alaixander

Please Visit Highwater, WA in the NEW CJ SECTION Thanks, Zac

Cool, I have to add some of that to the Gorge as it develops. Thanks Jacqulina.

WOW, your waterfalls are so real. what did you use to make the water? Very beautiful region so far - looks far more real than mine right now! I hope some of wilderness areas of Highwater will look as good as yours. Good luck settling in Emeral Falls!

Thank you panthersimcity4, Equilibria, and yunpiling for your comments. You're right Equilibria on the arrows, thank you. I realized also I need to add I-84 down by the river and a rail line to make the Gorge more real-life. I'm not a huge fan of all flat cities either as they only go so far scenic wise. I now live in Houston, where poor road organization helps shine off the city's concrete jungle as far as scenery goes. Portland and Seattle are much more interesting to experience. Kingwood and the Woodlands, TX are Houston suburbs, and they have tall pines that resembles the PNW. I like to rebuild some Houston cities in a more scenic and natural form around Highwater.

Hi Albatross Domain, you're right and thanks for the idea. As I reterraform the region, I show how the waters and hills changed. The resistance of ocean currents and the next eruption of Mt. St. Helens I will describe will create some changes to the current look. Some areas will be flooded out while others get hilly and have new valleys transformed. The sims of Highwater will reap the natural benefits of the new landscape, but they take on a great risk living near a potential landslide in case a big eruption happens, like at Mt. Rainier. I didn't grow up in Tacoma, but I have lived in Federal Way during college and Longview before then for a while. I love Washington and I hope to return soon; it's the prettiest place on Earth to me. In comparison, Houston really sizzles and is really boring to look at.

I know... the BRIDGE is WEIRD It's one of the new NAM bridges that came out - the huge white suspension bridge. It has no pillars because the bridge span is too short... LOL, I guess the Columbia River Gorge isn't wide enough... The bridge model was originally intended to cross hugh bays in the largest tiled cities. I originally planned to place this city and canyon bridge in a fantasy region I made up, but the layout I wanted was too ambitious to undertake terraforming by hand; thanks to downloaded elevation data, things got much simpler. Based on how the city looks, I placed it as part of the Columbia River Gorge as some of it's walls are really high and wide; it could serve as a back route around Portland to Washington (traffic is so bad there because of free sales tax). The bridge kinda looks built into the ground on the Oregon side, which helps with stucture and stability. It's also an excellent bungee jump hot spot! Daring dudes and bettys can now say "What's up..." to the passing yachts below as they hover over them on the low end. I'm sure the Captain and crew will be flattered, but puzzled at the same time while shaking their little Sim heads.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. The region was rendered from a USGS elevation map download, and I added the Columbia River basin and enlarged Puget Sound to the south; moving the river north helped a lot w/ that haha! I still have lots of terraforming to do, but USGS made the core structure of the map easier to create than doing it all by hand. This region is huge with over 300 mixed city sizes. It was created with the intention to build multiple metropolitan areas into a large megapolis.

I used the "Snow-Capped/Arctic Terrain Mod" by Teirusu, but I had trouble finding it on the STEX as I got it two years ago. I found a similar file from Cycledogg in the link below, which may be the same file I have. https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=13804

I love your waterfalls; they look great. What mod is this to make the water look like that? I would love to make some for my Cascades. Keep up the good work!

Regional Terraforming: The next SimCity should allow us to terraform the entire region at once very quickly and without reconciling the borders. Speaking of borders, they should be transparent and flexible, so that city limits can change as the mayor sees fit. Also, exiting to the region should be eliminated; instead, zoom out from one city and glide across to another, and when working in one city, the next city should be visible so we can see how the two will match up together. Basically, we will have the power to build on the whole region at once, and we can fly across to see how the cities are coming together using the zoom and fly control.

Open spaces and natural habitats are protected areas within a city that are preserved from urban development. It could be a pond, section of woods, a grassland, or perhaps a beach (basically untaimed, naked plots of land). It can also be a network of gardens and parks that help make a city more natural and provide a tranquil, earthly place for busy people to go to without having to leave the city to see the country. I have seen many forms of open space during my travels across America. Central Park in New York City is an example of an open space; others are Memorial Park in Houston, City Park in Denver, or the Flatirons near Boulder. My hometown of Kingwood, TX has plots of forest in between subdivisions where a network of paved nature trails called "greenbelts" link all the neighborhoods together without having to drive around town. When I publish my CJ, I plan to update more pictures of the open spaces of its featured metropolis; it will be a city built within a natural habitat--similar to what was done in The Woodlands, TX.

Wow, your palm beach looks so awesome--very realistic and original!! Good luck with your cj...I will be sure to keep an eye out. Once my region is terraformed (takes forever), the City of Hollister and Neptune I hope will look this good.

Show Us Your City Parks, Open Spaces, and Natural Habitats! City governments are frantically saving up what little space that is left within their concrete jungles to preserve into parks, open spaces, and natural habitats. This has increasing importance as our world grows smaller every day! Sims are no different than a real person--they NEED trees and outdoor places to play! The maxis parks are a good start, but our Environmental Advisor always ask for more; more; more TREES! I don't get it...I plant a city full of trees and She is "never satisfied?" Perhaps some of our hand-made works of art will spark up her since of urban renewal--the natural way of course! Here you can post examples of your Parks, BATs/LOTS, or hand-made mini-habitats that even the zoo animals will get jealous over! Below are some examples of mine taken from the City of White Springs, a nestled community that sits ontop a mile-high canyon of rushing rapids. White Springs is the chief city of the Lake Stavney region, a subregion west of the Greater Mount. St. Helens metro area of Washington State. Of the real cities I have lived in, Seattle has the most open spaces and parks of any US city that I know of; in SC4, all my cities are built within their natural habitat. Thank you for sharing your ideas with me and the Simtropolis community; don't forget to smell the roses! White Springs Community Open Space, White Springs White Springs Central Park White Rapids Open Space White Springs Canyon & Mile-High Bridge West White Springs Canyon East White Springs Canyon

Here is the central artery of White Springs, Washington, a medium-size city nestled ontop a mile-hile canyon. Everything is separate here as I was using NAM for the first time. It turned out very pretty for the uptown district.