8.20.09 Update

Not too much going on in the Virtual Fenway front right now. I got married last Sunday, and leave for my honeymoon tomorrow for a week. Once I return updates will be far less sporadic than they've been lately.

No renders at the moment, but a status update since the last post:

• Portals cut into seating bowl
• Walkway entryway built for portals
• Grandstand and Loge seating sections allocated
• Roof truss instance built
• Roof structure built and placed
• Roof truss allocated for RF corner down to Canvas Alley

The next step is finishing off the roof truss all the way around, then building the press box structure on the roof behind the plate. Then, it's building and allocating the ~30,000 seats.

As always, if you have unique or high-res pictures of Classic Fenway, let me know or post in the comments. Especially any photos of the below-deck concourses or portal entrances.

Sports Temples of Boston

I got an e-mail with awfully good news today: Boston Public Library's outstanding Sports Temples of Boston has returned. Featuring hundreds of rare photos of every major (and minor) Boston sports venue, its absence for redesign over the previous months was quite sad. Glad to have it back.

http://www.bpl.org/online/sportstemples/

Just finished pulling all of the files for the Fenway project off of the website, with a ton of little details of classic Fenway.

Quick Update: Monster Ads / seating chart

1934:


1936:


Not a tremendous difference between the two, just the addition of the 23' net and metal screen over the Monster. And an important back end change was completed last night, with the grandstand seating sections allocated, and grandstand portals cut.

Fenway grass through the years

Checking out some photos last night, it's easy to see how dramatically the infield has changed at Fenway over its 99 years. Since I'm currently working on the 1934-1939 version (of which pictures are quite rare, at least until Sports Temples of Boston is relaunched), that's been my focus. Luckily, Baseball Fever's Ballparks, Stadiums & Green Diamonds forum has some photos from exactly this era (thank you, Mario Mendoza...HOF Lock and others):




We're quite lucky to have this photo, showing not only the beautifully weird dip in dirt infield, but also the soon-to-be-filled RF bullpen area.



From a similar time span, the CF/RF area with an extremely small warning track, compared to the ~20' current track. Also notice how, outside of the monster which was often painted for the different ads, the walls look completely beaten up.

From earlier on, pre-renovation:


No warning track, beaten up infield, Duffy's Cliff in LF supporting the wall, and less of a dip in the 2b/CF dirt than a wave pattern.

I'll need to scale back the warning track a bit and add boxes directly behind the plate, but the working model of the grass:

Two updates for (this part) of today. Bleachers are essentially complete, with the 1930s-era bleacher benches installed. The top rendering does not include the bleacher posts since that dramatically increases rendering time, but they are extent. Also the field is textured and placed, accurate to the mid-30s. The bottom is an updated plan view showing the updates.

08.07.09 Progress

A panoramic shot showing some of the latest updates:

• punched the portal holes in the bleachers
• added bleacher stairs/walls/railings
• finished basic walls around the interior
• created the 1934 field
• added dugout walls
• closed all seams between elements in the seating bowl (which took longer than you'd think)
• And most importantly, wiped my laptop clean and installed XP 32 bit, saying goodbye to Vista forever.

Any of the renders I post in the construction state are pulled directly Vectorworks with rough texturing and lighting. Once the model is ready to be skinned, it will be worked into a final state in 3d Studio Max, where Mental Ray will provide a much better result.

A couple quick images

The site is still being worked on, so I have an unrelated park render at the bottom as a placeholder until Fenway comes into being a little better virtually.

Here is the current progress taken directly from Vectorworks of Fenway Park, 1934. There are a few clear notable changes from current-day Fenway, namely in the left and right field corners. Before the 1940 renovation that added the Williamsburg section of bullpens in front of the RF bleachers, bullpens were on the field tucked against the foul line. In 1940 the left field area was filled in partially, though the 1934-era wall remained. In the mid-60s, the wall was removed for better access to the seating section, creating the look we know today.

In right field Osborne had a harder task: fitting in additional seats in an oddly-shaped corner. They ended up adding a set unit of 5 or so rows onto the front of the existing bowl, then adding individual rows on a case by case basis to make it fit with the 23' bullpen addition.

Here is a quick rendering directly from Vectorworks with rough skinning of the Green Monster without ads, before the installation of the screen in 1936. This version does not include the 1930s-era ads on the monster.



And finally, the monster's general state from the 40s through the sixties, and the current rough state of the park. The monster is missing ads for the 1940s version, and the light standards for post-1946.

Introducing the project

Welcome to virtualfenwaypark.com, where I hope to provide frequent updates on my attempt to create comprehensive, historically accurate computer model of Fenway Park. For the past several months I have been amassing information on the past and present of the park, including a trip to view original construction blueprints from the 1920s-1960s.

Photos of blueprints and Fenway Park proper are posted, and frequently updated, at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/seanpholland

Technical Info:

Programs:
Nemetschek Vectorworks
Autodesk 3d Studio Max
Adobe Photoshop

Computers:
desktop-
Intel i7 920 2.66 ghz Nehalem quad-core processor
Windows XP x86 & Windows 7 RC x64 dual boot
ATI Radeon HD 4850 1 GB video card
3 GB DDR3 RAM

laptop-
Dell Inspiron 6400 dual core 2.4 ghz
Windows XP x86
ATI Radeon x1400
2 GB DDR2 RAM