jimmymac

After some thought I am going to be moving this cj over to SC4devotion I've not had a fantastic time on here with the CJ section, it seems that no matter how much you put in, the update is gone from the first page in a matter of moment and then completely forgotton about. it just seems to be doing better over there in terms of responses, so from now on it can be reached here Update 10 will be my last update here and the CJ will continue from update 11 over there. Thanks to everyone who did reply and follow the cj thusfar, I hope you will understand this choice and follow along with me over there.

Nardo69: I know what you mean about the updates, I've started this on SC4Devotion too, if i get another update that goes the same way as the last one did then I may move it over there perminantly, as it doing pretty well over there. As for the railways, you'll be glad to know that I revisted the area and completely addressed all railways crossings with either underpasses or underpasses and that includes the highways. Cleaner475: I'm glad you like the look of Bedford, cos after the journey to it we are finally here. I hope it's been worth the wait. Jacqulina: Glad you liked the pics, sadly Bedford wont be as picturesque as Bedford County, which rather oddly is exactly what I wanted from it. sc4portugal: Firstly, welcome to Invermere Valley. I hope you enjoy the coming update. Voulpiotus: Again, welcome to Inveremere Valley. As for the curved road, it is a puzzle piece that comes with the latest Nam Update 10 - Welcome to Bedford With our journey through the towns of Bedford County completed we finally come to the "Emerald City" as it is known by it's residents or "That Ugly Blight" as it is known by the residents of Bedford County. To start with I drew out a rough outline of streets and avenues (using the new NAM GLR Avenues) I wanted Bedford to follow a non rigid grid like pattern. i.e. Not be completely gridded, but use blocks like in many major cities. At this stage however I made a mistake that would later come back to haunt me and I used normal 2 ways roads for the streets within the city. I then plopped the Blam tornado tower, the Blam BAST and the Petrona's towers to form the 3 landmark towers in the CBD, and also to help boost land values. Next came the raised park and then finally the zoning could begin. Below shows the very first batch of zoning that I did in the CBD, this was done in 1 sitting of about 6 hours. Above shows the park area taken from the west, leading into the main part of the business district. Above shows the core of the business district and the northern most side of the city. The same shot but pulled back slightly to encompass the park and Park St GLR station. Every city needs a good city hall, and with all the money he had available the mayor of Bedford made sure his was one of the best. The north eastern most corner of the CBD and, the City Hall and City hall GLR station. Two new buildings go in via plop to help throw the land value up in a new area. Also I wanted them in here to form the core of my business district. Taken from the eastern side of the CBD, a shot showing the excellent diagonal parks by MAS'71. Finally an overall of the whole area as it stands at the end of this update. I hope you all enjoyed the introduction to Bedford, and I will see you all next week for update 11 hopefully.

Well only 1 reply since my last update, I guess I'll start moving to weekly updates now and see if this garners a little more interest. We're moving into the last update before going to Bedford, this will deal with a little project that I took on which was suggested by Nardo69, which was to alter all the bridges. This update will feature as many before and after shots as possible, so without any further ado, lets get to it. jplumbley: I'm glad you like the pic, sadly no matter how hard i tried (including making them historical) the game decided that it was going to upgrade them. They now look totally different, but not neccessarily out of place. You will see what happens in a later update. Update 9 - The Bridges Of Bedford County First Bridges The Above shot shows the bridges before, the below shot shows them after. Next Bridge I don't have a good before shot, but you can see how this bridge origionally came back onto the land after crossing the small river, below is how it looks now Next Bridge No before shot for this one sadly but the replaced one fits much better. Next Bridges Above shows the bridge and tunnel as I origonally had them, I didn't like the tunnel that much, so I decided to change them and make a rural route bridge and a highway bridge running side by side, it turned out pretty good IMHO. Next Bridges This was the origonal series of bridges from old to new Port Talbot. Below are the new bridges. Then finally we have an overall of the Bayridge area. And finally the Bayside area. Finally a region shot of everything so far. (click for the full version, again it's 3 meg in size, so beware). Ok, here is the end of update 9. I'm going to move to weekly updates from now on, and will return next friday with update 10. The first part of Bedford.

Thanks for all the kind comments and advice that I have recieved so far. I can't believe i've only been going for 5 days and am already up to update number 8. So lets not keep time a wasting, lets get to it..... Update 8 - Reststops, retouches and overviews. In an earlier update we saw the beginning of the highway reststop, well here it stands in all it's finished glory Overall of the entire area around the reststop, including it's positioning on the highway. I decided to retouch the wall near the mine, I agreed with the comments that were made, it was too bright, I may still change it again, depends what people think. Just a quick eye candy shot of the twin bridges and the mountainside railroad leading to it. Finally an overall of the area showing the 3 towns finished so far. Sadly I couldn't fit the industry in, but when I get the area done I will to a nice mosaic of the area. So ends update 8. As as precurser to update 10 onwards, here is another teaser of Bedford. Get in there quick whilst we still have rooms See you tomorrow for update 9. Hope you enjoyed the update.

Mulefisk: Welcome to Invermere Valley first of all. I agree with you on the combination of the trees and the shadows, it makes the forest look that little more real imo. Now for the true shadows wait till we get to Bedford, some of the towers there cast a great shadow onto the streets. Nardo69:In general I don't have that many yellow boarder pics, only when im doing something on pause, like detailing a layout plan, but i will try to avoid them as much as possible cos i think they are ugly myself too. I wasn't aware of the control on slopes thing, so i will remember that for the future, thanks. I had to edit that slope slightly to fit in the car park, so it made it steeper, it was 1 thing that I just had to overlook in the end, because I wanted to get the ice cream shop at the top of the hill in too. I wanted to keep the station off of the tracks as it get a lot of freight traffic through there, so it could keep on the main line, sadly you are right it resulted in 2 crossings, I may end up going back and changing that as it gets on my nerves too.The pond in that picture was a combination of Jeronij's canal pieces and then i used some of the BSC park pieces to make the gates etc, in the end it ended up looking really good, so i kept it. I appriciate the feedback and suggestions, at the end of the day I wouldn't have tried the bridge thing without a gentle nudge in the right direction

It's that time of the day again, time for another update. This one is going to be a pretty big one, around 14-15 pictures and a lot of detail, so pretty much a nice bumper update for all my citizens. Hope you all enjoy it, but first of all, lets get the replies covered. Jayo: Glad you liked Old Port Talbot, it was a fun town to delope. I always wanted to do a old fishing town after going to Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia a few years ago and now I finally got my chance. Schulmanator: Welcome to Invermere Valley, I hope you enjoy you stay and the coming update. Update 7 - Building New Port Talbot In the previous update we covered the construction of Old Port Talbot. It was one of the origional 4 towns around the basin, of course, as Bedford grew so did the area around the basin. With the inception of the ferry terminals (one in Bayside and one near Port Talbot) it was inevitable that some commerce would build around both. What happened around the Port Talbot terminal however was not expected, over the course of the next 5 years, a town literally sprang up from nothing around the ferry terminal. Taking the name New Port Talbot it took none of the quantness of it's namesake. In this update we will go through the complete construction of New Port Talbot. So lets get to it. Above we see the Port Talbot ferry terminal, along with the wharf market and fishing boat charters. The entry into New Port Talbot, the road comes around the basin from Old Port Talbot and then over the river into town. (Note, the bridges have now changed, we will see these in a later update, but I will add a teaser at the end to show how they changed) First I started by constructing the main street, just a few shops, nothing too big, exactly what a small town should be. It was nice to see the radio station grow in there, because it adds to the look of the town quite nicely, as all the origional towns don't have one. Next was the second part of the main street, this time the other side of the ferry terminal, nice to see some fast food joints turning up within walking distance of the ferry terminal too. Now the addition of the train station and the final extension of the main street, this time to join the previous two areas together and add a small stretch of shops around the mass transit systems (ferry and train). A wide angle shot showing the above shots in context to each other. Now it's time to add the residential around the town we will start with a little estate in the north east. A little bit of forestation before unpause and then this happens, man they move quickly. A zoom in of the estate when everyone is in and a little extra work on the bit in the middle. Another few hillside houses, paused again to allow me to develope And some more, it should be noted that not all these zones remained due to some build issues. Next I played johnny appleseed again and forested the area in and then unpaused. People already moving in to the hillside home, good god, they seem to like living on steep slopes. Ditto with the other part too, they moved in quickly and it wasn't long before someone built a mansion in there. An overall picture of the last two updates, showing Old Port Talbot in all it's classic glory and New Port Talbot in all it's sprawling newness. Finally we have a region shot showing work done so far, same as before, click for a bigger one (it's 3 meg though, so beware) Now as promised above, here is a comparison shot of the old and new style of bridges for one area, tell me which one you think looks better in the comments please. Firstly the origional style. And secondly the new version. Well thats all for today, I hope you all enjoyed this mega update of Shaping Invermere Valley. See you all tomorrow for update 8 and 9, the final updates of Bedford County for the moment.

