Might be a while before I get the arcade building model done. Right now I'm playing around with Autodesk 123D catch. I've yet to be able to get an object to render from photos, but I think it's picky with contrast and distance. It's got good app review, and other people have successfully uploaded models.
It's too cold and snowy to get decent photos, so in the meantime I'm going to work on internal components, starting with the token machine
I happened to be in the area, so figured I might be able to take some photos. I thought the snow might have melted enough today, but the parking lot was packed with snow (and a giant drift at the entrance). So I parked at the holiday inn next door and snapped this photo:
I would have gotten out of my car to get more photos, but there was a cop sitting on Gary avenue and I was afraid he might think I was up to no good, or arrest me for trespassing. When it gets warmer out, I'll probably take another trip out to get photos all around the building.
Still trying to figure out the best way to do this assembly. I think what I'm going to do is model the outside to capture the boundries of the arcade, then create a separate model that is just the internal flooring (various levels, the ramps, the railings). This way I can hide the outer walls and roof so I can easily add things inside, sort of like how architects build model houses where you can disassemble each level to reveal the floorplan of each floor. Anyway, there's still lots of work to be done, but it's slowly starting to look like galaxy world.
I may need to pay a visit to the actual building in carol stream to get
an accurate height measurement before the building gets leveled. So far I've been using the top down google map, and tracing it in autocad to get reference dimensions:
So for years since the closing of galaxy world in carol stream, IL in 2012, I've been doing google image searches now and then to see if anyone has posted photos of the place (I'm very nostalgic to my childhood). By chance, I came across a blog called "clancy's arcade" that posted a bunch of photos just before they closed. Some blurry dark shots, some pretty good. I send him a message thanking him for posting them, but get no response. Fast forward 5 months, and I finally get a response. Apparently, his server held onto his message, so he didn't get it until now. We exchange a few emails back and forth, including a link to a facebook page where he's posted even more photos.
I now realize something. With my great solidworks skills, I could probably recreate galaxy world in 3d. Seriously, with a little imagination and my vague recollection of how the arcade is laid out, I could model it in 3d complete with textures taken from the photos. Solidworks lets you do a walk through inside the program, but of course that does nobody good that doesn't have the software (the free viewer may let you do a walkthrough). Sure, I could probably do it in something like half life to make it feel more realistic and accessible, but I'm not comfortable enough in game engines to do that. I mean, I have created duke nukem maps about 2 decades ago (including the building I worked at), but that's pretty limiting. Besides, I figure if I've got a solid model, if someone really desires to convert it to something else, it'll be easy to do so. Ideally, I'd like an oculus rift version of galaxy world, something that looks like this!
So anyway, I've decided to at least start working on this project, no idea how long it will take. My goal (at the very least) is to archive what was an amazing arcade in the chicago suburbs for all future generations. My hope is that it serves as a historical archive of what an arcade actually looked like, not some imagined version of an arcade by some future historian that is nowhere near accurate. Remember on futurama when they toured the history museum, and they showed the pizza parlor. The pizza spatulas were imagined as tools to spank bad employees.. Yea, like that.
So I started this morning by trying to convert the very distinct carpeting that they used. I took the clearest photo I could find, and brought it into photoshop. I then used the loop grab tool to trace a perspective box, and then warped it out flat until the circles fit inside a box. I then grabbed a piece inside the pattern, and extended it out to 4 pieces to verify. Granted this will need cleaning up (I'll probably recreate the shapes in autocad since I suck at illustrator), but at least I have something reasonable to start off with.
