• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

Three Rivers Region

Started by dedgren, December 20, 2006, 07:57:49 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

BarbyW

#4220
Hey, David, you catch me lurking from time to time but I haven't posted yet. Here's the first and I will try to keep up with you. If there is anything I can help you with please ask as long as it doesn't involve BAT $%Grinno$%

EDIT: You just made my day, ma'am.  TY. -DE
Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened. TP



Barbypedia: More alive than the original

threestooges

When the Terminator tells you to post, it's a good idea to listen, heh heh.

I could actually say the same thing should hold true regarding the rest of the site. I will occasionally meet people who wonder what the best way to get into the site itself is, or are just overwhelmed by the size of it. Just jump in and ask questions. People are friendly around here and are generally willing to help.

Speaking of questions, I have a quick question for those of you who may know... I am testing the telephone poles in game, but I have run across a problem that I have experienced before (see pic below). I remember a way to fix this (involving re-rendering) but my general recollection of the site's tutorials is failing me at the moment, but I was wondering if anyone knew of other ways to solve the problem. Also, thoughts on the poles themselves are again welcome too.


-Matt

girlfromverona

Quote from: dedgren on July 26, 2008, 01:53:43 PMSo, back to the wires.  I think foregoing them altogether would solve three problems ... The eye will immediately pick up a line of telephone poles- I think the mind will fill in the wires.

Definitely. I was actually thinking the same thing.  :)

Matt: those telephone poles are looking amazing! They will really add to the secluded feeling of long rural roads.

Alex and David: you guys rock! I can't wait to get hold of that short road curve.
As usual, there are wonderful things afoot here at 3RR!!  &apls

Jmouse

#4223
OK, here goes. Matt, the wooden telephone poles, which we still have here in the Ozarks, look great. As a novice BATter, I can see the details - looks to me like you've nailed it. Could I persuade you to share the dimensions of the poles (diameter and height) for an unrelated project I'm working on?

And David, there are only so many glowing adjectives in the English language to describe your work, and they've been pretty much used up. I still pop in, though, and continue to work backstage. ;)

Later...
Joan

EDIT"...and continue to work backstage."  Joan, my very great friend, I don't know how 3RR would continue as it does without your help, and that of folks like Dustin (thundercrack83).  This is a team project at this point, and you two are my MVPs.  Thanks so much for everything you do. -DE

thundercrack83

Quote
And David, there are only so many glowing adjectives in the English language to describe your work, and they've been pretty much used up.

I don't think a more correct statement has ever been uttered here!

David, I'm so happy to see things moving full speed ahead again here in 3RR. As usual, you've taken a seemingly ordinary object like a telephone pole and turned it into a lively and interesting discussion. I simply do not know how you do it!

Matt, the poles are looking good from where I'm sitting, my friend! Excellent work! I hope you get that glitch sorted out, though.

Dustin

JoeST

Quote from: Jmouse on July 27, 2008, 08:30:35 PM
And David, there are only so many glowing adjectives in the English language to describe your work, and they've been pretty much used up. I still pop in, though, and continue to work backstage. ;)

but sometimes there aint no words, in any language (even the unintelegable ZOMFGWTFRFLCOPTER!!!!!! ;D)

Joe
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

threestooges

Happy to help Joan. The dimensions are as follows:
Height: 13m
Radius: .3m at the base, tapering to .2m at the top (used the cone shape for that)
Crossbar: radius:.1m height: 3m
I'd be happy to send you the full model too if you'd like. Just let me know.

mattb325

Hi David, as always I love looking at this thread, but unless I have something intelligent to offer, I seldom speak. That said, I'm about to post anyway.... :P

Matt - good luck with the poles. You look like you need the BAT update patch from the Maxis official site. That will almost completely stop their buildings from appearing at random zooms on your models.

