Author: Ellen Xu

Fall of Octavia – Project Documentation

Project Description

In Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the city of Octavia is described as follows:

Now I will tell how Octavia, the spider-web city, is made. There is a precipice between two steep mountains: the city is over the void, bound to the two crests with ropes and chains and catwalks.

Illustration of the city of Octavia

In our final project, we are inspired by this fascinating city with its special and elegant structure. When envisioning the city of Octavia as our fictional space, we find it crucial to interpret the life of inhabitants of Octavia carefully so that it’s consistent with the uniqueness of Octavia. Therefore, our project is about the city of Octavia, and its people.

It is described in Invisible Cities that the life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will last only so long. In our project, Fall of Octavia, the player will experience the last day of Octavia when the net finally couldn’t last anymore and the whole city starts to collapse. As is shown in the intro of Fall of Octavia, the player is given basic information about this city and his/her role — one of the inhabitants of Octavia. One objective is implied that the player should find his/her daughter and escape the city from the only way out — a wooden bridge leading to one of the mountains. On his way, the player will witness the gradual collapse of the city, and also the reactions of other inhabitants. After the player reaches the safe place across the bridge, the whole city will be falling to its doom in the abyss.

Our project is designed and implemented for Google Cardboard. Therefore, the forms of interactions are limited to looking around and clicking. Other than clicking to walk around, we use gazing as a subtle way of interacting with the inhabitants. When this kind of interaction is triggered, the inhabitants will change their posture.

Process and Implementation

During the whole brainstorming process of our project, we made some major changes to our story. In the original version of the story, the fall of Octavia is caused by a giant spider, who is destroying the “spider-web” city for some reason. The player has to escape to the mountain and cut the rope of the bridge and stop the spider from climbing over. After presenting our idea of the story, we got the feedback that the incentive of cutting the rope seems unreasonable. We realize that we were focusing too much on the interaction instead of the story itself. Therefore, we come to this version of the story by focusing on the experience of our player and the construction of an immersive environment.


Scene Design

Overall View of Octavia

The city of Octavia consists of the main city and some “floating islands” connected to it. We choose to use a medieval style for the city since we are using elements like ropes and chains, which seem more suitable with a relatively primitive style. From the opening scene, we try to convey to the player that the city has been in chaos. We use the particle system for fog around the whole city and many houses are on fire with heavy smoke.

Houses on fire with smoke

Another important event that we focus on is part of the building in depredation. After falling apart, the big block is separated into many small bricks, each of which is a rigidbody.


Nonplayable Characters and Animations

Nonplayable characters, which are inhabitants of Octavia, play an important role in our project. They are created by 3D-modeling in Adobe Fuse and clothing asset is attached to the character. Later on, animations in the Mixamo library are applied to them.

One crucial decision that we make for interactions with the characters is whether to include conversations or not. We think about if it’s necessary to use conversations as the form of interaction. We realize that different animations on the characters have been enough to tell the story and conversations might bring about too much information for the player to capture and take in. However, we think it’s still important to implement some interactions between the player and the characters. Therefore, we apply gazing as interaction in a subtle way. To be more specific, if the player is in a certain close distance and keeps looking at the character, the interaction is triggered and they will change their posture. In this way, we hope the player is more participant as a character within this world and the story (without script) is told without a word.


  • The woman in fear when the player is in distance
  • The woman prays on the knee when the player walks up and looks at her

Movement and Audio

For the movement of the player, the interaction is to walk by clicking on the path with reticle. Only the walkable surface is interactable and by using NavMesh system, a path is automatically chosen from the current position to the clicked spot.


Audio is another significant element in our project. First, we use the sound effect of wind over the whole scene. It reinforces the player’s feeling that Octavia is hung up high between the mountains. With the houses falling into the abyss, the atmosphere of tense is created. In addition, we apply ambisonic audio to the characters. There are people crying, screaming for help, and mumbling in panic. We hope to makes it more immersive for the player by expressing the fear and pressure of characters.

