Adara - Update 184 - March 26, 2012

[noahclem]

Nice work    I've wanted to work in a covered bridge for a long time and yours looks quite nice! hopefully I find a place for one someday.

The game water/ploppable water transition is always a tricky subject! My approach to this has varied over time, and at the moment I'm mostly taking the approach of stretching the usefulness of game water to the limits. To maximize effectiveness of that I've had to do a lot of detailed terraforming with the water removed, reduce the water's transparency, and found a water mod that seems very versatile (drunkapple's new HD dark blue one I believe). Previously I used a water mod that matched Jeronij's semi-transparent ploppables perfectly (dogfight's maybe? I forget but Reikhardt pointed it out to me), and before that I used the PEG Brigantine/PEG ploppable combination. Ennedi's MD also had an amazing tutorial on such transitions, where I believe he used Maa77's darker water and an unknown water mod (perhaps Brigantine?)--there he removed the game water and placed ploppable water below sealevel on a smooth transition, creating a seemless effect.

Anyway, I digress. This is a subject of fascination for me and I hope you don't mind me sharing a couple thoughts here with you 

[Cyclone1001]

Great update, and it is good detailing. Its all gonna turn out great

[Battlecat]

Arthur (art128): Thanks, detailing that area is going to be fun!

SCWTC4: Glad you like it.  Emergency just means I didn't have to consume a large volume of time doing the terraforming prep like I did for today's update! 

noahclem: Good thoughts are always handy.  You've got a couple interesting ideas there.  My big headache is that there's a large block of shallow game water that could be a headache. Thanks for your ideas, I'll be revisiting some of the threads you mentioned!

Cyclone1001: Thanks!

Update 176
Upper Lehman Valley – Heading to the Hills

Today I'm moving away from the game water for a while to focus on the mountains, starting today with extending Lehman Valley to its end on the next tile south.  There are a lot of details that aren't apparent here, but this tile will eventually house a large mining operation.  But today it's terrain touch ups and basic infrastructure placement! 

176-1: This is Upper Lehman Valley right after loading.  As I mentioned, the main feature of this valley will be a pair of mines and possibly some other related industries.  I've got some fun detailing tools on hand to create these, but that will be for a future visit. 


176-2: This is the same view of the valley after an extensive round of touchups on the mountains.  I continued doing bits of detail work throughout this update so if things keep looking different, that's why.


176-3: This is the boundary with the neighbouring tile.  I can't remember what kind of railway is on the other side, but I have a sneaking hunch I got it wrong.  I can fix that in the future though.


176-4: Here's the rough draft of the transport network in the valley.  I've still got some decisions to make but they can wait. 


176-5: Down to the lower valley near the river, the power lines cut through the valley near Table Mountain.  Flat topped mountains like that are more common than you might think and it looks cool anyhow. 


176-6: This area won't be isolated, it's going to connect to the neighboring tile via road. 


176-7: Ok, well in this case a street connection.  There's nothing on the other side, but that's easily fixed at a later date since the road connection will be visible. 


176-8: That's all for today, time is not on my side this week.  I'm going to try to buffer a couple more new tiles this weekend.  Here is the tile composite.


176-9: And here it is pieced into the wider world. 


176-10: The labeled reference composite just to round things out.  One of my goals this month is to completely surround the Winfield tiles will undeveloped tiles so I can expand the urban area more at my leisure. 


Next update is planned for Monday morning since I won't get to sit in front of my computer again for an extended period until Sunday night.  Have a good weekend everyone! 

[SCWTC4]

i approve the plan of terraforming tiles all aorund Winfield, i want to see some massive mountains 
about pic 176.3: after a quick look into the table of contents i can tell you that the railway in Lehman Valley is a STR, so you've made no mistake here.

[art128]

Looks like a good place for mining industry for sure! I can't wait to see more of this area too.

[Cyclone1001]

Nice, another good update.

[Dantes]

I want to finally see a city or rural.  The cards look really great. 

[bat]

Great work on this update!!

[Ol.S / Benoit]

Can't wait to see how you'll work on that tile

[canyonjumper]

Great stuff here recently, I'm looking forward to seeing the mines in place.

              Your friend,
                             Jordan

[Battlecat]

SCWTC4: Same here.  I really want to do some more work on that area.  I spent the weekend in SC4 Terraformer, but I've still got a bit more do before I can start presenting those tiles! 

Arthur (art128): Thanks, I'm looking forward to getting started on a lot of things!

Cyclone1001: Thanks!

Dantes: Same here but I also want to get a large swath of map ready to work with.  I plan to be back to normal tile development in December.  Glad you're enjoying your visits!

bat: Thanks very much!

Ol.S / Benoit: Neither can I!  I plan to get started somewhere in December! I just don't know where yet.

Jordan (Canyonjumper): Thanks very much, I'm looking forward to it as well. 

Update 177
Natalia Bay – Coastal Cliffs

Today we're visiting Natalia Bay.  This tile is east of Saltery Bay.  Originally I had planned to move further inland up by Winfield area but certain things conspired to delay me, plus I'm not entirely satisfied with the terraforming yet so I need to spend another evening working on it.  We're getting close though!

177-1: Here's the tile boundary with Saltery Bay.  The power lines enter this tile from Upper Lehman Valley.


177-2: And this is where we are heading.  Up into the high sea cliffs.  Some nice rugged terrain that's going to make building the highway and railway a real challenge.


177-3: This is where the main slope will be for the highway and railways to get up to the highland area.


177-4: Starting with the railway.  It hugs quite tight to the cliff face. Of course the real headache will be adding the wide radius curves.


177-5: This looks much better. 


177-6: Once it's up onto the bench it's a pretty flat run around to the tile boundary.


177-7: The highway was an extra special challenge.  Due to issues I separated the two halves of the highway and ran them up the mountain at different elevations.  The results were quite interesting.  I didn't put it right next to the railway because the railway slope limits don't seem to play nicely with the RHW limits.  Plus the wide radius curves take up space.


177-8: Again, once we're up in the highlands it gets a lot easier.  The jog sideways by the railway is going to be an interchange location. 


177-9: Just a closer look at a couple of touch ups.  I don't like how the highway curves here. 


177-10: It took a bit of fussing because of the geometry limitations of the wide radius RHW curves.  The tight S-Curve on the upper highway is one tile too wide for the standard S-Curve. 


177-11: This area just needs the final curves in place. 


177-12: It looks so much more organic like this.  Decidedly an odd area, but one I'm pretty pleased with. 


177-13: That's a wrap for today, here's the tile composite.


177-14: The latest revision of the regional composite.


177-15: And the reference composite! 


That's all for now.  See you next time!   

[art128]

Excellent job with both the train and the highway slopes. It turned out very well.

[SCWTC4]

nice job, waiting a little bit more for the mountains around Winfield won't be a problem if those are the results, and running the highway halves at different heights it's not wrong even without the slope and space limitations issues, here in Italy (again after Savona  ) the old A-3 Higway used to run through the mountains with the two carriageways on different levels (the nw one, still U/C, no more; but that's another story...).

about pic 177-10, you could try with the orthogonal-to-FAR curves, i cant' remember now if you need to put the outer or the inner one first and then the other , but they will work perfectly in that 2-tile-wide tight curve.

[TiFlo]

Beautiful job, as always. Interesting that you're tackling some rough terrain with your network, I've been doing the same on my current region, and it's made for quite interesting gaming sessions.

[mave94]

Those cliffs look very realistic.
The highway is a nice touch.
I'm eager to see more

[Cyclone1001]

Nice update, I like those highways.

[noahclem]

Masterful job with the terraforming! The way you've aligned the transport heading through here looks great has well. "Decided an odd area" and one I'm very pleased with as well 

[bat]

Another wonderful update! Looking forward to the next one...

[Battlecat]

Arthur (art128): Thanks!  Building up that hillside was certainly a challenge!

