The City & County of Honolulu

[KoV Liberty]

Nice work! Only thing left to do is add poles to the side of the road.

Watching....

Alex

[sumwonyuno]

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry that I've not been able to post any updates since February.  It's been a busy 2 and a half months.  Now it's summer and I've got time for SimCity again!

Maybe you remember back in the January 10th update, I recreated a bunch of islands in the west loch of Pearl Harbor.



I did not have any real life pictures of those islands at the time.  I was able to go out to the west side of the island back during spring break in March.  I took the following picture of those islands from the West Loch Shoreline Park in Ewa Beach.



On to newer things, when I finally came back to the forums, I found out a new version of the NAM came out, along with the Network Widening Mod.  I've been playing with the new stuff for the past few days.     I went back into the Capitalis region, and I'm in the process of replacing old Maxis roadways with better NWM ones.

As an example, I've picked the King & Ke'eaumoku intersection in Honolulu:



A real life picture of the area, driving on King Street, three streets before Ke'eaumoku Street:



Here is the King & Ke'eaumoku counterpart in the Capitalis region:



The following is the results of changing the roadways to their NWM equivalents:



IMO, the change is amazing.  I am really appreciative of all the work that's been done by the modders!  Look next week for another reconstruction update!



***Replies***

Battlecat:  Large areas of grasses and rocks on this island are almost never homogeneous.   

Toichus Maximus:  Thank you for your first post here!  Realism is difficult, but not impossible!   

nedalezz:  Heh, you were one of the first posters, and I'm glad you've come back!  Most of the details are intentional, and others just turn out that way.   

Connor:  I appreciate you've noticed the realism I'm trying to recreate!

Tomas Neto:  Thank you very much!

M.M.Malwin:  Thank you for your first comment, too!  I am glad that you love the shoreline pictures!

emgmod:  The short answer is pretty much all ploppable rock mods on the STEX and LEX.   

marsh:  Thank you for your first comment, as well!  It certainly is a huge project.   

adroman:  You're always welcome here!

ecoba:  Heh, no tile-by-tile was Capitalis.  I'm focusing on selected areas and making them as close to real life as possible.   

976:  Thank you!

KoV Liberty:  Heh, yeah I wish I could do roadside wooden utility poles.  Pretty much all development on the island built before 1970 has them.  Maybe if I learned how to change them into T21 (and learn T21s first)...

[Edit]: Waiting to get this moved out of inactive...

[emgmod]

Welcome back! Nice job rebuilding the city streets.

[Battlecat]

Welcome back!  Great update for your return!  Nice to see those photos confirm you've done a great job of capturing those islands.  Very cool to see the NWM came out at an opportune time for you as well.  It's great to see it in action. 

[Tomas Neto]

Welcome back my friend!!!  And a comeback with a awesome and beautiful update!!! Great!!! 

[sumwonyuno]

For this update, we are going to the agricultural fields of Central O'ahu.  The area I picked is north of the Dole Plantation in Wahiawa.  This area used to be covered in pineapple, back when agriculture dominated the Hawaiian economy.  Today, a significant percentage of former agricultural land has been converted to suburban development or is left unused.



Here is my interpretation of the area in the game, featuring the first time I've used the RHW in an update:



Another perspective of the area:



A real-life ground-level picture of the area, taken January 16th, 2010:



The following real-life picture is facing west toward the Wai'anae Mountains.  You can see Mount Ka'ala (the highest point on O'ahu) on the right, and Kolekole Pass on the left.



Let's conclude the update with a zoomed-in mosaic.  Enjoy!







***Replies***

emgmod:  Thank you!  1000 miles of roadways to redo...

Battlecat:  Heh, I just happened to come back on to the forums at the right time.   

Tomas Neto:  Thank you very much!

[RickD]

Great that you are updating again. Still can't believe how realistic your recreations are and you even seem to improve from update to update. I like looking at the real photos, too. I know the island only from the racing game Test Drive Unlimited. 

[marsh]

Thats realy realistic man. Your doing a great job. 

P.S. I remember driving on that road when I went on vacation to Hawaii. 

,marsh 

[ecoba]

Wow, amazing update here, my friend. Your pictures are so incredibly realistic.

Ethan

[emgmod]

Amazing job with the farms. I remember going through roads like these. Very boring.

[Nanami]

Nice Rural Area!

[io_bg]

Fantastic recreation - it's so realistic! The use of ploppable flora is great as well!

[kbieniu7]

Those fields look very nice. Good work with them 

[Connor]

Fantastic work as always! Great to see this MD getting going again.

[Tomas Neto]

Wow, incredible as is dynamic a presentation mixed of pictures and images of the game, together!!! Marvelously well done this update!!! Awesome my friend!!! 

[newsimaddict]

Great looking farmland! Well done and very creative...

[sumwonyuno]

Hello everyone,

For this update, it won't have a lot of words as usual because I'll leave the pictures to talk for themselves.  This update features the Ko'olau Mountains on the Windward side of the island, specifically in the Waimanalo area.  The mountains on the Windward side are notoriously hard to recreate because of the near vertical cliff faces.  If you're wondering, the cliff edge is about 400 meters (1300+ feet) tall in the following picture, while I am somewhere near sea level:



Here is the area in game:



Without further ado, here is a long mosaic:








As for a hint about the next update, look up Central Pacific Plaza.



***Replies***

RickD:  Heh, I wish Test Drive Unlimited was accurate. 

marsh:  Awesome!  I'm happy that you came here for vacation, and I'm glad you remember that road!

ecoba:  Thank you very much!

emgmod:  Heh, do you mean boring roads here in Hawaii?  I could have done Kaukonahua Road, but I don't have any utility poles covered in vines or bumpy reflectors.

976:  Thanks!

io_bg:  I'm glad you've noticed!   

kbieniu7:  Thank you!

Connor:  Heh, thanks, and I'm back to working on this island!

Tomas Neto:  Thanks, and heh, that's the intended style!   

newsimaddict:  Thank you for visiting and for your comment!  I've got to be creative since there's no exact content in the game to replicate real life places.

[kwakelaar]

Really beautiful looking recreations, I especially liked your farm fields and the natural areas.

[marsh]

Man your amazing at making rural and nature scenes 

,marsh 

[kelis]

i like the recreations, and your recreation it's amazing ! well done my friend.