17 Regions of Wonder, Terror and Craziness

[smileymk]

Part 16 - Skaledale

Hello for the 16th time... starting to get into the old ages, this is.
Keep tuning in. Something special is coming on Update 20, I assure you.
EDIT: Page 3! Thanks for your support, and keep it up!

Replies

@ emgmod: It's not always messy - it only gets that way when you make it really complicated (as with Milton Keynes). And your curiosity astounds me... so much so that I've made a special tutorial on multiple SAMs just for you. Ain't I nice?

So, by special request from emgmod, here is your Multiple SAM Tutorial!

Multiple SAM Tutorial

This tutorial will teach you how to use multiple SAM textures together, without ending up with a very horrible mess.
This tutorial assumes that you want to have a main road with one texture and a side road with another, but the same techniques can be applied to anywhere they're needed.

So, first we need a main road. I'm using the asphalt streets for this purpose - but you don't have to, use what you need, it still works.
To create this main road, first drag it out, then plop the SAM starter piece to obtain your texture:


Now delete that ugly starter piece and drag downwards to complete the main road, and at the same time drag a side road out:


Now, on the side road, plop the starter piece for your second texture on the first full tile of the side road. I've used the brick streets but again, you can use any texture you want. Once that's done, delete the starter piece and connect the side street to the main street. You should get this:


You've just got a multiple SAM going. Very well done.
Now, for crossroads, drag the side road through onto the other side of the main road.
The new road will have the main road texture, so you'll need to plop the starter piece onto this new road, delete it and connect it, just like you did in the last step. If all goes well you'll get this:


What a result.
This works best for simple junctions with long stretches of straight roads radiating from it. Start to up the complexity, and it'll get messy - and you may have to accept a compromise for the textures.

That completes this tutorial. Let's show Skaledale, shall we?

Skaledale - Part 2

The next stage in the development of Skaledale was very much concerned with improving the infrastructure for proper expansion. New industrial developments had gone up in mainland Trevellyn Bridge (well, part of it):


Transport had to be built to service the expansion. We'll start with an airfield strategically built on the middle of the island. The positioning might be good, but I'm showing you this because of the interesting approach for planes - coming from the west you go through (yes, through) the Trevellyn Arch, and coming from the east there's a nice hill for you to dodge. See for yourself:


A nice coastal road was also planned, and it was nice, until tunnels ruined it!


But bigger things were required to get to that industry in the south.
Ever wondered why the town's called Trevellyn Bridge? It's because of this old bridge built by medieval settlers to get to the island, such was the nicety there. (Alright, it's the name of a model railway layout - you have to admit it was a good story!) Here's the bridge:


Town planners decided a new, more impressive bridge was needed to attract fame and tourism. And with the need to extend the H1 southwards, they had the perfect excuse.
But unfortunately, that meant knocking down some homes and shops to make way for the extension. With me in charge, there's no public consultation - we just plow the highway right through the middle of the development, and if you object, we plow the buildings in the way with you in it. That way the building's not in the way - and neither are you:


At least it was kept fairly minimal. With homes out of the way, the big project could be built, allowing the H1 to get out of Trevellyn Bridge to the south. The water in the way was leaped over with the spectacular New Trevellyn Bridge:


Not only was this built, but a garbage port was also added to deal with all of that waste that the expansion was producing:


Very chic. You may be wondering if all these routes south actually go anywhere. The answer is yes. Please give a warm welcome to the latest city to debut in this MD, Fellton Park:


Here's the place at night:


Fellton Park is, at the moment, a glorified business park. It's just commercial and industrial. The one thing I want to show you is what happens when expansion gets a little too carried away:


Why the hell would someone build a factory on top of a road? Especially a road that leads directly to the H1 north to Trevellyn Bridge and the world beyond it! My god...

That's enough excitement for this week.
Next week we go to the capital city of all of this mess, fittingly named The Megacity.

See you there.
smileymk

[emgmod]

Overhanging growable lots... always a problem.

Have you considered making a new city with a slope mod installed? I would say it would greatly improve the MD

[dedgren]

Wonder, terror and craziness- I thought I was logging on to 3RR...

