The FrankU and Nexis CO-OP

[mrbisonm]

Thanks Vizoria...


Here is the same model as above without anything inside. This way you will be able to fill the shed with farmstuff and machinery props of your choice when making lots.

I would like to mention here that every model shown or not shown will exist in different colours or different textures, at least 2 if not 3. Only small different details (besides textures) are added on each model.
For example like the model above and below will also exist in red and will have two windows on the sides and another one will be dark grey and have no sidewalls...etc.

Another model tomorrow.....

Fred

[FrankU]

Great work Fred!

Low or high quality resolution of your images: we can see enough to know that is is fantastic work.
This will mean some serious relotting for my farms, and maybe deletion of one or two dependencies. We'll see what comes out.

Good luck!

[jmyers2043]

Hello from South Carolina, Fred.

Really nice looking shed! textures are good and I like how you did the metal sides. Have a great Christmas.

Jim

[Simcoug]

Hello from South Carolina, Fred.

Really nice looking shed! textures are good and I like how you did the metal sides. Have a great Christmas.

Jim

Happy to see you stop by Jim.

And yes, great work Fred.  Can't wait to see the final farm package 

[mrbisonm]

Thanks guys, I will be back later tonight with a new model, that is if I don't have another visit from a friend like late last night.....lol

Hey Jim, great to see you again, missed ya. Got some snow down there yet?

Fred

[mrbisonm]

Well, today I didn't do much, but I was able to finish this little all purpose agricultural shed filled with machinery. I have another of the same model with different texturs and filled with hay and strawbales and an empty one for the LOTter to fill him/herself.
In all, there will be 4 individuals of this specific model. Again, I hope that it will be an interesting and practical addition to the MFP1.

This afternoon I had a good friend of the family drop in and being an amateur computer fan, he had a quick look at my Gaming PC, took out the hard-drive and tested them with a *little thing* he brought along and could be plugged into my wife's computer, and....Woohoo, it is confirmed that the hard-drive has no damage whatsoever. So, everything and all my MFP1 files are in perfect condition. He also agreed that the powersupply box burnt out. The fan jammed solid.
Glad that this is settled.

Not sure if I will be back tomorrow wityh a new model, I have some work in one of the barns (electrical problem with an automatic Ventilator for humidity control), but I will surely have one more in two days.

Fred



Edit: I just realized on the picture that the roof pattern does not quite fit. This will be fixed!

[mrbisonm]

Today I finished another shed package of the MFP1 Shed series. And to give you an idea of what I meant earlier by one model with different types, here's a good example of 3 from 4 of this shed. As you can see, there are some differences of textures and also some details, whether re-arranged or added/deleted. All of these have the same footprint though, so ideal to make propfamilies.
The first one is with a "Deutz" Tractor, the second with a Massey Ferguson, the third with a John Deere and the fourth with a New Holland, which gives a great variety of the machinery and the prop.
All these machineries you will see, will be in another set of the MFP1, the MFP1 Machinery and Implement set.

Hope you like this one too.
Be back soon (later this week)

Fred

[mrbisonm]

  Hey ya all, have a Merry Christmas now   



be back in a few days.........

Fred

[c.p.]

Merry Christmas Fred.
I love the sheds (I don't now how I missed so many updates ).  The roof textures on the "Small All Purpose Shed" are especially nicely done with the rust streaks.  The variations with the different machinery is a good idea too.

[FrankU]

While mrbisonm, aka Fred, is finishing his silo props I spent some time with my set of Farms Stage 6; the Heritage lots.
If you want to grow these lots you need CAM, because SPAM nor vanilla SC4 support Stage 6 farm lots.
Maybe, just maybe, I will consider to add ploppable versions of these lots to the set....

Anyway, here we go.
Some of them you may have seen before, but I present you the whole set: 5 lots.

Cemetery Wezenveld
A war memorial cemetery with a modern church. The cemetery is dedicated to the soldiers who died for the sake of freedom of SIMcontiment in the last terrible war. Read your history books for details (maybe I'll make some up for the ReadMe when the set is being released, but don't count on it).


The Old lime kilns
The old lime kilns had been standing around in the forest without any activities for thiry years. Some ten years ago a group of enthousiastic heritage lovers from you City decided the remains should be kept for their historic significance. They succeeded in persuading their mayor to invest some funds for restoring the buildings and making a small shop with a watchtower for visitors. A parking lot was made. A farmer  was willing to herd his sheep and keep an eye on the lot. And here we are!


Manor Borgelerhof
The manor derives from the 19th century. About twenty years ago the owner started breeding horses and built a riding school. And here we are!
If you like, you can send your daughter or son to learn riding.


Manor Kranenkamp
This manor was built by an enormously rich industrial entrepreneur. He was very important for the industrial development of the area in the second half of the 19th century. And he wanted to show it in his house.
The house is surrondend by lush gardens. The farmlands beyond them are kept by the farmers who live in the small farm houses in the lower right corner of the lot.


