Quake As An Architectural Design Tool 168
Snaller writes: "'Established architectural virtual reality modelling systems tended to be very expensive, Mr Richens said. "We get slightly better results using a £30 game running on a £150 graphics card. So it's extremely low-cost virtual reality.'
The man saying this is Paul Richens, director of the Cambridge University's Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies, and he's talking about a project to use Quake 2 as means to visualize new buildings. It's difficult for people to read architectural plans, but if you can "run" around in a virtual building you get a much better idea of what it looks like. The project is quite serious and is intended to let architects' clients see what the end product would look like - of course the guns and monsters just had to go, lest clients start to get trigger happy and blast away. 'They were doing that originally but we had to take the guns out -- the head of the department didn't like that at all,' Mr Richens said." It's a fascinating project -- reminds me of my longtime hope to see driving games used to simulate actual upcoming trips, to learn what exits will be like, etc.
The man saying this is Paul Richens, director of the Cambridge University's Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies, and he's talking about a project to use Quake 2 as means to visualize new buildings. It's difficult for people to read architectural plans, but if you can "run" around in a virtual building you get a much better idea of what it looks like. The project is quite serious and is intended to let architects' clients see what the end product would look like - of course the guns and monsters just had to go, lest clients start to get trigger happy and blast away. 'They were doing that originally but we had to take the guns out -- the head of the department didn't like that at all,' Mr Richens said." It's a fascinating project -- reminds me of my longtime hope to see driving games used to simulate actual upcoming trips, to learn what exits will be like, etc.
Wow. I could have made MONEY?! (Score:2)
I tinkered with the Half Life level editor, and it was a lot more in depth than previous editors that I had worked with, however I never really got into it. Shame. I could have been doing architectual work!
God knows how complicated the Q3 level editors are. I haven't even seen one, let alone try it. My next project is to recreate my office space for me and my co-workers, probably for a Rogue Spear map. I'll have to check and see how good the Rogue Spear level editors are.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Appropriate buildings for this sort of thing (Score:2)
hrmmmmmm
post offices, obviously....
Maybe certain public buildings like City Hall (TM), and other facilities where useless bureaucrats are stored and warehoused.
In Boston, this happens to be the Boston Housing Authority. Your city may be different.
and you know some sicko is going to suggest the local high school.
. . . or historic locations like Dealy (sp?) Plaza in Dallas where Kennedy was shot.
Extra Points for finding the politicians!
(It was just a joke, dammit! HEY watchit with those handcuffs .... OUCH!)
Christopher Alexander (Score:1)
--
Marc A. Lepage (aka SEGV)
Re:Cool (Score:1)
Everyone knows that you need to ^D to get out of a Linux program!
Alex
So? Is this supposed to be new? (Score:1)
Re:Information must be left out (Score:1)
Re:I did this once (Score:1)
LOL!!
As if we don't wander around campus aimlessly in real life? The way I see it, if someone ended up doing that on the simulated campus, that's quite an accomplishment. That is, unless they fire a rocket into the Dean's Office...
Raptor
More Research for you, Brown (Score:1)
You won't find that at NaN yet. Blender comes binary only, with a copyright that you can only see once you have downloaded their package. See blender's beginner page [blender.nl] to confirm for yourself.
It's nice that it's no cost, but it's not free! People who know where the free software foundation page is (www.fsf.org) will know what free implies and be missled by rash's orignial post. Those who don't know what free software is, and I imagine a general interest article about Quake and graphics will attract many of you, should visit the page cited.
Movement, not photo-realism, is the benefit (Score:1)
Re:Hrm (Score:2)
Re:be careful how you use that word "free" (Score:1)
Re:3d shopping coming soon (Score:1)
<sigh> well maybe someday : )
Re:... And Unreal, too! (Score:1)
The interesting thing is this _is_ still news. Despite large progress most people still think this kind of thing is way out of reach.
Good, now if more companies would... (Score:1)
NASA could test out the international space station, or a future mon base using one of these. Whole ships, like a complex aircraft carrier, etc. The possibilities are endless, and we get cooler games to play as well. Where's the down side?
Unrealty (slightly o/t (but not really)) (Score:4)
Information must be left out (Score:4)
Inclusion of this in a Quake 2 model would slow the system down and ultimately not be as detailed. In addition, you wouldn't be able to click on a wall section and find the exact parts needed, order replacements online, etc. like you can with more professional suites (without massive modifications to the code base).
Re:where's the real shoeboy?!?! (Score:1)
No shit, Sherlock.
The real Shoeboy has retired to spend more time with his boyfriend.
--Shoeboy
Curves and Textures (Score:1)
Been done in Cambridge before (Score:2)
I once got a mail from a friend who said he'd been in the Moller Centre [cam.ac.uk] and felt like he was in a Quake level. He claimed he'd run into some of the Churchill fellows[1] while in there, and had escaped alive, but with no ammo left.
[1] Note for Merkins: "fellow" is like a professor in the US, I think.
Re:This would be funny.. (Score:2)
the boss of the level would be your parents.
(god, i'm getting to be a sicko this morning... must be the caffeine shortage0
I can see it now... (Score:5)
"Hmm. I don't remember asking for an ammo dump in the kitchen, and why is my bathtub filled with toxic slime?!"
"Oh shit," you think as the Strogg guards begin to move in.
No weapons? (Score:2)
I bet there's a little Easter Egg in there somewhere. Press CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-ESC while mashing your mouse buttons to enable chainsaws.
With the chainsaw you could at least do some quick home improvements. "Honey, how would you like to have another window right here?"
Re:Unrealty (slightly o/t (but not really)) (Score:1)
Once this stuff takes off and as engine quality improves, I guarantee architectural education will not be the same. Go to the building library and just go walk around any famous building in any weather at any time of year, etc : )
Take away the guns? (Score:2)
Quake II subway models (Score:1)
Re:Pipe dream (Score:3)
FUD, FUD, FUD.
First of all, those architectural designs that people put together in cheesy programs are useful because it lets them tell the architect what they're looking for. Sure, people spend hours, perhaps even cumulatively days working on the plans, but so what? It's their time, and it lets them play with the design of the house, visualize their concepts, and decide what they do want, and what they don't.
Real design tools like AutoCAD of course are useful, but if you're not an architect, there's no point to it. You CAN get AutoCAD drawings printed, if you set them up properly, into blueprints. AutoCAD also has some limited 3D realization tools these days, which is a nice added bonus.
Even more than that though is the fact that AutoCAD drawings (DXF) are basically the de facto standard for 3D interchange; Almost everything will import and export them, including Lightwave, 3D Studio, Alias, and so on. It's just some basic polygonal data, anyhow. Once you bring them into your 3D package you can texture them, and render them into something very nearly realistic. While the expense and time used there doesn't seem to much be worth it on the consumer scale, doing such things for a buisness, showing them what a building will ACTUALLY look like has closed many a sale for design houses not afraid to embrace technology.
In fact, Lightwave 3D with its $5000 price tag (Which, BTW, holds fully half of the design/render seats in the 3D industry) does such wonderful things as network rendering, and radiosity. If you have three or four machines in the office, you can render out poster prints overnight with truly beautiful lighting that really do bear a disturbing resemblance to reality - And you can simply import the DXF files right into Lightwave Modeler for texturing. Bust out KPT Bryce, and you can even create a plot of land for the building to sit on.
Just because you've never gotten any good use out of 3D design tools doesn't mean no one can, any more than the fact that I can't use your tools to build a house.
My Office Building in Half-Life (Score:2)
-- Cameron
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GAT d+(-) s+:-- a18 C++++$ UL P+ L+ E---- W+++ N+ o? K? w+() O? M-- V-- PS@ PE++ Y+(++) PGP t++(*) 5 X+ R>++ tv-- b+ DI++ D- G+++ e h-- r++ y+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Re:Information must be left out (Score:1)
I think what the previous poster was trying to say, though, is that in the high-end software you can click on the wall and get a parts list, something that isn't practical in any game engine to date, whether it be Q2, Q3A, Half-Life (IE, Enhanced Q2), Unreal, or UT (Unreal 2? Kinda.) For one thing, the games don't think of a 2x4 as a 2x4; It's just another brush. Granted, if you group the wall together you could write a script or app which would parse the groups out of the pre-compiled map file, but that's not exceptionally useful here. "Oh look, it's a brush which goes from these coords to these coords... It seems to be approximately 1-3/4" by 4" and it's about so long..."
Also, the inclusion of so many hidden brushes would be counterproductive. If they're removed by the compile-time process (Are they? I'm not familiar with map editing tools these days) then they'll just go away. If not, brushes you'll never see will just make the map bigger and slower. I don't know if Unreal does BSP but I kind of suspect it does, so the map will only be slower to load, not to run, if it does do BSP; It'll just take longer to compile.
By the way - CS owns, and that map looks gorgeous. I can't wait to throw para fire through the whole damn building.
Re:Take away the guns? (Score:2)
High School (Score:1)
Since then I always had the idea that some company should make a serious VR program our of one of these game engines, for an ultra cheap solution, with average detail.
For those of you who are still Duke Nukem 3D fans, the map was called liberty.map, and I think he uploaded it to some map sites. Its a large deathmatch only map.
-
I see many uses ... (Score:1)
How about modelling schools?
Think about it, frustrated and bullied geeks can then take out their anger on a virtual school instead of blowing away their real classmates and teachers.
--Shoeboy
Re:Fragging for fun and profit :) (Score:1)
They used DOOM, too, but they got over that. One presumes that they've moved on to, perhaps, Counterstrike for SWAT/SEAL-type operations (it has still more realistic damage) and something homebuilt for combat in the wide open spaces. Perhaps when it comes out, they'll use the Unreal Game of the Year Edition for that, since it handles both enclosed and wide open spaces so handily.
Why Quake 2? (Score:1)
Is there more code available for Quake2 or something, eh?
Re:Chasing ulgies around my old folks' home (Score:1)
I modeled one of my high school buildings
I was going to tak pictures of the brick, ceiling,floor, etc and use them as "textures" (in d2 i wouldnt call them "textures".) Digital cameras for the masses was almost nonexistent back then. I used a Polaroid camera and a 300dpi flatbat SCSI. I wanted to do a Carmegeddon/QuakeII/III type of game.
Columbine 2: This time it's for real.
You can be a member of the "trenchcoat mafia"
and tear up a school.
Hrm (Score:3)
Release the levels? (Score:3)
I've often wished that there were realistic levels of malls, etc. for Quaking...
Maybe some of these architectural designs could be relased.... The one that's in the screenshots looks pretty cool.
Use blender instead (Score:2)
out www.blender.nl
It has realtime stuff now. So you
can make games (like quake).
Or just make buildings and walk around in them.
It would be a lot easier and faster to do this in
blender.
And they can save in the licensing money of
Quake (blender is free
SO in short. I dont see anny benefit
from using quake instead of blender.
Re:Unconstitutional? (Score:1)
Actually (at least this is how I heard it) you're allowed to shoot them through the heart with a bow and arrow. Use a gun or miss by a couple of inches and you're fucked.
Unconstitutional? (Score:2)
--
Cause Blender is unusable??? (Score:1)
hours of training thats better spent modelling
Check out Maya games engine.. not cheap
but its great!!
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
Re:Use blender instead (Score:1)
You missed the best part! (Score:1)
-reemul
Fragging for fun and profit :) (Score:4)
Re:Pipe dream (Score:2)
I found earlier versions of their program to be a little flaky (save early and often) and sometimes did not meet the real architectural expectations of some folks (certain popular styles like Victorian were missing elements), because it was designed/coded in Germany.
Their file format is proprietary as well, so exporting to quake, etc would be a real pain.
Architectural Level Design (Score:1)
Have seen --- work is of excellent quality (Score:2)
in Atlanta. This work was a show stopper when
demonstrated, but was in effect one card
in a deck of very innovative blends of
visualisation and modeling.
Showman like crowd pleasers in this piece were
spatial/ambient noises --- cows mooing etc
and
Cheers,
Andrew
However, there was also interesting stuff wrt
actually getting the CAD model in and down
converting to the different set of constraints.
Also, the use of prerendering for the lighting.
not particularly new (Score:1)
Re:Information must be left out (Score:2)
If I want to click on a wall section and find out exactly what parts it entails, I can't really do that with a texture. The stronger systems can do it, at a cost in buying the software as opposed to using Quake 2.
Re:Information must be left out (Score:2)
Granted, if you group the wall together you could write a script or app which would parse the groups out of the pre-compiled map file
So use hyperlinking. Touch the wall and you teleport to another level, identical except that the details are rendered, or there's a sign with a parts list.
That makes for a LOT of model-building. But you can automate it in a CAD-to-game model-conversion tool.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt (Score:1)
Violence in games spawning violence in life? (Score:1)
Your new home... (Score:1)
O.k., Now, over here. If we take a look at the bathroom... AAHHH [rat tat tat] [bang!] [BOOM]
... Phew. O.k. I think you'll _both_ like this little touch. Note the oak panels and marble sink and...
Hey! A secret passage behind the toilet! Quick! In Here!
Re:Pipe dream (Score:2)
I approached 3D design in school with what can only be called fanaticism, learning every tool I could, hogging the high-end workstations night and day. It never made me a better designer, and it NEVER saved me ANY time.
Now I co-own a successful design-build firm. I work in AutoCAD, 2D tools exclusively, and I sketch. I am fast, the clients have a full understanding of the spaces, and my construction documents convey exactly the information they need to.
I stay on top of 3D developments. I know 3DS-Max well, I can work in Lightwave, Rhino, Form*Z, etc., I can hand-code VRML, I can do photo-realistic rendering, and I can animate the shit out of a walk-through.
But I don't do any of this for actual work, because the current tools are not very good for design, and they are horrible at producing construction documents. And when you get down to it, those are the only two things that really matter in architecture; developing the design and producing the instructions necessary to make it a reality.
I believe in the future of 3D for architecture, but the present is a sick joke.
Re:Unconstitutional? (Score:1)
---
Re:Information must be left out (Score:1)
The features that the expensive programs have that aren't in Quake seem to be basically restricted to user interface and supplimental information, which aren't really that hard to change (compared to special rendering effects, at least).
Re:Good, now if more companies would... (Score:1)
What about collins class submarines?
Hamster maze (Score:1)
------------
... And Unreal, too! (Score:1)
Unfortunately, it was something like one year ago (before UT), I have since then lost the URL and PU's search services are down.
Does anybody have the URL?
"Fire in Harmony!" -- Alias
Not quite (Score:3)
Licensing fees? What licensing fees? You can do everything they say with a simple mod, just like say ctf or rocket arena. No need to go licensing the engine or anything. There are plenty of level editors, and the game source (not including graphics networking etc) is freely availible to remove the weapons. You can do an imressive amount just with the public tools released by iD.
Moderators, do some research
3d shopping coming soon (Score:3)
From where we stood that day, I made the usual mistake of being overly optimistic about the future of technology, and I figured it was about 4 years away. That was about 1994...
--
Other engines.... (Score:1)
Is it just that Q2 is cheap to license these days?
Ive been doing this for almost 2 years (Score:1)
Re:I did this once (Score:1)
I think that for this instance (walking around campus) Quicktime VR (QTVR) would be better. While Quicktime VR would probably require an expensive camera mount you would have a photo realistic image. You would also be able to mark locations easier. The college could also guide people around the campus easier, you would just click on a part of the image and you would be at the site where the next panaorama was taken. That and a QTVR tour would be much smaller than a Half Life tour. Additionally there would be some people who would wander aimlessly around a huge map in Half Life.
very useful for multiplayer (Score:1)
Re:VRND did this a year ago, with unreal technolog (Score:1)
Re:A couple highways are that bad (Score:2)
There is a 237 but it's in the south bay.
Are you Al Gore'ing this story out of nowhere?
Uhhh, the original post was all about free. (Score:1)
The post was a troll. As others have noted, ID has GPLed significant chunks of software and, of course, are free of both fees and and other greed motivated restrictions.
No where did I suggest that anyone should die, though I would always recomend a free tool over one with restrictions. If fact, I have to commend these blender people for giving away what looks like a nice shiny binary. Greater praise, however, must go to those who GPL. If the issue is tiresome to you, go read some nice ZDnet stuff. I don't think I'll ever tire of telling people what a great idea free software is.
Virtus went the other direction (Score:1)
Here it is. (Score:2)
The included escape routes are: Swimming under the wall, climbing over chain-linked sections (not recommended), going through the sewers, and tunneling. A couple of people, who were very experienced at HL, have been able to fight their way across, so that is possible as well.
It was my first HL map, so don't send me [mailto] any flames about it sucking. I got an A on the project anyway.
Suicide! (Score:1)
Does he suddenly become very disillusioned with how wonderful this new building will be as he craters on the pavement below?
Are we sure this is a good sales technique? :-)
--Kai
--slashsuckATvegaDOTfurDOTcom
be careful how you use that word "free" (Score:1)
Trickle-Down Paradigm Shift (Score:3)
This is how I recall we got many technical advances: rayon, nylon, teflon, the Internet (back then it was Arpanet)... But then this happens.
The military had simulators long before the 3D FPS, but this particular application of 3D modeling technology didn't come directly from the military. It came from the gaming industry.
The armed forces have long had to acquire maximum resources for minimum capital and squeeze them into minimum space. That's why they conduct scientific research to create the ideal blend of Good, Fast, and Cheap to satisfy various cryptic requirements.
In that regard, the armed forces are nothing compared to the commercial software industry, which isn't working under contract to produce their goods, and consequently may lose their collective shirts if the consumers don't buy it!
So put the military on the back burner. Sure, they'll still innovate when they absolutely need to, or when a subcontractor has a nifty idea, but that's not where this particular nifty idea came from. More will come from there before it's done.
And by the way... there's another reason for people not to ban 'violent' video games. Do you think a game like Hello Kitty's Pie-Throwing Splatmatch would need a robust 3D renderer and realistic particle effects? Well, maybe, but what bugger would buy and play it?
If you prevent the industry from writing software up to the tastes of the adult player, then they won't bother writing software up to the standards of the adult player. Goodbye action, 3D graphics, any need for processor speed, or technological advancements. What use does a video-game written for a four-year-old have for any of those?
The innovations will come faster from those industries more dependent on them for their survival. And will come slower from those that don't need to use them. Legislating morality in this case will do the latter.
But I've been wrong before...
---
old news (Score:1)
A couple highways are that bad (Score:5)
My most exciting driving experience had to be getting off 287 in San Francisco. Normally, when you take a highway exit, and you see the sign saying "Exit 35 m.p.h.", that should be mentally translated to "Keep it below 60, and start decelerating". There's an exit in San Francisco, however, where "Exit 25 m.p.h." means "If you are driving 26 m.p.h., you are about to die". Tight little loop that nearly threw my friend's car off the road, and nearly made me rear-end him trying to brake as fast as he had to.
Yeah, yeah, my fault. I'm normally a safe driver, though, I swear...
Re:Unconstitutional? (Score:1)
quiver! (Score:1)
Re:Why Quake 2? (Score:1)
I prefer Quake 1, since it doesn't take as much hardware grunt as Q3 to run, which would allow far more complex and detailed "maps" (read: architectural designs) to be created.
And the fact that it's GPLed potentially means better rendering code to and from the community.
Re:Use blender instead (Score:1)
I just thought I'd mention that, since I think it's quite possible to make a pretty nice commercial game using the Quake engine.
Q2 is $125,000 and Q3 is max($300,000 , 8% royalty).
Here [idsoftware.com]'s their licensing page.
Re:Sad git! (Score:1)
Yeah, struck me the same way. Unless you're racing, the most pleasureable thing about driving is the unexpected you encounter on the way. Taking that away is like being told the entire story to a movie as you stand in line to see it, only worse 'cause movies suck today anyway.
Re:I did this once (Score:1)
Re:Unconstitutional? (Score:1)
Everyone in England is nice and well behaved - Good Sheep! Except of course, you know, criminals and stuff.
Elgon
Re:Information must be left out (Score:3)
Cool... (Score:2)
This could be cool. When I'm king of the world, all planning permission documents will heve to be renewed, and all diagrams will have to be supplied in the form of Quake III or Counterstrike maps: It should be much less effort to make your home/school/office/supermarket/whatever into a map!
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
Re:A couple highways are that bad (Score:2)
Not only Building Design (Score:3)
During College we used Quake2 and the Build editor from Duke Nukem for walkthroughs of theatrical set designs. The actors and directors could check out all the passages behind the set and they could tell what sight-lines they would have to deal with.
We also used it for Virtual sets that we could project up on the back of the physical set and the actors could interact live with the Virtual set via the VR operator.
If you want to check out more information about it all go to the WPI Virtual Reality Performance Page [wpi.edu]I did this once (Score:5)
People in past semesters had done 3-D renderings of the Parthenon, etc, but they had only generated still images. I figured I could use WorldCraft 2.0 which came with Half-Life to generate something historical that the user could walk around.
I started with the Globe theater. I dug up some sketches of the new and old buildings, and then set to work. About the time I was ready to start my first real attempt, we covered the Berlin Wall in class.
So, I quickly changed the focus from just walking through a historical monument, to trying to escape from East Berlin. Again, I did pleanty of research and put serveral historically accurate escape routes into the level. Added soldiers, automatic-firing machine guns, etc.
I wrote Valve and Sierra Software to asked them if they could help with the licensing issues, but I never heard back from them. So, with the help of a couple of cracks from www.megagames.com, I was able to put the whole 70MB game (after I removed all the uneccessary sounds and models from the .PAK file), and a webpage I made on the history of the Berlin Wall, on one CD, which I "lent" to my professor for grading. He loved it, gave me a 99 out of 100 on the project, and then returned the CD.
Now the ComSci and Engineering dept. are trying to create a way to use quicktime VR to simutate a walk around campus for new/prospective students. I'm trying to convince them to use something like this instead, and this article should help.
Re:be careful how you use that word "free" (Score:3)
"F ree" is such a great word at causing cognitive dissonance among people
Dear God in Heaven, I love english.
Re:My Office Building in Half-Life (Score:2)
Only problem is, you only get one life. And you'll get sacked. Still, it'd be worth it if you get to kill your boss.
A crazy idea: (Score:2)
Yes, I realize this would be a huge project. Yes, I realize the quake engines probably wouldn't be able to handle it. Yes, I realize that nobody owns a HD large enough to hold all the data. Yes, I realize that it would take a LONG time, even if over 100,000 people participated.
I still think it would be a cool idea tho. I could expand on this idea further, but I'm going to stop now.
-Restil
Sad git! (Score:4)
Is it just me, or does that notion strike anybody else as being pathetic in the extreme. Are American highways really that bad, that you feel you need to practise the drive between San Francisco and L.A.? If you're about to undertake an 8-hour drive, do you really feel the need to practise it before-hand? Are you that bad a driver? Or perhaps, you want to drive down to the circle-K to pick up some more cheap booze, but you've had a few already, so had best just practise and see if you're likely to kill anybody.
I can understand the prinicple though - engineers being able to "drive" down roads before building them to see if there are any danger spots, etc. and I have to admit that certain F1 racing games on the PSX are so realistic, that now when I watch F1, I know the tracks perfectly, and the on-board cameras just remind me of playing the game.
The idea of producing buildings like this though is... interesting. The problem is, that real-time rendering is not good enough yet to make this sort of tool life-like or photo-realistic. When it is, I'm sure that not only will architects spend their entire team building models like this and then converting them back to traditional architectural blueprints (rather than the principle of taking blueprints and producing models as the article suggests), but also that "violent" video games may actually cause real trauma. Now, there's a thought.
Re:Fragging for fun and profit :) (Score:2)
Come to think of it, this might even be a good idea for things like airports and government buildings, it would allow police to test the design to determine how difficult it would be to stop a terrorist attack.
It's Our 2nd Amendment Right (Score:2)
Anyone up for a little hack session, we could frag good 'ol Bill!!! Maybe not as fun as real life but enjoyable I'm sure.
Notre-Dame cathedral modeled with Unreal engine (Score:5)
Slashdot user "Vito" mentioned this in a comment on a July story [slashdot.org], and appears to be working on a virtual reality office building tour package called "Unrealty" (being used but no yet being distributed).
P.S.: UT starts shipping for the Playstation 2 this week (before the PS2 itself ships), according to this story [planetunreal.com].
Re:Unconstitutional? (Score:2)
Also, the town of Berwick upon Tweed was legally at a state of war with Russia from 1855 to about 1982. This is because at the time of the Crimean war, nobody was sure if Berwick was in Scotland or England, so the Declaration of War said " The nations of England, Scotland, Wales and the Town of Berwick upon Tweed hereby declare war on Russia " or something like that. But when they signed the peace treaty, they forgot about Berwick.
But, years later, in the 80's, the Mayor of Berwick took a trip to Russia and signed a peace treaty with the leader (Kruschev?). He gave a speech, saying "The citizens of Russia can now rest easy in there beds, safe in the knowledge that they are not under imminent threat of attack from Berwick upon Tweed." Really funny, considering Berwick has a population of about 15000 or something.
This would be funny.. (Score:2)
Regardless, just remember that 8 map units equals one foot. You have 8192x8192x8192 units to play around with (1024 feet, or 0.193939393939393939 miles), so you could recreate the entire neighborhood!
Re:Cool (Score:3)
You are in a architect's plan. There are 2 floors, 8 doors, 5 rooms and 3 hallways. What do you wish to do?
Go left
How far?
2 paces
You have bumped into a wall.
Quit.
?
Exit
?
^Z
?
ESC
?
ctl-alt-del
?
Hello?
I'm still here. What do you wish to do?
<POWERS OFF>
Re:A couple highways are that bad (Score:2)
Speaking of the Pasadena area, it would be truly great to see a well-detailed Quake or Unreal map of the Gamble House [citycent.com], a local Arts and Crafts masterpiece. Or Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater [geocities.com]. You can find books of photos from the Gamble House [barnesandnoble.com], even see a video tour of Fallingwater [pbs.org], but being able to walk around like you would in a FPS would be the next-best thing to being there.
Re:Pipe dream (Score:5)
There are currently 3 different sorts of 3D packages out there. The first would be consumer products such as Broderbund's, which as you correctly mention is basically worthless. People spend hours generating these sickly looking, pastel colored models and then hand un-scaled and impossible to build floor plans to a builder. Then the builder says, "That's nice, but I need real plans, and it's going to cost you 2-5 grand for 'em."
The second ones are "complete" design packages like ArchiCAD and AutoCAD Architectural Desktop. They typically sell for something north of 5 thousand for a single seat license. These tools are absolutely unparalleled when it comes to spending far too long on something that seems to be working great until you try to generate either real working drawings or nice renderings. Then you discover that the package doesn't do either one very well, and you spend even more time fixing everything, often in another program.
The final visiualisation tools are "pure" 3d programs like Alias, 3D Studio Max, etc. These are wonderful for creating stunning looking pictures that can't be built for anything even close to a realistic budget. They also do not generate any sort of functional working drawings, so you still have to go to another program for drafting.
What DOES work for architectural CAD? 2D vector drawing tools combined with real, hands-on knowledge of actual construction practices and the ability to hand-sketch 1 & 2 point perspectives for the client. Everybody has been blathering about digital architecture for about 5 years now, making ridiculous claims about what it allows designers to do, and it is all a bunch of bullshit. Again, 2D CAD, hand drawing, real knowledge. These are what you need, and these are the only practical tools that actually work.
The siren call of 3D toys is strong, and no doubt eventually they will be able to do what people dream they should, but the current reality is not even close. My advice to anybody looking for some sort of miracle, Swiss Army CAD program is to instead spend the money on manual drafting tools and learn how to visualise in 3 dimensions. If you don't you are just wasting your time, because I absolutely guarantee any decent architect can create real plans and renderings that the client understands in far less time than some 3D jockey with an SGI.
"Be carefull in there" (Score:4)
I hope that they get these bugs sorted out before they finish the meatspace version!
Pipe dream (Score:4)
I'm having a house built right now... and the best consumer-level home designer program I've found has been Broderbund's "3D Home DesignSuite." It does offer 3-D peeks into the house plan... but it doesn't do texture-mapping, nor lighting, nor does it let you roam around the model in real-time, nor does it let you angle your view up or down. All it does is crude polygonal views.
Couple the modeller in "3D Home DesignSuite" with the renderer in Quake III, and you'd have a dream come true! Broderbund, are you listening?