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Architectural Visualisation – 3D Blue Print

By Architectural Visualisation, Demo Reels, ShowReels

Architectural companies show reels are often full of cliches, the current most over used one is the ‘flying in’ construction animation which although impressive is rapidly becoming passé.

3D Blue Print’s showreel sidesteps these cliches and starts off with an interesting play on the concept of scale with a building emerging from a tabletop site plan:

3D Blue Print, founded by Mathew Dalby, a qualified Interior Architect provide visualisation services from concept sketches to full working drawings which can be further developed into architecturally accurate presentations.

Also featured so far in our posts on architectual visualisation are examples from Squint/Opera and Design Hive.

Crysis Engine Level Editior – Rapid Level Modification

By Crysis, Game Engines, Oblivion

Over the last few months we have taken a couple of looks at the forthcoming game Crysis using the CryEngine 2 for architectural visualisation.

The movie below provides a quick recap on the quality and realtime lighting:

Of interest for urban visualisation is the level editor which is detailed in the next movie embedded below. If you get through the first minute or so it provides a good insight into the capabilities of the engine:

Although the movie is focused on game editing it is equally applicable to architectural visualisation, especially with the realtime shadows and lighting.

If your interested in using game engines for visualisation take a look at our two part Oblivion Tutorial. Oblivion is still the easiest engine to import into, the following movie was the result of less than one hours work:

For those interested we are currently building the same model in Second Life – see our previous posts for the location, feel free to pop along to check on progress.

YouTube Tutorials – Web 2.0 is Changing How We Learn: 3D Studio Max

By 3D Max, 3D Modelling, YouTube

Its difficult to remember what learning 3D modelling was like before sites such as YouTube came along. Although just over 2 years old it is an invaluable source of information, indeed we rarely look towards textbooks nowadays as its much easier to learn modelling by simply watching.

Yesterday we looked at the book Google SketchUp for Dummies which has integrated 62 YouTube movies into a tutorial set that would of been unfeasible just a few years ago.

Embedded above is Chapter 1 of a series of tutorials on 3D Max hosted on YouTube by a user going by the name of prabinpebam. Prabin has 42 tutorials covering both 3D Studio Max and PhotoShop.

YouTube is becoming an excellent educational resource and we definitely don’t miss those days of learning 3D Max via expensive text books.

You can download a 30 day trial of 3D Max from here.

Book of the Week – Google Sketchup for Dummies

By Book Reviews, SketchUp, YouTube

As readers may know we are big fans of SketchUp, firstly for being available in a largely fully functional free version and secondly for being so refreshingly easy to use.

Despite SketchUp’s ease of use it does take a while to fully appreciate its range of toolsets and how best to use them. While we normally shy away from the ‘For Dummies’ books, Google SketchUp for Dummies is generally useful.

Written by Aidan Chopra it fully embraces Web 2.0, intergrating 62 ‘how to’ movies on YouTube.

Embedded below is a sample detailing Googe SketchUp’s photo modelling function. Running at over 6 minutes the tutorial is both effective and informative:

Combining the book with the YouTube movies gives you everything you need to master SketchUp and refine your workflow.

You can buy the book from our Amazon Shop for $14.99 (discounted from $24.99) and the full set of movies are available to watch via Aidans YouTube page. We really cannot recommend this enough, how refreshing is it to see 62 tutorials online free of charge?

For more info see http://www.sketchupfordummies.com

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