Week 10: Project Beta Version, Exhibition, & Partner Studio/Lectures Feedback to Testing

This week, we finished the test version of the VR experience and showed it on the exhibition day.

Exhibition – Testing Version

We arrived one hour earlier to the exhibition so we had time help the VR girls to set up the VR headset in the computer of our designated space. However, arriving one hour in advanced did not seem to be enough since we had some problems linking the VR headset to the programme in the computer. We asked for help to one of the technicians and we changed to another computer since this one did not seem to have the VR application properly set and to fix this would take too long. The other computer did not let us log in either so at the end we switched rooms, and we went to the main room which had a free computer where we could try luck again. This computer had the same issue with the application, so after expending 1 hour trying different computers and VR sets, we decided to use Ria’s personal laptop and connect it to one of the desk computer’s screen so we could see the experience in big screen. At the beginning the application was lagging a bit but then started to work just fine. One of our studio partners tested the experience and was quite happy with what we currently have. He did also mentioned some things we could also improve during the Easter break, like the texture of the walls, addition of more objects, and take care of proportions (for example, one wheel chair looked really big compared with the rest of the environment).

Some lecturers and students tried it too and they all looked impressed about the environment (which is good sign), but obviously since we could not include any interaction with the objects in this version, the experience was only focused in exploring the environment.

Team meeting

1. Triggered memories: we debated how do we want to show these, as we could show it in the helmet of the viewer as an imposed 2D video, or as a ghostly like effect in 3D space. The VR girls said that the ghosts in 3D space would be easier than the 2D, but we would also need full figures of all ghosts so we could see it from all perspectives.The memory of the man helping the child to scan his hand at the entrance has been changed to a man helping an old lady on a wheel chair to scan her hand. This change is because we also have another memory with a child (the memory of the kid playing with the Pikachu toy and being pulled by the mother), so it would be too many child’s stories in the experience. For this last memory of the Pikachu toy, we also decided to make it shorter and show just the mother pulling the kid from the arm and the kid drops the toy.
2. Objects needed to fill up environment: we need more objects like folders/files, cans, rusty pipes, a football ball, a shopping trolley, etc. Also, they considered that the Pikachu I made needed to be more destroyed like with an arm hanging and part of the face chopped off. Then also the barriers at the entrance needed to be more destroyed and we also needed a scan screen to attach to it.
3. Environment textures: the lecturers and the studio partner considered that the environment looked like a castle as it was too grey and too concrete-like. It needs more colours like in walls showing a painting that is peeling off, with water stains, murals with advertising, grafittis, bold, etc.

Objects retexturing

I destroyed a bit more the Pikachu toy as requested by the lecturers. I took off half of the face and left one of the arms hanging. I also made some extra holes around the model.