"Ightham Mote"
3DFM was formed more than a year ago. Both artists have been involved in Web and graphic design for many years, working both commercially and for their own enjoyment. As 3DFM, Francesca Crolley and Martin Judd work with Adobe Atmosphere 3D software. They became involved with Adobe Atmosphere a little over three years ago during its beta-testing stage. Both were intrigued with the possibilities of using 3D in a web-based environment and were driven to find ways to push the limits and create a whole interactive experience for people online.
Having worked with Adobe Atmosphere for the past three years, they enjoy recreating historical places and developing interactive environments that people can visit online. In fact, one of the company's focuses is on recreating historical places, enabling people to visit these majestic sites online in full detail, and allowing those sites to reach out and share their stories. A recent project that they intend to unveil soon was done for the owner of Westenhanger Castle in the UK; it is a recreation of the castle as it is now. For another environment, they used the floor plans of the original castle to show what it may have looked like during its glory.
In addition to Atmosphere, they use Adobe Photoshop for texture work, and Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver to add interface interactivity. JavaScript is used to add motion and animated elements to the environments. Viewpoint is also a technology used within the environments to add certain elements, such as Flash movies inside Atmosphere, facer planes, and mesh objects. They have used Avatar Lab from Curious Labs to create environment specific avatars. MySQl database integration is another specialty of 3DFM, allowing for Atmosphere-created objects to be added into environments online by the Web site visitor. (A demo is offered online at www.atmokits.com.) The artists used Adobe Audition for their sound editing work, as well as employed Adobe Acrobat, which enables a 3D environment to be embedded within a PDF file. Among the workstations they use are PCs with Windows XP operating systems and an HP Pavillion 7855.
The Ightham Mote pictures are from a recreation of a manor house in Kent, UK, dating from the 14th century. Westenhanger castle is a similar recreation of a castle in the UK. The Castlenight image represents their vision of how it was before time took its toll. Motel Diner is from an interactive environment they created to replicate an old murder mystery feel. To see other environments in 3D from 3DFM, visit www.3dfmmediamagic.com.