Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Batbomb]

This beginns to look bloody awesome. Maybe you should overlook the... (how should I call it) um... Underwater Hights... you know that you can alter them in map.c... they look so quadratic right now. Only a thought.

[Jonzynator]

Looks good man, Ill have the golden gate bridge out to you in about a week or two, But i had another question to ask you, Would you like the Bay bridge as well?

[cogito]

Batbomb, thanks for pointing that out, I will correct and blend the edges, this map is nowhere near done. Thanks for the positive input.

Jonesinator, thanks I still have a lot of work to do, I am nowhere near satisfied with the texture work. Yes, if you could make the bay bridge also that would be awesome. I'll post pics of the two bridge locations to give an idea on scale. Also there is another long bridge in the south part of the bay,not sure of the name I'll show location for that also. Thanks

[Jonzynator]

I know of the Richmond bay bridge, Oakland bridge, Hayward bridge.. But those are the other bridges that i know of.

[cogito]

Its the San Mateo Toll bridge across the south end of the bay, so in all I we need the golden gate, the bay bridge and san mateo. I can use regular object bridges for all other bridges on the map.  thanks again for the help, you are awesome.

[Pursuivant]

You're very brave to tackle this project. To do it right you'll need to create a lot of custom objects to simulate 1940s era U.S. buildings.

Also, the area has seen massive development over the last 70 years. To depict 1940s SF properly, you'll need to ignore modern STRM data and satellite images and work from old maps. The good news is that a whole lot of the Bay Are which is now suburbs, strip malls and generic office parks was fruit orchards, woods and fields before the post-war mass migrations to the U.S. West coast. That means a heck of a lot less populating to do and a much more frame-rate friendly map.

Fortunately, the USGS has all sorts of historical maps to help you out:

http://bard.wr.usgs.gov/histMapIndex15.html

City

No skyscrapers in the 1940s! SF got hammered by the 1906 earthquake and fire and didn't really recover until the 1920s. Most buildings from the period are red brick or beige stucco flat-topped 2-4 story buildings, with some 6-7 story buildings in the central business district. In older areas not destroyed in 1906, there were narrow 1890s style Victorian houses.

The big landmarks in SF during the 40s would be Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill (also a landmark), the Embarcadero ferry terminal at the base of the Oakland Bay Bridge, the Presidio Army Base, Treasure Island Navy Base, Yerba Buena Island, the docks along what is now called Fisherman's Wharf (then a working port rather than a tourist attraction), Alcatraz Island/Alcatraz Federal Prison in the middle of SF Bay and, of course, the bridges. Lesser landmarks would be the parks, museums, the SF Zoo, U.S. Mint, City Hall, and the old U.S. Post Office which have remained basically unchanged since they were created.

In Oakland and Berkeley, developers built lots of "little houses made of ticky tacky" during the 1920s and 30s. These represent yet another sort of house you'd need to model. There was development far up into the Berkeley and Oakland hills, but this sprawl didn't really spill over into the inland valleys until after World War 2.

The Berkeley skyline would be dominated by the University of California - Berkeley campus, although it wasn't as big as it is today. There was also a small army base - Camp Ashby -  down by the waterfront.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,_California
http://wikimapia.org/5033334/Camp-Ashby-site

Oakland would be dominated by Jack London Square, the Ferry Terminal, the Tribune Tower, City Hall and Lake Merritt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_California

Richmond was a major shipbuilding center during World War II

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_California

Palo Alto - mostly rural and light residential, except for the Stanford University campus and a major railroad yard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_alto

Lots of good info and pictures here:

http://www.sfmuseum.org/

Bridges

Oakland Bay Bridge - Opened in 1936, massively redesigned and rebuilt in the 1990s following the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

http://baybridgeinfo.org/history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_%E2%80%93_Oakland_Bay_Bridge

Hayward-San Mateo Bridge AKA San Francisco Bay Toll-Bridge - The original span was built in 1929 and not replaced until 1967. You could probably get away with using standard IL2 bridge objects to simulate this one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Mateo_%E2%80%93_Hayward_Bridge

Dumbarton Bridge - Built in 1927 as a drawbridge, later replaced by the modern bridge. Possibly another bridge which could be created using stock IL2 objects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbarton_Bridge_%28California%29

Richmond-San Rafael Bridge - Didn't exist until the 1960s. Before then there was a ferry service.

Military Bases - During and after WW2, San Francisco was a major military center, with three major naval bases and two big army bases. The big ones are The Presidio, Oakland Army Base, Alameda Naval Air Station, Treasure Island Navy Base and the San Francisco Naval Shipyard at Hunter's Point. A bit farther afield, there was the Mare Island Naval Repair Center along with a number of lesser facilities.

