One night in the Second life virtual library

Final design

 

View from the outside 

Three friends

Library-Day 5

More scripting in second life

I experimented with basic scripting when I was at school. I  have used auto script for iterative flash and  i also know some css for website design.  So our team decided that I should be in charge of the scripting for the library.  I could not write a complicated script myself, but what I'm good at is modifying the scripts.
Usually I found a script that does similar things to what I want to do and  I then read them, make sure I understand  the script then I modify the script

I found this particle system script that allows me to create a water fountain then I modify the scripts so the particles behave as I wanted.

 

With the same script I  found online, I created two very different type of fountains

 

First one - looks like  hot spring

 Second one -glows

First thing I did is to make the alpha channel to blink

Then I used the same script to create blink lights

I realised that sometimes my avatar can not sit on a chair properly, sometimes his feet are on the chair 
so I add a script so the avatars can sit on the chairs properly

  

My avatar is sitting on the chair and  reading from the computer...or maybe sleeping 

Library-Day Four

Scripting in second life

I wanted to be able to go to view the online version of the journals when I chick the journals on the co called " bookshelf"

 

Journals on the " bookself"

  

I found a script online , and added the address of the website I want to deliver on  the line

 string URL =""

I also added a message on the line 

string Massage =""

So when i click the one of  the journals, a massage will pop up to ask my  permission to go to the website. 

 

The massage tells the basic information of the website 

After that I tried to add a simple elevator to let allows avatars to go up and down.  Alicia, Gloria and I think that stairs are very inefficient because not every avatars can get onto the stairs easily. For example Alicia's car and Gloria's ship. Also the library would have more interior space.

I found a script online. Then i modify the script so the elevator will behave as I wanted . At end i decided to put two elevators in the library, one goes from first level to second and the another goes from second to third

Interior of the library

Today we add furniture and decorations into the library

 

Blogs were added to the free standing panels 

 

Subtle brush stroke texture on the wall  and paintingswere added onto the walls

  

Library- Day Three

Today, Alicia changed my wooden floor texture to a texture called WoodFloor ,  I felt bit sad that my texture had been changed ,but both Gloria and I agreed with Alicia. WoodFloor goes very well with the white walls because it has a lighter colour and the texture of the wood is much subtle and very pleasing to the eye.

 

"Wooden Floor" VS "WoodFloor"

Offset filter

Today I used offset filter to create a seamless texture for the floors

Firstly I found a high res wooden floor texture. Then I changed colour and lighting by using colour balance and lighting effect to make the texture of the wood more stand out.

 

After  offset the image two times i could  see the seams so i used clone tool and lasso tool to copy the texture onto the seams. By doing this i was able create a seamless picture. :D

 

   

The texture looks pretty good in second life

 

Virtual library day two

Working on our virtual library

 

The rock stairs on the outside is finished.

 

 

 The rock stairs are also added into the interior, to emphasis the relationship between exterior and interior

Construct the library-day one

Start to build the library

Communication between  teammates are very important 

Virtual library ideas

The following images summary our ideas  

 

Rectangular 

 

Materiaility: wooden, like a sushi mat

  Water feature

 A bridge on the river

Outdoor space- relationship with the landscape

Lecture notes

Lecture One

• How many pieces of technology do you use?  Uncountable
• What are the different types of computer packages an Architect might use?  Autocad, Archicad, 3ds max, google sketch up
• How many places are portrayed in Cisco’s RPS? 17
• What does Rosedale think he can solve with more technology? Solve the alienation modern technology helped to create with more technology
• When was the IBM Complex designed? Late 1980s
• What is additive colour? What i subtractive colour ? subtractive color mixing often starts with light color and goes darker by adding different colors, addictive colors method is used when we use a computer to generate a digital media. It begins with black and goes lighter by adding more color lights.
• What is raydiosity? How light is absorbed or bounce off from the object
• What is a graphic interface? Graphic interface is also known as graphical user interface. it is a type of user interface that allows people to interact with electronic device using image.

Lecture Two 

• BIM is ? Building information management
• BRANZ is? Building Research Association New Zealand
• What percentage of respondents in the New Zealand National BIM Survey use Archicad? 37%
• Template files are like…? Empty files with all the presets you need
• What was the software Gehry’s office used more commonly used for ? Engineering fighter jet
• What software do we have that allows similar forms?
• What colour is the surface of the Museum? The material used is titanium. It reacts with oxygen to form a oxide layer that reflects light. As a result the surface of the museum appears golden.

Teapot by Greg Lynn Form used titanium

• What is Cognitive Surplus? the ability of world’s population to volunteer, to contribute and to collaborate on large or global projects. Cognitive surplus relies on digital technology and human generosity
• What is the difference between the 20th century media and 21st century media? The media landscape in the 20th century was very good to help people consume. Now have media tools such as internet and mobile phones that give us the opportunity do more then consume, we also create and share.
• What is design generosity? Design something that intrigue our intrinsic motivation so we do things because we like to do them not because we are told or we are paid to do then 
• What are social constraints? Things you can’t do, because society says it’s bad. The social constraints operates without any contracts and it created a culture that was more generous than the contractual constraints did.
• What is Communal value? What is Civic value?  Communal value is the value create by participants for each other while civic value is the value created by participants but enjoyed by society as a whole 

   

  Lecture Three

• What is a vector image? A Vector image is the use of geometrical primitives (based on mathematical expressions) to represent images in computer graphics. It is based on images made up of paths which lead through locations that each of the points has a definite position on the work plan. It is consisted of smart lines which know where it comes from and where it goes.
• What is a raster image? A raster image is a dot matrix data structure representing a rectangular grid of pixels or points of colour. (series of dots formed structure)
• What is a diagram? A disgram is a two-dimensional geometric symbolic representation of information.
• What matters most in high quality rendering? Lighting
• What is a digital rendering? Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model by means of computer programs.
• What is drawn rendering? Rendering in visual art and technical drawing means the process of creating, shading, and texturing of an image, especially a photorealistic one. It can also be used to describe the quality of execution of that process. This is synonymous with illustrating.
• What is a pass? World broken dowm into layer/light/shadow.
• Who is  Cameron Sinclair?  the co-founder and ‘chief eternal optimist’ (CEO) for Architecture for Humanity, a charitable organization which seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crisis and brings professional design services to communities in need.
• Who is Toyo Ito? a Japanese architect known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a “simulated” city, and has been called “one of the world’s most innovative and influential architects.”
• What is a Mediatheque? The french translation is a media library or a reference library. A library is a collection of sources, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is housed; it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual.

 

Lecture Four

• Name two Industries that have given digital tools Animation and aeronautics
• What did the camera freeze? How do we see? Photography with its one point perspective has fronzen the way we created images and frozen into a simple perspectival idea.
• How did the computer aid Wes Jones to twist his building? generating horizontal and vertical site first, then develope different versions/ possibilities (how much of the twist they want to have).
• What is a Blob according to Preston Scott Cohen?
  • ‘An exact, yet rigorous’
  • It is not a randomly formed curve (not an instant curve), it is carefully constructed family of curves
  • Relate to landscape, resonating relationship: reinstall the shape
  • Distinct, rarefied, articulate, outside of any norm, undertaken to alter the relationship with other: intersection of geometrical shapes
• How did they make early ‘blob’ buildings? to use very classical geometric elements and look at the intersections of the forms.
• What do continuous and sinuous forms support?
• What is “an exact yet rigorous” form? a blob
• What is morphology?  ’Urban morphology’ is the study of the form of human settlements and the process of their formation and transformation.
• What are some of the new ideas/nontraditional things the computer enabled?
• What is mass constomization? the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce custom output.
• What is Digital box today?
• What will be your new ways of thinking in Architecture? 

 

 

 

Lab Four

Alpha Channel 

Do you know you  can use alpha channel  in Photoshop  make image with background appears partially or fully transparent?
I  found an image of timber logs, and I would like to make the black gaps between the timber logs invisible

I used the alpha channel in Photoshop

the red-shaded areas are the Quick Mask and will be transparent. It would be very useful in Second life. When the image is apply to a prim, the areas covered by the red shaded areas will be transparent. 

Since I don.t have money on my SL account I  can't upload the image as a texture. However i will use the image later when I build my library.

Offset filter 

Offset filters is a good way to make mass texture images. I found an image of brick texture. After using the Offset Filter I could see the seams that cut the image into 4 parts

Since the colours of the four  parts are slightly different I used light effect to reduce the difference and then I used Clone tool to get rid off the seams

Final image !!!

 

Lab Two-Tree house

Tree house in Archicad

 

 Tree house layout

Tree house interior 

Perspective 

Plan View 

 

East Elevation

 

North Elevation 

I joined Alicia Lin's project

 

I  added a plant near the sofa in Alicia's project

I asked Alicia to add a person in my project

 Alicia added a person in my project

Lab Three

Three allocated journals

Journal one -arq: Architectural Research Quarterly 

This ground-breaking quarterly publication, published by Cambridge University Press from 1999, aims to act as an international forum for practitioners and academics by publishing cutting-edge research covering all aspects of architectural endeavor. Fully illustrated throughout, ARQ includes sections on design, history, theory, environmental design, construction, IT and practice. It also publishes a comprehensive reviews section and 'Investigation' which will report on developments in the field, including new building types, methods and products. A development will be the ARQ Directory - a listing of specialist research and consultancy with the aim of producing an online, cumulative version which provided a lasting and invaluable source for all. 

Editors: Professor Peter Carolin, Professor Thomas Fisher

Journal two- Landscape Architecture New Zealand

According to AGM Landscape Architecture New Zealand is the only magazine for New Zealand landscape design professionals and consumers with a strong interest in architecturally designed landscapes, gardens and urban spaces.

Landscape Architecture New Zealand provides reviews and news on landscape architecture, urban design and land-use planning  as well as presenting  art and events that  are associate  with the landscape.

Journal three- Daidalos: Berlin architectural journal

Daidalos, also titled as Brlin architectural journal. It is a German multidisciplinary architectural quarterly that has a similar conceptual approach and high-quality content as "Domus" and "Metropolis".  It is in German with complete English translation.

 Referencing
Barrett, Michael. "Sandringham Upgrade". Landscape Architecture New ZealandAutumn, (2011): 25-27.
Raith, Frank-Bertholt. "Everyday Architecture". Daidalos -- Berlin Architectual Journal, no. 75 (2000): 6-17.
Stacey, Michael. "Searching for excellence: Ballingdon Bridge". Architectural Research Quarterly11, no. 3-4 (2007): 210 - 222. 

 

Second life scripting 

 

 I learned some basic scripts and managed to make objects to move. The most exciting thing is that I found out how to add shared media on a prim. Enjoy the video!!!