Final Project: 3D Max using VRAY

Final Rendering of Interior View in Perspective edited with Photoshop to appear to be in the city


Top View in Perspective

Final Rendering of Side Perspective

Chrome tutorial reflecing a environment map




Tutorial results of metal reflections


Experimenting and barely adding furniture



Modeling in the program from 4 different views


Before VRay lights and VRay materials had been added

Light from the right overexposed with material overwrite of clay

Black wall due to overlap of planes and confusion on program part of which to render so it's an inconsistency

Light settings from the chair tutorial

1 light from the right and some play on materials

1st light shown and experimenting with frosted red glass

2nd light added as shown with blue.

Lighting testing changed and play on materials

Perspective View with lighting

Materials changed to render quicker and for aestetics




Top View in Perspective with over exposed lighting from above.


VRay light that is darker and not as exposed as the previous one.
Top View in Perspective

How It Came About...

This project began roughly two to three weeks ago when I decided based off my last ideas of wanting to render a room and wanting to build on my knowledge of 3D visualizations. I felt it was an important aspect to explore as most things are going from pencil and paper to the laptop and programs. The programs while some may decrease the amount of time, that's not the reason I chose to use them. Quiet frankly, I think it took more time than doing by hand just because of the lack of skills in using the programs, but the results are uncomparable. Not only can you get several shots and several of a room that looks photographic but it can be changed by simply adding and changing components such as lights to change the whole of a room which by hand would be unconceivable to show that many views. The program is simply amazing in how it works because if you want to learn the functions it's a lot of trial and error but the user interface is relatively simple and looks very much like Autodesk Viz. The reason for not using Viz is it falls right behind this program because it's renders are still downsized by it's lack of realism. The only real downside to the program is that of two which are both related: the amount of time for renders and that it can be expected for the program to crash often, so much so you'll spend about 1/8 of the time restarting the program than actually working. Keeping that in mind, as I said the project came about roughly 3 weeks ago when I explained to my professor, David Morris, what I wanted to do and he helped point in the right direction to this program. In regards to learning the program tutorials were very helpful (listed below) and basically I'm self taught, but professor Morris was very helpful in showing me further tips and tricks. If you want to learn the program it's a lot of give and take as I've come to realize in using different tutorials in that the 3D Viz community is very interactive and while it can intimdating if you don't get everything at first it helps a lot to have someone who some idea of it. Regardless of that, if you start off with basic tutorials you start to get the hang of it and a lot of is repetitious especially if you do it 3 times over due to the computer crashing. A tip for that is to change the save mode to do it manually otherwise the program does it for you and will crash about every 5 minutes or preset time of save.

Tips for getting started:

-Have enough memory on your hard drive. I had a limited amount and it slowed the program a lot as well as crashed a lot too. Have at least 25% of your drive clear.

-Don't run other programs at the same time due to it makes the program run slower. If you're watching tutorials stop and play them to go step by step but use another computer.

-You will need a mouse with a wheel in the middle.

-A desktop may be better to use simply becuase laptops in general have slightly more sensitivity issues and thus may be more prone to crashing.

-Change the render settings to low to allow quicker renders and then change to a higher setting for the final. In the tutorial at the bottom it shows you how to change the test settings.

-Don't render the whole scene if you don't have to but changefrom ta view scene to select to pick just what you need to render to save time.

-Finally, have another project at hand because each full render even on low settings will take roughly anywhere from 7 to 15 minutes depending on how many VRay lights you have.

The Approach

Having just a crude background with Viz I chose to do several tutorials to prep me to learn a few features of the program and play with the materials. What makes VRay so unique is the that the materials rendered can produce quality work with the proper lighting similar to photographs. The links for a very basic approach with results within a few hours is shown below. Needless to say when I started to see results it was graditifing becuase I made that and it actually looks like something. Tutorials listed in below.

After completing the tutorials I began to think about how I would go about planning my room. I wanted a medium size bedroom/ living space with a reflective surface to make the room appear larger than it actually was and play with lights. I added planes and box shapes to model the walls and floor. I added a window to allow light to shine in and downloaded free furniture from the site below.

I downloaded in zip files the furniture then after unzipping merged them into the current view where they were scaled down to fit the scene. They merge large so you have to scale them down or it throws everything off. After the furniture was added I started experimenting with lights. The lights I added were Omni since I thought that was what I was supposed to use as I was used to Viz but in fact for everything from this point on had to be VRay including the lights and materials. If you search for VRay material settings and click on the link below and register you have almost unlimited materials being constantly added. It's like the Napster of the VRay materials, a little give and take in feedback and uploading and borrowing files but it's a community and not illegal. They are made by users of the program that are willing to share given you input feedback which takes two seconds, believe me it's worth it. The lights in fact I had to add were VRAY lights. Following the tutorial for the chair as shown below I used those settings but really for this scene it depends on each person and what they're using it for. It's a lot of trial and error. I added 4 lights, 3 exterior and 1 interior all of different colors-blue,red, yellow, and green interior. I changed the materials I downloaded. The way you go about that is to save and unzip the file and then bring up the material settings by pressing m. Click on the first icon with an arrow pointing towards the circle and click on Library and then open and upload your material. Simply drag it to the balls and rename. It's as simple as that. I have several materials in the scene from several different websites and from the tutorials including-chrome, black leather, brick, glass reflective, plastic, cloth, and frosted glass. I wanted to take advantage of the colors in the scene to bounce around the light. Each time as shown in the above pictures were a change in the lighting and materials and of course trial and errors. I also started experimenting with the different lighting and furniture arrangments as well as the views. Slowly the project has evolved with the different lights and knowledge development and research. I'm very satisfied with the results for being a first time I'm glad with the results with being able to see the process and have a final product show worthy for portfolio. Not to mention I have a better understanding of the program that I can use for future projects and a better understanding of the need for programs in the field of architecture. It's an invaluable tool that I can use in my future career and with the knowledge I got from it I can continue to learn programs similar and evolve with the field and not be crippled to simply knowing one type of craft of pen and paper but rather be dynamic to the field and have other possibilies inconceivable before. The final renders are shown above.

Tutorials are as follows:

VRAY tutorials:

http://vray.info/

http://www.vrayelite.com/mytutorials.php
http://freecg.blogspot.com/search/label/vray%20tutorials?max-results=20
http://tirad.com/tutorials/max.htm

http://www.evermotion.org/(talking (talking videos)

http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=video+tutorials+vray&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&x=wrt&u=www.vray.info/links.asp&w=video+tutorials+tutorial+vray&d=a0WVZvmdOtnd&icp=1&.intl=us

VRAY Light Setting and Low Settings:

http://cg-india.com/Tutorials/V-Ray/3dsMax_tutorial_SL_01.html (look at page 2 and 3)

VRAY materials: http://www.vray-materials.de/all_materials.php (must register but is free)

http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150R1/

http://www.evermotion.org/index.php?unfold=download&showdownload=yes
http://www.mr-cad.com/Free-3D-Models-c-19-1.html (free furniture furniture)

3d MAX NURBS

Real Picture of a Spider Web


Rendered Image of a Spider Web

Preperation to make above rendering

The program used to make the above rendering was 3D Max with a VRAY rendering plug-in. Nurbs were used in the form of point line in which 3 clicks were made to ensure that the line would be concave instead of convex. The outline was made and the form closed. The form was then duplicated several times and scaled down to the make the layers. The forms wholistically were modified and using the U Loft tool each layer was selected. The form was created and a smooth surface applied. Two modifiers were added, latice to make the web-like structured surface with the connections removed and the thickness and number of faces changed. The second modifier added was shell to give very slight thickness to the form. The VRAY renderer was chosen and the materials were changed following the Advanced Material website tutorial listed below to create a Chrome reflective surface. A bitmap was added to the background to reflect on the web. The ideal shot for the web was zoomed in to create the appearance of looking through the web to the background. The image was sent to be rendered and then saved as a .jpg.

