Ganjina Oripova – Alternate Realities

Project 3 – Documentation

For the second project I worked with Yeji and Will. The inspiration for this project was loosely on the book we read, Invisible Cities by Calvino. We decided to create an impression of one of the cities from Calvino’s book, Valdrada. Calvino mentions that “the traveler…sees two cities: one erect above the lake and the other reflected upside down”. He describes it as not comparable, twin cities. We then started brainstorming different scenarios that could give the Valdrada city feeling. We began to exchange various ideas and ended up constructing a city that includes two cities that were affected by a large scale event. The first city is just an ordinary one and the second one is reflected version of the first one. The characters are very happy in the non-reflected version of the city, while characters are very stressed in the reflected one, and their responses show the darker facets of humanity. For the environment we decided to choose Amsterdam as the inspiration.

Each of us voted for different topics at the beginning and after brainstorming together we narrowed to two; Apocalypse and Invisible Cities. Apocalypse – the user would be in an dystopian world where they would be taken to a flashback where they would want to alter the timeline and restore the piece of the universe they interacted with. We wanted to go with the apocalypse theme from the beginning, however after brainstorming further and having class feedback we have decided to go with Invisible Cities theme.

Invisible cities – There are two cities, usual one which we called “initial city” and the reflected version which we called “reflection city”. The user starts in the initial city – pinkish buildings, cheerful atmosphere with people walking around. The user can walk around and explore the place while interacting with characters. When the user walks to the bridge, light appears on top of the bridge to attract his attention. When the user reaches it, they find out they can click on it and after clicking the environment unexpectedly changes. The user finds himself in a reflection city – building positions flipped, very dark sky and people wandering around in despair. As the user approaches individuals he can hear all the negativity which people were ignoring in the initial city.

After having an idea, we sketched paper prototypes:

We decided to divide the workload between us:

We shared some ideas for the story and then Yeji took charge of the story development.

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A group of people in uniform

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Will worked on building the dialogue system.

Then I started constructing the environment, based on the sketches. We have chosen to use the low-poly style assets. The most difficult and time consuming part was putting buildings together, particularly the “reflection city”, since I had to flip the buildings and decorations so it would look like the reflected version of the initial city. At the beginning I thought of just copying them all together and rotating the x position – 180 degrees and y position – 90 degrees, however, it didn’t work for some buildings, so I had to put everything one by one. Another problem that occurred during working on this project, was to make water look real. Though a lot of challenges occur I really enjoyed working on it.

The only action that the user does is walking around the city and talking with people. We wanted the user to start by just looking around the city and then walking and interacting with characters. The interaction form is a monologue system where NPCs say a few lines to the user, however, the user is not able to respond. The user could just go and interact with the characters. In the initial city the order of the interaction doesn’t matter since monologues are organized by character, however, in the reflection city, the dialogues are organized one by one in a sequential order. Moreover, as the user looks at the specific scene , light turns on and highlights the specific scene to make it easier for the user to understand and follow up on the story.

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Although there have been some challenges that have emerged throughout working on the project, I am extremely pleased with the overall work we have done in such a challenging situation. The end product came very close to what we first foresaw for our projects, it feels very natural however, at the same time unusual and surprising especially when the transition to the second scene takes place.

Project 3: Development Journal

Project Members: Yeji, William and Ganjina

In our first zoom meeting, we chose two prompts; Apocalypse and Invisible Cities. After talking about our idea in class we decided to end up with the idea of using Invisible Cities which considering the situation that we are right now, would be easier to work on in VR.

We decided to create an impression of the city Valdrada from the Invisible Cities by Calvino, where he says: “the traveler…sees two cities: one erect above the lake and the other reflected upside down”. For the environment we decided to make something similar like Amsterdam streets vibe, where houses are just next to each other.

user looking at the window (people arguing)

Yeji – started working on the story

I started building the environment based on the ideas we had in mind, though we had to change it a bit since we couldn’t find some assets. As for now I need to add some more decorations and buildings.

Will – started working on building the dialogue system.

Update:

Added – skybox, decorations and buildings

Invisible Cities

There are books that you read and forget, likewise there are books that you read and they get etched in your thoughts forever, Calvino’s book is one of them.

As you walk around unfamiliar places, you observe things that the locals ignore or don’t reflect on consideration anymore. Calvino takes the feeling to an extreme by making his cities as magical as possible, so you have a sense not only of the physical attributes but also more nebulous aspects, the vibe and the atmosphere that are so difficult to describe to other people.

To me, Calvino’s cities give the impression of being in between the dreaming stage and reality, and the way we bind them together to control the rhythm of time in our minds. Undesirable memories bear the heavy load of past actions and the feel of nostalgia that overwhelms opens the door to incomplete desires that translate right into a tangible future that we will never have.