Conference center De Horst
The conference center started in the small meeting room in old huntig lodge.
In the 1950 it grew and grew and soon enough the whole lodge was used as conference center. In the 1960ies an external addition was built: the green glass conference room just behind the parking area. In the 1970ies the type of conferences changed: it became customary to organise retreat weekends and conferences that took more than one day. So there was a request for places to stay. And therefore the third building on the lot was erected. A typical 1970ies apartment complex.


Please comment!

[vortext]

First of I think ploppable versions would be a great addition if it isn't too much work. Stage 6 farms take quite a lot effort to grow and not everyone uses the CAM. In other words, it'd be a shame if only a few people were able to use them. And since these are technically farms, I wonder what kind of fields do you plan to attach to them? Especially since some of the lots have rear entrances it may look weird. Or one could just dezone the field after they've grown of course. At any rate, here my comments per lot.

Cemetery Wezenveld - great lot, don't change a thing!
The Old lime kilns - meh, something is off. Maybe it's the sheep, maybe I'd expected more from the restoration. .
Manor Borgelerhof - excellent as well!
Manor Kranenkamp - hm, no, sorry to say this is my least favorite. The 'small' farmer house takes up way too space imho and the lush garden isn't that lush. Maybe expand on the formal garden in the backside instead, more or less like the cemetery, e.g straight driveway, near symmetrical garden lay-out with fountains, hedges, statues, etc. .
Conference center De Horst - the concept is good but I dunno. . The three main structures just don't go together all that well imho. Especially the apartment complex. . it's too dominant and distracting. Maybe some type of small cottages would be better suited for overnight arrangements.

All things considered it's great lotting though! 

Final note but since you don't play anymore I wonder who's gonna test these lots to see if they actually grow? Or do you happen to have a large region laying around for that purpose. 

[Catalyst]

It would definitely be great if you made ploppable lots, otherwise these beautiful lots probably will not be used as much as they should.

Cemetery looks great, maybe you could add a few people, or a janitor walking around with a wheelbarrow.
The Old lime kilns does look a bit empty. Some signs with information for tourists and shrubs around the back of the building might be good.
On Manor Borgelerhof I agree with Vortex, it looks great!
I don't like the bright texture of the Manor Kranenkamp back-patio. The area with the farm buildings is very nice though.
The conference center I generally like, and again I agree with vortex: the 3rd building doesn't fit in very well, a little more vegetation would be nice. The glass conference box I like however.

there you have some comments ;-)

[c.p.]

Ploppables would be great, especially for the cemetery.  I like all of the lots, except the Old Kiln, which seems too drab.  I love Manor Kranenkamp, except for the garden with the maxis flowers.  Also, I agree that the apartment complex doesn't fit the conference center lot well.  Other than that, I'd say these are very nice large lots.

[FrankU]

All right!

Thanks Vortex, Catalyst and c.p.

When I have a bit more time I'll go into all of your replies, but I'd like to say the following already now:

1. Also on Simpeg I got requests for ploppables lots. So consider them part of the set when it will be released. You know that it will take some time, because this set is meant as an add-on to the Stage 1-5 set of Dutch Farms that can be released not earlier than that Fred has finished his props set.
Anyway a question remains: shall I release the lots as pure eyecandy without any effects, or is it useful to add I-R jobs? I do not want to spoil the mechanics of the game, but on the other hand I'd like my lots to have some kind of effect... Can anyone give me professional advice on this? I'm not very good at game mechanics.....

2. Indeed, the formal garden of Kranenkamp is a bit.... shall I say Maxis? I'll do some changes.

3. People on the lots.... yeah. I totally forgot!

4. Testing... Well I do have an old region lying around on my HD somewhere....
But if any of you likes to test growth of the lots? Stage 7 is coming too, so I can send them to you already. PM me if you feel like it.

Other remarks will be replied to later on, hopefully this weekend.

[mrbisonm]

Me too, I like ploppables and do not use CAM neither. Nice lots, Frank.

Right now, we are going to Cuba for 10 days, so working on the MFP1 is not possible. After the heavily occupied days of Christmas and New Years, we need a retreat in the sun. In Canada/Quebec this morning , it was -32C, something like -48C with the windchill factor.

Glad we are leaving.lol

I will be back next week or so.

Fred

[FrankU]

I promised to reply a bit more. I meant mainly as an answer to the criticism about the Conference Center.

As you probably know I try to reconstruct a bit of the haphazardness of real life in my lots. The game is an utopia where you can make whatever you like and most of us tend to make nice things that fit together well. In real life not everyone is interested in harmony as much as we do. Most people just do what feels good at the moment. Sometimes without a lot of thinking. Sometimes also in real life people think a lot about why they do things in a certain way and they do really care about how things will look together in the end.
But if you look at a project ten, twenty, thirty years later you find yourself thinking: why did we think that looked good in those years? It's ugly!
And all those things and considerations, coincidences, accidents, and even downright stupidities I would like to show in some way in my lots. Therefore you find beautiful historic farm houses with ugly contemporaty sheds (once Fred is going to release his...).

