Recreating San Francisco: Real Life Aside, October 1, 2009

[chrisnhl]

Hey Laura! I have watching your development very closely and have been checking it more than just daily.  San Fran is my favorite place in the world and this is very exciting to me.  I am very anxious to see what your plan is for the bay bridge entrance into downtown with the transbay terminal being there.  Anyhow I have somewhat recreated this into my city and have some very useful ideas for when you start to plan your freeway system.

Best of luck!
Chris

[GreekMan]

nice work! I love the Bay Area and also your home town of Seattle! you should make a rec of that too. Sorry to say but San Diego is much better than Seattle and SF!

keep it up1

[ldvger]

Update 7: Terrain Mods, Part 1

Hello again!

Sorry to maybe disappoint, but I have only one pic to post tonite, a shot of one of my landlocked city tiles with a combination of terrain and trees on it.  I think it looks pretty good from far zooms but doesn't cut muster for close zooms.  I'll cut to the chase and post it now:

Well, maybe not.  This may become on ongoing subtheme to this MD...my lousy internet connection.  You all know, by this time, that I am out of work.  This is maybe more info than any of you want/need, but my only access to the internet is via a wifi connection I piggy back on my next door neighbor's unsecured network.  It doesn't cost him any extra money, but it slows us both down when we are both online at the same time and wifi is just not a terribly reliable connection to begin with, so.  He is evidently online now and when I try to connect to imageshack to upload my pic, I time out. 

So I'll describe the pic, I guess, instead, and try to post it again later.

This is a mountainous city tile, not much going on in terms of a built environment in RL, which is why I chose it to experiment with.  I had  CD's "Italia" terrain mod installed when I opened the tile, along with the No_7a_ Tree Controller.  I love the close zooms of the terrain itself, all the great understory plantings and textures, but in far zooms it's just way too green for the central CA hills and mountains.  So I downloaded CD's "MIssouri Breaks" terrain mod and switched that out with the Italia mod.  Was not happy with that one either.  Problem with both is that the terrain gets greener as elevation climbs and drier ar elevation drops, and that is opposite of what happens in RL in my region.  Flying over the SF bay area, one can clearly see nearly naked ridgetops while the valleys are very lush.  Thats because the underlying rock is, for the most part, very porous sandstone.  Sandstone, when it weathers, breaks down to sand, whioch is also very porous and not very good soil for growing things (I have a year of Soil Science under my belt, so I hope you will trust me on this).  While the hills and mountains around the SF bay area get a considerable amount of rain, most of the rain enters the soils and runs downhill without replenishing the water table of the higher elevations...hence thier relative nakedness and hence the lushness of the lower elevations. 

So, both Italia and Missouri Breaks don't work.  I love CD's terrain mods, but he doesn't seem to have anything that works.  Heblem has created some wonderful terrain mods for Mexico, but they are all too dry/arid to work.  So, once again, I removed all the terrain mods from my plugins folder and looked again at the Maxis "plain vanilla" terrain.  It leaves a lot to be desired in terms of understory plants and elevation-dependent textures, but it does get greener as it descends in elevation and it does, even without trees on it, look like what I see from an airplane as I come in for landing in RL bay area.  So, maybe I won;t use a terrain mod.  That decision is yet to be made, but I am leaning in that direction at this point in time.

So, last night I played with trees in the God Mode, for wide foresting of the test city tile.  I used the No_7a_tree controller over Italia terrain mod first and while it was gorgeous, it didn't look anything like the RL area.  Olive trees do not grow wild and in clumps in the hills of SF.  Olive trees are not native to CA, period.  Neither, for that matter, are Eucalyptus.  Both were imported and while the latter has become wild ("escaped from cultivation" is the term used for this), the Olive tree never has.  So I removed the tree controller and re-installed the Columbus Tree controller.  This has a lot of evergreens and not a lot of broadleafs, but it looks a lot more like my RL area.  This is what I took a pic of, a very hilly/mountainous city tile forested with Columbus Trees over plain vanilla terrain.  It looks pretty good and pretty naturalistic except for one thing.

The Columbus Tree controller plants heavier of the north slopes and lighter on the south slopes of hills/mountains.  That might work well and properly for the area of Montana it was originally created for but...and this is a big bit...in the SF bay area that orientation needs to be rotated.  All the hills/mountains run in a general N/S direction with a slight tilt to the NW/SE, and it's the western slopes that are greener, as they face the ocean and take the first burden of the storms that come to the area.  The eastern slopes are drier and less forested because of this. 

Maybe I can live with this.  Maybe I have no choice, as I don;t know how to tweak the Tree Controller from and N/S determination to a W/E one.  Maybe I'll try to learn how to do this.  I don't know yet. 

While I am mulling these issues over, my plan was to post the next phase of transfereing information from the topo maps to the game maps, but that isn't going to happen tonite.  In RL, my roomie and I host his best buddies and ex-roomies for "Game Night" on Monday evenings.  We have dinner and then break out the board game we chose for the night.  This week Monday didn't work, so tonite was Game Night.  I even skipped my Tuesday Night knitting group to stay home for Game Night and the game we played tonight, Settlers of Catan, ran several hours.  My roomie won, which is good because he was in a very foul mood when he came home after a day of bad golf and found a disconnect notice from the electric company waiting for him.  At first he refused to play at all, but we finally convinced him. 

Tomorrow I am not likely to be able to post much either.  Almost 90% of what I own is in storage in a good friend's basement, moved there in February from a mini storage that I could no longer afford and which was threatening to confiscate my stuff.  Dena, in who's basement I am storing my stuff, is being visited by her landlord tomorrow and has asked me to attend.  Dena lives not far from me, less than 1/2 hour bus ride, but we are good buddies who have not had a chance to sit and chew the fat with each other since February, so I imagine I'll spend most of the day with her.  I may be able to post again tomorrow noght and if my internet connection is better than tonite, I will try again to post the pic I wanted to post tonite.

I also have responses to visitor's comments to post, but it's now 1 am and I am thinking about my bed.

Lora/LD

[joelyboy911]

Hmmm.... try the Yucatan terrain mod. I am using for a possible (quite likely) future New Zealand MD, using a map made from DEM data from the area. It is fairly hilly to one side of the map, and there is some brown-i-ness on the tops of those hills, otherwise it is a fairly lush green. It might work for San Francisco - though from my limited experience of there (I visited briefly 4 years ago) the green might be too lush (Maybe just me, as it was the height of summer). I look forward to hearing more.

[ldvger]

Hello again!  My computer and connection seem to be behaving a little better this evening, so lets see if I can post the pic I wanted to last night, tonite:

Well, same problem tonite as last night, I am getting the message "website not found".  I use Imageshack to host my pics, is anyone else having issues similar to mine?  This is a real drag!  There is a little flyout on the error message telling me either the website is unavailable or that the attempt timed out before the webiste could be reached.  Last night my connection was very slow, so I blamed my own computer and connection, but my connection is good tonite, so I don;t know what's up.  This is very frustrating, as not only was I hoping to post last night's pic, but I downloaded and new terrain mod tonite and took some pics of it installed in game so folks could see what it looked like and compare it with other terrain mods. 

Ok, I'll log out of SC4D and see if I can get to Imageshack that way...new experiment.  I'll either post again soon OR edit this post when I figure out what is going on.

Sorry!   

Lora/LD

[Pat]

place holder for more comment other then my jaw has hit the floor!!!! WOW Lora amazing, I see what happens when I miss out from being sick lol

[projectadam]

Hello again!  My computer and connection seem to be behaving a little better this evening, so lets see if I can post the pic I wanted to last night, tonite:

Well, same problem tonite as last night, I am getting the message "website not found".  I use Imageshack to host my pics, is anyone else having issues similar to mine?  This is a real drag!  There is a little flyout on the error message telling me either the website is unavailable or that the attempt timed out before the webiste could be reached.  Last night my connection was very slow, so I blamed my own computer and connection, but my connection is good tonite, so I don;t know what's up.  This is very frustrating, as not only was I hoping to post last night's pic, but I downloaded and new terrain mod tonite and took some pics of it installed in game so folks could see what it looked like and compare it with other terrain mods. 

Ok, I'll log out of SC4D and see if I can get to Imageshack that way...new experiment.  I'll either post again soon OR edit this post when I figure out what is going on.

Sorry!   

Lora/LD

Lora,

From time to time, I have had problems uploading pictures with imageshack but it has been smooth sailing for me for quite sometime. I know some people have been so disappointed that they switched to www.photobucket.com. I have never used photobucket but I believe it provides the same services.

I also wanted to double check and see what website you were using for imageshack because I think they have several portals, are you using www.imageshack.us?

Hope you sort things out and good luck, let me know if you need any help even if you would want to try sending me the photos and I could upload them for you and send you back the direct links to the photos.

[chasespncr]

iv been looking at this and it looks like you are taking on a big challenge!..i cant wait till you start devoloping this region!

[ldvger]

Update 8: Terrain Mods, Part 2

Ok, see those voting booths lined up against the wall?  Yup, you guessed it, time for everyone to help me decide which terrain mod I should use for this project.  I have narrowed the choices down to 4:

1.) Maxis "Plain Vanilla"
2.) Cycledogg's "Italia"
3.) Cycledogg's "Missouri Breaks"
4.) Heblem's "Bajio"

My test city tile is named "Alpine Lake" and I chose it because it has quite a wide variety of elevations, from high hills to near sea level, thus showing the features of each terrain mod to thier best. 

I am going to show pics of the city tile in each of 4 directions: SE, SW, NW, and NE.  The city tile is too large to fit into a single screen capture.  Then I have 3 zooms of each terrain mod, giving close ups of details, but they are not all zooms of the exact same area of the tile.  I will show all four mods by compass point, change compass point and show all 4 mods again, around the compass.  Then I'll show each mod in zooms.  Lastly, I'll show a partial region view that allows comparisons at far zooms of what the mods look like in region view.  It's a lot of pictures, so get your voter's pamphlets ready and take notes!  I am especially interested in feedback regarding rock textures and the appropriatness of understory flora.  Please keep in mind that I'm not asking you to vote for your favorite mod (I think they are all very nice), but for the one YOU think looks most like what YOU think is in the San Francisco Bay area.  Bay Area residents, if you have been lurking, please step up and vote! 

One last thing!  These are BARE images in that no trees have been planted yet.  There are several options for trees, just as there are for terrain, so I'll have a seperate vote for trees later, but try to keep in mind while looking at the terrain that many parts of it will be fairly heavily forested at a later stage of development, especially the western slopes and lower elevations.

So here we go with the SE corner of Alpine Lake:



Plain Vanilla



Italia



Missouri Breaks



Bajio

Now the SW corner:



Plain Vanilla



Italia



Missouri Breaks



Bajio

Now the NW corner:



Plain Vanilla



Italia



Missouri Breaks



Bajio

Now the NE corner:



Plain Vanilla



Italia



Missouri Breaks



Bajio

Ok, now for the close zooms.  There are 3 zooms of each terrain.  First is Plain Vanilla:







Next is Italia:







Now Missouri Breaks:







And then Bajio:







Last of all are the region views.  In all screen captures, Alpine Lake (my test tile, remember?) is in the center top and is the only tile that will change.  To the south and east of Alpine Lake are two tiles rendered in Plain Vanilla, while the tile at the SE corner of Alpine Lake is rendered in Missouri Breaks.  This was my original test tile for Missouri Breaks and I never went back and re-rendered it, so you can kinda ignore it.  The purpose of these region views is to show overall color and terrain textures and compare how naturalistic they look in a wide far zoom as compared to the RL area.  Pretend you are in an airplane and descending for landing at San Francisco International Airport...which of the Alpine Lake tiles looks most like the type of terrain you would expect to see or have seen?  Again, Bay Area residents, please chime in.  I have flown in and out of SFO about 7-8 times in the past 35 years but even so, frequent travelers and area residents knowledge of the aerial look of the area will have invaluable input, so please provide feedback.  One word is enough...which terrain looks most natauralistic to the RL area?

Region views:



Plain Vanilla



Italia



Missouri Breaks



Bajio

End of pics for this post, but I have a few other things to discuss (don't I always?).  First, I did a dumb in the middle of this post and hit the "Post" buttom when I meant to minimize the post and go back to Imageshack and load a new image.  Not a big deal except that it took a LONG time for this page to reload and when it finally did, most of my images were little boxes with red x's in them.  I am assuming this is a bandwidth problem on my end, due to my wifi connection.  I've just uploaded and posted 32 pics and graphics of any kind eat up computer memory like a hog at a trough, so if all you see is also boxes with red X's in them, that may be the problem.  I don;t know how to do this or even if it's possible, but it may be I need to bump this MD over onto a new page and split this post so that the images will post.  Please let me know if you can't see the images and I will try to do what I can to make them visible to all.  However, it may be that some folks' computers and/or connections (like mine, in terms of connection) won;t display the images and I'm not sure what, if anything, I can do about that. 

Second, I have to be 100% honest and tell all of you that I am not 100% happy with any of the mods displayed above.  If any of you know of something you think might work better, please let me know.  There is also the possibility of creating a new mod that better fits the area I am working on.  I have no idea how to do this and won't consider it unless someone steps up who has knowledge and experience with creating terrain mods to help me.  However...I do think this would be the best way to recreate the SF bay region, as it does have a very unique terrain and really nothing already created fits it 100%.  I know it's possible to mod a mod, and maybe that would be the route to take, if I knew how to do that or had folks willing to help me.  This issue is likely to come up again when I come to chossing a tree controller, so best open the discussion now. 

