Spa's Atlantic Retreat

[Jack_wilds]

Hey Spa, Jack wilds here...

Dl'd all the bats of the week and I am thrilled with their lotting, and appearances in my cities.  I particularly like the Dennis building.  The Imperial theater is a good cultural addition to any Sim life.    Well done...

Jack 

[chibytuga]

I'm really digging this latest batch of buildings you've been releasing; I'm going for an "old downtown" look in parts of the new city I'm getting ready to start developing, and these will fit right in.

[spa]

Rushman: Not a bad idea for a future bat. It's not something I'm planning on with these though.
GirlfromVerona: Glad you liked them.
Matt: Thanks I'm glad they found a place in your city. If you're looking for variation, you'll like this update
Orange: I added a few details like bbqs, chairs and plants on the back. Maybe that'll do the trick.
Jackwilds: Thanks. The Dennis Building was fun to work with. There is a lot on it for something that is essentially just a box.
Chibytuga: I'm glad you like them. I tried to make it a themed release of old stuff. The next batch will be old wooden residentials

So it has been a while since I posted in here. All my posting time went into uploading last week  Knightsbridge has moved along quite considerably though. I have 5 models rendered and on lots in game. I made three lots for each model: one with an alley, one with backyards, and one that's just one tile wide. Since a couple pictures are worth a thousands words, you can check them out below in all their combinations.

2x2s

3x2s

4x2s

5x2s

6x2s

One tile wide versions at night


The night lighting kind of works to bring out the basement windows doesn't it? They tend to get lost in the day view but sure pop at night. About the trees on the lots, they're cycledogg's of course (love his stuff) and they're actually prop families so the lots will be somewhat random.

Now that I have the basic blue version done, I'm contemplating other colours. Below is a mockup of the 3 alternates I'm considering.

I think the sage green is a definite winner. It seems to look the best... Probably because it's the closest to the light blue. I'm not sure yet about the peach and yellow versions. The siding might need to be desaturated a little bit and the shingles might need to be brightened a little bit. I like the colours as concepts though. Anyway, it'll take a while to render all the greens so there is still time to adjust the yellow and peach versions. What do you guys think of the alternate colours?

[jmdude1]

nice work spa, i actually like all of the colours. i was wondering about the bigger lots though (5x2, 6x2), would it be possible to make them into 2x5 and 2x6?
its just a thought cause often those ?x2 get broken up into smaller lots and the unique size of 2x? would make these easier to grow....and you know we all
want them to grow! keep up the great work.

[threestooges]

Very nice work. The lights do bring out the basements, and the color is excellent. I sort of like the yellow option as it, and the green isn't too bad either. Not sure about the peach though... it seems a bit saturated. My one critique of the lots though, is the parking situation with the narrow drives. They look excellent, and the variation with the wider sections looks great. However, the parked cars on the narrow sections seem to block the driveway (see the 3rd pic with the redish SUV). If there is a way to gracefully add a bit more room (perhaps by deepening the parking area) I think these lots would be pretty much perfect. Nice work.
-Matt

[mightygoose]

nice although a corner version would complete this set...

[rushman5]

I agree with Mightygoose.  Perhaps a corner only version that has that alley parking facing the corner, unrestricted to the road.  Other than that, this looks about rapped up, hope you are doing them in families for more variation!

-sean

[spa]

Jmdude1: It would be possible, but that would be a bit of an odd shape! With a combination for every size from 2 up to 6 wide there shouldn't be much trouble in getting these to appear.
Matt: Yeah you weren't the only one who spotted that. I have gone back and eliminated the cars that could block the alley and I moved the cars back just a little bit in the indented areas. The alleys wont' be blocked now.
Mightygoose: Maybe... Wasn't really planning on it though
Sean: Don't worry, I'm using families so that'll maximize the variety.

Nothing new to report on Knightsbridge. I finalized the greens, but I haven't touched the yellow or peach. I'll tinker with them in the next while. I had the urge though to start something new. I decided to recreate some of Halifax's more common homes, the so-called "Halifax Box." The Halifax Box is the name that has been given affectionately and derisevly through the years to the simple old wooden houses that were built in great numbers throughout the City's older neighbourhoods. The typical Halifax box has two to three rows of windows, simple adornments if any and an almost flat roof. They were usually built either wall-to-wall with their neighbours or with only a very narrow gap. Today, they can be found all over the Peninsula and in parts of Dartmouth, but the biggest concentration is in the old working class neighbourhood between the Downtown and the MacDonald Bridge. This North End neighbourhood was shelted from the 1917 Explosion by the hill at Fort Needham and was, until recently, an economically depressed area. Having survived the Explosion, but with no investment, not much was demolished over the last 100 years. Today the area is gentrifying, but the old wooden homes are rightly viewed as assets and most will likely live on, even if their interiors are gutted. Anyway, below are some pics.


One final note, notice the elaborate porches on the 3 down middle and bottom right? That's another typical Halifax architectural feature. In many cases, like on these Boxes, the porches are more elaborate then the actual building that they attach too!

Anyway, what I'm planning is a whole ton of variations of one basic model (different entranceways, colours, decoratives features etc) based loosely on the types of Boxes posted above. So far, I have the starting model done.

I think it's pretty cute! It still needs a chimney or a vent or something though. Since I'll be able to reuse so much of the basic model, with some minor alteration, it shouldn't take too long to make more. I'm thinking two on a 1x2 medium density lot and one by itself on a low density 1x2 lot. Anyway, that's what's in the works right now.

[spa]

I'm out in the country this weekend house sitting for my parents. It's a 6 day staycation. As is usual when I'm out there, I started a new project since I can't bring much with me. Next up, an old paint peeler that I mentioned months ago from Halifax's South End, the Victorian Apartments.

This is one I know well... I actually live in the building! It's a neat place. It's cheap for what is otherwise a very expensive neighbourhood. It's near the universities and is in the South End so the building is full of students and young people just starting out (me). It was once a hotel (the Victorian Hotel) and local rumour says it was a brothel for a time too back when the southern end of Hollis Street was Halifax's red light district. It's a building that you won't find in any guidebook, but it's distinctive appearence has made it a local landmark. The number of people who instantly say oh "the grey building" or "the place with the wrap around porches!" when I mention I live at Hollis and Morris is actually quite remarkable. It's a building that has been a bit romanticized. Sadly, it's in rough shape and its days are numbered. The building's owner also owns two old houses in equally poor condition next door and is moving forward in the planning process with a proposal to build a ten storey modern building on the site.

The proposal still has to go before Halifax Regional Council so I haven't been evicted yet! Anyway, even if the real building is doomed and I'm going to have to move, it's going to live on in Sim City. So far, I have finished the top two floors of the front portion (the building's most geometrically complicated section).

I'll no doubt finish the model while I'm out in the country, but texturing will have to wait until I'm home again and have access to fast internet and photoshop. The Victorian Apartment will fit on a 3x2 or a 3x3 on a corner lot and will be wall-to-wall on one side. It'll probably be R$, but we'll have to see how it looks textured for the final determination of R$ or R$$.

One other bit of news, earlier in the week I did two more versions of the Halifax boxes. Below will give you a better idea of where this project is heading.

They're kind of fun to do actually. It only takes 2-3 hours to tweak the model and retexture to make for a different variation which fits in well with the amount of free-time I have on a work day after feeding myself and hitting the squash court. Simple and rewarding. Excuse the sparse roofs, I still have to do the roof junk on all three. It won't be anything much though, a chimney here a vent there. Small little houses like this really shouldn't have a complicated roof! Anyway, I probably won't have an update until late in the week or the week after.

[rushman5]

I'd say make it a $ and a $$ version.  One with a dead tree and blankish lot and one with lush trees and a fence.  I like the box houses, they remind me of the Clay Cafe corner building you made.  Keep it up out there!

[fantnet]

SPA,

When willyou we releasing your residentials?

[vester]

They will be released, when they are done and tested. Please be patience.

[simdad1957]

This is one I know well... I actually live in the building!

I remember this building quite well too from my student days back in Halifax. It looks kind of dowdy on the outside but I'm sure it has lots of character on the inside. I lived in several older buildings in the south end and downtown, including the old Phi Rho Sigma frat house on Inglis and (as you know) a flat above the King of Donair.

Looking forward to the release of your residential buildings!

[spa]

Wow long time since I posted anything. Let's clean up the replies before I get into explanations!

Rushman: A R$ and R$$ version of the Halifax boxes is a definite possibility. I'm already thinking of w2w and detached lots. I'm not surprised they make you think of the Clay Cafe: colourful, small and wood!
Fantnet: As Vester said, they're done when they're done I have been a bit tied up with real life lately so that's put things back a bit, but things are returning to normal so I'll be back to batting again soon. I'll probably have a batch of residentials done towards the end of Summer/September if I had to guess. You'll just have to be patient until then.
Vester: Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't very quick off the mark.
Simdad: Yeah this one is a little hard to miss. A definite landmark. It's coming down this Fall though. Everyone has to be out by Sept 30 so a Fall demolition seems inevitable, even if the project hasn't been approved yet (they can demolish as of right anytime they wish since this one isn't a registered heritage property). There are some great features on the inside that have survived the decades of neglect. You can see some of the interior apartments on Paramount Management's website as they try and rent out the vacant apartments for the next few months . Luckily, I already know where I'm heading next, the big old yellow place across from Cornwallis Park (more on that below). I'm afraid I don't know the old Phi Rho frat house.

