The City of Belmont

[NorthStars 66]

Well, it's been a while since I contributed anything here (my first CJ was the City of Triventa).  That's mainly because I felt that so many people were doing so many more impressive things, I just didn't think I had anything even close to "worthy" to post up.

However, thanks to so many awesome Youtube series, such as Strictoaster's, I have been watching and learning how to use a few of the many amazing mods and assets that have been produced.  Thank you to everyone who has made those incredible contributions to the community!!  I am but a little man standing on the shoulders of giants.

OK, enough humility.  Now my CJ... I finally feel like I have something I'm starting to be pretty happy with.  The City of Belmont is fairly small (35,000 right now) and I want to keep it on the small side for the purpose of FPS.  The max limit I'm shooting for is 100K.  Belmont has a small core, plus two subsidiary cores on the opposite side of the Belmont River (Belmont North and Scarborough), and a series of outlying suburbs and rural areas beyond.

I'm thinking of starting a Youtube series on Belmont myself, but I'll wait and see if the city seems to be received well here before deciding that.

Enjoy the City of Belmont...

Don't ask me why, but I just love my FedEx Distribution hub below.  Just feels very 'real' to me.

The rail yard has also had some TLC, but everywhere I look, there's a tonne more that I want to work on in the details!

 

 

 

 

[NorthStars 66]

This is the first stadium I built.  Then I got the Stadium/Football DLC, and built two more major stadiums.  For a city of 35,000 with 3 massive stadiums, Belmont CIMS must be wickedly fanatical about their sports teams!!

I'm not too happy about this area yet.  I've tried to build up the entire city to its current size quickly, so that I have something to work with, and now I'm slowly going back over areas and adding detail. As a result, everywhere I look, there's work to be done.  I have a sense of what it is meant to look like eventually, but it's going to take a lot of hours to get it there.  Plus, I'm sure some of my plans will change along the way.  Anyway, this junction is definitely fodder for big changes later.

[NorthStars 66]

I'm trying to put life into my city, and to have some interesting stories along the way.  My favorite CJs from others are the ones where the creator has put some background thought into the city's evolution and character.  Hopefully I'll be able to do a bit of the same.

Anyway, this is an early morning scene from Donegal Park.  These two jokers (the ones whose cars are flipped over) apparently decided to do a little early hours drag racing on the industrial strip. Apparently, it didn't go so well.

PS- I absolutely love how the traffic goes around the blocked lane.  I used the mod (sorry, I forget which one it is!) that allows you to control lane selection, and about 10 meters back from the collision, I forced the right lane to merge into the left.  Then, with the pylons and the blinking merge left arrows, I think it re-creates this scene beautifully!

PS- The darker side of me actually searched the workshop for a 'covered corpse' asset... no luck... probably just as well!! 

The line leading up to North Bend is one of my rural areas.  There's so much I want to do with this line... I just hope my FPS holds out long enough for me to get it all done.  I love the skyline just visible in the background in this image.

BTW... sorry some of my images are uploading twice... apparently this is a current bug on the site.

[NorthStars 66]

I love the O'Mally farm... I had fun with this one. 

Belmont County was originally settled by a large percentage of Irish immigrants, such as Patrick O'Mally in Thunder Township south of the City of Belmont. But the region has become more diverse in recent years.

Back into the city itself... I should say Belmont cims love their fast food.  This is one of 3 Pizza Huts in the city already.  And there are 5 KFCs and counting... you'll notice those in coming photos, I'm sure!

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I think Arlington District is probably my favorite area of the city so far.  It's basically just a suburban commercial strip -- nothing special -- but I feel like it's got a realness to it that I really like.  Even there, I still have a lot more to fill in, but I think this part is coming along really nicely.

More of Arlington District...

This one is labelled wrongly... this is actually the West Central Rail Yard.  Anyone else find that you lose your compass bearings in your city sometimes???

[NorthStars 66]

More of the rail yards... I'm working hard to "budget" my props use in this kind of area, in order to preserve my processor speed.  I'm shooting for a few well-placed props to create an impression of authenticity, even though it's hard for the whole scene to keep that level of realness without going crazy with the detailing.

I've got an okay system, but it's no high-end gaming rig, so this kind of arithmetic is part of how I need to approach the game.  Thoughts anyone?

[NorthStars 66]

This will be my last image for today.  A friendly pick-up game under the Friday night lights in Donegal.  This is a working-class industrial suburb... and (American) football is definitely the game of choice in this part of town.

[NorthStars 66]

Belmont's Name Under Consideration in City Council

Wow, it's just come to the attention of the Belmont city council (after the Mayor did a Google search!) that Belmont was a name already used by someone else on a previous city journal.  The council has gone into an emergency session to determine an appropriate response to this naming crisis.

[Linoa06 1,374]

Good details, I quite like it

[NorthStars 66]

5 minutes ago, Linoa06 said:

Good details, I quite like it

Coming from one of the masters, I really appreciate that, thank you! 

[Linoa06 1,374]

1 hour ago, NorthStars said:

Coming from one of the masters, I really appreciate that, thank you! 

Hm, I would disagree that I am one of the masters. There are several things that I don't have the patience to do right, for instance props, or that railyard of yours. Part of why is I like to put plenty of pictures, whereas you focus on a few well-detailed scenes. Overall, I think your blog is underrated. You may want to make slightly bigger updates, and share them on the main page using the Features function

[NorthStars 66]

Thanks for the suggestion... I didn't know about that!

[boformer 3,169]

I would really like so see some areal screenshots!