3D Design &
Master’s Thesis
Below displays selections from my master’s thesis project along with samples from the work in progress. View fuller details on this project, download the Master’s Thesis book, and view the final presentation. Also view the trailer to the thesis story “War & Music” created in Unreal Engine + Davinci.
This project involved a nine-month endeavor to create a prototype of a protagonist creature and design the world in which they lived, all in alignment with their narrative. The core objective of the master’s program was to master the adaptation of a cohesive design framework to meet the specific needs and mindset of any group or subculture profile. This exercise unlocked the ability to analyze both familiar and unfamiliar profiles, allowing for the creative exploration of features unique to their worlds while maintaining a unified collection. If a designer can craft an alien world, what demographic, culture, or profile can they not adapt?
We crafted a storyline that served as the premise for the development of a protagonist species, a domain, a city environment, vehicles (one public, one private) and a transit system, and a map of our alien world all modeled with the 3D and computational software programs introduced per chapter. Projects were broken into five chapters over the course of nine months.
Cosmogony
Alien World Map
Created in Rhino / Grasshopper; Photoshop, and Illustrator
This chapter focused on creating a world map to the alien world we created. The context of the story took place on a curious tree sprouting from nothing within asteroid belt. Erected in space as an autonomous planet, the tree divided into three tribes and consisted of numerous networks. About the tree’s periphery, the geometric patterns represent the districts emerging from the protagonist species.
DesignMorphine, University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy
Kinesis
Metro
Docking
Station
Created in Maya
This chapter focused on the transportation components within our alien world. Networks, vehicles and parking stations dressed the main city of our alien world. Modeled in Maya using non deform bend and twist tools. Renders utilized the same materials of the public vehicle for consistency. A challenge to each chapter project included introducing abstract and complex themes into scenes into what would be represented as 2D imagery. Representing the quantum world without losing the representational characteristics we created that detailed the geometry proved to be especially challenging. In order to implement suggestive properties of a quantum world, this chapter introduced the implementation of the Möbius strip. In the fields of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Computing, physicists implement the Möbius strip to study topology for purposes such as designing quantum circuits, learning new states of matter, and understanding quantum phase transitions. Implementing a quadrupled Möbius strip served the dual purpose of also permitting subtle representation of musical characters, such as geometry similar to the arabesque shape of the G Clef.
Rendering completed by John Kirk Drogsvold.
DesignMorphine, University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy
Kinesis
Underground
Docking
Station
Created in Houdini and Maya
Inspired by the concept of dripping tree sap forming rotund pods fit to house the private vehicle underground, the public parking hangs from the ceiling of underground cave-like pockets inside the residential units. The units suspend from copper pipes inspired by brass instruments. At certain angles, the pipes round like the shape of a trombone.
The pods were created in Houdini by distorting and subdividing a sphere. After blasting select subdivisions for openings, grouped subdivision normals were extruded to create the dripping effects and paneling was applied to each pod. The copper pipes and grime texture were modeled in Maya.
DesignMorphine, University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy
Kinesis
Public Vehicle
Created in Houdini, Rhino, and Maya
Modeled in Rhino, Houdini, and Maya, this vehicle was built to foray deep into space as well as to traverse terrestrial grounds. The public vehicle was constructed using a procedural series of rotations, movement and scaling from a blasted and fused base model created in Rhino.
The public vehicle can hold up to 30 individuals. After constructing the initial base model in Rhino, the structure was deconstructed to recreate the original legs and to design a new, secondary set. This new set featured virus-shaped spikes, which increased in size corresponding to the arm’s circumference as it tapered. Houdini enabled further detailing, such as carving concave curvatures into the vehicle’s internal arms and creating paneling through a series of nodes involving blasting, subdivision, and fusing techniques. Final touches to the geometry to fix minor imperfections and rendering were performed in Maya. Rendering materials and details mimicked imagery from Midjourney inspirations.
DesignMorphine, University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy
Kinesis
Public Vehicle Interior
Created in Rhino
Rendered in Maya
Public Vehicle
The interior of the vehicle included two floors. More details to come…
DesignMorphine, University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy
Amalgamation
Alien Cityscape
Created in Maya, Blender, and Rhino/Grasshopper
This design imagined the metropolitan environment for the alien world we imagined. The protagonist species we imagined inhabited a bioorganic environment within a canyon of the colossal tree planet and was constructed from sap, gold, and the natural tree environment. The color scheme chosen for this world maintained subdued hues intended to cultivate the morose tone of the dystopian society.
My contributions to this project included designing all but the central towers, including the public stations, the environmental canyon shell, and the residential units climbing the walls of the environment. Textures for the shell environment were created by my cocreator who also completed most of the environmental renders.
DesignMorphine, University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy
Alien Cityscape
Residential Unit
Final +
Work in Progress
Created in Maya + Rhino/Grasshopper
Alien Cityscape
Public Space
Final +
Work in Progress
Created in Maya
+ Blender
Alien Cityscape
Environment
Work in Progress
Created in ZBrush + Maya
Cyborg
Lab Furniture
Suspension Pods
+ Lab Chairs
Created in ZBrush + Keyshot
My group during the first two chapters of the master’s program focused on the story of a cyborg on an alien planet that evolved via artifacts received from an earthly time capsule. The technologically driven race of the species that profited from the capsule spent much time in a lab, necessitating lab furniture, some equipped to connect to ventilation tubes and wires to charge the cyborg space suit. Colors for this project included neon blues, pinks, and purples.
DesignMorphine, University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy
