Archive for Niels Kjær
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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With the spaces finally done, there is room for painting.
I started with painting the white 'sideburns' for the straights.
I intend to keep a small, black line between the track spaces and the white side markings, I think that will look nicer when finished.
The white markings are too wide on purpuse, I hope to get a feeling of the grass spreading everywhere when I glue that in as one of the last things:
It is now time to add the corner bends, and once again, my daughter's modelling putty comes to the rescue, so much that I had to buy new supplies of the stuff 
Lesson learned: playdoh shrinks when drying, and gluing it before it is dry can cause cracks 
While I was at it, I decided I might as well paint the bends and start farming the land. The fields need some earth topping, but are otherwise done now. At first the spaces between the fork fingers(?) seemed to big until I realised I just needed to angle the fork a bit - doh!
Unused pieces of track as well as country tarmac roads added, as I needed to do some small tarmac repairs. I will need to do some work on the inner ring in the lower right corner, good thing things are correctable with paint when your skills are not better than mine.
Pictures of the current state of affairs (there could be more, but the site does not seem to like them, so you will have to do with these):
As always comments and tips on how to make the pictures bigger in the post are most welcome.
Happy racing 
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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In my project to build a Formula D 3D track, I finally got the spaces finished
It has taken a lot of time, as I chose to cut out the spaces individually and then gluing them to the track. Should I do a project like this again, I would probably choose to cut the spaces out of the ground instead, with the problems that introduce.
Here is the track seen from above in its current state as seen from above and from the front:
A pit building has been out in (amazing, it fits perfectly  ) and a tree has been added next to it. It is hard to see, it must be all that black
In my next update, I will likely have done lots of the paint work, and it should start to resemble a FD track
Thanks for reading, as usual, comments are welcome; especially if they tell me how to make the images larger in the post. I know it is possible, but I cannot figure out how.
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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I needed a small break with the track building, so I tried out an idea I got after seeing the 3D Barcelona track.
They had used something looking like modeling putty to simulate a crowd in the grandstands, naturally, I had to try that out, too
Luckily, we have some modeling putty from our last vacation, so it was easy to find some different colours and start creating a crowd.
Here is the end result:
A possible title for the picture could be "The extended Babapapa family meets Formula D"
The crowd is living in the eighties with lots of bright colours and noone wears black.
I think it loooks acceptable, although the modeling putty did not stick, so I now have en empty grandstand and lots of small Babapapas lying around after I lifted it away
When the modeling putty dries and becomes hard I might try gluing it on to see if it can last.
Thanks for reading, comments are welcome
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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The past month has not seen a huge amount of progress on the track front, primarily due to a 2-week vacation at the parents-in-law with the traditional planning stress before a large vacation.
Added to the fact that I am still learning and that takes time, too, makes it enjoyable to notice that the track project *has* progressed at all.
I have made wooden edges for the two halves, primed everything in black and begun looking at the spaces.
One of the things to note is that although the first two spray paints you have used from a specific brand have proved to be 'foam-safe' it does not imply that the third is, too.
Unluckily, the third paint was the one where I felt safe enough to spray on directly without testing first. The result was a few extra days of work to repair the damage
I am not sure how it will turn out with spaces cut out of foamboard and glued to the track, so for now, I am just using stickytack so I get an idea.
Hopefully it will turn out ok, although the corners may be bit hard.
Luckily, I have foamboard in the right width for the straights, so those are possible to do without too much fuss.
Here is a picture of how it looks currently, I have finished the first straight and begun working on the first corner:
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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After receiving my thermo cutter I could not wait to try it out in action. Geodaesic maps were found of the track area (in DK they are publicly available) and I decided on a height scale.
Since the cars are in 1:250 scale and the landscape has been scaled to approximately 1:800 to fit the board, I needed to make a decision on what I wanted to use for height. I settled on 1:500, because I could then use 1 foam board (1 cm high) per 5m height line and it would still give a bit of height difference on the track, although not much, as I also decided to cut the boards in half on some parts, giving the track an elevation difference of 5mm - corresponding to 1,25m in the cars scale.
A flat track
Enough talk - pictures!
I took a picture before I started gluing stuff together.
It amazed me how easy it was to cut the boards and how fast everything went.
