[Rady]

Great developement on the TTR!! All of you still add new stuff faster than it takes me to download, install and use it ...

Looking forward for the next pistures from the 3RR!

[Gugu3]

May I congratulate with you for your exceptional work on TTR?
Gugu3

[art128]

Congrats on 900.000 views, David! Now to the 100.000 left!

Also, nice work on the last switches.

[thundercrack83]

900,000 views.

Statistics like that just boggle the mind, David--but, when you think about things like TTR (just the latest in a string of insanely groundbreaking events), it's not so mind-boggling!

3RR has been a haven of mine for a very long time now. Through the ebbs and flows of our lives, there has always been solace in the words and images that can be found here. Let's forget (if possible!) about the breakthroughs here, and think about how many of those 900,000+ views have just been friends popping in to say, "Hi," or to let you know that we're thinking about you and your family, or just to catch a glimpse of what's happening way up north in Alaska.

Friendship and camaraderie like what is found in 3RR (and, by extension, all of SC4D) does not come around very often in life--it's one of the hallmarks of the Internet. I'm grateful that I could be a small part of the great things that have happened, and will continue to happen here in this wonderful place.

Congratulations on this milestone, David, my very good friend. Here's to 3RR, here's to 900,000+ more, and most importantly, here's to you and your friendship.

Dustin

[vortext]

wow, 900k views, that's a lot. More impressive however is the development of the TTR, what a neat idea and great development already. 

I'm curious to learn which program you use to make the (curved) textures. Up untill now I've used good ol' PhotoShop for texturing. It's fine for dirt streets and such but I'm planning on something rail related myself and I suspect PS will fall short eventually since tracks require far more accuracy.


Ok, never mind, for the second time this evening I should've read more carefull.

I wish my graphics program (the low-end but really cheap Paint Shop Pro X4) could arrange objects along a spline.  It would greatly speed things up, as I have to make 30 rotate-copy-paste-align trips for each 45 degree curve.

Kinda disappointing  I thought of that myself and was hoping for something with a spline function indeed. In any case, copy-paste and rotate seems to do the trick

[noahclem]

Congratulation on 900,000 views David--really a staggering achievement!

Also, glad you enjoyed the website link. I particularly like looking at it this time of year when one is so sick of the darkness and reading about the days' rapid lengthening can be very nice    And yes, I do live near Taivalkoski most of the time, though I'm writing now from my other home/girlfriend's home in Rovaniemi, on the Arctic Circle and yet another degree of latitude further up! Thanks for the kind words and I'll be doing my best to keep warm.

@ Metarvo - while there are certainly days a more moderated day/night schedule would be nice, especially if it's really dark before there's snow on the ground, variety is the spice of life! Us northerners also enjoy much longer sunrises and sunsets

[dedgren]

Side track!



I'll say no more for right now.


David

901673

[mike3775]

oh man David you are spoiling us

[rooker1]

Damn....I am not doing any more rail yards or train station until this is released.
Great work my friend.  I am becoming very anxious.
Robin

[Battlecat]

Yeah, that's one of the rail pieces I've been wishing for right there!  Love it!

[carlfatal]

Never i was a believer but i will become one. This is...
I stare and stare and have to believe my dreams come true...    
Have i really seen this picture? Did someone else have seen the same like me?
My, i´ll call the doctor,   

Mr Edgren, You have blown my mind away, everything is wonderful now, although it´s harder than ever to be patient. Real railyards, no fake, the beginning of a new era in planning mass transport, this is awesome, no - it is completely genious... 

[Rady]

David, let me ask just one thing - is there a mod to change the existing (Maxis and RAM) rail texture to the one you are using in 3RR?? I'm right now using Rivets Rail Mod (http://workingman-productions.co.uk/downloads/shore_rivit.html), which provides a common texture for both Maxis and RAM rail pieces, but once you are so greatful as to share your magic TTR developement, there will be a texture mismatch again.

