The Virtual Sculpture Garden
The Virtual Sculpture Garden was launched during a three month sprint in the summer of 2020 with the aim to help keep people connected through the arts in a time of physical distancing by exhibiting 3D artwork from Virginia Tech and the surrounding community. This virtual reality experience featured a dynamically expanding environment that grows as the art collection grows to offer an ongoing and collaborative point of connection.
This project was created by students and faculty in the University Libraries and Moss Arts Center, and made possible in part by a grant from Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, the Virtual Sculpture Garden.
The VR Garden Team:
Trevor Finney, creative services coordinator and principal investigator, University Libraries
Jonathan Bradley, head studios and innovative technologies, University Libraries
Renee Alarid, associate director creative services, Moss Arts Center
Alice Rogers, manager media design studios, University Libraries
Giang Vu Binh Nguyen, studio student fellow, University Libraries
Dylan Craft, studio student fellow, University Libraries
Alex Krasner, Virtual Environments Studio graduate student, University Libraries
Below are screenshots from the experience of 3D models and concept art created by me for the garden. Once the models were created the landscape was generated in Unity using code written by Jonathan Bradley and our three student developers.
3D models
3D models of the trees, grass, bushes, and the welcome center were created in Autodesk Maya, and the textures painted in Adobe Photoshop.
Concept art
Concept art and planning documentation was critical to the project given the virtual nature of our collaboration and the short turnaround of the production. Artwork was created in Photoshop and Illustrator and reviewed and revised over Zoom and Slack.
Impact and continuing progress
The garden has hosted virtual versions of the VT Science Festival and Open (at the) Source events. We were also delighted to work with Lisa Eklöf, an educator in Stockholm, Sweden, to host a few student sculptures from her digital art class.
Due to Unity’s discontinuation of web VR Jonathan Bradley is currently rebuilding it from the ground up in an open source framework. We hope to relaunch the garden with new features and programming soon.
Education
A large component of this project going forward will be introductory education in 3D modeling through workshops, learning objects, and an upcoming Twitch show.
As a part of VT Science Festival I created this short, fast-paced video to show students how to sculpt a 3D pumpkin and later demoed the process in Newman Library’s front lobby.