Life after grad school

Now that my M.Arch degree is finished I've been switching gears.  Instead of long hours in front of the computer or at the desk sketching, I'm spending most of my time in my shop.  I'm building 13 doors right now.  Of course I'm also sending out job applications here and there, but I had this contract lined up before school was even over so I haven't been rushing around looking for other work.

The doors I'm building at the moment are made of beautiful, vertical grain Doug Fir.  It's great stuff and has very tight rings if a bit chippy.  I've also had the chance to design a house (it's in the permitting process now) and get back to fly fishing some.

While this isn't a terribly informative update I thought I'd post anyway just to keep the blog going and to share some pictures.

The mortise and tenon joint from the doors I'm building.

Sometimes you just need a big saw.  This is my 18" Rockler radial arm crosscutting a 30" panel.

My Wadkin shaper sporting an Amana insert cutter to give a nice clean 1/2" groove for the panels.

My Millbury tenoner in action.  It beats setting up a table saw tenoning jig. .

Stile, rail and panel assembly system showing the full 2 1/2" tenon.

A 36" door easily fits through my 43" Powermatic wide belt sander!

A nice pile of doors ready to have the edges sanded and then hung in jambs.

I need to do more of this.  Priorities!

'Best Use of Idaho Wood' Competition

Now that school is finally over and I've got a bit of time to catch up on things, I thought I'd do a quick couple of posts to this blog.  I have quite a bit of new work to show, but the main two things are my graduate 553 studio work and my thesis.

The 553 studio culminated in a little in-school competition.  It was oriented around using Idaho wood products in a beautiful and unique way.  A member of Olson Kundig Architect's came to judge as well as a local Idaho architect and a representative from the Forest Products Commission.

Anyway, long story short I was lucky enough to place 1st in the comp!  There were lots of great entries, so it was a lot of fun to see the judges give feedback and critique.

Here are the boards.  They were printed as (2) 24x36 units, landscape and mounted one on top of the other.  I reduced the DPI for uploading.

Final competition boards

This project was actually before my render farm (last Fall.)  It would have been nice to have had it.  Even though I wasn't doing a movie (maybe I would have?), I find that the iterative process is much quicker and agile when you have 32 high speed processor threads at your disposal.  So, in other words, rendering power doesn't just help the images, it helps the design!

North side at night

As far as rendering goes, it was Max + Vray + GrowFX etc.  All the plants, gravel, etc are 3d.  It ended up being a fairly heft scene, largely thanks to the conifer needs etc.  I can't remember the scene size but I think it was in the 18gb range when it came to render time.  I really enjoyed this project since it was a whole semester.  Also I have a love-hate relationship with competitions.  I love to win and hate to lose, so the whole semester I had a certain tension hanging over me.  I think everyone feels that, though.

The Deluxe Ikea Helmer Render Farm

I love to render both by hand and by computer.  The main constraint with my computer rendering lately has been speed.  I am pushing towards an animation on my thesis project and any time I do side projects I find that there literally are not enough hours in the day to do all the rendering required of me.  Therefore I decided to build a render farm....basically a box with lots of computers inside of it.

This has been done before.  You can build a render farm the expensive way by buying a 'rack' system.  But that adds up.  Or you can do it the crazy way where you make a home made render farm.  That's the path I chose.  It's cheap and it's got style!

So a friend of mine tipped me off to this idea.  Basically you get a cool little Ikea drawer cabinet called the Helmer and you stick sheets of cardboard or whatever at the base of the drawers and you put your motherboard on top of it with all its components.  It's a genius idea and people have been doing iterations of this for a while.  The problem I was running into, though, was that unlike the other Helmer builds I had seen, I wanted to overclock mine.  This meant more space was required for the cooler.  Also I had trouble finding a 7.6" wide MicroATX motherboard that could overclock well.

I currently run a home built desktop that sports a 2600k and an EVGA 580, both watercooled.  I thought about doing that but the logistics of pulling drawers in and out with that stiff, 3/4" tubing nixed it for me.  Also there was the cost of the waterblocks, the radiator, etc.  I wanted to keep this cheap!

To start out with, let me show you a picture of the Helmer in it's stock, unmodified condition:

Ikea Helmer http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40107872/

Fortunately for me my dad is an amateur machinist.  Over Christmas break I mentioned to him that I was trying to resolve some issues with how I was going to fit all my nodes in the cabinet and get all the parts and pieces to fit.  I also mentioned that I wanted to overclock and was thinking of reducing the density from 6 nodes per cabinet to 3.  My thought was since the cabinets are so cheap, better to increase the value of your nodes by overclocking even if it means losing space.  So we settled on 2 drawers per node giving us 3 nodes per cabinet.

