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Jacquilina, I sometimes think only you and mightygoose are the only folks who stop by here to see what I am doing. But then I see this CJ has over 3500 views and only about 250 replies, so I wonder who all the folks are who stop by and take a peek and never leave a comment. And as much as I hate to say this, I need cheerleaders. This is a huge region, a very daunting task, and I lose steam pretty quick without encouragement to continue. I play for myself, it's true, but a CJ becomes a little bit of a community project and when the community fades to the background, well, I kinda wonder why I sweat trying to keep updating as often as I do, why i spend the time sharing my work/play with others. Come on you lurkers, step forward and help me out, let me know what you think about what I am doing! Just as last week I was thinking about abandoning this CJ because in RL it has so little buildable area, so I am this week going through another spasm of, if not doubts, then re-thinking. I keep going back to my RL maps and wondering if I could recreate this landscape more closely if I hand traced the RL topos I have and then merged them all together into a grey scale. I have been posting lots of questions in the mapping section both here on ST and over at SC4D and think I now have all the knowledge/tools I need to do exactly that. It will take me MONTHS of hand terraforming this lanscape to get it even semi-close to where I want it to be..and then I will have to go back and redo the entire 256 tiles to plant plants and plop watercourses. The truth is, what I probably need to do is throw away all my RL maps of this area, because so long as I have them around for reference, I will use them...and be frustrated by my inability to exactly recreate them in the game. And, even if I was able to do that, it would render me a 90% unbuildable region, so why even bother? I did work in the region tonite, on tile K15. It is the tile to the immediate east of J15. It's a shoreline tile in that it abuts the river delta and has some "moldy pancake" islands off shore from the mainland. It's also the first tile so far where there is land above the mudflat elevation, rising to salt marsh. There is actually a small (discontinuous) line of very low level hills in this tile that divide the mudflats from the marshes. Obviously some harder underlying rock strata in this area. I didn't take any pics tonite because I only worked the western side of the tile, that which is closest to the river delta, and so very easy to terraform into mudflats. The raised terrain that divides the mudflats from the salt marshes is visible in my game region, no need to refer to RL maps to see the area of transition, so I used my God Mode level brush to make mudflats to the edge of the dividing line. The difference in elevation between the mudflats and the dividing hills is still rather extreme (cliffs about 100' tall), so I need to go back and do some inland feathering to soften this entire transition area down a bit and still raise the overall elevation to the east of the barrier hills just a tiny bit. I'll work on this tomorrow, maybe a bit yet tonite, heck it's only 1:15 am, I am good for another hour . And, maybe I'll have more pics tomorrow. Lora/LD

