Three Rivers Region

[bat 6]

WELCOME TO PAGE 19!!!!

great pictures!

bat

[PhilsCafe 8]

Beautiful eye-candy there David, as always. I never can get enough of these awesome details. The stone bridge's a h... of a nice touch (please excuse my bad language... lol). Anyways, I'm sure your maps are going to look great too. What software are you planning to use, btw. (if I'm allowed to ask)?

Looking forward to your next updates.

- Phil

[jeronij 13]

I just wanted to say congratulations, and a BIG thanks for making the waterfalls posible !!!. This is a definetively great and needed addition to the game !!!!

[threestooges 0]

Welcome back (if you ever really left). Still up to the great standard you've set for yourself it seems. Great use of that bridge by jeronij. Incidentally (off-the-wall question coming), have you happened to come across a decent looking SF style chinatown anywhere? You have found many other interesting tidbits that I was just wondering if you had found one like this. Great stuff, and good to see you back.

[Fabiocb 1]

WOW

what to say, well I really don't know, this is extremely awesome and perfect, the terraforming to place the streams and falls is mindblowing, not to mention the pines, woods and rocks that add a great touch to the emsemble, the roads lauout is very well planned and take the largest advantage of the scenic views arround them, it must be a dream to drive into such a beautiful place.

Congratulations David.

Fabio

[dedgren 830]

Just a couple of teaser pics from the next Shameless Eye Candy, coming to a monitor near you over the weekend...

#1

#2

Later.

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Cool roads. Just won't want to drive on them at night with a heavy downpour. Lol.

[tchaos713 5]

Nice job with both the railroad and the regular road. I can almost see myself driving cautiously up the hill.

The railroad seems very accurate to where I grew up, as you see a lot of railroads hugging hills in West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. Can't wait to see the rest of the update.

[van1357 15]

Looks awesome dedgren. I love scenic areas like that. The road looks like a nice place for a drive on Sunday afternoon. Great work/play. And looking forward to the next update.

My 300th post!

[dedgren 830]

Shameless Eye Candy No. 6!  Woot.

Here a trip, by pics, up over Rainy Pass on the back roads of 3RR.

This is the area we're lookin' at, up in the northernmost unnamed townships of Three River Region.

#1

...man, can I Photoshop with the best of them or what???

Regional Route 338 (R-338), a minor road, climbs to the west up to Rainy Pass north of Arkose Ridge out of a yet unnamed township in the far north of 3RR.

#2

Here's a trick shot pic to show you how steep the switchbacks really are.  The top of the pass is still quite a ways from the township boundary.

#3

Here's a few closer-in pics of the road up the switchbacks.

#4

#5

   

#6

We reach the township boundary here, still climbing.

#7

Here's an overview map of the area west of the township boundary.

#8

The remainder of the climb to the top of the pass is steep and narrow.

An overview of the top of the pass from another angle.  R-113, a major road, comes up Grass Valley to the pass.  R-338 ends here.  A northern line of RegRail, the governmental rail authority, exits the tunnel under the west flank of Dennilton Peak and proceeds down into Grass Valley on the west side of Johanssen Mountain.  R-133 drops back down on new alignment (notice the wide cleared right-of-way) through Farquhar Valley.

#9

A pic of R-113 leaving the pass area to the west and south.

#10

Here's a few shots of R-338 working its way toward the crest of the pass.  The Northern Range rises steeply on both sides.

#11

#12

The crest of the pass is just east of the at-grade railroad crossing.  R-113 switchbacks steeply down into Grass Valley on the right of the pic.  Johanssen Mountain, the snowy peak of which lies just to the north of the township boundary, is at the front right.  You can see that little sun makes it into the pass unless it is almost directly overhead.

#13

Here's the R-338/R-113 junction.  The rail tunnel is one of the deepest in Three Rivers Region, but the line is little used today.

#14

Backing out a bit, here's the R-113 switchbacks at the upper end of Grass Valley.  Despite a major realignment of the road over the past few years it was impossible to eliminate these due to extreme steepness of this area.

#15

The switchbacks closer in.

#16

Here's looking at them from up top.  The steepness of the grade becomes apparent here.

#17

Here's two shots of the railroad grade at the base of Johanssen Mountain high above the floor of Grass Valley.  Frequent rockslides make this section of line costly to maintain, and it will probably be abandoned within the next few years.

#18

#19

R-113 drops from the junction on new pavement down gentle Farquhar Valley, named for the rugged clan of Scots who settled this area in the early 1800s.

#20

A view from a different angle.

#21

The new road is one of the most scenic in 3RR, as the high peaks of the Northern Range tower to the north and west.

#22

We reach the end of our transit of Rainy Pass at the junction with R-34, a major east-west highway.  Hope you enjoyed the ride!

Later.

[van1357 15]

Ah, nature. Great shots dedgren. I've tried to make a mountain pass like that several times, but can never get it to look right. Might have to try again one day. The area reminds me a little bit of where I live. Wonderful work/play.

P.S. Your photoshop skills are... simple and easy to understand!

