Siilijoki

[vinlabsc3k]

Happy to read you again Noah!!
I thought you abandon the MD.
I can't wait for the big update!

[benedict]

art128 is right, it reminds me of the bridges in downtown Chicago a lot. Great to see you back.

[noahclem]

Thanks for all the support everybody!!!

Sorry for not being more active here. I've been doing quite a bit of playing but just haven't been at a point where there was a lot of material I was ready to share. A lot of what I've been doing is building the basic transport setup of the area--the highways and rails that the rest gets built around. I'm excited to share some of that, perhaps in video form, but that'll be a project for another day. Lately I've been doing a bunch of tinkering with terrain and transit textures and I thought I'd share some of that, as well as a few other things I've been up to over the last couple months.




This pic shows an area adjacent to the central rail station and the river in central Siilijoki. The rails and roads used to run over that canal on bridges but now I've used those overhanging lots to give the illusion of the water tunneling under the transit networks. It's not a perfect solution but it's the best way I've found yet to get Tram-in-Avenues over water.

The second thing here is the sidewalk mod which I just made this morning and am really liking! I'll probably tweak the colors a bit but it seems great as is. Try it out and let me know what you think

Third, I've switched to new trams, made by vester of course!




This shows some of the texture modding I've been up to. I've adjusted the width of the avenue so the lanes are the same width as in roads and OWR and put my sidewalk mod in as well as some other small changes. I'd really like to change these to adjust to peoples' sidewalk mods automatically but don't have the skills to do so at this point 



Another look at the TuLEP textures, taken near the central station.


More city scenes and sidewalk textures






A scene around Siilijoki's second rail station



And for a bonus pic, here's some highway work from down river around the port area:



Hope you enjoyed the update! I'll be back with more very soon

[belfastsocrates]

Absolutely superb update! I've really enjoyed looking through your previous updates, the attention to detail is wonderful and something I thoroughly enjoy seeing.

[c.p.]

Wow!  It's all amazing stuff

[art128]

Impressive work on the interchange as well as the sidewalk and road textures, Noah!
The city pictures are wonderful, and I think your sidewalk textures fit perfectly with your building style.
I quite like the tunneled river idea.

[vinlabsc3k]

Amazing develop Noah!!
I love the embankment and the new sidewalk texture!!

[metarvo]

Nice update, Noah!    These are top-grade sidewalk textures.  While some upscale or historic areas in RL may have pink or red sidewalks or driveways made from bricks and materials, I find that the grey concrete is so much more common, and some of the aforementioned areas use it.

The grey bricks (with a red brick thrown in here and there for good measure) also look good.  It's amazing that we can get this kind of detail in the game.  Of course, the grey cobblestone works well with the cobblestone street.  Do you have the sidewalk textures set to wealth?

Oh, and the night bridge pic looks good, too. 

[vortext]

Always nice to see what you're up to. The sidewalk texture is nice, though it has some darker areas on one side which leads to noticeable tiling effects. You can probably get rid off it if you temporarily take out the saturation with an adjustment layer and use the burn & dodge tools to make the texture as uniformly 'grey' as possible (at least in PS, not sure how that'd work in GIMP).

Also, whether it's intentional or not, I'm really digging the quay 'stairs' design in the fourth pic. And as per usual your night pics are superb! 

[carlfatal]

What should I say, I like your sidewalks. Think I have an affinity to all sorts of stone pavement. I´m not able to say any critic, I was happy, when I learned to convert a tecture for my purposes, not to speak about darkening a texture.

Away from that: the pictures look like from google earth. The third one is  absolute stunning. And the night pictures - like vortext said... And I still have no words for this bridge picture, that looks a little bit too realistic to me... 

[Girafe]

I am glad to see an upate for Siilijoki 

[Bipin]

Gorgeous work, especially with the highways!

[Kergelen]

Amazing work Noah!

