The Thames District: I'm on holiday.

[Glowbal]

Love <3 quite a realistic container dock you have there.

[joelyboy911]

This is the main part of the port. You can see some of the custom lots I made, mostly based on Tag_One's container port. I re-used some of them, but some of my custom ones are worthy of specific mention. About half way down the image, you can see the large warehouse, with sheep in front. You might wonder what sheep are doing in an export port, right? Well, it is an interesting subject. At the moment, in New Zealand, there is in force a moratorium on live sheep exports, but in the past New Zealand has shipped many of them to middle eastern countries, most specifically Saudi Arabia. The reason for this is that their religion dictates specific ways in which animals must be killed for meat (they must be Halal) and at certain festivals throughout the year, they are ritually sacrificed. The ban was brought in because of concerns over the animals' welfare (on the voyage, not at the destination) and because a similar export resulted in the death of over 5000 sheep. You might find this little piece of history/controversy interesting. Of course, farmers want to continue the exports, because they fetched a nice price.

Next to the sheep is an area for timber exports, which are also commonplace in New Zealand. We export timber, pulp, paper, and whole logs to many countries such as Japan (to where 10% of all NZ's exports of any kind go). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a lot of good log props, and I couldn't be bothered to make my own.

Container exports and imports make up the rest of the port.

Since PhotoBucket won't allow the uploading of files over 1mb I have started uploading my mosaics in full resolution .png format to casimages.com, luckily I know some french, so I am able to understand it quite well without using Google Translate, but anyway if you click on either one of those mosaics, you can see the full size, they are both just a shade under 1024 pixels wide, enjoy.

Here's a shot of the CBD, and I don't have much else to say about it. There is plenty more to look at from Central Thames. It will come later on.

There's likely to be another update this week, and possibly two next week, then it'll be my school holidays, so I'll have even more time to build Thames. I've also been doing other behind the scenes things this week, that will feature later on, like this:

And This:



Thanks for the 1148 views so far, and the 35 comments. I look forward to hearing from you again.

Also, can anyone point me to an effect prop that can generate a group of people milling about on one tile. I tried the randomwalk, but that resulted in pedestrians spewing onto nextdoor lots and the road.

...

I thought I'd forgotten something!

Replies:

Tomas Neto
Thanks!

djvandrake
I got those dependencies now, and you might find what I did in this industrial area interesting. I made one generic lot with a tree on, and plopped it heaps. I think it makes it look nicer with some paving around. The no grass mod by Sithlrd really helped with that too.

Battlecat
Thanks for stopping by again, I'm glad you liked it. Hope this mosaic satiated you somewhat. (to everyone:) If you want to see more of anything I've shown, please sing out. I would be happy to get some more pictures.

Driftmaster07
Thanks for the comment, Alex. I'm glad you're liking my pictures.

Glowbal
Thanks, realism was what I was aiming for!

[joelyboy911]

OK then. No replies

Just Kidding, I don't mind.



At the request of FrankU in the Show us your Seaport thread, I am uploading and posting here some more shoreline based images, especially a better look at the railyard at the port.

They are all 1024x768 in .png, I'm afraid. I am sorry for this. If it is a big deal for you personally, please feel free to voice your complaints. If no-one has a problem with it, I will continue to upload in this manner.

The railyard is a composite image, you'll have to click it for the full size.










(click for full resolution)

And now some random shots of some coastal experimentation:



I kind of like how this one turned out, but I guess it needs less trees. I want to know what you think.

This next one was interesting. trying to find a good way to transition between the paved city streets, and a coast without the use of a seawall. I think in RL, there would be a road or park alongside the beach, so watch this space for mu future coastal developments. There will be more!

[Glowbal]

Nice update.
Your docks look very buzy.

[djvandrake]

Sorry I missed your update, weekends are just nuts for me.

Very impressive port and high tech industrial region.  Your use of the diagonal roads through it is ver appealing.   

Those trees look quite nice in your rail section.  That turned out very nice.  And your lotting skills are most impressive! 

[citymax]

Bravo !!

[KoV Liberty]

Looks great!

[Engorn]

That's a great commercial port.

[FrankU]

Now you do have at least six replies. 

I like the development very much. Espcially the seaport has my attention. But also I am curious what your blocky regionview shows when you zoom in on the forest farms, or whatever we see there.

Your coastline is very different from what I know, so there is no real advice I could give you.
I live near the Northsea which contains quite a lot of salt. So there are no green weeds in the water and certainly not at the shoreline. The shoreline consists mainly of sand (which is more yellow than the sand in your pictures, actually the Maxis beach sand has a quite acceptable colour) and what grows in the first line is only some yellow grass. The first trees we see on the Dutch coast grow about 100 meters from the front row of the dunes.
Your coastline looks good for an inland sea, in my opinion. But as far as I can see your sea is indeed something like that.
And then the looks: If you would have asked me if it would look nice to use so much floara and rocks I would have siad "no!". But the result is quite convincing. It is your touch to SC4 and I like it. 

[joelyboy911]

Replies

Nice update.
Your docks look very buzy.

Thanks. I'm glad you liked the pictures.

Bravo !!

Thanks!

Looks great!

Short and sweet - thanks Alex!

That's a great commercial port.

Thanks!

Now you do have at least six replies. 

I like the development very much. Espcially the seaport has my attention. But also I am curious what your blocky regionview shows when you zoom in on the forest farms, or whatever we see there.

