Xannepans creations

[DebussyMan]

Beautiful models!

How about some variation on the plaster color, perhaps some with more brownish or other with more yellowish color. Maybe some even blue or light red. Like in this picture:

[Paul 999]

The perfect depth is about 45 meters. 
If you use the "zero sealevel dat" to temporarily get rid of all water you than can decorate the river bed and make the wall exactly how you wait it using the hole digging lots.  If you are unhappy with the land height and want to lower it than you lower the river bed by the same amount to be sure you keep that 45 meter difference between the two.  Once you have the hang of it, it is an awesome set.

Robin

Thanks, i be a lots closer now, I have make the hight of the wall 15m and the total depth 45m (30m below the see). But is still see the ground behind the walls, see picture.



Your walls look so good, but it is really complexed to use for me now

I would prefer a wall pack whit a overhanging of 1 title, so even if you make a wall of 8m you can not see the ground behind the walls. Whit a overhanging wall you can also make a wall close on the ground (combination whit the different channelpacks), and not only on the sea how it works at this moment. Perhaps you can once expand the package whit this overhanging walls.

[Paul 999]

I have try something today, here is the result.



Thanks for this great set! 

[xannepan]

Looks great Paul!

[whatevermind]

I like your idea to expand on the Paris building set a bit, and I have a few thoughts on some ways you could stretch that out, especially to get some of the lower and higher growth stages.  The idea of using stages to represent different time periods is I think a useful way of approaching things - and it helps add more variety in what you can include.

First, the lower ones, which are perhaps easier to solve.  The idea of going with earlier in history and/or more rural works well here, and I think the timber frames you posted earlier make good stage 2/3 type buildings.  Smaller Haussmann buildings then can pick up in Stage 4 and beyond.  As for Stage 1/2 though, I suggest going even smaller and sparser and older.  Think medieval village, buildings of stone or wood, roofed in wood or thatch - maybe even including tile or slate for higher wealth buildings.  Mostly 1 floor, with rare excursions to a second floor, at higher wealth commercial for example.  Lots would be rural/farming/cottage industry for all zones.  Buildings would take up 1/4 to 1/6 of a lot, and buildings would generally be smaller in plan dimension, and thus more of the long and skinny variety.  Early roof technology after all would have trouble spanning longer distances, and that sort of extravagance would be reserved for the wealthy or civic/religious buildings.  Larger buildings get larger in plan, start including courtyards (think monastery style), but generally don't grow vertically.  These could still be more or less W2W buildings, they would just have ample back yards.  Sorry I don't have pictures, but if you've been to rural parts of Europe or the eastern US, you've probably seen what I'm talking about.

Stages 2-4 are then occupied by larger medieval style buildings - such as the timber frames you showed earlier, and larger buildings of the same aesthetic I described above - just now with 2-4 floors, more stone, more decorative trim, etc.  Lots would be more urban, but still containing a rural/cottage industry element in some cases.  Lower wealth buildings may still be visually farm or working lots, higher wealth may have decorative gardens or paved courtyards.  These would generally all be W2W buildings, but like above, not taking up the entire lot, maybe only 1/2 to 2/3.

Stages 4-6 are pretty well covered by the current W2W sets, but of course more buildings can always be added to the same general size/massing concepts, with the same sort of lots.

Stages 7+ get a bit trickier, and this could go two ways, by growing in size or moving forward in time, or probably a mix of both.  You can push the current W2W buildings taller, into the 6-8 floor range and still be realistic enough.  By the 8-10 floor range it starts looking more like DC or Chicago, and beyond that, you start looking like New York.  However, you can also increase the size of the buildings in area - using more 5x or 6x lots, and filling them up - waffle iron layouts of 6-8 floor buildings.  The trick here is of course to retain European looks and heights, and not become early 1900s Chicago or New York or Philly.

I could also see many of the landmark/civic buildings doubling as higher stage growables.  Many of them would even fall into CAMeLot range, certainly the Louvre is a stage 15 if ever one existed.  While you wouldn't want these growing in as much quantity as the typical W2W Paris sets, you could create fictional buildings of similar size that would help provide more buildings in these stages without the high recognition of using Parisian landmarks.  Or pick lesser known but still large buildings, such as the Conciergerie.

Moving forward in time presents tons of higher stage buildings, but you hit the problem of one modern tower looking much the same regardless of where it's built, and again you might have to resort to landmarks to get distinctly Parisian modern buildings.  Still, you have La Defense, Bir Hakiem, and all sorts of individual buildings to pick from (such as the Finance? Ministry, Arab World Institute, National Library, etc.).  You can also use buildings that maintain a lower height and more W2W layout, but retain European aesthetics.  I seem to recall the center of St. Denis having a complex something like this, and I'm sure that's not the only town.  Rem Koolhaas and Le Corbusier come to mind as architects to mimic for this sort of modernist European style (yes I know they do/did work elsewhere).

