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.