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Rain City
tjstreak
Posts: 808 Member
Rain City Builders World Alpha 1 is available for download. Newer versions of this world will be released at frequent intervals as progress is made.
Rain City ultimately will be a Sims version of Seattle, WA. Conceptially, I would like to have a world which looks something like this view of Seattle from Google Earth:
Located in the western part of the Fillmore State (named after our most mediocre president: Millard Fillmore), Rain City is nestled between Pluggit Sound and Lake Fillmore. To the west, accessible only by Ferry, is Jellystone National Park. Money Island, where all fo the big money Sims live is located in the mniddle of Lake Fillmore. Further east is unincorporated Prince County. These areas can be seen in the prelimiary road map.
One of the things I have wanted since the Sims 3 was first released was a place where I could archive all of the houses I have build or modified while playing the game. However, lot space in just about every world to date has been pretty limited. Before Ambitions, adding new lots to an existing world was impossible, meaning that for every house that went in, another had to be demolished.
Not only that, just about every world out there has a lot of non-routable terrain, curvy roads, and lots placed on funny angles or on weird slopes. What I wanted was a world with plentiful, large, flat lots, built on a grid with lots of straight roads. After all, that pretty much defines most of the United States east of California and west of Pennsylvania.
So Rain City was born.
I have completed my Alpha 1 version of the game. It is nowhere near being complete. It is nowhere being a Beta version. There is still a lot of work to be done. A lot of the terrain outside of the city center needs to be smoothed. There are no buildings, trees or other objects. Just lots and lots of flat open space and straight roads built on a grid. Rain City is a place to archive existing lots and to build new ones.
I have uploaded both the Sims 3 pack and self extracting archive of my CAW files for those who want to fiddle with it on their own.
Sims 3 Pack:
http://www.mediafire.com/?l901zasmh0x6eyo
Self Extracting Archive of CAW Files
http://www.mediafire.com/?q53af2365gg4cve
Rain City ultimately will be a Sims version of Seattle, WA. Conceptially, I would like to have a world which looks something like this view of Seattle from Google Earth:
Located in the western part of the Fillmore State (named after our most mediocre president: Millard Fillmore), Rain City is nestled between Pluggit Sound and Lake Fillmore. To the west, accessible only by Ferry, is Jellystone National Park. Money Island, where all fo the big money Sims live is located in the mniddle of Lake Fillmore. Further east is unincorporated Prince County. These areas can be seen in the prelimiary road map.
One of the things I have wanted since the Sims 3 was first released was a place where I could archive all of the houses I have build or modified while playing the game. However, lot space in just about every world to date has been pretty limited. Before Ambitions, adding new lots to an existing world was impossible, meaning that for every house that went in, another had to be demolished.
Not only that, just about every world out there has a lot of non-routable terrain, curvy roads, and lots placed on funny angles or on weird slopes. What I wanted was a world with plentiful, large, flat lots, built on a grid with lots of straight roads. After all, that pretty much defines most of the United States east of California and west of Pennsylvania.
So Rain City was born.
I have completed my Alpha 1 version of the game. It is nowhere near being complete. It is nowhere being a Beta version. There is still a lot of work to be done. A lot of the terrain outside of the city center needs to be smoothed. There are no buildings, trees or other objects. Just lots and lots of flat open space and straight roads built on a grid. Rain City is a place to archive existing lots and to build new ones.
I have uploaded both the Sims 3 pack and self extracting archive of my CAW files for those who want to fiddle with it on their own.
Sims 3 Pack:
http://www.mediafire.com/?l901zasmh0x6eyo
Self Extracting Archive of CAW Files
http://www.mediafire.com/?q53af2365gg4cve
2
Comments
The Sims Creators' Consortium
I have been able to extract an obj file from many of the Google Earth files. I can load it into Milkshape. The model tends to be in a funny location and they are approximately 100 times the size of a Sims 3 model -- so I have to scale it down to approximately 1% of the original size.
It's going to take a lot of work to get this done right. UV mapping will be a chore.
