While looking through this week’s articles, Diane Favro’s, “A Personal Walk Through Historical Simulation Modeling at UCLA,” caught my eye. In her article, Favro describes the history of 3D modeling at UCLA and its functionality in an architecture project of recreating the Roman Forum. Favro’s project, Visualizing Statues, “takes the reader on a tour through a simulation of [Rome] in the late antique period…demonstrating how inscriptions, sculptures, buildings, and monuments in Rome forged enduring memories and transported the reader beyond the here-and-now.” As seen through Favro’s project, 3D modeling allows one to “[exploit] movement as a way to generate a narrative, to explain contemporary monuments and, ultimately, to animate history and convey values” (Favro). Beyond Favro’s project and arcitecture, 3D modeling has many other uses including in other industries including film, animation, medicine, etc. 3D modeling can be described as sculpting vs. painting—It allows one to create advanced graphics that enables one to view images from a different perspective.
Although a lot less practical, I have experienced 3D modeling through many computer games, most notably Zoo Tycoon and Roller-coaster Tycoon. Zoo Tycoon and Roller-coaster Tycoon are simulation video games where the “player must build, expand and/or upgrade a zoo [or theme park] by purchasing animals, creating suitable living environments…allocate staff and resources for their maintenance and care, provide…visitors [with] food and drink stands, sanitary facilities, picnic areas and an aesthetically pleasing environment (Wikipedia).
These games allow the player a lot of room for creativity to create a 3D world. When you start the game it is a completely empty patch of grass, but little by little you can create semi-lifelike roller-coasters or animal exhibits. With each new version of the games, the graphics became more and more realistic. You were able to have a 360 degree view of your structures and theme parks as a whole.
As seen above, in the earliest models of these games, although there were still 3D images, the picture quality was not very realistic and the user could not get as much mobility throughout the games.
In the second version of these games, the images became a lot more realistic and more three dimensional, although they were still pixelated. The graphics in these versions were a vast improvement from the previous technology.
In the latest version of Zoo Tycoon, the 3D images are extremely life like. The detail provided on these images shows just how advanced technology has gotten now a days and it will only continue to get better.
Works Cited:
Diane Favro, “Meaning in Motion. A Personal Walk Through Historical Simulation Modeling at UCLA,” in Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Forum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_Tycoon_(series)