Assignment 1

Four-week project, due in fifth week, Feb. 13

Design and model the exterior of a building that houses artwork. The building might be a museum, or a gallery, or a private home.

Use only polygonal surfaces for this project (i.e., not Nurbs or Subdivision surfaces.) The focus of this project is on the three-dimensional modeling – not the rendering – so do not worry about or even think about (yet) glass, textures, reflectivity, etc. For this project you should focus on the three-dimensional forms – both the positive volumetric forms and the negative spaces – of the exterior of the building.

Do not attempt to model any of the interior spaces. Do not attempt to model any organic forms (plants, animals, etc). Do not attempt to assign any materials other than the default gray Lambert. (You will re-use this model in later assignments and all of these enhancements will be added then.) Focus on the exterior forms of the building only.

Begin by researching and selecting at least three examples of architectural structures housing artwork that you find interesting. Each of the three should be significantly different in style. You can research some famous architects – such as Frank Gehry, Santiago Calatrava, Zaha Hadid, Frank Lloyd Wright, I.M. Pei, Louis Sullivan, etc. Alternatively, you can select your examples based on style – for example: Modernist, Islamic, Japanese Shinto, Brooklyn brownstone, Upper East Side Manhattan 19^th century townhouse, etc. Or, you could think of specific buildings – Metropolitan Museum of Art of NYC, National Palace Museum of Taipei, the Louvre of Paris,... Think hard about what you like about each style. Select a style that you respond to particularly strongly, and do your modeling in that style. Do not copy a specific building. Your structure is to be of your own design, but within a particular style that you have researched. All elements of your building should be consistently within this style.

Where appropriate, be precise by using numerical dimensions and/or snapping. Also, make sure that you define an appropriate hierarchy for the models. Remember that you are building a three-dimensional structure, not just making pictures. Name your objects appropriately. In general organize your scene file so that someone else could come in a month later and quickly figure out what is what and be able to continue the work you started.

As you work, make lots of test renderings to visually evaluate the forms and the spaces. Use a simple default Physical Sun rendering to easily get shading, lighting and shadows subtle enough to show your forms and spaces. Optionally, you may also do ambient occlusion renderings. Look at and test-render your scene from many different points of view and distances.

For the final hand-in, store all your files in a project of your own name. For example, orourke. Your final scene file should be called assign1final.mb. Please use only this name, in order to make it easy for me to find your final project file. Also, render and save at least four Physical Sun renderings of your model. Resolution of your images can be Maya's default rendering resolution. Choose your camera angles to reveal your model well. The rendered images you produce will go into your /images directory by default. Name the rendered picture files assign1final_A , B, C, D, etc.

Save your files!! You will build on and enhance this project throughout the semester in subsequent assignments.