[wtncffts]

Hello folks, I've been reading these boards for awhile, and I've been using sketchup for quite awhile now - I've made some cities in the past but didn't feel the need to share them here... anyway, here's my current city, I hope you enjoy:

Seymour Shore, BC
on the west coast of Vancouver Island

Made in Google Sketchup, rendered with SU Podium.

History to come, but a little pictorial preview:

Seymour Shore as it is right now:

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/2711/200703081700402m24sdi9.jpg


http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/2382/200703081711332m32sjw6.jpg
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/8021/200703081717362m38syt3.jpg

The last one in sketchy form:
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/2456/sketch1sd3.jpg

Some slightly older pictures, with and without sky:

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/5976/200703061851151m37svl6.jpg
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/4981/200703061543261m57snr4.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/6374/200702271527111m35snm8.jpg
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/4533/200702260006441m5sgz5.jpg

Thanks for visiting, any comments/recommendations are welcome.

[foxmtbr]

Uh oh! Pictures don't work! Make sure to use the URL of the image itself, not the site that it is on.

[wtncffts]

Fixed it all up, learning the hard way :cool:

[foxmtbr]

It looks great! Keep it up! :tup:

[Dac150]

Nice job. Looking foward to the history.

[Patrick]

Woah! Incredible, Another sketchup city in one day. How did you make your shots so realalistic!? Did you use a rendering program? EDIT: Oh Nevermid, I saw you mentioned it at the top.

[Tanster]

intensly awsome :yes:

[bbeliko]

amazing job

[wtncffts]

Hey, thanks very much for the comments, here's two more new pics:

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/8061/200703082233472m25sfy9.jpg
An Overview:
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/6561/200703082242573m23svw2.jpg

[foxmtbr]

Very awesome indeed! Those renderings look great!

[Derek]

yay new sketchup city :)

[Bergenser]

Very realistic, will be nice to see when you've filled it up with buildings in the middle! :tup:

[Dear Leader VI]

Well done! Amazing renderings! I think we're having a boom in SSP cities.

[Tanster]

thanks to Patricks Inspirational city

[bbeliko]

thanks to Patricks Inspirational city
no doubt about it

[Patrick]

Nice Pics! I love your city, whats the history behind it? Also I'd like to see more of those blue twin towers :cool:

[wtncffts]

Hi folks, here's some background on Seymour Shore.

Seymour Shore, British Columbia is located on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Here's the map:

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/5826/vancouverislandbl3.jpg

The area was first discovered by George Vancouver in 1793, as part of his explorations of the Pacific Northwest. The first permanent settlers founded the town in 1852, led by the English merchant Seymour Fordham. Originally named Seymour Beach, the name was changed to Seymour Shores in 1860, and the S was eventually dropped by the time the city was incorporated. It grew to a population of around 10,000 by 1900, and was incorporated as a city in 1902, with George MacGregor as its first mayor. Steady immigration increased the population, and in the 1910s, discoveries of nearby deposits of natural resources brought mining to the area, and an influx of workers to the city. By 1930, the population had swelled to around 60,000.

The city's next growth phase was due in large part to Lloyd Francis Ferris, an extremely wealthy businessman who was born and raised in Seymour Shore and had made his fortune in New York. He returned to his hometown in 1938 and immediately began investing in the city's physical and social infrastructure. In terms of architecture, his most notable achievement is the Ferris Building:

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/6779/200703102014423m7swn2.jpg

During World War II the city was a beehive of manufacturing activity, and by war's end the population had reached 105,000. The city grew steadily in the following decades, and by 1980 the population was 155,000 strong. Seymour Shore has become a hi-tech mecca, thanks in large part to ShoreCorp, a highly successful software company founded in 1982. The population in 2007 of the city itself is estimated at 188,560, with the metropolitan area home to around 400,000 people.

Here's an overview of the city:

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/2508/200703101713176m58stq2.jpg

And a few blocks of the Historic District, you can see the Ferris Building as well:

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3905/200703101735316m46sqq6.jpg

[Patrick]

I really like the layout! And nice story!

[Derek]

keep it coming!!!:)

[foxmtbr]

Awesome! I am loving those renderings, I tried to download Podium, but it won't render anything. :(

[Bergenser]

wow, this shot is extemly realistic:
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3905/200703101735316m46sqq6.jpg

Wow. :tup:

[Dylan Leblanc]

Neat. I always thought BC could use another big city.

Is there a surfer scene in Seymour Shore?

[CGII]

Awesome! I am loving those renderings, I tried to download Podium, but it won't render anything. :(

That's because it'll only render faces hthat are white in the monochrome view. It's quite likely most of your city is in that purplish other colour, like City City. Lametably, Podium won'trender affixed images either, which means 90% of my buildings wouldn't have faces.

