[CSL] Show us what you're working on!

[Koesj 659]

I've been bitten by the 'playing the game'-bug again in lieu of assetbuilding. Let's progressively zoom out from my just-finished (part-Rico, part-useless) financial district:

e: this forum's software is getting more messed-up by the day. Triple image posting?!

[Abrams 1,744]

On 2016. 05. 16. at 2:55 PM, Abrams124 said:

Sadly there isn't any way.

But atleast could you list the skyscrapers you used for the downtown area?

[Ltw 401]

I've been working on improving public transportation in my city. In general I'm quite satisfied with the way my metro system is working, it is efficient, lots of citizens use it and therefore I could earn a lot of money to pay for a large part of it. However, the other transportation-types aren't that good at all. Buses and trams aren't used a lot and trains are very expensive without getting a lot of money out of it. In the past I've been trying to combine these types of transportation. However, this didn't get the results I was hoping for. Therefore I've started with a new project that will affect my entire city and should improve accessibility of a lot of neighborhoods tremendously.

Above you can see an overview of my city. The density in the city is quite high, making it perfect for metro, next to that there are two neighborhoods at the other side of the river (north of the city). Furthermore there are two remote villages on the top-side of the map and one village on the bottom side of the map (on the island). I've been reducing the number of train-lines and bus-lines lately. Which affects commute-times of the two neighborhoods a lot. These citizens weren't going by public transport anymore, which isn't very great for me off course. Thus I've decided to invest a lot in public transportation.

This is the first neighborhood I've been working on. This neighborhood has 7600 residents, which doesn't make it very big. However, it used to have a train station, which disappeared when my elevated train stations stopped working. I didn't really bother fixing this because it was expensive anyways. The track is still in use for the remote villages but this particular neighborhood had a bus-connection only, which wasn't used a lot. In order to let people travel with public transportation again I've built a metro-line. starting at the east side of this neighborhood and ending at the central station (which is quite a distance actually). The metro-line has three stops in this neighborhood and only two in the city, which makes it a very fast way to travel. In order to cover the entire neighborhood there is a bus-line which connects 'remoted' homes in this neighborhood to the stations. This approach worked quite well, the metro-line started making money immediately and was used a lot.

I've used a similar approach in this neighborhood. This neighborhood has 13.000 residents and is therefore quite bigger. Therefore there are a lot of stops in this neighborhood, which you could also reach by bus. I couldn't connect this line to the central station, thus I've connected it to a big metro-station nearby. For this reason this station has more stops in the city itself. Every station in the city is multi-platform, which means that you could switch lines at a lot of stations. This worked quite well, this line is one of the busiest in the city already and it also boosted passenger-numbers of some other lines.

With this approach I'm really aiming for metro. Basically because it is the most efficient way and because it is the most extensive network in the city. However, this shift also means that I have to do something with public transport by bus, train or tram. You could see one of those projects below.

In the picture above you could see a tram-line. This used to be a train-line but I've demolished it and changed it into a tram-line. The general idea at the time was to use the train for remote villages, industrial areas and cargo and use tram for inner-city transportation instead of buses. However, this didn't go as well as suspected and my tram-project kind of failed. Now I know that the extensive metro network has a lot to do with the failure of my tram-system. Therefore I'm focusing on spending my resources on metro instead of tram. This also means that out of 7 tram-lines four tram-lines will be deleted. Those tram-lines aren't profiting at all, the other three have decent passenger-numbers and therefore there is no reason to demolish them for now. However, this line will be demolished since almost nobody is using it. Just demolishing the elevated line is a little bit boring though, for that reason I will demolish this and build a park instead. There are some places that are wider than this, but at some places the free space is as small as this. Making it quite hard to build a nice-looking park. Even though there are some challenges involved I think it is worth it because a park at this neighborhood could improve the desirability as well.

