Rural Renewal Project

[Chrisadams3997]

Quick post, I started playing with the texturing for the bottom of the bridge:



And one up close just for fun , from under the bridge



Later,
Chris

[mightygoose]

this looks fantastic.... truly great.

[threestooges]

Great work with the textures. Is that dirt from an alpha map, a well made texture or what? Whatever the process, it looks good. I'm looking forward to seeing more.

[girlfromverona]

Looking really good, Chris! 

I'm off to play with the new culverts...

[Chrisadams3997]

Great work with the textures. Is that dirt from an alpha map, a well made texture or what?

Texture.  This is the whole thing so far, (very) downsized:



But this is what a random full resolution portion looks like:



Basically made a seamless texture and some variations from pictures I took for the base, and tiled it out to make the base.  Then made the chalky ones and the muddy ones in a similair fashion, so that I've got three layers, one for each right on top of one another(and not quite perfectly, ).  From there I can shape each one as I want in Paint Shop.  Still have one more layer to do, then the water will be separate using alpha maps.

Glad yall like it so far.

Chris

[threestooges]

I think that partly explains the mediocrity of my texturing... photoshop is not yet my friend. Time will help with that though. Thanks for the quick reply. Also thanks for all your comments in my BAT thread. I've put up a new version which I think may be getting there, but pointers are always helpful.
-Matt

[dedgren]

I'm taking my first steps into Chris's amazing rural world.  I DL'd the flora stuff this evening and have been playing with it.

Spring


Summer


Fall


Winter


This is pushing the envelope- while the flora works with fall trees, there's just no explanation (I mean a RL explanation) for why it would remain green with the leaves off the trees.  Of course, Brian's (c.p./cycledogg) wonderful Columbus terrain forest floor is way too green, too, so, I guess that's another unbreakable game limitation.

How about a snowy winter?



Well, the Arctic Terrain mod does not like jeroni's ploppable water- that's too bad.  The flora really doesn't look right, either.  Unless we can come up with at least two season Mayor Mode flora (i.e.: green/brown or green/absent), I think winter is probably a dead end.

But we have thought we were at dead ends before.

This is amazing work you've done here, Chris.  I look forward to perfecting a technique to apply it.


David

[girlfromverona]

I thought I'd share a couple of bridge "experiments" I've been working on.

This first one is a bit of an illusion - all I did was plop a couple of walls onto a transit-enabled lot with a street base. It sorta looks like the water goes under the road - of course, Chris's awesome flora really completes the effect!



This next one is a foot bridge which connects Chris's dirt path on either side of a TPW stream.



(Note: I didn't make any of the props that I used - I have NO idea how to do that. )

And finally, a pic of Chris's culverts in use. 

[bat]

Looks very superb there, Chris! And nice work there, David & girlfromverona!

[Shadow Assassin]

Nice work, girlfromverona.

Actually, that's a real nice touch on that first picture with the car crashed into a tree.

[Chrisadams3997]

ThreeStooges:  Thanks for letting me know you updated it, never saw it since it was an edit .

David:

'm taking my first steps into Chris's amazing rural world.

And we're very happy to have you .  That pond/lake has something very elegant about the form of it.  It's also very interesting to see the comparison on the flora against the seasonal woods.  It would definitely be cool to get at least 2 seasons out of a ploppable flora, and maybe one day we'll figure it out.

Marissa:  That second shot had to take some patience, as I'm guess that the bridge model doesn't actually clear the ploppable water.  Looks great.  I've played around with the flat bridge here and there, but still have some things to work out.  As I'm sure you've noticed, the approach only tends to work in one or two rotations due to the TPW's height.

[Ennedi]

It is also possible to make a really small ingame "real" bridge. It must be at least 4 tiles long, but it can be really low if you use Bridge H1 plugin.
Bridge height can be regulated, so there is no problem with TPW 4m height. Of course not all bridge models look good in such situation.
Here is my old picture with a small bridge (made before TPW releasing):

[Chrisadams3997]

Yep, which is a good option where you can make a straight road and have the room.  I'm hoping to be able to apply the same ideas I develop on orthogonal bridges to diagonal versions as well, as with the culverts.  Hard to say how it'll work out for now as the models in developement are much more complex, but if not, we'll have some new orthagonal eyecandy bridges .


