Port St Claire (#36)

[wallasey]

Another fantastic update here, I like how the horse and carts fit into the streetscape, they do not look as if they have been plopped for no reason.

I like the use of matt's new wooden warehouses, they look the part in this setting!

EDIT...where's the champagne?

[noahclem]

Champagne is required indeed 

Port St Claire most certainly has a bright future ahead and is very much deserving of it's new status as a Best Seller! Congratulations Willy and rest assured there are many of us eagerly awaiting the future of what you've created here 

[Swordmaster]

It should be obvious by now that we're building something big here. . .



There should be enough for everyone, so pick away (please, start at the top). If you haven't commented here yet, you're free to join in! Maybe the liquor can seduce you. . .


A big thanks to everyone!


Cheers
Willy

[MTT9]

Congratulations Willy! Very well deserved. Do i hear an OSITM coming?

[sunv123]

Hmmmm, liquor fountain anyone?

There must be something coming up.

[Schulmanator]

I'm thirsty!

[threestooges]

Looking forward to seeing what you're building up to. On behalf of the OSITM Committee, welcome to the month of December.

[vortext]

Congratulations Willy! 

Looking forward to see what you have in store for us! 

[Framly]

Congratz Willy! Well deserved

*takingaglass**sheers*

[Swordmaster]

Looks like we're postponing update 1.0 until next year. . .

P O R T    S T    C L A I R E
O S I T M   1 2 / 1 2

Welcome to my month in spotlight! According to the Mayas, this will be the last OSITM ever, and I'm happy to go out with my boots on. Although I expect we'll all be around a little longer

What to expect here? Aside from a couple of goodies I have, I want to go a bit deeper into the modding end of what I'm doing. Maybe you've noticed that I've become a proud member of the NUTS (Nobody Under Thirty Squad – though I expect I was invited more on grounds of nuttiness than age), and I'm quite excited to see what we can get going together. PSC has always been a modding playground from the get-go, and has driven me to acquire skills I would otherwise never have taken an interest in. I hope some of the things that show up in my MD might in some way or other become a little mod, or some kind of nutty project.

Though of course, all this will remain firmly rooted in the region I hope you've come to associate with me, and the pictures will remain within its context.

One other thing, though, before we start. I feel I've been dealt a terrible hand in having to succeed the eight MDs plus NAM thread plus Matt's interviews that celebrated our birthday month so well. They all did a terrific job, so let me thank them heartily for making happy memories. If we can have half as much fun over here, I'll be more than content!

#1

To start off, I'd like to show something I've been working on for about three weeks. Do you remember those Chris Adams tree-lined dirt tracks that I plopped amongst the farm fields? I figured I didn't want to plop the entire region full of them. Moreover, I was annoyed by the transparent lot bug (which saves to region view and garbles it up), and they're not even a network anyway so they have no function.

I hate things that have no function, although that probably implicates many of my RL co-workers.

So I entered textureland and made a road mod. I wanted some kind of sandy track that only has the occasional traffic. Something like this:



Their first use would be as farm roads, but there's also a bigger plan taking shape.

These pictures are from Barton as it is being largely reworked and expanded.

1.  Just a shed.
Click to see more!


2.  Heh, looks like the milking's just done.
Click to see more!


3.  I'm also using different farm fields. These grow without a farmhouse, as a set of different fields owned by the same family. Looks like we're growing nuts here.
Click to see more!



Why a road mod and not a street mod? Because roads can be dragged diagonally, and I won't need surfaced roads for another century anyway. These textures can be easily ported into an additional SAM network, though (I guess).

Also watch the T21'ing going on. Where I live, these willows are very common trees along farm roads and ditches, and I find their dimensions quite suitable. There's also a bunch of carts that appear on the tracks. The Girafe bushes are a test to make the diagonals work out. I'm not entirely sold on them yet, though.

4.  Drivin' down to Scarborough, for sure. I love how these carts drive under a canopy of trees. I seem to remember the Romans planted road-side trees to provide shadow. This should come in handy in PSC, as well, given its humid summers.
Click to see more!


5.  This one is the same "regional road" I mentioned in update 0.2 (picture 5). I'm much more comfortable with this look, and it's not even a lot more work.
Click to see more!

Replies

Great town and waterfront.

Thanks!

That's one of the fastest growing ones? How much does it grow by per year, mine grows by around 40,000 per year, what about yours? (My secretary says to me that it's in 1790) oh, sorry! hehe.....

Great job with this MD!

Thank you! Glad you have a secretary to remind you of things   In 1790, the largest US city was New York with 33,131 inhabitants. St Claire was founded in 1791 and had over 6,000 inhabitants by 1796 – not bad I think.

Brilliant update again. I like all those little stories hidden in the pictures

Thanks! I just make them up on the spot

Another excellent update! I really like the map

Thanks! The map is just a temporary excerpt of the bigger one I keep, which is more of a tool to stay in charge of the network layout rather than a work on its own. It's just a basic map that can easily be expanded. It should become more interesting as we get more transportation options.

A nice seaport, Willy!

Thanks! Just the humble beginnings, though. Get ready for some major expansion in the early 1800s.

