For our group, we decided to make a project on bringing awareness to the environment and waste issue at NYU Abu Dhabi. It seems that many of our students lack the knowledge of recycling properly and frequently, so we want to use this project to address that problem.
The interaction we want to recreate in this VR project is the act of picking up trash on the ground and recycling it into the right bin. We decided to use our own campus as the actual environment in the project. One important decision we made in terms of the campus was to focus on one portion of it – not too much space, but enough to move around, be able to see trash littered around, but at the same time exude a sense of a closed space so players don’t wander around and stay within that designated area. Our set area was the space right outside D2, where there are grass patches and A6 and The Arts Center are on the side.
So far, the groups have been set to take on the following duties:
Building the environment – Lauren (making buildings and environment) & Ju Hee (adding objects, trash and cats to the space)
Making the interaction – Yufei & Simran (picking up of the trash, recycling into the bin)
For the environment, I decided to make the actual campus space (buildings, composition, staging and lighting). Initially, I was going to decide on a color palette and build a space using that based on the campus. We thought maybe we could build an “angular” version of our campus using simple shapes. But after trying that out with simple cubes, I decided the key is for players to be able to identify it as our campus and it had to look more realistic. So I went to take some reference photos of that area as well as looking at Google Map to get an accurate sense of space.
I started working on The Arts Center first because it’s big and easy to recognize. Once I have it finished, I can build the space around it. I also first searched for a lot of textures that I could use for the buildings as well as the ground/environment.
I’m happy with the progress I made for today. More coming!