Ok, well lets try this again. My back is still sore today after a semi-restless night trying to sleep in positions that didn't hurt, but the rest did help and the pain is less today than yesterday. Ok, the first pic is from Region Census, to orient you all to the areas I am currently working on: Those two little squares outlined in red at the bottom of the map at J16, the one furthest south, and J15, the next one to the immediate north. We all know by know that this region is all large city tiles, but boy they sure look punt when placed against the background of the entire region, don't they? Truth is, most of the green flat land you see above at the southern edge of the region is almost all mudflats, shoals, and sandbars in RL, grading slowly up in elevation to saltwater marshes, fresh water marshes, and best of all, inter-tidal marshes which are both salt and fresh water. I am not planning to plant much of anything on the mud flat areas, maybe a few scattered weeds, as in RL nothing would really be able to grow there. However, I have a bunch of aquatic plants I can use in the various marshes and am going to try to segregate them into types so that I only use say types a,b, and c for slatwater marshes and types d,e, and f for freshwater marshes, and then using I guess both for inter-tidal marshes and, if I can find some more aquatic plants, those as well. In RL, the plants that grow in the three types are marshes are quite different from each other, as plants that tolerate salt water don;t usually tolerate fresh water very well and vice versa. However, plants that tolerate both at differing times are rather unique in and of themselves, so having a seperate set for the tidal zones would certainly be nice. Ok, forging on: This is the SW corner of J15, which abuts the NW cormer of J16. You can see that the island towards the top of the picture is NOT a mudflat or river-created feature, but has underlying rock structure of some sort. In my RL maps of this island, there are areas to the north end of the island that get as high as 100' above sea level and there are np mud flats or marshes shown, except for a small area at the very top NW corner of the island (which doesn't show up on this city tile...it will occur in tile J14). I have created some rasied terrain on the island for now, mostly to remind myself when I come back and work on it again that it is not a river construct, but I have not yet checked if I have built the elevations up high enough. What I am doing now, with this terraforming, is not what I would consider to be "fine" or "micro" terraforming. I am really just getting the basic shapes into place right now. I will probably do this for the entire region before I go back and start the "fine" work of adding streams, plants, trees, etc. We have a long way to go... This is a close up of the SW corner and I hope you can see that I am getting better at feathering the shallow water into the deeper water of the main channels. This is actually harder than it may look like! An enlargement of the SE corner of the tile. I thought I did a particularely good job with the water line along this coast, which is the mainland. You will all be able to see it much better when we revisit it a couple of months from now when I start plopping plants and water. This is the NE corner of J15. And the NW corner of the tile. Notice again the higher elevations on the actual island. I know they look square and unrealistic now, but I'll fix that later. of all the "moldy pancake" islands seen so far, this is probably the only one so far that will actually have substantial plant growth on it. My RL maps also show a couple of small creeks running across it, mostly at sea level, so they are really more like mini-channels and part of the overall delta system rather than drainages of the island itself. In RL, these would occur in areas where the underlying rock stata that allows this island to even exist would have been either weaker rock of the same type OR a softer type of rock intwined with the harder rock. So the creeks/channels that will eventually run across the island will have embankments that represents the harder and more ersion resistant rock of the creek bed. I have not yet done any research or study into what the geologic processes were that built this landscape over time, but if it is anything like the Pacific Northwest, which I suspect it is, this will going to be all metamorphic rock, mostly granite and shist and feldspar...volcanic/igneous in origin but morphed over eons of pressure. This area is on the edge of the Pacific Plate, which is moving east and under the North American Plate, which is moving west and over the top of the Pacific Plate. I think this is called a "subduction zone". Lots of volcanoes occur in these areas and Alaska certainly has her share. I think I have some zoom-ins next. Ok, this is actually a snap of the center of the tile. I am trying to make the main channels slowly shallower as I move north towards the mouth of the river, but I may come back and "dredge" some narrow but deeper channels later, so as to allow whales. I have whales frolicking in the deep water of J16, but none so far in J15. Also, given the massive extent of the mud flats and marshes in this delta, it seems pretty obvious to me that by the time this river hits the ocean, it's not moving very fast anymore, which means the water should be pretty shallow. The fact that all these mudflats and shoals and marshes show up an semi-permanent features on a RL map also shows that neither the ocean nor the river are working on them very much, otherwise they would be transitory features, changing not only with each incoming or outgoing tide, but also with every flood season's passing. Again, looking at my RL maps, the Copper River doesn't seem to be a long river or even drain a very large area...it apprears to be almost exclusively glacial melt and run only in the flats, which means it wouldn't have a lot of whitewater or flow very rapidly in terms of cubic feet of water per second. It's definitely not a rainwater river...or so it seems to me. I will have to look further into the river and what it's characteristics are before I start terraforming the area where it meets the sea. A rotated and zoomed view of the upper end of the island, and sorry for having forgotten to turn the UI off first, my bad. Keep in mind it's usually like 1 am when I start snapping pics of my evening's work/play, I've got more than a couple of glasses of wine in me, and so I sometimes am on a bit of personal internal cruise control. I like the shallow little bay that kinda look like an extremely mini-San Francisco on the lower part of the screen. Jusr above it and on the opposite side of the island you can see a little inlet. In RL I seem to recall there is a creek that runs from a point north of the SF-like little bay across the island to that little inlet. I have some high ground across that little isthmus now, but may shave it down later to put a creek there. Rotated from north the same as the above pic, showing the south end of the island and the channel that runs between the island and the mudflat feature to it's immediate south. The upper right corner again shows my feathering of the coastline of the mainland from mudflats through deeping degrees of shallow water into the main channel. I have to admit I am quite proud of this feathering...it's not easy to achieve and this tile took me two evenings to create because of it. Last shot, again showing off my feathering techniques. I'mnot totally certain which direction I will move in from here, but I think I will probably continue to work north towards the mouth of the river. Getting polopped water to blend seamlessly with game water is still a challenge, one I am not looking forward to trying to resolve, but it's a issue that must be dealt with sooner or later, so it might as well be sooner. Anyway, Hope you enjoyed the pics amd will come back to see more in a day or so, as I complete whichever next tile I decide to work on. Lora/LD

Eblem- I am going to withdraw my request for the time being. I may make it again at some other time in the future, who knows? But I have started working on the first region you sent me (Copper River) and think this is going to keep me very busy for a very long time. I got kinda carried away with Santa Barbara during the big fire there, and at the same time I was at a bit of what I thought was a dead end with Copper River. Turns out the dead end with Copper River was in my head only...and once I realized that and started working on it, I was fine. So, false alarm, you can take me off your list (for now!). Lora/LD

Well, I just spent an hour posting pics and comments and lost it all when one pic didn't load and I hit the refresh button. What a drag! To lose all that work, the narrative, the telling of a story, I even had the first discussion about how landscapes form...pffft! Gone, just like that (snaps fingers in the air). My back is hurting really bad tonite. I herniated 3 disks in my lower back 25 years ago and every now and then I pretend I'm Superwoman and still 20 something years old and do something I shouldn't, like carry or lift weight I know is beyond the capability of my injured back to handle. I cleaned the kitty boxes on Sunday afternoon and usually my roomie carries that particular bag of trash out to the dumpster for me, but he was visiting his family for Mother's Day, so I carried the trash bag out myself. We are in a basement apartment, so I have to climb a half set of stairs to reach street level, which is another big no-no for my back. I felt a pull, a tug, in my lower back when I lifted the trash bag up and then definitely felt pulls as I climbed the 7-8 steps to the back door of the apartment building I live in. I have been advised to not lift any weight over 20 pounds and nothing over 10 pounds above my waist. I don't know what the bag of used kitty litter weighed, but I know it was over 20 pounds (I have 3 cats and 2 kitty boxes...and kitty litter is heavy clean, and way heavier when dirty). I probably would have been all right, but I had to lift the bag of used litter above my waist to get it into the dumpster, and I think that's what tweaked my back. It takes a few days for the discs to swell enough to create pain and fortunately, having lived with this for almost half my life now (hard to believe, but true), I know how to take care of it...lots of ibuprofen. And of course limit movement and lifting. I have also learned to live with these occasional episodes of pain, as well as evaluate how bad they are when they occur. The original injury was so serious that I was warned that another injury of the same magnitude could leave me paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheel chair for the rest of my life. I was 30 years old, so you can bet that caught my attention. I've re-injured myself 3-4 times since then, but never as badly as the first time. This is not a serious episode I am facing now...just a reminder to be careful. Anyway, not feeling good tonite and bummed over losing my post. Think I'll go into the game and maybe do some more terraforming for an hour or so, sorry to disappoint with lack of pics. Lora/LD

I worked on city tile J15 tonite, which is the tile to the immediate north of the one I worked on last night. I am moving up the river delta and from referencing my RL maps am beginning to encounter solid ground rather that stuff the river has deposited along it's way to the ocean. I didn't finish the tile, so I have no pics to present, but I have been working tonite on feathering the shallow water into deeper ocean water and am quite happy with my results. I am going to have to go back and redo J16, I can see that already. It's just a matter of practice and I am learning as I go. I need to post a map that shows the alpha-numeric names I have given to each of the 256 city tiles. It's a very basic Excel spreadsheet format, columns being alphabetical starting with "A" at the upper left (northwest) corner of the region and rows being numeric starting with "1" at the same place. Given that the region 16 is city tiles square, that means the city tile at the far southeast edge of the region is P16. Now that I have made the "road map" view of the region, it should be a simple matter to use Photoshop and overlay a grid with the city tile names on it, but I am not that well versed with using Photoshop (still learning!), so this remains a bit of a challenge to me. I would really like to figure this out, because keeping readers oriented as to where I am working in the region seems to me something that should be important. I am reconciling edges (did I already say that? Getting late, time for bed) with adjoining city tiles as I go. This helps me a lot when starting a new city tile. Ya know, everyone seems to use different words to describe areas on the map, so maybe I should take a moment to describe mine. The REGION is +/- 40 miles to a side. It is comprised totally of large CITY TILES, 16 city tiles square, which mean that each city tile is about 2.5 miles square. There are 256 CITY TILES in the REGION. Each city tile is comprised of 256 cells square...these are the little squares you see if you have your grid turned on when you are playing any city of any size. A single cell is equal to 16 meters by 16 meters square, which is roughly equivalent to 52.5'x52.5'. Other folks may use other terminalogy to describe thier regions, just want to set the record straight right now as to the terminolgy *I* will be using, so as to avois any confusion down the line. Ok, 2:15 am, time for bed. I will post again tomorrow, with pics.

How is this done, does anyone know? Has anyone unlocked the secrets the game engine uses to assign various degrees of elevation to individual grey scale values? I am thinking about trying an experiment. I have a USGS topo map with contours at 100' intervals for both above and below sea levels. I am thinking about tracing the contours in Photoshop and creating a greyscale, with each contour level assigned it's own greyscale value. Then, I'd open the resultant greyscale in Terraformer and create a region. But before I do this, I need to know how the game reads the grey scale color values. From what little I already know about mapping, there would be no water in the resultant region...I would have to lower terrain until the game sea level of 250m was reached, but at least then I would have a semi-realistic sea bed under my water. Do grey scales get darker as they get higher in elevation, or do they get lighter? Is it possible to assign a "0" level and have grey scale values below that at negative values? Would this establish a sea level? Lora/LD

Cool beans tungston, I appreciate the help. I will check out the tutorial tomorrow, but it's getting on towards 1:30 am now and I really should think about heading for bed! Lora/LD

