Happy Sim Holidays

Happy holidays from NYCJ

Sim New York Update

It's been a while since I've done a proper update on my Sim NYC project. Due to the great contributions by the NY BAT team there are more buildings dotting the sim skyline. We'll look at how Midtown and Lower Manhattan are coming along. Progress photos after the jump.

First up an overview of the map. Midtown and Lower Manhattan are starting to take shape. Despite being inaccurate in scale the wider map of Manhattan worked out in the end to accommodate the lot sizes of the skyscrapers.

Taking a closer look at Midtown and Lower Manhhatan

Midtown had to completely redone after running into some complications with inaccuracies with the street grid. Some buildings are temporary place holder (the buildings standing in for 500 Fifth Avenue for instance)

Lower Manhattan is more complete.

As usual some of my usual close ups: SoHo

The Ed Sullivan Building home of the Late Show with David Letterman

And finally the Queensboro Bridge.

More next time.

Remembering 9/11: A Look Back and a Look Forward

Today marks the 8th anniversary of 9/11. We'll have a Sim tribute by looking back...

And looking forward...

More next time.

BAT's in Progress

 Today we'll take a behind the scenes look at the New York BAT's being made for the SimCity downloads section. The New York BAT team (which was formally and finally created a few months ago) has been cooking up some goodies in their BAT oven. They've been hard at work and have a lot of creations on the horizon for download. First up one of my projects; the Flatiron Building. Still a lot of work to be done.

134 Eldridge Street

140 Eldridge Street

Next is JumtheFence's model of 134 and 140 Eldridge Street on the Lower East Side

The Empire State Building's cousin is also in the works, 500 Fifth Avenue. One of the quintessential points of the Manhattan skyline.

SimFox is creating a stunning rendition of Barclay Tower in Lower Manhattan

And PGBV is creating JP Morgan Chase Building in Midtown

Be on the lookout for these BAT as they hit the SimCity downloads section in over the coming weeks.

Summer in Central Park

The final weeks of summer are upon us. Let's enjoy the weather while we still can, the Sim New Yorker's certainly are in Central Park.

More next time.

Landmarks and Downloads Section House Keeping

Just a quick note I'm in the process of straightening up the simcity 4 landmarks and downloads section as it has gotten a little messy in the past years, broken links are being fixed and I'm trying to stay on top of new downloads.

Also, be on the look out for some creations of my own as they will be made for download soon. More to come later.

NYCJ in the News

In the news? The New York City Journals?

Apparently so. My little project appeared to attract interest from forumers, the blogosphere and even major news sites and magazines. I’m going to put up a section about the converge of this project from others.

(Sidenote: I was going to put it up earlier but didn’t want to seem boastful but I think it would be nice for those who are interested to see what others have to say about my New York recreation project.)

NYCJ Goes Big on Digg: "New York Recreated in SimCity"- 12/12/06

Gothamist: “The Big (Simulated) Apple”-12/12/06

A Brooklyn Life: “Brownstone Living In Sim City 4”-12/12/06,
http://www.abrooklynlife.com/2006/12/brownstone_livi.html

Orlando Sentinel, SimManhattan , blogs.orlandosentinel.com-12/12/06

New York Magazine: “And Just Wait for the Atlantic Yards Expansion Pack”- 12/13/06, http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2006/12/and_just_wait_for_the_atlantic_1.html

kotaku.com: “SimCity 4 Does New York”- 12/13/06,
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/simcity/simcity-4-does-new-york-city-221381.php

Gridskipper.com: “New York, Now In Simcity Form”-12/13/06,

http://gridskipper.com/travel/new-york/new-york-now-in-simcity-form-221412.php

An interview I did with Jim Squires from thebbps.com about the New York City Journals, http://www.thebbps.com/blog/2006/12/15/speaking-simlish-in-nyc-an-interview-with-elliot-hanson

USA Today, “We Built This City”- 2/6/07,

http://blogs.usatoday.com/techspace/2007/02/we_built_this_c.html

New York City Journals makes front page news at Simtropolis-5/25/07.

3/11/08- NYCJ in Guinness Book of  World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008
I got news a while ago from a reader in the UK that they saw me in the 2008 Edition of the Guinness Book of Records Gamer's Edition. I went to my local bookstore yesterday to pick up a copy and I was surprised to see my name in the SimCity section on page 200 under "Most Dedicated Player." From the book:

"Elliot Hanson has been constructing the Big Apple in SimCity for nearly four years, "one pixel at a time." He has even reconstructed tributes to major events, such as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and 9/11. In his downtime, Elliot is working on re-creating San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC and Boston."
Thanks to my all readers and the writers of the Guinness Book of Records Gamer's Edition 2008. Be sure to pick up a copy, there's a lot of interesting facts about not just SimCity but also many different types of games.

3/21/08- NYCJ on Schmap.com


Thanks to Emma Williams, managing editor of Schmap Guides, for including my photo of Tom's Restaurant in the guide. You can view the photo at the following link:
http://www.schmap.com/newyork/restaurants_diners/#p=5935&i=5935_7.jpg

5/23/09- NYCJ on Squidoo

Thanks to Pixelrage for his calling the project "one of the biggest SimCity projects of all time!" and for including the project in his Squidoo lens, Sim City 4: It's Not A Game, It's A Hobby

More 3D Cities- New York and Portland

More brainstorming, ideas and wishful hoping about the next gen urban simulator :)

Examples of high resolution textures Google Earth



3D High poly model of Portland, OR from NC3D



More coming up later.

