And We Put it All Together

So, instead of doing something mildly productive, I decided to, instead, go for some 'action shots.'

I took all that I have done with the stadium itself and added what I have done with the Warehouse. Just to see what it would look like and if the whole thing lined up awesomely or not.

I like the look.


Thumbnails to click. Clicky-click!

Also, I have found out some terrible news. The west wall, the one everyone photographs cause it's facing the playing field, and the east wall that's facing the city, are not exactly the same. Who would have thought that? It turns out the lowest level of the warehouse on the east side does not have stone pillars. Something I was not aware of. In fact, that side looks mildly plain. I guess it's something to do with when that side was up against rail, but I'm not sure. It seems documentation before 1992 is hard to come by. So I'm gonna have to remake the lowest level of the east side, but that works for me cause I'll need to redo that one to make it suitable for commercial development in SimCity 4.

What's this you say? Well, let me elaborate some. There has never been any doubt in my mind that I was going to make the entire complex of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. This includes, but is not limited to, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, The Warehouse at Camden Yards, Camden Station, the Camden Light Rail Station and the 'Time Will Not Dim the Glory of Their Deeds' monument. (While Ravens Stadium at Camden Yards is not included up there, it would be pretty nifty to get the whole Camden Yards area done at some point.) The great part of these is there ability to 'stand on their own.'

Take the Warehouse, for instance. With some extra lotting and moding and maybe a few tweaks here and there, I can make it go from Landmark to Commercial to Industrial to Freight Station in addition to it's placement in the larger Camden Yards area. This way I can release portions of the Yards in pieces all leading up to the largest and most spectacular upload of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. And it offers me a reprieve from the tedium of modeling at the same thing for days. When the stadium becomes tedious I can then move to the Warehouse or Camden Station or the Monument without actually stalling on the larger picture.

And finally, two (thumbnail) SimCity4 views. One at night and one during the day. The Warehouse certainly has shifted the center point away from centerfield.

Warehouse

So I took some time from modeling the stadium (actually I told myself that I'm not gonna model more of OPaCY until I start to work on the textures for that which I just showed you. You can see how much I really want to do those textures *sigh*) and worked on another part of the complex.

The Warehouse.

I'm not really sure what it's 'Official' name is. I've always been calling it the B&O Warehouse, cause, ya know, of the railroad company. But apparently, and this is the first that i've heard of it, it's actually called the 'Warehouse at Camden Yards.' Makes sense. But I think that makes it too corporate. I like either the B&O Warehouse (even though there are/were probably scads of them) or just 'The Warehouse.'

Anyway, I had actually gotten around to SimCity the other day and started to build the city where the stadium would go once completed. But as I was zoning in residential and the industrial areas, it just looked blank. So I saved, shut her down, and went into a modeling frenzy. I'm quite pleased at how quickly I was able to model the longest building east of the Mississippi. Not that it's done, for you shall see how far I got in the coming picture, but what's left would be details. And details I can do.

And then texturing. *sigh*

again, a thumbnail. click to view.

All of the colors you see there are standard CAD colors. Just to (hopefully) make grouping and texturing easier in the future. Instead of trying to make one long spline and then cut out each individual hole to allow setbacks and windows, I made one complete section that includes one column of windows and then instanced that 59 more times to create the long walls. Everything is flush so I don't think there should be a problem if I make one large texture and apply to the whole group as if it were one continuous piece. It was a lot quicker than trying to model and attach 100's of splines together. We shall see how it turns out...

And how about O's tonight? My goodness....

Picnic Plaza

So I've been slowly working on OPaCY, it just doesn't seem like I'm getting very far. Also, this whole 'lots of details because I want to' might just catch my computer on fire. That doesn't mean I won't do a lot of details, it just means I'm gonna have to do a lot of hiding while modeling, and then break the LODs into, about, 78 pieces. But we shall get to that moment when it comes. For right now, though, we shall deal with modeling.

