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The outside of our virtual gallery, inspired by virtual galleries of our childhood. Founded by Clawdius.
Inspiration
Art belongs to everyone, and everyone should be able to share and admire art as much as possible. Physical galleries can be unwelcoming in terms of entry cost, travel time, and location accessibility. While some galleries support artists, others can be exclusionary, restricting the potential connections between artists, viewers, and buyers. We wanted to uplift local artists and give them a free platform where they could display their works in a gallery. The DigiGallery is an alternative for up-and-coming artists and art enthusiasts who cannot thrive in a traditional gallery. We strive to engage people that visit our virtual museum with wacky museum docents and depth of knowledge.
What it does
We work directly with artists to display their artwork free of charge. In the virtual museum, artists' independent storefronts and social media accounts are provided along with their work and the docent's artist inspired commentary. This art was completed before the hackathon but requested during the hackathon, so we did not place undue burden on rushing the artists. Instead, we allowed them to showcase the best, most inspiring, and most profitable work in their portfolios. We also consult the artists in order to create a faithful representation of their pieces. This inspires a closer relationship between gallery-goers, artists, and their work.
The zany characters staffing the museum are actually elements of some of the art that is on display. They have been brought to life in the spirit of art. The elements we chose to include in the DigiGallery's design are sincere, reflecting our best and fondest experiences in galleries and the digital world. Hopefully, this will inspire you to support local independent artists, use technology to connect with your community, and create something of your own!
How we built it
The virtual gallery was created in Ren'Py for its visual novel style, which invites viewers to slow down and enjoy the experience. In this way, they enjoy art _ by navigating through a work of art _. Submissions for the gallery were collected via a Google Form after direct and personalized outreach to artists.
The museum docents are elements of physical art that were previously digitized, which we edited into sprites this weekend. The museum itself, inside and out, is also a product of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.
We also gathered additional assets, such as music and backgrounds, from sites like Itch.io and Pixabay. Full credits for the assets used can be found in the About section of the DigiGallery's main menu.
Challenges we ran into
None of us had any prior experior with Ren'Py, and some of us still have no experience. Our two programmers learned the unique documentation of Ren'Py during this project, which uses a surprisingly low level yet high level programming framework. For example, it uses labels and goto--much-like assembly code--yet with injection Python scripts. Resizing images was surprisingly difficult and, based on our research, a common issue for other programmers, yet it had few working solutions online. It was also difficult to find updated documentation on Ren'Py, but it was thrilling to learn and a gratifying experience we will carry into our future work.
Two of us learned more about image editing with the help of another teammate. We also learned how to source royalty-free images and audio.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are so happy to provide this virtual space for artists and art enthusiasts. This has been something we have thought about for a long time, so it's amazing to see it come into fruition.
We are also proud to have exponentially enhanced our Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop skills. Also, two of our least tech-savvy members are happy to have demystified technology and hackathons with this experience. We are all proud to have built something to help artists that we can share with others.
We reached out to local artists individually for sourcing works to feature at the museum, and it is amazing we can show off their vast portfolios of excellent work.
What we learned
We learned Ren'Py from scratch, with no prior knowledge other than Python. The documentation was our main guide in this adventure.
This has been a great experience for us to practice and develop our teamwork, coordination skills, and creativity, both for coders and non-coders. We learned from each other at every step of the way, with Ren'Py, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, art appreciation, and even Google Forms!
Git was another element we learned more of, which is especially vital in a collaborative environment. Merge conflicts were an adjustment but proved manageable with persistence.
What's next for DigiGallery
We plan to keep working on this project in the future and expand the scope of what the gallery has to offer. We have gathered so many wonderful submissions, and we are disappointed that we were not able to show them all. We also have more art and artists interested in the project who unfortunately could not meet the hackathon deadline. In the future, they will be added, and the programmers will further hone their expertise in the Ren'Py structure.
We are also motivated to figure out Ren'Py's web modules. This will allow us to bring the DigiGallery to the world wide web, expanding its reach and accessibility across the globe in a much easier manner. Right now, all we can do to show the gallery is have you download our project from GitHub.
More whacky museum docents will also be added in the future! It was a joy to write them, and there's a few characters we thought about adding that we'd love to show off.
Works Cited
Bench by Robin Schreiner link.
Gallery 01 by Jalal Mansour Amine on Pixabay link.
Art Museum link.
Museum opening by Ingo Joseph link.
Front Desk by Roberto Nickson (Roberto Nickson (@rpnickson) | Unsplash Photo Community).
Statue 1 by João Jesus link.
Statue 2 by Miggy Rivera link.
Gallery Backgrounds by Inga Seliverstova.
Backgrounds by Geckos link.
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