Room Evaluation

Kitchen

I am happy with my kitchen because it links with my research. The finished piece shows it’s a unique modern kitchen. It’s unique from the stylish designed objects and the large window front.

Bathroom

The bathroom is very serene and has the appearance of a spa. It’s quite dark which is relaxing. The spotlights give a luxury look to the room. The room itself looks modern and it’s not any ordinary bathroom.

Evaluation

This evaluation covers what research/planning I needed and other information about this assignment. EVALUATION

Evaluation

The assignment was handed out on the 12^th of October 2009. The task was to create an Architectural Flythrough that was set to sit alongside the winning designs and buildings from the RIBA website (Royal Institute of British Architects). The units consisted of creating 3D environments, Interactive Media Authoring and Web Animation. The completion date was the 27^th of November 2009. The task in more detail was to design a kitchen and one other domestic environment. These two environments had to link to a Building from the RIBA website.

There was a lot of research and planning needed for this project. I first started looking on the RIBA website to choose my building. I looked at a variety of different buildings in different locations but the building that I chose to inspire me was Pencalenick House, Cornwall. I then did some research on the Architect Seth Stein. A well known architect that has won many awards.

The next stage was to do research on different flythrough‘s. I looked into how the website was set out, what software was used and what camera shots were used for the flythrough itself.

The Kitchen

A lot of research went into the kitchen because you can’t build a 3D model from memory. You need references and different objects to inspire you for what you are building. I went to a wide range of shops to get catalogues covering interior design, fittings, colours, floors and much more. The first part of this research I did was a spider diagram showing what I wanted my kitchen to be. Once all the research was complete I moved onto the planning of the room. I created five plans in total refining each one to get my final piece. I also designed side views to help me with the building side of it.

The Bathroom

I went through the same process of research for my bathroom as I did with my kitchen. I chose a bathroom because it is separate to other rooms in a house and I wanted two different rooms to build. After the research and planning was complete I took around 80 pictures of different textures and objects to help me in the building process.

Once this was all designed I moved onto building the rooms. The Software I used to build my rooms in was MAYA. This is an advanced programme that specialises in 3D Modelling. Other programs that were used were illustrator (Floor plans), Photoshop (textures), Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro and Garage Band. I demonstrated the different stages, objects and problems I went through in Maya on my Blog.

The last stage of Maya was to render the rooms. This was very time consuming. One mistake I had was that I rendered one piece in the wrong camera which set me back in the project. I managed to overcome this problem and all was set right. All the rendering was done in Mental Ray. I had two shots and three still pictures for each room. I then made all the renders as one in Final Cut Pro. I also made audio for my flythrough. This was then ready for my website.

Overall I think the project went well. I completed all my research and planning on time. In the future I will organise my work better so I can get everything complete on time. There was an error with my rendering and if I was more organised I would have had time to fix the problem and achieve more.

Final stage

I then put all the renders as one in Final Cut pro and made an audio track in GarageBand. 

Problem

I made the mistake of setting up my first render to be in the wrong camera. This was a big problem because the rendering is very time consuming and it set me back in the project. It took two hours to render an empty space.

Rendering

Both of the rooms were rendered in Mental ray. 

2 Camera shots and 3 still pictures for each room. 

Both Rooms Finished

Bathroom Lights

Area Light  - Mirror Area

Ambient Light - Middle of room - low intensity

Spotlights - Placed on the mini lights with a low intensity

Mini lights

I added Mini lights in area of my bathroom. This gave a luxury/serene and relaxing look to my bathroom. I built the light and added a glow inside. 

Shower head

I assigned a Bulge material to my shower head and repeated the UVs. 

Aligning the wood

Bath wall

I wanted to give a look of a spa/sauna to my bath area. This image is in the Uv texture editor because I had problems with alignment. I also extruded a block of the wall and this made the texture stretch. I re-built the the frame and got the wood aligned. 

Floor

www.stock-textures.com
I researched into the texture for my floor. I chose a warm oak wood texture which was perfect for my bathroom. 

Preview

Sink and Toilet Area

www.mayang.com
The sink units and toilet area is a wood texture. I wanted a light simple shade of wood so it didn't take over the wood around the bath.

Preview of wall

New tile - Clove Brown

I did the same with this tile and it transformed my bathroom from the dark and cold look. 

I used the UV texture editor to fit the tiles in place. 

Wall Texture

I wanted tiles on the walls of my bathroom. I first found this tile from www.toppstiles.com. I duplicated the tile in photoshop and gave a light grey seam between them. When the tile was in my bathroom it made the bathroom look dark and cold. 

