Show us your Small Towns

[Raymond7cn 6,773]

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Random small town in the sticks

I wish to look out of the window at the reds and greens of the trees and the silvery blue of the river (or sea) on that train.

Best,

-- Raymond

[nilepereiraa 21]

8 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Random small town in the sticks:

This reminds me of rik4000's Screenshotsville

[Lucario Boricua 7,030]

The growth associated with the new railway connection to the Kanto Region has been felt beyond Drent!

 

Presenting...

 

֍ LAKE PLATINUM ֎

EXPANDING ITS MODEST ECONOMY!

 

The extremely scenic mountain town of Lake Platinum has historically relied on its amazing natural attractions, work brought forth by the downstream hydroelectric systems of Lake Diamond and Lake Pearl, and being a bedroom community to the small city of Drent. However, with Drent's own space also being constrained by the striking natural setting, its other lakeside neighbor has made room for some industries next to its railway maintenance depot, and bringing in some new residents along with it!

 

 

֍ LAKE DIAMOND ֎

HAS TOWNY ASPIRATIONS!

 

Further downstream, near the shores of the mighty Lake Diamond reservoir, that infamous linear village along Primary Highway 10 has grown some more and has petitioned to become a formally incorporated town in the Lake Diamond development district, as the village of Gladia.

 

 

To further boost its case, development trends in the village have expanded settlement downhill, until being close to the banks of the Diamond River . This also necessitated an improvement in transportation, brought forth by the construction of a passenger railway station along the Rockford Base Tunnel Railway!  

 

 

Future development is expected to continue at this site, taking advantage of the latest transportation improvements in the area!

 

 

And finally, there is growing concern about the safety and practicality of the existing Primary Highway 15 alignment between Lake Pearl and Lake Diamond. This treacherous road has three impressive hairpin turns with precarious precipices carved from the otherwise indomitable mountainside, which has necessitated interventions from the Ministry of Infrastructure to protect with guardrails. Studies are ongoing for the development of a safer and more traversable re-alignment of this important thoroughfare.

[Terring 6,476]

Sporadis is a small town designed and build to provide a high living level to its citizens with the lowest environmental footprint possible. The town was named after Sporades (Σποράδες, "those scattered", compare with "sporadic"), an island group in the Aegean Sea In Greece, and here you can see why.

About 1,800 Sims live in this green, futuristic town and the access here is by road or the subway.

Sporadis was build by preserving the local environment as much as possible. This means application of green technologies, plenty of parks and mass transit, no heavy infrastructures and no excessive terraforming. The town has adopted a stair-like pattern that allows it to hug the relief of the landscape when it's possible, while avoiding bumpy roads and silly construction results. This can be visible by the tree lines that separates the buildings apart, providing extra green belts with all the benefits from it, such as absorbing sound and air pollution, reducing the temperatures in hot days and giving a sense of privacy to the residents.

The town takes most of its energy by those wind turbines, which provide enough energy to store some of it for emergency situations, while a neighboring city sells some of its water to Sporadis.

This is the industrial area. A small group of factories produces useful good by 3D printing and robots. A recycling center and a small but efficient waste-to-energy incinerator are next to it, as well as a small water purifying system.

This area has most of the most important civic services, such as the mayor's house, the central computer, the elementary and the high schools, the digital library and the cultural center of the town. All of them are next to the Sporadis skyfarm, that covers some of the town's need for food.

Very close to them we have the police station, the fire station the clinic and the civic forum of Sporadis.

By walking in the streets of Sporadis, we'll be finding plenty of bus stops and subway stations, parks, dirty paths for pedestrians, and the town's spiritual center. Look very closely and you might find pigeons, seagulls, buzzards and even parrots flying around.

And as I said before, no heavy infrastructures here. No highways, no airports, not even a single seaport. Building a seaport here would made a serious environmental catastrophe here. The water here is deep and clean enough to bring plenty of animals, including whales. Why deploying ships here that can kill those beautiful creatures, when you can fly drones with quiet ion engines to come closer to them and admire them? Earth belongs to everybody, not only to us.

You might have noticed that lately I've been posting pictures mostly from small, environmental-friendly towns of the future. This is because not only I wanted to do something different than epic metropolises with ginormous skyscrapers and flying cars everywhere, but also to give you a glimpse for a new project I'll be working on. A small solarpunk city journal. Stay tuned

[carlosmarcelo 981]

On 27/04/2020 at 11:43 PM, CorinaMarie said:

Random small town in the sticks:

Are these dirt roads NAM's? I never thought they would look beautiful in any situation. You make them look natural and very well placed among of the farms. How can I use them?

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

9 hours ago, carlosmarcelo said:

Are these dirt roads NAM's? I never thought they would look beautiful in any situation. You make them look natural and very well placed among of the farms. How can I use them?

Those are indeed NAM's SAM 3 Peg Dirt Roads. (And NAM's railroad too.)

The differences are tweaks @Cyclone Boom and I have made to the Maxis farm textures, converting the underlying network dirt texture to grass, and then a multitude of new ploppable, diagonal filler lots.

Here's the before picture:

 

And the after pic. (Placed in a spoiler box since it's already posted above.) This will let you click on an image in this post and then use the right and left arrow keys to toggle back and forth between both pics to see the changes we've made.

Spoiler

 

[Yarahi 1,816]

@CorinaMarie Are those diagonal versions of SUICO's Farm Fences along the railroad? Something you whipped up I guess. Mind sharing?

[Cyclone Boom 17,016]

2 minutes ago, Yarahi said:

@CorinaMarie Are those diagonal versions of SUICO's Farm Fences along the railroad? Something you whipped up I guess. Mind sharing?

These are specially created diagonal filler lots as part of our project. We are considering to release these along with the entire set of everything we've made once it's all properly ready and documented. In total there are over 50 lots of numerous different combinations for each field type.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

1 minute ago, Yarahi said:

@CorinaMarie Are those diagonal versions of SUICO's Farm Fences along the railroad? Something you whipped up I guess. Mind sharing?

Adding to CB's reply:

They are similar in concept to SUICO's farm fences inasmuch as they are filler lots. SUICO's farm fence lots are square Maxis crop textures with the fence from Longfellow Castle along one edge and then a tree row using a prop family.

Our lots are created new from the ground up. I've made diagonal textures with a blended transition between the crops and network dirt (as grass). CB has created all of the lots themselves.

 

[Yarahi 1,816]

8 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

We are considering to release these

I'll sit down, have a beer and cross the pinkies then 

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

The small lakeside town of Naomiville:

[mmprog 104]

A "one-red-light" rural village at the end of a commuter rail line. Across the river from a larger town (not pictured), and a little further from the large city the rail connects to. You can see some typical layers of 20th century american development: a main street with the oldest houses and shops parallel to a rail line, housing subdivisions taking over some farmland, and a rural school on the edge of town. Not much industry here: all the residents commute, other than the farmers, teachers, and shop keepers.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Now there's an idyllic little seaside farming community!  (or is that bayside?)

I'm guessing the locals are big fans of the ferry?  

On 12/05/2020 at 9:43 PM, CorinaMarie said:

The small lakeside town of Naomiville:

[Terring 6,476]

A new entry for my CJ is coming soon

[9gruntsand1hammer 3,196]

The eastern end of Boyne City with surrounding farmland.

[Wallibuk 1,959]

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

An unnamed small town west of Naomiville:

 

[Jeffrey500 567]

The village of Oosterland on the Island of Lendelingen. The upcoming days i will make a few small (pop 100-200) villages like this one before i'm gonna start with the central town (1.500 inhabitants) of my island. 

[Jeffrey500 567]

The old town of Zwanenburg. Lying on a isle in the broad river. Charleston, WV is a fun map to play with. 

[11241036 5,105]

The small partly rural village of Dietrichsbach.

[11241036 5,105]

And it's again me.

A small village on a hilly area of an island; still a WIP because I need to find something to design the empty area at the bottom left.

[mattb325 28,880]

A main intersection in a small(ish) town

 

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

Random small town at the end of the railway line:

[Daeris 1,116]

Hi fellow small-town lovers. I am just starting to get "decent" at this style I suppose (all thanks to @CorinaMarie and too many others to name), but I am happy with my progress so far!

Here are some super new villages that have sprung up in the new region I'm starting.

This here is Oldport (or well, in the future it will be Oldport... I guess right now it's a new port  ):

 

South of Oldport are some unnamed coastal farm villages, along Sharktooth Trail:

 

East of Oldport, the wagon trail leads to Slyside Lake (probably my favorite layout I've created thus far):

 

Thanks for lookin'! Happy building and I hope to have more to share soon!

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

3 minutes ago, Daeris said:

Here are some super new villages that have sprung up in the new region I'm starting.

Very nice. I really like the rural feel of your new region and your small towns and villages look like they belong where they are.

[Daeris 1,116]

On 11/22/2020 at 10:19 PM, mattb325 said:

@mattb325 How are you adding this tilt-shift effect to your pics? Is this just something you're doing in photoshop? Looks nice and fits your cities very well!

[mattb325 28,880]

Thanks @Daeris, it can be quite a polarizing effect to add to images (viewers either like it or loathe it, lol).

There are a number of tutorials around that explain how to achieve the look, I'm just following these.

Here's another small town scene of houses clustered near a rural car ferry to cross the river:

 

[Daeris 1,116]

2 minutes ago, mattb325 said:

Thanks @Daeris, it can be quite a polarizing effect to add to images (viewers either like it or loathe it, lol).

I would say it depends on how you use it, but you are definitely using it very well and it fits your content from what I can see. I like it the way you're using it (but sure it might not be for everyone).

[City_Slider 2,716]

Matt isnt a Newbie... Old School Modder ^^ arent you? ;-)

[mattb325 28,880]

Looking down from the hillside towards the edge of town