I chose to do a web mainly because after sitting through class the u loft tool peeked my interest the most as opposed to the rail functions because personally I feel the rail function is too predictable and limiting. The U-Loft function is a little bit more unpredictable and you can work with several layers at once instead of one or two as in rails. Also, I like webs. I wanted to see what kind of a form I could create and and was inspired to design a web to model how the material can work as well as playing with light. I chose to use 3D MAX and VRAy instead of Viz because it's part of my final project and the more practice I can get the better. Also, personally I think VRAy renders more realistically than the video game style appearance of Viz. The only downside I can say is that the program crashes a lot and if you don't set the right angles the image will look unrealistic. Overall, I'm satisfied with the project, if I had more time I'd like to tweek it further, but for now I'll continue to work on my final project which is coming along and is still a work in progress.

The link for the tutorial on how to change the materials settings is:
http://alzhem.brinkster.net/sub1/tutorials/tutorial6_en.htm

TED Talks

TED Talks are different lectures from inventors, architects, engineers, basically the innovators of tomorrow that are trying to get out their ideas and inform the world through these lectures to help educate them and disprove preconceived notions about architecture, health, and world economy to name a few. I chose to watch two different lectures. The first being by Cameron Sinclair who's main message was about open-source architecture to house the world. He was an architect in his twenties that basically started off with 700 dollars and a couple of laptops and a website. He basically started to research and ask network with architects, engineers, designers, anyone that wanted to help and was interested in designing not just for the sake of designing but to add to a community and environment not take or ruin it. He believes much so in sustainable architecture and no -quick fix solutions or superimposed design upon other cultures but rather respects the land and people enough to be able to design where necessary but involve the people and culture. He does so not only out of respect but also to engage the community since their ones that live there. He wants to open source architecture because the people living in the area know best about the problems there so the designer and people should have a say so since they would know more than he would. There are some quick fix solutions in time of natural disaster but need to be open sourced to allow for testing and make sure they do work and not for profit. The same goes for the projects in the third world countries where education and knowledge was needed more so than the building and structure itself. In combination with building and working with the communities the two merged as in the case where a community center was a vehicle for HIV education and a clinic. One person alone can't change the world and one person saying something isn't going to get anything done but it's a matter of going out there and making those connections to help build the world and the community. It's not about building a gem of an architectural building but another piece of society and culture. It's about the opportunity not responsibility as Sinclair said to be able to help put forth the effort to help others and make a difference. It's not just about architects or design but holistically whoever wants to help should be able to and make a change not wait for change to happen because who knows when that would be. It was a very inspiring talk and absolutely amazing in thinking it changes how you perceive things and makes me want to push myself to study harder and think not just about myself but society and the world around me.

The second TED Talk I watched was by Hans Rosling in which he debunks third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen. His talk basically was about the lack of education in society even in the most academically inclined individuals they were compared to having a knowledge of the statistics of the world to those of chimpanzees. The statistics aren't just facts and his talk wasn't just throwing out statistics one after another to flaunt education but rather to show the need to know those statistics to further society as a whole, income, death rate, and in those statistics knowledge can be found of the basic way the world works around us from those aspects. The talk shows many statistics ranging from income to birth rate to population and it shows the evolution of in the past big families high death and low wealth but in today's world it's shifting to have the gap of wealth slowly close and middle class rise, funds being used properly for education and health which leads to higher rates of living longer. These stastistics have endless possibilities because they can be used to project how the world will be later in life and help us prepare and evolve to build for them, economically, and grow with them. The only downside really as mentioned in the talk was the lack of getting those statistics out but it's our job to find them and not shy away from them because they are facts and will affect us tomorrow because we're apart of it as your ancestors were and your future loved ones will be.

