Spa's Atlantic Retreat

[kwakelaar]

Hi Spa
Kensington looks better with the new windows.
Don't spend too long time on these, they were good BATs already and I would much rather see you working on something new.

[JosefBrisko135]

They both look excellent! Didn't think they could look better but they can.

[simdad1957]

I agree with Kwakalaar, you should concentrate on new creations rather than tweaking already outstanding BAT's. I really enjoy your work, especially since it has an Atlantic Canadian flair. Hope your new work gets uploaded soon.

[jmyers2043]

Hi Spa - I've had a look through the past pages and like the newer versions of your old material. I appreciate your going over them and giving them a fresh 'coat of paint'. I have no bones to pick with those that have a desire to improve their craft then apply what they've learned over time to their old stuff. The CAM would be a perfect time to introduce the 'new' changes and is kind of what I've had in mind with my improved versions of the old barn buildings.

[spa]

Kwakelaar: Thanks. Have no fear the updates won't go on forever
Josef: Thanks
Simdad: Thanks. I think you'll enjoy this update if you're familiar with Wolfville at all.
Jmyers: Thanks. It's something I probably wouldn't have done except for I wanted to include custom queries, I needed to fix the lot config family that I included everywhere before I knew better and, most of all, just a few minutes could make a big a difference to a lot of my older bats which had some bad texturing in places (roofs and bricks). The CAM is probably the best thing that'll happen for my creations. Making more realistic stages will probably mean that my wee bats will see a lot more use and won't be replaced by skyscrappers as quickly and as easily as they are now.


So I haven't updated in a while. It's a different world when you're in the rat race. On the plus side I'm being sent to Newfoundland for a few days (I have never been) on the company's dime. Should be fun. Last weekend though I got out of Halifax with the girlfriend. We went up to Wolfville which is a really fascinating small town an hours drive outside of Halifax at the head of the Annapolis Valley. That part of Nova Scotia is farming country and has some of North America's best soils. Wolfville, however, isn't really a farming town even though it's surrounded by agriculture. It's home to Acadia Univeristy and is about as close as you'll get to the American college town model. The town has just 3,500 residents, but during the school year it doubles to 7,500. The university's presence gives Wolfville amenities that it otherwise wouldn't have and it attracts and holds wealthier and more educated people than normally opt to live in rural areas. Anyway, I snapped some photos of a few of the more interesting and colourful buildings in town, three of which I have started batting. Below are some photos of the buildings in real life.

Family Vision Centre

The Library Pub and Coffee House

Paddy's Brew Pub

And this, is what I have so far.

You can see that they're pretty faithful to the real ones. I modified the Library Pub however because I didn't want to make it a corner bat (if I don't do that now and then all I would ever make would be corners). I included Attica in the photo since I'm going to be working on it alongside this batch. If my attention wanders, there are two building in downtown Halifax that I have my eye one as well.

In other news, the updates to my old files are nearly ready to be passed to Barby. I just need to tinker with Trend Fashions and consider what I'm going to do with Royal Manor. So my big bat update should be underway in the next few weeks.

Finally, I'm going to upload ABL Environmental in the next few minutes. You can get it on the LEX sometime in the next few minutes.

[Antoine]

wow it's perfect !

[simdad1957]

Yes, I know Wolfville reasonably well (I lived in Halifax for nine years). Those facades are well done and this set should blend into the "small town theme" quite nicely.

I love small university towns. Most Canadian universities are "factories" with 10-50,000 students and are located in big cities. I think that the educational experience that you can get in a smaller institution in a smaller town however can be much more individualized and delivered in a more intimate manner. It is no surprise to me that the most highly rated Canadian undergraduate universities are small town campuses located here in the Maritimes. These campuses also have an interesting synergy with the towns that thay are located in and they contribute immensely to the local arts, culture and restuarant scenes. Not surprisingly, my favourite small towns here in the Maritimes (Wolfville, Antigonish and Sackville NB), all are university towns.

[simdad1957]

BTW Spa, if you are interested in another interestign old building with lots of character located in a small university town, you should consider "Mel's Tea Room" here in Sackville NB. It's quite a hangout for the university students at Mount Allison. Sorry, I don't have a picture.

[spa]

Thanks Antoine!
Simdad, I agree. I started my academic career at the University of King's College which has the best of both worlds; it's small with only 1,000 students and the buidings are all within sight of each other around the main courtyard. At the same time, it has access to all the resources of a large univeristy since it's basically a parasite that leaches off of Dal. It was a good experience. I'm actually going to be going through New Brunswick at some point in the next few months (I'm going to St.Leonard for a site visit). I'll bring my camera and stop in Sackville since I'll be crusing right past it and we'll just see what grabs my eye.

[spa]

So it has been a while since I have updated. This past week I got to travel up to northern New Brunswick on business. I was able to set my own pace so I made a point of stopping as much as possible in the various little towns along the way. Needless to say I have a ton of new material for future bats. It's interesting how some of the old main streets are doing just fine while others have basically died. For anyone who knows the Maritimes (Simdad I'm looking your way), from the places I have visited lately I would say that Wolfville, Kentville, Hartland and Woodstock are doing just fine, Sackville and Grand Falls are holding their own, Amherst, St. Leonard and Oxford have seen better days and Spring Hill has died. Amherst is particularly funny in that the main street, despite a long and prosperous history, is fading while at the same time the town is actually growing. It's a common story in a lot of large cities but it's interesting to see it happening on such a small scale.

I haven't done much batting lately, but the updates to my old bats are nearly finished and I have most of them back from Barby. As soon as the last one is ready and I have a cleanitol file done I'll release them. With the long weekend on here in Canada I did do some batting today on the Library Pub and it's basically done. Below is the "final" version on the lot I made for it.

Not much to say. It fits with JBSimio's earlier material and my own additions to the theme. Note the Alexander Keith's logo on the rear 2nd floor window. Another piece of Canadiana makes an appearence in Sim City Anyway, I'm still of course open to suggestions, but I'm fairly happy with this one. Tomorrow I'll see what I can do with Paddy's Brew Pub. I would like to get it done too this long weekend.

[Pat]

Spa that is soo cool i love it... cant wait to see these hit the LEX

[nofunk]

What a charming building! Nice work as always, Sam.

[kwakelaar]

Looking very nice Sam, a lovely building.

[metasmurf]

Not to echo everyone else but the building looks good. I love wooden buildings 

[spa]

Thanks everyone.

I have one more to post today. Paddy's Brew Pub is now "final."

Not bad if I may say so myself. I quite like how this one turned out, even if it's a real tiny little building. As usual, since it's a 2 deep lot, I have made it compatible with the small town series. This one isn't w2w on both sides. I did this deliberately. The idea is that Paddy's provides access to the rear alleyway mid-block instead of just at the cross street. This is the first small town lot to do this but I have another in mind to add variety. Anyway, below is what I mean by Paddy's providing an alleyway mid-block.

[flame1396]

WOW! Those are totally awesome! I especially like the little house at the top of this page

[Pat]

Paddys Brew Pub is coool spa i love it...

[simdad1957]

Glad your road trip through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick went well. I would tend to agree re: your observations on the status of small town downtowns along the way. By and large, small town NB is in better shape than small town NS. I ascribe this to the "giant sucking sound" emanating from Halifax. When one city is such a dominant presence in a province, it is not good for the hinterland. The only communities to escape the gaping maw of the "deep south end" are the university towns like Wolfville and Antigonish and agricultural shiretowns like Kentville. Here in NB there is relative equivalence between the larger cities and this has allowed the small towns to survive. There are a few exceptions of course, such as Dalhousie and St. Leonard which are circling the drain. The status of Sackville is interesting, as a university town it should be doing quite well but downtown businesses struggle because it is so close to Moncton that retail dollars are easily siphoned off. Still, as you pointed out, Sackville is holding its own. There was a big fire in downtown Sackville last year that destroyed an entire retail block of stores. That didn't help.

[spa]

Flame: Do you mean the blue corner buildling? That's Perks and it can be found on the lex. An updated version of it will be released sometime soon.
Pat: Thanks
Simdad: I never thought about it but you know what you're right. Halifax has a funny effect. It seems to prop up some towns while giving the more distant ones a big smack. Take the South Shore. Lunenburg, Bridgewater, Mahone Bay and Chester are all doing fine because the South Shore is an area that the Halifax elite like to play in. A lot of these communities are now becoming bedroom communities. The more distant or less appealing locales, however, get no benefits from having Halifax in the neighbourhood. Sackville is interesting. I didn't realize there had been a big fire. That would explain why it seemed empty along Main Street! I wasn't imaging there was a hole in the streetscape there actually is one caused by disaster.

Hey everyone. Just a quick note today and not of the good variety. I'm writing this from my girlfriend's laptop because my computer is no more. After three years of tempermental service it finally decided to die peacefully in its sleep (tried to turn it on in the morning and it wouldn't go). I ordered a new and better computer today since it's not worth putting money into a 3 year old machine that hasn't really worked properly in over a year. I should be back in business on Tuesday or Wednesday. It could have been worse as I'm working right now so I have the money at hand to replace the machine and the new one I have bought will run a lot of my more demanding games a lot more smoothly than my old one (Galactic Civilizations, Civilization 4 and Rome Total War).

Unfortunately, I don't yet know whether my more recent files can be saved from the ruins. I'm going to drop my machine off with the guys who are building my new desktop to see what they can save. If the problem is that my hard drive is dead though, Paddy's, the Library Pub, Family Vision, Attica and the Sovereign Building will all be lost. Luckily, everything else is backed up including the CBC (I would have cried had that been lost) and all the photos I took on my trip through the Maritimes (pretty much irreplacable as I'm not likely to be back to Northern New Brunswick for quite a while) the other week are still on my camrea's memory card. So even if things are gone, again, it could have been worse. Still, if the hard drive is fried, losing Paddy's, the Soveregin Building and the Library Pub will hurt since each of them was done or nearly done. I'll keep you all posted.

[rooker1]

Sorry to hear about the bad news, hopefully not too much will be lost and you are up and running soon.  Your work is fantastic, good luck.

Robin