EDIT:  Rady, I think my textures should match Rivit's, which are excellent. -de

[dedgren]

The road to a million page views.

Yesterday, 3RR saw its 900,000^th page view since December 20, 2006, the day we started the thread here.  That's 489 views per day for each of the 1,841 days during that period- just about one every three minutes.  I have never been more in awe of your continued dedication to whatever it is that we have going on here.

The average views don't tell the whole story, though.  I've updated a chart we did back at 700,000 views a year ago.
                                                      

3RR "00000" Page View Dates and Posts
Views	__Date_Achieved__	_How_Long_It_Took_	_____Linkie_____	_Average_Views_per_Day_
100,000	July 6, 2008	18 months	Post 4145	178
200,000	December 26, 2008	5 months	Post 6114	658
300,000	May 6, 2009	5 months	Post 7811	758
400,000	August 28, 2009	4 months	Post 8751	877
500,000	December 8, 2009	4 months	Post 9143	893
600,000	April 12, 2010	4 months	Post 9671	671
700,000	January 6, 2011	9 months	Post 9922	408
800,000	September 7, 2011	8 months	Post 10107	410
900,000	January 15, 2012	4 months	Post 10278	769

As you can see, 3RR's first year and a half was taken up getting to the first 100,000 views.  Over 4,000 of those views resulted in posts, though, a number never even approached since.  My guess is that the number of you that looked in at 3RR during those initial months did so a couple of times a day, and that most of those page views were by members, or guests who then joined SC4D.

Things began to change in the last months of 2008.  The pace of commenting slowed, but views more than tripled.  Looking back at that time, there was a lot going on.  Those were the months we were developing STR, and the interest in that project was huge.  Again, I think most of the views were members keeping up, probably multiple times each day.

2009 was a huge year for 3RR.  We rang the 100,000 bell three different times, and the average pace of views reached its high water mark- about double our average over the years.  Posts in the summer of 2009 remark upon 1,500 page views on some days- more than one a minute.  This is the first year I recollect seeing, though, significant numbers of guests. 

My dad passed away in the fall of 2009, then I caught severe pneumonia and I began my first major hiatus from 3RR.  This continued into the first months of 2010 and the pace of my updates over the whole year was way down.  Page views reflected my absences, falling through the 600 level at the start of the year back to the low 400s, where they stabilized and remained at that level into the fall of 2011.

During 2011, 3RR was pretty much on autopilot.  My development efforts pretty much stopped as we became more and more involved in dealing with my grandchild Aidan's ultimately terminal illness.  I would post and disappear, sometimes for weeks at a time.  I tried to let folks know that we would be back, but I'll admit that there were times when that looked like a pretty bleak prospect.  During Aidan's last months I didn't post at all, and I feel terrible about that.

You folks, though, believed.  3RR's daily page views actually began increasing during late 2011, and we wound up the year with almost 200,000 views- a very respectable number given my extended periods of going missing.

I returned in earnest just after Christmas Day of last year and have tried hard to post on a daily basis ever since.  We also took the wraps off of development efforts on TTR, which is clearly a big deal for many in the community.  Since January ^1st, we have almost 20,500 views in 16 days- an average of about 1,280 views per day.  Some days we've exceeded 1,500 views, and I don't see that changing soon as the textures your looking at now start turning into puzzle pieces and then begin showing up in the game.  As you saw earlier today, there's other interesting things in the works as well.  I think the next 100,000 views (actually a few less than 98,000 now) will come more quickly than at any time in 3RR's history.

So, the question on the table is when will we hit a million page views?  At 1,280 per day, it would be about 77 days from now: April 2, 2012.  At 893 per day, the long-term average high, it would be May 5, 2012.  Shooting for the moon, at 1,500 per day it would be March 22, 2012.  What's your guess?

I'll announce mine right here, right now.  3RR was started six years ago on March 12, 2006.



