Three Rivers Region

[meldolion 1]

Hi David!

your terraforming is awesome!!! I 've chosen n

[choco1 4]

Before I forget, of the mountain terrains, #2 is effective, #6 is realistic and doesn't repeat, but I think #4 definitely looks the best. Go with that one I say!

Great to see you back to terraforming and the aesthetics of trees and jazz. You're so good at it!

Anyway, I like the interactive style of this journal, especially the changing polls.

Keep up the great work mate!

Cheers, choco.

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Hey, David! First, my vote for rock mod: #6. It's just easier on the eyes I think. Some of the others stand out too much and can be distracting from your other work. The trees look great, but I would think the evergreens would be in higher elevations than the deciduous. You have great details which are very nice. I need to design a river soon. I hope mine turns out as nicely as what you have here!

[tchaos713 5]

I'm kinda partial to 6 myself...

As to the trees, is it possible to mix in some seasonal trees closer to the riverbank? The transition is very stark... my $0.02 anyway.

Take care,

Daniel

[hondo42769 0]

David,

First of all the trees. I understand that you are experimenting here to try and develop a "look" for 3RR. Many pages ago, you had determined that there would be essentially one type of tree that would line your ploppable water streams/rivers in order to "trick the eye" so that when the viewer sees those trees they would also see water. I don't know if the effect of this technique would be compromised if you mixed the seasonal trees in with the trees that border the water, but maybe you could place the seasonals closer to the water in some places and further away in others so that it has a more random appearance. Regardless, I like the look of seasonal trees and definitely think you should use them. I'm sure you will come up with something that will look amazing.

As for the rock mod, I like #'s 2, 4, and 6. But, I would probably go with #6. I think it is the one that would "stand out" the least in areas with a lot of rock exposed. #'s 2 and 4 look good, but my hunch is that in the more mountainous areas they would probably draw the focus of the viewer away from the overall view.

[dedgren 830]

Well, I've learned my lesson- I'll never again post anything on the spur of the moment that I've just spent a few minutes preparing then run out the door to work...

...unless I do- I'm just that way.

Actually, that sort of raises a good point.  I don't know if you are going to believe this, but generally when I sit down to write/create a 3RR post, I have no earthly idea what I will be doing...

...unless I do- all this is actually planned months in advance.

No, really- it's not.  Usually I just roll down whatever path first comes to mind unless I'm in the middle of an ongoing update, then it actually is a little different.

So, I guess the point is, for those of you who have noted a distinct absence of any particular organizing principle in 3RR, it's because this whole thing is about as ad hoc as it gets.  I hope that never gets in the way of anyone's enjoyment of what's going on here.

Back to this particular post.

You may remember that in this post [ linkie ] back up this page I started what I anticipate will be an extended discussion of the approach we will take to trees and forests in 3RR.  What I'd planned was to share just a few minutes of quick-and-dirty experimentation I had done using the God Mode Columbus trees along a 3RR stream (Wolf River in Quad 191) and some different seasonal trees from the STEX.  As I plan to do a fairly detailed discussion of what's available out there on the seasonal trees in the near future, I didn't go into any detail.

All I basically did was run the God Mode tree brush up-and-down the stream to plant Columbus mod trees on each bank and a bit further inland.  Then I plopped a bunch of Andreas Roth's great SFBT "cycledogg" seasonal aspen and a few of his oak 1x1 lots, along with several of jeronij's 1x1 acer (maple) seasonal lots to look at the effect.  Then I took some pics and posted them.

Matt (threestooges) was the first to comment with any specificity.  He said, on 11/17

The trees are alright, the seasonal change is nice, but without either further development, or more intergration of the trees (as the transition seems a bit stark), something about it just doesn't seem right. There are seasonal trees away from the river and yet, right along the banks, are deciduous trees that don't shed a leaf. Also, perhaps the barren trees would look more appropriate with snow or something a little less green (for the middle of winter). Perhaps a more natural look could be obtained by blending the two types of trees at their current transition point and having something green among the winter twigs and have a few twigs in the pines. Whatever comes of it though, I'm sure will be good.quote>

I'll deal with each of his important points one at a time.

without either further development, or more intergration of the trees (as the transition seems a bit stark), something about it just doesn't seem right:  A couple of points here.  There certainly will be further development, both along the line of further integration (I just plopped sort of aimlessly in the same place) and superdetailing.  In this latter regard I note that I will at a minimum be adding things (rocks, plants, etc) to areas where those things are currently not, and in particular to lake and stream shores.  Remember this?

