lecture on 3d in urban graphics

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I have been asked to give a brief lecture/workshop for a Urban Planning Graphics class. The class is coursework for the local universities City and Regional planning graduate degree. They will be covering graphic basics from hand rendering, perspective drawing, photoshop, 3d, and desktop publishing.

 

The idea is that I introduce them to FormZ and 3dstudio. I have just under 2 hours, and the professor asked that I also give them a hands on work thru during that time. The students will have little to no experience in computer graphics, and especially little to know 3d. They will probably know AutoCAD and such, but nothing beyond that.

 

I am trying to create an outline of what I will discuss and do during the lecture. Here is a brief synopsis of what i have so far. Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated.........

 

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1) Discuss 3d as it relates to urban design.

 

a) What are the advantages, and the disadvantages of 3d modeling for Urban Planning.

 

- general perception of how computer imagery is interpreted.

- what is the clients/publics expectations from computer generated studies.

-

 

b) Develop the concept and goal of your presentation, and stick to it.

 

- what information is necessary to portray the concept/idea

- pros and cons of photorealism vs. diagrammatic

- workflow and meeting deadlines

- it is important when working with 3d models to be able to quickly change your concepts, and the information presented.

- use the computer as a tool

 

c) Computer visualization is expected and trusted.

 

- is this good or bad?

- what are the strengths and weaknesses?

 

d) How can the use of 3-dimensional studies improve the concept/idea of your project.

 

- accurately tracking the user experience

- accurately understanding the relationship of different parts of the concept.

- provide working studies and design studies that are part of the general workflow to reduce the repetitive reproduction and streamline the process.

 

2) Workshop.

 

Hands on work session that walks the students through a brief project using basic tools of the 3d world. I will probably create a fictious project that is modeled using primitives and designed to study building relationships and perspectives. The project would include organizing the files for efficient working through file structure and layering. How to model a basic 3-dimensional space. Setting up perspectives. Basic scanline rendering.

 

3) How to incorporate 3d into presentation.

 

- What is the output goal? Digital or print? Large format?

- Use 3d in conjunction with hand work? ...use perspectives as underlay to speed the creation of graphics?

- Use 3d as a tool in the presentation, and not as the only component of the presentation.

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........thoughts? I know some on this board have taught classes for entire quarters like this, and others have taken them. I have less than 2 hours, so I need to cover a lot, and not get to in detail about certain areas, unless the class is specifically interested in some aspect.

 

 

.

[Ernest Burden III]

You'll be lucky if you get past the FormZ splash screen in 2 hours. It's not the quickest program to demo.

 

I did some renderings--my lasy combo digital layout/ watercolor for an urban planning competition. I could share some graphics with you.

The client's site

 

There are also a set of streetlevel pictures not shown on the site. None of this is on my website since I don't want to encourage calls for painted renderings.

[Allen]

I was an instructor for several years teaching technical information. If these students have little or no experience in 3d - you'll not get through 1/2 of what you've listed in the 2 hours.

 

Questions alone, and they are vital to keep students interests, will take over 30 minutes. With an introduction, questions and closing you're already at 45 minutes - and you've covered nothing...

 

As this is an intro presentation, I'd stick to your talking points which are excellent - those give them a reason to use 3d - reason to learn and implement 3d in their careers, designs.

 

Talk to the professor about you sustututing the "Workshop" by doing a simple demo. Perhaps layout of a city block or such to show the visualiztion potential of quick urban massing design, solar study, etc.?

 

I'd focus on lighting the flame of interest vs. teaching software techniques.

 

My 2 cents.

 

Oh, I've got some street graphics, etc. that you can to use if you'd like.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

You'll be lucky if you get past the FormZ splash screen in 2 hours. It's not the quickest program to demo.

 

I did some renderings--my lasy combo digital layout/ watercolor for an urban planning competition. I could share some graphics with you.

The client's site

 

There are also a set of streetlevel pictures not shown on the site. None of this is on my website since I don't want to encourage calls for painted renderings.

 

if you don't mind, i would like to use a couple as examples. watermarked and credited to you of course.

 

 

Talk to the professor about you sustututing the "Workshop" by doing a simple demo. Perhaps layout of a city block or such to show the visualiztion potential of quick urban massing design, solar study, etc.?

 

..off of both of your suggestions, i will talk to the teacher about not doing an actual assignment. maybe i will make up a tutorial that they can follow on their own time if they are interested.

 

originally we planned to just do a demo, but then the professor emailed and asked if i could create a working assignment for them. maybe the assignment could be take home or something along those lines. the university (ohio st) has several copies of formz as well as several manuals, so i am not worried about them having access to the program.

 

i think i was asked for the working project because the teacher is not comfortable in 3d, and wanted to try and get it out of the way since it looks as though it is only 1 week of the quarter. he asked that i submit my agenda to him this week, so i will discuss it with him then.