Austin Lord
Ruins Environment
FA-U539, Fall 2008
For this project, I created an environment in which everyone’s models are situated. One thing that made this particularly interesting for me was trying to create something that had meaning on its own, but that ultimately had the primary purpose of being a platform for other 3D works. In the end, I didn’t want the environment to be extremely noticeable – I wanted the viewer to be concentrating on the variety of models placed in the environment, so my challenge was to create a place and arrangement where they could come together seamlessly, so that the focus was on the overall experience of the world we created, rather than a single thing.
One interesting thing about designing the environment was that it had to be changed and tweaked until the last model was placed inside of it. I wasn’t able to just make some terrain and plop everything in it – I had to adjust the terrain as structures and, plants, and buildings were added to it, moving mountains and hills, leveling ground, redirecting rivers. This was an extremely interesting part of the project to me, because I think the concept behind this piece is a clash, or a union of a natural place and industrial ruins, so shaping this terrain to fit the buildings really mirrored how things happen in the real world as we demolish and shape our environment to suit our needs.
While most of my time on this project was spent simply building and texturing the terrain that the models sit on, I also spent a good amount of time actually placing the models within the environment, working with each artist in situating their creations. Most of my collaborators gave me total freedom in how things were situated, and I felt that it was important that I take this responsibility seriously. Each model in the environment is extremely unique, so creating a cohesive piece while still highlighting each artist’s work individually was a great challenge. Some models needed to be situated to show off their size or setting, while others were repeated or more integrated in to the environment to tie it all together.
Another large portion of my time on this project was spent learning the Virtools environment and getting things set up in there. Although I have not imported the finished environment in to Virtools, I did spend quite a bit of time learning how to import models, and set up the environment for easy navigation. I believe this was important because it allowed the other artists to explore the empty terrain in Virtools and get a better sense of what their models are going to look like in the way that they will actually be seen.
Seeing the finished environments with the models placed, I think it meshes extremely well with the music and concept behind Solar Wind. Our idea was a large ruin with artifacts of a perished civilization scattering a natural landscape – two great forces coming together to form something new. This is what I see when I look at our environment.
Below are some additional renders of the environment.
Also, a wide view of the empty environment before adding the additional models
