WEEK 12 & 13 | Individual Milestone & Final Group Presentation

After completing the modelling process of the interior of the crane cabin, the exterior shape of the cabin needed to be done. Texturing was also tested to separate the glass area.
I also tested the FBX files to see if they would import properly into UE4, however the textures do not appear. Luckily, Andrew knew much more about the program than I did and was able to fix it and make it look good.

(from about 0:50 it was an attempt to model the bar for the windscreen wiper to sit however we scratched this part as the exported FBX file was already sent to Andrew, who had already worked on texturing the crane in UE4).

Andrew's screenshot of the crane in UE4

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With a lot of pressure on Andrew to complete the final few stages (he was in charge of the UE4 side -i.e. importing the FBX models, ensuring that they are textured realistically, implementing the first person views - and Oculus testing), Dara & I decided to meet up and work together on figuring out how to implement decals on objects in UE4 as we thought it could come in handy to make the cabins look more realistic (e.g. dirt, mud splatters etc). We followed this tutorial and the chronolapse of what we captured:

To further development, we thought it would be handy to learn how to get materials to blink/flash for the buttons in the crane/excavator. However, due to UE4 being a new software, there were limited documentation and tutorials available and we struggled to achieve what we wanted. We attempted to follow this tutorial that we found by guessing what the nodes stood for, and what we needed to type into UE4 to bring up the right node. In the end this ultimately failed and the idea was scrapped.

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Final group presentation!
Our group decided to collaborate our ideas into google slides, this way everyone can contribute and input photos and text.
With it being our final presentation as a group we agreed to find a template to present our work.
I found Perdita, a sensible and simple template which ended up looking great once all of our own information was transferred over to it.

PDF: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r269lwpdd8mwoxn/Oculus%20(1).pdf?dl=0

We split the presentation into parts, allocating roles for the slides. 

Daniel - introduction, problem, client, process, allocations

Dara - 3Ds Max (why?, modelling process, texturing process), opportunities

Andrew - Unreal Engine 4, why?, texturing process, limitations in UE4, demonstration

Matthew - Gantt chart (original, updated, actual), limitations as a group

Myself (I did not personally present) - scribe.

NOTES:

Questions:

Questions that we were asked revolved a lot around UE4 issues and how Andrew overcame them. 

Feedback:

As part of the presentation we required participants to test the Oculus Rift, immersing themselves in our environment that we have collaborated and worked on as a group.

The aim of the project was to outline and show users how dangerous using one of the construction vehicles can be on a Hong Kong construction site.

In the end, participants all agreed that they did not feel safe while being immersed into the environment because there were a lot of dangers that they have missed purely because it was impossible to see them. This included:

• Simple factors like the reflection of the glass that they are looking through, it ultimately affected their vision 
• Blind spots/dangerous objects (and people) that can not be seen at all whilst in the cabin of the vehicles

From Russell, he found it engaging when the dangers of the construction site were outlined, emphasising on the fact that the visibility whilst in those vehicles were quite difficult (correctly presenting the initial project problem).

Criticisms (from Russell):

• He found an inconsistency in scale jumping between the vehicles. Russell said that the truck was particularly off and different from the crane & excavator.
• The orientation appeared incorrect

Improvements/developments:

• If we could make it more user friendly in terms of not having to be told where to look once the Oculus is put on
• An idea - to have the dangers outlined in UE4 via glowing material, e.g. glowing people or glowing dangerous steel beams.

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Reflections:

Driving Machine

The presentation provided very in-depth development & processes in which the group had taken to complete the project, it emphasised on the idea that their project facilitates repeatability and it achieved it very well. The demonstration seemed to work smoothly however I did not see the truck being in use through the demo although it was discussed about in the presentation.

Aerial Ropeway

I found this project particularly interesting, especially the website that they have displayed all of their information on - it was user friendly and easy to navigate. Initially I was the most unsure about this project's outline but after hearing about the clients' needs I felt that they have met - if not, exceeded - the client's expectations. The project itself was well thought out and was considerate in all aspects, the presentation was great in that Lukas and Dominique did a brilliant job in its execution. They were obviously very knowledgable and passionate about their project and the final product was brilliant.

Marker Project

This project was one that I was most eager to see as it was a design project. I loved their concepts and their final designs were great! What particularly engaged me were the concepts, and the way that had motivated their design was really good to see. The interactivity segment was good to see however I would have been satisfied without that part.

Virtual Museum

I thought the final product was great, it worked seamlessly on the iPad that they had passed around the room for each student. Throughout the semester I found this group to be very strong and it is evident in their full project development that they worked and collaborated very well especially after the swift brief change that occurred quite late in the semester.