And in the case of Conference Center De Horst you find the results of a certain development.
The house has been buit by a rich person a long time ago. Later it was not a house for living anymore, and became a conference house (probably due to lack of funding). Then space began to come short. An addition was needed. In the sixties we built modernist rectangular glass facades with minimal details and materials. That is the frist extra building. It clearly is a cheap Mies van der Rohe rip off.
In the late seventies it was decided that a hotel accomodation was needed. In those years a certain structuralist architecture was in fashion. Structuralism means that you make a large building not as one large object, but as a series of smaller objects in order to maintain a small human scale. That architecture looked like the BAT I added in the back of the lot.
It is a Tag_one BAT by the way.

It is possible that nowadays we think the combination is ugly or a bad fit... The architects and clients in the late seventies thought not. They liked it. And whose opinion is more correct? Nobody can tell.

And if you think that I made this all up I show you some real conference centers:

First of all the real De Horst.
Address: De Horst 1, 3971 KR Driebergen-Rijsenburg
Here you find an aerial



I have no images of the buildings themselves, but in the aerial you can see there are several buildings of very different styles on the premises.
By the way: in the fifties it was a college. My parents studied and met each other there. So it is a very important place for me. And when I visited it somewhere in the eighties I remember there was some kind of not too posh apartment complex for the students. Probably torn down by now.

Hotel Conference Center Landgoed Zonheuvel
Address: Amersfoortseweg 98, 3941 EP, Doorn
An aerial



The house


The hotel


And Hotel Restaurant Sallandse Heuvelrug
Address: Burgemeester Knottenbeltlaan 77, 7461 PA, Rijssen

An aerial



An image of the nice front


Somewhere in the back (they say it's the same location, but I cannot find this shape in the aerial...)


You see that not all buildings fit too well.
If you study the aerials you can see by the shapes, sizes and roofs that there are very different old an new additions on the premises of the centers.

So please.... I hope I convinced you that the choice of props was not too bad.

[romualdillo]

I like the concept, and I think you've done a good job. It's very difficult to do a succesful lot with so many different parts. Perhaps the problem is the transition beetween zones, for example I find Manor Borgelerhof almost perfect, De Horst Conference center is a step under, Manor Kranenkamp and The Old Lime kilns need more work (Perhaps the distance between buildings, perhaps the transition between zones are too hard). If I lived in Manor Kranenkamp I would have planted some trees to hide the view of the working area. It's only my opinion, I'm from a different country and some things are done in a different way. Anyway, keep the good work!!! 

P.S.: The Cemetery is perfect!! I like it a lot!!

[c.p.]

For me, the apartment complex on the conference center lot was jarring, not because of the architecture, but because it seems to have different lighting than the other buildings (i.e. it is super-bright compared to the others).  But maybe when placed amidst of a city of varied buildings that wouldn't be so noticeable.

[vortext]

Yes, it's quite bright indeed. And maybe cp is on to something else too. The apartment complex is quite obviously intended for an urban environment. I mean, regardless whichever style was fashionable surely the architect would have had the hotel / resort function in mind as well while making plans for an extension.

Also, compared to the RL pics of conference buildings it may actually be Gascooker's lodge which is out of place as it's quite a distinct UK styled building. In other words maybe another main building would make for a more coherent lot? 

That said, the concept itself is solid, no remarks on that. 

[FrankU]

Uhhh, yeah well. You got me there c.p. and Vortex!

First of all I am indeed trying to use as much Dutch or Dutch looking buildings as I can find.
Second: I have an enormous list of dependencies already for my Stage 1 up to 5 farms and I added quite a lot other models for the Stages 6, and upcoming 7. I do not want to make the list much longer.

Meaning: I liked the Tag_One building although indeed it is quite a bit urban. It's the only model in the whole SC4 community (as far as I have found) that has this kind of architecture. And then.... First the lot had another building, a Haarlemmergold classicist model with a modern expansion, but I used it in already in my Dutch replacement of the courthouse reward. So it seemed a bit stupid to use the same BAT for this purpose. Don't you agree?

So then I thought: even in the Netherlands sometimes people build things that look a bit British and I had this Gascooker lodge and I figured I'd use it.....
And I felt like using this rock of bricks for the hotel accommodation.... and then I had this lay out and so I put it together.

I must confess that I really even did not see the lighting thing that you talk about and frankly I am not such a perfectionist so I'd like to keep neglecting that. And then, with this long list of dependencies, another extra one would not bother much, wouldn't it?

Hmmm, I'll reconsider....