Wonderland BEHIND THE SCENES
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Studio XXII Master of Architecture University of Melbourne Semester 1, 2015 Amanda Ngieng 377998
Wonderland BEHIND THE SCENES
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CONTENT S
PREFACE
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THE GAME The basics: How to play Chapter 1: Down the Rabbit Hole Chapter 2: Hallway Chapter 3: Dreamscape Chapter 4: Tea Party Chapter 5: Haunted Woods Chapter ?: To Be Continued... RESEARCH Pixels Virtual Reality Mini Games & Interaction Experiments Visual Experiments Discarded Ideas SCRIPTS
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Put on the Rift and it begins: A trip through Wonderland. Dream spaces you’re immersed within, Experience it first-hand. Pixels are the building blocks, Unconstrained by physics. Opportunities unlock; Impossible dynamics. The site’s a classic novel, The tool: technology. Telling the familiar story, Through virtual reality.
PREFACE
Alice in Wonderland is a book about a dream: A series of unfolding events based on logical nonsense. It is bizarre, spectacular and conjures vivid images and fantastical imaginations. Wonderland is a project that envisions Alice in Wonderland for the digital age - a classic fantasy story told through immersive environments. Through virtual reality, one is able to experience the impossible world of Wonderland. No longer do we need lucid dreams, mushrooms or magic potions to fall down the rabbit hole; the rift leads you in. Trippy stuff aside, the game brings forth “...the eager enjoyment of life that comes only in the happy hours of childhood, when all is new and fair.” It brings forth the willingness “to accept the wildest impossibilities... that only dreamers know.” Using the fantasy novel and the Oculus Rift as its site, this project is a collection of multiple experiments on phenomenology in digital space, where sight and sound is most dominant and (almost) anything is possible. This book explains how everything within the game came to be, why it was done, and what it aimed to achieve. The VR hype train is here; hop on and hold on.
VR: Abbreviation of Virtual Reality. Quotes are sourced from Martin Gardner, ed., The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, (New York,:W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), 12, when Lewis Carroll described Alice. 9
THE BASICS:
HOW TO PLAY
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A DIFFERENT W A Y T O N A V I G ATE
Virtual reality allows digital space to be experienced in a different manner compared to a computer screen. This calls for a move away from the typical WASD keyboard and mouse control, toward different methods of navigation. In Wonderland, leaning forward moves you forward, while leaning backwards move you backwards (at a slower pace to reduce the chance of nausea).
Backward
Still
Forward 200cm/s
60cm/s 10cm 15cm
15cm
FAQ
Q: Why is the character is not moving as expected? A: When turning around, navigation movements may not work as expected. This is because the head has moved out of the original still zone.
Q: Why does the screen appear to move forward when I lean forward, but I am not actually moving in game? A: This happens when you are out of the camera bounds, or if you are facing directly away from the tracking camera. The Oculus DK2 currently have limitations in regards to 360° head tracking, and may not track head movements properly when it is faced away from the camera.
+INFO
Page 94: There are many alternative modes of movement that have been developed.
To ensure that the camera does not move out of the walls, it is placed well within the collision hull that represents the in-game body of the player. As the player bends down, the collision hull shrinks with the camera, allowing players to duck under virtual objects.
5cm
Neutral position Max height: 188cm
35cm Min height: 94cm
TIP
If you are stuck in-game, ensure that you are well within the camera bounds before bending down.
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C AMERA BOUN D S
The Oculus has a positional tracking camera, which tracks where the Oculus is in physical space, within the bounds of the camera view. If the Oculus is moved out of the camera bounds, it simply stops being tracked, and the scene appears to freeze in place.
4m
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TIP
0.5m
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Position yourself about 1.5m away from the camera. Be aware of the cables.
1.2m
REACHIN G O U T T O I N T E R ACT
The Leap Motion is able to track both hands and each individual finger, allowing the movement of the hands to be translated into the digital world. While it is fascinating to be able to reach out into the digital world, it does not come without limitations; the hands tend to glitch, and the maximum reach of the sensor seems to be at 420mm, which is not quite long enough for many arms. The Leap Motion works best when hands are right in front of the sensor and not fully outstretched - a limitation that has been aptly dubbed “T-rex claws�. However, regardless of limitations, it is undoubtedly still better than no hands.
42cm max
TIP
Reset your hands
If the hands are not tracking properly, or one hand looks bigger than the other, try removing your hands from view and bring them back in, palms facing you.
TIP +INFO
Hands are tracked best when they are not fully outstretched Page 95: The Leap Motion is not the only way to bring your hands into the virtual world.
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Data on the position and orientation of the hands are extracted and used to change other variables in game.
Palms outwards, pushing forwards
Palms inwards, pushing forwards
Palms outwards, moving up
+INFO SCRIPT
When pushing forwards, the hand only measures movement in the forward direction; the height of the hands do not matter. Page 134: Hands.
VISUAL C U E S
Icons in game indicate what needs to be done or is possible to do. The icons will only disappear when the action has been performed successfully.
Pinch (or grab)
+INFO
Push (slow action)
Look (center gaze)
Flip (quick action)
Discarded icons
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CHAPTER 1:
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
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“Down the rabbit hole” has become a phrase often used to describe ventures into the unknown. The vision that many have of the rabbit hole is not actually the rabbit hole itself, but the deep well that Alice found herself falling through; a well described to have cupboards, bookshelves, maps, pictures and jars. Wonderland strips this chapter down into three main parts: Following the rabbit, falling down, and falling up.
F OLLOWING T H E R A B B I T . . . ’ S FOOTPRINTS
Keeping in mind that this is the start of the game, the very first scene is kept simple. Stripping the event down to it’s very essence, the first task is to follow the rabbit’s footprints and getting used to the game navigation control. The footprints are set in a mildly meandering path. Falling off the path simply re-spawns the player at the start position.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well. An early draft of the game utilised an extremely fancy portal as a symbol of the entry into the unknown. This was ultimately deemed to be out of place, and removed in favour of a sudden drop into the tunnel. A flash of the back of the rabbit in the 1951 film was used as a symbol instead.
SCRIPT
Page 137: Fading in the rabbit footprints based on distance.
50m/10sec
0m/10sec x2
Map overview
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F ALLING
I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards!
The idea of falling right through the earth is a fascinating one that would never be possible to experience in the physical world. What would it be like to fall up? This chapter experiments with the feeling of falling in digital space.
