Games Reconstruction of buildings in Munich at 1900

Hi everybody,

I'd like to share my current project with you.
I'm working on a reconstruction of buildings in Munich at 1900.
As some of you might now, Munich was hit very hard in WWII and most of the old buildings of the city are gone. Furthermore Munich after WWII decided to be "very modern" and removed a lot of the old buildings which survived the war, to replace them with "better looking ones".

The project is not a game but exists as a web site: (Sorry for the misleading prefix - there was no "Architectural Visualization" prefix…)

http://www.Muenchen1900.de (German site - sorry - but the screen shots are in english… ;-) )

In the next couple of weeks I will prepare a standalone version where people can walk around.

At the moment only two buildings exist - the old Central Station and the old Telegraph Station just to the opposite of the Station.​

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For the moment I will only post one screen shot here (the old Central Station) because there are a couple of them at the site.



If anyone is interested, I could also upload some more screen shots here.

Since this is a one man project, most of the buildings are pretty simple. My primary goal is to get the station forecourt complete (around 10 Buildings). I will take care of details later on.

I'll appreciate any feedback! Especially any help making the screen shots look more realistic would be helpful.

Oh, one last question: I think I remember that a couple of years ago there was a job market here. I would need a couple of meshes (cars of 1900, people etc.) and would like to have them made by somebody…

Best regards and thanks in advance,

Günther

 

The last two days I was playing around with light and shadow. Well, with different times of day actually.
The following are 8 different pictures, from 2 perspectives and at 4 different times of day: sun rise, before noon, afternoon and sun set.

Since I'm looking for a new pic for the front page, I'd like to know which one you like best:

#1:



#2:



#3:



#4:



#5:



#6:



#7:



#8:



Best regards and thanks in advance!

G.

 

Today I finished a tram stop:



And this is a scene with the old Telegraph Station. The tram is still wrong - I have to "refactor" it (and paint it blue/white):



G.

 

After quite a while I uploaded a new version to my web site with a couple of new buildings: www.Muenchen1900.de
There is also an interactive version available - just click "Downloads" in the left panel.

URGENT: I would need a couple of characters that are dressed like 1900, does anyone know where I could get such characters? Ideally with animations…

Here are a couple of screenshots from the current version:

 

Wow! This is a really great project! What software are you using for modeling?

 

Hi OwlHowell,

just Unity with ProBuilder, ArchiMatix and a couple of scripts that I've written to make my life easier. ;-)

Thanks for your post!

 

I just downloaded & tested your project and found it a great project, very nice looking architecture reproductions! It's very interesting for me to see such reproductions of past places to get an impression how the past looked liked (I work also in a simulation based on a past time, but in my case I focus mostly on naval architecture instead of buildings)
Next time I go to München I have to make a comparison (living in Nürnberg). I've walked so many times out of that train station and I could not tell for sure what buildings are still there without reading your introduction (I could only tell for sure those green cars in front of the station are not there anymore … now mostly blue buses )
Sometimes I think also about making some similar small reconstructions of Nürnberg (also quite hit on the war) but I'm too busy with my current project.

What do you base mostly your reproductions on? Architectural drawings or pictures of that time? Or in the best case the building itself if it still exists? Researching the information for such reproductions is in my opinion a fascinating part of such a project.

Would be interesting to see any updates if you keep working on this.

Viele Grüße!

 

Cool project. Now I want a character artist to collaborate with you and fill the streets with people in authentic dress of the day.

 

Hi Aidedecamp,

sorry for the delay and thanks for your reply!

Here in Munich we have the "Stadtarchiv" which has thousands of photos from around 1850 on. For the central station alone I have about 200 photos from 1850 to 1920 (for some the exact date is unknown). But the funny thing is, that even when you have 200 photos of something, you can be sure that a couple of areas of the building aren't present on any photo... ;-)

Yes, it's a nice job to figure out how a building exactly looked like, but it is actually very time consuming. Quite often you find details of buildings on photos that actually have nothing to with the building. For the telegraph station for example I had no close ups, so I could not see how the "relief" of the walls of the building was. Quite a while later I found a photo that showed the building next to the telegraph station, but in the background one could see very detailed how the walls looked like. ;-)
It's almost like a puzzle.

The central station has been completely destroyed during WWII. Funny, but from the 6 buildings that are directly at the place before the station, four still exist. But they have been so simplified in the last 50 years, that you wouldn't know. Today they look like all the other buildings. (That's one problem here in Munich: from 1950 on they wanted to be "modern"...)

At the moment I am in a project in Switzerland so I won't be doing much. It will have to wait till spring I believe.

Sorry, I've totally overseen that!? You have a cool project! And very nice looking ships!
You probably don't need buildings from around 1900, right?... ;-)

Hi BigTimeMaster!

Thanks to you too!
Yes, I'm searching for human models for ages now. There are millions of models out there but until today I didn't find any dressed like around 1900. And I posted on every forum I could find but to no avail. I even posted here 1 or 2 years ago but I also got no response.
They would really boost the scene!

So if anybody reads this, and knows where I can find models dressed like 1900, please let me know!
And just to make sure: I'm willing to pay for it.

Best regards to both of you!