who says you can't start decorating for xmas 9 months early?!?...
==========
starting over since I didn't like the off center feel... was too wobbly... going to take a while to do this the right way since you think it's centered on x axis only to find y or z is off a bit...
Here's skinny tree til we get more done later.
===========
Phase 2:
==========================
Phase III isn't so pretty... may have to rethink how to do this since I'm running out of trees slowly... along the journey I've figured out some new tricks on how to do the scaffolding quicker though, so as we continue my interior decorating skills are improving.
either need to probably buy about 12 more trees to finish up current configuration or redo it and space it out more... I think the middle pole isn't needed now that I've figured out how to space out the angled lines more... Not sure if 6, 8 or 12 base trees on bottom of pyramid are better... but think if I think of it geometrically it seems to work better... much like ancient days in ol sculpture class back in college.
------------------------------
------------------------------
BAH HUMBUG!
Starting over again... this time more precisely... and more 'small'... (K.I.S.S.)
(staring at these flashing lights for over a hour at a time doing this thing almost gives me motion sickness at times, lol)
------------------------------
------------------------------
Decided to go with a pentagon type base shape this round so as to lower number of trees needed for this project...
Lined up some tomebloss on the floor as a pentagon and using them sort of like a way to measure angles in game easier than it is just to do by guesstimates...
lining up 'angle' correctly each axis is tricky. However, I'm getting closer to what I'm wanting... at least for the first of the 5 'legs' of this thing.
Wanting the stars at the top to all meet in center and the ffa star will go up top again... kinda tricky to do this exactly though since a lot of the angles are guesstimates and the 'tools' used for the scaffolding aren't really meant to do this exact type stuff, lol. Think I may take longer and more dedication working on this silly thing than Mindark designers did in throwing these objects together in the first place...
Design is mainly going to be 3 trees overlapping at about halfway point on top three rungs, angled towards center on those, stars/trees turned (rotated) in such a way so that stars are more or less pointed towards one another, and lowest '4th' layer is on the floor as usual just for some extra floor height 'bushiness' in the tree... if prices on trees on auction go too high, I have no qualms about stopping the project. Reason I'm doing the pentagon shape is to lower number of trees as hex, octo, or higher number of base trees would substantially raise the complexity of this little project and how much expense it's worth doing it in the first place far above what I'm willing to put in to this thing. .. 4 x 5 = 20 so in theory around 20 trees are needed to get this thing done. I'm approaching that many in inventory/storage/apartment if I count the two 'original old' trees, but not sure I want to use them as they deserve their own little corners in the apartment...
The 'angle' is a lot less (or is it more, depending on which way you look at it?) steep than the original plan was up in the above phases before the restart/redo... otherwise when you get towards center the stars are too much off to one side or the other...
Real trick might be re-adding the ffa star up top - using it instead of the traditional xmas star since original 'furniture' stars hang from ceiling... the ffa stars 'hang' from the floors, lol... tricky because to get the 'star' to place right you have to move the top tree or else the 'pivot point' of the star can't 'fit' inside of the geometry of the tree already there, making it difficult to get the angle right again on the scaffolding that was originally used...
Phase I REDO: