Adara - Update 184 - March 26, 2012

[Bobbi]

Great update


Welcome to Page 34

[Battlecat]

Luke09: Thanks very much for your kind words!

clearlypowa: Thanks!  Glad you are enjoying the details.

Jordan (canyonjumper): Thanks very much on both counts.  In some cases it doesn't help, but the transit enabling made a big difference here. 

Ethan (ecoba): Yeah, if I owned an exurb style lot, I wouldn't sell in any great rush either.  Thanks very much, I'm certainly glad you enjoyed the update.  Interesting that SC4 tool doesn't work on your system.  You working with Vista or Windows 7, I've been noticing that a lot of people are having trouble with the various utilities on the newer operating systems.

Tomas Neto: Thanks very much for your kind words! 

Dan (dsrwhat316): Glad to hear you found the tutorial inspiring!  I'm looking forward to seeing what you put together.  Thanks for pointing out the difference between Transit Enabling and Network Enabling.  I've heard both terms, but the difference makes sense now.  I'll have a look at the parking lots I modified and correct them if necessary! 

sumwonyuno: Thanks once again!  The transit enabling is a pretty nice a simple fix which makes a big difference, particularly when the parking lots already line up nicely with the city streets! 

Bobbi: Thanks very much!

Update 69
Tutorial – Cross Border Photo Prep Technqiues

I guess this is going to be tutorial week.  Sadly, I just didn't have the time to play as much this week due to other commitments (it is that time of year after all).  But I do have a series of shots I've taken for my tutorial on prepping screenshots for cross border images.  As I mentioned recently, Thomas (turtle) said something in his comments a few updates ago that inspired an improved approach to preparing cross border images.  So I've got that for you today.  I'll also be appending it to my old tutorial thread here.

This tutorial does assume some familiarity with the original cross border tutorial. 

69-1: Here's an example of the problem I'm looking at.  This was originally posted as image a couple weeks ago 63-11.  If you look at the power poles, there are large black blobs messing up the image boundary.  This issue is being caused by the trees and the gaps.  Of course, these gaps are pretty hard to clean up by hand, there are tons of tiny ones.


69-2: Two images are required for each cross border mosaic.  Due to the nature of the game, only one of these shots causes theses issues, specifically the one where the backdrop shows through the background.  This is an example, and the shot I'm going to use for this tutorial. 


69-3: So first you need to load the image up in your standard photo editing suite.  I personally use gimp, but these tools or analogues of them should be in most photo suites.  We're going to be using the various select tools a lot in this tutorial. 


69-4: The first tool needed is the fuzzy select tool.  It's also known as the magic wand tool.  It selects all the pixels that meet a certain standard, specifically color within a clicked area.  This is the reason I chose black for my background, since I've got a lot of green on the border.  You may want to choose something else for your background depending on your style or the type of things you have on your border. 

Also, you'll want to make sure the Antialiasing and feather edges buttons are unchecked!  I unchecked it shortly after taking this shot.  It will severely mess things up in this tutorial because it tries to blend the edges.  We want sharp edges for what we're trying to accomplish here.


69-5: As in the original cross border tutorial, delete the selected black area.  This is where the last tutorial left off.  But the black areas between some of the trees are clearly visible.  Next we're going to get ready to eliminate those easily.  The color select tool would work, but it would also select roads and other black details that you probably want to keep. 


69-6: So here's the tool that's going to help us out.  This is called the free select tool, or the Lasso tool in some programs.  It allows you to draw a freehanded select around only the features you want. 


69-7: So very carefully, use the freehanded select to only grab the objects that cross the border.  Holding down shift while you do this will allow you to select separate groups.  As you can see here, I've selected two blocks but I've excluded the road.  Once you've selected the items, copy them, and then paste them to a new layer.  The key thing here is to ensure the pasted stuff winds up in the exact same location as it was in the original.


69-8: This is the tricky part.  What you want to do here is use the alpha to selection tool to select everything on your new pasted layer (only containing the stuff you want to edit).  Next, make the original layer the active layer and delete everything within the selected area. 


69-9: If you turn off your newly pasted layer, this is what the original image should now look like. 


69-10: Make the new layer your active layer.  From here it's easy.  We can now safely use the select by color tool and we'll only be grabbing the black on the active layer.  This ensures that we won't be deleting anything from the rest of the image.  Click on any one of the remaining black spots between the trees with your select by color tool.


69-11: This is what the image should look like when you've successfully selected by color.  Now hit delete.


