19th Century 3D Ballparks

[Ty Cobb]

Always nice to see a little love for Michigan. Another winner!

[zappa1]

Always nice to see a new park come to life.


I wanted to add also that I really like your camaras. Work really well.

[asrivkin]

Thanks all!

Originally Posted by zappa1

I wanted to add also that I really like your camaras. Work really well.

I'd love to take credit, but my secret is that I just copy the cameras from the default minor league park...

[dfswans]

It has been a busy spring and therefore hard for me to spend as much time on this as I had hoped, but I should be able to go on a nice run now because I've got several parks near completion.

Today I'm sharing Union Grounds in Brooklyn. If you enjoy 19th century sims, you'll get use out of this one for at least four different clubs.

New York Mutuals (NA 1871-75, NL 1876),
Brooklyn Eckfords (NA 1872),
Brooklyn Atlantics (NA 1873-75),
Brooklyn Hartfords (NL 1877)

The in-play gazebo in center field was a bit of a challenge, but I decided anything hit directly over the gazebo should be a home run. You may see something strange happen out there, but it's 401 feet from home plate so it won't come into play all that often.

Union Grounds (Brooklyn)

Also, just a note that I worked on this for several months without noticing the floating roof over the 1st base stands. As soon as I shared, I noticed and it was driving me nuts so I updated with roof supports and re-uploaded the files.

[Elysian Fields]

Originally Posted by dfswans

It has been a busy spring and therefore hard for me to spend as much time on this as I had hoped, but I should be able to go on a nice run now because I've got several parks near completion.

Today I'm sharing Union Grounds in Brooklyn. If you enjoy 19th century sims, you'll get use out of this one for at least four different clubs.

New York Mutuals (NA 1871-75, NL 1876),
Brooklyn Eckfords (NA 1872),
Brooklyn Atlantics (NA 1873-75),
Brooklyn Hartfords (NL 1877)

The in-play gazebo in center field was a bit of a challenge, but I decided anything hit directly over the gazebo should be a home run. You may see something strange happen out there, but it's 401 feet from home plate so it won't come into play all that often.

Union Grounds (Brooklyn)

Also, just a note that I worked on this for several months without noticing the floating roof over the 1st base stands. As soon as I shared, I noticed and it was driving me nuts so I updated with roof supports and re-uploaded the files.

Possibly the first real ballpark.

[asrivkin]

Thanks, dfswans! That's a great addition!

[dfswans]

Jefferson Street Grounds, home of the Philadelphia Athletics of the AA from 1883 through 1890.

This park was across the street from a large water reservoir.

Jefferson Street Grounds (1883-1890)

[zappa1]

Real nice couple of ballparks, dfswans. Thank you.

[asrivkin]

First: thanks for another great-looking park, dfswans! I'll update the list in the first post to reflect your most recent contributions.

Next, a quick update for the gang: Washington Park 1884-1889 is basically done, but is inexplicably gigantic (200+ Mb). I'm going to see if I can track down why it's so big and if it can be made smaller--the only one so far that was over 100 Mb was my Polo Grounds, which was rather fancier than what I'm doing here. Hopefully I'll get that sorted in the next few days and post it!

[Flying_Canuck]

In my experience, it's usually the texture. Check to see if the resolution of any image is too high. Shrinking those is one of the most effective way to reduce file size.

[asrivkin]

It's the .obj file that's 200+ Mb, though--that should just be a file with a pile of vertices etc. and not involve the textures, I thought?

Only one way to find out, I guess--I'll look at the .obj file with a text editor and see if there's anything obvious.

<puts on helmet>

[asrivkin]

OK, it's sorted. It was the stupid rope fence I put in the outfield when I thought I might try out a crowd of spectators standing out there. You can expect the stadium to show up within a couple of days...

[dfswans]

Interesting! I've been playing around trying to find a way to incorporate standing spectators. I had some decent attempts but nothing I thought looked good enough to use.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by dfswans

Interesting! I've been playing around trying to find a way to incorporate standing spectators. I had some decent attempts but nothing I thought looked good enough to use.

Spoiler Alert: I haven't even had what I consider a decent attempt at this point. 🙃

For what it's worth, though, I feel like someone* who's a better programmer and/or more experienced with how the animated crowd works could cobble something together that uses the existing animation and gets rid of the frames with seated poses and gets rid of the seats themselves to make a line of standing spectators that we could use in addition to the seated crowd.

Otherwise, I'm still searching for a solution to create this particular feature, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you're coming up with!



