Environment Description and Technology Evaluation for Assignment 1

Within our Draft Fabrication Environment we aimed to portray a sense of our building, the Bodo Culture Centre within its proposed landscape, highlighting the surrounding urban and harbour areas. The vision for our building was to create a culture centre that is ‘intrinsically linked’ through its various architectural elements and by the spaces within and between these elements. These spaces needed to be ‘cohesive, connected, fluid and dynamic’ in order to create and define the culture centre within the surrounding urban setting as well as creating a connection to ‘other public spaces located in the immediate vicinity and in other parts of the city’. The culture centre was aimed to create a foundation for diverse activities including: - recreational - cultural - communal - commercial Within our draft environment we have aimed to portray and create a sense of all these underlying factors and elements which were intended by the original designers. We decided to include and focus on the immediate urban areas surrounding our building as well as the harbour and the pier. We also included the island beyond the harbour as in reality this could easily be seen from the building as well as from the pier. We constructed our landscape and terrain using an imported heightmap which showcases all the relevant information about our building, the surrounding terrain and landscape as well as how our building is situated on the site. We aimed to portray the terrain and landscape that could be seen by a visitor to our building, particularly the pier and the harbour as this is a focal point for our building and its surrounding spaces. We aimed to create a sense of what the pier would look like in relation to the landscape by constructing it on wooden pylons which rise from the water to meet the pier. We chose wooden planking as our material for the pier as this is similar to the actual fabrication of the pier. We established from plans of the area that there was an L-shaped element within the harbour that was not connected to any piers, and from research we concluded that it must be a rock wall to stop ships from entering the harbour too close to land, so we chose to create this rock wall within our environment as well. We also included some roads surrounding our building and showcasing its relationship and distance from the surrounding urban landscape. Through the creation of our draft building we chose to portray a sense of the overall shape and size of the building in relation to the surrounding landscape. We felt that this would showcase how our building relates to the urban landscape as well as the harbour, and also how it is situated within and on the terrain. We also chose to create several of its internal and external spaces to portray how the building circulates internally and externally. We also added a basis element of daylight to enhance any materials and textures which we applied within our environment. Within the building itself we also created artificial light in certain areas where artificial light was necessary in portraying a sense of space and allowing the viewer to gain a sense of being within the space. We have also chosen to highlight certain areas of our building by applying various textures and materials to enhance the overall aesthetics of our building within the surrounding landscape.

Technology Evaluation:

We feel that through the creation of our Draft Fabrication Environment that the individual tech tests that each of our team members explored has played a vital part in the successful execution and creation of our building and its environment. We have analysed the success and struggles of each of the tech tests below:

Importing and exporting models from 3dsMax into Crysis: (executed by Kenneth)

Through the help of this tech test we able to successfully import and export our building model into Crysis from 3dsMax. When we first tried this is worked well although none of our textures worked within Crysis. After much research and trial and error we successfully managed to import our model as well as all the textures and materials we applied to it in 3dsMax.

Object Manipulation: (executed by Kenneth)

Through the information provided by this tech test we were able to employ the skills to creating solids within Crysis. Once we had created these solids we were able to manipulate and edit certain aspects to create certain elements within our terrain, such as the pier and the wooden pylons that support the pier.

Landscape / Terrain: (executed by Alichia)

We found the tech tests performed for Landscape and Terrain quite useful once we had imported our heightmap into Crysis. We were able to edit and manipulate the map in various areas as well as add / subtract certain elements within the terrain, such as water height and map scale. Throughout the process of creating our terrain and landscape we learnt numerous helpful steps within the Crysis editor, such as setting up the correct scale and making sure that the terrain in the correct height etc.

Materials and Textures: (executed by Alichia)

Though this initial tech test was futile we eventually discovered how to apply materials and textures to various objects within Crysis after researching and watching numerous tutorials. This was a great help as we were then able to apply textures and materials to our roads, pier and pylons. We also were able to work out how to import materials and textures from 3dsMax into Crysis which aided us in showcasing the various surface elements of our building.

AI: (executed by Cameron)

Through this tech test we were able to learn and understand how AI is executed within Crysis. This would be very useful for the future development of our Fabricated Environment as it will enable us to portray the various circulation systems that are in place within our building and its numerous internal and external spaces.

Sound and Acoustics: (executed by Cameron)

From this tech test we were able to identify how to add sound and acoustics to an environment or space within Crysis. This will be useful in our future design and development of our Fabricated Environment as it will enable us to create a sense of the surrounding urban and harbour environments.

Natural Lighting: (executed by Essmael)

Through this tech test we were able to establish how to add natural lighting within a Crysis environment. We were also able to learn how to edit and manipulate lighting to create the desired effect. This was useful in adding natural lighting elements within our environment which further enhanced the realism of the landscape. Time of day and weather conditions were also explored, this will assist in providing an analysis for the project in coming weeks.

Artificial Lighting: (executed by Essmael)

Through this tech test we were able to establish how to add artificial lighting within a Crysis environment. It was here where we learned that textures and materials hold illumination values, and hence can provide artificial lighting without a direct light source. Crysis also provides a range of direct and indirect lighting, which can be further manipulated to provide the appropriate and realistic light desired.