3D Atlanta big update

It has been over half a year since the last update on the 3D Atlanta project. Nonetheless, the project has constant been evolving and maturing. The 3D Atlanta group and I have been high at work to contribute our best to the project. At the time of the previous update, the project had a few buildings at the corner of Decatur and Central Ave. We have since expanded from that corner to cover the city block bounded by Pryor, Decatur, Wall St, and Whitehall St (now Peachtree St SW). We also 3D modeled and situated one of the most important and historical landmark of Atlanta, the Kimball House.

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As a 3D graphics enthusiast, I spent a good deal of attention to the visual aspect of the project. The project, for now, is in form of a game created in the Unity game engine which gives users the ability to try out the immersive experience of virtual reality with stunning graphics capability. Users will be able to relive the old Atlanta in both the lively daytime and quiet night time. The day and night cycle is automated seamlessly giving the expression that the world is changing day by day in the game. Here are a few screenshots from the project to give you a closer look at what we have been up to.

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(Corner of Central and Decatur looking North)

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(Kimball House Wall St side)

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(Kimball House Pryor side)

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(Bailey’s 81 Theatre at the break of dawn)

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(Kimball House in the afternoon)

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(Kimball House Wall St side in the evening)

All in all, I am very excited about what we can do with Unity and how promising the future of the project is. Also, we are collaborating with Emory, who is also working on a similar project, to combine our effort in making the project more grand. I hope you are as excited as we are.

2 thoughts on “3D Atlanta big update

  1. Great work Jack. I like especially the “Kimball House in the afternoon” snap shot and also the night effect with the yellow tinge from the street lights.
    Since you’ve created them in Unity and some of the buildings are being created in blender. How effective is the rendering going to be when we import stuff from Blender to Unity? Do you think the Unity game engine rendering is close to blender render or the cycles render?

    • It’s quite comparable to Blender cycles but it can’t be as good. Blender cycles uses ray tracing technique to simulate how light reacts to objects in real life so it can create more realistic lighting effects like light bounces or reflections. Unity uses real-time 3D engines like OpenGL or Direct X to render the objects. It can imitate real-life lighting but it can never simulate it like cycles. If you’re trying to make a static image or a video where rendering time is not an issue then you should opt for Blender. Otherwise, you should use Unity.

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