Mind Scape

[tooheys]

Robin, great idea. Sorry that I haven't been able to participate in the first couple of rounds, but if there is one over the weekend, I'll be there. As for the final two this round, no idea (yet), working on it though.

Cheers

Dave

PS. Is No.9 Jimmymac's Shaping Invermere Valley ?

[rooker1]

Ohhhh, that's a good one, but wrong answer.   

Robin   

[Nisha]

Alright, I think #9 is from Mike's Showcase by Mikeaut1. Still trying to figure out the last one.

~Nisha

[rooker1]

Nisha, you are correct my friend. 
Who will get the last one? 

Robin   

[thundercrack83]

Got it!

5. Asimov's SC4-Impressions by Asimov.

[rooker1]

Horahh.....
So we have another winner, thundercrack83.     I will donate ten Canadian dollars in your name at the end of the five rounds.

1.  rooker1                 Mind Scape
2.  nedalezz               Qumma - From Desert to Rose
3.  Pat Riot                Tropicana, an MD by Patriots
4.  Shadow Assassin    Ensenada. Discover the mystery
5.  Asimov                  Asimov's SC4-impressions
6.  Boernie                 The Hanston Region
7.  Rayden                 Little Italy Part 2
8.  sEAhAwk fAn121     Saint Helena, A Great Lakes Metropolis........
9.  Mikeaut1               Mike's Showcase
10. Ennedi                  Ennedi plays Shosaloza


I hope everyone has enjoyed the three rounds so far.  There will be two more rounds, but I think I'll leave those ones until the end of next week.
I will be posting a special tutorial tomorrow and the topic is top secret for now.
See you all tomorrow.

Robin   

[thundercrack83]

Outstanding! This is a great competition, Robin! I can't wait for the next round!

[bat]

Yes, a great competition! And also looking forward to the next round and to the tutorial!

[rooker1]

Hello all,

First let's do some Replies........

Bongoswimp,  Fabio, I kow I said it already, but it's nice to see you visit my MD.  I haven't heard from you in along time.  I am sorry for not stopping by your CJ, but I have a hard time with a certain site, no names need be mentioned.  But, when are you going to start a MD here.  That would be great.  I'm sure everyone would enjoy something from you here.  Anyways, I hope to hear from you again soon. 
Madeira, thanks, I think.    What about the bridges in Calcutta?  There are so many bridges world wide, I sure I missed thousands and thousands.  As I said, these are the ones I found to like the most.  See you again soon.
Badsim, It's always good to hear from you.  I enjoy hearing your thoughts. 
I don't know if I have evaluated everything, but I'm going to do it.  You are right about two things though.  I do have the determination and the capacities I will have to work on a little.  I'm learning as I go, you know.  So where ever you can help, it would really be appreciated. 
As for the city tile size.  I have already learned that a Large Tile is too big no matter what.  I enjoy to fill every tile with something.   
Until next time.....
Asimov, Hey, thanks.  It's nothing new, it's just a tunnel.  I carefully covered as much as I could with trees.   
jeronij, thanks for stopping in.  I know you are very busy.  I wanted to support the site for a long time and I don't like to do things the normal way.  So now you know a little part of me.  Get use to it cause I'm going to be here for a long time. 
thundercrack83, Thanks alot.  As I said to jeronij, I like to be different and what better month to do it in.  I hope to hear from you again soon.  Thanks for taking part in the contest.  Great work on winning the third round.
Ennedi, I'm different not crazy, or at least that's what my shrink says......
Thanks for the whisky and salomon.  I had a really bad experience with whisky last year and I said I would never drink it again.  But that bottle you have there looks interesting.  "Glen Blair"  I don't think I've had that before.  And thanks for taking part in the competition.
threestooges, thanks for taking part in the competition and winning the first round.  And you even came back for more in the third round, thanks.
metasmurf, thanks for stopping by and taking part in my contest.  And man you almost finished off the second round before anyone had a chance.  Great job, my friend, great job and very devoted too.  And there's nothing wrong with lurking.
TheTeaCat, Thanks for stopping by and taking part in the competition.
vester, Thanks for fixing that.  Kwakelaar's name is a hard one to spell from memory. 
Travis,  Thanks for taking the time to play and winning the second round.
paroch, thanks for stopping in to play the game.  See you later.
NASCAR_Guy,  Thanks for playing also.  Hope to hear from you again soon.
Danthe, Thanks for the nice compliment and for taking the time to stop and play the game.
tooheys, Dave, no worries, I'm sure you'll be able to take part in the last two.  I think I'll do them later in the week. 
Nisha, Thanks for playing the game. 
bat, thanks.

