Week 2 - Collaboration Topic [Context]

Context

The context of this post is confusion. How am I supposed to write 200+ words on such a broad topic with only one resource? How do I chose that one source from the apparent tens of thousands of scholarly articles out there which merely use the term rather than defining it? A lot of my research has come up with many books about something IN context, but not OF context. Have I missed something? Clearly not, Roy Dilley in his introduction to The Problem of Context, a collection of essays giving focus to the concept of context in regards to social anthropology seems to agree with me.

“Despite the importance of context to social anthropology - and the fact that it has been so central for so long - it is surprising to find how little attention has been given to the topic over the history of the discipline.” - R. Dilley 1992 pp.2 (http://books.google.com.au/books?id=CSP7Wd53WQgC)

Dilley continues by looking at how the concept has been defined in other fields such as linguistics and philosophy as well as adding his own ideas that context is about making a “connection” and “by implication, disconnection” (Dilley pp.x) between things to help define the object of contextualisation, this idea fits well with the words Latin origin; contextus, which means to join together. This joining in term helps create meaning, so we could say that an object IN context is that which is connected to something else in meaning.

Placing context in context helped to create meaning for itself in this case, and hopefully placing my other collaboration topics in context will help me investigate those as well.

Week 2 - Research

The Chosen Architecture

The team...

Week 2 - Tech Test

MicroStation -> Sandbox2

This week, our team undertook a series of tests to determine possible fabrication workflows, my individual task was to investigate possible ways to import models constructed in MicroStation into Sandbox2.

After doing some initial research it was evident that workflows outside the typical 3D Gaming modelling packages, (including Maya and 3D Studio Max,) were uncommon. This is in part due to the Crytek model format or a ".CGF" (Crytek Geometry File,) file. Being a proprietary format found only in CryEngine, the ability to create these files natively from a typical modelling package does not exist, with the exception being from within CryTek’s own software. In order to bring models in from 3^rd party software packages CryTek and CryMod community developers have released various model translation utilities. CryTek's Mod SDK for Sandbox2 includes a 3D Studio Max plugin which allows you to create .CGF files strainght from the 3D Studio Max enviroment and appears to be the easiest and most documented way of bringing models in from outside SandBox.

A team of CryMod members have also created a model converter which changes models saved in the Collada format (*.dae), into CGF models. The Collada model format is developed by the non-profit organisation Khronos Group as a intermediate model format for sharing geometry between model packages. Since it is an XML Schema based format this makes it a prime candidate for simple parsing into other formats, in this case a CFG file. The ColladaCGF utility, developed in Python, requires that the Python Library be installed first. Once done, it installs a context menu item that allows you to run the converter straight on the file in windows explorer.

With the infrastructure in place, the first test was to bring in a series of simple boxes at various sizes, to check scaling, from MicroStation. I created 1m, 10m and 100m sized cubes using the Solid modelling tools. It is also worth noting that MicroStation has a few modelling systems, the main three being Solids, Surface and Feature Solids. More on those later. Once exported to .dae models from MicroStation, I parsed them through the converter which spits out a CGF and MLD file of the same name. The later being a texture file generated from the solid.

Once created, I moved the files into the Game\Objects\ directory so they could be accessed immediately from within the editor.

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Week 1 - Research

"Research two Unbuilt Architectures"

Our research assignment this week is to find two examples of "Unbuilt Architecture". These are the overlooked, often forgotten, maybe ahead of their time, sometimes understated or just plain un-buildable artifacts of Architectural History that line the pages of Journals, research papers, books and competition retrospectives, and it will be our major task for this semester to finally realise one of these, albeit in digital form.

Coming to the Architectural Computing degree from straight Architecture there are about 50 projects that suddenly come to mind and fill me with excitement by getting the opportunity to finally see one of them "finished". However, we are limited to just one, so below I will outline the pros and cons for constructing my top two "projects that should have been built... but weren't".


Unbuilt Architecture One
La Ville Contemporaine (Le Corbusier)


Pros:

• Well known project,
• Would make use of Crysis' large scale maps,
• Potential as a base for urban analysis,

Cons:

• Very large scale, could be difficult to model,
• Large scale could overpower the individual scale experience (not seeing trees for the forest, or modelling them!)
• Lack of decent documentation for all types of buildings

Unbuilt Architecture Two
Cénotaphe de Newton (Etienne-Louis Boullée)

Pros:

• An architectural cornerstone
• Geometrically simple to model
• Large scale

Cons:

• Too simple to model?
• Circular nature could create a lot of polys
• Not much documentation about the "human scale" side of the design
• Where do you put it? Context?

Each potential project has it's individual pro's and cons. It should be noted that while they might prove easy - or difficult - to model, the real power of CryEngine2 is in the potential for interactivity. A point that should be considered very seriously when choosing the final project.

Week 1 - In Class Exercise

"In Depth Basic Tutorial"

In class we were given the task of trying to follow this tutorial. The tutorial itself was well structured and introduced us to many of the key aspects in CryEngine2's "Sandbox" editor including Voxels, and basic some basic AI. Overall I found sandbox relatively straight forward to use for this task, however it is clear that there are many more powerful tools to take advantage of as we move deeper into this technology in the coming weeks.

Below are some screen shots detailing my progress in each stage of the tutorial as well as some notes on where I tried to take each part a little bit further for my own investigation.

Week 1 - Introduction

Hello tutors, team-mates, class-mates and the rest of the world. Welcome to my personal blog for Arch1392 @ FBE/UNSW (University of New South Wales). This blog outlines my adventure into the world of digital fabrication for architecture using Crytek's CryEngine2 for Crysis.

Whilst my interests in Architectural Computing are usually aligned to the Building Information Modelling domain I look forward to spawning into the world of Real Time Visualisation and taking on all it has to offer.

Wish me luck.

- Gordon Davies