Utopia Still

von Jonas Laugs

Lizenz: CC BY 4.0

Glimpse into a positive vision of the future frozen in time, where cars, the climate crisis and capitalism are only a distant memory.

Description

This project is part of an exhibition for the 38c3, the congress of the Chaos Computer Club, celebrating it's 42nd birthday. It's theme was creating, positive, chaotic (in line with the club's ethics ^ _ ^) visions of the future and this something close to my heart since we don't get many of those. So I wanted to explore a vision of living in a city that is a bit more in harmony with nature and the people (and animals, insects etc). I love nature a lot but I do live in the city and I think humanity will largery live in cities in the future (there's just so many of us ^ _ ^), so is there a way we can all exist together? I knew I could not animate characters in the amount of time we had, so I decided to do a still(frame), a moment frozen in time of a positive future, a kind of 3d-diorama you can explore. If I had an infinite amount of time (and was actually able to write code + __ +) I'd love to have been able to switch between a dystopic city (basically what we have now in most cities, cars everywhere, very little nature or places for people to come together) but we decided that I should focus on the utopia – since as I said they're very rare), so I only implemented little climpses of a dystopic past that was overcome here and there in my work.

Downloads

Download the executable: Linux/macOS/Windows
Source code

Instructions

Theoretically it should be possible to just download Blender and Godot and point the latter to the Godot project folder (UtopiaStill-06-Godotproject). You probably also need to make Godot able to handle the .blend files. The „Workfiles“ folder is for other (Krita, Inkscape etc.) files I don't want cluttering up the Godot folder.

Anyway, I hope you have fun and or learn something (I certainly did ^ _ ^), if you have comments or tips, I'd be happy to hear from you via:

post@jfml.eu
@jfml@mastodon.art

Lessons learned

Godot is really cool, I love the „everything is a node/scene“ concept!
In hindsight I should have rigged the character(s), it would probably have been a looot less work then arranging the vertices.
When you use a mirror modifier to make make a character, it uv-unwraps on the same place on the texture, so you textures all are mirrored as well + _ +
Always use Smart UV Unwrap in Blender instead of UV Unwrap (even if it is a mess) since it has Island Margin. If you don't you need to get rid of the tiny lines on seams by hand …
Stuff appears on the wrong backside of the model while texture drawing? Faces are inside! (Strg-Shift-N)

Credits

Thanks a lot to:

Assets from Sketchfab (RIP):

Bee by DuongNganAnh: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/bee-d424a36fc81a49308afc9dfbab53b24d
Car Pack 1 (adapted) by buh: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/car-pack-1-6d5fe4b9b8744afe9eb4616c4444886f
Cargo Bike, Tricycle (carrito de tamales)(adapted) by V-Enterprises: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/cargo-bike-tricycle-carrito-de-tamales-e3b9e94152994d8ca9f685fd1fdfae68
Chonky Cat Trio by Kanna-Nakajima: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/chonky-cat-trio-d9a2d94179384803af7456d633283496
Coffee cup with plate by Elen: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/coffee-cup-with-plate-c3132a723f434ce2b94e2e563420ef7a
Folding Chair by Jeremy E. Grayson: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/folding-chair-low-poly-54bd0acd7c524d678128367a25a0f504
Fruit Veg Market by Francesco Coldesina: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/fruit-veg-market-cf9d11b27bf7478a857a6abcbbb00cd3
Game Ready Wind Turbine (Animated) by ThomasRedfern12: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/game-ready-wind-turbine-animated-72cf2bacbe3e4bb9901280be9ce96514
Inktober 02 - Mindless (bird) by Lilly!: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/inktober-02-mindless-48c3236cb1ca4d0e945397de66d70f92
Isuzu Erga Mio bus by own.guest: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/isuzu-erga-mio-bus-050e8acd0bbc4da0902a8a874ef10fca
Maize Corn Plant by gilles.schaeck: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/maize-corn-plant-5fd3b104d8104519b061469c365d4974
New bike by Kreems: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/new-bike-8a62eee05dd7443f88f190cf2c234529
Skateboard by putreffato: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/skateboard-3bbb47e70e8f4adb916a02f0804ee99e
Sketch Cat (adapted) by katarkhei: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/sketch-cat-79c1321b05ca47b79ee3111ff449518e
Tomato Plant by zvanstone: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/tomato-plant-e0b559690e384fc0a9f3a05913f609c4
Tram (国鉄キハ32形気動車 KIHA 32 Diesel) by own.guest: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/32-kiha-32-diesel-95c5d6515ff04092987d698ab2c8442a
Vertical Wind Turbines by Nadja May: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/vertical-wind-turbines-66d8b5b8830648cf84e3411d765e1320
Watering Can by Katherina: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/watering-can-3f6dee60aa044f4b8cbb3fc6d6d31fe5
Wheelchair from Poly by Google by IronEqual: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/wheelchair-from-poly-by-google-52432f571f904785832062171cca0f9c

Here's a collection: I did not use all of the assets but the one's I used should be in there (as long a Sketchfab still exists …).

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