Falling down a funnel-shaped tunnel
Falling up through space
FILM
1951 Film
The 1951 film displays a sense of disbelief and wonder; the 2010 film displays a sense of fear.
2010 Film
The location of the player in world space during the fall through the tunnel is controlled using a timeline, speeding up and slowing down gradually.
TIP +INFO
SCRIPT
Feeling nauseous? Keep your head still and/or close your eyes. Page 91: As vision is such a dominant sense, it is possible to experience the feeling of inertia. This have often been applied to virtual reality roller coasters.
Page 137: Changing the location of player over time.
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Rather than moving the player, falling down though space is simulated by keeping the player still, while moving the surrounding objects up. Falling up uses the same logic, but instead the objects are moving down, and the player’s camera is flipped upside-down.
Falling down
Falling up
What the player sees:
What is actually happening: Player is still but shelves are moving.
What it feels like: Player is falling down.
SCRIPT
Page 138: Using matinee to move surrounding objects at different speeds.
Because the player is still able to tell that he/she is still upright in reality, it does not feel like one is falling up; after the initial rotation of the body, it simply feels like one is falling down, although the surroundings are now upside-down. In the rotation of the camera, an interesting glitch was found by accident, where the camera of the player get constantly flipped, resulting in the surrounding objects going up and down simultaneously.
Visual A
Visual B
Visual A and B playing simultaneously.
The result is a trippy feeling that is far more apt in describing the feeling when one does not know which way is up or down.
SCRIPT
Page 138: Rotating player camera glitch.
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CHAPTER 2:
HALLWAY
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The part about the hallway in the novel is actually in the chapter “Down the Rabbit Hole”, but given that it is a scene well remembered - partly due to film references - it was given its own chapter in Wonderland. There are 4 main events: Entering upside-down, going through the funky hallway, finding the table and key, and shrinking to exit. An underlying theme is a play in scale.
E NTERING UP S I D E - D O W N
thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Although there was no reference at all about entering the hallway upside-down in the novel, Alice’s musing about falling through the earth have resulted in the idea to let her land the wrong way up. Wonderland takes this reference and brings it one step further by reversing the controls as well, where leaning backwards move you forward.
3m
2.4m
1.5m
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3m Elevation
4.4m
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7.7m
1.4m
4.4m
Plan
FILM
1951 Film
Both films had Alice enter the hallway upside-down, a checkered floor and funky doors.
2010 Film
Trigger calls table and key
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T HE FUNKY H A L L W A Y
In the design of the hallway, Wonderland experiments with changing the proportions of the corridor and doors. It also experiments with changing the scene colour palette as one moves through space, resulting in a rather disorienting effect, particularly as the colour inverses from black to white.
13 12 11
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t wa ll
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A whole collection of random materials are used on the left wall, while only 3 materials are used on the right. It was interesting to note that most people do not notice this unless pointed out.
Doors on left wall
Doors on right wall
+INFO
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Page 122: Other scene colour explorations.
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T HE GLASS T A B L E A N D G O L D EN KEY
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again. Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass: there was nothing on it but a tiny golden key,
The table and key only appears after the player have moved towards the end of the hall, and the table is not within the field of view.
+INFO
Page 98: Using the line of sight to trigger events have been used in many game demos.
+INFO
There are three main methods to attach objects to the hand.
Keep Relative Offset
Snap to Target
SCRIPT
Page 140: Script for key.
SCRIPT
Page 132: Script to trace line of sight.
Keep World Position
“DRINK M E ”
It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not”
Since drinking is Me” instead. Even the eyes say they mystical swirling
not possible with virtual reality, the bottle was altered to read “Sniff if there is nothing to sniff, one would get the urge to try anyway... are right there! The bottles are designed as perfume bottles, with liquid within that appear to emit light.
Bottle design iterations
Bottle contents design iterations
Final bottle catalogue The final bottles ended up being twice its original size. This is as the resolution of the screen of the Oculus is not high enough, making it impossible to read small text. Additionally, the liquid material is heavy on the hardware, meaning that the number of bottles had to be reduced to keep the fps at a reasonable amount.
+INFO
Page 124: An explanation of the properties of digital materials.
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The final bottles ended up being twice its original size. This is as the resolution of the screen of the Oculus is not high enough, making it impossible to read small text. Additionally, the liquid material is heavy on the hardware, meaning that the number of bottles had to be reduced to keep the fps at a reasonable amount.
“DRINK M E ”
On sniffing the bottle, the walls and ceiling disappear, revealing the sky. The sky does not aim to be realistic; the clouds bend at some points, creating an otherworldly effect. At the same time the walls disappear, the player is shrunk.
Although the player has been shrunk, the hands are still the same size, matching the physical hand. This makes the hands proportionally bigger than the rest of the world. Ideally, the entire world should be scaled up instead to simulate the shrinking of the player. It is unfortunately very heavy on the hardware to scale objects up dynamically.
TIP
The bottle without “poison” is a different colour from the rest and is at a height that can be reached with your hands - at around eye level.
SCRIPT
Page 142: Looking at door to open it.
SCRIPT
Page 143: Holding the right potion shrinks the player.
SCRIPT
Page 133: Script to shrink player character.
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CHAPTER 3:
DREAMSCAPE
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Dreamscape is a transition scene between the Hallway and the Tea Party. Building on the Hallway, it also looks at scale - but instead of shrinking the player, the environment is built at a large scale. When Carroll wrote out the story, he found that new ideas seem to grow themselves out of the fantastical setting. In the same manner, when I found myself in a world with massive butterflies, and a tree that was so tall its branches were swaying vigorously, and a sky that felt too still - why not experiment with time?
“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all manner of things - everything that begins with an M -” “Why with an M?” said Alice. “Why not?” said the March Hare. Alice was silent.
A day and night cycle lasts for 20 seconds; 4320 times the normal cycle. It is possible to watch the sky change colours and to hear the sound of the birds change to that of crickets, all within 20 seconds. After the first day and night cycle the hue of the environment changes, bringing with it a different atmosphere. 20 seconds later it transitions back to the normal colour.
SCRIPT
Page 148: Day and night cycle.
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Keeping your head still for more than a second causes the environment to increase in saturation and contrast; an effect that is hard to miss. However, players usually do not realise that it was them who initiated the change.
SCRIPT
Page 146: Adjusting contrast and saturation when HMD is still for more than 1 second.
