Interim Submission

 Final project: Successes and failures so far…….

So far I have created a prototype of a certain construction system, I had chosen to model a simple system of construction on sloping sites. I started by modelling the components of this system on sketchup including a sloping site, an area which is cut away (the construction site), foundations (negative and positive), retaining walls and piers, concrete floor slab with drop beam and then double brick walls. I then exported these components from sketchup into 3ds Max to create animations, the animations worked perfectly as you can see in the video below, however the first problem arose when I exported the animation into buildAR, my file was imported as a static object rather than an animation. You can also see in the buildAR video (below) that some of the surfaces are completely missing and that none of the materials had exported through. These failures, may mean that I need to rethink the design process of my construction systems for the final project, the process of importing models from sketchup to 3ds may be causing inconsistencies in the model and final animations… so the final models may have to be completely produced in 3ds max.

Another problem I have encountered (which is a recurring problem from the last project) is that buildAR isn’t recognising my webcam… the initial webcam settings window which appears as soon as you start buildAR states that my computers video standard is PAL_B… on the tutorial on buildAR website they have it as none.. but I cant change it. So I am therefore forced to use my sisters laptop which crashes everytime I have buildAR open longer than 5 mins… (FRUSTRATING!!!!)

Sketchup screen shots and final project illustrations: