The City & County of Honolulu

[kwakelaar]

I love the overviews you are making of your cities, they are looking really great.

[sumwonyuno]

Valley of the Temples Memorial Park is a large cemetary in Temple Valley (Shrine Valley).  In the game, it is quite plain, and I have not done a good job in showing how beautiful the place looks in real life.







Here is are three pictures that show the same area, each one a different week:

[2009-10-03: cloudy and rainy day]


[2009-10-10: voggy and cloudy day]


[2009-10-17: no vog but still cloudy]




The Byodo-In Temple is a replica of one in Japan.  The majority of the temple is located behind the trees in this picture.













The following panorama is two pictures stiched together.  I only resized and cropped the picture; I did not do any retouching.  It really does look stunning doesn't it?




Next update we will drive on the H-3 (P-3) Freeway.



***Replies***

To all:  I actually was able to drive along the Leeward Coast of the island this past Saturday.  I drove all the way up to where the highway ends.  I didn't bring my camera... I'll be going back this weekend (with the camera!).  It really is like a whole other place, even if it is on the same island.  There is a lot of natural beauty, and I got to see the tent cities along the beaches.  I can't imagine how the place looked back in ~2006 when the homeless situation on the Leeward Coast was considered a State emergency.

emgmod:  Nope, I haven't seen that plugin before.  Heh, all right, I'll try to time my posts better for you.  I actually try to aim before the Australia-New Zealand Rush (~ 8PM) and the East Coast Rush (~9AM).

Tomas Neto:  I'm glad you're enjoying the "trip".

Battlecat:  It really is a stunning view and I really like it.

danielcote:  Heh, I know.  Though, there's thousands of Maxis grass tiles in my region...

Earth quake:  Thanks!

kwakelaar:  Thank you!

[Earth quake]

Other splendid recreation my friend.
The 3rd picture is really nice and the panoramic it's just 

[Battlecat]

Very incredible.  Some places are just so hard to capture in SC4.  Thanks for sharing these pictures, I love the way the mountains provide a backdrop for this area! 

[Tomas Neto]

Wow guy, really fantastic!!! Great update!!! 

[KoV Liberty]

Very good job! The best thing to do would be to plop some of glodiva's palm trees on the lots beside the roads.

[sumwonyuno]

The H-3 (P-3) Freeway is a $1.6 billion (mostly) elevated freeway that connects Pearl Harbor (Diamond Harbor) with the Kane'ohe (Kane'ote) Marine Corp Base.  It cuts through the Ko'olau (Ko'orau) Mountain range via the Halawa (Tavara) and Haiku Valleys.

It was originally conceived back in the 1960's to be a ground-level through the Moanalua (Poanarua) Valley to the east for the cost of $260 million.  The creation of a nature reserve in the Moanalua Valley forced the State to reroute the freeway to Halawa.  Both Moanalua and Halawa have endangered species, however, the Halawa Valley contains a number of Native Hawaiian cultural sites.  The State was sued and construction of H-3 stopped.

In 1986, Hawaii's senior Senator to Congress got the H-3 to be a part of a defense bill, which made H-3 exempt from all environmental laws, and construction continued.  It was decided the roadway would be elevated through the Halawa Valley to minimize the impact.  The H-3 finally was completed in 1997.

H-3 is heralded as an engineering marvel and rewarded as the most beautiful Interstate, however, it is an example of modern development versus the environment and the indigenous culture, and at the expense of being the second most expensive highway project in America.

For this tour, we will be going from Valley of the Temples (top right corner) to the Halawa Interchange (outside of picture, bottom left).



A view up the street leading to the Windward Community College.  You may be able to see the H-3 viaduct in the distance.



Continuing on Kahekili Highway.





A short ride on the Likelike Highway.



We take the first exit and we're on our way on to the H-3 Freeway.



A view of Kane'ohe Bay.



A view from on top the H-3 Viaduct through Haiku Valley.



The pair of tunnels for the H-3 through the Ko'olau Mountains are over a mile long.







Out of the tunnels to the Halawa Valley.











Notice, just a few miles back it was a lush rainforest.  Now it's quite dry.







***Replies***

Earth quake:  Heh, I'm always amazed when I look at it. 

Battlecat:  The mountains always provide a backdrop; Valley of the Temples is one area I know where it really is obvious and beautiful. 

Tomas Neto:  Thank you!

Driftmaster:  Thanks for the suggestion.

[Battlecat]

Interesting story behind that freeway!  Great job with the shots.  Your mention of the change in foliage is a good point.  Considering the size of Oahu, and the rest of Hawaii, it's rather amazing how much the rainfall and foliage types vary over the islands! 

[adroman]

Sorry I haven't been around lately Sumwonyuno...

Some impressive photography, it's good to have an idea of Real Life along side your excellent in game shots!

Keep up the good work, 
Adrian.

[Tomas Neto]

Wow, is a fantastic journey through of your update! Impressive history of the H-3, and beautiful photos too!!! 

[Nanami]

Awesome, it's great. I like the freeway story.

[sumwonyuno]

Hello everyone,

I've been thinking on how I should proceed with this mayor diary.  I'm asking you the reader on your opinion, whether you're an active poster or a lurker.

Choice 1:
Right now, I consider the Real Island Tour a filler series.  I do have hundreds more of possible pictures to use, so the Real Island Tour could last for many months.   I pretty much already have shown many parts of the island back in the Community Island Tour, and I'm just reposting the pictures with their real-life counterparts.  These updates are relatively easy to do.  I just have to choose pictures from my collection, resize and crop, get their SimCity equivalent shots, and write captions.  Though, there wouldn't be a sort of direction or real point because it's just fillers.