69-12: Clear your selection and you should have a shot that looks like this.  All the black areas are eliminated with one quick click of the button.  If there are some spots that were missed, you can go through and hit them to clean the rest, but you should be able to do it in one pass.  Note that this technique will not work with the standard maxis backdrops! 


69-13: Next flatten the image, or merge the layers down and hit save.  Now you have a perfectly transparent city boundary ready to be overlaid with the other town using the techniques described section 5 of my earlier tutorial.


69-14: This is the finished shot with the partner image now added as a composite.  In rural areas like this you really have to eyeball the alignment.  It takes some getting used to but good planning on the edge can really help clear that up. 


I hope you find this tutorial helpful!  That should be it for tutorials for now!  Next update I'll be back to the Winfield tile.  It's time to get this city rolling! 

[clearlypowa]

Nice and interesting tutorial  .

I'am making my first steps in Gimp    I'am looking for some tutorials. Your cross border technique will be helpfull in time 

[scott1964]

What is the name of the recreational area down by the water? 

[canyonjumper]

Nice tutorial, awesome pic! Very rural. @scott1964: That is part of Pegasus's CDK3 Marina lots over at SimPEG.


                             -Jordan

[Nanami]

Great Tutorial!

[Tomas Neto]

Another fantastic tutorial!! Great work!! 

[Luke09]

Very good tutorial.I think i will download GIMP and Photoshop for a future MD...once i got new PC pieces...
Keep it up 

[kwakelaar]

I see you have already managed three new updates, well, I can only say excellent work.
Maybe some of the details are not complicated to make, but you do need to think about making them. That is what sometimes amazes me.
Both shoreline and cross border tutorial are well done, your explanations are clear and complete. Though the cross border technique I have never tried myself, but with such a nice result it is certainly something I will try out.
Gjermund

[calibanX]

Very nice tutorials. No need for Photoshop in Adara. As always, your shorelines are beautifully crafted.

Geoff

[FrankU]

Adara is still as beautiful as it promised to be in the beginning. 

The tutorial is very useful, but I do have a tip:
Before you take the pictures you want to use, you could make yourself a very useful background image that contains a color that is not used in the game: like  255 red, 0 blue and 0 green. Then you could select all the pixels in an easier way.

[Bobbi]

Super tutorial, it's very useful!

[sumwonyuno]

Hmm, I don't know if you noticed my comment sometime ago that that other thread you put a similar tutorial.  In any case, I really like the results of putting two city tiles together.  It's not easy.   Lucky you have consistently-colored water; it's so tedious to fix the look of the game's water.

[warconstruct]

great job 

[Battlecat]

clearlypowa: Thanks very much, glad you hear you found the tutorial helpful!

scott1964: The recreational area is part of Simpegs CDK (Costal Development Kit).  Specfically, the ones you're looking at are part of the Marina set.  Thanks for stopping in!

Jordan (canyonjumper): Thanks very much for your kind words and for taking the time to answer Scott1964's question! 

976: Thanks!

Tomas Neto: Thanks you very much!

Luke09: Thanks very much!  Gimp is a great program which is easily as powerful as photoshop.  It has that advantage of being free as well!

Gjermund (kwakelaar: Thanks very much!  Glad you find the tutorials clear and helpful!  I have to put tutorials together for some people at work on occasion.  I really have to be careful not to oversimplify or skip steps.  I'm looking forward to seeing your foray into the cross border images!

Geoff (calibanX): Thanks very much for stopping in and for your kind words! 

FrankU: Thanks, glad you're still finding visiting Adara enjoyable!  Good point about using a more dramatic color for taking the cross border shots.  It does make some good sense to make an alternate style background for this purpose. 

The method I've describe above still has it's points because there is always the risk of an odd little spots of perfect red, blue or green in a lot or on a car.  A purer color would make it a lot easier though!  Thanks for the suggestion!

Bobbi: Thanks!  Glad you find it helpful!

sumwonyuno: I do apologize, apparently I did miss your post in that thread.  You've got an excellent point about game water.  I'll be honest, it's not something I've explored yet, but I think I'll have to look to see what I can do about that problem.  Thanks for your thoughts on the issue; I'll make some plans to poke at that soon!   

warconstruct: Welcome to Adara!  Thanks very much.

Update 70
Winfield – Going to Town

Today I'm finally going to get the primary urban core of Winfield itself started.  This is going to be a challenge because I have to build up populations to pass a few stage caps.  This is going to be quite different from most of the other development I've done in the past, so it should be interesting.

