Leaderboard

Located on the island of Cephalonia in the Ionian Sea, few beaches across the globe can compare to Greece's breathtaking Myrtos Beach. Due to it's remote and rugged location, the beach is completely inaccessible by foot - the only way to reach it is to traverse your way down a series of steep hairpin curves. Once you make it there however, you'll be rewarded greatly with pristine, warm Mediterranean waters, perfectly soft white sand, and of course, incredible views. Our journey gets started off with us making accommodations at a timeless Greek villa - our room overlooks the edge of the beach, giving us a fantastic view of the sunset. We'll be staying here tonight, and tomorrow we're off to the beach. We set off for the beach early in the morning, driving through endless fields of daisies and poppies along our way. However, just as we roll down our windows to take in the smell, the clouds darken and it starts pouring. It looks like our day at the beach could very well be in jeopardy. Fortunately for us however, it was nothing more than a quick rain shower. The sky eventually begins to clear up and the beach starts to come alive with tourists. We stake out a prime spot on the beachfront and soak up the sun - no better way to spend an afternoon! Myrtos Beach is more than just a beach - it's an experience. Activities such as hang gliding are extremely popular throughout the area, so we throw caution to the wind and decide to give it a shot. We make our way back to the beach just as the day begins to wind down. Once nightfall approaches, we get a little peace and quiet once the beach starts emptying out - being sure to take it all in one last time. A perfect end to our day. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Myrtos Beach! Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! -korver

Our trip to Africa starts off in Lagos, Africa's largest city. Getting anywhere around town seems to be an impossible task with the never ending flow of traffic. Street vendors and hawkers are on every street corner, and the massive crowds of people everywhere adds to the congestion. In order to go anywhere, using the bright yellow danfos (buses) are almost a necessity - they're virtually everywhere in the city. But just when we thought the traffic was bad enough around our hotel - one of the local markets spills out onto the streets. This in turn forces one of the main roads to shut down and everything comes to a complete standstill for a couple of days. We're limited to touring the city by foot at this point, but at least we get to check out many of the beautiful goods that the local markets have to offer. After our stay in Lagos, we start traveling East - right into the heart of Congo. All the roads from this point forward are dirt covered - which potentially makes rainy season a real headache. Fortunately for us, we don't run into any problems for the time being. Along our way, we get to meet numerous tribes, observing their rituals and getting a chance to see how the locals live. The mud and thatched roof huts they call home have been a mainstay for thousands of years - and we can see why, noting their sturdiness and ease of build. Our next stop in our African journey is northern Tanzania where we take our Jeep through Serengeti National Park. The views from the ground are amazing, almost immediately spotting large herds of elephants, giraffes, and zebras. However, to get an even better view, we decide to board a hot air balloon instead. It's wildebeest migration season, and we get an excellent birds-eye view from our balloon - also finally spotting a couple of lions on the prowl as well. Once we get back on the ground, we finally start to make our way out of the park - but not before stopping a few times to let a herd of Giraffes make their way across the road. We board our plane and arrive next in Madagascar, being sure to see it's famous Avenue of the Baobabs. Not only are they perhaps the world's fattest tree, but they also can live for 2,000 years or more - they're truly marvelous as they tower high above us. However, just as we make our way out of the area, we're met with an unexpected surprise. We thought we left the traffic back in Lagos - but evidently we were quite wrong, getting stuck in a cattle traffic jam on numerous occasions. Once we make it back to the mainland, we travel a couple hundred miles West and make our way across the Zimbabwean border. After getting lost more than a couple times and finally getting some much needed help from the locals, we're able to locate Great Zimbabwe, nestled in the middle of the Zimbabwean foothills. Once the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, all that's left is a collection of ruins scattered around central and western Africa. Despite their current state, you can still get a sense of the power and greatness that these walls once held. Our final destination is perhaps Africa's most famous - Victoria Falls. One of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, these awe-inspiring falls truly live up to the title. Once we get there, we're sure to try out a little whitewater river rafting - it's the middle of the high season and the river is in full force. However, there's still something that's a little more dangerous that we have to try out. Our tour guide takes us back up to the top of the falls, and we board a small boat to Livingstone Island near the middle of the Zambezi River. We slowly move our way across the lip of the falls, careful not to take one wrong step on any slippery rocks along our way. Finally, we reach our destination - the infamous Devil's pool. We take the plunge, and the only thing protecting us from a 300+ foot drop is a small submerged rock barrier on the edge. We take a deep breath, carefully leaning over the edge to catch the view of a lifetime. Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! Thanks -korver

Alrite, alrite, alrite...! Since one year I now finally have replaced my gaming laptop from 2008 with a beefy PC rig, meaning working in 3ds Max is now much faster and rendering much less of an endless waiting thing. My PC is able to easily handle this big baby (despite low poly methods used we are at 16 million polygons now). So I always promised I would finish this project and I hold on to that promise. Now that I took this year to set up my new business in RL and that is settling I'm having more time for this also. So, as for the status of the project: currently works are being done to finish the base atm working on beefing up all the flora details left to do are all the decals for the roads, reworks of some plaza areas like the fountains at the roundabout, addition of vehicles, signs and other small details, a café area and some coach bus parking and entrance area in the back after the base is done work continues at tower, reworks of tower details and overhaul of all the balcony details, rework of windows after tower is completed then night scene with lights (kind of dreading that stage) then finalisation like error eliminations and color corrections etc., afterwards all the steps for creating lot and release Have a look at the current work-in-progress: (direct link to fullsize image: http://s1.bild.me/bilder/060112/48891232016-10-12_base.jpg

In our first Greek update, we got to take a look at one of Greece's most recognizable natural wonders. Now, we turn our attention to some of Greece's most awe-inspiring, mysterious, and magical landmarks of the past and present. --- "There is nothing permanent, except change." -Heraclitus The center of the universe - the Tholos of Delphi "Bear up, my child, bear up; Zeus who oversees and directs all things is still mighty in heaven." -Sophocles Athena's temple - The Parthenon "Experience, travel - these are as education in themselves." -Euripides Born from ashes - Santorini "I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness." -Themistocles The capitol - Athens "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." -Aristotle In the heavens above - Meteora Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! -korver

Our trip to Sydney begins with one of the world's most recognizable buildings - the Sydney Opera House. Built in 1973 - its unique white seashell shape truly sets this skyline apart from the rest. Sitting just behind it is the Royal Botanic Gardens - opened in 1816, there's no better place to take a stroll on a sunny day. Just as recognizable is the world famous Sydney Harbour Bridge - built in 1932, it's one of the best ways to cross the harbour. At night, its distinctive lights dominate the neighboring waters. Water taxis are a great way to get around the harbour, and the Circular Quay (whose name contradicts its squarish shape) near the CBD is one of the most popular destinations in the entire city. Sydney is a city known for it's suburbs. In fact, it's got 555 of them - but few are as beautiful as Lavender Bay. It's easily reached by water taxi, has great views of the Harbour Bridge and the skyline in the distance - not to mention being ranked consistently as one of Sydney's most livable suburbs. It's truly a great place to call home. A rainy day in the CBD. Some of Sydney's most recognizable buildings can be found near Hyde Park - such as the MLC Centre, which held the title as the city's tallest building for 15 years. Nearby is the Sydney Tower - completed in 1981, you can enjoy some exotic cuisine 360 degree rotating restaurant. Another scene from the CBD - some of Sydney's tallest buildings - Deutsche Bank Place, Chifley Tower, and Aurora Place tower over the nearby Royal Botanic Gardens. However, it's at night that these buildings truly come to life. And finally, some overviews of the city. Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! -korver

Rest in peace. No one had a constant and familiar presence here like John for so many years. A part of Simtropolis has gone as well.

Our next stop takes us to the famous Sahara Desert - the world's largest hot desert. For thousands of years, nomads have adapted to the harsh terrain, with an extensive knowledge of the terrain being absolutely vital to their survival. Knowing exactly where each and every oasis is located is perhaps the single most important aspect to this, and we approach our first one in the Ennedi Plateau of Chad. Guelta d'Archei is perhaps the Sahara's most famous oasis, and has been used since prehistoric times, note the cave paintings on the walls. The water's distinctive black hue - caused by untold amounts of camel dung over the years - hides the lake's most dangerous species quite well, the Nile crocodile. Hopping from oasis to oasis is crucial for anyone traveling in the Sahara, and fortunately we're able to find another one just in time. The small town of Bardaï, Chad, has been an important trading post in the region for centuries. Unfortunately, droughts have ravished the landscape and the riverbed is almost completely bare. There's just enough water left over for the camels. After a month-long northern excursion in search of pastures, the caravan finally starts to head back south through the mighty Grand Erg Occidental, but not before they come face to face with one of the Sahara's greatest dangers. An enormous sandstorm engulfs the caravan, and rages on for nearly an entire day. Fortunately, by sitting to the side of their camels, they're able to lessen the blow and eventually get back on their feet. After nearly a month more of traveling, we finally reach our end destination of Djenné, Mali. Every Monday, the entire region takes part in market day - truly a sight to behold. Just under the shadow of the magnificent Great Mosque, the streets come alive with countless shoppers and market vendors, giving them the much needed opportunity to trade camels or goods. Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! -korver

Jutting 11,020 feet out of the southern Patagonian landscape, the imposing sheer granite walls of Mount Fitz Roy makes it the one of the crown jewels of southern South America. Technically challenging climbing routes coupled with notoriously bad weather makes it one of the toughest climbs in the world, but the view from the top makes it all worth it. Day 1 Our journey starts off in the sleepy little town of El Chaltén, Argentina, right at the footstep of Mount Fitz Roy. Our group meets up to discuss our routes in the upcoming days - the weather looks like it'll be manageable, but in this part of the world, that could change in the blink of an eye. We set off for Fitz Roy, and we're immediately in for a treat. The fall foliage is in full swing surrounding the misty Rio Fitz Roy, making for an absolutely gorgeous view. We won't be here long however, as the terrain quickly starts to get much more challenging. After several more miles of walking, we start to approach the base of the mountain and get our first up close view of the surrounding peaks, Techado Negro and Aguja de la 'S'. They're beautiful, no doubt - but they pale in comparison to the peak we're headed to next. Nightfall begins to set in, so we set up our tents and call it a day. Day 2 The day started off fairly easily - a straight forward climb up the mountain. However, our plans quickly got derailed when a storm approaches us, making any technical climbing an impossibility. We decide to instead take cover in a rocky outcrop and wait it out. Conditions finally improved just enough for us to continue on - and we begin to make our ascent up near-vertical granite cliffs. We had originally planned on setting up our tents on a small, flat plateau a couple hundred feet away - but due to previous setbacks, we fall behind and the darkness combined with driving rain makes any more climbing far too dangerous. We're forced to precariously hang our tents off the side of the mighty Aguja Poincenot instead. Day 3 Conditions still aren't great, but we continue to push on. The granite cliffs are coated with a thin layer of ice and storm clouds begin to roll in, making things far more dangerous than we had originally thought. However, despite the conditions, we persevere and finally reach the peak of Mount Fitz Roy. We proudly set up our Argentinian flag and take in the beautiful view - its just as good as you would imagine. Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! -korver

Ahoooy ST! First of all I'd like to apologize for my English. I understand this language very well, but there might be few harmless mistakes in my writting Today I'd like to introduce my CJ called Principality of Jantra. We'll start with not big project called Jaruna Islands. This place is little bit inspired by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ertholmene. I'm going to divide this update on 2 parts, today I'm gonna show you general shots taken on spring time. 1. It's small archipelago. Actually there are two inhabited islands: Jaruna Island (bigger one) and smaller Dziewanna Island. 2. An entrance to the harbour: 3. The strait between the islands creates a perfect natural harbor: 4. There is small but charming town called Jaruna, only 100 inhabitants: 5. Main street: 6. 7. 9. A footbridge between Islands: 10. Short stone wharf on the Dziewanna Island: 11. A little bit of nature, there are a lot of lupins and other dwarf plants: 11. Rocky wharf: 12. A lighthouse on the top hill: 13. General overview: Cheers!

