Weekly Workshop

Heresy

I met some errors when I tried to build my project into an .apk file. So I record a video about a walk through of my scenes. This is still an unfinished project, I will try to figure those errors after I complete my work.

I found 2 tutorials of shader graph. One is to create a dissolve effect, the other one is to create a force field.

Dissolve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taMp1g1pBeE&t=548s

Force Field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiOGWZXBg4Y

And I placed a sopt light under my model to make it more amazing.

Wendy: I really like this kind of transparent and dissolve effect. Cool!

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

Both apps maintain their sense of enchantment very well but I think Paper Birds does a better job. I would say that the VR of National Geographic VR is in an addictive form. I appreciated becoming a participant in it. To be frank, it is more real than I think it can be, but it is just a way to lead me to view the spots. The technique of VR in this app is for better showing the scenes. Meanwhile, the VR of Paper Birds is in an expressive form. It brings me into the story world and I feel like I am the third eye of the character. I can see the world in different angles and interact with the music and the light. Actually I think the style of Paper Birds is like Howl's Moving Castle by Miyazaki Hayao and Paper Bird really takes me into the mysterious world, which makes me excited and shocked.

2. What types of immersive narrative structure and mechanics?

Paper Birds combines the space, lights and music together which make it very immersive. I was so surprised to walk around to see the world that I touched the boundary of my game space many times. I will never forget the scene of the boy taking the cable car to visit his grandfather and the grandmother taking the boat on the sea. The music was so impressive that I didn’t realize my roommate was knocking on the door. Last but not least, I would say the light in Paper Bird is very amazing. It is not only a way to show the world, but also a way to tell the story.

Maybe it’s my personal reason, I think the expression of National Geographic VR is ordinary. The only highlight is that it makes full use of the controller to increase the interactions between participants and scenes. (I don’t like to spend much time on documentary things. Instead, I like to explore an imaginary and unknown world such as Paper Birds).

The anemie I will be discussing is a famous work by Ishida Sui, Tokyo Ghoul. The anemie takes place in Tokyo, where live humans and ghouls, which only eat humans to live. The story is too long to summarize so I choose one episode to explain. In this episode, the Main character loses his mind when he tries to protect people around him. The story takes place in his dream, where he sees all the people he killed and then chooses to carry all the burdens and achieve a reconciliation with his past. The scenes are incredibly amazing in the comic book. But the reason I choose the anemie is because it simplifies the scenes and gives them colors.

The three most important scenes in this episode are the scene where the main character sees his guilt, the scene where he argues with the projection of his subconsciousness and the scene that he decides to keep on going.

https://xiaoheimi.net/index.php/vod/play/id/36879/sid/1/nid/10.html

The second scene is the conversation between the main character and the projection of his subconsciousness. He hears the sound made by the people before they die: “Save me…”, “don’t kill me…”, “Where is my child, he is only a child…”... And here comes a sudden silence and everything disappears except he and his subconsciousness. His subconsciousness laughed at him and said: “It is you who causes the death of those people. It will be good if you don’t do anything at the beginning.” Then they come back to the sea and all the dead bodies are gone, the water is clear.

VR: This scene doesn’t have many elements so we need to make use of the sound and dialogue. The sound of the dying people can surround the player and create a sense of dizziness and fearness. The combination of the sudden silence and the empty scene is to make the player feel lonely and powerless. The most important thing is the laughing of the subconsciousness, which can be strident. Because it reflects the regretness and abandonment of the main character. I think VR can express these feelings perfectly to the player.

I made a practice of creating such a scene.

The right of controlling the female character will be given to the player after the camera animations.

Hi Oliver, This is such a beautiful and mysterious place. I will ask to talk about it in the class.

Below is the storyboard (I am really poor at drawing things😅).

The timeline here just a way of storytelling. I want the player to know what kind of situation he is in and to give him a hint that there is a pair of shoes under the water, ordinary but mysterious. It is the player's desicion whether to look around and move aimlessly or to search for the shoes (actually things will not change even if the player finds the shoes because I don't know how to make the changes😂). This is also what I want to know about: how to make the environment change? For example, the distance of the player and the 360 picture won't change because it is a skyball material. And how to write the script to move and rotate the different camera when they are activated by the timeline in order to make the lens language more fluent and more abundant?

For my VR project, I would like to explore the idea of VR as an expression form. The first thing I need to do is to try my best to recreate the scene in this game. Then, I need to enrich the scene by adding the light and details to tell the story. If possible, I can add some music or other effects to express the mood in the scene. Finally, it will be good if I can add some interactive parts in order to let the players discover the background story.