Abajo del Mar: Update 8

[Battlecat]

A dam could work in that canyon!  Very cool to see the terrain in plan format like that.

[canyonjumper]

Making progress is good! Getting closer

        -Jordan

[ecoba]

Really cool little update, Lora. I really do love c.p.'s textures and the way that you have incorporated them into your mods is really nice. I especially love that texture you used for the upper band on the plateau; I use Missouri Breaks in my cities currently, and I get so excited when there are little spots of it popping up.

Hmm, water mods. Of course the first thing that pops to my mind is Brigatine, with a white beach mod, to create your tropical setting. But, I'm sure that there are many other wonderful water mods out there that get little to no traffic, and knowing you Lora, you'll find the best of the best. I must say that for ploppable water, I would get all of them, and use a mix depending on the area and, well, that should create a unique blend. Of course, if you are leaning toward one, I would suggest Jeroni's (jeronij)'s TPW.

I must also agree with Battlecat on one point. That canyon could definitely provide a place for a nice reservoir, or just some wonderful natural beauty.

Hope to see some more work soon, Lora.

Ethan

[ldvger]

Hi folks!

This is not an update, just a post to let you know that when I am bad, I am very, very bad.  I did not work this evening, being obsessed once again with terrain mods ideas.  This is definitely the end, as I'm going to catch hell if I don't get back to work tomorrow, but I thought I'd let you know what I discovered this evening.

I made a new terrain mod, an experiment.  I took my own modded mod ini table and filled every single cell with c.p.'s texture 0x8f, which is his all snow texture, EXCEPT for those cells in columns H, I, and J, which I left as they were.  Now, of these three columns, every entry in them is identical to c.p.'s original except for H0, H1, H2, I0, I1, and J1, six cells I changed as shown in the pics above. 

Then I plugged the new mod in and fired up my game.  And guess what?  Across the lowlands, from the sea shore to the base of the cliffs everything was almost 100% the same....no snow anywhere except for a few extremely isolated incidences.  As the landscape began to rise and become more complicated near the clif bases and up the cliffs themselves, I started seeing more snow, which means the game was pulling textures from columns other than H,I, and J.  At the high plateau, I once again had almost no snow anywhere at all. 

I really wish I had time to play with this some more because it seems pretty obvious to me now that a good half of the textures used in any ini table a modder may create go completely unused.  Which is a shame in many ways...it would be really nice to create a landscape that could show the depth of texture ranges the ini table seems to make possible.  But the reality seems to be that only a very narrow band of textures are actually used.  For terrain modders, this could be considered good news, I guess, as it means one could effectively ignore most of the ini table and just create textures (or arrange textures already made by others) for those areas of the table where they actually display. 

Again the idea of making a 512 "texture" mod comes to mind.  It would be fairly simple (but quite time consuming).  One could use it on a new region and see each individual cell of the game displayed with it's corresponding alpha-numeric ini texture assinment.  One could then take note, literally writing down what letter/number combos actually appeared across the region, then fill just those spots on the ini table that actually displayed in the game.  You'd still have to put something in all the blank spots, but it could be anything...bright magenta or a Maxis default...because you'd know it would never display in game. 

Kinda breaks my heart to think of the tremndous time and energy that has been spent by folks creating these gorgeous terrain mods like Missouri Breaks and to find that a lot of that time appears to have been wasted if, as it seems, the majority of the textures never show up in game.  But then, I have only tested the mods on this region and no other, so it's very possible other regions would display a wider variety of textures.  I don't have time to test that out, but maybe someone else will someday.

I did also play around this evening with trying to find better subs for my mod than the ones I originally used, but couldn't really come up with any combos I liked very much.  The big problem for me is the rich, dark green texture that appears at the very tops of the cliffs...there just doesn't seem to be any other c.p. textures that work well with that dark green.  I kinda came to the conclusion that I'd have to re-order a good deal of the ini table or create new textures of my own to get a transition to work well, and I don;t have time for either right now.

So once again, I'm putting the terrain mod issue back on the back burner.  Having spent a good part of the last two days and evening messing with various MD issues, I have backed myself into a corner, work-wise, so I'm really going to have to bear down hard over the next 7-10 days to meet my deadline.  Which means of course another update will happen after the next phase of the job completes sometime next week.  The structural engineering comes back to me Monday and we are scheduled to apply for permits on Friday.

Lora/LD

[ecoba]

It's okay for us to wait, Lora. And I'm also telling you that you should get to work if yourdeadline is April 1. RL always comes first and how I'm thrilled by your terrain mod work, I also can't wait for you to finish your design. Maybe you can show it to us here, so if I'm ever in Seattle I can drop by and see it. 

Ethan

[dedgren]

Lora, you are such a dear to mention 3RR so kindly.  I'm ashamed for not getting out more and looking at work like what you have going on here- things that far surpass in quality and detail the stuff that I did way back when.  There are days when I wish that I had made 3RR just a few quads in size, because that's the only way one person with an active mind would ever have the time necessary to achieve the level of detail (and control, heh!) that folks like us strive for.

I'm hooked- whatever your schedule, I can't wait to see what you do with Abajo del Mar.


David

[ldvger]

Abajo del Mar

Update 7: 4/7/2010

Well, it;s been a week or more since I last updated, I hope folks are being patient.  I didn't get to replies last update, so I'll do that now:

Replies to Update 5:

ecoba/Ethan:  Thank you for being so understanding about how RL can sometimes interfere with adult play time.  As for wanting to go into architecture, I try to talk all starry-eyed young folks out of it.  It's a very long hard career curve and doesn't pay much ever.  You go to school for 5 years or more, get your master's degree and then end up at the bottom of the heap in an architectural office, making coffee, cleaning the kitchenette, and doing first year drafting projects under the supervision of a cranky old woman like me for at least five years.  Everyone thinks they are goping to be the next Frank Lloyd Wright, but the truth is very few architects ever get to do any design work.  Not only that, but the schools pump you full of sunshine but little real world knowledge of how buildings are built, which is why you spend at least 5 years interning at little pay after you graduate before anyone trusts you to actually draw a building.  By then you're close to thirty, probably married and maybe with a kid or two and still earning dirt wages.  The next 5 years are spent being the drafting grunt, working long, hard, stressful hours, lots of weekends and overtime, slamming yourslef against deadlines you don't set but are held responsible for meeting.  And that mean old lady is still breathing down the back of your neck forty hours a week and slitting her wrists over your drawings, covering your hard work with so much red ink you can barely see the black underneath.  If you are able to hang tough for the first ten years, things start to get marginally better.  You start actually making a semi-decent wage and you might even actually get to design little bits and pieces of buildings now and then.  You also start into the supervisory role, babysitting the kiddies your firm hires straight out of grad school and you quickly learn how the cranky old lady got that way.  At 15 years in, you might make it to project manager and supervise a whole team of drafters.  By this time you are probably licensed and are thinking about striking out on your own (you 40-ish by now) and finally making some REAL money.  After 5 years of working under bad lighting in your den or garage, you look back fondly on your 9-5 grind...at least it was steady money. 

It's an intensely competitive field and most kids who graduate with a degree in architecture end up going back to school 5-10 years later to either add an engineering degree or something related, or else they hang it up and start over.  I'm not lying to you, I'm probably the only person who will ever tell you the honest to goodness truth about architecture as a career choice, so pay heed.  Save yourself money and years of disappointment...make architecture a hobby, not a career. 

Battlecat:  The terrain mod is going to be an on-again-off-again project for a while, as it's too time consuming to approach, for me anyway, and right now, any other way.  Yes, trees will help conceal the transitions bwteen bands of textures, but on my wish list is a new (custom, of course) tree controller.  I've been bulldozing trees off my city tiles this past week, because the controllers available aren't foresting or planting the way I want them to.  I've looked around for tutorials for tree controllers, but haven't found anything yet, and so far I haven't been able to puzzle them out by myself.

RickD:  Well, yes and no.  I haven't actually created my own custom mod, at least not yet.  What I've actually done is modded c.p.'s Missouri Breaks terrain mod a teensy bit.  I have not created any textures of my own, just kinda reshuffled some of his.  But yeah, even that much took a lot of work, as first I had to figure out how the terrain mods work.  Glad you stopped by and are enjoying what you see so far.

Replies to Update 6:

Battlecat:  Yeah, I've pretty much decided to create a dam at the top of the canyon and maybe a couple more on the way down.  It's a steep ravine and I'm not confident I can plop a watercourse down through it as it is now, but at the same time I don't really want to terraform it.  I guess I'm going to learn how to make waterfalls pretty soon!

canyonjumper/Jordan:  Progress is good, I agree.  Mine is slow and if I get busy with RL work, it will be slower yet.  Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you back soon!

ecoba/Ethan:

Hmm, water mods. Of course the first thing that pops to my mind is Brigatine, with a white beach mod, to create your tropical setting. But, I'm sure that there are many other wonderful water mods out there that get little to no traffic, and knowing you Lora, you'll find the best of the best. I must say that for ploppable water, I would get all of them, and use a mix depending on the area and, well, that should create a unique blend. Of course, if you are leaning toward one, I would suggest Jeroni's (jeronij)'s TPW.

I've been looking at and playing with water mods, both game waters and plop waters, a little bit this last week and am still undecided.  I've re-opened my old thread on the Brainbusters forum for advice/ideas on how to solve the PW/GW transition issue, but so far no one has responded, boo-hoo. 

And yeah, the Hudson River Canyon, just about whatever I do with it, should be quite spectacular.  Here in Washington we have a similar canyon at the top of the Skagit River, it has 3 dams on it.  Problem is that all the dams are both for hydro production and flood control, so the gorgeous canyons belows the dams are pretty much off limits, as the dam operator (Seattle City Light) doesn't tell anyone when they are going to release water from the dams, so the canyons are subject to unpredictable flash flooding.  While they are not fenced off, all acesses to the rivers and pools in the canyon are heavily posted with flash flood warnings and, speaking only for myself, *I* wouldn't go down there! 

As for sharing my RL work projects here, sorry, no can do.  All the projects I work on are copyright protected and posting them to a public forum would be a sure way to guarantee I never worked for that client again.  I have some designs of my own, which are also copyright protected, but I'm not worried about anyone stealing my intellectual property, so maybe I'll try to post them here some time.  I'd love to share the SketchUp model I've been working on, but would have to figure out how to do that.  Screen captures, I guess.

dedgren/David:  Hey good buddy, good to see you over here in my neck of the woods.  I hope you stop by often, I could use your advice!  As for details and control, architecture has taught me that I need to know when to let go and move on.  One of the problems with other MD's I've attempted in the past is that they kinda overwhelmed me, to the point where I became creatively paralyzed, so I'm trying hard to avoid that with Abajo.  I keep wanting to dot every i and cross every t before I build a single road or zone a single cell, but if I do that, I'll never get around to building anything, just spend the next 3 years creating a landscape.  I have to keep reminding myself "it's just a game, Lora, not a paying project".  So my OCD works against me when playing, while it (usually) works for me when working.  It's hard to curb.

So, on to the next update, which is short, with just one new picture to share.

Update 7:

So I finished the RL project on time and to my client's satisfaction.  I have a nice little cushion of cash to hold me over until another big project comes through and in the meantime I have a couple of small projects to keep me busy and in pocket change.

As I said above, I've been looking at water and trying some various mods out.  I'm going to go back to my Recreating San Francisco MD and look over my experiments with water there and would appreciate it if folks stopping by here would also cruise over to RSF and look again at the pics of various water mods, this time with Abajo in mind.  I do want something at least semi-tropical, so the slatey, choppy blues of cold northern climates are not going to work for me with this region.  I've always been partial to PEG's "Brigantine", but it's just not going to work well for me this time around. 

I've continued to work a little bit on the water features map and have placed two major lakes into the region.  One is up on the upper plateau and will be the backup of the Hudson River above the dam I'll build there eventually.  Both of the lakes are very large, spreading across several city tiles, so it will take some time to plop these puppies.  I am hoping to get started within the next day or so, and should have some pics in the next update.  In the meantime, here is the waterfeatures map as it now stands:



This landscape is so flat, other than the cliffs, that's it difficult for me to "see" where declivities already exist that I may be able to take advantage of and make lakes of.  I am pretty certain that the "raw" landscape will be developing a lot of marshy areas as I go along...that's what happens in RL when water comes to a flat place and starts to spread out. 

That's all for tonite, sorry this update is so short.  I'll do better next time.  But right now it's late and I'm sleepy and have a bit of a headache from staring at the computer most of the day, so I'm going to take a couple of aspirin, make myself a mug of hot Ovaltine, and curl up with my new book and the kitties. 

Lora/LD

[nedalezz]

Again, it is a pleasure to read the in depth information you continue to provide us on the region. I personally think the way you set up the water features looks great. Cant wait to see them on an actual SC playing field.

[ecoba]

Architecture had always seemed to me as a career that could go very wrong, or work very well for you; almost an 'all-or-nothing' situation, tuned down a little bit. I personally do understand your points and they are very strong fighting points. I had thought a lot about being an urban planner as well, and I might have to look into that... one problem is a lot of good schools don't tend to have these programmes, so I find myself in a stuck situation... 

As for the water situation, I'm sure that you'll figure it out soon. I'll stop by the thread and leave my two cents, as I might have some insight on the situation, although my transitions aren't the best ever. I find it a shame when electric companies dam up such beautiful rivers. I think that there is a similar situation on the Savannah/Tugaloo River in Georgia. One lake begins at a dam, and at the top of the lake is another dam. It feels like it's a staircase, in ways. I feel that Seattle City Light should start telling people when they're going to release the dam, as it seems cruel to restrict visitors from such a landscape. The electric operators don't tell us when they're going to release water from the dam on our local river, but considering that not that many people go in the river (as it's very rocky and shallow) I find it more acceptable then when it's done on major rivers.

I understand the situation about not being allowed to show us your work. I certainly wouldn't want you to lose your job.  The two lakes that you have drawn in seem like they will almost fit perfectly in the area that you have designated. Are you going to somewhat flatten the terrain under the lakes before you plop them? Anyway, the large variety of rivers criss-crossing the region seem as if they will create a strong natural setting in the area.

Hope to see a new update from you soon, my friend.

Ethan

[woodb3kmaster]

Time for me to stop lurking here As usual, Lora, your methodical approach to your region is very impressive - a real winner with an analytical person like me. Your updates on your search for the perfect terrain mod have turned out to be rather instructive to me, as I was able to use some of what you've presented in making my own modified version of c.p.'s Olympic terrain mod. Thanks for sharing all that with us!

As for your waterway layout, it looks pretty good, although the rivers connecting the Hudson with another river to its west seem odd to me - not the sort of thing I can ever recall seeing on a map. In this particular case, I can't quite figure out which way those connecting rivers would flow, since they seem to be diverging from both longer rivers. Just trying to help make Abajo del Mar even better than it's already shaping up to be You're right that the flatness of the map makes it hard to find suitable places for watercourses to go, so no worries there. Everything else looks fine to me, and your planned lakes look like they'll be great additions to the landscape.

I'll certainly be back for more - you're doing great work here!

Zack

[ldvger]

Hi folks!

Well, this is a kinda, sorta update, but it's late and I should be heading for bed, so I'm just going to call this the Preview to Update 8, which will be along shortly.  When I do the full update, I'll get to replies then.

I started working on the lake on the Upper Plateau this evening and am pretty happy with the way it turned out.  Unlike my efforts in RSF some months ago, I didn't plot out my graphic map and transfer that to the game, although I have to admit I was tempted, being the OCD person I am.  Not having a functioning printer right now, though, is curbing my obsessive tendencies, which is probably a good thing.