Pushing forwards slows down time. The amount that the time is slowed depends on how far it is pushed forward. The feeling of making the world slow down at your whim is one that is difficult to describe.
Time x1 x0.05
30cm
Controlling speed of time
TIP SCRIPT
Both hands must always be visible in screen, and there must be a left and a right hand (there may not be if there is a glitch with the sensor). Page 144: Controlling time using hands.
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CHAPTER 4:
TEA PARTY
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The tea party with the March Hare, the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse is possibly one of the most infuriating event that was able to annoy sweet-tempered Alice; she was so upset that she was compelled to leave the tea party. This chapter attempts to make players feel a degree of annoyance, and also provide an outlet for that annoyance.
T HE SETTING
“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.”
Design iterations of the environment:
Time is frozen in the evening, a stark contrast to Dreamscape.
The ground had to be made 3D as there is depth perception in virtual reality.
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In the novel there was nothing on the table but tea, but the mention of a tea party, as well as other food during the chapter (tea, butter, crumbs, bread, treacle, milk) brings to mind food on the table as well.
The only chair mentioned was the large arm-chair that Alice sat on. As a mad tea party the chairs were envisioned to be random, similar to the 1951 film.
FILM
1951 film: Random chairs
2010 film: Food on table
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T HE INVITAT I O N
“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked. “There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. “Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.
By repeating “tea” multiple times, the handwritten invitation plays on semantic satiation, a psychological phenomenon in which repetition of a word will cause the word to start looking wrong. This is an attempt to use a simple visual to convey the madness of the original novel characters. 5 sec
SCRIPT
Page 149: Note and fence.
Lifting the invitation out of the hat triggers the gate to open.
The shop seemed to be full of all manner of curious things-but the oddest part of it all was that, whenever she looked hard at any shelf, to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was always quite empty, though the others round it were crowded as full as they could hold.
In Through the Looking Glass, Alice encounters a bizarre event where when she tries to look at something, it disappears, although she can see it in her peripheral vision. This event was recreated in the game as a symbolism of the fact that Alice never got to have any tea, an event made possible in digital space where it is possible to track every item in the player’s field of view.
35°
300cm
Using field of view: Objects on table within 70° field of view disappears.
+INFO SCRIPT
Page 108: This experiment also uses the line of sight to make things disappear, but only focuses on one thing at a time. Page 151: Objects disappear when looked at.
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F LIP THE TA B L E
“-did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness!” “Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think-” “Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.
The well-known table flip meme is used to express the annoyance Alice felt at the tea party. Players are asked to flip the table - using virtual reality to allow the realisation of the meme without physical repercussions.
SCRIPT
Page 152: Flipping action is set out in the global script for Tea Party.
SCRIPT
Page 150: Table.
TIP
As long as the meme is still visible, the table has not been flipped properly. It has to be flipped properly before you can move to the next scene.
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CHAPTER 5:
HAUNTED WOODS
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S ETTING
There is no mention of anything “haunted” or “spooky” in the novel; however the fact remains that there is a nightmarish aspect to Wonderland - mainly when one does not understand the jokes that Carroll has made, as many of those jokes are meant for the people specific to the place and time he was in. This chapter brings forth the loneliness and fear that Alice had felt when she was lost or confused. Using atmospheric effects and a mix of audio, it seeks to give a haunted atmosphere.
Towards the edges of the map, a haunted version of “ring around the rosie” plays, getting increasingly louder. As you reach the edge of the map, a short transition audio is played, and you will be moved back to the start position. This ensures that you will not walk too far away from the exit point.
FILM
SCRIPT
1951 film: Alice gets lost and cries. 2010 film: Alice often mentions that she wants to wake up.
Page 154: Transition zones at the edge of the map.
♪ring ringaround aroundthe therosie... rosie... ♪ ♪ ring around the rosie... 55 ♪ ring around the rosie.. ♪ ring around the rosie...
1 2 3 4 5 6
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Standard directional light Skylight (Intensity: 50), Exponential Height Fog (Density: 0.2, Colour: Green). Skylight (Intensity: 50), Exponential Height Fog (Density: 1, Colour: Green). Skylight (Intensity: 50), Exponential Height Fog (Density: 10, Colour: Dark Green). Skylight (Intensity: 1.0), Exponential Height Fog (Density: 0.2, Colour: Green). Same as above, but with trees in the distance culled to help with performance.
The trees that are further away had to be hidden to help with performance, however this resulted in the woods feeling a lot less spooky. Despite the trees appearing in a ghostly manner, the open plain allows player to see over a long distance. To create a more haunted atmosphere, vision has to be more restricted.
No vignette
Vignette
Applying a vignette helps, but only a little. Vision has to be restricted a lot more. This is something that can be worked on further.
+INFO
Page 123: Utilising the split screen can allow an image to appear in one eye but not the other. This was originally applied to the cat/moon, but as the player had to keep looking at the cat/moon, the effect tired the eyes too much. It should only be used for short periods of time.
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T HE CAT AND T H E M O O N
The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
The moon has long been associated with lunacy, and it has been thought that the grin of the Cheshire cat may have been a reference to that; when the grin remains, it is in the shape of a crescent moon.1 While the connection to the cat and the moon have not been explicitly mentioned in the novel, both the 1951 and 2010 films made a reference to it.
Iteration sketches
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
In Wonderland, the Cheshire cat shows the way out of the haunted woods (hence completing the game). By morphing from a moon to a cat, it hints for where players should go; the more the cat is seen, the close the player is to the exit.
SCRIPT FILM
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Page 155: The cat/moon. The 1951 and 2010 films display the grin of the Cheshire cat as a moon, and depict it as a helpful creature.
Martin Gardner, ed., The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, (New York,:W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), 61-62.
“You can’t possibly do that,” said the Rose: “I should advise you to walk the other way.”
In Through the Looking Glass, there was an occasion where no matter how Alice tried to walk away from the house, she always ends up back at the house. Only when she walked in the opposite direction that she wanted to go in did she manage to get where she wanted to go. Confused? This chapter takes this idea and presents it as a mini challenge: “Get to the moon.” The moon/cat moves along with the player in the horizontal axis (on plan), except that for each meter the player covers, the moon/cat moves 5 meters. It explores the impossibility of a place that gets further away the more you travel towards it.
The more you go towards the moon, the further it gets.
The more you move away from the moon, the closer it gets.
