Three Rivers Region

[crazychickensc12 84]

nice start on terraforming dedgren!! can't wait to see where this goes !!

[owenluby 1]

Gotta love this, Dave!

Great work

wen

[Shadow Assassin 336]

Ah, you're finally done.

Please, for the love of God, don't use PNGs. Just paint the background white, and save as jpg.

Er, you should have bigger mountains there in the north-east, don't you think?

[Rayden 7]

Wow, a mountain named after my name I hope it snows a lot there. I like it soft and thick. Great work in here, I'm lovin' it (McDonald's influence, hehe).

[dedgren 830]

Shadow, just the quickest of notes in response to

Er, you should have bigger mountains there in the north-east, don't you think?quote>

Here's a quad=size (2.5 mi²/4 km²) bit of a 1:63,360 topo map of the area just nortth of where I live.  It's pretty "peaky."

...hope that's a word...

Anyway, have a look and see what you (along with everyone else) think.  I plan to terraform until I get it reasonably right, at least for horizontal scale.  Vertical scale, as we will see, is always exaggerated in SC4 mountainous areas.

Off to trial...

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Got some pretty steep areas there. Nice second half of the update.

[Fallon144 1]

nice area mate, nice CJ as well!

keep up the excellent work!

[-M- 6]

*stands up*

Hello everyone, my name is M, and I'm a 3RR lurker.

Great region!

[owenluby 1]

Originally posted by: -M- *stands up*

Hello everyone, my name is M, and I'm a 3RR lurker.

Great region! quote>

I think it's working...

Looking forward to more...

wen

[Nik-nik 3]

Great mountains. I like the jagged edges of them.

Good if not superb work David.

Nik-Nik

[choco1 4]

Nice work here mate! Your region is looking really nice. The mountains look great!

Keep it up!

[jacqulina 162]

wow thats one huge excellent region and great start to the terraforming

[Darmok 34]

Hi David,

WOW that's what I call a big project!

I only used SC4 terraformer for some small tests, one of those was with Yosemite Valley California By Beskhu3epnm

I wanted to try out Jeronij's snow mod with it. And I never noticed any of those kinks that we see in the pics with the green circles, errrr.... ovals.

And when you say that it's a tedious back and forth procedure to correct it, are you doing the corrections in SC4 or directly in SC4Terraformer? Can't we do that kind of corrections directly in it on a regional scale? I thought we could... (puzzled    )

Anyhow back on the map itself, this is one heck of a map my friend! And to make it a collective work! I'm looking forward to examine all the (numerous) updates  this magnificent region of yours will generate!

No snow yet on our side of the continent, but getting colder every day. Snow tires are installed leaves are raked, I'm ready!

Take care my friend!

[GMT 389]

nice. very nice in deed.

love the progress shots of the sc4tt and ingame...

waiting for more

[Gaston 0]

David,

I love the topo map.   (Of course I love ALL maps but topos are my favorite.)   Heres a challange when you are done making 3RR.   Let make a topo map of each quad.  It could be done by using ctrl/shft/C.   Well that would get your primary elevations.    Hmmmm, could be sorta fun, in a sick OCD sorta way.   

---Gaston

[raul39 0]

That's a huge map! It looks very cool too! Those wierd edges also came on when I made my map for El Paraiso because I made it on sc4terraformer.... it's wierd.

Good luck with this, I can't wait to see some development!

[Shadow Assassin 336]

Well, you've got a point, but in proportion to the foothills, the mountains are too small and spiky You can still have a lot of points, but they just look too small. It's probably the way SC4 deals with scale

[Rayden 7]

Those mountains look a bit too small, more in part to an optical ilusion, because of the map being too big and David not using a snow mod. If there was snow visible, they would't look that small. That's what I think, before I see one of those mountain quads open.

[dedgren 830]

I'm still cogitatin' about all this...

In the meantime, here's some pics of the area in question straight from SC4, as opposed to processed through Region Census.

The area.

#1

Quads 14-16 and 30-32 have been terraformed.  Matt (threestooges) noted

There is one point I noticed (although it is likely you've already taken care of it) in the pic of Rayden Mountain, the river breaks up at the narrowest point.quote>

You can see that clearly here just above the word "Region" on the toolbar.  It's an artifact from importing the quad from SC4Terraformer, and was likely caused by an error in the bitmap I used to set the region up initially.  It'll be gone when I terraform the quad.

Here's some close-ups of quads 15 and 16, from left to right (west to east) along the northern edge of the region.

#2

#3

#4

#5

Here's a pic from quad 32 up from the north bank of the river.

#6

Finally, here's the western part of quad 31.

#7

I dunno...jury's still out as far as I'm concerned.  Anyone have any new thoughts on seeing these?

Later. 

[Kokopelli 0]

After seeing the region shots, I kind of agree with Shadow_Assassin, the mountains look too "spiky". In the closeups, however, they didn't look as malformed. Not that there aren't spiky montains, maybe there are too many of them together. 

Because of the compression of scale in SC I have always thought that many of the mountains were unrealistic. In your case, with this this huge region, you don't have to compress the scale to go from river bottom to mountain top. I also think the other problem is that  we only have sea level water. As I remember in SC2000 God Mode you could plop water in a mountain area and it would follow the contour to the sea to make a river.

