Three Rivers Region

[Gaston]

Edit: 28JULY07:
Welcome to page 74


Interesting work David.     I've done a few of these when I could get "land bridges" to cooperate.   LOL     They just sorta created themselves.   


---Gaston


BTW,
   I'm back from vacation.

[abcvs]

OK here I am ...  I have chased you over here from ST...  joined up and everything...

Trying out all the buttons and stuff - man it is like driving someone elses car for the first time...

Anyway I hope you can help with that disappearing waterfall problem.....


ooohhh this is cool ....

and this is pretty good too...
Wow!

Craig

[BigSlark]

Welcome to SC4D, Craig. Check out Introduce yourself to SC4 Devotion community and the whole "Welcome to SC4 Devotion" Sub board has great info on using the site.

And, so that I'm not completely threadjacking 3RR from David, thanks for explaining the dam. I'll have to give it a try at some point this weekend.

I envision a mill pond with Slay Fork Mill on it, an earth dam, some downed trees in the water, and c.p.'s low wealth 19th century houses making a great addition to a rural corner of 3RR.

Cheers,
Kevin

[dedgren]

You have no idea...



I'm off to bed.  New stuff, greetings and some answers tomorrow!

Later.


David

[Pat]

LoL and some stuff tomorrow ehh David lol... Very good progress dude... 

[bat]

Great progress, david! Looking forward to the next post...

[abcvs]

Hey thanks for the welcome Big Slark!



Yes I have no idea..  what the heck that grid map thingy is ... but it looks like something that is taking you a lot of time and effort!

[dedgren]

OK, Craig (abcvs) first- I have Saturday traffic court in about an hour.

Yes I have no idea..  what the heck that grid map thingy is ...

...sometimes I wonder myself... 

No, actually it is a composite of each of the 256 quad 256x256 pixel "maps" that displays from the "Mayor Mode" in the game.  When I'm done, I'll have a 4,096x4,096 pixel mega-terrain map of all of 3RR, which will allow me to do things at the regional level that currently I cannot.  You'll have to trust me on this one for a bit.

Unfortunately, the process is a slow one for two reasons.  One, it involves importing into a special "One Quad" region I have set up each quad.  This means opening the quad, with the attendant time that it takes, and then taking the screenshot, then going over to Paint Shop Pro to crop and save the map, which then must be pasted into the larger map.  That simply takes time and is very tedious.  Second, even though I fine terraformed each quad last fall, I cannot seem to resist the temptation to fiddle with many of them again.  I'm adding streams, swales, recontouring hills, making shorelines more gentle... you name it.  I've spent more than an hour on a few quads, and have probably reterraformed half or so of the 129 I've done so far.  I desperately want to complete this aspect of the project this week- I'll keep everyone posted.

* * *

The second issue you've raised, my friend, is that of the disappearance of the waterfalls (and rapids lots, too) at "game" view levels 1 and 2.  I have been aware of that issue for some time.  For those who are wondering, here's what Craig and I are talking about...

...steps over to the 3RR waterfall testbed...

Here's our "stream" falls at level 3.


Switching to level 2...


...hey!  Where'd it go?

The answer is that the "effects" prop I use is not visible at levels below 3.

Now, here's something interesting.  A bit ago, jeronij discovered some new water effects props that he has released on the LEX [linkie].  Among them is something he calls the "water drop."  Here, at level 5, is a waterfall lot created with the water drop next to my old one.



Looks pretty good- I'd tweak it some, but that's for later.

Level 4.



Level 3, and here the problems show up.



It's like the Energizer Bunny [linkie]- it just keeps going and going...

However, it doesn't disappear at level 2...



...or level 1.



So, we seem sort of "darned if we do-darned if we don't."  All that said, I'm experimenting with some things, and had planned to release a completely updated set of both waterfall and rapids lots later this summer.  I have some ideas...

I'll leave you with an amusing pic I took while setting up the waterfall lab.



Sheesh!

Later.


