The FrankU and Nexis CO-OP

[mike3775]

Man these sets are so going to make an agricultural large city tile not be as repetitive as it currently is.  Its sure going to be nice.  You guys are doing an awesome job

[FrankU]

The MFP2-Set1 one will cover all the mainbuildings for Vegetable, Fruit, Flower, Fiber (such as cotton, hemp etc) and seafood production farms. (also under construction and some very nice and stunning preview pictures are on the way as teasers.

The MFP2-Set2 has all the smaller props (veggie machinery, flowerharvesters, fiber harvester, fishnets and fishfarm floaters including oysterposts, clam, lobster, crab cages and traps etc, to go with the MFP2 Set1. You name it, it will be there! So, lots of variety you get!

PS.....hm....I wonder if FrankU will be interested in the MFP2 ?

You bet!

[vortext]

This is turning into something spectacular and glad so. Frankly I never really liked the stage 5/6/7 CAM farms with landmarks and such. This will make it much more rewarding and way more realistic. 

All this should be ready for the tenth anniversary of SC4.

Guess I'll have to make sure my region is big enough by then to get these lots to actually grow.   

[mrbisonm]

Thanks Mike and Vortext, glad you enjoy these so far. Frank, I guess you'll be stuck with me for the MFP2 later this year.


This is the last series of pictures that will be found in the MFP1 Set1 Pack of 32 building props.


7 Models again

M13B is one of the smaller buildings of this set. This one is made of cementbrick walls and a galvanized roof. Can be found all over the world these days.



M14 is a strict brick barn, found mainly in Europe and it has a dark metal roof. Good for any kind of animal production.



Although different, the M15 model has the same utility as the M14 and also the same footprint, good for a propfamily.



M16 is the smallest of the barns in this Pack. Wooden walls and tin roof. I suppose it would be ideal for small animal production such as rabbits, birds and maybe even furbearers.



M16A is the same as M16, except for some details and textures.



M20A is a typical Eastern Canadian Barn. These enormous buildings hold the stables in the bottom and the hay in the immense loft to feed the animals during the 6 months of winter that we have. They are from 80 to 250 feet long and can be seen from far away. Wooden Spruce frame and cedar planks on the ouside. The roof is usually made from tin or galvanized sheetmetal.



The M20R is the same as M20A, but tin all over.



You probably wonder why there are some numbers missing in between the models. Well, let me explain. I have made over 70 barn and stable models, many are the same models as the ones I showed with different textures and some details and many others are totally different. All of these aren't either finished, not good enough to upload or simply too much to include in one pack.
Example: M20B or M8D are the same as the M20 and M8 models, but with textures that I found not to be worth to include. M15, M17, M18, M19 and so on 'til M38 are not ready. I didn't have time to finish them and it would be too long to wait for until I do, if I ever do them.
I don't want to show pictures, because then some of you might want them and I always have that darn weakness, that I cannot say "No" if one insist. So, we leave it at this.
But.....there is one model that I will give to FrankU as a Thank you gift for being patient with me, once it is finished and he can do whatever he wants to with it, even including the modelfile in the upload.
I can see him now panting like a puppy for it, since it is a true old Dutchfarm with a genuine strawroof, the kinda stuff he probably would love.

The model is far from finished and the textures aren't final. Whenever I have an idea I go right to my gmax and start building it until it is recognizable as such, because otherwise I would forget my idea and probably never think of it again. That is why I have more than 1200 started models in my gmax scene folder.....lol.
Hard to believe, but true. I wonder if I live long enought to build them all?.


Anyways, here's the "REAL" Dutchbarn, the M12D and soon a Laphorst home will be beside it also. (in the making)



I hope that you *Simfarmers* will all love my Nexis BAT farmprops and FrankU's lots. Be back soon with some preview pics of......hm .....all kinds of things for the MFP1.

Fred

[bat]

Congrats on the first OSITM there!
And fantastic work on the models.

[FrankU]

Dear friends,

This is the second part of my Brief History of Dutch farms.
Here I commence with some background information. I also show you images of real life farm props that were the inspiration to Nexis' Modern Farm Prop Packs. And also show you some farms that were the inspiration to my farm lots.  And of course the lots that I actually made.

4.   The farm gets bigger
Like so many things in the world: the more recent, the larger the farms.
A short history of farms is shown in a compact way on this image.



