Untold Stories

Process of creation

As previously shown in the ecosystem map, Untold stories arise thanks to a strong collaboration between universities, professional schools – with courses related to digital art design – and Untold. Thus, the process of creation of the story tales in augmented reality to be released in the app includes a few steps, involves different actors and takes around nine months.

The process starts with an initial research phase. Untold is responsible for looking for mysteries, secret stories and legends related to certain locations of the city, both in the city centre and in the peripheral neighbourhoods. Plots and insights are mainly collected by browsing books, articles and online blogs related to the topics previously mentioned. Moreover, local associations, neighbourhood communities and cultural and art centres can be interviewed and consulted to gather even more interesting and untold stories. Then Untold rearranges the plots and verifies the location where the stories should be placed.

At the beginning of the academic semester, Untold briefs the students and the young digital artists: it gives them the plot to work on and some guidelines to follow to design the augmented reality contents. During the courses, Untold supervises the projects developed by the students and checks the compliance with the requirements.

Once the semester is over, Untold selects the projects delivered by the students, it refines and tests them on location. Augmented reality stories are then developed and released on the app.

STORY RESEARCH Collection, verification and rearrangement

at the location where the stories should be places

STORY DESIGN

Development of the projects under Untold supervision

Plot and guidelines to design AR

SELECTION & REFINEMENT INSPECTION

AR artworks are selected, tested and refined

STORIES RELEASE BRIEF TO STUDENTS

Stories are available on Untold platform

Guidelines for content creators

Untold acts as an art director and guides students and digital artists along the whole process of design of the contents for the AR stories. For this reason, content creators must follow a few guidelines to make an impactful story, with meaningful interactions for the users and coherent with Untold values and way of communication. These requirements won’t preclude students’ creativity, as they will be able to express their visual style.

First of all, students must follow the basic plot of the story and build on it their storyboard for the animation. Each story is characterized by landscape orientation, a filter that turns black and white the reality, by a “glitch effect” that makes appearing and disappearing the various characters and elements and by audio contents (dialogues of the characters, sound effects). Moreover, Arun the guide of Untold must be included at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the story to give the user hints on how to interact with the story itself.

PLOT OF THE STORY

Stories are based on plots collected, verificated and rearranged by Untold

LANDSCAPE FORMAT

The story is experienced with the smartphone landscape oriented

3D ANIMATION

Elements of the story are 3D

REALITY IN B&W

The real world is the stage where the AR story happens and it is filtered in black and white

GLITCH EFFECT

Elements of the story appear and disappear with a sort of glitch effect

TONE OF VOICE

Characters’ dialogues and sound effects should reflect the topic of the story and help in creating an impactful and immerive experience.

ARUN

Arun is a mysterious character used by Untold to communicate with the users and to guide them through each story

INTERACTION

The user is able to interact with Arun by listening and following his hints about what to do or how to move in the environment. The user also interacts with the characters of the story by touching the screen in order to help them completing a specific task. On the right two examples of interaction.

Arun: «The dialogue is becoming interesting! Come on, let’s get closer and listen to it better.»

Arun: «The Saint is trying in every way to get rid of Lucifer! Come on, help him tapping the screen!»

Untold story example

INTRODUCTION

Timeline

5’

1ST ACT: THE DISCUSSION

Scene description

When the user is near the place where the story is located, Arun appears and provides him some information about the story (eg. the year in which it took place, the reasons behind that fact or why it became a legend).

THE DEVIL COLUMN

A layer and the characters are automatically added to reality on the screen that glitches immediately.

LUCIFER: Aurelius, hey Aurelius, stop.

Lucifer is approaching the saint trying to attract his attention.

AMBROGIO: Stop it and tell me what

The Devil reaches the Saint and the two continue to speak. The Devil wants to convince the Saint to renounce his faith and pass to the dark side.

The dialogue is becoming

Due to the access tones of the discussion, the two characters are not able to stand still and move in space. The Saint increasingly determined not to listen to the Devil turns around and starts to ignore him. Arun appears and tells the user to go closer.

