Date Posted: 30th Apr 2010 at 4:59 AM

Hello guys!
First of all, i'd like to say - excuse me for such a long silence. Some of you wrote me messages with some questions and suggestions. I've tried to answer to most important ones (some creative minds are still working on hood decos).

So! What i want to say right now is that you can try to use horizons as they are at this moment. Here you can download the zip with 2 package files. But the thing is that these file was recovered as they was deleted few months ago, so i can't promise that it will work. I don't have TS2 installed right now to test these files. So... at your own risk, guys...

... thank you all for the interest to this last project. And all the kind words you've said. I really appreciate it.

To people, who want to make recolours of my decos - i give a permission to anyone to use my decos as needed, make recolours, remodeling and so on.

Good luck, guys. Watch yourself!

P.S. I'm checking this place once in a 1-2 months so if you have something to say: gr.frogg(at)gmail dot com

Date Posted: 11th Jun 2009 at 5:26 AM

Hi all
Sorry guys for another delay it just a RLS again and also, i've got myself TS3 (this is the end, haha).
But i'm still planning to release the horizons! So before i post some pics, here's some answers.
First of all, thank you all for your comments!



Zaxis, thanks! Yep, Maxis done it very strange way.. I really want to see those ships of yours released!



Paradise, yes! Sure! I didn't make one yet but it's really possible to add a city skyline to the horizon





Jasumi, Simulitis:, unfortunately, nope. Lot mode sky box is smaller than hood mode sky box. So the horizon is just behind the sky in the lot mode. And yes, there will be few different environments when it will be released



Yes, AliceSacco, sure, there will be a combined version, and 100% water covered one


So! Here's some pics of the horizon with water in testing:







Looks quite good to me. You still can see the border but, really, who cares? It looks better than without this thing anyway

Date Posted: 29th May 2009 at 7:16 AM

Did you ever thought about those ugly hood borders that spoils your best neighborhood views? Mee too! I allways thought that would be great if neighborhood mode had a some kind of horizon background.
It's another maxis's fail on the global TS2 things - they could made neighborhood representation more good looking.
So! I've finnaly found some free time to go experiment with my own solution for better hood representation.
I've find out that hood terrain is surrounded by the giant cube (yes, it's cube, not the sphere) with the sky texture. I didn't try to replace ingame sky textures by any kind of modds (for me it's not the best solution), so i've decided to make a horizon deco that will fit in the space between hood borders and the sky cube.
After spending some time in modeling and texturing, i've came up with this:



As you can see - the whole thing is really huge and goes beyond the hood terrain, so it would be impossible to place it right without a controller:



you just put the controller at the very corner of your hood (any corner you like), just like this - black arrow at the top of the controller must be targeted at the hood corner next to it.

So that was a theory. Now let's see how it works ingame.
I've decided to test it on a belladonna cove terrain. This is how it looks after creating a new hood using this terrain:





Ordinary flying piece of terrain, isn't it?
Okay, let's try the horizon deco out. I choose a corner with a closest to the water level height and place the controller:



And then...







Yay! It works quite good! Even with a plain and empty terrain it looks way too better than without the horizon! Let's see how it will look with a dirt terrain for example:



Not bad too, i think! Allthough the water side looks weird:



But that's okay for me, i'm planning to make a few different horizon decos with different textures for the hoods with water, desert terrain... may be a snow too and also some different skylines, like mountains, hills, or even a far away city.
Oh, and it looks so funny from the very top :D

Date Posted: 6th Apr 2009 at 6:08 PM

Hi all
Finnaly, i've came up with some tips on making your own custom neighborhood decoration.
There's nothing special actually... If you have experience on making custom content such as meshing, texturing, UVmapping, importing, etc. but if you don't, please, go to the tutorials section first - there you can find all the information about all this stuff...
Anyway, creating custom hood decos is very familiar to making other custom objects. It's all about cloning...

