AntigOne's Projects: Elsewhere.

[BartonThinks]

Remarkable stuff. That desert flora looks spectacular.

[belfastsocrates]

This is spectacular! The heather is looking very nice indeed.

Can I be a little cheeky and ask whether you'd consider recreating gorse? It's a very common feature of the rural landscape in Ireland the UK and the yellow colour is just gorgeous.

[noahclem]

Fantastic work going on around here since last time I popped in    Just loving the UHD creations and really happy for you as it sounds like you're at a point where you're set to realize a lot of long-held ambitions! The arid terrain mod and related flora push or exceed the limit of detailed, realistic recreations that have been realized in the game. My favorite pics have been the ones involving trains

@alejogc13 , stunning grass model,   but considering the scale ( and the fact I'm currently the only one having any reason to use extra zoom levels... ) I woudn't spend too much time on this kind of things if I were you

Not the only one using them  Of course I don't have the reason to use them that you do but terrain mods, automata, and model-tweaked-smaller models all benefit from the closer zoom and conventional HD models generally fit in alright. Though, admittedly, I'm not particularly active at the moment.

Looking forward to seeing what else you're working on 

+1

[Tarkus]

Cacti?    You've made this tankadillo very, very happy.    I've been dying to build a region inspired by the Phoenix metro area for quite a long time now (giant cacti and giant freeways--two of my favorite things), but having tried to make a "cactus controller" myself quite some time ago, there's really not a lot of desert flora out there--just a little bit that c.p. did.  I will be an extremely enthusiastic user of these new creations of yours once they become available.

-Alex

[gn_leugim]

but but... how did you do that? :O they look like you pasted the photos in game. 

[Barroco Hispano]

We haven't heard from you for a long time 

[Badsim]

We haven't heard from you for a long time 

Arf ! ... Having picked the project up again from scratch, I'm working,  like a fanatic for 5 months now, at something big. Bigger than you and me.
Nothing is really finished, I'll need several other months, if ever there's an end, but, yeah, I'm enough advanced for a solid update so: welcome to ...



... ArizOna, State Of Mind; an adventure in Ultra High Definition.

Most of the following pictures are 1600x900, viewable full size by clicking right / display picture.


ArizOna Terrain Mod;


ArizOna Terrain Mod + SonOra Tree Controller, zoom5;


Zoom6;


Zoom CtrlX SizeOf 5;


Zoom CtrlX SizeOf 8;



Both are extremely simple; the Terrain Mod consists of a single ground texture associated to a rock texture. The Tree Controller is composed of a single brush uniformly applied almost everywhere (kSC4FloraPreferencesProperty) and having 21 stages to display as much various desert grasses, bushes and shrubs. The 3 Palo Verde(s) being the 3 last stages, it tooks some  time to see them appear and, due to the  fact that I applied the same kSC4FloraParametersProperty than my MMPs, new sequences start almost endlessly so all stages coexist densely and the result only depends of the patience while using the brush at the same place... not for « in a hurry » people so. I will add some textures to the Terrain Mod but I'm considering the Tree Controller as finished.

To complete that striking and iconic landscape, I've MODed a general staff of 15 MMPs to spread an army of  525 UHD cacti;

5 Ocotillos;


20 Organ Pipes;


25 Prickly pears ;


60 Barrel cacti;


85 Jumping chollas;


The story of Saguaro #118:









Saguaro #118 and its 329 brothers in arms:







These saguaros have 1024X1024 uncompressed FSHs, such format provides nothing more at classical zoom 6 like shown above, it's even rather counterproductive with too much contast.

Benefits start at CtrlX SizeOf 5;


Then, details are magical at CtrlX SizeOf 12;


I'm adding new saguaros almost daily, I can't resist; they have something I can't define,  a kind of personality... and the fact that they are real and stand (or stood)  somewhere in the Sonoran desert add an emotional dimension to SC4. I will probably reach 500 saguaros during the coming months.

Other stuff, other MMPs;  30 desert bushes and shrubs (Palo verde, IronWood, Mosquite...)


8 various desert grasses and flowers (Buffelgrass, Brittlebush, Creosote bush, Lupins, Californian poppies ...)








Works about sonoran fauna; rattlesnakes, Gila monsters, tortoises ...
















Find them all on that view CrtrlX SizeOf 12;



A set of UHD rocks, assorted to my rock texture ...


... and some petroglyphs from Signal Hill (Tucson);






No good Arizona « state of mind »  without a thought for the natives, the pre-Columbian Hohokams,



And their descendants, the Tohono O'odham nation;

*********************************************************

A few words about Saguaros  (Suh-waa-row) - Carnegiea gigantea ; second biggest cactus of the world (just behind Pachycereus Pringlei, its mexican cousin named Cardon), it is native to the Sonoran desert, can grow over 12 meters (40ft), weight over 4 tons and live over 200 years.

