(Last Update: July 20, 2020)
EG Facade generator (Concept)
This page describes how to understand the upcoming Façade Generator, a rules based tool to create realistic looking buildings of any height for architectural, training, industrial modelling or gaming needs, using columnar, stackable, and ultra modern architectures.
Prototype/Concept Only columnar architecture
The example to the right is our Unity example, a columnar building is one where the same style is used throughout 95% of the vertical floors. The top and bottoms floors can be a bit different, but generally most of the other floors have an identical layout. A video at the end of this page, show it's setup.
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stackable architecture
A stackable architecture simply means that as your eye moves up the building, there are one or more floors in one style, then one or more floors of a different style. Each of these groupings can then be stacked on top of each other.
For example the The Pearl in Edmonton, Canada, has about a dozen different floor styles including the roof.
An older example of this approach is the Willis Tower in Chicago. This building consists of stacks of arrangements of 9 buildings built together. Each stack are variations on a theme. The difference between the two buildings is the repetition of the Willis tower facade over the entire structure. |
Ultra modern
Ultra modern architectural styles, were a portion of the building does not follow a traditional vertical column architecture, instead has a mathematical shape change over multiple floors, such as the Telus Sky in Calgary, Canada.
To implement a similar building style using the Façade Generator, we offer a shape tool that incrementally alters the rotation, position and scale of the shape as each floor is added. This feature is currently possible with Archimatix, but it requires two nodes to create one shape per floor. Our node will generate up to ten shapes with the ability to do with one node. When you need more than ten floors, each node can identify which block of 10 floors this is ... Block 1 (1..10), Block 2 (11...20), Block 3 (21..30), and so on. |
current or planned v1.0 features
- Provide a rules based mechanism to apply facades to buildings with a known plan.
- Ability to apply a facade to any plan regardless of angle and/or number of exposed internal or external surfaces.
- Ability to apply curved facades around curved buildings surfaces that lots of little segments, or on oblique corners of buildings.
- Ability to stack multiple designs from the same plan or even a different plan, to model modern architecture.
- Adaptive designs, where the computer lays out a floor in an automatic way. Used in games where precise placement is not as stringent as an architectural or industrial need.
- Ability to have a per floor alteration of the plan and produce a slightly altered plan on the floor above, to produce ultra modern warpable buildings and facades.
- A small library of pre-configured nodes and examples, to provide features such as stacking, auto-sizing, etc. (tbd)
how does it work?
To understand how it works, you have to understand that there are no "round" shapes in computer graphics. It requires too much geometry to create something that looks 100% round. Instead, "round" is a combination of limited geometry and effects to give the appearance of round; fundamentally a trade-off between detail and performance.
"Round" is actually lots of short straight segments, therefore, the entire building's path that makes up the façade in a computer are all straight segments. The Façade Generator applies components along these straight edges, for the provided by the input path (see image below). At any point along this line, you can attach objects to it to define the building's look and aesthetic.
We provide a way to quickly configure and assign building styling, and make changes to the style on the fly, without ever leaving the Unity Editor.
The system works best when designing a building with a symmetrical shape. On buildings with this kind of footprint, you'll discover that a lot of the straight parts are generally similar or identical in length. What the system offers is the way to create themes to paint the facade of the building, that can be adjusted quickly from a central location.
The key difference for buildings with a non-symmetrical shape, is that these types of buildings have a lot of unique segment lengths, so the theme system might not offer as much benefit or be harder to configure. Past this limitation, the system works the same for non-symmetrical shaped buildings too.
For this page's examples, we're using a symmetrical shape with three common lengths 5.18m, 10m, and 20m. For each of these lengths:
Important: Each straight segment can be thought of as an "attachment point" for any kind of 3D structure that the Archimatix can produce, including using prefabs. This example uses the Polygon City Pack. While the system only works with straight segments, this does not impede your ability to implement the following things:
Note: While I use the Polygon City Pack in this example, Archimatix is more than capable of creating a similar look.
