-
Announcement
-
Simtropolis Returns! 05/26/2026
See here for details about our site recovery efforts.
-
Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'earthworks'.
Found 8 results
-
Earthworks Tutorial Lucario Boricua's Earthworks Tutorials E-7: Hiking Trail
Lucario Boricua posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
Greetings once again! Today I'm unveiling a wonderful Earthworks Tutorial for nature-lovers, we're making hiking trails!! These are a type of path located along natural areas, whose purpose is to allow for recreational walking and sometimes cycling in designated wilderness areas. These are an essential part of natural preserves open to the public, connecting visitor centers to the various amenities for outdoorsy people. A. Mods and custom content required Network Addon Mod, latest version, currently the 38. Versions 34 through 37 will still be adequate despite missing some of the latest relevant features. In particular, make sure to have the NAM hole digging lots, these are super important to do a lot of the required steps I'll be showing. There are other hole digging lots available and they work just as well. One of the features we'll be using are the pedestrian mall bridges! Slope mode of your choice: in my case, the original BRF Tunnel and Slope Mod with some slight modifications. I recommend this one in particular because it's one of the most varied slope mods available for SimCity 4. I currently use an older version which still did not include a dedicated Real Highway (RHW) slope. In fact, for this tutorial it is especially advantageous to have a slope mod which specifically excludes the Real Highway, as the network's default slope is especially steep, it'll come in handy to shape the natural terrain around the paths. Find all the published slope mods in the main topic of the Earthworks Tutorials series! God Terraforming in Mayor Mode: if not your thing, use the cheat to activate God mode terraforming tools in Mayor Mode Your favorite sand, rock or MMP path set: once the trail path is shaped, it's great to have it look just right with the right surface to match the scene. Some players might prefer a more precise and engineered walking surface, it's possible to use path lots, so long as they're slope-conforming and that the created path alignment has flatter slopes. Below there's a few trusted options: Some outdoor recreational area amenities: benches, scenic look-overs, overhanging bridges, railings and so on. Below I'm showing the ones I'll be using in this tutorial. The best one-stop area for these is the PLEX Mountain Theme Pack! One other thing players would enjoy is getting MMP trailblazers: ordinary people (pedestrians), cyclists and/or horseback riders. B. Types of terrain required: make sure to use a terrain area hosting natural features: streams, waterfalls, cliffs, mountains, lakes, coastlines, dunes--anything other than a featureless flat terrain. The more rugged, the better! Plan out your trail to include starting points (the trail heads), important stuff where amenities might be found, crossings and terminations (either another trail head, major outdoor facilities or a notable scenic destination). C. Take me to the trailblazing steps now!! Now that everything is set, we're ready to start our trail building! 1. We start by finding our scenic natural area! This time I'm in the Alba River Gorge Natural Heritage Preserve in the Town of Zacien, Kingdom of Rota. Here we have some impressive cliffs, roaring waterfalls and a refreshing pine forest, highly accessible by road, rail and even air travel (close to the Kingdom of Rota International Airport!). 2. The full trail should look like this (not exactly, depending on how we adapt to the terrain), although given the extreme level of detail involved in this tutorial, we'll end up building only the eastern half. The western half will be used for another upcoming tutorial! Location A is our visitor center to the Natural Heritage Preserve, where I'm using the Halfway Hut as the building where forest conservation activities are headquartered. Location B is a spot we'll be preparing for future outdoor uses, we will only prepare the terrain but not build anything in this tutorial. Location C will be the location of a spectacular scenic look-over for this amazing waterfall descending from the White River. 3. When starting our trail, we will find it easiest to start with a small flattish area we can use to create a switchback, a sharp turn to help trails go up and down steep terrain. We flatten the area by placing road pieces, and keep them in place to start a rising path. We also dig below to prepare our area to start building the trail downhill. 4. After digging down, we remove these pieces and start building a path segment going downhill. To keep things looking interesting, don't limit the paths to orthogonal segments, use diagonal and fractional angle alignments to better line up with the hillsides. 5. Once we reach the lowest part, we can flatten the terrain to create a larger activity area for future use. At the same time, we may notice that the landscape doesn't look quite right, we can fix that! 6. We can re-shape the natural terrain for a better look. Here I'll be using the Real Highway 2 (RHW-2) and the Street to shape the steep hillside with trees into a proper cliff face. The street can be reached with a hotkey short-cut with Alt + R. 7. To shape the cliff, we need relatively gentle slopes above and below where we want the cliff face, the cliff face will correspond to the steep transition between the gentler inclines. 