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4junk3000's avatar
4junk3000
New Spectator
3 years ago

4j3k's 3-D page!

hi all!

now that i've finally reached about 98% completion on my full town rebuild, i want to document some of my more complex designs, and share them with you! THIS page will be where i post all of my attempts at "forced 3-D perspective". Whether large or small, i think it's fun and challenging to place 2-dimensional objects in a way that tricks our eye into seeing something new which "stands up" as 3-D.

To kick off this thread, here's my largest design; a ski resort neighborhood in a 3-peak mountain range that spans from Mt. Springfield to Pickle Mountain to the Palace on top of Mt. Useful.

This ski resort area is in the center of the first range of mountains. It includes many cliffside homes along a winding road which starts at the Kat University, and goes to the top of Mt. Useful. Some fancy homes overlook the ski slopes, some newer condos look south toward downtown Springfield, some older homes and lodges are closer to the top, overlooking the lake in Cypress Creek. The ski resort area includes Krusty's lodge, which has a cable car to the peak at Mt. Useful. Meanwhile, the "secret lair" home of our local hero includes a Batman-style cave entrance through the mountains. It is hovered by its own "secret satellite". One of the features I had to include here, is the Heavenly Hills Mall in the background. This pays tribute to the episode where an "angel" was discovered, which rattled most of SF to fear the Rapture. They all climbed a cliffside overlook to see the angel was on the roof of the new mall being built in the distance.


Katmandu U and the surrounding neighborhood has been designed to emulate upper-class college communities commonly found in US Rocky and Appalachian mountain ranges. I’ve used concrete walls to create terraced parking areas and elevated properties which appear stacked higher.
Unusual, "space-age" homes on stilts, and cabin lodges are frequently built on cliffsides akin to Alpine regions. I’ve tried to make this rocky wooded area behind the radio tower appear STEEP.

Valleys with stream-side fishing cabins are also common, so i've tried to build a sunken zone beyond the ski area to reflect that.

Forced 3-D isn't easy to see when it's not your own design, especially when we cannot use shading/lighting to manipulate a sun's effect on geography. So I've created an image to help better illustrate which is the "high ground" of the mountain resort area, vs. "low ground" of Cypress Creek behind it, and the fishing valley to the right of the ski slopes. In this image, the low background has been faded about 80%. I've dyed the lake and river which feeds it BLACK so you can clearly see the mountain ridge standing in front of it. I've also dyed the roads which have an increase in grade and elevation, PINK. The winding road to the peak of Mt. Useful, the road around Burns' estate to Cypress Creek, and the "secret cave entrance" are all meant to have an increase in grade to go up through the mountains.

i hope you can see what i was trying to create here; the river comes through a valley to the right of the ski slopes. It goes behind the mountain and is lined with Japanese maples as it flows into the lake. Several cliffside structures overlook the lake, including the mansion and hunting lodge. Cypress Creek's rehab center, golf community, senior residence, dog racing facilities, and HH Mall are all on the same low-elevation plain behind the mountains. Meanwhile, the highest points of the mountain range are literally "in the clouds"! Hopefully you can see the landing where the cable car appears it will dock as it arrives at the Palace.

More to come, happy tapping!
  • Two of my forced 3-Ds are at the KL entrance and its underground parking garage. These designs are part of my attempt at duplicating Matt G’s actual drawing of KrustyLand, on display at the real theme park in Florida. (real theme park doesn’t match his drawing, unfortunately; but sure would be cool - although likely far too dangerous lol)

    (You can see a side by side comparison of my KL design with Matt’s drawing, in my KL Memorial thread, stickied at the top of this section)


  • Technically this is a forced "un-3D" as I didn’t want these sea mammals to appear stacked. I was hoping they’d appear all on the surface together, including the extra whale I added.
  • "putt-putt" mini-golf mountain was the first 3-D design I did, and one of the longest lasting sections of my town. It’s meant to resemble the tourist areas common on the US coasts.

  • I combined several mountain features into one giant mountain. This was tricky because I wanted the monorail to run behind the mountain, but that’s not actually possible. I could have broken the track to force a more realistic 3-D effect; but then obviously the monorail wouldn’t run through, so I did it like this. I wanted the monorail and simulated railroad train to run parallel to Tetanus Terminal. Best I could do #shrug

  • The salvage yard is meant to appear that the IceDude (sorry I forgot his name) has built the giant robot. The tower behind him is meant to be the scaffolding platforms used to build him. (The I&S store is meant to be part of the service station behind the salvage yard)

    I was hoping it appeared that his cone shaped nose will “dock’ with the cone-shaped tube that’s just in front of him (where the diamonds are) like that’s how it’s fed diamonds for power??
  • design is 3-D but not quite as "forced". But I am forcing it to appear as all one building. Hopefully you can see this. I’m trying to create wardrobe and makeup depts in the back of the building. I love it when the woman jumps through the window like she’s late for a hair appt lol

  • This was an attempt to force water to flow together and ‘under a bridge’

  • There’s 2 mini-3Ds here; one being the larger Dark Magic Castle I built from several castle-y items. The second being the rope bridge to the castle from the fairgrounds. The evilKnight guy watches his sacrifices across the river at the altar. I’m really happy with the ‘rocky shoreline’ here!

  • Here is a simpler 3-D attempt. I’ve placed the Skinner balloon to look like Bart n Milhouse climbed up the TV tower to tie it on at the top.
  • Here's a moderately complex 3-D design; this river flows "under" a covered bridge, down a few waterfalls behind the Buddhist Temple, then flows to a series of fishing lakes that are in a "valley" between the ski slopes, and the back of the Shinning Hotel property that is on a cliff. The hotel and grazing reindeer are meant to appear much higher than the river valley below.


    Behind Fort Springfield is a series of cabins. They are meant to appear larger in the foreground, but smaller as they go "down into the valley".