images courtesy Sulah Bangsa Mulia
Drawing in 3D – “A powerful prototyping tool for Meta Entrepreneurs”
October 27, 2023 — SitearmEnglish / Türkçe transkript
Presentation 23-Oct-2023 by James G Neville (Sitearm Madonna), Development One LLC Independent Consultancy Specializing in Online Presence, to 4th-year students at Çağ Üniversitesi Türkiye.
Drawing in 3D – “A powerful prototyping tool for Meta Entrepreneurs”
SESSION OVERVIEW
This is an introductory formal lecture on drawing in three dimensions in a 3D virtual grid.
In this class we will give an overview of the incentives for learning to draw in 3 dimensions and to express your ideas in a 3D virtual grid. We will introduce and demonstrate principles of working with objects in virtual space. We will do examples and take questions related to your current product marketing ideas.
BENEFITS
The benefits of learning to draw in 3 dimensions are that you can represent your ideas outside the constraints of drawing on 2-dimensional paper, or having to buy and build with real materials in the physical world.
Once you have represented your ideas as objects in a 3D virtual grid, you can show them to other people and even allow them to walk around and interact with your prototype. You can photograph it and film it for use in traditional 2D media communication.
SECOND LIFE ADVANTAGES
In Second Life, which comes with a built-in 3-dimensional drawing toolkit, you can create shapes, you can add textures and colors and images, you can add movement, and you can add behaviors of interaction. You can “fast prototype” your ideas. You can change and develop your ideas.
You can immediately see what you have created, and your partners and customers can see it as well. You are embedded in 3D virtual space with your ideas, surrounded by them, as are your partners and customers.
You are interacting in real time with your ideas made virtually real.
SECOND LIFE CONSIDERATIONS
A disadvantage of using Second Life is that the built-in 3-dimensional drawing toolkit has limitations. At a minimum, you will often need to use external tools such as a phone camera or image editor to upload realistic textures. Advanced developers often use mesh editors to create and upload complex shapes.
Second Life is perceived as having a complicated interface, with many menus and sub menus. This is true of all available tools for drawing in 3 dimensions. However, there is a 20-year history of the development of tools and practices for drawing in three dimensions in Second Life, with many examples and learning resources now available. There are many experienced practitioners.
DEMONSTRATION – SHAPES IN 2 AND 3 DIMENSIONS
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DEMONSTRATION – GRIDS IN 2 AND 3 DIMENSIONS
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DEMONSTRATION – WIREFRAME
In virtual space objects are made of meshes and textures. A mesh is a wire skeleton. A texture is a skin stretched across the wire skeleton. The mesh gives shape. The texture gives appearance.
Everything in Second Life is a wire skeleton with skin stretched across it to make it look real.
Another word for mesh is “wireframe”. We are going to use hotkeys to see the wireframe around us.
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DEMONSTRATION – PROPERTIES
Every object that we draw in virtual space has four properties:
It has a shape (wireframe).
It has an appearance (skin).
It has a position (x y z coordinates).
It has a size (width, length, height)
Second Life objects can have additional properties:
They can have texture
They can have color
They can be shiny
They can glow
They can have transparency
They can have visual animation
They can have movement.
They can have physical properties such as flexibility and mass and gravity
They can be invisible
They can be phantom (walk through)
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DEMONSTRATION – MODELING WITH SHAPE, TEXTURE
What we draw in 3 dimensions depends on our purpose and our intentions.
For example, landscapers use 3 dimensional drawings when selling ideas for real gardens. Decorators use 3 dimensional drawings when selling ideas for furnishings for real homes.
Products for sale inside the VIRTUAL world must look appealing, or offer convincing interaction or useful function. Products for demonstrating ideas to the real world simply have to be “close enough” to give the idea.
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DEMONSTRATION – MODELING WITH ANIMATION, MOVEMENT, SOUND
When you draw your product idea in three dimensions it will have shape, texture, location, and size. These are all visual attributes.
But to further catch people’s attention you will often need to add motion and interaction.
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MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN BOTH WORLDS
As Meta Entrepreneurs, you are researching markets and needs and products. You are proposing new products to be built and provided in the virtual world called Second Life.
The virtual world is not separate from the physical world. The virtual world is an extension of the physical world. Everything you do here as an avatar influences you as a real person. How could it be otherwise?
What you make in Second Life can be bought and used by other citizens of Second Life. But it can also influence them as citizens in the real world as an inspiration for what they do in the real world. Your ideas and products can also be seen by residents of the physical world who have never been in Second Life.
You have a double possibility.
CLOSE
The Second Life environment allows you to express your ideas as interactive 3-dimensional objects in virtual space in real time.
Drawing in three dimensions has both benefits and limits relative to drawing in two dimensions on paper, and sculpting in real world materials in three dimensions.
Used wisely, drawing in three dimensions is a powerful prototyping tool for Meta Entrepreneurs to learn and master.
There are multiple options for learning more about drawing in three dimensions.
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