JOSEPH HOCKING
Children of Arcadia: Immersive 3D
Abstract
“Real-time 3D” is a term that describes three-dimensional computer simulations that respond to the viewer (from videogames on the XBox to highly experimental virtual reality,) distinct from 3D animated movies that can be watched but not interacted with. This presentation is about how real-time 3D can be useful to artists, what tools are available to them, and what the work-flow is like. To provide examples for the material discussed, the development of Children of Arcadia will be examined. Many new media artists are interested in making explorations into fields like immersive virtual environments and artistic game design but are not not sure how to go about developing real-time 3D projects.
The bewildering array of software can be daunting to newcomers, but the tools have gotten much more accessible to artists over the years. While complex 3D simulations used to be the exclusive province of military research groups and large software companies, artwork like Children of Arcadia can now be developed by small teams using widely available tools. That piece is an immersive virtual environment in which software projects the financial district of NYC into a 17th century Baroque painting, a far cry from the military simulations most people associate with this technology.
Now, before going into specifics about the various tools that artists can take advantage of, it is important lay out an overview of the development process. First off, one must assemble a collaborative team to work on the project. Do not underestimate how challenging it can be to find the right team members and to maintain an effective collaboration. Discussing how to form and maintain collaborations could be a weighty volume on its own, so for purposes of this presentation it will suffice to make the general observation that collaboration is much more challenging than most people assume. With a development team in place, the process of actually implementing a real-time 3D project consists of creating the graphics that will be used (3D models, painted images, photos, etc.) and writing a program to tie all the pieces together.
These two stages of development take place largely in parallel, with new content added to the in-development program as that content gets created. Writing a program to tie all the pieces together is typically reliant on a 3D graphics engine. The engine is the software that controls the underlying simulation, modifying things in response to the user. Many different engines are available, with varying features and complexities. Children of Arcadia was developed using Blitz3D. Blitz3D is a great tool for many reasons, including its extreme flexibility in graphics and the relative simplicity of programming. However, there are a number of disadvantages (eg. Windows only,) so several promising alternatives are being considered for porting the project to. The most promising alternatives are Ogre, jMonkeyEngine, and Panda3D. All three options are crossplatform, have a flexible art pipeline, hold out the promise of improved visuals, utilize a high-level programming language, and are open-source (ie. free.)
There are several other options to address at this point, mostly to dismiss them. Other important engines available include Torque, Unity, Virtools, and WorldViz. All are widely known graphics/game engines that can be used for real-time 3D work, and all are great for certain applications (eg. console videogames.) For new media artists however, their disadvantages outweigh their advantages. For example, none of these four has as flexible an art pipeline as the tools mentioned earlier. Torque can be complex to program for, and the others have extremely high licensing fees.
After the head-spinning confusion of choosing an engine, it is fortunate that the choice of tools for creating graphics is a bit more straightforward. Although a wide array of programs are available for creating 3D graphics, for the purposes of new media artists those choices can quickly be whittled down to either Maya or Blender. Between the two, Maya has the advantage of being more widely used by artists and animators, but Blender has the advantage of being open-source. Ultimately either works great, so the choice between them is as much about individual taste as it is about technical features. Having taken a brief ride through the entire development process, highlighting team formation and going over the various bits of software required, you should now be better equipped to explore real-time 3D in your own work.
Speaker's bio
Joseph Hocking is a digital artist whose work is devoted to exploring the artistic potential of real-time 3D graphics. Working closely in collaboration with Mark Skwarek, Joseph is a key member of the team behind the immersive 3D artwork Children of Arcadia (www.childrenofarcadia.com). Shown most recently at the inaugural exhibition of the Sunshine Museum in Beijing, Children of Arcadia is a virtual environment built to project the financial district of NYC into a 17th century Baroque painting.
Although he has a significant background in and knowledge of 3D animation, Joseph's artmaking activities chiefly revolve around programming, as his work with real-time 3D demands custom software for virtually every project. In addition to creating real-time 3D artwork, he teaches various classes, about both 3D animation and programming in an artistic context, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.