Lost Angeland

RC12

PLAYS

LA

Landscape Hanrui Zhang (Iris) Lu-Ming Chen (Ming) Min Liu (Alice)

LOST ANGELAND

Mixed layers isometric game world

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Landscape The Definition of landcscape is that the visible features of an area of land, its landforms and how they integrate with natural and man-made features.

Los Angeles, the second-largest urban region in the United States, contains multiple kinds of landscapes in both natural and man-made features.

It is not just the diverse geomorphology make Los Angeles special. Moreover, the symbiotic relationship of natural and man-made features is the key leads to contemporary landscape.

Compares to other cities developed along with the shape of terrains, Los Angeles has been changed by immigration into what they wanted, for example, Venice Beach, Silver Lake, etc.

Manmade and nature sightseeing of Los Angeles landscape

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Research

Elements about natural landscape and manmade landscape

Natural Landscape

Joshua Trees

Cactus

Inselberg

Desert

River

Mountains

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Hills

Canyon

Oak Trees

wetlands

Cliffs

Fossil

ocean

The definition of natural landscape is an area of land and the elements that are not directly changed, altered, or moved by human power. It can be effected by nature factors such as weather and keep the delicate ecological balanced. Any type of topographical area that remains in an untouched state is considered as natural one.

Los Angeles contains several kinds of natural landscapes such as river, desert, plain, wetland, mountain, mountain range, cliff, coast, littoral zone, shrub land, forest, woodland and moors. Despite the great allure of the region’s natural environment, its other, less desirable elements, for example, prolonged droughts, torrential rains and flood, pose serious challenges to Los Angeles landscape.

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Man-Made Landscape

Canals

Palm Trees

Oil Fields

Parks

Housing

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Bridge and Channel

Skyscrapers

Magnified Figures

Stadium

Harbor and Resort

Funicular Railway

Manmade landscape or construction environment encompasses places and spaces created or modified by people including development of buildings, parks, flyovers, dams, reservoirs and transportation systems. People has altered the environment for their own interest to meet the demands of growing population.

Over time, the growing city spilled into the surrounding landscape in Los Angeles. Ranching, farming, and urbanization have destroyed much of the area’s original landscape. Hills has been flattened away, reshaping the geomorphology. Meanwhile, hundreds of exotic flowers, shrubs, and trees have been introduced. For instance, most of the familiar palm trees are exotics. People are not just hauled away the natural feature, but also the cultural landscape.

Historic buildings and even entire neighborhoods have been erased in the name of redevelopment. To some extent, the past Los Angeles has been lost.

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Connection

Changes between natural and manmade or in other way 1930

2003

Signal Hill Oil Field

Industrial Area Oil Wells

Echo Park Pool

1905 1992

Port Ballona

Oil Field In the 1890s, the small town of Los Angeles began a transformation driven by the discovery and drilling of some of the most productive oil fields in history. In the decades that followed, many wells closed, but even more opened, surrounded by urban and suburban growth. Machinery was camouflaged, loud noises were abated, methane pockets were vented, as residents learned to live side-byside with oil production facilities. To this day, oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin remain very productive, and modern techniques have centralized operations into smaller areas or moved offshore.

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Residential Area

Venice Beach Resort

Venice Beach Venice, originally called “Venice of America,� was founded by tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a beach resort town, there were four east-west canals and two north-south canals. However, as the automobile gained in popularity, the canals were viewed by many as outdated, and the bulk of the canals were filled to create roads, also the sidewalks were condemned by the city. The canals were finally renovated in 1992, with the canals being drained and new sidewalks and walls being built. In recent years, there has been extensive renovation work on many of the old houses, and many large, modern houses have been built.

1906

20 Century

1999

Palos Verdes Peninsula

Japanese American Farm

1869

Bunker Hill

Trump Golf Club A plaque at Founders Park, behind the clubhouse at Trump National, marks the site of the first Japanese American farmhouse on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, built in 1906 by Kumekichi Ishibashi..

This land which now is used as trump golf club was bought by a rich businessman and built as Ocean Trail Golf Club.

Ocean Trails Golf Club, used to be a 18–hole course designed by Pete Dye, was about to open when a landslide occurred and the 18th hole slid to¬ward the Pacific Ocean.