Like most of my projects, this will never be done. I will probably use some of the skyscrapers from Simming in a Magnificen Style -- he also has a tower which would pass for the Space Needle.
View of downtown Rain City from Suburbia (working name)
View of Money Island from the beach
Driving into Money Island
Arial View of Money Island
Arial View of Suburbia
Downtown Rain City
View of Downtown with the Space Shaft in the Distance
And your point is?
I have made the Alpha 2 version of Rain City available for download: http://www.mediafire.com/?frrcg98j8jjk3. There are two files, the world file and a save game folder. At this point I am more concerned about gameplay.
Well, after I said I was done messing around with the Alpha 2 version of Rain City, I messed around with it some more. I added a few more sims and a few more lots. The city is pretty full right now with over 228 lots. (117 Residential and 111 Community) Very few of them are original.
Currently there are 71 residents, 40 of whom are young adults. I need to add more young adult males because they are outnumbered 29 to 11. It might not hurt to pop a few more children in as well.
And yes, there is tons and tons of custom content. It has not blown up my game yet. Well, actually it has, but I have removed the offending items.
I actually have been playing this world a little bit -- or more accurately an older version of it. But I think I will start a new sim in the most recent version, while I start working on the Alpha 3 version. When I first started this project, one of my goals was to get a playable world up and running as soon as possible.
All I am doing at this stage is seeing whether the game works and is playable. Revisions will be on two tracks: (1) working on the base world -- terrain sculpting and road laying, and (2) working on and refining lots.
As for the sculpting, I am no where near done. I just want to know where I will be placing lots, so those areas can be kept pretty flat and straight. I will be adding more hills and textures in the unpopulated areas. Some roads need to be straightened to accomodate placing lots in game. Others will be removed altogether.
I will add a trailer park further south, and a few beaches. I also need to place spawners. Prettifying it is not a real high priority at the moment.
Suburbia's blocks are going to be enlarged to 64 x 128, and there will be fewer of them. Many residences are on 30 square fronts or sides (or both, making them difficult to fit on the current 40 x 80 blocks. Usinng 64 squares for the base size will give me a little more slack.
As for the lots, many of them currently look too "southern California." (Sorry, there are no palm trees in Seattle!) I also want to get more of a "Seattle look," although I am getting there -- I did add a couple of Starbucks.
I have a tower which will do for the Space Shaft, at least for the moment. I would like to make a monorail to put in the city.
I am using a number of EA buildings and buildings I have filched from elsewhere. Eventually I would like to change that. Most of the lots are just placeholders, anyway. On the other hand, I have no problem showcasing lots from other builders. I would rather my world be good than original.
There probably are way too many clubs. I would like to put in some deco buildings and some non fucntional buildings as well.
The game is playable, which is more than I can say for a lot of the beta or finished worlds out there.
I have two files: the base world file, which is pretty empty, and a save file, which actually has most of the fun stuff in it. Open the World File into the launcher. Unzip the Save Game File into your saved games folder.
I will be lurking around for updates and to watch your progress. I would love this world in my game.
I'm on a rubbish laptop, but will be getting a new hamdbuilt pc in the summer, and will have no problem with a world like this.
Looking forward to watching you progress.
Well Done so far tjstreak!
I really am waiting for an OFB type of expansion pack. I think having individual businesses is essential for this type of world.
Also you have to understand what I do, and what Rain City is for me. I am less of a world builder than an object maker. My interest is in making custom content. Rain City happens to be a place where I can install my custom content and see how it looks in game, see if it borks the game, and take screenshots of my custom content in game.
Sim Sample made a comment which he thought was derogatory, to paraphrase: that I was sticking as much custom content into the world as I possibly could. He was exactly right. When I reach the breaking point, then I know how far I can go.
Even though I looked at other creators' worlds, none of them met my needs. Most of the worlds have many bumps and hills, with twisty roads. These worlds are not good for testing out my custom content, and many of my items look downright silly in them.
Rain City,in contrast, is basically flat, with straight roads placed at right angles, and minimal amounts of non routable terrain. It complements my custom content nicely.
Rain City is also a laboratory where I can test out certain ideas. For example, I have made numerous deco skyscrapers, figured out how to convert some objects from different games, experimented with making mega objects (for example my monorail system is one big object which spans most of the world. I also have entire deco neighborhoods), making my own custom distant terrain, making custom bridges, and adding tunnels to the world.
The result of all of this is a world which looks and plays entirely different from any other world out there. The downside is that it probably will never be "finished" in a conventional sense.
When I get to a certain point, I bulldoze, flatten or otherwise destroy large portions of the world. The latest version of Rain City (Alpha 5) looks nothing like Alpha 1 and is very different from Alpha 4.
After making this breakthrough, adding other skyscrapers from the Seattle skyline could be done in short order. Ultimately, I would like to double the number of skyscrapers you see here:
I spent many hours working on the floating bridge and adjoining area, and there is still a lotof work to be done. For example the walls of the bridge were made by me. The monorail tracks and train were made by me. The tunnel at the end of the bridge was made by me. Eventually I would like to replace the game trees over the tunnel with low poly trees. One of the things that makes a project like this slow going is that just about everything is made from scratch:
The wealthy subcommunity, Money Island, has been rebuilt several times. I removed some of the sillier items, like the Neuschwanstein castle. However, it still has many very nice buldings from people who are much better home builders than me. I have also included some EA buildings where I made substantial revisions in past games. This shot also gives you some idea of just how massive my skyscrapers are -- they are built to scale:
A slum was added north of downtown. It is home of Transylvanian immigrants who have an aversion to daylight. None of the buildings have windows for this reason, although a few have shutters. The standard rabbitholes need to be rebuilt so as to remove their windows. Daniel of New York, NY fame, donated some of the buildings you see here:
Speaking of Transylvanian Immigrants, I could not resist the temptation to have a castle overlooking my Little Transylvania sub neighborhood. The castle itself is a deco model of Bran Castle, the legendary home of Dracula. The grey line on the hill where the castle is located is where the distant terrain meets the world. I need to clean this up so it is not so prominent. Again, many hours were spent getting the distant terrain to line up with the world -- it's a long and tedious process. Little Transylvania is built on a hill, largely to disguise the border of the distant terrain.
Many hours of also been spent on the area south of Downtown. My original vision was to have mobile homes as far as the eye could see. I have come pretty close with my mega moblile home park overlapping and disguising the custom distant terrain:
I am totally unhappy with the bridge which sticks out like a sore thumb and is completely out of place. Eventually I will replace it with one more to my liking. The bridge not only spans the sound, but also a rail line leading into the city. I have yet to add a train to this rail line, although the models exist.
The bridge itself leads to a shipping island which has barely been started. Eventually it will have tankers and freighters anchored there. The island itself will be filled with shipping containers, warehouses, and tanks filled with toxic sludge -- a perfect home for zombies.
One experiment, which I have not fully tested was making my own, more modern suspension bridge, modelled very loosely on one of the Tacoma Narrows bridges:
I have also added other high density housing to the southern edge of the city. More than ninety percent of these buildings are deco buildings with an occasional in game lot intersperced. One neighborhood is inspired by a Levittown designand the song "LIttle Boxes" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVyVp0qMpOk):
While the other happens to be modelled after one of my favorite starter homes, which I downloaded many moons ago.
The advantages of the lots one finds here is they are true starter homes, meaning any sim, including those generated by the game, can afford to move in. Needless to say, these lots fillup quickly.
To the south of here, I would like some high density apartments and some heavy duty commercial or industrial properties.
The eastern part of the board has been completely torn up. This is where I will have farms and a wilderness area. Also, the downtown area needs to be rebuilt with a few real lots added to it.
I have about 25 different deco buildings in various stages of completion to help fill in the downtown area. If I get off my butt, I could probably complete these buildings in an afternoon. (They primarily are urban residential and commercial buildings.)