As for the wires...try thinking outside of the box, so to speak. Instead of being stuck in the mind set of putting the wires with the poles, maybe make the wires their own prop with a tiny invisible building which can be plopped by the user. By adjusting the slope settings of that lot it may be easier to line up with the poles - it will also save you batting multiple pieces (as is the case with the SFBT set) for various functions. Just a thought while you are still tinkering.....

mightygoose

#4228
not wishing to fall victim  to any particular model T ford, terminator or otherwise, i am compelled to post.

however after extensively searching.....



new material still aludes me, the middle radius curves look *_________* by the way.


*[insert nondescript positive adjective here]*

british equivalent to quick and dirty if not quick and dirty could be either, "hatchet job", "bodged" or perhaps most accurately "rough and ready"...
NAM + CAM + RAM + SAM, that's how I roll....

Ryan B.

David, that was a very well-written post.  What a way to make people new to 3RR right at home!

As for me, I'm not sure if I'm going to be around much in the next few weeks.  Things are really picking up here at the library, and I'm working on a presentation for the Village Board regarding pedestrian safety here in Lyndonville.

My first real foray into policics . . . .  $%#Ninj2  By the way, if anyone has any ideas, PM me and I'll fill you in on the rest of the idea.

I hope I get some time to BAT again here really soon.  I owe y'all a few hundred road signs.

Take care of yourselves, and each other.

mbsimcity

David: Great work on inspiring yet more creativity from the community.

Matt: Great work on implementing those poles.

What's next?  Guard rails [linkie]...  &Thk/(

Marc

SC4 - Large Airport Builder project

dedgren

#4231
So, okay...

Here's my first stab at a



In our last post [linkie], we addressed the concerns expressed by not a few of you that 3RR has become a daunting place at which to leave a comment.  Since that time, we've seen some great posts from some old friends mixed in among the ongoing discussion- that really means a lot.  Thanks for being here, everyone.  I'll do my best to make it always worth your while.

So I said yesterday that 3RR doesn't have a real start point or particular direction.  That's certainly correct at one level: the thread itself.  What we're doing here today is not necessarily a good predictor of what we'll be doing tomorrow.  That doesn't mean, though, that Three Rivers Region, the place, isn't just as concrete and definite as any country on the map.  In fact, we've gone to great lengths to gather together and make readily available all the information about it that we can for you- in the form of things such as the 3RR Atlas [linkie], the 3RR Gazetteer [linkie], what we call at present the "backstory" [linkie-note that this is under construction], and of course the many topical posts covering things such as 3RR's Regional Park System [linkie] and local features of note, such as 3RR's springs [linkie].  Assisting with your access to these social, physical, built and historical aspects of 3RR will be the subject of Part Three of this post.

Today we will take a look at access to the thread generally, answer some questions and check out the two key means of finding things.  Taking the last first, these are, in my take on their order of usefulness, the 3RR Quick Finder and the Table of Contents.

   -The 3RR Quick Finder.  The Quick Finder is found here [linkie] and is a linked list of the major components and subject areas in 3RR.



The top of the Quick Finder looks like this, with the link circled in green.  If you have a general idea of what you would like to find, this is the place to start to see if anything on the list matches up with what you are looking for.  There are also links to associated content like the Table of Contents and Atlas.  A ready link to the Quick Finder, so that you can avoid having to click up and down through the SC4D menus, is toward the bottom of my sig in every post I make.



Dustin (thundercrack83) has played a major role in helping me get the Quick Finder into its current form- we plan to expand and refine it further in the near future.  Again, two words- "start here."

   -The Table of Contents.  The Table of Contents ("TOC") is located here [linkie] and allows searching of 3RR for various types of information at a fairly fine-grained level of detail.

On reaching the TOC main page, you will see the following:



Each of these threads contains 50 pages of 3RR.  Once in the thread, you'll find those pages are further indexed and hyperlinked in groups of ten, so if you what page you are headed for, one click will save a lot of scrolling down the page.  There are also some explanatory remarks that you might find find helpful describing the information you'll find.