Below are the links for the talks:
Open Source Architecture
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=c_sinclair

Debunk third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92

Update on Projects

Currently, I am working on two assignments in preparation of the ending of my first year here at Texas A and M university but also closure to my ENDS 170 class. I am focusing on my final project which I am currently trying to download the programs and shortly after that will begin working on the project through use of tutorials which I will be posting later with screen shots to show development as well as the final project. For the time being though I am working on a different project using the program Revit and learning from it using a tutorial. That project is due Thursday and I am roughly half way done so I want to finish that one as soon as possible and start to turn my focus to my final. The Revit tutorial is going really good right now as it's very easy to understand and follow. I'm learning a lot and could see myself using that program again. It is really interesting and user friendly and what's more is I don't see any programming involved, which is always of course a plus for me! I'll be posting screen shots in my next blog of the total process of the tutorial from screen shots on my computer. I'm saving them in a word document to transfer to jpg's for the blog of the tutorial. Next blog I'll post all them and give another update on how things are coming along.

Final Project

My final project is going to be a rendering using Autodesk Viz with an installation of V Ray which is a program that makes 3-d realistic models on the computer. I don't believe it uses programming as far as I'm concerned which is great, but I have roughly 3 weeks to complete the project. I'm going to watch tutorials and begin working on a project while still continuing side projects and assignments assigned throughout these last few weeks. I'll post more later as my project develops, but I do want to do an interior perhaps living room or bedroom would be an interesting take. To be continued... --Erica Salinas

Gravity Study using Macromedia Flash Professional 8

Before Gravity





After Gravity













Printscreen of Macromedia Flash

I decided to give programming another try since my freshman high school days when I first learned Java and was it an eye opener trying to remember what I had learned. I did remember how fustrating it can be to program because honestly unless you can think like a programmer step-by-step multi-tasking several thoughts to stream it into simple commands, you may not like it.

I first started to download the Processing Beta program but for those of you that want to, don't because it is a corrupt file and will freeze your computer for several minutes and still will not load correctly.


I then researched the programming behing Google Sketchup who's programming console is called Ruby. Ruby is located under the tab window as the last button. I searched for tutorials but as many as you would think would show up not as many were because most people didn't know there was programming even available to use and bundled up in the program. Inclusive of the program are plug-ins and different coding for different functions. I tried programming it a couple of times and I was unsuccessful in many attempts since I wasn't used it and quiet frankly it seemed to be easier to just do it using drawing instead of specifing line by line and so forth.
Sketchup though, is a great program and for someone knowledgeable of how to program it is very simple to use but personally I didn't care much for it. As far as tutorials go, simply click on the Help button and type in your search where you can find basic tutorials on how Ruby works.


Here are a couple of tutorials if you are interested in learning Ruby:
"Programming Ruby" online at http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/
The "Ruby user's guide" online at http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/UsersGuide/rg/
"Introduction to Ruby" online at http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/Tutorial/
"Learn to Program - A Tutorial for the Future Programmer" on line at http://hellotree.gotdns.com/LearnToProgram/

I then turned my attentention to Macromedia flash and searched for tutorials. The tutorials I found to be most interesting were those of how gravity worked because from understanding the basic concepts behind how the program works it can be translated for use in video games as many tutorials based on that showed up. I started with a circle and drew it in the stage area where I modified it to become a symbol and later an action clip with a designated name. I then added the code under the layer of that circle and changed the components of the gravity and acceleration in order to regulate how fast and slow and how far the circle would fall. The program script had a built in way of controlling the circle by using the arrow keys to make it shift left and right. The reason for experimenting with the code is because really the only way you're going to learn is from trial and error and experience. Honestly, you can read a thousand tutorials but it's not until you start to try and work it out for yourself that you start to get a better understanding of it. You could change the up and down motion based on the principles of math and acceleration in relation to gravity. At the same time the more you changed the variables they were affected to the background coordinates or plane of x and y axis which would cause the ball to speed up or slow down in certain areas as well as speed up to the point of flashing as is shown in the second picture above where the green ball goes missing. In fact it is not missing but is caught in motion flashing. If you didn't put constraints on the balls they would simply run off the page and start over again in a loop. The little creature icon with a smiley faced nicknamed Skeeter was a face that was based directly on the principles of gravity and slid down slowly leaving behind his standing face. Skeeter and each of the balls were on different layers were the code was added. The program when executed showed the balls and skeeter in motion. Using the side left and right toolbars the balls would move accordingly but still up and down.


