Pavilion project renderings
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These are some additional scenes for a project that I have referenced perhaps too many times in other places (in the old Google SketchUp Gallery forum it was originally posted under the headings "Point Oblivion" and "Last of Oblivion"). I've tweaked the model a bit and jiggered around the renderings since then...I finally did send a set of five images off to a competition last month, but I would have heard if the project had placed by now.
In case anyone missed the previous posts of this monster on the old Forum: these are essentially paintings done with Photoshop CS3 XT over a SketchUp-derived "scaffolding." I used the SketchUp 2D export to create various sorts of masks to make it simpler for me to paint in textures in PS, with the idea of creating something that neither seemed derivative of traditional media nor photorealistic. In fact, I think they ended up looking like drybrush watercolor, so I don't know that I consider the renderings successful on that level. It might be time to stop bucking the general drift of things and get back into using raytracers and radiosity.
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Beautiful work Lewis. The compositions and colors are just wonderful. I wouldn't be any big rush to go for the other rendering techniques. These are pretty nice.
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Lewis. This is really quite refreshing. Is it a real project? If so, what is the intended use?
It reminds me of a Myst world. I actually started looking for a book.
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@unknownuser said:
Beautiful work Lewis. The compositions and colors are just wonderful. I wouldn't be any big rush to go for the other rendering techniques. These are pretty nice.
Thanks much, Jeff. I appreciate it.
Eric,
Long--and slightly nuts--story. I'll try to shorten it up:
Originally, I started this project late last November as just as a casual experiment in the simulation of complex geometry using basic, off-the-shelf building components (I'd been reading the chapter on "constructibility" in that NCARB publication on building envelope by Randall Stout) . About the same time, jenujacob posted a link to the Smooth Teddy toy modeler in the old Forum, and I discovered it was most useful for creating "boulder"-like shapes, since you can't do anything really precise with it. I have this abiding interest in prehistoric anthropology (I nearly became an archaeologist at one point), particularly the western European megalith-builders...and suddenly I found I could build megalthic structures with Smooth Teddy and throw them into SketchUp. So monoliths started making their way into my complex-constructible-geometry study, or maybe the other way around, and I also began developing the model to illustrate various SketchUp techniques I was teaching at the BAC in my course on 3D modeling and illustration. For a hobby, this thing took on a very strange impetus of its own; I planned on entering it into an "unbuilt architecture" competition in N.Y. in February, but my health crashed in a big way and I missed the deadline (which may explain some of the bleakness of the scenery around my model...I was too sick to go to work, so when my fever would let up I would plug away at the model).
Incidentally, there really is not a site, per se...it's all a kind of pastiche of my memories of places in Wales and Cornwall from when I was much younger and traveling around the UK. I told my students that they should imagine it to be built on a disrupted ancient site on the western edge of the Isle of Lewis (where I have never been).
It's funny how many people mention Myst...I've never played the game, although I've seen some imagery and I did once, sometime around 1995, devote a few minutes to the sequel Riven.
I take it you must have missed the original posting in the Spring...here is a just slightly-reworked version of the principal image I had on the old gallery forum:
Thanks for the interest!
--Lewis
EDIT: I didn't really answer your question about purpose for the structure, did I? I did come up with a belated rationale for the thing, which is true now, although (as I wrote above) it wasn't consciously true when I started this. I had to send in a page explaining the project with the competition entry, so I've attached it below in pdf. Be warned: this is the sort of thing that made my critics in grad school start frothing at the mouth.
LWadsworth_fantasy_archit.pdf -
Wow, just darken the atmosphere in the "under oculus" picture and it would be extremely like Myst! I would know because I've owned it.
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Just incredible Lewis!! These may be some of my favorite SketchUp creations to date! I had the same Riven/Myst thoughts at first, and I very much enjoyed those games just because of the fantastic imagery.
I'm really impressed and think that it's even cooler to know how your mood/energy dictated the feel of the renders!
Some of the coolest stuff I've seen yet!
Thanks for sharing!
- CraigD
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Lewis, thanks and you are right, I missed your original post.
Get yourself a copy of Myst. Start with the first one as there is a story throughout. You can get collections now.
http://www.ubi.com/US/Games/Info.aspx?pId=1042
And if you are an Uber Geek like me, get the 3 books that give the past history.And I am sure there is a book on that pedestal. If I could just reach out and tou....
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@unknownuser said:
Lewis, thanks and you are right, I missed your original post.
Get yourself a copy of Myst. Start with the first one as there is a story throughout. You can get collections now.
http://www.ubi.com/US/Games/Info.aspx?pId=1042
And if you are an Uber Geek like me, get the 3 books that give the past history.And I am sure there is a book on that pedestal. If I could just reach out and tou....
