The "You Be the Critic" Thread

[threestooges]

When I consider my vote for the picture competition, I like to see either a pic that well done artistically or is a good reflection of reality. Your pics are quite good and your selection of BATs is pretty neat. One thing I notice about this pic (in particular) is that it is very dense. Massive skyscrapers and very narrow streets would seem to make for an interesting/nightmarish commute (the 405 freeway near my house has several lanes each way and will still become a parking lot). Most large city areas that I have seen usually have some smaller buildings mixed in, or some open spaces to allow light down to the streets. I have noticed that, though a city may look dense from afar, it opens up a bit when you are in it.

In this pic, the canals, cathedral and parks look great. The wall of structures however is a bit busy for the eye. When I look at the city, there is nothing to focus on. I don't wish to influence your playing style (everyone should play the game for their own tastes, that's what makes it fun) but perhaps consider using fewer towers. Pick a few (or a group) that you like and make them the star of the show, and build a pic around them. Or consider a title that would give a reason for such a dense city. Also see my, and wouanagaine's comments on tankmank's pic above, I think they apply to your pic too in some ways.

Trust me, there is little to hate in your work, especially if you enjoy creating it. I hope this helps. If you have any further questions on my comments let me know and I would be happy to explain/expand on them. I hope to see some new pics from you in the competition soon.

[dedgren]

Heh, lerist, my butt has gotten kicked every time I have entered the pic contest...

The one thing I note about your pic is the number of repeated buildings.  One pair per pic would be "RL-valid."  I count six pairs here.  It's just not like that there would be that many duplicate tall towers.

The cathedral is looking for a larger plaza around it, too.

My hat's off to you, though- I have no skill at cityscapes.  That's tough when you're an urban planner.


David

[thundercrack83]

If I'm not mistaken, and I very well may be, I believe a lot of the duplicate skyscrapers are the Hong Kong BATs, which have multiple towers on the same lot, which may account for the duplicates. Again, there's a good chance I could be wrong about this, but I remember not downloading some of them for this reason.

As for your picture, lerist--I can only echo what Matt and David have said. What I would suggest is this: pick one skyscraper (maybe two at the most) and plop it down, then have smaller and intermediate sized buildings around it. Also, try an avenue instead of road, it will widen the roadway and might help to decrease the "dense" feeling that Matt eluded to earlier. Add in your canals and the cathedral from this picture, and I think you'd have a great picture! Now obviously, my advice won't help if you're trying to build a functioning city or anything like that, but it may help with a picture.

And don't get too down about the Picture Competition, my friend. That's a tough place to cut your teeth, considering some of the magnificent pictures that have come out of there. Not to mention, that over there, in the battle between rural vs. urban, rural will win hands-down, 95% of the time. That's not a slight against the competition or against rural pictures, I just believe that rural pictures are more appealing to the majority of folks here.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Dustin

[threestooges]

I just believe that rural pictures are more appealing to the majority of folks here

That, and there are some great rural items in production around here recently which helps making a good rural pic easier/more appealing.

[thundercrack83]

Good point, there, Matt! I didn't think of that.

[etherian]

Hey lerist, don't be discouraged too much with how your entries perform in the Picture Competition, the votes are a reflection of the voters' personal taste and sometimes they may not be similar to yours. Let me reiterate the point that the others have made already about playing the game in your own terms and with your own style - there's nothing that kills the fun quicker than trying to please other people instead of yourself, especially for a game like SC.

As for the picture, I am a big fan of all the HKBATs (mainly because I'm from HK) and have been steady working myself towards building a city that can accommodate them properly. And from my experience growing up in the city, it seems a little too dense even for HK. I don't recall seeing so many high-rise estates so close together. They are usually public housing estates of 4-5 major blocks of high rises, separated from each other with walkways and parks. And then separated even further away from major roadways - discounting mass-transit such as subways and el-rail.

My suggestion would be to work out the ratio of green space versus development within your city, anyway between a 1:3 to 1:5 would help in "loosening up" the city and allow us to peek through the holes between the high-rises to see the action on the streets. I like the use of the canals here, its also an example of creating the open space needed in a city.

