Adara - Update 184 - March 26, 2012

[HotChocolate]

Wow... Looks great!

[nbvc]

Great updates.  Nice piers you have chosen.

[TiFlo]

Your shore line detailing is gorgeous. It will be interesting to see what it looks like when you have gone through several tiles with shared shore lines.

[Cyclone1001]

Nice stuff.

[Schulmanator]

Lookin good! 

[Gringamuyloca]

 

hard to believe I've been lurking for 594 days... yes, I have been here since day one...
I was going to say something that first day... and I have replied to every update... in my mind... but what can I add that hasn't already been said by much more experienced 'players"?

Being a 'Wet Coaster" myself, I love how you have taken the time to be so 'honest' in your portrayal of 'our' region of the world. I also
enjoy how you impart your knowledge/ experience that you so willingly share...sharing seems to be the heart of this 'Sim Community'!

A good friend once told me "There's no sense in guilt! Feeling guilty makes you feel 'bad/sick' but can't change anything, or fix anything...do something, do anything but DON'T Do guilt!"
So in the spirit of 'doing something' rather than 'feeling guilty'... I make my first of many posts to your awesome contribution!

Cheers...

[sumwonyuno]

I have simply missed out on so much stuff!   

For the more recent stuff, I am in awe of diagonal farms!  (Even if they're just ploppable filler lots)

For the previous update, I think the change in your choice of ploppable items make it all look a bit more textured (rather than somewhat homogeneous) at zoomed out shots.   The sporadic, yet clustered look for the placement of flora is something that I have been trying to experiment with, and your results look great!

[threestooges]

It's been a while since I've posted here, but in that time I took a fishing trip up to Washington. The actual fishing was done up near the northwestern tip of the state (with occasional views of Canada through the fog), and it really reinforces what gringamuyloca said. The dense green wetness up there is very well reflected in your MD. The details like the unused, and in some cases deteriorating, docks are excellent. I know I've asked this in some form before, but how much do you plan out what goes where before starting to build? Were those docks always there, or did you find that spot for them as you went?
-Matt

[nedalezz]

Absolutely gorgeous as usual. You make it seem so simple, but the reality of the details you put in, I doubt anyone can replicate. You are a true master of coastal/river bed work.

[kalvar]

beautiful landscape in your region, I really like.

[marsh]

     Looks very nice! You put alot of work into that coastline. 

,marsh 

[kwakelaar]

Your wrap up looks great, only little comment I may add is that it might look more like a salt water coral reef than a fresh water riverbed when you start zooming out. Up close I think it is looking perfect.

[Tomas Neto]

Yeah..., you do impressing again!!!

[TrebuTa]

Impressive once again!

[canyonjumper]

Awesome job Battlecat! The island looks cool, and the shoreline detailing and the use of nbvc's piers is great!

                            Your friend,
                                           Jordan

[Battlecat]

HotChocolate: Welcome to Adara!  Thanks very much!

nbvc: Thanks!  I've been looking forward to trying out your piers ever since they were released!

TiFlo: I'm looking forward to that as well.  I'm even just looking forward to putting the composites together!  Thanks!

Cyclone1001: Thanks!

Schulmanator: Thanks very much!

Gringamuyloca: That's a long time to lurk, let me officially welcome you to Adara then!  Glad you've been enjoying your regular visits all this time!  I don't think the SC4 community would be as strong as it is without the sharing of knowledge and creations.  I find huge amounts of inspiration from everyone's work here and sharing my ideas helps keep that up. 

Heh, Wet Coast.  Truer words were never spoken.  I'm just glad I don't live in the Bella Coola area right now.  They're getting seriously hammered by rain.  Thanks for de-lurking to comment! 

sumwonyuno: No worries, life happens to us all.  Glad you enjoyed getting caught up.  I've been playing around a lot with textures and the mixed style does seem to look more realistic.  I really enjoyed creating the diagonal farms, now if life would just let me package them up for release. Thanks for stopping by!

