Digital Studio: virtual spaces
Photography 23-3203-01,Fall, Wed 9:00-12:50pm
Professor: Sabrina Raaf, sabrina@raaf.org
 		 Sabrina's office hours: Alexandroff Campus Center building, room 1108, Wednesdays from 2--6 pm. Sign up sheet on my door to make an appointment during office hours (up to 1 hour). Mailbox: Photography Department, 12th floor of the 600 building.
Shortcut to Schedule

Course Policies
 

PREREQUISITES: : Digital II

DESCRIPTION: This course presents borh an intensive introduction to 3D modeling techniques and a survey of virtual architecture and vitual reality. Students will create models of virtual objects and architectural spaces and learn how to render them out with photographic texture mapping. This is also a seminar style class where students will be presented with readings on virtual space design and theory. Beyond acquiring reasonable facility with technical aspects of electronic imaging, reading assignments and discussions will help us consider how this medium relates to each students' own work as well as to the world of contemporary art making. Artists and architects working in the field will be brought in for lectures.

Software taught: Lightwave and VR Worx

This syllabus is subject to change depending upon the progess of the students.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: This course provides a critical survey contemporary work in virtual space design from the artists to architects. Students will gain working knowledge of the qucktime VR and 3-D modeling tools that are used by artists and designers to create their own virtual spaces.

WHAT YOU'RE TO DO: Work and participate actively. You should be organized, able to work for long periods alone, and enjoy the process of working experimentally with time devoted to building and rebuilding them. You will need to devote 6-10 hours per week to work outside class.

GRADE POLICY: Grades are based on the quality of your work, your ability to meet the deadlines, and your ability to work responsibly and creatively with problems and issues. If a student finds they will not be able to hand in a midterm or final on the scheduled day, it is the student's responsibility to notify me prior to that day. If you have not made arrangements prior to that day, you will lose a full letter grade for every day that the work is late.
Grades are awarded as follows

Assignments For every assignment you must describe the technical means and aesthetic choices integral to the creation of your work during critiques. You will be graded at each deadline and, like any professional deadline, if you miss it you MAY NOT make it up. F for the assignment if you miss it; D, C, B, or A for quality of work if you meet it. (40% of grade).
Participation This includes your participation in critiques. (10%)
Written There will be written assignments based on handouts and readings (10% of grade).
Final Project You will be expected to articulate the technical means and aesthetic choices integral to the creation of your final project. (40% of grade).
   
  F for the class if you are absent from your final presentation; D, C, B, or A for quality and originality of work (30% of grade).
  I ABSOLUTELY NO incompletes.
  C 2 misses, work not presented on time, assignments presented on dates other than deadlines, or of average quality and with average participation.
  B Assignments presented on time, regular attendance, good participation, and steady significant efforts throughout.
  A "B" requirements, along with outstanding participation and work.

 
Attendance: A full three absences will result in an 'F' (failure). The third absence - for any reason - constitutes a failing grade. (Two late arrivals = 1 absence) Lectures will be held at the beginning of class so you must be punctual. A professional attitude and approach toward all aspects of this course is expected. Specifically; class starts on time, and class attendance and participation are mandatory. Un-excused absences and un-excused lateness will adversely effect your grade. Please contactme prior to class if you will be late or absent. If a student has any emergencies or difficulties in completing an assignment – THEY SHOULD CONTACT ME AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE. My e-mail is sabrina@raaf.org- there is no excuse for not contacting me.
PARTICIPATION: Lecture must be interactive. To this end, I encourage an open atmosphere where back-and-forth communication is the norm. Students are free to speak up when they need clarification or wish to make observations. Critical thinking, dialog, and creative exploration of digital imaging are the essential ingredients of this course. Always let me or the TA know if you are having difficulties mastering a technique presented in class and we will help you. Please consider yourselves active participants in the teaching-learning process, instead of passive receivers of studio tips and procedures. In this way you can also learn from one another (both conceptually and technically) as much as from individual discoveries. This can only happen if you are there, in the classroom! Plus, you will be expected to work several hours outside of class time each week. You will not be able to finish your assignments during class!
Consider: As artists we are here to creatively reflect on how things might be 'otherwise' through habits of posing questions, examining assumptions, and exploring alternative perspectives. In art school students develop abilities to visually read and write both with and against the grain of different aesthetic and social camps. I highly encourage students to function as independent, skillful, and critical artists and thinkers. These skills will apply not only to the readings and assignments in my class, but also to the social, political, and cultural matrices in which all artists live and work.