I've placed a link for an updated fences and paths beta up on the sticky, all the details are up there.

Chris

[toxicpiano]

I think that partly explains the mediocrity of my texturing... photoshop is not yet my friend. Time will help with that though. Thanks for the quick reply. Also thanks for all your comments in my BAT thread. I've put up a new version which I think may be getting there, but pointers are always helpful.
-Matt

As you're using max you could apply a bump map and it might look a little better 

[dedgren]

In my last post here I used jeronij's ploppable water to create a small lake, which I then superdetailed the shoreline of with Chris's flora.  I started wondering what differences there might be using "game" water, and so did something I've wanted to do for a long time, but never got around to.  I did some lakebed terraforming, then filled the bed with the rain tool- more on that in this post [linkie] at 3RR.  I then found the flora to be just amazing at softening the jagged shoreline that the rain tool, no matter how good the terraforming, always appears to create.

Here's some pics and a few comments.

This is transition between the plop water stream, which comes in from the top of the pic, to the game water.  The cattails really help in what, B.C. (Before Chris), would have been just a bunch of rocks plopped to hide the seams.



This end of the "lake" was almost squared off at the corners.  The rocks and cattails in the upper left corner do a great job, but if you look hard you can still see the edge of the "water."  Chris's "green grass" by itself at the other corner is just perfect.



Pulling back a bit.  Note the small plop water pond (a remnant of the earlier version of the lake from the previous post) that is at the upper center.



Here's a different view of the mouth of that stream.



The other side of the little bay.  Gizmo's lily pads were beautifully conceived, but were grossly out of scale at several "game" feet across.  Chris's are perfect scale-wise, although I would have them be a little bit darker green.  In a perfect world, we might also have the option to plop just a few, instead of the fairly uniform oval spray that comes out when you use that tool.



Back closer in.  It is amazing how well the flora stands up at the highest zoom levels.  Love the stumps, too.



A final "fall" shot.  I think that the way the green grass doubles as water flora without it seeming obvious that they are the same thing is great.



Next time around I'll make a few suggestions for some additions, but I'm going to bet it's stuff Chris has thought of already.

Later.


David

[threestooges]

-Chris: I tend to edit my posts... I really try to avoid double posting if I can help it, but it's tough when the last post was a few days before. Also, thanks for the pm you sent. I haven't had the chance to try it out yet, but I'll post some pics when I do.

-David: Great demonstration there David. If we ever find a way to preserve that rain tool after a save, just think of the possibilities (though I don't know if it is even possible). I agree about the lily pad remake too. The scale is much better. It's an interesting trade off though, between many small plops and the LODs the computer can handle. Excellent work though.

-toxicpiano: I actually hadn't thought of using a bump map... I'll look into it to see what it'll do. Thanks for the idea.

[Chrisadams3997]

David:

Absolutely stunning.  I didn't even know there was a transition there until you pointed it out .

In a perfect world, we might also have the option to plop just a few, instead of the fairly uniform oval spray that comes out when you use that tool.

I've had some thoughts on how to rework it to allow this, and still allow something similar (if less uniform) to the present one.  I'll look at it once I'm done with Jestarr's new animals(more on that shortly)

I'm looking forward to your suggestions too

ThreeStooges:  I'm looking forward to seeing how those trees come out, and am ready to help any way I can.


This isn't strictly RRP work, persay, but I thought this would be pertinent since it relates back to one of the oldest requests here.  I mentioned some days ago that Jestarr had worked up a series of animal props that would be made into ploppables.  Well, the models are finished, and right now I'm working on tweaking the flora exemplars for him.  I thought I'd show how it's looking here.  A big thanks to Jestarr for putting these together.



There are also three other breeds/color of cattle rendered that I'm still putting the exemplars together on.

Chris

[dedgren]

OMG, don't let Bruce (Schulmanator) see this- you'll be doing cats until the end of time...

Moo!


David

[threestooges]

Oh, now that is just amazing. Jestarr, excellent work with the modelling. The RRP continues to impress. I'm going to have to start working on my rural areas again (not that that's a bad thing).

[jacqulina]

awesome work on the plop animals