Now, that was a ploppable water stream from 3RR last summer [ linkie ], but it gives you an idea of the look I will try to create.  I may even go so far as to create some proprietary custom "tree" lots out of various components...we'll see.  The bottom line is that, whatever I do, I won't proceed until I know it will look right across the board.

There are seasonal trees away from the river and yet, right along the banks, are deciduous trees that don't shed a leaf:  Well, that result (the deciduous trees along the stream bank) came as a surprise to me.  I thought that I was going to have a conifer (pine, fir, you know- needle trees) only forest from using the Columbus Terrain God Mode brush advertised as such...

...what the heck is he talking about?

...but I didn't get what I expected.  Here's what I mean.

Here's a pic of the startup window from the Columbus Terrain Mod installer.

The next window you get after clicking "Next" is one where you can choose what trees will be placed when in God Mode.  I chose the "Selection of conifers" brush.

Well, I thought "conifers" meant, well...conifers.  Obviously the file installed by the selection, shown here highlighted in blue

...heh- "Generic_Andreas"  Andreas Roth, you are a STEX God!

So, in response to your observation, Matt, which I totally agree with, I did the following.  I went back and reinstalled Columbus, using the "Subalpine fir" menu choice.

This installs this file, also highlighted in blue.

Then I went back to Quad 191 and bulldozed a clear swath, then "painted" subalpine firs along the stream with the Columbus Terrain tree brush.  I left a small swath of clear area at each end of the new trees.

No deciduous trees that I can see.  Looks entirely like subalpine fir.  Notice that I left some of the seasonal aspens in the newly treed area.

Here's a closer in pic...

...and another.

Yup, all subalpine fir.  I'm not really liking the distance from the shoreline, either, but I can paint those in with the Mayor Mode subalipne fir brush.  I can also detail in other conifers doing that as well.

Also, perhaps the barren trees would look more appropriate with snow or something a little less green (for the middle of winter). Perhaps a more natural look could be obtained by blending the two types of trees at their current transition point and having something green among the winter twigs and have a few twigs in the pines.:  A couple of thoughts here.

The first is that, after fiddling around with trying to mask the "snow cheat jaggies" [ linkie ] with trees, and especially conifers, I remain unsatisfied with the results.  I won't detail them here but rather will reserve that inquiry for a future post.  My thoughts right now are to explore the possibility of lowering the snow line through the use of the ilive reader.  Since all of 3RR's pics in the CJ are static, I would simply load a mod I would create during the creation of any winter scenes.  Now, that's easy to say.  Even if it works to lower the snow line, there is no guarantee that it would otherwise look OK.  Again, a subject for another day.

Here's some pics of a once again quick-and-dirty attempt to do this.

Summer.

#1

and

#2

Fall.

#3

and

#4

Obviously, placing transition trees will be a technique that will take some work to develop.

I noticed something else from these pics.  When I took the Columbus beach and cliff .dat file (CP_ColumbusBeachCliff.dat) out of the mod's folder, the stream banks lightened up considerably from previous pics.  Here's one for comparisom

#5

I'll definitely be checking this out in the reader too.  Even the Columbus shorelines are a bit too light for my taste.

As far as the green forest floor and winter go, Matt.  I think that may be, on the scale we're talking about, an intractable issue.  But, who knows?  It would be great if things were more brown and dead looking in the "game" winter- maybe one of our resident modding Feynmans [ linkie ] out there would have some insight.

Also on the 17th, Elektra wrote, in pertinent part

I noticed that when you were placing trees that you had them placed away from the water and still as far as I could see there were seasonal trees near the water with no changes...even these trees change their leaves and that even with all the evergreen types there are always seasonal trees butting up against the water ways. So, I think a mix in this area is needed for more realistic look during season changes.quote>

Welcome to the wild, wonderful, wacky world of 3RR commenting, Elektra.  You are, as I noted to Matt above, absolutely correct.  I will certainly be seeking to use such a mix.

Earlier today Bruce (Schulmanator - Schulmania) wrote

The trees look great, but I would think the evergreens would be in higher elevations than the deciduous.quote>

First off, I intend that basically all trees above some particular elevation- I haven't figured out how high yet- will be some kind of conifer.  I do intend, also, to experiment with more-or-less all deciduous tree shorelines, and you'll see the results in a post in the near future.

