Saint Martin Island Map, City Building Contest, Fall 2016

Im not talking about "traffic performance", being red or green doesnt matter. Only aesthetic grid

 

But what even is aesthetical to you? I will refer to the city of Pisa, a city that has changed a lot throughout history, and which is probably considered to be a beautiful. But you know what? The city's grid is totally horrid. You cannot see any plan. Cities which follow aesthetical grids have often been former residence cities to some monarchs (Paris, for example, or Berlin, or Karlsruhe). And now seriously, their number is not that high.

And let's be fair: XL does not allow for irregular roads, meaning backyards of houses which have even more buildings, but with the buildings not connected to the roads. I made lots of such irregulars, and it did affect the city's grid as well as traffic. I really like the grid I constructed, I am quite proud of my plan regarding the use of some expressways leading from the freight harbour to the suburbs or the city's business and industrial areas but bypassing the city's old town core. It is working, but it is not the nicest thing to see, and the tunnel cannot be seen at night

 

Well, whats aesthetical for anyone ? Everything depends on personal taste, like this whole thing with cities overall. Someone likes regular grids, someone messy medieval grids, etc. Just like someone likes american, asian style CBD and someone european... but no matter what you can determine how much work has been put into something, and that should be basis thing for rating stuff

 

Fair point. But it would still be quite a broad field. And then we would have another such broad field, right next to all the others (I guess that there are only a few categories that have rather narrow definitions, airport, port, highway)

 

in your submission what mod do the large flat rocks you use around the coast come from? I've seen them in other city's but no idea where to get them

 

Yeah, they are not easy to find. You will have to download them from Simtropo... please don't ban me, IcyHot...

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It's the Megaliths / Menirs in here: Ploppables - Megaliths

Basically they are put on a narrow stack to give the impression of a larger rocky surface.

I am sure Supersnake did not expect us to use them in such a way. . . still #12 is perfect for this and they are also perfect for micromanagement

 

I use them that way all over my new city. I was thinking they were my secret weapon. Damn. Still, they add a lot and I love the mod.

 

Ok, now i am very curious to see what you are designing

Roll on 31st



I am finishing the whole thing myself too.
6 out of the 10 photos decided, so i 'll have something to submit .

 

Btw, here is the layout, @ObelicS:

 

@skullz613 Don't give yourself too much work,but still,cant wait to see your submissions.
And thanks for your awesome Saint Martin map again

Great job! i like the layout of the port. @kipate

im still working on the other part of this island,placing buildings one by one and figuring out what kind of district is suitable for it. For now, 6 pics is prepared !

 

6 / 10. You are getting there Xouste. Yeees!!!



The map is simply wow. It has mobilised me to try to put a submission, as all the maps that we have been so graciously given to work with.

 

Thanks, @XOUSTE! I indeed found a little bit of time last weekend to play XL, and I actually worked on the city again

 

This is gonna be awesome park, @kipate

 

Satellite view of my contest city.

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All three submissions already in the competition thread are FANTASTIC!
I like them all and i 'll have a hard time to pick if we continue on this tempo lol.

I 'd like to make some suggestions for the future, having in mind economy of bandwidth and efficiency.
In the competition thread, there is a request from IcyHot on NOT posting megashots. . . which is a very sound suggestion. . . what counts for a thread is to load quickly.
Nevertheless, what IcyHot implies is not posting big pictures meaning geometrical size. . . we all understand it's KiloBytes we are talking here.

From all submissions i see. . . they all have some pictures in the 200Kb range, some in the 700kb range. . . some of them and i am not talking about megashots here are way over 1Mb which in an on-the air connection will simply take a LOT of time to load.

One of the submissions, Kipate's, has amazingly low sizes for good quality which makes me think that Kipate has made a very sound and persistent / conscious effort to shrink the images before uploading. The pictures are not very big but some of them are in an amazingly low range even as low as 81Kb. He has also preferred to post a larger image at the end of his submission. All this is running very efficient.

Reason i post these observations is NOT to judge. . . after all i like ALL submissions up to now. I just want to showcase that there is a way to post smaller images in digital size, without compromising the quality, the detail or the geometrical size. This can help viewers that don't have a fast connection to see more and faster and eventually stay in the thread and vote.

So, i want to make some general suggestions either for the future or for the next submissions, having in mind the possibility of those:

LESS Kb -> FASTER LOADING -> MORE VIEWERS-> MORE VOTES.
You don't have to compromise geometrical size. . . you can post for example FullHD pictures as long as they are not a lot of Kb.

These are my suggestions:
1. Prefer to post only .jpg instead of .tiff or .png
2. Before uploading making the size smaller in the 200 - 500Kb range and checking you don't have pictures above 1Mb.
3. Change the filenames in Latin characters before uploading ( not sure if this works )
4. What matters is not really that ALL your pictures are really small. . . what counts is the total size of all 10.

I also think we should implement a technical rule or clear suggestion for the next competition,that will lmit size in Kilobytes of each submission as a total. . . setting for example the bar for a total of let's say no more than 4Mb - 5Mb per submission and total of 10 photos or somewhere around it. This is more than enough if someone wants to post 10 FullHD photos.

If this sounds too technical, there is a sure way to do it in Windows. Get all your 10 photos in a folder, right click and check the size of the folder.

Ideas please and opinions to make it faster without having to compromise quality.

 

@IcyHot Could you please help me delete my submission , i wanna resize the pictures before uploading them. And thanks to the folks for supporting my job!

 

No worries. You have a fantastic submission. After the first time, it's in cache memory, it's loading fast, practically 0 for me.

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The digital size is something usually overlooked.
Most people here think a big in pixels image is the delaying factor. . . when it's the size in Kilobytes, not in pixels.

I have found Xnview, a free editing and viewing application very good in shrinking images very efficiently. Open, Save as, job done.

For those not a lot in technical things. . . opening their picture in Microsoft Paint with comes in package with all Windows Pc's and saving it under a different name and as a .jpg is enough to shrink a FullHD picture from let's say 1,400Kb to 350Kb, more or less,. . . that's around 4 times less and i 'd assume 4 times faster loading. No adjustments, no new programmes, no paying anything, no Photoshop. That's more than enough and a very basic computing function for all, even the new players.

A reminder for those starting their work from mega screenshots. . . they are png's. So, you may shrink it from the huge size to let's say 1920x1080 or 1100 x 618 to fit the size's site,. . . you still have to change the file format though from .png to .jpg.

 

@XOUSTE , amazing submission ! First picture is just woah, amazing details and density. Editing is also beautiful
Love it !