After a brief absence, our journey picks back up on the small nation of Palau, an archipelago of over 200 small islands in the far Western Pacific Ocean. Numerous volcanic explosions many eons ago pushed coral larvae up and out of the Earth's core, forming a massive limestone reef - and the erosion since then has given Palau's islands their distinctive mushroom shape. As most of the 200 islands are quite rocky with palms and mangroves draping over the waters' edge, it takes us a bit to find a nice beach, but we're sure to enjoy it once we get there. Later on in the day, we get out our snorkels and explore the many coral reefs that surround the island - making sure to avoid the sharks that call the waters home. We get back on our cruise ship and spend the next couple of weeks making stops at various South Pacific islands, none of which however are as beautiful as Bora Bora. The small atoll was formed by a massive volcanic explosion some three million years ago, and has been slowly sinking back into the ocean ever since. The waters that surround much of the islands are extremely shallow, giving the the locals the opportunity to build structures directly on the water - which is where we'll be staying tonight. Our thatched hut on stilts provides us an up close view of the many bent palm trees and pristine coral reefs that surround the island, and we take a moment to enjoy the island as the sun begins to set. We board the cruise ship once again and 1,500 miles later, we reach Pitcairn Island. Pitcairn's history goes back to 1789, where Fletcher Christian staged a mutiny against the William Bligh, captain of the British navy ship HMS Bounty. Christian and a small number of other mutineers settled on Pitcairn - making Adamstown their main settlement. To this day, nearly all of the 56 inhabitants of Adamstown are descendants of the original mutineers, and a number of them will be greeting us when our cruise ship reaches the island, which is traditional when a ship reaches the small port. After a small dinner in the square, we take a look around the island - not much seems to have changed since 1789. Not a single car or vehicle can be found on the entire island, making Adamstown seem very much stuck in time. Despite fighting flying cockroaches and spiders for the majority of our stay in our one bedroom shack, we take a liking to Adamstown's charm, with it's unique assortment of pines and palms along with the pounding waves that never cease to stop. Our final stop in our journey across the Pacific is Chile's Easter Island. After getting off our cruise ship, we check out some of the Moai that dot the island as we make our way to Anakena Beach. Rano Raraku is one of the best locations to do so, and it gives us the opportunity to get up and close with some of the Moai - but not too close, as touching the Moai is strictly prohibited. We finally reach Anakena Beach. Anakena is one of two beaches that Easter Island has to offer - the rest of the island is quite rocky and barren, making it a popular tourist destination. We're surrounded by wild horses, endless palm trees, and the sound of crashing waves once we get to the beach, and Moai statues face inwards towards the island to greet us once we get there. The Rapa Nui people purposely placed the Moai facing inland while they were being constructed some 600-800 years ago - to show that they were protecting and honoring the people of Easter Island. The mysterious Moai statues offer more questions than answers: how were they built, how were they set up, and how did the Rapa Nui people move the statues across the island? No one really knows for certain, so we just sit back and admire their greatness. After checking out the Moai, we spend the rest of our day lounging around in our inner tubes, taking in the natural beauty of the island. Easter Island is truly a one of a kind destination, and it makes for a fitting end to our South Pacific journey. Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! Thanks -korver

Update 48 The Great Debate Fall 1884 Previously on New SorGun… With time ticking away, Eastman T. Finch realized he needed to do something before Kitty Timworthy walked away with the election. In an attempt to cut through the lies and gossip being spread around town by Kitty’s associates, Finch proposed a debate between the two candidates. Kitty readily agreed, hoping to bury Finch for good. Mayor Walker agreed to moderate… “Ladies and gentlemen… Ladies and Gentlemen,” Mayor Walker roared, attempting to quiet the huge crowd. Finally, the debate had begun. Finch knew the election would hinge on his performance this day, and he had to be nothing but perfect. The format allowed for the first candidate to speak for an hour, the second candidate would respond for ninety minutes, and then the first candidate would be able to finish with a 30 minute rejoinder (the same format was used for the famous Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858). Finch squeezed his hands tight – he could feel the sweat of his palms. The businessman wasn’t new to public speaking, but the size of the crowd and the importance of the event would unease anyone. Always the gentlemen, Finch insisted that Mrs. Kitty Timworthy be afforded the first chance to speak, which she cordially accepted. It was not unusual for women to speak publicly in those days, especially on the frontier, where gender roles were more relaxed. But a political debate between a man and women was less common, and one with a mayoral election in the balance was almost unheard of. The buzz of excitement among the crowd was electric as Kitty began her speech. “Fellow citizens of New SorGun,” Kitty began. “I am honored to be speaking to you today as a candidate for the mayoral office of this great town. Only a few years ago, such a scenario would have been thought impossible. But I stand before you today not only as a woman, but as a populist and a champion of reform.” The crowd roared with approval. “For too long, the businessmen and their allies have dictated policy in this town, and for too long those policies have benefited the few, while enriching their own enterprises. They continue to promise growth and prosperity for all, but I have not seen the realization of these assurances. Have you?” Murmurs of disapproval could be heard shouted by the onlookers. “No… nor I, my friends. In fact, businesses are being shuttered and a recession is smothering the life out of us,” Kitty bellowed in disapproval. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” Kitty continued. “Almost a year ago, the golden spike was driven into the ground in Montana. The Northern Pacific Railroad now spreads across the continent. Our leaders promised a new era of wealth and prosperity… “ Kitty paused. “More promises…” Kitty groaned sarcastically and the crowd joined in with a good laugh. Mrs. Timworthy continued her assault on the failed leadership of the current administration. The crowd was energized and laughing and booing at every cue. Kitty was well practiced, as she had been replaying the same notes all across town while stumping for her candidacy over the previous months. She spoke directly to her base, the laborers and women who were demanding jobs and an end to vice and corruption. Kitty’s hour came to an end, and Eastman T. Finch was given the stage. As he walked toward the center, the crowd responded with some polite applause and a few heckles. Finch looked out over the large gathering and cleared his throat. “I know many of you gathered here today think unkindly of me. Some of the things you have heard, read or experienced have influenced an unflattering opinion of myself… whether warranted or not. I don’t expect to change any opinions rooted in hate, but I do hope my words can reach those of you who still hold an open heart.” Finch paused, and continued. “Like almost everyone here, New SorGun is my home, although not by birth. Like you, this town became my home the day I set foot on Yarahi’s wharf. I still remember that day, as clear as the natural Denenny spring that has provided our towns water since the days of the first settlers. “And like you, on that day I became part of not just a town, but a family of like-minded men and women. Like all families, we have had our differences, but despite them we forge ahead and have achieved great feats. Who here remembers the town coming together and raising the first New SorGun school house? It still sits behind me, not too far from this very stage. And how could we forget the dastardly actions of the Northern Pacific Railroad? While the nay-sayers were writing off our town, we pulled together and built our own railroad!” Finch finished with a shout, and many in the crowd whistled in approval. Finch waited until the cheers abated. “Together we have built this small town into a leading force in the region, one that even the railroad barons cannot ignore. Through industry and trade, New SorGun is the envy of the northwest and we continue to lead the way. The new school house next to Denenny Creek only cements our commitment to educating our citizens and building a community that will endure.” “And each new factory that springs up along our wharf means new jobs and financial stability.” Eastman continued to outline the progress that New SorGun has witnessed over the past few years. As his time allotment wound down he paused and looked out over the crowd. “Now, some believe all of our accomplishments bear an unacceptable cost. Businessmen and industrialist are hoarding untold mountains of cash earned at the expense of you, the working men of this great town. Certainly, I have been accused of such dastardly behavior,” Finch paused while a few murmurs and shouts in the crowd burst out. Finch raised his hand while the shouts subsided. “It is true; I have managed to build a considerable amount of wealth here in New SorGun. Deservedly or not, that is a question could be debated until the end of time. Does the lumberjack working an additional day deserve his extra dollar and a quarter?” The rustle of mixed emotions could be heard from the crowd. “Or the barkeep who stays open late to service the late night patrons, is his time and extra energy not worth a dime?” continued Finch. “hard work, extraordinary effort, uncanny persistence… these qualities have built up this great nation and we continue to thrive because we are rewarded for such endeavors. Our home, this blessed town is no different. New SorGun stands here today because we’ve given our sweat and blood to make it happen. “ Many in the crowd cheered as Finch paused, while others still offered their obligatory boos of disapproval. “Yes, it is true, I am a rich man. I’ve earned great riches while living here in New SorGun. Some would dismiss it as luck, while others may give a nod to hard labor and industry. My aching hands and tired back remind me where I stand on that debate. But let there be no debate about this…” Finch finished the last sentence with a bellow so loud even the deaf man near the back of the crowd could feel the energy. “I would spend every last penny, use every last muscle and give every last breath I have to keep New SorGun alive. New SorGun is my home, and I will protect her like a father. So long as I stand before you, by the grace of God, our town will not perish from this land,” Finch’s fist pounded the podium with a thunderous crack after his last word. The crowd remained uncharacteristically quiet for a while. Anthony Myers began to clap, and he was quickly joined by others, until finally a raucous crowd was hollering in approval. Even the dissenters were quiet for a while. Finch began walking from the stage while acknowledging the audience. Mr. Myers caught his attention as he neared the edge and gave him a little nod of approval. Eastman Finch had given the town a rousing speech for sure, but would it be enough to win the Mayor’s office? Stay tuned.

