Blackwater (with Islas Gemas)

[Ennedi]

Beautiful lakes! 

I have tried to find more variations to this theme, but I am not completely happy just yet.

I understand you can be unsatisfied, but I must say your TPW placing skills are on very high level 

You did the only possible thing using various kinds of stones and flora. (Maybe you didn't need using everything  , it look a bit unnatural if some stones are mossy and some are not, at least very close one to another. But I understand you.)
I think you shouldn't afraid of uncovered TPW edges. They are smooth and using bigger TPW pieces you can sometimes achieve very nice part of lakeside. Sometimes it is enough to place stones or bushes only in some places, especially where TPW looks strange/unnatural. Almost every graphic glitch can be hidden by placing only a few bushes/grass/stones, not by covering it completely.
Unfortunately, using every ploppable stuff you must check how it looks in every zoom and from every direction - but it's only a patience exercise. And you have enough of it.

In my opinion, if we want to make better lakes, rivers and waterfalls, we don't need to improve TPW (an old PW is still good in some cases too!). We need to create:
- 1 or 2 another kinds of ploppable rocks/stones, in a few various colors which would match some popular rock mods (for example this brown one from dogfight which you use, also PEG JRJ Limestone), more rectangular/rough and more dense than existing ones,
- more small bushes in various colors (now we have only Jeronij's bush and grass from his Vol4 Props set and flashy green grass from Gizmo's set).
It would be great to create grass which would be almost invisible on typical Cycledogg grass textures, but could be used to sculpting lakesides 
Maybe somebody will take it as a proposition? 

It's a great pleasure to see you at work! I will look for more!

Adam

[Yoman]

Awesome update there emilin. Really excellent blending of the terrain with the road. It looks nearly exactly like metasmurf's photo and the many Xiziz has shown me of Sweden. Just maybe a bit more wet. I really look forward to continuing to see the progress here. Especially to see that city and airport

[kimcar]

  Wow Very well done . Very nice wildlife region that you recreate  Excellent details too

[Shadow Assassin]

All I did was place the lot first, drag roads out of it by one tile in each direction, then place the puzzle pieces on top of the road stumps. Works just fine.

Point taken... if you don't mind the risk of the game crashing.

[thundercrack83]

Congratulations, emilin!



The Staff

[rooker1]

Congratulations Emil on the move to SITM.  I know you'll have some very exciting stuff for us and I can't wait.


Robin 

[Ennedi]

Congratulations from me too! 

I know such award is a kind of pressure, but there is no need to rush, simply enjoy your work and share it with us 

[emilin]

Well, right now I'm sitting on a painfully slow modem connection in Gothenburg, so the next update will be early next week.

I have, however worked quite intensely on a few different things, so a quick teaser seems to be appropriate to show my appriciation for the honour of being selected special interest of the month.

[sebes]

Congratulations Emil with this OSITM reward again, first with Islas Gemas now with Blackwater. 

However one thing is bothering me that I never noticed before in your MD - don't know if I just did see it or if you installed something new: the cars parked on the side walk (great idea - very city like) could only have got there by driving over the grassbed.... That looks kind of odd.

[bat]

Congrats for your second award, emilin!

And nice teaser there, too!

Looking forward to more...

[kwakelaar]

I must say that the previous update was fantastic looking with all the small lakes and forest areas, although you are not yet entirely happy with it, I like it a lot.
And congratulations on your OSITM.

[thundercrack83]

Lovely teaser, my friend! Starting your time in OSITM off with a bang! I can't wait to see what the rest of the month is going to be like!

Take care, my friend!

Dustin

[Une_ame]

The last picture is 

[tooheys]

Well done on the move to OSITM.

Like the pic, a nice mix of old and new, neither looks out of place 

Have a great month.

Cheers

Dave

[squidi]

congrats to the special intrest status you really deserve it 
the choise of bats you used is exelent and you also made very nice lots with them
i am sure the update will be great

[Antoine]

the skill of your city is marvellous ! 

[emilin]

Personal replies:

rooker1: Thank you so much for those kind remarks. And more city is coming right up. It does take a while to finish these lots for me as I don't really know where to find the right props yet, but I suspect I will get faster as I learn.

bat: Thanks a lot!

Shadow Assassin: Thank you for warning me about that. I guess I'll try it your way the next time.

metasmurf: Hehe... I do love Norrland myself, but I wasn't aiming for it. Guess it comes with being Swedish.

thundercrack83: Thank you. For the kind words of encouragment, the selection for Special interest. Everything.

Ennedi: Thanks! Those are very good tips and tricks. I have actually tried to stay clear of the larger pieces since I find them hard to control, but I will certainly try them next. I do think the edges look too busy with all that stuff around them... I mean, it looks ok for close up shots, but from a distance it doesn't look natural to me. And by the way: that isn't Dogfight's rock mod, but actually PEG:s Dark Granite rock mod. I haven't tried out the new ones on the LEX yet.

