Disneyland in 3D!

[Hilsbro]

Wow....the 3d model is really coming along nicley...I like it

[Datameister]

Thanks, guys! It always makes me very happy to read your kind words.

Wonder if a blog/RSS styled entry would be good for keeping everything recorded if this thread starts to die down on you.

I thought about that. Ultimately, I hope the website will be a little bit like that. Once the website catches up with the model, I should be able to just post stuff there as it happens.

BTW: I believe you have said you are modeling things using the 3D program Blender -- would you ever post the model file on your web site for others to render their own POV? I can understand the hesitation since it is your creation. Just wondering.

I don't think I'd have too big a problem with that. I don't think I'll make the .blend file available for general download just yet, but if anyone's really interested, just send me a PM.

BTW2: Can you update your original thread to point people to this thread for "current" renders? http://www.micechat.com/forums/showt...#post1663 519

Excellent suggestion. Done!

Hopefully your Splash blueprints and your 3D model will answer questions that I've always had about emergency and maintenance walkways in the different tunnels/show areas. It seems like there are paths but I can't tell enough where they go.

That's actually been one of trickiest and most interesting parts of all this. There are a lot of pathways like this. I've learned a lot, let me tell you. Here are some examples:

• Just next to the last turn into the loading area, there is a tunnel with a staircase that leads up to the second floor. (You have to access this from a door outside.) It makes a left turn, running parallel to the train tunnel, then has doorways into the train tunnel on the right and an equipment room on the left. After this, it makes another left turn and descends down to the queue.
• There is a door by the far end of the loading area. This leads down a very short flight of stairs after passing a doorway that leads up to the second floor of the queue. You pass a door on your right leading into another small equipment room, then walk onto what I believe is a pathway behind the finale scene. The floor is lower than the water level, so a CM standing there would appear to be floating just a bit below the horizon. This path stretches all the way around the right side of the finale scene.
• If you're standing on the small concrete area between the HM and SM show buildings, there is a water channel running along the side of Splash's ugly backstage face. A small footbridge crosses this, then goes below ground level and takes you through a tunnel before depositing you back in the park. Take a look at this video, which I did not take.
• Just before you enter the finale scene, there's a disguised door in the scenery on your left. This actually leads below the train tunnel.
• Walk through the Splash queue. After entering the barn-like buildings for the first time, you exit again. After a bit, you take a couple staircases up to the second floor. As you enter the second floor, you're just a few feet away from a CM break room, which has a door leading to the control room.

Speaking of the control room...the view is getting more interesting, Disneyman, and I may be willing to post a render soon. Got to give you something to look forward to.

Current project: the Haunted Mansion interior! Someone requested this in the other thread, and I woke up this morning feeling moved to create the portrait gallery. It now sits beneath the mansion's south garden, and I'm hoping to create the track itself today along with more interior walls separating the scenes. Renders later...

[Sub_Voyage fan]

Good work so far.

[Datameister]

Thanks! Today has been pretty productive. The Doombuggy track is complete, as are some of the interior walls. (Note that the vertical scale of the walls is totally off right now. If height-related information was scarce for Splash, it's virtually nonexistent for HM. ) I removed the facade and show building exterior for this render. For the fun of it, I left Splash in the picture.




I think I'm going to work on the interior walls in the control room area of Splash Mountain now. I'd like to put the track in water, too.

[Hilsbro]

this is looking SOOO COOL!!!....Ican't wait to see the final renders with complete rides and all

[Datameister]

Thanks, Hilsbro! Although, in a way, the incomplete version is even more interesting--for example, right now I can look down on the backside of the Haunted Mansion facade and see the gallery of changing portraits floating there underneath the garden. In the finished model, the ground will cover that all up. But yeah...I'm wondering just how far I'll take these models.

Anyway, just to wet your whistles a little, here's a preview of that glamorous view from the Splash Mountain control room. No windows installed yet, and there's plenty of stuff missing, so a lot of what you see isn't actually visible from the real-world control room. Also, remember, this ain't an actual render--just a screenshot from Blender--so it looks junky, but you get the idea. Eat your heart out, DisneyMan.

[DisneyMan]

glamorous view from the Splash Mountain control room

Very cool! Good point of view for Splash operators to see everything happening in the loading area. Thanks for the rendering! Speaking of the control room -- is there only one way in/out or does it have multiple doors inside?

If you're standing on the small concrete area between the HM and SM show buildings, there is a water channel running along the side of Splash's ugly backstage face. A small footbridge crosses this, then goes below ground level and takes you through a tunnel before depositing you back in the park. Take a look at this video, which I did not take.

The video was really cool they walked on the path that I was most curious about.

Thanks for explaining about the rest of the paths as well!

-mark

[Sub_Voyage fan]

I think there may be one way out to the maintence track. Saw that when I was stuck.

[Hilsbro]

it has been really cool seeing the development of the 3d

[Datameister]

Speaking of the control room -- is there only one way in/out or does it have multiple doors inside?

According to the blueprints I have, there is only one door leading into the control room. There are two ways to get up to that part of the second floor--the queue area of the second floor shares two walls with the control room, but there's no door connecting the two. Instead, you have to take one of two staircases. The first is right outside the control room door; it leads down to a platform not far from the first turn out of the loading area. The easiest way to get to this flight of stairs is by walking through a janitor's closet beneath part of the queue; there's an onstage door that takes you into this closet, and then another door deposits you right next to the stairs. If you come from the other direction, you can reach these stairs by starting either with that tunnel in the video or at the very back end of the loading area. If you look at the video, you'll notice that there are two doors at the end of the tunnel--one on the left that the people exit through, and a dark one straight ahead. If you take that doorway, you come out next to the maintenance track. You go up and down twice on flights of stairs, follow the maintenance track to the right, and end up at the stairs that take you to the control room. You can take a similar path from the back of the loading area; this one is on the right side of the maintenance track rather than the left. You have to take one of the two footbridges that crosses the maintenance track; otherwise, you end up walking in a big circle back to the front of the loading area.

You can also get to the control room from the exit ramp. A door on the right just before the photo viewing area leads up a flight of stairs into a room that was "unassigned" as of late 1987. You pass through another unassigned room, then a CM break room, take a short flight of stairs down, walk through the "lead office," and then take that same old door into the control room.

I'm sure all these routes have plenty of precautions to avoid guests wandering or sneaking into them. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised there isn't an easy way to get into the control room from the queue, but that's probably just another precaution.

Thanks for explaining about the rest of the paths as well!

Not a problem. I wouldn't have known any of this if not for the help of others, so giving back a little is the least I can do.

I think there may be one way out to the maintence track. Saw that when I was stuck.

You can get there from the front of the loading area, the back of the loading area, the janitor's closet I mentioned, the stairs going down from the "lead office," or that tunnel in the video.

[Datameister]

So, you can't see it in the renders, but I did a very stupid thing when I was first making these models. Thinking I'd never care what the inside looked like, I decided to be clever and make the buildings without proper walls. A cube-shaped building would simply be a cube, not a hollowed-out cube. As a result, the walls were thinner than paper, meaning they look great from the outside but they become a nightmare when dealing with the inside. I wisened up after I built the back building for Splash, so the majority of the model is okay, but the HM and Splash show buildings still have paper-thin walls.

Unfortunately, that's not gonna work anymore, now that I'm working inside the Haunted Mansion's show building. So I had to go through and re-build each exterior wall, this time as a realistic object with thickness. That went beautifully until I realized that something was amiss. Long story short, a few photos made me realize that the show building's floor is actually below the ground level outside. (I mean the backstage ground level. Of course the floor is below the ground level of NOS...actually, it's a good 30 feet below that. But I didn't realize that the floor of the show building was perhaps 10 feet lower than the ground just outside.) So now I have to go through and make adjustments. Once it's all finished, though, it should look a lot nicer and a lot more accurate on the inside.

Here's a render of the new-and-improved Haunted Mansion show building, under construction a hundred feet or so from its final location. Note that ground level is just inches below the bottoms of those square-shaped depressions, and everything below that is basement. If anyone can confirm or deny that the building is really like this, I'd be much obliged. And if you've got blueprints...well, I'd offer to be your best friend for life, but that just feels a little too childish.



But seriously! I need blueprints!

[BassBone]

http://www.micechat.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1802404

Check out this thread and PM some of the major contributors. HBG2 and GRD999. They are both very knowledgeable about the HM.

[Hilsbro]

that is like my 2nd favorite thread EVER...LOL

[Datameister]

Thanks for the reference, BassBone. I'll be sure to ask them any questions I have.

FYI, the new Haunted Mansion show building is basically finished and it has been placed in the park. The old building has been banished to the mysterious Layer 20, my personal graveyard for unused parts and unsuccessful attempts. Think of it as this model's backstage dump. Anyway, the Splash Mountain track now has water in it. I'm about to add water to scenes like the finale, too.

EDIT: All the water on the right side of the showboat finale is in place. Now I just have to add the water on the left, which I'll do tomorrow. This is reminding me that there are still some platforms for the animatronics in that area that I need to install...

[Datameister]

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.



The finale room, featuring some of its water at last. Although it's looking rather milky and dull at the moment...so I'll be tweaking that as I go. It's not really supposed to be a strictly realistic depiction of water, though. That'd be too difficult for me AND for the computer.