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True Earth

Started by korver, May 04, 2016, 08:05:18 PM

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korver

#100

- UPDATE 9: Scenes From Europe -





First and foremost, big thanks to the SC4D staff for giving True Earth OSITM! I currently have alot of stuff I'm working on right now, but I hope to get out at least 2 more updates this month.


The Leaning Tower of Pisa
Pisa, Italy

Originally built in 1173, this world famous bell tower began to tilt as soon as it was being constructed. Soft soil coupled with an inadequate foundation meant that the tower had to be built slightly curved just so it wouldn't fall over during construction. The tower slowly began to tilt more and more as the years went by, and by 1990 the tower was on the verge of collapse and had to be closed to the public. Numerous attempts at straightening the tower were made throughout the 1990s, and was deemed safe enough to reopen in 2001. Today, the tower stands at a 4 degree tilt.





National Library of Greece
Athens, Greece

The heart of Athens comes alive at night. The National Library of Greece, built in 1829, holds one of the world's largest collections of Greek manuscripts behind it's impressive stone columns.





Landwasser Viaduct
Swiss Alps

One of the most noteworthy locations on the legendary Glacier Express passenger train is the breathtaking Landwasser Viaduct, especially during wintertime. Standing 213 feet at it's highest point, it's one of the most picturesque locations in the entire Swiss Alps.





The Pantheon
Rome, Italy

Perhaps the most well preserved building of Ancient Rome, the Pantheon remains to this day as a temple to the Roman Gods. The circular oculus at the top allows light to enter, as well as the rain and any other natural elements. While there's numerous ways to get to the Pantheon, you can't go wrong with the time-tested solution: a horse drawn carriage through the streets of Rome.





Puente Nuevo
Ronda, Spain

Located in the Andalusia region of Spain, the mountaintop city of Ronda is split in two by the 390 foot deep El Tajo canyon. Connecting the two sides of the old town is the breathtaking Puente Nuevo (New Bridge) - completed in 1793, to this day it remains one of the world's most iconic bridges.





Contra Dam
Swiss Alps

Opened in 1965, Switzerland's Contra Dam is one of the most impressive locations in the entire Alps. Most notably, in 1995 it was featured in the bungee jumping opening sequence of GoldenEye (one of my favorite movies of all time, which is why I chose to make it in the first place). Periodically, the two spillways on each side of the dam will open, releasing 1,300 m/s of water, truly an amazing sight.





Special models used in this update:

Heblem Dam Set (the textures were sub-par, so I added some slight grime and extra detail to it, but it's still very visible underneath in the picture.)

Landwasser Viaduct

Puente Nuevo

Pantheon Fountain

Quick note on bridges:

Since this mayor diary makes heavy use of 3D warehouse bridge models, it does require me to get creative occasionally. While some bridge BATs that I use require no further PS to connect them, a couple of the bridges in this update did require me to copy and paste an actual, ingame network (another MMP road, rail, etc) over the top of the bridge.



-korver


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REPLIES

dyoungyn: Thank you for the kind words, glad you enjoyed it.

compdude787: Thank you very much.

michae95l: Thanks :) Yeah, I might make room for an update like that here, in addition to the show us challenge on ST so you can see some of my work behind the scenes.

eggman121: Thank you! Unfortunately, no Melbourne. I think reddonquixote was working on a recreation of one, so I'll leave that to him :P

APSMS: Thank you :)

kbieniu7: Thank you for the nice words.

Akallan: Thanks, I'll see what I can do about it.

noahclem: Thanks for the K-point and the compliments :) Also glad to hear that I inspired you to use that great Sydney Opera House BAT. As for how I create, were you more interested in hearing about my mindset when it comes to choosing places (like how I pick out my scenes), or were you talking more about the technical side of things like the steps taken to create a scene.

Yan077: Thanks for the kind words, it means alot coming from one of the masters :thumbsup:

Ernestmaxis: Thanks, glad you liked it :thumbsup:

noahclem: Thank you for giving True Earth this great award, it is much appreciated :thumbsup:

kbieniu7: Thanks for the kind words :)

Vizoria: Thanks, congrats on OSITM as well :)

art128: Thank you! :)

reddonquixote: Thank you for the kind words, it means a lot coming from a legendary BATter like yourself. Congrats on OSITM btw :)


Vizoria

Awesome! You managed to photoshop the SC4 out of SC4. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, 2nd pic and 4th pic were my favourites. In the 1st pic do you both use the lot editor for custom textures and photoshop in additional textures?

Also- SHADOWS! I have dabbled with shadow photoshopping before but I could not get it properly even.

A great edition!

reddonquixote

I think Ronda Spain is my favourite, it looks like something out of Lord of the Rings

The dam is quite spectacular too.. hmmm.. yeah, they are all amazing  &apls &apls
Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.

noahclem

Every one is just amazing. I wish I could make something like this but can't even imagine it :D  I can't pick a favorite, I just love them all.

As to your question, I'm quite curious about both :)

vortext

Honestly imho the best part is the crammed diagonal parking to the right of the Pantheon. For some reason when wandering around in a unknown city I'm always drawn to those kinda back alleys. Something to do with the contrast between the grandiose and the mundane I guess. Or maybe I'm just rambling. Yeah that's probably it. ::) :D

Also great work bringing all kinds of one off RL models into the scenes, curious if you have plans to release some of those eventually?

time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

APSMS

I think you really oughta show us what the raw images look like, so we can better appreciate the masterpieces we see here. This is really incredible. :popcorn:

Just when I thought I could tell what was photoshop and what was not, I see a detail that obviously must be done in game, and am forced to reevaluate what I think about the game. The dam textures, and the Pantheon... wow!

