For this weeks two shader graphs I decided to try and find some techniques that could be relevant to my project. I had several issues and have some questions that we could maybe go over in class but what was most important was that I saw that it is possible and that I am on the right track. I am impressed with the URP and will definitely be utilizing it.

The first graph I did was to animate grass blowing in the wind. The effect is really cool and came out great. The graph takes in several inputs to transform the grass and make it wave in the wind. One issue I had was positioning the grass it likes to go off into space if it isn't at world origin. Also it is a little darker than I would like. Overall it looks nice and fairly realistic though. The nice thing about this is that I can easily expand it to other grass just by swapping out the textures and the whole scene will look much more lively.

The next graph I did was the beginning of water. I didn't get where I want it to be just yet but have started exploring depth and gradient mixing which is starting to look nice. I can't seem to get the Unity demo to load which sucks but there is a lot of great documentation so will hopefully follow that. For now the two gradients of the shallow water color and the deep water color are mixing and I can adjust how transparent or not the lake is. One thing that is weird is it shows up in scene view but not game view.

Overall I've made good progress and with more time I will get there along with some help =)

Experience of National Geographic VR and Paper Birds

1. How well does it maintain their sense of enchantment?

I was very blown away by both apps in this aspect. The ability to watch the story showcased in Paper Birds in a sort of 3rd person over watcher is very different than how traditional video games are done and is thoughtfully done with the mystical touches of lights, sounds, and interactions of the hands.

NatGeo was my favorite for this very reason. The immersion of sitting and the world responding to stroke of the kayak was very cool. Or the process of being on my knees opening a tent zipper like I have done so many times in real life before. It was a fantasy land but I felt very connected to it

2. What types of immersive narrative structure and mechanics?

Both apps were driven by a central story that had user interactions a long the way. For example the plot of the Antartica mission was to first kayak in the channel, then climb the ice wall, the storm comes and you are in a tent, and the end comes with finding the penguins. This build up to action and then resolution is a common structure and was applied even in a wildlife experience with no other people.

3. Do the experiences use to tell their stories?

I'm not sure what is meant by "do the experiences use to tell their stories". If the question is are the experiences used to tell stories, then yes definitely. Even with a fixed plot story, having the player complete actions along the way to progress the story adds engagement to what is being told by the creator.

If the question is asking more how do the games use experiences to tell their stories then I'd say both are a little different. In Paper Birds the user is a viewer into the world, while in NatGeo the user is actually the main character experiencing the world. For a VR I personally prefer the latter type as it was more engaging.

Plot Actions Project 2 Warm Up

One of my favorite TV shows right now is Peaky Blinders. It is a very in depth historical fiction world set in post-WWI industrial England. It follows the Shelby crime family as they grow their small horse gambling den to a much larger operation shifting into legal business and politics of the 30s. This is all going on with various plots about missions to transform the family business with large amounts of money through shady dealings.

1. Be specific about how the action takes place (who performed it and what did they do)

Through six seasons of action, it's hard to be specific about all that happened so I will choose one key moment: when Thomas Shelby and his gang took over the betting pitches at Epsom. Tommy’s brother and organization members took place to attack the Italian gang’s betting pitches while Timmy caused a distraction to get all the bribed policemen away from protecting them. To do so Tommy snuck into the back area waiting for his secretary to lure a field marshall over to assassinate him. In doing so Tommy is not only distracting the cops away from the betting pitches but also carrying out political favors. Once the cops were gone the Peaky Blinders stormed the betting pitches and took control of betting at the Epsom Derby.

2. What makes this action unique to the plot, character, or story world, and how does it move the plot forward

This scene shows the depth of the stories going on within this world. Tommy is not only working to further his illegal businesses with his family, but also business with political officials moving him up in legitimacy, even through illegitimate ways. It also shows the interesting position of refinement and class alongside violence and crime which is common throughout the show.

3. Focus on interactions that could be interesting if recreated in VR.

While such a complex environment would be hard to capture in VR, if done right it would be very immersive. The Epsom Derby is a spectacle with a lot going on. By being immersed in the scene all of the chaos of the horses racing, the spectators, the various businesses, and central plot would be intertwined. While this could take away from what the focus of the scene, the environment could be very impressive especially when combined with well done spatial audio.

This week we were challenged to make two scenes out of our favorite movie, without extensive use of the asset store. This past summer I saw Top Gun Maverick which I loved. I was thinking also for the midterm VR project it might be fun to do a resort themed game. I decided therefore to try and recreate two iconic scenes from Top Gun Maverick, the beach volleyball scene and the pool table scene.

For the first pool table scene I tried my best with Blender to create the pool table. It consisted of three objects: the slate, the sides with the holes, and the legs. Overall it looks pretty good but I need to work on some fine details if I want to use it in an actual project. I imported it into Unity and then applied textures as we learned in class. The first issue was that the textures weren't really showing up. I did a UV unwrap in Blender and this solved the issue an I could see my materials with their details. I really like how the green felt looks as it is representative of an actual pool table.

I then made a simple light object which just consists of a half sphere and a cylinder connected together. I created a light material that I applied to an object where the light bulb would go and baked the lighting. I'm not sure this is the best approach as it might cause some weird effects on the balls but we will have to see. It does look nice overall.

For the rest of the scene I added in two walls with a plaster texture from textures.com, a carpeted floor, and then the balls. The balls are just spheres but I added some physics on them so that they would roll around to a random spot and make the scene more natural looking.

For the second scene I created the beach volleyball court. First I made the net which used a .psd file with the alpha channel for transparency. I'm not sure this is the best approach as for whatever reason it looks really nice in scene mode but when you switch to game mode it's fairly pixilated and the net does not show up great. Might be a camera or rendering setting as the balls in the pool table scene were similar.

I modeled a ball in Blender which came out really nice and made NYU colors for fun. The palm trees I added in the background are the only asset that I did not make myself but felt was necessary to create a backdrop. I'm not sure but maybe in the future I could add a building or something to break up the horizon. The sand texture looked nice but I had to change the tint a bit to make it look like a beach. The metal texture on the poles is reflective but maybe still could use some work as it doesn't look like metal yet.

Overall I am really happy with these two scenes as I got to experiment with the terrain tools (tree brush) and the lighting techniques from the lab this week. I also got to make several materials myself and apply them to objects, three of which I made in Blender and came out fairly well.

For this weeks workshop we had to create a scene with multiple objects and some assets imported from the Unity Asset Store.

I tried to make a mountain town scene. I found it sort of difficult to get assets to line up. The houses were either floating over the terrain or obviously clipped into it. I liked how the grass came with animations for it and was easy to work with, but I could not do the same for the trees. I think there is a way to use a brush tool for trees and foliage but unsure how to approach this? Also I found it sort of clunky to move the camera around, the hot key F we discussed in class really helped but I kept being in a mode where clicking to drag or hot keys to move were not working. I really liked making my first scene though and I can't wait to make it more in depth and interactive.