Control and Encouragement. One door screams “OPEN ME!” The other door can’t be opened.

As I was developing my BIMx competition entry, I tried to give each room or area in the file something special. There was the zombie soldier with the axe in his back walking towards the tank, the horde of zombies in the yard, the blackened trees, the ominous sky, the burned out upper story, the hole in the floor when you enter the master bathroom that drops you down to the lower level, and–among other things–the GAME OVER room. But there was one area I just didn’t have any ideas for. I didn’t want to leave it empty, so I locked it.

How do you lock doors in BIMx?

A thin wall directly behind the door blocks entry into the room beyond. In this image the black wall and the door trim occupy the same space.

In BIMx you can’t walk through walls. So by placing a wall directly behind a door, the door becomes impenetrable and the room is blocked. For dramatic purposes (in case anyone thought to turn on the fly mode, which allows the ghostly ability to move through walls), I made the blocking wall eerily matte black. I love this solution because it allows you to hide areas that are not modeled. However sometimes you don’t have a door to lock. If that’s the case, use a 100% transparent wall. Your clients will be able to look into the area, but not travel into it because the transparent wall(s) completely block off the area.

What if the wall isn’t 100% transparent?

The Game Over room uses a variant of the blocking wall. Here’s the room from a bird’s eye view.

The red translucent wall tints everything red, giving the effect of a classic first person shooter Game Over screen. The red walls enhance the effect. The red translucent wall also prevents you from actually approaching the zombies in this room, enhancing the Game Over experience. The 3D text object sits in front of the wall so that it replicates the abrupt text showing up on the screen, overlaying the last image of the monster killing you.