Gangland buildings made by screenhot

[Prof Pulp]

Hi,

I'm collecting vintage/classic model cars (scale about 1/43 - 1/ 50) and now also try to paint some gangster miniatures.

I'm also a fan of the old Mafia PC game (2002). This game features a free ride mode, so the player is able to visit a vast city by his own taxi and by foot. The city features many different quarters made by designers who love decent detail. There’s a Manhattan style quarter, suburbs, little Italy, Chinatown, an industrial area and much more.
Due to the free ride mode, one can travel to any location and take nice screenshots.





Here’s a factory yard. My mobsters recently have received some Canadian bootleg booze. The’ll seem to be very self assured, not even having masked their trucks…
Since painting will take far more time, I just added some metal minis for scale comparison.
The cars are from different manufacturers and different scale. Therefore not all will fit to a 28mm game.

As you see, at the moment I’m building some pieces of scenery for my model car showcase by altering and merging different snapshots. But it’s also no problem to ‘raise’ complete buildings or streets/blocks for the game table in a few hours. It’s only a matter of printing, cutting and backing the prints up with cardboard or sheets of polystyrene. You prefer higher buildings – just dublicate some storeys! Since most US city buildings of that period are flat top, there’s no need of constructing complicated roofs.





A street which has seen better days… The pavement is still missing. And some poor Dixon gangsters have a serious business problem… Like Ma Barker always taught to her sons: Look out for any black sedan before crossing the street.



That’s how a panorama might looks like. Original length is about 1 meter. My next attempt will be the one in the middle.

If someone’s interested, I can post some hints how to move within the Mafia game and take high resolution shots or find out the matching scale for printing.

Cheers

Heiko

[joroas]

Looks brilliant.........

[Colonel Tubby]

Joroas comment says it all!

They look really effective Prof Pulp - if you used boxes (or other solid items) could you create a 3-d buildings by mounting onto the sides and back?

[Prof Pulp]

Hi Colonel Tubby,

should be very easy. I’ll do that after I’ll have finished my showcase backgrounds.
The designers of the game used a certain grid pattern which they overlaid with textures. Very much buildings have the same width. Because ‘middle’ buildings in a street row have no windows on their sides (just front and back) you can use two façades (front and rear) and a plain brick texture for the sides. Or merge a panorama (out of different buildings) and wrap it around a cardboard box to get a street row in one piece. Only the corner buildings must have the same style of façade.
With free painting software you can make buildings higher or wider, just by adding more storeys or window columns. Also the basements are interchangeable. You can use the shop windows from one screenshot and put the upper storeys of another building on them.
I replaced for example the shop window of the ‘monuments’ shop (essential business in gangland) with the window of a tyre dealer (also from the game). What looks like wreaths on the first glance is made of rubber on the second….
Even making complete blocks of buildings should take no longer than one or two weekends. Both backgrounds here were finished in less than two days (spare time only  ) from screenshot to assembly.

[6milPhil]

If someone’s interested, I can post some hints how to move within the Mafia game and take high resolution shots or find out the matching scale for printing.

Do you think you might just share some jpgs of the buildings?
cheers

[Prof Pulp]

Do you think you might just share some jpgs of the buildings?
cheers

My pleasure 

I tried to upload some pics without losing scale and quality. Hope it works.
This panorama comes in five pieces




http://www.pictureupload.de/originals/pictures/201210112807_Z1a.jpg

http://www.pictureupload.de/originals/pictures/201210112925_Z1b.jpg

http://www.pictureupload.de/originals/pictures/201210113012_Z1c.jpg

http://www.pictureupload.de/originals/pictures/201210113109_Z1d.jpg

http://www.pictureupload.de/originals/pictures/201210113146_Z1e.jpg

[Tsune]

Thank you very much.

I think it is an amazing idea to make the buildings or just to place a backgruound for take pictures of games.

[6milPhil]

My pleasure 

I tried to upload some pics without losing scale and quality. Hope it works.
This panorama comes in five pieces

Magical thanks! 

[Mo!]

Wow nice!

[Schlumpfsa]

Very nice.  Mafia was a great game, I mucked about with a few mods when I used to play it.  If you get the 'Mafia Data Xtractor' you can extract the textures from the game, which includes the building fronts.  Will save you the time of driving around Lost Heaven and lining up those shots! 

That said, I particularly like the ends of your panoramas where we see around the corner.  Would love to see how some 3d model buildings turn out.

[Prof Pulp]

Hi Schlumpfsa,

many thanks for your advice – I’ve got the Mafia textures now.  Perfect! 
I didn’t know that there is such a game mod community. These textures will help very much to build 3D buildings, because a lot of different styles are exchangeable.

On the other hand, it’s like a big puzzle.  A complete house front might be merged from a dozen parts. There are textures for walls, windows, doors, storeys and also for little things like frames or sills.
For those who are not familiar with merging that parts, a screenshot of a complete building will be more simple. Just shoot and print (and BTW, driving through the game is fun, too).

I’ll use the game's textures for my first 3D model now to vary the screenshots (which still serve as a scale pattern). All textures have the advantage to be completely square. 

Again many thanks (also for enabling me to play the old Mafia game again - now with some new mods    )

Merry Christmas!