8. One important benefit of the Street and RHW-2 is that they can be removed using the de-zoning tool. A quick way to select it is using Ctrl + V, saving valuable seconds of menu-loading time. 9. We now return to our original path. To ensure a consistent incline, we flatten an area uphill of our next curve or crossing, and then create an inclined portion at a higher elevation than our intended path from below. I'm using the road network (hotkey R to activate) to do this, don't use overly steep networks for the paths because our trailblazers could be discouraged by dangerously or tiresomely steep hiking! 10. We then demolish the cells for the uphill terrain raising and then build a FAR-2 road. Build 4-cell long segments which overlap 2 cells, continue until reaching the desired elevation. Once there. place the road pieces again to create the next horizontal stretch. 11. We then reach a spot where a depression would come in handy to make the landscape more interesting! Prepare the area by removing at least 3 road squares for the gorge gap. Continues to Part 2 below!!!- 3 Replies
-
- 7
-
-
-
- earthworks
- terraforming
- (and 5 more)
-
Lucario Boricua's Earthworks Tutorials Official Thread
Lucario Boricua posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
Greetings to all fellow mayors and Simtropolitan citizens! I want to present you a series of tutorials revolving around a very immersing part of the game: earthworks! Why? Because it's a very fundamental aspect of any construction in real life and can add aesthetic and functional depth to your cities. I came up with a series of tutorials I'll be developing for this purpose, ranging from the most fundamental aspects to highly demanding applications of in-game earthmoving to shape the destiny of your city. Perhaps the biggest gain players can get from mastering earthworks is making rugged terrain regions all that much more enjoyable. It may be tempting to always go with a very flat region to make building easy, but that approach makes players miss the opportunity of a challenging terrain resulting in a thrilling and wonderful landscape. I'll be making these based on my main ongoing region, the Sinnoh Region, as the one fundamental geographic element that defines it are its mountains. One favor I ask followers of this series is to avoid posting on the tutorial threads until they have been constructed. Their completion will be announced here and in the meantime, the corresponding comments can be made here. This thread replaces the original, which was confronting technical glitches due to the closing date of a poll interfering with update saves. That thread will be locked, but is linked here for users who want to read previous posts on the topic. ESSENTIAL TOOLS: these are in-game tools which apply to nearly all Earthworks Tutorial entries. More specialized content specific to each tutorial is mentioned for each topic. Network Addon Mod, latest version, currently the 41. Essential tools from the mod include the on-slope transitions for elevated networks and the self-destructing terrain digging and raising lots! Slope mode of your choice: in my case, the original BRF Tunnel and Slope Mod with some slight modifications. I recommend this one in particular because it's one of the most strict slope mods available for SimCity 4. I currently use an older version which still did not include a dedicated Real Highway (RHW) slope, but that isn't a problem for me as you'll all learn during the tutorials. This tutorial's home page lists almost every network slope mod published for SimCity 4. Region with hilly, rolling and/or mountainous terrain: anything that isn't a super flat expanse of nothingness will do. An easy place to start is with my collection of Caribbean regions, most of these have some topographic or coastal complexity providing numerous opportunities to test earthworks skills! God Terraforming in Mayor Mode: if not your thing, use the cheat to activate God mode terraforming tools in Mayor Mode T U T O R I A L S E R I E S : A. EARTHWORKS FUNDAMENTALS: (in the making) Starting a town: now available! 2. Main local road: now available as video! Re-writing as forum post pending 3. Simple bridge across river: upcoming 4. Power lines: upcoming B. EARTHWORKS APPLIED TO MAJOR TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS AND URBAN RENEWAL (future) Rural Freeway Segment Rural Freeway Interchanges River Diversion Urban Freeway Retrofit Median Mass Transit Suburban Freeway Retrofit C. COASTAL CHALLENGE (in progress) Seaport: now available! Beaches City straddling the sea Major bridge across a bay Building a linear breakwater Building an island Underwater tunnels Seaports, marinas and sea-level canals using NAM terrain diggers and raisers E. Entertainment / recreational facilities (in development) 1. Stadium, coliseum or sports arena over scenic hill 2. Sunken sports park 3. Scenic lookover (coming soon!) 4. Large urban park (coming soon!) 5. Golf course 6. Cycling path 7. Hiking trail (now here!) 8. Ski Resorts H. Historic and archaeological sites (in development) 1. Mound architecture 2. Castle moat 3. Ancient aqueduct (coming soon!) 4. Archaeological dig (coming soon!) M. MOUNTAIN MADNESS (in progress) Wildlife crossings a. Cerviduct: now available! b. Wildlife-friendly culverts c. Viaducts d. Viaducts over flatter natural terrains 2. Mountain roadway (it begins) a. Basic mountain roadway construction techniques: cut, fill, benching, tunnels and simple viaducts b. Elaborate overland viaducts (now here!) c. Interchanges taking advantage of the natural topography (coming soon!) d. Mountain