Hi all!

Next to my Paradise Pier inspired park I also have started a fun side project. This one will be more of a 1 on 1 recreation then my Paradise Pier build. Just like with Paradise Pier 2.0 redo I also followed the transformation of the old postcard entrance and Sunshine Plaza into Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure back in 2012. I really adore the clean Art Deco and warm inviting Mission Revival architecture they've chosen for this area. We don't have many pieces yet in the game that fit those themes but the Sorcery and Small Town themes do come close with some pieces.

~Laying the groundwork~

When I do recreations I like to start with a map or blueprints of the thing I'm working on. I trace them in Illustrator and add or remove details I want to recreate. Having a base map will in Illustrator also helps me when I add another layer with a grid that is perfectly scaled 1m by 1m. I can then build this grid in the game and use it as a base for where everything needs to go. Next to this map I also search for as many concept art, blueprints, models and elevation studies that I can find of the project for references.

This image has been the base for the map I've made. Fun thing about this map is that you can see the old Sunshine Plaza and postcard entrance in the red lines and the 'new' Buena Vista Street in the black lines.

When I've traced, cleaned up and added what I wanted you get this map. The benefit of working in Illustrator is working in vectors. This means I can zoom in very far without lines getting blurry.

Then the grid is added. I try to line this one out with the longest straight lines in the original plans to make building on the grid in game as easy as possible.

Using blueprints and pictures of elevation studies I also managed to stick together the facades. I can use the map and grid for scale so it all works together.

~2D to 3D~

The next steps is building the grid in game and lining everything out. The flat top down map en flat elevation studies for the facades will be added together to create the 3D space in the game :D

This was the state of the park after the first few building sessions. I focused on the little plaza at the entrance and the east side of the street.

In the next few session I added the west side of the facades. This was the 'easy' part of the build. Next I had to fight the pathing system to get the Carthay Circle roundabout and curved roads leading to it. The grid is sunken below for the pictures but I still used it to measure out the distances. I also had to do some Tagi3d magic (shout out to his video on circular paths) to make clean circles that didn't deform when adding more path textures.

I didn't do my calculations right the first time and had to move the entire roundabout to the west halfway trough the build. I'm so happy the paths in PC2 function like scenery and you can just select it all and move it to the correct position!! (also very grateful I was working aligned to the world grid the whole time)

Next came the fountain At first I made the basic shape and foundation and after that (and loaaaads of marble pieces because we don't have ceramic tiles yet in the game) I could go on to detailing and finishing up the fountain area. I added the copper top on the fountain, more fencing around the planter and the ornamental accents around the fountain that hide speakers. I also finally got my hands on a clean picture of the elevation studies for the Carthay Circle Theater itself so I build the outlines for that one too!

And that brings us to today and the current state of the build! I really like how the little fountain area turned out. I've never been to DCA myself but walking around the fountain in game gives me the feeling I'm really there.

And with that I've finished the first little piece of the park. Hope you all enjoy and see you next time on Buena Vista Street!

~Dexter~

As someone who has been to this park more times than I care to admit, I'll be watching this project carefully to make sure you get everything right. 😉

I was there when this park first opened, and although I did like it, there were certainly some areas that needed a LOT of improvement. The entrance area was definitely one of them. Buena Vista Street was such a wonderful refurb, and gave this park the entrance it deserved. Now I'm just waiting for them to demolish the Hollywood Backlot area and build whatever it is they are going to build there.

The fountain looks beautiful. And it's so nice to see the red trolly back in action. Hopefully we'll see its return, as the reason for its removal was pretty dumb and I think Disney, in all their wisdom, can figure out a way to bring it back.

Edited July 10Jul 10 by shyguy

I love it! This is making me excited for future plans for my first visit to Disneyland.

8 hours ago, shyguy said:

As someone who has been to this park more times than I care to admit, I'll be watching this project carefully to make sure you get everything right. 😉

I was there when this park first opened, and although I did like it, there were certainly some areas that needed a LOT of improvement. The entrance area was definitely one of them. Buena Vista Street was such a wonderful refurb, and gave this park the entrance it deserved. Now I'm just waiting for them to demolish the Hollywood Backlot area and build whatever it is they are going to build there.