Thanks for the compliments, guys...it's interesting that everyone finds these things so evocative, since they basically began as an self-directed exercise in constructibility.
And I'll take a look at the Myst resources, Eric. Will these things still play on a modern PC, you think? It's been at least a decade since I read about them.
Incidentally, attached is the sort of output from SketchUp that I need to produce this type of rendering, along with the faux depth masks I described in another thread. It all goes into layers and saved masks in Photoshop.
Materials mask:
Shadows-only export:
--Lewis -
Bravo Lewis! absolutely beautiful, would love to see more imagery from this project... is there a part two??
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wow... i guess i had missed these on the old forum.. amazing stuff..great atmosphere.. love the process as well..
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Love 'em Lewis.
Jackson
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truly amazing work, it appears so life-like!! well done indeed!
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@unknownuser said:
And I'll take a look at the Myst resources, Eric. Will these things still play on a modern PC, you think? It's been at least a decade since I read about them.
Yes they will.
Especially if you get the anniversary edition I listed. There is also a Myst IV and V as well as the URU and URU Live versions. The last installment, Myst V End Of Ages was released at the end of 2005. Unfortunately for me I have not had the time to solve it yet
I have solved the others however. -
@cheffey said:
Bravo Lewis! absolutely beautiful, would love to see more imagery from this project... is there a part two??
There are only two more fully worked-up images for this, Cheffey (attached below)...the fantasy architecture competition had a limit of five images. I'm not quite as happy with these last two, and in fact I haven't been able to resist tweaking the site map (so what you see is a little different from what I originally sent out).
I may do some more work on this, or perhaps put some additional structures in the "Lewis" world...there are several geometries from Stout's book that I would like to play with, and SketchUp, without forcing it to make organic shapes with rubies or abusing the Sandbox tools to make non-Euclidean forms, inherently provides a pretty decent set of cognates for the planar and cubic geometric bases of so many ordinary construction materials. (God knows I'll never get a chance to do this in the real world! Just the fact that I have these as wallpaper on my monitor at work has been freaking out my project team.) And some more items from the Neolithic architectural repertoire will undoubtedly also trickle into my exercises.
I will continue to post updates in this gallery. Thanks again for all your interest.
Oh, and Eric...it looks like Ubisoft is no longer shipping that Myst set you recommended...I just bounce around their site without ever finding a price. But I'm going to try to find the thing through one of the big retailers like Amazon, or failing that, someone is probably listing it on Ebay.
--Lewis
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Wow Lewis! These images are as mysterious as they are thought provoking! The first looks like an establishing shot to an incredible story...one that I'm compelled and interested to follow! The second looks like a cut away shot that gives us clues that will only become clear after the story unfolds, its true meaning hiding right before our eyes!
Very cool indeed! Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
- CraigD
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Thanks, guys. As I wrote above, these last two images were my least favorite of the five, although I couldn't think of any other way to completely tell "the story" about the project. It occurred to me last night, belatedly, that the combo "interior roof" and map view might be less compelling than a bird's eye view, literally looking down on the hillside and the pavilion, perhaps with a few birds painted in for good measure. But my training as an architect forces me to always insist on at least one non-perspective image, with a scale for distance...
I might just go ahead and do a birds-eye view tonight anyway, for my portfolio (another compulsion of architects)...it will only take about four hours or so of Photoshop work, assuming I don't have to make any changes to the SketchUp model.
--Lewis
P.S. Thanks to Eric, I've tracked down copies of the first three Myst titles, so I'll get to find out soon if I should have gone into game design as opposed to architecture! Maybe I can get my older daughter to help me play them...she's very much into fantasy and science fiction.
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Congratulation Lewis,
These Images are probably the best SU
post process images I have seen.They are
simply amazing. I would really love to hear
the details. I have missed that original thread.
Cheers,
Mateo. -
I had to make one more rendering of this project for the cover of my portfolio and a little advertising item on which I have been working. It's still essentially a paint-by-Photoshop production, except that I changed the idiom slightly, and I used a no-texture GI rendering from VRay as the starting point for the shadows:
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I haven't ever posted here before but after finding these images posted inspired a response (finally).......I have been playing with sketchup for about a year now and hope to post an image soon...I'm not educated with the same regard to many who share and post but I do find the many who do contribute extremely talented and a source of inspiration. Hopefully in the days (years) to come I can finally contribute some renderings of my own....In the mean time a big pat on the back to all who make this forum the resource that it is.........
Thank-you!
Dan Coast....and to Lewis.... these are really something else!
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Thanks much, Dan.
I look forward to seeing your work.
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