Rural Renewal Project

[bat]

Welcome to page 21!!!

Beautiful work with your wonderful stuff there, Chris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

btw, congrats on 400 replies!!

[Chrisadams3997]

I'll get to replies later, but I had something I thought I should share with yall.  I had a little epiphany this morning:



I fear I made have already said too much, so I'll just leave yall with that to munch on for a bit 

Chris

[The REAL Tolsome]

AMAZING!

Please, make a new beta for us! This stuff is so extremly great, I need it for my little town

[girlfromverona]

Oooh, cruel!

Can't wait to see more! 

[Schulmanator]

2 words- awe some!

[Pat]

Chris wow!!!

[sithlrd98]

The details are as The Schulmanator put it awe-some , the fences , oh how I 've been looking at them them for a while and can't wait ! The landscaping is beautiful...makes me want to try and make a peaceful lil community next! Great job!

[CasperVg]

Indeed awesome, that looks great! 

You left the grid on tho... Hehe...

[bat]

That's looking excellent there, Chris!! Great new picture...

[TheTeaCat]

Ok now this time you did make me spill my Tea. 

( Slaps side of head - why didn't I think of that? )

Bravo Chris


TTC

[jacqulina]

teasing us chris cant wait to see more of your wonderfull work my friend

[Ennedi]

Chris, sorry for so late comment! Your last two messages deserve to stop a while at them 

1. RRP plants and TPW: look excellent, especially with new Johnson and Reed grass. To hide TPW edges (or change the stream shape) we must use anything higher than 4 m. I used to plop Jeronij's big rocks and Jeronij's bushes to do it, but it is very good to have more possibilities. I must say it looks really good!
2. Culverts for TPW: It would be fantastic to have them! I suppose culverts for TPW would be good also for ditches made of your marsh. In my opinion the most needed thing is to make a crossing for the stream under the street/road (it would be good to don't cause a sidewalk at this occasion  )
3.

Kind of an innovative use, or at least I thought it was, of the gravel ploppable paths, along with some considerably tweaked Maxis ploppable rocks(as made ploppable by Jeronij).  And... moving downstream once more:

This is an excellent idea! It isn't very visible on your picture, but I know exactly what you did!  Yes, it would be good to use both gravel path pieces and ploppable stones. JRJ small stones leave empty spaces between them and it is good to be able to fill them by something. On the other hand I tried to use your ploppable paths to create talus fields, but without success not only because of the color difference, but also because of unacceptable texture difference. But if gravel path pieces would be merged with ploppable rocks... who knows?
I can't see it on your picture, tell me please, did you change JRJ rocks color?

4. Your pasture and the whole landscape on this picture looks excellent, very natural. I would like to know more about these dirt roads...
At this occasion I would like to suggest you something: You made a connection piece between normal street and your ploppable paths. It would be good to make something similar for SAM dirt streets and dirt roads you just showed. Personally I used two methods of connecting dirt street with your path: PEG dirt parking at the end of SAM road and SAM stopper piece. But both solutions are far from ideal.

5. Yes, I like your lanscaping! And I must say that five tries is not too much, sometimes I had to make more  It's a nature of this ploppable stuff 

6. Now I see stones tweaked by you better. I need them!!! 

7. The last picture (pasture with marsh) is fantastic, I like it very much!

8. And your last message: curvy pasture borders - great!  Finishing them will be much easier than earlier with all these triangles to hide, but it will need som finishing too. it is not necessary to hide all the edge, but to put a tree or some grass here and there to visually break this smooth, elegant line  Anyway, it will be very helpful!

Adam

PS. @Girlfromverona: fantastic picture! 

[Chrisadams3997]

Wow, I'm stickied!  Guess I'll have to update the first post now.  Anyways, it's time to catch up on a few replies.  Due to the volume, I'll be deviating from my normal and using full quotes .

Replies

How do they say," Effing Awesome" in texas? 

Very similair to that, only with a little more of a drawl   Though I prefere to just use Effin' A (we don't really pronounce g's at the end of words much down here)

wow!! looking at these pictures changes absolute the apparency of simcity 4, now this game would be funnier to make farms and natural areas than a city!

Thank you for sharing! absolute realistic 

Well then I guess I'm succeeding at my goal.  Making rural areas more interesting has been of course my objective from the beginning, so that's very flattering.