Original Ocean Trails Golf Club

the Trump National Golf Club

1900

1880

Fort Moore Hill

2002

Angel’s Flight

Pershing Square

Downtown Downtown Los Angeles is the central commercial district of Los Angeles, Cal¬ifornia. A heritage of the city’s founding in 1781, downtown Los Angeles today is composed of different areas ranging from a fashion district to a skid row, and it is the hub of the city’s Metro rapid transit system. Today’s Bunker Hill -- an amalgam of commercial high rises, arts venues, other me¬ga-projects -- is a product of a 1950s-redevelopment scheme that cleared the historic neighborhood of all its structures, reconfigured its streets, and altered its topography.

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1844

1962 1959

Demolition from Housing to Stadium

Chavez Ravine Housing

Elysian Hills

Dodger Stadium

1978 1923

Hollywood Hills

Dodger Stadium Before the first residents arrived, there were the Elysian Hills.

Raised up by tectonic forces, and carved into deep ravines by the ancient precursor of the Los Angeles River. They were a refuge from floods for the region’s native Tongva Indians, and then a source of quarried stone soon after the city became part of American. In 1844, Julian Chavez purchased this area and soon made up the Mexican-American communities. In 1950s, Brooklyn Dodgers team purchased the neighborhood of Chavez Ravine. Soon after, it was constructed by knocking down the ridge, destroyed housing and reshaped the land into a modern baseball palace. New Dodger Stadium opened in 1962 after 4 years’ construction.

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Hollywoodland Housing Development

Hollywood Film Industry

Hollywood Hollywood was a small community in 1870, it was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910 in order to secure an adequate water supply and to gain access to the L.A. sewer system. The sign was erected in 1923 and originally read “HOLLYWOODLAND.” Its purpose was to advertise the name of a new segregated housing development in the hills above the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. In 1978, the chamber set out to replace the severely deteriorated sign with a more permanent structure. Meanwhile, removed the “LAND”, and soon thereafter a prominent film industry emerged, eventually becoming the most recognizable film industry in the world.

1938 2013

LA River Los Angeles flood

LA River Concrete Channel

LA River Revitalization

1965

1887

Ballona Wetlands

Los Angeles River The Los Angeles River (L.A. River) flows through Los Angeles County, nearly 48 miles (77 km) southeast to its mouth in Long Beach. It was once the primary source of fresh water for the city.

In 1938, a series of devastating floods inundating much of Los Angeles County. In response to the floods, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began channelizing local streams and building more flood control dams. In 2013, the nonprofit group Los Angeles River Revitalization Corp. announced a goal of completing a continuous 51-mile greenway and bike path along the river by the end of the decade. They decided to clean up several toxic waste sites and revitalized the river.

Harbor Commercial Use

Resorts Recreational Areas

Marina del Rey Marina del Rey is an unincorporated seaside community and the largest manmade marina in the United States. Its name translates from the Spanish as “Harbor of the King.” Tongva Indians were the region’s first residents. in 1887, a developer named M.C. Wicks sought to create a commercial harbor for the city of Los Angeles from the estuary and inlets of the village of Playa del Rey, but three years later the company went bankrupt. In 1953, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors authorized a loan to fund construction of the harbor. In 1965 Marina del Rey was formally dedicated.

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Concept

Sketches of elements

Natural Elements

Manmade Elements

Initial Sketch Design

Early images of Los Angeles surprise for many reasons, but often the most striking one is how empty and natural the city looks. Over time, the growing city spilled into the surrounding landscape. Meanwhile, a devastating drought that began in 1862 and lasted through 1864 disabled the ranching economy, and more intensive industrial, residential and leisure landuse.

Los Angeles kept growing. After the last oil boom, real estate boomed in L.A. First along the valleys and hills, then thevvdowntown area and finally seaside resorts. More and more manmade landscape began to be create, the city tends to be modernized, industrialized and artificial.

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Object Transition

Mechanism

Los Angeles had a strong development in farming, oil, tourism, real estate and movies nearly three hundred years, in order to present this kind of transition, we choose to make a game that objects can be transformed by players themselves.

For example, if you’re interested in how did L.A. become a city of palms, you might find out the past symbol trees by engaging with this game. The aim of this project is shifting both history and future landscapes, and then players can generate a series of versions for L.A. landscape.

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Sketches of plan

Stage One The early Los Angeles landscape showed naturalization, the mountain ranges is marked with woodland, shrubbery, Mediterranean forests, rolling hills and miles of tillable farmland. Besides, historical references indicate that the L.A. river changed courses on numerous occasions, due to heavy floods, across the large alluvial plain, which makes up present-day Los Angeles.

Stage Two Floods occurred a lot between 1815 and 1938, calling for the L.A. river to be tamed, especially considering an influx of population to the area. After that, economic, entertainment, industrial development had spawned a variety of manmade landscapes, a large number of real estate, resorts, oil fields,golf courses began to emerge.

Stage Three L.A. was busy building its modern grid of automobile boulevards, and with this development people gradually aware of the environmental issues. At this stage, to balance the natural and manmade landscapes has become the mainstream trend.

The Los Angeles landscape changes can be divided into three stages. The first stage is dominant by natural landscape, with the rise of real estate, the second phase began to appear a variety of manmade landscape, the third stage is trying to reflect and explore how people think about the landscape of Los Angeles now. After multiple waves of transition, L.A. landscapes would become as diversified as the many cultural identities that make up Los Angeles.

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Based on the research, we fleshed out the game proposal as a map, connecting different specific features of the landscape and developing the transition in more detail.

Master Plan Sketch Based on previous studies, we tried to link the distinctive landscapes to form our game map.

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MASTER PLAN The Lost Angeland game world contains eight different areas. In the middle of the world is the LA River which is through across the whole city.

Master Plan a plan view to show the game world about how it connected with each area.

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Region Separate regions’ plan and its district perspective

Dodger Stadium

Hollywood Land

Trump National Golf Club

the Venice Beach

Marina Del Rey

Oil Field

Downtown

L.A. River

The whole game space divided into 8 different pieces. It contains the most valuable area that we found about LA’s landscape. the game world has its own rules which is back up from the real LA landscape rules. Each region has their own stories and development history. The platform show the development of the city and also connected it with human’s action and society.

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Launchers

Greening

The idea of this tool comes from the water-can and the natural leaves which function can be greening objects.

This launcher is made up by concrete which inspired by the construction machine.

Profit

Concrete

Profit Launcher is a tool to develop and update the game objects which designed by a saving pot.

The three kinds of launcher have different functions for changing and creating the Lost Angeland game world. It corresponds the real world that how human change the space: construction, development or force it back to nature. Players who engage with this game will use the correct launcher to change most of the objects which are built in specific scene, and finally they could get their own screenshot about the city they make.

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Greening Launcher Using a greening launcher means that you can greening some objects by shooting them with green balls and make them into a natural landscape.

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Concrete launcher Using a concrete launcher means that you can construct the objects from their original shape. It always using to building the natural landscape into a manmade look.

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Profit Launcher Using a profit tool means that you can develop or update the things which is already built. And the bullet of this launcher is coin which means the space or objects will develope if it has been sponsored.

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Game Mechanism Using unity scripts to give players indication and also get game objects hide or unhide.

Camera Raycast In order to indicate players engage with the specific gameobject, the raycast sends an imaginary laser beam along the ray from its origin until it hits a collider in the scene. Information is then returned about the object and the point that was hit in a raycast hit object.

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Destroy Game Object In order to achieve the layer changes, players can shoot an object by themselves and reach a certain number of times to remove it or turn it into the next stage.

Additionally, Unity will limit which launcher could be used and only the right tool will produce the corresponding particle effect.

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Dodger Stadium Changing Elements

Transition 1

Chavez Ravine

Oak Tree & Hill

Palm Trees Transition 2

Hill

Dodger Stadium

Transition 3

Cactus

MLB Dodger Sign

In Dodger Stadium, we focus on people flattened away from the natural hills to a man-made baseball stadium. The player starts in the area contains with natural elements like oak trees and cactus. Using the concrete launcher to wipe out the natural terrain, meanwhile, the grand Dodger Stadium comes into view.

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Separate layers

Layer3

Layer2

Layer1

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25

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Hollywood

Changing Elements

Transition 1

Huge Cactus & Stones

Hollywood Housing

Film Production

Transition 2

Cactus

Oak Trees

Oscar Gold Trophy

Transition 3

Cactus

Hollywoodland sign

Hollywood sign

It is not only the glamorous appearance of Hollywood that we are familiar with. Moreover, the housing development takes place in the early twentieth century. The player starts in the rural area with inselberg and cactus. Using the concrete launcher to create the housing, palm tree and “HOLLYWOODLAND� sign.

Furthermore, using profit launcher to change the housing to the gorgeous Hollywood film industry.

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Separate layers

Layer3

Layer2

Layer1

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Trump Golf Club Changing Elements

Transition 1

Oak Tree

Trump Club Centre

Transition 2

Cow

Golf Cart

Transition 3

Tomato

Golf Ball

Transition 3

Barley

Golf Site

The Trump Golf Club is one of the most famous golf course in Los Angeles. Not only because of its course setting, but also because of the unique cliff view. Moreover, it used to be farms and plants a lot of barley and other crops. In this area, using concrete launcher is the only way to change all the farm objects into the Trump National Golf Club. Moving the barley field and make it into golf grass. Cutting down the original trees and build the new golf club centre.

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Separate layers

Layer2

Layer1

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Venice Beach

Changing Elements

Transition 1

Brick

Venice Vella

Transition 2

Stop Sign & Roadblock

Palm Trees

Electric Pole

Palm Trees

Transition 3

Pier

Bridge

The Venice Beach District is noteworthy for its man-made canals built in 1905 by developer Abbot Kinney. The original version of this district present some construction symbols as well as past estate. The green launcher can be used to transform the roads and soil into canals and bushes. There will be extensive renovation work on many of the old houses, and modern villas, exquisite bridges, well-grown palm trees can be built.

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Separate layers

Layer2

Layer1

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Marina Del Rey Changing Elements

Transition 1

Indian Tent

Harbor Factory

Marriott Hotel

Transition 2

Oak Tree

Oil Tank

Palm Trees

Transition 3

Factory

Palm Tree & Lighthouse

Reeds

Freighter

Freighter

Sailboat

Sailboat

Developers and government create the largest man-made harbor: Marina del Rey as a commercial harbor, moreover, a recreational area. Just like other segments in Los Angeles, the original wetlands so-called Ballona has been removed. The player starts in the delightful wetlands with oak trees, reeds and Indians. Using the concrete launcher to turns wetlands into the commercial harbor. Afterward, using profit launcher to changed the commercial harbor to the recreational resorts.

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Separate layers

Layer3

Layer2

Layer1

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Oil Field

Changing Elements

Transition 1

Tower Bracing

Discarded Tower Bracing

Oak Tree

derrick Transition 2

Fossil

Oil Factory

Transition 3

Cactus

Pure River

Windowless Building

oil drum

Polluted River Los Angeles is unique, as a city that grew up with and for cars, it continues to be an active oil field. Here, the petroleum industry operates in the cracks, corners, and edges, hidden behind fences, and camouflaged into architecture. Players, as a pioneer, will be able to fell trees to build oil derricks and diggers, or make fossil to generate oil. However, as some of the oil fields have been abandoned now, players might remove the industrial machine and hide oil barrels into architecture.

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Separate layers

Layer3

Layer2

Layer1

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Downtown

Changing Elements

Transition 1

Downtown Original Housing

Commercial Building

Transition 2

Bunker Hill Housing

Downtown Skyscraper

Bunker Hill

Angel’s Fight

Bunker Hill Tunnel & Fort Moore Hill Road Transition 3

Original Pershing Square

Recent Pershing Square

Downtown is the most essential and popular place in Los Angeles. It used to have many hills belongs to its city region. However, with the development of city, most of the hills has been flattened to create more space to fulfill the city’s need of development. Original Housing area could be shooting by concrete launcher or profit launcher and then change to high-rise commercial buildings. A new tunnel and new road appeared when small hills had been destroyed by concrete tool. More and more palm trees have been built in Pershing Square when it turns to recent new design.

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Separate layers

Layer3

Layer2

Layer1

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LA River

Changing Elements

Transition 1

Original LA River

Sign

LA River Channel

Sixth Street Viaduct

Transition 2

Cask

Electric Tower

Oak Trees

People relyed on Los Angeles River throughout the history.

Instead of relocated the city, people built the channel to prevent the serious flood caused by the unpredictable weather. After fifty years of development, river revitalization become the most important issue in contemporary society. The player starts from the original river. Using concrete launcher to build the channel and electric tower. Furthermore, using greening launcher to turns industry into natural oak tree.

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Separate layers

Layer3

Layer2

Layer1

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Polarization of Lost Angeland World Natural L. A.

It is the very begining of the game space, the player can see the most natural scenario. Contains with desert, hills, mountain, river and wetland. Although some of the areas contain parts of human’s constructions, those buildings not change the topography massively, everything looks harmony in this state.

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Polarization of Lost Angeland World Manmade L. A.

It is the highly developed area of the game space.

Hills, land, original plants vanished. Skyscrapers replace the beautiful Mediterranean housing with the abandoned oil field behind them. People applause in the Stadium, worship the gorgeous Hollywood, enjoy golf entertainment and recreational resorts which cover the original hills and wetlands. Canals and channel changed the water circulation and environment. Man-made elements dominate the place in this state.

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Game Outcome

Screenshot

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Different volunteers plays Lost Angeland in different ways. And finally we got a large range of different screenshot which means each player created their own LA landscape.

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