Alright that's all the replies from the last couple of pages.  I don't think I'll ever wait that long to reply ever again.
As for the tutorial I promised, it'll have to wait until tomorrow morning, sorry.
But here is a teaser.....kinda.






Well that's it for me.
But think about this,
  Rose Kennedy once said, "Birds sing after a storm.  Why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them."

Robin   

[threestooges]

Well, I'm guessing that the surprise tutorial will be in reagard to either bridge construction, or river making (but that's just a guess, heh heh). As long as the option is open, I am happy to participate in the MD competition. Go out and enjoy the sun, I'll be looking forward to the tutorial whenever it's ready.

[rooker1]

Hello all,

First of all, I'll be doing the forth and fifth rounds of the competition later near the end of the week.
As for the tutorial, threestooges, you are right this tutorial is going to be about making game bridges over plop water rivers.  Note to everyone, this is my first attempt at something like this.  So if you have any suggestions, please feel free and suggest away.
So let's get started........


1. Here you can see I have started with a totally flat land.


2. With smoncrie's Hole Digging Lots, I lay down two rows as you see in the picture.


3. Run the road over them to activate them.  Now make it wider and all the same depth. 


4. I than like to raise the land up ever so slightly. You're now asking yourself, Why, right?  Well just wait and you'll see why.


5. Now raise all the land that was in the hole to this new height.  Which should now be about seven or eight meter deep.


6. All done....


7. Now, again with the Hole Digging Lots, use the one that raises the land fifteen meters.  Run it across the water bed's width, like in this picture. So you wondering earlier why I raised the river bed back up.  It's because I like the share the height difference btween river bed and bridge height.  This method is also good for Nam Bridges.  I think in the end it has a more realistic look and now looks more three dimensional, making the oictures look more alive.


8. I now make the river bed with rail pieces and the river bank with road pieces so it is very clear.  At this point make the river base two tiles wide.


9. Lower the land very, very little using the mayor mode tools in the corner of the river bed where the bridge will be.   


10. Now using gizmo's waterflora modd let it rain in that little hole you just made.


11. Now let's try some of the game bridges.  The six that came up are the only ones availiable because of the short span.  But you know what I don't like how this one looks.  Let's try another.


12. Nope....


13. Don't like this one either.


14. Not this one...


15. I like this one but not for this application.


16. No, none of these look right. 


17. I have an idea.  Let's make the river bed three tiles wide.


18. That worked.  The bridge now looks even on both sides.


19. Not my favourite, but it's better.


20. Yah, I like these now, but this one is too much.


21. Much better.


23. Love this one but it needs to be longer and higher.


24. I like this.


25. I think I'm going use this one.  I like the truss.


26. In this picture, I have moved down river a bit to do a train bridge.  Same steps as above to get to this point.


27. Here you can see that the river splits.  We are going to have a two bridges.


28. Add the gizmo's water in both river beds in line to where the bridge will be.  This time I have decided to make the river bed three tiles wide.


29. I have quickly choosen the bridge I like. Except this time to get both bridge ends to look right I had to riase the land for the bridge up just a tiny bit using the mayor mode tools.


30. Here's an over view of my bridges to this point.


31. Now with your favourite plop water modd, fill the entire river bed.  I usually leave the road pieces on the shore, so I can clearly see where the river bed is.  My favourite plop water is jeronij's


32. Over view with the river bed now full of plop water.


34.  Now we need to add some eyecandy.  I like to start with cycledogg]plopable rocks from cycledogg[/url].  I have link to an entire page of his stuff because everyone should have it all.  So I line the river bed with the rocks, usually the green ones.  Add your favourite trees.  I will not link these because there are so many and I think I have them all. 


35.  In the end you should have something like this.


36.


37.


38.


39.


40.


41.


Well that's it for me.  I hope my tutorial was decent and understandable.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask. 

I will be doing an update in the next couple of days.  I ahve had some time to play last week so I do have a bunch of pictures just about ready.

I have something a little different for everyone to think about.
There was these three women that needed to share a hotel room.  The front desk clerk said the room would be $30.00.  So each woman paid $10.00 each.  They proceeded to their room.  A few minutes later the desk clerk remembered that there was a discount that week.  He called over the bell boy and told him to give the women back the $5.00 they over paid.  As the bell boy walked to the room he couldn't figure out how to evenly split the $5.00.  So he decided to keep $2.00 for himself and give each woman $1.00 each.  Now this means each woman paid $9.00 each, which now makes $27.00 in total plus the $2.00 the bell boy kept, that equals $29.00.  Now the question is, where did the other $1.00 go?

Think about that for awhile and I'll see you all soon.