rural expressway with climbing lanes (coming soon!) e. Mountain roadway furnishings: truck escape ramps, guardrails, safe slope grading f. Mountain freeway with independently-aligned roadbeds / carriageways 3. Mountain railway a. Horseshoe bend b. Loop bend c. Tunnels d. Switchbacks e. Viaducts on a gradient 4. Dam and reservoir system (coming soon!) a. Dam and reservoir proper b. Spillways c. Fish ladders d. Penstocks 5. Mine creation and expansion (coming soon!) a. Open pit mine b. Underground mine c. Mountaintop removal mine d. Placer deposit river dredging mine 6. Mountain streams a. Ploppable streams (basic) b. Ploppable streams (rapids and small waterfalls) c. MMP and custom texture streams d. Large waterfalls made with in-game terrain e. Beaver ponds f. Recreation along mountain streams 7. Land development in mountain areas a. Terrace farming b. Hillside and mountaintop landmarks c. Mountain residential neighborhoods d. Visitor centers e. Funiculars and rack railways f. Cable cars R. Major transportation projects, Rural 1. Rural freeway segment a. Embankment layout b. Sunken layout c. Overpasses and underpasses 2. Rural freeway interchange a. Diamond b. Partial cloverleaf c. Cloverleaf d. Trumpet e. Directional Y / T 3. Drainage and small stream crossings a. Culverts b. Detention ponds c. Roadside ditches d. Fords and low water crossings 4. High speed rail across the landscape a. Viaduct segments b. Embankment segments c. Soundproofing with soil embankments d. Tunneling S. Slope Mod Shoppe--future topic representing the various slope mods available for SimCity 4 so far, I've identified 8 main mods, 2 auxiliary mods and 22 variants in total! 1. Properties a. Grade (percent, reciprocal, degrees) for each network b. Use of vertical curvature c. Minimum height for support structures (pillars, retaining walls) d. Terrain smoothing factors e. Network construction costs f. Construction animations 2. Maxis (no mod): since no slope mod applies here, I'll be linking to some previous discussions on the topic. I intend to expand further on these. Ennedi's Civil engineering support thread: slope mods, other tools and issues (SC4D's closest counterparts to my Earthworks Tutorials series). https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3832.0 3. BigRedFish (original) 4. 250458 & BigRedFish (modified variant) 5. CSX (requires a SC4D LEX account to download) https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=72 6. Bones1 Smoother road and rail slope mod 7. Jeronij Tunnel and Slope Mod (requires a SC4D LEX account to download) https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=33 8. NHP Ennedi (requires a SC4D LEX account to download): this one includes a detailed readme providing additional information on how slope mods work https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1512 a. Smooth b. Medium c. Mounted 9. SCRT Slope Mod: a. Extremely smooth b. Very smooth c. Smooth d. Average e. Mounted f. Very mounted g. Extremely mounted 10. Alvinheriadi Slope Mod: I have managed to download this from a site I can't find. I've researched the author and it seems to be someone from Indonesia. If possible, I would like to get authorization from the Simtropolis staff to host this mod until the source is found. a. More smooth b. Smooth c. Medium d. Steep e. More Steep 11. NAM Tunnel and Slope Mod: developed by myself, this one is still in open beta. It provides six (6) slope variants, including unified and per-network files. a. Maxis Default: only modifies tunnel portal for the RealRailway b. Very Easy / Very Steep (no vertical curvature) c. Easy / Steep (no vertical curvature) d. Moderate, Vanilla Style (no vertical curvature) e. Moderate, NAM Style (has vertical curvature) f. Strict / Flat (has vertical curvature) g. Realistic / Very flat (has vertical curvature) 12. Auxiliary slope mods a. Real Highway Mod Slope Mod b. Bullet Train Mod / High Speed Rail c. Xen0 Slope mod for highways d. Underground Depth Mod, by Thalassicus. This mod drastically increases the slope tolerance and construction depth of subway and water pipe, making them easy to place in the most absurdly steep terrains. T. Major transportation projects, urban 1. Basic tunnels for urban areas a. Draggable Road Tunnel (NEW!) b. Draggable Rail Tunnel c. Puzzle Piece FLUP Tunnel d. U-Rail Tunnel c. Subway FLUPs Tunnel 2. Sunken urban freeway a. Segment b. Diamond interchange c. Collector-distributor 3. Median mass transit a. Bus Rapid Transit b. Ground light rail c. Elevated rail d. High speed rail 4. Urban freeway interchanges a. Turbine b. Stack c. Cloverstack d. Cloverleaf with separate weaving area e. Basketweave f. Interchanges with earth embankments to reduce flyover length g. Single-Point Urban Interchanges (SPUI) and Diverging Diamond Interchanges (DDI) 5. Sunken railway a. Segments b. Stations c. Grade separation 6. Airport a. Leveling large terrains b. Airport drainage c. Tunnel-based access d. Clearing vertical topographic hazards e. Runways using fill over wetlands and shallow water bodies f. Airport on an artificial island 7. Urban canal a. Basic alignment b. Bridge crossings c. Pedestrian facilities U. Utilities 1. Thermal and nuclear power plants a. Site preparation b. Fuel storage c. Cooling water channel d. Flood defenses 2. Power lines a. Overland alignment b. Aquatic alignment 3. Irrigation canal a. Canal layout b. Feeder dam or weir c. Regulation ponds d. Siphons e. Canal crossings 4. Refinery a. Storage tanks b. Tanker ship terminal c. Oil pipelines d. Refining train layout 5. Quarry (coming soon!) a. Excavation