Using the program, animation could be done but buttons and non-moving objects could be made as well using the basic paint tools. The main thing is designating each object in motion to declare it's name for use in it's program under it's layer.

Tutorials in both programs were helpful as were the help toolbars, but in regards to programming it is not something you can learn overnight or even over a series of years because as you start to grasp the concept another program is created and yours has already become obsolete. The basic ideas are there which can be used later and the mindset discussed earlier is what will make you a programmer. It is based on experience and learning and reading others codes and practicing with much trial and error. Personally, I do not care for programming many the mindset of breaking down things, perhaps I overanalyze and I know for sure I overthink things sometimes to the point of overcomplicating things that are basic, but I do have a great respect for those that do program. Most of the world we function in is based on programs everything from handheld devices such as Gameboys to computers to television channels. It is how the world is organized of one event affecting another to cause an effect.

Here are a couple of websites I used to find tutorials:
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Flash/Games/1

These are the two tutorials used from the website above to cross refernce the code including the help feature from the Macromedia Flash program.
Gravity in Games http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Create-Gravity-in-Games/22963
Steering a Falling Ball http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Steer-A-Falling-Ball/22810

Final Project

A couple of the recent ideas I've had concerning my last project are as follows:

- I did like working with and experimenting with the program I learned a little over Spring Break which was Caligari TrueSpace which was discussed in an earlier post. I enjoyed studying the different features of the human face manipulated and transformed into 3-D animations. If there was a way of using the full version or working with a program similar to that one, I would be intrested. The reason I can't use Caligari though is because it is a trial version that crashes after so many functions and does not support saving without a full version.

-Another idea I had was working on creating an architectural space in Sketchup or TopMod and then rendering it. I think this would be good for my portfolio or doing something similar to the Lighthouse rendering because it looks professional and it allows me to practice with the program.

-Another idea would be to learn more about that program algorithms discussed in class because I did find them interesting but the downside is they require a knowledge of programming, one of which I have not practiced Java for several years now and was not good at it then particularly and may not be able to learn all that I need to in the designated amount of time given.

I want to work on the project by myself mainly so that I can manage my time without having to be at the mercy of trying to figure out the work ethics of another and try and plan mine and their schedule to get the project done and have it suffer. I would consider a partner if they were highly dedicated and had the same work ethic as myself and were willing to put forth the effor to have it be 50/50 because if not then the project would suffer. These are just a couple of thoughts floating around in my head for now, any feedback is greatly appreciated in helping me develop an idea of a final project. Thanks. --Erica Salinas

Graduate School

I visited Rice University during the summer of my Junior year on a school trip, the Science Academy of South Texas a magnet school specializing in engineering, math, and science. I visited for a session of 2 weeks where we visited the university, attended classes, stayed in a hotel since we couldn't in the doors, and visited many of the important attractions that Houston had to offer including a private tour of NASA, Shell, MD Anderson and even got to go to the amusement park. I learned more in that summer about myself in that short amount of time than I could fathom. I learned about college life, independence since I had never been gone from home for longer than a few days, connecting to people, life and death from the hospital, but more importantly, I learned about myself. I learned that I had to speak up for myself, sell myself without being fake, be comfortable with being my own person, and I learned that the best friend you could ever have is the one that stares back at you every morning. THe one that knows you best and can guide you with your passions to learn and live is yourself. I fell in love with Rice university and wanted and still want to go to school there. It's a gorgeous campus that has so much to offer including one of the most prestigious colleges in Texas and the US.
Currently I am attending college at College Station at Texas A and M doing my undergrad degree in the School of Architecture which is also very prestigious and ranked in the top ten in the nation, tieing with Yale University. I am excelling in my studies and am enjoying my classes learning a lot from them, having plenty of laughs, sunsets and sunrises in one day working in studio, but I'm learning and living and following my passion. For the time being my place is here in College Station, but in the future I would like to pursue graduate school at Rice. I want to go to a different university to not settle and conform to one point of view offered here at A and M but rather get other perspectives those of which are offered in the big city of Houston. Maybe my passion will push elsewhere but for now I hope to go to Rice. The experience had there was a unique one and one I will never forget. The campus is inviting and the people are friendly. I know my education and time spent here at A and M is well worth it and a stepping stone to get to graduate school and it will take hard work, but it's something I'm willing to work for.

