I created digital sketches of Celtic Knot patterns. Now I wanted to see them displayed in a virtual gallery, where the user could exist beside them in a 3 dimensional space. This is about an exploration of the process of creating a 3-dimensional project that will be shared on-line. I believe that you learn best when you are doing something real, and prototyping an online visual tool to produce a future online virtual gallery is an effective way to move forward.
I asked Insamnohty to collaborate with me on this project as a technical creator/artist. With his experience as a games programmer, Insamnohty was asked to create a quick prototype that placed a 3D object interpretation of a Celtic Knot digital sketch into a confined space. This would allow motion to be applied and shadows to be projected from the 3D object onto a curated environment that the user can explore.
Insamnohty produced a virtual gallery prototype in Unity. This showed the possibilities of viewing simultaneously the drawn lines and the shadows projected from the stone, moving between light layouts to demonstrate how the visuals can be changed.
Looking at the quality of the shadow, you could see the 2-dimensional image projected on the surrounding surfaces. This is optically distorted at it moves and reveals its 3-dimensional quality as the shades of the Celtic Knot lines rotate and merge. The viewer can then see the lines rotating within the room as the shadows move across the walls.
To improve the user interaction Insamnohty created a `player object’ that can move around the environment with real gravity and movement effects. The user can now interact with the environment as they would a room in their house or a shop display. This lead to the expansion of the cube shaped `rooms’, seen pictured above, to allow for movement within.
Using Unity allowed for the creation of a simulated physical environment with possibilities for future VR implementation. The aim is to create something the user can immediately identify and interact with, as they would a real gallery, without the real world limitations from a true physical space.
The user can enter the corridor and select a room from a number of rooms containing different rotating Celtic Knot `stones’. They can then teleport into the chosen room. This places them in an enclosed space they are able to move within, watching the `stone’ as it casts shadows around the presentation space.
So what next? Current thoughts include:
- ideas to do with different shapes of room, lighting effects and layouts, expanding on how many rooms and `stones’ there could be.
- experimenting further with what can be done when left without the limitations of a true physical space, such as a singular morphing room versus rooms for each gallery item.
- providing the user with more agency over the space, perhaps a way of marking which gallery items and lighting setups they enjoyed the most, maybe even to share with others.
- moving the gallery to on-line platforms and the possibility of viewing the gallery images with and without VR equipment.