Sydney Opera House - For one night only!

[callagrafx]

OK, I've sobered up now from a rather intensive weekend, and managed to (mostly) finish the main building structure, which I simply cloned to make the smaller section of the Opera House.  Texturing going OK too.

Question:  Do I leave it on the base (as shown in the pics) or should I have the Opera House building without a base?  With the base I get better shadows, but it'll look a little bare, and if it's not on a base, it gives more scope for lotting.  Also, size.  It currently sits on 8 tiles x 5 tiles... is this too small?  It's been ages since I had to think of anything other than real world scale.

[BarbyW]

Looks superb, Lee, but then I would expect nothing less from you. I would be happy to do the lot honours etc for you even though I am barely back into SC4.

[art128]

Absolutely wonderful.

As for the lot and base.

Would be great if it is possible to make three version. One base to be plopped half on water as the real Opera, one with the base to be plopped on ground, and one without base.

Actually don't mind that. Vortext and Shaun's idea are much better.

[Diggis]

The canary yellow section is a nice Aussie touch. I'm surprised they haven't painted the whole thing that colour already.

It looks amazing mate. I'm all for leaving the base. Can you not do a custom LOD for it and allow Barby to put some props in there?

[vortext]

Looks splendid! 

As for the base, why not export it seperate with walls extending underground, if that's possible. That way the base could be added as a prop.

[MTT9]

It looks amazing Cal! If i were you i would follow vortext's idea...

[M4346]

I like Shaun's idea best.

It's looking great!

Will there be a CAL Canal version?

[xannepan]

It looks fantastic. I'd say also that vortex idea for the base would have my preference. In that case make sure though you have thightly fitting LODs

[threestooges]

Now this is a building I've been hoping to see one day in the game. The shadows are great. I think you could get away with a custom LOD that allowed for props to be placed slightly above it without producing a hovering effect.
-Matt

[callagrafx]

So, the general consensus is keep the Opera House separate to the base, and have two bases, one which extends down for use on water and the other standard height... OK, I should be able to manage that.  What about the size though, does the scale look OK?  I don't really have anything to compare it with.  As I mentioned, at it's current size it should sit on an 8x5 LOT.

[Diggis]

So, the general consensus is keep the Opera House separate to the base, and have two bases, one which extends down for use on water and the other standard height... OK, I should be able to manage that.  What about the size though, does the scale look OK?  I don't really have anything to compare it with.  As I mentioned, at it's current size it should sit on an 8x5 LOT.

I'm not sure what that compares with but this deserves a big lot, so it sounds good to me.

[mattb325]

....What about the size though, does the scale look OK?  I don't really have anything to compare it with.  As I mentioned, at it's current size it should sit on an 8x5 LOT.

Looking good

In real life it is 183m long by 130m wide (approx 11x8 SC4 tiles); your proportions are OK, it may just be slightly underscaled (say 1.2 times). Obiously it doesn't need to be exact...

Also, (and I am assuming that the windows aren't finished yet), here's a good picture to help you get an idea of the mullion spacing and arrangement on the large windows as well as the gap between the two semisphere sections.

[weixc812]

Wow, great effort 
I've always been longing for a new Sydney Opera House.

[callagrafx]

Why is it every image of the SOH I look at, I see something I completely missed in other images?  Do you guys keep remodelling it after each season?  It's like hitting a moving target.   

Matt, I tried to do the mullions to the same spec as the original but they're too close together to render coherently, which is why I did a cut-down spin on it... also, the windows were created using an editable poly then adding a lattice, so to increase the mullion count now would mean a major remodel of the front window, which wasn't easy the first time round.  I'm afraid it'll have to be a more "stylised" version than a 100% accurate one 

But thanks so much for that image, it show's I've got the two sections too far apart and I need to add in the canopy between them. When I get more downtime, I'll adjust and post an update.

[Diggis]

*whispers* OK guys, he thinks he's got it worked out. Add an extra sail to each wing.

[peterycristi]

fantastic work! this building was really missing for sc4 

[callagrafx]

Coming at it from all angles....

[threestooges]

Even if it's not a rivet-counted reproduction, I think it's looking great. There's no mistaking what it's supposed to be. As for the extra details, I had always thought that was something only I did when I modeled buildings. Then again, I didn't have friends like Shaun helping out.

As for unusual shapes like the opera house's "sails" how did you go about reproducing those? Unusual (non-rectangular) shapes like those have always daunted me when modeling.
-Matt

[callagrafx]

As for unusual shapes like the opera house's "sails" how did you go about reproducing those? Unusual (non-rectangular) shapes like those have always daunted me when modeling.
-Matt

Trade secret     

Actually, quite straightforward.  I created the "arc" cross section, then lofted to create the curved shape, then simple boolean cutouts to finish off.  Converted the whole thing to editable poly for some vertex tuning (chamfering the edges, that sort of thing).  They're all pretty much the same shape, just done at different angles.  The hardest part was doing that only from photos from the interweb...

I'm actually amazed that no-one else has seriously tackled this before, but I can only find one other model and that's on the STEX (and I can't say I was impressed with that either).

[MTT9]

Looks amazing. Can't wait for nightlites