Finally got my license of LWCAD and it’s definitely going to increase my modeling speed. I just have to spend a bit of time learning its tools and then it’s party on. Additionally, the G5 should allow me to do a good portion of initial planning and modeling on the same computer now, whereas before I would set up my plans in Illustrator on the Mac, then port over to the PC.

New renders soon to come!

I recently got a new job so I’ve been focusing a lot of my efforts there. My Mac’s hard drive also decided to take a dive. My Illustrator license is only on Mac so I’ll need to get that back up before I can really proceed.  My Mac is an old dual 400MHz G4 and I actually don’t want to use it anymore. It’s really only good for file storage and playing music. I’m going to wait and see what I can come up with.

I finally completed the plan for Prudential Plaza and have begun modeling it. This building is quite a task. The original Prudential building, now owned by Aenta, isn’t much better. I’m still working on the plan for that structure and hope to have it completed, along with all major structures on the Southbank by year’s end.

As work progresses on the Southbank I’ve been photographing structures on the Northbank as well. I’m up to around 1,600 photos total now. Once the Southbank is completed I will be able to immediately begin modeling work on the Northbank because I already have the needed references.

I’ve been working on a plan view of the Prudential Plaza building and adjoining parking garage. This is the most complicated building I’ve worked on so far (excluding bridges).

I can’t wait to get this in as it’s such an important part of the Southbank skyline, and will really help in filling in the gaps.

I’ve also begun the Aetna building plan view, which will also take a moment to complete.

I’m drawing all of my plans in Illustrator because it’s what I have. This has had it’s benefits and drawbacks:

A) The major benefit is all of my objects blocks are whole objects (this plan view has been altered for readability however). When I import the AI file into Lightwave I can begin extruding immediately. If I need to do some booleans I can, but I’m not committed at import. If I were working in a CAD-based program, none of my objects would import as solids and would be simply 2-point polygons (i.e. individual lines).

B) The major drawback has been that I could produce drawings much faster in a CAD program. I would also be able to draw at 1:1 scale. I may be able to turn off Anti-Aliased Artwork and work faster in Illustrator though. That was one of the features I really enjoyed getting in Illustrator v7, I think it was, so I’d have to turn it back on for other work.

I would consider getting something like AutoCAD LT for my plan work, but as I understand should I want to sell my license it would take nearly an act of Congress to transfer IF Autodesk allowed it. So for me that’s not owning a license, and I won’t pay for something I can’t own.

Sketchup would probably be another alternative. I’ve used it in the past before Google purchased it and it’s a great piece of software. It would also allow me to import the completed model right into Lightwave. I’m more interested though in getting a license of the LWCAD plug-in for Lightwave.

My production flow is nice because I’m not sending/receiving files with anyone else so I can dictate what my pipleline needs or does not need.

More updates to come… stay tuned.

I realized that as I work on completing this model of downtown, construction and development in the real world continue and I have to stay on top of these changes in 3D. I also realized that I need to keep the models of buildings as they are ‘today’, and as they change in the future, archive them for that specific period.

The Wolfson Children’s Hospital for example, I have not modeled just yet but I will model it without the tower (currently being errected), and model it with the new tower. This will make the task of file organization larger, but in the end it will create an accurate archive of the downtown metro area.

With this path for the project, I will also venture to produce earlier period models, perhaps post and/or pre Great Fire. This has greatly expanded my original scope of the project, but it will definitely keep me busy.

I’m working on getting information together for creating the Southbank Riverwalk. It was a nice, overcast day on Monday, perfect for taking reference and texture photos.

The Southbank is fairly long and has quite a bit of detail to do correctly. I’m still debating on how much detail to add, but I’ve had to do extensive photo surveying to gather enough information to even get it in Lightwave. I have some basic shapes in Illustrator, which I’m going over and making sure it’s ready before importing it.

Take a look through some of the photos I took on Monday.