Its that time of year again when we take the slightly unnatural step of heading out of the city. We are going to be offline for 10 days and taking a break from the office, the blog and all things digital and urban.
To be honest, going 'offline' is going to be tricky but due to a lack of network coverage at our destination its going to have to be cold turkey away from the blog and connectivity in general.
Ed Ratcliffe is a rather good 16 year old film maker, his most recent film '24 Hours in London' captures the pulse of the city with some superb timelapses:
Pinyadda is an early-stage internet company based at 110 Chauncy St. in Bostons who have set up a platform that provides an easy way to find and share articles and blog posts across the web.
To be honest we are always skeptical about such sites but we rather like Pinyadda, there is something about it that is just kind of nice and it encourages discussions on topics.
Talking of which, there is a notable discussion going on regards our last post on 'What's the Most Pressing Issue Facing Cities Today?
QNQ/AUJIK from Kyoto, Japan has used 3D Studio Max 2009, Vray 1.5 sp4, Real Flow 4, Syntheyes, After Effects, Premiere, a Canon HV30 and finally a Merlin Steadicam to create the movie below:
Rendering time came in at 50 hours running on a Intel Quad 3.5Ghz processor. It an impressive array of software and techniques, cumulating in a impressive clip.
Last week we announced that the beta release of SurveyMapper, our free real-time geographic survey and polling tool is now live. As is traditional with our roll-outs it now has its own 55 second trailer:
If you have used other ‘polling sites’ then you will be up to speed, except we have taken away the restrictions and added real-time mapping into the mix. Simply sign up (its free) and then your be able to create your own survey. Currently we have four levels of survey available - Worldwide, based on countries, European Countries and UK Counties/Authorities and Postcode.
Head over to SurveyMapper.com to create your own survey or answer the surveys already running.
The use of machinima for project proposals is an interesting move into the more traditional CAD world. Machinima may lack the highly polished visuals that architects and designers have become used to but it adds in the ability to communicate on a human scale and allows a much stronger ability to 'tell a story'. The movie below details Avatrian's proposal for RailLA.org's call for design ideas to revitalize downtown Los Angeles:
The machinima showcases various concepts, real world implementations and original designs. Avatrian used a virtual world platform in order to implement thier ideas in a manner wherein it can be communicated effectively with 3D content designed and built as needed.
We like it, indeed we presented something similar to Cross Rail in London 5 or so years ago. We may of been a bit ahead of our time on that one as im not sure the guys in suits were ready for a mix of 'Trainz' and virtual worlds. Machinima is starting to knock on the doors of more traditional 3D visualisations.
Summer seems to be a good time of year to dig out those movies that we have liked over our time on digital urban so far. First off we are going to look at our own movies (its slightly indulgent) that in the 1500 odd posts often get lost, we will run through why they were made, the software involved and their place in the bigger picture.
Shot 1: Software: After Effects, Syntheyes, Blender Role: Supervised filming. Decision made on-location to create digital dandelion spores. Match-moved the shot in Syntheyes. Modeled, simulated, lit, and rendered the dandelion petals in Blender. Composited the CG dandelion with the footage in After Effects.
Shot 2: Software: After Effects, Blender Role: Used the photo reference to model, animate, light, and render the water in Blender. Exported camera move to After effects. Positioned landscape elements in 3D space within After Effects and composited elements.
Shot 3: Software: After Effects, Syntheyes, Blender, Photoshop Role: Supervised filming. Match-moved the shot in Syntheyes. Modeled, textured, lit, and rendered the CG spaceship in Blender using the camera solve data. Created the planet and stars in Photoshop. Brought the elements into After Effects to composite.
Shot 4: Software: Nuke, Syntheyes Role: Supervised filming. Match-moved the footage in Syntheyes. Projected a rotoshape onto geometry of the window in Nuke to help key the window. Used various photos to assemble the city in Nuke's 3D space. Simulated a depth of field with a blur and added city lights.
Shot 5: Software: Nuke Role: Supervised filming. Composited pixelated footage behind the door. Keyed the bluescreen, 2D tracked the footage to match the camera move. Had to manually roto the actor to increase his exposure due to the lack of light coming from the doorway.
Shot 6: Software: After Effects Role: Matted and rotoscoped out the angled wheels on the trunk. Isolated each wheel with 2D stabilization in After Effects. Rotated the wheels to be straight, and composited over the original footage.
Shot 7: Software: After Effects Role: Supervised filming. Was filmed on tripod; however a focus pull caused the lens to breathe. Matched lens breath by hand. 2D tracked the shot to match the girl sitting to the original shot's camera pan.
Shot(s) 8: Software: Nuke Role: Painted out reflections in windows and air freshener on wall. Did some manual tracking and some assisted 2D tracking to match rotoshapes to the shot.
