Three Rivers Region

[buddybud]

i gotta comment on those bright tree's. They are beautiful and exactly the color of our fall trees here. Just for a comparison if people aren't familiar with the color changes in the north...



excellent work

Bud

[just_a_guy]

All pictures are beautiful David! I also like the comparison from the new and the old road (which is something very common to see where I live).

[dedgren]

Big SC4 lakes are cool, eh?



Especially when they are big SC4 plop water lakes.



Watch this space for how to do this...today!

Back in a bit.


David

278714

[Pat]

oooo David simply wonderful!!! I cant wait as now I need something to pass the time as I have to listen to the brewers game v Giants oooh yea....

[BigSlark]

David,

That water is amazing! I'm glad you've figured this out...

I hope all is well with you and yours.

Cheers,
Kevin

[buddybud]

transparent prop water surface???  very curious.

Bud

[FrankU]

Well well well, what's going on here?

Having neglected this thread for more than three days gives me the guarantee that I have missed some or other essential development.
David, never a dull moment with 3RR! 

[wouanagaine]

Ah you mean this






I think you played with Reader again

[JoeST]

Cause trees like growing under water Wou

That looks rather awesome David

[bat]

Nice work there on your stuff, David! It looks great!

[thundercrack83]

Wow, I've missed so much here, David--I apologize deeply! This is so out of character for me, I feel bad!

As always, there is a bevy of activity in 3RR, and I will be back to my regularly-scheduled visits when I return tonight from the Lone Star State.

Hope all is well with you, my friend!

Dustin

[mayorfabz]

Ah you mean this

Wooooooooooooo underwater moose and llamas now that's something we certainly don't have here in Quebec  And look ! There swims a giraffe too !
Fabien

[un1]

Hey dedgren, sorry I have been away for a while.  I have a lot to catch up on, but I've seen a bit and it all looks great.  See you around.

EDIT:  Hey- you're right about that.  No need to be sorry, though.  We'll be looking forward to seeing you around, my friend. -DE

[wes.janson]

Could this mean the end of Maxis water?

I await with the development of this with excitement.

[dedgren]

OK, as promised...



This is the first part of what I anticipate will be an extended series of tutorials that go into the mechanics of how I have made 3RR look the way that it does, with specific focus, at least at first, on terraforming techniques related to the placement of the latest developments in the area of ploppable water.  It assumes basic knowledge of game mayor mode and God mode tools, but pretty much nothing else.  Part Two, once we get that far, is here [linkie].

Because it is presented at that level, the tutorial may move along too slowly for some.  Don't worry about it- sooner or later we'll catch up to you.

The ultimate goal is to create a ploppable water stream running down a valley and flowing into a small lake, then resuming at the lake's outlet, being crossed by a minor road then flowing off the edge of the quad to the "south" (bottom).  Here's a general diagram.

#1


We won't get near so far in this part.  In fact, so you won't be disappointed, all we'll wind up with today is to have a tile of game road stting in the bottom of a hole just above the game water level.  If that sounds disappointing, bear with me- you may see a thing or two along the way that might surprise you.

We'll start with a very important step- orienting the quad's terrain so that "north" is up- i.e. at the top of your screen.  You'll see why this is significant in just a few minutes.  You check this by (1) making sure that the game's compass arrow is pointed more or less to the top of the screen (it's actually at about one o'clock, but we don't need to go there).  If it is pointed in any other direction, press your [ pg up ] or [ pg dn ] key to rotate the terrain so the the arrow looks like the one shown in pic #2.  Note that the arrow only displays when you have the game's control panel visible.

From the "Landscape Tools" menu option, (2) choose the "Gouge Valleys" tool from the corresponding submenu icon.

#2


You'll note that I use Jonathan's great "God Terraforming in Mayor Mode Compact" mod, which is available on the STEX here [linkie].  That's just an FYI- you won't need to install the mod for this tutorial.

We'll now hide the control panel by left-mouse clicking the little open/shut box in the far lower-left hand corner and then place our Gouge Valleys tooltip (what the cursor becomes when the tool is selected) just north of the road in the rough center of the screen.

Now, I know what you are thinking.  If we press the left-mouse button and then hold and drag the tooltip across the terrain, we get anything but a nice smooth valley, right?  Well, let's deal with that by doing a few things that are at the heart of 3RR terraforming.

#3


Bear with me a moment here, as you'll have to take the following on faith for a bit.  You can control both the size of the terraforming tooltips (that's right- not just this one, but all of them, mayor mode and God mode) and the force with which they are applied with a few keystrokes.

The size is controlled by pressing the [ shift ] key and a number [ 1-9 ] key at the same time.  The smaller the number, the smaller the area the tooltip affects.  Here, because we want the smallest possible Gouge Valleys tooltip, we'll press [ shift ] and [ 1 ].

We also need, though, to reduce the force of the tooltip so we can better control it.  This is done by pressing the [ shift ] key and a function [ f1-f9 ] key at the same time.  As with size, the lower the f-key number, the smaller the intensity of the tooltip effect.  This too applies to all tooltips, which is something we will use to great effect in later parts of the tutorial.

Since we want the least force possible, we'll press [ shift ] and [ f1 ].  The tooltip now looks like this on the screen.

#4


We get a closer look by zooming to view level 4 which is done from the keyboard by simply pressing the [ 4 ] key.  Pretty tiny, eh?

#5


Now we come to a very important concept- that of working, when raising, lowering and leveling terrain with the various tooltips, from the northwest (top left) corner of the gridsquare in question.  We've put a north arrow on pic #6 and positioned the tooltip where you should always work from in order to show this.

#6


So, let's put a toe in the water and left-click the mouse just once, releasing the mouse key immediately.  As you can see, the gridlines at the northwestermost corner of the gridsquare that we clicked on deformed "downward" ever so slightly.

Take a minute and test what I've said by experimenting on a few other non-adjacent gridsquares.  Position your Gouge Valleys tooltip anywhere else in the gridsquare making sure you are not stepping on a gridline and click once.  No matter where else you locate the tooltip in the gridsquare- the center, the bottom left, wherever- a left mouse-click will always result in the tooltip's effect being applied in the northwest (top left) corner.

Now you can see why you always need to know where north is.  The game does not care what orientation you have your terrain in.  If you have rotated north to the left side of your screen, the corner of the gridsquare that you are terraforming will rotate accordingly.  This can be extremely frustrating when you think you will be accomplishing one thing by applying a terraforming tool and then a completely different part of the gridsquare changes.  So, I'd suggest you get used to always checking for north when you are terraforming anything important.

#7


So, how deep a depression did our one click with our Gouge Valleys tool set to size=1 and force=f1 create?  In order to do this, you need to have buggi's Extra Cheats DLL, which can be downloaded here [linkie].  Once you have that properly installed, you press the [ ctrl ] and [ X ] keys at the same time to (1) bring up the game's "parameter adjustment" (i.e. "cheat") input box and, once there, type terrainquery into the box.  You'll then (2) select the Query tool from the control panel.

#8


Now, I'm sure most of you have used the Query tool to get info about buildings and other things in the game.  As the info box says, hover the tooltip over the thing you want more information about and, if it is queryable, you will get whatever information the content creator has provided.

#9


We, however, will use the specialized application of the Query tool invoked by entering "terrainquery" to get info about specific places on the quad we are terraforming's terrain.  When you hover the tooltip over the northwest corner of the gridsquare we just lowered, you'll get an info box that looks like this.

Now- what are these different variables?, you ask. 

[tabular type=4]
[row][data]

Variable

[/data][data]

Meaning

[/data][/row]
[row][data]

x

[/data][data]

# meters from west (left) side of quad

[/data][/row]
[row][data]

y

[/data][data]

# meters in elevation from 0

[/data][/row]
[row][data]

z

[/data][data]

# meters from north (top) side of quad

[/data][/row]
[row][data]

cell x

[/data][data]

# of this gridsquare from west (left) side of quad, with first gridsquare=0

[/data][/row]
[row][data]

cell x

[/data][data]

# of this gridsquare from north (top) side of quad, with first gridsquare=0

[/data][/row]
[/tabular]

So, here we can see that the gridsquare (which the game calls cells- who knew?) we are terraforming in is the 90^th one over from the left edge and 117^th one down from the north edge of the quad.

#10


Most important for our purposes, though, it is 260.8 meters (855 feet seven inches) above the game's (imaginary) zero point in elevation.

#11


Let's return to our size=1 force=f1 Gouge Valleys tooltip.  Place it in the northwest corner of our "guinea pig" gridsquare (90/117).  Click just once, and make sure you release the mouse button immediately.

#12


As you can see, we've dropped 3/10s of a meter- 30 cm, or about one foot.  I've done this a bunch of times, and sometimes the drop is 2/10s and others 3/10s.  I've never seen it larger or smaller.  So, my rule of thumb is that 4 clicks of a size=1 force=f1 Gouge Valleys tooltip will lower the corner of the gridsquare by one meter/about 40 inches.

I leveled up this terrain before setting out on this tutorial.  Let's check that out.

#13


No, you can't do that at home- stupid PhotoShop (actually PSP X2) trick.  But the three query points would appear to indicate the area around our tiny depression is flat as the proverbial pancake.

Retuurning again to our size=1 force=f1 Gouge Valleys tooltip we'll again place it in the northwest corner of gridsquare 90/117 and drill down about 10 meters/33 feet by clicking 40 times.