Erm, something tells me I should be staying away from the pic comp for a couple days now!

Didn't follow your own advice .  Of course you should have known I wouldn't have used one of these... yet.  Way too predictable.

Chris--three words--Just.  Plain.  Amazing.   

You've really taken the rural and natural aspects of SC4 to new heights here.

girlfromverona . . . that is one of the most amazing SC4 pics I've ever seen.  Period. 

-Alex (Tarkus)

Well, all I can say is... Thank you.

All I really got to say Chris!!!

So... I take it you approve?

Wow, Chris - those pics are stunning! I can't wait to see your idea for a culvert. And your use of the gravel path in the stream is such a good idea, I think I'll have to borrow it sometime. 

On a side note, I like the second "cow feeder" best - the first one, although realistic, makes me think of pie!

Thanks to everyone for the compliments on my pic. It wouldn't have been possible without all the amazing work Chris is doing. 

Yep, I've got an idea of how I'll tackle the technical aspects of a TPW Culvert, but I haven't gotten a chance to test it yet, nor have I decided on a RL model, but it's definitely something I want to try as I get time.  And feel free to use any ideas you get here!  I've learned a few things looking at some of your pics.

As for the feeders, the second is definitely more familiar I think to most people, but I'll have several versions of both, as well as the type I showed many pages back, available in the end.

This project had better go somwhere in the next few weeks!  Get on with it!

Say, don't you have a MD80 to go model or something .

Once again you almost made me spill my tea. 
You could have given me more warning that you were going to show such pictures

I am amazed that such creations can still be made and the proof is in the pictures 

Simply beautiful- there really is no other way to say it


TTC

Thank you TTC.  And I hope you didn't stain anything, wait what am I talking about?  I'm worried about the clothes when tea has been spilled!  Almost as bad as spilling beer

Chris your work is just amazing i cant believe this is possible in SC.
I'm just loving tweaking my rural areas wit your stuff.

Now i have 2 questions dough.
The sand roads i see here and there on the pics, ho i presume are traffic enabled. where can i find these?
And the cattle, is this going to be included in the next update of your fantastic project?

Greetings
KC

Far as I know, the roads seen there are in the newest SAM, that's where I got them.  Check that you have the newest version of it.

And cattle lots will be included.  My next Beta version(which should be done some time this week) should include several.

and sometimes you just have to quote others....

Indeed.  I was really looking for a good quote to reply to you with, but I didn't find one, lol.

Welcome to page 21!!!

Beautiful work with your wonderful stuff there, Chris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

btw, congrats on 400 replies!!

WooHoo!  400 replies.  To be honest I wasn't even watching, so good catch.  And thanks for the continued support and encouragement bat.

AMAZING!

Please, make a new beta for us! This stuff is so extremly great, I need it for my little town

There is a new one on the way.  Just trying to fit a few more things into it.

Oooh, cruel!

Can't wait to see more! 

MwaaHaahaha!

dang it, I hate it when that happens.  Always have to replace the singed clothes.

2 words- awe some!

Thanks!

Chris wow!!!

Yea, that's what I said when I got the first of these lots made.

The details are as The Schulmanator put it awe-some , the fences , oh how I 've been looking at them them for a while and can't wait ! The landscaping is beautiful...makes me want to try and make a peaceful lil community next! Great job!

Then don't wait! .  As I've commented before, all 'changes' at this point will not affect any of the lots you might place from a current 'beta'(one small exception I'll mention at the end of this post.)  Each new version will be adding new things until I get to what will be in the release.

Indeed awesome, that looks great! 

You left the grid on tho... Hehe...

Thank you Casper.

That's looking excellent there, Chris!! Great new picture...

Thanks again!  You know I'm behind when I have to reply to the same person several times in the same post

Ok now this time you did make me spill my Tea. 

( Slaps side of head - why didn't I think of that? )

Bravo Chris


TTC

Spilled more tea?  I'm going to have to start putting warning labels on all my updates .  Last thing I need is a lawsuit when someone is drinking hot coffee when they take a look...

teasing us chris cant wait to see more of your wonderfull work my friend

Mwaaahaaha ha.

Darn, not again!  There goes another shirt.

And Ennedi, you'll forgive me if I don't quote yours like all the others, but it is right above this post

1.)  yep that's a consideration I took in when making them, and I use them liberally for that purpose.  Where I live, there aren't a whole lot of rocks, so something more suitable was necessary for TPW streams.

