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

[bat]

Welcome to page 4!

Great work on the map...
Looking forward to more...

[Tomas Neto]

Fantastic update!!! 

[TheTeaCat]

John,

this is superb stuff.

I've just managed to catch up on all you've done so far and I must say I am very impressed.
It is fascinating to watch how your ideas in your head are being turned into reality

Just the amount of work in creating the greyscale map and all the steps involved then to get it in game
amazing. Personally I wouldn't have the patience to do all that.

I can see you are in this for the long haul and I too am eager to see what you have in store for us

10/10 for the last pic. Its spectacular

Derry

[mightygoose]

[BuildingUp]

Even though I love to see concrete jungles it's always nice to see some uninterrupted splendor. Brilliant! 

[Jmouse]

Good idea - I like it! You're just full of innovative surprises.

Later...
Joan

[Connor]

Nice idea, from what i can see your region looks fantastic. Looking forward to more.

Connor.

[sumwonyuno]

You can almost hear all of the "oohs" and "ahhs"!    The terrain is beautiful!

[ecoba]

Wow, that region teaser is absolutely magnificent!

You should really consider uploading this MG, I think that it would be a great candidate for the LEX, and would probably be a highly downloaded map, I know I would download it.

I think that most of the splendor comes from how smoothly the transition from rolling plains to snowy ridges is. I think that the magnificent tree placement really ahlps this as well.

Can't wait to see what plugins you're thinking of using!

Ethan

[Battlecat]

Amazing shot!  That's a massive region and it's certainly a view we don't get to see very often! 

[kwakelaar]

Nice to see how you get from your hand drawn map to Simcity.

[bat]

That's a nice view of your nice looking region! Looking forward to more of it...

[Tomas Neto]

Wow, awesome!!! 

[mightygoose]

Replies

Vince(blue lightning) - thankyou my friend, to be honest as much as you guys like it it is a bit of a cop out showing all the background stuff, it makes it look like i have done more than i have.

B22rian - thankyou very much.

Haljackey - yeah there will be more of that soon.

Joan(jmouse) - your input is always apreciated, and it makes me greatly pleased to know that i can help other members understand new things about the game. that is what i want to give back, not just pretty pictures.

Connor - thankyou for your plaudits.

Battlecat - as far as im aware its pretty much the only way of bringing a hand drawn map into the game, even indirectly.

Bat - thanks.

Toms Neto - thankyou also.

Derry(TheTeaCat) - ha, you flatter me sir, i am glad you are enjoying the show.

BuildingUp - glad i could show you something different.

Joan(jmouse) - heh,  i wouldn't call that innovative

Connor - thanks for your compliments, remember that is only one third of the region total.

sumwonyuno - thankyou friend.

ecoba - well the map although useable is along way from upload quality, as you will see later on, yeah the smoothness was something i really wanted to be key here, and i think i achieved it well, as for the tree placement, don't thank me, thank the meadowshire tree controller, thats all the trees the region has had at this first pass stage. ask and you shall receive, sort of, plugins are somewhat discussed this time round.

Battlecat - yeah the view is kinda awkward as i had to get a strip of 14 large tiles into a vertical column, i will have shots of much longer strips of land in the future, so i hope you are "eager" to see more XD

bat - thanks.

Kwakelaar - thankyou my friend.

Tomas Neto - glad you like it.

Now lets get to some nitty gritty, so what is steampunk exactly, and what kind of plugins are you going to see in the Iron Coast...

Stylist required


Essentially I want to talk about my motivations and ideas when it comes to the architectural style in the Iron Coast.

Architectural integrity is important to me, as I think it can bind a region's settlements together to compound their obvious direct relation into a more rounded national identity. Not to look as if all the buildings were constructed at once, but more to look like there is some form of design progression, this implies a history to your cities making them feel all the more authentic and believable.

My original intention was to follow a steampunk theme in light of Antimonycat's, romantic, industrial, shambling, parisienne city. If we analyse one of his photos we can see below, that there is in fact more industry in the picture than residential and commercial put together. Architecturally we have Industrial brick construction harking memories of the industrial revolution, but also some half timbered buildings near the top. Half-timbered construction was a technique that rose to fame through the Tudor and Elizabethan periods. The remainder of the buildings being industrial metalwork, this image of overly complicated yet somehow old fashioned machinery is archetypal of the steampunk ideology.




Also note the custom ferry sign and automata that have been edited postgame in photoshop, these touches help complete the images identity and leave no anachronisms to distract the viewer.

Steampunk itself is a sub genre of scifi/fantasy, with one of the key requisites being the prolonged use of steam beyond the advent of the internal combustion engine. The theme is stylistically Victorian although modern inventions are often shoe horned in as if they were invented at an earlier date, such as steam cars, airships, computers(digital or Babbage like mechanical) and on top of that inventions and theme that approach Vernian and Orwellian levels respectively. Often closely associated with cyberpunk, with its generally dystopian feeling and the ever presence of heavy industry, steampunk however can be utopian in nature.



Names of people & places are normally overindulgent and representative of the base country subculture you superimpose your steampunk onto, although picking names from between 100-500 years ago usually is the benchmark. Technical terms are flamboyant to say the least. Just try to imagine you were an inventor in 1780 and had just invented an Amerific Lodestone Reactioning Vessel (nuclear reactor to you and me). You can see the progression. As for dating things, general convention from what I've seen is that you call the date whatever the date is today and wind it back one hundred and fifty to two hundred years, this gives your the appropriate scope of the early Victorian period while still giving you scope to move into the future.

In light of that brief introduction to the genre, I'm now going to talk about some of the style decision I have made. When selecting my plugins I decided to go for a British subculture, in a similar fashion to Antimonycat, however unlike my inspiration I intend to have Germanic influences on that and try my best to steer clear of that parisienne romanticism. I want city to be tangibly grittier, darker and push that dystopian edge.

There is I should mention a third option, you can do steampunk with art deco and neoclassicism as your architectural base. This can be done extremely well and Mr. Glamazon made a couple of releases in this neoclassical steampunk style. See below for a more elaborate artistic impression.

Anyway back to me, Tudor, Gothic and Elizabethan architecture for the most part, with some medieval Germanic extras thrown in. At this stage I am merely selecting rural plugins, and so I have picked up every non-American/non-Mediterranean farm I could find and blocked maxis agriculture. I picked up the RRP plop paths, culverts & fences, as well as the aubrac stone walls, some half timbered cottages by tag_one, the full Manchou set, (French I know but very rural and with HD models looks superb up close) some Tudorbethan Revival houses from mattb325, and well you get my drift.

To be honest with you the real struggle to pull the architectural theme together will begin when I run out of gothic buildings in the bigger cities and duplicates pop up everywhere but this is something I hope to address. I have been known to don some tools and make the occasional BAT in the past, not that I've been able to successfully export any of them. However with the super duper new BAT4MAX released by Simfox, maybe that will change. Below just to get you more into the feel of things are a few shots of buildings in the styles that I will be looking to replicate or emulate.

This is an example of decorative gothic design. Key features of this particular style are the crenulated roof sills and the tracery in the windows along with the equilateral peaks. All these features date this structure to between 1300 and 1350, however some of the embellishments above the main entrance on the right are clearly orthodox in suggestion and inspiration. If I were to replicate this design, those particular features would be left off.

This is a brilliant and exceptionally large example of Half-timbered construction located in London is great for showing that older architectural styles can still achieve the kinds of urban densities required for a large city to function in Simcity 4. Furthermore note the Jetty floors (the top three floors are all cantilevered in series). The structure was built this way as your council tax was based on your land coverage on the ground floor, thus by jettying the upper floors you gained additional space for no extra fee.

Here you can see where the cathedral was built in stages throughout the gothic period the traceries on the tower are far more decorative and ornate than the rest of the establishment. This probably occurred due to a lack of funds on behalf of the contractor. Either that or the architect was changed and hence made embellishments...

Anyway, this has been the first part delving into the world of architectural style, if not relatively lightly. Do not panic, although the "Stylist Required" feature will be back, it won't pop up very often, so see you next week with something entirely different again.

[deathtopumpkins]

Whoa, goose, you my friend are an most certainly an expert in this field... Thank you for that wonderfully informative explanation of what exactly constituted steampunk, and the hint at your architectural selections.

[Tomas Neto]

Very cool your explanation, and I also liked your interest in architecture! 
The link of example of decorative gothic design needs be fixed!

[Battlecat]

Very cool update, you've certainly put a great deal of thought into your approach to this region!  Nice selection of pictures to illustrate your thoughts!  I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what you've got coming up next!

[Connor]

A very interesting read and some wonderful architectural photo's as well.  

[kwakelaar]

Great reading, I must confess that I had to look up a few words to try to follow your meaning.  Never heard about steampunk before your introduction, and actually quite interesting to look at some of the references on internet, also in the direction of cyberpunk as that is a little more familiar.
It seems it will be quite a challenge to be able to fill your cities with Tudor, Gothic and Elizabethan architecture, there just is not that much made in these styles, I am curious to see how you will solve this.
I see the Neues Rathaus from Munich as first reference for Gothic style, dated to between 1300 and 1350. You do realize that this is a 19th-20th century design, and I am a bit confused about the orthodox embellishments, as I don't know this expression in architecture.
Both following examples of buildings are more accurate examples of medieval architecture, though you are a bit quick to jump to conclusions regarding council rules and change of architects.
I have really enjoyed reading about your ideas for your MD, and I look forward to see what you will come up with next.

[BuildingUp]

Excellent description! Steampunk is a really unique subject, I really like the way you used pictures and words to describe it. Not just describe but show the person.

Awesome!