Saturday, June 21, 2008

Link to map on filefront

After over four hours of countless attempts at uploading this file, here it is.

DM_ARCH1101_EXP3FINAL_TM.ut2

update, Sat 21st June: James, i opened my game file this morning just to check everything was working after the nightmare last night, and I realised I stupidly didn't press the 'build all' button one last time before saving the file. So when you open it can you please hit 'build all' before you go into the environment to see the lighting how it should be... :)

Friday, June 20, 2008

technical difficulties part 2

Overcame blogger problem, but filefront still won't upload my UT file, I have officially been trying for 3 and a half hours now. Still trying...

FINAL IMAGES

BELOW: An overall picture of the environment from Yin's side. The entire environment was made very large for the purpose of illustrating both clients' power through grandeur. Here you can see both elevators arriving at the meeting space.



Environment from Versace's side.


BELOW: View of Zhang Yin's office space from the outer corner. Her office was largely inspired by her profession, as well as by Steven Holl's extensive use of box forms in his architecture. This is reflected in the simplistic form of the space, her actual office area being the shape of a box and enclosed by numerous box forms. It is embedded into the bridge so as to remain slightly hidden, which I feel is symbolic of Yin's modesty. In this image you can also see the glass mover which brings you down from the player start into the office, as well as her own elevator which moves to and from the meeting space.

BELOW: An interior shot of Donatella Versace's office. This space was intended to reflect Versace's immense power as well as loud persona, appearance, image and ego. I have achieved this in the use of extremely bright clashing colours for her office, in combination with a crazy form at the back of it, at the same time avoiding just the simpler flat back wall seen in draft 1. Her office space, like Yin's, is massive in every way, screaming power in every aspect of it. The large curvy form behind her desk and chair (custom made) has a subtle 'V' shape, illuminated by lights surrounding it. This 'V' along with the posters of models showcasing her clothing, as well as her throne-like chair and boldly lit up desk each mirror her egotistical and proud persona. Her elevator, containing a large image of herself as the backdrop is also representative of this (see note at end of post).



BELOW: The meeting space. The stone exterior with a rather complex form makes it difficult to see inside the space from the outside. This was intended to convey what I imagine would be a huge clash when the two power's would meet, from both a cultural and personality point of view. Thus a sense of uncertainty is created in approaching the meeting space, which is relieved once you have entered it; it is very open allowing a lot of air and sunlight into it. The dining table was inspired by both clients, in an effort to create an equality between them despite their differences. It is large, long and thick in form and heavy in appearance, so as to reflect the weight of their power and influence. The chairs with high backs are also intended to represent their power making them, like Donatella's office chair, throne-like in appearance.


Note: There was a problem with my elevator for Versace, looking at it from different angles, you are unable to see all sides of it at the one time. I tried numerous times to overcome this by remodelling it, re-importing the static mesh from SketchUp, reapplying textures, changing the positions of the mover but it proved to be the same each time. You will see what I mean once in the environment. I have posted 2 SketchUp screenshots of what iit is meant to look like as a whole in the post entitled "Versace's elevator".

technical difficulties!!!

I am experiencing major difficulty in uploading my images onto blogger and UT file onto filefront. I don't know why it isn't working, I'm guessing the servers are really congested at this time... It is now 9:53pm on Friday evening, I have completed my work over an hour ago and have been trying to be patient with this however still no progress.

SketchUp images with textures

I have posted these images because UT got to a point where it decided it didn't want to make my textures work anymore. It applied my custom texture to Yin's space (a static mesh), however everything else I tried after that (both static meshes and movers) would make the textures appear so small they looked like plain colours. You'll see what I mean when you go inside the environment; if you get very close to the objects, the textures are there, they are just incredibly small. I tried everything to resolve this, including remodelling the objects from scratch, changing the image size in photoshop, but to no avail. So below are 4 images of the objects in SketchUp, showing how the textures would've looked on their respective objects if they weren't so small!


ABOVE: The dining table uses a scalar texture, with the same pattern mirrored with reversed colours. The purpose of this was to represent both the differences and similarities between the two clients: differences being cultural background, area of expertise, manner in which they acquired their wealth and power (reflected in opposing colours) and similarities in the magnitudes of their power and influence (showed through the same shape of the design that is reflected).

ABOVE: Yin's elevator with scalar texture. I like to think of it as representing the steady growth from nothing to riches and power.

BELOW: Versace's office chair and desk, both with different 'erratic' textures reflecting the nature of her persona.

ABOVE: The meeting space with dining table and chairs. The material used for the meeting space structure is heavy stone to create the illusion of it being uninviting, which is reversed once inside the bright open space.

SketchUp 3D Warehouse

I have uploaded my model containing the two elevators and dining table to the 3D warehouse.

The link to the file...

EXP3_SKETCHUP_MODEL.skp

The link to 3D warehouse...