A SimCity 4 Tutorial Cloud Oriented Region Import Method Adding Painted Streams by CorinaMarie@Simtropolis In this guide I present a method to create a grayscale image from which to render a random rolling hills terrain map that has water streams and rivers added. Here's a random sample of a map I created using this method: Note: The following is merely an alternative method to create a semi-realistic, fictional region map for SC4. Before you waste any time reading this please be aware that the defacto standards for map making are: SC4 Mapper, SC4 Terraformer, and Landscape Designer. Use them if you want something better. Also, as mentioned by @RobertLM78 in a reply in this thread there is another one by Ordio called Simcity 4 Region and Config Creator. However, many peeps have said they cannot run those programs on later versions of Windoze or other OS's so what I'm presenting here is simply another method by which one can make a decent map with minimal time and effort. I'm using GIMP for this guide because it's free to anyone. Any good image editing program will have the same tools I use in this guide. The method is quick and easy. Initial Steps 1. Load your SimCity 4 Rush Hour or Deluxe game and create a new region. Name it whatever you want. For this tutorial I'll use Cloud Map. Exit the game, or at a minimum, exit the new region by opening a different region. This is so the existing config.bmp file is not in use. 2. Create a new config.bmp file. For this tutorial mine will be 12x12 pixels. See Config.bmp: How to Make it Yours if you are not already familiar with it. 3. Save that config.bmp into the new region folder you just made. (Overwrite the existing one.) 4. You should now have region.ini and your config.bmp in your new region folder. Making the Grayscale Image 1. Go outside and take a picture of some clouds. 2. Load the picture into a decent imaging program. 3. [Optional] Crop it if there are cloudless parts you don't want in the image. In Gimp it's the Rectangle Select Tool over in the upper left of the tools box. Or you can press R. Draw a box around the part you want to keep. Then go to the Image Menu and select Crop to Selection... 4. Scale the image to the appropriate size based on the config.bmp you will be using. As we learned in @Birdin's config.bmp guide we multiply the dimensions of config.bmp by 64 and add 1. So 12 * 64 = 768 + 1 = 769. The height and width are the same since my config.bmp is 12 x 12. Go to the Image Menu and select Scale Image... That brings up this Scale Image dialog box. First click the little linked chain to the right of the Width and Height boxes to break the chain. This tells the program that we are not concerned about keeping the cropped selection proportional to the original image. Type in the Width and Height dimensions that you calculated in the beginning of this step. For this tutorial I entered 769 in both boxes. Then click the Scale button. 5. Convert to grayscale. Go to the Image Menu and select Mode --> Grayscale. 6. Export the image as a .Bmp file. Go to the File Menu and select Export As ... When the export dialog box comes up, look in the lower left for the little bitty plus sign in a box by the Select File Type (By Extension) and click it. That will open up the File Type selection box. Scroll down and click Windows BMP image. In the upper left in the name box, type in Gray 1 in front of the .bmp. Note only the name portion is pre-highlighted in blue indicating what part to type over. (Brilliant programming imo.) Remember which folder you export (save) the file to. That's indicated by my arrow in this next pic. Mine is going into My Documents. Click the Export Button. The next dialog box has some options. I simply click the Export Button. (I believe one could select the Run-Length Encoded to reduce the file size. I haven't tested that, so I leave it unchecked.) And here's what I created: 8. Close all files. I personally do not let it save my original clouds with the cropping and changes so that way I still have my unaltered original. 9. Close your imaging program. (Or if your comp has plenty of memory, just minimize it.) First Render (These interim steps are what I did when learning. I skip them now I know what I'm doing.) 1. In SimCity 4, open the new region you created. Mine is called Cloud Map. 2. Press the magic key combination of Shift+Ctrl+Alt+r. This brings up the file selection box. 3. Drill down to where you saved your grayscale image file and select Gray 1.bmp then click Ok. 4. Now wait while the map is rendered. You will see Creating New City like this: And here's our first draft render. Note that it's way too choppy. We will fix that soon. The reason I did this preliminary render is to see what part is water. Tweaking the Grayscale Image 1. Reopen Gray 1.bmp in your image editor. We will paint in our rivers and streams before we smooth out the rough, choppy bumps. Select the Paintbrush tool and set it to Acrylic 05. Leave the size at 20 point for now. I selected Acrylic cause it adds a random pattern to the edges of what you paint. 2. Click the foreground color selection box. It's right under all the tools on the left. That brings up the Change Foreground Color choices. Type 40 in Red, Green, and Blue. Yes, I already hear peeps saying: Wait, that's too dark. Stay with me on this. 3. Now paint in streams / rivers. A twitchy hand actually improves the realism. 4. Now to smooth out the choppiness of the hills. From the Filters menu select Blur --> Gaussian Blur... This also blends the rivers and streams so that's why I picked color level 40 (which equates to 120 meters height after rendering but doesn't count the blur merging). This'll be an area to experiment on your own based on your original cloud picture. 5. In the next dialog box change the Blur Radius to 10.0. Or pick your own number. Higher numbers means more smoothing and lower ones give less. 6. Export the image as Gray 2.bmp. Here's my new grayscale: 7. And here it is rendered: The map is now ready to paint trees in game or load your favorite terrain and tree and other landscape related mods. Or, tweak it some more. Further Refinement 1. Let's say I want everything to be a little lower elevation to get a bit more water. From the Colors menu select Levels... 2. Then I adjust the Gamma Level to 0.85. (I derived this number thru trial and error for this particular cloud image.) 3. Here's the new Grayscale image I exported as Gray 3.Bmp: 4. Here it is rendered: 5. And then I painted Maxis trees in every tile: Edit 2016.11.02 I've discovered a couple new things. I started with this cloud picture: Then in GIMP I did the normal stuff outlined above and then I used the Burn Tool to lighten the banks of the rivers: And I blurred it after that. Here's the grayscale I created: Another new thing I noticed is having mods for terrain, rocks, water, and beaches already installed means the import rendering colors the region view with them so I don't have to go into each tile to do that. Here it is rendered: Then I did go in and paint Maxis trees as thick as the program would allow: ^ What I really like is the banks of the rivers seem more realistic to me inasmuch as they show the effect of previous flooding. Also my heavier use of Gaussian Blur means the map is much more friendly when using a slope mod to lay out the transportation network. Where to go from here 1. You can alter the gray shade of your paintbrush to a lighter one and paint along the sides of the streams to create gentler slopes if you like. It's best to do that before adding the blur cause the blur does a bunch of evening out. (See my edit above. Using the Burn Tool works even better for this.) 2. If your cloud picture has a much lighter blue sky you might want to play with brightness, contrast, or color levels to darken it before for you start any other part of the editing. Use the Color Picker Eyedropper to see what shade any given area in your grayscale is. Providing you have not installed a Height Mod with an alteration to the scale factor and/or sea level, grayscale 83 is slightly below sea level. Lower values are farther under water. Grayscale 84 is slightly above water. Higher values are then higher elevations up to a max of 255 (white). 3. Experiment with various options in the imaging program. Render and see what you get. Learning by doing is loads of fun. 4. Experiment with altering the moisture content as discussed here to change the ground texture appearance. 5. Extract the Terrain Properties exemplar from Simcity_1.dat and play around with the variables there like ImageImportScaleFactor and SeaLevel or the Erosion settings. And Lastly Feel free to post your map creations in this thread. Ideally, post both the final grayscale image and then a region screenshot. Reply with what you've discovered that might be useful to other peeps.

Located in the middle of the Great Rift Valley, Lake Bogoria is home to one of the world's largest populations of lesser flamingoes - every year millions of them migrate to it's algae infested waters. The lake boasts some of the most impressive wildlife in all of Africa - hundreds of species of birds call the lake home, and you might even see a couple zebras if you look hard enough. Geysers and hot springs dot the shoreline, creating a truly unforgettable landscape. Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! -korver

Cori's Rock Shoppe by CorinaMarie@Simtropolis A picture catalogue of every known Rock Mod for SimCity 4 Note: I did not create any of these mods. This thread is simply to display each rock mod using the same city tile for easy comparison. If you find this useful feel free to use your browser's Save As function and do a Save Complete Web Page. This will give you an offline copy with all the pictures. My content is freely available for use by anyone. You can even make a duplicate thread on any other site if you like. Please, just be sure to give me credit for the original creation. For peeps with 16:9 (or other wide screen) monitors you could open this thread in two separate windows side by side. This would allow you to have independent scroll bars to compare specific mods. It would also work if you have dual monitors tho there may be some slight color difference between the two. Other Threads in Cori's Shoppe Series: Cori's Water Shoppe (Linkys to and Pictures of every Water Mod) Cori's Side Water Shoppe NEW! – March 2022 (Pictures and in topic Downloads of the Water's Edge for every Water Mod) Cori's Beach Shoppe (Linkys to and Pictures of every Beach Mod) Cori's Terrain Shoppe (Linkys to and Pictures of every Terrain Mod) Cori's Jolteon's Ferrians's Tree Shoppe (Linkys to and Pictures of almost every Tree Mod) And see: C.O.R.I.M.A.P.S. - A Tutorial for SimCity 4 (Quick alternative realistic map making method) Note: If you download a mod and have any difficulty with it and when all else fails, read the ReadMe instructions that comes with it. The rest of my game is vanilla atm so the only difference between the pics is which rocks are installed. First off, here's the vanilla Maxis texture: dogfight Rock Mods (v1.0) contains 3 Calm Limestone: Dark Igneous: Dark Limestone: ENN Rock Mod Set 1 SD contains 8 Brown Granite1: Dark Granite2: Dark Granite3: Dark Granite4: Granite9: Red Igneous: Sandstone1 Brown: Sandstone1 Gray: Tropical Mossy Rock Mod: Sandy Rock Mod: Mossy Rock Mod: Grassy Rock Mod: Jeronij Maxis Rock Mod: JRJ PEG Limestone Rock Mod: Mossy Rock Mod: Grassy Rock Mod: Granite Rock Mod: Sphinx Rock mod: PEG PPOND Rock Mod: PEG ROCK MOD II Weathered Granite: PEG ROCK MOD II Eroded Sandstone: PEG ROCK MOD II Golden Sandstone: PEG ROCK MOD II Dark Basalt: PEG ROCK MOD contains 6 Craggy Sandstone: Gray Granite: Gray Rock: Limestone: Red Craggy: Sandstone: The following are HD so you will need to have Hardware Rendering or you will get CTD. ENN Rock Mod Set 2 HD (v1.0) contains 3 Granite9: Sandstone1 Brown: Sandstone1 Grey: The following are HD so you will need to have Hardware Rendering or you will get CTD. ENN Rock Mod Set 3 HD (v1.0) contains 3 Dark Granite2: Dark Granite3: Dark Granite4: The following is HD so you will need to have Hardware Rendering or you will get CTD. LK_StarterSet (v1.0): The following is HD so you will need to have Hardware Rendering or you will get CTD. Sudden Valley Terrain Mod (v1.0) SV Rock.dat only: The following is HD so you will need to have Hardware Rendering or you will get CTD. Berner Oberland Terrain Mod (v1.0) BO Rock Mod.dat only: SMP Gray Marble Rock Mod: VIP Orange Snowy rock mod (v1.0): Les Roches de l'Aubrac v 1: CPT Painted Desert Terrain Mod1 (v1.0) / CPT Painted Desert Terrain Mod CPT_C_MoabCliff.dat only: CPT OlympicTerrain Mod1 (v1.0) / CPT Olympic Terrain Mod 1 CPT_C_OlympicCliff_Optional.dat only: Columbus Terrain Mod von Cycledogg CPT_C_ColumbusCliff_Optional.dat only: Meadowshire Terrain Mod (v1.0) CPT_C_MeadowshireCliff.dat only: The following are HD so you will need to have Hardware Rendering or you will get CTD. SHK HD Rock Mods contains 5. SHK_HDRockMod_01.dat: SHK_HDRockMod_02.dat: SHK_HDRockMod_03.dat: SHK_HDRockMod_04.dat: SHK_HDRockMod_05.dat: The following is HD so you will need to have Hardware Rendering or you will get CTD. Rock Mod contained in VIP Terrain Mod by Cédric. (Attached to this post on Devotion.) Note: In addition to the Rock Mod there are also Beach, Terrain, and Water mods. The following pic has all 4 installed: ^ Thanks to @Indiana Joe for mentioning this one. So, when peeps ask: Which rock mod should I get?, show them this thread so they can compare and decide. Attached is the medium size city tile I've used for these pics that way you can make your own with the exact same mountain. City - Rock Mods.sc4 Return to SimCity 4 Ultimate Guide: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/762954-SimCity-4-ultimate-guide/