Just some (lengthy) thoughts on the subject.  Apologies if I completely putzed some of the names/locations, it's late here and I'm running off some foggy memories.

[xannepan]

sorry for the short message...not much time. just some pictures.

[MandelSoft]

That's some great progress! Glad you've decided to give the buildings some color. I'll take proverbical hat off for you..

[vortext]

pics are just fine  Great work in progress 

[DebussyMan]

Pardieu! I'm eager to see a huge metropolis made up with these 

[xannepan]

Thx guys!

I,m a bitpuzzled by the base textures i,m using for the farm(first picture) somehow the base textures i actually chose in the lot editor don,t show up in the game... Any suggestions?

Another thing: i,m thinking of making SAM textures that will fit the medieval theme... I,m not really that happy wth the cobblestone textures i created for the current SAM ages ago. Maarten, perhaps you can give me a suggestion here... Is it wise to make a replacement pack, or just an entirele new SAM addon?

A few final things. I,m currently still experimenting with stages. I just use stage one for testing the buildings i,ve got sofar. I haven,t made up my mind yet on how to deal with stages 1-3. Also wealth levels are still something i need to figure out how to handle. Perhaps higher wealth levels will get some flower baskets and decorations etc. And then finally i need to think on how i can differentiate between residentials and commercial buildings.

Anyway.. Any suggestions are very welcome again! I,m reading all of them and already have taken into account a few of them! Thanks!

[Schulmanator]

I am excited to see this !I may go back and redo some of my older cities once you release these. Have you thought about medieval civic buildings as well, so we can have a uniform city? To add functionality, a thematic ferry port and subway station (disguised as something else but still functional) would be welcome as well.

[MandelSoft]

Another thing: i,m thinking of making SAM textures that will fit the medieval theme... I,m not really that happy wth the cobblestone textures i created for the current SAM ages ago. Maarten, perhaps you can give me a suggestion here... Is it wise to make a replacement pack, or just an entirele new SAM addon?

I'd suggest to make a replacement set first to start off. SAM 8 or SAM 9 are good sets to override, since they are quite complete. If it's a good set, we might want to add it to the SAM v4.0 as a new set later.

Best,
Maarten

[vortext]

About the farms, which are great btw, the lot does seem to have base textures, only not the one you wanted, right? If so, my guess is there's a texture with the same ID somewhere in the plugins folder.

The difference between commercial and residential building would be rather small. Industrial buildings would probably stand out more, say a black smith with some stables, a timber shop or a shipyard.

And as it happens I'm also working on a new cobble stone set to go with the dirt streets I created earlier, which would look pretty neat with your farms I imagine. 

[Lowkee33]

Also wealth levels are still something i need to figure out how to handle. Perhaps higher wealth levels will get some flower baskets and decorations etc. And then finally i need to think on how i can differentiate between residentials and commercial buildings.

Seems like this is what props are for.  Low wealth have laundry, mid wealth flowers, high wealth statues.  Commercial buildings have signs/flags.  Getting props to fit snug to your models will take some LOD work, but the plus side is that you can make the props HD.  This is what I did for some small commercials I wanted to at least have the same materials/architecture as the houses I was making.  Another plus is that the signs are in a family, so not only can the "fine soda" sign appear on any building color, but it would also be easy to add another sign to the family (only problem is, I can't think of any other types of stores ).

[xannepan]

Wealthprops are a good idea Lowkee... I'll try that.
Meanwhile some civic buildings... I have re-rendered some buildings I created ages ago... and created a few new ones...

[Girafe]

Do I spotted your badge on the city hall entrance 

[Kergelen]

Your project is impressive. Although not usually comment here I always look your work with interest.
The re-rendered buildings looks very well and the new ones are still better.

[Schulmanator]

The new civics will be a perfect addition! Bravo! 

[whatevermind]

Wow, that is some amazing work!  Love the farm buildings especially.  One thing that jumped out looking at the Civics picture is how large the roads look relative to the buildings.  I don't know how feasible this is, but you might try using overhanging props to "crowd" the streets a bit more.  Some maybe permanent, some maybe timed - but I'm thinking things like market stalls, wagons, shanties, people working, trees/plants, etc.  Maybe spreading as far as covering the sidewalk space on some lots.

[xannepan]

After having creating dozens of additional medieval houses I started a new experiment... only two preliminary pieces sofar (1 tower, 1 straight wall piece). I'm thinking of city gates that act as police stations/firestations etc....
All pieces will have a foundation, so they can be build on slopes.

This is still fun... what's to come is many hours of modding and lot editing ... not looking forward to that

-Alex