CPSC 3710 Computer Graphic Project

Joanna Huang

Taipei 101 by 3DStudioMax

This is the world's tallest building in Taiwan. The exterior of the building resembles bamboo segments. There are eight stories to each segment because the number "8" signifies prosperous growth, and each segment is shaped like a scepter. Also, there are ancient coins decorated on the exterior of the 26th floor.
	To prevent the building from swaying during typhoons or earthquakes, an 800-ton, US$4 million, ball-shaped damper is used to dissipate lateral vibration to a spring system underneath.
For the first time in architectural history, the damping system is is not hidden, but part of the building's design. This world's largest damper ball has a diameter of 5.5 meters and is visible from the 88th and 89th floors.

This is my project image done by 3DStudioMax. I used many different objects such as boxes, planes, spheres, etc. to build up the Taipei 101 building and other small buildings. These objects were transformed to the desired shape by modifier, like extrude, bevel, and stretch. The surface texture of the buildings was designed in material editor. The background is a big vertical plane which I put behind all the objects.

From doing this project I learned a lot about 3DStudioMax. It is a very powerful program. Because there were so many features in this program, I was very confused when I first started to play with it. Afterwards, it was fun. I feel the most difficult part was to make the object the shape I wanted and locate it properly. Many times I wanted to make an object which was not a standard shape. There could be many different methods to do it, but it needed a lot of drawing. Another skillful technique was lighting. Different ways of lighting give a scene totally different feeling.

I really enjoyed in doing this project. While searching online, I had seen some pictures created by 3DStudioMax, and they looked just like real photographs. That was how this program interested me in learning more.