TEXTS:

  • SUGGESTED:
    Lightwave 3D 7 Reference Guide, Newtek, 2001
    Inside Lightwaven 7, by Dan Ablan, New Riders, 2002
    Lightwave 6.5 Magic, by Dan Ablan, 2001
    Lightwave Applied, by Joe Tracy, Advanstar Communications, 2001
Suggested Reading: (many of these can be acquired through at Barnes and Noble, amazon.com, etc. if not available in the COLUMBIA, SAIC or Harold Washington libraries)
  • Hyperspace Architecture II
  • Visionary Architecture
  • Art Forms in Nature, Ernst Haeckel
  • Evolutionary Architecture
  • Green Architecture
  • For Inspiration Only: Future Systems
  • Mondo Materialis: Materials and Ideas for the Future
  • Skin: Surface, Substance, and Design
  • Plastic: Materials for Inspirational Design
  • Sci-Fi Architecture
  • New Organic Architecture
  • Envisioning Cyberspace, Peter Anders, McGraw-Hill, 1999
  • Body Mechanique: Artistic Explorations of Digital Realms, exhibition catalogue, Wexner Center for the Arts, 1998
  • Photography after Photography; exhibition catalogue Exhibition catalogue (available at the MCA bookstore and a must see)
  • From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art by Julie H. Reiss; MIT Press; ISBN: 0262181967; (March 17, 2000)
  • Installation Art by Michael Petry, Nicola Oxley, and Nicolas de Oliveira, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994

 
Supplies:
  • A notebook to take notes in and reference
  • Several zip disks (pay attention to Mac or PC formatting - they should be 100MB disks - not 250MB)
  • Time outside of class to work!
LAB HOURS: Monday thru Thurs. 9am - 10pm, Friday 9am - 5pm, Sat. 10am to 6pm

Course Outline

 This schedule is subject to change! Please feel that you have a say in the tempo and the extent to which material is covered.

 You will be given short readings throughout the semester which we will discuss together in class. You may also be given short written assignments based on that reading during the semester. It is fundamental that you not only become well acquainted with 3D modelling software – but that you be aware of (and THINK about) the implications of using this media in contemporary arts.

 For the assignments, you will also be expected to use your own original photographs as much as possible – unless otherwise discussed.

Week 1 Sept 25

 

 Introduction to the course
Discussion of the main ideas behind the course

video, "Synthetic Pleasures"

Readings from Italio Calvino and Hyperspace

Bring in samples of your own work next week

Week 2 Oct 2

 

 Guest Lecturer: Julieta Cristina Aguilera Rodriguez

Reading Due - Discussion
Biography of Italo Calvino

Review of Student work

Introduction to VRWorx and QTVR imaging hardware

Survery of QTVR artworks 		Create 2 QTVR environments which each include at least 9 images

Week 3 Oct 9

 

QTVR environments due - CRITIQUE

Intro to Lightwave
Understanding the Ligthwave interface
creating primitve objects
Basic surface mapping
basic planes, layers, copying and deleting
basic viewing options

More discussion of Virtual environment design

Assignment #1: Create a building block garden

Readings (click)

Week 4 Oct 16

 

Guest Lecturer - Tim Portock on Virtual Reality and Virtual space development for the CAVE

MEET IN RM 418 of the 623 S. Wabash Building at 9am SHARP!!

continue working on your garden

Week 5 Oct 23

The Modify Tab Cont'd
Multiply Tab
rotating, scaling, stretching and other deformations of your objects
Boolean functions

revolving objects

 Karl Sims - http://www.genarts.com/karl/

Stelarc: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/
video: http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag02/may02/doors/stel.htm

William Latham - http://www.artworks.co.uk/index2.htm
http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/events/latham.html
http://www.nemeton.com/axis-mutatis/latham.html
http://go.to/organicart

Week 6 Oct 30

Reading Due - Discussion
Garden due - short in class critique

Construct Tab
Detail and Mapping tabs
3D text

Assignment # 2: Chess set

Week 7 Nov 6

Hand in Chess set models

Beg. Rendering: image mapping
Basic Layout
output to photoshop

Assignment # 3: Linking two worlds:

Create 3 new 3D object forms. Texture map them with your photos and render them out. Save them as .tif files.

Skim Chpts 7, 13, 31

Connie Imboden

Week 8 Nov 13

Beginning lighting
Continued rendering options

VR Worx Continued: Place the rendered objects in the 2 original VR Worx projects you made. Use those objects as the things that people will click on to navigate between the 2 QTVR worlds.

