Adara - Update 184 - March 26, 2012

[Battlecat]

TiFlo: Thanks for posting that link, that's exactly what I was looking for!  The traffic looks so much nicer now!  Glad you're enjoying your recent visits!

Gjermund (kwakelaar): Glad you found some inspiration!  Thanks for your kind words!

Lowkee33: Thanks for your feedback!  That's pretty much what I was shooting for.  It's time to move on to the next batch of textures.

Jordan (canyonjumper): Yeah, about that sandbar shot, I had such a busy weekend I completely forgot to grab that shot again!  Sorry about that!  I think I'll put together a mosaic including that sandbar for the next update.  I'm about due for a good one anyhow.  Glad you enjoyed the update!

Matt (threestooges): Thanks for stopping in!  The town is called Poplar Grove.  Glad you found the empty lot inspiring!  I'm looking forward to seeing your take on it. 

The issue with the V2 field is that it kind of created an illusion that tended to pull the eye along a grid created by that white texture.  I found it somewhat jarring which is why I went with the more uniform style.  If there was a way to make those white stripes slightly more random it wouldn't be such a big deal. 

Cyclone1001: No worries, glad you enjoyed the update!

cubby420: Welcome to Adara!  Thanks for stopping in!

bat: Thanks very much for you kind words!

Jayster: Thanks, glad you enjoyed your visit!

Update 125
Greenwood – Detailing Poplar Grove Farms

This time I got started on detailing the farms over in the Poplar Grove area.  Greenwood is getting very close to completion.  Probably only 3 or 4 more updates at the most and then it'll be on to the next project.  I'm going to be delaying a bit before going on to the next tile though.  There are a few things I need to take care of first but I'll reveal that when the day comes around. 

125-1: Before I get into the meat of today's update, I  thought I'd share the results of the mod TiFlo kindly pointed out to me.  The traffic looks so much nicer now! 


125-2: I also happened to be in the right place to spot a train crossing the rail bridge near Greenwood. 


125-3: And one last bonus shot today, here's a quick look  at the quiet traffic in the town of Greenwood. 


125-4: On with the main task for today.  This is the area I'm going to detail first.


125-5: Jumping straight in, diagonal fillers are always vital to improving these areas.  Even without any additional work, this looks pretty good.


125-6: I've never been one to stop there though.  Some trees and grass really do make a big difference. 


125-7: Next up, the hill overlooking this area is going to be mostly forested.  At least on this side of the tile boundary.  That makes it perfect for a little walking trail.  This is the trailhead parking lot on this side. 


125-8: The trail crosses the boundary into an undeveloped tile.  Sadly, I won't be sharing what's on the other side for many months.  Mostly because it simply doesn't exist yet. 


125-9: Here's the forest in place.  The rock face will be detailed more in a future update.  I'll be adding a scree slope at the foot. 


125-10: Moving along, I've added some additional details  to finish up the whole intersection area.  The traffic is so much better behaved now! 


125-11: This area got a major makeover.  I went with a new farm texture and actually removed one farmhouse.  Instead I went with two separate fields associated with the farm in the upper right corner. 


125-12: I've gone with poplar trees along the edge of the fractional angle road.  Hopefully they'll make a good filler when they grow up. 


125-13: This area is next along with the lavender farm in the lower right corner.  I'll actually start with the lavender farm. 


125-14: I've converted the lavender farm over to green grass.  I don't have a FAR filler lot ready for this particular angle set but I think I've got a decent alternate solution.


125-15: Instead I've used the RRP grasses to soften the edges and some trees to help camouflage the edge along the highway.  This is actually the most painless FAR cleanup I've done to date and I think the results are decent.  I'll experiment with this more in the future. 


125-16: That's all for today sadly.  Here's an overview of the completed details, including the fully grown poplar trees.  Hope you like it! 


And that's a wrap for today!  Next time it'll be on to the next batch of farms.  And hopefully I'll have a really neat surprise regarding those diagonal clover fields!  See you later!

[Cyclone1001]

The FAR roads really look good there, very nice.

[TiFlo]

That last shot does indeed great justice to what nice layout you can achieve with the FAR roads. 

[bat]

Beautiful new pictures of your work on the nice farms!
Great update.

[canyonjumper]

Great update BC! Nice use of the FAR!

           Your friend,
                          Jordan

[Jayster]

Great job! Amazing as usual. 

Jayster

[io_bg]

Wow! Another awesome update! However, I think that MHW bridge doesn't look quite right... If I were you I'd use an avenue one since avenues blend better with RHWs
Looking forward for more!

[Battlecat]

Cyclone1001: Thanks!  FAR roads are still a bit of a challenge to detail, but the RRP texture seem to produce some of the best results!

TiFlo: Thanks very much for your kind words!

bat: Thanks for stopping by!  Glad you like them!

Jordan (canyonjumper): Thanks, glad you like it!

Jayster: Thanks!

io_bg: I agree.  I didn't know the avenue bridges worked better.  I'll give that a shot.  Thanks for your kind words and your suggestion! 

Update 126
Wednesday Night Technical Detour

Tonight isn't so much an update as it is a quick technical stop.  I've been working quite hard the last couple of days on a little project and I'm looking for a bit of feedback before I continue.  The extra eyes on the diagonal field textures was really handy so I'm hoping to get similar thoughts on this.  Feel free to be as brutal and honest as you like! 

I'll be using some of these new textures in Adara in the near future to finish part of Poplar Grove.   They're also the reason I haven't released the diagonal clover fields yet. 

126-1: Tonight's project is of course an outgrowth of the diagonal field textures.  Here are the textures I've shared so far.  They include the basic texture, corner fillers, edge fillers and the end fillers. 


126-2: The first addition is what I'm calling a diagonal growth filler.  It allows for a clean corner that expands the field into an irregular shape. 


126-3: This is the big project.  With all the revisions I did to the basic diagonal textures I had to rework the curves I presented many weeks ago.  I'd like to introduce Version 1 of the orthogonal to diagonal field transitions.  To make room for a nice clean curve the lots are 2x3 and need to be offset by one tile as you place them as shown in this image with the left handed turns. 


126-4: Of course what would the set be without fillers?  Here is the full set of lots in action with both inner and outer corner fillers making a wide 90 degree turn.  Also the two curve orientations are visible here, both left and right turns from the perspective of the orthogonal fields. 


I'm looking to see if anyone can see glitches where textures don't align right or if there are repeating patterns that hurt the eye.  I've been staring at these so long I'm going cross eyed which makes it rather hard to see glitches!  Thanks in advance for your thoughts! 

[Jayster]

As far as I can tell, they look great. I just think seeing the switch from orthogonal to diagonal is really weird because we haven't seen that before with farms in Simcity. IMHO I think you could leave out the transition and just keep the diagonal ones because those look GREAT! 

Hopefully I wasn't too critical 

Jayster

[threestooges]

I think you have the basic diagonals down, and the diagonal growth filler is a good touch too. As for the transition pieces, the curves up close look fine, but farther out the suffer from the moiré patterns that hit the CPI farms in 3RR. They're not that big of a problem, but they do draw in the eye. One other thing I thought seemed odd was the sharpness of the curves. Similar to what prompted the development of the wide angle curves, seeing a sudden turn in the field looks odd, especially at distances further out. One would expect the curve to follow the inner rings as it progressed out, like a ripple in a pool. However, that being said, this looks like a good way to transition the two field types. Trying to do smooth curves the whole way out would result in an unnecessarily large number of lots and textures. This is a good compromise.

As for textural irregularities, it's not as noticeable close up of the transition piece, but zoomed out you can see a regular patch of dirt that's a bit wider. It's slightly noticeable, but at the same time, it was likely plowed by a machine, and therefore it would have regular repetitions.

Nice developments here.
-Matt

[Cyclone1001]

Wow, thats nice!

[cubby420]

Up close they are fantastic. But a little farther zoom and I'll have to agree with threestooges. Its not so obvious, but the pattern can be distracting, especially when its been pointed out already 

This is a very cool project and I definitely hope you share the fruits of your labor when they are completed. I'm sure many rural completionists like yourself will be very excited.

[bat]

Nice work on these textures! And looking forward to the next update...

[kwakelaar]

I would not have a problem settling for what you have got so far, but what I notice is a slight change in colour and bushiness from the curve to the straight part. It might be that the green rows are just that little bit "crispier" after the turn.