So I haven't been around as much over the last two months as normal. A few big milestones and changes have ticked by all at once in life so I thought I would share and explain my particular real life virus. First up, at the start of May I went to Cuba for a week with my fiance. It was a really great trip. I had never done the all inclusive resort thing before and was worried that I would get bored, but it's amazing the way doing nothing can eat up so much time. I'll post a few pictures to give a flavour.

We stayed in Sol y Luna Mares (North of Hologuin). Our room was awesome. We had an ocean view on the third floor of a quiet section of the hotel. With such a nice setting, we made good use of the balcony (I read 4 books in a week as opposed to the 1 a month I tend to otherwise do). My fiance enjoyed it too and she's a "I can't relax I have stuff to do" type personality (lawyers, you can't take them anywhere!).




We did remember though to also spend some time on the beach.

mmm coconut!

The real appeal though for me about going to Cuba, was getting the chance to go snorkeling. Being from a grim Northern climate where we have fairly opaque waters and uncolourful fish, I really wanted to see a coral reef. With that in mind, we were really careful about picking a resort. We wanted one with a reef you could swim to from the beach so that we didn't have to operate on someone's boat schedule. We wanted ot be able to just go swim the reef when we felt like it. Sol y Mares proved to be a great pic (the other hotels in the area take their boats to the reef in front of this resort). My fiance brought her waterproof camera with some amazing results.

Just me cruising on the reef.


How nature say's don't touch! Lion Fish are quite posionous and my fiance fled in panic when I told her what she was photographing!


A parrot fish of some kind.


I dove down and pulled this perfectly intact urchin from between two rocks and then snuck it past Canadian Customs. Unfortunately, I broke it in two a few weeks ago when I knocked it off my aquarium


And this would be how urchins dies. When they break off the rocks and their fleshy underside is exposed, the fish descend like vultures. It was a real feeding frenzy and so much better since it wasn't some tourist chucking bread in the water that was causing it. It was a natural event. In the photo you can see Sergent Majors, a bunch of different Wrasses and some Damsel Fish.


A school of Blue Tangs and Surgeon Fish cruising the reef


Spanish Hog Fish


A Trunk Fish (odd shaped creatures aren't they?)


All and all it was a great trip

Cuba wasn't the only thing going on though. Cuba was actually a honeymoon of sorts. My fiance graduated on May 22 from law school and started articling on June 30. Her family was going to be in Town for graduation so we decided to make it a 2 for 1 deal. Come for the graduation stay for the wedding We got married on May 23 in Economy, Nova Scotia at a small cottage resort. It was a very traditional wedding in the sense that the bride and groom and the family did almost everything. We did our own decorating, prepared the food (except the cake) and organized our own music. Even the dress was bought second hand and then tailored to fit. We rented the whole resort to let everyone stay over and did a bbq/party. It all went amazingly well and Nova Scotia's very unpredictable and untrustworthy weather actually cooperated by offering up a perfect warm, but not too hot, May day.

In the gazebo where the ceremony happened just before the kiss the bride


A done deal


On the Bay of Fundy shore for pictures. The world's highest tides are right here. In the course of just a few hours you go from a huge expanse of mud to water lapping at the breakwall!


Us and almost all our guest (about 5-8 didn't make the photo for one reason or another)

You might notice that although it wasn't a big crowd, it was a young group... it made for quite a party!

It's the right of every groom to force feed the bride the first slice of cake!


Do you know what takes a long time, stringing hundreds of lights through birch trees. Yes that's how I spent about 4 hours of my morning day of, but on the other hand it looked really great at night.


So if going to Cuba and getting married wasn't enough, I'm also moving on Sept 1. The Victorian Apartments' days are even more numbered than I thought. My landlord isn't renewing any leases beyond Sept 30 so the writing is on the wall. It'll be a pile of rubble by late Fall to live on only in Sim City (whenever I finish the model). Luckly I already found a new place that's still in the neighbourhood. Costs a bit more, but my wife is working now so we can afford a small increase. Here's the new home which is just 2 blocks away from where I am now.


Beautiful isn't it! You will definitely see this one as a bat sometime soon. I really like old buildings which was a big part of the appeal of this place.

