JBII Version 8.1: Journey Into Animation

Version 8.1 is now available as videos only. The playable web and download versions will be coming shortly and I'll let you know as soon as they are. This version has updates for the ride and outdoor sections only.

See the videos HERE. They are still a bit jumpy. I'm still looking for a better video capture system.

The big additions this time is a lot of animated pieces. I've also upgraded some of the textures (metal, glass, and mirrors) and lighting. Here is the full list of things that changed in this version:

OVERALL

- Added ability to move around in ride vehicles (which sort of works)

- Updated all scripts and sketchup model imports

PAVILION

- Controlled timing for jumping fountains

- Restored plants in pots in Image Works lobby

- Realtime reflections for glass and metal outside

- Mirrors in the lobby

- Updated waterfall and jumping fountain particles

- Improved the explorable boundaries outside

- Fixed geometry in pyramids

FLIGHT SCENE

- Animated gizmos and lights on Dreamfinder vehicle

- Animated sparks moving through tubes of vehicle

- Animated Figment's appearance

DREAMPORT SCENE

- Shifting colors on Work of Art wall

- Added new props

- Animated clapping hands in chest

- Added rainbow chase on waterfall

LITERATURE SCENE

- Add movement to “shake” and “tumble”

- Added “sway” and animated it

- Animated “surprise”

- Floating letters inside the organ and flames on top

BRAND NEW SHOW SCENE

- Rotating posters

- Added new props and sets

SCIENCE AND MAGIC SCENES

- Upgraded particles in star tunnel

- Animated lights above Dreamfinder

- Added rotating galaxy and Figment film

- Minor update to crystal ball in Magic

FINALE SCENE

- Add Dreamfinder movie crane and chair for photo op

- Add photo flash in Star Tunnel

- Added stars on ceiling in Finale

- Added rotating film canister in Finale

JBII Version 8.0: A Brand New Show

After 11 months of struggles and upgrades and the discontinuation of the Unity WebPlayer, JBII Version 8.0 is online... in multiple formats! There are 3 versions of it available:


The Original Unity WebPlayer: This is the web viewer that I've been using all along. However, because most browsers no longer support NPAPI, this will most likely not work for most of you anymore.

The New Unity WebGL: This viewer is still in "Preview" and is not quite up to speed with the original WebPlayer. But since it is really the only available option, I am using it. In order to make it work, I had to make a lot of adjustments, the biggest being that the simulation is split back into 4 separate scenes (Outside, Ride, Theater, Image Works). This was done for memory management reasons. Also, some scripting behaves a little strangely here. So far, I've noticed that the mouse look-around does not spin a full 360, music sync is bad, and the new laser effect in the Image Works isn't quite right. Let em know if you have any issues with the WebGL viewer and I'll fix it as best I can.

The Stand-Alone Player (exe) for Windows. It is in a zip file. There is no Mac version at this time. Long story.

For all of these options CLICK HERE.
What is new in this release?

- The entire thing has been upgraded to Unity 5. That upgrade changed the way a lot of things worked and that has taken a lot of time to fix. I also attempted to convert all of the models to Maya instead of Sketchup and that broke EVERYTHING. After undoing that, I decided to keep the existing parts in Sketchup and future additions (especially organic parts) will be in Maya.

- The ride system has been completely scrapped and rebuilt from scratch. It now runs much smoother and more accurately. The new system also gives you the ability to Fast Forward (O key) or Pause (P key). The ride is also full trains of 4 cars now and using the 1 through 4 keys, you can pick which one you want to sit in. You can also choose from 2 new overhead views using the 5 and 6 keys.

- The ability to walk around in the ride (W key) is still available, but I added a flashlight (L key) because it gets dark in there. All of these new keyboard shortcuts are available using the H key to toggle the menu on and off.

- The outdoors has been re-landscaped with new trees that blow in the wind. There have also been a few minor texture fixes.

- A couple of small additions in the ride like lighting on the turntable and flowers in the Dreamport.

- New lighting everywhere, but most updated in the Captain EO Theater.

- Some new effects in the Image Works including a chasing rainbow tunnel and laser scanners in the Light Writer. I had some animation in the Kaleidoscope but had to remove it because of a bug with video. Working on fixing that now.

That's it for now. More coming soon and let me know how things are working (or not working) with the WebGL.

