wk14

     Week fourteen! This is it, it is our final week. And in this week all of the work, that we've been doing for the past four months comes together into one simple brochure about our project.

Here is a link to my final brochure:

KNJIŽICA

Here is a video introduction of Issuu, an awesome publishing and sharing site!

       I really enjoyed last couple of months. We've learned a lot of very useful and important stuf that will come more than handy, when we'll be working as architects.

wk13

      For week thirteen we had to collect all of our project material and create an outline of what our brochure will look like. For this assignment we had to use Adobe InDesign or any kind of similar program. 

Here is what I've created:

I've watched a couple of tutorials for this assignment. Here is one of them:

     This exercice wasn't to difficult in my opinion. But it was rather fun and quite easy. It was also really nice, because we could create our own "design".

wk12

      In this week we are moving back to the vector graphic and back to the 2D world. We have the task to import our .dwg files into a vector editing program and improve them.

In the section view I've made much of the adjustments on the stairs, so it's clearer now. I've also changed the color of the cut surfaces. And I've drawn a simple shape of a tree, so it gives it more "life" and is nicer to look at.

 To the floor plans I've made minor adjustments, like changing the color of the walls so it's much more pleasant to see, than pure black. 

I'we watched a couple of videos about InDesign, and here is one of them:

      With this assignment I didn't have much problems, because I got fairly familiar with Illustrator in the previous weeks. But I have to admit InDesign is totally new to me, so I had fun exploring it and its awesome features.

wk11

     Now that our rendering is finished, we have to place our virtual buildings on the actual site. For this task we had to use Photoshop and create a photomontage that looks as realistic as possible. For that we had to learn how to use some really useful and amazing tools that can really help our final presentation of the project.

     Here I posted five pictures that can represent time frames of my work. How I started and what I've done to achieve the final photomontage.

Because I wasn't able to do a panorama of my site in the second week at DMP, I had to do that now.

Than to get as big as a picture as possible, I filled the empty spaces with content aware tool.

And I have to say I was quite amazed by the result.

Next step was to clear the panorama of some distracting elements and to clean it so that it would be ready for the rendered picture.

When I added the rendered building, I found out that it would need some additional shadows on the west wall, so I started to work on that.

When I finished that, I also wanted to somehow "grow" the grass around the buildings base.

And this is my final result.

Below is a close up of the grass around the base of the building.

For this assignment I've watched some videos how other make their photomontages and what kind of results they get. Here is one of them:

Link

       Even though I didn't like this kind of work as much as I enjoyed modeling and rendering in Cinema, it is essential in any kind of architectural visualization and there for time well spent in my opinion. I really have to admit it got quite frustrating for me at times, because of my inexperience and my amateur approaches, but as it is with all things; practice makes perfect.
And I guess I have to practice some more...

wk10

     For our tenth week we had not one, but two main assignments to complete. First one was the obvious one, moving forward with our project. Now that we've modeled our 3D visualization, applied the materials it's only one more important thing to do. That is to properly light and finally render our work, so we can continue with editing and placing our building on site in later assignments.
     The second part of this week's work was to watch the movie from Gary Hustwit called Helvetica and share our views on that subject and think about the movie.

This is what I've created. When I was exploring all the incredible functions in Cinema 4D, I've stumbled on an unbelievable thing called the hair module. With witch, after numerous hours of tutorials and testing, I managed to create stunning looking grass. So I tried to use it in all of my renders.

Here I tried the first render in the morning "light".

This was the first render where I made the grass, but as it' seen, The grass tips were to bright and the fasad was incorrectly scaled, so I had to fix this. The result was next render below:

In this picture I lowered the camere to the ground and focused the camera on the building itself, so that the grass in front got a bit blurry.

In my work during this week I watched tones of videos and tutorials and here is a link to just one of them:

LINK

     For the conclusion I guess I can only say, that this assignment was really great to explore some more awesome functions and endless possibilites of this program, that can give really stunning and quite incredible results.


