Paul Woidke's Second Life

Some new pieces of the Wolfe Center I’ve been working on are the loading dock in the back of the building and the corridor that goes through the middle of the building. These projects have gone relatively smoothly, and I am happy with how they are looking. The loading dock required some reshaping of the ground to make the paved incline, which took some patience but eventually worked out well. The cubes to the side represent various mechanical elements.

A big project that I’ve been spending some significant time on is the hallway that divides the front and back halves of the building. This hallway contains a lot of glass and connects to several stairwells and other similar halls on other levels. Using a rendering provided by the architects, I tried to make the corridor look as close as possible to the actual building.

Below is the rendering I used as a reference and an image of the hallway I built.

Zoom News, Bowling Green State University’s daily news update recently published a short article about the Second Life Wolfe Center.

The Wolfe Center for the Arts, currently under construction, has a twin sister in the virtual world of Second Life. Construction on the virtual replica of the new building began during fall 2009 and is almost complete. According to Bonnie Mitchell, co-facilitator of the BGSU Virtual Campus, “The campus community is very eager to see and experience being inside the new Wolfe Center. The replica inside Second Life enables people to get a true spatial sense of walking around and being inside this amazing building.”

The team of 3-D modelers included digital arts majors Josh Treiber, Brandon Moore and Paul Woidke.

The virtual Wolfe Center can be visited at any time in Second Life during its construction; however, the grand opening will take place in December during the ArtsXtravaganza celebration in the School of Art.

Source: http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/mc/zoomnews/page86294.html

For the past few weeks I have been working on the architecture of the BGSU Wolfe Center for the Arts (http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/mc/news/2008/news53661.html). This work in Second Life is a nearly exact replica of the Wolfe Center, which is currently being built on the BGSU campus.

My work today has been on building the walls int he rear of the building, which houses the faculty offices and graduate lounge. In order to complete this task, I made a psd file of the dorsal views of the first and second floors, and then overlaid them to see which walls lined up on each floor (See below). The highlighted rooms show which rooms need fully modeled interiors (Yellow rooms) and which need blocked out interiors (Orange rooms).

Using this system, we have streamlined our workflow and know exactly what needs to be done.

Also, this morning I blocked out the skylight above the main corridor that divides the building.

We are hoping that the Wolfe Center in Second Life will be completed by October 1st, 2010.

This past week I put in several hours worth of work on the windows of the BGSU Freebie Store addition. It turns out the reason it was taking so long was because I was working with the orientation set to world instead of local. Needless to say, I got the rest of the windows done relatively easily after that.

After completing the basic placement of the windows between the support structure, I duplicated the wing I was working on and moved it to the other side. The wings are not symmetrical, but I feel that this does not detract from the overall appeal.

Now the second floor of the Freebie Store has around twice as much space to work with for future expansion. After a critique of the additions, it was determined that another improvement that could be made is to continue the curve of the wings down into supports. This will make the building appear more stable. I’m hoping to put some gardens or other aesthetic features under the wings themselves in the space that will be created by the supports.

I am also starting work on some other projects. My top priority right now is to help with the completion of the Wolfe Center for the Arts in Second Life. This project will recreate the BGSU Wolfe Center for the Arts, which is currently being built on the BGSU campus, in Second Life. The project has to be completed by October 1st for Arts Extravaganza. My job on this project will primarily be texturing, but I will most likely also assist in construction.

Once this and any other small projects have been completed, I am planning to go back to the Freebie store and add the supports to the structure. Additionally, I want to go over the entire structure as it stands and refine the architecture to use a lower number of prims, as well as to make it fit together and look better overall.

Another small project that I worked on was building amusement park attractions. One of these structures I made is a cotton candy stand. I tried to keep the structure simple and made the stand with as few prims as possible.

I have not yet added the sign that goes on the top of the cotton candy stand or textures on the sides of the stand, but the structure itself is completed.

In addition to my work on the Freebie Store, I have also been working on several side projects. One of these is a ship that is being built in the inlet on the island. The structure of the ship is nearly completed and just needs a few modifications. Preliminary  textures on the ship are in place, but I will be updating them in coming days.

The upper deck of the ship has a steering wheel, and there is also a ladder from the deck to the crow’s nest.

The doorway below the steering wheel leads to the interior of the ship, which contains a treasure chest, book shelf, and other items.

In order to provide more space for expansion in the Freebie Store, I have been working on creating some wings on the building. These wings will come off the sides of the structure and will double the area of the second level of the Freebie Store.

This post will give a summary of projects I have completed in the last few weeks, as well as an overview of what I am currently working on.

The BGSU Freebie Store:

This project involved remaking the BGSU Freebie Store, where visitors to the island can get free objects, skins, scripts, and many other items. I was given a plot of land to work on and set out designing a modular store that had different rooms for different types of items (see below).

After completing this structure, I was instructed to revise the building to be more easily accessible, and elegant. Instead of editing this structure, I designed and built a new structure, which is currently acting as the BGSU Freebie Store.

When designing this structure, I tried to consider what was needed as far as space, and also thought about what things in Second Life make the architecture different from reality. What I settled on was a very open structure with a glass roof, and a balcony that can be used as an entrance by visitors who are flying in SL. Right now I have only moved the crates from the previous locations into the store, but in the future I am planning on building new containers for the various items in the store. I am also currently working to add some more variety to the architecture and to make the building look more uniform and complete. Part of this is designing wings that will extend form the sides of the building, to allow for expansion.

I have recently completed several of the new item containers, which can be seen below.

I made some garment bags and a clothing rack to hold the various avatar skins and clothing items in the store. Eventually these bags will have a tag or design on them that will say what they contain.

I also created books and a bookcase to hold things like scripts and other programming items.

The Freebie Store is the major project that I am working on presently, and I will continue to update my progress as I go.

For the past few month I have been working as a 3D modeler and architect in Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab that launched on June 23, 2003. BGSU has been active in second life since 2007. I wanted to create this blog so that I have a way of cataloging my projects and keeping track of my progress on various projects in Second Life. To start I will post several posts regarding various projects I am working on currently, or have recently completed, and will continue to update this blog as I go.