Evaluation and Reflection

In our project, “storyness” is mainly achieved in the form of environmental storytelling. Our story is all about the fall of Octavia, and the only explicit goal is to escape the city from the bridge. In fact, the introduction of the objective of finding the player’s daughter is our strategy to guide the player to explore the space and look at the characters carefully. I think we’ve realized environmental storytelling since we always keep it in mind in the design of every aspect of our project.

There’s no doubt that the environment itself shows the process of its destruction. The player will see houses burning at the opening scene. Events of houses falling and breaking into pieces are triggered along the player’s way towards the bridge. The fog and wind effect over the whole scene (around the player all the time) creates the intense feeling that Octavia is in a terrible state.

Environmental storytelling is also implemented by shaping the other characters. We hope that the story of Octavia is also told when the player witnesses the inhabitants reacting in different ways to its fall. Recall that “suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will last only so long” (Calvino), there must be some people reacting differently from us when our hometown is doomed to be destroyed. Therefore, other than people fleeing in fear and getting injured, there are also people seeming calm and staying in the city. Maybe they are praying for Octavia to survive, or accepting the fate of the city and themselves. Maybe they are trying to capture the last moment of Octavia…… It’s open for the player to interpret.

Project 3: Development Journal

For the final project, we decide to establish one of the invisible cities, Octavia and integrate it with another theme apocalypse to convey “storyness”. To begin with, Octavia is a city built on a spider web between two steep mountains. The net is the main support of the city and also the track that traverses the entire city.

When it comes to the structure of the city, paths in the city are made of wooden ties which make people feel shaky and unstable. We would potentially add squeaking sound effects to intensify this feeling.


Although inhabitants of Octavia live in such an environment that seems to be uncertain and frightening for people living “on land”, they are certain about one thing: the fate of the city that it falls when the net is broken, since they know the net will only last so long.

We picture the ending of Octavia in a different way. It turns out that the web is made by a spider a long time ago. One day it comes back and finds out humans have taken over and messed with his web. It is so angry that it climbs over the net and tries to kill all the people there. Inhabitants could only escape from Octavia and run towards the mountain on the other side. Our player is one of the inhabitants and reaches the mountain with all other people. The spider keeps chasing after people and it destroys the buildings and everything in Octavia. The spider is closer and closer to this mountain. To save the inhabitants and kill the spider, the only choice left is to cut the string/rope that connects the net with the mountain. Eventually, the city of Octavia falls together with the spider, disappearing in the abyss below.


Storyline Update:

After presenting our idea of the story, we got the feedback that the incentive of cutting the rope to save Octavia seems unreasonable. Even though we could still do some editions to the story to make more sense of it, we realize our problem that we were focusing too much on the interaction instead of the story itself. Therefore, we make a radical change to our story and try to add some depth to Octavia rather than just its fascinating look. In our new story, the player has the objective of finding his daughter and escaping the city from the only way out. On his way to his daughter, he will see villagers running, crying, or praying, each having some different feelings and faiths.

Scene Building update:

Steven is responsible for the environment construction and destruction animation of houses. I assisted by making modifications to the particle systems of fog and fire, and applying physical properties to the objects on the main path. It is designed that the player couldn’t walk up the small bridges to the “floating islands” along the path. We use the skybox of sunset as the background against the foggy atmosphere around the player.

4.29 Update:

For the movement of player, I’ve experimented with several different ways of walking. The first version that I started with is autowalk, to add to the intense ambiance in the collapsing city, I added some small effects like head and body swaying. However, autowalk makes it hard for the player to stop and observe the surroundings. In addition, the swaying effect doesn’t work well with the GoogleVR SDK and it could be more dizzy for VR players. Therefore, I give up this effect and stick to steady walking. The second version is walking by looking down. This version is simple to implement but when much effort is made on looking down to navigate oneself, the joy of looking around while walking is eliminated.

Therefore, I come to the third version, which is clicking on the path with reticle to walk. Only the walkable surface is interactable and by using NavMesh system, a path is automatically chosen from the current position to the clicked spot. After discussion today, I got the feedback that since there are many houses “floating” above the view of the player, looking down at the road could be a little inconvenient. One suggestion is to have an arrow with a distance to the ground so that the angle change of the player’s view is smaller. I think this is a good idea to experiment with but one of my concerns is whether the appearance of an arrow is consistent with the relatively realistic style of our environment.

Interaction Update:

For the movement of the player, we decide to use clicking on the ground to walk instead of long pressing (with or without arrow navigating). One reason is that there are many blocks on the path like small bricks and wood pieces. NavMesh navigation solves the problem of walking into things blocking the way by generating a path to the selected position. The maximum distance that each movement could reach is increased so that the angle of looking down is smaller. The player could walk a longer distance each clicking and look around more conveniently.


  • NavMesh over walkable surface is baked in the whole scene

After Vince imported the characters from Fuse to our scene, we worked on looking at the character to trigger its change in posture. The characters each have two animations. When the player walks close to the character and looks at him/her, the character changes to another posture. The transition between animations has to be natural so we choose in the library for the most suitable pairs. In our implementation, the interaction is actually not triggered by gazing at the character since we think it’s hard for the player to figure out how it works without any guidance. It’s triggered by walking to a close distance to the character and the raycast reaching him/her.


  • The woman in fear when the player is in distance
  • The woman prays on the knee when the player walks up and looks at her

Invisible Cities: Isaura

Isaura, city of the thousand wells, is said to rise over a deep, subterranean lake. On all sides, wherever the inhabitants dig long vertical holes in the ground, they succeed in drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no father. Its green border repeats the dark outline of the buried lake; an invisible landscape conditions the visible one; everything that moves in the sunlight is driven by the lapping wave enclosed beneath the rock’s calcareous sky.

Thin Cities 1, Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

Isaura is a city built upon deep vertical wells.  And so far as the wells reach, the city exists.  Beyond the reach of its underground lake, the city ceases to be, its visible border mirroring the unseen borders of the dark lake below.  Polo describes two religions growing up as a result of this geography.  One group of people worships the god of the deep reservoir, the unseen lake.  The other group worships all the methods produced to ensure that water moves upwards to the city.

In the thin city of Isaura, Calvino begins to look at how religion is developed and how a person’s perspective influences how they think of the divine. The gods in the dark lake would indicate that humans will never see the gods and can only blindly trust that the water will continue to be there. While gods in the buckets, the gods of lightness, give people an opportunity to see those gods and exist as an emblem of striving for better, just as the gods continue to rise. It seems that the two forms of religion are different, one deep down under the earth, and another up high in the air. However, for me, they are just the same in essence. They are the embodiment of inhabitants’ desire for the city to grow, for their own prosperity. The deeply hidden gods of desire are the motivation for the gods of lightness to rise, up to the sky. While the gods of lightness follow the “wave” of the gods of desire and give new forms to the desire. Just as described in Cites & Desire 2, the city of Anastasia, “if for eight hours a day you work as a cutter of agate, onyx, chrysoprase, your labor which gives form to desire takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only its slave”. People in Isaura are the slave of the black lake, digging holes in the ground, and drawing up water from it.

In my dream, I visit the city of Isaura, it is a thin city, but also a heavy one. The water in the moat looks very similar to its source — the black underground lake. The water here is always opaque and dark in color, not that it is dirty, but it is dark by nature. People here don’t mind what makes the lake dark but rely on it to earn a living. All of the inhabitants stare at the wells and buckets all day long, with no expression on their faces. Suddenly I start to wonder if the ground cracks at night, the inhabitants might disappear in the lake and become part of it. I start to think about what they will become. If I dive deep into the lake, I would probably discover some big fish with no expression on their faces, or the ruins of a city that once prospered.

The city of Isaura somehow reminds of the cities in the UAE, such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The underground black lake here consists of petroleum. Beyond the reach of oil fields, there’s only desert and the cities cease to be. Dubai, for instance, is a city that strives to “move upward”, with the Burj Khalifa as the tallest building in the world. Oil fields give birth to the cities and civilization here. It is awesome that the cities have the ambition and capacity to move upward, but there’s more to consider when the oil runs out and what to rely on then.

