Lightweight Riverview For All Expansions

[AdamantEve]

I am working on making a Riverview remix that is intended to be played kind of Lightweight- not too many sims, not too many residential lots, but full capability to do everything from every expansion- One of each rabbit hole, at least one or two bars, a couple of show venues, everything! I'm trying to do this by having two distinct areas of community lots- The town center, and a more high-end area out across the river. I also replaced the land bridges with proper bridges.

http://i.imgur.com/ktx1b.jpg

So far I have the town center. It has a coffee house, spa, bookstore, grocery store, fire station, police station, steakhouse, office, theater, graveyard, dog park, cat park, playground, water park (water fountains with a sprinkler or two so sims look like they're playing in the fountains), and a public show venue. All in this little area! These places all share the same Plaza terrain, so it looks like it's really just one big contiguous part of town. :D

I also used a lot of streetlights so that lots can have light both on and off them at the edges. The streetlights mean you don't need to put lighting on a lot near the edge, which means you don't have to deal with how lights refuse to spread off of them. Some of the lots also have themed bus stops (The coffee house has one out front that matches the rabbit hole, and there's also one outside the steakhouse).

Also in the immediate area will be the school, city hall, Salon/Tattoo parlor, and a hospital.

[simsample]

Is the point of this to 'remake' Riverview or to make a world with a different feel to Riverview?

It would be good to see some overview images and more detail of the lots. Sounds like a great idea, one of the complaints I see most often is that large worlds cause too much lag, and smaller worlds don't have room for all required lots. :)

[AdamantEve]

I've actually never played Riverview. I'm just using the layout and putting in my own lots. Lots and lots of rabbit holes with little else on the lot, and then the rest residential. Maybe 25 residential lots at the most, or something? Definitely not more than 30. And not really too close to each other, kinda like in Sims 2.

http://i.imgur.com/0RLjB.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zmSd8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/D0s7I.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3Rg0z.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3wsKG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/nLBX8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/84iKQ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GVBPo.jpg

[Gincgo]

I really enjoy watching the process of people creating their own worlds. I think you have a good idea, I hate it when I install a new EP and I have to place all the rabbit holes in the other neighborhoods.
Well, you have already placed the rabbit holes and community lots. Do you plan to use the residential buildings Riverview purchases? Or do you make something like a "Builders Island" or do you place some Maxis ones?
Back to the community lots. First I have to say that it is three years ago since I have installed and deleted Riverview and I am not a world builder because you cannot use it on Mac. In my opinion you should try to spread all your buildings to the whole neighborhood. It looks really overloaded. You could try to build a zone with parks where your sims can go with their dogs and enjoy the festivals and concerts in front of the large stage. I would place a bigger park in the center of the core of the city to make it look...not empty...not so full (??!!??). The inner city is not the right place for concerts I think (well, it´s my opinion. Perhaps there some sims and people who enjoy it). I really like the old-school-looking shop next to the coffee shop. With which EP or AP do you got it? As I see on your first pic, you have placed two or more super markets in your neighborhood? Do you have placed some lots twice?
I am looking forward to your next update to see how your city is developing! :)

[AdamantEve]

I'm thinking it is supposed to be a little town that expected a boom in tourism for whatever reason, so they spent a bunch of money on the town center and "downtown" entertainment area, but then nothing came of it. I was going to put a big construction site down on the opposite end of the shore, that I imagine would be a resort that never got funding or something. The reason there's so much community stuff but a small population is for this very reason.

[Gincgo]

Ah, I understand. That is a nice idea. I am really interested in seeing your resort! Anyway, I would change the way you have placed the community lots a bit. The street for entertainment looks good. I cant tell you why but the center disturbs me a bit. I don´t know how you could make some changes, I am not sure about what I would enjoy myself. However, it´s your city and you have to be lucky. :)
Do you have any ideas for landscaping yet? Do you plan to change the landscaping?

[simsample]

I see, so this is a completely different world, just on the Riverview map. It's looking interesting!

In case you want it, the distant terrain for the Riverview map is available here:
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=427515
You might want to recolour it though, since it's a farmland terrain.

[AdamantEve]

I didn't realize Riverview even had a distant terrain. I think it looks fine without it, really. I dunno.

The whole idea, I have decided, is definitely that it is just a little town that went through some big expansion that did not end up going anywhere. They redid their town center, tehy added venues and bars, and then the expected boom in population never happened. Thankfully, they're next door to Appaloosa Plains, so people still come visit for the shows and bars and stuff, but they ended up with this weird half-urban half-suburban city that anybody can tell from a quick glance tried and failed to become a proper city. :) Following that, the city hall is covered in promotional materials. :lol:

http://i.imgur.com/tnH7M.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/u7Lwp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/q66b5.jpg

School
Grocery
Fire station
Coffeehouse/Diner
City Hall
Military
Live Venue
Dog Park
Cat Park
Police Station
Business
Theater
Bookstore
Spa
Consignment Store
Salon
Tattoo Parlor
Pet Graveyard

All in that little area! I'm quite impressed with how nicely it's compacting. All I need for this area is a regular graveyard, some parks, and a laundromat. I'll put the hospital over by the venues/bars, and I'll put a junkyard over by the tourist trap. The pets lots will be over by the farmland, and the science facility is kind of off in its own area. I'm considering putting the alien plants in that area and treating it as a "Supernatural District" or something.

There will be crappy trailers where there were crappy trailers in Riverview, and there will be normal suburban homes where there were normal suburban homes. :) I am going to put a construction site down south, and I think on that big hill I'll put a huge outdoor venue with big spotlights and lasers and stuff!

[simsample]

Great idea to put a stage venuw on the hill, that will look good!

On your third image, you have some footpaths leading to the bridge, but sims may not be able to get to the bridge from there. You might want to join the footpath to the road instead, or put the original bridges back (in the same link as the Distant terrain).

I like the city hall with the posters!

[AdamantEve]

I just haven't touched the sidewalks yet. I am going to remove a lot of them.

[Riptide651]

I love the setups on the foundation of City Hall! It looks so entertainment based! If you want to go for entertainment you could make a theme park? and a golf course maybe?

[AdamantEve]

There is going to be a golf course! :) A little one, though. And the part of town under construction is supposed to be a failed theme park project, so I think I'll put the movie studio in there, and also do a "Main Street" thing like at disney world, except only part of it will be finished.

Meanwhile, I built a church to go across the street from the graveyard! The upper floor of the church is loosely based on the concepts from The Sims Medieval. The church is, so far, the only lot without any explicit, useful, in-game purpose.

http://i.imgur.com/2rwbs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6Ojrr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3Y8sM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BkjRn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CnQUh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wHL9y.jpg

[Riptide651]

The bridge in the back of the pictures seems to be dangerously blocking much water flow, you could try a thinner bridge to make for more realistic water flow. :)

[AdamantEve]

I have added a large park (playground, Band setup, small horse center, eating area, chess area) and a modified version of a prebuilt graveyard. I am also working on a library and then the Laundromat, and a small park/fishing spot just behind the city hall. Then the main city center will be finished. (aside from world decor)

http://i.imgur.com/VLuPv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/v3aBC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/R2Xj2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/agvYZ.jpg

[AdamantEve]

I have mostly completed the city center. I started hte outline of where the golf area will be (as well as a fishing spot), started placing some trees to see how the town will look with trees, and determined where what kinds of housing will be.

http://i.imgur.com/Pu2xS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/abSmQ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/OZo3J.jpg

The golf area trees look a little fake, like they were too planned. It'll look nicer once I add more kinds of trees, and extend the forest to the little hill to the right and maybe to the river.

I have ideas for sims already! In the trailers will be sims who are angry because they were promised that, as part of hte resort development, they'd get free proper houses in the residential area, but when everything fell through they got stuck with their trailers. Or they could all have lots of funds they got as a settlement, and one of the trailers has a bunch of high tech crap outside of it while hte more reasonable residents are planning on buying actual houses instead of decking their tiny house out with a dance sphere and mechanical bull. Stuff like that. :)

[AdamantEve]

I started working on the golf Clubhouse. I have a placement for 4 holes, but I don't really know how to terrain paint very well to fill them out...one would cross the road, and one crosses the river. I'd put a few golf tees along each one.

http://i.imgur.com/xDlBQ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ARez6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/eFbLA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Xp3Ev.jpg

I know I said I've never really played riverview, but I do have to say I'm pretty proud of how this looks. The whole atmosphere is so different. :)

[AdamantEve]

Okay, I dunno how good I am at adding trees, but this is what everything looks like so far from various angles. Obviously I'm not done adding trees, but I added a lot.

http://i.imgur.com/siZDF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/OOFct.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bf78h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ojLRsh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EABIM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pSayt.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wx3jh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pnkXB.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vPFKL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fgVu7.jpg

[AdamantEve]

I have to build a bunch of houses and place a ton of trees and it's making me lose interest fast. I'm starting to want to play the town, but I can't do that until I finish adding all the lots and world crap. u_u

http://i.imgur.com/3hB8n.jpg

[AdamantEve]

So much for creator "feedback".

[simsample]

Give us chance! :lol:

Firstly, perhaps you could scale down your images. They are going off the page for me as I don't have a widescreen monitor, so I bet they are for other people too. People aren't going to bother to zoom out to see the images.

For the lots, I like the general design, especially that church and the clapboard buildings. But for the interior, a few look a little stark and starile; maybe you could add some wallhangings and clutter, and rotate things slightly. For example, the park with the tables and chairs and chessboard- I would have rotated some to make them look used and not out of an Argos catalogue display.

You need to work on the terrain painting too; on lots you could shade beneath trees and bushes, add some worn areas to the grass where sims walk. I know you're still sculpting and working on the world terrain but the trees would look good there with some shading, and perhaps shade with dirt around the newly placed roads as EA did with the original roads.

Post #16 a couple of trees look like they are floating; hard to tell from pictures though. Are you placing those trees on one layer or across several? You know that they are grouped when you save?

For your post when you say you're bored, do something else! If you want to play, play it- do a test run and see how what you've got works. It takes a long time to create a world; one way of keeping it quick would be to just place loads of blank lots in CAW and fill them with EA/ downloaded lots in EIG instead of building each lot yourself. Then, as you play, you can slowly rebuild each lot as your sims need it. As long as you finish the terrain painting, roads, trees/plants and main decor in CAW, you can do the rest in-game.

[AdamantEve]

I thought images automatically got put in a little "click to expand" box and it just wasn't working due to one of my firefox addons. :(



Tje trees aren't floating, it's just some are placed on parts of the ground that are steep so that little bulb under the trunk shows up. I am...I placed everything on one layer! I didn't even realize the layers were there. I think I had to make a new one before I started anything but the layer box isn't visible anymore and I guess I closed it and forgot about it. Is that bad?!

[Miuki]

Ok, some feedback.
Don't go with too many trees and lots if you want to make a lightweight version of the map, I see a separate lot with fountains, which looks good, but perhaps you should merge it with the grocery, same goes for small parks in the middle of the island - it will definetly help with texture loading times for those, who have old rigs. The two lots with pet houses and bowls are dog's and cat's park, right? If so, then there isn't anything for humans to do there and they tend to visit these lots quite often, plus they seem really small and animals will have routing problems if attempt to play with each other. Then, I see trees and garbage cans on the sidewalk on one of the screenshots, it will bork sidewalks routing. Maybe you should read a couple of routing tutorials first?
Floating/trees on the slope - move them down a little bit, it'll look much better. Overall I think you need to think more about the general theme and style of your map and general playability, so far it looks like Riverview with plopped down rabbitholes from dirrerent EPs ( no offence, but it is a feedback section and I hope mine will help to make the map better). I mean the townhall and the stage give feel as some bigger town, posters look sort of like a graffiti, bridges from WA and Amb (if I'm not mistaking) look kind of strange together with wild-wild west rabbitholes from Pets. Maybe you should try recolouring them?
I also agree with simsample about interiors and ground painting.

[Riptide651]

Once again, from the previous pictures, I'm worried about how dangerously and unrealistically low the stone bridge on the left side of town is in relation to the water.

[cutsocks]

Overall I think you need to think more about the general theme and style of your map and general playability, so far it looks like Riverview with plopped down rabbitholes from dirrerent EPs ... I mean the townhall and the stage give feel as some bigger town, posters look sort of like a graffiti, bridges from WA and Amb (if I'm not mistaking) look kind of strange together with wild-wild west rabbitholes from Pets.

I agree with much of what Miuki has said. It is all very plopped and crammed together. I think there is a great amount of potential with the current rabbit holes available. The grocery store from SHT is pretty awesome, it's far more commercial [not mom-n-pop type] than the others before. One could move it away from the downtown area and add some adjacent lots [salon, laundromat, a LN bar, or consignment store for example] and make a sort of strip mall. [See attached sample, a bit of playing I did when SHT came out.] I think worlds are most successful with a good sense of cohesion.

You kinda started to delve into a backstory for the town--keep going with that. Things got upgraded for an event that didn't quite happen. Or maybe it did? What did the town look like before the upgrades? What was removed/altered, what stayed behind? Hosting an event [whether it happened or not] is big business for city. Beautification happens all around. They want to represent as best as possible, make it look grand. You might find it interesting to look into how real cities have done it for World's Fairs, Expos, Olympics, and other sporting events. Is everything integrated with the town, or kinda off to a certain area, like a fairground section or so? I think that your idea could be great. Maybe the town always hosts a certain huge event every year: a film or music fest or a sporting event [like the Indy 500 or KY Derby]. While permanent events, there would be a reason to have all the EP lots [even if in theory used once a year] but still be able to maintain a small population size.

My motivation is significantly higher when the scope of my vision is clearer.

I'm concerned with the duplicate rabbit holes. I know some people have had problems with them is the past. And for a "lite" version, having a police station in addition to the LN government building seems unnecessary.

I would love to see you adjust the roads more. Add more, delete some, to make it feel less like EA's Riverview. Is there going to be a road to the movie backlot?