[Rayden 7]

Nice work David. As usual you've just put up with anohter great update. Keep it up!

[rw0381c 2]

Nice comeback David!

I really enjoy your terraforming. Not to mention your tutorials, I hope I can implement some of what I've seen someday!

[bat 6]

great update!

bat

[tchaos713 5]

More great stuff, David.

This really reminds me of Western and South-Central Pennsylvania. My grandmother has a house in Fulton County and I used to love going there in the summer.

[usnaguy 0]

love the mountains and the roads. i love how untouched the environment seems. keep up the great work.

[dedgren 830]

Mapping, mapping...

I did want to note, informally here, all the great comments that have been left here over the past bit.  Rheal (rw0381c- welcome back- I owe you a conversation about covered bridges  SEE EDIT BELOW), Ryan (usnaguy), Daniel (tchaos13), bat (Prost!), my friend Silvio (Rayden), Isaac (van1357), Tommy (Tommy_Vercetti3), Fabio (fabiocb), jeronij (thanks for your first post here- please don't be a stranger) and Phil (PhilsCafe), and that's just on this page up to now.  I'm once again working on a more formal "We've got Mail..." post to catch things up over the past few weeks, but all of you, along with everyone else who comments here (an unrequited act all too often)- please know that I read and appreciate every word you write, and will keep trying to do my best to make 3RR worth looking at every so often.  Thanks to all.

David

EDIT:  Well, the old steel-trap mind certainly blew that one.  Rheal, it just came to mind when I was typing the above that I hadn't seen your avatar for a bit (early June, I think) and that you had around that time posted a comment asking my opinion about the "game" covered bridges.  Actually, it turned out to be Daniel in this post

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=74819&STARTPAGE=9#797315

Funny though- years ago when I was up your way driving back to the 'States from Nova Scotia (we had taken the ferry over from Bah Hahbah, ME to Halifax, NS) I recall driving out of the way to look at a particularly nice covered bridge near St. John.  That particular bit of brain RAM must have confused me...yeah!  That's the ticket!  Anyway, glad you're on board.

And Daniel, I'll now have at some point soon that conversation with you (and anyone else interested) about covered bridges

[Sim shady 12]

*whew* that is some amazing terraforming and road placement! I love your winding road on your earlier update! nothing short of fantastic. This stuff must come natural to you, because it sure looks natural!

[dfnva 34]

This looks great. I really like the switchbacks, they're so realistic... the area reminds me a lot of Western VA and WV, where you have a lot of switchbacks on roads such as US 250 west of Staunton and US 220.

Dan

[jacqulina 162]

amazing terraforming nicely done wonderfull windy roads and beautifull scenic pics

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Good looking roads. I wouldn't mind driving on one of those. Great work!

[patriots_1228 51]

like those winding roads, they would look good in a car commercial

[cityhawk 12]

Well, as I'll say in all the long-running CJs that I haven't been following, I've never visited your great CJ and the awesome CJs of others that fit into the category because I like to start reading a CJ from the beginning so that I won't miss anything. However, I've decided to stop doing that and just come in and look at your last update because I've heard that you and the others have great SC4 talents. So here I am...

About your CJ: Did you terraform all those mountains and stuff yourself? It looks amazing, and the roads and railroad winding through the valley are presented very aesthetically and very professionally! Makes me wonder what you can do with cities, although I'm sure I could go back some pages to find out, but I don't really have the time right now. Anyway, I'll be back from now on!

[capitol1 1]

Awsome road network looks like a british columbian road

[anubis89 107]

great pictures as always, i especially like the rail

and thanks for the link

[ElBarto92 7]

Wonderfully realistic road-placement, David, great job with the latest update.. Keep up the always excellent work.

-Andr

[ElBarto92 7]

Wonderfully realistic road-placement, David, great job with the latest update.. Keep up the always excellent work.

-Andr

[dedgren 830]

Well, this is the next big phase of 3RR...

My goal is to map the entire region more or less before I proceed then, as I noted the other day, use the completed map as a basis to do some region-wide planning before development really starts in earnest.

So how does one "map" an SC4 region?  I've seen some nice small area examples, but nobody much beyond Battlecat in Terra - an evolving region is doing anything on a dedicated region-wide basis, best as I can tell.

...let me know if I'm wrong- there's always a first time...

Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, and having a real personal aversion to reinventing the wheel, I sat down and thought about the approach Battlecat has adopted, which involves teleporting screenies of SC4 inset maps, as explained here

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=75976&STARTPAGE=7#807353

Now, my friend Battlecat, as for as I'm concerned, is the resident CJ god of Abbotsford, BC...

#1

...heck, maybe even of western Canada...oh, I'll even throw in northern Washington State (BC, if the surveyor had been drinking a bit, you'd be paying US income taxes- perish the thought!).  But I'm a cut-to-the-chase sort, and it seems to me the following...

1.  Each of the three sizes of SC4 cities is, in essence, a grid matrix.

2.  As such, they are extremely easy to map, as anything that happens that isn't along one of eight vectors (0°/360°, 45°, 90°, 135°, 180°, 225°, 270°, 315°) just isn't happening.  Just tranferring by eye...