I believe we can hit a million page views by then (and at 2:03 pm AST, too).  It would take 1,750 views per day each day between now and then, but I'm up for it.  There will be amazing things happening here over the next two months, and I hope you (and all those lurkers) will find them of interest.

As for your guesses- yes, it is another 3RR contest.  I'll be announcing the prize, which will be a nice one, over the next few days.  Here's the rules.

You have until midnight Alaska time on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, to guess the day, hour and minute (no seconds, -please - I really don't like math) 3RR will have it's 1,000,000th page view.  The fine print:

1.  The winning guess will be the the one matching or closest under the actual time.  No prize (but plenty of genuine sympathy- been there, done that) if you are a minute over and the next guess under is 13 hours away.  I know- it's arbitrary, but so is life generally.

2.  In the event of two identical guesses that would each be the winner otherwise, the Regular who guesses first will be congratulating the first runner up.  In other words, you can wait 'til the end to see if you can fine tune a bit of advantage, but you might do that at significant cost.

3.  All times will be converted as necessary to Alaska Standard Time (in other words, UST/GMT -9) until 2:00 a.m. on March 11, 2012, and then as adjusted by Daylight Savings Time  (UST/GMT -8).  Any guess that does not specify the time by the close of entries on January 31^st will be deemed to be made for 12:00 a.m. on the date given.

4.  One guess per Regular, which must be made in a post on the thread, and no changing (no edits, in other words) your guess once it is made.

So give this some thought.  Don't be optimistic just because I am, but be aware that we seem to be in a period of unprecedented interest in 3RR.

Good luck!


David

902267

[mike3775]

During Aidan's last months I didn't post at all, and I feel terrible about that.

Don't feel bad about that at all.  When I was involved on a non simcity site and was an administrator there running it while the site founder was gone, one of my kids was in an automobile accident and had to be sent to a downstate hospital where he remained for close to 6 months I didn't post or bother going online that time because I or the wife practically lived in a Ronald McDonald House(and for that I will always donate to them no matter my financial situation) for the entire time, and the site died for the most part, and the founder had sent me an email blaming me for it, and I told him "sorry but my kids take precedent over any online community, so kindly @#$% off".  Real Life will always take precedence to everyone who posts on this site, yourself included. 

I am sad to hear of Aiden's passing, but the fact that you spent the last few months of his life surrounding him with love is what matters the most.

[rooker1]

1,000,000 views here in 3RR will happen on April 13th at 1:13pm.
Not as optimistic as your guess. 
Good luck to you on hitting a million views before your sixth year anniversary.....that would be an extraordinary achievement.  I'm very sure between now and the time you do hit the million, I will have contributed a few hundred views myself.
 I can think of one way for you to pass the million views much sooner than later.

Good luck again my friend.
Robin

[dedgren]

A little yard work...





The ultimate configuration and mix of these and other railyard pieces is still far from settled.  When the whim takes me, I just experiment a bit more.  That said, I think the switches are right.

On to the last TTR switch textures- DTR ortho, TTR FAR3 and diag variants.

* * *

A big happy birthday to Jim (jmyers2043), a great supporter of 3RR and fine custom content creator.


David

903244

[Tarkus]

I've definitely got a place I can stick those in Chemeketa.  This will be so much better and more realistic than fudging with parallel DTR lines, and I have a feeling this feature will prove very popular amongst RAM users.

-Alex

[Battlecat]

Fantastic stuff, I'm really curious where you're heading with this! 

I'm going to guess March 24th at 6:00 pm for the millionth page view.  Based on the rates you're listing, I'm not certain you'll quite make it.  It would be cool to see though! 

[Lowkee33]

Not to be too close to David, I'm going for March 16th, zero hour for GMT.

Tracks are looking great as per usual.

[apeguy]

excellent railyard textures, like many I'll find them extremely useful.


I'm going to wait a little while before I make my guess, see how the view count goes over time.

EDIT:  Welcome to the Double-0 Club, my friend.  I'm pretty sure this is a first time for you- glad to have you aboard. -de