Old Grandaddy;


Old Granddaddy was about 300 years old when it started to die in the 1990s. Old Granddaddy is the oldest known cactus ever in the world. Not only was Old Granddaddy old, it was a giant at over 40 feet tall and had 52 arms just before it died.

Now immortalized in SC4;


Gand One;



Grand One, damaged by a bushfire in 2005, survived for two more years before to fall and die in 2007. This old saguaro cactus was estimated to be between 180 – 300 years old and was named the world's largest known saguaro. The Grand One was measured in at 46 ft (14 m) in height.





Oro Valley Saguaro;



In 2002, the town of Oro Valley (just north of Tucson, Arizona) decided to save a more than 200 year old saguaro cactus from being destroyed through a road expansion. It died in 2003; although the transplant was successful, the ancient saguaro stuck by lightning a year after it was moved. 

Saguaros grow very slowly, it may take between 20 and 50 years to reach a height of 1 m, they start to flower around 35 years and produce their first arms around 50 years. A Saguaro is considered as an adult at 125 years. The Destruction of a Saguaro is illegal in Arizona.

****************************************************************

A few words about Saguaro National Park; the 92,000-acre (37,000 ha  -  370 km2 ) park consists of two separate areas - the Tucson Mountain District about 10 miles (16 km) west of Tucson and the Rincon Mountain District about 10 miles (16 km) east of the city. Created in 1933 as National Monument it became National Park in 1994 to protect the Sonaran desert native flora and fauna. Saguaros estimed population: 1,8 million. That seems to be a lot, before to have a look at these  photographies, seemingly all taken from roughly the same perspective:










After have discovered these meaningful pictures, I searched for information about what's happening there. I found and read many serious and scientific publications on the subject-matter, the reasons for the Saguaros population decline are multiple and complex; despite the harsh appearance of these giants...

A 2 years old sagauro;



...they are fragile plants, very sensitive to their environment and weather conditions. Multiple reasons are evocated but I think that weather conditions are the main one. Regular catastrophic freezes since 1937 decimated them, whatever their generation ( babies, juveniles, adults, seniors) but even light freezes or too long summer drought periods can wipe out the younger generations, seedlings of the year particularly. The years preceding 1959 and following 1993, include some of the driest decades in centuries in southern Arizona .Whatever the picture from the park you look at, you can notice that only 5 to 10 various generations, in the best case, are represented. I read somewhere that currently there's no younger Saguaro in Saguaro National Park than 15 years old. In fact, the picture from 1935 indicates that these conditions have been favourable for such development during approximately150/200 years, which maybe happens once a millenary, maybe less often, who knows ? 

Classical vandalism observed in Saguaro National Park;










... sad. But to put things into perspective, a picture of official vandalism, a much more destructive;



Construction of the border wall, here crossing Organ Pipes Monument.

Furthermore, each year dozen of  Saguaros are being illegally dug up and sold across the world. They can range anywhere from $20 to $200 for a 1m high saguaro.

Now the big question is the climate change. I read somewhere else that the 2020 Arizona's summer has been so hot and dry near Phoenix  that many Saguaros collapsed or lost their arms ... « An underwhelming monsoon season and high temperatures are among the reasons why the young cacti are dying. Just over 42% of Arizona is under an extreme drought », according to the S Drought Impact Reporter,September 2020. Whatever the questions, what is sure is that none of us and none of the children being born today will have a chance to see the Saguaros forest like it was in 1935.

Very first ingame pics of Saguaro National Park;







Other works in the pipes, Sonoran super bloom like in 2017;


Snowfall on Saguaro National Park,





(... only the beginning. )

Old Tucson Movie Studio ;



I started to rework FSHs from WolfeZ wild west BATs  ( River Junction pack 1 & 2. I , in a way, miraculosly downloaded them 48 hours before their removal from the STEX...  )

Wolf's general store original version:


Mine (also resized down like all other WolfeZ's BATs) ;


Ingame with already revamped Wells Fargo;


Next on the list, the saloon ...

You can also notice a mix of Riptide's carriages rezided down and props extracted from justforfun's horse-drawn automata, resized up and with reworked FSHs for a less victorian but more wild west look.

Old Tucson Movie Studio is also a theme park , that's a nice SC4 challenge.

******************************************************

... it sounds like you're at a point where you're set to realize a lot of long-held ambitions!

You're right Noah, as you can see  ... I've opened a window, now the risk is that all others are definately closed for me; that's a one-way road. (Thanks for the +1.)

... giant cacti and giant freeways--two of my favorite things.

-Alex

Thanks Alex, I'm glad that we have a common interest for cacti  ... that's not the case with highways.


Alejo, if ever you would release a proper set of HD hikers, it would be a blessing for me ...

C.

[BartonThinks]

Good lord...

Beautiful, beautiful stuff.

