Hi all,
It's been a busy couple of months, and I've been slowly developing the city, but haven't felt like there was anything really complete to show you, until I remembered that this was a WIP MD, so development pictures were par for the course. I've yet to get around to plopping all of the things that I need to (like the park areas and such), but it's coming along nicely. This will be a very picture heavy update to capture the progress that I've made so far in the areas surrounding the downtown. All overviews are looking north unless otherwise noted. Click on all pictures for full size!
1.First, an overview of the developed portion of the region:
2.We start at the western edge of the city, in Point Loma:
3.Some nice gridbusting, I think. The winding road is CA Rte 209 to the Point Loma lighthouse. Looking north:
4.Downtown Ocean Beach. The businesses are still in development; the farms are primarily job placeholders. The blue trolley line runs in the street by the coast. Looking north:
5.Some less expensive Point Loma homes:
6.A close-up to illustrate some of the variety of the homes that you might find here. They're all custom built, so each house is unique:
7.All of the non-canyon areas will eventually be filled up with residential. Looking north:
8.Skipping over to Lindbergh Field (and passing by West Field, since there's nothing interesting in that community yet), we come across a highway junction, a rail line, and a municipal airport.:
There's also been some heavy work done on highway realignment and restructuring: All facing north.
Before:
9a.
9b.
9c.
After:
10.Looking north:
10.5 An absurdly long commuter train. I seriously doubt this train would move very fast in Real Life with that many carriages. The locomotive in question is not particularly noted for being speedy in the first place. The area surrounding it is a definite WIP. Looking south:
11.After our brief drive through Lindbergh Field, we move on to North Park, which, interestingly enough, lies just north of Balboa Park!
There's still a lot of undeveloped land. Mostly it's because I'm wary to use the grid pattern that North Park is comprised of in Real Lifwe, simply because it's uninteresting and not very fun to build on. The main roads are there, and you can see US 395 heading North, while construction of US 80 East is underway; the Texas St overpass has just been finished in this photo. Looking north.
12.A closer shot of some of the development in Hillcrest, which is technically defined as being West of Park Blvd (the northbound avenue on the left), as well as the Red trolley line, which runs north to University Heights and then turns East toward Normal Heights. Looking north.
13.Some of the homes along the cliff that have a view over Mission Valley and out to the ocean, which is but 4 miles west (to the right) as the crow flies. Looking south.
14.Downtown Hillcrest. It's still mostly a WIP, as the development hasn't quite captured the feel I'm going for. You can see the 395 on the right as it goes down the hill, and the RD-4 that goes north is 6th Avenue, which pretty much ends at Washington Ave (east-west). Looking north
15.In Downtown San Diego, progress has been slow, but I have been working on details and controlling development.
Some highway realignment:
16a.Before:
16b.After:
17.Some slow progress. It may not look like it, but there is a major rail, highway, and main road realignment present in this image. The slopes were a pain to work with, but it makes a little bit more sense now. The next step will be to work on the waterfront, and finish developing the hills with residential homes. Looking east:
18.Some night shots of downtown to finish off the entry:
19.By the SimFox towers in Bankers' Hill:
20.An industrial sector at nighttime:
21.The Santa Fe train depot at night. The art deco styling really comes out at night.
22.A small mosaic of Little Tokyo. It's not very big, as the Asian communities in San Diego are more "suburban" in nature. We'll be seeing more of them in National City to the south, and in the northeast of San Diego. Looking south:
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23.A brief venture into photoediting. I'm not completely satisfied with it, and if I try it again, there are quite a few things I'd change or do differently. Still, it was good practice, though I did spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find example images, mostly with little luck. Any ideas on where to find good example pictures is welcome.
24.Government Center at night:
25.Finally, we'll finish this picture looking down onto Key Tower and the Emerald Towers. It won two rounds in the SC4Devotion Picture Competition (so close to the HoF, too!), and I think it turned out rather nice.
