Ennedi plays Shosaloza

[Jmouse]

Stunning update as always, Adam. The water transition is flawless as are the rest of the details you've shown. It's always a treat to spend time here soaking up the beauty and inspiring my imagination.

Later...
Joan

[spa]

This is an amazing cj. I love the pictures of your countrysides. It's all so beautiful.

[c.p.]

The water transition looks great   But even better is the variety of water colors, all of which are beautiful, and seem to make sense with one another.

[kimcar]

  Wow great photoshop that you have done. Excellent work on this. You got a great skill for do that 

[ExiLe]

Some of the pictures you have made looks more like paintings or HD pictures than in-game shots. I understand that they are edited, but still... WOW

Great work man, keep it up! 

[bat]

Great work on these pictures! The last picture of that update is looking beautiful! The others are also great!
Looking forward to more...

[MAS71]

Powitanie Drogi mój przyjaciel Ennedi san. 
Dawno nie zobaczyć , Jak się masz ?

Wow !! You'r really great Adam san !!
You always have a good understanding with BATs and use them very well more than creator(me ) in your cities.

by the way,,,,

1. Connecting canals with the sea is always a big problem.
Here is a river mouth (MAS71 JRP). What do you think about this transition?

Oh !! This transition makes me surprised !! 
It's a really beatiful ! and very natural connected erea.
I'm glad to you use them.  You are re-makes my poor works to wonderful one !! 

Recentry, I have no time to play SC4 and make something with BAT.
bur I'm always think that want to see your cities.

Please becarful your health, and have a nice day always Adam san.

Thank you for reading.
-Mas'71

[pvarcoe]

What an amazing set of pictures Adam.
With several pictures I am left scratching my head and asking...How does he do that?
Super stuff!

Take care
Phil

[Ennedi]

Hello my friends,
Thank you for your visits and so great feedback!

Wow Adam, this is awesome !! the transition looks so real !!! 
Excellent work my friend !! 
Arthur.

Hello Arthur, I'm very glad you like it - even more because it needed some hard work 

Hi Adam

The mod is looking super, excelent work on it  . This update is, as well, so fantastic
This seaport is one of the best I've ever seen  . The river is very nice, also the transition is good too .
The two last pictures are so réalistic. Once Again, incredible work there.
Take care my friend,

David

Hello David, good to see you again! Yes, the seaport area looks nice, but it's only the beginning. Now I must build something nice here...

I'm not sure I quite understand. Did you blend a canal set water with game water there 
If so the transition between canal and sea looks absolutely fantastic. Either way, I mean, everything you build looks amazing. Also, It is good to see that you are continuing sharing this with us 

Thomas

Hello turtle, thank you for compliments and I hope it will not your last visit in Shosaloza  . You are right, I blended canal set water with an ingame one. The canal water was placed on the sea bottom. How? I will show it in the next update with all details, and maybe more will be clear for you after reading today's update.

Stunning update as always, Adam. The water transition is flawless as are the rest of the details you've shown. It's always a treat to spend time here soaking up the beauty and inspiring my imagination.

Later...
Joan

Thank you Joan! I know you haven't much time lately, so every your visit is even more appreciated  I will be happy if I'll give you an inspiration or at least some relax 

This is an amazing cj. I love the pictures of your countrysides. It's all so beautiful.

Thank you very much spa! I'm very glad you visited my MD, I like your creations very much and it's a great pleasure you like some of my work too

The water transition looks great   But even better is the variety of water colors, all of which are beautiful, and seem to make sense with one another.

Hello Brian, what a nice surprise!  Good to hear your opinion, one of my is to test various combinations of colors and surfaces. Now I'm working (slowly ) with the terrain mod - you raised the bar very high  . But I'm thinking about rock and water mods too, so I'm looking for new ideas. Please visit me from time to time, your comments will be very appreciated, especially critical ones 

Wow great photoshop that you have done. Excellent work on this. You got a great skill for do that 

Thank you kimcar! I'm glad you like my pictures, but there is still a lot to learn and to improve. Every time I open Photoshop, I feel like a complete newbie, so my best pictures are mainly happy coincidences 

Some of the pictures you have made looks more like paintings or HD pictures than in-game shots. I understand that they are edited, but still... WOW

Great work man, keep it up! 

It is because I have good terrain and good BAT's. If they would be poor even the best graphic artist couldn't make anything interesting. Sometimes I play with PS, but my main intention is to show how good custom content we have. If only the game graphics quality could be improved...

Great work on these pictures! The last picture of that update is looking beautiful! The others are also great!
Looking forward to more...

Thank you very much bat! Please visit me again 

Powitanie Drogi mój przyjaciel Ennedi san. 
Dawno nie zobaczyć , Jak się masz ?

Wow !! You'r really great Adam san !!
You always have a good understanding with BATs and use them very well more than creator(me ) in your cities.

by the way,,,,
Oh !! This transition makes me surprised !! 
It's a really beatiful ! and very natural connected erea.
I'm glad to you use them.  You are re-makes my poor works to wonderful one !! 

Recentry, I have no time to play SC4 and make something with BAT.
bur I'm always think that want to see your cities.

Please becarful your health, and have a nice day always Adam san.

Thank you for reading.
-Mas'71

Hello Masuda san!! I'm really happy you visited me!
Thank you very much for your kind words in Polish! I see the Google Translator works quite well from Japan to Polish, I understand everything what you say, or rather what do you want to say  . But I remember what you said in your thread some time ago about translations from other languages to Japan, so I will rather stay with English 

When you released JRP, I promised I will use it in my cities, and now I'm trying to do it. It's only a beginning, I will show much more!
The JRP is not only a beautiful canal set, it is one of the best and definitely the most advanced modular set in the whole SC4 history. I had to look carefully in it's structure because I use it in difficult conditions, and I must say it is performed perfectly!  Much logical thinking and also artistic skills are collected in this creation. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to play with it 

It's a pity you have no time to play SC4, I hope you will have more free time in future.
Thank you Masuda san, please visit me again!

What an amazing set of pictures Adam.
With several pictures I am left scratching my head and asking...How does he do that?
Super stuff!
Take care
Phil

Thank you Phil for your visit! I really appreciate your good opinion, especially knowing your own experiments with landscapes. I only hope you will have some time in future and we will see more of your creations 
If you want to know how something was done, simply ask! It will be a pleasure for me to explain it 

In the last update I showed my terrain levelling mod. It really makes terraforming easier and it would be great to use it on water to build harbours. Can it be done? Yes! Everything we need is to remove the water temporarily from the developed area. To do it I use my second temporary mod (the first one is the bridge making/levelling tool), which modifies the Terrain Properties exemplar file.

I must say this is not my original idea. Many people had problems with their seaports development and they looked for possible solutions from a long time.
Some historical facts:

- First attempts to change the sea level were described in the "Cheat Research" thread in ST in 2003. There is a cheat "setsealevel" which can be used to do it. But - as Daeley said in this thread - this command removes all water from your city, you can't choose the sea level you want. After using it you must save the city and reopen it to return to the normal sea level.

- Bluepelican31 in September 2007 started a thread in ST "Simple Seawalls". He showed that we can use land-designed walls at the waterfront after removing water, which makes waterfronts more diversified. Again he used "setsealevel" cheat.

- There are three good tutorials about preparing terrain for placing waterfronts at PEG's site:
CDK Tutorial made by Pegasus,
BDK Tutorial made by Tungston, and
Canals with CDK3 / OWW2 also made by Tungston.
Tungston says about the "setsealevel" cheat in his BDK tutorial. But he also describes some unpleasant side effects of this cheat: your bridges and tunnels explode after using it, there are also problems with some lots.

- Finally swat-medic released BLAM sea level mod in ST, and his solution is much better.
He modified the Terrain Properties exemplar extracted from simcity1.dat lowering the sea level by 100 m (or 150, I don't remember).