[juliok102013]

It's getting hard to tell which are the in-game pics and which are the RL photos, very good work with your UHD creation

[Barroco Hispano]

I exported a mountaineer some time ago. I have to go through my files to see how many hikers I have.

Your work is absolutely beautiful! 



I am starting to export my dinosaurs and sims. 



By the way, I have posted some BATS in simtropolis. 

[Girafe]

You too, have an addiction with flora 
Amazing work with all these lovely props and textures 
I am glad you are still around with crazy project 

[TheTeaCat]

You never cease to amaze and delight 
Absolutely incredible stuff you achieve for this game even after all these years.

Derry

[manga rivotra]

I see you've been busy the past few months!   
Before reading this entry, I must admit that my knowledge of cacti was limited to what can be found in pots at the florist  . I never imagined that these Saguaros are so old and so unique.
Seen from what you are already showing, it is clear that you will pay them a superb tribute  .
Antigone is definitely full of surprises, but the incomparable quality of what we find here remains systematic. 
I can't wait to see more! 

[Badsim]

This is the next batch of Sonoran beauties I'm working on since 2 months:

For the time being, this is a catalogue of PNG cut out files, made one by one and by hand ( with Photoshop manual lasso ) ; I'm  gonna start to scale them , make their tones & exposures uniform before to convert them to FSHs. 1200 saguaros are nor necessary nor reasonable, let's see if I'm able to limit them... 

Besides, I've started to collect Cylindropuntia fulgida pictures ...










Thanks for the comments and likes, Barton Thinks, I'm following your work at Simtro. , everything is interesting but I'm particularly impressed by your LotEditing habilities (Homes and farms), one of the best LotEdtiting the comminity has ever seen ! And I'm afraid of being categorical.

Cédric.

[AsimPika3172]

AWWWWWWEEEEESSSSSOOOOMMMMEEEEE!!!!!!! 

[fantozzi]

Sorry to bother but I'm terrible outdated as so many exciting things happened around SC4 and there is so much to read and discover.

- the gras from the previous page, was it released somewhere?

[Une_ame]

 

....

That's it, you kill me !

[Badsim]

Hi, 

3:10 to Yuma (2007), train arrival to Contention City, Arizona, for the ending scene:



From SC4, 2021:



All ingame pics can be opened in a new tab to be seen full size.

...MAXIS' cartoonish steam engine  (although it was reproducing an historic Gov. Stanford type steam engine...);



... with a new FSH;



...some UVmapping corrections and a resize up;



A Gov. Stanford type steam engine that can be still seen at Old Tucson Movie Studio:



MAXIS' cartoonish caboose;



Same process; after new FSH applied, UVmapping corrections and new sizes;





MAXIS' cartoonish boxcar;



... after with a new FSH, UVmapping corrections and new sizes;





MAXIS' cartoonish hopper;



... after a new FSH applied, UVmapping corrections and new sizes, it became a tender car;





The 2 historic passenger cars are a light FSHs improvement of Vester's beautiful models coming from his VDK_Trains_Vol13 Vintage Passenger Cars, on the LEX ;









I took that occasion to give to  Arne a karma point , his work about trains is truly tremendous and I feel ashamed for having underestimated it during all these years ...

CtrlX SizeOf 5;








That train is static, made of props extracted from their automata; I could have made it as functional freight train but I wouldn't control its composition.

Overview about my fictive Contention City version,



What remains of the real Contention City...



Closer views;















Sizes, FSHs, textures, MODings; like always almost nothing has been left untouched to get that result.

A few examples of my re-FSHing works;

onlyplace4's old barn;





Various props from Jim Myers' BSC Mega Props  -  JMyersAgriculture01 & 02;





... sometines just to remove an annoying ground texture ... 



I've planned to improve all WolfZe's wild west BATs, ( River Junction packs 1 & 2). I have already shown the General Store and Wells Fargo, these days I'm working to improve the Saloon (Work in progress);



I've even dared to retouch Alejo's Abandoned House (desaturation and resize up) 



... and some interesting WMP's props like that one;



I've also improved MAXIS and Alex (Xannepan) horses, cows and pigs automata FSHs, horses have now 6 more realistic liveries;



Cows have now 5 liveries;



And pigs have 3 ones;



Besides, my cacti collection is still growing...


















... but I doubt that I'll have the patience to implement them all. 

Thanks for visiting. 

C.

[mattb325]

Truly amazing work! Your scenes are a joy to behold. 

[manga rivotra]

I see you have taken the FSH upgrades to a whole new level! 
I particularly admire the care given to the roof of onlyplace4's barn (when you know the age of this building, that's quite an achievement!) And the "improvement" or rather the metamorphosis of the WolfZe building into the Wild West Saloon: everything is there and it's absolutely perfect like the General Store shown in February.
The new textures of the cattle are also very successful: the colors are vibrant and look real.
Splendid update, as always!