[Abrams 1,744]

Working on the other side of Rockport

[toxicpiano 125]

edging out to the suburbs...

overview facing north

[cs_k3 284]

Sorry it's been a while. Working on traditional American inspired city. Trailer parks, standalone suburbs, row homes, railyards and more. Loosely based on NYC.

[Lost Gecko 481]

Still at the very beginning of creating a palace, inspired by Versailles that I visited recently but also by other places. It will be a touristic site with parking areas and all that stuff...

[Roadman20 601]

While Zdza is showing off Prop Line Tool with bike lines, we explored the depth of PLT, and it's a game changing mod not seen since Prop Anarchy.

Need a line of semi-truck trailers without plopping individually, can be done like this.

Oh yeah, you can change props without losing your spot in your plopping phase, that's how that that empty container cars line was made.  Could do the same with anything else.  

Need a line of props on a curve?  Oh yeah, done.

This is a must have mod.

 

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

The CBD of a city called Puerto Azul

[Judazzz 1,936]

In the little time I have I'm trying to add a few new options to Ultimate Eyecandy.
One of them is disabling LUT's altogether, which removes the tone mapping, which is a method to give the impression of HDR (High Dynamic Range - a great technique in capable hands, but leading to ghastly results when done wrong ).
A LUT (or color LookUp Table) is basically a .png image containing the whole color spectrum, and what is does is mapping the standard in-game colors to a corresponding color in that image (a bit like what an app such as Instagram does). So it's a post-processing feature that shifts the whole color spectrum in one direction or another (which is why LUT's can have such a dramatic effect on how the game looks). By completely disabling LUT's, you basically get the unfiltered colors as they are presented by the game engine itself.

Disabling the in-game LUT can give pretty interesting results (although it requires some fine-tuning because it can be quite rough on the eyes). A quick example:
With LUT:

Without LUT:

I'm also working on a setting that gives you more control over the strength of ground wetness (known by most of us as that laser surgery-like glare when it rains). Changing it is already possible, but I still need to find a way to lock the level of wetness: now when it rains the glare will slowly increase again over time as the ground gets wetter and wetter (it's a dynamic process), but I want that to find a way to get  around that, so we can all finally enjoy a rainy day in this game without having to wear welding goggles  

[Abrams 1,744]

That's smooth,right?

[Ltw 401]

I'm going back in time in this post. I've been astonished by the change in my city throughout the game-years and I wanted to post some before/after shots. All of the old photos in this post have been posted in this forum at one time. However, to show the differences I've made some new screenshots of the exact some spot. I'd have to say that the results are quite cool.

The pictures above show a project which was quite big at the beginning. The avenue was developed in order to cope with future developments. In the beginning this was kind of ridiculous because it wasn't necessary at all. At a certain moment it got kind of busy which led to new changes such as roundabouts. However, I've also been investing in the subway a lot. Which makes it less useful nowadays. Demolishing this and changing this into something else (such as a park for instance) is not on my high priority list. I might do that in the future though.

The pictures above are from a project I've posted about before. This project was a big park (about 2 kilometers long) with the Brooklyn Bridge as centerpiece. Over here you can see the exit for the highway at one side of the bridge. Looking at the bicycle-paths you can see some differences. I used to be mainly focused on the infrastructure of bicycle-paths. Now I'm also looking at including that in nature, such as the park in the second picture. There are some large parks in my city that are also an important route for cyclists. However, I'm still using bridges a lot, since this is clearly a good solution when you don't have the space for a big park.

The picture above shows one of my most recent projects. I've been working on my Downtown area. A lot of new buildings have been added to my skyline. Next to that I've found a building with the right dimensions for the Flatiron building (which used to be a problem like you could see in the first picture). The biggest building added is the World Trade Center One which you could see at the left. Next to that I'm planning some new buildings on the vacant area behind that and I want to place the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. However, I don't know where/when I would like to place those buildings (this also depends on abandonment and such). At last there is some room for plazas and so forth.