Matt (threestooges): Nice to hear you had a great time fishing.  Green wetness is the perfect description for the west coast.  Glad you think the style of Adara matches the reality.  Granted, the Olympic style textures and trees from Cycledogg really help!

I don't do a lot of planning ahead with my MD.  I have plans for the large scale details but I tend to create the details pretty much on the fly.  In the case of Poplar Grove, I had this idea that it was a small fishing community and the location was pretty much picked out as soon as I created the tile, but the details pretty much come into existence exactly as writing in my updates.  Sometimes I'll place them once or twice to see how they look in various spots first though.   

nedalezz: Thanks!  I think the best advice I can give is to change brushes often, even if you want to use a texture throughout the region.  Changing often helps keep me from getting trapped into repeating patterns.  I'm glad you like how things have turned out here!

kalvar: Thanks very much!

marsh: Thanks, it has indeed taken me a lot of time to put together.  The results have been worth it though.

Gjermund (Kwakelaar): Yeah, I'm not 100% happy with the rocks underwater.  I'm not going to go back and change it but I'll probably phase it out upstream and downstream in favor of some other styles of rock.  We'll just call it a quirk of the local terrain.  Thanks for your thoughts!

Tomas Neto: Thanks very much!

TrebuTa: Thanks!

Jordan (canyonjumper): Thanks for your kind words!

Update 131
Greenwood – The Final Days

Sorry for the long delay in this update.  I was unavoidably tied up during several recent weekends.  Long weekends always seem to give me less time than normal.  Plus being distracted by a new game never helps things either!  Anyhow, I'm back with another update.  Today I'm putting the final touches on Greenwood. 

131-1: There are two areas left  that haven't been filled in yet.  This section of riverfront in the Poplar Grove area is one of them.


131-2: The other one is the valley behind the wind farm.  Funny enough, I just haven't gotten around to treeing this area.  I'll start here.


131-3: A gravel road winds down into the forest behind the wind farm.  I'm not adding any buildings here, it's just an old forest service road. 


131-4: Once the trees are added there's not much to see.  I've only added the first swath of trees in this view.


131-5: It's a subtle change, but adding the larch trees in among the other trees gives a nice, denser feel to the forest.  Now back to the riverfront. 


131-6: Adding the power lines is always the first priority.  The grass helps prevent plopable trees from flooding into the powerline allowances.


131-7: The riverfront trail extends all the way to the map border.  It's not as long as you think, keep in mind that the large maps are only 4 Km x 4 Km.  This trail may extend across several tiles in fact. 


131-8: Now for some trees.  Oak forest drifts down into the riparian style forest that I use along all my riverbanks. 


131-9: The shoreline detailing is great fun but it's also time consuming.  I'm still having a lot of fun experimenting with different mixtures.  This is a rockier beach.


131-10: And this area is almost entirely covered in plants. 


131-11: A wide sandy and gravel beach wraps things up near the tile border. 


131-12: Along the farm I've gone with a mixture of textures.  I kind of like how this turned out.


131-13: Here's an overview of the finished shoreline. 


131-14: And to wrap things up, a zoom 5 composite of the Greenwood tile. As always you can click the image to see a larger verision. 


That's all for today!  I'm not sure when I'm going to get around to the composite and mapping work.  Given a choice, I'll prioritize the composites, I like them better and they're relatively less work.  I've got an idea what I'll be working on next though.  See you later!

[turtle]

Wow, amazing work on that tile, Battlecat!

Seeing that overview it's difficult to imagine just how much work you've put into it. So I read back a few pages to the first update on Greenwood, and guess what - it's 28 (Twentyeight!) updates and 25 (Twentyfive!) pages back, posted on the 19th of march (here). I guess that figures with that result. Thanks for letting us join in 

Looking forward to see what's up next.

Thomas

[MattyFo]

WOW! great work here!  I stared into that Zoom 5 shot for quite a while

I'd sure love to see a full region shot, however considering how long I looked at that Zoom 5, I may be out of commision for hours with a whole Region.

[Cyclone1001]

Shore good looks yes 

[io_bg]

Great update as always. Love the way you detail the shorelines. Looking forward to more!