Category: Spring 2021

Reading Response 2

Zero Days VR and Notes on Blindness are in my opinion perfect examples of how VR on mobile devices should be made. One of the main concerns of mobile VR is that due to the technical limitations of the VR device and phone explorable experiences are hard to make. experiences that take full advantage of murray’s rule of spatial is hard to perfectly portray in such situations. Instead the experience should take the player on a journey rather than let the player find the journey in the experience.

Zero Days VR takes a documentation approach where the user travels through digital cyberspace with narration of what they are seeing. This linear journey really takes full effect of border of illusion where instead the user only listens to the narration, the narrations complements the visual presented to the user and engages the user in trying to tie in the narration with what is going on visually. One good example of this would be when the user is presented with a virus moving through circuits, it look like the virus is dodging obstacles but when the narrator explains that the virus is looking for the actual target it adds a whole new meaning to the visuals. The only thing that was bad in the experience was the lack of spatial affordance of the VR. everything was in front and looking around did not provide much

Notes on blindness also does something similar where the narrations and visuals go hand and hand to make a enjoyable experience. border of illusion, mechanics to simulate physical acts was really present through the experience. it gave the user a sense of what was being discussed through its visual presentation where blindness and how a blind person navigates is beautifully presented. using particle effect to simulate footsteps making vague figures of people and world building through narrating and visualizing every single detain really gave the illusion of a believable world. The only thing that hindered the experience was that towards the second half the narrations didn’t slow down and didn’t let the user absorb all the detail before moving on to the next one.

Reading Response 2: Presence & Immersion

One of the main concepts is “the fourth wall, an enchanted threshold object that carries you into the immersive world–and then out again” (Murray 134). For instance, the boat in the Jurassic Park is the medium that allows people travel through the dinosaur world, but, at the same time, the boat reminds the people that the world is illusionary. In another word, the boat sets the border between reality and illusion. Having a border or threshold object in a virtual world is important because it prevents users from getting lost in their invented world. For example, Murray brings up a fictional story in which the character Harold has the ability to turn his drawing into reality with a magic crayon. Because the only limitation to this special ability is his imagination, Harold creates such an immersive world that even he himself gets lost and can not find the way to his real world. Then he remembers some details of his world that allows him to get back (Murray 128). This example shows how users can easily get lost in the virtual world if the borderline between reality and virtuality is not clear.

The two VR animations above provide a perfect segue way to discuss Murray’s points regarding users’ presence. In the first VR animation Invasion!, I feel like I am a part of the environment because I am seeing things through the perspective of a bunny instead of myself. The creator creates this feeling by making users see things at the height of bunny (things around users seem big and tall) and the other bunny does not seem to be scared of you. Thus, instead of being an observer, I am actually one of the characters in the animation. How could the users believe that they are one of the characters? This links back to Murray concept of “the active creation of belief”and “the willing suspension of disbelief” (136). The users know that they are holding a piece of Google Cardboard, but if they are willing to neglect this minor fact and let themselves believe what they see through those lenses, they will be able to become a bunny!

In contrast to the first VR animation, Crow: The Legend VR provides a different role for users. Even if the users use the same Google Cardboard and are willing to neglect the fact that they are using it, like they did when watching Invasion!, they will not feel that they are a part of the animation because Crow: The Legend VR sets its users as observers instead of as one of its characters. When I am watching this animation, I feel out of place because I do not know what role I play in the events that are happening. In addition, when many things are happening at once, I need to turn around frequently to make sure that I will not miss anything. Thus, despite being in the environment, I do not actually feel that I am a part of the environment at all. Since the creator does not want the users to be apart of the story, it would have been better to watch the animation in 3D glasses instead of trying to immerse in it. Hence, the level of users’s presence in a VR environment hugely depends on their role in the VR world.

Project 1 Documentation

Make a blog post containing the below items, and put it under category P1 Documentation

  • A link to the Github repo
  • Google Slides (embed in the post or paste link)
    1. First, show the working thing
      • A screen recording of the app
      • A screen recordings of the play mode in Unity editor (optional)
      • Multiple screenshots
    2. Secondly, explain the idea
    3. Thirdly, how it went?
      • Go through process, challenges, things you learn
      • Any documentations you have (e.g. wip screenshots, sketches)
      • Any final thoughts
  • To officially submit Project 1 for grading, email me the link to the post before class on Monday

To embed the slide

1. Publish your slide to the web
2. Choose as Link and click Publish
3. Copy the link
4. In your blog post, insert Google Slides block
5. Paste and url of your slide and click Embed

Reading 2 Response

Reading about the fragility of immersion really opened my eyes to what it means to be an immersive storyteller. The author speaks about the importance of having consistency, active creation of belief and careful regulation in the boundaries between the imaginary and the real in order to maintain immersion. After reading I explored a few 360 experiences and attempted applying Murray’s arguments on them. The one that stood out to me the most was this experience:

VR Spacewalk Experience Video

Overall, I found this experience to be very immersive. The areas that take away from that immersion is the nature of the google cardboard. During the spacewalk, the viewer is asked to do things around the spacecraft which took me out of the immersion since I was sitting there not doing anything and watching my virtual hands move all on their own. Outside of that, the experience succeeded in being immersive through all the details they provided. First of all the voice of the guy talking to you and the voice-effect he had on allow the viewers to really take on the costume of the astronaut. Details such as the heart rate and oxygen levels also aided in the feeling that it was real, when the astronaut leaves the spacecraft and looks out at the earth you look down and see your heart rate go up which helps connect the video and your real-life reactions. Another area that aided in immersion was the intricate and heavy movement the astronaut makes, it is more believable you are in space because of how those movements help in making you believe the gravity is different. The overall experience was very consistent in all the space-astronaut details, with the placement of objects and the tasks the astronaut has to do, the different voice overs and the count downs, and the weight of the astronaut.

P1 Progress: Pinball

The video and the screenshot above show my humble progress with Project 1 so far. They also represent 2 hotspots for viewing of my choice. One of them shows the above perspective where you can see what is going on and inspect the world, while the other is a first-person view of the scene where you are the imaginary character stuck in the pinball machine. I couldn’t really think of another hotspot, because, as you can see, I haven’t made a lot of progress and there is tons of stuff missing. My layout is really simple but I will work on adding more dynamic elements and interesting details to make it look more full.

P1 Progress

After getting the primitives down I started creating the scene with assets from the asset store, I used a lot of different ones for the base I have now which includes different assets for the ground, trees, mushrooms, mushroom houses, sky box etc.

Looking at it in this stage, I am not satisfied with the visuals but I did what I could with free assets. I might attempt to create some of my own assets to exchange to make a better aesthetics.

I added the three focus points and changed the elevation in each to be different from each other. The camera, in the beginning, is behind some trees, so the player would come in feeling like somewhat of an outsider. Then they come closer being able to look at the mushroom house as well as around at the forest.

  • Hotspot 1
Starting Point
Hotspot 1 view 1
Hotspot 1 view 2
  • Hotspot 2
Hotspot 2 view 1
Hotspot 2 view 2
  • Hotspot 3
Hotspot 3 view 1
Hotspot 3 view 2

The views that are on the ground bring the feeling of closeness to the village, you look around and get to know the area. As you go up, the player feels more in control of the location, as a protector of this forest that feeling of being able to look at and survey the small village is important.

I still need to work on changing and adding more to the scene and adding more lights for the mushrooms. I would also like to change the hotspot’s visuals to glowing mushrooms as well as adding more objects to make the village feel lived in. I also would like to work on the enemy mechanic but I am unsure how I’ll go about doing the enemy one since the environment alone takes a lot of time to complete.

I faced an issue where things would look different in the IOS build, the mushrooms went bright pink that I ended up changing the shader to a flat colored one. In the google cardboard, the ground also seemed to disappear, so I’ll need to fix that as well.

Google Cardboard Build Screen recording

Reading Response 1: Hamlet on the Holodeck

This reading offered a simple deconstruction of all the elements necessary to create digital environments. The fact that digital environments are participatory, particularly stood out to me due to variety of factors that we designers and programmers must consider in order to create more sustained engagement. With earlier programs like ELIZA and Zork, it was interesting to observe how users were often inspired to test the limits of how responsive these programs can be. The reading states that the first step to creating “enticing narrative world is to script the interactor”; thus making it easier for the programmers to anticipate the interactor’s actions and behaviors.

Due to the fact that digital environments are participatory, this means that every detail has to be designed with the user in mind: their reactions, questions, spatial awareness, etc. The most traditional approach in digital environments that is still utilized today, is having a simple branching structure “which limits the interactor’s choices to a set of alternatives from a fixed menus of some kind.” This narrative is still widely used in modern day RPG’s, chat bots, and a variety of other interactive services. Having participatory digital environments also implies that these environments have their limitations, which are dictated by a specific set of rules. Perhaps with more developments in virtual reality and machine learning, we can anticipate digital environments that are flexible enough to capture a wider range of human behavior and counter it.

Project 1 Progress

Choose 3 locations as hotspots for viewing: consider interesting perspectives, how can they be different with each other? What are the foreground views of these hotspots? Can they convey what’s going on in the space? What are the “feelings”?

Create a blog post under the category P1 Progress, to document the project progress and also address above questions.

Reading Response 2

Post a brief response (1-2 paragraphs) to the reading, Hamlet on the Holodeck, Ch 4: Immersion, and put it under category Reading Response 2.

Execute and address the below question in your response, be ready to talk about them in class next week

  • Take a look at the Google Cardboard official app (Android, iOS)
  • Try another 1 to 2 mobile VR experiences (source: Within, youtube etc)
  • Evaluate their level of immersion, what works and what does not?

Do not emphasize graphics, but instead evaluate using the concepts Murray introduced, e.g. Active Creation of Believe, threshold object, border of illusion, role of the participant, smart costume, mechanics to simulate physical acts, and any other elements of immersion that are not covered in the chapter.