SC4 Devotion Forum Archives

Hello!  And welcome to my new Mayor Diary.  This MD may not be everyone's cup of tea but even though I have not built a single road or lot or anything really (yet) I am coming up against some struggles and solutions that I thought I might want to share with others.  But first some background.

I recently had the opportunity to travel through the SF Bay Area via air and was struck, once again, by the dynamic of the geography the bay area offers.  Flying over it really gives one a "bird's eye" view. 

As a result, this project started that weekend of May 28, 2009 when I flew from Seattle (my home for the past 33 years) to San Francisco to meet up with my sister, with who I then boarded a Greyhound bus and traveled south to Santa Barbara, CA for my nephew's wedding.  I had been working sporadically on a CJ over on the SimTropolis site off and on (did I already say sporadically?) for a number of years and had recently taken up my brush again but got sidetracked by the weekend out of town.  Still, having SC4R on my laptop (which I of course took with me) and having the opportunity to view the SF bay area from the air after recent game play gave me a very different perspective of the area, despite having flown in and out of SF many times. 

While in SB my sis and I stayed with my mom at a gated Montecito estate. Don't misunderstand this...we are not wealthy folks by any means but the woman who owns the estate is and she is a client of my mother's.  My mother is a custom clothier...she designs and sews custom clothing for rich people.  She's 74 now, semi-retired, lives in Idaho during the summer and flees south to SoCal once the snow flies and rents a basement room in the adobe home of this client of her's while she is there.  I don't know if the home is true adobe or not, but I suspect it is because there is no wireless reception anywhere indoors...one must leave the home to pick up signal. Which is why I went the whole weekend without internet access and why I started playing the game default San Francisco region late at night after my early bird mom and sister had gone to bed (I am a chronic insomniac and usually don't go to bed until at least 1 am.  I am also currently unemployed, so staying up late doesn't affect my work life, as I have no work life).

We ended up staying an extra day in SB due to changes in travel plans for Char (my sis) and I to head home so I was able to get a pretty decent start on building on the Maxis SF region.  As anyone knows who plays this game, most default regions of actual locations are terribly out of scale, by a factor of 4:1 or more.  So by the time I finally returned to Seattle, I had become determined to acquire a scale accurate region of the entire SF bay area.

I have a friend here online who is a fantastic map maker, perhaps you have heard of him?  His screen name is Heblem and he created my monster Copper River Region for me earlier this year and did a FANTASTIC job.  When I decided to try for a SF map, I first tried to make one myself and when that failed, I asked my buddy Heblem to create one for me.  He has a thread over on ST where he takes requests that can be found here:

http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=120&threadid=106446&enterthread=y

You'll have to cut/paste this link if you want to check it out, as I don't know how to make links (yet). 

Heblem accepted my request and within a couple of days sent me a region map I could open in Mapper.  This is what it looked like:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg36.imageshack.us%2Fimg36%2F1404%2Funrenderedsfpng.png&hash=f307498d1405b0d396b6740b8de337ed35a19fc9)

I was ecstatic with the results and couldn't wait to start rending the region in game.  The region is scale accurate, 10 large city tiles wide from west to east and 13 large city tiles wide from north to south, for a total of 130 large city tiles.  It's a very large region, but smaller than my Copper River region, which is 16 large city tiles to a side for a total of 256 large cities.  Still, it takes some time to render them all, city tile by city tile, into the game.  This is what the region looked like after it had been fully rendered:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg36.imageshack.us%2Fimg36%2F9576%2Fsanfrancisco.png&hash=f09d499d3a878275e6e0cc447cc112f8b5e3aacf)

The snow on the mountains is not naturalistic for this area of central CA, so I knew I would have to address that, but more about that later.

So.  Besides being an insomniac, I am also deeply anal and OCD, so I approach any new project with the need for tremendous detail.  I've been working on the project for a couple of weeks now and think I am making some progress. 

Please understand I am trying to RECREATE this region.  To that end, I downloaded 43 scale accurate USGS topo maps of the area, then using both Photoshop and AutoCAD was able to synch the two to each other, kinda sorta.  They don't synch 100%, but they are close...close enough for me to start laying down tiles and saving as I go.

Now, to address the issue of snow in the mountains.  For my Copper River region, I had been using Cycledogg's Columbus Terrain mod with low snow. Copper River is Alaska and the Columbus mod fit perfectly.  My new region is central CA and Columbus does not work at all here, so the search was one for a new terrain mod.  I also figured I may need a new rock texture, as most of the hills and mountains around the SF area are heavily eroded sandstone.  And how do I know this?  I researched it, of course.  In fact I found out that because of the San Andreas fault running right down the middle of the area, most underlying rock to the south is sandstone while the rock north of the Golden Gate Bridge begins to transition to granite.  I can't use two rock textures at the same time, so I decided to look for sandstone. It's a game and compromises mst be made, but it was during this search for naturalistic central CA mods and textures that one of my back burner decisions was made...I would try to recreate the area as close to as it exists in RL now as the game would allow me to do.

That's why I said, in my opening statement, that this MD may not be for everyone.  The creativity in this MD will come more from working within the limitations the game presents than from anything I dream up out of my head.  I will use tons of cheats and custom content, almost every lot will be plopped and it will be rare when I will allow the cities, when they are built, to run off the Pause mode.  I am not really building a city or a region...I am attempting to create a piece of computer art that apes an existing RL location. 

My approach to attempting this is multi-fold.  Once I find a terrain mod I like and a water mod and a PW mod, I will begin to transfer the information I have downloaded from the 43USGS topo maps into my game.  I am a deeply anal person, actually OCD, so the extreme attention to minute details is not an issue for me while it may drive others up a wall.  I am an architect in RL (when working) and our motto is "God is in the details". 

This MD is likely to be long on text and short on pics in the beginning...and maybe all the way through.  I'm a chatty gal in RL and that comes through in my online communications as well (ya think?). 

I need to stop for a while now and post this but I will be back soon to detail my search for mods to fit my landscape as well as pics of the RL maps I am using and the techniques I am using to recreate RL in my region.  I even have a tutorial stashed away for anyone who is as mental about details as I am on how to create RL region maps from USGS downloads.  Not sure anyone will be interested so if not I'll dump it into the recycle bin, but if you like extreme detail stuff, stay tuned.

  I'm not used to this interface, so I'm not sure these image will post, so I guess I just have to trust that they will.
I'm going to have to backtrack a bit to catch any readers up with where I am  now, but will do that next time around.  Right now I am sleepy and sleep is precious to me, so I grab it when it calls me...


I'll be back!

Lora/LD

Lora,

I have been awaiting this post. I have been following along with your questions/concerns/comments over in the 3RR and was wondering when the first updates of progress to this region were going to come out. I am anxiously awaiting to see where your progress takes you. I am also just starting a massive region and like to look at Google Earth and take rl applications and try to convert them into the game.

I too have somewhat of an OCD nature and can relate to your frustrations. Hopefully, development is as smooth sailing as it can be. Good Luck!!!

Quote from: projectadam on July 17, 2009, 02:22:44 AMI too have somewhat of an OCD nature and can relate to your frustrations.

Ditto!  ;D Which makes me equally interested in what you do with this challenging region. Reminds me a lot of one of my current projects - developing the Cape Peninsula - and am therefore looking forward to see how you go about it here.

M

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this develops. Your attention to detail will help make this region a stunner, I'm sure!  :thumbsup:

I'll keep my eye on this recreation project, i think its the first on devotion  &apls :thumbsup:

Did you rotate the map to make sure you could build the golden gate bridge?

:P

Looking forward to seeing the development of the Bay.

It's a very big map :o Good luck to urbanize that ;)

Guillaume ;)

Hi Lora,

I am really looking forward to seeing how this project develops.  I have always found Sim City a great way to deal with insomnia and OCD.

Great map, and nice start!!!  :thumbsup:

I can relate.  We use SimCity in the same ways.  Sleep doesn't come easy for me either.

This is a very ambitious project and I'm looking forward to following along.  The region map looks wonderful.  :thumbsup:

You've embarked upon a very ambitious task here. I'm intrigued. I'll enjoy watching how you build your recreation. I tend to be a night owl as opposed to an insomniac but I enjoy the early morning hours. It's quiet and I use that time to wind down and to clear my mind. Sim City helps with that for me.

Looking forward to your project.

Geoff

This post was originally a second introduction to my MD which I posted after completely spacing out the fact that I had already started this MD the week before.  The kind moderators here at SC4D combined my two MD's into one (thanks folks, and I'm sorry for being such a space case sometimes).  When I got bumped upsatirs to the Best Sellers list, I decided it was time to introduce some organization and so edited the original post that was here to combine it with what now is the "formal" Introduction above. 

Lora/LD

good luck this MD should be good! looking forward to it

This sounds very interesting, Lora. I'm excited to see your solutions to the many challenges that await you.

Ok, I'm back to continue the introduction but first many thanks to both GreekMan and Albus of Garaway for your comments. 

So, OK, I was talking about Terrain Mods.  There's quite a few of these out there but finding one to match what I saw from the airplane window as we were descending for landing in San Fracisco in May was going to be my first big challenge.  I also was uncertain how to uninstall my Columbus Terrain mod, as I had installed it manually, before it was updated and packaged with an installer, (and with no small amount of difficulty) many years ago.  I couldn't remember where all the various files for the mod were placed, so I had to ask around and then find and re-read the read me file that came with the original download.  It took a while, but I was finally able, after several sessions of play, to uninstall the mod.  I had not yet selected a replacement, so I left the region in "plain vanilla mode" for the time being.  I also uninstalled PEG's "Brigantine" water mod, as I thought the slatey blue color and choppy texture, while perfect for a subarctic region like my Copper River was not quite right for cental CA and an enclosed bay. 

Over the ensueing days I searched around for terrain, water, and PW.  But really the next big project was to name my cities.  In order to do that and have any degree of accuracy to RL, I had to learn what RL cities existed in the areas contained within my 130 city tiles.  Being an ex-Californian and having traveled in and around the Bay Area quite a bit over my adult life, I knew some of the names of some of the cities and approximately where they were, but there was no way I was going to be able to recall 130 names from my age-addled memory, so I was going to need maps...and lots of them.  And the best place to get free and highly accurate maps is the USGS web site, which can be found here:

http://www.usgs.gov/

More specifically, the page I downloaded my maps from can be found here:

http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/usgs/maplocator/(ctype=areaDetails&xcm=r3standardpitrex_prd&carea=%24ROOT&layout=6_1_61_48&uiarea=2)/.do

This is a fairly simple and easy interactive site that allows one to download free topographic maps of just about anywhere in the United States.  for each area the user defines on the map, a choice of downloadable maps pops up.  Being anal, I chose the most detailed ones, each of which  covered an arc of longitude of 7.5 minutes.  Each map is at 1:24,000 scale and downloads in Adobe PDF format and each is individually named.  Here is an example of one of the maps:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg193.imageshack.us%2Fimg193%2F7957%2Fbeniciao38122a2geocopy.jpg&hash=395b3588fe96daf5b8f7fcd324b85f5c9c7c29f3)

The maps show an area approximately 6.75 miles by 8.75 miles.  Here comes some math, so if your allegeric, skip this part.  A single game cell represents an area 16 meters square, which is approximately 52.5 feet.  A large city tile is 256 cells square, which makes it approximately 2.5 miles to a side.  My region, being 10 large tiles wide by 13 tiles in length is therefore about 25 miles by 32.5 miles square.  As my region doesn't conform to exact same boundaries as the maps I was downloading, I had to download maps all around the edges of my region to make sure I had the entire area covered.  I ended up downloading 43 maps.  The USGS doesn't survey the ocean (that's NOAA's job, I think), so I was spared having to download maps of those city tiles in my region which have no land mass.  Each map takes my slow wifi connection about 10 minutes to download, so you can maybe begin to understand how being OCD can be helpful to someone interested in extreme accuracy and detail. 

It took me several days to download all the maps.  It's pretty boring, so I tried to stay busy doing other things while I downloaded.  Eventually I had all the maps I thought I was going to need but now several new problems arose.  First was marrying all the maps to each other to create a single large map of the entire Bay Area.  I had tried to do this once before with my Copper River region using Photoshop, but the experiment failed rather miserably after many, many hours of work, so I decided this time to see if maybe using AutoCAD might work better.  And here a second problem arose as AutoCAD does not allow the user to import a PDF file into a drawing.  However, it does allow the user to import a raster image.  So, now I had to translate all 43 of my PDF maps into JPG's.  Fortunately that's not hard to do in Photoshop, as PS allows us to open PDF as then use the Save As buttom to create a new JPG of the PDF image.  Still, it's tedious and boring and I didn't want to do all 43 maps and then find out I couldn't manipulate them in AutoCAD the way I wanted, so I did one as an experiment.  And this is where I ran into yet another challenge.

Each PDF topo map is skewed from horizontal and vertical by a little bit and each map is skewed individually, i.e. not all the maps are skewed at the same angle.  In order to marry them up one to each other, I was going to have to unskew them and make thier boundaries horizontal and vertical.  AutoCAD allows me to draw over the imported raster image, so once the image is in my drawing, I drew a constrained straight line from the bottom left corner of the map to the top left corner of the map.  CAD also allows me to start a new perfectly vertical constrained line at the exact same spot I started the first line, so now I had a the angle of skew drawn.  CAD also allows me to measure that angle to any degree of accuracy I want, so I chose a decimal value of .00.  Once the angle was determined, I wrote that down on a piece of paper (actually an Excel spreadsheet I created to keep track of maps with) then removed the raster image from my CAD drawing and erased my work.  I then opened PS and the JPG file of the map.  PS allows us to rotate images, so I used the commands for that function and rotated the map the exact number of degrees I had learned is was skewed, which was generally in the area of 1.xx degrees counter clockwise.  Now my JPG map was plumb and level.

Also, each map has information along it's margins that I don't need and that will interfere with marrying the maps to each other, so each map needed to be cropped.  Again, that's fairly simple to do in PS, but again tedious.  Once cropped, I once again imported the image into CAD.  Repeat this series of steps 43 times, which time to carefully abut the maps to each other at very close zooms and eventually I had the entire region area mapped out in CAD.  I took many screen shots of this process and could, if anyone wanted me to, write a tutorial on how to do it, if anyone out there is as mental as I am and has access to AutoCAD software.  Just let me know, I have lots of time on my hands these days. 

Anyway, this is what the final area map looked like:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg198.imageshack.us%2Fimg198%2F7361%2Foatopomapcopy.jpg&hash=6f45de8a8a6586c427e027fbfc1d42a704322dc8)

Time to stop again, gotta run to the store and make myself some lunch.  I'll stop by again this evening.  Coming up next: scaling the topo maps to the region...or more accurately, scaling the region to the topo maps.

Hope your not bored to tears yet!

Lora/LD

I've been watching for this, Lora.  Us detail-oriented folks need to stick together.

Here's to a long, long run for RSFBA.


David

Wow, what a fascinating read, Lora! You put in a lot of hard work, but the results clearly paid off with that wonderful map you stitched together. Amazing work, and I'm eagerly looking forward to more.

Boy oh boy if I don't feel like a complete and total idiot.  I completely forgot that I started this thread just what, 2 weeks ago?, and I started a NEW one called "Recreating San Francisco Bay Area" last night.  I am going to see what I can do to combine this one into that one, so there will be only one and it will be the one I started last night.  For those of you who visited here, thank you for you kind comments and if you have been checking back waiting for updates, thank you too for your patience.  Please, transfer your interest to the new thread and we will let this one die a quiet, painless death.

Lora/LD, red-faced with embarrassment

This all sounds very, very interesting, but I'm afraid I can't see any of the pictures from your second post. I, myself have had the pleasure of visiting San Francisco when some relatives of mine were living in Sunnyvale. I look forward to seeing the future of the Bay Area.

OK, this may or may not work.  Seems system admin folks have turned on to the fact that I started two MD's on the same topic and they have combined the two for me, sparing me a lot of frustration in trying to meld them together myself.  However, this occurred while I was in the middle of a 4 hour update and I just discovered this when I tried to post the update to the "Recreating San Francisco Bay Area" thread I created last night and was told that the thread no longer existed.  So now I have four hours of work on a reply to a thread that no longer exists, so I am going to try to copy and paste it here.  Fingers crossed, this will work, as I have tones of pics. 

Taking a deep breath and crossing my fingers, legs, and toes, here goes:

Ok, back again for entry #3, but first some biz to attend to.

It is with great embarrassment that I this afternoon discovered, while double checking my last post to see if the maps displayed properly, that I actually started an MD on July 17 titled "Recreating San Francisco".  I only made the first beginning entry and it was probably laste at night after a couple of glasses of wine, which is probably why I completely forgot I did it.  There have been 10 replies and 350 views of that similar thread since then, not including my new post there asking folks to please disregard the false start and please head over here instead.  I am going to see if there is a way I can lift the posts out of that MD and include them here, but if not, I may just do an update of quotes, so the folks that responded "over there" can be included with the folks who respond "over here".  How embarassing.  &ops

And...drum roll please...everyone please give a warm welcome to my good friend dedgren, the SC4 master of the universe and proud creator of the inspiring and totally awesome 3RR or Three Rivers Region.  It was he who inspired me to start my Copper River Project and to not be afraid to tackle immense regions.  We've kinda been leap-frogging each other for a number of years now.  Back when CRP was a CJ called Apocrypha and was standard game default region size, I ran into two obstacles that caused me to lose my enthusiasm for the game.  One was scale and the other was the lack of credible PW.  When I found myself out of work recently (um, this time last year), I returned to SC4 and fired up my old CJ again and then began to renew my acquantaince with David (dedgren).  I was stunned with what he had done with 3RR during my absence, especially his solution to the scale problem, which has led me to where I am now, with not one but two, count them, two mega regions to keep me busy for most likely the rest of my life.   :)

joeylyboy911 writes:

QuoteThis all sounds very, very interesting, but I'm afraid I can't see any of the pictures from your second post.

Neither can I.  However, Albus of Garaway seems to be able to, so I don't know if it's some lack in yours and mine computers or what.  If the problem persists, please folks let me know and I will see if I can figure out a way to fix it.  I am using Imageshack as my picture host and an careful to size all my images to the 800x600 max, so perhaps it's a problem with Imageshack.  When checking the last post this afternoon I used my refresh button and that didn't help.  I sometimes run into this on other MD's and found that if I page ahead and then page back, the images sometimes come up, but not always. 

Many of us have already seen examples of USGS topo maps, so that image isn't really terribly important, but I would really like the big composite map I made to display.  First of all because it was so time consuming to make and secondly because it is the basis for a lot of the work I have done since and want to share here.  So, when I am done writing tonite, I will try to go back and edit my earlier post and re-post the composit map.  My apologies for the snafus.

Onward.

Ok, so no one has begged me to write a tutorial of how I made the composite map and I explained it fairly coherently, so instead I'll just post some of the screen shots I took of the process because well, I have them and because, well, if you are going to enjoy this MD at all you are all going to have to crawl into my head a little bit and this series of pics will help you begin to do that.  You may find being inside my head a strange and maybe uncomfortable place to be, but if you are the detail-oriented, anal, OCD type I am, you may find yourself comforted to know you are not alone and indeed feel quite a home.  We'll see.

So ok, one of the keys to successful creation of composite images is keeping things very organized.  I had already created a folder on my desktop called SFmaps to which I had downloaded all the USGS topo PDF's.  Now, after my first map was unskewd and isntalled in my CAD drawing, I had some idea of the other levels of organization I was going to need to keep things from becoming hopelessly tangled up in each other.  So in my SFmaps folder I now created 3 new folders: USGStopos, topoJPGs, and rotated.  First order of biz was to put all the PDF's into the USGStopos folder.  Then I collected off my desktop the other miscellaneous SF maps I had, including the Mapper file and a pristine version of the rendered region (a copy/backup of the one in my game file...just in case) and stuck them into the SFmaps folder, too. 

I've already told you about the Excel spreadsheet I made, but let me go into just a little more detail about it.  In each cell of the spreadsheet was the USGS name of each map I downloaded, each placed in correct relationship to each other, so I would know what maps abutted which.  Lets see if I can post a pic of the completed spreadsheet:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg24.imageshack.us%2Fimg24%2F1649%2Fexcelcopy.jpg&hash=fb4558aa917d9aa5a9bd0c13bb375b8463d72cd0)

This spreadsheet is basically the "map" I used to track my progress in creating the composite map.  I started by collecting the names of all the maps I needed from the USGS download site and entering thier names into the spreadsheet as I went from map to map.  Then, I put a check mark in the upper left corner of each cell of the spreadsheet when the map had been downloaded.  Then, after I had saved the PDF as a JPG, I put a check mark in the upper right corner of the cell.  When I found the angle of rotation in CAD, I wrote that across the top of the cell, above the cell/map name.  After I had cropped and rotated the jpg to plumb and level in PS, I put a check mark in the lower right corner of the cell.  And finally, after I had matched the map up with others in CAD and saved my work, I put a check marl in the bottom left corner.  Very helpful for keeping track of where I was and not skipping or duplicating work. 

And here are some pics of the process of creating the composite map.  I used the Redwood Point map for these pics:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg397.imageshack.us%2Fimg397%2F2931%2Fcrnw3004.jpg&hash=3eb0929cb583ba24ebe4ce45620a71361b890250)

A screen shot of the PDF loaded into PS.  Only step here was to got to File>Save As then select JPG.  I didn't rename the files, they kept thier original map name file name, in this case Redwood Point, just the file type changed from .pdf to .jpg.  I saved these new jpgs to the topojpgs folder in my SFmaps folder on my desktop.  Then minimized PS and opened CAD.  In CAD, I went to Insert>Raster Image and grabbed the jpg from it's folder and installed it in my drawing.  This is what it looked like as it comes into the drawing:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg380.imageshack.us%2Fimg380%2F8653%2Fcrnw3011.jpg&hash=043130bfb14b280e038dbf4af288695eaa4a5f37)

The red square represents the size of the object being imported.  In CAD, I can make the object any size I want it to be, either by using the crosshairs to click/drag to the right to make it larger or to the left to make it smaller.  There is also a dialog boz that pops up that allows me to choose from a bunch of options including scale and rotation, but I didn't use those in this process.  Also, at this stage of the process, the size of the imported map is immaterial, as all I am doing now if finding the angle the map is skewed at.  I am NOT going to save my work and I am going to delete the map from the drawing once I have found the angle of rotation.  So, to get as accurate a measuremnt of that angle as possible, I want the imported map to be as large as I can get it and still fit comfortably in the workspace I have near the rest of the already married maps:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg55.imageshack.us%2Fimg55%2F622%2Fcrnw3012.jpg&hash=6437130813cc5a038c589a310096766b3ba7bf5e)

You can see the image will be larger given the red square showing it's size.  The white line inside the red box represents my cursor.  Once I like the size if the image, I release my mouse button and hit enter.  Now my map is in my drawing:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg369.imageshack.us%2Fimg369%2F5748%2Fcrnw3014.jpg&hash=30e0895daf8aef11f349d26a46385d4fd6b3190d)

Now I need to zoom in to the corner of the map to begin to draw my reference line:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg384.imageshack.us%2Fimg384%2F6190%2Fcrnw3019.jpg&hash=1d2d3fdf4a24913890b82e277315e4be59262931)

I start my line, zoom out so I can see the upper corner, zoom back in, complete the line at the next corner, click enter to end the Line command, then zoom back out.  This screenshot really isn't very good, but maybe you can see the red line I just drew along the edge of the map:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg370.imageshack.us%2Fimg370%2F1045%2Fcrnw3025.jpg&hash=6277e08331f461dad95e39fdbd8f964528960f1f)

Now I do the same thing again, starting at exactly the same point where I started the first line.  CAD has a function called OSNAP which, when turned on, allows me to pick from a selection of options for starting/ending lines, including endpoint.  I can also constrain any line I draw to any given angle I want, so I turn ORTHO and OSNAP on to make sure the next line I draw is perfectly vertical and starts in the same place as the first one, then I draw my new line:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg220.imageshack.us%2Fimg220%2F4642%2Fcrnw3031.jpg&hash=d101e3573609f525bee281925422e698e8650b15)

Now I have an angle I can measure, so I do exactly that:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg132.imageshack.us%2Fimg132%2F5012%2Fcrnw3044.jpg&hash=1ddd2205ed924700d458dbcb5ff1b43cb6fd734d)

After noting the angle down, I delete all thw ork I just did and un-import the raster file of the map.  A number of reasons for this but the primary one is that at this point the raster image in CAD is at some unknown scale and won;t match up with the others and I really have no way of knowing what to scale it down to.  Also, the map is uncropped and still skewed and while I can rotate the image in CAD, I can't crop it.  So I minimize CAD, maximize PS and go back to my JPG image I left about 3 minutes ago (in RL) and first rotate the jpg by the angle I just discovered:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg361.imageshack.us%2Fimg361%2F2513%2Fcrnw3049.jpg&hash=c8475624811759200bae3b548e3650e8deecfd58)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg378.imageshack.us%2Fimg378%2F6313%2Fcrnw3050.jpg&hash=fb95c87fb2a7269d775539afd1b607b7d49581af)

Then I crop it:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg189.imageshack.us%2Fimg189%2F7769%2Fcrnw3052.jpg&hash=5ac3f6c00a17215c4c7154e09198f200433e85d5)

Now I'm done with PS for a while, so I save the work, this time in the "rotated" folder and close PS (actually minimize it, because I usually did a number of maps at a time and wanted to have the saved jpg's open if I screwed up in CAD and had to delete my work there.  It happens, especially late at night after a couple glasses of wine...), and go back into CAD.  Once again I import the raster image, this time from the "rotated" file and this time, instead of enlarging it, I am very careful to not hold down my mouse button or move my cursor after the image comes into the drawing, so as to make sure the new image is at the exact same scale as all the other maps I've already married to each other.  Once the image is imported, I move it up close to where it's supposed to marry up with the others, then zoom in to begin the process of matching it to the other maps:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg207.imageshack.us%2Fimg207%2F2403%2Fcrnw3058.jpg&hash=3ded64236d68b4cecf59f24be0f2cc3e0e114268)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg220.imageshack.us%2Fimg220%2F7226%2Fcrnw3060.jpg&hash=d0823795703ee915d1aad670a8e301e36ad66b52)

You can see the elements I can align to each other, so from here it's just a matter of nudging the new map into place, slowly and carefully, with zooms in and out to check alignments.  I go along the entire border of each map where it meets with others and make tiny adjustments as I go along.  None of the maps match 100% and perfectly with each other, but they are close enough, even for me.  For one thing, the original USGS maps vary in age...some are over 50 years old and a lot has happened with mapping technology over that period of time.  For another thing, because the original PDFs are quite large ( 21"x42" if I wanted to print them out and had a printer big enough to do so), when I view them for cropping in PS, they are pretty small and it's difficult to crop exactly on the map borders.  So sometimes the maps overlap a pixel of two, sometimes they don't meet at all but have a gap between them.  Also, the majority of these maps were hand drawn, traced from aerial or satellite imagery, so 100% accuracy is impossible.  I am almost 100% positive these maps were scanned into the computer rather than computer generated in the first place and having myself made the transition from manual drafting to CAD, I can forgive a great many of the inconsistencies I found in the process of creating my big composite map.  Even with CAD, which stands for Computer Assisted Drafting, and it's phenomenal power for accuracy (I could theoretically draw the know universe to scale), it's still humans behind the screen and punching the keyboard and humans err.  Besides being an avid SC4 fan and gamer of other games, I am also a knitter, a fiber artist of sorts, and despite my experience in the fiber arts (which is extensive) I still make mistakes and like my fellow knitter friend Fran says "That's how you know it was made with human hands." 

Besides this is a GAME and even as OCD as I am, I do recognize that I have to let go at some point.  In this regard CAD has been both a blessing and a curse for me.  It satisfies my need to be as accurate as possible and at the same time feeds my mania for unreasonable and unneccessary accuracy.  A saw cut across a piece of lumber is 1/8" wide (in rought framing), so trying to deliver accuracy of anything greater than that is a total waste of time and effort, when it comes to RL buildings.  In SC4, our smallest landscape element is the single cell, which is 16 meters or 52.5 feet square, so accuracy to within a couple of cells, or 100'-150', is about as good as is gonna get.  If I was truley mentally ill, I would become so obsessed with this game that I would move to SF and spend the rest of my life mapping the area out with a transit and computer, down to the inch, noting the locations of gum wads on the sidewalks, not to mention bird splats. 

It all comes down to finding a way to balance the need for extreme accuracy and detail with understanding the limitations of the game and the tools and to not become lost or overwhelmed by either.  I do become both lost and overwhelmed by both from time to time and have to break away and do something else for a while.  I have to remind myself no one is paying me for this, I will never be judged by anyone for the manner in which I play my game, and most of all I have to remember that it is JUST A GAME.  I can fudge things here and there and no one is going to take me to task for it.  In fact, if I am to have fun and become absorbed in the game, I have to do exactly that...fudge a little now and then. 

So, all that being said (whew!), this is the final pic of how the new map marries in with the rest:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg372.imageshack.us%2Fimg372%2F394%2Fcrnw3069.jpg&hash=ff4af255f5fc1cf6115e6994546eb68104f06030)

Repeat 43 times and viola!  An accurate scale topo map with all the detail any OCD person could ever want. 

Ok, that's it for this update.  I know I said I was going to explain/illustrate how I scaled my region to the composite map in this update, but I wanted to share the pics I had and besides, I didn't take any pics of that process, so I am going to have to go back and do it over, this time taking pics.  At the time that I did it I had no idea what I was doing, it was a total experiment, which is part of why I didn't take pics.  But as things turned out, I got it right the first time around and I think I actually remember how I did it, so recreating the process shouldn't be too onerous and I am sure those who are following along here will find it interesting and perhaps give them ideas they can use in thier own regions and cities.  It will take me a good portion of tomorrow afternoon to snap the pics I need for the next update, so I probably won;t post again until tomorrow evening.

I hope no one fell asleep at thier keyboards reading this.

Lora/LD

No choice but to post this and then check back to see if it worked.  I am keeping my post in the other thread open until I know for sure, but I think I will take the precaution of pasting it into my clipboard, just in case this attempt fails.  Stay tuned.

Lora/LD

Well, my copy/paste seems to have worked for the most part, thank goodness!  All the images I posted except one came through for me execpt for the first one and to me that's no big deal it was just an image of the PDF map file as originally downloaded from the USGS site.  I am still not seeing the images from my second post and they include the image of the ccompleted composite map, so I remained a bit worried about that. 

This is also, I think, an excellent time to warn you all about typos.  I am a two finger typist (index finger of each hand), so be prepared at all times to translate my typos into language.  Reading back over what I have already posted I find tons of typos that I am itchy to go back and correct (OCD again), but at some point I have to trust the readers to understand and not get to anal about being perfect all the time.  I hate typos but being as how I am so often guilty of them myself, I have learned to live with them.  I hope you will, too. 

I said I was going to try to go back and fix the post of the composite map when I finished tonite's post, but that was over 4 hours and 4 glasses of wine ago and now I just don't have the energy for it.   I hope you will forgive me and stay tuned, as I will definitely find a way to get the composite map posted...to much of what I have done since then depends on it.

:::yawning:::

It's finally cooling off here in Seattle after an all-time record breaking day of 103 degrees yesterday.  That's not on that date, but regional and streteches back over 100 years.  It was damn hot and I felt for my poor roomie who works as a short order cook, sweating at his grill all day.  Today was cool by comparison as it only reached 96 degrees.  Today was also a record breaker, but only for this date.  We only have to break 87 degrees tomorrow to break the record for the hotest week ever and being as how predicted temp is supposed to be 89 and we have exceeded predicted temps all wekk, I imagine we'll do so again tomorrow.  But cool. moist air is finally beginning to move inland from the Pacific and the temps have dropped 20 degrees over the past 5 hours.  It's supposed to stay cool and cloudy into the afternoon tomorrow, then the clouds will burn off and the heat will return. 

Ah, summer in Seattle.  Summer means Seafair and Seafair means The Blue Angels come to town:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg75.imageshack.us%2Fimg75%2F3005%2F2007ba08.jpg&hash=c697ad24c9e5434917af47d5194f1a19962a0920)

I was awakend this morning by the sound of the air above my apartment being ripped to shreds, to be closely followed by the sound of powerful jet engines roaring.  The sound terrifies my little boy cat and he bounded off the bed and dived for cover.  For some reason neither of my girl cats are perturbed by te jets.  Myself, I love the Blue Angels and look forward to thier anual visit.  I love thier speed, thier noise, thier power, thier grace, the sheer beuaty of seeing them up close and personal against a bright blue summer sky and feeling the air being torn, in your eardrums and chest, as they fly by or pass overhead. 

They come to Seattle every year and fly a show the last weekend in July/first weekend in August.  The show is Sunday and they arrive Thursday to practice and get thier bearings, so they fly twice a day for 4 days before the show.  The sounds and sights of them is indelibly ingrained in my brain as summer.  I feel sorry for my little boy cat, who hides under the bed during these 4 days, but me, I go outside and watch them fly by, grinning as they set off car alarms across the city. 

Seafair also means...Hydroplanes!

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg198.imageshack.us%2Fimg198%2F590%2F2008hydrostwoturn.jpg&hash=6deb83b5ca785495d164b6bf5da3960e29163b58)

Awesome place to be in summer, Seattle.

Lora/LD

Wow²!

Weekend reading, to be sure.  The mapping work looks fascinating.


David

Speaking as a Norcal resident (I live about 45 minutes from the northeast corner of your region) I'm impressed. It takes commitment to get into that fine of level of detail. Good work, and I'll be interested in seeing your take on the area's transportation infrastructure.

Quite the project you've got started here, looks pretty impressive so far.  Nice job on those composite topographic maps. 

Very very very impressive map there Lora, awesome work with Photoshop there, truly outstanding ! Good luck with SF urbanization and looking forward to more.
-Arthur.  :thumbsup:

moin Lora,

??? god, what a task you burden yourself with! i wish you all the best ... and can' wait to see first close-ups!  :thumbsup:
as David pointed out it will will need more than a couple of minutes to read through your postings!  :P

b_schlurf

Ok, here we go with the next step in creating the stuff I need to name my individual city tiles, namely, scaling my region map to match my composite topo map.  Why do I need to match the scales to each other?  Because I need to create a city tiles grid 10 wide by 13 deep that will overlay the composite map.  Then I can see built and natural features where the are located in RL and how they relate to my game tiles, thus providing me with enough info to accurately create names for my city tiles.  Also because I may have maps in the composite that I don't need and, if so, I want to delete them.  At this point, my CAD drawing has 43 rather large sized raster images in it and it's slowing the software down quite a bit, especially between zooms.  Zooming in close is no problem, but zooming out to view the entire composite map means the software has to re-render all 43 topo maps.  Also moving around the drawing at far zooms is very slow as well, so if I can eliminate some of the unneeded topos, so much the better.  And lastly because having the game and composite maps synched in scale to each other gives me a base from which to work over the entire course of the rest of the project.  You'll see what I mean about this as we go along.  Right now I am going back over work I did a couple of weeks ago and I've done a lot of work since then, so I'm kinda playing catch up with myself.  This in itself is a bit of a challenge, as I am having to turn off a lot of the layers I've created in my CAD drawing since then so as not to give an freebie previews.  ::)

Onward!

The first thing I need to do for this next step is import the game region map into CAD.  The game region map is a Mapper file and CAD won't import it directly, so I have to create a JPG.  To do that, I used Terraformer:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg505.imageshack.us%2Fimg505%2F8263%2Fcrnw3001.jpg&hash=31a41ffba373e893381b07f0e5ee27db548eca30)

TF allows me to save a copy of the region in one of three file formats: PNG, JPG, or BMP.  So I chosse JPG, saved to my SFmaps folder, exited TF and opened CAD, which now looks like this:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg504.imageshack.us%2Fimg504%2F4213%2Fcrnw3002.jpg&hash=c19266476efd1b4d29e4375c235306d66e315043)

I now import the JPG I just created and install it into the game:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg384.imageshack.us%2Fimg384%2F9048%2Fcrnw3003.jpg&hash=cf2adffcd1b7e44a59dc0170041eab89ad1bae59)

As you can see, it's a little small, so I grab a corner and drag it to make it larger:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg188.imageshack.us%2Fimg188%2F7599%2Fcrnw3005.jpg&hash=a70719839103d90efb04d2cf3601608b2ca1275b)

I actually did this step twice and the pic is of the second time.

Now I need to find a fairly large and detailed piece of landscape on the game map that I can trace over and then copy and lay over the composite map, to give me an idea of how close I am to having matching scales...or how far away.  In the far north of the region is the area where the river from the Great Central Valley of California enters the bay and it creates what I think is a good opportunity for what I need:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg509.imageshack.us%2Fimg509%2F5836%2Fcrnw3006.jpg&hash=d7963f81439d36251213b9f2186112350c175e55)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg31.imageshack.us%2Fimg31%2F9154%2Fcrnw3007.jpg&hash=81de16cc5ffa3764f7f8c03475659ee6439d0c45)

Now comes the fun part (not really).  Using a line tool called Polyline, I zoom pretty close in and draw a single continuous segmented line around the upper part of the river/bay confluence.  I use this tool instead of the standar line tool because the standard line tool, while you can draw continuous segmented lines with it, the software doesn't see it as such but rather as a series of individual lines attached starting and ending at each other's start and end points.  So, if you try to copy or move them, you have to make sure you get all of them and it's easy to miss one.  Also, modifying the scale of objects drawn with the line tools varies somewhat by tool.  If I use the polyline, I know the software will see it as a single object rather than a composit of many objects, thus when I change the scale, the entire line will stay proportionate to itself. 

So after zooming in and out and about 30 minutes of tracing the coastline, this is what I ended up with:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg24.imageshack.us%2Fimg24%2F7233%2Fcrnw3009.jpg&hash=7458852cb1fb32e103e859b00b1fca3675e5aee4)

Now I copy the line and move the copy over to the composite map and see how it fits over the area that matches the game map:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg78.imageshack.us%2Fimg78%2F8933%2Fcrnw3010.jpg&hash=bb70a3e0a05bc511e3aff2fd2dbc5cb1f6088ce6)

Hmmm, looks a bit too large.  I don't know of any way to do this next part other than trial and error, but I have a good eye for scale and quite a bit of experience is using this software, so I made a guess that the line looks to be approximately 25% too large.  CAD has a tool called Modify Scale that allows me to rescale any object or sets of objects one of two ways.  I can either enter a numeric value, like .75.  The default value is 1.0, which is the object's current size, so entering .75 decreases the scale by 25%.  I will be using Modify Scale again later, but next time I'll be using the second way one can enter a value and that is using a reference point.  We'll talk about that when we get there. 

So now I delete the line over the composite map, I don't want it any more and I have a copy of it still sitting on my game map.  I go back to the game map, activate the Modify Scale tool and select BOTH the game map and the polyline drawn over it by dragging a crossing window across them both:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg199.imageshack.us%2Fimg199%2F8653%2Fcrnw3011.jpg&hash=e32fcac1c6b9b46e1a7fb7750eeb726c3bb192a9)

Both objects are reduced in scale by 25%:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg198.imageshack.us%2Fimg198%2F622%2Fcrnw3012.jpg&hash=63d4d8cbc1e849e2a5215556c99b4a2e71424a73)

Now I again copy the polyline, check it against the composite map and find that while it's closer, it's still too big.  I didn't take pics of the 3-4 times I had to go back and forth modifying the scale of the game map and polyline, making it incrementally smaller each time, but I got closer and closer until I finally had this:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg190.imageshack.us%2Fimg190%2F4527%2Fcrnw3013.jpg&hash=ade427af108ef32677252b92243b241734d6d66a)

Looks pretty darn good to me!  Also gives us all a deeper appreciation for Heblem's awesome map making skills, that he could create a game map from a RL map and get the two to come so close to each other.  :thumbsup:

So now we have this, a composite of RL topo maps at the same scale as the game region map:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg521.imageshack.us%2Fimg521%2F5748%2Fcrnw3014.jpg&hash=0b3fd170e40434d2eb4753338562b936009f76c0)

Yipee!  It probably took you longer to read this than it did for me to do the work shown, the most time consuming aspect of this stage was drawing the polyline.  Little did I know I'd be drawing lots of polylines in the days to come.  Remember, all this stuff I'm doing now is just the PREP work for the real stuff yet to come.

If you check back later this evening, I may have the next phase posted, which is gridding the composite map to match the game region map, and then, finally, beginning to name my individual city tiles.

And thank you to everyone who has stopped by, both those who have posted such kind comments and those just breezing through for a look-see. 

Lora/LD

This is truly a monumental task that you have undertaken. :o

And fascinating to read I must add.

This is going to be a long running MD I can tell one and I'm sure I shall enjoy over many a cuppa ;D ;D

Looking forward to the next installment :thumbsup:

:satisfied:
TTC

Hello again and welcome TeaCat, nice to see you here! 

Before I begin with the last phase of the prep for naming my city tiles, I wanted to point out a couple of things I failed to mention in my last post.

Like a lot of graphics programs, CAD is dependent on layers.  For folks unfamiliar with the layers concept, think of using multiple sheets of tracing paper one on top of the other (except they wouldn't slide around).  Each layer holds discreet information that the user defines.  CAD has 2 default layers, the "0" layer, which is white (colors of layers are also user defined) and "defpoints" which is also white.  Anything set in the defpoints layer will not print, which can be a very handy or very annoying feature, depending on how good you are at keeping track of what stuff you put on what layers.  When importing the JPGs into my drawing, I brought them all in on the 0 layer, both the topos and the game region map.  I will not put anything BUT imported objects in this layer.  This way, I can turn them all off at once, if I want, and see what is drawn over them and manipulate that stuff without changing the imported JPGs.  This also allows me to copy drawn objects without copying the underlying JPG's.  You'll see why this becomes important soon. 

I anticipate somebody eventually asking or wondering why I didn't scale the topos up or down to match the region map, rather than the other way around.  The reason is because the composite topo map is just that, a composite of 43 individual objects.  I kinda alluded to this in my last post when explaining why I used a polyline instead of a standard line.  The software would not interpret the compostie map as a composite, it would find 43 individual objects when I activated the Modify Scale tool.  if I then told the software to reduce the scale 25%, it would then do so to each individual object, with the result that they would no longer be married to each other and I would have to go back and remarry them all over again.  This would have happened with a standard line comprised of numerous continuous segments as well.  After modifing it's scale, it would no longer be a continuous line but would be either a bunch of smaller disconnected lines or larger lines overlapping each other.  Hence the use of the polyline and hence my scaling the region map to the topo maps. 

Lastly, I forgot to mention that when I drew my reference polyline around the region map coastline, I created a new layer and called it "black" and made it's color (no surprises here) also black.  CAD also allows the user to define the line type, but I am using all continuous lines so far.  I may use special line types later, I don't know, but I have a wide library to choose from and it helps keep information clearer once you start getting a lot of info on the drawing.  I also neglected to mention that once I got the polyline to match the coast on the topo, I did not delete/erase it, but left it in place because it will be instrumental in precisely locating the region grid over the composite map.

So, ready for the last step?

The first thing I need to do is create a new layer for the region grid.  I did so and called ir "red" and made it's color red.  Then I made sure my ORTHO and OSNAP were turned on and drew a box around the game region map on the red layer:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg338.imageshack.us%2Fimg338%2F9048%2Fcrnw3003.jpg&hash=493049632d8220a1334be9589682a1646698151a)

I used a standard line here because this next step requires it.  I have a tool at Draw>Point called Divide.  It allows me to divide any object into even segments without any measuring...the software does it all for me.  If I used a polyline to box the region map, this tool wouldn't work, although it works excellently on circles and arcs.  It just doesn't like polygons very much.  So, I zoom in to the top line of my red box, switch to the 0 layer because it's white and I want to be able to see the points the software is going to place for me on the red line:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg54.imageshack.us%2Fimg54%2F2931%2Fcrnw3004.jpg&hash=de84e9ac9ea4f43226d82abd679b7c7b3ad10422)

Now I zoom out so I can see the entire region map.  If you look close you might be able to see the evenly spaced little white dots that now exist on the top red line.  I switch back to the red layer, grab the standard line tool and draw a line now from the first white dot to the bottom red line:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg55.imageshack.us%2Fimg55%2F9154%2Fcrnw3007.jpg&hash=c3ddec8805b2cfc6618013cd550b1cfc669d240e)

Then I use the Copy tool and copy the line I just drew all across the region map, matching the line's endpoint to each node across the top red line:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg373.imageshack.us%2Fimg373%2F7233%2Fcrnw3009.jpg&hash=ff005e38814c9721fafcae6a251c58017b52b695)

After all the verticals are drawn/copied, I erase the white points on the top red line, because I don't need them anymore and it's always a good idea to remove excess info from your work.  Then I do the exact same thing with the horizontals, except this time I divide my line into 13 segments rather than 10:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg55.imageshack.us%2Fimg55%2F8933%2Fcrnw3010.jpg&hash=d39b9fbe722352c8f3b54925d9e9eb9210a05611)

So now I have the city tile grid drawn over my region map.  But, each line of the grid is an individual line and I want to be able to manipulate is as a single object.  To do that, I have to convert it to a Block, which is easy to do and not something I need to show you how to do except that I want to show you that before I convert the grid to a block, I want to turn all my layers except the "red" layer off.  I do this so that the region map doesn't become part of the block as well, as I cannot select the red grid without also selecting the region map.  Well, actually I can if I go and individually select each red line, but that's slow and tedious, whereas if I turn off the other layers I can use a single crossing window to select all the grid lines at once, which is much faster:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg263.imageshack.us%2Fimg263%2F7568%2Fcrnw3012o.jpg&hash=352c04aeb84f1ffe496bc9cd3739f8585d47a3e2)

Once I have converted the grid to a Block, I turn my "black" layer back on but leave the 0 layer off for the time being.  I want to copy the grid and the black coastline that is now located in the grid from the region map to the topo map.  So I use another crossing window to select them both:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg70.imageshack.us%2Fimg70%2F5748%2Fcrnw3014.jpg&hash=638587b74f5c2503c1aa6576525950970e2e200f)

You can see the matching polyline over at the right side of the shot, as well as a grey box that you can ignore for the time being...it's gust another set of objects I have drawn on the black layer and I couldn't turn it off because of that.  It's not a part of this step of the process.

The Copy command allows me to choose a point to use as a copy/match point and I want to use the very tip of the black coatline polyline, click on it's endpoint, then zoom out and move the entire copy over to the topo map and match the end points of the two polylines to each other.  To do this I need to zoom pretty far in:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg269.imageshack.us%2Fimg269%2F894%2Fcrnw3015.jpg&hash=e6bb44e2f8847df6d43445186aff109c7a233a55)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg189.imageshack.us%2Fimg189%2F4457%2Fcrnw3016.jpg&hash=1c59190b79db6513ea08ae3f2663d3a9a88461fa)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg198.imageshack.us%2Fimg198%2F2998%2Fcrnw3017.jpg&hash=baca1b997a31314d358e4972f4df67895b25d0b7)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg56.imageshack.us%2Fimg56%2F2889%2Fcrnw3018.jpg&hash=8b6654e8a17cede72e0ec51c9c368fd7c855a363)

Once I am certain I have endpoint matching endpoint, I hit enter to end the Copy command and now my region grid has been accurately (or at least as accurately as is possible) overlaid on my topos:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg189.imageshack.us%2Fimg189%2F6190%2Fcrnw3019.jpg&hash=c479eb7501e810b8ae3cb26b5d6b6ac9f352de5f)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg376.imageshack.us%2Fimg376%2F4783%2Fcrnw3020.jpg&hash=ef0da715d47694b850b3ebc5274759e21501b2be)

Now you can see where that little grey box fits into the picture, yes?  Soon you will learning just what it is!

So now the city tile grid is superimposed over the topo maps.  Lets see how well they match up with each other.  Lets look at the four city tiles area that comprise the Golden Gate itself.  I have to turn the 0 layer back on now, so all the maps display again:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg266.imageshack.us%2Fimg266%2F3783%2Fcrnw3021.jpg&hash=11aabb2951276967078c6454171b311035cca9e1)

Now lets see how the grid overlays the same area on the topos:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg187.imageshack.us%2Fimg187%2F5606%2Fcrnw3022.jpg&hash=cf87998992a51620ac2a08a0cd07b43adedacb54)

Not too shabby.  Close enough for me and as I work the individual city tile, I can fudge things around a bit here and there, but overall, I think it's pretty good.  Hope you agree!

So that is the end of the prep stage.  From here I used only the topos and close zooms, going from city tile to city tile, picking out either built or natural features to name my city tiles by.  I used a pad of lined paper and numbered the lines 1-130.  It took me a couple of sessions to got tile by tile through the CAD drawing and write a name down for each city.  BTW, I numbered the grid starting at the far upper left hand corner and then across to 10, the second row started with 11 and went to 20.  I named the first city tile Stafford Lake because:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg60.imageshack.us%2Fimg60%2F6518%2Fcrnw3023.jpg&hash=e299640974bb82c1f77cabc0f10ca4b992bd2c4f)

The lake in the center of the tile is about the only really predominant feature in the tile.  The exurbs of the city of Novato, which is itself a suburb of the greater SF bay area, are in this tile, but the city of Novato itself is in the next tile east, so the lake was really the only thing that jumped out at me as a naming feature. 

Once I had named all the cities, I then, finally, went back into the game itself and went tile by tile, giving my cities the names I had chosen for them.  By this time I had removed all water, texture, and terrain mods that had existed when I orinially rendered the city, so in effect I re-rendered the entire region in plain Maxis vanilla mode as I went along and truth be told I was not unhappy with the results.  As I went along, I watched my region become much drier and plainer, which is what I had wanted.  I also took a close look at my hills/mountains to decide if I was going to have to "rough them up" with terraforming to make them look more like the RL area and, with my recent fly over of the region, decided this would not be necessary.  These are, in RL, low, soft, and heavily aged and eroded hills, there really are no "mountains" in the area as the term is defined in the western US, where "mountains" mean peaks of jagged rock scraping the sky at 14,000 feet elevation.  I don't think there's a single hilltop in SF area, at least that which is contained within my region, which exceeds 4000' and most are much lower.  Flying into SF the landscape looks more like a rumpled unmade bed than anthing else, so I decided the default map was going to be just fine the way it was, no terraforming needed.  My final picture tonite is of the region re-rendered in plain vanilla, this time taken from Region Census:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg376.imageshack.us%2Fimg376%2F8030%2Fsanfranciscoy.jpg&hash=7bf998851bc19c1996e1d74677b0edce7b7f67c5)

I think this looks a lot more like the bay area than the original rendered region did.  The snow is gone, the water is bluer, the hills are sandy colored.  I remembered as I was naming re-rending the region that Maxis is located in the south bay area and so why the heck shouldn't the default game terrain values reflect the area the game developers lived and worked in? 

So, many of you may be asking/wondering, what comes next?  Well, now the really intense and difficult work begins.  I have the philosophy that built environments, even mature built environments like this region comprises, must needs be built around and taking into account the natural environment.  So, next up is recreating the watersheds of the region.  The topo maps show every stream and creek and rill and streamlet, and I have a grid in place to locate them.  However, a grid 2.5 miles to a side is not going to be much help for recreating, so next I am going to develope a more detailed grid both in my CAD drawing and in my game cities, which will allow me to plot RL watercourses from the CAD drawing to the game. 

In the meantime, my search for a terrain mod continues.  I have downloaded and installed the Italia mod by cycledogg, but I am not sure I am liking it.  It greens up the landscape quite a bit, it puts wierddark green clumps of stuff on my beaches, and I am not really liking the rock textures.  I am also working hard on PW/GW transitions, as I have many and I want them to be naturalistic, if possible.  I don;t waves running into shorelines parallel to the river shores, which is what happenes if I dredge a river channel from sea level inland.  I don;t like turning off waves in the game to take pics of PW/GW transitions nor do I like playing my game with waves turned off...sea level water laps against a shore and I want wave action.  However, wave action is an obstacle to good PW/GW transitions, so far.  When rivers meet the sea, there are no waves at the intersection because the river creates a deep channel that runs quite a ways out to sea, in fact usually several deep channels.  Many challenges ahead and I am thinking of delving into learning how to create my own custom content in regards to water, both GW and PW to see if I can figure out a solution.  There are a number of folks already working on this who are way ahead of me on the learning curve, so it may be a waste of time for me to try to catch up.

Much cooler today and yesterday, temps in the 80's feel downright balmy after Wednesday's scorcher.  I forgot to mention that summer in Seattle, besides being defined (by me at least) by The Blue Angels and the hydroplanes, also includes the annual arrival of the Navy's Pacific Fleet.  Puget Sound has many harbors that host the Pacific Fleet for a week or so every summer, and the hosting always coincides with Seafair, so while the jets crease the sky and the hydros rooster tail the water, the sailores strut the streets in thier dress blues or work whites.  They travel in small packs, usually, shore leave dontcha know.  Port Angeles hosts a few boats, as does Anacortes, Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, and Bremerton.  The boats hold public tours daily while they are in port and there is a web site where local people can sign up to host a sailor while he/she is in town.  The entire region opens it's arms to those who protect our western shores.  But summer in Seattle is seeing sailors walking the streets and hanging out in the bars. 

Lora/LD

Interesting tutorial , i might use this info to make some Jersey Maps :thumbsup:

A fascinating couple of updates, Lora. Your work in CAD is simply incredible. I can't wait to see what you're up to next!

Albus of Garaway says:

QuoteYour work in CAD is simply incredible. I can't wait to see what you're up to next!

And Nexis4Jersey says:

Quotei might use this info to make some Jersey Maps

Well, you won't have long to wait to see what comes next, because this post is it.  Also wanted to say that AutoCAD is incredibley powerful software and I only use about 10% of it's capabilities.  I only use what I need for residential architecture and haven't a clue in the world how to use the rest of the tools, but I seem to learn new tricks and tools all the time.  It's not very intuitive and it's VERY expensive, so if any of you have any thoughts about running out and purchasing it, I hope you have lots of money and many, many hours of free time on your hands.  The learning curve is quite steep.  I've only been using the software myself since about 2004, so about 5 years now, and am considered by most folks to have "adequate" skills and to still be rather slow with it.  There are simpler graphics drawing programs out there that have the same or similar tools as I use and which are much less expensive, but I have CAD so that's what *I* use.  Autodesk, who manufactures AutoCAD, also has a "Lite" version of the full program I use and it's also less expensive, as is thier student version, so if you're into mapping and want a new toolbox to work with, those are options.  One of the reasons I was originally hesitant to start this MD is because I rely heavily on a software tool most other folks don't have access to and it seemed kinda unfair.  However, I really am using only the most basic CAD tools and since many other draw programs have the same sets, I figured that maybe if I just ullustrated tool techniques it would be helpful for others.

I also wanted to clarify my use of crossing windows to select multiple objects, as it becomes critical in this next drawing build.  There are two ways to draw crossing windows, from left to right and from right to left.  Windows drawn from left to write select only those objects fully contained within the window.  Other objects that may also be in the window but which extend beyond the window are NOT selected.  Crossing windows that are drwn from right to left select all objects in the window, including those that extend beyond the window itself.  You will see how this difference in drawing a crossing window comes into play shortly.

Onward!

So, when I left off last night, I had finally named all my cities and created a game accurate region grid to overlay my topos.  Now, in order to assure accurate recreation of RL objects contained within each city tile and shown in great detail on my topo maps, I need to create a new grid, this one a city tile grid of 256 cells square, because that's the grid that occurs in the game itself.  Using an overlaying city tile grid of 256 cells will allow me to semi-accurately plot RL objects into the game to within about 1-2 cells of accuracy or 50-100 feet.  That sound like a lot of wiggle room to someone like me who is used to working with accuracy of 1/16", but hey, it's a game and even *I* know I can't get overall accuracy greater than a couple of cells!

So this is where we left off:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg329.imageshack.us%2Fimg329%2F8263%2Fcrnw3001.jpg&hash=5fa0448eaccc29bdc073b8d48f9bab043dec82be)

I'm only going to be working on a single city tile square, so I'll need to zoom as far in as I can.  I've chosen to use the Stafford Lake tile for this, as it is the upper left corner of the region and close to unused space, which I am going to need to do some off-map work in. 

Oh!  I forgot to tell you that when I overlaid my region grid on the topos, which actuallu happened a couple of weeks ago and not last night, I found I had 3 topo maps which fell entirely outside of the region grid, all 3 at the far north western edge, so I deleted them.  Because this MD was started after I did that, those 3 maps have never been shown here, just wanted you to know that from here on what there are now 40 topo maps, not 43.

So anyway, the zoom in leaves me here:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg21.imageshack.us%2Fimg21%2F4213%2Fcrnw3002.jpg&hash=771ff450285db3cf8deba3342dd3c848e537d61a)

Now I draw a box around the city tile, just like I did before, using a standard line that I can divide, and I am putting this on the black layer this time, as I don't want it on the same layer as my region grid.  I may want to turn one off and leave the other on, so I want them on different layers and I really haven't used the black layer for anything so far except to draw my coatsal polyline and I don't need that line any more, so for the time being that means the city grid will be the only object on the black layer.  Once the box is drawn, I use the divide command again, but this time I divide the line by 256 points (that's a lot of points!).  I also switched over to the red layer to draw the points, so that I would be able to see them on the black line.  Now I switch back to black and zoom way in so I can pick up the first point on the line and draw my first line.  Again, I am using standard lines AND my ORTHO and OSNAP are turned on, to make sure I draw only vertical/horizontal lines (ORTHO) and that the software will automatically find ojects for me (OSNAP):

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg20.imageshack.us%2Fimg20%2F9048%2Fcrnw3003.jpg&hash=24cb9af6be302342c5f83705ab78f1b6a6174bb9)

At this close zoom, I can easily pick up the first point on the line but I can't very easily draw to the bottom of the box, so I zoom back out so I can see the entire box again:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg269.imageshack.us%2Fimg269%2F2931%2Fcrnw3004.jpg&hash=64f955214bd58d8684c1414a948dfb28663d6033)

At this zoom one can hardly even see the new line I am drawing, it is so close to the edge of the box, which is why ORTHO and OSNAP come in so handy.  I know the line is perfectly vertical and when I see the little tool tip flip out at the bottom of the page saying "perpendicular", I know I have met with the line at the bottom of the box.  My line now drawn, I return to a close zoom at the top of the box, pan the drawing a little towards the left to expose as much of the length of the top line as possible at this zoom, then I use the Copy command and copy the line 15 more times, so that I now have 16 columns:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg299.imageshack.us%2Fimg299%2F7599%2Fcrnw3005.jpg&hash=8acefbba5c87bd56a3c82d365da51f8c8183b9bd)

Now I use a right/left crossing window to select the 16 lines I just drew:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg3.imageshack.us%2Fimg3%2F5836%2Fcrnw3006.jpg&hash=15b46a4ed24e7760db564420366488a047f08e38)

Notice this crossing window displays as a dotted line.  A crossing window drawn from left to right displays as a solid line.  Once I have selected the lines, I select the corner of the box as my copying reference point:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg526.imageshack.us%2Fimg526%2F9154%2Fcrnw3007.jpg&hash=0212b2d952363bfbae31047753fc9f7f1370ed78)

Then I copy these 16 lines 16 times across the top of the box, panning left as I go, and using the end pint of the last line as my copying point each time:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg406.imageshack.us%2Fimg406%2F5259%2Fcrnw3008.jpg&hash=86178f9557cba906fbf1e32cd3b3a492d09c60a7)

You didn't really think I would draw 256 lines manually did you?  Or, did you think I might copy that first line 255 more times?  Nah, I knew you didn't.  So now we have this:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg517.imageshack.us%2Fimg517%2F7233%2Fcrnw3009.jpg&hash=bf6a5d0fdaf6dfae982963fca30f02a40c4dde33)

To do the horizontal lines, I am going to use a shortcut.  Because this grid is square rather than rectangular, I can copy it, rotate it 90 degrees and then place it over the verticals, saving me the time of dividing, drawing, and copying.  This where I use a left/right crossing window, selecting only the objects completely contained within the window.  First I start the copy command, then select my box full of vertical lines:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg443.imageshack.us%2Fimg443%2F8933%2Fcrnw3010.jpg&hash=4261a3506c10fefb5634e34d120160c5a06deef0)

Now I move the copy over to an area of the drawing that is clear of other work, so I can see what I'm doing AND not affect other work:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg199.imageshack.us%2Fimg199%2F4038%2Fcrnw3011f.jpg&hash=cc2906caafa1cf6941dcf1ca2ae928328973673a)

Now I activate the Rotate tool, making sure my ORTHO is still on because that will constrain my rotations to 90 degrees, which is exactly what I want, and select the copied box, using whever type of window I want because there is no other work around that might get accidently left out or included:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg41.imageshack.us%2Fimg41%2F622%2Fcrnw3012.jpg&hash=d9ad182c2c99cd626764b9f046d4825eccef7c4d)

Now I rotate the box:

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Once the box is rotated, I use the Move command to select it, then zoom way to to select the corner of the box as my move point:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg36.imageshack.us%2Fimg36%2F5748%2Fcrnw3014.jpg&hash=7ca29208f05fbc4c57c460b06698cf9b6f7fc33b)

Then I pan right and match my move point with the corner of the original box:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg156.imageshack.us%2Fimg156%2F894%2Fcrnw3015.jpg&hash=9f3ebc5639d169654885656ef4a1e4f6a5bde09a)

Now I have a 256 cell square city grid:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg14.imageshack.us%2Fimg14%2F4457%2Fcrnw3016.jpg&hash=240e402432e6dfcefaa1082bec274c9f2337c012)

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The final step is to now convert this grid into a block, which I explained (sorta) last night.  CAD wants each block object to have it's own discreet name, so I named the region grid "gamegrid" and I named the city grid (what else?) "citygrid". 

That's all for now, dinner's on the table!

Lora/LD

Talk about an ambitious project you've got going. I'll love to see how it turns out, being a San Francisco native myself. Heck, your likely to cover a few relatives houses in Novato soon. It's a shame though that the map doesn't cover a few extra tiles south and north, to cover all of Marin, as well as San Jose.

Question for you: How are you planning on doing things like the bridges? You've got the two ends of the Golden Gate Bridge separated by city squares, plus diagonals AND multiple city squares for the Richmond Br. and the suspension side of the Bay Br. Thoughts?

MrWacko asks:

QuoteQuestion for you: How are you planning on doing things like the bridges? You've got the two ends of the Golden Gate Bridge separated by city squares, plus diagonals AND multiple city squares for the Richmond Br. and the suspension side of the Bay Br. Thoughts?

I plan to cheat, of course.  That is, in reality, part of what I consider to be the creativity of attempting a project such as this...one must cheat now and then and do so in such a way as to not disturb the viewer's perception of a recreation of a RL area.

I have already given thought to the bridges. 

The Golden Gate is nearly vertical in the N/S directions as is, so this one will be easy.  I will create a small island in the middle of the gate/strait to anchor the bridge to as it crosses from one city tile to another.  I don't have any problem doing this because in RL, this is exactly what engineers do...adapt the existing landscape to fit thier needs.  Look at some of the bridges that have been built in Chesapeake Bay and across the Florida Keys.

The Oakland Bay Bridge is another story.  It uses Treasure Island in the middle of the bay as a hinge point and because of my maps and the way my city tiles laid out, Treasure Island is not  in an east/west line with my SF city tile of Oakland tile, so again I am going to have to cheat.  My plan is to extend Treasure Island down into both the SF city tile and the Oakland tile.

Those are the two major major bridges in the area, which is not to discount the importance of the San Mateo Bridge, the Redwood Point/Dumbarton Bridge, or the San Rafael/Richmond Bridge.  In all cases I am going to have to cheat.  Such is life is you are trying to recreat a RL situation using SC4.  The game has limits and one of those limits is that bridges cannot be laid other than orthangonally and must connect from one land mass to another within the city tile.

Maybe by the time I get to that point, someone will have figured out how to build bridges and highways off the grid.  Who knows?  If not, I think I have it covered. 

Which brings up something I have been thinking about a lot lately.  I was orginally planning to go city tile by city tile and lay down all my water first, but I am not feeling so confident about that idea now.  With 130 city tiles, it could take me a year or more just to do this.  So now I am thinking I might want to consider fully developing each city tile before I move on to the next one. 

Feedback and comments on this and other ideas are always solicited and appreciated.

Lora/LD

Well you've certainly taken the term "recreating" extremely seriously!  Nice work with CAD there, I agree, it's an excellent and powerful program, which I also use extensively both for work and for SC4.  Nice work on matching the scale of your region to your topographic maps, that's not an easy thing to do! 

I agree that your best bet would be to finish each tile before moving on to the next one.  It'll give you some visual rewards as you move through the project rather than having to wait over a year to see anything completed.  I'm looking forward to seeing what's coming up next. 

I'd go RL city by city, covering some of the exurbs of certain cities as SC4 city tiles permit, for your development process. That way you can cover each area with as much detail as possible, before moving onto the next city. For the purposes of larger cities, it's probably safe to simply cover one district at a time, or everything on one side of a particular road/avenue/freeway or other easily visible boundary (like a SC4 tile ;D)

This project has certainly peaked my interest, enough that I'll be paying lots of attention, when I'm not paying attention to RL or my own region. If you need any opinions, help or anything else you can think of, I'd love to volunteer it, since I grew up in SF, and still live in the bay area. Of course it's your region, so do with it as you wish!

Lora, this is some of the greatest in-depth work I have ever seen.  Kudos to you for taking it on - and keep up the good work!

Well, it was a quiet weekend here on the MD.  I kept waiting for someone to post a comment so I could throw up the next batch of pics without being accused of bumping my own thread and no one did, so I worked on a couple of other projects instead.  Guess everyone was out enjoying the summer weekend, which I can't blame anyone for doing. 

FYI, one of the other projects I am currently working on is PW/GW transitions, as I have never been happy with any of the many ways I have seen other folks work this challenge out.  Being the perfectionista that I am, and now having a region with LOTS of areas where PW is going to have to transition to GW, I want to see if maybe somehow this challenge can't be resolved.  I've started a thred in the Brainbusters forum board...if any of you are interested in this conondrum, you can follow our discussion over there and see some of the results of the ideas we are coming up with.  There is also a thread and group of folks working on this in the Landscape Design Studio team, they have a thread going in the Projects forum board which I am also monitoring and chiming in on from time to time.  Most of them are currently too busy with RL to do much else for the time being, so my patience is being tested.  Have no fear, I am a Taurus, both tenacious and patient as a cow chewing cud.

Ongoing "behind the scenes" of what I am posting here is my search for a water mod I like, trees appropriate to costal central California, and still a sticking point, a terrain mod.  As I said a few posts ago, by the time I went back into the game and named all my cities, I had stripped all the custom mods out of my plugins folder and so re-rendered my region in Plain Vanilla, which I was not entirely unhappy with.  The biggest drawbacks are the very flat-looking GW and the lack of variable textures on land.  I haven't tried removing all my custom tree stuff (and I have tons of them), but that experiment may yet be upcoming.  I'm not doing any actual work in the region right now...just trying a lot of different combinations to see if I can come up with something I will be happy with. 

Responses to recent comments:

Battlecat says:

QuoteNice work with CAD there, I agree, it's an excellent and powerful program, which I also use extensively both for work and for SC4.

Thanks!  It's not often I get comliments on my CAD work, usually it's a client commenting and the comments are the other way around!  :(  But yes, I use CAD for all kinds of stuff that I'm sure it was never intended for.  I create knitting patterns in CAD as well as color schemes for knitting projects!

MrWacko says:

QuoteThis project has certainly peaked my interest, enough that I'll be paying lots of attention, when I'm not paying attention to RL or my own region. If you need any opinions, help or anything else you can think of, I'd love to volunteer it, since I grew up in SF, and still live in the bay area. Of course it's your region, so do with it as you wish!

As a current resident of the Bay Area, your comments will be invaluable and you may find you regret offering your services.  ;)  Could you run to the upper San Pablo Bay for me anytime soon and take some pics of the area where the Petaluma River enters the Bay?  This is the tile I am starting with and I am wondering what the area looks like.  It'd be nice if you could rent a boat and take pics from the bay toward the land and then maybe do a little paragliding for some low altitude aerials.  The next city tile east is Novato and I'll need some pics of that area too, while your in the area.  I hope you know I'm just kidding  :P  But seriously, your opinions and comments are always welcome and actively sought after.  I can only use Mapquest and Google Earth so far, so having an "eye on the scene" will be very helpful.  I may have to think about assembling a team of helpers who are in the Bay Area in RL to collaborate with me on this project...it's a big one!

Ryan B says:

Quotethis is some of the greatest in-depth work I have ever seen.  Kudos to you for taking it on

Aw shucks, thanks!  Usually my anal/OCD/detailism drives folks up a wall (thankfully it amuses my roommate) and folks tell me to STOP IT ALREADY!  Nice to have found an outlet that allows me to express myself in and get positive feedback instead of negative. 

Well, It's only two votes for completing city tiles one by one versus 0 votes for doing the entire region phase by phase, so going tile by tile wins by a landslide.  I actually think it will keep me more interested in the project this way...keep me from getting bored plotting grids, plopping hundreds of hours of PW, detailing streambeds for weeks and months on end, planting invididual trees all night long.  You get my drift. 

And with that issue resolved, I think I may revisit my decision to start with the tile that contains the confluence of the Petaluma River and San Pablo Bay.  In fact, until a way is founf to transition PW to GW naturalistically, I may avoid my coatlines altogether for the time being and work only on land locked tiles.  I have enough of those to keep my busy for at least a year and, fingers crossed, the transition problem will be solved by then, so I can go back and do the shorelines later.  We may also discover a way to defeat the orthagonal only bridges problem, which would mean I'd have to cheat less when it comes to the interbay bridges that span the area. 

Another bee in my personal bonnet is the default highways.  I started reading the BAT Essentials tutorial over on ST today with the idea that I may finally have to break down and learn how to create custom content.  This is a major metroplitan area and the freeways that run through it are not simple 4 lanes.  I've always wanted some 6 lane and 8 lane freeways to work with, not to mention divided freeways where one set of lanes is divided from another by a median.  I also want to copy, as near as I can, the RL interchanges and while the NAM team has done a great job of expanding our library of interchanges, in RL interchanges are designed and governed by the terrain they cover.  I wish I could find some pictures to the I-90/I-5 interchange here in Seattle, it's a little mind boggling.  It's just a "T" intersection, but it occurs both right at the extreme edge of the heart of downtown AND in a steep valley with hills to either side of the "leg" of the "T" makes it an engineering marvel. 

So lots of good stuff ahead.  No pics to post tonite, maybe tomorrow.  I'm ging to start switching out various terrain mods to see what they look like.  I currently have Cycledogg's Italia installed with the optional Olympic Beaches texture removed.  It's a little greener in the lower elevations than I really like and the green goes up a little higher than I like, so I am going to download his Missouri Breaks and see if maybe that one looks better.  I'll take pics and post them here, then we can decide together which one looks best for the RL area.  Along with this, I'm going to start plopping PW but will post pics of how I transfer grid information from CAD topos to the in-game city tile itself.  Warning!  Extreme OCD attack coming up!

Later folks!

Lora/LD

Lora,

I would be willing to go to where the Petaluma River enters the Bay and take any pictures you could dream up that you would want... On an all expense paid trip from you ;)

I can think of quite a few reasons you want PW but could you get by just using all game water and use the terraforming tools? I was debating this when I started my region and actually if I would have started after the latest update to the NAM I would have used PW but trying the game water route for right now.

I have also always been disappointed in the default highways and use the RHWs pretty much in all circumstances. Can you get by just using the RHWs or what are your reasons for creating custom highways?

On doing all the tiles' major transportation routes, water, etc... I think would have looked best but doing one tile at a time gives off the reward and satisfaction of actually getting something completed and is quite a bit more interesting for the viewers. I continue to wish you the best of luck on this project.

Hi,

First of all: great work there, this is really getting big, I think.

I would recommend using a GeoInformationSoftware, for your work on finding the right coastlines. It's likely, that your work would be even more exact.
With a GIS, even if it's freeware, you can rectify maps. You might look at some of my work, where I use GIS for creating maps (so it's the other way round ;) LINK (the lower one) (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=8435.0)), though I often give up trying to be too exact.

Hi Lora,

Some interesting ideas that have been passing through here during my short absence. Here's one of my own: Have you thought of making bridges that are overhanging props that go over the river? That way, they can be any angle you'd like! I've seen this done a few times before so that people can get diagonal bridges, but they don't necessarily need to be diagonal. They can be any angle you please. If I'm not mistaken, BarbyW has once done an overhanging bridge (But then again, it could have been mrbisonm. I really can't remember...).

I just thought that might be something to consider, if you have any skills when it comes to creating BATs.

Good luck! :)

Hey Laura! I have watching your development very closely and have been checking it more than just daily.  San Fran is my favorite place in the world and this is very exciting to me.  I am very anxious to see what your plan is for the bay bridge entrance into downtown with the transbay terminal being there.  Anyhow I have somewhat recreated this into my city and have some very useful ideas for when you start to plan your freeway system.

Best of luck!
Chris

nice work! I love the Bay Area and also your home town of Seattle! you should make a rec of that too. Sorry to say but San Diego is much better than Seattle and SF! ;D

keep it up1

Hello again!

Sorry to maybe disappoint, but I have only one pic to post tonite, a shot of one of my landlocked city tiles with a combination of terrain and trees on it.  I think it looks pretty good from far zooms but doesn't cut muster for close zooms.  I'll cut to the chase and post it now:

Well, maybe not.  This may become on ongoing subtheme to this MD...my lousy internet connection.  You all know, by this time, that I am out of work.  This is maybe more info than any of you want/need, but my only access to the internet is via a wifi connection I piggy back on my next door neighbor's unsecured network.  It doesn't cost him any extra money, but it slows us both down when we are both online at the same time and wifi is just not a terribly reliable connection to begin with, so.  He is evidently online now and when I try to connect to imageshack to upload my pic, I time out. 

So I'll describe the pic, I guess, instead, and try to post it again later.

This is a mountainous city tile, not much going on in terms of a built environment in RL, which is why I chose it to experiment with.  I had  CD's "Italia" terrain mod installed when I opened the tile, along with the No_7a_ Tree Controller.  I love the close zooms of the terrain itself, all the great understory plantings and textures, but in far zooms it's just way too green for the central CA hills and mountains.  So I downloaded CD's "MIssouri Breaks" terrain mod and switched that out with the Italia mod.  Was not happy with that one either.  Problem with both is that the terrain gets greener as elevation climbs and drier ar elevation drops, and that is opposite of what happens in RL in my region.  Flying over the SF bay area, one can clearly see nearly naked ridgetops while the valleys are very lush.  Thats because the underlying rock is, for the most part, very porous sandstone.  Sandstone, when it weathers, breaks down to sand, whioch is also very porous and not very good soil for growing things (I have a year of Soil Science under my belt, so I hope you will trust me on this).  While the hills and mountains around the SF bay area get a considerable amount of rain, most of the rain enters the soils and runs downhill without replenishing the water table of the higher elevations...hence thier relative nakedness and hence the lushness of the lower elevations. 

So, both Italia and Missouri Breaks don't work.  I love CD's terrain mods, but he doesn't seem to have anything that works.  Heblem has created some wonderful terrain mods for Mexico, but they are all too dry/arid to work.  So, once again, I removed all the terrain mods from my plugins folder and looked again at the Maxis "plain vanilla" terrain.  It leaves a lot to be desired in terms of understory plants and elevation-dependent textures, but it does get greener as it descends in elevation and it does, even without trees on it, look like what I see from an airplane as I come in for landing in RL bay area.  So, maybe I won;t use a terrain mod.  That decision is yet to be made, but I am leaning in that direction at this point in time.

So, last night I played with trees in the God Mode, for wide foresting of the test city tile.  I used the No_7a_tree controller over Italia terrain mod first and while it was gorgeous, it didn't look anything like the RL area.  Olive trees do not grow wild and in clumps in the hills of SF.  Olive trees are not native to CA, period.  Neither, for that matter, are Eucalyptus.  Both were imported and while the latter has become wild ("escaped from cultivation" is the term used for this), the Olive tree never has.  So I removed the tree controller and re-installed the Columbus Tree controller.  This has a lot of evergreens and not a lot of broadleafs, but it looks a lot more like my RL area.  This is what I took a pic of, a very hilly/mountainous city tile forested with Columbus Trees over plain vanilla terrain.  It looks pretty good and pretty naturalistic except for one thing.

The Columbus Tree controller plants heavier of the north slopes and lighter on the south slopes of hills/mountains.  That might work well and properly for the area of Montana it was originally created for but...and this is a big bit...in the SF bay area that orientation needs to be rotated.  All the hills/mountains run in a general N/S direction with a slight tilt to the NW/SE, and it's the western slopes that are greener, as they face the ocean and take the first burden of the storms that come to the area.  The eastern slopes are drier and less forested because of this. 

Maybe I can live with this.  Maybe I have no choice, as I don;t know how to tweak the Tree Controller from and N/S determination to a W/E one.  Maybe I'll try to learn how to do this.  I don't know yet. 

While I am mulling these issues over, my plan was to post the next phase of transfereing information from the topo maps to the game maps, but that isn't going to happen tonite.  In RL, my roomie and I host his best buddies and ex-roomies for "Game Night" on Monday evenings.  We have dinner and then break out the board game we chose for the night.  This week Monday didn't work, so tonite was Game Night.  I even skipped my Tuesday Night knitting group to stay home for Game Night and the game we played tonight, Settlers of Catan, ran several hours.  My roomie won, which is good because he was in a very foul mood when he came home after a day of bad golf and found a disconnect notice from the electric company waiting for him.  At first he refused to play at all, but we finally convinced him. 

Tomorrow I am not likely to be able to post much either.  Almost 90% of what I own is in storage in a good friend's basement, moved there in February from a mini storage that I could no longer afford and which was threatening to confiscate my stuff.  Dena, in who's basement I am storing my stuff, is being visited by her landlord tomorrow and has asked me to attend.  Dena lives not far from me, less than 1/2 hour bus ride, but we are good buddies who have not had a chance to sit and chew the fat with each other since February, so I imagine I'll spend most of the day with her.  I may be able to post again tomorrow noght and if my internet connection is better than tonite, I will try again to post the pic I wanted to post tonite.

I also have responses to visitor's comments to post, but it's now 1 am and I am thinking about my bed.

Lora/LD

Hmmm.... try the Yucatan terrain mod. I am using for a possible (quite likely) future New Zealand MD, using a map made from DEM data from the area. It is fairly hilly to one side of the map, and there is some brown-i-ness on the tops of those hills, otherwise it is a fairly lush green. It might work for San Francisco - though from my limited experience of there (I visited briefly 4 years ago) the green might be too lush (Maybe just me, as it was the height of summer). I look forward to hearing more.

Hello again!  My computer and connection seem to be behaving a little better this evening, so lets see if I can post the pic I wanted to last night, tonite:

Well, same problem tonite as last night, I am getting the message "website not found".  I use Imageshack to host my pics, is anyone else having issues similar to mine?  This is a real drag!  There is a little flyout on the error message telling me either the website is unavailable or that the attempt timed out before the webiste could be reached.  Last night my connection was very slow, so I blamed my own computer and connection, but my connection is good tonite, so I don;t know what's up.  This is very frustrating, as not only was I hoping to post last night's pic, but I downloaded and new terrain mod tonite and took some pics of it installed in game so folks could see what it looked like and compare it with other terrain mods. 

Ok, I'll log out of SC4D and see if I can get to Imageshack that way...new experiment.  I'll either post again soon OR edit this post when I figure out what is going on.

Sorry!   &ops

Lora/LD

place holder for more comment other then my jaw has hit the floor!!!! WOW Lora amazing, I see what happens when I miss out from being sick lol

Quote from: ldvger on August 05, 2009, 09:37:39 PM
Hello again!  My computer and connection seem to be behaving a little better this evening, so lets see if I can post the pic I wanted to last night, tonite:

Well, same problem tonite as last night, I am getting the message "website not found".  I use Imageshack to host my pics, is anyone else having issues similar to mine?  This is a real drag!  There is a little flyout on the error message telling me either the website is unavailable or that the attempt timed out before the webiste could be reached.  Last night my connection was very slow, so I blamed my own computer and connection, but my connection is good tonite, so I don;t know what's up.  This is very frustrating, as not only was I hoping to post last night's pic, but I downloaded and new terrain mod tonite and took some pics of it installed in game so folks could see what it looked like and compare it with other terrain mods. 

Ok, I'll log out of SC4D and see if I can get to Imageshack that way...new experiment.  I'll either post again soon OR edit this post when I figure out what is going on.

Sorry!   &ops

Lora/LD

Lora,

From time to time, I have had problems uploading pictures with imageshack but it has been smooth sailing for me for quite sometime. I know some people have been so disappointed that they switched to www.photobucket.com. I have never used photobucket but I believe it provides the same services.

I also wanted to double check and see what website you were using for imageshack because I think they have several portals, are you using www.imageshack.us?

Hope you sort things out and good luck, let me know if you need any help even if you would want to try sending me the photos and I could upload them for you and send you back the direct links to the photos.

iv been looking at this and it looks like you are taking on a big challenge!..i cant wait till you start devoloping this region!

Ok, see those voting booths lined up against the wall?  Yup, you guessed it, time for everyone to help me decide which terrain mod I should use for this project.  I have narrowed the choices down to 4:

1.) Maxis "Plain Vanilla"
2.) Cycledogg's "Italia"
3.) Cycledogg's "Missouri Breaks"
4.) Heblem's "Bajio"

My test city tile is named "Alpine Lake" and I chose it because it has quite a wide variety of elevations, from high hills to near sea level, thus showing the features of each terrain mod to thier best. 

I am going to show pics of the city tile in each of 4 directions: SE, SW, NW, and NE.  The city tile is too large to fit into a single screen capture.  Then I have 3 zooms of each terrain mod, giving close ups of details, but they are not all zooms of the exact same area of the tile.  I will show all four mods by compass point, change compass point and show all 4 mods again, around the compass.  Then I'll show each mod in zooms.  Lastly, I'll show a partial region view that allows comparisons at far zooms of what the mods look like in region view.  It's a lot of pictures, so get your voter's pamphlets ready and take notes!  I am especially interested in feedback regarding rock textures and the appropriatness of understory flora.  Please keep in mind that I'm not asking you to vote for your favorite mod (I think they are all very nice), but for the one YOU think looks most like what YOU think is in the San Francisco Bay area.  Bay Area residents, if you have been lurking, please step up and vote! 

One last thing!  These are BARE images in that no trees have been planted yet.  There are several options for trees, just as there are for terrain, so I'll have a seperate vote for trees later, but try to keep in mind while looking at the terrain that many parts of it will be fairly heavily forested at a later stage of development, especially the western slopes and lower elevations.

So here we go with the SE corner of Alpine Lake:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg401.imageshack.us%2Fimg401%2F9307%2F66961378.jpg&hash=245d5318ba5eff3b46c300cbd1dcc3b3f737370e)

Plain Vanilla

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg329.imageshack.us%2Fimg329%2F4308%2F77289650.jpg&hash=f2cf7219df82b5064b9c90cbb562003fd995bcb7)

Italia

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg291.imageshack.us%2Fimg291%2F6064%2F53809909.jpg&hash=62c83026f0c846156d5f10b6e7e16f46d50b8a9c)

Missouri Breaks

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg38.imageshack.us%2Fimg38%2F3761%2F18431180.jpg&hash=2a3d6d12c1cf31c046cf5893a2af9fad41794665)

Bajio

Now the SW corner:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F5584%2F97224924.jpg&hash=eeeb01ff4dc3f9370c7c73e279280a79eb9a5d94)

Plain Vanilla

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg196.imageshack.us%2Fimg196%2F5839%2F87730593.jpg&hash=a0424616031b620259bc21c6656028482aa9a39e)

Italia

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg29.imageshack.us%2Fimg29%2F4452%2F93537842.jpg&hash=66acf5a6bc3ec8038214901c735f9d5aa80f77d8)

Missouri Breaks

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg195.imageshack.us%2Fimg195%2F162%2F30986087.jpg&hash=8c93394670f9445038be6506956e70946a5a4247)

Bajio

Now the NW corner:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg32.imageshack.us%2Fimg32%2F7260%2F92314397.jpg&hash=6ab93165677c69f6e3b6275b4e2844cf8f48b69c)

Plain Vanilla

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg294.imageshack.us%2Fimg294%2F8530%2F85697404.jpg&hash=1d1fe0ea1463b9b234b976339a055383a30d464e)

Italia

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg18.imageshack.us%2Fimg18%2F4918%2F38212316.jpg&hash=491d449f5a288685d707e5eb5a06a1e2ce334d34)

Missouri Breaks

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg23.imageshack.us%2Fimg23%2F5858%2F13568226.jpg&hash=b7f55776707ec2a1b84cfa3ab4d5b126127b471a)

Bajio

Now the NE corner:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg36.imageshack.us%2Fimg36%2F3010%2F83968127.jpg&hash=fe93af35a090cc371dc274cb7c05181ea6f53dda)

Plain Vanilla

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg146.imageshack.us%2Fimg146%2F6411%2F66380861.jpg&hash=c35f6316143ab96d2bfafdceddcd6c109a61d320)

Italia

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg268.imageshack.us%2Fimg268%2F17%2F12349649.jpg&hash=9f78b52456ed8fdfa241a8a9e8c94536b4eeeff7)

Missouri Breaks

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F7640%2F44353994.jpg&hash=73fc891af9492b71a7bd3cbe8cf56efe37d763a3)

Bajio

Ok, now for the close zooms.  There are 3 zooms of each terrain.  First is Plain Vanilla:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg256.imageshack.us%2Fimg256%2F1691%2Fzoom1e.jpg&hash=d4c439228c01ea7b05672b7bea92dafc59fb5c48)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg35.imageshack.us%2Fimg35%2F1831%2Fzoom2l.jpg&hash=0c79091ca784568b1f53a9cfca9d76d3719a373c)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg193.imageshack.us%2Fimg193%2F6953%2Fzoom3.jpg&hash=8166be6aeec0cbb5e4f53e7a615109e606d67818)

Next is Italia:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg35.imageshack.us%2Fimg35%2F7357%2Fzoom1y.jpg&hash=cae9aed29351aac9a6947c254bdd073c826888ff)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg35.imageshack.us%2Fimg35%2F3830%2Fzoom2m.jpg&hash=7c6987d8e3991c048bc864fd8f6a10af606b23be)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg35.imageshack.us%2Fimg35%2F1432%2Fzoom3v.jpg&hash=74bbe83e5b3228d617bdf272f84f0bf775512bb9)

Now Missouri Breaks:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg136.imageshack.us%2Fimg136%2F6305%2Fzoom1.jpg&hash=ee028f97b6380310cea62b8c9bfe77f9aae0d17f)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg5.imageshack.us%2Fimg5%2F4093%2Fzoom2.jpg&hash=bc70c4266f70151a22e33eedcc39096985804a18)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg33.imageshack.us%2Fimg33%2F6953%2Fzoom3.jpg&hash=3acf797b81d4799a51dad421f0be2e0ade716fdb)

And then Bajio:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg518.imageshack.us%2Fimg518%2F6305%2Fzoom1.jpg&hash=61559c87db0b7f2526e6dc001ffaceb1080d5802)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg12.imageshack.us%2Fimg12%2F4093%2Fzoom2.jpg&hash=52bfe104208e448bdd95391836fb016c8cc6543e)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg25.imageshack.us%2Fimg25%2F6953%2Fzoom3.jpg&hash=494ef4485eb1daa677886b6126c2c2f202d3889d)

Last of all are the region views.  In all screen captures, Alpine Lake (my test tile, remember?) is in the center top and is the only tile that will change.  To the south and east of Alpine Lake are two tiles rendered in Plain Vanilla, while the tile at the SE corner of Alpine Lake is rendered in Missouri Breaks.  This was my original test tile for Missouri Breaks and I never went back and re-rendered it, so you can kinda ignore it.  The purpose of these region views is to show overall color and terrain textures and compare how naturalistic they look in a wide far zoom as compared to the RL area.  Pretend you are in an airplane and descending for landing at San Francisco International Airport...which of the Alpine Lake tiles looks most like the type of terrain you would expect to see or have seen?  Again, Bay Area residents, please chime in.  I have flown in and out of SFO about 7-8 times in the past 35 years but even so, frequent travelers and area residents knowledge of the aerial look of the area will have invaluable input, so please provide feedback.  One word is enough...which terrain looks most natauralistic to the RL area?

Region views:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg268.imageshack.us%2Fimg268%2F722%2Fcompare4.jpg&hash=7b60307146dae610f91faf80fbb02bdc30f7686a)

Plain Vanilla

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg22.imageshack.us%2Fimg22%2F1517%2Fcompare2x.jpg&hash=da3f3d286c876b0caddba941c5758dc49b6bf003)

Italia

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg15.imageshack.us%2Fimg15%2F1030%2Fcompare3.jpg&hash=b923b2e3bc365fffe4eab0855e859abe9a06db17)

Missouri Breaks

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg91.imageshack.us%2Fimg91%2F6178%2Fcomparej.jpg&hash=37876050dc50e6371f1d382d336717086ffc0574)

Bajio

End of pics for this post, but I have a few other things to discuss (don't I always?).  First, I did a dumb in the middle of this post and hit the "Post" buttom when I meant to minimize the post and go back to Imageshack and load a new image.  Not a big deal except that it took a LONG time for this page to reload and when it finally did, most of my images were little boxes with red x's in them.  I am assuming this is a bandwidth problem on my end, due to my wifi connection.  I've just uploaded and posted 32 pics and graphics of any kind eat up computer memory like a hog at a trough, so if all you see is also boxes with red X's in them, that may be the problem.  I don;t know how to do this or even if it's possible, but it may be I need to bump this MD over onto a new page and split this post so that the images will post.  Please let me know if you can't see the images and I will try to do what I can to make them visible to all.  However, it may be that some folks' computers and/or connections (like mine, in terms of connection) won;t display the images and I'm not sure what, if anything, I can do about that. 

Second, I have to be 100% honest and tell all of you that I am not 100% happy with any of the mods displayed above.  If any of you know of something you think might work better, please let me know.  There is also the possibility of creating a new mod that better fits the area I am working on.  I have no idea how to do this and won't consider it unless someone steps up who has knowledge and experience with creating terrain mods to help me.  However...I do think this would be the best way to recreate the SF bay region, as it does have a very unique terrain and really nothing already created fits it 100%.  I know it's possible to mod a mod, and maybe that would be the route to take, if I knew how to do that or had folks willing to help me.  This issue is likely to come up again when I come to chossing a tree controller, so best open the discussion now. 

Third, I spent a lot of time last night creating a post that individually addressed each person who has posted here since my last set of pics and was horribly dismayed when I logged into the site and thread this morning to find that the post wasn't there.  This is probably my own fault, I most likely hit the cancel button or something instead of the post button when I was done...late nights and wine don't bode well for effective online communication.  It's a mistake I've made before and will no doubt make again, but my apologies.  Understand that I am not non-appreciative of folks who post here and will always do my best (wine not withstanding) to recognize you and respond to you.  Please stay tuned and don't take offense, because most certainly no offense is meant...quite the opposite.  I am flattered and astounded at the views and comments this MD has recieved in it's short life so far and only hope I can keep up with all of you!

And FYI, I have a lined notepad sitting on top of the rest of the papers I have already generated for this project (quite a few!), with one page dedicated to each of the terrain mods, to keep track of comments and votes.  I'm going to keep voting open for a week, then I'm going to move on to tree controllers.  I have not yet decided if I will chose the terrain first, then a tree controller.  It may be this voting round will eliminate unsuitable terrain, then I'll try different tree controllers over the remaining terrains and ask for folks to vote on which is the best combo.  We'll see how this first round goes and figure out how to proceed from there.

So sharpen your pencils and vote!  Your input is important to me!

Lora/LD

I've lurked here long enough...

Firstly, I must say that I'm thoroughly impressed by your attention to detail. Being something of a perfectionist myself, I can appreciate that.

Now, on to the terrain mods. I'm a Californian (although from the state's other major city, LA) and I've spent some time in the Bay Area, so I'm somewhat familiar with the look of the land. Overall, I think that the vanilla textures look the most like real California terrain, since they capture the golden color of the chaparral-covered hills that give the Golden State its nickname (not the Gold Rush, as you might expect). The other three terrain mods, while attractive in their own right, don't really fit the SF area very well. So that's my vote, for what it's worth :)

All in all, great work so far, and I'm sure you won't disappoint as you move into the development phase! Well done so far.

Zack

i would go with the plain vanilla texture..it fits the area the best and looks suprisingly nice

Ironically, I never thought I'd say this, but of the four you've selected, the vanilla textures fit the bay area the best.  The other three are just too green to really visually fit.  Any parts of the city that are developed tend to be greener thanks to sprinklers, but that'll be taken care of by the lot textures.

I've seen a few dry terrain mods, but they're always oriented to the much drier interior, making them slightly inappropriate for the Pacific Coast. 

Actually, now that I think about it, Maxis is located in the Bay Area, perhaps that's why the game terrain textures look the way they do!  Looking forward to seeing what's coming next!

Well this is a big dissapointment, without a doubt.  I was 2 hours and 16 pics into an update when my WiFi connection went down.  I highlighted all my work and used Ctrl+C to copy it all to my clipboard and it took me 1/2 hour to get back online and here, only to find the clipboard empty. 

I am too dispirited to try to start over again tonite. 

Also had a HUGE fight with my roomie last night over $11, which has left my in the dumps, mentally, all day. 

Not a happy camper right now...

I'll rebound tomorrow, don't worry. 

Lora/LD

Hope you feel better soon, Lora!

My vote also goes to the Vanilla texture, maybe with a rock mod. (I haven't used the original textures in so long, I'd forgotten what they look like - they're actually not that bad! I might have to start reusing them...)

Well, the city tile I was working with last night as an example of further scaling and transitioning of information from RL maps to in game, was Stafford Lake.  This afternoon I was playing around with Google Earth and took in some close views of the entire Novato Creek watershed, also the Petaluma River, to help me get an idea of what these areas look like in RL and perhaps inspire me in creating naturalistic PW/GW transitions.  And that led me tonite to to a search on Stafford Lake, Novato Creek, and the dam that forms the lake.  I found some really good stuff, a great history of the lake itself (which was originally a dairy farm before the dam was built in 1951) and best of all, I found some pictures!  So with no further ado, I'll share them here with you:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg22.imageshack.us%2Fimg22%2F967%2Fstafford.jpg&hash=9c9a9d9ac6d2c98bb8584ab1f55676905f020c3a)

This is, admittedly, a bit small, as it's a pic lifted off the Marin Country Water District's web site.  This is a picture of the dam itself, viewed either from the air or from a hiltop nearby.  The orientation would be looking southwest.  You can see the lake behind the dam and the island in the lake.  There is a road running up the hill to the right hand side of the dam and if you look close, you can see the dam's spillway over there as well.  The dam is 71' tall and 650' wide, built of rock and earth.  Stafford Lake is a source of drinking water for the town of Novato, so while there is a park around the lake, there is no swimming allowed and no powered boats, either.  The lake is stocked with fish, so while fishing is allowed, it is restricted and not allowed within 1500' of the dam itself.  This pic was likely taken in the winter or early spring, as the surrounding terrain is very green for this area.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg25.imageshack.us%2Fimg25%2F9199%2Fpkstaffordgatehouse.gif&hash=78f3de2521f7b855d77d45694e0b5fbb814f94f4)

This is the little cabin at the park entrance, again the pic is a little small, this one lifted of the Marin Country Parks and Recreation web site.  Notice the difference in the color of the hills in the background to those of the ones in the first pic.  This tawny color is much more usual than the lush green of the dam pic.  Anybody want to volunteer to BAT/LOT this cute little ranger station for me to plop in my game? 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg265.imageshack.us%2Fimg265%2F3496%2Fstaffordlakecopark.gif&hash=eaf042236bcead3b8293c0047542ff207ea41548)

Looks like a nice park, doesn't it?  Again, notice not only the gold terrain but also the trees.  Most appear to be deciduous evergreens like oaks.  Notice also the growth pattern of the trees over the hills in the background.  When we are chosing a tree controller later on, keep this look in you mind.  Anyone here know how to write/assemble a tree controller?  If you would like to read more about Stafford Lake and it's history, let me know.  I may be able to lift the history from the Water District web page or post a link to it.  I was able to learn that the contruction company that built the dam is the same one that built the Folsom Dam and the Los Angeles Harbor breakwater, a company maybe some of you California construction types are familiar with: Rohr-Connolly?  I also learned the lake was partially drained in 1972 and 7 feet were added to the top of the dam at that time. 

While I'n in the mood for posting RL pics, I go back to Google Earth and take some screen shots and edit them in a little later.  So if you are reading this now and don't see any more pics, check back in a couple of hours!

Ok, back now and lets keep fingers crossed I don;t lose my connection tonite!  I have some great RL aerial pics to share and an interesting (to MY mind) traffic study. 

These pics start at the confluence of the Petaluma River and San Pablo Bay.  Novato Creek empties into the bay just a little ways south of the river:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F7472%2Fconfluencef.jpg&hash=a140ee25b2429d365d1d22b0c3146af92cf002c2)

This is satellite imagery from 2007 and varies quite a bit from my USGS topo maps, which show a triangular mud island in the bay with two arms of the river flowing around it.  The USGS topo maps date back into the 90's, so maybe heavy rains and/or dredging has eliminated the mud island.  It can be seen that the bay drops off pretty steeply not far off shore...

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg217.imageshack.us%2Fimg217%2F3135%2Fbridges.jpg&hash=612ded69e2e907ab9f60f60f8bf27b8e2901f2c7)

Here are two bridges on the Petaluma River just slightly inland from the bay.  The topmost bridge is Hwy 37, a 4 lane that runs across the top of the bay in an east/west direction.  The lower bridge is, I think, a railroad with a pivot at the west side, which you can see is open in this pic.  Notice the marina in the upper right corner.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg257.imageshack.us%2Fimg257%2F3223%2Fmarinaj.jpg&hash=f763e181ce630e82bda67db33da69b6b40bcfb9e)

A close up of the marina.  Seems to be in need of some repair!  Notice the unattached docks and jettys to the right hand side.  Guess that why not many boats are moored here!

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg34.imageshack.us%2Fimg34%2F722%2Fgolfcourse.jpg&hash=c6b1d0de0b8ec7043f4a6e81f6e2049459f8a179)

This is a golf course to the south and west of the river.  I don;t know it's name but I will find out.  I can see learning to BAT is in my not to distant future, if I am going to recreate this area.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg29.imageshack.us%2Fimg29%2F1006%2Fbelreykeys.jpg&hash=ce0846f1230c98fa5fa77f06dffffe3be01552c9)

This is a man-made housing development called Bel Marin Keys.  The creek you can see curling around it is Novato Creek, the same creek what feeds and issues from Stafford Lake upstream.  Here it has been diverted to reclaimed below sea level ground to form a man made, um, thingamabob.  This will be very challenging to recreate, as the game does not allow placement of housing development tiles along a diagonal, let along a radius.  Also, I don't know as anyone has yet created waterfront lots with private piers/docks. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg263.imageshack.us%2Fimg263%2F5314%2Fkeysentrance1.jpg&hash=72c7db526f96da00c1fc4b105599d11da9023c51)

For you BATers out there, this ought to be a challenging or inspiring picture.  This is one of the two sets of locks that divide Novato Creek from Bel Marin Keys.  I'm not 100% positive, but I think the water in the keys is below that of the creek, so the locks act as a type of back-flow inhibitor.  This also presents an EXCELLENT opportunity to transition between PW and GW. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F7679%2Fkeysentrance2.jpg&hash=055b6ad7f7fd4be7f33eefbe5c9deca96ca58c7a)

This is the second set of locks, which are further downstream than the first set.  These are the only two water Entrances to the Bel Marin Keys, for water and boats, and I can't help but wonder what the water smells like.  These are expensive homes and boats, but the water in the Keys themselves must be awfully stinky with only two inlet/outlet areas. 

Now we come to a new city tile, Novato, and a very interesting highway interchange:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg25.imageshack.us%2Fimg25%2F7354%2Fnovatol.jpg&hash=53c8cb763a9e21645f9326262c13c493b0dc4b22)

This is the city of Novato, pop. about 17K.  I tried to get a screen capture of the Starbucks location, but failed.  Let's just say, the city is big enough to have a Starbucks.  Zooming in, I found a very interesting interchange at Hwy 101 and Hwy 37:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg177.imageshack.us%2Fimg177%2F3931%2Finterchange101to37.jpg&hash=286b6104894d3fa195394bc1c02ebc9531c610c8)

Ok NAM folks, how about it?  Puzzle pieces maybe?  I was so intrigued by this interchange that I imported it into CAD and traced the ways traffic could move across it.  If traffic control bores the behecks out of you, skip down the next ten pics, because I am here going to analyse this interchange.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg20.imageshack.us%2Fimg20%2F3198%2Feb37toeb37.jpg&hash=4fa6e3fb2d35a6c0322a2ed78a3792251eb3f597)

This is how folks who are traveling east on Hwy 37 continue past Hwy 101

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg33.imageshack.us%2Fimg33%2F2262%2Feb37tonb101.jpg&hash=29f1585165aa673497a828043118d1ae27d62a64)

East bound 37 to North bound 101

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg515.imageshack.us%2Fimg515%2F4721%2Feb37tosb101.jpg&hash=8f3afdfa4856e453b4d541a4ec6f668340d86274)

East bound 37 to South bound 101

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg210.imageshack.us%2Fimg210%2F7299%2Fnb101toeb37.jpg&hash=75d76d63f12ad4c3c8419afcef719f0d3fa0c1c4)

North bound 101 to East bound 37.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg269.imageshack.us%2Fimg269%2F4691%2Fnb101towb37.jpg&hash=bbacb60db701b2c1447f9d547558ba0b2a8da525)

North bound 101 to West bound 37.  Notice the option, shown in blue, of going from north on 101 to south on 101.  Just in case you finally figured out you were lost...

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg229.imageshack.us%2Fimg229%2F509%2Fsb101toeb37.jpg&hash=1991d7ae03ce9d89845b6607aebdfb825b7cddcd)

South bound 101 to East bound 37

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg30.imageshack.us%2Fimg30%2F2346%2Fsb101towb37.jpg&hash=8f6582ed13a5ccf3444172b986bc0dc5d10a35d3)

South bound 101 to West bound 37

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg39.imageshack.us%2Fimg39%2F8448%2Fwb37tonb101.jpg&hash=4d16876ee5764150c4c27decba0d9f81600a69c5)

West bound 37 to North bound 101

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg44.imageshack.us%2Fimg44%2F1204%2Fwb37tosb101.jpg&hash=ab56c8b91b8a297dbaddd105fe48ba88e54940fc)

West bound 37 to South bound 101

and the last pic of this interchange:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg218.imageshack.us%2Fimg218%2F9581%2Fwb37towb37.jpg&hash=58087cebb79248c7314a864cf1d05706d81ffce8)

West bound 37 to West bound 37

I have a few more pics to share, hope you haven't fallen asleep.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg19.imageshack.us%2Fimg19%2F6686%2Flakem.jpg&hash=2187943459b5543fde476a1780e3c8d58c8db051)

Stafford Lake

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg194.imageshack.us%2Fimg194%2F722%2Fgolfcourse.jpg&hash=d3115083e94e22a30ff486f8e5b6208560e7c483)

And yet another golf course, this one on the shores of the lake. 

That's it for tonite's update!  Hope you enjoy it!

Lora/LD

Lora/LD

It'll be interesting to see how you recreate the places.

And Bel Marin Keys doesn't smell as bad as you think. Marinites would throw a riot if their million dollar houses were next to some stinky bay lagoon.

By the way, just fyi, but some of the little things (aka labels and pop figures) your getting wrong. Novato is just shy of 50,000 people, and is the second biggest in Marin county. CA 37 also terminates at the highway junction you specified. The road heading west-northwest from the interchange is the southern terminus of S. Novato Blvd., and its main freeway on ramp to US 101/CA 37.

Anyways, I'm tired, but I'm still enjoying this MD very much. Keep plowing through!

Fascinating stuff. You certainly do go in for detail :D

Thinking about your terrain mod I was wondering if this one (http://simpeg.com/forum/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item975) would be good for you? Its a modified version of the maxis original. You can see the results I had in this post (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1346.msg215910#msg215910).

Hope this may be of some help in your quest for the perfect terrain :thumbsup:

If the voting is still going on, I have to go with the Vanilla game textures. The textures may look bad when zoomed in close, but if you cover most of the area with trees, and then the rest with some of the RRP's ploppable grasses, I bet it would look fine, if not wonderful. ;)

Well, so far it's Maxis 5, others 0, that's pretty definitive for just a couple of days.  I have to admit, I have been leaning towards the Vanilla version myself, but will probably use a rock mod if I can find one I like.  The default is too grey/brown and looks kinda like basalt rather than sandstone.  I have PEG's "Eroded Sandstone" but haven't tried it with the Vanilla textures, so I'll do that and see what it looks like.

Teacat, good suggestion re: PEG's terrain mod but after checking it out, I think I'll pass.  It looks great in your region, BTW, but I don't care for the way it greens up the higher elevations.  I do like the way it lightens the green of the lower elevations but most of my region is heavily built in the lower elevations, so terrain there isn't going to matter very much. 

I would be interested in finding a sandy (or even muddy) beach mod, though, if anyone can recommend one.  As my region currently stands, I have a fairly sharply defined coastline along the bay shores and that's really not very naturalistic to the area.  There's a lot of mud flats and salt marsh areas, especially at the far south and north reaches of the bay where it's shallowest.  Right now I have about a 16m tall rise from sea level to dry land, so I am going to likely have to terraform the shallow areas.  It's nice to have access to Google Earth to see what these various shorelines really look like...they will guide me quite a bit. 

MrWacko, good information, thank you very much!  I hope you check back often and fill in the gaps and correct misinformation.  I kinda wondered about that interchange and whether or not the western part of it was CA37 or not.  Novato Blvd. is the road that eventually takes one out to Stafford Lake, if I recall my driving directions properly.  And do you know if the water level in Bel Marin Keys is higher or lower than Novato Creek?  Looking again at the close ups of the locks this afternoon, now it looks like the Keys are higher, not lower,as I originally thought.  Although then the question arises, if it's higher, how does the water get in there?  I didn't see any obvious pumping stations around, but maybe a closer look would reveal one (or more).  There is a notation on my topos that reads "pumping station", but I thought that was part of the levee system and a flood control station.  I'll have to take a closer look there, too, to see the proximity of the station to the Keys.  It could be the Keys were built after the topos were made (some of them are quite old). 

