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Whitefall, Iridar - update 3 is now up. 16-12-09; p20.

Started by Shadow Assassin, March 30, 2007, 11:38:20 PM

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mattb325

SA - these shots are brilliant. You've an amazing layout to begin with and then to add the editing that you've done is just perfect. Well done.  &apls

It feels like I'm Seven Hills/Winston Hills/Kellyville etc.

kwakelaar

I really enjoyed the update and the mosaic with the golf course and the farmland was just spectacular. I like the subdued colors you are using and also the hint of perspective on some of the images is very good.

bat

Wonderful mosaic! Great update! fantastic pictures! :thumbsup:

meinhosen

That was an amazing update - suburbia at its finest (or worst, depending on how you look at it).  Those were some of the best screenshots I've seen.

Looking forward to more!
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jeronij

S_A, this MD is really a jewel my friend, but that Golf course mosaic....WOW...  :o . Really impressive. I really liked it. Excellent  &apls
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guurgkud

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Shadow Assassin

Well, well, well. 500 views. :P

Anyways, sorry I haven't got an update or anything. Despite being on holidays until... yesterday... I haven't had a chance to play SC4, probably due to the fact I was out of the house for about half the time, and Final Fantasy XII. It's a great game, leveling up and battling various enemies is a breeze, thanks to its new Gambit system.

Anyways, despite random crashes and freezes (which only happens in farm tiles, heh), I have an update of some sort.

Here's Greater Midland's downtown. It'll be showcased in the next chapter. Actually, I should ask you guys exactly what I should do regarding the storyline: do I continue it, or do I scrap it, and concentrate on the city building? :P Well, the latter option would mean more, smaller updates, but no story. :P

Anyways, enough talking.


Greater Midlands Rail Station. Incidentally, it's done in the same style as Brackenfell's railway station. The station was positioned where the rail tunnel comes above ground. It turned out quite good, I think. I'm kind of proud of Greater Midlands' downtown, because there's little repetition. :D
It was taken on a foggy day. Despite being far inland (about the same distance as Parramatta is from Sydney), Greater Midlands, on most mornings in the autumn and winter, is covered in a fine fog. While it isn't extremely thick, it can be a minor inconvenience for drivers. In autumn, Greater Midlands has some beautiful mornings.


One of the last few remaining areas of rowhomes in Greater Midlands. Originally, the rowhomes covered huge swathes of land in Midland's east, but now have been partially demolished in favour of apartment blocks and suburbia. These rowhomes have been built over a variety of eras, filling in land, replacing run-down buildings, and the like. The district is always undergoing change, being replaced by newer rowhomes if necessary. It is considered that this district is currently at its best, and a law will soon be passed prohibiting change to the area. The tree-lined streets of the district give Midlands its open, leafy charm.

Compared to Brackenfell, the entire city feels much more spread out. There is little in the way of natural hills or rivers, or the like, and as such, the city has sprawled out considerably. Right now, this tile has 140,000 sims living in it. By the time I'm finished, there should be at least 300,000.


Savannah Coffee Arena. Savannah Coffee was originally established as a consortium of coffee-growing farmers in eastern Savannah. Despite the entire region being temperate (normally, coffee is grown in equatorial regions or in that general area :P), it is perfect for growing that potent brew that is called Savannah coffee. The consortium, now one of Savannah's biggest corporations, specialises in exporting Savannah Coffee along certain distribution channels (legal and illegal; Savannah coffee has actually known to be banned in a number of countries due to its chemically volatile nature, but they still smuggle it in anyway), as well as handling distribution for its farmers within Savannah.

To cut it short, Savannah Coffee put its name on the Arena, also known affectionately by locals as the Glass Bagel.

There is also plenty of parking.


Right in the middle of Greater Midland's downtown. The tower (god, Tonk's Bishopgate Tower's awesome - can't remember which number it is, lol :P) is a major defining point of Midland's skyline. It is owned by a certain consortium which we know better as Savannah Coffee. It has its international HQ in Greater Midlands, because it's cheaper than having a HQ in Ensenada, and it's close to infrastructure. Possibly the golf course up north may have something to do with it, too.


People need somewhere to stay. Also, there is additional parking here for the stadium, there is also a train terminal. I... ah, actually forgot just why I put the Larkin building there. :P

Anyways, that's it, to be honest. :P

It's a bit late for replies, I'll do them ASAP.
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Antoine

OMG your city look pretty nice !!! I love  :o so realistic  :o

Badsim

Quote from: Shadow Assassin on April 24, 2007, 06:06:09 AM

Well, the latter option would mean more, smaller updates, but no story. :P


"Smaller" updates that quality as often as you want , SA ... :P
Only my opinion 'cause google translation is a calamity , and to be honest , I'll not take time to translate word by word ... $%Grinno$%

As unconditional of your skill , I'm totally gratified by this set !  &apls &apls &apls
The picture in competition should enter the Hall of Fame, considering the work requested for this exuberant and stunning result ! ( though I'm not participating to this thread  :P )
Not only your cities are amazing , but there're so alive too ...a true feat . :thumbsup:

°   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °   °


iamgoingtoeatyou

wow!!! beautiful update! my favorite picture is the one of the suburbs with the dense trees, just beautiful!

i do have one question:



in this picture, where did you get the orange building in the top right corner and the smaller gray - green roof building?

thank you!

guurgkud

wow this is just too amazing!!  :thumbsup:

I love P02. I think thats one of the best pictures I've ever seen
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Shadow Assassin

Okay, shall we do the replies? :P
- If any of the images come up with a "Image Doesn't Exist" error, just hit Ctrl + F5. It should (hopefully) make the image reload. Just pressing F5 won't work, because the browser cache actually needs to be cleared.

I downloaded Cycledogg's houses the other day. They look wonderful, but they're nowhere to be seen...

Alex (Tarkus): Heh, they'll be interesting to see... As for a darker road surface... hmm. Closer to one-way roads would be good.
metasmurf: Thanks!
emilin: Eh, thanks. :P
JBSimio: Don't worry, I hate urban sprawl too, but it's so easy to create in SC4, since the game was basically built for it.
Badsim: Thanks! :P Uh, the tree thing, I think that's got something to do with where I grew up... in Australia, in most cases, only one type of tree will grow - eucalypts (gum trees). The precise species of eucalypt, though, varied. However, despite that, there's so many varieties of bushes and shrubs that grow on the forest floor below them. In this case, I used sub-alpine fir (which sounds kind of odd, but c'mon, they have pine trees growing on the beach here) - which is a species native to much of Savannah. Not much else grows except for oak or elm. But I'll try and mix things up, especially with shore pines and aspens. Though, you do bring up a very good point about the trees.
Mulefisk: Thanks! :P
Flipside: Thanks!
Heinz: Thanks! No, I didn't make the BAT itself, if that's what you're asking. I, however, made the lot (the already-existing lot wasn't really to my taste; besides I downloaded the (original) lot because I'm too lazy to make my own .desc files. :P You can download it here. Scroll down a little until you see the Logistics Centre Mega Pack. Don't forget to download the Warehouse BAT props: they're needed. Yup, images are edited. They're run through a quick little adjustment in Photoshop CS2 (thank goodness for the Action Tool - it greatly simplifies things). The original image size is 1280x1024, at highest detail settings. Unfortunately, while I have a powerful CPU (AMD64 3200+) and plenty of RAM (1GB, will upgrade to 2GB as soon as I can find more DDR400 RAM), the graphics card (GeForce 4 MMX440-PCI) is a big bottleneck. It's fine with 2GB of plugins, loads quite quickly. Takes about 2 minutes to load the game, the same loading a city tile. Bit longer to save, though.
Air6: Eh, I'm honoured. But I've seen bigger suburbs. :P
Mattb25: And I replied to that in a PM (with a little BAT request, too). :P Thanks, btw. :P
kwakelaar: Thanks! :P
bat: Thanks!
meinhosen: I do try to reflect the sprawl of suburbia. Unfortunately, as you probably already know from lengthy discussions on the subject over at ST, it comes at a price - that isolation that comes with such wanton land usage. Thanks! :P
jeronij: Thanks! (I also noticed that you rated me earlier :P - thanks, btw). :P
guurgkud: Thanks! :P
Antoine: Thanks!
Badsim: Hmm, mixed feelings on the subject (many at ST want the story to continue :P). And I know how you feel about Google Translator - it's terrible - I've often used it because I can't really read French, German, Italian, etc - even though I can understand them quite well. :P Admittedly, that last sentence confuses me :P I entered the rowhome district into the HoF - it lost in its second round. :P
ilikehot-- iamgoingtoeatyou: Thanks! :P Ah, that orange building is Creighton Corporate Plaza, created way back when the BAT first came out. As far as I know, it's no longer available anywhere - it used to be available at SCC, but not anymore. Perhaps someone else can tell me if it can be downloaded anywhere else? As for the grey-green roofed building: that's actually not a BAT. It's a Maxis-made building. :P
guurgkud: Thanks! :P
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football_fever

I don't believe I've commented in Ensenada either here or at ST, but your city building really is fantastic.  The photo editing gives the place an excellent feel as well.  I love that if I ever went there, apparently I wouldn't have any trouble finding a parking spot.

As for the story...I still haven't actually read it yet.  I would like to see more of your work, so I'd vote for shorter non-story updates.  That wouldn't be completely fair to the people that love your story though, so I could go either way.

Hope to see more soon
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Tarkus

Hi Shadow Assassin-

Glad to see you back with an update for Ensenada.  Reminds me I need to get going with my MD again . . .  :D

Fantastic pics as always--I really like your angled shots, like that last one by the stadium, and you've really managed to achieve a very realistic looking parking area.  The fog in the downtown shot was an especially nice effect as well.  And the Savannah Coffee backstory was entertaining to read.

As far as future updates go, I think the formula on this most recent one works very well.  And thanks for letting me know how dark you wanted the asphalt RHW textures.  That may even be doable with my limited texturing capabilites.  ;)

Excellent job as always!  Looking forward to more. :thumbsup:

-Alex

kwakelaar

Storybased MD's can be interesting, but mostly I will look at the images, and I love the images of your last update.

bat

another great update and very realistic! :thumbsup:

mark

Nice update SA love the stadium and surrounding area  &apls

sebes

Wow, the Savannah Coffee Arena aka The Glass Bagel is a fantastic stadium. Your own bat?
Check my MD:               
Rhenen,NN

emilin

Hehe... the curse of other games. Been caught up in FF12 myself lately. But it hasn't really managed to take over my life like FF7 did a few years ago. It's good though, really good! Do you have the Zodiac Spear yet? ;D

Anyways, about the update: as good as always. You have a real understanding of how things really look. The gigantic parking lots are extremly realistic. Everything needs to be much bigger then one initially thinks if it's going to look real in this game. And you push it a step further than most. Frankly, it looks amazing! &apls

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rooker1

Fabtastic pictures and very nicely laid out transit networks.  I like that you have almost every tile filled with something.  Great job!!!

Robin   :thumbsup: &apls
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