lewellan222

Oh, boy! What a tremendous response! Thank you so much, everyone, for the warm response...gosh, now the pressure is on. So far, I have been "fleshing out" Granton a little bit. I have not been reckless, but have added some outlying streets to make the city bigger so I can start working. Highway plans have started. I am still working out the details, and am struggling with the NAM...or BLAM...or FAM? What is it? The transport mod? Well, whatever it is called, I expect I will need it as I cannot build the highway with the railroads the way they are. And railroads don't move. So the highway has got to go over them...I'll probably be fiddling with that for a bit. Anyone with tip or direction on working with highways go Private Message me...thanks again, everyone.

Where the Heck Have I Been? Well, one word. "World of Warcraft". Oh, that's three words. Okay, three words. Still, that darned game took a year out of my life! Okay, here is a rundown of the last two years. I stopped building Digby, but did not erase it! It just sat. I tried "getting back into it" but the video card I was using wouldn't let me play the simulation. So I gave up again and went on to other games. Then I got into World of Warcraft. If any of you are into it, you know what I mean. Now, after finally getting rid of the drug that is WoW, I have a new video card, and am building in Digby again. So the region lives again. I have been doing a lot of building. In the meantime, I see that the forum here has changed quite a bit, and I'll have to do a lot of editing. Not to worry. I'll give it a shot. However, I don't think I'll spend as much time as I did before with the updates. They probably won't be as fancy, but who knows! Just leave it with me, and I'll see what I can do...

Almost Done! Hi everybody. I've only got two more performances left, then The Sound of Music closes on Saturday. I fully expect to get back to updating my journal...in the meantime, here is a pic of me singing Edelwei

I Know, I am Never Home! Hi everybody! I know it's been a while since I have done anything with Digby, and I am sorry to see that the Edmonton Journal (although it is great!) has unseated the Digby Journal as the Most Read journal in Simtropolis...however, I am still on a wicked schedule right now. I think I am mentioned that in addition to the eight million things I do in life, I also do a lot of acting, and I am playing Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music...rehearsals for this production are every day and are in addition to my full time job, so I am out of the house from early morning until almost midnight every day! This will only last until the middle of March, when the show finally opens. It only plays for three weeks, so I promise I will get back to the journal in a couple of weeks! Please be patient, and remember...climb ev'ry mountain, ford ev'ry stream...

Granton Gets a New Private Girl's School As you may remember from the news a while back, Granton has a new private girl's school. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your income level! https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Spot-Granton.jpg align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//01_PSchool_Sat.jpg align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//PSchool_Map01A.jpg align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//PSchool_Map01B.jpg align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//02_PSchool_Front.jpg align=baseline> Looking at the rear of the school: https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//03_PSchool_Rear.jpg align=baseline> And the west side: https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//04_PSchool_West.jpg align=baseline> There are not, to my knowledge, any plans for a boy's school. Maybe the Board of Education thinks there's no hope for the boys...

Water Mod for Digby You read it in the news, and now it is a reality! The water in Digby is now more consistent with what one would find on a northern east coast area. When looking for a water mod that would get rid of the sparkly-blue default water of the game, I was initially going to let you guys vote on what you wanted. But then I realized that there was a factor that would alter the process. This was the Pegasus Factor. The Pegasus Factor dictates the following: 1 - The BAT creations by Pegasus are superior, often exceeding the quality of even the Maxis creations, and must be accounted for by any serious user of SimCity 4. 2 - Pegasus uses water (such as his Ponds, Streams, and other creations). Water is water. It should look consistent on the landscape. Thus, I had to abandon my plan to let the readers decide on what water to use for Digby. Instead, I needed to find a suitable match for Pegasus' ponds and streams. Here is what I chose to pick from (using Granton Beach as our test area): By the way, most of those above were created by Simtropolite timotheus, who offers a great variety of water options. A quick comparison to Pegasus' water narrowed down the choices quickly. And the Winner is...Muddy Grey The winner? Timotheus' Muddy Grey! Although the other water textures all looked great, there really wasn't much choice in the end. Here it is compared with Pegasus' water: That's good enough for me! Want to see it in practice? We'll to to Naylor's Pass for a look: The Dananagua River is looking much more like a real river, and not one from fantasyland. A realworld comparison with Pegasus' water can be found in Arlington County: I am happy with this, so I think I'll keep it!

Oh boy...More Changes to the Posting Interface! In an effort to try to keep my Digby posts consistant, I'm gonna have to play around here for a minute trying to match up typefaces...standby... Hmmm..Verdana Size 2 is looking not bad on my system here... Now For a Title Test...well, this isn't the best match...I seem to have lost the ability to use Arial Black! Drat!... Maybe I'll just cut-and-paste my titles from previous posts... Whoops...another problem...the editor does not differentiate between a carriage return (Enter key) and a forced carriage return (Shift-ENTER keys)...this means I cannot isolate and highlight a single paragraph for indent without affecting the entire post. I'll have to message Dirk about this. Give me a second to muck around with the next update. In the meantime, look at pictures of me on my horse at www.fnmp.org ...they are good for a laugh. Also, I apologize for the lack of updates. I am overwhelmed with work right now. I am on the implementation team that is installing a new computer system for my 700-officer police force..that, coupled with my playing the role of Captain von Trapp full-time in The Sound of Music (I kid you not, I do a lot of musical theatre also) is really taking up all my gaming time!

