During the COVID-19 lockdown, I decided to improve my Blender skills, especially in texturing and rendering. The newly released Flight Simulator 2020 provided a great opportunity to do this by creating scenery in the Brussels region.
I started with the enormous concrete construction I could see out of my bedroom window, the Sint-Pieters-Leeuw Tower. My second project was the Drogenbos Cooling Tower, with its impressive night lighting, which added an extra challenge in Blender.
Finally, I received a request to model The Antwerp Sport Palace. This structure is also very large and has some complex elements to model, such as the emergency stairs, the solar panels on the roof that reflect in your eyes, and the blue roof pattern.
All are free available to download for Microsoft Flight Simulator via flightsim.to.
Sint-Pieters-Leeuw Tower
The Sint-Pieters-Leeuw Tower, or often mentioned as VRT-toren by locals is the tallest structure in Belgium since 1994. Made primarily out of concrete, it reaches a height of around 300 meters (984 feet). It was originally built by VRT, national broadcaster for the Flemish Community of Belgium and today is part of Norkring Belgium. The tower is used to transmit radio and television and also serves as communication tower.
Drogenbos Cooling Tower
The Drogenbos power plant was originally built as a power plant running on steam in 1911. At the beginning of the nineties, it was converted to a plant running on natural gas. The main cooling tower of the site was the first one to get decorated with a total of around 100 000 LED’s in 2005 and could be enjoyed by many driving the Brussels Ring Road. Today owner Electrabel is transforming the site into an energy storage facility, functioning as a giant battery for Belgium.
Antwerp's Sport Palace or known as Sportpaleis in Dutch is an arena in the city of Antwerp in Belgium. It was opened in 1933 as the largest indoor hall in Europe. Initially it was built for sport events (like track cycling). Today the hall is more used to host concerts and is widely known among the Belgian people. Spectacular is the pattern on the roof that reveals itself when flying over the building.
