Overall: Minor Challenges and Slow Take-off--but finally able to take off!
Sketch for Opening Scene of "Reincarnation" Game
Some Challenges:
So I’m balancing a full-time fellowship at Code for America (helping build an online tool to help “Reentry” Job Seekers get connected to Workforce Services in the muni of Anchorage, Alaska. I’m leading the UX Research and Design process of the product and am fortunate enough to have Oculus Launch Pad arrive at a time where the development stage is now less intense and demanding on me.
My greatest challenge will be balancing fellowship and Launch Pad work, particularly since I have an ‘all in’ mental approach that fuels my capacity to do work that goes the extra mile. Bright side in all this is that I have a four day weekend! So I was able to easily split up my concentration between work during the weekdays and then dedicate my 4 day weekend to just live, sleep, eat, and breath life into my VR game idea “Reincarnation”.
My last freelance VR development project ended in Mid-April and since then, I’ve used the free time using my Rift and Gear recreationally (playing in Tiltbrush and gaming–mostly in Super Hot, Serious Sam, Robo Recall)
It’s been a couple months since I’ve worked in Unity 3d so I’m excited to get back in it and am spending the first part of this holiday weekend stretching my VR creating muscles and getting to know the new Unity 5.6 more intimately.
Initial features I’m going to be exploring for technical feasibility to incorporate into the game.
Since my game will be a branch narrative oriented, I’ll be trying out some new input/interaction features like speech recognition api’s, working with controllers. As well as keeping my eye out on design inspiration for the character models, environment, and storyline ideas.
(I’m leaning to developing for mobile VR for the accessibility and mass adoption rate angle of it).
In terms of life missions, I’m debating on starting out with developing ‘personality traits’ that challenge narrow definitions like—Happiness, Generosity, Kindness, Self-Love--or just 'love')
Inspiration for developing a storyline: Tenderloin
I often like to work at a hookah shop located in lower Nob Hill in San Francisco. I have to walk through the Tenderloin to get there and the sidewalks tend to be crowded with homelessness.
Despite the stench of pee, sight of needles, and people living in desperately unhealthy conditions; I’ll often witness a few of them gathering around an radio and dancing to music, or feeding the pigeons with bread, and wishing passerby’s ‘a blessed day’–without asking for money.
This sight of needles, garbage, vandalism, is common along sidewalks that are home to many homeless on these streets.
I feel like there’s something there and I took a couple pictures to possibly be inspired to create for the first life mission/challenge of the player ‘”Happiness”
Anyways, My to do list for this weekend consists of creating some mini prototype games in Unity 5.6, get my feet wet with the new changes in the last couple months, and see if I can get a few things created to show off by Tuesday night!
Other fun prospects:
I’ve been speaking to several other Launch Padd-ers about game ideas. I’m excited to also start potentially collaborating with Jessica Outlaw on creating some anti-bias training prototypes and seeing what develops from their this weekend as well.
We spent all this week at EYEO festival in Minneapolis. The festival is about the intersections of art and technology, a lot of creative coders were there too, and also a significant amount of VR developers and researchers.
I gave a small talk about breathing in VR and technical challenges with sensors. It sparked some interest in the audience and afterwards I received a lot of questions and feedback. That assured me, that I am on the right way with my idea about making a breathing coach with adaptive environment.
Prominent speakers at EYEO included Jess Engel, Director of Original Content at Within, a technology and media company whose mission is to help evolve VR as a new medium for experiential storytelling. Jess outlined most significant VR experiences in her talk and generally talked about the future of the medium.
Another amazing and inspiring talk was from Xin Liu, media artist, engineer and researcher (currently at the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab). She talked about embodiment in VR, and also about MIT experiments with breathing research. I asked her to send me some of her findings and papers. This definitely gonna be useful for my application.
Also I met Omer Shapira, the NVIDIA engineer and previous year Launch Pad mentor and Nitzan Bartov, game developer behind Neuro-Speculative Afro-Feminism experience, they are both super inspiring and I hope to see them soon here in NY.
The best news expected us back home in NY. My friend made this amazing belt for controller (we are going to put it there to track the breathing). We really needed it for testing and it's very comfortable to wear. The finished experience won’t require this, but for the installation version and for ourselves, we’ll totally use it.
And — here and there, in between planes and hotel rooms, this is where we started to work with Unreal Engine!
Here is my Week 2 Collab Art blog Update for Museum Multiverse.
http://ernestdevjourneyswitholp.blogspot.com/2017/07/olp-week2-plan-layout-then-build-part-1.html
After completing my first assignment creating the locker interior, Hess has now given my second task to start building scenes within the museum. However before building we needed to plan out the over all design layout for the museum level. Here is a example plan of the layout for the Museum Multiverse level.
Currently I am building the first scene where the player starts in the art warehouse within the game. The lighting for this scene is suppose to be set in a dark setting.
http://ernestdevjourneyswitholp.blogspot.com/2017/07/olp-week2-plan-layout-then-build-part-1.html
OLP Week2: Plan, Layout, then build Part 1
OLP: Week 2 Art Blog for Museum Multiverse Update
Plan, Layout, then build Part 1
Plan, Layout, then build Part 1
Currently I am building the first scene where the player starts in the art warehouse within the game. The lighting for this scene is suppose to be set in a dark setting.
Top View
Front Views
Side Views
Back Views
Vent to where the player escapes the room from.
Next week I will continue to build this scene adding texturing and lighting for this scene. In addition I will begin to start building the rest of the scenes within the museum displayed on the map's floor plan.
Kathryn Hicks
Project Title: Tall Tales of the Aerona Temple
Type: 360° 3D Animated Film
Oculus Launch Pad Blog Post Week 2
This week I focused on the previsualization of the film, which I am still working on. My environment modeler started constructing the environment. I plan on finishing the previs tomorrow and testing it sometime Monday on the Gear VR headset.
(Image still of the previs - work in progress environment is not featured below)
Some Environment Concept Art Images
I also received updates from my environment concept artists on color palettes for the exit way.
Characters: texturing artists Sarah Lauinger, character modeler myself
Zannis (protagonist): He is next in line to be the chief of the tribe, even though he doesn’t want to be. He would rather have fun exploring and climbing trees. He is a descendant of Aerona, the founder of the tribe. He comes from a long line of great chiefs as well as controversial ones. Zannis is laid back and immature. The tribe doesn’t take him seriously and shows no respect for his lack of leadership skills.
Kaga (antagonist): An ancient alien race that fought the tribe's people eons ago. They are parasitic like creatures that take over a host's body by feeding on their rage. The Kaga aims to take over planets by controlling their inhabitants. The goddess Aerona, trapped them inside a stone in a hidden temple near the tribe.
Statue design by Christine Axworthy
Aerona (statue in the film): Founded the tribe with a small group of Sasquatch people that fled from their home Paha Hills which later became the Decayed Lands. She sacrificed herself to defend the tribe from the Kaga. Aerona is a direct ancestor to Zannis and the heir to the Aerona Tribe.
Next Week
I hope to start animation and to wrap up environment modeling.
Sometime next week I will post a blog link with all the environment designs, WIP prop designs, character designs and old storyboards.
Week 2 Oculus Launch
Pad, Shayna Skolnik
Because of the relatively tight timeframe of this project, I
realized in Week 2 that I can’t spend too much time on just the idea and that
we will need to move into production quickly. Because I plan to do a series of
short pieces, it was time to decide which one to focus on first. We usually use
Trello as a project management tool, so I went ahead and set up a Trello board
for the project and mapped out some basic timelines for a production schedule.
I was able to meet with my team, both on the 360 video side (Fernando)
and the interactive development side (Adam). My developer has been working full
time on one of our NASA projects (data visualization with the Oculus Rift), so
the timing is actually good for him to be able to help with this demo if need
be. On a side note, this week I did a final demo and presentation at the NASA
Earth Science Technology Office and they were very pleased with our progress.
Fingers crossed that we continue to get funding. Another side note is that we found out that our first Gear VR game has been approved for the Oculus store (!) it's an interactive education game for geography. It has been illuminating to go through the approval process so that we can begin to learn how to release successful content.
Anyway, for the OLP project, there are two important components
to the 360 piece I’m making: video and data. The video piece needs to be
executed fairly soon because Fernando will be away for six weeks at the end of
the summer and I’d like his help with stitching and editing. We discussed filming
strategies to capture the concept that I want to convey in this project (sea
level rise) and how to best do that in VR. I want to film a tide cycle and I’m
thinking that an accelerated time lapse might be the best way to do that so
that it doesn’t feel too boring. One issue will be battery life and how to keep
the camera(s) recording for more than two hours.
The data component is also important (the above image is the type of visualization that I'll adapt to 4pi steradian format). I have been
researching relevant data sets and what might make sense to include. NOAA has
an interesting interactive web-based sea level rise visualizer https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/# I also found the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA)
Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services’ (CO-OPS) manages a
permanent observing system, the National Water Level Observation Network
(NWLON). The NWLON is the foundation of the comprehensive system for observing,
communicating, and assessing the impact of changing water levels nationwide.
NWLON data-collection platforms also measure other oceanographic parameters in
addition to water levels, including meteorological parameters. I plan to
reach out to this group to see if they have any global sea level animations
that we could use.
This coming week I plan to get some
preliminary footage probably along the Atlantic coast. This is tidal
information – looks like a six hour window if I want to film the entire tide.
Batteries and boredom will be equal issues – lol.
Fri 7 | 2:15 AM EDT / 0.4 ft | 8:08 AM EDT / 3.6 ft | 1:58 PM EDT / 0.3 ft | 8:27 PM EDT / 4.8 ft | 5:42 AM EDT | 8:27 PM EDT |
Neil D. Short
Project Title: Achilles Heel
Type: 360
Video Series
Genre:
Sci-Fi Sitcom
OLP17 - Blog 2
Much of week 2 has been
continuing to develop the story for the series. I met with a screenwriting
mentor who is experienced in writing for sitcom to discuss the story and
considerations for a 360 environment. It was a great meeting and very helpful
for me considering the need to maintain a comedic sitcom feel with out the
viewer getting lost in the spectacle.
Another challenge is how to
set up and explain the sci-fi elements of the series with out heavy-handed
exposition. My solution for this will be done in two ways. First, the pilot
will open with a video presentation, as if the viewer were visiting a future
museum exhibit. Second, I will use character discovery and dialogue as the
characters explore their environment and carry on conversations. I have begun
writing the script and have several pages completed.
My next task is recruiting a
production team. The production designer
is going to be a huge part of this project due to the need for a 360 degree set
to be constructed. I met with one production designer in person and contacted
another via Facebook, so that process is under way. In the mean time I am
making notes and rough floor plans that I have in mind as I write the script.
One unknown is how big the
set will need to be. I have started experimenting with my Gear 360 camera to
get a sense of scale. I need to determine where the actors will need to be
located and move in the scene (blocking) so that I can create “shots”. For
example in a traditional show, if I want to focus on a pair of actors I would
use a two-shot, but in a 360 film I need reason for the actors to come closer
to the camera. I will also need to have the floor of the set designed in such a
way that the actors will know where to stand because we can’t use marks or tape
as we normally would since the camera can see everything.
I have also been working on
setting up a shooting space for the space ship model. I will need to design a
mounting system that will allow me to support and animate the motion of the
ship. I met with a few stop-motion animators this week to discuss the
possibilities.
I’m continuing to research
360 compositing options and Unity as well as considerations for including motion
graphics and animation. There’s more to do than time to do it in, but I’m off
from my job on the 4th of July so I’m planning on using that day to
make some more progress.
Onward and upward!
Kathleen Kamali
Project: CalmBox -- meditation/anxiety relief experience in Rift
Last week I tried to build a team, but this week unfortunately I realized I'll be a one man band! However, I had a lot of fun discovering the art of environment design!
(waterfall image)
I'm not a designer. I'm also not an artist (which is why I bought these assets 🙂 ) so this was a bigger challenge than I think I was expecting. How do I make things blend well together? How do I draw someone's eye? Are these trees looming?? If I'm building something for people to relax in, how do I take into account the largest amount of people possible's tastes?
(mountain image)
I think next week I'll take a break from creating a soothing environment and try my hand at implementing the Touch controllers and adding interactivity.
Project: CalmBox -- meditation/anxiety relief experience in Rift
Last week I tried to build a team, but this week unfortunately I realized I'll be a one man band! However, I had a lot of fun discovering the art of environment design!
(waterfall image)
I'm not a designer. I'm also not an artist (which is why I bought these assets 🙂 ) so this was a bigger challenge than I think I was expecting. How do I make things blend well together? How do I draw someone's eye? Are these trees looming?? If I'm building something for people to relax in, how do I take into account the largest amount of people possible's tastes?
(mountain image)
I think next week I'll take a break from creating a soothing environment and try my hand at implementing the Touch controllers and adding interactivity.