The grey sidewalks looks really nice. I like the close-up pictures and the interchange, unique as allways. You have a great ability to adapt the interchanges and other networks to the terrain.

I also like the use of xannepan walls in pic 4

[sunv123]

Absolutely amazing work Noah!! The Interchange and the city's infrastructure is very nice.

The bridge is very realistic

[wallasey]

Loving that interchange there Noah! Must have taken you an age to perfect the network there!

The sidewalk texture's you're using befit the city nicely, fits in well with the trams too!

[Gugu3]

Wow Noah!I'm speachless!!!you did a great job with the sidewalk texture...but that interchange

[Jmouse]

You've done it again, Noah. Outstanding work on the textures and the city building as well. The sidewalk textures look terrific. The next to last photo is stunning, and the interchange boggles the mind. An expert is someone who can make something difficult look easy, and you certainly fit the bill.

[benedict]

Excellent to see a return to Siilijoki - which returns to number one on BTT this week - well done.

[noahclem]

Not much new in SJ at the moment as I've been focusing my energies on the retexturing stuff I mentioned earlier. That, in turn, is now on pause as I start my travels back home to South Dakota tomorrow    Anyway, I wanted to write replies and show some of the width adjustments I've been making for my textures. The point of that project is to standardize lane width as much as possible while keeping everything compatible with what exists now to the extent that is practical, have sidewalks that I like more (which hopefully can be made to adapt to any user's sidewalk mod), and to have larger turning radius curves for intersection right turns. A variety of possible solutions are shown in these pics, sometimes mixed together. Everything's a matter of  few pixels at most but I was quite surprised at how much different something like the avenue network can feel with a couple pixel difference in lane width.

I digress; please enjoy the pics that I came here to share 

Absolutely superb update! I've really enjoyed looking through your previous updates, the attention to detail is wonderful and something I thoroughly enjoy seeing.

Thank you much and welcome to Siilijoki! It's quite nice to hear when people read through my older updates even though--there's so many pages now and even I don't remember where the particularly good stuff is 

Wow!  It's all amazing stuff

Thanks a lot and welcome to Siilijoki! I've enjoyed your work for many year and it's a real honor that you enjoy mine

Impressive work on the interchange as well as the sidewalk and road textures, Noah!
The city pictures are wonderful, and I think your sidewalk textures fit perfectly with your building style.
I quite like the tunneled river idea.

Thank you Arthur   I'm not sure what the future of those sidewalk textures is--I like their look but there are places they don't fit as well and in any case they have room for improvement. It's a good practice opportunity for me with image processing and modding though and I figure I might as well release it publicly if I really get it right.

Amazing develop Noah!!
I love the embankment and the new sidewalk texture!!

Happy to read you again Noah!!
I thought you abandon the MD.
I can't wait for the big update!

It's really nice to see you back here in Siilijoki after me being away for a while--thanks! Glad you liked my new "decorations"   I still have more than a big update worth of material I'm keeping hidden for the moment 

Nice update, Noah!    These are top-grade sidewalk textures.  While some upscale or historic areas in RL may have pink or red sidewalks or driveways made from bricks and materials, I find that the grey concrete is so much more common, and some of the aforementioned areas use it.

The grey bricks (with a red brick thrown in here and there for good measure) also look good.  It's amazing that we can get this kind of detail in the game.  Of course, the grey cobblestone works well with the cobblestone street.  Do you have the sidewalk textures set to wealth?

Oh, and the night bridge pic looks good, too. 

Thanks! There are certainly a lot of places that use simpler sidewalks and that's the biggest weakness of this type of texture--though it's certainly more common in some parts of the world than in others. I'm glad you like the brick texture as it's the one I plan to stick with. Unfortunately I can't take any credit for it though as Gobias created it and Willy tweaked and adapted it specifically for Siilijoki usage. The new textures aren't sensitive to wealth but they are to density. Being sensitive to wealth could make them much more useful but would require T21 modding to the best of my knowledge now and would probably have some limitations. Glad you liked the night pic 

Always nice to see what you're up to. The sidewalk texture is nice, though it has some darker areas on one side which leads to noticeable tiling effects. You can probably get rid off it if you temporarily take out the saturation with an adjustment layer and use the burn & dodge tools to make the texture as uniformly 'grey' as possible (at least in PS, not sure how that'd work in GIMP).

