St Andrews - 10th October 2011 - Small Heath still lives!

[nbvc]

Great start. Nice city and rural areas.

[canyonjumper]

Reikhardt, I love what you've done with Barnt Green, it looks amazing, and the detailing is excellent! I'm looking forward to seeing how you do your waterfalls.

               Your friend,
                              Jordan

[jafmo]

Very nice job. Where did you get those walls near the train station?

[Terring7]

Those waterfalls are epic!!

[Reikhardt]

Replies:

Ciuu96: Many thanks!

Kergelen: Many thanks too! Most of that flora is actually in one the packs linked below.

nbvc: Thank you sir!

Jordan: Thanks, right here for you!

jafmo: Those 'walls' are actually ionionion's Limestone Quarry lots with some flora plopped on them!

Elias: Many thanks! I do try my best 


And so to business!

After one or two people asked how I made my waterfalls, I thought I'd show how I do it. As mentioned before, these type of falls have been done before (notably by Jaquelina), but this is to show how I make them.


Tools and Resources:

Essential for building waterfalls:
Jeronij's Culverts and Effects - Contains the water effect we use to create the cascading water
Mayor Mode God Terraforming Tools - Lets you use the God mode tools in Mayor mode. My favourite plugin of all time!
For beautifying your landscapes I recommend: Chris Adams Pasture Flora, Peg Pond Rock Mod, Hemblem's Rock Mod, Peg Pond Terrain Props among many, many others. If you spot anything that you don't know, feel free to ask and I'll endeavour to track the mod down.

Let's Get Started:

First step start a new city and to try and keep the game's performance acceptable, I turn the Shadow setting to low in the graphics options:

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Next I access the God mode tools in the Mayor Menu (see the plugin download above) and select the 'Mesa' tool:

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I use the Mesa tool to create a small plateau, roughly in the centre of  where I want the water fall to be:

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I then use the God mode Quick Level Tool to create the base of the waterfall:

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The finished base:

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Now using the same technique, I'll create a second tier:

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And a third:

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I HIGHLY recommend a save now! In fact I'd use the quick save (ctrl + alt + s) after nearly every adjustment, as it's really easy to muck up all of this work and have to start again!
Select the 'Steep Valley' tool from the God mode menu:

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Gently (and I really mean GENTLY) draw a crevice into the hill side; It doesn't need to be precise or level, you can always touch up later:

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SAVE! Now continue downwards:

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For a more natural look, I'll add a little fork into the proposed route for the water. Feel free to leave it with just one stream until you are comfortable with these techniques. Then use the the God mode 'Shallow Valley' tool to make a lake or river for the waterfall to flow into:

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It all looks pretty ugly and blocky right now so we will employ the God Mode 'Plain Smoothing' tool:

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And using a small brush, GENTLY smooth all those sharp edges:

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Much nicer! Normally I'd spend a bit longer doing this, but for the purposes of this tutorial, that'll do.
Now for the interesting part; Go to the Mayor mode/ Parks section and select the 'JrJ Water Drop' plop. Thankfully it's near the very top of the parks menu:

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Now plop the water, with the white arrow pointing in the direction you want the water to flow (downhill of course!):

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Water is flowing!

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You may find the water hits a bump and stops flowing; Simply use the Mayor Mode Valley tool to make tiny adjustments to the offending section or plop more water drops on the other side of small bumps if it is difficult to terraform. When the flow makes it to the 'real' water it will stop and look something like this:

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All being well, you should have a waterfall!
After this I'll delete the water drops and start adding various flora and trees around the water. When I'm happy with that I add the water drops back. I remove them because on big falls on big maps the water can really dent the performance of the game, even on my machine which runs Crysis at a fair pace! After a very quick run over with rocks, trees and flora, I turned shadows back on and produced the two below shots, which I touched up with GIMP for maximum effect. Even spending much less time than I would for a MD update, the end result still looks pretty good I say!

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Hope a few of you found this tutorial interesting/ informative!
As always thanks for reading and commenting. I'd also like to say a general thank you to everyone at SC4D for making me feel so welcome!
If anyone uses this to make their own falls, I'd love to see them!