Buy Online & Book Now to Visit the Burj Khalifa | Burj Khalifa
Dubai, a city that moves upward

Project 2: Documentation

Project Description

The everyday activity we choose to reimagine is pressing the light switch and it happens in a homey environment which consists of the kitchen and the dining area. We limit the room size so that it could be carried out with the Vive, but due to some special circumstances we have to set it up as a regular app instead. We have envisioned what the project will be like if carried out in a VR setting and I will discuss the difference in the reflection section. To recreate the interactions triggered by pressing a light switch, we have to break the convention that the light switch is only used to control the lights. To realize the alternateness of this activity, we design it to reflect the inner world of the audience, or more precisely the character in our first-person story.

In our scene, the audience would find themselves in a room and they could only explore the space within the room. The main interactions that could be triggered are with the two switches on the wall. To make the transition to an alternate aspect of reality go smoothly, the first switch that the audience see could actually control the light, but also with some changes to the environment that comes along with the light. The second switch couldn’t be used to turn on the lights and special responses are activated only when the lights in the room are off.

With the demo below, we could be more clear about the story. After entering the game scene, the audience would find themselves in the room. The door couldn’t be opened if one tries to. Apparently the character is locked in the room for some reason (maybe doing self-quarantine). When the audience turns around and sees the window, they will see fireworks outside. But when turning off the lights in the room with the switch next to the window, they will notice the fireworks are also gone. So here we are, alone in this dark room and the cold moonlight.


However, when the audience turns around, they will see another switch with a small light glowing. Turning this switch on, the audience will find themselves surrounded by the fireflies that fly out from the plants. Now even though we couldn’t get out of the room, we could still have our own light within this tiny space.



Process and Implementation

We went through a lot of brainstorming process to get to the final idea that is presented in our project. From the beginning, our goal has been to recreate the regular event where the audience makes interactions with the household properties, and this main idea remains unchanged all along till the end. Initially, our character was set to be a sleepy person in the early morning. After having a sip of coffee that is made with a coffee machine, the lights in the room are automatically turned on, meaning that the coffee light he/she up. However, due to the limitation of available assets, we couldn’t get a satisfying model for the coffee machine and have to give up this idea.

Later on, since we couldn’t use the VR device and focus on one core interaction, we decide to choose the interaction with the switch and implement some unexpected responses triggered by pressing a switch. Finally, we decide to use two switches, one for controlling the lights, and another for making changes to the plants in the room.


  • Environment and Aesthetics

To begin with, Ganjina set up the room with furniture and decorations and I helped with the arrangement of things in the room. In the initial environment, some space is left for the audience to walk around in this room. One switch is on the wall next to the starting position of the audience so that one could easily see. Another switch is on the opposite wall, with plants nearby.

Initial environment setup

Afterwards, Luize updated the scene by choosing a suitable color tone for walls and floor. She also added the ceiling with the indoor light and more decorations in the dining area. The environment becomes warmer and cozier with yellowish lighting.


Updated room scene with ceiling and indoor lighting
  • Scripts and Visual Effects

The scripts for this project are mainly about changing the states of objects involved when pressing a switch. The switch itself consists of two parts and one part is rotated when turned on/off. Chris implemented the interaction with switch and the light changes accordingly.

I’m mainly responsible for the scripts and visual effects after the switches are triggered. Initially, we wanted to turn the plants from dead to alive to reflect how the character is feeling. But again, the available plant assets are not satisfying enough. Therefore, we changed our idea and instead have the story and fireflies mentioned in the project description section. In fact, I’m inspired by the extraordinary situation where many people in the world have to lock themselves in their house. I know how depressing and lonely it could be to spend days and nights in the limited space, not to mention with concerns about the unprecedented situation. However, I somehow have the feeling that eventually everything will come to an end. It’s not even going to a miracle, but the fate of us all. So I use the image of fireflies as the metaphor of a subtle but certain faith. The fireworks outside are to enhance the contrast before and after the light is off. The fireworks only go off when the light is on while the firefly-effect could only be triggered when the light is off.