Change is nice
Now everything is glued and I have applied model paste to the slopes.
After the paste dried, I sanded it to make it smooth.
A very thin paste was used on those flat areas that needed smoothing due to my (lack of) ability to cut foam boards in half in a smooth manner.
I cut out the track from a spare poster I had lying around, and I think it looks promising - but I may be biased 
The lower left part of the picture will be covered in trees while the upper right will be farmland.
I am still trying to get ideas about how to do farmland convincingly.
The next steps for me is to start preparing the track itself. I have made a paint sample with my spray paints that shows that I should do the white perimeter first and then the black grounding afterwards, as the white does not seem to be able to adequately cover the black.
I will be trying to paint white again over the black in the sample, as I would much prefer to it in the opposite sequence, since black is the 'inner' paint.
Thanks for reading.
As usual, comments and ideas are more than welcome
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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I have been thinking about 3D tracks for a long time now: how to make them, store them and transport them, and which scale would be fitting.
I decided that if I am to make more than one, then 1:43 would probably not be good idea, as those circuits would be too big to store - nevermind the price of the cars.
1:87 seems better, but again, more than one and it starts to become a very large amount of circuit to store. The cars are less expensive (and owuld also be usable for das motorsportspiel), but if I want formula cars, it does not seem to be easy.
1:250 it is, which means I can use the FD cars and scenery that I have already made.
Unfortunately for this idea I have for a long time lacked the drive to start on it, and combined with the inability to get the right ideas it prompted me to work on the buildings and scenery instead.
I now have a tiny bit of sparetime in the evenings again, so I decided to give the circuit another go - inspired by watching the movie "Cars 2" - the Italian track in that movie looks stunning!
Last week I went to the local store and got some wood for the base and 10mm foamcore (or is it called styrofoam or something else?) for the landscape.
Given that I am new at this stuff, I decided on an almost completely flat track with no scenery but woods - I can add complications on the next one if I am happy with the first.
I chose Jyllandsringen for the first track:
It a basic track with almost nothing but track and woods.
While the landscape seems to be possible to do fairly nicely (I have a map of the landscape), I have had many thoughts about the track itself, and even put brackets on a piece of wood in order to fix 4 pens so that they could do the lines for hte three lanes as a draft. With my drawing abilities the result would never go beoynd "draft - paint over before playing"-stage.
I have found a thermocutter on hte net for the foamcore, and I am a bit excited about the possibilities in it. With luck, I can use it to cut the spaces manually and glue them to the board, that would be way cooler than painting the spaces (and likely also more time consuming).
My main worry currently is the weight of the wood.
If anybody have a good idea about what wood can be used for the base (not too thick or heavy, but very stiff), I would love to hear it.
In the meantime, I am off, holding my breath in anticipation of my new toy playth tool
Thanks for reading!
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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The FD masters 2011 took place recently in Lieusaint near Paris (France, for you yankies ) and this was a perfect oppoprtunity to take my stuff along and display it.
Pictures
The first race was the old version of Montreal, which is basically a faster version, as thgere are only 2 two-stoppers.
Nice view doown the front of the grid before the start. The fact that my car is in front improves the view significantly
A view of the entire circuit.
The pit building and grandstands are visible to the right, while there are trees and tirewalls (delivered 2 hours before I left for Paris) dispersed around the track.
A view from the other end of the circuit.
I am still leading (yeaij!), with only one signifacnt pursuer at this point. After adding StickyStuff to the bulidings, tires and trees, they proved more resistable to bumps from mainly dice being thrown around.
A view to display the grandstand taken Sunday at Sebring. The banners were made in inkscape and printed on label paper - much better than painting - especially with my skills...
Feedback from players
I got very nice feedback frem the players there, also the ones not playing at my tables
One of them was so interested that he consideered buying a building them from the 3D site - very flattering!
He might not, after all, it is one thing to wan something, but another when the bill is presented - let's see.
I am not holding my breath or considering to quit my day job, though...
Next...
I should receive some roadside barriers the coming week. Hopefully they will be usable for the league's final race of the season next Thursday.
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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Apart from buildings, any racing track needs some scenery, so I decided I wanted to make some trees. Since my group is racing Magny-Cours next, I used the lake in the upper left corner as a target.