Robin   

[threestooges]

The tutorial is quite clear, and I like the road idea to level off the bridgeway. That makes it much easier to make those double bridges (like the rail bridges you showed). Something not clear however, is that puzzling little question you posed at the end... at first glance it makes sense, but after some quick math it makes much more sense. they haven't paid 10-1 dollars, the price change changes the rpice they actually paid for the room 25/3=8.33. So after getting their dollar back, they have their room at 8.33+1= 9.33 and 9.33*3=28 plus the 2 the bellboy kept, and there's the missing dollar. Make 'cents' (read also 'sense')?

[Ennedi]

Hello Robin,

That's a great start with making tutorials!
Your tutorial is very good done. You showed all steps of making the river beds and bridges, and showing various kinds of bridges is very ueful - everybody can see how the particular bridge looks in this situation.

I have two technical comments:
1. It would be good to turn on the grid (simply pressing "G"), when you show the terraforming process, The terrain shape will be more clear for everybody. Then you can turn the grid off showing the final effect.
2. I understand why you lowered the terrain using the Hole Digger for Sunken, but if you want to have a river bed only 7-8 m deep, you don't need to lower the terrain by 15 m and then raise it by 7 m. You can do it in one step lowering the terrain by 7-8 m.
How to do it? Use Extra Cheat Plugins, turn on the Terrain Query (or press Ctrl+X and write Terrain Query in the command line, then press Enter).
Now lower the terrain a bit (only one tile, it will be good to have the grid turned on). I f you think it's enough, flatten this tile putting street on it.
Now check the height and compare with the base level. If the river bed hasn't the needed height yet, adjust it in the same way.
But there is a good side of your method. If you used the sunken tool first, you have a slope and you can compare levels - you know where you are when you are raising the terrain 

It is very good if people show their working methods. Usually there are more than 1 way to to a particular thing. Maybe it would be good if I would show my rivers and bridges, it would be an occasion to compare our methods? (I don't think in terms "better -worse" at all, using different methods ve achieve different effects - I think about learning one from another).

Edit: You made your riverside with some straight lines (as most other things it has good and bad side ), but the work you have done to hide them by stones, logs and trees is really fantastic! 

As for your question:

Everything is OK with cash but we shouldn't add 27 $ paid by women to 2$ taken by the boy.
Women paid 27$ (first they gave 30$, then received 3$).
Where are these money?
The clerk has 25$ (he received 30$, then gave 5$ back)
And the boy has 2$, total 27 

[bat]

Wonderful tutorial there, rooker1! Great pictures of that beautiful place!

[thundercrack83]

Well, that a clear and concise tutorial there, Robin! And the finished product is absolutely beautiful! Excellent job, my friend! Oh, and I'm going to need to think about that riddle!

[kimcar]

  &aplsGreat tuto my friend. This will be very usefull. Great idea too the competition with picture . Too bad i didn`t have time to play , but is very generous of you.  take care.

[rooker1]

Good evening All,

First, let's talk about that riddle.  It's just a play on words and very bad math.

30-5=25                     
25+(3x1)=28
28+2=30

NOT
10-1=9
9x3=27
27+2=29

Because I told you what to do, you assume I was doing the math correctly.
Hehehe

REPLIES.....

threestooges, thanks for stopping by.  It looks like you were on your way to the right answer.  Very good.

Ennedi, thanks for those interesting tips.  I didn't know that.  I just like to split the height diiference between water bed, land and over all bridge height.  Your tips make more sense though.  But like you said everybody has their own methods.

bat, thanks.

thundercrack83, thanks for the nice comments and I hope you didn't spend too much time on that riddle.  There are alot more to come in the future.

kimcar, thanks my friend and you do have time to play again.  There will be more to come.

The next round will start tomorrow morning around 8:00 am.  So everyone get ready.

Until than, I'll leave you all with this riddle.
There is a pink single story house and everything in it is pink. The doors are pink, the windows are pink and the TV is pink. What color are the stairs?

Robin   

[Travis]

Until than, I'll leave you all with this riddle.
There is a pink single story house and everything in it is pink. The doors are pink, the windows are pink and the TV is pink. What color are the stairs?

If it's a single story house it won't have stairs. 

Didn't fool me on that one. 

[rooker1]

Hello all,

Travis great work on that riddle.  I guess it was too easy.

Well here are the pictures to the Forth Round of my competition

Pic1

Pic2

Pic3

Pic4

Pic5

Pic6

Pic7

Pic8

Pic9

Pic10


Good luck to every one on the Forth Round.

Riddle,
What gets wetter and wetter as it dries?

Robin   

[bat]

Picture 7 is from Bliss   by Russell,
picture 8 is from Urland by Nardo69 and
picture 10 from AntigOne by Badsim.