Thanks!

  

JBII Version 7.3: Listen to the Landscaping

Version 7.3 is now online! Check out the web simulation HERE.

This version has only one purpose and only one change... to make the outdoor scene better. I really wanted it to feel more like it was actually a part of EPCOT Center, instead of a strange rectangular floating island. So here are the basic changes:

- Real 3D representations of Spaceship Earth, the monorail, World of Motion, Communicore, and The Land are now visible through the trees (especially upstairs in the pyramid). I put them in their real world positions and scales so they will always look correct from any viewing location.

- Better trees! I did my best to make the trees match reference photos nearest the pavilion. In the distances, there are extra trees to mask the edges of the landscape.

- More accurate pathways and planters! I love those cool circular planters and did my best to get all of them in the right places. I think it makes a lot more sense now. You can also explore a little bit further out than you could before. "This area is temporarily closed" signs will let you know when you can't go further.

- The water feature now extends halfway through this half of Future World. It feels so peaceful now.

- There are now other plants in some of the planters in the courtyard and upstairs in the pyramid. Just looks nicer.

- One major glitch so far. I know the background music is resetting on its own from time to time. I'm going to change the scripts that run the music in version 7.4. 

That's it for now. Enjoy!

  

JBII Version 7.2: Journey Into Renovation

Version 7.2 is online! See the web simulation HERE or download a Windows stand-alone HERE. What happened to Version 7.1, you might ask. I don't know. I lost count. Who cares? Version 7.2 is ready at last!

What's new in this version:

OVERALL

- A bunch of bug fixes. Rest assured, there are still plenty in there though. The work continues...

- A brand new GUI menu. There is now a menu overlay on your screen that gives you all the keyboard shortcut keys. If you don't want to see it, just press "h". That key will toggle the menu on and off as you like. And remember, there are different options in every scene so this menu will change for each of them.

- Better scene changes. The simulation is still divided into 4 parts: outside, the ride, Captain EO, and the Image Works. You start outside while the other 3 scenes are "streamed" to your web browser in the background. Now, you will get pop-up messages when each of these scenes is ready. No more guessing.

- I fixed your perspective. You're an adult now and are taller than the trashcans.

OUTSIDE

- I've added a bunch of the signs that were appropriate to 1986 (mostly EO-related) as well as missing handrails, telephones, water fountains, etc. Also, better trees everywhere.

- I also discovered that I had some of the building architecture wrong, because it had changed a bit over the years. I added back missing parts of the building entrance, a planter, and the extension of the long curved blue barrier to the left of the entrance.

- I also added the ability to walk inside the restrooms on the far right side of the building. There's nothing in there, but go crazy.

THE RIDE

- The "Work of Art" is no longer a blank white wall. I used a photo to create a mural that gives the feel of the original. I am still looking for a proper shot of the whole thing.

- I added the lightning effect to the end of The Arts scene. However, it isn't working in the web version, only the stand-alone. Working on that.

- There are a few new pieces in the Literature scene now. It is a lot less black space now.

- The posters are up in the Showbiz scene now (but the marquee vanished).

- There is a glitch when you first enter the Science tunnel and it will appear to be missing. Hold on, it will come back as you move into it.

- I've updated the ride photo (which is me and my family in the backseat, by the way) and unload areas. It makes much more sense now and isn't so dark.

- The lighting has been tweaked all over the place, hopefully for the better.

CAPTAIN EO

- I changed nothing! You hear me? Nothing!

IMAGE WORKS

- Like the restrooms outside, you can now wander around in the "backstage" rooms behind Electronic Philharmonic. Also like the restrooms, there is nothing in there. Enjoy.

- The Rainbow Corridor has chasing neon colors now. It's not perfect, but it is getting there. I'm still learning how this works.

- The signs and details for Kaleidoscope and Magic Palette are in. They look much more finished now.


So that's all I can remember for now. Have fun!

Version 7: Upgraded!!!

Version 7.0 is, at long last, online!!!!

And the downloadble version is ready too.  Get it HERE.

I am painfully aware that it has taken almost 15 months for this update to finally arrive.  And I'm prepared for some of you to see it and say, "THIS took over a year?"  The reality is that only 1 scene has been updated and that is the outdoors scene.  The short story about why this took so long is:

1.  My professional and personal life got about 150% busier in this past year.  This project was much easier to make progress on when I had little or no life and a job with tons of downtime / boredom.  That is no longer the case (which is good for me).

2.  This update represents a change from Unity Free version 3.x to Unity Pro 4.x.  I was not prepared for what a massive change in how everything works this would be.  Nearly every band-aid or sloppy "new guy" modeling mistake I made in the previous 2 years of work was suddenly exposed in all sorts of horrible ways.  Almost nothing worked right anymore and everything got WAY uglier.  And for every fix I made, at least 2 other things broke.  I had to rebuild a whole lot of things from scratch just to get them back to where they started.

3.  In the past year, this kind of simulation and technology has actually become a part of my real job.  Most of my "R&D" time has been spent doing this on real projects that I can probably show you in about 2 to 5 years.  :-)

The longer story of what has been happening can be found HERE.

So what's new?

- A lot of clean-up, bug fixes, performance upgrades, and do-overs.  Many of these are invisible.

- Lighting!  The lighting and shadows are so much better now.  And there is actual lighting in the lobbies now instead of sunlight just pouring in through the walls.

- Special FX!  New reflective water is probably the most obvious.  I'm continuing to tweak this and the fountain fx so I expect these will get really nice looking as time goes on.

- Occlusion culling.  Look it up if you care, but this should improve performance greatly.

- New textures in many places.  Thanks to the wonders of bump maps, the concrete surfaces look more like concrete now.

- It's been over a year, I can't remember what else.

There are a couple of new bugs in there, so watch out.  The walking part of the ride scene may be turned sideways sometimes and if you try to enter the Image Works before the scene loads, you'll fall into oblivion.  Sorry.  Will fix these shortly.  

Hope it is and continues to be worth the wait.  Thanks for your patience and support!  :-)

What's taking so damn long?

For those of you still patiently waiting on me, thank you.  I thought I'd give you a quick run-down of what is happening that is making the next release take so long.  Firstly...

- Work.
- Personal life (for good reasons).

But here are the technical reasons:

- The upgrade from 3.5 to version 4.0 and now 4.2 as well as the switch from Free to Pro has introduced roughly a million new options and changed the way a lot of stuff works.  I'm sifting through these options and fixing things that got weird in the transitions as quick as I can.  I literally did everything as tricks and work-arounds for the Free version that work against me in Pro.  It is a lot of mess to clean up spread across 4 very complicated "scenes".  Work is really happening though.

- Lighting, shadows, lighting, and lighting.  The advent of Pro shadows has dramatically altered the way everything looks and that requires a bit of tweaking.  In the outdoor scene, the sunlight no longer floods the interior spaces, so I am having to add all that missing lighting in the lobby now.

- I've been changing the way the water effects work in the outside scene.  That is mostly done now.  And it looks pretty cool.

- Glass, transparency, and reflections.  Kill me.

- I attempted to switch from the modeled terrain to Unity's internal terrain builder.  That was disastrous so I am back where I started for now.  Will try again in a later version.  Part of that effort was to get access to trees that will respond to wind.

Terrain disaster in progress...

- An aborted attempt to animate the escalators turned into a big mess in the lobby during the conversion.  Cleaning that up is not going smoothly.

- The upgrade of textures and bump maps in conjunction with the new lighting is easy but very time-consuming.  I am literally retexturing entire sections of the model just to make it look like it did before or better.

- Pro has real occlusion culling and some tools designed to help reduce the load on the processor and graphics card.  Now that I can see what I was doing wrong before, I'm trying to fix it, but 2 years of blind work has made this a big mountain to climb.  I have also removed the fake occlusion system that was in there, which is good because it was frustrating to make work right.

- 2 things that I have been experimenting with (eating up time as well) are better scripting methods that I've recently learned and a new engine for the ride system that will hopefully be less buggy.  These will probably not be in the next release.

And that is this week's list of excuses.  Hopefully, that gives you an idea of just how much this upgrade has kind of blown up in my face.  I'll get it straightened out and released as soon as possible.  I just want it to be pretty again (prettier even) before I release it again.

Thanks everyone,
Mike

Cool Things Are Coming

It's been a while since I've done much work on this.  But, I really have done some work.  I just haven't finished enough to upload it.  Anyway, I thought I'd take a moment to share some news that will hopefully affect this project for the better (and more frequently) soon.

