Project Comment

The total invested time in the Villa Rotunda project is close to 80 hours. Most of the objects in the build are adjusted to fit demonstrating the usefulness of the scale command. The clean lines of the project and total number of objects all built right up to the limit of the building inspector is a classic example of the kind of extreme building possible in ActiveWorlds.

While the project is not an exact copy of the opriginal it  is as close to actual building as possible given the limited number of cells avaialble and the limitations of AW Teen object path.  The interior reflects modern upgrades in the same manner as the real life owners.

The effort put into this project will extend beyond the contest as this Palladio villa and will be shown to the staff at the National Building Museum in Washington DC.

Original solutions

I used several particle emitters for effect and zones to manage sounds. The most original solution has to do with the center fountain. The fountain emitter looked great until I checked out the basement where the particles continued from the main floor through the basement. Attempts to get the emitter to not extend through the floor produced an unacceptable fountain above. I elected to to use the anomaly and adjust the model for a leaking floor. First I duplicated the basement below the rotunda and objects visible down  the 4 approach hallways. I rotated the objects 180 degrees and stuck them to the floor. I deleted my center square and used a transparent object with a water texture to create the illusion of a standing water and added a water drop particle emitter. As everything in the room had a mirror object below the overall effect was that of the room mirrored in the water.

Because of the cell limitation for ambient sounds extends well beyond the build. I restricted the water sounds where water was pumped out of the basement using a zone, the rotunda/w leak to uses a circular zone and a long rectangle zone surrounding the water pump as well as the fire sounds in the boiler room. Maintaining continuity of sound allowed those rooms in the house where noise would be at not be heard to coexist with those which had ambient sound.

Building technique and beating the inspector.

The scale command was very useful for several reasons. The first reason was my ability to match my walls for the rooms for ceiling height and length. By using the scale command I avoided using as many as 6 objects for a single wall because I could get away with one object scaled. Further the scale command allowed me to build across maxed out cells. In keeping with the actual villa I avoided wall paintings and went with a uniform flat texture close to the native color of the original villa. I selected tapestries and period paintings for wall decorations. I did however use ceiling paintings which were in vogue at the time the villa was constructed. Some of the pictures I altered so that they appear to be vaulted when in reality they are applied to quite flat object. I also used the scale command to match the ceiling dimensions in each room. I found that I had to use double digit numbers after the decimal point when using the scale command to get good fits. Fortunately the decision to go with the snow1.rwx (scaled) allowed a bit of fudge when placing scaled objects in contex as exact matches due to the floor plan were often not possible.

Later in the build process  I hit the building inspector as was forced to seek solutions to “get by”. In one case I was using a pictwll.rwx object for a rug in one of the entrances. The center point is in the center of the object and the inspector refused to accept it. I changed the object to a pictwll.rwx which has the center point at the base then created the object in the center of the build and walked it forward until the inspector kicked it back. Using the shift key I moved the wall right to the limit then rotated it twice to change its orientation so it was flat on the floor. In another case while placing a faring under the roof of the villa I found it necessary to place my board object at the corner and scale it across a single axis. Instead of multiple boards I could get by with just three. Object savings accompanied by the free ride though overloaded cells made possible to extended building beyond the inspectors objections.

Villa Rotunda

Several weeks ago I attended a lecture and film about the villas created by Andrea Palladio in the 16^th Century.

Andrea Palladio was born in Padua, Italy in 1508 He created a host of religious building but is best known for his villa built in ad around Florence and Vicenza Italy. His most enduring architectural achievement is the perpetuation of his style and rules of building still used to produce classic buildings. The White House and Monticello are based on his work. I was particularly taken by the Villa Capra, or Villa Rotunda and decided that rather than building something strange and wonderful I’d attempt to build a villa based on Villa Rotunda.

Sizing up the project

I conducted a considerable amount of research, examined floor plans and pictures while mining the web for textures to be used in the project. I then looked at the objects on the EBST4 object path (AWTeen) and discovered that many of the required objects were available. Innovation would be required. I was initially not concerned with the building inspector as the contest world was set to ultra.  I underestimated and ended up having to find new ways to trick the inspector into letting me have an object.

Initial construction began with the basement and built up. My choice for walls required thickness  so I chose the snow1.rwx (scaled) because I did not want to double up on thin objects to make walls which would require two objects to get the same effect (eg,two wall flat wall objects). I was mindful that regardless how I built the villa the part requirement was sure to hit the building inspector eventually.  After much study I elected to not build the third floor and the staircases hidden in the corners of the rotunda as the stairs alone would blow the cell limit. Additionally the total number of cells allotted for the contest entry severely restricted some building freedoms and required paring the project scale. Economies were in order and observed.