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.

Treeline 2012 - Session 3- More Textures

The Year 10 students were away on camp, so with a smaller group we had a relaxing day, with each student working on their own textures for the build. Noah, who missed the Photoshop session, was able to catch up. The images below show how Noah built up textures from images of small sections of real plants.

To the left is Noah's original  image from the camera.
Below are the textures he made as PNG files on transparent background in Photoshop.

The images below show Noah's textures used to make plants in the Imagination sim Inworldz.

In the image above Noah's texture has been recoloured in Photoshop to give a different feel to the plant.

The Stained Glass texture didn't work quite as well as it might. I will play around with some different plant shapes to see it it works better in a different format.

 The yellow image above is Noah's original photo of a flower from an umbrella plant.
The others are textures created from that image in Photoshop.

In our Imagination fantasy garden the real life colours look a little out of place, but it does make a nice grove of trees.

It fits into the build better coloured yellow (left), but also looks great in blue (below).

Caloundra City Private School - Virtual Vegetation

As part of Treeline 2012 I'm working with a selected group of students from Caloundra City Private School over four workshop sessions. Together we are going to create textures for virtual plants that will be the basis for a machinima that will be shown as part of the Treeline exhibition at Caloundra Regional Gallery in May/June.

It's a big learning curve for anyone to get their head around the intricacies of virtual reality, so the first day was both exhausting and exciting. Each student now has a standalone simulator installed on their laptop, courtesy of the school's IT guru Mr Steven Rattey. For the students, their first taste of a virtual world showed them just how much fun it could be, and just how frustrating it could be when your avatar got stuck. In the picture to the right I'm introducing the students to my avatar Juanita Deharo and the world of virtual artworks.

It was a steep learning curve but lots of fun. The students at this school are well supported in their understanding and exploration of technology, and there's a philosophy that encourages enrichment through new experiences. For me as an artist it's a dream school to work with and I'm looking forward to what we can produce together as a collaborative work.




 
I'm already doing a collaborative project with artist Vic Keegan from the UK who is making textures on his ipad for me to use in creating a fantasy garden. The image above shows the students looking at some of this work. We also looked at the inspirational work of Soror Nishi and hope we can talk via live stream with her at one of our later sessions.
The last part of the day was used to begin creating some drawings that can be used as plant textures.
I've already started playing around with some of these, although it's in the early stages. Here are some very crude beginnings.

These are some plants I made from a drawing by Alex. I played around with the drawing in Photoshop and applied it to 3D object. The texture on the tree leaves is also made from Alex's drawing.

This one also includes Alex's images but also some of the plants and the foliage on the tree are made with an image drawn by Bronte.






Thank you to the students and teachers of Caloundra City School who have made me so welcome. I will be posting more pictures here as I continue to experiment with the students' drawings.
The next session is in a few weeks.

RAG Randt-Virtual Treeline Artist

RAG Randt's work usually has a touch of whimsy with a serious message. I smile every time I see one of his pieces. He has a wry sense of humour and a very finely balanced and well honed sense of graphic design.








For the first Virtual Treeline exhibition RAG (Illustrator/Designer from the USA) shows a series of visual messages that link human desires and activities with the natural world, through the use of trees as easily recognised visual symbols.
His small 3D installation hidden at the end of a pathway in the sand dunes is a delight for all the senses. On can almost hear the jungle animals celebrating their colourful fall setting.....and what's that smell?

RAG says:
"Trees are a major symbol for me. My concepts tend to be humorous visual statements broadly interpreting a given topic. I have found trees to be wonderfully rich and flexible in symbolism whether I am making a statement about Hope, Networking, Communication, Finances and many other ideas. As trees are a vital part of the earth's ecosystem, they are also a vital part of my visual problem solving vocabulary."



RAG also says in his profile information:

The global environment is a subject I care deeply about and I would like to leave the world a better place.

Can art make a difference?

Virtual Treeline Artist - Asmita Duranjaya

We are pleased to have German artist Asmita Duranjaya as one of the first to exhibit at Treeline. Asmita's three versions of her 'urban trees' show her skill with capturing the essence of trees against the background of human activity. The very lovely textures take on new life and meaning in the three different versions- all of which touch some moment of memory in us.
Asmita says:
Since my childhood trees have been a main subject of painting, drawing and taking photos. Trees are, for me, a universal symbol, for life, for stability and fragrance at the same time, for beauty and character, esp. when they are old. Trees have something protecting, nurturing, because they produce our oxygen and are a source for regenerating energy. lastly, trees are a cultural and spiritual symbol for the cycle of life and death. There is much more, that can be told on trees, but there is not enough space here and it will be done at another time...