...I stuck around to take a look at the interesting content.  You are obviously working real hard at this, my friend.  Let me take a longer took and I'll come back by and give you my two cents worth (for whatever that's worth).  I do agree, for starters, about the need for a slope mod.  On the other hand, I can also see a lot of enthusiasm here for MDing- that will take you a very long way.

Good luck!


David

[Connor]

^^^I agree with the others about a slope mod.

Nice tutorial by the way, I've always had problems with the 'multiple SAM' situation when that arises.

[smileymk]

Part 17 - The Megacity

Now I must warn you, this update is, at 16 images, the longest so far. They're good pictures, though, and there won't be too much reading (hopefully). You've been warned.

Replies

@ emgmod: I guess I'll just have to put up with that dratted factory. And as for the slope mod, I don't personally like them, as I find them too restrictive - especially as I like to play with hilly cities. That said, it wouldn't be right to ignore people's comments, so I've installed a slope mod for The Megacity.

@ dedgren: It's an honour to receive interest from the pioneer of 3RR. Seriously. Your "two cents worth" (as you put it) would be worth everything to me. It's gonna be one hell of a wild ride here, so bring it on!

@ Connor: Ok, I get the point about the slope mod. And glad you like the tutorial!

Let's move out.

The Megacity - Part 1

The Megacity is, as the name suggests, is the big one. The capital. The centre of all my regions and work. It's the biggest and the best.
Currently, 3 cities are developed. The first is Menlo, an industrial haven on the north-eastern edge of the city:




Being an industrial paradise, the district is well served by the intricate transport network The Megacity possesses. Menlo is the terminus of a railway branch line, with my very own passenger station and a STEX freight terminal to boot:


As well as this, one of the city's express bus lines terminates in Menlo, with the RHW-2 route terminating on a roundabout, with my very own bus stop with it:


The very observant of you will have seen how the rail station is yellow, whilst the bus station is blue. That's because I made my Megacity stations have different colours for different networks. Pretty neat eh?
Regrettably, there's nothing much more to talk about with Menlo, so we'll move west to the residential city, Yatton:




But Yatton isn't just residential. A central commercial district also exists:


Yatton can also claim to be the source of the city's water:


To the southwest of that lies the M2, The Megacity's answer to the M25 around London. It's important to say that the basic infrastructure of The Megacity is based loosely on that of London's.
As well as an outer ring road, there's one other thing that The Megacity shares with London: congestion.


In Yatton at least, that might be because there's no access to the M2. Maybe I should build a junction with the central avenue...but look what would have to go to make way for it!
But at least Yatton manages to see the M2 go over the Yatton branch railway:


Notice how it's the motorway that changes grade, and not the railway. Remember that the railways came first and were quite deliberately built paper flat.
The Yatton branch is sunken and is single track. I thought I'd show you a bit of it to show just how beautiful it can be with Buddybud's sunken highway walls:


We've talked about Yatton enough now, so we'll move west once more to visit the last developed district, Cosheete. It certainly looks the best from zoom 1:




Cosheete gets to be the home of two big junctions. The first is a rail junction, where the main line to the north meets the Yatton branch line, which terminates there, as well as part of the city's monorail system (with my pink station):


The second is on the roads and consists of a 3-level stacked roundabout between the M2 and the A3 (M2 exit 11, A3 exit 3), a major arterial route from the centre of the city to Lego City. For functionality, a few local roads also butted in:


This interchange really shows what can be done with walls and my free grass park mod. It's beautiful! Notice as well how priority has been given to left turns between the two main through routes - this will serve to give more efficient movements through the junction.

Finally for this week, we already saw the 6-track main line through Cosheete. As it is a main line, I thought it was a good idea to electrify it. This was done with SFBT's rail catenaries, which I think look a lot better than those from the Rail Catenary Mod. SFBT's set might allow for catenaries for varying track widths, but it doesn't have a transit-enabled version for 3 lines. This caused a problem for me here, which was inventively solved by using the catenaries for 5 tracks and using the sunken walls to support them. I think it worked well, but let's see what you think:


Well, that's it for this week.

Next week we go back to Fairview, one of my more interesting regions.

See you there!
smileymk

[TheBluejay]

Love the transit networks, it's obvious you take real care when you make them. Usually, I just shove mine down and let my sims work around them (They're an inventive bunch, I'm sure it must help their problem solving abilities.) but perhaps I should spend some more time on them, seeing how good they can look!

[smileymk]

Part 18 - Fairview

(Finally loaded!)
Good news!
I'm proud to announce that my Free Grass Park mod that I've been going on about a bit is now available on the STEX for you to download and enjoy, absolutely free, and you can get it right here:
http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=23661.
This mod is more versatile and useful than you might realise, and I'd strongly recommend downloading it. (Then again, I would, given that it's my upload...)

Replies

@ TheBlueJay: You'll be surprised at what you can do. I hope I've inspired you. Transport is my big interest and I like to think that that comes through in my city-building and this MD.

Fairview - Part 2

Right, let's go.
You'll remember from the last time we visited Fairview that it was built randomly, with 7 city tiles developed out of 49. None of these are finished and development continues. This week's development has produced stories in 6 cities.
The first is in Simpson Rocks, the first city. It decided to get rid of its helipad to reduce costs, but the council there was under severe pressure to connect the rail stubs from Copmouth and Future Ridge from the massive industry present in the town. This produced this lavish and badly planned station:


The rail link had to be built along the edge of a cliff on very steep terrain. It's not too bad for the most part - until that is that the link crosses the R1 road with this over-cambered overpass:


In Future Ridge, Exit 1 1/2 on the H1 motorway was modified to sort out the shambolic situation in which the exit slip road had an at-grade junction with a local access road to a factory in the middle. This road was cut short, ending at the road, and the flyover was converted to road, providing a useful bypass:


New residents took full advantage by building new homes on the H1 corridor between exit 1 1/2 and exit 2:


In News Summit, the residents were complaining that the town only took up a small part of the hilly part of Fairview and thus wasn't enough of a 'summit' for their liking. Rather than just taking it like men or renaming the town, the local council decided to take nature into their own hands:


Nothing happened in Golden Village, but Copmouth saw a lot this week, including an earthquake that actually helped them by cutting their costs. That and this new estate along the eastern edge of the city:


They also decided to link the rail in the west with the subway in the east, allowing trains to be run through from Future Ridge all the way to Weaklink:


Speaking of Weaklink, most of the action there was rationalising the town and reducing costs. This meant the demolition of the town's recycling centre - and in a true display of anti-environmentalism this caused the zones to start developing!


Nothing happened in Bitchington either. So that's 5 cities. Where's the 6th developed tile? It's the newest city in Fairview, the 8th tile to be developed. Keeping to the theme here of naming cities after TV shows, I named this one 'Deal', after Deal or No Deal (yeah, wow...), nad it lies south of Future Ridge. Here it is:


And here it is at night:


A fitting way to end the update.

Next week it's the as-yet-unseen 1st Small Challenge Region.

Enjoy.

smileymk

[io_bg]

Ouch, if I were a train driver, I wouldn't want to drive on that overpass

[emgmod]

What would that last interchange be? A roundabout?

[smileymk]

Part 19 - Challenge Small 1

Hi guys, here we go again...

Replies

@ io_bg: I wouldn't recommend signing up for the job!

@ emgmod: It's a variation of the 3-level stacked roundabout. With this variation, the interchange is actually 2 levels and is made compact. It's good for urban areas, as it can be packed into tight spots, and it's not too expensive either.

Challenge Small 1 - Part 1

This is similar to my medium challenge regions, but this time, the map is only 8x8km (5x5 miles) and the target population is only 6 million (I use 'only' liberally!)
This particular region uses medium tiles for the most part. Two of these have been developed so far, and one of them is the central tile, Middletown (because it's in the middle... such is my lack of ability when it comes to naming stuff):




At first, Middletown was small and didn't have the size it warranted. Until this urban park was constructed, that is, which resulted in the affluence level of the surrounding areas going through the roof:


Part of this might be because of the more scenic part of the city's rail system which was inadvertently created in the process. Who could resist seeing this outside of the carriage window?


