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Greenacre

Started by threestooges, December 24, 2008, 03:13:48 PM

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Swordmaster

No use telling a lawyer to do it any other way than his own ;D


Way to go my friend.


Cheers
Willy

noahclem

Looks like an outstanding start  :thumbsup:  I used to be an avowed self-terraformer but have since been thoroughly swayed the other way. I'd recommend at least looking around at the available RL maps but I'm sure whatever you come up with will be great either way :)

threestooges

Joan (Jmouse): I think, what it's boiled down to, is the detail already present in the Real World maps is so much better than what I could achieve with the terrain tools. You'll see what I mean.



Robin (rooker1): Greenacre was a fine example of enjoying a hand-crafted map. However, since I'm planning to increase the final scale of the region, and that I wanted to do more than just enlarge the original map, I think I will be pursuing the RL map option, as you'll see below.



Willy (Swordmaster): Sure there is. Judges do it all the time.



Noah (noahclem): You're not the only one who had been swayed the other way now.



So for those of you who skipped the comments and dropped down here to the main post, I've decided to forgo the crafting of a region by hand. Partly due to the scale increase, but primarily due to the amazing detail of some of the real world maps out there. That said, I'll likely tweak parts of whatever map I end up using (you'll see which one that ends up being in a bit).

As far as which map, I wanted to keep the Greenacre feel, with an island if at all possible, but certainly with plenty of waterways, hills, and varied terrain. It came down to three maps from the ones I'd looked at and, thanks to a suggestion from Robin (rooker1), I put them in game, rendered out a few tiles of each, and got a better idea of what I'd be working with.

The first place I tried was Kerguelan South. It had the terrain variety that I was looking for. Getting it in the game though, it really showed what I was up against.



As you can see, those are some significant hills which, while they would be fun to build on, might be a touch extreme for what Greenacre is/was. Also, showing the scale there, that's 4x4 *large* tiles, and it only takes up that much of the overall map. Perhaps a bit too big for what I'm looking for right now.

Next I tried St. Lucia, which had the island shape I was looking for.



Remember how I had commented that I wasn't really looking for a volcanic island/single mountain island?



Here's why. Again, the hills are rugged. Fine map, don't get me wrong. I love it. But for Greenacre, it's not quite right.

Then we come to the last of my short list. The new Greenacre (and not because I decided against the other two, but because it actually works for what I want to do):

Seattle:



With 9 large tiles rendered there, you can see there will be plenty of land to work with, and there will be terrain variety. Anyone familiar with Washington, Seattle, and the Olympic Peninsula area will also know: there are plenty of waterways up there. There will more than likely be some terrain work as I go forward. In particular, a number of those little harbors/jetties that you see sticking out here and there. If I want a marina somewhere, I'll add one, but I think those are leftovers from the rendering process of the Real World. However, this is Greenacre. Reality doesn't factor all that much into it as you may have noticed by now.

At any rate, welcome (back) to Greenacre. Next step is to get the tree/terrain/water mods sorted. I'd kind of like to use the old Olympic terrain mod by c.p., given the map's RL location, but I'm up for suggestions.

Until next time, take it easy.
-Matt

epicblunder

I should stop by the MDs here more often.   $%#Ninj2

Seattle is always a good choice  ;D


I know that seattle map, having used it before.  The satellite data for that map is a little low-res; drunkapple has a higher res seattle one (link).  It's rather big, but you can cut it down to what you want/need. 

rooker1

Great to see that you have finally choosen a map.....and a very good one at that.
I really like all the water ways and all the possiblities for harbor fronts. Some of the land elevations look pretty extreme still, but not as much as the other two.
I can't wait to see some progress....city building that is. ;)

Robin :thumbsup:
Call me Robin, please.

art128

Nice to have you back, Matt!

I've never been a real fan of giant regions, but I have to say that Seattle map looks quite good. I'm sure you'll be able to make awesome things with it. :)
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

Jmouse

The Seattle region map looks like a perfect fit for your playing style, and you're familiar with the real-world city and surrounding terrain, too. It's great to see Greenacre finally up and running again, and all of us are eager to see some  new updates.

threestooges

Yeah, trying to work over so many map tiles, rebuild a plugins folder, cherry picks mods from an assortment of old and new, and get back up to speed on all the new content, running a business and all that other stuff Real Life entails?

