Emmet Truxes, Nathan Shobe, Julian Bushman-Copp, Mijung Kim, Jeffrey Laboskey, Misato Odanaka
2014,GSD
Looking through all kinds of 3D computer graphic projects, I naturally paid more attention to architectural visualization since it relates to my major. I discovered a rendering animation of Kenzo Tange’s Yoyogi Olympic Arena in celebrating the 50th anniversary of Tokyo hosting the Summer Olympics. The rendering is created by professors and students from Harvard GSD as part of their course projects. I admire it because architectural rendering takes a huge amount of time and could be repetitive or boring during the process. Their animation pictures the Arena even better than photos. Not only architectural details are shown, but also the relationship between the surrounding and the building was nicely integrated. In order to make such rendering, the students have to make a digital model of both the exterior and interior of the arena. Then they would render the building in softwares such as Vray and Maya. They also have to match all the materials to every single part of the arena. Their product is very impressive aesthetically. Natural lighting and shadows are time-lapsed and even the reflections on the windows are nicely mimicked. Different angles of camera takes the viewer to multiple key details that might lost in photos. The materials and colors all fit together to make it a really successful visualization.