SCWTC4: We're getting there!  :-)  Glad you like how the highway turned out, there are several highway sections set up like that here in BC as well!  Good call on the orth-FAR curves, I had forgotten about those.  I didn't get a chance to test it last night but I'll let you know how it works out.  Thanks for the idea!

TiFlo: Thanks very much, the rough terrain is always entertaining to work in!

MrMAvE94: Thanks, glad you like it!

Cyclone1001: Thanks!

noahclem: Odd areas are often the most interesting areas!  Glad you like it!

bat: Thanks for your kind words!

Update 178
Southridge – Williston Lake Expands Some More

Today we're making our first visit to Southridge.  It's my totally unimaginative name for the tile south of Ellison Flats.  Naturally with the busy week I also forgot to reference something rather important, namely the neighbouring tile that would have informed me that a certain road was a gravel street, not a full-fledged road.  But it'll be easy enough to retrofit later (probably next update).   

On the bright side, there are lots of pictures to talk about today! 

178-1: This is the south boundary with Ellison Flats.  Returning to this area means I get to once again use the happy accident with the contour lines to help out with the lake! 


178-2: This bit of luck has been incredibly useful in building this lake.  For those of you just joining this thread, the yellow wash is caused because the lake surface just happened to be at exactly the middle of the maxis contour lines, which causes it to spread out and flood the lakebed.  That means it acts as an excellent guide!  (Activate them using ctrl-shift-c)


178-3: Before we start on the lakebed, the mountains here need a serious touch up. 


178-4: This is the same location after a bit of fun with the terraforming tools.  I love terraforming in this game!


178-5: First project of the day, the railway line needs a causeway over the lake.  This will be a land bridge because of the depth of the valley.  Keep in mind, the yellow surface is Williston Lake, a reservoir trapped behind the dam in Vavenby.  So it would be entirely unreasonable to build a dyke or berm for the railway. 


178-6: This is the area after using the rain mod to start filling the area.  It acts pretty odd on perfectly flat surfaces.


178-7: But it doesn't take much to force the game to build bridges. 


178-8: Once the game is reloaded it's time to place the plopable water.  I'm just putting in enough to give you the idea right now, the rest of it will be added as I start the full scale details on this tile. 


178-9: Now there is also a road on this tile.  Actually it should be a gravel street but I had I mental break and forgot.  But the point still applies.  We're not building a road bridge here.


178-10: Instead the road winds up and around the lakeshore.  There will be exurbs here and I'll retrofit the road into gravel later.  The layout will be pretty much exactly the same. 


178-11: On the other side of the bay the railway and road make their way across friendlier terrain towards the city boundary. 


178-12: On the other side of the lake we have a railway, major highway and minor road to connect up across the tile.  The railway first.  A nice straight and meandering railway goes through the area. 


178-13: The highway stops paralleling the railway so I can fit farms into the gap.  Coming in from the left is the farm access road.  It crosses the highway here.  There are indeed ortho road over diagonal highway puzzle pieces. 


178-14: The odd spacing between the road, highway and railway should make for some nice farms.  Looks like I forgot the wide radius curves on the highway.  Easy to fix later though! 


178-15: One last little detail that I forgot in previous tiles is this box valley.  This valley is only accessible by going through a corner of Upper Lehman Valley and then down to Natalia Bay. 


178-16: For now just to get started I've added a gravel street in so I can connect it up to the neighbours later. 


178-17: That's a wrap for today, let's have a look at the tile composite.  In case I haven't mentioned it recently, you can click all my composite images to see a large version! 


178-18: Here's the latest regional composite image.  Williston Lake is absolutely huge in size.  I think there are at least 3 more undeveloped tiles that contain it, possible more. 


178-19: Last but not least, here is the latest reference composite! 


That's a wrap for today.  I won't be able to update tomorrow, but I am certain I'll have another tile ready for Friday!  See you all soon! 

[bat]

Nice work on the roads, railway and river!