Project 2: Relief Mapping

Sowmya Rajendran   //  Brittany Jones  //   Maryam Khoddami

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Concept

Mandalas are schematics that are primarily utilized in many Eastern religions to visually represent metaphysical, spiritual and religious significance. The term, mandala, means “circle” in Sanskrit, and its etymological history is evident in the visually balanced compositions and concentric forms exhibited by a majority of these diagrams. With this project, we wanted to evoke the same meditative experiences presented by these intricate structures through our explorations in imagery, light, and sound. 

Process

We began to brainstorm as a group and did some quick rough sketches of some mandala designs. At first, we wanted to build a structure that would be separated into different parts. However, we changed our concept and decided on a structure that would be built as one piece. The relief was modelled and UV unwrapped in Maya and taken into Pepakura & Rhino for layout. While putting the model together, we noticed that the back of the model was not completely flat when hung on the wall. We learned that additional support was needed in the back to alleviate overall deformation and warping of the structure. We plan to remedy these problems in the next few weeks as we redesign and rebuild the structure to accommodate these changes. Finally, a spatial scan and calibration was done on the model in MadMapper.

Next, we focused on content creation. We wanted to split the model into three main layers that followed each implied concentric circle on the model itself, much like how mandalas are usually formed – the inner, middle, and external structure. We took inspiration from the 1977 film by Charles and Ray Eames, titled Powers of Ten, which surveyed the overall scale and magnitude of the cosmos from the tiniest of particles expanding all the way to the edges of the universe. We wanted the three main layers on our mandala (inner, middle, and external) to represent the broad orders of magnitude outlined in Eames’ film – composed from a microscopic to macroscopic perspective. We took content from an educational video on space and trimmed/masked the videos into three shape layers in After Effects. The compositions were further abstracted through Modul8 via filters & effects, and syphoned back into MadMapper. Since UVs were already set on the model, the third layer was applied as a texture.

Powers of Ten (1977)

We created two sets of animated lines – one set to multiply with a flow animation and the second as an overlay with a transparent animation. Due to these settings, areas of intersections between two sets of lines had a more radiant quality and consequently created a constellation type pattern on the model, thus enhancing the celestial nature of the piece. In addition, we really wanted to take advantage of the spill light (especially coming from the inner layer), which illuminated the surrounding geometry and gave a greater sense of depth to the piece.

Finished Piece