Visualizing Architecture

Developer Profile: Zerofractal.

Zerofractal uses Unity to deliver its architecture visualization product to clients. We got cofounder and R&D director, Alejandro Gonzales to tell us a little about their work.

Who are you?

I am the cofounder and the R&D director for Zerofractal Animation Studios and Zerofractal Interactive. While my original background is that of an architect, I've been involved in a wide range of projects different to architecture, from visual design, 3D animation, video, virtual tours, web development and of course, my favorite, R&D.

What kind of work does Zerofractal do?

Zerofractal does all of the above plus a bit more. Our main services portfolio for the animation studio is TV spots, TV show packaging, character design and animation, visual effects and post-production. We also have a strong set of visual communication solutions for real estate projects, which includes renderings, virtual tours, design for print, web and now virtual reality. As for Interactive, we do web, multimedia and special projects that involve our multidisciplinary team of designers, developers and animators.

What project are you working on?

Our latest R&D project is called FractalReality: An interactive visual simulator for real estate project promotion. Our tool is basically conceived as a turnkey, ready to use console or kiosk, which allows the potential buyers to visit the project as if it was built. It gives a new high impact experience to the end user by offering the ability to use a game pad to move as desired. This means that the user can visit the unit at their own pace and focus on whatever they want.

We developed different approaches for different kind of spaces. From virtual scale models for exteriors, to panoramic solutions for small spaces, to fully interactive free movement scenarios, which we call "walk around", they can all be delivered with FractalReality. What's so special about our solution is that we managed to recreate with a very high level of realism the natural lighting and finishes our customers expect from us.

Which apps did you use on the project?

Besides our normal 3D pipeline we only needed to use Unity. This is a very important point since it made it very easy and cost effective to integrate.

How long did you spend?

emm.. about 2 hours after downloading the trial :)

Well actually we came to Unity after about 2 to 3 years of trying out several 3D solutions, building proof of concepts, researching and finally, what is more difficult, preparing our clients for this new generation of marketing tools. Driving real estate developers to gaming technology can be very challenging.

What were the results?

The reception on FractalReality has been fantastic. We have two projects that have implemented the solution, and numerous other projects on the works. We believe this is a nice complement to other marketing tools because it enhances the overall experience and gets the most out of technology by captivating the audience with an innovative tool.

While traditionally virtual tours were based on continuous "walk though" camera sequences that traveled along the project, "walk around" simulations are becoming a natural evolution to this concept. We believe that "walk arounds" are a better way to get a clear idea of the unit's spatiality by implementing a non-linear approach.

This does not mean that Virtual tours will disappear; it means that they have to evolve as well. Actually this is already happening. Virtual tours are evolving into commercial videos, which aim at showing the project's highlights and identity in a span of 3 to 5 minutes. The focus is not depicting the actual spatiality but rendering a clear message of the project's lifestyle. This requires more pre-and post-production but has become a very appealing area of expertise for us. It's simply making a smarter use of the video format.

Can you describe the development process?

We faced a lot of obstacles on the project, from finding the right tools to develop on, to even waiting for graphics hardware to make it even possible to create complex high quality real time sceneries.

From the first time we thought about real-time and researching on software tools available we constantly found that they did not deliver exactly what we needed, which was a flexible, easy to use editor which allowed our designers to eventually ensemble projects very quickly without having to do much programming. Unity offered all of the flexibility we needed.

To make it possible for non-programmers to use the tool, we worked hard on developing a set of proprietary Unity additions or prefabs which actually let our CG artists put together FractalReality applications on the fly without any programming knowledge. We created a menu system, in which the designer chooses a number of levels, an environment, a project logo and "voila". For each interactivity method we implemented a prefab. This made it very nice to integrate to our process.

What was the best part of the Unity experience?

To make it short, easy to use, easy to extend, and it offers seamless integration to our production pipeline via FBX.