Nardo69

Hello to All! In the last update I wrote: Quote Since all better alternatives are under construction at the moment I chose Edmonton rapids for the slope sections. One of those "better alternatives under construction" are the first two PW by knapp - first because he plans to do more of them! . And because I am not really completely innocent in getting knapp working on them I am one of his beta testers for his new PW. I already showed one screen shot in the "Show Us Your Rivers And Creeks" thread, and since I have some more of them as well as it really fits to the last update I thought let's make your mouth water a nice update. BTW: Some Statistics Anyone? Just before this update I checked Urland on the four places I am publishing it: Code: Forum: Posts Hits Starting Date SC4Devotion 706 40041 24.03.2007 Simforum 553 36287 25.03.2007 Simtropolis old 1120 31969 06.06.2005 Simtropolis new 226 21798 12.06.2009 --------------------------------------------- Total: 2605 130095 I would like to say Thank You to all who ever clicked Urland and maybe even posted a comment here. You made me keep going on - since almost six years! Update 27: New Water Anyone? Let's begin where we finished last time - I just planted some trees around the creek. Doesn't look too bad - just a bit ... static, the water doesn't flow, isn't it? Well, with the help of my friend knapp from the SimForum let's change that a bit! Isn't this better? The surface isn't as smooth as with PEG's lake tahoe - a creek always has some waves, such a smooth homogeneous surface is really limited to lakes on a day without any wind breething. Some closer details. The combination of the creek texture for the slow flowing parts of the creek and the wildwater texture for the rapids really do the trick. From another angle. The transition between smooth flowing and rapids are a bit tricky but knapp said he's working on transition pieces. Meanwhile I need to get used to these great PW pieces as they behave a bit different than the ones I used to use. Nice, isn't it? I can almost hear the water gurgling there! A last closeup before we go on to calmer waters. Not too long ago I began that small creek on the map of Heimsheim. With PEGs Tahoe PW. A small creek with some meadows in a valley surrounded by woods. So far so good ... ... but don't you think this looks better, too? A small creek with some small rapids, meadows, flowers everywhere - can you smell the spring? This is also my first time using Girafe's new trees - the non seasonal ones as the map is already filled for 2/3 with the old "evergreen trees". Nice models, well done as usual but I need to get sued to them - IMHO they look more mediterrean rather than middle European. Well, I need to get warm with them I think... The shores are also a bit tricky but I discussed this issue already with knapp. That's what beta testing is for ... That's it for today - hope you liked it. Have fun! Bernhard

