It's not unheard of for me to post two renders simultaneously, though it is a bit rare. What you'll almost
never see me do is post three at once. But I'm just feeling so bad about keeping you all in the dark about this other project of mine (which is currently idling like a troop transport in a dark room) that I decided to push forward and get some eclectic work done in the model proper. And so, without further ado,
je vous presente three renders of various things I've been working on.
If I'm not mistaken, a few Disneyland rooftops received some new jewelry sometime in 2006 or early 2007. As a result, the show buildings for It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion sport additional traffic pads and fans. I'd known about these for a while, thanks to photos like
this that I'd taken from the Grand Californian, and I'd even seen blueprints of the additions at Anaheim City Hall, but I didn't have in my possession any good visual layouts of the new stuff. Luckily, Google Earth's Disneyland photo was recently updated to a better one taken on October 23, 2007, and it clearly shows all the layouts. So I've been going through and making the changes.
This render simply shows the similar modifications to the POTC roofs, as well as the removal of that stupid front wall I had in place. In real life, there's a wall covering the top half of the aboveground opening, visible as a wall of the Dream Suite courtyard or, from the inside, the wall behind the island near the entrance.
One element of my model that's actually been in existence for some time now but never received any public attention is the track for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I had the basic path in place, but not in such a way that it was visible in renders. I was having trouble with getting the turns to be banked and so forth, not to mention my frustration with my lack of definitive information on the track heights, so I'd basically given up for a while there. But I recently learned that the height of the track at the base of lift 2 should be
somewhere in the ballpark of 140' above sea level, which was a start, and I finally figured out how to make the banked turns. This is the result, though it's missing the loading area and maintenance tracks since all of those require difficult geometry where the track splits. (In other news, I added quite a bit of Los Angeles smog to this render to make the track stand out more from the background. =P)
I'm sorry to keep this secret project so...well, secret, but I assure you I'll be sharing PLENTY once it's finally ready. It's not
incredibly exciting, so don't get your hopes too high, but I'm enjoying it, and I hope most of you will, too. In fact, I think I'll go work on it right now. :)
6 comments:
I was just playing with curves and array modifiers yesterday for track (little project idea I had). Yours looks much better. ;)
How you get your information, I just don't know... :P ;) I've been googling and googling monorail information, and it's all so limited... You're a master, man. :)
Keep up the awesome work! I'll catch you later, either late tomorrow, or Monday. :)
-Daniel
Haha, thank you. I gotta say, as far as gathering information goes, it really is a slow process. Sometimes it'll literally take years to find some information. This project has actually helped me gather information more quickly, both because it motivates me to find it, and perhaps more importantly, because it gives those who can help me more incentive to do so. People have been so generous—I've now got resources I never would have been blessed with otherwise. But you just gotta keep searching and searching, asking when you think someone might have an answer, synthesizing all the little bits you know into one "big picture" that hopefully isn't too wrong. And when you still come up short, just do what I do: pretend that part of the park doesn't exist and focus on another! :D
Heh--I pulled up Microsoft's Live Search maps to look at some oblique aerial photos to compare with the "it's a small world" rendering. My first thought was, "Why is the roof different?" Then I read your explanation!
Haha, nice. XP Yeah, back when I started using my reference photos taken from the Grand Californian, I became really confused because I was seeing ventilators on the POTC roof that weren't supposed to be there, according to the aerial photos! Then I noticed the same thing in photos I'd taken from Tarzan's Treehouse. Then I noticed the new traffic pads, too. I assumed they'd made the change after the aerial photos were taken. Oddly, I didn't even realize what I was looking at when I saw prints of the changes at Anaheim City Hall until much later, but it wouldn't have mattered—I couldn't take the prints with me. But now that Google Earth has updated their photo, I've got the next best thing! =D
Very cool stuff, Joe. How are going to go about constructing that dino at the end of the ride? (BTMR)
Thanks! Well, I suppose I'll build the Tyrannosaurus rex fossils someday, but I'll have to do all the scenery and rockwork first—not a fast or easy task. I'll be a more experienced modeler by then, and hopefully I'll be up to the challenge. The vertebrae and ribs shouldn't be too difficult, but the skull will be far more complex. I might cheat and use Boolean operations for the fenestrae, orbits, and nares (the various holes in the skull).
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