Fireflies with the room light off
Fireworks with the room light on

For the visual effects of fireflies and fireworks, I basically play around with the ParticleSystem in Unity. The fireflies have relatively long lifetime so that they could fill the room before disappearing. To simulate the motion of fireflies, noise is added to the particle emission trail. As is shown by the bounding boxes of particles below, the size of fireflies changes varying their speed and lifetime. Their color (or glow) dims over lifetime as well.

For the fireworks, they each consist of emission trails, small sparkles (as sub emitters) along the trail, and the bursts at the end of trails. The trails and sparkles have gradient colors so that the process from birth to death of emissions becomes natural.


In addition, the audience could also open the fridge and the microwave and the mechanism is similar to flipping a switch. The only difference is that the doors rotate around an axis instead of a point for the switch.

Reflection

From my perspective, we have realized the alternateness in our project. Conventionally, people don’t expect a switch in their room to be able to set or stop the fireworks outside. Furthermore, usually we don’t see fireflies indoor so it’s also an unexpected event.

For the medium, initially we envisioned the project to be implemented with VR setup. We think it would quite different with hand gestures when pressing the switch or interacting with the microwave and fridge. I add colliders to the fireflies so that I think it would be a better experience with VR devices when fireflies fly into the character (even better if sound effect is added).

Besides, the long-lasting brainstorming process of this project is especially inspiring to me. Before the actual implementation, we went through several times of idea sharing and feedback collecting with the whole class. At the very beginning, we even didn’t have any alternate elements in our design. The three interactions that we choose are also random and irrelevant. We got the suggestion that for the entire activity to make sense, we need to have a story that links everything together. That’s when I realize the meaning and importance of coherence, and I’ve always kept it in mind throughout the project.


Agency

There are two things we have designed regarding agency. First of all, the first version of fireworks are far from the room and one has to walk close to the window to see them. We think they are not noticeable compared to the first switch from the starting position. Thus, we adjust the position of fireworks so that the player could see them at first glance. Moreover, we move the switch closer to the window so that the player could easily realize the functions of the switch.

The second detail is the small glowing light on the second switch. It only lights up in the dark so that it catches the attention of the player to press it when the light is off.


Project 2: Development Journal

For Project 2, we decide to choose the interactions that seem to be the “everyday” routine for people. Initially, we set the scenario to be a regular morning. The interactions we come up with are getting out of bed, turning off the alarm, and drinking a cup of coffee made by the character. After talking to Sarah, we realize that waking up in bed and changing posture could be challenging to implement since we don’t have a delicate model for the character. Therefore, we change the setting and try to make the interactions different in how they are triggered by the controller. Eventually, the three interactions are:

  • Opening the door to the kitchen (with the trigger on the controller)
  • Turning on the light switch and adjusting brightness (with the touching pad)
  • Making coffee and drinking it (with buttons on the controller)

Here’s the whole-scene storyboard of our kitchen area. On the left side is a window from which dim light comes into the dark room. On the right side is the light and there will be a small glowing cue on it so that the player knows it’s interactable.


Update Mar.3rd

Ganjina and I started working on the environment setup and we choose to use a low-poly kitchen asset. We think it creates a homey feeling and some props come along with the animation, such as opening the microwave. However, they could only automatically play the animation. We will work further on modifying the animations and try to activate them with our desired interaction.


Update Mar.10th

Ganjina has finished setting up the kitchen scene and we like the space that is left for the player to walk around. The dining area looks warm and cozy. Hopefully, later we will only do some minor changes to the indoor decorations.


Update Mar.12th

Luize is working on adding rigid body to the GameObjects and adjusting indoor lighting. Chris gets the script for the light switch to work.

For the prop animation, unfortunately, I couldn’t get the animator working. Therefore, I decide to get rid off them and write scripts for the fridge and microwave. The principle is rotating the door along an axis when an interaction is activated.


Update Mar.14th

Luize has finished updating the kitchen and we like the wall color and lighting she chooses for the scene.


I have been working on the firework animation. Each firework emission has a sparkle as its Shader appearance. Each emission comes with it a trail and sub-emissions of small sparkles. Each burst at the end of a trail comes along with a bunch of delayed sub-emissions so that the bursts stay longer.


  • Sparkles at each emission
  • Fireworks with sub-emissions and bursts

Update Mar.15th

I finished the firefly visual effect and manage to get the switch mechanism right. For the fireflies, their sizes change with a curve pattern depending on their lifetime. The curves are random but all come gradually to zero till one particle disappears. Noise is added to the flying trail so that it looks more realistic.


Response as a Medium

Response, or interactive medium in an art form, is a medium itself that comes with its own principles and laws. As is mentioned in Responsive Environment, “the distinguishing aspect of the medium is, of course, it responds to the viewer in an interesting way” (Krueger 430). Response as a medium is all about the outputs of an environment triggered by the real-time human-machine interaction. The inputs from participants, or the triggers could be the operations a player performs on the program, or just the physical attributes performed by the player, like voice pitch, posture and so on. The response to the physical interactions of participants relies heavily on the sensitivity of the sensors, as is implied by Krueger, “the only aesthetic concern is the quality of the interaction”.

Project 1: Lost in Cyber City

Description

Walking in a modern metropolis, do you find yourself “lost” in the big city sometimes? On one hand, one can literally get lost among the streets downtown since the buildings and street furniture are often similar and constructed in a unified pattern. On the other hand, at least for me, once in a while I would get struck by a sense of loneliness when wandering in the street and having no clue about where to go. I think this feeling of getting lost is partially invoked by the imposing buildings around us. They are so tall and magnificent that their very existence blocks our view of the sky and our imagination about the rest of the world. Therefore, in this project I choose to build a grandiose environment and try to convey the feeling of getting lost around the buildings.

  • Inspiration: View of the imposing building from a distance
  • Inspiration: Lost in the street surrounded by buildings

For this project, I intend to imitate the streets of the big city while constructing it in a cyberpunk style. Cyberpunk strikes me as “high tech, low life” and the existence of every single human being is trivial compared with advanced technology and hyper-urbanized landscape. It resonates with the identity that I want to achieve. From my point of view, reminding people of how small they are in this virtual space is one important factor for the sense of “grandiose” identity. Thus, I use the architecture of cyberpunk skyscrapers as a critical feature of my environment.

Overall view of the whole environment

Process and Implementation

  • Views of Audience

The most important view in my environment is the view of a street and the skyscraper one can see at the end of the street. The street is very narrow and the buildings are close to each other to make it overwhelming for the audience. The ascending height of the buildings is leading one’s view to gradually look upwards. If the audience is equipped with a VR device, he/she will have to look up very hard to see the top of the skyscraper.

Whole view the street and the skyscraper from the bottom

As for other views when the audience turns around, I think it would be boring to see similar street scenes. After all, I want to keep some imagination about the outside world. Therefore, I make it possible for the audience to look further beyond the city by placing the camera at the top of a lower house. From this view (View A), the audience would realize that the city is isolated in the middle of the sea. I intend to blur the division between land and sea and thus block the audience’s view of the land boundary with several houses.

View A is set to be the first view of the audience when the environment is launched and there are no tall buildings in this scene. I design it this way so that when the audience explores the whole environment, there is a contrast between the first impression and the actual vibe. In View A, one has a wide view of the mountains in the distance and even the skyline. However, in View B, one could hardly see the sky and sunset but only see the buildings at a very close distance. In View C, the last glimmer of twilight disappears and the audience could only see the imposing skyscrapers.


View A: The first view of audience when app is launched
View B: View of the street and the tallest skyscraper from camera
View C: Looking upwards to see the top of skyscrapers
Top view (circled is the position of the camera)
  • Lighting Settings

For the skybox of my environment, each of the two below has its merits. They both have a dark color theme (the sunset skybox is mainly dark with twilight around skyline). I like the dark theme a lot because the skyscrapers seem to extend endlessly to the further sky against the dark background. With the cloudy night skybox, the sea seems more realistic since the water (as a 3D object) blends in with the background. However, eventually I choose the sunset skybox because of the contrast effect mentioned above.


  • Skybox 1: Sunset
  • Skybox 2: Cloudy night

For the environment reflections, they usually come with skybox packages. But the skybox that I choose doesn’t include reflection, so I try to choose a suitable one from another package. At last, I choose Reflection 3 as it matches best with the skybox with a cool tone. The dark reflection on the glass creates a feeling that there are more tall buildings on the opposite side (although actually there are no tall buildings on that side).


  • Reflection 1
  • Reflection 2
  • Reflection 3: Dark tone, raindrops on the ground have clear reflection

Feedback and Reflection

In general, to highlight the grandiose architecture, I focus on the contrast between a) depths of views; b) heights of buildings; c) color themes of different altitudes. According to several user tests, I get the feedback that the contrast between the first view and other views with tall building works well. Initially, I want the mountains to be further from the audience so that the contrast between depths of view could be stronger. However, it seems that Unity only renders scenes and objects in a limited scope. I tried to add fogs in the distance to increase the depth of the view but I couldn’t get volumetric fogs working.

The skyscrapers are grandiose and imposing enough to achieve the identity that I intended. The color theme of the skybox and the environment also contributes to the lonely, lost feeling. But the twilight of the skybox seems a bit too bright. Sarah suggests that I edit it in software like Photoshop since it has nothing to do with the light source in the environment. Moreover, to strengthen the lost feeling, I think I could add some fog effect to the whole environment. Raindrops on the road is one of my attempts to create a cool and humid vibe but I think there are other lighting settings to help create that feeling as well.

Project 1: Development Journal

The specific identity I choose is grandiose. For this project I want the identity to be created by grandiose architectures. From my perspective, this identity is closely associated with the height and scale of buildings. I was inspired by a fascinating mountain city in China, Chongqing. It impresses me as a grandiose place because of its altitude and ambiance. Standing in the city, I always find myself looking up at some tall buildings or endless stairs that seem to lead nowhere. Below are some photographs of the city.

–

For my project, I intend to focus on the scene of being among these buildings and very close to them so that one has to look up hard to see the top of the buildings. Therefore, I think of sky trams that could travel among buildings to enable the audience to get close to buildings and see distant lands as well. However, I get the advice that the roof of sky trams could block one’s view, so I think it’s better if the audience is set to be sitting on the rooftop of a smaller house. From my point of view, reminding people of how small they are in this virtual space is one important factor for the sense of “grandiose” identity. To be more specific, I want the grandiose scene to make people feel lost instead of simply getting amazed. However, sky tram is still an interesting element for me so I’ll probably keep it in the scene.

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  • My sketch: view of being among buildings
  • The view of distant lands

Instead of a realistic portray of the city, I would like it to be in a cyberpunk style. I hope to create a contrast between the high tech surroundings and sky tram as an old means of transportation. The weather could be foggy and humid to add some gloom and dampness to the atmosphere.

Reading Response: Hamlet on the Holodeck, Ch. 3

As is mentioned in Hamlet on the Holodeck, the expressive forms have their own affordances and norms to be regarded as a new media format. From my point of view, VR falls in the expressive form given its unique nature of immersive and interactive experience. One can argue that VR seems to be the first-person form of narrative that could be categorized as a combination of film/game and 3D imaging technology. Nevertheless, the gap between 2D expression and VR experience is so large that we could count it as a brand-new field. In the field of VR, how different types of sensations are simulated undoubtedly replies to certain rules and expectations. To my knowledge, there’s no existing media form that focuses on giving people a realistic feeling of exploring the world with one vision and one sound.