I just love this historic stuff. I admire all the custom lotting you did for this. This is one of the things I was too lazy for in Empire Bay. 

Thank you! I'm a little obsessive in that regard. This could get me in trouble, though, time-wise. Moreover, if I can get a town half as good-looking as EB, I'll be happy enough

Real scale transport facilities as well?! I can't wait for update 1 

Yes, why not? There's plenty of space here and low taxes, so big business will love the big town. And big business needs big docks and big yards

Great historical pics    I love the way you used the new Old Timber Warehouses building. The map is very nice a well.

Interesting to see your workplace. Antwerp certainly has a fascinating transit infrastructure and effectively makes the point that you had the port scale correct!

On a vaguely related note, I was always told growing up that the town I was born in had the widest rail yard in the world at 130 tracks wide. I had to compare to your workplace for scale and it is indeed quite big. Kinda funny for a town in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, here's the railyard in North Platte

Come to Finland, you'll fit right in     But yeah, having an MD definitely influences playing style. I've really enjoyed it because it's pushed me out of my old comfort "bubble" and forced me to try lots of cool stuff. Also, Girafe flora is amazing!

The countdown to Best Sellers is ticking down...  Can't wait for 1.0 

Thanks, Noah! You were born in North Platte? That's funny because it has the largest railyard in the world, indeed. Not surprisingly in that location, actually, because these kind of yards don't need anything except space. It's used for sorting cars of incoming trains depending on destination, so it's not the kind of yard you see in industrial areas, where factories are served.

Yards in America are quite different from those in Europe, primarily because of train length, so it's hard to compare the two. I think Antwerp will be more or less around #1 in the world looking at number of tracks and number of yards. It certainly is if you count all the yards in the port itself along: 1,055 km of rail – twice that of North Platte! I'll be paying a lot of attention on railyard construction and will probably do a couple of tutorials on function and such.

Another fantastic update here, I like how the horse and carts fit into the streetscape, they do not look as if they have been plopped for no reason.

I like the use of matt's new wooden warehouses, they look the part in this setting!

EDIT...where's the champagne?

Thanks for starting the party! The carts don't look like they're plopped because. . . they aren't   They're T21'd onto the streets, so that's one thing I don't have to spend time on anymore. (If you're not following, T21 exemplars control things like stoplights, street trees and streetlights appearing; of course you can also make objects appear on the streets/roads instead of next to them.)

Champagne is required indeed 

Port St Claire most certainly has a bright future ahead and is very much deserving of it's new status as a Best Seller! Congratulations Willy and rest assured there are many of us eagerly awaiting the future of what you've created here 

Thank you! The future is long and should pass many an interesting point in history, indeed. But how much fun it is, that's what you folks are making!

Congratulations Willy! Very well deserved. Do i hear an OSITM coming?

Thanks! Wait a minute. . . how did you guess that one?   We were simply celebrating 100 posts! But here we are anyway.

Hmmmm, liquor fountain anyone?

There must be something coming up.

There's always something coming up here. The anticipation towards something is always better than the final outcome.

I'm thirsty!

Have a go! Thanks for stopping by.

Looking forward to seeing what you're building up to. On behalf of the OSITM Committee, welcome to the month of December.

Thank you, Matt, and the whole committee. It's an honor! And I hope you'll stop by again.

Congratulations Willy! 

Looking forward to see what you have in store for us! 

Thanks! Some of the usual, and some of the unusual, I think.   You've certainly punched me in the right direction with your street geekery.

Congratz Willy! Well deserved

*takingaglass**sheers*

Thanks Franky! Prosit.




We'll be back

Cheers
Willy

[MTT9]

Haha, i don't know how i guessed... I just think you deserved it

I wouldn't have guessed however that you re-textured your roads. Very clever! They give PSC a great 1800's feel.

Keep it up my friend

[art128]

Congratulations for the OSITM award, Willy!

Very nice farming pictures around here. They all look wonderful !

[Serkanner]

Does dirt roads look fantastic! 

[sunv123]

Congratulations on that OSITM!

Hehe, Willy's Willows!

Nice, it's on my Birthday!

[bat]

Congrats on your OSITM-award! And wonderful work on your MD. The rural images are nice.

[rambuckel]

Congrats on OSITM! Your project looks fantastic!

[noahclem]

Excellent pictures Willy    You've really created some lovely scenes, with the shed ones being particularly enjoyable for me. The road override and T21ing are fantastic projects that I'm looking forward to learning more about. Congratulations on your OSITM, it looks set to be a spectacular month 

[Girafe]

I see I didn't post here  .

What beautiful rural landscape 

Hope to see more soon and congrats for the OSITM

[Gobias]

Love the new Dec 2 update!   Holy cow, PSC looks fantastic!  Great screenshots and love the road re-texture.  Keep up the good work!  The barn-scene is perfectly staged.

[c.p.]

The road mod/T21 project looks very promising.   Also, your town's 19th century look (on the previous page) is amazing.  Glad to see my little houses being put to such good use.  Looks like lots of very high-quality lotting going on there as well.