Project 1b | Lights Moving

Since I am interested in the effect that the construct is fading into the white background, I make an extended version of the animation to show how it is emerging from the white.

Fix camera, fix model, moving lights.

Project 1b | Framed Views

Since the video is fail...The images here are not captured from the video. It seems to me that the images are more successful in expressing the surfaces and void.

Project 1b | Compositional Frames

This video has 3 parts:

1. Following an EDGE; the frame expands and contracts in responding to the profile of the surface that attached with the edge.
2. Pan viewing a SURFACE; the original intention is to capture the light / shadow movements along the surface as the light source moves.
3. Flying through the SPACE; the lighted outer surfaces contrast with the shadowed inner surfaces give interesting figure / ground shapes.

However, it was over-exposed...light intensity was too high and I have no time to redo that yet.

Architectural Animation?

"Is there a danger that the medium has become the message? Is the employment of animatory techniques a triumph of style over substance?"

Neil Spiller raises his concern that "an all-too-eager appropriation of animation software ... is leading architects to abandon a rigorous approach to architectural space in favour of a fetishisation of surface imagery". He argues that architectural animations often divert their creator from creating architectural space. And the process of creating animations is actually static comparing to the moving pencil. It also limited the possibilities for imagination that sketches and drawings can provide, as everything has to be know in detail in order to put into the virtual. He suggests that the technology of the virtual and its applications must be woven into actual architecture, which is where the anima in animation should reside.

He may be overstated the situation, in fact, a skillful use of animation can do much more than just spinning around the exterior of forms. It can be more than just the representation of the final design. Woven the technology with the process of developing concept, finding form, creating space etc., is exactly what we are trying to do in our class.


OMA | REX - Museum Plaza, Louisville


Peter Eisenman - Casa Guardiola


Zaha Hadid - Parametric Urbanism

It's about...

Ok...now I know it's about form finding by utilizing the computational power of these softwares. For the two versions of model I have, I like the spatial construct model more than the temporal one. So I can probably further manipulate my loft surfaces, and adding thickness to it before starting the animation/framing exercise...

The problem is loft surfaces in Autocad2007 cannot be imported to FormZ directly... and thus can't be exported to FACT... I will need an intermediate step - 3DS. Anyway, may be I should practice more on FormZ.

Animation

still using autocad...
hopefully will try something on formz later on

Project 1a | Temporal Construct

This series represent the space between two legs at each interval of time, simply by lofting the left and right leg. It is interesting to see the turning of my body portraited in the model.

Project 1a | Spatial Construct

So I started my study from analyzing the motions of my legs. For each 0.1s-frame, the positions of my legs are documented, with yellow indicating right leg, and blue indicating left leg. The 3D model is showing the actual spatial traces of both legs.


This view is showing the first half of motion. Left leg (blue) is the pivot as my right leg is lifting and reaching the wall.

This is the second half of the motion, showing my right leg (yellow) swing down from the wall and land on the floor.


Here is the top view. Running toward the wall from the right side, bounce back from the left side.

Project 1 | Video + Frames

Run toward a wall, step on it, turn around, and rebound from the wall... Thinking about the analysis part, I will probably start from the legs and see what will I get.

Body Matters

Greg Lynn is suggesting an alternative concept of how bodies are composed, which focus on the heterogeneity rather than homogeniety. It is an approach from the base up versus from the top down.

What Greg called "Viscous Body" is an open systerm that emerged from a process of continuous differentiation of its base matters. Such process involves the interactions between the interior configurations and exterior forces, which occur at the different local surfaces of the body. He describes such interaction as "two-fold deterritorialization" that the body disperses interiors outward but simultaneously unifies a constantly shifting interior through the internalization of external forces. And he employed the concept of "parasite" to explaine how the differential process can bind disparate bodies into intergral unities. From my understanding, by using the parasite concept, he didn't imply a necessary host in viscous body.

Greg Lynn Form http://www.glform.com/

By the way, it's really a nice idea to have blogs setup for a class. I can see through our interactions, each of our blogs will come together and form a composite body.