Stradista Anh Pham wins 1st Place in Twinmotion 3D Visualization Contest

12.2020Firm News, People

By Street Talk Editor

For Strada designer Anh Pham, creating 3D visualizations is more than his job; it’s his hobby. In late October, the skills he’d mastered both during and outside work hours won him a 3D modeling contest from visualization software Twinmotion. The competition was sponsored by the software’s creator, Epic Games. As the first place winner, Anh won $500 and Epic merchandise, and he was also featured in Twinmotion LinkedIn and Facebook posts with the top ten entries. Anh was invited to write this blog post for Twinmotion as well.

This was Epic’s fourth Twinmotion Community Challenge and it was called “One Archicad model, any environment.” Participants received a 3D model of New Zealand’s Len Lye center: a zigzagging, reflective building that honors the namesake artist and houses his collection. The challenge was to create a novel environment for that structure.

For his response, Anh pursued what he called a more conceptual exploration. He duplicated and scaled the facade to achieve the layered quality, and he applied a transparent material to the building exterior. For the environment, Anh opted to pay homage to Len Lye; the lights behind the structure derive from one of Lye’s works called Wind Wand. Anh believes this is what differentiated him from the competition; while most entries focused on creating the craziest, most wild environment for the structure, he took an abstract, emotional route.

“It seems like people were impressed,” he said.

Anh tested out a few concepts before arriving at the final one—first in daylight, then in nighttime settings. “Everything’s better with lighting,” he said of the choices.

 

 

This was Anh’s second Twinmotion competition. He spent a month creating an elaborate environment for his previous entry. He was certain it would wow the judges, though he did not win, his render also made it to top ten.

For this next go-around, Anh said he was busy during the submission period and only had a short amount of time to complete the challenge a couple of days before it was due.

“And boom! I won,” he exclaimed.

Anh compared Twinmotion to the game Sims – in which users generate 3D scenarios with features like cars, people, and trees – and explained that with Twinmotion, architects can also visualize their designs with more realistic materials and various entourages. It’s also very easy to set up virtual cameras to produce high quality images and videos for visual communication with clients.

Anh has been using Twinmotion for nearly 2 years. He introduced this software to Strada because he considered it a superior way to generate 3D visualizations on Mac operating systems. Since then, Anh facilitated a lunch and learn to teach fellow Stradistas about Twinmotion and can be considered a software expert and go-to guy for questions at the firm.

We’re excited to see what Anh does next with Twinmotion! Way to go, Anh!