Adara - Update 184 - March 26, 2012

[Battlecat]

mightygoose: Thanks very much for your congrats!

Cyclone1001: I like composites as well, so looks like you're in luck.  Although I only have one more tile to post as a bonus after today!  Not sure what's on the agenda for bonuses after Monday, but I'll have it figured out soon! 

djvandrake: Surprisingly to me, those 1x1 home are actually R$.  They look quite nice though!  Thanks for your kind words, glad you like the trees as well!

sumwonyuno: That's pretty much the law of software development right there!  I'm really looking forward to getting the lakeshore done, Ellison Flats is actually getting very close to completion! 

David (dedgren): Thanks very much for such high praise.  It means a lot to me considering it was stumbling across the shots of the wide radius curves that inspired me to come back to the game!  I always enjoy striving to put them to the best use possible, although I have to admit they've been challenging in urban areas.  I'm very glad you've been enjoying your poke through the archives!

TiFlo: Yeah, by itself the part of the city on the Winfield tile had far too much high density housing when compared with the suburbs.  I plan to extend the suburbs onto the two tiles to the east of here as well which should result in a fairly appropriately sized suburban ring.  Granted, I won't be doing that right away, I think I'll be taking a hiatus from Winfield area for my next tile. 

That's an excellent comment about the trees in my downtown area.  I'd be the first to admit that my cities are far greener that pretty much anything I've ever seen in reality.  Even here in BC, we don't have densely forested downtown cores like the one you see in Winfield, although there are many large forested parks near or in our downtown cores.  Stanley Park near downtown Vancouver is an excellent but not unique example of such a park.  We're pretty lucky when it comes to green space in the Metro Vancouver region.  Honestly, I've pretty much concluded that I'm shooting for mostly realistic but slightly shifted towards what I'd like to see in the real world. 

Before I forget: to quickly answer your question regarding the trees, what I'm using are modified copies of the 3RR 1x1 Seasonal Trees.  All I've done is added an appropriate base texture and a minimal park effect to the lots for use in urban areas as fillers that match up nicely with the BSC parks.  As such, they are seasonal trees, although I don't usually choose to display them in alternate seasons.  Thanks for all your questions and comments!  Glad you're enjoying your visits!

Tomas Neto: Thanks very much for your kind words!

Scott (Stray Cat): Wow!  That's nearly as long as I spend putting these updates together!  Thanks for your enthusiasm, glad you're enjoying your visits enough to stay around that long!

Will (penguin007): Thanks very much, glad you enjoyed the view!

Jordan (canyonjumper): Thanks one again!  Glad you like it!

Yann (Yan077): Thanks very much for the congrats and for your kind words!  Glad you like how the city is turning out so far!

Update 97
Ellison Flats – The Other Side

Today I'm going to get started with the border on the other side of Williston Lake.  You might recall that the main railway line and a minor road are on that side of the lake.  Once this is done, the only border issue left will be bringing the lake across at the Winfield waterfront. 

97-1: To start the day, here's the area I'm trying to match up.  This is where everything crosses the border from Winfield. 


97-2: This is a reference shot to help me match up the shorelines.  If I do my job really well, I should be able to turn this into a cross border shot later. 


97-3: Here's an initial shot of the Ellison Flats side of the border.  I've already plopped in a couple reference pieces of water down at the shoreline.


97-4: And here's  a cross border mosaic.  It's hard to see, but the street is about a meter off in elevation.  I fixed that pretty quickly for future shots.  Might seem silly to worry about something so hard to see, but it was going to bother me if I didn't! 


97-5: This is another cross border reference shot to help put all the material in perspective.  I've decided that the access roads to that clearcut will be fully decommissioned since they formerly crossed the railway.  Mostly I didn't leave myself enough room to put in all the details.  Live and learn!


97-6: Here I've put in a handful of the details on the mountainsides.  This was just a test shot to make sure I lined up my clearcut properly. 