Hand in a 1/2 page typed paper on your
Midterm/Final project idea - What's the concept?
Describe the visuals...

Finish linking your 2 VR Works movies using the 3D images as "hotspots". Hand in the final linked movies in class.

Week 9 Nov 20

 Advanced Subpatch modeling
Continued:
lighting
texture mapping

Individual meetings about your midterm/final project proposals

In class work:
http://www.lightwave3d.com/tutorials/modeling/magic-bevel/index.html
http://www.lightwave3d.com/tutorials/modeling/case/index.html


complete this tutorial:

http://www.lightwave3d.com/tutorials/modeling/dino/index.html

Hand in your completed model next week.

Week 10 Nov 27

Procedural Textures

Read over chpt.s 31.9 - 31.51 in Lightwave Manual
Primer

work day

work on midterm

Week 11 Dec 4

work day

Continue developing your final project pages and content

Week 12 Dec 11

MIDTERMS DUE - group critiques

Displacement Maps - SDTS files available for download		 start in on final projects

Week 13 Dec 18

work day

 Continue developing your final project models

HOLIDAY BREAK
Week 14 Jan 8 Class presentations of work in progress Final Projects due next week
Week 15 Jan 15 Final Critiques and wrap up

 

 

 

Final Project

For the final project you are to create a series of 8-10 images for the final. Use your own photographs as much as possible.The images must hold together as a cohesive body of work. Use what you have learned this semester in terms of technique and in terms of ideas on virtual environment design. The work should be personal, non-commercial, and well constructed. The images should - at least in part - manifest the thoughts and direction presented in your project statement. Final images should be presented professionally - ie. matted if they are not in a sculptural form. If you are not coming up with an idea of your own for your final series, then follow the one suggested below.

Build a"Memory Palace"

In the days of the Greeks, orators would stand in the public square and be able to recite for hours at a time the detailed history of the city and its surrounding territories. They say that these orators were capable of retaining the hundreds of dates and names in their heads by building what were called Memory Palaces. These palaces were virtual places - stored in the mind of the orator. Basically, the orator would build the structure of a palace in his head, and then mentally walk down the halls of that palace and be able open up each individual door. In each room there would be an object that would remind him of the name of some historical detail of the the story he was reciting. The floor and the position of the room along the hallway would clue the orator in as to what era the story came from. The orator could add as many floors and rooms and wings to the palace as his imagination would allow.

For the final build your own memory palace. It does not need to literally resemble a palace, or even a house - but work with the basic metaphor of the memory palace.

Concentrate on the creative uses of navigation through your memory palace - it is a gravity-less space and could be even microscopic in size. Concentrate on how a story may be told non-linearly in this this scheme .

There is a 10 room minimum on this project. Each room should contain at least one modelled object of interest. Hand in printouts of these rooms and models.

The quality should be on the level of what you might hand in to a design house for review.



Artist of note: Jeffrey Shaw, Legible City, on this page.

 

Digital Supply sources

Helix 310 S. Racine (for slide duping, processing, and digital prints), 312.421.6000

Calumet 520 W. Erie (for photographic supplies, equipment), 312.440.4920

Central Camera 230 S. Wabash (for used equipment, photo supplies – has student discount) 312.427.5580

Film Division 676 N. LaSalle (for slide developing, duping, and inkjet prints – ask about student discount) 312.642.3362

Gamma 314 W. Superior (color and digital prints) 312.337.0020

Lab One 1001 W. Adams 312.243.9899

Image Studio Ltd. 223 W. Erie St, Suite 6NE (outputting large scale B&W film negatives from digital files, drum scanning, and color printing) 312.944.2600

Best Buy 1000 W. North Ave (zip disks, VHS tapes, etc) 312.988.4067

Elek-tek 175 W. Jackson Blvd (software and resources) 312.541.9000

Micro Center 2645 Elston Ave (computer supplies – zip disks, recordable CD's, etc) 773.292.1700

MacMall 1.800.222.6227

Mac Warehouse 1.800.255.6227

Paper Source 232 W. Chicago Ave (alternative papers for inkjet printing) 312.337.0798

New York Central Art Supply largest stock of fine art papers, 1.800.950.6111

Pearl 225 W. Chicago (paper and general art supplies) 312.915.020

Utrecht Second floor, Champlain Bldg. (zip disks, watercolor paper, etc.) 312.629.6506

Pricewatch: www.pricewatch.com – to find the best prices on computer supplies

David Adamson Editions (Washington, DC) Fine Arts Iris prints, 1.202.347.0090 – ask about student discount