Progress on Indy queue interior, etc. (no renders)

Howdy! Unfortunately, I have no renders to share at the moment, but I just felt like letting y'all know that things are progressing rather nicely inside the Indiana Jones queue. I haven't completely finished the bamboo canyon/avenue of voices area, but I've decided to move on for now anyway. I've got some work done on the spike room and the part of the exit path just to the left of it; they run in opposite directions in the same tunnel, separated by one wall. In addition, I've begun adding the ceiling of the hall of descending blocks. Hopefully, I'll get some lights in there soon so I can share some renders—if Blender doesn't crash overnight, as it has been occasionally doing of late. =(

Also, I thought I'd mention an idea I had. You see, I'm totally gaga for the first twenty minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark. When I was just a kid, that was all I'd seen of the entire Indiana Jones franchise, but I'd seen it over and over again...and it kinda stuck with me. Looking back at it now, my more analytical brain interprets it as fascinating from a cinematographic point of view, brilliantly unusual from a musical point of view, raw fun from a "lizard brain" point of view, and unabashedly iconic in...well, nearly all points of view. I love nearly everything about it. The way you never see Indy's face until after Barranca tries to shoot him...the way Indy seems to simultaneously know exactly what he's doing and be making it up as he goes along...the way everything through the return to Marshall College is paced so perfectly...but perhaps most of all, the way the Peruvian temple is so perfectly creepy with all its dark crevices and unrealistic yet oh-so-fun booby traps.

It's that last attribute I was thinking about, and I realized it'd make a fun modeling project. I don't have any blueprints, layout sketches, set designs, or anything for it, but I could have fun just basing the model off of what I see on the DVD. (Don't get me wrong...if you've seen any of those sorts of resources, I want to know NOW! ;D) So I may do that or I may not, but I just felt like sharing for the heck of it.

Oh yeah...and I think I'll put some work in on an original Imagineering project of my own, too. But that one'll have to stay under wraps...I'm quite proud of it, and I hope to present it to WDI when I apply for a job there. =D

More never-built Haunted Mansion & an Indy stairwell

I'm still dividing my time between developing the inside (and outside, for that matter) of the Indiana Jones Adventure queue and working on that other design for the Haunted Mansion that an unknown WED artist created many moons ago. (You wouldn't happen to know the artist's name, would ya, Brandon?)

Lots of obvious progress in this render I posted to Flickr a few days ago. Like the first render I posted—and another you'll see in a moment—this is from the exact same angle as the illustration. Lots of roof elements have appeared, along with the tower in back and the porch out front. I'm guessing those would have been for the attraction exit and entrance, respectively, based on the fact that the porch is in front and the tower is in back, along the side. You can see the rather nice Victorian architecture, though this design incorporates (to a lesser degree than the McKim design) the ramshackle elements Walt would later veto. You'll see those below.

This is the first view of the model from an angle other than that of the drawing. Note the show building in back, which is completely speculative and not based on anything in the drawing. As you can see from the previous renders and the one after this, no show building is visible in the drawing, so it's up to me. I wasn't originally going to do one, since I'm told this would have been a simple walkthrough. But the house turned out to be rather smaller than I thought it'd be. It's comparable in size to the McKim design from my "mystery project", or even to the facade WED Enterprises ended up building. Not huge by any means. So I've added a small show building in back, situated in such a way that it could fade into the background of Edison Square.

There's a better look at the windows that first show up in that aerial view. Many are still missing, of course, as evidenced by the gaping holes, and even a few holes still need to be added. Note that a few are boarded up, with one of the shutters hanging on its hinges. Walt didn't approve of these sorts of run-down elements. However, the degree of dilapidation is certainly much less than in McKim's crumbling illustrations—in fact, once I texture this baby, you'll see that the surfaces are actually in rather good condition. The walls appear to have the same clapboard construction as that used on the real Haunted Mansion, with shingle roofs to top it all off, from the look of it. (With the exception of the flat roof of the show building, that is, which I expect'll be unthemed membrane roofing.)

