Barsalargonia - Update 23 - August 23 2009

[danielcote]

I like you're way's of development.

[nedalezz]

Really looking forward to that next update! Your last teaser update was fantastic

[Splime]

Replies:

danielcote: Thanks! I always think small-scale development achieves the best results.

nedalezz: Thanks! Ironically, you posted while I was making this update. (Though I'm not sure this update is what you were expecting next.)

Update 5: What Real Life Looks Like

(Just a note, these images are a bit bigger than usual, sorry if they are too big for your screen.)

So for the past 10 days, I've been away in various parts of Florida, and saw a lot of interesting things. When seeing those things, I rethought a bit about how to make realistic cities in SC4. So, the subject of this update is what I saw, and there's some satellite imagery to help illustrate everything.


This is where the plane journey began: Westchester County Airport. It's a small airport that is just big enough to have commercial flights. If anyone wants to build an airport for a small city, this airport is probably a good model.


The plane ride to Orlando had me looking out the window seeing how the real world looks. Since SC4 is played in a top-down view, this was a great place to look at everything from. One of the things that stood out was how farms are laid out in the Mid Atlantic, as there is still empty space amongst the farms. The farm land itself is quite irregularly shaped too. (This image was taken from Delaware, btw.)


One of the first places we went was the Kennedy Space Center, and along the way there was a fairly long road that I think is the perfect example of a RHW-2. There was nothing along this road except for the initial intersection with the 528, an intersection with I-95 (the beginnings of which can be seen at the top of the image), and its end. It was basically an extended exit ramp. Also, it was really straight and really flat, which is very different from where I live. In fact, everywhere I went in Florida was really flat, and as you can see in the bottom of the picture, the elevation is really low. It turns out that contrary to my previous beliefs, building a city that's on a completely flat region is in fact realistic.


What surprised me was that the Kennedy Space Center has its own highways, even in a restricted-access area. Applied to SC4, this means that any sort of restricted area (like a military base) could still have a highway, as long as the facility is big enough to warrant it. Also, it seems that the US Government has its own license plates, separate from state ones.


The next day took us to a nearby beach. SC4 isn't very realistic with its beaches at all, because its perfect sandy beaches occur only in specific situations, not whenever there's water. If you notice, there's a nice straight sandy beach at the bottom of the pic (east), but not on any of the other shores. In SC4, this can only be achieved by turning off beaches completely with terrain mods and plopping sand, but this results in the ugly water bug.


A day or two later, we traveled to Miami, but we took a windy route that took us around Lake Okeechobee. We went through the rural parts of Florida, and what surprised me was that most of the roads didn't have normal names, but instead had numbers. Where I live, the closest area with numbered streets is New York City, so this was kind of weird. However, the area this picture was taken in was a kind of grid, so it made some sense.


However, in other areas it made less sense. This picture is from a not as griddy area, and yet they still kept the numbering system. What I found particularly hilarious was that there were some dirt roads with names ending in "Boulevard", indicating that the word has lost its original meaning in this area.


We then drove through a large agricultural area south of Lake Okeechobee. In addition to being really flat, it was a grid of farms. I knew these sorts of places existed in the middle of the country, but didn't expect them in Florida. In addition, I've never actually been through one of these areas, so it was certainly interesting. The farms in Delaware were fairly flat too, which leads me to believe the shapes have more to do with how and when the areas were settled rather than solely the terrain.


In Miami, there were more interesting grid situations. The whole city and suburban area is built on a grid, but parts of the grid are filled in with curvy suburban cookie-cutter complexes. Even though these streets are not on a grid, they still stubbornly hold onto numbers.


In fact, I think almost every road in Miami-Dade County has a number in the Miami system, as I saw numbered roads all the way until the Keys. Even in this farming area, the numbering remains. (I'm not sure this is a great illustration however, since I'm not sure the street map and satellite images are quite in sync.)

Afterward was the Everglades, which are incredibly flat and uninhabited. In addition, there weren't that many people visiting, so it was quite an experience being in the middle of nowhere. Also, it turns out that those farms south of Lake Okeechobee use up a lot of the water that used to go to the Everglades, causing a bit of an environmental issue.

Next was the trip to Key West, which was a completely different road system. While the Miami area was a grid with some main roads and highways weaving through it, the Keys are built on a single road as a backbone, the US 1. All addresses are built off of the mile marker on US 1.


In Key West, the beaches they have are artificial. It seems that not even being next to the ocean guarantees a sandy beach. (Though, being from England originally, I already knew that.) Sand in SC4 is even more unrealistic than previously thought.


