With my 7th entry I explained how the post was too long to include some of the Immersive Experience information I wanted to, so I'm addressing a lot of Immersive Experience points here. I'm also including some info from a post I never got around to about a month ago where I time stamped a video done by Unity trainer Mike Geig. His training videos are awesome, and the one I've time stamped here on Assets and Game Objects is great for a beginner, like me, to check out. It's not the standard format I've been using lately, but being a little over the hump in terms of all the blog entries that need to get submitted, I think this one still has a good deal of useful information for new storytellers who are entering the VR medium world.
Immersive Experience
One of the things I think works well for VR is having a liberal arts background. Not because it gives a specific advantage per se, but one of the things that a liberal arts background is supposed to do is train your mind to synthesize information from different sources, and then apply them to a context where information can take form in a new way. Maybe even a new unique context. Thinking like this isn't special or new, most schools just don’t do a good job of training students in higher order thinking. I was fortunate Amherst College helped me learn to think in these ways. I also believe this is the particular ‘competitive advantage’ to the way a lot of people on the autism spectrum think and see things because, many times, what they’re really good at is associative thinking. For example, in the movie Temple Grandin with Claire Daines, someone mentions something about Temple’s shoes. Temple then describes to the other person that the mention of shoes makes her think about every pair of shoes she’s ever owned. The movie visually does a montage of all the different pairs of shoes she may have owned since she was a child to an adult. Think of what the possibilities are if you’re into engineering concepts, you dig VR, and you’re technologist who loves sci-fi and thinking about the future. If Temple could do that with shoes, if your thing is engineering, there's no reason not to believe new and interesting concepts wouldn't come out your train of thinking because you were fortunate enough to be an associative thinker. It’s my personal opinion I think most people who are considered ‘genius’ are really good at- Associative thinking. There are just so many different combinations of things bouncing against each other in terms of ideas, the inputs are myriad, but the outputs are just as creative.
In that sense, I’ve been looking at a lot of different source materials of experiences, games, books, and what have you that I’ve found have been the most ‘immersive’ when I’ve played or interacted with them. Sometimes a really good story is just that immersive, you can’t help but feel like you’re there with the characters. But telling (and finding) a story that good is rare. The games I’ve played that were super immersive I’ve come to the conclusion used multiple sources of information to help draw user attention into the experience- perhaps tap into several different modalities of experience and learning. I’m thinking of 'Where in Time is Carmen San Diego' (which used maps and an encyclopedia in addition to the computer clues), 'The Oregon Trail' game on the old Commodore 64, JJ Abrams’ book 'S.' which has all kinds of postcards, personal letters, and a personal correspondence handwritten in the margins on every page of the book as you’re reading. And even though I know the primary motivation was money, I think part of the reason the Angry Birds movie got made was because if you have stimulation available for people on multiple platforms, all aiming at a central theme, perhaps what you’re really aiming at is a multiple modality way to engage user experience (and their money) at a very deep level. Angry Birds messed up (somewhat) because the movie came out so late after the height of the game’s popularity. But what if a product was able to time it so that a purely visual experience came out at the same time with the VR product? Easter eggs placed within a movie experience which would only help or enhance the user experience in VR. Full (or added) immersion through engagement.
