Pirates progress and Winchester Mystery House

Sorry it's been a bit of a longer wait for this update - after my initial excitement about the Pirates model, progress has slowed a little, due in part to the increasing difficulty of the areas I'm working on. The front of the attraction's main entrance is relatively straightforward...its complexity makes it time-consuming, but I've got elevation for that part, and the structure is nicely aligned with north, south, east, and west. The adjacent areas are more challenging because I have no elevations; I basically have to work from photos, using aerial shots as a guide to make sure the horizontal distances and angles are correct. I mean, I've got 12 medium- to high-res shots of the entrance open in Photoshop right now just for reference, and I often bring up others as well. There's a lot of careful observation that goes into figuring this stuff out...a lot of careful comparisons between different resources to produce the most accurate big picture possible.

Anyway, enough chatter - here's today's one new render.



As you can see, this one's from a higher vantage point than the others. I wanted to show off some of the roof elements and the way the entrance is eventually going to connect up with the rest of the first show building. The area on the left apparently had its roofing replaced within the last two years, including a new ventilator, which I've added accordingly. Also visible is the control room for Fantasmic!, I believe - it's behind the five-sided structure with the reddish shutters on the right. It's hard to see, but there's now detailed ironwork on some of the front balconies...this was done with real geometry, and it's costing me rendering speed because of the sheer number of polygons. I swear, it's a good thing this model takes so long to create...by the time it's anywhere near finished, it'll be so complex that it'll require the kind of computing speed that won't be attainable for years!

In other news, I had a chance to help out on a Travel Channel shoot at the Winchester Mystery House a week ago. I hadn't been there since I was quite young, so it was absolutely fascinating to see it as an adult with interests in unorthodox twists on old architecture and themed entertainment. Really bizarre place...made me want to develop a 3D model of it! =P Unfortunately, I'm told there are no blueprints, since Sarah Winchester was really flying by the seat of her pants when it came to the design, and attempts at mapping out the whole house to scale have been largely futile. If any of you happen to find evidence to the contrary, I'd appreciate you letting me know! In the mean time, I suppose I'll just have to wait for technologies like Photosynth to get so incredible that they can handle the task of working out a photo-based model of the whole house!

More work on Pirates entrance

Well, I am just plowing forward with Pirates! Here's the texturing work I've been doing. The tile and brick textures are derived from photos I took in the park. There's also more and more detail appearing - as you can see, the walls in front now extend down to ground level. There's still a LOT to do, though. And I must confess, the whole thing is made somewhat more difficult and frustrating by the fact that my blueprint-ish source material is not wholly accurate. I constantly have to make adjustments to get it to more closely resemble the real thing. I think it's pretty dang close so far, though.

Pirates of the Caribbean entrance

That's right, folks, I've been working on the facade of Pirates! Now, Jeff Skinner is already doing a fantastic job of Pirates and NOS in general over at bendintheriver.net - I cannot recommend that site highly enough. For that reason, Pirates always seemed a little redundant to me, and I avoided doing things he'd already done. But I have an inexplicable urge to work on Pirates right now, so I'm taking advantage of it. I've got more resources on the area than ever before, so why not?

Here's the first render. As you can see, I'm working my way from the top down. Why? Not really sure. Just felt right. Unfortunately, the plan I'm working off of seems to be ever so slightly inaccurate, so I'm having to pay very close attention to telephoto shots I recently took from the Mark Twain. Those are providing me with the details that either aren't in the plan at all or just aren't quite right.



This second render shows the model as it exists as I'm posting this. I've added walls to the ends of the roof, new dormer windows, the railing around the widow's walk, and so forth. Naturally, there's still texturing to be done, but as far as modeling goes, the elements you see here are basically finished. Next I'll be working on the large, central dormer and the elements below it that connect the roof to the walls below. Wish me luck!

Indiana Jones queue progress

So, my inspiration seems to be back for the time being...we'll see how long it continues! =P In the mean time, here are two new renders. The first is the product of my curiosity - as I've been developing the various stairwells that connect the Indy queue/exit to Pirates and other areas, I've started wondering what those stairs would look like by themselves. Luckily, Blender makes it fairly easy to do this, so...well, here it is!



If you click the thumbnail for the larger version, you can then click Back to the Flickr photo page to see a version with "notes" that describe what's what, as usual.

The next render just showcases some of the work I've been doing on the Indy queue from kind of a fun perspective. If you climbed to the top of the queue entrance temple and magically cut down all the trees, what you'd see ought to look a lot like this.



New developments include holes in the roof and related theming, light fixtures on the catwalk in the background (hard to see), more camo netting on the side of Pirates, and modifications to the NOS-themed structure on the right that contains Indy's obelisk chamber. I've also worked a bit on the interior of the exit path, but you can't really see that in this render.

Stairs from Pirates to Indy queue

Hello, all! Finally got another new render to post. I was in the park on Tuesday, and I totally freaked out when I saw this area at the end of the Pirates queue. I'd actually built some of this area in my model already...I just didn't know what it was. I had blueprints of it, but they said they were for Indy, and I couldn't read what else they said. Turns out it's a stairwell inside Pirates that leads into and above the Indy queue, as well as up to the Pirates tower. I recognized it when I saw it in the park, so I've been modifying what I'd built so it fits into the appropriate spot in the Pirates show building and adding stuff from other blueprints. Not too shabby!

Finally, a new Indy render!

Hey all! For the first time this year, I have a new render for this blog! =D It's not a very big deal, actually, but it's better than nothing. Again, I'm so sorry I haven't been doing much lately, but perhaps this is a new beginning.

Anyway, due to some Indiana Jones construction photos turning up online (here and here), I've grown a bit in my understanding of the queue. This MiceChat thread deals a bit with my most important realization: the bat caves, spike room, and hall of descending blocks are not the only parts of the queue with earth above them! There's a short passage between the visible temple entrance and the obelisk chamber that's housed in a concrete, arch-shaped tunnel, very much like the one that contains the aforementioned underground parts of the queue. This had constituted a very small but significant gap in my knowledge about the queue, and once it came to my attention, it seemed too important to ignore. So here's what the area of the model NOW looks like. Still not complete, but it's more accurate than it was. Note the small flat roof between the temple and the berm in question. I believe this is now correct.

The doldrums...continued

I am so sorry, folks. I know it's been forever since I posted an update. This is the longest break I've ever taken from this incarnation of the project, and I'm not sure when it's going to end. I've been using the time mostly for music-related stuff, and I've been enjoying myself, certainly, but I still feel bad for not having anything to post here.

The good news is that I DID do a little bit of modeling a week ago or so. I made the outer walls, roof, and some traffic pads for the huge warehouse at the northwest corner of the resort. Not much else, though. And there's more bad news...my Flickr account has switched from "Pro" to the standard free account, which means my older stuff can no longer be viewed directly, nor can my collections. =( The good news is that any renders or photos I've linked to in this blog or elsewhere will still work. I checked. This makes sense, because Flickr doesn't delete photos when this happens—they just hide them until you decide to get a Pro account again. No sense in changing every single URL, so they just keep 'em the same. This means it's going to be more difficult for y'all to go through my stuff, but at least a lot of it is still there, in a way.