Three Rivers Region

[mattb325]

David, this is excellent to see water actually 'flowing' downhill!

Regarding the transition to in-game water - the trick may well be to tweak both the texture of the in-game water (such as the dog-fight water mods which are designed to match the transparent ploppable water) as well as the transparency of the ingame water in shallow locations. The latter is quite easily done in the reader....

[ldvger]

Awesome work all the way around.

But I can promise everyone this...I am not going to plop a single tile of water in my region until this all shakes out.

Someone has obviously done some research into hydrology enough to figure out at what rate of drop/fall streams/rivers become
"white water".  I know from my own studies of water that the extent of the white water is highly dependent on the streambed itself, although stream dynamics dictates that areas of steep water drop vary widely.  Again, it eventually devolves back to physics. 

In the meantime, while you geniuses are figuring things out, I am compiling a highly detailed USGS map of my own region, for use primarily as personal reference.  Mapping is a slow, tedious process...

Lora/LD, fascinated

[jacqulina]

wow its amazing david

[dedgren]

Okay, so do ploppable rapids work with the new TPW panes?

Here's a stretch of our slope conforming river from yesterday with a newly-created plop rapids LOT under the pane, and a few extra rocks tossed in for good measure.



A few more details.





As far as I'm concerned, this stuff is, except for the game water/TPW matching issue, ready for prime time.  I'll be uploading the slope-conforming TPW 9x12 pane to the 3RREX in connection with an upcoming tutorial part, along with a set of rapids lot.  These may actually be LEX-worthy, we'll see.

I have NAM stuff to work on against a short-fuse deadline- wonder why that might be?

Later.


David

293489

[pvarcoe]

Aw man, those last shots are something else.
Can't wait to get my hands on this stuff.

It's the last major cog in building rural landscapes, IMO.
Beautiful!

[nekseb]

Hello David,
this is the first time I post to your board, but when I see again your extraordinary work I'm speechless.

Each day when I take a look, you surprise with some new items and all I want to say is

thank you

for the time and work you spend for us. 

EDIT:  And thank you, nekseb, for the great first-time post!  I've seen your nic here at 3RR recently, and had been hoping you might introduce yourself.  It's my pleasure, that's for sure. -DE

[dedgren]

I don't know how to BAT, but I've figured out how to manipulate the heck out of S3D files.



Once I figured out which end was up (and a whole bunch of other things), it is just a lunch hour's worth of time to turn a 3x4 pane of transparent ploppable water into a little farm field pond.



Ploppable small ponds...



...coming up.



Ignore the grey line around the pond- that's a "first time" artifact.  What might be next?- a ploppable TPW brook set comes to mind.

Later.


David

293734 - probably somewhere over 1,000 looks today- thanks, folks!

[BarbyW]

David, you are crazy but wonderfully so. You find the devil in the detail and thrash it into submission. I look forward to you posting to the LEX. Your acolytes are waiting.

[Dark_Jedi06]

Don't stay away from 3RR for too long...because when you return, it puts you on sensory overload.

I'm loving all the possibilities of ploppable water, so much so that once I have my hands on these bad boys I'll never use the "real" water ever again.

[sithlrd98]

  Bravo! Your ingenuity and talent is very inspiring! I can't wait to get my hands on these! Excellent job!

Jayson

[mike3775]

Is there anything left to discover in this game?

EDIT:  Oh, I'm (and several others are, as well) still working on underbridge roads, for one. -DE

[bakerton]

Wowzers David, You  could say the old TPW flowed out and the new TPW ploped right in. I am amazed at your work. Anyway, I do wonder what the NAM stuff you are working on with short notice might be. Any how, keep on ploping us readers with amazement. JKB

[ldvger]

Well, I played around with the new PW, combining it with old PW and all I can say is how frustrating the experience was for me.  Not casting aspersions on ANYONE who has been working on this issue for the past, what, 4-5 years? 

