My Renderings

[Rizzo]

Some of you maybe interested in seeing these. I'll keep thoes of you interested posted with more additions.

Elevated Light-rail concept What an eyesore, but hey, it won't interupt your daily commute.

Concept elevation.

Flyovers of the city and alternate view renderings to come.

[Rizzo]

Orthographic pre rendered views. New buildings are highlited in blue.

View from the south:

View from the east:

[GRDadof3]

Nice Rizzo! I thought that the skyline would look better approaching from the South. It looks pretty industrial now until you just about reach the S-curve, but that won't be the case with the new med towers and kids' hospital. Can you swing the skyline around so that you're looking from the West or SW?

Is your light-rail line running along 28th Street?

Also, I was thinking the new Children's Hospital was going to be taller than Butterworth Hospital? Maybe not.

[Rizzo]

As for the Children's Hospital I render according to what the developer tells me on height. Sometimes when the developer has no time to talk to me I eyeball it against buildings that around for a estimation of height. I this case I had to eyeball it. I could be way off, but I had nothing more to go on expcet for the renderings supplied on the architects site.

The Ligh rail is adjacent to 28th st. so yes along side it, above or near the pedestrian ROW.

[Rizzo]

Dad, as you requested:

SW

W

[Rizzo]

A great distant view of downtown is usually on Buchanan Ave. in Wyoming near 32nd or 36th sts. Thats basicly represented in the renderings facing north.

[NorthCoast]

Wow! Thanks for all the great pics. It is really exciting to visualize what downtown's skyline is going to look like in a few years or so. I'm also a huge fan of the light rail concept. I was curious if you had worked out any routes or branches out into the metro-suburb area.

[Rizzo]

^ Yah, I even visioned connections to the distant suburbs muskegon and holland. Surface rail down division and on 44th st to the airport via elevated route over the street's median.

[NorthCoast]

What a boom to commerce this would be not just for Grand Rapids but for every community that would be en route. It would totally revolutionize the ways those communities viewed themselves and developed helping to make Grand Rapids a true urban center.

[Rizzo]

If we can create an entire multibillion dollar lifescience sector/market in downtown and Metro GR think what we could get done if this issue was pressed farther then just online discussion between fellow forumers.

[NorthCoast]

It really is quite amazing, the possibilities. Grand Valley students could take it from Allendale to the Pew Campus are up the hill to Cook-Devos. Anyone who works downtown could just hop on their local train minimizing the problem of parking. The streets of downtown would be hustling and bustling with foot traffic like the days of old. On a summer evening a baseball fan could decide on the fly to hop on the rail and ride up to 5/3rd to catch a Whitecaps game.

I wonder how much money the state would save on highway maintenance if the stress load on them was reduced and their absolute necessity obsolete.

If only I knew the workings of big time government and mass transit thoroughly.

[Rizzo]

A fast/really low quality render I did just a few minutes ago to show you what a view near Plaza Towers would look like. Any other views that you forumers would like to see while I'm at it?

[GRDadof3]

A fast/really low quality render I did just a few minutes ago to show you what a view near Plaza Towers would look like. Any other views that you forumers would like to see while I'm at it?

Rizzo, that's sweet! Is there a way to do more of a bird's eye view maybe from the SW, SE, NE, NW? Sorry for all the special request.

[Rizzo]

Special requests are welcome. I'm rendering as we speak!

[Rizzo]

As requested:

[GR8scott]

that looks cool. Is the building at the SE corner of Fulton and division that park place building? What ever happen to that anyways?

[Rizzo]

Yup as of recent renderings I have seen.

[GRDadof3]

Boy, I-196 coming into downtown will look like a canyon once the med towers project gets finished:

Hey Rizzo, the RSC/Second Story (Two West Fulton) project is flipped in your rendering. The shorter part of the building will be at the corner, and the taller part will be to the West

Oops. No direct linking to the files.

[hood]

How do you create all those renderings, and how hard are they to make? They look great I would like to try to do something like that for Lansing.

[PBJ]

How do you create all those renderings, and how hard are they to make? They look great I would like to try to do something like that for Lansing.

I can tell you from experience, it's not as easy as you may think

I was curious as well as to software? Commercial 3DS Max or OSS like Blender?

[Rizzo]

Thanks for the correction Dad.

Hood, search the web for "3D design programs" or somthing similar and you will pick up on the topic very fast, as there are plenty of online forums that can better suit your answer then I can. But here are some tips that I strongly recommend.

1.) Study your city left to right and streetlevel to the top of your towers.

2.) Talk to local developers, be friends with them, even if it's penpal or email friendship.

3.) Goto the Library, specificly a downtown one, thats a goldmine and search for history of your downtown. Scan pictures and look at the architecture and heights of all the buildings.

4.) Save some money for a good camera; take plenty of pictures.

5.) Buy AutoCad 2000 or some program related to 3D CAD Drafting or 3D Design programs, a simple search for this on Google.com should reveal lots of information, more than what I can give you here at the forum. If you can't save 1000-3000$ don't fret, search Google for "Free 3d programs."

6.) Learn the program you bought or downloaded by reading tutorials for that program, its crash course, but with a few months of learning you'll be on your way. You may even be able to learn more on the program via support groups or online forums specific to that program.

7.) With the information you gathered at the local musem or library about heights and widths and basic architecture of each building goto town in the computer program.

Hope that helps you.

[Rizzo]

PBJ, Blender. In my experience with architectural design, Blender can rival most of the 1 to 3 grand software thats out there. If I were worried about precision I would stay clear away from Blender, 3Ds, Maya, or some other animation, modeling, artsy suite. Hood you would be better getting yourself introduced to Blender for a quick intro to 3D and gradually move youself up to AutoCad or some other hefty software with more percision, say in the rang of a thousandth of an inch or whatever you need. I usually alternate between AutoCad and Blender/Yafray for actual rendering of stills and animations.

[PBJ]

PBJ, Blender. In my experience with architectural design, Blender can rival most of the 1 to 3 grand software thats out there. If I were worried about precision I would stay clear away from Blender, 3Ds, Maya, or some other animation, modeling, artsy suite. Hood you would be better getting yourself introduced to Blender for a quick intro to 3D and gradually move youself up to AutoCad or some other hefty software with more percision, say in the rang of a thousandth of an inch or whatever you need. I usually alternate between AutoCad and Blender/Yafray for actual rendering of stills and animations.

Yeah, I am not an artsy/arc. engineering type, I just grabbed it to play with for fun...

If anyone is interested Grab it HERE, it's Open Source and free. The tutorial is pretty decent from what I've played with it.

[Rizzo]

PBJ, did you find Blender to be complicated when first looking at the interface?

[PBJ]

PBJ, did you find Blender to be complicated when first looking at the interface?

Not any worse than the others. I went through the first few tutorials that come with it and it seemed rather straight forward