This week, I had a meeting with the girls at the beginning of the week to review what we had done and organise what we need to do, and also had another meeting with the lectures and external studio partners to agree on final designs and interactions.
This week I finished modelling the child’s ghost with textures taking as references the following:
Also, we considered that the team needed to gather in a meeting with lectures in order to discuss technicalities and issues we could have when importing mesh, textures, and animation into Unity. The VR girls confirmed that Unity could accept simple textures with normals, bump maps, roughness, etc., but that this should be embedded in the fbx file exported from Maya.
Since I am not familiar exporting fbx from Maya and even less with Unity, I downloaded Unity so I could test my models directly into it before sending the final ones. VR girls explained that it seemed that the textures needed to be relinked in Unity and this could be a problem and time consuming. Therefore, we reached an agreement that, since I know how and where the textures should be linked, I would test the models in Unity, relink textures and export the Unity package with the model and textures already set. Also, I had to re-set the UV maps of the ghosts models as when I combined all the parts of the model into one unique mesh in Maya, the UV maps got messed up. I also tried to simplify the model removing the double faces of every part and getting rid of unnecessary mesh that was not going to be seen (like torso, arms, legs and feet).
We also thought of the possible memories that can appear when triggered by objects interaction (we made a list in Miro):
Also, MA VFX had our first collaboration project presentation to the class and the tutor, so we put together a Power Point presentation taking as reference some of the slides used in 3D animation and VR presentations (all of us contributed in these presentations).
Team meeting
Later this week, we had the meeting with the lecturers and the external studios partners. We discussed the possibility to buy assets taking the budget offered by the university as we had lots of assets to model and very limited time. Ana the asked us to make a list of assets and add which ones we had to model, which ones we could download for free and which one we needed to buy.
We also reviewed the model of the environment Martyna and Jess have been putting together:
- Corridor:
- It needs to be longer and have the final room in between (not at the end). So each side would have 5 doors and then the third door on the left would be the final pod.
- It should be a dark place with just one point of natural light at the end.
- It could have stripe lights that are not working (or one can be flickering). These lights need to be organic and not straight industrial lights.
- It should have broken doors with holes in them. We need to add something in the way of the broken doors, so the main character cannot access the rooms.
- We considered the idea of these corridors being underground or flooded but due to time limitations and the fact that the whole structure would need to be redesigned, we disregarded it. Instead, we considered the addition of ramps that change slightly the level of the floor from the transition from the waiting area to the corridors.
- One of the rooms could have an image of trees moving with the wind shown in a screen.
- The environment will need to look close to us now (familiar), so the user can empathise with it (do not make it futuristic or high tech).
- Natural lights overall. We can have working lights (when switched on), but not all of them are working (could be flickering or hanging from the ceiling).
- Final room:
- It has natural light (single lights source would be more dramatic).
- It has a broken wall where the deer will appear.
- Everything is decrepit and broken.
- The light could be moving with the reflection of the water ripples (from the have flooded floor).
- Main waiting room:
- We need to agree textures of the walls which would be broken, moulded, with rusty pipes showing, etc.
- The ceiling will also have some broken parts with natural light coming through.
- The walls could have panels, decoration from the past, murals that are aged, etc.
- We need to add more than one corridor that would be accessible from the waiting room (but not operational for this beta version of the VR experience, just one corridor will be accessible).
- In the middle, there is a pond with water and dead fish floating.
- Objects/memories:
- Teddy bear. We thought of making it look that it was made out of scrapped materials like metallic stuff found, however, we need to be careful with making it look too futuristic so we disregarded this idea. Maybe we could change it for a car toy for example. This toy will show the memory of a child playing with it and then being grabbed by their mother to get euthanised, so the child drops the toy.
- Fingerprint scan. In this memory, we thought of showing someone being forced to scan their fingerprint so they signed their contract for being euthanised. However, after discussing this with the lecturers, we felt like these should be shown like an option and not like being forced to do it. So instead, we thought of a parent grabbing the child’s hand to help them scan it.
- Headset. It could reproduce the sound of a radio station that was trying to bring some happiness to people (happy music being cut by the voice of the radio presenter).
- Diary. This object will only trigger a voice over of somebody reading the diary. When the main character picks the diary and opens it, some bugs would come out from the bottom of it.
- Poster. It could show health and safety advice like wear a mask, etc.
- Daily objects. These would not trigger any memory but could show some bits from the past, like a converse shoe, a diary, etc.
- Megaphone. From were they made the announcements to call people’s turn to die.
We also talked about how VR will construct the UI of the VR experience. It was pointed out by the lectures that this needed to be more an emotional experience than a game itself, so the user’s attention should be driven through the environment using sounds or vague scenes from the past (memories) that are triggered by them passing nearby a place or when touching an object. Some points that were mention regarding the UI were the following:
- Main character’s POV. It could show like the texture of a helmet (like scratched or dirty glass). We could also add some info showing on the helmet’s glass, like icons (these are less distracting than letters, and less intrusive). We could show UI for the memory object but we should not give away much information.
- Lobby/entrance. We could add a welcome hologram.
- Final room. There is a mechanism in the wall that brings up a cell with the human skeletons of the mother and the child hugging. Furthermore, in the collapsed wall, there is a deer that looks us up and then leaves (showing first the deer and then the skeletons). We could hear the singing from the ghosts.
References
Cottonbro Studios. Free Dystopia Photos (online). Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-in-black-and-white-hoodie-wearing-black-gas-mask-4888482/ [Accessed 22 February 2023]