Show us your city, road or transit maps!

[Joe 90 358]

Originally posted by: davidaiow

^Thanks, but Joe90's but everybody's to shame! That looks truly stunning! If only I could see the full version!!!!quote>

Try it now. Unfortunately the number of decent image hosts capable of hosting a pic this big is quite low :/

[davidaiow 2]

^Just looked at it- so awesome!

[Benedict 3,119]

joe90 - amazing stuff! i bet you could make a successful cj on exploring the map alone!

i was wondering what the significance of the route number colors (red, yellow, blue) is? i love the retro look of the road number icons, great piece of design.

[Joe 90 358]

That was the original idea, Benedict. But it took me so long to build it up (4+ years, 9x8 large tiles) everything is outdated. Some of the towns I haven't edited since the NAM first came out!

The highway colours are just Primary/Secondary/Tertiary, nothing special

If anyone's interested, I can write up a tutorial on how to do a map like that.

[Benedict 3,119]

The thread just reached another milestone recently - over 50k views!! Very impressive work, everyone, keep it up!

[davidaiow 2]

I think this is definitely my favourite thread on these forums. I find is so inspiring both from a design and city building perspective. You guys are all so creative and talented!

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Yeah, my mind asploded when I saw Joe 90's map.

[jdenm8 362]

For anybody interested, Here is a subway map I made for my Flatwood CJ available in the old CJ section. This map covers most of greater Knightsbridge. This took me ages to do and the final jpeg is like 4000x1000px I have posted the reduced size version (as per reguation in the CJ area) but it links to the full size version and it is HUGE!. This is not the whole region by the way, that would be another one like this.

ElRail is actually the operating company and the map reflects that. The Monorail system is on the left anf the Light Rail system on the right. It might be a bit disporportionate, but who cares. The images depict transfer points to the type of transport indicated. Red is Monorail, Green is Light Rail.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Awesome! Whats the blue line on the El Rail Light?

[jdenm8 362]

Oops!. I forgot to put in the tag for it. It is an elevated line that is disconnected fromt he rest of the network. You can transfer, but you can't catch a train straight through.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Ah ok. Thanks.

[mentarman 14]

Looks good! Only thing I would say is maybe the circles could be crisper-edged, right now they are kind of fuzzy and that sort of messes with my eyes. But overall a very nice, interesting map.

[jdenm8 362]

You're right. It's just an outer glow effect on the layer. I'll fix it for the next one.

[TekindusT 3,809]

Here's the result of a Friday afternoon + Simtropolis + AutoCAD:

Not based on any actual city in my game, I've just invented it!

[Benedict 3,119]

 Sign at Lighthouse Station on the Port Sinclair Monorail:

[mentarman 14]

Looks good, I like how you've established a style that is immediately recognizable as yours (I knew it was yours even before I saw it was the same city, but with the map turned; at first I thought it was a new city) while still being very professional and realistic looking.

Seems very inspired by Canadian systems, Toronto and Montreal...

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

@ Benedict: Very profession, simplicity equals clarity.

[Mgyeldell1 0]

Here is the Subway Map For My largest City Gresham Hill

 

I am actually very proud of this system  because it actually does a good job at moving the people in my city around. To Me its very efficent. Some Stations move more than 20,000 Sims everyday which is humongous for Sim City. The actual system is located on 4 Mediums and One Large Tile, with the Dark Blue line being located on the Large TIle.

 

My busiest station which move 15,000 Sims or More are

1. The HUB- ~25,000 (In the Middle of the City and the Commuter Rail and Hi-speed Rail Meet at this station)

2. Lambotti(Red,Purple)- ~21,000 (There are six large projects located where the Lambotti stations are and noone drives in those projects)

3. Staten Resi.- ~17,000 (5 Large Project building located near this station and Located on a Island and the bridge has horrible traffic and Its a tollway)

4. Bronx- ~ 15,500 (Business District which uses the pedestrian malls and I plopped 4 large landmarks skyscrapers with jobs and everyone walks from that station)

5. Rockaway- ~15,000 (Large Projects and everyone in the city works in the Bronx)

 

 

Edit: For the Station that I left empty on the red line with no name its called Brick Walk

 

 

[MrBrightside 3]

Mgyeldell1, this is a pretty nice map, I would use a bigger resolution however, so you have more space for station names and so on

 

Here is the transport map from my current CJ..

 

Full Size (2200*2050) here:
http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/4301/mp2nu.jpg

 

[Mgyeldell1 0]

Originally posted by: MrBrightside
 

Mgyeldell1, this is a pretty nice map, I would use a bigger resolution however, so you have more space for station names and so on

 

Here is the transport map from my current CJ..

 

Full Size (2200*2050) here:
http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/4301/mp2nu.jpg

 quote>

 

What program do you use to make maps like that?

 

[MrBrightside 3]

any graphical program that supports layers. I used Paint.net, which is freeware.  

[coachmcguirck 0]

Easy way to make these maps in photoshop is to master the Pen Tool

[coachmcguirck 0]

Originally posted by: Benedict
 Sign at Lighthouse Station on the Port Sinclair Monorail:


quote>

How do you make the 45-degree angles smooth instead of sharp?

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

It really depends on what program was used.

[davidaiow 2]

I've only recently discovered the pen tool. Until that point I've been using lines and shapes haha! And spending hours layering them nicely

Some excellent maps on this page- particularly a fan of Mgyeldell1's

[Benedict 3,119]

@ mentarman: Thanks! I did decide to go with the black background after seeing Montreal's metro map. I like the idea of having a consistent style for signage etc for each of my transit systems in the cities of my CJ. I hope that the instant recognition doesn't mean I've become predictable.

@ ROFLyoshi: thank you very much!

@ coachmcguirk:

Originally posted by: coachmcguirck

How do you make the 45-degree angles smooth instead of sharp?quote>

 

If you are using photoshop, use the pen tool's convert point tool (I always work with the grid on to help me). But you have to anticipate where you want your curves to be before using the convert point tool.

Example:

sharper curve (using the brush tool you'll get a slight rounding at the edges)

 

If we stroke that path, here is the result:

 

Now, using the convert point tool (the upside down and slightly angled V cursor) to get a curve. 

 

To start you need to anticipate how wide you want the curve to be, in this case the line will curve 45 degrees over 2x1 grid squares:

 

Now comes the clever part: change the path tool to the change point tool. Click on one of the points where the curve will be (I chose the upper one). You'll get two bars (they look a bit like standard deviation bars on a  stats graph - I'm sure they have a proper name in photoshop, but I don't know what it is) Now drag the bars to create your curve. With the grid on, the bars tend to snap to the gird points. If you're not using the grid, hold down the shift key while you drag and it will keep the bars on angles that are multiples of 45 degrees (so 45, 90, 135, 180 etc).

As you drag, the path should become smooth. Drag to where it looks good (play around a bit to see where it looks best).

 

Now stroke your curved 45 degree transition:

And you're done!

[coachmcguirck 0]

Awesome, thanks!!

[krwpjm 0]

Here is a map of 2 parts of my city - its not from SC4, but just a random city I made.

It was made on inkscape.  

The first photo is of the downtown area (Stockton Island)

The second photo is of the north end of Stockton Island, and the borough of Whitestone.  

Picture 2.png

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Very nice and welcome to Simtropolis!

I can see what you mean, based on the angles, this would be hard to make in SC4.

[davidaiow 2]

^^ Fantastic! Love it! There may be some layering issues on the interchanges, but other than that- modern, fresh and top class!