Next Gen Urban Simulation and Visualization

I've written about next gen urban simulation in the past before but I stumbled across a video today which made me think more about the direction of 3d visualization and how it applies to urban simulation games.



The video creators shows the game engine of CryTek 2 combined with renderings from Enodo

Here's some renderings from Enodo projects which hint at what a next gen simulator might look like.

Bryant Park rendering, NYC: Example of daytime lighting, fauna, shadows, sims and graphics

NYC Public Library: mid to high poly models

Bellagio, Las Vegas: example of textures and realism

La Defense, Paris: example of night lighting and traffic UI

If a urban simulation game were to be created similar to this players would need to a powerful graphics card to run it and a very good computer. But with computers getting more and more advanced and can handle more graphic intensive gaming. We'll wait and see or build our own ;)

More next time

Midtown in the Making

Midtown is (slowly) coming along with some help from the NYBAT team. 570 Lexington, and 599 Lexington Citigroup. Here's pictures of the latest developments:

 

More next time.

Happy Holidays

Happy (sim) Holidays

More next time.

Cityscape 1.8 Demo

Just a quick update about something I ran across which my readers might be interested in, Cityscape.

Cityscape is a next gen urban simulation engine which is (almost) everything many SimCity fans have been looking for. Take a look:



A demo of Cityscape is available and has a familiar feel to the SimCity series. With a UI menu, some AI, night lighting, custom content creator and city management tool it could be the next sim game.

Recreating New York in Cityscape would be amazing.

More next time. You can download the demo of Cityscape at PixeActive3d.com

YouCity 3D New York Map Video

Here's a video of YouCity great map of Manhattan. Amazing work!



More next time

Google Earth New York- Flatiron Building

Now that Google Earth has fully 3D cities and the project of making a 3D model of Manhattan in Google Earth is complete I thought I'd show the best images from "Google Manhattan."

Greenwich Village and surrounding neighborhoods


The Flatiron Building
The Upper East Side

Times Square


Midtown

Looking uptown from the Financial District

Now that Google Manhattan is complete maybe I'll start on Google Brooklyn... we'll see how time permits.

If you haven't already download the latest version of Google Earth. It's a must have application for an urban simulation/mapping fan.

More next time.

Park Avenue Redux

Here's a redo of one of my earlier pictures capturing Park Avenue in the spring, at least around 53rd Street.

More next time.

Sim New York Goes Back in Time: Part One

Here's the first part of our time travelin' series.

We'll travel back in time to the mid-90's when SimCity 2000 was the latest and greatest game and Times Square was becoming more family freindly. First stop: six years ago.

Times Square, 2003

We start our journey on 42nd and Broadway in 2003. The city was getting over 9/11 and word was beginning buzz around City Hall about New York tossing it's hat into the bid for the 2012 Olympics.

Trump was busy constructing Trump Place on the Upper West Side, the finishing touches were going on the AOL Time Warner Center and Mayor Bloomberg made it official a smoking ban would be in place for restaurants and bars.

Upper East Side, 1998



Next stop the Guggenheim Museum, 1998. In this year on the Upper East Side alone, You've Got Mail, , The Perfect Murder, Town and Country, the Out of Towner's, the Thomas Crowne Affair, Finding Forester and Eyes Wide Shut were filmed in and around this area, not to mention Law & Order and Sex and the City (causing some residents to be star struck and some to have headaches).

Down in Midtown America's first green skyscraper was half way finished and getting rave reviews from architects and residents alike; the Conde Nast Building.

Plus, average rent was "only" $1,600 per month back then.

SoHo, 1996


Ah, New York in the mid 90's.

The police cars were blue, the subway cars were still red (mostly), gas guzzling big Crown Vic's and Caprice's ruled the roads and gigantic billboards advertising Tommy Hilfiger, Joe Boxer and of course DKNY were plastered on the sides of buildings throughout the city(the famous DKNY billboard was replaced last year by Abrocrombie & Fitch)

Times Square was also noticeably different than it is now.

Next time we'll head back into the 1980's and 1970's.

Happy Halloween!

Have a very (Sim) Halloween!

YouCity 3D New York Map

Here's a video of YouCity's incredible 3d map of Manhattan- all made of true 3D buildings. Looks very much like SC3000.



More next time

Cityscape in Crysis

Here's Skape 3D Map of Leicester England to give you an idea of what to expect:


Cities XL comes close to this but the level of detail shown in this video is much greater. Makes you wonder about the next gen city builder. Also, makes you wonder how AI would be integrated into the simulator. GTA IV (despite being controversial) does a good job of integrating AI with the environment as show below.

Sony Tower Finally Available!

Sony Tower has made it's way into SimCity and is finally available in the downloads section. Get it while it's hot!

From Wikipedia, Sony Tower, formerly the as the AT&T Building, is a 647 feet (197 m) tall, 37-story skyscraper located at 550 Madison Avenue between 55th and 56th Street in Manhattan. It was designed by architect Philip Johnson and his partner John Burgee, and was constructed in 1984.

It became immediately controversial for its ornamental top (sometimes mocked as "Chipendale" (after the open pediments characteristic of the famous English designer's bookcases and other cabinetry), but enjoyed for its spectacular arched entranceway, measuring about seven stories in height. With these ornamental additions, the building challenged modernism's demand for stark functionalism and purely efficient design. Because of this it is considered by many critics to be a prime example of postmodern architecture.