For the VR assignment, Bingrui and I discussed the choice of topic for a long time. And the making process did reflect our inner journey of the whole story. 

Bingrui likes nature themes, such as landscapes and animals; I wanted to create a semi-open room with inside and outdoor features, similar to a courtyard. Since our two ideas were so related, we decided to start with the winter/snow direction. Bing had prior expertise with Unreal, which improved the realism of the landscape, and she helped me a lot with the software. After placing several buildings in the landscape, we began to consider the possibility of creating an interactive game in which the main character is seeking for treasure in an abandoned city with old Chinese architecture, and he needs to visit temples, caverns, or lakes to find treasure. However, due to time constraints, the main character’s animation must be designed using blueprints, therefore, for the time being, we have abandoned this option.

I found a lot of lovely and intriguing assets online (Sketchfab is amazing! ), all of which are Chinese antiques, as well as historic furniture, architecture, and even ancient daily life stuff. We had an insight that it would be a wonderful idea to use the existing buildings and add these recently found assets to create an old market scene. We picked the locations of various buildings based on certain traditional Chinese thinking habits known as feng shui. For example, the largest store inside, comparable to a modern boutique, is located in the ideal position based on the premise of following the mountain and the water, but the commercial street, which is made up of little businesses converging together, is located at the other end of the lake.

Follow-up work:

We have placed many historical antiques in stores and on the streets, for example, there are cranes and serpents candlesticks, Carved perfume bottle,s and so on. The majority of the animals’ representations represent good fortune and numerous favors.
In truth, many ancient objects can not say specific meanings. So, maybe, later on, we can develop this project into a popularization game of Chinese culture, where when the mouse clicks on certain minor items, a popup with a full expert explanation of them pops up.

In addition, we want to keep the idea of treasure-seeking games but also incorporate the marketplace design. To get the tools or clues for his treasure adventure, the main character must barter within the market. The rules of the game were designed in an absolutely original way with the goal of providing players with a more immersive experience.

The adjustment of lighting is currently our biggest challenging task in unreal techniques. We want the sun to shine in the distant corner so that the entire ambiance is better. However, it led directly to a very gloomy building, and the extra spotlight effect is not very nice. In this section, we still have a lot to learn. There are also some on the street; we’ve discovered some street light assets but haven’t had time to add them yet; they can be improved later. The entire sight will be more lovely with the addition of lights and falling snowflakes.

I’ve was never a gamer, and I don’t understand the value of gamers’ desire for victory in the virtual world. That’s probably why I gave up playing after roughly an hour. But this game initially intrigued me since it isn’t a competitive game in the usual sense; instead, it tells a story. The format is similar to that of an escape room, in that you play the game while reading the whole story and then get the ending.

The visuals, interactivity, and music of Gone Home were all incredibly engaging to me. So, at first, I liked exploring each room to discover what was within and what textual material was given to me in order to get more information. I gained new messages every step of the way. But I became tired of opening doors, as if the game was always opening doors, turning on lights, and reading materials (the house is a little too big). At the same time, maybe due to my unfamiliarity with the game, my action of searching is extremely slow, so in an hour I only obtain a very limited amount of information. My mind was a little shattered, so I abandoned the game, but I think this is my own reason, I’m a person who doesn’t have much patience to play candy crush.

For players like me who prefer story, it is feasible that more story content, or even a reversal of the tale, in a very modest exploring zone, may entice me to continue playing. In any event, it was a fantastic experience that challenged my preconceived notions about the game. I’m also excited to study Unreal in order to design my own space.

This week, we continued work on the animation and putting the 2D animation into AR. We tried two AR software, both Eyejack and Aero. Both of the two software have their limitations, animation layers cannot be placed behind the character, only left and right or in the foreground. So we decide to add a digital character (digital version of our physical doll) to Aero.

The animation for the seaside.

The animation for the forest.

Finally, we got two versions of our AR animation. The first version is the three landscapes located in separate places. At first, you can only see the digital doll. When you get close to the doll, the scene will appear and the animation will begin.      

The second version is changing the landscapes by tapping on objects. The beginning is the same as the first version, only the doll at the beginning and the seaside would appear when you get close to the doll. Then you can tap on the doll and the landscape would change from seaside to forest, and then tap on the purple grass and the landscape would change to wonderland.

The lovely doll with purple, thick, long hair!

And we decide to use the second version for our final piece, cause we still want to include the physical doll, Alexandra made a so lovely doll. Even though the doll cannot be the target object as we previously expected, it’s still the most important inspiration for our project. 

Please scan it and have fun!

Considering Question: 

How to interact with the scene, is the interactive target (doll) or the participants him/herself? Or both?

Add some detail to express the interaction between the doll and different landscapes, like putting a sunglass or sun umbrella to show the interactive experience of the doll.