The fountain looks beautiful. And it's so nice to see the red trolly back in action. Hopefully we'll see its return, as the reason for its removal was pretty dumb and I think Disney, in all their wisdom, can figure out a way to bring it back.

Haha thanks! I'll consult you if I get stuck in some place then :P I was kinda surprised at how few pictures or building plans I could find of the final Carthay Circle Theater building. I do remember the concept for the restaurant being a later addition and I can see in the concept art and model that the theater show for the building stayed around quite some time during the development phase. I guess that explains the lack of details on it.

I appreciate the hard work that went into the tile mural and the colorfulness of the old entrance but I agree that it did not work as an entrance land for the park. I've accepted we never got, or are going to get, a Hollywoodland 3.0. I'm very curios to see how the Avatar stuff is going to fit and if it all will be contained into the old backlot area or if it will spill over into the Hollywood Boulevard part of the park. We also ready lost the cool thematic and timeline stretch from Buena Vistastreet into Hollywoodland and ending at Tower of Terror and I'd hate to lose the the boulevard too.

YES! like I mentioned above the trolley linked multiple parts of the park so nicely together. The loss of kinetic energy is also really sad for the park. I think having a trolley barn fit in in the area where they currently have the outdoor queue for the Hyperion and retrofit that queue together with a Hyperion refresh would work. Tower isn't part of Hollywood anymore so the barn could be a thematic opportunity to cap of the land and transition into the tower and campus area.

4 hours ago, Cody said:

I love it! This is making me excited for future plans for my first visit to Disneyland.

Thanks for the kind comment! I'm jealous of those plans :P

Hi all!

Past few days I've really been in a creative flow so I finish quite a big chunk which I want to show today! Last post I mentioned miscalculating the position of the roundabout and moving it. Silly me forgot the entire Carthay Circle Theater block so I moved that too this time around and you can see right away when you walk around the fountain that the view of the theater is better now. In this post I create the planters and green spaces between the street, roundabout, shops and Hollywood boulevard. I also addend and placed most of the trees in the correct spots and added the lampposts and poles for the trolley wires.

~Carthay Circle Sessions~

Moving the Theater also made this view down Buena Vista Street make more sense so I'm happy I caught that mistake!

~Digging up dirt~

I filled in the whole area with paths and measured the borders for the green spaces with the purple sticks. Then I stamped out the circle in the center and freeform stamped out the other parts as you can see in the pictures below. It is a trick to switch between merged and non merged stamps to create al the shape you can delete later.

Overview after stamping out the green spaces.

~Going Green~

Bring in the plants!

Mickey and Walt....?

The shortcut path between the shop facades and Hollywood Boulevard

View from Buena Vista Street

View from the Hollywood Boulevard/Carthay Circle Theater towards the shopping facades.

View from The Carthay Circle looking back at the shops on Buena Vista Street.

Seating in the middle of the green spaces.

Looking at the green spaces from the center of the roundabout.

Overview of the finished space. I'm happy with how lush and green it all turned out.

That's all for today, hope you all enjoy and see you next time on Buena Vista Street!

~Dexter~

Edited July 12Jul 12 by Dxtrrr
Added the last overview pictures

It's coming together nicely!

Always interesting to see how players layout the areas to get them right. You use the sticks(?) vertically stuck into the ground to line everything up and I use the kerb pieces laying horizontally.

Looking good so far.

I love Buena Vista Street, it is an area I think Disney made a great choice in adding this area to Disney's California Adventure. I love the details so far and I am excited to see the finished product!

Thank you for spelling out exactly how much research, thought, and plain old hard work you have put into this recreation. It's very impressive.

Looking forward to updates!

Edited July 12Jul 12 by citytrader

3 hours ago, Fox said:

It's coming together nicely!

Thank for the comment! I have a lot of fun building this one and seeing the progress :D

1 hour ago, shyguy said:

Always interesting to see how players layout the areas to get them right. You use the sticks(?) vertically stuck into the ground to line everything up and I use the kerb pieces laying horizontally.

Looking good so far.

Thanks! In planet zoo I used the null barriers to draw everything out but we don't have them in PC2. I needed a very thin piece and create a connect the dots situation for the path system. The sticks are thin support beams. I noticed that the paths tend to shift higher in elevation when using the drawing tool for path and creating nodes on the underlying grid. The sticks are connected to the grid but allow me to push the grid underground and prevent the drawn path lines from rising in elevation. (I'm having a hard time explaining this in English so I hope you understand what I'm saying) Don't you run into similar problems when using horizontal kerb pieces? Or are you only using them for building and not for paths?

50 minutes ago, Cody said:

I love Buena Vista Street, it is an area I think Disney made a great choice in adding this area to Disney's California Adventure. I love the details so far and I am excited to see the finished product!

Thanks for the comment, I'm excited and scared to start on the facades so I think I'll do most of the outdoor stuff first! I agree, it is such an upgrade from what came before. I remember some people being unsure when it got announced and calling it unoriginal or a copy of the Hollywood Studios entrance and Mainstreet. I don't hear people talk about all that anymore now.

28 minutes ago, citytrader said:

Thank you for spelling out exactly how much research, thought, and plain old hard work you have put into this recreation. It's very impressive.

Looking forward to updates!

Thanks for the kind comment! I'm used to only sharing finished stuff so it's a new thing for me to show my behind the scenes working methods. Part of the joy of building like this is the whole research and collecting data part. I get excited when I find the right blueprints or when it finally clicks in my brain how a building fits together in a 3D space based on 2D drawings. Glad to hear people enjoy seeing that too!

2 hours ago, Dxtrrr said:

The sticks are connected to the grid but allow me to push the grid underground and prevent the drawn path lines from rising in elevation. (I'm having a hard time explaining this in English so I hope you understand what I'm saying) Don't you run into similar problems when using horizontal kerb pieces?

Yes, I have had that happen occasionally, but don't use that method too often for creating paths. I mostly use the kerbs to line up buildings, objects, and for measurement.

Hi all!

I'm really enjoying this project and have been cleaning up some edges and working on the to-do-list for the street furniture and other street elements like the tree guards. I've closed the roundabout area with the missing piece that is connected to the Grizzly River Run & plaza in front of Clarabelle's added the brick path for the trolleys, added overhead wires for the trolleys and started on plaza area just beyond the turnstiles. Let's have a look :D

~Closing the Carthay Circle~

The plaza in front of Clarabelle's Hand Scooped Ice Cream (white block) sidewalk for Fiddler, Fifer & Practical Café (tan building on the left) was added. The pathing system is working with me so far so I'm happy how it is all turning out.

The missing piece of roundabout on top was added. It still need the little guest services building with the waiting time board and map. The building also houses the pumping system for the fountain I believe.

I'm not really sure how I'm going to handle the Grizzly River Run of it all. I do plan to add more elevation change in this part but I don't plan on recreating the whole ride for this park.

This is the Carthay Circle roundabout before I started on the wires and bricks for the trolley. The little blank white space on the right top is for the little guest relations building/pump house. The little white blank space on the bottom is for the Willie's Churros card

~Working the overhead wires and bricks~

I redid the paths first to include the bricks. I used those as a guide line for the new trolley tracks because I think it would be very hard to do the tracks first and then try to make the path fit around it. Then I used the purple sticks to line out the center of the tracks and with that the position of the overhead wires. I worked my way from Hollywood Boulevard all the way to the entrance of the park.

\It went way easier and faster that I anticipated and makes such a cool difference in how it all looks!

Bring in the Trolley!

I really like how the tracks, bricks and wires flow and bend around the park, they give cool visual lines to follow.

~Prepping the entrance plaza~

I added in the little plaza between the trolley stop, Lockers (white building on top), Elysian Arcade entrance (tan tall one the left of the lockers), Restrooms (big orange building on the right) and Mortimer Market (tan corner building in the left). I also extended outwards to the Esplanade to make room for the turnstiles building. For gameplay purposes I'll extend the trolley tracks to run backstage. It's impossible to make a station at the tram stop position because of the elevation difference and size.

And with that we get to the current overview of the park. I did try to down down the brightness of the sidewalks but I fear I still need to town it down more.

~Work within the walls~

I started to layout the interiors for the street. I'm lucky someone has uploaded blueprints that include a rough layout of all the interiors including the backstage rooms (shout out to Ed and his Disney Blueprints on Flickr link). I find it a cool learning experience to see how all these things are connected on the inside and how real theme parks operate. Like how the guest services building inside the park are connected to the guest relations.

