• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

Postcards from a Mattb325 Test Region

Started by mattb325, March 16, 2019, 11:57:21 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

89James89

More absolutely gorgeous shots of the city and I like the description of some of you ideas and work behind it. I love how your not afraid to let Maxis grow as well alongside the relotted and bated buildings.

Really nice work!

manga rivotra

I understand better now why your wonderful buildings are so useful and become instantly indispensable.
In fact, your understanding of the gameplay is deep and quite impressive, and your involvement in improving it by creating the right/needed buildings is a chance for us all.  :thumbsup:
This MD is indeed very interesting on the technical level (very useful for all those who have some problems to maintain the RCI demand ...... it's happens even to old players  ::)), and also on the aesthetic level.
Indeed, I believe that it is very difficult to create a real city of very high density that is realistic and functional. Maybe because the buildings we have are too iconic and intended for a singular enhancement, but it seems that the way you manage the spaces between these towers (without exaggerating the place of infrastructure), while maintaining a "green touch" , is the solution to achieve this realism.
In fact it makes me want to try the density. Great work !  :thumbsup:

c.p.

The empty map tile may be boring, but there is nothing boring about the developed city.
I use the Make Historical sometimes too, but I'm too lazy to do that for whole streets/blocks, so I just make sure there is some dirty industry or other pollution nearby the residential areas so they don't upgrade.  (I'm a bad mayor, what can I say? :D )  I haven't run a city long enough to know if that will work over the long haul though.  Anyway, this is an interesting MD so far. :thumbsup:

mattb325

Replies:

evarburg: thankyou! The main reason "Make Historical" doesn't work is when the building becomes abandoned for whatever reason. For instance, if you make a med-wealth building historical, but it abandons for high crime, a low wealth building will take its place. That low wealth building subsequently remains historic unless it too abandons.
fantozzi: thankyou! You do indeed spy some of your creations. The building in question is the 'Embassy Apartments' an old low wealth one of mine: https://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2805
89James89: thankyou! If I blocked Maxis buildings, I know my city would stall at certain points as there still isn't enough custom content available to fill all of the low stages  :o
manga rivotra thankyou! The BSC always lived by the mantra of playing the game and making buildings/lots/mods that way, rather than doing exact recreations or endless skyscrapers. When I do make buildings, even recreations, I will always make sure that playability and function are paramount and tweak the building to fit the game.
c.p. thankyou! I have areas of dirty industry and no health care etc...I was experimenting with buildings that had a very small depressing effect on surrounding desirability when placed (such as a hospital building that, while making the overall city tile better, made the immediate few squares surrounding the building less desirable), but the squeals from forums were so loud, well, I shelved it  $%Grinno$%




Another quick one today. The theme is: repetition.

It's the bane of most players....the same building popping up over and over. Sometimes it's good, sometimes not so enjoyable. CS is the biggest culprit as it has no real cap; I don't know why Maxis made it that way. Perhaps it was done to ensure the region didn't stall entirely, but they are useful in that they don't provide too many jobs, they like congestion, don't care too much about pollution, and in turn, their presence fuels demand for res.

But like a bad curry, they can repeat  :D

We are here:



CS and CO like airports, even if we mayors don't!



This one is like Noah made the city, with two of everything. I got sick of the repetition so plopped reward buildings over the blocks, but you can still see the same building over and over....



Vanderaap, Vanderaap....wherefore art thou....battling simfox apartments  ;)



But sometimes repetition is a blessing. These terraces grew (one is a res$$ and the other a CS$$) a few streets away from each other, so I bulldozed the buildings in between and made a little park (or common), just like you see in inner city London:



Even the simfox apartments repeated nicely in that image...now, wheres the ant-acid......

art128

Stunning pictures.

For some building the repetition isn't such a bad thing.... In fact it is more realistic to have some repetition. For instance on those Simfox towers, it seem like a tower block estate that was built in whole.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

evarburg

Repetition : ah, but without Noah...  ;) Seriously I see so many twin buildings in RL (and so often more, like cookie cutter houses in suburban developments !), that having them in SC4 doesn't bother me so much. But I tend to watch over like a hawk and zap the weediest ones. And then (rather recently...) I learn how to block buildings from reappearing -- I am still mwhahaha-ing.

89James89

See I really like the 3 apartments in the row, as art said, they look like a tower block. For me the biggest issue would be the red roofed buildings. They seem to be a bit repetitive to me. The Londonesque crescent buildings and the green in between does look rather nice though (though reminds me more of Bath than London  ;D)

manga rivotra

I also often have the same feeling about the repetitions of buildings, and sometimes use the tool buldozer furiously in order to don't have 2 times the same lot in the same street  ::).
On the other hand, it is rather realistic to have identical or at least similar buildings in the same neighborhood, especially in modern neighborhoods, where often the only thing that distinguishes 2 buildings face to face is the color of the facade. This helps to create a kind of identity in different neighborhoods and thus generate the "feeling of a city", block after block, i guess.
Your photos are a great example, since each building seems to have found its place naturally, which is particularly remarkable since you play "growing"  :thumbsup:
Sim Fox and Aaron Graham can be thanked for creating identical models with different textures for facades and 45 ° turns that also break the grid. Great pictures again !  :thumbsup:

mattb325

Replies:

art128: thankyou! I really like the simfox tower blocks and it is very rare that I'll bulldoze them (I usually bulldoze my own buildings first, lol  $%Grinno$%)
evarburg: thankyou! I like the idea of blocking the weediest ones. I usually just fire up the SC4Tool and take a few of the tilesets away from them and that tends to work.
89James89: thankyou! It's amazing that Vanderaap's housing (the red roofed buildings) are still weeds after all of these years. They can really be quite repetitive, and that's after I've restricted them to the Euro tileset only  :D
manga rivotra: thankyou! Repetition still manages to bite all the time, even with >5GB of plugins....wren insurance, paull inc and of course all of the little horrid Maxis CS buildings....still have to find a way to out bat and out compete the Maxis stalwarts  :D




Today's update takes us here:


Not too much to say about this one; lots of suburbia that adjoins more medium density areas; although for this update I'm not really focusing on the houses, there'll be plenty of tiles for that.
While these are technically commuter belt areas, CS$$ stuff really helps keep unemployment at bay. Lots of public transport assists those sims who want to commute...

Overview with clouds  ::)


This tile is intersected with a number of avenues to help with traffic:



Lots of CS$$



A number of Spa's beautiful buildings (come back Spa - and bring Simgoober, JBSimio, Couchpotato, Callagrafx, deadwoods, gascooker, ill tonkso, jen_p, jmyers2043, etc, etc, and so many other awesome batters who made so many wonderful smaller buildings; the game needs you more than ever!) which I have made CS$$ growable grace this avenue. There were a few of the Dick's sporting goods chain along here before I bulldozed all but one. I didn't want a street full of dicks.   :D:


A quiet corner where I first placed the memorial to Geoff and Barbara (those who have downloaded it may recognize these scene....this is, after all, my testing region:


A corner with a lot of Polish buildings (plus my own) that I have made CS. There must have been something in the water in Poland to produce so many, many, many good batters. That is a country that has truly punched well above its weight in terms of custom content for SC4.  :thumbsup:


Lastly some night shots.


evarburg

#49
I admire how you manage to make the grid look interesting ! And I ardently concur with what you say about SC Poslka (Simtrop' is in the process of repatriating as much as it can from there ; my own Polska folder is over 1 G !!!) And I would join my voice to yours in imploring the great old(er) batters to come back to the fold. But alas, time passes, life happens. I'm afraid SC4 batting is a bit like reading science-fiction (and such genres) : "I used to read a kot of [whatever] when I was young..." --the implicit endinf of the sentence being "but I am an adult now and let go of childish toys" As if creativity, in anything, could ever be a "childish" endeavour. Damn it, I've been playing SC4 since it was in black & white, I still delight in it, and I wish I could learn to bat. (But I will have to be content with lotting stuff !  :)

A question. You say : "I usually just fire up the SC4Tool and take a few of the tilesets away from them and that tends to work.", to control weedy buildings. Can you elaborate ? (I didn't now that technique. ; and I play wilh All Tilesets)

kbieniu7

What a blurry effect, one can get dizzy looking at those pictures :o Anyway, that's quite nice to look at, all those suburbs in the region view :)
Thank you for visiting Kolbrów, and for being for last ten years!

mattb325

#51
Thanks evarburg and kbieniu7. With the SC4Tool (which has a user friendly GUI), it is very easy to simply edit a buildings tilesets. Reducing the number of tilesets that a building can grow on will ultimately reduce the chance of it growing.

Blurry buildings return!

We are here in the test region:



As this is a test region, you can see how much larger it is getting. Part of the testing process is when custom content that I intend to release is grown/plopped (particularly stuff that has slightly unusual modding), I will save, exit and then re-enter the city. Bulldoze, save, etc.

This part of the region is more about 'scrapers. Love them or hate them, they are an integral part of the game.



The CBD area is on the water (like so many cities around the world)



Here you can see that I've used Reddonquixotes awesome building to straddle and bridge the shoreline.



It was also this tile that prompted me to make the four extra passenger ferry terminals, as I was sick of seeing the same car/ferry terminals every time I played the game.



This is a large tile, and I rarely give everything over to one style of play. This part of the map has numerous peninsulas and bays which make that sort of delineation easy.

There is a small wooded section that separates the CBD from the inner suburbs to the more suburban sprawl that dominates the region. It is connected by road, rail and ferry.









Because it is so close to the city, property is expensive. And expensive home owners like to play golf, right?

The low density suburbia transitions to medium density stock:



Fun fact, this council building (which I admit  an acquired taste) was inspired by a portable dust-buster  :D





There is even a cruise ship port and small airport on this tile to ensure commercial offices thrive:


Art galleries keep residential demand high:


Lastly, a few more images of the down-town areas:










This is the first time I've been able to grow some of the HKABT mega residentials:





And lastly, the view of someone's sky-lounge and pool:


art128

Really cool pictures. Nice to see such a good collection of skyscraper together, specially the less used one.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog