Three Rivers Region

[jacqulina 162]

i dont mind about replys my friend its your work i pop into see and awesome work it is too

[tchaos713 5]

David, I don't mind about the replies either, my friend.

We are all busy in our ways and trying to make 100 replies in a week would drive me mad.

By the way, check out the Ballet Fan Club (linkie in sig) for a preview of this weekend's performance, Beauty and the Beast.

Daniel

[Gaston 0]

David,

    Don't worry about the replies.   We can all appreciate that RL is there always.    BTW,   my cat loves your CJ as well.   Whenever I am in here she comes up and sits between me and the keyboarb so she can look at the CJ.    And then purrs like a motor boat.   (she is doing that as I type this.)     Occasionally she will want to type a responce as well, like now.  ijmiqwdinicaleiu   <   I think she jut said she loves this CJ or feed me bacon and shrimp.   It was one of those but I'm not sure which.    As to an offering to PEG and shaving my head; My head is shaved already so I amhalfway there.  

[lilred731 0]

Hello Dedgren,

Your cj is amazing. Thank you for the informative tutortials and new knowledge of the shortcut keys. I have a question for you and I don't know if it has been asked, here goes.

How are you able to capture screen images of your desktop screen?

Waiting to see more from the 3-R2

[dedgren 830]

Off to Fairbanks...

Right by Mount McKinley and lots of other fine scenery.  I'll be posting from the road for the next three days.  Check for more this evening.

David

[asturianu 4]

Hey, dedgreen, i told you that i love Anchorage and Fairbanks?, they're some of my favourite cities, and i also like Juneau.

This is a long trip, how much milles, David?

[jacqulina 162]

wow you travel a long way my friend

[Rayden 7]

Originally posted by: dedgren

...

Trust me on this, if you were an Alaskan right now, on any given day you'd wish you were something else.  That's just the way things are wherever you go- at least for me.  SC4, along that line, lets me be a part of any place I want to create.  I guess my CJ would indicate I wish I was in Three Rivers Region....quote>

 

I guess you're right about it, maybe that's why 2 of my CJs are on the mountains, with snow around. And maybe one of these days, one about Alaska, Mt McKinley and Fairbanks will be done as well

[lilred731 0]

I hope that is not your commute to work.

[RushHourFreak 1]

omg, that was a looong trip roll, hope you enjoyed,

[capitol1 1]

I made the trips from this town to ancourage.. It took four days..and i slept all the way. I think that was about fifteen years ago when i was a wee baby..

[sorchin 18]

Thanks for commenting my friend for myself and everyone else. When you respond to comments, you REALLY respond. Very in depth. Thanks again and am looking forward to more of your creative maps my friend...

[ral70 0]

David, I am one of those "lurkers."  I have read your CJ for many months now and always look forward to your updates!

Now, being an Alaskan by birth (Fairbanks, 1970), we really must discuss the best way to make the pipeline...and all those neat abandoned military installations just outside the city!

Drop me a line, I'd love to chat.

Mike

"Been playing SimCity since Christ was a corporal."

[Gaston 0]

David,

       Thank you soooooo much for answering my posts.    I am gonna try and follow it through this weekend.    (10pm here and bedtime )     I think I may know where the problem is now.   I think I don't have the ORIGINAL mod.   So it doesn't know how to use Jeronij's stuff.    I tried the link to cyclepuppy's and couldn't find the original mod unless you ment the textures (which I did find but couldn't download because it "isn't available at this time")    I'll try again tomorrow night after work.      

       Dang, that's a heck of a drive you got there.     My 15 minute commute isn't anything.   LOL   Keep a sharp eye out for moose (and squirrel).   Have a safe trip too.    I'll pm ya if I still can't get it to work right.

[owenluby 1]

Wow! David, you are probably one of the most helpful peoplke on ST!

Your replies are detailed and full to the brim with linkies!

I love that map! Good luck with it!

[Fallon144 1]

David, I understand that the huge amount of people replying eats up a lot of your time so no worries

still a great CJ though

[Nik-nik 3]

David, Great answering to all questions (I usually never read them, but this one was a must).

Wow I did not know that Faibanks was so close to North Pole  (Gosh don't you also hate lame jokes......)

Will he do a sloppet..... ha, ha, ha LOL

Nik-Nik

[meldolion 1]

Hi David,

Great updates!!!

How it's a long trip to Fairbanks? Google Earth says it's 359 miles... how are the roads down there

By the way, I want the title of Lurker Lord of Simtropolis  (8 posts from 2003)

P.S I've a problem with columbus terrain mod the relative folder is the following:

Is there someting wrong?

[dedgren 830]

Well, nothing ever quite goes the way you planned...

I made reservations at a hotel in Fairbanks that advertised WI-FI.  I check in last night, booted up the trusty laptop, found the hotel's signal, connected, and...

and...

...never could get the darn computer to connect to the Internet.  I had various hotel staff try and help me for over an hour (they were great- Thanks, Regency Fairbanks Hotel! [ linkie ]).  No luck, and I spent the time I had set aside for ST (I had two orders I have to submit by noon today based on yesterday's proceedings, and thus RL raises its ugly head yet again), so no post last night as promised.

The Regency is letting me use a hotel computer (again, these folks are really kind) to get this post up the morning of the 14th.  So, as with the post where I dealt with the questions, this one may be a "work in progress" as I have various tasks at fixed times (one is coming up in a few minutes, in fact) that I will have to interrupt what I am doing here to deal with.

So, without further adieu, heres the few pics I took on the drive up here.  As the only sunny part was in the area of Mount McKinley, it figures prominently.

 #1


I'm on the Parks Highway, just south of Talkeetna.  I think (I'll check) the mountain is still about 80 miles away here.  Mount Hunter is the peak on the left.

#2


Just past the Talkeetna Spur Road, heading down to cross the Susitna River.

#3


This, and the next two pics, are beautiful views of the mountain from a wayside in Denali State Park just about due east of the summit.  Even though I am much closer to McKinley than before, it appears smaller because of the gain in elevation to this point on the Parks.
#4


Same place- a telephoto shot.

#5


Our (oil) tax dollars at work.

#6


Heading up Broad Pass, I'm now to the north of the mountain.

#7


Another telephoto pic.  This is BIG country.

#8


Another Roadside Attraction...as one of my favorite authors [ linkie ] once said.  It always amazes me how many folks think all Alaskans live in igloos.  If that were true, a lot of us could live in this one.  This is ferro-concrete kitsch at its finest.

#9


McKinley dominates the view south-west from the top of Broad Pass.  That is one darn BIG mountain.

#10


More tax dollars at work.  Road distances are no small thing in my state.  This is a few miles north of halfway between Fairbanks and Anchorage, and there's darn little (except for great scenery on a sunny day) in between.

I have to stop here.  I'll resume after my to-do.

Hokey-dokey, back again for a mo'.

Here's the last pic I couldn't finish uploading.

#11


It's sort of strange...you spend several hours driving north from Anchorage with (again, on a sunny day, and they're not all that frequent in this area) views of the mountain and, about 45 minutes after it finally disappears in the rear view mirror, you get to the entrance of the park.

I didn't stop there this trip- take my word for it- an amazing place!

Now, back to 3RR, which remains in progress...

________________________

A Short Intro to Scale

I'd say pass this by if you're not inclined to spend time on text in a CJ, but if you are interested in the mapping I'm doing, I'd recommend spending the time...totally your choice.

Generally, a computer screen or a paper map, by necessity, depicts spatial information in a two dimensional manner.  We’ll call the two dimensions “x” and “y.”  Convention has the x dimension running north and south and the y dimension running east and west. A way of looking at the x and y dimensions is that, taken together, they allow calculation of the ground distance between here and there without regard to elevation. Elevation is the third dimension, commonly termed “z.” A flat computer screen or piece of paper cannot directly depict information in the z dimension so map makers resort to various devices, such as color, perspective, and labels.