Nardo69: Firstly, welcome to Invermere Valley. Secondly, thanks for the advice regarding the bridge and other parts. I took it onboard and redid all the bridges in Bedford County today, I will put up pictures of them in update 9 to show how it all looks. I had already changed the retaining wall as I thought the same as you; too bright. Unfortunately doing the bridges had some undesired effects on other areas, so I had to change them too, but for the better in my opinion. I hope to see you around here again soon Granto93: You wont have long to wait my friend, we get to Bedford in update 10, which deals with how I set about creating the city you see in the teaser above, I hope it lives up to expectations.

OK, time for update 6. I've been fairly generous with the updates over the last couple of days, but i won't be able to keep updating twice a day for much longer, as I only have 11 updates worth of pictures, and I don't want to go to a live game by game update type if i can help it. So without any delay, lets get to it. Update six is going to deal with the creation of a new town, Old Port Talbot, I will sometimes include updates like this, just to show how I go about doing this, so this is going to be a more step-by-step update than the others. Update 6 - Creating Port Talbot We start on the hill where I want to build the town, Obviously maxis buildings wont go with this one, so I'm specifically looking for one or two types of building, so a lot of bulldozing will have to occur. I also wanted a few small shops to spring up in order to create that "small town" atmosphere. At the release of the pause button, everyone swarmed in look at all those trucks. Almost perfectly I get the houses I wanted right away. I bet that wont happen ever again. And there we go, a nice hillside community, every house is 19th century wooden boards, exactly what I wanted. Next was the addition of a nice rural fire station which wouldn't look out of place alongside the 19th century houses. We don't want any forest fires now do we. Next was the addition of the actual "Port" of Port Talbot. Using Cobb's seaport village set, the building of this was very hit and miss, so I didn't include the step-by-step for this bit, lets just say that what you see there took around 45 minutes to create. Here is an overall of what we've just done, including the hillside village, the port itself and the rural fire station at the top of the hill. Of course, a quaint little seaport village like that is likely to become a tourist trap, so along the coastal route I constructed a viewing area, and of course, anywhere where tourists are will be people willing to take every cent they have, so in went the fast food restaurant and of course, everyone needs gas, so in went the gas station. And last but not least, the overall including the village and viewing area. Here ends update 6. In update 7 we will go through the construction of the other ferry terminal and the town around it; New Port Talbot as well as seeing a region shot of how it looks to that point. Comments, questions and tips are welcome, I will only learn from advice. Till tomorrow I hope everyone enjoyed today's updates.

Everything looks so pretty, a great update as always. Now I have a question, those condos, I remember seeing them when I was hammering through the japanese BAT sites, but i cannot remember who made them, by any chance could you answer that for me?

