Adara - Update 184 - March 26, 2012

[Tomas Neto]

Awesome work again, really fantastic update!

[turtle]

 
Once again a great update. It is really remarkable how well you are able make those border transitions. The "glitches", as you call them, can barely be seen from a distance. I guess you could make some lots with the texture from your terrain mod to cover up the flowers right at the border, but you would still have to make some sort of transition. I think it looks amazing as it is, though. I've been wondering why you have the black background when making those cross boundary shots, - would it be easier to make a seamless transition with a background color that is closer to that of the trees or terrain? Maybe it's more difficult to see it when editing the pics, then? Oh well, just a thought. Being the rookie I am, I've never built anything worth making a cross boundary mosaic of...

Regarding building style, I can see how your way of developing a region makes it seem less overwhelming. The result is obviously fantastic. I guess there's also a difference in building it for a MD compared to just playing around. Usually, I start by imagining where the region would have been populated first, and then laying out some sort of cross region transportation infrastructure to create some sort of storyline to justify new developments, even if it's just in my mind. I guess that's kind of what I meant before. Usually, at some point I get impatient, and things get ugly, which is why I'm reading your MD 
Taking into consideration the way you develop the region, it makes sense for you to take care of the border and transitions before going further with Winfield, so I should just wait (im)patiently for you to do your thing. Who am I to question such a successful MD author anyways?

I'm looking forward to what you have in store for us next, be it rural, forests, urban or surprises even!

Thomas
(sorry for the lengthy comment)

edit: Congrats on 600 replies 

[threestooges]

Great work on the lake shores. You manage to make them very realistic like that marshy little outcroppingin 63-9. Aside from a few black spots your cross-border mosaics look great. Makes me want to try my hand at one or two myself. Nice local launch facility too, especially with everything shaping up around it. Still waiting to see how the light rail will factor in. I don't think it's necessarily a matter of making the roads less efficient than the rail, I mean, ultimately they will be if the system is designed right, but think of it as making the system more efficient than the roads. There will be less traffic, less congestion, and will be more appealing than the drive. I haven't tried working with a purely in-avenue GLR system though. Whatever the next update has planned for it, I'll be waiting.
-Matt

[calibanX]

An excellent technique you have for lining up your region borders and getting great pics of the result. I like your shoreline. I'm having a hard time getting a shoreline technique I'm satisfied with. Very nice update Battlecat.

Geoff

[Dreamcat]

Man...you are just too good.  And I am so serious about that.  Your border crossings are so wonderful.  But I have to ask you.  Are you psychic or something?  Because, believe it or not, I was JUST going to ask you if you were keeping a backup copy of Adara somewhere.  I've seen so many stupid things (prop pox, crashes) happen to wonderful regions.  DEFINITELY don't want to see that happen to Adara!  Hehe.

About your hiatus, er, realization, that's oh so good.  You should always prioritize real life over Simcity!  Hope you had a good break, I know from personal experience that if you overdo Simcity it is bad for your SC4 work in general.  So don't be afraid to take a break from us every once in a while! 

Okay....I have to admit that I love your exurbs.  So realistic!  And that lake is looking fantastic.  Especially cross-bordered like that.  The mosaic is great!  The lake border looks too good.  My only question is, will there ever be any 'real' water (not ploppable) in Adara?  At the start of the topic you exhibit PEG's Brigantine water mod.  Will we ever see that?  Just curious.  I love the ploppable water workings, so don't get me wrong!

Finally, I just love trees.  Especially the ones you've picked.  Everything goes from ordinary to amazing just with the trees you use!   

Until next time, and don't forget to enjoy life outside Simcity!

Eric

[Schulmanator]

Jiminy Jillikers! That looks awesome! 

[Delecto]

Looks great! I like very much how you fit out the lake shores. 

[Albus of Garaway]

Those composite images are nothing sort of breathtaking! I never would have guessed they were sewn together by you. That is simply some of the best work I've seen in quite a while.

I also see you're having a similar problem as I in respects to rail textures. My rail textures don't match the rail textures on the smooth curves, and it seems neither do yours. I had originally had in place Dedgren's realistic textures, but for some reason these refused to override the Maxis ones. As of now I'm using the SFBT darker textures, which blend better, but are still not perfect. I wonder if we'll ever have any luck solving this issue.

Lastly, I'm quite impressed with your shorelines using ploppable water. Could you offer me any tips as to how you go about blending the different fauna together to create one seamless shore? I'd really appreciate any advice you can provide!

Can't wait till the next update.

-Jason

[ecoba]

Wow, Battlecat, you've got water shore detaling down to an art, they look beautiful no matter what water and flora you use. And the lake composite shots, I can't find the border.

Those exurbs really are turning out great, and I could build those! They're also so heavily wooded in that I can't really tell they're there from far away, but then you see a roof, and whoop! there they are.

Your composite images are truly amazing. Even in the one with the powerlines, I couldn't find the border after a minute of staring at it! The images truly look completely real, not sewn together, like Jason said.

In regards to the rail textures, I'm using the SFBT textures and I have no issues with the smooth curves at all... weird...

Ethan

[TiFlo]

Hi Battlecat,

I stumbled upon your MD last week and have wasted quite some time reading it from the beginning. This is such an impressive piece of work, and so neat and good looking! Thank you very much for putting this together, I've been eagerly awaiting each update since then. Actually, I'm new into the world of SC4, and your work is such an inspiration, I look at it as a big "how-to" for anything rural related which helps big time as I'm only trying for medium-sized cities (pop. under 100 000) and realistic looking regions.

Thanks a lot, I'm looking forward to the next update! 

TiFlo

[Bobbi]

Very beautiful scenery!

[Battlecat]

Tomas Neto: Thanks very much!

Thomas (turtle): No worries about the long post, I enjoy reading them.  Particularly when someone provides me with a touch of inspiration!  I use a black background for my region because it acts like a green screen.  The theory originally was that I would select the block of black along the tile edge and delete them.  Overlaying the two tiles would then take advantage of .png transparency to overlap them perfectly. 

In this update, that technique failed in several places due to inattention on my part, but thanks to your comment I've come up with an improvement!  I've got a composite using this new technique at the end of this update.  It requires a bit more care, but it makes a huge difference!  Honestly, the key thing that I did mess up on with that mosaic was not carefully clipping out the black; usually I at least catch the big pieces.  Thanks for that comment, it helped me rethink things a bunch!

Interestingly enough, I am building hypothetical cross region infrastructure, the freeway that crosses the lake in this area will eventually connect Winfield up with some other large center that doesn't even exist on paper yet!  And those railways do have destinations!  As you mentioned, patience is one of the hardest things to control when building this way.  It's all the harder as the creator because I want to show you all what I've already envisioned for the region!  There's so much to build, and so little time! 

For me the borders aren't just a consequence of my development style, rather they're a philosophical rebellion against the way the game treats borders.  There aren't hard fast borders between things in reality, so there shouldn't be anything like that in the game! I'm certainly glad you're enjoying your visits here!  Thanks for stopping in and for the congrats!  Hard to believe Adara is past 600 posts already, it hit 500 less than a month ago! 

Matt (threestooges): Thanks!  I think I've come up with a solution to the black spots problem.  I'm testing it out as I'm writing this update.  The light rail is a much as anything just the result of wanting to add something new to my region.  I've been working exclusively with roads and rails to date.  Westside actually has the first bus system in the region!  I'm hoping that with the simulator I'm using, the Sims will be a bit more enthused about transit anyhow. 

Geoff (calibanX): Shoreline techniques do take some messing around to find.  I've bulldozed a huge number of failed attempts both with the transparent water early on, and with the Tahoe style now.  The key I've found is to mix and match the textures and foliage.  Resist the urge to just plop one texture all through.  Paeng over at simpeg wrote an excellent tutorial on detailing ponds.  He put in some specifics on how to prep the shoreline; I use a lot of his ideas and suggestions in Adara.  In addition to the RRP items here, there are two excellent packs of shoreline textures in the PPond section of Pegasus' site. 

Eric (Dreamcat): I've actually been creating backup copies of the region every time I finish I tile so far, but this is the first time I've created an independent backup of both the region and the plugins folder on external media.  It was really the crash of Tarkus' computer recently that nailed this home though.  With the complexity level of my plugins folder, the probability of being able to rebuild it from scratch is near zero.  At least I've got the 1.8 gigabytes of plugins safely backed up now! 

Real life always comes first, between my wife, family and friends they keep me from disappearing to far into the virtual world!  It was an excellent break, although the project I'm presenting today has been filling my spare minutes quite a bit!  Anyhow, if I'm lucky I only get 2 blocks of time a week large enough to actually play the game. 

You know, I had originally planned to hit game water by now.  The nearest source is going to be a river on the next tile over from Alexandria.  But the way Vavenby worked out has kind of altered my plan.  This whole business with Williston Lake and the surrounding area has grabbed me a lot!  And with a game like this, inspiration is what you've got to follow!  But rest assured, the game water is out there, and we'll be seeing a lot of it in the future.  After all, I live on the West Coast of North America, there are lots of great coastal scenes and cities around here! 