In the upper image you see that small traditional farm: a farm house (closest to the front), a small baking house, a barn and a hay stack. Oh, I didn't tell about the baking house. The traditional wooden construction and the reed roofs made the house flammable. In order to keep the risk low someday the separate brick baking house was invented. It is a small brick house just next to the farm.



Due to economic and technical developments it became necessary and at the same time possible (which of the two is first and which follows?) to increase the size of the farms. A hundred years ago a farmer and his family had maybe 10 cows. They kept them in the back part of their farmhouse. Nowadays we see dairy farms, still kept by one farmer with family and maybe one or two additional workers, counting 150 or even 200 cows.

The four sizes of the farms in the above image were more or less my inspiration when I started to lot my five stages of farms.
Stage 1 I used for just a barn or a shed with a farm field and Stages 2 up to 5 are comparable with the four images.

I have aerials of four farms that are more or less comparable with the setup on the drawing and comparable with the stage 2 - 5 CAM farm stages.

Stage 2
This is in fact not a functioning farm anymore. This is a restored old farm house which is now in full use as residential. As farm it would be too small to be financially valid.


Stage 3
This is probably not a real farm anymore. I guess you could call it a "hobby farm"; the owner keeps cattle, but the farm is not the main source of income anymore.


Stage 4


Stage 5
So you thought my stage 5 farm lots were large? After having seen this one and some similar ones I considered to make my lots even larger!


The modern farm is an industrial system with a utilitarian setup. People tend to think that it was different in the past. That is not true. Always a farm is set up in the most efficient way people could think of and could make at the time the farm was established. There is always a logic explanation for the set up of the complex, the shape of the buildings and the materials they are made of.
This also goes for the question: why is the farm located where it is? There is always an explanation to this, but I did not dig into this subject because that would take quite some pages. And I don't know if you feel like reading about geomorphology too much.


5.   Dutch Farms and Dutch Farm Lots
Ok. So. Now, what to do?
You know why I do it, you know what is the background. Now on the results!

I have some overviews of the unfinished lots according to the four growth stages of the drawing. I showed these before and at the moment I am working on updated versions, because I have the Nexis  props already here. You have seen them too by now.

Stage 2


Stage 3


Stage 4


Stage 5



Now I show you some real life farms that were the inspiration to my lots and to the Nexis' props that he showed you in his last set of posts.

Don't we see here the Nexis model M8?


And another M8 like barn.














And now: the end of history
The very newest development in barns as far as I know. These barns appear since about 5 years more and more regularly in the Netherlands.
A diary farm barn, made almost completely out of plastic foil, pulled over a steel substructure. The foil is half transparent. From the inside the light feels like daylight, but is a bit dimmed against too much heat. The walls are usually open. They only close when there is much wind or when it really freezes. The cows stay in the barn all year round. That is the reason why the silage storages are so large: the cows don't eat the grass themselves from the meadow. The farmer has to reap the grass and store it somewhere untill he can feed it to his ladies.
We call it a serrestal: litterally translated as conservatory barn or maybe better: greenery barn.


And a teaser
In this last image I show you a typical traditional farmhouse in my area. It is built according to the rules I wrote about in the first history update. I will have some more examples with images taken more close up from the ground last week. The update will also be a comment on the last model Nexis showed in his last post.


Have fun!
And remember: Nexis and I are not yet finished. May is in no way over already.

[mike3775]

Frank, is it possible to make your farms upgrade on their own when demand is high?  We have buildings that upgrade at specific points, so I figure why not farms?

[rambuckel]

The illustrated history of farm estates is great! And your interpretation for use in SC4 is brilliant! Thank you so much for your efforts!

[jmyers2043]

Frank, is it possible to make your farms upgrade on their own when demand is high?

Farms do not upgrade. That's the Maxis way (unless someone is working on a top secret project that I'm not aware of) ...

This is the second part of my Brief History of Dutch farms.
Here I commence with some background information. I also show you images of real life farm props that were the inspiration to Nexis’ Modern Farm Prop Packs.

I'm speachless. What a wonderful post today ... this project is going to be good.


- Jim

[lak47]

FrankU and Fred,

Let me just say you guys are doing a stupendous job. Fatastic. Just fantastic! 

[mrbisonm]

Frank, is it possible to make your farms upgrade on their own when demand is high?  We have buildings that upgrade at specific points, so I figure why not farms?

I don't think that this is possible, the "gamefiles" for growing farms are not cenceived for this and that means we would have to "attack" the basic gamefiles, which is still forbidden by law.....or at least that's what some say.

