For my second project, I decided to attach a sword to the AR camera in order to enhance the navigation process for the player. I thought it will bring the experience closer to a quest-style game. In order to navigate the environment, the user can walk around and explore the castle.
Interaction:
As for the interactions, I am attempting to install a particle system that indicates to the player that they should touch the treasure chest inside the castle, because I intend on having the special “teas” or potions to appear upon impact (signaling that the player achieved the final quest). Prior to getting to the treasure chest, however, the player has to kill the two trolls stationed in front of the castle. The trolls will disappear upon impact, as well as produce a monster groan as part of the feedback.
Testing the sword attached to the camera.Attaching the particle system to the treasure chest.
I need to figure out my interactions better, because they seem a bit ambitious. To make my interactions intuitive, I’m making the room itself pretty dark, with the fireplace as the main light source. It will make the viewer move closer to it. Then you see a book on a shelf and once you press it the lights come on.
That’s the first main interaction. Once the lights are on you can spin the globe or move around the room- closer to the window or the fireplace. I’ve given the sound a range and roll off so as you move around some sounds get louder and others get softer, like the fireplace and the wind.
This is a screen recording of the first build I had. In this the user is going around there space and spawning cubes which are representation of ghosts, or places in their corridor where they know ghosts exist.
It’s rudimentary here, but the idea is for them to experience the sounds as they walk through.
In the current version, the feelings of the space hopefully willl be affected as they think about the AR experience post the app usage.
Interaction
The main interaction I’m thinking about is using triggers, colors, and hopefully fades. There’s a basic interaction, like I said thinking of UI and just walking around listening to the stories. The audio in itself has story arcs/ or ideas.
I’m still figuring out the cue, as of now it might just be text in UI and i find a more organic way for project 3.
This is a storyboard of how I envision the interactions to flow as of now.
Walking will be the mean for users to navigate in my world. I gave up the ideas of flying or teleportations because, although they seem really cool, these abilities will take away the identity as a human explorer setting foot on this destructed place. In another world, flying and teleporting by hotspots could distract the users and prevent them from exploring every inch of the space in my world.
On the other hand, walking fits my world quite well. First, there are so many buildings with stairs, rooms, and floors that users can explore. As they walk, they can feel the up and down motion as they walk on the stairs or feel the smoothness of the floor of a room. Second, this world is full of mysteries and opened to users to explore by themselves. They are not directed by hotspots to teleport or fly to a different because this will defeat the purpose of exploration. Instead, the users will have the freedoms to go to different rooms and figure out what had happened there.
Still, I might incorporate one or two pairs of teleportation hotspots to surprise users when they enter a very dark room. Users might not be able to find those hotspots by the end of the exploration.
Interactions:
As users enter mysterious rooms, they will find various objects, ranging from books to chairs to toys. There are a few possible interactions that could happen between the users and those items:
when users touch an item, the item animates and tells a story of how it comes to be this way
some items can be picked up so users can use them later to unlock a door or provide light in the darkness for example
I think this usage of various household items might be good narrative of the forgotten. No living soul is there to tell the story so let the animated do the telling. In addition to storytelling, exploring and putting pieces of those items together are like solving puzzles. This would hopefully further engage users.
Overview of the level The entire Scene with all the particle effects and scripted events running. Most of the level has animations in it.The Hotspot Model is a animated drone
A lot of progress has been made on the project. I have to make a few more additions in terms interactivity that we covered in the lab to complete the project.
Navigation:
There are two ways to navigate the space. one way is to physically move around in order to explore the environment. the second way is to use hotspots to move around the environment. There is a also a third way to move for one segment and that it by climbing the ladder.
I choose these for a couple of reasons. first, since it is a AR game it would be appropriate to have a mechanic of movement the ties the virtual world with the real world by physically moving. Second the movement mechanic is still a quirk and you would need a big space to comfortably explore the area so in order to facilitate exploration without the movement mechanic getting in the way of that so Hotspots were made and put at idea locations as a form of teleportation. the Hotspots also allow the player to look at the environment through idea positions that make the environment more special. the third is that the level should not feel flat it should have a form of 3d transversal in it. so for that the ladder mechanic was implemented. moreover the hotspots have also been put at different heights and the level is also made at 3 different heights to facilitates verticality of the level.
Interactions:
For interaction I wanted to do something that tied in with the concept of exploration. for that I have made these interactions.
The player can pick up and throw canisters around the level. there will be a location where the player can place the canisters that they have collected from the environment.
The player can fire the big three turrets from the control tower by touching the respective panel
The player can rotate a small antenna on a device put on the landing platform. (WIP)
The player can push one of three buttons on the landing pad to change the color of the signal flare(WIP).
The player can click on random object to get a dialogue response out of the player.(WIP)
These Interactions will be made obvious through placement and maybe lighting hints. other than that it is the players job to explore and find these random interactions.
In the screen recording, you can see I have updated the layout by adding walls around the pinball “table” to create a feeling of being entrapped. In this iteration, the user can navigate the environment by walking and flying to the hotspots that provide different perspectives on the scene. However, I think my layout is too large for walking, you can’t really go far, unfortunately.
I actually wanted to give the user the ability to climb the wall at certain spots, however, it is not working as of now. I will make sure to figure it out as I continue working on the project/.
Interaction
Based on the feedback from our last class, I would like to give the user an ability to interact with the ball in the scene by playing with the flappers at the end of the board, like in the classic pinball game. For that I will have to figure out how to make the ball move around the board on its own and bounce from the obstacles. The interaction will be executed by tapping with your finger on the flappers.
In the video, you can observe the three ways of navigation; walking, hotspot movement (implemented similar to the first project), as well as climbable pine trees.
I included tree climbing as a way for the player to elevate themselves and take a wider look and a new perspective on their surroundings. The hotspots serve as a way for people to move around if they aren’t in a large space.
Interaction
Based on the feedback of my idea presentation I chose to implement the creature interaction where the player would be petting and feeding these creatures around. I have two ideas for this:
1. Petting foxes and feeding them while going around and attacking enemies. The enemy mechanic would be similar to the project one mechanic where you just need to tap and they die but I was thinking of adding sound effects or something like that.
2. The player would essentially be purifying foxes by feeding their angry slime blob form; when the player feeds the red blob it would turn into a fox and you can pet it and go on purifying the rest.
I’m attempting to go for the second idea of purifying the creatures because it seems like a more thought out mechanic all linked to each other that makes sense to me.
I will first attempt to implement the petting mechanic then the creature to fox when feeding, I’m unsure how I’ll go about animating the transition though.
This interaction goes hand in hand with the story behind the forest, the human is the protector and they have to help the creatures of the forest that transformed into blob monsters trying to attack and consume all the mushroom magic.
I’m thinking about the berry button being a sort of cue that they can use on something. I thought of also adding a voice or text, in the beginning, telling the player to feed the monsters and purify them back to their original forms.
