How do players create such detail?

[armpit43 172]

Hi all,

I've been playing Sim City since I was 3 years old, and Sim City 4 since its launch in 2003, but one thing that has always staggered me since finding Simtroplis in 2009 is the scale of detail you see people put into the cities in city journals and the "Show us your x" threads. I'd love to know how players did it, I've been working on the same region for six years and yet its nowhere near city journal quality. I've tried experimenting with pond mods over the years, but I find them very difficult to use and ultimately just give up trying to make a realistic stream. Do players plan how their city will look on paper before creating? Or do they not actually play for the simulation but just play for the modelling? If anyone has any tips on creating such detail I would be glad to know.

Thank you.

[CorinaMarie 29,882]

Since I don't have any great content myself, I've wondered about this too. I've peeked in a couple CJs and several of the Show Us threads. I almost gave up on the game when I saw so many beautiful pics way, way beyond my capabilities.

For my cities that I've been perfectly happy with, I simply look over the raw land and decide where settlers in the covered wagons would say: Hey, let's start the town here. It's far enough from the river and on high enough ground we won't get flooded, And, besides, I'm trail weary. And from there I'll usually build a crossroads and go from there. Mine always start out as small farm communities and eventually little cities sprout up between these towns.

Now for all the detail I see others show, I've gotten the impression with the right acquisitions from the STEX, I could make pretty places too. I've got so many other projects tho that it'll likely be a while for me. For my current project, I have 5 different colored sticky notes with building names written on them and I'm arranging them various ways on my physical desktop.

[fdjw88 39]

they did that with mostly NAM, realistic highway mod, high speed rail mod, yeah you get the idea, lots and lots of mod. but if you are looking for how beautiful the villina game can look like, check this guy out, he basically hasnot used any mod

 

[Lost Realist 762]

10 hours ago, armpit43 said:

[...] and ultimately just give up trying to make a realistic [...]

That's what you don't wanna do. A lot of these things just take a lot of patience, it's user-generated content that isn't always 100% polished for usability and stuff, but with enough patience and creativity you can find your way to it almost everytime.

I personally spend a lot of time looking at my real-life surroundings, try to see how things are arranged, how they fell together, try to spot the details in reality and think of ways to bring them to the game. It's really an observation and creativity task for me.

[armpit43 172]

14 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Since I don't have any great content myself, I've wondered about this too. I've peeked in a couple CJs and several of the Show Us threads. I almost gave up on the game when I saw so many beautiful pics way, way beyond my capabilities.

For my cities that I've been perfectly happy with, I simply look over the raw land and decide where settlers in the covered wagons would say: Hey, let's start the town here. It's far enough from the river and on high enough ground we won't get flooded, And, besides, I'm trail weary. And from there I'll usually build a crossroads and go from there. Mine always start out as small farm communities and eventually little cities sprout up between these towns.

Now for all the detail I see others show, I've gotten the impression with the right acquisitions from the STEX, I could make pretty places too. I've got so many other projects tho that it'll likely be a while for me. For my current project, I have 5 different colored sticky notes with building names written on them and I'm arranging them various ways on my physical desktop.

Hahaha yes, those threads can be a little bit depressing at times. I open ones like "show us your rubbish dumps" and they're the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

That's a way I build sometimes, in 2010 I undertook a very ambitious project to build an island out of the region map, then cover the entire region in towns and villages and watch them build up as I connected them with railway lines. That somewhat gave the same effect with detail but not entirely. I still haven't finished building that region and my largest city was recently corrupted which I have to rebuild again (six years in the making). But I get the feeling a lot of adding detail comes down to pouring as much effort into actually building the city into creating the landmass as well.

I wonder if the actual intention to showcase a city in a city journal is part of the incentive to make such beautiful creations. That video you posted fdjw88 was interesting, I suppose a lot of it is down to perseverance as Lost Realist says then being gifted in any sort of way.

