Here There Be Dragons

Meet Matt V.! He works with instructor Matthew (D.) as part of Game-U’s New Jersey Accelerate program. Normally, Matt works in Project Spark, the graphic 3D game editor, but in his most recent class, he took a break to explore virtual reality!

In virtual reality, players can interact with a digital environment similarly to how they interact with a physical environment. When coupled with Google Earth, for example, a child wearing a VR device can take a walk in their mother’s hometown, visit her school, and even see her old apartment, despite being halfway across the world! Another VR game allows players to tour Paris from the air, while still another melds Minecraft with VR to create a virtual Minecrafting experience. By immersing users in a completely digital but nonetheless interactable world, VR opens the door to hundreds of opportunities and practical applications. Not to mention it’s also a lot of fun!

Instructor Matthew, however, didn’t just show Matt the Oculus – a VR device – for fun (although of course fun was involved). Using Medium, a VR art program associated with Oculus, Matt spent the class sculpting his own dragon model. Matt built the entire model in VR! Medium’s reference models, primitive shapes, and modification tools combined with Matt’s creative vision to produce a full-blown 3D dragon, ready for texturing or for use in a game. Once Matt finished, he and Matthew imported the model’s files into Unity, the professional gaming engine, to show it off and possibly put it to work as an asset. Check out the video the guys shared at the end of class!

Your dragon looks amazing, Matt! We’re excited to see you exploring virtual reality and building your skills as an artist. Be sure to keep in touch so we can learn about VR, 3D modeling, and game design right along with you!