Games, Architecture, and Crowdsourcing - 1

I've been working in both Photoshop and 3D Studio Max for a while now.  Sometimes, as I explore things, I have been less and less sure where I fit in.  How exactly do I leverage what I know as architect in ways beyond building.  And how do I take this experimentation back into the real world.

I started out playing the first version of Doom while I was in graduate school. When mod tools first appeared, I have to admit that, originally, I laughed at how simplistic many of the level designs were.  I became really interested though, because shear experimentation was rampant.  It was chaotic crowd-sourcing with people willing to throw literally anything into level design.  From a critical standpoint they were the simplest architectural spaces possible, but there were some interesting spatial ideas beyond the 'open door-see corridor-kill monster' design.  I kept on thinking that architectural simulation in games was something we as architects should pay attention to.  I actually proposed an independent studio based on the use of Doom's mod tools, but it wasn't very well received by my thesis advisor.

That didn't stop the IT guy and I from playing Doom in the PC lab late at night of course.

2012 - Massing study for Turin Train Station Ideas Competition.  I've been using 3D models in the way I used to build cardboard and wood models for massing studies.  The big idea was to have layers of courtyards and landscape as the integrative mechanism between the airport, train and bus components of a regional transportation hub.  A new public market was proposed to anchor the entrance and the edge of a new public square.  Bringing the river into the interior with a canal meant that new recreational and hospitality components could be explored. Default Renderer in 3D Studio Max.

 2013 - Book Cover Proposal

2013 - I've been rereading older science fiction; what is euphemistically called 'classic' or golden age work.  One of the first books I ever read (in junior high school) was Damon Knights compendium 'Beyond Tomorrow'.  I found an awesome first edition in a used book store not too long ago, and Robert Heinlein's 'Coventry' became the inspiration for this illustration.

all images in this blog are copyright vertigo studios and michael knudsen

An Evolution of Sorts

Experimenting with 3D Studio Max and Terragen together started to open some nice images for me, particularly after I started building faster workstations to reduce rendering times.  Because I needed to bring the Max images to the same level as the Terragen images, I had to stop using the default renderer and start exploring Global Illumination (GI) and Ray Trace rendering in 3D Studio Max.

2011 - Security monitoring room design for un-named online game project.  Default renderer in 3D Studio Max.  I ended up taking over the level design, but there was no saving a project where the leads couldn't agree on any of the content.

2011 - Warehouse interior for un-named game project.  Default renderer in 3D Studio Max.

2013 - I was working on some street front elevation studies for a developer.  He had presented me with sketches showing a pastiche of classical elements and the admonition; 'it just needs a little massaging'.  I ended up resolving it in a very simple and clean way , but then I started rereading A.E. Van Vogt's 'The Weapon Shops of Isher' and it ended being up a late night with this as the result.  

Those who look closely will see that the center door logo announces Nick Danger of Firesign Theater fame.  3D Studio Max 2014 with Mental Ray Renderer.

2013 - Experiment with compositing of 3D Studio Max model in Vray Renderer and Background render from Terragen 2.  The flags are Tibetan rug patterns from a textile exhibit brochure in New York.

all images in this blog are copyright vertigo studios and michael knudsen

The Ray Traced Landscape

One of the things that started to change my perception of the computer based architectural model was my discovery of landscape rendering in the first iteration of Terragen. For those who don't know, it is a landscape and atmosphere modelling program that uses ray tracing to generate surprisingly realistic results from procedural algorithms.  It relied heavily on plugins written by users for everything from importing bitmaps to wave generation in water, but it was a robust program and happily supported by the community of users.

The next version, Terragen 2, was able to incorporate larger DEM data with fractal tweaks to generate even more textured landscapes.  It could also import meshes, plants, and objects in TGO or OBJ formats from other programmes such as XFrog and World Machine.  Most of the plugins in Terragen were included as standard features in Terragen 2, and the new node based interface meant that even more complex materials and complex terrains were possible.

Raytracing is frighteningly processor and time intensive.  It is just what it says; a myriad of points are calculated one by one against the rays of light from the source of illumination and mixed with global illumination; the light glow from each one of those points.  But if you have the patience and the computing power, the end results are fantastic.  Terragen 2 was able to make use of multiple cores and threads for a significant speed upgrade over Terrgen. The newest version, Terragen 3 has further evolved, with significant improvements to rendering speeds, and rendering of landscape and atmospheric effects.  It also allows network based rendering to share a rendering task across multiple computers.

It's still a wait for some things though, particularly if you want stellar lighting and atmospheric effects.  Start that renderer, make some coffee, and perhaps a meal, and watch the magic appear line by line.

2010 - combination of procedural landscape and World Machine landscape rendered in Terragen 0.9

2011 - a DEM mesh of Mitten Buttes Arizona rendered in the beta version of Terragen 2

2012 - a DEM mesh of Mount Assiniboine Alberta rendered in the final version of Terragen 2

2013 - procedural space landscape for book cover - rendered in the final version of Terragen 2

all images in this blog are copyright vertigo studios and michael knudsen

Discovery Of A 3D World

I was born in Denmark.  My family immigrated to Canada when I was 4.  The summer I turned 10, my younger brother and I got to go back and spend an entire glorious summer in Denmark.  We mostly stayed at my aunt and uncles' cramped but sunny little 2 bedroom apartment, full of musty smells, royal Danish blue china plates, and the oldest furniture I had ever seen, on Blegdamsvej in downtown Copenhagen.

