Working on the blockout process of Strumień gives me an insight into space planning and helps me better understand the different challenges of this stage of development. I aim to make the dimensions accurate and true to the real-life buildings in the town in the 1930s.
The Plan
To speed up the blockout process, I have used the Blender-OSM plugin, which imports the buildings and real-world terrain data from OpenStreetMap to Blender. Since the initial blockout is based on contemporary data, it gives me a good starting base. I will gradually replace it with the one from the 1930s. My main reference keymap is from 1931, which part is shown below.
The Comparison, Challenges and Approach
| Buildings, Height & Roof type | The height of the blocks on the OSM doesn’t reflect the one that existed in the 1931s, as storeys were added to many buildings. There is also no information regarding the type of roofing. Many have flat roofs, which was not the case in the past. The oldest and best-preserved part is centred around the market square, with the town hall from 1628 and the church from 1790. | The map only contains information about the location of the buildings. Unfortunately, it does not include the data about whether they were residential, barns, or any other type. So far, I have gathered from different sources that in 1931, there were 233 residential buildings. In 1921, there were 22 wooden ones, but in 1939, only 14 were left. Before the WWII war, over 60% of the houses were single-storey, mostly with gable-style roofing, some with mansard style. |
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There are going to be a series of challenges. One of them is that the map was hand-drawn. I have already tested the overlap of the OSM and 1931 maps, and they don't match perfectly. However, the OSM map is more reliable regarding the positioning of the buildings, so I will stick to this as a skeleton around which I will gradually add the rest. If available, I will use the technical plans for the dimensions, height, and roof shape. If not, I will explore options to align 3D data to 2D photos, such as the Perspective Plotter plugin in Blender. So far, I have gathered around 75 technical plans for the houses and outbuildings built or modified between 1910 and 1928. However, the numbers of the buildings on the old technical plans don’t correspond either with those on the map from 1931 or with the current house numbers. No street names are included, either. The numbers and street names have changed several times to complicate things further. It's quite a challenge to match the plans to the location on the map. Therefore, I have set up a Facebook fanpage: "Rekonstrukcja miasta Strumień" and a group on Facebook "Strumień z dawnych lat - ocalmy od zapomnienia!" to network with people to gather information. I got in touch with local collectors and a historian. Although a lot has been done already it is important to keep in mind that the process of research is ongoing and many informations needs to be checked in other to keep it consistent with the timeline. I will compare the ORSiP map with the marked outbuilding with the map from 1931. I plan to contact the open-air museum in nearby Pszczyna for similar historic wooden buildings. |
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Above you can compare the old with the new. Please, move the slider to see the overlap of 1931 map with the OSM blockout.
| Roads & paths | A network of roads is covered mostly tarmac, they are much wider with pavements on the sides. | Muddy, some of them cobbled. Many of them had different routes. On the map there are visible the divisions of the fields which is handy because they were frequently divided by the wired fence and trenches. |
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| Regarding roads and paths, I need to remember to compare it with Satellite View. the shapes of many streets have changed over the years. However the map from 1931 was hand-drawn so won't be too precise either. The cobbled roads were on the market square (was freshly done before 1931) and partly on the roads leading off it like on Londzina Street but only to the cross. The names of the roads changed over the years. | ||
| Terrain, land / green spaces | Mostly landscaped gardens. On the agricultural lands were built houses | Some ground became higher, like around Londzina Street, and some lower. The majority were agricultural or pastures. Gardens usually at the front of the house, orchards more at the back. |
| The elevation of the terrain obtained from the Blender-OSM plugin is not precise and will require further sculpting in UE5. | ||
| Water | The Vistula River is wide | The Vistula River was thin. Many ponds, for example a few were on the spot of the Park. Also, many streams have been dried later or are hidden in the pipes underground. |
| Regarding the Vistula River, I will use multiple maps from before 1965, as after that, the Goczałkowice Reservoir was built. Small streams have been piped or dried later so for that I can have a look at the newer maps as they will be more detailed. Also going to use it for reference writing resources. | ||
| Atmosphere of the place | Dense urban development | Apart from the centre a few streets it had more rural character than nowadays. Marked with poverty, but also new were built – semi-detached houses, water tower and a rail station. Mostly wooden fence, some wire. There were 26 street gas lanterns on 1 Maja and it's vicinity. Next to the houses there were wells, outdoor toilets, wayside shrines were also popular. As well the everyday objects around the houses which were at that time much more cluttered than nowadays as they served at the same time as the workspace which tells the story of these places. Workshops belonging to the craftsmen (sawmill, brickwork, tilery, blacksmiths). |
| I’ve already started looking for textures and more reference materials about the craftsmen workshops & assets to enrich the environment outside my hometown in places where more information can be gathered from this period of time. I'm also tempted to do some photogrammetry of the textures and smaller assets to add more of the feel. | ||
Metrics
In the GameDev, the numbers are usually rounded to take a modular approach. However, in the case of this project, I’ve decided to stick to the accurate dimensions of the buildings as they were in the real-life buildings in the town in the 1930s. I've made a few quick floor layouts according to the technical plans which I've collected and the good news was that the block’s dimensions of the OSM blockout were quite close to the original technical plans. As a result of my research, I gathered some technical plans for the buildings built in the interwar period. One of them was a house on 1 Maja Street. Luckily, this house retains its form and size as it was initially built, and it was a good example to check how close it is to the output from the OSM plugin for Blender. There are not many buildings like that left without many changes. Nothing surprising as at the end of World War II, 85% of the town was destroyed.
On the left overlap of the OSM blockout and the floor outline according to the technical plans.
Next Step
I'm going to focus on more detailed blockout of the junction of 1 Maja and Towarowa street were 3 the same semi-detached houses were built in the 1920s. Also going to test how it feels in UE5 with the 3rd person.
However, I’m also aware that I will get to the point where information will be lacking, and I will need to make artistic choices. My solution for that will be to look for certain patterns and similarities to fill the gaps with something highly probable.
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