I hate those distance terrains. They are difficult to match since the terrains do not match any existing textures included with CAW. Also, the only really nice one is only partial so you will always have a coast on one side. France has a silly Eifel tower always on the horizon so really not useful unless you are making France. Egypt is okay, but you will have to have a river exactly where the terrain wants you to have it. China is rather nice but it does have some villages on the terrain.

They look great if done well but I don't want to have to make my terrains all similar in order to use them. I wish EA had included a simple mountain one, with no rivers, a simple hilly one and a simple desert one, going all around with nothing else on them.

Where I would be total fail and would appreciate pre-supplied in a kit would be a neighborhood that has some rabbitholes pre-supplied and some parklike community lots logically located and well supplied with all the "nature" spawners and seeds we are used to seeing in the base game.

Leave scenic areas open for me to place lots of sizes of my own choosing. By scenic I mean prime beach front real estate or any place you can reasonably expect to get the beautiful vista moodlet. I'm weak on commercial development and wouldn't know how to properly locate a rabbit hole to save my life. But residential development would be fun. It's my only source of frustration with existing neighborhoods--the fact that I'm stuck with lot sizes I can barely fit a lemonade stand on when to me, the location is just screaming out for a mansion or at least a decent house that can accomodate a family of four and enough space for parking a car for each of the parents.

That's just MY wishlist.

I don't mind a layer that has trees. I have figured out how to edit those and know to to delete what I don't want. I am kind of hamfisted with terrain paints, especially the sand around islands. So pre-painted is fine by me. But like Claeric, volcanic ash beaches aren't my thing and I do prefer plain old ordinary sand. The more mainstream the terrain painting, the better--I can make it customized for a theme on my own if I have to.

I have successfully connected a network of roads properly across an island and got all the crosswalks to form as they should. And that is the ONLY part of the battle with roads I have mastered. Smoothing out lumps escapes me, apparently. And I stink at detail and so I definitely want the roads and all the little signs and details as part of the kit. My eyes are shot and in fact I'm due to have surgery on one eye soon, so I just stink at noticing if I'm missing those little but important details.

Anyway I'm totally on board with the idea of kits. I'm thrilled you have even come up with the proposal. I look forward to trying my hand at editing a few.

summersong, if you right click the texture you want to change, you can replace it, and it will replcae it on the map. It causes minor blending issues, but every time I've done it it works just fine. I got rid of hte black sand on bakafox' map with incredble ease just by changing it over.

I'd post pics but I dont know if I have the links anymore, and I cant link to my post in the download thread, because apparently posting how you used someone elses work is "advertising my own work", according to the mods. Who knew?

LOL--well gee, what's wrong with a little advertising? I actually wouldn't mind having the version you edited but at least now I can get terrain color like you have thanks for the tip. I'm quite happy to have the neighborhood I'm currently building out and playing. But I'm going to love doing boatloads of CAW experimentation and learning on Bakafox's map. Doing my own from scratch hasn't taught me much but with these kits I can see what early stages of work look like when done by somebody who actually knows what the heck they're doing with this danged tool!

baka says they dont mind if we share our own versions as long as credit goes to them...but my version was apparently only existing as an autosave file and was unfortunately overwritten.

I do have the world file with lot placement and altered sand, though, if you want me to post it. There are also two slots down by the beach intended for the default sunset valley school and main shops, to help save on rabbit hole building. Tons and tons of default houses fit in various places, too, so you could pretty much pack up and replace a whole town.

Claeric, I love you!!!
I just tried your tip to make dirt roads. It's wonderful. Thank you! :lovestruc

Yeah re-sharing my stuff is fine =) Just like to get my bit of credit.

I've yet to get the "distance terrain" stuff working right for myself, much to my frustration. May be poking at it today some more on a random map, the island's giving me some irritation and I want a break from it. LOL.

But *if* I get it figured out and no one else has gotten such CAW files up, I'll remember to get a file pack up using the dumb thing so others have a shortcut. =)

Distant Terrain is obnoxious untl you realize that moving it requires looking at the very center of the thing. I could never find the draggy things to move it up/down or to the sides.

Plus certain ones, like the default one, HAVE to be in the very far corner and at a specific angle to fit. Sunset Valley is actually a relatively small town, and the distant terrain takes up a huge chunk of the visible area, and it has to be angled perfectly to work.

I've been having a blast with this map and learned a lot from taking it apart a little and seeing how you went about making it and painting it. With my newfound knowledge I went back to experimenting on my own Catt-butt and Cat Poop islands (don't worry I am keeping those experiments to myself). I don't think I'll get good enough to make an entire world all by myself anytime soon, but I'm happy I'm learning to edit and customize the things made by people with far more advanced skills and better creativity than to create islands shaped like a cat sitting near a pile of cat poo.

I did end up keeping a lot of the dark volcanic dirt. I only dusted up the beaches with fine sand in one very low lying space. I had found when I did the edit that Claeric suggested I lost the dark rich soil under the plants and I missed it. I did experiment and turned the island all sorts of crazy colors. I did make it the stereo-typical tropical colors and found it looked okay but really off. Some of my mother's people come from an island that is a mix of this dark rock and soil but has the light sandy beaches in some parts--other parts have very sharp jagged rocky beaches--I learned the hard way from diving into a natural and seemingly inviting looking swimming pool shaped formation lined completely with sea urchins to never ever go swimming at those beaches! Dig for clams, admire the tropical fish but never ever jump in in just your swimsuit and bare feet! The dark beaches you made reminded me uncomfortably of the real thing I experienced so, I'm sorry to say, I did have to cover them in light sand or risk reliving the PTSD of having sea urchin spines embedded in my toe for several months!

I'd have to say you really got that dark volcanic island look right.

I've been thinking this exactly!! I've been trying my hand at making my own worlds and this part seems so time consuming & difficult to me. As someone who loves to build I want to make lot sizes other than standard (say 40x50) and sloping lots (walkout basements). A world like this would really motivate me and give me a jump start! PLEASE PLEASE!