Hi fellow mappers!
In the last couple of days I've mostly busied myself with building the Philipsson tram - see my bliki - but have also stumbled across several things on the wider web that may be of use to us all.
The first is an open-source program called Makehuman. As the name suggests, it is a 3D CAD software for creating models of people. There have been several discussions about the issues around using photos of real people on the wiki, and I think this may be an answer, as it allows the user to create quite realistic virtual people with great freedom over features, pose and other aspects. The program is also quite easy to use, and more experienced users can export the models into Blender for advanced editing. I will put up some examples on my bliki in due course.
The second is a (propitiatory) video game called Cities: Skylines. This is a detailed and seemingly highly realistic city simulator that can create very large metropolis areas with all the infrastructure, growth and economic issues town planners have to face. I am not suggesting that you all rush out and download the game, but watching some gameplay videos on YouTube might be a good introduction to the way physical map features massively affect how a city works. There was one where a user redid all his bus lines to make them serve the rail stations and his economy grew by a whopping amount because ti cut commuting times. Anyway, I've bought the game and intend to try and recreate some Karolian cities to see if they really 'work'.
There are also some very informative YouTube videos on transport topics, such as 'why are trains so expensive?' (the answer is a surprisingly good one).
Stay tuned for an update on the tram model build.
Sarepava
makehuman.org