Adara - Update 184 - March 26, 2012

[Jmouse]

Ah yes, more stunning scenery ( give us more, more more!  ). Although FAR is a wonderful innovation, I've found zoning near it to be rather tricky. I haven't had much practice, though, so the fault is mine. I see others – like you - use it very successfully.

The power lines are a good idea and fit right in with the overall plan. That last photo – 28-14 – is especially good.  Your terrain is outstanding.

Later...
Joan

[Tomas Neto]

Is fantastic see the development of your city!!! Each step is very interesting!!!

[Battlecat]

Vivien (Earth quake): Thanks very much for your kind words!

Matt (threestooges): We've got more or less the same issues here in British Columbia with high mountain passes for railways.  Additionally, there always seems to be demand for small sorting yards for rail traffic all over the place, I figure this yard can double as that. 

I've got a bit more on those railyards today, but the critical thing I found out is that there are two types of pieces in two separate locations.  The functional pieces are in the railway menu, and they all have two tracks set transit enabled, and they appear to function as a rail station( haven't tested it yet). 

The other part of the set appears in the landmarks menu.  These ones are eyecandy only.  They allow you to expand the yard visually to any size you like but they are not transit enabled.  They're actually pretty carefully built to line up, but they're all different sizes. 

nedalezz: Welcome to Adara!  The trees are coming, I've just got a bit more to add to the neighbourhood first!  Thanks for stopping in!

Bernhard (Nardo69): You're right about that curve.  At the time I thought I'd hit an issue with tiles being locked out by the NAM because I couldn't actually drag the line straight through but as it turned out there was a slope issue that had to be corrected.  Thanks for pointing it out! 

Hydro power is incredibly common in my area, so I feel it's a critical part of my region as I build it.  They have such a huge impact on the local terrain, I just can't ignore them!  Thanks for all your comments!

Joan (Jmouse): It certainly is tricky to zone next to the FAR not to mention the wide radius curves, but it seems to be worth the trouble.  As much as we might dislike the high tension power lines and the way they appear, they are a common sight in our modern world, particularly around large power plants like this one.  Thanks for stopping in!

Tomas Neto: Welcome and thanks for stopping in!  Glad you're enjoying this!

Update 29
Vavenby – Farming Once Again

Well here I am again, in the midst of the one small break I've managed to find to do an update this week.  Life's crazy busy, but at least I'm still finding a bit of time to get another update out the door!

29-1: First things first, I figured out how the modular rail yard works.  What you are looking at here is a 3 tile wide rail yard build from three different pieces.  The middle section is a 32 x 1 rail yard with 2 tracks set aside as the mainline, and two on the outer edges that are sidings.  Up at the top of the image where the fences start, are the top edges of two 24 x 1 siding lots with three tracks on each. 

The way these are set up, the longer rail yard sections each have a switch built onto the outer track on each side 4 tiles in which lines up with the next size down of eye candy lots.  So a 32 tile long center piece matches up with the 24 tile long edge pieces.  Depending on which edge pieces you use, you could continue expanding along this pattern.  There's still some messing around to do, but I like these a lot!  If you want some more details on how these go together, let me know! 


29-2: Secondly, as mentioned by Bernhard (Nardo69), this switch needed some attention.  The extra S curve that I though was necessary was actually just being forced by a little bump on the ground that the slope mode I'm using couldn't handle.  It seems to be really critical to level the terrain carefully if you're going to build a branch line like this one. 


29-3: Moving right along, here is the main focus of today's update.  I'm going to do some farming along the road here, and then get some trees in place between the town and the road. 


29-4: First some zones.  The first farm that is developing already is going to be discarded, it wasn't one I liked. 


29-5: This one developed on the second pass, I'm much happier with this.


29-6: At the corner of the main road, this nice farm developed.  It's amazing how many of these lots I'm still seeing for the first time.  Guess that's what happens when you download a massive number of farms!


29-7: At the S curve here, we got a horse farm.  And you all know what happens to most livestock farms in this journal!  I really like these wide angle curves!


29-8: Here's the finished version of this farm.  Things are coming along nicely. 


29-9: Now to have a closer look at the high tension power lines.  I noticed some very interesting facts about them.  First of all, you can bulldoze under them on any tile that doesn't have a tower.  Secondly, you can plop texture under the entire area, including the tile with the tower on it.  Thirdly, those plopable power poles can go under it as well,  Considering the power company will often put multiple services on the same right of way, and that these towers are more often built on gravel pads with concrete anchors rather than on huge concrete pads, I'm pretty happy with the result here.


29-10: Continuing along the right of way, with grass and flowers in the areas off the main road.  The concrete pads aren't as easy to hide on steep slopes because they get autoleveled upwards.  I may have to look into doing a small quantity of terraforming to prepare the site so it looks nice. 


29-11: Finally up to the roundabout, at the lower town, we've got a few small businesses, a Safeway grocery store and a small manufacturing company.  There's still a bit more to develop here, but that will have to be picked up next time! 


