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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

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.

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.

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/

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!

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!

@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:

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

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...

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.

As you may have heard there is research going on in the labs to bring together a new mod that gives you the ability to make any colour version of RRW you desire. We think RRW is the rail to follow. Like the MGB Grass and Paving Mods by RSC04, this mod too will be based on the capabilities of GoFSH which I know a number of you are putting to good use for your own ends. Put simply the Mod will edit the original RRW textures in such a way as to change the ballast and sleeper colours, but in every other way be compliant with RRW. Below is a pastiche (in a very ordinary test region) of 5 such experiments so you can see what I mean. The Tramway (same texture for ballast and sleepers) represents a way of bringing RRW style Tramways to the game too. (eventually) Now while it would be nice to be able to announce imminent release, there are rather a lot of tiles to do and a few technical things we still need to master, But it's probably true to say the proof of concept is here.

Here is a little something I've been messing with . Thanks @Takingyouthere for pointing me in a different direction . Hope you all like it , comments are welcome to help me improve .

Been working on figuring out my mysterious "Draggable FA Power Plyon". After fumbling around my test city tile for well over an hour, I have finally found a reliable way to replicate it. Infrastructure fans take note! 1. Our goal is to link 1A with 2C. Start by placing a cluster of three plyons, with the center one (B) as the anchor. B is your standard 45 degree angle. For this example I'm using a 4-tile diagonal gap - this will result in FA 1.66 (5 x 3), or 31 degrees. 2. Perform a special diagonal drag from center to center. Take note of the standard dragging on the left versus on the right (lower $ cost). Make sure the opposite center pylon is highlighted blue - I found that placing the cursor right in center between the 3 pylons works the best. 3. Voila! 1A and 2C are now connected. You may bulldoze the helper pylons at will. NOTE: Depending on your dragging direction relative to the city tile, you may get 1C and 2A to connect instead. Also note that 1-tile gap versions have inconsistent behavior. 4. To continue your pylons, treat the 2C pylon as your new 1A. Drag out a set of helpers and repeat the process. 5. Proof that it is definitely not 45 degrees. There's still a couple of things left to figure out but I think I got the brunt of it here.

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.

Over the last couple of months there has been a flurry of new BATs, LOTs and other great mods. 2015 was an amazing year for new SC4 content and it has given us hardcore players even more to play with in this ever-growing sandbox. The purpose of this topic is to consider SC4's future and how with more content it assures both the game's freshness and also its future to. Let's look at the highlights of 2015: 1. Two new NAMs! NAM 33 and 34 brought numerous flex/drag options for the RHW and the RRW, more stability, and more versatility for the NWM. 2. rsc204's Terrain Grass NAM. Changing all the road networks grass to that of the HD terrain controller of your choice, plus the vast amount of wealth texture unification is a real game-changer. It has brought a simplicity to SC4 in terms of style but also greater realism. 3. The SC4D's advent calender. A lot of cool stuff was posted and there were a whole ton of goodies- https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=17189.0. 4. FrankU's Dutch parks, plazas and relotted Maxis reward content. 5. The flurry of mattb325's buildings; great mid-rise content. 6. Catalyst's T21s for the RHW which include crash barriers and stuff. 7. c.p.'s FAR industry. {---} There is probably more that I have overlooked but, as I said in the beginning, 2015 was a great year for new SC4 content, game-changing new content. This year is looking promising to: kingofsimcity's car parks, rsc204's SAM 11 which is an industrial street which could be released, simmer2's relots and amazing RRW lot work, draggable/clickable TULEPs coming in the NAM 35... I think the future of SC4 may be a lot more diagonal and FA RCI content, this will really break the grid and create the illusion of a curvy, more organic game. At any rate SC4 has never felt so fresh and interesting. Is this a new golden age for the game?

Working on trying to piece together this small section of my city. Lots of texture making and lotting required.