Hope you all enjoy and see you next time on Buena Vista Street!

~Dexter~

Edited July 23Jul 23 by Dxtrrr
Spelling mistake

Beautiful. In less than 2 weeks will be my first DL trip and I cannot wait to see the real thing.

Had a work trip pop up like the universe wanted me to go 🤣.

20 minutes ago, Cody said:

Beautiful. In less than 2 weeks will be my first DL trip and I cannot wait to see the real thing.

Had a work trip pop up like the universe wanted me to go 🤣.

Thanks! So jealous and excited for you!! Hope yoy have a great trip 😁 Haha it's destiny!

Really beautiful job you've done! The catenary is suburb, very realistic! I think I will steal, ah, "borrow" your idea of how to lay out the wire.

For a bit of added realism, you might want to add the catenary pole to the roof of the trolley. It won't always line up correctly in game, but at least it will appear that the trolley is actually drawing power from the line.

4 hours ago, Dxtrrr said:

I'm lucky someone has uploaded blueprints that include a rough layout of all the interiors including the backstage rooms (shout out to Ed and his Disney Blueprints on Flickr link). I find it a cool learning experience to see how all these things are connected on the inside and how real theme parks operate. Like how the guest services building inside the park are connected to the guest relations.

I too am fascinated by the interior layouts of things like the first aid and guest services, as I try to build these all accurately in my parks. For instance, there a 6 restrooms located inside the first aid center. Mine only has one. Now I've got to go back and add 5 more! 🤪 You all know how much I love building restrooms (citytrader).

Everything is looking great, as usual. Looking forward to seeing you detail the buildings. Are you going to tackle the interiors? That would be a job... a painful job.

3 hours ago, citytrader said:

Really beautiful job you've done! The catenary is suburb, very realistic! I think I will steal, ah, "borrow" your idea of how to lay out the wire.

For a bit of added realism, you might want to add the catenary pole to the roof of the trolley. It won't always line up correctly in game, but at least it will appear that the trolley is actually drawing power from the line.

Thanks! Haha feel free to borrow :D
Ahhh I knew I forgot something, I did plan for the catenary pole but didn't add it yet. Thanks for the reminder, I'll get right to it!!

3 hours ago, shyguy said:

I too am fascinated by the interior layouts of things like the first aid and guest services, as I try to build these all accurately in my parks. For instance, there a 6 restrooms located inside the first aid center. Mine only has one. Now I've got to go back and add 5 more! 🤪 You all know how much I love building restrooms (citytrader).

Everything is looking great, as usual. Looking forward to seeing you detail the buildings. Are you going to tackle the interiors? That would be a job... a painful job.

Haha I did notice the abundance of restrooms in your parks! You are very good at building them though, they always look very detailed and realistic. I was surprised to not see any restrooms near the Fiddler, Fifer & Practical Café. It looks like they have a lot of seating but no public restrooms in the building.

Thanks for the comment! I do wish to also do interiors but will give priority to facades first. I also give priority to the public accessible interiors before I possibly will do backstage backstage stuff. I have pictures and videos of most of the public stuff but no more knowledge of the backstage parts other that the layout, I don't even know what a lot of backstage rooms are used for.

I'm doing some backstage areas in my Wonder World, but doubt I'll do much in my other parks. It's not much fun, adds to the massive piece counts, and I'm sure most real world parks have a lot more backstage areas than I care to include. I mostly have doors labeled "employee only" that lead nowhere. 😁

21 minutes ago, shyguy said:

I'm doing some backstage areas in my Wonder World, but doubt I'll do much in my other parks. It's not much fun, adds to the massive piece counts, and I'm sure most real world parks have a lot more backstage areas than I care to include. I mostly have doors labeled "employee only" that lead nowhere. 😁

Haha that'll work too!

@citytrader I added catenary pole! The scaling is a bit wild in game but I think it'll do the trick. If my memory serves me well then the trolleys in DCA don't actually use the wires and it's all for visual show.

Hi all, small update!

I sat down to do the little tram stop at the entrance and finished it quite quickly thanks to the viking stone wall fence piece! I debated on how to do the roof but picked the in game roof piece in the end to keep the piece count low. I stated to decorate the tram itself but have to take creative liberties because the in game model doesn't match the real cars so I can't decorate it the same way.