I replaced a number of the residential lots in Simburbia with deco homes like this one:
I also added an apartment complex with one, two and three bedroom apartments, along with with a clubhouse:
The design of these apartments is quite functional, and I have had several sims living in these apartments.
I would like to have a strip mall across from the apartment complex. It's sort of funny, but with all of the lots out there, it seems that no one has ever done a garden variety strip mall. Further south, I probably will do a deco car dealership. It seems that car dealerships can always be found on the outskirts of town -- probably on the other side of my Walmart.
I have not done much with the shipping area, except redo the bridge to something which looks more appropriate than the Late Night suspension bridge:
It took a while to get the bridge to work right, but it is largely functional. Still there is some deco work to be done.
Ultimately, the shipping area will largely consist of deco buildings -- port facilities, warehouses and tanks fill with toxic sludge. It will also give me a place to park my tankers, freighters and container ships.
In anticipation of Island Paradise, I built a canal in the downtown area, cutting off Little Transylvania from the rest of downtown. Running a motorboat down the canal looks rather cool. Also I re=routed a river to make for a longer boat ride to an area which has been planned as a resort, almost from the beginning of this world. Little did I know that EA would eventually add resorts.
I probably will redo the dock area to add back some ocean which I took away in an earlier rendition. Since boats cannot travel on the distant terrain, I want to include more room for boating along the ocean.
Also, IP has helped me spot some other defects. For example, my floating bridge is not high enough. Boats sort of pass right through it, rather than under it. Also, I have some rather weird routing which was caused when I raised the level of the downtown area to accommodate my canal.
Since OFB apparently will not by a part of the Sims 3 cannon, I may make some faux businesses. Or I might just content myself with making a few more deco buildings.
The eastern part of the world is still a mess after I tore it up. I do want to add a tunnel through a mountain leading to my resort. I am also thinking that a renaissance fair would go well in this area, as well as a county fairground.
When I work on it, I tend to focus on one area at a time. Most of Money Island is done, except I want to fit the dance studio there, since that really is more appropriate for wealthier sims. Plus, with IP, I want to add a marina on the north part of Money Island. Pus a few boat docks in other parts of the world.
Although I never anticipated Island Paradise, this world fits nicely with it because I have a number of fairly significant waterways. First I have an ocean area which is connected to a large lake by a canal which crosses the downtown isthmus. There is a big island in the middle of the lake, containing a subhood. Finally a lengthy river connects the big lake to a smaller lake which contains a resort.
The rail lines need more work. I need to make a couple of railroad bridges and perhaps a train or two to go on the tracks. I would like to have a rural train station in Simvue (a rural community) and a major downtown depot in downtown Rain City.
I pretty much have the model I want to use for the RAIN-TAC International Airport which will ultimately be located on the distant terrain south of the downtown area.
I am anticipating replacing my existing monorail train with a better one, but this is a lower priority project.
I am making it flat for practical reasons. This world primarily is a platform f.or my creations and lots I download from the web. The whole reason I started this project was so I could easily place large lots that I either created myself or downloaded from elsewhere. Almost every world I have played in does not accomodate large lots or allow their placement in the areas where I want to place them. For me, the solution became the creation of my own large and flat world with A minimal amount of non-routable paint.
The earlier versions had a lot more local relief because it was based on DEM data of the Seatle area. I then spent many hours flattening things out to avoid problems with lot placement.
Since then, I have become more interested in making objects for worlds than actual world building, and this world has served as a very nice platform for displaying the things I create. For example, most skyscrapers are going to look horribly out of place, downright silly, in most sims worlds. The EA skyscraper, which typically are about 15 stories tall, are dwarfed by many of my buildings, some of which are over 100 stories.
Additionally, I have this habit of tearing up large portions of the world to accomodate some new feature. For example, I recently added a canal in the downtown area so that boats can travel from Lake Millard Filmore (Wasihington honors one of the greatest presidents, while I honor one of our most mediocre) to Pluggit Sound.
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