Good luck with your future SC4 endeavours, and never forget to play how you want to, not how you are told!

[lerist]

Thank you so much for your thoughts, opinions and comments, they have been a pleasure to read. 

I will follow your suggestions during the construction of my next city to see how it will turn out...although it will feel somewhat scary to diverge from my usual "build as much and as dense as possible"-philosophy. 

[threestooges]

I'm sure you'll do fine if you just remember to play the game for one person: yourself. Stepping out of your comfort zone is always a bit unnerving, but then everyone starts somewhere and without that step, there would be no growth, no learning.

I suppose I will continue a bit of the theme of photo competition entries. I tried the following in the photo comp and, if I recall, it went out in the first round or two. I'm trying to improve my beach/costal town building (I've lived in a few of them) and this is a slightly older pic, but please let me know your thoughts.

The Beachcomber:

[Chrisadams3997]

The first thing that strikes me there Matt is that the retaining walls on that house in the center are awefully high.  I do like how the ground stays with it until the last tile, then drops off, but change the slopes across there to make the house sit at about half it's present height above the beach.

The second thing is the clashing textures next to those paths going down.  Personally when there is no way to fix something like this (easily) in the game, I have no prob with doing some photoshopping to make the transitions look better.  Also, it may just be my personal taste, but I have quite the dislike for highwealth textures and substitute medium wealth grass for it where ever I can.  They often come out over the top, and I think that's part of what detracts from a mostly well laid out picture here.

The house in the center does give a good focal point, and the beach looks great.  Just taking care of a few more details, and a little more subdued textures I think would make it a good photo.

[Masochist]

I agree with Chrisadams...the retaining wall is really high.  It's not just that fact, though...it's more the fact that it's the only sort of straight edge on the beach.  It might help to put up a seawall if you can spare the room...just a suggestion.

Also, while I don't mind the high-wealth grass textures, I do think there needs to be a bit of blending.  A picture like this usually does best when every tile is covered with something, so I'd suggest perhaps filling in the entire area with grass textures or paths or something like that.  And try and get the hills to ease down as smooth as possible to the beach if you decide to keep it.

If you want to do something with the picture itself, I might suggest giving it a bit of contrast to make the colors a bit more vivid.  Nothing too fancy, something you can find on a lot of basic picture editors (or Photobucket), but it might add a bit of flair to it (of course, if you want to keep the picture natural, that should be perfectly fine, as well).

It's a really good picture with nice focus and just enough going on to hold interest.  Just needs a bit of tender-love-'n'-care to cap it off.

[Ennedi]

I remember that Matt (threestoges) don't like to use photo editing. Matt, I saw in many of your comments that you rather appreciate "original" in-game textures. So I'd like to concentrate on these things you can improve in game.

1. It would be good to soften the terrain along paths and street. You can do it using Mayor Mode Lowering tool (the smallest size and strength).
I suppose red textures are a part of your design, they look very good for me and I think you can leave them.
2. You definitely should level the terrain under the parking in the lower right corner.
3. I agree about too high retaining wall of the building in center.
4. This building is very nice and original, but it isn't too vivid and it isn't a good focal point in your picture (and it's a good candidate for it). What to do with it? Personally I would remove BSC Parks pieces with flower beds. You can replace them by High Wealth grass pieces, but in this case you should do it around the building too. Then I would plant some ploppable trees here and there.
5. The building in the top right corner shows some retaining wall (you should level/raise the street there) and all the top right corner doesn't look good. There is too little part of this building showed. Show more or make something else in this place. You should also fill the empty tile to the left of this building, we can see texture edges there.
6. Think about trees. You use three completely different kinds of palms and they don't look good together and especially with dedicious trees along BSC paths. Palms are difficult to use. They doesn't hide anything and they need a contrasting background to look good. It would be excellent if you would find some trees harmonizing with these used on the central lot 
7. I would suggest to make the street in the left upper corner one tile longer to don't see it's end, it looks unnatural, too SC4 
8. The beach is very nice, but it looks a bit empty. There are some small buildings in beach sets (maybe fast food or something?)
9 and last: I understand and appreciate your opinion about photoshopping, but the JPG picture is a bit less contrasting/saturated than we can see in the game. I think that very subtle increasing of one or both these parameters is nothing bad and unnatural.

