INSIDE THE BUBBLE. (WOODHAY AI)

 In theory I was just placing an instance of the church model at an elevation of about 150m, within the churchyard, but inevitably whenever I look at one of these massing studies for any length of time I find myself wanting to do updates. I started with an improvement to the window family so that it shows up on both sides of the extrusion that represents a wall. Then of course I went inside to check how this was working.

 

Revit has always been an application that favours orthographic and isometric views for modelling but we did get true perspective without a crop region a few years ago, and this can sometimes be a great way to model interior elements. It’s been a while since I did much of this and it was rarely in Family Editor, so I got quite excited about fleshing out the interior of the West Woodhay church in a perspective view. For the most part, these are extrusions, but I did convert the roof truss into a nested family after a while. Better for memory management and for things lime arrays.  I also created a pew family of variable length. That’s going to be applicable to most churches.

 

I don’t have views of the North wall, so can only guess at the fenestration. It’s clear now that the spacing of the trusses and placement of windows must follow a connected logic. Not much point in speculating further until I get the chance to visit. Of course I never expected to take these simple “LOD100” massing families quite so far, but there’s nothing better that when a learning project takes you to new places.

 

Here's one of the joys of old age, waking up in the middle of the night... repeatedly. Sometimes I embrace the quiet time and subtle energy of one of the wakeful interludes and put it to work. Of course afternoon naps are also a thing. Perhaps the endgame is a life of many more, shorter days, existing in bursts of bright energy between battery charges.

It's 5am and I've been lying awake with my phone for quite a while, culminating in discovering for the first time that AI has become a truly useful supplement to my work.  I used Google Gemini after failing to figure out Stable Diffusion. Starting with a screenshot from Revit of the interior of St Laurence, West Woodhay by Sir Arthur Blomfield. Here are the prompts.

• ​Add people to this church interior (Initial Request)
• ​Place candlesticks on the altar and stained glass in the windows
• ​Add a watercolour effect to the image
• ​Add boarding lines to the wooden ceiling

I made the collage in my usual way with PIXLR. I tried with Gemini but it couldn't remember back more than one prompt. So I think this qualifies as a true collaboration between me, traditional software and AI.

Best of all, making the original Revit model is my favourite activity and helps me to understand the why questions. Populating with entourage is just a chore that I rarely attempt. But it's sure nice to have if I can get there in 10 or 15 minutes. By the way, notice how Gemini/Banana boy took some initiative and gave the floor an interesting texture. Not archaeologically accurate but quite plausible. 😎