San Diego: 2.5 yrs Update

[Gugu3]

Very very nice!curious to see further developement

[kelis]

I like so much your work with this region, how you are making the roads and different neighborhoods, congrast my friend, your region is getting better and better !!

Greetings

[vortext]

Bit late to the party but congrats on being OSITM! 

Always interesting to get a peek behind the scenes. And since you've removed the water anyway, don't forget to do some mmp detailing on the seafloor! 

Looking forward to what else you've in store this month! 

[noahclem]

Congratulations on being OSITM     I enjoyed catching up on your work here and it's very deserving. Glad you found my tutorial helpful though it doesn't look like you're having too much fun with your underwater terraforming  (not that anyone would). I'd recommend ignoring smoothing in areas that are below your water transparency setting and hopefully that will free up a bit of your time to focus on something a bit more fun    Keep up the good work 

[epicblunder]

Looks like a fun project APSMS   

One of my biggest issues with the map that I've had lately was my frustration with the coastlines. Currently the land drops very close to the water, particularly near the downtown areas where it makes good seawalls look...well like nothing worth looking at.

Before you go gung-ho on completely terraforming every scrap of coast i want to point out that there are a couple of other option.  They might not be ideal for what you're going for but you might find them suitable enough with far less effort than a complete hand-terraform.

If you open your terrain mod in reader you will find variables that control beach width and height, water transparency gradient, and what depth the deep sea texture takes over.  I give detailed instructions on them in this article.  I'm not sure what effect you're going for so i don't know if the results you will get from tweaking these variables will be able to satisfy you, but for 15 minutes effort it might be worth a try.  For instance if you set the WaterDepthForMaxAlpha to something less than 15m you won't be able to see the bottom of the seawalls and it won't matter how they blend with the underwater topography.  (If they intersect the ocean floor you can drop that variable further to hide it, if desired)

It's also possible to use terraformer to push up all the seafloor, but this would require restarting your region so it's entirely understandable if you want to not try it.  First make a backup copy of the region you're working on (copy/paste the San Deigo folder in your /MyDocs/Simcity4/Regions to a safe location).  Then open the region in terraformer.  In the advanced tools rollout select the compressor.  Set the 'unchanged height' value from 0 to 250.  Then set the new max depth of the seafloor you want, for instance going from 170 to 210 will cut the depth of your seafloor in half, thus also cutting the slope of your ocean dropoff in half.  But again that's a rather drastic step.

Good luck with your project.   

[leribel]

Amazing city journal 

Edit: BTW what terrain mod do you use? Can't figure it out, thanks in advance.

[Kergelen]

Really fantastic work. I like how you plan your cities

[APSMS]

Warning. Lots of replies ahead...

Well, I for one don't mind development pics, excellent progress so far! 

The region is shaping up quite nice and you're doing a good job gridbusting indeed, pics 12 & 13 are my favorite in that regard. The last couple of night shots are great too!

Thanks. Progress is usually slow. My plugins folder is not the best organized, and my attempts at modding existing files have been mixed at best, so a lot of time is spent in development control, unfortunately, which IMO is pretty boring to look at.

I have no words to describe this update !! Very well done my friend, I enjoyed so much reading this update, watching the pictures and the progress in your region. The region view looks pretty good as well, so keep it up my friend, your work with San Diego is fantastic.

# Jonathan

Gee, thanks. That means a lot coming from you and knowing the work that you do in the game.

The closeup shots were already impressive from the previous updates, but those overviews are spectacular!

I'll try to include more of them in the future for you. I always think it's nice to have a city that works as a whole, rather than as a microcosm for the "region" as a whole. It's something that I always admire about your cities, as they always seem to work together.

I always enjoy development images. It gives me an insight in the way others work on their region.
Besides that: real life is under construction all the time! Nothing is ever finished.

One of my favourite words: a building isn't finshed before it is torn down.

So, yes please show your developments. I like how the region is growing and I especially like the night image with the car light lines. That must have been a lot of work!

The picture was a lot of tedious work. I'm currently thinking of a new way to do it, but I won't have it ready for some time, unfortunately.

Really enjoyed this developement update!

Very very nice!curious to see further developement

Glad you enjoyed it!

I like so much your work with this region, how you are making the roads and different neighborhoods, congrast my friend, your region is getting better and better !!

Greetings

Thanks. Sometimes I'm not always certain of how to continue, though, due to the facts that I'm basing it on a real area, my map is e'er so slightly underscaled, and I want the different areas to have a distinct character, which is something I've never really been concerned about in this game before. Learning how to do that is more challenging than I thought it would be.

Bit late to the party but congrats on being OSITM! 

Always interesting to get a peek behind the scenes. And since you've removed the water anyway, don't forget to do some mmp detailing on the seafloor! 

Looking forward to what else you've in store this month! 

I would do MMPs, but the seafloor around San Diego is pretty barren, and for better or worse, I'm not really planning on letting y'all see the sea floor anyways. I'm also horrible at MMP detailing , so there's that, too.

