Month: November 2021

Mind the Gap – Script Second Draft & Story-boarding Attempt 2

After my first attempt with creating a virtual reality storyboard in tilt brush and quill i knew that i would need to practice and find better ways to visualise my script and experience within this format. So after doing some research I found out that you can import 3D models and objects into tilt brush which I could then use as either a template, point of reference or a backdrop/frame for drawing my storyboard.

Importing My Assets

So i began by importing the train model that i had previously found on tilt brush that i would like to use for my experience and used this as a framework for the hand drawn elements. I wanted to start simple by trying to create one scene or frame from the script which was the fourth puzzle in which the user will need to pull down the hand rails in order to progress to the drivers carriage to end the story.

For practice and my first developments I practiced using the tilt brush controls and started to learn what tools were available for me to use which was really fun to try. I kept it simple and drew the hand rails above the seats in the environment and using the highlight brush drew around these and also drew a downwards arrow to indicate to the player that they need to pull all of these down to progress. I then drew an arrow in the direction that the character needs to move to progress further.

Next Steps

This is still not quite where i want this to be but i feel better about using the tilt brush software now that i know how to import models and assets into my tilt brush file. I know how to progress further with this and will continue to try and draw the rest of my experience over the next week and have it in a more finalized state for review by adding more detail, text prompts and other elements that i feel could enhance this and convey my story.

SECOND DRAFT OF SCRIPT

During the passed week i tried to critique my first draft of the script and tried to think of ways to refine the narrative, improve, remove or any additions that i think it might have needed. After reading through the script multiple times I decided that maybe the character that the player is embodying should speak and should be presented as a silent protagonist. This would mean that the player could perhaps embody the experience even more if they are playing themselves during the whole experience.

This meant that I needed to further rethink the dialogue of the train announcer so that the announcer would talk and present the story to the player without the player needing to answer back. After making this change to the script i feel this works better as a more immersive experience and it also reduces the amount of dialogue required keeping the experience shorter as per the project brief.

Stutter – Audio and Further Unity Tests & Environment Development

During the development for this project I have had to rethink a few areas and how i can fully develop a polished experience within the given time frame and I have decided to shorten the experience to only having three levels of difficulty:

Level 01: Easy Difficulty – 3 Words
Level 02: Medium Difficulty – 4 Words
Level 03: Hard Difficulty – 6 Words

I think this will be an achieveable goal to create for this experience and all of these can still be created in one Scene or level just by having the different difficulties load in and out over given times within the game.

Stutter – Environment Script

For this experience i needed to create a simple conversation that could be discussed over three sentences while also conveying different levels of intensities within given conversations and also the frequency of words that will be floating around the player at any given time.

Level 01: Easy Difficulty

A: Hi, Really nice to see you again, how have you been?
P: Very Good Thankyou

This is a very basic level of difficulty where you will only need to create a sentence of three words and the conversation is simpler and approachable for a stutter.

Level 02: Medium Difficulty

A: Glad to hear, How has work been for you lately?
P: Stressful, but pushing through

This is a medium level of difficulty because while the conversation sounds simple its becoming more personal and perhaps the person wasnt ready for a question like this

Level 03: Hard Difficulty

A:oh okay, oh how is your partner lately, still together i trust?
P: Well Unfortunately, We broke up because…

This is where a conversation can become part of a hard difficulty and could become very difficult for a stutterer because not only is it a deeply personal question but could also throw someone off guard and perhaps not knowing a way out of the situation in a ‘socially acceptable’ way.

Game Design Document

Audio Recording

After writing the script for the experience I needed to have recordings of the dialogue to add to the Unity build. I do not personally know anyone else other than some family members who have a stutter and so I am going to have to record these lines because i want the experience to be as authentic as possible. My friend Alex very politely helped me by recording the lines of the person the stutterer is having a conversation with. All of the audio was then edited to be individual for the unity project and i wanted the audio for the conversation to be echoey to show it was coming from outside the mind which i was able to achieve through after effects.

Latest Environment Iteration

Looking through different models on turbosquid I came accross this great model of a cherry blossom tree which i felt suited atmosphere of the environment very well and i was able to add a new material to the object with ease. The environent needed to be typographic so I was able to create a material using images of book pages that would wrap around the tree model with very successful results, especially when it is shown in the dark environment. This material was then also used for the plan or surface that the user is standing on to again simulate being on a book page or part of a story or narrative.

The tree model was the duplicated and placed all around the environment to simulate the user being in a forrest inside a brancing mind which i feel also works very well especially when the whole experience is viewed through VR glasses.

Correct and Incorrect Word Interactivity

Last week i looked into the script required to create a correct word snapping effect for the different sentence structures for the whole experience. The current scene of the project is now set up to have eight different words currently floating around the player in a rather slow manner for the ‘easy difficulty’ section of the experience.

After further discussions with my peers and tutors it was suggested that i could also include a more obvious way of showing when the user has selected an incorrect word. A simple way of showing this is having the incorrect word highlight in red when it collides with the sentence box to show to the player that it is incorrect.

The script is used so that if a object tagged with ‘WrongWord’ enters the collider for one of the correct answer colliders, it will change its colour to red and on exit it will revert back to its original colours which I felt worked very well for the experience.

I initially wanted the words to snap back in place or for the animation to reset if the words were let go but it was suggested that perhaps it would add to the chaotic nature or environment if i turned off the gravity and the words would just float off which is something i will further experiment with in the future.

After some other peer assessment feedback, it was suggested that it would also be great if every time a user grabs a word, they would hear that word as well. So i started to attach some audio files of me saying the words which are floating around which was very useful feedback and something that I will carry forward with the development of this experience.