Here are some pictures showing the process:

Drilling the holes for the shelf rails

Making sure the spacers are all the same length

The beginnings of a node.

The power supply goes on that plate and the hard drive is mounted on its side from columns.

A node on its side showing horizontal rails and the angle iron used to stiffen it.

All the pieces needed for one node 'shelf'

We took out half the rails and lined the remaining ones with wood

They are dense little suckers!

We used these buttons for the power switch.  For a connector we spliced into the fan connector from the stock intel cooler.  It was able to slide over the front panel pins.  It's 4 pin and the power switch on the motherboard is only two but it overhung the edge so all was well.

It's a tight fit!

The beginning of something good!  But we needed air movement and filtration.  What to do??

On one of our many late night excursions to Home Depot for supplies we spotted this.  The idea was to slice and dice it and turn it into filters for every other drawer front.  Then the fans could go in the back of the cabinet. Web Absorber: http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100011568/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=carbon+air+filter&storeId=10051#.UO-zbye5Nec

So we had to cut out the front of the drawer fronts.  An easy job with a vertical mill and an 1/8" endmill bit.

After some bandsawing and trimming this is the basic idea.  The aluminum rails not only hold in the  filter material but attach the lower draw front to the upper (we're doing two drawers per node, remember.)

The air filter and the button. The top shelf.  We included a power strip and network switch both mounted with industrial strength velcro. Milling the hole pattern in the back. The back almost looks better than the front! The finished product in place and rendering! So that's it!  That's the Helmer as a ridiculously deluxe render farm.  It was a three week process, but a lot of that was the 'invention' of this beast.  There are a huge number of problems to be resolved when you actually start the project.  Also both my dad and I got colds during that time, did holiday related activities, built furniture, chopped firewood, etc.  So it wasn't our full time job in other words.  Feel free to post comments with questions or feedback.  My render time now has dropped to 1/3 of what it was.  I expect it to drop to 1/4 when the third node is complete.  If you feel like donating the CPU, HDD and Ram for the last node don't hesitate to let me know.... And for your convenience, here is a list of typical hardware per node: Hardware List: Asrock Z77 Pro3 Motherboard Intel 2600k oc\ed to 4.5ghz Intel 330 60gb hard drive 32gb Ripjaw Ram Cooler Master 212 Plus CPU cooler Lots of Cooler Master Case Fans A basic Gigabit Switch A basic 550watt power supply

VRayDistanceTex

First of all I really can't claim credit for this technique.  I got the idea from Bertrand Benoit's post on Two-Tone Trees (link).  More specifically I got the idea of using VRayDistanceTex to drive two-tone from a comment on BB's page by Mark Whelan.  Pure genius, thank you Mark and BB!

So basically what VRayDistanceTex does is say your have a 'Far Texture' and a 'Near Texture.'  Then you choose what object(s) you want to drive this distance and set a distance parameter (4' for example.)  So what I did is use a giant invisible (non-rendering but visible in viewport) sphere as my 'object.'  Then I assigned the VRay2Sided mat to my tree.  The diffuse was what is driven by VRayDistanceTex.  I've attached a material screenshot below along with some quick, sample renders.  Not the best tree but you get the idea.  It's based off a GrowFX sample with my own custom leaf material.

One nice thing about this technique is that its a super smooth gradient, so you actually get like 3 tones or more, depending on how different your two defined tones are.  I'm just struggling to define the falloff from the object, though.  There aren't that many parameters with VRayDistanceTex (just 'Distance' which is a number, not a map or anything) and I would have expected to see some kind of a graph or gradient to control the strength of the object as you get further away.  If you have ideas on this please comment!

Anyway, definitely check out BB's blog post on this, though, because he shows a totally different, more precise way of controlling color tone using the Vertexpaint modifier.

I could see using this in lots of ways...leafless branches, dead pine needles, things like that.  Fun!

Nice red's and yellows

Different lighting and tones...getting some green

Also this isn't using VRayDistanceTex, but its a closeup of the material that I thought I'd share:

Cabinet

Here are some pictures of the built project shown in the last set of renderings.  I'm also including an image of it just rendered out with VRay RT (a GPU based rendering side of VRay...meaning it uses your video card, not your CPU.)

I've actually been really pleased with how the rendering\architecture\viz side of my life is complementing my life as a furniture\cabinet maker now that I've spent a summer back in my shop.  VRay RT really, really speeds up the workflow too.  Unfortunately it doesn't support VRay Dirt, color corrections, etc. so you don't really get as nice a result as you might otherwise.  Oh well.

Enjoy!

The legs protrude through the top

Board-and-batten back

An early render, pre-build for the client

Paris Loft

For all three of you who have been wondering when I was going to post something next, here goes!

This is just a small sort of 'loft' scene that I'm 'placing' in Paris.  The skyline is Paris anyway.  One interesting thing about this is I just got done building the side table shown in the first image.  It's walnut and cherry.  A separate post about the construction of that, I think.

3dsMax + Vray as always plus some Photoshop.  I used GrowFX for the plant.  I modeled everything except the shoes and the lamp (which I did modified substantially) in Max from scratch.

This is the first scene where I've created nearly everything in the scene in Max without using others' models and also built up all my textures mostly from scratch (the carving I did with my tablet but the painting is not mine.)  I'm also a big believer in starting with an old texture (yours or someone else's) and subbing in new maps and settings.  The down side is time obviously but the upside is it's yours, all yours!

Anyway, enjoy!

EDIT:  Tweaked the first render a bit.  Changed lighting to HDR only, took away VRay sun.

Plants

OK - So just a quick update.  I've been doing lots of 'test' scenes getting ready for a couple of big jobs later this summer.  Plus I'm just generally expanding my plant library and experience base.

All elements in these images are 3d.  I'm really trying to move away from photoshoped arch viz for now.  Just a stage :-)

Some more interesting scenes on the way in the next few days.

My High Poly Fir Tree

A practice 3d Scene.  Even the gravel!  Still working on this one.

Practice Grass.  Ignore the verticals in the foreground...

Practice makes....slightly better.

I thought I'd post a few images from this last week.  I've been practicing modeling in 3ds max.  While usually you don't have time to model all your contextual furniture from scratch in the heat of a studio\design project, I want to be able to if I have to.  For the Brewery project I modeled the Tolix chair in Rhino when I would have preferred to stay in Max.  It's easier than switching from program to program and keeps textures cleaner.

Anyway, I'll be posting a bit more in the coming days - hopefully some images from a recent project, a review of some software and possibly an update on my brewing.  Cheers!

Brewery Images

I thought I'd update with a few images from my studio last semester.  This was part of a 4 person team project (2 architecture students and 2 ID).  It was interesting collaborating with interior designers and seeing the design change and improve as a result.

For the renderings below I modelled the Tolix chairs and brew vats in Rhino.  The building was done in Revit and the renders were all VRay.  Some post work in PS of course.

I'll be posting more work soon including some GrowFX stuff.  Enjoy!

Digital Sketching

I just landed a Wacom Intuous 4 tablet for Christmas so I thought I'd post my first sketch attempt with it.

I'm really impressed.  I think that combining it with CS5's amazing brush setup I'll be able to bypass a lot of analog process work and jump straight to digital.  This will save time and add flexibility while still preserving the looseness of hand rendering.  Also it's essentially the same techniques, so you stay in practice with sketching even though it's not a piece of paper you are sketching on.

Creekside Cabin - First design sketch  (Photoshop + Tablet)

XMas Trees (in 3d)

Here is a major load of images.  I'm trying to learn a new tree growing piece of software (I'll post a review of the software soon) along with winter render techniques.  I'm working on a small residential project in a winter scene.  I'm excited about it.  Winter has a certain charm about it when it comes to renderings.

Here are some renderings that I've been doing as practice for the final product.

Particles, Motion Blur and Fish...

I haven't had time to post in a while but here are some recent renders that I've done.  I've been doing some neat effects with particle emitters and motion blur (see the fish below).  Also I've been working on a more 'illustrative' form of renders (first render below).  All of this work is Revit > Max > PS.  All images are work in progress at this point - presentations are mid December.

Entrepreneurial Center

Salmon Fountain in the Greenway

The Fish in 3ds Max showing the particle emitter - all context is 3d using 3ds Max proxies.

Abstract Buffalo Sculpture in the Greenway

I love (rendering) leaves.....

Here is another leaf render.  Leaves are so great....they let you play with translucency, light, texture, reflection maps, etc.

This is using a couple of bitmaps for textures from (the great) Peter Guthrie.  I also should post my latest presentation boards soon, too.  If I can figure out how to make my 72"x72" presentation boards into a reasonable sized jpeg, I will post them.

A few odds and ends....