[Patrick]

Podium is free?

[Dear Leader VI]

Excellent job and backstory! The textures you used are incredibly lifelike.

[CGII]

Podium is free?

No, but they have a trial that only exports 600x420 sized pictures. Kerkythea is free, and does far more. [Podium is $100+].


An example of a quick, default render with Kerkythea from a model made entirely from Sketchup:
http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/2042/duplex3pu1.jpg

[Patrick]

Cool program, but unfortunantly, I need to reverse all the faces to make the taxtures show up, I'm not sure if its really worth it :(

[wtncffts]

I tried kerkythea before, but I'm not much of a computer whiz and didn't really get the results I wanted. I like Podium because it's really easy to use and is embedded within sketchup, even though it doesn't have many options. Although now I might be looking for something else because it's taking about five or six minutes to render a scene.

And Dylan Leblanc, of course! Being right on the pacific ocean, Seymour Shore sees some of the best waves in the world!:cool:

[CGII]

Five or six minutes is nothing. You should expect upwards of 30 minutes for anything besides Kerkythea or Podium.

[wtncffts]

CGII, thanks for the info. I guess I'll just have to try and be more patient... :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------

I've started some things on the waterfront. Here's the Seymour Shore Aquarium and Marine Science Centre:

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/9666/200703111718432m43swa9.jpg

Here's the Seymour Shore Yacht Club:

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/1820/200703111911111m45srn8.jpg

And another skyline shot, you can see the aquarium and yacht club on the waterfront:

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/5301/200703111920465m29skx2.jpg

[Patrick]

Woah! Nice! I suggest not sharpening your textures so much, it makes the pictures look kinda grainy and unreal.

[foxmtbr]

That aquarium looks insanely realistic!

[Derek]

im loving it:)

[wtncffts]

An evening in MacGregor Park:

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/585/200703131928305m1soe6.jpg

The building is Sarah Fuller House, a museum and event centre originally built in 1894 by Lord Bernard Fuller, and named for his wife. The weekly Sunday Tea Party is a beloved city tradition.

[foxmtbr]

That has a definite historical feel to it. Very nice!

[wtncffts]

Hey folks, Podium is really starting to mess up now, so i've taken up your advice and started using kerkythea, which i've actually come to like better. it's certainly a lot faster. anyway, my friend just got back from Seymour Shore and he gave me this souvenir button:

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1581/kerkythea1yf5.jpg

[Patrick]

I'd love to know more about those Blue Twin Towers :)

[wtncffts]

Thanks for the comments, some things I've been working on:
------------------------

I'd love to know more about those Blue Twin Towers

Ask and ye shall receive! :)

This is World Commerce Plaza, the heart of Downtown Seymour Shore:

http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/8838/wcp1qe1.jpg

As labelled, the two twin towers are World Commerce Plaza One and Two, more commonly known by locals as 'Big Blue One and Two'. These two towers were built from 1984-1986, consciously inspired by New York City's World Trade Center Towers. Many residents of Seymour Shore disapproved of the building of the Big Blues, some because of the 'borrowed' design and some because of the way it changed the nature of the downtown area. World Commerce Plaza Three was built from 1987-1989, and WCP Four from 1988-1990. WCP Five, across the street, was a later addition, completed in 2003.

The plaza up close, Subway Station and 9/11 memorial:

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/8673/wcp4zr7.jpg

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/3227/wcp5wa6.jpg

As with most people around the world, citizens of Seymour Shore felt the pain and suffering of those who perished on September 11. For Seymour Shore, the loss was magnified by the existence of the Big Blues, and their relationship to the WTC. This memorial was constructed as a dedication to those who lost their lives.

WCP Three and Four:

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/8356/wcp7mb1.jpg

Here are the building heights, to the top of the roof, of the WCP towers:

WCP ONE / WCP TWO: 1123'
WCP THREE: 349'
WCP FOUR: 480'
WCP FIVE: 410'

And a shot I particularly like:

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/1715/wcp6wk9.jpg


Some other stuff:

Seymour Shore City Hall:

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3915/cityhall1wi7.jpg
http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/3/cityhall2fu7.jpg

Completed in 1908, some see its opulence as disproportionate to a city the size of Seymour Shore, though others bask in its classical indulgences.

Harriman Center Complex:

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/8725/rockcenter1bk2.jpg

Home to the 'Seymour Shore & World' Newspaper, the city's largest, and ShoreTV, the local television channel. The red building is the Harriman Playhouse, one of the premier cultural institutions in the city, where residents can go for live theatre and music performances.

That's all for now, thanks for reading and looking.

