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Harbor : Make it easy

Started by wouanagaine, November 06, 2006, 12:02:59 AM

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wouanagaine

So today let see how we can develop a harbor. and how to do it easily with SC4TF
I'm sure all of you you have face the plop problem. Despites you have take care of flattening the coastline with roads and the PEG Leveller, sometimes when you plop a waterfront lot, it terraform the coastline.

So let start by choosing a good spot:


We need to get rid of the trees where we want to make the harbor, just to avoid having flying trees after the SC4TF modifications:



We save and name the city just to get a easy picking time in SC4TF


Now we run SC4TF and open the region.
SC4TF display the lock/unlock cities dialog, here you see that all of cities are locked, because I plant trees everywhere
So just find the city we want to work on, and unlock it.


now we will use the harbor tool at full strength
The harbor tool will flatten the land around the cursor at the exact correct elevation above the sea level


Draw your coastline the way you want.


Then save ( CTRL-S ).
SC4TF will prompt you for override the city file as it already contains trees
Just hit 'no', meaning that the terraforming you have done will be taken into account, but other things ( trees ) are left in the savegame file


Then rerun SC4, you see that only the modified city was saved


Take a look at what we have done so far
How much it would have take you to do the same in SC4 only ?


Now just take your favorite waterfront lots, and just plop them






I hope you have enjoy this little tutorial and that you will use it in the future, it is really a time saver

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Alfred.Jones

Excellent tutorial Wouanagaine ;)

I will definately refer to this next time i'm building a port

AJ :thumbsup:

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TheTeaCat

Never thought to use your teraformer like that but what an easy way to create perfect harbours. Thank you. &apls
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emilin

That settles it: I'm getting the terraformer. It takes forever to get a decent harbor when doing it by hand ingame.

Thanks for a great tutorial!  :thumbsup:

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bat

Great turorial and great idea!!

sebes

This looks like it will end my endless attempts to level my quays and endless frustration when the plopped harbour will relevel the tiles, and sometimes even sink them underwater... Thanks, will give this a try!
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thundercrack83

This is a great tutorial and a very easy way to make harbors!

One question: Will the lot opened in the terraformer stay the different color green than the rest of the region when loaded back into the game?

BigSlark

I used this last night to terraform a harbor and it turned it better than I could have ever imagine!

Thanks for the great tool and tutorials that go with it wouanagaine!

wouanagaine

Thx everyone

thundercrack83, sorry for the late reply, I did not notice your post :(
The region view will be updated as soon as you will save the city in game

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Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

thundercrack83

Wouanagaine: Thanks! I got it straightened out now!

rooker1

This is great.  I spend hours terraforming instead of playing.  I got to try this tonight.
Great job on the tutorial! &apls
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JFman00

Does anyone know how to make the sealevel the right depth so that the seawalls show properly?

Swamper77

Sea Level is a constant in the game and is usually at 250 meters as defined by the terrain parameters. To make the seawalls show properly, you will have change the terrain (raise or lower) along the coastline.

What type of seawalls are you using? Some are designed to sit on land and use overhanging props to cover the slopes that are in the water. Others are meant to be plopped half on land, half in water. It will be easier to give better advice if we know what you are using for seawalls.

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Gaston

Quote from: Swamper77 on July 11, 2007, 02:15:05 PM
Sea Level is a constant in the game and is usually at 250 meters as defined by the terrain parameters. To make the seawalls show properly, you will have change the terrain (raise or lower) along the coastline.

What type of seawalls are you using? Some are designed to sit on land and use overhanging props to cover the slopes that are in the water. Others are meant to be plopped half on land, half in water. It will be easier to give better advice if we know what you are using for seawalls.

-Swamper77

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EDGE4194

wouanagaine thank you so much for this excellent tutorial  &apls  It never even crossed my mind to use SC4TF!

JFman00

I've been trying to get PEG CDK lots to show up nicely, but I cant level the seafloor to the proper height, without ruining my straight coastline.

soulstealer

#16
Great tutorial!

Please allow me to add my way of terraforming a Harbour. @JFman It will also solve your problem.

You can call it Harbour: Make it even easier! ;)

It's just a mini tutorial so no point of making ANOTHER harbour tutorial.

First things first! always plan ahead! Think, what kind of port do I want to build? how big should it be? what functions will it serve? how complex is it going to be? Take into account the infrastructure of the port. once you have the general idea you will know how to prepare the land accordingly and save time later on.

My method only works on a fresh city when the land is still empty. In any case it's always good to build the port before you build the town around it. I like to think of it, as in real life, as the life line of the community that is built next to it.

So create your city, in mayor mode, so the maxis seaport and road tool are available to you.

Step 1: Find a suitable location

This looks like a nice place to start. My port will plop easily here.

Step 2: Plop the default Maxis seaport

This will lower the terrain to the desired seaport level.

Step 3: Raise the entire terrain

Hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift and click on the god mode menu icon. Click on the "raise terrain" tool. The port is destroyed leaving a foot print.

Step 4: Flaten the land

Using the flatten tool and the seaport's footprint as the desired level, make a large flat area. Easier to start with size 1 brush and work your way up. Roughly sketch the the shape of your port.

Step 5: Crafting the land

Start with lowering a part of the terrain, not too much about 15 meters will do. This lowered part will be the harbour's floor. It's good to have flat floor since some port lots out there don't align well when there are depth differences.
So, switch to the road tool (press R) and start drawing and flatenning both the port and it's floor by placing road tiles next too each other.

Step 6: Check you progress

Lower the terrain back and see how you are doing.


It's starting to take shape :)


go back and forth raising/lowering and adding the fine details.


Now that's starting to look real.

when you are done the land is ready for the harbour lots. Remember making any changes from now on will be a little more difficult, but if you planed well and if the port floor is completely even flat then any changes will be much easier.

Hope this helps :)

SC4BOY

On your last approach, that is one of the "old standby's" for making ports.. but be ALERT: If you try this in an already made city you will destroy everything in the city when you raise/lower in GOD MODE. The SC4T method will work in an existing city as long as you take the first steps Wou pointed out by bulldozing the area where you are going to put the harbor of anything before you go into SC4T.

wouanagaine

I think there is a cheat code ( maybe only in Buggy's dll ) that allow changing waterlevel, which can help

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M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

catty


Its been quite some time since anyone posted in this topic, but I hate starting new topics when there is an existing old topic, this is something I have been using for years and didn't realize till I posted it somewhere else that it may not be something people are aware of  ...

this is my region



as you can see in the cities at the bottom left-hand side I have been adding a straight entrance into the harbour, to do so I use the SAM1 - Parking Lot Textures from the NAM



you can also create corners as well



its also handy if you want to plop a ferry boat and it won't cos the terrain is too steep, a few SAM1's in the right place and its

:thumbsup:
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