On all but some specialized maps the actual depiction of measurement in the x and y dimensions is always in a unit of the same length. It does not matter what the unit is: inches, feet, yards, miles ( or, in the metric system, centimeters, meters, kilometers), the rule to remember is that, if two points are an inch apart on the x dimension of a map they are the same distance from each other in the real world as two corresponding points an inch apart would be on the y dimension of the same map.

The mathematical relationship between these units of measurement on a map and the distance “on the ground” in the real world is in the form of a ratio known as “scale.” An easy way to look at this relationship is to visualize a map of the city or town that you live in or near in comparison to the actual city or town itself. The map is much smaller – usually by thousands of times and often by far more. A common scale for a map of a small city and the surrounding area is one to 100,000, expressed 1:100,000. This means that one unit on the map, whatever that unit is, represents 100,000 of those same units in the actual area that is depicted.

So, you say, that’s all well and good.  But in SC4 one grid square does not equal some larger number of grid squares in the real world. So how does scale play into this picture? The answer, which you’ll just sort of have to accept for now, is that it doesn't. Start by remembering that SC4 regions and cities aren’t, in and of themselves, maps of anything. For our purposes they are the real thing.  When I create a region or a township map in 3RR, the scale of that map relates to the region or township as if the region or township existed full size in the real world.  Again, that may be a little hard to grasp, but I’ll just ask you to once again accept that as a concept for now.

If an SC4 grid square existed in real life it would have an x dimension of 16 meters on a side and a y dimension of the same 16 meters on a side. I note here that Nik-nik a couple of days ago asked whether Maxis, in developing the game, used meters on purpose.  I responded to his post by saying that I believe the choice was purposeful, and here’s why.

First, and generally, the game is developed for the world market. A look at random at any 50 member information panels in ST will demonstrate that far more of us come from countries that have adopted the metric system than from those where feet, yards, and miles are still used.  Doing the complicated math of how many feet are in a mile or how many inches are in the yard is about as esoteric and challenging a task in most of the world as dealing with shillings, pence, pounds and guineas (and what the heck is a farthing or a sovereign?) in reading about Sherlock Holmes’ [ linkie ] London.  In metric, one of these is 100 of those and 1,000 of this is one of that. It’s the common language of linear measurement in all but a few parts of the world and Maxis quite sensibly adopted it.

Second, when you’ve got a software “game engine” that has to constantly do complicated math, why burden it with additional complicated calculations? Division by ten, or 100 or 1000 has to be far simpler than by twelve, 36 or 5,280.

…hey, the game is slow enough…

Third, the proof is simply in the pudding.  A small “game” city is 64 grid squares by 64. 64 times 16 equals 1,024.  That’s close enough to one kilometer, 1,000 meters by 1,000 meters, for me to believe the choice was purposeful. That calculation, then, means that small cities (as noted 64 grid squares by 64) are one kilometer square, medium cities (128 by 128) are two kilometers square, and large cities (256 by 256) are four kilometers square. Back to my observations about this in a moment…

I need to say here, though, that I simply don’t care that Maxis has chosen to use the metric system in the game…

…they’ll have to pry my beloved feet, yards and miles out of my cold, dead hands.

As far as I’m concerned, a grid square is 50 feet by 50 feet, 100 grid squares in a row are one mile (5,280 feet) long, a small city ( remember, in 3RR I call cities “townships" ) is two-thirds of a mile on a side…

…and that’s another reason you’ll never see a small township in 3RR, or in any other region I’ve ever created…

…a medium township is 1.25 miles on a side, and a large township is 2.5 miles on a side.  Three Rivers Region is thus ten square miles.  If you don’t want me to get agitated…

…and, trust me, you don’t…

…don’t try to convince me otherwise.

So, I’ve actually got some work to do during the remainder of today during my visit to Fairbanks but I’ll pick this back up at this point in another post this evening.  I'll also answer the questions that have accumulated over the past few days and do the responsive post to Lora (ldvger - Apocrypha).