So yeah, that's about all I've got done on this mini-project for the time being. Huge thanks go to Brandon of the Ghost Relations Department, if not for whom I never would have started this part of the model. I'll now leave you with this small render of a roof access stairwell alongside the Indiana Jones queue. The Indy queue is complicated, geographically speaking and otherwise. It starts as a small, free-standing temple structure in Adventureland. Then it snakes its way up to the first Pirates of the Caribbean show building—with one wall covered by earth on the outside for part of the way, mind you—where it shares a wall with Pirates until that wall peels away from the Indy queue, heading west. That's what you're seeing here, where the west wall of the Indy queue finally shows its face outdoors. That's the shorter wall on the right; the taller wall on the left is Pirates. Yes, that's right, the bayou scene is right next to Indy's bamboo canyon. Weird, right? Anyway, this stairwell leads a short way up from ground level to emergency exit doors (hidden behind the stairs in this render). Then the stairs progress up to the roof level of the queue, where a catwalk runs above the entire bamboo canyon.

Indiana Jones queue interior & another never-built Haunted Mansion

With that mystery project completed and all, I've begun to work in earnest on Indiana Jones. Since at least two folks out there are currently working on re-creating the inside (one and two), I figured I'd start with another area that is just as insanely detailed—the queue, specifically the themed interior. Up to this point, I'd mainly been working on the outside, for a few reasons.

1. The outside isn't themed, which makes visible and exciting progress a lot simpler and quicker to achieve.
2. For a long time, I didn't have detailed blueprints of the inside.
3. For a long time, I didn't have enough photo reference of the inside.
4. Doing indoor areas frightens me. When I'm modeling stuff that's outside, I can use my excruciatingly simple lighting rig (one "sun" lamp, with ambient occlusion turned on) and everything turns out fine. But ambient occlusion—a method for getting the right look to the shaded areas, basically—doesn't work inside other objects, such as buildings. So I have to create new lights and set them up correctly and try to approximate the lovely look of AO.

But the time seemed right. I now had the right photos and blueprints, and I felt like I was up for a challenge. This was my first render of the interior.

Yes, I did start in the middle of the queue, not at either end. This was a fun area I felt pretty confident about, and it would allow me to solidify and practice techniques that would be used in more difficult ways in other parts of the queue. This is the tail end of the bamboo canyon before the bat caves. Looks like this in real life. (In both the photo and the render, we're looking back up, as if we were exiting, not standing in line.) As you can see, I got the arches in place and textured the walls and so forth, though the textures are far from complete in this render. I realized I needed a better stone brick texture, and the floor needed a dark, tiled look. Also to come were the countless bamboo poles, roots coming through holes in the ceiling, and so forth.

The second render shows a lot of progress, though it's darker and harder to see (and we're looking down in the opposite direction). Tree roots are protruding from the nearest hole in the roof, a ladder's visible off to the right, EXIT signs have showed up, and yes, the bamboo is beginning to proliferate. Much, much more would come, though, which I'd be able to show you right now if Blender had not crashed while rendering overnight. =( I'll have to post a new render soon.

But that's not all, folks! While Brandon of the Ghost Relations Department was giving me resources and suggestions for the "mystery project" a couple months ago, he also sent me a photo of another Haunted Mansion concept that was never constructed in the park. Unfortunately, neither of us has permission to share that drawing at this point, so you'll just have to trust us for now. I've locked a camera into my model so that it points in the exact same direction as the imaginary camera in the drawing, and I'm building a model of this design based on what's there. This is different from the mystery project in that I've only got one drawing to base the model on. There's a lot that's unknown. I can make guesses based on the fact that this was planned for Edison Square (off of Main Street, near the Plaza Inn) and that it was to be a haunted house walkthrough with a Hardy Boys tie-in. But the backside will be mostly from my own imagination, making this little project far more speculative than the mystery project. Anyways, here's the first render of this Haunted Mansion design, looking at it from the exact same angle used in the drawing. Much more to come at a later point...

Mystery project unveiled!

Guten tag, tout le monde! I'm sure all of you have been carefully watching the awesome blog that is the Ghost Relations Department and have thus already seen the mystery project I spent the last two months on. ;) If not...well, what are you waiting for? Head on over and read the June 29th, 2008 post right now! That'll explain what the project is and allow you to view complete renders such as the wallpaper at the left and these:

And they're all up on my Flickr photostream for your viewing pleasure, just like ALL the renders of the entire Disneyland model. But today I'm going to share with you something that you didn't see in the GRD post. These are work-in-progress renders from various points during the process of building this model. Since I didn't post these as I was working, the way I normally would, I figured I ought to share them now. So, without further ado, here's how I re-created Sam McKim's haunt that never happened.

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This was the very first render of the project. I was just trying to rough in the exterior walls. Already some roof elements and corbels are showing up on the octagonal tower, but this is just the beginning.