A lot of my frustration is with the game itself.  I never noticed this before, but when you rotate your view in game, the terrain shifts.  For instance, I was working this evening in attempting to create a tiny little mountain stream running downhill and connecting a series of small alpine lakes.  I made my holes and flat spots.  I used road tiles to make flat spots and then dragged roads downhill to create a downwards slopping watercourse for the stream.  I did some fine terraforming to make sure the watercourses were the low points on the map, that there was nothing but high ground around them.  It took a while, working back and forth with road tiles, roads, and raise terrain tools, but I thought I finally had a "naked" watercourse all laid out from the first and largest lake at the top of a small mountain to the bottom of the mountain where the stream then met flat terrain.  I zoomed in and out, rotated the view all the way around and I thought it looked pretty realistic.  Then I started plopping water.  I used the 9x12 flat beta David posted a couple of days ago for the largest/highest lake, then used 1 and 1/2 tile jeronij PW for the stream leading across flat ground to the next little lake.  This is where I came across my first snag.  When I rotated my view, my large lake disappeared.  To get it to reappear, I had to click on the icon for it in the fly-out menu bar.  This happened fairly consistently.  Just about everytime I rotated my view, the new PW would disappear.  Didin't matter what magnification I was at.  Not a big deal, really.  I know it's there and if I need it, I can call it back easy enough. 

My second lake I made using 1x1 JRJ PW tiles.  No problem, I had prepared a flat spot for them, and where I came up against the edges of the lake shore, I switched to the 1/2 size tiles, so I wouldn't accidently have any water climbing the walls of the shoreline around the lake.  This was a little more difficult, took more time, more bulldozing and experimenting, but I was finally happy with what I got.  It looked good from various rotations, too, so I was ready to start downhill to the next little lake.  And this is where things started getting messed up.

I had made a slightly sloped channel for the stream to run in.  I used all 1/2 PW tiles to keep the stream within the bed prepared for it.  But, when I rotated the view, the channel changed and now I had water running horizontally on the slope above the channel instead of in the channel itself. 

Things just got worse from there.  I had some steeper areas I tried to put rapids and waterfalls into.  They would be fine from one view and totally bizarre from a rotated view. 

Sigh.  It's probably just my lack of technique that causes me these issues, I realize.  I just have to keep plying around with all the many tools until I find something that works.  Its just, well, frustrating.

Sorry to vent...

Lora/LD

EDIT:  Hang in there, Lora- that tutorial is coming up by the end of the week.  In the meantime, I'll try to duplicate the problems you encountered.  Anyone else with troubles like this- make sure you let us know. -DE

[thundercrack83]

I...I got nothing, David.

You've exhausted my entire vocabulary. More unbelievable stuff here at 3RR!

Take care, my friend!

Dustin

EDIT:  You take care, too, Dustin.  Take some time to be with family over the next couple of days remembering your grandmother.  Again, you and yours are in my thoughts. -DE

[calibanX]

Great stuff David. It's becoming a habit telling you how cool your discoveries are. I'm looking forward to seeing your water used to it's full potential in the city journals. And thanks for the NAM hint. That's great news.

Geoff

[CaptCity]

David, David, David... You sure make it hard for a fella to plan that one perfect city...    From the Farm Fields, to FAR and FARR, then STR... Then when I think I've got it all figured out, along comes the new TPW! Guess I'll have to think bigger, and plan that one perfect Region to get it all in. Gosh, what's could possibly be next? Sshhh... Don't tell us. I like surprises. Wonderful work! 

[dedgren]

Just some TPW pond eye candy for those late night munchies.



This is another concept.  I wanted to see if I could turn a 3x4 pane of TPW into a smooth-edged more or less oval pond.  You saw the early stages in my last post.  The smaller view levels (0, 1 and 2) are giving me fits.  I just about have 2 figured out.  The smaller ones are tomorrow's problem.





Good night.


David

294188

[frdrcklim]

Wow. notice how the pond just blends with the background .

[Darmok]

A pond, a rock, a log....
all that's missing is me, a good book, sunshine, and we're in business!
Just looking at it and I'm already relaxing!

Bravo!

[jacqulina]

beautifull pond there david