Okay, Here's the first of the old updates. Some of you might know the pictures, it was my not really successful entry at the First SC4Devotion Thematic Competition. I always intended to show it as an update in Urland, too, but due to some reason I never did. Anyway, here is: Update 17: Kanneldingen After a lot of terraforming for the "village" I had in my mind for this competition I played it a bit only to find out - nah, no village, small town with 3000+ plus inhabitants. So a second idea, a second approach was necessary - and here it is. Funny enough it's the direct neighbour map of my Simforum village comp village Leonhardt; however I made the layout for Leonhardt for today whereas Kanneldingen takes place somewhere in the first half of the seventies, in the time, small Nardo went to Kindergarden, the time of the last steam trains before the era of the steam engines finished for good in Western Germany. Yes, Western Germany, as the wall and the Iron Curtain would fall approximately 15-17 years later ... Now for the duty: Overview of Leonhardt with all the required landmarks. Not only the budget but also four of the six landmarks can be seen here. You may call this economy ... The village center with the town hall, Church St. Georg and its cemetary and the village plaza. The representive building to the left of the plaza is the Hotel "Kurfürstlicher Hof", a rather old one. It is run by the family Kannbacher since 1563 who took over an old post station. After a fire in 1759 it was rebuilt in its current barocque style. One of the last communistic town mayors in Germany was Anton Kannbacher, younger brother of the landlord of the "Kurfürstlicher Hof". He was mayor from 1924 to January 1933. He got arrested soon after the Nazis took over the power and was deported to the KZ Dachau where he died in 1936. During his time the statue of Lenin was erected in 1930. Destroyed in 1937 the statue was reerected by his son Thomas Kannbacher who was town mayer from 1946 untill his death in 1962. Leading from the main road from the church to the railway station (and Kanneldings bit of industry) you'll find the "Shopping Mile" of Kanneldingen: across the "Kurfürstlicher Hof" the department store "Müller" where you can buy almost everything from a nail to a motorbike the Esso and the Shell Station of the Hanselmann Brothers. They couldn't find a solution to whom the gas station of their father belonged after his death so they split up the lot and opened a gas station each... Willy's Bierrampe, a (not so) good place to drink a (or a lot more) beer in the evenings right next to Willy's the "Goldene Ochse" is most probably the best restaurant in a medium range. It features even a star in the Guide Michelin! brand new at the gates of the town lies the Kaufland, the first big supermarket in the area. It has opened last year and is the declared enemy of Herbert Müller, owner of the department store "Müller" The soccer field of the SC 1911 Kanneldingen is situated right between the railway line and the cemetary. Noone ever counted how many balls went into the graveyard or the Rennbach but most probably not too much as the SC never one any title in his history ... Bad people say that the doctor (the house next to the cemetary) has a perfect view to his future patients (from the soccer field) and already gone patients (on the cemetary) from his window ... Nostalgia looks best in b/w ... A steam train is passing the entry signal of Kanneldingen heading to Leonhardt. Steam train, semaphores, telegraph lines, signs of an era long gone The Rennbach Valley. During the erection of the railway line in 1865 and later of the road in the thirties the Rennbach lost more and more of his natural bed and became rather channelized due to a lack of space. The level crossing of the L301 with the railway line is secured by a block post. The semaphores can be opened only after the level crossing is secured. Nothing works automatically here, the blockpost (the small house next to the level crossing) must be filled with a person who handles both level crossings and semaphores during the time of train traffic! Leaving Kanneldingen into the hills you don't see much special - just farms & forrests. Hey, what do you expect - it's the countryside! This is what you call an Aussiedlerhof. The farmer has given up its farm buildings in the village and moved to the fields. His employes are living in the small houses next to the farm. No bus stop here, have a car or walk - it's the countryside! That's it for today. Next update will be "new" old stuff ... Untill then Have fun! Bernhard