Foundations complete

Bath

Building the bath was challenging because I had to build the walls with the right measurements around the bath.

Sink

I designed my sink to be a very narrow basin on its own. This gave a natural and stylish look to my bathroom.

It is essential that you name your materials and textures so there is no errors and confusion.

Essentials

I then went away from my room to build a few essential objects for my room.

Toilet and abate + Sink tap 

The toilets control is on the side which is a censor flush. 

Fix Problem

I didn't want to delete my existing objects so I selected them all and moved them out of my room. To fix the problem, I changed the size of the room so it was more narrower and extruded a new shower floor further down the raised floor.

Stage 2 problem

I then built the sink area. A problem occurred to me that the bath had walls surrounding it and it was impossible to get the bath and wall in the space it had.

Stage 1

I Then built the foundations. I built the block at the bottom (raised floor) so that I could extrude into it for the shower floor.

Once the kitchen was done I designed my bathroom. This bathroom is going to be very serene. 

Lights

Once the kitchen was finished I added 8 spotlights to my lights on the roof. I gave those light textures a glow to show that they were on. I also added an ambient light coming from outside. All these lights needed different angles and separate components. All Shadows were turned on.       

Extractor

I had researched into extractors and I decided to build one that looked very modern and wouldn't take up a lot of room.

Two materials - Blinn and Noise 

The noise was for the Fan part.

New Chair

I then changed it to give more stability and style. 

Chair

I wanted to build my own chair/stool from scratch. 

These would sit at the edge of my kitchen island. 

Oven

The oven was put into photoshop. I wanted to make an extra effect that would look like a smudge on the glass of the oven.

PSD file - Transparency + Color 

Hob + Controls

I designed both these textures in Photoshop. 

To the right is my Teppan Yaki 

Fridge

Large modern fridge. 

I researched into a specific fridge so I could see the size/shape and reflectivity. I added the same handles to the fridge from my cupboards. 

Window

View from inside 

Large sheet

I had to add a large enough sheet for my image so that the viewer wouldn't be able to see the edges outside.

Fowey Bay

www.oxford-chiltern-bus-page.co.uk

I put this image into photoshop. Then added the sphereize effect to give it a more panoramic view. 

Window

I built a large frame to fit across the wall to hold my window in place. 

It had trouble deciding what image I should have outside. I started with cities with great views such as Barcelona but it didn't link with my kitchen. It then came to me, I was building my house in the same style as Pencalenick house and I knew this house sat looking over Fowey Estuary in Cornwall.

Modeling Tap

For me, the tap was the most complicated object I built. Extruding and rotating gave me the curve. The flex part of the tap was built by adding loops.

Tap

I chose to do a similar tap like this because its professional and modern.

Tap

Cupboards

This texture is appealing because the wood isn't aliened. I did this by decreasing RepeatUV making it look as if the wood runs off the object. It's different and stylish.

texture process

The way to apply the texture to objects is simple. Each one needs modifying in photoshop first but once you have the file its easy. Select a Blinn. Then link the file to it. The blinn allows you to change to components of the texture (reflectivity etc).

It also depends on what you are texturing because some objects/faces need the UV Texture editor which enables you to make the texture suitable for the object and fit in the right places.

cupboard/drawer wood texture

www.stock-textures.com

Floor texture

This floor gave a stylish look to my kitchen. Reflectivity and reflection blur gave the glossy finish

Problem

Working from a hardrive and a memory stick can cause problems. I noticed this when my floor texture disappeared. I solved the problems by organising the textures into one directory then locating the file from the hyper-shader. 

www.bricksntiles.com

Stage 3 - Floor

Wood floor - I started off by using the wood from the hyper-shader but It didn't look right because there was just one piece of wood running along the whole floor. I then found a wood texture that would suit my room.

stage 2

I wanted my work-top to look similar to a black slate texture. I did this by choosing the marble texture out of the hyper-shader and changed the components of the marble to give me a slate texture.

stage 1

The first stage was to build the foundations of my kitchen. Each object was built separately to give me more control over them (oven slides out).

Kitchen Plan

This image shows the final floor plan of my kitchen. I also designed side views for each area of the kitchen which would help me in the building process.

Software

The Software I am using to build my rooms in is MAYA. This an advanced Piece of software used for 3D Modeling.

Other programs that have been used are illustrator (Floor plans) and Photoshop (textures).

Assignment Brief

The RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) launches an annual award scheme each year that recognises outstanding architecture and design in the UK. Being a designer, I have been commissioned to create an interactive flythrough. 

My flythrough will incorporate a kitchen and a bathroom and these will be related to the building I have chosen to build them on.