I'm going to try to re-post the post that poofed out of existence the other night later this evening, so check back later for another update on my progress.

Lora/LD

Ok, let's try this again.  I'm trying something new this time and composing offline in MS Word.  That way if my WiFi connection fritzes out on me, I won't lose my work.  I'll no doubt have to do some editing once I copy/paste the completed post online, remove page breaks, etc., and I'll have to insert the pics, but even if the connection goes down, I won't lose hours of work.

So, I warned a couple of days ago about a new OCD post coming up and this is it.  I am not yet done scaling and transferring information from the topo maps to the game city tiles.  There are a couple of steps left, one of which I explain here.  Please remember this is just how *I* am doing things and other folks may have other techniques that are faster/easier than mine. 

When I left off with the last scaling illustrations, this is where I was at:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg43.imageshack.us%2Fimg43%2F3011%2Fcompare001.jpg&hash=e4a24f5070469c8ca70063cd68d4d93c7901ba64)

I don't need this grid on now and it's just going to get in the way, so I'm going to turn off the Black layer.  What I want to start doing now is tracing information from the topo maps and transfer them to game maps.  To do this, I am first going to create some new layers, each which will hold a unique set of information but all related to water features, as water is the first thing I am going to build into my game.  My new layers are:

lakes_rivers, in blue
levee, in magenta
mudflat, in brown
saltmarsh, in green

I may need more layers later, but it's no big deal to create the, but I think this set will get me started nicely.  When I'm done tracing water features, my topo map now looks something like this:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg136.imageshack.us%2Fimg136%2F6336%2Fcompare002.jpg&hash=d4963898de7736b55ef728d790e652ce8cf2cef1)

I'm going to go to another part of the topo map and do some more tracing to show you how I do it.  First, I use a polyline not a standard line, and I make the lakes_rivers layer my active layer.  For this exercise, I don't want my ORTHO or OSNAP on, so I make sure both are turned off.  Then I zoom into a fairly close zoom and start tracing a water feature:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg12.imageshack.us%2Fimg12%2F6913%2Fcompare003.jpg&hash=af5688325599f307d4b3e32ce8856667f71317b1)

I click once to start my line, then click again each time I want to change directions.  I also like to click when I come to the intersection of two water features so that the software creates an endpoint node there, which makes it easier for me to connect the two features to each other:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg515.imageshack.us%2Fimg515%2F5880%2Fcompare004.jpg&hash=4351981fb74fa96df96c20a4de9150a552f7a7f1)

Because I am uncertain as to how accurately I've scaled my topos to my region and how accurately the topos scale to the game maps as well, I trace for a little ways past the boundaries of my region, just in case:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg20.imageshack.us%2Fimg20%2F5240%2Fcompare005.jpg&hash=58eacb38ed72c62dcf5036dceafaa89c95fad362)

Once I'm done tracing, I save my work.  Now I'm going to turn off my 0 layer so all my maps go away and I can see the results of my tracing:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg339.imageshack.us%2Fimg339%2F6530%2Fcompare006.jpg&hash=c5ad956febf0eda75b61ac3a96e9134c0ba8fe44)

The next step is to zoom out far enough that I can see the entire composite topo map, first turning my 0 layer back on so I can see the maps again.  I want to create a new work space near my existing one and copy my region grid to that new work space.  I am chosing to copy the grid to a space above the composite topos, which is why I have turned them back on...when I make the copy I will be able to see if the new grid is above the topos and doesn't over lay it.  So I begin the copy command, click on the grid to select it (I made it into a block, remember, so I don't need to use a crossing window and accidently capture info I don't want right now, like topos maps or tracings), then I click on the bottom left corner of the grid to select that as my copying point:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg193.imageshack.us%2Fimg193%2F5840%2Fcompare007.jpg&hash=42c4f77d52dd76dfc462d94ecd3d13f6b0ccd420)

Now I turn my ORTHO back on to insure that the grid is copied perfectly vertically upward to the new work space:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg29.imageshack.us%2Fimg29%2F6458%2Fcompare008.jpg&hash=e4c882f9510b144105d7b376df45bcdcdad7613e)

Once I have the copy where I want it, I click to accept the location and my new work space is created:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg21.imageshack.us%2Fimg21%2F9990%2Fcompare009.jpg&hash=8e229b9ca7165a7f6d7b6a3530cbc8a25133c59f)

In doing this, I have actually created another new work space, the area to the left of the newly placed grid.  I think of this area as my "scratch pad", as I will still need to manipulate objects and I don't necessarily want to do that directly over other work. 

Now I minimize CAD and finally, FINALLY, load up my game.  I'm going to start with the city tile of Stafford Lake because, well because that's the way my brain works: left to right, top to bottom.  Stafford Lake is the topmost and leftmost city tile in the region.  One the tile loads, I open Mayor Mode, click on data views, choose zones (because there aren't any yet and I want a "naked" map, then activate the map.  Using Ctrl+Shift+S I get the camera mode, press the space bar a couple of times to get a view window large enough to encompass the data map, and take my picture:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg339.imageshack.us%2Fimg339%2F6634%2Fcompare010.jpg&hash=0a8f0fa212082364649805853d7b43e9d3020590)

Sadly, this is all I need at this time, so I exit the game without saving and now open Photoshop.
I bring in the image I just created:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg43.imageshack.us%2Fimg43%2F1466%2Fcompare011.jpg&hash=74395c8564e0f781cb12f0e7c44d256af698e073)

And then I crop it.  I find the crop tool in PS to not be terribly user friendly and it often times takes me a few tries before I get the image cropped exactly right.  I've found that the center of the square of the crop tool is the point where crops begin and end and the tool is small, so I zoom in enough to see my entire image AND be able to see my corners clearly.  Once I have what I think is correct, I crop the image:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg526.imageshack.us%2Fimg526%2F5844%2Fcompare012.jpg&hash=076c3f0c1405aec106d151e3d73451815b0d475a)

Once cropped, it's VERY IMPORTANT to check the image size.  It needs to be exactly 256x256.  If it even one pixel off in either direction, it will screw things up, so if I miss, I use Edit>Undo and try again:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg505.imageshack.us%2Fimg505%2F457%2Fcompare013.jpg&hash=9b0e21b325a550ccbefec2fa6e2247d17bdc942d)

Fortunately I have quite a bit of practice at this cropping exercise, having cropped 256 city tiles for my Copper River Project a couple of months ago, so I hit it right on the money quite a bit on my first try (but not always, and besides, my eyesand brain are trained to extreme detail and accuracy, so it's maybe a little easier for me than for others).  I got it right on first time around with this one, so I now save the cropped image as a JPG.  You may remember I have a folder on my desktop called SFmaps where I've stored a bunch of stuff so far.  Before starting this exercise, I opened that folder and created a new subfolder called "Game Maps" because there will eventually be 130 of these puppies and I don't want to have to go searching all over my hard drive looking for them when I want or need them.  This is where I save my new cropped image, then close PS and go back to CAD.

I want to now import my new image in as a raster image:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F6889%2Fcompare014.jpg&hash=f6b5e360626732462ab79f2757588cb406f6e7fe)

Note that I am a far zoom, able to see all four of my work areas when I import the new image.  This is because I have no way of knowing what size the new image is going to be and I want to make sure I can locate it someplace where it down't overlay existing work.  Also, very important, I make sure I am on the 0 layer before I import my image because that where all my maps are.  If I space out and accidently import the image into the drawing on the wrong layer, it's not that hard to switch it to another layer, but when working in CAD professionally time is crucial, so it helps to develop good habits and not let yourself backslide into sloppiness just because this is play and not paying work. 

After I accept the image for importing, I can now see it's quite large, so I move it into my scratch pad area:

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Then click to end the import command.  Now I need to scale the new map to fit the scale of everything else in my drawing.  Remember last time I rescale an object I told you how the scale tool could be used two ways: either by entering a numeric value such as .75 or by using reference points.  I used numeric values last time because I didn't have any concrete reference points.  This time I do, to I will rescale the new map that way.  I know the new map must fit EXACTLY into one of the grid squares in my region grid and I know my region grid is exact, so I can use two lengths, say the bottom edge or the new game map I just imported, as my control point and tell the software to then rescale the image to the same distance as the bottom edge of any region grid.  The software asks me first for the points I want to use as my control:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg23.imageshack.us%2Fimg23%2F2271%2Fcompare016.jpg&hash=648e36ac99657fc8ed4415371ff997f0fcfa38e1)

So I tell it use the distance from the bottom left corner of this object

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To this point on the same object.  I have both ORTHO and OSNAP on for this, so the software helps keep me from guessing and missing the actual endpoints of the object.  Once those two points have been chosen, the software asks me to choose the object I want to scale to, so I go to the grid at the right (forgot to mention it's handy to have your reference object in the same view...I zoomed and panned to make sure they were before I started the Scale tool).  First I click on any grid intersection :

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Then I go to the next intersection over:

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I hit enter to accept these choices and viola!  My game map is instantly rescaled to exactly the correct size:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg38.imageshack.us%2Fimg38%2F1584%2Fcompare020.jpg&hash=27ec345c0f40e983aacb25b45f3097dcf3bb37ed)

Now I want to move this newly rescaled map into its proper place in the empty grid to the left, so I use the Move command, select the map, and pick up the upper right corner (ORTHO now off, OSNAP still on), then move it to the upper left corner of the grid:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg212.imageshack.us%2Fimg212%2F3068%2Fcompare021.jpg&hash=a1bc0295e9cdba82e62218f4c7f17cd72faf1a28)

And now I have the first of 130 actual game maps in my CAD drawing:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg35.imageshack.us%2Fimg35%2F7329%2Fcompare022.jpg&hash=2db5a428ba2a100360bd0103d3d697b49645f8a4)

OK!  Now, I get to see how close all this scaling work has been.  My next step is to copy my tracings from the composite topo map and overlay them on this first actual game map, to see how close I came.  The first thing I want to do is turn off my 0 layer and get rid of all my maps.  This makes moving around in the drawings faster and easier, as the software doesn't have to constantly reload  the dozens of images I have in the drawing and besides, all I want this time around is the tracings.  I'll leave the grids on, as they are my reference points from copying from one area of the drawing to another.  With the 0 layer off, I pan down to where the tracings are and then use a left-to-right crossing window to copy just the tracings themselves and not a right-to-left crossing window, which would also copy the underlying grid:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg403.imageshack.us%2Fimg403%2F918%2Fcompare023.jpg&hash=403016480e87bb5dd31d21df934b78dfd8aedcf8)

Then with both OSNAP and ORTHO on, I select the corner of the grid as my copy point:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg41.imageshack.us%2Fimg41%2F1389%2Fcompare024.jpg&hash=e042fe74ec02c81c8703a88897623cc091372604)

And I copy straight up to the same corner of the grid above it:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg198.imageshack.us%2Fimg198%2F7452%2Fcompare025.jpg&hash=969c80f9de8d8f45e17d6650f145051c27f4473e)

Hit enter to accept and now my tracing are transferred:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg36.imageshack.us%2Fimg36%2F7937%2Fcompare026.jpg&hash=9f5f876ef740e102df1beafe7e443e9ca17cc93f)

Now comes the moment of truth.  When I turn my 0 layer back on, I'm going to see how close I came with all the work I have done so far.  Ready?  I'm scared to look:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F663%2Fcompare027.jpg&hash=8314132a9e545d3df779142e037540f1ce540de3)

:::peeking between her fingers:::

Well, not too bad.  Could be better and it actually looks fairy close, scale-wise, just offset maybe a little bit.  That could be my work, could be the topos, could be Heblem's work in making the original maps...hard to say, but regardless, lets see what can be done to fix things up a little bit. 

The lake is the primary feature to align here, I think and the tracings are a bit east of where they need to be, so I turn of the 0 layer (working "blind") and use the Move command to move the tracings to the left a bit:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg512.imageshack.us%2Fimg512%2F2122%2Fcompare028.jpg&hash=6d4523403ecc9f0e29cb29da2beebaa15fad020f)

Closer, but still not right.  At this point I turn ORTHO and OSNAP off, and start going back and forth, zooming out and in, turning the 0 layer off and on and nudging the tracings ever closer to where I think they need to be.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg40.imageshack.us%2Fimg40%2F1076%2Fcompare029.jpg&hash=359a183fee0db4618d1212bb469af20e8a70b0eb)

This is pretty close, but I think I can do better, so I give it a couple more tries and this is what I end up with:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg197.imageshack.us%2Fimg197%2F281%2Fcompare030.jpg&hash=4209b56b2841d15d0bf314d1729753f30ecaafaa)

I think this is about as close as I'm going to get.  The lake looks good and the streams running down into it also look good.  Things become distorted as we move east, but they are not distorted (or at least not currently and obviously) in the north/south direction, just a bit in the east/west direction.  So, as I develop the tile in that direction, I'll shift the tracings ever so slightly east as I go along.  I have no way of knowing where this distortion originates, so I'll compensate for it as best I can.  To tell the truth I have already overlaid the tracings on tiles further east and they fit almost perfectly, so this particular tile may be a bit of an anomaly.  Regardless, it's a game and this is not rocket science, no one is going to die or sue me if the map is not 100% accurate, and if I have to wing it a bit here and there, that's not a problem for me. 

So, that's the end of this "next step".  I won't be showing this stuff for every tile as I go along developing my region, but I think it's important for you all to know this work will be going on "behind the scenes" for each and every tile in the region.  There is one more major step to illustrate how I get from CAD to game, so that will be coming up sometime soon.  I have pretty much caught up with myself...it took me close to 3 weeks to get this far and I have not been doing much in my game since starting this MD, but now that I am nearly caught up, things should begin to move along with less techno stuff and more game stuff. 

And, if you thought THIS was over-the-top OCD, just wait for the next one.  Again, it will probably be a bit of a slog, but it only shows up once, after that, just know this is how I am Recreating San Francisco.

Lora/LD

Well, I made a discovery this evening that has kinda knocked the wind from my sails.  It's an OCD thing actually and I'm trying hard to get my brain to let go of it and I think I am succeeding, just not sure quite yet.

It came about like this.  I was going to start plopping water in Stafford Lake tonite, building first the earthen dam and then the lake behind it. 

Ok, NEVERMIND!!!!  Sorry to turn psycho, but I just figured out my error.  I'll continue my little mini-story anyway, just to amuse whoever may be amused by it.

So I know the dam is 71 feet high, so the first thing I did was check terrain elevation between the lower end of where the dam will be and the surface of the lake.  I was horribly dismayed to find a difference in elevation of only about 20 feet.  Then I checked the surface of the lake and found it was about 80 feet too low, according to my RL topo maps.  The 200 foot contour line runs all around the lake and there is a notation on the topo that the spillway elevation is 199 feet.  Well, if sea level is 250 in game, then 250+ 199= 449, right?  Yet when I queried the flat terrain of the area of the lake, it told me 351 or so.  That's almost 100 feet off!  I totally freaked out.  After all the care I took to scale everything, to find my z axis was compressed almost 100 feet just bummed me out big time (for those not familiar with graphing axises (axi?), the x axis is horizontal north/south, the y axis is horizontal east/west, and the z axis is vertical up/down).  So then I was on a mission to figure out if I could fix it.

Well, anyone who works with custom content has probably already figured out my error.  The game doesn't use feet and inches, it uses meters.  Being an American, I have to keep a cheat sheet next to me to convert meters to feet and I completely forgot to do that.  Just as I started to write a long sob story, the light bulb went off in my head and I quickly used my calculator and found that the z axis of my game is about as close to right on as it can get. 

Panic attack averted and an hour's reading searching tutorials for advice, while not wasted ever, was for the time being, er, unnecessary.  I feel silly...and stupid.  %wrd

Back to the game.  Maybe I will have some pics of the lake tomorrow...and the dam.

Lora/LD

Lora,

Do not feel bad, if NASA can make the same mistake with the Climate Orbiter on September 23, 1999, you should not feel too bad about making the same mistake ;)

First of all, Lora, I admire your striving for perfection and the use of professional programs to reach your goal! Second, as my fore-poster said, never mind your error, it happened before and it happened where money depended on it!

One example springs to mind: back in 2002, a company released an addon for MS Train Simulator, where feet have been mistakingly used in a simulator that uses meters, leading to mountains (and thus trackage grades) being 1.5 times as steep as they should have been. Guess: The addon flopped completely! :P :thumbsdown:

I'd simply book it under "lessons learnt" and keep on going! &hlp

Thank you both for your kind words, I really appreciate it.  My RL has been fraught with challenges these past two weeks and I've been feeling really beaten down, so words of kindness and encouragement are very, very welcome. 

I know we all make stupid/silly mistakes and that I am not immune to them.  But like everyone else who finds out how dumb they were for a while, it's a little embarrassing.  I know the translation between metric and foot/inches is a common problem for US users and I am usually very careful...just went brain dead tonite and that resulted in a freak-out. 

All better now and if it wasn't so late at night (1:09 am my time), I'd go back into the game and build away.  But, I have learned to ignore these late night wine-induced impulses, for the most part, so I think instead I will go change into jammies and brush my teeth and...go to bed (what a concept, sleep before 2 am!).

Lora/LD

I know how you feel about sleeping. I get strange impulses to play SC4 and visit SC4D at, say, midnight or something ridiculous like that. It's actually quite frustrating at times...!

-Jason

It happens to all of us, and it's always a heart stopper when you realize you've made an error with units.  I have to be extra careful at work since we have a wide variety of legal plans that I have to manipulate that are scaled in meters, feet and even chains (20 or 30 meters depending on which kind of chain they use!).  I've had some real panic attacks from trying to double check an old subdivision only to discover I used the wrong units! 

Glad you managed to catch it before you really started in to the terraforming to fix it!  Anyhow, I'm really enjoying how you're approaching this, you've really put Autocad to excellent use!  I like your idea of bringing the game map into autocad before you start developing, it'll really help you line things up nicely! 

I'll be interested to see how you handle your earthen dam, I'm working on one in my diary as well, and it's certainly an interesting visual challenge.  Keep up the great work, I'm looking forward to the first in game shots! 

Jason, I think SC4 draws a lot of us sleep disorder folks to it.  I myself am a chronic insomniac and have been my entire life, from birth forward.  A few years ago when my baby sister died at the age of 44, my remaining sister and I flew home to Santa Barbara to gather with the family to mourn our loss.  My dad braved the perils of the Los Angeles freeway system to pick us up at LAX and on the long sad drive north, we reminised about Kim and I shared my memory of the night she was almost born on my birthday in May of 1960.  Our family had just moved to California from Michigan and my dad was working in LA while we were living in La Jolla.  My uncle (my mom's brother) had just gotten out of the Navy and was staying with us during the week while dad was away, so that if mom went into labor he could drive her to the hosital.  Mom went into false labor in the early morning hours of my 6th birthday and I heard everyone up and moving around, so I got out of bed to see what was happening.  If I remember recounting this correctly, I told my dad and sis "I was awake, so I got up".  At that point my dad interuppted me and said "You were ALWAYS awake!".  So...sleeping has been a lifelong challenge for me.  For me the problem is falling asleep, as I have a lot of trouble turning my brain off.  Once I fall asleep I sleep pretty good for about 3-4 hours, but then I am off and on asleep and awake for another 3-4 hours.  I imagine there are drugs I could take that would help, but being both unemployed and uninsured, I use wine. 

Battlecat, you must be in the land surveying business, or engineering.  I am familiar with chain measurements and even worked once as a "chainman" on a survey party, holding the "smart end" of the chain.  When I first moved to Washington State in 1976 I was living with a civil engineer who was also a licensed surveyor.  He was short a chainman for a small job he was assigned to do, so he enlisted me to help out.  I had just started my career in architectural drafting, so I enjoyed the day's work, even though it was raining and windy and cold and the parcel we surveyed was covered in blackberries and mud.  Always fun to learn new stuff. 

As for converting feet/inches to metric, I haven't had to do so for quite some time, which is why I made myself a little cheat sheet to keep handy while I play.  Years ago one of my employers landed a client in Japan who wanted to buy all the materials for a number of houses here in the USA then ship each house seperatly over to Japan in a container.  I was assigned the job of converting all the American measurements to metric so the carpenters in Japan could read the dimensions on the drawings.  We did about 12 houses for this client, so I got pretty good at converting, but like any special skill, if you stop using it, you lose it. 

And as for the earthen dam (the Novato Creek Dam) that creates Stafford Lake, I was just going to use the level tool for that.  Ennedi just showed me that I could use this tool across sloped faces to create a uniform slope and jeronij has a method using roads that I've found works pretty good, too.  So that's my plan: create a uniform slope on the downstream side then create a one tile width level at the top, and probably put a road on it, then another, less tall, uniform slope on the lakeside of the dam.  Nothing fancy, really.  The biggest challenge will be the spillway.  I think I'll see if I can't find some very simple concrete retaining walls and then make a channel running down the north side of the dam and fill it full of water turbulence.  Rather than building a bridge over the spillway, I think I'll use a culvert, maybe two.  Think that'll work?

Off to buy chili fixings and I'll be meeting with my knitting group this evening, so I may not get around to SC tonite. 

Later!

Lora/LD

I work with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for a small community in BC actually.  GIS is effectively the software used to create digital versions of those topographic maps you're working with.  But of course, all our data is obtained from older legal surveys, some over 100 years old, which is where the chains come in. 

Your plan for that earthen dam sounds pretty good.  I used roads to smooth the face of the dam I'm working on.  I think culverts should work fine for the spillway outlet assuming you can find some with a good shape.  Perhaps there are some box culvert models floating around (large square culverts).  I wouldn't recommend the RRP culverts though, they're not quite right for a large dam spillway but I'm sure there must be something floating around that would work although i haven't found it yet. 

As for the actual function of the spillway, the one thing to consider is that on an average day, there shouldn't be water flowing down it.  The spillway of a dam represents the maximum level of the reservoir and only fills with water if significant rainfall or rapid snow melt causes that level to be exceeded.  As such, you could probably create an effective visual with just a dry concrete surface, which visually speaking is quite likely for the San Francisco area.  Spillways are also designed to dampen out the force of the water dropping that distance to prevent dangerous erosion downstream from the dam. 

The water that's used for power usually emerges from several large culverts at the base of the dam.  Granted, a large number of the dams in California are water supply related, not power, so the generation facilities might not be present.  Either way though, environmental standards require a certain quantity of water to be released through the dam into the river below, regardless of human power and water needs.  That quantity varies depending on location and history (The Colorado River vanishes before it reaches the ocean at some times of year).

Anyhow, here I'm rambling on.  That's just my take on the subject, hope it helps you along.  I'll be interested to see what kind of approach you wind up taking!

Battlecat says:

QuoteI think culverts should work fine for the spillway outlet assuming you can find some with a good shape.  Perhaps there are some box culvert models floating around (large square culverts).  I wouldn't recommend the RRP culverts though, they're not quite right for a large dam spillway but I'm sure there must be something floating around that would work although i haven't found it yet.

Well, this is really not a very large dam at 71' in height and 650' in width.  The spillway itself doesn't appear to be more than about 8' wide in RL, if that.  So, I was planning on using RRP culverts, one, maybe two. 

Visiting Google Earth again just now, I was able to snap a couple of pics with scales to show the actual spillway:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg193.imageshack.us%2Fimg193%2F6812%2Fspillway1.jpg&hash=8e05f38d5bc2a5a08e9e996f21e69602485df3f8)

This gives a lot of information in one picture.  See the road next to the spillway?  That's probably about 25 feet wide, shoulder to shoulder.  The spillway is wider, but not by much.  There is a scale in the lower left hand corner of the pic that helps determine the width of the top of the spillway.  Also note there are no (visible) flood control mechanisms.  It appears that if the lake level rises, the spillway releases water unchecked into the creek below.  I know from reading/researching this dam that spillway elevation is 199' while average lake elevation is about 2' below that at 189'. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg403.imageshack.us%2Fimg403%2F9645%2Fspillway2.jpg&hash=b74811e72cc7aa215d996256805f52b9cf01bab0)

This shows the lower end of the spillway and you can see it narrows quite a bit as well as deepens.  I am assuming the horizontal bars we see between the walls of the spillway are something like 6" steel pipes acting as tie rods between pins set into the earthen walls of the spillway on either side, to keep the concrete spillway walls from spreading outwards from the force of the water when it runs down the spillway during flood conditions.  Again from reading/ research, I know this dam was raised 7' in 1971 and it could be these ties rods were added at that time.  If you look closely at the first pic you can see where the second, later, addition to the spillway was made, but not certain it shows up in this pic. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg23.imageshack.us%2Fimg23%2F3635%2Fdamnjk.jpg&hash=33516677092583f621068a2746792bf938668230)

Swinging around to a new compass point, we get a view of the dam itself.  It's really not that big, as the scale at the bottom left helps to see.  The spillway is on the right.  And, I think, but am not positive, that the large building we see is a water treatment plant, as this dam's primary purpose is to provide drinking water to the city of Novato.  I don't think it plays any role at all in either flood control or power generation. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg442.imageshack.us%2Fimg442%2F7303%2Fwaterplant.jpg&hash=4a62fa33921e7df53cea787ac6ef2cbca2bb78b2)

This is what I think is a fairly inclusive pic of the entire waterworks below the dam.  It also shows the transition from built spillway back to natural creek that takes place under the road to the water plant.  Looks like this road washed out over the spillway at one time, as it's surface color is very different from the rest of the road.  Then again, maybe the road is asphalt and the bridge over the spillway concrete.  Any SF residents want to take the family on a picnic to Stafford Lake Park and check it out for me?  And while I'm at it, anyone wanna BAT and LOT this water treatment plant for me? 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg33.imageshack.us%2Fimg33%2F2448%2Fspillway3.jpg&hash=84ff8eab979efe9b7c3dcd2c5aca8a67c4eeec23)

Lastly, this is a pic of the bridge over the spillway to natural stream transition.  I know from my reading/research that there were worries when the dam was built in 1951 that it would destory the creek below and important watershed areas, which is why flood control was not really included as a function of the dam.  To my best understanding, this creek still floods pretty much unchecked during heavy rain.  There really isn't any significant snow in the surrounding hills, so snowmelt really isn't an issue.  I have traced this creek in Google Earth from it's outlet in San Pablo Bay to the spillway and see no evidence of flood erosion anywhere once it returns to being a natural creek.  In short, this is California and they just don't have the rainfall issues we have in the Pacific Northwest.  This creek probably runs at a mere trickle most of the year and at full spate during flood may do some minor erosion, but there are houses and roads built right up to the edges of it's high water marks, so I don;t think anyone sees it as a flood concern.  It's a creek, not a river. 

QuoteAs for the actual function of the spillway, the one thing to consider is that on an average day, there shouldn't be water flowing down it.  The spillway of a dam represents the maximum level of the reservoir and only fills with water if significant rainfall or rapid snow melt causes that level to be exceeded.  As such, you could probably create an effective visual with just a dry concrete surface, which visually speaking is quite likely for the San Francisco area.  Spillways are also designed to dampen out the force of the water dropping that distance to prevent dangerous erosion downstream from the dam.

Points well taken.  So maybe the horizontal pipes we see in the spillway are designed to slow the force of water in the spillway rather than hold the spillway together?  Maybe they do both?  Maybe they act as artificial rapids?  They do appear to be at various heights along the walls of the spillway and any obstacle rushing water meets will slow it down.  Must be fascinating to be an engineer who designs such a structure...

QuoteGranted, a large number of the dams in California are water supply related, not power, so the generation facilities might not be present.  Either way though, environmental standards require a certain quantity of water to be released through the dam into the river below, regardless of human power and water needs.  That quantity varies depending on location and history (The Colorado River vanishes before it reaches the ocean at some times of year).

Well in that case, there must be another set of release mechanisms built into the base of the dam, as I see no way of lowering the height of the spillway itself, mechanically.  Which doesn't mean such a way doesn't exist, just that it seems a bit improbably to me as being practical. 

This all makes me wish I lived in the SF area and had a car, so I could drive up and see for myself what is what.  Maybe I will email the folks at the Marin Country Water District and see if they will tell me more about this structure and how it works.  Can't hurt, although I doubt they will answer me.  Who knows?

QuoteAnyhow, here I'm rambling on.

I like your rambling, I hope you come back and do more, you gave me some great ideas.  In case you haven't noticed, I tend to ramble a bit myself (ya think???). 

Lora/LD

Glad you found it handy!  Those shots are very useful, there certainly is a lot of information in them.

I think your first instinct about those crossbeams is correct, although I suspect they're also present to help keep the earth part of the dam from breaking the concrete in case of an earthquake.  If you look carefully at the shadows in the second shot, there are clear signs that the actual beams are elevated above the bottom of the spillway. 

There is one other interesting quirk about aerial imagery that we can take advantage of.  To a certain extent aerial photos actually let us look at the side of certain structures, since they are only directly overhead at a single point.  This let's us see something interesting about the design of this dam on the photos you took:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg44.imageshack.us%2Fimg44%2F6812%2Fspillway1.jpg&hash=a8f57aad755009344b2d157f5d83586b46388356)

The red circle is around what looks to me like rapids caused by water flow.  It's possible that the upper dam has a small release culvert hidden in the shadows there.  In the orange circle there is a vertical structure that looks like a set of gates to me, they appear to be closed and the dry channel below the gates bears that out.  So the question is, where does the water go from here? 

One possible answer is indicated by the yellow circle.  The shadowy area between the spillway and the road suggests the presence of a lower area.  I would hypothesize there is a small constructed natural stream in that space, which is probably set up to only take normal flows of water.  During a major flood event, the excess water could be diverted through the spillway which does appear . 

This theory is aided by your topographic map posted earlier.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg136.imageshack.us%2Fimg136%2F6336%2Fcompare002.jpg&hash=d4963898de7736b55ef728d790e652ce8cf2cef1)

You can see the natural stream course is quite close to the road before swinging down to where the spillway flows into the natural watercourse (just beside the hook shaped access road).  With all the tree cover, it's hard to see exactly how the stream re-connects with the spillway watercourse, probably through a culvert under the road somewhere down there.  However, for the purposes of SC4, it probably doesn't matter since the natural stream will be hidden under tree cover! 

Having seen the google earth shots, I don't think there is a separate release mechanism for this dam, it appears the spillway system is designed to serve both purposes.  Either way, I'd over estimated the scale of this dam.  I think the RRP culverts would work better for the purposes of this simulation than I thought here. 

Also, I can't help but notice that the surface of the dam looks like it's covered in grass and small shrubs.  They would provide sufficient slope stabilization in regions with low rainfall.  In the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, many earthen dams are coated in coarse rock probably to help prevent frost and ice from damaging the earthen surface. 

Edit: Of course, in trying to preview, I accidently posted! 

Battlecat, Lora:

For two folks who've probably never been to Stafford lake, you guys managed to figure it out almost to a tee. The dam itself is indeed completely for water purposes for the City of Novato, but being small and having only a few feeder creeks, is most certainly not the main source. The little creek in the shadow of the road is indeed, the primary water outlet for the dam, and when it reaches flood conditions, the spillway takes over. The dam is also reasonably covered in grasses. Again, no serious flood control is needed since average rainfall is around 35"

I don't remember any time in the past two years where that particular creek had any significant flood issues. While some creeks do indeed qualify as flood concerns, this one isn't. The actual dam generally is sufficient for flood control, so when the big storms hit it mitigates the creek.

Flood control is needed, though, for most rivers and creeks. Almost all of that rain comes between November and March. Infrequently you'll hear news stories during the winter about the North Bay area flooding, since it occasionally does get really nasty.

As for the road, it's concrete. As mentioned, the creek rarely if ever floods. No picture, just my memory of driving over it a few hundred times. I grew up in West Marin ;D.

Edit: Hmmm, I seem to have made the same mistake as battlecat... Silly preview button not being where I want it to be...

Well, excellent!  You are both turning out to be wonderful resources for me, thank you very much!

Battlecat says:

QuoteI think your first instinct about those crossbeams is correct, although I suspect they're also present to help keep the earth part of the dam from breaking the concrete in case of an earthquake.  If you look carefully at the shadows in the second shot, there are clear signs that the actual beams are elevated above the bottom of the spillway. 

When I first viewed them yesterday, I surmised there were several "layers" of cross beams across the spillway, set at different heights above the base of the spillway, but looking closer today (and your having pointed it out to me), I think you are correct, those are shadows cast by the beams and the beams are all at a relatively uniform height.  Good eye!  And I completely spaced the entire earthquake issue and how lateral movement of the dam could collapse the walls of the spillway, so yes, very likely explanation.  If the cross beams are tied into pins embedded in the dam and hill below the road, the spillway would then move as a unit with the dam during a quake.  Jeez, I really shoulda been an engineer, must be so much fun to design structures like this, taking all the gazillion little variables into consideration. 

QuoteThe red circle is around what looks to me like rapids caused by water flow.  It's possible that the upper dam has a small release culvert hidden in the shadows there.  In the orange circle there is a vertical structure that looks like a set of gates to me, they appear to be closed and the dry channel below the gates bears that out.

Re: the red circle: or maybe debris that has accumulated from when the gates under the top of the spillway are opened?  There is plant growth in that section, too.  To my eye, this upper part of the spillway appears now to be dry in this picture.  When I originally viewed it, I also thought the base of this part of the spillway was raised above that below it and that the structure you have circled in orange was the top of the original spillway from before the dam was raised.  In fact, this probably is the original spillway structure but what you have seen as gates I took to be a little concrete dam and the lighter colored area in the center I saw as a little waterfall spilling a trickle of water from the newer upper spillway to the original lower spillway.  But now I think you are once again correct in finding those to be moveable gates which are currently closed.  I also now think the base of the spillway is the same elevation on either side of the gates, now.  Shadows can be tricky!  And yes, where was I thinking the water I thought was trickling over the face of what I thought was a little concrete dam went, because very obviously the lower spillway is dry.  I guess I just didn't think about it at all.  Hey, it's California, it's summer (June when this image was captured), so the water just evaporated between the upper and lower spillway!  Not! 

QuoteOne possible answer is indicated by the yellow circle.  The shadowy area between the spillway and the road suggests the presence of a lower area.  I would hypothesize there is a small constructed natural stream in that space, which is probably set up to only take normal flows of water.

I think you are right and MrWacko backs you up from his actual observations, but now the question is, how does the water get from the lake, which is at a higher elevation, down to the beginning of the "natural" stream?  Looking closely at the picture again, it appears that there is water in the natural steam here in June and it doesn't appear to be running at any speed.  If the water is diverted from the lake to the beginning of the natural stream, the change in elevation would cause turbulence in the stream, would it not?  Unless it was metered somehow, that's a thought.  In fact, that's probably the answer to the question.  Otherwise the natural stream, being so close to the road, would cut into and erode the roadbed above it.  Yeah, that's the ticket!  This semi-constant release of water from the dam into a natural stream was probably done to maintain the important stream ecosystems further down stream and especially out on the salt marshes it feeds when it hits San Pablo Bay.  Sheesh!  So many things to keep track of!  And here I thought it was just a simple earthen dam with a concrete spillway!  Who'd of thought that folks all the way back in 1951 would be worrying about preserving natural water systems?  But they were, because I remember reading about that in the history of the dam and area.  And this was thier solution.  Simple and elegant at the same time, like all good solutions are. 

QuoteAlso, I can't help but notice that the surface of the dam looks like it's covered in grass and small shrubs.  They would provide sufficient slope stabilization in regions with low rainfall.

You probably are familiar with the term "angle of repose" but for those who are not, it's used to describe how various soils and/or mixtures of soils are naturally stable at certain angles.  Sand has the least angle of repose, which from my soil science classes years ago I seem to recall is 45 degrees.  I won't go into what affects the angle of repose, it's very complicated, but knowing that much of the soils in this area are sandy due to all the heavily eroded sandstone in the mountains and hills, I now can understand why the slope of this dam appears to be much shallower than I had expected it to be.  We have heavy clayey soils here in the NW and thier angle of repose is much higher, so our earthen dams are steeper and, as Battlecat points out because we have much heavier rainfall, they are more prone to serious erosion, so that simple plants life is not enough to keep the face stable and in place.  But, that also brings up another question.  The lakeside surface of the top of the dam appears to be, if not earth, then treated with maybe shot crete.  It doesn't really look to be atcual concrete and we have to remember what we are seeing of it is actually the newer portion that was added in 1971.  I also noticed the dam face on the downstream side is much steeper, where it's height was increased.  This puppy is going to be tricky to render in my game, that's for sure.  Lots of fine, detailed terraforming indeed. 

But, with all these new thoughts to think about, I'm going to go back to Google Earth and see if maybe some of my remaining questions can be answered.  I may edit this post with new pics again later, but in the meantime, you sure I can't talk you into taking the family for a picnic this weekend, MrWacko?  Sure would be nice to have some "boots on the ground" to check things out...

Lora/LD

Quote from: ldvger on August 12, 2009, 02:38:52 PM
But, with all these new thoughts to think about, I'm going to go back to Google Earth and see if maybe some of my remaining questions can be answered.  I may edit this post with new pics again later, but in the meantime, you sure I can't talk you into taking the family for a picnic this weekend, MrWacko?  Sure would be nice to have some "boots on the ground" to check things out...

Lora/LD

As much as it'd be helpful, I can't. I don't live in Marin anymore. I'm at school at UCSC, so it's a good 2 hours north to Marin. Don't worry, I've got confidence in my memory. 18 years in a county does leave you with lots of memories, after all.

Of course, when I do get to go up to Marin, or anywhere else your current project happens to be, I'll gladly send pictures. I go too and fro enough, that's for sure.

Good point, that could indeed be debris in that area, it's really hard to tell with all those shadows.  They are the bane of interpreting aerial photography! 

There are several things that could be done in that stream bed to reduce the erosive power.  Heavier rocks along the edge of road bed (riprap) will prevent significant erosion in that area.  The natural stream bed could also be engineered with switchbacks and pools to dampen the power of the stream and reduce the slope. 

As for the grey side of the dam, it's possible the lake isn't at it's highest point in the photo.  It's hard to tell because of the angle of the photo but the lower left corner indicates that the photo was taken in June 2007. 

In the aerial images, we are looking at the downslope side of the main spillway gate, as opposed to the top on the side indicated by the red arrow.  Because of that odd angle, we can't actually see how far up the spillway gate the water is, it's being tricky making it look like the water is right at the top.  However, the lower of the two lines marked by orange dots looks like a high water mark to me.  I think the upper one marks the inner edge of the top of the dam. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg134.imageshack.us%2Fimg134%2F2109%2Fspillwayvg.jpg&hash=1b4846b9829b8b0f4e75ded698a3254d073e958c)

Over the course of the summer, the level of the lake will drop, leaving bare soil/rock around the edge.  They probably used heavier rock or possibly even shotcrete as you mentioned on the lake side of the dam to prevent erosion from waves.  Plants wouldn't be able to survive the constant variation in water supply, particularly since the height of this lake appears to be quite variable from year to year. 

In fact, you could probably check other parts of the lake to see if there are other places with the high water mark and bare soil, most dam lakes have a strip of bare soil around the edge because of the variation in lake level over the year.  Also, I gather there is a recreation area along the lake, you could check the placement of any dock or boat launch structures, they are often built on dam lakes so they are usable any time of the year. 

In the end, the limitations of SC4 are going to prevent the replication of a lot of these structures, but hopefully you can make it as close as possible!  You've certainly given my mind a workout today, I do get a great deal of enjoyment out of interpreting aerial photos! 

Edit: One more thing, I discovered by accident that google maps streetview actually has data in the Stafford Lake Area (http://www.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Marin+County&sll=38.429656,-122.236977&sspn=0.210049,0.308647&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=38.118899,-122.638635&spn=0.001701,0.002411&z=19&layer=c&cbll=38.118973,-122.639032&panoid=kuLt554MbzBf6skqt7RvQg&cbp=12,108.87,,0,6.3).  Not quite as good as being on the ground, but it might help.  It might take a few minutes to load, use any web browse!  If you haven't used it before, you just use the arrows to move along the road.  Have fun! 

Well, I think the three of us have chased off all the other folks who were viewing this MD with our obsessing over this dam structure.  Be that as it may, I'm still obsessing and have some new pics to post that put forth a new theory of how this dam works.  But first a little story to share.

I learned the bare bones of manual drafting over Thanksgiving weekend of 1976.  My boyfriend, Bob, had flown east to spend the holiday with his parents, they having sent him a round trip plane ticket as we were both too broke to pay for same ourselves.  We had been living together for all of 2 months (even though we had a relationship stretching back nearly 4 years) and I was extremely miffed that I was not included in the family holiday.  Bob and I had a huge fight about it...I felt he should decline the invite because I was not included (such is the wounded pride of a 22 year old girl in love).  Bob just laughed at me and flew off Wednesday, leaving me alone in a strange land with no friends to spend my first Thanksgiving Day ever away from my family.  Bob had a degree in civil engineering, was an excellent freehand and technical artist and had a drafting board set up in the spare bedroom of the beachfront cabin we had rented for the off-season.  I had taken drafting in junior high school but transfered out after the first day because I was the only girl in the class and all those boys intimidated me.  Bob had gotten a job as a drafter for a log home kit company and I used to sit and watch him draw on the drafting board.  When he left me alone for the holiday weekend, I thought to myself "F*** him, I'll show him!".  I worked at the time as a hostess at a seaside restaraunt and every night after work I'd go across the street, buy myself a six pack of beer, then go home and teach myself drafting.  Bob had a shelf full of engineering books next to the drafting board and one was titled "Beginning Drafting".  I sat down Wednesday night with my cold beer and opened the book to page 1, chapter one, and started learning how to draft.  It was all just learning the tools and going through various exercises, pretty boring stuff, but I took it very seriously.  The book told me "don't erase, redraw!" so I took the advice to heart and went through a LOT of paper.  By Saturday I felt confident in starting chapter 2, but it was some exploded view of a tool, so I closed the book and started to design my first house, instead.  By Sunday night I had a floor plan and an elevation, which I proudly showed to Bob when he returned Monday.  He got this well-known (to me, anyway) faraway look in his eyes as he looked at my work, stroking his wispy excuse of a mustache (which he was growing for me, cuz I love the way they feel when kissing) and told me my work was very good, then he proceeded to critic my errors.  I welcomed his critic and after that we started working together in my adventure into drafting.  He built me a drafting board out of 2x4's and a hollow core door that we placed behind the couch in the living room facing the fireplace and gave me ever harder exercises to practice on.  Then one night he came home from work and told me he had gotten me a job drafting for the same company he worked for, as one of thier other drafters had quit that day.  Our second big fight ensued.  To me, my drafting was like a hobby, like knitting, and it had never crossed my mind to attempt to make money at it.  I knew NOTHING about construction or codes.  Bob promised me he'd walk me through it and help me whenever I needed help, so I finally agreed to give it a go.  Little did I know, I was launching a new career.  My first project was a nightmare for everyone, because Bob's promised help never really materialized and we had fights at home and at the office.  I kept asking what's this, why should I do that and he would say just draw it.  But that's the way my brain works...I have to understand the underlying reasons.  I'm not a good little robot that just accepts commands and follows orders.  Well, I got paid more money than I had ever made in my short life for that project, so I finally quit my other job and became a full-time architectural drafter.  I was on my way forward in a completely new direction and believe me, I never looked back. 

This is just a story to say why I am still working on figuring out how this dam works.  I can't help it, the hook is set in my brain and I am being pulled along until I either finally figure it out or someone, like Battlecat and MrWacko, help me.  If anyone else is still reading this MD, there will come a time in the future when your particular area of professional expertise will contibute to helping to remove the hook from my brain, so be patient with me.  Being OCD is both a gift and a curse, and right now it's more of a curse than a gift.  I know folks are anxious to see some development and a lot less techno talk, but I think we are closing in on answers and I am becoming antsy to start building as more and more of the secrets of this damn dam are being revealed. 

MrWacko says:

QuoteAs much as it'd be helpful, I can't. I don't live in Marin anymore. I'm at school at UCSC, so it's a good 2 hours north to Marin. Don't worry, I've got confidence in my memory. 18 years in a county does leave you with lots of memories, after all.

Of course, when I do get to go up to Marin, or anywhere else your current project happens to be, I'll gladly send pictures. I go too and fro enough, that's for sure.

I hope you know I was teasing/joking.  However, if you ever DO have the chance to check stuff out for me, give me a few days warning and I'll send you a list.  :thumbsup:

Battlecat, I think my new theory and the following pics will maybe either clear up some of the conjecture on both our parts or else horribly confuse us both.   ::)

One of my biggest questions is how does water get from the lake to the "natural" stream.  I think I may have found the answer.  Look at this pic:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg223.imageshack.us%2Fimg223%2F8854%2F96206553.jpg&hash=69ca8f4c56547ffecbc9a19c6794a07f2b653626)

I think I see a small intake culvert to the immediate left of the upper spillway.  I also think I see an outlet at the right of the retaining wall:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg246.imageshack.us%2Fimg246%2F8752%2F13484432.jpg&hash=2573292dce8aadeecd91f6c263620b46404b50d5)

Hmm?  Ya think?  Maybe?  Am I on to something here?

Ok, now look at this:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F8578%2F70552629.jpg&hash=1645a98a6300ef3f545c506a643f087edd13e6b4)

Look at the bottom of the area below what we have determined are the original spillways gates.  I don't know about you, but I think I see water there...and turbulence appropriate to a small pipe draining a lot of water pressure at the intake point, which would be somewhere below the surface of the lake and behind the dam.  This picture also has some other interesting things to think about.  The new spillway seems to be much lower in elevation than the lower gates and the ground level between them does seem to be roughly equal.  The area between them does appear to be dry and filled with rubble/debris/flora.  Also note that what *I* took to be shadow cast by the roadside of the spillway wall is now seen to most likely be water running down the roadside edge of the spillway:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg87.imageshack.us%2Fimg87%2F8255%2F49997129.jpg&hash=c71bfac5364ff9a9b0967ba7f4ef5d418f255e1c)

My computer is showing all the usual symptoms of fatigue, so I'm going to post this now (already made a backup) and then come back and edit to continue.  Sorry for the delay, I'll be back shortly.

Ok, back now and things seem to be fine after a restart.  Fingers crossed!

So, to explain the imagery shown above, I think there is an opportunity for the natural stream to flow down into the spillway immediately after exiting what I believe to be the outflow that creates the natural stream.  The spillway drops at much greater slope than the natural stream does but they evendtually reach the same or similar elevation (pics to folllow). 

So my new theory is this.  There is a diverting pipe that intakes water from the top of the spillway and diverts it around the roadside of the top of the spillway to exit below the originally spillway as a "natural" stream.  Look at the pics and you will see a "wing" built in the downstream direction of the spillway to the downstream side of the original spillway gates and to the roadside of the spillway.  I believe now that this wing is intended to channel the natural stream into a prepared bed that is just slightly higher than the bottom of the spillway itself and to spill over into the spillway once in a while.  Close up pics I haven't posted but which the pics I HAVE posted sorta show, bear this out, I think.  So the natural stream acts in essence as the primary spillway for the dam.  If the natural stream begins to run to high/too fast, it spills over into the contructed concrete spillway just below the gates.  We can see there is a difference in elevation between the bed of the natural stream (which is higher) than the base of the spillway just downstream of the gates, otherwise the water entering the lower spillway from the surmised underground pipe from the lake would  not run down the spillway but would instead enter the natural stream. 

At the face of the spillway gates, this is what I think is happening:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg34.imageshack.us%2Fimg34%2F2267%2F88470607.jpg&hash=43a54d0962c01b6d50743c7ccd9d3e0256f91578)

And with this, I am thinking we have figured things out.  I am often wrong and have no experience with translating aerial photos, so battlecat, I welcome your critic of my new theory...and any alternatives you may have to present. 

Getting late and my wine is beginning to befuudle my brain, so I will leave things as they are, although I have more pics.  They don;t add substantially to my new theory except to point out a built and tall concrete diverter wall just below the gates on the side of the spillway away from the road.  I at first thought it was a gap in shadows, but after closer zooms, I now think it is a built structure. 

Lora/LD

The more I look at those shots, the more I have to agree.  The space between the lake and the concrete lower gate hasn't been used in a long time and that does appear to be dirt and plant growth rather than water flow.  It's quite likely that large gate like structure is only intended to be used in extreme emergencies, which would be fairly rare on this particular lake.  Your theory about the two culvert/drainage pipes has a great deal of merit, although when it comes to shadows I'm always worried about interpreting something that's not actually there!  But I think you're pretty close to being correct on this design simply because there really isn't any other route for the water to take.   

We know from MrWacko's observations that there is a natural stream there, separate from the spillway.  That water has to come from somewhere, and there isn't any other obvious way to get the water from the lake to the natural stream.  It certainly is possible that there is a small quantity of water in the spillway by default, but that's another hard one to call for sure since there is also a shadow there.  I think it may be a reasonable assumption though.

That cross section at the end of you post seems to sum things up quite nicely, I've been thinking on it, but I can't see any other alternatives for this location.  I think you've hit on the answer there!   

This MD is beyond fantastic; miss Lora, you have blown my mind!!

The whole actually following maps directly I have tried before, I tried converted some maps of a book series I once read. I gave up quickly, due to inaccuracy in the drawing alignments between scale levels.

I sympathise with your technical difficulties. wifis are terribly inefficient, do you possibly have internet at libraries? I would suggest using either notepad or maybe something like DocRolarch's tools (on the STEX).

I will be following this place for as long as you update :D and will try and be as helpfull as possible with replies :D

Joe

Joe, thanks for stopping by and I'm so happy you enjoy my work and the discussions going on here.  I look forward to hearing your comments again, and soon!  And yeah, translating fantasy maps to game maps is a whole 'nuther ball of wax.  If you could get a reasonable facsimile of the fantasy maps into Mapper or Terraformer, you could rescale it from there, I think, but not positive.  You might try looking over the forums hosted by the many mapping folks here and also over on ST to find out if anyone has developed a technique you could adapt.  Don't give up! 

And, not to beat what appears to now be a dead horse, but Battlecat had some remaining thoughts and ideas I wanted to address.  First of all, you had surmised a "high water mark" on the inside face of the dam, which I think may be an error in intepreted the aerial pics.  I have once again resorted to CAD to draw a quickie cross section through the dam that illustrates what I think we are seeing in the aerials:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg195.imageshack.us%2Fimg195%2F9366%2Fscreenshot6ono.jpg&hash=01dc25699bd6867ab0c5123e84747c02b95b1dff)

What I think you may have done is mistaken either the line of the inside top of the old dam and the bottom of the newly added raised section as a high water mark OR mistaken the top of the newly raised top of the dam, which is flat and paved and a different color from the sloped inside face of the dam as a high water mark.  I have used Google Earth to look around the edges of the lake as you suggested, but in June of 2007, when this imagery was captured, the water level appears to actually be AT a high water point, as there are no beaches or mudflats of any extent anywhere around the lake and indeed there are some semi-drowned grasses among the reeds and aquatic plants that ring the lakeside.  There are no docks, just a single boat ramp on the far south west side of the lake for put in/pull out.  The dges of the lake look pretty nasty, actually, lots of algae and pond scu, floating around, especially at the western edges where it's shallowest. 

You also made some comments about shadows obscuring what is goin on in the spillway, so I made this little diagram to maybe clarify what *I* am seeing"

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg195.imageshack.us%2Fimg195%2F5176%2Fscreenshot7cqd.jpg&hash=63b80528068055a5a8722151926ab1ab3eaf2415)

The most curious part of this image is that built structure extending off the left side wall of the spillway just below what we have come to agree is an outlet, the one I have labeled as "purpose unknown".  I am conjecturing, from what little I know about design of water control structures, that this is a force diverting or breaking device tp protect the left spillway wall from water pressure forces during times of flood.  IF the pipe carrying water from the lake to the head of the "natural stream" enters the headwater area at an angle, and IF the natural stream is allowed to overflow into the spillway during flood (and by flood, I just mean periods of high water or planned wter release), and IF both the spillway pipe and the stream pipe are metered to limit flow...THEN, it's possible that allowing both outflow pipes to run un-metered could create a lot of force directed at that left side spillway wall, especially if the spillway gates were also opened, partially or completely.  So my guess is this funny little flip of wall is designed to create an eddy at the confluence of the three possible areas of outflow and ensure that water from none of the three sources exerts too much pressure of the left wall but instead either flows down the spill way or backwashes back into the natural stream.  Just a guess. 

And lastly, you had conjectured as to where the natural stream joined the spillway stream, so I took a further zoom pic to show how I think they eventually join up and where:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg20.imageshack.us%2Fimg20%2F5026%2Fscreenshot8gcw.jpg&hash=cebcfdb0e8d8b4398fe60df641d2e6dccf2b5fa7)

A lot of the water flow is covered by trees, so this is really my best guess, but I know there is a stream entering from the north and under the main road that is also north of both the spillway and the "natural" stream.  Because the lake is primarily a source of drinking water and there is a lot of farming in the area, I figured the Water Department would want to keep the water coming out of the lake apart from other water sources as much as possible and close zooms, while blurry, do show that the spillway watercourse retains it's independence for other water in the area until it's past the treatment plant. 

