Pretoria Metropolitan Area

Impressive ! (though I would have liked one or two zoom-out pictures ; also, I am not a frequent visitors to industrial zones and refinery complexes:-), but isn't it a bit deserted ? -- maintenance vehicles, trash, workers, trucks, stuff ?).

I thought I had all the refinery lots in my stash, but looking at your picts I feel I am missing some of it. The straddling pipe systems, for instance (in the rail cars' picts). Must go and look for it (unless you can shortcut it for me:-))):-)))

Those electricity pylons look great, so many new possibilities. I also always enjoy your industrial entries so much going on and i like the way it all flows nicely with regards to lot textures, it can make a big difference 

Great industrial scenes and port scenes. Some more overviews would be nice though!

Really great facility ! Specialized facilities like airports and harbours or special facilties can hit your plugin folder badly, refinery, load- unload facilties, storage tanks and pipe system the minimum, some extra detail like loading facilities loading tanks and pumps and other non standard tanks make it more real. Oil and LNG are quit close together, well done !

30 pics of industrial beauty overload!

That is an absolutely terrifying retaining wall! ...   

(Oh, and the powerlines look beautiful too!)

 

I still can't get over that retaining wall.

In addition to the power lines, pipelines and retaining walls, I think I can see at least the following custom content:

- Paeng Grunge concrete with parked cars on it

- A freight train modified as a unit train with tanker cars and increased length (is this actually a lot, not the in-game train?)

- Various industrial lots (near the flower garden)

Some really nice work, the lower retaining wall looks perfect already. The upper wall with hex blocks could use a little more "pop"/convex aspect to the blocks, but it's a great start and matches the Paeng concrete fillers perfectly.

When will you release the new power lines mod?

Those are some spectacular industrial areas. Fantastic power lines as well - I love the off angled ones!

@tariely Appreciate the comments & suggestion - it does look a little deserted now that you mention it (I trend to get distracted by scene of metal work ). I can justify that in some areas such as by the tank farm. While the concrete patches look fairly bland in that area it's also a place that has limited access being squeezed in between the rail line & highway with nothing other than those large tanks which serve their purpose with little needed activity. For the other areas... well to be quite honest, for all the relotting I do that is my biggest weakness. That is, I like changing textures and adding custom made/unique BATs to a lot, but I thread to not add miscellaneous props that can liven up a lot. This is because I'm not a big fan of how props are selected in the maxis lot editor. The number of props I have is literally in the thousands and because the program doesn't preview what a prop looks, you have to select it to see it. It becomes a time-intensive(and not very enjoyable) activity trying to find simple props that could work for a particular lot.  I understand PIN-X is superior in this respect allowing props to be previewed quickly but for some reason the program has never worked right for me, much in the same way as how gmax never proper rendered my bats. Additionally I did remove some props for many of the industrial lots, but only ones that didn't fit in an industrial zone such as trees or bushes and in other cases I shrunk the lots down in size. But in those cases I largely just eliminated the 1x1 parking textures as I rather use the modular parking lots by @T Wrecks from his industrial filler set.

As for the pipeline set, I take it you mean this one;

It's an old classic that's actually been around nearly as long as the game itself!

@tankmank Thanks man! Industrial zones are definitely one my favorite things to build. I tried hard to make the textures from lot to lot and road to road fit in together as best as possible.

@Ln X Thanks for the comment(s). It's no confidence that this entry is composed entirely of level 5 & 6 zoom images with no mosaics or image editing. I must admit I purposely held back the overview shots for the next entry, as I wanted the focus to be more on to be released custom content for this one.

@Scribosilyn Yes siree, indeed I did. Perhaps I'll see them in your city(s) soon

@kschmidt Thanks for the regards! I had about 70-80mb worth of oil and gas lots just sitting(literally for years) in my plugins folder just waiting for the time they would be put to good use and finally came around to doing so.

@TekindusT

@nos.17 haha, it is quite daunting isn't it? It would be quite the ride to fall off the top
Those pipelines by nbvc goes a long way to creating an industrial scene. Having said that, I'm really looking forward to using the new set  @MushyMushy is working on.