Once at a particular page in the TOC, you'll see this:



The (1) page number is linked to the top of the page.  The (2) dates that follow the page number are the inclusive dates of the first and last posts on the page.  Following that, each (3) post that I made on the page is hyperlinked, followed by the date on which I made it.  I'll note that sometimes my descriptions are fairly cryptic, but if you read each in the context of my other posts around it, you should have a start point.  The page entry concludes with a list (4) of each 3RR Regular* who left a comment on the page.  If more than one comment was left by an individual, the total number is set off in parentheses like this: (x2), (x3).  Finally, if the commenter is posting in 3RR for the first time, her or his nic (5) is highlighted in red.

The TOC is not a quick way to find something, but careful use of it will almost always get you where you need to go.

* * *

So, let's answer a few questions about 3RR, collected at random from PMs and comments over the years.

----------

Many have asked, "Why call them "linkies?"

Well, because I can.

I guess what's really more important is for what reason they are used.  Long before...

...a few years, anyway- a long time in cyberspace...

...there was the Internet, there was Hypercard [linkie].  As a complete Mac-head at the time, I was blown away by what I saw as being the vast potential of hypertext to add depth and breadth to the presentation of information.  The day, however, before I acted on that and invented the Internet, Al Gore did [linkie], and the rest, as they say, is history.

I continued to think, despite this setback, that hyperlinks were just the bee's knees [linkie].  Six or seven ago, in the course of creating a web page for a local non-profit running a bicycling fund-raiser, I read a web design book that said something about a basic of good website design that stuck- unless the link is apparent from the text, give the reader a "click here" or some other consistent marker to set it off from what's around it.  Thus, the [linkie] was born... I've never looked back.

----------

Several of the insecure among you have asked, "Is posting a single comment here or at 3RR-ST really all I have to do to become a 3RR Regular?"

No, you can elect to pay the undersigned a (US) $1,000 initiation fee (all major credit cards accepted), surrender your passport, swear an irrevocable oath of allegiance, renounce the use of products made from non-renewable resources, all those things.  But none beyond posting that comment is absolutely necessary.

----------

Following from that, some wonder, "Well, then, how many 3RR Regulars are there, actually?"

Well, actually, about 600.  The Regulars here at SC4D who commented through the end of 2007 are listed here [linkie].  I plan to update that list for 2008 on January 1, 2009.  I've never kept formal track over at ST, but that is on the master task list.  A few weeks back, I did note the current 3RR Regulars who've been along for all of what now approaches a two and one-half year ride- The Day One Regulars [linkie].  One way, btw, to figure out if you ever posted on 3RR over at ST is to search the first page using your ST nic as the search term, as there is a list of commenters, just like here, at the end of each page in the TOC.



----------

Speaking of Simtropolis, some ask, "What plans, if any, do you have, for 3RR-ST at that site?"

The one off note in the whole 3RR thing for me has been what has happened over at ST.  I'm not referring to 3RR's December, 2007, move from Simtropolis to SC4D [linkie]- ST was where 3RR was started and there's a big place in my heart for that site and the friends I made there.  I'm actually referring to the results of the May, 2008, hacker attack, which left many pages of 3RR-ST in ruins.  The staff there worked hard to straighten things out, but the follow-up attack in early June left things even worse than they were the previous month- that damage has not been fixed.

Another current issue at ST is the one that led me to leave the site in the first place- the incredibly slow page load times, which appear to affect long-running threads the worst.  It frequently takes me 3-4 minutes to navigate from page to page in 3RR-ST, and at least that long to post any updated material.  I continue on occasion to lose posts I'm making as they upload.  These things make 3RR-ST very tedious and time-consuming to do anything with.  The current state of affairs has also hugely affected readership there- up to the hack attack I was averaging about 60 page views a day, which was in line with what it had been since the move.  After the attack, though, page views have fallen to about half that.  I don't blame folks- many pages simply cut off after three or four comments, and a lot of great content is simply gone.

I've been working at trying to bring 3RR-ST, which I have fully archived, over here to SC4D in more or less fully complete form- all my posts, all your comments, but less the Simtropolis "chrome."  There's an as-yet unused thread I have set up to do this here [linkie].



It actually takes over an hour to convert each page, though, and we're up to 70 there.  That's probably, then, about a 100 hour task- just about comparable to completing all the township maps for the Atlas, which took all last fall.  It, too, is on the master task list, but that's as far as it's gotten.

So, in the meantime, I'll post the occasional teaser update at ST.  Comments there are down to a few a month, but hey- we get so many great ones here.

----------





Hey, back picking this up after an unplanned hiatus.  Posting as I go on Saturday, the 2nd of August at 11:40 a.m. AST (GMT-9).  Check back in a while if you are seeing this at the end of the text. -DE

106921

D. Edgren

Please call me David...

Three Rivers Region- A collaborative development of the SC4 community
The 3RR Quick Finder [linkie]


I aten't dead.  —  R.I.P. Granny Weatherwax

Skype: davidredgren

CasperVg

#4232
What's so dirty about that book? Does it contains things that should not be seen by the public?

By the way, in case you would be interested, I've took some pictures of telephone/electricity poles close to my home (and other rural stuff).

EDITHeh- Casper, my European friend, "quick and dirty" [linkie] is a colloquialism often used by former members of the U.S. Army to describe anything that is brief and to the point.  3RR remains family-friendly, don't worry.  It would be great, btw, to see that sort of stuff from Europe, as well as other parts of the world- feel free to post pics here. -DE

Follow my SimCity 4 Let's play on YouTube

bat

Nice work there in your post and previous one!!

Looking forward to more... ;)

CasperVg

#4234
Here we go then...

Belgium is famous for having almost all highways, primary, secondary and tertiary (rural) roads night lighted, so the electricity/telephone poles here usually have lamps on top of them. Most of the time, they are fabricated from concrete instead of wood too.







For more rural pictures: visit my Rural Pictures thread

EDIT: Hey, Casper- thanks for showing us these pics, and I'll certainly check out your thread.  I turned the first two 90 degrees so that they could be viewed sitting instead of lying down, and lightened each to bring out the details in the concrete.  Those are interesting poles- what does Belgium do for high voltage (high-tension) lines? -DE
Follow my SimCity 4 Let's play on YouTube

Haljackey

#4235
Well you are right that this is not a MD.  3RR, in my opinion, is more of a project/collaboration because not only does 3RR showcase pictures and info, it churns out things that are useful to everyone.  I am not entirely sure if the NAM curves originated here, but 3RR certainly boosted their publicity and was worked on here.  Now in 3RR we are seeing FARs being worked on as well as some props like fences and telephone polls.

I have never been to the 3RR quickfinder, but it looks like a useful place to seek information on all 3RR components!  I should check that out sometime!  Thanks for all your hard work putting this all together!

Best,
-Haljackey

EDIT: Hal, the inception of the wide NAM road curves (and wide curves generally, if I'm not mistaken) was in this post [linkie].  I drew the original curve while sitting in a Texas airport waiting for a delayed plane.  After I returned home, I did this [linkie] with it, discussed my idea with Alex (Tarkus) and the rest is... well you know what happened from there. -DE

MandelSoft

How about a slogan  ;):

3RR: More than just an MD.
Lurk mode: ACTIVE

superhands

well it's about time I stopped lurking and checked in. wonderful powerlines matt and that slogan has already caught on. $%Grinno$%

dave

sim-al2

Maybe I should stop lurking too. There is just one word for all the cool devolpments, including the FAR and the telephone lines and fences.



WOW


&apls &apls &apls 
(\_/)
(o.O)
(")_(")

Yoman

#4239
I guess I have developed into somewhat of a lurker also  &mmm Going to try to correct that, by starting off by saying incredible models threestooges. I think getting wires between the poles will be near impossible (that can go up hills etc). I forget the exact reason, was explained to me awhile ago, but it will be quite an undertaking.

EDIT: Owen, it's always great to see your posts here, whenever you make them.  You've still got 3RR International to do- don't think lurking is going to save you. -DE