another neighborhood This one is called three rivers......i think there are three anyway but i like this place a lot, lots of shore side and lake side lot potential, and some good hilly terrain in the back corner. Should be lots of fun. By the way, here is a more complete tutorial i wrote a while back on ts2 bbs on thesims.com. This is my fairly humble but well thought out guide to making neighborhoods in sc4. Hopefully this will answer any questions of those starting out and a few advanced things for those already into it like me. The first step is to go to the region view in sc4 (standard or deluxe, doesn't matter what version) and pick one of the smallest city sizes (it will be obvious if you compare them). This is the 64 by 64 size. Its important this city is a city you have NOT played in mayor mode, as you will not be able to use the terrain tools at their best. Once in the city, the sky is the limit. Create canyons, rivers, lakes, mountains, valleys surrounded by a mountain, rolling hills, flat plains, whatever you want. Zoom in to get better control over what you are doing. Holding shift (or is it control? one or the other) and pressing 1-9 will bring you progressivly larger brush sizes to affect the terrain with. The erosion tool is nice to make it look like its not so unnatural, and will create random slight changes in elevation. Once the crafting is done, only one thing left, the road layout. First thing first, only straight roads will go into TS2, they can intersect, but only if they are straight. No tunnels, but bridges are allowed, but make them the default choice (you will only have more choices if you have simcity deluxe). The lot size is hotly debated, but this is my fairly well educated guess. My thought out guess is to leave spaces of the order of anywhere from 4x4, 6x6, and 8x8. These seem to be the most likely lot sizes. If you want an explanation, read the next paragraph, if not move on to the end. In the chat luc revieled that each lot would be in multiples of 16 by 16 (in ts2 tiles in build mode). So 16 by 16, 32 by 32, 64 by 64, etc. the sc4 city size we use is 64 by 64 SC4 tiles, so it can't be a one to one scale tile wise between the two programs, houses would be huge and there wouldn't be enough space for the 50 lots told to be able to fit in a previous chat. 64x64 is 4096 sc4 tiles, the total size (in sc4 tiles) of your neighborhood. at 8x8 per lot (sc4 tiles), that's 3200 sc4 tiles. 900 tiles for rivers and roads sounds CLOSE to right. So i think it could be fairly safe to assume that at the max you could have 8x8 lots in terms of sc4 tiles at the most, probably also 6x6, 4x4, or maybe even 2x2. They might even offer a bigger size, but you couldn't fit the whole 50 into a neighborhood, especially if you included a large lake or a mountain. Once you are done laying out the roads, that's basically it. Add some trees if you like to make the place look like a forest, or not many if you plan on it being highly developed. Or add little rows of trees along the roads if its a planned community. Up to you. Hope this has helped, I'll take suggestions or comments if you want to help change my guesses, ideas. mike
Sorry if I am being argumentative But I have also given the matter of the possible/probable scaling in TS2. First a few basics to establish how I arrived at my conclusions. The SC4 maps are based on the kilometer. So the small map is 1 square kilometer, which is divided into 64 x 64 squares. Basic math gives an SC4 square that is 51.3 feet square (51 feet 4 inches or 15.625 metres) By the above we can calculate that an SC4 square is approximately 1/16 of an acre. So a 1 acre plot is only 4 X 4 SC4 squares. 1 acre is a huge residential lot ... even in the US! Any larger and you are talking either farm or palatial estate! By these calculations tberg's 8 x 8 lots would be 4 acres! (Almost a farm!) In The Sims we are used to a square being roughly approximate to a square yard/sq metre. Working from the above, then; and also using the info from the Luc chat that suggested TS2 plot sizes being multiples of 16 X 16 we can see that a single SC4 square divides up into 16 X16 = 256 squares each approximately of one square yard. (actual calculation gives 38.5 inches square) So until I see otherwise from Maxis I will continue to assume that TS2 lots will be 1x1, 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4 SC4 squares ... much like SC4 in other words. [/list=1] Afterthoughts ... First, it is important to appreciate that the scale of the properties on the neighborhood view (essentially a zoomed out SC4 city view) must be keeping with the porportions already established in SC4 ... or else, of course, the houses would dwarf the roads and bridges and look, well, stupid! Also on the preview CD (with MM) I clearly heard one of the developers say "thousands of lots!" This may have been exaggeration but I don't believe that it was a wild exaggeration. I am beginning to believe that the oft quoted 50 lots figure is merely a referral to the number of pre-made lots that the game is likely to ship with ... And ... a brisk walking speed is around 4 mph, which is less than 6 feet per second. A plot consisting of 4 x4 SC4 squares would take 30 "real" seconds to cross -- this is important as a Sim's walking speed has to appear to be "real". But as the simulation uses 1 real second for 1 Sim minute such a large plot would take 30 sim minutes to walk across. An 8x8 plot, of course, would take a Sim hour to traverse. Final thought. I hope that TS2 allows us to have 2x1, 3x1, 3x2, 4x1, 4x2, and so on ....
ts2 neighborhood video the video holds the answers. upon closer inspection and just knowing how big a road tile is from seeing it, the second row of houses in the flyby (post bridge) in the video has a 6x4 house (trees go right to the road, trees only exist on lots if you look carefully, same with detailed grass. It goes 6 tiles down the road, and 4 tiles down the center roadway. Right next to it is a 3x3 (to the other house's left) and the next strip has a 3x2 lot (2 tiles down the center road and 3 going sideways. I am nearly sure of it. I have to say a 1x1 lot would be much too small, you could barely build anything on it. who knows though. I'd say 2x2 up to 6x6 sc4 tiles will be possible though, in any combination of the numbers (2x2, 3x2, 3x3, 4x2, 4x3, 4x4, 5x3, 5x4, 5x5, 6x4, 6x5, and 6x6). i see in the video a 3x3, a 6x4, a 3x2 and several 4x4's. SO those i'd say are for sure. Let me know what you think. mike
Squares and Rectangles LOL I see what you mean. Don't forget though that squares look rectangular on the screen ... so that 6x4 could be a 4x4 (I noticed that trees don't reach to both roads ... 1x1 plots? Oh come on! You can fit a lot into a small lot ... er ... If TS2 Sims can truly take their personal possessions with them it'll be good to start them off in small homes and work them up the property ladder. Her's a pic of one of my smaller sim homes - it's a bit fuzzy cos I enlarged it greatly but you can count the squares! (6 x 11) so there's room for the garden too on 16x16 plot.
er Josh ... 1) I said it was fuzzy and 2) if it's one of my sims houses it would have to be TS1 ... it was an illustration that 16x16 plots can be useful.
ok ok, here is a another..... sorry i am late on the upkeep...meant to put up another one sooner....this is one is called....well it was my first one so i don't have a name. Its my favorite though. Name it yourselves enjoy mike