Shot 9: Software: After Effects, Blender, Photoshop Role: Modeled, textured, animated, lit, and rendered CG elements in Blender. Color correction, depth of field, and space particles added in After Effects.
If you want to contact Mark then head over to http://marksniffen.com/ for his full resume and details.
Procedural and ESRI have teamed up with NVIDIA to set up a pipeline for the creation, analysis and visualization of photorealistic 3D cities from 2D ArcGIS data. The video shows the creation of the 3D model of the City of Rotterdam in CityEngine:
3D in ArcGIS has always been a bit of a love/hate affair with us so the ability to create a workflow that includes the CityEngine is an intriguing development.
We are suckers for futuristic city animations, especially if they come with a range of improbable road layouts and a sound track from a group such as Boston. As such, the movie below is a winner:
The clip entitled 'Nano structures' was inspired by the graphics of Ivan Tantsiura and the H.I.T[ Holon Institute of Technology] Industrial Design project. All the art work and animation was by Shawn Davis. We like it, so much so we will probably be whistling 'more than a feeling' on the bus home tonight (although that's probably not a good thing).
Jean-Matthieu from Spot Image sent this one in - a superb video clip of Massive Attack - Splitting the atom (official video), showing and travelling into a 3D city frozen in deconstruction:
Bringing the characteristics of a remote physical space to a new interior location is something we will talking about over the coming months with regards the 'Internet of Things'. As such, we really like the 'Weather Ceiling' undulating landscape brings a bit of the outdoors inside:
The network of sensors translate the exterior conditions to a dynamic interior experience. The behavior is semi-autonomous, like cellular automata, creating unpredictable patterns that change over time.
The Cloud is an interactive installation by Dominik Zausinger, Sofia Georgakopoulou, Edyta Augustynowicz and Jeannette Kuo - part of the MAS course at www.mas.caad.arch.ethz.ch.
Do you want to know what peoples views are on the issue of the day, do you want to ask peoples views on a new product, perhaps you are carrying out a straw poll or do you want to collect data to input into a scientific model? All you need is SurveyMapper.com.
If you have used other ‘polling sites’ then you will be up to speed, except we have taken away the restrictions and added real-time mapping into the mix. Simply sign up (its free) and then your be able to create your own survey and embed it into your own site. Currently we have five levels of survey available - Worldwide, based on countries, European Countries US Zip Code, UK Postcode and a Drag and Drop Pin Map.
You can ask anything, survey the nation, the world or just your street with real-time mapping and statistics.
To take part or create your own survey head over to SurveyMapper.com
You may of noticed that we recently launched our project 'TalesofThings', a site that tags any media to any object using QRcodes or rfid tags. We have just pushed an update that introduces 'groups' so all objects of interest can be viewed in one place. As all things urban are close to our heart, one of the first groups is 'Architecture' and we would like you to add your own building with a story.
Its simple to do, just sign up, upload a image of your building of choice (under 2mb) and add a story. Your building will then go live and your be able to add it to the architecture group. If you want you can also print out a QRCode that you can stick to the building allowing anyone to scan the code and add to the story/history of the building via the free iPhone/Android apps.
Your building will also be able to 'Tweet' everytime it is scanned or a new comment/story added, it will also become part of the 'World of Things' map - a place to view all the objects added so far to the site.
We are working on ways to make the objects more location aware and aware of near by objects, it could be interesting over the next few months to see how this develops. We look forward to seeing some of your buildings on the site and will sort out some sort of prize for the best stories...
Loosely based on the computer game Half Life 2, "City 17" by Daniel Eggert tells the story of a guy who finds himself in a city that isn't what it used be:
For those who are not familiar with the architecture of City 17, we produced a short movie a few years ago:
Daniel produced the original clip for film school as his final project. It was shot it entirely on location in Cologne/Germany using the Canon XL1. The CG elements were taken from the computer game "Half Life 2" by Valve Software and animated in 3D Studio Max with a final render with mental ray. Compositing and color grading was done using Combustion and editing was via in Adobe Premiere.
CityEngine is without question one of the best city authoring systems out there. In the past we always noted pricing as an issue, but with the release of City Engine 2010 they have a whole new pricing structure in place.
Highlights of the update are interactive editing of dynamic city layouts, node-based rule authoring, and a sketching tool for facades. In addition to that, CityEngine 2010 include advanced block subdivision, modeling of curved streets, new rule operations for instancing and asset search, native Collada support for assets, export instances with the new FBX 2011.2.
The clip below illustrates the power of the latest version:
As part of the new licensing models the CityEngine INDIE is available for $495 and CityEngine STUDENT for $149.
Head over to http://www.procedural.com/ for full details and a free trial. Really, if your interested in cities in any shape or form the trial is a must.
