Lakeport City, MN

[Codster121]

I am currently building the terrain for the city to be built on.

This is going to be a heavily detailed city, with traffic, and a Light rail system.
There is going to be a huge lake, with a river, connecting to lake Superior. with the Riverside highway going to my other city that I am working on, called Haywood, of which is about half the size of Lakeport, both cities are separated by vast farmland, with a few towns in between. the whole model will cover a 50mi x 50mi area.

I will upload pictures soon, but not until I paste in a few buildings, and make the terrain more hilly. Each building is going to have fully 3d windows and doors, with simple textures. Although if I am unable to upgrade a building, I will simply redesign it instead. Also i am going to add utilities such as power plants, sewage treatment, and waste disposal.

[Codster121]

I just had an interesting idea, i think i should build Lakeport from its founding in 1874 to the present day, with each update slowly showing its development and growth. Each building will have different phases of construction, and there will be plenty of other towns too. since the entire map is going to have a 50mile x 50mile area. The city of Lakeport will soon have an update once the entire terrain is constructed. The terrain will have mostly shallow hills, dozens of lakes, and a few rivers. If possible i will upload the terrains of Lakeport and Haywood, but there is going to be alot of work before i can post any updates. Haywood is another city i am working on, but i am not sure if that should be in another thread or not, since it takes up another 50mile x 50mile square, directly to the east of Lakeport's real life location, of which i didn't know existed until i after i made this thread, but my version of lakeport is much larger, with a city population of 552,000, and a metro population of 2.8 million in the 2014 census. I will build everything from scratch when possible, which would mainly be buildings, and infrastructure, and i will upload them too.

To give you an idea how detailed my city is going to be, look at Monaca, Ohio, but with a skyline half as large as Staunton. Does anyone think that is a bit too much?

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=175289

[Codster121]

Update!

Lakeport 4.0 has its first building, although i'm not sure i want this much detail in the city anymore, because this one building is making sketchup run slowly, anyway here it is:



The Hannson Building is one of the oldest buildings in the city, built in 1909, it rises 9 floors to 136ft. Once this building was the crown jewel of the city until 1927, when the Goldspire tower was constructed, of which i will show later.

I may change the 3d facade to a 2d texture, but i like my city with alot of detail, which is why i will make 2 versions of each building, a full 3D version, and a much simpler 2d textured version, using a parallel-projection > 2d image > import as texture method. I have never used that method to make textures before, but i wonder if that is how Vellu makes his textures.

So, should i use Photorealistic, 3d or Photoreal 3d? Lakeport is still new enough to change to photorealistic textures, and my PC is an old 2007 desktop, with 8GB RAM, and an Intel Core 2 quad Q6600 2.4ghz. I want to use my dads laptop now. -_-

[Skydragon42]

I like that building!
As for making textures, I can't help you with that! I have not had success with my custom textures, so thats why my city does not have the detail of some others...

[Codster121]

I like that version too, but it seriously slows down my computer.

I am about to build dozens of buildings, most built from 1880 to 1925.

Lakeport is based in August 1925, when the goldspire building is currently under construction, along with dozens of other building, mostly 4-5 floors high, although the goldspire building will be 30 floors high. This city will advance in time, with each update being a month, so progress will be slow, dont worry though, i plan to update the city frequently, since the city's 2nd building boom will happen from 1968 to 2004.

[Skydragon42]

The city advance sounds interesting!
There no way I could do that with my city!
It would be much to complex!
I'm looking foreword to seeing more of this city!
You should check out my city!
I have a grand vision for it!

[Codster121]

Skydragon42, your city is nice, and very creative. I plan to have screenshots of night too, but since i don't have a rendering program, it will be quite difficult to make it look good, although i might use skydomes of different times of day, with different weather effects.

Each building is going to have construction phases too, but the city doesn't yet have a skyline, it just has a few buildings...

[Codster121]

This is a test, not an actual update since most of the buildings are not built yet.
This will give you an idea of what night in Lakeport will look like, traffic will become more dense and diverse as the city reaches the modern era. and each vehicle will have basic night lights. I will be uploading the 2d light textures so you can use them too.

[Skydragon42]

It looks cool!
I like the under construction building.

[Vellu]

If you will be able to model the whole 50 mile x 50 mile area, it will be something unprecedented. I think you should use textures and make very low-poly buildings, otherwise the model will blow up your computer. It would be very interesting to follow an timeline presentations of Lakeport. I love cities with history. It's a huge commitment, though.

The Hanson Building looks great, but I'm afraid you won't be able to model many buildings with this level of detail until SketchUp gets too slow.

[Codster121]

Originally Posted by Skydragon42

It looks cool!
I like the under construction building.

That building will be the Goldspire Tower, the tallest building in Lakeport.

Originally Posted by Vellu

If you will be able to model the whole 50 mile x 50 mile area, it will be something unprecedented. I think you should use textures and make very low-poly buildings, otherwise the model will blow up your computer. It would be very interesting to follow an timeline presentations of Lakeport. I love cities with history. It's a huge commitment, though.

The Hanson Building looks great, but I'm afraid you won't be able to model many buildings with this level of detail until SketchUp gets too slow.

Thanks Vellu.

The entirety of the Lakeport metropolitan area only takes up about half of the terrain, since there are a few small mountains, and lake Superior takes up most of the other half, but this city is not called lakeport for nothing, it is the 2nd largest freshwater port in the world, just behind Duluth, MN.

I have already started to use textures with the buildings, but there will be simple 3d geometry in certain areas, such as support pillars, floors, and very simple windows. There will also be storefronts in some buildings, such as the Hannson building. every 10 years in the citys history, i will share the 10 tallest buildings of lakeport.

There is the city of Haywood which will be about 50 miles south of Lakeport, which both cities are at the edge of Lake Superior.
I am not sure if Haywood should be in another thread or be part of this one, due to its close proximity since Haywood is just outside of Lakeport's terrain.

[Codster121]

Update, September 1925.

Lakeport City Hall is under construction, just behind the still unfinished Goldspire Building.
The Hannson Building can be seen in the lower right corner. The screenshots were directly exported from sketchup.

The Hannson building, and cranes lighting up at night.


Same picture as above, but during the day.


Hopefully i can post another update tomorrow, with red, yellow and brown trees, because the next update takes place in October 1925, i will also show a map once the terrain, and the outgoing roads are finished, with a couple small towns and farms outside of the city, Lol, i may have accidentally misplaced a car or two in mid-air.

[Codster121]

I just noticed an error in the second picture, the support pillars for city hall are not supposed to be up that high yet...

That building will have most of its floors completed in the next update.

[Codster121]

There will be an update later today or tomorrow.

I will make models of cranes, street lights, traffic signals, rooftop hvac and telecommunications equipment.

[Skydragon42]

The nighttime picture is neat.
I like the construction!

[Codster121]

Skydragon42, I like the night too, especially the cranes, but i will build the Lakeport-Haywood International Airport sometime in the future, and it will have runway lights, and lights on the planes, but that airport won't be built until the 1980s, and with each update, i will advance lakeport's timeline by 3 months, so that i can get to the modern era faster, and so i can also show each season, and yes there will be disasters, like sinkholes, tornadoes, fires, and blizzards. Mmmmm, blizzards are tasty.

I have a few questions.

1. how wide are roads in the real world? Specifically the lanes, because i am thinking about narrowing the roads a little bit.

2. Should i put real world advertisements in? Although i want to add video game advertisements in the city too, mainly from Halo, GTA V, and Watch_Dogs.

3. Should i use components for the freeway system?

4. Should each building in the city be unique? I plan to use all of google's houses, and at least a dozen more. but with 2d textured windows.

5. How many parking lots should i have? During the 1920 to 1960s the city was mostly low rise, with the exception of the Goldspire building, home to the Goldspire Mutual Bank.

I apologize for the delay of the next update. I am still working on smaller models for lakeport and my other cities. It may include your cities once i finish realistic low-poly rooftop equipment, like HVAC, Communications, and all sorts of other things.

[Skydragon42]

Originally Posted by Codster121

Skydragon42, I like the night too, especially the cranes, but i will build the Lakeport-Haywood International Airport sometime in the future, and it will have runway lights, and lights on the planes, but that airport won't be built until the 1980s, and with each update, i will advance lakeport's timeline by 3 months, so that i can get to the modern era faster, and so i can also show each season, and yes there will be disasters, like sinkholes, tornadoes, fires, and blizzards. Mmmmm, blizzards are tasty.

I have a few questions.

1. how wide are roads in the real world? Specifically the lanes, because i am thinking about narrowing the roads a little bit.

2. Should i put real world advertisements in? Although i want to add video game advertisements in the city too, mainly from Halo, GTA V, and Watch_Dogs.

3. Should i use components for the freeway system?

4. Should each building in the city be unique? I plan to use all of google's houses, and at least a dozen more. but with 2d textured windows.

5. How many parking lots should i have? During the 1920 to 1960s the city was mostly low rise, with the exception of the Goldspire building, home to the Goldspire Mutual Bank.

I apologize for the delay of the next update. I am still working on smaller models for lakeport and my other cities. It may include your cities once i finish realistic low-poly rooftop equipment, like HVAC, Communications, and all sorts of other things.

1. The real world roads all all different! So I just make mine thirty and forty feet wide!

2. You can sure.

3. That sounds like a good idea.

4. Most of my buildings are unique, but many are very similar.

5. I have very few parking lots in my city, I think yours should have only a few in downtown too.

[Codster121]

This is my vision of what the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota would look like in 2559, with a lot of inspiration from the Halo universe, here are some images of it.
Lakeport will take place in the same universe once it reaches the 2470s, with news reports of the covenant destroying countless human colonies from 2525 to 2553.

