Project 2 Documentation: Boxing with Ares

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

• Team member: Neyva, Nhi, and Vince
• Environment: dark and ominous, yet there is still an indication of hope
• Boxing with Ares is an interactive experience that aims to immerse the users in a bloody reality. We focus on creating an environment similar to the one in the movie The Matrix, which is simple yet gives a sense of exploration for the users by interacting with what lies in the scene. Our scene consists of the plain ground with foggy surroundings, the red bloody sky scattered with floating small punching bags, and the main punching bag for interaction. Our basic interaction is punching action with the emphasis on the unexpectedness – doves flying out in different angles, speeds, and positions around the punching bag. While the interaction is analogous for finding hope in the darkest time, it is also open to the users’ interpretation that hope is escaping their reach, impossible to capture. In either interpretation, this still serves as an alternate reality experience that deals with different manifestations of hope, be it the shining beacon in the darkest of times or the flickering illusion that forever remains out of human reach.

PROCESS & IMPLEMENTATION

• Our initial idea for the project is completely different from our final one, though the punching action remains the same. In our first sketch, we planned to have Punching the bag (every time the user punches the bag, besides the normal oscillation, there would be white/black doves flying out magically. The white doves represent peace, and the black doves represent the concept of war), Pressing the button (this button would change the color of the doves. Every time the user presses the button, the color will change from white to black and vice versa), and Theater stage: in the back of the stage, we are considering putting words/colors/pictures to reflect the theme of our project.

• After our first idea presentation and the current switch to online class, we decided to constraint our project to one interaction – punching bag & doves flying out – and replaced the theater stage with an ominous empty environment.
• Our idea for the environment was inspired by the photo below.

• After deciding on the final idea for our project, we divided the work as follow: Neyva worked on building the environment, Vince and I worked on developing the interaction.
• Our final environment reflects the true identity we wanted to bring in this project. Using a grid to lay out small punching bags dotted in the dark bloody sky and using particle systems to create the fog effects in the scene, we created the environment as an implication of darkest times, creating a feeling of loneliness while the player stands and observes the scene.

• For building the interactions, we wrote 5 main scripts in our project:

1. animationController: trigger the animation whenever a punch happens. We also put a Punch class that will return the anim.GetCurrentAnimatorStateInfo(0).normalizedTime in the get method.
2. collisionDetector: if we detect a collision and the value anim.GetCurrentAnimatorStateInfo(0).normalizedTime < 1, we play the punching sound as if the player punches the bag.
3. RaycastTracking: we decided to use raycast to brighten the color of the punching bag whenever the player looks at it. This aims to attract the player’s attention and serves as an invitation for interaction.
4. ChangeColor: change the emission color. However, in the end, we decided to not use this feature because the fog we added using the particle system makes the change not obvious anymore.
5. BirdGenerator: we decided to create a class bird and encapsulate all attributes into this class, and when we dynamically create the birds, we assign the random values to the attributes of the birds. This makes things consistent and easier for us if we want to add additional attributes in the future.

• Camera: we used First Person Controller camera and boxing man are the children object of First Person Controller. By doing so, when we move the mouse, the boxing man would move accordingly. We also positioned the camera and limited the looking angle (x rotation: -60 to 45) so that the player can only see the hands of the boxing man and the space above

• Animation: we have two animations in this project: boxing man animation and bird animation.

Sound effect: we added background sound (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm-El3qztgw) and punching sound to make the user experience more interactive.

REFLECTION & EVALUATION

This project is an amazing learning process and great team collaboration. Though our final project looks different from what we envisioned in the beginning, in my opinion, it is a successful adjustment to feedback and improvements during the development of the project. In addition, the process of writing these scripts and debugging was really frustrating but rewarding in the end. Being able to understand and adjust the available resources we found in class and online to implement it into our project is definitely a great learning process. While we could not use VR for this project, the project still reflects what we want to deliver and even more successful than we thought it would be.

AGENCY

Agency has been described as “the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices” (Murray) and “the actions players desire are among those that they can take” (Wardrip-Fruin). In our project, the reason we choose to create an environment where there is only a punching bag facing the player when the player enters the scene is to invite him/her for an interaction with the punching bag. While the punching bag immediately captures the players’ attention and hints them at punching action, it also triggers the confusion and hesitation in this ominous environment. Every time the player punches the bag, there would be a punching sound effect that gives the player a more real and powerful experience. The more they punch, the larger the number of birds flying out. Yet the birds will fly away from the player out of the reach. This reflects the aforementioned interpretations in the Project Description, giving the player some thoughts and reflections on his/her own.