Port St Claire (#36)

[Kergelen]

PSC is becoming more and more interesting. Great road mod and T21ing. The use of bushes in the diagonals is perfect for not leaving empty spaces

Nice rural pictures and congrats for the OSITM

[rooker1]

Congrats on the OSITM award, having a double check on your work lately, you are clearly an obvious chioce! 
Your farming areas make me jealous, I really need to try harder I guess, but I'm never happy with how mine turns out.  I think I'm going to have a few of your pics open on my second monitor while I'm in game next time.
Great work and I look forward to spending the month with you.

Robin

[mave94]

According to the topic icon I didn't make a comment here. It's a shame, because this is an interesting MD. Now it's time to stop lurking and leave a comment.

Your rural areas are great. The integration of the RRP tracks along the fields are particularly nice. Are you going to make that a road MOD? That would be nice. The background information about your region gives your MD a nice touch. The wooden shops fit in very well, but I can also spot some brick houses. Did they already have brick houses in the colonial period?
It's always nice to see an update by you. I'm looking forward to seeing some railways.

-Matthijs

[Swordmaster]

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


#2

Careful readers may have noticed something last update that wasn't there before. I've been playing around with terrain textures. Let me show four incarnations I've had in PSC so far.

No HD pix this time, as I haven't fired up the game in full-screen.

1.  Let's use this shot of some cows resting in the shade. Here's the Appalachian mod. An obvious choice for my region, but a little hard on the pastures. It's a mountain mod, after all.


2.  What if it gets a little lighter? Notice I've played with the TerrainTexTilingFactor. I was quite pleased with this version.


3.  However, you have to check all your options. Let's bring in Gobias. Yes, too green. But a nicer texture for pastures.


4.  So, let's give it the same treatment. Lighten it up, some different stretching factor. . . Well, I like this one. Goes well with fall colors, too. What do you think? It could get even lighter, more towards grass-green, but I enjoy this one for now.


5.  Heh, you're not the only one eyeing these ladies. . .


6.  A summer view.


Also note that the tiling factor has an influence on the imaginary zoom level. Picture 1 appears to have a closer zoom if you focus on the terrain only. Picture 4, at least in my opinion, looks to give a better illusion of the height you're watching from.

Replies

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

Thank you Matt. I hope PSC will continue to surprise you for some time to come.

Congratulations for the OSITM award, Willy!

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

Thanks my friend. I try to produce a nice result without having to do a ton of work. Let's see if it pays off.

Does dirt roads look fantastic! 

Oh, great to have you here, Erik. Fantastic to see you've returned to our favorite boards. I've been waiting for a return of 's-Gravenveen for a long time – maybe one day? I certainly hope you stick around to see the winding road PSC will take.

Congratulations on that OSITM!

Hehe, Willy's Willows!

Nice, it's on my Birthday!

Thanks! And happy birthday!

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

Thanks, bat. Good to have you here as well.

Congrats on OSITM! Your project looks fantastic!

Thank you!

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 

Thanks, buddy! I'm having trouble finding more of these crummy sheds. Many barns and farms are a little too modern for my tastes. And I'd much appreciate any input (positive or negative) on the transit modding. I think it looks quite well, but maybe someone's got even better ideas. It's certainly true what you've said: a road mod gives the most options, but will only appeal to a niche public. A SAM mod may be more popular, but is less flexible. Next update or so we'll get to some more stuff I did with it.

I see I didn't post here  .

What beautiful rural landscape 

Hope to see more soon and congrats for the OSITM

Thanks, Antoine! Actually, you've already posted here on October 26 – yes, I keep stats   But you're always welcome here, anytime – the stove is on and the soup should be ready in a minute.

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.

Thank you! This update is all about you

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.

Oh, to have my favorite BATer pay a visit! And what a great compliment on the lotting. I'm currently working on some R$$ lots and higher densities as well, so your houses will definitely stay our main protagonist here for a while.

PSC is becoming more and more interesting. Great road mod and T21ing. The use of bushes in the diagonals is perfect for not leaving empty spaces

Nice rural pictures and congrats for the OSITM

Thanks! Still needs some work, though.

Congrats on the OSITM award, having a double check on your work lately, you are clearly an obvious chioce! 
Your farming areas make me jealous, I really need to try harder I guess, but I'm never happy with how mine turns out.  I think I'm going to have a few of your pics open on my second monitor while I'm in game next time.
Great work and I look forward to spending the month with you.

