Archicad - Love at First Sight

Here I am back to some old memories and, luckily for you, I am getting to the better part of my job. Let me start, however, saying that in all my career I have been very very lucky. I had the luck to find out about Blender and therefore create interesting things, I had the luck, as soon as I ended university, to get the chance to attend free lessons on ArchiCAD. What can I say, I had always wanted to learn about it, but I didn't get to it during my studies. I now know that it would have been pretty much useless during university, because everybody I knew was using Autocad (they still do, as far as I'm concerned, but this is another story).

Anyway, I got to learn ArchiCAD and I fell almost immediatly in love with the program: it was easy, it was fun, it was everything Autocad is not, and as a plus the lessons were free! I couldn't ask for more, really.

The funny thing is, my first job wasn't in an architectural firm: in 2005 I worked for a Multimedia Library, a job that taught me a lot about computer networks, but in the meantime I had no way to use all the programs I had learned to use... I still followed forums and the like, but it wasn't the same thing.

All this ended in 2006, when I started working in a very little design firm in Naples. They only used ArchiCAD as drafting and modeling software, and they had chosen Artlantis as their renderer of choice. I spent a couple of years there, doing pretty much all the modeling (and sometimes rendering) jobs they asked me. It was mainly interior design, but by the end of my work there I managed to produce a couple of very nice building models, that I'd like to share with you. The first is a project for a Sports and Swimming center, the second is the modeling of an existing WatchTower with annexed building.



Swimming Center - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX



Swimming Center - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX

I know that these models may not seem much for today's standards, but I'd like to point out that all the modeling process was carried out in ArchiCAD with no plugin, or external software whatsoever, here are some closeups:

Swimming Center - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX

 If you click on the image you get a bigger view. I even made the knobs at the base of the sun shades :)

Swimming Center - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX

Swimming Center - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX

And here are the views of the WatchTower (I had some fun in 3DS MAX in a couple of shots) Again, all 3D was produced in ArchiCAD, and I must say I am really proud of the result :)

WatchTower and Building - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX

WatchTower and Building - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX

WatchTower and Building - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX

WatchTower and Building - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX

WatchTower and Building - 3D: ArchiCAD - Render: Vray for 3DS MAX



Have degree, will find job?

By the time I was getting my Master Degree, I had forgot almost everything I knew about 3D Studio MAX, but a new piece of software was luring me into its workings: I had found out about Blender, I thought the first person exploration module was awesome, and I wanted to use it in some way.

I got the chance while I was preparing my phd, with the subject: "The Architecture of Edoardo Torroja". Torroja is a pioneer in reinforced concrete structures, and has made many buildings that defy gravity. Probably the most famous is the Zarzuela Horse-Racing track with an impressive roofing for the stands:

source: BritishExpat

I, on the other hand, fell in love with the Algeciras Market Place, a Square covered with a concrete shell 40 meters wide, and only 9 cm thick, with no columns in the middle.

This building stil stands os of today, seemingly unscathed by time and weather. What I tried to do was to model the building, and then show a Real Time exploration of the volumes using Blender. I have to say the result wasn't bad for the time, and the judging commitee liked it a lot. Here is a render of the interior, made in Blender, and a brief recording of the exploration:



Blender - Internal renderer





Alongside these works, I was starting to get the hang of Blender's interface, I started understanding UVs and Displacement. When I was starting to look into animation and game-making, however, I stumbled upon ArchiCAD. I must say it was almost love at first sight. The images below describe a little of the experiments I made with Blender and then ArchiCAD.

Blender - Internal Render

Blender - Displacement



Blender - UV mapping

ArchiCAD - Lightworks render

 I will talk about my modeling experience with ArchiCAD in another post, showing some of the things I got to produce during my job in a Design Firm. Right now I'd like to add that, for a particular job interview I had to show some skills in 3D studio MAX. I thought, at the time, I wouldn't remember any of the things I had done before. Much to my surprise, I still remember lots of them, and I managed to produce this model, which isn't much, but I like it all the same!

3D Studio Max - Scanline render - Photoshop

These experiments marked my evolution from university to my first job. I hope I will start posting better stuff in the next days!

3D Studio, I'll see you later!

3D Studio Max - Scanline Render

  As I said in my previous post, my experience in architectural visualization in university was not a complete success. The main reason was that I didn't know where to look for good tutorials on-line, and the ones I really minded to read I found to be too difficult.

At that moment in my life I really did not want to follow a 3D Modeling Class, so I went on in my studies using only Autocad and Photoshop, dabbling in 3D images only as a hobby.

Around 2001-2002 I had another go at organic modeling, and I also tried to learn some basics of animation. At the time I was starting to work with bone systems, and I had convinced myself that rigging a Character for animation was easy. It was so easy, in fact, I never even so much as started to rig a character..

All of my attempts resulted in the images you will see below: they are still very raw, but I look at them as a little step forward in my works.

I'd just like to add that the rabbit character was really fun to make, and apart from the model I also started rigging the face with expressions: in the file I could make him smile, and make his ears bend. If I manage to dig up the scene, I'll try to post a video.

It's a shame I decided not to continue experimenting in 3D Studio Max: I convinced myself that in order to remember all the things I was learning, I needed an amount of time I did not have, at the moment, so I simply stopped using the program altogether... Pity, because I still believe the animation of the Toy Robot was quite nice..

 

3D Studio Max - Scanline render




3D Studio Max - Scanline Render

I sent this image to a contest for a drawing, the caption says: "Run from Omologation". It is my first real try at photorealism, and I am still fond of it because I remember how much fun I had making it. I sucked at the contest, obvoiously, but that is not the point!!

Lastly, here is the animation of a Toy Robot that comes to life. My idea was that it was made of painted Cork and ToothSticks, but I'm not really sure I managed to convey it, at the time...





Get back to work!

At one point in my studies I decided I had to put to good use what I was learning to do in 3D Studio Max. I got the chance to do this during my Interior Design Class. They asked us to analyze the works of famous architect Marcel Breuer. You may be asking yourself who I'm talking about, but I'm about to tell you something surprising: you already know him! Every time you saw, or sat, on one of these arm chairs:

Wassily Chair - Marcel Breuer

you just saw, or sat on, a design by this Architect, who is one of the finest designer of the Bauhaus, alongside Mies Van Der Rohe!

Apart from being a very good chair designer, Breuer was a very fine house designer, and I was asked to concentrate on Hooper House II, which has a fairly simple design:

Hooper house II - FloorPlan

I told myself I would be doing the 3D model in 3D Studio Max. I had some reference photos, and I also tried to replicate one of them:

Hooper House II - Patio

3D studio Max - Scanline render

The result is really poor, and it's sad to say that the experience I had creating this model convinced me to stop using 3D Studio Max altogether: I had no notion of snap points, no real clue as to how to work with the exact dimensions. This program seemed to me not precise at all, but it all depended on my faulty knowledge. You can see some other examples of the images I produced for this class below. They are appalling, but for the time they were greeted with a wow and my Interior Design Class went great... go figure.

And then there were maps, and animation, and a load of other things...

3D Studio Max - Scanline Renderer - Glow after effect

As I continued experimenting inside 3D Studio Max, I discovered more and more things to add to a render scene. None of them were particularly useful for Architectural modeling, but they looked cool anyway. 

I learned how to make lights glow, and i started using boolean operations to obtain complex geometry. I still had no idea what "Topology" meant for a three dimensional element inside the program, so that is why this metallic moon looks so "choppy", but at the time I was quite fond of this result.

I had also discovered more complex settings in the materials, hence the very particular result of the reflections on the surface of the moon. 

The counterpart to this image was a geometrical "Sun", which I like to think of as a "Dial" too. I had a lot of fun making the various parts, not to say trying to get the bump map right!

3D Studio Max - Scanline Renderer

I still like the resulting image, although it was starting to dawn on me that the scanline renderer was only useful for this kind of conceptual, not really realistic work.

Apart from this, I started using black and white images to mask elements in the scene. I was starting to use a program that was becoming more and more useful at the time, to work with images and to create new ones. That program was called "Photoshop" and I had no idea at the time I'd start to love it so much! In a whim of inspiration, I created a series of Sea related images. They are very raw and blotchy: bear with me, at the time I drew these by hand using a mouse!

I used these images as a Map, on a light shade, that resulted in this very short video:

This video became my best result at animation for a while, until I decided to have another go at organic modeling, ignoring the fact that I was no good at it.

In my next post, I'll talk about how the things I was learning contributed to my studies.

The starting point: 3D Studio Max

3D Studio Max - Scanline render - some after effects

This voyage in my memories starts in the second year of my university studies. I was a sophomore in the faculty of Architecture and I had already persuaded my dad of the necessity of a PC for my line of studies. The fact that I was more thrilled with Starcraft and Lara Croft was only a side note I carefully omitted to mention!

In any case, me being me, I started dabbling in 3D modeling software, and the way to go at that time (it was 1997) was 3D Studio Max, version 3. That program seemed overwhelming, I didn't take any lesson, but read a bunch of tutorials on line, and then started modeling the visions I had in my head. My first experiments were all fantasy related, because I was really fond of Dungeons and Dragons, and I wanted my go at creating fantastic settings.

I soon found out it was much harder than I thought, but never the less I went on and on, musing myself I was doing great. 

I wasn't, and my early attempts at organic modeling produced a very funny looking female elf.

3D Studio Max - Scanline render - hmm.. purple eyebrows?

No Wonder she looks pissed...

If creating this character taught me one thing, it was that I sucked at organic modeling, I was really, really bad. With this knowledge in mind, my new experiments went in the direction of my studies: I started to learn quite a bit about box modeling and the like, but I still tried to apply what I was learning to comic related scenes. Some of them, I am still proud of today, even if they are very simple, others are just experiments, and must be seen as that.

It may help to understand the low quality of these scenes, explaining that at that time I had still to understand how units worked, in the program, and I didn't know a thing about UVW mapping because I thought it was too difficult for me. UVW unwrapping was pure science fiction!

News of things to come...

Sometimes it's hard to start writing on a blog. Other times you have an idea so specific you don't even have to wrtie, but let images speak. This blog suffers a multiple personality: it is hard for me to start writing, and the idea is so specific that I thought I would never start something like this.

Apparently the mix of the two things created a distortion in the time-space continuum, freeing some time in my packed schedule, so here I am starting a blog that talks about my attempts at building stuff in 3D software. So here you will find screenshots of my works, elements I have never got around to render, but you will also find images that we, in the world of Architectural Visualization, call render.

If I were to go by the book, I could describe a render as a "photorealistic image produced by software that imitates nature conditions of light and makes a 3D model look real".

Experience, however, has taught me that a render is, really, just an attempt of the designer to show the client what he (or she) had in mind for a particular project. More often than not, the client's answer is: "That's not what I had in mind..." and it means that it's back to the old drawing board for you and all your team.

I'd like to clear at this point that you won't find breathtaking, ground breaking, eyepopping images here: my goal is to publish several examples of my evolution as a 3D modeler and renderer, just because I think it's fun. So a lot of the early posts will be full of really horrible stuff, I'm not kidding. I just hope that in time, what I produce here gets better and better, but there is still a very long road before we get there.

Besides, every long journey starts with one single step... this post is the first step of a new one.