I was often thinking I created a nice place and then I worked long and hard with all these little details. 
Of course my advices are subjective, you can take them (and other suggestions) as a start point.

Adam

[threestooges]

Thanks everyone for the comments. They are greatly appreciated. To be honest, I hadn't realized that wall was so high. Up until now, I had just based its relative height off the lamp posts, but looking around at the people... well let's just say I hope no one stumbles over. The palm tree thing was another thing. Way back when I first made this pic, I hadn't touched the LE or any other editing program much more than to look at it, so the palm-deciduous blending was unavoidable, but I agree that it doesn't exactly balance well. Lastly, I should probably clarify: I'm not against photoshopping. There are some absolutely stunning pics around here. Masochist has shown a number of them in his MD Condor Bay, and Adam (Ennedi) continually amazes me with his works. When I show a picture around here, I like to show what the game itself can do (mainly when it comes to the picture competition) though I have fiddled with photoshopping a few things. Next time I'm on this tile, I think I'll try a few adjustments, but just applied in general, all of your comments are great all-around advice.

[Ennedi]

Matt, this wall wouldn't look bad if you would break it visually, for example putting something small (a bit lower than the wall) at the foot of it 

Adam

[Shadow Assassin]

Maybe I should have something critiqued. What can I improve in this small town's main street?

[XiahouDun]

Shot looks pretty good. The few changes I'd suggest are getting rid of the two offices in the top left, and maybe the office across from the diner, and moving the water tower to across the street from where it is now.

[Ennedi]

@Shadow Assassin: It's interesting to analyse your picture. Your technical skills are very good and it is hard to find any mistakes or imperfections in it. But two pictures can be technically very good, and people will like one of them more 

Please remember that all advices about composition, the choice of buildings and so on will be always subjective, so take them as another point of view - and your point of view and your general vision will be always the most important!

I wouldn't place the water tower in the row of buildings. Such object can be very nice focus/orientation point, it would look better on a more open area, maybe on a small hill, or if you haven't hills in your city, maybe on a clearing between some trees/bushes? An access side road/dirt road/path would be nice too.
Maybe it would be good to replace some of older type parkings (these darker ones) by newer ones, similar to these in the front of two commercial buildings at the main street. But I'm afraid these parkings are a part of lots you used 

What could be improved on this picture? Maybe it could have more character. Looking at it I can't see any special place which could catch my eye. It is difficult for me to be more precise, but personally I would rearrange the whole commercial area. The market looks very good here, these two commercial pavillons too. But I would think about the rest of buildings.

I'm very glad you published your picture here, this is very interesting thread. I'm going to do the same 

Adam

Edit: And please remember you are a master, so everybody will be more demanding for you  But it's nothing bad IMO

[zakuten]

MMkay, my turn as well maybe, how would some of you improve this downtown? I'm aiming for a semi-sloppy look, as if the town was just beginning to get back on it's feet after a downturn or such, so mid-urban-renewal I guess. I know it's got too many bridges, but frankly, I love them to death, so I'm not sure I'd destroy any.

Also, ignore the photo-taking errors like the pause line and driving icons.

[Diggis]

The thing that really sticks out is the water.  Maxis water really is an unnatural colour.  I would suggest searching the STEX and LEX for a water Mod you really like.

[wouanagaine]

And I will add some waterfront or just seawalls here

[zakuten]

@wounagaine: The only problem with seawalls is that the edge of the island is real steep in some parts, and so I'd need some sort of highly slopable wall, as I understand that most just end somewhere about 15m or so. The left-side channel especially would be hard to reconcile walls for.

@Diggis: Yeah, I'm gonna keep looking for one that suits. A lot of the water sets look even -more- unnatural to me, though, heh. But the search continues.