Just to prove that these civic tools really have an impact on the city's growth, take a look at this commercial district, which has plenty of services and as a result forms the posh part of town:


Now compare that to another commercial district, which has less of these services and is decidedly less attractive as a result:


I also thought that I'd show you Middletown's airport, which is critical to its success. Notice the industrial zones on either side of the airport - this ensures that there are no tall buildings in the flightpath and that there is space for the planes to come in:


With Middletown complete, it was time to move north. The second town is known as Town o' the North. In part, this is down to the same shoddy imagination that produced Middletown. But this is mostly because it is a rip-off of the English village called 'Cock o' the North', which sits in the north of England, somewhere near Manchester I believe.
The town is still work in progress, but here's what's in existence so far:




Regrettably there isn't much to say about this town, at least not much worth showing. But it wouldn't be right to ignore it. The main point of interest would be this hi-rise area:


And we'll call that an update.

Next week we return to The Megacity. There's a lot to do over in my flagship city.

Tune in for some more wonder, terror and craziness!
smileymk

[Battlecat]

Another nice batch of updates here.  That trick with the SAM streets is particularly interesting, thanks for sharing!

[smileymk]

Part 20 - The Megacity

It's getting a little chunky now, this thing... I'll see if I can make the intro into a proper contents post, so you can access your favourite bits from the first page.

Replies

@ Battlecat: Thanks, and it's good to hear you like that tutorial. Seems like it was a good idea.

The Megacity - Part 2

With the rapid completion of districts, and the need to satisfy changing demand, 3 new districts quickly sprang up in The Megacity in the course of a week.
The first is Zetland - a mostly agricultural area with some factories thrown in for good measure:




Somehow, this agricultural paradise isn't particularly exciting for the most part. The only bit worthy of recognition is this bit with nice trees and transport routes:


At this point, industrial demand was massively in the red, so, by simple logic, you'd think that there is no way that hi-tech industry could grow in Zetland. And yet, that area's nearly full. How? Let's see:


Yeah, that's right - free grass parks in all of the gaps. They simply couldn't resist.

With the negative industrial demand, residential demand went through the roof, allowing the residential district of Cosheete to become considerably taller:


The need to expand drove the development of the new district of Yeats - but this meant filling a gap known to most as Belfast first:




As you can see, most of Belfast is empty (you wait until Yeats develops), but there are areas where the commercial simply had to grow. One of those was around this parkland, using the same principle as that for the industrial in Zetland:


Another was around the M2 orbital, which is surprising as there is no access to the M2 in Belfast:


And in the vicinity of this branch line terminus:


That's it for Belfast. Now, I mentioned Yeats, to the west of Belfast. This hasn't been developed into the residential/commercial area which is planned for it yet, but the transit networks have been completed, and are noteworthy enough.
Possibly the most important feature is Exit 10 of the M2, the 3rd junction of the Outer Ring Road to be built:


The road this interchanges with is the B1, which will eventually run to the city centre and become the M1 to the Challenge Regions. As the B1, it is an at-grade avenue - but that doesn't mean I just plop it down and hope it works. Where the B1 crosses main roads, these filter lanes have been added to increase capacity and make for a more efficient junction:


Walls are used on all of my sunken networks in The Megacity to improve their appearance and for added realism. But when the motorway crosses the railway, it gets a little awkward. Buddybud's walls (the ones I use) don't work here:


For this situation I use jeronij's residential walls - they have exactly the same texture so they look perfect with Buddybud's walls, and can also be used in odd places.

All together, this is Yeats:


And that's that for this week.

Next week I'll show you the 2nd Large Challenge Region for the 2nd time.

Bring it on!
smileymk

[smileymk]

Part 21 - Challenge Large 2

Did that last instalment of The Megacity not interest you? I'm sorry...

At least now I don't have to faff around... so let's get on with it.

Challenge Large 2 - Part 2

Last time we were here, there were 2 tiles developed, School and Friends, and the goal was to use every tile in the 20x20mi region for a constructive purpose, and to get 500M Sims overall.
Now, there are 4 tiles developed, and a current population of 129,000 (just over 0.25% of the target). It's getting there, albeit slowly.
Tile number 3 is commercial, and is called Enemies - it had to be done, considering I named a tile Friends - oh well, this is it:


And at night:


You might be able to see the unusual layout to the city - it is based around a one-way ring, which is supposed to act as a collector/distributor to other roads - but its success is somewhat debatable. It is however quite interesting, especially here:


One of the main features of my city building tactics in all of my regions is that I like to keep all of the services for a district together in one place. This makes them easier to manage and also increases their effect. Nowhere is this epitomised more than in Enemies, which has the police station (that silver building), the fire station (the Lego one) and the airport together like this:


This tile created plenty of residential demand, which allowed Friends to become less of a suburb and more of the concrete jungle I had originally envisaged:


It also allowed the creation of the 4th city tile, another residential district known as Life. Named because you live there. More shoddy imagination from this MD!




I think Life is what my grandfather would refer to euphemistically as an utter dump. This is the main reason why:


The only thing good about it is this compacted parclo on the motorway - but this just leaves space for more deprived housing estates...


That could have been made even smaller if I hadn't let my lust for roundabouts get the better of me... somehow I don't feel that this town is worthy of an interchange any better.

We will leave it for this week on that.

Next up it's the third instalment of Skaledale, which you seem to like.

Have a nice week. (I now get to enjoy my 3-day May Day weekend! Woo-hoo!)
smileymk

[emgmod]

One way ring road? You built a city in a roundabout! At east it explains the staggered interchange.

[smileymk]

Part 22 - Skaledale

It's a short one this time, but at least then you get to spend more time enjoying your weekend...

Replies

@ emgmod: Sort of. There is some development outside of the roundabout, though. It was one of my more weird ideas!

Now let's crack on.

Skaledale - Part 3

It's fair to say that most of the action this week has taken place in Fellton Park. Tired of their 'glorified business park' image, they decided it was time to add some housing estates:


They also extended the R1 to create this nice little bridge-tunnel that flies over the lake before disappearing under the H1 highway:


Expansion went west as well as east - we don't let mini-mountains stand in our way here:


Of course, industry wasn't ignored, and the construction of this freightyard improved the job count and economy greatly:


Exit 3 of the H1, with the brand-new A2 avenue, was built to serve this freightyard. The fact that there was a huge mountain to the south, plus the A2's parallel running to the H1, meant that the final junction ended up as a cross between a directional T and a diamond:


Trevellyn Bridge wasn't ignored, though. It got to be the home for this semi-failed culvert - blasted hills!


It also became the starting point for the region's light rail network:


And expansion along the north coast of the island gave rise to this shoddy excuse for an avenue - starts off well, before crashing into a street!


At least you get to see the coast. A scenic way to finish off for this week.

In 7 days we will be visiting the 13th region to be showcased here: the 2nd Medium Challenge Region.

I'll be there.
smileymk

[Panda_Power]

What amazing work and thank you for sharing! You have inspired me to get more creative with my cities/regions!

[rooker1]

 Wow....definately some crazy stuff in here.
Thank you for that little SAM tutorial at the top of this page.  I don't use SAM very often, but in the last few weeks I have and I was wondering how that was done....so thanks again.

Robin 

[smileymk]

Part 23 - Challenge Medium 2

Here we go again for Number 23! (OK, worst intro ever...)

Replies

@ Panda_Power: Glad you're enjoying the ride. It's not finished yet, though. In fact we've only just started. Having inspired someone does make this more worthwhile, so thanks.

@ rooker1: This MD certainly lives up to its name! And I do thank you for the support for that SAM tutorial.

Now off we go into the world of SimCity...

Challenge Medium 2 - Part 1

This is the last of the medium challenge regions to be shown on here - same 10mi x 10mi size, same 30M Sim target population, but a different city arrangement.
Admittedly this didn't get as far as I wanted it to, for reasons that will be explained in due course, but one tile was completed. That was Palm Heights, a variation on Palm Harbour from NFS Undercover (I know, what a sad life...):




These Challenge Regions have allowed me to make many comparisons within cities. Palm Heights is no exception. The thing that I pick up on this week is pollution. Here's the very first district to be developed, and my god, you wouldn't want to breathe here:


Look at how that's kept hi-rises in the surrounding area to a minimum:


I bet you're thinking "Coincidence." Oh yeah? Well check out this cleaner part of town:


Now look at what's around it:


See? That's much more of a sight. And all through cutting down pollution. It does make a real difference.
Unusually for the Challenge Regions, my regional water supply is contained in a grass area to reduce the water pollution coming from the 2 neighbouring industrial districts to the commercial area that this is in. The tactic failed, but the area is nice:


Now we move north into a city named after another town off NFS Undercover, Sunset Flats:




This is a city which I would have done a lot more with, had there not been the release of the latest versions of a certain Network Addon Mod and a certain Real Highway Mod to get in the way. As a result, the city is quite boring. This commercial district epitomises the city:


And that is that for this week.

