Spellcaster Studios Reel

This is our presentation reel.

You can see some of our notable productions, with our original sound track by our friend João Camacho: http://www.sonicdaze.com/

Watermill Virtual Tour

In this video we show the interactive application for the Virtual Tour to the Watermill.

The navigation was simplified to help less info-experienced people to use it.

Instead of a FPS game navigation, we have point-of-interest points where you can travel to. On those, you have full control of the camera direction.

You can travel outside and inside the Watermill building.

Interactive Exploded / Assembly View

In this post, we show the a movie of the interactive exploded view of the Watermill’s engine.
Any part of the engine can be selected and the assembly of its components is shown.
Of course, as in any good 3d interactive application, the camera is under the user’s control.

Remarkable Buildings

Some remarkable buildings in Santa Cruz, modeled in 3d.

The Watermill (with Guincho Rock in background)

The Japanese poet Kazuo Dan lived many years in Santa Cruz and got inspired for many poems and paintings there.

Kazuo Dan's Memorial

Kazuo Dan's House

Continue reading…

Santa Cruz Evolution from XX Century Beggining until Today

In this application we wanted to show the evolution of Santa Cruz from the beginning of the XX Century until today.

We decided to perform some changes:

• We need some close ups on the hand modeled buildings;
• We’ll add another bar which will control the travel path.

This way we’ll keep the navigation simplicity but allowing to access any point in the travel path in any period of time.

We’ll keep the XX Century ortho-photo-map to help understanding the evolution of the village.

Creation of the 3d Model

For the creation of the 3d model of Santa Cruz, we took several steps:

1. We used the AutoCAD terrain curves and points to generate a 3d mesh of the terrain. This area have some cool cliffs for this technique;
2. The terrain mesh was textured using the ortho-photo-maps of Santa Cruz (they have a better resolution than the satellite ones);
3. As the buildings heights didn’t exist in digital format, we had to add the heights manually, from the planimetry printouts (ouch….);
4. The buildings meshes were generated from the planimetry AutoCAD info, the heights DB, raised above the ground level;
5. Finally, some remarkable buildings were modeled, manually. They’re textured using photographies. This step has more fun, for us

Watermill from XV Century Until 1920

This part of the Interactive Application allow you to see in 3d real time the evolution of the Watermill.

We’re used to be impressed with old castles and palaces, but a 600 years old Watermill has its charm!

Continue reading…

Old Photos and Videos

Santa Cruz

In the Municipality, city Museum and several Associations in the area, there are old pictures and videos of Santa Cruz.

The goal is to bundle them together on a nice presentation to be shown at the Interactive Center.

It’s amazing how the village grew in the last 30 years.

Santa Cruz’ Watermill Interactive Center

Santa Cruz' Watermill

Spellcaster Studios won a tender for the production of  interactive content for the Interactive Center of Santa Cruz’ Watermill.

This is a very exciting project as we’re talking about a XV century watermill that was in production until mid XX century and was now recovered.

Continue reading…