[Battlecat]

Jayster: Thanks, I've got some ideas to improve the appearance. 

Matt (threestooges): Yeah, that's what I'm seeing as well but it should be fixable as it was for the basic diagonal textures.   Moiré patterns, nice to know the name for the effect I'm seeing there.  You're absolutely right that my choice of scale was primarily in the interest of avoiding the creation of hundreds of textures.  This has kept it down to an even 10, although I'll be modifying things a bit more for the transparent edges that I need. 

I did pretty much replicate identical curves for each part of the texture.  Fortunately, since it's a multi-tile texture I've got some opportunities to put some proper noise and irregularities in there which should help.  Thanks for the feedback! 

Cyclone1001: Thanks!

cubby420: Thanks for your thoughts, I'm in agreement especially now that I've had a few days to look at them!  I'll be fixing them this week. 

bat: Thanks very much!

Gjermund (kwakelaar): Yeah, I think the curves are a bit blurrier than the straight and diagonal textures.  I'll see about making those a bit crisper as well.  It also might help with the patterning.  Thanks for your thoughts!

Update 127
Greenwood – Poplar Grove Farms II

Thanks for your thoughts on those farms; I'll be doing the tweaks this week.  I would have done them over the weekend except that I didn't really have time to fix the textures and actually play the game.  In the meantime, maybe you'll get some ideas once you see what I wanted the transition for. 

127-1: This is the primary area I'm going to focus on today.


127-2: This sunflower farm is pretty much the reason I started developing the curve transitions.


127-3: Here they are in practice.  Keep in mind that they haven't been revised to version 2 yet.  I've also noticed a deficiency.  I need some transparent edge fillers to go with the road edge fillers. 


127-4: For now, I'll just use trees to disguise the edges a bit.  I'll polish this once I finish the next batch of textures.  Next I want to finish off this mountainside.  A steep mountain like this needs some special treatments. 


127-5: This is a perfect spot for a few rockfalls.  I'm experimenting with some new rock options from Heblem.  They're a bit twitchy to use sometimes but they results are very nice. 


127-6: I've finished up the edge of the mountain with several scree slopes of various ages.


127-7: Moving along, this farm just needs one little detail. 


127-8: It looks much nicer with a proper road connection, even though the textures don't match perfectly.


127-9: This farm needs a particularly extensive revision. The only thing that isn't changing today is the barn and the placement of the house that's zoned.


127-10: First, a gravel access trail will provide access to the back fields of this odd shaped lot. 


127-11: Instead of clover, this farm is growing carnations and tulips on two separate fields. 


127-12: The neighboring farm got the RRP treatment very quickly.  I've also added the power poles.


127-13: In an unusual move, I'm actually going to leave the RRP fenced farm across the street as it is.  The RRP grass treatment is primarily for those farms that have partial fences that need blending in.  In this case, the farm cleanly merges with the field so I'm happy with it for once. 


127-14: Next up is the addition of trees and rocks along the gravel trail.


127-15: This area is where I'm going to wrap up work for today.  I'll be detailing the fields along the FAR edge using the RRP treatment again.  The honest truth is that while fillers look good in some places, they're very time consuming to make . . .


127-16: . . . and the results with the RRP styling seems to work quite nicely without any additional help.  Especially since the FAR roads doesn't have any T21 effects. 


127-17: Here's an overview of the area now that it's finished. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!


That's a wrap for today.  I've already got an update for later this week.  I'll be posted a large mosaic including the promised sandbar on Thursday or Friday this week.  I might also include a preview of the revised field textures if I get a few spare moments.  See you later! 

[TiFlo]

Me think there is going to be enough material to release a (several?) filler lots pack at some point, you must start having quite a collection!
Those angled fields especially look really good. 

[Jayster]

Very nice update! I always enjoy seeing how you add the final touches in. 

Keep up the great work! 

Jayster

[rooker1]

 Here we have the Master of farm feilds and FARR pieces.
Those diagonal farm textures are to die for....extremely well done. 
If it wasn't for you and your step by step guide to making farms, I highly doubt I would have tried making them again. 

Thanks!
Robin 

[nbvc]

I like the fields.

[canyonjumper]

Great work with the fields BC! Your RRP treatment looks great as always.

                             Your friend,
                                            Jordan