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About this City Journal

Welcome to Auckland & Greater Region II, all 198 massive tiles of it. My current area of development is "Clevedon Valley" a semi-rural, hilly area to the south-east of Auckland, comprising...

Entries in this City Journal

Craig-Abcvs

Snow Business

By Craig-Abcvs,

Well there is no business like snow business, so on with the snow...! I have never used a snow mod before... but I am very impressed with the effect. The PEG Snow mod is currently being re-worked over at Simpeg... and hopefully a new Snow Super Pack will be ready for December! Causeway Island... the mountain spring has iced up. Close up of the terrain detailing... the 'summer' flora is turned off. Wow... those pine forests look great from a distance on zoom 1. This was a nice surprise... my custom...
Craig-Abcvs

Fire Circle Island

By Craig-Abcvs,

The mid winter annual Brass Butts Weekend is a popular event. Despite chilly temperatures the die hard faithful gather to cook sausages, toast mashmallows and drink hot chocolate, around the fire circle. Some of the more prissy attendees do motor back in the little steam launch at the end of the night to the cosy confines of their A-Frame cabins on the other side of the lake... but the true devotees snuggle up in their goose down sleeping bags, in the true winter camping experience. ...especially...
Craig-Abcvs

Causeway Island

By Craig-Abcvs,

Causeway Island Right... moving along then... Preamble construction pictures .... There is a PPond Island Contest over at Simpeg to see who can make the best 16x16 island surrounded by PPond water... I recommend a look.. there are lots of great ideas by different people. I put four road tiles exactly 16 x 16 tiles apart and then dotted 1/4 Tahoe around it to sketch out the shape of the island. I used a ground lifter lot in the middle to raise the terrain and then used the mayor levelling and hill tools...
Craig-Abcvs

Five Locks Canal

By Craig-Abcvs,

Five Locks Canal Now that Upper Lake Tahoe covers the corners of 4 tiles I thought that it might be cool use the new PPond locks (currently in beta over at Simpeg) to build a canal up to it. Upper Lake Tahoe... down to sea level... ...should be 'straight' forward enough... *Cracks knuckles... Levelling the terraces with single road tiles... the canal pieces need level terrain. Showing the 'step' where the lock will be built. One of the 'terrace' levels. The highest point of the canal. Initially the...
Craig-Abcvs

Holy Scows!

By Craig-Abcvs,

Holy Scows! Satisfyingly grubby with just the right amount of rust... look for them soon on a PLEX or STEX near you! The White Swan The Blue Marlin The Red Herring The Black Collier The Gun Metal Merchant of Venice (...someone stacked the boxes the same way as the Blue Marlin... ) The Green Mist CSK Port CSK scow That is one awesome set of boats. http://simpeg.com/forum/index.php?topic=6102.765 - sorry too lazy to make a tidy linky today...
Craig-Abcvs
Upper Lake Tahoe; all four corners Up until now you have only seen one corner of Upper Lake Tahoe... from Clevedon Bay. However the lake will eventually cover the corners of four separate large city tiles... ...here is a preview. It has been a while since I showed a region update... Bean Rock - worth a visit!
Craig-Abcvs

Halleujah!

By Craig-Abcvs,

Halleujah! I have slowly been achieving higher levels of saintification! Pegasus has been developing a new church reward pack... to replace the generic what the heck is that religion supposed to be Maxis House of Worship ones. These are my nicest pics from my latest round of beta testing over at Simpeg. Starting at the bottom of the hill is the Holy Roller Chapel, then the Holier Roller Chapel and finally the Holy Mountain Church. The fourth church in the reward series is the OMG Evangelical Church. The...
Craig-Abcvs

Photobucket Pro

By Craig-Abcvs,

Photobucket Pro Well I don't think we will be having any more bandwidth exceeded messages... or your storage is almost full issues... Before: After: Now I can make bandwdith busting updates to my hearts content! Aww... and no more green card lottery ads... looks like I missed that chance... oh well America will have to do without me.
Craig-Abcvs

Grain and Sunflowers

By Craig-Abcvs,

Grain and Sunflowers Paeng has been working on a little project and I have been well moonlighting as one of his Alpha testers... sorry Paeng... I meant to sign the non disclosure agreement you sent me... really I did... These are a 'park' version of H88's growable grain and sunflower fields. Grain Sunflowers This is an interesting image... Growable sunflowers at the top, the alpha version is in the middle and the lastest beta version is at the bottom. Left to right... beta, alpha and the original...
Craig-Abcvs