@CT14 Thanks for the input re: the wall textures and yup that's pretty much the jist of it. Plus the radio/water towers, smokestacks & street tree mod, but those are mods I've already shown previously. The oil train is just as you thought, a lot rather then the in-game train. I suppose I could of replaced the in game train with a similar type of unit train by replacing all the different types of automata freight cars(all 21) with the same tanker model but I think making a lot was a much easier way of basically doing the same thing. Except of course that it doesn't move, but I can make it as long as I want and with more than one loco. The highly detailed locomotives come from @vester_DK Volume 16, Release E. I'll post a mosaic of the entire train next time. The tank cars are also a custom BAT I made at the last second. Didn't find a rail car prop that looked almost exactly like the infamous DOT-111 cars, so I made one on the fly.


To make lotting simpler I exported several different configirations of the cars 1x5, 1x10, 2x5, 2x10 & the biggest batch 3x10;

@citybuilder234 The entire set I have planned will take a while. If I split the mod I could release certain portions sooner(i.e. orthogonal only). Basically I could release what I've already shown within a week and I will try to do just that. Sorry forgot about one little detail. I still need to create a proper end transition to the line. Doesn't look right without a starting/ending point, so it will be a bit longer than originally stated.

@kingofsimcity Thanks! As you've shown us angles definitely make things more fun and interesting.

 

@takemethere thanks for elaborating! I am getting inspired to finally do some BATting of my own.

The two engines on the train was actually the thing that made me think it was a lot - there's an easy way to make the in game train use only one freight car (no need to replace each individual one) but no known way to make it use more engines. I'd love to see a mosaic of the whole train in the next entry.

I am shocked, truly shocked that you have done all this in the Maxis Lot Editor. I encourage you to revisit the PIM-X issues as it makes props so much easier to work with. Keep on rollin'!

Fantastic work!!

I absolutely love your tank cars and the layout is coherent and packed to the brim.

Simmer2

I'll watch out for any batlotting on your part:-) Thank you for the link. I actually had only the refinery and the flare stack, picked up when I happened upon them while fishing on simtrop':-) -- at the time I never systematically looked for ”other lots by". Newbie I was.:-)

Re the dressing up of lots -- not being a tinkerer in lots:-), I was only thinking MMPs. There are so many ones now, industrial or not, that relotting has become not superfluous (never !) but not so much of an issue for players like me...

 

Those Oil Rail loading I used only missing the tankcars; would be awesome if released as plopable sets; remind me of the ironoremine car lot ! ! Left side loading platform haven´t seen custom lot. Pumping tanks beside are part of a set ? IDpack 3 got some great small tanks; most realistic with pipe connection set, detail is awesome again, well done !

Those are oil facility geekiness  

Cool update . Oil , the stuff that keeps this world moving . 

Excellent work, very well thought out!

This kind of attention to detail with industry is always great to see.

(P.S. Apologies for your homepage feature going missing -- it got hidden along with one of the expired challenge promos. I've approved your new one).

@CT14 Great to hear your going to give BAT'ing a try, I'm looking forward to seeing your creations.
As for the PINX, it always crashes when it tries to load my plugins folder. I've always assumed that it was a corrupt file(s) that was causing this to happen, much in the same was as a how a bad plugin can corrupt a city. I wasn't motivated enough to do a file by file search to find this file(s) before because I just wasn't doing too much lot editing, but I sure am now. It could also be that my plugins folder is just too large to load(4GB), I'll have to test that theory out as well.

@Simmer2 Awesome to hear that!
Seems like your modifying a number of the refinery lots I ending up using for the facility. I'll definitely have to rebuild the plant using those new lots when you release them. The detailing and grittiness of those base textures you've made are just sick

@tariely Your very welcome, I'm just glad I could return the favor every once in a while for the plethora of links you've given me. I see what your saying now, got some industrial mmps & filler lots that could come in handy here.

@kschmidt Thanks again mate. Not a 100% sure which loading platform your referring to, let me know the picture your referring to, feel free to pm me with the image if that makes it easier.

@Tonraq Indeed it is, thanks!