I didn't know about BLAM mod, but I play with Terrain Properties from some time and I did my own mod.
What is the difference between my mod and BLAM one?
- Their structure is the same. But BLAM mod changes all terrain properties to default ones ie. you have the maximum terrain height = 2500 m, and it disables Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod if you have it installed. This is important, because you can have an idea to make diagonal pier or waterfront, and it would be good to see your real terrain after removing water. So I made my sea level mod in various versions, dedicated to existing terrain mods with and without DJEM. Personally I use Italia Terrain mod with Max Terrain Height raised to 2600 m (slightly above the highest peak on my Shosaloza map), with DJEM in some cities and without DJEM in other ones.
- I lowered the sea level only by 38 m. Why? Because at this depth water become opaque in every Cycledogg's terrain mod. So lowering water level by 38 m I know where my underwater stuff will be visible, and it is easier to arrange uderwater flora, beaches etc. without using the "Terrain Query" time by time.

If somebody has a basic knowledge about the Reader, he can change the sea level himself according to his/her needs. It gives much more possibilities, I will try to show them in my next updates.

I must emphasize, that using both BLAM and my sea level mod is completely safe. Your bridges and tunnels (and every other stuff) will stay at their places without any damages.
This is a temporary mod, so you must create a folder "zzzTemporary Mods" or something similar, put your sea level mod there, open the city, build what do you want, then save, exit the game, remove the mod from Plugins and you have your harbour (or beach) ready. You can also put your mod into your terrain mod folder, but the sea level mod name must begin from "z" to be read after terrain mod files (especially after CPT No6 file).

Too much words yet. Let's look how does it work.

1. Do you remember my harbour with a breakwater at it's entrance? I showed it in my last update.
The breakwater was built after removing water from the harbour.



As you can see on this picture, I make a soft slope at the sea bottom using roads and streets. It could be useful if I would make a beach, but I have another goal.
The place I show is a MAS71 JRP river mouth. It's elements are 10 m high. Look at these two pictures and read the "y" coordinate on queries, it shows the terrain altitude. Compare it with the default sea level which is equal to 250 m.





As you see the height difference is 10 m. (Another thing you can notice is that the bottom of JRP piece is at 248,9 m - 1,1 m below the sea level. But it's a theme for the next update  )
Now I want to finish my breakwater by Gurry seawalls. But a part of my breakwater is diagonal and I don't use Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod in this city. There are much mountains here and I don't want to have too much rocks in this city.
So I must increase the height difference, keeping the sea bottom shape very soft. (Why? It is needed to make a nice transition between canal water and ingame water). Such terraforming would be extremely difficult without removing water.





Now you can see that the height of the breakwater is 27,8 m, and to avoid jagged edges without using DJEM we need at least 23,4 m. So it's enough.

2. Now I will try to build a big pier with the ferry port.
A digression: When I make terraforming in cities, I always think what will be built at this place. I often have to build some objects earlier to harmonize them with the surrounding, or to know how much terraforming should I make. So you will see some lots placed in the same time as terraforming works will be performed. This is a feedback process.

The first thig to do after removing water was levelling the sea bottom in all my harbour. I made it's altitude = 230 m ie. the water will be 20 m deep. It will make all future terraforming works much easier, not only making piers etc. but also arranging the natural coastline.
Then I made a pier. My waterfront level is 15, 5 m high, and most waterfront lots need the terrain height only 0,5 m above the sea level. So I have to lower a part of my pier.
I used Mayor mode terraforming tools, road piece and TerrainQuery cheat to level some terrain at 250,5 m.



Then I level the rest of my pier. I have my bridges/levelling mod installed, so it is very easy.



My levelling mod enables making piers of every shape very easy. They can be 1 tile wide or even diagonal.

3. Now some tricky terraforming on the land.
I'm going to connect my ferry port with the nearest hotel by a long gallery. But the gallery is at the waterfront level, and the ferry port building will be 15 m lower.



How to connect them? The gallery needs 1 flat tile more. But if we will flatten this tile, the building will raise by 1/2 of the height difference. After bulldozing it the terrain looks as below:



How to avoid it? The solution is very simple. We need to "lock" the building by dragging a road along it's road access side. Then we can raise or lower the terrain at other sides (using road tool, not terraforming tools!) and the building will stay at it's previous level.
(If somebody remember my "Great Stairs" district in Malecon city showed a few updates ago, all this area was terraformed using this techinque).



Now I can safely connect the building with the gallery.

4. Terraforming problems with waterfront pieces.
I have a rectangular area higher than it's surrounding and I want to place waterfront pieces around it.