Schulmanator: Thanks very much! 

Delecto: Welcome to Adara!  Thanks very much for your kind words!

Jason (Albus of Garaway): That's my goal with those composite images.  Glad you enjoyed the results!  As it turns out, I was missing the SFBT rail texture darkening mod; it's made a huge difference in the appearance of things.  They still don't match perfectly, but at least its better for now. 

I've seen your initial efforts with plopable water in your Montoe, AK MD, it's looking good already.  You're putting the available textures to good use, particularly the grasses along the water edge.  The key to improving the shoreline is variation, lots of variation.  Avoid the urge to use just a single style of texture to line the water edge, instead mix and match two or three textures in varying quantities.  Consistency is easy, but it does break the realism by making the shoreline look more like a roadway.  Another helpful thing is to add little outcrops, bays and stuff even on rivers. 

I'll see about putting together a series of shots together about the specifics of how I texture the shoreline in a few updates but in the meantime, Paeng over at simpeg wrote an tutorial on detailing PPond shorelines.  I hope these suggestions help, the only other thing I can say is don't be afraid to experiment, heck set up a separate region as a test bench for various ideas!  As it is though, you are well on your way already, I'm looking forward to seeing what else you've got coming in your MD!  Thanks for visiting!

Ethan (ecoba): Thanks very much, I really do enjoy detailing the shoreline, right up until my wrist gives out!  Glad you like the composites.  As for the exurbs, I'm really happy with how they're turning out.  They really are matching the reality of developments like this with the roof just barely visible through the trees!

Oh yeah, turns out the SFBT darker rail textures somehow got uninstalled off my system.  Oops!  I've added them back in; things look much better now. Thanks!

TiFlo: Welcome to Adara and to the SC4 Community in general!  Glad you've enjoyed your trip through Adara to date!  I'll try to keep the ideas flowing in the hopes that you and other will find it helpful!

The style I'm using in my MD updates was originally inspired by Darmok's Anduin Valley Region at Simtropolis.  His region is far more urban, but he follows a similar pattern of developing small bites of his region and going over the techniques being applied to create the effect.

Bobbi: Thanks very much!

Update 64
Winfield – Time for some Mods

As implied by the title, I've developed the itch to create a few mods of my own.  It's surprising just how much of an impact the decision to choose that sidewalk mod has had on the past week!  It's going very well considering my inexperience, so I'm going to show you my successes and what I've got in the works next.  I'll get back to the actual development in the next update.

64-1: You might recall in update 62, I pointed out the absence of brick sidewalks on the maxis street NAM roundabouts.


64-2: Well as it turns out, the original textures didn't have alpha maps.  So, a quick bit of careful work in a photo editor . . .

64-3: , and a quick import with SC4tool and voila!  Alpha mapped street roundabouts!  Best part of this mod is that if I decide to change the sidewalk mod again, the appropriate textures will already be in place.


64-4: There's a few other odd transitional issues when you look closely at the streets, but all things consider, it's not bad at all! I've posted them here on the STEX. 


64-5: Moving along, I also mentioned the street cul de sacs, originally developed by Qurlix way back in 2004. 


64-6: These aren't bad, they just needed alphas.  However, I decided to take things one step further . . .


64-7: And so I created a batch of new textures from scratch.  Cul de sacs are designed with pretty specific standards.  Around my area, they're designed to be 12 – 14 meters in radius.  With the tiles being estimated at 16x16 meters, that won't fit, but a 14 meter diameter cul de sac will.  These are my versions of the cul de sac mod. 


64-8: The sidewalks narrow around the outside of the cul de sac, much like real life.  Granted in real life, we don't build sidewalks around most cul de sacs, but this is a good compromise. 


64-9: The sidewalks still hit the end and sides of the tile to ensure a clean transition to trail parks as in this shot.  These new cul de sacs are available here on the STEX.   


64-10: So, where do I go next, there's one more large block of features with baked in textures that I can do some work on.  In this case, it's necessary because they are puzzle pieces.  Here's a quick shot out of the future downtown Winfield.  The brick vs the white texture just doesn't work for me. 


64-11: A big thanks to Toichus Maximus for all his hard work doing a large quantity of the texture replacements already! He's finished the GLR, Rural Style GLR, and the GLR in avenue stuff already. 


64-12: When this is done, it will simply replace all the white textures along the GLR with the sandstone textures.  I know there has been some discussion about doing a SAM style setup in the NAM for alternate GLR textures, but in the meantime a texture replacement mod will work for me.  These shots are from my test bench region.  This particular tile has just about every possible combination of GLR items on it. 


64-13: There are certainly some issues which I'm already in the process of fixing.  The way the NAM works, some textures are rotated instead of mirrored.  Since the sandstone texture isn't designed to be rotated, I'll have to create a modified edge to make tiles like this work. 


64-14: Some of the curves have presented interesting challenges, but this one turned out quite nicely!  One tile of this section still uses the normal wealth based textures, so it will fill in when zoning occurs next to this lot. 


I certainly couldn't have put this together so quickly without all the help from Toichus Maximus!  Between the two of us, we should have the rest of the textures polished off soon.  Hope you enjoyed this preview of these mods. 

64-15: One more unrelated thing before I sign off today.  Thomas (turtle) made some good comments about the cross border mosaics.  In thinking about them I came up with a greatly improved technique for making them. Here are the results; this technique completely eliminated the black without any major time impact!  I'll put together an addendum to the tutorial I wrote a while back soon. 



Next time, probably tomorrow, it's back to Westside to continue work around that town.  Thanks for stopping by! 

[metarvo]

The retexturing work you've done on the transit networks is incredible, Battlecat.  It certainly has my attention, and I'm looking forward to seeing these textures in action in future updates.  Keep up the good work!

[Albus of Garaway]

What a great update, Battlecat! Those mods really make a difference don't they? I love when a player takes the game into their own hands, and if they don't like something, they'll fix it!

I really appreciate you sending me that tutorial, along with the tips of your own. I'm going to go off and test some techniques in a 'workbench' region. Can't wait!

-Jason

[Schulmanator]

Awesomeness! Those new textures will make a big difference

[TiFlo]

The style I'm using in my MD updates was originally inspired by Darmok's Anduin Valley Region at Simtropolis.  His region is far more urban, but he follows a similar pattern of developing small bites of his region and going over the techniques being applied to create the effect.

Oh boy, another great read in sight... Thank you! Now, how am I going to get to play?? 

64-4: There's a few other odd transitional issues when you look closely at the streets, but all things consider, it's not bad at all! I've posted them here on the STEX. 
64-9: The sidewalks still hit the end and sides of the tile to ensure a clean transition to trail parks as in this shot.  These new cul de sacs are available here on the STEX.   

I love you.

[Nardo69]

You know, I NEVER was a fan of the grey street roundabouts. I love the road roundabout but the grey street roundabouts -  naah, there had been a time when the first thing after installing a new NAM was deleting the grey street roundabout file ...  Even in my grey street areas I use(d) the road roundabout instead of the grey street roundabout.

However with your alphas and the sandstone I might ... could ...

Nononononono!

Oh boy, don't tempt old oldfashioned donkeys like me!

The cul-de-sac looks really nice however IMHO only a circle won't work - you should add a small transition (curve) between the cul-de-sac and the street.

Take care my friend!

Bernhard 

[ecoba]

Ahh, you're back!

I only commented this morning and, voila another update.

While over at ST earlier I saw your two new releases on the STEX, and I think I'll download them, but, well can you use them with Maxis sidewalks? (Is that a really bad question, too?)

That upcoming tutorial looks promising and I can't wait to see it. Hope to see more in Adara too, and those GLR textures look pretty cool...

Ethan

[Dreamcat]

Man, you are too good.

LOVE the new sidewalks.  The cul-de-sacs are looking really good too.  Your work makes it look so easy.  I, personally, have never tried a lick of custom work, but I may try my hand at it some time.  You've inspired me, I have to say, just because the new cul-de-sacs look so good.  Looking at the before and after pictures makes it all worth it.  The new sidewalks really define Adara.

I can't wait to see how you work with game water.  As you can probably tell, I am a big fan of PEG's Brigantine water mod.

Good to hear about the backup.  I may have to try that DVD disc thing.

Take care,
Eric

[turtle]

Wow, back so early. And with all kind of goodies for us  I guess that with those brand new mods, you were more than just contemplating on that surprise you promised us  They look great, and I did already download them. Now I just need to figure out which sidewalk to go with these. Again, the sandstone one goes really well with your theme, and the new textures for the GLR just tops it off. Great work 

I'm happy to have inspired you. The mosaic look splendid, so it seems your new technique is working out well. If I didn't know this was a cross-border mosaic (and thus know where to look for the border) I would never have noticed it. I will definitely read your tutorial, though, I doubt I will be able to put it to good use in the near future.

On a side note, I just started building a dam, very much inspired by what you've shown earlier  Somewhat related to that I was wondering if those curves for the gravel sam streets are available somewhere?

See you soon,

Thomas