pokemon 3D

	So what am I doing here? A little bit of background on me to explain. I've got a BS in mech. engineering and work at an engineering consulting firm for pipeline facilities, but mostly do CAD design and drafting. The more I've done design, the more I've been leaning towards sticking towards that side instead of more engineering focused work. So if that's the route I want to take, I want to learn to use some more software because I don't really get the opportunity to learn brand new things all that often at work. I could take some classes on it or do tutorials or something similar, but I figured I'd rather just jump in and try to do something and find out what all I don't know how to do. So thinking of something I could try and do, this crazy idea popped in my head that could combine a lot of things:

	I'm attempting to make a full size, 3D dimensional, fully proportional, and elevationally consistent model of Kanto from Pokemon Red and Blue (technically Fire Red/Leaf Green, I'll explain). This means the entire map interconnected, including the areas in the game with blank spaces (such as east of Viridian, north of Celadon etc). That space will probably just filler forest or something, but it will all connect. Having a pre-existing environment with many different elements, yet relatively simple in individual pieces for the most part, makes it a lofty project yet something I think is achievable. Plus I think a lot of people would like to see it (if by miracle I finish it).

	There's two big distinctions that make this different from just extruding the buildings and stuff on the overworld. I'm going to try to make it as close to game dimensions as possible, but I will need to adjust some areas. By "fully proportional" I mean with the actual dimensions of the inside of buildings being equal to the outer borders of the buildings as well. Take a look at this picture for comparison (and this applies to basically all buildings):
	The inside is much bigger than the outside. There does appear as if the game meant for this to be scaled a little bit, even if your character takes up the same amount of space in both, so I'm going to make some assumptions. Every outside tile is going to be a 3ftx3ft square, and every inside tile is going to be 2ftx2ft square. Even with this scaling I'll have to expand basically all of the towns in order to make some of the buildings fit.
	Also for the buildings mostly, this is why I'm going to use Fire Red instead of normal Red for the basis. I initially wanted to use Red for the main dimensions and just use Fire Red to take some details from, but as you can see from the above picture the dimensions aren't equal between the two even for insignificant buildings so it's going to be a lot easier to just keep it consistent. I'm not doing the Sevii Islands or any of the Fire Red exclusive content, but will be using it for my reference.

	The other big distinction is I want to make the world "elevationally consistent". You know those ledges you have to hop down all over the place? You have to have an actual vertical drop off in that spot of some sort, right? So it would make sense that the entire Kanto map is sloped from north to south because almost every ledge in the game drops you downward. I'll be making a 3 dimensional surface that covers all of the elevation drops from all of these ledges, as well as some other areas that seem to require it such as the mountains or Cycling Road.
	Where this is going to be tricky is getting areas to line up when I connect some that circle around, since obviously the game wasn't designed with this in mind. So I'll have to make some adjustments when the time comes to connect it, but I think that's part of what will make this such an interesting challenge. Another thing with lining things up that will be difficult as areas such as Mt. Moon, Victory Road, etc., I'm sure the floors and ladders don't perfectly line up either. For this scenario they're going to have to, so I may need to make adjustments there as well.

	This is going to be a very long project that I'm just going to mess with in my spare time, couple hours here and there, not necessarily working on it every day. Going hard on this kind of thing is how I tend to lose interest in two weeks. It's going to be extended by the fact that pretty much all of the software I'm using is new to me. I'll be using (all Autodesk software since that's what I work with) Revit for the buildings (never used before this), AutoCAD Civil 3D for the surfaces and areas (only used for reference, never drew in it), Navisworks to create the full put-together navigable model (used some, but not really to create) and maybe Inventor for specific detailing if I feel like getting fancy (never used).
	There's a few areas I think are going to be very difficult when I get to them. The SS Anne is the number one challenge I can foresee, since I'll actually have to model the boat. I've seen pictures of a cruise ship in Revit, so it is doable, just going to be rough and time consuming. Seafoam Islands will be another hard area, as there are multiple underground floors with underground waterfalls... I still don't even know how I'm going to show water but I'll figure it out. Silph Co. being 11 stories will also be interesting.
	I don't know what level of detail I'm going to get into either, for starters I just want to get the basic geometry of the map first. I messed with some details in Ash's house just to try out Revit but I just want to get the shape and surfaces first. I have a lot of ideas for detailing, from putting all the sign text visible by sight to putting people in to represent the trainers with attributes to where if you hover over them you can see their text and team. I also want all the items on the ground to be visible, for now just as Pokeballs like in the game but possibly as the actual items at some point. There's some random details that are Pokemon specific and not just furniture that would be very hard at my artistic level to create (AKA the Rhydon statues in gyms, Mewtwo statues in Cinnabar Mansion, the fossils in the Museum), and if I got that far might enlist some help. But that's way far down the line.

	Streaming this might be fun, am going to see. I've been pretty disconnected since AGDQ17, and completely disconnected after MT10. I didn't just suddenly hate everyone, just wanted to do different things, get my priorities straight and spent less time on the internet, and really haven't been video game interested at all lately. If I/you enjoy it (and it turns out not to blow up my computer, CAD is resource intensive), expect to see this every once in a while (maybe once or twice a week).