Also today Daniel (tchaos713 - Ballet Fan Club) wrote

is it possible to mix in some seasonal trees closer to the riverbank? The transition is very starkquote>

Got you covered there, my good friend.

A bit later, James (hondo42769) asked

maybe you could place the seasonals closer to the water in some places and further away in others so that it has a more random appearancequote>

Absolutely.  I'll try to incorporate as much randomization in tree placement everywhere in 3RR as I possibly can, as I see this as being a hallmark of realistic detailing.

Later, folks.  Thanks for bearing with me through this extended post and for your ongoing feedback, which is very important to the future of this CJ.

...

 Please, by the way, if you've not already given me your feedback as to my rock mod post, also back up this page [ linkie ], please check it out.  I want to get the rock mod right early on, so that other natural effects are done with that element in place.

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

I'll reserve this post for a better continuation of my comment later.

[MasterPlanMan 1]

That last pic looks beautiful! My opinion of the seasonal trees is that they make things look too a bit too redundent and unrealistic. I like to go with a combo of Cycledog's stuff and some maxis trees sprinkled in. The trees along the river banks look great though. Keep up the good work! I look forward to seeing how things turn out.

[crazychickensc12 84]

although i created 4 i would go with 6, 6 is a pro rock mod awesome texture with no tiling effect, 4 would look better for smaller rock faces IMO and if you have a texture you would like to see modded go ahead and PM me and ill cook it up for yah

*voted #6*

[flame1396 9]

well David we conversed in PM a while ago... i like mod 6... and where did those great seasonal trees come from??? I WANT THEM!

[Gaston 0]

David,

    This is great stuff.   As always I am intrigued by this.   The trees and the use of them are fascinating.   It just so happens that this is an effect that I have been working on for some time now.    I can't seem to hit on the right combination either.    I think I need to research trees a bit more.    LOL  I have a BS in Wildlife Management, which included a number of classes in forestry and botany.   And still I can't see the trees for the forest.   <Hmm a bit appropos, eh what?   Hello.  I know you are out there I hear you typing.     Is this mic. on?    (Yes I know it is supposed to be "See the forest for the trees".   Sheesh, try and make a joke around here.)    

     As far as the rock mod goes, I'm not really in love with any of them.    I like #2 and maybe #4.    Like I said I am not in love with any of them.     I just don't wanna ever see something like jelly beans [linkie] or fire and brimstone [linkie] .   Anyway I suppose it depends on the look you wanna end up with.    To bad no-one has creates a rock mod that varies the terrain by altitude or water proximity.   Hmmm, there is something to think about.

Later   Gotta work early in the morning.    I hate retail.  LOL

---Gaston

[football_fever 6]

I've been intimidated by the size of your CJ, so I haven't started, but I figured I'd start now. I love your work...you're one of the hardest working people on ST. I'd choose rock mod 2. You make me want to make some streams with trees for my own cities. Keep it up!

[jacqulina 162]

hi my friend thats an awesome stream and i love the trees cant wait to see more

[hondo42769 0]

A thought occurred to me regarding the rock mod debate here in 3RR, so I wander back here and am hit with the great seasonal tree controversy of '06. My, my you have a demanding fan base, don't you. Well, your response should satisfy the weary mind that you will do everything in your power to make sure the seasonal trees are not going to be placed without serious consideration given. Anyway, back to the rock mod debate. I was wondering if you have considered using cycledoggs Missouri Breaks Rock Textures. It is similar to the Columbus Terrain Mod rock textures, but it adds just a hint of purple, randomly, to the rock. The purple is subtle and adds a bit of variety to the appearance of your rock faces. Just a thought.

[bat 6]

I would take No. 4 of the rock mods! Great pictures! Great using of trees! Fantastic work!

bat

[patriots_1228 51]

hey skippy- i mean david. nice update i like the columbus terrain on the shores better but its your choice.

[emilin 2]

I voted for mod no.6. Actually no.2 and no.4 look fine too. But in my opinion you should definatly stay away from the mods with fishnet patterns.

[pickled_pig 7]

I as well like mod #6; it looks very natural. A few of the mods you show us seem to look as if they were a grid. Not too realistic...

I've not been here in a while, and it looks like I've missed some interesting discussion on scale and terraforming. I'll have to stay here for the discussion on trees; all I'm familiar with are the PEG seasonal trees and the Cycledogg trees.