Have you noticed such big differences as well? I would love to see those before/after shots!

[Abrams 1,744]

Before:

 

 

After:

 

[toxicpiano 125]

i am continuing my adventure

bit of a suburban transition that i think has come out well

my attempt at a rail depot (the warehouses are supposed to be trainsheds, not ideal but they function i guess), plus a tram depot

overviews of new area

[cs_k3 284]

From a highway standpoint, this is probably one of my easiest. I've been trying to avoid using massive highway systems and instead create a more dense, mass transit type infrastructure for the urban core.

I am constantly in awe of the work modders do and what can be achieved so intuitively because of the game Paradox has made and modders have made better. After pouring thousands of hours into SC4, there are a lot of things in C:S that take seconds that always make me smile.

[Lost Gecko 481]

On ‎05‎/‎06‎/‎2016 at 11:34 PM, toxicpiano said:

i am continuing my adventure

This has to be one of the most natural-looking European cities ever! Just beautiful!

[Ltw 401]

I've been working on this area some more. I've already showed a picture in my previous post. Since then I've been working on it some more. A big project is a housing/office project at the coast but I've also done some minor work such as paving and so forth. Future developments would be plazas, more buildings and if possible at least two new skyscrapers (probably on the left side of downtown, but other places could me marked as new building-site).

This is my latest project. Above you could see four residential towers and two office buildings. Between this project and the World Trade Center One will be a plaza/park. I don't know exactly how I will do that but I'm focusing on dealing with housing/commercial projects first since that is more urgent at the moment.

I've already showed this before. Big difference is the pavement. I couldn't get the surface painter working (probably a compatibility issue with 81tiles) so I'm using fillers instead. The area on the left should be filled with buildings. I'm thinking about placing buildings of the same architectural style as the Flatiron building but I'm still browsing on the Workshop for good assets. Furthermore there are probably some future developments for the avenue (which is behind this picture). Therefore there could be some changes on the road that is shown here. This makes it a little bit harder to finish the entire project. Luckily I'm not in a rush to finish this. Although, having new buildings in the part shown above would be nice.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

I just started a new suburb just across the river from the downtown area.

 

[Matthias King 348]

That's a great looking little suburb. Very nice work.

[Judazzz 1,936]

Yeah, I love it - very quaint and peaceful! Also a good excuse to heap praise on your Acacia trees once more - they instantly became one of my favorite trees in C:SL (I like them so much that I immediately lined all my downtown and old town streets with them ).

  Edited June 10, 2016 by Judazzz  
weird typo

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Thanks! Here's one more...

 

I think one day I will showcase this entire city in the CJ section....It's actually a test city but it's developing very interesting and organically.

[Judazzz 1,936]

It certainly looks more like a very well thought-out city instead of a test city (you should see mine  ), and I'd love to see more of it!
btw: those little houses, are those Dethkwok's sub-urban houses?

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Live Oak WIP....maybe I will get it on Steam tonight. Wrestling with color right now. But here's a peek in the mean time.....

 

 

[Judazzz 1,936]

I may start to sound like a broken record, but once again that is a gorgeous tree, love the low canopy!

[Bipin 3,403]

What am I working on?

Oh y'know, cities...

...'n' other stuff.

Enjoy!

[Abrams 1,744]

New Napa,CA

Album here:

https://imgur.com/a/pvLR1

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Work in Progress of the Southern Live Oak. Still have some more work to do (gonna make it fuller) but I'm almost done

[Abrams 1,744]

I love it!

[jduffett 34]

I'm working on a hydro project. Well, I think I'm done at this point really, though if I was to start again I'd probably do it a little differently.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

43 minutes ago, jduffett said:

I'm working on a hydro project. Well, I think I'm done at this point really, though if I was to start again I'd probably do it a little differently.

At first glance for a split second (the first pic) I had to look hard to see it was not a photograph. Looks good.