Michael Van Beek

i agree. i think i do pretty well at envisioning a space in my mind when designing, but this is always imperfect. I think it is extremely helpful to throw initial design ideas into 3ds to get a clear idea of what is working, viewsheds, scale ect… then pull back and design more. I think people should take advantage of the flexibility of using the…[Read more]

just to let you all know, when i put up the new images of the week i will place the old ones in the gallery. I also put a topic for discussion in there. If you know of any firms you want me to take a look at for next week let me know. also if you would like me to mix in some of your personal work let me know. first images of the week worked out! right on.

hahaha. well i guess i wasnt doing it correctly. im a dork of dorks.

honestly im not sure of the landuse protocol around turbines. I think you have to give up a little space for infrastructure but beyond that youre golden… but in any case i like the mvrdv rendering too. Squint/Opera just has so much depth and richness in their renderings, they are like pieces of art. Stinks that i cant theive the pics off their…[Read more]

links work. it gives me something to do and makes me feel important. ill take a look.

yes. im only going to remark on some of the changes that i have experienced in my almost 4 years here at NDSU but im sure now that the group has grown, other past and present students will have things to add. Things are exciting right now, we have what i think is a talented, knowledgable, and most importantly, a stable core of LA professors in our…[Read more]

thanks for the link. pretty talanted people, its interesting to see how they tell a story and the proportion of graphics to images and overall style. Once you start to use these programs you begin to understand the amount of work that goes into those productions.

im leaning towards rendered images but if its something closely related i guess that would work too. they dont have to be your own. just something you think is worth everyone looking at. its not like “hey look at me” its more “hey look at this” and james there isnt any judging, its whatever.. i dont think im going to get enough images where i…[Read more]

this is a callout for images of the week submissions. please send them to my university account. michael.vanbeek@ndsu.edu. if you are unsure of an image’s relevance send it anways, ill check it out. hopefully there is interest for this out there. if you have any other ideas post them up i would appreciate it.

im going to put up a new “discussion” called image of the week, ill post it on mondays because its everyone’s favorite day.

checked out designreform. havent taken a look at any tutorials yet but looks promising. quite a few tutorials, thanks for the link… ill check it out when i have time to breathe

This group is intended to be a conduit for communication between alumni and students. The group will also give other Landscape professionals a glimps of what the NDSU Landscape Architecture program has to offer. Items to be included: recent projects of all levels. current events. asla functions. chewing the fat / discussion forum. AND MUCH MORE!!…[Read more]

well, 3ds 2009 has intro tutorials. im not totally sure about 2008 but i bet it does too. do all of those, they will get you acquainted with some of the basics. from there find tutorials online, there are plenty of free ones area.autodesk.com is a good start. dont worry about finding landscape specific tutorials just do some. learning the tools is…[Read more]

any discussion topic ideas?

idk. 3ds is such a complex program that there many ways to do the same thing, these ways subsequently produce different end products. It takes an eye for compositon and color just like hand rendering does. Different designers have different styles but to me i think it is valuable to bring representations as close to reality as possible. I also…[Read more]

looks good. what helped me a lot was doing tutorials area.autodesk.com has some good ones. its good to just mess around with the program, learn about textures, modeling lighting, ect… by the way those images i posted were created by Kavan Donohue and James Fink. I often try to take all of the credit for their work.

here are a couple renderings. questions, critiques, comments… all are encouraged. post your work. sharing is caring.