The Iron Coast 04/04/2010 Update XV - Censing the Journalist III

[kwakelaar]

What a great ambition, designing your very own Steampunk cathedral. Pulling off any kind of design for a building is quite difficult, but making a large (200m long/high?) church in a mix of styles is quite something. Your sketches so far have only a few very basic ideas in what direction you are heading, it is a rather long way from there to any kind of finished building. Still it will only be for the virtual world which should speed up the process considerably.
The only advice would be to find a building resembling what you are aiming for, model this and implement your own changes to this already existing building. But this is of course entirely up to you. I would love to see you succeed in this, and I will most certainly follow the development of your design and modelling.
And like Debussyman said, making this building in HD will surely increase your rendering times and your file size.

Gjermund

[ShadeSlayer]

I love that logo on the main page... I wonder who made that.

It's looking good, though.

[Shadow Assassin]

Interesting last update - why not add in a bit of Art Deco for adding more of a 'steampunk' feel, at least on the newer major buildings... steampunk doesn't have to be limited to just neo-gothic, after all.

Looking forward to seeing some of your BATs being done.

[mightygoose]

Replies

SC4Devotion

Debussyman – welcome to The Iron Coast, of all the people's input on this project I could have had at this moment I would have wished for yours. I am just throwing ideas around at the minute to try and envisage how a modern (20th century) steampunk cathedral would look. Although steampunk primarily affects science its effects on architecture are seen universally, so a cathedral would be built in a slightly different manner. These differences are what I am trying to cipher. 200m was merely a ranging shot, I have no idea where to size this thing from 50m long to 500m. I do understand the implications of all of those scales, but I want it to be as iconic as say Old St Pauls Cathedral [linkie] or even the contemporary Abraj al Bait [linkie].

I have done plenty of research into cathedral architecture from all over Western Europe, as well as common themes in fantasy cathedrals that have been imagined by others. Verticality is important to me in this design, and for the gothic side of things I tend toward German & French cathedrals, although I would not be influenced as far as to have an ambulatory. I do not intend to render this in HD, I was merely testing both options with the same stone. With your more complex projects do you break down the overall design into sever X-ref scenes or do you just plough on through with the one?

Brian(b22rian) – that sprawling suburbia is in fact Antimonycat's. It seems you didn't quite read all the surrounding text. Thank you for your kind words and I am glad to keep you interested.

Battlecat – I have a sketchbook full of bits that I will show over the time I am Journalling. Thank you for your continued support.

Tomas Neto – I hope the projects will turn out fantastic too. I am pleased you enjoyed the presentation.

Jordan(Canyonjumper) – thank you for your support.

Marsh – your kind words are most appreciated.

Joan(Jmouse) – Indeed the sketchbook is my way of keeping track of the data and ideas that I myself have forgotten I had created. Without it I would have fallen apart long before I started. I too am ecstatic that I have attracted just the attention I wanted. I know that Simcity started out as just a game, but there is so much scope for development and management beyond its face value that we are still here developing new ideas seven years after its release, think another year and computers will be 4x the power they were when the game was released. As for reading like a novel, well you wait till the storytelling starts!

CSGdesign – getting BAT4MAX to work is like a right of passage, it always has been. I will have to trawl through the hard disks and see what models I can now export/remaster and export. I intend to apply virtually every skill I have to this diary, withholding my physical ones anyway.

Gjermund(Kwakelaar) – great ambition doesn't come into it, I failed miserably at trying to design a dystopian church before; without doing much research at all lets just say I abandoned the project pretty quickly. Here is a picture of as far as I got [linkie]. Design is something that fascinates me, and trying to translate my visions and ideas into characterful but appropriate design elements takes some doing. I hope open minds will be used when I start showing progress on the model, as certain key features I want to maintain.

The design is meant to be a dominant feature in the skyline of its encompassing city so verticality and scale need to be on the larger side of normal. I am in no rush to finish this particular BAT as I feel it shouldn't be and in fact couldn't be. I fear it would only suffer as a consequence. I think I have answered your further concerns in my response to Debussyman. Thank you for dropping by and leaving your input.

Shadeslayer – I was honestly not expecting to see you again, welcome to The Iron Coast, I am glad you like what you see, and you shall forever be a part of its history. I hope you stick around and keep watching.

Daniel(Shadow Assassin) – welcome to The Iron Coast, I was wondering when you would stop lurking. It seems you have read my mind, yes I do intend to include some art deco elements into my work for some of the "later" developments.

Simtropolis Forum

Korot – I started using Jeronij's blue transparent plop water but it was too high off the ground, so I swapped to Pegasus' Tahoe plop water after image two. I feel a 40-60m expanse of bush is not uncommon; however I will review the area next time I have that tile open and see if I can improve on the existing scene. I am glad you like the eye candy shots. I know it seems like a tall order to detail every stream in the region to this level of detail, but I am in no rush, and it means I never run out of things to do.

Thank you for your feedback on the following update, as you can see I really am just brainstorming at this point. As far as I am aware there is only one barrel-arched roof church in the world that has been at least reasonably photographed. That is St Thomas's church in Diu, Gujarat, India. I intend to find as much information as possible on the roof structure of this church to give me ideas of how to handle it in my own project.

Tostartpressanykey – I would love for you to send me a copy of the report by PM so could have a read. If not perhaps you could post a couple of relevant passages here when you see fit. Thank you for your continued support.

Roger51 – I feel I would not be doing myself justice if I did not have a good stab at doing something of my own for this region.

Benedict – thank you for your kind words, and I am happy you like what you see here.

Simtropolis City Journal Section

Docrorlach – welcome to The Iron Coast. You give me high praise, but you are correct in part. I do intend to produce a number of models for the project and by not rushing and taking my time with the journal it will allow me adequate time to create them. I hope to see you here more often in the future. Plus I just dug up your old city journal; it is fantastic have you ever thought about a resurrection. It is Easter soon after all.

Crushedcar – welcome to The Iron Coast, the overlay is just a vector graphic I mixed up in photoshop.

Well it seems as if more than a thousand words are needed for replies every update. That tells me people are contributing and that I have to respond. Fantastic now lets see if you can push me to the two thousand word barrier.

Setting the Water III

You May wish to refresh yourself with the previous entry found here [linkie].

We left The Crown Shores like this previously. It is the second of three regions I will need to create for this city journal. It sits directly to the North of The Vagrant Peninsula (North on all my regions is right to left). Now we can continue with the terraforming process by beginning to blend the various cells together.

First begin by using the magic wand tool to select one of the cells, typically the highest/lightest one. While maintaining that selection, use a feathered brush set to lighten with a lighter heightgrey such as RGB 92 as the primary colour. Give this innermost contour band some basic peak shapes and graduate the heightgrey used for variation. If you repeat this for the next contour down ensure the heightgrey used as primary lighten colour does not exceed the base colour of the next higher contour. Graduate the next contour down.

As you can see I am still left with a couple of pesky outlines from the magic wand selection. These are easy to fix.

Note the outlines of the contours still clearly visible in this area. Set your lighten brush to the exact primary colour of the lighter heightgrey at the boundary. Trace the relevant boundary with this brush. I have highlighted the relevant boundaries in my example below, note that there are two boundaries highlighted and require different heightgrey settings.

Here you can now see that most of my outlines in raised areas have been cleaned up. However let's look now at some of the estuary islands to the right of the image. Using identical techniques to those described above you can begin to build up the islands. Below is a before and after followed by a comparison with the original trace outline.

At this point the region stands very rough, the key shapes are in place but there is little to no detail added. Below is a final sequence of four images showing firstly the region as it stood at the end of this tutorial, and its mapper counterpart, then after a bit of noise reduction and cleaning up. In the simplest of terms the final image shows a playable region, however I refuse to stop until it is suitably detailed.

And that is how for now. Next time we delve back into the history books to see how my quest for historical plausibility is going.

[ShadeSlayer]

I'm not all that active on Simtropolis, so that might explain it.

I've been checking this out for a while now, but I guess I missed the first page, because I just noticed the logo today. Kind of funny though, I was going through my Image folder recently and I came across the those two logos I did.

Anyway, it's looking good, but it's going to be quite a few city tiles, hey? 1 grid square is a small city tile, right?

[Tomas Neto]

The preoccupation with every detail at the beginning of your MD, shows us how great will be the sequence of your updates!! I liked this region very much!!! 

[ecoba]

What a wonderful update, John. The way you've showcased the fine-tuning of a greyscale to then open in TerraFormer seems really simple. Someday, you should post this down in the tutorials section.

Ethan

[Battlecat]

Fantastic job on the fine tuning!

[sumwonyuno]

Those are some wonderful results! 

[kwakelaar]

Looking at the images from Old Saint Paul, I can understand where your inspiration comes from. I think it is a good choice as a base for your creation.
Good work on your mapping. I find it difficult to make smooth transitions from one height level to the next, but your technique seems like a solution to this problem.

Gjermund/Kwakelaar

[Connor]

Nice upate as always. This and the Vagrant Peninsula are both looking like fantastic maps, and I'm sure the third map will be just as good

[Jmouse]

This is nothing short of absolutely amazing. I've always enjoyed terraforming but never dreamed of taking it to the level of an art form! You've certainly given us an inspiring and entertaining time in OSITM.

Later...
Joan

[mightygoose]

Replies

Simcity 4 Devotion

Shadeslayer – I understand that, yeah the total area covered is initially 420 large tiles broken up into three separate regions. I only have that banner, if you have another one I'd be more than happy to use it.

Tomas Neto – thank you for your high praise and I am thrilled you like what you see.

Ethan(Ecoba) – when all is said and done I do intend to formalise many of the tutorials you will see in this diary over the coming months. I am glad you enjoy the demonstrations and it really is pretty simple when you get used to it.

Battlecat – thanks.

Sumwonyuno – thanks, but there is a long way to go on that particular map.

Gjermund(kwakelaar) – yeah I really want this structure to dominate its skyline, and the St Paul's reference just leapt into my head. Secondly, it really is the easiest way I have found of smoothing gradients in a greyscale map.

Connor – well this may well turn out  better than the Vagrant Peninsula, if it is a marked improvement I may well go back and update certain elements of the original.

Joan(Jmouse) – well terraforming in this sense is unbridled creativity, it always has been an art form. Although really its geoscaping rather than terraforming as there is no atmospheric manipulation involved here, just sculpting of terrain. I will  squeeze this update in just before the final whistle, and will endeavour to set up a contents page in the first updates post if it is possible could I get a pinned contents stapled to the top of every page, like in various NAM threads.

Simtropolis Forum

CG – congrats on taking me to 100 replies here on Simtropolis. I have tried to keep the scenery varied to allow for many possibilities, but also challenges to the city planners and to me as a player, I want to face aspects of gaming in Simcity that I have deliberately avoided up until now.

Ded – welcome to The Iron Coast, I am pleased I have you as a follower and I think you can never put too much detail into a project. Furthermore if that is my credo, why not share it with everyone.

Roger51 – that map is far from finished but I am glad you like it.

Korot - as I said above, it is merely where the map stood at the end of that update, there is at least another 20-25 hours of work to go into it.

Tostartpressanykey – thank you for the quote, I hope so XD.

Benedict – I am thrilled you like the name of the area, and as to the title not standing out enough, I tried various borders but all made it stand out too much. I felt that this was the nicest overall composition.

Will(Penguin007) – thanks for your kind words, there will be more of all of those things later on.

After nearly 2000 words of responses for two updates on the trot, under 500 here seems like a blessing, although it did worry me a little bit, Setting the Water II was my most replied to update and this is third from bottom. I am confident things will pick up again soon. Anyway on with the update.

A little bit of history II.

Last time I showed you some of the work I was doing behind the scenes conjuring up the back story of The Iron Coast. I want to elaborate at this point on what this is trying to achieve.

Alternative history is a sub-genre of fiction that consists of prose set in worlds not unlike our own but where history has diverged to a greater or lesser degree from the actual history of the world. It can variously be described as a child of literary fiction, science fiction or historical fiction. Works of historical fiction may contain devices or common themes from any or all of these genre. Alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a subgenre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate history works may use tropes or devices from any or all of these genres.

Initial works in early alternative history primarily involved some form of parallel universe or time travel. This cross time awareness thus invoked a clear character or situation based reason for the distinctions in the literary timeline. While effective and clearly understandable to a fresh audience; it lacked artistry and became rapidly repetitive. This is also why virtually all early allohistories where seen as science fiction.

As the genre grew in size and age, other approaches to the theme were adopted, the great "What if?" Craze followed with many, many titles being released in this new and exciting refreshed genre. This second stage led to subtler changes to history leading to further reaching changes in the timeline. This was finally compounded and reaffirmed with the popularisation of the butterfly effect.

This basically takes us to where we are now, succinct and seemingly insignificant changes 1000 years ago leading to a drastically different reality in the present. I want The Iron Coast to be that subtle. So what changes have I made to the timeline you ask, some of the core ideas are charted below.

1.   Climate Sphere, The overall global climate is around 4-5 degrees centigrade warmer than our world. While this means that the Polar Regions are smaller and more inhabitable land exists at higher latitude it does mean that the deserts at the equator are somewhat larger. However this increased temperature does not lead to higher sea levels as the remaining moisture is stored in the atmosphere offering globally higher levels of humidity and rainfall.