In an interesting aside, while scanning the edges of the lake, I found a bunch of farmed/plowed fields above the lake (to the west) and they very nicely illustrate the RL application of the plowing technique I posted on your MD "Adara" this afternoon.  Don't worry!  I didn't take screen shots, so I won't be posting more images in your MD!  But, if you have Google Earth (and I imagine you do, you cartographer, you), you can go check them out for yourself and see what I meant. 

So, I think, maybe, we have solved the many mystreies of the Novato Creek Dam, with much help...thank you all very much!  I now feel confident of my ability to TRY to recreate it in my game, but I may get a little sidetracked getting the spillway right, as well as the water plant below the dam.  I've been playing this game since the original SimCity way back in 1992 (sheesh, that's a while ago, hard to believe so much time has gone by, 15 years!) and I have never tried my hand at creating custom content.  I think it may be time to open that Pandora's Box and see what happens.  As a designer of buildings in RL (when working, seems like another life, now after being out of work for a year), I think I'll start with the BAT, then go on to the Lot Editor.  I took a bunch of computer programming classes back in the mid 80's, which is a VERY long time ago, so creating MOD's intimidates me the most, which is why I will probably leave that for last. 

Remember the name of this MD is RECREATING San Francisco.  I'm not going to BAT every single building, but there are many structures that will need to be custom made.  My first try is going to be the water treament plant.  While a complex building, recreating it should be fairly simple, as it's a public building owned and paid for by taxpayers, so the plans for the complex are probably available via FOI at the Marin County Public Works website.  After 911, I know concern for protecting the nation's drinking water supply became a matter of heightened national security, so I may not have access to fine details, but I really don't need them.  A site plan and elevations is all I really need and I'm pretty sure I can get those online without too much trouble.  And I always have the aerials to fill in any gaps.  So...keep an eye out as Lora learns to BAT.

My next update will likely be the last in the series of steps to getting RL info into the game maps and if any of you folks are getting bored with all the many steps and details I address, this next update will definitely not be for you.  However, if you are fascinated by the working of minds focused on high levels of detail, then you'll be like a pig rolling in slops (being polite and PG, here).  I'm going to start the next update tonite, offline, because it will be long, and have both a lot of pics and text.  It may take me a day or two to put it together, as I must write a thank you letter to my uncle who sent me a check for $100 yesterday, thus reducing my dependence on my mom for my pocket money (if you can call buying denture cleaner, toilet paper, cat food, etc., "pocket" expenses).  I will definitely be checking back here and chatting between now and the next update, but just want you all to know the next one maye not be so quick to follow as has been true so far.

Stay tuned, please!  I enjoy all the feedback!

Lora/LD

Good point on that dam top, the added portion had slipped my mind.  Knowing that, I think you're CAD drawing is pretty much right on.  Certainly, there isn't any substitute for actually having a chance to look at what's up on the ground!  Your sketch of those natural water courses and the path of the spill way also makes perfect sense, particularly knowing that third stream is there!  I'm looking forward to seeing your first attempt at the BAT! 

Thanks for those shots of the plowing technique over in Adara!  I think I've got a couple ideas on what to do about that, but it's going to take some time to figure out how to accomplish it!  I certainly appreciate the illustration!

Keep up the great work, you've got an excellent plan in place here, I'm looking forward to see it start coming together in game.   

Well, like I said, the next update will be long and full of pics and very detailed.  However, glad you liked tonite's update and we can but this issue of the mystery of the dam to it's final rest!

Lora/LD

Very interesting how you're going into all this detail about the dam...

By the way, you were wondering why the bridges in the immediate area seem to be made of a completely different material... that's actually quite common with a lot of bridges here. It may not even have been washed away, but probably just was left as concrete so that it can be checked more easily for any erosion issues and it's cheaper just leaving the bridge like that while the rest of the road is asphalted.

I don't know the history of that area, being from Australia, but that's always a possibility. I'm willing to bet that bridge is just a simple concrete arch bridge or a trestle... the sort of bridge that can easily be replaced in a matter of hours if it does collapse.

Everything here is so fascinating, I just hope you don't work on that dam forever! Have you done anything in the game yet?  :P

The way you have everything planned out perfectly down to the inch - centimetre. I look forward to seeing how you build the city, as well as the suburbs and airports.

Hello and so terribly sorry for having been away.  I guess everyone knows I am piggy-backing my internet access via my next door neighbor's wifi and his service went down erly Saturday afternoon and has not yet been restored.  It's now Sunday evening and I'm once again at the little internet cafe up the street, so my ability to post may be sporadic until the wifi is restored.

Which is a real drag because I was able to work for almost 5 hours last night writing the last of the updates showing how I get information from RL maps into the game and, other than uploading the 22 screenshots to Imageshack, it's ready to post.  However, I don't have my laptop and desktop networked together, so getting the update from one to the other means I'll have to burn it to CD and then bring it here.  I may do that yet, but it costs money to sit here and it's free to stay home, so I'm keeping my fingers crossedthe wifi at home is restored soon. 

I am actually ready to beging building in my game, which is probably what I'll do when I leave here this evening.  And yes, after all the discussion about the dam, I'm going to start with that and the lake, then add the feeder streams.  There really isn't much goin on in this city tile, it's mostly rural, so it should go fairly quickly.  The next tile east is the city of Novato and it's almost entirely built, so that will take a little longer.

My experiments with the BAT will have to be delayed also, as I need the tutorials to guide me and I can't access them offline. 

Had a wonderful afternoon munching freshly roasted peanuts and watching my Seattle Mariners kicj the stuffing out of those damn Yankees, 10-3.  Gorgeous day, sunny, warm.  Nothing like baseball and an ice cold beer and a stadium full of cheering fans to make it feel like summer.

I'll be back as soon as I can, and thanks for posting folks!

Lora/LD

Lora,

Can't wait to see how your building and development goes.  I guess we can all expect the same caliber of work with that as you've shown us with your terraforming and planning.  Looking forward to seeing how you start developing. 

Back at the cafe tonite and I'm going to try to post the next update, which I wrote offline over the weekend. 

meinhosen, welcome and thanks for stopping by!  Hope you come by again soon, as I began last night building the lake.  I took lots of screenshots as I went along and will post them soon, so stay tuned!

Ok, onward!

:::taking a deep breath:::

Ok, this is the last of what I have been thinking of as "Scale Tutorials" in which I have been showing you all how I have scaled game maps to RL maps for the purpose of transferring information from the RL maps into my game.  Now that we have everything roughly scaled to each other, it's time for the REALLY tedious work to begin, the actual transfer of info into the game. 

Briefly, this is done by gridding the maps I made in CAD and matching that grid with the grid in the game.  Remember I created a grid block of 256x256 a while ago?  Now you'll get to see how that grid comes into play.

So this is where we were when I left of last time:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg34.imageshack.us%2Fimg34%2F6741%2Fscreenshot1cnw.jpg&hash=e986d87c6418284ff9f2266d3b3b61d163829665)

I can see that the information from the topo maps that I traced over is slightly out of scale to the city tile map, but I'll adjust the location of the tracings up/down/back/forth as I work my way across the map rather than going back and trying to rescale all my work to this point.  It's close enough for me as it is. 

We've been taking a very detailed look at Stafford Lake and the Novato Creek dam this last week, so that is the first set of info I am going to transfer into my game:  the lake, the little island in the lake, the dam, and a couple of tributary creeks.  To do this, I first need to copy my city grid block to overlay my city tile map.  But rather than actually copying the block, which is currently overlaying the RL topo map much distance below where my drawing is currently zoomed to, I'm going to use the Insert>Block command instead, as it's way faster and keep me zoomed into where I want to be for the time being:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg31.imageshack.us%2Fimg31%2F7628%2Fscreenshot2hxf.jpg&hash=664311c86bf368e4712df0222f6913be3227b888)

Now I zoom way into the bottom left corner of my city tile map to make sure the grid inserts at the exact corner:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg197.imageshack.us%2Fimg197%2F6540%2Fscreenshot3ajj.jpg&hash=a5235bfc6adc94fa5bbe2378c33e67cee0e24e14)

Well, that didn't work and I had to go searching all over my drawing for my newly inserted block and finally found it WAY far away, so once I had snagged it's errant corner I dragged it back to where I wanted it and now the city grid is overlaying the tile map:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg44.imageshack.us%2Fimg44%2F6792%2Fscreenshot4vkm.jpg&hash=5e815ae7552223de5e36fd6a8bf50f9477a2dee3)

All this work done so far in CAD has been done it what is known as Model Space.  CAD has a second work area and you probably have seen the little tabs at the bottom of the screenshots that say Layout1 and Layout2.  Layout space is where one sets the work in Model space up for printing (or plotting, as CAD prefers to term it).  The next set of sets involves setting up a layout space so I can (finally) print a copy of my city tile map with the grid overlaying it.  This is what Layout Space looks like:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg43.imageshack.us%2Fimg43%2F5227%2Fscreenshot5rub.jpg&hash=759a29f4ce8a46c46e140001db3d26c152869cfe)

Looks pretty much the same as the Model space and it has all the same tools.  I have already set this space up for printing to 8.5x11 paper, the only size my printer will print.  The white area on the grey background represents the sheet of paper.  I have also set us this space to print in landscape orientation rather than portrait.  The black line you see inside the sheet of paper is what's known as a viewport.  This acts like a window that sees through the paper back to model space, allowing me to position my work, rescale it if I want, zoom in or out or even work in Model space while I'm actually in Layout space.  At the bottom center of the screenshot you'll see a depressed button that says Paper.  When not depressed, it changes to Model and that's how I manipulate information showing up in the viewport.  When depressed and in Paper mode, the viewport is "frozen", which allows me to work in Paper space without disturbing anything in the viewport.  This is handy for a lots of things but doesn't really come into play for my use here.

Currently the viewport is empty because it's looking at a place in Model space where there is no work.  So, I have to change from Paper space to Model space by clicking the little button and find my work:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg20.imageshack.us%2Fimg20%2F460%2Fscreenshot6f.jpg&hash=8e0a45d30884c28b0431016f6546bc7ee7226c24)

Notice the black line becomes heavier to help me remember I'm now looking through the viewport.  Now I'm going to zoom out to see the total area of my drawing so I can then zoom in on the area I want to print.  I do this by typing Z enter E enter and this is what I get:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg9.imageshack.us%2Fimg9%2F8691%2Fscreenshot7s.jpg&hash=07a2f7c8ad6ff582aba50a184ab29c0a00b1bc39)

Ok, now I can see where my work is, so I zoom in on my city tile map:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg198.imageshack.us%2Fimg198%2F6421%2Fscreenshot8rco.jpg&hash=d5e064d470e82b271c897d4b4b8236a08158860a)

Now, this would be worthless to print out, don't you agree?  The grid is WAY too tiny to be of any use and the features under the grid would be almost completely obscured by the grid itself.  Printing to any kind of scale is not an issue here, as you will see as we go along, so I'm going to zoom further in until I have a clear view of my tile map, the tracings, and the grid:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg5.imageshack.us%2Fimg5%2F5931%2Fscreenshot9zbh.jpg&hash=57d107e9b140dcf92d1e12e252ea36be378989c4)

This is better but I'm an old woman and my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, so this is still too small for me to work with.  I need a corner of the tile and grid as a starting point because, believe it or not folks, I am going to count this grid out into sections of 16x16cells and then do the same thing in my game, using ploppable trees to mark out my sections.  I was hoping the lake would be close enough to the corner to not necessitate making two print outs and overlaying them, but no such luck.  So, I zoom in on the corner:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg41.imageshack.us%2Fimg41%2F8079%2Fscreenshot10xre.jpg&hash=e94e360f181cfac97f767ffc10663b469d61d04d)

Ok, even my blind old eyes can see this, so I print it out.  From here on out I am drawing in CAD what I am actually drawing on my print out, as I don't have a scanner.  Actually, I do have a scanner on MY printer, but my printer is out of ink, so I am using my roomie's printer, which does not have a scanner function and is also almost out of ink.  So now I draw my 16x16 sections:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg36.imageshack.us%2Fimg36%2F8927%2Fscreenshot11o.jpg&hash=da843bdd5be0f5e365c6d8c3317f562befa5eb9b)

Now I pan down and get my lake:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg20.imageshack.us%2Fimg20%2F3414%2Fscreenshot12k.jpg&hash=ff8dadcb2818fd2bb726b633546e93c9db63250d)

Print it and grid it:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F2182%2Fscreenshot13qrj.jpg&hash=cf572811af0421a76387c9b7370af0f62f858321)

I just discovered, much to my delight, that the red grid I drew in CAD prints out as a darker, heavier line than the underlying grid, so I didn't have to count off squares on my second print out.  Nice to know, will save me time. 

Now I can close CAD and fire up my game, but for purposes of continueing this update, I need to keep it open to show how I mark off information as it gets entered into the game.

I open the Stafford lake city tile and start planting trees in a very un-natural way.  I first count over from the corner 16 cells, then plant a tree at every cell intersection going south:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg8.imageshack.us%2Fimg8%2F3015%2Fscreenshot14y.jpg&hash=77ea4e2039b33a2baa73497d0242e11d48e62c63)

I count trees as I plant and when I get to 16, I mark the location of the grid going the opposite direction:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg194.imageshack.us%2Fimg194%2F2023%2Fscreenshot15mfg.jpg&hash=e90a11efa44de2cf85d9888832852037e048322c)

I do this for a long time, maybe an hour.  I don't have to grid the entire tile just now, just the section I am working on.  I can't show you a wide zoom of the finished partial grid because the trees poof! at far zooms.  For this exercise I am using a juniper tree because it's nice and dark, shows up well against the terrain. 

Ok, now I have enough of a grid of trees laid down to cover the area I want to work in.  I'm going to start at the western edge of my map where one of the feeder streams enter the lake.  I'm going to use a different kind of tree to mark this stream's location and I'm going to count cells and wherever the line representing the stream crosses a cell border, I'm going to put a tree on my game map and a red dot on my print out (or in this case, my CAD map as shown in the Layout space.  Because I can't zoom way out of my game to show the tree grid, you're just going to have to take my word for it that I am starting in the first western row of 16 and 6 sets down from the top of the city tile:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg269.imageshack.us%2Fimg269%2F2206%2Fscreenshot16sxs.jpg&hash=67a91e230baf7098e8f0f2e062e7eeb7c24f9fc8)

Looking at my print out, I see the stream enters the tile between the 5th and 6th cell from the bottom of the section, so I plant a tree there, this time using a subalpine pine:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg16.imageshack.us%2Fimg16%2F1102%2Fscreenshot17v.jpg&hash=415b3aff12429bccb55374f1011799a981681600)

And put a dot on my print out:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg37.imageshack.us%2Fimg37%2F2599%2Fscreenshot18owh.jpg&hash=942307a6167caf5a2318272a2d53e70ce076de3c)

Every place the stream crosses a line of the grid, I plant a tree and put a dot on the print out:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg268.imageshack.us%2Fimg268%2F2686%2Fscreenshot19yyn.jpg&hash=ea48b8da2f71fbed18f8b8f23cd98ec5811271be)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg188.imageshack.us%2Fimg188%2F5530%2Fscreenshot20t.jpg&hash=a73699b388e239870dae6dbeafa1abdfbfb3852a)

Now I'm at the lake edge and I continue the same way all the way around the lake and then again all the way around the island.  It's a slow, painstaking process, but in the end, I have a fairly accurate transferal of RL info into my actual game:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg338.imageshack.us%2Fimg338%2F2250%2Fscreenshot21o.jpg&hash=159351f85464cc1d9d21c7ceffed7b098a7288a0)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg19.imageshack.us%2Fimg19%2F5085%2Fscreenshot22gfy.jpg&hash=614b08f8a2c588ef50fb4802b7845e4f998e0dea)

Not too shabby!  I left the end of the lake where the dam is unmarked, as I am going to be using some as yet unknown FAR road there, whichever I find that fits closest to the actual angle.  Are there inaccuracies and snafus all over the place?  Of course there are, but that's where the creativity of a recreation comes in, to my mind.  Am I going to go through this level of exacting detail and plotting with every built object in every city tile and all 130 city tiles.  Yup, sure am.  This is probably the last you will see of it, but I thought it was important to show everyone all the work that goes on behind the scenes to get to this point. 

And, believe it or not, before computers came along this is exactly how drafters (and, I imagine, cartographers) transferred info from one scale to another or from one drawing to another.  Grid both and plot it out, one point at a time.  Back in 1976 when I first started into drafting, we'd used the photocopier to blow up or reduce site plans and maps, but we didn't have infinite zooms, just presets, so scale could never be matched to any degree of accuracy.  Grid it and plot it, slow and tedious, point by point.  I can't tell you how many site plans and topos I translated from engineering scale of say 1"=50' to architectural scale of 1/8"= 1'.  Hundreds.  Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.  On a difficult site, say a steep slope, with an extremely confined building footprint, the drafter's ability to hit the mark in terms of scale was key, because otherwise the architect would design the house too big to fit on the site and then all hell would break loose.  More than once the foundation inspector would show up after the forms came off, bringing his survey crew with him to make sure the building was within the defined boundaries allowed it, and find...oh heck...that corner of the building is intruding 3" into the setbacks.  Too bad, how sad, red tag the building, stop construction, back to the drawing board (ever wonder where that expression came from?).  Jackhammers to the rescue.  Hammer out the foundation, change the plans, apply for revision permits, re-pour the new foundation and see if it passes this time around.  I'd love to boast that it never happened on a project *I* was managing, but I'd be lying if I did.  The back end of a garage got me.  Had to be hammered out and re-poured.  It happened , back in the days.  Probably still does, even with computers, nothing is ever exact when it comes to building buildings.  They shoot foundations in with computer-guided lasers now and mistakes still happen.  The leader of my knitting group says thats how you know it was made with human hands...there are mistakes in it.  How true, how true. 

Well, that's the end of this update and the end of the "Scale Tutorials" as well.  I started around 7:15 pm and it's now just past midnight.  My wifi connection has been down all day and it's too late to go to the internet café two blocks up the street, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens tomorrow.  A good friend of mine, knowing I am an avid baseball fan and strong supporter of Seattle's Mariners, gifted me with a row 40 first level seat behind home plate for tomorrow afternoon's game against the Yankees.  I am pumped!  Nothing says summer like a Sunday afternoon at the ballpark, munching peanuts, drinking beer, and eating a hot dog.  The weather is supposed to be excellent, sunny and 78 degrees, so I better remember to take sunscreen else this pale redhead skin will become lobsterized. 

So what's up next for this MD?  Well, kind obvious, building Novato Creek Dam and plopping Stafford Lake.  Both will be more difficult than you may imagine.  I've used the terrain query cheat over various areas of the lake bed and found it varies quit a bit.  I know the height of the spillway of the dam is 199' above sea level (from the topo maps), so I may start there and make the water level a foot below the spillway at 198'.  I'm pretty close to that in meters/game measurement at the inside face of the dam, the big problem will be smoothing things out to make the west end of the lake shallow and gunky.  I don't have a lot of experience using PW other than just fooling around, so this will be my first serious attempt with it.  I actually think I may need to start with the dam itself, but that's something I'll think about tomorrow.  Sure wish I could post this tonite, but oh well. 

As always, comments, suggestions, and advice are always welcome.  Post away!

Lora/LD

Nice, you're certainly going the full length here!  Yes indeed, this is exactly the same technique cartographers use and used on hardcopy maps.  Scaled grids are one of the the most valuable tools available!  You're certainly putting it to good use. 

As a Geographer, I can say, you're doing a great job. I would have taken some other tools ( I said this in a post before), but you're working perfectly. I hope you can fullfill your own expection, as it will be hard to find resampling lots.

You might have to find some good batters out there ;)

I miss half a week, and you move on! Oh well, it's still fantastic. It'll take me a bit to catch up, but hey, RL occasionally gets in the way. As for buildings and what not that you're planning on BATing, cool! It'll be nice to have more buildings from California, and San Francisco in particular. I've always been bummed out that there are only a handful of buildings from San Francisco, despite its wonderful and varied architecture.

Battlecat, soulchaser, and MrWacko, thank you for stopping by and sharing your comments, I appreciate it.

My lack of home internet continues to plague me, so I'm back at the cafe again.  I have a short update written offline over the weekend that covers leveling the floor of Lake Stafford, now that it's outline has been laid out.  I'll copy the update to CD and post it tomorrow.  I have not yet plopped the water for the lake.  Instead, using the same technique for tranfering the lake outline to my game, I've begun to transfer some of the road locations as well, especially those around the lake and the dam.  Again, I haven't yet started building roads because I'm hoping to create some custom angled roads.  So, when I get home tonite, I think I may start to work on creating the dam itself, or at least the underlying earth form.  Battlecat has done a very nice job with an earthern hydro-power dam in his MD "Adara", I recommend taking a peek at it.  It has certainly given me some ideas!

That's all for now.

Lora/LD

If you are consistently going between PC's, may I suggest getting a USB Flash drive.

Cant wait for the next update :)

Joe

Impressive Lora.  This is quite an endeavour and your attention to detail here in the beginning should pay off later.  :thumbsup:

That's some great work, although I can't imagine the headaches that come from looking at all those gridlines (I got one just trying to familiarize myself with the area you were prepping).  Good luck plopping the water and terraforming the dam- I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Quote from: JoeST on August 19, 2009, 10:34:48 PM
If you are consistently going between PC's, may I suggest getting a USB Flash drive.

I do this when I don't have a 'Net connection on my laptop.  You can probably get a good, cheap USB drive almost anywhere (Walmart and Best Buy come to mind) that can easily handle anything you're trying to store and move.  The only worry is viruses, which can be overcome if you scan the drive before you do any work with it after it's visited a computer that's not yours.  But anyhow, before I ramble on any more I just thought I'd share an easier method than CDs.

Boy, do *I* feel like a dingbat!  My roomie has  flash drive I've used before and for some reason it never crossed my mind to use it again for this current "outage".  Thank you for the suggestion, it will certainly be easier than writing to a CD every time I want to update.

Speaking of update, here is the next one:

Ok, so now you get to watch my poor tortured brain go through the process of actually beginning to try to recreate this area from RL to in game.  I don't think this will be as laborious as what I've gone through to get to this point, but I've never tried this before, so who knows where I'll end up going.

I am going to start with the lake and the dam, as you already know.  I'd done some random spot checks of the elevation of the lake bed in previous game sessions and found it varied somewhat.  Now that I have the lake outlined in trees, it's time for a reality check to see just how much variance in elevation actually exists:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg40.imageshack.us%2Fimg40%2F5479%2Fscreenshot1mrv.jpg&hash=48b9758b97f632d2c70ff660cd3a6d8fc2b3f894)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F9742%2Fscreenshot2atr.jpg&hash=5424e2ca0fa1a82dd8ae4767082ab3870f532a71)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg132.imageshack.us%2Fimg132%2F4820%2Fscreenshot3v.jpg&hash=535bbccaf76e261ae4bbe3b690182c559b6dbe16)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg529.imageshack.us%2Fimg529%2F7564%2Fscreenshot4z.jpg&hash=b9f3fddc6ee5f465d55f7d4f9b995263d710098b)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg529.imageshack.us%2Fimg529%2F6310%2Fscreenshot5quc.jpg&hash=8dd075dabba852dd7f75f4293d0f1b0a86309dc6)

Not a lot, but I want the lake bed to be perfectly flat at RL lake level, so my PW sits at the right elevation.  So now I have to do some math and if any of you are allergic to math, get out your inhalers.  The biggest problem is the game is its all metric and my brain isn't because I live in the USA and we use outdated forms of measurement here, which I am hardwired to accept. 

I know that sea level in game is at 250m.  So the first thing I do is subtract 250 from the queried average of my lakebed of 313.4m, which gives me the answer that my existing lakebed is 63.4 meters above sea level.  My cheat sheet tells me 1m=3.28 feet, so now I multiply 63. 4 x 3.28 and get 207.95.  That's the existing lakebed elevation above sea level. 

However, I know from a notation on my RL topo map of this area that the spillway is at an elevation of 199' above sea level, so my lake bed is too high by about 8'.  From the Google Earth photos already posted and discussed, I am going to semi-randomly decide the lake level itself is 12" below the spillway or at 198'.  I chose this number because I know from reading other folk's work in fine terraforming that a close zoom with the depress terrain tool clicked ONCE and with minimum force will yield a depression of about .4 of a meter, which is close enough for me to 1 foot (1'=.305m).  So now I have to figure out what 198' above sea level is in game terrain measurements.  For *me* the easiest way is to divide 198' x 3.28meters per foot, which comes out to 60.67m.  Now add back in the 250 for game sea level and the lake bed wants to be at 310.67, or 310.7 (close enough for me). 

Whew, exit math brain for the time being.  Now I have a lakebed level to try to achieve.  For the time being, I am not going to worry about the spillway or the dam, mostly because I am not currently able to go online at home and I really need to find the height of the top of the dam.  So, even thought I know the dam is 71' tall, I don't know what either it's top or bottom elevation is, so I can't really try to construct the dam itself, tonite, without one of those two variables being know.  I can, however, lay down the lake bed and it's two little feeder streams.

The first thing I am going to do is use the depress terrain tool to VERY CAREFULLY dig a small hole in my lake bed:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg5.imageshack.us%2Fimg5%2F2792%2Fscreenshot6hoq.jpg&hash=1346300f6392d0b2c7958c7664cd47ce6ce565ef)

Ok, I am at 311.0. which is pretty darn close.  I got there by clicking on the mayor mode depress terrain tool, then using Shift+1 to limit the area of influence and then using Shift +F1 to limit the strength of the tool.  I then clicked quickly 10 times.  So, If I do the same thing again, I should be right where I want to be.  Let's see it if works:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg215.imageshack.us%2Fimg215%2F4927%2Fscreenshot7k.jpg&hash=ce547f874d8b6c3bd53d1df9b6f5e68a6436bd0f)

That's good enough for me!  I had to actually click twice, both times very quickly, and I measured the terrain elevation after the first time, so now I am going to do another cell next door the exact same way and hopefully it will come out at the same elevation.  What I am looking to do is create one flat cell at 310.6 elevation, after that I can use the level terrain tool for the rest of the lake bed.

Notice the position of my north arrow.  ALWAYS do this kind of fine terraforming with your north arrow pointing north and click in the CENTER of the cell you are terraforming.  The NW corner of the cell will react, as will the corners adjacent in the surrounding cells.  If you're really good at keeping track of directions, you can use this method with your north arrow in any direction, but I find it easiest to do this way. 

So now I depress a second cell the same way:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg268.imageshack.us%2Fimg268%2F9616%2Fscreenshot8now.jpg&hash=28abebb1b8200e5919ed9b8189024000340f8dd9)

Well, this one took a couple more clicks, but it matches now.  On to the next cell:

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/9614/screenshot9zea.jpg

And then the last cell to make the new flat cell at 310.6:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg186.imageshack.us%2Fimg186%2F746%2Fscreenshot10a.jpg&hash=857477caff51e5d536eba88769c12d6a9011a128)

Now I have a cell flat at the elevation I want it.  To make sure I don't lose this work in the next step, I save my game by pressing Ctrl+s.  And BTW, if anyone wants to learn this fine terraforming technique, both ennedi and dedgren have great tutorials...that's how *I* learned them. 

It occurred to me that instead of using the level tool, I may be able to plop street and road segments instead, so I'm going to try that and see how it works:

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/7619/screenshot11sqk.jpg

Looks good!  Will other street tiles laid next door also flatten terrain?  Lets see:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg44.imageshack.us%2Fimg44%2F3072%2Fscreenshot12a.jpg&hash=e46a2c0cf3fabf2660839054a2d774077e953c12)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg22.imageshack.us%2Fimg22%2F4679%2Fscreenshot13e.jpg&hash=95e36bda640875ed5104e947777df03974b50825)

Hot diggety!  Forget the level terrain tool for now, I'm gonna plop some street segments! And when I'm done, this is what I have:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg41.imageshack.us%2Fimg41%2F1563%2Fscreenshot14pce.jpg&hash=ab7fede30d8555f5b249d4337c4091f3d6842f3a)

The island in the lake looks a trifle too large and too steep.  According to the topos I have, it only rises about 40' above the lake surface.  Lets see what we have:

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/54/screenshot15wpp.jpg

Ok, here comes the math again.  This query shows 336.0.  Minus 250 for sea level means 86m above sea level, which converts to 282.08'.  The highest contour level on the island is 220:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg248.imageshack.us%2Fimg248%2F6195%2Fscreenshot16z.jpg&hash=f33a8055a4ace4f913d168c885b79babef01bd7d)

The dark contour line is 200' and the intervals are at 20' (I know this from having read the legends at the bottom of the topo map before cropping the legend out and importing it into CAD and also from counting lighter contour lines between heavier ones...there are 5 between each 100' interval), so the max height this island could be would be 239', right?  Otherwise a new contour line would be there.  But, if you look back at the various pics I have posted in the last two weeks or so, you can see this island is actually very low and the 220' contour is probably close to max.  Let's give this little island the benefit of a doubt and give it a max height of 230'.  So what is that in meters? 

230/3.28=70.12.  Add 250m for sea level = 320.12m max height for this island, if it's to retain any semblance to it's RL counterpart.  So yeah, the game island is just a little bit too tall.  And I'd rather fix it now rather than later, because once I start plopping water, changes in terrain will destroy my PW.  I want my underlying terrain right BEFORE I start plopping water.

So how do I go about making this little island less tall?  Hmmm. Good question and not sure I know the answer.  I could just smash it with the level tool and then soften it and hope it looks ok.  I could erode it.  I could just soften it. 

But, once again its getting to be late at night and my wine is kicking in (think sleeping pill), so I think I'll leave this update as done for the time being. 

Hope you enjoy!

Lora/LD

Something to remember, with regards to the elevation of that island:  everything in the game is vertically stretched.  Because of the viewing angle, accurate scaled structures appear squashed, so they are stretched vertically (I think about 125%-150%?  If someone could confirm/correct?)  While that difference is more important with BATing buildings, it's worth considering for terraforming as well, given the level of detail you're going for.  Especially when you get to the hills in downtown.

Looking forward to more.

-ACE

I haven't posted here in a while, so I decided to stop in and say that I'm still watching from the shadows. ;)

I really love how Stafford Lake is coming along! Your method of constructing the lake is extremely creative, and is something I've never seen done before. I'm glad you're showing us your progress in such detail!

-Jason

Lora,

This is amazing stuff. The detail you plan to achieve and the process you're undertaking will be great fun to watch. I loved your back and forth with Battlecat regarding the dam and spillway. Fascinating engineering chit chat. I'll be drawn to this project throughout no doubt.

Happy engineering.

Geoff

Hi Lora,

This is very impressive. Your dedication to accuracy is amazing.
Regarding your island though, maybe you should also keep in mind that 9x12 ploppable water simulates a 2 meter depth, so you should probably factor that in your calculations as to whether this island is too tall or not. Not to mention the banks of the lake.
I have bookmarked your thread anyway and will definitely keep an eye on it. Although I hate math. ;D

Cheers,

Fabien

You're certainly going full tilt on this now!  I'm a huge fan of street and road based leveling, it's such a huge time saver and it gives pretty precise control over the final look!  You're certainly putting it to good use! 

Wow, great to see some new faces and old buddies! 

ACEfanatic02: Yes, I've noticed before how the game seems to be a bit "flattened" from RL, but I think it has a lot to do with the scale of the basic game cell.  I don't really want to complicate my life any more than it already is regarding this game and MD, so while exaggerating vertical elevations may work for eye candy and other visuals, I think I'll stick to RL elevations, when I can find them.  I'm a ways away from being downtown SF at this point, though, so who knows how much my mind may change between now and then.  I hope you enjoy this MD and will be stopping by often!

Albus fo Garaway:  Welcome back, you've been missed!

calibanX: Battlecat has a great earthen dam in his MD "Aldara" that you should check out under the "Best Sellers" tab.  Once you see his dam and spillway, you will understand why we both kinda went off on a tangent.  Still, glad you are enjoying the banter and hope you'll stop by again soon!

Mayorfabz: I am not certain yet I am going to use the 9x12 TPW.  I may lay individual TPW tiles instead, but even so, the island will definitly need to be lowered some.  Visit again in the next couple of days, as that's definitely on my list of things to do. 

Battlecat:  Always good to see you again, my friend.  And yes, I like using streets and roads, too, especially for smaller areas where the level tool is just too large a "brush". 

Ok, so I have another update to post, this time saved on the FLASH drive rather than burned to CD...and thanks again for that suggestion, it's really a no-brainer and I feel like an idiot for having spaced it.

So, I worked on building the dam and spillway Wednesday evening and didn't take any pics as I worked because it involved about 2-3 hours of rather extreme trial and error.  It was kinda frustrating and I did a LOT of exit without save.  I'm so glad this game doesn't auto-save and really wish, like a lot of folks, that it had an "Undo" function.  I also spent a lot of time going back and forth between Terrain Query and Depress Terrain.  This is what I ended up with:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg215.imageshack.us%2Fimg215%2F4497%2Fdam1b.jpg&hash=7c078b5fb67c48e7ba559fc58cc471b8817baa9a)

Water level is at 310.6m.  The spillway, which is at the left and designated by two road tiles, is at 311.2.  It's a little higher than I would like it, but visually it currently reads as barely above lake level, so I think it's OK.  The top of the dam is just a tad over 10' above lake level at 313.7m. 

While at the café this evening (I'm getting to be quite the regular there), I used Google Earth to revisit  RL pics of the dam, especially the back side, because my in game back of the dam looks pretty shallow to me.  So no one has to page back to review, here's a peek at what the RL back looks like:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg401.imageshack.us%2Fimg401%2F6812%2Fspillway1.jpg&hash=6b52dd0ce7d031ffdeb99d7f67d6f96c630a294c)

Now, unfortunately, I have not been able to discover the elevation at the top of the dam.  That would certainly make things easier, eh?  Because, as it currently in rendered in my game, that means the front side base of the dam, given the dam is 71' tall, should be at 292.0m.  So, I checked the elevation at the base in the game and this is what I got:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg179.imageshack.us%2Fimg179%2F1328%2Fdam2.jpg&hash=78fd7bfd04c8b14960463147267c73a1d93ea434)

Way too high.  Now, in the picture above, notice the little line of Xmas trees running across the upper right corner.  That's the road, or rather, the line of the road.  If I look again at the RL picture, it looks to me like the road, as it passes the dam, is at approximately the same elevation as the top of the dam.  Doesn't it look that way to you, too?  Look at the gate structure we talked about a couple of pages back.  It connects to concrete retaining walls at both ends and you can see another retaining wall running along the edge of the road on one side and connecting into the dam at the other.  These all appear to be at the same elevation as the top of the dam and as the one running along the road casts almost no shadow at all, I don't think it sticks up above the road bed by much, maybe 6", which for game purposes is so small as to be negligible.  So, going back to my game, I need to check the elevation of where the road is going to go:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg215.imageshack.us%2Fimg215%2F4261%2Fdam3tqh.jpg&hash=da419b44ec9108a296ad3441b70263c4040bc7d1)

I chose this tree because it is at approximately the location of where the spillway gate structure attaches to the retaining wall along the road.  So, here comes more math.  If I raise my top of dam height to 319.0m that means my base of the front of the dam would then be 297.3 and the top of the dam would be 27.5' above lake level.  So how far down the valley in front of the dam do I have to go to find 297.3m?

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg35.imageshack.us%2Fimg35%2F3773%2Fdam4u.jpg&hash=5abef463a469e1e87730c3c4818e116014d07d46)

Well, that's not TOO far and I remember from other RL pics that the road is quite a bit higher than the spillway and base of dam, so I'm going to raise the top of my dam to 319m and see how that looks.  I'll do this the same way as I did Wednesday night. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg215.imageshack.us%2Fimg215%2F1123%2Fdam5z.jpg&hash=cb9d48d83e3ce04b004bfc8974bfc8f9619f8ff1)

I love it when that happens, makes my drafter's heart beat happy.  So now I'll lay the street tiles to level the top of the dam:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg32.imageshack.us%2Fimg32%2F8241%2Fdam6.jpg&hash=c2ec95322e37688542e002fbd0ce66ccc3258986)

Now I have to create the bottom of the dam.  I think I'll dig a hole, make it a level cell, then again use street tiles.  My location is going to be semi-random, as I don't have any idea what the angle of slope on the dam is.  This may again take quite a bit of trial and error, so I won't take pics as I go, rather I will explain what I did afterwards (I think).

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg35.imageshack.us%2Fimg35%2F4470%2Fdam7.jpg&hash=e4b356efdaccee7d946f2858c8bd05c4fce95e52)

Ok, so I lied.  But hey, am I good, or what?  Just couldn't help but brag.  Only took me two uses of the depress terrain tool.  So now I'll lay out a flat area for the water filtration plant that I'm thinking may be my first BAT attempt:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg257.imageshack.us%2Fimg257%2F7735%2Fdam8.jpg&hash=289b40a3d107780f5833ae939095dfb09ed23e8a)

The street plops stop at about the 297 mark, and from there on down I think the terrain will fall away naturally, but who knows.  This area will probably change a lot as I put in the couple of little feeder creeks that join up here, not to mention the roads (like the one that runs up the left side face of the dam). 

But now what I have to do is create a uniform slope across the face of the dam.  To do this, I am going to use roads, a technique I learned from jeronij:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg15.imageshack.us%2Fimg15%2F7364%2Fdam9.jpg&hash=9c83c28199310458a3099af9632dbb12b627fd75)

Well, using that method didn't work too well so instead I "manually" smoothed the face of the dam using the depress terrain tool.  But now the top of my dam looks too wide, so I am going to bulldoze the tiles closest to the lake and spread the lake:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F5528%2Fdam10.jpg&hash=512394a16ced1ac62bd55ed4fcdba7de8d7492db)

Well, it ain't perfect, but this is actually a very small dam to try to render in game...gives one an idea of how "large" a single game cell actually is.  This dam is supposed to be 650 feet wide, so I'm going to count my cells and do some math to see how close I am.

I am 8 cells wide on a 45 degree angle, from hillside to hillside, which includes the spillway.  Each cell is 52.5' square, so using a squared + b squared =c squared (sorry, don't know how to insert superscript) my calculator tells me the diagonal distance of each cell is 74.25'.  Multiply that by 8 and I get 594'.  Well, that's a little short of actual, but the actual dam isn't at a 45 degree angle either, it's at a greater angle, which would make it longer.  However, this is just a GAME and I can't 100% faithfully reproduce everything and I'm going to need roads and concrete walls to finish of the dam and spillway later, so I had to choose an angle that would work with the content out there, which is all either mostly orthagonal or diagonal. 

This dam is likely to stay in this shape for a while, as I need to plop some roads and creeks before I finish it off.  I also need to address the lake's island, so stay tuned, there's more coming soon!

Lora/LD

It's good to see that you have an MD, Lora.  The planning you put into your region is just amazing!  I know it must be time-consuming, but I'm sure it will pay off.  Keep up the good work!

:thumbsup:

Amazing project you are developing here, in your MD! Fantastic degree of professionalism!
And congratulations for the comment number 100 in your MD, taking you to the Best Sellers!

Looking good Lora.  The terraforming for the spillway is coming along nicely.

Congrats on reaching 100 replies and 6 pages.

Well, you can maybe imagine my surprise and dismay when I logged in to SC4D this afternoon and couldn't find my MD in it's usual place, which had been among the top listed in the "Recent" tab.  Not having internet access at home this last 10 days has really slowed me down and I feared the worst when I couldn't find the MD even on the first page of the Recents.  With a sinking heart I paged over to the second page, fearing to find my MD there, fallen from favor due to boring posts.  When I didn't find it there, I became REALLY alarmed and wondered if maybe I'd broken some rule and the MD had been deleted.  See, this is what happens to your confidence in yourself when you are over a year out of work...it never occurred to me that I'd get "upgraded" to Best Seller tab.  I also felt immediately guilty for not having gone to the cafe last night and for not playing SC4, instead opting to spend 6 hours playing Sims2 and building my brother/sister household a new home after thier parents died and they sold off the family homestead.  She's in the armed services, training in Special Forces, while he's just been promoted to Project Manager in the Science career path. 

But then a glimmer of hope gleamed in the back of my mind and I thought hmmm, maybe I've become a Best Seller?  So I tabbed over there and there I was!  I was so happy, I decided to treat myself to a store bought lunch today (salad bar at the local market, which I can pay for with food stamps). 

Thank you all so very much for propelling my MD to this next stage along it's journey.  I am all fired up now to get back into the game and start working on a few more details.  I'm not going to plop the lake until I have the roads around the lake installed, so if there is any disturbance of terrain from road-building, it won't affect my lake.  Same with the spillway.  I am going to smoosh down the island and probably vegetate it, so look for that event coming soon, as well as Lora Build Roads.

Ok and even more good news...my neighbor is broadcasting wifi again, so no more needing to take the laptop up to the cafe.  Woohoo!  A Banner Day, by all means.  Amazing what little bit it takes to create excitement in my oterwise extremely boring life.  Home wifif AND a best seller, all in a single day!

Lora/LD, off to the market for lunch

Welcome to the Best Sellers Lora, a well deserved move for sure. I'm glad your neighbor has bested the wifi problem. I'm looking forward to watching your progress now that you have easier internet access and you don't have to frequent the cafe.

Take care.

Geoff

L.O.R.A,

This is absolutely Wonderful!

Your attention to detail and getting you terrain perfect flabbergasts me, as I would never have the patience to do anything close to this.

Some people at this point, 6 pages in, would probably say, 'Is she actually going to build?', but, uh-uh, for me. This detail just teaches me more and more, which I appreciate, because when I start an MD (maybe) on a computer that doesn't have Vista, I will follow your lessons on how to create a beautiful region.

I do have a question regarding the building of your San Francisco. Are you growing, or plopping? It seems it will be awfully treacherous to grow. Especially since it has to be SF.

I would be glad to try to make you some lots (after lots of reading about LE, to get me caught up, and learn to give them to you).

Can't wait for more,
                            Ethan
                           

calibanX/Geoff: Thanks you and yes, it will be nice to not have to buy a pastry I don't want just so I can use the internet.  I gained 2 pounds this last week and while that's not much, it goes on much easier than it comes off the older one gets, so I keep a very close watch on my weight.

ecoba/Ethan: Hey, I like the way you "say" my name.  Welcome to my MD and I hope you stop by often.  And no, I don't think I'll be "growing" any of this region, I think it'll be almost 100% plops.  Once I get into suburban/urban areas, my plugins file is going to be a nightmare, I have no doubt.  And if you want to create some custom stuff for me, way cool!  Wander over to Battlecat's MD, also here on the Best Seller list, and see the dam and spillway he made.  His is WAY bigger than mine, but I think I am going to need help with the spillway walls.  He used jeronij's concrete wall package, which I have, but he tweaked the lots in LE, which I don't yet know how to do and I don't know if they can be used on a double slope.  As you can see from the RL pics of the spillway, the tops of the spillway walls are parallel to the bottom and that's where I think I may run into trouble.

Off to play and take pics, maybe write a new update.  I think I may try laying down the road tonite...

Lora/LD

I can try to make some CC, just say what you need. (maybe, I'll have to see if it's possible, for me at least.). But, I'll be looking for props, cause I can't BAT, cause my comp. can't handle it. ......Maybe my new one will.....

But I'm not sure if I'm getting a new one or not....

Ethan

Edit:I think I'll DL some props, and walls, and get to work, in game and in LE, to see if I can think of anything, I'll have to find some photos of the real dam as well though.

But, maybe I'll do that tomorrow, because it's 2300, and I need to start attempting to try to get ready to sleep.

Ethan

Congratulations on making it to the best seller section!  Have to say, I know how you feel; I was quite worried when I couldn't find my MD when it changed locations as well!  Glad to hear you've got internet access again as well!  Looking forward to the next update.

Many many congratulations, this is an amazing MD, and it thoroughly deserves to be a best seller :D


Joe

ecoba/Ethan: There are pics of the RL dam and spillway a page or two back in this MD or you can study it in more detail using Google Earth (which is free to download and a WAY cool tool/toy to use/play with).  The dam is the Novato Creek Dam and the Lake behind it is Stafford Lake.  Both are slightly east of the city of Novato, which is north of San Francisco and near the top of San Pablo Bay.  I also recommend looking at Battlecat's MD, "Adara", which is also here under the Best Sellers tab.  He is working on a similar (but MUCH larger) earthen dam which he created a concrete spillway for and he posted some links to the props and lots he tweaked in LE to accomplish his work.

Battlecat: Always nice to have you drop by and I have a small mini-update to post today. 

JoeST/Joe:  Thank you so very much!  I have to admit to being more than a little bit surprsided by how many folks enjoy the sometimes mind-numbing details I go into with this MD, but hey, lots of us OCD folks out there, I guess!  Thanks for stopping by and hope you do so often.

So, I did play around with the road for a little while last night.  I didn't save any of my work because I wasn't happy with it, but I did take a couple of pics, to show you my first tries.  I am really liking writing my MD updates offline!  I can have lots of programs open and go back and forth between them (including my game) and it makes organizing my pics and thoughts so much easier.  I basically write as I play, taking pictures as I go.  So, here's the new update:

Tonite I am playing with building the road that runs along the north edge of the lake, which turns into a major arterial not too far downstream (east) of where I have been playing.  I am using plain vanilla Maxis roads so far, so am restricted to orthogonal or diagonal roads, and am using a slope mod created by un1 that has seven types of mods included:

Extra Smooth=1.5% slope
Very Smooth=2% slope
Smooth=3% slope
Average=5% slope
Mounted=6% slope
Very Mounted=8% slope
Extremely Mounted=10% slope

Again, this is a trail and error process for me, so pics may be sparse.  I started using no slope mod at all and laid down a diagonal section of road right beside the spillway.  The results were TERRIBLE, so I exited without saving (or taking any pics) and installed the "mounted" slope mod (thinking I was installing the "average" mod, but whatever). 

But before I go much further, lets looks at the road I am talking about it RL:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg40.imageshack.us%2Fimg40%2F769%2Froadrl.jpg&hash=8d168382f4d0d1a3f2054ec943544ce7adcaf6eb)

That heel of the hill that projects out into the lake just above the spillway is where I am having problems.  The game flattens terrain quite a bit when it builds roads and even with the slope mod installed, rounding that corner becomes very problematic.  I was not able to do it with the "mounted" option, so I tried the "very mounted" option and this is what I was able to accomplish:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg9.imageshack.us%2Fimg9%2F5090%2Froad1verymounted.jpg&hash=dd08b9be9d47c9ef5048f6ede6320340905a4492)

It's not too bad given the limits of Maxis roads, but I'm not much digging the ditch that is created on the north side of the road OR the elevation of the road above the lake for most of it's travel along the lake.  Looking at the RL photo, I can see that the only place the road really is elevated above the lake is as it rounds that corner above the spillway, then it goes back to being fairly flat (or at least it appears flat in the satellite imagery).  I'm also not digging the way the slope mod and road closed off the mouth of my spillway, which I so carefully terraformed into existence.

So, I think I may try to switch out the slope mod as I go along, using the very mounted version for rounding the corner, then going back to a lesser slope for other areas of the road.  I also want to try to keep the 319.0m elevation of the road next to the spillway gates intact.  So I'm going to quit without save and try again.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg195.imageshack.us%2Fimg195%2F7347%2Ffarcurve.jpg&hash=57a61c3451f257c2b58396164e70020e3502153c)

Now this piece seems to fit the curve around the base of the hill very nicely, but the grade is too steep to build on, so maybe I am going to have to, once again, manually terraform this curve, as well as the approaches to it in both directions.

But I think that's going to have to wait for another evening.  I am a player of Lord of the Rings Online and have been out of that game for over 10 days, so I am anxious to log in and chat with some of my buddies there, now that my home wifi connection has been restored.  I'm also about 3 glasses of wine into my evening and don't want to screw anything up in my region, so I think I'll save this challenge for another time.

Lora/LD

Amazing. Its really fascinating to watch how you approach the game. :D

I love all the little details checking this and that to make sure you are
staying as close to RL as possible :thumbsup:

Personally I don't have the patience for that $%Grinno$%
but its great to see what can be achieved by those who have :thumbsup:

I often switch my slope mods in and out so that I can get up and down gradients
and its amazing what can be achieved. It just may be the solution you need.

Sorry for not commenting more often but I do lurk/check in alot to see what you've been up to. :thumbsup:

regards

Derry

Wow, Lora!  How did you get that grid to appear on Google Earth?  That would be a useful planning tool for those of us who like to recreate RL cities.  I really like the way you're going about the road construction.

:thumbsup:

I'll take a look at some of those pics, as well as on Google. Thanks.

I realized though, how are you going to do the region's freeways?

I like to use One-Way Roads, very modular, it seems like that's probably going to be the most realistic. Unless they're saved until RHW-4.0....

Which will probably be too far off.

Ethan

From what I've observed on the dam, the water comes up to that nice steep slope I see you've created, but, as seen in Street View, on Google Maps, there is a very gentle hill don to the operating facilities and a small treatment plant, it seems. The spillway has a very interesting design, as well as lots of grafitti in it.

Ethan

When it comes to those wide radius curves, it's pretty much 100% necessary to prepare the site in advance.  They are capable of autoleveling the local terrain to some extent, but the results can be extremely unpredictable. 

I've had some luck with laying normal maxis roads through most areas to start, and then replacing all the major curves with the wide radius curves after the fact.  There's no doubt that they're challenge to use though.  Good luck!

Seeing the image of the real terrain and what you are creating side by side makes it all the more impressive to watch this develop.  :thumbsup:

100+ posts! Allow me to congratulate you on making it into the best sellers! I wanted to get that precious 100th post (or the 101st), but I'll settle for what I got. I'm just thankful that this is one of the few things I missed (wildfires are a pain, but they go with the earthquakes here in California). Anyways, comments!

Quote from: ldvger on August 23, 2009, 02:08:10 PM
That heel of the hill that projects out into the lake just above the spillway is where I am having problems.  The game flattens terrain quite a bit when it builds roads and even with the slope mod installed, rounding that corner becomes very problematic.  I was not able to do it with the "mounted" option, so I tried the "very mounted" option and this is what I was able to accomplish:

It's not too bad given the limits of Maxis roads, but I'm not much digging the ditch that is created on the north side of the road OR the elevation of the road above the lake for most of it's travel along the lake.  Looking at the RL photo, I can see that the only place the road really is elevated above the lake is as it rounds that corner above the spillway, then it goes back to being fairly flat (or at least it appears flat in the satellite imagery).  I'm also not digging the way the slope mod and road closed off the mouth of my spillway, which I so carefully terraformed into existence.

Ah, the endless process of terraforming a road along a grade. Well, let me put a few of your concerns at rest. The road is indeed above the lake by a semi-significant grade difference/cliff. Should you wish to get a more interesting view of the lake and road, consult google maps (not google earth). Go down to street level, and it gives you a 360 view of Novato Blvd., and the surrounding area. You can't wander off the road, but it's still very useful. The cliff face gradually flattens out into the Stafford Lake rec area, with the picnic area and some grass fields. I figure it might be useful for other shots too.

Quote from: ldvger on August 23, 2009, 02:08:10 PM
So, I think I may try to switch out the slope mod as I go along, using the very mounted version for rounding the corner, then going back to a lesser slope for other areas of the road.  I also want to try to keep the 319.0m elevation of the road next to the spillway gates intact.  So I'm going to quit without save and try again.

Now this piece seems to fit the curve around the base of the hill very nicely, but the grade is too steep to build on, so maybe I am going to have to, once again, manually terraform this curve, as well as the approaches to it in both directions.

Hand terraforming is often the only way to get it perfect. Sometimes you just have to do it the hard way. But it'll look good, at least. I'm for the NAM curve, too. That way it'll look best. FAR pieces might be useful here as well, although I'm not staring at the city screen, and they tend to be a bit more curve intolerant. Up to you, obviously :)

Now, to a completely random suggestion about terrain! I was thinking how nothing quite matches CA terrain for 2/3rds of the year (the golden hills). So, why not go for next best thing, going for the other 1/3rd? To be exact, the winter and spring months, when California gets almost all of its rainfall. Due to the shear amount of rain dumped between November and March, The hills turn a vibrant shade of green (as seen in one of the initial pictures of Stafford Lake, posted by our wonderful MD maker Lora). It's quite common, due to the 35"+/880mm+ rain, all concentrated almost entirely in those 5 months. Think it might be worth it?

Well, believe it or not I spent a good hour last night (Sunday) posting an update and replying to comments/suggestions and when done and I hit the "Post" button I got the "507 User Identification Failed" error message.  I was so mad, I logged out immediately, completely forgetting to copy the update/post to I could paste it back in when I relogged.  So I lost the hour thing.  Good news is, at least all my pics are already uploaded, so it shouldn't take long to recreate at least a semblence of the post.  Replies first:

TheTeaCat/Derry:  Thanks for stopping by and good to know switching out the slope mods works, I'll keep it in mind.  Come by again soon, lots of stuff coming up.

metarvo: that is the default latitude/longitude grid that shows up in my Google Earth window, but I don;t think it would be very useful for using in game, as it has no relationship whatsoever to the game grid.  Thanks for stopping by and I'm glad you are enjoying my play!

ecoba/Ethan: I am not yet certain how I will create the freeways, but am thinking they may be custom made.  I am trying to learn how to make custom content, so maybe by the time I get to the freeways, I'll know how.  Also, thanks very much for the tip on using Street View in Google Earth, wow!  I had not used that option yet and now will use it a lot.  And yes, there is a LOT of grafitti on the spillway walls:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg33.imageshack.us%2Fimg33%2F7551%2Fgrafittirps.jpg&hash=62e6fde05a40b8a563d751f6d329f3f35592764f)

Does this mean when you LE spillway walls for me, you will make them covered with grafitti?  $%Grinno$% Just kidding pf course, and thanks for stopping by!

