Team VT Newsletter
3/5/2012
In our last meeting with the architecture students we received the much anticipated revised model we had been waiting to get our hands on. New additions to this model include access to the roof promenade via redesigned stairwell and elevator shafts, two thirty-five seat theaters on the second floor to be used for screening facilities and two new water features have been added to the center performance area on the first floor. This change has also inverted the center triangle from a lowered space to an elevated stage. Similar inclusions are completed glass lofts, a redesigned media gallery, new restaurant space with an added bar area, offices and materials to make the building come to life.
With this new model Sun-moon spent the weekend cleaning up the architecture file to format the design to work within Unity, our game engine, and be able to run smoothly through our web player. In addition to clean up he designed sixteen individual glass textures to make the many panes of glass in the building be navigable and easy on the eyes. Siddhesh has completed to zooming and loading functions of the Gigapan images for use in the simulation and we hope to implement that by the end of this week. The individuals who have seen the simulation thus far are blown away by the view and we cannot wait to give them the ability to zoom into the highly detailed corners of the image.
Friday morning the team visited the USX Tower with our client and had a great opportunity to tour the building. Unfortunately we were unable to have access to the roof but we did get the pleasure to take a look out of the windows on the 31st floor, half way to the top of the building. We gathered lots of photos and information on the building we could have never collected sitting in our project room enjoying the view of the river.
Over the weekend while Sun-moon, Siddhesh and Cintia worked on fixing up and publishing our most recent website and prototype for the simulation. I hit the streets to film portions of the introduction sequence guests will watch prior to entering the simulation. This introduction is designed to replicate the opening scenes of a feature film by establishing the setting, give context to what is about to take place, show the transition from reality to virtual and give credit to the members of the large team that have dedicated their time to building a unique experience.
With most of the functionality in place as of today we will start to add in the finer details which will help to round out the experience with fun and interesting points of interest. By our half way mark, March 23rd, we will have about seventy percent of the project completed and will then move into the cleanup, polish and expansion phases to include as much interactivity, excitement and enjoyment into the experience as we possibly can.