Three Rivers Region

[MasterPlanMan 1]

Wow! Great work so far! That region is going to be awesome. I am looking forward to seeing how it develops. Keep up the good work!

[dedgren 830]

Okay, my loss is your gain.  I've been watching the (US) election coverage and terraforming like a fiend at the same time.

Six of the 16 rows are complete, the seventh is half done and a few quads are done in the eighth.

Here you go...

Here's the 3,200 by 3,200 pixel version [ linkie ]. It's 727 kb in size, so be prepared to stand by a mo'.

Mind you, I'm getting the mountains, hills, shorelines and river widths basically the way I want them, but there will likely be further significant fine terraforming work on many of the quads, much less superdetailing work on riverbanks, lakeshores and surface water streams.

Then there's trees.  I plan to very carefully select the tree types I'm using.  I will use seasonal trees wherever possible for deciduous species, pay attention to the significance of elevation (tree line, differentiation and so on) and try to otherwise conform what goes (or, more properly grows) where based on the underlying landform.

I'm placing 3RR in a notional North American location between 45 and 50 degrees north latitude.  Hotham Inlet, the large water body in the southeastern corner of the region, is freshwater (as an embayment, perhaps, from a great lake) and I am arbitrarily setting the water surface at 900 feet (about 275 meters) above mean sea level.

I haven't chosen fish species yet

...just kidding...  ...the election results and the several stiff drinks needed to allow myself to be reconciled to them are taking their toll here...

Anyway, I will be doing an update where I will ask you to help me select suitable trees for use in 3RR.  Along with a rock mod...

...don't get me started on rock mods tonight...

I'll close this update by first thanking you folks who, in the face of my apparent indifference, have been willing to continue commenting.  It's been quite a while since I've posted some responses, and I'm just going to take a break to do that.  If you are a commenter, and have your own CJ, I have been trying to do more than lurk, but I feel ashamed...

...very ashamed...

...for letting the nice things said here pile up unrequited.  You'll just have to believe me for now- each comment is taken straight to heart.  You are all my dear, dear friends and lunch is on me if you ever find yourself in Alaska.  I'd say I'll do better but I've made that promise before.

What the heck- I'll make it again.  I'll do better.

Parting pics- a few close-ups from the Region Census region view above.

The Roaring Fork.

#1

The Taylor Lakes and the western reaches of the Northern Range.

#2

The partially terraformed Wyler Mountains and Perch Lake.

#3

North-central Three Rivers Region.

#4

Later, folks. 

n.b.:  Once again, I'll do anything to call your attention to my previous post on river and stream width- if you haven't seen it yet, please check it out here [ linkie ].  DE

[owenluby 1]

Well that Mona Lisa animation did it for me!

... I read it last night though...

Keep plugin' away David!

[Peng74 1]

Amazing job dedgren.

It baffles my mind how you manage to find time to do all that terraforming and still find time to post here!

Its fascinating to see how you are prgressing with the region and getting to see how you have made all the decisions.

Definetly one of the most interesting CJ's here.

[jacqulina 162]

hey david my friend thats a great region view the terraforming is excellent

[Nik-nik 3]

Dear David-the Zealot-,

That roaring fork image is just great. It is exactly how a satalite image is supposed to be. I get a googleearth feeling from looking at this terraformed land. Great work. Realy worth the effort.

So once you finished this map. Any thoughts about the future? Getting marries, having kids 

......oh, what'd say, they are still there? 

They must realy love you, showing so much patience, on the other hand, it's snow covered Alaska where could they go? (for once a reason why people would want to live there..... 

Nik-Nik

[tchaos713 5]

Lookin' good, David... Hope you didn't hit those stiff drinks too hard, I don't think it will be as bad as everyone thinks it will...

[Darmok 34]

Everything as been said and I agree with most of what I've read.

so I won't bother saying that you're nuts, everybody realized that! I want for example that Mona Lisa pulling her ears!

I won't say that that map will be, in fact, already is,  "THE MAP" on simtrop, nope I won't.

I also won't say that any sane person would tackle such a task, you can refer to my first point on this one.

I won't bother.... nope I won't

As I won't bother saying that I'll be back to see more of it!

But I'll say this,

Take care my friend!

---

Edited for a tiepo oops typo.. hehehe...

[dedgren 830]

Robert (KingTitan) who is now a 3RR Regular* despite the fact that he continues to lurk on the CJ...

...come out-  Robert.  come out and have some fun with us...

...wrote a nice PM where, after he was way too kind to 3RR, he asked

....where can I get that specific snow mod. do you have a link to get me there directly so I am not searching all over the place? Right now Im using the cheat code "snow", and it doesnt look right to me.......please help.?quote>

Of course, I PM'd him right back with the linkie...

...Guilt.  It's guilt.  You're feeling guilty about all those nice folks who've written you and you continue to ignore at your peril...

...'hem!... I PM'd him right back with the linkie, but his post made me think- what's up with that "game" snow anyway?

