Meeting Notes

Scope

Multiple spawn points

• one on dam wall
• one in garden

Include a fair bit of lake

Interior shot - image or modelling

Start on thinking

• water
• trees
• texture sets available
• terrain modelling - engine or max
• sounds
• boats
• ambient
• water falling
• kismet performance
• lighting in the theatre
• control the environment (night and day)
  

LAYERS of the model

Discipline

• area of study
• approaches
• designer vs engineer
• specialisations which work together to produce Awesomeness (^^,)

Break Blog

UT3 Tutes
I started on my 2 rooms last week and found the program fairly easy to use, the primary difference being the manner in which forms (voids or solids) are created. This entails the use of a brush to dictate the size and location of the form which then needs to be built. This is far less intuitive than say a program like 3DS Max, whereby one drags a form at will!.

Through the tutorials I've come to the realisation that we will be primarily dealing with static mesh creation in Max and using instancing (multiple versions of the same mesh in the map) in order to make our map run smoothly. This means making objects which can be easily scaled rather than making several sizes of the same object. Another problem using the UT3 engine is that a lot of the included static meshes that I've seen have heavy Asian influences or bizarre and futuristic which means we will probably have to make a lot of our own stuff. However I have seen some reasonably contemporary textures and meshes within the game!

In terms of the Dam Theatre, how we fabricate the unknown will largely depend on the look we think the interior should have and from that point it will be how advanced our modelling skills are. While we have floorplans for the building, I believe that the exterior of the model will be where the UT3 engine and its effects come into play with the use of fog and water as Matthew mentioned.

Matthew has mentioned basecamp as a tool for our collaboration which seems as though it could be very useful as I have only seen Graham, Matt and Derek on MSN. I also signed up for a Twitter account which allows you to immediately update your status on what you have done with a limited description field which can then be received by your workmates via RSS.

For work roles within the group:

• Craig: I know has a lot of experience with architectural models so I believe he should be our primary interior modeller.
• Matt: In the first week he said he had a lot of Photoshop experience which will come in handy for the creation of textures in our fabrication! However we will also need to work on such things as bump maps for materials
• Derek: New to the 3d modelling scene but is no doubt capable of producing some larger scale scenery.
• I'm an all rounder and quite comfortable in the UT3 editor I have worked in the development of a 3d model scene and movie before and know the difficulties and ways to manage group model development using referencing in 3DS max.
• 5th guy (Sam?) no idea! will find out today!

In terms of our key word discipline, I don't have much to say but I believe a lot will be sorted after our group meeting today!

Weekly report

South-West elevation of the Coledale House

For our group's fabrication project, I believe that we should attempt the Coledale House by Kennedy Associates Architects. Firstly this design is a viable choice as it is a decent sized residence which means that the model would be a manageable size to work on as a opposed to a triple storey mansion. The design itself is quite interesting with a split level whereby the garage is separated from the rest of the house.

Diagram of the environmental considerations of the design

The design of the bush residence has taken care of so many environmental considerations. Kennedy Associates have utilised all methods for creating a thermally passive dwelling. For example they have sunk the living level into the ground instead of raising it to the road level, which helps to regulate the internal temperature, as well as providing a huge amount of privacy. Coledale house also has aspects of solar passive design with the roof slope and glazing are arranged in a manner which allows for the winter sun to penetrate whilst restricting the harsh summer sun. In order to reduce the carbon footprint of the building, the roof is mostly covered by a garden which means that any plants possibly displaced by the construction of the residence would be made up for on the roof! Also on the roof is an array of photovoltaic cells which power the home.

In terms of aesthetic qualities, the design has some possible Glenn Murcutt influences with the use of corrugated iron as a building skin and the way the building mass sits as part of the landscape instead of hugely altering the topography of the site. A bonus for this design is the amount of information available on the design whereby the linked pdf contains a floor plan, sections and elevations which would help us determine the layout and make scaling the model easier. Both of these reasons mean that we can spend more time modelling internal features and the surrounding environment!

Structural model of the house

After exploring the UT3 engine, I found that it can produce spectacular graphics through a mixture of dynamic lighting and high quality textures. I feel that since this project is not some giant structure, that we too could produce high quality textures in order to improve the user’s experience in the map. From the elevations, it would appear that we’d have to create a highly detailed corrugated iron texture as it covers most of the house. Perhaps in the interest of lower polygon counts to reduce lag, we would create a bump map to give the corrugated appearance instead of physically modelling the corrugations.

Screen shot from UT3 demonstrating the amazing graphic ability

In terms of creating an audio environment, we would need to create or locate sounds which would be present in the Australian coastal bushland. Some possible sounds to include in the final model would be some distant ocean sounds as well as some native birds and eucalypt leaves rustling in the wind.

Here's a video I dug up on YouTube of someone who's attempted what we are undertaking, except they used the older UT2004 engine. It's a pretty amazing little video



It's a pretty amazing little video which concerns me about how we'll cope with UVW map unwrapping as I have done it in Maya but not 3Ds Max!

Unbuilt archi!

I've been poking around Zaha Hadid's site because I remember either Paul Hogben or Harry Margalit saying that a lot of her designs were not built. Nonetheless she creates some awesome designs!
I've also been thinking - how little is too little information for the model? Understandably, the more information the better but what could we make do with? Perhaps lots of images of the proposed design - both internal and external. Or are we attempting to go straight out for mad floorplans and elevations and all that jazz?

Update guys ok it's a smaller residence but here Coledale House - has plans and elevations!!

Some others that look goodo from Derek's AA link:

• Corb V2.0
• Unbuilt on the unbuilt <<>

First Post

Woo arch1392!
I stumbled upon this article Graham had already dug up on his blog about unbuilt architecture available here! Architecture Ideas For Collab Studio