Well, it's time for another update, but before we get to that, lets mow through the replies Patriots_1228: That bloody grid!!!!!! lol. I took all the shots for updates 1-4 in one sitting and had the grid on for them, in the other updates it's mostly off, except in a couple where I was too stupid to remember to turn it off. As for the shadows, it's a mod by simtropiaproductions and is available right here on the STEX. It certainly makes the game look very different, especially in big cities, when you can end up with a street or avenue in total darkness, makes it look very realistic IMO. Also, I hope you didn't mind me turning you into an evil entrepreneur of the lumber industry, lol. Cjah: Welcome to Invermere Valley, I hope you enjoy your stay . The snow mod is part of the Italia ground texture mod by BSC, it's improved upon even more by using the above listed shadows mod, as it makes the snow look deeper in places. The region was always going to be a challenge, but the mountains are going to be one hell of a interesting ride once I get there. As for the coal mines, I wasn't sure which one you were talking about, so I just looked for them all, if you want any of them they are as follows: The first one in the pictures is the BRT Coal Mine by BSC available here (you need to register at SC4Devotion for this one). The larger of the two mines in the second picture is the BLam HIDP Bistagne Mine Pit 2 by Fukuda available right here on the STEX The Smaller of the two mines in the second picture is the Harden Industries Coal Mine by Simgoober which is also available right here on the STEX Jplumbley: I'm glad your still liking the outcome, it will be interesting to see how people view Bedford when we finally get there, seeing as it will be completely different to what we are seeing right now. Again, like patriots I hope you didn't mind becoming an evil entrepreneur of the lumber industry Jayo: Welcome to Invermere Valley, feel free to pull up a log cabin and stay a while OK, with the repies out of the way, lets get onto the update, this time we will be revisting some areas which I didn't like the look of that much, and changing a few things. It will be a shorter update again, as I plan to update again later tonight. So without further ado, lets get to it... Update 5 - Revisting Bayridge/Bayside Seeing a niche in the area that had yet to be exploited a development company stepped in with the offer to build a new estate of houses in the area, this recieved a mixed response. The outcome of which was this, some nice 19th century houses in the forest. I know that I mentioned the ferry terminal in update 1 but I never showed it, so here it is, the Bayside ferry terminal. We will see the other terminal the other side of the bay in update 7. After producing several dozen aircraft they realised that they had no way to get rid of them so a quick phonecall to Darmok and Amerikaner architects was all it took to get a nice redesign of the plant to include an outgoing runway. Overall they were impressed with the redesign of the plant, but sadly that elation didn't last long however, as despite multiple patitions froms the citizens of Bayside, the coking plant was finished and started churning out thick black smoke into the perfect skies of Bayside. Due to the coal pits moving on, a bunch of citizens moved away from Bayridge, this resulted in the county court having to close due to lack of funding and the the town hall falling into disrepair. It wasn't until a kindly benefactor stepped in with an offer to help rebuild that the town was able to do anything about it. The "mystery" benefactor also donated some money to help develope the houses around the area, oddly enough they asked for nothing more than the estate to be named "Paradise Falls" To this day no one knows the true identity of the benefactor. Thought many speculate that she lives in the house known as "The Kabin" So ends update 5. I will be updated again later tonight with number 6, which will include the creation of a whole new town, which I will go through in a semi step-by-step format. Be sure to check back around 9.30pm Uk time tonight. Oh, and one last thing before we leave. So far it has only been mentioned by name and not seen, so to prove that it does actually exist, here is the city nicknamed "The Emerald City" and the cause of all the problems in Bedford County: Bedford.....

I've been running Vista ultimate 64 bit edition since release day, i've had no problems, in my opinion it runs better than it did on xp, for me at least anyways

ditto here too, keeps telling me that it's going to notify the webmaster about the problem. It only happens intermittently, but it's getting more and more common for me now.

