Well, progress on the Splash Mountain redo is just zipping along. An additional year of modeling experience, hours of thought already spent on the subject matter, and vast improvements in the lining up of the blueprints are making my work much quicker this time around. It's interesting how my progress hasn't taken the same path (flume?) as it did last time—I'm doing things in a completely different order, for the most part. I'm not gonna bother doing a direct comparison of which things I've done in which orders both times, but all the
original renders are still up on Flickr in chronological order, so feel free to take a look. But once you've done that, you're gonna want to see all five new renders I'm about to show you. =D
This render is very similar to the first one I posted a few days ago, but some new elements are in place, not least of which is a grid of grooves in the texturing. Note the addition of water in the flume, some backstage doors, and various details, including the miniature house mounted on the far wall of the show building. That's visible from Critter Country; here's a better shot of it:
Now, this overhead render of the front building was done at the request of MiceChat member Mojave, whose
construction photos have been absolutely CRUCIAL to my models of Splash Mountain
and the Haunted Mansion. The point here is to demonstrate how amazing the layout of the flume is as it passes over the railroad tracks (four times) and under them (twice). I think it's safe to say that Splash Mountain takes the cake for complex track layout in Disneyland, though Pirates and Indy aren't far behind.
In a completely different vein, we're now at ground level, looking toward the the back show building. That's the Haunted Mansion show building—the graveyard scene, to be specific—on the left. Definitely close. The area of the Splash back building that we can see contains the Laughing Place on the ground floor and a backstage room in front of that; immediately above is the right turn just before the short drop below Br'er Rabbit on the handcar. The incomplete passage on the right contains start of the big lift hill and the ominous scenes right before it. Note the stairs on the far right, which lead to a path that takes CMs and evacuated guests beneath the start of the big lift hill and back up into Critter Country, near the attraction exit.
Last but not least, we can see here some progress on the train tunnel that connects the Haunted Mansion to Splash Mountain. There's some speculation involved in the addition of the water in that small area on top, but I think that's what I'm seeing in the aerial photos, and it'd make sense, considering the big pipes coming out of it. If anyone can verify, I'd greatly appreciate it. =)
Thanks for reading! I'll try to post an update as soon as it seems appropriate. Do note that I tend to post renders more frequently than I blog, since I like to have more than one render per post. Anyway, questions and comments are always appreciated!
12 comments:
Amazing work as always. I sure respect you re-doing Splash Mt. I've worked on projects were it's better to start over, comes out better everytime! Keep up the great work!
Thanks! =D Yup, sometimes tarting over is just the way to go...
The point of view backstage render is awesome. You need to set more cameras at that sort of angle, it feels so much larger and real.
I assume the I-beam rail leading from the double doors is the crane route for removing "logs" from the ride?
No doubt a lenghty process with about ninety individual boats =D
Thanks! Yeah, I really do need to do more ground-level renders...they were one of my original reasons for doing the model, but I somehow forget to do them sometimes. I spend plenty of time viewing the model from the "ground", but then I don't remember to do renders from those sorts of angles. I oughta do that more.
That's what I was assuming about the I-beam. That trough directly beneath it connects to the main track, so it'd make sense...
I just posted some plans of Slash mt over at my flickr page. There were some areas I wasn't sure about. If you could clear some of it up I'd appreciate it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/63631877@N00/
Keep up the good work
Ed
Looks great! I'm not seeing any inaccuracies when compared to the blueprints, but I should let you know that you've copied some inaccuracies that were part of the blueprints. I'm almost sure of all of these - as I've worked on my model, I've had to address them and reconcile the blueprints with reality. You can change them or not, but I just wanted to let you know. =)
* The backstage area where the train tunnel meets Splash is actually fairly different in real life. The large pipes were placed rather differently, and the stairways shown over there were built differently, and the pit in the ground where the pipes go is apparently shaped a little differently. I don't have correct blueprints, though. =(
* For whatever reason, that trough that extends parallel to the passage between the buildings is actually about half as wide in real life as it appears in the blueprints. The southern edge is further north than the prints indicate.
* The blueprints indicate a door on the north wall of the ground floor of the show building, between lines 4 and 5. That door may or may not be there in real life...I'm not sure. But what I DO know is that they added a door further to the east of that.
* There are double doors at the southeast corner of the show building, in that indented area. They should be on the prints. (Speaking of which, one of my prints has the west wall of that indentation at an angle like that, but a couple of others have it lined up north-south. I went with the latter for my model, but I'm not sure which is correct.)
* There are two rectangular shapes near where HM meets up with the train tunnel. The southeasternmost one isn't there in real life. There's a cylindrical tank of some sort instead.
I think that's it...oh, and I asked you this before, but I forgot your answer - where did you get the measurements for the cross-sections? (And that was you who I sent my notes from City Hall to, right?)
Impressive update, Data! Once again, I find myself freaking out over your use of textures on this stuff!!! I don't know what it is, or how you do it, but Man! Great Job!
Thank you very much! =D The textures you see in these particular renders are mostly derived from photos I took of real walls and concrete and such (none of it actually at Disneyland), but I've heavily edited them to get the right colors and level of grime and so forth. I also use combos of textures of different sizes on top of each other to help hide the repetition of the images.
One of the textures that really grabbed my attention was the water; it had a sort of transparent look to it, but I wasn't sure if it was actually transparent, or if it was just the way the light reflected off of it?
Ah, yes, the water is indeed somewhat transparent. =D I may improve the look of the water later on, but for right now, it does a reasonably good job, I think.
That's awesome work Data, I really love the backstage shot especially showing the two show buildings (Splash and HM). Brilliant work indeed, keep it up!
By the way, Ed, I dunno if you saw my comments here, but I think you were right about the indentation in the southeast corner of the show building - the west wall of the indentation should be at an angle.
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