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=2a29cd7cf0cd35a83506efc5e8d6baa6

Thursday, June 19, 2008

2nd draft map

DRAFT2_EXP3.ut2

2nd draft environment

Below: Yin's office space - still missing some furniture and an elevator down to the meeting space. You can see here the glass mover which brings you down from the beam into Yin's office.


Interior of Versace's office, with custom made table and chair. More furnishings to be added, as well as textures and a solution to the elevator problem!

Inside the meeting space, showing dining table and chairs.

View from top down into the meeting space


Environment from beneath, showing all three elements plus Versace's elevator in motion.


Yin's elevator

Yin's elevator: Made from wooden planks in a simple box shape, the vertices are softened with curves to represent femininity. There are small gaps between planks to let light in from the sides, suggesting a sense of achievement as in Yin's case where she rose to power from such a simple idea.


Below: Elevator in motion, descending to the meeting space.


Arriving at its destination!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Versace's elevator

A couple of shots of Versace's elevator from SketchUp. Putting these up just in case you can't see the elevator when changing angles in the actual environment, im trying to fix the problem now...


Update, Friday 20th June: I was unable to resolve the problem mentioned in the post "FINAL IMAGES". In any case, with Versace's elevator I intended to reflect her power in its size, the large picture of herself on the back of it, as well as a comfortable couch for her to sit on once inside it! The shape is an exaggerated figure of a woman, which clearly conveys a sense of empowerment. The elevator itself moves quicker than Yin's so as to show a contrast in personalities; Versace's is quite loud and over the top, whereas Yin is a more quiet and modest persona.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

1st draft map

DRAFT1_EXP3.ut2

development of Versace's office

First image: from inside the office looking to the back wall-type structure. It's unclear in these shots, but in the middle there is a V shape which I need to work on lighting more to illuminate.

Below: front view

Last image: perspective showing both spaces in relation to each other. If you look to Yin's end of the beam you can see the top of the mover to take you down into her space from the beam (glass texture).

I am yet to decide which textures to use where, so these are just experimentation with both my exp 3 textures and the ones found in UT.

development of Yin's office

Some shots showing development of Yin's office, with a more generic texture (in the 1st draft I used a texture from exp 2). I added some more box forms and kept Steven Holl's designs in mind when doing this.



The below image shows the relative scale of the office, emphasising its grandeur. The space where the wireframe platform is in this image will be where one small elevator will bring you down from the top of the beam into the office space.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Friday, June 13, 2008

First draft environment

These 3 image captures show my initial experimentation with form for each of the office spaces (both with old textures from exp 2). The first one shows the space for Yin; made entirely from box shapes, it clearly reflects the source of her success. I'm still trying to figure out how to make it less exposed. The elevator would start from the beam's level, move down into the biggest space (rectangle shape) and then continue to the meeting area.


The design for Yin's office space was based on this 2 point perspective.


This is Versace's office (below). Although I like the curvy form, I will be experimenting a lot more with a more interesting shape for it, and adding a few more elements to the interior. I would ultimately love for it to incorporate more transparent materials in order to represent how extravagant and exposed her persona is. Funny that I achieved the opposite to what I was going for with these first models: a very open space for Yin and a more enclosed one for Versace...



A shot showing the positions of the offices, at opposing ends of the beam. This will remain relatively the same in the models to come. I couldn't obtain a good shot to show the sizes in relation to each other but if you look at it from the front, the offices are similar in size, both quite large emphasising the grandeur of both clients' personas.



Thursday, June 12, 2008

Steven Holl likes his boxes...

Holl, the perfect source of inspiration for a space for Zhang Yin. It will be very box-like in appearance to reflect and certainly emphasise the very source of her fortune and hence POWER - cardboard boxes!! A few lovely images showing my choice of precedent for Zhang Yin's office space...note the '+ shaped prism' in the second image!


Monday, June 9, 2008

peer feedback sheets


Brainstorm on paper



I suppose these show my initial ideas, based on a comparison of the two clients I chose to design spaces for, Versace and Yin.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Juxtaposition

Whilst brainstorming the concept of juxtaposition for my own design, I came across the following images....

The bell tower of a church fit right between two apartment buildings in Paris.

The above two images show a streeet in Milan, a row of trees lining it fit snugly between the buildings of the street (similar to the bell tower), nice contrast between nature and man-made...

'OBSTACLE' in 3D/'DEMISE' as a pathway

Here are 3 screenshots of a one-point perspective i modelled in UT shown from various angles, along with the sketch I based it on.

I chose the word 'OBSTACLE' because if you look at it from the view presented in the sketch, the bottom cross looks as though it is stopping you from getting where you want to be, in the comfortable space at the top. Hence, it is a powerful figure in this case.




Below is the sketch entitled 'DEMISE', followed by screenshots of it modelled as a pathway in 3D. I think it has an interesting form; in regards to power, its assymetry represents a sense of chaos, which ultimately leads to a lack of control and thus, demise. The angles from which the first two screenshots were taken however suggest dominance reflected in the structure's size... I guess you can look at it both ways!