David

[NASCAR_Guy]

That mountains a bit leaky isn't it?

[Pat]

it sprung a massive leak omg David is that what you was talking about OMG OMG if thats the case i sooooooo cant wait to get ahold of it for "waterfalls".... - pat



btw i made me my 1,000th post here... sweeeeeeeet

[Swamper77]

David,

The zoom levels that the Effects will appear at in the game is controlled by the EffectsDirectory itself. Unless you feel like working with stacks of nothing but hex code for hours, I would recommend that you keep doing what you are doing with finding workarounds using other Effects, like you have shown here.

-Swamper77

[Shadow Assassin]

Why do you import the city tile into another region? That's kind of inefficient - why not just open up that quad, pause it or whatever, go to mayor mode, and take it from there?


Interesting tricks with the waterfalls, though.

[Patriots1228]

nice work with those new rapids, i use them myself as waterfalls or to compliment PEGs waterfalls. You deserve some sort of an award for all the linking you do [linkie] [linkie this] [linkie that] 

[BigSlark]

Man, I like waterfalls more and more. Hopefully they'll be sorted out by the time I get to the mountain quads in my new region...

Jackin' up the post count and attempting to give David yet more encouragement,

Cheers,
Kevin

[dedgren]

I'm off to bed early tonight (10:00 p.m. AST - GMT-9) as it's just been a wearing day for some reason.  Here's a shot of the Fox River Valley, though, that I ran over at ST yesterday as a (then) exclusive there.  It generated more comments on 3RR-ST [linkie] than I've had there in a long time.  That's parts of 30 large quads (cities) that you're looking at.



And the larger version [linkie] which will open in a new window (330kb).

Enjoy, g'night.


David

[abcvs]

*Limps back in from the "Introduce your self here" thread...*

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=83.msg55012#msg55012

There are some photos there if you are interested.

Thanks for the answers on the disappearing waterfalls, David - now I know there is an established problem I can stop tearing my hair out trying to fix it!  

Your waterfall and stream tutorial, in your 3RR STCJ really was helpful and I hope that my river and waterfall skills will improve from my first attempt.

Linky => (sorry about the monstrous links but my attempt to make a tidy one failed miserably...)

http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=89532&STARTPAGE=9

OK - I am going to have to learn how to make those "tidy" linkies...

Can some one send me a PM or email ... on how to do it the SC4D way?

... and thanks to all of you who have sent PMs to welcome me and point me in the right direction.  I will, go back and read this from page one...  It looks really interesting - probably why I made my SC4D debut here!

Thanks guys!

[bat]

Great pictures of that waterfall and nice map!

[Rayden]

... OK - I am going to have to learn how to make those "tidy" linkies...

Can some one send me a PM or email ... on how to do it the SC4D way?

...

Welcome to our comunity, here you'll find anything you want, even a tutorial to help you linking

Edit: The best way to learn how to link anything, besides my tutorial , it's to quote someone's posts with links and see how he did it. But don't forget that it's only for educational purposes and cancel the quote after looking at its structure. Don't start quoting everyone without having something to say actually.

[dedgren]

Following some really odd computer behavior late last night and early this morning, I'll be shutting down for several hours of a deep virus/malware scan.

In the meantime, you should go check out the many great MDs here at SC4D- in particular some of the newer ones [linkie].  There's a lot of really good content there, and the August "Of Special Interest" selection process is coming up.

Or, just step back from the computer a bit.  Go outside.  Walk the dog.  Breathe!

Whatever you do, have a great late summer day!

Back in a while.


David

[BigSlark]

Sorry hear about computer strangeness. And I agree, the new MD's area really neat.

My real reason for posting is what the heck do you mean, "late summer"!?! When does it start snowing in your neck of Alaska? Its 88 with a heat index of 105 and 97% humidity down here in Central Mississippi. We won't see a freeze any earlier than October 15, but probably mid-November this year as its been a little hotter than normal...

Cheers,
Kevin