+INFO TIP SCRIPT
Page 104: The Impossible Corridor. An experiment where moving forwards continually generates more ground, which in theory prevents the player from ever exiting (but in theory only). Move away from the moon/cat and let it come to you. When walking towards the cat, only walk along the vertical axis. Page 156: Understand how the cat moves.
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CHAPTER ?:
TO BE CONTINUED...
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A REFLE C T I O N
Developing the world of Wonderland was a fantastic experience; just as with the novel, the environment appeared to develop itself, always calling for more trippy things and impossible experiments. Since I have begun the research and development of Wonderland, I have had the strangest of dreams, of which I can recall nothing but its strangeness. Every aspect of the environment can be controlled: what is seen, what is heard, how things behave. The only limitation is your imagination - and the current technology and hardware. When technically everything can be designed, and everything can be controlled, the limits of a designer becomes really apparent. Unfortunately time slowed in digital space does not affect the physical world; time ticks on as usual. There is never enough time to design everything. But through these experiments, my grasp of available technology is much stronger. By understanding what is possible I am able to determine what I should do. In future developments, I look towards developing a low-poly aesthetic that would work well with the world, a more stylistic and practical approach that can maintain the trippy atmosphere. It is also imperative that I move towards a multi-player game. An experience that you cannot share simultaneously with another person will never be complete.
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Research ARCHIVE
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PIXELS
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P IXEL DEFIN I T I O N
Pixel is the abbreviation of the picture element. As the name suggests, it is the most basic unit of the picture; the smallest, controllable part that make up an image, just as atoms would make up matter.
Digital
Physical
The pixel is not a physical unit, but a logical unit. It does not have a physical size; this is affected by screen size and resolution. The same image on a bigger screen would have bigger pixels.
Above: Baby’s hand in hand (Source: http://imgkid.com/mortalidad-materna.shtml) Right: Photograph of leaves by Sarah Ngieng in low resolution.
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P IXEL AND T H E D I G I T A L
The pixel have always been closely related to everything digital. When something looks pixellated, we automatically think it is from the digital, even if they are not. These are actually agricultural fields viewed from space, showing crops at their different stages of life.
Viewed from satellite: Orange River, between Namibia and South Africa. Irrigation projects turn parts of the landscape an unnatural green.
Viewed from satellite: South-western coastline of the Netherlands. The patchwork of colours indicates the various stages of growth and harvest on the agricultural islands.
Above: Images viewed from satellite (Source: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2011/mar/29/ agricultural-patterns-space?CMP=twt_gu#/?picture=373100538&index=11)
PIXEL A N D T H E P H Y S I C A L
There have been the desire to materialise the pixels of the screen; to materialise parts of a game world. Minecraft in particular is a game that is embraced for its pixellated aesthetic, although there has been a shift towards more realistic, albeit blocky environments.
Minecraft version of the King’s Landing in Game of Thrones.
Minecraft foam pickaxe.
Above left: http://www.cnet.com/au/pictures/kings-landing-from-game-of-thrones-minecraft-style-pictures/ Above right: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e847/images/8835/
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U NITS OF ME A S U R E M E N T
The International System of Units have detailed definitions for the seven base units of measurements that we use. This is basically to ensure that we are able to accurately measure, and be consistent throughout the world.
Unit of luminous intensity (candela)
Unit of thermodynamic temperature (kelvin)
The candela is the luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 × 1012 hertz and that has a radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683 watt per steradian.
The kelvin, unit of thermodynamic temperature, is the fraction 1/273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water.
hertz = s-1 watt = m2 kg s−3 steradian = m2/m2
This definition refers to water having the isotopic composition defined exactly by the following amount of substance ratios: 0.000 155 76 mole of 2H per mole of 1 H, 0.000 379 9 mole of 17O per mole of 16O, and 0.002 005 2 mole of 18O per mole of 16O.
Unit of electric current (ampere)
Unit of amount of substance (mole)
The ampere is that constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed 1 metre apart in vacuum, would produce between conductors a force equal to 2 × 10−7 newton per metre of length.
1. The mole is the amount of substance of a system which contains as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012 kilogram of carbon 12; its symbol is “mol”. 2. When the mole is used, the elementary entities must be specified and may be atoms, molecules, ions, electrons, other particles, or specified groups of such particles.
Unit of length (metre) The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.
Unit of mass (kilogram) The kilogram is the unit of mass; it is equal to the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram.
Unit of time (second) The second is the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. This definition refers to a caesium atom at rest at a temperature of 0 K.
Digital space use the same units of measurements that everyone is familiar with, although it is not something that we can measure from the physical world. For instance, a line that is a meter long could be some other length on screen, depending on how far one is zoomed in or out. Although the units of measurements are purely arbitrary in the digital, they are important in allowing us to translate digital objects out into the physical world at the right scale.
8cm @ 1:1 1.6m @ 1:20 4m @ 1:50 8m @ 1:100
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S CALE AND T H E B O D Y
When units are purely arbitrary, space becomes relative. Measurements become, in a sense, closely related to the body, as they used to be so before universal standard measurements came into existence; A handful, a stone’s throw, a hair’s breadth.
An object that looks to be a good size on screen can change drastically depending on the size of the person that it is compared to. This is largely because we are used to having scale people to judge the scale of an object in an image.
However, what happens when it is not a scale person that you are using to measure the environment, but yourself?
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T HE SCRIPT I S T H E L A W
Everything in digital space follows the rule that is scripted into it. It is not affected by laws of physics as it is in the physical world.
Unreal Engine 4 Content Example: Apex Cloth Properties
The lighting in an environment is determined through a collection of strategically placed lights. Areas where reflection should be captured are indicated. Sound effects are carefully placed.
Unreal Engine 4 Environment Example: Particle Effects
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T IME
Time in digital space may not always exist, but when it does, the time can be changeable. Play, pause, fast forward, and even going back in time is such the norm in games that we hardly think twice about it anymore.
The Sims 3
PHYSICS
In Red Faction Guerilla, the modellers act like structural engineers, modelling buildings as they would be built in the physical world, so that the player can destroy buildings in a realistic manner.
Red Faction Guerilla
Above left: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzBSHHWuolY Above right: http://img.mundogamers.com/galerias/ps3/red-faction-guerrilla/red-faction-guerrilla-1245428514.jpg 81
T HE REAL AN D T H E S U R R E A L
Despite not needing to follow any law of physics in the digital, there is still a tendency to simulate the real. This is to create a sense of reality, which then helps to create the surreal. We need something to relate to. Even in fantasy worlds, there is a resemblance to our world. For instance, The waves in the water planet was based off physics simulations.
Water planet, Interstellar Render
Images sourced from https://www.yahoo.com/movies/remember-when-the-space-crew-in-interstellar-114054637517.html
The ice planet in the movie Interstellar is taken in Iceland. To capture the look of an ice planet, the cast and crew of Interstellar shot on location at Iceland’s Svinafellsjokull glacier. Located in Iceland’s Vatnajökull National Park, Svinafellsjokull is part of the largest ice cap in Europe.
Ice planet, Interstellar Svinafellsjokull glacier, Iceland
Image sourced from http://www.unfinishedman.com/icelands-svinafellsjokull-glacier-exploring-skaftelnational-park/
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V ISUAL GLIT C H E S
Glitches do not exist only in the digital. Because of the way our mind works, it is easily tricked with optical illusions. When our brain process colours, they are reinterpreted according to what we have seen before.1 Information that the brain thinks are unimportant are edited out.2
The “blue” tiles on the left and the “yellow” tiles on the right are actually both the same hue of grey. Our brain takes in the environment before determining colours.
1 2
http://discovermagazine.com/galleries/zen-photo/i/illusions http://www.livescience.com/28911-7-ways-to-trick-your-brain.html
EXISTEN C E I N T H E D I G I TAL
“To be entangled is not simply to be intertwined with another, as in the joining of separate entities, but to lack an independent, self-contained existence.” 1 - Karen Barad Even without the immersive experience of virtual reality, we start to mix our physical existence with that of the digital. In games, it is common to refer to the avatar that you are controlling as yourself. If you have played Counter Strike or other FPS games, you may have heard people say: “Ouch! I got hit!”, “I’m dead.” or perhaps “I killed them.”
1
Karen Barad, Virtual materiality, potentiality and subjectivity, p.5
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VIRTUAL REALITY
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P HYSICALITY O F T H E D I G I T AL
In virtual space, materials are merely a visual product of computer data, behaving as they are scripted to. Unlike matter in the physical world, they cannot - technically be touched. Pixels are, after all, purely for visual representation; it is only what we see. However, saying that it is only what we see might be a little misleading. Vision is arguably one of our most dominant senses.
“More than just sight is measured in terms of visual acuity; vision is the process of deriving meaning from what is seen.� - Thomas Politzer
1
The rubber hand illusion, and a variation of it - the invisible hand illusion, gives us an insight of how vision, combined with the sense of touch, can fool our conscious minds.2 The person undergoing the experiment (person on right of image) would have her real hand out of sight, while watching the space in front of her being stroked in the same time her real hand is being stroked. She begins to believe that she has an invisible appendage, and will flinch, expecting pain, when someone hits the empty space.
Invisible hand illusion2
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Source: http://www.brainline.org/content/2008/11/vision-our-dominant-sense_pageall.html Source: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/14/the-invisible-hand-illusion/ Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0
McGurk effect2
The McGurk effect shows how our vision can override what we hear.3 In the video demonstration, the only sound that the man is ever saying is “bar”. However, when the sound is played over an image of a man that appears to be saying “far”, our ears end up interpreting the sound being said as “far”. In virtual reality, pixels dominate our sight. This makes it quite possible to play tricks on the brain; particularly when other senses are also involved.
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In “Don’t Let Go!”, a game designed for Oculus, you sit behind a desk holding the ctrl buttons on your keyboard. Within the virtual world, you see a pair of hands on a keyboard too. If you pressed on the ctrl keys in exactly the same way as done in the game, there is a distinct difference from when you do not. This is similar to the rubber hand illusion, where the brain can be tricked into believe a hand is its own when what we see matches what we feel, even if it is not. When a spider climbs over a virtual hand, you start to feel ghosts of sensations that are not actually there. In an experiment with my 8 year old brother, I trailed a piece of cloth over his arm in the same time the spider climbs over his arm. Interestingly, he does not pull away; despite being slightly scared of spiders, he understands that the spider is only digital and does not exist. Nevertheless, he was fascinated that he could feel it, and to this day does not realise that the feeling was real, and not something he imagined.
Oculus Rift game: Don’t Let Go!
There was no imagined feeling when I pulled my arm through a knife. It is most likely because I knew what I was trying to do.
Game can be sourced from https://share.oculus.com/app/dont-let-go
Lava Inc is an example of how a roller-coaster ride same be simulated in the virtual. Even though you are not actually moving, you feel the forces acting on you; a steep drop causes your stomach to feel as though it has dropped. On a side note, the lava itself was rather irrelevant to the experience. This might be because my brain cannot conceive a lava that do not give off heat; particularly as I’ve never experience lava in physical reality before.
Lava Inc
The illusion of movement is able to feed the imagination a feeling of inertia.
Game can be sourced from https://share.oculus.com/app/lava-inc
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V IRTUAL REA L I T Y H E A D S E T S
Vision may be our most dominant sense, but it is not enough. To create a truly immersive experience, many people have tried to engage with multiple senses. This can be traced back to the Sensorama machine in 1957, which is possibly the first true VR system with 3D visual, stereo sound, vibrations of the seat and wind in the hair.
1957
1960
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Sensorama Machine by Morton Heilig
Telesphere Mask by Morton Heilig
Virtual Boy by Nintendo
Possibly the first true VR system. Simulator with 3D visual, stereo sound, vibrations of the seat, and wind in the hair.1
Possibly the first head-mounted display with 3D visual, wide vision, and true stereo sound.1
First “portable� video game, runs on for approximately 4 hours. 3D visual of red and black only. 22 games were for it before it discontinued a year immersive. 2
battery in hues released later. Not
Despite already having the theory to create virtual reality headsets over 60 years ago, virtual reality never really took off as computers were not quite powerful enough at the time, and technology have not developed sufficiently to support virtual reality.
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http://www.mortonheilig.com/InventorVR.html http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Virtual_Boy http://tomodachi.wikia.com/wiki/Virtual_Boy (image)
However, since the Oculus was founded by Palmer Lucky and a Kickstarter campaign launched on 2nd August 2012, virtual reality has gained increasing interest in the public. The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that has low latency 360 ° head tracking, which is able to translate our physical head movements to movement in virtual space. It provides 3D vision with a wide field of view, allowing users to feel as though they are actually in the virtual space. Along with the Oculus Rift, other headsets have been developed, such as Samsung Gear VR and the HTC Vive.
Oculus Rift
Samsung Gear VR
HTC Vive
Oculus DK2 (Source: http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iphone/oculus+rift/news.asp?c=54852) Samsung Gear VR (Source: http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Review/403544,review-samsung-gear-vr.aspx) HTC Vive (Source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/03/htc-partners-with-valve-for-virtual-reality-headset/) 93
V IRTUAL REA L I T Y G A D G E T S : MOVEMENT
While virtual reality headsets only focuses on vision, other sensors are increasingly being used in conjunction with them to create more immersive and interactive experiences by translating our physical actions into reactions on screen. As virtual reality allows digital space to be experienced in a different manner compared to a computer screen, new methods of interacting with such a space are continually being developed.
2015 Kinect:
2014 Oculus:
Integration of Microsoft’s Xbox One Kinect with the Oculus.
The Oculus’s own head tracking camera can be used to translate motion. This game tracks the up and down movement of the head, translating jump-jogs into movement.
2014 PrioVR:
2014 Cyberith Virtualizer:
Sensors are strapped across the body to accurately translate movement.
An omnidirectional treadmill that can simulate walking, crouching, etc.
VIRTUAL R E A L I T Y G A D G E TS: TOUCH
Gadgets that provide haptic feedback gives an illusion of touching virtual objects.
2013 Reactive Grip:
2015 Dexmo F2:
Haptic feedback simulating weight, wrenching of objects, etc.
Haptic feedback that locks your fingers when it detects contact in the virtual world, preventing the fingers from closing further.
2014 Leap Motion VR: Although the leap motion does not actual provide haptic feedback, it allows one to actually see their hands in digital space. Just by being able to see the virtual hands move as the physical hands move is very powerful; the feeling of being able to touch and manipulate digital objects is made to become all the more real.
Reactive Grip: http://tacticalhaptics.com/reactivegrip_gdc2015/ Leap Motion VR: https://www.leapmotion.com/product/vr
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V IRTUAL REA L I T Y G A D G E T S : SMELL
Smell is a very important sense, which some believe is tied more closely to memory than to any of our other senses. It is, however, a very difficult thing to simulate; there is just too many smells that mix together. If only certain smells are generated, it would not feel right.
2009 Virtual Cocoon:
2015 FeelReal:
This helmet seeks to add touch, taste and smell to virtual reality.
An add-on to the Oculus, this gadget is a mask that tries to bring smell and even wetness and temperature - to virtual reality.
2011 Polymer Matrix: A polymeric matrix of cells, which can be opened and closed individually, is used to handle thousands of smell with much fewer controls. It simulates smell through the understanding that the world is made out of many smells.
Virtual Cocoon: http://www.wired.com/2009/03/realvirtuality/ FeelReal: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/FeelReal-An-Oculus-Rift-Add-Lets-You-Smell-Virtual-Reality-70580.html Polymeric matrix: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2011/June/21061101.asp
VIRTUAL R E A L I T Y G A D G E TS: TASTE
Taste, like smell, is probably best left to the real world. Perhaps when technology gets to the level of that in The Matrix it would be possible, but right now it just seems to take things a little bit too far. The examples below are more to do with augmented reality than virtual reality, but it is good to know where technology currently stands in regards to taste simulation.
2011 Meta Cookie
2013 Digital Lollipop
This involves giving taste to plain cookies through the making use of the fact that taste is affected by what we see, hear, smell, as well as the texture of the food.
Electrical stimulation is sent to different parts of the tongue to simulate flavours, rather than stimulating the sense of smell.
Meta Cookie: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/embedded-systems/virtualreality-scent-system-fools-flavor-sense Digital Lollipop: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/12/10/250001919/the-digital-lollipop-you-canliterally-taste-the-innovation 97
V IRTUAL REA L I T Y D E M O S
Virtual reality allows you to see what you could not normally see; to do things that you could not normally do. With games, one of its most important features is its interactiveness; without that, the game might as well be a 3D movie. Many game demos have been developed so far that look for innovative ways to use the Oculus.
SightLine: The Chair
VIRTUAL HANDS: VirtPaint
SightLine is a demo that creates realities that can only be experienced in virtual reality, where seeing is believing, and not-seeing is change. Things will only appear when they are completely out of your field of vision.
The user interface is clean and easy in this demo. A target marks the center of the screen to be used as a pointer, which disappears when you start drawing. Focusing the target onto an icon and holding it there for a moment will start “loading� the icon, and after a short wait the icon will be selected. Whether or not anyone can actually draw properly with their head remains to be seen.
Sightline: https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=12158 VIRTUAL HANDS: VirtPaint: http://vrjam.challengepost.com/submissions/36960-virtual-hands-virtpaint
Crime Watch
Apnea
The developer team for this demo had determined hand tracking to be out of the picture, and “wanted to try and implement a new kind of game play method that would make sense in VR�. Taking advantage of speech-to-text services, players are able to ask questions verbally to NPCs, just as they would ask their commanding officer, if they had one.
This demo uses the noise generated from the head movement while walking and translates it into movement in the virtual world. Using a microphone, it is able to check if you are breathing, which affects the amount of oxygen you use in game. Breathing out generates bubbles, which is an interesting effect; quite realistic.
Crime Watch: http://vrjam.challengepost.com/submissions/36754-crime-watch Apnea: http://vrjam.challengepost.com/submissions/36764-apnea
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V IRTUAL REA L I T Y : O U T S I D E THE GAME INDUSTRY
Apart from games, virtual reality has also been appropriated for other uses, with some more successfully than others.
Medical
Education
Taking advantage of the fact that there are two screens, Diplopia is a game that tricks the brain to use the weak eye. By brightening the screen for one eye and dimming the other, you can force the brain to use the other eye.
Virtual reality can be used to teach. By creating an interactive and immersive experience, students are better able to engage in the learning material. Or they may just be extremely distracted by their virtual hands spazzing in and out of the screen.
Car industry
Advertisement
At Ford, virtual reality has been used as part of the design process. It allows people to easily test if the sight lines are okay; if things such as the speedometer are in the right place; if the colour feels right. Apart from the obvious limitation of not being able to do crash tests in it, the graphics are not that good, and you cannot feel the materials.
Combining the Oculus Rift with the Kinect, custom 7.1 sound design, scented air, a flight harness and a shipping container, 5GUM creates a multi-sensory virtual reality that is unforgettable. Users fly through atmospheric worlds based on each of 5GUM’s flavours; worlds that they can touch, smell, see and hear.
Medical: https://www.diplopiagame.com/ Education: https://youtu.be/wsUfaNRBARQ Car industry: https://youtu.be/BEFfp2QhHZU Advertisement: http://www.unit9.com/project/5gum
WORDS O N V I R T U A L R E A L ITY
“VR at its best shouldn’t replace real life, just modify it, giving us access to so much just out of reach physically, economically. If you can dream it, VR can make it. It’s a medium for progress, not the progress itself.” 1 - Matthew Schnipper
“Twenty years after Osmose, I still believe that immersive virtual space has rich potential for enabling people to step outside their habitual assumptions about reality to see freshly” - Char Davis
“Virtual reality is already a reality. A gestural iPhone emoticon or a simulated packaging foam — all is a 100 percent actual and based on very physical resources. Increasingly transparent and immersive wearable devices will force our notion of the “real” materiality.” - Maiko Gubler
“Then, when you see reality, you suddenly see it with this kind of detail and this density. You see just the sheer reality of it. You just feel things from it. It’s really incredible. To me, that contrast, that feeling that you have when you’re out of it after you’ve used it, has universally been more precious than what happens in it.” - Jaron Lanier
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http://www.theverge.com/a/virtual-reality/intro http://www.theverge.com/a/virtual-reality/oral_history http://www.theverge.com/a/virtual-reality/tenyears http://www.theverge.com/a/virtual-reality/interview
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MIN I GAMES & INTERACTION EXPERIMENTS
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I MPOSSIBLE C O R R I D O R
The Impossible Corridor was designed as a game that could not be completed. A portion of the corridor is generated whenever you move towards the exit, which in theory, would extend indefinitely. Interestingly, the game created its own exit; as the corridor gets longer, the computer’s hardware becomes unable to handle all the meshes being generated, and would start to glitch with gaps. The time it takes to get out of the corridor depends on the power of the hardware.
LAYERS
This exploratory world experiments with having worlds of multiple layers, which despite how solid they look, can be passed through. This is an interesting way of revealing another part of the world; however, the edges of the ground planes are extremely obvious, which kills the experience. A balance needs to be struck between the size of the world and its impact on performance of the hardware.
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G RID MAZE
This maze plays on using logic (albeit rather abstract logic) to find your way out of the maze. The maze does not have walls as per a usual maze; it is just a grid of blocks that all look the same. Spheres are hidden in cubes, and are only revealed when the player looks at it. Within the cubes there are two main types of spheres: Those with “eyes”, and those without. The ones with “eyes” are pointed towards the direction of the exit.
Generic cubes
Sphere in cubes
Hint
Generic
Exit
Teleports
Key
Black & White Filter
Plan
The entire maze is in grey scale, apart from the key portion of the maze that directs the player to the exit. Teleports on either side of the map makes the environment infinitely long. While this maze allows the player to interact with the environment with their eyes, it is still rather 2 dimensional, and does not make full use of what the digital has to offer.
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D ISAPPEARIN G / R E A P P E A R I NG
A simple script tests if an object has been looked at for 2 seconds; if it has, the object disappears, and reappears 2 seconds after the player has looked away.
Partial script
CRUMBLE
A simple script tests if an object has been looked at for 2 seconds; if it has, an impulse of a force is spawned on the object being looked at. Created as a destructible mesh, the object crumbles (or explodes) into pieces.
Partial script
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E XPLOSIONS
A simple script tests if the Oculus has been roughly still for 2 seconds; if it has, an explosion is spawned at the area that the player is looking at. An invisible boundary is placed around the world to dictate where the explosion should spawn.
Partial script
A COMPA R I S O N W I T H T H E REAL WORLD
I modelled my ikea bed to scale to compare digital space with the physical. Just as in the scene, the bed was to my right in roughly the same location. Based on the camera bounds I readjusted the camera, then tried to climb onto the bed. Spatial depth is perceived exactly as it would be in the physical world. There are some glitches which are not necessarily bad: it is possible to look into the digital bed to some extent as the digital bed is not exactly lined up with physical bed.
Virtual reality is incredibly real. Even though it is currently still possible to pick up the individual pixels of the screen, and graphics are not quite there yet, it is undeniably a kind of space.
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VISUAL EXPERIMENTS
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C AMERA POSI T I O N
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Low - 10mm Child - 800mm Adult - 1500mm High - 2000mm Insect view Surveillance camera
Changing the position of the camera gives a different way to look at a space. While there is no change in the actual body size - in fact, there is no body in these examples - there is a sensation of being small when the camera is close to the ground, or being tall when it is higher up.
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CAMERA P E R S P E C T I V E 1 2 3
Depth of Field = 90 Depth of Field = 120 Depth of Field = 150
Changing the depth of field resulted in warped environments that is difficult to imagine in a 3D space. Unfortunately, the Oculus Rift overrides any depth of field changes as it requires very specific values to create the 3D illusion; a different depth of field value is likely to make one feel very ill.
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P OST PROCES S I N G E F F E C T S
Using post processing is a powerful way to change the feel of an environment. It is basically a filter laid over the original environment; sort of like putting lens over one’s eyes and filtering what is seen. Because the environment is ultimately made of pixels, a 3D space can be altered (almost) as easily as a 2D image.
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Indirect Lighting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Colour Colour Colour Colour Colour Colour Colour Colour Colour
= = = = = = = = =
1,1,1 1,1,1 1,1,1 1,0,0 0,1,0 0,0,1 0,1,1 1,0,1 1,1,0
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Illumination Illumination Illumination Illumination Illumination Illumination Illumination Illumination Illumination
= = = = = = = = =
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Colour Adjustment 1 2 3 4 5 6
Saturation Saturation Saturation Saturation Saturation Saturation
= = = = = =
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; ; ; ; ; ;
Contrast Contrast Contrast Contrast Contrast Contrast
= = = = = =
0 0 0 1 1 1
Scene Colour 7 8 9
Vignette = 0 Vignette = 0.5 Vignette = 1
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Scene Colour 1 2 3
Grain Intensity = 0 Grain Intensity = 0.5 Grain Intensity = 1
Ambient Occlusion 4 5 6 7 8 9
Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity
= = = = = =
0 0.5 1 0.5 ; Radius = 0.1 0.5 ; Radius = 100 0.5 ; Radius = 200
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Focus Focus Focus Focus Focus Focus Focus Focus Focus
= = = = = = = = =
0 ; Focal Region = 0 200 ; Focal Region = 0 400 ; Focal Region = 0 600 ; Focal Region = 0 800 ; Focal Region = 0 1000 ; Focal Region = 0 100 ; Focal Region = 0 100 ; Focal Region = 200 100 ; Focal Region = 500
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Scene Colour 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Fringe Fringe Fringe Fringe Fringe Fringe Fringe Fringe Fringe
Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity
= = = = = = = = =
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Colour Colour Colour Colour Colour Colour
Grading Grading Grading Grading ; Fringe Intensity = 20 Grading ; Fringe Intensity = 50 Grading ; Fringe Intensity = 80
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Ambient Cubemap 1 2 3 4 5 6
Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity
= = = = = =
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SPLIT S C R E E N
Considering that there are two screens, it is possible to overlay two different image on each screen. I experimented with using two different materials on a single object, with a material in each eye. The result is most definitely something that one should not stare at for too long.
