Featured Game Engine Archives - Digital Urban

CASA Cubes in the City

Andy — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:07:50 +0000

As part of a future ‘Easter’ themed promotion we have produced a short teaser clip around ‘cubes in the city’.

The movie was produced using ESRI City Engine, 3D Max and Lumion – it is also being used as part of our Masters course on Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation to demonstrate how simulation (MassFX) can be combined with procedural city creation and rapid visualisation…

Lumion has a few issues with lighting – there are some errors in the movie above – however for work created and rendered in under 3 hours its worth living with…

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SimCity GlassBox Game Engine: 4 Simulation Examples

Andy — Wed, 30 May 2012 12:22:00 +0000

Electronic Arts has released 4 short clips examining the simulation capability of the GlassBox Game Engine behind the forthcoming SimCity update.

Image: Traffic Density in the original SimCity release.

The mix of agent based modelling, economic fire, water etc make for a complex system running within the game engine. As ever with games vs academic models the argument is that gaming is often a ‘black box’ approach where the model algorithms are unknown and cannot be tweaked. We would argue back that the interaction of all these models in one system takes the modelling approach to urban growth one step forward, if we could get inside the GlassBox and create a ‘SimCity for Real’ using real-world data it could be a game changer.
SimCity Insider’s Look GlassBox Game Engine – Part 1

SimCity GlassBox Game Engine Part 2 – The Economic Engine Scenario 1

SimCity GlassBox Game Engine Part 3 – The Economic Engine Scenario 2

SimCity GlassBox Game Engine Part 2 – Scenario 3: Fire

Find out more over at http://www.simcity.com/

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ESRI CityEngine, Lumion, and SketchUp – The Ultimate City Toolkit?

Andy — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:17:00 +0000

Over the last few weeks we have been looking at ESRI’s CityEngine and how it can be used to create rapid urban scenes. As we noted it moves GIS visualisation a step forward while at the same time bringing procedural city modelling into the mainstream game engine world. Of course th
e heart of the CityEngine is the ability to import real world data but to get to grips with the interface it is sometimes easier to look at creating urban scenes from simple procedural rules.

As part of the MRes in Advanced in Spatial Analysis and Visualisation, here in CASA we have been looking at various techniques to visualise urban data. One such technique is the creation of a 3D exhibition space, allowing agent based models and urban data to be visualised within an architectural space.

Music by
Portoponte

The movie above combines the use of CityEngine in Lumion with SketchUp and 3DMax to insert an exhibition space into a city while burning the CASA logo into the street network. CityEngine is a notable step forward for ESRI, both in terms of visualisation and analysis, linking it with Lumion and SketchUp allows it to be taken even further, towards the ultimate city creation toolkit…

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ESRI CityEngine – Creating Cities inside Logos and Logos inside Cities

Andy — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:09:00 +0000

The best way to learn new modelling software is to step away from complex data and take a side look at its capabilities. We have used this approach to run through the various features of CityEngine, producing a series of movies based around the logo of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, here at University College London.
First up we integrated the CASA logo into the cityscape by manually tracing the logo and building a network around it. Via an import into iMovie the result is a playful fly around the logo:

Taking the concept further we built the city around the logo, using the nodes and hubs as interconnected cityscapes. With the city base rising out the sea it presents a different feel to the original movie:

Finally, we used an alpha channel on the logo, allowing us to lower the outline onto the cityscape:

The combination of Adobe Illustrator, ESRI CityEngine, AutoDesk 3DMax and finally Lumion make for a rapid way to create unique cityscapes. The next steps are to integrate actual data…..

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ABM, SketchUp, ArcGIS and Lumion

Andy — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:37:00 +0000

Over the past few weeks we have been exploring exploring new methods and techniques for visualising data. Developed as part our Masters course in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation we are now looking into issues of scale, realtime rendering, rapid visualisation and 3D exhibition spaces.

Regular readers will know we have been exploring Unity due its interactive nature and ability to import various file types into its game engine (see Particles, Agents and Emergent Behaviour ). Unity is still an option but for rapid visualisation Lumion also offers distinct possibilities. The movie below details our first draft example of building an exhibition space (SketchUp), retexturing and adding various crowd/delegate models (3DMax) and the Twitter map (ArcGIS) using Lumion:

If Lumion offered a stand alone viewer rather than purely movie based output then it would be our engine of choice. As such it is currently a weigh up between Lumion and Unity, our Unity example is under development, we will post it soon as we can…

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Lumion, Unity, Agents & Objects

Andy — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:01:00 +0000

Crowd, transport and urban simulations are at their roots down to ‘Agents’ or ‘Objects’ that are assigned a set of rules as to how to moves in relation to both the environment and other agents around them. 3D Studio Max has a built in ‘Crowd and Delegate’ system which can be used to assign behaviour and therefore create realistic traffic of pedestrian systems in 3D space.
The movie below displays our first tentative steps to explore emergent behaviour via the introduction of simple rules. The movie starts out with a basic ‘wander’ behaviour where the agents only knowledge is the shape of the surface. Moving on we assign each of our ‘cubes’ (of which we have become quite fond of…) a level of vision so they can see ahead and therefore avoid each other and objects in their environment.

Crowd and Delegates – Emergent Behaviour from digitalurban on Vimeo.

Thirdly, the agents seek a ‘sphere’ which could be viewed as a source of food. While being aware of each other and tweaking the way the cubes move a swarm behaviour emerges. Finally, we introduce competing groups with two priorities, firstly to eat and secondly to stay as a group. The majority choose the group over the food but a couple stray off in search of sustenance and lose the other members.

