Last
minute work related projects and travel slowed down our progress from last week. We also hit a roadblock with getting our first build onto the
Go. After a couple days of troubleshooting, we found out an issue with 2018
Unity. We ended up having to restart with 2017 and recreate from the ground up. So we're working through that this week. But here's a snapshot of one of our early scenes:
On the
user testing front, we decided to use paper prototypes (since we didn't have our build) with a few users and learned
about different responses to our concept, ones that we will have to be aware
of/design for. e.g., a forest can feel open for one person but also
claustrophobic for another, depending on the density and layout. This is useful to guide our development as we balance realism and dynamism, and adds data to support our approach, including customization and different spaces
based on individual preferences and states.
From the
business side, firmed up a partnership with a VR-based health and wellness app marketplace. We discussed distribution,
marketing, and more, as well as direct relationships with practitioners and providers.
Our V1 focus is on consumers but this is a great time to capture interest from other
stakeholders.
This
week, we’ll
continue moving forward with our plan from last week and to making progress. Cheers!
Hello again Folks,
This has been a productive week of development on my project BHX1619.
This week I focused on play testing, story pacing and emotion design. After being pretty pleased with the look and mechanics of the experience, I wasn’t happy with how it made me feel. In my opinion, when making a story driven VR experience the emotions of the player/visitor far exceeds what he/she is seeing. So during the production of every project, I like to create a “Emotion Map”. Unlike heat maps were it measures the player/visitor directed attention, an Emotion Map is how I direct the player/visitor emotions over time. This emotion map plays a vital role with script, art direction color story, level design and game mechanics. After play testing with users for the passed few weeks, it helped me cut the fat. Not hitting the emotional beats doesn’t do justice to the visuals. So I decided to trimmed the extras. Now I feel I’m on the path to having a healthy balance of “Substance and Cool”.
Below is an example of my Emotion Map, it also doubles as a design doc. I highly recommend exploring this technique
SPOILER ALERT...kinda!
Goals for week 8
- Play test with dialog and story pacing
- Refining core mechanics
- Mocap and character animation
- Create VFX for gesture based combat system
- Create virus/enemy particle system and shaders
- Implement puzzle interactions
- Publish website
Good luck on your projects beautiful people!
Evolvr Blog Week 7
The word ‘sacred’ refers to the notion of cultural anthropology which allow our human society to create opposition between the different elements that compose our humanity, define it or represent different aspect of our immersive world with: objects, acts, spaces, body parts of our characters, values...
We achieve this in Evolvr by having natural environments that utilize surreal elements (unique to VR) to capatalize on stimulation of the users' imagination. This includes physical transformations of our characters which we have planned in later upgrades. The user will encounter seemingly "random events" in the main environment outside of the modules. For example, weather changes might occur and the user may have to respond to challenges related to this situation.
Interactions are limited to the central hub until the user registers, at which point they are getting (free) full access to modules for training games and energy modulation tools.
The team is also weighing the idea of having in-app donations related to the avatars, since the first one we are making is based off an endangered wolf. We have to weigh this feature against our pillars to make sure all our features fit in a coherent experience in Evolvr.