*Alas, that someone is not me

[Cod]

Originally Posted by dfswans

Today I'm sharing Union Grounds in Brooklyn.

Fun fact, the stolen base was created at Union Grounds in 1865 by Eddie Cuthbert. Great work on the model!

[asrivkin]

Today we have the first home of the Los Angeles Dodgers: Brooklyn's Washington Park. The team joined the American Association as the Atlantics in 1884, with the name change to the Bridegrooms/Grooms coming late in their tenure at this park. This was their home park when they won the AA pennant in 1889, though the park suffered a destructive fire in May of that year and was rebuilt. The rebuilt park served out the rest of that season and the next season, when the team jumped to the NL and won the pennant there as well. In 1891 the Grooms moved to Eastern Park. In 1898 the team moved back to the area, though that Washington Park was built a few blocks away.

Google Drive Link to Washington Park 1884-1889

So, a quick note about this 1889 fire. It happened on May 19th, 1889 and the newspaper accounts of the time say "The old grand stands were almost entirely consumed", but by the 30th the team was back at the grounds and hosted "nine or ten thousand people" and said the park was "as commodious as the old stand" but "not quite so handsome". That's really all I've been able to find to work from for the 1889-1890 park, other than reports that the grandstand was dismantled and rebuilt at Eastern Park. So, I'd like to claim artistic and historical license and suggest that the 1884-1889 park also be used for 1889-1890, which would complete the Dodgers franchise.

The model seems OK once I tracked down what was making its .obj file gigantic. There's some photo evidence of various parts of it and an insurance map. There are some funny assymetries, which I'm taking to be real. The field was apparently well below the street grid in Gowanus, which was raised above its original level. The stone house used for the clubhouse (and which survived the fire) is a historic house that was rebuilt near its original location and can be visited today.

Enjoy!

[Ty Cobb]

Nice!

[asrivkin]

As we barrel toward the Summer Solstice, it's time for another park! This represents the home of the Chicago White Stockings from 1878-1884, when they played at two different baseball grounds where Millennium Park is today. Those grounds went by a few different names, but we're calling them Lake Front Park for our bookkeeping purposes.

The reason I'm wording things the way I am is because this is the first (and hopefully the only) park where I've had to take significant ahistorical liberties with the park dimensions in order to make a playable field. Long story short, the site was smack in downtown Chicago, right next to a major railroad depot, and very much in demand. The land was given to the city with the proviso that it couldn't be used for commercial activity so the railroad couldn't have it, and somehow the White Stockings didn't count as commercial (at least at the start). The site was small but workable until 1883, when a fancy new grandstand etc. was built that was the one of the nicest in the league but left foul line distances well short of 200 feet and a CF distance of 300 feet. The ground rules changed to allow over-the-fence hits to be home runs rather than doubles, and various records were set. By 1885, however, the city decided this was a commercial venture after all and made the White Stockings move to the first West Side Park. I decided on a hybrid of the first and second parks, given the combination of not a lot of info or depictions of the pre-1883 version with several depictions of the 1883-1884 park but unworkable dimensions.

Google Drive Link to Lake Front Park.

Note to sharp-eyed worriers: The end date on the file is listed as 1883, but it really should be 1884.

The dimensions along the foul lines are reasonably close to the pre-1883 dimensions, but I had to significantly lengthen all the other ones. I couldn't tell from the artists' drawings whether the 1883-1884 grandstand was symmetrical around the pitcher-home plate line or not, for once I let symmetry and common sense prevail for me. As usual, I'm not completely satisfied with the background, particularly out toward Lake Michigan, but I think it'll do. The building behind home plate represents the Inter-State Exposition Building, for which I grabbed an existing building on 3D Workshop and rescaled to fit. Since this whole project is more look-and-feel than historical hyperaccuracy, I figured that was in keeping.

I'll also note that while I've imported the park into OOTP, set the grid, etc., I haven't played a game with it. I don't see why it shouldn't work, but of course please let me know of any issues!

Enjoy!

Edited 5:41 PM 17 June 2024: Previous zip file was missing the .prk file. Have now removed old link and added new one with .prk file. If you downloaded during that interim, please either redownload or PM me here if you just want the .prk file!

[zappa1]

Just saw this. Thank you. This one is gonna be great.

A heads up, though, I don't see a .prk file.

[asrivkin]

Ugh, I knew I was forgetting something.

Sorry about that, I'll get that fixed after work!