Sand Dunes and MMP experiments
Hello Everyone,
It has been some time since I last posted any journal entries due to a dead computer. I have now managed to make SC4 work on a new machine, so here are some pictures of my new region. This has a slightly more work in progress feel that some of my entries before because I'd like your feedback.
This is the first tile in a new region, I still start building right in the corner of the map as I used to do back when I first played SC2000. One of the things that I'm not sure about in the new region is the choice of tree controller. I've installed the Pacific North West controller, because I enjoy looking at the really dense forests that some people create. But I think on balance this is quite a difficult one to work with given my choice of terrain, and the fact that the god mod trees themselves don't allow MMPs to be plopped very close to them, this sort of ruins the effect for me, as it's difficult to add smaller vegetation between the god mod trees to create a lovely, overgrown and wild effect. The trees just sort of sit in the landscape.
Much of the green areas in the images below were created by quite slow MMP planting. If anyone has a tree controller recommendation that I can take forward for the rest of this region that would be great. The reason for this CJ today is that I plan to destroy all the trees in this tile (which I presume includes MMP trees) in order to change controllers before I develop any other tiles in the region or press forward with this tile. Therefore forgive any areas that look like they're just forgotten about. They are actually yet to be developed.
To pictures. Firstly, we're going west-east along the coastline. Coastlines are something that I really struggle with, the game water doesn't always play that nicely with the MMPs, so the idea of this was to find a way of not having a great long stretch of seawall, and because the terrain here is relatively smooth and flat, I've decided to go for a mostly sand-dune coast that reminds me of parts of The Netherlands. I made a little tutorial on how to create this effect after I stumbled into it, in case anyone is interested 
1. The edge of the edge of the region / tile. My success with the MMP farm fields is mixed, but I think it tends to work better the smaller area that I cover. I quite like this little area with a 'dunetop' car park where people come to walk their dogs, (and themselves) along the beach and dunes. The small area of marsh between the field and the houses is supposed to emphasize the small elevation that exists here and also to break up the extreme sand of the dune section with the extreme green of the Berner Oberland terrain mod.
2. The edge of the village of Southdyke on-Sea (Zudijk aan-Zee?). I said these dune landscapes remind me of parts of the Dutch coast, and therefore I've grown a little street of the Dutch double houses, I think they look quite at home here.
3. Integrating the low-density industrial with residential is one of my favorite things to do which SC4 really doesn't want you to do very much, but happens in real life literally all the time. Here we see houses, industry and recreation coexisting fairly happily near the seaside. I also decided that the homes got a bit close to the sea here, and we could justify a fairly low-tech sea wall to protect the homes behind from a storm surge. I wanted to try to blend the seawall with the dunescape and create a retaining wall on the land-side. Perhaps more of a levee than a real sea wall.
4. Onwards, and the texture of the sea wall changes. Also please note the growing buildings at the top of the image. This is why building cities takes me so long. I try to grow as much as possible and then try to plop around it in order to make the areas look more cohesive and realistic. 
5. Coastal Rugby field, which I imagine (if you're crazy enough to play rugby) isn't any scarier that it's by the sea, and it gets really cold here in winter. The spectators might sit in their cars instead of by the field.
6. Out the other side of the village, greenhouses, real farm and more MMP farm. God mode trees that can't have MMPs plopped too closely to them in full effect.
7. The edge of the town of Arlott. 
8. A retirement home featuring sea views, which is probably quite nice, and a much more MMP-based woodland in the top right of the image. Tree controller recomendations are kindly asked to remain in the realm of trees that look similar to those featured here. No palms, thank you 
9. The church and some 4-5 story buildings to make the most of those sea views are some of the highest buildings in evidence. Arlott is resolutely low-rise.
10. Trying to grow the diagonal houses along the diagonal roads is very time consuming, but I'm always pleased with how good the result looks.
11. Finally, to the edge of the tile, we've now taken in the entire coastline. 
12. For the rest of the images, a mix of Arlott's suburbs, (if a tiny town has suburbs), in a way they are the very essence of the town itself; with some detail shots.
13.
14. More industry side by side with residential. I'm sure the toxic fumes coming from the factory are not dangerous to the children in the school opposite.
15. A look at some of the Rugby spectators in their cars. Obviously the players got too cold. Scenes like this make me annoyed I always forget to plop MMP sims.
16. Seawall from North-South looking out at the sea.
17. You might be able to tell, I'm a little addicted to the CP houses. The fact that the bigger low density lots create their own little cul-de-sac type 'streets' really keeps the residential areas interesting, even when my zoning was a little bit boring..
18. I know this is the second sports field I've shown for a second time, but I'm always surprised by the way these things are always hidden away in some quite strange locations in real life, so why not here.
19. Again with the Dutch houses! This time from the other angle and a closer zoom. I think the SWN mod is one of the biggest contributors to being able to create more realistic looking cities. Imagine how this image below would look with standard maxis sidewalk texture and then try to get to sleep at night without waking up in a cold sweat.
20. 2 more images to show off some breaking the 4th wall stuff, in this case some relotting I did. The CP 19th Century / Victorian tenements. Whilst I love the houses, because they have a dirt ground texture, they don't always blend so well with my more 'paved' environments. I've relotted them so they show the lovely concrete sidewalk as a ground texture, but I've also kept the originals in the plugin folder for variety. In some circumstances, the dirt ground texture is great, so this just gives more options. 
21.
22. Mosaic shot. Annoyingly had to lower the quality because the file size was too large to upload. I'm guessing I could upload this elsewhere and link it in the post, but it turns out that I'm not that great with these things, and can't make the link embed 
23. & 24. Just overview shots so you can see the whole area. Obviously this breaks the 4th wall again by showing you how empty large parts of the tile are, but some people like to see something like this just to orient themselves for the other pictures. 23
24
Hope you enjoyed the pictures. See you again soon (maybe).
-
14
-
1
5 Comments
Recommended Comments
Sign In or register to comment...
To comment in reply, you must be a community member
Sign In
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In NowCreate an Account
Sign up to join our friendly community. It's easy!
Register a New Account