Well as promised, here is the second update of the day, this time I'm going to show you all the darker side of Bedford County, As I said in update 1, the industry has always been a problem in the Bayside area, and sadly it's no different elsewhere in Beford County, so without further ado, lets get to it with... Update 4 - The other side of the coin As soon as they heard that there was pristine forests open for the taking, Plumbley Inc. moved in and quickly constructed a sawmill, the deforestation is already having a terrible effect on the area, and the residents were quick to complain, sadly it fell on deaf ears.... Seeing how easy it was for Plumbley Inc, Patriots Ltd were quick to take over the old logging mill and bring it back into working order, claiming another piece of forest for themselves a war for trees soon began between the two, and if there is one thing that Bedford County has lots of, it's trees. As you may recall, the old Bayridge mine was closed down when the seam was used up, unfortunately at the time they didn't have the ability to check deeper, the miners soon moved in again when they saw that there was coal for the taking and built a reinforced route up the hill for the trucks to use and before long another war was about to begin.... The war for coal was a particularly nasty one, as both companies claimed equal share of the same seam, one building each side of the hill, competing to find the most coal they began to slowly mine the hill dry once again. Further along highway 40 the first signs of tourism began to raise their head as a highway reststop was constructed, as of yet unfished the proposed plans included a motel, restaurant, gas station and multiple viewing platforms.... things weren't looking so good for the poor towns around the basin.... Here ends update 4 for now, however I have other pictures to show, both of which show progress so far, the first is a far out shot from within SC4 (minus the trees, as they do not show at the max zoom for some reason, but you get an idea of how things are progressing And finally, here is the region shot as it stands at the end of this update. You can click it for a full size region shot, but it is 3 meg in size, so be warned. Ok, here ends update 4. In update 5 we will revist both Bayside and Bayridge and I will walk you through some of the changes that I made in order to make them a little more rural. Expect update 5 tomorrow at around 7pm uk time. Please, comments and questions and tips are more than welcome, I don't bite

Darmok: I'm glad that you feel that it's going well, as I say I had yours, jackys and dedgrens cj's as inspiration, so it means a lot to get good feedback. As for the aircraft factory, it will be revisted in a later update and upgraded, the results of which wont be good news for the poor people of Bayside. Thank for you reinforcing something that I already had in my mind, part of me wants to jump in and start building Bedford, but I'm currently preparing pictures for updates 8, 9 and 10 so I will definately keep going the route I am going with it and make way to Bedford in good time and let everything flow as it should. Ok, i've tried to rely to most comments when i see them, so there aren't anymore replies at this stage, so on with the update. Update 3 - Bedford county In the last couple of updates I have covered two of the origional 4 towns in bedford county, but not really touched upon the county itself, so today I will show some of the areas around Bayridge. The above shot shows the entire township of Bayridge (if you compare this to the above image you will see that a few things have changed, I mostly lowered the density on the houses and the shops to prevent tower growth. I will revist Bayridge again in a later update for a few more edits) Bayridge Mine was closed down when the seam dried up around 15 years ago, now the old mine and trail has been converted and has become a pleasent nature walk, the mine sits just off of rural route 9 on the east side of Bayridge The above shot shows the observation tower at the top of the trail, the trail passes through the mountain and uses the old mine lifts to get to the summit and the view points. Bayridge county camp grounds is a huge hit with the city folk of Bedford, they love coming down for the weekend to fish in the river and get attuned with nature. The above shot shows the entire area which I have covered in this update, including rural route 9, the camp grounds, highway 40 and something else which we will be introduced to in update 4. Now for the next bit of news, as this was a somewhat shorter update, I will also be updating again later with number 4, which will introduce the dark side of Invermere Valley (insert cackling laughter here). So look for update 4 at around 9-9.30 pm Uk time tonight.

Here is one from an upcoming update in my cj Shaping Inveremere Valley, it shows a small rural campground in the middle of the countryside.