Hi Simtropolitans! Today, I will start sharing this recreacion that began some months ago. I will seek information about the various places of the city, to know better this amazing New york, hand SC4. Many of the buildings and monuments do not have in st exchangue, and there are things I had to imagine and devise, to have a greater similarity. However, I must say that thanks to the amount of bats recreated to perfection by the many fans of SC4, motivated me to want to know, and recreate the city. Let's start with Battery Park I hope you enjoy *********************************************************************************************************************************************** Battery Park is a park of 10 hectares (25 acres) located south of Manhattan bordering Financial District. It is the most important green space that includes the best view of the city of New York as the Statue of Liberty. Derives its name from the row of cannons in the seventeenth century, the British placed along State Street. Intersection between State St. Pearl St. , and Bridge St. Building One Battery Park Plaza. Intersection between Broadway, Battery Pl, and State Streets. It also has a full tour of monuments with historical texts that allow tourists to learn more about the history of the city, and other statues. Among the most important monuments, it noted the Clinton Castle, completed in 1811, today used for ticket sales ferries for trips to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, formerly was used as an aquarium, and its earliest beginnings was used as strong for the invaders attacks. You can also find there Sphere, a metal structure that was formerly simply ornamenta in the area of the twin towers and today, along with an eternal flame, is a monument in memory of those who lost their lives in the attack September 11. It is the East Coast Memorial, a sculpture in the form of eagle that honors the memory of those who died in World War II and more structures. The Sphere, in the upper right corner East Coast Memorial Because of its location in front of the Statue of Liberty and comfortable view also offers its benches, the park is also used for concerts and activities. When should be Castle Clinton Intersection Battery Pl St. and Little W St. To the northwest is the neighborhood of Battery Park City, a planned community built between 1970 and 1980. Along with the Hudson River Park, a system of bicycle paths and walkways extending to the shore of the Hudson River. A bike path is being built through the park, connecting the Hudson River and the East River. Battery Farm This brings us to the end of the first part of the entry about Battery Park. Coming soon de second part, and development of Battery Park City, that it to say, Rector Park Residential Neighborhood, Gateway Plaza, Battery Place Residential Neighborhood, WFC and Joseph Chapel. Saludos desde Buenos Aires! and I welcome your comments!

Welcome to my SimArt journal! I decided to put all my city art together into one journal, so I can have them all in one place! This journal will have mostly SimCity-related art, (or just regular cities), and possibly some sneak peaks of future CJ updates (Million Sims challenge anyone?) A little background: I've been drawing cities since 6th grade (2008). My first City building game ever was SimCity Societies late 2007, (which was fun) and then I got SimCity 4 for the first time months later and got hooked to it. I was let down by the lack of 3D at first, but I accepted it since the game was so fun. It became my go-to game for a long time. Around 2008, I started googling SimCity 5, and I would wonder if it would ever come out. I decided to draw my idea of what I wanted "SimCity 5" to look like. A lot of the drawings were done while I was at school bored or during free time. I've been drawing cities even until this day. I was all to familiar with the phrase "Put that drawing away" I got from teachers! Anyhow, without any further ado, Let's get started! I will save my most recent art for last (on the bottom). The top of the drawings contain the title and the bottom is the description/meaning. For most of my older middle/High-school drawings, I wrote what I feel they mean to me now and what they symbolize. First drawing: Blue Republic City: Main Street South (Commercial District) (Partial, will show the rest next update!) (Completed in November 2013; Senior Year of HS) SimCity 4 in 3D; Two MAVE-6's intersecting, note some of the Maxis CO$$$ buildings, and a R$$ on the right City From above Started in late 2011, beginning of my sophomore year of HS (10th grade). With only 4 blocks complete, it was put away in a pile of papers for over 6 MONTHS before I dug it out when I was throwing away other papers. Have I not found this, this drawing would've been thrown away too. It was finished just before my sophomore year in May 2012. Highway From Hell RHW-6C highway that leads to Woodland City Completed May 2013, this drawing took about two days to complete; The majority of it was worked on in my pre-calculus class (which I was failing miserably). My junior year was my worst year in all my 12 grades of school. This drawing symbolizes my "Junioritis." The storm represents my finals that I would still face before the end of that year (in June) and the city out in the distance represents summer. The clear towards the end represents the light at the end of the hell that I call, my Junior Year. The exit you see to the right (Exit 255) represents a break. Speaking of Storms... Here Comes my finals! I had to take the exit to the right of the previous scene (Highway From Boredom) to brace for the violent thunderstorm. The conditions became way too dangerous to drive through. I made it out, thankfully: Elm Street; Completion date around 2013 More Art! I dubbed this one: Good After-School! (Get it? 'Cause it's the afternoon and...school..*laughs awkwardly at silence*) Completed my sophomore year of HS (Early 2012); Represents students walking home from school after dismissal. We travel back in time! Some random house I drew in 7th grade Completed in 7th grade (January 2009) This drawing symbolizes...some random house. Generic Neighborhood From Above Completed March 2010 (8th grade), note the massive wreck just by the hospital, which symbolizes the only time that I would EVER got in trouble and written up in middle school, for the most ridiculous reason ever. Hence why the hospital is right there, to symbolize the ridiculousness of the whole situation. A SPRING SERIES OF 8TH GRADE DRAWINGS Highway To High School Similar concept to "Highway from boredom," except that things are much happier Completed in April, 2010, towards the end of my 8th grade year and also the end of middle school road! The late afternoon setting symbolizes the fact that I am in my last few months of my middle school career. The storm clouds out towards the right however suggest that there are still obstacles to face before the end of my middle school career. There overpass out in the distance is the FCAT test. The rush hour traffic symbolizes all the graduates who would soon walk the stage, marching along... Now I go under the overpass from the previous drawing, symbolizing that I have passed my FCAT (2009) Same highway from above, just further along the road, and a bit later I finally reach the Cloverleaf (in the distance) Completed in late May 2010, the last full month of my 8th grade year, the traffic is heavy with graduates. The cloverleaf (it's still far, I know it's hard to see lol) symbolizes the different directions people will take in their lives from here. Some will go to other schools that are not in their zone, and others will keep going to the high school they're called for. Some friendships will end here. The late evening setting symbolizes the setting of my middle school, and the few hours left in that day, just as my days as an 8th grader, are numbered, soon to end. The highway past the clover leaf represents a new chapter in life. -------------------------------------------------------------- Fast Forward To High School Senioritropolis Completed May 2014 my Senior year of High School; Senioritropolis. What does it symbolize? Here are the pieces: Seniorit-tropol-is. You put it together, I think it speaks for itself (Still don't get it? Take "Tropol" away) SimCity 4 3D Concept Art (from 2013) More SC4 3D Concept Art Now for the Most Recent SimArt Oh yeah, and one thing I need to mention... After Playing SC4 for almost 24 hours straight, I went to go take a shower and as I looked over to the living room I saw this... Yes, if you play SC4 with the 3D Mod for too long...this happens. The bathroom is to the left, parent's bedroom to the right, the side door is right towards the end, and my front door is to the right of where the right wall ends. To the left of the left wall is the dining room, which leads to the kitchen and back door. My parents definitely not happy when they saw over 500K tiny sims blocking any way out of the house with their metropolis. Note: If you want 3D SC4 graphics, download the latest version of SC4 3D Camera mod (April Fool's Edition) Disclaimer This is known to be duly noted that I am not responsible for any power outages, crashes, the destruction of your computer, or the Sims-colonization of your living room. Please download at your own risk Before I get to my latest drawing, let us go back to 6th grade one last time (At least for this update)... Blue Republic City: Main Road North (2008) Completed in May 2008, this was my last drawing as a 6th grader. It is the same city as the first drawing in this entry. Blue republic City is a young, growing city. It is the future capital of the Blue Republic senate and Capital. (more to come in future CJ) 8 Years Later... Blue Republic City: Main Road North (2016) Yes, this is the exact same scene and angle as the previous drawing, except 8 years have passed. The buildings under construction were complete, and the AVE-4 was widened into an MAVE-6. I wanted to see how much I improved since 6th grade, so I went and re-drew one of my old middle-school drawings (kind of like re-mastering a ps1 game with modern ps4 graphics) with my modern technique. You can see the difference 8 years makes! Practice makes perfect! That's it for this update, I hope y'all enjoyed it and don't worry, there is more to come. Much more! I post a lot of my art/works in progress on Instagram too. Mods, am I allowed to post a link to my Instagram account here? Thanks!

Our journey through the Amazon starts off in Manaus, located on the Rio Negro in the heart of the rain forest. It's one of the largest cities in the Amazon - despite it's remote location, it's well worth the visit. We take a stroll down many of it's historic roads, enjoying some of the architecture - the best example being it's beautiful ornate opera house. The Amazon Theatre was constructed back in 1896, back when the surrounding region was flourishing from the rubber trade. Lots has changed since then, and unfortunately we'll meet some of the harsh realities quickly.. After our visit in Manaus, we board our boat and begin traveling north through the rain forest. Unfortunately, it'll take quite some time before we actually get to see the untamed forest, as deforestation has cleared out much of the land. Once pristine sections of rain forest have been replaced by the signature "fishbone" pattern for as far as the eye can see. The need for cattle ranching and crops means that many will do just about anything for more land, including slashing and burning whole sections in one go. Although the rate of deforestation has dropped in recent years, it can't change the fact that nearly 20 percent of the forest has been destroyed over the last 40 years alone. Our journey continues northwards, and we move from the Rio Negro to one of it's smaller tributaries, the Rio Demini. As the river undulates and curves it's way gently through the rain forest, we finally get our first true taste of the Amazon. We get a chance to observe some of the surrounding wildlife - a pair of jaguars being the clear highlight of the day. Once we reach the small fishing village of Lisbão, we get a chance to meet the locals and stock up on supplies as we continue on deeper into the rain forest. The river gets narrower and narrower the further we go along - and it leaves us less room for error as we continue our travels. Once we finally reach some rapids, the only way to continue onward is by foot. We were told that the local Yanomami people inhabit these lands - but after many days hiking through the deep forest, we thought we would never see them. Finally, right at the Venezuela/Brazil border, we catch a smoke cloud far off in the corner of our eyes. As we move closer, sure enough we see the roof of a shabono (their circular huts) peeking over the canopy of the forest - we've finally found found them. As we move closer to greet them, the situation quickly turns murky as they take out their bow and arrow. They've never seen outsiders before, and not knowing if we're friend or foe - they threaten to shoot. To dispel the situation, we offer a pair of matches and they cautiously accept the gift. After learning how they work, they put down their weapons - we've finally gained their respect. After hiking for weeks from small village to small village, we finally reach one with a small airport. They're offering plane rides over Angel Falls - an offer we can't refuse. The ride takes us over a number of tepuis in the Guiana Highlands - stunning for sure, but they won't compare to what we see next. We finally reach the falls a couple hours later - getting about as close as you can possibly get by plane. At over 3,200 feet tall, the world's tallest waterfall doesn't disappoint - it's truly an extraordinary view. Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! Thanks -korver --- Replies for "Scenes From Africa":

This entry continues from where I left off last time at Aizen fall's. Here's a couple of wide pano shots to jog your memory in case you forgot where we were on this trip down the Scribosilyn river I spent a lot of time experimenting with mmps and creating different landscapes in the next area. I particularly like how these scenes look up close so as with the last entry the photo are from the closest two zooms. More of the area around the base of Aizen's fall. The first bridge crossing the Scribosilyn river at an angle is Vermont Drive. Crossing Vermont Drive by foot is not recommended, unless your prepare to get soaked from the fall's mist. The Scribosilyn river then meanders under a several bridges the first being the aforementioned Vermont Drive, followed by the twin span of highway 705. Hard to believe but there was a time when I didn't use mmp in developed areas at all. But now meshing together functional urban development with mmp covered area's is definitely one of my favorite thing to do. On the north side of the river is a small city park(Jessibel Park). 7. 8. Further south there are two final bridges. The first is the Energy East oil pipeline and the last bridge to span the river is a rail bridge, carrying the ICR Lakeridge Sub. Three different modes of transit, road, rail & pipeline. ICR Train # 303 is seen going over the bridge. This is a regularly scheduled high priority inter-model train which can sometime be almost a mile long, which is the maximum length of trains allowed to operate within the city limits of Pretoria. 12. A small pumping station for the oil pipeline. 14. 15. After passing the last of these bridges the Scribosilyn river comes to end having reached Cisco Bay. 17. To the west of the river along the north shore of Cisco Bay is Varsity Park, another popular recreational area in Baycole. 19. ICR 303 rumbling through the neighborhood. Closes ups of the park. 22. 23. The shoreline here is a swampy marsh, spent a lot of time working on the land to sea transition here. 25. 26. This angle is probably my favorite 28. 29. And a couple more mosaics to go. 31. The next entry will probably be the final entry from the city of Baycole and will feature the few unexplored areas of the city and plenty of large scale mosaics to show everything the city has to offer.

Hello everyone ! Long time no see ! Working and studying together left me with almost zero free time. However, I am working on Northern Valethorn Area and I have almost completed the Recycling Center, Car factory and Coal power plant. Early development: Everything started from this motorway. I tried to recreate a British motorway. However, I was criticized for using non-British props so lets say that its a fantasy motorway ! I have to mention that everything was plopped piece by piece as the new mod for placing props didn't have uploaded back then. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 My new fields and farms 8 9 10 11 12 13 Aerial view From right to left Recycling center Power Plant Fields and Toll Station Car Factory 14 Tolls and surroundings 15 16 17 18 19 I hope you like this new entry ! Feel free to comment!

I'm finally back from my "semi hiatus". Haven't been around ST much and its been a over 2 months since the last CJ update, though it feels like it's been much longer. Long story short, too much going on IRL + SC4 burnout. Playing the game and being super active on ST was really cutting into my sleep time. But I think I'll be able to find a better balance going forward now Baycole is a medium sized city located on the north shore of Cisco Bay, it's location in the region is highlighted in red below. This is the first update of a city in the Central Borough of Pretoria. Baycole is mostly suburban in nature though several major industrial facilities are also located here. To be frank this city is more of a 'filler town', created to make the regional views look better so I didn't spend a lot of time building the city. Originally it was just a small suburban pocket to the east extending from Lindin City and a pocket of heavy industry on the west side with nothing in between. Initial build form(2010); Later on I decided to develop the area in between the two areas. But the town is still more or less a suburban filler town so it's not as interesting as other areas of the region. What is interesting is that I've been using this city as a test bed for custom content. This entry will focus on the suburban modifications, and I think the results will speak for themselves. Original look of the suburbs of Baycole when first built, little had changed since. For those who remember my previous suburban work(highlighted in entries 25 & 32) the changes from then might not be obvious. To wit I say it's all about the 'T&T' Textures & Trees. image 4. The suburbs today post modification; 5. zoom level 5 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. The recently extended highway 705 to the left 11. 12. 13. Coltan High 14. 15. 16. Baycole PD 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. wide panos 26. 27. 28. up close in zoom level 6 29. 30. The next entry will take a look at the industrial areas of town and the modifications I've made there.

Think I'll need a looooong break from parking lots after this... Testing fitting into small areas. The bigger question is: why is there a random stop sign in the middle of an avenue junction? Some large scale testing with realistic stadium parking. Coming soon to an already cluttered menu...with a new friend.

It brings me great pleasure to introduce the METRO OVERHAUL MOD Asset creators, feel free to release your stations, vehicles, and other goodies. It is nearly 6am and I feel...sleepy. Should be largely similar to the last alpha. Oh and THANK YOU GUYS for your patients and support, helping me to test the crap out of this thing. I am really appreciative. So I'll let you get to it...here are the high points: * First release comes with a concrete and steel style each with fenced and fence-less versions * Steel bridge uses same pillar as concrete bridge. This was just to allow me to release the mod. I will be giving it a more fitting pillar later. *Ok that's all I have for now but please hit me up if you have any questions and...enjoy!

Entry number 2 from the city of Baycole, this time I'll by showcasing the industrial sector of the city which contains an oil production facility - the Apotex Refinery, a small coal power plant, incinerator and the associated docks, rail loading and storage facilities for all of the above. The Apotex Refinery is located on the north shore of Cisco Bay in Baycole, it is owned and operated by the Avalon corporation, one of the largest multi-national conglomerates on planet Azura. It is one of two massive facilities located in Industrial Sector C, the largest industrial area in the the region. The refinery has a daily crude oil processing capacity of 160,000 bbl/d (23,000 m3/d), is nearly 500m wide and over 1,100m long. Which is comparable to an oil production facility of its size in the real world. This entry was suppose to be finished last week but I just couldn't stop myself from continually expanding the facility, fine tuning the game modification I used and making new custom content for it. In the end I've decided to spit the entry in two, there's just too many pictures and things to show in a single entry. The first entry will focus largely on the custom content(BAT's, relots & textures) that I made and cover the peripheral facilities and strucutres around the refinery. First on the agenda is a look at some of the other custom embankment walls I've recently made. The wall on the top is made from precast interlocking cement blocks, while the one at the bottom is poured concrete or at least that's what I hope they look like Also upgraded the radio tower and added a large water tank as the top of the hill is an ideal location for both. The hill actually isn't as tall as it may look, being only 110ft above the highway, 160ft above the refinery level and almost 200ft above sea level. The interchange below is the only interchange in the city of Baycole between Highway 705 & Naphtha Rd. and is a generic design. The radio tower is 410ft/125m tall for an HAAT of 606ft/185m broadcasting TV & radio signals to the residents of Baycole. Close up of highway 705. A lot of gasoline trucks run down this highway on their way to and from to the refinery. Time to check out the new BAT's. Here's the main project which I previewed earlier this month, a new type of hydro pylon; As you can tell it's of a very unique design and there's a very good reason for that I withheld. It's because these pylons are designed so that you can actually run railways directly underneath them! This power line is known as the Eastlea Hydro Corridor and transfers power to central Pretoria originating from the Eastlea power plant, it runs directly on top of a portion of the ICR mainline(Lakeridge sub). Tank farm B(7 tanks) is located to the north of the combined power & rail line while the refinery itself is located to the south. A half a mile long ICR oil train is also seen here, stopped for switching on the mainline. This particular train has two locomotives and is hauling 44 tank cars. 9. There are several other custom BAT and relots here as well to go along with the replacement textures I used to give the area a more industrial and grungy feel to it. On the western edge of the property straddling the ICR mainline is the rail fueling depot, where refinery products are transferred into rail cars. 12. Gasoline is transferred onto trucks at a fueling station just south of the rail depot. Petroleum is also transferred via a pipeline running just north of the depot. 14. 15. Further south of the rail & truck depot and on the western edge of the refinery(and city) is the LNG terminal. The LNG is stored in 6 large tanks, 4 partially underground and 2 above ground. The LNG is transported from the facility either by truck or via an underground 48inch pipe. 17. One of the refineries 500ft(152m) stacks looms large over the LNG terminal. 19. Lets jump back to the hydro corridor & tank farm. The feed lines to the tank farms diverge just north of the tracks. The pipes that go east lead to tank farm A while the pipes which turn west(left in the image below and towards the rail fueling depot) lead to tank farms B & C. Tank farm C is actually in he next city over, the pipe line which goes underground leads to it. I relotted NBVC overhead pipeline to go over 3 space here. I could of relotted it to go over the road as well but I think using bipin's underpass here and having it hook up to somy's huge tank looked cooler in the end With regards to the power lines. I fully intend to release the set once I've decided on the different possible directions/connections, such as diagonals, possible FAR angles too. Offset models will be offered as well. In fact tested one for this entry 23. 24. 25. From here the Eastlea hydro corridor runs along Petrol Drive. Yes, you will be able to run these power lines down roads as well Truly a godsend for cities lacking space for new hydro right-of-ways. 27. The road ramp takes Naphtha Rd. over the ICR Lakeridge sub and that half-mile long freight train while the piping leads to tank farm A. 29. 30. And with an even 30 pictures that concludes the entry. The next one will showcase the core of the refinery, power plant and docks. Feel free to ask me about any of the content shown in this entry or if you have any recommendations for the content shown.

Talk about a complete one-eighty. When last we left Pretoria, I showed you the massive industrial monolith known as the Apotex Refinery. This time however we'll be looking exclusively at a natural landscape - the Rosco Valley. It's been a very long time since I made an entry where the main focus was nature. The last time mmp work was one of the main feature(s) of an update was back in The Ring of Steel(entry 21) and the last time it was the exclusive feature was for Gravenhurst Mosaics(entry 12). That was also the last time I made a large scale water mmp scene. Needless to say it's been far too long. Truth be told, I've been avoiding creating (mmp)river scenes. You may or may not have noticed, but there's been a distinct lack of them in my journal so far, aside from waterfront scenes with in-game water. For one I've always been more focused on creating urban, transportation and industrial scenes. But the other reason is that I simply didn't have the confidence to realistically pull off such scenes. The last time I created an mmp river was around 3 to 4 years ago and it looked a little something like this; I was actually kind of proud of myself for being able to create that scene, especially since I hadn't been on any of the SC4 sites for a while at the time. It was the most elaborate mmp scene I had created to that date. Heck I didn't even know the meaning of 'mmp' then. When I finally got around to being more active on this site and started my own CJ towards the end of 2014 I took a long look at what others had created and needless to say I was blown away. It was then I decided to simply stick to what I was good at. But like any true SC4 enthusiast one can't help but try out new things. I surprised myself a lot with what I've been able to create. Dresden(rebuilding it) was a revelation for me both with how much better I had gotten at city building and with the community response. I can't beleive I actually thought I couldn't improve my city building(urban areas) when I first started the CJ To be fair it had been a decade since I started playing the game by that point. I now believe the exact opposite, there is no such thing as reaching a 'peak' and there is always room for improvement no matter how good someone is. Following Dresden my focus was two-fold, I would further refine my specializations(transportation, industry) and I was going to tackle the things that I was avoiding both in-game i.e. river scenes, the airport(eventually) and 'out'-game i.e. plugin management, lot editing, realistic photoshoping. Whelps, I finally came around to creating that river scene and today I'll show you the results. To note there has been no photoshopping of any the images. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with photoshopping, in fact my second to last entry featured nothing but photoshopped images. Through the use of image editing, players can create incredibly realistic scenes indeed almost photo realistic and those who can do it well should certainly be commended for their accomplishments and abilities. But at the same time while the end result looks fantastic I can't help but feel like the creator is no longer playing SC4 but rather some other game entirely. This is not meant to be a criticism of those who photoshop but simply describes a feeling I sometimes get when looking at them. Anyhow for my first mmp river scene I wanted to show exactly what can be done using only what is available to everyone in the game itself. Also I've decided to take things one step further yet. In the process of trying to make the best scene possible I experimented with different terrain/rock mods. But what I ended up noticing most was that there was barely any difference at all. Once the 'mmp saturation' reaches a certain point, it practically doesn't matter what terrain mod(urban scenes are another matter) or rock mod you use. So I decided to go 'vanilla maxis' with this one, that is no terrain mods of any kind. Anyhow I think that's enough with the suspense and explanations, on with the show we go. The Rosco Valley is located in Providence National Park, near the geographical center of the mid sized city of Baycole. At the base of this valley is Scribosilyn river which you guess it, is named after a certain member of this site who's recent entries on creating river scenes motivated me to create my own river scenes and serves as a great resource and for those looking to make their own hand crafted rivers. Plus it's just a kick-ass name Here the Scribosilyn river emerges from the thick brush of Providence NP (i.e the edge of the map ) Mcbride trail is a nature trail that runs along the northern/eastern bank of the river in this area. The river bank quickly becomes more rocky as it enters into Rosco Valley. 5. 6. 7. 8. Here the Mcbride trail crosses over to the south bank of the Scribosilyn river over a small pedestrian suspension bridge. The bridge is a popular recreational spot for locals. Just east of the bridge is a series of rapids as the river slowly drops in elevation. A couple different angles for your viewing pleasure 13. 14. 15. The terrain is much steeper on the north side and large boulders occasion fall down towards the river which is why the trail continues on the south side. 17. 18. Next we move into a relatively calm area of the river. 20. 21. 22. 23. The river then starts to drop some more in elevation leading to another series of rapids. Large rocks have fallen into the river careening off this steep cliffs which rises over 650ft/200m above the valley floor. This is probably my favorite area of the river. 26. 27. 28. Mcbride trail more or less ends at Miller St. which leads to the residential areas of Baycole. 30. 31. This part of the river is a popular spot for fishing. Just don't fall into the river because just beyond this spot is Aizen fall's. The height of falls is 155ft/47m, nothing too spectacular but more than enough to be fatal to anyone unfortunate enough to go over the edge. A short stub trail leads to a lookout over-looking the falls and the area below. 35. Edit* Bonus terraformation pic added From here the river continues until it reaches Cisco Bay, that part of the city and plenty of other landscape scenes will be shown in the next entry. As always comments or suggestions are always appreciated, thanks for stopping by.

After visiting the world's tallest waterfall and largest rain forest, our small Cessna finally lands at our next destination. We've got quite the trip planned, so enjoy Our first stop in our journey is the capital and largest city of Suriname, Paramaribo. It's truly a one of a kind city, with its mixture of beautiful colonial Dutch architecture on the edge of the rain forest. The Dutch architecture serves as a reminder to the past - the country was under Dutch rule for nearly 150 years as Dutch Guiana until it gained its independence back in 1975. Our time in Paramaribo is brief - and unfortunately, the rain never seems to stop during our stay, as is common in much of the country. We board our plane once again and head back out. Cloaked in heavy rain clouds, Mount Roraima on the Brazil/Venezuela/Guyana border is truly breathtaking with its imposing sheer cliffs. Countless waterfalls plunge off of its tiered slopes - yet another sign that we're in the middle of rainy season. We land our plane just inside Eastern Venezuela for a quick excursion. We're up for a challenge, and the imposing Autana Tepui provides just that. After a couple of days of nerve wracking climbing, we finally reach the top and put up our tents for the night, taking in the view. We get back on our plane and land a couple hundred miles north in Valencia. We'll be traveling by car for now on, and the first stop is the small town of Puerto Colombia on the southern coast of the Caribbean Sea. It's a charming little village, with its small river filled with brightly colored riverboats. No trip here would be complete without taking one for a cruise through the village, and we do just that. After driving along the Caribbean coast for a couple hundred more miles, we finally make our way to the Pan-American highway. Taking that south, we travel high through the mountains of Colombia for quite some time until we finally reach Colombia's Cocora Valley. This place seems almost unreal, with it's famed wax palm trees climbing to heights of up to 200 feet tall. The surrounding landscape is equally impressive, with quaint farming villages surrounded by rolling hillsides and steep, rocky slopes. The locals are quite hospitable, letting us stay the night. Not too far from the Cocora Valley is another one of Colombia's famous attractions, the Las Lajas Sanctuary. Built between 1916 and 1949, this church is one of the most impressive sights in all of South America, standing high above the steep Guáitara River canyon. Between the location, waterfalls, and reports to this day of "mysterious healing" - it's truly a magical place. After driving for seemingly an eternity through nothing but the barren deserts of Central and Southern Peru, we eventually reach a sight worth looking for. There's one landmark here that you'll want to keep your eye out for - they're easy to miss. Eventually we find one of the legendary Nazca lines - the condor. Created between 500 B.C. and A.D. 500, the Nazca culture created these lines by removing the rocks from the desert floor, revealing the lighter colored ground beneath. The best way to view these lines is by air however, so we catch a quick ride and do just that. After checking out the famed Nazca lines, we start to head our way inland towards Cuzco and finally make our way towards the legendary Machu Picchu. There's no more roads from this point forward - the only way to the top is by foot. After stopping at a local village, we get out our backpacking gear and get ready for the adventure ahead of us. It's quite the climb up the mountain, but after numerous days and nights traversing through dense rain forest, finally seeing these majestic ruins makes it all worth it. We get back on the highway and start heading south once more. The landscape initially is barren - but eventually it turns into something much more beautiful. The steep slopes have been terraced by local farmers for thousands of years, and there's no better example of their work than the Colca Canyon. Through advanced irrigation strategies they transformed these steep mountainsides into workable farmland, and to this day the locals make their living off them. Our trip slowly gets higher and higher in elevation as we start heading eastwards. Eventually it becomes hard to just catch out breath, but we soon adapt to the massive height difference. Perched in the middle of these mountains is the world's highest lake, Lake Titicaca, a sight that we wouldn't want to miss. One of the most remarkable sights here is the floating islands of the local Uros people. By taking the tough reeds that surround the lake (totora) - they've managed to build floating islands that entire families can live on. They allow us to have a glimpse into their daily lives, allowing us onto one of their island and to observe some of their ancient traditions. We're finally out of the mountains, but the adventure as just begun for us. This swampy, densely forested area of Brazil is known as The Pantanal - and there's only one way through it, the transpantaneira. The road acts as the only safe route through the wetlands, and we run into numerous herds of cattle on the road along the way. It doesn't take long for us to get into our first standoff - as a couple of crocodile-resembling caimans need to make their way across the road. We finally reach the capital of Brazil, Brasília. Seeking a more centrally located capital, in 1960 the capital was changed from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília and an entire city was planned and built from the ground up. Architect Oscar Niemeyer designed many of the important buildings here, giving them a distinctive flair. There's no better example than the Palácio do Planalto - the official workplace of the President of Brazil truly comes alive at night. From Brasília, we start traveling eastwards towards the Brazilian coastline. Every Brazilian beach side city is magnificent, but Rio stands out from the rest. Standing atop of Corcovado Mountain is the famous Cristo Redentor statue - a must visit for any tourist, especially at sunrise. Completed in 1931, its arms were placed in an open stance, symbolizing peace. A couple hundred miles west is another Brazilian beach side city that you don't want to miss, Santos - one of the most beautiful cities that we encounter during our journey. Its gardens (the world's longest) and beaches are truly magnificent, stretching for as far as the eye can see. After all the traveling we've done thus far - some time spent relaxing on the beach is more than overdue. When traveling through Brazil, you're bound to run into a number of favelas (slums) on the outskirts of many of the larger cities. We saw a number of them in Rio de Janeiro - and as we travel through São Paulo, we see quite a few more. The people here make the most of their situation, gathering whatever they can find in order to create a house for their families. We begin the final leg of our journey with the mighty Itaipu Dam, located on the Paraná River on the Paraguay/Brazil border. You truly can't underestimate the size of this massive structure - it's the largest hydroelectric scheme in the world. This dam alone provides nearly 80% of Paraguay's electricity, as well as much of the power to many important cities in Brazil - but it did come at a steep $20 billion cost. It's the rainy season - so we get to see an up close view of the spillway in action, which drains out any excess water from the Itaipu reservoir. Our next stop is some 20 miles south - the world famous Iguazu Falls. From miles around you can hear them rumbling - you can just sense the power of these falls. There's a seemingly infinite amount of waterfalls here, and the best way to experience them is to get up close. One way is to board one of the many boats that travel along the lower river - and we do just that, getting as close to the falls as possible. But no trip is complete without visiting the "Devil's Throat" (seen in the top left corner of the picture) - an elevated walkway takes us as close as we can possibly get to it, witnessing a one of a kind wonder. Finally, our journey wraps up when we reach one of the premier destinations in South America - Buenos Aires. Once you see the avenues and architecture, it's not hard to see why it's called the "Paris of South America". 9 de Julio isn't just wide - it's the world's largest avenue - and right in the middle of it is the famous Obelisco de Buenos Aires. Built to commemorate the founding of the city in 1536, it's truly amazing at night. - Bonus Pictures - Everything else that didn't make it into an update this year, so here's their final destination. Enjoy! Yaounde, Cameroon Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania Agbokim Waterfalls, Nigeria Ancient City of Djado (1000 A.D.), Niger Rubber Farm, Liberia Mother and Child Balancing Rocks, Matobo National Park, Zimbabwe Great Blue Hole, Belize Sutherland Falls, New Zealand Great Wall of China Prague's Christmas Market New Year's Eve in Prague Attribution for the pictures: Waterkant Paramaribo, CCSA3, Forrestjunky | Tepuy Autana (Kuaymayojo), CCSA3, Fernando Flores | View from Mt. Roraima "Window", CCSA2, Paulo Fassina | puerto colombia (choroní, venezuela), CC2, Olga Berrios | Ceroxylon Quindiuense Cocora, CC3, Diegotorquemada | Santuario Nacional de Las Lajas 02, CCSA3, GameOfLight | Colca Canton Puno, CCSA2, world-wide-gifts.com | Machu Picchu, Peru, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike2.0, Pedro Szekely | Nazca Lines - Condor, CCSA2, Paul Williams | Uros Islands in Lake Titicaca - panoramio, CC3, Frans-Banja Mulder | Por do Sol Pantanal em Mato Grosso Brasil, CCSA3, Filipefrazao | Yellow Jesus, CCSA3, dabldy | Panoramica Santos, CC2, Diego Silvestre | Sao Paulo, Brasil, CC2, Francisco Autunes | Usina Hidroelétrica Itaipu Binacional / Itaipu Dam, CC2, Deni Williams | Iguazu National Park Falls, CC3, Tomfriedel | Obelisk Buenos Aires, CC2, Nestor Galina. Notes: Various edits were made to each picture, including color, slight blurring, and sharpening. All these banners have the same license as the original pictures. Don't forget to comment, like, and follow True Earth if you haven't already! -korver

@Dreadnought: Wow, the marshy water effect is great! However, the tallest points around the coast will typically be dikes, and behind (and in front of them) you will find marshes and meadows - salt marshes at the sea side, cow pastures at the land side. Some drainage canals, some deciduous trees, some fences, much reed, and certainly no firs or pines. Just in case you really want to go for that North Sea look - your coast in itself looks certainly great. But now for something completely different - it happens rarely enough that I post pictures in this thread, but here is one: Nope, not final - yet. Yes, it is meant for eventual release. Yes, more IRM stuff is coming. Somewhere between 100-200 lots (but closer to 200) are in different stages of completion, but the first packages are ready to go, and others are shaping up slowly.