   

My Uncle was a retired mechanical engineer, the old school kind that designed and machined parts for factories.  One night, about 2 weeks after we arrived, we were astonished to discover that what I took for a closet door in the small sitting room, pivoted down to reveal his amazing N scale model railroad layout on the back of the door.  It was a countryside with rolling hills, small town and rural stations, farms, and tiny people. There were passenger trains, freight trains, and coal trains.  It was densely textured and layered with multiple levels of track, trestles, and tunnels.  I would sit at night watching him make buildings and accessories, paint them, and fret over their placement. He would sing softly to himself while sipping akavit and beer.  Every once in a while he would look up, laugh, and say in Danish, 'stop staring, it isn't polite'.

Jorgen took us to one of Copenhagen's largest toy stores one Saturday morning, to get parts and paint for his train set installation, and that's when I discovered Lego.  At that time, the Lego kit as we know it today didn't exist.  Lego only came in boxes of assorted pieces. There wasn't much color choice, but the shear variety of building blocks that snapped together, including pitched roofs, windows, and doors, was amazing. There were even wheels with bearing blocks to make moving vehicles.  There were beautiful house models of all shapes and sizes, and an installation of the Danish royal summer palace; all reproduced in Lego. I was stunned and had to be dragged away from the displays when it was time to leave. 

Lego hadn't come to Canada yet, and both my brother and I wanted it.  My mother cautioned us to be patient.  Later that summer, when my birthday was coming up, I was asked what I wanted.  Naturally I replied, 'Lego'.  Kenny and I were delighted to get so much Lego and other toys from the family, that my mother had to buy 2 extra suit cases to carry everything home on the plane.  

From then on, until Lego was sold in Canada, every birthday and Christmas meant new Lego shipped to us from relatives in Denmark.  Kids from all over the neighbourhood would come over to play day after day in our Lego filled basement.  When we grew older, nieces and nephews played with it. There is, in fact, still a huge box of assorted Lego in a downstairs closet at my parents house.  And, I am happy to say, my youngest son is a consummate Legomaniac, building the kits of course, but then taking them apart to make new stuff out of his imagination.

2011 to 2013 - Assorted assets for game and personal projects modelled in 3D Studio Max.  Almost every single vehicle and ship started life as a chamfered cylinder or box.

2012 - When it was clear that something bad was starting to happen in Detroit, I started a series of 3D urban landscapes.  It's more than just the post-nuke imagery of Fall Out.  As an architect, I just couldn't stop wondering about the ecology of the old and new city.  Do we consolidate and leave the edges?  Do we take the edge and leave the centre?  And what happens where these conditions collide?

all images in this blog are copyright vertigo studios and michael knudsen

The Beginnings of a Method

I was 8 years old when I discovered that not all my classmates could draw.  I had just assumed that, like reading and breathing, everyone could do it.  It empowered me; I could do something no one else could. 

It also got me in trouble.  I lost track of the number of detentions I got, when instead of doing my classwork, I was caught drawing in my notebooks and in the margins of my textbooks,.  Eventually my teacher sent a note home, asking my parents to please, please, give me paper and pencil to get it out of my system.  I was lucky my father was an accountant, and would come home with reams of unused ledger paper.  

I never dreamed paper could be so big,  Much better than drawing small stuff in book margins.  

It was a great time to be a pre-computer child.

2013 - The Gateway series started after an intense couple of months re-exploring 

the new FallOut series.  Its my own fault for joining Good Old Games.  

Damn them and their free games and excellent deals.

2013 - There are many versions of the cave and city in my work.  I am fairly sure there's a root of something from Plato in it, although, instead of looking at shadows on a wall, my view is almost always looking out at the city. I'm happy to philosophize about cities and design, but today I just need to draw and build.

2013 - I was approached by a group interested in a kind of 'Running Man' mod for an existing game.  I thought they would be better off using one of the new game engines but I went in on spec anyway.  My idea was that it could be a Mario kind of jump puzzle side-scroller in a post apocalyptic environment.

all images in this blog are copyright vertigo studios and michael knudsen

Welcome to Vertigo Studios

I have spent most of my adult life looking for interesting ways to shape the human environment; first as a builder, and then as an architect.  

After working in engineering and construction for more than a dozen years,I returned to school at the age of 30, obtaining a fine art degree in painting, and a master's degree in architecture and urban design.

  

After working for several years in architecture, I founded Vertigo Studios as a venue for the exploration of ideas and precepts that were not possible within the traditional framework of client based practise. The original intention was to use computer based 3D and 2D imagery to explore architecture and urban design, but over time I realized that I was becoming interested in imagery that was increasingly only peripherally connected to architecture. 

You will see a continuum of ideas, in both words and images, on this blog.  Reinterpretations of personal experience, speculative fiction, computer gaming, along with architecture, have pushed imagery in unexpected ways for me. It's hard not to just follow along when an idea takes on its own life.   

2011 - I  produced this robot when my youngest son, Ben, started school.

Can you tell I was just a bit nervous? 

2011 - based on an old Life magazine portrait that transformed 

into this depiction of a different kind of holiday for father and son

2012 - I love Ian M Banks Culture novels - partially because 

his descriptions of the physical environment are intrinsic to his stories.  

They are remarkably architectural. This developed after reading 'Excession'.

2012 - I got really excited when I found out that Mechwarrior was being revived.

It has not exactly fulfilled my expectations, But I did this anyway, 

because who doesn't like Mechs under starlight?

all images in this blog are copyright vertigo studios and michael knudsen