Also I am looking forward to finally see your city building. Seeing that you comment a lot on "homebrew interchanges" (i.e. making one's own interchanges with the one-way streets) in my CJ, I am especially awaiting to see if you use them, and how you use them.

[dedgren 830]

UPDATE:  (11-19-06 10:03 a.m. AST GMT-9)  Shameless plug follows...

Stop reading this boring CJ RIGHT NOW

and go on over to Dan's (mtbrocket) CJ Far Away and Long Ago [ linkie ].  If you have not been there before, do not come back here before you've read the whole thing (currently 17 pages- there'll be a quiz).  There is, trust me, no better way for you to use your time today.  The man is a frickin' genius!

...end shameless plug.

______________________________

Aaron (pickled_pig - Winston County) commented early this morning

Seeing that you comment a lot on "homebrew interchanges" (i.e. making one's own interchanges with the one-way streets) in my CJ, I am especially awaiting to see if you use them, and how you use them.quote>

Like these, my friend?

Here's a [ linkie ] to a post back last summer where you'll find many more examples, plus some explanation as to the techniques used to create them.

More later today on rock mods and trees.  I still remain very interested on your thoughts as to rock mods- if you haven't seen this post [ linkie ] yet, please take a look and provide such feedback as you would think appropriate.  Thanks! 

[infinitum19 0]

dedgren,

O come on. no not a quiz..... I hate quizzes lol. Man! very nice highway system!

[Darmok 34]

David,

Rock mod choice:

2 or 6 in that order, all the others while good looking are showing patterns on your big mountains.

Go for the most realistic looking one.

Very good work with the trees, fir trees are my tree of choice in the second half of Anôrien, they really are beautiful!

Enjoy your week. and regards to the family.

-John

[threestooges 0]

Of course I'm keeping you busy. You ask for comments and boy am I ready to oblige. So here I go again:

1: It has a good color, but has a bit too much repetitivness on the larger cliff faces

2: looks familiar, good patterns, and the color is decent

3: It seems a bit yellow (sandstone if you will). Not what I would suggest, especially with its tiling effect.

4: Very nice look in the snow. No noticible pattern problems. 

5: Decent color, bad pattern.

6:Though a little lighter in color and texture than #4 it works well too. There does not seem to be any tiling problems though.

7 & 8: Again, decent in color, but the texture exhibits that tiling problem again. 

You may also be interested in looking into This one.

For my part though, 4 or 6 would take 1st with 2 in second.

[Gecko_2006 1]

Eh, I'm too lazy to read 17 pages, so I just read the last one. That second pic is a transportation nightmare!!!

[dedgren 830]

 n.b.:  I note that 3RR will hit, sometime within the next few hours, 20,000 page views.

I'll say nothing more right now other than you folks are the best...just the best.

__________________________

Our 3RR16² rock mod poll [ linkie ] has now been up for five days starting from the questions asked in this post concerning the subject here [ linkie ] and has garnered 19 votes, and we've had a number of insightful comments in the CJ since the post, so I'm going to go ahead and discuss the results and share my thoughts at this point.

First off, the rock mod pics, this time identified by name

#1 - Pegasus "Eroded Sandstone" [ linkie to DL ]

#2 - Maxis 'Vanilla' Game Rock [ linkie to DL ]

#3 - Pegasus "Golden Sandstone" [ linkie to DL ]

#4 - crazychickensc12 "Gray Marble Rock" [ linkie to DL ]

#5 - Pegasus "Weathered Granite" [ linkie to DL ]

#6 - cycledogg "Columbus Mod" Rock [ linkie to DL ]

#7 - Pegasus "Dark Basalt" [ linkie to DL ]

#8 - Pegasus "Mossy Granite" [ linkie to DL ]

And the survey, here again IDing the mods.

Which Rock Mod Do You Prefer? (Total Votes: 19)

#1 - Pegasus "Eroded Sandstone"
	0 votes	0.00 (%)
#2 - Maxis 'Vanilla' Game Rock
	4 votes	21.05 (%)
#3 - Pegasus "Golden Sandstone"
	1 votes	5.26 (%)
#4 - crazychickensc12 "Gray Marble Rock"
	6 votes	31.58 (%)
#5 - Pegasus "Weathered Granite"
	0 votes	0.00 (%)
#6 - cycledogg "Columbus Mod" Rock
	8 votes	42.11 (%)
#7 - Pegasus "Dark Basalt"
	0 votes	0.00 (%)
#8 - Pegasus "Mossy Granite"
	0 votes	0.00 (%)
#9 None of the above
	0 votes	0.00 (%)

The comments more or less, with a few I'll note in particular, mirrored the survey results.  For all of you who voted or commented, or did both, thank you for your input.