Also, whether it's intentional or not, I'm really digging the quay 'stairs' design in the fourth pic. And as per usual your night pics are superb! 

Good to see something from you again Noah! The bridge fits nicely indeed. Looking forward to that big update! 

Thanks Erik! I noticed the differences in coloration with the original texture and never expected it to tile as well as it did. I'm not sure what the GIMP equivalent would be but I should be able to figure it out when I revisit them and I wouldn't have had much of an idea of how to do it without your suggestion. Hoping that a "real" big update is on the horizon

Nice usage of tenements. It's the first time, I see a bascule bridge in simcity

Thanks much and glad you liked the bridge! SC4 could definitely use that type of crossing.

The quay "stairs" were actually the least-bad-looking solution to making a significant height adjustment with my seawalls there. I've tried to hide the transition more than show it off so it's a bit of a surprise to get nice feedback about it 

What should I say, I like your sidewalks. Think I have an affinity to all sorts of stone pavement. I´m not able to say any critic, I was happy, when I learned to convert a tecture for my purposes, not to speak about darkening a texture.

Away from that: the pictures look like from google earth. The third one is  absolute stunning. And the night pictures - like vortext said... And I still have no words for this bridge picture, that looks a little bit too realistic to me... 

Thank you Carl! I've felt like I couldn't walk very far in Germany without my feet hitting that type of sidewalk and always really liked it. I really appreciate your kind words about the other pictures too.

I am glad to see an upate for Siilijoki 

Thank you Antoine, it's always nice to have you visit here

Gorgeous work, especially with the highways!

Thanks a lot Bipin! Glad you enjoyed the highways in particular

Amazing work Noah!

The grey sidewalks looks really nice. I like the close-up pictures and the interchange, unique as allways. You have a great ability to adapt the interchanges and other networks to the terrain.

I also like the use of xannepan walls in pic 4

Thank you for the kind words Arnau   Sometimes I wonder why I build networks on difficult terrain so often as it can be so frustrating but I guess it's pretty nice once it's done and someone else enjoys it

Absolutely amazing work Noah!! The Interchange and the city's infrastructure is very nice.

The bridge is very realistic

Very nice to see you around Siilijoki again and thanks for the kind words

Loving that interchange there Noah! Must have taken you an age to perfect the network there!

The sidewalk texture's you're using befit the city nicely, fits in well with the trams too!

Heh, yeah it did take an age or so. Wait 'til you see the one I've been putting off showing until I'm completely satisfied with it   Long live Featherstall!

Wow Noah!I'm speachless!!!you did a great job with the sidewalk texture...but that interchange

Thank you Guglielmo! Really glad you enjoyed the interchange and sidewalks and it's always great to see you here 

You've done it again, Noah. Outstanding work on the textures and the city building as well. The sidewalk textures look terrific. The next to last photo is stunning, and the interchange boggles the mind. An expert is someone who can make something difficult look easy, and you certainly fit the bill.

Your kind words are very much appreciated Joan! And that interchange was apparently much more difficult than I made it look I can't thank you enough for all the support you've given to Siilijoki over the years 

Excellent to see a return to Siilijoki - which returns to number one on BTT this week - well done.

art128 is right, it reminds me of the bridges in downtown Chicago a lot. Great to see you back.

Wow, thanks Ben! A very pleasant surprise and a great honor    Chicago and Milwaukee were the inspiration for that type of bridge. Now I just need to get them in more functional condition....


Bonus pic for those still paying attention    Click for 3270px width

[Schulmanator]

Cool new pix. You have been busy indeed.