Sandbox Test Region

By Craig-Abcvs,

Sandbox Test Region Have you ever wanted a simple no frills, region to test out stuff in? Well here it is... the... "Sandbox Test Region" [Download Linky] It comes all ready to simply throw in your regions folder... you don't even have to faff around rendering it!
Craig-Abcvs
A couple more pics... before we return to our regular scheduled program... We had a very nice weekend away, the cabin we stayed in is on the left. Another Ford!... (actually I played on this same Ford tractor over thirty years ago... it was pretty old then... ) This is the hot spring that feeds the swimming pool at the holiday park... the water comes out of the ground at 60 deg C. The pool however is a pleasant 38 deg C.
Craig-Abcvs
Away for Labour Weekend... We are away for the weekend but fortunately the holiday park has wireless internet... sooo civilised! Anyway, today we went to my cousins place who lives in a pretty valley with a stream running through it... it even has a ford! Well I don't recommend taking your car though it, but a tractor or 4x4 vehicle would be fine! Apparently streams and boys, mix very well. 4x4 high wheelbase vehicles only...
Craig-Abcvs
Eliminate the Impossible! Quote "I wouldn't have thought that to be possible." "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes. If we all only did what we thought was possible in this game we would all still be licking our vanilla icecream cones down at Deppsies Diner, listening to those whiney advisors popping up every few minutes, reading the stupid news ticker... and swimming in acidic blue water while the underscaled cargo ship...
Craig-Abcvs
Upper Tahoe Lake Resort Back on page 38 of my other esteemed pixelated production of pegamanical pride and prowess... I made a hydro lake... the Upper Tahoe. It is a very nice hydro lake with two hydro dams. I have not been up in that corner for a bit, but this evening I was compelled to go back... While I was minding my own business detailing yet another stream in the other corner of the Clevedon Bay tile, the city planner guy bounced onto my screen with wink wink, nudge nudge, gay abandon, to...
Craig-Abcvs

Schiffenburg Ford

By Craig-Abcvs,

Schiffenburg Ford Quote from: abcvs from over at that other site he hangs around... I just had an ephiany.... what would happen if I put the Schiffenburg set back in (I take them out when I am not using them cos they take up a lot of menu space...) used the SAM cobbled street and the rock cobbled ford... Damn cows keep getting out... Nothing to see here people... move along please...
Craig-Abcvs
Playing in the Sandbox I think I am becoming overly attached to my sandbox tile... Who says Maxis sucks? I also finally got around to getting the MTP water towers, and Paeng's junk yard. The concrete ford works well with the logging roads.
Craig-Abcvs

Log Town... EnZed!

By Craig-Abcvs,

Log Town... EnZed! Quote If the Pegamod makes me stuff it goes in my CJ. Preferably within 24 hours. I have a confession to make. I have never used the Log Town USA lots... they have been sitting patiently in my plugin folder, ever since they were released, but have never been taken out of the box. Why? I have no idea... ... just got busy with all the other stuff Peg was making I guess. Well this evening I decided to unwrap the log town lots for the very first time... Nice... very nice...
Craig-Abcvs
Messing with grassy bank canals... OK then... this is using only the new PPond terrain stuff and a little bit of the moss from the original PPond, and scrub brush. Started with a basic 8m ditch, and 1/4 Tahoe... ...then layered in the different grasses... and a smattering of Vandy Lions... ...and now with a little RRP pasture stuff... the yellow RRP flowers and the PPond yellow flowers do blend rather nicely methinks. ...and there is some nice spiky grass in the RRP set as well. ...and a bridge...
Craig-Abcvs

A Splash of Colour

By Craig-Abcvs,

A Splash of Colour Yup... that is the same stream as the one one in the previous update... but I decided it was too straight, so I kinked it up a little... Oh yeah this is the new what the heck does he call it again...? ... the PEG PPond Terrain Prop Pack 1... now in beta over at the Pegamod's place... PPond Flora Pack must have sounded too girly... Check out Bean Rock!
Craig-Abcvs
Flat, Humped and Recessed! PEG-PPond Culverts now in beta! Completely flat terrain... Flat terrain, with a small hump in road... Recessed stream (used 8m rail digger lot)... flat road... Recessed stream with hump in road... Make the hump by using the Mayor Mode hill tool... on the smallest setting (Shift-1) and with the grid on (G), click once in the North West corner of the grid square... Repeat in each corner, clicking once. Four clicks later... Re-join the road... and detail the terrain... The stream...
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