 

[fdjw88 39]

don't forget, a lot of those beauty comes from terraforming as well! moutains, rivers, and ocean make your region and cities look nice!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

First, it is a leisure time activity game.  It doesn't have enough variables to produce much by way of realism, so you need to cope with it by simply walking up the learning curve and enjoying it.  There is some very neat animation that you miss if you run the game too fast.  For example, if you underfund your police, the have a police call, there is a keystone cops segment you can get.

Next, the display doesn't reflect the simulation very much.  It is mostly eye-candy as far as the traffic is concerned.  If the full traffic load were on screen, the game would lag from the get-go.  It is a stochastic simulation and is set up so that as you solve a problem, two more are created by your actions.  It is really an exercise in problem solving, and the programming is very, very clever.

So, take your time, and be surprised at how well you can do if you move from one target to the next.  Remember, you can't lose unless you go broke and the moolah command can prevent that.  You can always update your treasury balance at need.

And do watch out for the private agendas of the too solicitous advisors.  I play in hard mode which generally shuts them down.

[MushyMushy 3,618]

It really just depends on how you play and what end result you desire. Lots of people play with lots of mods, but what they do with them varies. Some people just play the game like it's intended (plus mods, mostly buildings) and try to build cities with as many people as they can. Other people, which are more in line with what you're talking about, will download mods that fit a theme they have in a mind so they can build something that looks realistic. Making realistic scenes in the game is tedious and slow, can require the user to mod stuff themselves at times,  and will generally take the "game" nature out of SC4. From my experience (as this is how I "play" the game), it's much more in line with a creative art project when you do this - one of my friends called it "building a diorama." Doing this doesn't always work perfectly with the game mechanics, and some of the people who build realistic cities this way have to make it work just well enough that their buildings won't start abandoning. Playing this way will also generally require cheats to be very feasible.

So really it depends on what you want from SC4. If you want it to remain the problem-solving game that it is, you can download mods but still try to grow a city (if you try you can still make such cities look reasonably good). Moving away from that and trying to make an ultra-realistic cityscape (or rural scene, etc) will generally turn the game into more of a "problem-solving project." The problem-solving part remains because it can be difficult to make stuff work visually at times due to the game's sometimes odd or obstructive behavior/mechanics.

[philforhockey51 4,220]

Don't forget some pictures are edited with photoshop and the such. Some do such a good job it is hard to tell they were even touched. Some of us including myself post unedited pictures. I've noticed that every individual plays the game differently as well. Some build functional cities while others build eyecandy that are nonfunctional and then everything in between. My pictures and CJ, as I can only speak for myself but there are so many better out there, are of an eyecandy region with a good amount of functionality however I did have to use the Moolah cheat to stuff the coffers before starting growth. The way I play is I terraform the tile and start to layout zones and points of interest, while adding in civil items like fire and schools for coverage and then hit play time passes things grow, I prune and add a ton of mmps, lots and lots of them. It takes time and some patience but it's more like an artwork then it is a game. The game part for me is the problem solving to achieve what I envisioned, and since I grow 95% of the buildings instead of plopping them to do that there needs to be a certain level of functionality so some tricks and special lots are used and that feels like a game to me. I've included some development pictures in my CJ, hope it helps people figure out what I did to make the areas.

[citycowboy 183]

you open a new large tile, label it PRACTICE, and use the moolah cheat, then using the building plop cheat you plop every single building down and examine them for details like rooftop height, color, style, design, architecture, front door access, side door access, back doors, garage doors, alleys, etc. Does the building have trees in front of it? Is the building a corner building? How far from the sidewalk is the building? Then when you see patterns you like, you plop them and arrange them, then write down your configuration. You should have about 30k buildings to plop, it should take you a couple of years and you should end up with thousands of various combinations and hundreds of wasted sketches and ideas. patience is key, and it is very very very time consuming. it is very frustrating a lot of times, especially when you think something will work and it doesnt, but thats life. Good Luck. 

[Edvarz 1,985]

Very useful insight here, i'm by no means an expert player but these are my two cents for this.

The beauty of this game is that there is no clear way of playing it, no set path, the beauty and uniqueness of the SimCity series (up to SC4) it's that it is a ludic game: your creativity, and your own insights produce cities that are unique to you. I've been checking the "Show un your..." threads for a couple of years and you can notice that aside form certain general "styles" (i.e. U.S. cities, western and eastern european cities, asian cities, etc.) every player builds things their own way, they have a certain "style" unique to them; a certain way of building downtowns, highways, public spaces and so on.

My general advice would be to be patient, slowly build a set of plugins, keep them organised and check them to see if they are adequately modded and lotted to your taste. Don't be afraid to learn how to use the modding tools and bust them out if things aren't to your liking. And of course experiment a lot! You can try to balance aesthetics and functionality or make a wholly plopped city that is pure eyecandy. Something that I do is create a basic, functioning city with a healthy budget, then I make a duplicate of the city file and import it to other region, by doing this you can end up with a sandbox version of your functioning city. You can then just pause the simulation, give yourself any amount of money you wish, and just plop or bulldoze everything you desire, afterwards you can implement your plans on the functional city.

On a more practical note: use fillers and modular sets, like, a lot of them, they can really liven up your spaces! it's like using the Lot Editor in game.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

[CorinaMarie 29,882]

4 hours ago, Edvarz said:

On a more practical note: use fillers and modular sets, like, a lot of them, they can really liven up your spaces! it's like using the Lot Editor in game.

^Bold added.

Could you elaborate on this part a wee bit?

 

[armpit43 172]

Thank you for all your helpful posts.

I did not know some of the city journals were made for eye-candy, but that would make sense. Nor did I have any idea how difficult it must be to create an eye-candy region. I am more of a functional builder who plays for the simulation, which is why I probably find the landscaping part very tricky. I get my kicks from the financial part of it, which explains a lot as I was terrible at art as a child. I will post some pictures of my creations shortly once I get a photobucket acount working. I had a look at your CJ philforhockey51 and I thought the kayacking pictures were fantastic, did you make those models yourself?

One thing I would love to know, which mod will I need to create continuous diagonal pavement?

[CorinaMarie 29,882]

1 hour ago, armpit43 said:

One thing I would love to know, which mod will I need to create continuous diagonal pavement?

If by diagonal pavement you mean various types of roads, I'm pretty sure that's all built into NAM.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Diagonal pavement that doesn't look jagged requires a couple of things.  Look for sets of T21 fillers for diagonal roads and, if you haven't, turn on some of your GPUs 3D smoothing options (you'll have to experiment to see which ones do what you want).  This will probably require running in DirectX mode only.  I don't think it works with OpenGL.

[Edvarz 1,985]

10 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Could you elaborate on this part a wee bit?

Of course! for illustration purposes here are my four favorite modular and filler sets:

Paeng's Parks, MGB Diagonal Fillers, IRM IHT Fillers (you can also check out the IRM itself and the I-M and I-D filler sets), KOSC Modular parkings

With simple small lots you can create extensive public, industrial or parking spaces on your city or fill gaps between buildings with details like alleyways and parking lots, and it really helps with realism and aesthetics (and, I understand, having large open spaces helps with game performance too). A big part of achieving a pleasant look for your cities is letting go of the idea of cramming as many sims as possible in one city tile and instead having some open spaces both in residential and commercial districts and on the industrial ones.

7 hours ago, armpit43 said:

One thing I would love to know, which mod will I need to create continuous diagonal pavement?

If you mean having pavement on your diagonal networks instead of grass then this mod may be of use. If you mean extending the pavement on diagonal sidewalks to avoid the jagged look, then the diagonal fillers I listed above may be of use.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

What you need are good filler sets, especially diagonal ones. Here are six really good ones to get you started.

SFBT Diagonal Fillers- https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1197

FrankU Dutch Parks- https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3212

FrankU Dutch Plazas- https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3210

 

I'm not going to post great buildings because that would take up too much space.