How many times can we modify the past in our minds? How many times can we convey the dead back to life by thinking of them? But the memory does not come face forward, it surrounds you and often catches you in a deadly embrace and the reflected image may replace the original thought.

In the, amidst a labyrinthine maze of canals, ancient Gods of locals and foreigners clinging to the edge of upside down doors and black and white strings connecting relationships between residents of a spider-web city, I couldn’t resist the charm of Maurilia. It was the city where I eventually managed to relax my frustrated mind. The comfortable safety of its sepia postcards led me back to cozy evenings with my grandma when I used to go to her house after school, and she made tea with some delicious pastries. Calvino brought me to type these words here and now that render her precious presence more real than ever. While writing this I can virtually discover the sound of her voice in my head.

The cities that Calvino talks about are the places you must experience on your own, walk the streets, marvel at the architecture, the labyrinthine roads that never seem to end, look at the outline of houses by which they stand, cross the canals and continually seek to discover new places. As you walk around you can think about how cities are at the same time similar, yet amazingly different. It’s never clear what is real and what is not, what is the effect and cause, this is possibly part of the invisibility of the title.

At this point the more I think about the book the more I feel I have to re read it and then read it again. However, there is one thing I can definitely claim about “Invisible Cities” that it’s a vivid dream, which can be experienced and cant be described.

Project 2 – Documentation

For the second project I worked with Ellen, Chris and Luize. The inspiration for this project was loosely on interactions that take place in our daily lives, as we wanted to create interactions in a more real-life environment to make the user’s experience more natural. Then we started brainstorming on different scenarios of actions people do in their everyday lives, and ended up making a kitchen room because everyone is familiar with the place. We thought about various interactions that might occur while the character is in the kitchen and decided to make the switch as our main interaction. The user understands that the place is very unusual after playing with switches, since the first switch responsible for turning on/off the light and the other one is responsible for making the place alternate by causing fireflies coming from plants that emit overtime. This gives the user the idea that switches can do something more than just turning the light on or off.

Our initial idea was to create a bedroom where the user wakes up by turning the alarm off, then turns on the light and goes to the kitchen to make the coffee, but we decided to use the light switch as the only interaction because of some limitation of available assets and some other circumstances.

I worked on setting up the room and adding decorations and furniture. Adding walls, furniture and some other staff was very time consuming, however, I really enjoyed the process of working on it. When I finished with setting up the room, Luize updated the scene by adding the physics and the ceiling with the indoor light. Afterwards Chris worked on implementing the interaction with the switch, turning on/off the light, and Ellen worked on adding effects to make the place alternate such as fireworks and fireflies.

We added small lights on the switches to draw user’s attention to the switch area (Image 9). That way we tried to make things more clear and understandable, we also added some text such as “press E to turn off the switch” so when the user enters the switch area the text appears to help the user understand how to navigate and how to turn on/off the switch.

The only action that the user does is walking around the room and turning on and off the switch. We wanted the user to start with just looking around the room and then realizing that there are two light switches. The reason why we wanted the user to start from being next to first switch next to the window is in order for him to be able to see one of the effects that we added, fireworks (Image 10). After seeing the fireworks, user can turn on/off the first switch which is right next to the window. When turning off the switch, user realizes that not only did the lights go off but the fireworks are also gone. When the user moves around after being alone in the dark room, he sees another switch located on the other side of the room with a little light on it, by inviting the user to go the next switch area. When the user enters the second switch area, the the text-box appears on the screen with instructions on what to do next. After being in the second switch area, when the user tries to turn on the lights, the fireflies start coming from the plants and fulfilling the room (Image 9). We also tried to download the proper switch assets, in which the user would see how the switch changes while turning it on or off, to satisfy users expectations. (Image 1).

Initially we wanted the user to use VR controllers to play with switches, however, since we didn’t have access to VR headset, we had to use the keyboard. The reason we have chosen to add text-box with instructions is because it will make the user feel comfortable navigating and make the next steps easier to understand.

Although there have been some challenges that have arisen throughout the project, such as not finding proper assets, lighting difficulties and putting up the furniture together, I am extremely pleased with the overall work we have done in such a challenging situation. The end product came very close to what we foresaw for our project first, if feels natural, but unusual and surprising at the same time. And I think we have managed to achieve the goal of an alternate world, because the results of the interactions are very different and extraordinary from our normal everyday life.

Project 2 – Development Journal

Group Members: Ellen, Christopher, Luize and Ganjina

Project Theme: Student’s everyday life

Storyline:

For this project, we decided to create some simple interactions that take place in our everyday lives. At the beginning the interactions we had in mind were turning off an alarm, turning on the light and preparing a coffee. We wanted the user to get out of bed and then turn off an alarm, however, after talking to Sarah we realized that at this stage it would be hard to implement waking up in bed and changing posture in VR at this stage, therefore we decided to change some interactions.

Interactions:

opening the door
turning on the lights
making a coffee

Setting:

Room

Door
Kitchen area: plants, coffee machine, glasses, kettle, microwave, fridge,
room decor
light switch

We also decided to use some sound effects such as:

door opening
light switch
pouring coffee into cup

Storyboard:

Update 1:

Unfortunately due to Coronavirus, we did not have access to VR headsets so we had to make some changes to our project by reducing the number of interactions, with using WASD keys instead of a VR headset. We finally opted for light switch as our main interaction. We decided to add multiple light switches, where the character walks around the room and turn on/off light switches. While turning on/off light switches, we have decided to add various actions that would alternate the place. Our initial idea was that the character walks through the door to the kitchen, but we ended up the character being already in the kitchen -> walks around and explores the space, while playing with light switches, where different actions occur when turning on/off the light switch to make the place more alternate.

Interactions (light switch):

turning on/off the light

fireflies emit over time, and fill the room until turning off the switch

fireworks – outside the window (to make the place more alternate)

Update 2:

Tasks that each needs to complete:

Ganjina – works on designing the scene of the kitchen

Chris – works on turning on/off the light (when pressing the light switch)

Luize – physics of the furniture, adding ceiling and a light source for the room

Ellen – works on adding effects: fireflies, and fireworks

Update 3:

Final Result:

the character stands inside of a room (kitchen)
multiple light switches across the room
when approaching the lights switch -> instructions appear on the screen to turn it on/off
different actions occur when light switches are on/off – to make the place alternate

Responsive Environments

VR technology is already changing our world. As an example six-seven years ago, virtual reality was just an entertainment, exclusively for computer games. However, today Virtual Reality has brought some significant changes to our lives. As an example the usage of Virtual Reality in construction, it allows people to design homes and rooms, almost directly making changes to the project. A building project is broadcast in a VR headset and a person immediately sees how it will look with all the construction nuances. The possibilities of “immersion” in VR are much more modest than in a fully interactive virtual environment, but with sufficiently large screens and high-quality special effects, the impression of such demonstrations remains indelible. Nowadays, a lot of people think that entertainment and games are the main task of virtual reality. However, this is not the case, for instance large companies – such as Facebook and Microsoft – integrate virtual reality in many areas, starting from art to medicine.

Krueger in his readings points out that the idea of having a responsive environment and that being the message, I believe experimented virtual realities could gradually become actual-life applications. And I feel like education would be the strongest area. Thinking back to my learning experience versus say my father’s, technology is much more widely accepted and it’s almost becoming expected. The concept of using a responsive environment in a learning surroundings could be advantageous in that it is more interactive, instead of one teacher explaining topic to the whole class, virtual learning would enable students to participate and be engaged physically and mentally.

It’s hard to list all the advantages of new visual technologies, but I certainly believe that virtual reality is a new world that is starting now.

Project 1 – Documentation

For my first project I decided to create an environment that is isolated from everything, so the identity I was going for was something desolate. The inspiration for my project was loosely based upon my trip to Ethiopia, where my friends and I went stargazing. That was the first time I saw so many stars in my life, unfortunately I couldn’t capture that moment, since the quality of the photo was very bad, and after reading the description of the first project, I decided to make something similar, so people could experience the feeling I had on that day. In one hand the place that we went to for stargazing was very beautiful, however on the other side, it was very scary, since it was at night and very far from the city.

“You can find yourself in the middle of nowhere – or in the middle of nowhere you can find yourself” – This phrase seems to capture the sentiment of so many people. After reading this phrase I came to the idea of making “in the middle of nowhere” place with a lot of stars and mountains.

If we take closer look at the first part of the phrase, “You can find yourself in the middle of nowhere”, we may feel like we are in a place that is very far from the usual landmarks, surrounding may feel empty, abandoned and desolate. And the second part of the phrase, “Or in the middle of nowhere you can find yourself”, we may feel something totally different. When you find yourself in an empty and desolate place, you have the opportunity of experiencing new insights about yourself and who you are, with an option of retreating yourself.

Being in this new place “in the middle of nowhere” seems like traveling to a different place. The contrast between you, your life and the environment I have created, gives you opportunities to make new changes, insights, perspectives and awareness’s. The shift between space and timing that occurs when you enter a new place, actually allows you to jump to a new vision of yourself.

My project is about a person who is trapped in his own world and everyday he gets sucked deeper and deeper into it. The further he is in, the more he feels alone. No people, no animals, nothing, only him and the sound of inner function of his body as he is becoming lost in the middle of nowhere. The main components of my project are stars, that I downloaded from assets store and the sound that I have mixed, using different inner body sounds in LogicPro software. Also, the other important thing to mention is that, I added post process layer, and was playing around with bloom, depth of field and chromatic aberration effects. The post process layer applied full-screen effects to a camera which completely changed the vibe of the environment, luckily in a good way.