More roof elements appear, as well as the top portion of the tower and some windows. The dilapidation has begun here with that front window on the tower; the shutter is hanging at an angle from its hinges, as per McKim's front elevation. You can also see I made the executive decision to cut off the themed portion of the side wall of the show building, adding a more classic show building look toward the back, where guests wouldn't be able to see.

More details are showing up. Notice the odd exterior staircase around the tower. Brandon and I pondered its purpose (or lack thereof) for some time. Perhaps it would have been there for cast member access to a storage area or break room or service area in that second floor. You can also see the left side yard forming.

Ventilators show up on the roof. Funnily enough, these are actually one of the few backstage details in Sam McKim's concept, so I could hardly deny them the right to exist in my model. A backstage door has also showed up on the side wall, along with themed doors (and windows) on the front. Not one of these boarded-up openings is the attraction entrance, however. No, the entrance is actually the passage along the side of the house, appearing as a dark hole beneath the berm in this render. You'll see that I later changed the design of that area; McKim's aerial illustration is very ambiguous in that spot. Back behind that, however, is an area that never changed; I decided to add a retaining wall to separate the hill of earth from a backstage walkway next to the show building. Watch yourself, it's quite narrow. ;)

This imposing view shows the developing detail on the right side of the mansion, including the cellar door through which guests exit the attraction.

Ah, textures! Note also the new backstage details, such as load-bearing elements along the show building walls and roof access ladders. I decided to make some additions for the sake of realism on the roof—the white ventilators are much like those seen on the roof of the real Haunted Mansion show building. The dark traffic pads don't show up in McKim's art either, but realistically, they'd be added sooner or later to the roof in real life in order to prevent damage by maintenance crews walking around up there. As part of the texturing project, I even created a fake aerial photo of the roof by clone-stamping parts of real show building roofs together, painting appropriate grime around the ventilators. That smaller structure to the left is probably a "gatehouse" through which guests would enter the grounds.

Here's a first look at the backside of the show building, which is detailed entirely from my own imagination and knowledge of how these sorts of areas often look. I can't claim to bring to the table the sort of knowledge an industrial engineer or the like would, but I do have a rather good idea of what you typically see here. The walls that form the edges of the grounds are also showing up.

More work on the side yard...

This rooftop view has been superseded by this one, but it's interesting to look at because I hadn't yet added some of the details, and it also reveals that I was originally planning to make this backstage wall a cream color, not green. I decided to change it when I realized it'd briefly be partially visible from the Jungle Cruise; no-see-'em green fades into the foliage a lot better than light cream.

I created the shape of the queue and exit paths mostly from my own imagination, based on the real-world Haunted Mansion and on the amount of space available. McKim indicated where the fences were, but not the short walls that delineated the queue itself. This was my educated guess.

Work was wrapping up on the mystery project, so I added a couple of proto-NOS buildings that also showed up on McKim's aerial illustration. I didn't bother adding all of them, but I did add the ones that were closest, including the one with a wall that forms a boundary of the left part of the queue area.

The very last step was to texture the ground plane. I actually used Google Maps' aerial photo of Tokyo DisneySea as a photographic basis. (Normally, I use Live Search Maps, but Google happens to have incredibly high-resolution imagery of the Tokyo resort.) I did lots of clone-stamping, using the path textures from that area of TDS. This allowed me to create textures that spread across the entire ground plane, colorizing and slightly blurring the part that corresponded to backstage to create an asphalt look. I then painted simple white lane lines on the asphalt. And this was the very first render of the complete project! From this point on, the Ghost Relations Department posting is what you're looking for. I will, however, link you to one last treat you won't see there—a new YouTube video providing a virtual tour around the facility. Enjoy!

Mystery project this Sunday

Hi all! It's a long time coming, but the mystery project should finally be up on the Ghost Relations Department blog this Sunday. It's basically complete, though I may do one or two more renders for good measure. Sorry it's taken so long, but I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out. That initial post on Brandon's blog will focus mostly on the end product, and it'll showcase renders of the completed mystery model, including a wallpaper image that combines 3D elements with parts I've painted digitally. There'll also be at least one new YouTube video shortly thereafter. Then I'll be posting all this material here on the Virtual Magic blog, in addition to work-in-progress renders that explain my process, since this mystery project was rather...different from what I'd previously done, as you'll see, and it thus presented unique challenges. Don't get your hopes TOO high, but I'm happy with how this has turned out, and I hope y'all will be, too. =)

For those of you who haven't already seen it on my Flickr photostream, I recently uploaded one render of the backside of Snow White and Pinocchio. I've actually completed more of this area since, but I haven't uploaded any more renders yet, since my main focus has been the mystery project. Anyway, you'll be seeing more of this later on.

