Upon Salvador Dali’s death in 1989, the world was reminded of his unique ability to render “the unreal world with such extreme realism that its truth and validity could no longer be questioned.”
The art critic responsible for that description, the late James Thrall Soby, could not have imagined that we’d one day reach a moment when Dali’s melting clocks and impossibly alien landscapes would become places we could actually visit. But now, at the dawn of commercial virtual reality, that’s exactly what we’re doing, and a new class of artist is beginning to emerge to help us navigate this new plane of surreality.
After weeks immersed in the new, user-created worlds of Medium for VR sculpting and Quill for VR painting, both made for the Oculus Rift, I’ve watched as many artists — professional and amateur — have enthusiastically embraced the new tools.
However, during my deepest dives in the rapidly growing, but mostly unnoticed VR communities, one particularly prolific artist stood out, piercing the head-mounted fog of pixels with a distinct visual language that feels native to the new canvas of VR.
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That grounding in 3D software might sound like a natural advantage, but it’s not quite that simple. Since 2015, I’ve been closely watching some of the most talented professional artists trying their hand at VR art using tools like Tilt Brush, for the HTC Vive, with colorful but less than extraordinary results. What Edwards has managed to do, that many others haven’t, is shed a part of her traditional art training to embrace the new frontier of creating eye-tricking color and light spectrums while working “inside” the screen that many digital artists are still using as a 2D windows into 3D.
“It’s difficult to get across just how much of a difference it makes to look at a 3D thing you’re making in stereoscopic 3D — as close to how we see things in the real world as we can get,” says Edwards. “You’re able to comprehend scale and depth very naturally and automatically relate the virtual object to your own body and space — especially since, with Touch or Vive controllers, you are physically manipulating the object with your hands in real space.”
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“We live in a 3D world, and until now we’ve mostly expressed ourselves with 2D mediums (drawing, photography, video) except for sculpture or 3D software, which requires advanced skills and training,” says Alban Denoyel, co-founder and CEO of Sketchfab, one of the largest platforms for sharing 3D art online.
“With the new VR creation tools, anybody can express himself in 3D space, which is the natural way to convey a concept or an emotion. What blows my mind is to see 5-year-old kids posting 3D drawings on Sketchfab. When you think about it, drawing a house in 3D is even more intuitive than on a 2D sheet of paper, just because the house is in 3D in the real world.”
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“I absolutely do think this will encourage more artists to take up digital 3D,” says Edwards.
“The biggest barrier to entry at the moment is the cost of the headsets, but in a few years, when headsets are more accessible, software like these will put 3D art in a lot of hands.”
Source: Mashable