70-1: Here's downtown Winfield, or at least the future site of it.  One of the reasons I've held off for so long on this was trying to polish up the last bits and pieces of the GLR texture mod Toichus Maximus and I have been working on.  I think we've hit most of them, but it's going to take a bit more time to fully check things over.  I think I've still got to track down a couple of GLR station textures to really polish this Mod off.  But in the meantime, it'll do the trick for my purposes here. 


70-2: It's going to be a bit funny for a while, despite high demands, this was the best I could get for a while.  Finally I recalled that there are occasionally some pre-requisites for this style of development.


70-3: A regional hospital will help push up the residential desirability.
 

70-4: As will this elementary school. 


70-5: I really am just throwing ideas down on the canvas at this time.  This is going to be developed as a high wealth neighbourhood.


70-6: Funny thing, tennis courts can really help drive the development of mansions.  I just put this one down beside this house.


70-7: And a short time later, up goes a mansion!  Then of course I accidentally dropped a park on it, but the theory is still sound!


70-8: In the meantime, this area is just a demand building block.  I'm going to go through this with a fine toothed comb later.


70-9: In the meantime, the commercial core of the city is developing nicely. 


70-10: Which is more than I can say for the mansion neighborhood.  They are very reluctant to develop for some reason.  I'm sure I'm just missing some desirability factors somewhere. 


70-11: Things are coming along nicely.  I plan to see some of these buildings replaced though.  The trams are popping along nicely as well.


70-12: This shot shows the case for making everything historical once the buildings you want are in place.  This used to be the neighbourhood I was using as a temporary home for low wealth citizens.  Apparently a single family mansion can demolish an entire apartment block in this game.  Annoying, but that's just the way the game plays out.  I'll be wiping out those mansions. 


70-13: Some of the buildings in the urban core are beginning to reach their final stages.  I'm starting to add in details like this little park between the apartments and the GLR.


70-14: Not to mention this excellent plaza released recently by the SFBT.  There are so many great buildings that I've downloaded.


70-15: This is just about ready for the finishing touches.  The ramp up to the highland area just needs a one last touch to make it look really good.  I've got a couple custom lots to build.


70-16: Hey, let's zoom out a bit and see how things are looking!  This is the urban downtown as it stands now.  I'm still not happy with all the buildings, but it's getting there now.


70-17: And hey, even a bit further out.  On the left we've got the temporary burbs, in the middle the downtown core and up towards the top we've got the wealthy suburbs.


70-18: A couple more things before I wrap up the day.  First, here's proof that the GLR is active and in use.  It's actually getting pretty heavy use.  I didn't even have to goof up the road system to talk them into it either!  The new NAM controllers make a big difference for that behavior.


70-19: Here's the final touches, a customized series of seasonal tree lots with a grassy base.  This way they'll make better urban fillers.  I'll still use the unfinished versions in smaller cities.


70-20: To wrap things up, I'm putting the finishing touches on the hospital.  At the back, we've got employee parking.


70-21: At the front, a fairly good quality road to provide front door dropoff.  I used the road to get the full tile brick style rather than grass between the road and the front door. 


70-22: And then a decent sized parking lot to wrap this area up. 


That's a wrap.  Next time I'll be blasting through another round of urban development.  Hope you enjoyed this!  Unlike my previous work, I expect buildings in the city will be in a lot of flux as they start settling out into the appearance I'm looking for.

[ecoba]

The Winfield urban core is looking really good, I know the city will be excellent once it's filled out. The buildings that have grown in the centre look really nice (IMO)!

The GLR criss-crossing the city is really a nice feature, and will probably have an effect on Adara's emissions, considering that this is a larger city and so many people use the system. The forementioned along with the large park system that we're getting glimpses of appear to make Winfield a really green city.

Can't wait to see some more development and the lake brought up to the city!

Ethan

[canyonjumper]

Looking good! I specially like the GLR system and the park system. If you wanted more demand, there is an ordinance mod you can download on the STEX that will increase   the demand in-game. It's pretty effective in my game. I like the way you used the walls to form a ramp into the highlands. Excellent job!

                     -Jordan

[sumwonyuno]

That (not so small town) looks very nice.  As for the high-wealth area, if you have the demand and prerequisites met (job + water + school + healthcare) you can spur growth with a bunch of trees.  It's cheaper than a park, but the spur effect is only temporary.

[danielcote]

Nice start on the main citie! looks like it will grow fast.

[Luke09]

Nice,finally some urban uh? I love the urban core and i think youre going to the right way i think....will you have a CBD there?