I have just finished my bachelor degree in Architectural Computing at the University of New South Wales! My graduation project involved creating an architectural visualisation with Unreal Engine 4, as well as integrating the Oculus Rift DK2 into the environment. It took a lot of work, research and experimentation but it finally was completed. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to do small scale tests and experiments. Much of the experimentation was done on the full architectural model and quite a lot errors are still present. Nevertheless, for a first attempt I’m quite happy with how it came out.
The project has involved reaching out to an architectural firm to serve as a ‘client’ and to provide an existing project to develop and import into the engine. The project was also an attempt to see how feasible and how well UE4 would work in an actual architectural workflow.
The chosen client was Sanctum Design (http://www.sanctumdesign.com.au/), a Sydney based architectural design firm that focuses on sustainable and innovative residential designs of various scopes including very high-end bespoke homes. The company nominated an existing project that they were working on earlier in the year and provided all the necessary files including floor plans, CAD files and material schedules.
The original architectural model came from Vectorworks. This was then transferred into Sketchup for preparation and adding minor details like skirting boards,door frames etc. The model was then passed through 3DS Max for lightmapping, but after the release of 4.5, automatic lightmapping was improved significantly and the architectural model could be imported straight from Sketchup without the need for manual lightmapping. The surrounding terrain was taken from the surveyor’s AutoCAD model and developed in Sketchup as well.
Some of the model furnishings and the materiality within the project reflect what the customer has specified, and have been downloaded from various companies to be as accurate as possible to the final residence. All the bathroom finishings for example were taken directly from Grohe.
There are a few blueprints used in the project and involve the ability to toggle ceiling lights on and off, as well as opening the main entrance door. I’ve also added the ability to reduce or raise the graphical settings in order for the environment to be able to runs smoothly on lower end machines
The Oculus Rift DK2 also works with the environment at runs at 75 fps with some tweaks to the graphics settings.
Extra Info:
The actual property should be fully constructed by January.
The majority of models within the environment were downloaded for free (under creative commons licence of course)
There are no hand made lightmaps anywhere in the project. Models were either directly imported and had auto-generated lightmaps, or had lightmaps created through automatic flattening in 3DS Max. Some of it shows through but the time saved was invaluable.
Final Mark: 91/100 (High Distinction)
Total triangles: 12,000,000 +
Final render time (modified baselightmass.ini): 27 hours
System specs:
CPU - Intel i7 2600
RAM - 32 GB DDR3
GPU - Nvidia GeForce GTX 980
A big thank you to the folks at Epic Games for making such a stellar engine. The constant updates, ease of use and attention to detail is just amazing, I’ll be definitely using UE4 for a long time to come.
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