Preparation
Watch the videos below by Thursday September 31
Write down you questions and topics you’d like me to elaborate on.
Bring at least one question to class.
Blender: What is it? Why is the interface so weird? What are all these panels? How do I move/scale/rotate thing? What’s object mode and edit mode? How to snap to object and grids? What’s parenting? How to select things? What are vertices edges and faces?
Where do I find 3D models online? Is it cool? What should I look for? How do I import them in Blender?
Blender: Help! the model I imported is: untextured/ animated / all joined together in one object / not smooth / too detailed / too BIG / too SMALL / all messed up!
Blender mashups: how do I slice, join, combine objects?
Blender glitching: how do I select things like a pro? How to I join things? How do I edit meshes like they were made of rubber? How do I sculpt? What are modifiers?
Blender gox modeling: How do a model my own stuff? Can I turn a box into the car of my dreams? What are all those modeling tools? Extrude? Loop cut? Bevel? How do I make things symmetrical?
Exercise: Glitching Hour
Glitching hour. You have one hour to find an ordinary 3D object online and radically and meaningfully transform it.
– it’s easy to simply mess up a model. Try to produce a mesh that is still correct and usable: no holes, no self intersecting surfaces
Deliverable: let look into the standard deliverable guidelines
Unity Intro and setup
By Thursday September 7
Watch these videos and catch up with the first exercise or improve the documentation.
Project: Provocative Objects
Create a virtual sculpture using 3D models found online.
Look for mundane objects with baggage, history and built-in symbolism.
What kind of reaction would you like to provoke in your viewer?
Disgust? Hilarity? Surprise? Reflection? Anger?
– Don’t create a diorama! Use the objects as raw forms, play with scale, color, visual resonances.
– It doesn’t have to follow the laws of physics but make it “stand” on the ground (or hang from the ceiling) as if it was an actual installation.
– No characters, no anthropomorphic animals or anthropomorphized things, possibly no creatures at all
Brainstorm II: symbolic clash
Pick 3 objects from this list of symbolic tropes
Sketch a virtual sculpture by combining each of them with one object that is more contemporary, or culturally specific, or uncommon (ie less “universal”), subverting or complicating the original meaning.
Post the sketches in #assignments
Brainstorm III: found and altered
1- Generate a random words – select “nouns”, and don’t reroll, this is about finding unexpected things.
2- Look up the word on sketchfab checking downloadable.
3- Find a common object (not characters, not scenes, not works displaying a personal style) that interests you due to its symbolic or iconic value. Don’t spend more than 2 minutes scrolling the results.
4- Make a sketch in which you alter it with a strategy among the ones covered in Found Objects in sculpture.
5- Repeat the process 3 times.
Post the 3 sketches in #assignments.
Delivery
The end result has to be in a 3D engine according to the standard submission guidelines.
-max polycount for the whole scene 1M triangles
-put the sculpture in a scene of the templated below so you can look at it from a human scale
-you can use the materials in the the museum template as long as you modify them and make them your own
Download this package
Download and install Blender, even if you are not using it, this project needs it
Open Unity Hub
New project
Select 3D core
Give it a name that makes sense like Virtual Sculpture
Select a location that makes sense like your external hard drive or the local document folder
Confirm, it will take a few minutes
Double click on the package with Unity open, import everything.
Open the scene Museum or Desert and save it as something like “Virtual Sculpture”
It has a lot of assets and scenes to play with, they are described in various videos I made.