A few initial thoughts- It is clear that the five rock mods by Pegasus, despite great colors and variation, were, with only one vote between them, rejected in favor of other choices.  I believe this is because, in a direct comparison with other rock mods, folks find the "fishnet" appearance of Peg's mods at game view settings 1 and 2 (the farhest out) offputting.  I note that Peg's "Mossy Granite" was used in 3RR early on before a switch to cycledogg's Columbus rock for this same reason.  On a close-up basis, the Peg rock mods look very good, but much of what I do in 3RR is further back from the subject of the pic.

The rock mod of choice, at least as far as the survey results were concerned, was that found by default in cycledogg's Columbus Terrain.

Cliffs and exposed rock made with this mod have a fine grain, no discernable repetitive patter and a nice neutral gray-brown color.  My opinion...

...whoa!  ...an opinion?  ...from you?   ...aren't lawyers supposed to be on both sides of every issue?

...and, while we're at it, what about this "discernable repetitive patter?'- you sound like you're describing your CJing style?

...'hem- 

EDIT:  ...discernable repetitive patterN...

...my opinion is these cycledogg's Columbus rock textures and colors are not so much great as they are innocuous- the eye just passes over them, having seen nothing other than what it expects- something rock-like where there is supposed to be rock.  This does not detract, in my mind, a bit from considering their use.  They do what they're supposed to, and therein perhaps is their greatness.  You just can't go wrong with them.  In other words, nobody is ever going to see them used in your region and ask you

...what the heck is that?

With further regard to cycledogg's rock mods, on 11-19 James (hondo42769) asked

I was wondering if you have considered using cycledoggs Missouri Breaks Rock Textures. It is similar to the Columbus Terrain Mod rock textures, but it adds just a hint of purple, randomly, to the rock. The purple is subtle and adds a bit of variety to the appearance of your rock faces. Just a thought.quote>

And a good thought, too.  I went and checked out the rock mods found in each of cycledogg's Missouri Breaks [ linkie ], Olympic [ linkie ], and Painted Desert [ linkie ] terrain mods by fiddling around with the individual files within each of the three terrain mods.  Here's pics of each.

The Missouri Breaks rock mod.

I'm sorry, James, but if there's a difference between this and basic Columbus (the pic just looked at above), it's too subtle for me.

Here's an interesting thing, though.  Remember what removing Columbus did to our stream banks?

Looks pretty sandy to me.  Anyway, here's the same general area after the selected Missouri Breaks terrain files were installed.

Cool, eh?  This just doubles my resolve to fool around with this in the reader [ linkie ].

Here's the Olympic Terrain rock mod.

Wheesh- that's pretty brown!  Not exactly my taste, but it does look pretty good...

...from a distance (Quad 15 is our guinea pig, the rest are still in Columbus.

How about the Painted Desert terrain rock mod?

I really like the rock shading on this one...too bad it isn't available in a gray-blue color.  This particular color combo exists somewhere in nature, I'm sure, but then so does the platypus [ linkie ].

I'm going to pick up a continuation of this extended post further down the page, so that's it for this one.  I note that nobody has yet found the really crude Easter Egg joke I've carefully hidden somewhere along the way...

...either that, or nobody will admit it ... we'll see.

Anyway, sometime this evening for the continuation and conclusion.  I'll put up a link here when I do.

Later.

[jacqulina 162]

hello my friend i will check back later

[purpledaddy 6]

I definitely think that cycledogg's mod is the most rockish looking.

[Rayden 7]

I'm using no.4, crazychicken's one.

[GMT 389]

hm... mountains... and snow...

do we have christ-mess already?

[dadyrghluv 8]

damn dave, this is turning into a terraformers wet dream. since your looking for a rock modd, i like the limestone rock modd by pegasus. it goes nicley with the snowy terrain as seen from MT. Rainier map. take care bud

[crazychickensc12 84]

ok ok I admit I had to push it over the edge ...

on another note...im actually suprised to see that PEG rock mods have such a tiling effect....interesting keep it up always love poppin in here!