Fachwerk Imported and Pontification on the State of Second Language Studies

After making some minor tweaks to the museum model inside of Blender, I was finally able to texture- and bump-map the exposed timber work meshes and import them into Unity. Once I got the workflow down, the whole process went very quickly. Main points to remember: (1) make modifications to meshes in Edit Mode, not Object Mode inside of Blender; (2) break up larger mesh objects into smaller ones (select vertices you wish to separate in edit more and then press P-Key); (3) create one base object, apply texture- and bump-maps, and *then* make copies of the mesh (Shift-D in Edit Mode). So far, this is what I got:

Front View, Entire Project

Side View, Close-Up

Back View, Close-Up

Now that the timber work is in, I'll be focusing on getting the window frames completed and perhaps texturing the second floor of the museum. Once that is done, I'll maybe do a quick walk-around in a video.

Finally, a bit of pontification. I've been watching the support and study of second languages at the university level slowly unravel under the weight of the economic recession, with programs at the University of Albany SUNY, University of Toronto, University of Southern California, and elsewhere either get "streamlined" or eliminated altogether. Although I certainly bemoan this trend, I wonder if language professionals have not, in some small part, helped to bring this calamity on their own heads. I was surprised, for example, that at the recent 2010 ACTFL conference in Boston, no panel discussions or exhibitors were addressing the impact the iPads and similar devices could potentially have on the teaching of literature. If second language professionals were more engaged with new and emerging technologies, and actively conducting research (and writing grants) to evaluate this technology in instructional settings, would we be more relevant for a wired world? Would it help to revitalize our profession?