29-12: Finally, a quick overview of the area as it stands now.  I'm going to hold off on detailing the river until the farms on the other side have been developed. 


And that's a wrap for today!  Thanks for stopping in everyone! 

[threestooges]

Yeah, I'd noticed the two locations for the for the railyard pieces. I guess a bit of testing is all that's needed. With a country that boasts looping tunnels like Kicking Horse Pass, I would imagine BC would have its fair share of slopes.

What's the farm in 29-6? I've downloaded several farm sets myself, but I don't think I've seen that one yet, though I'd like to.

Interesting solution to the powerpole base problem. A while back I looked to see if I could find the ID for that, but looking through those dats is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Great workaround you've come up with. The addition of the secondary poles in 29-9 is very realistic and a great idea. I may have to borrow that for my own uses.

Adara continues to be an excellent source of ideas to steal... *ahem* I mean inspiration. Always good to see what you've been experimenting with.
-Matt

[Splime]

Wow, you really have a talent for turning ordinary farms into something special! I can't wait to see the area once the river details are in place. 

[peter007]

It looks really good what you have done with those farms
I'm gonna follow this MD

[KoV Liberty]

GREAT MD BATTLECAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[calibanX]

I like how you tell us your thoughts as you're building your cities and regions. It's interesting to hear your process for playing the game. I'm also picking up tips from you as I read your diary. Happy MD'ing. I'm a regular for sure.

Geoff

[Tomas Neto]

I´m seeing the development of your cities, once more! I like a lot! 

[Simpson]

These two updates are incredible  The fields are really nice.
Superb terraforming, great work my friend !!

Take care,

David

[Nexis4Jersey]

great layout my friend, i like all the hard work you put into this 

~Corey

[Sciurus]

It's just splendid, beauitful

Guillaume

[Battlecat]

Matt (threestooges): The title of the farm is "BSC Farm - Ken's Gobbler Kingdom."  Naturally, it is part of a pack, making it rather hard to track down the individual farm, however I believe it might be in this pack.  Either way it was lotted by BarbyW according to the game query. 

As for the power poles, from what I've read about various attempts to mod the games power system graphics, a lot more of the stuff in that network is baked into the code of the game instead of being exposed for modding.  I'm still poking at the possibilities and I might go back and look into improving the footings for some of the other towers later on.  Thanks for all your comments!

Splime: Thanks very much!  Although many of the farms are quite lovely, the ones that develop with those pale green fields adjacent to them usually need some extra attention to really look their best!  They also give me the opportunity to play around the most with the RRP fences.  The first river details are coming right up! 

peter007: Welcome to Adara!  Thanks for the kind words!

Driftmaster07: Welcome to Adara and thanks very much!

Geoff (calibanX): I really do enjoy explaining how I approach things, but I'll admit being inspired a great deal by Darmok's approach to his Anduin Valley Revisited journal over at Simtropolis.  I've gotten a number of ideas from his methodical approach to developing map tiles.  Glad you find the comments helpful! 

Tomas Neto: Glad you like it!  Thanks for stopping in again!

David (Simpson): I do enjoy making the fields!  Thanks for commenting!

Corey (Nexis4Jersey): Thanks for stopping by!  Glad you like it all!

Guillaume (Sciurus): Thanks for visiting!

Update 30
Vavenby – The Old Crossroads

Welcome back once again my friends!  You'd think that I would have had more time on a scheduled couple days vacation, but instead my family and friends managed to book up nearly every available minute.  I managed to snag a few for myself though.  Today I'll be introducing the start of an area I think of as the Old Crossroads.  I envision that this tile was partially developed before the Hydro Dam was put in, and so the travel patterns in the area have shifted as a result.  I'll explain more as we go along here. 

30-1: First, let's take a quick look at an old overview shot here since I foolishly forgot to take a new one at the beginning of today's work.  This was originally published as 28-15. 


30-2: This image shows the two routes I'm talking about.  I'm thinking the road up through Vavenby was always there, but it wasn't a major route and Vavenby would have been much smaller in the past.  Now, with the Dam and the new highway route, Vavenby has probably grown quite significantly in the past few years.


30-3: So here's the Old Crossroads.  The bridge in this shot is the old highway, and the route people used to take.  I'm still debating the exact look of the area, but I image there will be a small handful of homes at this corner here and a business or two. 


30-4: The only aspect I managed to decide on for today is a lovely little old fashioned gas station.  I added the extra tile of parking and concrete on the left side which is causing the odd sidewalk appearance. 


30-5: Moving along, now to fill the farms in for this area.  I'll also be setting up the one wedged between the railway and highway. 


30-6: And here are the farms I finally was satisfied with.  I had a lot of bad luck with farms that just didn't fit the look for this area.  Particularly since I'd already envisioned a livestock farm wedged between the highway and railway.  The one at the top of the shot really caught my eye.  Glad to see the CAM is starting to develop a new class of farms in this region. 


30-7: Some fences for the livestock farm.  This is going to be a fairly simple one. 


