Our approach towards the project has changed significantly after few weeks. Initially the project was to be utilized by the CSI department only as stated in the original brief however it was indicated by university lecturers that it may be developed further to function as an educational VR application for multiple departments (such as the faculty of health and wellbeing) in the upcoming semester. I wanted to contribute more to the project than just making a room described in the initial brief keeping client needs and the future cross-faculty use in focus. Therefore, I created the whole house and garden.

Crime Scene Investigation is a forensic science conducted by specially trained members of law enforcement agencies or civilian crime labs also known as crime scene investigators. Supporting both the judicial and investigative sector of the criminal justice system in the process of solving crimes and securing convictions by applying scientific methods and technology to process material evidence and interpret findings.

Crime scene investigators usually have a three-step approach when processing a scene.

Collecting reference images to any creative work is one of the most fundamental phases of the design process. I tend to go through hundreds of images and videos to form a concept of the base design then narrow the number down keeping pictures on a constant display throughout modelling.

1.7.1 My modern house mood board

In order gain better understanding of client requirements and to improve user experience one key stage of the research was to establish personas. To cover the main spectrum of end users I developed three personas. Each targeting a specific client group.

1.8.1 Persona#1 3rd year student

1.8.2 Persona#2 University Lecturer

1.8.3 Persona#3 Open day visitor (potential future student)

Succeeding the original client brief our group realizing ‘the problem’ started to draw sketches and gather information on the subject. Meetings spent brainstorming and analysing ideas then we developed a solution. Following the early phase of the design process, we had a client meeting where our concept was presented to one of the university’s CSI lecturers. This was a great opportunity for feedback and some inside knowledge not just on crime scene investigative practices but gaining a better understanding of client needs as well. From my perspective this changed the formerly dark house design to a substantially more modern approach.

For the first client presentation we wanted to show the basic layout of the scene. I used Smartdraw to generate a quick outline of the room and it's contents. (2.2.1) Smartdraw is an online application with a downloadable edition. I considered drawing the floorplans with it because the client and I both appreciated the stilized cartoonish characteristics of the drwings however as my Revit skills improved and the multi dimensions of the project became apparent it seemed considerably better fit for the purpose due it's professional appearance and efficient workflow.

2.2.1

Throughout the course of four to six weeks I gained familiarity with Autodesk Revit. Although this industry standard software initially fell outside of the scope of my plans for this semester but by the advice of my lecturer through trial and error I progressed from the basics towards more advanced techniques. At first, I was somewhat sceptical given the time constraints of the project and knowing that I could model the house in Blender in the fraction of the time. Nevertheless, I remained focused and carried on practicing. (2.3.1) Retrospectively I realized that despite Revit is a rather architectural visualization-oriented application its benefits are still invaluable, creating structural plans or assets with accurate dimensions swiftly. It will certainly be a great addition to my software knowledge and prove to be a great asset in future projects.

2.3.1

Once we estabilished with the client that a modern house was to be designed I researched the topic extensively. Architectual visualization websites and company pages provided plenty of examples featuring the main style characteristics. I visualized the chunky, squareish cocrete walls, incorporating a flat roof, huge glass panels and clean looks.

Albeit that glass surfaces fail to work when exporting assets from Revit to Blender or Unreal Engine I learned to produce them. This way it was included in the Revit renders to resemble the final works. Including the glass walls was a slight and only diviation from my lecturer's suggestion of rather having framed windows. I felt it was necessary in order to preserve the contemporary image I imagined originally. At the second client meeting I received positive feedback therefore it was included in the final version.

Before gaining additional experience in Revit I was trying to cut out sections of walls to change the material into glass. While this was done with ease vertically the same thechnique did not work horizontally. The effort seemed futile and time consuming therefore I found an alternative solution. I changed the material of the whole wall section to glass. To achive this after highlighting the wall a click on edit type in the wall properties panel opens up a material browser window. First the wall needs to be duplicated and renamed to glass wall so the other similar walls already included will not inherit the same material properties. Then in the type parameters tab the wall thickness was reduced from 200mm to 50mm and the material modified to glass. (2.6.1) As a final touch the glass panel was aligned with the external walls.

2.6.1

To align with the modern design I prefered to include a glass staircase. A slight issue I had to solve was when placing the stairs connecting the ground floor to the 1st floor to make a floor opening. (2.7.1) Steps include adding a staircase, set top level to 1st floor level then the number of raises and actual thread depth required modification to connect the floors. Changing the railing to glass panel followed. Lastly I drew a boundary line to make the opening.

2.7.1

I swiftly progressed by populating the 1st floor (2.8.1) and adding the roof and some outside elements including the swimming pool. (2.8.2)

The following main settings were used rendering the scene in Revit.

One of the project requirements was to achieve near life like visuals quality in order to the user to assimilate with the ambient scene. One of the leading element of this is the dead body within our scene. I hoped to achieve this by importing assets from from Unreal Engin's Metahuman Creator. This application utilizing a similar character building method as current AAA RPGs yet the difference is that the models created can be exported as fully rigged high fidelity assets. The efortless three step process employs Quixel Bridge another application by Epic Games serving as a symbolical bridge between softwares. (3.1.1)

3.1.1

An interesting proposition I heard by a number of leading 3D creatives mentioning in online videos and tutorials stayed with me. According to the suggestions if one pairs an imaginary story to his/her creation it encurages a better connection between artist and concept (the scene, an asset or alike) therefore boosting efficiency and enthusiasm. I applied this idea to the character creation making detailed personas for the metahumans serving as victim. (3.2.1 and 3.2.2)

3.2.1

3.2.2

As mentioned earlier visual quality is viyaly important for project success. This however cannot ruin user experience by overloading system resources. 3D programs mitigate this by employing the level of detail (LOD) system. Fortunately all characters produced by the Metahuman Creator inherit LOD levels from 0 to 7. Zero being the highest fidelity version progressively reducing quality to 7. This helps alliviating pressure from the computer system by applying lesser quality version of the asset to the scene as viewing distance increases. The below image demonstrates differences between LOD0 and LOD7. (3.3.1)

3.3.1

The Client Group Project spanned across the whole first semester of year two. The included gantt charts show the entire project pipeline in weekly interval breakdown. The first chart is our group gannt only highlighting the three different pathways representing design by Abi Kusneraitis and 3D Environments by Luke Raynsford and Roland Bako from the Digital Media Development Department. (3.7.1) The second more detailed chart shows the breakdown of my workflow and important deadlines. (3.7.2)

3.7.1

3.7.2

This is my entry to the Academic Poster Exhibition by the Digital Media Department.(3.8.1)

3.8.1