Disneyland in 3D!

[Datameister]

Thank you! I actually haven't gotten any work done on the model over the last few days; I've been visiting family in southern California. Yesterday, I lucked out and had a chance to spend the whole day in the park for the first time in 2.5 years. (I'll probably post a trip report in the Disneyland forum once I get home again and take all the photos off of both of my memory cards.) Suffice it to say that I spent a lot of time taking reference photos of the Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain. I now understand the HM fastpass area and extende queue as well as anyone possibly could, I think, though it will make even more sense once I've built it.

Every time I go to Disneyland, I know more about backstage operations and am thus even more impressed (and frustrated!) with the way backstage is concealed. Yesterday, my only glimpses of the buildings I've spent hours re-creating were from the tram, the monorail, and the Disneyland railroad. In all three case, the trees obscure your vision so that unless you know exactly what you're looking for, you won't see anything interesting. Taking photos is nearly futile--while your eyes are adept at ignoring the blurs of trees and compiling a few seconds' worth of tiny peeks into a somewhat larger composite mental image, cameras offer no such tricks. My photos occasionally reveal a roofline, a ladder, the top of a green wall, HVAC units...but overall, I don't feel like I know a whole lot more about the appearance of backstage. At one point, I almost got a chance to sneak a harmless photo of the east side of the Indy show building through a gap in a gate, but a cast member showed up at the last second. When I asked him if I could take the shot, he recommended against it in a friendly but firm way. Too bad, since my only other chance to take a shot of that area was from the monorail, and my first memory card filled up right before that.

Meh, maybe next time.

Anyway, I should be able to begin working on the model again on Sunday or Monday.

[Datameister]

Back home now. If all goes well, I'll transfer all my photos to the computer and get a little work done on the model today.

[Quacky4Donald]

Originally Posted by Datameister

Back home now. If all goes well, I'll transfer all my photos to the computer and get a little work done on the model today.

I'm glad to hear you had a great trip! I can't wait to see the work on the model. But remember to rest up from your vacation! Don't over work yourself on our accounts (but don't get too lazy either - LOL!).

...Joe...

[Datameister]

I'm glad to hear you had a great trip! I can't wait to see the work on the model. But remember to rest up from your vacation! Don't over work yourself on our accounts (but don't get too lazy either - LOL!).

Thank you--it really was about the best trip I could have possibly asked for. I'm still taking it easy after the mono and the trip; my body's been telling me pretty clearly when it needs a rest. Anyway, maneuvering the mouse and typing hotkeys and measurements doesn't take too much effort...

Sorry, but I don't have any renders to post tonight. Much of my evening was sucked up by obligations, though I have had some time to knock holes in the new Haunted Mansion facade where the windows will be. This time, I'm doing it right...my old facade doesn't have "real" windows. The molding and framing is all there, but the walls just continue where the glass should be. Not so with the HAUNTED MANSION V2.0, which promises to be far cooler, more realistic, and yada yada yada...

Tomorrow, it'd be really cool if I got the extended queue and fastpass area all laid out...now that I finally understand that bizarre area...

[Datameister]

I never so much as opened Blender today, but I did spend quite a bit of time lining up blueprint scans. I found an exceptionally generous collector on eBay named Gary, and he's been sending me blueprint scans for the Haunted Mansion. Today's task was lining up scans of two prints. Both were overhead layouts of the entire grounds, from the outermost fences and planters all the way back to where the show building was planned to someday be. After all, these two prints are from 1962 and 1963--half a decade before the ride itself would be built. It's interesting how the plans for the area changed even within that year, and how neither is an accurate portrayal of the current layout of the grounds. Both do, however, give me the correct placement for a few major walls and so on, so that information will be of utmost importance as I deduce where the other stuff goes.

It's so confusing because the mansion's grounds have changed so much over time. The creation of the extended queue wiped out the old graveyard (as discussed in The Thread), and the gorgeous FastPass area was added sometime in or after 1999. Some of this is readily visible in aerial photos, but some of the most confusing areas are hidden by trees and their shadows.

