April 2013 Update

A brief update for April, as the layout is on the back burner under a backlog of other side-jobs. However, the photography is quite good, so hopefully it's enjoyable.

Although installed over a year ago, I finally got the geysers spruced up enough to be filmed for YouTube. Blew off the dust and added a coat of Mod Podge to make them appear "wet" once again.

When it got dark out for night shooting to show of the lighting effects, I took some real great long exposure shots

And here's the video, seeing the geysers in action!

Something a little more new, over in Rainbow Ridge: Performed the first lighting test for the Load area lanterns. This was done by just crudely tying the wires together to the LED flicker controller I built two updates ago. Everything seems to work pretty well, so more should come with few bumps.

I've also begun the process of adding the railings to the deck made out of strip styrene. 

The lanterns at night, via long-exposure shots. 

To show off their flickering, here's a video of the lanterns under power. 

February/March 2013 Update

A few things caused a delay for February's update, so it's being combined with March. Since March hasn't ended, this post is likely to be updated as the progress moves along.

Rainbow Ridge continues to take shape and the rough forms give way to finer details. At this point, knowing those finer details now are critical, as going back to fix any mistakes would be a headache and bothersome to fix later. This is the second time Rainbow Ridge has been redone and I plan on not scheduling any rehabs in the future!

This section of the layout is being planned very meticulously from the ground-up, most notably for this month was the wiring for all the lighting. As mentioned in last month's update, the lighting for Rainbow Ridge will have a special difference compared to the rest of the layout. That difference being the flicker effect, generated by some custom circuits utilizing tea light flickering LEDs.

Unfortunately, these circuits require a LOT of extra wiring, as parallel wiring wouldn't work for randomly flickering lights. Each light needs it's own wire running to one of 16 flickering LEDs. They can share the same ground wire. For example, the Load/Unload area for Rainbow Ridge requires 7 flickering lights. In traditional parallel wiring, I would only need two wires if they were constantly lit, or all on the same flicker circuit. Since I want each light to have a unique flicker for a more realistic appearance I'm running 8 wires to the Load/Unload to drive the lighting. 

This results in a couple bundles of wiring being fed up, around, and under Rainbow Ridge. Putting in that amount of wiring in now while in this state of construction certainly will make construction much smoother than putting it in later. 

While the wiring infrastructure was installed, I finally developed the lights themselves. 

While I would have loved to just buy perfectly scaled ready-to-go On30 1800's lanterns, like everything else on the layout, they have to be scratchbuilt. Looking at photos and even existing lights around Big Thunder at the park, I was able to figure out a way to make fairly decent looking lights with scrap material. 

The process starts with feeding the wire leads through a piece of .125 square styrene tubing to serve as the post. To give the bulb a slightly more bulbous shape, I applied a drop of super glue, while the bulb was spinning in my drill, for equal distribution. Next I flattened a #6 lock washer and glued that to the top to form the "hat". For the top section I cut a piece of brass tubing. I could have used styrene, but I wanted the metal parts to absorb the heat from the bulb away from the glue. The support arms on the far right light in the photo were formed from a standard office staple. 

Next a coat of black paint completed the light. 

And heres a test fit on the platform. 

The platform itself is the masonite base that was cut in the December update. To create a scaled down wooden appearance, a sheet of styrene wood planking was spray adhesive'ed on. I made sure to keep the plank direction pointing towards the track, as with the real thing. 

To make styrene look like wood, countless paint tests were created. Many refinements later, I developed a quick, easy, and very realistic way to make plastic look like timber--using only three colors. 

When I get onto the deck sections on the other sider of the tracks, I'll do a tutorial on this paint technique. 

When the main section of the platform was complete, The two Load and Unload ramps were made, as separate pieces and attached. 

The Unload was a little trickier to do, since the ground was sloped, leading down to Mineral Hall. Before adding the ramp, the masonite ground was put in and the joints filled and sanded. 

Here's the unload ramp, given a coat of primer. Unfortunately, despite going slow and careful with each step, I goofed with the main platform, creating an indentation where the two pieces meet. Rather than a continuous curve, there's an inward dent. Luckily, since there is a planter right in front, I'll hid this mistake with a decent size shrub and won't have to redo it. Even with my accuracy  and quality anal-ness, sometimes it's not a big deal to let something like this go. 

An interesting fun fact: This ramp was later removed and replaced with a section of stair in later years on the real attraction. This was presumably done to increase seating for Casa de Fritos. 

Here's a sample railing made of strip styrene. The only revision to be made is the middle horizontal beams, which were made thinner, despite being scale accurate, for aesthetic balance. 

That'll do for now. As mentioned early, if more is done for March, it'll be added. "So long!"

January 2013 Update

Research and development continues as Rainbow Ridge slowly comes together. One of the big things to get figured out this month was the lighting. Not just regular show lighting like I've done in previous updates. Lighting in Rainbow Ridge will have a little bit more realism... a little 'flicker'.

Back in December 2011, I added some flickering lanterns to the Bear Country tunnel. I was able to achieve this using some cheap tea-light LED candles from Target and wired them onto my own circuit. This subtle feature was a great addition and added another layer of realism and effects to the layout. 

 

With Rainbow Ridge, I knew there would be a LOT of lanterns to add as well as all the buildings having interior lighting, plus the load/unload area lighting. 

I loved the Bear Country lanterns so much I wanted to add them to Rainbow Ridge. My only issue with them is the color; much too yellow to be totally convincing. To combat this, I decided to go with a mix; yellow flickering LED's and a majority of warm-white LED's. 

In an ideal world, having all the lights meant to be candles or lanterns should flicker in Rainbow Ridge. I tried a few set-ups trying to get the yellow flicker LED's to affect the warm-white ones for similar flicker effect. Nothing worked. I would plan to have the flickering yellow LED's and the warm-white LED's constant.

It wasn't until I discovered this article I found a solution. Rather than trying to tie the flicker LED in-line with another or other LED's I found a way to have it be a micro-controller; have the flicker LED control another set of lights. The best way to do this was to use an electronic component I hadn't used before: transistor. 

I spent about 3 days prototyping, testing and developing a circuit that both looked good and worked efficiently (as in no hot components!). What I came up with was rather surprising for myself. 

I posted a video over on the Facebook page, much to everyone's intrigue of the circuit above

Instead of using warm-white LED's I ended up going back and using my old 12V incandescent grain-of-wheat lights, which I haven't used since I started converting over to all-LED lighting last December. 

The reason for this being is not only is the color more realistic, but the actual flicker looks better; the incandescent bulb "smoothes" out the rather jerky flicker from the LED and looks much more like a real candle/lantern. While LED's have brought a whole new level to the layout, in terms of color, power efficiency, and vibrance, I guess Rainbow Ridge will have to make an exception here. 

To explain how I did this, I drew up a schematic of the circuit. I'll also try and explain it as easily as I can to those not as electronic savvy. 

The entire circuit--the "controller" flicker LED and the 12v incandescent lights-- are all on the same power source. The 1kΩ resistor brings down the current for the flicker LED and the 10Ω reistor also brings down the current, but to the transistor. The power coming from the LED connects to the base of the transistor, allowing current to flow from the 10Ω reistor, to the 12V Inc./Incandescent light. The transistor is a standard 2N222A I picked up in an assortment pack from Radio Shack for a couple bucks. 

The reistor with the question mark is an override resistor; this can be any value; the lesser the value, the more "un-modified" current goes to the 12V light, making it brighter, but also flicker less.  After the initial test video above and looking at Disneyland's own flickering lights, I determined a proper balance of subtleness and noticeability using a 47Ω reistor in this spot. 

This circuit only has capacity for 3 incandescent bulbs; any more and I'd have to beef up the components to prevent overheating (and more maintenance). This isn't a problem; having every light flicker on the same frequency wouldn't realistic, right? So, to fill out Rainbow Ridge, a number of these circuits, or modules, will be put together for a variety of random flickering lights. 

Here's a module put together in practice:

The top red wire is coming from the (+) 9V source and the bottom red wire goes the incandescent light. The other lead for the incandescent goes to the (-) ground. In the photo above this one, you can see the next module marked out next to the complete one, to give you an idea of how this was wired together in my usual 'amateur circuit board' approach, aka nails on a piece of wood. 

Here's the finished "Flicker board" with 8 flicker modules, with a capacity to power 24 lights in Rainbow Ridge. 

As the lighting progressed, some more ground way laid down in the Casa de Fritos area. The tricky part here is the sloping ground to create the different leveled sections. This is also where some wiring will run, so the lighting project above had to be done first! 

December 2012 Update

The layout continues to move forward as the end of the year approaches. The last section of the layout finally got started on: Rainbow Ridge, more specifically, the Pack Mule area. This part consists of the two uphill and downhill trails that lead the teams of mules to and from Nature's Wonderland. While the majority of Rainbow Ridge has been laid out to be almost perfect in spacing and accuracy, this section remains pretty sketchy and this is where creativity and selective compression comes in. The actual trails leading to and from the load and unload area for the pack mules were shifted, moved, and shortened to fit on the layout base and at the same time not look too crammed in. The same goes for the buildings around the load/unload; moved slightly, and unfortunately for quite a few, eliminated.

