Ghost Tale

Project Manager: Alexander Fu

Version Controller: Jinghan Gong

Lead Developer: Angel Ochoa

As you move through each stage, the cities you pass through are all abandoned. They used to be filled with people that were united. That's what the dancers represent in each of our acts. You see that these certain spirits take you into their past and you see them dancing in groups highlighting areas of the environment. As they move swiftly in unison, you get to feel comfort and see cities that are no longer being occupied come to life.

The Process

Team 5 was asked to create six virtual environment stages, and out of those six stages, only 5 of them were used. The three team members in this group all decided to come up with their own themes and when the time came, they all discussed their themes in detail and figured out the best way to make them all connect with one another. At the beginning of this, they were going to use the theme of time travel. The player was going to be visiting these different ancient cities but as time progressed they evolved their idea. They wanted to do something along the lines of mystery/sci-fi. One of their team members was really into the idea of horror and they took that idea and went with it to create this augmented-reality experience. They decided to use ghosts that rise from the dead and give the player an opportunity to visit their past in these abandoned cities.

Play Description

The player starts off in a cemetery that turns into a magical one. He gets introduced to the dancers who act as spirits in our environment. They take you to Ancient Rome, Ancient China, and then to a dystopian modern city where the player get to see dancers around the whole environment giving a glimpse of the community these spirits were a part of. In act 1 the player will start in a cemetery where the player finds 3 spirits who rise from the dead for one night to show you each of the cities where they died. Feeling like a fever dream, these spirits introduced themselves one by one through the language of dance. As they walk around the cemetery they walk up to a chapel but what they didn’t realize was that stepping into this chapel turned this cemetery into a magical one leading you into the act II. After their introductions, they decide to visit those places together. They start a time travel ceremony and go through portals that take them back to these now abandoned cities where each of these spirits came from. In Act III the player arrives in an abandoned ancient Rome city. Then in act IV they come to an ancient Chinese city and end in act V in an abandoned city.

ACT 1 & ACT 2

The cemetery has a main road with huge stone statues along it. Two graveyards rest at both sides of the road. At the front there is a giant white statue with a fountain in front of it.

The cemetery has two stages. The first stage has a serene and mysterious autumn vibe. I used the colorful and animated trees from Azure Nature and placed them on the fields along the main cross. I also added falling leaves vfx to enhance the feeling of autum. Since it’s an AR stage, I tried to keep the stage of reality intact as much as possible and blend my assets with it. I left the road untouched, only adding leaf piles to cover the corners of it.

As the player proceeds, the stage will change to its second phase, in which the water fountain would turn into blood, the trees would wither, all the leaves will turn red, and the foliage will rise instead of fall.

ACT 3

As you travel to the abandoned city of Ancient Rome, you can see the city has sat there and collected dust as no one has lived there for centuries. As you walk through the city you look up and see that there are purple clouds that make the city look lonely and mysterious. At the entrance of the stage, you see two giant Roman soldier statues that have rusted where you are being introduced by one of the spirits in the opening stages. I used a red light because it added a certain darkness and loneliness to my city, almost giving it a horror-like aspect. Moving to the left side of the stage you see stairs that lead you to a group of spirits that are dancing in between two fountains. I’ve placed the dancers there to add some etherealness to the setting and to see the spirits dance in unity. To the right of the entrance, you then see another group of dancers that are by a gazebo under a purple light to show the deep sadness of the city that they lived in no longer being put to use and slowly being covered by sand, but the dancers add life to this lonely environment Moving down the stage you see stairs that lead to clouds. I drew the idea from the stairway to heaven which is a hike that is on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. There are thousands of steps that lead you up into the clouds just like on my stage where you will then see dancers moving in unison on top of a cloud. Lastly, there is an abandoned building to the left of the stairs that used to be a house of the spirit that led you to this city. She shows you the inside and you see what is left of what once used to be her home.

ACT 4 & ACT 5

In ancient Chinese cities, I used many Chinese architectures like Chinese lofts, doors, and bridges. I also added some trees, lotus, and horses as decorations to create a sense of peace. I changed the lighting to orange, creating a scene at sunset time period. I added my dancers in front of the doorway of the city, near a horse, and on the bridge, to make them interact with objects on the stage. Coming up with this idea because I’m very interested in Chinese culture.

In the modern abandoned city, I use desert settings, broken buildings, cars, and gas stations to convey a sense of desolation. I also added zombies to make the stage look more creepy. I also added a tornado to indicate the bad environment. This place was where the third person lived. As the host, he shows up at the entrance, where the fences are located. And the dancers are dancing on the roof of an iron house and near the zombies. Right now everyone in China was asked to stay at home for security reasons. This situation inspired me to create this kind of stage.

Promotional Poster

For our promotional poster, since we are going along the theme of horror/sci-fi. The team member that was in charge of making the poster wanted to use the opening stage, which is the cemetery. They also found inspiration from the logos that were used in Ghostbusters and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. They wanted to make the poster look a bit scary and mysterious so the final color scheme was to have a Black background (to add scariness to the poster), Red lettering to have it portray blood, and lastly white for the cemetery to reference ethereal and heaven

Our sketches of promotional poster

Credits

The work is based on You-Jin Kim's code-base "Dynamic Theater"

https://github.com/yujnkm/UCSB_3D

3D environment, scanned using LiDAR and modeled.

Digital Materials and repository: You-Jin Kim

Choreographer: Christina McCarthy

Music: Adam Schmieder

Dancers: Linn Molin, Eugene Jonathan Yan, Alice Lousen, Christopher Sellgren, Jovian Watson Mollner

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