Hi guys a little update... @wasmic I haven't forgotten about your concerns from a few posts back...It is a valid concern. I have been out of my mind the last few days and have not been as chatty as...I should? Anyway, I have been feverishly working on a backward compatibility algorithm for existing stations. the goal, for now, is to allow the users to choose a depth (preferably -12m) and length (144m) of existing stations in the game. The premise is that if the station works now, it should work with my mod. The way it will work (tentatively) is that all ped paths leading into the station will stay the same but the stations tracks as well as the pedestrian paths that lead to them will be lowered. A 'spiral staircase' of ped paths will be dynamically laid to fill in the gap and prevent any 'slope too steep' errors. So far, we can support stations with: Ped entrances at ground level and down to -4m below ground Stations with multiple entrances Stations with multiple tracks (almost always...see below for exceptions) Stations with diagonal tracks Still working on: Stations with curved tracks Done (90 degree only) Finding stations that do not require these modifications May/Will not work on (exceptions): Modifying length of station tracks that are connected to other station tracks (they can still be lowered) Modifying unique buildings (at least for first release) Stations that ordinarily don't work (If it didn't work without this mod, it won't work with it) Other considerations...Don't know much about UI but I would like to allow users to modify the length of tracks and depth that they are drawn (as mentioned above). I would imagine that: Right now: Depth and lengths are hardcoded. Not too hard: Add dropdowns in mod options. Harder: Add UI box with dropdowns for length and depth whenever stations are clicked. Hardest/Not sure it's even a thing: dropdown for length and pageup/pagedn for depth. Also, officially, I am sorry for not having this thing released last week as I kinda promised. With all the wonderful feedback from the alpha, I realized how much more there was to do (secretly saying this is everyone else's fault but mine ). But please, remain patient and continue with the feedback so we can ensure this is done properly(ish) the first time. More when I get home from work...

And to complete things: The Lemmy Kilmister Grove (finished?) (entirely dedicated to hand made Rock 'n Roll):

Thanks for the nice comments! I'm currently working on finishing up the needed models for Simmer2's massive oil refinery. I focused on vehicles today so that department is almost complete. Now to just finish the pipe set and related models! Employees' cars Some more equipment Company-branded oil tanker (WIP)

Have you tried this one? Progress on Lowe's: 1 of 2 lots completed...

Ey gente, aqui Solid_Snake0911. A partir de hoy abriré este topico para publicar mis proyectos y QUIZAS algunos tip's para crear mis trabajos. Desde hace algunos años he tenido que ser autodidacta de todo esto del Bating para poder comprender y comenzar con edificios pequeños y la aplicación de los detalles y SOBRE TODO EL TEXTURIZADO. Creo que una de las cosas más dificiles de este pasatiempo tan genial, es el texturizado. Con los años aprendí a arreglarmelas por mi cuenta, sin embargo, caresco de conocimiento de sitios recomendados a los que pueda acudir para conseguir información, texturas, tutoriales o incluso, información sobre los edificios que me interesan modelar para Simcity 4. Hace casi 2 años comence un proyecto que por algunas dificultades (se daño mi computadora y tuve que esperar meses para comprar tan siquiera un disco duro nuevo) se retraso una y otra vez pero por fin podré adelantarles algo de lo que ya tengo terminado. Debo decir que en vista de lo dificil que se me hace trabajar con 3ds Max (por lo antigüedad de mi pc, tengo que sustituirla por completo y no tengo dinero ) aprendí a usar Google Sketchup para modelar, pero si uso 3ds Max para renderizar los modelos, a partir de alli no tengo problemas para agregar los modelos al juego. Antes de presentar mi adelanto del proyecto actual, me gustaria pedirle el mayor de los apoyos a toda la comunidad para ayudarme a continuar realizando mis trabajos a largo plazo. Ayuda con algunas paginas web de texturas (textures.com -no se si las politicas del foro me permita mencionar paginas web- ya la conosco), sitios web que me brinden información de arquitectura de los edificios (planos arquitectonicos o de cualquier tipo), algunos trucos, tutoriales o información para desarrollar mi agilidad para modelar, texturizar o crear nuevo material. De antemano les agredeceré su comprensión y colaboración en todo lo que me ayuden, de todas formas todo será con la finalidad de compartir con todos ustedes lo que pueda aprender y crear. Bueno sin nada más que agregar por ahora, les presento al... 120 Wall Street.