But I have a problem: after placing the corner piece it lowers by 1/2 of height difference.



What to do now? The solution is to enlarge (for a while) the terrain at the corner and then place the waterfront piece on the flat area.
(As I remember this technique is also explained in one of tutorials at PEG's site which I said about earlier).



Now we can safely plop the waterfront piece and then drag a road below it:





Sometimes the waterfront piece keeps it's level after plopping, but it changes the terrain shape in an unexpected way:



Of course we can repair the terrain in this case too by dragging the road below the waterfront lot.

This area will be above the sea level, so I didn't need to remove water to do it. But let's imagine we have a seaside 15 m high and we don't want to lower it to 0,5 m. How will we drag a road below our waterfront? 

5. Now the final effect 
The ferry port area is not finished yet, but I want to show it at the present state:















You can see two pairs of Big Dig tunnel entrances on the picture above. You can ask what is their function?
- The avenue goes along the port building, then into the tunnel, then it turns right by 180 degrees and again on the ground level (but 15 m lower) to the car ferries pier. It is only eye-candy, but I wanted to make a realistic traffic solution.





Some development on the land is already done too. Maybe I shouldn't show it before finishing, but I simply can't resist 
The new RHW looks very well, and I must say I love the new Autobahnschild set! These signs are done perfectly! 









I hope I will need less time to make the next update 

Adam

[dsrwhat316]

  Unbelievable...

That is one of the most intricate and innovative things I've ever seen done in SC4. I, too, am making a harbor in my city, but now the bar has been set so high, I don't think I can compete! So all I say is this:



~ Dan

[TheTeaCat]

Oh My Word 

Astounding there is no other word for it.
I need a cuppa now


TTC

[JoeST]

*shakes head* HOW do you do it? seriously, that is AMAZING

[MAS71]

Hello again Adam san. 
Your words are too glad to me , but I never forget that you gave me a lot of advice and helps to my works.
Thanks again for you too Adam san.

Wow! Wow !!  Unbilevable Updating again here !!     
I'm always surprised your creations and imagination for makes citiese with various BATs-works. 
and perfect, beatiful completion of them by your hands there.
I have to learn to creations of you, I think. Oh! before, I must study English more.

Jestem patrząc wysyłać tak dużo wobec twój najbliższy uaktualnić , I Oni wola wyroby mi zaskoczony znowu przy twój utworzenie magia. 
Dziękuję.

-Mas'71

[Nexis4Jersey]

There are no words to describe that , its just simply Stunning , incredible use of LE & custom Content 

~Corey

[art128]

The Best Touristic port I've ever seen ! 
Stunning work on LE Adam 

Arthur.

[rooker1]

Hello Adam,
That, my friend, very well might be your best update ever.  Everything looks so complex and yet the way you have descibed it out, I think anyone could now make the same sort of pier.

Awesome and job and I can't wait to see more of this area, but until than I can look over these pictures a few more times with much satisfaction. 

Robin 

[kimcar]

excellent update mate  , i really like your seaport very original and the night light is wow.

[Sciurus]

Just excellent, and now, I know can I use the MAS 71's wharfs!

[LE0]

  The port pictures are unreal!

[Ennedi]

I will have to spend some time with new SC4 guides (development threads started in the New Members area). So we will have a small update today.

Unbelievable...

That is one of the most intricate and innovative things I've ever seen done in SC4. I, too, am making a harbor in my city, but now the bar has been set so high, I don't think I can compete! So all I say is this:



~ Dan

Thank you Dan! You are too modest  Your work with custom plazas, fillers and textures is excellent and I like it a lot! We have different ways and it is difficult to compare our work. If somebody will take the best things from your and my work (and a few other good MDers and inventors such as David ), he will be able to make the next generation city  Because of it I always try to explain how did I do my creations, exactly as you do it in your MD 

Oh My Word 

Astounding there is no other word for it.
I need a cuppa now

:satisfied:TTC

And another one from me

*shakes head* HOW do you do it? seriously, that is AMAZING

Thank you Joe! I tried to explain how did I do it...

Hello again Adam san. 
Your words are too glad to me , but I never forget that you gave me a lot of advice and helps to my works.
Thanks again for you too Adam san.

