Welcome, Intro and Part One
Greetings and welcome to my first CJ
I've played Simcity 4 on and off since it first came out, and it has come to be so much more than a game to me. I think of it, as many do, as a sort of canvas on which I can let me imagination go loose. My favourite part is creating realistic landscapes and scenes, and designing cities the way I'd like them to be in real life, that is, aesthetically pleasing as well as functional.
This idea came to me not very long ago, and I think it will make for a fairly original type of CJ. I present to you, the Video City Journal! I'm sure it has been done before, but why not do it again? I've been wanting to learn how to make nice videos for a while so this is the perfect chance to do just that and have tons of fun doing it. As of right now I plan to make videos mostly of scene overflies, but may evolve to cover UDI missions, "Let's play SC4", "Making of" videos for the scene overflies, tutorials, etc. Along with the videos there will of course be plenty of images, mosaics, text and anything I can think of.
Let it be known that this is a mainly rural/landscape/nature themed journal, as such don't expect to see massive skyscraper cities and urban stuff. There won't be much urban development until late in the series, and it will be limited to a couple of tiles forming just one big urban centre. We will be growing our nation from one of peasant farmers, fishermen and loggers who live in remote isolated rural communities to a semi industrialized but still mostly rural country.
I have zero skills with the lot editor, and my collection of BATs is fairly limited since I prefer rural settings : ) But I will do my best to make it worth your while. There will be plenty of photoshopping where needed, as well as foreign elements introduced into the videos and images to spice things up at times.. I also regrettably haven't been able to get my Windows 8 machine to run the game in Hardware rendering mode, so the wonders of HD are foreign to me.
I'll be trying for as high realism as I'm currently capable of, which means there will be at most one entry per week, sometimes(often) less, depending on time. I can't promise a video each time.
I'll try to follow some sort of story line that I'll make up on the spot, but this may change at any time randomly. The story is mainly just there as a filler of sorts.
My aim here is to share my learning experience with you guys, and hopefully learn from your feedback as well and with some luck and a bit of effort create something worthwhile.
If anyone is interested in making these types of videos for their CJs let me know in the comments below and I'll try to make some tutorials of sorts.
Alright, let's get started, shall we?
0. Introduction
It is the year 2113. The planet has been ravaged by 63 years of the Third World War. Most countries have fallen to anarchy and chaos. Large cities lie abandoned, their populations having fled to the countryside long ago, in the hope of finding a way to sustain themselves. Bands of bandits and looters roam the land, robbing, pillaging.
Amidst this terrible scenario, a relatively small, but well prepared group of visionaries decide to get together and venture into the last remaining wilderness on planet Earth: The great boreal forests of Russia, which by now have lost a great deal of their boreality due to climate change. Their aim? Fleeing the mayhem and founding a new country.
To this purpose, an elite group of ranger-explorers are prepared and subsequently parachuted into the forest, near a large river basin. Armed with kayaks, survival gear, and high-tech communications equipment, their mission is to locate a suitable piece of land, far from civilization. This imagined location must necessarily have water, game, an appropriate climate and most importantly: a nearby section of flat land long enough to improvise a landing strip for future settlers.
1. Discovery
Our story begins when the small but well-prepared team, after some weeks of exploration, stumble upon what seems to be a fairly large river that heads into a remote mountainous region.
They decide to send a small squad of exploration drones down the river.
After some time, they begin to notice to their great joy that the climate is steadily becoming milder. They start carefully surveying the river banks, in search of flat land.
The smell of wild-flowers fills the air, birds chirp, a gentle breeze creates subtle ripples across the crystalline water. 
Just after passing a great bend on the river, where the waters eddy and swirl around a rocky promontory, the team spots the first real beach. 
Fish are plentiful around this spot, and there are animals drinking at the edge of the water. The river along the beach is straight enough and stretches just long enough to make this the ideal spot, just what they are looking for! The terrain gently slopes away eastward, and not long after smooths out, creating an obviously perfect place for landing small aircraft.
Mission accomplished.
And now... Watch exclusive aerial footage of the exploration, along with a nice tune from the Simcity 4 Soundtrack, courtesy of biff. Enjoy!
Warning: Video is 480p. Must be watched here on ST at embedded resolution, which is why I've learned how to disable the fullscreen button 
Don't go on youtube to watch fullscreen 
NOTE about the Video: If you watched til the end.. congratulations. I know, I know. Too long, repetitive, booooring... jerky footage, cheesy text animations, out of focus, this video's got it all. But keep in mind this is my first real attempt at any type of video editing... aaaand my pc sucks! The idea here is to listen to what I think is a very nice Simcity 4 song, sit back, and enjoy the view. You can also observe how my mmping ability evolves, sort of, as I worked on the river.. please let me know your thoughts below and I'll work on improving.
My original idea here was to animate some boats into the clip to make it interesting, but I lack the skills to do that at this point so I made up the camera-drone story. Follow along 
I promise to make future videos shorter, to the point and in HD 720 at least...
Ok, that brings us to the end of the first entry! I hope you liked what you've seen so far, and please come back for more in the near future
Who know's what our explorers will get up to now that they've found what they were looking for?
Comment Replies
v701: Thank you, I'll try to make future videos as short and concise as possible!
Akerbeltz: Thank you very much for your comment, I'll work on the backstory!
VicRusty: Thank you for your compliment. I use CPT Meadowshire terrain mod.
Ln X: Thank you. Glad you are liking it so far! As I mentioned above, the story is there just as a filler and I'm making it up on the spot so you're not missing anything.
Abrams124: Thank you kindly for your comment.
Kim Sunwoo: Thank you!
SimCoug: Thank you! Gotta have some ambition
Tonraq: Thanks!
Schulmanator: Thank you very much.
Jiffy427: Thanks very much for your compliment.
Mymyjp: Thank you! Glad you like it. I'll post a list of mods and mmps I use seperately on next update, for now I can tell you it's and CPT Meadowshire Terrain mod. The river floor is made from grey sand from FrankU Heblem Sand Addon, with brown sand touches along the edge of the stones.
rsc204: Thank you for your support!
feeroz123: Thank you!
EVERYONE: Wow guys, I am so honoured and excited to be getting all these positive comments from real CJ legends, what a motivation-boost! Thank you all for taking the time to comment, it really does make my day. I've been working my way through many of your excellent CJ's and let me just say I'll do my best to return the courtesy and give as much feedback to your work as I can : )
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