14 December 2021
How the CAD/BIM Industry Stands To Benefit From a Marriage of Gaming and Cinematic Technologies
Game Engines & Architecture: The Big-Screen Look on a Small-Screen Budget
How cool would it be if your completed CAD design — whether a residence, a skyscraper, a bridge, an industrial complex or a commercial/residential waterfront development — could be seamlessly integrated into an image of the physical location? Imagine if it was so true-to-life that it looked like a photograph of the completed project — not your typical artist’s impression, where the rendering is obviously digital and perhaps slightly pixelated, but a crystal-clear image with stunning clarity and ultra-crisp detail that looks like it was taken by a professional photographer with an airborne drone.
Imagine if your CAD design was so true-to-life that it looked like a photograph of the completed project.
Imagine if you could present your client with a video, viewing the reality of all the elevations of your design, nestled in its environment, exactly as it would be, post-construction. Imagine the impact this could have for architects and engineers and the clients for whom they design. A new technology that is based in gaming software, and was used in the making of The Mandalorian, could allow CAD users to achieve just that.
Most of us would agree that Star Wars is awesome. If you’re a fan, then the fact that the whole Star Wars universe is enthrallingly well-built and immersive is just another selling point. Visually, how do you create an architecture that allows for the viewer to travel with your protagonist and not have repeated backgrounds rolling past behind them? And what does this have to do with CAD design?
The answer is Unreal Engine.
If you love The Mandalorian, Disney’s first live-action Star Wars show, or are interested in how they put it together, there is a great series called Disney Gallery that lifts the curtain on the magic. It will increase your understanding of the potential of Unreal Engine as the world’s most powerful real-time 3D creation tool. And, yes, it produces some seriously great visuals that could help CAD designers achieve greater buy-in from clients with highly realistic imaging.
The challenge was to create a TV show, on a budget, that replicated the visual mastery of the blockbusters Star Wars is known for. This constraint meant on-location shooting would be too expensive. When coupled with a desire to incorporate physical props which have an authenticity that CGI puppets still somewhat lack, something wonderful happened. Necessity, the mother of invention, came knocking. These factors created a need for a means of faultlessly blending the digital and physical worlds. Enter Unreal Engine, where rendered environments and real environments can be live-mixed inside the camera, seamlessly.
John Favreau, the producer for The Mandalorian, had already used a version of this technique to film his take on The Jungle Book, but The Mandalorian took it to the next level and saw the development of what is now known as the Volume. The Volume is a hybrid of digital and physical effects, which is new in the industry. Consisting of a wraparound screen that displays photo-realistic environments which surround the physical sets and human actors, it results in the viewer believing that the character is actually in that environment. One look at The Mandalorian and there’s absolutely no doubt this technology is a triumph.
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Sets are built within the Volume, with some of the ships and buildings being only partially physically constructed, while the rest is rendered digitally. The wraparound screens display renderings of landscapes or other backgrounds that give great depth to the scenes. All of this is then composited and live-mixed in the specially developed cameras. The hardware and the software are both recent innovations that mean shooting complex scenes with CGI and sequences with physical props becomes that much simpler. The software originated in computer games and uses data from the digital renderings to create a continuous and seamless background.
Using this technology, The Mandalorian was successfully made to look like a big-budget Star Wars production, while relying on a small-screen budget.
From the above, you’ve perhaps already imagined how this could be used in a practical way by someone working in the CAD/BIM space. You create your design in AutoCAD® or Revit®, Sketchup®, or some other similar program, and then you upload that into a device where you can see your designs mapped onto the physical space. You could even take a tour through the building. It’s currently in its nascent stage, but the possibilities are exciting.
This kind of tech could be useful in both the conceptualization of your designs, to get more buy-in on your projects, as well as in later stages where you are transforming that initial blueprint into the final product.
At Axiom, our job is to make it easier for you to bring your vision to fruition by taking care of the manual, repetitive tasks your platform sometimes demands of you, so that you can focus on the bigger picture. Contact us today to boost your productivity into the stratosphere.
