Urban Rivers Project

[JonM 38]

Hey all, I am trying to make a city like Stockholm. But using regular bridges over real water doesn't really work  for me (they have to be too high, and the shores are kind of hard to customize)

So I am making this, it is much like a canal set, but intended to be more like a river. I plan to included boats and docks.

I am going to making props for the edges, I want to make real nice pedistals and statues for the bridges.

Let me know what you think!  Should I make the water more reflective?

Cheers!

[Craig91 12]

That's amazing work

[thepokemaniac 18]

You're making amazing progress! I think its shiny enough. Are you planning on a release?

[Larks2242 251]

Woah thats amazing work excellent job!!!!!!

[Xyloxadoria 1,099]

The water is nice looking, but what bothers me isnt the refectivity, its the fact that it tiles. If i look at the water i can see its texture repeat. you can fix that by making the texture have less variation, take out thoose daker "line areas" and it should look better.

[psander5 195]

I think it looks great so far! I look forward to seeing a nice, decorative fence or something to stop cars and pedestrians dropping into the river I think the reflectivity is just about right for the game. Those bridges look superb. Something like this would make things like London recreations possible! I certainly see places like Stockholm in it too.

[Delecto 941]

Look's realy good, you have managed the diagonal bridges very well and the reflectivity of the water is perfect for the game IMO. I will follow this project carefully!

Good Luck___DEL!

[yellowguy88 1]

Wow this is awesome!

i think the reflectivity is jst rite..

Good job!

[vistla 3]

WOW! That looks really cool! How were you able to make the street (w/SAM Textures), diagonal? Also, those are nice looking bridges. Will it be possible to make them at variable widths?

[io_bg 249]

Looks awesome! I love the fact that these canals are deep, this way the bridges would be high enough for boats to pass under them (unlike all other canal sets which are quite shallow). I hope to see these on the STEX soon

[gottago 24]

It looks very good so far, a great project. As said before, the water is tiling, and also the color of the stone for the bridges and the seawalls is too cold and blue-ish--it could be warmed up.

Also, what is that U-shaped, baroque building at the bottom of your pic?

[JonM 38]

Hey all thanks for the responses!

@gottago that would be https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=2910

@vistla , That is a simple diagonal street from the NAM and then when you connect a SAM to it, it turns that texture. And Yes you can have variable widths, these are puzzle pieces.

The tiling is difficult to tone down without having a solid color which would suck. I am working on making variations in each one.

Cheers guys!

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

Awsome! I like it very much. is this on the stex?

[JonM 38]

Not yet! I have to do make night with lights and fix some bugs and add props. Lots more to do before I can upload it!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Yeah, take your time... this looks very promising, so you shouldn't rush it! You know what would be cool, btw? If you made overhangig pieces, we could even draw NAM bridges, rail viaducts, elevated rail and whatnot over these canals... an often overlooked detail!

Btw, I took the liberty to change the title of this topic from "Ubran Rivers Project" to "Urban Rivers Project".

[JonM 38]

Oh hey thanks for the typo fix!

Here is a curve...

[Fresh Prince of Wmbg 44]

What u will do about highway/ raised rail/monorail ? Will they have a piece?

EDIT-possible transition dam?

[Faded Glory 13]

Ohhh very nice. I like the coloring of the actual wall; a nice semi-dark at the bottom to a natural whitish really reflects real canals. Keep up the good work!

[nofunk 1,933]

Fantastic work!!! I absolutely can't wait to see this on the STEX... I could really use something like this!

[Utvaw 45]

This is fantastic. Perfect this set and you will have the best looking canals out there, in my opinion.  

My one question would be do all the straight pieces have those pipe outlet ( holes) on them or is there one without?  I cannot tell from your pictures.

On a side note, have you thought of making matching seawalls?

[DCMetro34 576]

Oh my; this is really good work! Awesome detail!

[JonM 38]

ok a new straight bridge and some more curves. I am experimenting with putting props on the pieces,

[gottago 24]

Very well modeled, but the pink stone around the landings is, sorry to say, really off. In fact the tonality of all the stone is off--either too ice-blue or too flat pink. Seeing both stone textures right next to the default sidewalk texture really highlights this, and you should aim for tonalities that blend better with this texture, which is ubiquitous in-game.

