Collaborative Unit – Choosing Adaptation and Group Members

Face to Face meetings

On tuesday morning of this week we had the oppurtunity to meet other courses who are also working on a collaborative unit to try and find team members for our project. I was able to talk to a lot of different people from many courses such as MA Games Design, MA 3D animation, MA Visual Effects and many others who were all very interesting to talk to and had some great ideas and interests in what projects they are interested in creating.

Initially i started by talking to some of the other students about a ‘Paper Man’ adaptation which some were interested in especially some of the MA Games design students who even discussed the possibility of mixing their interest of creating board games with Augmented reality to create a paper airplane game adaptation. I felt that this idea would be extremely interesting and very unique and was something I initially wanted to discuss further after meeting all of the other students. I also met quite a few of the MA 3D animation students who showed me a number of their showreels and the type of modelling and animations that they have previously worked on which was great to get a feel for the type of projects they are interested in.

Choosing Team Mates

For this project we are also required to work in teams from members of our own course in MA Virtual Reality. I started to talking to all of my coursemates and the ideas that they had but I am not going to be working with Yiran and Lin on a comic adaptation chosen by Lin for virtual reality. I had also began contacting some of the students that i met during the meetup this week such as the three MA 3D animation students but the others had also been talking to them as well so we will now be workiing as a team of five with Esme and Marianna from MA 3D animation.

Adaptatation of False Knees

After joining Yiran and Lin for the project i started to research further into False Knees which is a webcomic written by Joshua Barkman. The comic is shown as ‘an illustrated guide to animal behaviour’ and focuses on short black comedy sketches of the animals interacting with the world and other animals around them. This has the oppurtunity to create a very interesting comedic VR adaptation that could combine a number of these short stories to create a single longer storyline for a 5 minute long experience.

False Knees: An Illustrated Guide to Animal Behavior: Amazon.co.uk: Barkman, Joshua: 9781449499723: Books

First Group Meeting

This morning the group had our first meeting to discuss more details and aims for this project. We met in the library and discussed the comic False knees and the different ways that this could be adapted into a virtual reality project while also assigning the different tasks and steps that we would need to take to successfully adapt this and work as a group. We also wanted to find out more of what the MA 3D animation students would want to work on and see the different skill sets they have in the range of both animations and modelling assets for the unity build.

CP&E – Finding Team Mates and Project Idea Development

Finding Group Members

During one of our briefing sessions and seminars for this project we were put together with different members of our group online to discuss the project and the different ideas that we initially had. During this session I talked to Lin who thought it would be interesting to create a detective story with brancing narratives which i also felt would be interesting having to incover secrets and mysteries around the environment. After this session I also began to talk to other coursemates to see what ideas they had and I have now chosen to work with Lin and Wanting to work on this project further based on some initial interests and ideas that we were all discussing. We have arranged to have a meeting over the weekend to discuss what we would all like to achieve for this project.

Project Ideas and Concepts

During some of our initial discussions over the passed few days we shared some of the different ideas or concepts that we have been thinking about individually to see what each other think of the different ideas. In one of the classes one of the ideas that stood out was Lin’s idea of creating a type of adaptation or idea based on ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ which is a story about a man who ages backwards and the full narrative shows his entire life from birth to death of that character.

While we initially started to discuss this topic, this then developed into an idea of the player being able to play through the life of a character and see different points of their life at different ages. This idea could relate really well to Virtual Reality because of the interactions and gameplay that could be involved such as moving slower than normal at an older age or of course seeing the world at shorter height if the character is a child during the experience. We all agreed to think further of these concepts to discuss later in our first meeting for the project.

Collaborative Unit – Initial Briefing and Ideas

This week we were briefed on our new project which is the Collaborative Unit in which we need to work with other course majors such as games design, 3D animation, Visual effects, Sound arts and many other options to create our XR project. The main objective of the brief is to create an immersive adaptation of a clip from a selection of sources such as a short film, animation, a cartoon or a short story etc.

My initial Ideas

We were given the options for comedic options for adaptations and some of the options were immersive bot stories which were created by Netflix using Aritificial intelligence that generated different types of movies. Among these options was ‘The first Holiday film written entirely by bots’ which i thought would be quite interesting and funny for a VR adaptation due to the silly dialogue and very strange and quirky interactions that the player could try. The whole film mostly takes place in a cabin as well which would work well for the initial time frame of this project.

Paper Man (2012 Animated short film)

Another idea i had for an adaptation is Disneys 2021 animated shoirt film ‘Paperman’ which tells the story of an accountant trying to find and gain the attention of a woman he met at the train station using paper airplanes. I felt that this is a nice and simple short story that could be very interesting to adapt in Virtual Reality. Firstly the art style would work very well by having the whole environment and characters shown in black and white with some minor hints of colour such as the red lipstick in the original cartoon. For the gamemplay and interactivity I felt it could be fun to create a type of minigame out of the paper airplane scene in which the character is triyng to throw planes through the window on the other side of the street.

This could be adapted for VR by having the player grab and throw airplanes across the street while also needing to do it subtly so that the boss doesnt see you doing this. The woman could also be moving up and down different floors so there are multiple target windows that the player would need to aim for over the games duration.

Paperman Wallpapers - Top Free Paperman Backgrounds - WallpaperAccess

La Luna (2011 Animated Short Film)

La Luna is a 2011 animated short film created by Disney Pixar and tells the story of a young italian boy, his father and grandfather and their job of cleaning and arranging the stars from the night sky on the surface of the moon. I felt again that visually this would be interesting to show a light hearted and simple art style to the experience that would also have very little dialogue with a story told visually to the player.

In the terms of interactivity and gameplay the player could row the boat to get to the moon, and the player could also walk aroud the moons surface using a sweeper/broom, to move around stars that could continously be moving and changing. A time limit could also be shown to the player or perhaps a competitive or guided nature with the other NPC characters that will be present throughout the experience.

Pixar Animation Studios

Finding my team mates

Everyone in the course has been added to an online Padlet which has everyones contact details, portfolio/blog and interests to see options of who we can work with on this project. It has also been arranged for this coming tuesday to meet these students face to face so that we can discuss ideas for the project while also finding people with similar interests that we would want to collaborate with.

CP&E – Project Briefing and Initial Ideas

Project Briefing

This week we were briefed on another group project for the Critical Practice and Exploration module in which we are required to develop a story concept and XR experience that explores a non-linear narrative structure through cross-platform immersive media. For the cross platform aspect of the project we can combine together concepts for VR, AR, browser based content or mixed reality etc. We are also required to work in groups of 2-3 members from our class to complete this project by the June deadline.

Initial Ideas for Non-Linear Experience

After we were briefed i started to write down some different ideas on my own to see what could be created for this particular type of project:

  • Concept where one person plays an experience in Virtual reality while another person interacts with the experience through augmented reality and possibly finding clues, hints and informaiton for the VR player to be able to progress through the rest of the experience or there could be branching narratives that can only be triggered or accessed through the AR component creating a strongly co-operative experience.
  • Science Fiction Mystery/Detective style story which utilises entering a digital VR space with using a AR based device to look at clues and hints to progress forward the narrative, possibly linking clues together which can result in different story paths or endings for the mystery and what happened in this situation.
  • Scanning different objects and items in AR around the real world environment which will trigger an even or choice in a Virtual Reality Experience.
  • The environment in VR could be based on reversed objects that changes the whole look of the environment and they can only be revealed through a cross platform such as AR or a browser so the player could unknowingly pick up or trigger objects that can only be seen fully through the external applicaiton. This could create a sense of mystery and choice where the story that has been chosen can only be revealed at the end
  • Mystery game which takes place in a metaverse or digital world where you need to enter through a computer as a programme to solve the problem and interact with other computer programmes and some characters to solve the solution so its like a puzzle game and you can use AR or a blog to solve the issues or problems – you can possibly communicate with an Aritificial intelligence
  • In vr the player steps through TV screens or film reels and actually enters a black and white film, or different films through the ages. Each one can be in different screen formats, have scratches, sounds and acoustics of the times and all sorts this could be a museum idea for curated old films scenes or a story could be told such as a person trying to learn who their grandfather was who was a filmmaker and finding out about their personalty and life through his films he made
  • Time Travel Story which lets you visit different ages of life and you can see how old you are using a face filter to identify the character current age at the time of the level
  • Time loop story where you need to explore and escape or find out the myster in a certain time frame otherwise you might die and you can view or see what you uncovered in virtual reality before you enter that area again to see what went wrong – similar concept to Twelve Minutes or 60 seconds – doomsday timeloop game – has to pass through 2 levels in the given time or theres one level and then spawn in the other

Mind the Gap – Finalising Environment, Adding some interactivity

Playable in VR

To start with i installed the XR interaction tool package that i had previouisly used into this experience and then scaled and resized it to suit the environment around the player. As a form of navigation the player can also move around using the left hand joystick on the left hand controller and also look around or rotate the camera using the right hand joystick on the right hand controller.

Door Animations

One of the biggest parts of this experience/narrative is the player progressing the the next area of task in the train carriage and so it would be suitable for the doors to open when the player at least approaches them during this environment build stage but due to time and testing constraints i was not able to fully add this in and at the moment the animations are in place within the file but there isnt a trigger for them at this time.

Problems with Interacitivity

After trying to add some general interactivity like being able to grab objects around the train carriage i found some issues with either the colliders or the reaction with movement. When i try to grab one of the objects that also have gravity it can result in this glitch when sends the player far away almost breaking the experience so this is something to keep in mind if this experience was to be developed further.

Gameplay Capture of the Build

Storyboard Capture

The video below shows the final storyboard capture for the Mind the Gap experience which has been refined based on feedback and any updates or changes to the script since its last iteration.

Storyboard Commentary

The video below shows the storyboard with my own commentary explaining the full experience as it is passed through.

AR Ceramics – Exporting/Animation Issues and Finalising the Augmented Experience

I continued to have the exporting/animation issues that I had over the christmas break and was unfortunately not able to find a solution to this problem in time so to meet the deadline i chose to use the original model that I had created in blender and animate this model in Unity.

Image Target

I spent some time trying to choose a more visually appealing image target and the images below show some of the options. I wanted to use a lotus flower style image but unfortunately all of these images didnt work too well as an image target during general tests.

So after testing these different images I went back to one of the original cartoon/drawn images of a pink lotus flower shown in the bottom right image above.

Model Updates

I went back to the original model that i used during some of my initial tests and changed the colour to more match the pink of the image target. Using this model i measured the size of the new image target and created a ‘Vase’ sphere to properly measure where exactly the flowers should bloom which took some time for trial and error to get the placement correct.

Updated Animation

After placing the models i started to experiment with how to create the flower blooming animation in Unity which results in the video capture below:

Arranging Around the Vase

After creating the animation I went back to trying to perfect the positions of all the flower models around the Vase and to also see how the animation works together which overall resulted very well.

Adding Interactivity

It was suggested that i could add a but more to this AR piece by experimenting with some interactivity even something as simple as pressing the screen and triggering an animation, effect or model. I started by adding a canvas button which when pressed could trigger an animation so initially I added the standard button into the scene as you can see in the image below.

I then went into the options for the button canvas and removed the text and made the button transparent so that it would fill the whole screen this way the user can press anywhere on their mobile device and trigger the animation.

Colour Change

After succesffuly triggering an animation with the button i decided to add a little more by having an altered blooming animation with a colour change. So when the image target is initially scanned it will appear in the same pink colour as all the other flowers but when you tap your finger or click the screen it will trigger a new animation and ‘grow a green flower’ instead as you can see from the images below.

Adding Sound

I decided after i tried to record some sound effects that the equipment i had to record wasnt working too well so i wanted to record a different sound effect. The main premise of this piece is flowers growing and blooming and so i felt that a pouring water or watering sound effect would work well for this and so I went out and recorded these exact sounds.

Watering-Sound-EffectDownload

Exporting to Mobile

After finishing all of the updates for my AR Ceramics project i then tested exporting the project for mobile and tested it both through an emulator and also on my own android mobile device. The results are shown in the video capture below:

Image target size issues

The project successfully works through the emulator using my webcam on my pc and the project also works when using a large A4 version of the image target on my mobile device. However this may be an issue with the phone I have and the camera focusing but it could not focus to detect the smaller image target on the vase which is unfortunate for the testing phase. If i had more time i would test out this on different android devices or try and use a larger vase with a larger image target to see if a phone will be able to pick up the image better for future versions.

Stutter – Polishing, Environement Updates, Playable Build, Testing and Video Capture

Over the christmas break i spent some time trying to test and find any final bugs or issues but there were not too many that needed fixing and overall it plays how i wanted it to at this point of the project.

Environment Updates

Overall I am very happy with the environment and looks very typographic, sepiatone and dark in nature as i originall pictured it but i wanted to add a last few details to finish it off. I started to add some extra books and pages around the environment to add some final touches to the experience as seen in the images below.

Playable Build

After making the final changes to the project i was able to succesffuly export the project as a playable build which thankfully works without any known bugs or issues and plays easily through an Oculus headset (Meta now…). The gameplay capture videos below are from the playable build file.

Gameplay Capture

Gameplay Commentary

User Testing

Some of my friends were polite enought to try out and test the final build of the game and i asked them to give some of their thoughts which are written below:

Tester 01: “Firstly I really enjoyed playing the shutter experience. The darkness of the environment with the trees created a very good sense of claustrophobia. The gameplay is simple yet very effective and how it ramps up difficulty in each section is well done making the final level quite stressful compared to the first 2. An improvement I’d suggest is a recentre button as the table height was very low even when sitting. Also I noticed in the introduction level if you drop “Hello” it starts rotating around a different point and can be lost through the floor but I don’t believe this happens in other levels”

Tester 02: “Overall I really enjoyed the game but felt the position of the table was a little low and I did not like the font at the end. I get that it’s trying to be harder but don’t like the changing fonts”

Tester 03: “The VR experience you’ve made is really interesting – big fan of how the audio itself stutters as you’re trying to grab the words. I like the environment too.”

Mind the Gap – Drivers Carriage, Train Tracks and Game Design Document

Creating the Drivers Carriage

After finding a train carriage model that worked very well for the design of my experience i knew that i needed a drivers carriage section and I was not able to find a suitable model so i decided to create an area myself using Unity 3D modelling.

After creating a drivers carriage model that will sit at the front of the train I found a 3D model of a chair and used one of the animated Adobe Mixamo models to be the Antagonist or entity of the whole experience that will sit at the front of the train. In the full experience they would turn around and full talk and interact with the player for a short time before dissapearing and leaving the player on their own before the train crashes.

Train Tracks/Tunnel

After adding the drivers carriage I started to think about the player looking out the window or out of the front of the train during the short time that they see and iteract with the antagonist of the experience. I decided that it would make sense to add some headlights to the front of the train to highlight a bit further ahead of the tunnel in case the player was to looking out to see whats in front of them during the experience.

One the headlights were added to the train, I then decided to add some train tracks that woudl appear under the train. The environment tunnel is very dark and the player wont be able to see the start and end of the tunnel so the tracks dont necessarily need an animation for movement and can appear just under the train, the lights will have the movement effect of the tunnel.

Game Design Document Updates

I have also spent some time working on the Game design document for the Mind the Gap experience by updating the template which was given to use going through the story, gameplay, assets, ethical challanges etc. as shown in the document below:

Mind-The-Gap-Game-Design-Document-Cal-ThorndykeDownload

Next Steps

Overall i think i have the environment in mostly a good place where all assets and areas from my script and storyboard have now been created. The next step would be to try and add some minor interactivity and also now making the experience playable in Virtual reality by being able to look in this environment using a VR headset.

AR Ceramics – Blender 3D Modelling and Animation Issues

During this passed week I have been trying to export animated models based on tutorials that i followed online but unfortunately I have been continuing to have issues with either the software crashing, models not showing or animations not working in Unity.

Models not exporting correctly

Some of the methods that i previously found online had issues where the animation wouldnt bake or would only part bake and resulting in models in the middle of the animation and appearing like the image below:

Model/Plane property Issues

Using some other methods in blender to create flower models such as using certain faces of the UV sphere also resulted in the models being recognised as planes in unity meaning that one side is completely see through and the other side works correctly which resulted in the image below for some models:

Animations not working

After a while some models would export correctly as static models but any animations that i created in blender wouldnt translate correctly into unity or at least wouldnt work with my current knowledge of both software meaning that the animations would not work or only part worked for certain areas or aspects of each model.

Next Steps

Over the christmas break i will need to continue to find a solution to my exporting/animation problems with the models or find a different solution to continue developing this idea for my AR ceramics project.

Stutter – Polishing Some Bugs/Gameplay Issues

Boundary Area

I initially placed in the boundary area around the entire environment but I did realised that some of the walls were working correctly and it was possible still for the player to wall off the edge of the environment. After checking through again I found that it was a simple issue where the walls had a box collider instead of a mesh collider. Once this was updated the boundary walls worked correctly.

Hard Difficulty Fixes

After doing some playthrough tests of the experience i realised that the third word ‘We’ in the hard difficulty stage wasnt snapping like the other words but when you attempt a few times to put it in place, the counter would still trigger and eventually trigger the transition to the credits.

After going through all of the words and scripts for this bug i realised it was a simple ‘Tag’ word problem where one of the words was incorrectly labelled. So thankfully after changing this the rest of the experience worked correctly.

Instruction Updates

After trying the experience again i realised that the instructions at the start of the experience dont necessarily explain the controls to the user. I realised that to a casual player they may not realise straight away how to control the game so i have now added how you will need to use the triggers to grab and what each controller joystick does for the character movement around the environment.