Why Rice you ask? According to Rodolfo Machado of Machado-Silvetti Associates in Cambridge writes: "We have had similar experiences with a few other schools across the country, and Rice is the only one where we find students to be intellectually developed and professionally useful, which is unfortunately a rare condition these days. " That's saying something. Rice accepts only 200 students each semester divided between graduate and undergraduate to the program. It is needless to say very difficult to get into. It offers an accredited Architecture degree for 5 years and offers a lot of study abroad programs to help create well rounded students. Links are shown at the bottom in regards to more about the university, but I will say that while Rice is a dream of mine, I have to leave things to God and his will and follow my passion of learning and architecture to find out where it will lead me. I ended up here at Texas and M and thank God I did. It's a great program where the professors are superb and challange the student and I'm glad I came here. The classes are amazing and something to look forward to and will prepare me for that next step in life, grad school. Best of luck to you on your journey.

Rice University School of Architecture :http://arch.rice.edu/modules/indexwin.php

Aggie Habitat for Humanity

Aggie Habitat for Humanity is a club I've been wanting to join lately as I volunteered last semester with St. Mary's Catholic Church to help paint a house for community service. It was a great experience and I have volunteered with the less fortunant before at my local chuch, St. Jude's Catholic Church, back in my home town over breaks. This is a great club to consider joining because not only does it help out the community, but in the process you learn about construction methods which are always a plus for an aspiring architecture student, but also life lessons and relationships you learn along the way. It's not just about building a house as I came to learn, it's so much more than that. You help create a home for family that wants to better themselves and essentially shelter the future, their children and builders of tommorrow's society. At the same time you're making friends and helping build apart of your own society.
The goals the club promotes is to create low cost homes where since labor is on volunteer basis so it's essentially free for the owner, but all the owner has to pay for is the materials over the course of 30 years with no interest. It is an attainable goal for them and it helps give them back a little part of their dignity back. The organization is founded by a Christian group, but is open to all volunteers regardless of faith or culture. There is expectations to meet in regards to the club in that if you say you'll join and volunteer you have to show up, there is no room for wishy-washy flip flopper behavior as each house takes at least 500 hours to make given that all the volunteers are present. On the contrary, it is very easy to sign up for by simply entering your email and the club is very structural with officers and activities planned out. The way I see it as with most passions is if you love what you're doing and you're helping others then you'll want to show up to lend a helping hand and those expectations will be met and if need be you'll be accomidated by your situation and talking to offers. The main idea is get involved and see how you can make a difference, every little helps, so that being said, I think I just convinced myself to join the local Aggie chapter, you should to.

Here is the link to the Aggie Habitat for Humanity official website main page where you can sign up for the following semester and learn more about what the club has to offer:
http://habitat.tamu.edu/

Mission Statement:
http://habitat.tamu.edu/about/mission.asp

How to become a member:
http://habitat.tamu.edu/members/member.asp

iNTA Conference

Upon furthering my research I decided to search Google.com to find a conference that highlighted the aspects of culture and Architecture. Considering my interests in design, sustainable architecture, and green architecture it came to great surprise that that I stumbled upon a site highlighting a conference held in Indonesia. The conference's main goals were to combine the culture, natural environment of the tropical rainforest and urban society to maintain and further all three of these key aspects. The conference was held in Jogjakarta hosted by Duta Wacana Christian University April 3-5 of this past year, 2006.

According to the site conference, the goals of the conference were as follows:
1. Traditions, Vernacular Architecture and Urban Forms
2. Tropical buildings construction using local materials
3. Comfort and Quality of Tropical Urban Spaces
4. Design Paradigms and Strategies, Complex Decision Making Processes
5. Parametric Comp Tools for Analysis, CAAD Design & Knowledge Systems
6. Planning and Building Regulations, Criteria for Sustainable Design Standards
7. Planning and design for disaster response and reconstruction

The overall theme was "Tropical Architecture: Harmony in Culture and Nature". The place the conference was held, in Jogjakarta is a center occupied by roughly half a population of college students and is one of the leading places in Indonesia having the highest rate of education. The reason I decided to further pursue the study of this conference and why it peaked my interest was because it prompted me to learn about another culture a little further through getting a taste through what I've read about the city and to see how other's plan to teach other's about the environment around them to preserve it but adapt it to their growing needs of urbanism.
To learn more about the city and the conference click on the links below:

Main Website
http://www.inta2006.org/client/programs/front/index.php

About the Sponsors
http://www.inta2006.org/client/programs/?menu=organization&submenu=about_dwcu

About the City
http://www.inta2006.org/client/programs/?menu=general_info&submenu=about_jogja

Art Contest

Original Picture


Design Poster



I've decided to enter the 2007 Art Contest being held on Campus for TAMU students. I will be submitting one of my works of a photograph I took at St. Mary's Catholic Church that I altered to change the contrast and colors to show the beauty of the light and shadows throughout the picture. The original picture is the first one and the second picture is a picture of the design poster I made of the church and image altered.

This is an important piece to me because it's religious so right away I have a strong connection to it but the way the light falls on the Virgin is very delicate but beautiful. It highlights her and creates a serene feeling that I tried to capture using a camera. The way the light streams in through the window makes a very calming soothing spiritual feeling. I then transfered this into several smaller frames of the same picture to create a design poster. This poster was used previously for submittal for my design foundations class taught by Professor and Artist Dick Davidson who gave me a respectful grade. It's not so much the grade that matters but the fact that it's a religious piece without necessarily saying so and is moving from my perspective is what matters most to me.


Art contest entry form

Contact Information ( some excluded on the internet to protect my identity)

Name Erica Salinas

Local Address excluded

City ST ZIP Code excluded

Permanent Address excluded

City ST ZIP Code excluded

Local Phone excluded

Cell Phone excluded

E-Mail Address excluded

Alternate E-Mail Address excluded

Hometown College Station

Major Environmental Design

Classification U2

Title of Work Blue Virgin

Medium Photography


Category
Select one of the following:
Photography

Physical Description
Compsition and collage of Photographs

Artist’s Statement
See blog above

See things is a different light.

ENDS Degree Plan for Texas A and M University

The above spread sheet was created using Microsoft Excel for the purpose of planning out my degree plan based off the previous courses taken and those anticipated to take during the summer at my local community college. Column dimensions were changed, text bolded and centered, and colors were added for further clarity. I need a total of 136 hours to graduate.

Please note when you click on the picture you will be seeing a very poor quality screen shot of 70% magnification if you click on the picture once an icon of a + with a magnifier will appear. If you click on it, it will appear in normal readable text.

The degree plan was taken from the TAMU website online catalog at:
http://www.tamu.edu/admissions/catalogs/06-07_UG_Catalog/architecture/environmental_design/arch_studies_opt.htm


Here is the link for the online google group published online:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?id=o15853536362093656857.2303814232487031428.00803465909050869604.3698548381248590497

Visual Mind

Above is a picture of a photo merged image of a screen shot taken from Visual Mind

The map is a things to do map that has the listing of my different professors and the assignments that are pending within this week.

Visual Mind is a program designed to help express the mind thought process both personal and for buisness gains. It is a tool that works similar to a bubble spider web but is designed to help the user sort out their thoughts by categorizing and differentiating between tasks through use of colors, text boxes, and notes. This becomes very helpful in the case where templates are predesigned with the user in mind to have them be pre fabricated to be able to express the thought process to others. For example, there is a template for buisness in which a buisness man using this program could write the program using a premade template to show the project ideas and pitch it to a client. The user can have the bubble text boxes collapse to show the main idea but when you look at the bottom of the screen the notes are clearly visible. They boxes extent to show the children categories as well and those also can collapse and expand. The program can be uploaded to the web for others to view and expand the different categories. Unfortunantly, at Texas A and M the internet for personal computers via wireless internet and dorm USB connection have been down and the Computing Center does not allow downloading or uploading of programs. Two screen shots were taken of the program and photomerged in Photoshop. Some of the resolution was lost unfortunantly and in the program I assure you it looks much more clearer. Personally, I would most likely not use this program again because unless it's used for buisness or projects for others to understand for personal use it's a bit tedious to write a program in what can be done in a minute to write a to-do list by hand. That's my personal opinion but it does have a nice professional look to it. If you're skilled enough at it and get quick enough at it then otherwise perhaps I could be proven wrong. For now though unless it's school related or buisness related, I'll stick to paper and pen.