Robin

Aha! Warm welcome, Robin! I'm glad you found your way to PSC. Thanks for the great compliments – though I don't believe for one second that your farms aren't as good as mine.

According to the topic icon I didn't make a comment here. It's a shame, because this is an interesting MD. Now it's time to stop lurking and leave a comment.

Your rural areas are great. The integration of the RRP tracks along the fields are particularly nice. Are you going to make that a road MOD? That would be nice. The background information about your region gives your MD a nice touch. The wooden shops fit in very well, but I can also spot some brick houses. Did they already have brick houses in the colonial period?
It's always nice to see an update by you. I'm looking forward to seeing some railways.

-Matthijs

Hello, fellow Low Countryman! Good to see you decided to make a post here – welcome. You've certainly made a good point. Brick houses, however, go back quite a while – in fact to the Romans. In recent times, however, they were introduced on greater scales during the Industrial Revolution. I'm not an expert on brick history, but one thing I know is that until much later, they were surely produced locally. As a result, they couldn't have been used on a large scale in PSC at the time, for sure. But some wealthier folks must have built brick places even back then.

On a different note: there aren't nearly enough BATs of that time period to keep it diversified enough. When I started this MD, I didn't even think about going historical. I think we're in a nice compromise position, though, somewhere half-way between historical and doable.




Thanks everyone. We'll be back in no time.

Cheers
Willy

[Jmouse]

I think this is my first visit to Port St Claire, but it won't be the last. I didn't know what I was missing. Your rural scenes are excellent, and your experiments with terrain textures are interesting. Noah, who uses several different textures depending on the time of year and other factors, has already proven that one size does NOT fit all.

I've tried several of them, starting with Meadowshire and going down the list to newer releases. It seems like there's always some little detail or two that I don't care for, though. Nevertheless, I'll try to find time to go back to page one and catch up.

Congrats on getting in OSITM. Obviously a well-deserved honor...
-Joan

[noahclem]

Awesome terrain work Willy    It's fascinating the changes that tweaking the tiling factor can create. All of the textures look just great. In the case of the BOTM I'm curious how the tiling effects the water as you've mentioned because it looks great on land. #2 is the most "ready to go", blending sublimely with the autumn colors. As mentioned, I think the BOTM-based ones may be just a bit too blue for what you're going for here.

The texture work is very literally only part of the picture though and the images themselves are excellent. The farm elements and flora and all the T21ing and network work is extremely impressive. And on a lighter note, there's something about cows I just enjoy    If I come across or remember any suitable sheds I'll be sure to let you know. Until next time...

[Gobias]

Fantastic work here Willy and glad to see you messing around with terrain!  I'll agree with others that the Oberland, really a specialty mod and a tribute to the Alps in spring, is too bright/blueish to match any autumn flora scene and I like what you've done with your changes in pic #4 quite a bit!  Really suits the content well and the color palette is perfect.  One of these days I'll have to start a MD and showcase the BOTM as a European spring-time mod it's designed for.

Texture factor really can be a tricky thing to play with.  If your texture has detail in it then adjusting the tiling factor can easily kill the scale in the texture if something like rocks/flowers or even blades of grass are visible.  Get too close to the texture and those details look oddly huge.  Get too far away from the texture and the details smudge out and just become noise.  You've achieved a real good look here.

Can't wait to see more of PSC and congrats on OSITM.

[Schulmanator]

Great pix! I think you found a very complimentary set of factors which make the picture look good - and of course nice composition. Well done.

[jmyers2043]

...  What if it gets a little lighter? Notice I've played with the TerrainTexTilingFactor. I was quite pleased with this version....

An 8 digit decimal number. Intersting. Did you make a big change or small? What did you change it to?

- Jim

[sunv123]

Poor little cow.

I like how that turned out, though, it could be a little less green.

Looking forward for this OSITM month!

[art128]

Wow!

Nice job tweaking around with terrain mods. Gobias' mod modified sure fits your pictures in the shown season.

[MTT9]

They look great Willy. The previews terrain mod give your images a certain sunset feel in my opinion... but i really like the new one

[Ol.S / Benoit]

Amazing pictures Willy, I love the atmosphere !

[vortext]

Looking good Willy, both your experimentations with the terrain and the street road modding! 