Wow! Wow !!  Unbilevable Updating again here !!     
I'm always surprised your creations and imagination for makes citiese with various BATs-works. 
and perfect, beatiful completion of them by your hands there.
I have to learn to creations of you, I think. Oh! before, I must study English more.

Jestem patrząc wysyłać tak dużo wobec twój najbliższy uaktualnić , I Oni wola wyroby mi zaskoczony znowu przy twój utworzenie magia. 
Dziękuję.

-Mas'71

Thank you so much Masuda san!
It was a great pleasure to use my poor knowledge to help you in making your excellent creations! I think the cooperation between BAT creator and players is absolutely necessary. Making BATs is difficult and needs a lot of time, so BATers often don't have time to play the game. And only playing the game is the ultimate test for every BAT. So it was very good you ask us for opinions before you finish your creations. And I have a great satisfaction too thinking that I have a small part in your masterspieces 

I improved my English very much writing messages and reading other ones in SC4D. It was automatical, without any effort. You are doing the same, and I think your English is better and better.

Thank you for nice words in Polish! The text is very funny  but I understand it!

There are no words to describe that , its just simply Stunning , incredible use of LE & custom Content 

~Corey

Thank you very much Corey and welcome in Shosaloza! There are no LE on these pictures  only ready-to-use stuff! But there will be time to lot editing too 

The Best Touristic port I've ever seen ! 
Stunning work on LE Adam 

Arthur.

Thank you Arthur! As for LE - see above 

Hello Adam,
That, my friend, very well might be your best update ever.  Everything looks so complex and yet the way you have descibed it out, I think anyone could now make the same sort of pier.

Awesome and job and I can't wait to see more of this area, but until than I can look over these pictures a few more times with much satisfaction. 

Robin 

You are very nice Robin - thank you! Your opinion means a lot for me 
I think the final effect will not be worse, when I'll finish the whole coastline. As for explanations, this is just my goal to show that everybody can do it 

excellent update mate  , i really like your seaport very original and the night light is wow.

Hello Kimcar, nice to see you! My port is not so colurful and unusual like your parks, but recreation is very important here too 

Just excellent, and now, I know can I use the MAS 71's wharfs!

Thank you! MAS71's lots look complicated, but they are made very thoughtful and in fact they are very easy to use! 

The port pictures are unreal!

Thank you very much, please visit me again!

Last time I showed how can we help ourselves if we decrease the sea level. But we can also increase it! 
Today the first example how can we use water in making land objects.

There were always problems with making land bridges. Not so long ago I create a temporary mod presented in the "How to make a Land bridge" thread - the same as I use to levelling the terrain. Making land bridges with it is really easy. But there are some especially difficult situations.
If we want to drag a bridge across a shallow, completely flat depression, sometimes the bridge appears and sometimes not. Btw I suppose which properties are responsible for it and I will try to improve my mod to enable making bridges in every situation - this is the reason why I didn't release it yet. I don't know if I will succeed, but I will try.
In the meantime I'll show you the ultimate solution 

Here I want to make a land bridge across the MAS71 river. But the bridges doesn't want to appear, even if I lower a part of the river bed



So I turn the Terrain Query on, check heights of the river bed and projected road, and raise the sea level to have it between these values. Of course this time the bridge appears immediately - and I didn't need to destroy the flat river bed as if I would use the rain tool.



It is too low, finally I decided to make it higher (although still to low for ferries, I will have to do something with it - maybe I know it yet  )





Here is maybe the most difficult case of creating a bridge. Do you remember a nice MAS71 dam showed by me two updates ago?



I asked you at that time, what do you think about the bridge - and nobody answered 
It would be impossible to make such bridge without water. If I would drag a road, the terrain would be immediately levelled. Instead of this I did the same as earlier ie. checked the road and riverbed levels and raised water to have it between these levels.



Then I dragged a road and...





Then I saved the game, removed the sealevel mod, entered again and made a river using Chrisadams' TPW.

There are more things which can be done with the help of water  I will show them in next updates.
In the meantime a few pictures from the last session - the city grows slowly 







And here is a beautiful and original BAT made by David (dmscopio): NHP Dmscopio FLOG Clubhouse. Thank you David!













That's all for today. Thank you!

Adam