Thoughts on Helvetica:

      "Helvetica is one of those rare films in which the exploration of a specific topic leads to expanding horizons of perception." This is a quote I heart recently about the movie, and after watching it I got to admit, I couldn't agree more! Just as it's said in the movie. Helvetica is like the air and is there whether we like it or not. We "average" people don't even realize it. But I am 100% sure, that all of us would immediately know something is missing, if it would just disappear one day.
     But after realizing that one starts to question himself... What does Helvetica really have, what is so unbelievably special about it?! I spend quite some time thinking about it and more I tried to get into some details the more it felt weird. And then I finally figured it out, at least I think I did, it's the simplicity. That's the key. The simplicity makes it so extremely useful and so popular. And that's the dream of every designer I think. To create something so timeless and widely spread. At least that's how I see it.
      But I believe there is someone out there who thinks completely opposite. And that is also one thing I really enjoyed in the movie. To see the story from different people and from totally opposite views. Because it takes the idea of someone and "destroy's" it in a minute. Honestly at first that was disturbing to me. because it mixes your mind and you are totally lost in the middle. But it gives you ability to choose a side objectively and that is something to be honored in todays world, full of forced information.
      So I can't wait to see the other two movies, Objectified and Urbanized from Gary Hustwit.

wk9

    After we completed our 3D models, we were left with our first virtual building. And it's exactly the same as it would be in reality; in ideal conditions; and build precisely according to our 2D drawings and given dimensions. Of course we are talking if it were actually ever build and nothing would be changed or corrected latter. But any ways, our virtual model is build, what now?
We all know that in real life there are no building that are made purely as a shape. Without the use of any material whatsoever. Everything in architecture is made out of something and everything has it's purpose. Whether it is only esthetic or it plays some kind of vital role in the construction itself.
And exactly that was our next assignment! To give our model some "life" and some reality. To explore and apply materials and textures to our plain surfaces.

Here are some screenshots and quick renders of how I approached this assignment.

For my better understanding of all different preset materials and textures and learning how to create my own, I watched this tutorial set:

LINK

 
     I have to admit, I am really surprised of what it is actually possible to achieve with todays computers, regarding rendering and creating images so realistic that it's hard to distinguish them from pictures taken with a real camera. And because of that fact and the thirst of actually knowing how to do that my self someday I really enjoyed this ninth assignment. I think it's crucial for us, the future architects to really get to now this technics and to learn this to a great depth. Especially now, when there is to much architects out there searching for employment, this kind of reference is literally priceless.

wk8

     For our eight assignment, we "cranked up a notch" our growing skills in the 3D modeling environment. We had the task of importing our 2 dimensional drawings; our floor plans into a chosen 3D modeling and rendering program. Then we had to start "creating" and modeling our building according to the dimensions we specified. For that we used numerous features of the program. Starting with the basic geometry using primitive object, and all the way to more complex methods. Great thing about all of these programs, whether it is Autodesk's 3DS Max, Maya, or in my case Cinema 4D, is that there are limitless options of achieving our goal. And I think that this is priceless, as each and every one of us can "invent" his own way, that he likes the most and that seems to be the most effective of achieving desired results.

This is how I approached this assignment. I keep a sort of screenshot "resume"of the whole process.

Here is where it all began... I actually had problems from the beginning, because
Cinema 4D has some silly limitations on importing .dwg files. So I first tried exporting
it to Illustrator, and then to Cinema 4D, but I failed. So latter I found out that the file has
to be saved as a .dxf R12, which is a quite old version. So my confusion was obvious. 

When I finally managed to import the file, I started modeling. First I started
with some simple polygons. Then I extruded them to the specified height.
That's how I got my walls standing.

Next step was to model doors and windows. This was a bit harder than last step.
It involved duplicating objects and creating instances, I had to change the
position of the snapping points all the time, etc...  But when I came to grips
 with it, it all got a lot faster.

Some more work on the windows...

This is what the ground floor looks completed.

I used the same methods and tools to model the first floor.

After I completed both floors, I had to lift first floor and snap it in
it's place. 

Modeling the roof was the hardest task I had to do. I had to change and divide
some walls into more segments. Then I struggled with connecting and trimming
walls with the roof. 

Finished work

And here are final quick renderings of the complete house, from different views, without any materials.

Here is a couple of links to some video tutorials that helped me with this exercice:

Tutorial 1                          Tutorial 2                     Tutorial 3

        I have to admit, that this is one of those assignments that I really looked forward to. Not because I would be some kind of expert, but the opposite, I had no idea what in the world I was doing. The truth is, that before last weeks assignment I've actually never "worked" or even explored Cinema 4D or any other similar program. But I really always wanted to learn! So I am really grateful that this assignment was on the curriculum, because who knows how long it would take me to start doing something on my own.