Being Sidetracked (continued…)

Being Sidetracked (continued…)

This is the first post since the end of August and I’m still off track. Pottering I think. About six weeks ago I saw a competiton for VR work that matched the geranium project

In preparing for entry I reconfigured parts of the project and added some effects in the rain garden and the painted garden, storm effects and shadows, and also did a lot of work preparing the piece for Quest 2 as well as The Index and Vive.

Although you can easily build for both platforms you have to switch the platform in Unity to do so. I now know that while it switches without a problem it won’t switch back without causing all sorts of glitches.  I’ve spent far too long building two versions of a very big Unity file. The advantage is that I’ve now got the file updated to a more recent Unity and I can use some better effects in the new work.

The submission got no traction at all, nothing after the acknowledgement, but my own analysis and discussions with colleagues led to the idea that I need to develop a narrative that guides you through the VR world. So that’s where I am now, trying to write a story that I can take through the process.

I’ve not been entirely idle alongside this, a few months ago I started a drawing of a fox

I’ve done some more work on that and it looks like this now

Being Sidetracked (continued...)

Dark Fox

I’ve also been working on some found or accidental images, the first is from a piece of plastic acquired from my last workplace, that I thought suggested an interior.

Found Interior Chesterfield

Found Interior Chesterfield

Drawing

I’ve carried on drawing every day and you can see the October images  here

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

The drawings are posted to Twitter and Instagram each day.

Garden’s Project 8: Not really the Gardens Project most of the time.

Garden’s Project 8:

Not really the Gardens Project most of the time.

I’ve been meandering through the swamp since early June when I last posted, stopping and starting, changing tack and changing back, generally not having the slightest idea what I’m doing. At time like this the discipline overtakes and “doing” becomes the purpose in itself, mostly for the worse.

So I’ve kept drawing, I’m halfway through July in my sketchbook and for this month I’m working one day left handed and the next day drawing the same thing right handed.

Gardens Project 8

First pair of drawings, 30/06/21 and 01/07/21

This is the first pair of drawings for July 21, I’ll put them together as agallery at the end of the month. The key is to spend about the same amount of time drawing each page and see what happens. Drawing left handed is still hard, especially in terms of connecting with the paper – I don’t seem to be able to exert the same pressure on the page as I can with my right hand, something I obviously didn’t notice on the iPad through to May.

Onwards and upwards.

VR project wise I’ve been stymied by having to relearn modelling and upgrading my equipment. I’ve got so much data now that it took two days to back up between computers and externalhard drives. I also fitted a new SSD to my big computer and got a new laptop to use with a new Quest 2 that I’m just getting to grips with.

I think chapter one of the gardens project is pretty much outlined now, the direction is there, but the finish on all the environments is not what I want yet and the dome with floating news doesn’t give the impression I want. So I’m developing another way to navigate the space with objects that you move out of the way to progress. This will give me a better way to look at the passage of time as well I think. I also want the environment to be a lot more black and white and possibly drawn.

More to come.

I got a message about a post from 2016 regarding “Photosynth” a now defunct software, I updated the post in response and it’s here Garden in Balby – Photosynth with a link to an article that discusses the software and what happened to it.

 

You should always look down on a circus 2

You should always look down on a circus 2

I’ve been busy, honest, working on drawings and sculptures for the circus piece as well as drawing every day and continuing with VR stuff.

I added four drawings to the circus

, this is one…

circus pastel 1 of 4

circus pastel 1 of 4 pastel on paper A1

I made some of the elements in VR using masterpiece VR and reduced the polygons in 3ds Max to take them into Unity.

I’m also making the harlequin, juggler and tumbler in plaster, the harlequin is the tallest piece standing at about one metre.

I had another early morning revelation about drawings I’d made that might be good to create in masterpiece VR so I started a few of these, I’ve made a new gallery

for the drawings – an old sketchbook that I’d buried as inadequate – so that I can view them in VR as guides when I build.

This is a film of one of them in VR.

I’ve also been looking through the camera trap I have in my garden, a few days ago I got this film of a fox.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this yet, there is at least a drawing or two in it, but we’ll see in time.