Have you ever stared at a work of art and wondered what it might be like to step into the colorful world created by the painter?
Well, now, thanks to one animator, you can do just that through a 3D virtual version of the world created by Vincent Van Gogh in "The Night Cafe."
Animator Mackenzie Cauley created this animated virtual version of "The Night Cafe" for a contest, asking creative minds to come up with new uses for virtual reality.
Yes, that's right, this is a work of art for virtual reality, a way to step into a world created by one of the most famous artists of all time.
Of course, to create such a virtual world, Cauley had to use his imagination in certain places. He added a few elements, including a pipe-smoking man who bears a striking resemblance to Van Gogh, as well as a piano player near the bar.
"I have always been drawn to the paintings of Van Gogh and I imagined it would be amazing to be inside one of these colorful worlds," writes Cauley on the contest website. "While the GearVR offered certain challenges with its technical limitations compared with a PC, it forced me to prioritize and really define what makes a Van Gogh painting unique."
Turning a Van Gogh painting into a 3D world wasn't easy: Cauley digitized each element in the original painting then placed those elements within the virtual world. Cauley also had to make sure people didn't get sick when moving through the painting, so he adjusted the perspective accordingly. Then, of course, he had to fill in the spaces not included in the painting while still staying true to Van Gogh's original work.
"While creating the environments of these paintings in 3D space I've had to expand on areas that can't be seen; rooms behind doors, objects hidden from view, people turned away from the viewer," Cauley writes. "It's been an interesting process in using reference material from Van Gogh and other expressionist painters but also imagining what might have been there, just off the edges of the canvas."
The result, as you can see in the video, is stunning, and hints at what art could become in the future once virtual reality becomes more mainstream.
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