b. Benching c. Spoils area d. Logistics 6. Floodplain flood control a. Levees b. Channelized river c. Emergency floodway d. Bioswales e. Sedimentation basins 7. Landfill a. Landfill pit b. Landfill mound c. Landfill drainage 8. Renewable energy a. Solar photovoltaics farm b. Onshore wind farm c. Offshore wind farm d. Biofuel thermal plants Z. Development and use of custom tools and mods for precision terraforming 1. SC4 Mapper 2013 for intermediate and advanced users a. Using custom topographic legends for earthworks tutorials b. Editing high quality terrain using only SC4 Mapper and image editing programs 2. Creating custom topographic legend for SC4 Mapper 3. Creating custom regions from 8-bit grayscales using image editing software and Heightmapper a. Defining region ideas b. Extracting the topographic data c. Editing the topographic data using Paint.NET and GIMP- 2 Replies
-
- 12
-
-
- earthworks
- tutorial
- (and 7 more)
-
A Guide to the Gentler Terraforming Arts
Naomi57 posted a City Journal entry in Canarsie Pol, East New York: Island City – Bedroom Community (NAM36)
A Guide to the Gentler Terraforming Arts When we think of terraforming, our mind usually flies off to grand sweeping landscapes, upthrust mountain peaks, deep canyons, and rivers. While I sometimes do those, far more often my terraforming is about small scale tweaks to allow me to plop shoreline beaches, bridges, tunnels, ports, marinas and ferries, exactly where and how I want them, and aesthetics to improve the look of my terrain, my water, and my shorelines. Here's one I did earlier, in another one of my cities, but I'll explain the techniques in the comments below. First the original zoning ... Then grown, and with coastline terraformed! Click on the images to zoom in, and arrow around to compare before and after. I'll add further comments on this thread occasionally, each one a little tutorial for fine-tuned terraforming, shoreline fixes, water beautifying, and decorative terrain tweaks. If you want to get notified of my latest terraforming tutorial, just click on the Follow button at the top of this post! While this tutorial is written for the intermediate SC4 player, it's accessible to beginner players, too. No mods required.- 1 Comment
-
- 3
-
-
- terraforming
- earthworks
- (and 1 more)
-
Earthworks Tutorial Lucario Boricua's Earthworks Tutorials C-1: Terraforming a Seaport
Lucario Boricua posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
Welcome again to another entry of the Earthworks Tutorials series! Today we begin the C-series, Coastal Challenge, with the construction of a custom seaport. 1. What are seaports and why do they matter? Seaports are a transportation and logistics infrastructure type, they provide an interface in which cargo and people change between land transportation and marine transportation, as well as a place in which freight from different origins is sent, transferred or received. Depending on the needs of a region, and on the geographic characteristics of the seaport site, a multitude of layouts would be possible, such that the site is utilized in the most efficient, comfortable and considerate manner. Some locations at which seaports benefit from more elaborate terraforming include: Smooth coastlines lacking sizable bays, estuaries, inlets or coves. Seaports that outgrew their natural bay and require a major expansion into the open water. Seaports which must accommodate very large vessels and need to re-size their docking facilities, in particular providing very long and straight wharves. Areas in which inclement marine weather necessitates construction of breakwater systems surrounding the outer parts of the seaport. 2. What do I need to terraform my own seaport? DISCLAIMER A: This first part focuses on the terraforming of the seaport itself, not on furnishing the seaport with terminals, wharves, docks, cranes, container yards or the like. Later on I will re-visit this post to add a second part in which the furnishing of the seaport is addressed. Note that the more general nature of this tutorial also makes it useful for the construction of land reclamation and artificial island projects. DISCLAIMER B: The method shown here only applies to new city districts, not to well-established cities. One of the steps requires using the Obliterate City command. For this SimCity 4 project you will need: God Terraforming in Mayor Mode Your favorite slope mod Extra Cheats.dll Hole digging lots / terrain raising lots Mayor Mode Props (mmp) for rocks, stones or coastal armoring units. There's too many options to choose from, so I'll just show the two I used. Sea walls (optional, not shown in this tutorial) In this particular tutorial, I'll be using these: God Mode in Mayor Mode: this modifies the Mayor Mode landscaping menu to provide access to most God Mode tools, with the exception of the erode, smooth, raise and sink terrain commands. This one is essential to this and all other tutorials I'll be preparing. BigRedFish Tunnel and Slope Mod: one of the strictest out there, there's others with steeper slopes for those who prefer them instead. This one works for those who are up to the challenge of building realistic terrain slopes for transport networks and large embankments. Extra Cheats Plugin: an essential set of cheats which unlock some very useful tools for advanced gameplay. The commands we'll be using depend on having it installed. Network Addon Mod: as part of the installation, a set of hole digging and raising lots is included, it isn't the only option available, however. smoncrie's Hole Digging Lots: for the players not