97-7: Now on with the major details today.  This shoreline is home to a small set of exurb style homes.  I've also begun to sketch in the shoreline, mostly as a reference so I didn't' put homes too close to the shoreline.


97-8: Now that the homes are grown, I'm ready to start putting the details in place.  No working shots today, I got lost in the fun of detailing.  Here the road cuts down quite close to the shore.  I did my best to hide the jagged corners from the house developments.


97-9: As much as anything, the random rocks are just there to help break up the monotony of the shoreline.  They really don't serve any other purpose beyond that.


97-10: Would you believe me if I told you this is a cross border mosaic?  This shoreline matched up better than anything I've produced yet! 


97-11: As usual, the powerlines are the only thing that reveals the cross border nature of these shots!  The shadows are a bit unnatural if you know what to look for, but they're really not a huge deal!


97-12: Pulling out a bit farther again, here's one last cross border shot.  There's still a lot of work to do, but as usual, the cross border works is the pickiest part of every tile. 


OSITM Bonus 3: That's all for the main update, but there's still one last thing.  Continuing with this week's bonus theme, today we're heading back to Jackson Pass! 


That's all for today.  I'm not sure what I'll be working on over the weekend, but my options are limited now since Ellison Flats is getting very close to completion.  Have a great weekend!

[ShultzCity]

Another brilliant update 

Loving the detail you put into the areas Battlecat!! And congrats on the OSITM 

[canyonjumper]

Very nice cross-border shots! Great stuff, Battlecat!

                 -Jordan

[Cyclone1001]

Beautiful shots, if only you could fix the powerline issue.

[kwakelaar]

Just had a peak at your previous update and I was really impressed (once again) with your mosaic, it is absolutely amazing to see Winfield going on undisturbed into the next tile.
And I love the overview images of course.
Congratulations on your OSITM, looking forward to more

[djvandrake]

Wow.  If you hadn't shown us where the border was, I would have never been able to tell.  Surpurb! 

[kimcar]

  &aplsGreat work with the border (and everythigs too ) ,  cause it`s not easy to fit perfectly like this. Great update . I like this river

[bat]

Congratulations for the award! And your updates are wonderful! All pictures are nice! Looking forward to the next one...

[Tomas Neto]

Fantastic again!!! Another great update!!! 

[Schulmanator]

Great looking outdoors spaces 

[penguin007]

Awesome technical shots there the area has turned out beautifully

Will

[io_bg]

Wow! The border looks great; one could easily say that there's no border at all
Keep up the great word!

[calibanX]

I love the well defined tree line in the bonus shot of the whole tile, and I still love how you line up the edges of your tiles to make those great mosaics.

Great OSITM update.

Geoff

[Battlecat]

Jacob (ShultzCity): Thanks very much for your kind words and congrats!  Glad you enjoyed it!

Jordan (canyonjumper): Thanks very much!

Cyclone1001: Yeah, the power line issue is pretty much unsolveable.  The mechanics of the game state that the power lines need to start at the edge of each tile and as far as I know that isn't really changeable.  At least it lets me share power between tiles.  Glad you like the shots, thanks for stopping in!

kwakelaar: It just takes some careful planning to allow those cross border shots to work out.  Mostly it's just a simple case of making sure that the patterns on one side of the border are mirrored on the other side.  Glad you're enjoying the cross border shots.  Thanks for your congrats and kind words!

djvandrake: That's my goal, glad you like the results!  Thanks very much!

kimcar: Thanks very much for your kind words!

bat: Thanks for stopping in and for the congrats!  Glad you enjoyed the visit!

Tomas Neto: Thanks as always for stopping in and for your kind words!

Schulmanator: Thanks very much!

Will (penguin007): Thanks!  Glad you enjoyed the technical shots and the results!

io_bg: That's pretty much my goal.  Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for your kind words!

Geoff (calibanX): Since the rock mod I'm using has a slightly green component to it, the trees become very important for highlighting the edges of the rocky mountain peaks.  Glad you like how it came out!  Thanks for stopping by once again! 