Well, my roomie was going to take me to see the new Star Trek movie tonite at the local IMAX, but when we got there it was sold out. Sniff, sniff. We'll try again next Saturday, which is his next day off, hopefully the crowds will have thinned by then. mightygoose, thank you for the kind comments about my attempts to build/terraform a river delta. Looking at the pics tonite they look pretty strange to me...kinda like moldy pancakes floating in (very) dirty dishwater. But all of those sandy and green islands will eventually be covered with mud (dirty water) tiles and I have yet to dredge the very shallow little waterways that will vein through the flats. I have an excellent set of RL maps of this area to guide me and besides extensive mud flats there are also extensive salt marshes, so I will be raising the rerrain ever so slightly as we go away from the delta and then plopping sedges and reeds and water plants. The pics now are just the "bare bones" underlying terrain. And as for a wierd sleep pattern, not worry. I am a night owl anyway and usually don't go to bed until about 2 am and then sleep till about 11 am. Last night was later than usual, even for me, but my roomie prevents me from staying up too late most nights. He sleeps on his futon in the living room, which is about 15 feet from my computer desk in the dining room, and he keeps the same basic hours as I do (he doesn't have to go to work until 11 am). Last night he was away from home, spending Mom's Day with his family, so time kinda slipped away from me. So, before I have too many more glasses of wine, lets see if I can find the rest of the pics and post them tonite: This is the southwest corner of the city tile (J16 by name, actually). the grey areas are very shallow water. I may try to "feather" this a little more carefully, but as you can see by the edge section, I haven't dropped down more than maybe a sigle tile, so I'm not sure how much feathering of this effect I can accomplish. The southeast corner. I think almost all of this is going to be mud and will probably fall into the category of Copper River Wetlands Protection, therefore undevelopeable. Northeast corner. Again, not much to look at and it will probably be all mud. I have some more pics in my folder, can't remember what they are, so I may or may not post them...lets see what they are first. A close up in which I forgot to turn of the UI (sorry...it was very late). Another close up, view rotated. More of same. Moldy pancakes! Forgot to turn the UI off again, dang! That's the end of the pics from last night. It's not much, I know, and not very exciting, but it's progress. I am uncertain now about how to create my small waterways through the mud flats and salt marshes. I am wondering if I should use game water channels, which would be the mottled grey of the shallow water seen here surrounding the islands and shorelines or if I whould use a water plop. This land is very flat, so water plops would work very well, but I worry that the color might be wrong and then also, the everlasting problem of melding bame water with plop water occurs. I know I'll have to face that hurdle some day. Anyone have any thoughts on the matter? I am very open to siggestions. Lora/LD

tungston- I have downloaded the height mods, but they did not include a readme file or any instructions about how to use them. Can you point me in the direction I need to go in to figure this out? Thanks! Lora/LD

ok, at last, hopefully some pics. I have been working on shorelines in the area of the Copper River Delta, trying to create the mudflats and shallow braided channels I know all big rivers create. I saved a pic a few nights ago but couldn't find it, but I think I have found not only that pic but the pics I took of my work tonite, which I saved for the fisrt time since starting this new region. Pics first: This was my first attempt at creating mudflats. I had to level the terrain quite a bit, as the default land is about 2 tiles above sea level. The brown you see if jeronij's "dirty" water plop. I wasn't happy with this, so I tried again tonite and I think I got better results. I started by leveling the terrainat the point where the sea met the land. It looks kinda wierd now, I admit, but I am liking the fact that the land is very flat at is meets the sea. This is the NW corner of the city tile I am working on. And I would love to continue to upload and post the other images I have, but it's 3:15 am and I am toast. I ned to find my bed and sleep. Lora/LD

blade2k5- No, while I appreciate the offer, I am on a quest to create a single region of the SB area that is 40 miles square and being as how I am not yet able to figure out how to do that, it remains a challenge to overcome. Eblem lacks the computing power to do this, which is why he created 4 regions for me 8 large city tiles square from my original request. He was later able to "marry" those 4 regions to each other for me, as I was not able to figure out how to do it myself. I'll keep trying. Someday, after I am bald from tearing my hair out, I will figure out how to do what I want to do. Until then, I will remain dependent on the mapping gurus to do for me what I would rather do for myself. Lora/LD

