If you don't know where to start when installing custom content, please read this.
If you enjoy creating period towns in your Sims 3 game, gray roads with orange stripes just aren't going to work. Medieval and Victorian style towns need at the very least dirt roads, and in some cases perhaps even cobblestone. Then there is the problem gray asphalt creates when trying to put together a European-inspired town, or for that matter a town styled after many right here in the United States. Not every locale has the same color of roads. My goodness, just drive through the right parts of western Oregon and the roads are red, because they're surfaced with volcanic rock instead of gravel. The possibilities for road replacement files are endless!
These are default replacements and as such only ONE of each file type can be used in your game at a time. Pieces can, however, come from different sets, or can be left out entirely. (IE: For black roads with orange lines, just leave out the Euro street stripes file.)
Dirt & Stone Walk street replacement set: "How hard can doing a dirt road replacement be?" I asked myself a couple of months back. During the past couple of weeks I found the answer: "Harder than I thought!" LOL The problem wasn't so much in creating the road texture as it was in getting the road texture to appear somewhat rutted without looking absolutely ridiculous in-game. Then I decided dirt roads needed rock "sidewalks". So, here are pictures of the results, complete with commentary pointing out the issues.
Overview
In front of a Hobbit house (Said house was built by Yogi-Tea and can be downloaded here.)
Crossroads Overview (Wouldn't it be nice to be able to make the ruts turn the corner?)
Seams in the sidewalk; they are unavoidable, either a mesh or bumpmap thing.
Dirt road & rock sidewalk in front of a pair of Yogi-Tea's Hobbit homes.
(I just found out that Twallan's Super Computer has a feature that will delete those lamps from a town map.)
Download the Dirt Road Set
Stone street replacement set: This set is but one on my to-do list and it was definitely the most time-consuming of all of them, so the other sets shouldn't take nearly as long to finish. The roads and sidewalk tile seamlessly, but once the sidewalk hits a crosswalk or curve the texture mapping switches creating a seamed line (see the first image for details). There is no way for me to fix this. Even so, I don't think it's overly noticeable during gameplay. The archive includes asphalt, sidewalk, sidewalk corner, sewer cover, grate, and crosswalk files. You'll find the download link directly under the photos.
Seams caused from texture mapping
Intersection
Around town
Download Stone Street Replacement
European-type street replacement set: Included are four files: sidewalk, sidewalk corner, street lines, and the street. They can be used as a group or seperately depending on your preferences (ie: if you would prefer the darker asphalt but yellow lines, just leave out the street stripes file). (Click the image to download.)
Download Euro Street Replacement