Remixing real and imaginary in art education with fully immersive virtual reality

This article explores digital material/ism by examining student teachers’ experiences, processes and products with fully immersive virtual reality (VR) as part of visual art education. The students created and painted a virtual world, given the name Gretan puutarha (‘Greta’s Garden’), using the Google application Tilt Brush. They also applied photogrammetry techniques to scan 3D objects from the real world in order to create 3D models for their VR world. Additionally, they imported 2D photographs and drawings along with applied animated effects to construct their VR world digitally, thereby remixing elements from real life and fantasy. The students were asked open-ended questions to find out how they created art virtually and the results were analysed using Burdea’s VR concepts of immersion, interaction and imagination. Digital material was created intersubjectively and intermedially while it was also remixed with real and imaginary. Various webs of meanings were created, both intertextual and rhizomatic in nature.This article explores digital material/ism by examining student teachers’ experiences, processes and products with fully immersive virtual reality (VR) as part of visual art education. The students created and painted a virtual world, given the name Gretan puutarha (‘Greta’s Garden’), using the Google application Tilt Brush. They also applied photogrammetry techniques to scan 3D objects from the real world in order to create 3D models for their VR world. Additionally, they imported 2D photographs and drawings along with applied animated effects to construct their VR world digitally, thereby remixing elements from real life and fantasy. The students were asked open-ended questions to find out how they created art virtually and the results were analysed using Burdea’s VR concepts of immersion, interaction and imagination. Digital material was created intersubjectively and intermedially while it was also remixed with real and imaginary. Various webs of meanings were created, both intertextual and rhizomatic in nature.Peer reviewe

Combining Procedural and Hand Modeling Techniques for Creating Animated Digital 3D Natural Environments

This thesis focuses on a systematic solution for rendering 3D photorealistic natural environments using Maya\u27s procedural methods and ZBrush. The methods used in this thesis started with comparing two industry specific procedural applications, Vue and Maya\u27s Paint Effects, to determine which is better suited for applying animated procedural effects with the highest level of fidelity and expandability. Generated objects from Paint Effects contained the highest potential through object attributes, texturing and lighting. To optimize results further, compatibility with sculpting programs such as ZBrush are required to sculpt higher levels of detail. The final combination workflow produces results used in the short film Fall. The need for producing these effects is attributed to the growth of the visual effect industry\u27s ability to deliver realistic simulated complexities of nature and as such, the public\u27s insatiable need to see them on screen. Usually, however, the requirements for delivering a photorealistic digital environment fall under tight deadlines due to various phases of the visual effects project being interconnected across multiple production houses, thereby requiring the need for effective methods to deliver a high-end visual presentation. The use of a procedural system, such as an L-system, is often an initial step within a workflow leading toward creating photorealistic vegetation for visual effects environments. Procedure-based systems, such as Maya\u27s Paint Effects, feature robust controls that can generate many natural objects. A balance is thus created between being able to model objects quickly, but with limited detail, and control. Other methods outside this system must be used to achieve higher levels of fidelity through the use of attributes, expressions, lighting and texturing. Utilizing the procedural engine within Maya\u27s Paint Effects allows the beginning stages of modeling a 3D natural environment. ZBrush\u27s manual system approach can further bring the aesthetics to a much finer degree of fidelity. The benefit in leveraging both types of systems results in photorealistic objects that preserve all of the procedural and dynamic forces specified within the Paint Effects procedural engine

The artist within

The Arts lead the way in facilitating our creative individualism in opening up our imagination to future innovations: ‘Our conceptual life, shaped by the imagination and the qualities of the world experienced, gives rise to the intentions that direct our activities. Intentions are rooted in the imagination. Intentions depend upon our ability to recognise what is and yet to imagine what might be.’ (Eisner, p.7) This paper draws on over 10 years experience as a workshop tutor on the Open University MBA residential schools in Creative Management, running from 2 to 4 days. These residential schools engaged participants in a psychologically safe environment where creativity flourished, in which they could be flexible, receptive, and open to new experiences. There was a willingness to play around with new ideas, and to experiment with their possibilities back in the workplace. As workshop tutor I will reflect on the lessons learnt in facilitating with highly arts-based right-brained approach versus a logically structured left-brained approach. The aim of using a right-brained approach was to enable participants to experience challenges, which were both enjoyable and energetic and to have the freedom to be independent and take initiatives. A liveliness was experienced which led to feeling excitedly busy with an openness to trust each other and take the time to generate new ideas. Above all the arts-based workshops: created mood settings in which happiness and humour was expressed; allowed debates involving contentious ideas to be voiced; enabled conflicts to be handled constructively; gave support where participants listened attentively; and encouraged risk-taking at a emotional level

Drawing Light in the Cave: Embodied Spatial Drawing in Virtual Reality with Agency and Presence