"Round" is actually lots of short straight segments, therefore, the entire building's path that makes up the façade in a computer are all straight segments. The Façade Generator applies components along these straight edges, for the provided by the input path (see image below). At any point along this line, you can attach objects to it to define the building's look and aesthetic.
We provide a way to quickly configure and assign building styling, and make changes to the style on the fly, without ever leaving the Unity Editor.
The system works best when designing a building with a symmetrical shape. On buildings with this kind of footprint, you'll discover that a lot of the straight parts are generally similar or identical in length. What the system offers is the way to create themes to paint the facade of the building, that can be adjusted quickly from a central location.
The key difference for buildings with a non-symmetrical shape, is that these types of buildings have a lot of unique segment lengths, so the theme system might not offer as much benefit or be harder to configure. Past this limitation, the system works the same for non-symmetrical shaped buildings too.
For this page's examples, we're using a symmetrical shape with three common lengths 5.18m, 10m, and 20m. For each of these lengths:
- Define a façade (theme) as a sequence of (component) meshes that are laid along the building's edge.
- Decide which of your façades (one or more), you will use to fill each straight segment.
- Rebuilding the model applies your rules to the building design.
Important: Each straight segment can be thought of as an "attachment point" for any kind of 3D structure that the Archimatix can produce, including using prefabs. This example uses the Polygon City Pack. While the system only works with straight segments, this does not impede your ability to implement the following things:
- Create curved balconies that wrap the curved surface of the building.
- Creating a wrap-around balcony on an oblique corner of your building's design.
- Apply elements that do not align with the building's edge (although they will always relative to the edge).
- Use the system for non-building projects, such as, generating ground level scenes, side walks, benches, garbage bins, planted trees, lighting, etc. around city block.
Note: While I use the Polygon City Pack in this example, Archimatix is more than capable of creating a similar look.
The Archimatix nodes
How are rules configured with archimatix and our classes?
You'll need a better understanding of how Archimatix works to understand the diagram above, but the points below describe the process more generically:
In the future, you'll be able to randomly move the facade placement position forward and backward along the building edge to provide additional placement assignments at a facade or segment perspective. Other commands are planned including being able to move forward and backward down the segment, repeating a sequence, etc.
- This is the name of the generator. There must be at least one matching entry for the generator to work. When there is more than one, the system applies elements through each definition provided. Subsequent passes can be used to apply aging, environmental effects, or anything else you can think of.
- Once the system is configured (one path and one valid grouper), this is a scan listing of the shape's straight segments. Each segment is listed with it's length to the nearest 0.01m.
- These are the names of the properly configured Grouper objects.
- To configure it properly, the grouper requires a float parameter called "Width", which defines how many meters of the facade consumes along a building's edge.
- Sometimes the object is a little bit too large or too small, so the grouper's transform controls enable precise alignment of sizing of components, otherwise, there is a risk for ugly gap or overlap.
- This is how you decide what each façade looks like. For each facade, this is the list of components that decides what it looks like when it's applied to that part of the building.
- For each straight segment, define which façade's to use. You can identify more than one with a list.
- Rebuild to see your rules applied to the building. For comparison, my machine i7/GTX1660, the changes in the video below took less than a second to complete.
In the future, you'll be able to randomly move the facade placement position forward and backward along the building edge to provide additional placement assignments at a facade or segment perspective. Other commands are planned including being able to move forward and backward down the segment, repeating a sequence, etc.
Sample Video - Showing a single stack
Note: The total length of the video below was 2minutes 30 seconds. I cut out roughly a minute of time because it's a lot of looking at the same view for several seconds while I configure the generator in the background. The video is not sped up and the generation rendering is shown in real time. My PC had a top-of-the-line CPU when it was new 6 years ago. For performance comparison purposes, I currently have i7 and GTX1660 Ti.