Hey Frank, nice update and nice pictures of real life farms.
I will be there tonight with a few models (the first batch) of the Set2 of MFP1, to show. Manure! Don't we just love manure?

Fred

[mike3775]

That sucks, because there is so much that could be done with farming, which has already been shown not only here, but also with SPAM.  Its a shame Maxis didn't want people to make farm cities.

[mrbisonm]

That sucks, because there is so much that could be done with farming, which has already been shown not only here, but also with SPAM.  Its a shame Maxis didn't want people to make farm cities.

You're right Mike, it could have been a fantastic game for farmbuilding, but unfortunetly it was made for City building, otherwise they would have called it "Simfarms". But, let's enjoy what we have and make the best of it.

I didn't find the time to take the "manure" pictures, had some unexpected visit. Tomorrow I have other things to do, so I will be back in two days or so with those first pictures of the MFP1 Set2 Pack.

Fred

[weixc812]

Very realistic lotting endeavour 

[noahclem]

Another outstanding history/agriculture lesson and some very promising looking lots 

Excellent work here this month and I can't wait to see what the last week holds in store 

[kelis]

I want those lots right now  Great job once again my friend, your updates are very inspiring, I cannot wait to use those farms on my Dutch region !!

Greetings

[mrbisonm]

Here is the first presentation of the MFP1-Set2, the smaller Props that will come with the buildings above.

Let's talk Manure!!

... manure piles, pure, good-smelling manure, mostly from cows, sheep and horses. Some smell "good", others don't. There is usually four models irl "available" for dry manure handling and storage, but I will do only the two most common ones: Conveyors and hydrolique pumps with piled manure.

First the conveyors. I have made 4 different models with two different varietes to begin with.

The first is the M22 model, a simple conveyor alone in the two most common colours, red and green.(Custom LOD's) Usually they are all the same more or less, in size and style, so I will content myself with one model/size only. (too much is too much anyways)



This M23 next model is with a cement/concrete drive-in base/walls that has become quite of use in the eighties and nineties, both in Europe and North America and also now elsewhere. The manure is stored inside the base without getting it touch with the surrounding grounds. That prevents the ground and groundwater pollution often caused by manure piles placed direclty on groundsoils.



The M23 again with a smaller base, for smaller farms. One is full and one empty for variety.



The M27 model is a combination of something like M30, the manure piles and M22, the conveyors in two colours, red and green again. Still a common site in North-America they are, but slowly diminishing with time. Mostly used for dry manure from cattle, sheep and horses.




And the last one for today, the M30 is just the manure pile itself in three different forms and sizes. These can be used with the M22 or alone by themselves and are LOD-friendly. (custom LOD's)



There's many more "manure models" to come, such as Pumped manure piles, covered manurepiles, within buildings and a whole different category later, the liquid manure such as from birds, porc etc. Coming the next time.

Hope you'll enjoy these models. These models will be send to Frank for testing later this weekend while I will continue to "play" with more manure and hopefully show the rest of the manure before the next weekend.

Fred

[mike3775]

I never ever thought I would ever utter these words, but "that is some awesome looking piles of crap" 

[mrbisonm]

Here's another one, to start the weekend with some action in this thread.

The M28 is the way to storage manure in semi-liquid and dry form. The manure arrives by hydrolic pumps,(slow piston-pumps) most always underground from the barn/stable.
there are hundreds of different shapes and sizes of these square and rectangular models, but I only use this one to save space in my pack for other props. The round "pools" for liquid manure will come later, M35 or 37 I think.
I made a variety of 3, full, half full and empty, while the half full and empty contain a little liquid which is the accumulation from rain on these open-sky manure pools. The liquid usually is very dark green, of quite a special colour and texture, I couldn't find the right one for this on the net, so I did the most possible real life like texture I could. Unless I will have the chance to visit my neighbors before the end of this pack and take a picture of their liquid manure. My manure pile is like the M23 Model and on the old barn it is like the M27 Model.
The size is about the same as Model 23 (M23)



Be back with more soon and keep those comments coming, you're the one that will be playing with this, right? So let's hear it. Ideas and comments (positive and negative) are always welcome to help us to make things better and/or different. Thanks,

Fred

[vortext]

That's some good looking sh*t! Sorry, couldn't resit 

Nice textures for both the manure and concrete, though the sharp diagonal in M28B looks kinda awkward to me and not sure what it is either; water or heavy duty agricultural foil?