blade2k5- Your map looks pretty much like the one I *think* I am trying to make. However, I went over to MapQuest this afternoon and looked around at the SB area and found that the 40 mile square area I am thinking about would allow me to include the offshore islands, the coastline all the way up to almost Point Conception and down to El Rincon/Punta Gorda and inland to the east side of the Lake Cachuma valley: The square outlines above is roughly 40 miles a side, scaled to the map. I included LA to give Eblem some reference as to where Santa Barbara is. And, once I made this little map, I realized the map I was trying to make (and now, your already made map) is only about half the size I wanted it to be. I had really wanted to include the offshore islands but was afraid they were too far away from the mainland to also allow me to include a decent portion of the Santa Ynez Valley and back country. I lived in SB from 1965-1976, graduated San Marcos High School class of '72, La Colina Jr. High 1969, and Peabody Elementary 1966. Every time I visit SB I wonder why I ever left, but after a week there, I am ready to return to my beloved Seattle. Santa Barbara is without a doubt a very picturesque town and the weather is almost always absolutely perfect, but I get soul hungry for fir trees and snow capped mountains and seasons. I am northern born (Detroit) and by the time I was 22 years old, I had had enough of SoCal to last a lifetime. I've never seriously considered going back, but have to admit I do enjoy short (7 days or less) visits. So if Eblem can/will make the map for me, all I have to do is find some oil rig platforms to plop out in the channel! There were only 3-4 of them there back in 1965, I think there's about 20 of them now... Lora/LD

Eblem- Hello! I'm back, this time with a new map request. If I have already used up my allowed requests, np problem, I think I may be able to do this one by myself but I know you would do a much better job and do it much faster as well. I grew up in Santa Barbara, California and, with the recent terrible fire, there have been looking at a lot of maps of the area. I had kinda forgotten what an interesting landscape it was, so late last night I went over to the USGS web site and downloaded a fairly good sized DEM map in TIFF format of the area. I've been working my way through the "Making Accurate Scale Regions Using USGS Data" tutorial and have gotten as far as step three, working in the graphics editor program (Photoshop 6.0 for me). I admit I am a little lost/confused about what to do next, as I am just not understanding the instructions concerning how to establish accurate scale. I'm also not 100% certain I created my grey scale correctly using the MICRODEM program, it looks very white/light to me and I'm afraid I may have set my elevations incorrectly. I can email you the zip of the USGS download I made last night, if you are willing to map me another large region. Just like the last one, I'd like this one to be 16 x 16 large city tiles, appromimately 40 miles square. Let me know if you are interested and I will find some more maps to show you the area I would like to create a region from. Lora/LD

tungston- Well, like I said, pixel-wise the USGS TIFF map I am wanting to trace over is huge, 4400 pixels by 5600 pixels or so. It had great detail at 72 pixels per inch and so is fantastic from tracing over at extreme close zooms. If I resize the map before I trace it, I will lose all the detail I would kinda like to keep. In fact, I already tried that, downsizing the map to 256 pixels by whatever the constained other value came out to be (I don't remember) and also upped the pixel resolution to 150 pixels per inch, but the map was completely unreadable. That's why I'm wondering about resizing the map AFTER I trace it, rather than before, although I imagine the same problem will occur and the map tracings will then become unreadable. I've kinda been following dedgren's methods and using some of his recommendations for properly sizing grey scales and I seem to recall he recommended 1024 pixels by 1024 pixels, so maybe I will try that next and see how that turns out. Now I just need to figure out how to create the necessary grey scale tones I need. Is Mallowthecloud still arund these days? Maybe he (she?) could help me with that. Lora/LD

ok, I had a pic to post tonite of my work creating mud flats along the shorelines of my river delta, but not sure I can find the pic (singular). Lets see if I can try again. Sorry, can't find the image, too may glasses of wine. I wll try again tomorrow. Lora/LD

ok, I had a pic to post tonite of my work creating mud flats along the shorelines of my river delta, but not sure I can find the pic (singular). Lets see if I can try again. Sorry, can't find the image, too may glasses of wine. I wll try again tomorrow. Lora/LD

tungston- I checked out Mallowthecloud's height mod and may think about using it, but will decide that later, after I figure out another couple of issues I need to resolve. Someone, you or anyone else, may be able to help. 1.) I am using Photoshop 6.0 to create my new grey scale in. When I load the USGS TIFF map, I am unable to create a new layer and work directly over the map image, so I created a new blank document larger than the TIFF map, then copied and pasted the map into the document. Now I am able to create new layers as needed and work over the face of the TIFF. My problem here is the size of the USGS TIFF map, in pixels. It's huge, about 4400 x 5600. At a resolution of 72 ppi, I have fantastic detail at even extreme close zooms, which is very helpful for tracing contours, but I worry about having to eventually downsize the image and losing detail when I do so. Any advice here? 2.) In Photoshop, I am not finding a way to select an overall RGB value without also selecting values for the component r,g, and b. I have NOT converted my new document with the copied TIFF to grey scale values...do I need to do that before I can select "generic" RGB values that will correspond to the values you posted? Any/all advice/suggestions/help is appreciated. Lora/LD