Chicago Firehouse (Engine 77) by SimGoober Here is a nice useful little BAT that I've just used in Grande Forkes. We sure need more BATs like this, I tell ya'!

Other Uses for the Maps Of course, I have also designed the maps so that they can do more than just show you where things are. I can use them to show function as well. For instance... Bus Routes in Grande Forkes Here is the current placment of bus stops in Grande Forkes. The current volume of each stop is shown, as are the main routes (highlighted on the streets in Transit Mauve) A screen shot of the basic data map from the game, translates into something more meaningful: As you can see, there isn't a whole hootin' heckuva lot of people riding the bus here. I can also use the Road Map, as opposed to the Street Map to show larger portions of a city and spotlight areas from a higher altitute (thanks Mr. Smoor). These maps can get little busy, I suppose, but they're still fun to make. I can see how these maps will be quite useful...or course, I still have to make them for the other SIX cities...(sigh)...

The Grande Forkes Maps Before I start getting into building, I wanted to finish up the maps for each of our eight main cities. We already saw Granton a while ago. This time, we'll have a look at Grande Forkes Maps really help to keep the reader oriented. As you can tell, I like making maps! As before, there are two maps. The first shows the entire city in a simplified form. It contains main streets, and some services and facilities. I call it the road map because it shows major roads, but not all streets. As you can see, there are some facilities in Grande Forkes, but it still doesn't have an airport, and there is no shipping here (the rivers are too narrow and shallow). The next map is the street map. It is a zoomed view of the built up areas of the city. The map below shows the portion of the road map that is shown in the street map. The full street map is shown below. All streets are listed, and the locations of all city services are outlined. Focus on Grande Forkes The focus presentations use the above maps in conjuction with screen shots to, um...focus...on certain areas of interest. For these, I zoom in even further on the street map, then spotlight the area with a screen shot from the game. This helps to mesh the map with the game. These maps are very accurate because they are traced over top of screen shots taken from the game. Streets are postioned and named exactly as they appear in SimCity4. I am hoping that this approach will help people to get a sense of place in my cities. I intend to use this map approach to highlight building projects, and to help orient reader to the many BAT structures from Simtropolis that I will be featuring soon. Speaking of BATs... Man, I just gotta say, some of you BATers out there are incredibly talented! I am almost beside myself with excitment at the great structures I am going to feature in Digby. I have painstakingly gone through the entire STEX of BATs page by page, and hand-selected 92 (yes, that's ninety-two) different original BAT structures that I want to feature in Digby. And that is only for 1950's Digby, which does not use the 1990's Houston or 2010 Euro architectural styles yet! So I have a lot of work ahead of me. In some cases, there are some artists (yes, some of these guys are nothing less than artists!)...there are some of these people that are so prolific, that I will feature whole presentations just on that artist! So, let's get crackin'! (I hope you enjoyed the maps!)

Mod Class Is Over! That's it for now. Thanks for reading! You'll see the results of using these mods thoughout Digby in the future. As I said before, these are simple tools that allow me to shape things with more control. They aren't cheats, and they don't do anything crazy with the simulator. Next, we'll do some building, 'cause to be honest I haven't really done any building in months.

The hole digger. This simple little set of lots are designed to prepare the ground to accept tunnels, particularily those that are meant to dip under exisiting road and rail. The lots are made for all types of transportation with the exception of elevated rail. In addition, there is a lot that raises terrain, which I'll show at the end. The lots are placed, then a road or rail is dragged into them. When that happens, the terrain drops or raises sharply, just the right amount to make the tunnel. The lots are then bulldozed, and the road and rail is built normally and the tunnels are thus created. The Hole Digging Lots allow us to follow the real world principle that engineers don't want cars stopping for trains (or crossing train tracks) wherever possible. Also, main traffic arteries should not be interrupted by lesser arteries wherever possible. Of course this is not always possible (so we need traffic lights), but you will find many examples in your own city where the road goes over or under another road or rail because one is more important than the other! Tunnels allow us to do this in SC4, but they are tricky to make manually. The Hole Digging lots help us out in this regard. In our example, we'll go to Whetherford: And pick a spot where we don't want cars stopping for trains...ah, here is one on Miles Rd (inbound Highway 58): Okay, let's get in there and dig! But before we do, I must tell you in this example the Levelling Mod was removed! That's why the street drop into the upcoming underpass is short and steep. Otherwise, the Levelling Mod would have created a much more gradual and long incline, which would have taken up too much valuable real estate in this congested part of town. And looking at it front another angle, you see this: The Ground Lifter In many real world cases, it is more common to go over something than under it. The ground lifter lot in the same set allows for this. In this example, I have put the Levelling Mod back on! This will ensure nice gradual terrain slope! These solutions for overpasses and underpasses are the best the current game has to offer. It's too bad SC4 doesn't have a better built-in tool for creating these, since most underpasses and overpasses are actually bridges and not tunnels. Tunnels are actually quite rare. But this is still a good solution! Thanks, smoncrie!

This handy mod has been around for a while. It is considered essential by many. I am now one of those people. Plainly speaking, it makes bridge look better. The mod makes bridges settle nicely onto land instead of clumsily. Let's go back to Grande Forkes and see what effect this mod has on the famous D. W. Dalton Memorial Bridge: Before and after: Aah! Much better! Let's look at the process of replacing and building bridges. It's pretty straight forward, but we'll look at the pretty pictures anyway. By the way, these bridges were built with the Levelling Mod installed, which is why the rail bridge has a more even landing than the street bridge. And so, in future, the bridges of Digby will look a little better. Thanks, joerg!

Okay, let's have a look at this Leveling Mod! If you remember a while back, I went to great length to describe how to level out the terrain to realistically depict train tracks: Blah, blah, blah!... Well, it was mentioned to me by member Motina that there was a mod for doing this, but in my fear of all things mod I didn't act on it. Since the No Palm Tree mod seemed to give me courage in mods, I PM'd Motina and he sent me in the right direction. Thus, I came across this handy, but tricky, mod. Here is what it does in its most basic function: And all that with a single drag! Gosh, that would've taken me half an hour to do by hand! Checking out a rail crossing in Grande Forkes, you can see how what a great effect the mod can have. Everything around these tracks - the road and the fields - all dropped to meet the level track. Add a few fences (thanks Suico) and we're in business! Check this out below...real tracks do this all the time! The tool will allow you to clean up messes like the one below. When done, the above can be cleaned up to look like this: It is especially at junctions like the above where you want everything level, because these spots draw a lot of attention to themselves. In the caption above, I mention not bothering with all this if starting a new city. Much of this worrying about level track can be avoided if your level an area BEFORE you start building a city. In my case, I am correcting an existing region, so I have to do repair work, but if starting from scratch it isn't as hard. Just remember, if starting from scratch LAY ALL OF YOUR MAIN RAIL LINES FIRST! I say this from the beginning, but the levelling tool really pushes the point. Avoiding Unwanted Tunnels I have mentioned that this tool can be tricky to use. The reason for this is because the tool essentially only creates level track. This means you can really paint yourself in to a corner. For example, it might want to make a tunnel where you don't want it, like below: The solution is often simple: Joining Tracks That Won't Join! One challenge with the mod is joining tracks at different elevations. Sometimes the track would need to be at an angle greater then 2-degrees, and the mod won't let you do that. You'll have to temporarily remove the mod from the Plugins folder to find solutions. But before you do that, you can prepare the ground ahead of time so the un-modded track is not too drastic. Remember, this mod is for roads and streets too! With the mod installed, the tolerance of roads is much less also! Use this to your advantage. Since we know we must lay un-modded track there later, why not smooth it out with modded street? That way there will still be nice gradual slope, and nothing crazy. Tiering a Tracked Elevation It also looks good to gradually tier the slope of the track. This means carefully laying flat sections of modded track at slightly increasing elevations up to the final level. Then remove the mod, go back and fill in the sloped areas between the flat sections. The larger the distance between elevations, the better the track looks. Another look at this same rail system further down the line shows how tiering is necessary to traverse drastic changes in elevation: Like I said before, many of you might not want to be moving the mod in and out of your Plugins Folder. But if you have very hilly or mountainous terrain, working with the mod on all the time will be tricky or impossible. If you even terrain, many of you will be able to leave the mod in all the time. A Digby Example of the Levelling Tool Let's go to the small town of St. Marys, just south of Morrison. Here, there is a large hill that both rail and road must get over. Using the Levelling Mod, the end result was as seen below: On steep inclines, road and rail must often zig-zag to minimize the grade on which trains and cars must travel. Like we talked about before, the mod won't let you create steep slopes, so you'll have to do some footowork. As I explained before, create your flat, modded sections first. Then touch up later with the unmodded track. Don't forget how useful the modded street can be: The levelling mod often results in the creation of other desireable flat elements, like the industry at the base of the mountain in St. Marys: Is This Mod Too Much Work? Some of you may be thinking this mod creates more work than it saves. I disagree. It's easy to move it in and out of the Plugins Folder. And the amount of nit-picky terraforming required to create satisfactory flat rail would be far greater without the tool. Ideally, SC4 would have a button that let you determine the track tolerance setting, much like that in Railroad Tycoon 3 (which by the way has a great undo function). Maybe someday, but I think Maxis rightfully puts playability before the need to minutely shape terrain. Let's have a look at the next mod.