Yoman: Thanks. It does look a bit damp doesn't it. Ah well, I think I will have to think very carefully about changing the terrain mod to something rougher since I have to open 256 tiles to make the region uniform, hehe...

kimcar: Thank you so much!

sebes: Thank you. I will answer your thoughts on the sidewalk in the proper update below.

kwakelaar: Thanks! And dogs are allowed to run without a leash in that particular area too.

Une_ame: Thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of the pictures too.

tooheys: Thanks a bunch!

squidi: Thanks! I hope I didn't oversell it now, hehe...

Antoine: Thank you so much. You would certainly know.


Blackwater: The other side of the tracks

Time for the proper update. I'd like to point out that I do not photoshop the development shots at all (if they seem less attractive than the "special features" I sometimes post). It's not that I have anything against editing, but I want to show you the way the lots look at my screen when I play the game.

As I said earlier, this is a slow porcess. This update features a total of 8 different custmoized lots. At this time it takes me roughly 5-7 hours to comlpete each lot (though I am hoping to speed things up as I learn the processes better). So you will have to excuse me for showing them off from all different zooms and angles.

In his comment sebes raised an issue about the sidewalks of the streets that I will deal with at the end of this update. First, I want to show you the area as it currently looks though.

To the pictures:



































sebes wrote in his comment on the teaser picture:

However one thing is bothering me that I never noticed before in your MD - don't know if I just did see it or if you installed something new: the cars parked on the side walk (great idea - very city like) could only have got there by driving over the grassbed.... That looks kind of odd.

And I have to agree. That doesn't make sense at all. There is of course one easy solution to the problem... turning the streets into roads. That would make the area look like this:





I guess I could settle for that, but I have two reasons not to be satisified with that solution: 1. I have already stolen so much of my inspiration from Badsims Antigone, and I guess I don't want to be a copy cat in this area too, 2. I really like the idea of have visible differences between sidestreets and mainstreets.

I will work on finding a solution that allows me to use streets without the grassy sidewalk textures. One way would be to fake it by using semi transit enabled lots with street textures on them, of course, but this too feels wrong, somehow.

I think I will simply have to learn more about how the sidewalk textures function and what can be done to modd them. Take a quick look at this picture:



It shows the difference between low and medium density res zoning and what it does to the streetsides. For some reason all plopped lots (and so far all of my lots are plopped, I haven't come res development yet...) function as low density items. I am sure this can be modded in someway. I have no idea how yet, but I will try to figure it out. As always, any help in this respect is very much appriciated (because they can't look the way they look now).

[sebes]

I am sorry Emil    I hate myself now for pointing to that grass thingy next to the sidewalk. The shown pictures are just marvelous, and man, I had no idea that it could take up to 7 hours to lot one! So, here you show like 8x7 hours of work and I am picking on the sidewalk - makes me feel even worse
(I have lotted only once for 3 hours and got stuck with nothing; that was my first and last attempt ever. But that on a side note - I can't compare myself with you)
The picture with road looks good - but I admit: doing it with streets makes it less Antigonic and more Emilinish!  I hope somebody has some good advise to you so that I don't have to feel so bad anymore....
Anyhow - flowers from Amsterdam 

[Yoman]

If you were able to mod the capacity to make plopables med density or higher I would be enormously grateful. I've never said it but part of the reason why I grow nearly everything I make is because I hate that grass texture in build up areas.

But anyway back to the update. All I can say is it was incredible. The choice of buildings is perfect. A perfect mix of nearly everything creating a perfect and very interesting to look at mix. I also like how the skyscraper is there. When I used to build cities with w2w and skyscrapers I'd also put them in the midst of the wall to wall instead of in sealed off cordons. Please continue this 

On a side note it seems that the railroad and highway line really divide the city. At least in that section (well maybe because it takes up like 20 tiles Something possibly quite interesting would be slightly different architectural styles or planning on either side, or not, it all depends what came first, the city or the highway. And this being Europe I'm going to guess the city.

And one last sidenote. Perhaps this region will have a container port? After all container vessels don't have a very large draft compared to supertankers (friggen Knock Nevis with its 24.5 meter draft ). This is just because I'd love to see what you do with Glenni  and my upcoming crane 

[rooker1]

This was a great update.  Your new style and LOT making skills are very good.  I would like to see a higher view of the city, to see how you are fitting everything together.  The LOT amking does get easier.  I keep notes of my favourite props and thier ID numbers for faster reference the next time.  I also like to try draw out my plans before I even open LE.  Just my style maybe, but it helps because it's very easy to get lost in all those different props. 
As Yoman says above, I hope we get to see a container port. 

Robin