Also, are the trees being generated by the street or are they props? If the latter, they should be removed; they couldn't grow on a bridge.

[SimFox 800]

Brilliant work! I do have to side with the complain about the color scheme though... As they are colors neither fit each other nor go with the game very well... But that is a minor problem at the moment.

This is an ambitious project, you may want think about rules ( like all key sizes etc) and open it to other participants to get it (hopefully) moving a bit faster. Also to think through modular structure, to avoid trees growing like that on teh bridge and also "double sidewalk" effect on it as well.

Anyway you have a beautiful sense of proportions and form, I'm sure this will be great addition to the game!

[JonM 38]

The trees are part of the street mod, If anyone knows a way in the lot settings to disable the street junk on roads that touch the lot, please let me know!.

I agree about the pink. Your saying the land walls are too blueish?

What do you mean about all key sizes?

Cheers!

[j-lee 1]

WOW i think you've made great progress, i really admire your work, not to good myself in modding and such, Can't wait for this to be out on the STEX, would love to build a venice!

[gottago 24]

Originally posted by: JonM

I agree about the pink. Your saying the land walls are too blueish?!quote>

Fot the third time: Yes!

The basic stone texture that you're using everywhere is ice-blue compared to the default Maxis paving texture (which is itself pretty whitish-pinkish). You're very far out on the cold side of the SC4 color spectrum--somewhere near cold lavendar--when you should be on the warm side: i.e., a good deal more yellow and somewhat less cyan.

Basically, your textures are way too purple (cyan[++] and magenta[+]) and don't have enough yellow(- -).

Hey, I ain't SimFox, but I sure do know a thing or two about achitectural materials, sc4 textures, and color relationships.

I'm repeating this because this is a great project and it shouldn't be spoiled by poor textures, which are about the easiest part to fix, and all too often, unfortunately, the part that doesn't get fixed in the end.

[nofunk 1,933]

If you are using Photoshop to edit your textures, try adding a new layer to the stone wall texture, filling it with pastel yellow orange, and then reducing the opacity to 4% - 6%. I do that to almost all of my textures (especially stone, terra cotta and limestone) to bring them closer to the Maxis tones. JasonCW has a great image that shows samples of "white" textures from Maxis buildings. I'll bug him and have him post it here for you.

I also think your textures probably need to have the brightness lowered just a bit -- maybe 5-10.

I'm not sure how to prevent trees from growing on your bridges, but it definitely seems worthwhile to figure it out. In reality I imagine very little would be on a bridge -- no trees and even no parked vehicles. Maybe that's different in Europe, but in the US bridges rarely have any real dead weight on them, aside from street lights, railings, and maybe the occasional bench.

[Jasoncw 11,839]

What you've made so far looks great.  I've never really used these kinds of canals before, but I think I might get started with yours.

Here's the image which nofunk mentioned.  But I agree with Gottago, the paver texture is really the ideal thing to look towards for colors.

[SimFox 800]

By sizes I mean, for instance, the "depth" of the canal, or to be precise the distance from water to top of the embankments, things like that...

Jason, with all due respect, only one (max two) of the buildings on that illustration are actually suppose to be white (as in color neutral sort of white) rest aren't in the first place. Also there are some variations ranging from purplish to greenish. But majority of the buildings neutral white is with purplish/pinkish tint. However I want to make one thing clear, there is NO need to do anything to the textures. More than that it would be wrong to modify textures by giving them said tint. You see, that tint is a result of light. Just like natural daylight isn't color neutral - sunny side are of various shades of yellow-red (depending on the time of the day) while shaded side of various shades of turquoise-blue. If you to modify texture you'll be giving same characteristics to both sunny and shaded sides, as there is not way to control that with BAT. This effect - relatively minor with old fashion rendering (with no bounced light) and there such technique (like in say GMAX BAT) could still be considered effective. However once your light start to bounce the effect may quickly get out of hand.

Another reason why such texture preparation is not needed with Bat4Max with LetTherBeLight is because lighting and render setup there takes care of it in more natural way - through light sources (Sun and Sky)