8After playing all versions of SimCity including the very first one (yes I am THAT old) ... After playing around two years SimCity4 (yes I bought it on the first day it was available in Germany) ... After downloading and installing around 1 Gig of bats and other plugins ... After showing some pics before in Show us your accomplishments with not really bad comments ... ... I thought maybe I could start my first CJ by introducing you to my actual region Urland. The basement of this region is a map I downloaded some weeks before from the STEX. Unfortunately I didn't write down its name and author and even worse I didn't found it on the SETX too ... If he or she reads this CJ please feel free to pm me so that I can give credit! Okay, the mods: The NAM (although I installed it quite late due to my poor memory) BRF Tunnel and Slope mod (at least most of the times ... ) NoPalmTrees - mod (but only for the streets) Industry Quadruplifier CulDeSac mod BrigheHeight Mod ADC Street trees mod ( I LOVE THAT ONE!!! ) Mayor Mod Trees (which I use way too seldom ... ) Table Of Contents: Page 1 06.06.2005 - Region Views 06.06.2005 - Update 0: Hochstadt - Neustadt 09-06-2005 - Update 1: Hochstadt - Around Neustadt Page 2 12.06.2005 - Update 2: Hochstadt: Early Morning Call - Industry and football field 18.06.2005 - Update 3: Hochstadt: Going to Altstadt 21.06-2005 - Update 4: Hochdorf 1 02.07.2005 - Update 5: Hochdorf 2 Page 3 09.07.2005 - Update 6: Hochstadt 3 10-07.2005 - Mini Update Kwakelaar church 12.07.2005 - Update 7.1: Einsiedeln & Kaltwasser 12.07.2005 - Mini Update & Poll: Ploce, Grünthalhausen & Schilfstadt, Region View Page 4 29.07.2005 - Update 8: Ploce 1 31.07.2005 - Update 9: Ploce 2 06.08.2005 - Update 10: Ploce 3 Page 5 09.08.2005 - Mini Update: Chicken Farm 19.08.2005 - Update 11: Schilfstadt 1 Page 6 26.08.2005 - Update 12: Schilfstadt 2 30.08.2005 - Update 13-1: Schilfstadt 3 Page 7 03.09.2005 - Update 13-2 Schilfstadt 4 (Nightshots) 07.09.2005 - Update 13-3 Schilfstadt 5 Page 8 09.09.2008 - Update 13-4 Schilfstadt 6 11.09.2005 - Nardo's Tutorial about how to do a nice rural setting - Part I (with Region View) Page 9 13.09.2005 - Miniupdate: Greetings from Gleiwemünde - celebrating 5000 views 18.09.2005 - Nardo's Tutorial about how to do a nice rural setting - Part II Page 10 24.09.2005 - Update 14-1: Grünthalhausen 1 28.09.2005 - Update 14-2: Grünthalhausen 2 - Minor fixes Page 11 08.10.2005 - Update 14-3: Grünthalhausen 3 - 2 pics missing 15.10.2005 - Update 14-4: Grünthalhausen 4 Page 12 20.11.2005 - Update 14-5: Grünthalhausen - Duttlingen 26.11.2005 - Update 14-6: Grünthalhausen - St. Martin Page 13 29.11.2005 - Nardo's Tutorial about how to do a nice rural setting - Part III 04.12.2005 - Update 14.7: Grünthalhausen - Brezenberg 06.12.2005 - 6 Months Anniversairy Update 14.12.2005 - Update 15-1: Historic Gleiwemünde Page 14 21.12.2005 - Update 15.2: Gleiwmünde - The Rural Belt, Part 1 22.12.2005 - Christmas Greetings 30.12.2005 - Update 15.3: Gleiwemünde - The Nordstadt Page 15 07.01.2006 - Update 15.4: Gleiwemünde - Nordstadt, Part II 17.01.2006 - Update 15.5: Gleiwemünde - Wäschbach! 26.01.2006 - Update 15.6: Gleiwemünde - Bornheim - Minor fixes Page 16 29.01.2006 - Not an Update but palm trees in snow 08.02.2006 - Update 15-7 Replies & Headlines damaged 05.03.2005 - Update 15-8: Gleiwemünde Bad Schönsand: The Freiherr von Darmok Allee to be continued ...

Hello at All! It has been a while since I posted, partially due to really bad RLS, partially because I haven't played the game for a while. and I must confess I miss the previous post editor ... Update 29: Hauereichen - A Bedroom Community Hauereichen is a small suburb of my small megalopis. It has some nice villas, some prefab blocks, not much commerce, a little bit of industry and farming and lots of woods. Actually the woods brought me back to game - I just had to try out the new HD seasonal trees by Girafe (even though I used the evergreen ones - I am still the same slow, stubborn oldfashioned donkey that needs its time for new tricks ...) The "urban" part of the map. The Glr-in-Ave separates prefabs from the villa. You can also see the CBD and industrial area. From an different Angle. It took some time to get the prefabs grown as I wished but it was worth it! The "CBD". The main function of Hauereichen is Residential - a typical bedroom community at the edge of town. That was kind of a hard NAM jigsaw. All Glr-in-Ave and TuLEP pieces are somehow glued together, remove one and the whole intersection will be gone. In addition to this the GLR station was the reason for some CTDs: it is modded for draggable GLR but here the short distance only allowed GLR puzzle pieces ... Usually something like that would have been my "after" - picture. But the whole quarter here is rather new - somewhere in the middle of 20th century - so the old buildings didn't fit. And this is usually the "before" - situation... But together with the industrial area on the other side of the avenue these buildings just do better. (and yes, that corner building could have been replace, too, but I just like it). I just love how that school and the profab com together! OK, Journey meant the sun in their rock classic - but somehow the line just fits. Here you can see the woods that I created mostly with the new trees from Girafe - to the left all new trees (that are available evergreen and seasonal) and at the top and to the left combined with his old pine trees and cp.s pine trees. Incredible but unlike Simfox's trees you can create a rather dense woods only with Girafe's maple without all props becoming one monotone mesh! All kind of forrests. The edges of the forests still are the domain for Simfox's trees as you can place them more exactly than Girafe's ones. That's my belated easter present for you - hope you liked it. Have fun! Bernhard