Add space around buildings: car parks, green areas, parks... Great CJers know how to make the use of space: high density, sprawling low density and clusters of mixed density buildings. Patience is often required when growing a certain building type or RCI. Waiting for diagonal homes to grow is torturous, even more so since some of them can not be plopped in. But I put in that time to achieve a good-looking area. Time = Quality.

Also when using mods do not skimp on the dependencies. A lot of dependencies are required to fill in the props for a building's LOT, without these dependencies the building can look bare and ugly.

Additionally replace the terrain, use a different tree controller, change the pavement texture, use Street Addon Mod (SAM) and the Network Widening Mod (NWM) to vary your streets.

Finally when searching for mods, search for a particular theme: residential, high wealth, parks, fillers... I have scoured the STEX, LEX, PLEX, Simcity Polska, WorkingMan Productions and even Japanese SC4 websites looking for new buildings, new fillers and great new content. I still keep searching sometimes when I want a particular theme. For instance in the next few days I will be looking for movie studios and Hollywood related content. I want to create a movie studio area in the city I am working on, to do this I need more content.

[philforhockey51 4,220]

@armpit43  Thank you, I hope you enjoyed it, I don't have the skill set to make items, everything you see in my CJ was downloaded. The kayaks are MMPs made by the VIP Team, they are in the below pack, which by the way is full of great stuff to use to help detail. Those kayak scenes in my CJ are mostly MMPs, such as the water, rocks, plants and trees.

and the fillers other members list in this thread are also very helpful, I also use a lot of those too. the SFBT Diagonal fillers might be what you are looking for as far as diagonals and pavement.  There are a bunch of different pieces with varied sidewalk textures in that pack.

[CorinaMarie 29,882]

8 hours ago, Edvarz said:

Of course! for illustration purposes here are my four favorite modular and filler sets:

Thank you. Thank you!

 

I've quoted your post in my Cori's Place notebook and added a linky to this whole thread in Vital Links. It'd be great if you could c & p those linkys to your post there.

It's too bad that thread had to die. Not a single person liked my idea. At least I'm happy you and 3 other peeps posted useful stuff there.

 

Just found this: Marsh's Extensive Mayor-mode ploppables List

  Edited April 29, 2016 by CorinaMarie  
Add Cool Linky

[rsc204 21,866]

12 hours ago, armpit43 said:

One thing I would love to know, which mod will I need to create continuous diagonal pavement?

It sounds to me like that question could be phrased, "How do I avoid the diagonal Jaggies". If you want to ensure pavements exist, zone medium-high density next to such networks. The problem occurs when you zone low-wealth, many networks will show grass. I have a number of mods that will vary how these things are displayed to avoid this problem, most of which were already mentioned.

Starting with my diagonal fillers. Sidewalk and TGN-adaptable, these are very flexible for all setups. But the advice I took a while ago on this, was that simply using diagonal fillers, often just moves the problem one tile over. Requiring more fillers for the fillers. That's not to say they don't have their uses, but it's good to use them sparingly. A better solution can be to cap off the half-tile, something that's problematic, since SC4 doesn't like transparency. Therefore a set of overhanging fillers, which are model-based, comes in very handy. The ones I linked to will adapt to your installed sidewalk. One slight niggle with this solution, models require flat land to display properly.

TGN (Terrain Grass NAM) and NGN (No Grass NAM) are pretty much the same mod. Only the first alters the grass to blend with 4 of the most popular terrain mods. Often I find they blend so well, the whole diagonal jaggies issue is avoided entirely, or solved with a bit of creative MMPing at worst. NGN simply removes all the grass, everything you see becomes sidewalks, thus once more to avoid the jaggies, some sort of fillers would be needed.

Anyway, that's the sales pitch over for now .

[Edvarz 1,985]

5 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

It'd be great if you could c & p those linkys to your post there.

Done, I also added a couple of extra links and suggestions.

Your effort to help newbies find their way around SC4 custom content is commendable. It'd perhaps be a good idea to ask permission to create a pinned thread on this subforum when you have compiled a sufficiently comprehensive list of mods, tools and maybe even tips for newbies with up to date links and information.