Update 98
Ellison Flats – Forest Details

I'm going to continue working on the other side of the lake from the industrial park.  I already know I won't manage to finish that area up today, but it's coming along nicely!  There's a lot of are still left to detail on this tile!

98-1: I'm going to get started right in here.  Time to put a lot at the end of that railway spur!


98-2: After much tweaking of the terrain and rail layout, the rail spur links up to a small log transfer facility.  There's going to be a fair amount of logging on this side of the lake.


98-3: For this area, I'm going to be using Peg's logging roads.


98-4: Right across the road from the transfer yard is a clearcut.  This one is reasonable old.  I've tried using some different fir trees to give the impression of the planted forest coming back.


98-5: This corner here on the main road needs some retaining walls.


98-6: It looks just a bit more like the road and railway were crammed in here when the walls are added.


98-7: I'm going to put the active logging block into this valley.


98-8: They're very busily chopping down the trees in this area.  Somewhere in this region there will be some pretty big sawmills. 


98-9: This valley here is going to be the last one logged.  There are going to be three cut blocks in here.


98-10: I'm attempting the vary the visual age.  The one furthest up the valley is the oldest of these three.


98-11: Next up is a new detail.  This nice flat block of land is just perfect for development.  But not a residential development!


98-12: Paeng over at simpeg has been producing some excellent custom lots.  These are several pieces of his modular resort kit which fits in quite nicely with the MTP trails.


98-13: There's a nice block of cabins on the north side of the resort. 


98-14: And tent camping on the south side.  There's a pool tucked into the forest here as well.  I'll be coming back to detail the shoreline here during a later update.  I just don't have the time to get here today.


98-15: This valley goes somewhere.  I honestly don't know where that is yet though. 


98-16: So I'll put a winding gravel road in the valley and connect it to the neighbor.  Some day in the future this road will be continued and then we'll find out where this goes. 


98-17: I've started laying out the rough shoreline and noticed this nice block of land.  It seems like an appropriate area for a small residential block. 


98-18: Nice random bunch of homes in this area.  Nothing fancy, they'll just disappear into the trees once I'm done the shoreline. 


98-19: The last few shots today are just detailed shots of the finished shoreline.  At this stage I'm starting to run out of time!


98-20: Here's a shot of the shoreline around the log loading site. 


98-21: Here's how the lake looks now.  There's still a lot of work to do here, but it's coming together now!


OSITM Bonus 4: Last stop for the zoom 2 composite bonuses!  Today I've got the Winfield tile ready to show!  I'm not actually sure what the bonus will be Wednesday, but I'll come up with something.


That's a wrap for today, next time I'm going to polish off the urban area of Ellison.  The shoreline has caused me quite a bit of grief unfortunately, but I've finally decided what I'm going to settle with.  See you soon!

[calibanX]

Beautiful pine forests. I'm always impressed with your shorelines too. The log loading site is a nice touch nestled into your heavily wooded setting and I like the idea of a clear cut area being replanted and coming back. Great work.

Geoff

[armagin]

Impressive! Nice to see lots of detail and thought even into the landscape. Me? I just get out the tree tool and start brushing away...

[Tomas Neto]

Great work my friend!!! Awesome update!!!

[ecoba]

Oh my gosh, I've missed three updates. Where have I been? Are you updating every two days? Wow, you really have a lot of time on your hands.

Ellison is really turning out to be a lovely town, the shoreline is showing some interesting new features and the resort is a really nice touch. The whole rural sense of the town is also a nice thing that we've been missing from Adara for a while. I also feel that the huge industrial area on one side of the lake and the nicer residential areas on the other side is a nice contrast. I'll be back and commenting more often here.

Ethan

[djvandrake]

Another great update! 

[canyonjumper]

Beautiful! I really like 98-19, it looks great! Two more updates until 100!

              Your friend, Jordan