For those who don't know, I work as a Technical Designer at a theme park design company called Thinkwell in Burbank, CA.  In the past year, a new program has been started at work where employees are given time and resources to study a topic of interest (to the employee and the company) in an effort to become an expert in that topic.  We call them "Gurus".  The first round of Gurus just finished the program and the 2nd round has begun.  I applied for the 2nd round and was selected.  I'm very excited and happy about this.  By the way, this isn't secret and I did get permission to talk about it.

At Thinkwell with the co-workers.  I'm 2nd from the left.

Anyway, what does this have to do with the JBII project?  My topic of interest is Real Time Attraction Simulation.  In other words, the same thing that I've been trying to do with the JBII simulation all this time will be a part of my job.  I'm going to learn how to make our park and attraction designs into playable simulations so we can see how our designs are working in a virtual environment before we build them for real.  I'm going to explore many different options, but the Unity 3D game engine that I use for JBII is high on the list of those options.  My hope is that as I take classes, go to conventions, and interview other professionals, my skills will sharpen and I'll get much better (and faster) at doing this.  

And though it is not the primary focus of my Guru-ship, I hope that lessons learned will make JBII a better project as well.  In fact, because I already have this fairly large and complicated simulation at my disposal, I can test out new techniques on it as I go.  

This round has already begun and my research starts now.  If any of you have resources, contacts, tips or tricks that might help me out, I definitely want to hear about it.  And of course, feedback is always helpful and welcome.

So, I'm still here and there is more coming soon.

Version 6.5: The White Room

At long last... the Arts Scene (or White Room) is in the simulation version 6.5 (web and download).  Like everything else, it is not complete, but it is no longer the furthest behind in development.

This room has been a brick wall because of its complexity for some time.  Thousands of flowers were bogging down the processing.  And then a nice man by the name of Deadstar on Facebook gave me the elegantly simple solution to the problem - transparency!  (Witness the epic moment here).  Remember, I have no idea what I'm doing and am learning all of this as I go so tips and tricks from all of you make a HUGE difference sometimes.

Anyway, another major reason why this took so long is that I tore apart every single scene of the ride and reassembled the parts according to textures and colors.  This has made organizing a lot easier, geometry cleaner, and the Unity 3D engine likes it a lot better.  You may not notice any difference, but it was a ton of work and it makes this project better for me and your computer.  The next technical step will be using my newly learned transparency trick in other places to simplify more complex geometry without losing quality.

I think that's all I really did in this update.  It may not seem like much but it was a huge step.  Updates should come a little faster in the future.  Unless I get lazy...

 

1.2 Million Lines Later...

I'm a techie by trade and a numbers nerd by nature, so I'm going to post some statistics about this project.  This is mostly for my amusement, but maybe some of you will find it interesting too.

As part of the same nerdy need, I have posted a bunch of "behind the scenes" pictures of the models that make up JBII over on the Facebook page.  See that HERE.

And now, the stats (as of Aug 11, 2012)...  

The 4 main Sketchup models for JBII (outside, ride, theater, image works) consist of the following:

• 1,242,274  lines
• 510,694  faces (individual flat surfaces)
• 185  components (how the models are exported in pieces)
• 378  colors or textures

The actual numbers are a lot higher because this doesn't account for repeated (or instanced) components or any of the parts that are directly created in Unity 3D instead of Sketchup.

• 1 year, 5 months, and 22 days of progress

But of course, I didn't work on it every day.  :-)

The actual simulation is built in a program called Unity 3D.  This project currently consists of:

• 20,892  files (many of these are support files that you never see)
• 1,153  folders

My research, reference and archive materials consist of an additional:

• 3,549  files (which still don't include good blueprints of the ride scenes)
• 873  folders (I'm a little obsessive about documentation)

The entire project is just a little under 9 GB with everything included.

Yep, I'm that kind of nerd...

Tip-toe Through Plastic Tulips

The crystal pond lighting test.

I have been very slowly working on the Arts Scene lately (also known as the White Room).  The main reason for it being slow is that I'm lazy.

In addition to that, it has been a frustrating process.  This room is INSANELY complicated compared with every other room in the building.  If most rooms were a 4 and the Dreamfinder vehicle was a 10, this room is easily a 35.  There are no 90 degree angles anywhere and the room is just packed with objects.  My first draft of the flowers was as accurate as I could get, but once in the simulation, the animation dragged badly (even with instancing).  I had to go back and simplify them... and may have to again.  