Thanks, I'm glad you liked the work I did on making the lots. The region view is showing my lacklustre attempt at spreading out the forests. However, I will be redoing my forestry area, and expanding it, because I have remade my custom forest farms, minus Pegasus' system taxing trees. This will be revisited in a future update. There are also a couple of small towns and some roads, and there will soon be some rail. This will also be seen in a future update, when I show a map of Thames City's suburban rail and light rail networks, as well as a highway map.

Your coastline is very different from what I know, so there is no real advice I could give you.
I live near the Northsea which contains quite a lot of salt. So there are no green weeds in the water and certainly not at the shoreline. The shoreline consists mainly of sand (which is more yellow than the sand in your pictures, actually the Maxis beach sand has a quite acceptable colour) and what grows in the first line is only some yellow grass. The first trees we see on the Dutch coast grow about 100 meters from the front row of the dunes.
Your coastline looks good for an inland sea, in my opinion. But as far as I can see your sea is indeed something like that.
And then the looks: If you would have asked me if it would look nice to use so much floara and rocks I would have siad "no!". But the result is quite convincing. It is your touch to SC4 and I like it. 

Well, yes the Firth of Thames is a sort of quite sheltered sort of deep bay, which is quite rocky (especially along the Eastern side), and has plenty of plants (partially because it is sheltered). They aren't quite as green as the mayor mode plops I used, but they are there. There are also ither things in the Firth, like mussel farming, which I plan to make some BATs for.

In other, less sheltered parts of the NZ coast, there are stil plenty of rocks, but less plants. There are also some nicer beaches, without rocks where the occasional weed washes in from the ocean. What you described about the yellow grass and the dunes sounds about right to me as well. I actually am not all that happy with the beaches my terrain mod gave me. I may have to do something about that, they look better for a tropical island.

The second to last picture was of a riverfront, I neglected to mention. Hence the trees were so close. It was the same river as seen in the mosaic from update 3.

In the last picture, I was trying to recreate the sort of scrub-like bushy grass, using what was available to me at the time, as well as a little worn down pathway. On the beach, I was hoping to replicate some sort of washed up debris, but that would have more to do with the tide line, and there wouldn't be as much big logs and rocks. I guess I would have to say those trees were planted by people, because none of the NZ native trees look like that, and I need to explain it somehow. I have some better ideas for beaches, so erm... stay tuned I guess. Perhaps I can show some RL pictures for comparison sometime. But we will be heading inland for the next few updates (some more boring suburbs... but then some dairy farms!).

[Battlecat]

Fantastic job on that industrial port area.  It looks great!

[joelyboy911]

Reply

Battlecat
Thankyou for visiting my MD. I am truly glad you liked it.

Anyway, now for some:

Pictures



On the hills above the firth of Thames, overlooking the water, lies a small township. Home to just 400 people, it's barely a dot on the map. It has a primary school (equivalent of an elementary school), a few shops serving mostly tourists, and a pub. Like many small towns of this region, and of this country, the village had its glory day in the Gold Rush. However, that was short-lived though lucrative, and since then the town has been in slow decline.

The last picture is the one of which I am the most proud. This is my first time really using much plop water, and I am really happy with the outcome.

[art128]

Nice update, I like the use of the plopable rocks, good job with them. The water tower is nicely placed there, even if with a little path to it, it will be even more nice. Great job with the rapids, nicely done. I love the town too as well. And, btw, what is that rock mod you use ?
Take care,
-Arthur.

[builderbuiltoff]

looks great

[Tomas Neto]

The river and the distribution of the streets are magnificent!!! Great work my friend!!! 

[djvandrake]

 

Some challenging terrain and very nicely done.

[KoV Liberty]

OUTSTANDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although some mossy rocks would make it more diverse and realistic .

[joelyboy911]

Replies

Arthur (Art128)
Thank you, and thanks for the suggestion. I have made some sort of walking trails in this update, you might be interested. The rock mod is one by pegasus, called Weathered Granite.

Builderbuiltoff
Thanks!

Tomas Neto
Thank you.

djvandrake
Thanks, yes it was quite challenging to get those roads to go up those hills, but I luckily I have altered the slope mod to be a bit less difficult for streets.

Alex (Driftmaster07)
Thanks for the 36 exclamation marks. I agree about the mossy rocks, but the ones I have right now are too dark green for my liking.

Now for the
Pictures
(all are clickable for full size)

What is this tiny village? Who lives here, and why?



Who choses to make their home alongside this rugged, and windswept coast?



Who walks these trails up the hillside?



What brought them here?



What keeps them here?



Anyway. The Thames Coast Road, as it is known in real life, is a link for holidaymakers in New Zealand to the white sand beaches, and fancy estates of the Northern Coromandel Peninsula. It is notoriously windy (as in it has many turns and corners, not breezes and gusts) but every summer, on Friday evenings, and Saturday morns, thousands of Aucklanders will drive from their homes, through the Thames district, and up the coast road. Traditionally, I myself take the trip once a year, with my family, to stay in my grandparents' beach house up there. For me however, it is an 8 hour drive from Palmerston North (did I show it on the map, in the opening post?). Whereas it is a 3 hour one from Auckland.

So, infact, those houses could well be the beach houses or 'baches' (say: batches) of Thames City residents, or Aucklanders, or even Hamiltonians. They could also be the homes of retirees or artsy types, who knows?

As always, enjoy.

And comment!

[sumwonyuno]

I can only imagine how the coast looks in real life, but these picture are helping. 

[Engorn]

Very nice coast pics.