LUCIFER: I just want to talk to you

The Devil then, more and more obstinate, grabs the Saint by his arm and, squeezing him, tries to make him turn.

2ND ACT: THE FIGHT

6’30’

Hurry up! Lucifer and the Saint are

Scene description

The Saint, annoyed and painful, with a stroke detaches the hand of the Devil from his arm. Arun pops up and tells the user to return to the initial position.

AMBROGIO: Don’t talk about my father.

The Saint, now at the limit of endurance, turns around and begins to tell the Devil to leave him alone, because he will never abandon God.

LUCIFER: Reason, crazy Aurelius! If you

The Devil then makes one last attempt: he takes the Saint by the arm and tries to drag him away with himself, overcoming the limit.

The Saint is trying in every way to

The Saint, now at the limit of endurance and moved by anger, frees himself from the grip of the Devil and slaps him in the face. Arun appears and tells the user to help the Saint tapping the screen.

AMBROSE: This will be your punishment:

The blow is so strong that the Devil loses his balance and falling he goes to fit with his horns in the column that was behind him. The Saint, convinced to give him a punishment, tells the Devil that he will leave him stuck there all night and all day after as punishment for what he tried to do.

LUCIFER : Where are you going! Go back

By now quiet, but also tired of the fight just made, the Saint leaves, as already established, leaving the Devil alone out there stuck in the column.

3ND ACT: THE NIGHT

8’30’ 9’

4TH ACT: THE ESCAPE

It’s almost dawn and Lucifer is

Scene description

At this point the screen becomes darker and Arun appears that, talking to the user, summarizes what happens during the night and tells the user to help the Devil tapping the screen.

LUCIFER: You won Ambrogio. But not as

The Guide disappears, the screen returns with the brightness of before symbolizing the beginning of the new day and the Devil, with a last desperate attempt, manages to free himself from the Column.

Lucifer has finally managed to

Resigned by now that he will not be able to take the Saint with him, Lucifer decides to use the two holes in the column to open a passage to the Hell. Arun appears and tells the user to tap the screen in order to open the portal.

10’

CONCLUSION

AMBROGIO: and I will always be

Once the passage is opened, the Devil runs through it and in the instant before disappearing he curses the Saint and promises to return.

The screen glitches indicating the user that the story is over.

The story is over. The mystery

The level added to the screen disappears with a glitch effect. Arun appears and informs the user that the AR experience is over, but that, if he wants, he can continue the experience in reality because the legend says that from the two holes you can smell Sulfur and hear the sound of the Styx, the infernal river.

Content creation process

Untold acts as an art director and guides students and digital artists along the whole process of design of the contents for the AR stories.

Seven fundamental steps will be followed in this process. First of all, the content creators will select the story they feel closer to from the batch that will be released the next semester. Secondly, a process of place and sense-making is followed to fit the story in the location, accessing the cultural value of the place and the possible use of the space during the experience. Third, the students will implement the general storyboard provided by Untold with details about actions, characters and user interactions. Fourth, fifth and sixth, the designer will go through an iterative and quick process of interaction, characters and animation design tutored by Untold’s team and using various software to tight the whole plot in an effective animation. Through 3D modelling and animation softwares, like Blender (fully open-source), using online sources and previous models from the Untold database, students will easily shape the characters leveraging on their previous skills and learning new followed by Untold professionals. Seventh their prototype will be implemented into Untold developer app to set up all the criteria for the AR.

After the final delivery at the university or professional school, the selected 3D animated stories will follow another iteration to consolidate all the elements before being inserted in the next release on the app.

STORY SELECTION The team or the designer choose a story from the new batch proposed

PLACE-MAKING Reason how the story can take place in the location

CHARACTER DESIGN

Design of the character that will play in the story

INTERACTION DESIGN

Defining the interaction with character, space and guide

STORY CONCEPT

Defining the scenes and characters of the story

ANIMATION DESIGN

Rigging and animating the characters

AR IMPLEMENTATION

Implement actions into AR and test their value