Along the way back to Orlando to fly back, we stopped at a hotel in Bonita Springs. We weren't there long, but my impression from the area is that it seems to be fairly new, and built up as a generic suburb. The main roads were lined with major stores, and the suburbs filled outside of that. It didn't seem like it was full of many people however, maybe due to the economy. Our hotel was fairly empty as well. The area is probably a good model for a suburban area.


Sadly, the plane ride back went over some hazy skies, so I couldn't see much of the ground. Here's a satellite image near where I live, which should show how development is different everywhere. Of course, there are few more hills in CT...

So that sums up where I was for the past two weeks. I'll have a new update soon, which will actually contain SC4 content.

[Battlecat]

Nice look at the real world!  Google Earth provide us with a fantastic tool to explore our world for inspiration.  I'll be interested to see what you've got coming next.

[FrankU]

Yes, this is really an interesting review of your trip. All real life scenes can be inspiring, but it is good to have someone's thoughts with it. This makes the story personal and leaves us with new ideas.
Nice work. 

One remark, though, hit me. As I am an inhabitant of the Netherlands, which is a country famous for its flatness, I felt an urge to react on your remark that flat cities can indeed be realistic.
Almost all dutch cities are built on flat land. So this is realistic. What is not realistic is that the flat cities need to be orthogonal. Funny enough the Romans made their cities orthogonal and the United States do. Of course, because they are planned.
The dutch cities are in no way orthogonal, because flat is definitely not the same as empty. The landscape in the Netherlands shows a lot of variety.
The fact that it is almost completely horizontal gives special meaning to every small bump. This had made the dutch landscape an enourmously varied one with no straight lines whatsoever, except some we made ourselves in the last centuries.

Maybe this isa nice theme for a trip through the surroundings around here.. But time... so little time, so much to do. 

[Splime]

Replies:

Battlecat: Thanks! I guess sometimes it takes something from outside the real world to learn more about it.

FrankU: Thanks! And that's a good point about areas outside the US. I do have to add that I strongly dislike grids, so you won't have to worry about seeing US-style grid towns here.

Update 6: The Other Side of the Mountains


So this time, we're back to SC4. Here's an image just to remind everyone where we left off, if you've been following the development of this area.


Next up are the main roads. This is the exception to my rule that I develop in small chunks. I find that roads (and rail, which gets added after this pic) are really helpful for dividing large areas into smaller workspaces.


Here's the basic zoning for the new town. This is the one time you'll see me using a grid, only because it's good for a town centre.


Next, I let the core develop, and zoned some sprawl around it.


Here's the results of that zoning. However, I felt that there was something missing between those railroad crossings, and so this isn't quite complete. (I realize that I should have built only one railroad crossing, but it was a bit awkward trying to fit in the split south of the road. I may still return to this area to fix that.)


To fill in that space, I made a bit of a commercial strip. The road gets plenty of traffic, so this land is prime real estate for businesses, as long as they don't mind the pollution.


Here's a close-up of the area. There's plenty of food, as well as an electronics store (supplied by the nearby industry), a gas station, and a gray office building.


This is the center of town, which I have aptly named Town Centre. (Yes, I like to switch up the spelling every-so-often.)


This is some of the sprawl from the town. I would call it suburban sprawl, but there's no city nearby, so it doesn't really count as suburban.


More of the same.


This is the industrial area. The mine is in the top right. There's also a new power plant to support the new town, which is larger than the one on the other side of the mountains.


By request of Luke09, here's the transportation view of the region. I'll make a hand-made one eventually, but the town will be growing a bit more so I'd rather not put in the effort yet.


And we finish off with the region view. I think it's turned out well so far, though there will be plenty more to add to C3. Thanks for reading!

[Battlecat]

Glad to see you back!  That town looks excellent!  I like the layout you're using with the grid at the urban core, and then the sprawling suburb.  I may have to play with that idea a bit in the future.  Looking forward to seeing what else you've got coming up! 

[art128]

Nice work with that new town my friend, It's always nice to see the spot before and after the click. I like the new residential development made on picture four. Also, the commercial strip is nice, I really love it.
Looking forward to more.
take care,
-Arthur. 

[Luke09]

Nice Splime,and thank you for the transports map  .And i loved your town centre,its so...beauty

[Tomas Neto]

Wooowww!!!  Fantastic update, my friend!!! Great again, Splime!!!

