Beacon
3D Modeler, Designer - Ryan Yuan
Developed by Unity, Blender, Adobe Premiere
An Individual Project
Sep 2021 - Oct 2021
Project Run-through
Summary & Intention
Beacon is an individual media architecture project. The project tries to express the feeling of control, power, and mystery. Media architecture is a new form of architecture that uses virtual media to redefine the original architecture. The architecture chosen in the project is a monument called Kosmaj built in Yugoslavia in the 1970s, it is fully made of concrete with numerous lines spread all over. The monuments were built to represent the sites where the WWII battles took place and are to show the strength and confidence of the Socialist Republic. The monument belongs to brutalism, the brutalist buildings are characterized by their massive, monolithic, and 'blocky' appearance with a rigidly geometric style and large-scale use of poured concrete.
Production
The project focuses on lightings, scene design, texture, and camera work to deliver its theme.
3D Modeling & UV Mapping
The modeling and UV mapping of the architecture is done with Blender. The monument consists of five same sculptures, so I modeled one of them and used the array function to duplicate it. I observed the original Yugoslavian monument carefully and tried to replicate all its details. There are plenty of grains on both sides of each sculpture and each of these grains has different angles.
Before applying the material to the model in Unity, I need to map the UV to correctly present all the details. I divided the map according to the vertices on both sides so that the textures will be applied along the grains.
Terrain
I utilized the Terrain package to generate the whole terrain. I first downloaded a height map online and imported it into the terrain function to generate a rough terrain. Then I utilized the smooth brush to tweak it and the paintbrush to draw different layers of texture on it.
Lightings
Besides the basic skybox and directional light, area light, spotlight, and point light are also implemented. The red and blue point lights are used to make a huge contrast, creating a tense atmosphere together with the surrounding environment. The orange area lights in the background together with the fog are to fit the sunset and increase the depth of the scene. In addition to these, a red spotlight is implemented to cast shadows on the monument, while a blue spotlight is animated to create visual effects.
Animation & Cinemachine
I utilized the Cinemachine package to create smooth camera movements. I created a dolly track for the camera and recorded several keyframes to rotate the camera. With the help of the bezier curve in Timeline, I could easily control the speed of the animation at different timing.
Texturing
The texture applied to the architecture is to express the sense of mystery, together with the particles, the architecture can be seen as a representation of the concentration of evil power which fits the concept of brutalism, and this is why the project is named Beacon.
Experiments
I tried with different compositions and imported the file into Unity High Definition Render Pipeline. I utilized various camera effects such as adding different filters, Bloom effect, distortion. Different composition results in different narrationi.