General historical info here, including some excellent maps showing the general location of all WW2-era military facilities in California:

http://www.militarymuseum.org/HistoryWWII.html

Army Bases

The Presidio - At the base of the SF side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Harbor battery fortifications dating from the middle of the 19th century. HQ for the Western Defense Command during WW2, among other things. This is still a major SF landmark although the army closed the base and sold off the land in the 1980s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_of_San_Francisco

Oakland Army Base - Major embarkation point for troops shipped overseas. Major hospital on base for wounded troops returned from overseas. Shut down in the 1990s.

http://www.militarymuseum.org/OaklandArmyBase.html

Other army facilities: Hydle, Benicia Arsenal, Staneman, Clayton, Ashby, Oakland, Freemont, Baker, Cronkhite, Barry, McDowell, Mason, Scott, Letterman, Miley, Funston.

USN Facilities

Treasure Island - Artificial island near Yerba Buena Island and the Oakland Bay Bridge. Former site of the 1940 World's Fair, taken over by the USN in 1941. Major embarkation point for seamen going overseas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island_%28California%29

Hunter's Point/San Francisco Naval Shipyard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Naval_Shipyard

Alameda Air Station - A joint army/navy base.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alameda_Naval_Air_Station
http://www.alamedanavalairmuseum.org/

Moffat Naval Air Station - In Sunnyvale. Former home to the airship USS Macon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield

Other Naval facilities: San Bruno, Oakland, Concord, Tiburon, Cotati, Port Chicago, Santa Rosa, Livermore, Shoemaker and Parks.

USAAF Airfields - There were a dozen or more airfields scattered around the Bay Area. The Airfields database web site is excellent for giving coordinates and maps for all airfields from this period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_World_War_II_Army_Airfields
http://www.airfieldsdatabase.com/WW2/WW2.htm
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/CA/Airfields_CA.htm

Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base AKA Travis AFB - in Sonoma. Started in 1942, originally a USAAF/USN facility, later turned over to the US ATC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Air_Force_Base

Hamilton AAF

http://www.militarymuseum.org/HamiltonAFB.html

Other airfields: Crissy, Hayward, San Jose, Concord

Finally, there were a number of civil airfields and seaplane bases which were taken over by the military or the ATC during WW2. A list of modern airports is here:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area

[cogito]

Pursuivant,
 Thanks for all the info, I am doing my best to make the map historically accurate, but it may not be perfect, this is a game remember. There are some houses and city buildings from various regions already created that would be suitable for this map. I am not populating this map yet though, still working on getting the textures just right. If you would like to help with custom object modeling or creating new textures, it would be great.

[Pursuivant]

Thanks for all the info, I am doing my best to make the map historically accurate, but it may not be perfect, this is a game remember. There are some houses and city buildings from various regions already created that would be suitable for this map. I am not populating this map yet though, still working on getting the textures just right. If you would like to help with custom object modeling or creating new textures, it would be great.

I realize that a perfect map is impossible, but I'd love to fly over something which reminds me of the Bay Area rather than, say, the South Pacific or the Caucasus! As you can tell, the historical Bay Area is something near to my heart. I will help as much as I can, but my 3d modeling and graphic arts skills are rudimentary.

Based on my memories of the Bay Area, it can change a LOT in appearance from summer and winter. In winter, everything is green. In summer, the grasslands are golden and everything else is greenish brown, although there are bright patches of yellow California poppies and other wildflowers. That means you might want to do both a "winter" and "summer" map for the region.

Fortunately, there are still a lot of state parks and wilderness areas in the Bay Area you can use to get textures for the wild areas. Textures of the upper hills of the Bay Area will work fine for undeveloped grasslands and woods. For the extensive fruit and almond orchards which were once in places like the Santa Clara and Sonoma valleys, you can use existing objects - but go with Mediterranean objects, like olive trees. (Not so many wine grapes in the Sonoma valley in the 1940s, still grain and whatnot).

For period airbases, the Airfields database web site is an amazing resource. It gives geographic coordinates and maps for just about every historical airbase there ever was. There huge amounts of data for this region, the trick is putting it all together in a way that looks good without requiring years of work and without reducing the game to a slideshow!

[Whiskey_Sierra_972]

Hi mate!

Is the project still active?

Hope to see some activity in the San Francisco neighborhood in a future!!!

All the best!

walter

[Jiver67]

I grew up and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1970's and 80's and still have family there to this day. It is very cool that you are doing a map of the area and what you have accomplished so far is impressive! Might I ask that you consider modeling some of the famous SF gay bars in your map? The roofs of said establishments could be marked with large red cross hairs (or perhaps phalic symbols?) to provide bombing pratice targets for enthusiastic pilots. LOL!

[duffys tavern]

Would be a wonderful map.

[Roger Smith]

I would love to barnstorm the Golden gate bridge while being chased