I'm also working on lining up blueprints for Indiana Jones, as well as getting my photo reference organized, in the hopes that I can develop my model of the attraction to a much higher level of detail and accuracy. The blueprints are fantastic. Huge thanks go to Ryan Batcheller, who's showcasing a similar (and, in all likelihood, vastly superior) Indy project on his blog. He generously shared some of his prints of the queue, so those'll be very helpful.

On a side note...do any of you have backstage Disneyland dreams? I do. They're quite frustrating, actually, because my first thought upon waking up is something along the lines of, Oh, wow, that was so cool. I'm gonna have so much fun going through the photos I took! Then it slowly hits me that I don't have access to those photos, since they were taken with a camera that only exists inside my sleeping brain. At that point, I'm sad because, to my way of thinking, those photos contain a lot of valuable information that I could use if only I could look at them now, as a quasi-awake person. Only then do I, fully awake at last, realize that the photos wouldn't be useful anyway, since my slumbering mind concocted all the images in them. It's really quite a sobering revelation. XP (Furthermore, the images wouldn't even constitute realistic conjecture over what the backstage areas look like, since they nearly always contradict what I already know about those areas in real life. For example, the other night, I dreamt I was strolling around the northeast end of the outside of the Indiana Jones maintenance bay, an area I've actually walked through once in real life. Yet there was a strange cleft in the berm and other things were screwed up, too. I wish my brain would get it right.)

Again, I apologize how slow things have seemed for this project lately. I assure you, I really have been working quite hard. You just haven't seen any of it yet. =D If all goes well, it'll be worth the wait on Sunday when you finally get to see what I've spent the last couple months doing.

New YouTube video

Nope, it's not the mystery project—yet—but I've put up a new video that shows the other things I've been working on over the last few months. The Jungle Cruise, Indy, Big Thunder, and It's a Small World are the main focuses.

Universal Studios fire

Hi, all. Again, no renders today, I'm sad to say. =( Work continues on the mystery model, and it should accelerate in a few days from now, hopefully gearing up for a "release" in one week. Maybe two.

My main reason in writing was just to mention the unfortunate fire at Universal Studios that started a little before 5 this morning. For those of you who hadn't heard, the King Kong scene from the tram tour was decimated, with only the shell of the building remaining. The roof fell during the blaze, and everything inside is just gone. Pretty crazy. Also destroyed were the Video Vault (nothing irreplaceable was damaged), several "neighborhoods" around New York street, and some or all of the courthouse square that's been used in everything from Back to the Future to Bruce Almighty. Definitely a sad day, though I'm enormously pleased that there were no fatalities, though a few firefighters are being treated for burns and such—plenty of prayer definitely in order for them. (Thank you to all those who've participated in the successful efforts to contain the fire!)

As I was studying and comparing aerial photos of Universal Studios from before and after the blaze, I got to thinking that it might be a nice (if highly unconventional) tribute to some of the destroyed structures if I built 3D models of them. I've certainly become curious after all this, so I'm thinking once my mystery project is finished, I may spend some time replicating the King Kong show building and possibly the courthouse. (I still can't find any pictorial evidence of the courthouse's destruction, oddly enough. I've seen many photos of the surrounding square being leveled, and the nearby areas up in flames, and all that jazz, but I can't find any photos of the courthouse itself destroyed. In fact, some photos show surrounding areas consumed in fireballs but the courthouse still standing, so I've still got a glimmer of hope left. That being said, if anyone's seen photos of the courthouse burned to the ground, I'd be grimly obliged if you'd let me know.)

For anyone who'd like to know more about which areas were affected, I've annotated an aerial photo here. I can't guarantee the accuracy, but the only thing I'm not really sure about is which building is the Video Vault. All I know is that the building I labeled Video Vault??? was one of the ones that burned, and the Video Vault is the only other building I know of that was damaged.

EDIT: A slight update—according to Universal's site, the courthouse and buildings along the north side of the square are indeed still standing. Some fire damage, but the structures are still there. Woo hoo! =D

EDIT AGAIN: Now I've seen post-fire photos for myself, so I'm fully convinced. Check 'em out here. There's the courthouse, still standing! Some fire damage along the south side, but the main facade appears unscathed, which is definitely good news.