the width of roadway (two lane roadway has smaller text than a six lane highway).
5. Make text transparent.
6. Allow user to toggle street names on and off and select color.

 

[Philemon1976]

1. Create a brush based off of district brush.
2. Apply code that makes the application of this brush attach only to roadways.
3. Create naming feature similar to districts that stays centered over the center-line of the road. Edited to add: and stays parallel to road center-line.
4. Scale text based on the width of roadway (two lane roadway has smaller text than a six lane highway).
5. Make text transparent.
6. Allow user to toggle street names on and off and select color.

I hope that someone with the skills will try that. If it could be that easy, I would be overjoyed. ;-)

Hey, dear CO-people, have a look at that... *nudge, nudge*:laugh:

 

[Alfa55]

Well, then you have the problem of how to show the street names. If you are expecting them to actually show like a street map, each segment will have to work out how many other segments share its name, and decide how many characters of that name will be shown superimposed on each segment. The segment group will have to be put into some order, west to east, north to south, so the groups of characters are shown in the right order and not as an anagram.... All this presumably at Load time and any time you name, create, subdivide a street.

A bit like Google Maps and many other map creators. Even free ones like openstreetmap.org. The technology exists. But I agree that is should not be high on the priority list.

Automatic naming streets however can not be done I think. Like said before, a street is to complex as a concept to do that automatically. So it should always be assigned. Were I life eg. there is an estate with many street segments having a single street name for the entire estate.

 

[SimonJM]

It would be a nice touch. Hopefully not too hard to implement.