More of Asmita's work and her comments on Virtual Treeline can be found on her blog at:http://giridevi.blogspot.com/

Virtual Treeline Artist - Sheba Blitz

Australian Artist Sheba Blitz is one of the artists exhibiting in the first exhibition at the Treeline Sky Gallery in Second Life. Sheba's says of trees:
"Trees produce oxygen - oxygen gives us life "
It might be a short statement, but it tells us a lot about why trees are important to us.

In this image Juanita Deharo ponders on Sheba's giant revolving disk of precious rainforest plants.

For the Love of a Tree

Some people, not content with loving places and things in the real world, want to recreate their favourite things in virtual reality. One such person is Jayjay Zifanwe from the UWA sim in Second Life. Jayjay has not been content to recreate the buildings of his beloved UWA campus, he wanted his favourite fig tree too, so his virtual self could lie under its shade and dream.

And as if that isn't enough, Jayjay has not one, but two versions of his favourite tree on the virtual UWA campus. The top pic. is of a fig created by Nyx Bree and the bottom tree was created by Bradly Dorchester. Great work guys.
That's the nice thing about virtual worlds. You can have whatever you want.
What do you want for Christmas Jayjay? Another tree?

The real life UWA fig tree can be seen here:
http://photos.imageevent.com/gladysclancy/perth/university/151_2314.jpg

OPENING OF VIRTUAL TREELINE GALLERIES

The Virtual Treeline Galleries in Second Life will be officially opened with a small party on Tuesday December 15th at 2.00 pm PST (for Australia that's 8.00am EST,9.00 am EDT, and to early to get up in Perth.)
The first exhibition will feature work from Asmita Duranjaya (Germany), Alizarin Goldflake (USA), RAG Randt (USA), Fuschia Nightfire (UK), Soror Nishi (UK), Bocan Undercroft (UK) and Sheba Blitz (Australia). The work of each artist will be featured here in blog posts and on our Flickr site.
Please join us for the opening if you are able, at:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/80/214/22

Topiary Gone Madder

Madcow Cosmos trees at his current installation at IBM take topiary just that one step further.

Porky Gorky's Trees - Topiary Gone Mad?

While listening to Juko Tempel's excellent presentation at Second Life Community Art Centre on Sunday I was also admiring the trees in the centre's courtyard, and later took the time to have a look at the store they came from called Hydro.


Porky Gorky's trees are a lot of fun. There is even a range of trees for sitting on, as well as the inevitable tropical palms. Worth a visit by any tree lover.

SOROR NISHI CHEMIST'S TREE AT TREELINE

The first artist to be featured at our location in Second Life is Soror Nishi. Soror is well known as the creator of beautiful virtual plants, trees, gardens and forests. The Chemist's Tree makes a wonderful centrepiece to the watery site at Lie.

Enjoying the light show from the Chemist's Tree with Juanita Deharo, coordinator of the Virtual Treeline Project, are Innula Zenovka and Dave Ruby from the UK, and XXXGabiXXX Miami from Chicago

THE WORSHIP OF TREES

"Lately I have touched the sublime
Out of sight out of mind
The worship of trees
Something deep within my soul
Out with my control
The worship of trees"


Bocan’s Undercroft’s virtual art work “The Worship of Trees” has been entered in the University of Western Australia Art and Design Challenge for November 2009. Bocan describes himself as a ‘druid’ and says that for druids trees have a special significance because they represent life and nature. He says that in trees one can see the cycle of birth, life and death in the changing seasons.

The inspiration for the artwork was a pagan song sung by Damh The Bard called ‘Worship of Trees’ (originally by Telling the Bees).The work, built in virtual space, consists of a small ‘temple’ with a tree in the middle, several candles, and images of trees embedded in the windows. Bocan says these were pictures of various trees that he worked on in Photoshop, de-renedering them to have less detail and adding a glass texture. The result is quite pleasing.
I asked Bocan his thoughts on a real versus a virtual tree. His reply:
“Trees, whether virtual or real, can often have the same spirit and song.”