[MidKnight]

Hi there.

It occurred to me a few weeks ago when I was expanding my league that there is a stark shortage of fictional stadiums. To remedy this, I started making my own in Illustrator. It's been a lot of work, but I'm getting close to a basic, run-of-the-mill stadium. It looks like this:



Now, it's still in development, and the entire background - from the funky looking buildings to the clouds - are just placeholders until I make something better.

Anyway, just today it hit me; why not call the community to make a bunch of parts (IE: lights, scoreboards, etc) and then package it all as a sort of Create-a-Stadium file? Vector editing is easy; move an object here, raise a wall there. If we can knock the time down for creating a park to about 15 minutes, it's worthwhile.

So, here's my request: help make stadiums parts! Scoreboards, wall advertisements, cityscape backgrounds, skies, stadium lights. If everyone helps out, we can package all the objects together and create an EPS file that anyone with an Illustrator-like program can open up, arrange things, and create their own custom stadiums.

What do you think? I've done a lot of the heavy lifting so far, and I've uploaded the example template here: RapidShare: Easy Filehosting The file is a mess, but don't worry about that; I'll organize it later.

I've setup an email address for vector parts to be sent to: ootpmidknight@gmail.com. I'm using Illustrator CS2, so any file type that it can open is A-OK. I think the most helpful things would be background elements (buildings in particular) and stadium "levels". Let's get to work and solve the fictional stadium problem once and for all!

[satchel]

Great idea, great project, and I love the look.

I've got Illustrator but its use has frustrated me. I'm going to check it out again and see if I can get it going.

[satchel]

Really cool!

What do we need to do, make more parts like the ones in the template?

[MidKnight]

Pretty much! The crowd and grass/infield are mostly set, but I think the following are needed: background objects (buildings, mountains, etc.) light fixtures, other scoreboards (like an out-of-town, or smaller screen), and anything to give it more detail. If people send me files of those things, I can include them in the overall template and release it once we get a good number of contributions.

When it's done, I'll have everything on separate layers so that you can change crowd color, wall height, background, etc by making them visible or not.

[Captain Walrus]

First, let me say that the stadium looks great, and this is a brilliant idea. I don't know why no one has thought of doing something like this before.

But, as a suggestion, could you tilt the angle so that more of the picture is filled with field, and less empty sky? Right now it's like 60% stadium, 40% sky and backdrop. It would also make backdrops easier to make with less space to fill.

I'm looking at your template, and your attention to detail is awesome. I'm gonna play around with it and see what I can do. But if it would be too much of a pain, I'll shut up and work on some stadium parts. =)

[MidKnight]

Originally Posted by Captain Walrus

First, let me say that the stadium looks great, and this is a brilliant idea. I don't know why no one has thought of doing something like this before.

But, as a suggestion, could you tilt the angle so that more of the picture is filled with field, and less empty sky? Right now it's like 60% stadium, 40% sky and backdrop. It would also make backdrops easier to make with less space to fill.

I'm looking at your template, and your attention to detail is awesome. I'm gonna play around with it and see what I can do. But if it would be too much of a pain, I'll shut up and work on some stadium parts. =)

Thanks!

That's a good call with the tilt. Perspective is probably my weakest area, though, which is why I based the field off of one of Teflon's amazing stadiums. Still, I'll give it a shot tonight and see if I can tilt it up just a bit; you're correct in that the sky takes up way too much of the picture here.

Glad people are taking interest in this. I got real excited the other day when i realized how easy it was to do things like switch from day to night versions of stadiums. The effect look neat with a glow applied to the stadium lights.

[Ceej]

This is a cool idea; I've never seen any fictional old-timey, early 20th century parks out there - the 1990s-00s retro parks don't quite work when used for that purpose, due to the buildings in the background being too modern, and there being much more seating all around the area behind the outfield walls than the old time parks had.

With a Create-a-stadium file I could strip those elements out. If a collection of skylines consisting of 1890s-1900s buildings were in the file, I could swap one in per park while keeping all the quirky-dimensioned walls of the modern retro parks (minus wall padding), and I'd have a pretty authentic-looking set of deadball-era parks without much additional work.

[satchel]

Having a flexible way to show the various wall heights in my leagues' custom stadiums has long been a goal of mine.

[MidKnight]

Update: using a Teflon stadium and a photo I shot of Busch Stadium, I redrew the stadium proper at a better angle. I should have the crowd, etc. back in and it uploaded tonight.

[satchel]

Yes, keep in mind that we need enough room to lay out the player graphics on the field.

[Captain Walrus]

Looks great!

[Le Grande Orange]

For those really inclined to make stadiums, they could try using a 3-D program to make ballparks. I was thinking of something like the latest Unreal engine editor that comes with Unreal Tournament 3. With it you can make maps for that game, so it seems like one could use it to make baseball stadiums if one really wanted to. With a 3-D park, you could take pictures of it from any angle for use in OOTP, rather than having to determine your viewing angle ahead of time as in a 2-D drawing program like Illustrator.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

For those really inclined to make stadiums, they could try using a 3-D program to make ballparks.

This seems like it would be a lot of work, designing 12+ stadiums from scratch. This current idea uses interchangable parts, a large portion of each stadium is being recycled, just presented in a different way (I've found that, with this system, things like trees and greenery can be re-sized, to give the same component many different looks).

[Comedian2004]

Good work guys. Do keep this in mind when designing the stadiums.

The day and night version of the stadiums need to be the same, as far as field perspective, location of bases, etc.

OOTP does not save the locations differently for night stadiums or day stadiums.

I am not sure if this will be changed in 10, but it won't be in changed in 9.

[MidKnight]

3D was definitely a thought, but unfortunately I'm not as proficient with 3D modeling. I might take a look at the UT3 editor though, since it's on my system anyway.

In any case, I've added most of the crowd in. It's more in line with what my original design was. It's not perfect yet, but I figure it's good enough for now - - I can go back and fix it once there are more parts. Just want to get a "finished" template up and going.

Also, switching from night to day is as easy as selecting one of the skies and applying a glow to the stadium lights!

[Ktulu]

I think I have a whole bunch of high heat stadium textures on a cd somewhere. Would they be of any use for you guys?

There's a lot of stuff for walls and buildings and stuff.

[MidKnight]

Originally Posted by Ktulu

I think I have a whole bunch of high heat stadium textures on a cd somewhere. Would they be of any use for you guys?

There's a lot of stuff for walls and buildings and stuff.

If it's not too much work, I'd love to take a look at some of them.

[Ktulu]

Well I couldn't find them, then I realized wait a minute I still have the game disks. Only problem is you need DangerZ's editor to unpack the art files and I have no idea where to find that.

[micropterus58]

DangerZ's editor for High Heat

DangerZSoft

[Ktulu]

Sweet thanks.... this stuff is sure bringing back some memories.

I remember modding Shibe park into a stadium for my Vancouver Canadians franchise.

In fact that's how I learned how to use programs like paint shop pro.