~All aboard!~

It's very cute, but something is off.

I don't like to criticize, but I think the station is too small. This is probably due to the trolly model being a little taller than the actual one, but the station doesn't look tall enough. And the red tiles are huge compared to real life.

I found this photo which may help, if you decide to make any changes.

Do you use the scaling mod? That may help with the roof.

I told you I was going to be critical. 😋

41 minutes ago, shyguy said:

It's very cute, but something is off.

I don't like to criticize, but I think the station is too small. This is probably due to the trolly model being a little taller than the actual one, but the station doesn't look tall enough. And the red tiles are huge compared to real life.

I found this photo which may help, if you decide to make any changes.

Do you use the scaling mod? That may help with the roof.

I told you I was going to be critical. 😋

I see what you see, I was wondering too what made it feel different! Thanks for the constructive feedback.

I did use the elevations for scale and the in game human statues fit nicely so it isn't to low, the pitch of the roof is also steeper than in real life so that adds even more height. I think the giant in game clay roof tiles gives off a more miniature feel. The roof is 4m wide and a real tile would be around 20cm I believe, that would mean you have 20 tiles for 4m. The in game piece has just 6 tiles for 4m. Even is you have bigger tiles that are around 30cm you still need at least 13 tiles instead of 6.

These are the drawings I'm working with. The grid is scaled so 1 square length = 1 m in real life. That would make the whole thing about 5m wide (2m between the pillars) and 2.75m ish tall. The one I've done in game is 5m wide and 2m between the pillars. The height in game is 3,25 when I just measured and that is probably because of the steeper roof angle.

If you take these numbers and translate them for the trolley height you see that the height is a bit taller that the width of the trolley. If we say 9 feet then that would be around 2.7m. The in game trolley is around 3,25m (around 10'-6"?) so like you said it is taller then the real one. It's also a bit longer in game too! That is also why my wires are closer to the trolley roof then they are supposed to be and why the catenary pole is shorter.

I think the bigger trolley and giant tiles trough of the feel for the right scaling in the end. The higher pitched roof also isn't helping making the building not wide enough. I think I'll try to go for a custom roof with smaller tiles, lower pitch and a bit smaller overhang too, I noticed when looking trough the pictures for this post the overhang is quite a bit smaller in real life too! Thanks again for the tips and I'll get back to work 😋 I currently don't have the scaling mod installed but that is mostly to prevent myself from going insane with small details, I kinda like the challenge of working within the limits of the game but the grid pieces not being having a scaling option is a hard one.

59 minutes ago, Dxtrrr said:

I currently don't have the scaling mod installed but that is mostly to prevent myself from going insane with small details

I avoided installing the scaling mod for this very same reason. But I finally did, and now can't go back. And it's opened up so many things I can now do that I wanted to do before, but couldn't. Little things that I felt were "off" have now been adjusted and I'm so much happier with many little details that initially bothered me. And I don't feel it's caused me to get overwhelmed with details. I find it's mostly helped a lot with the interiors more than anything else. And since I'm very big on interiors, it's become a must have. If interiors aren't a big deal to you, you will probably be fine without it. And if you upload lots of stuff to the workshop, that's another reason to avoid using it.

Edited July 18Jul 18 by shyguy

13 minutes ago, shyguy said:

I avoided installing the scaling mod for this very same reason. But I finally did, and now can't go back. And it's opened up so many things I can now do that I wanted to do before, but couldn't. Little things that I felt were "off" have now been adjusted and I'm so much happier with many little details that initially bothered me. And I don't feel it's caused me to get overwhelmed with details. I find it's mostly helped a lot with the interiors more than anything else. And since I'm very big on interiors, it's become a must have. If interiors aren't a big deal to you, you will probably be fine without it. And if you upload lots of stuff to the workshop, that's another reason to avoid using it.

Ah, good to hear it hasn't thrown you down a rabbit hole! I haven't started on recreating interiors for a recreation like this yet so I have always been able build around the limitations. I might give it a try when I get there for this park.

I did manage to redo the roof for the tram stop! It looks better I think but still feels a bit low. The good thing about this rebuild is that it is fully scalable without the grid piece so I can scale it up if I still want to make it bigger.

What do you think? I think I need to scale the whole thing up just a bit.