I'd really like to finish the Photoshop work on the blueprints tomorrow and get to work actually building this stuff. Time will tell. I'm currently being paid to arrange percussion music for a local high school marching band's field show, and I'm trying to post-process all the photos from my trip, and I don't want to neglect my lovely girlfriend in the midst of all this, so it's a little hard to predict how each day will go.

[Datameister]

The blueprints are now lined up, and the challenging task of finishing all the walls in the queue and fastpass area is now before me. As per usual, the really difficult part is figuring out where to place things vertically. I do have elevation blueprints, but these are from the early 60s, before the attraction was even open. The changes I mentioned above make it very difficult to figure out what still holds true today and what doesn't.

[Datameister]

Now converting a bunch of photos I took of the FastPass area and queue...it'd be SO nice to have some more walls in place today!

[DisneyMan]

Can't wait to see your new render with the fastpast queue!

-mark

[Datameister]

Can't wait to see your new render with the fastpast queue!

Heh...me neither. I keep trying to imagine what it'll all look like when it's done, but it's rather difficult. The design of that area is not exactly simple...

Back to converting file formats! What joy, what rapture!

[Datameister]

At long last, I'm done converting files...for now. New walls are mysteriously beginning to appear around the Haunted Mansion's grounds, and I don't need Madame Leota to tell me that the ground will soon start filling in. I still haven't attacked the FastPass area, but I'm getting closer...

Look for a render tomorrow.

[Datameister]

Here's the queue as it currently stands. I wish the walls of the queue weren't the same shade of gray as the underground areas of the ride, but oh well. You can see the wall that separates the "new" pet cemetery from the extended queue, as well as the wall that contains the crypts and a chicken/emergency exit. You can see that doorway very well in this render, including the stairs that lead down into the portrait hall. You can't tell just by looking, but I've also exaggerated the slope of the path up to the house a little bit so it's closer to reality. A couple of reminders: firstly, Splash still isn't quite right, nor is the train tunnel directly adjacent to it; they're both too tall. Secondly, the other side of the train tunnel, where it emerges from the berm by the NOS station, should be further off to the left. I don't know exactly how far yet, so I'm waiting to extend it further until I've gotten the nearby FastPass area done.

[DisneyMan]

Very cool! Are you able to see the door (that leads down stairs to the ride stage area) from the HM queue? I'm imagining this is just to the right of the Mausoleum head stones?

-mark

[Datameister]

Very cool! Are you able to see the door (that leads down stairs to the ride stage area) from the HM queue? I'm imagining this is just to the right of the Mausoleum head stones?

Yes, you can. There are a number of crypts embedded in the wall at the bottom of the berm, and one of these has a dark wooden door in it, down at the bottom of a little trench. People coming out of that exit emerge in the trench--you walk to your right for a ways, go left, turn right, and end up coming out of the FastPass area gate. You can see a shot of that door and trench here. (I didn't take the photo.) Note that this area has been changed a little bit since that picture was taken; my model will reflect the way the area currently looks.

[Datameister]

Say, how would y'all like it if I uploaded all the renders, in chronological order, to my Flickr account? I'd keep posting updates here too, but Flickr would make it easy to view all the renders quickly, without thumbing through pages and pages of words. I've already got a backstage photo set on Flickr; I could create a new set for the model, and stick 'em both in the same Disneyland collection. If you're interested, please give me a holler. If no one does so...well, I may do it anyway.

More progress on the extended queue...

[Datameister]

Due to a phenomenal positive reaction to the idea, I am indeed putting all the renders on Flickr. Check 'em out here. (EDIT: You'll want to go here instead. The previous link still works, but it only shows you the first 54 renders.) Properly warned ye be...like the model, this is all still a work in progress. Tags and descriptions are missing all over the place, most of the renders aren't up yet, and some of the titles are genuine crap. I'm also planning on adding notes to point out cool stuff.