Next update: Barnt Green's farms & a bridge over quiet water!

[canyonjumper]

I'll have to employ this technique in my own MD, it looks great! Thanks for sharing!

                    Your friend,
                                   Jordan

[Nardo69]

Hello my friend!

So you moved here -no problem with me, it's hard to escape from Papa Nardo ;= 

Nice start, and great work with that field and all those greeneries. The water falls, well, without any doubt good work and a useful tutorial (even though I am not a big fan of large water fall in SC4 as you might know)

Take care - and don't forget to make backups!

Bernhard 

[ricardomiranda]

Wonderful landscape of his MD, also liked the stable, thanks for sharing your techniques.
I will continue following the development of their city.

[Reikhardt]

Replies:

Jordan: Feel free to post a link to your effort in a reply here, I'd love to see it!

Bernhard: Now why would I want to run away from Papa? Thanks for taking a look here and don't worry, a little less water this update!

ricardomiranda Thanks for the kind comments, I hope you enjoy following this MD




And for a short update today, a few shots of the farms which support Barnt Green's economy. We head out out from the town centre over Lake Carr:

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And the farms themselves:

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And finally, a little night shot just because I like it:

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Thanks for viewing and commenting!

Next up: Small town industry and the abandoned quarry!

[noahclem]

Great job with these rural scenes! #10 is my favorite.

[Tomas Neto]

Fantastic rural area, and my favorite image is # 6!!! 

[Reikhardt]

Replies:

Noah: Thanks! My personal favourite too!

Tomas Neto: Thanks, glad you liked it!





And so our last look at Barnt Green before moving on. Today we'll look at the small industrial complex and the old abandoned quarry.
With no major highways nearby, most freight travels by road from the farms and is exported via rail:

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Most of the industry here is concerned with processing and pacakging local produce:

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I built the quarry after seeing the below picture. It was a little experiment which I may continue as I'd quite like make it a 'working' quarry. Anny sugestions for this happily received!

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And to finish a couple of gratuitous scenic shots!

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Hope everyone enjoyed this update, thanks in advance for viewing and commenting!

Next Update: Our first look at Water Orton!

[Dantes]

The quarry looks really great.

[Stray Cat]

Wow Reikhardt.  I was busy so I missed a few updates.  Once again, you have wowed my aesthetic side with your fantastic perspective on the scenes you create.  Simply fabulous.

And thank you for the advice on using SimFox's trees on the previous page.  I will practice and see how well I fair.

Cheers!

Scott

[RickD]

The quarry turned out great. 

Since you asked for suggestions: I wouldn't use streets inside the quarry. Instead try using one of the many available mayor mode ploppable gravel/dirt to make it look like an unpaved road. And I would plop some machinery (trucks, diggers ...).

[Reikhardt]

Replies:

Dantes: Thanks!

Scott: Thanks for the kind words and no problems with the advice! Hope you get some good results with those fantastic trees!

Raphael: Thanks! I tried the ploppable gravel, but sadly I haven't got steady enough hands to get good results! They tend to look messy when I try 

_________

And so our first look at Water Orton:



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As with most small towns, the community focus is on the church. Here is St Barnaby's and the neighbouring Cherry Orchard gardens:

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A selection of Water Orton's shops:

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And the modest and comfortable homes:

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Finally,  whilst mainly an agricultural district, some industry still thrives:

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Hope everyone enjoyed the update! All views and comments welcome.

Next up: Calhoun Gully Falls!

[Exla357]

Great to see you over here at SC4D! As always, fantastic job with the rural areas!

[Stray Cat]

Damn...I'm moving in!  That small town is amazing.  I found myself dreaming of living there while browsing it...simply amazing.

Cheers!

Scott

[Dantes]

Unbelievable! When can I then drag in the small village? 

[noahclem]

Great job with this small town! The previous industrial update looks really nice too and would look even better if you switched a couple of those rail curves to wide-radius ones. The true gem of the last couple updates is your work on that quarry though