-Sky Aquarium-

Initial Ideas and Concepts

After taking some more time to develop my concept, I wanted it to revolve around the idea of discovering the unknown. Often times when we are approaching things out of our comfort zone, we find many unexpected things along the way. I wanted to covey that things do not always go as planned, but we might pick up a thing or two along the way. My intention was to create a simulation of a place that takes place in between the sky and sea, similar to a dream-like realm, and have the audience go on a little journey of discovery.

To have the audience question a bit of where the player is and immerse the audience, I intended to create interactive text. The text would serve a first person perspective and relay what the player is experiencing when discovering this environment. I wanted to have the 3D environment be oceanic and the background to be showing the sky. I experimented in what I could do with the particle system. I decided to add bubbles to add some detail and movement. I originally was not too sure what to add after going into the tunnel, but during the process I thought it would be a good placement for fog and for the texts to come up. I initially was just going to have the player pass through texts as it swims by. However, after experimenting and seeing what I could do, I had the texts pop up as it passes through a cube. I turned off the mesh of the cube so it appears as if the player is moving along a certain part of the map the texts would pop up.

Reflection

Something that did not quite work as I wanted was the fluidity movement within the environment and player. I wanted to place a shader onto the plants to make it appear as if it was swaying with the current or winds, but the specific custom shader program was not available in the computer labs. If I had more time, I would like to write a better script for the player movement to be smoother. I originally, had a lot of issues with the trigger events happening. I could not get the audio or the text to work, but retracing my steps I was able to fix it. Some things that turned out pretty well is the fog particles and the environment models. Having the smoky particles move sideways makes it appear more natural. I was not able to work Unity Hub, but I was able to download and find some pretty neat 3D models in Quixel. I liked how the texts appeared on the screen in the final product because it kind of reminded me of the captions you would read when watching a movie. This works well with this character going on a journey and the audience following along.

Improvement

Some things I would like to explore in the future of the project is providing different routes for the player to go through. It would be interesting to encounter different things when going in different paths. I would also like for the player to interact with different characters along the way, to show that we meet new people along our own journeys. Maybe including different music audio as you go different routes to showcase that there are different feelings the character experiences when going in a different path.