First of all, run SimPE
go to prefrences and tick an 'advanced mode' box:



Then hit 'Ok' and restart SimPE

From now on, all neighborhood objects will be available here:



For me, best object for cloning is a 'concrete breakwater' (from 'misc' submenu). I use it oftenly when i need to import a single mesh object.
So if you have your custom object prepared with it's mesh and textures, clone a breakwater and after going through familiar cloning steps you'll see a recource tree.
I'll not stop on importing mesh or textures (there's allready some great tutorials here at MTS2). I'll just explain a very important part of recourse tree:



So.. i guess that's all i can say
In the end, here is an archive with a scale template - an .obj file with 1x1 tile box included. Top side of the box is ingame road level, so it will help if you need your custom object appear on the ground but above the road.

Hope it will help you, creative minds, in making custom decorations! :D

Date Posted: 25th Mar 2009 at 4:55 PM

Allright! Finnaly, the last one of the main bridges of the future set is finished


It's 40 tiles long and yes, it looks familiar to Golden Gate bridge
Allthough this one (as a previous) is more modest, less decorated and has more ordinary look (since it's just a simple suspension road bridge).





So at this time, we have:
3 tiles bridges (in 3 editions)
5 tiles bridges (in 3 editions)
7 tiles bridges (in 2 editions)
11 tiles bridges (in 2 editions)
15 tile bridges (in 2 editions)
20 tiles bridges (in 2 editions)
30 tiles bridge
40 tiles bridge

total: 16 bridges allready..
now i'll add some additional ones (including pedestrian only)

Date Posted: 24th Mar 2009 at 12:50 PM

Okay guys, i've finnaly continued working on bridges
20 tiles bridge (flat and arched editions) is finished allready and here's a preview of a 30 tiles bridge:





I was trying to find some pics of an arch suspension bridge and finnaly i was totally inspired by the main span of the Yaquina bay bridge, Oregon Allthough mine is more modest, shortest and has more ordinary look

Oh, i've also came up with an idea that 30 and 40 tiles bridges will not have a humpbacked versions since both of them mostly for the high shore line elevation placements. For the layouts with a low shoreline elevation there will be a couple of 30 and 40 tiles draw bridges

Date Posted: 24th Mar 2009 at 7:30 AM

I just want to say something about so many people asking me to make some different buildings as a neighborhood decorations... many people shares their ideas for the decos, some people are trying to give a request...

So, i just wan't you to try to understand that sometimes, you asking me to do something that is good for a creative team, not single man.
I know i allways want to release as mutch as i can. I could do less, releasing less, but i really don't want to do it.

Now, about buildings.. you see.. there's a lack of any decorations, not just buildings, some infrastructure decorations would be great first. The same thing is about making some replicas of existed landmarks (bridges for example)... is there about 100 bridges allready aviable for download and we need some even more extraordinary bridges? No, it isn't. There no any bridges at all...

So, i also want to say to creators here at MTS2, if you feel like you wan't to make a recolor, to make other edition of my items - feel free to do it and share it. We still need some more variety.

If you are creator allready and you feel like you want to start working on hood decos, i can provide you all the experience i have on scaling, tile size, road elevation issues, texturing, modeling, and importing into the game.

Date Posted: 20th Mar 2009 at 4:27 PM

Here's a preview of 15 tiles arched bridge


This is a last one of generic 'short' bridges (when i say short i meen it's below 15 tiles). So next i'll work on some long bridges (20,30,40 tiles length) and after this i'll start working on some additional kinda landmark bridges

... so i have 12 different bridges done at this moment. And in the end i hope to get about 20 bridges and some additional items too.. I guess it will be the second set with the word "Ultimate" in its name :D

Date Posted: 19th Mar 2009 at 9:16 PM

Keep working

Date Posted: 17th Mar 2009 at 4:52 PM

This is a 3 and 5 tiles length lifting bridges that are perfect for canals
These ones i've named crane bridges, but after searching some info i've find out that 'lifting' is more correct to this type of bridge