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Skipper,
The good thing about this is that your doing OK. Was beginning to worry about you when you hadn't posted anything for a few days.
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Yeah.... (Struggling to find another boating joke.) ...Er, yeah. :blank:
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Thank you Cherokee, that is nice of you.
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On my side of the UK we have (so far) avoided flooding, but the summer rains have been quite extraordinary. I reckon I may need that boat... Below I show the current state of the model. It will be seen that I have also flirted with the sea texture. I am not yet happy with it - there is foam to add - but it conveys the idea. Then after the Lifeboat Station there are fit-up stalls to add on the beach before the cliff safety rails, so much remains to be done.
If you are adding the lifeboat what need for the safety railings anyway? ;)
I do not think it is there any more but I remember being taken to see the local lifeboat station (a boat shed with a ramp down into the harbour. I suspect the ramp was 'powered' to aid getting the boat into the water) and being wonderfully impressed. Mind you, I am still wonderfully impressed by the RNLI even if I never set foot in/on the sea! ;)
Skipper,
Just for reference, here is a link to several videos of the lifeboats including launches from inside the lifeboat station.
http://wn.com/Cromer_Lifeboat_Station
Thanks guys. Yes, I too am greatly impressed by the RNLI. My family have been sailors or fishermen for many, many generations, although AFIK not as lifeboat volunteers. I left home when young, so all connection was lost, but I remember that my uncles and grandfather always smelled salty - of the sea - and there was ever a strange stillness about them. They rarely spoke or made an unnecessary move but a single look or gesture was LAW!!!
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Simon - I believe that at Cromer and elsewhere, the lifeboat slid down the well-greased ramp by gravity, but was hauled up by winch. As I have said earlier, at this time I will not model the lifeboat itself, leaving it as a stand-alone project for sometime in the future.
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Just an update. The lifeboat station is very nearly done and I have fiddled a little more with the sea, getting it close to where I want it.
It will be seen in this shot that the user may bring the tide in or out simply by raising/lowering the sea level, as in real life of course.
If only it were so easy to adjust water levels!!!! ;)
That looks (so far as memory serves) much like the lifeboat station that was local to me, except it was shore-based, debouching into Shoreham harbour.
Looking good!!
Even if I never download it (my Runtime drive is on a diet...), thank you, Skipper. This looks delightful.
Does the United Kingdom actually just put up landmarks like the Cromer Pier and the village of Castle Combe just so this guy can model them? If so, I may have to go to the post office and buy our passports, just to take my wife to stay in the Honeymoon Suite. ;-P
:lol: That is funny, Eustace, and enormously flattering. Thank you. I love modelling and I love these islands. I guess it shows, huh? BTW, if by the Honeymoon Suite you mean my model of the Bridal Suite, then I have good news for you - it is next in line for a make-over.
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The Lifeboat Station was finished today - see below. I was greatly pleased to find that a slight simplification of the railings round the LBS resulted in an outstanding saving in polys and memory usage - far more than I anticipated. I am really chuffed. This end of the pier is now finished and now we may spend some time with the entrance.
You might be interested in this news item which appeared this morning.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2166052/Railways-posters-depicting-traditional-British-beach-scenes-set-fetch-thousands-auction.html
That tells it all - a cache of posters from the 1920's and 1930's is being auctioned. Several are reproduced in the article, including the one shown below. There is something about the style that I find very appealing. Mmmmmm. Nostalgia??? (That bobbed hair! Cloche hats!)
Ahhhh, nostalgia. Not what it used it be, is it? ;)
Ah, Railway posters ain't what they used to be. THat is a super render. :coolsmirk:
The weekend has been very productive. The entire forecourt has been remodelled and the compass added. Together, these two features make up what is one of the more tricky areas we have ever modelled. The steps were constructed in Hexagon by making a profile and then sweeping it along the double-dip plan. This was not the difficult part however - the real problems arose when we came to marry these steps to the sloping access paths on the left and right, for they had to be trimmed, one step at a time. It will be seen that there is still a little tickling of the graphics to do, but the the bulk of the work has been accomplished.
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Oh - and in case you are wondering, the compass was constructed in PSP, entirely from photographs. This was a little tedious, the only surprise coming at the end - when rendered, the compass was left-to-right. Fortunately, the compass rose had been saved to disk and it took just a few moments to switch.
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The prototype has several lines going off to indicate the direction of important lifeboat missions and rescues. I appreciate the thought, but I think that I will omit them in the model.
Looking good Skipper.
Bringing back so many memories.:-)
Maybe just the one line - pointing toward your house? :)
Naaah - I know where that is. Towards the pub, maybe? Wait - I know where that is, too.
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Actually, my objection to the lines is artistic - not being symmetrical, they do not look right. Mmmmmmmm. I may relent later.
I have to agree, when I first saw them I was wondering just what the hell they were. Seeing the explanation of them pointing to salient features/places of interest makes a good kind of sense, but still does not do anything to make them look 'natural' or good when viewed from above!
Right. Again, when does the artist stop? (Not me - the installation artist.) If the thought is to commemorate important rescues, then does he add a new line every time there is a new event? If "yes", then not only will it get pretty crowded over time, but there will also be considerable expense for each new addition. If "no", then folks not so honoured since installation (or their relatives) will likely feel aggrieved. I think that there must be a better way of doing it; a roll of honour (or board with painted details) on display somewhere is usual.
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Finally, there is the thought that the compass looks fine just as it is. If we have users who download and want the lines, then it will be easy for them to add to the texture .jpg. Any child could do it.
There was always a Roll of Honour board inside the Lifeboat house whenever I visited Cromer.
I think the compass looks fine as it is.:-)
Thanks for that, Wilmap. I'll stick by my original decision and leave out the lines.
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Turning now to the cliff paths, I have come across the photo below, giving undeniable evidence of the type of safety rails in use - precast concrete posts and two rails made of steel tube, probably galvanised. That'll do for me - I'll get on with it.
Here's the cliff with the new safety rails. VERY tedious, but to my eye at least, there is a new and satisfying air of reality. I may put a telescope on a stand up here before turning my attention to the beach and surf.
Railing looks good and I agree with the added sense of realism
Thank you, Robert.
Looks really good, just missing some poor sod shivering their bits off in the English summer (that or being up to their knees in flood water ...) ;)
Thanks Simon. I laughed heartily at your comment, but of course one should not - it's not funny, being the victim of a flood. I am an old man and I cannot remember a worse British summer. Again, the traders at Cleethorpes, another seaside resort very close to me, rely heavily on summer trade and they are all deeply worried. It is very likely that many will go out of business. That's what we get for having an oceanic climate. Heigh ho.
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I have been looking at the numbers associated with this model and have decided that the large demands made by all those railings really preclude the developments I had in mind such as icecream stall, deckchairs, crab stalls and so on. In the circumstances these are just not on. I may make them later as separate add-ons. Right now, I intend to do only the surf and then tidy everything up for issue ASAP.
In no particular order ...
Sharks
U-boats
Pamela Anderson in her Baywatch outfit
Houdini jumping off the end in chains
I've been playing around with some Battle of Britain scenes recently, and one I've been thinking about since I downloaded the original pier (and tried to work with it in Bryce...) is a scene of the pier during/slightly after the "Operation Sealion" scare is the pier as it might have looked like during the early 40s when all of the Channel beaches were closed and mined, and then again after the invasion scare, when the Bomb Disposal Sappers of the RE were cleaning up the old mines and booby traps. See the Masterpiece Theater series, "Danger UXB".
So if anyone has any photos (sources of photos) showing some beach/piers with warning signs and barbed wire, I'd like to know.
That is very interesting. I was a boy at the time, but remember it well. Cleethorpes pier had its centre portion destroyed as a precaution against German landing forces occupying the end and fighting their way ashore. It was never repaired and is still just a stump of its former self. I guess that similar things happened elsewhere.
Not much done, these last few days. I managed to produce a coin-op telescope (below) but fear that I will have to re-do it; I cannot rid myself of the thought that it looks like a WW1 machine-gun!
It seems to match my memory of what they looked like ... maybe the base should be a bit bigger?