I have not been idle despite my lack of posts. I have been playing around with ways to make my shorelines (ocean to land) work a little better andI think I may getting the hang of it...but I still have much to learn. I have been working on Copper River tiles, but have not been saving my work, so I have no pics to post yet. I have decided that starting at the shorelines and working my way both out to sea and inland is the way to go. This is taking a lot of experimentation on my part. I am starting at what I think is the most dfficult area of the map, the Copper River Delta. My topo maps tell me there are massive mud flats as well as extensive areas of salt marsh. I am not going to try to re-create the entire delta...it's way too massive. But I do want to create somehwat of a realistic delta. So I'll keep playing around and will hopefully have some pics to post soon. Lora/LD

Some thoguht-provoking information here folks, thank you! Shoji_sim, I have tried to use the tutorial you provided a link for and was unhappy with the results, which is why I am considering tracing my TIFF topo map manually in Photoshop. The tutorial as it stands is also rather badly out-dated and needs to be re-done to reflect the methods for creating a 16 bit rather than 8 bit grey scale map, as well as having the screenshots brough up to date to reflect changes made to both the MICRODEM software (which I have) and the USGS download site. Lastly, using the tutorial's method of creating a grey scale from an existing RL map does semi-funky things with coastlines along oceans and rivers. And...I happen to also have underwater/ocean depth contours shown on the map I have, which is another reason why I was thinking of trying to create a grey scale manually (not that accurate ocean depths mean beans to me, but as an OCD type person, in for a dime, in for a dollar!). mightgoose, my friend, I think you misunderstood my question or maybe the reason for my question. I'm not really just making this little project up out of my head and on the fly...I have a map I want to render into a detailed greyscale. I don't like the results I get using the MICRODEM process, so I thought I'd experiment and see if I could come up with an alternative. However, before I devote the time to tracing countours, I want to figure out how to assign greay scale RGB values to the various bands of contour. tungston, you may have given me the most pertinent information yet. The MICRODEM process tutorial, which I read through again last night, says actual water level is at RGB=83 but if one uses that exact value, the game does wierd things with the edges of land/water, then goes on to suggest an eventual RGB value of I think 86 for sea level as a "reasonable compromise". From my experience, using the 86 value creates shorelines of cliffs 1 tile high, which I don't care for and which I find to be a royal pain to terraform in game down to something a little more realistic. So your recommendation of 84 sounds good to me. And given that you (or someone) has taken the time to correlate RGB values with game elevations is also excellent knowledge to have. Given the numbers you have provided, it shouldn't be all that difficult, using my calculator and a lot of paper, to take your numbers and extrapolate them into RGB values for 100' contour intervals, which is how my TIFF map is divided up. I'm a math lover, so I can see spending an enjoyable afternoon with my calculator and perhaps and an Excel spreadsheet. But I have a couple of questions. First, the grey scale only runs from 0 through 255, isn't that correct? Does that mean that 513 m is the max height of any object in our game? I think, in fact I *know* I have objects taller than that in the map I wish to copy, as well as in my current region. Second, I don't know/understand what an "import.dat" is and how/why the RGB values for game elevations would be different from those you outlined above. Could you explain? Thank you all for your advice, I really appreciate it! Lora/LD I just did some quick calculator work and found that there is 150 m of elevation difference for every 50 units of RGB values, which translates to approximately 492 feet per 50 units of RGB value. Given that I am working in feet rather than meters, this also translates out to 98.4 feet of elevation difference per 10 units of RGB value and 9.84 feet per 1 unit of RGB value. I think 98.4 feet per 10 RGB units is pretty darn close to the 100' interval I am looking for, especially given that I don't think I can create an RGB value in unites of 10.16 units, which is what I would have to do to get even 100' rgb value intervals. Ths info may be what I was looking for! Thanks again!

