Blackwater (with Islas Gemas)

[mightygoose]

this looks very slick....

[kimcar]

Can`t wait what you gonna do with those little island. Have fun

[bat]

That's a very fantastic region there!

Looking forward to more of this new project!

[beskhu3epnm]

40 pages and almost a year... I need to check out MD's a bit more.

That terrain looks like something you'd perhaps find in Canada. Is that hand drawn? Very nice work, either way. I've also plopped trees on a 12x12 mountainous map. What a hassle. It comes down to GPU performance more then anything it seems... So I understand how much time we're talking about here!

Amazing work... to another 40 pages:

[krbe]

Sorry to post again, but just a little greeting from the train It's little bumpy, but far better than flying (mainly because I have a (sluggish) internet connection at a fair price )

[bother_me]

Fantastiskt!

[Air6]

Great start for this new project. This is a beautiful region you have here, and I'm sure that you'll create again many beautiful things. I can see on the third picture two piers... What do you want create with them ?

[Strechnitz]

Your new project looks very promising.
I look forward to this metropolitan area. I wonder how you will spread population densities and types and styles of building throughout the region. Take your time and delight us once more

Strech.

[sebes]

I agree with Strechnitz and others here and am also looking forward to see how you will developpe this great region.  I love maps with a lot of water - and probably a lot of bridges - so that is promissing a lot of eye candy shown here again for the next 40 pages  most probably !     

[emilin]

Personal replies:

rooker1: Thank you! It's nice to have you on board and I'm sure I'm going to need a lot of help as we go along (beside the stuff we have already discussed in PM:s).

thundercrack83: Thanks Dustin! I probably can't live up to those expectations, but I'll do my very best.

Yoman: Thanks! And I will explain the "port situation" a little further down the road, but the short version is that the areas around the main city doesn't have very good waterways for heavy trade ships. They would have a hard time navigating in the narrow sounds of shallow water in between all the islands. Most of the sea traffic will be larger passenger ships and smaller freighters.

kwakelaar: Thank you so much!

Grneyes: Thanks! I'm hoping that the level of realism will be higher for this project, so hopefully you will enjoy it.

freedo50: Thanks! It is rather flat (at least compaired to Islas Gemas) but it does have a lot of gently rolling hills to break up the monotony a bit. But the main reason for making it so flat, of course, is that it's easier to build on - and this will be a densely developed region in the end.

Shadow Assassin: Thanks! I still have to figure out why it's called Blackwater though, hehe...

krbe: Thank you! And I hope you enjoyed your stay while you were here.

flame1396: Hehe... I'm not even sure what that means, but I'll do my very best.

figui: Thanks! But I think will settle for several medium sized ports instead - the biggest being located at some distance from the actual city of Blackwater (probably around the area of Southwater).

mightygoose: Thank you!

kimcar: Thanks for commenting - and I hope you will like it.

bat: Thank you so much, bat!

beskhu3epnm: Thanks a lot! And to answer your question: most of it is hand drawn in grey scale. For the central parts I used the Terraformer to modify Heblems original map. Then I saved it as a png file and expanded it in Photoshop and drew the rest of the region by hand. The hills and mountains were cut and pasted from some map files I found on STEX (I do believe some hills are actually yours). There is still a lot of fine terraforming to do, but I will need to do that ingame.

bother_me: Tack så mycket!

Air6: Thanks! Those two piers are part of a port that mainly handles cruise ships going to nearby cities - but also some liquid bulk and a small "free port".

sebes: Thank you, sebes! Bridges, of course, will be a necessity - and I have downloaded all of the available custom bridges I could find for a bit of variation.


Blackwater: Rail system and Blackwater Central Station with surrounding lots

So, let's get things moving a bit then, shall we? Today we take a look at some train related items. First out is a complete map of the rail lines of Blackwater. As you can see there are a few main lines and several spur lines. The traffic going south out of Blackwater is so heavy that a parallell spur for freight traffic was considered necessary:




Now, lets have a look at the Blackwater Central Station. The main building is a relotted version of JENX Amsterdam station:










The backside of the station is not yet finished. I need to extract more props from some automata files to put some more trains into place - but I have not been able to figure out how to do that yet, so at this time the green NOB train is the only one:






This lot is based on an old Simgoober parking garage that looks fantastic in my opinion. There are some texture issues at the base of the building, but I have tried to cover that up with plants:








This lot is actually a power plant. I'm not happy with that solution, but rooker has promised to help me out with some custom made utility lots, so hopefully that will be solved in a better way:








And, of course, a quick look at the lots at night:

[rooker1]

It's amazing.  If you didn't show the first two pics, I would have thought you had an entire city already built.  great work with LE.  The train station looks fantatic.  It's really nice to see alot of people now a days using LE to make their own LOTs.  I guess we can thank Badsim for raising the bar for us all.    I think the two under passes fit in very well.  I can't wait to see more.

Robin 

[bat]

Great work with the railways and stations, emilin! Wonderful update! And great new map, too!

[Yoman]

Jeeze, two tracks leading into a 14 track station, thats a recipe for congestion

But anyways it looks excellent, your relot really emphasizes the beauty of that station (which I don't see used as often as it deserves to be). And it connects perfectly with the parking next door, vital for any large transit function.

I understand about the port situation, I often talk with one of your fellow countryman, Xiziz as you know, who lives in Stockholm (well near it, around the area on your map where it says Sunnyside Spur Line), and he told me that Stockholm doesn't really have a port, just large Cruise Ferries, and that the main Swedish port is Gothenburg. Very understandable, besides, some small ports are equally as nice to look at.

By the way, are these tracks going to be electrified?

[sebes]

Emilin - this is amazing! You just start and you show us some pictures of a station, some roads, some buildings, and it looks like you have it from a finished megalopolis     If this is reflecting what you will display here to us, man, that gives us something to think about.

Besides the nice bats and the very good lotting that you did with them, I especially like the tunnel combinations that you show "as if it's nothing" - giving this part of town exactly that feeling that there is already a giant city arround it.

Good job my friend... looking forward to the rest of Blackwater 

[pvarcoe]

This is a super looking new region, can't wait to see more.
Nice work on the maps. Some of David's tutorials on flattening the maps are paying off.

And great work on the custom lotting.
I am most envious!

[Grneyes]

WOW!!! Everytime you show that map, I think "that's a crazy map!!". Looking good so far. Can't wait to see the rest of the infrastructure.

MaryBeth

[flame1396]

Wow. Nice work. I use the masked-utility strategy too... I dislike it but I can't do anything until I get to that part of the region.

[thundercrack83]

Hello, emilin!

Let me start by pointing out that your map is absolutely extraordinary, my friend! It looks just incredible!

And the train station and its surrounding areas look fabulous, too! I can't wait to see more of the area develop as things progress!

Keep up the fantastic work here, my friend!

Dustin

[panthersimcity4]

Wow I just love your cities! 

[kimcar]

  Pretty good work my friend. I like the use of highway behind the building  Can`t wait for see the devellopement