CM Final Project: Matique Art Gallery
The problem
For Haley Mordini and Bella’s final project they created 2d and 3d patterns for artwork that they displayed in their online gallery. They created a wide range of different 2d patterns in Rhino and Grasshopper that they then exported to OBJ, before adding different materials to the designs in Adobe Dimension. The purpose of the project was to experiment with creating 2d and 3d patterns in Rhino and Grasshopper and showcase their skills. The problem they set out to solve was to execute creating more complex 2d and 3d patterns in Rhino and Grasshopper to improve their skills in the software. Haley and Bella also created a brand identity for their gallery and a website where they showcase all of their artwork. Their goal was to create high quality artwork using Rhino and Grasshopper that inspires design students to expand their skills by using various platforms and programs.
About
The project was about expanding Haley and Bella’s skills in Rhino and Grasshopper to create 3d parametric designs to display on their online gallery. Haley created five designs by following Parametric House’s tutorials, and Bella created four different designs. Even though they both had some experience with creating 2D patterns in Rhino and Grasshopper alreatd, they were able to improve their skills significantly during this project. They are also very passionate about branding and they wanted to include showcasing their branding skills in the project as well. They created a brand book for the art gallery, which includes logo, color palette, typefaces, and mockups.
Goals
Haley and Bella accomplished their goals by first, sharing their ideas and making a plan on how work would be distributed between the two of them. They did a lot of research on what type of designs and patterns they liked, and watched a variety of tutorials teaching them how to create these. They then came together to discuss how many designs they should each do, and set a deadline for when these should be completed. After completing the designs in Rhino and Grasshopper they got help from RJ on how to export the designs to Adobe Dimension so that they could add different materials to their designs. The rendering of the designs was a very time consuming process. Haley and Bella were good at communicating their thoughts and ideas, so that the end result turned out exactly how they wanted it. The next step of the process was to work on the brand book. They researched different fonts and colors that would align with their brand mission. They wrote down a long list of different names for their gallery and came to a quick agreement on which one they liked the best. Then they came together and created the online gallery website on Squarespace and uploaded their designs.
Resources
Haley and Bella worked in Rhino, Grasshopper to create their 3d parametric patterns. They used Adobe dimension to achieve high fidelity when creating mockups for their art making it as close as possible to a true representation of their artwork. They rendered their artwork in Adobe Dimension and placed their pattern designs into a scene for scale and to give them some materials and lighting for realism. They used all kinds of different patterns for their patterns; such as; metal, gold, aluminium, 3D printed mesh, brass etc. They found all their tutorials for their designs on the Parametric House website which were tutorials easy to follow. For showcasing their designs online they used squarespace.
Tutorials:
Mechanism Panels
Rotating Tower
Parametric Wall
Felix Candela Shell
Truchet Tiles
Random
Octree
Parametric Fields
Multipipe
Challenges
The first challenge they came across was figuring out how to export their Rhino files to Adobe Dimension. They easily overcame this challenge by getting guidance from RJ on how to export their files and to edit them to get them to the final versions that they desired. The next challenge they encountered was that they were unable to do some of the tutorials they wanted because the Rhino Plugins that they needed for those tutorials were not compatible with Mac computers. They overcame these challenges by picking tutorials that did not require plugins and by finding plugins that worked with Mac computers. Some of the plugins that didn’t work with their computers were LunchBox, Parakeet, Anemone and more. This challenge made them have very limited options of what tutorials they could use but they were able to find other tutorials that they liked and they are happy with the final products of their artwork.
What worked? What didn’t?
Haley and Bella were able to manage to get everything they wanted to work. As stated above, Haley and Bella ran into some challenges of things not working such as the plugins not being compatible with their computers. However, they were able to figure out a solution by finding other tutorials that were not as advanced and didn’t require as many plugins. Once, they got all of their 3d models exported from Rhino, it was a very easy and simple process importing them into Adobe Dimension. In Adobe Dimension, they edited the lighting and material to their liking and then rendered their models. The longest part of this process was waiting for their 3d models to render. Once all of their models were rendered, they uploaded them to their website and created mock ups for their brand book.
If this was part of a larger long-term project, what milestones did they hit?
This project will not be part of a long-term project. Haley and Bella got the desired outcome that they wanted. They will be using the materials from this project for their design portfolios to display skills across multiple different areas of design; including parametric design, web design and branding.
What’s next
The next steps for this project is simply just uploading their brand book to their portfolio websites.
Major takeaways
This project allowed them to expand on their skills and knowledge using Rhino and Grasshopper. They both feel that they are more comfortable using these softwares and plan to continue to use these skills in their professional careers.
