Imagination- International Opening Inworldz

A crowd of avatars from many countries gathered to officially open the Imagination sim Inworldz on Sunday. It was a three hour event with 2 live performers and a DJ providing non-stop entertainment.

The crowd included elves, fairies, dragons and some very creatively dressed avatars, and all enjoyed the dancing and the music.

The garden was a spectacular setting for a party, although some found the need to wear sunglasses after a while.

There's more about the opening on Juanita Deharo's blog  on Flicker HERE and virtual world clothing designer Fuschia Nightfire has used the sim as the backdrop to show off her latest creations HERE.
Congratulations to the students from Caloundra City private School on the beautiful textures that have made up this sim. Thank you to Victor Vezina who also contributed textures for the sim, to Jeri Rahja for offering the sim, to the wonderful musicians, and to all who came to the opening.

The Imagination Garden -Treeline Opening at Caloundra Regional Gallery

The Treeline Exhibition was officially opened on Saturday by Ross Duncan, Manager of Library and Gallery Services with the Sunshine Coast Council.

It was great to see so many people there on an afternoon of torrential rain, and to notice so many of the students and their families and teachers in the crowd.

The room showing the  Imagination video was a major drawcard, inviting people to come in and experience all the colour and fantasy of the virtual garden made with the work of students from Caloundra City Private School.

At one end of the room two comfy chairs invite visitors to sit down and enjoy the 23 minute video. At the other a series of panels explain the process of building the garden and the student's drawings are displayed on a table.

An inmportant part of being an artist is to work towards an exhibition, keeping the end product in mind and making decisions about how it will be shown. The students had been an integral part of this process and were justly proud to see their work as part of a prestigous and important exhibition in one of the Coast's major galleries.

Earlier in the week volunteers and friends of the gallery had a morning tea and sneak preview of the exhibition, with an artist talk explaining the works in the exhibition.This is important for new media works like the virtual garden, as it's sometimes difficult to understand how they came about. The volunteers who will be manning the gallery during the exhibition now have some idea of the project with Caloundra City Private School and the making of objects in virtual worlds.

Congratulations to the students of Caloundra City Private School who were involved in the exhibition. Congratulations and thank also to collaborating artist Victor Keegan whose textures added another dimension to the garden.

Treeline continues at Caloundra Regional Gallery until July 8th.

The Imagination garden in the virtual world Inworldz, which has been sponsored by Jeri Rahja, will have its own separate official opening this week, where avatars from around the world can enjoy seeing the work as a three dimensional space.

Caloundra City Private School - Treeline 2012

Last Friday was my last hands-on day with the students at Caloundra City Private School. We watched some preliminary machinma footage of the Imagination sim and talked about credits, what music to use, the mood of the machinima etc.Then it was 'free time'. Students could work on whatever they wanted within the project.

 Some chose to have a relaxing afternoon creating more textures by drawing on paper. Butterflies and wings were added to the cache of plant textures.

 Others chose to work on the ipad, in photoshop, on the graphics tablet, or within the sims on their hard drive.

A professional photographer came to take images of the students and the processes, and we had the formal thank you's with the principal of the school and staff from the Caloundra Gallery.  The students gave me a beautiful bunch of lilies that smell so much better than any of the virtual plants we've created.

I now have a HUGE task ahead bringing all the textures created  into  Imagination  and making the machinima, but I'm looking forward to the results.

The picture on the right is the small student group involved in the project (minus Bronte). They've been great to work with and I thank them for their contribution.

Imagination  will open in Inworldz in mid May. I am still negotiating a date with our sponsor Jeri Rahja, but there will be live streaming of music and a party for avatars from all around the world to celebrate the opening of the sim. The sim is a magnificent fantasy garden created with textures  from UK artist Victor Vezina and the students of Caloundra City private School.

The real life opening of Imagination machinima will be at Caloundra Regional Gallery on June 2nd.

Virtual Vegetation - Treeline 2012

 What can you do with some simple drawings done by students on paper? All the drawings from my last trip to Caloundra City Private School as part of Treeline 2012 have now been scanned, and I've been experimenting with textures made from the drawings in my standalone sims and Inworldz.

 The students may or may not recognise their drawings after I've played with them in Photoshop and applied them to 3D objects, resized and recoloured them.

 I'll be visiting the school again next week and we'll be working together to develop more plant and terrain textures for the stand alone sims.

I've also been using some of the students' textures in the build I am doing in Inworldz in Imagination sim, kindly donated by art patron Jeri Rahja. This will allow the students' work to be part of a lasting build that is seen by a worldwide audience.

I'm looking forward to showing the students what's possible using simple drawings and a bit of technology, and how I turned their drawings into virtual vegetation.