Original version of the flowers.

One of the biggest issues is the lighting.  The "White Room" is actually very colorful.  While most of the scenery in the room was white (some of the clouds on the walls are actually blue), most of the lighting was made up of small spots of saturated colors.  Each one of these spots adds another level of computer processing complexity.  I will reduce some of this eventually by "baking" the colors onto the scenery then turning off the lights.  That's how most of the lighting in the simulation works already.  However, for test and adjust, the lighting is all live.  The screenshot at the top of this post was taken just before my computer crashed, and the rest of the room and lighting was turned off for this test.

One of the ways I'm hoping to simplify things is by straight up cheating.  I do not have good enough reference material to actually recreate this room object-by-object.  I'm aiming for getting the "feel" and experience as close as possible.  To do that, I'm starting to build foreground objects (closest to the vehicle or important like the carousel and figment) in 3D, and I'm making background objects 2D.  In a way, the real room was kind of built that way too.  I think all of the white on white layering will allow me to get away with this too.  If you watch videos of this scene, the objects don't stand out individually.  It's just a jungle of organic chaos.  I think I can do that.  But it will be slow.  Organic and chaos are both hard things to do with ones and zeros.  

I appreciate the patience and support many of you have shown with me putting this scene off for so long.  When I release the next version, it certainly won't be complete, but I think it will be a nice addition.  And hopefully, I will have figured out how to make it run smoothly.  We'll see.  Until then, here are some of the work in progress shots...

JBII Downloadable

A few of you have asked, so I'm trying it out.  JBII is now downloadable as an EXE (warning, it is 221mb).  You can download the ZIP file by clicking here.  This is the same as the version that runs online, but I have not thoroughly bug tested it and don't know how or if it will function on various OS's.  Let me know if you have trouble.

This is an experiment.  If it has too many issues, I might discontinue this version.  We'll see what happens.  In the meantime, enjoy!

 

Version 6.4: Dreams and Monsters

Version 6.4 is up and running.  It's not a huge change, but there are 2 new sections in the ride.  I've added the Dreamport paint machine (I have no idea what it is really called) and the Dungeon / Monster scene in Literature.  The Dungeon is a bit dark but I'll fix that in the next round.


As always, feel free to let me know what I messed up.  Thanks.


I've been away from the project a lot lately.  The reason is that I suddenly have a lot of personal projects for myself and friends, work and play that have been keeping me busy.  I'm trying to find a good balance and hope to get updates out a little more often now.  They will probably be smaller than the ones in the past though.


That's it for now.

JII Version 6.3: Ride Tweaks and Magic

Version 6.3 is up and running!  This update is not as organized as previous ones, but I think there are some good changes here.  Since this one updated pretty much just the ride, here is a short list of what happened:


- The Magic / Genie Dreamfinder scene is in.  I still need to add Figment in his magnifying glass and fix a bunch of texture things.  This scene also includes the blacklight direction signs just before it and the filmstrips after it that lead into the Star Tunnel.


- I added a couple of animals to the Arts Scene carousel.  The other 3 are coming soon.


- Textures and lighting have been added to the Finale (Figment films) scene.


- The Dreamfinder photo is in after the Finale.  I am aware that the scaling and position are a bit off but I'm having trouble figuring it out from the videos.  I'll get it there eventually though.  The photo on the filmstrip is actually me and my family from an old WDW vacation video.  I'm the formerly skinny kid in the backseat holding the video camera.

- I have tweaked the lighting everywhere in the ride.  I think it is starting to look atmospherically correct.  Again, hard to guess at from old videos and flash photos.  I'm making some judgement calls there.


- The ride vehicle is no longer jet black.


- I tried to fix a lot of the culling settings so you won't see as many missing scene elements, especially when walking around.  There are still a few though.  By the way, if you get stuck walking around in the ride, remember that you can jump.  I filled some of the potholes, but I know there are more to be found.


- Throughout the entire model, I have attempted to correct the music glitches and shorten the transition times.  Let me know if it works right for you.


That's it for this round.  Thanks!


