SketchingUp Kings Island

[RingMaster]

So I got bored over the weekend and decided to mess around with the free Google SketchUp program that's been on my computer since last July. And what else came to mind for a project than to do Kings Island? Well, so far I've only been working on three buildings. The first is, of course, the marquee sign out in the parking lot:

^Ignore the KI fontage; I don't have the exact font yet nor do I know how to mess with 3D wording so that it has that nice curve to it like the real one does. I also have to find and get the Cedar Fair exclamation point logo that's behind the Kings Island logo on the real marquee.

^It took roughly about three hours to do, and I started completely from scratch.

^ A closer look at the attempts at detailing the marquee. Also, there was no way to get rid of the 'pixelated' appearance of these pictures without making the structure look horribly awkward.

^POV shot from the ground looking up at it.

^ Both sides of the marquee are complete as well. The little sticky figure at the base of the marquee is the general scale of how it would appear in reality.

I was also in the process of doing the Jukebox Diner building as well as the Flight of Fear buildings, but I'll post pictures of them later as it is now ten till 5 and I really, really want to go to bed. So, laters.

- The RingMaster

[Gordon Bombay]

Great work Ringmaster, sketchup is a great program isn't it? Are you sure thats the scale of the sign? Seems a little big.

[Kawana]

Very nice. Can't wait to see the rest. Scale does seem a little off.

[Guest TombraiderTy]

Wow! This is probably something that would be great as custom scenery in Roller Coaster Tycoon 3

[Jasper]

That strikes me as an RCT3 type of thing. It looks great though.

[RingMaster]

I tried messing with the logo for a good two hours but it proved WAY too difficult for me, so I put a halt on working on the KI logo on the marquee.

I did, however, shorten the the sign a bit:

As well as make it a little bit thinner than it was before:

But anyway, I had actually begun work on the FOF building a few days before starting the KI marquee. Here are a few pics of the progress so far:

^Only two buildings of the FOF complex have been built - the photo/video building and the hangar queue house. I don't know if I want to do the interiors of these structures yet.

^ Note the backs of the buildings aren't the same as their real-life counterparts. Meaning that part of the hangar building's roof is supposed to be taller than it is in the picture, and the photo building is supposed to be smaller.

^ I also forgot to mention I haven't finished the gate on the photo building that's right under the number 18. That, and I have to put in the light poles and all that extra stuff, which I'll save for later.

^ I'm also starting on the outside queue line, which, as you can tell, is CLEARLY not finished. The scaffolding holding the roof up still has to be added, as well the queue rails, fencing, and the Fort Kinzel Press Area sign.

I'll put up pictures of the Jukebox Diner tomorrow. The reason why these updates/responses are so late is because I work 2nd shift and don't usually get off until after 10. Then I work on SketchingUp a bit and then post pictures before going to bed, usually around 4:30 or 5 in the morning

EDIT: Oh, and that big blue circle on the front of the hangar is where the Bureau of Paranormal Activity sign is supposed to go.

[Tuskin]

Very impressive!! Where did you get this program and how much does it cost I'm interested in this

Edit: Scratch that I found it

[DropZone99]

You should make some RCT3 Custom Scenery!

[RingMaster]

Yay for resurrecting a two-week old project.

Anyway, in this two-week hiatus, I've been going back and forth between learning more about SketchUp, and starting on recreating International Street:

^ A bird's-eye view of what all has been done thus far. This is only a quarter of all of the main I-Street buildings.

^ The men's restrooms and a crappy rendition of the Keyhole Photo stand. I still have to add the ATM machine and drinking fountains that are on the side of the building.

^ The Lotsapalooza store. The front door still needs to be added, as well as the sign. I'm not sure if I'm gonna do the interiors, considering the difficulty in just doing the exteriors.

^ The roofs of the restrooms, Lotsapalooza, and Girl Space stores.

^ Girl Space store. Again, I still have to add the sign onto the front.

I'll add captions to the pictures later, as I'm tired. Again.

[iChase]

Wow! Very nice! I'm impressed with what this program is capable of in the right hands. Is all of I Street out of your memory? If so, that's very impressive.

[flightoffear1996]

That is sweet. I can't wait to see some of the rides.

[thejoker8388]

From my experience, it's nearly impossible to re-create a ride with sketch-up, or at least roller coasters. Something like Delirium is possible, but the track work with sketch-up is just way to tedious to be done because the program isn't advanced enough, but that is to be expected from a free program.

I used sketch up two years ago for designing the Raptor train and station, it looked pretty good, but I couldn't manage to find a way to make anything but straight track look anywhere close to accurate. Now a program like Alibre on the other hand is more than capable of designing whatever you want, too bad it's so expensive.

[NatiReds084]

This is cool I wish I could do this haha

[UncleHenry]

Someone has too much free time on their hands.

*goes back to watching his Devil Went Down to Georgia ride video*

[Outdoor Man]

I'm going with Uncle Henry on this one.

[SonofBeast07]

know you can turn nolimits tracks into 3d objects for scenery. maybe you could do that for all the coasters. people have already made some pretty accurate re-creations, so...

[DropZone99]

Great job! I would love for this to be RCT3 CS!

[UCbengal985]

Someone has too much free time on their hands.

*goes back to watching his Devil Went Down to Georgia ride video*

Says the guy with almost 3,000 posts.

Who cares what they say, I think it looks great. Keep it up.

[Outdoor Man]

for what its worth, he didn't accumulate nearly 3,000 posts overnight... its taken a few years.

[RingMaster]

^ Unlike a certain Jackson character who managed to accumulate over 700 posts in a little under five months.

--> to iChase:

Yes, and no.

Yes, because I've been to the park, I believe, around 262 times within the past four years, from both a guest's and an employee's perspective.

No, because while I have a photogenic memory of where everything is in the park, I don't have a perfectly exact idea of what all of the buildings look like, particularly the I-Street buildings.

That's why I use the photos from KICentral and ExtremeKI to guide me, as well as photos I've taken myself of the buildings, though they're nowhere near the quality/professionalism of those developed by Ryan, Ronny, Robbie, Bill, Gabriel and several others on these and EKI's forums. I've also had to use both Google Earth and Microsoft Live Maps for aerial and birds-eye views of the park, but GE proved to be misleading as it only has maps of KI from the 2003 season and with the trees in full bloom, something that begins to be a hassle when I can't make out where the edge of a path begins/ends or where a path even is. Somehow, Live Maps has photos from the offseason of 2005 and beginning of 2006 when they were in the middle on constructing Nick Universe; the photos show that this was sometime right after the Winter SOAR when we were given a tour of NU and only the footings of Avatar were in place and they were beginning to pour in cement for the station and queue line's foundation.

--> to thejoker8388:

As of right now, the only program I have a thorough (in the loosest sense of the term) knowledge of is Google SketchUp, and, already, it's proving to be difficult just recreating the buildings. Drop Tower, through which 'restoration' is currently at a standstill, is incredibly challenging just by doing the ride car itself, and I haven't even begun to do the individual seats themselves!

However, I do have Blender on my computer, as well as a Wikibook featuring a massive tutorial on the program. Blender is free as well, but some people have managed to do some pretty incredible things with it since its inception a couple years ago.

I did check out the Alibre site and the program's features, and it has a free version as well, Design Xpress 3D. However, it looks as though it's more inclined to machine and individual part design rather than creating something as large as a building or an entire roller coaster. I could be wrong, though.

--> to TombRaiderTy, Jasper, and angrybeaver:

There's a reason why I'm not doing a Kings Island recreation on RollerCoaster Tycoon 3...yet.

Like joker mentioned with SketchUp, RCT3 is a very limited program even with the two expansion packs currently out. While it would certainly be much easier to recreate I-Street and the other areas in the park using RCT3, the lack of diagonal and circular paths, as well as several rides and attractions not included in the game, are what hamper the game's potential. Not to mention the coasters look hideously unrealistic, and the fact that RCT3 will go to a mentally-challenged snail's pace whenever a particular park grows too large and begins to crash all-too-frequently, especially when the peeps begin to flood the park, meaning entire areas of the park have to be made into separate RCT parks on their own.

However, the innumerable amount of Custom Scenery that has been produced by the RCT3 community, and the very real possibility of creating custom RIDES in the near future, means that it's still possible to recreate Kings Island within the confines of the program. Challenging, yes, but impossible? No.

[UncleHenry]

3,000 posts

5 years

2 websites (the merger)

I think I have a valid excuse.

Anyways, it's looking good. I could never sit down and do that.

[thejoker8388]

Alibre can be used for any sort of design you want. I don't really think it's worth the time to try and learn it though just for a fun recreation. It has so many in-depth tools and features that you could spend days just becoming acquainted with how to use it.

Also, I understand your frustration. When I did the Raptor train and station for a design class two years ago, I though I would be able to do at least 5 or more types of coaster trains. But as I said, I only ended up finishing the Raptor train and station as well as a PTC train. When you get to the curvature of the seats, it becomes painstakingly difficult to do. I think I spent a minimum of 3-4 hours just getting realistic seats due to sketch-up's inability to do curves. Sketch-up is great for straight lines and simple curves, but get into complex curvature and Sketch-Up immediately reveals its weakness.