Hello at All! It has been a while since I posted, partially due to really bad RLS, partially because I haven't played the game for a while. and I must confess I miss the pervious post editor ... Anyway before we start the new update there are some Answers&Replies left to do: @Schulmanator: Thank you and Thank you! @hijodecordoba: Well, I confess "New World" isn't my "special area" Glad you liked the last update and Thank you. So, without any further Ados: Update 29: Hauereichen Hauereichen is a small suburb of my small megalopis. It has some nice villas, some prefab blocks, not much commerce, a little bit of industry and farming and lots of woods. Actually the woods braught me back to game - I just had to try out the new HD seasonal trees by Girafe (even though I used the evergreen ones - I am still the same slow, stubborn oldfashioned donkey that needs its time for new tricks ...) The "urban" part of the map. The Glr-in-Ave separates prefabs from the villa. You can also see the CBD and industrial area. From an different Angle. It took some time to get the prefabs grown as I wished but it was worth it! The "CBD". The main funtion of Hauereichen is Residential - a typical bedroom community at the edge of town. That was kind of a hard NAM jigsaw. All Glr-in-Ave and TuLEP pieces are somehow glued together, remove one and the whole intersection will be gone. In addition to this the GLR station was the reason for some CTDs: it is modded for draggable GLR but here the short distance only allowed GLR puzzle pieces ... Usually something like that would have been my "after" - picture. But the whole quarter here is rather new - somewhere in the middle of 20th century - so the old buildings didn't fit. And this is usually the "before" - situation... But together with the industrial area on the other side of the avenue these buildings just do better. (and yes, that corner building could have been replace, too, but I just like it). I just love how that school and the profab com together! OK, Journey meant the sun in their rock classic - but somehow the line just fir. Here you can see the woods that I created mostly with the new trees from Girafe - to the left all new trees (taht are available evergreen and seasonal) and at the top and to the left combined with his old pine trees and cp.s pine trees. Incredible but unlike Simfox's trees you can create a rather dense woods only with Girafe's maple without all props becoming one monotone mesh! All kind of forrests. The edges of the forests still are the domain for Simfox's trees as you can place them more exactly than Girafe's ones. That's my belated easter present for you - hope you liked it. Have fun! Bernhard

@ImVhOzzi: Well, I am.. Thank you! @TekindusT: Thank you my friend! The smoke stack is SimGoobers small waste power plant, you can find it [url="http://kurier.simcityplaza.de/details.php?file=855"]here[/url]. And I think I go on with the large reolution.