using a complete installation of the NAM, this is the hole digging and raising lot set I recommend using. Coastal armoring tetrapods: here are two coastal armoring block MMPs I've used for this tutorial. If trying to build an authentic-looking seaport, these work best at two types of locations: seaports located faraway from large rock formations (no big boulders to extract anywhere nearby) and for places in which a rock boulder rip-rap wouldn't withstand sea currents. uki-sim's Tetrapods (click on the zip link to get the files): http://uki-sim.seesaa.net/index-17.html 3. Let's get started!! Our starting terrain consists of a peninsula with sandbar isthmuses. The waters are relatively shallow, but not tranquil. Our seaport will be located in the bay covering the lower right quadrant of the city district. Press the Ctrl + X keys to open the in-game command input, type in terrainquery to activate the coordinates of the game. To view coordinates, select any cursor (normal or traffic cursor) and place it over the location at which you want to get the information. (thanks to @CorinaMarie for reminding me this sub-step!) A. We zoom in and try to find a spot of the coastal slope located between 7.5 and 8.0 meters above the game's sea level (257.5-258.0 m). We will use this to define the elevation of our docks and yards. B. Use a road square to start forming the flat area. Make sure to plop it at a location in which the cell edge that remains in place matches the desired elevation. For best results, press the R key to get the road tool activated directly over the cell of interest. Use left-click on the mouse, hold it and check if the terrain shape goes to the desired direction. If it doesn't, press Esc before releasing the left click. C. Gradually expand the level area by placing road pieces. Once a sufficiently long base line is established, dragging the road parallel to the baseline defined by the clicks will make this task much easier. D. Drag road segments parallel to the baseline, continue this procedure until as much land as desired has been flattened. E. The seaport site now looks like this after flattening a sizable chunk of the terrain. If more flattening is desired, that can be addressed later on. F. Select the Obliterate City command. This step is necessary because it will allow us to prepare the city district for what would otherwise be an imprecise waterbound terraforming. G. Go to the God Mode menu, specifically to the Global Terrain Editing Tools. Select Raise Terrain Level, each click raises the landmass by 30 meters. For these shallow waters, one click suffices, city districts with more water require more clicks, until all the desired work area is above water. H. Our work area looks like this after being raised 30 meters above sea level. If satisfied, found the city again, it will begin with the clean budget of a new city: I. We now begin straightening the perimeter of the port area, using straight lines either in orthogonal (along the compass points) or diagonal form. Players who have the means to build fractional angle seaports can also opt for that additional arrangement. Use the same methods shown to form the initial flat area. J. Start forming docks, wharves and/or breakwaters, provide sufficient width to fit both the seaport facilities, access networks (road, rail, freeway, avenue...) and/or utility easements (electricity, water, fuel lines...). K. Wherever these protruding docking areas are located, make sure to provide smooth slopes on the sides where ships will not be anchoring. This is where we will provide coastal armoring. Make sure to do it to the outer-facing parts of the earthen berms, other recommended areas include the terminations of the docks. L. When building diagonal breakwater areas, make sure to provide smooth sloping for the diagonal portions. Also note that, when building roads along the breakwater embankment, there should be flat terrain on either side of the road, who knows, it might become useful for a road expansion or for other facilities! M. Demolish any road pieces which are no longer needed. N. Now go to the gaps between the docks, make sure to flatten the sea floor all the way to the end of the gaps. This is equivalent to dredging the berthing areas. O. Once done terrraforming the parts that will become underwater, obliterate the city once again. P. Afterwards, lower the sea level to the original position at the start of the tutorial. In this case, we will lower it with one click of the lower terrain elevation, going down 30 meters: Q. With the sea level lowered again, we are ready to furnish the breakwater areas! R. Test out your coastal armoring units, and check which one, or which combination, works best. Here I have a side-by-side comparison between the SM2 tetrapods and the uki-sim tetrapods. One clever way to further enhance the look of the coastal area is to use the SM2 tetrapods for the underwater portion, and barely poking out of the water line, and placing uki-sim's tetrapods on the land portion. This will give a nice contrast between wet and dry. S. Continue adding the coastal armoring, until covering the relevant areas. Stay tuned for the follow-up of this tutorial, where I'll furnish the seaport! Here's a teaser with the breakwater road and a lighthouse:- 10 Replies
-
- 24
-
-
-
-
- earthworks
- tutorial
- (and 4 more)
-
Earthworks Tutorial Lucario Boricua's Earthworks Tutorials M-1: Wildlife Crossing in Mountain Region
Lucario Boricua posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
Welcome again! It's time to revive my Earthworks Tutorials series with a wonderful element that's gained acceptance for environmentally sensitive areas! As part of the M series, Mountain Madness, I'm kicking off things with wildlife crossings! 1. What are wildlife crossings and why do they matter? Wildlife crossings are a family of structures built to allow the passage of all kinds of wild animals across man-made linear infrastructures, such as transport networks (roads, railways, canals) or utility systems (ex. pipelines, dams and weirs). Depending on the environment and the target type of wildlife to assist, these can take all sorts of shapes, such as fish-friendly culverts, small overhead structures for smaller climbing animals, fish ladders, fish lifts or mini tunnel structures. Aside from fish ladders, most of these designs have successfully demonstrated effectiveness in assisting animal crossings across the landscape, which ultimately reconnects habitats, promotes genetic diversity and reduces costs from property damage and injuries to road users. Some of the most famous examples of these crossings can be found in the Netherlands and in Canada, the best known being the crossings over the Trans-Canada Highway across Banff National Park. This specific type of crossing, which consists of constructing a short artificial tunnel through an earthen mound, is also known as a cerviduct. The idea is that the surface of the cerviduct is a recreation of the landscape over the roadway. One of the two wildlife crossings spanning the A50 highway on the Veluwe in the Netherlands (Wikipedia). Wildlife crossing over motorway in the Netherlands (Photo credit: Henri Cormont, RWS) Wildlife crossing at Banff National Park, Canada (photo taken by Joel Sartore). Some nice reads on the topic: https://arc-solutions.org/new-solutions/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_crossing https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/04/wildlife-overpasses-underpasses-make-animals-people-safer/ https://mymodernmet.com/wildlife-crossings/ 2. What do I need to build my own wildlife crossings? For this SimCity 4 project you will need: God Terraforming in Mayor Mode Your favorite slope mod Your favorite fence kit Hole digging lots / terrain raising lots In this particular tutorial I'll be using these: God Terraforming in Mayor Mode: makes it easier to reach most God Mode terraforming tools. Alternatively, use the Ctrl+Alt+Shift command to activate God Mode terrain tools. Hole digging lots included with the Network Addon Mod For those who don't use the NAM, there's also standalone hole digging lots BRF Tunnel and Slope Mod (one of the strictest out there, there's others with steeper slopes for those who prefer them instead) NUTs Commons Railings (currently unavailable until SimCity 4 Devotion is back online) https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3306 A great fence alternative is that of the SimPEG Agricultural Mod's Addon Pack 3. How do I build my own wildlife crossings? Well, that's what we're here for! It's a fairly simple project doable with these tools. and I'll be showing a step-by-step procedure to create a cerviduct-style wildlife crossing: A. Build a roadway across the wilderness. For more information, check tutorial A-2: Main Road into Town: Cerviduct-type wildlife crossings are ideal for two terrain conditions: either level terrain or across shallow cut sections (road goes along a trench over a low-altitude hill). B. Complete the roadway and inspect the terrain along where it's built, find suitable locations at which to build the crossings. They won't be across fill sections (a bridge would be more appropriate), across gorges (bridges also appropriate) or deep tunnels. For this tutorial we'll be using the game's default tunnels. Keep in mind that these can only be built along the orthogonal directions (no diagonals). Use diagonal tunnel portals and subways for any desired diagonal tunnels. Our suitable sites are along the blue segments. C. Today we'll be making the crossing at a level terrain site. Note how the roadway is flat, as well as the terrain along its corridor. D. Demolish a short section of the roadway, with a bare minimum distance of 5 tiles. In this case I'm using 7 tiles. E. Once demolished, reach out for a terrain raising lot. In this case I'm using one that raises the terrain by 10 meters. F. Place the terrain raiser lot and drag a road (or other corresponding transport network) across it, then extend the new elevation to reach the full right-of-way width (in this case 3 tiles) and the length of the road gap minus two tiles (in this case 5 tiles). G. Extend the roads beyond the border of the elevated terrain. A slope mod will help you get a smooth transition with a gentle incline. H. Fill in the rest of the incline with more road construction. I. Complete the earthen ramp by adding a funnel shape towards each ramp end. The shape will depend on whether the adjacent terrain is level or bumpy: J. Demolish the road portions used to shape the earthen ramp: K. Anchor the road stubs on either side of the crossing with single road squares. This helps keep them in place when dragging the tunnel: L. Drag the tunnel: M. If the tunnel leaves too narrow of a gap across the earthen ramp. you may extend it one tile towards each side, this way: N. Start constructing the fence delimiting the border of the wildlife crossing: O. Complete the fence along the earth ramp edges: P. Reach out for a forest planting tool, either the Mayor Mode gardening tools or the God Mode flora planting tool. Ideally, the crossing's vegetation should resemble that of the adjacent wilderness: Q. After planting, bulldoze any forest that grew along the earthen ramp's face, the roadside (single tile strip on either side of the road proper) or grassy median (applicable for divided highways, like an RHW-4 or RHW-6S): R. Build more fencing if necessary, along the edge of the road's right-of-way. This helps block off the path of animals outside of the crossing area: S. Place wildlife if you want to see it in action! T. Pray to @A Nonny Moose to guide your wild animals across the new wildlife crossing! It's finally completed! EDIT: Before I forget, gotta preserve for posterity the defining moment of this tutorial!!- 11 Replies