@raynev1 So true, as much as people love to hate big oil, the resulting carbon emissions and all the other negatives associated with it, it's because of oil that our world has become as developed as it is and it will still be a big part of the equation moving forward.

@Cyclone Boom Ah, I was wondering what happened there. I figured it was a mistake since I think one of the other challenge features disappeared at the same time too and they don't normally disappear like that. So that's why I just resubmitted it rather than asking about it. Thank you for putting it back up and thanks for the complementary words as well

This looks really great!

7 minutes ago, takemethere said:

As for the PINX, it always crashes when it tries to load my plugins folder ... <snip> ... It could also be that my plugins folder is just too large to load(4GB), I'll have to test that theory out as well.

This. I read either in the manual or a post on SC4D (don't remember which) that because it loads previews of every single prop/building in your folder that it will crash if you try to load it with all of your plugins. They suggested to only put prop packs that you're going to use for the lot in the folder. I don't remember seeing this mentioned, but it seems to be an (expected) exception that if your computer is powerful enough, it will load the full plugins folder just fine. Either way, the more plugins you have in the folder when you start the program, the longer you'll have to sit and wait for it to generate all of the image previews.

@MushyMushy Thanks!

Yeah it never occurred to me before(don't know why, should of been the first thing!) that it might simply be because the plugins folder is too large. I'm must doing some testing right now to see if that might be the case. I'd say my computer is fairly powerful. it's 3 years old now but I paid a lot of $ to get a high performing gaming PC at that time certainly I would think it should be more than any program for SC4 would need.

For now I've been using the PINX to create the desc files for new BATs. I normally just load up the plugins folder by itself and none of the sub folders where I keep all of my downloads. I've just tried a few tests to get to the bottom of this. Loaded up a subfolder with half a gigs worth of new plugins from this year, time was about 9 seconds. Next loaded up all the new sub folders+the core files, except for the pre-2013 plugins folder which is fully organized. About 2GB of data in total, there were a few errors which popped and took much longer almost 2mins with way more props  being previewed but the program did load up. The fully organized plugins folder is close to the same size but when I try to run that folder I get the following error message;



No idea what that means(but it would be awesome if someone else does ) I'll have to do some more testing in order to isolate the source which is going to take a little while as I have many layers of subfolders in that particular folder.

PIMX does not like a big plugin. I just put the models/props and textures I need in a separate plugins and it always loads just fine.

Just create a new folder, name it something like "tmpPlugins" , place it in your MyDocument SC4 folder and put the props packs and or models and textures you may need in there, rename your main plugin folder "mainPlugins". Now highlight the new folder named "tmpPlugins" and remove the "tmp" form the name.

When you load PIMX it will see the new folder only. Proceed to do your work and once you are done just rename that folder "tmpPlugins" and change the "mainPlugins" back to just "Plugins".

By doing it this way, you do not have to move GB of files around.

You now have a work plugins that you can use for your projects. ( I have several)

Copy paste what you need from the new folder to your old one, load the game and play away

 

Simmer2

@Simmer2 just explained it very well.

It is best to use a separate, minimal plugins folder for editing work. That way you also can be sure of your dependencies.

These huge, sprawling oil facilities look amazing!  You've left no stone unturned as nothing appears to be left out; there are rails, tanks, and pipes that connect those tanks.  That power line design is quite brilliant, and to see it in action is something else.  I never imagined running rails or roads within the right-of-way, but it makes a lot of sense (and gives me ideas).

Nice update!

@Simmer2 @CT14 That idea makes a lot of sense. I guess I was just hoping to take the easy way as it'll take me some time to find all those prop packs because of the way I organized my pluggins folder. I put dependcies in the same subfolder as the lot that requires them rather then putting all depencies together. In any case as it stands I'd have to do some digging just to find whatever file(s) is casuing PINX to crash so I might as well search my pluggins for those prop packs instead 

@metarvo Thanks! I'm glad you can see the industrial beauty of it all. I would of never thought of using hydro towers in that way either if I hadn't seen it for myself during a little trip I made to a far away local. It's doesn't go over any roads though, but hey if it can go over rails why not roads too?

I always like looking at this CJ primarily for the infrastructure!