Got a lot of work done this week! I made a few 3d models including the environment and one of our main characters. We also completed the script for the first part of the experience, rigged, and recorded audio for the character. Now it’s ready to be animated! Next we’re going to be working on environmental sounds and music as well as further modeling and refining the environment. Super excited for where this project is heading and can’t wait to share more next week! I’m a bit worried since school starts again soon so I’m hoping the course load won’t be too much since I would really like to dedicate more time to working on this project. Below is a screenshot of one of our characters.
My VR
Journey 2.7 – Post Production Kicks into High Gear!
PROJECT NAME:
CARNIVAL |VR
ENGINE:
Unity
PLATFORM:
Mobile VR
TYPE:
360Video Experience
GENRE:
Documentary - Caribbean Music Festival
August 13th,
2017
LAST
WEEK
was a very busy week! On Monday I received a check from United Airlines (UA) for
$25 (reimbursement for my baggage fees), and a travel certificate, but they
refused to reimbursement me for my gear ($1308 worth) that was stolen during a
flight last month. They claimed my gear is among those “certain items” excluded
from the limits of liability on their Contract of Carriage. They were even kind
enough to send me a copy of said contract. THIS IS NOT OVER! I need hardware
and software, and this money can help me purchase these items.
I
also need a job badly, as it’s becoming increasingly impossible to meet my
financial obligations. So, I spent most of the week job hunting and sending out
resumes. I had a pre-interview with a Huntington Beach company, which was
unsuccessful, but thanks to LinkedIn, I was contacted by a recruiter, and I expect
an interview in the next few days. #FingersCrossed
Friday
I met up with Composer Niko Anderson Korolog to talk music and VR. Niko is
super talented; we’re really lucky to have him working with us. I shared with
him, my idea to enable viewers of my Experience to actually play the steelpan,
and Niko offered to share his steelpan notes with me whenever I was ready. After
meeting with Niko, I rushed home to log into our OLP Office Hours, but the link
wasn’t working for me. While rebooting my computer, my new tripod arrived – a
gift courtesy a friend. I have really great supportive friends! I then spent
the afternoon prepping to shoot the steelpan player in Culver City.
shoot went ok. The steelpan player, Einstein Brown, has gigs every day of the
week, so I could only shoot him at one of his live gigs. Shooting in a
restaurant, facing noisy Culver Blvd, at 7:30pm on Friday, under the gracious
BUT watchful eyes of the restaurant's owner is nerve wrecking. Sadly, I think
being a girl and filming by myself worked in my favor. They were very impressed
that I was shooting 360video – so techie - so they left me alone to shoot among
the restaurant guests.
On
Saturday, despite feeling ill, I drove from Los Angeles to San Diego’s to shoot
the San Diego Caribbean Association’s first Carnival celebration. There are always challenges with
“first”. Initially, I thought this event with four “floats” wasn’t worth my
time, especially because I was feeling sick. But, I took a seated nap under
their tent, and waited for the masqueraders to begin the “parade”, which began
two and a half hours late! The floats represented four islands – Jamaica,
Guyana, Trinidad and Haiti. Thankfully, my Trini people didn’t disappoint.
Wherever two or more are gathered, Trinidadians will create the biggest,
loudest fete (party) imaginable. When you throw in costumes, music and a couple
hundred friends, and it really gets lively.
shot two Carnivals to date, and will shoot again in Sept and October. Each
shoot helps me finesse the visual language I plan to use when shooting Trinidad
and Tobago’s Carnival in 2018. I know Parallax will be an issue when shooting
the parade, and I’m trying to figure out how to show the energy, exuberance and
magic of this event without creating a stitching and a post-production
nightmare. I can opt to shoot the masqueraders on a theatre stage, but this is
too stage and will not show the essence of Trinidad’s Carnival. In San Diego, I
was able to place my camera in the middle of a group of masqueraders, and had
them dance around the camera, without touching it. I also filmed them from the
front, moving towards me, and from the sideline, simulating a spectator. I
haven’t looked at, or stitched the footage as yet, but I believe I have enough useable
footage.