Hello to All! First the bad news: No, I didn't go on with SC4, not even with the beta 2 of the new water. Appr. 2 weeks ago my father died which made my RL worse than it was before and wasn't helpful to my disappeared inspiration, too, as you might think. As a result of his death I got his laptop. Not the newest model it's father than my old box - even my 760k "mega"city is runner much better with 1440*900 than on my old box with 1024-768. And the bigger resolution in zoomlevel 5, that's pretty cool! Fooling around in Urland I found that little map that I once began for the Thematic Competition. But right after starting the map I had more than 2000 sims so I started another (rather unsuccessful) map fo the competition and with my usual "speed" I developed this one. It is named "Neuenbürg", like the small town in the Blackforest, as I got some inspirations from there as you will see. For this update I tried another format: scaled pictures larger than thumbnails and if you click them you'll get the pleasure of the full resolution of my laptop. Tell me if you like it. ) And now without further ados: Update 28: Neuenbürg Let's start with a region view without region census. A little bit more of resolution does make a difference! Today's map from far far away ... ....and a little bit closer. The map's name is Neuenbürg and is inspired a bit by the small town with the same name in the Black Forest. As a "main theme" I wanted to have a summer residence on a hill that is surrounded by a river valley. A great place for a castle that has been changed to a residence in the 18th century. On such a ridge space is limited which is the reason why the garden is a bit small here ... I plopped the lot the other way round - IMHO the buildings fit better that way. I just should've relotted the lot accordingly ... A nice touch are the small harlemmergold buildings that grew there. I consider them housing for the service stuff. This layout - flag stop, overpass just before a tunnel - is inspired by the set up at the RL flag stop Neuenbürg Süd. There an overpass passes a railway and a main street just before they enter a tunnel. The setup in SC4 is mirrored, too. Nice creek, isn't it? I know quite some rivers and creeks where you aren't able to see the shore in summertimer because it is covered by trees which foliage touches the water surface itself. Well, you need some power, don't you? Like IRL the railway station is on the other side of the tunnel. Unlike RL we ware here on the southern entrance of the tunnel. I located all industrial zoning on this map along the railway line in the valley. And to finish off today's update some rural shots along the river Enz (as IRL ): That's it for today. Hope you like what you saw. Have fun! Bernhard PS: My first Update with ST7.0. I like the design, it seems to load my humble old CJ faster than before ... however ... I'll guess I need some time to get used to it. I especially miss the old Insert Image dialog ... Old donkeys need their time to get used to changes PPS: I had to a walk today and see what I found: And no, the first one is neither a snake nor a warm but a rather useful reptile and completely not dangerous at all. I do love especially the white flowers, these small white stars are telling winter's gone which is why I do love them. Hopefully summer will be kinder to me than winter was this year ...

1. Wrong Forum -> City Building Concepts 2. It is a rule that you have to post pictures from yourself of what you want to see in the new "Show Us..." - Thread

Actually - there are some issues in the pathfinding of Simcity. Maxis chose the easiest way of implementing the pathfinding routine - just look for the geometrical shortest way from Point A to Point B. Sounds logical, is kind of logical but not working properly if you want to simulate RL halfway adequately. Actually this very basic pathfinding fails if you want to create a simulated model off most Traffic networks except some very small villages. Why? Well, one of the analogies of traffic in the world of physics is electric resistance. The higher the resistance due to capacity or congestion the less electricity / traffic is flowing. Trucks will not use small side roads if they can use a major arteria - just think of all that maneuvres that would be necessary. More or less the same for busses - if you ever had to check out if a bus or track can pass geometrically through a given road you will know what I mean. You need to know the local quarters to use shortcuts and side roads. Or would you leave the highway, make your way through unknown quarters, maybe ghettos to the next highway exit just because leaving the highway would make you drive 22,750 km instead of 23,1? You might change km to miles, the units don't matter, just get the idea. Another thing are road signs - even in the era of navigation systems. As a planner you can make people use different roads just by placing or not placing road signs. An aspect that is completely missing in SC4. Sims are doing all this. People in RL won't. do. Not the 99,9% maybe the 0,1% which are the exception from the rule. As Andreas said SC4 was designed in a way that it can be run on a Pentium III with 128 mb RAM. HOWEVER in one aspect I do agree with tysons4: you should have understand how the game works before you go into aesthetical details, how to make you traffic flow the way you want it, the micromanagement, etc. For the basic understanding of the game mechanics you don't need the NAM. But after you got to a certain level you don't want to miss it. At least not me.

[b]@heitomat:[/b] Glad you liked the update my friend! There's already a beta 2 but I wasn't able to use it. RL had been ... not nice at all to me lately ... [b]@Johan_91:[/b] Danke für das Kompliment!