30-8: Here we see the cattle.  The field closest to the house is the currently active area.  They'll be moved to the middle field soon I imagine. 


30-9: Just to wrap things up today, I'll get the first details on this smaller river.  This one leads up the narrow valley along the STR. 


30-10: It's a slightly steeper stream than the Denara River, so it's going to have some slightly rockier areas further upstream.  Here, just some minor rubble deposited from the stream as it slows down now that it's hit the valley bottom and doesn't have the energy to carry it any more. 


30-11: Some trees and a slightly grassier than normal bank on the top half of the image just to try something different.  You know, it occurs to me, some diagonal finisher sections for these seasonal corn fields would be pretty handy.  For now, this will have to do though. 


30-12: Finally, a quick over view of the finished area.  Just looking quickly, I think I might expand the livestock farm across the railway at on the right side of this shot, just to add some more space, it feels a bit tiny for the number of cattle I dropped in that field earlier. 


And that's a wrap!  Thanks for stopping in everyone!

[Tomas Neto]

Very nice work again, my friend!!! 

[Splime]

Excellent update there! I love the river detailing especially! 

EDIT: I don't know if you've noticed yet, but you've got over 10,000 views!

[peter007]

What great to see how you work 
really very nice
-rivers
-gas station
and
- farms
   

[calibanX]

Excellent work on those farms Battlecat. The river and the fields work together well. They look very natural. Nice update again.

Geoff

[Battlecat]

Thanks to everyone for visiting and pushing Adara past 10,000 views!

Thomas Neto: Thanks very much! 

Splime: You know, I hadn't actually noticed the 10,000!  Thanks for pointing it out, I probably wouldn't have noticed it until today! 

Ernst (peter007): Glad you're enjoying it!  Thanks for stopping by again!

Geoff (calibanX): Glad the rivers are meeting your approval!  I'm still having some difficulties with blending the square edges of the fields to my satisfaction.  I'm still messing around to find some potential solutions.  Thanks for your comments!

Update 31
Vavenby and Delmar Junction – Boundary Issues

Today I decided to pop over to the border between Vavenby and Delmar Junction to get the details in place at the edge of the boundary between the two towns.  There are some picky details necessary to do a good job of blending the edges. 

31-1: So here's the boundary between the Vavenby and Delmar Junction tiles as seen from Vavenby.  I've replaced the backgrounds with a pure black to make the photo editing work easier.  But this isn't really what the boundary looks like; it's just what the game allows us to see.


31-2: The reality is more like this.  I found a nice little mod that gets rid of the yellow arrows which really helps improve the visual quality of the connection now.  Next, I'll take you through the four sections that need to be connected, as seen from the Delmar Junction side of the boundary. 


31-3: First, we have this farm, using the RRP and plopable grass.  More specifically, this uses an older technique with no flowers at all, which I'll have to emulate on the next tile.  I'll also have to make sure the fences line up.


31-4: The highway and railway acts as reference points so I can count how many tiles of each texture should be used.  These two field styles both happen to have plopable versions available courtesy of Dedgren at the Three Rivers Region Exchange.  I'll need to make sure the furrows on both lots are oriented the same direction. 


31-5: Next we have the river.  Again, most of the challenge of successfully blending this show will involve ensuring that the local mixture of trees, shrubs and grasses carries through the boundary.


31-6: Finally, we have one more RRP farm adjacent to the railway.  This one uses more flowers for the texturing than the other one did. 


31-7: So, after an extensive batch of work in Vavenby and some mistakes and miscounts, here are the results.  The only evidence of the boundary is a small quantity of black I didn't manage to get rid of. 


31-8: In this shot, the boundary is even less apparent.  The best way to line up the two separate images is by using the road network when it's available.  When I was working on this area, I miscounted the number of tiles on the dirt farm, so the boundary between the two was offset by two tiles.  Since I lined the two shots up using the roads, the error jumped out right away.  This is the corrected version of course! 


31-9: The rivers really lend themselves to this since the foliage tends to hide the map edge quite nicely.  This shot and the next one needed only a small amount of correction to make it fit.  The transparent river water inherits the black background at the edge of the map, and so you get a small stripe of darker water.  A quick touchup in any photo editor makes that small, unavoidable glitch disappear quite nicely. 


31-10: And finally, the last farm, with it's fields extending right out to the edge of the rail yard.  I used a bit more brown grass on the Vavenby side than was probably necessary.  I expect I'll go back and modify it a bit more in the future.  All the various checks and tweaks to get these shots put together took a couple hours.


31-11: Finally, to wrap things up for today, here's the final result from the same perspective as 31-1 and 31-2.  There are a few things I would have done differently here in the future, but not a huge number.  All things considered equal, I'm very happy with the results here. 


And that's all for today.  Next time, I'll be continuing the farming outwards from this edge, and I'll make my first tentative trip into the lot editor!  See you all then. 

[JoeST]

 

That is perfection

Joe

[io_bg]

With one word - AWESOME!