Here is a recent hand render along with a project that I designed for fun.  It's all based around a parametric family I made that has an option for 'horizontal shading = yes/no' and 'vertical shading = yes/'no'.  It was modeled in Revit with a adaptive curtain panel family and the exported to Max for a nice HDR environment iRay render.  It's actually for a class where we invent a fictional firm, so I decided to drop it onto the cover of Arch Record so we can say our firm got published ;-)

EDIT:  I figured out a way to have my curtain wall glass be wavy!  So here is the finished (or actually not so finished) result.  It's more of a work in progress.  I like the results though, even if there are some anomalies.

Revised Courtyard

After a crit the courtyard render changed substantially.  I'm very impressed with how iRay handles heavier geometry and complex lighting situations such as this.  I don't love it, yet, but it is a handy and fast renderer.

Rainy Night render

I thought I'd get a recent render posted, too.

I decided to try out a rainy texture the other day.  I slapped it on some glass, messed with the settings over and over again, but I'm finally happy with the results.  It's great how a whole scene can just 'develop' because of curiosity about a new technique.  The only question I have now is: where is that guy going and what book is that?  Also, where do I get a couch like that!?

Nurbs based 3D Melon

Product Viz work is fun, particularly when your subject is a cantaloupe!  This is just a quick model I did for a class.  It was fun making this thing in Rhino, putting it into Max and then mapping it and rendering it.  I snagged the textures off a photo of a cantaloupe.  I had to take the perspective out and do what you always have to do with textures, but I'm happy with the result.

The displacement map gives a nice thickness to the skin.

Random thought:  I bet a cross section of a grape would be fun to render!  All kinds of weird refraction in that thing.

 iRay Render

iRay Render + Abstract Overlay

Design + Render workflow

I thought since I'm down sick with a head cold that I might post a bit of my process for a recent render\design.  Not a step by step so much as an overall, broad workflow.

I'm currently part of a two student team working on a studio project that involves getting together a 'visionary' package for a client.  For our next presentation we're prepping our massing model with locations that have higher detail to give a better idea of where we're going.

So - Step 1...the basic pergola model I made that came from a squiggle on my teammate's trace paper:

Then, Step 2: making an adaptive curtain panel component for that rigging to give us the shape we want:

Step 3: Placing that component on the divided surface:

Step 4:  Put it into our massing model, add contextual details for the scene and then go to 3ds max and render!  I used iRay with my GTX 580 for this.

UPDATE:  And Another use for this was in the Market place - these renders are Mental Ray + VRay:

Redesign

I thought I'd post a redesign of one of my renders from a week ago.  I decided to change the brick pattern to a basket weave, I 'baked' my Substance texture from the concrete wall into a bitmap and then modified it in Photoshop to give it a sort of interesting sub-pattern to it rather than the 'panelized' look from before.  I also tweaked out a bit on the UVW mapping of the wall in Max and placed my texture EXACTLY where I wanted.  The curtain wall is an obvious addition.  Also I applied a strong 'levels' adjustment to my concrete texture BEFORE I added it to my render, so that gave a nice punchy contrast to the render even before I photoshoped it.  I also improved the grass a bit by using the mental ray '2 sided' material.

My render settings were pretty high...1600x3200, sampling was 16 min\64 max, and Final Gather was set to 'Low' (since it's an exterior scene I felt that was fine.)

All in the Family...

For the ASID:

A quick review sheet and some links for Revit Families:

• First and foremost: pick the right template to begin with!  Often there is no going back.
• Flex your model early and often!
• Avoid at (nearly) any cost the mistake of locking geometry to geometry….this is BAD and the family will not flex.  Rather, ‘sketch’ out your shape with reference lines\planes and align the geometry to that reference geometry.
• Reference lines are used for rotation and are not infinite (where they begin defines the rotation point!), reference planes for horizontal spacing or permanent angles and they are infinite.
• With complicated families you will need to ‘nest’ one family within another….an example would be a single ‘shelf’ family within a bookshelf family.
• Make something an ‘instance’ parameter if you want it to be changeable for every ‘instance’ of the family.  Use ‘type’ parameter if you want it to be universal.
• I highly recommend the book ‘Mastering Revit 2012’ by Eddy Krygiel

For information on the Revit class I taught this last summer (Arch. 404) visit:

http://flexingfamilies.blogspot.com/

Also, if you are interested, here is the Autodesk Official Family Guide page.  It’s for Revit 2010 but applies to 11\12:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=13376394

And last but not least, a link to a great PDF shortcut list.  Credit to the RevitKid for finding it on HOK's blog who (I believe) found it and linked to it.  Originally it was done by David Driver.
http://davidddriver.com/Product/Freebies/Revit/Revit%20keyboard%20ShortcutsVert.pdf