-
- 23
-
-
-
-
- earthworks
- tutorial
- (and 2 more)
-
Earthworks Tutorial Lucario Boricua's Earthworks Tutorial A-2: Main Road into Town Across Rolling Terrain
Lucario Boricua posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
Welcome everyone! Today I want to present the second entry of my earthworks tutorial series! Today we're covering the basics of building a main, two-lane road into a town across rolling/undulating terrain! I would appreciate if forum members could give me some feedback on the tutorial entry's format. This time I'm posting a slideshow video, as it was easier to make than wrestling image hosting sites with a huge upload that was gonna have about 70 screenshots. For general discussions and polls on this tutorial series, visit: Mods featured: * Network Addon Mod 36: * BRF Tunnel and Slope Mod: * CPT Meadowshire Terrain Mod: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=58 * CPT Meadowshire Coast Tree Mod: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=60 * B98 Beach Extend Mod: * RVT Coast Mod 2009:- 1 Reply
-
- 4
-
-
- earthworks
- tutorial
- (and 5 more)
-
Earthworks Tutorial Lucario Boricua's Earthworks Tutorial A-1: Starting a Town
Lucario Boricua posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
The very first post of this tutorial series!! Earthwork Fundamentals 1: Starting a Town Welcome to Emeragrove!! Population: 0 Infrastructure: just a neighbor connection Trees: 0 Citizen complaints: 0 ...Huh....not a whole lot of action in here. Maybe we can change that! Our blank slate: a large city tile with a river running along the western side and rolling terrain on almost all of its land area. We will settle next to the head of navigation of the small river, highlighted by the saddle shape in red. We want to investigate the terrain characteristics in the area, we start by activating the “terrainquery” cheat (Ctrl+X, then write "terrainquery"). This allows us to obtain the tridimensional coordinates for any point within the city tile. We find that, towards the northwest of our view, the terrain’s elevation (y = 258.9 meters above SimCity level) is a meager 8.9 meters above the game’s sea level (250.0 meters). Moving towards the southeast, we find a slightly more elevated position, at 260.8 meters above SimCity level. We secure this elevation by plopping road tiles to form a flat surface we want to propagate via cut and fill. This matters because if the starting terrain is too low, the slope cannot be demonstrated effectively and Sims are at risk of losing everything to a river flood within the floodplain area. We then continue placing single road squares in a checkerboard pattern and emphasizing the boundaries of the terrain we intend to level off. One convenient way to do this is to plop a sufficiently long stretch of road squares along which we’ll be dragging the roads proper to level additional terrain along the stretch of squares. We keep dragging roads until covering an area sufficiently large to host our town’s historic center. Now, we zoom in towards an edge of the flattened terrain. As you can notice, the slope between the leveled terrain and the floodplain may be too steep for comfort or even safety (landslide risks, perhaps?). We can now fix that by dragging short stubs of road, starting at the flattened area’s edge. These stubs should be one square shorter than the distance needed to directly touch the floodplain. We continue this operation until we have the particular edge covered. Then we begin doing the same along the diagonal edge. Notice how the stub is dragged from the protruding corner of the tile.- 9 Replies
-
- 4
-
-
- earthworks
- tutorial
- (and 2 more)
-
Lucario Boricua's Earthworks Tutorials
Lucario Boricua posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
Greetings to all fellow mayors and Simtropolitan citizens! I want to present you a series of tutorials revolving around a very immersing part of the game: earthworks! Why? Because it's a very fundamental aspect of any construction in real life and can add aesthetic and functional depth to your cities. I came up with a series of tutorials I'll be developing for this purpose, ranging from the most fundamental aspects to highly demanding applications of in-game earthmoving to shape the destiny of your city. Perhaps the biggest gain players can get from mastering earthworks is making rugged terrain regions all that much more enjoyable. It may be tempting to always go with a very flat region to make building easy, but that approach makes players miss the opportunity of a challenging terrain resulting in a thrilling and wonderful landscape. I'll be making these based on my main ongoing region, the Sinnoh Region, as the one fundamental geographic element that defines it are its mountains. One favor I ask followers of this series is to avoid posting on the tutorial threads until they have been constructed. Their completion will be announced here and in the meantime, the corresponding