To stay on topic, I'll add one extra set of filler lots that I also really like: Paeng's Grunge IND Alleys

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

In a way, I sort of despair of pinned threads.  New members don't seem to read them, nor do they find out that by simply clicking on the Forums tab above they get a site index.

[CorinaMarie 29,882]

1 hour ago, A Nonny Moose said:

In a way, I sort of despair of pinned threads.

I agree to a point. If the pinned threads in each forum were limited to 2 or 3 at the most, I feel they would be more useful to both old and new members. Like the first one would always be the forum specific rules which would include a linky to the overall site rules. Then the other could be an index of all the other worthwhile currently pinned threads in that forum. I wonder if pin-worthy threads could be moved to their own subforum? Or just unpinned since they'd have clickable links to them in the index thread. Also, the index thread would be locked so only the mods could update it. I tend to find too much chatter among the good stuff in many pinned threads.

And the index thread could have a sentence or so explaining what's available in each of the clickable links.

[MissVanleider 1,851]

This is difficult, because I'm sure I have asked questions before where the answers were already on a forum somewhere. The problem with something that has the wealth of content that SC4 has means that there are always going to be things on the pinned threads that are either not relevant to everyone or not relevant any more (things like NAM keep getting better with each release, but old tutorials are not updated). 

I don't think anything can really be done about this to suit everyone. Ultimately if you're someone who plays a game that is more than 10 years old, you're going to have to accept a bit of poking around corners of the internet and asking people questions if you can't find the answers.

I appreciate that some people not bothering to look for the answer to their question in a forum before asking it is slightly annoying, but I take the view that I like this game, and I want other people to like it to, so if I can help I will. I think most people using this site are similarly minded.

[Edvarz 1,985]

3 hours ago, MissVanleider said:

I don't think anything can really be done about this to suit everyone. Ultimately if you're someone who plays a game that is more than 10 years old, you're going to have to accept a bit of poking around corners of the internet and asking people questions if you can't find the answers.

Well that is certainly true, I know I ask a lot of questions (I am planning to do so again later today in fact ). And the nature of the NAM, for example, makes more efficient to have a Q&A place or a similar venue for experienced players and the team members to respond to the users doubts dinamically, I gather the documentation files conundrum illustrates this point clearly. And there's also the issue of broken links, missing images, authors gone inactive, etcetera. In a sense it's better that way, since it encourages people to join the community and there is no shortage of helpful folks here at this site.

5 hours ago, A Nonny Moose said:

In a way, I sort of despair of pinned threads.  New members don't seem to read them, nor do they find out that by simply clicking on the Forums tab above they get a site index.

As for the people who end up not knowing what they have installed because they don't bother to read, well, nevermind those people if I may say so. They will, of course be helped because the aim of this site is not to encourage reading habits... but still.

I would say that the only situation in which it's 100% understandable to ask straight away for things that can otherwise be found on documentation files or pinned threads it's when english is not your native language and you don't have a good grasp of it for whatever reason. People here come from all over the world so you may be able to fnd some help if you ask nicely. But I digress.

Anyway, here's another cool link: BSC Parks, watch out for dependencies!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, I spent the last 15 years or so before I retired teaching computer science, so I understand the need for new people to ask questions and get solid answers.  This forum has thousands of the latter, but many apply only to a specific request they may be obsolete by now.

And one of my leisure time pursuits was sailing, and I spent some twenty years in power squadrons teaching the basics of boating safety to new people every year.  It is important to treat people gently.  You never know what their actual qualifications are, and the only dumb question is one that doesn't find a voice.  One of my students one year was my personal physician.

[CorinaMarie 29,882]

11 hours ago, MissVanleider said:

I don't think anything can really be done about this to suit everyone. ...

 

... I appreciate that some people not bothering to look for the answer to their question in a forum before asking it is slightly annoying, but I take the view that I like this game, and I want other people to like it to, so if I can help I will. I think most people using this site are similarly minded.