Battlecat: Yes, as you will see by tonite's update, I am learning how to use the non-standard road pieces.  Always good to see you and I hope you come by again soon, lots of good stuff coming up.

djvandrake:  yeah, I'm having fun with it, too!  I am finding I am keeping Google Earth open while I play in game and flipping back and forth a lot to compare to see if I am coming close to what I want to achieve.  Hope to see you stopping by often!

MrWacko:  Good to see you again and thanks for your comments.  I just discovered the Street View option and wow, you can be sure I am going to use it a lot.  Amazing software, hard to believe it's free, very powerful stuff.  As for the terrain, well, I've pretty much decided to use the Maxis "Plain Vanilla" and maybe try to gussy it up a bit as I go along.  It's still pretty green for California and probably matches what the area looks like in late spring as it starts to brown up after the winter rains.  The next big question is actually going to be tree controllers, and I guess I'll use more than one.  I need lots of deciduous trees, mostly oaks, for the lowere elevations and then pines for higher elevations.  I know there aren't many native species that color up in the fall, so I don't think I'll be using many seasonal trees.  Being as how I will rarely actually be running the game out of Pause mode, that won't be too much of an issue, just takes away from the eye-candy of seasonal color.  Stop by again soon, always appreciate your comments!

So now for the update:

So tonite I'm going back to the road to try again.  The first thing I want to do is plop the FAR curve I showed you in the last update, but I need to flatten the ground first, so I'm going to use the fine terraforming technique.  I may end up doing each square of the curve individually, as I'm afraid that if I use street tiles I will over excavate the face of the hill to the north of the road.  Once I have a flat tile, I'll try it and see.  I'm going to start my flattening of the curve in the middle, then work to each end.  This FAR curve, by the way is a 90 degree, 5x5 cell curve, and for those of you unfamiliar with them, the FAR stands for Fractional Angle Roads, or roads that run at other than 90 or 45 degrees.  This is where I'll start:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg269.imageshack.us%2Fimg269%2F5079%2Fscreenshot1uxu.jpg&hash=e076927d3f603df8c5656df5e219e82ec4137953)

I've found that the street tiles laid on the road bed below may affect my terraforming (and vice versa), so I am going to bulldoze those lake tiles adjacent to where I plan to put my road.  I know everyone loves to blow things up and see things being blown up, but I won't take a pic of that this time a round.

Now that I see where I want to plop the FAR curve, I've changed my mind and decided I'm going to start at the western edge of the curve (on the left hand side above) and work my way around.  I have a nearly flat tile there already and that's where I'll need to connect my next piece of road, so it seems a good place to start.  First I have to check the existing elevation of the cell:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg30.imageshack.us%2Fimg30%2F8031%2Fscreenshot2par.jpg&hash=35f5e7f59b4bbdca353483130acd446e8ec1e12a)

Going clockwise around the cell from the tree, I get: 320.5, 324.0, 322.2, and 319.5.  Now, another thing I have to think about is the elevation of the ending cell on the other end of the curve, so now I'll go check that:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg269.imageshack.us%2Fimg269%2F8391%2Fscreenshot3aef.jpg&hash=c9bf71c961eb7f4cd5c3b07266bd7fca95d031f4)

Again going clockwise around the cell I get: 311.4, 329.2, 338.1, and 326.6.  Ok mathaphobes, break out your valium, here comes some math.  I'm going to find the average of the heights of the first cell, then do the same for the second cell, then find the average between the two cells and, I think, I'll use that as my base elevation for the curve.  Ready?  Here we go!

First cell average: 320.5+324.0+322.2+319.5=1290.7/4=322.7
Second cell average: 311.4+329.2+338.1+326.6=1305.3/4=326.3
Average between both cells: 322.7+326.3=649/2=324.5

So now I'll try that and see what happens.  Hopefully I won't create any cliffs or escarpments, because none exist around this curve in RL.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg509.imageshack.us%2Fimg509%2F700%2Fscreenshot4e.jpg&hash=ff6c98f17cd6e0c23cb3a18e9e5a35792e621bac)

This end looks good.  I saved my game so if plopping street tiles messes things up, I can start over with my level tile.

Ok, so problem solved.  The next cells for the curve are too steep to plop a street tile on, so I guess each tile will have to be hand terraformed.  Maybe a road tile will work, instead.  I'll try that and see.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg526.imageshack.us%2Fimg526%2F6681%2Fscreenshot5b.jpg&hash=5845b0f2bae12c93d46f8826e5a9e2c104dedb44)

Road tiles do indeed work!  More slope tolerant, it seems, than street tiles.  I had to play around with several road tile layouts to affect the least amount of lake and hillside, and I lost 3 lake tiles (I think, not sure, I didn't count), but I am pretty happy with the look of the hillside and I have checked the curve and it now will plop, so (after I saved my game again), I'm going to bulldoze those road tiles and plop my curve:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg148.imageshack.us%2Fimg148%2F4596%2Fscreenshot6z.jpg&hash=524dbfbb070c8c1f7c1a57677f63e35e603756c1)

Uh-oh.  I don't like the east end of the curve and the way it cuts into the hillside, so I'll try again, using more road tiles to soften that end of the curve.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg139.imageshack.us%2Fimg139%2F4347%2F30501207.jpg&hash=ce301ba09aedf2da5ab0bb9bae347a118b55ecb6)

That looks much better, don't you agree?  Judicious use of the depress terrain tool to lower the elevations of the cells around that area of the curve did the trick.  Now I'll plop the curve again:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg204.imageshack.us%2Fimg204%2F7128%2Fscreenshot8n.jpg&hash=e6577a135c358ab9c0847a90c3289ec6842d27dd)

Oh yes, now we're cooking with gas!  Now I get to see if I can hook up roads to either end of the curve.  I'm going to use the "average" slope mod to start with and see how that works.  Bummer, the Very Mounted mod is installed in my plugins folder and my game is running, so I can't switch it out unless I save and exit, so I guess that's what I'll do.  Forgot about that part of switching out mods during a play session, dang!

Well, I didn't like the Average slope, so now I'm going to try the Smooth slope. And now Very Smooth slope.  And now Extremely Smooth.

Eureka!  Well, I got one end of the curve, using another FAR curve piece, this one a 3x4.  I need to soften the face of the hill behind it some, so I'm going to do that now:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg407.imageshack.us%2Fimg407%2F5497%2Fscreenshot9gqr.jpg&hash=7a2cc5be45f97ab72683e8ef52d571d8caffa068)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg530.imageshack.us%2Fimg530%2F9300%2Fscreenshot10e.jpg&hash=baf379d37066654ed2be4339f1c61a5f657d3cae)

(Monday evening edit: the two pics above may be duplicates of each other and if so, I'm sorry.  The offline update I wrote Sunday night didn't have a space for screenshot9 and I had it in my folder, so I posted both 9 and 10 next to each other)

Much bettah!  Now sneaking past the spillway is going to be a challenge.  With the road so close to the lake here and the angle of the road, things are a little dicey.  Every time I try to get the road through, I loose the mouth of the spillway.  So, I'm going to try to VERY CAREFULLY manually terraform the road bed around the spillway so that I can lay some Maxis diagonal road tiles here without loosing my spillway.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg507.imageshack.us%2Fimg507%2F3849%2Fscreenshot11m.jpg&hash=ce431751a3bd58ec4563fc26b6498706b30c64df)

Well, it looks a little rough and jaggedy, but I think I'll save it.  There is actually a pullout area just below the spillway gates, so if I bulldoze the road after it jags south, I can run the road straight and use the bulldozed area as the pullout:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg502.imageshack.us%2Fimg502%2F1404%2Fscreenshot12.jpg&hash=306c3540962affe7a9a8075adc9c8408c16556c2)

Oh, I'm liking it.  I need to soften the hill behind the road cut to get rid of the exposed stone, so I'll do that now:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg407.imageshack.us%2Fimg407%2F1894%2Fscreenshot13n.jpg&hash=51d0afc38ef497d50c4d099a9329c5ef3acddbbd)

Now we're talking. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg523.imageshack.us%2Fimg523%2F188%2Fscreenshot14d.jpg&hash=552c8afb91eaa550536aad2d1fdb316e0c1fb651)

And with that, I think I'll stop for tonite.  Time to go check on my buddies over on LOTRO and I'd still like to save time to play Sims2, also, and it's going to take me a while to upload this newest update and photos, so check back tomorrow night to see how I resolve the other end of the curve.  I'm quite happy with what I did tonite...hope you enjoy!

Lora/LD

if you wish to get your diagonal road SUPER straight on slopes, first use rails ;)

Nice job.  Thats a pretty challenging location to place wide radius curves.

You have a quality in abundance that I lack, patience. I admire that. You are also methodical and detail oriented to a fault. All great qualities to have. I'm still quite hooked on your project Lora.

Take care.

Geoff

Looks good!

No new update to post tonite, hope that doesn't bum anyone out.  Tonite was my knitting meeting and I didn't get home until almost 9:30.  Found my roomie staggering drunk at the back door to the building, fumbling with his keys, having trouble getting the keys in the lock.  He was golfing this afternoon and I guess met a friend for drinks afterwards.  I sheparded him inside and stuffed him with 3 of the homemade beef/cheese enchiladas I made this afternoon, then froze the rest and cleaned up the mess I'd made.  I love homemade enchiladas but boy, my kitchen is sure a disaster area afterwards...looks like a bomb went off.  Nice to have it clean again, I can't stand messes.  And roomie of course passed out within seconds of finishing his meal, so I have the headphones plugged in.  I may play in the game later and write a new update for posting tomorrow, but I promised one of my LOTRO buddies I'd be in game to visit with him tonite, so I may wait until tomorrow to create a new update.  I did play Sims2 for a while last night and the sister got herself married and is now expecting a baby.  I've added a room to the house to be the child's nursery and then bedroom.  The brother graduated from adult to senior and he is woeing a lady friend, but so far she doesn't seem interested in marrying him...I suspect she may already be married and is just playing with his affections. 

I need one of you guru types to explain to me how you create the cool little graphics in your signatures.  I would like to create on of my own, a logo for this MD, but can't figure out how to uplaod a photo to the signature area of the profile page.  Can anyone help?  I am also giving thought to organizing this MD a little better and really like the format Battlecat has set up on his, so watch for changes coming soon.  I am probably going to create a TOC and start numbering my updates.  I may also start numbering my pics.  Can any of you other Mayors tell me, do you back up your pics and updates to your hard drive?  I know dedgren does with 3RR, but his project is at a totally differetn scope than mine is, so I don;t know if backing my MD up is necessary or not.  I have tons of disk space, just don't want to create extra work for myself.

So now some replies:

JoeST:  Excellent suggestion and one I will put to use immediately.  I remember seeing dedgren do this with a lot of his roads and it just slipped my mind when I was road building Monday evening.  Thanks a bunch and keep the suggestions coming!  I need all the help I can get.

Battlecat:  Thanks for the compliment and just wait until you see some of my subdivisions!  I may have to invent hundreds of new puzzle pieces to recreate them.  I'm looking now for decent cul-de-sacs and have not found anything I like much so far.  Any suggestions?  calibanX has some semi-decent ones in his MD, which I read through this afternoon, I wonder where he got them?

calibanX/Geoff:  Hint, hint, the question above.  And ya know, patience is a funny thing.  Everyone tells me I am a patient woman, but I don't FEEL like I am any more or less patient than anyone else.  In fact, I often feel very impatient.  I think patience is actually more a matter of self-discipline, of curbing impatience rather than being patient.  When I was a little girl, in kindergarten, I used to get notes pinned to my clothing advising my parents that "Lora needs to practice self-control".  I had a terrible temper which I curbed not at all (and which often got me in trouble) and I was a terrible cry baby, would cry if people didn't do things the way *I* wanted them to.  This wasn't a problem at home because I am the eldest child and I just bullied my younger sisters into doing whatever I wanted to do.  But once I got into school, well it obviously became a problem.  So, the truth is, I have a terrible temper, which 50 years of practicing self-control has taught me to restrain (most of the time...I am a redhead, after all, one can only expect so much).  I have learned to swallow my impatience (most of the time...I still do not suffer fools lightly), so most folks think I am patient while inside I am often seething with impatience.  It's all smoke and mirrors, the woman behind the curtain.  As for being methodical, yes, I always have been, it's a trait I was born with and is, I think, part of the OCD.  It's both a gift and a curse.  It allows me to accomplish much just by sheer will power and at the same time it causes me to obsess over teensy little details that have absolutely no relevance to RL whatsoever.  I am the woman with a straight pin digging micro-infintesimal grains of dirt from between the cracks in whatever surface I may happen to be cleaning, which is one reason I don't really do a lot of extreme cleaning anymore...I just go WAY overboard.  To add to this, I am a Taurus, a stereo-typical Taurus at that, with all the control issues that implies and the type of brain that really, really like lineal thinking.  If a then b and NOT c.  Two of my all time favorite TV characters are Dr. Spock and Data, both emotionless logic machines.  I could have a long and happy marriage with either one of them.  People who come to know me well, and they are (for me, anyway) unfortunately few, think I may have a touch of Asberger's syndrome, as I resist emotional entanglements and much prefer solo work/play over teams.  I've learned to work well in a team environment, but I am happiest as team leader, naturally...Taurus control issues again. 

So really, I think anyone can learn to be patient, if they feel it's important.  But most of what my work/play reveals about my nature I am helpless to change.  It's just who I am, how my brain works...and so, while I appreciate YOUR appreciation, I kinda feel like it's undeserved on my part.  I'm just being me.  Does this mean you like me?  :::Cue Sally Field accepting her second Academy Award:::  "You LIKE me, you really LIKE me!"   ::)

Driftmaster07:  Hey, thanks for stopping by and thanks for the kudos!  Be sure to come by again soon, lots more in the works!

Back soon.

Lora/LD

To put images/links/etc in your signature uses exactly the same format and bbcode as the main posts and pms systems. so what you could do is compose it like a normal post and then just copy it in to your signature place. :)

Joe

Lora,

Click on your name or click on the profile tab (I believe the profile tab only shows up if you are in the forums or in a post). On the left side is a set of options under "Profile Info" and "Modify Profile". Click on the Forum Profile Information link and that will bring up a page where you can fill out information about yourself but at the bottom is a box to add your signature. You can use 1000 text characters and your image should be no greater than 300 x 50 pixels.

As Joe said this is set up the exact way that normal postings are. The thing that seems to be tricky is linking a page to a picture or text so I have provided a screenshot on the correct BBC code to achieve this.


I backup up all of my pictures and updates on my computer. I do not have many concerns about the SC4Devotion website but have plenty of concerns with free image hosting sites. I have never had a problem yet but want to make sure that if I do, my images are available. Mine is not so much of a backup though because I do all of my posts in word (with the BBC code and all) and just do a quick copy paste into my reply/new topic post.

Hope this helps and keep up the good work here &apls

I like very much these projects raving  :thumbsup:

Well, now I have a teensy, tiny little picture of the Golden Gate Bridge with some even teensier, tinier unreadable print over the top of it saying "Recreating San Francisco" in my sig, so I guess I did at least SOMETHING right, eh?  I really like the photo (I lifted off the City of SF home page, I think), but to keep it within the parameters of 300x50 pixel max, it's only 67x50 pixels.  I folled around with it in Photoshop, but resizing it distort it very badly, so I guess I'm going to have to find a better picture.  And I just figued out that the bracket slash url bracket is the end of the link, not the end of the image insert, so now I need to go back to page 1 of my MD and grab the http addy and insert that ahead of the miage insert.  But I'll do that later, probably when I find a better picture for my sig.  Until then, I guess folks can kinda ignore it.

So, thank you JoeST and projectadam for your help, I appreciate it.  The screen shot is especially helpful.  And, on your advice, I have started a new folder in my My Documents folder for all my MD stuff to go into as a backup file.  I've been using a temporary file on my desktop for story pics in and deleting them after they are uploaded to imageshack, so everything posted so far is in the ether now, but I'll start saving my pics from this point forward. 

As for creating my updates offline, yes I've been doing that lately, too, after losing a few when trying to compose them online.  However, I don't insert the images or code for inserting the images offline, as I don't upload them while I compose the update.  Instead, I just put the name of the pic in the space where it goes.  When I post the update here, I then backspace out the pic name and then insert the image tag I get from imageshack after the pic is uploaded there.  I upload the pics one at a time, so it's a kinda time-consuming process with a slow wifi connection.  Any suggestions to increase effeciency of my current method would be most welcome.  I won't be unemployed forever and keeping the MD going once I am working again is going to be a real challenge, timewise, so it would behoove me to streamline my posting process sooner rather than later.

Orang_o_ :  Welcome to my MD and thank you for stopping by!  I'm glad you like what I am doing here and hope you come by again soon.  Lots of exciting (well, to me anyway) stuff in the works.

So I did indeed find time to create a new update last night after posting here and without further ado, here it is:

Ok, the first thing I want to do is fix the diagonal Maxis road that jigs up and down ever so slightly over next to the spillway and looks like poop.  JoeST had a great suggestion (thank you!) to use rail first, to get a really nice level grade, so I'm going to first blow up the existing road, then lay rail, then blow up the rail, then re-lay the road:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg29.imageshack.us%2Fimg29%2F83%2Fscreenshot1wts.jpg&hash=6c083f90566d55c5ec4db698e718c7bb397de365)

That's for all you Kaboom fans

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg19.imageshack.us%2Fimg19%2F5293%2Fscreenshot2xqr.jpg&hash=0ab0b482e03dc58b23857d2600eb085d7c45ec5b)

Now I'll lay the rail down:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg32.imageshack.us%2Fimg32%2F7%2Fscreenshot3ekx.jpg&hash=c8351a93089d996bf3a8b89f3a6d2e4543bcd049)

Then bulldoze and re-lay the road.  I'm a little worried about the transition between the curve and the new road, as there is a sloped tile there, but let's see what it looks like first:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg513.imageshack.us%2Fimg513%2F3605%2Fscreenshot4h.jpg&hash=9d216ec8c9018b500c6fd79f6cdc3df85288ceb1)

Well, it's a little glitchy, but I can live with it.  I think this looks much better than my first try, don't you?

So now I'll try to plop more road, a combo of Maxis and FAR stuff, down to where my last tree marks the end of my plotting so far:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg190.imageshack.us%2Fimg190%2F6344%2Fscreenshot5l.jpg&hash=843e76eabba8474b27eb0267fb345e6f069ea017)

I'm happy with this for the time being.  I am far enough away from the dam, for now, that I can continue to work on it and the lake and not worry too much about the road going east.  Now I want to look at the road going west as it exits that big 5x5 FAR curve:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg44.imageshack.us%2Fimg44%2F3142%2Fscreenshot6nnw.jpg&hash=89bc6585b183aeb17ffe2bafd2ba7a0bc5d476ad)

This is going to need more combinations of FAR and Maxis roads, but I think I can start with Maxis:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg150.imageshack.us%2Fimg150%2F1491%2Fscreenshot7jrd.jpg&hash=f75f25600c91c526042fbf39bd163bcfc2d016ce)

This is where it gets a little tricky again, because I want to transition to a straight FAR piece here and the terrain is once again rising.  Keeping in mind the use of rail to level a road bed, I think I have some handy little FARR pieces that may help out. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg262.imageshack.us%2Fimg262%2F4921%2Fscreenshot8g.jpg&hash=ff96790a5667dff2721de16ff2d85d75671918c2)

Well, this took a couple of tries but I'm semi-happy with this.  I did use some Maxis single tile road plops for the first section of FAR road.  Then I laid the rest of the FAR straight section, but it looked a little bumpy, so I kaboomed them and laid some rail.  I couldn't get the rail pieces to lay continuously, so I used them where I could, kaboomed them, then laid the straight FAR road pieces all over again, with this result.  There's a bit of a bumpy spot in the middle of the FAR straight stretch, but I think I can live with that.  The slope down to the lake is a bit steep here, too, but I can fix that with fine terraforming later.  Right now I want to get the road in, especially the next curve.  This one could be especially tricky as it really wants to connect the straight FAR to another straight FAR mirrored around the center of the curve and I'm not at all ceratin I have the puzzle pieces that will allow me to do that, so I may have to experiment a bit to see what I can come up with.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg213.imageshack.us%2Fimg213%2F8921%2Fscreenshot9i.jpg&hash=090809d45d39ca659bf11ec3efdc82648b85b297)

Ok, it took me about an hour, but this is how far I got.  LOTS of trial and error, lots of quit with no save, lots of blowing things up.  But, now I have a road that I am pretty sure I can join up with either Maxis or FAR pieces.  The FAR has a curve that I think I'll use here, which is a 2x2 curve from orthogonal to diagonal, which I think I'll try first:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg11.imageshack.us%2Fimg11%2F2071%2Fscreenshot10r.jpg&hash=0b825899179078d7dfa6c3c6d5e4615d82fff76a)

This is actually a 2x4 curve but I like it and it will match with Maxis diagonals, so I'll keep (save) it.  I need to turn my road around to orthogonal before I run it out of the city tile, else I won't be able to make a connection to the next (non-existant for this region) tile, so lets see if I can accomplish this:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg196.imageshack.us%2Fimg196%2F5784%2Fscreenshot11mdw.jpg&hash=99bc02f551d3ac1cae4c6acbcbe3b41c2c8b6c93)

Well, I am about 2 cells north of where the RL road exits this city tile, or about 105 feet, but overall I think I am going to stick with this for the time being.  I can't exit a city tile at any angle other than 90 degrees, so some compromises must be made.  Lets see how I did compared with RL:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg526.imageshack.us%2Fimg526%2F1341%2Fscreenshot12ccm.jpg&hash=ea6c339bb8c99aaa7fe6c501b449df8ed1c013d2)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg21.imageshack.us%2Fimg21%2F769%2Froadrl.jpg&hash=8da8877229cfc614960dcd1e08741a8f2d87e2a4)

Well, close enough for this gal, given the lateness of the hour and the limits of the game and tools.  I sure wish I knew more about creating custom road tiles.

So that's it for this update, hope you enjoyed it!  What's coming up next?  Well, I am unhappy with the downstream face of the dam, I think it is too steep, so I am going to try to soften the slope some.  I also still have the island in the lake to deal with.  Also, as the RL photo above shows, there is a cluster of buildings on the far left side of the photo which turns out is a school of some sort.  There is a county park at the west and north sides of the lake, with a boat put-in ramp, but those occur outside of my city tile, as does the entrance to the park, which is directly across from the school, so I am planning to cheat a little bit and skooch both of those into my city tile.  Also still coming up is the road up the face of the dam that then turns and runs across the slopes of the southern edge of the lake.  This appears to be a dirt road, but I want to plop it before I start plopping the lake itself.  There is also a mini-golf course on the south edge of the lake (what is "Disc-golf", anyway?), but I think once I get some of the dirt roads in on the perimeter of the lake, I'll be good to go with plopping the lake itself. 

Off to visit with my Sims, cya all soon, I hope!

Lora/LD

Not to bad at all considering the current limitations of the game.  Amazing how much of a difference the wide radius curves and FAR pieces make in the quality of the recreation.  You're certainly putting them to good use! 

I believe your assessment of the dam is correct, it is a touch steep, but that shouldn't be too hard for you to fix.  Looking forward to the next update.

This is really interesting to watch come together, i'll be watching this for sure.  Amazing how close you have it to the RL lake and road.

disc golf is basically the same as golf, but using a disc that is similar to a frisbee.  I have one a block from my house, it's a lot of fun.

-cody

I'm impressed with the care that you are conducting this project! Fantastic work!!!  &apls

That Image Is Tiny Lora,

Maybe you'll stop by my new MD?

That road looks perfect, I will be adventuring into creative FAR soon, maybe...

Can't wait for more,

Ethan

Looking amazing as usual :)

I loved your word for demolish, kaboomed sounds soo much better :D

Joe

Things may slow down a bit over the next couple of days as I organize and archive, I hope no one minds.  Not playing tonite, so I won't have an update tomorrow.  Just want to let everyone know what I'm up to and to prepare you for the "new look" of the Update pages once I get it all settled down.  I'm not going to worry much about re-formatting every page from the beginning on forward, but I am going back to copy and archive my updates, as well as number them all to create some organization so folks that come by and start from the beginning will be able to follow the development of the diary.  Like Battlecat has done with his MD, I am going to divide my update pages into a replies section and then the update itself.  I don't think I'll get as fancy with pretty graphics and text as he does...my brain runs more to outline form than anything else.  Believe it or not, my To Do lists are often in outline form and sometimes even my grocery lists are, too.

But don't abandon me,  I won't be able to keep my mitts of the game for long and the organizing/archiving can be done pretty much at leisure, which you all know I have a lot of these days.   &sly

Lora/LD

For what it's worth, diagonal neighbor connections are possible.  (If you can't get the connection dragging from one tile, shift over to the other side of the diagonal road/rail and try again.)

Anyway, great update.  Your patience is really paying off in terms of detail.

-ACE

Lora

It sounds like you've found some help with the signature for your MD. If you still need help I have a tutorial that I can send to you. It helped me a great deal. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the link into the sig either. I still don't know how I did it, It just happened while I was trying to follow the tutorial.

And, wow, I remember the Sally Field moment you refer to. A great moment. I like everybody, especially a fellow OCD. I am certainly that. A gift and a curse it is.

Take care. Great MD!

Geoff

Well, I am making progress with my organizing and archiving, and have completed all pages now up to page 5.  I am not archiving my chatty posts unless the chatty section occurs with an actaul update, which occurs fairly often.   ;)

It's been interesting going back through this MD from the beginning and watching how it has grown over the past 6 weeks or so.  Lots of folks have posted that I have not acknowledged and I hope you know who you are and will forgive me.  To make sure this doesn't happen in the future I have started an Excel speadsheet and am recording who posts when.  Not in a "Big Brother" type of way, but keeping track of folks who stop by is really part of a hostess's duties and making sure everyone feels welcome and acknowldeged.  It will also allow me to generate interesting stats down the line (if anyone is interested in stats, which I sometimes am).  Things like how many countries are represented by folks who post here, how many posts per month, who posts the "milestone" markers.

I've also discovered I need to add a new subcategory to my archive system.  I am saving updates in numerical (and chronological) order, but tonite I came across the several days when Battlecat, MrWacko, and I diverged into a detailed discussion about the Novato Creek Dam.  These posts weren't really updates but I wanted to archive them as they provided a lot of data about how I eventually worked out the dam in later "true" updates (and will continue to work on), so I invented a new category of heading for one I imagine will be the first of many divergences called (you'd never guess I'm a Taurus, would you?) "Major Divergence #1".  In going back and numbering my updates, the dam discussion occurs soon after Update 10 and continues unabated until update 11, so I created a new folder for those posts and named it "insertbetween10&11".  I don't know how I'll work this into a Table of Contents, but I'll figure it out.

No game play last night and I doubt I'll play tonite.  One more evening (tomorrow) of organizing and archiving should get me all caught up with the present, then I'll get back to biz.  I may address replies tomorrow or later this evening, but right now I'm off to play LOTRO, then visit with my Sims.  Dernima, my pregnant Sim, gave birth to a baby boy Tuesday night, named him Dermon (her husband's name is Brandon) and the entire house has been in chaos ever since.  The baby became a toddler last night, has learned to walk and is learning to talk, has a nanny now so his parents can go back to work, and his uncle, Dernima's brother Aminred (who as you may recall lives with the family), has turned out to be a very doting and devoted uncle. 

Later!

Lora/LD

Well, you can't see who views when, but I certainly look in whenever there is a posting by you. More often than not, I don't reply, just because I don't really have anything to say, you know. But I am generally very thoroughly impressed with what you're achieving.

Ok, I just finished all my archiving and organizing, so it's back to the game.  Thank you all for being patient with me while I took care of this
"paperwork" task.  Better to do it now than 100 pages down the line.  It should be easy to keep up with now and I am going to try to add pretty graphics as I go along.  I'd like a banner at the top that encases my Update #X text, like I see so many other folks do.  I also need to work on my sig a bit more (obviously) and I still need to create a Table of Contents.  So, the look of this MD will continue to evolve as it goes along.

I had a little bit of a spat with my primary LOTRO buddy last night, so I don't think I'll go in game tonite so as to allow time for any bruised feelings to heal.  I am going to have to suspend my account for that game in a couple of days and will be out of the game until I start working again.  Due to issues with the State of Washington Department of Revenue, I no longer have a viable bank account and so cannot pay the monthly game fees via direct debit.  There is a game card I can buy with cash but it doubles the cost of the monthly fee and at that point it becomes unaffordable for me.  I could also ask a couple of my close friends to pay the cost for me via thier bank account and I would re-imburse them with cash, but I am just not comfortable with that.  So, I'll take what I hope will be a short vacation from LOTRO. 

Tonite I think I'll fire up my game again and play for a while, maybe write a short update to post tomorrow.  I want to try the diagonal road connection at the far west end of Stafford Lake and I want to lessen the downstream slope of the dam, too.  Looking ahead, I've downloaded some new CC and may install that and play around with it, too.  calibanX/Geoff has a wonderful airport in his MD that he created using puzzle pieces that I know I am going to need.  He also has a great golf course set, another thing I am going to need.  Watching Battlecat work magic with diagonals and FAR pieces, I have also downloaded the Diagonal Filler Pieces and, again inspried by Battlecat, a set of farms and fields.  He's really into the LE and having cruised through the humungous array of props available for creating custom lots, I think I may become equally enthralled.  There are a lot of specialty buildings I may need to BAT, but that's a more complex tool than the LE, so I may ease my way into creating CC the easy way.  I also downloaded what appears to be a very excellent set of water mods, so I may play around with those tonite, too.

I'll probably have something to post tomorrow, so check back soon!

Lora/LD

After following this MD for a couple weeks now, I think it's time for a comment  ::)

The outlining and obvious hours upon hours of planning in this project is what caught my eye. Terraforming has never been my forte, so I am impressed by the work done here.

As for the Lot Editor, I can be of some help (as well as many others here) to your project. Just drop a PM if you need help.

Okay, back to lurking mode...  $%#Ninj2

~ Dan

Okay, I'm not allowing myself to skip updates anymore- I missed too much in just a few days.

Lora,

I read your post about backing up updates as a just-in-case measure.  I've always done that, if for nothing more than keeping things organized.  My method was to create individual folders in the My Documents folder and label them by date and topic.  Inside the folders was an MS Word file and all the screenshots and pictures.  It's a bit clunky, but it works.

I do enjoy seeing your experiments in road building.  I never considered using rail to help level a soon-to-be roadbed, and it looks like I'm going to have to try that tip.  I seem to have missed what slope mod you are using, but I'm curious which one that is; I've been using an old slope mod (probably the first one made for the game) and haven't seen any new ones available.  Maybe a helpful nudge in the right direction...  ;)

As always, great work.  I look forward to the next update.

Sarge.. (no, that's not my real name, just a nickname and professional title)

Oh, before I forget, you may want to check the link in your signature.  It looks like you forgot to add the [url] or the whole link ( [url=http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=8332.0 (there is a bracket at the end of the link)).

Finally, a new update!  Lots of pictures and lots of pretty colors, but first I need to address replies to those so kind to have stopped by and comment:

Battlecat:  As always thanks for your comments and for spending time here.  Yeah the dam is stto steep, but getting it to look like a built structure is going to be a challenge I think.  We'll see!

cody426: Wecome to my MD and thank you so very much for taking the time to check out what I am trying to do here, I appreciate it.  Tell me a little more about disc golf, if you can.  I suppose I could google it, but more fun learning from someone who actually has played.  Do you hit the disc with a golf club, like one would a golf ball in normal golf or do you throw the disc like you would a frisbee?  Are the sizes of the courses relatively similar to each other or is a disc golf course smaller?  How does one putt a frisbee (or does one)?  How many "holes" are usually in a disc golf course?  Are the holes handicapped by par ratings like in regular golf?  

There is a disc golf course on the south side of Stafford Lake and I have downloaded a bunch of gold course "holes" that I think can be assembled pretty much however I want, I just worry they may be too large for disc golf, as they are designed to be to RL scale for regular golf.  

Stop by often!

Tomas Neto: Welcome back, always good to see you, and thanks for you kind comments!

ecoba/Ethan: Good to see you again and yes, you have a good start on your new MD, I wish you the very best luck with it.  Thanks for your comments and stop by again soon!

JoeST: Hello again and thanks for your stopping by.  I bought a calender once titled KaBoom! which had lots of stop-action pictures of buildings being imploded, one building for each month of the year.  The architectural office I worked for at the time had an office party in which we "stole" gifts from each other and the calender was a big hit, was stolen many times.  Be sure to stop by again soon, lots of kabooming coming up, I have little doubt.

ACEfanatic02: Thank you for your advice, I plan to implement it very soon.  Thanks for stopping by and posting!

calibanX/Geoff: Hello again and can I ask a silly question?  Are you a Jeff or a Joff?  I've heard names spelled like yours pronounced both ways and never know.  As for the sig and link, well, they still need some work, so I may need some help yet and if I do, you can be sure I'll know who to ask!

joelyboy911: I don't mind lurkers at all, so don;t feel like you have to post something every time you stop by.  I appreciate your comments, of course, and hope you stop by often.

dsrwhat316/Dan: Another new face!  Welcome to my MD and I'm pleased to see you have been keeping up with my slow progress and even happier that you posted that you like what you see.  I hope you stop by often and will comment whenever the urge hits you.  As for terraforming, well, compared with what I did with my other MD over on Simtropolis (Apocrypha, check it out), this is nothing, just little pushes and nudges here and there to get things to work and look right.  One of my initial decisions with this new MD was whether or not I was going to "terraform" or not, by which I was thinking roughing up the terrain to make it less soft and more rugged.  However, this is all heavily weathered and eroded terrain, being mostly very soft rock (sandstone for the most part), so I decided to go with the terrain forms exactly the way they came to me.  I think of the difference as being "gross" terraforming (major work with God Mode tools) and "fine" terraforming (minor work with Mayor Mode tools).  I've done a lot of gross terraforming with some excellent results (again, reference Apocrypha), but this new MD is my first use of the fine terraforming techniques I have seen others use. 

meinhosen/Sarge: You posted while I was creating the update, so I had to go back and edit the update to include you in the replies.  Not to worry, always glad to see folks stopping by and besides, now that I've viewed my update, I have other stuff I want to add. 

I started out my own organizing by creating a new folder in Mt Documents which I titled Recreating San Francisco (duh, Taurus lineal brain strikes again).  Inside that folder, I have created seperate subfolders, one for each update, that includes the Word doc I write offline and all my screen captures.  I thought that was going to be perfect until I actually went to write my first update using the new system this afternoon, then I found it to be a bit of a pain to have my update folder so "far away" from the area I was working in, which was my desktop, so I pulled the entire Recreating San Francisco folder out of My Documents and put it on my desktop, which made things much easier and quicker, for me, anyway.  Whatever works! 

Glad to share the rail first option of road building, but can't claim credit for it.  It works quite well, as you can see.  I'll get better at it as I go along.  As for my slope mod, I am using one by un1 that I found on the STEX over at Simtopolis.  If you page back a little you will see where I explained the numerous mods available in this pack of mods (there are 7, but you can only use one at a time, for obvious reasons).  Is that enough of a nudge?  Let me know, I am very good at pushing...   ::)



I downloaded some new water colors and textures Friday afternoon that I want to check out and get some feedback on.  It's a very comprehensive set of mods dividing the game water into 3 categories: Offshore, Foreshore, and Inshore/Beaches.  Each category has a rather wide array of color/texture choices that can be mixed and matched however one wishes, kinda like a Chinese menu.  Also, one need not use a mod in all 3 categories for them to work, but one can only choose 1 option in each category.  I have removed PEG's "Brigantine" mod from my plugins folder, which is what I had been using for the time being.  I am going to begin to explore this new set of waters by looking at the Offshore options, of which there are 10.  Keep in mind while looking at these options I am wanting to find something that will allow me to transition my plop water to game water as seamlessly as possible and that for plop water I will be using a combination of Edmontonv2, PEG's "Tahoe", and jeronij's TPW in all 3 forms available (blue, green, and brown).  

Ready?  Here we go.  Let's start by reviewing the Maxis Plan Vanilla water:

17.1
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I have chosen the city tile I named "Black Point" for this little experiment because it has a sizable river the Petaluma River, which you can see the mouth of at the upper left corner of the pic.  There is also a creek that enters the game water in this tile, none other than the now familiar Novato Creek that I've been working on 2 city tiles east of here.  There is also fairly deep game water in this tile, which is RL San Pablo Bay.  This is the far northern reaches of the bay and as such there are extensive mud flats which I am going to have to terraform into place sooner or later, so I'm especially interested in seeing how this new set of water choises may or may not facilitate that.

17.2
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The biggest drag about an experiment like this is having to close and re-open my game every time I switch out a new option.  Oh well.  This is the "DkBlue".  Looks a little "matte" and bright to me.

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This is DkCyan.  Again, a little matte and way to bright, too tropical looking.

17.4
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This is SeaGreen.  Looks like a dirty swimming pool in need of some chlorine, which may not be a bad thing for San Francisco Bay, but I don't think I'd like it for Pacific Ocean.  Not digging what appears to be a nearly unform lack of "liveliness" to the water...no sparkles to make it look like it's in motion.  I zoomed way in on this one and gave it a little time and zip, nada.

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This is Emerald.  Way too bright for northern California water.  I zoomed way in this time and waited a little longer and indeed there are sparkles and the close zoom texture of the water is really very good.  It's just as furthest zoom that it looks lifeless and a little jaggedy with it's color blending.  Maybe I'll post closer zooms as well when/if I find a color that seems reasonable.

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This is Ice.  Too bright, too pale, too tropical.  But very pretty!

17.7
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This is Overcast.  I'm kinda liking this one, although it gets a little green in the shallows.  But I like the darkness of it and it's tinge of grey and teal.

17.8
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This is Steel.  To light, too blue.

17.9
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This is Turbid.  Another one that's not too bad.  At first I thought it was too green, but when I went back to close the game after the screen capture, I started liking it.

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This is Ultramarine.  Neon oceans, anyone?  Whoa!

17.11
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This is Tropic.  Boy, if that's not beautiful, I don't know what is.  I want to go there and swim in that ocean for the rest of my life.  Gorgeous, but not really very realistic for SF Bay area or Pacific Ocean.  Maybe I'll use it anyway, just because it's so pretty to look at.

17.12
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And lastly, for comparison, this is PEG's "Brigantine".  I like this a lot, better than anything in the new pack for basic ocean color.  I also know it works fairly well with the Tahoe and TPW plops waters.  

But, keep in mind that the new pack allows me to recolor the areas closer to shore as well, the Foreshore and Inshore, and that might make a big difference when used in combination with an Offshore color.  One of my issues with Brigantine is that it becomes very white/grey as it moves towards shore, which makes transitioning PW to GW very tricky.  It may be Brigantine can be used in combination with a Foreshore and Inshore or Beach mod that will make transitioning easier.  But, I think the new pack colors by depth, only acting upon water within a specified depth zone, which is how it works to allow different combinations.  Whereas I think Brigantine has those changes of color built into the mod and so maybe using it in combo with a Foreshore or Inshore/Beach would crash the game.  Only one way to find out, eh?  

Time to start some dinner.

Edit: I decided to include one more pic, this one from Google Earth that shows actual water color (as seen from space) of this area:

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Edit2:  Now that I see the color of the RL water as seen from space, I am wondering if my thoughts to use a darker, greyer water isn't misguided.  The bay water in the RL picture looks crystal clear, like a swimming pool, and doesn't match at all with my memory of flying over the area and the color of the water, which I remember being rather muddy and opaque.  Tonite I will see if I can find some street level views that look out over the bay, maybe that will help.

Please, your comments are needed, choosing water is important!   

Lora/LD

Hi Lora
I am actually a big fan of Brigantine, although I admit the transition between PW and GW is an issue I haven't been able to solve yet. But most importantly I wouldn't rely at all to Google Earth for an accurate depiction of the color of the water: too many different pictures taken at different times from different angles on different days under different weather conditions. When I zoom out I have this feeling of watching and old patchwork blankie at my grandmother's house  ()sick() We are tackling with yet another limitation of the game anyway, since SC4 doesn't allow different colors for salt water and... uh... river water (sorry I can't find the proper word in English $%Grinno$%) which is so obvious when watching a delta or an estuary from above.
I hope you find what suits best your concept of San Francisco Bay. I am always excited at the prospect of your next update.
Cheers
Fabien

Oh, and welcome to page 8, by the way.

Lora,

I've used Brigantine since PEG released it, and I haven't had a bad day with it yet.  I think the only place that it hasn't worked well for me is when I'm building regions with small, muddy rivers and creeks (rivers that are just a tad to big for TPW).  One thing you might want to experiment with is how your favorite water mods look with your chosen terrain mod (TM).  Sometimes shallow areas look different given the fact that TM shallows have different textures than the default Maxis textures.  Case-in-point is the Missouri Breaks- some shallow areas give a reddish appearance, others have a more gray, rocky texture.  Default Maxis in those same areas is a tannish, sickly color mixed with the cheerfully dull game water.

From the looks of your screenshots it appears you're using the default textures.  Like I mentioned, you may want to break out your TM and see how the Brigantine, SeaGreen, and Overcast.  Just so you know, I'm more at home with the games water in rivers and lakes, not larger bodies such as oceans and coastlines, so my advice may be a bit 'regional', but at least applicable on some level.  Good luck with finding the right water mod.

Oh, and thank you for the link to the slope mod.

Hey,Lora,

             I feel bad saying this now, but it looks like I'm not going to be able to lot for you right now.  :-[

RL is hitting me hard at the moment, and I haven't been able to spend much time on the computer. Most of my time is spent online, but a lot of the time, it's doing research for school. Plus, the symphony orchestra is starting up again, and that, along with school orchestra and private lessons, makes music take up a good amount of my time.

I might get myself a new computer soon, one that can handle the BAT. If so, I could make lots from the start.

I feel bad going back on what I promised earlier, but, as many people on this site have experienced, RL hits you especially hard when you don't expect it.

I will still constantly comment on your MD, and I can't wait to see your progress. If I do ever have a spell where I am free of other activities, I will certainly spend some time lotting.

Sorry,

          Ethan

mayorfabz/Fabien: Thanks for stopping by and yes, I agree, I like Brigantine a lot, too, just wonder of it's maybe a little too dark and grey for SF Bay area and Pacific Ocean.  And yes, the transition between PW and GW is an ongoing challenge no one seems to have really solved yet, although lots of people are working on it, off and on.  There is a thread here on SC4D over at the Landscape Design Studio about it and another on another forum here but I forget the name of it right now.  Seems right now most folks use a camoflage technique which works visually semi-well but is not really very realistic and for this MD, realism (or as close as I can get) is where it's at.  Also, yes I agree I should probably not let Google Earth color my perceptions of what the water colors should be.  After I posted my update last night, I spent considerable time with Google Earth and came to the same conclusion.  I think I will trust my own memory, instead, and go from there.  I'm glad you are enjoying my efforts and hope you stop by often!

meinhosen:  As I said above, I like Brigantine, too, just don;t like the way it fades so much as it approaches shore.  It's also a bit choppy, which is great for northern seas, but I'm not sure I am going to want to have that level of choppiness for SF Bay.  I also think it's just a tad too grey.  As for terrain mod, yes I am using the Maxis defualt, as all the other ones I tried are just too green for coastal central California.  Page back a few pages to see the ones I settled on trying.  Eventhe default is a bit green, more like California in the late spring as it starts to brown/gold up.  I think it was MrWacko who reminded us that CA is nicknamed The Golden State not because of the various gold rushes but because that is the general color of the terrain there.  Other than the far northern coastal areas, it's generally a very arid state and there is very little in the way of forests or undergrowth along the coasts.  And as for using game water for rivers and lakes, that's cool if you have flat terrain, but mine is anything but, so I have no choice but to use both PW and GW.  Your welcome for the slope mod and thanks for stopping by, always good to see you and I appreciate your comments!

ecoba/Ethan: Please don't fret or worry about not being able to spend time helping me out.  RL always comes first, especially school, so just do what you need to do.  I appreciate your offer, but really I should learn to do this stuff for myself rather than depend on others to do it for me, so you push me a little closer to opening the LE tutorials and getting started, for which I also thank you.  What instrument do you play?  I trained in classical piano as a young girl but then became a teenager and that was the end of MY musical career!  Thanks for stopping and please, don't feel bad.


So, this afternoon, I want to look at the new Inshore options, of which there are 14.  The first thing I want to do is see if they are compatible with the Brigantine mod.  That mod is already in my plugins folder from yesterday, so I've also installed an inshore option to see if the game will open and what things might look like if it does.  Time to fire up the game!

Very interesting.  The game opens and runs just fine with both mods installed.  Take a look at this:

18.2
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This is the DkBlue option and I'm kinda liking it.  I like the way it carries color closer to the shore and am thinking this may help a lot with transitioning PW to GW.  Let's take a look at how the others look with the Brigantine.

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Ewww, I don't like that at all.  This is DkCyan. 

18.4
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This is DkYellow and as odd as it looks right now (and it does indeed look odd), it's something to keep in mind given the mudflats in this area and the muddy waters of the creeks and rivers that empty into the bay.  It's yellow-ness may also be mitigated by one of the Foreshore or Beaches options, too, so I'm not ready to say this is automatically a no-go.

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This is Emerald and I'm not liking that at all.

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This is Green.  No good.

18.7
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This is Grey and it just compounds the issues I have with Brigantine as it is.

18.8
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This is Ice.  No good.

18.9
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This is LtYellow and again I'm not ready to say No Way due to the mud flats and muddy rivers/creeks.  I like this better than the DkYellow, though.

18.10
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This is Neutral and it blends very nicely with the Brigantine, but it makes me now want to take a quick peek at the Brigantine without any Inshore option installed, to see if maybe this Inshore option should be more appropriately named Invisible or Transparent.

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This is plain old Brigantine.  There are differences, but they are very subtle.  The Neutral seems to be slightly bluer and slightly greyer.  I think I like the Neutral installed better than the plain old Brigantine, I think the color transition towards shore is slightly better.  An option to keep in mind, but I don't think it will help with my PW/GW problems.

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This is Overcast and I'm liking that quite a bit. 

18.13
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This is Steel and it's not too bad, but a trifle too light and aqua, I think.

18.14
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This is Tropic and I didn't think this would work, and it doesn't, but it was worth a look-see.

18.15
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This is Turbid and no, I don't think so.

18.16
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This is Ultramarine and I don't think it's too bad.  It's actually very good at closer zooms, loses some of it's neon-ness.

So that's it for this update.  Please, I need your comments and feedback, so post away!  I have RL obligations tomorrow (game day and dinner party day, although I made the spaghetti sauce this evening, so I could play instead of cook). 

My next update will be looking at Foreshore and Beach options of this new set of mods, I think there are 6-7 of each, and if I understand the Readme for this pack correctly I can only use one of any of them.  It may help if I can determine the Inshore option I want to use ahead of time, as well as the Offshore, so I have some way of determining how the Foreshore.Beach options look in combo with what I have already chosen.  So please feel free to continue to comment on the Offshore pics I posted in Update 17.

Lora/LD

My top3 would be 1. Overcast 2. LtYellow 3. Neutral. Definitely not Tropic or Ultramarine.
Feel free to disregard !
Fabien

Those inshore textures are new to me, I'm going to have to look closer at them!  I certainly have to agree, Brigantine is one of the nice water textures out there.  I love the way it has ripples.  I think my personal favorite of those inshore mods is the overcast.  It's subtle, but it does a nice job of darkening up the shoreline.  Of course the best test would actually come through using the plopable water and seeing how the transitions look with these inshore mods in place. 

I'll have to look into these secondary shoreline mods, someday in here I might actually wind up building on a tile that has game water on it! 

Either Dark blue or the Ultramarine are my favorites.  :thumbsup:

Hi Lora

I was going to suggest those new water mods to you but then I come to check your update and well there you go showing us your experiments. :D

Personally my fav is the overcast followed by the light yellow. But if you use the inshore/offshore and beach textures things will become even more difficult for you to decide. (too many options :D :D)
Either way I look forward to seeing what you do :thumbsup:

regards
Derry

Quote from: djvandrake on August 31, 2009, 10:06:21 AM
Either Dark blue or the Ultramarine are my favorites.  :thumbsup:

I agree!!!  :thumbsup:

mayorfabz/Fabien: Thanks so much for sharing your preferences, I agree with you almost entirely!  Hope you stop by again soon, more voting coming up!

Battlecat: Yes, I was looking for something completely different when I stumbled on this pack of mods and thought, hmmm...might be useful...so I downloaded it.  Someday I'll do the math and figure out exactly how many different combos this pack makes available, but I'm busy exploring the looks of it right now.  I love the Brigantine also and it's rippled texture, but it has it's drawbacks.  Fisrt, the ripples are actually quite large if they are veiwable at extreme far zooms, which makes them waves rather than ripples.  It also fades to nearly clear as it nears shore, which makes transitioning PW tp GW very problematic.  These new Offshore mods I am trying out are also rippled, just much smaller ripples that appear non-rippled at far zooms.  Closer zooms reveal the ripple texture, which is actually very good, does not tile at all, and would be consistent with a nearly landlocked, and very large, inland body of water.  And I have actually been playing around with PW/GW transitions all along, just haven't done screen captures yet.  Thanks for stopping by, always good to see you!

djvandrake:  Thanks for casting a vote, sharing input, means alot to me.  Both colors you chose made my own personal final cut even before I read replies!  Stop by again soon, and vote again soon, anohter set of comparisons to judge!

TheTeaCat/Derry: Like I said, I found this new set of mods totally by mistake, but very good to know someone (you!) were thinking about me!  Thans for stopping by and yes, both of your choices also made my final cut as well, so we're all on the same track here.  Come back soon, more voting to take place!

Tomas Neto:  Thanks for your input and both of your choises made the cut!  Stope by again soon and vote again!


After posting Update 18 this evening I went back and reviewed the last two updates and made a list of the mods I am liking so far and came up with this:

Offshore: Brigantine, Overcast, Turbid, Steel, and SeaGreen
Inshore: DkBlue, LtYellow, Overcast, and Ultramarine

So I have decided to do some Chinese menu mix and matching, to see what I come up with, even before I try out the Inshore/Beach mods I have yet to look at.  We have already seen Brigantine matched up with all the Inshore options, so now I am going to remove Brigantine and install Overcast, then match it up with the 4 Inshore mods I am liking.  I have 4 Offshore mods I like and 4 Inshore, so (watch out, a little bit of math here), that means 16 combos to check out. 

It's after midnight (12:09 am) on Sunday night as I start this, so it's not likely I'll get all the way through it tonite.  And, as I warned at the end of the last update, tomorrow is not a day I am likely to find time to play in game at all, so this update may not post until sometime Tuesday (my knitting meeting has been canceled for this week, so I have Tuesday to play in game pretty much all day...jeez I wish I had a job!)

So here we go. 

19.1
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For this exercise, I will be naming the Offshore option first, then the Inshore option.  This is Overcast/DkBlue and I like it.  It looks even better at closer zooms, but given this update will have at least 16 pics in it, I will save close zooms for another update, when I/we have narrowed things down a bit.

19.2
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This is Overcast/LtYellow.  Again, as weird as it may look, it looks a lot more like the RL water in the area than just about anything else.  This also becomes much better at close zooms. 

19.3
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This is Overcast/Overcast and it looks very good, don't you agree?  Really a nod to the person who created these mods that these two match so very well with each other. 

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This is Overcast/Ultramarine and does not look like a very good match. 

That's as far as I can go with this tonite.  My roomie came home early full of angst about an altercation with a co-worker that occurred during his shift today and while he is asleep now, he needed/wanted to talk about it, so of course I had to try to understand/sympathize.  That was 45 minutes ago and now I too am ready for sleep.  I will continue this as soon as I can, which will likely be tomorrow (Tuesday) evening. 

So now it's Tuesday evening and I'm ready to continue, after a pleasant day of board games (in which I lost 4 of 4, the men split the wins between them) and a very nice spaghetti dinner. 

Ya know, great minds work in the same direction.  When I started this update last night, no one had yet posted any thoughts about Update 18 and the various Inshore options and I chose my own top 4 favs for this Update.  I logged into the MD this evening and find that opinions are fairly evenly split between which 4 options?  The exact same four I chose!  Pretty cool, huh?

Ok, I made it through all Inshore options with Overcast as the Offshore color, so lets take a look at what Turbid looks like with all 4 Inshore options:

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This is Turbid/Ultramarine (working backwards in order from the first set of 4).  Not liking either much and not together.

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This is Turbid/Overcast and I have to say these look very good together, but seem a bit light for central CA. 

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This is Turbid/LtYellow and again, these two work very well together.  I like this quite a bit.

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This is Turbid/DkBlue and I think they work well together other than the fact that in areas near shore appear to be deeper than the areas further from shore.

