Disneyland in 3D!

[Hilsbro]

it still looks really cool

[Datameister]

Muchos gracias!

By the way, if anyone remembers, I said early in the old thread that the Splash Mountain queue seems to have been built about six feet further west than the blueprints indicate. Well, I was wrong. They built it right where it was supposed to be; I just had the blueprints slightly out of alignment. I've fixed these now, and the good news is that they now fit the aerial photos perfectly. The bad news is, I'll have to tweak the model a little to reflect this. Not exactly fun, but's it's got to be done if I want the rest of the model to work.

Remind me to do things right the first time. I've taken shortcuts or settled for "almost right" too many times in this project, and I keep having to go back and fix my mistakes. It's no fun, and I'd save time by setting things up correctly before I do all the hard work.

EDIT: An hour later, I'm writing to you in a state of shock. Apparently, this whole align-the-blueprints-then-manually-adjust-the-model-to-fit-the-new-blueprint-alignment idea worked flawlessly. The track, queue, and related structures in the front of Splash Mountain now match up with both the aerial photos AND the blueprints. This'll make my work a lot easier from this point forward!

FYI, I sent two of my renders to Scott Wegener, who's responsible for this lovely site. They're now posted there, in addition to the website. Thanks, Scott!

EDIT AGAIN: A half hour after that, I'm writing to you in a state of glee. I found an overhead blueprint of the Haunted Mansion on eBay for a good price and bought it. Now I've really got something to look forward to...

[Hilsbro]

OMGosh

I can't wait to see the haunted mansion...that will make my day

amnd that is so cool to have your model featured on that site

[Datameister]

It'll make my day, too.

I don't have any fascinating renders to show for today's work; it was just a lot of tweaking Splash Mountain to the proper alignment and re-modeling the Haunted Mansion show building to have proper walls. I thought I'd fixed it well enough yesterday, but ugly artifacts were showing up where the walls met, so I had to go through and do a lot of rather complex stitching. Now it works quite nicely, but it looks almost exactly the same as it did on the outside. One nice perk, however, is that now I can easily remove the show building roof so I can see inside from a distance.

[Datameister]

Well, just for the heck of it, here's the Haunted Mansion with its roof hovering magically above. The labyrinth of gray inside is basically accurate; I just need to adjust the heights of the walls and build floors and ceilings. If you're having trouble getting your bearings, find the piece of track near the center of the image shaped something like this:

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That's the last bit of the graveyard, with the Doombuggies moving away from us. When they turn left and go behind that wall, they've just passed the three Hitchhiking Ghosts and are about to go past the mirrors. You can see the room that holds the circular track for the animatronics to the left of that and the loading zone just a little ways above that.

The tall, gray interior walls that you see are for the ballroom and a backstage room behind it. I'm not sure exactly how high these walls extend, but I at least know the ballroom has pretty tall ones. Soon, the other walls will rise up to join them at the appropriate altitudes.

By the way, keep in mind that the ground level in this render is very low. I put the ground plane at the level of the Haunted Mansion basement, which is several feet below backstage's ground level. In real life, you can't see this much of the HM show building walls; they go underground just below the rectangular indentations.

[BassBone]

You didn't mention you'd added the Disneyland Railroad track. Wow, this is all looking amazing. You talked to HBG and GRD?

[Hilsbro]

wow.....and I rememebr back when all this was just the track....for splash....this all looks amazing

[Datameister]

Thanks so much, guys!

Yeah, BassBone, one of the perks of having aerial photos of the whole park in place is that I can work on any part I want to at any time. One thing I decided to do was extend the railroad tracks from the northwest corner of ROA all the way to just past Main Street Station. I haven't completed the Toontown and Tomorrowland areas of the track yet simply because I've had no reason to.

And no, I haven't talked yet with either of the members you suggested, since I ironically have no questions about HM at the moment. Once my blueprints arrive, I suspect I'll have either of bunch of answers or a bunch of new questions--perhaps both. We'll see.

Right now, I'm going back to the "just the track for Splash" and making an animated GIF that flies around the wireframe over and over and over again. That should give a better feel for the way the track looks in 3D. I'll post it here and send it to Scott Wegener when it's finished.

[Datameister]

Well, here's that animation I mentioned. Had some technical troubles along the way, but it all worked out in the end. Click the thumbnail to bring up the full-sized, animated version.



EDIT: My bad--I said that the Disneyland Railroad's tracks only extended to the Main Street Station, but apparently I worked more on it than I remember. The tracks currently stop a little ways north of the Tomorrowland Station.

[Datameister]

My Haunted Mansion blueprint copies arrived today! One is the south facade elevation that can be found all over the Internet, but the other is a far more rare floor plan of the entire attraction. I've seen thumbnail shots of this blueprint, as well as re-vamped versions that lack a lot of detail, but the real thing is big and detailed. Lots of info about the backstage areas that I didn't have till now, so it should be much easier to work on the Haunted Mansion now. When I can, I'll send off scans to Haunted Portraits and Scott Wegener, so y'all can see 'em for free.

[Hilsbro]

omg that is soo cool...your so lucky to own those things

[Datameister]

Yeah, I'm feeling pretty lucky right about now. Especially considering I got these so cheap...I guess that's what happens when you're diligent! I've been looking for this blueprint for a couple of years now.

I've now got the blueprint photographed, and it's matching up perfectly with the aerial photos, unlike the web graphic I'd been using before. I just wish I had a plan for the first floor and another for the second, rather than one that combines information from both. But I know who to send my questions to...

[BassBone]

Originally Posted by Datameister

My Haunted Mansion blueprint copies arrived today! One is the south facade elevation that can be found all over the Internet, but the other is a far more rare floor plan of the entire attraction. I've seen thumbnail shots of this blueprint, as well as re-vamped versions that lack a lot of detail, but the real thing is big and detailed. Lots of info about the backstage areas that I didn't have till now, so it should be much easier to work on the Haunted Mansion now. When I can, I'll send off scans to Haunted Portraits and Scott Wegener, so y'all can see 'em for free.

Be careful about sharing around such blueprints. Don't want anyone to get in trouble.

[Datameister]

Looks like the renders of the HM interior I posted are going to be mere warmups. The diagram I was using before was about right, but not exactly, and some elements were just plain wrong. I've decided to completely redo the interior, with the probable exception of the HM track--I can probably just tweak that a little. When this is done, it'll be a lot more accurate and a lot more complete, including nice little backstage areas and so on. I just wish I had blueprints of what goes below and above the track at certain points, and I wish I had elevation plans. Oh well. I think I've got the majority of this fairly well figured out.

Sorry for the lack of renders lately! There's really not a whole lot to show. I've been working on the Splash Mountain back building replacement, which basically looks exactly the same on the outside. After far too many failures, I finally got the building to work right with the thick walls, and the inside should be much nicer and slightly more accurate now.

Be careful about sharing around such blueprints. Don't want anyone to get in trouble.

Very true; thank you for the concern. Haunted Portraits already has a huge collection of HM blueprints, so I'm not at all concerned about sending them one more. Mr. Wegener also has some blueprints already on his site, though not nearly as many, so he too would already be in trouble. This is one of those times when you just gotta pray that Disney will either not see the sites or decide to be reasonable about these blueprints--after all, they wouldn't be any help to terrorists, and they certainly don't provide information on how to build a ride that would rival or surpass the originals. Keeping even photographs of photocopies of blueprints under lock and key seems a bit extreme.

[Datameister]

Just so y'all know, this project hasn't died. I know I haven't posted anything lately, but that's just because none of my recent work has been very visually interesting. Until today, that is. I've mostly just been working on integrating the properly-walled HM and SM show buildings, as well as rebuilding the interior of the HM show building by using the blueprint I bought.

Today, though, I ventured into some new and interesting territory by breaking ground on the landscaping around the Haunted Mansion. That's right, I actually worked on an onstage area of the park that isn't part of any attraction! I feel very proud of myself for going outside my comfort zone. Anyway, I've now got the entrance gateposts in place, as well as some of the brickwork of the outdoor queue. It's taking a while, though. What's funny is, the trees in NOS are part of what make that whole quadrant of Disneyland so beautiful--yet they, ironically, are responsible for so much of my troubles. The trees conveniently cover places like the old HM fastpass area, making it nearly impossible to figure out exactly where everything is. So I've scoured the net for guests' photos, trying to understand the area. So much brickwork...

Anyway, I don't have any renders at the moment, but I just wanted you guys to know that construction is still continuing. I'm proud of myself for not giving up on this yet.

EDIT: Oh, that's right, I added part of the chiller plant adjacent to HM's show building, too. That's been hiding on another layer for the last few days, so I forgot I'd even added it.

EDIT MARK II: All righty, here's a render I rather like. You can see what I've done with the chiller plant on the left, and the beginnings of the outdoor HM queue at the center. Notice the HM basement below the facade, and how it goes beneath the train tunnel. I'm not sure exactly where the "underground" queue is supposed to be vertically, but I do know that the basement goes as deep as I've made it here. Still keep in mind that the HM show building is partly underground, too. You can find the backstage ground level by looking at the back wall of the show building, where those doors are. The bottom of the door is basically ground level for backstage. Everything below that is part of the show building's basement.



And yes, by the way, those towers really are purple in real life. In fact, if you had X-ray vision, you'd be staring right at those as your Doombuggy finished up in the seance room. No joke.