2.   Geological Sphere, obviously The Iron Coast has had to be supplanted onto the British Columbia coastline, and the Kingdom of Aetheria added to the Siberian coast; other than that there are minor changes to small island chains around the world.

3.   The English Sphere, Ælfgifu of Northampton succeeds King Canute, son of Swein as ruler of England through her son of Canute Harold Harefoot, who acts as Regent of England in the absence of his younger half brother Harthacanute (son of Canute and his chosen queen, Emma of Normandy). This is not different from historical events and Harold was made King of England in light of the continued delays of his younger sibling.

a.   My change is that in 1040 Harold I does not die, but instead lives and subsequently repels the invasion of Danes from his half brother. This is the key authored change.

b.   This repulsion of the rightful King of the Empire cuts confidence in Harthacanute among the Thanes and raises the profile of Harold I. This is Interpolation.

c.   In 1062 Harold I is killed by Norman assassins and his son Harold II (not Harold Godwinson) rules in England. In reality Harold II was unrelated to Harold I and ruled after Edward the Confessor to die at Hastings in 1066.

d.   In 1066 Harold II proves his worth by repelling the Norman invasion and Duke William II of Normandy dies in battle. This is the key resultant change in the English sphere of influence.

e.   Following talks with Wales, Scotland & Ireland, Britain is united and forwards Harold II as King of the Empire to rule over Norway and Denmark also. This victory at Hastings was not expected and the Thanes vote to Depose Harthacanute in favour of Harold II. Harold II goes on to conquer much of Normandy and gains lands in northern France. This is Extrapolation.

f.   This is the first instance of an English Empire, date 26th March 1067.

That last part (Point 3) is the first of a series of Spheres of Influence that act like giant cogs in my narrative machine. Once all the cogs are in place, I simply crank the handle and the story writes itself. This sphere can be summed up in two points; firstly, the key authored change (KAC): Harold I survived past 1040; and the key resultant change (KRC): the result of the battle of Hastings is reversed. The former causes the latter. Everything else in that sphere is just logical interpolation and subsequent extrapolation of those two points.

So far I have charted maybe 20 spheres and bar 1 & 2 all are minor changes such as 3 that have far reaching implications. The master timeline passed four hundred entries as of writing, but there is still a myriad of things to chart and describe. Here are a couple of out of context examples.

"Veny Sainvillaird, captain of the Tapageuse, founds the French trade Embassy in Ho Chi Minh"

"Jasper Huxley III, marries Frances Riddington in the Kensington Monastery of Order of Moral Flagellents"

And one more...

"Iano Sandoario, leads the Revuelta Honesto, 8000 people march through Gibralta protesting anti-Semitism", leaders are executed many hundreds injured"

[canyonjumper]

Great bit of history, Goose! Looking forward to seeing how it's implemented 

                   -Jordan

[Tomas Neto]

Your text reminds me of many things, such as Lost, Fringe and Flash Foward! I liked of the text very much!!! 

[Battlecat]

Quite the impressive background you're developing here!  Neat approach to organizing it as well.

[mightygoose]

&

Replies

Simcity 4 Devotion

Jordan(Canyonjumper) – I will warn you now, it could be quite some time before you see any implementation.

Tomas Neto – all of those shows have fantastic writing, I take that as very high praise indeed.

Battlecat – when you are dealing with such large quantities of information structured organisation is paramount, as I am sure David (dedgren) or Fred (mrbisonm) will testify.

Simtropolis Forum

Aleking – high praise from a city Journalling master; welcome to The Iron Coast.

Aldender – welcome to The Iron Coast, the terrain will be used to the best of my ability in due course.

Roger51 – changes to the time can be good but the long term implications have an equally high chance of turning out very badly. We will just have to wait and see.

Simtropolis City Journal Section

Crushedcar – the diagram is very much incomplete, but when it is nearing a closer state of readiness and visual interest I may well show it to you.

Censing the Journalist II

Presenting this months update on the stats for The Iron Coast. As you can clearly see the addition of updates in the city journal section on Simtropolis is starting to have an impact in the view total but has yet to emerge as a major factor in the replies. Note these are gauged by update, not by date, so some may have unnaturally few replies; my previous entry to this one being a prime example.

Expect a significant update at the weekend.

[b22rian]

Its really the most involved and thorough project under taken in the sc 4 communities..
And that is no over statement.. Interesting touch with the graphics at the end there..

Thanks , Brian

[Connor]

Enjoyed reading the alternative history, and i'm certainly looking forward to this weekend's update.

[kwakelaar]

That is some butterfly effect indeed, the English taking over Normandy, Denmark and Norway after the battle at Hastings.
Interesting