Here is the link from the site directly for a 30 day trial version. Try it out for yourself and prove me wrong. As far as tutorials go there are tips of the day upon opening the program and the program is very basic and user friendly with helpful icons and menus that are clear to understand.

http://www.visual-mind.com/download.html

Up Side Down House

http://www.lostparks.com/bandwiththeft13k.jpg

Caligari TrueSpace 6.6

Note: The above pictures are screenshots of the workspace of the studies.

The program selected to learn about was Caligari TrueSpace 6.6. It is a unique program that combines 3-D modeling and rendering. I downloaded the trial version and shown in the links listed below and used the help of tutorials and experimentation to navigate throughout the program. Once you learn the basic principles the program is relatively easy to use on the surface but can become very complicated when camera angles and animation and layers are added. Unfortunantly, be forewarned that with the trial version you cannot save and are limited to certain tools as well as the file is not completely supported so not all the links are found in the program which causes it to crash and without save you have to start over each time. I learned in using the program there are pre-fabricated objects and scenes that could be manipulated to show different times and lightings of day. Grids could be used to manipulate the objects and replicate them. The human forms could be changed to adapt to the features of a person and mimic human expression such as if the icon happy was clicked the face object would grin. The human object could also mimic the features of a person in a photograph but could also be distorted horribly to the point that they are unrecognizable. This was the case in the scene where the figure looks alien like but the original is to the left of it. The spheres could be manipulated to have different textures and optical illusions. Paths could be added to make the objects move and collide into each other. All these components work together to create 3-D animation and essentially make up a fantasy world that mimics reality but where constraints and how you program it govern it rather than everyday life and physics.

Links:
http://www.render-lab.com/Getting_around_1.htm#1.%20Help%20is%20available!
Tutorial on how to use the basic functions and is very helpful.

http://www.spacekdet.com/tutorials/
Collection of many tutorials including video and step by step guides on how to create renderings and 3-D scenes.

http://www.caligari.com/download/trials.asp?Cate=DTrials
Download the trial version. This requires anywhere from half an hour to an hour to download.
Must include email address as they send you the code to enter to allow you to begin downloading.

http://www.caligari.com/Products/trueSpace/tS7/brochure/intro.asp?Cate=BIntro
Caligari website

Viz--The Thousand Hour Long Project that is actually rewarding in an odd sort of way...

My first approach as I'm not particularly skilled with Photoshop or Autodesk Viz was to watch the tutorials and try and import a file from Top Mod, a program I am familiar with to a point. This was a failed attempt and instead I started from a single cube in Autodesk Viz. I then began following the tutorial as listed in the links below and developing it to my own and personalizing it. I then added different tools and layers including: twist, taper, bend, wave, bend, face extrude, squeeze, edit mesh, and a combination of manipulating all these tools as well as the axix heights. The image was then rendered with ambient occlusion and a camera was added. The image was then transfered to Photoshop where it was further rendered using a layering of the images attained in the previous renderings from Autodesk Viz. Layers were added to give the effect of reflection and glass and a sailboat with three people were added to show scale. Above is the finished product. Believe me it takes a lot of time and it sounds a lot easier than it actually is, but it's really cool and interesting when it's finished.

Total: Start 3:30pm end 11:07pm I'm amazed. It takes a while but you don't feel it after a while. It is challenging though.

Link to the tutorial for Autodesk Viz and Photoshop:

http://www.ends170.com/tutorials/viz1