Create Your Own Virtual Fashion Show

About HCC

HCC is one of the largest higher educational institutions in the US with over 80,000 students. It is located in Houston, one of the largest and most diverse city in the world.

HCC is also a pioneer in the use of media for teaching and learning with more than 7 Career and Technology programs and award-winning Fine Arts and Fashion Design programs.

Boosting Students Creative and Digital Skills at Houston Community College (USA)

The Virtual Fashion Show highlights the collaboration of multiple departments at HCC and promotes the designs of 5 Fashion students using 3d models, film, photography and music to engage the viewer, giving these students an immersive space to showcase their talent.

In this original and rich virtual Showroom, HCC students and staff built a unique virtual showroom, that can be used both "live" during the show, and afterwards, for students to use it as an immersive curriculum vitae that they can use freely to invite their future employers to discover their work!

Approach

For this project, Ruben and his team have managed to involve more than 50 students and professors.

For the production:

• They created internally a persistent virtual gallery to host the show - starting from a model found on Sketchfab
• Students participated in creating 360 & 3D scanned models (and learnt to do so at the same time!)
• Scanning and optimizing the 3d garments of the students
• Used video recording from the show

How do they use Wonda:

• Multiplayer with ReadyPlayerMe avatars & single player mode
• Included the 5 photogrametrics scans of student creations with links to the student sketchfab accounts
• 360 video of the show as a introduction
• Quiz system used as feedback questionnaire

Other Tools they used with Wonda:

• Blender for 3d objects optimization.
• Final Cut and Premiere Pro for 360 video editing
• Sketchfab and Kaltura as a media repository to populate our Wonda Spaces.

Results

Feeling the sense of awe when students and faculty are introduced to the space. One professor declared:

“this changes everything... for our students and engagement.”

Through the experience, HCC learnt that people who aren’t necessarily thinking to create and collaborate in this way can be sold on the idea when we have a clear path for them to follow.

As Ruben points out, with Wonda, the technology is not that intimidating for regular users and Immersive Storytelling is here to stay. HCC has since then created more than 100 experiences on 32 topics

Overall, the best "success" is that not only are the students using it to promote themselves when looking for a job, but that the university is using it as a tool to attract new students!