[Dac150]

That last building complex really resembles Rockafeller center......................:hahano:

[bbeliko]

i like the WCP

[wtncffts]

That last building complex really resembles Rockafeller center......................:hahano:

heh, yeah, if you look at the url for the pic you'll see the temporary name that it was saved as ...

[Derek]

love it!:)

[foxmtbr]

Wow, so much detail! Great job.

[Patrick]

Nice! thanks :)

[wtncffts]

Some skyline pictures:

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/8255/skyline1tf4.jpg

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/4927/skyline3do8.jpg

And an aerial:

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/3297/skyline6sa4.jpg

Enjoy!

[foxmtbr]

Nice!

[Rural]

The skyline views look great, but the aerial view makes it look a little too spacious. The roads seem too wide in comparison to the city block sizes. Just an observation; maybe I'm the only one who thinks that. Oh, and I really like the hill that is the large city park, it breaks up the flatness of the rest of the city. The Harriman Center Complex is awesome.

[Patrick]

Yes its pretty spaced out, but I still think it looks great. Where those rendered in Kerkythea? Because I need to know, how do you display the fog?

[wtncffts]

Yes its pretty spaced out, but I still think it looks great. Where those rendered in Kerkythea? Because I need to know, how do you display the fog?

Yes, these were rendered in kerkythea, but alas, the 'fog' was added in a photo editing program... ;) It's not actually a 'fog' effect, I was just twiddling with the brightness and contrast and it turned out that way.:)

As for the spaciousness, most of the streets are 70' wide. It's the blocks, I suppose. I know real city blocks are usually much larger, but I don't like having 'megablocks' with a dozen or more buildings on each one. Just a personal preference, I like to keep the blocks to the size where you might have two or three fronting the street.

[foxmtbr]

^ I understand the small block thing, I do it myself. I don't like having huge blocks, because the buildings have to be really deep to reach the center of the block, or else I end up with a space in the center. I guess I make up for my small blocks with my 30', 3-lane roads. I assume that they are one-way roads though, so I suppose it makes sense.

[Patrick]

70 feet woah. My streets are usually 35 feet wide with two lanes.

Oh, EDIT: it looks like you havent used the reflection tool yet. Just simply select the texture you want with reflections and edit it. (On the left side all the textures appear in a box, the one selected will have a star next to it, right click it and edit it, a screen should pop up, torwards the bottom you can see the reflections tool, you can ajust how much reflection you want)

[wtncffts]

Hello all, I added a road texture, right now it's only in the Historic District. Here's a couple shots (also a few buildings completed downtown):

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4611/hist1sn5.jpg

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5965/hist2se2.jpg

And some panorama type shots:

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/1161/sat1ax1.jpg

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/9620/sat2js3.jpg

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1963/sat3gr1.jpg

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/6220/sat5bf1.jpg

[Dear Leader VI]

:cheers: :worship: WOW!

[foxmtbr]

Oh dang. :tup:

[Rural]

Wow, it looks great. Great detail. I am looking forward to more of Seymour Shore.

[Patrick]

WOW! Speatchless.

[Derek]

looks great:)

[wtncffts]

Hey all, I've actually done quite a lot of work on the city... sometime soon I will have a mega update, perhaps in the form of a travel guidebook of sorts, just for fun. Right now I just want to show you a few pictures taken from sketchup itself, without rendering. I can't display the textures in sketchup if I want to see the whole city, so these are textureless, but they turned out pretty good, I think. Just to give an idea of what the city looks like as of now:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/5521/sketch1pw3.jpg

As you can see, I've built some things downtown and in the city centre, and laid out the entire street grid. You might also be able to make out the university, which I am quite proud of.

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/4197/sketch2qj9.jpg

Here's a shot from the Frederick Harper Bridge,looking south towards the city. You can see Mackenzie King University in the foreground.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8871/sketch3wg4.jpg

a closer shot of the university, I'll have a detailed aerial layout of the campus soon.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/2014/sketch4eo5.jpg

a final shot for now. thanks for your attention.

[Tanster]

wow thats really good
Like the Mackenzie King University

[foxmtbr]

Wow!! What a great University and bridge! I really like them! :tup:

[Derek]

its coming along nicely:)

[Patrick]

Woah! Nice skyline!!

[Patrick]

Whats going on! we need more :)

[Austin55]

we need the mega update. lots of old thread with new lifes suddenly

[Mocholate]

I agree ! more more more !!!

where did you find this thread?

[Austin55]

page 2 did u get your pm?

[foxmtbr]

^ I don't believe most people will have checked the website between 1:45 and 3:00 AM. :haha:

[Mocholate]

its 8:54 pm here :D

[rbowk]

sweet good job

[Austin55]

is this dead or what?

[rbowk]

nice

[Austin55]

:previous: uhhh:uhh: , thats twive now:haha: