Assignment One

Our design of the Cenotaph required various solutions to highlight our design and its environment. Our technology evaluations had to cover certain things as exporting large scale solids into CryEngine. Using 3dsmax as a medium to improve the model and essentially transfer to Crysis and experimenting what lighting characteristic in Crysis would have in relation to solids and materials.

Through intensive research, team urban had only rough plans of the original structure. The various sources detailed a plan view, a section and what looked to be a front elevation of design. Getting the height of the building as close to scale was essential as the focal from of the design is a large dome or sphere. By calculated estimations we were able to achieve close dimension to what the original architect had designed. Scanned and scaled images were intensively used to overlap over ArchiCad plan drawings to achieve structural dimensions.
Initial stages of the project involved using drawings from books and very crude Internet plans of the design and creating them in ArchiCad. Once this the diameter of the sphere was found the 3d image could begin. Using the roof tool in ArchiCad a conceptual design was established. This worked well for the top half of the sphere but the reverse needed use a variety of different tools and techniques. In short the bottom half of the sphere was mirrored from the top half and its properties changed to invert its origins. This was achieved by simply putting negative displacement numbers in its attributes. Once the sphere had been formed the outer wall layers were positioned and floor levels were created. The overall building form was slowly put together using ArchiCad but the interiors were yet to be fully investigated as no plans existed yet for internal spaces. We will examine this further as the project continues.
Once the general form of the design was created we exported this into 3dsmax and manipulated the form further. Once we were satisfied with the design we grouped it as a whole component and using a Crysis SDK plug-in for 3dsmax, we then proceeded to export into the prepared terrain in CryEngine.

After researching the background of the project, it was discovered that little is known about Boullée's intentions for location. However, the subject of the building allowed the narrowing down of a suitable context. After his death Sir Issac Newton was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, where he still remains. Taking London as the base location, the project required a site that would be able to accommodate the 300m/sq cenotaph. After looking through google earth it became apparent that the area that is Hyde Park and neighbouring Kensington Gardens would be the most suitable location with enough space to place the building. Upon selecting that location, a high resolution texture map was created of a 2084m x 2084m area centered on the site using images stitched together after being taken from google earth. A base terrain was created in Sandbox 2 and was textured using this texture map. By exporting the terrain from google earth into Sketchup a contour map was created by taking sections through the terrain. This assisted in modifying the terrain so that it reflected the real topography and in the placement of some of the major roads, paths, trees and buildings. Once the draft environment was ready the 3ds model was imported and placed.

Now that the draft environment has been put together it has allowed the team to see where the potential sticking points are in the modeling and associated work-flows are. The map itself appears bare until the perimeter buildings are added, which in turn are hard to place an manipulate in SandBox. This most likely calls for them to be modeled outside SandBox and imported. Trying to model the terrain accurately in SandBox can be a little tricky. Exploring the possibility of a height map might help. Accurate placement of roads and paths is also an issue. Creating a highdetail guide which can be placed as a texture map might also be considered.