  

JII Version 6.2: Moving Parts

As I tend to do when I have nobody instructing me otherwise, I changed my mind about what I was going to work on for this next version.  But I added a bunch of stuff so I hope it's all good.  Version 6.2 is now up and running.  Here's what is new:


Outside
- There is a pop-up map if you get lost.  It also shows you the "portals" to other scenes.  Just press "M".  (Thank you, Martin).
- Jumping fountains!!!  The timing is not really there yet but I'll tweak that at some point.  For now, just watch your head or you might get wet.
- The pop-jet fountains and rotating Figment bush are working too.  Yes, I know Fig looks a bit like a duck.  I'll put more effort into him later when I start doing animatronics.
- The ride lobby doors closest to the theater are now windows (as is more time period appropriate.  However, you can still walk through them for convenience.
- I put a little bit of cloud reflection in the glass surfaces for an extra layer of realism.
- Finally, the employee exit gate is in with some extra landscaping and a surprise inside.  (Thank you, Ron).


Ride
- I skipped the 2nd half of Dreamport and did 3 other scenes instead.  There are now more elements in the Arts, Literature and Finale scenes.
- The Arts / White Room has a few elements in it including a spinning turntable.  I think it might be moving backwards but I'll work that out when the animals are on board.
- An updated Organ and the Cat / Bat blocks are in Literature.
- The Star Tunnel now leads you into the Finale.
- The ambient light has been turned off in here in order to better control what you see and don't see.  As a result, your vehicle will appear completely black at least for now.  The floor is still a charcoal color for navigation while testing.  Eventually, it will also be black so the full effect is correct.


Theater
- I didn't do anything really.  I only fixed it so you can't fall through the movie screen anymore.  (Thank you, Bob).


Image Works
- This scene also has a pop-up map since it is easy to get lost in here.  Just press "M".  (Thank you, April).
- I didn't add any sound to Stepping Tones yet.  Anyone have any info on which sounds were where?
- The missing passages are now behind the Digital Wall.  One leads into Lumia and the other into Stepping Tones.
- Lumia has special FX now!
- I put in placeholders for the Vibrating Mirrors room.  Since there is nothing to actually reflect, I added some nostalgic images to check out.


I'm not going to predict my next moves yet.  Clearly, I didn't fully follow them this time anyway.  I'll let you know as I figure out what is next.  Thanks for visiting.


  

My Real Job

For those of you who were introduced to this blog in the past 6 months, I should tell you that I occasionally write posts that are not related to Journey Into Imagination but are at least a little bit related to the theme park industry.  I haven't really done that recently until now.


For the benefit of friends, family, and some complete strangers who've asked, "what do you do anyway?"...  Let me explain:


As you may be aware, I am a big time theme park nerd or a "foamer" as we are called by those in the industry.  Since I was 10 years old, I've wanted nothing more than to design theme parks for a living, and last Sept, I started working at a company in Burbank, CA called Thinkwell that does just that.  Since I've started, I've said almost nothing publicly about what I actually do despite this being a HUGE deal for me.  After almost 8 months there, I think I've had enough time to fully understand what I'm doing and what I am able to talk about.

Thinkwell is a themed experience company that produces creative designs for theme parks, attractions, museums, tours, special events, corporate branding, and just about anything else that could use a unique creative eye.  We are working for several clients right now on a diverse array of projects, only a handful of which are public knowledge yet.  You can see our currently announced projects on our website here and our latest cool thing, The Making of Harry Potter Tour here.  We'll get to my project in a moment.

I am a Technical Manager by title but the work I do is better known in theatrical circles as a Tech Director.  My job is to figure out to make the creative designs work in the real world with available technology, adhering to a set budget, and functioning safely and reliably.  As part of a team, I help create the technical designs and specifications for various things including lighting, audio, video, control systems, interactives, special effects of all sorts, networking, ride systems, facilities and utilities, and even some top-secret prototypical coolness that you'll get to see in attractions that will open a couple of years from now.

The majority of my time is spent on a theme park called Monkey Kingdom, opening in China in 2014.  This park and the project as a whole is huge.  It keeps me very busy on a wide variety of disciplines.  I am what is called a "project-based" employee.  This is very typical in the industry and it basically means that my employment is attached to the Monkey Kingdom project, theoretically through the completion of the park.  The reality is that I am not entirely tied to Monkey and have helped out in various ways on a dozen other projects - sometimes for a couple of days, sometimes for about 5 minutes.  Everyone at Thinkwell has specialties that are often additions to their core job descriptions.  I usually get to help out with projects that might involve large-scale special effects and theatrical automation, puppets, and show control systems.  Every experience I've ever had in my career has been pulled out of mothballs for use in something these past 8 months.