NEXT
WEEK, This
is going to be another crazy week of job hunting and sending out resumes, but I
also expect a job interview early next week. I’ve been preparing for the
interview by reaching out to my Music Video contacts, but I’m concerned about
post. I’ve set my post schedule to finish my prototype by the end of the month.
It’s aggressive, but leaves me with nine days additional days for tweaking. My
schedule is as follows:
8/13
- 8/14: Stitching
8/14-8/19:
Editing
8/21-8/26:
Import into Unity, and get it working
8/27-8/31:
Testing Experience in Headset
That's all for now...'till next week.
Wish me luck...
TAGS VR Post Production, San Diego Carnival, Einstein Brown, Job Hunting, Carnival
Week 8 / 2 Steps Forward - 2 Steps back
How many of you sang this week’s title in Paula Abdul’s
voice?
Eclipse
As I mentioned in this week’s office hour, my main developer
Geoff waved the white flag and apparently the Oregon Eclipse festival is a big
thing.
I’ve reached out to other developers who are willing to help
out and will get together with me beginning next week. One of the developers
asked whether I had a wireframe in place. After a quick Google search on what
he might need, I found this very helpful blog post: https://medium.com/@indiecontessa/strategies-for-vr-prototyping-810e0d3aa21d
Since I’ll need to explain the concept to people who haven’t worked on the
project before I drew up a quick storyboard. In the meantime I am also teaching
myself Unity.
Wireframe Storyboard
Here is a narration of the scenes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiB7R5Lp-ms
Onboarding Avatar
The main target audiences are visitors of art galleries,
museums, and other art installations who don’t necessarily have prior
experience with Virtual Reality applications. This audience might prefer some
onboarding by a humanoid figure to get acquainted with the controller
functions.
The avatar is fashioned after the stereotypical, chubby
Indian boy from Metro-Goldwyn Mayer’s “The Old Pioneer” by Harman and Ising in
1934:
http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/harman-isings-the-old-pioneer-1934/
The clichéd little Indian boy combined with the cartoonish
war party music playing in the background set the scene for the conversation on
stereotyping and cultural appropriation.
http://ernestdevjourneyswitholp.blogspot.com/2017/08/olp-week-8-museum-multiverse-collab-art.html
OLP WEEK 8: MUSEUM MULTIVERSE COLLAB ART BLOG: PLAN, LAYOUT, BUILD PART 7 (BUILDING ASSETS PROPS AND BUILDING MORE SCENES)
Museum Multiverse Collab Art Blog: Plan, Layout, Build Part 7 (Building Assets Props and building more scenes)
Ugh! Oh man what a busy week this has been. I have been putting a lot of time in working on the art side of the solely building the scenes as I go. I really enjoy doing it but its an get exhausting from time to time. During this week I have been trying to push myself away from the computer to get air and be around people while keeping focus on getting this done. In addition to this I have has some important affairs I need to attend to for the following week that could not be put aside. Bottom line while working on this project I am working hard but trying to find the right balance of work and needed relaxation to keep a strong focus. I GOT THIS THOUGH! ha ha. Anywaaaaaaaay!!!! On to business.
This week I focused more on universal assets prop building so that these assets can be used multiple times when build the last few scenes. Mainly lights and paints frames. Some of these assets you have seen in the last update. However this time that have been textured and will be ready to be uploaded for use in Unity. Take a look.
These are basic assets that can be used to add ambience to the museum environment for decoration. Its good to get the small stuff out the way do that you can working build the big stuff at a faster pace.
The pictures frame will be filed in with images later as I am still building the last 3 scenes. Need to come up with a decent concept to follow through.
Ina addition to the prop modeling I am near in completion with building the next scene with the Hallway Gallery. Still need t add a few detail with the color but so I think it is coming along well. I plan to add other element like a map of the floor to add to environment.
Hallway Gallery Plain texture with no Lighting
Hallway Gallery with lighting
Next week agenda will be to finish scene and begin building the next two scenes. Which will be Gallery B and the Employee Break Room. Hopefully if time permits I can get most if not all of this done by the end of next week fingers crossed 😄 Till next time.