It's pretty tempting to start plopping skyscrapers like crazy for a downtown area, but so far I've been able to resist the urge, resulting in what has to be the most modest downtown I've built so far:

I was writing something long for this update, but ST had other ideas. However, all I can say is this: thank you, for your patronage. It's been exactly 5 years when I opened this journal as a reluctant teenager, but looking back from it, my old self has something to say to me; and it could apply to us even. All the mighty becomes the very weak,All the giants become the poor midgets,All the living became the putrid dead. It becomes the unforgivable truth...This is where the true life begins the new fire. Cheers to another 5 years! --- -30- @ThuanLy all it takes is some perseverance and patience. Thanks for the patronage! Cheers to another 5 years! @MissVanleider thanks! I was working with Photoshop filters and I guess that worked @gviper thanks as always! @Artimus thanks! As I said, all it takes is perseverance and patience and the will to work with what you have. @kschmidt well everything's at premium nowadays, but thanks! @tankmank thanks! @Odainsaker it did remind me of my old hometown and I watched that segment and found some similarities with what I had in my hometown and that segment. Also, GA architect also produces some quality journals out there, and so does C3. They all have nice 60lb card stock. @aegian thanks! @takemethere thanks! @Schulmanator wow, thanks for the 5 years of participation. I still remember the time when we made that newspaper thing. I was wondering if I can still get it back somehow @juliok92012 awww I wish you can still play your amazing journal. Your cities always look good @sunda Gracias! @Urban Constanta thanks! @MushyMushy I thought Skimbo's Dragon Islands Cities was better than what I had done but thanks! Much appreciated @kingofsimcity thank you! Once again, thanks for the 5 years! じゃあ～　いってきます！（＾も＾）＞

• Update #3 || Progress / Handa port & Atayami • ############################################################################## • Hello guys, I hope everything is going perfect for all of you. Today I want to share with you some pictures to show you my progress in the region. I'm working in the surroundings areas of the Saitama international airport and the Handa Port. Most of the time I'm working creating new low residential areas and farms but also I've started to work in the Handa port and its power plant. As you can expect, these progress are taking me a lot of time but I'm happy with the result so far • • This area is very populated and highways, national roads and rail ines are everywhere • • Itayama and villages are surrounded by rice fields. Rice is one of the largest industries in the region • • The center of Itayami, where you can find the market, city hall and several kind of shops... • • Moriyama is less populated than Itayami, most of its surface are rice fields. Those villages are fantastic places to live far away of the noise and chaos of the city but perfectly connected by train, roads and highways with the rest of the Saitama Prefecture • • Green cranes in the entrance of Handa port. This is the oldest Saitama's container terminal, not able to work with large and modern ships • ##################### ~ R - E - P - L - I - E - S ~ ############################################################################## lucasfg3 Thank you so much, I'm glad you like it. sucram17 Do you want to see more ? Let see what I can do... anyway I have to create the other airport. Belfastsocrates Really? I can't wait to see something from your airport my friend. raynev1 Yep, just do it. Try to make your own airport. Thanks for your comment. feyss Thanks my friend ! Those are BIG words, thanks !! lolo69ol01 The control tower is from the STEX, try to search "Bangkok control tower", the white building is a personal model created by a good friend. takemethere ############################################################################## Greetings / Saludos / Groeten # Jonathan.

This update will cover the last two neighborhoods of Dresden; Valhalla Park & Woodside which are located towards the central & southern portion of the city. These neighborhoods are largely suburban in nature with only a few small pockets of commercial, institutional or industrial development. How the cites areas/neighborhoods of Dresden are divided up; First some colorful closeups of Valhalla Park, arguably the nicest suburban area in the entire region. These photo's beg the question, is there such a thing as too much tree cover? 3 4 5 Places of local interest (by 'places of interest' I mean visual interest, not landmarks for tourist) Located near the center of Valhalla Park and nestled in between two rail corridors is Our Holy Grace Catholic High School. With 593 students(2015), this is the largest of Dresden's 4 high schools(2 public, 1 catholic & 1 private). The school has extensive sports facilities and is home to the popular Red Back's highschool football team. There is also a chapel and numerous footpaths for students to take. 7 Russ Jasckson Elementary School and the adjacent Kensington Park in Woodside. 335 total students, one of 5 elementary schools in Dresden. 9 The park has multiple tennis & basketball courts, an outdoor swimming pool, a racket court and a nearby community garden. Dresden Main Water Reservoir With a total capacity of 50,000 cubic meters of water, or rather 5 million liters! this is the largest of Dresden's 10 water towers/tanks. When full there is enough water to fill up two Olympic sized swimming pools. Thankfully there are no olympic sized swimming pools to fill in Dresden. 11 12 If your interested, 'TMT Inc.' can build a a water tower for your city(with your city name on it), though it will cost you a 'like' Jamison Ford Elementary School & Valhalla Park PD at the intersection of Middleton Rd. & Genosha Blvd. 14 A small industrial park near the underpass Rd. Interchange. 15 Commercial development at the edge of the downtown district/Woodside neighborhood. There is also a plasma gasification waste disposal plant nearby seen in entry 29. Local Transportation connections This area of Dresden is largely car dependent due in large part to the barriers created by the highway and railway corridors cutting through the area. Still community connectivity is an important aspect for creating a cohesive and desirable suburban environment. In recent years Dresden city council has spent much time and effort on improving the pedestrian realm by building new footpaths and bridges. So rather than showing the roads first I'll cover the pedestrian network instead. Valhalla Parks pedestrian footpath network; 17 One of most important links in the network is the recently constructed pedestrian bridge over the Fastraxx & GWR lines an otherwise major barrier. 18 The bridge was partially built over BioHazrd Inc. property. The old route, the footpath that lead to the Genosha Blvd. tunnel remains in place but the tunnel is not very pedestrian friendly. 19 From here the path goes under the IRC line and then highway 702 20 Other parts of the network include the pedestrian bridge over Station Rd. 21 A long flight of stairs leading to Industrial Sector G, it's good exercise! 22 In case your wondering this route is TE enable and heavily used. It's also not as bad of a climb as it looks, only 130 steps to the top which is 90ft/27m higher. and footpaths along Middleton Rd. Roadways For Valhalla Park, the main roads leading out of the community are Genosha Blvd. (west) which leads to downtown Dresden which as you can see is typically very congested. 25 Middleton Rd. north to Orchard Heights 26 Underpass Rd. and Milldeton Rd. south & west to Woodside and of course the 702, to points further south or north. For Woodside, aside from Underpass Rd. & the 702 seen above there is Esna Parkway which is used by many to reach downtown Dresden. The Hope Springs Eternal Church is at the top of the image. 28 And Indigo Rd. which runs along the north east edge of mount Tokiko. west to downtown Dresden. And now once again it's time for my favorite part, the mosaics! 30 31 32 Angles 33 Probably my favorites, from Genosha to the 700 34 ...and back 35 That brings to a close another long entry. As much as I've loved building and covering Dresden the next entry will likely be the last one of the city. For one most of the city has been developed and shown but secondly it has also become oh so frustrating to work with. Less than a month ago it took only about 80 seconds to load the city, now it takes nearly 3 minutes plus the game freezes for another minute shortly after it loads. Also the city crashes almost every time I change a zoom level, even with the CPU set to 1. I'm guessing it's because of all the mmp'ing and new lots I've used, some of which I haven't extensively tested like I normally do because I wanted expiate the city building process.

Yes, I'm still alive... ...and doing a mighty fine job with those suburbs, if I do say so myself!

Well well well.... I have a surprise for you Just dusting off a bit of work I done ages ago. -eggman121