Throughout the project I have experimented with a variety of things. At the beginning, I started with making a terrain and adding palm trees and rivers, however, after getting feedbacks from friends I decided to get rid of them, and just leave the mountains and stars.

From various photos you can observe that the place is completely full of mountains and stars that the reflection you can see everywhere. The first thing that the viewer sees is very dark and huge mountains and then when he turns left or right, he could see all the beautiness I have created and at the same time would have the feeling of being isolated from everyone and everything. The most challenging part was building a terrain and finding a perfect spot to locate the camera, in order for the viewer to be able to experience the vibe that I was going for, looking from one dark side that the only thing the viewer sees are mountains and then moving around and observing the environment.

During test sessions, it was interesting to observe how for some people the environment felt like a meditation place, with all the bright colors, where they could just go and focus on their selves, where no one else is there, only you, your thoughts and the sound of your inner body parts. However, for other people, the environment felt as a scary place, in which they would just go crazy, since they are alone, in the middle of nowhere.

Looking back, I definitely feel that the implementation fits perfectly the identity I was going for, it evokes the sense of isolated place, no people, no animals, only you and inner function sound of your body. Though in my initial idea I had palm trees and river, I am actually happy that I got rid of them, and made the place with stars, mountains and sound. Overall, I am very proud of the environment I have created in such a short period of time. Most importantly, I feel that I successfully made a vibe of the “desolate” place that I have been working on.

Project 1 – Development Journal

I went to Ethiopia for jTerm, and my friend and I went stargazing on the last day of our trip. And when I read about the first assignment I remembered about that night and wanted to make something similar. After that I started brainstorming and I only had one goal set in mind, creating very peaceful and dreamy environment that would make others feel very comfortable and relaxed. There were several elements that I wanted to use, but the main ones were stars. Afterwards, I decided to test google cardboard and feel the vibe of 360 degrees environment. One of the examples was a very peaceful place with stars and different colors. After checking google cardboards I decided to make a very peaceful environment, which is going to take a place somewhere in the dessert at night with a lot of stars.

Update 1:

After brainstorming I started looking for skybox from the assets store, luckily I found very good one which was free, after adding a skybox I started working on building a terrain. I found a youtube tutorial, which was very helpful with getting started using a terrain tool. Here is the link for youtube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWQv2Bagwgk For now, I am kind of struggling with using a camera and lighting, but I feel like after adding more terrain, I should be fine with positioning the camera.

Update 2:

I have continued working on my project, and started adding more terrains and editing them. I was playing around with terrain tools, specifically to sculpt, paint and detail terrain within the unity editor. I also created some terrain layers, where I added some different textures. After adding some more terrains, I decided to add some trees. I downloaded palm trees from assets store, and started adding them into my terrain. The reason I decided to add some palm trees, is that from the beginning I was going for the vibe that can be similar to or completely different to the real world. Unexpectedly positioning and changing size of palm trees, took a lot of time, since I was adding one to two palm trees on each of the terrains, and was playing around with different sizes. Beside building a terrain and adding palm trees, I decided to start working on the lighting, it actually turned out to be challenging, since I wanted one side of the terrain to look darker than the other.

Update 3:

I continued working on terrain. I also post process layer, in which I used bloom, depth of field and chromatic aberration effects. The effect completely changed the vibe of the environment, luckily in a good way. I also added the sound that I have mixed, using different inner body sounds in LogicPro software.

Reading Response: Hamlet on the Holodeck, Ch 3

The phrase “virtual reality” just a few years ago meant something that seemed like a toy or just pleasant entertainment. Today, however, VR blends entirely with our everyday lives. It allows us to plunge ourselves into video games as if we were one of the characters. That being said VR creates a type of “fake world”, so when people put on a VR headset, their brain starts to believe that they have entered into a new world where they can actually move around and interact with virtual objects. Nevertheless, VR not only provides an immersive experience but also the sensation of being one with the character. It is very engaging to relate emotionally to the whole atmosphere while personally experiencing everything in detail. I believe in the near future VR will be the main focus. As you have seen, the world of virtual reality is constantly evolving. In fact, it could actually bring hundreds of benefits to any area such as education, health and entertainment. As an example, from Murray’s reading, Eliza was an imitation of a therapist which was created at MIT. Where users would sit at a terminal and send messages to Eliza, who would respond that would initially involve some processing. Most of her answers were switching out pronouns to make the sentence and answer after some time. As Murray mentions in her readings, there was uncertainty and speculation whether or not it was possible to write a program that could be so persuasive. People actually thought they were talking with an actual therapist, for instance, in the story with the vice president where Eliza was not only persuasive but also very successful as a therapist in her role as well.