Right now, the major pieces that I've worked on would be the two brick buildings behind the JumboTron, the bullpens and the plaza behind that. The shots I will show you are post-modeling but pre-texturing. For the JumboTron area I textured as I went, but I just couldn't stop building long enough to start texturing this part. I would rather texture now, as I go, instead of trying to texture the whole stadium at once.

I'm going to start actually modeling the main stadium, starting in left field and working my way around. My hope is that the outside facade is rather repeated so I should be able to use certain pieces over to keep modeling times down. It's just the seating area that I'm rather worried about. That seems like it could be a tad cumbersome. But that is for another day.

Let's take a look at this, shall we?



All are clickable thumbnails. Enjoy them, I know I'm real happy with how it is turning out right now.

Also, I debated whether or not to post about the 30-3 shellacking the Orioles received to the Rangers, but I decided against it. But right now, all I have to say is that it was pretty funny. Quite hilarious, actually. But it's a sad state of affairs when your team's losses become so routine they become comical. Sad state of affairs indeed.

Texturing Complete

...of the scoreboard. Worked on it earlier today. Got the MASN logos and the Coke Ad up for the back. I believe that completes the actual scoreboard itself, texturing wise. I'll have to add some lights, but those will go on the building that comes next.

Here's a view looking into Eutaw St. Still very far to go, but there is very noticeable progress, can't complain about that!

The View From SimCity

I've thought about modeling stadiums for SimCity4 ever since the BAT plugin for gmax came available. I started with a smaller soccer stadium, but that didn't really pan out for me. Then there have been the smaller minor league stadiums I've tried, just to fit into a certain spot in the city. But again, nothing really happened from those.

But then there was a year long break and I came back to it. And so went the idea of actually going all out and modeling Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Sure, it sounds crazy, but I've always liked the stadium, and I've been inspired by other people's works. So I figured I'd give it a shot.

Now, a disclaimer, if you will. This is a model of OPaCY, yes, but it's not going to be completely accurate. There seems to be a dearth of blueprints of OPaCY on the web, and this means measurements and details are come by through flickr and random people's random shots. I'll try and get as accurate as I can, but nothing is 100%. But hopefully the differences are so small as to make them unnoticeable once the whole thing is take together.

I hope to make this rather detailed in that any view from anywhere does not necessarily show blank spaces. For those of you that play SimCity, and especially for those of you that model buildings for SimCity, there are a couple of limitations. The most limiting of them being the fact that it is not 3d. There are four cameras each with 5 zooms and those are the only views of buildings you are allowed to have. This leaves the undersides of overhangs unseen in game, therefore making it pointless to model them and use polygons.

However, I'm not just making this for SimCity4, I'm making this because I want to make this and it shall help me with modeling in general. Therefore there will be no 'blank' spaces of emptiness just because it can't be seen in game. Who knows, I might be able to use it in SimCity 5....

The other limitation is the 'night' sky. It really isn't night, per se, it's just less light. And not much less light either. This makes it difficult to really appreciate the night lighting that can be done. Lights have to be made a bit brighter than normal to show through the darkened sunlight, and it really hampers the subtle lighting on buildings. That's not to say it can't be done, there are quite a few great buildings out there for SC4 that have great lighting. I'm just saying it'll be a new experience for me.

And now a note on the model. I'm starting in certain areas and working my way around, as opposed to trying to do the whole thing at once. So far I've started at center field and am working my way around. But this may pose a problem as I've completed the scoreboard and it seems to be rather poly-heavy. And texture heavy. I might have to render pieces individually and then place them all together on a lot. But that's getting way ahead of myself. I'll cross that bridge when the time comes.

And here is Oriole Park at Camden Yards, in modeled form. This would be a zoom 5 preview. I like how the ground plane (Google Maps) and the bare Warehouse actually look decent with what I've modeled. It also reminds me of how much I need to do. *sigh*


Day and Night SimCity4 zoom 5 shots. Click for larger image.

And then a view from home plate of the Esskay Out of Town Scoreboard. I understand that it doesn't look like this, but I like Old Bay better.

Welcome

This is just a place for me to showcase models as I work on them.