Third, I spent a lot of time last night creating a post that individually addressed each person who has posted here since my last set of pics and was horribly dismayed when I logged into the site and thread this morning to find that the post wasn't there.  This is probably my own fault, I most likely hit the cancel button or something instead of the post button when I was done...late nights and wine don't bode well for effective online communication.  It's a mistake I've made before and will no doubt make again, but my apologies.  Understand that I am not non-appreciative of folks who post here and will always do my best (wine not withstanding) to recognize you and respond to you.  Please stay tuned and don't take offense, because most certainly no offense is meant...quite the opposite.  I am flattered and astounded at the views and comments this MD has recieved in it's short life so far and only hope I can keep up with all of you!

And FYI, I have a lined notepad sitting on top of the rest of the papers I have already generated for this project (quite a few!), with one page dedicated to each of the terrain mods, to keep track of comments and votes.  I'm going to keep voting open for a week, then I'm going to move on to tree controllers.  I have not yet decided if I will chose the terrain first, then a tree controller.  It may be this voting round will eliminate unsuitable terrain, then I'll try different tree controllers over the remaining terrains and ask for folks to vote on which is the best combo.  We'll see how this first round goes and figure out how to proceed from there.

So sharpen your pencils and vote!  Your input is important to me!

Lora/LD

[woodb3kmaster]

I've lurked here long enough...

Firstly, I must say that I'm thoroughly impressed by your attention to detail. Being something of a perfectionist myself, I can appreciate that.

Now, on to the terrain mods. I'm a Californian (although from the state's other major city, LA) and I've spent some time in the Bay Area, so I'm somewhat familiar with the look of the land. Overall, I think that the vanilla textures look the most like real California terrain, since they capture the golden color of the chaparral-covered hills that give the Golden State its nickname (not the Gold Rush, as you might expect). The other three terrain mods, while attractive in their own right, don't really fit the SF area very well. So that's my vote, for what it's worth

All in all, great work so far, and I'm sure you won't disappoint as you move into the development phase! Well done so far.

Zack

[chasespncr]

i would go with the plain vanilla texture..it fits the area the best and looks suprisingly nice

[Battlecat]

Ironically, I never thought I'd say this, but of the four you've selected, the vanilla textures fit the bay area the best.  The other three are just too green to really visually fit.  Any parts of the city that are developed tend to be greener thanks to sprinklers, but that'll be taken care of by the lot textures.

I've seen a few dry terrain mods, but they're always oriented to the much drier interior, making them slightly inappropriate for the Pacific Coast. 

Actually, now that I think about it, Maxis is located in the Bay Area, perhaps that's why the game terrain textures look the way they do!  Looking forward to seeing what's coming next!

[ldvger]

Well this is a big dissapointment, without a doubt.  I was 2 hours and 16 pics into an update when my WiFi connection went down.  I highlighted all my work and used Ctrl+C to copy it all to my clipboard and it took me 1/2 hour to get back online and here, only to find the clipboard empty. 

I am too dispirited to try to start over again tonite. 

Also had a HUGE fight with my roomie last night over $11, which has left my in the dumps, mentally, all day. 

Not a happy camper right now...

I'll rebound tomorrow, don't worry. 

Lora/LD

[girlfromverona]

Hope you feel better soon, Lora!

My vote also goes to the Vanilla texture, maybe with a rock mod. (I haven't used the original textures in so long, I'd forgotten what they look like - they're actually not that bad! I might have to start reusing them...)

[ldvger]

Update 9: Lotsa RL Pics

Well, the city tile I was working with last night as an example of further scaling and transitioning of information from RL maps to in game, was Stafford Lake.  This afternoon I was playing around with Google Earth and took in some close views of the entire Novato Creek watershed, also the Petaluma River, to help me get an idea of what these areas look like in RL and perhaps inspire me in creating naturalistic PW/GW transitions.  And that led me tonite to to a search on Stafford Lake, Novato Creek, and the dam that forms the lake.  I found some really good stuff, a great history of the lake itself (which was originally a dairy farm before the dam was built in 1951) and best of all, I found some pictures!  So with no further ado, I'll share them here with you:



This is, admittedly, a bit small, as it's a pic lifted off the Marin Country Water District's web site.  This is a picture of the dam itself, viewed either from the air or from a hiltop nearby.  The orientation would be looking southwest.  You can see the lake behind the dam and the island in the lake.  There is a road running up the hill to the right hand side of the dam and if you look close, you can see the dam's spillway over there as well.  The dam is 71' tall and 650' wide, built of rock and earth.  Stafford Lake is a source of drinking water for the town of Novato, so while there is a park around the lake, there is no swimming allowed and no powered boats, either.  The lake is stocked with fish, so while fishing is allowed, it is restricted and not allowed within 1500' of the dam itself.  This pic was likely taken in the winter or early spring, as the surrounding terrain is very green for this area.



This is the little cabin at the park entrance, again the pic is a little small, this one lifted of the Marin Country Parks and Recreation web site.  Notice the difference in the color of the hills in the background to those of the ones in the first pic.  This tawny color is much more usual than the lush green of the dam pic.  Anybody want to volunteer to BAT/LOT this cute little ranger station for me to plop in my game? 



Looks like a nice park, doesn't it?  Again, notice not only the gold terrain but also the trees.  Most appear to be deciduous evergreens like oaks.  Notice also the growth pattern of the trees over the hills in the background.  When we are chosing a tree controller later on, keep this look in you mind.  Anyone here know how to write/assemble a tree controller?  If you would like to read more about Stafford Lake and it's history, let me know.  I may be able to lift the history from the Water District web page or post a link to it.  I was able to learn that the contruction company that built the dam is the same one that built the Folsom Dam and the Los Angeles Harbor breakwater, a company maybe some of you California construction types are familiar with: Rohr-Connolly?  I also learned the lake was partially drained in 1972 and 7 feet were added to the top of the dam at that time. 

While I'n in the mood for posting RL pics, I go back to Google Earth and take some screen shots and edit them in a little later.  So if you are reading this now and don't see any more pics, check back in a couple of hours!

Ok, back now and lets keep fingers crossed I don;t lose my connection tonite!  I have some great RL aerial pics to share and an interesting (to MY mind) traffic study. 

These pics start at the confluence of the Petaluma River and San Pablo Bay.  Novato Creek empties into the bay just a little ways south of the river:



This is satellite imagery from 2007 and varies quite a bit from my USGS topo maps, which show a triangular mud island in the bay with two arms of the river flowing around it.  The USGS topo maps date back into the 90's, so maybe heavy rains and/or dredging has eliminated the mud island.  It can be seen that the bay drops off pretty steeply not far off shore...



Here are two bridges on the Petaluma River just slightly inland from the bay.  The topmost bridge is Hwy 37, a 4 lane that runs across the top of the bay in an east/west direction.  The lower bridge is, I think, a railroad with a pivot at the west side, which you can see is open in this pic.  Notice the marina in the upper right corner.



A close up of the marina.  Seems to be in need of some repair!  Notice the unattached docks and jettys to the right hand side.  Guess that why not many boats are moored here!



This is a golf course to the south and west of the river.  I don;t know it's name but I will find out.  I can see learning to BAT is in my not to distant future, if I am going to recreate this area.



This is a man-made housing development called Bel Marin Keys.  The creek you can see curling around it is Novato Creek, the same creek what feeds and issues from Stafford Lake upstream.  Here it has been diverted to reclaimed below sea level ground to form a man made, um, thingamabob.  This will be very challenging to recreate, as the game does not allow placement of housing development tiles along a diagonal, let along a radius.  Also, I don't know as anyone has yet created waterfront lots with private piers/docks. 



For you BATers out there, this ought to be a challenging or inspiring picture.  This is one of the two sets of locks that divide Novato Creek from Bel Marin Keys.  I'm not 100% positive, but I think the water in the keys is below that of the creek, so the locks act as a type of back-flow inhibitor.  This also presents an EXCELLENT opportunity to transition between PW and GW. 



This is the second set of locks, which are further downstream than the first set.  These are the only two water Entrances to the Bel Marin Keys, for water and boats, and I can't help but wonder what the water smells like.  These are expensive homes and boats, but the water in the Keys themselves must be awfully stinky with only two inlet/outlet areas. 

Now we come to a new city tile, Novato, and a very interesting highway interchange:



This is the city of Novato, pop. about 17K.  I tried to get a screen capture of the Starbucks location, but failed.  Let's just say, the city is big enough to have a Starbucks.  Zooming in, I found a very interesting interchange at Hwy 101 and Hwy 37:



Ok NAM folks, how about it?  Puzzle pieces maybe?  I was so intrigued by this interchange that I imported it into CAD and traced the ways traffic could move across it.  If traffic control bores the behecks out of you, skip down the next ten pics, because I am here going to analyse this interchange.



This is how folks who are traveling east on Hwy 37 continue past Hwy 101



East bound 37 to North bound 101



East bound 37 to South bound 101



North bound 101 to East bound 37.



North bound 101 to West bound 37.  Notice the option, shown in blue, of going from north on 101 to south on 101.  Just in case you finally figured out you were lost...



South bound 101 to East bound 37



South bound 101 to West bound 37



West bound 37 to North bound 101



West bound 37 to South bound 101

and the last pic of this interchange:



West bound 37 to West bound 37

I have a few more pics to share, hope you haven't fallen asleep.



Stafford Lake



And yet another golf course, this one on the shores of the lake. 

That's it for tonite's update!  Hope you enjoy it!

Lora/LD

Lora/LD

[MrWacko]

It'll be interesting to see how you recreate the places.

And Bel Marin Keys doesn't smell as bad as you think. Marinites would throw a riot if their million dollar houses were next to some stinky bay lagoon.

By the way, just fyi, but some of the little things (aka labels and pop figures) your getting wrong. Novato is just shy of 50,000 people, and is the second biggest in Marin county. CA 37 also terminates at the highway junction you specified. The road heading west-northwest from the interchange is the southern terminus of S. Novato Blvd., and its main freeway on ramp to US 101/CA 37.

Anyways, I'm tired, but I'm still enjoying this MD very much. Keep plowing through!

[TheTeaCat]

Fascinating stuff. You certainly do go in for detail

Thinking about your terrain mod I was wondering if this one would be good for you? Its a modified version of the maxis original. You can see the results I had in this post.

Hope this may be of some help in your quest for the perfect terrain

[Albus of Garaway]

If the voting is still going on, I have to go with the Vanilla game textures. The textures may look bad when zoomed in close, but if you cover most of the area with trees, and then the rest with some of the RRP's ploppable grasses, I bet it would look fine, if not wonderful.

[ldvger]

Well, so far it's Maxis 5, others 0, that's pretty definitive for just a couple of days.  I have to admit, I have been leaning towards the Vanilla version myself, but will probably use a rock mod if I can find one I like.  The default is too grey/brown and looks kinda like basalt rather than sandstone.  I have PEG's "Eroded Sandstone" but haven't tried it with the Vanilla textures, so I'll do that and see what it looks like.

Teacat, good suggestion re: PEG's terrain mod but after checking it out, I think I'll pass.  It looks great in your region, BTW, but I don't care for the way it greens up the higher elevations.  I do like the way it lightens the green of the lower elevations but most of my region is heavily built in the lower elevations, so terrain there isn't going to matter very much. 

I would be interested in finding a sandy (or even muddy) beach mod, though, if anyone can recommend one.  As my region currently stands, I have a fairly sharply defined coastline along the bay shores and that's really not very naturalistic to the area.  There's a lot of mud flats and salt marsh areas, especially at the far south and north reaches of the bay where it's shallowest.  Right now I have about a 16m tall rise from sea level to dry land, so I am going to likely have to terraform the shallow areas.  It's nice to have access to Google Earth to see what these various shorelines really look like...they will guide me quite a bit. 

MrWacko, good information, thank you very much!  I hope you check back often and fill in the gaps and correct misinformation.  I kinda wondered about that interchange and whether or not the western part of it was CA37 or not.  Novato Blvd. is the road that eventually takes one out to Stafford Lake, if I recall my driving directions properly.  And do you know if the water level in Bel Marin Keys is higher or lower than Novato Creek?  Looking again at the close ups of the locks this afternoon, now it looks like the Keys are higher, not lower,as I originally thought.  Although then the question arises, if it's higher, how does the water get in there?  I didn't see any obvious pumping stations around, but maybe a closer look would reveal one (or more).  There is a notation on my topos that reads "pumping station", but I thought that was part of the levee system and a flood control station.  I'll have to take a closer look there, too, to see the proximity of the station to the Keys.  It could be the Keys were built after the topos were made (some of them are quite old). 

I'm going to try to re-post the post that poofed out of existence the other night later this evening, so check back later for another update on my progress.

Lora/LD

[ldvger]

Update 10: Scaling RL Maps to Game Maps, Part 6

Ok, let's try this again.  I'm trying something new this time and composing offline in MS Word.  That way if my WiFi connection fritzes out on me, I won't lose my work.  I'll no doubt have to do some editing once I copy/paste the completed post online, remove page breaks, etc., and I'll have to insert the pics, but even if the connection goes down, I won't lose hours of work.

So, I warned a couple of days ago about a new OCD post coming up and this is it.  I am not yet done scaling and transferring information from the topo maps to the game city tiles.  There are a couple of steps left, one of which I explain here.  Please remember this is just how *I* am doing things and other folks may have other techniques that are faster/easier than mine. 