A typical week for me is 9am to 6pm with an hour lunch, Monday through Friday.  This is the first time in my life that I've had a full-time schedule like this.  Having weekends and holidays off is crazy!  I finally get why people like it.  Right now, Monkey Kingdom is still in the design phases.  As it starts to move into actual construction over the next couple of years, there will likely be longer and stranger hours with travel.  Right now, I feel like I'm on vacation all the time.

Most of the offices, including mine, are all open and located in one large room.  In this photo, my desk is to the left of the Hello Kitty desk and you're looking at less than a third of the whole space.  The environment is really cool.  Few or no walls, open dialogue, pretty much no politics at all (seriously), very casual and easy-going.  It is not uncommon to have strange costume days, food-related events, crazy desk decorating, or a random marching band here in the offices.  There's no class system here either.  I usually have lunch at the picnic tables outside where I might be eating with any co-workers including the company Owners and VPs.

During a typical day, I'm back and forth between my desk and various meetings or presentations around our building.  I get to meet all sorts of interesting people including clients, consultants, vendors, specialists ad service providers.  I do a lot of technical writing and AutoCAD plus a little bit of Sketchup, VBA programming, and testing of all sorts of different programs.  And they've let me try my hand at some creative work as well.  So far, I've written or co-written of a couple of show treatments that are part of Monkey Kingdom.  They are very encouraging when it comes to trying new things and expanding your skills here. Awesome.

Everything else I want to tell you... I really can't yet.  :-)  I'll post news as things are announced though.  So, that's it.  That's what I've been doing lately.

JII Version 6.1: Journey Back to 1986

Version 6.1 of the simulation is up and running.  This version has new content but also has a bunch of small adjustments in order to align it better with the target time period of 1986.  Here's what is new:

Overall

- The simulation window is a little taller now.  Better view, I think.

- You are no longer 4 feet tall.  Congratulations on the growth.

Outside

- The bushes have been removed from the perimeter of the ride building.  They were added with JIYI in 1999.

- I'm sticking with the later fountain sculpture but I added the colored panels that briefly lived inside it.

- I've made some minor architectural updates.  The area between the theater exit and Kodak Store is slightly different now and the walls around the restrooms are correct now.

- Temporary signage on the Kodak Store.  I can't find a clear shot of what those signs look like exactly.

- Accessories in the upper lobby.

Ride

- New scenic elements in Teapot / Houses and 1st Half of Dreamport scenes.

- Slightly better lighting in these scenes and some added special FX.

- I've added some invisible force fields so you won't feel stuck down in the track pit when walking around anymore.  You may still experience random vanishing walls though.  Explore at your own risk.

Theater

- The last remaining elements of HISTA are out.  This is as close to original EO as I can currently get.  Thanks again to Martin Smith for some reference assistance.

- "True Colors" is out and "Makin' Memories" music is in.  Rumor has it that "Makin' Memories" was briefly featured early in Captain EO's run.  Even if that isn't true (research is ongoing), I still have no usable "Capture a Smile" material.  I'm also seeking a screenshot of "Makin' Memories" for the pre-show screen if anyone has that.

- The automatic door passages are better fleshed out now.  "Doors open automatically" (even though they actually don't here).

- Blue seats!

Image Works

- Light Writer is more detailed now and Lumia is roughed in.  Does anyone have a decent picture of that?  Right now, it looks like a mini-Spaceship Earth in a dark room.

- General fixes to the ceiling and walls.  Lots of little tweaks.

Known Issues

- There is still a great deal of weirdness with the music transitions, especially when loading new scenes.  I'm working on it.

- This.  I can't consistently recreate it yet but it is on my list.  I think it's kind of funny though.

What's Next in 6.2

- I'm going to take a crack at the jumping fountains, pop jets, and Figment bush outside.  Fingers crossed.  I'll also change the West glass doors of the lobby into windows, like it was early on.

- Adding the 2nd half of Dreamport in the ride.