This thesis project began as an exploration of the ways in which Virtual Reality (VR) could revolutionize drawing. What I learned through this research journey was that drawing could also revolutionize how we see, and therefore, what we can do, in VR. I will begin by establishing a contextual background about the vision that some artists and theorists have had about the potential of VR over the past three decades. These individuals hoped to see VR become a tool that could help us learn to see and do things differently than the conventions of our everyday reality. Throughout this background context, I will form links to how three themes in VR: agency, presence, and embodiment, are all linked to drawing. With a focus on creative works made in VR, I will summarize the challenges to embodiment that I observed through my design research. I will present the pivotal insight in my research: that the root of these challenges lies in the use of linear perspective, a drawing method that evolved into a coordinate system that now underpins computer graphics systems. I will propose that an alternative method of drawing in perspective is made possible through VR; one that is based on the perceptual qualities of how we naturally see. In addition, I will show how VR also offers the possibility of drawing in an embodied way through techniques of spatial gesture drawing. Lastly, I will present two methods for applying these concepts for creatives working with 3D geometry in VR. While these methods will help creators today, I hope that this research can contribute to the innovation of VR software and tools

Character modelling for AAA videogames

This work deals with the creation of a 3D character, focused on videogames, inspired by the art of Kingdom Hearts and Disney/Pixar, choosing Ratatouille as the theme of the character. For this, the references used are both from the movies and from the art books of the movie to obtain a character that will be correctly integrated into the video game, since the game is very inspired by the movies, we have tried to obtain an art that is as similar to the film as possible. Realistic hair has been created from technologies that have been investigated such as XGen, which is a Maya tool that allows them to be created. To integrate it into a video game, it has also been studied how to make a correct retopology of the hair since otherwise each hair would be formed by a curve and there may be thousands of them, so rendering them in an engine harms the performance of the scene, each time less due the advances that are being made in them. There has also been an apprenticeship on how to create clothes through other software such as Marvelous Designer, which allows you to create garments through patterns and fabric simulation. Finally, it has been integrated into a 3D engine such as Unreal, to verify that the character works correctly, and animations and poses have been added to present the character in the portfolio. Likewise, renders have also been made with Arnold to create images of the character at a high resolution and detail OBJECTIVES: The main objective of this project is create a 3D character, which can be used in a AAA videogame. The style chosen for this character will be a Disney/Pixar style and the video game in which it would be integrated would be Kingdom Hearts but with a better graphic quality, this means textures with a higher resolution trying to maintain a suitable polygon density for this type of video game. Another objective is the learning and improvement of different processes for the creation of characters

Haptic Experience and the Design of Drawing Interfaces

Haptic feedback has the potential to enhance users’ sense of being engaged and creative in their artwork. Current work on providing haptic feedback in computer-based drawing applications has focused mainly on the realism of the haptic sensation rather than the users’ experience of that sensation in the context of their creative work. We present a study that focuses on user experience of three haptic drawing interfaces. These interfaces were based on two different haptic metaphors, one of which mimicked familiar drawing tools (such as pen, pencil or crayon on smooth or rough paper) and the other of which drew on abstract descriptors of haptic experience (roughness, stickiness, scratchiness and smoothness). It was found that users valued having control over the haptic sensation; that each metaphor was preferred by approximately half of the participants; and that the real world metaphor interface was considered more helpful than the abstract one, whereas the abstract interface was considered to better support creativity. This suggests that future interfaces for artistic work should have user-modifiable interaction styles for controlling the haptic sensation

Character customization: Animated hair and clothing

Treball final de Grau en Disseny i Desenvolupament de Videojocs. Codi: VJ1241. Curs acadèmic: 2018/2019This project consists in designing and implementing a 3D female character editor. It is focused in modeling and animating the female character, hairstyle and clothes. This editor will be developed using the Unity 3D Game Engine. It will consist in an interface that allows changing skin and eye color, style and color of hair and, lastly, the clothes the character is to wear among a catalogue of predefined models. With each change, the character will respond with an animation in order to improve the experience of perceiving the final style of the character

Children’s Negotiations of Visualization Skills During a Design-Based Learning Experience Using Nondigital and Digital Techniques

In the context of a 10-day summer camp makerspace experience that employed design-based learning (DBL) strategies, the purpose of this descriptive case study was to better understand the ways in which children use visualization skills to negotiate design as they move back and forth between the world of nondigital design techniques (i.e., drawing, 3-D drawing with hot glue, sculpture, discussion, writing) and digital technologies (i.e., 3-D scanning, 3-D modeling, 3-D printing). Participants included 20 children aged 6–12. This research was guided by Vossoughi, Hooper, and Escudé’s (2016) call for explicit attention to pedagogical practices during the integration of “making” activities. Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data, including observation, researcher/facilitator field notes, think aloud protocols, daily reflective exit tickets, and participant artifacts. Findings highlight the ways in which participants negotiated visualization skills through (a) imagining, drawing, and seeing through creating 2-D sketches, (b) reasoning and relating through writing stories, (c) transforming through 3-D extrusion, (d) observing and noticing through 3-D sculpting and 3-D scanning, and (e) manipulating through digital 3-D modeling, mental rotation, and mental transformation. Implications for formal K–12 educational contexts and teacher preparation programs are discussed