Forum Discussion
Architectural Design Development - A First Try
I'm an architectural consultant specializing in theater design. When I first saw the Oculus Rift, my initial reaction actually wasn't 'yay videogames!', but actually 'yay seat views!'.
A big part of my job is helping clients understand what a theater will 'feel' like--both in general and from specific seats. This has a certain X factor that's difficult to pinpoint using only flat renders on a sheet of paper. Thus, due to the depth perception and rotational tracking afforded by the Oculus Rift, it's a wonderful tool for simulating architectural spaces.
I see a vast scape of potential here, and here at the beginning I'm just scratching the surface. There's a thousand things I'm now working toward, including a fully animated and lit stage, animated audience members, playing with materiality, showing different design options in real time, and camera height changes. Also can't wait for when we get a version of a Rift that has motion tracking!
(the only thing I'm worried about is clipping plane problems)
For now, here's my first pass:
My first Oculus Rift project: http://youtu.be/7qQNCHYe4K8
A little bit under the hood of what I'm doing in Unity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsKA1JWJFUU
Love to hear what you all think. Thanks :D !
A big part of my job is helping clients understand what a theater will 'feel' like--both in general and from specific seats. This has a certain X factor that's difficult to pinpoint using only flat renders on a sheet of paper. Thus, due to the depth perception and rotational tracking afforded by the Oculus Rift, it's a wonderful tool for simulating architectural spaces.
I see a vast scape of potential here, and here at the beginning I'm just scratching the surface. There's a thousand things I'm now working toward, including a fully animated and lit stage, animated audience members, playing with materiality, showing different design options in real time, and camera height changes. Also can't wait for when we get a version of a Rift that has motion tracking!
(the only thing I'm worried about is clipping plane problems)
For now, here's my first pass:
My first Oculus Rift project: http://youtu.be/7qQNCHYe4K8
A little bit under the hood of what I'm doing in Unity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsKA1JWJFUU
Love to hear what you all think. Thanks :D !
5 Replies
- Watched your first video. I enjoyed hearing your insights on what you can do that you couldn't do before. And, I know this wasn't your point, but all this time I had only been thinking about watching movies in a movie theater in VR, but now I realize there could be plays, operas, circus shows, all of that. Cool!
For your geometry clipping issue, I think you said you already brought the near clipping plane down as much as you could but you probably could double-check that this change is actually affecting the individual CameraLeft/CameraRight cameras at runtime. Depending on which version of the Oculus Unity integration you're using, there were some issues w/ the clip plane values sticking, so if you're running into that issue, be sure that you're setting the desired clip plane values in 3 places: on the OVRCameraController, CameraLeft, and CameraRight.
Thanks for the interesting videos! - Thanks so much drash! You were right, my left and right cameras did not have the clipping planes adjusted. That helped a lot. Thanks again!
- Nice - I particularly like the sketch style you have achieved, it works well for design development.
i have also been working on design visualisation in the rift, and also for theatre design - you might find it useful to see our first attempt here - viewtopic.php?f=28&t=7446#p101614
cheers - Hello!
I watched both of your videos because, soon I'm going to be in the same (similar) situation. I plan on using the oculus for some architecture visualizations as well. I have very very little experience with unity/ other 3d programs such as 3ds max, blender, etc. I do however use Revit somewhat regularly.
Could you share with us what your workflow is like, and what you do in each program/step(in a broad sense)? I'm assuming that since you use 3ds max you either modeled everything in there (along with your animations) and then dumped a .3ds file into unity or started somewhere else first.
What would really help me is: If I'm going from Revit>Unity, is it necessary/recommended to make a stop in 3ds before I go to unity? At what point in this process is it best to start applying materials? Materials at this point seems to be the most important thing (to generate a simple walk through), until I am more experienced and want to start looking into animations.
Thanks! :D - Hey,
Love the concept, and your logic behind it, I think this is where VR can really shine, lliterally transporting you wherever you want, in the comfort of your home/office. I'm also attempting a similar workflow. I'm on a Mac working with Cinema 4D and Unity Pro, and just received my DK2. Would also like to hear an overall workflow.
Thanks!
