UWA Officially launched its virtual presence in the 3D Virtual World of Second life on the 2nd of October 2009, and has since then taken the (virtual) world by storm, rising to prominence across the areas of teaching, arts, architecture and research conducted through 3D virtual mediums.

In four short months, the efforts of Professor Ted Snell, Director of the Cultural Precinct and Jay Jay Jegathesan, Manager of the School of Physics have seen UWA have become known for hosting a very successful 3D Art & Architectural challenge with entries from every continent in the world except Antarctica!

Following the launch of its Second Life venture last year, UWA has continued to use the virtual world as a platform for learning and interaction / Image: Courtesy UWA

With the architectural challenge, the Grand Prize winner, could form the baseline for the actual UWA Cultural Precinct Flagship building that is planned to be constructed in a number of years (A fly through of the winning design for the December round of the challenge can be seen here.

The success of the international art and architecture challenge led to the setting up of MachinimUWA: The UWA Machinima Challenge.

Machinima is the use of real-time three-dimensional (3-D) graphics rendering engines to generate computer animation. For this event, White Lebed (International Arts Curator in Second Life) of California, USA joined forces with team UWA in making this a success.

For this event, the challenge put out to the world was to create videos that would display the Teaching, Architecture, Research and Arts taking place on the UWA 3D virtual presence in Second Life, and the world responded. 13 finalists were shortlisted, hailing from Texas, Massachusetts, New York, Florida, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Paris, Maastricht, Berlin, Toronto and Perth.

It was incredibly hard for the judging panel to pick out the winners. The overall quality of the finalists was of the highest order, and the level of commitment involved in preparing the submissions was clearly evident, and providing great insight into the potential of the UWA virtual presence.

In the end, Cisko Vandeverre’s (Berlin, Germany) brilliant and otherworldly entry, ‘SEEK’ pipped that of Perth’s own Bradley Curnow, and ColeMarie Soleil of Florida.

1ST PRIZE
CISKO VANDEVERRE (Berlin, Germany), SEEK

2ND PRIZE
BRADLEY CURNOW (Perth, Australia), MachinimUWA: Art Architecture, Research, Teaching

3RD PRIZE
COLEMARIE SOLEIL (Florida USA), UWA Machinima Challenge Submission

Winners were announced at a sparkling announcements ceremony in front of the virtual representation of Winthrop Hall, with more than 60 ‘avatars’ from all around the world present, including Torley Linden of Linden Labs (ambassador of Second Life culture).

Professor Alan Robson, Vice Chancellor of UWA and chair of the 12 member international judging panel, said, "I was most impressed with the ingenuity, clarity and beauty of the entries. I congratulate all people involved."

All finalists can be seen here.

 
To find the UWA presence on Second Life go here.

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