Procrastination?

Character Problems have been solved now and i have a range of different coloured ones ready to go. Black, Red or Blue, so far, and me of course. If anyone has a particular request i can make to order :) They are still the blocky model (but slightly less blocky than the game ones) for the guys and the exact same as the game for the girls. The girls seem a bit closer to believable meshes and as changing meshes and skinning is the most time consuming part i left them.
Found a simple way to duplicate stuff in the generic browser as well if anyone would still find that useful.









*The blue guy has black arms for some reason, probably a coding mispell, but the black one works fine

I'm working on a custom weapon now, which is proving far more difficult than characters were, but hopefully i will have an umbrella some time soon. we were going to go for a T-square but the umbrella opens when you shoot, come on that's cool

Experiments

Different Threshold Conditions
An experiment to determine conditions that encourage or discourage the occupant to choose a particular path. The idea being that public and private spaces can be distinguished in subtle ways that could be specific to each user.
It also explores the possibilty of an arrangement of spaces that gives a sense of freedom and choice to the dementia sufferer but at the same time restricting this movement on a subconcious level.

Changing Spatial Relationships & Community Interaction
A variation on threshold conditions exploring how visual linking to, and involvement in a community activity can contribute to the experience of a space.
More pragmatically, it can explore the reception of different spaces, lighting conditions and the resulting arrangements.

Breaking down the structure to produce nodes
This experiment contrasts ideas of repetition in a modular arrangement versus an organic system. It aims to find a balance between the static impersonal hospital and something that can engage with the user on a more subjective level. It introduces breaks to a structural system to find relationships that aid in pathfinding and circulation through the memory of nodes and how they link together

A Holl lot of similarities

Simmons Hall, MIT, Cambridge



Sarphatistraat Offices, Amsterdam

Menger Sponge
*Images from www.stevenholl.com*













here are a few of Steven Holls designs that cover a fair amount of the ideas and forms i was working towards. The Simmons Hall building incorporates light wells that flow and erode the otherwise strict bay structure.
The Sarphatistraat Office draws inspiration from the menger sponge, a famous 3d fractal structure.
I had been experimenting with the menger sponge myself for draft one but couldn't find a satisfying solution. i don't really find Holl's solution satisfying either but its the thought that counts.
These two projects combined would seem to produce a project that is eerily close to what i was imagining, a struggle between organic decay and rational structure. The fractal system gives an underlying order while allowing for repetition and disorientation whilst the organic forms break this structure to produce nodes and links between spaces.

Draft One

DraftOne.wmv

Draft One presents a scheme that develops ideas of decay and erosion, which were present throughout semester 1, into a broader experiential concept. The circulation experiment of experiment 4 is continued in a more physically achievable way through the use of different spaces that are linked in a variety of ways. This diverse honeycomb provides a canvas for observing the behaviour of the dementia sufferer and experimenting with various organisational and hierarchical strategies.
The disorientation of the dementia sufferer is highlighted in groups of similarly proportioned spaces that serve to educate and test progress of the patient. Current activities to try to prevent or delay the onset of dementia are generally removed from everyday activities. The activity of living in this space replaces these more traditional methods with the idea that a relatively unhindered sufferer can be admitted and can find the spaces stimulating and challenging and encourage brain activity in areas of more use than could be achieved with crosswords or similar mental stimulation. The breakdown of the sufferer is accommodated in the variety of spaces and their varying degrees of spatial difficulty or interrelations.
The building form itself is a product of such diverse spaces being bundled together but also draws influence on the idea of the dementia sufferer itself. Composed initially of a large mass, spaces are then carved out as required forming paths and nodes linking activities and occupants in much the same way as the brain forms such paths. These nodes are an integral part of the building. As spaces are carved out nodes are left. Peculiar reliefs, the interplay of light, or monumental forms can all be used to help orientate the occupant. These points of reference are experienced subjectively which breaks the repetition that is commonly experienced in current dementia treatment facilities which create monotonous spaces that are cold and calculating. How each occupant uses such node points in their experience of the space is an area that would be of great interest to the carer and is one of the many outcomes that this scheme has for research in the treatment of dementia sufferers.
The challenge in this scheme lies in making the spaces responsive to a functional treatment facility brief while retaining the elements of diversity and repetition that are required for it to succeed as an experiential experiment. This could be achieved by imposing a method to the way spaces are brought together, in a fractal arrangement, for example where spaces are created to follow an overall planning scheme that will create the repetitive labyrinth needed to create disorientation but allow for each space to be used in the overall operation of such a treatment/training facility. What each room’s role is and how they interact with each other is just as important as the interaction of the occupants themselves and will play an important role in the creation of node points and how the building is navigated.

Custom Character

Hey guys
As some of you probably saw in class last week i've got a basic custom character up and running. Still needs work but for those of you intersted in fixing up your own, or at least knowing how to, here are some tutorial links that should help:
http://camlink.com/UT3/UT3CustCharTutorial01
http://www.ut40k.planetunreal.gamespy.com
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UT3CustomCharacters.html
I used the camlink one as the default and checked the others if anything was missing.
They don't really cover skinning, weighting to skeletons, or texture unwrapping but i figured out how to do those things by trial and error and i can probably show you what you need to know quicker than any tutorials can so let me know.
Also i have plans to have a generic normal looking character ready for when we need it and i'll make that available to you all so you can customise it as you see fit, changing the clothes for example should be pretty easy and make a huge difference to how we all look running around for final presentations

Budda Boom

Here is the cooked level if anyone wants a behind the scenes look
JulesEXP4Level.zip

Short Circuits

The proposed design is for a health care facility to treat and observe sufferers of dementia and has been informed and developed through the four preceding exercises.
Exercise One laid the groundwork for the importance architecture plays in a healthy society and the pain that poor architecture can inflict, physically and emotionally.
Exercise Two identified opportunities of the site that could relate to a health care facility and helped confirm a dementia treatment facility as particularly suitable:
The site exhibits evidence of its past, the building up and layering of materials and textures, and the wearing and erosion around the exhaust stack. A balance is achieved between the degradation of the site and its renewal through maintenance and produces a visible trace of time and layering. This balance presents the passerby with instances where the site can be understood as having a memory or being a record of activity.
This record of activity has given the site its own vernacular that can be extended to influence the development of the health care facility. The role of memory to the dementia sufferer is a critical consideration in the health facility’s design and there is an important link between the mind, the body and architecture. Memory is made stronger by strong experiences. The spatial experience of architecture is a major contributor, from the ability of landmarks to improve path finding to the decorum of a building serving to reference ideas or activities that take place within.
Exercise 3 strengthened the ideas of isolation and layered story-telling but also introduced community activities and personal experiences of the site. The visual linking between apparently isolated activities on site is another important consideration for the treatment of dementia and gave rise to the communal participation as opposed to individual linear goals.
Exercise 4 is an attempt to incorporate all these ideas of the site with the needs of a dementia treatment facility to produce a design that belongs to the site and enriches the community.
The approach of the proposed design is to encourage independent decisions among sufferers but to facilitate this independence through community involvement. The innovation for dementia treatment is the constant testing carried out in scenarios where life skills are developed and improved through everyday activities. The separation between activities to ‘keep the mind active’ and general life skills is no longer evident. The advantages of mind exercises such as scrabble, in that they can be easily monitored and engaged in, is carried over to path-finding and other activities where the technology of simulation and circulation testing can be gauged and measured to personalize the experience for each patient to produce a complex and diverse system of communal individuality where each patient has access to their own sense of belonging and their own connection with the past, but connections that are made richer by their interactions with the broader community.