Recreating San Francisco: Real Life Aside, October 1, 2009

[KoV Liberty]

Looks good!

[ldvger]

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

[JoeST]

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

[projectadam]

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

[Orange_o_]

I like very much these projects raving 

[ldvger]

Update 16: Hicks Road/Novato Blvd., Part 3

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:



That's for all you Kaboom fans



Now I'll lay the rail down:



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:



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:



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:



This is going to need more combinations of FAR and Maxis roads, but I think I can start with Maxis:



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. 



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.



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:



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:



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:





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

[Battlecat]

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.

[cody426]

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

[Tomas Neto]

I'm impressed with the care that you are conducting this project! Fantastic work!!! 

[ecoba]

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

[JoeST]

Looking amazing as usual

I loved your word for demolish, kaboomed sounds soo much better

Joe

[ldvger]

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.   

Lora/LD

[ACEfanatic02]

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

[calibanX]

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

[ldvger]

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

[joelyboy911]

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.

[ldvger]

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

[dsrwhat316]

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... 

~ Dan

[meinhosen]

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)).

[ldvger]

Update 17

Replies

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...   

Update 17: Water Mods, Part 1

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


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


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.

17.3


This is DkCyan.  Again, a little matte and way to bright, too tropical looking.

17.4


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.

17.5


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.

17.6


This is Ice.  Too bright, too pale, too tropical.  But very pretty!

17.7


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


This is Steel.  To light, too blue.

17.9


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.

17.10


This is Ultramarine.  Neon oceans, anyone?  Whoa!

17.11


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


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:



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