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M ATERIAL MO D I F I C A T I O N
Materials in the digital are all made through textures. There are a few properties that make up a material: - Base Colour: The colour of the material. - Metallic: How metal the surface is, where 0 is for non-metals and 1 for metals. - Specular: How shiny/reflective a non-metallic material is. - Roughness: How rough a material is from 0 to 1. - Emissive Color: Whether the material appears to emit light (no actual light is emitted). - Normal: A texture map that sets how bumpy a surface is, where the Red and Green channels give a sense of depth and the Blue channel represents the actual surface. It only gives the illusion of depth through the calculation of shadows; the surface is not actually altered.
The dirt material is one of the simplest, consisting of a base colour and a normal map. Beginning from this material, I played around with the material properties, changing its values and combining it with other texture maps. This experiment looks at how realistic textures can be combined in such a way to create strange new materials. The result is one that is a lot more fantastical when viewed on screen, rather than when viewed through the Oculus Rift. Since normal maps do not alter the actual surface, when there is depth perception, the materials look underwhelmingly like flat wallpaper, albeit funky shiny ones.
Original
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DISCARDED IDEAS
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A VARIATION O F T H E C H A I R
This is the original sketches of an initial game idea, when I was still nervous about getting virtual reality sickness and preferred a game that did not involve moving the body.
[IM]POS S I B L E S P A C E S O F THE FUTURE
Considering that digital spaces need not follow any law of the physical world, it opens up realms of possibilities in spatial design, and changes the way we think about space. Using elements of surprise and inviting discovery, this design proposal is set in a virtual reality maze puzzle, where players are challenged to find their way out. It requires them to study and interact with the environment, overcome spatial mind games and build cognitive maps. It is a crazy exploratory maze of multiple levels, hidden clues, disorienting portals, paradoxes and unusual effects. Through designing this impossible, interactive, and possibly multi-player world, I seek to give a glimpse of these alternative spaces of the future.
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Scripts
A SELECTION
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T HE PLAYER C H A R A C T E R
The player character holds most of the generic movement and interaction scripts, and is often used to communicate information across objects in the scene.
The player character consists of a collision capsule (used to test for collision), a camera and a mesh. Currently, the mesh is hidden from the player, and is only used for debugging and orientation purposes.
A line trace from the camera is used to create events that tell objects when a player is looking or at it or not.
Player Character script: This portion of the script sets out the keyboard inputs used for movement and ensures the mesh is always facing where the HMD (head mounted display i.e. Oculus) is facing. It also adjusts the height of the character when the player bends down or is shrunk, and allows movement through leaning.
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Player Character script: This portion of the script sets out the main behaviour of the hands. It tells objects when they are pinched or released.
Discarded script: Scripts are often rewritten to improve a behaviour or for optimisation.
MACROS
A macro is a portion of a script that is written and saved as a single component so that the same definition can be used multiple times easily.
Get world location of the HMD.
Get world rotation of the HMD.
Check if an object is in the center of view.
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Check if an object can be seen by the player.
Make an object always face the camera.
Make and object to be always above another object.
Chapter 1 : D o w n t h e R abbit Hole
Fading of footprints: Using the distance of the footprint from the player to set opacity of the footprints.
Falling down the tunnel: Using a timeline to set the location of the player over time.
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Falling down through space: Wait 10 seconds for player to fall through the tunnel, reduce the character’s movement speed by a quarter, then play animation of surrounding objects.
Falling up in space: Play the animation of surrounding objects in reverse. The rotation (pitch) of the player is already set once in the Player Character script. Setting it again results in a glitched effect.
Setting out the animation of the surrounding objects in space: Each category of object (bookshelves, books, plants, candles) are moved different amounts.
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C hapter 2: H a l l w a y
Script of the golden key.
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Attaching and detaching objects from hand.
Script of the tiny door: When the door is looked at for more than 1 second, hide the cue icon and open the door smoothly. This ensures that players will see the door being opened. Originally, the player had to use the key to open the door, but this is difficult to do as the hands of the leap motion often glitches.
Script of the bottle cap: When the cap detects that it is separated from the bottle, it transmits this information to the bottle and walls.
Script of the walls: When the walls receive information from the bottle cap that the cap has been removed, it hides itself after 5 seconds.
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C hapter 3: D r e a m s c a p e
Global script for Dreamscape (1/3): Alters the speed of time depending on the position of the hands.
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Global script for Dreamscape (2/3): Adjusts contrast and saturation of the scene when the HMD is still for more than 1 second.
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Global script for Dreamscape (3/3): Day and night transitions.
CHAPTER 4 : T E A P A R T Y
Script for note.
Script for fence.
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Script for table.
Generic script for objects that are set to disappear when looked at. Any object that is meant to disappear is attached to this script.
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Global script for Tea Party.
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C HAPTER 5: H A U N T E D W O O D S
Script for transition zones at the edge of the map: Resets the player position.
Audio script: Mixing sounds to create a custom haunted forest audio.
Audio script: Girl singing “Ring around the Rosie”. While each transition zone could have it’s own audio, the same audio was used for all edges of the map as it creates the feeling that the player is going in circles.
Audio script: the transition audio when player’s position is reset.
Script for moon/cat.
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Flipbook of moon/cat animation: 150 frames.
Global script for Haunted Woods: Sets movement of moon/cat based on player’s movement.
TIP
Move away from the moon/cat and let it come to you. When walking towards the cat, only walk along the vertical axis.
x
Possible route
5x
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