[Splime]

Replies:

Battlecat: Thanks, I'm  glad to know that something I've done is influencing another MD! Calling it an urban core is a bit generous though, considering that all of tile C3 has barely 5,000 sims at the moment.

Arthur (art128): Thanks! This is definitely the sort of feedback I like, since I wasn't sure how many people actually wanted to see the pre-development images. I'll be sure to include that in the future.

Luke09: Thanks, I'm glad you like it. Though, I think a lot of the credit goes to c.p. for his amazing houses (and the SimGoober houses scattered around).

Tomas Neto: Thanks! That's quite a lot of clapping!

I'll have the next update soon, which will focus more on farming and small villages. The only real delay is a massive GRV II Challenge involving population growth, and I want to get my main city to 40,000 people before doing more with Barsalargonia. I'm pretty close though...

[Splime]

Update 7: Sprawling Developments

For this update, I've expanded the width of all my pictures to 1024 for better detail. Sorry if you have a small monitor and this makes it harder to view the page.


Our first stop puts us near the industrial area I created last update. I felt it needed some filling in.


After throwing this nice big building and a warehouse (complete with fencing and trees) the area looks filled in.


Next, I wanted to start expanding the town towards the west.


This is the first set of zones. It fills up about half of the space between the town and the river, and net update should fill in the rest of the space.


Finally, here's the result of the latest expansion.


Since I had passed 6000 people, I felt it was a bit mean to deny them healthcare, so I added this hospital just across the main road from the mining area.

And finally, a mosaic I made of the West Suburbs:


Thanks for reading!

EDIT: If anyone has any ideas for naming this tile, I'd love to hear them.

[Scarton]

I admire your ability to build suburbs, wish I could do the same  . BTW, what landscape mods are you using? (terrain mod, rock mod, water mod, etc.) I think I'll follow this MD, It's interesting.

[woodb3kmaster]

Impressive! I love the development up to this point, and the tangent about RL development practices was very informative. Your style in building suburbs, with the many gaps between zones, is something I'll have to try out in Nyhaven. Keep up the great work! (clicks Notify)

[art128]

Nice place for the new industrial development my friend, great work with the filers lots. New zoning and farms are good too. Also good job with the hospital and its surrounding. And the mosaic is fantastic, I really appreciated it.
Take care,
-Arthur. 

[Splime]

Replies:

citycapitalizer: Thanks! I'm using the Meadowshire Terrain Mod by c.p., the TSC Orange_o_ Aubrac Rock Mod, and PEG's Brigantine Water Mod.

Zack (woodb3kmaster): Thanks! A lot of the suburbs with empty spaces idea comes from where i live, where the houses are even more spread out than this.

Arthur (art128): Thanks! It looks like you listed pretty much everything in the update!

The next update is in the works right now, and has quite a few farms in it. Also, if anyone has any ideas for naming the town, please post them.

[Sciurus]

This is a very very nice city :thumbsup:I like the big industry too, it's nice

Guillaume

[Splime]

Reply:

Guillaume (Sciurus): Thanks, I'm glad you like it!

Update 8: Crops and Cattle


One thing I didn't share last update was this road, a gravel street heading west from the town, following the terrain as it curves. You can see the river in this picture, as well as some wildlife. Wildlife in SC4 seems to be one the most forgotten features.


Construction this update began with this dairy farm southwest of the town.


After the cow farm was built, more farms were zoned nearby in order to fill up the space.


This is what the area looks like fully developed. (The farm with the brownish stuff doesn't look that great when zoomed out, sadly. It looks fine when zoomed in though.)


The flower industry in Barsalargonia came into existence thanks to these farms.


These are two farms built along the main highway through town.


Next up was farming to the north of town. The town itself would expand slightly northward, and two big farms were zoned. A cattle farm would be added afterward.


Here is the result of the development, along with a new plopped pond.


Here's a close-up of the cow farm and the pond.


Finally, this is what C3 looks like at the moment. Also, this is the last call for naming the town. When the next update comes around, I'll have given it a name. However, the name I have in mind is rather boring, so I would like suggestions. (Of course, I wonder how many people actually read this text...)

Thanks for reading! I won't have another update for a few days, since I'm short 50,000 people in the GRV II Challenge, and I'll be away on the 15th and 16th due to college orientation...

[peter007]

good stuff
Looks pretty realistic

[art128]

Nice farming work there my friend, those newest shots are wonderful. Great use of fillers to make it looking as realistic as possible, the result is just stunning.
Take care,
-Arthur.