Weekly Workshop
Weekly Workshop
Embedded Files
Week 1
Week 1
04 Sep, 2022
Unity Basics
Unity Basics
Basically, I made a simple afternoon tea setup. I downloaded food assets from the asset store and combined them with cylinder objects. After importing the food assets, I played with different sized, angles, ways of assembling; e.g., to put the cherry on the cheese as decoration. Since there're three identifical cylinders in the scene, I adjusted their sizes, heights and colors with the material assets to avoid boredness of the overall display.
It was challenging for me to put several objects on the same level (y axis). Since I'm dealing with 3D objects, "cherry is on the cheese" from one angle doesn't necessarily mean that cherry is exactly on the cheese. I have to check this from other positions. Sometimes when I clicked on the x/y/z on the upper right corner, the object in the view will disappear and I cannot them it anymore...
I haven't played with 3D objects before, so dealing with them and seeing how vivid they are is super exciting. Also, the lighting and shadows of the objects made the virtual scene so genuine, and that's what I want to explore more in the future.
This is a beautiful still-life project! Learn about still life more and study some of the old paintings in art history. This might be your interest to go for your final project. (don't know! just throwing some idea). It is as beautiful that can display in a frame in a show. Well done for your first project.
Week 2
Week 2
11 Sep, 2022
VR Project - World and Scenes
VR Project - World and Scenes
I choose the world of Kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore) from the movie Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し) for my project.
One scene is a morning scene. Basically it’s an empty street with food stores on both sides. Those stores serve spirits, which appear at night.
The street is like a traditional marketing place. Paints on the walls and buildings are old, which determines the materials to be used for those buildings. There're lots of elements featuring Japanese and Chinese culture, like red lantern, characters on the facades, the temple and tower at the end of the street, etc. Those elements also make the world representative in a way that the story is rooted in Japanese spirit culture and the scene is designed based on what real streets in Japan are like. In this scene, people can go straight forward or backward on the street and the end point will be a tower with a tree and temple behind.
The other scene is a night scene which consists of a bridge and a fancy building. I will have to use lots of light materials and tile textures. The tiles, cornices, red color are elements from traditional architecture in east Asia and they are unique in this story.
Also, the building has symmetric structure, which makes it distinguishable, showing the identity of this specific scene. People can nevigate through the bridge, just like the spirits, who are also honored guests to this world, and finish their journey in this scene right in front of the huge building.
Week 3
Week 3
19 Sep, 2022
360 Scene and Story
360 Scene and Story
Based on the messages and storytelling that I wanted to convey through the scene, I scanned my room and added some scanned items to the it.
I found it hard to put things in place and doing so took time. Also, the scanned version of my room is not satisfying. Some details are not covered and obsured. But having a 3D scanned version of my room and items is super cool! 3D scanning an environment and items is helpful when you want to create an environment or an experience genuine.
In my storyboard, I also thought about the future implementation of my room tour, in which more functionalities, interactions and explorations are encouraged. Players can click on my items or move them with virtual hands. So for this scene, I want to know more ahout how to include and implement those user interactions.
Week 4
Week 4
26 Sep, 2022
Experience 2 Oculus Quest apps
Experience 2 Oculus Quest apps
1 - National Geographic VR
How well does it maintain its sense of enchantment?
- It triggers audiences by the action to take photos in different spots, different scenes and corresponding “travel guides”. Different spots prompt audiences to explore more places, thus maintaining its sense of enchantment by having audiences curious. However, this sense of enchantment does not last long since, at least for me as an audience, I soon realized that it was just an exploration with few spots to go and photography as a not so attractive excuse.
What types of immersive narrative structure and mechanics?
It tells stories and history directly through voice over. If the audience arrives at a certain place, there will be voice explaining what’s special about this place and what the audiences can do with it.
Do the experiences use to tell their stories?
Yes, since the way of storytelling is quite straightforward. And the overall story line concerned with Machu Picchu is easy to follow and grasp. Also, using photography as an introduction makes this virtual trip and its travel guides approachable and exciting. But it’s questionable whether audiences really get those history and knowledge provided with voice over.
2 - Paper Birds
How well does it maintain its sense of enchantment?
- For me, it did well in maintaining its sense of enchantment. Compared to the former app, this one is more immersive. Though it’s not an exploratory world, it enables lots of interactions such as using virtual hands to trigger starlight, which seems like a magic. Also, each scene of the movie takes place in different virtual views with spotlights to catch attention. This creates variations to the flow of story, which makes it interesting and attractive over time.
What types of immersive narrative structure and mechanics?
- It also directly tells stories through voice over, and there are more actual characters in this movie. So there are also plots, characters, different places and periods of times to form and effect the overall storytelling.
Do the experiences use to tell their stories?
Yes, watching this movie was an immersive and enjoyable experience. The changes from scene to scene caught my attentions, the spotlight and effects created focus and variations, the timely interactions gave me surprise... Those factors support the storytelling and made the story approachable.
But the variations in scenes was also a bit confusing and disturbing, since when watching a movie, I’m seated, in stationary mode, so I have to constantly turn around to catch different scenes and sometimes I have to move my body to an uncomfortable position to find a most proper angle to watch things happening in a scene. So those factors could also disturb the storytelling.
Plot Actions Project 2 Warm Up
Plot Actions Project 2 Warm Up
I immediately thought of Dora the Explorer, a cartoon that I watched in childhood for this workshop, since it contains lots of actions and interactions.
1 dismissing gesture to the troublemaker
The action is performed by Dora and her friends, hopefully together with the audiences. It’s a very iconic action in Dora the Explorer, which appears lots of times in different episodes. The troublemaker symbolizes an obstacle, and after Dora dismisses him, she moves forward to complete a task. So this action moves the plot forward.
IMG_1325.MOV
2 pulling honey jar
This action is specific to one episode, where the honey jar of Ursa Minor (in shape of a bear) was almost sucked away by a black hole. Dora and her friends did the pulling action together to pull back the honey jar for Ursa Minor. After that, they proceeded to another task.
IMG_1326.MOV
IMG_1324.mov3 jumping
This action is specific to one episode, where Dora, along with other explorers, have to jump on the trampoline to get the gifts on the ceiling down. After that, they got the gifts and finished a task.
Week 6
Week 6
10 Oct, 2022
1.
It seems that the author used a special texture named "noise". I could not find one that is exactly the same. But I searched on texture.com by the keyword "noise" and found the following textures.
I finally used the first two textures and tried to apply the shader materials to spheres and planes.
Screen Recording 2022-10-10 at 8.57.08 PM.mov2.
I tried different combinations of colors and contrasts. Here are the scenes where I applied the shader.
Jiapei: The first texture works really well in creating a ocean vortex!
Week 11
Week 11
21 Nov, 2022
In this workshop assignment, I tried to create a surreal scene that could be augmented to the reality, which makes the reality surreal. I ended up with this "surreal aquarium". I imported several models in STYLY and from Unity, added modifiers to them and applied a filter to the scene.
A challenging part is that you know what your scene looks like only after you test it with the phone. I thought that there're already lots of animal models, but when testing, I realized that there should be far more in order to fill in the space.
I'm excited to see how my scene is like when I myself stand in the "position" indicated in STYLY and play with those modifiers and lightings. I want to learn more about other possibilities that I can do with AR, like interactions.
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