The way by which this project was passed on to me is a wonderful example of the unpredictability of life. I had created a few 3D graphics (shown below) for my final senior presentation to present ideas and also showcase some of my ability. After I had presented it, my teacher came up to me and asked if I could modify it just a bit to fit some of the ideas he had. Before I knew it, I was in a meeting with the executive vice president of the college, working out the details for a related but completely new 3D animation showcasing the core ideas of the college.
The chief purpose of this project is for the executive vice president to be able to show it to both the Higher Learning Commission and current, prospective, and confirmed faculty and students. It is for this reason that the graphic is very meaningful and requires a great deal of significance in how it is constructed and what the various elements may be. When talking with the vice president, her biggest concern is meaning; when talking with me, my biggest concern is clarity; and when talking with my art professor, his biggest concern is design cohesiveness.
Since form is often driven by the confines of any project, the final product is a rather peculiar size for today's standards. However, seeing as the final delivery medium was Microsoft PowerPoint, there was no need and no room for an HD format. That, combined with relatively excessive render time from the progressive marble shaders and advanced lighting, the end product was comfortable. I was there when it was a vague notion of an idea, and I'm here for its final render and successful delivery. I was overwhelmingly pleased with the look and movement of the piece, and I think it achieves what we initially set out to do. On top of learning about Vitruvius and his column theories, I learned a lot about texture baking (although I did not end up using that method), global illumination for a full animation, and advanced multi-pass compositing in After Effects.
