A virtual Christmas Party

Sometime around last December I received a rather strange but also curious request from an Australian business owner. He asked if it were possible to re-create the office his staff and himself worked in so that they could have a virtual Christmas party. With the pandemic causing enforced restrictions many of the staff could not actually physically be there, so this to him seemed to be the obvious solution.

I found this very heart-warming actually. If the pandemic has taught us one thing it is that human connection is vital, so I was delighted to assist them in making this possible for them.

A New Challenge

Although I have worked with blender for quite a while, creating something in virtual reality was a pretty new concept for me. In VR you want to be able to turn and look all the way around 360 degrees. With the projects I usually create I can just block stuff out but if I did that in this project it wouldn’t look authentic or feel real. It’s crucial to give everything a consistent sense of detail all over the place.

Think about an empty corner in a room, for example. It is empty is the way that there is nothing it in, but it is still made up of tiny details such as dust and coffee stains and all manner of things. They exist, but because they aren't really tangible things, they are difficult to re-create. However, if you didn't add them in then the space wouldn't feel organic.

The Family Kitchen

Shortly after completing the office party project, I received another request. This time from a family who wanted their old kitchen from their old house recreated. What made this particularly interesting is that they wanted some elements of their kitchen from different time periods. For example, they wanted their old oven from 20 years ago but the counters from 10 years after that. It made for a strange but captivating experience.

The family sent me tonnes of photos and videos to be used as references. What was really hard in creating this was trying to get everything the right size because actually our sense of scale is really bad. I started modelling things but as soon as I put a person in for reference, I realised everything was too big.

You just take furniture for granted really; it just exists. As humans we seem to have a very warped sense of how big or small things are. I created chairs that were far too tall and tables that would come up to your waist. In the end I had to google the measurements so I could be sure I had them right.

The project was a success in the end! The family were very pleased with the outcome and I felt pleased to be able to create this reality for them.

To conclude…

I really enjoyed working on these projects and hopefully I will get to work on some more virtual reality projects in the future. I just think it is so awesome the way we can take bit of technology like this and use it for such incredible ideas.