Hackathon on VR Sculpting Our guide to organise a hackathon for emerging artists
Our second Realities in Transition hackathon took place during the 2024 edition of L.E.V. Matadero (Visual Electronics and Extended Realities), curated by L.E.V. (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual), at MATADERO Center for Contemporary Creation in Madrid which also featured a full XR programme.
Our goal was to dive deeper into the state-of-the-art tools that allow more accessible ways for creators and young artists to build astonishing virtual worlds and characters.
With that goal in mind, we asked the world builder MetaRick, creator of the series Uncanny Alley, to run a hackathon in a hybrid format from his office and home, the Metaverse. During this hackathon MetaRick guided the participants into various VR Sculpting techniques for building an original avatar from scratch and getting it ready to use in VRChat. VR Sculpting is a more easy way to enter the challenging world of 3D modeling. The hackathon explored also the free-to-use tools available today.
MetaRick, who has extensive experience in world building and has been recognised internationally, is the developer of a series of avatars for his own virtual worlds for years. The hackathon lasted four days, both presently from LEV Matadero Festival and with some participants attending online and was oriented to creators with some introductory experience to 3D modeling and worldbuilding in Unity.
Set-up:
For the development of this hackathon, LEV Festival provided:
- A working space.
- Mentoring.
- A set of VR-ready computers.
- VR Headsets.
- A virtual platform to connect and share both with MetaRick and the other participants during the hackathon.
Challenge
The challenge proposed to every participant was to create a working Avatar model to be used and embodied the last day in a presentation in VRChat using VR sculpting techniques. For that challenge, 7 avatars were finally created.
Schedule
Day 1: Kick-off presentation, installation and assembly of the software to be used.
Day 2: Creation of a digital sculpture using VR Sculpting.
Day 3: Integration of the sculpture with the VRChat SDK for Unity.
Day 4: Testing and final presentation.
Tips for the development of the specific challenge
The following presentation has been prepared to show the tips given to the participants
Presentation of the results
At the end of the event, the participants present during the last day of the hackathon shared their Avatar in a specific private room in VRChat prepared for that moment by MetaRick followed by an IRL (in real life) presentation of their avatar (inspirations, work in progress and final results) to the audience formed by family and friends in Madrid.