comments can be made here. Finally, before we start, I would like everyone's feedback on which category should I tackle next after completing the fundamentals tutorial. ESSENTIAL TOOLS: Network Addon Mod, latest version (currently the 36, versions 34 and 35 will still be adequate). In particular, make sure to have the NAM hole digging lots, these are super important to do a lot of the required steps I'll be showing. Slope mode of your choice (in my case, the BRF Tunnel and Slope Mod). I recommend this one in particular because it's one of the most strict slope mods available for SimCity 4. I currently use an older version which still did not include a dedicated Real Highway (RHW) slope, but that isn't a problem for me as you'll all learn during the tutorials. Region with hilly, rolling and/or mountainous terrain--anything that isn't a super flat expanse of nothingness will do. God Terraforming in Mayor Mode (or if not your thing, use the cheat to activate God mode terraforming tools in Mayor Mode T U T O R I A L S E R I E S : A. EARTHWORKS FUNDAMENTALS: (in the making) Starting a town (Emeragrove): now available! Main local road (Emeragrove): screenshots available, pending writing Bridge across river (Emeragrove): upcoming Power lines (Emeragrove): upcoming B. EARTHWORKS APPLIED TO MAJOR TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS AND URBAN RENEWAL (future) Rural Freeway Segment (Route 203) Rural Freeway Interchanges (Route 203) River Diversion (Jubilife) Urban Freeway Retrofit (Jubilife) Median Mass Transit (Jubilife) Suburban Freeway Retrofit (Route 204) C. MOUNTAIN MADNESS (future) Difficult mountain crossing (Oreburgh-Pal Park) Mountain Railway (Oreburgh-Pal Park) Dam and reservoir (Pal Park) Mine expansion (Oreburgh) Tunnels across mountains (Route 216) Wildlife crossings a. Cerviduct b. Wildlife-friendly culverts c. Viaducts 2. Mountain roadway a. Benched slopes b. Viaducts over gorges c. Tunnels d. Freeway with separate carriageways/roadbeds 3. Mountain railway a. Horseshoe bend b. Loop bend c. Tunnels d. Switchbacks e. Viaducts on a gradient 4. Dam and reservoir system (coming soon!) a. Dam and reservoir proper b. Spillways c. Fish ladders d. Penstocks 5. Mine expansion a. Open pit mine b. Underground mine c. Mountaintop removal mine 6. Mountain streams a. Ploppable streams (basic) b. Ploppable streams (rapids and small waterfalls) c. MMP streams d. Waterfalls made with in-game terrain e. Beaver ponds D. COASTAL CHALLENGE (future) Seaport (Jubilife Port) Power Plant (Jubilife Port) Beaches (Hotel Grand Lake) City straddling the sea (Sunyshore) Building a linear breakwater (Seabreak Path) Building an island (Flower Paradise) Underwater tunnels (Jubilife) E. Entertainment / recreational facilities 1. Stadium, coliseum or sports arena over scenic hill 2. Sunken sports park 3. Scenic lookover (coming soon!) 4. Large urban park (coming soon, early 2021!) 5. Golf course 6. Cycling path 7. Mountain trail (coming soon!) H. Historic and archaeological sites 1. Mound architecture 2. Castle moat 3. Ancient aqueduct (coming soon!) 4. Archaeological dig (coming soon!) R. Major transportation projects, Rural 1. Rural freeway segment a. Embankment layout b. Sunken layout c. Overpasses and underpasses 2. Rural freeway interchange a. Diamond b. Partial cloverleaf c. Cloverleaf d. Trumpet e. Directional Y / T 3. Drainage and small stream crossings a. Culverts b. Detention ponds c. Roadside ditches d. Fords 4. High speed rail across the landscape a. Viaduct segments b. Embankment segments c. Soundproofing with soil embankments d. Tunneling S. Slope Mod Shoppe--future topic representing the various slope mods available for SimCity 4 so far, I've identified 8 main mods, 2 auxiliary mods and 22 variants in total! 1. Properties a. Grade (percent, reciprocal, degrees) for each network b. Use of vertical curvature c. Minimum height for support structures (pillars, retaining walls) 2. Maxis (no mod) 3. BigRedFish (original) 4. 250458 & BigRedFish (modified variant) 5. CSX 6. Bones1 7. Xeno 8. NHP Ennedi a. Smooth b. Medium c. Mounted 9. SCRT Slope Mod a. Extremely smooth b. Very smooth c. Smooth d. Average e. Mounted f. Very mounted g. Extremely mounted 10. Alvinheriadi Slope Mod a. More smooth b. Smooth c. Medium d. Steep e. More Steep 11. Auxiliary slope mods a. Real Highway Mod b. Bullet Train Mod / High Speed Rail T. Major transportation projects, urban 1. Sunken urban freeway a. Segment b. Diamond interchange c. Collector-distributor 2. Median mass transit a. Bus Rapid Transit b. Ground light rail c. Elevated rail d. High speed rail 3. Urban freeway interchanges a. Turbine b. Stack c. Cloverstack d. Cloverleaf with separate weaving area e. Basketweave 4. Sunken railway a. Segments b. Stations 5. Airport a. Leveling large terrains b. Airport drainage c. Tunnel-based access d. Clearing vertical topographic hazards 6. Urban canal a. Basic alignment b. Bridge crossings c. Pedestrian facilities U. Utilities 1. Thermal and nuclear power plants a. Site preparation b. Fuel storage c. Cooling water channel d. Flood defenses 2. Power line a. Overland alignment b. Aquatic alignment 3. Irrigation canal a. Canal layout b. Feeder dam or weir c. Regulation ponds d. Siphons e. Canal crossings 4. Refinery a. Storage tanks b. Tanker ship terminal c. Oil pipelines 5. Quarry a. Excavation b. Benching c. Spoils area d. Logistics 6. Floodplain flood control a. Levees b. Channelized river c. Emergency floodway d. Bioswales 7. Landfill a. Landfill pit b. Landfill mound c. Landfill drainage- 15 Replies
-
- 7
-
-
- earthworks
- tutorial
- (and 2 more)