Also, I have never seen such an awesome tilt-shift effect on an SC4 picture before. Mostly they seem to make the game change from a "Real-Life" perspective (since everything is from afar, and therefore everything is in focus) to one of a model railroad, which is cool, but not typically what I think you would want for pictures that are obviously from a game. Usually they make the picture seem less real.
But that picture? With the nightlights on all of the LE prop cars (that's what I assume they are, if they haven't been drawn in), and then the light blur effect that you get when a camera is out of focus? Man.
&apls &apls

Hats off, good sir. Your stuff was pretty incredible, but I have not seen that bit of detail before. Amazing work!
Quick Question: are these pics taken at the zoom presented, or do you take really close up shots, make mosaics, do the details, and then scale them down to appear as Z4 or Z5 shots? Because I cannot imagine the amount of pixel hunting that must otherwise occur if this is not the case. Still, well, gee :-[...good stuff regardless.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

My Mayor Diary San Diego: A Reinterpretation

_Michael

Wow wow wow.
Love all of the scenes, especially Rome and Pisa. Are all of your road textures lots, MMP or Photoshop? It's so hard to tell! But again you've excelled, and the variety here is fantastic! Lovely work! ;D

vinlabsc3k

#107


:shocked2:  &apls &apls &apls &apls &apls &apls :o
:bnn: You're a master of graphic :bnn:



PS.: Where did you find the right building for each shot?
My creation at CityBuilders.



SimCity 5 is here with the NAM Creations!!

bombardiere

Great stuff as ever.  :thumbsup: I am not personally into CJs, but this is inspiring material :) May be North Europe next. ;)

art128

Landwasser Viaduct and Ronda are my favorite pictures from this update. I had no idea there was a city in Spain on a canyon like that.

I wonder will you be doing some scenes from Japan or Hong Kong? :)
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

Simmer2

________________________________________________________________________________

dyoungyn

Absolutely love the Dam.  Wow wow and more wow!!!! &apls &apls &apls &apls &apls &apls &apls &apls

Alan_Waters


kbieniu7

Special extra models  :o Wow  :o

Why would I need to go pack my backpack and go to Italy or Switzerland, when I can enter this thread and just have a HD excursion all over Europe, even with a historical background?  :D

By the way, you should have "visit" Kraków as well, there are plenty of its landmarks avaible. Or maybe it's enough just me and Jeckyll to take care of this city  ;D

Awesomeness
Thank you for visiting Kolbrów, and for being for last ten years!

gn_leugim


Themistokles

Awesome! I second APSMS though, it'd be really interesting to see what it all looks like ingame :)
Come join me on a hike to St Edmea!

Latest update: 7

"In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy." - John Sawhill

Seaman

Quote from: Themistokles on November 08, 2016, 01:08:57 PM
Awesome! I second APSMS though, it'd be really interesting to see what it all looks like ingame :)

me too  :D

just want to be sure it's still SC4 you've started with and not some awesome wizardry! Anyway, the results are breathtaking!!  :thumbsup:

korver

#117

- Upcoming Update Previews -

Thanks for the nice comments everyone :)

In regards to Michael's comment - since this gets asked about a lot, I'll make a little tutorial here. For this Yaounde scene I made, I essentially looked at aerial pictures, photographs, and other resources and made my own customized texture. I'll use lots of various methods in PS to achieve the final result - layer masks with grass and concrete textures, burning and dodging to simulate car paths, and added noise to simulate rougher, more worn out parts of the roads. After 4-8 hrs in PS, I'll figure out the scale and just apply the texture to a flat plane in 3dsmax and export it for usage in game The only big downside is that the plane needs to be completely flat for shadows to be cast onto it, or else I'd be BATting raised sidewalks, grass strips, etc. Also, unlike normal textures, it doesn't really work on uneven land.

So anyways.. unfortunately I was extremely busy this month and didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I've been creating more and more custom content for this MD as time goes on - and that now includes creating and texturing models from scratch in BAT (in addition to all the models I import into the game), so it's slowing things down. Also, I've been working on multiple updates at once, so I don't really have any of them ready for a release yet - so I'll just show a couple of previews in the mean time.

Scenes From Africa, Pt. II

Yaounde, Cameroon




Agbokim Waterfalls, Nigeria



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South America

Paramaribo, Suriname




Mount Roraima



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Other Pictures:

Great Wall of China




Sutherland Falls, New Zealand





compdude787

Check out my MD, United States of Simerica!
Last updated: March 5, 2017

My YouTube Channel

Badsim

Hats off to you .

Considering the technique used , ( I experimented this once with Orange's BATing skill for Place de la Concorde - Paris  ) Yaounde is to be considered as a « true » SC4 picture like Pisa and many others from your incredible collection , absolutely mesmerizing work everywhere ... and so much work for a single man ... can't look at them too long , to tell you the truth , or I'll get a kind of Stendhal Syndrome  &dd ( or name it as  you want ... )and would stop any SC4 activity ... and thanks for making us travel with such ingenuity , I did verify with Google and at those occasions  I learned a lot about places I knew nothing  before ( Rounda , Contra dam , etc.) . A K-point there , of course , that's the least I can do .

Cédric.

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