^ Bold added.

I feel that a critique which is based on an extreme, everyone in this case, is invalid. The goal should never be to please everyone. That's like totally impossible. So, a realistic goal would be most peeps.

 

10 hours ago, Edvarz said:

I would say that the only situation in which it's 100% understandable to ask straight away for things that can otherwise be found on documentation files or pinned threads it's when english is not your native language and you don't have a good grasp of it for whatever reason. People here come from all over the world so you may be able to fnd some help if you ask nicely. But I digress.

 

Here's something I stared 2016.04.18.08.58:

Let's take a guess at the most likely reason a person would come here for the first time: Game won't run or other game related problem comes to mind. It could also be what cool stuff can I get? Either way the person's question will always likely be of the: Where do I find ...? or How can I ... ? variety. Whether it be techy info or anything else, I believe a Visitor's Thread which can be easily found would be a Good Thing. This is where the new member can come and say: I haven't read anything else here, but I want to know ...

And, in that particular thread, there is never any gentle (or otherwise) prods suggesting the New Member should have read such and such rather than post. Once the question is answered, a mod moves it to an archive sub folder.

All of us older-join-date-wise members would reply with something like: Here's a linky to what will probably answer your specific question. Or type a quick answer if a linky isn't needed. Then, and only then, say: And here's a linky to a guide showing how to search Simtropolis if we are out to lunch or something. Next include a linky to the CoriGuide style introduction to other features. Like it'd be the brochure advertising Simtropolis to would be visitors. (Synopsis of the top x number of things one might like here or some such.)

So, this Visitor's or Information Desk Forum would only have two pinned topics. One has linkys to all the guides available and the other is the rules for this forum / site. The only threads below the pinned ones are open question threads. For the Guide Index one, have all the clickable linkys be embedded so the text makes sense for what it is. Maybe below it use the hidden content thinger to have a one or two paragraph description of what one finds by clicking above link so it doesn't feel as cluttered.

Ideally, we have enough members who would all agree to keep an eye on that forum and reply as best they can. Even if it's a: Hiya, glad to see you here. I don't know the answer, but rest assured someone smart'll be along soon. And, one of the rules of that forum is for peeps with less than 10 posts to ask questions. By that time we should've gently prodded them into finding stuff on their own or creating topics in the appropriate forum to ask for information that they tried to find, but didn't.

Likey?

[Edvarz 1,985]

3 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Let's take a guess at the most likely reason a person would come here for the first time: Game won't run or other game related problem comes to mind. It could also be what cool stuff can I get? Either way the person's question will always likely be of the: Where do I find ...? or How can I ... ? variety. Whether it be techy info or anything else, I believe a Visitor's Thread which can be easily found would be a Good Thing. This is where the new member can come and say: I haven't read anything else here, but I want to know ...

And, in that particular thread, there is never any gentle (or otherwise) prods suggesting the New Member should have read such and such rather than post. Once the question is answered, a mod moves it to an archive sub folder.

Well, it seems it's a discussion that would merit it's own topic. I gather the open question threads you mention would work like the "Can't find It? - Ask Here!" thread in the STEX subforum. Howevwe I have two doubts about your idea:

1) What would be the difference with this very subforum where you can start a topic and ask open questions?

2) What about SC2013 and C:S? A Simtropolis Visitor's thread would also have to take them into account, so you would end up with two new subforums, or you would have to move the visitor's thread to an existing SC4 forum, wich would kinda defeat the purpose. You have to treat the players of the three games equally.

But I do like your idea of an information desk with all useful links on one coherent and easy to navigate place, when I was a newbie I was certainly confused when I couldn't find the info for newcomers on the SC4 Players forum!, only later did I see the "New members area" on the Social Forum. One thing is certain though: this is a fruitful topic on it's own.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

To quote a song lyric:

"It's all right, now.
"I've learned my lesson well.
"If you can't please everyone,
"Learn to please yourself."