This upper lake, as yet un-named (suggestions are welcome) is a big one, covering a good portion of 4 large city tiles.  Feeding the lake are a number of decent sized streams, nearly rivers in size.  The lake empties into the Husdon River Gorge at two outlet points, and while I'll probably build a dam here later, so far no one lives in this region so of course there isn't a dam yet. 

I have (2) screen captures to share, one an in-game region view and the other a close up of the water features map, so you can compare them side by side.  First the region view:



You want to be checking out tiles A1, A2, B1, and B2.  Sorry about the game icons obstructing the view.  This region is so large it doesn't fit on my screen and the terrain is so high at this NW corner of the region that it runs of the screen, as well.  I don't know how to get rid of the icons in a screen capture from region view, so use your mental erasers, OK?

And now a close up of the water features map, so you can judge for yourself how close I came to what I drew:



I don't think I did too bad for winging it! 

I kept the water features map open while I was working in game and toggled back and forth between game and map as I worked.  It wasn't as easy as it sounds, but it wasn't terribly difficult, either.  The biggest problem was keeping myself oriented in game, as I was rotating and zooming a lot.

I only used a couple of tools.  I started in tile A2, the the top of the main canyon, which barely pokes into the tile.  I chose the lowest elevation in the canyon and plopped a road cell down to level it, then kaboomed the road cell.  Then I used terrain query to see what the elevation was: 2633.6 m.  From there I zoomed way in and used both mayor mode and gode mode leveling tools, set to very small brushes, and slowly carved my lakebed in, tapering it off as it narrowed towards feeder streams.  After I got A2 finished (well, the lake boundaries carved in, anyway), I reconciled edges with the abutting city tiles and then worked my way into the tiles from the reconciled edges. 

You may notice that the snow terrain texture I don't want is showing up along the edges of the newly formed lakebed.  Not sure if I am going to have to go back and change the terrain mod again to get rid of the snow or if it will go away when I go back and soften the edges of the lake and streams.  And yes, I will soften the edges, the leveling tools leave a very abrupt edge, mini-cliffs, that really don't fit in to this particular lake setting.  This is really flat ground, so the sides of the streams and the lake should be very shallow. 

So, that's it for tonite.  Hoepfully tomorrow I will find time to soften the shorelines and start plopping some water.  Not really looking forward to the massive plopping task ahead...this is where a realistic water table would come in very handy. 

Hope you enjoy!

Lora/LD

[turtle]

Hi Lora,

I've been lurking here and before in you RSF region also, and, well, sorry I didn't comment before. I tend to keep quiet if I don't feel I have something new to add.

I think the lake bed looks better than what you drew. It will make for an epic dam!

As for regionshots, I can't help you remove the ingame icons, but you could use Sawtooths Region census to make region shots with out them. Its a small standalone program that you can find on the LEX, and besides giving you a regionview, you can also get census information on the whole region as well as for each individual quad. And it's easy to use.

Thomas

[ecoba]

Great job, Lora. I think that you've almost perfectly matched the lake to the original map you showed us. Are you planning on smoothing out the shoreline, though? As right now it appears as if there are cliffs down to the riverbed. 

Ethan

[dedgren]

One of the problems with other MD's I've attempted in the past is that they kinda overwhelmed me, to the point where I became creatively paralyzed, so I'm trying hard to avoid that with Abajo.  I keep wanting to dot every i and cross every t before I build a single road or zone a single cell, but if I do that, I'll never get around to building anything, just spend the next 3 years creating a landscape.

Well, Lora, you'd be a year behind me in 3RR.  We obviously have a common ancestor who passed along that OCD genetic material to both of us.  One thing, though- you are obviously an artist; I'm just a technician.


David

[kwakelaar]

I enjoy paying visits to your MD projects, even though I must confess I do not read all text about your particular "obsession"  running at the moment. But I often like the way you are writing your updates, it is quite entertaining and with a very personal touch
Like Zack I was looking at the flow of your rivers, and the connection from one large river to the other. This does indeed seem a little peculiar.