You know, mightygoose, you are right...and thank you for bringing me back down to earth again, really. It's a game. Just because I am using a RL area for my region doesn't mean I have to conform, to the absolute best of my ability, to the RL USGS maps this region was created from. Just because I HAVE the maps doesn't mean I have to try to copy them as close as 100% accurately into my game. The USGS data is a starting point, true, but it doesn't have to be the end point, as well. It doesn't have to be the entire point, either, which I had somehow talked my myself into believing it had to be. That's why I moved from excitement to despair...the idea of trying to 100% recreate the RL landscape of the area completely overwhelmed me. But I don't have to do that. No one is going to sue me if I make the landscape my own. It's a game Lora, just a game. So, I am not going to abandon this gorgeous region. I may go through these spasms of mental distress again in the future...it's just the way my brain works sometimes. I am a little bit OCD (ok, well maybe more than a little bit) and I tend to get fixated on what turns out to be tiny details that just stop me dead in the water. This happen in my professional work as well. I have a very close professional and long time personal friend who calls this my "move the post syndrome". As an architect, I have to keep the physical structure of a building in mind when I design...each architect only gets to use one "sky hook" in his/her career (in other words, if you depend on a sky hook to keep your building standing, your career is over). So when I design, I place structural elements, like posts, where I think they need to be and then design them into the rest of the building. As the design process progresses, it sometimes happens that the initial placement of supports needs to change, and so the floor plans need to change to accomadate that. I have trouble being able to see this. The post is where it is and where I want it to be to make the floor plan work...so moving the post doesn't occur to me. I go into very expensive and elaborate schemes to keep the post where it is, spend tons of time trying to stay married to my original design and in the end the simplest solution is move the stupid post. Once I let go of keeping the post in it's original place, the entire project starts to fall into place like a simple jigsaw puzzle. In truth, this problem of fixating and getting very married to an idea at it's early inception has cost me a lot over the space of my 30+ year career. I have never been able to successfully design a truly gorgeous home without having a more senior architect watching over me and, when I start filling up numerous wastebaskets of tracing paper with discarded ideas for keeping the post in place, pat me on the shoulder and tell me, "Move the post, Lora, move the post". In my professional life, I am getting better at recognizing these times, but I still get hung up from time to time. It;s just the way my brain works...or doesn't work, as the case may be. And...now I see that this same problem with fixating carries over into my game play. I abandoned this CJ almost 3 years ago because I couldn't "move the post" in regards to dealing with issues of 1.) above sea level water and 2.) an emerging sense that the scale of the project was way, way off. And I almost did it again, this time because I couldn't exactly replicate the accuracy of the USGS maps. It's a little embarrassing. But not horribly so. It's just a game, not a proving ground of any kind. Play Lora, just play. So thank you mightygoose...I think I will "move the post". And guess what...I bet I will have new pics and progress to show next time I post. It's too late at night tonite to go into the game and start playing (almost 2 am), but I will probably be at it first thing tomorrow. Lora/LD

Well, I am still waiting on the new PW (Ploppable water) that is being developed elsewhere. Above sea level water is very important to this massive region, so I don't want to plop a single tile until I feel comfortable with being able to create the watersheds I envision. So...no work on the region itself in a while. Be patient...or not. While I have been awiting for the PW issue to be resolved, I have been dinking around in Photoshop with my USGS maps, trying to marry them to each other with hopes of eventually creating some kind of overlay contour map that would guide me to creating watershed in the region itself. I thought I was making good progress earlier this week, but I am a novice with Photoshop and the composite map I created so painstakingly over a 6 hour period completely disappeared as soon as I saved it. Sigh. I am having other thoughts, also. Having worked now with the RL USGS maps of this region/area, there is really not much buildable area on it at all. It's gorgeous to look at but truthfully will never have much population on it, just as RL Alaska is very thinly populated. It's just not a very people friendly place. High, steep mountains, glaciers all over the place, wild rivers that cover valleys from side to side and turn into miles of mud flats when they reach sea level...there just isn't much land that is habitable. And that's OK, of course, the world needs places where there are few, if any, people. But this is a *CITY* building game and as a player, I doubt I can build a city anywhere on this map, at least without completely desecrating the landscape...and that's not what I'm all about. So, sad as it may seem to hear, I am thinking about abandoning this region and hence, this CJ. I haven't made up my mind 100% yet. But the truth is...I want to be able to build cities, or at least ONE city and I don't think this region will support that goal. In RL, Cordova is the largest city in the area and it's a whopping 3000 folks huddled on the side of a glacial bay. To the best of my knowledge, fishing is the only industry. So I am thinking about looking around for a new area. One with some lanscape drama but still enough flat ground to build a decent city. I am thinking about Seattle, my own home town. Again, I haven't made up my mind. Maybe I need to create a total fantasy region, as Jacqulina prefers to do. I just don't know right now..and felt it to be important to let you all know where my brain is going with this. Lora/LD

My apologies for becoming sidetracked, but there are some exciting developments over in Three Rivers Region on SC4D that have me very distracted. Dedgren and jeronij have found a way to create a water table beneath the surface of the game...and found a way to slope it, so in essence now instead of plopping water, we may be able to "drill down" to the watertable and have above sea level water running downhill. This is very exciting news and I am watching the developments of this new tool very closely. This could be the huge breakthough that all of us who have been frustrated with the lack of above sea level water have been waiting for, but time will tell. In the meantime, I have not been idle, just not producing anything visual. I was able to download a great set of very high definition maps from the USGS site several weeks ago that I have been playing around with and wondering how to use. I have been able to identify a number of landscape elements in my region from the RL maps of the Copper River Delta area, but areas beyond the river and delta are still hazy for me. I am uncertain how to use this data, except for the watersheds, which are clearly defined both on the USGS maps and, to a lesser degree, in my game region. I want the USGS maps to guide me, so I think creating an orientation point is primary. I know a lot of folks check this CJ are may be disappointed but the lack of pics, but I don;t want to rush off into unknown territory. This is going to be a slow process. Lora/LD

Can anyone explain to me why we add an extra pixel to any/all of our maps? Regions are built on city tiles and city tiles are all multiples of 64 pixels. Therefore a small city tile is 64 pixels, a medium city tile is 128 pixels, and a large city tile is 256 pixels. When we create a config.bmp, we don't add the extra pixel that we add to the greyscale JPG's or PNG's that we use...do we? Yet all the tutorials I have rwad tell me to add an extra pixel to my map. If I want to create a default game region of 1024x1024 pixels, I need to create a greyscale that is 1025x1025 pixels. All I want to know is why the extra pixel? Can anyone tell me? Lora/LD

Mightygoose- The extra pixel is turning out to be an issue for me when creating maps from game pics and if it's necessary for the greyscale, then why do I have a row of "fence" tiles at the far western edge of my map that is one pixel wide? I may delve deeper into this issue at some time down the road, but right now I have other things on my mind. And, after all, it's only ONE pixel. My dithering over a single pixel gives you all some idea of how anal I am. I really can't apologize...it would be like saying I'm so sorry I am redheaded instead of blonde, tall instead of less tall, slender instead of less slender, old instead of young. I am just who I am and given the exactness possible with computers, I am in hog heaven until I run into an extra pixel here and there, then I fret. As an architect who drew all her plans with pencils and pens for over twenty years before making the transition to drawing on the computer, I used to accept a loss of accuracy that was inherent to manual drawing. Then, once I started to learn computer drawing, I went nuts with accuracy, drawing to the 164th of an inch. Madness. The truth is, in my job, 1/8" is the closest I need to come because humans still cut the wood and a saw cut is 1/8" wide. I deal with rough carpentry, framing, not finish work or cabinetry. I know for a fact that when a framer sees a dimension of 1/16th or 1/32 or even 1/64 of an inch, he howls with laughter and calls all his buddies over and they have a grand ol' time making fun of the fool that drew the drawings. That doesn't mean my penchant for absolute accuracy has been allayed. It just means I realize that, as much as that extra pixel bugs me, it;s JUST ONE PIXEL. Let it go, Lora. let it go. It may come as no surprise to anyone that at one point in making the map immediately above, when I discovered the one pixel issue, I actually gave thought to asking Heblem to redo my maps and correct the issue for me. Because on top of the one pixel issue, I also founf that when he "married" my four individual maps to each other and so created the one large map from which I rendered this single large region, he inadvertently overlapped the NW and NE quadrants by one pixel. It doesn't show up in the game and has zero effect EXCEPT in the map I made above. It compounds the one pixel to a two pixel. So what. No one will ever notice and if it bothers me that much (which it may, eventually), I can always add the missing pixels using Photoshop. It would abe a perfect "I'm bored out of my mind and can't find anything else to do" task. As for the some day chats about glaciated landscapes, good to know there won't be a PhD reading over my shoulder and that you, Goose, will chime in with insights (and possibly corrections) or your own. Some of the topics I have noted for future discussion include: aretes morraines cirques hanging valleys tarns stream borrowing crevassi glacial anomolies seracs After a thorough review of this region, I am able to find examples of (almost) all of the above. I started terraforming/weathering the mountains last night but was not happy with the results. I will try again tonite... Lora/LD

Ok here is the completed map: Notice the very slender white lines. These are not lines I drew in the map, ratherm they are spaces between the individual city tiles that comprise the map. The white lines are the background against which I pasted my copied data game maps. And while it seems that they only occur in the bottom half of the map, there is a line of background that shows through, ay higher magnification, in the upper half of the map as well. I believe these gaps are created because when we make new maps, we add a pixel to the overall de=imension of the map. For example, each large city tile is 256 pixels square. My region is 16 x16 large city tiles square, so 16x256= 4096 pixels, right? Not. All the tutorials I have read instruct me to add a pixel to the overall map, hence this map above was created on a 4097x4097 pixel canvas. When Heblem made my maps, he followed this same rule. And when I loaded the maps into the game, I had one cell/pixel at the edges of may maps that was not part of the map, but rather completely bizarre. It's just one cell, one pixel, I can live with it. However, it calls into question why, those of us who are into creating maps, add that extra pixel. I'm going to post a new thread over on the mapping forum to ask this question and maybe someone will have an answer. mightygoose, what a better way to intimidate someone than to tell them your dad is an expert on a subject they are giving thought to writing about! I have two years of general sciences at the community college level amd am by no means an expert. But I paid attention, took notes, and aced my classes. I don't remember it all, but I remember enough to maybe give a layman's chat about glaciated lanndscapes and the extremely basic physics behind how glaciers work. I hope you won;t read my chat out loud to you dad and then post a critique! Tomorrow I will be deciding on an off site large image hosting site that I can link to for full size images of what I post here, so tune back in to see the map above in all of it's huge glory. Off to the Mapping Community Boardroom to ask about "that extra pixel". Lora/LD