[Swordmaster]

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


#3

We've had our first snow of the season here. Quite the flurry around 6AM, but by the time I got up this afternoon, it was gone already. At least it got me singing White Christmas again
So, let's do something fitting and. . . go to the beach. (Maybe it can bring back those thoughts of summertime.)

I've always known that the ocean shores would be some of PSC's more difficult parts to represent in the game. If you are familiar with America's east coast, you'll know what I'm talking about.

From New York


to New Jersey


North Carolina


and Georgia,


they're often scenes of natural beauty, usually characterized by barrier islands. So, a simple straight shoreline is not an option for us.

Let's have a closer look at the area south of Ocean City, Maryland. This location is interesting because it's a natural park, untouched by building sprees.



You can see five different parts here: the ocean (1), the beach (2), dunes (3), the bay (4), and the mainland (5). It's as good as impossible to achieve an acceptable result using just the default terrain options.

Let's prove that:


Not quite it. Even a bunch of flora can't bring it where I want it.

Here's what I want:
-  dunes off the beach with Orange's sand texture
-  bayside terrain needs to be green
-  bay water of a different color, but still game water (not ploppable)

I know I'll need to use a different terrain mod in coastal tiles, so let's not limit ourselves making a mod that's fully compatible with the inland terrain. We'll need a different beach texture, and tweak almost every other parameter here to get what we want.

* * *

Let's start with the dunes. If you've used Orange's Pyrenean terrain mod, you know there's an option to create these high beaches. This has its obvious limits, though, as all terrain under 280m will use the sand texture. However, there's a feature we can exploit here: moisture. Moisture is spread across the map based on heights and water, for instance on sides of a hill. The fun thing is we can use a different terrain texture in these spots. Let me explain that for a minute.

Every terrain mod is based on an INI file with a table that looks like this:



All these numbers are terrain textures. Every line corresponds to a different temperature (i.e. height). The last line here is the one ranging between 250 and 280m. Every column there represents different moisture. I put in the 0x38 number everywhere I want to use dunes. Basically, that is everywhere except on flat terrain (which will continue to use 0x56 and 0x50).

This is our 0x38 texture, with its IIDs determining the zoom level:



This is the basics of terrain modding. As you can see, it's not very hard. You can slip in any texture, add it in the INI, and watch the results. Like this:



Or this, with the grid on to show you what I did:


That's a good start. The sand texture appears in "moist" areas (at least the ones that are not beach or cliffs – they override everything). But as you can see, the grass is still dominant, and the borders are tiled. Fortunately, there's another exemplar we can play with, namely the one that determines how the 0x38 texture behaves. (Note: if you add a texture to a terrain mod with a new IID, you also need to add such an exemplar for it.)



There's two interesting things here: the spread curve for each zoom level, and the blend strength. I've copied the spread curves of Z1 to all lower levels, and adopted blend strength 2.5 (the default is 1). We want the dunes to be more dominant than the grass when they blend. Let's see what that does:





That's interesting. We'll check back later what happens with this experiment.

Replies

I think this is my first visit to Port St Claire, but it won't be the last. I didn't know what I was missing. Your rural scenes are excellent, and your experiments with terrain textures are interesting. Noah, who uses several different textures depending on the time of year and other factors, has already proven that one size does NOT fit all.

I've tried several of them, starting with Meadowshire and going down the list to newer releases. It seems like there's always some little detail or two that I don't care for, though. Nevertheless, I'll try to find time to go back to page one and catch up.

Congrats on getting in OSITM. Obviously a well-deserved honor...
-Joan

Aha, a mousecomment! Looks like being OSITM is paying off! I know you've been busy, though, and that you like to make thoughtful comments like this one, but I'm really glad you decided to make a post here.

I've started to learn a lot more about terrain in the last couple of weeks, and I'd agree with you that no single mod available is really good for a well-rounded terrain. I know you've been fiddling with beaches as well recently, and maybe this update will give you some ideas. (You know I can help out with the reader parts )

Anyway, hope to see you back!

Awesome terrain work Willy    It's fascinating the changes that tweaking the tiling factor can create. All of the textures look just great. In the case of the BOTM I'm curious how the tiling effects the water as you've mentioned because it looks great on land. #2 is the most "ready to go", blending sublimely with the autumn colors. As mentioned, I think the BOTM-based ones may be just a bit too blue for what you're going for here.