Hey, am I good or what?

Later.

[crazychickensc12 84]

Wow its beatiful there!! great pictures!!

[Gaston 0]

David,

       OMG(*s)     What an unbelievable view.    I now know why my friend from high school (25 years ago) left Tennessee and moved to Alaska never to be heard from by us ever again.

       Okay, the igloo looks abandoned.  Is it for sale?   I'll bet I could get a decent deal on it.   See I know this lawyer (well sorta know; electronically) who lives in Alaska.   

       What a kool building.    Can you say BAT project?        You should try and get a few more shots from different angles on the way back.     I'll bet a good BATter could whip that building out in a jiffy.    If you could just get your hands on the plans.   hmmmm.

       I'll probably wait till Sat to try and fix "Columbus" now that I have an idea what is wrong.   Thanks again for the help to figure it out.   Have a safe and productive time.     Did you say you were there to plead a case or what are you there for?

      *s = plural God, incase you believe in something other than mainstream America.   Or even Goodness, If you don't believe there is/are a/multiple deity/deities.     Political corectness can be such a b***h/b**t**d.

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Nice scenery.

[meldolion 1]

The igloo up there it's called Igloo City Resort, there are a lot of photos if you search google or google images

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull pics david,thankyou for showing us excellent views

[topdog555 0]

Amazing is the best i can say. all those helpful little tips on ....... well........    everything from the way you set the game up Pliugins foldes etc) to the way you built *3RR* once agin thamnks.

Your cj has been bookmarked and i look forward to each update. keep up the good work.

will be following this religiously even tho i dont go to church!

[owenluby 1]

Those are some really nice shots David, what a great place to live!

Thanks for the info about mapping!

[bat 6]

great views!

bat

MY 850th post!!!!!!

[Darmok 34]

Mother nature as always been the most formidable architect!

Thanks for sharing those wonderful pictures my friend!

Regards

John

[Nik-nik 3]

Hey David,

honestly, how many times did you want to press CTRL SHIFT C while driving through that magnificent country side?

So the game is most probably in metric system then!

Although you as a lawyer should know that all the evidence you so well stated is indirect evidence. Would it stand up in court?

Have a great weekend!

Nik-Nik

[dedgren 830]

Hey, am I good or what?quote>

Well, not so good as it turns out.  My high school senior son, who's an arts type, got into a scuffle (i.e.: some kids were throwing paper wads or some such at him, he protested, a kid punched him in the mouth, and all of them (including my son) got suspended because the school has a "zero tolerance" policy as to "fighting."

Bullying, apparently, is another matter...

So anyway, last night was filled with calls from wife at the E.R. (apparently one of Jon's teeth perforated his cheek), calls from wife at home, talks with son about the dignity of nonviolence and the stupidity of some who administer the educational system, and general uproar.

As an aside, some folks are going to find out not to pick on a kid whose dad's a lawyer.  Other folks are going to find out that bullying at school should not be tolerated.

OK, as they say in various blogs:  //rant off//

So here's the one thing I did- the response to Lora's (ldvger - Apocrypha) couple of posts concerning surface water, waterways and modeling the Alaskan terrain made over the last couple of days.

__________________________

So, Lora: You’ve left two comments that really caught my attention over the past few days.

The first was on 9/10 and started

I've just found your CJ because of my quest to learn how to create realistic above ground running water. You have some great tips and ideas here, but your above ground running water seems to flow mostly across fairly flat ground. I have created and massively hand terraformed a region that was a CJ until I ran into this stumbling block of streams and rivers and lakes above game sea level. My CJ has been on hold for almost a year and I long to get back to it. If you have the time, check out my CJ "Apocrypha". This is very challenging terrain not only to build on but also to create naturalistic waterforms across.quote>

Wow, just as you note in your subsequent post, flattery will get you everywhere.

Let’s parse the issues, both here and in the following ‘grafs…

… your above ground running water seems to flow mostly across fairly flat ground.quote>

First and foremost, the Edmonton Ploppable Water [ linkie to DL ] I use in 3RR is not my creation. It’s that of a brilliant ST member named brtim2. I just had, through 3RR, a hand in making this great addition to the game more widely known. All credit for doing the hard work, though, belongs to him.

A second very important point is that, absent some huge unanticipated discovery, there is no ability to create above ground flowing water in SC4...

...wait a minute, what about using the Rain mod?

I've commented on the limitations associated with using Teirusu's "Rain mod" from his Extra Terrain Tools [ linkie to DL ] elsewhere in 3RR (that's a gentle way to say that I can't find where I did that right now and I'll update with a specific reference when I do).  Suffice it to say here that, among others, the Rain mod will not create water that will flow "downhill."

Edmonton Ploppable Water is static. It doesn’t "flow" anywhere. This "game" limitation is a shame, but there is nothing we can do about it right now. Like many other things we do in SC4, ploppable water is a compromise– but the best we can do at the present time.

Now, as for flowing best across mostly flat ground, I disagree. I demonstrated in the following pic

 

that ploppable water can be placed on substantially steep slopes [ linkie to general discussion of characteristics of ploppable water ]. I have to ask, if the slopes you’re talking about are that steep, wouldn’t you want to use a succession of ploppable rapids lots in any event?

I will say that I am in complete agreement as to your desire to build "naturalistic waterforms." It is my opinion that such make a huge contribution to the credibility of the terraforming in a given region. Watersheds, and the canyon, gorge and valley landforms that make them up along with the rivulets, creeks, streams, and rivers that flow through them are fundamental to the creation of realistic terrain.

I have read twice through your tutorial about how to create naturalistic above sea level water features and think I am beginning to get the hang of the concept, although I have not yet attempted your techniques in my CJ region. Your use of a single species of trees along a watercourse I find especially inovative in areas where actual creation of water the game does not allow.quote>

Thanks for the kind words as to my use of "fool the eye" techniques [ linkie ]. While I have only used in 3RR trees to denote waterways that look like the black spruce we find so commonly here in Alaska, I have experimented with other ploppable trees and achieved what I believe to be equally convincing results. I think that the use of this technique is a significant tool in the hands of a dedicated terraformer.

I have one major question for you. I noticed that in your tutorial (Update #10) that you have your road in place before you create your stream. It is my thought to continue to develope the natural landscape of my region prior to placing anything "built", including roads. My thought being, to build my communities around the existing natural features of the landscape, just as happens in RL. And so I woul;d lioke to be able to bridge streams and rivers after the fact, depending on how my communities grow, rather than trying to plan everything out to the "nth" degree ahead of time.quote>

I agree with you wholeheartedly, Lora. Were I to do it all over again, I would complete all but the very finest level of terraforming detail in 3RR before I would build the first road or highway. You are exactly right- the entire natural environment comes before the first thing is created in the built environment. It is interesting, in light of my professional history, that you make this point in the way that you have. Back in my professional planner days, I had my first after grad school job as a regional planner for the planning department of St. Lawrence County, New York (SLC is the enormous pie-wedge shaped county along the Canadian border just south of the St. Lawrence River [ linkie ]). When I arrived, one of the tasks at hand facing the department was to update the county master plan that had been developed during the 1970s. One of the idiosyncrasies of the old plan that folks in the very businesslike early 1990s absolutely hated was that the county planner at the time the 70s plan was developed decided to completely disregard political and other manmade boundaries. Instead, his vision of a master plan for the county was founded on…you guessed it…the county’s various watersheds. The thing read like a Whole Earth Catalog [ linkie ] right down to the graphics, but it was really, in my view, pretty good…

From a tech standpoint, it is entirely possible to lay out ploppable water before you lay the first road. You’ll lose a little superdetailing work when you create "land" bridges over PW streams, but that’s a small price to pay. As I said, that’s how I’d do it again.