...well, almost not happening- there's shorelines to deal with...later...

...seems pretty cut-and-dried.  Cutting and importing seems like a lot of work...

...and there's nothing I hate like a lot of work...

...so I just decided to go back and forth between the grids directly.  That's the approach I took.

Small SC4 cities are a grid 64x64 in size.  I have no small cities in 3RR, so...next!

Medium ones are 128x128 (no surprise- they are twice the length and width of the small cities).  I'll start with a medium city (I call them "townships," and will from this point here) and go from there.  We just visited such a township in the latter half of Shameless Eye Candy No. 6 back up the page a bit here:

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=74819&STARTPAGE=19#862695

Here's a pic of what we're dealing with.

#2

Kind'a tough to map with all those trees and stuff in the way.  So let's wave the old wand and make them disappear- even better, let's add a 10x10 grid painted on with one of the zoning tools so we can have a ready frame of reference.

#3

Now, here's where I made my first mistake, as I figured out very quickly.  I started in the lower right-hand (southwest) corner.  I found much to my chagrin that the terrain query tool we'll see later along with the rulers in Paint Shop Pro 8, my graphics program, have the 0, 0 point at the upper right hand (northwest) corner.  While my grid system still was helpful, creating the map would have  would have been much faster if I had drawn my grid starting in the right place.

...how did I make the trees and stuff disappear???

Oh, sorry- created a duplicate region file.  Named it "3RR_Expanded-Map," so I could find it easily.  Created a plugins folder to swap with just the NAM and a few other things that relate to transit and ploppable water in it.  Swapped that folder for the full-up plugins folder, then started SC4 and loaded the new "3RR_Expanded-Map" region.  Erased all the trees...

...hey, nobody ever said this would be a walk in the park...

...drew the 10x10 grid, and there you have it.

Actually though, that wasn't quite how it went.  Just after doing that I saw johndg240's post

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=63427&enterthread=y&STARTPAGE=3#863007

listing keyboard shortcuts in Mr. Cinatit's topic A Guide To Creating A City Journal.

I pressed [ Ctrl ][ Shift ][ C ]

...yes, all at the same time...

for grins.

#4

Holy Guacamole!  Very little surprises me anymore (hey, I'm a lawyer, remember?).

This floored me.  I've never, ever seen this view before.  None of you ever told me about it (shame on you-all).

Here's the "contour line" view applied to the township as it currently stands.

#5

Here's the other three "compass-point" views of the stripped down version we've created for mapping.

#6

#7

#8

I set about using this to identify some high points in the township that had previously escaped my attention.  I order to assist me, as I wanted to get precise elevations, I pressed [ Ctrl ][ X ] to bring up the "cheat" input box, into which I typed "terrainquery" so as to bring up the terrain "hover" query popup.

#9

Here's the popup, which you get by pressing the [ / ] key then hovering the cursor over the grid square in question, looking at the same area.

#10

A few others.

#11

#12

The "y" information in the first line is elevation in meters (trust me on this).  Now, don't ask me why, but sea level in SC4 is 250 meters above sea level.

...I said DON'T ASK...

It just is- maybe some'a them Californians at Maxis were thinking about what things would be like after the Big One...I don't know.

I just subtract 250 from the "y" value to get the height in meters above sea level.  I then convert to feet above sea level by multiplying the result times 3.3937 (decimal feet per meter), then by the "k" factor of 2...

...wait a minute, what the h-ll's this 'k" factor?  And why does it equal 2?

If you must, "k" is a venerated math term for any variable constant that you need to in order to conform your actual results with your expectations.  2 is just the "k" value that works for me.  In effect, I pretend elevations are twice as high as they are to make them seem more realistic.  More about that in a later part of the update.

Oh,

...heading back to more firm ground...

the second line, the one that starts with "cell."  "x" is the distance in grid squares from the top of the township.  "y" is the number of grid squares from the left side.  That's a big reason to paint your mapping grid starting from the upper left-hand (northwest) corner.

On to the mapping.  I'm not going to do a graphics program tutorial here.  I just won't.

...mainly because my graphics program skills are pretty pathetic..

Suffice it to say that I created a new background 1290 pixels by 1290 pixels (128 times 10 pixels plus 10 pixels for the last row), added vector layers for major roads, minor roads, rail lines, and names and a raster layer for symbols, populated those layers with info that I "eyeballed" off the region itself (it didn't take long, honest), and came up with...

...

...but here I must digress.

...you always digress...

Oh well.  I love old road maps.  Gas station maps from the 1950s through the 1970s are my favorite.

#13

I have about a thousand

#14

of these puppies

#15

in a box in my basement.  My ultimate goal is to make a map of the region that's something like one of these.

Here's where

#16

I've gotten with this township.  Click anywhere on the map for a full-size view.

#17

So, much more about maps to come soon, starting with more about scale.

Later.

[bat 6]

Great update!

bat

[Shadow Assassin 336]

Impressive map. Are the heights in feet or metres?

And also, rather an interesting article you've written there.

Keep it up!