After doing the process of styrofoam - putty - paint - 'grass', I came to the issue of trees.
In FD, the scale of the cars is about 1:250, but the smalles trees I have been able to find are 3-5 cm, equalling 7,5 - 10,5 metres - those trees are huge!
Anyway, huge trees are better than no trees, and currently there is no time to make my own, so I went with size, and enter my next problem: how can I get them to stand up straight in the holes I made for them?
The trees seem to have made up their own mind about which direction they should grow in, and apparently none of them chose up, so some sort of convincing is needed.
I have now covered the holes with glue and inserted them into the holes, adding support where possible.
It is my expectation that I will have to repeat for a few select trees, the third from the right is already making a bid for its freedom...
Notice the support material, if it is within reach, it is usable
I wonder if this will be strong enough, but it is better than letting the trees sit in their holes without glue, that could best be described a silent movie in 1/100 speed
Thanks for reading.
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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Finally got the package from shapeways, yeaij
After having painted the new version, It looks like this:
As can be seen, I am not good at painting, good thing it is not my day job.
The pitwall will be taken down a few millimetres for the final version, while I am very happy about most of the other changes.
The idea of having team names printed on the signs did not work out well, so they will be blank and ready for labels instead, something which works well on the front, I think.
Oh, and while I was at it, I also got a grandstand home. A few errors found that have been corrected in the design, but it looks great on the board.
The grandstand is 15 cm long and 4 high + deep. Approximately the same depth as the pit building and twice as high.
the next project is road barriers and tire walls.
A word on advice for people who think this stuff sounds interesting and are cosnidering doing the same for their favourite game: make sure you have the support of your spouse, you are going to spend a lot of time in front of the computer while considering design.
Luckily, I have the best wife
Thanks for reading, comments are welcome.
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Niels Kjær
Denmark
Malling
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So there I am, beginning of March without a job, as the company is closing and moving its activitivities to a country with lower wages.
I need something in between applying for jobs, so I start up an old wish of mine: to create 3D buildings for Formula D.
I went to a model railroad shop which suggested building it in styrene, as they did not have anything to scale.
3 weeks later, still no job, but a grandstand so ugly it is never getting into the pictures section - I needed a new plan.
Enter
Giles Williams
United Kingdom
Leytonstone
London
who had created a few different car sets on www.shapeways.com, a site who prints out the 3D models you create - Eureka!
From then, it was a matter of finding a 3D program (www.blender.org), and then starting the design process.
I decided to work on a pit building, as I thought that would be fairly simple and would add a lot to the game, at least I was right about 50%
The first probvlem, as probably many others who design for games with many maps (in this case: tracks), was that the dimensions were not the same: on some tracks, the spaces are 1,7cm long, on others a bit longer, so I had to make a choice of spacing and chose 1,7 cm as the space length, with the knowledge that it will be a bit small on some tracks.
Also, I considered tracks with curved pitlanes and decided, that that was not something that I could make a pit building for, since my skills were clearly not up to the task of designing a building that can be curved either way. Sorry Monaco, Imola, Detroit, and Valencia, and sorry Spa for making a building so deep it cannot be used due to your first, sharp corner.
Upside is that it fits the rest enough to be playable - I think
The first prototype was made, printed and painted and looks like this:
I was satisfied with the front, but looking at the back, it became apparent, it was too 'bare' for a building, where it only cost time to add details:
We have tested it in one race and it worked fine, only minor details needed to be sorted out, for instance the roof is not wide enough, and that means that a paper with 10 boxes inside will either have the outermost boxes visibly smaller than hte rest, or they boxes will not be aligned with the individual pits - more design work to do...
By now we are talking September (no, I am not fast), and I am sitting in my new job, so the redesign has taken some time.
However, it is done, the new prototype has a new top floor, raised pit wall and team signs on the back, it has been ordered and it in transit, I can't wait to get it!
The top sides are raised slightly to accomodate a piece of paper where players can write which pit they are using and how many pit points they have left. Who wants the pink pit - anyone?
Still in the works:
Grandstand, road barriers and tire walls, more about that later.
Thanks for reading, comments are welcome
Notes: If somebody could tell me how to make external image links smaller, I would be grateful.
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