So now we'll look at Steel for the Offshore option and see what we come up with.  I am REALLY liking this set of mods and the HUGE variety of looks that can be gained from it!

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This is Steel/DkBlue and I think they work very well together.  If my creeks/rivers were blue when they joined the sea or the bay, this may be something to give a much closer look at and maybe other folks who don't have extensive mud to deal with will find this a handy combo, as I have a feeling the TPW would plop well with this. 

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This is Steel/LtYellow and these work pretty good together, too.  I think the Steel is just a little too light, though, for SF bay.

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This is Steel/Overcast and I think these both work very well together.  I especially like the way the water becomes greener as it approaches shore...it could work very nicely with the green TPW.

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This is Steel/Ultramarine.  Not liking it much, they don't blend well and the Offshore is too light for the Inshore. 

So now let's look at the SeaGreen Offshore option.  I don't really like the SeaGreen for Pacific Ocean tiles, but it may be just perfect for SF bay, especially if combined with the right Inshore option.  I especially like the fact that, to my eyes, the SeaGreen offshore option looks so much like a dirty swimming pool, which really, if you think about it, is pretty much what RL SF bay is.  It's a LOT of water with only two small major inlets (the Golden Gate in the west and the combined big central valley rivers in the east) and one small outlet (the Golden Gate), so the water would never have be crystalline and blue, even before humans built there and starting polluting it.  As vigorous as the twice daily tidal changes are, I am willing to bet dimes to dollars that a full water change in the bay itself takes months to accomplish, if not longer.  When flying over the bay, even on a clear sunny day, at higher altitudes it is blue, but the close one gets to the surface, the greener and browner it becomes.   I don't want to take anything away from SF folks who love their bay, but it's really not very clean water, as least visually. 

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This is SeaGreen/Ultramarine and if that isn't awful I don't know what is!  Looks like the aftermath of extreme radiation or something!

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This is SeaGreen/Overcast and while they work very well together, it's just too green for me and I don't think very realistic to the RL bay.

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This is SeaGreen/LtYellow.  They seem to work pretty good together and I am not hating it.  Just not really liking the green of the Offshore...it's a little too verdant for me.  I will there was a brownish green option for the bay.  Maybe I will go back through my mods and see what else is available because truth is, so far I am not liking any of my offshore colors an awful lot, including Brigantine.  I need something mildly muddy/grey/blue.

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This is SeaGreen/DkBlue and while it's not as bad as the Ultramarine combo, it's almost as bad. 

As I was putting this together this evening, I was thinking of re-posting the same 4 Inshore options with the Brigantine, just to refresh memories and keep comparisons close to each other, but have decided against it.  First, I am going to try to post this tonite and with 16 pics to upload with my slow connection, that's a bit of work yet ahead of me.  Also, the MD just turned page 8. so this update will be on the same page as the last one, so it won't be hard for anyone to scroll back and make comparisons. 

So, what I would like to ask you all to do now is pick the ONE combo in each of the 5 groups you think will work best, given the following considerations (in order of importance):

1.)   The RL look/conditions of the area
2.)   Transitioning GW to PW realities, which are semi-severe and may require a lot of compromise of #1 above
3.)   Eye-candy (I do want this to be pretty, after all)

For example, a sample vote would be (Offshore/Inshore in all cases):

1.)   Brigantine/Overcast
2.)   Overcast/LtYellow
3.)   Turbid/Overcast
4.)   Steel/DkBlue
5.)   SeaGreen/LtYellow

I am going to be testing the Foreshore/Beaches next and would like to eliminate obvious losers from the combos we have seen so far.  I'm also going to ask that lurkers please step out of the shadows and vote.  Choosing the water mods for this region is very important, as it will play heavily to how I create a method for transitioning PW to GW and I'm going to be doing a LOT of that, which is why I am diverging from building in my region while I go through this process of defining the look of my game water.

I'm going to hold off exploring the last set of options for water while voting takes place.  But this issue is not going to go away and in the meantime, if anyone knows of a decent GW muddy water mod, please let me know, as so far NOTHING I am testing for Offshore really thrills me very much. 

Lora/LD

Congratulations, lora

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...the city by the electronic bay...


The Staff

 &danceCongrats, Lora!!!/b] &dance
You Got Something Special, OSITM!!!!

Yay, you deserved this! RSF is a wonderful MD!!!

Ethan

Congratulations on OSITM, Lora!  &apls  You have shown true attention to detail, and the result is a great MD.

As for the water, I would go with Turbid/LtYellow, but that's just my preference.

You know, I've never really looked too much into this MD until now  :-[. I have to say, you're being very thorough. Keep it up!

As for my preferences, I like the steel/overcast combo the best but I also like the overcast/overcast specifically for the purpose of recreating San Francisco (Hey, that's the name of the MD! :P).

-James ;D

 &apls &apls Lora, congrats for this award!!!  Your MD is in OSITM section now!!!  &apls &apls

First of all, kudos on the OSITM. Your endeavour truly is of special interest.
Next for the vote: (jeeze I sound like those TV anchors for the Eurovision Song Contest) ;D
1. Overcast / overcast
2. Overcast / Lt. Yellow
3. Turbid / Overcast
4. Steel / Lt. Yellow
5. Steel / Overcast
Good luck on figuring which will be the best pick.
Fabien

Just going to take a couple moments to congratulate you on earning the OSITM!  You've certainly earned it with your attention to detail.  &apls

Also, the first and third shots are certainly my favorites from todays updates.  Good luck choosing them, it's a tough choice! 

Hi Lora,

     Maybe I am too late, but for the watermod I think Brigantine offshore and Overcast inshore fit well for the region.

Disc Golf (I just call it Disc) is played by throwing the disc (much like a frisbee) at a pin.  The pin is a basically a metal basket with chains on it so the disc doesn't just bounce out when hit.  I think most just call the basket "the basket" but for some reason those I have played with have always called it a pin, so that's what I call it.  There are different disc's used for different purposes, Drivers & Flyers (long rang), putters, and rollers (people actually roll them on the ground like a tire towards the pin).  To put you just don't throw it as hard...  ;D 

The game itself is like golf, a par 4 means you have 4 throws to get the disc into the basket and score even, 3 throws gets a birdie (-1) and 5 gets the boogie (+1) and so on...  at the end of the game you add up the scores and the lowest score wins, however my friends and I rarely keep score.  For me it is a good reason to go walk around and throw things on a sunny day.  The number of holes varies, most I have played are 18, but the one closest to my house is 12.  I just play the first nine usually, then get to walking back home.

Most Disc Golf courses are smaller than golf courses; they tend to be packed into city parks (at least here in Oregon).  I have been to one that I thought was huge, but compared to a full size golf course it was still smaller.  The holes usually aren't as long, and they sometimes cross over each other, putting me in the line of fire when a stray disc is in the air.  I'm sure there are larger ones out there though.  They don't keep the fairway clear with lush green grass, and there really is no "green" around the pin.  Often I am digging in the bushes trying to find my disc that did not follow orders.  They are popular here; every town I have lived in has one (all in Oregon) and where I live currently has two.

here is the wiki page on it, you can see some pics of the "pins".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_golf

I thought once I saw on the STEX that someone had made pins (baskets) and pads (square concrete slabs to throw from) so one could make thier own course, but a quick search did not reveal anything.

looking forward to more
-cody 

Lora

I'm not surprised in the least at your OSITM. Very well deserved. Your efforts are making for an awesome MD.

And as for the water mods, whenever I see photos of San Francisco Bay it always seems soooo blue. My monitor at work is not the greatest so I can't see some of the subtle differences in those mods you're comparing but I'm tending to lean toward the bluer mods and away from the greens. Try lining those shorelines with trees too and see if that gives you another feeling. You'll get some contrast with those dark trees and your water mods.

Happy modding!

Geoff

This is probably one of the most deserved OSITM awards I've seen given. You've been causing quite a stir, Lora, and it's all be very positive! :)

-Jason

Wow. 

What can I say?  I'm stunned.  I never win anything. 

Well, that's not quite true.  I won third place in a county-wide American Legion essay contest when I was in 4th grade, had my essay printed in the LA Times "Featured Students" page (does that make me a published author?).  As a senior in high school I won third place in a national archery contest and my mom bought me a bow, arrows, and a straw bale to shoot at soon afterwards. 

But I think that's about it.  Made the honor roll in high school and college.  Does that count? 

I'm a little tongue-tied at this honor.  I really, truly never expected folks to dig on what I was doing here.  I figured it was just way too OTC for anyone.  I have been surprised all along at the great response the MD has gotten and deeply grateful to all the help and comments and suggestions.  My last try at creating a Mayor Diary/City Journal was over on ST and it kinda fizzled into nothing, so I didn't have much hope for this one, either. 

So...thank you all, for your interest and support.  This could not have happened without all of you, active posters and lurkers alike. 

Once again channeling Sally Field: "You LIKE me, you really LIKE me!"

I'll have another update to post soon, so stay tuned, ok? 

Lora/LD

Water mods.... My MD's region is also on a bay on the pacific ocean, and I use brigantine, and turbid inshore. I think on google earth however, the water is not represented accurately - I mean they just put a random blue colour over the deeper water, I imagine what you remember is accurate enough.

If you want your water to look muddier, you could get the mod that makes the water more transparent in relation to depth, and this would reveal more of the sandy texture underneath, giving the illusion of more mud.

At any rate, I suppose the water can look darker/lighter, clearer/muddier depending on the season, rainfall upstream of the waterways that feed into it, the conditions in the ocean causing waves etc. You could get away with whatever you want to do.

I actually think light yellow and overcast looked really good, I might go for that if I was you.

Oh yeah, Congratulations! OSITM is a great achievement. You deserve every bit of it.

Lora, don't be surprised, you really deserve OSITM. I've been lurking for awhile and I'm impressed by what I've seen so far. It's great to see the way you plan things and how you apply that to the game  :thumbsup:. You have a great following and keep them involved in the process.

Very nicely done indeed  &apls

Dave

Just a short post to let everyone know I have a fairly large update to post on Thursday afternoon, so don't give up on me and think fame has gone to my head.  I worked all day and evening on this next update and have 22 screenshots to upload, which is the only reason I'm not posting it tonite.  Between replies and uploads, it'd take me another 2 hours to post this new update and I'm just not up for that tonite, so sorry. 

Lora/LD

Yipee! &hlp
Can't wait.

Fabien

First of all, thank you all very much for congradulating me for the OSITM award.  Would never have happened without your support.  Second, this is a long update today and lots of replies to get to, to I hope you have some time on your hands. 

ecoba/Ethan: Thank you very much, I'm really glad you are enjoying my MD!  Don't forget to vote on which water mods you think will work best for me!

metarvo: Your preference for the Turbid/LtYellow combo is duly noted and thanks for voting.  I'm glad my attention to detail doesn't drive you batty.

jimbo_jj/James: Welcome to my MD and thanks so much for stopping by and voting on the water mods, I appreciate your input.  I hope that now you have found us over here that you'll be stopping by often and continueing to share comments, suggestions, and advice. 

Tomas Neto: Thank you very much and don;t forget to vote on which combo of water mods you like best!

mayorfabz/Fabien: Thank you for voting, I really appreciate the input!  And yes, it's a difficult choice with so many options, which is why everyone's input is so valuable to me.

Battlecat: Always nice to see you and thanks for voting!  With our mutual interest in earthen dams, you should enjoy today's update!

cody426/Cody: My roomie works at a regular golf course and so we spent about 1/2 hour a few nights ago researching Disc Golf.  It looks like a lot of fun, looks like it could be down right hilarious to play.  There is a course about 5 miles away from where I live and I am thinking about giving it a try, so long as there is someplace I can rent rather than buy the necessary "equipment".  Otherwise, it'll have to wait until I get a job and have some money.  Also, thanks for voting!

calibanX/Geoff: So much affects the color of water that it's really hard to settle on any one thing, it's true, but the game doesn't allow us to have a bunch of different water mods in the game at one time and apply them in different locations across a region, so its one of the compromises that must be made.  I could switch mods out for the purposes of taking pics, I suppose, but with as much work as this is going to be, I really don't want to add more, which is why I am taking the time now to find something that will hopefully work semi-universally across all the sea level water in my region.  You also suggest:

QuoteTry lining those shorelines with trees too and see if that gives you another feeling. You'll get some contrast with those dark trees and your water mods.

Yes but, this is a recreation and all the sea level water occurs in bays, ocean, and salt marshes, where there are no trees in RL, just mud and weeds, and some evaporation ponds.  Where trees DO occur is along the banks of fresh water bodies, lakes and streams, and I'll be using PW for that, as it's not possible for me to create a GW lake at 200' above sea level.  However, I do appreciate your comments and remind you to vote on which of the mod combos you think would work best.

Albus of Garaway/Jason: Thank you so very much and don't forget to vote on the water mod you like best!

joelyboy911: Thanks for voting and stopping by to share your grats and comments.  You say:

QuoteIf you want your water to look muddier, you could get the mod that makes the water more transparent in relation to depth, and this would reveal more of the sandy texture underneath, giving the illusion of more mud.

Hmmm, sounds interesting.  Any idea where I might find this mod you are speaking of?  Or, who created it?

tooheys/Dave: Welcome to my MD and I hope now that you have found it, you'll stop by often and share your thoughts with me, especially onthe subject of which of the water mod combos you like best (hint, hint).  This is WAY too big of a project for me to do all by my lonesome, the more input from other, the better. 

So, including my own choices, this is where we stand on water mod voting so far:

Overcast/Overcast: 4
Overcast/LtYellow: 2
Turbid/LtYellow: 2
Steel/Overcast: 2
Steel/LtYellow: 2
Brigantine/Overcast: 2
Brigantine/Turbid: 1
Turbid/Overcast: 1
Overcast/DkBlue: 1

So far no one has voted for any of the SeaGreen combos, so I think we can safely eliminate all of them, which makes things a little easier.  Definitely have some trends emerging and polls are still open, so if you haven't voted yet, please do!  I still have the Foreshore and Beaches option to look at, but want to cull the pack before I go there.

And now, on to the update!



While folks view the various options for water mods and vote on their favs, I thought I'd take this opportunity to revisit the Novato Creek Dam.  I'm not really happy with the downstream slope of the dam, as I think it looks too steep.  Lets review the RL dam with pics from Google Earth.

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It's hard to guess the angle of slope of the face of the dam from an aerial photo, but maybe the pic can give me some clues.  There is a scale at the bottom of the pic that may come in handy.  I'm going to import this pic into CAD, then trace the scale and see if maybe I can't measure the distance from the top of the dam to the bottom. 

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See the little yellow thingie to the left of the pic?  That's a copy of the scale at the bottom of the photo.  Its overall length is equal to 160'.  I put a mark at the half-way point of the scale, so each half represents a distance of 80'.  I might add another set of marks to divide the scale into quarters, each one 40', but first I have some other things to think about. 

This photograph appears to be just about vertical to the ground, but it's hard to tell.  Everything actually looks pretty flat, so it's hard to really be certain exactly where the top of the dam is and where the bottom of the dam is.  There are some color variations near what seems to be the top and down the back side towards the lake, and there are some color variations at the bottom, but I can't really tell where the slope of the dam starts/stops, so I'm going to fire up Google Earth and go take a walk along the road that leads to the filtration plant via the Street View option. 

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Ok, so here I am standing on the bridge over the spillway on Novato Creek Rd.  I believe I am looking approximately south, towards the plant and I can see the dam rising to my right. 

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Turning west. I can see most of the face of the dam and it appears to be fairly uniform in color from top to bottom.  I can also see, through the fence, the aforementioned graffiti covering the walls of the spillway below me. 

So this makes me wonder.  Several pages back I drew a little diagram of what I thought the cross section of the dam might be, but now that I can see it at ground level, I am no longer very certain I have it right.  In the first photo I can plainly see a band of lighter color on the face of the dam near the top.  I had taken that to be a section of newer earth that was more sloped than the rest of the dam, and so figured it to be the addition from 1971.  Now I think it's actually a shoulder of the little access road that seems to run along the top of the dam, because from street view the slope of the dam appears to be uniform and there is no band of lighter earth at the top.

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Walking further south along the road gives me a wider view of the base of the dam.  The area beyond the fence appears to be pretty flat. 

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So does the area where those cars are parked, slightly to the east of the road.  Unfortunately this is as far up this road I can go, so I'm going to go up on Hicks Road and see if I can get an idea of what the top of the dam looks like.

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Yes, I can see that there is indeed a dirt shoulder to the left of the paved area on top of the dam.  It also looks like the back side of the dam begins it's slope down to the lake at the edge of the paving, don't you agree?  Lastly, it also looks to me like the dirt shoulder and the paving are of approximately equal width.  Hard to guess what it might be, but maybe I can make a guess using other objects nearby to scale from.  Nah, doesn't look like it.  Perspective of the photo makes it nearly impossible, along with the lack of any known objects anywhere on the top of the dam.  Would be nice if there was a maintenance vehicle up there, wouldn't it?

Ok, so I think I've learned about all I can for now about the dam, so I'm going to take what I've learned and go back to CAD and see if I can figure out some rough distances.

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So this is what I now think is going on with the dam.  Now I'll use my little scale, which you can see I have rotated 90 degrees, and measure those distances.

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I changed the color of the scale to make it easier to see and made a mark at the 160' distance.  Now I'm going to move the bottom of the scale to the mark and guesstimate the remaining distance to the top of the dam.

20.10
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That looks close enough to half way between the scale marks for me to call it another 40', so I'm going to say the face of the dam is about 200' wide.  I know the height is 71', so if I wanted to break out my trig, I could calculate the angle, but I don't really need to do that.  I know a game cell is 52.5 feet square, so I'm going to round things off and semi-randomly decide that the face of the dam should cover 4 cells (200 /50=4).  I don't know how many it covers now, but that's coming up.  But next I'm going to measure the width of the top of the dam.

20.11
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Not quite 80'.  I know my dam in game is built at a 45 degree angle and that it's one cell wide, and I determined a few pages back that the diagonal width of a cell is 73.82', so that's close enough for me!  Last I want to measure the back side of the dam, to see if I'm semi-close there, too.

20.12
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That looks about ¾ of the way between marks on the scale, so I'm going to say 60'.  I think I'm steeper than that in game, but that's where we're going next, to see what I currently have and maybe fix things to try to more closely reflect reality.  However, I'm going to do that later this evening and right now it's 3:30 and I'm starving, so I'm going to run up to the store real quick (I'm out of wine, oh no!) and then reheat myself some pizza for dinner. 

Ok, now let's fire up the game and see how my first run at building the dam went, now that I have some faint idea of actual dimensions.

20.13
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Looking at the back face of the dam, It looks like I'm about ½ of a diagonal cell of width from the top of the dam to the surface of the lake.  That would translate out to be about 36', which is too narrow and too steep.  I can fix that by removing the row of road tiles closest to the dam and then softening the slope out another half cell, but I want to check the front of the dam first.

20.14
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I was afraid of this.  The dam front slope is only 1 tile wide across the diagonal, or about 74'.  I measured the width in CAD at about 200', so some quick math tells me I need to be about 2.71 diagonal cells in width, which I can either round up to 3 cells or round down to 2.5 cells.  I think I will round down, otherwise the slope is going to be very flat.  So now I'm going to fix the dam slopes, both front and back, starting with the back, because it's quicker and (hopefully) easier and will give me some practice using the method using roads.  First I'll prepare the back side of the dam by removing street tiles at the edge of the lake.

20.15
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Now I'm going to build a diagonal road across the bottom of the dam where I want the new base to be and another across the top of the dam, which I will later kaboom.

Well except that after building a road at the top of the dam, the top is now too wide, so I quit without save and skip the idea of building a road up there for now.  I'll figure something else out.

20.16
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Now I'll drag diagonal roads from top to bottom to create a uniform slope.  Ok, this method is not working at all.  When I try to build roads, they flatten the top of the dam to lake level.  Maybe I should remove my slope mod from my plugins folder, hmm?  Well, that helped, but not by much, and I don't want to fool around with 7 slope mods trying to find the one that works, so I'll do this the old fashioned way...I'll use the fine terraforming technique.  The top of the dam is 319.0 in elevation and the surface of the lake is 310.6.  Subtract the lake surface from the top of the lake and the answer is 8.4 meters.  Divided by two is 4.2 meters, so I add that to the base elevation and get 314.8.  So now I'll go cell by cell across the back of the dam and raise terrain just a teensy bit at location of the current base of the dam.  That should widen the slope out another half cell, giving me a slope one full diagonal cell in width. 

20.17
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Much better.  I do this with every cell across the back of the dam and now this is what the slope looks like:

20.18
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Well, it's not perfect, but then what in life is?  I am happy with it, that's what matters.  So now I have to address the front of the dam.  The first thing I am going to do is kaboom the street tiles that are in my way.

20.19
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And again, rather than trying to mess around with roads to create a uniform slope, I'm going to terraform this slope.  So that means more math, to figure out what my cell intersection elevations want to be.  Top of the dam is 319.0, bottom is 297.3, so the difference is 21.7m.  I know I said above that I would make the slope 2.5 cells wide, rather than 3, but I'm exercising my female options and changing my mind, simply because it makes the math easier to make the dam 3 diagonal tiles wide rather than 2.5.  So I'm going to divide 21.7 by 3, to get about 7.2.  This time I'm going to work from the top down, so I'm going to subtract 7.2 from 319, which gives me 311.8.  That's the elevation I'll terraform to across the first set of diagonal cell intersections.

20.20
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And so on across the face of the dam.  This is a little trickier because I am 180 degrees out from the back of the dam and my terraforming tools act always on the NW corner of the cell, so I have to remember that when chosing which cell to use the tools on.  When my game north arrow is pointing north, that means the upper left corner of a cell is what is changed.  Now that my north arrow is pointing south, that means the lower right corner of the cell is affected.  Tricksy, my precious. 

20.21
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The first pass is complete and while it's subtle, if you look close, you can see the shallower slope at the top of the dam and the steeper slope at the bottom.  Now I need to subtract 7.2 from 311.8 to tell me what the next pass elevation wants to be, which is 304.6.  I'll go ahead and complete the next pass before taking another screen shot. 

Ok, I discovered an error in my math AND my technique.  For the first pass, I used the first cell intersection below the top of the dam, which is only HALF of a diagonal cell, not a full diagonal cell.  So, what I really needed to do is not 2 passes, but 4, and hence divide the 21.7m by 5, not 3.  Or, if I go back to a diagonal distance of 2.5 cells of dam width, by 4.  Hmmm.  Which one divides out better?  21.7/5=4.34 whereas 21.7/4=5.43.  Six of one, half dozen of the other.  I think I'll go back to 2.5 tiles as it's closer to actual dam width.  START OVER with the face of the dam.  Patience my precious, patience.  I won't screen shot my fixes, just the final result. 

20.22
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And here we go.  The dam front face is now approximately 200 feet wide and 71 feet tall, as per RL, as my best guess at such given my resources.  I still have some work to do on the south side of the dam (to the left in the shot above, melding the dam into the hillside(, but I have a road running up that slope of the dam, too, so I think I'll leave that area undeveloped for now.  My spillway channel is still there, but may be problematic in the future when I go to actually build the darn thing, so I'm going to leave that alone for now as well.

Thursday edit:  Well, as it turns out, my math for the front of the dam was wrong.  When I used 4 even divisions, I ended up with my dam face only being 2 diagonal cells wide, instead of the 2.5 I wanted.  So lesson learned: when doing this kind of thing, it's the number of diagonal tiles in widthx2 to get the number of divisions to divide the height by.  After completing 4 passes, I figured this out, so I went back and did 5 passes to arrive at what is seen above.  There is also a flaw in my trig as applied to the game.  What I measured in CAD was the long leg of the triangle comprised of width, height, and slope of the dam.  What I built in the game was that same measurement as measured across the slope, not the long leg.  However, I'm getting bored with this dratted dam and all the time it's taking to get it right, so I'm going to leave the slope the way it is.  The spillway is going to present me with a lot of challenges, and the road up the front of the dam as well, and this is just a game. 

I was going to try to post this tonite (Wednesday), but it's already past 11 pm, I have 22 pics to upload to Imagaeshack, and a buddy waiting for me over on LOTRO, so I'll post this Thursday afternoon instead.  Gives you all more time to vote on the water mods, anyway.  I also have to allow time to respond to replies and I know from lurking on my own MD that there have been quite a few posts, so that will take some time, too. 

But this is it for update 20.  Hope you enjoy and don't get sidetracked from voting on water mods!

Lora/LD

Hmm... Well I thought the mod was on Gizmo's site SimCity4Mods, but actually it isn't. Hopefully someone else can help out here. I don't actually use it myself, so I don't really have anymore info on it...

Sorry  &mmm

Lora,

I did some research on your dam. Some site about lakes in the US (findlakes.com) provides a height of 71' (very close to your estimate if I got everything right). Here is the URL:
http://findlakes.com/stafford_lake_california~ca00321.htm (http://findlakes.com/stafford_lake_california~ca00321.htm)

Hope this helps

Fabien

Ugh, terraforming, I hate it.

But what can you do?

Looks great, Lora, at first I looked in the Best sellers, and RSF wan't there, and I thought, ohmigod, (as one word, yes), is it a Classic? But then I remembered it was OSITM, you should get put in the Classics by the time September is over.

Ethan

Woohoo!  Look at my pretty new sig, with a link that actually works!  Oh, she's a happy camper this evening, that's for sure!

Tonite I am working on the MD itself rather than on the game aspect.  You may notice I have started to name my updates as well as number them...just another layer of organization and something that will help in creating a Table of Contents.  Kind of a drag (hey wasn't that a song?) to need to go back and add this stuff into old posts but like I said before, better now than later.  Most folks who have been keeping an eye on this MD from the beginning and those who join in at this very early stage of it's development will never probably page back to see that changes I've already made, but newcomers (if and when they arrive) will probably appeciate being able to find thier way easier, or so I hope. 

So, now that my new sig is up and running, it's back to work!  I'll start work on another update tomorrow.  I'm antsy to plop the lake, but I have another road to build on the south side of the lake first, the same one that starts at the face of the dam, so maybe that's where I'll go next.  Then again, I'm not happy with Hicks Road below the dam and want to redo that.  I still have to fix the neighborhood connection for Hicks Road at the edge of the city tile and I still have to smash the lake's island down a bit, too.  And, we still have a bunch of water mod options to make decisions on (notice my use of the inclusive plural "we"), so who knows what whim will grab me for the next update?  Guess you'll have to stay tuned to see...

Lora/LD

Ok, so doing a bad an bumping my own post, but I have a question that needs to be answered and I am hoping someone will have an answer.  I have now created a TOC for this MD and gone back and given names to all the updates I have postes thus far.  I would like to add this TOC to my MD but the only way I know how is to cut and paster it into Page 1.  And, I'm afriad if I do that, that all the pages from that point foward will renumber themselves, making my TOC somewhat meaningless in terms of being a guide ofr folks new to the MD for finding thier way around.  I have not created links from updates in the TOC to the pages of the MD, but I would like to do that eventually.  I just worry about discombobulating the entire page set of the MD if I cut/paste the TOC into the first page. 

This is going to be a very long running MD (I think...my commitment is there, time will tell if folks will continue to enjoy it), so I am wondering if it's possible to create a second sub-thread that will contain the TOC without bumping all the posts in the main thread. 

Anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

Lora/LD

Hi Lora, it is amazing how many thoughts you put into your recreation. I would never have the patience for that. And I probably do not have the skills. I am wondering for example why you use the scale and CAD program to measure the dam instead of using the measurement tool in google earth.

Oh, and thanks for the many pictures with the different water mods. I found those textures a few days ago but didn't have the time to try all of them myself. I still can't decide which one I like best, though.

Lora, first let me say that you've definitely earned your place in OSITM. Your attention to detail is terrific!

As to your most recent question: If you edit your first post in this topic, the page numbers won't change, since you wouldn't be adding any new posts. So go right ahead and add your ToC - you've got nothing to worry about there.

I also want to comment on your measurements of the dam from the most recent update. Although the Google Earth scale bar has a length label over its center, the length it reads (in your case, 160') refers to the length of the entire bar, not half of it. So all your measurements above are actually twice what they should be. Don't feel too bad, it's an understandable mistake to make, given how scale bars are normally labeled. I just wanted to make sure you had all the right measurements - I'm just as much a perfectionist in things like these as you are!

Keep up the outstanding work! I'll definitely be back for more.
Zack

Nice job smoothing the surface of the dam!  I hadn't quite realized how small that dam really is!  Looking forward to seeing what's up next. 

Zack says-

QuoteAlthough the Google Earth scale bar has a length label over its center, the length it reads (in your case, 160') refers to the length of the entire bar, not half of it. So all your measurements above are actually twice what they should be. Don't feel too bad, it's an understandable mistake to make, given how scale bars are normally labeled. I just wanted to make sure you had all the right measurements - I'm just as much a perfectionist in things like these as you are!

Well, that's a huge drag to learn, make no mistake about it.  So, my dam is actually twice as wide as it wants to be.  Ya know, I kinda wondered about that when looking at the top of the dam from Hicks Valley Road...sure didn't look like 80 feet to this drafter's very practiced eye.  But who am I to argue with scaled photos taken by satellites?  To my eye it doesn't even look like 40' or even 30'.  Maybe 20-25', max.  

I realized another error in my placement of the dam itself this evening.  The topo maps show the location of the dam with a single heavy line.  In translating this to the game, I used that line as the top of the dam, but now I realize that I probably should have made that the edge of the back of the dam, then built the dam downstream from there.  So, my game dam is also at least one diagonal game cell upstream from where it wants to be.  It's in the wrong place and it's too wide.  

So now the question becomes, do I fix it or just chalk it up to, hey it's a game?  Well, if I rescale the dam correctly, the top of the dam will only be 1/2 a diagonal cell in width and I won't be able to build the paved surface up there, as nothing builds on a half cell, especially half a diagonal cell.  Also, the dam is such a small structure already, in game, that making it smaller makes it almost insignificant.  Running a one cell wide game road up it's side would make the road look like a freeway by comparison.  

Executive decison time.  The dam stays as it is.  I'm tired of messing around with it and want to move on to other things and it's representational, after all.  I'll be more careful next time around, especially now that I know how Google Earth scales thier images.  Sheesh!  It's not enough that I have to convert meters to feet?

Zack, not sure I should thank you for this info or not, but of course I do.  No telling the grief this discovery would have caused me had I learned say 6 large city tiles down the road from now.  I might have found a bridge (in game, of course) to jump off of.  

Lora/LD

Here I go bumping my own post again, but it's allowable if I'm posting an update, right? 

You'd never guess it's Labor Day weekend, the last big hurrah of the summer.  I've gotten spoiled by finding a couple of new posts here every day over the pasy couple of weeks, but for the first time in a while, zip, nada, nothing in the last 24 hours.  I guess everyone is out playing, taking advantage of the long holiday weekend.  I envy you.  Seattle has Bumbershoot this weekend, a 3 day music fest at the Seattle Center, just one block from me (in fact I can hear it right now), but it costs $15 for an all-day pass, so I'll just stay home and play on the computer.  So, on with the update.



joelyboy911: Don't worry about it, I think I have enough water mods to figure out something decent.  I may run across what you suggested in my travels later on.  As always, thanks for stopping by.

mayorfabz/Fabien: Yes, I found that site, too, back when I was researching the dam.  A better site for info on the dam, I thought, was found at the Marin Country Department of Public Works (I think that was the site, anyway).  I gave a detailed history of the lake and dam, along with providing me with the stats I used in regards to height and length of the dam, so the 71' height I used wasn't an estimate but rather a fact I garnered from research.  Sure wish I could find an elevation for the height at the top of the dam, though.  Maybe I'll email the folks that work at the dam and ask them.  Thanks for the confirmation though and for stopping by.

ecoba/Ethan: Thanks for your vote of confidence, but I really doubt 2 months in existence would qualify anything as a "classic".  I am very content to remain on the Bestsellers page for a long time, it's an honor to have gotten there in the first place.  You also have to remember the tremendous scope of this project...I have 130 city tiles to complete before I'm done and all I've really built so far is part of a road and a very small earthen dam on the very first tile, and that has taken me 2 months.  I'm still picking out custom terrains and textures, so it'll be a while before I settle down to some serious building.  Good to know I have your enthusiast support, though!

RickD: Hello and welcome to my MD!  Always great to see a new face and hear a new voice, thank you for stopping by and sharing your comments.  As for why I didn't use the measurment tool in Google Earth, I didn't know there was one.  Now that I do, maybe I'll figure out how to use it and save myself the time of importing images into CAD for measuring.  Thanks for the tip!  And yes, with so many choices (for water mods), it's hard to make a decision.  I'm glas my decision to view all the possibilities is paying off for someone other than just myself.  Stop by again soon!

woodb3kmaster/Zack: Thanks for stopping by and thanks so much for allaying my worries about adding my Table of Contents to my first page, I really appreciate it.  I'll add it in this evening, after I finish with this update. 

Battlecat:  Good to see you again and yes, the dam is very small, makes it difficult to render in game with any degree of realism, given my basic "building block" is a cell 52.5 feet square.  Next up is the hopefully last slop through the water mod options, hope you ejoy and comment.




Ok, no one seems to be voting on water mods anymore, so the consensus appears to be to go for Overcast/Overcast for Offshore and Inshore.  So now I want to look at the various Foreshore and Beach options.  There are 9 options for Foreshore and 6 options for Beaches, so 15 options total, of which only ONE (or none) can be chosen.  It's not possible to chose BOTH a Foreshore AND and a Beach, OK?  Keep that in mind while you view the way the various options look with the OC/OC (Overcast/Overcast) mod we have chosen so far.  Also keep in mind that I am not 100% married to the OC/OC and if I don't like the way it works with any of the Foreshore/Beach options, I'll look at some of the other Offshore/Inshore combos that folks liked.  We ain't out of the woods yet, folks.  We'll start with a look at the OC/OC as combined with the Maxis Plain Vanilla look, then start switching out options.  Keep paper and pencil handy to jot down thoughts (just a suggestion...there won't be a test later).

21.1
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I really do like this OC/OC combo and am glad so many folks agreed with my own thoughts about it.  It has lots of depth and color to it yet fades out nicely to yellows and golds and greens as it comes closer to shore.  I went ahead and saved my game when I exited, as I'd like to get a screen capture of the entire region with the new mod installed, so we can all see the difference in color between the Maxis water (which is installed in all my other city tiles) and this one.  What's an extra screen capture?

21.2
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Ok, this is the region shot and that's OC/OC installed in the Black Point city tile.  Looks good, I think. 

Ok, for viewing the Foreshore and Beach options, I'm going to divide them up into their two separate categorys, all the Foreshore first, then the Beach options.  Those of you following along at home may want to do the same thing. 

Foreshores:

21.3
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This is BrownSand.  I think I am going to need some close zooms for these options, else no one will be able to see any differences between them.

21.4
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Close zoom of BrownSand

21.5
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This is GreenRock at far zoom

21.6
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And GreenRock at close zoom

21.7
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This is GreyRock at far zoom.  Black sand beaches in SF bay anyone?

21.8
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And GreyRock at close zoom

21.9
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This is GreySand at far zoom

21.10
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And GreySand at close zoom

21.11
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This is PinkSand at far zoom

21.12
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And PinkSand at close zoom

21.13
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This is WhiteSand at far zoom

21.14
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And WhiteSand at close zoom

21.15
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This is YellowRock at far zoom

21.16
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And this is YellowRock at close zoom.  Keep in mind that as odd as this may look, especially in combo with the OC/OC mods, that I have massive mudflats to build all the across the entire inland areas of the SF bay.  Salt flat mud is brown, brownish yellow, or brownish green.  These are not the sandy beaches of an ocean, OK?  This is shallow mucky muck, which probably smells at low tide and sucks the shoes off your feet if you try to walk on it.  Also keep in mind that I am likely going to have to do extensive terraforming of the shorelines to make them flat, so pay special attention to the areas immediate adjacent to the water itself.  It may be that as much as both I and so many others like the OC/OC combo, another combo may be more appropriate for this particular situation.  Also keep in mind that I am likely to be transitioning brown TPW into GW at the shorelines as creeks and rivers finally meet the sea, so I need any help I can get with water mods to help make this work.  We're not just talking about what looks pretty here...we're talking about what we can find in game to reflect RL conditions and how to make it easier for me (ahem) to recreate same.  So, as odd as the yellow and brown combos may look, it may be that OC/OC is not the combo of mods I need. 

Just something to keep in mind, folks, as well go along, OK? 

21.17
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg246.imageshack.us%2Fimg246%2F8889%2F2117.jpg&hash=a3e1bba6ce10b6b4e2e4fbacc1399e70ed5f61da)

This is BrownRock at far zoom

21.18
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg529.imageshack.us%2Fimg529%2F1585%2F2118.jpg&hash=4e65fec3440c3c555de8ae90e4b7e8767cd835ee)

And this is BrownRock at close zoom

21.19
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg40.imageshack.us%2Fimg40%2F2729%2F2119w.jpg&hash=afda593a4354661d1f2ff4978056d65846e1c62a)

This is YellowSand at far zoom

21.20
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg188.imageshack.us%2Fimg188%2F8509%2F2120s.jpg&hash=bde6b210d396876e35acb021079e7ad99222211c)

And this is YellowSand at close zoom

I'm going to quit here for now and leave the Beach options for later.  Could be a separate update, could be a continuation of this one, time will tell.  It gets to be a bit mind-numbing to be presented with so many choices all at once, so maybe it would be better to divide this part of the water mods into two updates. 

Well, now it's Saturday afternoon and I've decided to go ahead and include the Beach textures in this update, so let's get to it

Beaches:

Well, I took lots of pics and in the end decided not to include them.  I looked at 4 of the 6 Beach mods and each one was so close to identical to the other, that it really seemed pointless to continue looking at them.  I really could not see much difference, if any, between any of the Beach mods and the Maxis default beaches, either, so I'm not sure just exactly what's up with the Beach mods.  Regardless, with the 9 Foreshore options, I'm certain that's enough choices, hm?

That's enough for this update and is, maybe, the end of the water mods.  I'm probably going to play around with some other combos of Offshore and Inshore, because nothing shown above, when combined with the OC/OC is really grabbing me.  I'm also going to try to plop a creek down and see how the PW/GW transition looks with these new mods.  If I come up with something really spectacular, I'll be sure to take some pics and post them here.  Until then, review the choices above and please tell me what you think of them.

Edit Saturday evening:  Can anyone give me some tips for formatting my TOC?  I wrote it out and formatted it in MSWord and cut/paste it into my first post tonite and it looks like poo-poo.  All my text aligned beautifully in Word but is now a total hash here.  I tried a couple of different fixes and just made things worse, so any tips/help would be appreciated.

Lora/LD

I personally like Yellow Sand the best.

Ethan

Lora,

The way that you have your TOC set up I would recommend using tables but I am not for sure. It looks like messages on SC4D are set up to html and learning tables are easy. As I said, I believe that the messages are set up to html but this is something I am not 100% for sure.

You can also link all the updates to the specific messages, which seems to be the popular choice for TOCs. I do not know if you were going to do this and just have not gotten around to doing it or if you knew about this option.

Very enjoyable what you are doing here. Nice to see someone going into such details in recreating a real area.  :thumbsup:
I like the brown sand option myself.
Is this a mod that is ready to put into the game or is it a bit more complicated than that?

Belated congrats on the award, Lora! You truly deserve it.  &apls

Thanks also for all the wonderful comparison pics. I just downloaded that mod myself and was a bit overwhelmed about having to decide which options to use, so your screencaps are coming in handy! From that Google Earth shot you showed us, I'd say you should go with the LtYellow inshore option, but that's just my opinion...  ;D

kwakelaar: You can download the mod here: http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=22358# (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=22358#)

Hey Lora,
You're doing a great job so far.
For The TOC, you might look at mine at my MD URSADOR (see my sig). It's quite easy and even easier to fit to your demands. 
You can easily look at it, if you try to quote it and copy the text.
Every comment has its own link, you can use in your TOC, so pages don't really matter. just link the headlines instead of the page-nrs.

If you have any questions, just PM me.

Good Luck

I've been lurking here for a while now, just thought I should finally start posting. I'm impressed with the great level of detail you pu into this. Seeing it this way it doesn't even look like a hobby anymore, more like an occupation ;D! I envy your patience!

As for the foreshore mod, I vote for brown sand. It's not too light and not too dark.
Hopefully we've been of some help!

Hello everyone and welcome back after the long weekend!  I hope you all had lots of fun.  Here in Seattle it rained most of the weekend, making the Bumbershoot (supposedly French for "umbrella") Festival unusually appropriate.


ecoba/Ethan: Thanks for stopping by and one vote for yellow sand noted!

projectadam: Thank for the suggestions and for stopping by.  Too excited right now to mess around with the TOC, but I'll come back to your post when I calm down.  You forgot to vote!

kwakelaar: Thanks for commenting and one vote for brown sand noted.  Yes, this set of mods and textures is available for download on the STEX over at Simtropolis.  Do a search for Coastal Modds and it should come up.  There's no install programs, you just unzip the files to a folder outside of your game folder, then follow the directions in the readme for mixing and matching the files in your plugins folder.  There are 4 basic textures: Offshore (deep water), inshore (shallow water), Foreshore (area immediately above and below the waterline), and Beaches (above the waterline and abutting Foreshore textures).  You choose one of each and install them in your plugins folder and off you go.  The possible combinations are, while not endless, very large.  A GREAT set of textures, a real breakthough in water mods, I think. 

girlfromverona: Good to see you again and thanks for stopping by.  Glad you are enjoying my MD and viewing rivit's great set of mods.  I hope you find them as handy as I am doing and thank you also for posting a link to the download site.  I was actually leaning towards the LtYellow Inshore option myself, until rivit created the new Murky Inshore for me.  I hope you check back often as things are evolving very rapidly right now and I need the feedback!

soulchaser: Good to see you again and thanks for the advice on the TOC, I'll check out your examples for sure.  Please stop by again soon and be sure to vote or comment on the water mods!

just_a_guy: Hello and thanks for stepping out of the shadows to post, I appreciate it!  As for being an occuation, well, I am currently unemployed and have a lot of time on my hands, so this is how I have been filling the many empty hours in my days and evenings while I pray for a job.  Thank you also for voting, I have noted your preference for BrownSand.  Check back soon and take a look at the new Mudflat option and let me know what you think.





While you have all been out having a last summer bash, I have been slaving away over a hot computer, playing with water mods and experimenting with transitioning PW to GW.  This isn't a true update, but I do have a few pics to share of my attempts.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg248.imageshack.us%2Fimg248%2F599%2F21ahv.jpg&hash=0c683e559b67bcf6fb0effae3e73362b65055255)

This is one of many attempts to create a mud flat.  I think I did this Saturday night.  I'm not certain which Inshore option I am using, but I'm fairly certain I'm using Overcast Offshore.  The mud is created using jeronij's brown TPW and plopping it down in such a way so as to conceal the waves.  You can see a muddy stream bed crawling off toward the top of the pic.  This isn't too bad...it makes for pretty realistic looking mud.  But it doesn't blend at all well with the game water and if I use the brown TPW for mud, what would I use for my PW, which I also want to be brown?  I spent a number of hours playing around with different combos and ideas and nothing really satisfied me, so late Saturday night I decided to fire of a heart-felt plea to to the modder who created this wonderful pack of GW textures and beg him/her to help me.

Turns out the mods were created by rivit over on ST.  I told him what I needed, sent him a link to this MD, told him how I was showcasing his work here, then waited with fingers crossed for a reply.  It came the following day, on Sunday, and he told me he would try to mod what I needed if I could give him some ideas of what that was.  So I wrote him a long email back, full of ideas and suggestions, and this morning I opened my email to find he had created two new textures for me to try out:  Murky Inshore and Mudflat Foreshore.  I quickly (well, as quick as my very slow wifi connection would allow me) downloaded the new files and installed them in my plugins folder and fired up my game.  Here's a peek:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg141.imageshack.us%2Fimg141%2F6140%2F21bmj.jpg&hash=a7a30e337ee4421f0f76d53dd7b55df6cfbfa221)

Now, I don't know about you, but I think this looks fairly awesome.  Installed for this look are 4 textures from rivit's pack, moving from onshore to offshore they are: BrownSand Beach, Mudflat Foreshore, Murky Inshore, and Overcast Offshore.  After re-reading the readme file for this set of mods, I determined that one is supposed to use both a Foreshore and Beach texture, not one or the other, as I had originally stated, preferably two that match with each other.  And for those of you who are big fans of Brigantine, I learned that rivit's choice of water mod had also been Brigantine until he started a new project and found, just like I did, that the texture is just a little too choppy for inland waters.  So he made Overcast to be as close to Brigantine as he could get it, but with smaller ripples/chop, which I must say reads very well at close zooms for inland waters. 

You can also see in the picture above that I have done some underwater terraforming to create the appearance of deeper channels and underwater mudflats.  I think it looks quite good, but I would like the underwater mudflats to be morebrown and less blue.  This is a test city tile, a copy of my Black Point tile that I use for my water experiments then switch out when I want to do actual work for real on Black Point, which I have not done any of so far.  In the pic above, the Petaluma river is dredged to be GW, which is not something I am very likely to do.  I would much rather use the brown TPW for this river, as the satellite photos we have see of it so far very plainy show it as being a muddy color, not blue at all.  So, rather than dredging the river channel down, I will most likely terraform it up, as I will do with both the above water and underwater mudflats in the area. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg33.imageshack.us%2Fimg33%2F9341%2F21cy.jpg&hash=2d872c3bd38606777b27385975c32590742604ab)

This is a close zoom of the same combo with some brown TPW "creeks" plopped down to see how they look against the beach and new water textures.  Not too bad, but as I emailed rivit this afternoon, I think the beach itself could be darker, just a tad, and the underwater portion of the beach needs to be browner so that the TPW fades as it enters the water.  Still, I think this is an excellent combination of textures and colors, especially as it was a frist draft. 

Some other thoughts/ideas have crossed my mind regarding transitioning PW to GW, which I shared with rivit in my email today.  First of all, I think it may be possible to mod the mod, so to speak.  When I first started this project 2 months ago, I PM'd jeronij and asked him iof he could/would modify his TPW's to transtition to GW a little better.  He said he could, but wouldn't because he didn't have time but that I was welcome to modify them however I wanted for use in my own game, just to not distribute the modded mods without his permission.  Well, we all know I don't know diddly squat about modding, so I figured that was an unfortunate dead end.  But now rivit has stepped up to the plate, so I suggested to him what I thought were a couple of possibilities:

1.  Modify a brown TPW tile to be opaque rather than transparent, lighten the color a tad, and have it plop at ground level rather than +4m as it currently does.  This shouldn't be all that difficult (should it?  what do *I* know?) and it would give me plopable "mud" to use to create mudflats of whatever shape or size I want.  Even better, match the texture/color of the modded mod to match rivit's Mudflat Foreshore and viola! I have a seamless transition from waterline to mudflat to regular terrain upon which I can then plop the regular brown TPW as streams. 

2.  Rather than trying to modify the Murky Inshore texture to be darker closer to shore, it may be easier to mod a couple of brown TPW tiles to be transition pieces that slowly change color as they descend into the water so that by the time they reach thier -4m max depth, they are nearly invisible.  As a sub-idea to this is to create new TPW files only for use underwater.  Ennedi has a technique he uses with Brigantine that I found very interesting and promising.  He knows that Brigantine becomes opaque at a given depth, I think it's -21m, so he has modified his PW tiles to plop to -21m.  That way the PW channel is still visible undetwater, just as it would be in RL, before it finally disappears in deeper water.  Why couldn't we do the same with the TPW, perhaps while also changing the colors slightly to make them bluer as they got deeper?  I think this idea has quite a bit of merit, myself, it's just finding someone to take the time to create the needed pieces.  It wouldn't work for other color combos or mods, unless rivit want;s to spend the rest of his days creating custom PW/GW transition pieces, but if he's willing to do it for me, well, who am *I* to stop him, eh? 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F2577%2F21dh.jpg&hash=88eaffebd694854f681b07e2f557e4440b2192b2)

This is an even closer zoom of the shoreline and my only comment to rivit about what I see here is the faint banding of color both immediatly above and below the waterline, as the colors fade/blend with each other.  I told him if it was difficult to fix, that I could live with it and not to drive himself crazy trying, but that if it WAS fixable, it would be nice. 

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg200.imageshack.us%2Fimg200%2F2629%2F21ew.jpg&hash=6efbb15d9171bca39001b1556936d3da4550b1fc)

This is a beach set I downloaded from the STEX quite some time ago and I include it because it think it represents another set of possibilities.  If we got rid of the built stuff, the props I think they are called, and just had "naked" beach, we (I use the term "we" loosely here, as I'm just standing in the peanut gallery) could use the base lot as a large mudflat plop, especially if used in conjunction with the yet-to-be-modded small mudflat tiles modded from TPW.  If the beach plops could be re-colored and re-textured to match the Mudflat Foreshore above the waterline and to fade/blend into the Murky Inshore texture below the waterline, that would be a good thing, dontcha think?  The TPW plops easily across these beach tiles (except over the props, which would be removed in any case), so creating creeks and stuff would be easy. 

And...whilst I was busily engaged writing this little mini-update, I heard the distinctive click of new mail entering my email box.  Rivit!  Look what he sent me:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg141.imageshack.us%2Fimg141%2F2764%2Fthespitnov1694812523785.jpg&hash=3228ecdcb3c906951d939ba6e3d4ff428391e67c)

Mudflats!  We still have a ways to go, especially the underwater part, and getting the TPW to disappear, but hey, one small step...

And, I think I am going to make this an official update now.

Comments requested, let me know what you think!

Lora/LD

Hey Lora,

Your efforts look good, again.

For the watermod: I'm not a modder or matter or something. And I've never been to SF, so I can't tell what to choose best. That's also the reason, Why I never would try to recreate anything existing.
The beaches are always quite hard to set. I normally keep it with plopping some props.

rivits offshore and foreshore mod looks great though.

Sweet! I hope Rivit releases these new colour options eventually - they could come in very handy. In the meantime, I've chosen the following combo for my city - Light Yellow Inshore/Brown Rock Foreshore/Overcast Offshore, and I think it looks great.

I can't wait to see how your mudflats turn out, Lora!  :)

About bumbershoot:
Definitely not French. Never heard of it or anything close in my beloved mother-tongue. ()what()
Umbrella translates as "parapluie" in French ("against the rain"). The word umbrella, though, definitely originates from Latin and gave the French "ombrelle", or an umbrella-like object used to protect from the sun instead of the rain, derived from "ombre" (= shade).

Nice work on the mudflats, anyway. I have been struggling for years with an acceptable transition between ground and water and am still unsure about the results I got.

Hope to read you soon,

Fabien

Interesting to follow your efforts on the game water transition here!  There's no doubt that transition point has been a serious challenge for a long time now.  Those new lots are looking interesting, and the new beach texture looks great!  Very nice of Rivit to put those together for you.  Can't wait to see what you've got coming up next. 

This is not an update, just a quick post to keep folks informed of what is going on "behind the curtain".  rivit made me a new beach mod he named BrownMuddy.  It looks awesome in game but he has made some new discoveries that I found very interesting.

First of all, the default beach plop that is in the Parks menu has a "transparent" property to it that allows underlying textures to show through.  I have not tested this with Maxis default beach textures, so I think, not certain, that any installed beach textures over-ride the Maxis default and so shows through the Maxis beach park plop. 

I have installed in my game a CC set of beach plops and they also appear to have a transparent base texture.  When I switch out Beach textures from rivit's pack, the color of the beaches in the park plops change, both the Maxis beach and the CC beach. 

Rivit sent me a new set of beach plops which is much more comprehensive than my original set.  I installed the new beach set, the new Beach texture, and look what I got:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg43.imageshack.us%2Fimg43%2F2171%2F21i.jpg&hash=97314a445fda0b5f02437eae2c49fd1f703dd85a)

Now if that's not a seamless transition from mud to water, I don't know what is.  I tested this against steeper shores (this shore is extensively terraformed) and it works equally well.  The mud could be less red and a little more varied in color.  I still need edge pieces the rough up the transition from mud to natural terrain.  And, I still need a way to transition PW to GW.  But hey!  I think this looks awesome so far.  Rivit has confessed to me in his last email that he is burnt out on this for the time being,and no wonder.  He has worked on this for almost 5 days straight and look what tremendous progress he has made!   &apls

So rivit is going to take a break from his work with the mods and so am I.  The OCD part of me wants to stay with this until everything is perfect, but I know as well that pushing too hard is not a good idea.  So, I am going to go back to the dam tomorrow and start laying down the road on the south side of the dam.  Once that's done, I will kaboom the street tiles and start building the lake itself.

Stay tuned, lots of exciting (wel, at least to me) stuff coming up!

Lora/LD

The mudflats look like they're coming along nicely.  I do like the beach textures and the new shoreline, too.

Looking forward to seeing you starting on the lake. 

Wow, looks great. You may have finally tackled it. Although I wouldn't want to bathe in there...  ;D

Fabien

That's looking pretty good! 

Wow! Firstly, I must commend you on such a grand undertaking. Several people have attempted the Bay Area with varying degrees of success. And, mostly, as this is a game, have just made some semblance of it all rather than exactness. And, living in the Bay Area, I'm super intrigued at your progress and detail. It's quite extraordinary. And, I hadn't seen this coastal mod in action...however, you've done a FANTASTIC job with it.  &apls

Well, I've been absent for a couple of days, so just checking in to let you know that rivit and I have been working away behind the scenes creating credible mud flats.  Rather I should say, rivit has been working and I've been cheerleading, with a few careful words of critique on my part.  We are very close now to having what may turn out to be an entire new set of lots and textures called Mudflats.  I don't know if he will package them up for release to the general public or not...I hope he does as I think a lot of folks would use them. 

We still have the issue of getting the TPW into the bay, but doing the groundwork, literally, is going to help make that transition much easier...or so we hope. 

I am going to be working on a new full update this evening and if I have time may post it tonite.  Otherwise, it will definitely be up tomorrow, so be sure to check back soon to see what magic rivit has created for me.  Oh and, if no one posts, I'll have to be a bad girl and bump myself, so please don't turn me into the forum police if I do so?

Lora/LD, very excited

Quote from: ldvger on September 10, 2009, 09:05:51 PMOh and, if no one posts, I'll have to be a bad girl and bump myself, so please don't turn me into the forum police if I do so?

I wouldn't want that to happen - this MD deserves many more than zero replies!

You're very fortunate to have such a talented modder working on something that will specifically enhance the realism of your recreation - I might just have to try finding someone myself to help out with my plans for Nyhaven! I have to say, everything you've posted lately has been absolutely wonderful, and it shows just how dedicated you are to making this the best recreation of SF that anyone has ever attempted. I'm definitely a fan!

Zack

It would certainly be nice to see these released, mud flats are a missing link in the creation of a diverse coastal area.  Those would be great for simulating those tidal marshes that are only under a few feet of water a high tide.  Muddy bottom, with tufts of grass poking out of the water here and there.  Looking forward to seeing how it all comes together. 

 



soulchaser:  Thanks for stopping by and for sharing your comments, they're always appreciated!

girlfromverona:  Yes, I am very impressed with rivit's mods, too and think they look great in the game.  Thanks for posting and I hope rivit decides to release the mud flats, too, seems a lot of folks would like to have them.

mayorfabz/Fabien: Well, I only repeat what I've been told in regards to the origin of the word "bumbershoot", so if it's not French, then someone told me wrong.  Maybe it's a made up word?  And yeah, the PW/GW transition is still the last major frontier to bust through, but lots of folks are working on it, so maybe it'll happen soon.  I have anxiety over getting a technique to work for my MD, too, and can only hope I can devise something acceptable.  But it's why I am likely to avoid my shorelines for a while.  All the stuff we're working out for mud flats now is really in the nature of homework for future use, as until I figure out a good PW/GW transition, I'm going to stay inland.  Thanks for your comments and for stopping by!

Battlecat: Always good to see you and yes, the PW/GW transition is a real bugaboo.  Glad you are liking rivit's work on the water mods and mud flats.

meinhosen: yes, I am really pleased with how the mud flats are developing als and I will be returning to Stafford Lake and the Novato Creek Dam over this coming weekend, so stay tuned!

mayorfabz/Fabien: No, I don't think I'd want to swim there, either, and the mud is probably squishy enough to suck the shoes right off your feet, so I wouldn't want to walk there, either.   

Battlecat: Yes, I am imprssed with how the mud flats are progressing as well. 

threeswept:  Welcome to MD and excellent to have another Bay Area resident stopping by!  I hope you come by often, your first person experience of the area will be invaluable.  I'm glad you are liking what I have done so far and I'll try hard not to disappoint.

woodb3kmaster/Zack:  Thank you for sparing me the necessity of bumping my own post, appeciate it!  And yes, I feel very fortunate that rivit has consented to put so much of his time into helping me with my project, I have no idea how I would have ever been able to create realsitic water and mud flats without his input.  Stop by often, we are a long ways from being done yet!

Battlecat: I agree, I think we should all encourage rivit to bundle his work up into a new Mud Flats package, there seems to be a lot of interest from other people who would also like to use it.  Take a peek at this new update and tell me what you think of my use of the grasses to fade the edges of the mud into the greener terrain and also fade the TPW into the mud.  This was a first try, down and dirty, so I'll be experimenting around with these types of fades more in the future. 




Well, first of all, as you can see, I have changed the title (and, to some degree, the focus) of this Major Diversion from water mods to mud flats.  While it's true rivet and I started out working on the Inshore texture, we very quickly moved on to the Foreshore and Beach textures and from there to creating some custom plops and textures that will go a long ways towards my alibilty to realistically create the miles and miles of mudflats that line the shores of the San Francisco Bay, most especially in the far northern and southern reaches of the bay.

In some ways this task requires a bit of sensitivity to Bay Area residents, because they are justifiably proud of their beautiful Bay.  And mud flats are not really very pretty and in RL they small quite a bit, too, especially at low tide.  And of course the bay is tidal.  So I don't want to make the bay and the mud flats too gross, but there is reality to deal with as well.  My buddy rivet doesn't really know very much about the SF bay area and has been spending time with Google Earth, reviewing the satellite pictures, and I wrote him a little explanation of the mechanisms of the bay, to help him understand what the bay is about as a large inland tidal water body, and as many folks here are also unfamiliar with SF Bay, I'll copy from my email to him here:

Well, I have to admit I have never been down to the mudflats or beaches surrounding SF bay.  I have seen them fairly close up while landing at SFO and the water is brown and murky.  The water is very shallow along the shorelines and there is not a lot of wave action other than wind chop coming ashore.  It is of course a tidal basin, so it's salt water and you can smell it regardless of high or low tide.  You may have read in my MD that this is a very large inland water body with only a single very small outlet to the sea (the Golden Gate), so the further one goes from the outlet, the worse the water quality becomes and the shallower the bay becomes.  There really is only one major fresh water inlet and it is major.  The entire Great Central Valley of the interior of California drains into SF bay.  The San Juaquin (wa-KEEN) River runs south to north through the central valley, while the Sacramento River runs north to south.  They join together east of SF and then flow into the San Pablo Bay, north and east of the city of SF and almost due east of the city tile Black Point.  Both of these rivers are watershed for the east side of the Coastal Range and the west slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  The central valley is almost exclusively dedicated to agriculture, which is the primary  source of California's economy.  The big rivers are obviously polluted with agricultural run off and it all comes into SF bay eventually.  As enclosed as the bay is, it's terribly vulnerable to extreme pollution and while much has been done to protect the bay since the 60's, it's still not water I would fish in or go swimming in. 

SFO's runways are built on jettys that extend into the bay.  Every time I land at SFO, I swear the plane is going to go into the drink before it hits the runway...you can see gum wrappers floating on the water from the windows of the plane.  Just when you expect to see water flashing over the windows, there's the runway beneath you, finally.  Because the terrain under the water is shallow and muddy, it's really hard to say how clear the water is.  There is not a lot of differentation in color between the above water mud and the color of the water immediately offshore.  Not a lot of difference in texture, either, as the mud is rippled from tidal action and the water is rippled from wind chop.  There is little or no wave action...it's more like a lake than the sea (which brings to mind an entirely new thought...any way to mod the Maxis waves?). 

I don't know if this information helps you or not, I hope it does.  Folks who live in SF are fiercely proud of the beauty of their bay and the area, and rightly so.  The deeper water away from the shorelines is a dark/bright grey blue, which is why photos that are wide pans with distance show a brilliant blue bay.  Close up it's not quite so pretty.  I don't want to offend any SF folks by depicting their bay as a cesspool (which in some ways it really is) but at the same time I want to depict a realistic view of the area. 

I guess that's all just a long winded way of saying I think the clearer inshore water textures are probably just fine the way they are and that the Homer beach set, if we can come up with a texture/color combo that works, is probably just fine also.  It may not be very pretty, but the shorelines of RL SF are not pretty either.  It's sad but true.  This bay was a cesspool long before humans ever found it and made it worse.  Forty years of working to clean it up has helped return it to it's original state, but the original state was not good to begin with.  All large inland bodies of water are so.  I live on Puget Sound, which is much larger than the SF bay area but also a confined inland sea.  We have an advantage in that Puget Sound has a much better "flushing" mechanism than SF bay does.  We also have much more fresh water flow into the Sound, both in number/locations of sources and in the actual amount of water in terms of cubic feet per minute due to the majestic amount of rainfall we get.  Still, Puget Sound was one of the world's most contaminated bodies of water, along with SF bay and The Great Lakes, before the environmentalists of the 60's started forcing folks to look at the mess they were making and demanding it be cleaned up.

I think perhaps my use of the word "cesspool" is overly strong and if it offends anyone, my sincere apologies.  I know the bay is way cleaner now than it was 40 years ago, but it's also true that it has only one small outlet and is subject to a lot of human abuse.  I have not done any research into how long it takes the bay to make a complete water change, but I imagine there are tons of studies done on the subject and available to the curious online. 

But again, I diverge.  I posted the picture rivet sent of the beach set with a brown sand texture.  He has since then been tweaking the beach and foreshore textures, trying to get them darker and looking more like mud and less like sand.  He's on I think his third iteration and I'll show you here how we have evolved to where we are now.

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Now this may not look like much, but there are actually 2 different beach plops here.  The top on is the Maxis default beach found in the Parks menu and the second one is a plop from a set I downloaded a couple years ago.  Why is there no sand?  Because in this shot I have installed rivit's Transparent Beach testure mod into my plugins folder.  It allows the underlying texture of the terrain to show through where otherwise the plop's sand would be.  This was part of an experiment on our part to discover how the plop textures were affected, if at all, by rivit's mod textures.  It was also a learning tutorial for me, as I am trying to grasp how rivet is able to make these texture mods so that maybe someday I can make some for myself.  He is kinda teaching me SC101 as we go along and while I still don't understand more than I do understand, I think (not sure) that I am beginning to catch the fainest glimmers of understanding. 

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This is the same two plops with rivit's BrownMuddy Beach texture mod installed now instead of the Transparent.  Now I have a brown beach.  I did some fairly extensive terraforming of this area in preparation for these experiments, as I wanted a very shallow/flat beach and a very shallow/lightly sloping underwater area.  You can see the brown beach does not fade well into the surrounding water at all, but we were not too worried about that at the time.  One problem at a time.

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Same two plops, this time with the BrownMuddy Beach removed, allowing the Maxis default beach texture to display.  Notice the non-plopped areas of the beach retain their darker muddier color.  I think this is because those areas are controlled by rivit's Foreshore texture mod and which, as shown here, is still installed in the game.  Again, remember this was all in the nature of an experiment to figure out how that various CC stuff and Maxis default stuff worked together.

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This is the same pic I posted in my last non-update, showing once again the same two plops, but this time with some special underwater plops that help fade the beach colors into the surround water.  It's a decent fad, but I can still see where the underwater plops end, which does not make me very happy.  Still, if this was the best we could do, I'd go with it and just chalk it up to limitations of the game.

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Ok, this is where things start getting exciting.  Rivit sent me a new set of beach plops made by someone named Homer.  They are neither better or worse than the other beach plops I had been using, just a little busier (lots of props and people animations) and they have a much more extensive set of underwater plops.  And unlike the other set I was using, the Homer set has a 1x1 sand only beach plop tile.  Ah-ha!

So the pick above shows the new Homer beach plops with rivit's BrownMuddy Beach.  Rivit also created his first mayor mode plop tile, an irregular 1x1 plop that (accidently, by the way) matches his Beach texture mod.  I had requested this, as I need a way to sften and blur the edges of the beach plops, as mud flats do not have straight edges and the change in terrain between mud and non-mud is not a razor's edge.  The same is true for use underwater.  You can see I have plopped some brown TPW across the beach, always keeping in mind getting the PW to GW transition to work, too.  We still have a ways to go for that one and have been brainstorming how to accomplish it, but right now we're concentrating on making mud.  In this pic, you can see the use of grasses, specifically the brown and green Johnson grass (I forget who made these, but they are excellent, as is the entire pack of flora it comes with) are very effective at hiding the edges of both the TPW and the transition from mud to natural terrain.  The mud is still a little light and a little red/pink to my eyes, so rivet mad a new one that I like better and which we will see next.  His new little 1x1 beach plop also has a bit of a problem in that I am not able to plop TPW over it and my hope was to use it the make muddy stream banks for my TPW to flow along.  Rivit believes there may be an in-game defined limit as to how many "layers" of objects can plop over each other and I think he may be right.  His 1x1 plop is set at +1m above ground level and TPW is at +4, so theoretically the TPW should plop and display over the top of the 1x1 tile, but it doesn't.  Do, back to the drawing board with that one.  I think we are going to need 2 of these tiles, one to plop at ground level above the water line and another to plop below the waterline, but rivet is opposed to making tons of specialized tiles and I can't blame him, as he's really doing all the work, so he is working on a solution that will allow me to plop TPW over mud.  One of the things he is doing (shhhh, don't tell anyone) is creating his own TPW.

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This is the same shot, this time with rivit's new BrownMuddy Beach texture.  I like the darker color much better, but now the 1x1 plop doesn't work at all.  We're working on that.  I also like much better the was the TPW looks against the darker mud

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And this is showing off future eye candy possibilities, if you think mud flats can be eye candy.  Rivit took one of the large Homer plops and stripped it of all it's props, giving me a "naked" mud flat to plop.  This is a pic at furthest zoom, with the underwater Homer plops carried all the way out to the deep water channel.  If you think this looks pretty good, it gets better.

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Next zoom in and now the TPW stream I laid down shows up.  We are having some trouble with color banding underwater, especially close in to the waterline, but are working on that.  The mud is still a bit too red, I would like to see it greener/greyer.  Rivit thinks this may be due to underlying terrain coming through.  Still, the fade from mud to blue water is so good, so seamless, I am so happy.

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Next zoom in and the banding shows up a little more here, but you know, if it's too hard to get rid of, I could live with it and explain it away as tidal ripples in the mud. 

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Now if that ain't a pretty picture, I don't know what is.  Never thought I could get this excited about mud flats, but hey...you gotta admit this is a pretty good look.  I've tried it on steeper beaches and it works just as well on them as well, the fade to deeper water happens quicker (less underwater tiles to plop). 

So that's it for this update.  Your comments and feedback encouraged.  Rivit is reading here to see how folks react to his work, so if you think he should assemble a Mud Flat Pack, be sure to let him know!  We aren't done yet, still have work to do, but we are closing in rapidly and I think the work he has done is just stunning. 

Lora/LD

Very impressive indeed!  You're putting those new items to good use.  I'm looking forward to seeing more as always!

@Rivit: I'll be keeping an eye out for this set of lots and plops to be released, keep up the great work! 

Well none replied, so I think I will give my opinion on this for a chance;
First of all, I am amazed by the work you put into your updates. Your goal to make your SF as close as possible to real life, makes me respect you.
I wouldn't be able to do such a thing.  :thumbsup:

But, I've to say that after countless of updates like this.. the updates become slightly boring. Not that they are not good, but I find it less enjoying to even watch it.

Cheers!  ;)
- Glowbal

I'd have to agree with you - that the beaches around here aren't that great - but, since it's almost always between 55°F-65°F (12°-18°C) all year, it doesn't really matter too most. There are a few that are mostly inaccessible or rarely accessed because one has to climb down a steep cliff or something. But, you're pretty spot on with the muddiness of it all. The Bay is VERY 'dirty'...but, not necessarily due to pollution. The tidal flows are quite impressive and they stir up a lot of silt. And, it doesn't help that the average depth is around 14', I think. There are many places where one can actually walk pretty far out into the Bay before it goes over 6', though. Even the ocean outside the Gate isn't very 'clean' - I can't see my feet in the water below my surfboard.

Well, it was a quiet weekend here on the MD, guess everyone was outside grabbing the nice weather.  For those of us north of the equator, it's the tail end of summer and the beginning of fall.  Here in Seattle was had a marvelous weekend, warm, sunny, and soft breezes coming into the city from of the bay.  For those south of the equator, it's spring and the weather is warming and tress and flowers are blooming, waking up after thier winter sleep.  Rivit and I have run into a bit of a road block with the development of the mudflats, so we decided to step away from the project for a time and let our brains rest (his more than mine...he's been working almost exclusively on mudflats for almost two weeks).  And I've been so caught up with mudflats that I have kinda ignored the rest of my region, so over the weekend I took the opportunity to get back to the Stafford Lake area and do some research, plotting, and exploring in preparation for building the next phase of the city tile.  But before I post the update, time to pay attention to those folks who stopped by to visit and comment.




Battlecat:  Thanks for you comments and glad you are liking what rivit and I are trying to concoct between us.  In the ongoing correspendence between he and I, I have pretty much gathered that he is planning to release this new set of mods and lots, but we are testing it back and forth between us to make sure it works as intended.

Glowbal:  Hello and welcome to my MD!  Always great to "see" a new face and "hear" a new voice chiming in, I hope you stop by often!  And yeah, I know some folks get bored with all the tremendous detail I go into and how many of the screenshots can appear to be very repetitive, but like I said in my introductory statement for this MD, this may not be everyone's ball of wax.  You seem to understand that I am attempting as nearly accurate a recreation of the SF Bay Area as the game will allow me, so you must also understand that it takes a lot of attention to small details pulled from many sources to be able to pull such a feat off well.  Combined with that, I have to take a very close look at all of the tools the game and custom content developers have created over the years, to find that "just right" look to make the recreation as credible as possible.  I am hoping you have read the MD from beginning to end and realize that this is not a project that will move quickly at any point in time.  The region is huge, consisting of 130 large city tiles and so far I have only done a little building and terraforming in one city tile, Stafford Lake.  Also, this MD is still actually very young, so I'm still doing a lot of behind the scenes research as I work on the first city tile.  I've only been up and running with this project for about 2 months and plan to spend several YEARS developing it, so things will always move along a bit slowly here.  I appreciate your input though and in truth try to stay sensitive to my readers wants, which is why rivit and I are taking a break from the mud flats and I am returning to building for a while.  I just thought that while the background work for the bay coastlines may be boring for some, it could very well be fascinating for others.  I am 2 city tiles away from any coastal tiles, so all this work on mudflats is in the nature of "homework", preparation for work to come months down the road. 

threeswept:  Thanks for your input and for stopping by and I'm so glad my comments about the water quality of the SF Bay Area did not offend you.  One really need only look at the basic geography of the bay to understand that it couldn't possibly be very clean water.  The two big rivers, the Sacramento and San Juaquin, that enter the bay carry a phenomal silt load...I think they are draining the second largest watershed on the entire west coast (the Columbia River being #1, I think).  All that silt has been pouring into SF bay since the end of the last ice age and continues daily, so yeah...I can't imagine the water would be swimming pool clear and blue at any point.  And given the overall massive size of the bay and the relatively small outlet/inlet at the Golden Gate, the bay really has no way of flushing itself very well, even with a twice a day tide change.  I amagine the tidal flow through the Golden Gate is extremely fierce, more like a river than anything else during tide changes.  I can't imagine trying to take a boat of ANY size through that small gap if the tide was running against me.  I'll bet the Pacific Ocean is muddy/silty many dozens of miles, if not further, out to sea west of the Golden Gate.  Makes one think about the forces the engineers who built the GG bridge had to consider when designing the footing that hold the bridge in place.  I never paid attention before, but now I wonder if there are any footings in the Golden Gate itself or if it is totally suspended from footing on either shore.  Any footing built in the water of the GG would be subject to tremendous water forces, not to mention erosion from all the silt-laden water rushing by 2 times a day during tide changes.  And...that's kind of a drag for me, as I have a city tile border that occurs in the middle of the GG, meaning I am going to have to build an island in the middle of the GG gap in order to build the bridge.  In RL, such an island could never exist...the water forces would destroy it. 




Ok, so now I want to build the road that veers off from Hicks Valley Road and goes down to the base of the Novato Creek Dam, then up the face of the dam and around the south side of Stafford Lake before heading up into the hills south of the lake.  This is going to present me with some challenges, as once the road leaves the dam administration building, it becomes first a street and then later a gravel road.  I have never used the SAM puzzle pieces, so I don't know how accurately I can follow the actual route of the road, but I'll do the best I can.

I have already laid down the road route using sub alpine pines, and using the method of counting grids square intersections I have shown you before, so I didn't take any pics of that process.  However, I am now ready to try to plop my first section of road, the intersection of Novato Creek Rd. with Hicks Valley Rd.  In RL, Novato Creek Rd kinda dives down a bit of slope as it leaves the main road, then it travels west and parallel with Hicks Valley Rd for a bit before turning south and crossing over the dam's spillway.  Now, I had removed all my slope mods from my plugins folder when I was working on the dam last week, but now I am going to need to use one again, problem is, I don't know which one.  Using my best guess, which isn't very good, as I don't have a lot of experience with the slope mods, I'm going to start first with Mounted.  Lets see how that works out.

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So this is what we have to begin with.  Lets see if I have a pic on file that shows the RL intersection.  If not, I'll go get one from Google Earth.

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Lets check it out from street level.

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Well, when seen from street level, the road doesn't seem to drop off much at all, does it?  In fact, there appears to be a small hill to the south of the road (we are looking roughly west here).  Hmmm.  Thinking.  Do I need to terraform my game to match?  Maybe, we'll see.  Notice how polite the Google Earth folks were in pixelating any ID info on the truck passing by when the photo was taken.  I'd like to walk down the road a bit and look at some things I am curious about.  The "natural" stream crosses under this road at some point and I'd like to see if I can find that.  Also, there is a creek coming in from the north that goes under Hicks Valley Rd and joins the natural stream at some point, so maybe I can see that, too.  Let's take a walk.  Looks like a nice day for a walk along a dusty, shady road.

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Signage and a bike path. Nice details, I hope I can incorporate them.

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A gate, a fence, and not a hill at all to the left side of the road, but a ravine.  Do I hear water running down there?

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Looking back the way we came, there is an hill there and the ravine that runs next to the road appears to skirt around it.  Interesting the way the scrub oak grows out over the road, making a bit of a canopy.  Nothing like plants/nature to teach us all about engineering.  That's a pretty sizable cantilever!

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Well, we are looking back again, east (dead ahead) and south (to the right) of the road and rather obviously there is no ravine here.  That makes me think there is likely a culvert back towards the entrance of the road that leads either the natural stream and/or the creek from the north side of Hicks Valley Rd into that ravine.  Using the pan feature, the ground all around where I am standing is fairly flat.  Let's continue up the road and see if there's more to learn.

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Looking north of the road here and hey, is that water I see at about the center of the picture?  Had to tell, but I think it is.

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Turning just a tad east and south, I think I can see a very shallow ravine and a tiny streamlet running parallel to the road here. 

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To the left of the pic you can see what I think may be a streamlet and to the right you can see a marker of some sort.  I'm willing to bet the marker shows the location of the culvert that goes under the road and feeds this little streamlet (only about 18"-24" wide) into the ravine on the other side.  I'm just guessing, but I think this may be the creek from the north side of Hicks Valley Rd.  It's hard to keep my bearings in street view, so I'm not certain where I am in relation to where that creek is, but it seems about right, intuitively, and I think the shallow ravine to the south side of the road is the natural stream that bypasses the dam and spillway. 

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This is the opposite side of the road (south) and while the ravine is still there, it's quit shallow.  I think this is the natural stream and the reason the ravine gets steeper further back towards the entrance to the road is both because of topography and the result of two small combined waterflows.  I'm kinda running out of time to follow this up, but would like to walk just a little further up the road to see if I can discover where the natural stream goes under.

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Well this confirms it for me, that is indeed a small stream running next to the road, between Novato Creek Rd and Hicks Valley Rd. 

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And while I'm not yet sure, now looking at the other side of the road, I am thinking this may be where the natural stream exits a culvert.  But looking up stream a bit I see something that makes me wonder about this.

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At the left side of the picture we can see an obvious depression.  Looks like a waterway to me.  We are approaching the bridge over the spillway now and I think we may also be seeing some kind of human made barrier between the natural stream and the water of the spillway.  Lets walk up a little further and see if that helps clarify anything.

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Look between the two rocks at the bottom of the photo and then up to about the center of the pic.  I think this is the natural stream culvert inlet.  I almost took a pic from my last position that showed a strangely flat area in about the same place.  Now lets look back down the road a little bit.

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See that small copse of trees and the depression they are growing around?  I think this is where the natural stream "daylights" for a small stretch, exiting a culvert and then entering another that takes it below the service road we can see in the back ground. 

And that's all the time I have for this evening.  If I can I will try to post this later tonite, but most likely it will happen tomorrow, Sunday.  Having walked the road and learned what I have learned, I may want to think again about building my roads, as it seems I have several culverts I need to think about and I may want to build them first.

I also (heaving a deep sigh) have to think about the spillway.  Novato Creek Rd bridges the spillway at a diagonal and this presents challenges I'm not sure I am prepared to confront quite yet.  Then there is the spillway itself.  Game-wise, it's tiny, about half a cell wide or even less, and it runs across a diagonal path.  Given the tools available, I don't think I can render it accurately in game, so I am not sure how to deal with it.  Stay tuned.

Lora/LD

Hey again, Lora!

First of all; Did you forget the pictures? Since im only able to see the first 2.

QuoteHello and welcome to my MD!  Always great to "see" a new face and "hear" a new voice chiming in, I hope you stop by often!  And yeah, I know some folks get bored with all the tremendous detail I go into and how many of the screenshots can appear to be very repetitive, but like I said in my introductory statement for this MD, this may not be everyone's ball of wax.  You seem to understand that I am attempting as nearly accurate a recreation of the SF Bay Area as the game will allow me, so you must also understand that it takes a lot of attention to small details pulled from many sources to be able to pull such a feat off well.  Combined with that, I have to take a very close look at all of the tools the game and custom content developers have created over the years, to find that "just right" look to make the recreation as credible as possible.  I am hoping you have read the MD from beginning to end and realize that this is not a project that will move quickly at any point in time.  The region is huge, consisting of 130 large city tiles and so far I have only done a little building and terraforming in one city tile, Stafford Lake.  Also, this MD is still actually very young, so I'm still doing a lot of behind the scenes research as I work on the first city tile.  I've only been up and running with this project for about 2 months and plan to spend several YEARS developing it, so things will always move along a bit slowly here.  I appreciate your input though and in truth try to stay sensitive to my readers wants, which is why rivit and I are taking a break from the mud flats and I am returning to building for a while.  I just thought that while the background work for the bay coastlines may be boring for some, it could very well be fascinating for others.  I am 2 city tiles away from any coastal tiles, so all this work on mudflats is in the nature of "homework", preparation for work to come months down the road. 

I have been following this MD from the very first post, basicly read it all. :)
It's a good thing to not keep updating about 1 thing all the time; it will become boring for people. To much of the same without anything else in between will mostly work 'discouraging' (forgive me, I do not know the correct word. But I hope you get me).

Just know that as long im around at sc4devotion, I will keep following this MD. I like the way you work, apart from to many updates about the same thing sometimes.
Perhaps that's just a personal thing. But hey, who am I not to say this? ;)  Never said is never heard.

Cheers! ;)
- Glow


Edit; Congratz on page 11, and reply #200.

It is quite fascinating...the tidal flows. Not quite the Amazon when fresh water meets the ocean, but there is an area called Potatoe Patch http://www.sfsailing.org/news/potato-patch/ which explains what happens to the silt. It's quite a sight to see out in the ocean. And, when you have the extra time, you should check this out http://www.sfmuseum.net/assoc/bridge03.html for how the towers were built. The North Tower - not mentioned here, was built on a bedrock shelf, 20' below the water.

nice !!

I found time this afternoon (Tuesday), to post the remaining pictures in the last Update, so if you missed them the first time around, you may want to page back for a peek. 

Busy evening planned today.  My roomie and I are having a roast beef dinner, then I have my knitting meeting.  When I get home from that, roomie and I are planning to watch a movie, maybe two (Benjamin Button and Wolverine, two gorgeous men, both of them are my boyfriends), so it's not likely I'll get around to another update tonite.  Don't despair, I have nothing planned for tomorrow!

Lora/LD

Looks pretty interesting in that area.  I'm not sure you're going to need to worry to much about those culverts since they're quite small.  Based on the size of the stream and the scale you're working at in SC4, you might be able to use the presence of the tree canopy to create the stream without having to worry about details that might not be at quite the right scale.  After all, with the angle and height we're looking at things from in SC4, culverts are quite often hidden in the foliage. 

But it's your project and I'll be interested to see what approach you decide to take if you do want to recreate those culvert explicitly!  Good luck! 

Just wanted everyone to know I have a new update all written and ready to post as of 12:42 am Friday morning, but am too tired to get to replies and then upload pics just now.  My day is clear of commitments tomorrow though, so tune back in Friday afternoon/evening.  The new update is all about in-game road building, so those who may have become bored with my out of game explorations should be pleased. 

Lora/LD

Well, guess I am ging to have to bump my own post to post this new update.  All the MDs seem to be a bit on the slow side this past week or so.  I wonder if it has anything to do with all the students going back to school?


Glowbal:  Thanks for coming by again!  And no I didn't forget to post the rest of the pictures in the last update, I just ran out of time after the first two.  I included a note to that effect, letting readers know I would come back and post the rest of the pictures the following day, which I did. Then you say:

QuoteIt's a good thing to not keep updating about 1 thing all the time; it will become boring for people. To much of the same without anything else in between will mostly work 'discouraging' (forgive me, I do not know the correct word. But I hope you get me).

Ya know, I kinda hate to say this, but the truth is I am not writing this MD with the sole purpose of entertaining others.  I am writing it primarily because I thought some folks might find my approach to the game interesting and given the responses so far, some folks do.  I am not a professional writer and while I do have aspirations to someday become such, few if any of the MD writers here create flawless prose and every writer, be thet amatuer or professional, bores thier readers from time to time.  So if how I write my MD and post updates bores some folks, such as yourself, then I would hope that those who are bored would at least have the manners not to say so, especially in such a public forum and not only say so once but twice.  My advice to anyone who becomes bored reading here is to skip over the parts that bore you, as I do when reading other people's MDs or any of the many books I read, and post constructive critisism, if you feel you must critisize.  Or, if the MD continues to bore you, then stop reading it entirely. 

On a more personal note, I put a tremendous amount of time and effort into this MD, mostly because I am out of work and have been for the past 15 months and my idle time weighs heavily on me.  As anyone knows who has been involuntarily unemployed for a very long period of time, it affects your mental state, your self-esteem and self-confidence.  I am no different and in perhaps what is in the nature of too much information, my mental state is fragile on my best of days during this extended idleness and I really don't need someone telling me that the hundreds of hours I have poured into this project over the past 3 months is boring.  If you don't have the patience to wait out the parts of the MD that bore you, then please refrain, from this point in time forward, from being so rude as to complain.  If you, Glowbal, continue to complain about being bored, I will contact a moderator and do a little complaing myself. 

On a lighter note, I am amused by the irony that your last post was post #200.  What a way to celebrate a milestone!

threeswept:  I visited both of the links you gave me, thank you, and yes, very interesting stuff.  Thanks for visiting and stop by again soon.  Surf's up and hang ten (I used to surf when I was a teenager, but never got good enough to stand all the way up on my board).

citymax:  Thanks!  Glad you enjoy!


Battlecat:  Yes, the large scale of the basic building block (the cell) of the game is going to make rendering most of these great little details I am finding nearly impossible.  I am going to look around and see if I can find some small culverts, as the ones I currently have in my plugins file are monsterous, a good 30' in diameter.  Scale issues have always been a problem for me with this game.  As a drafter and architect, I'm used to working to 1/16" accuracy at a scale of 1/4"=1', so working to an accuracy of 52.5' is a little frustrating.  A single cell is 256 pixels in each direction (I think, not sure), making 1' equal to approximately 5 pixels.  So, the little stream I found running along Novato Creek Rd. might have been all of 3' wide, which in game would translate to a whopping 15 pixels wide.  The smallest PW tile I have is PEG's 1/4 cell Tahoe which roughly scales out to about 13' in width.  So yeah, scale is a problem.  Even a 15' wide culvert is very large in RL and would be very small in game, so your suggestion to fake it using trees is an excellent one, one that I will take.  Thanks!




Well, it's taken me several evenings of fooling around with streets, roads, rails, slope mods, and various God Mode tools, but I think I finally got the road built tonite.  I didn't take any pictures of my painful struggles to achieve my success, so this update will be a little shy on screen shots. 

I had two major challenges...well, actually three.  One, learning how to use the various diagonal street puzzle pieces combined with Maxis streets and the (very) few FAR street puzzle pieces.  I learned that while road and street making CC folks have come a LONG way in busting the grid, there is still a very, very long way to go.  My wish list is so long I didn't even bother to write it down.  Novato Creek Rd. is actually a gravel road (or so it appears) once it starts up the side of the dam and as it continues west past the dam and along the south side of the lake, but the only gravel road mod I have is a 2 cell plop made by PEG and it only goes orthogonally, not along the diagonal, let alone any other angle.  So, rather than having my road change surface textures every 2-5 cells along it's way through the hills and valleys around the lake, I opted to keep things simple and just use the street textures. 

My second challenge was getting the road up the side of the dam and then past the dam to the side of the lake.  Pictures will show you the results, but leave it so say I am learning a lot about the various degrees of slope of the various slope mods and finding I'm not really falling in love with any of them (so far).  I could not get a street up the side of the dam, period, if I had ANY slope mod installed, so I ended up removing the slope mod completely and hand-terraforming, cell, by cell, a great deal of the road.  Even so, it's bumpy with lots of not very realistic grade changes.  I may go back and regrade this road if I ever get super bored, but for now I'm going to be content with it. 

My third challenge was coming to the realization that, given the limits of the gravel and dirt roads available, I am not likely to use any of them.  If I can find some "paintable" paths of various textures, I'll probably use those instead, as back-country vehicle access doesn't fall into a grid pattern.  Many dirt and gravel roads are also wide one laners with pullouts in wide spots, so this may actually be the better way to go.  Using a paintable path with also allow me to more closely follow the actual RL locations and terrain, but it also means I'll have to do quite a bit of hand terraforming to create realistic grades.  No rest for the wicked. 

So, at a very far zoom, this is what the completed road looks like:

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I'm going to go grab an image off Google Earth from about the same angle and height so we can all compare how well I did (or not).

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And because it's a little hard to see the road in this shot, I'm going to Photoshop it to highlight the road's route.

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Well, not too bad, but I can see I am going to have to nudge things around a bit later when I start to build the Disc Golf Course. 

But lets go look at some close up and see what still needs to be done.

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This is a wide shot of the intersection with Hicks Valley Rd. and something you may not be able to see or realize unless you page back a ways is that I have regraded Hicks Valley Rd. to be closer to the elevation of the base of the dam.  My little walk along Novato Creek Rd. in the last update informed me that Hicks Valley road was way to high.  You may remember that I deduced the elevation of Hicks Valley Rd and the top of the dam were roughly the same at the top of the spillway entrance, so I went back and checked to see if that was what I had built and found that no, the road (Hicks Valley) was quite high there, about 16 feet or so.  So I bulldozed the road and regarded it one cell at a time (this took a bit of time and a lot of trial and error) until I was finally able to get Hicks Valley Rd. down to where it needed to be directly next to the dam's spillway.  Then more careful terraforming to slowly grade the road surface down to where Novato Creek Rd. branches off.  This occupied most one of evening's game play.  However, I am happy with the results, as the intersection of the two roads is now nearly flat, just as it is in RL:

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There is a downward slope to Novato Creek Rd. that is not evidenced in the photos we've seen, but hey, it's a game and this was the best I could do.  The scale of the game really prevents me from doing much better, as the smallest unit I have to work with is 52.5 feet square. 

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I've zoomed out one level and rotated the view 90 degrees so we can see how the road comes down to the base of the dam and crosses the spillway (which is not yet built). 

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Rotating again, you can see how the road climbs the face of the dam and the cliff that resulted from my terraforming the road surface flat.  I will build a water filtration plant to the left side of the road at the bottom of the dam, most likely a Maxis default.  Given the high level of detail I have concerning this plant, I'd love to try to BAT it, but it's on a diagonal and I have not yet tried my hand at BATing, so for now I'll just plop a Maxis lot in there as a placeholder for later.

I actually have a lot of work to do here in this stretch of road, as I need to soften the cliff down to a hill not only here but all along the south side of the dam (left side of the picture).  My primary concern for this update, though, was getting the road in, so softening the terrain to the south of the road will be another update further down the line.

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This compound curve is actually something I am quite proud of and took a while to accomplish.  This is (2) 2x4 FAR street curves used back to back with each other and rotated 180 degrees from each other.  I won't tell you how much time was involved in getting this to work because it really doesn't matter.  What matters to me is that I think it looks quite good and if you look at the RL road above, it's pretty close. 

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Moving west along the road, this was a tricky spot to negotiate and I'll likely bulldoze this and do it over later when I install the golf course.  As the road climbs the hill to the right side of the picture, in RL there is at least one golf green to the top side of the road, so you can see I need to do some terraforming here.  But I am anxious to begin work on the lake, so I'm ignoring the golf course for the time being.

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This is another stretch I'll likely redo sometime in the future, but as a placeholder while I build the lake, it works fine for me for now.

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And this is the last leg of the road so far, as it heads up into the hills south of the lake.  That nice big curve is a 4x4 FAR piece and while I didn't terraform the road bed ahead of time, I think it looks good as a placeholder for the time being, don't you? 

And that's it for this update.  Next up is to terraform the lake's island and then plop the lake itself, then start adding some flora.  Some exciting stuff coming up, so stay tuned!

Lora/LD

Looking good!  Building streets over slopes tends to be a bit of a pain, you've done a very nice job with it!  Looking forward to seeing some water flow in here! 

With regards to the trees simulating streams, David (Dedgren) had some good ideas in his Three Rivers Region project.  The basic idea was to pick out a particular type of tree model that stands out from the ones you're using for the rest of the area and use those along most of your rivers and streams.  Then, when your stream gets to narrow to build explicitly with plopable water, you continue a line of those trees styles associated with water without the water.  Once you put the rest of the trees in, you'll be creating the illusion of a wetter area for the people looking at your region after it's done! 

Looking forward to seeing what's next!

Great Update, Lora.

All of your work makes me want to do a reacreation now!
Maybe I will....

Ethan

Fascinating work, Lora! I'm sorry you've had to contend with some viewers who don't know when to keep their opinions to themselves (I can relate), but you're free to run your MD however you please. Don't let a couple bad apples ruin the barrel! I, for one, will definitely be back for more.

Zack

Battlecat:  Yeah, I know folks are getting impatient for me to get some water going in this MD and I'm working on it, as this update shows.  Patience, my precious, patience!  As for dedgren's method of simulating small watercourses, yes I am familiar with it and plan to use it.  My only problem is that all the flora is California Live Oak and scrub bushes, so finding a plant/tree to use to signify the presence of water may be a challenge.  I may have to do some botanical research to learn some of the native plants of the area.

ecoba/Ethan: Glad you stopped by and are enjoying my work.  And while I may be inspiring you to attempt a recreation project of your own, might I suggest you pick something smaller and easier?  You have a lot on your plate already with school and music, so don't overwhelm yourself!

woodb3kmaster/Zack: Well, this is a little embarrassing.  Now I think I've gone and hurt Glowbal's feelings, unintentionally, just as he unintentionally hurt mine.  He wrote me a very contrite PM aplogizing and saying he'd honor my request for him to stop posting, as such was his perception of my last reply to him.  Boy, did *I* feel like a ghoul.  I have PM'd him back making my own apologies and asking him to please continue stopping by and posting, just maybe to be a little more careful about how he words his critques.  I don't think English is his native language and so part of our misunderstanding could be the differences in our respective mother tongues.  I have invited him to come back and comment on this new update, so maybe (I hope) he will.

And, I'm glad you are enjoying my work! 




This is likely to be yet another short update, as I don't think it will take a lot of work to squash down the island in the lake to a more appropriate elevation, but I thought maybe folks might be interested in my process, both mental and in game. 

We've looked at and discussed this island a little bit in the past, but I'd like to review a bit, so folks won't have to page back to find previous chatter on the subject.  Also because I have not yet taught myself how to make links from one post to another, but don't tell anyone, OK?

Lets look first at the RL island.  I think I have an aerial in my files that will work nicely for this.  Well, I guess I don't after all.  That's ok, I was thinking about taking some street view shots across the lake from Hicks Valley Rd towards the island, anyway, so I'll just fire up Google Earth and save some new shots.

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Ok, here's an aerial from about 4000'.  You should be able to see the scale at the left side of the pic showing a distance of about 1120'.  I'm going to use a scrape of paper and copy the scale and measure the island to compare it's RL size to mine in the game.  Having done that, I'm going to call it 840'x300' +/-.  Some of the islands characteristics should be noted.  It is fairly flat overall.  It slopes steeper on the side towards the dam and less so away from the dam.  It really only seems to have significant flora on the dam side of the island.  The flora on the island appears to be generally the same as the other flora around the lake and in the area.

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Rotating 90 degrees and zooming in.  There appears to be a semi-obvious high water mark and the water level shown here appears to be below that.  We are oriented in such a way that south is to the top of the picture.  There is some degree of "beach" to the south, a little bit of beach to the west and east, and none to the north.  This lead me to conclude the lake is shallower at the south tip of the island and deeper at the north side.  This will come in handy when I start plopping the lake, as you will see when I get there.  Ok, that enough of the aerials, now I'm going to go to street view and walk a bit along Hicks Valley Rd. to see if I can learn anything else new.

Not really.  Well, other than that there are power poles along the lake side of Hicks Valley Rd., as well as the bike path we saw in update 22. 

But before I fire up the game and get to work, I want to review my topo map of the island.

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The dark contour line on the island is 200' and the lighter one is 220'.  I remember I decided to set the max height of the island at 230', which is halfway to the next contour upwards.  So now I need to do my meters to feet conversion and subtract 250m to figure out what my max game elevation is going to be.  Mathaphobes beware!  :::grabbing my cheat sheet::: 

One meter=3.28 feet.  So, 230/3.28=70.12 metes.  Now add 250m for game sea level and max height on the island should be 320.12. 

Ok, now I'll fire up my game.

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So the island is about 16m too tall.  That's a lot, over 48 feet!  Boy, this is going to be a very flat island!  I also think the south beachs, to the bottom of the pic above, look a little steep.  So, let's get to work.

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I'm going to start by digging a small hole at the highest end of the island using my MM Valley tool, with controls set at 1 and F1.  Then I'm going to go all the way around the square to create a semi-flat cell at the max elevation.

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I queried the center of the cell here rather than the corners because, well, this doesn't need to be as exact as other stuff I've been doing and this gives me an idea as to how close I am, in general terms, to where I want to be.  Now I'm going to plop street tiles and flatten the top of the island.

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Ok, now I have flattened the top of the island to the max height, so I'm going to go back and kaboom all the street tiles I just laid.

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A bit of gratuitous violence, for those who love to blow things up (or see things being blown up).

Now I'm just going to use the MM Valley tool again, this time much more carefully, and sculpt a more natural looking landscape object. 

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And there you have it.  It looks a little rough now, but by the time the water is plopped and the flora added, I think it will be pretty good.

And that's it for this update.  Hope you enjoy!  Next up is (finally!) plopping the lake, which is likely to be a long update and take me several play sessions to accomplish, so stay tuned!

Lora/LD

Unbelievable :o

Bobbi :thumbsup:

I like the way that the attention to detail continues.  After all, IRL careful planning must be done when a lake is to be built.  The terrain must be cleared and altered.  Of course, SC4 gave us the single road tile which works quite well for terrain-leveling purposes.  I use this technique regularly when I build highway overpasses, particularly for sunken highways, to ensure that the terrain is level on both sides.  Keep up the good work, Lora.  I'm looking forward to seeing the lake when it's completed.

&apls

Great Update, Lora.

Your careful planning and attention to detail is amazing.

If I do start a recreation, I don't think it would be as big as SF.

I cannot wait for more of your work, Lora.

Ethan

Just want you all to know I am working on an update, plopping Stafford Lake, and have run into some unexpected snags.  Been working on this for the past 3 evenings and have lots of pics, but I am not happy with any of my results so far, so I am continueing to chip away.

I am not absent of ignoring anyone, just bust behind the scenes trying to get this lake to plop the way I want it too. 

This is also a busy time of the week for me, Monday and Tuesday, so I've been a bit distracted. This post-weekend distraction is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, so I guess folks need to get used to it. Monday and Tuesday are the days when I actually get to interact with real live human beings, and being as how I am mostly housebound the rest of the week, well, I guess you can figure it out from there. 

Tonite was an especially good example.  I had my knitting meeting tonite.  Last week I started a new pattern for a pair of slippers and completed the first slipper Monday morning.  It was way too small and there were other problems with it, like a seam running up the middle of the foot.  So I took the slipper with me to tonite's meeting and we discussed how to modify this pattern to make it work better.  So, tonite I started a new slipper, after unraveling the first one. 

My roomie and I have also started to designate Tuesday evening as movie night, a night when we watch a movie together.  We have recently agreed to split the cost of a Netflix account.  We have not yet activated that agreement, so we are still renting movies from Blockbuster, which is 1 block away.  Tonite, on my recommendation, we watched "Vanishing Point".  Michael didn't care for the film at all.  I saw the film in a theatre within days of it's opening back in 1971, when Michael was 1 year old and I was 17, so there is not only a generation gap between us for understanding and appreciating the film, but also the fact that film is nostalic for me.  Whatever...he didn't care for the film and I enkoyed seeing it again immensely. 

So, this MD, besides staying on topic, may also veer off into movies and knitting from time to time.  Just a heads up.

Lora/LD

Bobbi:  Thank you so very much and welcome to my MD!  Stay tuned, lots more good stuff to come.

metarvo:  Thanks for stopping by and commenting, always appreciated!  And yes, the creation of a man-made lake in RL is fraught with many issues.  I saw a program on TV maybe 12-18 months ago about a huge new dam being built in China, Three Gorges Dam I think it's called, on the confluence of three major tributaries of the Yellow (Yangtze?) River.  The natural terrain is quite steep and the dam is planned to be quite tall, so the new lake will reach very far inland from the dam.  Hundreds of villages and towns needed to be relocated, so new cities are being built to house the dislocated populace.  An engineering project of immense scale!  Novato Creek Dam and it's resultant Stafford Lake are tiny projects by comparision, but much much still be considered.  It's unfortunate (to my mind) that so many of these dam-building projects of the last century or so never bothered to take into account the effect would have on the native flora and fauna.  As a child of the 50's who came of age during the 60's amd 70's, I remember the birth of the environmental movement and how the whole "green" movement has grown from being seen as a lunatic fringe group of "tree-huggers" to a mainstream trend.  A project such as the Three Gorges Dam could probably never be built in the US today, due to environmental damage such a project would incur.  Personally, I agree that this is how it should be and while I marvel at the engineering of the Chinese project, I am appalled at the cost to both the peoples of the area and the native flora and fauna. 

But, philosophy aside, I'm glad you (among others) appreciate my attention to detail, even if no animals or plants were injured or killed in the process.

ecoba/Ethan: I'm glad you stopped by and very glad you are enjoying my work/play.  You and Battlecat are becoming my two biggest fans.  Which is not to discount all the others who post here, I appreciate any and all comments and posters. 

As for Lily's gash, Neosporin should do the trick.  I have three cats of my own and always have a tube of Neosporin around, in case of injuries.  However, if Lily acquired her wound while adventuring in the world outside of the house, you may want to consider adapting her to being an indoor-only kitty.  Indoor kitties live longer, healthier lives that indoor-outdoor kitties do.  I am assuming she is spayed.  She's a very pretty girl, I hope she recovers quickly.  Have you any idea how the injury was incurred? 




Well, at long last, I am going to plop Stafford Lake.  Is that a cheer I hear?  Let's start by taking a look at what we have to work with now that roads, dam, and the island have been taken care of:

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One of my concerns is that the borders of the lake are quite flat in some areas and that once I kaboom the street tiles, I am going to lose track of where the lake ends and the water starts.  So, I'm going to start my PW prep by placing markers along the shoreline.  I want to be careful doing this, as I'll need to kaboom the markers later and don't want to inadvertently kaboom any of the lake at the same time.  So rather than placing markers directly on the shorelines, I'm going to set them back a bit and into a cell of their own.  I'll probably end up kabooming a few PW tiles when I remove the markers, but hopefully this method will keep the rebuilding of lake tiles to a minimum. 

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Unfortunately, my marker trees disappear at further zooms, so I can't gather a complete screen shot of the entire lake.  Notice I did not go all the way around the lake with markers, as in many places the shorelines are steep enough that I'll still be able to know where the lake ends even after the street tiles are gone.  I basically just placed markers where the terrain has little or no slope.  I also kept all the markers at least a half cell away from any street tile.  So now I'll kaboom the street tiles.

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ACK!  After months of looking at those street tiles holding down the boundries of the lake, it sure looks naked all the sudden!  And BIG!  And ya know, this is a bit of a milestone for me.  Not only is this Update 25, but this is really going to be my first big recreation build.  The dam was really just careful terraforming and the roads, well, how exciting are roads to build?  But a lake?  That's exciting!

So, I have a method I use for building PW bodies of water.  I use several layers of PW, to create an illusions of depth.  I use Edmonton, which is a very dark opaque blue for deep water, and Tahoe for shallower water that still too deep to be transparent.  The edges between the two dark PW's are then "blurred" using underwater plants, then the entire area is overlaid with TPW.  I don't remember where I learned this method or who pioneered it, but I find it to be most effective and realistic in appearance. 

This lake is not really very deep anywhere, I don't imagine, but I surmise it's deepest up next to the dam and around the north side of the island, so I am going to start with laying down some Edmonton tiles in those areas.

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So this is where I have decided the extents of my deep water will be.  Next I switch to the Tahoe PW, and lay down the medium deep water.

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So here we have the Tahoe bordering and blending with the Edmonton.  I used the ¼ tile Tahoe all the way around the Edmonton, laying it down one tile at a time.  I find the ¼ tile Tahoe to be incredibly useful, I just wish I had similar PW plops of other colors.  If you ever want to use this method in your own city, be sure to rotate your views all the way around the compass and zoom in close enough to see those areas that the PW tiles miss, then plop a tile to cover it. 

Now that I have my deep and medium deep water blended (so far...more blending to come), I'll plop the rest of the Tahoe to designate the medium deep water. 

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Now, from RL pics of the area, I know the western (left) edge of the lake is very shallow and muddy with lots of underwater plant growth.  For now, I'll worry about that later.  When viewing the above pic, notice that I have kept the Tahoe PW away from the shore lines where I had placed marker trees and brought it closer to the shore line in areas of steeper beaches.  Looking at my RL maps and pics,  I think there might be some deeper water to the west of the island, so I an going to correct that now.

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I had to kaboom some of the Tahoe PW to install the Edmonton, but that's OK.  Now comes the use of  underwater plants to further blur the edges between the Edmonton and Tahoe.  For some reason, attempting to place the plants after the TPW had been laid doesn't work as well, so I'll place the flora now, before the TPW.

Several days later.

Well, I have been having all sorts of problems with both the underwater flora but, more especially, plopping the TPW over the Tahoe and Edmonton.  I have been experimenting with a number of methods over the past few days and think I have something figured out, but it's going to take some time to plop the TPW, so I think I'll go ahead and post this update, as far as it is so far and leave the TPW overlay for another update. 

Lora/LD

PS.  Can any of you MD gurus tell me how to modify my thread heading to show the posting of new updates? 

Thanks, Lora, I'll try that. I have 3 cats myself. Lily, and her sister Jetta, who is my profile, and a stray I took in, Jane.

I deleted the first post because I felt it irrelevant.

I didn't know different ploppable waters had names! I just had the Blue, Teal-Green, and Muddy. What water is this?

Ugh, would I would give to have a laptop that I could take with me, to Stafford Lake, hold up the laptop in front of me, and say, Lora's lake looks exactly the same!

Part 1, that's something I always like to hear, because it most definitely means there's more.

Thanks for the advice, Lora.

Ethan

Looking good!  Using two different types of PW on a single feature tends to be quite challenging.  I've tried it once early on in my MD as well, I'm still not 100% happy with the results though. 

For changing your MD title, all you have to do is change what's typed in the Subject portion of the post when you create a new entry.  You can even use the modify feature to change your post title after the fact. 

I never even thought of using diferent styles of plopable water to mark the deeper parts of the lake. It looks really good. So far all of the carefull planning is really starting to pay off!

ecoba/Ethan: Well, the various PWs do have names, kinda sorta.  There are a lot of PW's out there, just like there are a lot of water mods that change the color of the game water.  To distinguish between the PW's, some of the folks who make them give them names.  PEG has made a PW he calls "Tahoe".  It's the lighter blue one I use.  I am not remembering now who made the "Edmontonv2" that I use for the darker blue water, but that was the name it's creator gave it, also.  Dogfight has a bunch of PW's and I think he named them each, also, and he has a bunch of water mods as well and I think he named each of those as well.  I think the PW's you have and are referring to are jeronij's TPW (Transparent Plop Water), which I also have and have used below, the blue one.  And while it may be possible for you to take a laptop to Stafford Lake and compare my game lake with the real one, I highly doubt they would look very much alike to each other.  But thanks for the vote of confidence and, as always, thanks for stopping by!

Battlecat: Actually, I am using 3 types of PW, 2 opque and then the TPW over the top of them.  And it's not fun at all, as my efforts below reveal.  However, I think the end result is worth the time and effort.  Hope you agree and thanks for stopping by!

just_a_guy:  I would never have thought of it on my own, either, so please don't give me credit for the technique.  I don't remember who's MD it was, but I saw someone else make lakes and rivers this way and was very impressed with the results, so I copied it. 



