korver

If that was truly "the point" of the challenge, then that clearly would have been posted in the requirements section, it would have not been left out. And I don't necessarily agree that just because it said "creating" meant that image absolutely had to be made from scratch since the posting of the challenge and not posted anywhere else. That section was listed away from the rest of the rules and was simply too vague to imply that creating a new image was a requirement of this challenge. Also, I should point out that the "Fully Modded" and "Vanilla" competitions have differing requirements sections: Fully Modded: Requirements The requisites to participate in this competition is to have Full NAM or NAM without RHW (No images using NAM Lite are accepted) and other mods are allowed as this competition is reserved for players who have modified even heavily the game. For players want to play SC4 Vanilla with NAM Lite there is a challenge especially for you and you can see it here. Vanilla: Requirements The only requirement to participate in this challenge is the use of NAM Lite and a Slope Mod. Images with other mods will not be accepted, as there is already a dedicated competition for players who make extensive use of mods. Images already posted will not be accepted as we are looking for new material created by you to celebrate 20 Years of SimCity 4. This is pretty clear cut, there was a requirement for the images posted in the Vanilla challenge to be new content, but no such requirement in the modded one. For people like myself who were under the assumption that I could post an existing image like you could do in the previous ST challenges and other image competition events, I'm being put in a really bad spot because my image is being disqualified mid-challenge and I had no time to come up with anything new. Had the rules been laid out more clearly, I could have used the last month and a half to come up with something original and post it in this competition instead. In any case though, I still don't think it's very fair to retroactively disqualify entries, the new images requirement was obviously not laid out well enough in advance and it should only apply to future challenges.

With all due respect I don't agree with how this is being handled. For starters, there was never a rule anywhere in the modded challenge post about posting existing content, the only "requirements" for this challenge were the following: Requirements The requisites to participate in this competition is to have Full NAM or NAM without RHW (No images using NAM Lite are accepted) and other mods are allowed as this competition is reserved for players who have modified even heavily the game. For players want to play SC4 Vanilla with NAM Lite there is a challenge especially for you and you can see it here. Additionally, posting existing images to various image competitions like the previous iterations of the ST Challenges, ST Picture Competition, and SC4 Picture competition used to be a widely accepted practice. The only regulation was that you couldn't post an image again if it won an event, which was fair. I don't understand why there needs to be such a drastic change in this regard. Also, it was never my intent to "hide" the fact that I was using an existing image that I posted already by editing it. That makes no sense as I also posted 25 other existing images which weren't edited any further, and as mentioned previously, there were no rules mentioned in the modded challenge description about posting existing images. I added the extra early 1900's postcard effect to really bring out the feeling of being in that era - I had gotten better over the years adding those sorts of filter effects to some of my historical themed images and wanted to add that to the pic to present my best image possible, not to "hide" anything. Looking back, there was even another image here (which you can still vote on) which explicitly stated in the description that it came from a previously posted CJ, yet absolutely nothing was ever mentioned or done about it, or how that was apparently frowned upon for some reason - I am confused why this is an issue all of a sudden. Overall, these challenges got an okay turnout but it wasn't great and the deadline had to be extended, so I don't see how disqualifying a chunk of the entries and then putting in additional rules to further stifle activity is good at all for these events. If the challenge committee still believes it's important to have this rule for whatever reason, then actually mention it and enforce it going forward - but in my opinion it's unfair to retroactively disqualify entries which weren't breaking any rules and followed previously accepted principals when they were posted.

The Region of Shasta | Population: 1,734,955 Full size 4096 x 3496 resolution images: 4MB jpg here| Higher-res 21MB jpg here Located on the shores of the Northern Pacific and nestled between the towering Great Coastal Range and the Condor Mountains, The Region of Shasta holds over 1.7 million people alongside some truly breathtaking natural landscapes. The region's most important urban center is the the Four Cities Metropolitan Area - consisting of the biggest city in the region, Columbia City (Population: 1,156,357) as well as the smaller cities of Sierra Beach, Prospect City, and Bridgeport. The sprawling metropolis of Columbia City is the beating heart of the region and was named after it's impressive collection of Washington D.C. inspired architecture. Today, it's home to some of the region's most popular dining, nightlife, and entertainment venues - and it's impressive skyline is home to 8 of the world's 100 tallest skyscrapers. On the opposite shore of the Shasta River lies Sierra Beach - this small beachfront city has been the capital of the region since 1941 and its beachfront promenade is said to offer some of the region's most beautiful views. Just north of Sierra Beach lies Prospect City - which originally gained recognition in the 1860's as an important gold mining outpost. Today, it's best known for its movie industry in the "Little Hollywood" district and has produced countless critically acclaimed films over the decades. Finally, there's the aptly named Bridgeport - a city that has sadly seen better days. This heavily industrial seaport city has been in a serious state of decline since the late 1970's when many of the major factories shut down - but still serves as an important hub in the region, exporting much of the surrounding rural area's agricultural output from the nearby Diamond Valley. Aside from it's cities, the Region of Shasta is also well known for it's many amazing natural wonders. Towards the top of the scene, we can see a view of the impressive Great Coastal Range - and the tallest peak in the area is the 11,172 ft tall granite peaks of King's Mountain (seen in the top right of the scene). Alongside the mountain lies one of the world's deepest canyons - the almost impossibly-steep Devil's Canyon, which drops down nearly 9,500 feet. Cutting through the heart of the Great Coastal Range is the famous Diamond Valley - bordered by the Grizzly Peaks, it's known for it's rich volcanic soils which have made it a popular wine-growing destination. Shasta is also home to variety of beautiful natural parks and state monuments - towards the bottom right of the scene in the Shasta River we can see the start of the sprawling Two Thousand Islands National Park, which were formed by several explosive volcanic eruptions over the millennia. Additionally, the entire length of the Great Coastal Mountains in this area are bordered by the protected wildlife sanctuaries of Arcadia National Forest, preserving some of the Pacific's oldest natural rainforests. Many features of the NAM Lite were also incorporated extensively throughout this vanilla, hand-terraformed SC4 creation - most notably the smooth highway corners, diagonal streets, and roundabouts. Additional views and images from this scene for further reference:

Midtown Manhattan in the 1930s Full size resolution image link here. Midtown Manhattan's iconic skyline has changed quite a bit over the years - and in the 1930's scene pictured above, Art Deco ruled America and the Big Apple. The recently completed Chrysler Building and Empire State Building soared over 1,000 feet and both held the title as the world's tallest building. With other impressive towers such as 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the Chanin Building, 500 5th Avenue, and the Waldorf Astoria hotel all rising in recent years as well, the city's skyline was experiencing a huge growth spurt - that is until the Great Depression put everything on hold. The city's transportation networks were going through a period of change as well, with the aging elevated rail and steetcar (with all lines recreated faithfully above) falling out of favor for the subway and modern automobile - which I made sure to appropriately represent as well with a number of custom mods. As with all of my recreations, accuracy was crucial - and that meant creating a fully MMPed, to-scale Central Park - and using the FAR and wide-radius curves to great effect to recreate the park's many winding roads. And finally, to bring out the modded aspect of this challenge - not only did this recreation make use of virtually every single period-accurate BAT I could find on the exchanges, but also making a number of custom BATs to fill in holes in the skyline and some additional custom texture work/network modding on the roads to really bring this distinctive era of the Big Apple to life. Some other views from around this recreation:

Some scenes from Cologne & Dusseldorf. More scenes from around the globe here.

A look at what I'm working on lately.

A few more nature shots.

Today, we'll be taking one more epic trip around the globe and taking a look at a few of my favorite destinations and some final pictures that I began in 2021 but only finished up recently. I've spent the first few months this year working on completely new custom made terrain mods, custom made BATs, lot editor textures (which you'll be seeing in the pictures below), FSHs, and more to compliment existing custom content - I hope to bring a handful of the planet's most amazing scenes to life. -korver

Some more current projects I'm working on.

Some of my current BATs I'm working on.

Current progress.