Well, since I'm at home waiting for the hot water heater folks...

...yeah, wotta day yesterday- the Dems took over congress and my hot water heater cr-pped out...

...I thought I'd take a little time and take a look into the "game" snow cheat that has been brought to light by buggi in his Extra Cheats DLL thread [ linkie ].  Is it as bad as Robert would make it out to be?  Let's see- I'll present...you decide.

Here's the 3RR area we'll use as our testbed, up in the heart of the Northern Range in the northeast corner of the region.

#1

We'll be looking at the effects of "game" snow in Quads 31 and 47, as one has by and large much higher elevation than the other.

We'll start by turning on the snow cheat in Quad 31.

#2

I'm using the DLL made available by buggi to list the cheats from a good old standard [ Ctrl ][ X ] cheat box.  You can accomplish the same thing if you haven't downloaded and installed the DLL by typing "snow" in the cheat box and pressing [ Enter ].

Now, I'm not going to go through a big, long description here of how I've set this up or what is happening.  Suffice it to say that, over about six months of "game" time, the cheat gradually brings the snow line down lower and lower in elevation.  It reaches its maximum extent in the dead of "game" winter, then retreats back up the hill and mountainsides.  By mid-spring, all the cheat snow is gone.  Note that some of the snow, though, will remain as it is permanent snow created as the result of the use of jeronij's Columbus Snowcapped Lower mod, which is discussed on 3RR page 41 here [ linkie ].  I'll only do fall into winter- you can see winter into spring by scrolling upwards from the last pic...

...it's just amazing how that worked out...

So here we go.

#3

This is pretty much all snow from jeronij's mod.

#4

First snowfall.  Looks pretty good at this point.

#5

Still pretty subtle, but parallel lines (I'll call 'em "jaggies.") are starting to appear at the lowest extent of the snow line.

#6

Definitely November or early December.  The jaggies definitely do not look good on open terrain.

#7

Woot!  That must have been a dumper!  The jaggies are definitely not good.

#8

Lower...

#9

Now that's snow machine [ linkie ] country...

n.b.:  I have never heard anyone who has lived in Alaska more than five minute refer to a snow machine as a "snowmobile."

Let's look at the lowest elevation of the quad down in the southeast corner.

#10

That's as far down as the "game" snow gets.

Moving on to Quad 47, I'll do three shots.  The first is "summer"  i.e.: no "game" snow.

#11

Here's snow halfway down.

#12

Those jaggies do bug me, Robert.

Mid-winter snow line.

#13

The flatter the lowest snow-covered area, the worse the jaggies get.

So, setting aside the appearance issue, how low in elevation  does "game" snow come down to?

Here's our contour lines ([ Ctrl ][shift ][ C ]) with no "game" snow on the ground.

#14

And here they are with the snow at its lowest extent.

#15

That's right down to almost the first contour line above "game" water level.  That level is 250 meters (about 800 feet).  The contours are 64 meters (about 200 feet) apart [ linkie ] so use of the snow cheat will bring snow at its maximum point down on everything above that level.  Recalling that I have arbitrarily set the game water level in 3RR at 900 feet (275 meters)above mean sea level, that means in the dead of winter I would get snow down to about the1,100 foot (335 meter) elevation level.

I don't know if there would be a way, perhaps in ilive's Reader, to vary this.  It may be hard-coded, like tunnels.  It would be interesting...

...whoa, like an SC4 science experiment...

...to bring it all the way down to the "game" water level.  Would game water then freeze?  Someone will figure this out, mark my words.

As for the jaggies- trees- lots of trees- come to mind.  I'll leave that today for you to check out if your interested, as...

...I have a date with the hot water heater guy.

Later.

*  A 3RR Regular is anyone who has ever commented (that's right, even once) on 3RR.  Since I've done Robert's commenting for him, in effect, by quoting from his PM, he's now a 3RR Regular...

...hey, I'm the boss here, and I brook no guff!  Dems 'da rules!

[jacqulina 162]

this was an interesting read thankyou my friend

[ElBarto92 7]

Damned jaggies! Well, whatever, I don't use snow in my regions anyhow. My regions are a bit closer to home [ linkie ]. Heh heh, sorry, just wanted an excuse to use the "linkie"...

-Andrés

[owenluby 1]

Wow! I never knew about the contour lines!

Thanks for sharing all this with us!

[raul39 0]

This is all great info! and if it weren't for your cj, I would never have found all those cheats!

Great work!

[hondo42769 0]

Hello David (I hope I'm not being too personal for my first post),

Just wanted to say that after lurking for a very long time, your CJ has inspired me to get back into the game. Thanks also for pointing me in the direction of AVR which then led me to Paradise Falls. The three of you (dedgren, darmok and jacquilina) have reminded me of the fun that can be had with SC4. As for the latest update (there is no way I could comment on all 42 pages), I love the variety you have in this region. Thanks again, and I hope not to be such a stranger anymore.

