Adara - Update 184 - March 26, 2012

[Albus of Garaway]

What an update! The farms a blending so much better now. I really like 34-7, with the diagonal fillers in the cornfield. Something about that looks very nice. Things are looking much cleaner in Adara, Battlecat!

-Jason

[nedalezz]

Incredible work with the curve roads, and the farms are very realistically done. The little patch of forest, I like alot!

[Tomas Neto]

I agree with all previous comments! Your MD is wonderful, my friend! 

[Nardo69]

Wonderful (not only) texture and lotting work! 

I should try dsrwhat316's methods, too. I also fuddled around with textures at FAR roads but I didn't go that FAR as pyou go.

Take care my friend!


Bernhard 

[Scarton]

This is awesome!  Great job!

[Nexis4Jersey]

Incredable detail to that creek

[sithlrd98]

OK , so I somehow just discovered this of course with so much always going on here , it is almost impossible to see it all! Although I have only looked at the last two pages , I have to hand it you, you have done some excellent lotting and prop placement! I don't make rural cities , mainly because I don't have the time to devote to them , but also because I don't have the same vision needed to accomplish such natural settings! You've got another fan!

Jayson

[FrankU]

It's incredible, so much love for details!
I am yealous that you are able to devote so much time and concentration to these details. I would have filled the green spaces with trees and go on with my next tile.....
But thats the quality of your work. There is a reason that I don't show much of my own achievements.

But I do have another tip. You made some ploppable lots, but these exist already.
If you download Uroncha's Ploppable Farm Field Pack:

http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=17233

You have, as far as I know, almost every farmfield as a ploppable.

[Battlecat]

woodbk3master: Glad you like the results!  More projects to come along this line soon!  Thanks!

beutelschlurf: Welcome to Adara and thanks for you kind words!  I'm actually going to have to consider going back and tweaking Delmar Junction and Alexandria in a few places to take advantage of these new lots!   

JoeST: Thanks for the enthusiasm! 

Jason (Albus of Garaway): Thanks for the comments!  It's amazing how much of a difference the diagonal fillers make in the appearance of the lots.  Glad you like it.

nedalezz: Thanks for stopping in again!  I really like little patches of forest, I'll be trying to include more in the future just too green things up. 

Thomas Neto: Thanks for your kind words!

Bernhard (Nardo69): Thanks for the vote of confidence!  I'm certainly enjoying the project, particularly the detailing of the FAR curves.  It is quite time consuming, I think I've closed and reloaded the game more times in the last two weeks than in all the playing time before. 

The fact that dsrwhat316's methods work at all suggests that maxis left a couple of options out of the game, such as a built in function to refresh props on an existing lot!  But what we've got certainly opens up a whole host of new opportunities!

citycapitalizer: Glad to see you again!  Thanks!

Corey (Nexis4Jersey): Glad you like it!

Jayson (sithlrd98): Welcome to Adara!  There is so much amazing work going on here, it's hard to catch all the brilliant projects!  Case and point, I just checked out your work, your idea create avenues that don't show wealth is pretty cool, I'd certainly prefer consistent appearance over the patchwork of wealth levels that we get now. 

Thanks for taking the time to stop in and comment, I'm certainly glad you like this!

FrankU: I really do love details, I suppose it comes with the job that I'm responsible for since I have a lot of details to keep track of at work as well.  I don't think you should be too intimidated by other peoples work, every person has their own vision of how Simcity 4 should be played.  I'd certainly be interested to see your approach someday! 

Thanks very much for pointing that plopable field collection out to me.  I had done a bit of poking for something like this but apparently I didn't use the right search criteria.  Those will save me a lot of time.  Particularly if they managed to create that grape field that I couldn't seem to replicate the other day!

Update 35
Vavenby – Two Birds and One Stone

Today, I'm going to contemplate one single farm in the Vavenby Area.  This one caused me a great deal of aggravation due to the way the location it developed.  Fortunately, the lot editor came the rescue. 