The texture work is very literally only part of the picture though and the images themselves are excellent. The farm elements and flora and all the T21ing and network work is extremely impressive. And on a lighter note, there's something about cows I just enjoy    If I come across or remember any suitable sheds I'll be sure to let you know. Until next time...

Thanks my friend! I'm very grateful for your help in making it even better – we'll get to the updated version soon. As for the water texture, you can see that in this update. The tiling factor was the same as in last one. You can see the waves are smaller, but at least when zooming in this makes for a nice effect.

And you should be lucky here in PSC – livestock farming will become the dominant economic activity over the next couple of decades

Fantastic work here Willy and glad to see you messing around with terrain!  I'll agree with others that the Oberland, really a specialty mod and a tribute to the Alps in spring, is too bright/blueish to match any autumn flora scene and I like what you've done with your changes in pic #4 quite a bit!  Really suits the content well and the color palette is perfect.  One of these days I'll have to start a MD and showcase the BOTM as a European spring-time mod it's designed for.

Texture factor really can be a tricky thing to play with.  If your texture has detail in it then adjusting the tiling factor can easily kill the scale in the texture if something like rocks/flowers or even blades of grass are visible.  Get too close to the texture and those details look oddly huge.  Get too far away from the texture and the details smudge out and just become noise.  You've achieved a real good look here.

Can't wait to see more of PSC and congrats on OSITM.

Thanks! I don't know how many times I've fired up the game in those experiments – probably over a hundred times. But I think it's starting to pay off. I really like the Oberland texture, though. Bar the color scheme, I think it fits perfectly. All that's left is to find the right hue. As for the tiling, I'll keep testing that. I think I'm close to getting the right value for my purpose.

And please, do start an MD! It'd be great to see what you would do with it.

Great pix! I think you found a very complimentary set of factors which make the picture look good - and of course nice composition. Well done.

Thanks! Actually, I don't pay a lot of attention to composition. I just pick out the nicest scene I find.

An 8 digit decimal number. Intersting. Did you make a big change or small? What did you change it to?

- Jim

Hello, Jim. The factor in those last shots was 0.12. I wouldn't change it by more than a few 1/100s at a time. Higher values condense the texture, smaller ones stretch it out.

Poor little cow.

I like how that turned out, though, it could be a little less green.

Looking forward for this OSITM month!

Yes, my (brand new) monitor is still slightly off. I've updated the texture since; we'll look at it soon. Thanks!

Wow!

Nice job tweaking around with terrain mods. Gobias' mod modified sure fits your pictures in the shown season.

Thanks Arthur! The experiment continues. . .

They look great Willy. The previews terrain mod give your images a certain sunset feel in my opinion... but i really like the new one

Thanks. Indeed, it was a little sunset-ish. My aim is to make one that goes well with both fall and summer, though, even if that sacrifices some quality. I hope not too much, though.

Amazing pictures Willy, I love the atmosphere !

Thanks, Benoit! Good to have you here; welcome to PSC!

Looking good Willy, both your experimentations with the terrain and the street road modding! 

Thanks! I hope that road mod can find its way to some form of release some day. Though I'm not yet sure how.




Thanks for visiting. Back in a day or two.

Cheers
Willy

[nbvc]

Great teraforming and texturing.

[sunv123]

Great work here, it must be hard doing this kind of work! Can't wait to see what the final product will be like.

What beach is that in North Carolina? I live in NC and i might have been there!

[Jmouse]

This is the basics of terrain modding. As you can see, it's not very hard. You can slip in any texture, add it in the INI, and watch the results.

Sorry, I can't see it at all. It's a much too complex concept for me to wrap my wee little mouse brain around. I'm glad someone has an adventurous-enough spirit to tackle terrain mods and other such mysterious elements, though. Truly, it is Maxis' customers who have kept SC4 alive and well for so many years, not the company's expertise at software design. The city-building concept has always been fascinating, but the overall eye appeal of the finished product definitely needed some work.

Interesting update this...
-Joan

[MTT9]

Wonder how you will manage to get two different water colors...
I'll have to stay tuned to see if that can actually happen

[weixc812]

To see my neighbour here 
Natural scenes are really great, your attempt of MMPing certainly turns out well. I'm also looking forward to see the way you deal with the seashore terrain. 

Cheers,
Nick