When I left off with the last scaling illustrations, this is where I was at:



I don't need this grid on now and it's just going to get in the way, so I'm going to turn off the Black layer.  What I want to start doing now is tracing information from the topo maps and transfer them to game maps.  To do this, I am first going to create some new layers, each which will hold a unique set of information but all related to water features, as water is the first thing I am going to build into my game.  My new layers are:

lakes_rivers, in blue
levee, in magenta
mudflat, in brown
saltmarsh, in green

I may need more layers later, but it's no big deal to create the, but I think this set will get me started nicely.  When I'm done tracing water features, my topo map now looks something like this:



I'm going to go to another part of the topo map and do some more tracing to show you how I do it.  First, I use a polyline not a standard line, and I make the lakes_rivers layer my active layer.  For this exercise, I don't want my ORTHO or OSNAP on, so I make sure both are turned off.  Then I zoom into a fairly close zoom and start tracing a water feature:



I click once to start my line, then click again each time I want to change directions.  I also like to click when I come to the intersection of two water features so that the software creates an endpoint node there, which makes it easier for me to connect the two features to each other:



Because I am uncertain as to how accurately I've scaled my topos to my region and how accurately the topos scale to the game maps as well, I trace for a little ways past the boundaries of my region, just in case:



Once I'm done tracing, I save my work.  Now I'm going to turn off my 0 layer so all my maps go away and I can see the results of my tracing:



The next step is to zoom out far enough that I can see the entire composite topo map, first turning my 0 layer back on so I can see the maps again.  I want to create a new work space near my existing one and copy my region grid to that new work space.  I am chosing to copy the grid to a space above the composite topos, which is why I have turned them back on...when I make the copy I will be able to see if the new grid is above the topos and doesn't over lay it.  So I begin the copy command, click on the grid to select it (I made it into a block, remember, so I don't need to use a crossing window and accidently capture info I don't want right now, like topos maps or tracings), then I click on the bottom left corner of the grid to select that as my copying point:



Now I turn my ORTHO back on to insure that the grid is copied perfectly vertically upward to the new work space:



Once I have the copy where I want it, I click to accept the location and my new work space is created:



In doing this, I have actually created another new work space, the area to the left of the newly placed grid.  I think of this area as my "scratch pad", as I will still need to manipulate objects and I don't necessarily want to do that directly over other work. 

Now I minimize CAD and finally, FINALLY, load up my game.  I'm going to start with the city tile of Stafford Lake because, well because that's the way my brain works: left to right, top to bottom.  Stafford Lake is the topmost and leftmost city tile in the region.  One the tile loads, I open Mayor Mode, click on data views, choose zones (because there aren't any yet and I want a "naked" map, then activate the map.  Using Ctrl+Shift+S I get the camera mode, press the space bar a couple of times to get a view window large enough to encompass the data map, and take my picture:



Sadly, this is all I need at this time, so I exit the game without saving and now open Photoshop.
I bring in the image I just created:



And then I crop it.  I find the crop tool in PS to not be terribly user friendly and it often times takes me a few tries before I get the image cropped exactly right.  I've found that the center of the square of the crop tool is the point where crops begin and end and the tool is small, so I zoom in enough to see my entire image AND be able to see my corners clearly.  Once I have what I think is correct, I crop the image:



Once cropped, it's VERY IMPORTANT to check the image size.  It needs to be exactly 256x256.  If it even one pixel off in either direction, it will screw things up, so if I miss, I use Edit>Undo and try again:



Fortunately I have quite a bit of practice at this cropping exercise, having cropped 256 city tiles for my Copper River Project a couple of months ago, so I hit it right on the money quite a bit on my first try (but not always, and besides, my eyesand brain are trained to extreme detail and accuracy, so it's maybe a little easier for me than for others).  I got it right on first time around with this one, so I now save the cropped image as a JPG.  You may remember I have a folder on my desktop called SFmaps where I've stored a bunch of stuff so far.  Before starting this exercise, I opened that folder and created a new subfolder called "Game Maps" because there will eventually be 130 of these puppies and I don't want to have to go searching all over my hard drive looking for them when I want or need them.  This is where I save my new cropped image, then close PS and go back to CAD.

I want to now import my new image in as a raster image:



Note that I am a far zoom, able to see all four of my work areas when I import the new image.  This is because I have no way of knowing what size the new image is going to be and I want to make sure I can locate it someplace where it down't overlay existing work.  Also, very important, I make sure I am on the 0 layer before I import my image because that where all my maps are.  If I space out and accidently import the image into the drawing on the wrong layer, it's not that hard to switch it to another layer, but when working in CAD professionally time is crucial, so it helps to develop good habits and not let yourself backslide into sloppiness just because this is play and not paying work. 

After I accept the image for importing, I can now see it's quite large, so I move it into my scratch pad area:



Then click to end the import command.  Now I need to scale the new map to fit the scale of everything else in my drawing.  Remember last time I rescale an object I told you how the scale tool could be used two ways: either by entering a numeric value such as .75 or by using reference points.  I used numeric values last time because I didn't have any concrete reference points.  This time I do, to I will rescale the new map that way.  I know the new map must fit EXACTLY into one of the grid squares in my region grid and I know my region grid is exact, so I can use two lengths, say the bottom edge or the new game map I just imported, as my control point and tell the software to then rescale the image to the same distance as the bottom edge of any region grid.  The software asks me first for the points I want to use as my control:



So I tell it use the distance from the bottom left corner of this object



To this point on the same object.  I have both ORTHO and OSNAP on for this, so the software helps keep me from guessing and missing the actual endpoints of the object.  Once those two points have been chosen, the software asks me to choose the object I want to scale to, so I go to the grid at the right (forgot to mention it's handy to have your reference object in the same view...I zoomed and panned to make sure they were before I started the Scale tool).  First I click on any grid intersection :



Then I go to the next intersection over:



I hit enter to accept these choices and viola!  My game map is instantly rescaled to exactly the correct size:



Now I want to move this newly rescaled map into its proper place in the empty grid to the left, so I use the Move command, select the map, and pick up the upper right corner (ORTHO now off, OSNAP still on), then move it to the upper left corner of the grid:



And now I have the first of 130 actual game maps in my CAD drawing:



OK!  Now, I get to see how close all this scaling work has been.  My next step is to copy my tracings from the composite topo map and overlay them on this first actual game map, to see how close I came.  The first thing I want to do is turn off my 0 layer and get rid of all my maps.  This makes moving around in the drawings faster and easier, as the software doesn't have to constantly reload  the dozens of images I have in the drawing and besides, all I want this time around is the tracings.  I'll leave the grids on, as they are my reference points from copying from one area of the drawing to another.  With the 0 layer off, I pan down to where the tracings are and then use a left-to-right crossing window to copy just the tracings themselves and not a right-to-left crossing window, which would also copy the underlying grid:



Then with both OSNAP and ORTHO on, I select the corner of the grid as my copy point:



And I copy straight up to the same corner of the grid above it:



Hit enter to accept and now my tracing are transferred:



Now comes the moment of truth.  When I turn my 0 layer back on, I'm going to see how close I came with all the work I have done so far.  Ready?  I'm scared to look:



:::peeking between her fingers:::

Well, not too bad.  Could be better and it actually looks fairy close, scale-wise, just offset maybe a little bit.  That could be my work, could be the topos, could be Heblem's work in making the original maps...hard to say, but regardless, lets see what can be done to fix things up a little bit. 

The lake is the primary feature to align here, I think and the tracings are a bit east of where they need to be, so I turn of the 0 layer (working "blind") and use the Move command to move the tracings to the left a bit:



Closer, but still not right.  At this point I turn ORTHO and OSNAP off, and start going back and forth, zooming out and in, turning the 0 layer off and on and nudging the tracings ever closer to where I think they need to be.



This is pretty close, but I think I can do better, so I give it a couple more tries and this is what I end up with:



I think this is about as close as I'm going to get.  The lake looks good and the streams running down into it also look good.  Things become distorted as we move east, but they are not distorted (or at least not currently and obviously) in the north/south direction, just a bit in the east/west direction.  So, as I develop the tile in that direction, I'll shift the tracings ever so slightly east as I go along.  I have no way of knowing where this distortion originates, so I'll compensate for it as best I can.  To tell the truth I have already overlaid the tracings on tiles further east and they fit almost perfectly, so this particular tile may be a bit of an anomaly.  Regardless, it's a game and this is not rocket science, no one is going to die or sue me if the map is not 100% accurate, and if I have to wing it a bit here and there, that's not a problem for me. 

So, that's the end of this "next step".  I won't be showing this stuff for every tile as I go along developing my region, but I think it's important for you all to know this work will be going on "behind the scenes" for each and every tile in the region.  There is one more major step to illustrate how I get from CAD to game, so that will be coming up sometime soon.  I have pretty much caught up with myself...it took me close to 3 weeks to get this far and I have not been doing much in my game since starting this MD, but now that I am nearly caught up, things should begin to move along with less techno stuff and more game stuff. 

And, if you thought THIS was over-the-top OCD, just wait for the next one.  Again, it will probably be a bit of a slog, but it only shows up once, after that, just know this is how I am Recreating San Francisco.

Lora/LD