Is it already time to talk about NAM36? Well I think it is, remember my Industrial SAM mod... well it's very close to finished with working code for use as a new unique SAM set. I'm hoping that I should be able to get the first version into NAM 36. Most of the textures are complete, speaking of which, here's the RRW crossings I finished earlier: I just need to finalise the paths/T21s, create alternate rail crossings (Maxis) and tweak some RUL code. But it's 90% complete right now.

[Release] Fine Road Anarchy Hi everyone, I had enough. Sharp Junction Angles needed an update but Thaok wouldn't deliver so I decided to do my own version. I was sick hearing complains about Fine Road Tool straight slope not working with anarchy and to be honest the fix was trivial. Anyway I hope you will enjoy this new mod.

Hi! Still WIP, but I have been busy lately with Noir City North Harbour. Here are some pictures about it. 1.Small industrial area by the Port. (I'm using here the Heretic SeaPort Project lots as they were created mainly for this city. Those street canal bridges are reloted CAL-Goober's canal eye-candy street bridges. They are part of a Working in Progress future project, where I'll make some expansions for CAL's canal and the Wharf as well. That won't be that big like the PEG-CDK3-SP relotting project, but there will be some new addition, and I already fixed the straight 1+ piece, which is in conflict with Glenni's MEGA PropPack Vol.1, because both pack are using in one case the same propfamily ID, so depending on the load order you can either get the straight 1+ canal pieces and/or nice norwegian homes...) 2. Part of the residental area and a busy EL-Rail/Tram line (the two sides of the train tracks those are the still WIP Slop Walls, what I'm going to release soon.) 3. When I started this city about a year ago, this was the first interchange, and the first thing what was built in this city. In the left top corner there is the main train station of this city tile. Well the next city will get a bigger beauty after @Simmer2 will have finished his recent train station project. Nice work around there 4. The true WIP picture Well, there will be some intersection/interchange over here, where the 2x5 lane innercity highway meet the AVE/MHO section, and they will interact with two 4 lane OWRs. Well after NAM35 this will be fun Another Simmer2 creation is that nice train station. Well it's getting busier lately, due to the huge residental development in the surrondings. 5. Tracks from the main station to everwhere and an other industrial area at the other side of the city. 6. And again, the slop walls. This was the original idea, why I made them. 7. From an other angle about the goverment distric and my favourite hungarian building. I made this relot somewhen during the last spring and it was made for filling this spot. That's all for now. - Tyberius