2.)  It's likely one might need two different models or approaches in order to make a culvert work properly with TPW and normal ploppable water(which included my marsh/ditch for intents and purposes) due to the 4m height difference, but I'll know that better once I started working on that issue.

3.) didn't change the color.  These rocks use Maxis props, changing the color would require all new props to be made.  What I have done is changed the properties to where they can be placed close together(no more of those spaces-unless you want them) and I removed the (IMO) annoying last model from the plop that was much larger than the others.  It also happens to be the first model used by his medium rocks, so no real loss.

Aside from being able to be placed closer together, when the are placed spread out, I can now place other ploppables into the spaces between, or place them into the spaces between other ploppables(like the gravel paths in this case)

I've of course done the same with the medium rocks.  I'll attach my exemplars to this post for any who would like to use it.  Not anything I'll officially release anywhere, but I think others may find it useful.

4.)  Those roads should be in the most recent SAM, so check that you've got the newest version.  Additional connections are tenatively planned, but there are a lot of other things to do ahead of that.  If another texture artist would like to work with it on me, I could work with that however .

5.)  yes, and it's always worth it when you do

7.)  Does kinda look like marsh from up there I guess, but it's actually a combination of Jeroni's bushes, white flowers, and a few other odds and ends mixed in.  I thought it gave a very distinctive impact.

8.)  The idea actually came from your second to last Shosaloza post , but I'll talk more about them when I get around to elaborating more on that project.   There will be curves for all the maxis pasture textures, but That'll take a bit in between RL and other projects here.  The Diagonals on the other hand are done and will be in the next beta.



there we go, all caught up.

Just to summarize a few things,

1.) There will a new beta sometime over the next week

2.) If anyone with experience with textures would like to volunteer some time, I've got a few jobs for one such person.

3.) My version of the Jeronij Ploppable rocks in attached to the bottom of this post.  Note that all the models it uses are Maxis models, so you only need the new exemplars.  If you already have Jeronij's you'll need to replace the original files in your plugins(cleanitol file included), and if you don't, then you don't need his for these to appear correctly.  All credit for the original idea, as well as icons and modding(other than my changes to a few parameters) goes to Jeronij.(if you don't see it yet, that's because I'm getting it ready and will edit it in shortlyIt's there now )

And one small note.  I've changed the angle of the diagonal SF lots so that they will work at the same slopes as their orthogonal counterparts.  I neglected to realize the difference in distance traveled would impact the angle they needed to be rendered at.  In the simplest terms, the ortho pieces travel 16m/tile.  The diagonal on the other hand travels a little over 22m/tile, the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle formed by the diagonal path across the tile and the two other sides.  At the same time, both it and the ortho's have the same amount vertical distance to travel.  This means that the slope(rise over run) of the diagonals has to be lower than that of the orthogonals.

If you understood most of that-good for you .  For the rest of you who are not mathematically inclined, or who just couldn't follow my my almost indecipherable ramble of an explanation, just know that any diagonal SF's you place now will have a lower slope to the cross beams as of the next beta, so you might have to replace some of them to look just right.  For the most part I don't believe it will be a big problem though, as it's fairly minor.

Cheers,
Chris

[Pat]

hmmm that would explain while its 15 minutes later I still dont see no attachment lol... Chris Im awaiting eagerly for them woohooo!!!! ohh btw yes I so approve lol.......


NB:  Its OK Chris I know it will be good since its something that you are working on, as with all of your RRP items they are grand!!!!!

[Chrisadams3997]

Sorry Pat, still proofreading all my errors adn typos


Figured I'd just add on here a few screen shots.  It's a very early model just to test the principle:



I've removed some flora and revealed the grid in this next one.  Note that it needs a decent slope in order to look right, as well, it's intended to be built 'into' the slope.



Chris

[Alfred.Jones]

OMG!!

That is just showing off!!

This is awesome Chris

[Pat]

Yup Aj said it right now you are just soo showing off Chris but daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn you are doing a fantastic job at that 

[Travis]

 

Hehe, that must be the shortest post I've ever made. But seriously Chris, there's not much more to say.

[klaascornelis]

  Thats it i'm breaking down my urban areas. 

[CasperVg]

Looking really good there, I really like that *can't think of the name*.
Dependending on what the task exactly is, I could perhaps help on the texturing.