Following the release of the May 2010 NAM, as well as RHW 4.0 and the new NWM, I've decided that next week's update will be a NAM Special, in which I will show you what can be done with the newest versions of these great mods.

Until then,
smileymk

[emgmod]

NAM Special? Can't wait to see what the new NAM and your creativity makes. Also, thanks for uploading the free grass park on the STEX.

[smileymk]

Part 24 - NAM Special

It's finally here! In a moment you will get to see some of the amazing creations that are possible with the new NAM, RHW and NWM. But first...

Replies

@ emgmod: You won't have to wait much longer... and have fun with those grass parks!

Right, that's out of the way, so let's go!

NAM Special

Now that the new NAM, RHW and NWM are out, I thought I'd show you what can be done with the latest editions of these great mods.
We'll start with RHW, and these vital MIS - RHW-2 lateral ramps, as well as the wide RHW-2 curves, which together are invaluable for making parclos like this:


Next on the list of fundamentals is the ability to drag curves with the RHW-6C, making it a much more useful type of RHW and enabling the construction of motorways on the cheap:


Now we move on to the more fancy stuff - for instance, the FARHW, vital for making long, realistic curves or kinks, as well as properly angled slip roads, as can be seen here:


As good as this looks, however, the space it takes up (1/4 mile at least!) is ridiculous. I'd therefore recommend not using it for stuff like this (unless you elevate the RHW instead and don't use roundabouts...)

Qualifying for the gimmick category is the asymmetrical RHW-8C/6C. Yes, this occurs in real life sometimes, but it can't go diagonal, so the only real use for it is making high-capacity motorways on the cheap:


But by far and away the most vital and impressive addition is the FlexFly. It's quite simply astonishing, and is perfect for forks like this:


The observant will also have spotted two more new features in that picture - cosmetic exit lane markings and wide MIS curves.

I'm now going to show two much-talked-about pieces, the SPUI and the Diverging Diamond. I'm going to tell you now that I think both of these are, shall we say, overrated. Let me show you why, starting with the SPUI:


It's HUGE! That's the kind of space you'd use for junctions between motorways! Completely inappropriate for an interchange with a surface street. You Americans must really hate roundabouts...
Now let me show you how it should be done - a rounadbout interchange:


Look at that. Compact, easy to use, far more appropriate than that monster. The TuLEP pieces work perfectly with it as well!
It's just a shame that the NAM Team hasn't yet quite grasped the concept that you might want to use the centre lane to go straight on...
Continuing with my rant, let me rip into the Diverging Diamond. This is what you call a good idea in theory:


And indeed it is a good concept, but in practice, the fact that you have to go onto the wrong side of the road is likely to confuse the living hell out of people (well, at least me). Although it does look good (especially like that), this is another excuse to avoid that dreaded roundabout - you wouldn't get away with this in England... and let's not go to that SPUI...

We'll leave RHW alone (for now), so we can concentrate on what's available with the regular NAM. We'll start with a couple of useful puzzle pieces for mass transit - the GLR terminal loop and the wide elevated rail curve:


I don't think I need to tell you how useful these things potentially are. Neither do I need to tell you the usefulness of the greatly expanded FLUP range - this even includes pieces for the RHW!


But the best addition to the FLUPS is this street-FLUP transition designed for placement on a 10m slope (that's the Deeper Rail Digger on smoncrie's set):


I wonder if they'll do this for other networks in the future... they should!

Last up for the regular NAM is this vital puzzle piece. I'll let you work this one out for yourselves...


OK, for our penultimate picture, let's see the NWM, a vital tool allowing variable-width surface roads to be created. I decided to show all of the networks in a nice, city-like arrangement:


Finally, with all of this stuff at my disposal, I just had to make a big RHW interchange showing as much of the new stuff as possible. See if you can spot all of the new features (there are 13 in total):


And that brings this NAM Special to a close. (Mainly so that big junction's fresh on your mind so you can argue about what it contains.)

Next week we'll pay our 3rd visit to the 2nd Large Challenge Region. Yay.

I shall see you there...
smileymk