35-1: Here's the farm that wound up being a challenge.  It's right on an S-curve I created with the wide radius SAM streets.  All the farm roads are offset, making linking things up challenging, particularly while trying to keep the area looking good.  The existing lots don't work too badly, but they don't leave a lot of room to connect the roads up and make the area visually appealing.  There's the first bird, metaphorically speaking! 


35-2: The placement of the street also caused some problems.  The 2x2 section around each SAM curve is unusable, and that's the second bird I need to take care of.  In this shot you can also see why I re-oriented the soybean farm in the last update.  I added a set of farm rows with fences adjacent to the melon field and it quickly became apparent that this was the logical orientation for efficient farming.  In the first shot it is oriented the other way. 


35-3: So, time for some lot customization.  This extra large lot will allow me better control over the layout of the roads in here and it'll let me do the necessary filling along the curves.  Initially, I thought I'd just work with this area here.  Later I expanded the focus right out to the house driveway. 


35-4: Just to provide you all with a visual indication of how this works, the parent lot is this plopable melon field here.  It was plopped facing in the direction of the red arrow.  When the lot is expanded its depth goes in the direction of the red arrow.  The lot's width expands in the direction of the orange arrow. 


35-5: I discovered there's a few more offset dirt road textures that don't appear on any lots that I've downloaded so far.  They match thematically with the other dirt tracks out there, so there's probably something out there that uses these specific parts.  In particular, the offset 4-way intersection is new to me, but I'm glad it exists!  This lot wouldn't be possible without it.  This was taken after expanding the custom lot a bit further.


35-6: Of course, the whole thing needs some serious prop work to really bring out it's best!  Creating the transparent road textures and then a forced prop redraw results in this!  Thematically, the main part of the farm isn't too cluttered, so I wanted to follow through on that with the additional lot. 


35-7: Some of the props include a small chicken coop, a windmill and a workshop building.  But most importantly, I included the trees tucked into some of the curves that I wouldn't have been able to fill otherwise.  I also added an RRP style fence using the original props to close off the fenceline.  The fourth gate at the edge of the field at the bottom of the shot is a normal plopable field lot. 


35-8: After a bit of work on the rest of the farm using the usual RRP grasses and fences, this is the result.  I'm pretty happy with how this one came together.  I think next time I might look into creating a new alpha for the inner part of this curve.  The diagonal will do for now but I think I can improve this in the future. 


As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a pretty small update, but not to worry, there's more coming down the pipe quite quickly!  Thanks for stopping in!   

[djvandrake]

Very impressive! 

The care you take in lanscaping is very evident and it looks great.  Your farms and fields are wonderful, and I really like your subdivision layouts.

A very enjoyable MD. 

[Scarton]

Wow, what you did from 35-5 to 35-6 is absolutely incredible! Fabulous job!

[Tomas Neto]

Wowww!!! Awesome work again!!! Very nice shots!!!  Fantastic!!!

[calibanX]

Fantastic Battlecat. That offset custom lotting is awesome. I can already tell that changing those diagonal edges to curves will give you something quite unique. I love it.

Take care.

Geoff

[ldvger]

Battlecat-

One good turn deserves another, so I have spent an evening "off" from my own MD to read yours from beginning to (current) end and have to say I am very impressed.  What a wonderful job you have done!  I have downloaded almost every link you have provided so far and have bookmarked links other have posted, as well, for further consideration.  Make no mistake, I will be a frequent reader and , being a chatty lady, probably a frequent poster as well, from here on out. 

I actually only have one major comment, as everything you have done so far is superb in all ways. 

I lived in farm country for 18 years and had the opportunity to observe first hand how RL farmers dealt with curved or angled fields.  And while it's late at night, I'm going to try to draw this out in CAD, because having straight rows running right up to the fence line is just not realistic, even if it takes care of the jaggies left by non-orthangonal lots. 

Too late at night, as it turns out.  I have some good CAD screen shots, but too much wine to be able to post them coherently.

Regardless, gorgeous work.  I hope I can do as well  in my own MD.

Lora/LD

[Battlecat]

djvandrake: Welcome to Adara!  Thanks very much, I'm glad you like the way the landscape is developing! 

citycapitalizer: Thanks for the kind words, glad you like it!  Interestingly enough, the props were already present in 35-5!  Using the prop redraw technique just forces them to appear. 

Tomas Neto: Thanks very much! 

Geoff (calibanX): Thanks for the kind words!  I'm not sure exactly when I'll get around to creating those curve textures, but I'll throw up a few pictures as soon as I get the chance! 

Lora (ldvger): Welcome to Adara!  Glad you found the time to stop by, I really appreciate it!  Glad you're enjoying what you've found here so far.  Considering your attention to details, I'm sure you do quite well with your own project!  I know I'm certainly finding it inspiring as well!   

As I mentioned right from the beginning, I do absolutely appreciate any feedback you're willing to provide!  I know exactly what you're talking about though, the straight rows don't work perfectly running right up to the fence line in many cases.  At this point I'm trying to evolve slowly up through various solutions.  Running the existing textures right up to the edges seemed like a good place to start.  You're absolutely right; there is more that can be done though. 

I'm looking forward to seeing your drawing of the solution you're familiar with.  It seems to me that every farmer prefers a slightly different solution, and will adjust every aspect of his operation to the local quirk of the shape of his property.  When it comes right down to it, the farmer needs to balance out the financial loss from not using portions of the farmland land against the loss of harvesting efficiency if they do.  On some farms here in BC, the farmer will even use the local roads to turn around between rows if they aren't to busy. 

Update 36
Vavenby – Small Town in Need of a Name

And here I am again with yet another update!  I don't know how long I'll be able to keep up with this pace, especially after the texture creation headache I had last night!  That's what I get for not reading the instructions on creating custom textures more carefully!  Without going into details, I figured out what was causing me grief, and I've now converted all my custom textures into the personal ID range I obtained yesterday (thanks for the quick reply geoffhaw!). 

This update is a big one with a small town, and of course, more farms.  First things first though.  You may recall back in Update 30, I built a small gas station at a location I nicknamed the Old Crossroads.   I'm not happy with the name of the area, which is going to be a second small local town, like Yarrow way back on the Delmar Junction tile.  I could probably come up with a name, but instead, I'd like to hear your suggestions based on what you see in today's update! 

I'll take suggestions through until I post the next update, with any luck on Monday or Tuesday.  In the meantime, here's the development of the town I need a name for. 

36-1: Here's the raw zoning for the town.  It's tucked quite tightly between the railway and the river.  I had to replace the farm by the gas station, it just didn't fit the area.  That small building down by the river is an old brewery, which doubles as a museum now. 


36-2: Now this was a bit of luck.  One of these three homes is actually on the farm lot!   


36-3: Here's the main commercial area.  It's got a mix of grown and plopped businesses.  I've also added diagonal fillers to the residential areas along the railway. 


36-4: I added this small STR loop, it's a small siding that provides access to a few industrial businesses and lets loading trains park clear of the mainline.  A small batch of housing rounds out the island created by the STR. 


36-5: Up at the end of the residential road, we have a small corn farm in the process of building a new barn.  A small baseball diamond rounds out the neighbourhood. 


36-6: Here's a quick closer look at the Old Brewery Museum just to wrap things up. 


36-7: That's all for the unnamed crossroads town here.  Next I've got this block of land that still needs farms. 


36-8: Way back in Update 30 I mentioned that this farm didn't have quite enough land.  Well today, I'm going to expand across the tracks to add one more field. 


36-9: A quick RRP gravel path through to the tracks . . .


36-10: . . .and then through the entire next field all the way to the legal right of way between the next two farms.  In fact, this path will go all the way to the next road!


36-11: In the meantime, these three farms developed in the remaining space.  You can already see the distress on the farm by the main highway.


36-12: I decided to go with a different texture for this one, I quite like using this green texture from the 3RR fields on occasion.  This particular texture reminds me of the farm across the street from one of the offices I work at, which is just harvested on regular intervals to provide hay and forage to other cattle farms.  It still needs a bit more attention to really look good though. 


