Photographing the campus buildings

iCreate visited the University yesterday to photograph the various buildings on the campuses for use in the game environment. They covered the whole of the locations at Beaconside, College Road, Leek Road and Blackheath Lane, along with selected parts of the surrounding area.

This gives the basis to start work on the 3D modelling that will make up both the game environment and the "flythrough" of the campuses.

The process took approximately two days to complete and the process involved:

• A guide from the University
• An account handler making sure that the correct areas were photographed
• A photographer.

Initially, we shared our static 2D maps so iCreate could grasp the scope of this part of the brief; we are a two campus university and there is also a split on the Stoke campus (Leek Road, College Road, etc.)

The process was to photograph the campuses at set points, and then spend around 3 weeks modelling. Google Maps and other tools will also be used to show more clearly the area surrounding the University. We have supplied further imagery of the new 6th form college and science centre so that the map can be as realistic as possible.

We have another use for these maps already: iCreate (for an extra cost) will put the maps into an "app-compatible" format so we can show our campus more easily at open days and UCAS events. This will be part of the app that was designed earlier this year.