Art128's SC4 Projects

[art128]

Thanks guys, makes me happy.
Nice to see you back Ethan!

Today we're going to see a bit more of Imizu Island but this time a little bit more rural with the coastal town of Sado.

[APSMS]

There's a nice mixture of farm and suburb in this mosaic here. I don't know how you do it, but the pictures are very relaxed and expansive, which is something I'm still trying to master.

I assume that's a proper terminus this time, or is it just another reverse station?

I have another question (which can, of course be easily answered by Google Maps, but that is a poor indicator of actual feel, which is the benefit of Sim City over an actual full-scale simulation), which is this:

Are Japanese homes/suburbs/low-density residential areas all this dense, uniform, and hopelessly inseparable, even in the country? It seems to me that the amount of variety is limited to the color of the roof. I'm aware there are a limited number of Japanese house BATs available, but is this because of a lack of BATters, or because the ones existing already cover a wide-enough scope of Japanese residential development?

Of course, this is all to say that I'm very impressed with the plugin management and detail work that goes into all of this. My question is merely one of curiosity.

[art128]

It's the terminus of the line. It's a small line spanning the entire island. It has only 5 stations on the whole line, two terminus and 3 intermediates station, one being the reverse from the previous update.

On the subject of Japanese suburbs/rural areas:

Suburbs are often dense like that. They also have some areas which are called Danchi (block estates). Well it depends what you call a suburb. The suburbs of Tokyo can go as far as Chiba and Saitama, where you can find some lower density in between as well as some farms.

The country is another thing. As Japan is composed mainly of mountains, most of the flat area ( Kanto plain as an example) are covered with urban areas to hold the lowering 120M people of the islands. Thought there are some plains that are more rural than urban.
For the moment I've shown mostly dense urban areas. I'm planning to create some large rural areas with low density a bit more to the south of the region. [I have a picture incoming after the talk]


As for the buildings, Well it's true that there aren't many choices concerning the homes. Most of the houses people use are from Somy, moonlight or Uki. I'm using mainly Uki's house for three reasons: 1- I like them a lot aesthetically.  2- They're slope conforming, whereas Somy and Moonlight's aren't. 3- They come with a variety of tools such as plopable 1x1 lots to fill gaps, retaining wall type lots with houses on them etc.
Also as you said, it does cover a wide variety of what homes look like in Japan (at least, that's what I think) but some other areas like Danchis, industrial areas or parks can be made to break the monotonous aspect of my updates. I'll work on that.
However there are some other Japanese homes but more traditional, old one that I generally use to create the rural areas or old areas in cities.

It's true that it doesn't put that much variation in my update, I can feel it as well. But it's the best I can do for what I have in mind as a general aspect of what a Japanese region can look like.

I said, here's a region view. Had to snap pictures from the game and stitch them together in PS because for some reason Region Census refuses to open my region. And so does SC4T.
Warning, it's a 5MB PNG picture.

[Gugu3]

Nice as always Art!

[kelis]

I like so much how you are developing the entire region ! When you are doing an Asian region, especially a Japanese region is very important make a good plan about the entire transport system, because as you know in Japan there are a lot of different transport services in a same city and is important that all of them are efficient, so good job with that map, I like it and it looks efficient !! I can not wait to see more close-up views. Good job as always Arthur !!

# Jonathan.

[FrankU]

Hi art,

Repetition is not the same as boring! That is really a misunderstanding. I think your indeed quite repetitious neighbourhoods have a very realistic dense urban feeling. I don't know if they look like real Japan and I admit that I do not care. What I care about is that the look of your developments feels realistic, and feels well balanced. The images have a lot of aesthetic quality and hence your work is stunning. 

And there is certainly enough variation in your updates!

[c.p.]

These pictures are really great.  I haven't even seen a lot of these BATs before, so it is a very interesting variation from the "normal" MD.  It looks like a lot of thought went into making these cities

[art128]

Thanks for the comments.

Today just a small mosaic from the more rural side of Imizu. This time we're at the east, just between Imizu and Enoshima (see map).






Hope you liked it!

[kelis]

Excellent mosaic ! I like those trains running in the top part of the village, keep up this good work amigo 

[feyss]

I like those fall colours. Always a fantastic work. 

[Themistokles]

The mixture of urban and rural, the autumn colours, and the small details such as the deck beneath the stairs down to the beach ... they all go together to make a wonderful mosaic. Really good!

[Gugu3]

Very very nice

[APSMS]

I really like the fall colors here. They blend nicely, especially with the beach and the rail line at the top. I like how the baseball field ends at the rice paddy as well; makes for an interesting search for a lost ball.

I hope, too, that it was clear that I wasn't implying that your pictures were boring. I was simply curious about the architecture and layout of someplace other than home, and since you seem very interested in that area of the world...

[vortext]

Nice mosaics and fantastic region view! 

[tankmank]

Some great recent updates, love all the details. While i do think that some of the Japanese/Asian CJs and MDs can be very repetitive, but the way in which everything else is incorporated and included breaks it up adds something different. Looking forward to seeing the towns and cities grow in the region

[noahclem]

I just got around to catching up on your MD and it was very enjoyable as always 

The fall one looks especially good and I always enjoy the way you do your shorelines. Lots of good rail too!

[art128]

Thanks for the comments!

I started yet again the region from scratch. I hope this time will be the good one.
Today we're going to see a rural town called Hata. The railway stop here is a reverse one of the MiKa-Tetsu railway.

Region view. A transport map (made in 5 minutes, sorry!) is available here
Click the picture below to view the region view.








Click for full size.



I hope you liked the first update of the new region.

[mgarcia]

Wonderful as always Arthur!  Beauuutifulll...LOL!

[c.p.]

Hata is a beautiful (and colorful) rural town.  There appears to be some very nice lotting going on here.

[Gugu3]

Very nice Arthur! you're brave to start yet again from the scratch