36-13: Fortunately for me, I stockpiled the alphas from the last FAR textures I made, so creating this was very easy.  Best part is, I could use the same lot about 7 times along the road!


36-14: Of course, as mentioned in many excellent diaries that do lot editing, prop families are the way to go with repeating patterns like this.  This particular family only draws from cycledogg style cottonwood, oak and elm trees.  Even the fence on the other side of the highway doesn't look half bad! 

On the other hand, does anyone have a fence bat floating around that somewhat matches the RRP fences?  Maybe I can look at rendering some FAR oriented fence sections.  I don't have any artistic talent when it comes to 3D modeling, but I can handle the technical side if someone else has the model floating around!  Drop me a PM if you've got something I could use!


36-15: Here's another soybean farm that's got the fields oriented the wrong way.  Can you imagine trying to operate equipment with the furrows oriented this way? 


36-16: It's much more logical when we rotate things to parallel the house and fenceline.  In this case, the tractor can turn around on the shoulder of the dirt roads.  Granted, that corner by the house could be a challenge to access, but it'll do for now! 


36-17: Finally, here's an overview of the three farms developed today.  I'm starting to bring the forest around the area, but I've got some plans for the higher land in some places.  But that's a project for another day! 


And that's all for today!  I'm very excited to see that Adara is quietly rolling up towards 300 replies now!  Only 26 to go now assuming my math is correct!  Thanks for your support everyone! 

[Splime]

Well, you've certainly become adept at using the lot editor! This looks great! How is it exactly that your rails don't have any textures underneath them?

[djvandrake]

 

The effort you put into cleaning up the diagonals along the road and rail make all the difference.  Very realisitc and very well done. 

[ldvger]

Battlecat-

With your permission, I post these diagrams, drawn in CAD, of my observations on how farmers tractor irregular areas of thier fields.  And MrBisom, feel free to chime in and correct me if I am wrong!





Farm implements dragged behind a tractor don't really have differentials that allow one side of it to turn on a smaller radius while the other side turns on a wider one, like cars and the tractor itself does, so the implement must be raised at the end of a row, the urn made, then the implement lowered back down again.  As you have a field being actively farmed across the street from where you work, I'm sure you've seen this many times.  This is also why rows running at a diagonal right up to a fence line aren't very realistic...a tractor could never accomplish that in RL.

A lot of times farmers will just leave the resultant "jaggies" unplanted, as they provide room to manipulate machinery during the growing phase of the crop, say sprayers of hoes for weeding.  They also are handy for harvesting trucks to park in when the crop is harvested.  But some crops, especially those that grow close together (corn, grasses, etc.) (actually corn IS a grass, just a very large one), don't have much in the way of maintenaince during growing, so those jaggies can be filled in thusly:







At harvest time, the edges parallel to the rows and along the irregular edges are harvested first, then the rest of the field is harvested in the usual way. 

So, my suggestion for irregular fields would be to make resolving the jaggies crop dependent.  Leave the jaggies for larger, more widely spaced plantings (soybeans, potatoes, carrots, etc.) and then rotate the rows to be parallel to the non-orthaganol fence lines for grain crops. 

Also...the only farms I remember that actually fence thier fields are livestock fams.  Fences are expensive to build and a nightmare to maintain, especially wood fences.  Manuevering equipment in fenced fields would also be problematic, so my other suggestion would be to not fence food crop fields at all.  I know the fences look pretty and I personally like the way they look, but they really aren't very realistic, IMHO. 

You'll have to plan a trip to Seattle one of these days and show me how to use the Lot Editor.  In the meantime, I'll teach myself to BAT and we can team up to create goodies for our MD's...like maybe a dam spillway???

Lora/LD

[Scarton]

Great update! Those farms are beautiful! For a town name, how about Battinsville? Or Brewers Junction? Maybe Fieldsview?

[JoeST]

This is becoming beyond awesome

and Lora, that makes sense, and yet, even living in the country, I can not recall if I have ever seen that, my memory sucks.

Joe