So, I have been having some troubles with plopping the TPW over the opaque PW.  In looking closely at my MM flora menu, where my TPW icons reside, I find I have (2) sets of the blue TPW, which plop slightly differently from each other.  The first set displays slightly differently in the menu in that it appears to be bounded by a suggestion of shoreline, even though, when plopped, no shoreline is included.  This set has plop tiles in 1, 2, 3, and .5 plop cell widths.  Looking closely, the water texture and color seems to be slightly greener than the second set.

The second set shows no shorelines in the menu icons and there are three options: 1, 1.5, and 2 cell plops.  The water is slightly blue-er and when plopped in the game has what I think of as an "ice" texture.  I have found one set plops over opaque PW better than the other, but, forgive my senior moments, I don't remember which right now.  I think it's the first set.  Regardless, I was able to plop the blue TPW over my opaque PW the other night, in the area to the west of the island, and this is what it looks like:

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You can see the "ice" effect I am talking about on a few of the tiles that are covering the Edmonton "deep water" I created to the west of the island.  I don't mind this at all...water is one of the hardest things to render realistically in games due to it's chaotic and very dynamic aspects.  Fire is the same.  So different shades and water effects adds to realism, to my mind, rather than detracting from it. 

Having covered most of the Edmonton deep water (finally), my task now is to cover the rest of the lake with TPW and create some decent looking shorelines along the edge of the lake.

I have seen other folks use underwater flora to help obscure and blur the boundaries between shades of opaque PW and TPW and shorelines.  From my own experimentation with this technique, I have found the flora needs to be plopped first most of the time.  My ongoing conversations with rivet have revealed that the game has limits as to how many objects can be layered one over the other and my want to use opaque PW, flora, and TPW over both is stretching the game's acceptable limits.  Perhaps it's my computer and it's specs, because I have seen other folks create the effect I am trying to achieve.  Then again, it may be my technique. 

So, for the time being, I am going to forego using underwater flora to blur the edges of my various water mods and instead just see if I can get the TPW to cover the opaque PW.  I may go back sometime in the future and kaboom the entire lake, but for now, I need a semi-decent placeholder so I can move on to other areas of the city tile.  I am becoming especially curious about the Burdick (not sure of the spelling) School that is across the street from the Stafford Lake Park entrance. 

Here I go, plopping TPW.

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This is about 20 minutes of very careful work, rotating the screen view constantly.  The TPW will plop in some directions and not in others.  It seems to plop best when I start with a tile that has already been plopped...they seem to like each other and grow best outward when so started. 

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Another 20 minutes and a lot of zooms in and out, a lot of screen rotations.  I am finding the .5 cell plop to be most useful for painting the shorelines and filling in gaps that the 1 cell plops leave behind.  This is slow, painstaking work folks...but I am liking the results so far.

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Another 20 minutes later.  Notice how I am leaving some portions of the Tahoe PW exposed at the western edge of the lake, near where one of the lake's major feeder creeks empties into the lake.  That's because, color wise and eye wise, the Tahoe has a brownish hue as compared to the blue TPW I am plopping over it and I want that brown hue at the creek mouth and in the lake around the area of the creek mouth.  I am leaving bits and pieces of the Tahoe and Edmonton PW uncovered by the TPW for the same reason...water, RL water, varies a lot on color and hue depending on depth, so this method of making above sea level water really appeals to me. 

And, I am out of time for this evening, but I will continue this update tomorrow.

Ok, back again and ready to do some more slow and careful TPW plopping. 

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Man, this is REALLY tedious!  This is about ½ an hour's work and while we're getting there, boy oh boy is it slow.  I think it looks fantastic, but I am beginning to understand my buddy rivit's objections to the TPW as being "complex and expensive" to render.  I probably have close to 1000 of the .5 cell plops down there and my in-game zooms and pans are becoming choppy.  I have a fairly high end computer with a lot of RAM and a high end graphics card, but all those little plops are taking their toll.

Edit (9/27/09):  When I came back to post replies this afternoon I noticed something funky about my screen shoots.  For some reason, perhaps computer memory issues, not all the screen captures picked up all the TPW plops I had made.  In the photo above, all of the TPW I had plopped over towards and up to the back side of the dam is missing.  In the photo below, which I have since replaced, it was originally supposed to show to completed lake but instead only about 1/2 the TPW showed up.  So this afternoon I went back to my game and took another screen capture of the completed lake and this time all the TPW shows up. 

FYI, rivet is looking into developing a new and "less expensive" TPW.  I have been testing his first draft attempts and they are pretty good. 

Back to more plopping.  Hopefully I can complete the rest of the TPW plopping this eveing and post this tomorrow.

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And there it is, in all its glory.  I still have some areas of Tahoe to try to go back and plop over, but am thinking the uneven color where the Tahoe is not overlaid with TPW may give a higher level of realism to the water.  What do you think?

Also, please understand this is the "raw" lake, as there is a lot of detailing left to do to create shorelines and muddy beaches.  I also have not planted any flora yet, and that will make a big difference, too.

Out of time once again, but I think this is done enough to post as a new update. 

Please, your comments are needed, so post away!

Lora/LD

Lora, your water plopping endevours are much more tedious, and rewardig, than any of mine have been.

Stafford Lake looks like it might be a nice place to visit. I wonder what the purpose of the lake is? Because, from your satelite photos, it does not appear to be a recreational lake. The way the dam is set up is also mystifying me at the moment. Is there another dam at the bottom of the lake, because dams are usually at the front of the lake, and then the lake backs up behind it. Is it a modified natural lake? I don't know why I'm asking all these questions, I could google it and answer it myself.

With all the rain we've had here in the southeast US of A, some of our lakes on the Savannah River are overflowing. Lake Yonah, where my Aunt's family has some lake houses, had water pouring three feet over the top of the dam. And, Lake Lanier is full for the first time in 6 years. In Atlanta, they have gotten enough rain to equal 16.5 feet of snow! And, we are expected to get more rain today.

Okay, back to topic, sorry, but Stafford Lake is turning out wonderfully Lora. And I can't wait to see the golf course next to it, as well as the completed dam facilities.

Ethan

Woow, Lora! It's getting a highly reproduction realistic! I think the composition of the water will be great!  :thumbsup:

Amazing the amount of planning you put into this Lora. &apls &apls
The lake is starting to really take shape now, cant wait
to see what you do when it comes to the detailing of it all :thumbsup:

Hope you enjoyed your 1^sttime in OSITM and
I'm sure there'll be many more to come too :thumbsup:

regards
Derry

Ok, I have to admit I am at a bit of an impasse now.  Getting to this point with MD has been a major, MAJOR focus for me almost from it's inception.  Now that Stafford Lake has been plopped, I find I have many directions I can go from here and I feel I need some feedback as to where folks want to see the next areas of development.  I am not committed in mt own head to anything (in terms of development) beyond this point.  So I find myself a bit adrift with many crossroads before me.  I'll help you help me by summarizing where we are with the Stafford Lake city tile.

There is a lot of back country and dirt roads.  We could go there.  If we do, there are isolated ranches along the way, but they are few and far between and mostly around the lake (for obvious reasons:water).

We could continue to develope the lake and dam, ignoring other areas of the city tile for the time being.  This would include detailing the lake's shorelines and the dam, and perhaps also the water filtration plant below the dam, as well as laying down the watercourses that all eventually join up to become Novato Creek and which flow across the next two city tiles east into San Pablo Bay. 

We could go into the hills to the southeast of the lake and begin developing the suburbs that exist there in RL. 

We could go east into the city of Novato and across into the next city tile, which is extensively developed. 

I am open to any/all possibilities.  All present challenges, especially in regard to transportation networks. 

Help me decide?  I want to start working on the next update, but am uncertain of what direction I should take with it.  What do YOU want to see? 

Rather obviously, feedback is invited.

Lora/LD

Well, Lora. I think that we should continue developing the Stafford Lake city tile.

As you said, you would probably be making the lots yourself for the ranches.
I think we should continue laying the roads in the tile, then start with low development, and eventually going to the golf course and suburbs.

Ethan

I also think you should start of small: roads> ranches> low development> suburbs> etc. This is how it's done in RL and it's worked for me in the past with my cities as well.

Good advice from both ecoba/Ethan and just_a_guy, thank you both very much.  I have to admit my own leanings were in this direction, but things have slowed down so much in terms of replies and comments, I have been thinking maybe folks are getting bored with how slowly this city tile is developing and may be wishing I would move on to something a little more exciting.  There is a part of me that finds this recreation work very tedious, as well, especially when I visit other MD's that are so gorgeous and do not have the constraints ( self-imposed, I admit), of adhering to a RL region. 

My nature is to complete a project before I begin another.  I do this with my knitting.  I know myself well enough to know that if I allow myself to become distracted with a new project, it's very likely I will never finish the project I abandoned for the new one.  I stopped kinitting for many years because I had, no lie, at least 7 projects going and trying to keep up and complete any of them overwhelmed me.  So I just stopped knitting completely and the projects sat in a cardboard box in my closet for over 7 years.  I moved several times during that 7 year period and never even opened the box, just carried it with me from home to home (along with many other boxes I had not opened for many years).  I know most folks do the same thing...brings to mind George Carlin's skit about "stuff".  Anyway, when I moved into my last apartment in 2003, which was large and airy and bright and had great views but almost no closets or storage, I decided it was finally time to open all the boxes and decide what to keep and what to toss.  I tossed almost all of what I found, including most of my knitting projects.  But I learned a valuable lesson about myself...only one project at a time.  Finsh the first one before you start a second.

So I would like to complete the Stafford Lake city tile before I go raring off into a new city tile.  This is the far NW corner of the entire region and one of the least populated and least developed.  I good place to test my chops and work out the techniques and things I am going to need for more complicated city tiles yet to come.  I have 130 tiles to develope.  This is tile #1.  I am 4 months into this entire project and 90% of that time has been spent on this city tile.  I am anxious to move on and tackle new challenges, but I still have many challenges left to resolve in this city tile.  Best to finish it, I think, before moving on.  I don't want this region to become a collection of half-finished city tiles and I have real fears that if I don't complete each city tile before moving to the next one, that is exactly what will happen.

So I am going to take the advice of ecoba and just_a_guy and complete the Stafford Lake city tile.  I guess I just needed some affirmation that this would be the best way to go, and thank you both so very much for helping me make up my mind on this issue.  That the first two folks to comment and voice an opinion confirmed my own internal leanings speaks volumes to me. 

Not sure what I will tackle next...lost of places to go...but at least now I know the lak will be "home" for a little while longer.

Lora/LD

Don't worry about interest in your MD tailing off. Though it may be true that you spend a lot of time on one thing, I know I am very interested in how it turns out in the end. I say, finish the lake, then do whatever you please. Your MD is still of an excellent quality.

I am enjoying your attention to detail, and I look forward to seeing exactly how the Stafford lake tile is at the end.

Congratulations on a glorious month in OSITM. I concur with Derry: You will be back!

I second these motions. Stafford it is. I am of the same school: finishing what I've started before beginning sthg else. Otherwise my region will look like an eternal building site (pretty much like current Montreal I must admit...  $%Grinno$%)

Kudos on finishing plopping the lake. I couldn't have been that patient and I guess I would have chosen the ploppable 9x12. And pretended it has been a rainy month if the water level was too high  :D

Have a nice day, ya'all

Fabien

This is incredible work, you have made my geography professors very happy and inspired. Ever consider using ArcGIS for this?

You checked what ArcGIS costs, right? :D

I have been lurking here for a while and i can assure you any true simcity fan is not "bored" in the least bit, it may be that people cannot find words to describe your attention to detail and thoroughness in creating the most accurate landscapes ever to grace the pages of a major diary. :thumbsup:

Quote from: Attila464 on September 29, 2009, 06:45:43 PM
I have been lurking here for a while and i can assure you any true simcity fan is not "bored" in the least bit, it may be that people cannot find words to describe your attention to detail and thoroughness in creating the most accurate landscapes ever to grace the pages of a major diary. :thumbsup:

&apls  I wouldn't find better words!

... and I kindly ask you: Please Lora, don't stop this MD!  :)
I would really like to see how the dam will look like.

Luca

ecoba/Ethan:  As always, thanks for stopping by and commenting.  I did semi-extensive research on Stafford Lake and the Novato Creek Dam several months ago, so I can answer most of your questions.  The original purpose of the dam was to provide drinking water to the City of Novato, which is in the next city tile east of the Stafford Lake city tile.  The lake IS used for recreation, mostly fishing, as it is stocked with fish (not sure which species, but I think it's bass).  The lake is not available for swimming in (unless by accident, of course) and I am imagining no gasoline powered engines are allowed on any of the boats, being as it's a source of drinking water.  So, row boats and electric motors only is my guess.  It's a fairly small lake, so neither should be much of a problem.  There is a dam, at the downflow side of the lake, which I went to rather extreme measures to recreate.  The downhill side is to the east/left of most of the pics I am showing of the lake.  It's small dam, an earthen dam (rather than concrete) and the lake is human made, not in any way natural.  The lake in fact sits over the top of what was once the Stafford Ranch, hence it's name.  The Stafford family were among the original settlers of this area.  The dam is hard to see in my game pics because it is very small.  It's only about 600' wide and 70' tall.  I have terraformed it into place and if you page back you can see the individual street tiles plopped on top of it.  The slope of the dam is very gentle, again making it hard to see.  But it's there!

TomasNeto:  Thanks for the compliments and I'm glad you like!

The Tea Cat/Derry:  Welcome back my friend, haven't seen you in a while!  Thanks for stopping by and thank you also for your kind comments.  What comes along next is a bit up in the air, but detailing the shores of the lake and island are definitely on the list.  I hope you stop by often to watch the progress!

ecoba/Ethan and just_a_guy:  I replied to your posts in a seperate post, so won't do so again here.

joelyboy911:  Thank you for your support of my decision to finish this city tile before venturing off to the next one, I appreciate it.  As for future OSITM awards, well we'll see.  One is way more than I expected as it is!  Still, I appreciate both your's and Derry's vote of confidence. 

mayorfabx/Fabien:  Good to see you again my friend and thank you for the comments!  I gave thought to using the 9x12 TPW, but was afraid it would mess up my shorelines and/or would not mix/match with the smaller TPW plops I was using.  I also don't know if it accepts underlying opaque PW's...something to experiment with next time around.  Please stay tuned to this channle, I promise more interesting explorations will be coming along shortly.

rushman5:  You don't happen to live in Phoenix, do you?  I used to have an online buddy years ago who went by ruushman who was a big fan of the band Rush and he lived in Phoenix.  Regardless, as a new poster to this MD, I welcome you!  Always good to see new faces and hear new voices.  As for why I don't use ArcGIS for my project, I don't have the software, can't afford to buy it, and don't know how to use it.  I use what I have and know how to use...but I am certain the same is true of everyone.  When I am able to find work again, perhaps then I will look into enhancing my gaming tools...after I have settled my considerable debts.  Thanks for stopping by and thanks for your comments, they are always appreciated!

u. mueller: And yet another new face!  Welcome to my MD and I hope you are enjoying what you see.  I assume your comment was directed at rushman5 and not at me.  As a RL architect, I know professional grade graphics software is not inexpensive, so I don't even bother checking out the various other platforms folks suggest to me.  Rushman5 may not have read this MD from the beginning and so may not realize that I am currently out of work and have been for the past 15 months, and am currently living 100% on the charity of friends, family, and the government.  Let's cut him a little slack, OK?  He's new here, as are you, and we should all be friends.  I took no offense at his suggestion.  Given the wide array of software and graphics skills I evidence in the MD, it may be natural to him to assume I had access to the program he suggested.  Regardless, I am glad to see you here and hope you stop by and post often!

Attila464: And yet another new face and voice, how wonderful!  All these folks coming out from the lurking shadows...I am overwhelmed!  Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting, I really appeciate your support of my efforts.  It means more to me than I can express, truly.  Please stay tuned and fell free to comment to your heart's content...I want and need all the feedback I can get. 

LucaPdor:  And yet another new face and voice.  This is truly overwhelming, all these new folks...it really warms my heart and encourages me in ways you cannot imagine.  And please don't worry, Luca, that I will stop this MD...I won't.  When I find work again, it may slow down, but I am committed to seeing this through, no matter how long it takes.  At my current rate, it will be YEARS!  I have been working for 3 months on the FIRST city tile of 130 tiles and am still a long ways from completing it.  And, this is a rural tile, really not much to recreate.  A small and lake, a couple of roads, some scattered ranches here and there.  Can you imagine how things may go once I reach a suburban or even urban area?  I may end up going building to building and batting each one individually.  I'm OCD enough to do something like that.  As for finishing the dam, that may take a little time yet.  I need to create the spillway and that's complicated by the fact that it runs across a diagonal.  It's also complicated by the fact that it is so small.  It's only one diagonal cell in width, which means that it's also (2) diagonal half cells in width.  I don't know as there are currently any CC plops out there that I can use for the spillway, which means I'll probably have to make my own.  The dam may remain unfinished until such time as I learn how to mod/lot/bat the tiles I need to make it work. 

Overall, this has been a great couple of days for replies and I have been very much energized by the tremendous outpouring of support, both from new commentors and regular commentors.  Thank you all very much, you have really revived my flagging spirits!  Lets get going with the next update!



Update 27: The Burdell School, Part 1

Ok, I've talked about this set of buildings a little bit in the past, naming them (incorrectly) the Burrdick School.  This school is directly across the street from the entrance to the county park on Stafford Lake and is important enough to actually be included on the USGS topo maps, which is how I know it's name:

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I'm quite curious about this school.  It actually falls outside of the boundaries of my city tile, as does the entrance to the county park, but I definitely want to include at least the eastern portion of the park and would like to include the school, so I'm going to cheat a little bit and skooch both east just a tad, so they will fit just inside the western boundary of the city tile.  But first I need to learn a little more about the school, especially if I can find out what it looks like in RL.  I'm going to start with Google Earth.

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Well, there appears to be two residences, both to the left side of the pic.  This actually looks like a cattle ranch or maybe a dairy.  I can see rolls of white plastic-wrapped hay (straw?) to the left of the pic.  There also seems to be a lot of what I am thinking are cows, which we can see to the elft side of the main group of white roofed buildings (barns?), as well as another group above the barns, and yet another smaller group just to the lower right side of the barns.  There are a couple of small bodies of water.  The largest one above the barns could be drinking water, maybe for the cows, and appears to be a mini version of the earthen Novato Creek Dam, i.e. human made.  There is also a group of three ponds at the lower right, which may be waste ponds for cow waste.  Lastly, there's an interesting little building of some sort in the upper left hand corner of the pic.  I wonder what that is?  A well and pumphouse?  A covered feeding trough?  The ground around it seems to be a bit churned up, like maybe lots of cows have been hanging out around it.  Well, lets see if a street view gives us any more information about this school.

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Hmmm.  Sure looks like Ag buildings to me.  Notice we can see that mysterious little white building on the hillside up and behind the school.  While I'm here, lets take a couple other pics to the other side of the road, where the park is. 

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Seems the park has a couple of visitors this pleasant, sunny day.  Lets wander a little further up the road and see what else we can discover.

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I had to take this picture, even though it has nothing to do with anything.  Perfect and beautiful example of a California Live Oak.

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Look, a little culvert running under the dirt road!  Way too small to render in game, unfortunately, but a nice detail nonetheless.  We are looking now towards what I had thought may be waste ponds, but now I doubt that, as the culvert appears to be draining the furthest west pond and that would never happen unless it was rainwater runoff. 

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Looks like a little orchard of fruit trees of some sort.  Gives me some rough idea of what time of year these street shots were taken if the trees are bare.  Also noticing the white wildflowers growing on the side of the road in the shallow drainage ditch running there, too. 

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Looking to the other side of the road, there's the little park ranger entrance station I posted a pic of about 3 months ago.  I wondered where it was...now I know!

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I count 9 mail boxes and 2 newspaper receptacles.  This is the entrance to the school, BTW. 

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The orchard again.  I don't know much about orcharding...I wonder what the white paint around the boles of the trees is all about?  Is it some kind of insecticide laden treatment, you think, to keep ground bugs from climbing the trees and damaging the fruit?  I see no nets over the trees to keep birds from eating the fruit, but that could be because the trees are not bearing at the time of the picture.  Or, it could be because the trees don't bear fruit the birds would eat.  I know there are a lot of almond farms in this general area of northern California, so maybe these are nut trees rather than fruit trees (although technically nuts are fruits, too).

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Nice detail of the entrance to the park.  Anyone want to volunteer to LE this for me?  It could probably be done on a single cell, as it doesn't appear to be much more than 50'x50'.  Don't forget the stop sign!

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While this view was rezzing, I thought the sign to the left was a bus stop sign, but now I think it's a No Parking sign.  And, um, attention ranch hands...fence repair needed on aisle 7.  This is one reason why farmers don't use wooden fences much, especially PAINTED wooden fences. 

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Looking back east a little bit to the entrance of the school.  I had been thinking this may be a low-security form of juvenile detention facility, but the lack of a gate at the entrance now makes me doubt that.  Then again, if it's low security, it could run on an honor system.  But it seems fairly obvious from what we've seen so far that the school teaches animal husbandry of some sort along with maybe some other farming skills. 

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Ok, we will obey the flagger and stop.  I think we've learned all we can from Google Earth, so now it's time to see if the school has a web site.

Well, an inquiry for "The Burdell School in Novato, CA" returned no results.  This may require some deeper digging.  I'll try the Novato Chamber of Commerce next.  Another dead end.  Well, now I'll try the City of Novato.  Well, that's another dead end.  Next comes Marin County.  No results there, either.  So, not a city or county facility, nor does it seem a private facility.  State?  Worth a try.  Ok, I may have found a clue on the state site.  There is a reference to a Burdell Ranch working with a local high school.  So now I'll search for the Burdell Ranch.  Getting closer.  Burdell was one of the families that settled the area and many local features are named after them.  The Burdell Ranch is a local wetlands mitigation preserve.  There is a Burdell mansion and park with Victorian Gardens the wife created (or had created for her...I'm not reading these articles, just scanning them). 

There is a Mt. Burdell to the north of the city of Novato, named for this family.  Lots of clues, but still no info on the school itself.  I will try writing a quick note to someone at the City of Novato and see if that brings forth any new clues.

Until I hear back from them, this is the end of my research into the Burdell School and, subsequently, this update.  I guess the rest of the Burdell School development will have to wait until I find out more about it.  Not to worry, lots of other things to do in the meantime. 

Lora/LD

Hi, Lora,
yes I do like what I see and deeply admire your striving for perfection and love for detail. Being someone who never ever published an MD, I couldn't bring myself to work on such a large region yet.

I use ArcGIS at work quite a bit, so I know that it is quite an expensive piece of software, but for what we do, it is quite the right software (planning of wind farms). My comment was indeed directed at rushman, but intended as a tongue-in-cheek comment! :P I really didn't mean to jump onto him, as I hope the smiley icon showed.

At any rate, I shall follow this MD quite closely. I am very much looking forward to seeing the first buildings popping up here and there.

Warm regards from Germany,
U.

idvger: No, I'm a true from Bodymore, Murdaland.  Funny resemblence though, Rush is a mad good band.

ArcGIS is really expensive, I know that. But seeing you had so much knowlegde of CAD'06, I thought that maybe you were a professional using professional tools from work or something.  But you are basically doing GIS, but in CAD.

I feel like this will probably be the hardest part of your recreation: rural areas.  So far, your detail and investigative work is bar none for any player I have ever seen.

u.mueller: really, you do that type of work? I am super interested. I am currently getting my degree in Land-use planning and am super interesting in renewable energy and sustainable development! Oh, and you didnt even need the emoticon for sarcasm; it was well put!

Well, Lora, that was a great update.

That is a very interesting ranch. I've never been to a ranch, so I don't know what one would neccesarily look like. I find it interesting especially, how there are 9 mailboxes, but only 2 (apparent) residences.

Weird.

Ethan

I am introducing a new component to my MD...real life situations I encounter along the way while creating my MD.  This is the first.

All know I am unemployed and have been for quite some time now, despite my honest and continuing efforts to find work.  Most know I am an architect by trade, but I have not limited my job search to architecture or even engineering, in which I have a decent background in (especially civil engineering).  Besides architecture, I have a LONG history of working in the hospitality services, especially food and beverage.  So, I have been applying for jobs in the food and beverage industry almost non-stop for the past 15 months.  Sometimes I even get an interview.  The big problem is, my last F/B job was as a delivery driver and pizza cook for Domino's Pizza and that was 15 years ago.  Potential employers are naturally curious about how I have been making my living since then and, as I never lie to anyone at any time for any reason, I tell them the truth.  Well, an unemployed architect looking foe work as a bartender or server only means one thing to the potential employer: this gal is going to cut and run as soon as she can find herself a "real" job.  So...I am seen as a "flight risk".  I know this and address it head on in the interview, letting the interviewer know that, should an architecture job be offered to me, I would still be wanting to work nights and weekends at a second job for at least a year, due to the severe damage this period of unemployment has done to my finances. 

Well, I still don't have a job, so I guess no one so far wants to take that risk with me.  Tomorrow morning at 10 am, I have another interview, but this one is very different.  For one thing, the job is in Ranchester, Wyoming and I volunteered, if hired (rather obviously) to relocate if offered the position.  It's a brand new steak house, hiring staff from the ground up.  They advertised on craigslist and it was late at night, I'd had a couple of glasses of wine and I thought, what the hell.  I had just that same day created an actual F/B resume, so I wrote a quick cover letter, attached the new resume, and fired it off.  Surprise, surprise, when I got up this morning I had a voice mail from the owner, who is here in Seattle this week, asking me to meet with her tomorrow morning.  What could I say except "absolutely!".  Then I thought to myself, I'd better find out as much as I can about Ranchester, Wyoming as fast as possible.  So...I am going to share with you all here my explorations and research concerning my possible new job and new home. 

My first stop was MapQuest.  The ad on craiglist said the town was located near the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park, so in my cover letter I pointed out my experience in working in a National Park (Sequoia National Park back in the summer of 1974) and my other experience in high-volume tourist areas (Lake Tahoe, Santa Barbara, Gig Harbor).  Now, part of me envisioned Ranchester as maybe looking like Jackson Hole, but most of me figured it was eastern slopes of the Rockies.  This is what I found on Map Quest:

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If you look at the scale at the upper left corner on the map, you can see the town of Ranchester is about 150 miles east of Yellowstone.  However, the town IS at the junction of I-90 and US 14 and it's US 14 that continues west to Yellowstone, so I have no doubt there is considerable tourist traffic running through the town. 

Next I went to Google Earth and typed in Ranchester, Wyoming.  This is the first image I got:

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This image is courtesy the USDA Farm Service Agency.  You can see I-90 at the top of the pic and the off-ramps for Ranchester.  Please notice the scale at the bottom left corner of the pic.  This little town is about 4000' long by about 2000' wide. 

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This is zoomed out quite a bit.  I wanted to get an idea of the general topography of the area.  Some obvious crop circles, so irrigated crops being farmed nearby.  The town sits in what seems to be about the middle of a large green swath of land which I learned is the Tongue Valley.  Ranchester seems to be the "big city" of Tongue Valley.  Let's zoom back in and get some street views.  I'll start with the offramp from I-90.

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Looking north, back to the highway overpass and the last link with civilization as we know it.

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Last chance.

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But I'm going thisaway.

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Hmmm.  Nice range of mountains in the background, and an interesting escarpment, or so it seems, making up the sides of the valley.  Makes me wonder if the area is seismic and if the valley is maybe a fault zone rather than purely a water formed feature of the landscape.  I wonder what the rock around here is?  I know the entire midwest was once an inland sea, but Yellowstone was a huge volcano (actually, still is), so geology of this area could be very interesting, a mixture of sedimentary and volcanic rock.  Lets continue down the road and explore the town.

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Signage!  Yellowstone and Teton National Parks, this way...straight ahead and through Ranchester.  A positive omen for prospective employees who may be dependent on tourist dollars for their livelihood. 

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I see life ahead!

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According to western US standards, those aren't really "mountains" in the background but more like foothills.  Still, I am seeing snow markers on the side of the road (look closely, you will see them, too.), so I am thinking that while those hills in the distance look soft and low, they may be actually quite high in terms of elevation above sea level.  It seems rather obvious to me that this area is what is known as "high plains" and when I did my research earlier this afternoon I discovered the elevation of Ranchester (in a valley, mind you), is close to 3800'.  I know the weather in the high plains can be quite severe, especially in winter, as the (wet) weather from the west collides with the (cold) weather from the east and all havoc breaks loose as a result.  Read: lotsa snow.  Like 53" a year.  That's not as bad as some places I have lived, and it doesn't all fall at once and stay all winter...the snow markers on the side of the road would be much taller if that were the case.  Here in the high plains, I'm betting a lot of the snow is blown around.  This valley, the low end facing east, is probably windy most of the time.  The snow is likely very dry powder that drifts a lot.  Lotsa fun. 

I also learned that it only rains 17" a year and the area experiences 280 days a year, on average, of sunshine.  July highs are in the mid 80's and January lows are in single digits.  Brrrrr.  Well, Tahoe was worse for both highs and lows, not to mention snowfall. 

I have to say, one of the things I am liking is the sky.  It's a big sky and after 15 years living in an urban environment with small slices of sky available to view, I miss being able to see wide stretches of sky.  I also miss being able to see the stars at night and I know the night sky here would be unbelievably spangled with stars.  To lie on the ground in an open field and see 360 degrees of pitch black night sky above you is just such a special thing. 

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Horses on a road trip! 

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First major intersection of downtown Ranchester, population 752 as of 2008. 

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Cruising the main drag.  Lots of dust on the street, further evidence of a fairly constant wind.

Rl14
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg24.imageshack.us%2Fimg24%2F1214%2Frl14.jpg&hash=3968d51af6fac27f8084bcc37846502e20db7dbf)

West of town now (did you blink?  Ah, you missed the town!), we see cows, outstanding in their field.  I am wondering where a steakhouse would be built.  I would go close to the highway, myself, but I saw no obvious sites there, either. 

Time to leave Google earth and this Aside, while I run off to the town hall and see if I can find a building permit or food service permit for this new establishment...as well as an address.

Not only that but, it's getting late and I have an early interview.  Wouldn't do to show up bleary-eyed and smelling of last night's wine.

Lora/LD

Continuation, next evening.

Well, I had the interview this morning and I think it went well.  No positive offer was made...she had other folks to chat with besides me later in the day.  They are advertising in Billings, Montana as well as Boulder, Colorado.  Some of the things I learned in the interview:

The restaurant opened in May of this year.  She is from the Seattle/Puget Sound area.  He is from the Sheridan/Ranchester area.  He is the chef, with over 30 years experience in high end dining.  She is in sales with a degree in biochemistry.  He's an ex-rodeo rider, but I didn't learn (or ask) what events he competed in.  They are married and I noticed she has quite the rock (diamond) in her ring.  They have put their life savings into this venture and so far have been doing pretty well.  They offer catering to the local ranches and catered 5 events this past summer.  She says they are getting very strong support from the local ranchers.  There was road construction going on on US 14 this summer and she says that slowed their business down somewhat but she's glad of it, as they had bugs to work out in their operations of the restaurant.  She says they get raves about the food and complaints about the service...no one they've hired so far seems to have to work ethic necessary to service high end customers.  Their current cadre of employees show up late, don't show up at all, or show up drunk/stoned.  The employees also don't know how to move quickly when busy or keep themselves working and busy when things are slow.  The restaurant is located right in "downtown" Ranchester (next to the Cenex depot, which is a farm supply, mostly feed and seed, for those who don't know) and right on US 14.  Business is slowing down now with the coming of winter (she told me it snowed there last night), so they are uncertain of what their staffing needs are going to be in the coming months.  I get the feeling that they are really looking to have a new staff by spring, when the parks re-open and will probably cut back to skeleton crew over the winter.  There are winter sports in the area, skiing, cross country skiing, snowmobiling.  This is the Great Outdoors...lots of hiking, fishing, hunting, camping, backpacking, climbing, birding, horseback riding, but those activities pretty much cease during the long and severe winters.  Owning a car would be essential, preferably a 4WD.  The road network off the highways is pretty sketchy, not usually plowed in winter, and many folks travel via horseback. 

I also learned her husband is a bit of a taskmaster with a temper.  He does not hesitant to raise his voice to his employees.  He has very strict and demanding standards and expects his employees to do exactly as he tells them to.  This was the first really big red flag for me and I think it could have a lot to do with their current staffing problems.  I didn't say that, of course...it's her husband and she thinks he only yells at employees because they are lazy idiots.  However, a demoralized crew is not going to perform well and being constantly shouted at is very demoralizing.  They have hired locally so far and none of the folks they have hired are what they consider to be "professional" wait staff.  Given the size of the local population pool, that's not surprising.  But, this all points to a couple of other underlying issues that also raised red flags for me.  If he was raised in the area, he must have had some idea of the quality of wait staff that would be available among the local population, so why did they not recruit professional staff from outside of the area right from the get-go?  It indicates to me either a lack of planning and/or lack of money, either of which can be death to a new business (did I ever share here that my only actual degree is in Business Management and Marketing?).  It also indicates to me that perhaps this man has a bit of an anger management problem and that his wife, in not recognizing it, is abetting it.  If the house gets a reputation for having a chef no one can work with or please, it will doom them, no matter how good the food is.  So, one major red flag and two minor red flags.

After I stopped writing last night, I did a casual search through area public records for the health department permits and such required for the opening of an F/B establishment and found nothing.  That's not really a big deal...things are done differently everywhere and I may not have been looking in the right places.  So, instead, I looked for the restaurant's web site and this is when I ran up against my second major red flag.

They don't have a web site. 

I did mention this during the interview and she waved me off like this was a trivial matter of complete unimportance.  That's when I mentioned to her my degree and advised her they really did need a web presence.  We were ending our conversation at that point, both of us getting ready to leave the other, and she really didn't respond. 

So.  Two major and two not-as-major red flags.  Some of my other thoughts I'd like to share.

Accepting a position, if one is offered, would present me with a level of risk I was really not expecting to be presented with.  Relocating to the middle of nowhere Wyoming is not the issue for me...I've lived for decades in smaller towns than Ranchester and was perfectly content.  The risk is in the couple's ability to keep this restaurant afloat through the winter and into the spring and beyond.  It's also in their being able to acquire staff that will tolerate an abusive and demanding head chef.  I have pretty think skin when it comes to being yelled at by my bosses, although I personally consider such behavior unprofessional to the extreme. 

It's also in the fact that if I move there and things don't work out, I will be well and truly screwed.  My family might (and that's a very big MIGHT) help me finance the move, but if I found myself out of work and on the streets of Ranchester, Wyoming, I would be well and truly in super deep doo-doo. 

Now, you may think I'm crazy, but I am still considering this position, despite the risk and the red flags.  There's something about it that appeals to me and I really can't quite put my finger on it.  Well, I take that back.  It would be an adventure and it's been a while since I've thrust myself out into the world to go adventuring.  I am running out of good stories to tell, everyone has heard all my stories because I have not lived any new stories in a long time.  But the adventure is just one part of the equation.  I miss rural living.  As much as I love urban living, I miss rural living and even more so, the people of rural areas.  As a Taurus, an Earth sign, I miss terribly the way one's life synchs with the seasons when one lives among folks who make their living by the turn of the seasons.  There is a deep connection between the land, the Earth, when one lives in a farm community.  One feels the wheel of time turning one spoke at a time across the years.  I don't feel that living in downtown Seattle...and I miss it.  The smell of damp and freshly turned earth in the spring, the greening of the fields as they sprout and grow, the farm machinery with big red triangles on their backsides plodding slowly along the roads, driving home at night and pulling over to watch the harvesters working with headlights and sodium lights at 3 am, the scents of freshly cut plants mingling with the smell of diesel fuel and August dust, the stubble of bare fields like a man unshaven for week, and then the snow, a white blanket under which the earth sleeps and renews itself.  There is a heartbeat to both urban and rural areas.  The urban heartbeat is one that is light and fast and sometimes hard to feel when your press your fingers to the wrist of the city.  The rural is a deep slow thudding you can almost hear and feel emanating out of the ground beneath your feet, coming up through your legs and settling in your chest where your own heartbeat slows and matches it.  I have known both...and love both.  But I have been 15 years in the urban heartbeat.  And I think it may be time for me to find that slower, stronger heartbeat again.  Maybe this is my opportunity. 

Then again, maybe it is my doom. 

I'm going to go out on a limb and post this, right now.  As always, feedback is invited. 

Lora/LD

Tough decision you've got there!  I don't have a lot of advice to offer unfortunately except this.  The one really big risk of moving out to a small town like that one comes with the uncertainty of the job.  If for whatever reason, the job does fall through, there's a much smaller pool of employers in a town of that size.  So chances are that if this doesn't work out, you'd have to go far afield again to find another job. 

Anyhow, that's about all I have to offer on this one!  Good luck with this decision!

Hey Lora,

I may not have mentioned that before, but I actually work as an employment counselor here in Montreal. My job is to help immigrant workers understand the characteristics and peculiarities of the Quebec job market. Being born and raised in France and now a Canadian citizen after almost 5 years in Montreal, I am still curious about many aspects of the North American culture towards employment and job searching. I must admit that reading your post this morning was an excellent case study for me!

Therefore I would like to give you my thoughts about your experience with respect to this job opportunity. There are several aspects in your story:
-   The type of job
-   As in real estate: location, location, location!
-   And of course the red flags
You indicate you have former experience in F/B (although it dates back 15 years ago) and are ready to accept a position in this field, even though you have extensive experience in architecture and civil engineering. There is actually the usual trend in job searching that someone who doesn't find a job after several weeks almost always starts to broaden the scope of their search, including more and more sectors because – let's admit it – reality bites. When one needs cash to fill the fridge, it is absolutely normal to turn more and more stones! Nevertheless (I love that word...) I think I must remind you that a large part of the economic stimulus package being currently implemented in the U.S. involves infrastructure, meaning job prospects in construction and architecture are – if not ecstatic – less than grim. So maybe you should keep some hope in that sector before envisioning plan B. Although reality sometimes quickly turns plans B into Plans A... If customer service is indeed part of the plan, I guess there are LOTS of opportunities in the F/B business in the Seattle-Tacoma region, right ? Maybe there is no need for a great trek into the wilderness to find that type of job.

Which takes me to point 2: I have absolutely nothing against Central Wyoming and I myself would love to live in the country instead of a large city sometimes, but the risk seems sort of big. For all you know the place could be a rat hole and if you just have the point of view of the prospective employer to make up your mind, well I don't think it is enough. Especially if you cannot cross-check the facts on a website since the restaurant doesn't have one. What if things turn sour ? Are you gonna hitchhike your way back to Seattle with all your things in a couple suitcases? I am sorry to appear a killjoy, but there is a lot at stake IMHO.

And finally the red flags: I am afraid you're right. And I don't think it's worth it.

I certainly don't want to appear like telling you how to live your life, but you asked our opinion and I give you mine. If I wasn't myself in the business I probably wouldn't have dared expressing it.

I sincerely hope things are gonna turn your way, and I sure keep my fingers crossed for you.

Fabien

battlecat, mayorfabz/Fabien, and everyone else-

Well, the act of writing out the pros and cons of my situtaion last night and posting it here has helped me view things from a better perspective, I think.  That and a restless night spent tossing and turning while my brain reviewed both sides of this coin, flipping it back and forth over and over again (maybe that's why *I* was tossing and turning?) has led me to the conclusion that the risks presented to me in accepting this position just far outweigh the unknown potential benefits.  And that I am, in truth, way too vulnerable right now to go tearing off for the sake of adventure or to restore my connection to the planet. 

If I was unhappy in my current career, or unhappy with my current job, or hated where I lived, AND had lots of money in the bank, then yes, this might be a perfect and perfectly timed escape route.  However, none of those factors apply.  I love architecture, love Seattle, hate the fact that I am unemployed, and no longer even have a bank account, let alone any money in the bank.  The potential for absolute life-wrecking disaster in accepting this position in Wyoming is, unfortunately, very, very real, while the potential to find employed bliss in a rural setting is quite small.  These are just not the type of long odds I am willing to gamble on. 

So, I am going to email Paula (the woman I interviewed with yesterday) and withdraw myself from consideration. 

I want to thank both of you for reading my lengthy post and for taking the time to reply.  I also want to thank any others who read the post and didn't reply...I appreciate the freedom of being able to use this MD as both a showcase for my project and, occasionally, as a sounding board for non-game issues. 

I'll be working on a new update this evening, so tune back in soon.

Lora/LD

Well, I hate to bump my own post, but being as how no one has posted since my last post, I have no choice.

I am serving notice to my readers that this MD is entering into a new phase in which Lora Learns to Bat.  I have been threatening to delve into custom content for many years now, so much so that I'm certain most folks figured it was all talk and no walk.  Well, today I have applied for my own texture file range numbers and prop file range numbers and if you don;t know what those are, don't worry, I don't either, I just know I need them both if I am going to create custom textures and props.  And, if I am going to create custom lots and buildings, I need to also be able to create custom props and textures to plop on the lots and with which to texturize my custom buildings.  It's taken me over four years to learn that much, to put together in my own head how all the CC stuff was connected to each other.

So how does this relate to my MD?  The Burdell School.  This MD is a recreation of RL.  I have, I think, enough information to recreate the Burdell School...if I recreate it from scratch.  Truth being, as a choice of a first CC plop lot, it's probably a good choice (as much as *I* know about CC, which is next to zero).  It's almost all ag buldings, which are very simple, basic structures, four walls and a roof.  Many folks have created tons of ag props, so I most likely will not have to create my own props, just use others'.  I have learned I can "lift" a building from a prviously made lot and turn it into a prop to plop on my own lot, so I will probably borrow houses from either maxis lots or one of the many farm lots I have downloaded to make the residences. 

All in all, I think my first foray into BATing and CC will be more about using the Lot Editor tool than anything else.  I will create the base lot for the school, which will be pretty big, then BAT the ag buildings, then plop the props and textures, and then, hopefully, export the new CC lot into the game. 

This could be a really painful and boring process for those who stop by here to watch me go through.  But, I pretty much knew when I started this MD that I could not count on others to provide me with all the CC I knew I was going to need.  I knew my choices were going to be limited, and my recreation perhaps compromised, unless I finally dove off the high board (hopefully a perfect swan dive and not a belly flop) into the world of Custom Content.

I am climbing the rungs of the ladder to the diving board now.  No longer young and no longer a hottie in a bathing suit, displaying myself in this way, on a public forum, is part of why I have avoided it for so long.  But really, what have I got to lose?  The bathing suit image is just a metaphor, after all.  And if it grosses anyone out, well then, you have a more active imagination than I need deal with here, hahahahahaha.

So, until further notice, I am going away from the actual building and development of the MD and focusing instead on my fumbling efforts to learn to BAT, then LOT, then MOD.  Could be a while before I actually get back to working in game.  Just a warning.

The first project, however, will be the Burdell School. 

Hope you hang with me and hope my efforts will inspire others to try for themselves.

Lora/LD

Well, best of luck with your diving, hopefully you will achieve what you set out to do. :)

Sounds Exciting, Lora!

Well, I can't LOT very well either-- I'm working on it, and maybe some of your ventures will be learning experiences for me as well as you. I have been working on LOTing some ploppable farm fields for a new type of city building I might experiment with-- all plops. I have had trouble even with trying to get a basic 1x1 grass texture to export to the game- hmph.

In what I have seen from the Burdell School lot-- it looks like a moderately challenging LOT-- but the Ag Buildings look like they are a perfect building for beginning BATers.  As you also may know-- I don't BAT at all! I have attempted to download this tool-- but my computer will not let me. I really do wish I could start to BAT-- as I think I have some perfect rural farm buildings in mind for my MD. I almost wish I could make some Chicken coops appear in the Mayor Mode Tree Menu-- that would be nice.

Well, enough of my senseless rambling-- I am very excited that things will be taken a different turn here at RSF. This is one of my favourite MD's-- like many others on this site, and I would be glad whatever you do with this project.

Ethan

This is my 100th post, and I specifically planned for it to be here.

Well Lora, sorry to hear your opportunity in Wyoming isn't going to pan out. My roommate lost his job as a credit analyst a year ago and has been to a dozen interviews since. He has come away with nothing from every last one of them. He is depleting his 401k and is having to lean on his family for help too. I hope your situation improves. it's a tough time. In the meantime I'm thoroughly enjoying your efforts here. Looking forward to seeing your BAT'ing skills.

Take care.

Geoff

If your bats will be anything close to the quality of your landscapes we will be in for a treat! Can't wait for the update.

Just want you all to know I have not abandoned my MD, just had a busy couple of days.  If you are like me at all, you conform to a daily and weekly routine and if that routine gets thrown off at all, then all chaos breaks loose and that's kinda waht happened to me this week.  My roomie usually has Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off (he works 4/10's in the summer months), but because his sister is moving into her new home this week (after 18 months of construction), he switched his days off with a co-worker and didn't have a day off until Tuesday.  Sunday is usually his day to do his laudry and take care of personal errands, Monday his buddy comes over and we play board games and have a meal, which I usually cook.  Tuesdays have become a day for Michael (my roomie) and me to share a meal and then I run off to my kntting group.  This has been our routine for the past several months, but it was thrown out of whack this week and so everything kinda went to heck.  No board games Monday.  Tuesday Michael and I had a meal together as usual, but I didn't have time to clean up before running off to my knitting meeting and I stayed late knitting, so the kitchen was a mess when I got home and I was in no mood to clean it.  Michael did his laundry Tuesday instead of Sunday and he never puts it away (he does fold it, though), so his laundry was all over the living room waiting to be put away (I live here rent and ultility free, so I have taken over a lot of his tasks as a way of paying my way here and one of them is I put away his laundry).  When I came home from knitting last night, this apartment looked like a bomb went of in it...a total mess. 

So I spent today putting things back to right and so was able to return, after several days absence, to my BATting lessons.  I now have 4 walls, a roof and a floor/foundation on my tutorial building.  I have windows in the walls and doors in the front and back walls.  I am about to learn how to detail the doors and windows, but it's getting late at night, so I thought I'd leave that part of the lesson for tomorrow. 

There is a set of tutorials over on ST that are very good, up to a point.  The author obviously knows his way around the BAT tool very well and while he explains the initial concepts and starting points extremely well, once he gets cooking, he starts overlooking instructions total newbies may not be able to find easily by themselves.  I ran into one of those tonite while trying to learn how to detail doors and windows.  It took me almost 45 minutes to find the menu tools he was referring to. 

So, this is going to be a slow process for me, and I may not have much to post here for a while except updates such as this one. 

Parallel to this period of learning is the fact that a lot of the jobs I am applying for these days want folks to have experience with a graphics software program called "SketchUp".  I have learned this is software manufactured by Google and is free in it's most basic and simplest form.  Google has free tutorials on it's website for learning to use this software, which from my extremely quick perusal of it appears to be very powerful.  Truth be told, folks, I am having a hard time justifying to myself spending time learning to BAT when I could be using that same time learning SketchUp and so padding my skills and resume towards a JOB. 

I have been using my afternoons to both create updates and learn the BATting tool, but that is going to end.  I am going to download the SketchUp tool and instead spend my afternoons learning how to use it.  I need a job, people, and spending time playing games when I could be learning new professional skills is, quite frankly, professional death for me.  I will still continue to work on learning the BAT tool in the evenings and will still continue to work on this MD, but the pace is likely to slow down a lot.  I have to find work and that has to be my number 1 priority.

I hope you all understand and will still stop by from time to time to check my progress, both with my own RL and with my game.

Lora/LD

Hey Lora. Its good to hear you haven't abandoned the diary, though I don't think any of us had any concerns.

I beleive you can use models from SketchUp, converting them to gmax, for BATting. However, I have a feeling it is only possible with the professional (payware) version. You could always ask someone who does have that version to convert your models, but I myself do not know the technical details of the process. If it worked out, you could practise your potential professional skills at the same time as making your buildings.

Of course we understand that you cannot devote all of your time to playing - Of course I feel a little guilty for playing SimCity when I should be studying or something like that.

I'll still stop by.  ;)

Good luck!

QuoteI beleive you can use models from SketchUp, converting them to gmax, for BATting. However, I have a feeling it is only possible with the professional (payware) version. You could always ask someone who does have that version to convert your models, but I myself do not know the technical details of the process. If it worked out, you could practise your potential professional skills at the same time as making your buildings.

Ya know, I kinda wondered about that when I took my very quick look at the SketchUp software a couple of nights ago.  It appears to be a tool very similar to the BAT and I seem to recall there being a tool in the BAT for importing files.  I'll have to figure out what file extensions BAT accepts and what file extensions SketchUp creates. 

Downloaded the freeware version of SketchUp this afternoon and spent the day working my way through the first 4 video tutorials and drew my first 3D object...a chair!  This evening I downloaded 24 short video tutorials that walk me through each tool on the toolbar...tomorrow's lesson plan.  In the meantime, I'm going to play around a bit with the 3-4 tools I learned to day and see what kind of interesting things I can draw.  There is an option in the software that allows one to beging 3D modeling from a floor plan and being as how that is most likely to be my use of the software, I think I will experiment with that a bit.  Also because (ahem) I already know how to draw floor plans, so this may be the easiest "back door" for me to sneak into.  If I make anything interesting (like a farm building maybe?), I post a picture here.

Lora/LD

I think Sketchup Pro can export to .3ds, which Gmax can import. Other than that, I'm not sure. Gmax can also import .DXF, and .SHP.

I've never used SketchUp myself, but I imagine most 3D modelling programs are quite similar, or share similar characteristics/methods. If this is true, then learning modelling in SketchUp will help you learn gmax as well.

I hope you do post pictures of your modelling achievements.

Again, good luck - both for your BAT learning and, more importantly, your job search.

Hello all!

Well, It's been a long two weeks of working with SketchUp and wending my way through the tutorials.  I got to the point where I needed to download a plug-in that would allow SU to import CAD files then worked my way through THAT set of tutorials.  Cool, tool SketchUp, in many ways very intuitive.  It has it's quirks, especially for someone like me used to CAD...I keep looking for tools that don't exist or, if they do exist, exist under different tool menus.

Once I learned how to import CAD files into SU, I realized that the next logical step was to model a 3D image of a CAD file, as that would be the way I would be using SU in a professional setting.  Most of the projects I have in my computer files are way huge and complex, so I thought I'd start with something simpler, like the little house I designed almost 20 years ago for myself to live in, alone.  Over the years, the design has been revisited many times and grown and changed, but it's was still fairly simple...or so I thought. 

One of the ways the design has changed is that I no longer think I'll build this home (if indeed I ever do actually build it) for myself to live in alone.  Most likely my mom will be living with me, too, so the space I had originally designated as office space became my mom's bedroom.  She will need a private bath, so that had to be added.  That also meant that the main floor of the home needed a half bath, so that folks visiting (or me staying up late) didn't have to troop through mom's bedroom to get to the bathroom.  So the home got a little bit bigger.  I also had to enlarge the garage from a 1 car to a 2 car, even though I don't currently own a car or drive or even have a driver's license.  Mom is 74 and while she's sharp as a tack and still a long-hauler in terms of driving, I need to keep in mind that I may be her only source of transport at some point in time, so I'll need a car and hence a agrage to keep it in.  Mom also needs workspace, as she sews, makes jewelery, and does handcrafts, so the home sudeenly grew a basement. 

Part of adding a basement was the idea that my younger sister Char is likely to end up living with me also and she would need her own space, too.  So I created a nice little suite in the basement for Char while I made a nice workspace for mom. 

And of course, I need my own workspace, so my second floor bedroom gained a loft where I can install my drafting board and a work station. 

So, these past two weeks have been spent both working in SketchUp and, this last week especially, working in CAD to create a floor plan I can use to model as a resume project. 

Along the way, I have begun to think I should probably learn to use PowerPoint as well, as that's another software tool that comes up often in the job descriptions I am looking at.  I'd like to create a "walk-through"  of the home I am working on modeling, preferably animated, so the feeling is truly of walking through an existing building.  I'd include this animated PowerPoint presentation as part of my digital resume.  Anyone out there know PowerPoint?  Can I animate/create virtual video in PP? 

So, that's what I've been up to these past 2 weeks and my apologies for not posting sooner.  I miss playing SC4 and my region a lot, but, I also know that time spent playing could be much better spent enriching my job skills.  I hope you all understand.

Lora/LD

I completely understand, Lora. Job Hunting must be pain in these times.

Although I expect things are probably different in Seattle from how they are in the South. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean better.

I swear, Lora, if I need a building built, I'll have you hired.  ;D

You are, of course, allowed to spend your time doing what you need to do. Isn't it kindof one of the general knowns (words slipping from my mind) that RL comes first, Lora. You don't need to worry about SC4D at all, we know what you're doing is important, and of course, you need to take care of yourself first.

Also, Lora, Eblem released a new California style Terrain Mod on the STEX, if you might want to try it out...

Ethan

Hey Lora,
I hope real life is treating you better now as I know that some....most of us are itching for an update.  ;)

Robin  :thumbsup:

Fantastic! I live in San Jose, CA., and truly enjoy your MD. All this love, and passion, for a corner of the Bay Area finds me happy. Keep up the great work. I'am looking forward to another wonderful installment. Cheers.