Anyway, I know this is a long post and is somewhat self-involved but I just wanted everyone to share and to let everyone know that I'll be back to batting soon now that life is returning to normal.

[Jack_wilds]

Hey SPA, Jack wilds here...

Super wonders do abound;  congrats on your nuptials...      glad to see that you are well and good and that RL hasn't been to disagreeable.   

All the photogs of beach and sea; this make you a beach bum?    they turned out well for dl to this thread, even the colors seem to show how good its was.  It (the cottage resort in Economy SC) shows that it must have been a wondrous place to share such a mile stone with family and friends; cooperating weather to boot.  The 'family style' traditional wedding is a good thing, the using of 'family reunion activities' acts as a means of uniting families to form a new family; that is -a family union vs family reunion    I hope to get to do such a thing as this, as well.

Trust to hear more about the projects soon, as well as the new digs.

Be blessed in all things, peace and joy flood your house and hearth always 

from the northwoods

Jack 

[simdad1957]

Well, you certainly have been quite busy!!!

I'm glad you had a good trip to Cuba. I don't think anyone enjoys Caribbean vactions more than us dour and frozen Canucks. You can spot us a kilometre away by the way we frolic on the beaches. 

Congratulations on your nuptuals. It's a big step but it truly is the most momentous event of your life.

There always seems to have been this weird connectedness between you and me. You BAT the KOD building and I lived in it when I was a med student in Halifax. We bump into each other on the SkyscraperPage forum and now another couple of coincidences.........your new wife is articling law in Halifax and my brother-in-law is a lawyer in Halifax. You get married in Economy NS and my brother-in-law's wife is from Economy NS!!!

Weird eh.......

Congratulations again.........SimDad1957(SC4D), MonctonRad(SSP)

[jacqulina]

congratulations

[threestooges]

Congratulations! Sounds like the trip went well, and thanks for the quick icthyology lesson too. Sorry to hear about the urchin though... after all that work sneaking it back in. Looks like a nice new place you'll be moving in to (the design looks familiar and I think I've seen that shade of yellow on something you've done here before). Congratulations to your wife too for graduating law school. I just finished my second year, so I have a fair idea of what all she went through. Glad to hear you both were able to relax a bit. Hope things are well, and it's good to see you back.
-Matt

[spa]

JackWilds: Thanks and I appreciated the kind private message. Sorry for not responding, but I was so behind I figured a public announcement would be easiest
Simdad: Yeah it was kind of crazy. Indeed Cuba was crawling with Canadians. It's almost an 11th province with half our whole country's population! It was funny on the bus on the way back, our Cuban tour guide went on about how much he loves Nova Scotians and Newfoundlanders, but that he doesn't really like Quebeckers because they're arrogant... Obviously they have a pretty good sense of Canada's regional divides!   (with apologies to all Quebeckers). He also advised that if you bought more than 50 cigars you should just get someone who hadn't bought the limit to carry them in for you so "those bastards" don't charge. Michelle, being a lawyer, cringed I know what you mean. It does feel like we've been walking in some of the same footsteps doesn't it. What firm does your brother-in-law work for or is a free agent?
Jacqulina: Thanks
Matt: Ahh I'm hoping to put the urchin back together with modelling glue. The new place might be familiar because I think I might have posted a picture of it way back. It's a place that I have always thought was neat and figured was a likely bat so I'm delighted to be moving into it. You might also be thinking of Dundas Terrace, a finished, but not yet released bat of mine. It was big and yellow, but different in design and from Charlottetown. I would say its odd to have two big yellow wooden buildings posted in the same thread, but it's Atlantic Canada, everything is made of wood and nobody's afraid of bright colours!


So I'm back into batting. After a two month hiatus I was back into gmax over my 5 day break (Canada Day was July 1 and I have been off since then, but I have to go back to work tomorrow). To get back into it, I finished the modelling on the Victorian Apartments and did about half the textures. Below is where things sit:

Obviously it's still a work in progress, but the textures are coming along. The big thing will be the windows since they'll tie the building together. I think it does feel rundown enough to be R$ which is really what the real building is. There is still a bit of modelling left to be done on the roof. The real thing is a gravel roof and it has a few modern vents poking through on it in addition to three old chimnies that I haven't batted yet. Anyway, if I don't get caught up in other things, I should have a final version this coming weekend since this one is heading into the home streatch.

[benvoliothefirst]

Absolutely fantastic. I continue to be a huge admirer of your work. ...and your ability to render decent looking clapboard siding, which I'm constantly struggling with in BAT. Can't wait to see it finished! ...and congratulations on your beautiful wedding and new housing situation!