Invisible Buildings: 3D models and scenery

Guide to creating the graphics

Introduction

Invisible Buildings is an archaeological simulation/app that is played outdoors on a smartphone or tablet.

It allows school children to dig up (virtually) a building through a series of techniques that are used in real life by archaeologists. These include metal detecting, geophysics, digging and reconstructing.

On completion of the tasks, the children are shown a fly-through of what the building might have looked like.

From the graphics point of view, we start with the 3D model and create everything else from this. In the next few slides we show how we did it for our first game - the Roman Villa

It may help to look at a video of the app in action here - https://goo.gl/LG4gtn

Start with Sketchup model

We started with a model that someone had already put in the 3D warehouse. We created our own fly-through. See video to the right or here

For future games, we will ask for models to be created for us, and a simple fly-through to be created.

Use the 3D model to create a ruin.

Starting with an “interesting” view of the 3D model, create a snapshot of the building.

Turn it into a ruin, by cutting bits away.

Cut the ruin into 10 pieces and make a base onto which they can fit. Use the geophys image on the base (see next page). Add dots for guide to where pieces go.

Geophysics

Geophys is like radar for underground buildings

Get an image from Sketchup of base from above. Adapt for reconstruction image

Distort and make like real geophys image

Our projects

We want to create a range of Invisible Buildings that represent different eras in British history. These are:

Roman villa (redo with a better villa)

Elizabethan theatre

Regency townhouse (early 1800s)

Plus we are going to create some site specific apps, the first of which will be Lewes Priory - details on the next slides

Lewes Priory on Invisible Buildings

You can get a good overview from the Lewes Priory website

We are interested in creating one specific group of buildings - the brewhouse and bakery. These are highlighted on the interactive drawing but see next slide for more detail

these buildings here

Bakery and BreweryThese drawings are based on real geophys data but are the artist’s impression of what they might really have looked like.

Geophys Data

A survey was carried out in recent years which identifies the position of buildings that are no longer visible.

The lower building is supposed to be part of the brewhouse/bakery

The drawing on the previous page was created from this survey

What needs doing

Create a Sketchup model of the brewery and bakery combined. Use the drawings and the geophys data for reference.

Having created the model, make a fly-through showing the features.

Create a ruin of the building by removing large areas of the model

Cut the ruin into 10 pieces so they can be fitted together to make the ruin

There is no need to make a geophys drawing as we would use the real data

That’s it! The next slide gives an indication of scale then there are some photos of real buildings of the 1500s for reference

Geophys in relation to imagined buildings

Floorplan - sized from visible ruin of adjacent building

Buildings of the time of Lewes Priory (1)

Buildings of the time of Lewes Priory (2)