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My little boy has been crazy about cars ever since he was the littlest boy. So when he was 2 years old I made him a little city, the size of a large coffee tab

My little boy has been crazy about cars ever since he was the littlest boy. So when he was 2 years old I made him a little city, the size of a large coffee table, using all the stuff from model railroads. Grass, roads, houses, people. I drilled holes and pushed led lights through the bottom and into the insides of the buildings. I even put little monkeys in the trees and playing on the roofs of the buildings. The only thing it didn't have was railroads or trains. Most toys, kids play with them for a while and stop and move on to something else. He played on that little city non stop for at least 4 years if not 5. Every morning he got up and sat down next to it and started pushing his cars around it and parking them and lining them up and making vehicle noises. I have to admit I had a huge amount of fun choosing all the parts and designing and making that little model city. He's older now so the table lies in a corner much loved and worn and now unused but here it is: https://imgur.com/a/hNOSGrq https://imgur.com/a/hNOSGrq

shriphani 7y ago
Very cool! -
twobat 7y ago
That was the whole room for me and my brother when we were growing up. Put there a bed and a closet.
bitwize 7y ago
Do you remember the elaborate HBO title card that ran before their movies in the 1980s? They built an entire city, and some surrounding backroads and suburbs, in miniature to dolly the camera through before the HBO logo (itself built of wood and covered with sheet metal) spun at you -- even going so far as to place tiny model prostitutes on the street corners. The only computer directly involved in production was used to control the sliding of two pieces of film to produce a "flare" effect late in the sequence.
- mrob 7y ago
  CGI was expensive back then. Escape from New York (1981) had a "wireframe" city scene, which was actually a model city with fluorescent tape applied to the edges of the buildings. Cheaper than doing it with real computer graphics, and looked just as good.
  - jimnotgym 7y ago
    >Cheaper than doing it with real computer graphics, and looked just as good. My kids were poking fun at the rendering glitches in the titles of Star Trek: Next Gen. They explored Netflix a little further to find the original Star Trek, and agreed that it had much better CGI with their starship. No glitches at all! It never occurred to them that they were models.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - roywiggins 7y ago
      I'm 80% sure (can't check right now) that Netflix actually has the remastered version that subbed in CGI for the original effects...
      - monocasa 7y ago
        They do. It's the Blu-ray version, which redid the effects in CG because they didn't have the original film stock for those.
    - aquova 7y ago
      Funnily enough, TNG used models as well, I don't think it was until Deep Space 9 that they actually started using CGI starships. The versions of the first two Star Treks on Netflix are the remastered versions, so they might be pointing out CGI issues that came up years after the original airing. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Remaster https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Remaster
      - 7y ago
- Bluecobra 7y ago
  I loved that intro when I was growing up! There's a documentary about how they made it that can be found on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS6ZXBrcng&t=408s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS6ZXBrcng&t=408s
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    Then there is this gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn9nw2OIeZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn9nw2OIeZU
    - ksaj 7y ago
      That was fun to watch. The NG warnings at the end are pure gold.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  I like the Game of Thrones intro with the elaborate mechanical world. They should have filmed and episode in that world :-)
- djmips 7y ago
  Interesting that John Dykstra who was pioneering motion control cameras in Star Wars actually got some of the idea from working on a late sixties / early seventies Berkely traffic simulation that used a tiny city and a camera moving around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJr2FvQlqY&feature=youtu.be&t=84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJr2FvQlqY&feature=youtu.be... This technique was actually used much earlier for flight simulators as well.
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  Computers were also used to control the physical camera. Captain Disallusionment does a video on Back to the Future special effects when he talks about how this was the era before CGI but that used computer controlled cameras to achieve certain special effects. https://youtu.be/AtPA6nIBs5g https://youtu.be/AtPA6nIBs5g
- mellonmarshall 7y ago
  have you ever seen the one the BBC did for People's Century where they had a street going along as it go forward, it also goes forward in time, along with shots of people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUwDSd1tSiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUwDSd1tSiI here it is
schnevets 7y ago
Love it! When I was a kid, my dad my brother Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys out of PVC-pipe. It started with a turtle headquarters, and then he made a car and airplane out of pipes. I didn't realize they were custom built until I was at least 5 years old.
ttsda 7y ago
He migtht ignore that object for many years, decades even, but keep it around and he'll be very grateful in the future for sure :)
jacquesm 7y ago
That's lovely. Thank you for posting this.
romwell 7y ago
Is that a miniature B-24 Liberator? I was lucky enough to help hand-crank one of its props[1] once, and subsequently watch it take off. The rumble and the noise of the engines were majestic. [1]A part of the take-off procedure, see https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/29561/why-do-ground-crews-rotate-a-radial-engines-propeller-before-a-motor-cartridge https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/29561/why-do-gr...
iforgotpassword 7y ago
This is awesome. I wish I could take the time out of my daily routine to start building something like this. I liked these since I was a little boy. But there's already too many unfinished after-work and weekend projects around the house so that I just can't justify starting yet another thing. But I watch Luke Towan on YouTube every now an then to compensate. :-)
andrepd 7y ago
Same for me, but with a Lego city ;)
jherazob 7y ago
Depending on the scale this can be repurposed for wargames, there's many that could use this terrain, and it's a fun hobby

shriphani 7y ago

Very cool! -

twobat 7y ago

That was the whole room for me and my brother when we were growing up. Put there a bed and a closet.

bitwize 7y ago

Do you remember the elaborate HBO title card that ran before their movies in the 1980s? They built an entire city, and some surrounding backroads and suburbs, in miniature to dolly the camera through before the HBO logo (itself built of wood and covered with sheet metal) spun at you -- even going so far as to place tiny model prostitutes on the street corners. The only computer directly involved in production was used to control the sliding of two pieces of film to produce a "flare" effect late in the sequence.

mrob 7y ago
CGI was expensive back then. Escape from New York (1981) had a "wireframe" city scene, which was actually a model city with fluorescent tape applied to the edges of the buildings. Cheaper than doing it with real computer graphics, and looked just as good.
- jimnotgym 7y ago
  >Cheaper than doing it with real computer graphics, and looked just as good. My kids were poking fun at the rendering glitches in the titles of Star Trek: Next Gen. They explored Netflix a little further to find the original Star Trek, and agreed that it had much better CGI with their starship. No glitches at all! It never occurred to them that they were models.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    I'm 80% sure (can't check right now) that Netflix actually has the remastered version that subbed in CGI for the original effects...
    - monocasa 7y ago
      They do. It's the Blu-ray version, which redid the effects in CG because they didn't have the original film stock for those.
  - aquova 7y ago
    Funnily enough, TNG used models as well, I don't think it was until Deep Space 9 that they actually started using CGI starships. The versions of the first two Star Treks on Netflix are the remastered versions, so they might be pointing out CGI issues that came up years after the original airing. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Remaster https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Remaster
    - 7y ago
Bluecobra 7y ago
I loved that intro when I was growing up! There's a documentary about how they made it that can be found on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS6ZXBrcng&t=408s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS6ZXBrcng&t=408s
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Then there is this gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn9nw2OIeZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn9nw2OIeZU
  - ksaj 7y ago
    That was fun to watch. The NG warnings at the end are pure gold.
WalterBright 7y ago
I like the Game of Thrones intro with the elaborate mechanical world. They should have filmed and episode in that world :-)
djmips 7y ago
Interesting that John Dykstra who was pioneering motion control cameras in Star Wars actually got some of the idea from working on a late sixties / early seventies Berkely traffic simulation that used a tiny city and a camera moving around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJr2FvQlqY&feature=youtu.be&t=84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJr2FvQlqY&feature=youtu.be... This technique was actually used much earlier for flight simulators as well.
ZeroGravitas 7y ago
Computers were also used to control the physical camera. Captain Disallusionment does a video on Back to the Future special effects when he talks about how this was the era before CGI but that used computer controlled cameras to achieve certain special effects. https://youtu.be/AtPA6nIBs5g https://youtu.be/AtPA6nIBs5g
mellonmarshall 7y ago
have you ever seen the one the BBC did for People's Century where they had a street going along as it go forward, it also goes forward in time, along with shots of people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUwDSd1tSiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUwDSd1tSiI here it is

schnevets 7y ago

Love it! When I was a kid, my dad my brother Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys out of PVC-pipe. It started with a turtle headquarters, and then he made a car and airplane out of pipes. I didn't realize they were custom built until I was at least 5 years old.

ttsda 7y ago

He migtht ignore that object for many years, decades even, but keep it around and he'll be very grateful in the future for sure :)

jacquesm 7y ago

That's lovely. Thank you for posting this.

romwell 7y ago

Is that a miniature B-24 Liberator? I was lucky enough to help hand-crank one of its props[1] once, and subsequently watch it take off. The rumble and the noise of the engines were majestic. [1]A part of the take-off procedure, see https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/29561/why-do-ground-crews-rotate-a-radial-engines-propeller-before-a-motor-cartridge https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/29561/why-do-gr...

iforgotpassword 7y ago

This is awesome. I wish I could take the time out of my daily routine to start building something like this. I liked these since I was a little boy. But there's already too many unfinished after-work and weekend projects around the house so that I just can't justify starting yet another thing. But I watch Luke Towan on YouTube every now an then to compensate. :-)

andrepd 7y ago

Same for me, but with a Lego city ;)

jherazob 7y ago

Depending on the scale this can be repurposed for wargames, there's many that could use this terrain, and it's a fun hobby