The Winding River Project

[nedalezz]

Thats a great teaser, really looking forward to the next update of our favorite story

[KoV Liberty]

I agree, a great looking teaser. Can't wait for the next one!

Alex

[jmyers2043]

maybe hiding some mysteries or treasures yet

Shiver me timbers! Capt Red Insanity is using Neptune's black compass in search of MrB's plunder. Legend says that a chest of gold dubloons is buried on Bergen Island near a rock formation resembling the Rage of Eel. Watch out for those pirates and smugglers MrB!!!       



@ Fred, I'm looking forward to your bat of the Rage of Eel.

- Jim

[mrbisonm]

Thanks nedalezz and Kov Liberty.

Shiver me timbers! Capt Red Insanity is using Neptune's black compass in search of MrB's plunder. Legend says that a chest of gold dubloons is buried on Bergen Island near a rock formation resembling the Rage of Eel. Watch out for those pirates and smugglers MrB!!!       



@ Fred, I'm looking forward to your bat of the Rage of Eel.

- Jim

Hmmm, I gut meself a neu edea fah a BAT dere....lol...thanks Jim.

Fred

[bat]

Great work on update 65 and the other pictures on the previous page! Fantastic looking city and your rural shots are beautiful!
Looking forward to more...

[sumwonyuno]

Whoops, sorry for the lack of specificity.  I meant the area from Rock Island to Grasslake.

Wow!  The Ganoga Marshlands picture is even better!     It's quite detailed.

[mrbisonm]

Thanks you all.

There will be an update in a day or two with the rest of the pictures that I had. My son will not be able to come down this weekend and fix (re-install windows) that gaming computer with SC4 because of a severe winterstorm nearing the area that the mid US is sending us ( ), so other updates will probably be delayed for another week.

Meanwhile though I am playing around with gmax on my laptop and started to produce some bats that I need for my GRV II Challenge 10 and also for this MD. Just to give you a brief look of exactly what I am doing, here is a preview of one of my construction pieces. You probably know by now, that I love construction scenes, right? (Looks like the Sims will be building a highway bridge soon)
There will be a dozen or so new Bats and lots. It will take awhile though, geeez, I'm miserable with gmax.....

Fred

[woodb3kmaster]

First off, let me just say that I've been a lurker here in the WRP for a long time now, watching you grow the Winding River region pretty much from the start. I've loved every bit of it - even the rather verbose updates! Your work here has been a big source of inspiration to me in my MD'ing, and your storytelling is top-notch.

Your BATs are also inspiring to me as a beginning BATter. I've had a series of construction BATs on the back burner for a while now, and I've been struggling with how to get more construction equipment into my scenes, especially adding a crane or two. Your newest construction BAT above (another job well done, btw!) makes me wonder: did you model that crane from scratch, or did you download it from somewhere? I've had trouble finding good free 3D crane models online, so if you could share where you found it, I'd be most grateful.

Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful work! I look forward to seeing more from you when you get your computer issues resolved.

[jmyers2043]

Hey Fred

Nice bat MrB! Well done - in fact - very cool.



- Jim

[mrbisonm]

Your newest construction BAT above (another job well done, btw!) makes me wonder: did you model that crane from scratch, or did you download it from somewhere? I've had trouble finding good free 3D crane models online, so if you could share where you found it, I'd be most grateful.

I seldom do download models or regions, but when I do I always completely overhaul them. I downloaded a few cranes some years ago but unfortunetly I couldn't tell you from where, because I hardly visit these sites anymore.

Here are 3 sites that I used to frequent a lot for 3d models:

http://www.3dcadbrowser.com/browse.aspx?letter=V
http://artist-3d.com/free_3d_models/01architecture_design.php?s=12&np=15&srt=
http://www.3dm3.com/modelsbank/

There were more, but the rest of them closed or disappeared, maybe there are newer ones out, do a google search for 3d models.
Btw, there's a crane in several pieces that you can put together in LE somewhere on the STEX I think.(in blue and yellow) I use it sometimes If you can't find it, ask for it in the "Where can I find Threads".

The crane in the picture above I didn't start from scratch, but I heavily altered it so I could fit it into my building style together with my other BATs and also to my liking. I still have do more details on the bridge pieces and maybe shorten the height of the crane and enlargen the backweight, looks too small for me.
I have another one that I totally altered somewhere, maybe use it later here in my MD.
Thanks for dropping in and come out of the "shadowside" of the lurkers, thanks for the comment and hope to see ya again.

Fred

Edit:

Hey Fred
Nice bat MrB! Well done - in fact - very cool.
- Jim

Hey thanks a lot Jim, coming from you it's honorable for me , mostly after I saw those little beautiful BATs of yours that you lately showed in the GRV II Challenge 10....wow! Top-Bats I must say.
I only hope that you download them one day.......

[Battlecat]

I really like that construction bat.  I'm looking forward to seeing it in game! 

[vester]

Looks very cool, but hardly anything to do with RL.

The tightness indicate that it is concrete. Steel would on general be thinner with  stiffening elements.


Lets say the element is 6 x 15 meters and 0,5 meter thick.  That would weigh : 6*15*0,5 m³ * 2400 kg/m³ = 108 tons.

Quite a bit!!!


Most time concrete elements is done on the spot. You build up on a form work where you pure in the concrete:



This is just the form works with the exceptions of some concrete pillars.


Here is a picture of the form works with steel reinforcement.

The same bridge:

This bridge is pure at the end and pushed out in place.

[mrbisonm]

Looks very cool, but hardly anything to do with RL.

Yeap, you're right, this ain't nothing to do with RL.
Thanks for the pictures, but I know how bridges are build irl, I learned it in school at the time when I was an architecture student, some 35 years ago.

First of all, nice of you to bring this up, and I agree with you 100 %. I like the way you explain things so well, especially for gmax as I have experienced before. Keep it up, but...

...let's not forget these points for this project:

- I don't have the time neither the knowledge on a 3d Program to spend hrs on a RL project for simcity.
- this is Simcity, not RL.
- this is a bridge building project for my GRV II Challenge and for this MD only.
- this is a bridge over water (not land as you probably presume, waterbridges are usually build differently than landbridges and also they have different engineers to do them)
- my project has more than a dozen of different BATs in different building stages, including pillars under construction and still in forms, some with rodwireframes or whatever you call them, not shown here.
- this is a finished poured concrete water pillar shown above, for an example of my project. Barges will still have to be batted and added, also some more details will be added to the pillar and the crane's mast will be shortened, while the counterweight will be made larger. People.....no, Sims will be added (I'm waiting for a program I just bought on e-bay to make sims)

Here's another picture of some pillars under construction.
Thanks again, vester.




Now to my mainproject, ready to upload soon.

I finished the Water Pumping Station. It is Final and ready to create a lot and then to send to jmyers2043 for testing and tweaking. I made two versions, one with and one without the three watertanks. Both will be available soon with the same stats (more or less).
If there are things to be changed or can be improved easily, like details, textures etc, let me know, now is the time to do so. On next weekend, the lots will be made and send to the Tester.
Hope you like these City Pumps, I surely will.

Fred

[KoV Liberty]

All of those look great dude!

[frostwolf]

All I can say is, thank god this isn't real life. otherwise we'd have to wait several years just for the planning stages for that bridge, two to three more years for all the kibbitzing to die down, and who knows how long for the actual project to be completed.

[mrbisonm]

Sorry that I couldn't upload any updates, but we received something like 3 feet (approx 1 meter) of snow in the last 5 days here at the New Hampshire border in Québec and shoveling and blowing snow has become the main activity ever since. I am not supposed to do any shoveling at all with my heart condition, but geeez, someone has to do it, right?.....lol... But I also use a lot my big Tractor with a 8 ft PTO (powertakeoff) snowblower.
Anyways, my driveway, which is about 800 meters long (that's half a mile) goes through a thick and virgin forest for about half of its length and it has a lot of broken branches and trees on it now because of the heavy snowfall, which is blocking us for the moment. Most of the big pinetrees stripped of their branches, some are like 1 foot in diameter and 30 feet long. I got 2 guys fulltime working on clearing it, doing some rl logging (just in my MD....lol), so that we can get out of here soon. The only way out at the moment is by snowmobile.

So, you will not see me for the next 10 days or so. I will leave tomorrow night for the airport, heading to Europe (Germany), visiting my family near Aachen and Cologne and spend some good time. Needed some vacation again.

When I come back, I hopefully have my gaming computer repaired and it will not be long for another update.
Take care folks and don't forget to have some fun, very important!

Fred

[mightygoose]

man the eifel....i love the eifel, bad munstereifel i have been to many times, cologne and aachen also. beautiful region. have fun.

EDIT 201103110230 i hope repairs and you are well.

[harishna]

very nice work Fred!

I think the crane is not entirely unrealistic, pre-made concrete pieces were used to build an elevated highway in Mexico the pieces were lifted but the cranes were below the elevated highway not on top, and the type of crane was also different, so maybe the crane can go on a barge? that I think would look more realistic...

how about these for inspiration ?

http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/1397/24054377ld.jpg
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5631/24054317jk.jpg
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/6937/23958701aq.jpg

this kind of crane is also used but I couldn't find an image in action..
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/7334/20mar10044.jpg

this is one in Spain
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/3346/grua6wr.jpg

cheers

[Battlecat]

I really like those pumping facilities! 

[mrbisonm]

I really like those pumping facilities! 

The pumps are at the scrutineers at the moment and will be uploaded to the LEX (for the moment only, until I figure out a way how to be able to upload to the Stex) when they are ready testing/verifying them.
As you know, I made two different models, one without and one with extra tanks. You can choose one or both of them.
They produce slighter more than the Maxis Large Pumping Station and are on 3x3 lots. They also cost a little more.





Thanks harishna, the pictures gave me some inspiration. I like the one with the "floating rails" , maybe later....

Now for the Winding River Project....
I have my computer fixed, back to normal windows without viruses and trojans, working like new. I re-installed the game and everything that comes with it. All my plugins are back in its place (thanks that I have an external HD and make a copy of them every 2 or 3 weeks) and everything is back to normal. There will be an update soon, most probably this weekend, the follow-up of the Access Road visit.
See you then and thanks for the comments. Keep them up!


Fred