Yeah, a bit busy.

On the other hand...

Shiny new toys:



I couldn't resist.



Got it.



Started playing with it.



I mean, look at the water above. So many variables under the hood at work at once.



Including poop; figure that one out. I have to admit though, watching the pollution flow following the current was kinda fun.

The emergency services were pretty cool too. Rather than just send 1-2 truck to the local university when it caught on fire, it was an all-hands-on-deck situation. I'd love to find out the story behind that.



The possibilities for interchanges too. This one is derpy, but I made it, it's mine, and I made it in just a few minutes.



There are a few things I can't say I'm fond of, but I'll leave those for the next update. Though this town bears the name Greenacre for now, this is really a test run through to see what it all can do. So with that, hope you don't mind the prolonged hiatus; enjoy some eye candy.



Welcome back to Greenacre.

-Matt

Jmouse

I'll be the first to welcome Greenacre back into the spotlight, and to welcome our first Cities: Skylines MD. I still have a steep learning curve ahead of me because the cockeyed perfectionist that roams freely in my head won't settle for anything less than...well, you know. :D I look forward to following your progress and learning a thing or three from your work.

threestooges

Oh my, on a large scale, on the full map, from what I can extrapolate from my experience so far, is that it has the potential to drive a perfectionist stark raving mad...

...or perhaps just NUTs.

The possibilities for what can be done are impressive though.
-Matt

Schulmanator

Nice to see your new work! :D
See the all-new National Capital Region!:http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=15118.0

vester

I stumble over the youtube video: Cities Skylines Map Editor(Importing real maps)
Thought that might me something for you.
You can skip a lot of it, as he repeat the same process quite a few times.


Still looking forward to see someone mod trains for this game.


threestooges

Thanks for the video Arne. I may give a custom region a try at some point. For now though, I think I'm going to be running this as a test region before making the jump into making it all look pretty.

Schulmanator, glad you're enjoying it. It's a bit of a change, yeah, but I've been enjoying it.

So, as annoying at it was that there were no parks such as soccer (football) or baseball fields, the community has been rapidly putting stuff together. Whether it's the best modded out there is yet to be determined. I'll be happy to see stuff start coming up from this site so we'll know it's not going to be game breaking, but for now, this stuff sure is pretty:



The traffic simulator is surprisingly robust from my surface-level look at it so far. It lets us do so many things, like double roundabouts, and does a decent visual job of letting us know we done goofed.



With details like large roundabouts that you can connect from practically anywhere, I can see some flexibility. Don't mind the cars in the middle, they were on what used to be the road.



As a means of testing it, I tried upgrading the roundabout to a 6-lane one way. It worked, but it also added traffic lights at each intersection. I'll have to figure out what the base-network of the roundabout it. In retrospect, I think it might be highway or something.



It's been handing the traffic much better than the double-roundabout from earlier. That's even with the traffic lights. I know the game advises against having intersections too close together, but it seems like there's more than just that at work for their simulator.

I'll look into it more once I can distract myself from making pretty pictures:


-Matt

metarvo

Wow, oh my!  ;D  So this is the game that's literally taken the city-building community by storm these past few weeks.  Well, it's not SC4 ( ::) ), but C:S looks impressive nonetheless, especially in the hands of a skilled city builder.  The curved roads and the suface-level perspective are nice touches.  Nice update, Matt; it's good to see Greenacre going again.

:thumbsup:
Find my power line BAT thread here.
Check out the Noro Cooperative.  What are you waiting for?  It even has electricity.
Want more? Try here.  For even more electrical goodies, look here.
Here are some rural power lines.

noahclem

Really awesome start on the new Greenacre Matt  &apls  Beautiful pictures and nice insight into the C:S. And with fire and poop, what's not to love?  :D

K-point for you sir!

Jmouse

#795
It looks like you've made a lot of progress in a very short time. I can't seem to get past the three-street point, similar to the second photo you published March 24  &mmm, but I like where you've taken the game so far. I especially like the sports fields. The last one reminds me of a scene in the SC4 Greenacre which I couldn't find – it might have been on Imageshack - but I recall it had a sports field with a large body of water behind it. I'm seeing some really nice scenery here, and I like what I see.


Pat

Matt love the new way that Greenacres has gone,

https://www.youtube.com/v/umS3XM3xAPk





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