...as I noted at the start, I'm moving along very, very slowly.  I know that there are shortcuts that would allow us to do much of what we're doing more quickly.  I am far more concerned with helping you learn and understand the techniques involved-those who already know how to do this are welcome to move ahead at their own pace...

#14


Using terrainquery, we see that we have reached an elevation of 249.4 meters/819 feet at the bottom of our now fairly large depression. 

#15


Closing terrainquery, this is what things look like. 

#16


The next step is to position our size=1 force=f1 Gouge Valleys tooltip on the northwest corner of the adjacent gridsquare to the west/left (90/116)

#17


Drill down so that the north edge (top) of the 90/116 gridsquare is at the same elevation as the 90/116 gridsquare.

Aha!  What's that at the bottom?   

#18


It's game water.  So, why did it show up here?

The reason is that the default game "water table" (i.e. if you haven't changed it in God mode) is at 250 meters/820 feet in elevation.

#19


Let's enlarge our excavation a bit more.  Drill down with our size=1 force=f1 Gouge Valleys tooltip so that the northwest (top left) corner of the 89/116 gridsquare is covered with game water. 

#20


Repeat this for the 89/116 gridsquare.  Now we have a gridsquare-size pool of game water at the bottom.  Notice, though, how the outer edges of our excavation have remained perfectly level and the terrain around it perfectly flat.  This is the essence of fine terrain terraforming- only changing the particular place that you want to affect.

#21


So now we get to swap our Gouge Valleys tool out for its opposite: the mayor mode "Raise Terrain" tool.

#22


Select it from the submenu then, using the same steps as before, set it to size=1 and force=f1.  Next, position the tooltip over the northwest (top left) corner of the 89/116 gridsquare.  Left mouse-click two or three (or four, maybe?- this isn't that exact a science) times until the game water no longer covers the corner under the tooltip.

#23


Now, select...

...I know, I know- we've barely had time to have any fun with the Raise Terrain tool.  Don't worry, it'll become an old friend soon enough in later parts of this tutorial...

...select the mayor mode "Level Terrain" tool from the submenu and...

...attention, please...

...just set it to size=1.  At larger sizes there are sometimes reasons to reduce the tool's force, but I've never found any at its smallest size.

#24


Position the tooltip over the northwest (top left) corner of the 89/116 gridsquare- the one we just raised above the game water.

#25


Next, and it may take a time or two for you to get the hang of this very important terraforming technique- practice makes perfect, press then hold the left mouse button then drag the tooltip south (down) along the west (left) edge of the 89/116 gridsquare onto the northwest corner of the 90/116 gridsquare.  Stop there.  You will see the water recede off this corner to the east (right) as the corner rises just a fraction of a meter.

#26


Now, switch directions.  Drag the tooltip along the north (top) edge of the 90/116 gridsquare until you reach the northwest (top left) corner of the 90/117 gridsquare, then head north (up) until you reach the northwest corner of the 89/117 gridsquare.

If you've done this right, all the game water will be gone.

#27


We're about to wrap this up, but let's do one last thing that is also an important terraforming technique, although you might never know it in that it's so taken for granted.

Select the game's road tool by pressing the [ R ] key and position the tooltip over the bottom of our excavation.

#28


Left mouse-click to plop a single tile of road.  Now, it's not like we are planning to build a very short means from one side of the gridsquare to the other- what this does for use is to perfectly level the gridsquare at...

...you guessed it...

...whatever the elevation is of the northwest (top left) corner.

#29


In this case, that elevation turned out to be 250.1 meters/820 feet, six inches, or about four inches/one-tenth of a meter above the game water level.

How's that for precise terraforming, folks?

#30


See you at Part Two [linkie], where we'll dig ourselves into an even bigger hole.


David

279567

[Pat]

David simply sweetness here and I cant wait to see the rest of the tut!!!

[Nexis4Jersey]

OMG , starts drooling , the drooling turns into a river and forms the PW river. 

EDIT:  Gosh, Corey- thanks for sharing that.  Urrrrghh! -DE

[calibanX]

Now that's awesome stuff David. What are the chances of floating a ploppable sailboat or a canoe on that water?

Geoff

[ldvger]

I hate to sound like a dummy, but I don't understand how Wouagainie (sp?) was able to create a lake with submerged trees.  To the best of my knowledge, PW plops at ground level, not at a given contour line...but maybe something new is in the works?  I also don't understand how /he/she was able to create a lake within a contour line. 

Enquiring minds want to know...

David, I viewed to new tutorial without text, will check back in the morning and hope (fingers crossed) the text will explain more than the pics did. 

Lora/LD, still trying for her own huge map

[BarbarossaS]

I'm also hoping the text will explain a bit. Just looked at the pics and didn't quite understand it 
but seeing as this is 3RR, things'll work out just fine