I don't mean to be too critical. I think this huge region is great and I can hardly wait to see where this whole thing goes. I'm looking forward to more

[Bishop Hawke 0]

Well David  I guess I better come in from the shadows and atleast say hi. I been reading your CJ for the last 2 weeks at work and have a lot about (ahem  cough cough) What I was doing wrong. Thanks for this great Cj. I learned how to orginize my plugin file and How to make those darn tunnels.. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

[threestooges 0]

They look fair enough (a bit hilly considering the scale that is used) but not too spikey I don't think. One thing for sure, however, is that they will look much better/natural with a bit of flora/fauna/pw. I would personally leave them as they are, a good mountain pass is fun to work with, and the close proximity of the hills will offer some good terrain variations. Ultimately though, it is up to you. So far, so good.

[owenluby 1]

I think it looks really nice...

WEN

[Darmok 34]

I totally agree withh Matt, (threestooges), he took the words out of my mouth!

Considering the scale of your map, I don't find them (the mountains) too spikey,

We have to consider that when looking at your in game region pic, it's almost like looking at a satellite picture, but we have to take into account that the distance in RL between those mountains is probably calculated in miles! So, no, I don't find it spikey!

Looking at pics , 3 and 4 we can see nice valleys (can't wait to see some flora in those),

Pic 6 with the erosion marks is simply breathtaking!

The jurys still out you say? (an appropriate expresion for you BTW) 

Well If I was in the jury, I'd say "That Map is innocent, please keep it!"

Hehehe... (I would make a terrible lawer!)

Anyhow, always admiring your thoroughness my friend, and I'm sure your final decision will be the good one.

Enjoy your weekend

John

[bat 6]

looking great!

bat

[dedgren 830]

Well, the jury's returned...

I decided to look at the area in question with cycledogg's Columbus Terrain mod installed...

n.b:  There seems to be a constant ongoing question as to where to DL Columbus.  There's a great forum thread full of information here [ linkie ] that would appear to indicate, in a later page, that it was uploaded by Andreas Roth to the STEX wrapped in an installer.  A search of the STEX, however, fails to find it under Andreas's nic or, for that matter, find anything entitled "Cycledogg's Columbus Terrain," "Columbus Terrain Mod" or some such.  The links at "Cycle Puppy's World," cycledogg's web page [ linkie ] where Columbus used to be available, are broken.

That's because it isn't entitled anything near so straightforward and it was uploaded by cycledogg himself.  The DL is entiled Columbus Textures for jeronij's Mod...

...now that's really obvious...

...and is found on the STEX here [ linkie ].  I'm not complaining, mind you, but a simple title change would certainly reduce the consternation level.

Now, you're not done.  If you want snow, you'll need to also DL from the STEX jeronij's Cycledoggs Columbus Terrain Snowcapped Mod [ linkie ] or Cycledoggs Columbus Terrain Snowcapped Mod Lower [ linkie ].  You also need to DL and install the updated Columbus terrain textures, CPT No3 TerrainTextures [ linkie ] and CPT No4 TerrainTextures [ linkie ].  That should get you ready to go.

...along with jeronij's "Lower" Snowcapped mod.  So, I dropped them in my otherwise bare "My Documents" plugins folder, booted SC4 back up and loaded and saved a few quads.

Here's the pics.

The first two are region level shots.

#1

Quads 14 and 30, which we previously terraformed, have been loaded and saved.  Quads 13 and 29, also previously terraformed, remain in their pre-Columbus state.  The remaining visible quads have not yet been terraformed.

Here's the area further to the east.

#2

One thing that is noticeable right away is that the boundary between adjacent terraformed quads will need careful attention in snowy areas.  That aside, I was really pleased with the way the "snowcapped" mountains looked at the region level.

Here's some shots from the quads.  The first two are from Quad 15.

#3

#4

Here's one from Quad 31.

#5

I like these a lot.  The terraforming so far gives me the look I had in mind when I laid the area out.  There's still much more fine detailing to be done, but unless someone makes a really compelling argument to the contrary taking into account these latest pics, I will be continuing to do my mountain terraforming along these lines.

Later.

UPDATE:  (11-3-06  12:05 p.m. AST GMT-9)  Here's a pic of the same area from Region Census.

#6

Yeah, this does what I need it to for me.

[Nik-nik 3]

Good Morning David.

Did you send some cold over from Alaska here to Europe? It's getting as low as 8 degrees C here during the day. brrrrr.

An update!

Ah well that is starting out to be a nice region now that you've installed Cycledogg's terrain. What about some trees (somehow I can't get dem trees planted in GOD mode).

Have a great weekend.

Nik-Nik

[Rayden 7]

So, I was right. The mountain looked small because the region is huge. Now with the cyclegog's modd, we can see that they are quite big and tall. Nice work.

[crazychickensc12 84]

whoa a mod has been introduced, those snowy peaks look wonderful!! great work here dedgren!!

[tommiej 0]

nicely done, those mountains are huge if the region is huge as well.... great work keep it up!!