Choice 2:
There is the main story that I've been mentioning here and there ever since I started.  The main story is suppose to be about 225 years of development history of Honolulu, but in the SimCity world of Capitalis, Paradise (minus annexation, Pearl Harbor attack and party politics).  The focus is on land use and transportation.  [spoiler] The first 220 years or so is background information, while the last 5 years is on this latest and ongoing attempt of elevated rapid transit for the southern shore of the island.

Now, this is an extremely difficult task.  I would have to do the equivalent of going back in time and creating pictures of areas in their respective time period.  It would be essentially rebuilding a huge chunk of the region over and over and over just for pictures.  This is the most ambitious choice.

Choice 3:
A simplification of Choice 2 would be to focus the latest and ongoing attempt of rail transit.  I could use the region I have now and do the story telling with existing locations in the region.



http://www.youtube.com/v/gdUMs1itSlI

Choice 4:
From looking at everyone else's cities, farms, and regions, I've been having an itch to rebuild Capitalis and Community Island.  I don't know if anyone has noticed, but the developed areas in my region are actually flat (all at 270m).  There is a lack of custom content.  In reconstructing the island, I would rebuild the areas to actually have altitude.  I would try to do BATing and lotting (if I figure out how to get it to work on my Linux setup).  Rebuilding in an already established region isn't easy, and the custom content creation will take time.

Please vote (I've added a poll at the top).  If you have other suggestions, then please comment or leave a private message.  Thanks!



***Replies***

Battlecat:  Heh, I would need to put different foliage for different parts of the island in the game. 

adroman:  It's all right, and thanks for visiting again.

Tomas Neto:  Thank you!

976:  Thanks for visiting and I'm glad you like it.

[Battlecat]

Given a choice of the four, I have to say I'm intrigued by both options 3 and 4.  The challenges of building a rapid transit line through an existing urban core should be quite interesting, particularly since you're living the reality of it right now.  But at the same time, option 4 does sound quite cool, and I think it does sound like you're itching to do it anyhow.  Hey, what can I say, I'd like to see all four options, but I know that's not realistic!

So I'm going to officially cast my ballot for option 4, because I'd like to see what you can do with the custom content.  But I'm going to suggest that parts of options 1 and 3 could be included in this project.  Real world photos could be used on occasion to illustrate what you're trying to accomplish with custom content.  And if you're rebuilding the region anyhow, perhaps you could look into adding the rapid transit line here and there as you go. 

Regardless, it's a tough decision,  but I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this project next!

[Tomas Neto]

Hmm ... difficult to choose! I agree with the idea that it would be cool to do a mixture of all the options, but I think this is not what you want to do! So, to choose just one, I'll put my vote in the option number 3 or 4!!! 

[emgmod]

I would say option 3, then move on to option 4. I wanted to hear the vurrent rail story once the Island tour was done.

[KoV Liberty]

Option 4 would be good.

[amapper]

I would go with option 4 also given your comments about topography and custom content. I enjoyed the video of the transit lines planned route.

[danielcote]

The real Island tour please! Great video by the way. 

[sumwonyuno]

Hello, Everyone,

I apologize for the lack of posts.  I didn't realize how much school work I had to do since Thanksgiving.  Don't worry, I'm still here, and Capitalis is too.  I won't have a bona fide update until well after my finals are done (the 18th).

As for the voting, the responses from both Simtropolis and SC4Devotion, the results are overwhelming for Choice 4: Reconstructing Community Island.  Thanks to all that participated.  If your choice wasn't the winning one, I will try to incorporate the other three (subtly and explicitly) into the project.

Here are some ideas of things I've been thinking of (not all are doable):
- Ploppable items (grid and mayor-mode) for various items (flora, parks, eye-candy, etc.)
- TheBus automata (rainbow and classic yellow shades)
- BATing and lotting
- transportation network modding

Now, there are over 400 highrises in Honolulu, thousands of low and mid rise buildings, and hundreds of thousands of residential homes.  I'm not aiming to do them all.  I will need to think of a doable strategy to create a good mix of RCI and ploppable buildings that evoke that feel of Hawaii: lanais, open-air designs, landscaping, mauka-makai, etc.  The different architectural styles, the feel of different areas, and the functions of buildings are all under consideration.

I have purged much of my 1.9GB plugins folder.  Much of the custom content buildings I had in my collection I couldn't use for Capitalis (too tall).  It's stripped down about 120MB of mods and game additions.  I've left the terrain texture alone, but I've changed the water texture to something closer to real life.  I also have started to work on terrain elevation.

Here is the work I did before Thanksgiving:


My strategy is to start from shoreline or the mountains (depending on the area), and first put the transportation network to the correct elevations.  The development will come later, once I create it.

Although I really want to work on rail transit, until Mufi (the Mayor of Honolulu) digs that hole in a Kapolei field for groundbreaking, I'm not officially working on rail transit.  I can do things such as the route and rationale for certain decisions as part of the Community Island reconstruction.  The designs for the future stations and future development is an ongoing process.  I'd like to BAT a station or two, but one, there are no blueprints I can go by, and two I'd need to learn additional things to make the stations work in game.

I'm also going to migrate away from Imageshack, as I've been losing an uncomfortable amount of pictures.  I am going to do a combo of Photobucket and Picasa Web Albums.  The Island Tours will be moved to Photobucket, and have thumbnails instead of full pictures, because of the bandwidth limit.  My custom content, terrain, and the big/important pictures will be hosted on Picasa Web Albums.

[EDIT]: I can't find the button to remove the poll...  Thanks, RippleJet!

[RippleJet]

[EDIT]: I can't find the button to remove the poll... 

Now you should be able to find it!