Comparison of:
21st Century Minneapolis, MN.
26th Century New Minneapolis, MN.

2015 city population: 400,070 (48th largest in the USA)
2559 city population: 5,789,642 (5th largest in the USA)

2015 Metropolitan population: 3,348,859 (16th largest Metro area in the USA. Seattle is ranked 15th.)
2559 Metropolitan population: 34,737,852 (8th largest in the USA)

21st Century Minneapolis established 1856, destroyed by EMP in 2338 causing mass electrical failure shutting down the Auto-drive Network, disabling transportation, and frying communications, causing riots, looting, massive fires that burned for weeks, destroying every building in the city. No one came to the rescue because, firefighters, police, and communications were offline. The city fell into chaos, Minneapolis and St Paul were evacuated.

Minneapolis was rebuilt years later in 2373, The citizens were allowed back after the charred remains of hundreds of buildings were demolished and new buildings were constructed, new power plants were built, more digital infrastructure was installed.
the only remnants of the original city were the road network and just 6 skyscrapers remained in downtown. Should i build New Minneapolis as my second city, and start from just before the city was wrecked?

IDS center - 792ft
Capella tower - 776ft
Wells Fargo center - 774ft
Campbell Mithun Tower - 579ft
US Bank plaza - 561ft
US Bancorp Center - 467ft.

I will eventually make a thread specifically for New Minneapolis, please tell me if i should start from when the city was founded in reality, or from when it was rebuilt.
The buildings in New Minneapolis are going to only use textures.







All the images show a crime scene in a parking lot, with people driving about.

The images only have one building in all of the images, the Traxus Tower. I was very busy building everything from scratch, including the traffic.
Excluding the police car, and yellow coupe in the first image those were made by Bungie, but they were heavily edited by me.

Tell me what you think of the cars too. Please tell me if i should make futuristic models of real life automotive companies, or fictional automotive companies. (fictional vehicles would be easier though.)

Update for Lakeport in next post.

[Codster121]

The Lakeport-Haywood-Duluth Metro area will have a total population of 2.3 million in 2015.
It will incorporate the surrounding cities of Lincoln Hill, Duluth, Northport, River valley, Mississippi city. The real life city of Duluth and Superior, are the only real life cities that i will be building for Lakeport, and they are located at the southern edge of the Lakeport-Haywood-Duluth Metro area, i will show you a map of the geographic location of Lakeport, because it is the map that i will build the whole of the metro area on,
using many 50 x 50 mile squares. i will build a shipping port, with artificial canals, which will almost be as big as the ports of LA, and NYC.

Duluth and Superior will have ports of their own, as they do in the real world. I plan to include Duluth and Superior into the model as well, but that is going to be a pain, which is why i need the help of everyone to build models for Duluth, and Superior.

Please keep in mind that I am not building this city just to be one of the largest. but also one of the most detailed cities in this forum, which is why i am using a combination of textures and geometry. I would like to include Rocane into this model too, but also add more detail to it, since that was one of my main sources of inspiration for building what i want to call my >Error Code 5h1tt1e5: Cuss_word_not_found.<

please tell me if i should add more highways. btw the map is going to be a decent size.

Here are the images:

1, Satellite view of the real world location


2. Satellite view with Google labels only.


3. Satellite view with Lakeport Metro roads and labels only.


4. Satellite view with Lakeport roads and labels, also shows real roads.


5 Satellite view showing all roads and labels.


Please note the entire map will be built in Sketchup, and the current terrain of Lakeport will be scrapped, excluding the streets, i would like for everyone to help me build the towns and cities surrounding Lakeport and Haywood. Maybe Lakeport can be a SSP co-operative city, where everyone builds their own buildings for lakeport and haywood. Although they would have to be in Minnesota, or Wisconsin. you can even add cities outside the map, and i will connect your cities to the rest of the road network. Buildings can be added wherever you wish them to be.

Here is a small update,

Please ignore the giant window the size of a skyscraper to the right of the Goldspire building, although a boxy building will go there.


Goldspire building with the city hall under construction behind it.


Same as above during the night.


I don't want to have to make low poly buildings, but i dont want the city's file size to reach any more than 200MB, even though it is likely the city will reach into the 1GB area, which means it will run quite slowly.
I also really want to build modern buildings, but want to also stick with the historic timeline. Each window and door on any given building is a component usually unique to just that building.

[Codster121]

The entire city is going to use 10 x 40ft components for the streets, roads, and avenues and 15 x 40ft components for the highways.

I will upload the textures once they are finished. Curving these roads is quite difficult.
The roads are designed for North American cities.
I will make a texture pack for Japanese cities too.

Edit: here are the new roads, https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/mod...6-faaaa904feef
Feel free to use them, i just made them because i was bored.