:edit: Firstly, thank you to @Cyclone Boom for splitting this topic into it's own thread. This conversation came about on this thread originally, but we're way off topic now. I just wanted to add a quick preface here, since otherwise this whole thing is somewhat lacking in context. In short, I would like to propose and encourage discussion about the oft-difficult subject of maintaining works uploaded to the exchanges. I think there are real benefits to be had for the community if we can make such a process happen, along with keeping it as simple as possible for end users. Ideally, I feel the community should have the right to maintain the files on the exchanges for the betterment of all. To be absolutely clear, I'm not suggesting we change things we don't personally like for existing uploads. Here of some of the cases where I feel a little community tweaking should be allowed: Fixing broken or non-functioning mods. Adding/replacing missing or faulty Icons. Grouping files together in menus properly. Removing erroneous files that can cause problems. Updating transit stations, for example add LHD or RHD paths when they are missing. Or simply linking to the correct ones if the wrong ones are used. Additionally updating TSEC / Capacity values in line with latest standards. (I'm all too aware this is somewhat covered by SLURP currently, not looking to tread on anyone's toes here). Possibly updating Readmes/Documentation when it's not clear. Repackaging of Installers/.zip files to either a more efficient format or where one or the other is not ideal. For example, you've a file with one dat inside it, why on earth should that be in an installer? At the very least, it would be nice for the user downloading to have the option of a .zip file. p.s. IMHO, ClickTeam installers need to be eradicated from the face of the earth, they are terrible in every way. Anything else which can reasonably considered broken or undesirable where the change is not simply a "preference". Anyhow these are some of my ideas for situations where I feel as a community we can greatly improve the quality of the content offered to everyone. I'd love to know what you think. Hopefully this can also spark a debate, which may lead to some traction on this issue and change, in terms of how moving forwards the community manages it's #1 asset, content. Original discussion starts here: In the history of modding, two fundamentally flawed styles for growable buildings have been all too frequently used IMO. In the beginning, it was the copying of a lot's properties to create new lots. As much as anything, this is down to Maxis because the LE doesn't make it clear how to make a new buildings exemplar, so many people simply didn't know how else to do it. What should be done is to open PIM and create a new Buildings Exemplar before you make your lot, rather than copying the original. This issue leads to many problems. It's also possible to alleviate if you take the time to manually adjust the properties with another tool afterwards. The second one is the use of blank props on the lot, which are just there to satisfy the need for a buildings exemplar. In essence, it's the building that contains all the properties of the lot. It's totally fine to use them on ploppables, but should be avoided where possible for growables. Of course sometimes to make something work in a particular way, it's necessary to use them. I also get annoyed that so many people have made competing blank models for the purpose. Even in my very well organised plugins folder, I must have 50 or more separate blank props. I think the general dependency fear is behind this, "Oh I can't include this as a dependency, when I can just make another and have less deps". Honestly, if deps bother you, so does nice looking content. I'm always acutely aware of how many I'm using, but within reason, it's a necessary evil to make the best work you are capable of doing. In reality however, one such blank model is sufficient for every possible usage you could ever need. Not picking on anyone, but there is a pack of WMP blank props that illustrates this lack of understanding of how the game works at a fundamental level. You can have one model, but re-use it a thousand times with different exemplars. There is no such thing as a CS blank and a R$ blank, a model is just a model. How you utilise it is always down to the exemplar that links to it. So why on earth does one pack need countless duplicates of the same thing? Actually, you don't need a model at all, just null the RTK property, i.e. link to RTK 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, which causes no ill effects. Otherwise, re-use one of the existing blank props from the base game, Maxis included a couple, the most obvious ones on the park lots. I've often come across lots which used such blank props, but forgot to link to them as dependencies, giving brown boxes. Which is a little stupid when you consider everything you need to use one is already part of the Maxis files. I think that's why peer review of lots is such a useful idea, but in these days of dwindling numbers, there is a time/skills shortage to do it. Very often, having pointed out to someone a flaw with their work, you get the impression they think you are being mean or simply that it's too much effort to fix. On one hand, allowing all content regardless of quality, does lead to more items to download. But on the other, it also leads to much faulty content, or simply content that could be better modded, a recipe for user frustration. Once something's on the exchanges, that's usually the end of the matter. But if things can be fixed/improved, it would make much more sense to have a coordinated effort to get those fixes to everyone. So for example, say a transit stop has used the wrong paths, but the creator didn't fix it. it makes no sense that a number of more skilled users all separately make the same fixes. But despite their efforts, which is many times the work it should be, these fixes are still not available for the masses. Sure one could re-release the same lots as competing ones, but that's a bit crass. I guess it doesn't affect me, I'm confidently able to fix anything as I need. But I do sometimes wish when I fix something, there was a more reliable way of giving that fix to everyone in the process. Even those small number of fixes I've attached to the forums are not highly visible and get a very small number of downloads. Still there are no easy answers/solutions to these problems, especially considering how long the exchanges have been going. That said, I firmly believe that we can bridge the gap towards resolving these issues. A concerted push to make it easier for users to find, install and use mods, with assured quality, would have huge gains for the community. I fear many people come to the community, full of inspiration and motivation, only to get bogged down trying to make things work. To get where I have takes a strong will to get things right. For example, half the reason I don't enjoy playing anymore, is down to the fact that nothing finds it's way into my plugins folder until I've vetted, improved, fixed and made it as efficient as it can be. As a result, I can build the networks all day long, but when it's time to make a city, I still don't have enough content to really make my cities look the way I want them to. Every now and again I have a binge of adding content, but it's so much work. One day hopefully my efforts will have paid off and I'll just need to worry about new content. But starting as late as I did (3 years ago), I've spent so long just trying to catch up with 13 years of mods. Just as Tarkus mentioned recently (re: Gobias' mods), we as a community need to seriously think about how we are going to keep things going for the next 13 years. If we bury our heads in the sand and don't try to address these issues, we are hurting our own future. To my mind, one of the first and most important things to do here is to change the terms for uploading content. Within certain sensible guidelines, when a mod is uploaded, the community should have the right to amend/fix/distribute the content. It's the community that pays for it to be hosted and acts as it's caretaker. I'm not talking about changing props/textures or other aesthetic choices. But if something is clearly not working or stuffed full of redundant files, we should be able to fix it for the benefit of all.

Overview shot showing the immensity of the height (tower model old). Note: this is perspective view and not ingame angle

SC4D Admin here. I don't know entirely what is causing the database issue, but I do know that Jeronij watches things like this like a hawk. I haven't heard from him, but his usual modus operandi is to quietly fix things in the background, and let us know what happened once he's gotten the site back up and running. No doubt he is currently wrestling with our webhost. Jeronij is meticulous about setting up regular backups for the forum database (SimPeg's demise was the result of having no backup), so it's not a matter of if, but when we'll be back. -Tarkus

A commercial zone for my next episode of my LP < and yes i love the big decal ^^ >

Thank you all!! While working on that project I whipped up another item that is missing in SC4...old style break water concrete blocks.....piles of them and in MMP format to boot! So if enough people like them I will release them. Here are a few pics showcasing them. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Simmer2

I think it is my turn to reply to this thread.

Hello all. Here is a new project for everyone to enjoy. Coming soon to a screen near you The whole project is designed to be MMP friendly. You can use anything as base (as you can see from the pics) No base texture for maximum flexibility and of course you are not going to have the infamous water bug with these lots. I call it SM2 Aqueduct (Big water pipe). However you can use it to simulate the transportation of any fluid if you wish. It is a 2 meter wide pipeline. I have 18 pieces already made. Here is a list. 1) Straight 2) Straight variation2 3) Diagonal 4) Diagonal variation2 5) 90 degree bend 6) T 7) Cross 8 ) Straight overhang 9) Diagonal overhang 10) Diagonal to straight right 11) Diagonal to straight left 12) Diagonal to straight Y right 13) Diagonal to straight Y left 14) 2 pipe pump house (pressure booster) 15) 3 pipe pump house (pressure booster) 16) Underground 17) 1 tile bridge (overhang) 18) 2 tile bridge (overhang) 1 2 3 4 Simmer2/Nick

Toothless Stitch, Thin White Duck and matias93, thank you very much Finnbhennach: I'll try to do that, thank you Quick preview test. I did some modifications on Hearst Tower, including transparent glass where you can see the floors. Tests and reflections are nothing but tests, so I'll improve them later. The weird top will be modified soon as well.

Cori's Water Shoppe by CorinaMarie@Simtropolis A picture catalogue of every known Water Mod for SimCity 4 Note: I did not create any of these mods. This thread is simply to display each water 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 Side Water Shoppe NEW! – March 2022 (Pictures and in topic Downloads of the Water's Edge for every Water Mod) Cori's Rock Shoppe (Linkys to and Pictures of every Rock 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) New Information Many of the water mods have Maxis nuclear blue sides. I've now written a tutorial showing how to fix those. See here: ---------- 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. I do have Ennedi's HD Sandstone1 Brown Rock Mod installed, but otherwise my game is vanilla. Let's start with the default Maxis blue water: And here I'm showing the underwater view. I hope I've designed this so all aspects of the water mods will show their various colors based on elevations. Water Mods by dogfight contains 3 Cold Blue: Marshy: Muddy Lake: Joergs Water Mod 2 contains 10 Black Sea: Bloody Nile: Caribbean Dream: Emerald Isles: Icy Arctic: Mediterranean: Muddy River: Northern Pacific: Rivers of Lava: Yellow Puke: Mas71 Water MODs (v1.0) contains 5 Waters_100: Waters_200: Waters_300: Waters_400: Waters_500: PEG WATER MOD Brigantine: SHK Brigantine 2.0 contains 8 BluGrn: ClrBlue: DkBlue: Emerald: LtBlue: Orig: Silt: Teal: PEG WATER MOD Clipper: PEG WATER MOD Windjammer: PEG WATER MOD Hawaiian Holiday: PEG WATER MOD Crystal Lagoon: SMP Teal Water Mod: SMP Paradise Blue Water Mod: Runamuck's HD Water MOD v1: ELSHA WATERMOD: ^ This one looks vastly different depending on zoom. Realistic Water v1 by Joerg and Teirusu: Drunken Water Mods, The Blues and Greys. In HD! contains 6 Blue1: Blue2: Blue5: Grey: Grey1: Grey3: Ocean River MOD final 1.1 contains 6 with 4 variations each This one goes beyond the typical single .dat file. Be sure to check out the Readme.html file in the download. For the following pics I did install the TerrainProperties.dat and the WaterSurface_256.dat. There are also 4 other files for blending. I skipped those in favor of brevity. DeepSea_5F5F00: DeepSea_669966: DeepSea_669999: ShallowWater_5F5F00: ShallowWater_669966: ShallowWater_669999: Gobias HD Water Pack 1 (v1.0) contains 3 All 3 of the Gobias Water Mod Packs have two variations tweaked for use with either Lowkee or Gobias Terrain Mods. There's also a Berner Oberland Shore Patch for two different altitudes. Check out the Readme files in the download. For the following pics I used the GB version. GB Bodensee: GB Seto Inland Sea: GB Staten Island: Gobias HD Water Pack 2 (v1.0) contains 3 (see comments under pack 1 above) GB Cape Cod Bay: GB Caribbean: GB Mississippi River: Gobias HD Water Pack 3 (v1.0) contains 3 (see comments under pack 1 above) GB Chicago River: GB Inside Passage: GB Loch Lomond: LK_StarterSet (v1.0) Coastal Modd Ok, so this one contains: 10 Offshore Textures 14 Inshore Textures 9 Foreshore Textures 6 Beaches Be sure to check out the Readme file included in the download. Since this could yield a zillion combinations I simply picked the Offshore and Inshore .dats which have corresponding color names to illustrate here. DkBlue: DkCyan: Emerald: Green: Ice: Overcast: Steel: Tropic: Turbid: Ultramarine: Sudden Valley Terrain Mod (v1.0) SV Water.dat only: Berner Oberland Terrain Mod (v1.0) BO Water and Shore Mod.dat only: Tobermory Style Water VERII: Edmonton Water Texture VERII: Sharp Teal Water Texture: Tobermory Style Water VERI: Minnetonka Style Water: Pennsylvania Style Water: BBlue Water Texture: Tropical Style Water Modd: PEG Stream Kit Water: Oppie Canal Water: Green Water: Auckland Water Texture: Purple Water Texture: Bright Blue Water v2: Japan Water Pack contains 5 blendedjapan: japan01: japan02: japan03: japan04: Barbados Water Pack contains 8 barbados01: barbados02: barbados03: barbados04: barbados05: barbadosblend2: barbadosblend: barbadosblendblur: Water Pack 2 contains 13 Baltimore: Blood: Chesapeake: Fiery-Darker: Fiery-Lighter: Flamesrock: Medium Blue: Metallic Grey: Navy Blue: Tropical: Venice: Wintry: Yellow: Edmonton Style Water: Port Huron Style Water: Muddy Grey Water: Dark Green Water: Bright Blue Water: San Fransisco Style Water: Rocky Bottom Water Texture: Timotheus4 Water Pack contains 12 algae: ^ Same as: Algae Water drkmud: ^ Same as: Dark Mud Water embrx02: ^ Same as: Emerald Brownish Try Two emerald brownish: ^ Same as: Emerald Brownish Try One Fadedblue: ^ Same as: Faded Blue Water hotpink: ^ Same as: Hot Pink Water muddy: ^ Same as: Muddy Water natu-rals: ^ Same as: Natural Water reddx01: ^ Same as: Reddish Water richblu02: ^ Same as: Rich Blue Water ukwx01: ^ Same as: UK Water X01 ukwx02: ^ Same as: UK Water X02 The following is HD so you will need to have Hardware Rendering or you will get CTD. Water Mod contained in VIP Terrain Mod by Cédric. (Attached to this post on Devotion.) Note: In addition to the Water Mod there are also Beach, Rock, and Terrain mods. The following pic has all 4 installed: ^ Thanks to @Indiana Joe for mentioning this one. So, when peeps ask: Which water mod should I get?, show them this thread so they can compare and decide. P.S. If I've missed any water mods, feel free to post a linky to their download and I'll get them screenshotted and edit them into this post. I plan to make similar threads for Beach, Terrain, and Tree mods. You can already get your rocks off here. (I might take a bit of a break tho. This is a tedious and boring task I've set for myself.) I hope everyone makes good use of my reference threads. Attached is the medium size city tile I've used for these pics that way you can make your own with the exact same location. City - Water Mods.sc4 Return to SimCity 4 Ultimate Guide: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/762954-SimCity-4-ultimate-guide/

Hello guys, I've made some progress these days in my new Dutch region, it goes really slow because I have to create lots and it takes a lot of time...anyway I think this new Dutch region looks more realistic that my previous CJ, Bassen... what do you guys think ? # This is the area around the central station...as you can see it is not finished yet... # I need to create some lots to add more details to these zones, for example some fences to separate the train tracks... # Okay, this is how the region looks at this point...I taking inspiration from cities like Leeuwarden or Groningen (Where my family come from) but I added some big rivers because I want to create all kind of ports in this region... I hope you like it and I see the next time

I'm not sure if it's because I haven't been looking hard enough but it seems that there is a serious lack of FA-based filler pieces. I randomly decided to whip up this quick set of test lots for the modular complexes challenge. This is a set of seasonal FA2-compliant diagonal fillers that joins with the Maxis open grass areas. Basically, you can build bowtie shaped parks now. Still in super beta right now though. Considering a plaza based variant for those that use the no sidewalk grass mods as well. I wish there was an easier way to vary up seasonal trees without creating like 10 different lots with unique trees though.

Work on Trier Tower V2. Unlike Regal Theater this one is just a matter of opening the files in max and redoing the materials. The original was made in an earlier version of max that didn't have the arch & design material and didn't have the same types as lights that the current lighting rig uses. So the materials have all been recreated to have reasonably appropriate physical characteristics. I've also been tweaking the colors and the textures getting them to match the original version closer (once the new materials and lighting were incorporated the colors didn't look the same even though they hadn't changed). I'll keep on tweaking them trying to get them closer. The goal is to make it looks the same as before but with better materials and lighting quality. However that does exclude some aspects of the original, mainly the super white infill panels and some of the reflections. Except for materials covering very small areas (like wires for example) you should never make a material with a pure white or a pure black color. If you want something to be pure white you should really make it light grey because pure white objects don't exist in nature. You really shouldn't go higher than like 0.8 which is like a white piece of paper or fresh snow. But even if I made the panels pure white they wouldn't be as bright as the original because they're behind glass. I also can't duplicate the reflections of the original glass because of the material type originally used. But the original glass/interior was pretty messed up. When I looked at the model I found that the original was missing a bunch of floors near the bottom of the tower and you couldn't even notice. To make a long story short the original did things that made it look really visually sexy but physically unnatural, and I'd like to make it more natural looking while still keeping as much as the sexyness as I can. I'd also like to, if possible, make it clearer to understand what the facade is. The facade is the grid of windows, but some of the windows are opaque. So some of the patterns on the facade comes from the window blinds, but most of it is from some of the windows being filled in. I know a lot of people thought that it was all window blinds. When I'm done tweaking this I'll just use the same material settings for Trier Station.

I don't wish to drag off-site issues here, but as this topic is being discussed here, and is a useful discussion for the community at-large to have, I am going to respond to these points. First of all, the decision to reinstate the files was a very tough call, and the upper-level staff (Admins and Global Moderators) had a fairly intense debate about it for about two-and-a-half months, before coming to a decisive vote in favor of reinstatement. We followed due process by attempting to contact the creator, to confirm that this seemingly out-of-character action was really intended, and offering to handle all support for the file, if that was the rationale for the deletion. If he had simply moved everything over to the STEX, or he had sent us a PM asking for the files to be removed, those would certainly be disappointing scenarios for us, but I can guarantee you that we wouldn't be having this discussion now. I might add that the STEX does not have a delete button for files accessible to regular members ("Hide" is the closest one can get). It's the same with posts. Lock functionality was removed from the STEX sometime in 2011. We are planning on changing the LEX permissions as well, to find that balance between respecting creators' rights, and preventing someone from damaging the community. The two proposals have been to either remove non-Admin access to the delete button, or to have it lead to a deletion request form, that would require the uploader to at least give a heads up as to why they are removing the files. Lock functionality is planned to remain accessible, however--it can have the same basic effect as deletion, but it removes the potential for bad links that full-on deletion creates. Getting back to the point I made in the middle of the last paragraph, I do believe that someone taking the course of action that this creator did is far more damaging to the community than our counteraction. There was actually one file that referred to the reinstated files as a dependency, and there were actually some Cities: Skylines modders that were referring to one of the terrain mods as a dependency, as the textures, once extracted, could be converted into a form readable by that game. Additionally, if we were to support this deletion, there are two rather ugly ramifications that would result. First off, let's look at a hypothetical scenario in which another creator decides to pull a similar "hit and run", and decides to delete a dependency pack that is referenced by dozens, if not hundreds, of files by other creators across multiple exchanges. The assets of innocent uploaders, not involved in the deletion, are now broken en masse, subsequently rendering a wide swath of content unusable. Based on the general trends of the community, it would stand to reason that some of those files would be from uploaders who are no longer active. If we strictly follow the interpretation of creators' rights, those files cannot be fixed, and have to remain broken in perpetuity. Is that acceptable? Any game modding community is inherently content-driven, and is maintained by the continued availability of content, and sustained and expanded by the creation of new content. The reason that SimCity 4, a game released in 2003, still has an active community in 2016 is because of the massive amount of content available, and there's still new content being developed. If people start cutting bricks out of the wall without replacing them, eventually the whole wall will collapse, and we won't have a community anymore. Secondly, once Pandora's jar is opened (the "box" is a misconception), it can't be resealed. If you're a creator who doesn't want to deal with your files anymore, the "hit and run" is just about the worst thing you can do, because you've instantly created a ton of curiosity, and multi-page threads pop up with everyone trading conspiracy theories (i.e. "Paul is dead", "he's in witness protection"--both actually proposed in the SC4D thread on the subject, by the way). More worrisome, the files aren't going to go away--people still have them, and because of that, there will be immediate demand for an underground market. I have no doubt that there's been tons of PMs flying around since January, and on sites where there's less concern about this sort of thing (i.e. Reddit, which was okay with full-on plugin dumps run until I repeatedly complained), people have been even more brazen. It's long been established that the Dirktator made a promise to Will Wright himself not to support such a black market, and while no one on staff at SC4D has personally taken such an oath, we've respected and enforced that accord. In that "seedy underbelly", distribution is now at the whims of people who have absolutely no concern for creators' rights, who don't care whether or not the creator deleted the files. They aren't going to care about following due process by contacting the creator, or allowing for a waiting period and community discussion before taking action. The "seedy underbelly" also isn't going to provide technical support, which is pretty important for terrain mods, as they can cause CTDs if not installed properly. And since the terrain mods in question are HD, they're incompatible with Software Rendering. Some newbie pulling the loose .dat files out of some random person's Dropbox folder without the documentation will have no idea, and all the CTDs will turn them off the content that nourishes this community, if not off the game entirely. If we don't draw the line now and start moving in a more pragmatic, accessible direction, it's game over. We're only going to see more of these tricky judgement calls where long-held community principles come into conflict with one another in unexpected ways. Someone has to take responsibility if the creator can't or won't. I'd rather it be the sites that have fostered this community for over a decade than some fly-by-night randoms on a file sharing service. -Tarkus

Here's the small town of Degelman Crossing. A typical town you're likely to see in the Canadian Prairies.

Downtown Heyden.