Intro to 3D Design Part II
Author: Jonathan JonasPublished on: May 6, 1998
When we last left off, we were talking about how to start off drawing a 3D project. We mentioned various programs that can be used, such as 3D Max, 3D Viz, Facade, Architectural Power Tools, and ArchT to name a few. One of the main problems that we mentioned was in trying to get the designer to use these programs in a way that could be later used by the drafter.
When you are drafting in ACAD, you strive for the most accurate drawing you can produce. It cuts down on the work you have to do later as you continue with the project. Unfortunately if you are given a design by an architect in ACAD and you must create from it construction drawings, you either rely on the drawings being correct you redraw them. My firm is an excellent example of a company that is trying to teach the architects how to use the tools before them by setting up training seminars for them to learn 3D. Since 3D is most useful as either a presentation technique for you client's needs or as a design tool, the best thing you can do is to empower the designer. If they are producing with many of the programs above, the point of turning the 3D into construction documents becomes a moot point anyway. When you work with programs like Facade and A.P.T. you cannot change them into 2D drawings. You can however tell ArchT to transform itself from 3D to 2D and vice versa. However, you are limited in the work you can do to the drawing, as it must remain rather static in regards to what ArchT has drawn.
You have three choices for translating the drawings from 3D to 2D.
1. You drew the items in ACAD using solids. With solids you have various commands like section that allow you to generate regions that are sections of you project. These regions can then be exploded to work on like a regular drawing. With this method you should be familiar with using your UCS and rotate3d commands in order to arrange the created items.
2. You drew the items as either meshes in ACAD, 3Dplines, or you used Facade, A.P.T. or some other program to generate the 3D drawing. Once this is created switch over to Tilemode 0 and create Mviews. Each Mview align with the side of the building you want to look at, and then use the Dview command to Clip the back pane of the object within about 1/8" from the front to create an elevation. Do the same thing to create a plan view, only use the clip subcommand to generate a clipping plane that is about halfway down the walls of the building. This method can also be used on the solids if you prefer.
In both cases 1 and 2 you can dimension the drawing, make notes, etc. that are needed by creating new layers, one or more for each viewport that are frozen in the other viewports.
3. Redraw the building from scratch in 2D. You may be able to trace the 3D objects if they were correctly drawn.
As we said earlier, using the 3D is important for not only design, but for presentation. Once you have created a 3D model there are several steps to creating a presentable picture that looks real.
First think about what you want to see. Is there a specific area that is important or is a flythrough necessary? Sometimes rather than doing a flyby shots of various important points along the path create a much more impressive presentation than simply walking through an area. Part of the reason for this is the time that it takes to create a decent flythrough vs. several shoots that you spend much more time on creating just right.
How will you present this? Will it be single images on paper, on the computer screen, or on a TV? This will determine in part what resolution you will need to render it at and how much detail will be in the picture. A print that is on an 8.5x11 needs much less detail and resolution than a 24x36 plot. Check your printer for color matching and resolutions that are possible. Many times what you see on the screen will not be the same as what you print out due to the limitations of the ink and paper. The color gamut is the actual colors that are producible with the inks that you are using, and your monitor has a much greater gamut than your printer. If you will be porting this to a VCR check how a sample image will be produced. Keep away from large areas of red on TV's as this causes problems with most sets. If you will be sending this out to be printed on a slide for a projector presentation, send them a sample file to see how it will look. Many service bureaus can do lots of different outputs, but you should check for how long the turn around is and if they will have any backlogs or large orders expected when you will want your output.
If you will be presenting this on the computer consider whether it will be an interactive presentation or a slide show. If you want a slide show, consider using MS PowerPoint. I recently did an 8-minute presentation that engrossed over 100megs of AVI's, BMP's, DWG's and other images and text, and was very pleased with the ease of use and the speed at which we were able to create a presentation. The entire project to create the AVI's, generate many of the BMP's, scan in pictures, create the text, etc was all done within a 48-hour timeframe. The fact that we were able to copyclip into PowerPoint directly AutoCAD images was a real bonus, and since most people have this already on their computer was an added benefit. Other software you may want to use would be Premiere by Adobe, or Director, Authorware or Action by MacroMedia. Both PowerPoint and Director can also port directly over to HTML I believe so if you do it right you may even create a presentation that can be ported to your web site as you do it.
Next consider what sort of objects should be in the picture. Are you creating a daylight study model or a finished material model? Different needs require different levels of objects in the scene. You will probably want to purchase from McNeel their copy of Blocks and Materials for around $400 and it's already all fixed for use with Accurender's material libraries. The more everyday objects you place in the scene, the more natural the picture will look. It will also help give the picture a real feeling of the true quality of the space, as it will be. The problem here is that often the objects you place in the scene will take precedence in people's eyes. You may have a hard time downplaying their effect in the scene. People will forget to comment on a $100,000 foyer and instead wonder if the $100 coat rack should be maple or oak. In our office we are playing with Fractal Designs' Painter and Adobes' PhotoShop filters to create images that are tweaked so they become less photo-realistic and more abstract. As the design becomes more solid, the images loose their abstraction and become more real. In this way people can comment on the design in the early phases without being drawn into the details that should be wait.
After we have the locations selected and all objects for the scene in place, you should go to the site and see if there are any pictures that can be used for backdrops. If there are windows, take shots from where the picture will be created capturing what will be seen out the windows. Also, if you have any material samples of the items being used, scan these in and use them for the materials in the scene. You again will need either PhotoShop or Painter to do some magic on the background image to edit out unwanted elements and for creating the tiled images for the materials.
Depending on the scene, you may also want to populate it with human forms. This can be done in several ways. One of the most fun ways is to use Fractal Designs' Poser 2.0. This will create men, women, or children using inverse kinetics to move the body into the shape you want, and they come in several different clothed styles. The problem with them is that they do look computer generated. This is ok if the people will not be right up front in the scene. You can also create AVI files of them moving and insert this into your AVI file. Another is simply to purchase individual models from one of the many model stores. The problem with this is that you are only buying 1 model in 1 position. Purchase about 3 models, and you've paid for Poser. Personally, I'd go with Poser instead. Lastly you can take photos of people and place the photos into the scene. This can be done either before or after the image is rendered. Afterwards you have the problem though of faking in the shadows from the person. Before and you have the problem of how to insert the bitmap into the image. One way is by having the picture of the person be incorporated into the background image. Another is to simply create a series of 3D faces of a region that is in the shape of the person's picture and then use the picture as the material for the shape. This works only from one angle. If you are making an AVI, you need to rotate the region to always face the camera or you will notice the person is only a flat surface. Here's a simple trick for doing similar things with simpler items: Try taking a rectangular surface. Array this around its midpoint so you have a pinwheel. Apply to the surfaces created a bitmap of a column, plant, tree, etc, and you can move around it and it will always appear to be looking at you without having to turn it or create a complicated geometry to define it. It's a simple trick that works so long as you don't notice the shadow is messed up. If you need real plants with shadow, the best thing on the market that I've seen is Accurender where you actually pick different trees, plants and groundcover, but you can also modify existing species of plants or create your own, as well as pick what season the plant is in. Recently on a 4000x3000-pixel image we placed several trees, plants and groundcover in the image. After rendering on Accurender there was so much detail in the plants, you could make out every turn in each leaf on the oak trees. For the record this image took about 60 hours to render on a PP 200 with 128megs of RAM. We have since upgraded our machines in an effort to decrease this time.
This leads me to the next item. Plan ahead that your rendering will take a long time. The more plants, effects, such as haze, fog, etc that is placed into the scene, the longer the scene will take to render. Leave yourself plenty of time. Also try to have the machine you are rendering on setup with a Back-up Power Supply unit (UPS) so in case of power failure, you hopefully won't loose the rendering.
If you are using Accurender, you will probably wish to use the Radiosity attachment for indoor scenes. This will check light as it truly bounces off surfaces in the rendering. Light can make or kill a rendering. Think about how the lights will illuminate a table, sconces on walls, pendent lights on a shiny floor, etc. as this can make a dramatic effect in the scene. Radiosity can take a long time to generate, and it is considered normal to cancel a radiosity map routine when it is about 70% to 90% done. The longer it thinks, the less impact the bounces will have. One bounce of light off a wall can have a large impact. Light bouncing off the wall, onto the floor, then onto a different wall, and by the time it hits the ceiling, the amount of light left over is so minimal that it will not influence the scene in any particular way. Accurender is considered one of the best radiosity programs around. Lightscape is also very good, and you can see examples of what it can do in most of the magazines. However Lightscape is very finicky about how the model is created. There can be no overlapping planes or the radiosity map goes awry. 3D Max 2 can now do radiosity, and you can also get a plug in for it also for more features, however most critics give Max's radiosity a bum rap.
Ok, so you created an image. Great, except that sky's not quite what your client had in mind. And that white van parked out front of building has got to go. Ok... no problem. Again, PhotoShop and Painter to the rescue. Wait, you say it's not just an image, but an AVI file? Still no problem. You can load an AVI file into Painter, edit each frame, add in other items and frames and save it back out as an AVI. You may also want t pick up a public domain copy of a Morphing program to morph between different pictures.
So, you can create a great set of images or movies for your client to look at, and use when designing the building. But consider before you start what the cost will be. Make sure that it is in your contract to pay for this. Also don't forget to charge for the materials that are involved in printing out the images. Consider what the use will be, who will be looking at the image and how close they will be to it. Double check that the scene is in the correct position and that everyone is happy before committing yourself to it. Don't create parts of the geometry that aren't needed in a rendering if you can help it. And remember this is art. Deal with it accordingly. You give a renderer all the time they need to create their picture, do the same for your staff considering they are not only creating a picture but the model as well. And lastly, have fun with it. This is where you can get a chance to play!