[ldvger]

Abajo del Mar

Update 8: 4/15/2010

Replies:

nedalezz: Thanks for stopping by and I'm glad you like the way I'm going about creating my region!

ecoba/Ethan: I can see you skim when you read, you missed the part in my last update where I told folks that yes, I was planning to smooth the edges of the lake basins.  Just teasing you...

woodb3kmaster/Zack: I was wondering if and when you'd make an appearance here!  Glad to see you and glad, too that my explorations into terrain mods were of benefit to someone other than myself. 

As for your waterway layout, it looks pretty good, although the rivers connecting the Hudson with another river to its west seem odd to me - not the sort of thing I can ever recall seeing on a map. In this particular case, I can't quite figure out which way those connecting rivers would flow, since they seem to be diverging from both longer rivers.

I'm not certain I will have those traverse branches of the rivers when all is said and done.  They look a little odd to me, too, and I'm not sure the terrain itself will cooperate without terraforming.  This region slopes very gradually from the base of the cliffs to the shore, so as long as the streams don't backtrack towards the cliffs, I think they would, in RL, still flow east/west, just flow more slowly as the terrain would not slope much.  However, when I get to that part of the landscape, I'll use the Terrain Query tool to see if there is slope enough.  If not, no streams.

Good to see you here and I hope you stop by again often!

turtle/Thomas: Welcome to Abajo del Mar, thanks for stopping by!  I'm glad you think I did a good job carving the lakes into the landscape...it goes kinda against my usual methods to just activate a tool and go plowing around.  I usually plot things out pretty details, using trees to mark my boundaries, so it's excellent to get positive feedback on this more freeform method.  Hope you stop by often!

dedgren/David: It's so easy to get so caught in details, isn't it?  If I knew all the tools and methods you do, I swear I would build my region one game cell at a time and everything would be custom made.  I just don't have the patience for it, though...I lose interest unless I actually get to "play".  You'll like this update, though...some of your creations are highlighted!

kwakelaar: Thanks for stopping by and yeah, see my response to Zack above concerning the traverse streams.  I'm very flattered that you enjoy my writing style...don't tell anyone, but I harbor aspirations to someday become a published author, so it's nice to know someone likes to read what I write.  I consder myself a writer, but to become an author would be, well, maybe I'll someday find out!

Update 8:

Since the previous mini "preview" update I have used the God Mode "Smooth" tool to soften the edges of the lake and started plopping water.  I am using, so far, 9x12 cell tiles that degren/David developed quite some time ago and which I nearly forgot I had.  For big fresh water areas like this lake, those big plops really come in handy!  Even so, one gets an idea of how big this lake is by how long it takes to plop the tiles and how many I needed, even being as large as they are.  It took me several evenings to cover all 4 city tiles and there is still a lot of work to be done.

These large TPW plops are set at 6m above ground level, just like jeronij's smaller TPW plops are.  In some ways they create a water table in that when the terrain begins to rise at the edges of the lake, the edges of the plops disappear under the ground.  This is nice because it creates a perfect shoreline that ends at exactly the same contour line all around the lake.  However, the plops are very sensitive to the ground level they are plopped on, so if one tries to plop them close to the lake shore and the ground is beginning to rise even a teensy bit, they plop too high and so are no longer seamless with the rest of the lake.  In fact, they appear to "float" over the rest of the lake.  When David made these tiles, he also made smaller ones at 3x4 cells, which I plan to use to fill in some of the areas near the shorelines where a full 9x12 plop wouldn't go. 