Industrial sector G is one of 5 large industrial areas built in Pretoria. More than 90% of Dresden's industry is located here and it employs 12,061 people. The map below shows the juxtaposition of each sectors within the region. As seen in entry's 22 & 23, the region's largest power plant is located in this sector. A medium sized traditional port with only a small intermodal facility is also located adjacent to the south shore of Cisco Bay. This entry however will focus on the industrial zone located between the port and downtown Dresden. Industrial Sector G overview - not including the Port(beyond the upper left) & Power Plant(beyond the upper right) I'll be taking what I think is a unique approach in this entry. Instead of just showing random locations I'll preview each industrial facility one-by-one in order of the largest employee base - so as to better help you find suitable employment of course! The employee count is the total amount of sims that actually travel to the building in question for work. Dresden's 25 largest industrial employers (not including government or infrastructure related facilities) 1 Company - Gusslov Pipelines Inc. Business Type - Pipe Mill Address - 80 Portland Rd. Total Employees - 1,472 Dresden's largest private industrial employer Job Satisfaction - 3/5 2 Company - Golden Dragon Sorting Facility Business Type - Freight and Parcel Processing Address - 192 Pincer St. Total Employees - 1,150 Job Satisfaction - 3.5/5 3 Company - Rand Textiles Business Type - Textile Manufacturing Address - 1,2 & 4 Textile Place Total Employees - 611 (all three buildings) Job Satisfaction - 3/5 4 Company - Mondi Paper Products Business Type - Pulp & Paper, Forest Products Address - 15 Connection St. Total Employees - 606 Job Satisfaction - 4/5 Aside from the power plant this my 2nd favorite industrial facility in the city. 5 Company - Backstien Industries Business Type - Industrial Machinery Address - 52 Edison Rd. Total Employees - 562 Job Satisfaction - 4/5 6 Company - Simland Food's Business Type - Food and Beverage Distribution Address - 12 Pincer St. Total Employees - 548 Job Satisfaction - 3.5/5 7 Company - Longfellow's Inc. Business Type - Heavy Equipment(forklifts) Address - 125 Genosha Blvd. Total Employees - 457 Job Satisfaction - 4.5/5 8 Company - Elemental Technologies Business Type - Research & Development(classified) Address - 19 Rubbish St. Total Employees - 451 Job Satisfaction - unknown(classified) 9 Company - Hapag-Lloyd Logistic Center Business Type - Consumer goods distribution Address - 10 Comex Drive Total Employees - 404 Job Satisfaction - 4/5 10 & 13 Company - Acme Boiler Co. & Diag Inc. Business Type - Boiler Makers & multiple Address - 69 & 71 Edison Rd. Total Employees - 396 & 323 Job Satisfaction - 2/5 & 3.5/5 11 Company - Mill Street Brewery Business Type - Brewing Address - 45 & 47 Portland Rd. Total Employees - 349 Job Satisfaction - 5/5 12 Company - Gratiot Motors Business Type - Automotive Components Address - 28 Edison Rd. Total Employees - 328 Job Satisfaction - 4.5/5 14 Company - Coca-cola Bottling Business Type - Beverage Maker Address - 1 Coke St. Total Employees - 318 Job Satisfaction - 4.5/5 15 Company - Larkin Admin. Business Type - Computer Software Address - 60 Portland Rd. Total Employees - 310 Job Satisfaction - 4/5 16 Company - Gleaners Industrial Supplies Business Type - Industrial Products Address - 49 Edison Rd. Total Employees - 288 Job Satisfaction - 3.5/5 17 Company - Organ Works Inc. Business Type - Corn Wet Milling Address - 13 Qzar St. Total Employees - 285 Job Satisfaction - 3/5 18 Company - GWR Packaging Business Type - Freight Distribution Address - 1 Pincer St. Total Employees - 276 Job Satisfaction - 2.5/5 19 Company - Lafarge Cement Business Type - Concrete Batching plant Address - 11 Solpadenie St. Total Employees - 274 Job Satisfaction - 3/5 20 Company - Unidek Ltd. Business Type - Thermal Insulation manufacturing & distribution Address - 55 Portland Rd. Total Employees - 263 Job Satisfaction - 3.5/5 21 Company - Piglatin Clays Ltd. Business Type - Kaolin Processing Address - 10 Solpadenie St. Total Employees - 253 Job Satisfaction - 2.5/5 22 Company - Vestor Acetone Business Type - Chemical Manufacturing Address - 9 Edison St. Total Employees - 176 Job Satisfaction - 1/5 24 Company - Jack Wild Conductors Business Type - Semiconductors Address - 145 Genosha Blvd. Total Employees - 172 Job Satisfaction - 4.5/5 25 Company - Sovereign Distribution Business Type - Freight Distribution Address - 28 & 30 Power Ave. Total Employees - 166 Job Satisfaction - 3/5 That concludes the top 25 list. But even if you are not successful in your job application(s) with any of those companies there are still dozens of other potential employer who may want to hire you, so keep at 'er. Of course, if you actually have some big bucks in your pocket already and don't need to look for a menial job why not buy a property instead? This lot at 61 Pincer St. is now available after a company by the name of dead paper products literally went dead. The factory was demolished 2 years ago and the lot has remained empty ever since, just waiting for a willing buyer to come along and redevelop it. So why not take a chance? Granted it's located near a lot of nasty chemical manufactures, boxed in by a busy freight rail corridor and built on uneven ground but don't let that deter you! To conclude this already ridiculously long entry here's a couple mosaic shots for the road. M1 M2 M3

For those of you who weren't aware, Nyhaven and Kendall are part of the same metropolitan area. In fact, they're the two largest cities in the metro area. The following animation shows my progress in building and merging the two cities over time (up to about a week ago): I've done even more work on the metro area since the date of the last region view here, but Photoshop refuses to export an updated GIF (probably due to a memory shortage or summat). EDIT: After shrinking the image and reducing the animation length, Photoshop finally exported a new GIF. I've edited it into the space above. However, you can see some of my latest work in the Kendall thread. At this point, even the two subway systems have merged, creating a 20-line monster that's so big, it would be a nightmare to try to name each line the way I'd been naming them. Hence my decision to replace the names with letters and numbers, as the latest subway map shows: My latest work on Kendall was almost lost due to the city contracting prop pox. Thankfully, after doing a great deal of reading on prop pox's causes and preventive measures, I was able to continue from a recent, pox-free backup, and my preventive measures have kept the pox from reappearing. Here's some of that work, which includes my efforts to merge Kendall and Nyhaven into a single metro area. The Lords of Parliament, Lower Columbia's two heads of government, now have a residence and office that suits them. The leaders of Parliament's two chambers live and work in separate wings of Columbia House, shown here. This executive mansion is right across Upper Columbia Avenue from Parliament House itself. Based on earlier comments, I've worked on reducing building repetition around Federal Circle. I've also begun expanding the business district that surrounds the circle, so it hasn't completely filled in yet. I also acted on comments regarding the proximity of the seaport to central Kendall and completely rebuilt the area. Now, housing projects rise where cranes and stacks of containers once stood. I also rebuilt Edmonds Junction, the rail junction connecting Kendall's Library Terminal to the port and points beyond, to take advantage of the new FlexTrack features in NAM 34. The rebuilt Port Brunsmjöd now sits on its own island, with many more berths for ships and greatly improved rail and highway access. Pacifica State Highway 32 (visible in the top-right corner) runs through the port areas next to the port's rail line. PC-32 begins at this rebuilt interchange with the R-50, where the latter highway turns south into central Kendall. Due to this interchange's proximity to another one, the R-50 widens to 10 lanes here. That other interchange is where the R-250 ends. This freeway gives Kendall access to Nyhaven International Airport and runs through a number of new suburbs. The R-50, meanwhile, continues east into midtown Nyhaven. The largest of those new suburbs is Clifton Mesa, a massive planned community near the formerly-small village of Clifton. Huge earth-moving operations leveled the hills that once stood here to collect land reclamation material for Port Brunsmjöd in the 1960s, and city planners took the opportunity to build a suburb that would serve both Nyhaven and Kendall. Clifton Mesa is home to one of the metro area's largest shopping malls, and is where several subway lines from both cities intersect.

This will be the final entry from the South Shore borough and the Dresden. Dresden was joy to build, modernize(repeatedly) and finally showcase. But now 16 entries(a bit much for a single city right?) and 9 months later its finally time to close this chapter and move on. Much work still needs to be done on my future cities to reach the same level of refinement/detail as seen in Dresden and the pace of CJ entries will most likely slow down from here on. The currently pace of nearly one per week since the new year is not sustainable as I'm starting to see the dreaded signs of an SC4 burnout. The only thing I haven't done yet is show how the city looks like from elevated views, both day and nite so that's what this final entry will be comprised off. I rarely take photo's from level 2 or 3 zooms because you can't see the finer details, but I have say they're really good for showing networks. Before I start I like to give big thank you to all those who took the time to comment on this chapter of the CJ; __B, 9gruntsand1hammer, art128, Artimus, Belfastsocrates, Benedict, Bipin, city89, CMinVA, Compdude787, Cyclone Boom, DavidDHetzel, dedgren, Dreadnought, Ducio, egret, Fatjuice, feyss, gen.Falcon, GoKingsGo, gviper, heartless, Hellken, Jack_wilds, J0nnD0ugh, JoshusGellock, kelistmac, Kim Sunwoo, kingofsimcity, kschmidt, lair, Linoa06, Ln X, lucasfg3, michae95l, MilitantRadical, MissVanleider, Mister Giggles, morris128, mrsmartman, MushyMushy, Mymyjp, Need4Camaro, nos.17, Paulobergonci, philforhockey51, Prophet42, raynev1, rkellyywlu, Sabertooth78, Schulmanator, sejr99999, Skimbo, slickbg56, Snugies, sucram17, Swordmaster, T Wrecks, tankmank, tariely, Tekindus, Themistokles, Thomas Diamond, Titanicbuff, Tonraq, Toothless Stitch, Tys, ulisse, Urban Constanta, v701, wirralsquirral & Xander Dax. And to everyone else who follows and/or has 'liked' the CJ, your continued support is invaluable. Let's begin 1 2 3 4 Before I forget, a couple of 'closer' shots of Industrial Sector D at night (as requested by @wirralsquirral, e29) 6 And a couple Suburban panos for the road. 8 Esna parkway & The Ring of Steel with downtown Dresden in the background at night. 10 Now on to the Portlands, my favorite area for taking night shots. 11 12 13 14 Surprise! You don't think I used the dark night mod did you? Who says you can't use both? 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 City wide photos 26 27 That's it, show's over. But... Preview of things to come Central Pretoria is much more heavily urbanized then Dresden and the South Shore, so the interchanges and highway system is much more complicated here. P1 P2 P3 (WIP) Heavy Industry will also be another big focus P4 P5 P6 There'll be plenty of rail work and a large port to show as well. P7 P8 Though I still have lots of mmp work that needs to be done before certain areas are finished. P9 And I'm hoping to finally restart my favorite little side project. With any luck there should be a couple of releases in the near future P11 Thanks again for stopping by.

Now that we have these new awesome walls to play with, I would love to see them in action by the community. I'll start with my first experiments. My shoreline park is totally transformed. I just have to do something on the top of the wall with some kind of decoration....walkway, lamps, maybe some benches. The shorelines are getting more interesting I'm also experimenting with new textures. This one is a test using the rock template

On the edge of town...

Hello, today I'm going to show You second and the last part of update from Jaruna Islands. There's no photoshop, all shots were taken during weather effects developed by JENX. And please don't miss the end! 1. 2. 3. Summer time on Jaruna Islands lasts only one month. Most part of the year is rainy and snowy. Here some autumn shots. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. And now... winter is coming! Brrrr.... 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Finally, a special GIFT for all of You, check it!

Quick minor update (replies in next full update): Still working on exporting the orthogonal trucks. Have had some other things to do. In other news I've fiddled around with the concept of a replacement set of oil pipelines to phase out nbvc's well-used but very bleached out set (curse you gmax and your horrid render quality). Here's some early results, plus some oil trucks for good measure: My stuff is going to at least have all of the same pieces as his, though I may add some stuff here and there as I see fit. -Mushy

# Big Buddha somewhere in the mountains... would you like to visit it ?

My new farms and farm house

Hi everybody, Seems like a nice place here so I figured it would be nice to have a topic for my mods. I'm pretty sure most of you here know my mods but just as a reminder here is a list : Advanced Vehicle Options Mesh Info Airport Roads Realistic Vehicle Speed Fine Road Tool Assets and Mods Configuration More Shortcuts Move It! Cinematic Camera Extended Prop Precision Fine Road Anarchy I also participated to Building Themes (made the UI) Save Our Saves (made some of the fixes) Pfeww I haven't realized until now how big this list was. In any case feel free to discuss and ask questions about any of them. Here is what i'm planning to do in the near future: Move It!: - Improve snapping. - Also people have asked for the ability to move the mesh and the spawn points in the editor, I need to investigate the possibilities. Cinematic Camera: - Switch to a velocity system for smoother movements. - Rewrite a camera controller for more freedom in the camera placement (zoom as far as you want, no clipping, left/right tilting) - Ability to save/load paths This is my first post here. Please be gentle.

I experimented with ground textures (gravel, pavement). Who would like to see this as an option? Roads without paved sidewalks: Roads with gravel sidewalk: Highways without gravel border: Rails without gravel or with pavement: Here is my first attempt at "real" road texture replacement. It might take a while to implement this:

Tacoma Financial Center (2x5) I'll have to adapt one side of the building because it is located in a hilly terrain.