[crazychickensc12 84]

Thats quite a bit of snow there!! sooo are we gonna see a water mod?? cuz you know if you have a special request ill be more than happy to mod it for you !! great work and very informative, loving every bit!!

[threestooges 0]

The Northern central & eastern areas of the map look great, especially the rivers (the eastern branch of the roaring fork area in particular). The snow is a very interesting thing (and evidently, one of the cheats not quite finished). As far as someone putting it to sea level, I'll give it about a month to completion (1.5 months at most). Now keep up these ground breaking developments and inquiries into the deeper parts of the game, and get these things terraformed so the contributory development can commence. Incidentally, I'm a bit surprised at the election results. I expected some change but I was expecting it to be on incumbents in general and not so much pure republican replacement, although it is good to see good turnover on both sides. Looking forward to the finished product.

[asturianu 4]

WOW!! I need this, sorry, but now i can't post much, i'm in the school, see you, David.

[Peng74 1]

Fascinating!

How can you make something so mundane seem so interesting.

Nice little experimental update.

[Darmok 34]

**hearing a golden oldie on the radio in the background**

"Jaggies in the morning

Jaggies in the evening

Jaggies at suppertime.......

Be my little jaggie and love me all the time...."

Could someone turn that thing off ???

Sorry David, must be all that guitar practice that goes to my head!

Well it seems that SC4 and jagged edges goes together hey? Jagged road, jagged rails and now jagged snow!

Your idea of planting trees to "mask" those edges is not a bad one, did you let the experiment run several years to see if the jagged edges were always appearing on the same spot?

And if the game water freeze, will we have a mod to see the sims go skating??

Nice experiment my friend!

**Now where's that radio.... ah here it is...**

- jazzy Franky sound fill the air -

"Jaggies in the niiiiiight exanging glances

Wondring if they might getting corrected.....

---

Edited

Welcome everyone to page 43 of the ongoing northern saga of 3RR!

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Yay, snow. Thanks for testing out the cheat. I will now see what I can use it for.

[dedgren 830]

Your 3RR16² terraforming update fix...

As of bedtime this Thursday evening I am on row 9 of 16 with the initial terraforming.  The latest map,,,

...and some close in pics.

#1

The partially terraformed Wyler Mountains.  Grand River is the large river running top to bottom.  Note how I am tightening up river widths consistent with the info I presented in this post [ linkie ].

#2

Cold lake is the big lake on the left and Grand Lake is the lake on the right.  Notice the valley at the bottom center-left that will carry the ploppable water stream that drains Little Cold Lake.

#3

Fox River.  It drains McClaren Flowage, an impoundment that supplies the region's water, on the left side of the pic.  The Fox is a 10 mile long canoer's dream, as it flows through a beautiful unspoiled valley.

You can see in these pics artifacts from quad mis-alignment in terms of elevation.  Will I leave those unaddressed?  If you would believe that, you need to go back and read the first 42 pages of this CJ then guess again.

#4

Grand Lake.  It looks like a wide place in Grand River until you realize that the pool of the lake has about as much surface area as a full quad- about six square miles (9.5 square kilometers).  Water skiing, anyone?

#5

Yet unnamed peaks in the Wylers.  The unterraformed part of the range is readily apparent here.

#6

The upper end of the Fox River.  Wait until you see the quads themselves- this river really turned out looking good.  Now I just need a hydro dam at the outlet of the flowage.

#7

This last pic shows the height of land between the Cold River on the left and the Grand, on the right.  You can see where an old bend of the Grand River has silted in around former islands to the left of the new channel in the upper right of the pic.

That's it for tonight.  I'm going to get up at five or so tomorrow morning and see if I can hammer out 20 or 30 more of these before breakfast.

G'night.

[Shadow Assassin 336]

Very nice, David. I like what's going on here.

Looking forward to seeing you tree the land, and adding cities to 3RR.

[GMT 389]

the region's coming to life. wonderfull.

waiting for more

[bat 6]

Looks fantastic like always!

bat

[jacqulina 162]

hi david that map is looking fantastic and so huge

[Schulmanator 5,787]

You have quite the ambitious undertaking. And, you are doing a great job with it. This CJ will be the largest in scope I have ever seen! I give you an A+!

[Kokopelli 0]

This is looking great. I like that winding little Fox River.

[threestooges 0]

If possible, I hope that this will be available to dl on the stex (unless, of course, the 256 large  tiles make it too big). So much time & care are evident in this.

[dedgren 830]

So here's the progress through noon today.

First, the region map from Region Census.

And here's one from the SC4Terraformer.

As you can see, I have a lot of artifact hunting to do even after I'm done with all 256 quads.

Only about 100 more to go, and lots of them are water.

Here, by the way, is a 2,400 pixel by 2.400 pixel current region shot, which will open in a new window [ linkie ].

Finally, yes Matt (threestooges)- I will put this on the STEX as soon as it is through 3RR quality control.

Later.

[jacqulina 162]

david this is awesome and its been a lot of work for you but its been worth it