Previous steps in our visualisation of agent based models are based around a simple flocking examples. This model is an attempt to mimic the flocking of birds, while the resulting motion also resembles schools of fish. The flocks that appear in this model are not created or led in any way by special leader rather, each bird is following exactly the same set of rules, from which flocks emerge.
We have exported the model into 3D Max providing the visualisation below, as ever these are early days but the results seem to run well with 300 ‘birds’ over 1000 frames. The birds are rendered as cubes at the moment for proof of concept:

Flocking in NetLogo exported to 3D Max from digitalurban on Vimeo.
Music “Funkmelon Blooz” (Electronica)
The birds follow three rules: “alignment”, “separation”, and “cohesion”. “Alignment” means that a bird tends to turn so that it is moving in the same direction that nearby birds are moving. “Separation” means that a bird will turn to avoid another bird which gets too close. “Cohesion” means that a bird will move towards other nearby birds (unless another bird is too close). When two birds are too close, the “separation” rule overrides the other two, which are deactivated until the minimum separation is achieved.
The three rules affect only the bird’s heading. Each bird always moves forward at the same constant speed.
If we were using the built in Crowd and Delegate system a true 3D flocking system would be possible, but it would be pure visualisation, by importing via NetLogo you gain access to the raw data and thus spatial analysis is possible. It is also quick to model and provides the best of both worlds – 3d visualisation and complex modelling.
While 3D Max is of use for crowd and particle simulation when it comes to modelling complex systems an external package is required, such as NetLogo. The movie below details our first steps at CASA (home of digital urban) to export a basic traffic model from NetLogo into 3D Studio Max. The import script was written by our new PhD student, Ateen Patel and opens up a vast array of opportunities to both visualise and model the city.

Music by The Tedd-Z Cookbook, Aerodrome (Funky Shuffle Remix)
NetLogo is a cross-platform multi-agent programmable modeling environment that is widely. It is particularly well suited for modeling complex systems developing over time. Modelers can give instructions to hundreds or thousands of independent “agents” all operating concurrently. This makes it possible to explore the connection between the micro-level behavior of individuals and the macro-level patterns that emerge from the interaction of many individuals.(Nation Master Encyclopedia).
How does this relate to the city? The next part is to put in real geographical data and to get the agents movies and reacting to each other on a spatial network, more on that to come. Perhaps using a particle system as per the movie below:
Particles in the City from digitalurban on Vimeo.All of these models are going into our exhibition space to allow a step by step guide to the principles of agent based modelling. At the moment we are weighing up two options – Unity and Lumion. Our previous trials in Unity are below:
Unity is great, it is a fully featured game engine, however we are also looking at Lumion. Lumion, aimed more at direct visualization, is remarkably easy to learn, the movie below is the result of our first 20 minutes working with Lumion from first load to final output. It is merely proof of concept, but taking the output from Max and dragging into Lumion is refreshingly simply:
We will have more on Lumion in future posts…

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Leadwerks Engine for Architectural Visualisation

Andy — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 10:59:00 +0000

Its always good to see innovation in the field of real-time visualisation in relation to architectural projects. Our argument is usually not to go for the known route, the high priced software engines, but to explore other solutions for clients. As such it is really nice to see visualisation company Pure3d using the Leadwerks Editor.

The movie below details realtime rendering, for a french client with the purpose of selling real estates:

Pure3d’s remit was to deliver a rendered movie template which could be used for further editing and audio overlay. The visualisation was based upon CAD floor plans which they used as a base for modeling and layout.

In terms of Interactivity, the project can be presented in a game like setting with realtime interactivity, this allows prospective purchasers to take a free look around the site and properties.

Rendering is quick with the source material movie output to 4000x3000px per frame in less than 30 minutes on a single workstation, this in turn means notable savings in production costs.

Head over to the Pure3d Leadwerks Meets Architecture blog for more info and screenshots.

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Architectural Visualisation in Crysis (The Engine)

Andy — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:07:00 +0000

Vladymi, an architect from Ukraine, got in contact to let us know that as a result of some of our blog posts he has decided to move almost entirely to game engines for visualisation.
His current ‘engine’ of choice is the CryEngine2:

Vladymi makes the point that such engines allow A0 size renders in seconds and export movies at above HD resolution in near real-time. The work load is also minimal in importing models, whats not to like?
See the ArchMod site for more details.

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Architectural Visualisation in Crysis (The Engine)

Andy — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:07:00 +0000

The post Architectural Visualisation in Crysis (The Engine) appeared first on Digital Urban.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Fallingwater in Half Life and CAD

Andy — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:32:00 +0000

As Half Life is finally available on the Mac, thanks to Steam, we thought it was time to repost two of our favorite movies – detailing Falling Water playable in Half Life and rendered via CAD.
Fallingwater, also known as the Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. Residence, is a house designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, and is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The house was built partly over a waterfall in Bear Run at Rural Route 1 in the Mill Run section of Stewart Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains (Wikipedia)
The movie above by etereaestudios.com represents one of the best visualisations of Fallingwater we have seen:

Fallingwater from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.The movie provides an interesting contrast to the Half Life model of Fallingwater built by Kasperg. Using the Source Engine, as opposed to more traditional Architectural Software, allows the use of dynamic lighting and a real-time walkthrough of the scene in high resolution:

Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright in Half Life from digitalurban on Vimeo.The movie demonstrates the quality of Half Life, and games engines in general, for visualisation using both a standard walkthrough and half way through a fly-through using the Half Life ‘Noclip‘ option.
You can find out more about Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater at http://www.fallingwater.org/

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