I tend to see my regions and cities as entities that grow beyond my control, but with my guidance...I let the game engine prompt me in many ways. But...as "God", I want to create the landscape upon which my cities grow, including surface water. Once the natural landscape is complete, I olet the game pretty much run the way it will.quote>

You’ve probably figured out that, if I were "God," I’d exercise my power a lot more like Robert Moses [ linkie ] than Verplanck Colvin [ linkie ]. I do love freeways.

Any tips you could provide would be very much appreciated...I really long to get back to the development of my CJ. PM me if you can or reply here if you can...I'll be checking back.quote>

Whatever I can do to help, Lora- I’m Your Man [ linkie ].

On 9/11, you followed up

Wow, I am flattered!

And, being flattered, will of course be patient and check back often. I am hoping you had time (or will find time) to visit Apocrypha and take a quick gander at the terrian I am trying to bring watercourses to. Apocrypha is hypothetically situated in Alaska (and is terraformed from a RL Alaskan river delta system), so you may be able to give me pointers on which "water" trees to use to create the impression of watercourses smaller that ploppable water will allow me to lay down in game.quote>

As I’ve noted, Alaska has a particular tree, the black spruce, that are associated with riverbanks and the presence of water generally, especially as one heads north out of the discontinuous permafrost soils that mark southern Alaska and the area near where I currently live. Alaskan black spruce are generally fairly small (less than 20’/6m in height, although some can be up to 40'/12m), are generally almost perfectly "Christmas Tree" shaped, with branches spreading only about 6-8’/~2m at the base uniformly tapering to a pointy tip at the top of the tree. The needles are a dull dark green, hence the name, as the trees look black from any distance. They frequently grow close together along stream banks and lake shores- I’ll try to get some pictures as I head back this afternoon.  UPDATE:  (9/16/06)  No pics on the way back, sad to say.  Rained most of the way and low clouds would have made for rotten photos.

Alaska also has several other varieties of trees commonly found- cottonwood, "tag" alder, willow and birch. None of these, however, are near so associated in my mind with banks and shorelines as black spruce. The pics I posted of the drive up to Fairbanks show forests of these trees as they commonly appear throughout the state in all but southeast and south-central coastal Alaska, where larger spruce and pines dominate, and in tundra areas, where the high ground water levels perched on top of the permafrost pretty much prevents any tree growth at all. One of the cycledogg ploppable trees jeronij created (the one with the whitish trunk- I think it is labeled "Aspen") would do a fairly passable job as representing stands of Alaskan birch or small alder or cottonwood, as the bark of these latter two trees up here is light silver-green in color. You’ve now got me planning, over the next bit, to experiment with some ploppable tree combinations in order to see what I come up with- I’ll keep you posted.

You wouldn't by any chance have any interest in trying to create very small watercourses, would you? I know nothing of batting or modding, but it has crossed my mind that us fans do have the means and tools to create creeks and even rivulets, should we put our collective minds to it. Just a thought...quote>

I’ve actually done a set of these, along the lines of folks who’ve created forest paths and such. I set them aside when it seemed that there were just too many tile variants to be practical on a menu. I’ll dig them out once I’m home and do a post to let you and others who might be interested have a look at them. They may actually be just what you’re looking for, and as I created the custom textures involved, I have no problem just distributing them as an attached file. I don’t think they are STEX material.

And, don't feel bad in saying no. I am an architect with a very small but busy practice in Seattle and SC4, as much as I love it, is only something I can allow myself to spend time with a couple of hours a week. My CJ died both from lack of above ground water as much as the interference of RL, something I know you can relate to.quote>

Hey, who’s saying no?

Odd aside- I entered University of Kentucky in 1970 in that school’s 5 year B.Arch program. Second year studio convinced me I wasn’t fated to be an architect- I received a final project back with a very low grade and the comment, "While you are the best model-maker in the class, I detect little aptitude for making any other contribution to the profession." I changed my major shortly thereafter, then wound up dropping out altogether and getting drafted…

…but that’s another story.

Looking forward to hearing from you again, Lora. Take care.

 

David