One of the things I’ve come to a conclusion with regarding Underdog is, being such a unique and innovative VR product, it should be tied to something equally as unique and innovative in the real world. This could be the immersive experience aspect, even though I already have plans for how players of the game can and will engage other users in the physical world. I have specific plans for this. I think Underdog should be attached to products, policy, and reform momentum that is aimed at changing special education in a significant way in this country. Being a special education teacher for nearly 10 years gives me unique perspective with regard to the ways in which special education tries, but often fails students and families. With Underdog, if the one issue we attached our self to, besides raising awareness about autism and bullying, is improving outcomes for young people on the autism spectrum who are exiting or ‘transitioning’ out of high school, it could mean a great deal not just for the autism community, but the for special needs community as a whole. It’s no secret that many parents who have a child on the spectrum fear their child leaving public school because, up to this point, the school system took care of services like: speech and language, occupational therapy, physical therapy, identifying appropriate technology that would be beneficial in school, etc. While you’re in school, the school system finds service providers, screens them for skills, pays for services, arranges appointments, and is contractually (read: legally) obligated to keep those appointments. Once a child graduates from public school, every single one of those responsibilities falls to the parent, including payment for services. I’ve read stats where up to 90% of people on the spectrum are unemployed and largely living at home with parents after they graduate. There HAS to be a better way to service families with kids on the spectrum who are leaving high school. Attaching Underdog to a documentary film that broached a national conversation about what happens to kids on the spectrum after they leave high school- after they’ve experienced some of these traumatic bullying experiences that Underdog will help to address- would be phenomenal. You could do it like the Michael Apted 7UP documentary series where every 7 years you go back to the same group of kids and check in on them to see what their progress is years later. I know of a documentary movie opportunity at the school where my girlfriend is a principal that could help connect Underdog to a conversation about special education reform. Is a documentary film way too much to take on, in addition to building the game? Of course. But I know these guys at Spectrum Laboratories who just might be the right crew to help pull this off. To be continued...
Some random Immersive Experience materialhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k12NZLh_Xvg -- Sleep No More (theatrical immersive experience) mentioned as one of the few experiences allowing viewer/participant to have agency in creation and outcome of story; Mentioned in Charlie Melcher interview of Voices of VR podcast
http://worldbuilding.usc.edu/ --Established in September 2012 at the University of Southern California’s famed School of Cinematic Arts, the World Building Media Lab has emphasized the power of using technology as a vehicle to enhance storytelling capabilities. With explorations into Virtual and Augmented Reality, the WbML, has established itself as a leader at the forefront of technological-based entertainment.
I made this a month or so back, I see no reason why it shouldn't be put to good use:)
Unity Tutorial on Game Objects (YouTube). Mike Geig.
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/interface-essentials/game-objects
3:26- coordinate system (how games are built and rendered on screen)
2D (above) 3D (above)
Not all game engine use the same coordinate systems
Z plane is in and out (on a plane) in Unity
If you use UDK, Z is up and down and Y is in and out
4:52- how Blender and Maya use coordinate systems (not same as Unity)
5:40 orthographic camera to make 2D
6:45 changing camera perspective to make 2D
7:28 discussion of Unity 2D toolkit
8:47 2 types of coordinate systems (global and local)
9:25 local coordinate system
9:40 all objects based in global, but everything that happens/attaches to them, happens in local coordinate system
9:45 graphic for coordinate systems; World (left) Local (right)
10:46 Definition of world coordinate system. (Position relative to every other item in the world)
10:49 Def of local coordinate system. (Position relative to 1 particular object)
11:28 Fundamental definition of game object
12:38 Ways to create game objects
13:04 Command+Shift+N creates a game object on Macs (if you create an empty game object in a scene, it’s just a point in space at 0,0,0 with a transform
14:38 ‘Create Other’ in Game Object menu
15:00 Aspects of the Cube that was created (adding and changing functionality)
15:53 Sphere game object creation
16:02 Plane creation
16:15 Underside of a Plane is not viewable (not rendered)
16:53 Finding the camera, getting it back in perspective view, and rotating the plane
18:16 Creating ‘light’ game objects
18:21 Point light creation
18:38 Creating directional light
19:00 Components
20:00 Adding components
22:53 Particle system component addition
23:38 Removing components
24:34 Why objects look dark in an empty scene
24:54 Universal lighting (on and off)
25:37 Transforms (an object’s unique position, rotation, and scale in the world)
27:18 Translation (left/right, up/down, in/out)
28:08 Translation tool; ‘W’ key
30:00 Rotation tool; ‘E’ key
32:26 Scale; ‘R’ key
32:44 Scale is a coefficient
33:55 Order of operations w/ transformations
35:30 Cntrl+Z is like the undo button
37:28 Parenting/nesting/grouping
39:15 Coordinates are based on parent, not child
40:24 Un-nesting
40:45 Movement of child is relative to parent movement
Unity Courseware
Using Game Objects and Assets
Here are examples of the course objectives and learning outcomes from the Unity Courseware Objectives and Learning Outcomes documents (both publicly available through the Unity 3D website).
Objectives
Learning Outcomes