The main section of Rainbow Ridge was planned out on paper for just about every detail. The Pack Mule area on the other hand was pretty much roughed in and the final decisions would wait until actual construction. Because of this, the Pack Mule area was first mocked-up in cardboard in order to figure out the layout of everything.

As seen in past posts, lighting adds another dimension to the layout and Rainbow Ridge is no exception. This part of the layout will feature probably half the lights on the layout just in itself. So, before hills could be put in, 12v bus wire was run to critical areas in the Pack Mule load/unload. This is also where the layout splits in half, so wiring can't be run from the other side of Rainbow Ridge. 

Once the wires were run, aluminum foil hills were formed and covered in a shell of celluclay. At the time they were put in, the hills were as wet and soggy as a Anaheim rainy day. 

The uncovered foil sections represent where the buildings will go. 

Since it would take days for the celluclay to dry because of the high humidity, I changed gears and jumped to the other side of Rainbow Ridge: the train load/unload. This stage of construction is critical since any mistake now could be costly, since I can't just slap plaster and cover it with scenery (considering it's all buildings with hard edges). As a result, this area will be a slow process until all details are accounted for. 

The first step is the platforms, for both the load/unload area and for the building facades across the track. These were cut from masonite and raised on spacers. This will allow for wires to run underneath for lighting in the buildings, light poles, and the sound speakers. 

What's pretty amazing is this was done 7 years ago this month in 2005, but quite a bit more primitive. 

Since wiring had to run to the Pack Mule area for lighting, the light package Beaver Valley was finalized. 

The Marmot tunnel was also lit, with the usual all-LED lighting. 

Speaking of the marmot tunnel, something peculiar has occurred at the prototype tunnel over in Anaheim...

Some fresh paint has been applied to the tunnel, however, this is simply no refurbishment. This is actually a color sample test for the upcoming lengthy Big Thunder Mountain rehab. After the rockwork job on Cars Land and the Matterhorn, Big Thunder should look fantastic. It's also nice that the ole relic is spruced up a bit, even if the whole thing isn't repainted. 

November 2012 Update

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, the extensive Cascade Peak rehab and waterfall replacement project is finishing up with the last set of waterfalls, Big Thunder Falls, finally installed. There was no update for October since layout progress halted during a research and development special effects project that was on the main burner. Since Halloween has come and gone, that project has lost inspiration and momentum which means gears are shifting into coming back to Nature's Wonderland.

Big Thunder Falls took the longest to do out of all the waterfall sets, despite gaining experience and practice with the other two sets. This was mainly due to the fact that not only are there more waterfalls, they're also bigger-- and there was a time lapse camera. 

To somewhat "redeem" myself from the tutorial featuring waterfalls that will eventually fade and turn yellow, I made a new tutorial video showing how to make miniature waterfalls the new way I developed. Of course, this slowed down production time, but it's a technique many other modellers will appreciate. 

While the new technique is much more realistic, it's also much more tedious (as you'll see on the sped up clock in the video). This is the big waterfall the train passes under, clocking just over an hour to shape/form/melt. 

It was well worth the time though! The usual followed, with enviro-tex lite resin pools.

Finally, here it is all put together.

And the waterfall tutorial itself:

One thing to note is the special clip at the very end of the video, with the POV of the Mark Twain. This was something that was just a simple idea that grew into this crazy composite project. For some time I had been thinking about doing a POV from the Disneyland Railroad passing by the Living Desert, shooting the background from a miniature foreground. Since that won't be for awhile, I decided to try it out on the Rivers of America. Since my skills in computer modeling and rendering have greatly improved over time, I thought I'd give it a shot on this, well, shot. I decided to model the foreground in Maya rather than do it physically, since I can control the lighting, movement, and angle much more precisely. 

When I shot the background plate, basically my DSLR on a PVC pipe as a steady rest, I matched the movement and tried to mimic the (unintended) camera shake as close as I could in the Maya model camera. Then it was a matter of modeling the Mark Twain railing and columns. 

 

When everything looked right in test frames, the whole foreground was rendered and composited over the background (hence the blue screen above). 

The result was a very successful and fun shot to work on! After doing this, the original Railroad POV mentioned above will be done like this when I get around to it. 

Now that the waterfalls are finished, so is the lighting package for Cascade Peak!