- In the Image Works, I want to add some sounds to Stepping Tones and get some placeholders in the Vibrating Mirrors room.

- The Theater needs some straightening up with regard to the seats.  I have some more accurate plans of that now so I should be able to make that nicer.

A Matter of Time

Lately, I've been asked a few times about some of my choices for this project, specifically regarding the time periods I'm representing (especially about EO in the theater).  I've been meaning to talk about this for a while and now seems like a good time.

I guess I should start by admitting I have no real master plan.  When I started this back in Feb 2011, I was just trying to see if I could do it at all and honestly expected to get bored with it and stop at some point.  Somehow, that never happened and the project just kept expanding with no real direction. 

Once I thought about it, I realized that I was re-creating memories from my childhood.  These memories were fuzzy and grossly inaccurate as it turns out.  And the gaps were filled in with whatever photos I could find on the net, regardless of the year they were taken.   In fact, in the beginning, I modeled using the current building for reference (hence the colors in the photo above).  When I finally started doing real research, I understood that I had created a pavilion that never actually existed.  Let me 'splain...

This attraction has been around for nearly 30 years and has included 3 different rides, 4 different 3D movies, multiple movie pre-shows, countless Image Works configurations, and a hundred landscape / paint / decorating changes.  And to make this more complicated, I can't find a good timeline of when many of these things changed.  To get around this problem, I've been dividing the entire model up and picking different time periods for each section.  Some of these are roughly on track and some need more research.

In case I've given the wrong impression, this project was never intended to represent opening day.

OUTSIDE

The landscaping and decorating outside is roughly set in the same time period as Captain EO's first run (1986 - 1994).  I haven't nailed down a specific year yet, but it is probably after the original fountain sculpture changed.  I'm still trying to figure out when the bushes around the ride entrance were added.  Those may be part of the JIYI update.  Right now, I kind of have both versions covered since the bushes AND the trees in pots are both there.  At any rate, this time period accommodates the various EO graphics and structures in the area.

I should say that I would love to have that cool, original fountain sculpture in the model.  However, it is really hard to work out that complex geometry from the photos I can find.  It was hard enough figuring out the simpler replacement sculpture.

THE RIDE

The ride is meant to represent its overall form during its 15 year run.  I don't think there were a lot of changes but any subtle differences aren't documented enough for me to do anything about it.  I can only really say that this is set after the exit speed belt was removed.

THE THEATER

I get asked about this the most.  I usually say that I picked EO over Magic Journeys because it was my favorite and I consider that period to be the Golden Age of that pavilion.  There are some practical considerations as well though.  I have almost no Magic Journeys reference material to work with anyway, but I think the best reason is that EO was a lot more interesting to look at.  It had big graphic elements, bright colors, cool logos and signage.  It is a lot easier and more fun for me to recreate, but I think it is a lot more interesting to explore since there is no actual movie playing in there.  I can at least provide the static images and music.

But what about the pre-show?  I'm still trying to work this out.  My research indicates that "Makin' Memories" and ''Capture a Smile" ran during EO.  I'm currently running "True Colors", but I guess I should change that.  I can't find a good copy of the music from "Capture a Smile" so I may choose "Makin' Memories", which would put my time period around 1986.

Just to make all of this irrelevant, my current interior of the theater is modeled after HISTA (the weird frame around the screen).  That's because I can't find any decent images of the theater interior when EO originally ran (let alone Magic Journeys).  Still working on that.

THE IMAGE WORKS

Image Works is the huge exception to the "not opening day" thing.  My Image Works is currently set in the opening day configuration.  Why?  I have pretty good documentation of that version and most of those interactives are much easier to model.  I considered trying to time-align this area with the EO time period, but IW has gone through so many different configuration changes and I don't know the exact layouts by year.  The only thing I really know for sure is what it was when it started and what it was when it died.  "When it started" seemed like a better choice.

This part of the model is the most modular in construction.  Since I did it after I had made all my mistakes in the other sections, I had a pretty good idea of how to set it up right.  That makes it easier to update later.  Maybe one day, I'll change its year.  Maybe.

That's it.  If you were wondering about the time periods and plans, there you have it.  There isn't much of one.  I'm still open to opinions and feedback so feel free if you have some.  And as always, please send any reference that might help me be more accurate.  I appreciate it.

And now back to work on it...