From a private fly-through message

[Dwight]

As an old guy to a new guy, the number of bad fly-throughs I've seen are … almost all of them.

The film maker doesn't understand that he is telling a story - not showing a building - and that to engage all viewers he needs to carefully pace his work, combining coarse animations with larger, high quality stills - even providing captions.

Don't get caught in the trap of the "first person shoot em up." Many women [your basic architectural decision-makers] hate this forward-moving cross-scanning huntandkill type of motion. [Where's my GDL Shotgun object?] And not to be sexist, I hate them too.

I believe that experiencing space should be serene. And guided - the more control you give the viewer the more likely embarassing questions will arise.

You asked a technical question - how best to make small segments go together with pauses - on PC. That is - not sure - don't care - PC - ick! - probably Adobe Premiere, but you could also look at programming this in PowerPoint.

Powerpoint's advantage is that it can easily cope with larger images and variable comments for less visual viewers to read - it helps everyone through the experience and builds understanding in the entire audience.

In my lecture I show a TV ad that is 1 minute long. Seventy edits - one camera movement. Studying cinema is the key to better ArchiCAD fly-throughs.

Any other comments???? Lads? Laddettes?

[Anonymous]

I could not agree more. Professional visual work, like that done on movie trailers, television ads and even television shows which feature architecture, seldom show the camera man walking through the house with the camera at eye level.

It would be interesting to mimic an especially good 60 second spot, replacing the cuts with archicad renders. Any takers?

[__archiben]

Dwight wrote:
... to engage all viewers he needs to carefully pace his work, combining coarse animations with larger, high quality stills - even providing captions.

and too often when combining clips, the author is so rapt with all the fades, dissolves, ripples, twirls and fancy transitions available to them that they never realise a simple cut - in the right place - can have far more impact . . .

action!
~/archiben

[Dwight]

Movie-like editing is stretching it - when there isn't a subject moving or a narrative to be told - acted reactions to be captured or whatever - cuts can be disruptive. My approach is to use quick cross-fades [compatible with PowerPoint) without any other stuff. It becomes just a smooth slide show with some short clips....

[Eduardo Rolon]

I usually try to get a clip flying to an interesting/important element of the project, do a fade to some more detailed stills then fade into another sequence and repeat. Using iMovie and iDVD is usually enough.

[Dwight]

And of course - this not being film school - the caution is twofold:

-- that fly-thoroughs are almost universally bad without storyboarding and complicated editing tricks.......

-- that ArchiCAD, not having a simple way of accelerating and decelerating the camera in a fly-through is not the application to be using.....

[Eduardo Rolon]

Actually, I forgot to mention that I don't use AC for that type of work.

[David Collins]

Dwight wrote:
I believe that experiencing space should be serene. And guided - the more control you give the viewer the more likely embarassing questions will arise.

I completely agree about the serenity requirement. However, as much as I hate the embarrassing questions, I'd rather hear them sooner than later. I mostly use VR scenes for client feedback.

Even the extremely rare good fly-through is like one of those Disneyland rides where they lock you into a moving chair and roll you through the Haunted House. You can't help but wonder what's going on behind the chair.

I do wish we had more sophisticated VR tools in ArchiCAD. Meander is/was a step in the right direction, but the interface with the little footsteps is an embarrassment.

[Anonymous]

Maybe check out

www.3xn.dk

I am impressed by their combination of concepetual and realistic renderings within one animation. It helps the viewer get a better sense of the form and layout of the project without being overwhelmed by colour or photo realism. The best one is for the olso towers. Very cool!!!

Let me know what u guys think