Under Construction
A showcase of my first year of studying Architectural Visualisation at YRGO in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Under Construction
What Can And Will Be
My first year of studying Architectural Visualisation at YRGO in Gothenburg is soon at its end and gathering the images for this entry has made me realise how much I've created this past year. It has been a true exercise in patience and taming the beast that grows inside you whenever auto-save kicks in during those last few hours of a project.
This entry is a testament to how far I've come, and how far I have still to go.
The Renovation Project
Software used: 3ds Max, CoronaRenderer, Photoshop
This was my first proper school project in visualisation and we had a time frame of 2 weeks.
The brief was to find a house listing for a Swedish home in need of renovation and to visualise two rooms within that home. I chose the living room and the kid's room, aiming for a modern Scandinavian style and a slightly muted but playful colour palette.
I first built the room. Simple. Walls with holes for windows and doors, ceiling (remember to make ceiling see-through so you don't need to hide and unhide every time between renders), floor. Add materials, a simple baseboard using a spline and the sweep modifier, and then it's time for camera placement and light setup.
This project particularly taught me two things; kill your darlings, and if you make a good foundation you'll have an easier time building upon it.
Point 1: Early on, I fell in love with the idea of showcasing the fireplace in the living room. Problem is that by showing the fireplace you can't see anything of the actual room. So, stop modelling that fireplace and get back to camera placement.
Point 2: For the kid's room I didn't have much time left before deadline, so I put a lot of energy into making the room look good before letting myself get crazy with downloading assets. With a good foundation, anything I added just enhanced the room.
Chair Modelling
Software used: 3ds Max, CoronaRenderer, Photoshop
My second project was an exercise in 3D modelling, good topology and texturing. We had to choose a designer chair to model in 3ds Max, using only reference images. I chose to model the chair Friday 1 by Formstelle. Once again, we had a time frame of roughly 2 weeks to work on this.
My mortal enemy in this project was a modifier error which has forever destroyed these project files in the great Symmetry Bug Wars of '21. Oh well! I guess I'll have to model some more assets which will likely take a fraction of the time compared to this first project.
Dear UVW Unwrap, I might not love you yet (or ever), but I respect you.
Viewpoint Hotel, Yellowstone
Software used: 3ds Max, CoronaRenderer, Photoshop
This project was our first group project. We were given a specific location in the world and were tasked to create a hotel concept that properly reflected the given location.
As we were given Yellowstone, USA, we chose to focus on the local materials and natural colours found in the area, as well as letting as much natural light and views in as possible.
While we worked together as a group researching and creating this concept, we were each in charge of creating an image for a different part of the hotel. I was in charge of the spa/relaxation area and I tried to create a tranquil place that functioned as place of reflection and recharging your batteries for the next day's activities.
Since this was my first time adding people to an image, I tried to showcase different activities available in the room. Had I redone this image, I would probably have tried to group people together instead as well as focussing more on the composition of the image rather than the architecture.
Bonus: Holiday Card Competition
Software used: 3ds Max, V-Ray, Illustrator, Photoshop
Before the holidays, we had a competition to make a 3D-related holiday card. I decided to make a paper light box based on some images I saw online.
The different layers of paper were created in Illustrator using various clip art resources found online as well as some drawn by myself. They were imported as SVG's into 3ds Max where I made them into planes with a paper texture and some translucency.
The Villa
This was my first exterior project and there was a lot of new techniques involved that were both exciting to learn and difficult to juggle in regards to time management.
This project introduced me to ForestPack and RailClone as well as the whole process of creating an entire house from a 2D floorplan (I owe my life to DWG files and 2.5D Snap).
In hindsight there are lots of things I would've changed about this project and my workflow. I would've probably been using Revit or a similar software to build the base structure first before moving on to 3ds Max.
Urban Architecture
This was the great big enormous international project we had gotten teasers about during the school year. We had the great honour of collaborating with Assembly Studios who provided us with the Revit model, some research material, and most importantly their feedback.
We were given the base files for 25 North Colonnade in London and were allowed to do whatever we wanted (except changing the actual building). I decided to show a late February afternoon during blue hour, with the Canary Wharf Crossrail visible in the background, and a warmer light visible in the building where some people had not gone home yet.
Of course the image is very distorted as I hadn't realised quite how big a difference there was between the camera's and the camera target's respective Z positions in combination with using Automatic Vertical Tilt. Still, while I fixed that issue, after that I had problems with what I actually wanted to show with this perspective.
Life got in the way and I didn't have as much time as expected on this project, and while I did the best I could, I forgot my own lesson of not cramming in people wherever I could. As such, my final image before deadline was the following.
During presentation, I was given some more valuable feedback which I internalised for my revisit to the project where I tried to make it simpler and more down to earth with a human perspective. I still couldn't resist trying to keep as much of the building in the image as possible.
At last, the End
This brings us to the end of my first year at YRGO. An amazing year, filled with amazing and inspiring classmates and teachers. I look forward to a future where this is what I do for a living, but no matter what happens I have learnt a lot; about myself, about art, about architecture, about my own limits and how to push them, and that is awesome in and of itself.
I'm still working on my final project, which sadly won't be done in time for this entry since it's an Animation Project (aka a true test of patience). I will end this with some stills from said animation.
Thank you for reading :)
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