Hello to All! First the bad news: No, I didn't go on with SC4, not even with the beta 2 of the new water. Appr. 2 weeks ago my father died which made my RL worse than it was before and wasn't helpful to my disappeared inspiration, too, as you might think. As a result of his death I got his laptop. Not the newest model it's father than my old box - even my 760k "mega"city is runner much better with 1440*900 than on my old box with 1024-768. And the bigger resolution in zoomlevel 5, that's pretty cool! Fooling around in Urland I found that little map that I once began for the Thematic Competition. But right after starting the map I had more than 2000 sims so I started another (rather unsuccessful) map fo the competition and with my usual "speed" I developed this one. It is named "Neuenbürg", like the small town in the Blackforest, as I got some inspirations from there as you will see. For this update I tried another format: scaled pictures larger than thumbnails and if you click them you'll get the pleasure of the full resolution of my laptop. Tell me if you like it. ) But as usual first some Replies&Answers: @hijodecordoba: Glad you liked, sorry that I didn't mention that one - as a middle European it was kind of out of my limited sight, hope you can forgive me ... @Simbourgeois: I do hope it's a bit warmer now at your place. While doing a walk I discovered these: And no, the first one is neither a snake nor a warm but a rather useful reptile and completely not dangerous at all. I do love especially the white flowers, these small white stars are telling winter's gone which is why I do love them. @Norby(ToG): Thanks for your compliment! @rewright: Just givve me a short call and then we go together! And now without further ados: Update 28: Neuenbürg Let's start with a region view without region census. A little bit more of resolution does make a difference! Today's map from far far away ... ....and a little bit closer. The map's name is Neuenbürg and is inspired a bit by the small town with the same name in the Black Forest. As a "main theme" I wanted to have a summer residence on a hill that is surrounded by a river valley. A great place for a castle that has been changed to a residence in the 18th century. On such a ridge space is limited which is the reason why the garden is a bit small here ... I plopped the lot the other way round - IMHO the buildings fit better that way. I just should've relotted the lot accordingly ... A nice touch are the small harlemmergold buildings that grew there. I consider them housing for the service stuff. This layout - flag stop, overpass just before a tunnel - is inspired by the set up at the RL flag stop Neuenbürg Süd. There an overpass passes a railway and a main street just before they enter a tunnel. The setup in SC4 is mirrored, too. Nice creek, isn't it? I know quite some rivers and creeks where you aren't able to see the shore in summertimer because it is covered by trees which foliage touches the water surface itself. Well, you need some power, don't you? Like IRL the railway station is on the other side of the tunnel. Unlike RL we ware here on the southern entrance of the tunnel. I located all industrial zoning on this map along the railway line in the valley. And to finish off today's update some rural shots along the river Enz (as IRL ): That's it for today. Hope you like what you saw. Have fun! Bernhard PS: My first Update with ST7.0. I like the design, it seems to load my humble old CJ faster than before ... however ... I'll guess I need some time to get used to it. I especially miss the old Insert Image dialog ... Old donkeys need their time to get used to changes

No,Idon't agree. SimCity4 itself is not art. It's the color palette, the brush and the and the canvas to draw a picture that might or might not be a piece of art depending on how good the user - or artist - is. Unfortunately its code is outdated and bugged and uncompleted. Bugged: see above. Outdated as it could make great use of multi core cpus but doesn't because it's so old. Uncompleted because right after the release of Rushhour at least one more EP was announced but never released. And if you played the game as much and as intense as I did you could've discovered so much things that could've been improved - region play, traffic simulators and so on. EA left us alone after they screwed one of the best games ever. I am glad that the community is still alive and going on. Without the community I would've stopped playing SimCIty4 years ago. Challenging vanilla isn't a hard deal. Nor a long lasting challenge.

GIMP is one possibility but for beginners a bit hard to use and not all functionality is needed. A smaller Alternativ would be Irfanview or paint.net (which is not to be mistaken with Windows Paint!). Irfanview also has a built-in Batch Mode that can save quite some time if you have a couple of images to deal. You might do a lot of altering to your pictures but this is really a question of personal taste and preference. Me, I like to see the SC4 skills rather than the photoshopping skills of the CJer, other might see this different. But Resize & Sharpen is more or less a must to follow the forum rules, and a nice caption with pictute number will be very helpful to comment your CJ. Just my 0.02 simoleons. Bernhard

As I am an Opera user like T Wrecks I do agree with him in all points. And: I would like to see that "Schulmanator bug" fixed - no offense meant but it's kind of annoying if you have to use the Google Search in order to get into your CJ in the New CJ Section just because you had the bad luck that your CJ and one of Schulmanator's CJs happen to be on the same page ... (Again, no offense meant, Schulmanator, but AFAIK you are aware of that problem ...)

Good work on the RHW (something I never was able to build anything worth noticing yet) . I also like your railway layout.  But really a pleasure are the "empty spaces" in between.  Great job! Go on like this. And take your time - see this update's title for a reason! 

Nice update. And the railway signals seem to be correctly placed from what I can see.  

@Reikhardt: Well, I'd say they are non-transparent transparent ...  They are textured in a way to show a shallow slow resp. fast flowing water. And this they do rather good IMHO. 

Nice one! Especially the upper half with that NDEX church looks phantastic!

@avrelivs: Thanks for the compliment my friend! Well, inspirations is like the waves of an ocean - there are ups and downs, sometimes the ups are very high, but also sometimes the downs are very ow, too ... @ImVhOzzi: Thanks for the compliment my friend! The signs are part of a SFBT  mod in betatesting made by royal who also made the railway signals. The mod and the signs are not public yet. @pizzazzip: Well, the darkest hour of night is the hour before sunrise. But it's still pretty dark here. Glad you liked it! @heitomat: Sometimes it needs just some new toys to play round it seems ... @TekindusT: Oh boy, if you do creeks as good as you do ghettos you might demotivate that ol' donkey of me!  Naah, just kidding. Focussing on only one aspect of the game might become boring that's why I like to do urban setups, industrial areas etc, too, from time to time- even though not half as good as your ghettos!  @Reikhardt: Glad you liked it. You know bigges doesn't always mean best or most beautiful ... @Samerton: Go and have lots of fun!

@ImVhOzzi: Thanks for the compliment.  I did PM beeps but haven't received an answer yet. @Reikhardt: You're welcome! @Samerton: Glad you liked it! 

Hello to All! In the last update I wrote: Quote Since all better alternatives are under construction at the moment I chose Edmonton rapids for the slope sections. One of those "better alternatives under construction" are the first two PW by knapp - first because he plans to do more of them! . And because I am not really completely innocent in getting knapp working on them I am one of his beta testers for his new PW. I already showed one screen shot in the "Show Us Your Rivers And Creeks" thread, and since I have some more of them as well as it really fits to the last update I thought let's make your mouth water a nice update. BTW: Some Statistics Anyone? Just before this update I checked Urland on the four places I am publishing it: Code: Forum: Posts Hits Starting Date SC4Devotion 706 40041 24.03.2007 Simforum 553 36287 25.03.2007 Simtropolis old 1120 31969 06.06.2005 Simtropolis new 226 21798 12.06.2009 --------------------------------------------- Total: 2605 130095 I would like to say Thank You to all who ever clicked Urland and maybe even posted a comment here. You made me keep going on - since almost six years! And now as always before we start: @Simbourgeois: Glad you liked it my friend! Well, as you see sometimes testing some new stuff seems to do the trick... @nathanthemayor: You're welcome! @The Duke: Honestly, it took some time, practising and a lot of try-and-error for me, too, to get to the point where I am... @jj88: I'm sure you will! Glad you liked it! @wwetom1: Thanks for the compliment! And now without any further a-dos: Update 27: New Water Anyone? Let's begin where we finished last time - I just planted some trees around the creek. Doesn't look too bad - just a bit ... static, the water doesn't flow, isn't it? Well, with the help of my friend knapp from the SimForum let's change that a bit! Isn't this better? The surface isn't as smooth as with PEG's lake tahoe - a creek always has some waves, such a smooth homogeneous surface is really limited to lakes on a day without any wind breething. Some closer details. The combination of the creek texture for the slow flowing parts of the creek and the wildwater texture for the rapids really do the trick. From another angle. The transition between smooth flowing and rapids are a bit tricky but knapp said he's working on transition pieces. Meanwhile I need to get used to these great PW pieces as they behave a bit different than the ones I used to use. Nice, isn't it? I can almost hear the water gurgling there! A last closeup before we go on to calmer waters. Not too long ago I began that small creek on the map of Heimsheim. With PEGs Tahoe PW. A small creek with some meadows in a valley surrounded by woods. So far so good ... ... but don't you think this looks better, too? A small creek with some small rapids, meadows, flowers everywhere - can you smell the spring? This is also my first time using Girafe's new trees - the non seasonal ones as the map is already filled for 2/3 with the old "evergreen trees". Nice models, well done as usual but I need to get sued to them - IMHO they look more mediterrean rather than middle European. Well, I need to get warm with them I think... The shores are also a bit tricky but I discussed this issue already with knapp. That's what beta testing is for ... That's it for today - hope you liked it. Have fun! Bernhard

Der Gammler on the German SImforum is developing a new ploppable water. Not completely innocent on him doing so I was able to help him betatesting them. Wanna see? Have a look: If someone's interested I might make an update out of this ... Have fun! Bernhard

Haven't been around for a while - what a mistake. I just went through the last 4 pages - you really haven't forgoten anything! Those sprawling suburbs and industrial areas are marvelous, which I could do them too! Only thing that you could do better are the Maxis trees - there are so much nice and new trees that the ingame trees are really a bit outdated. And even seasonal MM trees are about to come in the next time. When they are ready. Take care my friend! Bernhard

Congratulations on being OSITM! Mice setups - but when I see that high speed train skin passing that level crossing I immidiately thin about the high speed train line between Moscow and St. Petersburg where they "forgot" to eliminate the railway crossing in and close to the villages on the countryside. As a result you can say that some people are dying avery week at these level crossings ...

Hello to All! Again it took some for me to update and this time I do have some bad news. It seems I lost my joy playing the game but my RL is such a mess at the moment that even in these rare moments when I could fire up the game the inspiration, the joy was gone. I hope it comes back, it gave so much to me the last eight years. Anyway I promised you a tutorial and after that I guess I'll find some stuff for a construction site report. But as always before we start: @The Duke: Thanks for the compliment! That's why I made it! @Simbourgeois(2x): Thank You Very Much my friend! And BTW second time in a row that you open a new page plus 1111th post! Well, unfortunately 2011 began rather bad for me ... @wwetom1: Thank You Very Much! @Benedict: Cool! I hope I can go back to my old form as soon as I get into less troubled waters IRL ... @dfnva: Thank You Very Much! And congrats to your third CJ Trixie, too! Looks nice to have three of 'em in three different years, isn't it? @hijodecordoba: Thanks for the compliment! Yes, there's a special mod for this - the Bridge Height mod. Tutorial: Going Down The Creek Something that I never understood where all these hundreds and thousands of really huge waterfalls in SC4. Honestly, how many of them do you know IRL? Niagara falls of course, Victoria falls, Rhine falls at Schaffhausen ... and then I have to pass. And in SC4? Oh well ... But how is a creek going down a valley? Well, mostly over small steps and rapids. Between them you can find larges sections with almost no slope at all. And how I set up a creek like this is the topic of today's tutorial! The rough terraforming. For my taste the combination of ElRail and BRF TunnelAndSlope works fine here. The slope-free sections are laid out with patches of grey streets. In this ... ... and this perspective you can clearly see the slope in the elRail sections. Since all better alternatives are under construction at the moment I chose Edmonton rapids for the slope sections. I do not remove the patches ... ... before all rapids are on their place! Now it's time for the PW. In this case I've chosen PEG's Tahoe PW. Streets along such creeks have been secured by retaining walls against sliding and washing out rather early. The rather moist air along such walls next to creeks is an ideal place for fern, moss etc. To Rock Or Not To Rock, This Is Now The Question ... If you really want that much big rocks along your creeks you need the suitable topography with steep flanges in the middle of hills and montain. You will NOT see so much rocks somewhere in the Great Plains because there isn't enough energy to move them there! Some weed between and next to the rocks ... makes a nice transition to the adjacent forrest. Here you can see a bigger step in a partially straightened creek (retaining wall!). Steps like this ar some times necessary to destroy the kinetic energy of the water! Again PEG's tahoe PW, different perspective though. After some detailing we get this. That's it for today, some day you'll hopefully see more of this map. Have fun! Bernhard