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

[Jmouse]

You've discussed  some excellent ideas here, John. Once again, you've caused me to stop and really think about an element of game play which I suspect is often overlooked - architectural style. Thank goodness we don't see very many horribly mismatched styles, but there's more to choosing BATs than just deciding between American, European and Mediterranean  architecture.

I like the idea of design progression, too, and it's one I've devoted a bit more thought to. A RL city doesn't just pop up overnight like springtime clover. There will always be an older part of town as well as a newer part. And I believe we can achieve that contrast in SC4. I'm anxious eager to see how you meet the challenge.

I enjoyed the history lesson, too...
Joan

[Haljackey]

Wow, so much backstory!  I hope the themes you plan to use work out well for your MD!

[bat]

Nice work on the seventh update!!!

[rooker1]

Great plans, awesome ideas and the mightygoose, doesn't get much better than that for an MD.
Congrats on the very well deserved move to OSITM this month.



Congratulations from myself and The SC4D Staff!

[tooheys]

Congrats MG, this should be an interesting month. Enjoy.

[Jmouse]

Congratulations, John. Looks like February is shaping up to be an exceptional month in OSITM!

Later...
Joan

[Battlecat]

Congratulations!   

[Tomas Neto]

Yeah my friend!!! Congratulations on OSITM!!! 

[bat]

Congratulations! Looking forward to more...

[ecoba]

Congragulations on OSITM, my friend! It's well deserved.

Ethan

[CSGdesign]

I'm very humbled to be featured alongside your journal MG.
I think this is an excellent opportunity and timing for us to produce our joint project... while we're both featured in OSITM.
Good luck with your upcoming entries, and congratulations on being featured!

[mightygoose]

Replies

DeathtoPumpkins - thankyou for popping by, i am by no means the expert on steampunk, and i am still learning things about the genre on a daily basis, however i imagine there are a lot of people out there who have never heard of the subcatergory and i thought it would be nice to explain somewhat. i will divulge more details and nuances of steampunk at a later interval.

Tomas Neto - thankyou and thanks for the bug report.

Battlecat - what i am trying to do is convey my influences to my audience, i want to share the vision with you so you can help me realise it, if anything i publish is out of character or could be improved i want you guys to feel confident enough to speak up and give more reasoned imput.

Connor - thankyou my friend.

Kwakelaar - firstly, i would like to thank you very much for taking the time to put together such a lengthly reply, it is most helpful to me if there are people out there to question and challenge my ideas, please continue to do so. As to the matters you raise, I know there is a real lack of "tudorbethan" architecture available on the exchanges and well i may or may not have a little surprise in store for helping to fix that issue. Secondly, the Neues Rathaus; you have rumbled me, i should have mentioned that it was a gothic revival structure, however it is such a great example that particular style of gothic architecture i was hoping nobody would notice. Rounded towers were my primary eastern orthodox church architectural citing, although crenellated sills are also a revival addition.

Ok the land area based taxation is very much true of tudor england and is in fact the motivation for the jettying.

"Where the houseowner could afford it, the more expensive technique of jettying was incorporated in the construction of the house. Home owners were taxed on their ground-floor square footage; jettying allows higher stories to have larger square footage than the ground floor."

[linkie]

And the separate sections constructed at different times would be a reference to Salisbury Cathedral.

"The only major sections of the cathedral built later were the Cloisters, Chapter house, tower and spire, which at 404 feet (123 metres) dominated the skyline from 1320."

[linkie]

I hope this answers most of your questions, feel free to ask any more that you see fit.

BuildingUp - thankyou, i am glad you like seeing the influences also.

Joan(Jmouse) - I know that very often one of three or four very popular architectural styels dominates the simcity world to an extent, i really want to break out of that mould. AntimonyCat proved it could be done and it is such a shame that he is not around any longer to aid me. But in a small sense this entire project would not exist if it were not for him. As to my all round approach to this project, i see the Iron Coast more as a vison in my head, an idea, an alternate reality that exists merely in my head, SC4 then becomes just another art medium, like canvas, like pen, like music. Then it merely becomes a matter of ensuring you have the right brushes to paint on your canvas, so your vision is portrayed effectively.

Haljackey - thanks and i hope so too.

Bat - thankyou.

Rooker1 - awww shucks, i am honoured when i consider the callibre of journals that have passed through this right of passage, and my company is certainly illustrious this month. I will do my utmost to uphold the standards expected in here.

Tooheys - i will do my darndest to make sure this is a fascinating month.

Joan(Jmouse) - thankyou, i just hope i can live up to the expectations.

Battlecat - thankyou my friend, you deserve to be in here virtually every month.

Tomas Neto - thankyou for the sentiment.

Bat - here is more.

Ethan(ecoba) - thankyou for your kind words.

CSGdesign - your humbled, considering you busted out a 3D night render of your entire region not so long ago, along with 3D topological data graphs of a mining operation, i think i am the one to be humbled, as to our joint project, i plan on putting that on in around 48 hours. I will go back and edit it once yours is present.

Anyway, now that the rather lengthly replies to my last update are over with i can move on to my first update under OSITM...

Playing God

Here we are, the first totally in game update, still not storytelling by any stretch, however, I will be sharing with you some of the natural development occurring on this somewhat barren terrain. Don't get too excited it is still only my first attempt at "plop-water" rivers. There is only one picture of my very first attempt and that is below. I tried to follow the contours of the valley and gradually make my way downhill. This didn't work out to well as I ended up following the grid for a significant portion of the route. I also forgot to put down any form of riverbed first.

Second time round I decided to try to learn from my mistakes and improve my technique. Taking a leaf out of 3RR's book, I decided to try and pursue realism more vehemently; I used the road and rail tools to smooth out a path for my stream. Note that although this is more realistic than just following the contours, it is nowhere near the realism David achieves as my gradients are far too steep for such a tranquil stream.

My next task was to trace along this route, in a very lazy and haphazard manner. You will need to select an appropriate riverbed texture; I chose Chris Adams' marsh texture from the RRP. Don't worry at all about straying off course a little, however, major deviations may lead to uphill streams, so you may need to go back and modify the terrain with the road and rail tools again.

Next, follow your riverbed down the slope roughly again with the plop water tool of your choice; I used Jeronij transparent blue & the half tile size for the upper stream and the whole tile for the wider, lower sections. By minimising the amount of plop-water tiles you use you in fact allow more space for riverside plops such as trees and bushes.

At this stage the visual modifications such as rock, water, beach, terrain, plop water & even the techniques I am using are still very much flexible, so at this stage I will leave this here. A lot of the things I am having to do a large number of times, I have only done once or twice before, so this is all pretty new to me as well. Either way I hope you have enjoyed this little insight into playing god.

This is the same area in region view, at the time of writing this entry. As you can see there is much work to be done. I leave you today with two pictures of meadows that I found knocking around. All of the eye candy shots I keep posting are merely experiments in plop flora. It is all practice though and gradually meadow by meadow this region is coming to life.

See you later

[ecoba]

A very interesting update, John.

I think that your entrance to plopping rivers was a great one. Some of David's techinques are the greatest to be found. I do agree with you on the difficulty of plopping streams if you don't have a defined riverbed before hand. On account of that, I've had some streams flow uphill before, and some look like they were graded with machines. 

That first region view is absolutely stunning, even if only two tiles are visible rendered, but the Terraformer coloured tiles are pretty cool looking too, in my mind. Those screens of the meadows are very well plopped and the variety of flora in such a small space is really amazing!

Ethan

[canyonjumper]

Cool stuff John! This is a fascinating MD that I hope to keep an eye on!

                     -Jordan

[sumwonyuno]

Congratulations!   

I really like how the streams turned out, and I'm marveling at those meadows! 

[Tomas Neto]

Wow my friend, another awesome update!!! Fantastic!!! 

[CSGdesign]

I really love your combination of terrain textures, trees, and creek/river things.
So many things you inspire me to try but I'd have to start a new region to do it.
...must....resist....

[newsimaddict]

Great work as always mightygoose. congrats on the OSTIM!

Love the streams, great work and looks so natural - really nice...and always inspiring to learn from.

[Battlecat]

Creating surface water is one of my favorite things in this game now!  You're so very right about the challenges with creating them, but looks like you've got it well in hand.  I particularly like those small ponds and the braiding you added to your stream.

Nice job with the detailed shots at the end as well!

[Jmouse]

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it possible to turn a rough pencil sketch into a playable region - and a beautifully-terraformed region at that! The landscapes you've shown in this update are absolutely remarkable.

When I played SC3000, realism was out of reach. When I got my hands on SC4 Dx, I quickly designed a grid pattern which took maximum advantage of the radii of various civic buildings like schools. What unspeakably-ugly neighborhoods those were! Now, however, we're fortunate to have the work of forward-thinking players to use, and realism is ours for the taking!

So, considering your obvious talent for terraforming, your eye for detail and your extensive pre-planning, watching The Iron Coast develop is going to be a unique experience. I'm curious to see how you'll deal with the coastline "wrinkles" I see in the partial region view.

More than anything, though, I admire and respect your approach to this entire project. Amazing. Simply amazing!

Later...
Joan