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GROUP WIKI: http://code3100-oculusproject.blogspot.com.au/

WEEK 11 | Remuneration

Presentation
I found the presentation quite informative and interesting. Throughout the presentation they would relate back to our course & because it is our final year it was relevant. They also related it back to their own projects and broke it down in simple points

"- employer - contractors (UNSW)
 -- free to accept and reject work
 -- in a position to make a profit or a loss
 -- free for students to work on their own 

- employees - students (us)
 -- little control over hours of work
 -- perform duty of job position as students
 -- work hours set by agreement
 -- don't take affect from loss or profit of UNSW" 

They spotted limitations, no set statistics on arch comp students specifically. Overall the presentation was great, Jordan & Hayley clearly understood the topic and were knowledgeable on the topic.

Lecture
Neil Hill

WEEK 10 | Conflict

Presentation
The presentation started off with a role play which captured everybody's attention. With the topic of 'Conflict' the use of role play was a given and I appreciated that they used it during their presentation. It was very informative and what was particularly interesting was the "types of people causing conflict" - it was extremely relevant and I believe that every student has experienced at least one of the types.
They related back to past class collaboration project, and also to their own including how they resolved the conflicts.

WEEK 9 | Individual Milestone

Back brief powerpoint
Individual contribution to the back brief powerpoint included researching on a truck, excavator and a crane that are generally used in Hong Kong construction sites. Finding proper and useful interior shots of these vehicles proved to be quite difficult, but with the help of knowing our client - Gammon construction - it made finding the crane a bit easier. In terms of the excavator and the truck, we decided to use Volvo vehicles. In addition, I also found dimensions to base our modelling on - this can all be seen in slides 17-25.

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Original Post 
I have been allocated the role of the interior modelling of the crane.
I will be modelling after the Liebherr 380 EC-B 16 Litronic tower crane, which is actually used in Gammon construction projects. source

I was also lucky enough to have been able to find a Google Sketchup model that was done before.
So with this model handy, I was able to use the dimensions in the sketchup file (rounded up to nearest whole number) as part of my modelling in 3ds Max.

It took a while to set up and for me to get the hang of it, as this is the first time using the software after a few years, but following this youtube tutorial has helped me immensely. I decided to begin this by modelling the chair first.

Slowly but surely!

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Original Post
In my next progress video I extend from the first Chronolapse video that can be found in a previous post.
This involves making the back of the chair, joysticks, control panels, and the digital screen.
Doing the control panels with the different buttons, and different 'compartments' was the most time consuming. It took trial and error to see if what I was doing was the most efficient - lots of insetting, extruding, meshsmoothing etc. In addition to this, I was lucky that the panels and joysticks were a matter of using objects and turning them into editable poly, which I am quite familiar with so it did not take as long as I initially thought I would.

I began to have lots of problem exporting the Chronolapse images into a video as doing it in Chronolapse does not seem to work anymore. This means that exporting it into Premiere, meant that there is a lot of black space in the video which I am not sure how to fix. It also meant that the video is much larger and takes longer to upload onto YouTube.

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I was lucky to get Chronolapse to start working for my third progress video. I tried to import the images from my second progress video to reupload as I am not happy with how it is at the moment, but it still did not seem to work for that one.

In regards to my progress I started using textures and testing out renders. This also meant that I put in a plane and worked with lighting.
I downloaded windscreen wipers and merged it into my 3ds max file to see how it looks in my renders.
While I was doing this I saw some issues/improvements which I would like to fix later on and will be discussing in my renders below:

Renders

What I imagine that I will be putting onto the Liebherr screen later on is information about the outside temperate, wind speed, degrees in which the crane is turned etc. If there was a way to animate this so that the numbers change it is something I want to look into.

This also goes to the same as the screen above the odometers in this render, will look into what information will be displayed there and how to make it more realistic. 

Used frosted glass here in my renders because the issue of using pure glossy glass is that it becomes difficult to tell if there are any objects actually there, which can be seen in the next render. 

I would want to get some of these buttons to flash.

Will also be looking to getting the buttons on the control panel to blink.

Also encountered an issue here in regards to the odometers. It looks very blocky which is not ideal. 

In attempt to fix the above issue, I used MeshSmooth but that intervenes with the texture that is placed there so will have to consider alternative options. 

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Intellectual Property Presentation

As a group we collaborated through the use of Google Slides. We found that it is the most simple way to input all relevant information together and to see what the other group members have worked on. 

I was allocated the role of talking about our up to date Crane and Excavator 3ds Max models and how it all relates to intellectual property.  In addition, as a group we wanted to make the presentation look minimalistic and professional, so I took control of this and did the slides up in InDesign and exported it as a PDF document which can be found here. 

Google Slides vs. InDesign

WEEK 8 | Communication

Presentation
Team members knew what they were talking about and showed that they had a clear understanding of the subject. They provided real world examples to emphasise on points but it did not always relate to their project. They also referenced last week's lecture and made it relevant to the topic of communication which was a plus. There was also a slide that I appreciated, it was of a map of Sydney and it showed how far apart the team members lived from each other - I thought that was very relevant and it was something to emphasise on, how their proximity has affected their ability to effectively communicate with one another.
The powerpoint presentation itself could have used more effort, I spotted mistakes that could have been easily fixed such as colloquialism that should not have been used - "tatts"? And also inconsistent text boxes. The overall presentation was not very engaging, the beginning of the powerpoint could have been cut down to take less time - although it was important it went for a bit too long. The video on the Cheney model explained the concept clearly, the other video however did contradict with the topic and the way in which the group had communicated amongst one another.

Reflection on Oculus group
We have a Facebook page in which we collaborate in outside of weekly studio classes. Some members have met up outside of class to work on the project and some have communicated via Skype. We don't have a hierarchy in our group - rather we have people who are assigned certain tasks.
Myself - modelling crane
Matthew & Daniel - modelling truck
Dara - modelling excavator
Andrew - doing up the site in UE4
So in terms of collaboration, we work individually of each other but also dependently in which Andrew cannot proceed to import our models into the UE4 site without Matthew, Dara, Daniel and myself completing them first.
We have a presentation on Intellectual Property next week that everyone is contributing to via google docs - powerpoint presentation. After the final content is complete, I will be creating the presentation in InDesign to make it look more professional. As a group we have used past studio time to our advantage to discuss and collaborate on the upcoming presentation instead of working on our assigned tasks, which we work on in our own time individually.

Lecture
Rob from Phillip Cox Architects
- What language do you speak?

You employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work.
But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say: "This is beautiful." That is Architecture. Art enters in. - Le Corbusier

- At a certain level, it can be completely concrete but on another level it could touch you emotionally.

- He compares what happens in the above video to the Grasshopper program that we use today - it has been done before, it is nothing new but it is ingenius.
- Design should be shared. Should aim to generate form rather than design.
- The system of design should be expanded, so that people can take away from it and build on it.
- Uses an example of a foetus to explain his intent - language is DNA, it is shared yet each cell does its own thing.

WEEK 7 | Planning

Presentation
The group demonstrated that they have a clear understanding of the concept of Planning as they constantly related back to their own project and techniques that they have done to achieve their project goals. This is good in relation to the fact that other project groups can relate and reflect if the way that they have worked so far is considered efficient/well constructed planning. 

The presentation itself was clear and straight forward. Key points were written on the presentation and they did not read off the slides the whole time. 

Video was very informative and relevant to the topic.

Reflection on Oculus group
As a group we have made a Gaantt chart that we are following. This is efficient in that we can see if we are falling behind or not. We have not had to have too much done yet but by the end of this week the team members modelling should be looking into adding textures.

So far, the Gaantt chart is proving to be working for our group. It is spaced out well with modelling (one of the most important aspects of this project) taking up to 6 weeks of progression.



Lecture
Andrew Butler from Phillip Cox Architects
- Discusses works that have utilised computation without the use of computers.
E.g. Frei Otto's Olympia - done manually through the use of soap.
E.g. Matsys' P Wall - done by plaster and lycra
- Top down vs. bottom up design.
Top down design - director draws design, have to follow that design, make rules based on that one design.
Bottom up design - humble approach, set rules for design before design is decided.
- Discussed the importance of being a versatile architect and not to stick to one program, allow flexibility and be willing to learn and adapt to different programs.

WEEK 5 & BREAK | Individual Progress

In my next progress video I extend from the first Chronolapse video that can be found in a previous post.
This involves making the back of the chair, joysticks, control panels, and the digital screen.
Doing the control panels with the different buttons, and different 'compartments' was the most time consuming. It took trial and error to see if what I was doing was the most efficient - lots of insetting, extruding, meshsmoothing etc. In addition to this, I was lucky that the panels and joysticks were a matter of using objects and turning them into editable poly, which I am quite familiar with so it did not take as long as I initially thought I would.

I began to have lots of problem exporting the Chronolapse images into a video as doing it in Chronolapse does not seem to work anymore. This means that exporting it into Premiere, meant that there is a lot of black space in the video which I am not sure how to fix. It also meant that the video is much larger and takes longer to upload onto YouTube.

Lecture
Was once again absent to week 5's class.