Congratulations on being OSITM     I enjoyed catching up on your work here and it's very deserving. Glad you found my tutorial helpful though it doesn't look like you're having too much fun with your underwater terraforming  (not that anyone would). I'd recommend ignoring smoothing in areas that are below your water transparency setting and hopefully that will free up a bit of your time to focus on something a bit more fun    Keep up the good work 

Thanks for stopping by. I will be ignoring the low areas for the most part, but every so often I actually enjoy doing this mind numbing stuff. It takes my mind off of the design decisions that I'd otherwise have to be making had my beaches already been nice and smooth.

Looks like a fun project APSMS   

One of my biggest issues with the map that I've had lately was my frustration with the coastlines. Currently the land drops very close to the water, particularly near the downtown areas where it makes good seawalls look...well like nothing worth looking at.

Before you go gung-ho on completely terraforming every scrap of coast i want to point out that there are a couple of other option.  They might not be ideal for what you're going for but you might find them suitable enough with far less effort than a complete hand-terraform.

If you open your terrain mod in reader you will find variables that control beach width and height, water transparency gradient, and what depth the deep sea texture takes over.  I give detailed instructions on them in this article.  I'm not sure what effect you're going for so i don't know if the results you will get from tweaking these variables will be able to satisfy you, but for 15 minutes effort it might be worth a try.  For instance if you set the WaterDepthForMaxAlpha to something less than 15m you won't be able to see the bottom of the seawalls and it won't matter how they blend with the underwater topography.  (If they intersect the ocean floor you can drop that variable further to hide it, if desired)

It's also possible to use terraformer to push up all the seafloor, but this would require restarting your region so it's entirely understandable if you want to not try it.  First make a backup copy of the region you're working on (copy/paste the San Deigo folder in your /MyDocs/Simcity4/Regions to a safe location).  Then open the region in terraformer.  In the advanced tools rollout select the compressor.  Set the 'unchanged height' value from 0 to 250.  Then set the new max depth of the seafloor you want, for instance going from 170 to 210 will cut the depth of your seafloor in half, thus also cutting the slope of your ocean dropoff in half.  But again that's a rather drastic step.

Good luck with your project.   

Thanks for that article. It was interesting, and I haven't had a chance to fully experiment with the parameters yet, but I'll definitely be trying them out in the future. Regarding the Terraformer, do you know if I can edit existing cities without blowing them up? That would be much faster, as I spent an inordinate amount of time in Terraformer making my Republic City Map. Of course, starting over properly is always an option, but that would be a lot of time and nice development gone to waste. Unfortunately I'm not as skilled a builder as, say, Arthur to be able to start a new region from scratch without some serious time on my hands to get everything right.

Amazing city journal 

Edit: BTW what terrain mod do you use? Can't figure it out, thanks in advance.

Thanks. I'm in the middle of switching from Gobias' SVT (Sudden Valley) Mod to Lowkee's Appalachian Terrain Mod. The uniformity of green in Gobias' mod didn't reflect the more California feel I was going for (though obviously Lowkee's is still way too green). Both are on the LEX.

Really fantastic work. I like how you plan your cities

Thanks. I really try, though that leads to some painfully slow building sessions sometimes.

Finally...the end, and a teaser to boot! (Let's all just pretend I have something to tease about ) Click for full size!

The SG Goober Gen Convention Center on the left, with the Williamson Annex directly opposite. It's a "green" building that is offices upstairs and extra convention space in the lower levels. The Old Canada building is in the foreground, and if memory serves, the art deco building at top right is the old Tribune Newspaper Headquarters, though I could be wrong. I'll have to check back later and verify.

[benedict]

Very interesting. And congratulations on being OSITM.

[noahclem]

Great teaser    I wasn't aware of that convention center and think I will give it a try in my city 

[kelis]

Fantastic night view !! I can't wait to see a new update of your region !!

[Gugu3]

Nice teaser

[dyoungyn]

Wow, simply amazing.  Great work and looks a little realistic.

Where can I get the mod that allows me to grow/plop residential along NAM Street/Road curves?

dyoungyn

[compdude787]

Wow, simply amazing.  Great work and looks a little realistic.

Where can I get the mod that allows me to grow/plop residential along NAM Street/Road curves?

dyoungyn

You should be able to do that without any extra mod. I've done it myself. If you do the draggable FAR/ smooth curves, which has been in the NAM since v31, it should work and even show wealth textures (different sidewalks/trees for different wealth levels of RCI). Even if you plop all the smooth curves, it should still work, but you won't see wealth textures. But either way you should be able to grow zones along street and road smooth curves.

[APSMS]

A quick mosiac to pass the time. I made this a little bit ago, but haven't had the chance to play recently or take photos, so I leave this with you guys to keep from going inactive and keep myself honest. Complete development is a lot harder than I thought.

In downtown, looking north. At the top is the St. Paul Cathedral and Parochial School.


And a link to see it in its own page here.

[benedict]

Fantastic - love the range of buildings as you scroll down the mosaic.

[vortext]

Great mosaic! 

[mak]

As a fellow San Diegan, great job!
You really captured the essence of Downtown very well!

[romualdillo]

Great mosaic!! I love the mix between residential, commercial and industrial buildings in your downtown. 

[Sim.Rico]

Cant wait to see more from the MD San Diego !!!!!