So, I have the entire plateau lake filled with 9x12 plops now and am ready to start working with the 3x4 plops and working my way closer to shore.  Things look a little goofy right now, very squared off, but that is to be expected given where I am at in the process and the tools I am using.  Her's what I have so far:




This is city tile A1, far NW corner of the region.  I'm hoping to connect the two portions of the lake seen here with 3x4 plops and use them also to run the lake further upstream into the feeder streams.  Not all of the lake fits into a single screen shot, so here's the western edge:



The empty lake area at the far left is too small to get a 9x12 to fit into, so that will be filled in with 3x4's.  Also, this is the other half of a little spur of land that extends down into city tile A2, so I would have a place to eventually build a connection between the two city tiles.  Otherwise, due to the lake being so large, there would have been no way for my eventual Sims to travel back and forth between the two tiles!



This is city tile B1, just east of the one above.  This is going to be an interesting part of the lake.  When I was doing the leveling to create the lake bottom, I inadvertently grabbed a slightly higher cell before I started leveling the more northern portion of the lake, which I discovered while I was trying to plop 9x12 tiles through the gap between the two portions of the lake.  I could NOT get the plops to be at the same level as the lower protion of the lake, despite many tries, so I finally used the Terrain Query tool and discovered that the upper portion is actually 7 m higher than the lower portion.  Rather than re-leveling, I decided this could make for an interesting water feature and left it as is.  So when I connect these two portions of the lake to each other, there will be a shallow set or rapids or waterfalls.  Bummer for boaters or swimmers, but I'll stick a boat ramp someplace on the upper part of the lake for access.  I'll have to find some bouys, though, to keep swimmers or boaters from entering the danger area!



This is city tile B2, immediately south of the above tile.  This will be an interesting tile to develope, too.  You can see the edge of the lake where is approaches the canyon...I'll put a large waterfall here to begin with but later, after the Sims arrive, I'm pretty sure this will be where I'll build a dam.  The smaller waterway to the east could very well function as a spillway, dontcha think? 



This is the eastern half of city tile A2, west of B2 and south of A1.  This tile is almost 1/2 lake, so lots of plops!  That 4 cell strip at the eastern edge of the tile is because I started my plops at the western edge of the tile.  I'll fill that in with 3x4's. 



And this is the western edge of the tile, where you can see the land spur I created allowing me to eventually bridge over to tile A2. 

Lastly, a region shot:



Things are shaping up pretty good, I think.  Next update will be the lake filled in with 3x4's and maybe even including individual TPW tiles, to complete the waterline.  Even the 3x4's are too big to meet perfectly, so smaller individual tiles will be used to complete the shoreline.

That's all for this time around, hope you enjoy!

Lora/LD

[mightygoose]

superb plop work.

[ecoba]

I do skim!  Well, anyway, the lake does look much better now... 

Your work with David's ploppable water is really interesting. I've never used any other ploppable water than Jeroni's and Peg's, so this work is really interesting as to how other ploppable water works. I think that it could also be very handy to use this water, as when I'm filling in rather large lakes, like you're currently doing, having to use the 2x2 water tiles can take a loooooong time.

I like the idea of having a small rapid stretching across the lake, and that certainly would be a very interesting water feature to have on this lake. I also can't wait to see how you build the waterfall an the dam; whatever you do, however, I know it'll be great. 

Ethan

[ldvger]

PS-

I need a LOTer type person to help me develope a *secret* project.  I have the props I need, just don't know how to assemble them and make a new ploppable lot out of them and...no time to learn right now.

My little garage project client has sent 2 more small projects my way, so that is excellent news.  Also, very fun and interesting, my prodigious sewing skills are also being put to work, as I have been contracted by a local non-profit to create costumes for a short movie they are filming here in Seattle called "Star Kids".  Visit thier web site at www.StarKidsMovie.com and look for the beautiful color graphics of the 4 Star Kids...those are the costumes I'll be making (and no, I did not do the artwork...I wish!).  I'm also making a Wizard's costume for the film.  And...also fun and interesting, I've been contacted by a female pro wrestler in training to make her some ring attire.  Now, won't THAT be interesting!

So, if you happen to be an accomplished LOTer, please let me know, I could use some help!

Lora/LD

[ecoba]

I'd be glad to help you Lora. I've been working on LOTting for quite a while now, and I'd be glad to help, and actually can this time... 

Ethan